Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
It's great to see everybody here this morning.
We can go ahead and find our seats.
We will go ahead and get started.
Once we've all found a seat, let's grab a hymnal.
We'll all go together to song number 31.
Song number 31 in your hymnal.
Song number 31, I serve a risen savior, he's in the world today, song number 31, let's
all sing that out together.
Thank you so much for all the awesome opportunities here, such a great church and such a great
place to serve you.
Everybody here, Lord, we just ask that you fill us with your spirit, help us to sing
out unto you this morning.
We just ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen.
All right, for our next song, we're actually going to go to our special binder, special
song binder.
You should be able to find one near you, be a black binder, laminated pages, be towards
the back.
He is mine.
We're all saying that out together.
Just can come by and get you guys a bulletin.
On the front, we have Jude first.
Are we in there, Grace Week?
Okay, this is our Grace Week, so this is your last week to finish Jude chapter one, the
entire chapter.
And if you do, you can get a special prize.
On the left hand side is our service and soul winning times, also regional soul winning
times.
One note, we have, we've had two ladies, or we had a ladies time, actually two ladies
times that were pretty much the same time.
And they've kind of split.
So there's now a Tuesday at 1030 and a Thursday at 1030.
So a couple ladies times there if you'd like to go during the day.
Other parts of the city, also throughout the week, we have our church stats down below.
And then on the right, we have a list of expecting ladies, please be in prayer for them.
Our Bahamas missions trip, we had about 60 people come out for the missions trip, had
numbers is constantly trickling in.
So they were getting updated, but I guess the final count we had so far is 1436 salvation.
So praise the Lord on that, honestly, a year, a year or two years ago when we went, we did
such a great job and had so many opportunities.
I wasn't necessarily expecting that we would do as well even as we did before.
But I'll tell you something, you know, the people there were really hungry or really
zealous and it's a lot of fun to travel with soul winners because soul winners are people
that figure out how to get things done and so you don't have to always do a lot of hand
holding.
In fact, usually you have to like keep them in line.
But really, I really appreciated, you know, traveling with so many people that were really
zealous trying to figure things out.
You know, I can give a ton of shout outs.
I'm not going to be able to give them all.
I'm going to ask four different guys that went on the trip to come up and give us a
quick testimonial, ask some of the guys that had not been before so that they could give
us, you know, an idea of what they've been able to accomplish.
But one of the groups that came out with us was from First Works Baptist Church in LA.
And one of their guys ended up just saying, "Hey, let's just go to this school and just
ask them if we can just go talk to their students."
And they pretty much just figured out a way to get in and got a whole bunch of salvations
on one of the days where it was probably not going to be as big of a day.
And so, you know, that's what I like.
I like that spirit and that zeal and that energy of people just figuring out ways to
get people saved.
So that was really fun.
Pastor Oz ended up having three baptisms and I had seven, so we had ten baptisms for
the entire week.
We had a church service that we advertised throughout the week.
We ended up having 16 guests come out, some visitors come out to hear me yell and scream
at them.
And you know, it was a lot of fun.
And so, honestly, it was a great trip.
Thank you to everyone who prayed for us.
There was a lot of times where it looked like the weather was going to have problems.
It ended up just being clear skies and giving us a great opportunity to go out and preach
the gospel.
I feel like God's hand was upon us.
He really blessed us.
He gave us some awesome opportunities.
One of the coolest was we got to go to a police college where all of their recruits, there
were 68 recruits that are training to be police officers and they allowed us to go and individually
give the gospel to each one of them and spend about 45 minutes with the police cadets.
I myself got to give them the gospel very meticulously and then explain the sodomite
deception very meticulously and so it was a great experience and they were really thankful,
really enjoyed us.
The Bahamas is a special place and I know I try to hype it up a lot, but I think that
everyone that came they said, "Man, the testimonies are true.
It really is a special place.
The people there are really special."
So I'm going to just take a few minutes and I'm going to ask a few guys, if brother Jared,
you want to come and give us our first testimonial, I'm going to ask them to give us a few minutes
just to tell us about their experience and what they thought about it.
So the Bahamas was my first foreign mission trip and the testimonies that I had heard
about it previously were 100% true.
The people in the Bahamas are super humble.
They all almost believe that the Bible is the word of God.
It was a very interesting experience talking to people versus here in the United States
where you ask them like, "Hey, are you a Christian?"
They say, "No," because they have a different idea of what being a Christian is like.
If they feel like they're not right with God or they're backslidden or they're in sin
or whatever, they don't believe that they're being a Christian.
But then you'd pivot and you'd ask them, "But do you believe the Bible is the word of God?"
And they say, "Absolutely."
So that was every single person that I talked to, they just were interested in the things
of God.
They pretty much listened to the Gospel in the very least.
Pretty much every child that I spoke to got saved, which was very, very just an amazing
experience.
If you were on the fence about maybe going on a foreign's mission trip in the future,
definitely go.
It was a life-changing experience for me.
It definitely just kind of increased the fire inside of me to giving the Gospel.
Going out throughout the whole world and preaching to every creature.
It was just a really, really cool experience.
It was a beautiful country, and the people there were just really, really hungry for
the Word of God.
Hey, everyone.
Yeah, this was my first missions trip as well, and the hype is real because it was a great
missions trip.
I had a blast.
Everyone you talk to, all the students are super receptive.
Pretty much every time you give the Gospel, people get saved.
What we did is we would find schools and we would stand on the corner across the street,
wait until the students get out, and then we just give them all the Gospel.
You would start off with one or two kids, and then they would just flock to you.
You'd end up preaching the Gospel to five, six students at a time, super receptive.
I will say one thing that surprised me is just how poor the Bahamas is.
When you go in the city, in the town, it's pretty rundown.
People kind of live in shacks, and the food and the groceries are pretty much the same
price as here, even more expensive.
Like I saw a gallon of milk was like $15, $16.
And so they're really poor, but they're super humble.
One of my highlights was going to a police academy, like Pascelli said, and you're talking
to all these police recruits, and they pretty much all got saved, and it was one-on-one.
So we all got to talk to a police officer, get them saved.
The guy that I talked to was kind of stuck on asking for forgiveness, so I explained
that to him, "Hey, once you're saved, you're forgiven of all your sins, past, present,
future."
It was an awesome experience.
I had a blast.
I mean, we got tons of people saved.
On Tuesday, I ended up getting 21 people saved in one day, which is like a personal record.
I've never done that before.
Super receptive.
Also, the fellowship is great.
Just fellowshiping with different Christians.
There was a group from First Works.
They were awesome, super friendly.
And like Pastor Shelley said, like, "Soul winners get things done."
If you get a map and it doesn't work out, you just go find people, talk to them, get
people saved.
A tactic, their strategy is to go to laundromats, where people are just sitting there washing
their clothes and you just kind of talk to them, get them saved.
There's people walking down the street.
But definitely the main demographic is just students, getting students saved, talking
to them.
They're super humble.
One thing that I realize is when you talk to them, they don't really look at you in
the eye.
So sometimes you think they're not paying attention or they're not grasping, but they
are.
They're very smart compared to the kids here.
Very respectful, yes sir, no sir, you know.
And I will say the group to be with is Team Alpha with Pastor Shelley, because you're
not going to eat local food.
You're going to eat steak every night, ribs every night.
You're not going to eat anything that smells bad, so that's for sure.
So I want to thank Pastor Shelley, he's super.
Like Friday we had jet skis, it was my first time on a jet ski, so that was super fun.
And you definitely have fun on the trip.
So yeah, you do work hard, you go snowboarding for five, six hours a day, but you do have
fun, you fellowship, stay up late, talk.
So I definitely encourage anyone that has never gone on a mission trip to come.
And I thank you guys for praying, if it wasn't for you praying and giving, we probably wouldn't
even been able to go, so thanks to everybody here.
Thank you.
Yeah, so this was a super successful trip, it was really fun, really awesome.
And I've been to, this was my first time to the Bahamas, I've been to the Philippines
twice and I just wanted to touch a couple points of how it compares to the Philippines.
You know, we see the numbers that Evangelist Serbanek is doing, but you can have the same
success in the Bahamas, it's incredible.
And in the Philippines, a lot of the people there are very, very poor, and that lends
to the receptivity, but I personally did not realize until I got there that the Bahamas
is very similar, there's a lot of people that are just super, super poor, and people are
living with no AC in these little shacks, there's trash everywhere, and people are walking
around in tattered clothing, it's very poor, and you would think with all the tourism it
would be different, but you go from Atlantis, which is the resort area, and it's just like
palaces, super clean, super rich, and you go just 10 minutes down the road on the main
island, and it's just abject poverty, and in the Philippines there's basically endless
people to preach to, and that's kind of what lends to the receptivity, but you still get
a lot of rejections of people not wanting to hear.
In the Bahamas, I felt it was very different.
Almost every single person you talk to, if you can grab them and get their attention,
they will listen to what you have to say.
That was very unique, and they respect what the Bible says.
In the Philippines, you have a lot of cults that are similar to the JWs, where they deny
the deity of Christ, they deny the bodily resurrection, hardcore work salvation.
In the Bahamas, it's not really like that.
They already have a lot of knowledge about the Bible, even more so than in America.
And so it's very easy to get people saved there.
Now, the exception is the Rastafarians.
That's one cult that they have there.
And I've got a story about the Rastafarians.
So we had a couple Canadians from Pastor Wiebe's church that were with us.
Brother Levy was preaching.
We waited outside the schools.
When they let out of school, Brother Levy and all of us were preaching to all the kids.
So Levy had some of the remnants, okay?
And we were waiting in the van for him to get done and this Rastafarian runs up and
tries to interrupt his gospel presentation.
So I jumped out of the van and I ran over to run interference.
And so instead of just rebuking this guy, I felt that wouldn't really work in this situation.
I acted super interested in his religion and I just distracted him.
And so I've got a little bit of a conversation.
So I said, "Isn't marijuana part of your religion?"
He says, "Yah man, ganja is part of the holy sacraments."
"Do you have a holy book for your religion?"
"Yah man, it's the Black Supremacy Bible.
You have to special order it from Jamaica."
He says, "So who is God to you?
Do you believe in the Trinity?"
"God is a black man."
And then later in the conversation, he says, "I'm a God.
You're a God.
She's a goddess."
So I guess I'm kind of like an honorary black man now.
Didn't realize that.
But as a whole in the Bahamas, they believe the Trinity.
They believe Jesus is the Son of God.
They believe we're sinners deserving of hell.
And so with Brother Marcel's soul-warning seminar,
everything he said is true.
It's very possible to get people saved in 10 minutes or less.
Super receptive.
I've never experienced something like that.
And obviously, the Bahamas is way closer than the Philippines.
And so once you get there, the Philippines is a lot cheaper.
But Pastor Shelley knows how to take care of you.
So once you get to the Bahamas, you're set.
And I hope this inspires future soul winners to go out.
If you've never gone on a mission trip, please go.
These are some of the most receptive countries in the world.
And you don't even know until you experience it.
And a huge number of salvations would not
be possible without Pastor Shelley and all his support.
Brother Fur, Brother Kenton Knowles, and all the work
that went into this, thank you to all of you who prayed.
And thank you for a really fun trip.
I don't know that we realize just really how blessed we
are, how spoiled we are in this church.
I grew up in an old IP church.
And as a kid, I remember seeing these traveling missionaries
come through.
And they'd have their slideshow.
And it's just like you hear the preaching.
They go around.
They do their deputation.
And I remember as a kid just thinking, man,
I really want to do that.
But in order to do that, in that system,
you have to go to their Bible college.
You have to spend years on deputation
going and collecting funds from everybody.
$10 here, $20 there.
And then you're sent out to a field of your choice
where you may not even know the language or anything like that.
Our method is so much better.
I mean, you have an opportunity.
I mean, we were missionaries this week, this past week.
And for me, that was just something
that I've always wanted to do.
I've gotten a taste of that back in February
when we went on that cruise missions trip.
And we just went to the college, and it was very receptive.
I don't want to say anything negative about it,
because it was a great experience.
But I'm telling you, you've got to do just
the full-blown missions trip where you're going down
into the highways and hedges.
You're getting to know the local people.
You're getting to see the individual faces.
You're getting to feel really what the country is like.
I mean, just like they said, 10 minutes away
from the palaces of the hotels,
you're in just some of the worst places possible
as far as poverty is concerned.
I mean, buildings literally just falling down.
And people are living in these places.
And so for me, that was something that was very eye-opening.
It really made me feel very blessed
to live in the country we live in.
So many people speak negatively about America.
Listen, folks, we live in the greatest country in the world.
It's not even close.
But I will say, the one thing that kind of stood out to me is just the level of respect the people had there for authority.
You can find videos of us going into the schools where the teachers had respect from the students.
The people you talked to had respect for the man of God, the person that held the Bible.
The kids were saying, "Yes sir, yes ma'am, no sir, no ma'am."
We should have that as a priority for us to raise our children that way.
They are beating us in that level, in that area of our life.
Where they actually still respect authority.
Feminism is destroying this country.
It was kind of a breath of fresh air to really get to know those people on that level and see those things.
And then probably my favorite thing was the police academy because you did get that one-on-one interaction with them.
And you could tell that these were...
The reason why I was so...
I guess the reason why it was my favorite part is because these are young men and women.
Of course, obviously, I don't think the women should be in the police force, but they were there, right?
But they're people who...
They probably had a high level of character, unlike some pastors that we know, right?
Obviously, I'm joking.
But these people, they're people of high integrity. They're people that care about their country.
Bahamas, for us, I never felt unsafe at all the whole time we were there.
But there is a lot of crime that goes and takes place amongst the locals.
And to be willing to go into that field in that country, you have to have a lot of integrity.
You have to have a lot of care for your country.
And the fact that we had an opportunity to go and change their life with the gospel,
we just sang that song that we're blessed because he is mine, right?
And so we're making a real impact on those people.
When you go on these mission trips, you're making a real impact.
Eighty percent of the people we probably got saved, I'm just kind of throwing out a number,
from my experience, were from ages 10 to 25.
We're affecting that next generation of Bahamians.
And when you look at the numbers, we effectively got about 10 percent of the population of Nassau saved.
I mean, that's amazing in a week.
And so, you know, I just really want to encourage you to, you know, the next opportunity that you have,
hey, start saving now for that next trip.
It will be life-changing. You know, I can't even express just how great it is.
Thankful to Pastor Shelley. Shout out to Brother Kent Noles.
Without him, we wouldn't have been able to get into a lot of the areas that we're able to.
And honestly, shout out to every person that participated in this mission trip
because I didn't hear a single person complain.
I didn't hear a single person, you know, have a bad attitude.
Everybody's spirit was on level 10.
It was just a phenomenal trip.
Thank you, Pastor Shelley.
And just being able to host those things, it's a great experience.
Yeah, I wanted to say a few things based on some of their comments.
But number one, it's interesting going into their schools
because their schools seem just infinitely better than American schools in a lot of ways.
And, you know, we talk about that respect.
We'll make it clear why they have that respect.
They beat the respect into them.
In fact, while we were there, one of the students mouthed off and they just beat him right in front of all of us.
And, you know, but it makes for a good culture.
They were all dressed nice, dressed in uniforms, very respectful.
Like they said, "Yes, sir."
When we went in there, they're singing Christian songs.
They're singing "I Am a Promise."
And they're singing, you know, hymns and different, you know, just Christian music as their daily routine.
They're reading the Bible.
They're reading the King James Bible.
They're bringing out verses from the Bible.
And so, you know, most of the students there, most of the people there know a lot of Bible.
They have a fear of God.
They've been beaten with a rod of correction.
And the rod of correction is what actually lends you to getting saved.
And the reason why a lot of people aren't getting saved today is because they aren't being beat with a rod of correction.
And so, you know, don't think that, like, children, you know, being punished and disciplined is a bad thing.
It's a very good thing.
You can see the fruit of that in the Bahamas specifically.
When it comes to the Rastafarians, you know, they pretty much are coming from Jamaica.
It's funny when we were going soul hunting near one of the schools.
One of them was driving by, and he started screaming at me when he was really close.
He was just, like, screaming at me while I was talking to these young girls.
And he's like, "We got their own churches, man.
You know, get out of here. They don't want to listen to you."
And he was, like, and he was, like, screaming, like, "They're not interested."
And then the girls yelled back, "We are interested."
You know, it's just funny, you know, this guy's yelling and screaming at me.
But again, we wouldn't be able to do this trip the way we did.
We wouldn't have gotten the number of souls saved.
It wasn't for Brother Kenton Knowles.
He is from the Bahamas and really great man, worked really hard,
made a lot of connections, helped us to get into the police academy,
into the schools, into these other areas.
He's worked really hard to get charities set up and, you know,
make connections and do the work.
And so, you know, again, it takes many people's effort to do this particular labor.
Pray for Brother Kenton Knowles and, you know, he has a heart for his people,
but he really is just a soul winner at heart.
He's considering going to the Philippines again for a while
to get a lot more salvations because he's been a little bit frustrated
with getting so many people into church and baptized.
I mean, he's personally brought dozens of people to churches there
to get them baptized, and they just don't really stick
because the churches there don't really like us,
don't really like him because of all the soul winning,
because they don't really preach hard.
Some of the churches that he goes to,
the assistant pastor there is divorced and remarried
and believes in hyper-dispensationalism and all this weird stuff,
doesn't like our style of soul winning and stuff.
So he's been thinking about going to the Philippines to help,
and I said, "Hey, why don't you go help Vangels or Bannock?"
So I've made offers for him to go and help our church, so just pray.
I don't know if he's going to do that for sure or not, but just pray for him.
We would love to help support him and do some work out there
just for all the help and support he's done for us.
Obviously, that's going to make it really tough for us to beat them out there
if they got him, but that would be a great blessing.
Also, a lot of people talk about me spoiling our church members out there and stuff,
but it's not me, it's our church.
It's not like I can sit there and just personally spoil everyone.
It's the giving and donation and the generosity of our church
and people tithing so that we can use that money.
To me, I want people to just love every aspect of our missions trips.
That's why I try really hard to allow us to have good meals and have fun.
The Bible says the workman is worthy of his meat.
You're never going to offend me by feeding a soul winner a great meal.
It's not like I'm over there trying to just take care of myself
and take care of as many people as I can.
And so we had some awesome, awesome meals.
Also, Brother Kent Nolz got us on the radio, and Brother Ben was with me.
Ben the Baptist, we got to be on the radio,
and we got to talk about pretty much every hot topic you could think of.
But, you know, what's interesting is the radio host said this about America.
He said, "Anytime America sneezes, we catch a cold."
And he was just saying, you know, any of the satanic agendas being pushed on America,
they affect the Bahamas. They affect these other areas.
And so, you know, we have to realize that our impact, our church, the preaching that we do,
when we affect the American culture, we're not just affecting the American culture,
we're affecting the culture of the world.
Because America has effectively colonized the entire world another time over.
There's McDonald's everywhere.
There's, you know, American music everywhere.
There's American movies everywhere.
I mean, no matter where you go, you kind of have little Americas everywhere.
And you have to understand it's important for us while we have freedom to preach all the things that are necessary
and to hold America accountable for, you know, their doctrines and their culture because it affects everyone.
You know, and one other thing that I wanted to say, and I'm going to bring a few of these things up in my sermon this morning,
but, you know, I went to a school that we had visited in the past because two years ago we went into a lot of schools.
I can't remember the exact number.
I want to say it was somewhere between five to seven different schools that we got to go in and talk to the classrooms.
This time it was just a handful.
But one of the schools I went back to, I talked to the principal and we were trying to see if we could talk to the students at lunch.
And she seemed pretty open to it, but then she's like, "Well, we have to ask this one other person."
And then this other person that's over their Christian ministry for their school.
And this short-haired dyke comes out and takes me aside and is like, "You know, I looked at the invitation you have.
That's the same invitation you guys brought two years ago."
And she's like, "I know what y'all are about."
And she's like, "So I'm not going to let you guys go back out there and talk to the students again."
And she was grilling me about what we believe.
And I was trying to just be, you know, real, I was like, "Hey, we believe the Bible.
We believe Jesus, Son of God. We believe salvation is by faith. It's by grace."
And she's like, "Yeah, but we don't believe in that once saved, always saved.
And we don't believe, you know, we believe you have to repent of your sins and all this to get saved and stuff."
And she's like, "You guys caused us a lot of problems two years ago."
She said, "Now half of the students still believe like us and believe like, you know, repent of your sins.
But the other half you guys deceived and you're still causing us problems."
So think about it. You know, we went there and probably spent 15, 20 minutes preaching to these kids.
They've been getting 12, 13, 14 years of indoctrination of works.
And they still can't beat them because the truth is that powerful, folks.
And people want to say like, "Oh, what you're doing doesn't really accomplish anything."
Or, "You're going in there and preaching just one, two, three, repeat after me."
Well, you know what? Two years later they still can't get them back on work salvation.
And they might get mad at us out in this world thinking like, "Oh, they're not really accomplishing anything."
But these people not accomplishing anything are not accomplishing anything.
Us going in and preaching the gospel, give us 10, 15 minutes and we'll change someone's life forever.
And it's not us, it's the gospel, it's the truth, it's the word of God that changes these people.
And you know what? She didn't think that we accomplished nothing.
Because think about it, if we went in there and we convinced them of something for five minutes or one day,
they wouldn't even be mad at us, they wouldn't even know.
The reason why they're mad is because two years later these high school students still don't believe in their work salvation,
still think that they can't lose their salvation, still believe the gospel, and that's the reason why they didn't want to let us in there.
But you also have to realize this. You know, sometimes doors close. If you read the book of Acts,
you'll realize when the apostles went out in these areas, at first everybody gets to listen and it's all kind of on the table,
but then eventually the dark forces, after they realize what's been done, they start clamping down.
And you know, the apostle Paul started getting restricted. He couldn't go to all the different parts of Asia and all these different things.
You know, sometimes you need to strike while the iron's hot and you need to go on the missions field now
while you have the doors open in the opportunity because the doors may not always be open.
And so, you know, there's a sense of urgency for preaching the gospel and doing this work
because, you know, right now when we have lots of doors open, you know, this is the time to get a lot of people saved.
You never know what doors are going to open and close and you don't want to just wait forever
because somebody's going to, you know, scoop in there and get all these salvations.
And so, you know, just putting that out there, there should be a sense of urgency for soul winning,
a sense of urgency to go when doors are open.
And while we have this door open, we want to work really hard
and just keep praying that God will leave lots of doors open to us.
But hey, I preached a sermon, you know, seven years ago, eight years ago,
I don't know, a faith word called, "There's a prepared mission for a prepared missionary."
And I believe that. Prepare yourself now.
Hear these testimonies and say, you know, I want to start saving now.
You know, a lot of these people, while they say I took care of them,
they still bought their own plane tickets.
They still bought that $15 water bottle.
You know, they still bought, you know, their meals and paid for lots of different things,
bought their coffees and whatever.
And so, you know, a lot of people invested a lot of time, effort and energy and money
into this particular missions trip, time off from work and things like that.
And, you know, I appreciate them doing that much work and that much effort.
It's exciting to go on a missions trip like this and have 60 plus people, you know, going out there.
So thank you to everyone who came. Please ask the other people.
I know I would love to get more testimonials because everybody has great stories, but please ask them, talk to them.
And, you know, I'm really looking forward to what trips we have in the future.
So we'll all continue with our announcements.
This upcoming weekend, we're going to have Pastor Bruce Mejia.
October 19th, he's going to come out and preaching for us.
We have a fall swap October 26th. We have a chili cook-off at the end of the month.
FWC is having a missions conference November 5th and 9th.
I'm excited to go out there and share the testimonies and the things that happen in the Bahamas and what we accomplished.
I'm going to be preaching up at Anchor Baptist Church with Pastor Dylan Oz as a one-year anniversary.
Him and a bunch of group, I mean pretty much almost their whole church came out with us to the Bahamas.
And you know they did a great work and they were a lot of fun to hang out with too.
We have the turkey bowl November 29th.
Ladies Christmas party December 5th, Christmas caroling the 8th, cookie bake-off the 21st.
Christmas candlelight service the 24th, men's preaching and pizza the 31st.
On the back is our prayer list.
And then I had an insert here for the congratulations to the West on the birth of their son Stinson Wayne.
He was born October 6th as a typo there on the announcement.
But it's October 6th 1117 a.m. 8 pounds 4 ounces 21 and a half inches long.
Congratulations to them.
Great to see our church family growing.
And if you need anything else you can always email us contact us.
That's pretty much it for announcements.
We're gonna sing our Psalm of the Week Psalm 15.
Psalm 15.
So if you get those black binders back out.
Psalm 15.
15. Let's all sing that out together.
Go ahead and as the offering plates are being passed around.
Open your Bibles.
The book of Acts chapter number 8.
Is the book of Acts chapter number 8.
The Bible reads, "And Saul was consenting unto his death, and at that time there was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem.
And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.
As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and hailing men and women, committed them to prison.
Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.
Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.
And the people, with one accord, gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them, and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed.
And there was great joy in that city.
But there was a certain man called Simon, which before time in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one,
to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, "This man is the great power of God."
And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
But when they believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, in the name of Jesus Christ,
they were baptized, both men and women.
Then Simon himself believed also, and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered,
and beholding the miracles and signs, which were done.
Now, when the apostles, which were at Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had received the word of God,
they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come down,
prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost.
For as yet he was fallen upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.
And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given,
he offered them money, saying, "Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost."
But Peter said unto him, "Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity."
Then answered Simon, and said, "Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me."
And they, when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.
And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, "Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert."
And he arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia and eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot, read Asaius the prophet.
Then the spirit said unto Philip, "Go near, and join thyself to this chariot."
And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Asaius, and said, "Understandest thou what thou readest?"
And he said, "How can I, except some man should guide me?"
And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
The place of the scripture which he read was this, "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth.
In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth."
And the eunuch answered Philip and said, "I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this, of himself or of some other man?"
Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus.
And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said, "See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized?"
And Philip said, "If thou believest 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 him.
And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more, anyone on his way rejoicing.
But Philip was found at Azotus, and passing through he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
Let's bow our heads forward in prayer.
Further, God, we thank you for this week and the mission trip we had the opportunity to go on.
I pray, Lord God, that all the souls who got saved would serve you with their lives.
I pray that you would bless this sermon, help us to pay close attention, and apply it to our lives, so that we can glorify you better in everything we do.
We love you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Amen. I want to look back at verse 31, the Bible says, and he said, "How can I except some man should guide me?"
And we have here in the text somebody that wants to be saved, but he needs someone to guide him.
And that's of course what we believe about soul winning, is that we're going out and we're guiding people.
We're helping them to realize how to get saved. We're assisting them and understanding what it means to be saved.
And we're helping them to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.
And, you know, some people would say, well what you're doing is just trying to convince people to just change what they believe
and just trust Christ and you move on. That it's just really easy to be saved.
And they'll use this pejorative term called easy believe-ism. Who's ever heard this term before? Easy believe-ism.
And I wholeheartedly agree with that label and say that yes, salvation is easy and that salvation is only by believing.
So I'm not even mad about that particular term. And they'll couple this with soul winning.
And so that's kind of the title of my sermon this morning is easy believe-ism, soul winning.
Easy believe-ism, soul winning. Now it's way better than your impossible work-ism.
Now when I go out soul winning and I'm talking to people, I ask them this question.
I say, "Now do you think what I've shown you is easy or hard?" And they pretty much always say easy.
And that helps me understand they got it. And then I say, "Okay, do you think keeping all the commandments
and never breaking any of them perfectly is easy or hard?" And most of them get this.
They say it's hard. And I say, "No, you're wrong. It's not hard. It's impossible. It's impossible."
And I said, "Do you think God wants to make salvation impossible or easy?"
And they're all like, "Yeah, I guess it makes sense. You would want to make it easy."
Exactly. He did the impossible part so he could make it easy for us.
But people that are preaching, repent of your sins, or adding works to the gospel,
are teaching an impossible salvation, an impossible standard.
And you know, I have no qualms about saying what we believe is that salvation is easy because it is easy.
If God loves you so much, wouldn't He want to make salvation easy?
If going to hell was impossible, then what are we doing here?
Now, in this particular chapter, I feel like there's five quick points that I want to make
about what I think is necessary for easy beliefism, soul winning.
And the first point is here in verse 29 where the Bible says,
"Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot."
You know, in order for people to get saved, we have to do something.
Number one, we have to go.
And the Bible is very clear on this that we should go and preach the gospel.
And in this particular story, the Spirit is telling Philip,
"You need to go unto this person."
People need someone to go to them to preach the gospel.
You know, I'm not against altar calls.
I'm not against people that stumble into church and we help them get saved.
But if we're waiting for everyone to just stumble in our church to get saved,
we're going to allow a lot of people to die and go to hell.
And that's why we need to be a church that's going,
that's sending people out to preach the gospel.
It's very important that we go.
As we keep reading in verse 31 though, again,
he doesn't understand what he reads in verse 30,
and the guy's asking him, "Do you even understand?"
And he says, "How can I except some man should guide me?"
We believe that someone needs a soul winner.
They need someone that is saved to explain the gospel to them to get them saved.
I do not believe that people are just going to randomly figure out how to get saved on their own.
Even when reading the right scriptures here, even when reading about Jesus Christ,
even when having the capability of being saved right in their hands,
he needed some man to guide him.
Look, the people in the Bahamas are the greatest testament to this particular idea and concept
because they have John 3.16 memorized.
They have Romans 6.23 memorized.
They have the salvation verses memorized.
They can quote them. They can explain them.
They just haven't had someone help them just connect the dots.
And that's why we need soul winners to go out there
and help them connect the dots, guide them,
and explain to them what this really makes sense,
and turn on the light bulbs so that they can get saved.
You know, if just reading the Bible
and quoting the Bible's verses could get you saved,
all the Bahamas would be saved virtually.
Why are they not?
Because they haven't had some man guide them.
That's why we need to go out there
and be these easy, believism soul winners to help guide them.
Number one, we need to go.
Number two, we need to guide them.
Meaning in verse 35 it says, "Then Philip opened his mouth
and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus."
When we go out and we preach the gospel,
we're preaching Jesus. That's what we preach.
We're not preaching the law.
We're not preaching circumcision.
We're not preaching our testimony.
We're not preaching our faithfulness.
We're not preaching our discipleship.
We preach Jesus. That's what we preach.
We preach the death, burial, and resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ and that Jesus paid it all
and that that's what saves you.
That's what we preach, and that's what gets people saved is preaching Jesus.
Number four in verse 37, "And Philip said, 'If thou believest with all thine heart, thou
mayest.'"
He asked him, "Hey, what's stopping me from being baptized?"
He says, "Well, you have to actually believe in Jesus."
And if you think about what he's doing here is he's emphasizing the fact that this particular
person has to make a decision.
This person has to make a decision.
This person has to make the decision to believe in Jesus Christ.
And what we're doing when we go out and present the gospel, yes we go, yes we guide them,
yes we are preaching Jesus, but ultimately we're driving to a point and that point is
to have them make a decision.
They need to change what they believe and they need to make the decision to believe
in Jesus Christ.
We don't go out and just baptize people.
We don't just preach the gospel and then baptize them.
We are compelling them to make a decision before we baptize them because the decision
is what saves them.
Their decision to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and actually call upon His name
and faith is what saves them.
Not going through some motions and so we are compelling them to make a decision.
The fifth thing that we notice here in verse 38, "And he commanded the chariot to stand
still and they went down both in the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized
them."
Now, we don't have to baptize people to be saved.
That's crystal clear in the text.
Everywhere in the Bible salvation is by faith.
It's not of works.
Everyone needs to be baptized to be saved.
But what I like about this is that soul winners can baptize people the same day that they
get them saved, telling me this, that salvation is not a long process.
If I can show up to someone that doesn't know anything, preach them the gospel, and baptize
them the same day, that must mean that salvation's not hard, it's easy.
It must mean that it's a one-time decision.
It must mean that it happens in that moment, because why would I baptize someone if I have
to wait months and years to see if they've repented of all their sins, if they have this
new transformation in their life?
No, if they've decided to trust Jesus, I can baptize them, and we can baptize believers.
We don't baptize disciples, we don't baptize those that have repented of their sins, we
baptize believers, because it was believers in Jesus Christ that got saved, and that's
what we do.
And you know what?
We model our missions trip based on these exact same points, don't we?
We are sending people out, we are going to preach the gospel, we believe that these people
need someone to guide them, when we preach, we preach Jesus, we are compelling them to
make a decision to put their faith in Jesus Christ, and after they do so, hey seer's water,
we're going to baptize you.
And we're doing exactly what the early apostles and early disciples did, is we're going and
we're guiding and we're preaching and we're compelling and we're baptizing.
Now let's go through these points a little bit more, I want to show you more proofs
for each of these points quickly.
Go if you would to Matthew chapter 28, Matthew chapter 28, you know the Bible says in Mark
16 verse 15, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
When we go out into the world, we preach the gospel.
We're not going out and preaching repentant of your sins, we're not preaching the law,
we preach the gospel.
What is the gospel?
The death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and we are commissioned
by Jesus to go and preach to everything and to preach to everyone and to give everyone
the opportunity and everyone the chance.
And so we should give them all the benefit of the doubt and start with the gospel and
until they've rejected it twice, we don't move on.
But a man that's inherited after the first and second admonition, the Bible says reject.
Some people get mad at us rejecting people, but we first went and we go to them and we
give them the gospel.
Matthew 28 verse 18, the Bible says, "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All
power is given unto me in heaven and earth; go ye therefore, and teach all nations."
How dare you go to the Bahamas and tell people what they should believe?
We've got their own churches mon!
Well you know what?
Jesus Christ told me that he gave me the authority and the power to go and to teach all nations.
It's not because I'm American, it's because I'm a Christian that I get to go anywhere
I want and preach the gospel to any person I want because Jesus commissioned me and he
told me to go and he told me to teach all nations.
And not only that, to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Ghost.
You watch me baptize somebody and I will baptize them in the name of the Father and in the
name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost.
And then what does it say?
Teaching them to observe all things which I have commanded you and lo, I am with you
always even in the end of the world.
I'm also entitled to preach anything of Jesus, anything from the Bible and anything that
Jesus said after I got them saved and after I got them baptized.
Welcome to church, alright?
When you show up at church, everything in this book is on the table.
Everything is available for them and you know what?
I don't care if they're a one day old Christian, I can preach any section of the Bible I like
to do.
However and whenever I want.
And look what it says about this, I am with you always even under the end of the world.
This is a great statement because obviously the Lord Jesus Christ was with the apostles.
He is with the disciples.
But they're dead.
You know what, we are alive and Jesus Christ is with us just like He was with Peter, just
like He was with Paul, just like He was with all the apostles and He's commissioning us
to go.
Go to Romans chapter number 10, go to Romans chapter number 10.
Point number one is that we need to go.
Who will go?
Who will go to the mission field?
Who will go on these trips?
Who will go on these journeys?
And you know I am for good ideas.
I am for people being creative.
I am for people planning and making ideas and things come together in a cool vision.
But let me tell you something.
It's more important that you do it than you come up with the idea.
Hey, I have this idea.
We should go to the Bahamas and preach the gospel.
That's great, but if no one does it, what's the point?
And you know, you may be disappointed thinking like I didn't come up with the idea or people
have done this before me.
But you know what's more important than the person that came up with the idea?
The person that goes and just does the work.
And we just need people to go and do the work and it's not about the idea.
Jesus is the one that came up with the idea.
Jesus is the one that told us to go everywhere.
We're just trying to do what He told us to do.
And we need people to actually do it.
You know, faith without works is dead.
We can have a great faith that the Bahamas will get saved and wish that they get saved.
But you know what will get them saved?
People just going there and actually getting them saved.
And that's what's really, really, really important is they need someone to guide them.
They need an actual flesh and blood person to guide them.
And you know another thing that's important that is hard to understand.
You can have somebody just preaching the gospel clearly to a big crowd and then afterwards
you talk to them and they didn't get it.
Many times, sometimes it does.
I'm not saying it doesn't.
I'm not saying don't do this or something.
What I am saying is that if you're a dedicated soul winner you'll realize there's nothing
like one on one soul winning.
There's nothing like that confrontation and having the conversation and actually sitting
there with Philip and Eunuch and just going through the Bible and showing them the verses,
you know there's something special about that one on one or a small group interaction where
you can really show somebody the Bible, show them the gospel.
And we need people to do this.
Romans chapter 10, look at verse 13.
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
Hey, anybody that calls on Jesus in faith will be saved.
"How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe
in him, and whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?"
How are we expecting people to get saved without a preacher preaching the word of God to them?
And of course it says, "And how shall they preach except they be sent?"
So this wraps up that first point with the second point.
Number one, they have to be sent.
Number two, they have to preach.
We need someone to guide them.
We need someone to preach them the gospel.
Someone has to do it.
Verse 16, or let's keep reading verse 15.
Let's read it all.
"How shall they preach, except they be sent, as it is written?
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace."
You know, I'm not sure if there's such a thing as like foot language.
You know, there's like sign language.
You can use your hands.
I don't think there's such a thing as a foot language.
You know what the Bible's saying is how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel
of peace.
Why?
Because a soul winner is going to use his feet to go.
And look, our soul winners walk a lot.
Our soul winners are traveling a lot.
People are telling me, man, you know, my feet are actually getting sore or I'm getting blisters
or whatever.
Why?
Because it's actually a lot of walking and going around, you know, they might even get
wet.
You know, the Bahamas, it floods everywhere.
You had to run around.
You had to get wet.
You had to get blisters.
I have a lot of mosquito bites.
Okay.
Boy, I have nothing really negative to say about the Bahamas, but the mosquitoes are
real folks.
Okay.
Tip.
Bring a lot of mosquito repellent or something.
Okay.
Is it serious?
But you know what?
The mosquito bites of the soul winner that's going out and preaching the gospel.
You know what I mean?
How beautiful are the blisters of the soul winner that's going out and preaching the
gospel?
Because someone needs to go.
Someone needs to get in those highways and hedges and preach the gospel to them.
Verse 16, "But they have not obeyed the gospel, for as they have said, the Lord hath believed
our report."
We're going out and we're reporting.
We're giving the testimony of Jesus Christ.
"So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God."
How do we get people saved?
We go out and give the testimony of Jesus Christ.
We give the report of Jesus Christ and when they believe that, that's what saves them.
That's the whole point of Romans chapter number 10 is that we tell them about the resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
We tell them that he paid for all their sins and when they call upon the name of the Lord
in faith, that's what saves them.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
We preach the gospel and we get them saved.
We guide them with the scriptures.
The Ethiopian eunuch didn't quite understand the Bible and he needed a soul winner to start
at the same place and preach unto him Jesus, and of course that's what we're preaching.
Go to Romans 1.
We're not just preaching whatever we want.
We're not just preaching repent of your sins.
We're not going around bragging to people.
Hey, you know why I'm going to heaven?
Because I genuinely turned from all of my sins.
Hey, I have a video here.
You can see me being such a great Christian.
You want to watch it?
You want to watch me repenting of all my sins?
Do you want to watch me giving up drinking?
You want to watch me not doing drugs anymore?
Do you want to watch?
I filmed me going to church this morning.
Do you want to watch it?
Isn't that going to motivate you to get saved?
No, no, no.
We don't preach repenting of your sins.
We preach Jesus.
We preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's what saves people.
Romans chapter 1, look at verse 16.
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and the salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the
just shall live by faith.
Notice how someone got saved, it went from faith to faith.
Just like when we have our Christmas candlelight service, we have one candle with a light,
and we just, from one fire to the next, from one candlestick to the next, you light another
one and then pretty soon the whole room is lit up.
And boy it's like that, we went into the school and just from one little fire, one little
flame, we just set the whole, I'm not going to word this this way, I wasn't going to say
we set the whole school on fire, but spiritually speaking, you know, we lit that place up.
We got that place saved, you know what I mean?
No actual fires happened, okay?
But what we did do is we preached the gospel to them and we gave them a fire, the Holy
Spirit came inside of them and we got them saved and people are saying, "Man, I'm running
out of people to talk to because all these kids are saved now."
All these kids are understanding the gospel and they're receptive and they're hungry.
And of course we're giving them follow-up instructions, we're giving them the Preserved
Bible movie they can watch for free, they have a gospel video that they can share with
other people, we're getting emails from people so they can listen to all the sermons if they
want to.
Hey, we're trying to do the best we can, but we're in and out.
We're just there and we're giving them the gospel and then we're out of there and we're
going on to the next person because we want everyone to get saved.
Go to Acts chapter 2, let's emphasize this for just a moment, bear with me.
What did the apostles do?
Did the apostles go out and preach for pen of your sins, preach the law or did they just
preach Jesus?
And I think it's really consistent if you read through the book of Acts, all they did
was preach Jesus.
All they did was preach the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ
and that's what they were doing, getting people saved.
Acts chapter 2, look at verse 36, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly
that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ."
So in Acts 2, 36, right before Acts 2, 38, what was he preaching?
That Jesus Christ was killed and yet he's Lord and Christ.
And when he said, "Repent," in Acts 2, 38, he's saying, "Change your mind and believe
in the crucified Jesus."
That's what they were saying.
And chapter 3, look at verse 14, it says, "But ye denied the Holy One in just and desired
a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the prince of life whom God hath raised from
the dead, whereof we are witnesses."
What were they witnessing?
What were they testifying of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ?
That's what makes them an apostle in the first place.
Not that they repented of all their sins, but that they trusted in the resurrected Jesus
Christ.
That's what they were preaching.
Look at chapter 4, verse 11.
Chapter 4, verse 11, "This is the stone which was set at Nodavu Builders, which has become
the head of the corner.
Neither is there salvation in any other.
For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
What were they preaching?
The name of Jesus Christ.
Chapter 5, verse 28, saying, "Did we not straightly command you that you should not teach in this
name?
And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's
blood upon us."
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, "We ought to obey God rather than
men."
"But one of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree."
What is they preaching?
"The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a prince and a savior, for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
And we are as witnesses of these things.
And so also is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him."
When they heard that, they were cut to the heart and took counsel to slay them.
Why were they trying to kill the apostles?
Because they are preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ and that salvation was only
in believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That salvation was only by trusting what Jesus Christ had did for them.
That's why they wanted to kill them.
Go to chapter 7, look at verse 52.
Chapter 7 verse 52, "Stephen also preaching this, 'Which of the prophets have not your
fathers persecuted?
For they have slain them, which showed before of the coming of the just one, of whom ye
have been now the betrayers and murderers.'"
What is he preaching?
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Look at chapter 8 verse 35, back in the story that we read, "Then Philip opened his mouth
and became into the same scripture and preached unto him, 'Jesus.'"
That's what he was preaching.
Chapter 9 verse 20, "And straightway," this is talking about the Apostle Paul, "And straightway
he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God."
What did the Apostle Paul preach?
That Jesus is the Son of God.
That's what he was preaching.
Go to chapter 10 and look at verse 36.
Chapter 10 verse 36, "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace
by Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all.
That word I say ye know, which was published throughout all of Judea, and began from Galilee
after the baptism which John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy
Ghost, and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed
of the devil.
For God was with them, and we are witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land
of the Jews and of Jerusalem, whom they slew and hanged on a tree.
Him, God raised up the third day, showed him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses
chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him, after he rose from
the dead.
And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained
of God, to be the judge of quick and dead, to him, give all the prophets witness, that
through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
What did they preach?
The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that whosoever believes in him
is saved, and has forgiveness of all sins.
That's what they were preaching.
Look at chapter 13 verse 29, chapter 13 verse 29.
And when they had fulfilled all that was written of them, they took him down from the tree
and laid him in a sepulcher, but God raised him from the dead.
And he was seen many days of them which came up with them from Galilee to Jerusalem, who
were his witnesses unto the people.
Now skip down and look at verse number 38.
Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things from
which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
You know what this going through acts reminds me of?
Us going out and preaching the exact same gospel in the morning and the afternoon and
all day.
Hey, let's just start again.
We're all sinners.
We all deserve hell.
Jesus died for all of our sins.
All you have to do is believe in him.
The works can't save you.
Do you want to call upon the name of the Lord?
And then you go to the next person.
Hey, we're all sinners.
Hey, we deserve hell.
It's just the same message over and over and over and over and over again, right?
In chapter 2, it's the death, the resurrection, forgiveness and sins in His name.
Chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 8, chapter 10, chapter 13, it's just the same gospel, same
belief in Jesus Christ, same forgiveness and sins.
They're not saying stop drinking, stop fornicating, stop by...
Now again, there are parts where it brings this up, but I'm telling you, when they're
preaching to people to get them saved, that's not what they're bringing up.
They're bringing up the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and
that that's what saves them.
And when they're telling them to repent, they're telling them to stop trusting in themselves
and believe in Jesus Christ.
That's what they're telling them.
Look at chapter 15 verse 7, chapter 15 verse 7, "And when there had been much disputing
Peter rose up and said to the men and brethren, 'You know how that a good while God made choice
among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe and
God would know at the hearts, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost even as he did
unto us, and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith."
Purifying their hearts by what?
By faith.
Hmm, 10, "Now therefore why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples
which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as
they."
How are we saved?
By the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How are the Jews saved?
By grace.
How are the Gentiles saved?
By grace.
By faith.
It says here in verse number 12, "But the multitude kept silence and gave audience unto
Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles
by them."
I'm not forsaking time, I'm going to keep going, but notice again that they were saved
by grace through what Jesus Christ had done for them, the gospel and believing in it.
Go if you went to chapter 16 verse 30.
Chapter 16 verse 30.
We run into a jailer who's a Gentile, and he's about to kill himself, and the Bible
says in verse 30, "Sir, what must I do to be saved?"
And they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
They didn't say repent of all your sins.
They didn't say quit doing all these wicked things you're doing.
They said believe in Jesus and you're going to be saved.
Chapter 17 verse 2, "And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbathays
reasoned with them out of the scriptures."
Now, here's an important part of this verse, "And Paul, as his manner was."
What does this mean?
This is what Paul is doing the whole time.
Every day, every week, every month, every year, this is what Paul does.
All the time.
Verse three, "Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from
the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ."
So what did the apostle Paul do all day, every day?
Preach the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That's what he was preaching.
Chapter 18, look at verse 28.
Chapter 18, look at verse 28, "For he mightily convinced the Jews in that publicly showing
by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ."
Is he going in there and arguing with them about repenting of your sins or following
the commandments or how much circumcision?
No, no, no.
He's saying, "Hey, Jesus is the Christ."
That's what he's arguing.
Look at chapter 23 verse 6, chapter 23 verse 6, "But when Paul perceived that one part
were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, 'Men and brethren
I'm a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am
called in question.'"
Why is it that the Jews want to kill the apostle Paul?
Because he believes in the resurrection and because he was preaching the resurrection.
Chapter 26 verse 8, chapter 26 verse 8, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with
you that God should raise the dead?"
When the apostle Paul is trying to convince King Agrippa to get saved, what's a stumbling
block is he's like, "Hey, you got to believe in the resurrection."
Is it really hard to believe that God could actually raise someone from the dead?
Verse 22, "Having therefore ordained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing
both the small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses
did say should come, that Christ should suffer and that he should be the first that should
rise from the dead and should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles.
And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, "Paul, thou art beside
thyself.
Much learning doth make thee mad."
So what did the apostle Paul say?
"Hey, the only thing I've been preaching, the only thing that I've been saying, is the
death-bearing resurrection."
And then he gets interrupted and they say, "Oh man, you're crazy.
Oh man, you're mad, you're a lunatic for believing what?
The death-bearing resurrection."
But he said, "I'm not mad," most noble Festus, "but speak forth the words of truth and soberness,
for the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely, for I am persuaded
that none of these things are hidden from him, for this thing was not done in a corner."
King Agrippa, "Believest thou the prophets?
I know that thou believest."
Then Agrippa said in a poem, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."
What is he doing?
He's preaching the death, burial, and resurrection.
And what does King Agrippa recognize?
Why is someone a Christian?
Because they believe in Jesus Christ.
They believe the resurrection.
Not because of anything other than putting their trust in the death, burial, and resurrection,
and that it's a decision.
Almost persuades me to be a Christian.
What is persuading someone to be a Christian?
To believe in Jesus Christ.
That's what it means.
You know, taking that Catholic and persuading them to believe in Jesus.
And not their false religion, not their impossible works-ism.
Look at chapter 28, verse 23, one more verse here.
Chapter 28, verse 23, almost one verse here.
"And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging, to whom
he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both
at the law of Moses and out of the prophets from morning till evening."
Now the apostles and the disciples used the law, yeah they used the law to preach Jesus.
Not to preach repenting of your sins for salvation, but to preach about Jesus.
And that's why we use the law.
We use the law to explain to people, "Hey, you're a sinner deserving of hell, and it's
not that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell, bad people who believe
go to heaven and bad people who do not believe go to hell because there's none good, no not
one.
For all of sin it comes short of the glory of God.
And that is the gospel message, the good news.
But notice again if we go back to where we were in chapter 26 and we were talking about
Agrippa, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.
What do we need to do?
We need to compel people to make the decision to believe in Jesus Christ.
Number one we go, number two we guide, number three we preach Jesus.
And number four we're compelling them to believe in Jesus.
We're compelling them to make the decision to trust in Christ and to put their faith
in what Jesus Christ did for them.
That's what we're trying to get people to do is to change what they believe.
Repent from their works.
Repent from their works based salvation.
Repent of their false religion.
Repent of whatever's stopping them from believing in Jesus and believe in Jesus Christ.
Make the decision to put their faith in Jesus Christ.
Just like when I walked on the airplane, I made the decision to trust the pilot to get
me there.
Just like when I sit down in a chair, I made the decision to allow the chair to hold me
up and not my own legs.
Just like when I get in a car, I made the decision to let someone else drive me that
I'm trusting them to get me there.
Now if you know me, I don't really trust many people to drive me around, but it has happened.
What is that?
It's putting your faith in someone else.
That's what it means to be saved when we put our faith in someone else.
In the football game, it's when I hand the ball to someone else to try and let them score.
It's when I pass the ball to them and they're going to shoot the three-pointer to win the
game.
It's putting my transfer of trust into Jesus that saves me, and we're compelling to make
that decision.
But so many people are just wanting to hang on to the game ball and shoot it for themselves.
So many people are wanting to hang on to the game ball and try to run it in for their own
touchdown.
So many people are trying to walk to Africa themselves instead of getting on the airplane
where Jesus is going to fly them there.
Look, you can't walk to Africa, you have to get on a plane, you have to trust a pilot
to get you there.
In the same way, you don't know how to get to heaven, you can't get to heaven on your
own.
You have to get on the airplane of Jesus and allow Him to fly you there.
Even if we did put you into the pilot seat, you have no idea where to fly to.
And Ben might run into a building, you know, you never know.
On the way there.
That was the problem.
They were trying to get to Africa, they ran into a building, sorry, because that's where
everybody wants to go, right?
No, what's the point, we need to help people to compel them to make a decision.
Go to Matthew 22, go to Matthew 22, points are very simple.
We need to go, we need to guide, we need to preach Jesus, we need to compel them to make
a decision.
And I really like this parable because of what's happening in this, in this parable.
But we have in verse 2, it says, "The kingdom of heaven is likened to a certain king, which
made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden
to the wedding, and they would not come."
Again, he sent forth the other servants saying, "Tell them what you're bidden, behold I have
prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready, come
unto the marriage."
They made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise,
and the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.
But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth, and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed
those murderers, and burned up their city.
Then saith he to his servants, "The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were
not worthy.
Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find bid to the marriage."
So the servants went out into the highways and gathered together, all as many as they
found, both bad and good, and the wedding was furnished with guests.
Now what is this parable?
Of course parables are to symbolize some spiritual truth.
Number one, the guy that's making this particular feast is preparing this marriage for his son.
Is God the Father preparing this marriage ceremony unto his son, the Lord Jesus Christ?
And who is he being married to?
The church as a whole.
The church as a whole is considered the bride of Christ, not individually, but as a conglomerate.
We are the bride being brought unto the Lord Jesus Christ and He's making this feast.
One of the things that I love about this is that He prepared oxen.
You know what?
Amen.
And the fatlings.
He's getting us a feast!
Hey, and you know what?
When we feast, we have oxen.
We have beef.
What's for dinner?
It's beef, all right?
But the Jews make light of it.
They don't want the cheeseburger, okay?
And they end up rejecting him.
God sends forth these armies that destroy them, that's 70 AD, where God destroyed the
nation of Israel, and basically he's saying, "Well, hey, we're ready, heaven's open, but
no one's willing to come."
So then he sends forth people into the highways and into the hedges to compel people to come
into the wedding feast.
And they're just bidding, "Hey, come to the wedding."
"Okay."
And they come.
Wouldn't that be easy to think it's hard or easy to compel somebody to say, "Hey, there's
an awesome feast, there's an awesome wedding, you're invited, go have a bunch of good food,
just go."
But hey, what's he saying? You have to repent of all your sins to come to this marriage,
you have to turn over a new leaf. No, no, isn't it easy? And look, that's all we're
doing. We're just going out and we're just compelling people to go to heaven. Hey, do
you want to go to heaven? It's real easy. Just believe in Jesus, you're good to go,
you're going to the wedding, I'm moving on, I'm going to invite some more people. And
they're going to the highways and the hedges, and you know what? They're compelling the
good and the bad. You know what that tells me? Some people didn't repent of their sins
at all and they're still going to heaven. They're bad. They're not even good. But you
know what? The bad people that believed in Jesus Christ to go into heaven, the people
that are trying to repent of their sins to get to heaven will never make it. And they
might even be better. They might even be good. But you know what? The good that don't want
to come, don't get to come. Only the bad that are willing to believe in Jesus Christ. Now
look, obviously this is in comparison of us, right? Comparison to God, no one's good. Comparison
to ourselves, some are good, some are bad. But at the end of the day, we're all bad in
God's sight. Therefore, salvation is not by those that are good. It's only those who believe
that get to go to heaven. And what do we do? We're trying to compel them to make the decision
to go. Come to the wedding, come to the marriage, come to heaven. We want you to go. This is
how you get there, is believing in Jesus Christ. We're trying to persuade King Agrippa to become
a Christian, and that's what we do. Now go to Acts chapter 2, go to Acts chapter 2.
Once we get someone to actually change what they believe, when they actually have this
realization, hey, this is different. That's a question I always ask. I say, hey, is this
different than what you believed earlier? And when they say yes, then I say, okay, let
me show you how to believe in Jesus Christ then. And that's how I help them call upon
the name of the Lord. I don't want anybody to pray with me that didn't change their mind
because they didn't get saved. Hey, we do believe repentance is necessary for salvation.
I do believe you must change your mind in order to get saved. Because if you didn't
change your mind, you're either already saved or you're not ready to get saved. But if
you haven't changed your mind, then there's nothing to repent of. There's nothing to get
saved from. To get saved, someone must repent. They must change what they believe and put
all of their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what true biblical salvation is.
But let me tell you something. Once someone's done that, I believe they're saved, period,
no matter what they do. That's why I'm ready to baptize anyone and everyone that has repented
and put their faith in Jesus Christ. That's why when we stand in the water, I say, "Hey,
have you trusted Christ as your Savior?" And when they say yes, hey, you're going down
and I'm bringing it back up. Now in Acts chapter 2, look at verse 41. This is when
they went out and they were preaching the gospel. Of course, this is after Acts 2.38.
They repented. They actually realized, hey, that person that we crucified and killed was
Jesus and they want to believe in Him. They did put their trust in Him for the, for the
givenness of sins. Then it says in verse number 41, "Then they that gladly received His word
were baptized." How did they get saved? By gladly receiving the word. Why were they baptized?
Because they had gladly received the word. Not to get saved, but they were, they received
it because they put their trust in Jesus. That's what saved them. They were baptized
because they were saved. And it says this, "And the same day," they were added in about
3,000 souls. When did you baptize people? The same day. That's when you get people baptized.
The same day. Go to Acts chapter 8. Go to Acts chapter number 8, and look at verse 12,
"But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God in the
name of Jesus, they were baptized, both men and women." As soon as someone believes, we
baptize them. Go to chapter 16, and look at verse 32. Chapter 16, verse 32. So now we're
following up on what we just showed you. They're preaching Jesus, preaching Jesus, preaching
Jesus. They're getting them saved, getting them saved, getting them saved. And after
they got saved, they baptize them right away. They're not waiting. They don't have a baptism
class. They didn't say, "Oh, did you get saved from someone in the new IFB? We can't baptize
you." No, no, no. As soon as they got saved, baptize. Bam. And look, a lot of the people
that got baptized were not baptized by the pastor of a church or the church that they
even went to. You know, I've heard some preachers, they get mad. They say like, "How dare you
come to our country and baptize people? Then they can't go to your church." Well, look,
you don't have to go to my church if I baptize you. You should be able to go to any church.
You know, it's not about like who baptizes who. I've heard some pastors literally teach
if you get baptized, you're baptized in that person's church and you can't leave. That
actually sounds a little like a cult, okay? I'm just saying, you know. I mean, I could
see like the temptation, I guess, to want to, you know, trap people or something. I
don't know. But I'll be honest, there's some people that I don't want trapped here either.
You know, it's like, hey, you might have gotten saved or baptized, but it's like you're hit
the road, Jack. We don't want you back. Okay. You know, I want this church soul winners.
That's who I want in my church. There's a bunch of people that are going to go soul
winning. A lot of people that come and go, you'll notice the common denominator is they
got backslidden on soul winning or they weren't a soul winner at all. Acts chapter 16, look
at verse 32. "And when they spake unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were
in his house, he took them the same hour of the night and watched the stripes was baptized
he and all straightway." Oh, how do you know if these people really got saved? How did
Paul know? Because once you put your faith in Jesus Christ and you start saying the right
answers, hey, you're saved. And I can say, let's go the same hour and baptize you. Hey,
there were people in the Bahamas that came to service, heard us preach, heard the gospel,
got saved and got baptized the same hour. And how dare you? Well, how dare you not get
anybody baptized or preach anybody the gospel or ever preach Jesus or ever guide anybody
or ever go? You know, people would love to love to hate on us and hate the works that
we're doing. And the reason why they hate on it is not because of the truth, not because
of what the Bible says, because they do nothing. Now, it's been a while. I've only preached
45 minutes. So please trust me. Okay. I want to read this article a little bit. All right.
So give me a few more minutes. All right. But there's these people that attack what
we do and attack our soul winning and they don't like us. And these people are, they're
just funny to me. They're just kind of funny to me. And there's a website called KJV churches
dot com. Who's ever heard about this website or seen it? Yeah. We're listed on that particular
website. Now this app, this website put out an article this month, October 8th, 2025.
So they put out a new brand new article about how to identify the Andersonites. That's the
type of the title of this particular article that they put out there. And you know, I think
most of our churches are probably listed on this website or whatever. And of course that's
great. I mean, they don't have to. It's a blessing to be listed on these websites.
They basically, I'm not going to read the whole article, but they basically say that
they want to just keep everybody on there because that's just their philosophy. Their
philosophy is just kind of put everyone on there that's a KJV church. And they're kind
of then, but they're giving all these explanations of why they're going to still keep us on this
particular website. All right. But it says this, to be honest, there is one group of
churches that we have considered are moving entirely. There's only one group. There's
only, there's only one bad group of all the KJV churches in the world. It's us. All right.
He says, and not because they're not KJV only, they profess to be, or because they aren't
independent, they claim to be so also, but because they are cultists following a lunatic.
That's why. So we're all cultists following a lunatic. And it says, who's introduced vile
heresies into Baptist churches, and who has attempted to undermine the doctrinal soundness
of many believers through vicious, ungodly, antichrist screeds online. Now, I didn't even
know what screeds was. I thought it was a typo, but apparently screeds is a long speech
or a piece of writing. So we have vicious, ungodly, antichrist screeds. That's why they're
so worried about us. And it says, who are the quote Andersonites? It says, of course
we're talking about Steven Anderson, an unordained foul mouth, wife and child beating muckracker
and internet troll. That's, that's the description. It sound almost like Ben. We don't want on
a rant here or whatever. Those adjectives says the quote new IFB churches who follow
him, including many of those churches who have separated themselves from him, from his
personality, but have maintained his pernicious doctrines. Now this one's so funny and then
people don't get whether you like pastor Anderson or don't, or whether you separate from him
or not, everybody considers you part of this movement. So you might as well just stay in
the club. You know what I mean? Like everybody's going to hate you no matter what you might
as well just be part of the club, okay? I can't do anything to stop being in the club.
It says, "While these churches profess to be independent and polity, fundamental in
doctrine and baptism and practice, they are danger to the body of Christ. And they've
only been listed on here to warn people away from visiting them." So they're trying to
warn everybody. It says, "It's been definitely a hard decision because not everyone will
recognize the danger and many may still visit them anyway." Exactly. It's like we're so
bad and so dangerous, why are people just wanting to come, you know? Or whatever. So
he gives a lot more instruction of how to identify us and how dangerous we are or whatever.
So he gave us this of why we're so bad. He said all these bad labels. He said we're terrible.
So here's going to give us our doctrines and what makes us so bad. All these pernicious,
scary, evil doctrines, okay?
Number one, reason why you shouldn't have anything to do with the Andersonites is they
believe in a hyper grace, empty prayerism, easy believism, emphasis on soul winning without
any real discipleship or follow-up. So the number one reason they hate us is the way
that we do soul winning. And of course they call it hyper grace, which is kind of a false
accusation in my opinion, but empty prayerism, easy believism. Now I agree with easy believism.
I don't think it's empty prayer because I think when you call upon the Lord in faith
you get saved. And you know what? Soul winning is a biblical term. He that win his souls
is wise. And it says without any real discipleship or follow-up. Well, hey, we give them, you
know, movies. We give them the preserved Bible. You know, we met a young man at a church that
had been reached by other Baptists or whatever. And they were saying, hey, you know, we met
Revival Baptists. We met Pastor Patrick Boyle out there and stuff. And, you know, we were
trying to give them some discipleship. So I said, hey, here's a movie ticket. You can
watch a whole movie about the Bible. And then Brother Ben's like, you know what? You're
going to probably like this movie because it has Pastor Boyle in the movie. I just laughed
really hard about that, but... Hey, we're giving them discipleship. Hey, you can watch
this movie. You can, you know, you can listen to the sermons. Hey, we'll get you baptized,
whatever it is. But you know, it's funny they say that what we did didn't accomplish anything
or is empty or whatever. When we go back to their schools, they didn't think it was empty.
They didn't think it was in vain. In fact, we went to C. V. Bethel and the person over
their Christian ministry there refused to let us preach the gospel because they said
two years ago we caused them so many problems that half of their students now believe like
us and that they can't get them back on work salvation. They can't get them back on the
repent of your sins. They can't tell them that they can lose their salvation and they
believe it. No, she said y'all believe it once saved always saved and now half of the
school is deceived and believe like y'all that it's once saved always saved. Sounds
like it worked. Sounds like easy believism actually accomplishes something. And boy,
the enemies of the gospel, the enemies of salvation, they know that we are effective.
They know that we cause problems for them. And you know what I do know is that these
people that write these articles and do these things, they're doing nothing is actually
accomplishing nothing. I mean, think about it. Let's just say we're wrong for a second.
Let's just say what we're doing was really just, just one, two, three, repeat after me.
And then we just walked away, right? Accomplishing literally nothing. What if we just baptize
a whole bunch of people? They were not even saved and no one got saved and everything's
fake, right? Well, how is them never going to the Bahamas, never preaching about anything,
never going, how is that reaching anyone? I mean, if they're right, think about it,
if they're right, every one of the Bahamas is going to go to hell. If we're right, at
least 1,400 people are still going to go to heaven with us, right? It's like which side
you really want to be on? And then you just believe the gospel has no power? I mean, it's
so funny that people that mock soul winning and attack soul winning and act like we're
accomplishing nothing, they're doing nothing. So then, how do you believe the whole world's
going to get evangelized? And look, those guys going in the highways and hedges, compelling
people to come in, that was easy. They just walk in, come to the marriage, come to the
marriage, come to the marriage, come to the marriage, just like us. We just preach the
gospel, preach the gospel, preach the gospel, and yes, we are getting people saved. We are
accomplishing something and they're nothing. It's so stupid and so foolish. Hey, if you're
better at this, then come show us. You know, I don't have a problem going back to the
Bahamas next year and everyone's already saved. I'll just go ride the jet skis more or whatever.
I'll just go, okay, how about Sodom and My Deception now? Let's go. Right? We'll rent
out the IMAX and we'll just watch that movie. You're not going to hurt my feelings with
people being saved, but you know what? People that just mock and ridicule soul winning,
they're evil, they're enemies of the gospel, and you know what? You should never fall for
these stupid lies of these idiots saying we're accomplishing nothing. They're the ones
accomplishing nothing. He says we have a quote, "A hatred of repentance in any context."
Now again, that's just an outright lie. I'm always asking people whether they change their
mind or not before I get them saved. He says, "Especially with regard to salvation." Now
again, I don't preach impossible works-ism, if that's what they mean. I don't preach you
have to repent of every single sin that they've ever committed in order to get saved. Here's
the third thing that we're so dangerous on. An open espousal of Reformed replacement theology
teaching that the church is now Israel and all the promises made to Jacob's offspring
now apply to the church. Oh, you mean like Abraham, our father has many sons? Father
Abraham has many sons. That's called replacement theology for them. Yeah. Red, yellow, black
and white, they're all precious in his sight. Aren't we all children of God by faith in
Christ Jesus? Isn't that what the whole Bible's about? I mean, does it offend these people
that the first epistles written to the Romans and then the Corinthians? Sounds like we're
getting some people replaced by the Greeks, by the Gentiles. I mean, they just must not
like Paul's words when he says, "Lo, you guys have judged yourselves unworthy of everlasting
life." I mean, that's what he said about the Jews. He must not like 1 Thessalonians
chapter number two that tells us that the Jews are the ones that killed Jesus and that
the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. It also says they please not God. They also
don't please me. They're contrary to all men. That's a whole other sermon, but hey, this
is the dangerous doctrines again, right? No, the good doctrines is letting APAC run our
government. The good doctrines is allowing our Supreme Court to be filled with Judeo
Christians or Jews. That's really bringing in a lot of good laws and righteousness in
our nation, right? Is to have a Jewish cabinet. Is to have the Jewish people running our money
system and running our banks and charging us high interest. Yeah, what a blessing. Boy,
we just keep blessing them. They just keep blessing us with usury and pornography and
corruption at every political level. Yeah, what a blessing. They bless us with paid protesters
to harass our churches. They bless us by cancelling us and censoring us from every platform. Yeah,
what a blessing the Jews are bringing on God's people, huh? You believe in Replace and Dialogy.
What do you believe in the synagogue of Satan? Who is that to these people? And I love these
people that don't believe in Replace and Dialogy. Tell me who the synagogue of Satan is then.
They say we have a "hatred of Jews in modern Israel." Look, I don't hate Jews. I don't
hate them enough to lie to them and say they're God's chosen people. I love them enough
to say, "Hey, you're not saved and you didn't believe in Jesus, you're going to hell, buddy.
We have a vicious anti-Zionism position." Yeah, have you ever seen the pictures of Gaza
lately? Wow. It is a wasteland. It is like a post-apocalyptic nightmare. You cannot live
there whatsoever. Who wants to be for that? They say we have a sort of limited atonement
and that homosexuals cannot be saved, the so-called "reprobate doctrine." Well, you
know, the so-called "reprobate doctrine" is a chapter 1 in Romans. I love it that they
just like attack things, acting like, you know, using these words like "reprobate."
It's in the Bible! Am I not allowed to believe the words of God? Aren't you King James only?
Don't you believe in the King James Bible? And yeah, I believe homosexuals can't be saved
not because Jesus didn't pay for all their sins, He did. It's because they don't believe
in Him. I actually believe people that don't believe in Jesus aren't saved. Big shock.
You know why they don't understand this? Because they never go soul-witting, so they never
run into faggots and ask them how to be saved, and hear what they have to say. If you actually
did soul-witting, you'd realize faggots don't believe in Jesus. They never do. They say
we have a laughable and ignorant rejection of dispensationalism. Oh, that's really scary.
We laugh at it. Here's the last thing. These have been some scary doctrines so far, huh?
Here's the last one, is that we believe in the post-trib pre-wrath rapture, and then
we believe people are going to go to the tribulation up to the very end. Well, that's because
this is misleading, because we don't believe the whole seven years. We believe only a certain
portion is called the tribulation, but they think that the whole seven years of tribulation
doesn't matter, different sermon. But again, why are we so bad? Because we do soul winning,
because we believe repentance is a change of mind, because we believe God's people are
Israel, spiritually speaking, because we don't just promote Israel, the nation, no matter
what they do, because we don't believe faggots who don't believe in Jesus are saved, because
we don't believe in dispensationalism, and we believe in the post-trib pre-wrath rapture.
They also say, this is why we're off, this is a second section, why we're so bad, because
of our church names.
We use names like Verity, Faithful Word, Sure Foundation, Stronghold, Steadfast, and Word
of Truth.
And it says, we use this with the intent of giving off a more biblical feel to our names.
You know what makes this dangerous?
Trying to make the name of our church sound biblical.
It's scary.
Here's the second reason why we're so scary.
Family integrated.
Third reason, "hard preaching against pet issues."
And it says that our sermons are incoherent and scripturally threadbare.
So I mean, you listen to our sermons, no scripture.
You go to the old IFB, just scripture you don't even know what to do with.
It's going to come out of your nose.
So much scripture.
And to say the only reason we do it for YouTube views.
You need to catch up with the times.
I haven't been on YouTube for years, buddy.
He says this, "It wouldn't be surprising if this website becomes a sermon topic thanks
to this article."
He said that we have pyramid-schemed church planting.
Well, you have zero church planting, so why do I care?
And he says this is the reason why we do church planting, based on a private interpretation
of the word "children" in 1 Timothy 3-4.
I don't know how it's private.
I feel like you even understood it.
Yeah, because we believe pastors have to have kids before they pastor, then a lot of times
we ordain people to be like an evangelist or something before we make them an actual
pastor.
Instead of ordaining a 21-year-old kid out of Bible college to become pastor of a church,
we actually wait and ordain guys that have kids.
Scary!
I mean, we should be getting those young kids in the pulpit fast!
Again, this is why we're so dangerous, is because we are not like them where we just
ordain anybody as pastor.
We actually wait until you have, quote, "children," scary word, children, it's a private interpretation.
People, I mean, it's really complicated to understand the word children.
It sounds like plural, like you have them, scary stuff, you know?
You got to go to Bible seminary to figure that out.
And whenever we put someone in charge of a church plant, we have to wait until the local
puppet meets our requirements for ordination, like having children, God forbid, right?
This one's funny.
We use foul and abusive language, okay?
Now they say we don't shy away from slurs and almost cussing in the pulpit.
So you know, we haven't cussed, okay, almost.
But our "pastors," everything's in quotes, okay, sorry, it's just like how the article
goes, "pastors use vulgarity off camera."
Well, how scary, you know, I mean, how scary that every once in a while we say something
real mean about Jews or something, you know, pedophiles, I mean, can somebody get mad about
Joe Biden for one second?
I mean, what are these guys, and frankly speaking, look, a lot of these guys play golf, I don't
believe that they don't use vulgarity off camera either, okay?
I challenge you to find me an avid golfer that's never cussed, doesn't exist.
Here's another scary thing that we do, is that we advocate against homosexuals calling
for self-harm or legalizing of their execution.
You mean like the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s America?
We have a hyper-patriarchal family structure, and then it says, according to many ex-members,
now, these are very reliable people, okay, according to ex, new IV, we believe, he says
wife beating is common among adherents.
I mean, frankly speaking, the only way we can keep you women in here is to beat you
in the submission, okay?
This is ridiculous, this is funny, okay.
Some women actually like our church, sorry.
Here's the last thing that we're doing, it's been scary so far, I get it, all right.
Here's the last one, we do international soul winning trips.
Everything has to be, you know, it says, given the moment's focus on one, two, three, repeat
after me, again, quotes, quick sales tactics, it's not surprising that they routinely take
group trips to countries with receptive cultures, and boast of hundreds of conversions, which
are then abandoned without any sort of discipleship or training, typical of this extreme version
of the Jack Hiles approach to supposed evangelism, but it's like, okay, where's your evangelism?
Where's your people, where's all the people you got saved in the Bahamas that you followed
up with, that you stayed around and you did whatever. Plus, they say receptive cultures.
Look, they might be really receptive, but they're not receptive to Mormonism. They're
not receptive to JWs. You can't just walk in and just teach these people anything. I
mean, just think about what they're trying to say. They're saying, we're going to dumb
people and just tricking them into something stupid. That sounds racist to me if you ask
me. Did you say, oh, you're just going to some receptive people? What are they trying
to say? They're trying to insinuate behavior is dumb. You know who's dumb? They are. They're
dumb. And many of these behaviorists are a lot smarter than these people and have a lot
more wisdom. And you know what? They've actually believed in Jesus Christ and they're actually
going to heaven. They don't believe stupid things like dispensationalism or that Jews
are just God special chosen people for no reason. You're the ones that are receptive
to lies, receptive to false conversions. They say this about our group or whatever. They
say pretty much all of those who have been influenced by Steven Anderson will exhibit
at least some of the ungodly and abusive practices described here. Let me remind you of all these
horrible practices. We name our churches with biblical names like Steadfast. We have family
integrated services. We have hard preaching. We do church planting. Sometimes people almost
cuss in the pulpit. We say that homosexuals should be put to death. We believe in a patriarchal
family structure. Obviously, if wife beating was common, that's at least a reason to be
afraid. Still doesn't happen, though. Never happened. International soul winning trips,
that's the scary part. I mean, dude, the Bahamas was scary. You don't want to do that. That's
terrifying. Most people tell me that was the best trip of their entire life. He says the
bad root, bad fruit. He says Christ himself said, "Buy their fruits, you should know them."
Andersonites are false prophets. Just a statement. So now all of a sudden we're false prophets.
I'm not going to read the whole thing, but basically this is why we're all false prophets
because Pastor Anderson has four bad kids. That's just his argument. He's got bad kids,
false prophet. I guess Jacob's a false prophet. Eleven bad kids. I mean, in fact, you can
even say twelve because Dinah just runs off and commits fornication. She's a whore. I
guess Jacob's just instantly a false prophet. Eleven of his kids sold their brother into
slavery, lied to their father, pretended he was killed, and then his daughter is a whore.
False prophet. How about David? David, you got Amnon, which is a literal rapist. Not
only a rapist, an incestuous rapist. Hey David, you got an incestuous rapist. Then you got
a treasonous son that slept with your wives. Talk about another disgusting weird fornication
example. Then you get Adonijah, which is another treasonous son. I guess David's now a false
prophet too, huh? You can believe whatever you want. Believe what a narrative you want.
I've never said to come to steadfast bad this church, you have to believe a specific narrative.
Believe whatever you want about my friend Pastor Stephen Anderson. I don't really care.
You know what I don't like is railing. I've always stood on that. Look, there's people
that are not my friend that don't like me. I don't like railing on them either. Again,
let's make it clear what railing is. Saying things that are not true. If it's like, "Hey,
this person said this really stupid thing in their sermon and it's laughable," that's
not railing. That's called the truth. That's called a meme. I know why they don't like
memes. But I don't appreciate railing on anybody. And we should not have that culture. We shouldn't
be like that. And people that focus their whole life on attacking people are on a bad
path anyways. But let me say this. To just call someone a false prophet because their
kids are bad is not doctrine. It's not good doctrine at all. It's not real doctrine.
I don't care if somebody had five or five reprobate children, I'm not going to call
them a false prophet. Because everybody should be judged based on their own life and their
own decisions. Let's take Jack Hiles for an example. I personally believe his kids
are 0 for 4. I mean if you really study, it's pretty rough man. I mean you got David Hiles,
it's bad. I mean the accusations and evidence of him being a serial adulterer and doing
all kinds of weird stuff, it's really awful. Linda, one of his daughters, has just become
like completely deconstructed from Christianity, doesn't even believe it, went on Ted Talks
and basically just trashed her dad repeatedly calling him a cult leader, calling him a wolf,
calling him everything you could think under the sun. Another daughter marries Jack Scop,
which is one of the worst scumbags to ever live. The other daughter married another guy
who gave him a pastor and he was a disgraced pastor doing bad things. I don't want to repeat
because I don't want to get it not completely accurate, but the other guy had a lot of shady
things, horrible things happen. And it's like, "Oh, so then how do you like Jack Hiles?" Because
I like what he preached. I liked what he said. And you know what? I do like his fruit. And you
know what? His fruit is not necessarily his kids. You know what's a fruit of Jack Hiles? It's a guy
named Pastor Kevin Nguyen in Mexico City. It's a guy who went down into Mexico City and started
from basically nothing and it's running 7,000 people and getting people saved all the time
and doing a big work. That's the fruit I see of Hiles Anderson ministry. I don't see, "Hey,
just because their kids rebel and do stupid things and bad things, I'm not going to trash
the guy that did that." And look, you can go reference my sermon on Pastor Jack Hiles
a year before any of this drama happened. Go listen to that sermon and then tell me I've
changed my doctrine. Hasn't happened. Never happened. You know what? I'm not going to call
someone a false prophet because of their kid. I'm going to call them false prophet because of what
they said and what they did. And the guy that wrote this article is a false prophet. He said,
"Here's all the lists of all these horrible churches, scary churches. Faithfulward Baptist
Church, Straight Paths Baptist Church, First Works Baptist Church, Verity Baptist Church,
Steadfast Baptist Church." He lists us both as Cedar Hill and Oklahoma City,
but it's Anchor Baptist Church now. So I'll update your article, okay? Anchor Baptist Church,
Pastor Dylan Oz, great guy. Sure Foundation Baptist Church, and it gives their Vancouver,
Washington, Spokane, and Renton, Washington. Union Gap, he also runs a church there,
but it's called Bible Believers Baptist Church. Then another Sure Foundation Baptist Church in
Surrey, British Columbia, that's listed in this article. New Life Baptist Church, Pastor Kevin
Sepulveda in Australia. Verity Baptist Church, Manila, Philippines, with Pastor Matthew Stuckey.
Strong Tower Baptist Church in the UK by N. Taverner. And then Fortress Baptist Church,
Winnipeg, with Pastor Jim Weeb. Now those are the ones he mentioned. There's other great churches,
there's other people that, they would probably label this, and they even say that, they say some
of the former people should also be in this list or whatever. But he says the Andersonites are our
problem. He says, but it makes it all the more important that every Bible-believing Baptist
church and preacher make a permanent public denouncement of Stephen Anderson and his cult.
That's what he's asking for. He's calling for every church to just publicly and permanently
just mark us forever. And look, I'm telling you, people are getting mad. You know why they're
getting mad? Because they're a loser that does nothing, and we're actually doing something for
the cause of Christ. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
And you know what's so funny to me is they're always like, "Eh, you guys act like you're the
only ones doing something." He's the one acting like we're the only ones doing something. He's
the one wanting to ban us. He's the one wanting to get rid of us. He's the one saying, "Look at
this group." And look, what was one of the really dangerous identifying marks? I didn't say it.
He said it. What is one of the really scary just things that make him like, you know, we
got to be worried about Andersonites. They go soul winning and they do international soul winning.
That's what he said. Super scary. So then when we say, Hey, we're doing the soul winning revival
and lots of international mission strips. And it seems like we're the only ones doing it.
He says the same thing. And he says, anyone doing this is an Andersonite. Well, you know what? Call
me an answer tonight then. And look, I'm not, I'm not trying to wear that label. I don't really care
about the label. I'm just saying, Hey, I don't care what label you give me. Honey badger. Don't
care. You can call me a weasel, low character, no respect, false prophet wolf. I take the crown of
railers or whatever you want to say. Hey, I don't really care because we went to the Bahamas and we
got 1400 plus people saved. Hey, you have a better faith than me. Show me your faith by your works
and I'll show you my faith by my works. How about that? Oh, I don't think what you did work. Well,
I know you doing nothing isn't working for sure. And you know what? I don't care if people like
me or not. I hope they just do what we're doing. Cause you know what's about the gospel. It's not
about me. It's not about being my friend. It's not being a pad about our movement. You know what? Our
movement is about Christ and we want people to be on Christ's team. For we preach not ourselves,
but the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who we're preaching. We preach Christ crucified. You know
and then again, don't get nervous about people saying nasty things about you. Because if that's
all it took for you to quit, you know then your strength is small. Thou faint in the day of
adversity, thy strength is small. And you know what? It's going to get harder than just people
calling you names and doing whatever. Like the devil isn't going to take it laying down folks.
He wants to stop us from doing what we're doing because we're actually causing a ruckus.
We're actually getting people saved. And you know what? If every baptist church marks us,
I'm thinking like it's an advertisement. Hey there's this one church you want to go to.
They might, they might get people saved. They might go out to an international mission trip.
They might actually almost cuss or something or whatever. It's like oh so scary. You know
we're not, we're not perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm not going to say that I'm doing everything
right but I'm going to say this. We're doing a lot of things right. And let us lean into things
that we're doing right. You are in a church that's accomplishing great works for the Lord Jesus
Christ. You know our evangelists in the Philippines is doing great works for the Lord Jesus Christ
and we're going to keep doing them. And it doesn't matter what they say. Let them be the liars and
whatever because frankly it just gives me more rewards. It gives you more rewards when you're
lied about, separated from, marked. And let them just become the decaying dinosaurs that no one
cares about anymore. And let us be the new. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much
for this trip that you've given us, this opportunity to go to the Bahamas and get so many people saved.
Thank you for giving us good doctrine so that we can understand that salvation is easy,
that it's easy to go soul winning, that we need to go, that we need to guide, that we need to preach
Jesus, that we need to compel them to believe in Jesus Christ. And then when we do that, we can
baptize them. Thank you for giving us that power and authority from your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you for this church. I pray that you would help fill this church with soul winners, that you
would give us more soul winners, that you would help purge us so that we can get more people saved.
And I pray that we would not allow the naysayers and the attacks to discourage us,
but just help us laugh and just enjoy serving God that much more. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
All right, funny enough, we have a pretty scary song to sing this afternoon.
392, a soul winner for Jesus. Shaking already. Song number 392, song 392. Let's shake the nerves
off and sing it out together. A soul winner for Jesus, song 392.