Part of the chapter that I’d like to focus on is beginning there in verse number three where the Bible reads: “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith so do. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.”
Now the title of sermon tonight is Vain Jangling, Vain Jangling and I’m going to explain what word jangling means because that’s a very strange word. Indeed, it’s not used very often and it’s only used as right here in the Bible but it’s not something that you find throughout the Bible, so I’m going to try to help you understand what that word means but first of all, let me just give you the context of the passage here.
Paul is explaining the need for Timothy to abide in Ephesus. Now if you keep your finger there in first Timothy, flip over to Titus chapter one, because these two Epistles are very similar. The Epistle of Paul to Timothy and the Epistle of Paul to Titus, because of the fact that these are both young preachers that he’s trained and that he is charging how to continue the ministry and he’s raising up the next generation of preachers and it’s funny because he says something similar in Titus chapter one. Over in Titus one verse five, he says, “For this cause left I thee in Crete.”
Now isn’t that really similar to what he said to Timothy? He says to Timothy, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus,” and then he says to Titus, “Hey, this is why I left you in Crete.” These guys would have wanted to follow him and go with him but he’s explaining why it’s needful. “Hey, stay in Ephesus. Stay in Crete.” What’s the purpose? Why are you needed?
He says here in Titus chapter one, he said, “For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting or lacking,” he says, “And ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee.” He says in verse 10, “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, who’s mouths must be stopped to subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre’s sake.”
He talks about the deceivers and the deceivers are the ones who are teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre’s sake. Okay, these are the people who are just intentionally preaching lies. Those are the ones where he says, “Hey, especially of the circumcision, they abound. Their mouths need to be stopped,” but before he mentions the deceivers, he mentions a few other groups that aren’t really given as much mention here because he really wants to home in on dealing with the deceivers but he did throw out there that it’s not just the deceivers that are out there.
He said there are also people that are unruly and vain talkers, okay, and this has to do with the vain jangling, okay, the blathering, the babbling, the being a vain talker, okay. It’s just interesting that he gives a very similar admonition to Titus that he gives to Timothy, saying, “Look, you need to stay there and not only that, you need to ordain other leaders because of the fact that there’s a lot of vain talk, vain jangling, and blabbering going on.”
Now go back if you would to first Timothy chapter one, verse three. It says, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith so due.” What’s he saying here? There’s going to be a choice in our lives of what we’re going to spend our time on and when we spend time on one thing, then that could sometimes take away from time that we could be spending on something else.
In our lives, we have to decide what is important, what matters, and what is vain and the meaning of vain means that it’s not profitable. It doesn’t really have any benefit. It doesn’t accomplish anything. It’s a waste of our time and so the Bible says here that there are things that are profitable and there are things that are vain. He says here, “Don’t give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith, so do. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and a faith unfeigned from which some having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling.”
Now let’s come back to the vain jangling. Keep your finger there, flip over to Titus chapter three. We already looked at Titus chapter one, but look at Titus chapter number three where it say … I’ll start reading in verse seven … “That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works,” and then look at this next statement. “These things are good and profitable to man.”
He says, “Maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men,” meaning they have value but on the other hand, avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions,” means arguments, okay, “Contentions and strivings about the law for they’re unprofitable and vain,” so you see how unprofitable and vain are put side by side.
Basically, there are things that you can talk about and argue about and contend about and basically, they’re just a waste of time. They’re just vain jangling. They don’t really matter, they’re not profitable. They’re not accomplishing anything and they’re contrasted with good works, with sound doctrine, okay, and with charity out of pure heart, faith unfamed, etcetera. Now in this same vein, he continues in the same passage, “A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself.”
Now this is another thing where when we go out soul winning, you can sometimes get caught up in a lot of just foolish questions, contentions, and vain jangling, okay, and I’m going to get back to what that means. Jangling. I’ll tell you what the dictionary says it means. Here’s what the dictionary said: “To talk excessively, to chatter or to talk idly.” I would just say that it’s a synonym for babbling.
Or just talking about vain things, things that don’t matter, just blabbering, okay. When you go out soul winning, sometimes there are people who want to get you caught up in foolish questions and contentions and strivings about the law and the Bible doesn’t say, “Hey, you need to make sure and answer every foolish every foolish question and make sure that you settle this thing and get to the bottom of every foolish question that is asked of you.” Actually, the Bible just says to avoid foolish questions.
Speaker 3:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
When I’m out soul winning and somebody asks me a foolish question, I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t have time for the jangling.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
I’m not going out door to door so I can hang out in somebody’s doorstep and talk about stupid things that don’t matter.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, right.
Pastor Anderson:
I’ll get us some examples of what that could be but, aliens, and just … That’s one thing and I’m not talking about the people coming from Mexico. I’m talking about the little green men and so forth. “Well, they’re gray or whatever.” “Shut up, you’re vain,” but basically, you go out soul winning and sometimes you’ll find that Jehovah’s Witness that just wants to argue with you and that Mormon that just wants to argue with you and doesn’t want to let you go, but see, talking and going back and forth and arguing is unprofitable and vain.
He says, “Look, a man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject.” He’s not saying not to try. He says try once, try twice, and then walk away. Because, honestly, he’s subverted, he’s condemned of himself, you’re wasting your time and here’s why it’s so important to not get caught up in stupid conversations and dumb contentions is because there’s that other person that’s waiting down the street that wants to hear the Gospel.
Speaker 3:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
That is profitable. Those are good works that you could be doing. That’s charity that you could be showing on some poor soul that needs the Gospel and instead sometimes people will tend to get caught up in the vain jangling. Now, one of the things that will lead to this is that sometimes people will get a lot of knowledge about false doctrine and then they think, “Oh, I can shut this guy down. I mean I can win this argument,” but is that really profitable? Does it really matter at that point? Just shake it off and move on because honestly, winning an argument doesn’t get people saved.
Preaching the Word gets people saved. It’s up to them to accept it or reject it and honestly, it’s going to be according to whether they want to accept it or not. Some people that don’t want the truth, it doesn’t matter how many times you show them, they’re just not going to accept the truth so it’s a waste of time at that point, okay.
Now flip over if you would to second Timothy chapter two, this is just a few pages [inaudible 00:09:36] and it’s interesting that there’s so much talk about this in Titus and Timothy. He’s talking to a young preacher and he’s warning them about the babbling, about the foolish talking, about the vain jangling, over and over again, repeatedly in first Timothy, in second Timothy, in Titus, he keeps warning about this. Then the other place where it seems like you find a lot of warnings about this is in the Book of Proverbs, which is also a book that’s directed at young men.
I think that there’s not a coincidence there. I think that it’s for a reason that these are the books that really seem to focus in on this subject. It says in second Timothy chapter two, verse 16, “But shun,” and that’s another word for avoid. It’s a strong word for avoid. “But shun profane and vain babblings.” What is a vain babbling? Just talking about stuff that doesn’t matter, just blah, blah, blah. He says, “Shun profane and vain babblings for they will increase unto more ungodliness and their word will eat as the canker of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus who concerning the truth have erred saying that the Resurrection is past already and overthrow the faith of some.”
It almost doesn’t even sound like necessarily these guys are doing this intentionally in a sense, but it’s just basically, they’ve erred. They made an error. They’re wrong but their vain babblings are causing some people’s faith to be overthrown. Go back just a few pages to first Timothy chapter six, first Timothy chapter six, verse 20, says this, “Oh, Timothy, keep thou which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings and oppositions of sciences, falsely so called which some professing have urged concerning the faith. Grace be with thee, amen.”
Now notice, he doesn’t say, “Let’s start an entire ministry and let’s spend all of our time and resources and energy on countering these oppositions of science, falsely so called.” I mean, is that what he says?
Speaker 2:
No.
Pastor Anderson:
Or does he say, “To avoid oppositions of science, falsely so called?” I mean that’s what I see, right here. “Keep that which is committed, I trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings and oppositions.” We’re to avoid the oppositions of science, falsely so called and I like how he puts these oppositions of science falsely so called in the category of vain babblings because that’s really what they are. When you hear all this babbling on about, “Well, the earth’s been proven to be billions of years ol—“
It’s impossible to prove that. How do you prove that? You can’t. Anyone who knows anything about science would know that that is false, that you cannot prove something about thousands and thousands or millions and millions of years ago because there was nobody there to tell you about it. There’s no way to observe it and you could sit there and say, “Well, we know this is old.” How do you know? Because you have nothing to compare it to, it’s like when you have a thermometer, you have to calibrate that thermometer. I mean if you had a thermometer with no lines on it, it’s worthless, right.
You’ve got to have those little lines that tell you, “Hey, this is zero. This is 32. This is a 100,” and the way that they would calibrate thermometers back a long time ago and test them, they’d use certain points of reference, like the freezing point of water or the boiling point of water and that will say, “Hey, we know that water boils at this temperature so therefore we put the thermometer in there,” and then that’s going to tell us how the line is going to move for boiling water and then we can draw a line there and say, “Hey, this is 212 degrees Fahrenheit or here’s the freezing point, okay, that’s a good place to put 32. Here’s the human body temperature, that’s a good place for 98.6.”
Okay, that’s how you would calibrate that because you’d go with a temperature that you know. “Hey, we know this is the boiling point. We know this is the freezing point. We know that this is the human body temperature.” Okay, but here’s the thing, if you extrapolate that out, it’s not going to be accurate anymore, because for example, that thermometer eventually, if it keeps getting hotter and hotter, it’s going to max out or explode. That thermometer can’t just measure any temperature. You can’t just get a home thermometer and measure 1800 degrees with it.
Speaker 4:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
Something that’s designed for seeing if you have a fever, right. Now if you wanted to have a temperature gauge that would go up to those type of numbers, you’d have to calibrate it with something that’s at that level. You can’t just go with Mercury in a tube and just think, “Well, if I just keep going, it’s going to stay consistent.” No, it just doesn’t work that way, so you have to have some kind of a control group in your science to be able to show, “Hey, this is something we know is that old,” but when you look at their criteria for what they know is old, it leaves something to be desired, my friend.
They don’t know how old this stuff is, plus, of course, when God created the earth, he didn’t create it as a baby. He didn’t create Adam as a baby. I mean if you were to examine Adam, you’d say he’s 30 years old.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
He was born yesterday in a sense.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
He’s created yesterday but they’re saying he’s 30 years old. Look, if God put all these trees in the garden, right, how old are the trees in the garden? If a botanist looked at them, he would … He’d count the rings and say, “Oh, yeah, these are a 100, thousands of years old,” but they were just planted yesterday.
Speaker 4:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
That is what is known as apparent age. The apparent age of the earth, meaning that God created a mature earth in a sense. He didn’t create things as being a fresh newborn. He didn’t create a new born baby, He didn’t plant a seed in the garden, He planted trees in the garden, full grown trees, and He didn’t just create a flat earth. No, I’m not talking about the flat earth. I’m saying, He didn’t create it like just flat and then the mountains and valleys were carved out by rivers over time and that’s what people say, right?
“Oh, well, it would have taken this many years for the Colorado River to form that Grand Canyon.” Yeah, if the Colorado River had formed that thing but, wait a minute, do we really think that God just created an earth with no mountains, no hills, no valleys, no rivers, and that water slowly began to carve these things or did He create them already made, already done, mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, and then the observer would look at it and say, “Well, here’s how long it would take for this lake to form or this river to form,” or “Here’s how long it would take this stalactite to form …” Maybe God just made caves that already had stalactites in them.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, right.
Pastor Anderson:
If everything else he made is mature, but, oh, we know it’s millions of … Well, we know that it’s billions … These are oppositions of science falsely so called.
Speaker 4:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
Because the word science means knowledge and it has to do with what we know to be true, not just the wild eyed fables and theories of people’s imaginations and so the Bible says, “Avoid oppositions of science falsely so called.” You don’t need to get too caught up in “I’m going to learn everything about the evolution, debate, and I’m going to fix …” It’s not going to fix anything, friend. It’s a spiritual problem, not a physical problem that we have but he talks about, look, vain babblings, oppositions of science falsely so called.
A couple of pages to the left, go back to first Timothy chapter one, the vain jangling passage, it says, “I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus,” verse three, “When I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith, so do.” Instead of leading to answers, they lead to questions.
Endless genealogies, they’re confusing. They put questions in people’s minds. They’re unprofitable and vain. Why? Because it doesn’t matter what our genealogy is. It doesn’t matter what our nationality is. It doesn’t matter what tribe somebody thinks they’re from. It’s unprofitable and vain. It’s not something to argue about or waste time talking about. He says, “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and a faith unfamed from which some having swerved,” verse six, “Have turned aside unto vain jangling.”
All throughout these Scriptures, he says, “Vain talk, babbling, vain questions, foolish questions, unlearned questions, avoid it.” Don’t get caught up in it. Don’t waste your time with it. He says, “That these people who turn aside out of vain jangling,” verse seven, “Desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm,” so where does vain jangling come from, according to the Bible?
Where does all this foolish talk come from? All these profane babblings and blatherings, and all of this nonsense, where does it come from, according to the Bible? It comes from pride of a person who wants to sound smart.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Speaker 2:
That’s right.
Pastor Anderson:
This is purpose of running your mouth and babbling. Think about it, when you go out soul winning, isn’t that where it’s coming from? I mean when you go soul winning, you run into that guy who just wants to show you all the stuff that he knows but it’s all vain, it’s unprofitable, it’s babbling and people who actually know the Bible are just like … “Hah, you’ve got to be kidding me,” and you think you’re so smart and you’re just, “Oh, yeah, well, blah, blah, blah, blah.” “Desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say now whereof they affirm.”
Speaker 4:
Yup.
Pastor Anderson:
You see, there are a lot of people who want to teach the Bible but they don’t know the Bible themselves. He says, “You have a desire to be teachers but you have need that one teach you again.”
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
He said, “You’re desiring to be teachers of the law.” He said, “You ought to be teachers but you need one to teach you again which be the first principles of the doctrine of Christ and have become such that have need of milk and not of strong meat,” and interestingly, the person who knows how to use strong meat, the Bible says, “Everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the Word of righteousness for he is a babe but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
It’s by doing profitable work that you actually become knowledgeable and it’s through vain jangling and vain babbling that you basically are one who just wants to be a teacher but you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Now it’s amazing to me how people are constantly rebuking me and correcting me for basically preaching at this church, and I’m not saying people in our church but people outside of our church are often criticizing me for preaching at this church Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night and basically they’ll just say, “Well, everybody should have a chance to get up and preach. Everybody should be allowed to preach. We should listen to what everybody has to say.”
Now look, everybody who has come out of the New Evangelical Movement as I was in for my teenage years, have you ever been to one of these Bible studies where everybody’s allowed to teach? Who’s ever been to one of these Bible studies where everybody’s allowed to teach and everybody’s allowed to talk and we can all be heard and you know what it is? Vain babbling.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Vain jangling, foolishness, because of the fact that a lot of people are not qualified to teach. Other people are qualified to teach and so you can’t just have an open mic where you just let anybody get up and teach and preach the Bible. No, you’re supposed to have leaders who actually know the Bible, get up and preach and teach the Bible. “Ah, that’s cult-like.” No, it’s the Bible model for a church, actually.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
People will constantly say, “Oh, you just are up there preaching …” Yeah, that’s because I’ve studied.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
Okay, and other people that have studied can earn the right to get up and preach behind the pulpit but it’s not just an open mic of just … “Oh, you’ve been here for a week and a half, come on up and preach.” It’s unbelievable to me. You know what’s unbelievable to me too is that missionaries who I don’t know from Adam will call me up all the time and say, “Hey, I want to come through and preach at your church and …”
I’m thinking like, “I don’t even know you. I don’t just let random strangers …” “Oh, but I’m an independent Baptist.” That doesn’t mean as much as it used to …
Speaker 2:
That’s right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
There are a lot of independent Baptists that I would never want to preach behind this pulpit.
Speaker 4:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
Why? Because I’m the overseer and it’s my job to guard against false doctrine and lies. Look, I’ve had guest preachers come in and preach or men from the church get up and preach but you know what I do is I actually screen people and I know them and I make sure who I’m allowing to preach because it’s important that we don’t allow a lot of confusion and vain jangling come across the pulpit and a lot of it is not necessarily that people are just evil or bad. It’s just that they haven’t learned.
It’s not even necessarily that they’re dumb, although sometimes it is that they’re dumb but it’s not even necessarily that people are dumb, it could also just be that they’re just … haven’t learned and that they just need to grow more and take more time to study before being ready to get up and preach behind the pul— I mean shall I take one of my youngest children and put them behind the pulpit to preach so we can hear from them?
Speaker 2:
No.
Pastor Anderson:
I’m sure they’d say a lot of right things but you know what, they’re probably going to preach some weird stuff, too, you know, I mean just because they’re young, just because they’re little but the Bible talks about people desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. Now the Bible says, “If you desire the office of a bishop, that’s a good thing. If you desire the office of a bishop, you desire a good work.”
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
Let me show you some Scriptures to show you here the difference between the vain babbler, the vain jangling, and the legitimate teacher of God’s Word. The difference is that the one puts in the work to do the real study and the real learning and the other person just is puffed up in their mind and thinks that they’re already there and they’re just ready to get up and to be a teacher of the law understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. There are so many foolish teachers on the internet and they’re … Look, there’s great preaching on the internet. There are great pastors and preachers to listen to but there’s also just a lot of just foolish nonsense on the internet today.
Then a lot of people will go on Youtube and find it and listen to it and surf that thing and basically just come out with all kinds of stupid ideas and listen to me, legitimate research, legitimate learning, legitimate study starts with reading the Bible.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Okay, reading the Bible is hard work. It’s not … It’s black ink on white pages and there’s no pictures. It’s not a video. You have to read this book and it’s a lot of hard work to read through this book and study and learn what the Bible says. That’s where it starts and I’m not talking about reading it once and I’ll repeat it over and over again, I love what my pastor said when I was a teenager and you know what, teenagers tend to have foolishness and I was no exception and I remember what my pastor said when I was in Sacramento, California, he said, from the pulpit, this is something that he would often preach.
He said, “Before you even think about studying the Bible, you need to read the Bible five times cover to cover before you start studying it.” Because everybody wants to go all deep and study it and pull out these brand new truths that nobody’s ever heard of, okay, but we need to first build a foundation of having a solid, just knowledge, of what the Book even says from cover to cover and reading it once isn’t going to do it.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
He said, “Before you even think about studying the Bible,” he said, “There’s too much talk about studying the Bible.” He said, “First, read it, then study it.” I’m not against Bible study but read it first and he said read it five times. He said, “Once you read it five times, then start to study the Bible but get the big picture,” okay. I remember as a teenager, I heard him say that and when he said that I had just finished reading the Bible once. For the first time, I’d read it cover to cover and so I decided, I said, “You know what, in the next 12 months, I’m going to read it four times, because I want to get to that five level.”
I took it seriously. See, “Why do you take it seriously?” Because you’re supposed to take things seriously when people who are older than wiser than you teach you things and say things, it’s good to listen to what they say and that’s how I was. I was like, “Okay, here’s a guy that I respect, I want to hear what he has to say. He says I should read the Bible five times cover to cover, that sounds great. I think that is what I should do. That makes perfect sense to me.”
I took that real serious and I said, “Okay, next year, I’m reading the Bible four times cover to cover,” so I did that. I read the Bible four times in one year and when I got the end of the fifth time, I didn’t even say, “All right, let’s do the Bible study. Let’s go and teach things that have never been heard of.” No, here’s what I said, when I got to the end of the fifth time, here’s what I said, “You know what, I think Pastor Nichols is wrong because it should be read 10 times before being deeply studied and before we go down deep and stay down long and come up dry.” Because I just felt like, you know what, I still don’t have the grasp of the full book and so I said, “You know what I’m going to read it another five times.”
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
I’m not kidding. I’m not being up here dramatic, for effect. I’m telling you, that is literally what I said when I finished the fifth time. I said, “It needs to be read another five times before the real study can begin,” and the reason that I say that is because of the fact … How old was I? Seventeen when I finished it the first time and then I read it four times when I was 18, four times when I was 19, four times every single year after that but, honestly, I got to the point where I didn’t really care as much about studying the Bible.
I just kept reading it and reading it and reading it and I didn’t really get caught up in all the study and, “Hey, before you take the commentary down and start going deep, read it five times.” I never really got to that stage, you know what I mean, where you start digging into all this stuff. Why? Because the Bible is taught by the Holy Ghost and it’s hard work to study the Bible and a true Bible teacher has to just do a lot of reading and then they can preach and speak the truth. “Okay, this is what the Bible teaches.”
Now where is this vain babbling come from? Well, look at Colossians two, because in Colossians two, there’s an example of one of these kind of vain babbling, false doctrines of foolishness that people will … and look, this one’s real applicable because this is one you hear people babble about a lot and if you go on the internet, you’ll find millions of people babbling about this one and look where the Bible says it’s coming from and see if it matches up with all the other Scripture we’ve looked at this evening so far.
Look what it says in Colossians chapter two verse 18, “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.” The Bible warns about those who are vainly puffed up in their fleshly mind and that they intrude into those things which they’ve not seen and specifically the thing he brings up is he says, “A voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he had not seen.”
Now there’s a very similar statement made over in Jude. Flip over to Jude, similar statement. Because remember, he said that, “They’re vainly puffed up in their fleshly mind and that there are,” Listen, “Intruding into those things which they’ve not seen.” Look at the Book of Jude verse number nine, it says, “Yet Michael the Archangel when contending with the Devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation but said, ‘The Lord rebuke thee,’ but these speak evil of the things which they know not,” so do we not have people here talking about things that they don’t know about?
It said, “These speak evil of those things which they know not but what they know naturally as brute beasts in those things they corrupt themselves.” What is the Bible saying in both Colossians two and Jude? That basically, we don’t really know that much about angels and demons and Michael the Archangel and contending with the Devil and yet we see so many people today building entire doctrines and spending hours and hours and hours talking about fallen angels, don’t we.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 4:
That’s right.
Pastor Anderson:
On and on and on and on and on, and people have contact me constantly and said, “Hey, you need to do a sermon on angels and this or …” Here’s the thing. I’ve preached on angels but honestly the reason I don’t do these long in depth teachings on angels and demonology is because honestly, the Bible doesn’t really talk that much about angels and it doesn’t really give us that many details all about angels. I’m not going to just sit there and go off on some wild, vain jangling session about all the theories about angels and demons and nonsense but thing about how many people get so wrapped up in these vain jangling, babbling arguments about “The Nephilim,” right.
Where’s it come from? Jewish fables.
Speaker 2:
Right, exactly.
Speaker 3:
Yup.
Pastor Anderson:
Book of Enoch or whatever, so it’s just this vain jangling. God has given us all kinds of Scripture that is profitable unto our lives. He tells us, “Hey, this is how you’re going to get married. This is how you’re marriage is going to be. This is how you’re going to raise your children. This is how you go to work and how you succeed at work. Here’s where you go to church and basically, here’s how you can be an asset to the church and be part of the body and do profitable work, and here’s how you’re going to win souls and preach the Word and here are 66 Books for you to study,” but yet people want to intrude into other things that just are vain and don’t matter and unprofitable.
Look, if God thought it was profitable for us to know all the ins and outs of the spirit world and angels, wouldn’t He have given us much more information to go on?
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Than for us to just delve in and just, “I’ve got to get to the bottom of it. I’ve got to figure it out.” The world’s dying and going to hell, you’re not making enough money at your job to even pay your bills or you’re not soul winning or you’re not reading the Bible and doing the legitimate study, but you’ve just got to get to the bottom of this angel and demon and Nephilim and UFOs and the Great Delusion and I’m going to unlock the mysteries of the universe. This is vain, puffed up imaginations of the jangler.
Speaker 2:
Yes, right.
Pastor Anderson:
The jangler. Why? Because basically instead of worrying about things that matter, I spend a lot of time worrying about things that don’t matter. You know what is it that matters? Well, I’ll tell you what matters, the thing that God talks a lot about.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
Doctrines that the Bible clearly tells us about and goes on and on about, those are the things that matter and then there are other things that don’t really matter and that’s why God doesn’t spend a lot of time explaining them to us because we don’t need to know. I mean what does it affect us what exactly is going on between the angels and the demons in the spirit world? Is that really our problem?
Speaker 2:
No.
Speaker 3:
No.
Pastor Anderson:
To worry about Michael the Archangel battling the Prince of Persia? He gives us a glimpse of that just to let us know, “Hey, listen, this is something that’s going on.” He just wants us to know, “Look, there is a spiritual battle going on,” and when he talks about demons, it’s usually just in the context of, “Hey, this is what people who are demon possessed, this is what they’re like, this is what they’re going to do. This is how to identify that.”
He basically gives us the information that we actually need but really when it comes to living our life, when I get up tomorrow morning, my actions are going to be based upon the doctrines found in the Bible. What I do in the way of work, how much work I do, how hard I work is going to be dictated by what I’ve read in the Bible, okay.
I’m going to get up, I’m going to read the Bible and pray. It’s going to be profitable. It’s going to be beneficial. It’s not going to be vain. It’s not going to be a waste of time. Okay, then I’m going to interact with my family. I’m going to eat certain foods and drink certain beverages. These things are all things that I’m going to do based upon the wisdom found in God’s Word but what in the world about my actions tomorrow is going to be affected by all this talk about aliens and demons and angels and all this stuff.
Is it going to change? I mean, look, God gave me commandments of don’t do certain things, right. He said, “Don’t do these bad things and do these other good things and preach the Gospel to every creature,” right, but what in the world is some deep study about giants and Nephilim and angels and demons going to affect any of that? No, it’s entertainment, my friend. That’s what it is, call it what it is.
You are being entertained and it’s just like Star Trek geeks and Star Wars geeks who get all into the world of the Empire and the Galactic whatever and the Wookies and they speak both Klingon and they speak Wookie fluently and they basically are just show in to the just the element of just the Force. They’re just so into magic and Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and everything like that. Look, it’s like a Christian version of that. It really is.
I mean it’s just … It’s a Christian version of that. Instead of Dungeons and Dragons, it’s like angels and demons and basically they can go on Youtube and do a lot of research. “I’ve done a lot of research about the Nephilim.” Yeah, and basically, they fell spiritual but they haven’t really read their Bible. They haven’t really won any souls. They haven’t really done anything that was profitable. They haven’t really helped anybody but they just get puffed up with a bunch of knowledge, that’s worthless knowledge.
Look, for the millionth time, I don’t even believe in the stupid Nephilim doctrine. It’s a false doctrine. It never even happened. It doesn’t even exist, angels coming down and mating with humans. It’s a lie, it’s a fraud, it’s not Biblical. I’m not even going to debunk it, right. I’m just going to avoid that foolish question and I’ve already preached sermons where I have debunked it where I’ve taught the truth about what the Bible says, but the people who are really into this, I want … Show me a zealous soul winner who’s real into the Nephilim. Show me somebody who is an active member of their local church who comes to …
Because, listen, there are two kinds of people who come to church. There are people who are an asset and people who are a liability. People that are helpful and people that are a pain in the neck and then there are other people that just come and go and don’t really say much but that’s okay, too, but I’m saying, there are people who are a pain and then there are people that are an asset. You know what, why would you want to come to church and be a pain and be a liability.
You’re supposed to come and be a blessing and be a helper and help people and be … but, see, I want to see, basically, a person who is really into that Nephilim, Sci-Fi doctrine who is an active member of their local church and who is a weekly soul winner. I’d like to see that and I’m not saying it’s not out there because the exception proves the rule but the vast majority of these people are just an internet warrior, okay.
Speaker 2:
Internet warrior.
Pastor Anderson:
They’re not even … and they’re just vainly puffed up and they know so much about … but here’s the thing, it’s easy to confuse real knowledge and basically fake knowledge, okay. Now turn … You’re in Colossians two and we saw that people become vainly puffed up in their fleshly mind. Now here’s another Scripture. In first Corinthians eight, it says this, “Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up but charity edifieth.”
Now the Bible’s not saying, “Hey, stay away from knowledge. It’ll get you puffed up,” but the Bible is saying that knowledge has a tendency to puff people up, where people get prideful and arrogant because they gain knowledge so he’s saying we need to beware of that and balance that with charity so that we don’t become puffed up by knowledge, okay.
Now here’s what happens, people start coming to a church like Faithful Word Baptist Church or listening to the sermons from Faithful Word Baptist Church and they gain a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time. Maybe they’re used to going to a church where a lot of doctrine isn’t really being preached and they basically are just hearing a feel good sermon, they’re not very meaty in the Word.
Then they come to a church like ours or start listening to the preaching online and basically all of a sudden, there’s all this information coming in, and like, “Wow, I’m learning so much,” but the danger is that for the people who get vainly puffed up in their fleshly mind, they’ll get about six months in, they’ll get about 12 months in and think that they know everything now.
Speaker 2:
Yup.
Pastor Anderson:
They think they know so much now.
Speaker 3:
Right
Pastor Anderson:
Because I mean, they’ve listened to all this preaching, got all this information. Now here’s the thing about that though, what you’re forgetting is that the guy that you’re listening to didn’t just go to a church, sit there, and get all this taught to him in a short amount of time. I got it from reading and here’s the … You have to get stuff from reading on your own, too.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Not just think, “Oh, man, I went to church. I got all this information, now I know a lot but here’s the thing, you may not have developed the critical skills of thinking yet because of the fact that just hearing, hearing sound doctrine and saying, “Yeah, that’s right, I believe that …” Now you have some good knowledge because you’ve learned some good things from the Bible but that doesn’t mean that you’ve learned how to study and interpret the Bible, because the only way to learn how to study and interpret the Bible is by studying and interpreting the Bible.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
Which starts with a lot of reading before you even begin studying, so what you’ll have is people that have read the Bible once, okay, which … That’s not a lot. They’ve read the Bible twice, cover to cover, but they’ve listened to a lot of preaching and then they’ll basically come to you and start talking real big and telling you how it is and they’re going to straighten you out on doctrine. They say a lot of things that just don’t add up because of just not having learned. I’m telling you, it’s the hard work of reading and studying that actually makes you smart, not just listening to preaching or any video or audio that you listen to.
A lot of people think, watching an educational program on TV is just as good as reading. It’s not. It’s been proven. Say who proved it? “Every single person who’s ever done it,” and listen there are people today and I don’t want to hurt your feelings by saying this but there are people today who say, “I don’t like reading,” and there’s a name for those people, stupid people.
Speaker 2:
Yup.
Speaker 4:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
Then there’s other people who say, “I love to read,” and there’s a name for those people, smart people. This is the truth. People who say, “Oh, well, I just learn better from watching videos.” No, because videos are icing, videos are icing on the cake of knowledge, okay. That is not the meat and potatoes of learning. The meat and potatoes of learning are picking up books and reading them and here’s the thing, going on the internet and surfing the internet is not the same as reading a book.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
All kinds of crazy stuff on the internet, it’s not the same as reading books and going to the source. You’ve got to get yourself to the source and it takes hard work and frankly people are lazy today and they don’t want to go through that work. The Bible says, “Let the elders that rule well, be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the Word and doctrine.” Doctrine is teaching the Word, but he says laboring in the Word and doctrine, why? Because reading the Word and studying the Word is hard work and that’s why a lot of people don’t want to do it, “And they turn aside unto vain jangling,” talking about stupid things that don’t matter instead of getting real knowledge and real wisdom.
You see, the Bible says, “In all labor, there is profit.” Go back to … Do I have to go back to Proverbs? Go back to Proverbs 18, “In all labor, there is profit but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury,” and when it says “In all labor there is profit,” that would include laboring in the Word, that would include the labor of study. The Bible says, “Much study is a weariness of the flesh,” because studying can make you tired.
Reading will sometimes wear you out but it’s work that needs to be done if you ever want to be a teacher, if you ever want to be one that’s knowledgeable in the Word. You say, “Well, I’m not knowledgeable. I don’t want to do all that,” say, or “I haven’t done that study yet.” Then you need to be quiet.
Speaker 2:
Yup.
Pastor Anderson:
Now you go out and teach the Gospel because the Gospel is simple. You don’t have to have much knowledge. You don’t have to do much study to be a soul winner. You can be a soul winner day one of being saved.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
You know how to be saved, you tell someone else how to be saved and in fact, sometimes people who are newly saved are the best soul winners because they don’t get off on all this vain jangling, because they haven’t had a chance to get puffed up in their fleshly mind yet. They just keep it simple. “I don’t know, here’s the Gospel, here’s how to be saved.” They can be more effective sometimes than those who get caught up in these other things but the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 18, verse six, “A fool’s lips enter into contention and his mouth calls for strokes.”
“A fool’s mouth is his destruction and his lips are the snare of his soul. The words of a tale bearer has wounds, they go down to the innermost parts of the belly. He also then is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.” Now notice that there are three verses that talk about the mouth there in verses six, seven, and eight. One of them talks about a person who wants to argue all the time, that wants to enter into contention for the sake of contention. Another person talks about one who’s mouth is his destruction, his lips are the snare of his soul. He says stupid things that get him into trouble.
Then in verse eight, it talks about the tale bearer the gossip who would go around and talk about other people behind their back but in verse nine, he says, “He also …” so there’s a connection there to verses six through eight. “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that a great waster” and let me tell you the greatest thing that people waste, time.
Speaker 2:
Yup.
Pastor Anderson:
Now it’s funny, we were here the other day and there were these weird bums outside of the church building. They were just, there was a guy just laying in front of the door of the church, this derelict and he’s laying out there and he had some real junkie gas station food, and listen, the gas station food’s not the cheapest food.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
It’s just junkie food for lazy people.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Because it’s convenient.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
Total junk, total garbage food, worthless nutritionally and this guy is laying in front of that door with a bunch of gas station food and a bunch of synthetic beverages and he’s just laying in front of the door of the church and then he gets up, and he basically leaves a half eaten hotdog … I mean the garbage is right there … but he leaves a half … or was it a half eaten or one and a half … is that what it … Yeah, Miriam’s like “One and a half.” Yeah, he left one and a half gas station hotdogs, everything’s half eaten, all sort … so he’s too lazy to even pick up his trash and take it to … and interestingly he’s also a great waster.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Although, what he was eating was waste in the first place but still, this is the food that he spent his money on and he’s not even eating it. He just waste it, just leaves it there, just derelict, leaves … I mean in front of a church. “Here let me just put all my junk and trash in front of the door of a church,” and a lot of these bums get this attitude like, “Well, you’re a church. You need to help me,” and this entitled attitude when a lot of times, it’s because they’re a drunk and a drug addict and a lazy person and they just want everything given to them for free and then they get prideful and arrogant toward people who actually work for a living but listen to me, waste is not just money.
It’s people wasting their time and the Bible says that he that is slothful in his labor is also brother to him that is a great waster. I don’t think he’s just talking about wasting money there or wasting a gas station hotdog or wasting food. I think also he’s talking about people wasting time, lazy people wasting time and what do they do? Blabber, in all labor there is profit but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. Blabbering and talking about stupid, worthless things that don’t matter.
Go to Ephesians chapter five, we should talk about things that matter. We should spend our lives working on things that matter. You need to decide today what matters and what doesn’t? What affects our lives? What does God want us to do and what is just something that is unprofitable and vain? The Bible says avoid foolish questions and this includes dumb doctrinal debates about things that are not even revealed in Scripture or that don’t matter or things to which the question is already obvious and people just want to argue and contend and vainly babble about things.
These are like those Greek philosophers who instead of working, they would just go on Mars Hill and just talk all day about some new thing and dispute with one another. I mean if you ever have read the writings of Plato, they are the most stupid, worthless, vain, profane babblings in the world.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
“What about that … What …” These stupid philosophers who just want to have … “Do we even really exist?” Do we even exist? It’s like shut up, you idiot. It’s stupid.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Then you look at the question people … Here’s some examples of things. “Hey, could God make a rock so big that he couldn’t pick it up?” Here’s a great doctrinal debate, “Can God make a rock so big that he cannot pick it up?” I mean it’s stup— Somebody asked that to my grandpa one time and he just stuck his finger in their face and he yelled, “The Bible says avoid foolish questions.” Look, I’ve known … My dad, the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, that was my grandpa.
Then my dad was in a Sunday school class and this lady started asking about just stupid question and my dad just stood up in the middle of the class and just reading a verse about how she needs to ask her husband at home and avoid foolish questions. He’s like, “That’s a foolish question,” and then the Sunday school teacher literally just said, “All right, let’s close in prayer.”
He shut down the lesson because of the fact that he was so embarrassed that my dad just started rebuking this woman but look, I’ve sat in Bible studies and I have family that has sat in Bible studies, even at Independent Baptist churches where the question was asked, “Well, the Bible says preach the Gospel to every creature, what about the animals?”
Speaker 4:
Aw, man, you’ve got to be kidding me.
Pastor Anderson:
It’s out there, friend.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 4:
What about the animals?
Pastor Anderson:
I mean if it’s … I mean why didn’t he say preach it to all men? Why didn’t he say preach unto all people? Why all creatures? What about the animals? Are we supposed to preach … What about dogs? I mean somebody has literally said in an Independent Baptist church, in a [inaudible 00:50:47], “What about dogs?” Just foolish, stupid questions about, “Hey, do we need to preach the Gospel to animals?” or “Hey, are animals going to be in heaven with …” “Well, that matters.”
No, it doesn’t matter.
Speaker 2:
No.
Pastor Anderson:
Without our dogs.
Speaker 3:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
No, okay, I know I’m taking that out of context. That’s a hotdog, by the way, but basically, these questions of “Hey, did Adam have a bellybutton?”
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Pastor Anderson:
Because you know, I mean think about it. I mean since he was never born of a woman, so he never had an umbilical cord, so was he created with a bellybutton? Hmm? Or was it just … I mean was it ... Okay, here’s the real question, was it an innie or an outie? If he is the perfect man, but this is the kind of stupid foolishness that people talk about.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 4:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
Waste their time with nonsense and things that don’t matter and, honestly, I’m all for discussing Bible doctrine but it should be stuff that matters, like stuff that actually affects our lives, that affects our thinking about the Word of God and by the way, the stupid flat earth thing, is another vain babbling and stupidity and is another foolish question. It’s foolish.
Speaker 2:
Yup.
Pastor Anderson:
“Who is this that darkeneth counsel with vain words without knowledge?” Here’s the thing the flat earth, suppose that can be disproved so easily that you’d have to be an idiot to believe in it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, right.
Pastor Anderson:
I’m standing by what I said on Wednesday night. You have to be stupid to believe in it and anybody who heard my sermon Wednesday night and still believes in it today on Sunday is stupid.
Speaker 2:
Yup.
Speaker 3:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
You come up to me after the service and tell me that I’m wrong and I’ll tell you you’re stupid and it’s very few people who have been duped by this, thank God, but honestly, these type of things, here’s the thing, these are things that don’t even matter anyway.
Speaker 2:
That’s right.
Speaker 3:
Right.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
They don’t even matter anyway, but you know when it starts mat— “Well, then why do you care? Why does it matter?” Because I don’t want to be known as a pastor of idiots, I’m not trying to run a mental institution here.
Speaker 2:
That’s right.
Pastor Anderson:
I’m trying to run a Baptist church.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
I’m not trying to baby sit people and I don’t have any straight jackets in the closet. I don’t have a napkin to wipe the slobber off your face and you know what, I’m not going to put up with people coming into the church … and, look, I can’t control who comes in here and teaches whatever stupidity but I can get up behind the pulpit and rebuke it.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
I don’t know … I don’t really even know who all it was who was going around but I even heard that people came in here and are basically taking people aside and evangelizing them with the gospel of the flat earth. You know what? I’m not going to put up with that crap.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Speaker 3:
Amen.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
Not going to happen, friend.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
You say, “Well, I believe in it.” Well, then keep your stupid mouth shut.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Because I’m not putting up with it, because it’s my job to make sure that this is a church where sound doctrine and you know what, look, there are all kinds of other dumb thing … That’s just one example of dumb things that people get idle and they sit around navel gazing and spoon bending and they come up with this stuff. “Whoa, dude, what if it’s flat, dude? Whoa.”
Look, you say, “Well, they’ve lied to us about everything else.” Look, sometimes when you have a hammer in your hand, everything starts looking like a nail and just because they lied about something, it doesn’t mean that they lied about everything. We don’t even exist. This is all … We’re all robots. We’re all machines. We’re all in somebody’s dream. Did Adam have a … Did Adam have a bellybutton? Is the movie The Matrix, is it real? Is Star Wars real?
I mean, look, why don’t you talk about something that matters? Why don’t you care about something that matters and you know what, it’s a hindrance to the Gospel because here we are trying to do serious work for God in this church, serious work of actually evangelizing, actually getting the Gospel to all nations and reaching the peoples of Phoenix, Arizona, and then we have to deal with this kind of silliness.
Speaker 2:
Yup.
Pastor Anderson:
It’s a waste of time and a pain in my rear end when people have come to me and complain how somebody got in their face and demanded for them to accept the flat earth.
Speaker 2:
Wow.
Speaker 3:
Wow.
Pastor Anderson:
I mean what in the … It’s like what is going on?
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 3:
That’s right.
Pastor Anderson:
The thing is we need to get focused on the real mission. Here’s the … I love reading. I love studying but here’s the thing, whenever I read anything, I always ask myself, “Okay, how is this going to be profitable unto me? How’s this going to help me do more work for God?” For example, when I want to study a foreign language, because I love foreign languages, so when I’m asking myself, “Which foreign language do I want to learn?” One of the big things is, “Well, how am I going to use this for God? How am I going to use this to do something profitable?”
That’s why Latin has never really been that appealing to me and I’m not against if you learn Latin, if there’s a profitable reason that you have for doing it, great. I just … I couldn’t really find one, so I walked away saying, “You know what, let’s learn languages that people speak that we can give them the Gospel and evangelize and do …” Or when it comes to … If I’m going to read a book about history or science or math or what … I’ve always ask myself what is the point, because I want to do something with my life that matters and not just get caught up where I’m just filling my mind with vain knowledge that doesn’t really matter.
You might have a certain job where you need to fill your mind with knowledge for that job, well, then it’s profitable to you in the most literal sense because you’re making a profit, like going to work and making money but honestly I think that people sometimes just get caught up in the wrong … and here’s another really vain and unprofitable thing to get really into: Professional sports.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that’s right.
Pastor Anderson:
I mean does that really affect the temperature of hell one degree, whether or not this pitcher or this point guard or all the stats and everything but a lot of people get real sucked into these unprofitable and vain conversations and they just talk and talk about them and things that don’t matter. Now here’s the thing, I can see some profit in playing sports, just because it’s good for your body but even that could get taken out of hand where it could become a distraction because “Bodily exercise profit little, we should exercise ourselves rather unto godliness.”
If there’s a choice in priorities, right, it’s the godliness that takes priority over having a physical body that’s in great health but we should take care of ourselves. I could see some profit in spending time with your children by playing sports with your children, playing catch, taking them down, shooting hoops with them at the park and going for a jog with your family and friends and stuff like that.
That’s profitable and taking care of your body and being healthy but there’s zero profit in sitting and watching a bunch of overpaid grown up children, running around in tights and a bunch just “Oh, yeah, you know. Well, we’re going to the Super Bowl. Let’s paint our bodies and paint our faces and howl and drink beer and … Ah, we won, we won.” You can’t even run from one end of that football field to the other without having a heart attack. You didn’t win. You did nothing.
Look, the Bible says in Ephesians five, verse 15, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is.” He said, look, “Redeem the time.” We only have a little bit of time, use it for things that matter. Talk about things that matter. Study subjects in the Bible that matter, not the … the one subject that God barely talks about and that’s the one that you just want to delve into and get to the bottom of it, when there’s another thing he talks about a 100 times that we don’t care about.
I mean there are literally people who pick what church they go to based on the most silly, foolish, nitpicky things. They’ll overlook huge false doctrines. They’ll overlook wrong Bible, overlook no soul winning, overlook wrong gospel but they’re just like, “They have the right dress code at that church. They’re real strict about the … they’re real strict on courtship.” Just all this stuff that’s not really a clear teaching of the Bible that they latch onto or literally the whole … I’ve literally been contacted by multiple people where they say, “Well, I’m looking for a church, this is my big criteria, this is my one criteria. Is the communion open, closed or close.”
What are you talk … and I said, “You can’t even articulate to me from a clear verse in Scripture anything about your doctrine about that,” and this lady’s like, “Oh, my daughter …” Sorry, I’m trying to kill a mosquito. “My daughter …” I’m not getting happy up here, like “Woohoo,” in the Spirit but anyway … I was trying to kill a mosquito, it was there folks, but anyway, this lady sent her daughter to ASU, Devil State University …
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Where the mascot is Satan and where the doctrine is of devils and she’s like, “Well, I need to find a church for my daughter to go to while she’s at ASU and so I need to make sure that the communion is close, not closed,” or whatever and it’s just like I said, “You know what, you have bigger problems than communion.”
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
I said, “Your daughter is going to a school filled with sodomites and weirdos,” and I said, “I’ve attached a jpeg of their mascot, the Devil.”
Speaker 3:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
I mean talk about a wrong emphasis, right.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Here’s the thing, the Bible says very little about communion, very little, precious little. When you study the doctrine of communion, it’s tough because there’s so little Scripture on it in the New Testament, very little and so you have to try to piece it together from very little Scripture and you end up having to go back to the Passover to really learn the most about it, just because that’s where it starts from and that’s where you derive the doctrine from, because there’s very little teaching on the New Testament but to sit there and say, “That’s my whole choice of what church I go to.”
There are people who say, “That’s what determines a true church or not,” the type of communion, the style of communion as opposed to all these important Bible doctrines , those aren’t the … See how people can just get vainly puffed up about some weird doctrine and get all hung up on it and that’s their big emphasis. We need to keep our emphasis on the things that the Bible emphasizes and we need to get real knowledge from the Bible and here’s the thing about reading the Bible versus studying the Bible.
If you read the Bible, you’re reading the whole Bible, you get a balanced view, because think about it, if you read the whole Bible, you’re getting everything. Then you read it a second time, you get everything again. You read it a third, you get everything again. Whereas studying the Bible tends to get out a microscope and just get on one verse or one word.
Speaker 2:
Right, right.
Pastor Anderson:
It’s like people can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s like they get so … They’re like looking at the world like this to where the … They don’t see the big picture. That’s why it’s so important to study the Bible and here’s the thing. One of the things that I think really got a lot of my doctrine on track as an older teenager was reading the Bible cover to cover, especially, it really nailed down what I believed about salvation.
Now I always knew salvation was by faith and that it was not of works but when I read the Bible cover to cover, when I noticed, when you read the New Testament cover to cover, over and over again, is how many times it keeps saying believe and it gets to where it’s hard to ignore when it’s just like, “Believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe. Faith, faith, faith, faith, faith.” It is like, “Whoa,” and then the repent of your sins thing is just like …
Speaker 2:
Ridiculous.
Pastor Anderson:
It becomes ridiculous to you and they can pull out a few proof texts that they take out of context and twist but the person who actually reads and reads is going to see the faith and the beliefs so many times that it’s going leave zeroed out in their mind that that’s what salvation is. My admonition to you is this, decide in your heart that you want to become a person who doesn’t waste your time on unprofitable things, that you don’t become one where you’re constantly talking about things that don’t matter. You’re constantly blabbering and blathering and discussing things that really don’t have any impact on our lives, okay, that don’t really change what we’re going to do tomorrow or how we’re going to live our lives.
Because there are so many things that do matter that are going to affect our actions, just theorizing about black holes. “Hey, let’s talk about black holes for two hours.” It’s unprofitable and vain. Let’s sit around and talk about the theory of an ice dome before the flood or it’s just like, “What? Did God give us details exactly about the entire ecosystem before the flood?” Let’s just go on and on about pre-flood technology. Is that really the most profitable thing for us to be talking about because if so wouldn’t have God given more details and told us about it?
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
I mean do we really need to just go on and on about pre-flood technology, ice dome, flat earth as a disc? Let’s talk about angels and demons, Nephillim, UFO phenomenon. Let’s talk about all these weird things that don’t affect the price of tea in China, that don’t get a single person out of hell, that don’t accomplish anything for the work of God and therefore, basically, vain janglers, lazy babblers, puffed up in their own fleshly mind.
Speaker 2:
Yup. Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
It’s time to just get off this junk and roll up the sleeves and get serious about doing the work of God and being an asset and not a hindrance to the work of God and before we talk, we should study and know what we we’re talking about before we just start talking about stuff, especially before you say really radical things. Don’t just repeat radical things that you hear, even if you hear them from me, verify them first. Make sure they’re true.
With so many things where somebody’ll come out with something and that everybody just starts repeating it and it’s like they haven’t really thought about it for themselves because it’s just too much work and there are people in our generation who sit down to read the Bible and after a few seconds it’s like they just … It’s like they have ADD spiritually or just ADD physically where they can’t focus. You’ve got to have the discipline to just sit and read and to give … and if you want to know about other subjects besides the things of God then you have to get big thick books and start reading them.
Start learning, start studying. Look, the perfect example of vain jangling, going back to the Greek and sermons by pastors who aren’t fluent in Greek. See, the lazy man gets up and wants to be puffed up in his fleshly mind and say, “Oh, actually, if you go back to the Greek, here’s what it really means about …” but here’s the thing, you walk up to him afterward and say, “Katala venite allenica?” and he’s like, “Whoa, what are you saying?” and here’s the thing, I’m not interested in learning Hebrew. Greek, I see profit in learning Greek just because there 15 million Greek people that you could preach the Gospel to. That’s a great reason.
I don’t really see a whole lot of profit in learning Hebrew, just because the Jews are the most unreceptive people on the planet so I’m not really interested in learning a language so I can go communicate with the people who are the least receptive people on the planet. I’d rather learn a language that people are receptive but I’m not against people who want to learn Hebrew at all but you know what? I spend time learning just enough Hebrew to learn the basic greetings of just “Hi, how you doing? Do you speak Hebrew? I speak a little bit. Would you like to have something to eat with me?”
I spend some time learning those basics just so that every time one of these Hebrew roots people comes up to me with the star of [inaudible 01:08:30] around their neck and starts hawking phlegm in my presence then I just say … I basically start speaking Hebrew to them. “Shalom. [Hebrew 01:08:40],” and then they’re just like, “Whoa, I don’t … Oh, I only know a little bit.” Ah, no, if somebody asks you how you’re doing and you can’t answer that, you don’t know a little bit. You know nothing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
I’ve never to this day confronted a Bible teacher who went back to the Greek and walked up to him and said unto him something like, “[Greek 01:09:03]?” and had him know what I was saying, ever. Never, they never do and then they’ll admit, “Well, I know the Greek alphabet and I know how to look things up in the Lexicon,” but look, real knowledge, folks, you see, they want the shortcut.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
See the … Thank God for the King James version because the guys who translated the King James version didn’t just learn Hebrew fully, they also learned Arabic. You say, “Why would they learn Arabic?” Because Arabic’s related to Hebrew. Arabic is actually very similar to Hebrew, lots of the words are identical, so you know what, they wanted to have such a good understanding of the Hebrew that they said, “We’re not just going to learn Hebrew, we’re also going to learn Arabic. We’re not just going to learn Arabic, we’re going to learn Aramaic, and we’re not just going to learn Greek but we’re going to know Latin and we’re going to know all these related languages.”
Some of them spoke as many … One of the guys spoke 21 languages, 15 … I believe it’s 15 ancient and six modern and he learned these languages because he wanted to really know what he was talking about. He’s a true scholar. A lot of the other guys in the King James … There’s one guy in particular that I’m thinking of, he believed to his knowledge that he had read every word of Greek that was extant on the face of the earth at that time. He had basically sought out everything that was written in Ancient Greek that was available in that time and had read all of it.
Okay, so these are people who are serious about learning. They’re serious about knowledge but today’s scholars, there’s something to be desired. It’s a joke when you talk to them and by the way, James White is a joke.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
You talk to James White and some of the stuff he says is so stupid.
Speaker 2:
Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
He makes foolish mistakes and I thought to myself, because he seemed like at least like, okay, he knows … Okay, even though he’s evil and a liar and a false prophet … It’s like, oh, we’ll be … You know what I thought, well, he seems like he does at least know the language but then I started really studying more and I had the recording from our conversation, it’s on Youtube, the whole conversation between me and him. I went back and start fact checking the stuff that he said and I found out, this guy’s not what he’s cracked up to be. Because I noticed he’s pronouncing the Greek words in a really stupid way because I learn … the Greek that I say was according to the modern pronunciation which is the only pronunciation that anybody can verify.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
Okay, so it’s the only real pronunciation that anybody can even use with authority but he learned the weirdo made up pronunciation that’s taught in seminaries, cemeteries but … Of dead, spiritually dead, Bible theologians but basically, I noticed he’s pronouncing these words in a weird way and I just thought, “Oh, yeah, he learned that weird Erasmian pronunciation,” but then I was looking at the Eramian pronunciation and he wasn’t even pronouncing it according to that. He was just pronouncing stuff wrong.
He kept saying over again, “Hadas, hadas, hadas.” That’s not the right way to pronounce that word in any pronunciation. It’s like, “Well, how do you claim to be an expert in this and you can’t pronounce the word right?” it doesn’t make any sense and then it’s like, “Oh, well, he’s just reading it, not pronoun …” Yeah, but even when you read it, though, it has the accent marks and everything there. I don’t know. It just makes you doubt the scholarship of these people and then when he says, “Oh, the words in the King James, they’re archaic.” He said, “Here’s some archaic words: Ado.”
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Now look, if somebody who doesn’t know the English word “ado,” A-D-O, is pronounced ado, somebody who pronounces it ado and he pronounced it in multiple interviews, multiple debates, he pronounced it as ado … Do a deer, a female deer, re a drop of golden sun … so, yeah, ado. I mean it’s hard to take somebody seriously.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Who’s like, “Look how archaic. Who knows what the word ado means?” He had nobody but a lot of people know what ado means and I mean he pronounced other words in weird ways but, oh, he’s so knowledgeable. He knows … he has more knowledge in his little finger than we have in our whole bodies. He’s so intelligent but honestly, these Bible scholars and Bible teachers, many of them are just puffed up and it’s all a façade.
You need to … If you want to learn, you need to actually due diligence and study and if you wanted to say, “I’m a Greek expert, you’d have to go to Greece,” or if you can’t afford the trip to Greece, you’d have to at least go to the Greek food festival, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
Get around Greek people or at least go to the Greek Orthodox Church and find a bunch of Greek people and go talk to them. That would be a serious way to actually learn the language through conversation because that’s how you learn … or at least you’d have to become fluent in it through books and tapes and whatever, but you know what, these people are not fluent but yet they want to talk about it and go on about it. It’s just pride. It’s just the flesh, instead of talking about things that matter that aren’t as trendy and cool.
Everybody’s out looking for the 67th book of the Bible, they haven’t even read the 66.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Pastor Anderson:
This is exactly what we see today.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
I just want to admonish you tonight, not to be lazy, not to be slothful, not to get puffed up and think that you know more than you really know, when you haven’t even read the Bible, the initial five times, yet, let alone the 10 times and get all puffed up and you know everything and Pastor Anderson doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
It’s all right for you to not to think that I know what I’m talking about after you’ve read the Bible many times and after you have concrete, Biblical reasons for why. Here’s the thing, I find it funny when somebody’s like, “You’re the best preacher that I’ve found so far.” Literally, that’s what somebody said to me, this week. “You’re the best preacher, teacher that I’ve found so far,” and then literally, the next day, said, “Wow, how can the people in your church be so blind? You’re such a deceiver and a liar and you’re leading them away from the truth and the true God.”
It’s like, “Hold on a second, you just said that I was your favorite pastor and teacher and then the next day you said you can’t understand … Well, how were you so stupid and blind then?” but it’s people that are tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine and just like driven with the wind and tossed. Build a foundation of Bible reading, build a founda— and listen, go, yeah, talk to people in the church about the Bible. Talk to people about doctrine, that matters.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Amen.
Pastor Anderson:
That matters, not things that don’t matter. Work, read, study, and talk about things that matter that are helpful and edifying and profitable to people not just this navel gazing, spoon bending, blah, blah, blather, blather, vain jangling …
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Pastor Anderson:
That’s worthless and a waste of time. We need to be serious about the things about … and just decide … Look, there are things in our lives that don’t matter, cut them out of your life and get busy about the things that matter. That’s the great secret to getting things done. “Well, I don’t have time to read the Bible.” Cut out stupid things that don’t matter and read your Bible. Let’s bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank You so much for Your Word, Lord, and we pray that You please just help every person in our church to do a lot of reading, a lot of studying, Lord, and just study to show themselves approved. Lord, help us all to get real knowledge and not just get puffed up and think that we know everything when in reality we know very little, Lord.
Lord, I pray that this will be a Bible reading church and … God, I know that 90 some percent of the people in the church totally understand what I’m saying right now, Lord, but I pray that the small percentage, Lord, that are puffed up would basically just understand that the church is your institution of learning. It’s the pillar and ground of the truth and it’s a place to come and learn and be taught and more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice fools and in Jesus name we pray, amen.
