Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe,
Arizona for another episode of Uncensored Live.
We're going to be taking phone calls at 480-465-1203.
That's area code 480-465-1203.
Before we jump into the phone calls, I just want to say that I'm going to be preaching
tomorrow night in Vancouver, Washington, just right outside the Portland, Oregon area.
So if you live anywhere in Oregon or Washington, I'm going to be preaching at Sherp Foundation
Baptist Church in downtown Vancouver, Washington.
We'd love to see you there.
All right, let's take a phone call.
Yes, Pastor Anderson here.
How you doing?
How you doing, Pastor Anderson?
Great.
Just a quick question.
How do you feel about when someone says, if you don't remember when you're saved, then
you're not saved?
Does someone have to remember specifically when they got saved?
What's your stance on that?
No, I don't think they have to remember specifically because the important thing is that they are
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ right now.
And that's the proof that they're saved that, you know, because whosoever believeth in Him
is not going to perish but have eternal life.
So an illustration I like to use is that I have some friends on the Indian reservation
and they don't know when they were born.
For example, there's this one lady I know and they told me she's either 89 or 92.
They're not sure because, you know, they forgot what year she was born.
But that doesn't mean that there's any doubt that she was born.
The proof that she was born is that she's here, we're looking at her.
And so the proof that you've been born again is that you believe the gospel, you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, you're fully trusting His finished work on the cross, you're not
trusting in your works.
So some people might not remember the exact time and the place as long as they know that
there was, you know, a time and a place.
But they don't remember what date that was.
I don't remember the date when I got saved.
I mean, I remember that I was in my mom's bedroom and I was kneeling by her bedside
with her and she went through it with me.
And I prayed and accepted Christ as my Savior, but I couldn't tell you the date.
Right.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I completely agree.
Thank you.
Yeah, no problem.
God bless you.
All right.
480-465-1203.
Yes, Pastor Anderson here, how you doing?
Yes, Pastor, I have a question.
In Romans chapter 2, it starts out by saying, Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever
thou art that judges for.
And it goes on to say those things in Romans chapter 1 and talks about the reprobate doctrine.
I've heard the interpretation of Romans 1 that says that reprobates are actually saved.
And the verse that they point to is where it says that they knew God, they glorified
Him not as God.
So they're saying that these are saved people who Paul is talking about here, but—and
then they go on to Romans chapter 2 and it says, Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man.
I want to—
Yeah, that is the most bizarre doctrine I've ever heard in my life.
And yes, yes, I have also heard that before.
And the first time I heard it, it just blew my mind that anybody would come up with such
a ridiculous interpretation that the reprobates of Romans chapter 1 are actually saved.
But it just shows you the goofball things that people come up with.
You know, when the Bible says when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, you know,
if I met someone, I could say I know that person because I'm familiar with them.
And so these people are familiar with God.
They know who God is.
They're inexcusable because even His eternal power and Godhead are manifested through the
creation.
But to say that they're actually saved is utterly ridiculous because the Bible says
that they hate God, they don't even want to retain God in their knowledge.
They change the image of God into birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.
I mean, what kind of crazy doctrine would it be to think that saved Christians are reducing
God to an animal or hating God to where they don't even want to retain Him in their knowledge?
And so I don't want to spend a lot of time debunking that because it's so foolish that
it's not worth, you know, going on and on about because I think any honest person could
just read Romans 1 and see that there's no way that these people are saved.
As far as chapter 2, when it says, Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whenever there's
a therefore, you have to see what just came before it.
So it says in verse 32 of chapter 1, Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which
commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them
that do them.
Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judges.
For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judges doest the same
things.
So the hypocrite that he's pointing to there is the one who maybe doesn't necessarily do
these things, but they have pleasure in them that do them.
You know, if you take pleasure in reprobates, if you take pleasure in those who do these
things, then you're inexcusable, okay?
You're basically a partaker of their evil deeds.
Like the Bible says, if somebody comes bringing a false gospel and you bid them Godspeed,
you're a partaker of their evil deeds.
So when we sit there and enjoy and take pleasure in reprobates and wicked people, we're partaking
in their evil deeds.
And so we are actually condemning ourself by doing that.
But then in verse 2 he says, but we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth
against them which commit such things.
So we don't want to misuse chapter 2 verse 1 to somehow give a pass to the reprobates
of, hey, we're all guilty, you know, because chapter 2 says, no, the judgment of God is
according to truth against them which commit such things.
So is that answering your question?
Yes.
Yes, thank you.
Yep.
Good one.
Yeah, what'll they think of next?
Come on.
People are saved just because they knew who God is?
As soon as they knew Him, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became
vain in their imagination and their foolish heart was darkened.
That's not somebody who's accepting Christ, that's someone who's rejecting Christ.
Give me a break.
Yes, Pastor Anderson here, how you doing?
Hi, how's it going?
Good.
I just have a quick question.
I know the, um, I know a lot of Ashkenazi Jews that hate Christians, you can read that
in the Bible, that's pretty plain and clear, but I'm wondering where the ethnic hatred
comes from for European Christians.
They have a special disdain for them, they push it in the media, they kind of try to
pit other races against European Americans, Europeans all over the world, like saying
they have white privilege and this and that, and I'm just wondering how can we fight back
against that as a Christian?
Well, I mean, you know, the way that we fight any kind of lies or false doctrine or wickedness
in this world is simply by preaching the truth, getting people saved, getting people
baptized, teaching them to observe all things that Christ commanded, preaching the Word
of God.
As far as why it is that the Ashkenazi Jew-controlled media, uh, you know, attacks European culture
or Christianity in general, probably because of the fact that they're Ashkenazi Jews and,
and, you know, if you look up in your Bible who Ashkenaz was, Ashkenaz a Gentile, okay,
so this is referring to the fact that these are Jews living in Europe and they're from
Germany, Hungary, Poland, et cetera.
So they've lived in Europe and they've hated Christ all these years, so I guess that's
why they have this grit in their craw about, um, you know, Western Christianity or what
have you, but obviously, you know, the Jews hate Christ.
We see it in Galatians chapter four, the son that was born after the flesh, Ishmael persecuted
the son that was born of the spirit, Isaac, which is an allegory for the two covenants,
the Bible says.
And so we have the Jews persecuting the Christians all throughout the book of Acts.
So I tend not to focus on the racial issue because I, you know, I don't think that that's
the important issue.
I'm not here to defend white people.
I'm here to defend Christians, red, yellow, black, and white.
I don't focus on the ethnicity issue.
Yeah.
The only reason I bring it up because I notice it's just a, it's a key prominent thing against
these communists where they try to pit everyone against European Americans and I just didn't
understand it.
Maybe there's a biblical reason for it.
I mean, as far as them hating Christians, I'm hating Jesus Christ.
That's plain as can be, but I just noticed that it's getting more prominent and prominent
and it's taking effect in the real world.
But I did want to ask you one more thing.
Christian Zionists, it's just, how do you get through to them?
It's just, I know there's a few pastors like you, who's that, pastor from True News.
There's a few of them, but they don't have that big of a voice as someone like Pastor
Hagee.
I call him Rabbi Hagee.
Maybe they seem to have this large platform, large voice, and the only ones that get a
push in the mainstream are these Christian Zionists.
So what's your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I mean, how do you get through to them?
You know, Romans chapter 9, Galatians chapter 4, Philippians 3, 3, Romans 2, 28 and 29.
I mean, there's just a lot of great scripture.
Ephesians chapter 2 is such a powerful scripture.
I mean, there's so much great scripture that destroys it.
But you know, you can't be too hard on a lot of these pastors that are Zionists because
a lot of them are sincere and they just haven't heard the truth.
And you know, we've all been so brainwashed for so long with the Zionist propaganda through
the media.
A lot of these guys, you know, they just don't know the issue.
And so, you know, if you could just gently take them to Ephesians 2 and break it down
to them, Romans chapter 9, and break these things down to them, you know, they will often
see the light on it.
So anyway, thanks for the call.
480-465-1203 is the number.
Pastor Anderson here.
How you doing?
Hey, Pastor Anderson.
I have a question.
I think it's Psalm chapter 54, where I believe David was speaking about when he committed
adultery with Bathsheba.
He said, against thee, thee only have I sinned.
And my question was, how did he only sin against God?
How did he sin against, obviously, you rise wise, you wire, everyone should know about
that.
Yeah, it's actually Psalm 51, verse 4.
It says, against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou
mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judges.
I don't know, to be honest.
I've actually wondered the same thing because, you know, it seems like he actually sinned
against a lot of people.
So I guess what he's probably saying there is just that the thing that bothers him the
most is that he sinned against God.
And he knows that God is the one who he hurt the most.
And so he might be using, like, a hyperbole here, and just kind of exaggerating.
But it's kind of a tough verse, and so I don't really have a good answer to give you on that
one.
Sorry!
Yeah, this is fine.
But the reason I ask that question is because I hate to bring this up, but the whole Donny
Romero thing, a lot of people were saying, like, yeah, I forgive him, some people say
I don't forgive him.
And, like, I was thinking the whole time, like, okay, I know he sinned against his church
and his family, but, like, just everyone was, like, saying whether they forgive him or not.
And I was just thinking, like, is it their place?
I know he sinned against God, but is it any Christian place to be like, oh, I forgive
him or I don't forgive him?
That's why that verse came to mind.
Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, he apologized to me.
I forgave him, and I'm just moving on with my life, but obviously he should never be
a pastor again, and, you know, he obviously disgraced himself and the ministry, and so
he's history.
But you know, still, I hope that he can continue to live a Christian life with his family,
his wife, his kids, and that he can, you know, move on and do something good for God.
But you know, it is what it is.
I mean, you know, some people have different views on that, whether they forgive him or
not, and I think it would be based on whether they feel that he was truly repentant or not,
because I think we would all agree that if he were truly repentant, it would be our Christian
duty to forgive anyone who is truly repentant, no matter what they've done.
We're required to forgive everyone.
So I guess the only way that someone could justify not forgiving him would be if they
believed that he was unrepentant.
Wouldn't you agree with that?
Yeah.
But the question was, like, did he actually sin against anyone who feel like they sinned
against him?
Yeah, I personally think he sinned against everybody.
I think he sinned against his family, and I think he sinned against all his church members
and everybody who listened to him online.
You know, I don't know that I would just take this verse and apply it in the way that
you're suggesting.
But anyway, I appreciate the call.
Sorry, I don't have a better answer for the verse, but God bless you.
Have a good one.
All right.
See you.
All right.
480-465-1203 is the number.
Yes.
Pastor Anderson here.
How you doing?
Hi.
Good evening, Pastor.
Quick question.
So I was talking to a friend recently, and he was saying that he was going to go to
the church, and he said that he was going to go to the church, and he said that he
was going to go to the church, and he said that he was going to go to the church, and
he said that he was going to go to the church, and he said that he was going to go to the
Good evening, Pastor.
A quick question.
So I was talking to a friend recently about differences between the KJV and other perversions,
and I pointed out the, of course, the verse about Isaiah 1312, but he insisted that Lucifer
does not refer to Satan, but actually, you can't, you know, he was just very lofty and
prideful.
I was just curious if you'd ever heard that theory in either way, what you would say to
that.
Yeah.
Well, there are two Scriptures that are really similar.
of them is in Isaiah chapter 14, and the other one is in Ezekiel chapter 28, and
they're both pointing to a earthly king, but then they're also talking about
Satan. And when people take an interpretation that says, this is only
talking about the earthly king, it's not talking about Satan, you know, they just
don't understand that the Bible is deep and that it has more than one layer of
meaning. Like, for example, you know, if I just read it for you in Isaiah 14 12,
they that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee, saying, Is
this the man that made the earth to tremble that did shake kingdoms? So we
obviously see that, yes, this is dealing with an earthly king, but it's also
talking about Satan. Okay, same thing in Ezekiel 28. I'll go flip over there real
quick so that you can compare it to that. Ezekiel chapter 28 says, Son of man, verse
12, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus. So there's your earthly figure
that he's talking about, the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the
Lord God, Thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Thou has
been in Eden the garden of God. Now obviously this earthly king was not
literally in Eden the garden of God, and when it says, Every precious stone was
thy covering, when it says in verse 14, Thou art the anointed cherub that
covereth. Obviously this earthly king of Tyre is not a cherub, but Lucifer or
Satan is. So what you have to understand about scriptures like this is that, yes,
they are referring to human beings, but when you actually read the context of
these and compare Scripture with Scripture, you can see that there's a
spiritual application here that we're also talking about Satan. Yeah, absolutely,
because, you know, the end times prophecy would be about Satan being brought down
to hell, to the sides of the pit, and so forth. But you know, you want to be
careful anytime somebody wants to assign only one meaning to a particular
Scripture, because the vast majority of Scripture has multiple layers of meaning,
especially when you're dealing with Old Testament prophecies. They're often dual
and triple and quadruple fulfillments of these. So when people just say this is
just only talking about a human being that lived a long time ago, then what
they're doing is basically making that Scripture only relevant just to that one
person in that time, in that situation, when in reality the Bible has relevance
for all time. And so there are dual and triple fulfillments, and I've heard the
argument that both Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are only referring to human beings,
not to Satan, but I believe that they're both referring to both, you know, Satan
and an earthly king. Basically the earthly king is like Satan, you know, he
thinks he's God, just like the devil wanted to be like God and wanted to take
the place of God. Yep, no problem, thank you.
Yes, Pastor Steven Anderson here, how you doing?
Hello, how you doing, Pastor? Great. I want to thank you first of all for everything you're doing online, because you've done a lot for me, especially.
The question I want to ask today is, is it a sin to not have children if you are married?
Well, I don't think it's a sin to not have children if you're married if
God doesn't give you any children, but I do believe that it is a sin to make
the choice not to have children if you're married. I believe that if you're
married, it's God's will that you be fruitful and multiply, and to Him that
knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to Him it is sin. And so if we take a
biblical view that children are in heritage of the Lord, the fruit of the
womb is His reward, God wants us to be fruitful and multiply, He wants us to
have a physical relationship with our wife, the product of that is children. If
we use artificial means such as birth control, I, you know, I'll just come right
out and say I believe that birth control is a sin. Thank you very much.
No one has basically been able to answer this before I'll be straight forward, so once again I want to thank you.
Yep, no problem. God bless you, have a good one. By the way, Theodore—President Theodore
Roosevelt, in a speech early in the 20th century, said, quote, birth control is
sinful. Also famous preacher of yesteryear, John R. Rice, who is pretty
much a household name amongst independent fundamental Baptists, the
founder and editor of the Sword of the Lord newspaper of yesteryear. Now, of
course, it's someone else running it, Shelton Smith. But anyway, John R. Rice
wrote a book called The Home, and by the way, I would highly recommend his book on
The Home. Again, that's The Home by John R. Rice, and in that book he has three
whole chapters pretty much dedicated to why birth control is wrong, and he rips
on it. I mean, he rips on it hard, but that's because the book is from 1946, and
that used to be the the common belief. Nowadays, you know, that belief has
been backed off from by most Baptists, Christians, etc., but you know, times
change for some people. Yes, Pastor Anderson here, how you doing?
Hi, Pastor Anderson. I had a question about Psalm 51, verse 5. It says,
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. I've heard
this verse used to justify original sin, and that babies don't go to heaven, and I
wanted to know, how do you defend that? Well, I would say, first of all, you know,
that in this verse, when it says, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did
my mother conceive me, that it wouldn't be referring to the the child's sin, if
anything. It sounds to me like it would be referring to the mother is in iniquity
and in sin when she conceived. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my
mother conceive me. So she's the one that's in sin, not him. That would be my
first response to that. I don't believe in the original sin doctrine, and let me
just explain that, because a lot of people are confused about what original
sin means. Obviously, I believe that because Adam sinned, we are all sinners,
and that sin nature has been passed on to all of us, okay? So we're all born
with a sinful nature, of course. But what original sin teaches is that God will
basically punish us for what Adam sinned. Even if we don't have our own sins, he'll
punish us for Adam sins. And why this is important is because a baby in its
mother's womb is not capable of sinning. A newborn baby doesn't sin, okay? And
so basically, to justify infant baptism is where this doctrine of original sin
comes from, so that the Roman Catholics and the baby-sprinkling Protestants can
basically say, well, you know, even though this baby hasn't sinned yet, it still has
to be baptized because we have to wash away the original sin. You know, we have
to cleanse it from Adam's sin. And this is a false doctrine not found in
Scripture. How can a baby in its mother's womb actually sin? Especially if you're
gonna take this verse, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother
conceive me, to say that the baby's like sinning as it's conceived. So this little
cell that's multiplying into two cells is somehow sinning. That doesn't make any
sense. I mean, you could interpret this verse to say that, you know, he was
conceived as a sinner or with a sinful nature, which I believe that, that we all
have a sinful nature. But to say that we're being held accountable for Adam's
sin is false because of the fact that we are only accountable for our own sins.
God does not hold us accountable for what Adam did thousands of years ago,
okay? That's just a justification for infant baptism. And which of the Ten
Commandments could a baby in its mother's womb break? You know, can it
steal? Can it kill? Can it commit adultery? Can it covet? It can't do those things. A
newborn baby doesn't do those things. And the verse that I would point to,
the real clincher, is in Romans 7, I believe, when Paul says, I was alive
without the law once, but then the commandment came and sin revived and I
died. So I believe that babies are gonna go straight to heaven if they die. You
know, if a baby dies in its mother's womb, or a young baby or toddler dies, they go
straight to heaven. I don't believe that their spirit dies until when they get to
the age of accountability where they can actually understand right from wrong and
understand the gospel and things like that, where they're old enough to
understand those concepts. Because Paul said, I was alive without the law once,
but then the commandment came and sin revived and I died. So just like Adam and
Eve were in the Garden of Eden and they were in a state of innocence and they
did not know that they were naked, also little children that are one, two, three,
four years old, maybe even five years old sometimes, they have no clue that they're
naked. They'll run around the house naked and they don't even care because they're
still in that state of innocence. When they get to the point where they're
starting to cover up their nakedness and be self-conscious of that, that's
probably a good sign that they're reaching the point now where they're
ready to accept the gospel or be saved, where they're to that age of
accountability, but before that they're not. So this this Protestant or Catholic
doctrine that says, well we have to baptize a baby to make sure it doesn't
go to hell because of original sin or make sure it doesn't go to limbo
because of original sin, is an extra biblical false doctrine. So don't confuse
being born with a sinful nature with the doctrine of original sin, because
original sin is a false doctrine. Okay, yeah, that makes more sense, I agree with
that. I have one more quick question. Sure. Do you, or have you gotten your 100,000
subscriber plaque yet from YouTube? No, I don't think I'm ever gonna get it, because
it said that when you reach 100,000, then they're gonna, like, decide whether
you're worthy, so I think I was deemed unworthy. Yeah. Oh, that's too bad.
Well, thank you, Pastor. Yeah, no problem, thank you.
Pastor Anderson. Yes. We have a voicemail that is kind of related to what the last
caller had a question about, so I want to play that for us.
Hold on a second, that's the wrong one. Sorry, hang on a second. I'm gonna back up here.
That sounded like a good one, Genesis 4 26. Yeah, my notes.
Yeah, I think that the reason why God put the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil is because without the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then man
wouldn't even have a choice, and God wants people to choose to do the right
thing, to choose to love Him, to choose to believe on Him, to choose to serve Him, not
to just be a robot that would just automatically do right, or He doesn't
want to just put us in a white padded room where we can't harm ourselves or
anyone else. You know, He doesn't just childproof our lives. He puts things out
there for us that could be a stumbling block to us, like the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, because He wants us to overcome those things, and so
it has everything to do with free will, and it has to do with the fact that God
is glorified when we willingly serve Him. Okay, so we will go into that other
question regarding Genesis 4 26.
It says that people began to start calling on the name of the Lord. Does
that mean that Abel did not call on the name of the Lord, if you take it 100%
literally? Thank you. I think that it means, plural, men began to call upon the
name of the Lord, so I think it's crystal clear that Abel called upon the
name of the Lord. I don't think it's saying that Abel didn't. I think what
it's saying is that men, plural, began to call on the name of the Lord, so you have
Abel who was saved, but then when, you know, Seth begets Enos, then there's
basically a bunch of people or a plurality of men calling upon the name
of the Lord, and I love this verse. I think it's such an important verse just
to show the continuity of salvation from Genesis to Revelation, because you have
people here getting saved by calling upon the name of the Lord, and then we
see that carried all the way through in Genesis and the book of Psalms, and then
all the way into Romans chapter 10, of course, that great verse in verse 13,
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Or also in Acts
chapter 2, when Peter preaches, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved. Joel chapter 2, and all throughout Scripture, so I love Genesis
4 26. All right, let's take another call here then. Yes, Pastor Anderson here, how
you doing? Hello, Pastor Anderson here. Can you hear me? Yep, I can hear you. Okay, my
question is this. When you are witnessing with your family, and they answer all the
questions right, and when you try to talk to them about the Bible, they say they
don't believe the Bible, or they don't believe parts of the Bible. How should you
deal with that when you are trying to, you know, see if your family is saved, and like I said,
they answer the questions right, but they just don't believe all or parts of the
Bible. Are they saved? Should we keep working on them? You know, what is the
I would strongly believe that they're not saved. Anybody who doesn't believe
part of the Bible is not saved, because he that is of God heareth God's words,
ye therefore hear them not because you're not of God. Okay, and so when
somebody says, well, I don't believe this part of the Bible, or I reject this part
of the Bible, what I would say to them is, well, you know, you may think you believe
in Jesus, but you have to believe in the Jesus of the Bible, okay? You can't just
believe in some guy named Jesus, and, you know, a lot of people have a Jesus of
their own imagination, and they just, you know, they have a guy named Jesus that
they've imagined, and he's kind of this long-haired hippie that they've seen in
paintings, and they're believing in that guy. To be saved, you have to believe in
the Jesus of the Bible. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
And let's not forget that prohibition in Revelation 22 18 and 19 about adding to
or removing from God's Word how people would be damned if they do that. And so,
you know, for somebody to say, well, I reject part of the Bible, I don't believe
part of the Bible, I would say that that person is not saved, and so yeah, I would
keep working on that person because they're not there yet. Okay, yeah,
I've heard them say things like, I love Jesus, but God was, you know, evil, mean, and Old
Testament, thank God we don't have to deal with God and we can deal with Jesus, or
they'll say, and they'll say something like, well, I had a dream, or I had a vision, and that's why I believe in Jesus, you know, they say things like that. It's really hard witnessing to family. I have a lot of those people in my family, it's
frustrating, and I do appreciate your advice, thank you so much. Yeah, no problem.
You know, I hope things go well witnessing to your family. You know,
witnessing to family can be more difficult than going door-to-door soul
winning, and that's why I always recommend to people, go door-to-door soul
winning and get good at it, and because it's easier going door-to-
door, then once you get really comfortable with door-to-door soul winning,
then take those skills in preaching the gospel and use those to reach family,
which would be like soul winning level expert or soul winning level advanced,
you know, when you're actually preaching to family, and one of the best pieces of
advice I would give to people that are witnessing to their family is do it in a
similar way that you do it when you go soul winning door-to-door, because a lot
of times what happens when you witness to family is it just sort of degenerates
into like a debate or an argument, going back and forth, whereas when you go
door-to-door, typically you're preaching to them, you're kind of controlling the
conversation, so I would highly recommend when you preach to family, try to try to
control the conversation and stay on point and not just go off on tangents,
but, you know, if somebody told me, well, you know, I love Jesus, but it's just, you
know, God's a father or Old Testament God that I have a problem with, you know, the
ridiculous thing about that is that Jesus always did those things that
pleased the father, and Jesus is the express image of his person, and also
it's the father who sent the son to be the savior of the world, it's God who so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so God the Father's love is
every bit as great as the love of Jesus, so.
All right, pastor, we've got Pastor Berzin's here ready to Skype with you if
you wanted to call in on him. Let me give him a call, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull up
his phone number here so I can give him a buzz.
I have to, like, decline all the incoming calls real quick so that I can...
Everybody stop calling for a second, I'm trying to make a call.
Cannot dial during incoming calls. You know, you can always call on your phone too, pastor, and
just plug in the headphone jack. Well, hang on, I think if I time this right, I'm
gonna be able to get it to work. If I just decline one and then hit send, I
think it's gonna work. Stop calling, people. All right, I think it's gonna work.
Yes, all right, it's working. Yeah, I just had to, like, decline and then send the
call, because the calls are coming in so fast. All right, I don't hear anything, is he there?
Oh, sorry. Me? Go ahead. All right, we can hear you now, how you doing, Pastor Berzin's?
Good, good, how you doing? Good, what's new, man?
Not a whole lot, just keeping things going. So how's your church doing these days?
Stronghold Baptist Church outside Atlanta. What town exactly are you in?
We're in Norcross. It's in the northeastern area, just outside of Atlanta.
So what kind of part of town is that? Is that kind of like middle-class,
a little bit lower, higher? Well, kind of lower middle-class. It's in an interesting location. It's
actually pretty close to some really nice neighborhoods, and then, you know, on
the other side of the freeway, it's kind of a middle-class, lower middle-class
type area. It's a good area, though. It's a really good area to be. Yeah, so you got a
good variety of doors to knock and places for people to live if they want to
go to your church and stuff like that. You got any big events coming up or
anything? We don't have anything planned outside of—we have regular church events,
but nothing too major coming up, not anytime soon at least. But the one
thing I found that's real interesting that I just noticed recently is just on
some of our videos, something's getting picked up somewhere. We've got an
anti-vaccination video that's been—I've been getting a lot of positive comments and
views on recently, so I've been trying to figure out where that's coming from, but
that was cool. Yeah, that's good. Also, I think I told you this—I can't remember if I told you this or not—but the
last time I called into the show, we got some visitors that didn't know that we
existed, and I thought that was pretty cool that we had people show
up just from—that were listening to this show that actually lives, I don't
know, maybe 30 minutes away from church, and now they've been coming every week.
So that was pretty cool, too. That's awesome, yeah. So what's it like
soul-winning in a place that's like so Baptist? Because, you know, here in
Arizona—and you, you know, you lived in Arizona for a really long time, and so
you know what I'm talking about. Most people aren't Baptists. I mean, it's a
lot of Catholics, a lot of agnostics, a lot of Mormons, and, you know, we run into
Baptists from time to time, but you're in a place that's pretty saturated
with Baptists, but that doesn't mean that they're saved. I mean, a lot of them are
unsaved, so what's the soul-winning like out there?
Well, the soul-winning's great. I mean, we're—I was just thinking about this, you
know, for the five, almost five years that I've spent at Word of Truth, we've
all—we already have more salvation than the entire time spent there, and within
in one year, in less than one year's time. So just a year to date this year, so
that just, you know, because you know what Prescott Valley was like, that was
really tough soul-winning there, but here it's been great. I mean, we're
getting people saved all the time. Now, one thing that is a little bit
interesting, especially with the demographics of the area, because we're
not in the areas that are really close to church first, and there's a lot of
apartment complexes, and we have tons of work to do, even just within the first
year. I feel like we barely scratched the surface, and our area, though, it's
very heavily Hispanic. So we haven't even gotten out into the neighborhoods
where people are mostly Baptists, because a lot of the neighborhoods that are real
close, that are kind of the, you know, the areas where we want to reach the core
people first, are very, very heavily Hispanic. So in that sense, it's kind of
not like leaving Phoenix.
...because it's so Hispanic, is that what you're saying? But
they're very, you know, people have been very receptive and very open, and you
know, people are always coming back with, you know, with some
salvation, even just after a few... You cut out for a second, though, are the
Hispanics, are they mainly Catholic? Yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty
typical. A lot of them, I'm trying to think... Maybe they're just kind of
unchurched. Yeah, they're either unchurched or they're
Catholic. I mean, that's the general consensus out there. Yeah, I think you're
probably gonna have a lot of success with the Black folks around Atlanta as
well, because when I've been soul winning in the South, that's been a good
demographic for soul winning, too. Yeah, that's what we've done all of our bigger
events, so when we do Soul Winning Marathon, just like at the Marching the
Zion Conference, and we're hitting the areas that's kind of like South Atlanta,
is real, a dense Black population, and especially close to the airport, it's
poorer, and we've had nothing but good results there. I mean, there's always
been, you know, multitudes saved in those areas. So anytime we plan a big
day, we kind of will travel out to those types of locations, but as far as
real close to the church goes, it's still good soul winning. It's
still a lot of people that are receptive, a lot of people that are open. One of the
other things that's cool, because we're in Gwinnett County, and I haven't seen
the amount of diversity that is here than I have anywhere else I've
ever been, and when I say diversity, I'm talking about people from all over the
place. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of heavy Hispanics that are real, you know,
real close to the church in a close neighborhood, but there's a lot of
Asians from all over Asia. You've got people from Africa, you've got people
literally just from all over the world living in communities, and not
segregated. I'm used to being in Chicago where, you know, growing up in Chicago
where there's still just a lot of segregation. I mean, even the Polish
people kind of all lived on the same street, you have Mexicans all living
together, you have, you know, in Gwinnett County. There's a Greek area, there's a Jewish area, there's a
Hispanic area, right? Right, but where I live, I mean, literally in my own very
neighborhood where I live, my neighbors are from all over the place, you know,
different, just a total different background and stuff, and what I really
like about that is that when you go out and preach the gospel to people, you
can be reaching, because there's a lot of people that come to Atlanta from all
over the world, and it's like you preach on this before, you know, when it
comes to missions, if you could focus just on your immediate area, oftentimes
you run into people that will be able to preach the gospel. If you get them
saved, then they could preach the gospel to their family and their friends and kind
of bring the gospel in that way, and that's what's exciting, I think, about the
area we live in is because there's so many people that, they are complete
foreigners, there's a lot, there's a lot of foreigners here that have, that have
immigrated here that we get to reach out, soul winning, and, you know, they're first
generation oftentimes, or first or second generation, and still have a lot of
family in other places, so I look at that as a great opportunity to kind of reach
the world, even just by our local soul-winning. Amen, yeah, it's like a day
of Pentecost all the time, and, you know, you're hoping that some of those
Ethiopian eunuchs that you win to Christ are gonna, you know, go home rejoicing and
maybe take that to some of their family and friends. You know, we've finished
all of the poor stuff that's close to our church, and we've knocked
those doors so many times that now we're having to knock a lot more, like,
middle-class doors and upper-class doors, and so we're seeing less salvations
when we do that, but we're getting more visitors to church, so even though we're
not getting as many people saved, we're getting constant visitors from
soul-winning, so, you know, that has its place as well, so that, you know, we got to
knock every door, whether it's, you know, definitely start with the poor, emphasize
the poor as the Bible tells us to, but then, you know, you branch out to
everything, so. Amen. Yeah, we've been having a lot of visitors, too, just, I mean,
the church is doing great. I couldn't be happier with how well the
church is just thriving and growing, and, you know, all the people in church
have been spiritually growing tremendously. We've got guys now, I don't know if you've
noticed, we've got some guys that are learning to preach and doing a
great job of being able to, you know, guys that know their Bible real well, and
preaching full-length sermons, and we've got a lot of people, a lot of
interest, just everybody seems to be just completely on board, and, you know,
God's been blessing. Well cool, man, that's great to hear, and God bless you, have a
good night. That was Pastor Dave Berzins outside Atlanta, Georgia, so yeah, if
you're in that area, that's the place to be, that's the place where it's happening.
Sorry, I want to say Word of Truth. Stronghold Baptist Church in
Norcross, Georgia. All right, good talking to you tonight, thanks Pastor Anderson. Yep,
God bless you, man, have a good one. All right, always good to hear from him. All
right, let's take some more calls here.
Yes, Pastor Anderson here, how you doing? Hi, good, my name is Brian, and I just had some questions about your thoughts on
marijuana. I live in Arizona, and I'm interested in what your take is on
recreational versus medicinal, and if you have any thoughts on the correlation
between Genesis 1, where it talks about, let me find it here again real quick. Yeah,
Genesis 1, where every herb is for meat, you know, every herb shall be eaten, but
it doesn't say, you know, every herb shall be smoked, and my thoughts on
marijuana are just that, you know, anytime you're inhaling smoke into your lungs,
and you're bringing those burning hot particles into your lungs, it's
definitely damaging to your lungs. I don't think it's good for you, and as far
as the mind-altering effect, you know, the Bible wants us to be sober, and I don't
think that you're sober when you're smoking pot. I would put it in the same
category with drinking alcohol. I do think it should be legal. I'm for it
being legal. I don't see how you can make a plant illegal. I think that's
ridiculous to try to make a plant illegal, and I think that the war on
drugs has been a total failure, and so I don't think that the government should
be legislating it, but I think that we as Christians should abstain from marijuana,
just like we should abstain from drunkenness. I mean, I think it's the
same thing. Perfect. Thank you, Pastor. I appreciate it. Yep, God bless you. Have a
good one. Yeah, not everything that's bad should be against the law, but, you know,
I'm not gonna do it, and my church members and my children, I'm gonna teach
them not to do it. Yes, Pastor Anderson here. How you doing?
Hey, Pastor Anderson. I called last week for the Red Hot Preaching Conference. I
spoke to Pastor Tommy, I just kind of want to put it in the air. Would you guys
ever consider coming to any of the five girls and maybe having a church
planted here? Yeah, I mean, I think it'd be great. I'm for it. I've actually been
soul-winning in the Bronx with some friends of mine out there. One time I was
on a layover at a New York Airport, and I ended up going soul-winning for a
few hours in the Bronx, and I mean, the soul-winning was great, and it's
definitely a huge group of people, so yeah, I would love to see a church
startup in the five boroughs. It's just that there—you got to understand,
we're getting asked every single week, can you start a church here? Can you
start one here? Can you start one here? It's just, the harvest truly is plenteous,
but the laborers are few, and it's just, it's very hard to find guys that
are qualified to pastor, and guys who have the ability to preach and run a
church. It's just, man, I wish that we could send people everywhere, but yeah,
that would definitely be a great place. It's very high on the list, for sure,
because, you know, LA and New York, I mean, those are the two biggest places, right?
Yes. Well, I hope you consider your next church plant in one of the five boroughs.
I'm gonna keep praying. Thank you, Pastor Anderson. Amen, thank you. And, you
know, the thing is, you know, I never tell anybody where to start a church, so I
leave that up to the guy who's starting the church. He's the one who has to live
there for the rest of his life. So, you know, I make recommendations, but at the
end of the day, they decide where they go, so hopefully God will raise up someone
who wants to go there. Yes, Pastor Anderson here, how you doing? Good, how are
you? Good. So I have a question from 1 Samuel 19. Okay. And this is Lori from
Yreka. Hey, how you doing? Yes, I saw that 5 3 0 area code, I was thinking
California, so I was gonna see you at the conference. Yeah, it was nice to be there,
it was awesome. Anyway, my question is, in 1 Samuel 19, verse number 9, it talks
about how the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul. Could you just kind of
explain that a little bit more? Yeah, this is a tough one. It says the evil spirit
from the Lord was upon Saul, and of course this goes back to the part where
it talks about the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and rested upon David
when David was anointed, and then an evil spirit from the Lord came and troubled
Saul. So I would say that this is basically, when it says an evil spirit,
that this is like an unclean spirit or a demon that is troubling Saul. And
when it says that it's from the Lord, you know, there are places in the Bible, like
for example, where Micaiah the son of Imlah talks about how this lying spirit
says to the Lord that he's gonna go be a lying spirit in the mouths of the false
prophets, and the Lord basically allows him to do that. So I think when it says
the evil spirits from the Lord, I think it's basically, you know, God is allowing
this evil spirit to basically harass Saul, just like he allowed the devil to
have his way with Job in the book of Job. So does that answer your question, or is
there something more specific that you were wondering exactly about it? No, that's kind of what I thought, but I just wanted to kind of get clarification on that a little bit, so.
Yeah, and you know, the question comes up, could a Christian be demon-possessed?
And I would say absolutely not, you know. In the New Testament, for sure, we're
indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and I don't believe that, you know, we would have an
unclean spirit and the Holy Spirit at the same time. There's no example of
that, and the fact that this unclean spirit or evil spirit is troubling Saul,
I don't think that that makes him demon-possessed. I think it's just
something that's harassing him, and that's also the Old Testament, so that's
another difference there. But yeah, that's kind of a little bit of a
tough subject, but good question. Yeah, and I also wondered, is it possible that
God put that evil spirit on him so that he would be mean to David? I don't
know. I guess I haven't really thought about it that way, as far as, you know,
that the evil spirit from the Lord, to me, is a punishment that Saul is
being punished with. And then, you know, did God also have a plan that he would,
you know, be mean to David because that's fulfilling, you know, scripture that
needed to happen? Yeah, I mean, probably yes. It was part of God's plan as well,
that Saul would persecute David, because there's a lot of symbolism there, where
Saul represents the Jews, and David represents Christians, and, you know, the
Jews are persecuting Christians, and I preached a sermon like that, actually,
where Saul representing the Jews of the New Testament. So yeah, I mean, it's
all part of God's plan, right? Right. Well, thank you so much. Yep, God bless you, have
a good one. All right, man, I'm getting all the hard questions today.
Pastor Anderson here, how you doing? Hey Pastor Anderson, thanks for taking my
call. Just want to say thanks for everything that you're doing, and just
your ministry. And I guess my question for you, it's not really necessarily like
a five-verse question, just obviously, like, as far as preaching goes, there's
nothing that supplements getting up behind the pulpit and preaching to an
audience, but I guess my question is, what are some ways or what are some
things you can do to practice your preaching that might help supplement or
get close to actually preaching in front of a live audience? Well, you know, I'm
definitely gonna answer that, but before I answer that, I would say, you
know, there are a lot of ways that you can get in front of a live audience and
preach, and let me give an example. I learned how to preach by preaching in
nursing homes. So if there's any way that you can fire up a nursing home ministry
through your local church, talk to your pastor if he's okay with you starting a
nursing home ministry, I think that's a great way to learn how to preach. And in
fact, I'm thinking about making a video soon, like a tutorial explaining how to
start and how to carry out a nursing home ministry, because that's actually
where I learned how to preach. But to answer your question of other ways to
practice, you know, what I used to do is I would just go out by myself
somewhere in a field or something, and I would just practice preaching by myself,
or I would just memorize Scripture and just kind of practice quoting the
Scripture with feeling or with emphasis, kind of preaching verses from the Bible,
just to kind of practice my speaking. And I don't have a natural speaking
ability, and so speaking in front of people did not come easily to me. I had
to work a lot to be able to preach a coherent sermon, and so, you know, I did a
lot of practicing just out by myself somewhere, but most of it came from
preaching in the nursing home, because like you said, there's no substitute of
just getting up and doing it. Well thank you, Pastor, I appreciate your answer.
Yep, no problem, have a good one. And you know, another answer to his
question is just soul winning. I mean, soul winning is kind of like a little
miniature sermon about the gospel, so that's another way.
All right, Pastor, we've got some voicemails left over from last week. I'm gonna play this one here.
Let me get you on here. Can you hear me?
Yep.
Right there.
Okay, here, let me back this up here.
Yes, my name is Josh. I've got a question about Jephthah, and when he sacrificed his daughter, did he
actually sacrifice his daughter, or was she given to the temple, or if he did
sacrifice her, I mean, would that be, I mean, obviously he doesn't want to go
against his oath to God, but would that also sin and oath to God? I'm just hoping you can shed some light on it, thank you.
Yeah, I believe that he actually sacrificed his daughter, because it says in verse 30 of
Judges 11, and Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord and said,
If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, then it shall be that
whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the
children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's. I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
And then it says in verse 39, it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her
father, watch this, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. So the vow was to do
it as a burnt offering, and it says he did according to what he vowed, which obviously
this is a horrible tragedy that this happened, but I, yes, I do believe that he actually killed her.
So, all right, so let's let's go through some of these voicemails.
I didn't catch the beginning of that voicemail.
Hey, I was just wondering why the apostle Paul kept a separate day, and if there's a
verse showing the reason why he did. Thanks. Well, there's no indication that the apostle
Paul kept the Sabbath day, so that's a flawed question because of the fact that we see him
going to the synagogue and preaching the gospel on the Sabbath day. We see him, you know, doing
soul winning on the Sabbath day, but there's no indication of him resting on the Sabbath day
as a practice, and in fact, in Colossians, he specifically talks about how that's done away
in Christ when he talks about the meats, the drinks, the holy days, the Sabbath days,
how the carnal ordinances were nailed to the cross with Jesus, and so he specifically says that we
don't need to do that, so no. Sorry, Paul didn't keep the Sabbath, and that's a Judaizer doctrine,
so. Here comes another one. I just had a question about Luke 16 verses 8 and 9.
It's the parable that Jesus is talking about. He's teaching about what the unjust steward did.
In verse 9, it says that, and I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness, that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitation. And,
I mean, it sounds like kind of an encrypted, like, verse, like a very encrypted verse, and I just
really can't make sense of it. So maybe if you can just shed some light on that verse. Again,
that's Luke 16 verse 9. That'd be much appreciated. Thank you. I don't want to spend a whole lot of
time on this first because of the fact that I've already answered this twice on previous Q&As, but
if it's already been asked twice, then it must be on people's minds, so I'll just give another quick
answer. When he says, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, I think what
he's talking about is using your money to help people and be a blessing to your friends because
the man that had friends must show himself friendly, and then when you fail, they'll receive
you into everlasting habitations because in the story that preceded that verse, it talked about
how the unjust steward basically made friends with the customers of his master, and then he said,
they'll take me into their homes, and so if we actually do right by our friends and use the
mammon of unrighteousness, use money not to just hoard it for ourselves, but to actually be a
blessing to other people, then when we need something, then they'll be there for us. So
that's the quick answer, but again, I've already covered it a bunch of times, so I don't want to
spend too much time on that. All right, speaking of what we could spend some time on, we've got this
James White clip, and I don't know if you want to set it up before we play it.
Yeah, sure. So of course, I just released my documentary eight days ago, going back to the
Greek, and if you haven't seen it, go watch it. You're gonna like it, and a lot of people might
think like, well, I'm not really interested in Greek. I don't speak Greek. I'm not learning
Greek. I don't care about Greek. The documentary is designed in such a way that even if you don't
know anything about Greek and you have no interest in Greek, I still think you're gonna enjoy the
documentary. There's a lot of soul winning in the documentary. There's a lot of just great scenery.
You can learn a little bit about the culture, and also there's just a lot about the Orthodox Church.
So there's really a lot there in this documentary besides just the Greek language. So, you know,
I highly recommend that you watch it. So far, it's been getting great reviews. Everybody's
been loving it, but James White, okay, you know, put out this little response on his radio program
last week, and it was just such a joke of a response, and, you know, we'll let you listen to
the response yourself, but here it is. Yeah, I saw that the
quote-unquote documentary Back to the Greek has been posted by Steven Anderson. I mean,
when you think about all the stuff that we're facing and all the challenges we have coming our
direction, the loss of liberty and freedom and the division in the church and
people coming into the church teaching just amazing things that are fundamentally contrary
to the gospel, the fact that you would even have to spend a few moments on something as inane as,
hey, you know, we need to adopt modern pronunciation of Koine Greek and use it to witness to
Greek-speaking people, and we need to tell everybody in the seminaries this.
I don't even know what to say. We mentioned on the last program this documentary with
Steven Anderson and the involvement of some ostensibly Reformed Baptist folks.
You'll notice I didn't focus on the textual thing, really, in that discussion. My question
was, how in the world can anyone... So notice what he said there at the beginning. He said,
you know, with all the losing of our liberty and false doctrine coming into the church, you know,
why would we even stop and focus on something so stupid as, you know, using modern pronunciation
of Greek so that we can actually evangelize Greek people? So he thinks that's stupid.
I guess we should just stay busy fighting against the loss of liberty and political issues,
doctrinal issues. So he wants to debate and argue doctrine. He wants to talk about politics. He
wants to talk about liberty in the United States. But how stupid or inane is the word that he used
it is to want to witness to Greek people, to want to evangelize people? Well, sorry buddy,
that's the first works, okay? Go ye therefore and teach all nations, and that would include Greece.
And if you have all these guys in Bible college and seminary that have spent years and years and
years and years learning Greek, wouldn't it make sense for them to take that into the field and
win Greek people to Christ instead of just, you know, navel-gazing with Greek? And so it just
goes to show his mentality. He's not into evangelism. He's into doctrinal debate, doctrinal
dispute, political whatever issues. Instead of doing the first works, he doesn't seem to have
the first love. So let's go ahead and play more of this clip here. I just wanted to point that out.
That would be Steven Anderson. And it was when I realized in our interview years ago that that's
where he was coming from. I just pulled the plug on, so that's enough. This is just ridiculous.
But one of the Reformed Baptist guys had said, we saw 24 people led to the Lord by the TR only.
So if you had used... So I don't get it. If you use a different pronunciation,
so it's the pronunciation that makes it powerful or something, or is it the TR only that makes
it powerful? I'm not getting any of this. Obviously, if you want to reach Greek-speaking
people, they're not a large people group any longer. The days of Alexander are long gone.
The days of Alexander are long gone. And so there are a couple nations, Cyprus, Greece,
maybe a few of the islands around there, that you'll find Greek-speaking people,
the vast majority of them speak English. This is so ridiculous. Let me jump in here.
And in that context, you'll want to use the pronunciation that they'll understand,
I guess, if that's what you want to do. What does any of that have to do with...
Yeah, so listen to what he's saying here. He says, the days of Alexander are over,
they're not a large people group anymore. Folks, I spent hours after hearing him say that,
researching the estimates of population of Greek-speaking people over the centuries.
Folks, no matter how you crunch the numbers, there are more Greek speakers on the earth today
than there were in the days of Alexander the Great. 323 BC, there were less people speaking
Greek than right now. The 13.4 million people speaking Greek right now, that's more than what
there was in the days of Alexander the Great. And somebody could say like, oh yeah, but the world
had less people in it. Back then, the world only had 250 million people in it or whatever, 300
million people, so it was a greater percentage or something. So what? It's 14 million people.
And you know what I find really ironic is that James White has written a couple of books about
the Mormons. He's always talking about the Mormons, wants to debate the Mormons and talk about the
Mormons, this, the Mormons, that. Well, guess how many Mormons there are? Basically the exact same
number as how many Greek people there are. So he says, well, I mean, I guess if you want to
evangelize Greek-speaking people, I mean, I guess if that's what you want to do. Yeah, that is what
I want to do. Is that so bad? And that wasn't even the main point of the film necessarily, although
that was a very important point of the film, which, you know, he, of course, he doesn't get it,
he says. He doesn't understand the film. I guess when you start talking about soul winning and
winning people to Christ just kind of goes over his head, but he's just perplexed why we would
want to win 14 million people. Well, it's not even a large people group. And then what he says
after that just blew me away. He says most of them speak English anyway. So define irony, folks.
Here we have James White, who, when he teaches English people, wants to go back to the Greek all
the time. So he wants to use Greek to preach to English people. But then when you tell him to use
Greek with Greek people, what does he say? Oh, they speak English anyway. It's like, hey, James White,
let's use Greek. Let's use a Greek Bible to preach the gospel to Greek people. And he's like,
oh, well, they speak English. Let's just use English. What? He literally said, well, most of
them speak English anyway, so why would we need to use Greek? Well, why do you need to use Greek
to preach to English speakers in the United States? I mean, folks, the hypocrisy is just
crazy. It makes no sense. He wants to reach Greeks with English and English with Greek.
It doesn't make any sense, folks. But he tries to say that we think that there's something
mystical or magical about the pronunciation, and he tries to call me a Gnostic, which,
just to explain to you guys out there what Gnosticism is, it's when basically people think
that there's a hidden meaning in the Bible. Instead of just taking the Bible for what it
actually says, they're seeking, like, hidden esoteric meanings. Folks, the entire movie is
about the opposite of that. What the movie is about is the fact that how we pronounce it
doesn't matter, so therefore it's a no-brainer to use the pronunciation that 13.4 million Greeks
are using. You know, if 13.4 million Greeks are using a certain pronunciation,
why wouldn't we use that? The Bible college bozos are the ones who want us to use this
special, esoteric, academic pronunciation, the Arasmian pronunciation that no
modern Greek speaker uses. So he's literally accusing us of doing the opposite of what the
movie's even about. He's the Gnostic. These Bible college guys with their fake 2,500-year-old
pronunciation from 500 BC Athens, supposedly, they're the ones that think there's something
magical about using some goofy, esoteric pronunciation. We're trying to just use the
standard modern pronunciation. Let's go back and play some more of the clip there. And so
there are a couple nations—Cyprus, Greece, maybe a few of the islands around there—that
you'll find Greek-speaking people. The vast majority of them speak English.
And in that context, you'll want to use a pronunciation that they'll understand,
I guess, if that's what you want to do. What does any of that have to do with anything?
I mean, logically speaking, when you're preaching from Colossians chapter 2,
is there some type of spiritual advantage to being able to use modern Greek pronunciation
rather than Erasmian? So if I say,
and if I don't do that in modern Greek, does that change the meaning of the fact that Colossians 2.9
says, for in him is dwelling all the fullness of deity in bodily form? Does that change, for
example, the fact that the King James translation there is inferior to almost all modern translations?
That the term Godhead there is not clear, and the King James was inconsistent in its translation
of theot and thiot roots? That's just a fact. How you pronounce it is irrelevant to any of that.
I just don't get any of this. It's a new Greek Gnosticism, and Stephen Anderson is the new Greek
Gnostic prophet. What does any of this have to do with, if a man cannot read the New Testament with
enough understanding to recognize the centrality of repentance to the Gospel, what does all the
rest of this have to do with anything? I don't get any of it. I really, really don't. It just seems
like a massive waste of storage space on YouTube to put this kind of stuff up there. So I've heard
some of these guys, and not just Stephen Anderson, bemoaning the level...
Yeah, I mean, you can hear in this clip, James White's running scared, like, oh, this is just a
waste of storage space on YouTube. There's nothing to see here, folks, nothing to do with anything.
And then he can't stop talking about repentance, okay? He wants to change the subject from what
the actual documentary is about, which is about the Greek language. He doesn't want to face that
issue about the Greek issues that we raised in the film, that we proved beyond a shadow of a
doubt that he and his ilk are wrong. He doesn't want to talk about that, so he just continues with
the ad hominem. In fact, multiple times now, he's gone back and rewritten the history of our
interview. So I interviewed him back in 2013. It's been fully six years now since I interviewed him.
And at the end of that interview, it broke down over the issue of hell. And I was bringing up how
even the Apostles Creed says, descended into hell and everything. And, you know, he pulled the plug
on the interview. It was over the issue of hell. And admittedly, we were already two and a half
hours in. You know, we were getting to a point where we'd pretty much gotten burned out anyway.
But the interview ended over that. Now, the last few times, what he says now is like,
well, you know, I pulled the plug on that interview as soon as I found out that he didn't
believe in biblical repentance. So now he's going back and changing history that it was over
repentance that he was. He's like, I walked out of that interview when I found out he didn't believe
in repentance. He's just making things up. And he just wants to pull out all the ad hominems. He
doesn't want to deal with the actual issue of the Greek language. And, folks, watch the documentary
and you'll see why he's kind of like hugging himself throughout this interview.
And he's he's looking real nervous and looking around and just I don't get it. I don't get it,
you know, but he's running scared, folks, because, you know, these guys
and their Greek knowledge are not what they're cracked up to be. And that's what the film
exposes. And so, you know, calling me Gnostic and all this stuff and, you know, oh, you know,
the Godhead, that's not clear. Well, you know, the word Godhead is simply just an old word for
Godhood. If you look it up in the dictionary, you'll see Godhead means Godhood. And he thinks
it should be translated deity or divinity, but guess what? That's what Godhood means. Godhood,
divinity, deity, that's all the same thing. But anyway, let's play a little bit more
of what he had to say there. You know, I want to get through the whole thing.
Some of these seminaries have adopted, well, most seminaries have simply dropped
requirements for biblical languages. Those that continue to pretend that they have them,
many of them have adopted a situation where you can literally qualify for your biblical
language requirements in a Jan term class. And what that makes it is a biblical tools class.
You know, you study Lagos or accordance or something, you figure out how to use it,
and now you're good. I've been bemoaning this for a long time. I've told the story of having
15 weeks, 15 three-hour sessions to bring people through both introductory texts in Greek and
Hebrew and how knowing that for most of them, that's all they're going to get.
I've been bemoaning that for a long time, but how you pronounce it is irrelevant to that.
Absolutely 1,000% irrelevant. It makes no difference.
Now, if what they're saying is, well, I think seminary students should spend more time reading
Homeric Greek or reading the Greek Septuagint. Hey, I think it'd be wonderful to read the
Greek Septuagint. I just, I had, I bought those. I highly recommend. They're very nicely done.
The Hendrickson 2 volume.
All right, so did you catch what he did there? He basically says like, you know, hey, if they're
saying that, you know, we should read more Homer or read the Septuagint, you know, I think it would
be wonderful to read the Septuagint. In fact, I bought one. Notice he didn't say, I read the
Septuagint. I read Homer. I read classical Greek. Notice he didn't talk about which books of the
Septuagint he's read. He's like, yeah, I think it'd be wonderful to read the Septuagint. I bought
one. Well, great. I'm glad that you have the Septuagint on your shelf, but you know, I mean,
is anybody paying attention when he says these things and these guys with their Erasmian Greek,
it's a fraud, folks. And the movie just lays it bare for what it is. And these guys don't want to
use the modern pronunciation because it would expose the fact that they don't actually speak
the language. He can spout off his little Erasmian phrases that he has memorized, but he is not a
scholar anywhere near the guys who put together the King James Bible. So he wants to talk about
how, oh, the King James Bible is one of the worst translations. Really? Because the 54 men who
translated the King James Bible, every single one of them was fluent in Greek. They could hold a
conversation in Greek with a Greek person. They spoke the modern Greek of their day.
In fact, that's how they learned Greek. You can read Erasmus' own words where he talks about how
he learned Greek and he talks about learning it from Greek people, learning the spoken language
from Greek people. And by the way, you look up the lives of the scholars who gave us the King James
Bible. They read the Iliad. They read the Odyssey. They read all the Greek dramas and all the
classical Greek and everything out there from the Patristic period. They read the Septuagint.
They read all kinds of stuff. These so-called scholars of today can't hold a candle to the King
James Bible translators because they don't know the language. Now he said, how you pronounce it
is just a hundred percent irrelevant. Here's why it's not irrelevant. Because if you use modern
pronunciation, you can actually speak the language to Greek people. Why is that relevant? Because
it's impossible to learn a foreign language without speaking it. Our brains are wired to
learn language by speaking. So learning a language in a classroom only, which is what the Bible
colleges and seminaries and the James Whites of this world are doing, to learn the language in
a classroom only is impossible. Okay. It's just like all the other people who've gone to Spanish
classes and German classes and French classes that don't speak those languages because they never got
out in the real world and learned how to speak the language and got fluent. Okay. And so the reason
that we're advocating for a modern pronunciation is because then you can actually learn the
language and actually speak the language. But at the end of the day, you know, the King James
Bible translators, they all were fluent. Today's so-called Bible scholars and translators are not
fluent. They literally couldn't even order food and drink in a restaurant or rent a car
or hail a taxi in Greece. Okay. And that's what the movie's about. And I hope people will watch it.
I think there's a little bit more on the James White clip. So let's go ahead and play the rest
of it and finish that off. But that's not going to change the fact that New Testament exegesis
is not dependent upon your pronunciation. And it's primarily dependent upon your knowledge of
grammar and syntax, the context and the size of your vocabulary. And that vocabulary,
it doesn't matter how you pronounce theatetos if you don't know what it means.
So I don't get any of it. And yeah, I know it's out there. I don't have time for it right now.
I mean, that is so low on the priority list. It's not even funny. We are right now talking
with folks in South Africa. It looks like could have as many as three debates in South Africa.
I mentioned last time, if you can help us get there, it's an expensive trip. The travel fund
link is available on our website under the support me section. If you can help us to get there.
So there you have it, folks. Winning Greek people to Christ is just super low on his priority list.
Totally not interested. Means nothing to him. Actually learning Greek, not important. Notice
what he said. He said that most seminaries have done away with their biblical languages
requirements. And then notice what he said. And then the ones that pretend to have a biblical
language requirement, it's really just teaching you how to use tools. They're teaching you how
to use a concordance. They're teaching you how to use strongs and software and everything. Folks,
that's what we're saying in the film is that people are pretending to know Greek and Hebrew
that don't know it. They go to a class and seminary that teaches them how to use an electronic
tool. Basically, they're learning how to use a glorified Google translate. They're learning
how to use lexicons and concordances. They don't actually know the language, but they're ready to
tell you how the King James Bible's wrong. They couldn't even hold a candle to one of the King
James translators, let alone the 54 of them. Okay. And it's so funny that he said that about how,
you know, oh, please give me money. Give me money so I can go do debates in South Africa
and him and his buddy dirt bin. That's all they do is ask for money. You go to their
channel and it's just money, money, money. Give me, make, give me money, raise more money. We
need money to go do a debate in South Africa. What's so funny about this is that I literally
preach the night before he said that on Thursday night at the red hot preaching conference,
I got up and said, Hey, if you ask James White, why he doesn't evangelize, I guarantee you'll
point to his debates and, and I go to South Africa. And then literally the next day,
he's like, Oh, I'm going to go to South Africa, you know, and, and do this debate,
but I just need you to send me more money. You know, put your hand on the screen and
write me a check and, and, uh, give me money, money, money. So I can go debate people,
folks. You can call it debate. You know what the Bible says about strife, contentions,
foolish questions, debate. He said, avoid it. It's unprofitable and vain. It's the gospel of
Jesus Christ. That's the power of God unto salvation, not getting up and arguing and
grandstanding at one of these debates that he goes to. Okay. So anyway, I don't believe
that James White is going to be able to get away with this foolish, just lack of response.
I don't have time for this. I don't even get it. I just don't get it because I have already gotten
messages from tons of his listeners and his fans saying, Hey, I listened to James White.
I love James White, but he got schooled on this Greek issue and he's wrong. And his,
his, his response was a joke. I mean, even his own followers are saying that his response to
joke. And isn't it ironic that a guy who loves debate and strife so much disables comments on
his YouTube channel so that people can't even call him on the carpet, but they're calling
them on the carpet everywhere else. So he's going to have to provide a meaningful response to this
film. And he's not going to be able to, because the film is, is rock solid. You know, I'd love
to see him try to disprove what we proved in the film and how he's going to wiggle his way out of
this one is going to be interesting to see. And if you, if you haven't seen the film yet,
go check it out. I think you're going to love the film. And so let's, let's move on from that,
but, uh, let's, let's take a call. Are we ready to take a call?
All right. Yes. Pastor Anderson here. How you doing?
Hey Pastor Harris, I'm good. Just curious as to your thoughts on this doctrine of, uh,
women's leggings being pants and it being a sin for them to wear it under their skirt.
Well, I think that leggings under the skirt are totally fine because the whole point of God
telling a woman not to put on a man's garment and for the, the, the woman not to wear what
pertains to the man, the man did not put on a woman's garment is he just wants there to be
a distinction in the way men and women dress. And so if a woman has a skirt on, you know,
she sending the signal, Hey, I'm a woman I'm dressed like a woman. And so obviously in a
cold climate, you're going to need leggings under that. And so, and, or even sometimes in situations
where, you know, uh, sometimes people will be doing an activity where they don't want someone
to see up their skirt or something. So they have some kind of leggings or something underneath it.
I mean, you know, there, there are times when that works out. Like for example,
when I've taken my daughters up to the snow, they'll put on a snow suit, but then they'll
just put on a skirt over it. That way they can still look ladylike, but yet they, you know,
can go in the snow without freezing. So, and then, well, I'll see you tomorrow. That's
your foundation. Sounds good. I'll see you there. Yeah. You know, you have to understand what the
spirit of that law is. He just, he just wants us to look different. And in this day of trannies and
weirdos, it's more important than ever for men to dress like men and women to dress like women. And
for that distinction, to be clear, I'm going to go to some of these voicemails here. If you got,
uh, you ready to do that? Yep.
Chapter 20, we see Gog and Magog here. Hi pastor, I have an end times question.
In Revelation chapter 20, we see Gog and Magog, which we know is an end times event,
uh, which is also in Ezekiel 38 and 39, but in verse 17 of Ezekiel 39, it mentions the fowls
eating the birds or eating the beef. And so what would you say to someone who's saying that
therefore Gog and Magog happens before the millennium, because the event where the birds
eat the flesh as beast happens in Revelation 19, which is before the millennium? Uh, sorry if that
doesn't make sense, but thank you. I would say that we should always base our doctrine on clear
Scripture, and that the clear Scripture in Revelation chapter 20 states that the battle
of Gog and Magog is after the thousand years are expired. Period. End of story. End of question.
I mean, it's like after the millennium, after the thousand years, then is the battle of Gog and
Magog done deal, you know? So for someone to try to to smuggle Gog and Magog before the millennium,
some have even tried to make it pre-trib. Like for example, the Left Behind movie starts out with
Gog and Magog, bizarrely. Of course, it's nothing like the Gog and Magog in the Bible,
but I did a whole sermon called Gog and Magog, so if you want an in-depth answer to that question,
in Gog and Magog, I literally go through every single verse in chapters 38 and 39,
and I prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that Gog and Magog, you know, happens after the millennium.
It makes perfect sense, and but at the end of the day, the reason that I've always believed
that Gog and Magog come after the millennium is because that's what the Bible clearly states
in Revelation 20, and that should be enough. We should always go with the clear Scripture.
The only place in the Bible that mentions Gog and Magog is just Ezekiel 38 and 39 and Revelation 20.
To not connect these two things is just bizarre, so you know, as far as explaining each verse
in chapters 38 and 39, I've already done that in a long sermon called Gog and Magog. I encourage you
to listen to it if that subject interests you. All right, so I believe we're going to be now
hearing from Pastor Jason Robinson. He's going to be calling in from Mountain Baptist Church,
Fairmont, West Virginia. Are you there, Brother Robinson? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, I can. God
bless you, man. How you doing? Good. How you doing, brother? Good. So what's on your mind?
What's going on? I'm just living the dream out here in West Virginia. West Virginia is
certainly a beautiful place. I really enjoyed it last time I was there. What was that place
called that we went where we looked at that beautiful overlook? It's called Cooper's Rock.
Yeah, Cooper's Rock. That was pretty cool. I enjoyed that. And yeah, we had a packed house.
I preached on San Francisco, you know, and that was a filthy city. That was an easy amen in West
Virginia, right? Yeah, definitely. But people told me it was actually applicable because they said
that actually there's a huge heroin problem even in West Virginia. Are you aware of the the drug
use in West Virginia? Yeah, heroin and meth are the two big things, and especially down in
Clarksburg. But Fairmont, where our church building is located, it's also like that too. So
it's a lot of drugs that are in that area. So therefore, the sermon was relevant.
It definitely was. You know, Brother Segura at our church is actually turning that sermon into
a documentary called San Francisco, and it looks great so far. I've seen like the first 15 minutes
of it, and it's good. People are going to love it. It's really awesome. It's really a different
style. You know, Brother Segura's got a really different style, so I think people are going to
really enjoy that. So you got any big events coming up at your church or anything? I'm
actually planning a soloing marathon that'll be happening. We're going to try to go up to the
Wheeling Moundsville area and do a soloing marathon in September. I don't have anything
on the calendar yet or anything like that, but that's kind of the event that we have coming up.
But besides that, you know, just our normal church services that are going on right now.
So also, you've been using the method that I'm promoting to actually learn Greek. I know you went
through the whole Pimsleur program, and you're on to, what, Rosetta Stone now? Yes, that's correct.
So I got through both units of Pimsleur and just jumped into the Rosetta Stone. I actually really
like the Rosetta Stone. Pimsleur has its place, but the Rosetta Stone's really cool on how it's
kind of like a game. You mentioned that before, but it makes it a lot more fun to go through it.
Yeah, the thing about the Pimsleur is that doing the Pimsleur sometimes can feel like a little bit
of a chore. It's definitely difficult, but it's very effective. The Rosetta Stone's a little bit
easier to do as far as it's not as much of a chore. It's a little more fun. Duolingo's pretty
fun. Have you done anything on Duolingo yet for Greek? Yes, I've gone through a couple
markers on there. I haven't got through the whole tree yet. You got through a couple checkpoints?
Yeah, but I agree with you with the Pimsleur. The thing about Pimsleur is there's no visuals,
so it's all what you're hearing. So I think it kind of forces you to hear what they're saying
instead of seeing it with pictures, and you see the words and stuff like that.
Yeah, I think that all three are effective. If you go through the whole Pimsleur course,
the whole Rosetta Stone course, and the whole Duolingo course, 90% of what you do on those
courses you'll find in the Bible. And even words that you would never expect to find in the Bible,
they're there. So that's a super effective way to learn Greek and be able to read the Bible in
Greek and stuff like that. Not that you need to, because the King James is sufficient. I mean,
the King James says the same thing in English, what it says in Greek, but we need a few pastors
that would be able to defend it. And so I'm glad that you, Pastor Robinson, have stepped up to the
plate, and you're young enough to where you can still learn this. Yeah, actually, the funny part
was is that I really jumped into learning Greek because I wanted to defend the King James Bible.
And obviously, that's still a point. But after watching your film, it's probably right up there
with now I want to go soloing with it. So after watching that film, honestly, I went into the film
already knowing that it was going to be true, that they could understand it. I just, I mean,
I would have been shocked if it wasn't that way. But after watching the film, I was like, man,
I want to go on a trip. I want to go out there. I wish I was out there when you were out there at
Cypress. So that was just really exciting, honestly. So well, there's going to be more
trips. You know, I definitely want to go back out there. I'm banned from Greece until June of 2021.
But it's possible that my Schengen area Europe ban will expire in 2021. And I might be able to
actually go do some soloing marathons in Greece itself. But otherwise, you know, keep learning,
man, because I will take you soloing to Cypress. And if I get banned from Cypress, I'll take you
to Albania because there are two or three hundred thousand Greek speakers near the border of Greece
in Albania. And I don't think I'm ever going to get banned from Albania. So by hook or by crook,
man, we will we will win souls amongst the Greeks. Amen. I'm excited for it. So, yeah,
I'm in. And then Brother Bruce Mejia, he's also working on learning it. So we got the three of us
and we're going to do the job that Americans won't do. We're going to do what James White and
his ilk have zero interest in doing. But you know what? I think a lot of even James White's listeners
and people, I think this is even going to wake them up because, I mean, his response is so lame
and the movie is so clear. And but I'm just hoping I know that there are IFB's out there
that that have said a lot of Greek like like I was I was preaching out at
Pastor Michael Johnson's church in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and a guy showed up to the service
with a Trinitarian Bible Society, Greek New Testament. And we had a great conversation
after the service. And he was an independent fundamental Baptist. And he reads the New Testament
and Greek and everything. So I think guys like that could get inspired to want to go do soul
winning over there, too. I mean, I think there's a lot of guys like that out there. So, yeah,
honestly, I think if they just jumped into even Duolingo or Rosetta Stone, I think the confidence
level would jump up. I mean, obviously, I still feel like I need to learn a lot more to really
hold a conversation confidently. I don't think I'll ever be at a spot where I'm like, yeah,
I'm really just like, I'm fluent, ready to do it. And I think I'm just gonna have to jump out there
and do it, obviously. But I think if people just jumped into some of those some of those apps that
are out there, that they would get really excited about it. So, yeah, and that's that's how you're
gonna get fluent is by you can't get fluent and then go talk to people. You talk to people
in order to get fluent. That's how you get you got to get out there and make mistakes. And look,
folks at home, you know, I know the vast majority of people have no interest in learning Greek. So
you just kind of glaze over. But, folks, how about Spanish? You know, 400 million some people speak
Spanish and learning Spanish. It's the same principles that apply whether you're learning
French. I think French would be a great language to learn as well. Not because France is receptive.
I think France is going to be fairly unreceptive. But what about Haiti? What about French Guyana?
What about countries like Madagascar and other places? Yeah, Cameroon, Ivory Coast. I mean,
those are going to be primo soul winning in the French language. So whether you want to learn
Spanish, French, Portuguese, you know, it's the same principles as with learning Greek.
You can't just learn it from a book. You can't just learn it in a classroom. You have to learn
by speaking. Yeah, Duolingo, Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone are great. And that's definitely where I
would start, especially because Duolingo is free. But, you know, there's a website called
Italki. It's the letter I talk I.com. So I talk I.com. I call it Italki. I don't know if that's
how you're supposed to pronounce it. But anyway, this website, you can pay like eight or nine bucks
an hour and video Skype with tutors in other countries. Sometimes it's even like three,
four, five dollars an hour. Crazy cheap. But you can like video Skype with people in Spanish
speaking countries, French speaking, Greek, Chinese, any language. They have like every
language. And you can just pay a small amount and spend an hour video Skyping with somebody
in that country who's like a professional teacher or a tutor. And and what I do is I'll have
conversations where what I do is I just tell them no English. And I just spend an hour just talking
to somebody from Greece and only Greek. Like for two weeks leading up to my trip to Cyprus, I did
that every single morning. I just spent an hour talking only Greek to somebody from Greece. But
you can do it in every language. And it's so effective. And even if you just did it once a
month just to kind of check where you're at. But if you can do it more than that, there's no
substitute for speaking a language in order to learn that language. And so and then also, even
if you don't have any money, you can go on Italki and you can actually make deals with other students
where like, hey, I'll teach you English for a half hour if you teach me whatever the language
for half hour. So it's like an exchange. So have you tried any of those yet? Brother Robinson,
have you have you gone on Italki yet or no? I have not actually just heard heard you mention that
just recently. So I'm actually going to look into that for sure. Yeah, check it out. I mean,
it's it's it's definitely pretty cool. And once you you know, first, you got to get to a point
where you're able to have some conversations. But once you do a point where you have some stuff to
talk about, I mean, I would say you're probably to that point, if you finish the whole Pimsleur,
I just jump in and talk about the stuff that you learned on Pimsleur. Right. Yeah. Yeah,
that's cool. So anything else on your mind? No, everything's going good here at Mountain Baptist
churches steadily growing throughout. We're going to be coming up on our second year anniversary
coming up in September. So it's actually almost a year since you've been out here. So but but
yeah, everything's been going well. Soloning's been going good. We just have a really good group
of people at our church. And so we're running about 45 now. And we have another family that's
going to be moving and that's supposed to be moving at the end of this month or end of August,
actually. So we'll be running around 50 then. So but but yeah, it's been great.
Cool, man. We'll keep up the good work out there. God bless you. I know it's laid out there. So
I better let you go. Have a good night, man. Yeah, God bless you. Thanks for having me on.
Yep. See you later. Take care. All right, Pastor Anderson, I was flipping through the chat here.
And there was a comment that I saw. And the question would be, how do you respond to people
that say that you have a spirit of anger, hate? What what would your response to those people be?
Well, this whole spirit of anger, spirit of hate. You know, this this is like, I think,
a Pentecostal thing where everything's a spirit. You know, every scene is like a demon or whatever.
And they're constantly casting demons out of Christians and all this dumb, weird stuff. I
would say that there's a time to love and time to hate. So this thing of you have a spirit of hate.
Well, you better know I hate sin. I hate the devil. I hate wickedness. I hate every false way.
I hate those that hate the Lord. I mean, we're supposed to hate those things. And,
you know, I mean, there's a place and a time for anger. The Bible says be angry. So why does the
Bible command us to be angry if anger is never appropriate? It said be angry and sin not.
So apparently it's possible to be angry and not sin. So there you go.
See if we can pull some questions out of the chat here, since we've got
a lot of questions were coming in earlier. So let's see if anybody's got anything coming in.
All right. You know, somebody actually, I remember them asking a little while ago,
what would you say to somebody who is really depressed and feeling down and even suicidal?
What would what would you say to them if you had one thing to say?
Well, you know, that's kind of a broad question, because, you know, different people could be
depressed or suicidal for different reasons. OK, sometimes it's a spiritual problem,
but sometimes it's a physical problem. You know, it could really be both.
So, you know, if someone has the spiritual problem, then I'm going to give them the
spiritual remedy of telling them, hey, you know, get the emphasis off yourself,
get in church, get out, soul winning, focus on the things of God.
You know, look, not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Because you'll find that people often are self-centered and that's when they become
down and depressed. You know that serving other people, helping other people, doing things for
others really lifts your spirits. OK, but that being said, depression and suicidal tendencies
are not always a spiritual problem. They could often be a physical problem.
And you know what I've noticed about a lot of people that commit suicide or are depressed
and down all the time is that a lot of times they're men who don't have a job.
They're not getting any exercise and they don't have a wife.
So, you know, this is depressing. Why? Because, you know, we need endorphins.
There's a physical component here of, you know, if I go out and work really hard at my job and
do like physical hard labor, my body's going to release endorphins, which are like a feel good
chemical that are going to lift my spirits. You know, we're talking from the physical side now.
OK, if I go out and exercise really hard, if I, you know, I went on a bicycle ride today,
I just got a new bike for my birthday. So I went out on a bicycle ride today.
It was super hot outside. I don't know how hot it was, but what was like 110 or something?
It was really hot. Do you want to Google it? How hot it was?
Yeah, it was some insane temperature. And I biked like 20 miles through the city.
At one point, I had to dip myself in the filthy Tempe Town Lake that's not suitable
for human beings to swim in just as a survival tactic.
It says it was 102, but it felt much higher. Yeah, it didn't feel like 102.
It must have been humid or something. Yeah, because it was it was a scorcher.
My car said 110, but yeah, it felt extremely hot. And I was biking out there and I had a
dip in a filthy water just because I was so hot and I just didn't want to die.
So but but I'll tell you what, it just put me in such a great mood.
Like when I got home and I got in the air condition, I was really jovial.
I was happy. I was in a good mood. I was being really productive at work
because when you exercise like that, you release endorphins.
When you work, you release endorphins. If you lift weights or run or swim or
whatever you do for exercise, it released endorphins that make you feel good.
And when you have a relationship with your wife, the physical relationship,
that makes you feel good. That released endorphins that puts you in a good mood.
And so the bottom line is that you have these people who just lock themselves indoors all day
and they're just hanging on the computer or watching TV or sitting around.
They're not doing anything. And it's like you wonder why you're depressed.
You're not getting any endorphins. You're not working to get endorphins
and you're not exercising. I think there's a practical advice
besides just telling people, hey, read your Bible, go to church, go soul winning, pray
unto the Lord, sing hymns. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray.
I agree with all that advice, but sometimes we need to address the physical component
of our modern society. The reason so many people are depressed
is because modern society has people sitting on their butts all day.
Get up and move around. Get out and do stuff.
Go for a walk. Go do some heavy lifting.
And you're going to be in a better mood.
Are you ready for some First Corinthians chapter six?
Oh, you got to be kidding. How many times can I answer the same question?
I think it's more about going to court with the brethren.
It better be about going to court because I'm sick of these fag questions every time.
Hi, Pastor Anderson. This question is about First Corinthians six, seven,
going to law with one another. What should our reaction be as Christians
when we are defrauded by another Christian who doesn't?
Is it OK to take that person to court or ask it another way?
Does this passage apply only to those who attend our local church
or does First Corinthians six, seven apply to all professing Christians everywhere?
Thank you.
OK, thank God. The question is about going to court.
What the chapter is actually about.
Somebody is actually reading this thing in context
and actually talking about what the chapter is about.
Praise the Lord. All right.
So he says, brother in verse six, he says,
But brother goeth to law with brother and that before the unbelievers.
And so I don't think that this is only talking about people who go to your church.
I don't think that a brother should ever go to law with brother
over the things that this context deals with.
This is not talking about, you know, criminal things.
This isn't talking about murder and rape and adultery.
That's not what this is talking about.
Obviously, those things need to be dealt with.
This is talking about, you know, how you should rather suffer yourself to be defrauded
than to go to law, brother against brother before the heathen.
So therefore, if someone rips you off financially,
a brother in Christ rips you off financially, you don't sue them.
You know, you take it to the church.
You know, if some Christian ripped me off in business,
I would report it to their pastor.
And, you know, hopefully their pastor would bring some kind of church discipline
if they are committing fraud and ripping people off and stealing.
But at the end of the day, sometimes you have to just suffer yourself to be defrauded.
I don't think it's right for Christians to sue other Christians over financial matters.
I don't believe in it.
I love this chapter.
I think it's a great chapter.
And he talks about how when you go to law, brother against brother,
the kind of people you're going to law before.
And he lists all those attributes in verses 9 and 10.
And, you know, folks, the court system is a place of great injustice.
And so we'd be better off just not suing our brother in Christ
and dealing with it within the church or dealing with it one on one.
And if we get ripped off, we get ripped off.
You know, if any man smites you on the one cheek, turn to him the other.
Also, if he'll sue you and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also.
I start with, you know, taking Matthew 18 into account also.
So if we have an issue with a brother that's in our church,
then we can bring bring witnesses into the matter or bring it to the church as a whole.
But what if this brother in Christ isn't part of the congregation that we attend?
How would you remedy that?
Well, sometimes, unfortunately, there's just not going to be a remedy in that case.
And you have to just suffer yourself to be defrauded.
But like I said, I would take it to their pastor.
I would take it to their church if I could.
And at least but, you know, there's no guarantee that their church is going to do anything about it.
But I would still try.
Great, let's go to calls.
All right, let's take a call.
Yes, Pastor Anderson here.
How you doing?
Oh wow, I actually got through.
How you doing, Pastor Anderson?
Great, how you doing?
I'm doing good.
So I was actually listening to a sermon that he did that's called
Don't Be Ashamed of God's Word.
I think the title of the sermon is this.
I had a question that you made a comment in that sermon about
women who make a false accusation of rape or lie about their being raped.
I think you said it's an exodus or doing around with me.
I was wondering what part of those books that that's referenced in.
Okay, yeah, I'm gonna have to actually do a little search on that one.
Unfortunately, I don't know the reference right off the top of my head.
So I'm going to just do a quick search on my phone here.
Let's see if I can type in the right words to find it.
All right, so it is in one of them is in Deuteronomy chapter 22
verses 23 through 27.
So let me just read it real quick here.
It says,
The man be found lying with a woman married to a husband,
then they shall both of them die,
both the man that lay with the woman and the woman.
So shalt I put away evil from Israel.
If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto a husband
and a man find her in the city and lie with her,
then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of the city,
and ye shall stone them with stones that they die.
The damsel, because she cried not, being in the city,
and the man because he hath humbled his neighbor's wife.
So thou shalt put away evil from among you.
But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field,
and the man force her and lie with her.
Force meaning rape.
Then the man only that lay with her shall die,
but unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing.
There is in the damsel no sin worthy of death,
for as when a man riseth against his neighbor and slayeth him,
even so is this matter.
For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried,
and there was none to save her.
So several things we can learn from this passage of Scripture.
One, of course, is that if a woman is raped,
and she cries out and fights back,
and, you know, it's not her fault.
It's like when a man slays another.
It's like she's a victim, basically.
It's just like a murder victim.
She's a rape victim.
It's not her fault, because she cried out and fought,
and, you know, was overpowered and forced.
Whereas if a woman does not cry out,
if she does, if she basically just like,
no, stop, you know.
Well, the Bible is basically saying that she's guilty of that too,
because it's talking about adultery.
You know, she's already betrothed to another man,
or married to another man.
And so she's an adulterous, you know,
if she goes along with this,
if she's a willing participant,
and if she tries to say,
oh, I was raped, but she's in a place where it was obvious
that she would have been heard if she cried out,
and she didn't cry out.
I mean, that's what the Bible says.
So obviously, there are women who lie about being raped.
So.
Sure, true, true.
Makes sense.
Appreciate the answer.
Thank you, Pastor.
Yep, no problem.
God bless you.
Have a good one.
All right.
Yes, Pastor Anderson.
Pastor Anderson here.
How you doing?
Hey, I'm good.
I have a question.
What are cockatrices and satyrs in the Bible?
Well, cockatrices are, I believe...
It's either a serpent or a bird.
Off the top of my head, I'm a little bit...
I'm getting a little tired here.
And then satyrs are probably some kind of goat
or something like that.
I'm not sure.
These are both just rare animals that it may be impossible
to pinpoint exactly what they are.
But yeah, I mean, these are just ancient animals
that it's hard to pinpoint, like, what the modern species
would be of these animals, but they are animals.
And you said you learned Greek.
When you read it in the Greek, what does it translate as?
Does it translate as cockatrice or does it translate
like snake or like serpent or something?
Well, first of all, cockatrice and satyr are not mentioned
in the New Testament, so that would be in the Old Testament.
And I haven't gotten to those portions
of the Greek Old Testament, so it would actually be more
a question of what it says in the Hebrew,
because those are both Old Testament words.
So but no, it doesn't say something as simple as snake
or bird or something.
It basically, when you look up these very difficult words
in English, these kind of strange animals, they're going
to be a strange word in Hebrew as well.
So that's why the King James translators used odd words
for them, because they have odd words in the original.
They're rare beasts, and there's some controversy sometimes
about exactly what beasts are being referred to.
But these are just animals that are being described
and it's hard to say with certainty what those animals are,
no matter what language you're talking about.
And some people say that this disproves the Bible,
but really it doesn't.
It just proves that extinct animals lived long ago.
They might not be here, or they might have been used
for a different word.
But when it talks about that, we're not talking
about like a goat man.
I mean, it probably is some animal of some sort.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, and you're right.
People will try to say, oh, this disproves the Bible,
because the Bible talked about unicorns, and it talked
about satyrs and stuff.
But it's not talking about these mythological creatures.
These are basically just ancient extinct animals that are
being referred to, and we don't know what they are.
So what I would recommend people to do is just use the context.
You know, and if you go with the context, you can pretty
much figure out that, okay, a cockatrice, this is a dangerous
animal, it's poisonous.
Or, you know, when you read about dragons and things,
it's probably some kind of lizard.
You know, the unicorn is probably a rhinoceros.
But we don't really know.
You can't really say with 100% certainty, you know, when
you're talking about animals being described thousands
of years ago, what modern species is being referred to.
So you kind of go with the context, and, you know, I'm not
going to lose any sleep over it tonight.
So, yeah.
Well, thank you for taking my call.
Have you ever preached the sermon on, yeah, cockatrice
and disaster?
No, I haven't.
But I believe one of my pastor friends did.
I think it might have even been Pastor Jason Robinson.
One of them—so I would just look up, like, Baptist
preaching cryptozoology, because this subject is usually
called cryptozoology.
So I would just type that into YouTube with the word
Baptist or something.
And I'm pretty sure that one of my buddies preached a
sermon about this subject.
So they probably did way more research than I did.
I'm not really a huge animal or zoology guy.
But I will say that when you look up strange words in
English, they're going to be a strange word in the Greek
and Hebrew, because, I mean, that's why they use the
strange word in English.
So a lot of people say, oh, it's the King James that's
the problem.
But what the modern versions will do, they'll just insert
an easy word, but they're just guessing, you know,
instead of, you know, giving you something that's more
accurate and maybe harder to pinpoint or understand.
All right.
Thanks for taking my call, Pastor.
Yep.
God bless you.
Have a good one.
Man, people are putting me on the spot.
What's a cockatrice?
I want to say it's—man, I don't know why.
I just can't think.
We were just talking about this.
It's either a serpent or a bird, but I don't remember
which one.
It's something bad.
All right.
It is.
It's like a serpent with bird-like features, like a dragon.
Oh, OK.
Well, there you go, folks.
That's why I guess that's why I had both of those things
in my head.
All right.
Pastor Anderson here.
How you doing?
Hey, I'm doing well.
How about yourself?
Great.
All right.
I got a question for you, actually, too.
I'll make them fast.
First, I'm a United States Army veteran.
Something that's been on my mind lately.
You know, we'll take the oath before we go in.
Of course, I wasn't saved back then.
Was that a—you know, I don't know.
I had to do it, but I kind of feel guilty now.
You know?
Well, you can't change the past.
I mean, you took the oath, and so, you know, you got to
stick with your oath.
But, you know, yeah, I mean, obviously we're not supposed
to swear as Christians, but, you know, that's—what can
you do, right?
Right on.
Yeah.
I ask for forgiveness.
That's what I do.
Amen.
That's it.
But what is your take on 12 steps on, like, AA?
Are you familiar with the, you know, the 12-step system?
Yeah, you know, I am familiar with it.
And, you know, whenever I've said anything, like, mildly
positive, like, oh, it worked for people that I knew or
something, everybody gets really mad at me and, like,
gives me all these pamphlets about how bad it is.
And so, I know that there are some bad things about it
from a religious standpoint, because they're kind of
ecumenical in the sense of, like, teaching you that it
doesn't matter if you worship Christ, you can worship any
God, just worship a supreme being, it can be anything.
And obviously, that part of Alcoholics Anonymous is
wicked.
Obviously, you know, there's no salvation in any other,
there's none other name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be saved.
But that being said, you know, I do think that there are
people who have gotten out of drugs and alcohol using a
12-step program.
And so, if, you know, if that's a last resort for them
and it works, well, great, you know, even though it's not
ideal, well, being a drunk's not ideal either, and being
a drug addict's not ideal either.
One thing I will say, though, and people get real mad at
me when I say this, but I'm going to stand my ground on
this one, is that I strongly agree with the principle that
Alcoholics Anonymous teaches where they say, once an
alcoholic, always an alcoholic.
That is the truth.
And so, they are totally right about that.
And what they mean by that is that anyone who has ever been
a drunkard or an alcoholic should realize that they have
that proclivity and they should never drink socially
because they've already proven that they can't drink socially.
They've already proven that they're going to abuse alcohol.
And once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, meaning that
they will, if they drink again, they will become drunk again.
And I totally agree with that concept.
I think it's pretty obvious, in fact.
God took it from me.
I don't know how.
Well, I know how.
He just took it.
I haven't had to do the steps.
I haven't had withdrawals.
It's really incredible.
I'm on fire for the Lord because of this.
So how long have you been sober?
Almost seven months now.
Okay, but you say, you know, God took it from me.
Are you saying that you could just drink one beer and not
be tempted to go further?
Absolutely not.
I'm not even going to try it.
Amen.
Yeah, you shouldn't.
Yeah, amen.
But they teach more it's a disease, and I tend to lean more
that it's sin.
Oh, it's absolutely sin.
And so we don't want to just call it a disease.
But would you agree with if I were to tell you, for example,
that the Native Americans physiologically have a much more
addictive time with alcohol than white people so, you know,
that they need to be very careful to steer clear of alcohol
because they're super...
I mean, you agree with that, right?
Yeah, I do.
Like they're predisposed, maybe?
Yeah, so that I think that's what they mean when they're
calling it a disease, that there are people who have a
predisposition to become an alcoholic.
But it's definitely no excuse, though.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, well, good, good job on being sober for seven months,
and I hope you can keep it up.
Sounds great.
Thanks.
Thanks for walking the spirit.
All right.
All right, sir.
God bless you.
Yeah, I was gonna say the tech, the 12 steps have a lot to
do with personal accountability and people starting to take
responsibility for their actions, paying their bills,
paying people back.
So I don't think it's a bad thing for anybody to to touch
on, you know?
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
I mean, I don't think it's all bad.
I think it has some things about it that are bad, but, you
know, I'd rather see somebody who's a total drunk or drug
addict do the 12 steps and fix their life than to just say,
oh, the 12 steps are bad and just keep being a drunk.
So, I mean, if it works for people, whatever works, you
know, I don't think they should worship anything other
than Christ, you know, and they should only worship the
Lord. But, you know, anyway, those are my thoughts on that.
But when it comes to this thing of, you know, once an
alcoholic, always an alcoholic, what I'm saying, first of
all, I don't believe that any of us should ever touch any
alcohol for any reason.
OK, but if somebody has already shown that they're drunk,
for them to try to say, oh, I'm just going to drink socially,
you know, that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is talking about.
They're basically saying, look, you've already proven that
you can't, you know, use restraint.
And so you're an alcoholic by nature.
And, you know, when he said, hey, God took it from me.
Hey, that's great.
You know, I'm glad that the Lord is helping him overcome
sin. The Bible does say that if we walk in the Spirit, you
know, we'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
But my caution with that would be where people say, oh, God
delivered me of this is, you know, you don't want to get
overconfident. Let him that think of these standards take
heed lest he fall, because that's not a permanent thing,
because every day we have to take up the cross and follow
Christ. Every day we have to deny self.
It's not like, oh, God delivered me from alcohol.
Done. Check.
No, you better be careful to steer clear of the bar and
the alcohol and everything else, because, you know, you
could backslide. Everyone could backslide.
All right, let's take another call.
Yes, Pastor Anderson here.
How you doing?
Hey, Pastor Anderson.
I have a question for you.
What do you believe that the covenant of salt means in
Leviticus 22-13?
In Leviticus 22-13, while I'm turning there, you know,
covenant of salt, I believe Brother Jimenez has a great
sermon on that, and so I would definitely look up his
sermon to get a more in-depth answer.
I'm sorry, what verse again in chapter 22?
Leviticus 2-13.
Oh, Leviticus 2-13?
All right, sorry, I was in 22.
All right, Leviticus 2-13.
As for the ablation of the firstfruits, you shall offer
them unto the Lord, but they shall not be burnt on the
altar for a sweet saver, and every ablation of thy meat
offering shalt thou season with salt.
Neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy
God to be lacking from thy meat offering.
With all thine offerings, thou shalt offer salt.
Well, I believe that salt is a picture or a type in the
Bible of grace, of the grace of God.
And like, for example, the New Testament says,
let your speech be all way with grace, seasoned with salt,
okay?
So the seasoning of the salt has to do with the grace of
God.
So, you know, the sacrifices were to be salted, and I
believe that that's a picture of grace, you know?
But again, Pastor Jimenez did a really in-depth sermon,
so maybe look his up.
Okay, thank you.
Yep, God bless you.
Have a good one.
Alrighty, let's take another call here.
Yes, Pastor Anderson here.
How you doing?
Good.
How are you, Pastor Anderson?
Good.
I like your preaching.
I love your preaching, actually, but I want to ask you
about a verse in the book of Job, because I see
preachers preach different opinions on if animals have
souls.
I know there's animals in heaven, but I don't know if
these, some of these are the same animals on earth, but
in the book of Job, I don't have it memorized, but I know
it says something to the effect of, ask the beast of the
field, and they'll tell you, and some other things, and
he says, referring to the Lord, he says, in whose hand
is the soul of every living creature and the breath of
all mankind?
So I'm going to ask your opinion.
Is this soul of every living creature and the breath of
all mankind?
Is this that animals have souls and the same animals we
have on earth or will be in heaven?
Or what do you think of that?
Well, here's the thing.
You have to be careful with what the word soul means,
because often in the Bible, the word soul just has to do
with the life of that person or that beast.
So, you know, for example, the Bible talks about in
Revelation, when the waters are turned into blood and all
the living souls died, you know, that are in the sea.
It's just talking about life.
So does an animal have a soul in the sense that it's alive
or spirit in the sense that it has breath and its nostrils
and that it's a living thing?
Sure.
But does it have an eternal soul?
That's the question.
Does that animal continue to exist after it physically dies?
And the answer is a clear no.
There's no way that animals continue to exist after they
die.
It's not like, you know, you're going to get to heaven and
your pets are there to greet you.
It's just not going to happen, folks.
So the spirit of the beast goes downward into the earth.
The Bible says the spirit of man goeth upward and the
spirit of the beast goes downward into the earth.
So, you know, they came from dust unto dust.
Shall they return?
And yes, there are animals in heaven, but they're just
they're different animals.
It's not like a continuation of the life of animals who
lived on this earth.
Okay, I appreciate your clarification, and I did see your
son sermon where he mentioned that God created all the
animals and said it was good.
So animals are good.
So regardless whether they have souls that go to heaven or
not, I'm still an animal lover and I'd like to hear from
sermon and hope he grows up and takes over preaching like
you do.
And thanks for taking my call.
All right.
God bless you.
Thanks.
You know, I you know, I think animals are good, too.
You know, especially on a bun with barbecue sauce.
So all right.
Well, that's about it for today.
That's that's a note to end on.
All right.
It's past eight o'clock.
And so God bless everybody.
Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.