Alright, the part of the chapter that I want to focus on is in verse 23 where the Bible
reads, For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church,
and he is the savior of the body.
Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands
in every thing.
Turn to Colossians, just a few pages to the writing of the Bible, you're in Ephesians,
go to Colossians 1.18, and I'll show you a similar concept and then get in the message.
It says in Colossians 1.18, And he, speaking of Jesus Christ, and he is the head of the
body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things
he might have the preeminence, for it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness
dwell.
Now the title of my sermon this morning is this, Why Our Church is Baptist.
Now a lot of people have asked me about this through the years and I think that it's something
that we need to understand.
Why is the name of our church Faithful Word Baptist Church?
And that's what I'm preaching on this morning, but before I get into that, I want to explain
to you first why our church is not called Baptist, the reason, and of course our church
is called Baptist, but why, how do I explain this?
The reason that we're not, no, we are Baptist, what I'm trying to say is that there's a reason
that doesn't make us Baptist, and that's what I'm going to explain right now, because we
are not part of a Baptist denomination, okay, that was a mouthful, it's like a tongue twister,
but anyway, I want to preach, first of all, before I preach why we're a Baptist, I'm going
to give you a reason that does not make us a Baptist, we are not part of a Baptist denomination,
okay?
Now today you've heard of a lot of churches that are called non-denominational, right?
Put up your head if you've heard of that, non-denominational, everybody has, and here's
the funny thing, many of these so-called non-denominational churches are part of a denomination, but they've
just taken it out of the name, now we are not part of any Baptist denomination, we are
completely and 100% independent and autonomous, yet we choose to call ourselves Faithful Word
Baptist Church, why is that, why do we go with that name, and I'm going to show you
scripturally why we choose that name, but first of all I want to tell you this, names
are important, names matter, a lot of people think that names don't matter, but if you
study the Bible, there was great significance given in the names that things received, for
example, God changed many people in the Old Testament's name, he changed Abram's name
to Abraham, he said thy name shall be Abraham for a father of many nations have I made thee,
Sarai was changed to Sarah, Jacob's name was changed to Israel, Esau's name was changed
to Edom, Jesus Christ changed the name of his disciple Simon, and what did he change
it to? Peter, he called him Peter, and Jesus is the one who gave him that name, even Jesus'
name itself had great significance, when the angel was speaking to Joseph in a dream, he
said that he would call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins,
and that name is significant, meaning savior, and so all throughout the Bible we see a great
significance placed upon names. Why is it important that we're not part of a denomination?
We just read the scripture in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 1 that clearly told us that
Christ is the head of the church, and that the church is to be subject unto Christ, now
the church is the congregation, the church is the local assembly, the Bible teaches clearly
it says in the midst of the congregation will I sing praise unto thee, in Psalm 22 22, and
then in Hebrews 2 13 it says in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee,
so therefore a church is a congregation, it's a group of people, it's not a building, it's
not an organization or a denomination, it's a group of people just like we are here assembled
today, we are a church this morning as we're here assembled, and you see if Christ is truly
going to be the head of this church, we can't have a different head giving us orders and
telling us what to do, and that's exactly what a denomination is, when a church is part
of a denomination, you have a headquarter somewhere in some distant state or even a
distant country that is basically calling the shots, making the rules, and telling pastors
what to preach, telling churches how to operate and so forth, and basically that denomination
becomes the head of the church, that's who they look to as the final authority, that's
who has the final say, we ran into a church many years ago, we were outsolding brother
Dave and I, and we ran into a guy, he said our church, and it was a Baptist church right
here in Tempe, said we just had to pull out of the denomination, and we said really why
is that, he said well because the denomination voted to start approving of homosexuality,
and this is a Baptist church, and he said they basically voted and decided that it's
okay for deacons to be homos, and they had all this stuff, and he said it was a really
hard thing for us to do to get out of that denomination, because he said they own all
the property, they own the buses, they own the pastor's pension plan, so you see the
conflict of interest that's created when you have somebody in a distant place controlling
the finances of your church, controlling the preaching, controlling the doctrine, and then
when you try to go against the tide, you end up losing all the money, losing all the security
and so forth, that church should have never been in a denomination in the first place,
because it's not a scriptural concept, independent churches are what the bible teaches, a church
in this city, a church in that city, with one head, and that head is Jesus Christ, I'm
the pastor of the church, but I'm not the head of the church, I'm just carrying out
the orders, I'm just carrying out what the bible says, and I'm not the boss, this book
is the boss, and if I conflict with what this book says, we'll go with what this book says
and not with what I say, go to Galatians 1 and I'll show you that, look at Galatians
chapter 1, you see the apostle Paul started a lot of churches didn't he, but he was not
the head of those churches, he was not the pope of those churches, he was not the denominational
headquarters of the movement of Christianity, because look what he says in verse 6 of Galatians
1, I marvel that you're so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ
unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would
pervert the gospel of Christ, watch what he says, but though we or an angel from heaven
preach any other gospel unto you, then that which we have preached unto you, let him be
cursed, he said look if what I tell you doesn't line up with the word of God, then go with
what the word of God says, don't go with what I said, he said if I'm preaching another gospel,
then curse me, he said I'm not the boss, Jesus Christ and the word of God is the boss, and
so we as a church should not be part of a denomination, and I'll tell you why the devil
wants to get churches linked up into denominations, because there are so many thousands and thousands
of bible believing churches across this world, across the globe, the devil has to go and
try to attack each church, and boy he wants to, Jesus said upon this rock I'll build my
church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, but the gates of hell will try
to prevail against it, and the devil will attack, and he has to go and attack all these
different separate churches, and I've seen a lot of churches which were once great churches
go back, but because they are independent, they don't all have to go back, if one church
goes back, another church is starting up over here, that's preaching right, but the problem
is the devil would rather get everybody linked up together into a denomination, then he doesn't
have to go attack all of the thousands of churches, he can just attack the top and then
the corruption is going to filter down through, all he has to do is corrupt that headquarters
and then they start voting to accept homos and change the doctrine and so forth, and
you can see how it's easier to destroy, it's the same thing in Genesis 11 with the tower
of battle, they're all joined together and God wanted them to be separated, to be distributed,
not to all be linked into a one world government, in a one world system, that's always the devil's
plan of getting everybody linked up together instead of being separated or divided as God
wants and as God preaches, you say well God's for unity, he's for unity within the church,
but he's not for one unified world wide church, that's Catholic doctrine, that's Roman Catholicism
and it's a false doctrine and the man, the Pope, has basically become a substitute for
Jesus Christ because he is the head of that church, not Jesus Christ, it's what he says
that they go with, and so I just wanted to explain to you, I still haven't figured out
grammatically how to express what I was trying to say when I first started this sermon, but
this is not the reason why we're Baptist, how's that? I'm going to give you the reason
why we are Baptist, why is our church called Baptist? Well, go to John chapter 18, why
is our church called Baptist? Well first of all we have to ask ourselves what is the purpose
of a name? Why even name our church at all? What if we were to just have no sign up and
just a blank window out front and just we don't have a name for our church, it's just
our church. Now, what prompted us to even give our church a name in the first place?
Stop and think about that, why do you name your children? Now I have five children and
I name them to tell them apart. Now sure I can look at them and tell them apart, but
if I want to talk about them, if I want to refer to them, I give them a name and I'm
not George Foreman, I'm not giving them all the same name, George, I don't have any kids
named George, because that wouldn't make any sense because the problem with that is I wouldn't
be able to tell it apart if I'm saying to my wife, hey I've got George with me, you
know, it's like okay, well which one is that? So I give my children unique names and we've
even thought of names like oh I like this name, but we said no, that name is a little
too similar to one of our other children's names, we want to be able to easily distinguish
the names of our children. So why do we give things names? To identify them. God names
things all throughout the Bible, even in Genesis 1 he named day, night, sea, earth, he gave
all these names, and all throughout the Bible names mean something, names are significant.
So the purpose for naming our church is to identify it so that we can talk about it,
so that we can refer to it, so that people will know what kind of name it is. Now you
can tell certain things about names, can't you? Like let's say, and I hope this doesn't
offend anyone, let's say a girl walks in and her name is Butterfly, we could probably deduce
that her parents are hippies, you know? And I'm not criticizing that name, I mean if somebody's
name is Butterfly, hey cool, but I'm just saying, you know, when you hear somebody's
name is Moon, or Butterfly, you know, it kind of tells you something. Now what if somebody's
name is Solomon, Isaac, John, Miriam, and Rebecca? What do you kind of deduce right
away with that? Oh, these are Bible names, so you can kind of hear a name and it can
tell you something. Now what if a person's name was Chong? What do you deduce about that
person? They're probably Chinese, right? What if somebody's name is Umberto? What are you
going to assume about that person? Do you see what I mean? So names are identifiers,
okay? You can look at my last name, Anderson, and if you know what that name means, you
can tell that I'm of Scandinavian descent, because it's a Scandinavian name. And so you
can tell things about people and things by their name. So that's the purpose of a name.
So when choosing a name for our church, we want to choose the name that is going to best
identify our church. We don't want to call our church Faithful Word Catholic Church.
Why? Because people are going to assume that we're baptizing babies, that the pastor wears
a dress and calls himself a mother, we're going to assume that it's a false religion
following the cult of Rome and the Pope and so forth. So we want to give a name that shows
people most clearly who and what we are. We don't want people to get the wrong idea. There's
nothing wrong with naming your child Umberto if you're Hispanic. But if you're Swedish
and you're naming your child Umberto, people might raise an eyebrow like, what are you
talking about? Because of the fact that it's such a distinctly ethnic name. Now if you're
not a hippie, no I'm just kidding. Go to John 18 verse 19. I love what Jesus said here.
This is Jesus on trial. He's about to be crucified, but he's on trial. It says in verse 19, the
high priest then asked Jesus of his disciples and of his doctrine. Jesus answered him, I
spake openly to the world. I love that statement. I spake openly to the world. I ever taught
in the synagogue and in the temple with the Jews always resort and in secret have I said
nothing. Now does it sound like Jesus is trying to hide who he is or what he believes? He
said, I didn't say or do anything in secret. I spake openly to the world. Why askest thou
which heard me what I have said unto them? Behold, they know what I said. Turn to Matthew
chapter 10. You're in John, just back a few pages to Matthew chapter 10. This is when
he's sending out his disciples to go out and preach the gospel and to preach the kingdom
of God. It says in verse 26 of Matthew 10, fear them not therefore for there is nothing
covered that shall not be revealed and hid that shall not be known. What I tell you in
darkness that speak ye in light and what ye hear in the ear that preach ye upon the
house tops. He's saying, look, don't hide who you are. Don't hide what you believe.
Don't hold back. If it's true, if it's God's word, if it's in the Bible, just preach it.
Speak openly to the world. When I tell you in the ear, he said preach it upon the house
tops. So we as Christians, we as a Bible believing Christians should not be trying to hide who
we are, what we are, what we believe, and just try to kind of sneak up on people. No.
In choosing a name for our church, we want a name that clearly expresses who we are.
I mean I want it to be the most descriptive name possible so that when somebody sees that
name they'll say, okay, I can tell what type of church this is. Now go if you would to
1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 2. Many have suggested, they've said, wait a minute, Pastor
Anderson, in the Bible, you'll notice churches, they don't have these names like Faithful
Word Baptist Church. You know, in the Bible when we read about churches, it basically
just mentions what it says here in 1 Corinthians 1, 2. Let's look at it. Unto the church of
God which is at Corinth. So right there, Pastor Anderson, it just says the church at Corinth.
You know, why not just call your church the church at Tempe? The church in Ephesus, the
church in Smyrna, the church in Berwyn. Why give it a name? Why not just call it the church
in Tempe? Well, here's the difference. This is in the very early days of Christianity
to the point where there was one church in Corinth. There was the church at Jerusalem.
There was the church at Ephesus, okay. So did you really need any other identification
than that? Oh, it's just a church that's preaching Jesus Christ in Corinth. But how many churches
are there in Tempe? We live in a metropolis. We live in this mega city of the Phoenix area
that has millions and millions of people in it. Do you realize that when this country
was founded, the largest city in our nation, I mean if you looked at the big cities, I
mean we're talking New York, Philadelphia, you know population-wise they were about the
size of Maricopa? Not the county, the town Maricopa. I mean they were smaller than Casa
Grande. Do the research, look it up. Get the population of when our country was founded.
I mean we live in a day of gigantic mega cities. We don't just have towns. We would
consider those big cities today if we saw them, we'd consider it a small town. But today
we live in a city of Phoenix where there are literally thousands of churches, literally.
There are literally an excess of a thousand churches that would claim to be Christian,
that would claim to be preaching the Bible, that would claim to be following Jesus Christ.
So therefore if we don't identify who we are, if we don't have a name that identifies
us or sets us apart, what if somebody's in Phoenix and they're looking for a Bible-preaching
church? Should they just try all 2,000 of them until they find the one that's preaching
the right doctrine? I mean think about it. If they went Sunday morning and Sunday night
and Wednesday night to a different church, they could only try 156 churches a year. They'd
have to go for 10 or 20 years to try the churches. Obviously you're not going to try every church.
You're going to look at the name of the church and that's going to help you determine whether
you're even in the ballpark because if it says Catholic in the name, you know what they're
about. If it says Lutheran in the name, you know what they're about. If it says Presbyterian
in the name, if it says Methodist in the name, if it says whatever in the name, it's going
to tell you something about that church. So a generic name such as the Church at Tempe,
and there are churches that are called that. There are churches that have names like that.
It's not going to do when there are hundreds of churches in that town. Now other churches
try to have the most generic name possible, like they'll just call their church Grace
Community Church, Christ Community, you know, the Church at Tempe, the Open Door, you know,
or whatever they call it. Now if you look at that, if you look at that name right there,
the only thing it tells me is that they probably don't stand for much of anything. You know
what I mean? Because they're putting out a name that just says generic. It just says,
come find out what we are. We're not going to tell you. We're going to get you in the
door first before we tell you. Why would we want to have a name just Faithful Word Church?
And people don't know. What do you believe? What's your doctrine? Oh, we're just Christian.
Faithful Word Christian Church. Look, the word Christian is so generic that literally,
I mean, Mormons call themselves Christian, Catholics call themselves Christian, Jehovah's
Witnesses call themselves Christian, I mean, every so-called quasi-Bible believing place
will call themselves Christian, but they are not Christian. And so we need to have a name
that identifies us more specifically than that. Now let's talk about where the term
Baptist comes from, okay? Historically, why a church has been called Baptist churches?
Why are we called Baptists? Go to Acts 8, and I'm going to explain this to you from
a few different angles. Go to Acts 8, I'm going to show you where the term Baptist comes
from because the term Baptist is a term that's a pretty broad term too. Now it's not near
as broad as Christian. It's much more specific than Christian because if we see the term
Baptist, any church that calls themselves Baptist is going to, at least on paper, claim
that they believe in the authority of the Word of God as the vital authority of faith
and practice, the Holy Bible. Now that may not really work out that way when you show
up on Sunday, but that's what they're at least claiming. They're at least saying, hey, we
believe in the authority of the Bible. They're at least claiming that they believe salvation
is by faith and not of works. They're at least claiming that you can't lose your salvation.
They're at least claiming these basic things that at least get us in the ballpark if we
see Christian, we don't know whether they're following the Pope, we don't know if they're
following the Jehovah's Witnesses, we don't know. For example, there's a Catholic church
on campus today, it's called the Newman Center. The Newman Center. You know, so all kinds
of people just think, oh, it's a non-denominational Christian gathering, but you get there and
it's Roman Catholic. There are all kinds of Southern Baptist churches, which are part
of a denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, and they'll sit there and say, oh, we're not
a denomination, we're just a fellowship. You know what, if it looks like a duck, it
quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Ten percent of their offerings go to that denomination.
They're a member of it. If they preached like me, they'd be thrown out of that denomination
so fast it wouldn't even be funny. And so you see churches in Tempe that are called
cross-point church. Oh, non-denominational, just cross-point church, or so-and-so Christian
church. But then you look at the sign and in the tiny little fine print, it says SBC,
Southern Baptist Convention. So it's a Southern Baptist church, it's part of the denomination,
but they're just trying to hide that. They want the die-hards to know what those little
initials mean, but they don't want to broadcast that they're a Baptist church, they're trying
to hide that. I was preaching in a nursing home, and we had our Baptist service, you
know, and I preached as Baptist service at a nursing home. Well, another church came
in after us that had the non-denominational service. And the church had a totally generic
name, but I went home and looked it up on the internet, and it was part of a denomination
of thousands of churches all across America, and it was basically a Pentecostal charismatic
church. Non-denominational, I mean, what does that even mean? You're part of a denomination,
you're a Pentecostal, you're a charismatic, you're a holy roller, you're tongue-talking,
you bark like a dog, roll in the aisles, Pentecostal, and yet you're claiming non-denominational
because everybody's welcome or whatever. Because you have no doctrine, you still believe you
can lose your salvation like the Pentecostals do, you still believe in the tongues to be,
you just don't want people to know then, you just want to suck in other people without
being honest with them of who you are. Where did I get tongue-talking? Acts 8, where does
the term Baptist come from? You say, well that's great Pastor Anderson, Baptist at least,
identifies us and narrows us down a little bit. Hey, at least they're a Bible-believing,
supposedly, salvation by faith, eternal security by believer, it narrows down the basics. But
where does that term come from? I'm going to show you a couple of different places that
it comes from. First of all, people were called Anabaptists many, many hundreds and hundreds
of years ago. Not just Baptists, but Anabaptists was a term that was applied unto people who
preached the Gospel and baptized their converts, they were called Anabaptists or Re-baptized
them. Here's why, because the Roman Catholic Church was controlling most of Europe at that
time, or Protestant churches that are just pretty much Catholicism-like, and they were
basically sprinkling babies at birth. Well, when these people would grow up and actually
believe on Christ and be saved and get out of the Catholic Church, then they would be
re-baptized, like biblically baptized. Let's look at that in the Bible. Look at Acts chapter
8 verse 36. It says, and as they went on their way, they came into a certain water, and the
eunuch said, see, here is water. What does hinder me to be baptized? And he says, look,
here's some water. What's stopping me from being baptized? And Philip said, if thou believeth
with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into
the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized them. Now, if you have a Catholic
Bible, verse 37 is going to be gone. It's just going to go 35, 36, 38. And 37 has been
intentionally removed, because of course the Catholics don't want you to get a verse of
scripture that says you've got to believe on Jesus Christ before you get baptized, because
they baptized babies. And the Protestants aren't going to like that verse either, because
they baptized babies too. And so if you're holding a Bible in your hand that does not
contain verse 37, you are holding a Bible that comes from the Roman Catholic Church.
That's where it came from. And these modern Bibles, the NIV, the New American Standard,
they're basically coming from Catholic manuscripts, and the Catholic corrupted version of the
Bible that removed this verse. And so if this verse isn't in your Bible, you've got the
wrong Bible. Acts 8, 37 is clear. You've got to believe before you get baptized. So let
me ask you this. If somebody got sprinkled as a baby, and then they grow up as an adult
and get saved, don't they need to be baptized after they got saved? Absolutely. I'll prove
that to you. Go to Acts 19. You're in Acts 8. Go to Acts 19. Before you get there, I'll
read you this. Matthew 3, 16. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of
the water. And lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending
like a dove and lighting upon him. So that right there said that when Jesus was baptized,
he came up out of the water. Now that means what? He went down into the water. Now in
Acts 8, 37, it said the same thing. It said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God, and he commanded the Terry to stand still. And they went down both into the water, both
Philip and Eutych, and he baptized him. In John chapter 3, it says, and John also was
baptizing an anon near the Salem because there was much water there, and they came
more baptized. They were sprinkling people. They went to a place where there was a lot
of water, they both got down in the water, and they dumped them under water. The real
way to be baptized. Immersion. And so baptism is by immersion, and it comes after you're
saved, after you believe on Jesus Christ. Look at Acts 19, verse 1. It says, it came
to pass that while Paul's was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper coast,
came to Ephesus, and finding certain disciples, he said unto them, Have ye received the Holy
Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether
there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, unto what thing were ye baptized? And
they said, unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism
of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come
after him, that is on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name
of the Lord Jesus. So here these people had been baptized by John the Baptist. But wait
a minute, what was John the Baptist preaching? Well, according to this, and according to
every other biblical account, John the Baptist was preaching about him who was coming after
him. He said he was just preparing the way of the Lord, making his passage. He said he
was coming before Jesus Christ. When Jesus came on the scene, he pointed out to him,
the old, the Lamb of God was taking away the sin of the world. He also talked a lot
about the Holy Spirit. If you look up Matthew 3, Luke 3, all that Mark 1, John 1, when you
see John the Baptist preaching, he's preaching about the Holy Spirit, he's preaching about
the Holy Ghost, he's preaching about Jesus Christ every time. But yet these people had
been baptized by John the Baptist, but they did not even know whether the Holy Ghost even
existed. They did not know about Jesus Christ. Did they get John's message? No. And so once
they did believe on him, once they did get saved, do you notice that they got baptized
again? Now did John the Baptist baptize them wrong? Did he sprinkle them? No. He dumped
them, but guess what? They weren't even saved. So once they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,
once they actually got saved, they had to get baptized again. Because getting baptized
before you're saved means nothing. You're supposed to get baptized after you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you say, well how many times do you have to get baptized?
Only once after you got saved. Any time you got baptized before you got saved, you were
just taking a bath. I mean, you got wet, but you weren't getting baptized because you got
to be saved in order to be baptized. And so that right there proves that Paul re-baptized
people if they weren't saved when they got baptized. So if we run into somebody who got
baptized in a Baptist church, but then we ask that person, do you know for sure if you
died today you go to heaven? And they say, I have no clue. Right? And then what if you
ask that person, well who baptized you? And they say, well Pastor Anderson baptized me.
Well do you know for sure you go to heaven? I think I've lived a pretty good life. I think
I might go. It's clear that the person's not saved. They don't believe on Christ. Did they
listen to what I preached? Do they believe what I preached? No. You say, well how in
the world, Pastor Anderson, how dare you? Are you saying that you've ever baptized somebody
that might not have been saved? I'm sure that I have. And you know what? There's another
guy that had too. His name was John the Baptist. Because here's some of the people that John
the Baptist baptized. They don't even know whether the Holy Ghost exists. They don't
know who Jesus is. Okay? So look, you're not always going to be 100% sure that everybody
that you baptized is saved. There are people who get baptized that aren't saved. There
are people who are saved who have never been baptized. Because baptism is not what saves
you. But the Bible is showing us clearly in Acts 19 that a person who wasn't saved when
they got baptized needs to get re-baptized. So this derogatory term was given unto churches
that were anti-Catholic, that were preaching against Catholicism, preaching the true gospel
of belief on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. They began to be known as
anti-baptists. And it became illegal to re-baptize someone. And it was actually the death penalty
in many cases in Europe if you were to baptize someone whom the Catholic Church had already
baptized. And so this name of re-baptizer was a derogatory term given to those who were
getting people saved and baptizing them. Now, let me ask you this. Does every group that
baptizes by immersion after a person quote unquote gets saved, does that mean that they're
preaching the right gospel and plan of salvation? There are a lot of people who preach another
gospel that preach you can lose your salvation and they still baptize people. So this term
anti-baptist didn't only, it's not like everybody who was called anti-baptist was really saved.
You think everybody in the Bible who was called Christian was saved? Was everybody who was
known as anti-baptist saved? Is everyone today known as a Baptist saved? No. Because salvation
is based on whether that person personally and individually believes on the Lord Jesus
Christ as their Savior and has put their faith and trust in Him to save them. But at least
anti-baptist tells you something about those people, doesn't it? It tells you that they
were standing against the Catholic Church and that they were dunking people underwater
after they believed and re-baptizing those who got saved. So that's what the term anti-baptist
means and that's where the term Baptist today has sprung from that and been passed down
from that. That's one reason. But there's another reason why we use the term Baptist.
You say, well Pastor Anderson, that's just historical. Is there a biblical reason for
using the term Baptist? Is it biblical? Well look if you would at Acts chapter 11. Because
the Bible uses the term Christian three times. Now who thinks that Christian is a biblical
term? We should call ourselves Christians. Yeah, that's a good term, right? I don't think
anybody's going to argue with the fact that Christian is a biblical term, right? I don't
think anybody's offended by you calling them a Christian, you know? I don't think anybody
would be offended if we put a faithful word, Christian church. You know, that's not going
to offend anybody. But the problem with the word Christian is that it's too broad. It
doesn't tell enough about our church. For example, what if we just called our church
just Baptist Church? Would that be specific enough? Baptist Church. Well, if it was just
called Baptist Church, you'd have trouble separating it from all the other hundreds
of Baptist churches. Scores of Baptist churches in Tempe alone, let alone the whole Phoenix
area. So we went more descriptive than just Baptist Church called the faithful word Baptist
Church. Because the purpose of the name is to identify us, which church we are, who we
are. Look at the term Christian in the Bible. This is the first time the word Christian
is used. It's only used in the Bible. Get this. Who's ever heard the word Christian
before? I can't really say. But yet it's only in the Bible three times. So it's not used
a lot in the Bible. The term that the Bible most uses is the saints. Talk about those
who are saved. It uses the saints. And then it also uses the term believers. And it also
uses the term brethren. Those are the terms that are used for those who are saved. But
we use the word Christian. This is the first of the three times that Christian is used.
It says in Acts 11 26, and when he had found them, he brought them unto Antioch. And it
came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much
people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. So basically after Jesus
Christ is off the scene, after he's died and buried and risen again, after the apostles
have been preaching for years and years and years and years, all the way in Acts 11 they're
at Antioch and people begin to call them Christians. That wasn't something that they called themselves.
That was something that other people applied to them. People applied that label to the
Christian. Go to Acts 26. So we see in Acts 11 26 that people began to call the disciples
Christians. That's what they were called by outsiders. They didn't call themselves that.
Look at Acts 26 28. This is when Paul is preaching to Agrippa and he's begging him to be saved.
And this is what Agrippa says in verse 28. Then Agrippa said to Paul, almost thou persuadest
me to be a Christian. He said, wow, you've preached so well, you've almost persuaded
me to become a Christian. It's used one other place. Go to 1 Peter 4. 1 Peter 4 is the one
place where God uses the term Christian. God only uses it one time. In Acts 11 it was just
outsiders calling them that. In Acts 26 it was an unsaved man saying, hey, you're almost
convincing me to become a Christian. Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Well,
in 1 Peter 4 16 is how we know that Christian is a biblical term. It is a term that God
sanctions because God did use it one time in the Bible. Here's what God said in 1 Peter
4 16. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify
God on this behalf. Now what is the term Christian the one time God uses it? What is it associated
with? Being persecuted or being a Christian. In chapter 11 of Acts they're being called
Christians by unsaved people. In Acts 26 another unsaved man calls it Christian. And in 1 Peter
4 he says, hey, you may suffer as a Christian. You may be persecuted for being Christian.
So it's not a term that God applied to them. It's a term that was applied to them by others.
God just refers to it in 1 Peter 4 16. But what about the term Baptist? You say, is the
term Baptist found in the Bible? Well, the term Baptist is found in the Bible 15 times.
All 15 of those times, go to Matthew chapter 11, all 15 of the times that the word Baptist
is used is about John the Baptist. That's the only time it's ever used in the Bible.
It's never found in the plural Baptist. It's just the term Baptist referring to John the
Baptist, John Baptist. He's called that 15 times and he's called that by Jesus. The first
time that term is used is in Matthew 3 where God calls him John the Baptist. Then we see
Jesus Christ himself, wall on this earth, in Matthew 11, saying in verse 11, verily
I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than
John the Baptist, notwithstanding he that is least and the kingdom of heaven is greater
than he. So we see that God is the one who named John the Baptist. He called him that.
He called him John the Baptist in Matthew 3. Jesus called him John the Baptist and 15
times he's known as John the Baptist. Now, I know this is a really hard question, but
why was he called the Baptist? Because he baptized people, right? Now, does our church
baptize people? They were like, why do you use that term Baptist? That's not a biblical
word. The word Baptist, I mean if I said so and so is a machinist, what's that say? He's
basically working in a machine shop. And if I say that he's an artist, you know, it's
someone who works in our world. You know, John the Baptist, it's a term that was used
by Jesus. So is there anything wrong with the term Baptist? If God and Jesus are the
one who's applying it to John, he's a great man. He pointed people unto Jesus Christ.
He said, hey, he must increase, but I must decrease. He said, it's not about me, it's
about Jesus. I'm just pointing people to Jesus. I'm just preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It's all about him. I must decrease. He must increase. And he said, I'm John the Baptist
because I baptized. You know, there's something complicated about that. Does our church baptize
people? Yes. Do we follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist? I sure hope so because
that's the greatest man that was ever born of a woman. And so that's why we use the term
Baptist because just like Anabaptist was referring to people who baptized people, who re-baptized
them. Anabaptist because they were fighting against a false religion that was sprinkling
babies. And so they were called Anabaptist. We call ourselves Baptist because, number
one, it historically associates us with the right people. I mean, it shows, okay, we are
people who re-baptize people. We are people who are anti-Catholic. Oh, how can you say
that? Of course we're anti-Catholic. You think we're going to promote that garbage, that
line, the biggest cult in the world? Calling the pope, a man who calls himself Holy Father
and blasphemy against God? When the Bible says, call no man your father upon the earth
for one is your father which is in heaven, who calls himself, the pope calls himself
the first among many brethren. When the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the first born among
many brethren, the Catholic church which worships Mary, who is only mentioned a few times in
the Bible, who is not the emphasis of the Bible, Jesus Christ is the emphasis of the
Bible. But yet you'll see, if you go soloing anywhere in Phoenix or Tempe or Mexico, gigantic
statues of Jesus where literally Jesus is at her feet in miniature and Mary is the one
that they're worshipping, Mary is the one who they're praying to, Mary is the mediator,
or they call her the mediatrix, the feminine version. When the Bible says there's one mediator
between God and men, the man cries Jesus. So why do we call ourselves Baptists? Is it
because we're part of the Southern Baptist Convention? No way. Is it because we're North
American Baptists? No way. Are we part of the General Association of Regular Baptists?
There's no way. Now look, notice how many different Baptist denominations there are
because there are a lot. You've got your Southern Baptists, your North American Baptists, you've
got your G.A.R.B., your B.B.F., and there are way more that I don't even have time to
list. Because Baptist is such a broad term, just like Christian is a broad term. But Baptist
is a lot more specific than Christian. Baptist is a lot more sanctioned by God than Christian
and the thing is, Baptist is going to separate us from a lot of the different false religions
out there. It shows that we're not Protestant. We're not following the reformers of Martin
Luther and John Calvin and John Knox, the people who started all these Protestant denominations.
It shows that it's just a term referring to what we believe, what we do. We baptize, we
re-baptize. We baptize a third time, no I'm just kidding. But anyway, that's who we are,
that's what we do. It's not some man that we're following, Lutheran. You know, we're
not following a man. We're not following Luther. We're following the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're following the man who didn't found a religion. John the Baptist didn't found his
own religion, he just sent everybody over to Jesus and pointed everybody to Jesus and
did not start his own religion. Did not found his own religion like Martin Luther, who was
basically just a Catholic in Protestant clothing, like all the rest of them were. And so the
bottom line is that Baptist is a biblical term and it associates us with the right people.
Now no name is ever going to be perfect, you know, because you'll find Baptist churches
that will make you ashamed to have the name Baptist, right? You'll find a lot of people
who call themselves Christian that would make you ashamed of the title Christian if you're
going to be associated with false teaching and heresy. The devil is always going to try
to take any name or any group and try to associate himself with it. And he'll claim the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said that there would be people that would come in his name
preaching false doctrine. You see, there are a lot of people who would abuse the term Christian,
abuse the Holy Bible, abuse the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, abuse the name Baptist,
but why is our church called Faithful Word Baptist Church? Let me just wrap it up with
this. We choose Baptist not because we're part of a denomination, but just to at least
give people in the ballpark of what we believe. Because if we just called it Faithful Word
Christian, people would assume that it's a new evangelical church, that it's going to
be a modernistic, that we're preaching the NIV, because look, let's face it, nine times
out of ten, or ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if a church is just called so-and-so
Christian church, it's the NIV, there's no soul winning, it's watered down, at least
if we say it's Baptist, they say, oh Baptist, okay, it gets them in the ballpark that we're
going to be more fundamental, okay? We're going to be more Bible believing than that.
You say, what about the rest of the name? Why church? Why not call it Faithful Word
Baptist Fellowship, or Faithful Word Baptist Temple, or Faithful Word Baptist Assembly?
Well, the reason that we use the word church is because that's the most biblical word.
I mean, you're going to find it hundreds of times in the Bible. Hundreds of times, it's
the church here, the church there, the church at Corinth, the church at Evan. So we choose
the name church because we're trying to be as biblical with our name as possible, and
we want people to know, this is a church. That's what it is, a church, so let's call
it a church, right? I mean, if I own a fire alarm business, I don't want to give it an
ambiguous name where people don't know what that business is. You know, I'm not well known
enough to where if they just hear the word Xerox, it's like, oh, you know that's a copy
machine company, only because it's well known. But what if I just call my business River
Incorporated? Well, it's a fire alarm company. Now, if you saw that name, you'd be like,
what is it? River Incorporated? Tempe Inc. You know, Tempe, Tempe Group Limited. It's
like, what is it? You know, so I start a fire alarm business, I'm going to call it
Anderson Fire, right? You know, I'm going to put that in the name. Fire, because that's
what it is, a fire alarm company. It's a fire safety company. So Anderson Fire, okay, that's
what I'm going to put in the name. So basically, I'm putting church in the name so that people
will right away know that it's a church. So they see Baptist Church. Okay, so we know
it's a group of people. There's going to be preaching and singing. And we know that
it's people who look to John the Baptist. They look to the Holy Bible. They look to
the man that God said was the greatest preacher to ever live. They look to him because he
just pointed them to Jesus, you know, and that's who we're pointing people to. It's
not about us, it's about him. They're Baptists, so we know that they're baptizing people.
We know they're not going to be sprinkling. We know that they're not going to be not forming
the act of baptism. We know it's Baptists. Well, that tells us that they're not Catholic
because Baptists have always been the arch enemy of Catholic, okay. We know that it's
Baptists, therefore we know that at least every Baptist Church that we've ever heard
of, you know, said that the Bible is the final authority and that salvation is through faith
alone and the eternal security of the believer. So you say, well, Pastor Anderson, I get it.
I get why we're called Baptist Church. Now you say, is it a sin for a church not to be
called Baptist? What if a church was called Faithful Word Bible Church? Would that be
a sin? Well, no, that would not be a sin because of the fact that sin is the transgression
of the law, according to the Bible. Is there a law in the Bible that says you must be called
Baptist? Is there a law like that? You must be called Baptist. No, that's not a law in
the Bible, therefore it's impossible for something to be a sin that isn't violating God's law.
That's what the definition of sin is. But hold on a second. You say, why not call Faithful
Word Bible Church? After all, we believe the Bible. Now, first of all, that's not any more
biblical than the name Baptist because the word Bible is never found in the Bible. Did
you know that? It's true. The word Bible is only found on the cover. It's not found in
the Bible. Okay, so that, oh, we're going to do more scripture. We're just going to
call it Bible Church. Like, okay, well, that's pretty scriptural except it's called the Word
of God or the Scriptures. But it's never called the Bible. Now, I'm all for calling
it the Bible. The Bible just means the book and it truly is the book. And the word book
is found in it many times. That's what Bible means. I'm all for calling it the Bible. But
you say, why not call it Bible Church? Because you know what? I look at all the Bible churches
and pretty much everyone I see is totally watered down. And they're calling it Bible
Church because they're trying to be more generic, just like Christian or community church is
just trying to be more generic. My goal with the name, now, is it a sin to be called Bible
Church? No. Could there theoretically be a great church that's called so-and-so Bible
Church? Hey, there could be. But usually when you see churches that are called so-and-so
Christian Church or so-and-so Bible Church, it kind of tells you something about their
philosophy that they're trying to not be very specific about who they are or what they are
because they're just trying to bring everybody in. You say, Pastor Anderson, don't you want
to bring everybody in? No. What? Bring everybody? No. We're not trying to bring everybody in.
We're trying to go out and reach everybody. We're not trying to bring everybody in. Why
don't we just pack this place out with unsaved people? Because that wouldn't be a church
anymore because the whole point of having a church is an assembly of believers. Now,
do unsaved people visit? Sure. He said in 1 Corinthians 14, from time to time, an unbeliever
will walk into your church and hopefully they'll be hearing the right preaching. He explains
that in 1 Corinthians 14. But he didn't say, well, 90% of your crowd is going to be unsaved
in that church. After Christ, he said no one person might stumble in. Yeah, we have visitors
all the time that are unsaved. But you know what? Our goal is not to just get everybody
in here. Our goal is to go out and preach the gospel, to go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every preacher, to go out and get them saved. And the people that we want
to actually come to our church are the people who want this kind of church. I mean, that
want to go to a church where the Bible is preached, where the truth is preached, where
people are winning souls, where everybody's excited about doing something big for God,
not just a social club, not a watered-down church. And so we want people to know what
we are. Have you ever noticed something? That we rarely have people come to our church and
get mad and walk out during the preaching or yell at me while I'm preaching. It doesn't
happen that often. Now every once in a while, I think the last time it happened was about
four weeks ago. Anyway, somebody got up and walked out. But that's pretty rare. You know
why? Because when I preach a lot of things that maybe aren't popular and show a lot of
things in the Bible that are really unpopular today, most people who are here, they already
expected that. They already knew who we were before they even walked in the door. Because
not only do we call our church faithful or back to church, we go a step further. When
we go out and knock doors and go soul winning, we go a step further. We don't just have a
name, Faithful Word Baptist Church, that tells you, hey, we're a church. Good name, huh?
Church. That's what we are. Baptist. So we're already giving information to people about
who we are. Then even the name, Faithful Word. Most people hear that term, faithful
word, and they're going to see, OK, they're emphasizing what? The word of God. So we're
emphasizing God's word right away in our name. And we're saying, faithful word. What does
faithful mean? A faithful servant is somebody you can trust. You can put your faith in them.
So we're saying, hey, our faith is in God's word. We trust God's word. We believe that
God's word is faithful. We believe that it's true. We're following. So just from the name,
people can usually figure out. Somebody said to me before, hey, I can tell you we're King
James only because your church was called Faithful Word. So obviously, you believe that
we have the faithful word. And a lot of people have made that comment that right away it
said to them, hey, it's the King James Bible Believing Church, just from the name. That's
good that people know who we are. We're not trying to hide that. Oh, by the way, we're
King James only. But don't worry about it. We're not trying to hide who we are. But not
only that, we go a step further. We say right on the front that we're independent, not part
of the nomination. We say that we're fundamentalists. We're not changing with the times. We're not
liberals. We're fundamentalists. And then on the inside, explanation of why we're King
James version only, explanation of the preaching, explanation of what type of church we are
and why we do what we do. Because we want people to know what we believe about salvation
on the back here. Before they even get here, they already know what we are. They know who
we are. And so we don't waste people's time by just bringing in a ton of people who are
going to hate our church anyway. No, you better know what you're getting into. Here you go.
We'll tell you everything about it. And if you want to come here, then praise God. This
is the church for you. And if you don't want to come here, then go somewhere else. We're
not just trying to bring everybody in with a generic name. Christ community of Tempe,
everyone welcome. Come on in. You know, then you're going to get a ton of unbelievers in
here. And then I'm going to start preaching and then they're all going to freak out because
they're not used to hearing the Bible preached because they expected something else. I want
to put out the image of what we really are. I want people to look at the way that I dress
and know I'm a man. Don't look at me and say, is that a man or a woman? What do you think?
And I've had that conversation before in the airport and elsewhere. When you look at people,
you're like, is that, what is that? Is that the thing? You know, it's like, people look
at me right away. It's like, why do I dress the way I dress? To identify myself. Even
the way that I dress tells people a lot. When they walk in, if I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt
and shorts and a pair of flip flops, that wouldn't be a sin. But wouldn't it put forth
the wrong impression of what type of a church this is and what type of preaching they're
going to hear? It's going to give people the wrong image. They're going to assume that
I'm Rick Warren Southwest up here. They're going to assume that I'm watered down. They're
going to assume that I'm one of these easy listening Christianity preachers. And so we
want the name to express clearly who we are. We want to show everybody who we are. We don't
want to hide it. We're proud of it. We want to stand up and shout from the house tops
everything we believe. That's why we're just right out spell out to people, Hey, King James
only hard preaching. It's going to be hard preaching. It's going to be the hymns. It's
not going to be contemporary worship, Christian rock and roll jam for Jesus. We want people
to know what we are, who we are. That's why I need my children so that people can know
who they are. That's why they have the name Anderson so that people will know, Hey, they
are the son of pastor Anderson. That's why I have the name Anderson because I'm my father's
son. We name things and people names that are appropriate and fitting of that thing.
And this church is Baptist for all the reasons I listed. It's a church. We believe in the
faithful word. Now it's still not a perfect name because people still might not know everything
about us, but you know what? At least it gets them in the ballpark. And that's why our church
is called Baptist. That's why I'm Baptist. Is it wrong not to be? People have asked,
you know, what would you be if you weren't a Baptist? Like what would be the next best
nomination? I just say, Hey, if I weren't a Baptist, I'd be ashamed of myself. That's
what I'd be. But anyway, the bottom line is it's hard enough to find a good church among
Baptists. Even among Baptists, there's so many who compromised, so many who watered
down the message, so many who will not preach the truth clearly. But let me tell you this
folks, and you know, you can believe me or not, you can get upset about this or not,
but it's true. If you go outside the realm of churches that have Baptists in the name,
I got one thing to tell you. It's a jungle out there. Because even within Baptists, there's
so much variation. You know, there are all different types of Baptist churches. And some
of them are, you know, calling themselves Baptists, but they're part of a denomination
and they're not independent and so forth. But even among Baptists, there is so much
heresy that you'll find. But let me tell you something, when you step outside the realm
of Baptists, it's a jungle out there. And you know, if you don't believe me, that's
fine. Go try every community church, because you're going to have to try them all because
they won't tell you what they believe. You can't figure out what they believe. You have
no clue. Community church, you don't know if they're Baptists, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal,
Charismatic, you don't know. But go ahead, try them all. But I'll tell you something,
I've yet to find a church that was a fire-breathing, soul-winning, King James Bible-preaching church
that didn't have Baptists in the name. I mean, this is true. And maybe, I'm not saying it's
not out there, and I'm sure that there probably is one out there, you know, if we look long enough.
But I'm going to tell you something, they're making themselves pretty hard for people to
find by hiding in the disguise of all these other just community non-denom churches, so
called. And it's a jungle out there, have fun trying to find it. Because pretty much
every church you find in this area, it's so-and-so Christian church, so-and-so community church,
so-and-so Bible church, they're not preaching to King James, they're not singing the hymns,
they're not out knocking doors when it's sold to Christ like Jesus commanded us in the book
of Acts and in the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They're not out doing the works,
they're not preaching hard on sin, it's just a fact. And so that's why our church is Baptist.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, I pray that people would understand
the sermon that was preached this morning to God, and not maybe the most excited sermon
or maybe the one that is life-changing, but God, just please help us understand there's
a reason why that we do things and that we shouldn't try to hide what we are, we should
proudly proclaim the truths of the Bible, the doctrines of the Bible, that we belong
to the Lord Jesus Christ, that we baptize people, that we're a rebaptizer, that we're
not a compromiser, that we believe the Bible is your word. Help us, Father, to wear that
badge proudly and not try to hide behind ambiguous names and hazy titles. And Father, I just
pray that everyone here would profit from the message this morning and let these things
sink in their ears in Jesus' name, we pray.