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Eugene Prewitt

God Saves the Church from Jewish Fables

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you would be with us this morning to teach us what is true and we ask in the name of Jesus, Amen.

The book of Titus has less verses in it than Matthew chapter 5.

If any of you ever want to be able to say you memorized a book of the Bible that had more than 1 chapter, this would be a good 1 to go for.

Titus, we talked about a little yesterday that the books to Timothy and Titus are the books written to elders.

So if you had an aspiration to be an elder, what would be some books particularly to study?

They're written to people that had the job that you would like to be entrusted with.

And is an aspiration to be an elder a good thing?

It is if it's motivating you to conform your life to those high requirements.

To equip yourself with that kind of knowledge.

And we talked yesterday about a little melodrama, about how as Paul and Barnabas had been traveling around Asia Minor, raising up churches, that they returned and they, what'd they do in all those churches?

They ordained elders in every church, and then Paul even sent Titus, for example, to Crete and told him to ordain elders in every church there.

And just as they finished ordaining the elders in the last few verses of Acts 14, people came from Jerusalem.

They were teaching Judaizing doctrines, commandments of man as Paul styles them.

God had made provision for protecting the church from this doctrinal invasion by ordaining faithful men in every place and then we talked about how in chapter 15 representative men from these besieged churches went to Jerusalem to meet with the Apostles and the elders And the Apostles and elders together settled the doctrinal dissension and sent commandments back to the rest of the world church.

Apostles that have died but have left their authoritative writings and elders that ought to be ordained in every city.

And then we read in Titus a little bit, we were reading yesterday starting in verse 5, that for this cause I left you in Crete, chapter 1, that you should set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as I appointed you.

We went through some of the qualifications of being an elder and then we looked at the end of verse 9 where it says that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake." That phrase, whose mouths must be stopped, is so interesting.

Can you stop someone else's mouth if you don't have authority?

Do you see the implication of authority in that phrase, whose mouths must be stopped?

Now do elders have authority to tell someone to be quiet?

Do you remember hearing it when Paul wrote to Timothy?

I suffer not a woman to speak, and in Corinthians, to teach, in the church.

What does the word suffer mean in that kind of sentence?

Then the elder had authority to determine who could speak publicly in church.

In this case, it's the witness of a Cretan prophet who didn't think too much of Cretans.

Titus 1.13 follows a statement about the Cretan prophet who said the Cretans are not really an honest bunch of people.

In fact, they're evil beastly like people, slow bellies, which metaphor I'm not exactly sure what it means, but I'm sure it's not complimentary.

And Paul says to Titus, this witness is true.

Rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

Elders have a purpose to cause the church to be sound in the faith.

We're going to look at that theme for just a few minutes this morning.

It says, Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, listen, and the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness.

Here's the first idea, Paul's an apostle after the acknowledging of the truth.

Titus is not to give heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men.

What do Jewish fables and commandments of men do?

That's it, they turn people from the truth.

They can turn them from the truth by themselves being error, but often they do it via distraction.

The next verse is related to Jewish fables.

Unto the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their conscience is defiled.

That is, in the ceremonial services there were unclean people and unclean situations and unclean this and that, various washings.

And God had settled that for the church through the experience of Peter.

But there were those who that wasn't settled and they would say, that's unclean, that person's unclean, that situation's unclean.

But what was really unclean according to Paul to Titus?

Verse 16, they profess that they know God but in works they deny him.

In this particular context it's the works of being teachers of false ideas.

But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine.

Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded in all things showing yourself a pattern of good works in doctrine showing uncorruption, gravity and sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you." So young men were told to, what 2 exhortations were they given?

Have sound speech and to have, we didn't read the verse 7, I'm sorry.

We did read, In all things showing yourself a pattern of good works and doctrine showing uncorruption.

So the 2 pronged approach to the young man was to live a holy life and to have sound doctrine.

When you're teaching those who are of false doctrine, you have the true doctrine but what will make an issue or what will determine whether or not they blaspheme your truth?

The answer I'm looking for, if I didn't make it clear, is the sound, or excuse me, the holy life.

Let's read it again, I'll just make it simple.

Verse 7, in all things show yourself a pattern of good works, 0.1.

Verse 8, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that comes from your uncorrupt doctrine, that heathens of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you, that's because of 0.1.

Jesus gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.

These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority Let no man despise you." So an elder has authority.

What kind of authority does he have in this passage?

Authority to do what, maybe I should say.

What kind of things does he have authority to do in the church?

He can rebuke those who are erring or doing wrong.

And he has a right to not expect anyone to despise his authority in the church.

This is a faithful saying and these things I will or I would or wish that you would affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.

These things are good and profitable unto men.

So here's the elder teaching, and there's something, some things he might need to say here and now, here and again, but what's something he needs to be saying constantly to the church?

Something he ought to be saying over and over and repetitively.

To be exhorting the people to maintain good works, that's a profitable sermon to preach all the time.

But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain.

Doctrinal discussion is contrasted with a certain type of preaching.

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God Saves the Church from Jewish Fables

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