Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe,
Arizona.
Just wanted to give you a quick update on what's going on.
Yesterday, Monday morning, I showed up at the airport for my flight, which was going
to connect through London and take me to Johannesburg, South Africa.
I checked in for the flight on Sunday.
Everything was cool.
I got there Monday, checked my bags, gave them my passport, went through security, did
the whole process, had something to eat, and I'm sitting outside the gate less than an
hour from departure and all of a sudden I get paged by security and they tell me that
the United Kingdom has banned me from entering the country and that I can't even so much
as have a connecting flight in London.
So not only am I banned from the United Kingdom, but I can't even go to the London airport.
The Anabaptists arrived in England in the 1530s and by 1535, Henry VIII had ordered
the Anabaptists to leave the realm within 12 days after Parliament adjourned or suffer
the penalty of death.
It is clear that some Anabaptists remained in England and in the few years that followed,
most of the original church leaders had been hunted down and executed.
And so we see a Baptist church being hunted down and deported is no new thing, which shows
us the truth of Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verses 9 and 10, where it is written, the thing that
have been it is that which shall be and that which is done is that which shall be done
and there is no new thing under the sun.
Is there anything whereof it may be said, see, this is new, it has been already of old
time which was before us.
And so let us take heed to Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 10 also where it is written, Say not
thou what is the cause that the former days were better than these, for thou does not
inquire wisely concerning this.
The Anabaptists were persecuted by the Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans and reformists because
of their so-called radical beliefs, and they found themselves banned from virtually every
country in Europe.
One Anabaptist said, A true teacher who preaches the word of the Lord without blame is not
permitted at the present time, as far as our knowledge goes, to dwell in any kingdom, country
or city under heaven, if he be known.
And so we see that there truly is no new thing under the sun and Pastor Anderson is not the
first Baptist preacher to be banned from Europe.
Pretty banned from five different countries, but this week I was banned from the Netherlands
and in addition to the Netherlands, the Dutch government also got me banned from almost
all of Europe.
They banned me just in one shot from 26 different countries that make up what's known as the
Schengen area.
So just in one single day, I was banned from 26 countries.
So now I'm up to 31 countries that have banned me.
And I'm planning on going to Ireland to preach in a few weeks.
And I'm not sure yet whether Ireland is going to ban me.
I think there's a pretty good chance that they will.
But thankfully, Ireland is not one of those countries that they banned me from.
They're not part of that Schengen area.
So it'll be interesting to see whether I make it into Ireland.
The reason given for me being banned is that I'm a hate preacher, that I'm preaching hate.
That's the thing that comes up over and over again.
That's the buzzword.
And they say that I'm a danger to the LGBT community, which really it's just words that
I'm preaching.
It's just ideas.
And these are not new ideas.
These are not things that I've come up with.
They're just biblical truths that people have been preaching literally for thousands of
years.
But our society has gotten so weird and these countries have gotten so godless that just
normal Bible preaching to them sounds extreme or crazy.
I don't consider myself an extremist whatsoever.
I am just a normal guy getting up and preaching the Bible.
It's sad that I'm one of the only preachers that is preaching this stuff.
So then when people hear it, they're shocked by it.
And then I end up literally getting banned from an entire continent.
And I believe that the reason why I'm being banned and censored is that the truth is powerful.
And wicked people are afraid of the truth because it just takes one beam of light to
cut through the darkness that has been created in these areas.
The truth is so powerful it can just in one fell swoop overturn decades of brainwashing.
Someone could be brainwashed like think about Moses brought up in all the learning of the
Egyptians.
But boom, God's word could cut through that.
And by faith, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God and to enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a season.
And when the word of God is preached, that's the kind of transformation that can happen.
And so the wicked want God's word to be silenced.
They've always been about burning Bibles, making Christianity illegal, making soul winning
illegal, and just trying to stop the truth from being heard.
Because if the truth is heard, it will bear fruit.
God's word is not going to return void.
And so it's going to have an effect.
But because of the internet, they can't really effectively silence me.
Because even though I'm banned from these countries physically, my preaching is still
permeating through YouTube and other social media.
But of course, they're trying to censor us on social media as well.
But at this point, we're still making huge waves with social media.
And we're able to get tens of thousands of views, literally over a million views every
month.
The Anabaptists were deemed a harmful sect and would today be labeled as a hate group
for their true biblical doctrines, which contradicted those of mainstream Christianity.
Though they were persecuted, they appear to have been zealous soul winners and they grew
rapidly.
They preach that salvation is through faith alone, and that is a gift of God which cannot
be earned.
And they rejected the false doctrine of predestination, and taught that salvation is free to anyone
who believes.
We all sinned, we all come short, and we all deserve to go to hell because even all liars
the Bible says are going to hell, we've all lied before.
But the good news is that in spite of that, God loves us.
And so of course, God does not want us to go to hell.
And of course, he wasn't kidding when he said that those people would have their part
in the lake of fire.
So he did something to save us.
The Bible says, but God commended his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us.
So we're all sinners, we all deserve to go to hell.
But then the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ died for us.
Now what the Bible means when it says that he died for us, it's basically saying that
he took our punishment for us.
So Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived on this earth, he lived a perfect life.
He was tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin.
One thing that we must do to be saved, the Bible asked that question in Acts chapter
16, what must I do to be saved?
And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
Notice he didn't say go to church and you'll be saved.
Notice he didn't say give money in the offering plate and you'll be saved.
Notice he didn't say clean up your life and stop sinning and you'll be saved.
Those are all good things to do, but when it comes to being saved, the one thing that
we must do to be saved is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the
gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.
So we're not saved by the works that we do, we're simply saved by believing in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ is our savior, not trusting in our own works or our own deeds.
That's why the Bible said that salvation is a gift.
It says for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ the Lord.
All we have to do is just accept that free gift, and we just receive that by believing
in Jesus, by putting our faith and trust in Jesus.
Now here's the most important part about this message.
Once we believe on Jesus Christ, he gives us eternal life.
The Bible says the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord.
Well the word eternal means forever.
So if God gives us a gift that lasts forever, how many times do we have to get it?
Only once, because it lasts forever.
Jesus said I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of my hand.
So once we believe on Jesus Christ, we are saved forever.
There's nothing we could ever do to lose our salvation.
He promised I will never leave you nor forsake you, and nothing can separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now let's say you do something really bad after you believe on Jesus Christ, and let's
just get kind of crazy and say that you were to do something as extreme as to commit murder.
Well obviously if you commit murder, that's going to make God angry and God's going to
punish you, but that punishment will come in this lifetime.
We will reap what we sow in this life as Christians.
The Bible says whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourges every son whom he receiveth.
A child of God is always a child of God.
Once we're saved, we're always saved because we have everlasting life.
Look I was never good enough to be saved in the first place.
I can never be bad enough where he'll take it away from me because it's all by grace.
So you only have to be saved one time.
Now just a quick review, we're all sinners.
We all deserve to go to hell.
Jesus Christ loves us, he died on the cross for us, he was buried and he rose again.
That paid the price for our sins, and he offers salvation freely to anyone who will just receive
that free gift by believing in Jesus.
But if you think you're going to heaven because you're a good person, you're going to hell.
They were known for their clean living, homeschooling, good works, charity, love of God and refusal
to fight back against their persecutors.
Perhaps they had read where it is written in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 21 to 23.
For even here unto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an
example that ye should follow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his
mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled not again.
When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.
One Anabaptist, Dirk Willems, is recorded in history as having been chased across a
frozen pond by a deputy.
And after making it safely to the other side, he turned and saw that the deputy had begun
to drown.
He turned and rescued the drowning deputy and was immediately arrested and imprisoned
and later burnt alive, assumably for heresy under the law created by Henry VIII.
Today, the Mennonites claim to be a continuation of the Anabaptist movement, but with their
hardcore work salvation this is highly unlikely.
A more likely scenario is that their founder, Meno Simons, was a heretic from the beginning
and went on to form the Mennonite cult after being discovered.
A modern day comparison could be if Manly Perry, Adam Fanning or Tyler Baker were to
start a successful cult and go down in history as a continuation of the new independent fundamental
Baptist movement.
Whereas the truth of the matter would be,
As it is written in 1 John 2.19,
They went out from us, but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.
But they went out, that they might be made manifest, that they were not all of us.
and on our church website.
And when you ban something, it just makes it more popular.
Think about when a rap song gets banned, more people want to listen to it.
When it gets a parental advisory label, more people buy the album.
And so by banning my preaching, they're actually just making it more popular.
And I'm not the only person in our church that does soul winning.
We have hundreds of people in our church who do soul winning.
And there are hundreds of people all over America and all over the world that are going
to continue this work, not just in Botswana, but in all these other countries as well.
The people that do know their God, the Bible says in the last days will do great exploits.
And so I'm glad that things happened the way that they did.
Because if it means more people hear the word of God, then I say praise God for being deported.