This will be different than any session I've done here before because I'm just doing part of it.
Brother Julian's doing another part of it.
It is a different type of thing.
Literally everywhere I go, the most common question I get the last year, maybe two years,
is, what do you think about Steven Anderson?
Just because so many people notice him and ask about him makes him a subject to be dealt with.
And let me say my first awareness of him was not at all a negative one.
I was pastoring in Chicago.
It was just my last few weeks of pastoring.
A young couple comes in on a Sunday morning, asked if they can talk to me after church,
and told me they just got saved.
They knew they needed to find a church.
They were listening to Steven Anderson on YouTube, I believe it was.
They trusted Christ as their Savior.
They had an exceptionally good understanding of salvation.
And when they get in church, they contacted him and he told them we were the closest Baptist church.
I'd never heard the name before.
That's all I knew about him.
But I liked that.
I liked having new converts show up at church.
We're looking for a church.
We got saved listening to this guy.
He sent us over here.
In fact, I left a message for him that how much I appreciated all that.
Then people started asking me about Steven Anderson.
Oh, yeah, it was a great guy.
You know, we had just tell him what happened.
The last two people I baptized during my pastorate, last two disciples, the converts I discipled and that was great.
Well, it turns out there may be more to the subject than that.
Just recently and by say recently, I think was Monday.
Someone called my attention to the fact there is an ad on Facebook.
It is a preacher very closely associated with Steven Anderson and a former student of mine when I was in Florida.
Had a five minute Facebook ad presenting the gospel.
And let me say he did a tremendous job.
I am grateful for every preaching of the gospel.
I'm thankful for everybody to get saved.
And it would not be responsible to address this without saying that.
And say, man, I'm glad for everybody gets saved, his ministry, his influence.
That's just wonderful.
However, it turns out there's more to it than that.
And there's a reason why I'm asked about him everywhere.
Every church I went to in Cambodia in December.
And there's some of the pastors are here.
What's what about Steven Anderson?
Who's Steven Anderson?
In January is in Philippines.
Over and over and over again in the Philippines.
What can you tell me about Steven Anderson?
He has managed to attract attention all over the place.
And there is an aspect of that.
He pastors a very small church in Arizona.
And yet his name is known all over the place.
He has influence for good or bad all over the place.
He really knows how to use the communications possibilities that are available to us.
I am a dinosaur.
I don't know how to do that.
That's that's going to be left to younger men.
But I know it's being done.
I was preaching at a church in April that was in three different fashions for which they were not paying.
We're broadcasting the sermon live and they had the ability to respond to it live.
And during the invitation, people were getting saved and contacting them while we were giving the invitation from the pulpit.
That's phenomenal.
The guy is showing me the pastor afterwards had a church member work showing me the messages for people that got saved different parts of the world.
A couple of years back, I did a five messages on the King James Bible at a church in Florida.
And they were posted on Sermon Audio dot com. I didn't even know what Sermon Audio dot com was at the time.
But somebody in South Africa recommended them.
They've been watched by I have no idea how many people in South Africa.
And I have heard from more people that I can keep track of.
We're living amazing day and age.
And Stephen Anderson seems to have tapped into that beyond anybody that I know.
And you have to credit him for the ability to do that and say there's something for us to learn from all this.
It is an incredible thing to be preaching in Florida and have somebody in Spain getting saved.
I mean, it's just glory.
However, having said the good things, I begin to realize, especially after I said a couple of nice things about him,
people are asking me questions. What about this that he's teaching? And what about this? And what about that?
And then at a moment, I was preaching in Ohio and church.
I was at Sunday night. The pastor was a former student of mine from Florida.
The assistant pastor was former student of mine from Florida. Both their wives were former students of mine.
At church service went really well.
And then to my shock, I hear a couple of weeks later, young man's not the pastor there anymore.
There's quite a dispute. And when will happen?
Well, the assistant pastor gets called by the church to pastor. He accepts it.
And the next thing I know, Stephen Anderson's disciples are all over Facebook attacking him for accepting the pastorate when he was called.
What in the world? And I don't just mean disagreeing with him.
I mean with tax. And they were vicious. So what in the world is happening?
Well, that point, I found out this serious doctrinal differences that he was advocating that and not just advocating in the sense.
This is my idea. That may be your idea. This is my idea. But I mean, it's you know, if you a Bible believer, you you believe these things.
And Brother Mark's going to expound on some of the most serious ones.
But I realized there was an ad and I took offense at this former student of mine being ravaged like this from a former student of mine who it didn't strike me to be the kind of person who would ever act that way.
I was really surprised. So what in the world is going on? And so I began to try and have some sort of handle on this.
I mentioned Brother Scudder. Someone should address this. And he's asked Brother Mark to do it.
But Brother Mark asked if I'd make the point about why. And the guy shows up everywhere.
He's advocating divisive doctrines and a divisive attitude. And let me read Romans, chapter 12, verse 16, 17.
Now, beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them, says Mark them and avoid them.
That's a biblical command. That's not this. This is a tactic you might want to try. That's a biblical command for for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches to sieve the hearts of the simple.
In other words, there's a category of person who is divisive because they want to serve their own interest.
And in the epistle dedicatory to the King James Bible, this is not a new problem.
They wrote this on the other side. We shall be maligned by self-conceited brethren.
Self-conceited brethren, I thought was an interesting terminology. The other side, we shall be maligned by self-conceited brethren who run their own ways and give liking unto nothing but what is framed by themselves and hammered out on their anvil.
They were conscious of the fact they were going to face that. And they use the term self-conceited brethren.
It is a personality type that wants to be in a special situation where they can present themselves as having this special knowledge that makes them different than everybody.
And I've watched this long as I've been a ministry. And what I've seen repeatedly is they will come through and they'll take a little bit from here and a little bit from here, a little bit from here, and they construct something that reflects them and them alone.
They draw followers to it.
They're very arrogant and divisive and rough. And it appears through all my life. And again, I didn't invent this idea that there's certain personality type that is attracted to the arrogant and divisive and rough.
I could point a number of example of preachers that I think fit that, but they did not know how to use the Internet to have a worldwide voice, even when pastoring a church of a handful of people.
Anderson does. That has made him more successful on the things he's right about. It's made him maybe more influential, but on the things he's wrong about, it's made him more influential than other people with the same divisive personality.
And again, I want to give credit where credit's due, but there's a certain personality type that practices what I call mix and match theology.
I take a little bit from here. I take a little bit from here. I take a little bit from here. And when I'm done, nobody has exactly what I have.
I'm now unique. I'm special. You'd better follow me. And the kind of person that does that seems to be a very insecure person.
And because of their insecurities, they can't debate anything. They can only go to war if you disagree with them.
And they attract people who have that attitude. They attract people, I think, who share their insecurities.
And we live in an amazing day because of the influence of the Internet. It's felt all over the place.
I was in a church last fall and the pastor said, you know, we've got a young couple in our church and they won't come to this meeting while you're preaching.
He gave me their name. Honestly, I don't recognize the name. I don't know who these people are. He said, you've never met them.
I said, what is the issue then? He said, well, your teaching doesn't line up with Stephen Anderson's and they've heard you on the Internet.
Your teaching doesn't line up with his. And they had told the pastor that God had sent them there to that church to straighten the pastor out so that he could get on target.
I said, Pastor, let me give you some advice. Get rid of those people as quickly as you can find out a way to do it.
They can't ever possibly be. Well, as the news missions conference, as a mission conference.
There was another couple of families quit coming because the influence of this family, because I didn't match the teaching of Stephen Anderson and one other person.
This is the kind of stuff that is all over the place. What happened in the situation I was telling you about.
And two former students of mine love them both. I thought highly of both of them. But the fellow got enamored with Stephen Anderson.
He changed his position both on the rapture and on Israel and on the interpretation of the book of Revelation.
She just gets up and announces to his church, this is now our church's position, even though the church has a written doctrinal statement that says something completely different.
And he announced that he was making that change by himself.
And the congregation didn't buy that. And the congregation is not being picky.
They're dealing with real Bible truths that their church has been sound on.
So they dismissed him as pastor and they extended a call to the assistant who accepted it.
And Anderson and his people went crazy, not just at the church. They said church had no right to dismiss the pastor.
I mean, he was in good graces with Anderson and his people. And the assistant had no right to accept that call.
And they're just trashing him. I don't mean disagreeing with him.
They are just trashing him because he accepted a call from a church that he believed the doctrinal statement of the church.
They just dismissed the pastor because he didn't believe the doctrinal statement of the church.
We're not talking about fuss over some silly little thing over here. This is serious.
And when he begins to exercise that kind of influence, it's serious. It needs to be dealt with.
And I'm in the middle of some writing projects. I thought this ought to be written on, but I begged off being the one to write on it.
So I don't know how happy he is or isn't about it.
Brother Julian inherited that opportunity and pastor asked him to address this. And I'm glad he's doing it.
I know points he's going to make beyond even what he's going to do today, but I will turn this over to him now.
God bless you, brother Martin.
You are here so that they can attack you on the Internet.
I've been attacked for years by people on the Internet.
I'm not aware of that ever having happened to you.
And I do not wish to hog all the blood.
Being a beat. Yeah, I get abused. That's the story of my life. So.
But you get abused here. Yeah.
No, it's not your.
Well, anyway, thank you, Dr. Stringer. Appreciate that.