Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome: Good morning church!

Pastoral Prayer: As always, before we dive into the text this morning, I’d like us first to petition the Lord and ask His blessing upon our time together today.

So, with every head bowed and every eye closed, meditate upon these words of our Lord as we go before His throne of grace in prayer.

Let us pray...

Isaiah 1:10–20 (NASB95)

10 Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

11 “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” says the Lord.

“I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle; and I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats.

12 “When you come to appear before Me, who requires of you this trampling of My courts?

13 “Bring your worthless offerings no longer, incense is an abomination to Me.

New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly.

14 “I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, they have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them.

15 “So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen.

Your hands are covered with blood.

16 “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight.

Cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.

19 “If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land; 20 “But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.”

Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Announce Text: Please take your bibles this morning and join me in Titus chapter one.

Titus chapter one.

If you are using one of our pew bibles today then you will find our text on page 1193.

Titus 1:10-16.

Pew bible page 1193.

Series Intro: Thus far in our study of this letter of the Apostle Paul to Titus, we have seen his lengthy introduction as well as his call for Titus to appoint qualified elders in the churches upon the island of Crete.

This morning, we will see one of the major reasons that Paul wants these men appointed to office as soon as possible.

False teachers were rising up and tearing down the church from the inside out with their dangerous and deceitful doctrine.

So here, as Paul wraps up chapter one in verses 10-16, he is going to tell Titus how to identify these people so that he may deal with them before they spread their spiritually cancerous words any further.

Read Text: Let us now read through our text in its entirety.

Follow along in your bibles or on the screen as I read aloud beginning in verse 10.

Hear now, the word of the Lord...

Titus 1:10–16 (NASB95)

10 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision,

11 who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain.

12 One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”

13 This testimony is true.

For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith,

14 not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.

15 To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.

16 They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.

May God add His blessing to the preaching and teaching of His word.

Sermon Intro: During our lunch last Sunday, Ted and I were talking about this week’s passage and the prevalence of false teachers in the global church today.

We were especially mindful of all the false teachers rising up within our own ranks of the Southern Baptist Convention.

And Ted mentioned something to the fact that there are plenty of personalities that I could mention when it comes to this subject of false teachers.

Later that afternoon, as I was thinking about all this, I came across an article in the day’s news that reported the following:

Dr. Michael Banner, Dean of Trinity College at Cambridge University, is defending a highly graphic worship service in which a research fellow by the name of Dr. Joshua Heath likened the spear wound in Jesus Christ’s side to a female sex organ during menstruation.

The stated point of this so-called “sermon” was to reveal that Jesus was actually transgender.

And this isn't very surprising, since the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest office in the Church of England, claimed in 2018 that God the Father is, in fact, gender neutral.

Unfortunately, this woke Anglican church is not the only denomination to push a link between Christ and transgenderism in recent years.

In 2020. the Church of Iceland ran a Sunday school advertisement showing a cartoon Jesus complete with make-up and female breasts.

This Evangelical Lutheran Church in Iceland explained that, quote, “We’re trying to embrace society as it is.

We have all sorts of people, and we need to train ourselves to talk about Jesus as being ‘all sorts’ in this context.”

My friends, we are living in the days of the apostate church just as the Bible predicted.

It is a day where people profess Jesus as their savior, however, their Jesus is not the Jesus we see in Scripture.

Instead, it is a Jesus that they have created after their own sinful image.

It is a pseudo-Jesus that they have created to fit in with the wickedness of the current and popular cultural trends.

It is a Jesus who knows nothing of judgement but only compassion and forgiveness.

To many of these folks, Jesus is not the One who died on a cross to free mankind from our sin - no, he is the one who died simply to free us from any penalty of sin - therefore, sin all you want!

Between false teachings like the prosperity gospel, the name it & claim movement, oneness theology, universalism, the new age movement, the emergent church movement, legalism, antinomianism, the ecumenical movement, the egalitarian movement, and so on and so forth; it is of utmost importance that believers be grounded in the truth of God’s eternal word like never before!

The wolves are no longer at the door, they are in the pew, and even worse, they are in the pulpit!

This brings us to our central truth for today which is this:

Central Truth: Following his directions for Titus to appoint elders in the Cretan churches, Paul turns his attention next to why qualified men, who hold fast to the faithful word, are so urgently needed.

False teachers were plaguing the churches, and Paul spared no words in describing their behavior and destructive influence.

Transition to Sermon: As we examine this passage this morning, I want to point out to you three characteristics of false teachers so that you may be able to better identify these scoundrels when they rear their ugly heads.

If you will notice in your worship guides provided within the bulletin today, the first characteristic of the false teacher is this:

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I. False teachers preach a deceptive message (1:10-11).

Titus 1:10–11 (NASB95)

10 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain.

10 For: gar is a conjunction that ties this passage to the one we studied last week in verse 5-9.

It introduces the logical reason elders must refute those who contradict healthy doctrine.

The reason being that… there are many rebellious men.

many: polys (pa-lise) speaks of a great number or quantity.

Just like in our own day, there was no lack of heretics in the church.

And Titus calls them first...

rebellious men: anupotaktos (ah-nu-po-tock-tos) describes those who will not be subjected to control.

Those who are disobedient, unruly, and undisciplined.

The rebellious man refuses submission to authority.

They are unable to be governed for they refuse to be subject to any control.

They are unruly, disregarding restraint, insubordinate, disorderly, headstrong, and out of control.

In fact, this same word is used in Hebrew 2 where it is translated as “not subject.”

Hebrews 2:8 (NASB95)

8 For in subjecting all things to Him [God the Son] , He [God the Father] left nothing that is not subject [anupotaktos] to Him [God the Son].

If you will remember, we looked last week at Heb 13:17 were the church is told to:

Hebrews 13:17 (NASB95)

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

One telltale sign of a false teacher is his her refusal to submit to authority in the church.

Very often, when a false teacher is placed under church discipline, they will rebel rather than repent.

Watch out for those who refuse to be under biblical authority.

Now, not only are false teachers rebellious, they are also...

Titus 1:10–11 (NASB95)

10 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain.

empty talkers: This is the Greek term mataiologos (ma-tie-oh-logos) which comes from the combination of two Greek terms.

Mataios which literally means, “vain, profitless, fruitless, or aimless + lego which means, “to talk.”

Together, this word refers to those who are vain talkers, idle talkers, foolish prattlers who speak only worthless nonsense.

These folks are nothing but babblers with nothing real to say.

Today we might call these empty talkers pompous windbags!

This is the only use of this particular word in the Bible.

However, a very similar word that is directly related to this one can be found in 1 Timothy 1:6.

There, while speaking of false teachers who stray from sound doctrine, Paul states: