Transcript

Titus chapter 3, let’s look at verses 9 through 11 as, Lord willing, we will complete our exposition through the pastoral epistle of Titus next Sunday morning. And I’ve entitled the unpacking of verses 9 through 11, “Finally Titus.” Of course, this is a letter. Originally, it was a letter from Paul to his younger understudy, Titus, whom he has appointed to go to the island of Crete, and there on that island, he’s to carry out the instructions of this letter as he is endeavoring to straighten out the carnal, immature, uh in some degree, wayward churches on the island of Crete. Even with that being the case, we have to remind ourselves that these New Testament churches in in the first century, and particularly like Corinth or Crete, I kinda put them in the same category concerning their their their shallowness, their immaturity, their carnality, uh they were islands in a cesspool of iniquity. The world was so wicked, so pagan. But the churches needed to get some things fixed and straightened out, and Titus is commissioned by Paul to do just that in these local churches on the island of Crete. So he comes down now to the end of his letter, and it’s as if he’s saying, “Titus, there’s one more very important thing you’re gonna have to do. So finally Titus, here’s what I wanna tell you you need to be doing.” If you want a subtitle to “Finally Titus,” you might put “Deal with the Troublemakers.” Deal with the troublemakers. “Finally Titus, you gotta deal with the troublemakers in these local churches.”

Here we go, verse 9 through 11, Titus chapter 3.

9 But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. 10 Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, 11 knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.

Now first of all, Roman numeral one, as we unpack the text, notice the things he must avoid. Paul is telling Titus, “Now Titus, there’s some things you must turn away from. Don’t give them any credibility, don’t give them any of your time or attention.” Now, back up in verse 8, the apostle told Titus, “Now Titus, there’s some things that are good and profitable,” and what he was talking about was the great preaching and teaching of the glorious gospel of grace. He says, “Lay out those great doctrines, preach continually the glorious gospel of Christ, the gospel of sovereign grace. That’s good and profitable.” Now he goes to the opposite and he says, “Titus, finally, before I conclude my letter, I wanna talk about some things that are not good and are not profitable that you must deal with.” So he says there in verse 9, “avoid these things.” The word “avoid” is the idea obviously of turning yourself around and it it’s not literally meaning physically turning around, of course, it’s a figure of speech. “Give no place for certain nonsensical things that some are gonna wanna bring up in the church and bring forward for the church to follow.” Now it’s a present tense, the word “avoid” is, which means, “Titus, you’re gonna have to continually do this. This isn’t isn’t a one-time thing. Uh there are a lot of entrenched troublemakers in these Cretian churches and Titus, town after town, city after city, as you try to straighten these churches out, you’re gonna have to deal with these guys over and over again but keep avoiding certain things they want you to get all tangled up in.” You see, the problem of someone starting a false movement in the churches was far too common in this day, and be to be honest, brethren, it’s far too common in our day today. So Paul gives this type of admonition numerous times throughout his writing. He gives it several times here in the book of Titus, but also as he wrote to Timothy and in other letters.

Now, some specific things here. A) some specific things in their context that Titus was to make sure he avoided allowing being issues or being brought up or that he was not to spend his time on. First of all, he says foolish controversies. These inquirings, these this debating about that some people wanted to always bring up in the church. The word “foolish” is the Greek word we get our English word “moron” from. He says it’s moronic if you consume your time and waste your energy on these kind of foolish discussions people wanna bring out. So usually some secondary issue, something that at best is mildly biblical but is not a prominent biblical doctrine and somebody wants to rise up and cause a great controversy in the church talking about how we should follow this or that or do this, and that when really it doesn’t amount to anything and it takes the time and attention away from substantive issues that the church ought to be spending their energies on. Paul calls them foolish or moronic controversies. “If you allow yourself to get caught up in this stuff, Titus, you’re acting like a moron.” That’s in effect what he’s saying. “And you know better than that. Let’s don’t get caught up on that.”

So first of all, these foolish controversies. Secondly, he talks about genealogies. Look at it there in verse 9 again, “foolish controversies and genealogies.” Now the scholars tell us there were folks in this day who were consumed with the Old Testament genealogies in that they would go to these genealogies and they would study them and bring these delusional fantasy interpretations of all the things the genealogies of the Old Testament meant. Now genealogies are important in the Bible as they show us the lineage of the Savior but we’re not to interpolate into them these mysterious meanings. They want to, again, chase all of these rabbits that had no real biblical foundation. He said, “Don’t let yourself, Titus, get caught up into that.” Now, again, these are things he dealt with in other churches. Uh in 1 Timothy 1:4, as he talks to Timothy about uh maturing the church in Ephesus, where he appointed Timothy to work. He says, “You’re gonna have to deal with these people who always want to bring some fanciful new uh interpretation out of the genealogical tables of the Old Testament.” And then thirdly, he just mentions here in verse 9, strife, controversies, i.e. foolish controversies, genealogies, and strife. It just has the idea of quarrels, contentious-spirited people, a person’s always wanting to debate something, and again, things that are non- foundational and sideline issues. By the way, brothers and sisters, that’s why God gives your church elders, so they can help lead through things that are not clear in Scripture. Uh I used to hear the old adage, have you ever heard this? Every Baptist can have his say, but every Baptist can’t have his way. You ever heard that? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. We have 750, 760 members, and one to 200 active attenders with us. If every one of you have your say, we’ll never get back to anything else for the kingdom.

Now we’re renovating all this stuff up here. I don’t have any idea what Amanda’s decided about colors and stuff like that but we’re not gonna have meeting after meeting after meeting so that every Baptist can have their say about the color of the new renovation. Can I get amen there? I’ll never forget, on Wednesday night, I was in Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Adrian Rogers was preaching. And they were about to buy this grand new plot of land out east in Memphis, and this grand new buildings they were gonna build and he he asked the congregation and said, “How many of you would like carpet that’s kind of in the blue shade?” About half raised their hand. “How many of you like carpet, maybe it’s in more of a red shade?” About the other half raised their hand. He said, “That’s why we’re gonna do it the way I wanna do it.” And my point is, it’s impossible. That’s what he’s talking about here. You can’t go with endless ideas and insights, and “This is the way I feel, and this is the way,” and that, look, it doesn’t matter what I feel, brothers and sisters. It matters what the book says and the things the book is clear on take all of our energies. We don’t have time for these secondary things. Those become foolish partly because of what they crowd out.

And then the fourth thing, specific thing he mentions is disputes. He starts with avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, strifes, and disputes, and typically, those disputes are fighting over the law. Some wanted to take the Old Testament law, interpolate it with the gospel of grace, which is radically impossible. By the way, if you add anything to Jesus, you lose Jesus. You need nothing but Christ for your salvation. But these old Judaizers would come in, these old Jewish authorities, some of them maybe genuinely saved, many of them not, they’d try to come into the church and mix Moses up with Jesus, the old legalism law up with the grace of Jesus Christ, wanted to debate about it, wanted to discuss about it, and there were disputes and fightings over things like that.

All right, so we looked at some specific things and we can certainly see the application for our day, can we not? But secondly, he talks about the nature of these things. The nature of these things. He says in the last phrase of verse 9, “for they are unprofitable and worthless.” So whether it’s disagreements or arguments that always all almost always start with error, or controversial questions on trifling matters, these type things are unprofitable and worthless, and evidently these type things were prominent in these churches on the island of Crete. Sometimes I think, well, uh Paul must have been a contemporary of the Southern Baptist Convention, because our churches in Southern Baptist life have, uh I would say maybe the majority of them have functioned by mob rule for many centuries. You get your group together, he gets his group together, and whoever can get the biggest mob together wins on business meeting night. Paul says that’s not the way to do church. But it it’s the nature of these type things is that it’s unprofitable and worthless. Those are strong terms to denounce giving any energy to such nonsensical things. No good comes out of it. It’s just not worthy of our time and attention.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the pastor of England of long ago, used to say that every pastor must learn to have a blind eye and a deaf ear. If you listen to everything and look at everything that calls your attention, you’ll never get back to biblical gospel ministry. You must learn some things just don’t matter. They’re unprofitable and they’re worthless and I’m not gonna let it pull me down. And that’s one of the big things that you pastors, young pastors, need to realize. Satan will work overtime to emotionally exhaust you with people who seem serious and dedicated, but they always are about trifling issues, non- essential issues. Brothers and sisters, it’s worn me out just to do the main things, much less chase all the other stuff that doesn’t matter. So avoid these things, Paul is telling Titus, as you continue to clean these churches up and straighten them out. There’s no place for arguing theology, arguing doctrine, or arguing morality with those who clearly want to distort the word of God just to support their subjective viewpoint. It’s always fruitless. It’s always a waste of time. Paul’s phrase, it’s unprofitable and worthless.

Now let’s go to Roman numeral two and I’ve only got two Roman numerals, all right? Roman numeral two, he says, Titus, the factious man, he must reprove remove. Titus must learn, perhaps, maybe he already knows, maybe he just needed to be reminded, but you must remove those who endeavor to cause factions in the church. So Paul’s instruction to him is a very, very important instruction. You see, the early church, including these churches in Crete, seemed to have a continual flow of factious individuals who would rise up and cause trouble in the churches, if not real damage to the churches. Paul speaks of this over and over and over in his epistles.

Now, just as a side note here, and I’ll probably talk more about it later, but as a church matures through the years, they don’t have to deal with this stuff much at all, or maybe at all. Praise the Lord, Grace Life Church. We’re 15 to 20 years past having any real factiousness in this body. God’s given us a couple of decades of sweet and blessed unity and it’s simply because God worked with us, humbled us, humbled me, and grew us together until we just don’t deal with that kind of nonsense here. You wanna start a faction, you’re in the wrong place. And it doesn’t take the elders to deal with you, I mean, our average church member would tell you we don’t do that here. If something’s substantive, if something is of essential doctrine, then let’s talk about it, but we talk about it with respect and honor and confidentiality. We don’t start a faction.

Well, I kinda got ahead of myself but let’s go back to what Paul told Titus in Titus 1:5. In Titus 1:5 he says, “For this reason I left you in Crete, Titus, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every church as I directed you.” Now that was one of their big problems. They didn’t have any qualified elders to start with, didn’t have any men to oversee and call these things into account when they started happening in the church, but that phrase there “that you would set in order” literally means to straighten things out in these churches.

Then in Titus chapter 1, verses 9 through 11, “holding fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching so that he will be able to both exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict.” Look at verse 10 now, ” For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision,” of Jewish background, “who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain.” So he says, “Titus, there’s there’s many of these kind of guys, and likely many in one church at times, depends on how immature and shallow the church family actually is, and these bring strong and uh large opposition to the leadership of good and godly elders.” 2 Timothy 3:5 refers to these kind of guys as those who are holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power and avoid such men as these. Now, there were times when Paul literally had a gang of Jewish teachers who would follow him from city to city, church and church, and when they saw a crack in the door, they would sneak in and teach against Paul’s doctrine, trying to undermine everything he taught. So Paul had reason to be strong and and forceful about the damage that these guys caused in the churches.

In Galatians 2″3-5, he talks about this and how he had to face it over and over. He says, “But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.” Again, the Jews brought in the law, including circumcisions and you’ve gotta have this Jewish circumcision ritual if you really want to get to heaven, plus Jesus. Verse 4, “But it was because of the false brethren secretly brought in, who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage.” They keep wanting to bring us under rules and laws in order to obtain a right standing before God and that’s just a bondage God didn’t ordain. Verse 5, “But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.” So he says, “Titus,” here in verse 10, “reject a factious man. They’re everywhere. I’ve had to deal with them,” Paul is saying. “Reject them.” Now, the the word “reject” there is to uh uh push away, to keep at a distance. In 1 Timothy 4:7, that word is translated “have nothing to do with a certain person.” 2 Timothy 2:23, it means to refuse such a person.

So, now what kind of a man is this factious man that must be rejected, must be removed from having any influence or power and control over any of these churches? Well, first of all, A) he’s a self-centered man in his motive. He’s self-centered in his motive. Matter of fact, the word “factious” uh is is the ancient Greek word we get our English word “heretic” from. It has the idea of a choice, and then it grew in its understanding to mean a choice against what was right or what is the established truth of a group or an organization. So he says, we have these factious men, but they’re very self-centered. It literally means when a man is factious, he draws his position out of himself. He takes his position and his course out of regard only to himself. He has no regard for objective truth outside of himself. He has no regard for the established norms of an organization or in this case, a church. He has self-willed opinion. That’s what a heretic is. That’s what a factious man is all about. He, in effect, is a law unto himself.

So he is self-anchored. He is self-centered. Now, now now he’ll he’ll use Scripture. He’ll talk about the Old Testament law. He’ll throw around the name of Jesus and use a lot of the same terms godly men might use, but in his heart motive, it’s all about what serves me, what serves my purposes. And it’s all, look look folks, it’s always power and control. It’s always about, “I don’t care what they say the issue is, when it all boils down, it’s all about power and control and they want it. Secondly, as we think about what kind of man is a factious man, he is parasitic in his nature. He’s parasitic in his nature. Now, while it’s not explicitly stated here, it’s certainly understood here and it’s clearly taught in the balance of New Testament Scripture and a good cross-reference of that is Acts 20:29, and 30. In Acts 20:29, and 30, Paul is about to leave the local church at Ephesus. He calls the elders in, and here’s part of what he tells the elders of the local church at Ephesus. “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.” That’s where I get the parasitic nature. They didn’t build anything themselves. They want to come into Paul’s work, or Timothy’s work, or Titus’ work, and then rise up and draw the disciples away from them and their elders, and draw them unto themselves. They want to gain a following. They want to gather followers from the established church leadership, or deter them away from the established church leadership to side with them.

Now an interesting note here, while I’m convinced Paul writing this to Titus is primarily talking about hardened false teachers that will lead these factions in the churches, but it can include, as the scholars point out, a an immature genuine brother or sister, or maybe a hard-headed, genuine brother or sister who might be themselves calling something causing something of a group to form and a faction to form within the church. But it doesn’t matter, they must not be allowed to do it because it is so deeply damaging to the body of Christ. Notice um the the fruits or the, yeah the fruit of the flesh, as is mentioned in Galatians 5:19 through 21. “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions,” and then he mentions, “factions,” in with all of those other ugly fleshly things. The point I’m making is, this is never a good thing, whether a professing believer, who may be a true believer, leads it, or a hardened, unsafe, false teacher; quarreling around, causing disputes, trying to form your own following out of an established church, is divisive, is disruptive, it’s insubordinate, and very, very destructive to the local church.

Paul says it this way to to the church at Rome. He has so much to say about this. Romans 16:17, and 18. “Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.” 2 Thessalonians 3:14, 15, he gets on it again. “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother,” making clear here that possibly a genuine Christian can get off on the wrong track. You know, it’s really a problem when a church prays and seeks the Lord, thoroughly questions and interviews and watches the life of a man for years and years and years. That man is brought before the church, the church has time to pray over them or ask any question. Then the church affirms before God, this man is an elder, a pastor overseeing the church. And then for someone to rise up and oppose those pastors. That’s not taking on men, that’s taking on God. Now, look, if uh word gets out to you clear, and it’s a fact, Brother Jeff has started teaching that the Bible is not fully authoritative or sufficient, that he’s getting revelations from God and we need to listen to his viewpoint on these revelations. Now, if you hear something that’s against foundational doctrine like that, then go respectfully to the elders and say, “What is going on?” Amen? There’s a place for that but 1,001 secondary things, there’s no place for causing a movement about that at all.

Now, C) the process for his removal. Notice what he says here, how this is to be dealt with. Very quick and to the point in verse 10, “Reject a factious man after a first and second warning.” Now this is somewhat of a speeded up process from the regular steps of church discipline. Now you know church discipline is not unusual here. We’ve been practicing church discipline, and I would say compassionate and long-suffering church discipline for many years. But Matthew 18 talks about basically three steps. One brother confronts another brother about sin. If they do not repent, then he brings another brother with him to sit down and lovingly confront him. If he does not repent, then you tell it to the church. Then if he doesn’t listen to the church, then he’s been to be removed from membership. But here you don’t have three steps, you have two quick steps. Reprove him twice, correct him twice, and then deal with it and I think that’s because there are few things as damaging as someone forming a movement within a decently sound church against the established God-ordained leadership.

And I think for for a fact, I’m gonna have this message sent out to all of our church plants and all of our partners. The brothers who go out and we help plant churches, almost to a person, think they’re gonna be the exception to this problem. “We’re gonna go out there and we’re not gonna have these rascals uh try to usurp our leadership and try to grasp away the disciples after themselves and try to lead a movement against us. We’re just so we’re just so good at what we’re gonna do, it’s just gonna be wonderful from day one.” No, it’s not. You’re gonna have to deal with it. You remember Moses had one named Korah. Nehemiah had Sanballat and Tobiah. Jesus had Judas Iscariot. All the same thing, self-centered motivation. They wanted to be parasitic in the sense of typically these men are, and I keep saying men, can I be honest with the ladies here? Very often, if not most of the time, the mama is leading the movement, the daddy’s doing the talking. But nevertheless, it’s a faction and they don’t have the quality, the character, the virtue, the ability to lead and build their own thing, but they wanna come in and pull followers after somebody else has built something. That’s what he’s talking about here.

Now, John 17:20 and 21, Jesus is praying his high priestly prayer, and this tells you about why this is a speeded up church discipline process. Jesus says in John 17:20 and 21, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word,” and that’s all of us, so “that they may all be one,” that there might be unity in the church, is what he’s saying, “even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” If you allow people to rise up and with no biblical foundation cause trouble and divisions and factions in the church, you’re casting the message to the world that Jesus did not send us. It’s very important.

John 13:35, Jesus said, “All men will know that you’re My disciples because you hold to the doctrines of sovereign grace.” He didn’t say that, did he? “All men will know you’re My disciples because you have the most Christian and polished theology.” And that’s very important, but that’s not what he’s saying. “All men will know you’re My disciples when there’s a loving unity in My local churches.” And leadership does not allow anyone to usurp that or damage that unity.

So when one rises up in opposition to church elders, they’re basically saying, “Choose sides, follow us, don’t follow them,” and God uses them in a special way though. Let me say that again, but God uses even the factious group gatherers and troublemakers in a sovereign way for his own glory. See, there’s another angle to this thing. Are you listening this morning? There’s another angle here. 1 Corinthians 11:19, Paul writing to a church that was known for these kind of divisions, says, “For there must also be factions among you so that those who are approved may become evident among you.” He didn’t say it’s uh a maybe thing, he said there must be factions in a church. Let’s say as it’s getting going, as it’s in its early maturing stages and God sovereignly uses that as those factions people rise up and in effect says, “Don’t follow the elders, follow us.” But God uses them as a magnet to draw into one lump those who have unsound doctrine and unsound motives. Did you hear that? Let the faction go for a little while, and if you’re a young pastor in a new church, you just have to wrestle with it the best you can. You remember the, some of you been here a long time, you remember those days? And as the weeks roll by, and the months roll by, and the years go by, and the dust begins to settle, those who are spiritually discerning and have any maturity in the word say, “Aha, God was establishing His church establishing His church and identifying those who don’t belong to His church.” That’s what that verse means. So even in the situation where there are rebellious, factious people who must be, Paul’s telling Titus, must be dealt with and removed, nevertheless, God sovereignly cleanses, builds, and matures his church by allowing that to take place. He’s sovereignly separate separating apart and removing those who do not belong to them. Well, belong to him, thus identifying those who are outside and those who are inside the covenant family of God.

1 John 2:19 reminds us, “They went out from us because they were not really of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out so that it will be shown that they are not all of us.” God has a sovereign purpose in even allowing factious men to rise up in the local church. I would plead with you though, we haven’t had any of this spirit in many, many years. If it should arise, here’s what you need to do. Get on your face and say, “God, I’m staying with the elders till You show me clear foundational doctrinal compromise. I mean, somebody’s gotta open me a Bible and show me the, I mean, the essential doctrines of the faith are being clearly taught against and violated. Other than that, God, I’m staying right here.” And you watch what happens as God clarifies things as you and I have seen in those first 20 or 25 years we were pastoring people together.

All right, D) fourth, what do we do, these these factious people? Well, you’ll note their clear proof of guilt and wrongdoing. He says, “Tt’s very, very clear, Titus, what these guys are about.” Verse 11, “knowing that such a men.” Kowing means if you have any spiritual maturity and any soundness in the word, you will see through them. You’ll see them. You’ll see the self-centered motive. You’ll you’ll see this parasitic nature. It it’ll become clear to you if you’ll just look at it, “knowing that such a one is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.” Perverted is the idea of turning inside out or twisting. In other words, instead of being on path with God and God’s will in his thinking, he’s turned against it and he’s going in another direction. Instead of being God-centered, he’s self- centered. Instead of building God’s church for God’s glory and his elders, he wants to build it his way around himself, perverted, twisted, and turned around in his thinking and in his pattern.

He said not only that, he’s sinning. He’s perverted and he’s sinning there in verse 11. Sinning, of course, has the idea of missing the mark, so he’s missing God’s will, he’s missing the path God ordained, and he’s turned to another path, his own path. God help us for the number of people in professing Christendom today who are doing their own thing, prostituting the word of God and the church of God. Now all of us pastors make mistakes, but there are many pastors who are on a willful road of self-centered ministry for the glory of themselves and not the glory of God.

Then he says, not only is he is he perverted and sinning, he is self-condemned. What he’s saying is it’s brazenly obvious to anyone of any true spiritual discernment what is the motivation of these factious men. Now, all of us need and will need a correction from time to time. You you may be tempted to be on a path that you ought to not be on, but when somebody corrects you, maybe through the preaching of the word on Sunday morning, maybe an individual gives you a word of reproof and it’s sound, it might bother you at the moment, but as you pray about it and think about it, you become glad that you were corrected. You become glad that you were reproved. The wise men, the Bible says, loves reproof. Do you love coming on Sunday morning and hearing the reproofs from the word of God? See, that’s what’s saving you from misery. That’s what’s saving you from loss. That’s what’s saving you from heartache and dishonoring God. You see, that’s the difference.

“So Pastor, how do we know when a person is being factious or or this is just a person that’s a believer that needs to be corrected?” They receive the correction. They receive the reproof with gladness. And I’ve been preaching here a long time and and I don’t remember anyone in recent weeks or months, but there’s been years, years, when I’ve been the pastor, when I had a number of older pastors in my church, and they really enjoyed correcting me. Now, they were sweet, and I knew they loved me and even when I thought your correction didn’t have any basis, you know what I said? “Thank you, brother, I respect that, and I receive that.” I said, “Excuse me, darn,” in the pulpit, and one of our older men said, “You shouldn’t use that word in the pulpit.” You know what I said? “Thank you, I’ll try not to do it again,” and I just did it again. So we’re all repenters, amen? Here’s my point. What what what good would it be to do, to argue with a brother older than me, been around longer than I have, I need to receive that, amen? And usually it wasn’t anything essential or important, but it was important to them and I said, “Amen. Thank you, brother. I received that. Thank you for helping me.” A wise man loves reproof, but the factious man will resent it, work against it, and continue on his sinning course, being publicly self-condemned. That’s what Paul is telling Titus.

So now in conclusion, where does this stuff come from? Brothers and sisters, listen to me. It’s not complicated. It’s not difficult. Satan decided that he would look to himself. He’d come up with his own motive of how this thing of religion and worship ought to work, and he ought to be the center of it. So Satan was perverted, turned against God’s will. Satan was sinning, turned away from God’s path and pattern, and said, “I’ll do it my way. Out of myself, I’ll find out what’s right and good.” And then he talks to Eve. “Eve, you don’t have to listen to God. Eve, out of yourselves, you can decide if it’s best for you to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Self-motivation and you can do your own thing. Eve talks to Adam, “Adam, I found out something glorious, it’s gonna fix everything. If you and I would just think for ourselves and not trust God, we can fix everything.” Well, I think you see the results. Don’t don’t we see the results of that? Adam follows along in like nature and it’s been happening ever since.

“Finally, Titus, you’re gonna have to deal, it’s not gonna be fun, you’re gonna have to deal with these troublemakers in the church. There’s a lot of things you need to avoid, don’t listen to it, don’t give it time, don’t give it energy. And when there is a factious man or woman starting their own thing without respecting the elders’ authority and biblical authority, of course, first and primarily, then those must be removed.” Don’t you love the word of God? I’d never preach that if it wasn’t in the Bible. Never touch it if it wasn’t in the Bible. Well, amen and amen. Very practical word as we come toward the very end of the New Testament epistle of Titus.