(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Okay, we're starting a brand new book this evening, the book of Titus. And the book of Titus coupled with 1 and 2 Timothy is widely considered, they would refer to it as the pastoral epistles. And this is due largely in part to the fact that in 1 Timothy chapter 3 is where we find the qualifications of the bishops and deacons. And this is also reiterated in Titus chapter number 1 with some slight variations in those qualifications but it's basically telling us the same thing. Now this is important because of the fact that it's reiterated, it's repeated twice. And any time God repeats something in two chapters or two books or throughout the Bible, we obviously can understand that that is doubly important to the Lord and therefore we ought to give earnest heed to those things. And the qualifications of a pastor is something that is very much important to God and it should be important to us. The reason for that is because churches hang in the balance when there's a corrupt leader or when there's a righteous leader or maybe even if there's a novice leader, the church hangs in the balance. There's people's lives are at stake if you don't have the right leadership there. And that's why we have the book of Titus, that's why we have 1 and 2 Timothy is to teach us those things. Now who is Titus? Well Titus, it's interesting because Titus, you see him kind of scattered and spotted scarcely throughout the New Testament, but he does hold a prominent position in the ministry of the Apostle Paul. And in fact in verse number 4 of Titus chapter number 1, he says, To Titus mine own son after the common faith. So two things that we are, one thing that we can note about him is this is that either Paul the Apostle won him to the Lord while he was in Crete. When he says my son in the common faith, it means that he possibly begat him through the gospel. We see the Apostle Paul using that terminology when talking about people that he's one to Christ. He says in 1 Corinthians I believe it's chapter number 7, he tells those at Corinth, though you have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet he have not many fathers for through the gospel have begotten you. And what he's basically saying is I want you to Christ. You know he travailed in birth till Christ was formed in them. And so we see here that Titus could potentially be a spiritual son of the Apostle Paul, which means that he won him to the Lord or Titus was already saved, someone else won him to Christ and the Apostle Paul simply adopted him as like a spiritual son. He began to mentor him. And so either way, Titus and the Apostle Paul had a unique relationship of a spiritual father, spiritual son, co-laborers in Christ. And in fact we see that Titus was someone whom the Apostle Paul confided in greatly. I mean he was willing to leave him in the island of Crete to fulfill the work there to set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders. So this means that this guy has the knowledge of what to do. You know the Apostle Paul, this is a time when social media was not around, there's no emails, there's no Facebook, there's no Instagram, there's no YouTube. So he can't really check up on Titus, right? So that means this guy had to have a lot of confidence in this guy, in Titus, to say you know I'm going to leave you there, I know you're going to fulfill the work and do the job. And quite frankly, we understand that you know Titus is doing a great job because of the fact that previous to this we see him at Corinth, being left at Corinth to do the ministry there. And he brings back a report to the Apostle Paul of how the Corinthians are doing there. And then we see him being left in Dalmatia, obviously to do ministry. But the most prominent position that he's had is when he's left here in Crete to set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders. And so that's who Titus is, we don't know much about him but we do see him scattered throughout the New Testament and there's a lot of things that we can learn about him specifically from this book. Now let's look at chapter number one, chapter one, verse number one. It says here Paul, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness. Now verse number two is a verse that you should be familiar with if you go sowing on a continual basis. This is a great verse to use to prove that salvation cannot be lost. It says in verse number two, in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. So what is being promised here? He's promising life but he's promising that it's eternal. In other words, it's never ending. And it's great that he says that he promised this before the world began. So what is he promising? That you can't lose your salvation and this is something that he promised before the world began. Which is something that would debunk clearly the stupid doctrine of dispensationalism. Where they teach that there's different ways of salvation, you know, God saved in different ways. He saved through the law in the Old Testament, through the promise, the dispensation of promise. The dispensation of, we have the dispensation of grace and then it's going to be by faith and works in the book of Revelation. This is foolishness and nonsense. The Bible says here that he promises eternal life, a salvation that cannot be lost. It's not based upon the effort of the person. He promised that before the world began. The Bible says in Revelation 13, eight, go with me if you want to Hebrews chapter number four, hold your place there in Titus. Says in Revelation 13 eight, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life, slain from the book of life of the lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. Look what Hebrews four, three says, for we which have believed do enter into his rest. As he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. You see a lot of these people who believe you have to merit salvation, whether it's through coupling, you know, works with faith. You know, obviously they don't understand that these works were already finished. And not only that, but the works don't depend on the recipient. It depends on the person giving out the salvation. Right now, go back to Titus. That's a great verse right there. I encourage you to memorize that, use that consistently. And it's very helpful for people to understand that you can't lose your salvation. Look at verse number three, but it hath in due time. So he's referring to the fact that this promise was made before the world began. So this was something that we would consider to be eternities past. Right. And then he says in verse number three, but hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God, our savior. Now this is how God manifest his word, right through preaching, whether it's in the old Testament, it's in the new Testament, it's today, right? Now we understand that God was on a continual basis, revealing his word, right? Well, before the Bible was canonized, he was revealing it to the prophets. He was revealing it to the apostles. They would preach it unto lost people or believers and they would believe the word of God. Now today we don't need that, right? Today we don't necessarily need a new revelation from God's word because we have 66 books that are already canonized, that are already revealed to us. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. There's no prophecy of the scripture given of any private interpretation, but he's still manifesting his word through preaching. So what am I doing? I'm manifesting the word of God through his preaching. And the reason that's important is because people criticize preaching today. And in fact, the Bible tells us, despise not prophesying, yet there's people today when you have current preaching, preaching that is offensive, preaching that is hard, preaching that is, you know, just plain and simple offensive. People will say, oh, don't preach that, preach the Bible. Well that's what I'm doing. You know, you can't preach the entire Bible without being offensive because most of the Bible is offensive. And in fact, one of the most offensive things in the Bible is that people are going to hell. And so when we preach the word of God, that's what we're doing. We're manifesting forth the word of God through the preaching of God's word. And it's committed unto us just as it was committed unto the apostle Paul. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 1, you don't have to turn to verse 1, God who at sun-dried times and in diverse manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he had the pointed air of all things by whom also he made the worlds. What's interesting is that dispensationalist, for example, believed that God saved in diverse manners in times past, but it doesn't say he saved in diverse manners. It says that he spake in diverse manners, right? He spake God who at sun-dried time and in diverse manners, spake in times past, not saved in times past. There's obviously different ways of communication through the prophets, so on and so forth, even through dreams. But now obviously this is not necessary. We have the canonized word of God. We don't need somebody's dream. We don't need some pastorette to come with this vision of this 40-foot faggoty Jesus that came to her. And you know, she talked about how she went to hell and she came back and God's going to use her to communicate this to the masses and so many people will be saved by this vision. Garbage. They have dreamed, they have dreamed is what it is. What we need is the word of God. And it's interesting that most of these people who claim to have these dreams haven't even read the Bible. And they think that God's going to commit unto them some special unique revelation that no one else has, even though they themselves have not been stewards of the word of God. You know, it's nonsense. Look at verse number four. It says, to Titus, my own son, after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. Now verse number five, all the way down to about verse number nine, we see the qualifications of a pastorate. And this is important. Look what it says in verse number five. He says, for this cause. What cause? The fact that he's his son in the common faith. He says, for this cause, left I thee and create that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. Now don't breeze over that. This is no small feat. This is no small task for Titus to do. It's not like, okay, here you go. Go set in order the things that are wanting, train people, and just ordain elders. You know, you got this. This is a very difficult task. And it really shows that Titus is an industrious man. This guy knows how to handle business. He's trustworthy enough and knowledgeable enough that the apostle Paul can leave him on a city on a different country, right? And just leave him there and he can just ordain elders and teach them the word of God and discern who is qualified to be the bishop there, to be the pastor. And by the way, Crete in ancient times was known as the island of cities. And in fact, in one of the writings of Homer, he even specifically said that it was the island of 90 cities. Now I don't know if that's true. Maybe it wasn't, these cities were not as big as what we would think to be a city today, but still that's a lot of work to do. Even if it was half of that, I mean to ordain elders in an island period of, let's say 10 cities, 20 cities is still a lot. This is a very difficult task. And you know, don't take this lightly. You know, starting a church, just one church is something very difficult. You know, people have to say, well, what do you do? You just preach three servers, you go sowing and that's it. No, that's not it. You know, sowing and preaching, those are the most important things that a pastor will do. It's not the only things. Okay. And in fact, there's the administration of the church is dealing with church problems, it's church discipline. Hey, it's dealing with reprobates, right? It's being able to administrate the minuscule things of the church so we can keep the church running. And that isn't even, you know, including the legalities of the church and the things that go on behind the scenes in order to keep this thing running. People think, well, I just need to learn how to preach. Yeah, be apt to teach, but that's not the only thing you got to do. How about actually running your own family? How about getting your family to follow you? Well, you know, I know how to preach a sermon though, but you know, that's a very small percentage of what a pastor does. You know, and don't undermine the qualifications, but not only that, just what it takes to actually start a church. Now, if it's difficult to start a church in 2019, how much more back then when you don't have social media, we don't, you know, they didn't have airplanes and, you know, cars and YouTube to spread the word. They had to do this on foot. You know, they were dependent on the power of God and what was available to them there. And so this is a very, it would be very difficult for us to start a church in a different country, let alone many churches to ordain many elders. But this is something that Titus did. So it showed that he was a skillful man, a man who was knowledgeable, a man who was trustworthy in this area. And you know, we could only surmise what, how long it took for him to do this. We don't know, but we do know this is that this is no small task. And by the way, he's not just ordaining elders. He's setting in order the things that are wanting. What does that mean? He's basically filling in the gap. He's teaching people how to be Christians. This is a difficult task. He's teaching lazy people to get jobs, right? He's teaching women how to submit to their husbands. He's teaching the men, right? The aged men to be examples and to not be sissies and wusses, to be biblical men. He's teaching God's people to make sure they maintain good works. This is a difficult task. And it's something that takes place over a lifetime. And now we don't know how long it took for him to do this, but Titus chapter number two, he basically hits every category. He's talking to the aged women, the aged men, the young men, the young women. He's talking to the servants. He's like, hey, you guys gotta be good employees. This is how you're a good employee. And everyone's autonomous, right? So everyone has their own will. So people decide to obey it. Some people don't. He's gonna have to kick some people out of the church if they're involved in wicked sin. We don't know what's taking place, but there's nothing new under the sun. You think about today is just like, you know, 2019, you know, we excommunicate people out of church because they're involved in sin. This is not something that just barely started happening today. Maybe this is something that was absent from churches within the last decade or something. But you know what? This is something that's been taking place since the New Testament. People being excommunicated out of the church, dealing with problems, dealing with people who are dealing with issues and so on and so forth. So setting in order the things that are wanting is part of being a pastor. One of my jobs is to keep a pulse on the church. You know, you say, what do you mean by that? I have to keep my ear to the ground if there's problems in the church. And I'm not talking about problems that would cause someone to get excommunicated out of the church. I'm talking about having the right attitude. If I see if there's a prevailing attitude in the church that I feel would be threatening to the atmosphere of our church, I need to deal with that. Either on an individual basis or even behind the pulpit. I have to make sure that we are a team. That there's no dissension, there's no division within the church. I gotta make sure that I keep track of those things. And so this is what it means to set in order the things that are lacking, the things that are wanting. Wanting means lacking there. And this is something that's gonna take place over a lifetime. So those of you who wanna be pastors one day, take heed to that and understand that yes, you need to work on your preaching ability. You need to work on being able to preach the word of God. But you know, you need to also learn how to administrate. You need to learn how to lead. You gotta get people to follow you, right? This is why one of the qualifications is that he has his house in subjection with all gravity. That his wife follows him, that his children are in subjection, that he has faithful children not accused of right or unruly. Why? Because if he can't lead a home, he's not gonna be able to lead the house of God. Why is that? Because of the fact that who's gonna respect that pastor if he can't keep his kids in check? Who's gonna respect the pastor whose wife will not follow him? Who's gonna respect the pastor whose kids yell at him? Right? Or they're just kinda doing their own thing. Obviously the little ones, we cut them some slack and we also cut them a whooping. They're learning and such. But I'm talking about how about teenagers? Are they just talk back to the parents? They don't have their house in order. And look, the Bible, the qualifications of a pastor is not, when it says blameless, it's not referring to sinless. You understand? You know, we shouldn't hold the pastor to such a high pedestal that we expect them to be perfect. They're not perfect. We're all sinners. When it talks about blameless, it's basically they're going in the right direction and they're able to lead in such a way that they're ahead of you in some areas, right? But they're blameless according to the word of God. You can't find fault with their family. They're not perfect, but hey, they're a godly family, so on and so forth. And so setting in order the things that are wanting, ordaining elders in every city as I have appointed thee. Verse number six, it goes on to the qualifications here and he says, if any be blameless, the husband of one wife. Okay, what does this mean? It means that they have to be married, right? And not just to one wife at a time. It's not like, well, I was married, I got divorced and now I'm married again. Now I have to be a pastor. And another thing is, these aren't, this is not a checklist, guys. Don't treat the qualifications of a pastor as a checklist as if it's your checklist. Now guess what? It's my checklist for you, right? But it's not your checklist for yourself. It's like, hey, I already met him, pastor. I'm good to go, so when are you going to send me out? Well, you know, we need to get down to the part where it talks about being self-willed. Not self-willed, the Bible says, right? So apparently you didn't check that one. You know, this is a checklist in a sense for the pastor to observe men in the church who are going in the right direction, who have these qualifications, who have these qualities. This is why he's telling Titus these things. He's not telling Titus these things for himself. So he's like, okay, I got to make sure I do this. No, he's saying the people you ordain, they have to have these qualities, okay? Now here's my advice to every man in the church is that you should follow this, whether you're going to be a pastor or not. It's good to have leadership skills just in general. Don't treat this as, well, I'm not going to be a pastor, so I'm just going to be unruly. You know, I'm going to let kids do whatever they want and my wife doesn't follow me. Oh, well, I'm not going to be a pastor. No, every man should have his house in order, right? What this is saying is that at base level, foundational level, this is what a man who's desiring to be a pastor should have. He says the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. You know, the pastor should not be accused of these things. Being a riot or unruly basically means they're wild people. You know, they can't be controlled. They're not temperate, okay? They have no self-control. The Bible tells us in 1 Timothy, you can term 1 Timothy 3, we're going to compare these. 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are parallel passages. It says here in verse number 1 of 1 Timothy chapter 3, this is a true saying, if a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good work. So one thing that I want you to notice is that it doesn't talk about the call to preach. It doesn't talk about a call to be a pastor. It just says if you have that desire. Now look, there's people who have desires to be a pastor and they will never be a pastor, right? What do you say to that guy? Hey, you desire a good work. But that's where it stops, right? You know, if you've been divorced, you can desire that all you want and it's a good work, but you can't be a pastor, you understand, if you've been divorced, so on and so forth. Look at verse number 2, a bishop that must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach. So you know, I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater and say, well, you know, be a great administrator, learn how to set things in order, but you don't have to necessarily learn how to preach. No, you better learn how to preach. Okay. That is an important aspect of being a pastor because of the fact that you have to be able to teach the word of God and not just teach the word of God. You have to be able to preach the word of God too. What do I mean by that? And I mean, you have to be able to teach with some zeal, okay? Not be some dead as a doorknob Calvinist looking, you know, sounding preacher where you're going down deep and coming up dry, where you're putting everyone to sleep because no one even cares what you're saying. It's so boring. You know, there has to be some dynamic preaching coming out of your mouth if you're going to be a pastor. Well, let me say this. If you're going to be a pastor from this church, well, I don't think I got to be dynamic. Then go to some old IFB that is last year's Christmas tree type church where they don't even care if you're married. You can be a pastor if you want, but if you're going to be sent out of here, you need to be dynamic. That's one of my qualifications. Oh, that's not in the Bible. Yeah, well, in the Bible it says, add to teach and guess what? I could add something to that and say, you got to be a dynamic teacher. You got to be able to keep the people's attention. Now obviously when we come to church, we shouldn't expect entertainment, right? We should expect, we should be ready to hear, the Bible says, slow to speak, ready to hear, swift to hear, slow to speak. We got to be ready to hear the word of God. But here's the thing is that sometimes the Bible calls for us to get mad about things, to get angry about sin, to call out the false prophets of this world, right? And that requires some belly fire. I remember when I first preached my first sermon and we used to have this preacher board meeting at our old church. It was called the Sons of the Prophets Preacher Board meeting. It's basically a time where you can prepare a five minute sermon. And I signed up and I prepared my five minute sermon. And I think I preached, I don't remember what the sermon was. I think the second sermon that I preached was actually called Get Your Walk On, okay? But before that, I preached a sermon, I don't remember exactly what it was, but I was just basically teaching from the word of God. And I remember my father-in-law, he wasn't my father-in-law at that time, he came up to me and he said, hey, your sermon was great. You know, the content was good. You're just missing one thing. There's this thing called belly fire. You don't have it. I was like, what is that? He goes, you got to like, when you preach, it's got to come from in here and you got to just like let it out. You know, you just got to yell every once in a while. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah. I mean, the topic that you're covering required for you to scream and yell. And I was like, oh, wow, I didn't really think about that. He's like, yeah, work on it. I was like, okay. So the next time I preached, it was a sermon called Get Your Walk On and it was about Enoch. You know, Enoch was not for God took him, right? Enoch walked with God and it was not for God took him. And I remember I preached and literally at the end of the sermon, my stomach was just hurting. I think I did a little too much screaming. I think I went over on the opposite side of the spectrum. I think I screamed a little too much. And then he basically, you know, and I came, I look, I came out of like the hip hop kind of scene. Okay. Don't hold it against me. That's, that's where I grew. I grew up in Long Beach and stuff like that. And so I think I had some of that. All right. Yeah. Really? I already knows. Okay. So, you know, cause when I preach, I used to preach like this. I've never seen anybody hold a mic before. So that's why I thought, I thought you supposed to hold a mic like this. And then I remember even brother Albert, cause he was there. He came and he's like, Hey, that was a great sermon, but Hey, when you hold the mic, you just kind of want to hold it down here. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, well, you're, you're kind of holding it like Dr. Dre or something. Like you just, he's like, you got to hold it like right here. You know? And then, and then like my father-in-law was just like, that was good, but you, you, I can tell you used to listen to rap. You know, he was just like, you know, I wasn't rhyming or anything at that point, but he just my demeanor, I guess. And he corrected that and I began to fix it, began to learn from that. But what I'm saying is there, there should be some dynamic preaching coming out of your mouth if you're going to be a pastor. Okay. It says there, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy, a filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous. One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. So what does that mean? It means that if they're living in your household, if they're under your roof, they should obey you. They should do what you're telling them to do. Well, that's easy for you. You got little ones. Well, yeah, that's where it starts. Right. You know why your old ones are not obeying you is because when they were little ones, you weren't getting them to obey. That's actually where it starts. Okay. So we need to practice this and make sure we have them in subjection. And look, you don't have to try to impress me here at the church. You don't have to try to impress everyone else on how great of a father you are or disciplinary you are. You know, we're all in this together. We're a team here. We're trying to work here, but have your children in subjection. You know, if your kid just acts up, don't just like, just start whooping them because you want to show that you have your kids in subjection. Correct what needs to be corrected, do it in moderation, you know, and just learn how to rule your house well. Okay. Because you're going to suffer for that later on if you don't. Okay. It says for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Go back to Titus chapter number one. And look, there's tons of old IFP churches where the pastor is still pastoring, but his children are not in subjection. His teenagers are not in subjection. What I mean by that, they go to church whenever they want or they don't even go at all. I know that I've heard of this where literally the pastor is pastoring and the children do not go to church. You know, they work on Sundays and they just do whatever they want and they live under that man's roof. It would be a different story if they didn't, right? They just kind of do whatever they want. They rule their father, they rule their mother, and this is not right. That person has been disqualified from being a pastor. You know, when the children get out of hand, and when I refer to children, I'm also referring to teenagers, young adults that are still living under their parents' roof. You know, if they're involved in sin, for example, and the pastor does not correct that, that pastor should step down. Okay. And you know, church discipline needs to be a prominent teaching in the local churches today. And a lot of people, even in the pews, they're ignorant of this biblical teaching. So they don't know that they have the right to go to the pastor and say, hey, you have offended me by not correcting your child that's involved in this sin. So here's your one of two options. You should either correct that, get your child to repent and get right so you can remain to be the pastor, or you should step down. Okay. And if the pastor is like, well, I'm not stepping down, then you know what I would do? I'd go to a different church where there's a pastor who's actually practicing what the Bible actually teaches because no man is above that. No man is above that. And look, if my children get involved in sin, it doesn't mean I'm disqualified. It means I'm disqualified if I don't correct it. Right. And by the way, like, for example, if my daughter got involved in fornication, for example, okay. Well, I wouldn't say that I'm disqualified, but I would step down just because I feel like, well, I'm not ruling my house well because how can my daughter be involved in fornication? You understand? So in the entirety of my heart, I would say, yeah, I'm stepping down because even if I get my daughter to repent, obviously I'm not a good father because my daughter fornicated. You know, if my daughter's dating some divorced person, I just permit that, that disqualifies me. You understand? And so I believe this is important. And look, churches like ours, you know, we emphasize the family for a reason. Okay. And you know, a lot of times the old time preachers, their ministry was their first ministry. Whereas for us, it should be that we, you know, our family's our first ministry. We need to make sure we have our house on order. Okay. That's the most important thing because here's the thing. If I lose my church, okay. But you know what, if I lose my family, that's the only family I got. You know, if I lose my church, okay. But you know what, if I lose my wife, that's all I got. If I lose my children, that's all I got. That should be more important to me. And if I have my house in order, I can be guaranteed that I'm going to have the church in order as well. Amen. Look at verse seven, for a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God. I'm not going to get into it, but you know, steward, what does it mean to be a steward of God? Well, we can take that as even the steward of the mysteries of God. And it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. What does that mean? You know, a pastor should know how to preach the gospel, right? Shouldn't a pastor be like the biggest expert in soul winning? Obviously there's other pastors or people in the church who can add to the pastor or the pastor could learn from, but at the end of the day, the pastor should be basically the best soul winner in the house as far as communicating the word of God. Why? Because he's done it long enough. Now look, when I say, you know, the best, I'm not saying that I see everyone saved because that's not how you determine whether someone's a good soul winner or not. You know what I mean? I'm talking about the experience that they've had. Now how long have I been so winning for? I've been so winning for 13 years because I literally started right after I got saved. Probably like the week after I got saved, I started going so winning with my pastor and I've been so winning for those 13 years. And so during those 13 years, guess what? You learn something. Okay. And this is important, but you have pastors today that not only do they not go so winning, it's probably best that they don't because of the fact that they don't know how to, you know, they're learning so winning from Ray Comfort. They're learning so winning from, from, you know, the, the, the way of the master, right? Dead waters, the way of the master. They're learning so winning from Calvinist. They're learning so winning from these dead Calvinistic churches that don't know what they're doing. They believe in a false gospel. They are street, they're learning so winning from street preachers. This is not good. So you know what? Yeah. First and foremost, it's not good that you're sowning, but at the same time, it's good that you're not sowning because if you were sowning, you'd be doing some soul killing. You'd be doing some soul losing is what you'll be doing. And look, some pastors have this attitude. It's like, well, I'm the pastor. You know, the soul winning is for everyone else. I do visitation. You know, I got to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction. Well, you know what? You can do that when you're out sowning. Did you know that? Eventually you're going to run into a fatherless child and a widow. You can cover that spectrum right there. Amen. You know, I do visitation and you know, I got to visit people in the hospital. Okay. But you know, aside from that, you need to do some soul winning as well. Okay. And you should be able to teach people how to do soul winning as well. All right. So we need to make sure that we are good stewards of God. We're good stewards of the mysteries of the gospel. And look, if you're in here and you want to be a pastor, learn how to be a good soul winner. Okay. Learn how to properly preach the gospel and look, thank God that we have teams here where you can learn. Amen. And by the way, one, a part of learning, and we'll get into this in just a bit, is that you're not self-willed when you're out learning. What does that mean? It means you can't take correction. And let me say this, one of the main things that I look for in any type of leadership, whether pastor or if you're going to be an evangelist or a deacon or even just the team leader, and I'm not saying just the team leader as well means nothing. That's one of the most important positions is that you're able to take correction well. In fact, let me just let you in on a little secret. Okay. I specifically tell the leaders in our church, the team leaders, when you lead someone, when you're teaching someone, find something to correct them on. Find something that they're doing wrong. You say, why? Because I want them to correct you to see how you take correction. Oh, I can't believe that. Yeah. I specifically tell them, look for something that's wrong in their soul winning so you can correct them on and see how they react to that. If they bug at you, they're self-willed. If they take the correction and they say, thank you for that. I didn't know that I'm going to implement that. That's good stuff right there. That's leadership quality right there. But the person who cannot be corrected is what does that say? Not self-willed. They're self-willed people. They're people who will not take admonishments. They're people who will not be corrected for anything. Look, and I believe strongly in this. And if you don't believe strongly in this, well too bad. Okay. Because here's the thing, you're going to get corrected from behind the pulpit, but you know what? In church, you should be able to be corrected as well. All of us should. And I know what I'm talking about because for 10 years or whatever, you know, I was corrected by my pastor. And by the way, I was corrected viciously. Okay. Like, man, I'll be honest. I mean, he was like the apostle Paul to me in a sense, like as far as like a spiritual father's concern. I remember there was times when he just like, he like made me cry. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't amen-ing during that time, but I remember that. I remember he was just like, he was, he would tear it into me and you, and you know what? I took it and it cut deep, but you know what? It made me the man who I am today. And he taught me and he would say this, he would say this, if you can take correction, you can be a great leader one day because the position of leadership requires for you to correct other people. How can you do that with a clear conscience, knowing that you weren't able to be corrected as you were growing, right? That's why I do a whole lot of correcting. I got a clear conscience, baby. I took it. You should take it too. And I took some of the worst corrections. I mean like just yelling at me and you know, the whole shebang. Okay. And obviously, you know, at that time it wasn't pleasant. Okay. But looking back at that correction, I'm thankful for it. I'm thankful that he screamed my head off sometimes. I'm thankful that he told me things that were just uncomfortable. You know those character flaws that you have that you don't want no one to know about? You know, we say amen to the correction but then there's character flaws that you know that you have and if someone were to mention it about you, it would just rub you the wrong way. Yeah, those. He would rub those and say, this is you. This is what you do. And it's just like, dang. You know, like what am I going to say? I'm trying to marry your daughter. But you know what? It's necessary because how are you going to fix those things? I mean don't you want to be a better Christian? If you want to be a better Christian, don't be self-willed. If you want to be a leader one day, don't be self-willed. Don't always try to defend yourself. Right? Isn't that the natural thing for us to want to do when we get corrected is we want to defend ourselves. Well, no, you don't understand. Well, the thing is you just caught me on a bad day and just the list goes on and on and on. Why don't you just say, you're right. I'm going to fix that. And just be a better man about it. Correction is good for us. And if a man is not able to take correction, automatically they're marked as being an immature person. We should desire correction. That's how we grow in our Christian lives. It says they're not self-willed. So he's looking for pastors or potential pastors who are able to be corrected. They're not self-willed. They don't have their own agenda. And guess what? That's what I'm looking for as well. Men who do not have their own agenda. What agenda do you want me to have? Well, first and foremost, God's agenda. But our agenda, my agenda. What's your agenda? Well, to preach the gospel to every creature, to do missions trips, to do soul winning. That's my agenda. Right? Well, I just think, I don't like the way, you know, why we got to go to Belize for it? You know, can't we just go to like Mexico or can we go to Cambodia or something like that? And no, I mean, you can if you want. Well, I can't, I'm just saying, you know, I'm not being self-willed. I just got my own vision. Well, that's, that's being self-willed. Why don't you get on the program of the church? Why don't you become a first word Baptist church member? Because here's the thing. If you ever become a pastor, that's exactly what you want from your members for you as well. Is that your members follow you, that they get on the program, they buy into the vision. Don't be a self-willed pastor. Look, who's a perfect example of someone who's self-willed? Adam Fanon. Perfect example of someone who's self-willed. Okay. I told you I was going to keep talking about him. Adam Fanon is a perfect example of someone who has their own agenda. They don't have the agenda of the pastor, pastor Jonathan Shelley. Okay. If someone else took over for the leadership there at Steadfast Baptist Church, you know, he was not happy about it. He wasn't, he wasn't, you know, getting, buying into the vision. He automatically just start bucking all the authorities. This is not a good sign of a leader. Okay. You know, especially in a time of crisis. Mark it down. Something ever happens to me, there will be some type of Adam Fanon to try to creep their head into this church who try to do their own thing. They're going to buck whatever authority comes through here or, you know, whatever leader that I ordained or whatever to take over after me. I guarantee you there's going to be some sort of, you know, a son of Bikrai who's coming in here trying to do their own thing. That's wicked. Okay. Adam Fanon is a wicked person because he's self-willed. He's a self-ordained pastor and he sucks at preaching. So he doesn't even fulfill the role of a pastor as far as his qualifications are concerned. Well, I don't like that you said I enjoy his preaching. I didn't. I thought his preaching sucked. It was garbage. Why did you put it on the Dispensation of Heresy? The same reason I put John MacArthur. I put him on the Dispensation of Heresy because he was given facts. He was basically telling the biography of, you know, Schofield. I didn't put his preaching on there. It was him saying facts. You know, he was an apt to teach and obviously he was self-willed. Okay. And look, if any of you disagree with me on that, you better not tell me. Because that's something that I take very serious. That's something that anybody who defends people who are self-willed, I got my eye on people like that. Because you know what that means? They're probably self-willed themselves. You know, Eric Ballesteros who's defending Adam Fanon, lo and behold, he was self-willed as well, teaching some damnable heresy that you can forget that you got saved. You can get the spiritual amnesia or whatever and just like, oh man, was I saved in the first place? I forgot, you know. Who did I, what kind of Jesus did I believe? Was it the Mormon Jesus? It's like, what in the world? Birds of a feather go to hell together, amen? So not self-willed, write that down. I'm just kidding. Not self-willed. What does that mean? Having your own agenda, not submitting to the pastor. Okay. And look, it's submission to the pastor. What does that mean? It doesn't mean that I'm some sort of dictator that's just telling you how to live your life, but when we're under this roof, I'm the leader here and what I say goes. And by the way, this also includes not disrespecting the pastor. Not undermining the authority, not mocking the pastor, not disrespecting him whether you know, behind his back or in front of his face, whatever it may be. There needs to be a level of respect for the leadership. And people who just blatantly mock the pastor, disrespect the pastor are self-willed people and they're marked. Okay. I don't see that here, but lest it should happen in the future, you know, you will get rebuked. You know, someone tries to disrespect me in front of the congregants or say something disrespectful, they're going to get rebuked in front of everyone else. Why? Others may fear. Okay. And look, this is not a self-willed church. When we started the church, we started as a satellite of Faith War Baptist Church and guess who was the pastor? Pastor Steven Anderson was the pastor. He said, what did you do? I filled in for him and did exactly what he wanted me to do. His agenda was my agenda. His goals were my goals. What he wanted me to do is what I did. Oh, you're just like a servant. Yeah, thanks. That's what I was going for. I wanted to follow him. He left me here in Crete and I want to make sure that I did exactly what he wanted me to do. Okay. And look, that's why we got to go independent. I remember when we first started the church, he told me over the phone, he said this, he says, you know, you're going to be basically the guys on the ground, the boots on the ground. He says, but if you screw up, I'm replacing you. Well, thanks for that encouragement. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, if you screw up, I hold the right to replace you. We believe in replacement theology, man. I reserve the right to replace you and you're done. I said, okay. And he said, but Bruce, I know, but you're not going to screw up. I know you're going to do a good job. I know the church is going to go independent in two years. I believe in you. I believe in the church. I believe everything is going to go well. But what is he saying? I don't want you to be self-willed, you know, and I wanted to make sure that I followed everything to a T when we first started the church, because I know that we're sowing seeds. I was sowing seeds for the future. If we went independent, amen. And I wanted to sow seeds because I want to be able to send men out of our church, just the way he sent me out. And I want men who are like me towards him. I want guys who submit to me the way I submitted to pastor Anderson. That's the seed that I sowed. Why? Because this is the product of it. Amen. And when you get sent out, I want you to succeed. I want you to win souls to Christ. I want people to follow you. I want you to be prosperous and have good success, but it only happens if you're not self-willed. That would destroy your ministry. Okay. It goes on to say not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no strife. Not given to filthy lucre. What is he saying there? You know, the pastor should not have a short fuse. It doesn't say don't be angry. People think that. How can you be a pastor? Look at you. How can you be a pastor just up there yelling and screaming? Yeah, but if you saw me five minutes before, I'm chilled out. The reason I'm yelling and screaming is because my notes tell me to do that because I'm talking about something that's making me mad. And guess what? I planned that. So I'm not just getting mad at the drop of a hat. It's planned. When you see me just blow up, it's because I'm planning to blow up. You know, the Bible says the he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And look, let me just say this is that if you have a short fuse, you better get that under control whether you're going to be a pastor or not. You need to be a man who knows how to control his emotions. And on both sides of the spectrum, whether you just have a short fuse and you just blow up or you have a short fuse and you just start crying. Because I got to say that today because in 2019, apparently that's also an issue. Before it was just like these guys have short fuses, just punch someone in the mouth. Now it's just like this person is so sensitive, he's just going to start bawling out of his eyes because he just can't take correction. Why did you say that about me? And his wife is like, I'm just saying you look like you gained some weight. You don't love me anymore. You know, it's all that soy, right? Making people sensitive. You know, you need to make sure what this is basically telling us is, hey, we need to make sure that we have our emotions under control, that we're tempered men, right? Not given to wine. I mean, need we say more? Okay, Calvinist, no drinking alcohol, right? Now in 1 Timothy chapter 3, it tells us also not given to wine. And then for the deacons, it says not given to much wine. This is also referring to juice. So guess what? The pastor should not be some gluttonous fiend of sugar. Amen? There should be a level of temperance that goes into a man, a man of character who knows how to control himself, right? And seasonally dip into sugar. Amen? But you know what? I mean, you think I'm kidding, but that's why a lot of pastors of yesteryear are fat as hell. We got egg-lons, pastor egg-lon, right? And look, they cut themselves short. I know of pastors of the old IFB who literally died early because all they ate was McDonald's. I mean, McDonald's the morning for breakfast, McDonald's for lunch, McDonald's for dinner. I mean, good night. I mean, McDonald's. I mean, at least do In-N-Out or something. You're eating the trashiest food and you know what, they cut themselves short. And the old IFB, unfortunately, they would uplift that. Unhealthy living and unhealthy eating, so on and so forth. No striker, not giving to filthy lucre. We shouldn't be in this to make money, right? And look, if you're in this to make money, this is the wrong place to try to make money. And look, I'm not saying it's bad to make money or to have riches, so to speak. It's just bad for the pastor to do that. Okay, a pastor should not desire to be rich. You know, if you are a diligent person, you have your own business and you're successful in your business, you're making finances and your heart is in the right place. You're making sure that you're designating your finances. You have the finances, the finances don't have you. That's okay. Okay? You're in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Thursday, you're soul winning. You have your priorities in order. That's fine, but you know what? The pastor should not have that. The pastor should not be rolling in the Benz, right? In the Mercedes Benz or what do they have to, Teslas, right? Rolling around in Teslas with bling bling on them and you know, having just the best of everything. Not saying they can't live comfortably, but you know what? You have pastors who own like five houses. They have all these cars, all these riches. This is not the way a pastor should live. It should not be given to filthy lucre. Verse number eight says, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate. So what does this mean? You know, the pastor should love his people, amen? And it's not something that I think the pastor should try to make himself do. I think that as a pastor fulfills his role as a pastor, the natural tendency will be to love his people. And look, I'm not a perfect pastor, but I know that I love my people. How do I know that? Because when church is over, I'm not just shooting out the door. I want to spend time with you. Right? I want to talk to you. I want to go eat with you. I want to, you know, I want to cut up jokes with you. I want to talk about doctrine with you. You know, I want to spend time with you. And that's how it ought to be, right? You know, the pastor should not have some position where he's just high and lofty and just the untouchable, you know, where he's some sort of superstar that doesn't talk to anybody. He doesn't communicate with anybody. You know, he's the pastor. He's the leader. I'm the pastor. I'm the leader. But at the end of the day, I'm your friend. You know, I'm your leader. I'm your brother in Christ. Amen? And, you know, we can have a burger together. Okay? We can talk and outside the street and just talk about not just just life in general. Right? And they should be a lover of good men. You know, it says sober, just, holy, temperate, lover of hospitality, opening up themselves to whoever can you say, well, are you talking about yourself? Well, yeah, this is my qualification here. I have to open up my house, right? That's part of it. And I remember we used to do this thing every every week where we have different people come to our house and eat. But then when once we started having more kids, it was a little more difficult. You know, the kids have a nap and whatnot. But hey, part of being the lover of hospitality, having you over for Christmas Eve. And it's not a drudgery to stay up till three thirty in the morning at my house. It's just a drudgery for my wife and kids. And I'm just kidding. You know, I'm just kidding. But you know, this should be something that you would want to do is that I don't really like having anybody at my house. Well, you know, part of being a pastor is you want to you need to be a lover of hospitality. That means you want to be around God's people all the time. Right? Now, obviously, there's there's times when we need to be apart. We need to be with our own families. But this is family. And so we see that they're looking for some are nine holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convince the gainsayers. So he finishes off by saying, Hey, you need to make sure that you know the Bible. Why? Because we got to exhort using sound doctrine. We need to exhort and convince the gainsayers. Now turn with me to Second Timothy, Chapter one. Hold your place there in Titus. Second Timothy, Chapter one. Now what is a gainsayer? Well, a gainsayer is someone who tries to contradict you, right? And the Bible tells us that we should try to convince those people, not debate. There's a big difference between the two. There's a difference between debating someone and trying to convince them. What is the difference? Well, the debate never ends well. Right? Because they think they're right. You think you're right. And eventually, you're not going to come to the conclusion where you both agree on the same thing. You just walk away thinking that you both won. That's what a debate is. Whereas when we convince people, that's what we're doing when we're not preaching the gospel. We're trying to convince them that they're wrong and to believe that which is right. In fact, that's why Titus 3 9 says this, but avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is in heretic after the first and second admonition, reject. So look, if you give them two admonitions and they're still debating you, see ya, sucka, I'm done. You walk away. You don't debate them. You try to convince them if they're a gainsayer. And hopefully when you try to convince them, they're convinced and they're one to Christ. I've had people that I talked to at the door who, you know, I just got this vibe and I'm like, man, this person seems like he's just going to be like a jerk or something, you know, or a gainsayer. And they actually end up getting saved. They get convinced of what I'm telling them. Look at 2 Timothy 1 13 says, hold fast of the form of sound words, which thou has heard of me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus, that good thing, which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in us. So what does this mean? You know, we as pastors and as Christians, obviously, but he's talking to pastors, we need to make sure that we're constantly reading the Bible, constantly staying up to par with our soul winning, constantly staying up to par with sound words and sound doctrine to keep people sound in the faith in order to be able to exhort people, to teach people. What I'm saying is this, is that I need to keep growing as a pastor, right? You know, in order to teach you new things in order to, you know, keep you growing, I myself need to keep growing, not recycling the same sermon over and over again. Now there are sermons that need to be recycled, right? When we talk about specific doctrines that never change, those are sermons that need to continuously be recycled so that we can be reminded of those things. But here's the thing, we need to keep learning new things in the Bible, okay? I know pastors that literally will preach the same sermon every single year for Easter, every single year for friend day, every single year for Christmas. They literally verbatim will preach the same exact sermon every single year. You know what? And you know what the people are doing? They're like, well, I'm not learning anything here, so I'm just here for the fellowship. That's not the kind of church we want to be, amen? Go back to Titus. I'm going to, I need a hasten here. So we hold fast the faithful word so we can exhort and convince the gainsayers. Now look what he says in verse number 10. This is the reason he's telling them this. For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially of the circumcision. Paul's so racist. Why does he always talk about the Jews? Why does he always got to bring up the Jews? The same thing they tell us, why do you always got to talk about the Jews? Because the Bible's always talking about the Jews. I mean, you want me to ignore the fact that he just said, especially they have the circumcision? In other words, he's saying, look, there's a lot of unruly and deceivers out there, but hey, let me tell you one group that's really unruly and they're just a bunch of liars, the Jews. Why you got to say the Jews? That's what circumcision means. He's saying the Jews. So yes, we're going to talk about the Jews this evening. Okay. Because the scripture calls for it. So he's about to rebuke the false prophets. Now verse 11 is still talking about the Jews. He says, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they are not for filthy, leucers sake, the Bible says. So what does it mean to subvert whole houses? It means they are corrupting houses. You know, this is what basically Jesus Christ was telling the Pharisees when he said, you can pass sea and land to make one proselyte. And after that, you know, after they won them, they make them twofold more a child of hell than themselves. They basically corrupt everything that they touch. You ever heard of the Midas touch? They have the opposite effect. They have the leprous touch. That's racist. No. You tell me why the Jews have been kicked out of at least 109 countries. There's a reason for that. Why? Subvert whole houses, yay, even whole countries. You know, these are the false prophets that he's referring to here. Okay. Now there's a lot of debate regarding verse 12. It says, 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 there's a lot of debate regarding who's being spoken of here. All right. Because a lot of people say, well, when it says a prophet of their own, and by the way, if you look this up on the internet, the majority of the answer that you'll get as far as who is stating this, they'll say that it's some, you know, philosopher poet from like the 7th century BC who basically was from Crete, who made the statement that the Cretans are always liars. So if you look this up on resources on the internet, they'll basically state, it wasn't the Pharisees who were saying this. It was the Cretans who were saying this about themselves. Okay. Who, this, you know, this Greek philosopher. And the person who claimed that it was a quote from this guy was a man by the name of Clement Alexandria from the 2nd century AD. Okay. He wrote this commentary on the book of Acts that was found in Syriac, not in Greek. And he basically fomented this teaching that the prophet of their own is not referring to the Pharisees. It's actually referring to the Cretans themselves who actually said this about themselves. Okay. Now, he said, well, what's the big deal if it was, what if it was this guy, you know, Epimenides is what his name was, by the way. What if it was Epimenides who actually said that the Cretans are always liars and they're saying this about themselves. Well, number one, here's the problem is it's an attempt to discredit the word of God. But number two, it's trying to alleviate, okay, the slanderous nature of the Jews. That's what it's trying to do. So they're trying to take the attention off of the Jews, place it on the Cretans themselves. You know, this, whatever his name is, this Greek philosopher, Epimenides, and they're saying that he's the one who actually said this about his own people. By the way, this guy's not even real. It's false. It's fake. They literally say he's like this mythical character, poet, who might have said this. And through that, they're basically fomenting this teaching that the Cretans say this about themselves, that they're evil beasts, they're liars, you know, they're slow bellies, they're lazy. How many of you have ever heard of the Bible Project? Okay. The Bible Project, you've probably seen it, you don't know what it's called. It's basically on YouTube, if you go on Bible Project, it's these really nice animations of the Bible, stories of the Bible, different books of the Bible, and these two queer guys, they talk on there, and they, you know, the book of Leviticus, and you know, they just talk like queers, okay. But if you look them up regarding the book of Titus, they'll say this. They'll say, oh yeah, even the word Cretans in Greek actually means liar. It means slanderers. It's like, what in the world? Is that what it means, Belopulides? We got a Greek here, okay, from Thessaloniki, all right. And that's not what it means. Well, you said, what does Cretan mean? It means it's someone from Crete. I told you that without a lexicon. But it's an attempt to alleviate the slanderous nature of the Jews, because they're the ones who came with this wicked slander against the Cretans. And literally this entire thing is built up saying that these Cretans are just liars. They have this, you know, culturally, they're just a bunch of liars. They're evil beasts, and they're slow bellies. They're just lazy. That's just their culture. No, it's not. You're lying. Bible Project? You know, you might have nice graphics, but your information is all screwed up. You're actually behaving like the Jews because you're promoting and fomenting their teaching. Oh, Kratos actually means a liar. No, it doesn't. You just lied. You just lied yourself. You know, the Bible Project, that's a lie. Not the Bible itself, that organization's a whole lie. So what is really being said here? The prophet of their own is referring to the Pharisees who are saying this about the Cretans. What's the purpose of that? Why would they say that? Well, remember this. They're false prophets, okay? And as false prophets, they can do nothing but tell lies, right? Look at verse 15. Unto the pure, all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. Don't miss that. What is he saying? It's no question why verse 15 comes after verse 14 where he talks about what they said. He's basically saying this. Look, when Paul and Titus see Cretans, what do they see them as? Potential pastors? Laborers? Churches? A place where good works can be done, right? When the Pharisees see the Cretans, what do they see? Oh, they're just liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. Why? Because unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure. So when they look at lost people or when they look at Christians on the island of Crete, what do they see? They see a bunch of wicked people. Why? Because they see a reflection of themselves. They're trying to project that which they are. What are the Pharisees? Liars, evil beasts, right? And slow bellies. What does slow belly mean? It means they're lazy. You know, like Jesus said about the Pharisees, they're not even willing to, you know, they command people to keep the law, but they themselves won't even do it with their own finger. They won't even keep the commandments that they're telling people to keep. They're lazy themselves, right? But unto the pure, all things are pure. It's like this, let me give you an example. I don't know where we're going long today, but Titus chapter 1, amen? So what does that have to do with anything? Nothing. It's just Titus chapter 1. It's like this, it's like when we announced that we were going to Compton and there's literally pastors who are like, oh yeah, we would never go there. These are some gang bangers. There's a bludgeon crypts over there. You can get hurt. Well, you know what? To the pure, all things are pure, buddy. But unto them which are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure. You see Compton, you see a bunch of rapists and gang bangers and heroin addicts. You see a bunch of wicked people and they're not going to get saved, so just send the bus ministry in there. Don't send actual soul winners to go and preach the gospel unto them. But you know what first works these? Unto the pure, all things are pure. We see a field ready to hear the gospel. We see people who are open to the gospel. You see bloods? Yeah, me too. I see people, I see bloods who need to be washed in the blood of Christ. I see crypts that need to be given one to be coming bloods of Christ for Christ, amen. You see gang bangers? I see potential people who are going to get saved. I see potential people who will listen to sermons online, who will clean up their lives. That's what I see. Because unto the pure, all things are pure. And literally there's pastors like, because someone from our church invited a pastor to come with us to Compton. I would never go there. That's too dangerous. They might try to bang on me. Well look, when they tell you where you're from, just tell them I'm a citizen of Israel, amen. Amen. Or just tell them I'm from First Works Baptist Church, let me give you an invite. And look, we saw tons of people saved in Compton when we went to Watts. Man, Watts was fruitful. We saw tons of people say, oh, you go to Watts? We can't send our best people there. I'm not going to send my millionaire to that decrepit city and have them win people to Christ. You respect our people, go read James 2. Fool. Send the rich person over there. Right? Send the rich person because they got the resources to get their butts off the couch, go drive themselves to Watts and win those people to Christ. Unto the pure, all things are pure. But you know what, the people who complain about this stuff are the same people who are just wicked as hell. You know the people who criticize us the most, the Calvinists. Oh yeah, you're trying to say that you win all those people to Christ, that's so wicked. You know, to say you just win them to Christ. No one just gets saved by saying a prayer. You know, unto the foul and unbelieving is nothing pure. The work that we're doing is pure, but to you it's unpure. You know why? Because you're a false prophet, that's why. He says, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. What is he saying? They're reprobates, is what he's saying there. Let's finish off here in verse 16. They, referring to those false prophets who are the circumcision, who are the Jews, who are Israel according to the flesh, they profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate. Now what does that mean when he says unto every good work reprobate? It's kind of an interesting phrase there. We often refer to people as reprobates, but here it says unto every good work reprobate. Well keep in mind that he just said that they subvert whole houses. In other words, they corrupt whole houses. Now reprobate does mean someone who is rejected of God, right, who can no longer believe, reprobate concerning the faith, but it also means just someone who is corrupt, someone who is defiled. So in other words, any time these people try to go do a so-called good work, they actually make it reprobate, they corrupt it. You know, they go, they compass the land to make one proselyte, to make one convert, to convert them to Judaism. What do they do instead? They make them twofold more a child of hell than themselves. What do they do? They make that good work reprobate. Because it's a good word to go out and preach the gospel, to go and preach the word of God, but you know when these people do it, they're unto every good work reprobate. They corrupt anything that they touch is basically what it's referring to. So what is Titus chapter 1 telling us here? It's basically teaching us that as pastors, we need to both exhort God's people and convince the gainsayers, right? But not only that, rebuke the false prophets. And I believe he actually also rebuked the Cretans as well, because he's telling them that he wants them to be sound in the faith, right? So you know, sometimes when pastors rebuke people, it's not because they did something wrong. You know what it is? It's because they're not preventative. We rebuke specific sins in order to prevent it. This is why even though it's a lie that they talked about them being slow bellies and liars, he exhorts them in chapter number 2 to work with all fidelity, which is honesty. In chapter 3, he encourages them to maintain good works, to make sure that they're working, they're laboring in the word of God, they're laboring in their good works. And so that's what we can see in this regard. Let's take heed to this, amen? Let's take heed to the qualifications of a pastor, not take it lightly, and don't use it as a checklist, but you can use it in a sense for yourself just to be a better Christian. But understand that this is here for a reason, and we need to make sure that we have the right people in leadership, we send out the right type of people so we can have a successful ministry. Let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Thank you for Titus chapter number 1, lots of truth here. Obviously, I can't do justice to it all. I pray that you'd help us, Lord. In fact, Titus chapter 1 is such a good chapter just as a proof text that we need to rebuke the false prophets of this day and expose them. People don't like that, but the wolves need to be exposed for being wolves in sheep's clothing. And I pray, God, that you'd help us to continue to be fruitful, to hold fast the faithful word, and use this greatly, Lord, to continue to reach more people for Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.