Hey, everybody. Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
I just wanted to make a short video where I explain the teaching in Matthew chapter 18 beginning in verse 15
about throwing people out of the church. Now a lot of churches
don't throw anyone out ever for any reason, but we know that the Bible does teach that there are situations
where people need to be thrown out. Now, obviously, there's another scripture in 1st Corinthians chapter 5
that talks about people being thrown out of the church for committing certain grievous sins.
Fornication, covetousness, idolatry,
drunkenness, railing, and extortion are the six things that are listed that would get a church member thrown out.
Well, this teaching in Matthew 18 is different from that teaching.
Okay, that is just saying, look, if somebody's in the church and it's found out that they're called a brother and they're living a life of
fornication, drunkenness, etc., that that person is just, you know,
rejected from the congregation, thrown out of the church. The Bible says, put away from among yourselves
that wicked person.
But in Matthew 18 is a scripture that allows the church to throw people out for other
reasons, for other issues. I'm gonna start out by just reading the passage and then I'm gonna explain it and
hopefully clear up some of the confusion that I've heard a lot of people have about this passage.
So let me start in verse 15. It says, moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou has gained thy brother.
But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee
one or two more than in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church.
But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Verily I say unto you,
whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed,
in heaven. So let's go through this verse by verse.
First of all, it says in the beginning, moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou has gained thy brother.
Now obviously what the Bible's teaching here is that you shouldn't just take something before the entire church
before giving someone a chance to
repent and not get to that point.
You know, there's no point to just
escalate it to bringing it before the entire church if it's something that can be dealt with
privately. So the first step would be to just go to that person privately
because hopefully you can just resolve it privately and not have to bring it before the church.
So here's where the misunderstanding comes in because our church has thrown people out multiple times.
You know, not a lot, but over the course of ten and a half years
there have been people that have been thrown out. And of course anytime someone is thrown out
they always try to claim that, you know, we didn't follow the scriptural procedure. We didn't follow Matthew 18.
But here's where the misunderstanding is coming from. This scripture does not say that the pastor
has to go to that person privately and try to resolve it with that person. That is not what this scripture says.
It says, moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou has gained thy brother.
So it's clear that the person who is offended is the one who goes to that person and
tells him his fault between him and him alone and tries to talk some sense into him in
order to get him to see the error of his ways. Now, we just threw someone out yesterday at church.
We just had a situation and I'll just, you know, give some of the details to you
without going into too much detail, you know, for the sake of the people that are thrown out, you know, because, you know,
maybe they'll repent down the road or whatever. But the bottom line is that there was a guy in our church
that has for at least six months,
I don't know how long it's been going on, but I saw comments on YouTube from six months ago
where this guy is basically ridiculing me, attacking me, criticizing me, you know, who am the pastor of the church.
Okay. Well, recently the guy's been on a campaign of
texting people and not just disagreeing with the doctrines of our church because, you know, of course
it's okay to disagree because, you know, we all have our own opinions,
but this guy was actually going so far as to say that I was teaching doctrines of devils.
You know, he's going to our church and,
you know, pretending to be a faithful church member never said a word to me in
the last year or whatever that he's been in our church. Never said one word to me
that he disagreed with my preaching. Never said I disagree with you on X, Y, or Z, ever.
But yet has been going around behind my back
texting people, saying things like he's teaching doctrines of devils, you know, his statements were wicked and evil,
he's childish, he's juvenile, you know, just ridiculing me, showing total disdain for me.
And then when anybody tried to defend me, he would say, well, you're just you're just repeating Anderson.
You know, you're not you're not even reading the Bible for yourself and basically just also, you know, ripping on Pastor Jimenez.
You know, for example,
he texts a church member.
Hey, I hear you coming back from Sacramento. And then the guy who was coming back from Sacramento says, oh, yeah
I just heard an awesome sermon at Verity Baptist Church.
This guy that we threw out immediately text back, I can't stand Roger Jimenez and just starts criticizing Roger Jimenez.
So the bottom line is this guy's been attacking me. I don't even know why he goes to our church if I'm so juvenile, childish,
wicked,
teaching doctrines of devils. He also said that I tampered with the gospel. You know, why do you go to this church?
This guy is clearly an infiltrator just trying to, you know, cause trouble, sow strife, whatever.
Okay, so, you know, obviously
when I found out about this I was upset, you know, that this guy's been going to our church and and
you know, just never had the guts to say anything to me, but just backbiting me and and and
attacking me and and so forth just totally under the radar.
But here's the thing. Okay, a guy in the church named Russell is the one who brought it to my attention.
Okay, well because this is one of the guys
that he'd been coming out with all these attacks. He'd been, you know, just blasting this guy with text messages. Now, here's the thing.
Matthew 18 was followed in this situation because Russell
went to the guy and told him that he needed to apologize.
You know, the guy's texting him all this crap and then he basically responded to
him and said, look, you're over the line. You need to apologize to Pastor Anderson. You've done wrong.
You know, this is this is over the top, you know, you're not just disagreeing but you're, you know,
you're you're slandering men of God and so forth, you know, myself and Brother Jimenez.
So here's the thing. Russell went to the guy
one-on-one, without showing anybody. He tried to correct the guy himself. The guy did not receive correction.
Okay, so then next
Russell brings it to my attention. He shows me the text messages. Now, I'm a witness to it.
Now, every word is established. There's no question.
He showed it to myself and someone else and we looked at it and then he contacted
the offender once again and said, look, I've shown this to Pastor Anderson.
You know, he's very upset. He's offended. You need to apologize.
You know, no apology. No repentance. Okay?
So then, you know, he shows up on Sunday morning. I met him in the parking lot and I told him, look, you know,
you need to leave. You don't belong here if you hate the pastor. You're talking crap about me.
And I said, you've got two choices, you know. If you want to come in the church,
I'm gonna call you down in front of the whole church or else you can just leave, you know.
You might as well just leave.
So I just gave him those two choices.
Leave or come in the church and be publicly confronted. And he said, well, I'm gonna go in the church then so you can
confront me. Okay.
But what's funny is that then he claims, well, he was never, you know, dealt with, according to Matthew 18, because he
thinks that I have to go and
and I guess spend hours going back and forth with him on his doctrinal ignorance. Now,
you know, I have no time nor desire
to sit there and go back and forth with every person who wants to just argue with me or disagree with me.
The bottom line is the person that he was offending was Russell. The person that he was sending the
offensive messages to was Russell. And, you know, there were
multiple other people, too, that showed me, you know, similar things on their phones.
But the bottom line is Russell was the guy
that had first known about this guy's sins.
Okay, and so that's why Russell was the one who went to him, you know,
because he didn't even want to involve me if he can just resolve it himself.
Because that's what Matthew 18 is teaching here is, look, resolve it yourself if you can one-on-one
just between you and your brother alone.
And, you know, if he'll listen to you,
then you've gained your brother because that's the best possible outcome that the guy just gets it right before it escalates.
So, Russell went to him alone, okay?
Then he brought in me and someone else as a second witness to what was going on.
The guy showed no repentance. He didn't say he was sorry, didn't ask for forgiveness.
So, when he came into the church on Sunday morning during the time of the announcements,
I called him out in front of the whole church.
I, you know, explained what he'd been saying about me and what he'd been saying in these text messages,
the offensive messages he'd been sending to church members, and just how it made absolutely no sense for him to go to a church
where he thinks that the pastor is teaching doctrines of devils and tampering with the gospel.
And I made it clear that it's perfectly fine if people disagree with the doctrines of the church.
Nobody is being told or forced what to believe, but when you go behind the pastor's back
and are going around and just saying the worst possible things about him without ever saying a word to him in disagreement,
well, then that just shows that you're a Judas. You're an infiltrator.
You're in the church for one reason, to spread garbage and to cause trouble.
And so, I, you know, threw him out of the church and
pretty much every single person in the auditorium agreed with me throwing him out, except a first-time visitor who turned out to be Mormon.
You know, as a first-time visitor started, you know, piped up and started defending him and then we talked to him afterwards
where it turned out he was a Mormon. So, you know, that guy's opinion is not real relevant.
You know, the people that are members of our church
agreed with
them being thrown out
overwhelmingly. I didn't meet a single person who didn't agree and
overwhelmingly heard from plenty of people that said, yeah, this guy doesn't belong in our church if he's
ridiculing the pastor and he ridiculed anybody who agrees with me on these doctrines and supports me on these doctrines.
So,
Matthew 18 is basically saying that, look, you want to go to people one-on-one and try to resolve things. If that doesn't work
where it's private, then you need to have witnesses to establish the matter. Basically just verifying
that, yeah, this person really was told that they were wrong and this person really did not repent because the Bible says,
but if you will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more than in the mouth of two or three witnesses
every word may be established. Now, we live in a day of technology where
it's really easy for every word to be established when there's a text message or when there's an audio recording or something along those lines.
So, you know, he was confronted alone. He was given a chance to repent.
He was, you know, every word was established.
There was no question about what was said and then I even met him in the parking lot and even gave him a final warning
which I didn't even have to do because he'd already been warned by Russell the day before.
So, you know, I but yeah, I don't want to just have some kind of a drama or soap opera.
So I went and and talked to him in the parking lot and gave him a chance to just turn his butt around and
leave it if he feels that way about our church and about the pastor.
So let me continue with the passage here. It says,
And if you sound neglect to hear them tell it unto the church,
but if you neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loose in heaven. Now when this guy was thrown out,
he said, Well, are you saying I'm not saved? And I told him, I said, Well,
I don't know if you're saved or not, but that's not really relevant.
You know, the Bible says that when a person is thrown out of the local church,
we're to treat them as an heathen man or as a publican. It's not saying that they are a heathen.
It's not saying that they are a publican or that they're unsaved.
But if they refuse to repent when called on the carpet for grievous sin,
then they're to be treated as an heathen man and a publican. And the Bible says, Whatever
we bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever we loose on earth shall be loose in heaven.
That's why every person that has been thrown out of the church,
their life has gone downhill. Bad things have happened to them because God's not going to bless you when you rebel against,
you know, a righteous church and when you rebel against the pastor that
is trying to preach the Word of God to you and look out for you and
you want to just go behind his back and be a Judas. Okay, God's not going to bless that.
You know, the Bible teaches that, you know, that to obey them to have the rule over you and submit yourselves,
they watch for your souls, you know, respect the pastor, all that kind of stuff.
So all that to say this, okay,
Matthew 18 gives allowance for throwing people out of the church who are committing
grievous sins or being very harmful toward other people, slandering other people,
attacking people,
harassing people without any repentance, okay, when brought before the congregation. You know, here's a good example.
Let's say that, let's say we have a plumber in our church, okay, and
let's say that plumber,
you know, does a whole bunch of plumbing work in somebody's house and they don't pay for that work, right? And
then the plumber goes to that person says, Look, you need to pay this bill and they refuse to pay the bill, right? And
then they go and get a witness just to make sure and verify that this is really happy. Yes, I really did this work,
he's really not refusing to pay the bill, confront him with the witness, and then if he doesn't hear them,
then it's to be brought before the church
because we as Christians are not to bring lawsuits against our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
So therefore it's brought before the church and if the church
sees the evidence and says, Look, you didn't pay for this plumbing work. You need to pay this bill and he says, No,
I'm not gonna pay the bill, then he'd be thrown out of the church for that.
So it's not just that people can only be thrown out for fornication or drunkenness,
you know, if they are harming people in the church and
refusing to hear the judgment of the church, refusing to repent when they're called out on the carpet before the church,
well, then at that point the Bible says that they're to be cast out of the church and then God will deal with them.
God will punish at that point because it's not our job to judge, you know, those that are outside the church.
God will judge them. Once we cast them out, you know, it's up to God what he does with them.
Now once a person is thrown out, you say, Well, hey, could this person ever come back? Could they ever be reinstated?
Absolutely. If a person actually brings a real apology,
then they can be accepted in the church at any time.
Okay, but when I say a real apology, that includes acknowledging the wrongdoing that they've done.
They would have to acknowledge the the wrong things that they've done and admit, not just, Okay, well, I'm sorry.
Can I come back? You know, they would have to actually say, Yes, I did this wrong. I did this wrong.
They would have to give a real apology that shows real
repentance and yes, of course, they'd be allowed to come back into the church and be forgiven and
reinstated if they would admit those things. So to sit there and say, Oh,
it's just so not fair. We were just thrown out and, you know, we weren't given a chance and all this stuff.
Well, guess what? You can come back whenever you want to humble yourself and
say you're sorry. And you know what? This guy that was just thrown out yesterday, when Russell confronted him privately,
he could have apologized and everything would have been fine.
When Russell then showed it to me, brought it to my attention and one other person's attention and then
came back and said, Look, I've spoken to Pastor Anderson.
You know, he's in agreement. You need to repent. You need to apologize.
That was another opportunity for him to get it right. Okay? When I met him in the parking lot, even though
it was just a real quick
conversation, he could have easily just stopped me and said, Whoa, Pastor, you know what? I'm sorry.
I crossed the line. And even if he didn't agree with the doctrine, that's okay.
Even if he would have just said, Hey, look, I still don't agree with the doctrine.
I still have a different opinion on this, but you know what? I was wrong to say that you tampered with the gospel.
I was wrong to say that you're preaching doctrines of devils.
I was way over the line and I was wrong to go behind your back and be contacting people and
ripping on you to other people, going on YouTube and mocking you publicly.
You know, I was wrong to do that and I'm sorry. Would you forgive me?
I would have forgiven him right then and there in the parking lot. If he would have done that in the church,
I would have forgiven him right then and there. I would even forgive him right now, today, if he would actually come and acknowledge the wrongdoing.
Nobody has to agree with me or believe like I've and that's what some people will lie and say,
Oh, if you disagree on doctrine, you get thrown out. That's a lie. It's when you are a Judas that's basically
committing this backbiting and this, you know, secret, going behind the back and
saying all these horrible things about the pastor and about the members of the church
without
even confronting anyone head-on. It just shows, obviously, very nefarious intentions.
So,
that's the situation with Matthew chapter 18. You know, any time
someone is given the chance one-on-one to repent and
when the matter is established with witnesses, well, then Matthew 18 was followed if they're then brought before the church and
judgment is pronounced. And of course, they can repent at any time in this process.
But to sit there and say, well, because Pastor Anderson didn't come to me and
talk to me and that Pastor Anderson didn't bring a witness and all that stuff, I don't have to. There's nothing in Matthew 18
that says that the pastor confronts you. Okay?
It's the person who initially is wrong. It's the person who first finds out about the offense.
It's the first person who receives the trespass
that would privately go to that person. You know, as the church grows, you know,
I'm not gonna sit here and just argue with every person who wants to to continue in sin and argue.
You know, I could easily just send someone else to go talk to that person or, you know,
if people can resolve things before I even hear about them, so much the better, you know, just to fix the problem.
And so, you know, we will continue to
throw people out of the church
according to Matthew 18 and according to 1 Corinthians 5.
And, you know, probably no one who gets thrown out of the church is ever gonna like it or think that it's just.
But if they're smart, they would humble themselves and repent and come back to the church. Now, I'm not saying
that, you know, we just confront people for every little trespass and every little thing. Good night. But
everyone in the church yesterday agreed when they heard the nature of the
statements and accusations and ridicule that was coming out of this guy's mouth. Everyone agreed that it was serious and it was a major,
major sin and that it needed to be dealt with and brought out. And so, you know,
it was dealt with in that fashion. And
honestly, if a few people say, well, you know, I'm gonna go with him, you know, to me
that's like a two-for-one if we can get rid of, you know, more people that are like that that are just these unrepentant,
disrespectful,
divisive type people that basically want to not divide from the world, not stand in opposition to what's popular or stand in
opposition, and divide from the sodomites and the weirdos and the wicked. No, no, they want to cause division within the local church and
basically try to split the church and draw disciples away after themselves. You know, that's not acceptable. And
this guy that we threw out, you know, his role model is
this effeminate guy up in Washington, you know, out in the woods with his horses making videos against us,
Afshin Yagtin, and
I mean this guy, look, you only have to listen to this guy for five seconds to hear how feminine this guy is. And he
gets real mad when people bring that up, but, you know, he's the one who's choosing to talk like that,
okay, and he could he could choose to
be manly whenever he wants to, okay, but he's effeminate and he has all this false doctrine.
He thinks drinking is fine.
He thinks that Jesus wore a dress. He teaches that homos are not reprobates.
He teaches that tithing is unscriptural.
He teaches that church should basically allow everyone to preach and just have an open mic and all this stuff.
You know, there's a laundry list of false doctrine from this guy and this guy that we threw out is
basically his disciple. And so that guy, you know, has been bringing out all the same doctrines, apparently, and and
you know, going on there and just gushing over how wonderful Afshin is and how how
childish and devilish his own pastor Anderson is. You know, my response to that is, you know what?
That's great. If you if you if you think that guy up in Washington,
you know, who basically is not even a real pastor, not even a real church. There's no address. There's no service times.
It's just a couple of guys with a camcorder, you know,
if you think that those guys are so right about everything, then my response is that that's where you need to go.
That's where you belong. More power to you.
But don't try to infiltrate our church and and bring in all this garbage because frankly, we're not interested.
God bless you and have a great day.