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

2 Corinthians 6, the part that I wanted to focus on is there at the end where the Bible reads beginning in verse 14, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. And what I want to preach about this morning is this non-denominational movement or this idea of churches being non-denominational. This is the popular or trendy thing now for churches to not have any kind of labels where you look at the church and you have no idea what they stand for because the church is just called the point, cross point, you know, the rock church, or, you know, just whatever generic type of name, and they say, oh, we're just non-denominational because we're sort of above that. You know, we're above that worrying about doctrine and, you know, crossing the T and dotting the I. You know, we're sort of post-denominational in our thinking here because we're just all-inclusive of everyone. This is the trend today. If we drive down the road, the vast majority of churches now are non-denominational churches. The big giant buildings where throngs of people go every Sunday for a church service are non-denominational. So the question is, is God in favor of a non-denominational type of an approach? Should we remove the name Baptist from our sign and change our church's name to Cross Point Fellowship Hope Life Church Center or whatever? Or should we actually have a name that means something? Now if you would flip back just a few pages to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. And you know, as we're getting into this sermon, let me explain to you this subject. The word denomination is actually usually used to refer to an organization or a grouping of churches. For example, you could add the United Methodist Church would be a denomination, the Roman Catholic Church is a denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention is a denomination, or the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church is a denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. So these are organizations of churches. Then there are other churches that are independent, meaning that the church is a standalone church, it's not part of any greater organization. Now Faithful Word Baptist Church is an independent Baptist church, meaning that we are not part of any denomination. We're not part of the General Association of Regular Baptists. We're not part of the Bible Baptist Fellowship. We're not part of the Southern Baptist Convention. We're not part of the North American Baptist Convention. We are an independent Baptist church. So we're not part of a denomination. But that's not what we're talking about. When people say non-denominational, what we're talking about is pretty much the name on the sign. Because a lot of these churches that say we're non-denominational are actually part of a denomination. You can open the phone book and, for example, look under Assemblies of God, or look under Southern Baptist, and you'll find these churches there. Oh, we're not denominational, but they are part of a denomination. They're just not telling you about it, okay. So when I talk about that, which is non-denominational this morning, what the sermon's actually about this morning is churches that don't have a name that identifies them. Does anybody understand what I'm saying? We have an identifier in our name, Baptist, okay. Why do we have that identifier? And why are other churches ditching the identifier and going non-denominational? Well, look what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14 verse 8. The Bible says, For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue, words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? For ye shall speak into the air. So according to the Bible, when we use words, we should use words that are easy for people to understand. Why? Because words are the way that we communicate ideas to one another. Well, when it comes to a name, what is the purpose of a name? Well, let me just start out by saying this. The word name is used 1,177 times in the Bible. The Bible talks a lot about names of things, and in fact, names in the Bible have great importance and significance. In fact, when people's lives would dramatically change, in many cases they would get a new name. For example, when Simon begins to follow Jesus, he names him Cephas. He says you're not going to be called Simon anymore, you're going to be Cephas now, or Peter. He gives him that name. Saul becomes Paul, Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai becomes Sarah. And on and on throughout the Bible, people's names are changed because of significant events in their lives. And in fact, when you look at people naming their kids in the Old Testament, they named them with a meaning in mind. For example, if you look at Jacob's sons that became the 12 tribes of Israel, as it gives you each child's name, it gives you the story behind the name on each of the names. For example, you know, she's giving birth to Judah, she says now I'm going to praise the Lord, you know, Judah, and then that's what that name means. And it explains, a troop cometh, gad, you know. So each name has a meaning, and they're given that name for a purpose. You know, Peleg is so named because in his days the earth was divided, and so on and so forth. So names in the Bible have great significance. God has multiple names for himself. He doesn't just go by a generic moniker of just God. He goes by God Almighty. He goes by the Lord. He goes by Jehovah. He goes by Jesus Christ. So he has specific names. Names are to identify something, okay? And often a name is also to describe something so that we know what it is. Now, just to illustrate to you how foolish it is to just take all the descriptors off of church names and just call it just church, community church, just local church. Think about this. What if you went into your food pantry, right, where you have all these cans of food? And you've got beans, you've got vegetables, you've got tomato sauce, you've got all these different cans. And what if you just said, man, I'm just so sick of all these labels. You know, what do we need all these labels for, man? We're post-label. And what if we just had non-denominational food where we basically walk into the pantry and just rip off every label off of all of it and just take a Sharpie and just write food? Or what if we just went to the grocery store and there were just shelves of food and we're just walking down the aisle and it's like food, food, food, food, couple boxes of food here, cans of food here, and you don't know what's in it. I mean, is this like a Nancy Pelosi church? You know, you've got to pass the bill to find out what's in it. So it's like, oh, well, you've got to go to the church to find out what's in it. Well, here's the problem with that. There are well over a thousand churches in Phoenix alone. Just in Phoenix alone, there are over a thousand. So what if we just had to just try every church to figure out? It'd be like having to go to the store and buy boxes of food and open them. It's like, surprise, it's macaroni and cheese. Surprise, it's rice-aroni. Wouldn't you rather have a label to tell you it'd save you a lot of time that if you want green beads, you can go straight to the green beads. You know, if you're looking for spam, you can go straight for the spam. But you don't have to sit there and just sort through a bunch of identical looking packages trying to figure out what is what. Wouldn't that be frustrating? And that's the way it is with these churches that have zero label on them. Just Rock Church, Point Church, Christ Church, Christian Church. I mean, it's just like, it's like Acme food. And it doesn't make any sense. Now, what's behind it? What's the motive? Well, the true motive is to basically be all inclusive and say, we just want to bring in as many people as we can, not offend anyone, and just build a big church by just getting a bunch of people to just come in and we don't care what they believe. Just get them all in here and let's have a little rock concert. Let's give a little 15 minute motivational talk and the money comes pouring in and we have a fancy building and we tell ourselves that we're doing great things for God. This is not God's plan. We need to have labels. Now, here's why we need labels. Because God, go back to 2 Corinthians 6, because God has commanded us to be separate. Okay? Now the buzzword today is unity. Now, unity is great within a family. Unity is great within a church. But we don't need unity with everyone in the world. And we don't even need unity amongst all believers. That's not what the Bible teaches. You say, whoa, Pastor Anderson, of course we want unity amongst believers. Here's how we'll have unity. Everybody get on this program, a King James Bible and Baptist doctrine and then we can all have unity. But no, no, no, they don't want that. See, look what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 6, 14, be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. So does God want us to join together with unbelievers? So if we have this non-denominational church of just, hey, we're not Baptist, we're just sort of an anything goes, non-denominational, hey, if you believe in Jesus, that's enough for us. Come on in. And basically you could bring in the Mormons, you could bring in the Catholics, bring in the Presbyterians, bring in the Methodists, and we can all sing Kumbaya, but many of those people are not saved. All the Mormons are unsaved. They're not saved. And God says, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. So how can we have fellowship with an unbeliever in the house of God? It doesn't work that way. What? Let's read it together. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? See, those that are not saved that are in darkness, we can't have fellowship with them in God's house. They're in darkness, we're the children of the light, there's no communion there. See, the whole purpose of going to church is to be a called out assembly of people that are born again baptized believers, not just get together with a big group of people in a room. The point is to have fellowship. What does fellowship mean? We have something in common, we believe the same thing. Why are we assembled at Faithful Word Baptist Church here? Because we believe the stuff that Faithful Word Baptist Church believes, or at least the vast majority of it. Obviously, no two people are going to agree on everything all the time, but on the essential important points of salvation by faith, the scripture alone is our authority, we love soul winning, etc., we agree, that's why we're here. And if we didn't believe like a Baptist, and we said, no, I'm actually a baby sprinkling, baby baptizing, sodomite, you know, worshiping Methodist, then we'd be down at the United Methodist Church today, with the big rainbow on the sign, with the lesbian pastor. Okay, but what if the lesbian pastored United Methodist Church in Tempe with the rainbow on the sign, what if it just said Christian Church and our church said Christian Church? How do you tell the two apart? Thank God for that rainbow on their sign so we can know that it's filled with filthy sodomites. I'm thankful for that rainbow. I'm thankful when they put a pitchfork on their sign, like that Unitarian Unity Unified Church or whatever, you know, they have like a pitchfork, and then they have a picture of two dudes with a heart around it saying, we accept everyone. I love that sign, because it just lets me know to never get anywhere near that church with my family. See, labels are effective, it's sort of like rat poison having a skull and crossbones on it, and it tells you, hey, this is dangerous, whereas you want the food label to tell you what kind of food's in it, and then you want to know this is not food, this is poison. I love labels. I love names. I mean, what if I just decided not to name my eight children and just called them all George Foreman, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight? There's no identifier. It makes, you know, it makes it hard to communicate in that home when they all have the same name. It doesn't make any sense. Look down at your Bible there, it says, what agreement, verse 16, hath the temple of God with idols? Now look, that shows me right there, I can't agree with Catholics. You know, when they've got idols of Jesus, idols of Mary, idols of the saints, when they have graven images and so forth, there's a difference there. We can't have communion and fellowship because the temple of God has no part with idols, and idols are graven images, according to the Bible. It says, ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. Now let's go to 2 Thessalonians, and I'll take it a step further. Not only does the Bible teach that we should not worship with and have fellowship with and have communion with unbelievers, and we should not be yoked up together with them and fellowship with them and have communion with them, but also the Bible teaches that there are even those who are saved that are believers that we should be separated from as well. Look down at your Bible in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 6. Now notice, it says, Now we command you, brethren. So this is not a suggestion, is it? He says, We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. Jump down to verse 14. And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him that he may be ashamed, yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. So notice, this is a brother who we're being told, Have no company with this guy. Withdraw yourself from this guy. Don't hang around this guy. So God does not teach unity of all believers, where we just unify with anyone who's saved. That's enough for us to unify. No, he says, Withdraw. Be separate. He says, Have no company with him. Pull back from that guy because of the fact that he is troubled. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 is another scripture where God teaches this doctrine of separation. And he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 9, I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous or extortioners, or with idolaters, for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you, not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such and one know not to eat. Now whether this person is a believer or not, if they are called a brother, and they are living in fornication, or drunkenness, or one of these other major sins, it says, With such and one know not to eat. Verse 12, For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judge it, therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. Let me ask you this. Does the Bible teach everybody's welcome? Everybody's welcome. Come on in. No. He says put away from among yourselves that wicked person. That's what the Bible says. But amongst the non-denominational movement, that's not what's taught. They'll say, we'll include everyone. Even to the point where not only will they include fornicators, which the Bible says that if you're called a brother, if you're a Christian, and you're in fornication, you're to be thrown out of the church. And that's why every time I find out that someone in our church, that there are people that are living together that are not married, I always go to that person and say to them, you have two choices. Actually, I give them three choices. I say, you can either, one, get married in the next seven days. If you really love each other and want to live together as husband and wife, then you need to get married and you have seven days to get married. Or two, you need to stop living together, stop fornicating, and then you can continue coming to the church and you can be boyfriend and girlfriend as long as you're not living together and as long as you're not fornicating. Or number three, you have to leave the church and not come back. Because the Bible says that we are not supposed to allow a brother who is a fornicator to attend the church. Not to have any company with him, and he says, put away from among yourselves that wicked person. Why? Because he said a little leaven leavens the whole lump. It's a bad example to the children in the church, it's a bad testimony, it makes it seem as if we condone it. You say, well, I don't like this kind of preaching. Well, you know what, you know, I'm never coming back. Well, that's why I'm telling you while you're here. Since you're not going to be back, I better explain it to you while you're here then. Because this is what the Bible teaches, and this isn't the trendy non-denominational thing, but this is good old Baptist preaching, and this is what the Bible says. And this cute thing that I've been hearing is, oh, well, you know, the church is not a spiritual museum where we go to look at artifacts. It's a spiritual hospital. So of course we want to bring in, yeah, but here's the thing, it's not a spiritual morgue though. Yeah, it's a spiritual hospital, but it's not a spiritual morgue where we want to bring in a bunch of dead, and just have a bunch of dead, rotting corpses around us. Spiritual hospital, man. Yeah, as we bring in all the filth and germs and disgust of a dead body. But this, see, here's the thing, it's not, that's not, what verse is that in the Bible? Can somebody show me that verse where it says that the church is a spiritual hospital? I mean, it sounds great. It sounds like, you could probably get a job with Hallmark, coming up with these kinds of slogans. But wait a minute. It's biblical to say, oh, the church is a spiritual hospital. But here's the thing. I can see where some people are coming from when they say that. Because obviously, look, we're all sinners, we all have problems, nobody's perfect, we're not a bunch of perfect people, you know, Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven, I get all that. I'm a sinner. I have sin in my life, you have sin in your life, I get that. But here's the problem. When you start pulling out that, oh man, it's a spiritual hospital, to bring a bunch of sodomites in, or to bring in fornicators, or to bring in drunks, the Bible says no, and I'm sorry, I can't get on board with your cute slogan, because 1 Corinthians 5 says no! And that's my authority. So you can sit there and give all these really motivational speeches about how it's not a museum, it's a hospital, but no, it's neither a museum nor a hospital, it's a church. It's not a hospital, not a museum, it's a church. And a church is a place for born-again, baptized believers to come together and be edified by the preaching of God's Word. And if those believers start living in fornication, they need to be cast out of the church. That's what the Bible said. If they're a drunk, cast them out. Oh, but what kind of a loving attitude? I don't know, why don't you ask God? Well you're not loving, Christ would have just embraced them all. But hold on a second, not into the church, no. And if so, then he must have schizophrenia or something, if he's got multiple personalities here. What are you talking about? This is the same God that wrote 1 Corinthians is the same God who wrote Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So the bottom line is that a church is not just a place where we say everybody's welcome. We will never have a sign that says everyone is welcome, because everyone is not welcome. No homos, no fornicators, no drunks, sorry. And then here's where people make the mistake, they say well how do you expect to get those people saved? Well we have a great plan for that, it's called soul winning. It's called going out and knocking every door. See we go where they are. We go out into the highways and hedges, we go out door to door, and we knock every single door, we talk to every homeless person that we walk past on the street, we knock the doors of the apartments, the dormitories, the houses, and we go to the nursing homes, and we bring the gospel to the lost. I don't care if they're a fornicator, I don't care if they're a drunk, I'll bring them the gospel. But you know what I'm not going to do though? I'm not going to pastor a church filled with fornicators and drunks when the Bible says no. Because I have to follow God's word as my authority. So this non-denominational attitude that says hey everybody's welcome, bring in all types of people, and I mean I even saw some meme that was going around Facebook, I'm glad I finally learned how to pronounce that word properly, but I saw this meme going around Facebook that was just saying yeah, you know, it was some liberal pastor of one of these non-denominational churches, and he's got his jeans with the holes in them, and his t-shirt that's a little too tight, and his punked out hairdo because he's hip with the kids, and he's up there saying, you know, it's not a spiritual museum, it's a hospital, and he's saying, you know, we got people in here that are, you know, having you know what with each other and they're not married, and we got people in here that it's like why are you bragging about that? You're just basically what you're saying is I don't care what the Bible says. If you're just openly announcing that your church is filled with fornicators and sodomites, then you're basically just saying I have zero regard for what Christ taught in the scripture in 1 Corinthians 5 and elsewhere. I mean it's an embarrassment, that's exactly what it is. But let's talk about the name of our church quickly. Our church is called Faithful Word Baptist Church. Now the reason why our church is called Faithful Word Baptist Church is because that helps people identify what type of church it is just by the name. Now let's break down each part of this. First of all, I've been asked many times, well why not just call it the church at Tempe? Or the church in Tempe? That would be more biblical, you know, like Revelation, the church of Laodicea. Church of Laodiceans, church in Smyrna. The reason that we don't call it the church in Tempe is because there's not only one church in Tempe. I mean, so if we just say like, we're the church of Tempe, it's like well no, we're the church of, no, we're the church of Tempe. You know, everybody can't use that name. It's sort of like there's only one First Baptist per town. You know, there's First Baptist Church of Tempe. Now we could call ourselves Second Baptist, but we're not the second one either. So I don't want to go through the history of Tempe and call ourselves 39th Baptist. And I've seen churches that were literally called Third Baptist, Fourth Baptist and things like that. But the point is, you know, the reason why we don't call ourselves the church at Tempe is because we want to set ourselves apart from all the hundreds of other churches of all the other denominations that believe all kinds of things that we don't believe in. We want to make it easy for people to find us. You see, there's a reason why we have big window lettering right there that says Baptist Church and the faithful word Baptist Church. The reason why is because we want people to find us. Right? Now, what we could do is we could just kind of shut all the blinds, get rid of the stickers, get rid of the signage, get rid of the van wrap, and it'd be sort of like something where you have to know about it, you know, and you kind of, you knock three times and then it buzzes you in, you know, you come in. But the whole point of having a church name and having a sign is because you want people to know where you are, you want them to know who you are. It's the same reason why I have a name, Steven Anderson, because I don't want to be just called, hi, I'm Baptist pastor, because now I'm going to be confused with thousands and thousands of other people. My name is man. I am man. This is woman, son and daughter, son, son, son, daughter, daughter, daughter, son, son. This is my family. It wouldn't make any sense. The whole point of naming is to be able to identify and differentiate one from the other. Right? Okay. I get it, Pastor Anderson. Why would you call the church faithful word Baptist Church? Well, let's break that down. The reason that we use the term Baptist is because right away Baptist tells people a lot about what we believe, because there are many things that all Baptists have in common. Now there are obviously a great variety of Baptist churches, but here are some things that all Baptists agree on. Number one is baptism by immersion. We dunk people. That's something that all Baptists agree on. Every Baptist dunks people as opposed to this kind of baptism, you know? The sprinkling or the pouring or stuff like that. And here's the thing about that. You know, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, they do that kind of a baptism, and the Bible teaches something totally different. For example, go to Romans chapter 6, Romans chapter 6. Why do we have Baptists in the name? Why don't we just go non-denom? Because we don't want people to have to pass the bill to see what's in it. You know, we don't want people to have to come to the church to figure out what jungle we're even flying in, you know, let alone our exact teachings and beliefs. But the Bible says in Romans chapter 6 verse 4, therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. Now does that sound like sprinkling, pouring, or dunking? Sounds like you're being immersed. Buried with him by baptism into his death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Go to Matthew chapter 3. This is why when we baptize people, we'll often say, buried in the likeness of his death and raised in the likeness of his resurrection. Because it's a figure or a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Death, burial, and resurrection. That's what's symbolized. Look at Matthew chapter 3. This is Jesus Christ's baptism. It says in verse 16, and Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water. Now, in order to come up straightway out of the water, you have to be down in the water. So when he's baptized, he comes up straightway out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God ascending like a dove and lighting upon him. In John chapter 3, it talks about John the Baptist baptizing an anon near to Salem because there was much water there. You don't need a lot of water to sprinkle and pour, but you need a lot of water to dunk people, okay, to immerse people, to baptize people scripturally. The Bible says in Acts chapter 8, and if you would flip to Acts chapter 8, because I want to give you a second thing that all Baptists believe in, is that secondly, all Baptists believe that baptism is for those who are saved, not for the unsaved or not for babies. It's for believers. It's people who've been saved. Now Colossians 2 12 says, buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who raised him from the dead. Acts chapter 8 verse 36, and as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water and the eunuch said, see, here's water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, if thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized them. I don't care what Baptist church you go to, every single Baptist church will agree that baptism is by immersion or dunking, and that baptism is for believers. You have to believe with all your heart on Christ to be baptized. That's something that distinguishes Baptists from the Presbyterians. See, Presbyterians are a baby baptizing, baby sprinkling denomination. The Methodists are a baby baptizing, baby sprinkling denomination. The Lutherans are a baby baptizing, baby sprinkling denomination. The Catholics are a baby baptizing, baby sprinkling. Look, so right away, we've actually just narrowed things down for people, where they know you're not like the millions of Presbyterians out there. You're not like the millions of Lutherans. You're not like the millions of Methodists. You're not like the millions and billions of Catholics. You are one who actually follows the Bible's teaching on baptism. Now, you say, well, is baptism really the most important thing? You know, whether or not it's the most important thing, it shows that you have groups of millions of people that have zero regard for what the Bible says, is what it shows, because you can't find a single verse in the Bible that even insinuates sprinkling, that would even begin to hint at pouring water on someone's head as a form of baptism. It's always going down into the water, that he comes up out of the water, buried with him by baptism, and all this. This pagan Babylon sprinkling ritual is not something that the Bible ever teaches anywhere so you can actually learn a lot about that group of people just from this one doctrine when you see, here's a doctrine where millions of Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and Catholics are willing to just completely ignore what the Bible says and just go with what their church says. And that tells you a lot about those people, doesn't it? It tells you that the Bible's not their authority, not even close. Because baptism is a key doctrine. Baptism is not an obscure doctrine. It's not a doctrine that is something that's kind of just a minor, you know, don't major on the minors. No, baptism's huge. I mean baptism is something that we see over and over. It's the first thing you do after you get saved is get baptized. So you're off to a wrong foot when somebody's dumping water on your head or sprinkling. We thought it was so funny. We were at the Tempe, what's that park called, Kiwanis Park, the one on baseline, right? We were at that Kiwanis Lake at the park. And here's this great big body of water and a bunch of Protestants are there sprinkling a baby. And I'm thinking like why did you go to a lake to sprinkle? You could have gone out in the middle of the desert to sprinkle. You could have just brought a water bottle, you know? And I wanted to just grab that baby and just dunk it in the water, but then I thought it's not even saved. What would be the point? It's believers baptism. So then I wanted to grab the female minister and dunk her in the water, you know? But then I realized she's not saved, you know? So what would be the point of that? So I just rode my bike by and didn't think any more about it. So the bottom line, until this sermon. So the bottom line is that right away we're differentiating ourself as a people who care what the Bible says and we're actually differentiating ourself from like 90 percent of so-called Christians that don't believe in, you know, the right kind of baptism worldwide, you know? All the Protestants, all the Catholics have it wrong, which tells you that the Protestants are just Catholic light. You know, here's the definition of Protestant, Catholic light, okay? That's all it is. Now, here's another thing that all Baptists agree on. Go to 1 John chapter 2. All Baptists supposedly will at least give lip service to the fact that our doctrine is based on scripture alone. Scripture alone. This is something that all Baptists agree on. Now when you talk to people of other denominations, many times they will say, hey, we need to go with the church fathers. We need to hear what the church fathers have said or the traditions of the church or the writings of Ellen G. White or the Book of Mormon or the Watchtower publication or the prophet, this prophet and that prophet. We believe in scripture alone as our authority, meaning that there's no man, no tradition, no statement of faith, no creed that we believe in other than this book. And any kind of statement of faith that we put out is just stating that we believe what the Bible says on these subjects. It's never saying like this is our doctrine. No, this is our doctrine. This is our final authority. Not only is it our final authority, it's our only authority. So the Bible says in 1 John 2 verse 26, these things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you, but the anointing which ye have received of him, talking about the Holy Spirit, abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you. But as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. So according to this, we do not need man to teach us the Word of God, because the Holy Spirit is our teacher. Now if you would go to 2 Timothy chapter 3. The Holy Spirit is our teacher. We do not need creeds and church fathers and traditions to dictate our belief in God's Word. I believe that you personally, whether you are man, woman, boy, or girl, can go home today and open your Bible and read it and understand it just as well as I can understand it. If you read it as many times as I've read it, you will understand it as well as I understand it. If you are a doer of the Word, obviously you have to be a doer of the Word, and you have to pray unto the Lord and everything like that. But honestly, there's nothing special about me, nothing special about you. We're all one in Christ, and we all have the same Holy Spirit, the same anointing. And I love how he says that in 1 John 2, that the same anointing, he says. I love that phrase, the same anointing. He says, the same anointing which ye have received and abideth in you. You need not that any man teach you, he said, because the same anointing teach you of all things. What does he mean by that? The same anointing that's on John is the same anointing that's on you. Same anointing that was on Jesus. Same Holy Spirit. So that's why we don't need to go to a special person like a priest or a pope that somehow will interpret it for us. We just can go to it ourselves. Isn't that great? I mean, do you really want to rely on people when so many people let you down in your life and just blindly trust people? This is what we trust. Our own eyes, our own brain as we have the Holy Spirit guiding us through the Word. You see, you say, well that's, and people will say, well, you're just prideful if you think that you can figure it out all on your own. No, no, no, it's me and the Holy Spirit. Okay, so it's not pride because all the credit goes to the Holy Spirit. He's the one that reveals the Word. But these people that often balk at that, where they balk at you interpreting the Bible on your own, like, who do you think you are with all these great scholars and church fathers and tradition and pastors, you know, who do you think you are to interpret it on their own? Because they don't, they've never met the Holy Spirit. So therefore, when you start telling them, well, the Holy Spirit's going to teach me the Word, they look at you like you have two heads because they don't know whether there even be a Holy Ghost because they're not saved. You know, that's why they need all this man-made junk. So let me ask you this, my friend, would you like our church to be filled with people who believe in things other than the Bible as a final authority? Would you like our church to be filled with people that believe in the Book of Mormon? Would you like our church to be filled with people who are toting around giant commentaries and books of the church fathers and stories of the saints? And would you like to be in a church that's filled with people where everybody's got a different Bible version and people are wearing rosary beads and people are chanting over here and lighting a candle over here and burning some incense over here and it's just everybody believes something different. You got some people getting sprinkled, some people are getting dunked. Hey, God is not the author of confusion. And let me tell you something, I want to be in a church where I can get together with people who are baptized, meaning that they believe the Bible is the only authority. The Bible's the final authority and they read this Bible and then they read it again and they read it again and they say, there's no sprinkling, there's no pouring, it's not there, therefore we're not doing it. That's the kind of people I want to go to church with. People who say, well, it doesn't matter what he, she, or it said, the Bible said and I have the Holy Spirit and I can interpret the Bible on my own and I know that what that person's saying is false because of what the Bible says. That's the kind of church we want to go to. Now look, you say, well, I don't want to go to that kind of church, then there's plenty of other church to pick from and the point is when they have labels it makes it easier. Want to go to that kind of church? You go to a Baptist. See, every Baptist dunks, every Baptist believes in scriptures alone. Also virtually every Baptist believes in the eternal security of the believer. Go to 1 John chapter 5. Virtually every Baptist, now the reason I say virtually is because in other parts of the country, in other parts of the country there are people called free will Baptists where they deny the eternal security of the believer. But in Arizona, every Baptist church in Arizona or California, to my knowledge, you know, believes in the eternal security of the believer, okay, every single one. In California, Arizona, probably, you know, most of the western United States. Now there are some people who, you know, misuse the term Baptist down south and call it a free will Baptist, well, you know, you're just not even a Baptist anymore at that point if you believe in losing your salvation. You know, I wish they wouldn't call themselves Baptists because at least it's nice to know that at least when people are Baptists, and here's the thing, you could go on the website of the most liberal Baptist church in Arizona. Find me, the most liberal cross point whatever, that's what it's called in Tempe I think, cross point Tempe. I've never looked at their statement of faith but I'd be willing to bet any amount of money that if we go to cross point Tempe where they put in real tiny SBC, like, oh, we're worth something Baptist, because they're trying to hide it, non-denominational. Well, actually, we're worth something Baptist. But anyway, so the point is, I guarantee if you go to their statement of faith, it's going to say eternal security of the believer. Because even though they're going to be liberal on a bunch of other stuff, they're going to dunk down there. They're going to believe in eternal life, eternal security, at least on paper, even though the members might not even have been taught that, but it's going to be on the statement of faith, my friend. And they're going to believe in Scriptures alone. I'm sure if we ask that pastor, hey, are the Scriptures alone the final authority, he's going to say absolutely. So even if these churches are not exactly like us, using the word Baptist gets us in the ballpark, doesn't it? I mean, it's like, okay, Baptist, now we can talk. Now let me warn you. When you go outside of Baptist, it's a jungle out there. Now let me tell you this. There are churches out there that don't have Baptists in the name that are great churches, that are fantastic churches, that preach great doctrine, great soul winning, great preaching. Okay? They're out there. So don't get me wrong that, hey, Pastor Anderson's saying if you don't have Baptists in the name, you know, you're a bad church. No, there are good churches out there that don't have Baptists in the name. There I said it. Let me tell you this though, do you really want to wade through the thousands and thousands and thousands of tongue talking, baby baptizing, you know, a man's tradition observing churches to find that one? Wouldn't it just be a little easier if they just put Baptist in the name and at least you're like, okay, gets me in the ballpark. So again, I'm not saying it's a sin, and here's the thing, remember my sermon on convictions and preferences? I'm not saying that you have to have Baptist in the name to be right with God. I'm just telling you that it makes way more sense to have Baptists in the name and we have Baptists in the name for a reason and we're never going to remove Baptists from the name and I recommend every person that I train and teach, I tell them put Baptists in the name. Why? Because you're labeling it to let people know where you're coming from. Now you say, well, but the Baptists have apostatized and they're giving us a bad name. Well, then here's the thing, you need a new name then or at least expand the name but you can't just sit there and just, oh, we're just Christian, just the church in Tempe. I mean, that's moving backwards. Now you're associating yourself with a lot of even worse elements. You know, it would make more sense if you wanted to add like independent Baptists, faithful word, independent Baptist church. I mean, let's add stuff and then that's why Baptists often, you know, are ridiculed for stacking up adjectives in front of their name. You know what I'm talking about? Like whenever you get an invitation, when I remember the first time I got an invitation from an independent Baptist church when I was 17 years old and I was invited to Regency Baptist Church, it said on there, we're an independent, fundamental, King James only, non-charismatic, you know, it was just listing all, you know, you know, hellfire and damnation, chicken eating Baptist or, you know, just all these, you know, non-vegan, you know, or whatever, just all the different. So the point is, you know, if anything, we need more adjectives. We need more descriptors. I mean, that's why, look, look at our church sign right there. Look at it. Look at it. It said, Faithful Word Baptist Church, can you, oh, you can't read backwards, but it says independent, fundamental, soul winning, King James Bible only. So here's the thing. Not only are we Baptist, we're also independent Baptists. Not only are we independent Baptists, we're independent fundamental Baptists. Not only are we independent fundamental Baptists, but we are King James only independent fundamental Baptists and we're set apart even further by saying, hey, we're soul winning. That's why I tell people, hey, when you're looking for a church in your area, I always tell them, go to this website called Military Get Saved. For summary, I don't know why it's called that, but there's a website called Military Get Saved and they have a directory of every independent Baptist church in America except one is left off. It's Faithful Word Baptist Church. I don't know why they hate us. But anyway, I still love them. Even though they hate me, I love them. So I tell people to go there. I say, go to Military Get Saved and go to your state, right? Let's say you're like, I'm in Alabama and I'm looking for a church. Go to Alabama on this website and list every independent Baptist church in Alabama. And then what you can do, I always tell people to use the control F key, like the find feature, and just look for the word soul, you know, because you want a church with some soul. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, because of the fact that if you look for soul, it'll, because it has usually a few words to describe the church and a lot of them say soul winning. So if you type in soul, it kind of helps you find some soul winning churches right away. Why? Because if it's a soul winning church, that usually means that they're 99% of the time King James only. They're 99% of the time believe in salvation by faith alone. And they're good on the gospel, they're good on a lot of things. You know, I'm not saying it's going to be perfect. You might try a few before you find the best one. But the point is, identifiers, names, they help us hook up with like-minded believers. That's the whole point of what church is all about. Look at 1 John chapter 5 and see what an important doctrine this is of eternal security, verse 10. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. I don't want to go to church with a bunch of people who are calling God a liar, that God didn't give us eternal life. That God gave us temporary or conditional life. So therefore, just by being Baptist, that tells people we believe in the eternal security of the believer, versus the Pentecostal churches that all pretty much teach that you can lose it. So right away, I'm separated from them. I want to be separate. Now look, if you would, at 2 Corinthians chapter 6, again, where we started. Let's go back to where we started, 2 Corinthians 6. So just a quick review, God wants us to be separate. He wants us to not be fellowshipping or having our church filled with unbelievers. He also doesn't want us to be filled with believers who are living in fornication or drunkenness. He also doesn't want our church to be filled with people who disregard the word of God. He said, look, if people just not obey our word by this epistle, just note that man and have no company with him. So when they're just ignoring the part of the epistle where he says, it's baptism by, you know, buried with him by baptism and down into the water, you know, he's saying you don't want to be fellowshipping with people who just ignore the Bible. The Bible's our final authority. And names help us with that. Well, let's finish talking about our church's name. So we talked about the fact that it has Baptist in it. Why? Because we have to be Baptist? No, because we're narrowing it down for people. We want people to know who we are. Okay, why faithful word? Even just by calling it faithful word Baptist Church, that tells you a little bit about the church. Because we chose the name faithful word, so right away we're emphasizing the Bible because we're talking about the word in the name of the church. And then by saying faithful word, faithful means something that you can trust or rely on. So we're basically announcing we believe that God's word is trustworthy. We believe that it's accurate. You know, we believe that it's what God said. It's faithful to the original. It's the faithful word. The Bible says in Titus 1, holding fast the faithful word. So that shows an emphasis on the Bible and a faith in the Bible. Baptist, we already talked about that. How about the last word, church? A lot of people are ditching the word church for fellowship, faithful word ministries. Faithful word Christian center. Faithful word Baptist temple or whatever. The reason that I'm going to go with the word church, and I know I told you to go to 2 Corinthians. Keep your finger there. Go to Matthew 18. The reason that I want to stick with the word church is simply because number one, I believe in using words that are clear and easy to understand and everybody knows what a church is. Right? So you might as well just use the easy, simple, clear word church. But not only that, the word church today is actually being misconstrued and twisted by a lot of people where we're losing the meaning of church. So by calling this a church, it helps people remember what church means. This is a church. Faithful word Baptist church. You're in a church. Okay. So look what the Bible says about the church. This is actually one of the first mentions of the church. It's the second mention of church in the Bible. It says in Matthew 18 verse 15, 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 hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that 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. The reason I read this scripture to you is to show you that the biblical definition of a church, which is a congregation, makes perfect sense in this passage. Because he's saying, you know, somebody does you dirty, you go to that person, you try to make it right between you and him alone, otherwise you take two or three witnesses, you take one or two witnesses, and you try to get it resolved. And if that doesn't work, you tell it to the church. And if he doesn't hear the church, if the church tells this guy, look, you're wrong, buddy, you need to make this right, and he won't listen to them, then he's cast out of the church, okay? That makes perfect sense if you understand the biblical definition of church, which is a congregation of people, a congregation of believers. What we're in right now, we've all congregated here, we're an assembly here. Church means assembly. But here's the false definition of church that they have, it's just all Christians make up the church. This is known as the universal church doctrine, or the invisible church doctrine. I don't believe in the invisible church, or the universal church. And here's what's so silly about this, is that if you applied that to this passage, if you think that's what church means, it's all believers. Well then, if I have a problem with you, and we can't make it right, I got to go tell every Christian in the whole world. I mean, I'm communicating with Christians in India, and China, you know, because I got a problem with him. I mean, does that make any sense? And then they're all going to come back and tell him, you're wrong. And then if he doesn't listen to them, I mean, think about it, isn't that silly? But if it's a group like this, you can see how it would actually work. So again, there's a twisting of the word church. Like for example, I was just recently out soul winning, and I talked to this lady and I asked her, do you go to church? Yeah, every day, right there on that street corner, you know, I'm just basically just, to her, just, if I pray anywhere, I'm in church. Because this is what people think now, or we're in church, or people will often say this to me when I'm out soul winning, well, you and I, we're in church right now. This is church right now, because we're talking about the word, and I'm like, no, it's not church, you know. But that's what people think, right, because they don't understand that actually a church is, it's not the building. Now look, it's not the building, amen? And here's the thing, but then what people will try to say, when you try to tell them it's an assembly though, they'll try to accuse you of claiming that it's the building. Have I ever taught that it's the building? No, but they'll say it's the people, yeah, it's the people when they're assembled. That's what's missing. See when you just say it's not the building, it's the people, you're missing something. It's the people when they're congregated. The Bible used the word congregation in church interchangeably, and if you're not congregated, you're not in church. If you're watching this on TV, or at home, or listening on the radio, you're not in church right now. You're only in church, and I've said this before, if you can see the whites of my eyes, you're in church. If not, you're not in church, okay? It's that simple. So the point is that, you know, people are abusing the word, and by the way, the lady that I talked to, I explained to her, I said, look, that's not church, and thank God, but she wasn't saved, she ended up getting saved, and then she ended up coming to church on Sunday. So she got in the real church, not street corner Baptist, you know what I mean? She was able to get into an independent fundamental Baptist church. So basically, you know, the definition of church is under attack. I like to use the word church. I like to, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's called a church, call it what it is, it's a church. I've got a lot more in this sermon, and I'm out of time. So let's just kind of close, I'll just bring up one more, I wanted to go into a whole point on the tongue talking. And I had all these Bible verses about people throwing themselves on the ground and foaming and rolling around, and how they were all demon possessed, and how we don't want to bring in those kind of unclean spirits and familiar spirits into our church, right? By just saying, oh, we're non-denominational, seeker sensitive. You know, if we say we're seeker sensitive, some guy's going to come in with a turban and think it's seek, seek, oh, it's a seek church, no, we said seeker, you know? But they say, no, no, seeker sensitive. We're not sensitive here. You know, I've been called a lot of things, sensitive's not one of them, right? So the point is, you know, we don't want to bring in the tongue talkers because we don't want to bring in demons. Now again, when the Bible talks about tongues, it's talking about foreign languages, and I'm all for speaking German, Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, I'm all for it. But what I'm not for is people having epileptic fits and calling it a gift of the Holy Spirit. That's what I'm against. And that's no offense to anyone with epilepsy, I know that is a legitimate disorder. But if you would, go to 2 Corinthians and we can close with this. But you know, if you think about some of the names of the churches of guys that I've trained to pastor, right, because our church is called Faithful Word Baptist, and then Brother Dave Berzen's church is called Word of Truth Baptist. Again, you know, you can kind of see what he's getting at there, the Word of Truth. You know, you heard of the Truth Movement, right? So he's someone who cares about the truth. Not preaching what people want to hear, but what is the truth? Not tradition, truth. What is right? Look at Verity Baptist. Pastor Roger Jimenez, what's Verity mean? Truth. Synonymous with truth. Okay, look at Brother Romero's church's name. Steadfast Baptist. What's that tell you? That he's not tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. I mean, no wishy-washy person is going to call their church Steadfast Baptist. I mean, when you hear Steadfast Baptist, that kind of gives you an inkling of not only are they Baptists, but actually this is probably a church that stands on something. You know, it's a good name. Whereas you see a church called Sovereign Grace Baptist Church and you immediately know that they're going to be Calvinists. Why? Because of the names. So names tell us a lot. I mean, what if you meet a guy and he says, my name is Mohammed Ahmed. You know, what religion do you think he is? Right? Or what if a guy comes to you and says, you know, my name is Shlomo Goldstein. You know, he's Jewish, right? Or let's say somebody comes up to you and they're like, let me introduce you to my children. You know, their names are, you know, Peter, James, John, Andrew, you know, and you're like, this person is probably a Christian because they're using all these Bible names. Here are my children. You know, Noah and Moses and Uriah and, you know, and Jonah and immediately you think to yourself, this person is a Christian. You know, because names tell us things about, and I'm not saying you have to use Bible names for your kids, but just don't name them, you know, Moon Unit or something like that. But I'm saying, you know, names do tell us something about you, about the church, etc. So let's just close on this last thought. Let's close where we started, 2 Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. I don't want to be united and lumped in with people that aren't saved. Why? For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? And you know what? Familiar spirits, unclean spirits, we don't want to bring them in, okay? And that's what a lot of this demonic activity is in the Todd Bentley circles and the, you know, that whole thing, Benny Hinn and all that. What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord. And touch not the unclean thing, and I'll receive you. So the whole message boils down to this. We're not here to please man, we're here to please God. We're not here to be conformed to this world, we're here to be transformed. So we're not going to sit there and just have a generic name for our church, church at Tempe, Christian church, because we just want to bring everybody in and make them happy. No, we're telling people, this is who we are, you can come here and get on our program. Or you can go somewhere else. You don't come in here and tell us what kind of music you want, and tell us what kind of preaching you want, and tell us which Bible you want. I mean, look, literally, these mega church pastors of, you know, the Rick Warren and the Bill Hybels, they send out questionnaires before they start the church. They literally teach their people, send out a questionnaire. What kind of music do you want? What do you want the sermons to be about? What do you want? And they send it out, and they give people what they want. No, no, no. It ought to be, this is our church, this is who we are, we are Faithful Word Baptist Church, like it or lump it. And we're here to get you on our program, not for you to come in here and say, well, here's what I want, give it to me, and I'll pay for the show. Your money perished with you. Our church is going to be what God wants us to be, and we're here to please one person, and that's God. We're not here to just give people whatever they want, and just bring in a crowd. And look, I want our church to go, who likes the fact that our church is growing? Say amen if you like the fact. Look, our church is booming, our church is growing. We've been running over 200 on Sunday mornings every week, and we grew by like 50 people last year. I think that's great, but you know what? That is not the most important thing. The most important thing is having integrity. And I want to grow this church where if the Lord would bless it and build it to a thousand people, great, let's have a thousand people in our church, let's have 2,000, let's have 5,000, but never at the expense of integrity. And if integrity means we never hit those numbers, so be it. Blessed be the name of the Lord. But if God willeth, and we can grow and get huge, great, but see, the non-denominational movement is a get huge at all costs. Get huge by bringing in people that believe nothing like you. You know what I like about this church? Is that it's not just 200 people, it's 200 people that love the Lord. Right? I mean, we could walk into a grocery store and find 200 people. Oh, it's so great, we're in a room with 200 people, it feels so good. Hey, go to a rock concert, you could be with thousands of people. And what do you have in common? A rock band. Here we have a lot in common. Bible doctrine, salvation through faith, eternal security of the believer, a love for soul winning, right? King James Bible, and we have a lot in common. That's the whole thing that makes this church great. The camaraderie, the fellowship, the unity within our church. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much, Lord, for our church, and what a blessing it is, Lord, to have a church like this to go to every week. And we're thankful for the great friends that we have here and the loved ones that are with us. And Lord, I just pray that you'd help people not to be sucked in by this non-denominational movement. And to think, oh, unity means we ignore, we ignore the doctrines and just all hold hands. When in reality, Lord, the unity we need is where we all get around the truth. Where we get unity because we all have a King James, and we all do soul winning, we all love you, and we all are fundamentalists, Lord. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, speaking of growth, we broke the record. How many people do we have? 221 people here this morning, 221 people. How many do we have of the old record? 217 was the old record. We just smashed it with 221. So that means that we have ice cream for everybody after the service. Every time we break the record, we have ice cream afterward. And I believe we're having a baptism after the service also, is that right? So if anybody is here this morning and you're saved but you've not been baptized, or you got this kind of baptism, then be sure that you stick around and see me right after the service and tell me if you'd like to be baptized because we will have everything set up. We have change of clothing and everything. So let's sing our next song.