The Bible says to us to be holy as he is holy. And what does that exactly mean? And what kind of impact does that have on the church of the Lord Jesus Christ? For the next several weeks, we will be looking at Titus chapter two and seeing how we live reflects on the testimony of the church. I would like to invite you to take your Bibles this morning and turn to the book of Titus Falls in there right after Timothy, first and second Timothy, and then Titus. And as you move your way over to chapter two, this morning we're gonna focus in just on verse one, but for the next few weeks we're gonna look at the first 10 verses, Titus chapter two. And one of the things that's contained in Titus chapter two in these first 10 verses are five groups that exist in every church. You look at verse 2, you'll notice that it lists older men. Verse 3 lists older women. And then, of course, down verses 4 and 5, it lists young women. And verses 6 through 8 list young men. And then verses 9 and 10 list servants. All of these groups make up the church. All represent the church. And how each group lives makes or breaks the testimony of the church. If you live an ungodly life, then that will have a negative impact on the church and on our ability to evangelize because people will not see any difference that Christ makes in our lives. So as we look at this this morning, I wanna begin reading at verse one. And just so that you have this entire picture in mind, I'm gonna read the first 10 verses. It says, but ask for you speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience. The older women, likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they may admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works, in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. exhort bond servants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well-pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity that they may adorn the doctrine of our God and our Savior in all things. As we look at this this morning, of course, this takes us into chapter 2, and there has been a lot of information already presented to Titus in chapter 1. Paul is writing to one of his children in the faith, Titus, and he gives him a task. And in chapter 1, his task is the ordination and the qualifications of elders in the church. He is told in chapter 1 and verse 5 to appoint them in every church in every city in Crete. Churches had been started and they needed qualified spiritual leadership. But now when you come over to chapter 2, he moves from pastors to the congregation. And he focuses on the character of a healthy congregation. One commentator said this, the entire chapter deals with the evangelistic impact of a spiritually healthy congregation and gives direct practical instruction about how believers are to live for the purpose of showing sinners the power and joy of salvation. That's a fancy way of saying live what you preach. If Jesus is real and your life has been changed, than you to show it. If Jesus has transformed your life, then people should see that. That should be manifested in how we sound, that is, with our words, how we talk, what's our conversation like. It should be seen in our lifestyle, in our walk. The Bible talks about walking, and it's not just the physical walking of one step in front of the other, but it's talking about lifestyle. It's talking about conduct. And our conduct is to be godly. And if it's not godly, it's gonna have a negative impact on the church as a whole, and even the local church. There was one time an attorney that was inviting another attorney to come to church. And he said, oh yeah, where do you go? And he says, I go to such and such church. And he said, well, I'm not going there. The most crooked lawyer in town goes to that church. Why do I want to go there? And if you just hear from that little example right there, that one person's life can undermine the entire testimony of a church. And that's what we have to be careful about. This church has been riddled with a lot of things in its years, hasn't it? And the only way to overcome that is time. Time and consistency in obedience, in living out the faith in Jesus Christ. It has to be lived out every single day, when you're away from here, and not only when you're here, but of course when you're in your homes with your family, with your friends, or if you're in the workplace, it has to be lived out. People have to see it, they have to hear it. Because if you're like that attorney that's a crooked person, then no one will want to have anything to do with East Port Baptist Church. Because your testimony alone can undermine the testimony of this church. And again, that's something that we want to overcome, right? Now, when you look at this verse, because we're gonna look just at verse one, Paul gives us two ways that this is to happen. He first gives a contrast, and then he gives a command. The contrast in verse one is Titus's ministry, what is Titus to do, versus what the false teachers had already done. Notice what he says in verse one. He says, but as for you, In Greek, that literally reads, but you. The emphasis is on you. Because it's indicating a contrast with something that has already previously been mentioned. And what was previously mentioned? Well, it was the false teachers at Crete. And you'll have to go into chapter 1, and beginning at verse 10, it tells us about these false teachers. In fact, we find out in verse 10 that this is a Jewish group of people referred to as the circumcision. Maybe you've heard that term not just in modern times, but you've heard people identified as a group known as the circumcision. And what it's referring to there is a group of Jews who taught that salvation required the physical cutting of circumcision and the adherence to Mosaic ceremonies. But notice in chapter 1 in verse 10 where he begins to talk about these false teachers. And he says, for there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not for the sake of dishonest gain. One of them, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure. But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work. But as for you, Titus, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. You see how chapter verses, numbers, all that kind of breaks up your thought. But this is all one thought here. He's talking about a group of false teachers who had infiltrated the church. And notice some of the things he refers to them as. In verse 10, he calls them idle talkers. He also refers to them as deceivers. Verse 11, he says they subvert or undermine whole households. Also in verse 11, he says that they teach for money. That's very interesting, and that's the phrase, that they teach things which they ought not for the sake of dishonest gain. That's what it's referring to there. They teach for money. They're focused just on money. Peter says of false teachers that they have a heart set on covetous practices. That's where their attention is. It's all on physical, financial gain. Everyone I know to false teacher listen for these things. I know on TBN there's a lot of them. And that's all they focus in on is just send me your money. Send me your gift. Sow your seed is the term that they will use. But you've got to listen to what they're saying. You've got to examine what they're teaching, what they believe. And you should be able to take what you're watching on TV, what you're watching from other churches or other ministries and evaluate that against what we believe. And if you have internet access, just go to the website, click on the tab that says Beliefs, and there is a summary of beliefs. If you want something more detailed, go to the Contact tab and go all the way down to the bottom and click on the Baptist Faith. I forget what it's called now. It just went out of my head. But the Baptist faith message, the doctrinal statement of the Baptist churches, and you can see that as well. But again, we live our lives based upon what we believe the scripture teaches. And we have a set of adherence, a set of faith that we go by that we adhere ourselves to. And here, these false teachers, they weren't doing that. They were undermining whole households. They were teaching for money. Verse 12 says basically that they were liars. Verse 12 also refers to them as evil beasts. That is, they behave like a wild animal. They live solely on the level of sensual appetites and passions. Verse 12, he refers to them as lazy gluttons. He says Cretans hated. They certainly hated to work, but they loved to eat. And that's the idea of them being lazy gluttons. They didn't want to do anything. Just feed me. And then of course they believe Jewish fables and the commandments of men in verse 14. And Paul doesn't identify what that particular Jewish myth or man-made commandment was, but they were certainly doing this over and over and over. In fact, it was something that Timothy had to deal with, and Paul addressed that in 1 Timothy 1, 4 and chapter 4 and verse 7. Verse 16 tells us that they were defiled. They were also unbelieving. They were abominable. NAS says detestable. They were disobedient. It also says they were disqualified for every good work. That basically means they couldn't do anything that pleased God. This is what Titus came into. If you look back at chapter 1 and verse 5, Paul says, this reason, I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. And elders is not talking about putting older people in place. It's not referring to an age, a physical age. It's referring to spiritual maturity. It's referring to pastors. This is another term that's used to pastors. They're called, some translations give bishops or overseers or pastors. Again, these are all terms that are used synonymously for spiritual leadership in the church. And he's saying that I need you to go to these Cretan churches that have been started and stay there long enough to establish pastoral leadership there. And here's what these pastoral leaders are to look like, and he picks that up in verses 6 through 9 and identifies for us these qualifications of those who pastor the church. Why? Why is all this important? Well, because you have these false teachers that have come in and infiltrated the church. They were not preaching sound doctrine, they were preaching diseased doctrine. They were not preaching anything that was helpful, they were preaching things that were harmful. Just because a person says he's a preacher and he starts preaching, you have to examine what the content of his preaching is. because what he may be saying might not be true in scripture. He might be a heretic. He might not know Jesus at all. He might be in it for the money. He might have looked at it as this is the best and only means to which he could have some kind of financial gain, and therefore that was the whole motive for him going in it. Just like the one pastor one time said to a young man, he said, he said, sir, he said, were you sent or did you just went? Because he was questioning the calling of the guy that even Spurgeon said that there was a man who came into the pulpit and when he preached, he preached as if someone who should never come out of the pulpit. But when he came out of the pulpit and the kind of lifestyle that he had, then he was like one who should have never been in the pulpit. And there are people like that. Why do you think these qualifications are here? These qualifications are also listed in 1 Timothy chapter three. And anytime you look at someone for these kinds of things in the church that you have to look at this But you know what Paul describes here in Titus about false teachers is also found elsewhere. Let me have you go to 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 2. Peter devotes an entire chapter to this subject and he's not alone. Jude, we'll look at that in just a moment, Jude devotes an entire book to this subject of false teachers. But if you'll notice in verse 1, he says that there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you. Notice both times he says that they were among you. False prophets among the people, false teachers among you. In Acts chapter 20 at the church at Ephesus, they would rise up from within. False teachers don't walk up to you and bang their hand on the door and say, hello, I'm a false teacher, I'm going to hell, would you like to go to hell with me? Jehovah's Witnesses don't do that when they come to your door. They say that they have the edge on the truth, and you don't. And you need what they're selling. And now what they'll do is they'll bring a little kid with them, with his little satchel and suitcase, because they've been having the door slammed in their face for years, and they know that you wouldn't slam the door in a little child's face, so that's who accompanies them now. But they'll come with their damnable heresies. And unless you're equipped to talk to them, you need to close the door. And you need to remember that that little child that's standing there, he doesn't know what's going on, but that adult that brought him does. And what that adult is teaching that little child is something that's gonna take them both to hell. Like I said, if you don't know how to talk to them, you're not equipped to talk to them, then the best thing to do is just shut the door. And I'll tell you right now, Jehovah's Witnesses prey on Southern Baptists. That's sad. That is really sad. What's to say about Southern Baptists? Don't we know our Bible? We talk about the Bible all the time. If we know it, then we should be able to defend it. We should be able to talk about it. We should be able to defend and clearly explain the gospel. We should be able to defend the truth of Scripture. We should be able to talk about the deity of Jesus Christ, which Jehovah's Witnesses and all cults attack. We should be able to talk about that clearly. Know what the Bible teaches about that. And like I said, if you don't feel comfortable with that, then the best thing to do is close the door and don't let them come in your home and confuse you. Because that's how they get you. They confuse you and then after a while, you're listening to them and you're going, you know what, that sounds pretty good. But you know how false teachers work? They'll bring a little bit of truth packed with a lot of lies. Do you know Mormons use the King James Bible? in addition to the Book of Mormon. And they'll say of the Book of Mormon that this is another testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I remember as a young man, I think I was 20 years old, only been in the faith maybe a year, and I remember I was over at a friend's house, and this Mormon elder came over to visit. I didn't know Mormon from anybody, but we sat down and talked about the Bible, and he's saying stuff, and I'm going, well, what little bit I know, that didn't sound right. And then he told me he was a Mormon. And then he told me he was an elder in the church of the Mormons. And I said, you know what? This isn't my house, but you need to leave. And you need to leave now. And no one stopped me. I was a little fireball then. And they left. And I tell you what, if you sit there and listen to them, again, what sold him to me was the Book of Mormon starting out with that phrase that this is another testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. What does the Bible tell us about adding to the word of God? Revelation 22, 18 and 19. Proverbs 30 verse 6 also says not to add unto his words lest he reprove you and you be found a liar. And that's what they were doing. And hey, that's all I needed to know. That's all that sold me. You need to leave and you need to take your literature with you. I had a guy in one church I used to meet at that his sister wanted me to meet with him because he had a guy working with him that was Jehovah's Witness and was just messing his head up with all the stuff he was sharing with him. I said, sure, I would meet with him. And you know when I started meeting with him, it was like I was trying to unscramble an egg. Can't unscramble an egg, can you? And he would bring me his books and he'd let me throw them away until I found out, well, this wasn't costing him anything, because they gave them to him. And every time he threw them away, he got more. I just stopped taking them after a while. See, again, if you're not equipped to work with these and to talk to them, then maybe all you need to say is that Jesus is my Lord, Jesus is God, and if you want to talk about anything other than that, we can't talk. And I don't mean to be rude to you, but my supper's burning on the stove. Click. I used to pull the Archie Bunker when I lived in Tallahassee. You remember Archie Bunker? You remember when he came to the door and someone said something and he just did this with the door? I used to do that too. I took those verses literally. It said you didn't bid them a kind word, lest you would become a partaker of their evil. That's 3 John. Well, in 2 Peter 2, listen to some of the similar characteristics of these false teachers. It says in verse 1 that they teach heresies. They teach heresies. It says, they will secretly bring in destructive heresies. Basically, they parade themselves as Christian pastors, they parade themselves as teachers and evangelists, and they teach heresy. And the idea of heresy is a self-designed religious lie. And that religious lie will lead to division and faction. That's what they do. Verse two says, they blaspheme the way of the Lord. It says in verse three, they exploit the people of God. Verse 10, if you drop down to verse 10, it says that they walk according to the flesh. And not only do they do that, but they despise authority, and they're even presumptuous. And the idea of presumptuous is audacious and defiant. Verse 10 even tells us that they're self-willed. This means that they're obstinate. They're determined in their own way to teach what they had to bring to you. And they're even fearless by flippantly speaking against Satan and demons. Look down at verses 10 and 11 again, and you'll notice what he says there. that they are not afraid to speak of dignitaries, whereas angels who are greater in power and might do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord. They're not afraid to do this. And dignitaries refers to angels. And in this context, it may even refer to evil, wicked angels. And then if you go down to verse 12, again, it refers to them as a wild beast. Here it's called a brute beast. Verse 13 says, there are spots and blemishes or scabs, you could say. They're really the opposite of the character of Christ. Look at verse 14. They're adulterers. It says, having eyes full of adultery. Very interesting. These false teachers have so totally lost moral control that they could not look at any woman without seeing her as a potential adulteress. That's really bad. And then, of course, it tells us that they're driven by uncontrollable lust. They don't ever rest in their sins. Verse 14, they cannot cease from sinning. And then it says that they entice. And this metaphor is from fishing and it appears also in verse 18. And the idea of enticing or beguiling is to catch with bait. False teachers do not capture those that are strong in the word, but they prey on the weak. They prey on the unstable and the young in the faith. And that's why I say when Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door, and if it's a member of a Baptist church, and this has been the statistics that are pretty accurate there, that they'll pray on those who are weak, and those who usually have been weak that they prayed on have been Baptist. That's why I said it's a shame to us. We preach our Bible. We say we believe our Bible, and we should be able to defend our Bible. I'm not saying that of you in here. It might not be true of you, but just as a collective whole in the Baptist church, we should be strong in the Bible if we're preaching the Bible. What does that tell us? Maybe we're not paying attention to what's being preached. Maybe we're sleeping through too many sermons, right? I mean, my goodness, we only meet an hour. Can't we stay awake for an hour? Didn't Jesus have to say that to his disciples? Can't you just bear with me for one hour? Can't you just keep watch with me? I mean, I try to yell in different places, you know, yell with different tonalities and things like that, so maybe it'll wake you up. Sometimes we pound the pulpit, that's a good waker-upper. Go with me to the book of Jude. This is a third place that we find a pretty extensive list. The book of Jude. And it really picks up in verse four and carries us all the way to verse 19, where he says in verse four, certain men have crept in unnoticed. See, that's the scary thing right there. For a false teacher to be unnoticed, he has to first act like one of you. Do you realize that? He's gotta get your trust. He's gotta come in, be like you, sound like you, fellowship with you, get your friendship, get your good side, get your favor. carry the same Bible, same Bible translation, talk about the same things, and then you start calling him brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so, he's got your trust. It says they crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation. He refers to them as ungodly men, ungodly men. This is literally impious or without worship. Their lack of reverence for God was demonstrated by the fact that they infiltrated the church of God to corrupt it and to gain riches from its people. Again, that's their whole motive. They corrupt the grace of God. They have this unrestrained vice or this gross immorality which describes the shameless lifestyle that they live. They have no morals. If they do, it's only for a moment so you'll trust them. But it's not lifelong. It's not really where their heart is. Their heart is in immorality and covetousness. That's how they live. If you'll notice also in verse four, it tells us that they deny the Lord. There are two words used for Lord here. And the apostates disdain Christ as sovereign Lord, despotes. And they disdained any recognition of Christ as honorable Lord. That's the word kurios. And they do this by their wicked behavior. They deny God. In the previous passage we read, it said that they were unbelieving. They don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They are only attached to Him for what they can get from Him. Go down to verse 8, it says that they defile the flesh. That means that As he uses the illustration of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah in verse 7, these apostates have few, if any, moral restraints, and they're frequently characterized by these immoral lifestyles. He calls them dreamers, but he says they defile the flesh. Then he says that they reject authority, just like the sending angels in verse 6. They are pretenders. They reject all authority, civil and spiritual. They reject the Scriptures. They deny Christ. And then, of course, it says in verse 10, they speak evil, that is they blaspheme. They are brash, they're bold, they're egotistical. They're infatuated with the imagination of power and authority that they seem to possess. And the sad thing is that sometimes we give them that power because we've trusted them. And especially if they say, well, you know, I've been called to the ministry. I've been called to preach, I've been called to be an evangelist, I've been called to teach. Wow, in churches that need help with that, that's kind of a welcomed phrase, isn't it? But we gotta be careful. And I wanna say it in this way, we're very few in number and we have few things that we can do. Which means that there's the temptation to gravitate to someone who walks in here and has the ability to fill a gap. We have to wait and get to know them. I'm not talking about just becoming friends. We've got to find out if they're really believers. And time will tell, time will test that. I remember after I became a Christian, and my neighbor told me, y'all know Sylvia Batten, lived next door to her for years, grew up with her kids. Well, she told me one day, my mom's response to me giving my life to Christ. And she had a very, very fitting response. She said, well, time will tell. That was so true. Well, I hope time has told. This has been almost 32 years now since I've given my life to Christ. I think that there's some things there that would justify the amount of time. But I understand that because, you know, the thing is, like, I have a student at school that told me that he wanted to give his life to Christ. We sat down at lunch at a picnic table, and I shared with him the gospel. He told me he wasn't ready to do it right then. I explained to him all of that, about that. And a few days later, he came back to me again and told me, I did it. I did it. And I feel so good. I told his mom the other day in the hall because I'm still reviewing whether he's gonna come back to school next year because of his behavior. And I told her, I said, what my mom said, time will tell. I said, I'm not gonna tell him I'm letting him come back now because he may only be acting this way so I will let him come back. You know what I mean? Make him wait. Let's carry it to the end of the year. I did that last year with some people. And I had some people that I was willing to bring back. But when I got all the way down to the end of the year and I said, no way, no way are we doing that. We don't need to invite the trouble. We don't need to welcome it. Come on in. We'll give you a whole platform to parade around and do what you like to do. And it'll disrupt everybody. But see, unfortunately we do that in the church and we've got to study people. You've got to take these qualifications that are found in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3. And if somebody says that they're a teacher, somebody says that they are a deacon, somebody says that they are a pastor, any of those things, we've got to look at them from those terms that are found in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. You know, one of the things that when I look back to my ordination, I look back on it not with, wow, that was an exciting time. I mean, it was, don't get me wrong. But they didn't ask any questions that they should have asked. I knew I was a true one, but they didn't really know. They were getting ready to lay hands on me. I told them, ask anything you wanna ask. You should take advantage of that, right? So you know what this person believes, what they're about to stand up and say to you. He says they are spots in your love feast, down in verse 10. And not only that, does He say that, He also says in verse 12, they're clouds without water. Clouds without water, they promise something and they can't deliver. You look out at the sky, and what do we usually say? We talk about the weather more than we talk about anything in life. But we look outside, we look at the weather, or now we look at our smartphones, or we look at the weather on the TV, and we trust the guy there that tells us what's gonna happen, so that we can plan our afternoon, which I find 95% of the time he's wrong. The only time he's right, when it is raining, and he says it's raining outside, But you know what I'm talking about? You look outside and you're trying to determine what you can do outside, so you're looking and you're seeing a lot of cloud coverage and everything like that, and you say, well, it's giving the promise of rain. A false teacher is just like this. It'll give a promise of something, and you look up there and you see all those clouds, but it never rains. That was the promise of something. Those were empty promises. That's what a false teacher does. He'll promise you anything. and really just so he can get in your pocketbook. He'll say anything to get you to support him or her. Listen, if you're of the Baptist history that doesn't believe in women pastors, then you certainly shouldn't be watching them, right? I don't believe the Bible gives any room for women pastors at all. And I've been studying for 32 years, and I still have a lot to go and a lot to learn, but I have never seen an opportunity for a woman to be a pastor in a church. It's not there. It is not there. In fact, there is more evidence against it than there is for it. But see, false teachers, they don't care about that. They don't care about that at all. And again, they'll say whatever they want to say. to get your attention, to promise something to you. Maybe you're going through a really hard time in your life and you really need to hear a word from God. But instead of picking up your Bible and going there yourself and looking and reading, and it doesn't take long, you find a verse that seems to think what you think it means, well then, what I encourage you at that point is read the entire chapter. Read before it. What you're wanting to do is find out where the author began his thought and where he ends his thought. It's just like when we walk up into a conversation. If you're having a conversation, you're in the middle of it, and I walk up to it, and I jump in on a statement that you made, you look at me and go, that ain't even what we're talking about. Happens at school all the time. I love it when kids do that because I can do that. That's not what we're talking about here. See, that's what we call taking things out of context. That's why it's dangerous to take a verse and isolate it and then memorize that verse but have no understanding of the context, what it means, and then you misinterpret it. Well, see, false teachers do this all the time. And now with the proliferation of Bible translations out there, you've got a Bible for everything now. You've got a Bible for the color of the clothing that you wear, a fashion Bible. But there are so many Bibles out there now. And a false teacher can riddle a book with all these Bible passages and you look at his index and it looks like he really had a lot to say and he really studied a lot. But then when you see how he used those verses out of context, that that's not what they mean. Just because he pepper sprayed his book with a lot of Bible passages, you've got to make sure that what he is saying and the Bible passages he is using is really what the Bible is saying. And I tell you, it doesn't take that much work to figure it out because you and I can understand context. You and I can understand what people are talking about. All we've got to do is just pick it up and read it and read before it. What he's saying, and when he gets to the verse, and if you're not sure, you just keep doing that, and you keep figuring, what is being talked about right now? But see, false teachers prey on that. They're clouds without water. They're late autumn trees without fruit, mentioned in verse 12. They hold out the claim of providing a spiritual feast, but instead they deliver a famine. They're raging waves of the sea. They promise a powerful ministry, but are quickly exposed as wreckers of havoc and workers of worthless shame. And then notice this also, he mentions in verse 13, they're wandering stars. This most likely refers to a meteor or to a shooting star, which has a uncontrolled moment of brilliance, and then it fades away forever into nothing. They promise enduring spiritual direction, but they deliver a brief, aimless, worthless flash. So they're wandering stars. Verse 16, they're grumblers and complainers. Again, verse 16, they walk according to their lust. Verse 16, they speak arrogantly. Verse 16, they flatter people. Verse 18, they're mockers. Verse 19, they're sensual persons. Verse 19, they cause divisions. Verse 19, they do not have the Spirit. Romans 8 and 9 says if you do not have the Spirit, you're not His. You're not even a believer. So this is the contrast Paul makes with Titus's ministry. Go back to Titus. This is what he's saying to him. And now notice the command. The command is to speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. The command is found in that one word, speak. Speak. Now, interesting word. This is what we would call a present imperative. It's laleo, that's the word that's used, but it's referring to ordinary conversation. Ordinary conversation. Titus, when you are just having casual conversation with the people of God, encourage it to be healthy teaching that will benefit the people. Surely the formal is given, it's given in chapter one, verse nine, about standing up here and teaching healthy doctrine. But also in our everyday conversation. And when he talks about this tense, it's called a present tense in Greek, and what it's carrying is the idea of continuity. It's the idea of persistence. Do this over and over and over and over and don't stop doing this because false teachers are doing what they're doing over and over and over. And you have to be just as persistent as they are. So what's he to speak about in ordinary conversation? He says, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. Sound is where we get the word hygiene, healthy. She's five times in Titus. Doctrine is just another word for teaching. And when you use both of these words together, it's healthy teaching. Healthy then referring to what is correct, what is accurate. And within comparison again to these false teachers, what they were teaching was full of infirmities. It was full of diseases. It wasn't healthy. Titus is to speak in his ordinary conversation things that are free from infirmity, free from disease. Paul gives that same example to Timothy, 1 Timothy 6, 3. He says, if anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to this wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness. It's godly conversation. Many times when I'm getting ready for us to go to lunch at school and I'm praying for these kids as we go to lunch, and I'm praying, God, cause us to have godly conversation. Because that's usually when I find out it's not, when I walk around. Or a teacher is sitting nearby and they forget the teacher's sitting there and they just start mouthing off stuff that's not good. So, in ordinary, everyday conversation, Titus is to speak about right doctrine and right living. And because right doctrine or sound, healthy teaching will produce spiritual, healthy living. So you gotta talk about the right things to produce the right results. Right doctrine restrains sinful living. Same's true about disease doctrine, it produces sinful living. False teachers can only produce sinful living. Because they don't restrain their own flesh, they're certainly not gonna give you what you need to restrain yours. They're not helpful. They don't help you. They hurt you, they harm you. You know, when contrasting the fruit of the Spirit and the works of the flesh, over in Galatians 5, 22 through 24. You remember the fruit of the spirits listed there? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithful, gentleness. It says in there, against such there is no law. What do you think that means? Well, here's what that means. When you compare the work of the spirit to the work of the flesh, the work of the flesh you want to restrain because what is the work of the flesh? Hatred? Murder? Theft? Lying? Stealing, you want to restrain that. We have laws that restrain that, don't we? That's all part of the law, is to restrain one who is lawless, one who lives as if there's no law, but they want to live according to their own sinful hearts and appetites. But the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, against that, there is no law. You don't want to restrain that. You don't need a law. if you govern your life by the fruit of the Spirit. If that's what's produced in your life, then there's no need of a law. I don't need a sign in my house that says, don't beat your children with a bat. Don't drown your kids in the bathtub like some of these parents have done. Don't run over your child in the parking lot. Don't chase them with the car. Mine back there, are they hearing any of this? You don't need any of that. If you love, but if you're living like that, absolutely you want that restrained. See, the fruit of the Spirit will not harm. It will not hurt, but the work of the flesh will. And it says in verse 24 of Galatians 5, that those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. See, right doctrine produces right living. And so you take this back to Titus. Titus, as well as the elders that he would appoint that were mentioned in chapter one, they were to speak these things. They weren't to deviate. They weren't to be intimidated. He ends the chapter that way, verse 15, speak these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you. Do this, Titus, because this is right. They were to be as aggressive in teaching sound doctrine, and it's a corresponding lifestyle as false teachers were in the Cretan churches with their unsound doctrine and their consequent ungodly lifestyle. One commentator says this, that by doing this, they would close the awful chasm between the lips of God's people and their lives. came across this verse when I was studying this. It was Malachi 2.7. It says, for the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and the people should seek the law from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. See how much the mouth is involved there, what he says? And the life as well. So using healthy teaching of God's word in everyday conversation, that's what he is to do, that's what the elders in the church to do. But you know what? This is no different than us as parents because this is what we were told in the Old Testament to do. Listen to Deuteronomy 6 and see if you remember this. If you want to follow us, Deuteronomy 6 verses 4 through 9. It says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. We all know that verse, right? It's repeated in Matthew 22. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. If you notice, he said, teach and talk about God's word all the time. When you rise up, when you sit down. When's the last time you had that kind of conversation with your children or with your grandchildren, that you talked about God and his word? See, that's what we're to do. That's what pastors are to do in the church. That's what God's people are to do in the home and in the world, because anything else is of little profit. So why is all this important? What's Paul's point? Well, there are two verses in chapter 2 in Titus 2, if you're looking there still, that give us the main reason why our teaching and living are to be sound. Look at verse 5. And we'll talk about this in a couple weeks when we get to it. But the older women are to teach the younger women, verse 5 says, that they are to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands. Notice this last phrase, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. You know what he's saying there? If the younger women are not discreet or chaste, if they're not homemakers, if they're not good, if they're not obedient to their own husbands, then the word of God is blasphemed. And you know who it's blasphemed by? Not just by their behavior. It's blasphemed by an unbelieving world that knows that she's a Christian. You understand? You might not think that you're blaspheming God's word when you disobey it, even though you are. But where the blasphemy comes from is from the enemies of God. Because they look at us, and they are happy when we fall, aren't they? They love it when we fall. They love it when there's a scandal, and that scandal's on TV for millions of people to see, and it's all around the church, all involves the church. This pastor fell because of immorality, adultery, And like Jimmy Swagger, who did that very thing, he was preaching about adultery while spending time with a prostitute. And then, of course, after a period of time of taking off, he said that a demon, I think it was Benny Hinn that cast a demon out of him, and so that's how he could come back. You know what my Bible says and your Bible says? He's disqualified and he never comes back. He's never to be a pastor again. See, there's some qualifications in this list. There's no room for deviation. No room at all. And there was no room for him. I don't care what kind of wild story you wanna come up with that people can't argue against. But there's another verse, look at verse nine. Verse nine says that bond servants are to be obedient to their own masters, to be well-pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, and notice this, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. So if they're not doing this, if they're not well-pleasing, if they're arguing back and they're pilfering and they're not showing all good fidelity, then the doctrine of God is not adorned. It's not beautified for everyone to see. It's not attractive. It's not going to draw anybody to it. What draws people to the word of God is a godly life. You want to see this building filled? Then we have to live godly lives in front of world and we have to confront their ungodliness and we have to preach and teach sound doctrine and only use that to draw people use anything else to draw people they're only going to come for the moment but when that moment's gone they're gone And forgive me if this stings, the food ministry in and of itself is good and right. But if that's what's being used to draw people to church, that's the wrong motive, the wrong reason for them to come. When the food dries up, look around. They're not here, are they? Nowhere to be found. But yet on the day of food delivery, 100 people in here? and take it of anything else. You have Bozo the Clown show up here. You have Ronald McDonald show up here for all the kids. You make the parking lot all beautiful with all decorations and all that. Come Sunday morning, nobody's here. We do that with concerts too. We bring in the really fine concert singers, these nice music groups that can really praise the Lord. Maybe we bring somebody in here famous that people know, and it fills this room up. Sunday morning, I mean, we could come back. But see, if you use the Word of God, that's the only stable thing in the church. That's the only stable thing in our life because the Word of God never changes. We use that to attract people because that's what's gonna be here whether they come or go. We're gonna preach and teach God's Word. You know, the main qualification of a pastor is teaching. because that's his main duty. Yeah, he's the pastor of the people, but part of that pastoring the people is feeding the people. It's feeding them, leading them, and it's gotta be consistent. You know, we've spent today talking about one verse, and then we'll spend some time talking about a couple other verses, depending on what we're looking at in the time, and then we'll spend some time maybe even studying a book, and we'll walk our way through it. We'll take whatever time it takes to do it so we can get the understanding of what God's saying there. That is more healthy than walking in here and every week me giving you a different topic that you can't even hang on to. It might feel good for the moment. I used to like this one evangelist, and I won't say his name, but he also has a child that has a disability, very severe, and he's a good speaker. Love to listen to him. Make you laugh, make you roll in the aisle. But one day, I was listening to him and I got analyzing the content of what he was saying. And there were more stories there than there were anything. Stories are good, stories are helpful. It gives us a little word picture in our mind that we can follow. Jesus used that, they called them parables. Those were word pictures. But at the same time, out of that parable, out of that word picture, there was something to hang on to. And there were a few things that he said that I hung on to, that I can repeat back to you. He said one time, he said, my daddy used to tell me that if you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, only those who cry out are the ones who hit, who were hit with that rock. And then he applied that to a group of people who were getting their toes stepped on as he's preaching and confronting things in their life. And they're crying out, and they're going, hey, that ain't right. Well, they got hit. They got hit by the rock of God's Word. I'm not true to that. Another time he said the people that will gossip about you or gossip to you will be the same people that will gossip about you. If they are spreading gossip to you, then you will be the subject one day of the gossip. But see, we have the Word of God for a reason. We have the Bible for a reason. And I have a new Bible just so it can intimidate us all. Look how thick this thing is. You know why it's thick? It's got 30,000 footnotes in it is why. I held up my Bible to it the other day that I've been using, and the thickness of this compared to the one I was using. The one I was using was large print, and this is large print. That's one of the reasons why it's big. But it was two of mine in thickness. And yes, I may look young right now because of the paint truck I ran into, but my eyes aren't young, and I need it big. But listen, both of these passages are teaching us that if we don't honor God's word with an obedient life, then there is the occasion for God's enemies to blaspheme God's word. So we need to keep that in mind. Next week, we're gonna look at the first group that's found in Titus 2, and it's the older men, the older men. Picks up in verse two. Well, if you're here today, And you've been one who's listened and you've been following unhealthy teaching. Maybe you've been watching some of these people on TV. Maybe you just didn't know. They sounded good and they hooked you in. You want a list of them, I'd be glad to give you a list of them and I can tell you why it would be wrong to listen to every one of them. They all carry a similar pattern of teaching. And I'm not saying this to discourage anybody or any of that, but I would say, if you've been following unhealthy teaching, listen, just like anything else, God can forgive that and God can correct that. But remember this, if you've been putting a lot of bad stuff in your mind, it may take a little while to get that stuff out. Because you know, the older we get, it's hard to change our ways, isn't it? Right? We get used to a certain thing. That's why we don't like change, because we're used to what we're doing. But again, God can renew your mind with His Word. And if you're here today and you've never received Jesus, He gives you that invitation to repent and surrender your life to Him and be saved. And He'll save you right here, right where you're sitting. You don't even have to stand up and walk anywhere. He'll do it right there where you are because the issue is your heart, the condition of your heart. And if you're willing to yield your heart to Him, He'll come in and He'll change your life forever. He'll forgive you of all your sin and He'll grant you eternal life. And I would pray for all of us, from time to time, we need to examine ourselves. That's what 2 Corinthians 13 verse 4 says. Examine yourself to see whether you be in the faith. Prove it, he says. Prove it. How can you prove to someone you're a Christian? Think about that as you go out today and as you have a chance to talk to people. Think in my mind, how can I prove to this person I'm talking to I'm a Christian? He doesn't know me. He doesn't know anything about me. What about your testimony? Testimony is kind of a weak thing to share, but it's good because it talks about transformation. They probably can't see all those things if they didn't know you before. You know what I mean? They didn't know what your life was like before. I can tell you my testimony. Some of you know me from when I was little, but then there's that big gap of time where you didn't see me anymore, and I can tell you what I was like. But what you have to look at now is what I am now. Because you're around me. You see me. You hear me. You hear me talk. You see me with my family when we're done. You get to see it. And see, that's the same everywhere we go for all of us. We have that kind of life that honors God's Word, points people to God's Word. Well, let's pray. I thought I could keep you a little longer since we didn't have Sunday school this morning, right? Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you so much for this time in your word. We thank you, Father, for your truth. We pray your spirit will draw us to yourself, make these truths real in our mind and our hearts, help us to see the practicality of these truths that we've been talking about this morning and how important it is that we live holy and godly lives. If we say that we are followers of Jesus, As Paul said, those that name the name of Christ are to depart from iniquity. God, I pray our lives, our lifestyle will show that we are truly believers in Jesus. Jesus, you said that by this shall all men know that you're my disciples when you have love for one another. And I pray, Lord God, that that's what we have and that's what people see. And that when we're away from here, we're the same people We're not different. We're not a different person when we're not here than when we are because we're given the impression that we're godly people when we're here. And I pray when we leave this place, God, we remain such that our heart is for lost people and we share the truth, the gospel, and we use nothing but the word of God to draw them to yourself. We pray, Father, for this church. We pray for this local assembly. God, many things to overcome in its past, and I pray that you would cause it now to be the start. And Lord, that you would turn things around here, that your name would be proclaimed, and your name would be glorified, your word would be held up and honored, and that those around this place will see and hear that you are truly the Lord of the church. Thank you for everybody here this morning. We pray, Father, for those who weren't able to make it with us this morning, God, that you would bring them back next time. We pray now, Lord, as we have this opportunity for this closing time, that we would respond appropriately to your word. We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.