Ephesians Chapter four is a great passage on Christian growth. It's talking about the fact that we need to grow up as Christians, we need to learn a lot of doctrine and we need to grow so that we are not deceived by all the false teachers that are out there and so that we can know what the truth is and where we stand and be able to defend what we believe in and so forth. In Ephesians 4:11, the bible reads "And He gave some apostles, and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, for the profecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God unto a perfect man, under measure of stature of fullness of Christ.
That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of man and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie and wait to deceive but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."
The body that's being referred to there is the local church and within the local church, in this case the church at Ephesis, there are all kinds of people that have been placed in that church with various spiritual gifts and various abilities. The Bible says that God has given us, in the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, of course apostles were at that time, another sermon in itself. Paul was the last Apostle according to 1 Corinthians 15, but what is the purpose of the pastor? What is the purpose of the teacher? What is the purpose of these people that God has put in the church; the prophets, the evangelists?
The Bible tells us that they are for the perfecting of the saints. Are the saints the saved or the unsaved? The saved. He says they are for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ, and then down at the bottom there in verse 16 he said, In the latter part of the verse, Maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. What this is referring to, is Christians being built up, Christians being prepared and equipped to do spiritual battle, Christians being perfected and learning doctrine in the local church. This is the purpose of the local church.
Many today have become misguided and they think that the purpose of the local church and when I say church, let's make sure we have the definition right. We're talking about the congregation. That is what the Bible calls it. Old Testament Scriptures that use the word congregation are quoted in The New Testament using the word church because church and congregation are two interchangeable words here. We're not talking about an organization, a denomination, a building, we're talking about the assembly or the congregation of born again, baptized believers when we say the church and when we talk about the church here, we see that the purpose of that assembly, the purpose of that body, the purpose of that church is to edify and strengthen believers.
To teach them doctrine so that they can be perfect, so that they can grow up, so that they're not tossed to and fro with every one of doctrines, but many have become misguided and they think the purpose of the church, meaning the assembly, the congregation, is to get people saved. Here's the problem with that doctrine; Nowhere does the Bible teach that the purpose of us meeting together is to have some kind of evangelistic crusade or get people saved. It's not scriptural. In fact, when the bible tells us to get people saved, it's telling us to go out and get them saved. Go ye therefore into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
We're told to go out amongst the unsaved and you'll notice that that's the way Jesus did it with his apostles. He sent them out two by two into all the towns and villages, they went everywhere preaching the gospel of the kingdom, then they brought in people, and there were great multitudes that would come to hear Jesus preach, but when you notice that when they were hearing Jesus preach, he's not necessarily preaching on salvation, he's preaching all kinds of doctrine. The problem today is that many churches have become evangelically oriented in their services, so they're gearing the service toward unsaved people.
Here's the problem with that, that's where you get the worldliness, the seeker sensitive, the rock and roll type, because they say, "Hey, we have to reach people where they're at. We've got to bring in the unsaved and we have to make them feel comfortable and then we're going to gear the sermon toward the unsaved, which means we're going to preach the plan of salvation every Sunday morning." The Bible teaches here that church is a place for the edification of the saints. If we go to acts 20:28, he talks about the fact that the church needs to be fed, the flock of God in the local church needs to be fed.
On Sunday morning when people show up to church, 90% of them are already saved, at least they should be. Church is a congregation of born again, baptized believers. Of course they're going to be visitors that are not saved, of course there could be Judas Iscariots that are not saved. There are going to be unsaved people in any group, but the majority are already saved and what you have across America today, is people going to church on Sunday morning and hearing another salvation message again and again and again and again. When they're already saved, then they're not getting fed all the other teaching that they need.
If you go out as a church and preach the gospel to every creature, that's your evangelism, then it frees you up to spend Sunday morning and Saturday night actually teaching the Bible, actually building up the believers and edifying the body of Christ. Look at Acts 20 : 28 it says: Take heed therefore under yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers to feed the Church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood and many people ... Have you ever talked to somebody who said, "I left that church because I wasn't being fed.?" That's a pretty common complaint that you hear and often it's because of this constant preaching of the salvation plan every Sunday morning. Constant evangelism in the service.
I'm all for getting people saved, I love the gospel, but let's go out and preach the gospel. Let's have sermons from time to time that talk about the Gospel and that salvation but what about the rest of the Bible? It all needs to be taught, it all needs to be preached. Doctrine, my friend. We need to stop being children, stop being babes in Christ. He said, "Look, you need to cease from being children and grow up." That means that you need the meat of the word. That means that you need something besides God's simple plan of salvation. You need something that's more substantial, you need deeper truths, you need more Biblical doctrine. Otherwise you will be deceived by those who are out there lying in wait, conniving, their arrow is already drawn back in the bow to trick you and to fool you.
People today are being tricked into all kinds of weird movements and weird doctrines because they don't know this book. Partially because they're not reading it on their own and partially because they're not being taught doctrine in church. I'm going to preach tonight, that's all introduction, I'm going to preach tonight about one of the reasons I believe, that doctrine is not being preached and taught today in local churches. Where's the doctrine? Where's the beef? Where's the meat on the bone today? Why do we have this shallow preaching that does not teach doctrine but rather just teaches the same simple, basic things over and over again? I'm all for the simple and basic but we need more than that also. We need both.
I think the biggest reason why, is the Bible College movement. It's Bible colleges, they're the problem. I'm going to preach about it right now, everything I'm going to say is Biblical, it's scriptural. You may disagree, this may offend you but honestly, everything I'm going to preach tonight is biblical based and take it and do what you want with it. I have a problem with Bible college, I have a problem with it. I don't agree with it. It's not Scriptural and I'm going to preach it. Someone talk about it. All the Bible colleges, they're out there advertising, they're going to churches, signing everybody up, sending them stuff in the mail.
I'm going to advertise tonight. I'm going to advertise why you shouldn't go to Bible college. Why I'll never send any of my kids to Bible college, why I don't approve of Bible college and they can get up and advertise their belief, I'm going to advertise my believe tonight and it's biblical. The first reason that I don't like bible college is that number one, it has replaced the local church as being the institution that teaches Bible doctrine. If you want to learn Bible doctrine today, go to bible college, going to seminary and it's not taught in the local church. What happens is, Bible College becomes the place where people think of as being a place where Bible doctrine is being taught.
If you really want to learn the doctrine and you really want to learn biblical truths and understand biblical prophecy or understand the doctrines of salvation, the doctrines of regeneration and all these big words that they use, go to bible college and get a deep education. If you really need to know the scriptures and if you really want to learn about all the kings of Israel and all the kings of Judah and the timeline and if you want to understand books like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, that is just too deep for a local church service, you need to go to Bible college to learn that, you need to go to seminary to learn that.
What happens is, because we have Bible colleges that teach doctrine, then that just makes the church preach even less doctrine because they are like, "Bible college is taking care of that. They're learning that in Bible College." I've heard people say, "When you graduate from high school, you need to do one year at a Bible college because you need to get a doctrinal foundation." Where have you been for the last 18 years? Have you been getting a doctoral foundation or not?" If you haven't, something's wrong. When the Bible says that the whole purpose of the local church is that teach doctrine, and to teach the Bible, all of the Bible and that includes Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the minor prophets, it should all be preached, it should all the taught, you should be able to learn it all right here in church.
That's one thing, but number two, Bible college is never mentioned in the Bible. That right there, that should be enough to just close our Bibles and pray and go home. It's not mentioned. Turn to 2 Kings 22:14, because that should be a big red flag right there. If God really intended us to have these giant, major institutions, where the Bible's being taught and where young men are being trained for the ministry and let's face it today, pastors are not coming out of churches today, they're coming out of Bible colleges. We sent out a month ago Brother Dave to go start the Church, Brother David Burgess of Southern Church up in Prescott, Arizona.
That doesn't happen every day. Because that's rare anymore that a local church would just train a guy and just send him out to start a church. It's Bible colleges that they're coming out of. We're supposed to believe that 99% of pastors should be coming out of Bible colleges, not out of local churches. We're supposed to believe that God's plan and that that's God's will and that God has designed this system where everybody sends their children to a centralized or young men to a centralized Bible College where they're trained for the ministry. If that be the case, why is that never taught in Scripture. If it's God's will, if it's God's plan, where is it in the Bible? I did a search on the word college. Let's see if college is mentioned. it's only mentioned one time, it is to mentions because it's a parallel passage but both verses say the identical thing. 1 Kings and 2 Kings and 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles.
Look at the 2 kings 22:14, it says; Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Akbor and Shaphan and Asaiah went unto Huldah, the prophetess, the wife of Shallum, the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She dwelled in Jerusalem, in the college and they communed with her.I personally do not believe that anything in the Bible is an accident. I don't think anything's a coincidence. I think that everything is there for a reason.
I look at this and I say that college is mentioned one time, it's associated with a female preacher. This does not bode well for Bible college being biblical and you say, "That meaning of college, that's a completely different meaning." Okay, it's all we've got folks. There's no mention of college. I'm trying to preach about college tonight and that's all I can find, a woman preacher. That's not looking good. A lot of people will say this, "You have to understand ..." Go to Acts 19. A lot of people say this, "Although Bible College is not mentioned and although there's no teaching on this in the New Testament, if you go to the Old Testament you'll find the pattern for Bible College, back in the Old Testament" You say, "Where?" They'll say, "Elisha had the School of the prophets. Elisha had the School of the Prophets."
I remember, I heard that my whole life about the school of the prophets, one day decided to look it up, it wasn't there. I just got a concordance and just looked up school, nothing. No School of the prophets, but if you just keep repeating it, you just, school of the prophets, school of the prophets, pretty soon people just start thinking it's there. "Oh yeah, the school of the prophets, of course." But it isn't really even there. It doesn't even exist. Right here in Acts 19, we find the only mention of school in the Bible. One time. It says in verse 8: And he went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God, but when divers were hardened and believe not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.
Here we see that the only mention of school is a place where the apostle Paul was going and disputing with unsaved people, just like he went to the synagogue, which is where the Jews would resort and the Jews were not saved. The Jews are still on the old covenant, as misinterpreted by the Pharisees and Sadducees and Scribes. That's the program they're on. The purpose of the apostles in going into the synagogue, was to get people saved. They're going into unsaved people and they just get up and preach to them, try to get him to saved, try to tell them the truth. That wasn't their church service, that was their evangelism, going out and getting people saved on the Sabbath days. They go into the synagogue and try to preach to Jews and get them saved.
Here we see them doing that and then we also see them going to this school of Tyrannus and disputing with people that were hardened, people that didn't want to hear God, people that are not saved. They're trying to to dispute with them. I've gone into a school and I've gone to Tyrannus' community college and disputed a few times. There's a community college three miles from here, South Mountain community college and I go there multiple times per semester. There is a teacher there that brings me in and allows me to say whatever I want, no holds barred, otherwise I wouldn't even do it. If there was any censorship, I wouldn't do it, but he says, "Preach whatever you want, say whatever you want." I go in there and preach the Bible and try to get people saved.
One person when I was there said, "Pastor Anderson, you're a hypocrite because you don't believe in college, you don't believe in public schools, you don't believe in Bible college, you don't believe in going to a public school yet you're in here preaching the Bible to us. You're a hypocrite." I said, "No." Because I said, "I'm fine when it's me walking in here and preaching to you. I'm not going to sit and attend classes here. I don't want to hear all the false things that are being taught at the public school system, but if the public school system invites me in to come in and preach the Word of God, that's not hypocrisy. I don't approve of this class that we're in." The class is called World Religions, they're learning about all religion. I don't approve of that.
One of the classes that I taught at was religion and SEX and they say, "Come in and speak in this class." I said, okay. I got up and preached against fornication, preached against adultery, preached against divorce, I got to preach the Bible but I said, "I only approve of this class when I'm teaching it. Because I'm preaching the Bible, but I'm not going to start a school, I'm not going to start a college, it's not Biblical." Go in to Tyrannus' school in and preach the Bible." I'll go into a Jewish synagogue and preach Bible. I'll go into a Mormon church and preach it, whatever. If I'm preaching if I'm preaching a lot, let's do it.
Here we see that this is the only mention of school. They're not saved, it's not a Biblical pattern here of something we were following. Therefore, just the fact that it's not taught or mentioned should tell us that there's a problem. When we see the church mentioned hundreds of times, we see the church being a place that sends people out into the ministry, that lays hands on people and ordains them for the ministry, where people are chosen and set apart, where people are trained, where people are equipped, where people are in the Bible, where people get teaching and preaching of God's work, but we don't see the college, yet we're supposed to believe it's God's program, it's God's plan. I don't buy it.
Many will say this, "Pastor Anderson, college is church." Is what they'll say. They'll say that you got to understand, Bible College is a ministry of the local church so therefore, when you're trained by bible college, you're being trained by the local church. That's what they'll say. Here's the problem with that, do you pay money to go to church? But you pay money to go to bible college. Think about that. If Bible college is church, then that means you've turned the house of God into a house of merchandise, because now you're selling. You're buying and selling, you're selling books, you're selling everything, you're selling food, you're selling all the different things that they sell, you're selling the classes, you're paying for tuition.
Anything that is bought or sold in the house of God is unscriptural, period. See all those DVDs and CDs and Bibles back there, they're all free and we would never sell anything for any price because Jesus cast out those who bought and sold and said, "Make not my father's house the house merchandise." What were they buying and selling? Doves. Are doves bad? In fact, doves were very spiritual things because those doves were used for the sacrifice and the Bible even teaches in the Old Testament that it was perfectly right for people to bring money instead of bringing an animal from the flock, If they were too far away to bring money and buy the sacrifices when they got there. That was taught in the Old Testament, so, why did Jesus get angry? Because they were doing it in the house of God. Nothing wrong with selling doves. Nothing wrong with selling cattle. Nothing wrong with changing money from euro's into dollars into pesos, but when you're doing it in God's house that is a problem and that's why nothing shall ever be bought or sold in this church ever, nothing.
Well what about that ... No. Well, but surely ... No. It'll never be bought or sold. Nothing. Tell me what we've bought or sold in the last eight years. Nothing. Because this is not a house of merchandise, it's a house of prayer, it's a house of preaching it's not a house of merchandise, so this whole thing of, "Well ..." It's church but you're paid to go there but you're not assembled with the whole congregation, but you're doing it sometimes even in a completely different place, a completely different facility and basically it's patterned after a worldly system.
Go to Matthew 23, Matthew 23. We see first of all that Bible college has replaced the local church as being a place of doctrine, instead of teaching that you can learn all the Bible you need, you can learn the ministry, you can learn soul winning, you can learn preaching, you can learn song leading in a local church now becomes you have to go somewhere and pay a bunch of money to learn that. Number two, it's just frankly not Biblical. The only mentions of college in school are negative mentions. A woman preacher. Tyrannus is disputing with the Word of God. Then we see that it's complete ... Number three is that it's completely worldly. It's completely patterned after the world's institutions.
I'll prove you, look at Matthew 23 : 8 it says, But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. There are three titles according to Matthew 23 that are off limits to a man of God, that are off limits to preachers because he's speaking on to his disciples, who are preachers who are men of God, Who are the apostles of the Lamb. He tells them, "Don't be called Rabbi. Don't become father and don't be called Master." Here's what's interesting, Rabbi is Hebrew for master. What he's telling them is don't be called by the Hebrew word for master and don't be called by the Greek word for Master, in our case English word for master because we speak English. Of course the New Testament was written in Greek.
What that tells me is that he's doubly telling us not to be called Master as he's telling us not to be called. If we see a Catholic priest calling himself father, we say that's wrong, that's blasphemous. He should not call himself father, the Pope should not call himself father, priests should not call themselves father. Wait a minute, why do we use the title master and confer the title of master upon men of God who's studying Bible college. Because after you get the bachelor degree, what do you get? You are given the title of Master of theology, Master of Divinity, Master of Christian Education, Masters of the universe. Like Herman or something. The Bible said no.
"Well that's not what he meant." That's what the Catholics will tell you, It's says not to call ... "That's not what he meant." What is Master of theology? That's not what he meant. Why is this guy called Rabbi? That's okay. By the way quit listening to people called Rabbi. Because this Hebrew roots movement, is a big movement right now that teaches a lot of false doctrine that blastphemes the name of Jesus and says if you don't call him Yahshua, you're not calling him the right name. There's a lot of false doctrine. I've already preached old sermons about the false doctrine associated with the Hebrew Roots Movement or the Sacred Name movement trying to bring us back under the law, back under the Old Covenant, things that are specifically repealed in the New Testament.
You'll find these guys all the time, that are calling themselves Rabbi. That should be a red flag immediately. "You've got to listen to this teaching by Rabbi so and so." I'm just not going to listen to it. That's all I needed to hear. Done. I don't want to hear it. I will not listen to anyone who calls himself Rabbi because they're not listening to Jesus, why should I listen to them? Rabbi so-and-so. It's funny to me ... I just wanted to just go off on the Hebrew roots movement right now but another time. It's funny to me how they think that if you just say things in Hebrew, it makes them magical. Like instead of saying law, they say Torah which is the Hebrew word for law. It's the same word, but if they call it Torah, then it's like, 'wooooh'.
With Torah observing, why don't they just say law observing? Law observing Christian? Because they don't want to be seen as bringing us back under the law because there's so much Scripture telling us not to do that and so many things about that. By calling it the Torah, it becomes magical. If we say Shalom, Ma Shlom Ha, then basically we have somehow reached a higher level of spirituality. If we draw little pictograms instead of writing with English letters, somehow there's magic behind it and literally people think it's magical. Even the word magic is the appropriate word. Even they will even use the word mystical or magical sometimes about the Hebrew language, but again, we see here that it doesn't matter whether you speak in Hebrew or English, quit calling people master, because we as God's creatures and prophets, men of God are not masters. We are not to be given that title.
Why do you go to a Bible college and earn the title Master of Divinity or Master of Theology? Simple, because if you go to a secular university, they give out a master's degree and the Bible College is seeking to be compatible with the world system. This should show you where bible colleges are. There is a choice with being compatible with this book and being compatible with Harvard and Princeton and Yale and the University of Arizona and ASU and the choice is made to be compatible with the world system. Because why use that? Do you think that the Bible colleges just dreamed up that term master? They just got it from ... Associate's degree, bachelor's degree, these titles are dumb.
Bachelor? I thought a bachelor was some guy who isn't married lives an apartment by himself and eats chips off his chest. I thought that's a bachelor. I thought a bachelor is a guy who has a messy apartment. What's this bachelor? You go to school for four years. It's like you've been married for years and then you go to school and become a bachelor, did your wife leave you? This is the kind of nonsense that people will accept because they're not trying to line up with the Bible. They're trying to line up with the world. Go to 2 Corinthians 3 : 1. If Bible College was truly seeking to be a bible following institution, they'd come up with their own titles that are biblical instead of using a title that Jesus strictly prohibited. The term master.
You also see a lot of use of the term doctor but yet Biblically you don't see any of God's people or New Testament Christianity ever using the term doctor. Did you ever see Dr Barnabas, Dr Silas, Dr John, Dr Peter? Anybody see any verses like that? No, Whenever the Bible mentions doctors, it's the Pharisees. Did you hear that? Listen to this, Luke 5:17; And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by. Acts 5:34; Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, this was a pharisee term, being a doctor.
Jesus, when he was twelve years old, when he was in the temple. Remember when he was speaking with the doctors? Those are the only three mentions. It's referring to the Pharisees and that was a term that they used and something that they called themselves. It's not something that God .... Wait a minute, it's not that God doesn't give people titles because he does. Titles like bishop, titles like elder, titles like pastor, titles like deacon. These are biblical institutions. These are biblical offices, they have biblical qualification. To become a bishop, there's a qualification that you have to live up. To to become a deacon, you must live up to a biblical qualification.
It might not be 120 credit hours, 120 study hours of ... But you know what, it's a biblical qualification and it's a biblical office. It's not a man made title. Associate, bachelor, master, doctor, these are not Biblical terms. 2 Corinthians 3:1 says this; Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? 2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men. When I read this, I can't help but think of a Bible college degree. "Your letter of commendation. Your epistle of commendation to basically show that you are qualified, you have been commended, you are the master of theology, you are the Bachelor of Arts." It says in verse 5; Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves but our sufficiency is of God.
Do we as Christians derive our sufficiency in the ministry from titles given by schools and men and institutions not found in the Bible or do we derive our sufficiency from God, and is not the proof in the pudding. Paul said, "You want to see my epistle of commendation? You are my epistle because I won you to Christ, I taught you the Word of God. You are the epistles of commendation." Back in the Book of Job Eli who speaks in Job 32 and I realize that Job's friends when they speak, this is not one of the original three friends: Eliphaz, Zophar and Bildad, but after Job argues with his three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Zophar the Naamathite, Bildad the Shuhite, when he's done talking to them, another young guy pipes up named Elihu and speaks several chapters talking to Job.
Elihu says a lot of things that are false. Elihu condemns Job, Elihu says that Job is a sinful man. These are things that are clearly not true because God tells us he was a perfect and an upright man that feared God and shunned evil and that he was being tested not because he had done anything wrong but rather to prove to Satan that he was as righteous as God said he was. That being said, that doesn't mean that some of the things that Elihu says we're not right. Because even Job's three friends said a lot of things that were right. In fact, Eliphaz the Temanite is quoted by the apostle Paul in the book, I believe 2 Corinthians 3. It's not that everything they said was wrong, It's just that what they say cannot be thought of as authoritative, because sometimes Job's friends were right and sometimes Job's friends were wrong.
Whenever Joe was speaking in the Book of Job we know it's right, because God said what he spake was right and we know that when God is speaking in the Book of Job, of course Everything God says is right, but the friends, they they're attacking Job, they're criticizing Job, they're saying a lot of wrong things. Here's one thing that Elihu sais that I believe is right on. Because like I said, the apostle Paul quoted Eliphaz when he was right. I'm going to quote Elihu when he was right. In Job 32:21 it says; Let me not ,I pray you, accept any man's person. Neither let me give flattering titles unto man. For I know not to give flattering titles, in so doing my maker would soon take me away. There he's speaking against giving flattering titles on to men.
Is that compatible with the rest of Scripture? Absolutely, because Proverbs speaks very often, brother David Burgess preached a great sermon a few months ago about flattery and how much the Bible warns us of the flattering and the flattering titles and it was the Pharisees who love to go in the long robes. They love greetings in the marketplace and to be called Rabbi. They love the highest seat at the synagogue, is it really Biblical, is it really scriptural. Is it really the heart of a servant and of Jesus Christ who made himself of no reputation, but took upon him the form of a servant to accept titles and to put titles on the wall and say, "Excuse me, it's Dr Stephen Anderson."
I remember I won this guy to the Lord and my job as an electrician. I won this guy to the lord and I said, "Hey we're going to listen to the Bible on TV." We listened to the Bible on TV for a while because we were driving the work truck together every day. We listen to the Bible and then I said let's listen to some Bible preaching and I put on Bible preaching on the stereo, this guy's a brand new believer and in the sermon they introduced these preachers Dr so-and-so, and he said, "Stop the tape. Are the doctors?" Because when he hears doctor, he thinks a surgeon. He thinks he's a physician. "Why are these guys calling themselves doctor all the time?" I'm like, "No, I don't know why they call themselves doctor."
I'll tell you why, Pride. Pride and look, there's nothing wrong with being called a title that the Bible uses, there's nothing wrong with me being called pastor or bishop or elder. There's nothing wrong with calling somebody deacon. There's nothing wrong with calling somebody brother and you know what? You can call me Brother Anderson all day long but I don't need special titles like Rabbi, Master, Bachelor. Master or doctor, these are not Biblical terms. Why don't we speak in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth and not the words that man's wisdom teacheth? Why do we have these flattering titles? "See, they don't call themselves doctor, other people are calling them that." It's a flattering title, it's just a way to ...
I know a guy who has a doctorate and he never even goes by it. He says he doesn't like it, he doesn't feel comfortable, he doesn't like to be elevated and so nobody knows that he has it. He doesn't talk about it and he just doesn't even use that title because he just said, "I just don't feel right about it." He's not even saved. He's not a saved guy and is more humble than some people that want to have all these flattering titles and so forth that are not really Biblical titles. I'm all for giving honor to whom honor's due. I'm all for treating people with respect but let's do it in a biblical way. I'm all for calling somebody a bishop or a pastor or deacon but calling somebody doctor, that's what the pharisees do. Calling somebody master? That something Jesus told us not to do. Calling somebody rabbi and father, that's blasphemy.
We need not get caught up in this type of putting of a man on that kind of a pedestal. I'm all for children referring to adults by their last name, I'm all for being formal with people that you don't know and and I'm all for people calling my wife, Mrs. Anderson or calling me Brother Anderson. I'm not saying that we should all become super casual and super friendly, but at the same time though, giving people lofty titles that are not Biblical is something that I think we should not do to pastors and men of God and to give them flattering titles that are not Biblical. That's what I believe. Another reason that I don't believe the Bible College is scriptural, Besides all of those things is, turn if you would to Ephesians 5, Ephesians 5.
You say, "Why do you preach about this? Why do you make a big deal about this? Why not just go with the flow? Why are you causing division? why are you causing trouble?" I'm not trying to cause trouble. If they have the right to push their view that everybody needs to go to bible college and to push their view that says that you're not a legitimate pastor unless you have a Bible college degree, then I have the right to push my view and my view's biblical. The positions that I hold are biblical, the positions that I confer upon others are biblical, the positions that I respect are biblical, not man-made, worldly institutions
Look at Ephesians 5. This is a key point about what the problem of Bible college is. Says in Ephesians 5:24; Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, So let the wives be to their own husbands in everything, and of course this is the scripture that teaches that Christ is the head of the church. He's the savior of the body and he compares marriage under this, he compares the the husband on to Jesus Christ and he compares the wife unto the church and says that just as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. The Bible is clear, Christ is the head of the church. This is why we are not part of denomination, this is why we are independent Baptists.
There's a reason why we're independent Baptists and it's not because we just couldn't find a denomination that we liked, because if we wanted to we could find all kinds of pastors all over America that believe like us or are similar to us and we could say let's form our own denomination, Let's join up and and we'll form our own Faithful Word Baptist Association where we're all linked up. We will never do that. We will remain independent. We sent out brother David Burgess to start a church in Prescott Arizona, he is doing a great job, he's been at it for about a month now, doing a phenomenal job up there. He is independent. He does not take orders from me. He does not answer to me. He is not dependent upon me. He is doing his own thing up there. He answers to one person and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
That church is an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church and we're not just saying independent, It really is independent. My best friend Roger Himeness, who I trained and taught many things and mentored him for years, he is pastoring a church in Sacramento, California that is completely independent, does not answer to me, I don't answer to him and if you went to that church there would probably be small differences between that church and this church. That's okay because we're independent and we're not trying to control him, he's not trying to control us.
The reason that's so important is that the only way that Christ can really be the head of the church is when the church only answers to Christ. When you have a denomination, what that does is it puts another centralization of power outside of Christ and outside the local church which is a denominational headquarters that gives the marching orders to that church. This is why the Southern Baptist Convention, for example. You can sit there and say, "Well, I think it's fine to be a Southern Baptist." When you're a Southern Baptist, you are linked up, you are yoked up with a denomination that for example uses a false bible version, the Holeman Christian Standard Bible, puts out their false bible version, preaches a lot of false doctrine. You're yoked put up with a lot of churches that are not right by joining in with that association.
The Bible says, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them. The Bible says, Can two walk together except they be agreed? Whether it's the North American Baptist Convention, the General Association of Regular Baptists, the Southern Baptist Convention, all of these conventions and associations are all corrupt and they'll say, "We're not a denomination." 10% of the offering goes to them, they control the pastors pension in many cases,, they send the Sunday school materials it's taught every Sunday and it's a centralization of power and the devil loves it because what the devil can do then, when the power is all centralized somewhere, all you have to do is corrupt that central headquarters and it all filters down.
So many denominations are now starting to back off on the homosexuals. They're saying they can be they can be church members, they can be Sunday school teachers, they can be deacons, they can be even pastors in some really liberal denominations. A lot of times, the churches in these nominations are infuriated by that. They don't stand for it, they don't believe in it and they want to do what's right but the denomination makes these pronouncements and then they have a choice to make. "Are we going to break with the domination and do what's right or are we going to compromise and stay with the denomination?" Usually, there's a pretty big financial incentive to stay with the denomination. There is a conflict of interest there.
When you have the denominations, false doctrine can come in at the top and filter down. Corruption can just corrupt a few people, just the president of the convention, just a few people on the board of directors or whatever and then it can all filter down and instead of one church going back, hundreds of churches go back, thousands of churches go back. If Faithful Word Baptist Church goes bad, Word of Truth Baptist Church in Prescott doesn't have to go bad. Verity Baptist doesn't have to go bad. Everybody is independent and if one church goes bad, well that church goes bad.
What Bible colleges do for independent Baptists, even though they are not a denomination, they start to look like a denomination and they create denomination like ties and they centralize way too much power. They centralize the teaching. They centralize the power and they put all the power in the hands of a few people that can become corrupted and then went to Bible College gets corrupted you're corrupting hundreds of churches. Perfect example, Hyles Anderson college. Hyles Anderson college with a college where hundreds and hundreds of churches were sending their young people there. They had influence over hundreds and hundreds of churches all across America, maybe even more than a thousand.
What happened when Dr. Jack Schaap started saying the King James Bible has errors. The King James Bible is not inspired. What happened? All these churches had to choose, are we going to break from Jack Schaap or we're going to break for Hyles Anderson, are we going to send our students somewhere else or are we just going to go along with it and get along with it? A lot of them went along with Schaap and when Schaap preached that perversion, that sick perversion in his book, The Divine Intimacy, and when Schaap said the King James Bible is not the Word of God, He didn't say it's not the word of God, excuse me, he said it's filled with errors. Still God's word but it's filled with errors. He said that when it was printed, He repeated the lie, that it had like twenty thousand errors in it. Guess what, there's only 31000 verse in the Bible. Is he saying that two out of three verses are in error?
What he's referring to is that they changed the spelling 20000 times and that's an error because they spell music wrong with a K or something, it is just this nonsense, this garbage and he held this thing called the King James Summit because he was coming under so much fire and at this King James Summit, he taught pastors how to lie. He got up and he said this, "You can tell your people that the King James Bible is perfect because perfect doesn't mean without error. Perfect just means complete, kind of like job was perfect, even though he was sinless." He taught them how to play a semantic game and to say, "You can still say it's perfect but we know that it's not really perfect, perfect."
There are churches around here that just worship Hyles Anderson and they're just they are willing to drink the Schaap Kool-Aid and all over America, there are all these churches that just would not ... I remember, I had a friend in another part of the country, he went soul winning with this pastor and he said to the pastor, he said, "What would you say about a pastor who said this ...?" And he gave an exact quote from Jack Schaap. "What would you say about a pastors who says ...?" "That guy is not saved, he's a heretic, that's wicked." He says, "Okay. That was Jack Schaap." "Whoa, Wait a minute, I would have to hear that in context." What I'm saying is ...
You say, "Why? Why defend him? Why do that?" Because they send all their students there, because their advertising is tied in with them, because their staff is all from there and they were to break with Hyles Anderson, it would be like setting off a nuclear bomb in their church, because they would just, because they're so tied in, they're so meshed in with a foreign church, in a distant state that they can't break from it without causing a cataclysm in their church. It's not a denomination per se, but it's kind of becoming like one in many cases where you have these fundamental popes across America and these fundamental popes whether it be Jack Schaap, Jack Triber, they're all named Jack, Paul's Chapel.
These Popes, these fundamental popes become sort of a denominational headquarters and you can kind of tell where people line up by, "Where you send your kids to school? What it was bible college?" It becomes an association and it becomes almost similar to a denomination, where you're tied into that crowd and you better play ball and you better go along to get along and so forth. Therefore, when Jack Schaap preached all this crazy stuff and all this heretical stuff, Instead of just one church going down the drain, he took hundreds of churches down the wrong path, but if we were independent, that wouldn't happen. One goofball gets up and preaches all this crazy stuff, he's not going to sit there and take everybody else with it.
These bible colleges, the reason they have so much power, and the reason why they create these denomination like ties is because really they encourage and strongly push that every young person go there. Here's what happens, because of Bible colleges, local churches are completely devoid of young singles. I remember when I was 18 years old, I went to an Independent Baptist Church and I when I was a teenager, I was in the youth group and so I had all kinds of teenage friends and I'd go on youth activities and I'd have teenage friends to hang around with and they had a rule at this church. They said, "When you graduate from high school, you're out of the youth group." You're out.
I didn't tell them I graduated because I didn't want to be out of the youth group so I stayed in the youth group because I graduated when I was 17 so I stayed in the youth group, didn't say anything about graduating, just didn't. I didn't lie about it, I just didn't say anything. Kept showing up but then pretty soon they figured it out like, "You've been 18 for a long time." I was like, "Okay, I graduated a year ago." They said, "Sorry, we can't let you come to youth group because if we did it for yo we'd have to do it for everybody, so you're out of the youth group now." Guess what? There were teenagers in the youth group and then there was me 18. The next person and this is in a church with like almost 200 people in it. 150, 200 people. The next person of my age was a 30 year old man who was married with two kids and I'm sure I had a lot in common with him.
I'm an 18 year old single, teenager and the next guy up is 30 years old married with two kids because this is what would happen, the students turn 18 and they do one of two things; They go to the world, quit going to church or go to bible college. All the boys, all the girls, they're all going to Bible college. I have to sit here and be like, "I'm I going to just have a worldly social life? I'm I just going to socialize with unsaved people and worldly people or am I just going to go to bible college?" I almost did, I almost just bit the bullet and went to Bible college because it was like, "Okay, I need some Christian friends, I need some Godly young people, I want to date a Christian girl and and find someone to get married too, but they're all gone. They're all disappeared."
If you've grown up in church, if you've been an Independent Baptist, you know that what I'm saying is true. They turn 18 and they're all gone. You have to go to Bible college and Bible College becomes the meat market to go find a wife. It's the only place to find one, its the only place to find a husband, find a man, because they're all gone from the local churches. Look at the advertising from the Bible colleges. Look at the advertising. Look at the ads, it's always these beautiful young girls and a handsome young guys and that's what the advertising is geared towards folks, it's obvious. You look at the ad and you're showing all these good looking ... and the tour group, it's not just about your same voice whether you get picked for this tour group. You've got to be this real debonair guy or you gotta be this this really beautiful girl to be in the tor group because you're going around and advertising the school because it becomes a thing of ....
They even say, "You need to go to Bible college to find a husband. Go to Bible college to find a wife." It pushes young people to go to bible college. It's kind of like, "Go to bible college or have a worldly social life. Those are your two choices." A lot of people don't want to go to Bible College so they're forced to just hang around with worldly people and then they get a bunch of worldly bad influences and on and on. Therefore, the young people are also, not only do the young people have to go to Bible college or else they're left with no friends, no fellowship, no one their age that has a thing in common, but also this causes children to leave their parents home at 18 without being married, without being mature and going off somewhere else where their parents are not there to rule over them.
I don't believe in it. The Bible clearly says; Therefore shell of man leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife and they two shall be one flesh. The Bible does not say; When you turn 18, you leave father and mother and cleave unto a roommate somewhere. Today, the normal thing is that you turn 18 you're single. You turn 18 you just move out a single, but that's not what the Bible teaches. the Bible teaches that you should get married. You should leave father and mother and cleave unto your wife, cleave unto your husband. I remember when I was a teenager, I really wanted to move out right when I turned 18 and I'm sure a lot of teenagers have felt the same way. I was like, "Man, when I turn 18, I'm going to move out as soon as I turn 18. It is going to be great, I can do my own thing, I can have my apartment, I can do all stuff."
Thankfully, I started going to an Independent Fundamental Baptist church when I was 17, really got a lot of good preaching and started reading my Bible and I rethought that and I decided, I'm going to stay living at home until I get married and I just decided that that's what the Bible taught, I just decided that it just wasn't God's plan for me to go. I did leave and go to Europe for a few months and work with missionaries, but I was I was staying with pastors in their homes, I was kind of like a part of the family just for a few months I was more as a short term trip but I went home from that and I lived with my parents. My parents have rules for me and I lived with them and I stayed with them and I did not go off and live with a roommate.
I think it's especially dangerous for girls, even more than boys because an 18 year old girl has no business leaving her father and mother and going off and doing her own thing. God did not design women to just govern themselves in that way, especially not at that young age. Daughters are supposed to be under their parent's authority, and then they get married they are unto their husbands authority. I said authority. Even in the Bible, it talks about a woman's husband dying and her going back and living with her parents and living in her father's house because that father figure is an important figure in a daughter's life and then that's replaced by the husband, he becomes that authority figure. Unless you have one of these queer 50/50 marriages, but that what the Bible teaches.
The Bible says that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the church. What I'm saying is that, it's created this pattern of young people moving out and so many have been corrupted in Bible College. Girls, boys, they go out and they don't have the same level of supervision and accountability, it's just not the same. If they do if they do go to one that's run like a prison camp, even then that's not Biblical for them to be enslaved in that way. If we'd just stick with the Bible's plan, we'd have the family, we have the local church and these are God's institutions. Instead we think that we have a better idea, so we break up the family, we separate the family and then we break up the local church and send all the young people...
Here's what the Bible colleges do, all the best talent, they they keep you then they send back everybody once they've been trained and they keep all of the ... Then these Bible colleges and the churches that that host these bible colleges, just get bigger and bigger and bigger and more powerful and huge and massive and then they brag about, "We have more people in our restroom that you have in your little churches back home." Then they glory how they're running thousands. You're taking everybody from all over the nation. When I was at Hyles Anderson, because I was there for a while, when I was at Hyles Anderson, you know who brought all the visitors the church? The Bible College students. They were from other parts of the country. You know who had all the people saved? You know who had all the people baptized? The Bible College students and those people are like, "Look at all the people who are getting saved." Yeah, but those same people, guess what? Before I went to Hyles Anderson, I was doing it in my hometown and then Went to Hyles Anderson, did it there.
They didn't teach me to do it, I was already doing it. I learned in my local church, but instead, I was doing it there instead of doing it here. So what? These churches just get bigger and bigger and more powerful and they're sucking up all the young people. They're sucking up all the young men and young girls and they're putting them all in the Bible College and teaching them what they want to teach them and here's why it's corrupt. The reason it gets corrupt is that a Bible college by nature, is trying to draw students from a lot of different churches because they want to maximize enrollment. Therefore they can't take hard stands. Therefore they can't be militant, they can't take a controversy will stand and ruffle feathers.
They can be extra liberal. When I when I was at Hyles Anderson and Doctor Schaap would say something weird, he'd get a ton of Amens because whenever you preached liberal stuff, there's always somebody who wants to hear it. If that's not true, then why are these liberal Cornerstone and Lifeway church ministry fun center. Why are they so big? You can always find people that want to listen to you talk about all Bible versions are fine, you can always find people that want to hear watered down doctrine that says Pentecostals are fine. They by nature, don't want to make people mad because they're a bible college, because they've got to keep everybody happy and they want to break even. Therefore the doctrine becomes watered down.
Not only that, but the devil attacks this Bible colleges because he knows that's where all the power center lies and if he can bring them down, if you can infiltrate them, if you can get his guy in there, he can affect hundreds of churches, he can affect thousands of churches. Today, we are suffering in this country from a lack of good churches. There's no question about it. There's no question. All across America today, people are conflict contacting me and saying, "Find me a good church in my area. Help me find a good church." Always I'm trying to send them recommendations to do the best I can because I'm a strong believer in the local church not Bible College, not cemetery, not all this other stuff, local church, and so I'm always telling people don't listen to me on the internet and not go to church, get in church, get in a local church.
I'm constantly trying to find them. It gets harder and harder to find a good church. Then you send them to church and they are like, "Man this church is so liberal." I'm like, "Well, it's the best we can find that areas. Just go with it. I don't know what to tell you." There's a dearth of great churches yet there are a ton of Bible colleges, hundreds and hundreds of graduates every year but where are the fire breathing, Fundamental Baptist churches that are coming out of these Bible colleges? It's not happening. They're putting out an effeminate, lame product that's going non-denominational. That's going liberal, that's watered down, that's not even going into the pastorate, they are failing.
In my opinion, as I look across America, I feel that Bible colleges are failing to get the job done, because otherwise there will be more good churches starting up and I see that you talk to these people and it's just the same watered down doctrine, it's the same, they're all saying the same things and repeating the same things because they all went to the same place and got the same doctrine and it's wrong. It is water down, it's lame. A fire breathing church, a church that is hated of the world, did you hear me? Hated of the world. As Jesus said, "I am hated, you will be hated." A church that is hated of the world isn't going to run a Bible college because nobody wants to go there and they've got to have the enrollment, they've got to get all the people coming in, they've got to do it.
The reason I preach this because I think that we need to just get back to a more simplistic, Biblical Christianity and re-emphasize the local church. If you're a young man and you want to go into the ministry, you want to preach, you want to pastor, I will train you. Come to see me. You know what? I've done it, I started a church, I passed a church. I've done it, I can teach you, I taught Brother Dave Burgess how to do it, I'll teach you how to do it. You can be taught in the local church and learn what you need to learn right here. When you turn 18 and 19 young people, that doesn't mean that you just leave your house now and go to your bible college, go to your roommate, you stay in the church, you stay in your family and let's change the culture of our Independent Baptist church and get back to a local church, family oriented movement and not send our kids out to be ruined in these Bible colleges, to be taught stuff that we don't believe in.
Let's keep it local, let's keep it right here. If the devil attacks us and destroys us so be it, but I hope that by the time the devil destroys Faithful Word Baptist Church, I hope we've sent out so many guys to start so many churches in so many places that it won't even matter anymore. The devil won't even be able to stop us. That was the original plan of New Testament Christianity, that's the whole reason why we're independent in first place. A lot of these guys are not truly independent, they're so tied in with that Bible college, they're so locked in, that's their group and they will not break ranks. I hope that nobody is that loyal to me, I hope that if I start preaching some unbiblical doctrine, that people will separate from me and not just say, "You know I've got to stand with Steve Anderson." No, you don't. Get away from me if I'm apostlesizing, get away from anybody who preaches false doctrine. It's not Biblical let's stick with the Bible. Local Church.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer; Father, we thank you so much for your words and we thank you so much for the institution of the local church. It is such a blessed institution where we can learn Biblical doctrine, where we can fellowship with other believers of like faith and practice. Lord, I just pray that churches would once again be filled with young people. I just pray that all across America, our Baptist churches would once again be filled with 19, 20, 21, 22 year old young singles so they could marry each other and not marry unbelievers. That they could fellowship and grow with people of like faith and not be forced to go to some centralized institution to meet a spouse. Help us to be a church that changes the trend and that promotes local church, independent, Baptist Methods. In Jesus name we pray. Amen
