Now Ephesians chapter 4 is a great passage on Christian growth.
It's talking about the fact that we need to grow up as Christians.
We need to learn a lot of doctrine and we need to grow so that we're not deceived by
all the false teachers that are out there and so that we can know what the truth is
and where we stand and be able to defend what we believe and so forth.
Now in Ephesians 4 verse 11 the Bible reads, and he gave some apostles and some prophets
and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints
for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in
the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ that we henceforth be no more children
tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and
cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive but speaking the truth in love
may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ and he says from whom
the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according
to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto
the edifying of itself in love.
Now the body that's being referred to there is the local church, okay, and within the
local church, in this case the church at Ephesus, there are all kinds of people that have been
placed in that church with various spiritual gifts and various abilities and the Bible
says that God has given us in the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers,
of course apostles were at that time, okay, another sermon in and of itself, Paul was
the last apostle according to 1 Corinthians 15, but what is the purpose of the pastor,
what is the purpose of the teacher, what is the purpose of these people that God has put
in the church, the prophets, the evangelists, the Bible tells us that they are for the perfecting
of the saints.
Now are the saints the saved or the unsaved?
The saved.
He said they're for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry for the
edifying of the body of Christ and then down at the bottom there in verse 16 he said in
the latter part of the verse, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in
love.
So what this is referring to is Christians being built up, Christians being prepared
and equipped to do spiritual battle, Christians being perfected and learning doctrine in the
local church.
Now this is the purpose of the local church.
Now many today have become misguided and they think that the purpose of the local church,
and when I say church, let's make sure we have the definition right.
We're talking about the congregation.
That is what the Bible calls it.
Old Testament scriptures that use the word congregation are quoted in the New Testament
using the word church because church and congregation are two interchangeable words here.
So we're not talking about an organization, a denomination, a building, we're talking
about the assembly or the congregation of born again baptized believers when we say
the church and when we talk about the church here we see that the purpose of that assembly,
the purpose of that body, the purpose of that church is to edify and strengthen believers
to teach them doctrine so that they can be perfect, so that they can grow up, so that
they're not tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.
But many have become misguided and they think the purpose of the church, meaning the assembly,
the congregation, is to get people saved.
Now here's the problem with that doctrine.
Nowhere does the Bible teach that the purpose of us meeting together is to have some kind
of an evangelistic crusade or get people saved.
It's not scriptural.
In fact, when the Bible tells people to get people saved, it's telling us to go out and
get them saved.
Go ye therefore into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my house may
be filled.
Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
We're told to go out amongst the unsafe, and you'll notice that that's the way Jesus
did it with his apostles.
He sent them out two by two into all the towns and villages.
They went everywhere preaching the gospel of the kingdom.
Then they brought in people and there were great multitudes that would come to hear Jesus
preach, but when you notice that when they're hearing Jesus preach, he's not necessarily
preaching on salvation, he's preaching all kinds of doctrine.
Now the problem today is that many churches have become evangelistically oriented in their
services so they're gearing the service toward unsaved people.
Now here's the problem with that.
That's where you get the worldliness, the seeker sensitive, the rock and roll type feel
because they say, hey, we've got to reach people where they're at.
We've got to bring in the unsaved and we have to make them feel comfortable and then we're
going to gear the sermon toward the unsaved which means we're going to preach the plan
of salvation every Sunday morning.
The Bible teaches here that church is a place for the edification of the saints.
Now if we go to Acts 20-28, he talks about the fact that the church needs to be fed,
the flock of God in the local church needs to be fed.
You see, on Sunday morning when people show up to church, 90% of them are already saved.
At least they should be.
I mean church is a congregation of born again baptized believers.
Of course there are going to be visitors that are not saved.
Of course there could be Judas Iscariots that are not saved.
There are going to be unsaved people in any group but the majority are already saved and
what you have across America today is people going to church on Sunday morning and hearing
another salvation message again and again and again and again when they're already saved
then they're not getting fed all the other teaching that they need.
You see, if you go out as a church and preach the gospel to every creature, that's your
evangelism, then it frees you up to spend Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night
actually teaching the Bible, actually building up the believers and edifying the body of
Christ.
Look at Acts 20 verse 28, it says,
Take heed therefore under yourselves, and to all the flock over the witch, the Holy
Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with
his own blood.
Have you ever talked to somebody who said, I left that church because I wasn't being fed?
Yeah, that's a pretty common complaint that you'll hear and often it's because of this
constant preaching of the salvation plan every Sunday morning.
Constant evangelism in the service.
I'm all for getting people saved, I love the gospel, but let's go out and preach the gospel.
Let's have sermons from time to time that talk about the gospel and that preach about salvation.
But what about the rest of the Bible?
It all needs to be taught, it all needs to be preached.
Doctrine, my friend, we need to stop being children, stop being babes in Christ.
He said, look, you need to cease from being children and grow up.
And that means that you need the meat of the word.
That means that you need something besides God's simple plan of salvation.
You need something that's more substantial, you need deeper truths, you need more biblical
doctrine, otherwise you will be deceived by those who are out there lying in wait conniving
their arrow is already drawn back in the bow to trick you and to fool you.
And people today are being tricked into all kinds of weird movements and weird doctrine
because they don't know this book.
Partially because they're not reading it on their own and partially because they're not
being taught doctrine in church.
Now I'm going to preach tonight, that's all introduction, I'm going to preach tonight
about one of the reasons I believe that doctrine is not being preached and taught today in
local churches.
I mean, where's the doctrine?
Where's the beef?
Where's the meat on the bone today?
Why do we have this shallow preaching that does not teach doctrine but rather just teaches
the same simple, basic things over and over again, and I'm all for the simple and basic
but we need more than that also, we need both.
And I think the biggest reason why is the Bible college movement.
It's Bible colleges, they're the problem.
And look, I'm going to preach about it right now, everything I'm going to say is biblical,
it's scriptural, you may disagree, this may offend you, but honestly, everything I'm going
to preach tonight is biblical based and take it and do what you want with it.
But I have a problem with Bible college.
I have a problem with it.
I don't agree with it, it's not scriptural, and I'm going to preach it, somebody needs
to talk about it.
You know, all the Bible colleges, they're out there advertising, they're going to churches,
signing everybody up, sending them stuff in the mail, well I'm going to advertise tonight,
I'm going to advertise why you shouldn't go to Bible college, why I'll never send any
of my kids to Bible college, why I don't approve of Bible college, and they can get up and
advertise their belief, I'm going to advertise my belief tonight.
And it's biblical.
The first reason that I don't like Bible college is that number one, it has replaced
the local church as being the institution that teaches Bible doctrine.
See if you want to learn Bible doctrine today, well go to Bible college, go to seminary,
and it's not taught in the local church.
And what happens is Bible college becomes the place where people think of as being the
place where Bible doctrine is being taught.
If you really want to learn the doctrine and you really want to learn biblical truths and
understand biblical prophecy or understand the doctrines of salvation, the doctrines
of regeneration and all these different big words that they'll use, they say go to Bible
college and get a deep education if you really need to know the scriptures and if you really
want to learn about all the kings of Israel and all the kings of Judah and the timeline
and if you want to understand books like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, that stuff's just
too deep for a local church service.
You need to go to Bible college to learn that, you need to go to seminary to learn that.
And what happens is because we have Bible colleges that teach doctrine, then that just
makes the church preach even less doctrine because they're like well the Bible college
is taking care of that.
They're learning at a Bible college.
You know I've heard people say well you know when you graduate from high school you need
to do one year at a Bible college because you need to get a doctrinal foundation.
Where have you been for the last 18 years?
Have you been getting a doctrinal foundation or not?
If you haven't, something's wrong.
When the Bible says that the whole purpose of the local church is to teach doctrine and
to teach the Bible, all of the Bible and that includes Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the minor
prophets, it should all be preached, it should all be taught, you should be able to learn
it all right here in church.
So that's one thing.
But number two, Bible college is never mentioned in the Bible.
Now that right there, I mean that should be enough to just close our Bibles and pray and
go home.
It's not mentioned.
Now turn to 2 Kings chapter 22 verse 14, 2 Kings 22, because that should be a big red
flag right there.
If God really intended us to have these giant major institutions where the Bible is being
taught and where young men are being trained for the ministry, and look let's face it today,
pastors are not coming out of churches today, they're coming out of Bible colleges.
I mean we sent out a month ago Brother Dave to go start the church, Brother David Berzins
to start the church up in Prescott, Arizona.
That doesn't happen every day, because that's rare anymore that a local church would just
train a guy and just send him out to start a church.
It's Bible colleges that they're coming out of.
So we're supposed to believe that 99% of pastors should be coming out of Bible colleges, not
out of local churches.
We're supposed to believe that's God's plan and that that's God's will and that God has
designed this system where everybody sends their children to a centralized or young men
to a centralized Bible college where they're trained for the ministry.
If that be the case, why is that never taught in Scripture?
If it's God's will, if it's God's plan, where is it in the Bible?
Now I did a search on the word college.
Let's see if college is mentioned.
It's only mentioned one time.
It's two mentions because it's a parallel passage, but both verses say the identical
thing.
One's in 2 Kings, one's in 2 Chronicles.
Look at 2 Kings 22.14, it says,
So Hilkiah the priest and Ahicham and Achbor and Shaphan and Azahiah went unto Huldah the
prophetess, the wife of Shalom the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe.
Now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college and they communed with her.
Now I personally do not believe that anything in the Bible is an accident.
I don't think anything's a coincidence.
I think that everything's there for a reason.
And I look at this and I say that college is mentioned one time, it's associated with
a female preacher.
This does not bode well for Bible college being biblical.
And you say, well that meaning of college, that's a completely different meaning.
Okay, it's all we've got folks.
There's no mention of college.
I'm trying to preach about college tonight and that's all I can find, a woman preacher.
That's not looking good.
Now a lot of people will say this, well, you have to understand, go to Acts chapter 19,
a lot of people will say this, well, although Bible college is not mentioned and although
there's no teaching on this in the New Testament, they'll say if you go to the Old Testament
you'll find the pattern for Bible college back in the Old Testament.
You say, where?
And they'll say, well, Elisha had the school of the prophets.
Elisha had the school of the prophets.
And I remember, I heard that my whole life about the school of the prophets, school of
the prophets.
One day I decided to look it up.
It wasn't there.
It's not there.
Yeah, I got a concordance and just looked up school, nothing.
No school of the prophets.
But if you just keep repeating it, you know, school of the prophets, school of the prophets,
pretty soon people just start thinking it's there.
Oh yeah, well the school of the prophets, of course.
But it isn't really even there, it doesn't even exist.
So right here in Acts 19 we find the only mention of school in the Bible, one time.
It says in verse 8, and he went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months
disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
But when divers were hardened and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the
multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples disputing daily in the school
of one Tyrannus.
So here we see that the only mention of school is a place where the Apostle Paul was going
and disputing with unsaved people.
Just like he went to the synagogue, which is where the Jews would resort, and the Jews
were not saved.
I mean, the Jews are still on the old covenant as misinterpreted by the Pharisees and Sadducees
and scribes.
That's the program they're on.
The purpose of the Apostles in going into the synagogue was to get people saved.
They're going in to unsaved people and they just get up and preach to them.
Try to get them saved.
Try to tell them the truth.
That wasn't their church service.
That was their evangelism, going out and getting people saved on the Sabbath days.
They'd go into the synagogue and try to preach to Jews and get them saved.
Here we see them doing that and then we also see them going to this school of Tyrannus
and disputing with people that were hardened, people that didn't want to hear the gospel,
people that are not saved.
You know, they're trying to dispute with them.
Now, I've gone into a school and I've gone to Tyrannus Community College and disputed
a few times.
There's a community college three miles from here, South Mountain Community College, and
I go there multiple times per semester.
There's a teacher there that brings me in and allows me to say whatever I want, no holds
barred, otherwise I wouldn't even do it.
I mean, if there was any censorship, I wouldn't do it.
But he says, preach whatever you want, say whatever you want.
And I go in there and preach the Bible and try to get people saved, right?
And one person when I was there said, Pastor Anderson, you're a hypocrite.
Because he said, you don't believe in college, you don't believe in public schools, you don't
believe in Bible college, you don't believe in going to a public school, yet you're in
here preaching the Bible to us, you're a hypocrite.
And I said, no, because I said, I'm fine when it's me walking in here and preaching to you.
I'm not going to sit and attend classes here.
I don't want to hear all the false things that are being taught at the public school
system, but if the public school system invites me in to come in and preach the Word of God,
that's not hypocrisy.
And I said, I don't approve of this class that we're in.
Okay, the class is called World Religions.
They're learning about all religion.
I don't approve of that.
One of the classes that I taught on was Religion and S-E-X, and they say, come in and speak
in this class.
I got up and preached against fornication, preached against adultery, preached against
divorce, so I got to preach the Bible, but I said, I only approve of this class when
I'm teaching it, because I'm preaching the Bible.
But I'm not going to start a school, I'm not going to start a college.
It's not biblical.
Now, going into Tyrannus' school and preach the Bible, I'll go into a Jewish synagogue
and preach the Bible.
I'll go into a Mormon church and preach it.
If I'm preaching, if I'm preaching the law of salt, let's do it.
But here we see that this is the only mention of school.
They're not saved.
It's not a biblical pattern here of something we're following.
So therefore, just the fact that it's not taught or mentioned should tell us that there's
a problem.
When we see the church mentioned hundreds of times, we see the church being a place
that sends people out into the ministry, that lays hands on people and ordains them for
the ministry, where people are chosen and set apart, where people are trained, where
people are equipped, where people learn the Bible, where people get teaching and preaching
of God's Word, but we don't see the college.
Yet we're supposed to believe it's God's program, it's God's plan.
I don't buy it.
Now many will say this, well Pastor Anderson, college is church.
This is what they'll say.
They'll say, you've got to understand, Bible college is a ministry of the local church.
So therefore, when you're trained by Bible college, you're being trained by the local
church.
Right?
I mean that's what they'll say.
Well here's the problem with that.
Do you pay money to go to church?
But you pay money to go to Bible college.
So think about that.
If Bible college is church, then that means you've turned the house of God into a house
of merchandise.
Because now you're selling, you're buying and selling, you're selling books, you're
selling everything, you're selling food, you're selling all the different things that
they sell, you're selling the classes, you're paying for tuition.
Look, anything that's bought or sold in the house of God is unscriptural, period.
See all those DVDs and CDs and Bibles back there?
They're all free and we would never sell anything for any price because Jesus cast out those
who bought and sold and said, make not my Father's house, the house of merchandise.
And what were they buying and selling?
Doves.
Are doves bad?
In fact doves were a very spiritual thing because those doves were used for the sacrifice.
And the Bible even teaches in the Old Testament that it was perfectly right for people to
bring money instead of bringing an animal from the flock, if they were too far away,
to bring money and buy the sacrifices when they got there.
That was taught in the Old Testament.
So why did Jesus get angry?
Because they were doing it in the house of God.
Nothing wrong with selling doves, nothing wrong with selling cattle, nothing wrong with
changing money from Euros into dollars into pesos, but when you're doing it in God's house
that is a problem.
And that's why nothing shall ever be bought or sold in this church.
Ever.
Nothing.
Well, what about that?
No.
Well, but surely, no.
It'll never be bought or sold.
Nothing.
Tell me what we bought or sold in the last eight years.
Because this is not a house of merchandise.
It's a house of prayer, it's a house of preaching, it's not a house of merchandise.
So this whole thing of, well, it's church, but you pay to go there, but you're not assembled
with the whole congregation, but you're doing it sometimes even in a completely different
place, a completely different facility, and basically it's patterned after a worldly system.
Now go to Matthew chapter 23, Matthew chapter number 23.
So we see first of all that Bible college has replaced the local church as being a place
of doctrine.
Instead of teaching that you can learn all the Bible you need, you can learn the ministry,
you can learn soul winning, you can learn preaching, you can learn song leading in a
local church, now it becomes you have to go somewhere and pay a bunch of money to learn
that.
Number two, it's just frankly not biblical.
The only mentions of college and school are negative mentions.
A woman preacher.
Tyrannosaurus is disputing with the word of God.
Then we see that it's complete, number three is that it's completely worldly.
It's completely patterned after the world's institutions, I'll prove it to you.
Look at Matthew 23, verse 8, it says, Be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your master, even
Christ, and all ye are brethren.
And call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father which is in heaven.
Neither be ye called masters, for one is your master, even Christ.
So there are three titles, according to Matthew 23, that are off limits to a man of God.
That are off limits to preachers, because he's speaking unto his disciples who are preachers,
who are men of God, who are the apostles of the land.
He tells them don't be called Rabbi.
Don't be called Father, and don't be called Master.
Now here's what's interesting, Rabbi is Hebrew for Master.
So what he's telling them is don't be called by the Hebrew word for Master, and don't be
called by the Greek word for Master, in our case English word for Master because we speak
English.
Of course the New Testament was written in Greek.
So what that tells me is that he's doubly telling us not to be called Master as he's
telling us not to be called Father.
Now if we see a Catholic priest calling himself Father, we say that's wrong, that's blasphemous.
He should not call himself Father, the Pope should not call himself Father, the priest
should not call himself Father.
But wait a minute, why do we use the title Master and confer the title of Master upon
men of God who study in Bible college?
Because after you get the bachelor degree, what do you get?
You are given the title of Master of Theology, Master of Divinity, Master of Christian Education,
Masters of the Universe, you know like He-Man or something, okay?
And look, the Bible said no, well that's not what he meant.
That's what the Catholic will tell you.
You say the Catholic, it says not to be called Father, well that's not what he meant.
What's his Master of Theology, no that's not what he meant.
Why is this guy called Rabbi, oh that's okay.
And by the way, quit listening to people called Rabbi, because this Hebrew roots movement
is a big movement right now that teaches a lot of false doctrine, that blasphemes the
name of Jesus and says if you don't call him Yeshua, you're not calling him the right name.
And there's a lot of false doctrine, I've already preached whole sermons about the false
doctrine associated with the Hebrew roots movement, or the sacred name movement, trying
to bring us back under the law, back under the old covenant, things that are specifically
repealed in the New Testament.
You'll find these guys all the time that are calling themselves Rabbi.
That should be a red flag immediately.
Oh, you've got to listen to this teaching by Rabbi so-and-so.
Not going to listen to it.
That's all I needed to hear, done.
Don't want to hear it.
I will not listen to anyone who calls themselves Rabbi, because they're not listening to Jesus,
why should I listen to them?
Rabbi so-and-so.
It's funny to me, man I just want to go off on the Hebrew roots movement right now, but
I don't have time, but it's funny to me how they think that if you just say things in
Hebrew it makes them magical.
Like instead of saying law, they say Torah, which is just the Hebrew word for law.
It's the same word.
But if they call it Torah, then it's like woo, you know, Torah observing.
Why don't they say law observing?
Law observing Christian.
And look, because they don't want to be seen as bringing us back under the law, because
there's so much scripture telling us not to do that and so many things about that.
So by calling it the Torah, it becomes magical.
If we say shalom and mashlamcha, then basically we have somehow reached a higher level of
spirituality.
If we draw little pictograms instead of writing with English letters, somehow there's magic
behind it.
Literally, people think it's magical.
Even the word magic is the appropriate word.
They will even use the word mystical and magical sometimes about the Hebrew language.
But again, we see here that it doesn't matter whether you speak in Hebrew or English, quit
calling people master, because we as God's preachers and prophets, men of God, are not
masters.
We are not to be given that title.
Now, why do you go to a Bible college and earn the title Master of Divinity or Master
of Theology?
Simple.
Because if you go to a secular university, they give out a master's degree and the Bible
college is seeking to be compatible with the world system.
So this should show you where Bible college is at.
There's a choice with being compatible with this book and being compatible with Harvard
and Princeton and Yale and the University of Arizona and ASU, and the choices made to
be compatible with the world system.
Because why use that, do you think that the Bible colleges just dreamed up that term master?
No, they just got it from, I mean, associate's degree, bachelor degree, I mean, these titles
are dumb.
Bachelor?
I thought a bachelor was some guy who, you know, isn't married, lives in an apartment
by himself and eats chips off his chest.
You know, I thought that's a bachelor.
I thought a bachelor is a guy who has a messy apartment.
What is this bachelor?
You go to school for four years, it's like you've been married for years and then you
go to school and become a bachelor.
I mean, did your wife leave you?
But this is the kind of nonsense that people will accept because they're not trying to
line up with the Bible, they're trying to line up with the world.
Okay, go to 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 1.
If Bible college was truly seeking to be a Bible following institution, they'd come up
with their own titles that are biblical instead of using a title that Jesus strictly prohibited,
the term master.
Now you'll also see a lot of use of the term doctor, but yet biblically you don't see any
of God's people or New Testament Christianity ever using the term doctor.
Did you ever see Dr. Barnabas, Dr. Silas, Dr. John, Dr. Peter, anybody see any verses
like that?
No, whenever the Bible mentions doctors, it's the Pharisees.
Did you hear that?
Listen to this, Luke 5.17, and it came to pass on a certain day as he was teaching that
there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by.
Acts 5.34, then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a doctor
of the law.
This was a Pharisee term, being a doctor.
Jesus when he was 12 years old, when he was in the temple, remember when he was speaking
with the doctors.
Those are the only three mentions.
It's referring to the Pharisees and that was a term that they used and something that
they called themselves, it's not something that God, but wait a minute, it's not that
God doesn't give people titles because he does.
Titles like bishop, titles like elder, titles like pastor, titles like deacon.
These are biblical institutions, these are biblical offices, they have biblical qualifications.
See to become a bishop, there's a qualification that you have to live up to.
To become a deacon, you must live up to a biblical qualification.
Now it might not be 120 credit hours, 120 study hours, but you know what, it's a biblical
qualification and it's a biblical office.
It's not a man-made title, associate, bachelor, master, doctor, these are not biblical terms.
Second Corinthians chapter 3 verse 1 says this, do we begin again to commend ourselves
or need we as some others epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you?
Ye are our epistle written in our hearts known and read of all men.
When I read this I can't help but think of a Bible college degree.
You know your letter of commendation, your epistle of commendation to basically show
that you are qualified, you have been commended, you are the master of theology, you are the
bachelor of arts, but it says in verse 5 not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think
anything as of ourselves but our sufficiency is of God.
So do we as Christians derive our sufficiency in the ministry from titles given by schools
and men and institutions not found in the Bible or do we derive our sufficiency from
God and is not the proof in the pudding.
Paul said you want to see my epistle of commendation?
You are my epistle because I won you to Christ.
You know I taught you the word of God, you are the epistle of commendation.
Now back in the book of Job, Eli who speaks in Job 32 and I realize that Job's friends
when they speak, this is not one of the original three friends, you know, Eliphaz, Zophar,
and Bildad, but after Job argues with his three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Zophar
the Naamathite, Bildad the Shuhite, when he's done talking to them, another young guy pipes
up named Eli who and spends several chapters talking to Job.
Now Eli who says a lot of things that are false, Eli who condemns Job, Eli who says
that Job is a sinful man.
These are the things that are clearly not true because God tells us he was a perfect
and upright man that feared God and eschewed evil and that he was being tested not because
he had done anything wrong, but rather to prove unto Satan that he was as righteous
as God said he was.
But that being said, that doesn't mean that some of the things that Eli who says were
not right because even Job's three friends said a lot of things that were right and in
fact, Eliphaz the Temanite is quoted by the Apostle Paul in the book, I believe, 2 Corinthians
chapter 3.
So it's not that everything they said was wrong, it's just that what they say cannot
be thought of as authoritative because sometimes Job's friends were right and sometimes Job's
friends were wrong.
Now whenever Job is speaking in the book of Job, we know it's right because God said what
he spake was right and we know that when God is speaking in the book of Job, of course
everything God says is right, but the friends, they're attacking Job, they're criticizing
Job, they're saying a lot of wrong things, but here's one thing that Eli who said that
I believe is right on because like I said, the Apostle Paul quoted Eliphaz when he was
right.
I'm going to quote Elihu when he was right.
In Job 32 21 it says, let me not, I pray you, except any man's person, neither let me give
flattering titles unto man, for I know not to give flattering titles and so doing my
Maker would soon take me away.
So there he's speaking against giving flattering titles unto man.
Is that compatible with the rest of scripture?
Absolutely, because Proverbs speaks very often, Brother David Burzins preached a great
sermon a few months ago about flattery and how much the Bible warns us of the flattering
and the flattering titles.
And you know it was the Pharisees who loved to go in the long robes.
They loved greetings in the marketplace and to be called Rabbi.
They loved the highest seat at the synagogue.
Is it really biblical?
Is it really scriptural?
Is it really the heart of a servant and of Jesus Christ who made himself of no reputation
but took upon him the form of a servant to accept titles and to put titles on the wall
and say, excuse me, it's Dr. Steven Anderson.
And I remember I won this guy to the Lord at my job as an electrician.
I won this guy to the Lord and I said, hey, you know, we're going to listen to the Bible
on CD.
We're going to listen to the Bible on CD for a while because we were driving the work truck
together every day.
So we listened to the Bible and then I said, you know, let's listen to some Bible preaching
and I'd put on Bible preaching on the stereo because this guy's a brand new believer.
And in the sermon they'd introduce these preachers, Dr. So-and-so.
And he said, stop the tape.
He said, are these guys doctors?
You know, because when he hears doctor, he thinks that, you know, a surgeon, he's thinking
they're a physician.
So you're like, why are these guys calling themselves doctor all the time?
Doctor?
You know, are these guys doctors?
You know, I don't know why they call themselves doctor.
I'll tell you why.
Pride.
I mean pride.
And look, there's nothing wrong with being called a title that the Bible uses.
You know, there's nothing wrong with me being called pastor or bishop or elder.
There's nothing wrong with calling somebody deacon.
There's nothing wrong with calling somebody brother.
And you know what, you can call me Brother Anderson all day long, but I don't need special
titles like Rabbi, Master, Bachelor, you know, Master or Doctor.
These are not biblical terms.
Why don't we speak in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth and not the words which
man's wisdom teaches?
And why do we have these flattering titles?
You say, well they don't call themselves doctor.
You know, other people are calling them that, but it's just a flattering title.
You know, it's just a way to, and I know a guy who has a doctorate and he never even
goes by it.
He says that he doesn't like it.
He doesn't feel comfortable.
He doesn't like to be elevated and so nobody knows that he has it.
He doesn't talk about it and he just doesn't even use that title because he just said,
you know, I just don't feel right about it.
You know, and he's not even saved.
He's an unsaved guy and he's more humble than some people that want to have all these flattering
titles and so forth that are not really biblical titles.
You know, and I'm all for giving honor to whom honor is due.
I'm all for treating people with respect, but let's do it in a biblical way.
I'm all for calling somebody a bishop or a pastor or a deacon, but you know, calling
somebody doctor, that's something that the Pharisees do.
Calling somebody master, that's something Jesus told us not to do.
Calling somebody rabbi and father, that's blasphemy.
We need not get caught up in this type of putting of a man on that kind of a pedestal.
Now I'm all for children referring to adults by their last name.
I'm all for being formal with people that you don't know and I'm all for people calling
my wife Mrs. Anderson or calling me Brother Anderson.
You know, I'm not saying that we should all become super casual and super friendly, but
at the same time though, giving people lofty titles that are not biblical is something
that I think we should not do to pastors and men of God and to give them flattering
titles that are not biblical.
That's what I believe.
But another reason that I don't believe that Bible college is scriptural besides all of
those things is turn, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 5, Ephesians chapter number 5.
You say, why do you preach about this?
Why do you make a big deal about this?
Why don't you just go with the flow?
Why are you causing division?
Why are you causing trouble?
I'm not trying to cause trouble.
If they have the right to push their view that everybody needs to go to Bible college
and to push their view that says that you're not a legitimate pastor unless you have a
Bible college degree, then I have the right to push my view.
And my view is biblical.
The positions that I hold are biblical.
The positions that I confer upon others are biblical.
The positions that I respect are biblical, not man-made, worldly institutions.
But look at Ephesians chapter 5, this is a key point about what the problem with Bible
college is.
It says in Ephesians 5, 24, therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the
wives be to their own husbands in everything.
And of course this is the scripture that teaches that Christ is the head of the church, he's
the savior of the body.
And he compares marriage unto this, he compares the husband unto Jesus Christ, and he compares
the wife unto the church and says that just as the church is subject unto Christ, so let
the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Now the Bible is clear, Christ is the head of the church.
This is why we are not part of a denomination, this is why we are independent Baptists.
There's a reason why we're independent Baptists.
And it's not because we just couldn't find a denomination that we liked.
Because if we wanted to, we could find all kinds of pastors all over America that believe
like us, or similar to us, and we could say, hey let's form our own denomination, let's
join up and we'll form our own, you know, faithful word Baptist association, where we're
all linked up.
We will never do that.
We will remain independent.
Now we sent out Brother David Berzins to start a church in Prescott, Arizona, he's doing
a great job, he's been at it for about a month now, he's doing a phenomenal job up
there, he is independent.
He does not take orders from me, he does not answer to me, he is not dependent upon me,
he is doing his own thing up there, he answers to one person and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
That church is an independent, fundamental Baptist church, and we're not just saying
independent, it really is independent.
My best friend Roger Jimenez, who I trained and taught many things, and mentored him for
years, he is pastoring a church in Sacramento, California that is completely independent,
does not answer to me, I don't answer to him, and you know, if you went to that church,
there would probably be small differences between that church and this church.
But you know what?
That's okay, because we're independent, and we're not trying to control him, he's not
trying to control us, and the reason that that's so important is that the only way that
Christ can really be the head of the church is when the church only answers to Christ.
And when you have a denomination, what that does is it puts another centralization of
power outside of Christ and outside the local church, which is a denominational headquarters
that gives the marching orders to that church, and this is why the Southern Baptist Convention
for example.
You can sit there and say, well, you know, I think it's fine to be a Southern Baptist,
but you know, when you're a Southern Baptist, you are linked up, you are yoked up with a
denomination that, for example, uses a false Bible version.
The Holman Christian Standard Bible puts out their false Bible version, preaches a lot
of false doctrine, okay?
You're yoked up with a lot of churches that are not right by joining in with that association.
And the Bible says, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather
reprove them.
The Bible says, can two walk together except they be agreed?
You know, whether it's the North American Baptist Convention, the General Association
of Regular Baptists, the Southern Baptist Convention, all of these conventions and associations
are all corrupt, and they'll say, we're not a denomination, but 10% of the offering goes
to them, but they control the pastor's pension in many cases, but they send the Sunday school
material that's taught every Sunday, and it's a centralization of power, and the devil
loves it, because what the devil can do then, when the power is all centralized somewhere,
all he has to do is corrupt that central headquarters and it all filters down.
You know, so many denominations are now starting to back off on the homosexuals.
They're saying they can be church members, they can be Sunday school teachers, they can
be deacons, you know, they can be even pastors in some really liberal denominations, and
a lot of times the churches in these denominations are infuriated by that.
They don't stand for it, they don't believe in it, and they want to do what's right, but
the denomination makes these pronouncements, and then they have a choice to make.
Are we going to break with the denomination and do what's right, or are we going to compromise
and stay with the denomination, and usually there's a pretty big financial incentive to
stay with the denomination.
There's a conflict of interest there.
And when you have denominations, false doctrine can come in at the top and filter down.
Corruption can just corrupt a few people, just the president of the convention, just
a few people on the board of directors or whatever, and then it can all filter down.
And instead of one church going bad, hundreds of churches go bad, thousands of churches
go bad.
You see, if faithful word Baptist church goes bad, word of truth Baptist and Prescott doesn't
have to go bad.
You know, Verity Baptist doesn't have to go bad.
Verity's independent, and if one church goes bad, well that church goes bad.
Now what Bible colleges do for independent Baptists, even though they are not a denomination,
they start to look like a denomination, and they create denomination-like ties and they
centralize way too much power.
They centralize the teaching, they centralize the power, and they put all the power in the
hands of a few people that can become corrupted.
And then when a Bible college gets corrupted, you're corrupting hundreds of churches.
Perfect example, Hyles Anderson College.
Hyles Anderson College was a college where hundreds and hundreds of churches are sending
their young people there.
They had an influence over hundreds and hundreds of churches all across America, maybe even
more than a thousand.
And what happened when Dr. Jack Scopp started saying the King James Bible has errors?
The King James Bible is not inspired.
What happened?
All these churches had to choose, are we going to break from Jack Scopp, are we going to
break from Hyles Anderson, are we going to send our students somewhere else, or are we
just going to go along with it and get along with it?
And a lot of them went along with Scopp.
And when Scopp preached that perversion, that sick perversion in his book, The Divine Intimacy,
and when Scopp said the King James Bible is not the Word of God, or he didn't say it's
not the Word of God, excuse me, he said it's filled with errors.
Still God's Word, but it's filled with errors.
He said that when it was printed, he repeated the lie that it had like 20,000 errors in
it.
Well guess what, there's only 31,000 verses in the Bible, is he saying two out of three
verses are an error?
But what he's referring to is that they changed the spelling 20,000 times, and that's an error,
because they spelled music wrong, with a K or something, you know, it's just this nonsense,
this garbage.
And he held this thing called the King James Summit, because he was coming under so much
fire, and at this King James Summit he taught pastors how to lie.
He got up and he said this, he said, you can tell your people that the King James Bible
is perfect, because perfect doesn't mean without error, perfect just means complete, kind of
like Job was perfect, even though he wasn't sinless.
So he taught them how to play a semantic game, and to say, you know, well you can still say
it's perfect, but you know, we know that it's not really perfect perfect.
There are churches around here that just worship Hyles Anderson, and they were willing to drink
the Scop Kool-Aid, and all over America there are all these churches that just would not,
and I remember, I had a friend in another part of the country, he went soul winning
with this pastor, and he said to the pastor, he said, what would you say about a pastor
who said this, and he gave an exact quote from Jack Scott, what would you say about
a pastor, he said, oh that guy's not saved, he's a heretic, that's wicked, he said okay
that was Jack Scott, oh whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'd have to hear that
in context.
But this is what I'm saying is, and you say well why, why defend him, why do that, because
they send all their students there, because their advertising is tied in with them, because
their staff is all from there, and if they were to break with Hyles Anderson, it would
be like setting off a nuclear bomb in their church, because it would just, oh, you know,
because they're so tied in, they're so meshed in with a foreign church in a distant state
that they can't break from it without causing a cataclysm in their church.
Now it's not a denomination per se, but it's kind of becoming like one in many cases where
you have these fundamental popes across America, and these fundamental popes, whether it be
Jack Scott, Jack Treber, Jack, or whatever, they're all named Jack, right, Paul Tapel,
these popes, these fundamental popes become sort of a denominational headquarters, and
you can kind of tell where people line up by where do you send your kids to school,
what's Bible college, and it becomes an association, and it becomes almost similar to a denomination,
where you're tied into that crowd, and you better play ball, and you better go along
to get along, and so forth.
And therefore, when Jack Scott preached all this crazy stuff, and all this heretical stuff,
you know what, instead of just one church going down the drain, he took hundreds of
churches down a wrong path.
But if we were independent, that wouldn't happen.
One goofball gets up and preaches all this crazy stuff, he's not going to sit there and
take everybody else with him.
And these Bible colleges, the reason they have so much power, and the reason why they
create these denomination-like ties is because really, they encourage and strongly push that
every young person go there.
And here's what happens.
Because of Bible colleges, local churches are completely devoid of young singles.
Now I remember when I was 18 years old, I went to an independent fundamental Baptist
church.
And when I was a teenager, I was in the youth group.
And so I had all kinds of teenage friends, and I'd go on youth activities, and I'd have
teenage friends hanging around.
And they had a rule at this church, they said, when you graduate from high school, you're
out of the youth group.
They said, you're out.
So I didn't tell them I graduated, because I didn't want to be out of the youth group.
So I stayed in the youth group, because I graduated when I was 17.
So I stayed in the youth group, didn't say anything about graduating.
I didn't lie about it, I just didn't say anything, just kept showing up.
But then pretty soon they figured it out, like, you've been 18.
You've been 18 for a long time.
It's like, okay, I graduated a year ago.
And they said, sorry, we can't let you come to the youth group, because if we did it for
you, we'd have to do it for everybody.
So you're out of the youth group now, they said.
Okay, well, guess what?
There were teenagers in the youth group, and then there was me, 18.
The next person, and this is in a church with like almost 200 people in it, 150, 200 people
in it.
The next person up my age was a 30-year-old man who was married with two kids, and I'm
sure I had a lot in common with him.
I'm an 18-year-old single teenager, and the next guy up is 30 years old, married with
two kids.
Because this is what would happen.
The students turn 18 and they do two things.
They go to the world, quit going to church, or they go to Bible college.
So all the boys, all the girls, they're all going to Bible college.
So I have to sit here and be like, okay, am I going to just have a worldly social life?
Am I just going to socialize with unsaved people and worldly people?
Or am I just going to go to Bible college?
And I almost did it.
I mean, I almost just bit the bullet and went to Bible college, because it was like, okay,
I need some Christian friends, I need some godly young people.
You know, I want to date a Christian girl and find somebody to get married to, but they're
all gone.
They all disappear.
And if you've grown up in church, if you've been in independent baptism, you know what
I'm saying is true.
They turn 18 and they're all gone.
So you have to go to Bible college, and Bible college becomes the meat market, you know,
to go find a wife.
It's the only place to find one.
It's the only place to find a husband, find a wife, because they're all gone from the
local churches.
And look at the advertising from the Bible colleges.
Look at the advertising.
Look at the ads.
It's always these beautiful young girls and handsome young guys.
That's what the advertising is geared toward, folks.
It's obvious.
You look at the ads, and you're showing all these good looking people, and the tour group,
you know, it's not just about your singing voice, you know, whether you get picked for
this tour group.
You know, you've got to be this real debonair guy, or you've got to be this really beautiful
girl to be in the tour group, because you're going around and advertising the school in
that way.
Because it becomes a thing of, hey, and they even say, you need to go to Bible college,
find a husband.
Go to Bible college, find a wife.
So it pushes young people to go to Bible college.
And it's kind of like, go to Bible college, or have a worldly social life.
Those are your two choices.
And a lot of people don't want to go to Bible college, they're forced to just hang around
with worldly people, and then they get a bunch of worldly bad influences, and on and on.
So therefore, the young people also, not only do the young people have to go to Bible college,
or else they're left with no friends, no fellowship, no one their age that has anything in common,
but also this causes children to leave their parents' home at 18 without being married,
without being mature, and going off somewhere else where their parents are not there to
rule over them.
Now I don't believe in it.
The Bible clearly says, therefore shall a man leave father and mother and cleave unto
his wife, and they too shall be one flesh.
The Bible does not say, when you turn 18, you leave father and mother and cleave unto
a roommate somewhere.
And today, the normal thing is that you turn 18, you're single, you turn 18, you just move
out a single.
But that's not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible teaches that you should get married.
You should leave father and mother and cleave unto your wife, cleave unto your husband.
And I remember when I was a teenager, I really wanted to move out right when I turned 18.
And I'm sure a lot of teenagers have felt the same way.
And I was like, man, when I turn 18, I'm going to move out as soon as I turn 18.
And I want, it's going to be great, I can do my own thing, I can have my apartment,
I can do all that stuff, but thankfully I started going to an independent fundamental
Baptist church when I was 17, really got a lot of good preaching and started reading
my Bible, and I rethought that and I decided I'm going to stay living at home until I get
married.
And I just decided that that's what the Bible taught, I just decided that it just wasn't
God's plan for me to go.
Now I did leave and go to Europe for a few months and work with missionaries, but I was
staying with pastors in their homes, you know, I was kind of like a part of the family just
for a few months.
That was more just a short-term trip.
But I went home from that and I lived with my parents, and my parents had rules for me
and I lived with them and I stayed with them and I did not go off and live with a roommate.
And I think it's especially dangerous for girls, even more than boys, because an 18-year-old
girl has no business leaving her father and mother and going off and doing her own thing.
God did not design women to just govern themselves in that way, especially not at that young
age.
You know, daughters are supposed to be under their parents' authority, and then they get
married and they're under their husband's authority.
I said authority, okay?
And see, even in the Bible it talks about a woman's husband dying and her going back
and living with her parents and living in her father's house, because that father figure
is an important figure in a daughter's life.
And then that's replaced by the husband.
He becomes that authority figure, unless you have one of these queer 50-50 marriages, but
you know, that's what the Bible teaches.
The Bible says that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ said at the church.
So what I'm saying is that it's created this pattern of young people moving out and so
many have been corrupted in Bible college.
You know, girls, boys, they go out and they don't have the same level of supervision and
accountability, it's just not the same.
If they do, if they do go to one that's run like a prison camp, even then, that's not
biblical for them to be enslaved in that way.
You know, if we would just stick with the Bible's plan, we'd have the family, we'd have
the local church, and these are God's institutions.
But instead we think that we have a better idea, so we break up the family, we separate
the family, and then we break up the local church and spread, you know, send all the
young people, and then there's what the Bible colleges do.
All the best talent, they keep you.
And then they send back everybody else, you know, once they've been trained.
So then these Bible colleges and the churches that host these Bible colleges just get bigger
and bigger and bigger and more powerful and huge and massive, and then they brag about
it.
We have more people in our restroom, you know, than you have in your little podunk church
back home.
Right?
And then they glory how they're running thousands.
You're taking everybody from all over the nation.
And you know what, when I was at Hyles Anderson, because I was there for a while, when I was
at Hyles Anderson, you know who brought all the people, you know who brought all the visitors
to church?
The Bible college students that were from other parts of the country.
You know who had all the people saved, you know who had all the people baptized?
The Bible college students.
And those people, look at all the people who were getting saved.
Yeah, but those same people, guess what, before I went to Hyles Anderson, I was doing it in
my hometown.
And then I went to Hyles Anderson and did it there.
They didn't teach me to do it, I was already doing it.
I learned it in my local church, but instead I was doing it there instead of doing it here.
So what?
So these churches just get bigger and bigger and more powerful and they're sucking up all
the young people, they're sucking up all the young men and young girls, and they're putting
them all in the Bible college and teaching them what they want to teach them.
And here's why it gets corrupt.
The reason it gets corrupt is that a Bible college by nature is trying to draw students
from a lot of different churches, because they want to maximize enrollment.
Therefore they can't take hard stands.
Therefore they can't be militant.
They can't take a controversial stand and ruffle feathers.
They can be extra liberal.
Because look, when I was at Hyles Anderson and Dr. Scopp would say something weird, he'd
get a ton of amens, because whenever you preach liberal stuff, there's always somebody who
wants to hear it.
If that's not true, then why are these liberal, cornerstone, and life-way church ministry
fun center, why are they so big?
You can always find people who want to listen to you talk about how all Bible versions are
fine.
You can always find people that want to hear watered down doctrine that says Pentecostals
are fine.
Look, they by nature don't want to make people mad, because they're a Bible college.
Because they've got to keep everybody happy.
So therefore the doctrine becomes watered down.
And not only that, but the devil attacks these Bible colleges, because he knows that's where
all the power is centralized, and if he can bring them down, if he can infiltrate them,
if he can get his guy in there, he can affect hundreds of churches, he can affect thousands
of churches.
Today we are suffering in this country from a lack of good churches.
There's no question about it.
There's no question.
All across America today, people are constantly contacting me and saying, find me a good church
in my area, help me find a good church.
And I always am trying to send them recommendations and do the best I can, because I'm a strong
believer in the local church.
Not Bible college, not cemetery, not all this other stuff.
Local church.
And so I'm always telling people, don't listen to me on the internet and not go to church,
man, get in church, get in a local church.
And I'm constantly trying to find it, but you know what?
It gets harder and harder to find a good church, and then you send them to church and they're
like, man, this church is so liberal, and I'm like, well, you know, it's the best we
can find in that area, just go with it, you know, I don't know what to tell you.
There's a dearth of great churches, yet there are a ton of Bible colleges, hundreds and
hundreds of graduates every year, but where are the fire-breathing, fundamental Baptist
churches that are coming out of these Bible colleges?
It's not happening.
They're putting out an effeminate, lame product that's going non-denominational, that's going
liberal, that's watered down, that's not even going into the pastorate.
They are failing.
In my opinion, as I look across America, I feel that Bible colleges are failing to get
the job done, because otherwise there would be more good churches starting up, and I see
that you talk to these people and it's just the same watered down doctrine, they're all
saying the same things and repeating the same things because they all went to the same place
and got the same doctrine, and it's wrong.
It's watered down.
It's lame.
A fire-breathing church, a church that is hated of the world, did you hear me?
Hated of the world.
As Jesus said, I'm hated, you'll be hated.
A church that's hated of the world isn't going to run a Bible college because nobody wants
to go there.
And they got to have the enrollment.
They got to get all the people coming in, you know, they got to do it.
And look, I just, the reason I preach this is because I think that we need to just get
back to a more simplistic, biblical Christianity and re-emphasize the local church.
And if you're a young man and you want to go into the ministry, you want to preach,
you want to pastor, I will train you.
Come see me.
And you know what?
I've done it.
I started the church.
I pastor the church.
I've done it.
I can teach you.
I taught Brother Dave Berzins how to do it.
I'll teach you how to do it.
You can be taught in the local church and learn what you need to learn right here.
And when you turn 18 and 19, young people, that doesn't mean that you just leave your
house now and go to your Bible college, go to your roommate.
You stay in the church, you stay in your family, and let's change the culture of our
independent Baptist churches and get back to a local church, family-oriented movement,
and not send our kids out to be ruined in these Bible colleges, to be taught stuff that
we don't believe in.
Let's keep it local.
Let's keep it right here.
And you know what?
If the devil attacks us and destroys us, so be it.
But I hope that by the time the devil destroys Faithful Word Baptist Church, I hope we've
sent out so many guys to start so many churches in so many places that it won't even matter
anymore.
The devil won't even be able to stop us.
And that was the original plan of New Testament Christianity.
That's the whole reason why we're independent in the first place.
But a lot of these guys are not truly independent.
They're so tied in with that Bible college.
They're so locked in with it.
That's their group and they will not break ranks.
And I hope that nobody's that loyal to me.
I hope that if I start preaching some unbiblical doctrine, that people will separate from me
and not just say, well, no, you know, I've got to stay with Steve Anderson.
No, you don't.
Get away from me if I'm apostatizing.
Get away from anybody who preaches false doctrine.
It's not biblical.
Let's stick with the Bible.
Local church.
Father, we thank you so much for your Word and we thank you so much for the institution
of the local church.
Such a blessed institution where we can learn biblical doctrine, where we can fellowship
with other believers of like faith and practice.
Lord, I just pray that churches would once again be filled with young people.
I just pray that all across America our Baptist churches would once again be filled with 19,
20, 21, 22-year-old young singles so that they could marry each other and not marry
unbelievers.
That they could fellowship and grow with people of like faith and not be forced to go to some
centralized institution to meet a spouse.
Help us to be a church that changes the trend and that promotes local church independent
Baptist methods and in Jesus' name we pray.