Hello, this is Pastor Steven Anderson from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
Today I want to talk about Titus chapter 1 verses 10 through 14.
The Bible reads,
For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers,
watch this,
especially they of the circumcision.
So he's warning about a lot of liars and deceivers and false teachers.
And he says,
especially those of the circumcision,
he's saying,
especially the Jews are who to watch out for.
He says in verse 11,
whose mouths must be stopped,
who subvert whole houses,
teaching things which they ought not,
for filthy lucre's sake.
One of themselves,
even a prophet of their own,
said the Cretans are always liars,
evil beasts, slow bellies.
This witness is true.
Wherefore rebuke them sharply,
that they may be sound in the faith,
not giving heed to Jewish fables
and commandments of men that turn from the truth.
So the Bible's warning us about these lying deceiving false prophets
who they hated the Gentiles.
They said,
Oh, the Cretans are always liars.
The Cretans are evil beasts.
I mean,
they're just taking a whole nationality of people,
the Cretans and declaring them to be animals,
declaring them to be evil beasts.
Now who's the racist here?
This is Jews being racist against the Greek in Crete
and saying,
Oh yeah, they're evil beasts.
They're all liars.
I mean, talk about stereotyping
or having a prejudice toward people based only on their race.
That's what the Jews were doing in Titus chapter one.
And that's why Paul says unto them,
unto Titus,
Wherefore rebuke them sharply,
that they may be sound in faith,
not giving heed to Jewish fables.
So these people of the circumcision
were following a lot of Jewish fables
and they think that they're better than the Cretans.
They think that they're better than everyone else
just because they are of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The Bible tells us to rebuke them sharply.
Now what's interesting,
if you look at Jesus' ministry,
who did he rebuke the most sharply?
The Pharisees.
Basically, that's the Judaism of today is the Pharisees.
Who did John the Baptist rebuke the most sharply?
The Pharisees.
Modern-day Judaism is the religion of the Pharisees.
Even a rabbi will tell you that.
And so why in the world do we as Christians think
that it's wrong to rebuke Judaism and oh man,
we better be careful what we say about the Jews.
We better be careful what we say about that religion.
They are God's chosen people.
And why in the world would a Christian church
bring in a rabbi to speak to them?
When Jesus said,
Be not ye called rabbi.
But yet today Christian churches are bringing in rabbis
and sharing the platform with rabbis.
The Bible says these people need to be rebuked sharply.
They're the only people that God says to rebuke sharply.
And yet these are the people that are the least likely
to be sharply rebuked in 2014 by Christians.
We need to get back to the teaching of Titus 1 here
and understand that there are a lot of deceivers,
a lot of false prophets out there,
especially of the circumcision.
["Pomp and Circumstance"]