Refuting Those Who Contradict (Part 1)

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. I've titled this episode, Refuting Those Who Contradict. This is based on Titus chapter 1, verse 9. So everyone who has ever had a job or who has applied for a job, you know that there's always a job description, certain responsibilities, the things that your boss requires you to.

Do.

Well, pastors have a boss. His name is Jesus Christ. He is head of the church, and his book, the Bible, is our operating manual. In particular, the section known as the Pastoral Epistles, these three books go over what is expected of us.

So as pastors, we preach, we teach, of course we do weddings, funerals, baptisms, we visit people in the hospital and nursing homes and all those things people normally associate with pastoral ministry and more.

The Pastor’s Job Description in Titus 1:9

But there is one part of the job that often gets overlooked. According to Titus chapter 1, verse 9, a pastor must uphold sound doctrine and he must refute those who contradict it. So what does that mean?

If someone is teaching something false, if they are going against sound doctrine, it is the responsibility of an elder or a pastor to address it. And yet many, not only are they not doing this, some pastors refuse to do it and go and listen to my podcast titled What is a Hireling for more details on that.

But Titus chapter 1, verse 9 says about the pastor how he should be holding firm to the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict it.

That's what Titus 1, verse 9 says. So why do I preach and teach on this subject? Confronting error, teaching what to do about false teachers and heresy and all the rest, why do I do that on a regular basis?

Well, first of all, this podcast is pretty much dedicated to that topic, testing the.

Spirits.

But just preaching on it on a fairly regular basis, why do I do that? Well, number one, there's a massive need for it in the body of Christ, because again, many don't do it, many refuse to do it. But also, it's a major theme that runs straight through the Bible, especially the New Testament.

Why Pastors Must Preach the Word and Refute Error

But really, the main reason, the first reason I do it is because this is what God and His Word says, this is the pastor's responsibility, it is the pastor's job to refute those who contradict. So in this passage, Book of Titus chapter 1, the Apostle Paul is writing to this young pastor, Titus, and he tells Titus to appoint elders in every city.

Paul lays out not only the qualifications for an elder, and elder, pastor, bishop, same.

Thing.

He lays out not only the qualifications, but also what is expected of a pastor once he gets appointed. And by the way, it's understood, elder, pastor, bishop, overseer, these are all synonyms, they can be used interchangeably.

In the first epistle to Timothy, it's called a bishop, here, Titus 1, it's elder, and Peter, his epistle, he uses them all together, so don't get hung up on that. But this is the pastor's job, that's the point.

Another part of the job description that Paul gives in the pastoral epistles, this time in 2 Timothy 4 -2, he says pastors are to preach the Word. So we preach the Word, and we refute those who contradict it.

So preach the Word. If I can update that along with a modern application, Paul might say something like this. Don't preach, it's not even really preaching, but don't get into self-help, don't get into motivational speaking, don't get too deep into politics or movie reviews, like remember during the summer, some pastors were, instead of preaching from the Bible, they were doing movie reviews, or that Gospel Coalition articles, 10 things Christians can learn from Taylor Swift's new tour, or something like that.

Don't waste your time. Paul would say, actually, I don't know what Paul would say, I can only imagine. But basically he's saying to Timothy, don't waste your time with this, that, and the other.

Thing.

Timothy, your job is to preach the Bible. And Titus, your job, and the elders you appoint, your job is to teach the Word, sound doctrine, and refute those who contradict it. So preach the Bible. Now somebody might respond and say, yeah, but that's not what people want.

People don't want you to preach the Bible. Well, no kidding. But you don't give them what they want, despite what Rick Warren says. You don't give them what they want, you give them what they need. More importantly, you give them what God wants.

You give them what God says they need. This whole idea of the seeker-driven church, seeker-sensitive movement, give people what they want, that's how you bring people through the front door, well, that might be true to an extent.

But what you win them with is what you win them to. If you give people what they want, what are you going to be doing on a Sunday morning? Well, you're not going to be opening up the Bible and expounding from it.

But that's, again, the pastor's job. So all that matters is what God says. Preach the word, 2 Timothy 4, 2 and 3. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. Well, that time has certainly come, which is why it's more important now, more than ever, that pastors do their job, they preach the Bible, they refute those who contradict it, they preach the whole counsel of God.

Why Modern Pastors Avoid Naming False Teachers

It's true, you're going to have the naysayers. I heard a few older pastors over the years, they'll talk to the young guys, I think I was told this at least once, don't preach against what's wrong. They say only preach what's right.

Never name names. And they have this advice and you're just thinking like, I'm pretty sure this isn't from the Bible because in the Bible, they certainly point out what's wrong. Like have you ever read, you know, first Corinthians or, you know, never name names, but we'll get into that.

But you know, where did pastors get this advice? If they didn't get it from the Bible, where did they get it? Well, they got it probably, certainly if not directly, certainly from observing the popular pastors of the last 20, 30 years.

They probably got it from men like Joel Osteen and Rick Warren and who's that, who's that other guy? He's like the softest preacher of Max Lucado, right? So Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Max Lucado, that's probably where they got this from.

Because here's the thing, and I want to spend a moment on this just so everybody understands what happened. The older generation of pastors. So this is men today who are at retirement age or beyond, because let's face it, you know, retirement is what, 66, 67 years old.

There's a lot of pastors who are 77 or, you know, 82. There's a lot of older men and that generation of pastors, they grew up with Billy Graham. Billy Graham was the standard of what a preacher should be.

And when Billy retired, he held meetings and Billy Graham really passed the baton, he passed the torch to certain men in particular, and those men were Greg Laurie, Rick Warren, Joel.

Osteen.

Like these men were Billy Graham's, he was their mentor. They were his protégés. So Billy Graham met with Joel Osteen and his wife, and Billy Graham really praised up Joel.

Osteen.

Hey, there's this young new preacher, everyone should listen to him, his name's Joel Osteen. Billy Graham did that. Billy Graham was a mentor to Rick Warren. So when Billy Graham retired, remember, Billy Graham is the standard.

All these pastors who are now, you know, older, they looked to Billy Graham. So when Billy retired, they handed the baton to Rick Warren, Joel Osteen. So now those pastors, because Billy Graham's gone, now they followed Osteen and Warren and Lucado and, you know, Greg Laurie and all the rest.

So that older generation was now following those guys and these guys are still, their impact is still being felt. So point being, after 20 or 30 years of that within evangelicalism, that has led us to this point.

So that now we have a climate within evangelical Christianity where it's mostly a blend of self-help, positive only, purpose-driven, motivational speaking. That's the type of thing you hear. And the last thing that, you know, people who have been brought up, you know, listening to those men, the last thing they want is sound doctrine, you know, and someone opening the Bible and just preaching the Bible as is, because that's not what they're used to.

So really, the last thing people want today, you know, generally speaking, the last thing people want is exhortations and sound doctrine and people, you know, refuting false teachers. You see, that's in the Bible.

It's certainly biblical.

Jesus called out the Pharisees, explained why their doctrine was false. Paul called out the Judaizers, explained why their doctrine was false. John called out the Antichrist, false teachers, and not only explained why their teaching was wrong, John said, if you let these people in, now you're guilty, since you have become a partaker of their evil deeds.

So the Bible presents one form of ministry, one type of preaching, and, you know, the Osteen, Rick Warren, that type of thing, Max Lucado, totally different. Now, someone could say, yeah, but, you know, Paul and John, they never yes, they did talk about that stuff, but they never called people out by name, like some of these guys like John MacArthur or something.

Well, that's not true, because Jesus called Herod out by name, 2 Timothy 2, Paul calls out Hymenaeus and Philetus by name, because they're teaching an early form of preterism that Jesus already came back and, you know, the end times already took place.

Paul certainly rebuked those men by name. The Apostle John called out diatrophies and on and on it goes, you get the idea. When's the last time you heard Joel Osteen do something like that? He's never done it.

When's the last time you heard Rick Warren call out someone like that? He just doesn't do that type of thing. And the pastors who do, like John MacArthur or Steve Lawson or someone like that, they are now the bad guys because they're not doing what you're supposed to do.

Yeah, but what's the standard? The Bible or this kind of fake standard that was created by Billy Graham and his disciples? In fairness, it's not that you can just blame everything on Billy Graham, I'm just saying he was by far, by far the most influential pastor on the face of the earth.

No one has influenced modern evangelicalism more than Billy Graham because, again, it's not just him. His disciples live on with their influence, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, etc. Okay, so that's created the climate that we have now so that when somebody just does something biblical like address false teaching and call out false teachers by name, now all of a sudden you're the bad guy.

Why Compromise Prevents Refuting False Teaching

So, because of Billy Graham, that's my hypothesis, right? Is that a hypothesis? This is what led us to this point. And the reason why Billy Graham or Joel Osteen or even Rick Warren, the reason why they never called out false teaching, the reason why they didn't hold to Titus 1 verse 9 to refute those who contradict, saying, hey, there's this false teacher right here and here's what he's teaching and I'm going to refute it.

Why didn't Billy Graham and Joel Osteen, why didn't they do that? Here's the key, because they would regularly partner with false teachers themselves. How can they call out false teaching and refute those who contradict when they're partnering with those people?

Someone might say, pastor, how dare you say that?

How dare you?

That's not true. Yes, it is. This is common knowledge. Billy Graham openly partnered with the Pope of Rome. Billy Graham would openly invite theological liberals to sit on the platform and take part in his crusades.

This is fact, okay? This is, check it out. Everyone knows this. Everyone who has read up on it. The theological liberals Billy Graham would partner with, these are men who denied the virgin birth, men who denied the resurrection of Christ.

Those were the types of people Billy would partner with. Of course, Joel Osteen, he praises the Pope of Rome. Rick Warren praises the Pope of Rome. He called him our Pope. Pope Francis is our new Pope.

Pope is doing everything right. How can you call out false teachers and refute those who contradict when you're promoting.

Them?

You can't. That's the problem. These men were heavily compromised at best. When you get to people like Joel Osteen, who is the standard in modern evangelicalism. I read a magazine, this was years ago, but it's called Joel Osteen, America's Pastor.

The face of modern evangelical Christianity, Joel Osteen. Here's the thing. Joel Osteen is a false teacher. Joel Osteen doesn't preach on sin. He doesn't preach repentance. He thinks Mormonism is a valid form of Christianity.

Billy Graham, in 2012, I believe it was, dropped Mormonism from his list of cults. So even Billy seemed to be opening up to Mormonism later on in life. Joel Osteen has promoted new age false teachers like Oprah Winfrey, and he even honored her at his church.

Yet these are the people evangelicals look up to. But when a pastor comes along and tries to preach or restore some semblance of sound doctrine and he refutes those who contradict, like Joel Osteen, like I'm doing right now, Titus 1 verse 9, even though according to the Bible this is our job, all of a sudden now pastors who just do what the Bible says, now we're the problem.

I remember there was a pastor's meeting one time. This came up, Billy Graham, and I just mentioned to one of the guys, an older guy, like I'm talking about, in his 70s, and kind of looked to Billy Graham as the standard his whole.

Life.

But it came up in the pastor's meeting, and I was respectful, and I said, I couldn't get over the Robert Shuler interview when Billy said that Hindus and Muslims and unbelievers are saved and that they'll be with us in heaven, that you don't have to believe in Jesus or have to hear the Bible in order to be saved.

How can Billy Graham say, and I just mentioned that, and this older pastor, he's like, stop,.

Stop everything.

He says, this is very dangerous. He just tried to shut all that down. You shouldn't even bring, don't even talk about that. Of course, in my mind, I'm thinking, no, the dangerous thing would be to say that on television to millions of people, what Billy Graham did, saying that you don't need Jesus to be saved.

That's what's dangerous, not me questioning it, but that's the type of thing you get. So like I said, Joel Osteen can teach falsehoods. He's not even opening the Bible on Sunday morning. Those guys can do whatever they want, and the older generation of pastors who are running churches, that's all fine.

That's great.

It's all terrific. But if you come along and just, hey, I'm going to refute those who contradict, even though it's our job, according to Titus 1 .9, no, you're the problem. You see how this works. Satan is very subtle.

It's very subtle. He has a way of calling evil good and good evil, exchanging bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. So this is nothing new. A pastor who would refute those who contradict, Titus 1 .9, this has always been the way.

The nation of Israel, how did the nation of Israel view the prophets? The prophets who, they showed up on the scene and they preached about what was going on.

In the nation.

Hey, this ain't right. What the false teachers are doing in Israel, this isn't true. This isn't right. Repent. That's what the prophets did. And how did the nation of Israel view the prophets as a bunch of troublemakers, right?

Isn't that what they called Elijah, the troubler of Israel? How did the people view the apostles? Well, they said that the apostles were turning the world upside down. And by the way, that wasn't a compliment, you know, or at least originally it wasn't.

It has been said about the apostle Paul, and I think it's true, wherever Paul went, you either had a revival breakout or a riot. He's just a troublemaker. See, in any generation, it's the true prophets.

It's the true apostles. It's the men who are just preaching the Bible, preaching God's message, calling people to repentance, pointing out the errors, refuting those who contradict. Those are the people that are despised in any generation, while the false prophets are always beloved by the people.

Why is that? Because the false prophets tell people what they want to hear. Jesus said in Luke 6, 26, beware when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. See, the false prophets prophesy smooth words, peace, peace, when there is no peace.

They say things like, God loves everyone unconditionally, no matter what. Now, that sounds great. The problem is, the Bible never says that. As a matter of fact, the Bible says the opposite. There is a condition, and the condition is faith in Jesus Christ.