Charles Spurgeon Commentary Titus 1:13-16

"This testimony is true. For which cause reprove them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. To the pure all things are pure: but to them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess that they know God; but by their works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." — Titus 1:13-16 (ASV)

This was bad soil; but it had to be plowed, and to be sown, and with an Almighty God at the back of the gospel plower and sower, a fruitful harvest came even in Crete. We need not be afraid of the adaptation of the gospel to the lowest of the low. If there is any quarter of the town where the people are more sunken in vice than anywhere else, there the gospel is to be carried with more prayer and more faith than anywhere else. Depend on it, God can bless His Word anywhere, among Cretans, or among any other sort of degraded people.