Faithful Word Baptist Church 2741 W Southern Ave, Suite #14
Tempe, AZ 85282 http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/
Topics
Bitter Belly Baptist
Google Reveals FWBC is Truth
Bringing Forth Much Fruit
Ultimate Independence Example
Pastor Steven L. Anderson
Titus 1:9 – “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.”
Bitter Belly Baptist
If you are someone who is not yet awake to the doctrinal lies of our time, and you encounter the preaching of Faithful Word Baptist Church for the very first time, expect your spiritual meal to taste sweet initially. Your thoughts may go in the direction of “Amen” and “this sounds interesting”.
Within a few moments, your spiritual stomach will begin to hurt when you realize the message begins to sour on other things you were previously taught. The pains get worse when your realize if you change what you believe, it may cost you something. This is because you are now experiencing preachers who do not automatically accept a feel good position because it is popular among Christians.
If you are able to put away debate and listen while comparing with your own reading, those stomach pains will eventually go away. You will go from being a gainsayer (or one in opposition), to then realizing “they are actually right”. This is a big reason so many people listen to pastor Steven L. Anderson and other like minded preachers. They can now look at the bible and think “yea, that’s what it says” and “why are other preachers teaching this”?
Both pastor Steven L Anderson, and other members of Faithful Word Baptist Church have enough wisdom and strength to put what the bible actually says over what is popular among other Christians.
The following are a few notable examples of what the church believes, and what has caused a stir among others who profess to be Christian. I recommend you visit the church website to find out more.
A FEW EXAMPLES
The Jews are no longer God’s chosen people The chosen are those who are save through Christ (including gentiles)
There is no rapture before the tribulation Rapture occurs after the tribulation but before God’s wrath
Reprobate Doctrine Some people (including those who lust after the same sex) are rejected of God, and can not be saved
You Cannot Lose Your Salvation
We have eternal life, not temporal or conditional
Children should be kept in service Not separated during the preaching
Speaking as someone who listens remotely (while my own church is in PA), I am confident that regular FWBC members are also convincing the gainsayers because they do a lot of soul winning and are well fed spiritually.
If you are someone who just wants the truth on what the bible actually says, Faithful Word Baptist Church is one of your best options get information and to be a part of something real.
Have you ever been in a church service and wondered why the pastor never talks about X, Y, or Z? Something else you will appreciate is this is a church that will leave no stone unturned. If the bible says it, they will preach about it.
Faithful Word has proven to be a true light house in the United States of America. Most importantly, they have the correct gospel of Christ which is by grace through faith alone, meaning they also believe in eternal security. In addition, they are KJV only, and are an absolute powerhouse for soul winning.
Google Reveals
FWBC is Truth
If you were to do a GOOGLE search of Faithful Word Baptist Church, or Pastor Steven L. Anderson without a certain level of understanding, you would walk away thinking the church is a satanic cult. The harshest things that you can imagine to be said about a pastor and a church will be displayed.
Believe it or not, this is a sign that you have found a good church and one who is teaching the truth. We can see this in some of Jesus’s preaching.
Luke 6:26 Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets
Luke 16:15 that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God
Matthew 10:25 If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?
Luke 6:22-23 – Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake
A pastor who is loved by the world has a heart that is not right with God one way or another. It is either in the offering plate, or they are afraid to preach what is right. As a result, they do not want to offend others with their preaching. Real men of God are more concerned about preaching what is right which in many cases are things the world does not want to hear.
Amos 5:10 They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly
As somebody who has listened to pastor Steven L Anderson’s sermons since 2006 or so, I can confidently say he is preaching the truth. My own reading confirms that, so what others say means literally nothing to me. The truth is the truth, even if it hurts. This is why it is so important to read the bible for ourselves. Otherwise GOOGLE and others will deceive you.
Bringing Forth Much Fruit
When inspecting fruit to determine whether a tree is good or not, we are focused on the quality of that fruit, and not so much the quantity. If a person can produce even just one piece of good fruit, we can conclude this individual is a good tree because a corrupt tree can not produce good fruit.
A person who gets only one person saved vs someone who has gotten hundreds of people saved are the exact quality of tree from a spiritual perspective. That is because they have the same spirit of Christ dwelling inside of them.
Luke 6:43–44 – For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit.
If we were to then examine all trees deemed as good, we can begin to determine just how good (from another context) that tree is, based on the quantity.
Matthew 13:23 – But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
When referring to quantity, I am no longer talking about corrupt or not corrupt, so the meaning of good changes. Now we are adding faithfulness to the good.
Matthew 25:23 – His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant
Understand that not everyone in Heaven will be on the same level. We will receive different levels of rewards based on our works. If all of our works are burnt up with exception to one person who was saved as a result of our efforts, we may stop short of calling that good because up there we will be meeting people like the apostle Paul, who labored more abundantly than others. The point is, when talking about quantity, Paul’s faithfulness completes the picture of just how good that tree was.
Lets now take this thought process a step further. Paul was also given an abundance of revelations which tells me God probably expected more from him. It is fine if you produce less fruit when you have less to work with.
Matthew 25:23 (from above) comes from the parable of the talents. Let’s get more context.
Matthew 25:20 – And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents,saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.
21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make
thee ruler over many things: enter thou
into the joy of thy lord.
22 He also that had received two talents
came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst
unto me two talents: behold, I have gained
two other talents beside them. 23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good
and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful
over a few things, I will make thee ruler
over many things: enter thou into the joy
Here we see God appears to be just as pleased with the thirty fold soul winner. You will say “wait, you are mixing up parables”. True, but I say this because Jesus was even pleased with the guy who produced only two talents, and although we are talking about two different parables, Jesus speaks about the one who produced less just as positively in both parables.
In the parable of the talents, the guy who produced two only had two to work with. This may also be why the thirty fold tree didn’t produce one hundred. After all, Jesus did put them in the same category. Maybe the thirtyfold was just a smaller tree.
To summarize, when I say how good the tree is, I am including faithfulness and the amount of work put in to be effective. Lets now take the tree concept away from the individual and apply it to the church.
Faithful Word Baptist Church in my view, would be closer to a hundred fold church because they labor more abundantly than most, have the truth, and are utilizing their time on methods that are effective. Most of the emphasis is put on winning people to Christ. From that stand point, I view them as one of the best trees out there.
Obviously, a smaller church would be more like a thirty fold church. Christ is going to be just as pleased with that church. That thirty fold church can also grow into a hundredfold once it matures into a larger tree.
Unfortunately, there are churches that exist with saved members in attendance, yet there is no emphasis on soul winning. They hide (or bury their talent) from others by not shining the light of the gospel, preventing others in the world from being able to see. Jesus then has to come and remove the candlestick.
This reminds me of a church I once attended. I arrived at a time when the pastor recently passed away, and the entire time I was there (of about a year), they were searching for a new pastor.
From everything I saw and heard in prior messages, the church had the correct gospel, but there was no soul winning. I began to find out the current people leading the church believed you must repent of sin to be saved. At one point I attempted to show them a sermon with their own prior pastor preaching right on salvation. My conclusion is God turned out the light in that church, so I went elsewhere.
Instead of burying the talent, Faithful Word participates in confrontational soul winning meaning they knock doors in the neighborhood and politely confront people with the gospel. FWBC has done this consistently on a regular basis since the church was founded on Christmas day in 2005. That is a lot of people who will now be in Heaven, thanks to those efforts.
Something I would personally love to do is to canvas the area of Faithful Word Baptist Church to get an idea of how many times I would get a positive answer on salvation. The reason I say that is I know when knocking doors in Pennsylvania, sometimes we will hit an area where we get a string of good responses to our questions from people that attend the same church. When that happens, we walk away thinking “Wow, that sounds like a pretty good church”.
Chances are, if you knock the home of a Faithful Word Baptist Church member, that person is not going to say they believe they can lose their salvation. Most likely you will get a confident and correct response. A tree is known by it’s fruit, and FWBC is a good tree from both a quality and quantity perspective.
The fruit of Faithful Word Baptist Church is convincing the gainsayers. Those particular gainsayers may just not want to outwardly admit it. Instead they may say things like “if they are saved, where are they all”? Inside, their heart is probably pricked because even if they have different beliefs of how a person gets to Heaven, the bottom line is these same people talk to nobody.
Ultimate Independence Example
Prior to the existence of Faithful Word Baptist Church, Steven L. Anderson was already an independent thinker which eventually led to the new and improved independent fundamental baptist movement now known as the New IFB.
Instead of just going along with what was popular in the baptist movement, pastor Anderson was reading the bible and confirming if what was being preached is accurate. This is common practice to those who identify with the New IFB.
Acts 17:11 – These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so
The New IFB would be non existent if difficult stances against popular false doctrines of our time were not taken.
Consider what it would take to stand up and preach against a popular false doctrine that even people you love and respect are teaching. In my view pastor Anderson probably felt (just about} alone at times. Although I have no doubt that he always had great people supporting him, we do not always know what even those closest to us are thinking.
As an outside observer, I personally thank God and appreciate men like pastor Roger Jimenez, pastor David Berzins, and others for being an exception by sticking with Faithful Word in their abundance of persecutions.
Over the years I have watched (from a distance), certain members of the church turn their back on pastor Anderson. Add that to all of all of the attacks coming from regular people. Although Mr. Anderson comes off as unshakable in his faith, he is still a human being and I believe that friendship provided welcomed strength during those times.
Personally, I have not been to Faithful Word as of yet, but am a member of a like minded (independent) church who is Love Assembly. The thing I love about my own church and the New IFB movement is it meant for people who are both seeking the truth, and desire to be part of something real for God.
Those that gravitate to the New IFB are the ones who read their bible enough to recognize what others have been preaching is a lie. Individuals who really are not into reading the bible and attend church for the wrong reasons will feel out of place in a New IFB church.
When those in the church are reading the bible with a proper mindset, I believe there is less debate and strife. When a topic comes up, the other person usually agrees because it lines up with what they read also.
It’s especially nice to be in an environment where everybody is on the same page regarding things like the timing of the rapture being after the tribulation, and how repenting of sin is not part of salvation. With those conversations, people are more like “obviously”. In fact, its not even a discussion because the feeling is we all just know (though possibly that is a bad assumption to make). When attending an Old IFB church on the other hand, it is very likely you will find yourself in tense conversations such as these.
As a result of pastor Anderson being an independent thinker and seeking truth from God’s word, he has gained enough confidence to convince many gainsayers. During pastor Anderson’s very first sermon (prior to starting the church), he talked about how the Christian’s authority comes from the bible.
More than likely this was at the top of his thinking when starting Faithful Word Baptist Church. I have a feeling that this mindset is at least partly why a great work is being done. To be clear the New IFB movement is not all pastor Anderson. Now there are various pastors with a similar mindset also doing great works.
Pastor Anderson’s courage to preach what he believes is right just kick started a lot of it. I would also say the same thing about pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist Church. They were always close friends and fighting persecutions together from the beginning.
Although, I do give them and others tremendous credit for that, we should recognize the real credit goes to God who is working through everybody. I say this because we should be careful of giving a human being too much praise. We are all different, with different circumstances, and at the source, it is God working through various people.
While being independent is certainly a positive, it is also good to do regular sanity checks. For example, we should have clear verses for our positions. We should also make sure we are not coming up with new major doctrines. If the doctrine is completely new, there is probably something wrong with it. This is not to say we should not come up with new spiritual applications, which is standard preaching.
Pastor Steven Anderson, does not dream up new doctrines. Things he believes are things that have been preached of old. The problem is, we have a great falling away in our time. He just has the boldness to continue preaching things that used to be widely accepted. We need more of that from both preachers and regular church members.
Look for Faithful Word Baptist Church to continue making an impact by convincing more of the gainsayers through boldness and authority in God’s word. There will always be a remnant who are drawn to truth, and a man who has the strength to stand up and say it.