(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, we're here in First Samuel chapter 19, and we're continuing our series on the Old Pat's question mark series, and it's been a few weeks since we've been in this series, so let me just kind of quickly recap what this series is about. This series is kind of going through various, you know, Baptist traditions that are in a lot or most Baptist churches and things that we do not do. Basically what makes us a little bit different as a church, and when it comes to Bible college, which is what we're talking about here today, we don't believe in Bible college, okay? And so we don't recommend to our members to go out and get a Bible college degree, and we're going to go in-depth and explain why that is and what that means. And so we have a lot of points here today, but the first point is this, that Bible college is not biblical. Bible college is not biblical. Now we're going to look at a couple of the arguments for Bible college from, you know, various Baptist churches and non-denominational churches, and one of their big arguments is in First Samuel 19. Notice what it says in verse 18. So David fled and escaped and came to Samuel to Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and dwelled in Nahoth. And it was told Saul, saying, behold, David is at Nahoth in Ramah. So David is fleeing for his life. He's being persecuted by Saul. And notice verse 20, here's one of their big arguments, and Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying and Samuel standing as appointed over them, the Spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. So they'll look at this phrase, the company of the prophets, and they'll say, boom, there's Bible college. This is one of their big arguments. Okay? I'm not just throwing out an argument. We're going to go through their big arguments, and they say there's the company of the prophets. So here they are together, and Samuel's overseeing it, which means he's basically running a Bible college course. Okay? Now, look, I do believe in the company of the prophets these are godly people, and they're basically having a preaching event or a preaching night, which there's nothing wrong with having that. But by no means could you look at this verse and say, well, see, there's a Bible college. Okay? Obviously it doesn't mention a Bible college here, and we're going to go through this during the sermon. But basically they'll look at a verse like this and say, well, this is why a Bible college is good. It's good to have one man appointed and basically training up all these people. Look, I agree that's a good model. That's why we have the local church, and you have one person running the church, and then they're training up a group of people that are going to be future preachers. Okay? By no means could you look at this verse, though, and say, well, see, there you go. You got to go to Bible college. Okay? Verse 24, and he stripped off his clothes also and prophesied before Samuel in like manner and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Wherefore, they say, is Saul also among the prophets? So is Saul also in Bible college? Okay? That's what they're basically saying here. That's not what the Bible says here. Okay? Now turn to 2 Kings 2, 2 Kings 2, 2 Kings 2. And let me read you as you're going to 2 Kings 2, because obviously, you know, things in the Old Testament, they were a little bit different than the things in the New Testament. And what the New Testament says in Hebrews 1 is this, as you're going to 2 Kings 2, God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. So in the Old Testament and in diverse times and in times in the past, they spoke by prophets, you know what, people would go to the prophet to hear the word of God. They didn't have a full Bible to read. Okay? But then God has spoken unto us by his Son, Jesus Christ. And what did Jesus install in the book of Matthew? It mentions twice the local church. In Matthew, I believe it's 16 and 18, it mentions the local church. So in today's world, what do we have? We have the local church. Okay? And this is how God is operating things. Okay? So in 2 Kings 2, I want you to notice this phrase in verse 3, and the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha. Now what you'll often see people argue is they'll say that Elisha taught a school of the prophets. That's a phrase they'll say, the school of the prophets, the school of the prophets, the school of the prophets. There's one problem with this, the Bible never says the school of the prophets. You will never find that terminology, the school of the prophets. Now we'll look up the word school here in the Bible in a little bit, okay? But you will never find school of the prophets. It says the sons of the prophets, the company of the prophets. What is this? These are godly young men who are sons of preachers that are meeting together. Look, the people I hang out with are also soul winners and fellow people that love God and we're going out soul winning together. I hope that, you know, my son grows up and, you know, he's a son of the prophet one day, okay? With other great people who have been trained right, that is not a Bible college. This is just godly people meeting together and, you know, serving God together, going soul winning. That is what you're seeing, okay? And look at our church, there's plenty of soul winners at this church and we go out together, that doesn't mean that we're a school though, we're a local church, okay? But they'll say, well the school of the prophets, but what it said in verse three was the sons of the prophets. And these are their biggest arguments, okay? They were at Bethel, came forth to Elisha and said unto him, knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he said, yea I know it, hold ye your peace. And Elisha said unto him, Elisha, tarry here I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho and he said, as the Lord liveth and as I so liveth, I will not leave thee, so they came to Jericho. Go down to verse number seven, and fifty men of the sons of the prophets, not the school of the prophets, the sons of the prophets, went and stood to view afar off and they too stood by Jordan. Now let me just say this as a side point which I just thought of, you're seeing these fifty sons of the prophets, but notice the two most godly people are Elijah and Elisha. And they're not amongst the school of the prophets, okay? They're not in this Old Testament bible column and they're the most godly ones, okay? And so what you're seeing here is these fifty people here are here and these two stand afar off, okay? Why? Because they're the ones that were the closest to God, okay? This is just, the sons of the prophets, these are godly people, okay? But they're not the most godly in the world at the time, and they're just soul winners meeting together. It's not a school, okay? This does not mean they don't have a secular job just because you see them together going soul winning and doing things together. I'm sure they had jobs during the day and then at night time those people are together, okay? It doesn't say they don't have a job and they're just in school together. You're adding to the text if that's what you say. It doesn't say they don't have a job. You just see them hanging out together sometimes. Why? Because soul winners hang out together and that's always the way it's been. Verse 15, and when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, the spirit of Elisha doth rest on Elisha, and when they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him. So once again you're seeing the sons of the prophets. You're not seeing the school of the prophets. It never says that phrase, the school of the prophets. Now turn in your Bible to 2 Kings 22, 2 Kings 22, because let me say this, that if you were to look up the phrase school in the Bible, it's in the Bible. If you were to look up college in the Bible, college is in the Bible. So we're going to look those up here today because there's not a lot of verses on it. We're going to look up a college and we're going to see what the Bible has to say about it. Now in 2 Kings 22, we're in a situation where the word of God was basically lost for a time period. They have to find the word of God. And Josiah was a godly king before they found the word of God, and once he finds the word of God, he really cleans house on all the wickedness in the country. And so notice what it says in 2 Kings 22, verse 11, and it came to pass when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. This would be someone who's trying to live a godly life, he's saved, but he's never really heard the word of God outside of hearing the gospel. And then all of a sudden he just hears the word of God read. It's kind of like when people first get right with God and they start reading the Bible and they're like, whoa, man, I had no idea that I should quit listening to this music and you quit watching these movies and things such as that. Because the word of God is powerful. And that's what's taking place here in verse 11, verse 13, and Josiah is actually going to send them to talk to the people at the college. Go ye inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah concerning the words of this book that is found, for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us because our fathers have not hearkened onto the words of this book to do according to all that which is written concerning us. Go to verse four. So Hilkiah the 14, verse 14, so Hilkiah the priest in Ahicham and Akbar and Shaphan and Azahiah went on to Huldah the prophetess, Huldah the prophetess. Now is a prophetess a man or a woman? A woman, a prophetess. This is a woman and it makes it very clear here after this, the wife of Shalom, the son of Tikvah. So here's a woman who is basically working at this so-called Bible college and she's a woman, she's not a man. Now obviously we don't believe in women preachers and that's a whole other sermon. And I'm sure we'll preach that at some time. But notice this, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. Now she dwelled in Jerusalem in the college and they communed with her. Now they're going to this woman to hear the word of God. So this is like a Bible college. At least they're having Bible classes or something like that. It's some sort of spiritual college or they have a spiritual section because they're going to this woman that dwells at the college for spiritual advice. Now look, I don't believe this is a wicked woman because it does not say that, but here's what I'll say. Is this the right model, the biblical model that you're going to a woman to hear the word of God preached? No, it's not. Okay, now I don't think she's an ungodly woman, but in the only instance you're seeing of college, because the only time you see colleges here and also in Chronicles where it references the same story, you're seeing basically a woman preacher. And that is not God's model. So in this model of college, if this is the example you have, the one time you're seeing college in the Bible here and also in Chronicles with this story, it doesn't look like a perfect situation. You're not seeing like a pastor overrunning it, a man who's basically preaching. You're seeing basically a woman preacher. Now turn to Acts 19, Acts 19, that shows you the spiritual state that they were in at that time. Okay. And, and let me tell you this, I believe absolutely that that women can be just as godly as men and do more things for God than men. And I'll be honest, like we don't know who's going to get the most rewards in heaven. But if you're to look at this room, I'm sure that if you took the top 10 people with awards in this room, it's going to be basically around 50 50 probably because there's plenty of women that are serving God at this church and you look at great people throughout history. Sometimes they're kind of behind the scenes, but I personally think that Mary could possibly get more rewards and we're actually going to preach on Mary here and you know, next month. Okay. Like two parts, one sermons against Mariolatry. Then we're going to preach about the virtues of Mary in the Bible, but I honestly believe she might get more rewards than any man, okay, outside of, you know, maybe more than John the Baptist, Paul the apostle, even though they kind of go behind the scenes, you actually see her being more godly than all the great soul winners and I'll show you that here in about a month. Okay. So I'm not saying women are of less value than men. I'm just saying they have different roles. Right. Okay. There's a different role between men and women and the Bible says you have to be the husband of one wife to be a pastor. Look, a woman can't be the husband of one wife. Right. Now maybe in today's world in a bizarre way, people make that possible. But look, that's not God's system. Okay. And that doesn't make women of less value. It just means they have different roles. Okay. There's nothing wrong with that. So you don't see a perfect situation in second Kings 22 and in Acts chapter 19 we're going to see the word school mentioned and this is the only verse that mentioned school in the Bible. Okay. Now let me say this. This sermon is not about public school and homeschooling. That's kind of outside the scope of this sermon, but I'm just going and talking about Bible college here today. Okay. Verse 19 verse nine, but when divers were hardened and believe not, but spake evil that way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples. This is Paul the apostle disputing or arguing or contending daily in the school of one Tyrannus. So your only mention of school, Paul is arguing with basically the school professor. Okay. He's arguing with the leaders of that area. He's disputing with them. He's arguing with them. Does this seem like a good Bible college? It's some sort of college where it's a spiritual thing in nature. I mean, back then in society, spiritual in terms of what might've been mixed in with your normal classes. I'm not really sure. But what I'm saying is he's arguing with them. He's not agreeing with them. He's disputing. He's arguing. So here school is not a good thing. It's actually a bad thing. Paul is arguing with Tyrannosaurus Rex in the school. He's arguing with Tyrannus, it says here in Acts chapter 19. So here's the thing. If you were to look up just the references they said with the school of the prophets, it's not in the Bible. The sons of the prophets, that's not a school. It doesn't say it's a school. It doesn't say they didn't work secular jobs. When you look up college and school in the Bible, it doesn't look like a good thing either. You're not seeing this Bible college. And we're kind of setting the foundation here and I'm going to go through all the problems with Bible college because let me tell you what I'm not saying. I am not saying that if somebody got a Bible college degree, they're a bad person. I have friends that are pastors that graduated from Bible college. There's people in this room that went to Bible college. I'm not against you if you went to Bible college, but I'm just trying to show you that as we start churches, it's going to come from us training and sending people out. It's not going to come from a Bible college. And so I want to read you this article from a man by the name of Sam Giff. Now many people in this room know who Sam Giff is. He's a very famous preacher. He's actually pretty famous in the Philippines and he's a pretty famous guy. He's a dispensational pastor. He was good friends with Peter Rockman and he wrote an article of Bible college called Are Bible colleges unscriptural? Are Bible colleges wrong? So he wrote this article and let me read to you some highlights from this article. Now keep in mind what we just read about Acts chapter 19. Now Sam Giff is very much for Bible college, which obviously we are not, but notice what it says. There is a murmuring of some Christians about how unscriptural Bible colleges are. Many of these voices are those of pastors who refuse to allow God to call any man out of their church. These warlords couldn't care less about Jesus Christ and his cause. So I don't care about Jesus according to this article. They've worked hard to build a church and they're not about to let God mess it up by directing someone away from their ministry. These are small men who think only of themselves, I mean I'm 5'10, I'm not that small am I? But they long to be big and figure they can't be if a good man leaves. Of course they would never admit to being jealous of other pastors or desiring to be noticed. Now see this isn't the way it is with every pastor, but there are a few self-servers. So he's basically criticizing people that would be against Bible college, which we're against Bible college and we're going to see why. In the next paragraph he says this, the warlords, which are me and Pastor Jimenez and people like that, the warlords like to point out that there were no Bible colleges in the Bible. Right? It's like yeah, you know, I do like to point that out that I mean if those are your Bible colleges it's bad. But then he says this, they like to point out there are no Bible colleges in the Bible parenthesis, oops, Acts chapter 19 verses 9 and 10. I mean you're going to reference when Paul is arguing with a dinosaur in this school, when he's arguing with Tyrannus, it's like yes, I agree that's a Bible college, all right, you win Sam Giff, that is a Bible college, that is a school, they're teaching religious stuff, but is God for that school? Paul is arguing against them just because there's a school where God's against it. Look, the Catholic church has their seminary or whatever they call it where they're getting training, does that mean, oh, it's a good thing because the Catholic church doesn't? No, it just means that they do it. And Paul is arguing against them. So he goes to Acts 19 verses 9 and 10. I don't know if he didn't read the verses or if he was confused, but it's just like that is how you're basically saying it's a good thing? Many are aware of the independent Baptist emphasis on the local church, so they like to trumpet that only the local church should train men. And yeah, we're going to talk about that in the sermon. Accusations are true, yes, that's what we say. Now many of these same churches do not have local church day schools to teach their young people, but then they aren't in danger of losing a six year old to the call to preach. Their argument sounds good, but is usually laced with inconsistency when they send girls to non-local church schools, and of course none of them claim any need or ability to train men for secular fields. Now that is not true, at least not with me, because I often preach, and I will during this sermon, about how people need to train at a young age and be prepared for their future, for their careers. So with other people that might be true, but actually, you know, honestly, most of the Baptist pastors that are for Bible calls that I know of, they basically say forsake the secular field and just serve God in Bible call, right? So his accusation is what they generally do from my experience, because I say the opposite, okay? So he's saying that we say, well, you know what, you should just be devoted to the local church, don't even work a secular job, no, that's the opposite of what I preach. I can't speak for every church, but that's not what I preach. Some other highlights from this. So now we have scores of five to ten man local church Bible institutes that many times undertrain their victims, dot, dot, dot, or students, okay? So he says these churches, they run their own little things of training, but it's not good enough, okay? And look, there's nothing wrong with the church having some sort of training within the church, but it should be run from the local church, and we'll talk about that. So we've had some training here, we have opportunities to preach, especially at our church plant and things such as that, there's nothing wrong with those things, okay? Then it says later on, these pastors claim to believe that the local church should train its own, therefore they refuse to let any of their men go to a Bible college. Bless God, why should I let someone else build their church with my men? Strangely though, if a man comes to their local church Bible institute from another local church, they let them. The manner in which their door only swings one way betrays their hypocrisy. So according to what he's saying here, it's strange that we would let somebody in with a Bible college degree, like we should just shut them out at the door, and I'm a hypocrite. Look, obviously I preach against Bible college, but whatever you did in the past is the past. It's like good night, man. If we didn't let anybody in this room that was ever guilty of anything we preach, like look, nobody would be here, and I wouldn't either, because we all sin, we've all done things in the past, it's fine, it's whatever. I don't care if you have a Bible college degree, but I'm going to tell you what our church needs. If you have a Bible college degree, you're welcome to be at our church, that's fine. You're still serving the same God as me, I'm just saying why we don't support it. If you want to have nothing to do with anything non-scriptural, so basically he's admitting here, it's non-scriptural, because he says if you want to get rid of everything that's non-scriptural, then you will have to do away with your Sunday school, well we don't have Sunday school. You'll have to do away with your Sunday school, your evening service, midweek service, Christian school, church building, church buses, church bookstore, church library, church kitchen, vacation Bible school, special meetings, assistant pastor's, pastor's office, and so on and so on. Now let me just mention a few things real quickly, because look, first off, they didn't have buses 2,000 years ago. We don't have a church bus, but what I'm saying is that's honestly a poor way to argue your case if there was something that did not exist. They didn't have an online ministry 2,000 years ago, so bless God we're not going to have one today. That would be foolish. Obviously they didn't have the capacity to have an online ministry, so you look at those things and see if it fits in the Bible. They didn't have church buses. Now we don't have a church bus, but there'd be nothing wrong if we had a vehicle picking up people for church. There's nothing wrong with that. Now in terms of saying, well they didn't have a midweek service, well it doesn't say they didn't in the Bible. We know they met on Sunday. That does not mean they didn't meet other days of the week, but I will say this, it's a lot easier to travel in today's world even with all the restrictions than it was 2,000 years ago. Back then, and this will tie into the second sermon today, people worked 72 hours a week. Six 12-hour days and Sunday was your day. You'd come maybe a couple miles to the church building, you were there all day, maybe did some soul winning, you went home and you went to your next week. In today's world though, it's a lot easier for people to come to church and it's nothing wrong with having a midweek service. Now look, we don't have an evening service, which he's I guess preaching against, but in the Bible actually when Eunuchus fell and died, he fell at midnight. Sounds like an evening service. Where Paul priests a 12-hour sermon, it sounds like they had an evening service there. Now we don't, except on our midweek service, because for us it just fits better. But look, that's kind of a foolish argument. For one, it's not biblical because Eunuchus fell at midnight. But also just because of that, you can have services whenever. If our church met on Saturdays, if the government said, we will not let anyone meet on Sundays, we just switch the services to Saturday. It's not the end of the world. I think it's best to meet on Sunday. But look, if they made that sort of restriction, it's not the end of the world. It's not a sin if we meet another day of the week. But most of the things he mentions in this list, I would say, yeah, this is why we don't do some of these things. The church bookstore that we don't sell in church, we talked about that. The church library. Look, if we had a church library where you could check out a book for free, there'd be nothing wrong with that. But basically he mentions a lot of things, vacation, Bible school, yeah, we don't have vacation Bible school. Assistant pastors, yeah, you know what, we're not going to have an assistant pastor because the Bible lists deacons, it doesn't list assistant pastors. We're going to do things the way the Bible says them. Now let me just mention one other thing from this article, because he's really ripping people who are against Bible calls. Your natural assumption, at least for a lot of you, is, man, he really hates the new IFB. But this article was written on November 18th, 2001. It was written 20 years ago. There was no faithful or Baptist church. There was no very Baptist church 20 years ago. You know what this says? It means that there were Baptist creatures back then that said, we're going to do things the way God says. Amen. Amen. We're going to go back to the real old paths and not the native old paths. This is 2001. Okay. And look, let me tell you something. In today's world, there are less Baptist churches getting started than there were 100 years ago. Because when the responsibility was on local churches, they made it a point to train up their men and to send them out to the battlefield to start churches. But since we have the Bible college now, that doesn't happen. And look, people are graduating from Bible college, they're not going and starting new churches. 99% of the time when someone graduates from Bible college, they end up working for a church that already exists. They don't start a church. That very rarely happens unless they go to the mission field, you know, and that's a whole other topic. Okay. But turn to Proverbs 22, Proverbs 22, you say, brother Stuckey, you know, the only reason why you believe these things, this is just kind of your movement of small group of people. No, there have been people preaching the same things I have for thousands of years. Because it's the same Bible. And there have been plenty of saved Baptist pastors, plenty of saved people that have just read the Bible and said, you know what? I don't see the method of the Bible college. We're just going to send people out of the local church. This church was started because I was trained up and sent out from a local church, Verity Baptist Church started because it was sent from a local church. The church plants of Verity Baptist, Shield of Faith Baptist Church, you know, pastor Joe Jones sent out of the local church, pastor Aaron Thompson, Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Vancouver, Washington, sent out of the local church, Verity Baptist Church, Fresno, brother Jared Puzarnsky running that church right now, sent from the local church. It sounds like when a local church makes it their goal to get churches started, it sounds like over time, they're pretty successful. Because you can look back from 10 years now and you've got like five different churches that were started, if I got the number correctly, look, that's actually really accomplishing something. Okay. And so look, God's method is not the Bible college, it is the local church. Now Proverbs 22, Proverbs 22, you say, brother Stuckey, well, I'll agree with you. I don't see a verse that says we need to have a Bible college, but what's wrong with having a Bible college? Now, let me say again, there's nothing wrong with the church having a program and training people, but there are a lot of problems with the Bible college, okay? And I'll explain to you why. Second point we have here today, number one, it is not biblical. Number two is it destroys people financially. It destroys their financial future at Bible college. Proverbs 22, verse six, train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Now oftentimes you look over that verse and you say, yeah, you need to teach your kids not to lie, not to steal, you know, you need to teach them those basic things. You need to go soul winning. But you know, it's not just training them up in those ways. It's also training them in being a hard worker, developing a career because it's not that easy in life. I'm going to talk about that in the next sermon, but let me say this, one of the big goals I have for Zephaniah, whether or not he becomes a pastor or not, is that basically he prepares himself for the future and he's stable with a career and he can basically provide for a family. You say, why? Because if he does not do it, it's going to be very difficult in life, okay? Look, many people in this room have been to Bible college and you know what I'm saying is true, right? Okay. And your churches didn't tell you this and the best thing you could have heard 10 years ago when you were really zealous and you wanted to serve God is, you know what, prepare yourself financially and get a career. That is the best thing you could have heard. And look, I was once zealous like that as well. And I'm actually glad, you know, the first church I had, even though it wasn't a great church, the pastor told me, he's like, no, cause I was thinking about going to Bible college. I'd been saved for a year. He's like, it's great. You're zealous. He's like, why don't you get your college degree first? And it's like, I'm glad I did. Okay. Because of the fact that I was able to get a career out of that rather than just going to Bible college. Cause you go to Bible college and you get a degree that means nothing. You don't get hired to become an engineer from a Bible college degree. You get hired to be an engineer with an engineering degree. And look, I'm not preaching like you need to go to college. That's a whole nother sermon. It's outside of the scope of this. And that is your choice what you do, whether you do or you don't, but you need to prepare for your future no matter which path you choose. Okay. And so notice what it says, when he is old, he will not depart from it. But notice what the next verse is. Cause oftentimes we only focus on verse six, but notice verse seven, the rich ruleth over the poor and the borrower is servant to the lender. Notice verse seven is about financial things. And so one thing I'm certainly going to teach my son is the borrower is servant to the lender. You go to Bible college son and you spend, I don't know, 50,000 pesos a year. You're going to be a servant your entire life. You've destroyed yourself financially. That's the context here. And so one of the large things you need to teach kids at a young age is prepare yourself financially. Okay. Look, we don't preach on finances that much when, whenever I do it's on stuff like this, prepare yourself financially. Cause that's what you see training up a child when you look at the context here in Proverbs chapter 22. Now turn to first Timothy three, first Timothy three, let me say this. Bible colleges are a lot cheaper here in the Philippines than in the U S because in the U S you're probably going to spend like over 500,000 pesos a year for Bible college. Oftentimes it is just as expensive or more expensive than getting a regular college degree. Here's the difference. I have a college degree. Okay. I have a mathematics degree. I have two degrees. One of them is mathematics, which is the one I primarily use. Okay. When I graduated with a math degree, I could apply for jobs that said, one of the requirements is you have a bachelor in mathematics, right? You have a degree in mathematics. I actually had jobs that I could apply for. Okay. And I worked in a few different fields. I worked as a teacher and also in the actuarial field, but I got a degree where I could have a real job. Okay. If I had gotten a Bible college degree, you know what? You're not going to hire me as a math teacher because I'm a master in theology, right? You're not going to get a degree. And let me tell you something. Like if you end up working, cause here's the thing to work at a Christian school, you really don't need a degree, at least in the U S you know, they just, they'll just get whoever they need. Okay. And so getting a Bible college degree and here's what a lot of pastors will do. They will try to almost guilt you and go into Bible college. And it's like, all right, you know, you don't want to get a Bible college. You don't want to become a pastor. Can you at least give God one year of your life? At least just give God one year. What in the world would be the purpose of spending $10,000 for one year and not even getting the degree? It's like, look, you can give God your life by serving you in the local church. And let me just say this, that when it comes to a church, being a person who preaches the sermons does not make me more spiritual than the people that are members. As far as I see, people are all here working jobs and providing for their families and working hard and still going so when you're serving God, we have no idea who's going to get the most rewards. It doesn't make you more spiritual because you got a Bible college degree or because you became a pastor. Okay. And so it's ridiculous for pastors to basically guilt you into that. Just give God one year of your life. Just give God four years of your life. And you know what? You give God four years of her life and you come out with a massive debt and the borrower is serving to the lender. When I train up my child, when I train up my kids, I'm going to show them Proverbs 22 verse 7, which I don't think most Baptist pastors are showing people when they're talking about why you need to go to Bible college. Because you're going to get out and you're not going to have a degree and you're probably going to have a huge debt, okay, depending on where you go to school. It doesn't make sense logically. And look, since there's not a verse that says you need to go to Bible college, then don't go to Bible college. You can get trained in the local church and I'm just here to tell you, you're wasting your money if you go to Bible college. Okay. You're wasting your money. It's not a scriptural method. Okay. First Timothy chapter 3. First Timothy 3. And let me tell you something. That's probably the big point right there. Because I'll tell you what. When you're young, you want to develop and work hard to prepare yourself for the future. Because here's the thing. When you're 20 years old or 22 years old with no experience, you can get a job. But what if you're 30 years old or 40 years old? It's going to get harder each and every year. Why? Because an employer's going to say, you don't have any experience. I'm going to hire someone who has experience. The older you get, it gets almost impossible to start. You could start just a normal job when you're 18 or 19 years old and start modestly. You have less expenses and you'll make more money as time goes by and you're preparing yourself. Okay. But what you don't see in the Bible is that the pastors are getting Bible college degrees. They're actually getting sent out from their local churches. And the great thing is, you don't get a debt, you build up a career, and you prepare for the future. Okay. 1 Timothy 3, verse 1. The third point we have here today is this. That with Bible college, it's very easily corrupted. It's very easily corrupted. You say, what do you mean by that? What I mean by this is the fact with Bible college, there's one person in charge of that Bible college. And all it takes is the person at the head to be a bad guy in every single church that's underneath its wing ends up being bad. Okay. That's the way it works. 1 Timothy 3, verse 1. This is a true saying. If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober of good behavior given to hospitality, apt to teach, notice verse 5, for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? God's method is this. You prove yourself by basically doing a good job raising your family, and you can run a individual local church, not a Bible college, but a church, okay? 2 Corinthians 4. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And look, I've seen this with Bible colleges that are very famous ones in the US. Like, for example, at Hiles Anderson College, Jack Hiles was there for a long time, and then his son-in-law comes in, Jack Skopf. Turns out Jack Skopf was a pervert. Turns out Jack Skopf got arrested as a 51-year-old man for being with a 16 or 17-year-old girl. I mean, he literally drove to another state so he could commit that wicked sin because it was legal in that state, but it wasn't legal in this state. I mean, he was a wicked person. And look, you have a guy who was there for a long time, and then his son-in-law comes in, turns out to be a pervert, turns out to just change everything. Like, we're no longer King James only, and he's changing all these things just subtly, and look, that affects not only just that Bible college, but all the hundreds of churches that are getting sent out from there. It affects everything. In Hiles Anderson, they had their famous, what was that called, they had the very famous conference in America, the most famous conference, Pastors Conference, I think it was called. And basically, all the pastors from across the nation would come to Indiana to get trained. You've got hundreds of pastors getting trained by Jack Skopf, who ends up being arrested for being a pedophile. It's very easily corrupted. See, if the head of it goes wrong, everything's bad. Notice what it says in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 3, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 3, but if her gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Verse 4, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine onto them. The God of this world is referring to the devil. And what you have to understand is God has methods, and the devil has methods. You might not understand why God has certain methods. You say, the Bible college makes sense to me. People don't know the word of God, why not just have one college to train up everybody? But is it scriptural, though? Even if it logically makes sense to you, is it found in the Bible, and it's not, and we're seeing why here today. But the God of this world, he's going to have methods as well. The devil's going to have methods. And since this is not God's system to train people, it's not surprising it gets screwed up. Look, there's been churches out there of churches you might have thought were a good church or a good pastor or whatever, and then the pastor ends up being with prostitutes or whatever. Or some wicked sinner, he turns out to not even believe what he's saying he believes. Here's the thing. If you're a member of that local church, you can just go to another church. Right? If the pastor ends up being a bad guy or changing the doctrine, you just go to another church. But look, if it's part of a Bible college, it affects hundreds of churches. They're all underneath that wing of that Bible college. So look, that is why God has individual local churches, not some big universal church with a pope running it. And basically, that's kind of like what the Bible colleges are. There's some sort of pope that's basically running it and just in charge of everything. Turn to 2 Corinthians 3, 2 Corinthians chapter 3. I would say this, the vast majority of people that go to Bible college, they don't go because they're trying to be against God or whatever. They go because they're zealous. They think, you know what? I want to serve God. I think this is the best thing. And look, like I said, I almost went to Bible college, and I'm really glad I didn't when I was in college. That's what the local church is for though. That's not the Bible college. Okay? 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 1. This was our verse for our bulletin. And the fourth point is this, Bible college gives blasphemous titles, blasphemous titles. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 1. Do we begin again to commend ourselves or need we have some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? Paul's saying, do we need somebody to basically say, you're the real deal? Do we need a letter of recommendation? Like you go to get a job and you need letters of recommendation from other people. He's saying, do we need epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? And he's basically saying no, and it says why in verse 2, ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known in red of all men. And Paul says, ye, plural, are our epistle. What does he mean? He's saying the proof is in the pudding. He's saying, I brought a lot of people to church. I've trained them, and now look at all the soul winning going on. I've started these churches. That's my proof. A degree on the wall that says you're a master of divinity. That's not the proof. And Paul's saying, you've heard me preach. Do you learn when I preach sermons? If they learn, then the proof's in the pudding. Whether or not he has a degree or not. And look, when people get degrees in Bible college, they don't have to have some sort of expert level of knowledge of the Bible to get it. All they have to do is finish those four years and pay the money, and they've got their degree. That doesn't tell you if they've read the Bible. That doesn't tell you if they know the word of God. What tells you if somebody knows the word of God is if you're learning when they're preaching. What tells you whether or not someone's the real deal is whether or not they're actually going soul winning also, and encouraging and leading those things. That's what tells you not a degree on the wall. And Paul's saying, I don't need a degree on the wall. The proof is ye. That's what he says. Turn to Matthew 23. And so Paul says, you know what, I don't need some title that says I'm a master of divinity. I'm a doctor of theology. Okay, look, how do you become a doctor or master of divinity? Like, you just know God so well. You're a master at knowing God. It's like, man, I don't think I'm a master at knowing God. And it's like, it's funny how all these, and it's not just Baptist. All these denominations give these blasphemous titles, like they'll call people reverend. It's like, wait a minute, holy and reverend is thy name. So why are you having a blasphemous title? You say, well, what's wrong with the term master? Well, let's notice what it says in Matthew 23, verse seven. Matthew 23, verse seven. And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, rabbi, rabbi. But be not ye called rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father which is in heaven. And let me tell you something, Baptists, they love to rip the Catholics. It's like, man, he calls himself holy father, that's so blasphemous, because only God is our father. How dare he say it? Well, wait a minute, what does verse 10 say? Neither be called masters, for one is your master, even Christ. See, the Bible says don't be called master. Now here's the thing, you go to secular college and you get a degree, they're going to call it whatever they want, and that's fine. But look, when God's people are using the world's pattern and naming it the same thing, there's a problem with that. And to call someone a master of divinity, that is blasphemous. The Bible says don't call anybody master. And to say that you've mastered, or you are an expert at the knowledge of God and who God is, I think that's a little bit ridiculous. You're not an expert by any means. Turn to Titus 1. And so look, if we did have a Bible college, which we won't, and we gave somebody a degree, we certainly wouldn't call them master. I mean, we come up with some other word, but it's like, why wouldn't you just change the word? But they don't change it in Bible college. They will call you a master. They don't call anyone master. And yet, what do the Baptist churches do? And look, I understand this is other churches. We're specifically focusing on Baptist churches during the sermon series. What do they do? They call people masters. They call people reverends. It's like you pick the exact names that God says don't do. So number five, another problem with Bible college is they steal the authority from the local church. They steal the authority from the local church. Now, there's a few different aspects to this, and one of them is ordaining people to the ministry. The Bible says you're supposed to be ordained from the local church. Titus 1, verse 4. Titus 1, verse 4. And notice what it says in verse 4. To Titus, mine own son, after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. For this cause left I the increased. That thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordained elders in every city as I had appointed thee. So that was the job of Titus in that area. What you're not going to find, since there is no Bible college in the Bible, is getting ordained at Bible college. You say, what's wrong with getting ordained at Bible college? Here's the thing about being ordained by a local church. When you get ordained by a local church, what the pastor is basically saying is I know this person because I've been around him for several years. He's preached for me. I approve of his preaching. He's zealous. He's going soul winning. He's the real deal. A Bible college is not going to be able to know that. A local church can know that because of the fact even if we grew to be hundreds of people we would have a training class for the men who want to be pastors. I would know those people. They get opportunities to preach and run ministries and we could say, we approve of this person. In Bible college they approve of anyone who pays money. That's the way it works. Anybody who pays money will ordain you to the ministry. And people who are being ordained by the Bible college they've never shown whether or not they can preach or be involved in a local church. You're supposed to be ordained by the local church and the church in unison says we approve. You're the real deal. We're sending you out. Turn to 1 Timothy 2. 1 Timothy chapter 2. I know people who were ordained by the Bible college. I'm not against them. Obviously they made choices in the past or whatever. I'm just showing you this is not God's method. We're going to do things as close as we can to what the Bible says. 1 Timothy chapter 2. Notice what it says in verse 7. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle. I speak the truth in Christ and lie not. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. Basically we see that Timothy was ordained as a preacher as well and this is coming from the local church. Now you're saying, wait a minute, this is coming from Paul the apostle and he was some renegade missionary. No it was not. Turn to Acts 15. And I'll prove that to you because this is coming underneath the authority of Paul the apostle and Paul the apostle in the Bible was under the authority of a local church. He was sent by a local church and he starts a lot of other churches. Just like I was sent from Sacramento and we've started a church plant but we came from the authority of a local sending church. Acts 15 verse 1. And this ties into the fact not just ordaining to the ministry but with church plants and missionaries this operates from the local church not from the Bible college. Acts 15 verse 1. And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. So Paul and Barnabas are arguing with them and the reason why they're going up to Jerusalem is not to find out is this the truth or not. They're finding out how to deal with the problem. So they're going up due to this disputation they've had verse 3. On their way by the church they pass through Phinis and Samaria declaring the conversion of the Gentiles and they cause great joy unto all the brethren. And when they were come to Jerusalem they were received of the church. What church? The church of Jerusalem. There's various local churches. And of the apostles and elders and they declared all things that God had done with them. Why did they come to the church of Jerusalem? Because he's under the authority of the church of Jerusalem. Verse 13. And people are giving their opinions but then notice what it says in verse 13. And after they held their peace James answered saying Men and brethren harken or listen unto me. Now why does he say to listen unto me? Because he's the pastor. Say prove that to me. Verse 19. Wherefore my sentence is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned to God. He says my sentence. Think of a courtroom. In a courtroom you have a trial, you have both sides, the prosecution, the defense and they give their opinions for weeks or months. You have a jury and everything like that. But then if the judge stands up and says here's the sentence. This is what's going to be done. You owe this person 20,000 pesos. Look you can't argue after that. It's done. The sentence has gone forth. The judges ruled and let me tell you something in Acts 15 who's the one who's making the decision? Is it Paul? No. It's James. Why? He's the pastor. He doesn't say my opinion is. No he says you know what I've heard all the sides. I've heard the various opinions about what's going on. Here's my sentence. This is what we're going to do. He makes a decision. You say why? Because he was the authority and Paul was sent from that church. Now Paul got a lot of other churches started but he's still underneath the authority of that sending church. Now one day Lord willing I'll be ordained as the pastor of this church and I will no longer be under the authority of Verity Baptist Church. But until that point comes it's the same situation. I'm sent out as a missionary like Paul was underneath the authority of the sending church which is in Sacramento, California. And if there was some big situation Pastor Jimenez might say here is my sentence. This is what you're going to do. And look I have to abide by that authority. Why? Because that's the authority. And Paul was sent out by the local church so you say with missions just go and start your own churches. No you do it from a local church. The local church ordains people to the mission field. They're the ones that send people out to the mission field to start churches and to do missions. Everything operates from the local church. Not the Bible college. Why? This is God's method. That's what you see in the book of Acts. Now turn in your Bible to 1 Timothy 3. We'll look at a few more places. 1 Timothy 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3. And look quite honestly there's so many side points in this sermon we could spend a long time. But just the points we listed are number one, Bible college it's not biblical. Number two which honestly to me is the big point especially because it's difficult in this world. It's only going to get more difficult. Okay? As the economy will crash in the next couple of years probably. Look you need to prepare yourself financially. Okay? And Bible college does not prepare you with a career or financially. And let me tell you something. It's very hard to make it in life. It's much easier though when you're like 18, 19, and 20 to struggle and figure it out. Because every single person kind of has to hit a brick wall where like I don't know what I'm doing. And they have to fight for survival. But you know what? It's easier to hit that moment when you're 20 years old than 30 years old or 40 years old. And when you have all these churches that are basically convincing or guilting their members to just give your life to God and just serve the church. They're destroying those people financially. That is the reality of the situation. And so it destroys people financially with Bible college. Number three it's easily corrupted. All you have to do is destroy the top. Number four it gives blasphemous titles. Number five it takes away the authority from the local church. And as a result of taking away the authority of the local church last point it takes away the responsibility from the local church. It takes away the authority from the local church. And it takes away the responsibility from the local church. Notice what it says in 1 Timothy 3 verse 15. When it comes to teaching the Word of God, this is not the Bible college that teaches the Word of God. It's the local church. 1 Timothy 3 verse 15. But if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God. Notice this. The pillar and ground of the truth. Notice how it's the local church's job to teach the truth. It's the pillar and ground of the truth. At a lot of Baptist churches you ask them questions on the end times or something like that and the pastor is going to say, you really want to dig into that go to Bible college. Isn't that what they say? At church we just kind of cover the basics. We're just kind of covering the basics but if you really want to learn the Word of God that's where you go to Bible college. So basically the authority is taken away and that means the responsibility in the pastor's mind is, it's not my responsibility. So here's the thing about this. If all of the members that really are trying to dive into learning the Bible are just going off to Bible college do you realize the sermons are going to get very shallow and you're just going to focus on trying to keep people here because here's the thing I don't even teach the truth anymore. I just need to kind of motivate you from time to time I guess. I don't know how to do that because for me when I'm reading stuff I want to teach you things and that's what the Bible says. The pillar and ground of the truth but when the authority is taken away all of a sudden you see churches they pass the responsibility off to those Bible colleges. It's kind of like a mutual agreement. They're like, okay that's fine we'll just focus on bringing little kids to church on buses and basically not teaching anything too in-depth and we'll just leave it to the Bible college to teach people and to train people. 2 Timothy 2 2 Timothy 2 2 Timothy chapter 2 Let me say this also that not only does the Bible college not responsible for teaching and training it's the local church. It's also not the online ministry. Look I could easily sit here and say you know what I'm just going to preach very basic sermons because you can just go on and listen to Pastor Jimenez online. It's like brother say I have a question about the Bible. Yeah just listen to Pastor Jimenez he covered that. We just got to cover salvation here. We just try to encourage you and give you a pat on the back so we can keep you around. No it's my job to teach and to train you. And look if a pastor or a person running a church passes off that responsibility the result is the members aren't going to really respect that person preaching that much. I think it's a very foolish thing to do. When you're preaching sermons you need to teach people let me say something. That I think some people have this idea that well if I'm new IFB and I start a church it doesn't really matter what I say everyone's going to stick around anyway. Well I don't believe that. I believe if I was getting up here preaching basura each week then everybody would leave. Okay? I mean if I was just preaching garbage and just not teaching anything I think you guys would be bored and say man I hate this church. But it's like this is the best church in the area I'm just going to go anyway. I mean the truth is even though I love the music here and the fellowship most people come to this church because they're learning. That's the reason why people come to this church. That's why they like this church. That's why I like to vary Baptist Church. And look that is the reason why I spend a lot of time on my sermons. And look if you end up starting a church one day let me tell you something. You need to spend real time on your sermons. Don't just kind of get up and say well I wrote down a verse on John 3.16 and John 3.36 Romans 6.23. I'll just wing it today. I'm going to preach on salvation. It's like no you've got to actually spend time prepare your sermons, make it organized and that's not easy. It takes time. It takes effort. That's why it says to do the work. Okay. It takes a lot of work. 2 Timothy 2 verse 24. So when we're talking about the responsibility being stolen from the local church churches are not teaching the word of God and they're also not training people for the ministry. 2 Timothy 2 verse 24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach. What does apt mean? It means you have the ability to teach. Okay. I want you to realize that doesn't come from the first time you preach a sermon. It takes a lot of time to learn that. I'm really glad one thing I love about a church plan in Kampanga is like you get it because here's the thing I like preaching sermons and I don't want to just take the week off every other week or something and have different people preach. So I'm glad we have the opportunity where people that want to go to the ministry the best way to learn is trial and error. Isn't that true? And I'm glad we have that church plan because other churches in the U.S. they have nursing home ministries and things such as that to get practice preaching. When we started this church we had basically 20 minutes of preaching before the soul winning so people could get practice. But people are getting real experience. They're going down to Kampanga and they're preaching full length sermons and they're doing a great job and they're learning and that is great experience. And one day that's going to be the experience that leads where you're able to start a church. But here's the thing you don't really have the ability to preach the first time you preach a sermon. I preach sermons and when I was at my old church in West Virginia I preached every single week at junior church to the kids. And I was preaching 45 minute sermons because after we did it for a few weeks I was just able to preach on whatever. So I was preaching against alcohol and just everything I preach in a normal service. But look you learn and you make mistakes along the way and you learn from trial and error. And I'm not saying you're ever going to be perfect because I still make mistakes and I need to correct things and I'm learning and stuff like that. But quite honestly when I first started preaching sermons I'm just thinking alright now how do I write a sermon? How do I do all this? And some of you are feeling that right now. You're learning this stuff and it's like look the ability to preach that ought to be taught by the local church. Because the thing if we have the authority we need to take the responsibility upon ourselves and not to say you can learn that online somewhere. No we need to take that responsibility upon ourselves and to the best of our ability we want to do that for people that want to become pastors one day we want to train you and help you. When I was in Pennsylvania let me just end with this and like I said I'm not saying people are wicked that went to Bible college or believe in Bible college. It's fine I'm just showing you how we're doing things here. What I think is the best method. I went to a church in Pennsylvania maybe 15 times because I decided to go to a different church that was further away but had more soul winning. My friends went to the church in West Virginia. But I went to this church and what surprised me when I went several times is I listened to the sermons and I was like that was a good sermon. And you say why does that surprise you? Because in most Baptist churches I never learned anything. You go to church and you learn nothing and I remember I learned. Every time I went there I was like man I never thought about that. This pastor really knows the Bible. I went soul winning with him mid week one time and I was kind of curious because I started to wonder I bet he didn't go to Bible college. I realized the sermons were basically too good for him to have gone to Bible college. What I found is people generally preach better if they don't go to Bible college. That's my experience. So I asked him if he went to Bible college and it's like he was a little bit shy or embarrassed to kind of tell me well he started Bible college but he didn't finish. He just worked a job. And I was like yeah I kind of figured because I said your preaching is really good so I figured you didn't go to Bible college. And so what I found is that pastor in Pennsylvania and he lives like 45 minutes from where my parents live and ever at Pennsylvania. And I'd recommend that church if people were in that area. Look you know what? He's good at preaching. You say why? Because you don't have to learn from Bible college. And this is not a new preacher. This is not like post-trib and all the beliefs that we have. No this is just an ordinary Baptist pastor that lives out in the country. Houses are very spread out. It's a small church. 30, 40 people on a Sunday morning. It's probably never going to be this mega church. But he knows how to preach and I've learned plenty of things at that church. You say why? You don't have to get a degree to learn the Bible. You know how you can learn the Bible when you have the spirit of truth indwelling you? You can read the Bible. Let me tell you something. I have a very good friend of mine who graduated from Hyles Anderson College which is probably the most famous independent Baptist church in the US. At least towards the eastern side. In California there's a few famous Bible colleges but at least toward where I grew up in West Virginia, everybody went to Hyles Anderson. And my friend, he graduated from Hyles Anderson College. He's a good friend of mine and he has the same beliefs as me. He's a soul winner. He's like-minded. He goes to Mountain Baptist Church. And I actually know a few people that go to that church that went to Hyles Anderson College. And what he told me was that when he was in Bible college, they were so busy learning about all this other stuff they never even had time to read the Bible. And it's just like, you know, why in the world would you go to Bible college and you focus so much on learning other stuff and you don't even have time to read the Word of God? There's a problem there because your best source of knowledge is you personally. I'm just trying to help fill in the gaps and motivate you. Quite honestly, most of your learning should be because you read the Bible and learned something from yourself. And look, absolutely when I was a very Baptist I learned lots of stuff and look, I don't know everything. I can still learn plenty of things here today. But most of what I learned, I learned from reading the Bible. And quite honestly, if you're at a Bible college and you're too busy because you have to work 70 hours just to pay the bills because it's really expensive and you don't even have time to read the Bible and you're being trained for the ministry and after four years you got to do the Bible one time during Bible college because you were too busy with other stuff that is not as important. And then they put a degree and say, you're ready to go. Doesn't make any sense. It doesn't work. And I want you to understand, it's proven not to work. Because Baptist churches are not just starting all over the place. Great Baptist churches. The reality is the Baptists are kind of dying out in this world. And part of the problem is Bible college. Let's close with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and just getting to see your word, what you have to say against Bible college. And let me reiterate, I don't think people are bad people. People in this room have graduated from Bible college and they were very zealous. They wanted to serve you and they were trying to do what was right. And I thought about that myself as well, God. But as we see it comes from the local church, the authority, the responsibility to teach, to train. And you know, this comes from the local church. It doesn't come from Bible college, God. And I ask you to continue to bless our church, especially during these times where not everyone is able to come. Help us to continue to grow as a church. But also help give men at this church the desire to start churches one day and help me do the best I can in the church as a church family to train these people and to prepare them for the ministry, God. And there's such a lack of good churches here in the Philippines. We definitely need it, God. But we needed to operate this from the local church. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.