Christ Un-barred - Guest speaker Pastor Rob McCoy

- All right. - What up, what up? - We had this man walking by and we're just like, hey, you wanna be on our podcast today? He was at the Taco Hub across the street. - Yeah. - Yeah, he needed some change. - We didn't have enough to get the burrito, so. (laughing) - All right, guys. - Well, it was weird though he asked me for pesos and I was like, what are we doing here? What's going on? What's happening? So we want to introduce Pastor Rob McCoy. - Yes. - Little fist bump. - Yes. - All right. - Absolutely. - And Clay. (buzzer) - Oh, well, he's a shooter. - Really, really excited to have you here. It's an honor to have you here. And it's just truly a blessing. - Also to meet your wife? - Yes. - My wife. (laughing)

- And I'm not making it up. - And you're a handsome guy too. Let's give you some credit. - Let's get your eyes checked. - Well, I have my glasses off. - Yeah, okay. (laughing) - Yeah. - Three tabs here. - Five tabs Rob. - Yeah, amen. (laughing) - Three tabs here. - He's over there somewhere. - So whether you know this or not, we met up for the first time. A few weeks ago at the Grace International Regional Conference. And you, oh no, I met you actually last year in April. - We did. - That's right, at the Woodlands, Houston. - Yeah. - And yeah, so we met up again in Orange. You did a great little sit down with me and Sharon for the prison ministry. - And you brought your entourage. You travel with a whole injury of people. - Yeah. - You're scary. (laughing)

- Bodyguards. - Yeah. - Your pieces. - And then I had asked you if you could talk with us and then you said, you know what? I'll just go up to Modesto and I thought you were joking. - I wasn't. - But here you are. - I am. - Yeah. So every time, just real quick, just to let us see another culture here. When people give a super chat, meaning they donate a dollar, a dollar, a 90 man, whatever it is to our podcast, it shows up in different colors. And it's kind of this weird thing. So I just want to expose it to it now is that when they give a super chat, they get a super cat back. - That's cool. - This is what I mean. So that person just gave a dollar 99. So here's a super cat. (gun firing) - Let's see if we can get him. - Let's see if we can get him. - Let's see if we can get him. - Yeah.

- So there's different cats we have. - What is this new car though thing that he's asking for? I want to see the new car. - What? - Who? - Whoever sent a-- - New car. - Yeah, it says I want to see that new car. - There's a peanut car. I don't know. - Oh, okay. - So yeah, man, we don't want to actually, I don't know, maybe we do on a waste time. Some people might consider this wasting time. - It's just talking. - Yeah, so we call it let's just talk 'cause we're just three guys that don't know nothing. We're not journalists. We're not anything. We're just three guys that are talking. So now we're four guys that are talking. - We're guys talking. - So just kind of giving you the format here. - I appreciate it. - All right, I'm good at that. I can talk. (laughing) - Dude, that's a bad idea, but a great idea, all at the same time. He said you should have had some pork bellies there

on the table for you. - Yeah, that's the new test. - Poor good and a bad idea. - See, he's veering us off to food already. - Yeah, yeah. - We end up somehow we could be talking politics, we could be talking to the coming of the Lord gospel, and somehow we will end up on food. - Did you know that a pig is a perfect animal? - I agree. - 'Cause if you feed a pig broccoli, turns it into bacon. (laughing) - Man, that's a great perspective, man. - Do you hear that, honey? - That's a great perspective. - Oh, man, I love it. - Hold on, hold on, okay. - I got into a health journey when I turned 40, because in my family, heart attacks are very common. So I ended up having a couple of heart attacks anyway. And so, but in the process up to the heart attack, I was learning about diets. So me, like a dummy, was trying to go vegan. And there's two things that kept me away, and that was cheese and, I mean, eggs and bacon. - Yeah. - And then I realized like, I have to get back into my manhood, and then so I went back into-- - You know how you can tell someone's a vegan? They'll tell you.

(laughing) And there was a guy similar to you, he was in his 40s, he had a heart attack, and his wife put him on a bland diet, oatmeal, no salt, and it was awful. - Yeah. - And nothing good. And the guy lived to be like 95, and he and his wife died within an hour each other, and they got to heaven. And when he got there, he slapped his wife. He said, "I could've been here 50 years earlier." (laughing) Somebody said that broccoli can be also be turned into chicharronis. Yes. There you go. That works too. Yeah. Is that Derek Garcia from New Mexico? Also, shout out to Derek Mallory. It's in here, Bread of Life. Tomás Fernando Dominguez out of San Diego, actually. Sir Torres. Tomás said he meant new cat, not new car. Blanca, Joseph Rodriguez. What's up? I didn't get to load the new cat. I made a crusader cat, and I didn't get to put him in. I told Tomás I was going to put it in and I didn't get a chance to do it. You know what, before you showed us, before we went on the air, that picture, that should be a super cat. Which one? The one you just showed about kicking someone out. Oh, yeah. That should be a surprise. It's got to be a surprise. It's super cat. So, Pastor Rob McCoy, he's known as Charlie Kirk's pastor. So, I might say America's pastor. I don't know.

I know that you were a mayor. It was a mayor. Wow. Mayor of the city of Thousand Oaks. I think it's 11th largest city in California. When were you the mayor? 2019. How was that like? That was good. I mean, I was Mayor Pro Tem, eight days before we had the borderline shooting, where gunmen went into a country western Ansel, college night, and killed 12 of our young people. And then my friend, Officer Ron Heelis, was killed by a straight bullet from a CHP officer. And then the gunmen killed himself. And then eight days later, I became mayor. Wow. And the city was encircled by fire. So, I stepped into this 50-year history of the city. It was the most awful day in the history of our city. And so, you know, baptism by fire. But, you know, it ended up becoming a powerful ministry. You know, I was a pastor of a church a little over a thousand. And then I became councilman, then was elected mayor. And then I remember that night when we were doing the vigil and everybody's coming in as their hearts are broken. I went in the pastor of a church of a thousand. I was a pastor of a city of 130,000. And, you know, that's biblical. Jeremiah 29-7 says, "Great for the peace of the city

"in which you dwell for in its peace. "You'll have peace." And when Jesus commands in, what Matthew 22, to love your neighbors yourself on these two commandments hanging along the prophets, you know, stepping into the public square and participating in the things that affect your community, your love in your neighbor. And it's not easy 'cause to get elected, half the people hate you and half the people love you, but if you don't do what they want you to do, then they hate you, too, and to make the right decision. But it was, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was hard, but it was really special. I heard a pastor years ago, when I first got saved, I heard a pastor say that he says, you know, he goes, when you're a pastor of a church, you're leading Christians. He says, "The office of president." He says, "It's a whole different thing "because you're the president of the Christian, "the atheist, the Muslim, the everybody." You know, and he goes, "That is a hard thing to do." You know, so I guess I ask you, 'cause you went in as a pastor to be mayor, right? - Yeah, well, yeah, I was-- - You were already a pastor. - I was a pastor of the church while I was a mayor. - Yeah, so was that hard to transition to, because now you're the mayor of everyone,

whether they believe in Christ or not? - No, it wasn't hard, 'cause as a public official, you know your role, and, you know, it's like Romans 13, as it says, "Got to point to all positions of authority," and then we're to submit to that authority, but it also says that they're there for our good. And so then it goes on further to speak of, like police officers, first responders, and elected officials that they're ministers of justice to execute wrath on those who would do evil. So if, I'll give you a case in point, Erica Kirk, when her husband was murdered, my friend, Charlie, she forgave the perpetrator. - Yeah, I remember that. - But then Trump comes up at the memorial service and says, "I don't forgive him, I want justice for him." Trump is a minister of justice, Romans 13, to execute wrath on those who would do evil. We're ministers of grace as a pastor. So there's two hats that I wear, but they're both ministries of the Lord, but they're, you know, I have a job to a community to uphold the law, and you swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. A lot of people don't realize that when an elected official or police officer or military person is swearing to defend the Constitution, I ask people, how many rights does a Constitution give us? None. The seven articles of the Constitution are designed

to protect the rights already given to us by God, so that those who were elected would not use SERP, our authority as the sovereign in the preamble the Constitution, we the people. So it's to protect us from politicians that would go beyond, an endorsement I go unless you understand the Constitution you're not getting my endorsement is that Constitution is designed to protect our sovereignty from from you taking more authority than has been given to you on loan and then the other thing is the moral law the decalogue the ten commandments yeah from the moral law come civil law and the sad thing is and we covered this last night one in a thousand Christians can recite the ten commandments from memory in order but that's the first five commandments is our relationship with God and then the second five is our our relationship with each other yeah we're accountable to God and and we're accountable to each other if you don't know the moral law then the civil law becomes a weapon to enslave but when the moral law is applied to civil law it becomes the wise restraints that will make us free not not in the sense that it it saves us but Galatians three says the law is a school teacher to point us to Christ until faith comes so we're establishing communities where truth can be freely spoken you know that that's one of the reasons why our founders had the freedom of speech freedom of religion freedom to peaceably assemble for right of redress or grievances against the government because a free society has the freedom of speech but during covid they censored us yeah in censorship the truth is never afraid of a lie but a lie can't survive in the presence of truth so they censor the truth in order to put forward the propaganda the lie and that's why you have to contend in a free society for speech that's why these podcasts are so critical this is the new avenue for people to to learn and to grow because um the mind is the battlefield for the human heart yeah i want i'm just real quick just to test and i i know we were talking about uh i went from being crazy to serious i'm not sure the way it works so that's how it's pretty okay all right then i get crazy again okay all right we do the weave here we do the weave it might just get wild we might be talking about buckies and then go back into about spiritual tongues you know and just don't know yeah we're all over the place but go a little trucker man what's happening going back to what you were talking about as far as with Trump's

statement after erica kirk yeah because i know in in trumps um sit down on that 60 minute i watched the the full version because there was two there was that there was the edited 24-minute but he also they also demanded because of what happened before the full release and so i watched that full release then at the very end that subject came up yeah and and they were they were pinning trouble it was it was kind of weird because they said well okay if you're standing before the creator i don't know if you guys seen this um recently yeah this was 60 minutes oh i only saw the first 30 minutes i haven't finished it so the very end this is if you stand your creator you said that you wouldn't forgive them after erica kirk forgave you said you wouldn't you were standing before you know your maker and you had to go into paradise would you forgive them to to love polosi to love them you know and everything else and i'm laughing you already know what he and you know what he he just doubled down he said i can't i know how evil they are i know how atrocious they are and it was and it was because they're asking it and and before i know you you're ready to respond set up what my what what first the first thing that went through my mind was that's the hippie liberal christianity that has been proposed for so long and that's that's what's being pushed on trump in the question of that moment and not a biblical it's not a biblical response to to get from him it's a gacha moment yeah so what do you say people have the misunderstanding of what forgiveness is forgiveness isn't forgetting we can't forget forgiveness is putting the consequences of what the perpetrator did in the hands of the lord so you can move on with your life so you don't have bitterness or revenge upon your heart and and trump's role as a minister of justice he is the commander in chief as a minister of justice to execute wrath and those who would do evil his his to uphold the law now when he says he won't forgive what he's saying is i'm not going to i'm not going to overlook the offense i have a responsibility to enforce that and and what they you know the censorship or whatever it is he's referring to now look i don't know his heart i don't know what he's referring to but i i know trump forgives and he's been forgiven um he's also the guy says i don't know if i'm going to heaven yeah and and and one of the things about that he said that yeah but but you know i also know too that that he he knows but he's also in in some respects trying to appeal to the common man that everybody has that question who who who doesn't have the assurance of salvation where am i going it's like it's the question that you know as the bible says or excuse me blaze Pascal the french philosopher said Everyone's created with a God-shaped.

whether it's heaven or hell, and why we're on this earth, we contemplate our existence. So, you know, Trump trying to speak to the common man, but he knows the way, the truth and the life. I'm pretty certain that that's the case. But with that being said, it's interesting that the press always loves to invoke scripture, or out of context, for the sake of trying to dismiss the morality of one party. And yet they never want to uphold it. Oh, case in point, Matt Gates, when he was, he was being called out for adultery. It hadn't been proven, but they were, you know, and here he is, I think they wanted him to take the position of secretary. I can't even remember what it was. Yeah, I remember a news program where the guy saying, so you're saying that this man, he would commit adultery and how can you, I said, because that's between him and his wife. We don't know that to be the case. They're gonna have to resolve that. And I said, if we're going to make a judgment on every single person that's sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, there'd be nobody in office. But it's interesting that you invoke that right now for a man that professes faith. Now, I don't know Matt Gates. And I'm not defending him. My point is they always want to invoke scripture for the sake of their own personal agenda to try to dismiss and relegate Christianity to the backroom. I think that's just typical for anybody because I know I've had many conversations with people and they like if we're simply talking about money, all of a sudden somebody will give me the scripture about the needle, the camel through a needle, right? The eye of a needle. And so the men are having a camel that's really right. And so I'm like, okay, cool. I'm glad that you know that now tell me now tell me a different scripture. It's like, I can't, you know,

and it's just like, they want to use it. They figured it out, just like how a lot of husbands when they're new to faith or they're faking the funk in the church. What happens is is they learn the scripture about that the woman must submit them. You know what I mean? And so it's always to their benefit. And so it's very unfortunate. But when I'm listening to this, I have that already set up at home for me to watch it later tonight. But the thing about it is I love that answer because that's exactly what they do. They use, they don't ever talk about Christ or scripture or anything. But if they can go ahead and switch it, especially when it comes to Trump, they're going to try to figure it out. But I've never looked at it like how you said he's a he's about justice. Minister of justice. Yeah, because biblical that that's his role. But we've always said on this podcast, as much as we all appreciate Trump and watch what he's doing and moving forward, we've never looked at Trump to teach us how to be Christian. Yeah, I didn't I didn't hire him to be pastor and chief. Yeah, he's commander and chief and I hired him to be the bodyguard of Western civilization. Yes. And so that's one of the main things we've always said on here about my deal. You know, you know, it's crazy real quick is the fact that they're there will so willing to quote scripture. And you know, in Christians, how come they don't quote the Quran to 191. Oh, slay the nonbelievers wherever you find them. How can they never quote that scripture? How come the Quran 865 is it not them nonbelievers are stupid. You know, Muslims are urged to fight them. I mean, we have a list here. How I'm just curious. I wonder why they don't you know, I mean, we'll give us some time because give us some time because Tallarico's in there nowadays. So we might be hearing stuff like that.

Real quick, Marcelo. Thank you for that super cat for that. You get the 10, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Thank you. All right. Um, man, you know, so just thinking back, you know, obviously, I don't know if you guys have questions, guys, we're reading your questions. I'm not if anybody's checking Facebook or not. But if you guys have a question for pests, let me let me if you don't mind that. Yeah, I remember when Trump was running for his first term of office. And he was he was up against Ted Cruz. And then all evangelicals wanted Ted Cruz. And they were saying, you know, I can't vote for a man has been three times married and twice divorce and and you know, pro choice, etc, etc. And then of course, Trump wins the Republican nomination. And here, I remember Governor Huckabee at the time, now he's Ambassador Huckabee introducing Trump to a room full of pastors. And you know, and he appreciated Trump because with all the Republican candidates running at the time, Trump would fly them all on his plane when they go to the debates, whether it be the Reagan library, etc. And these guys are on a tight budget and he'd take him. And he was very gracious and kind and they befriended each other. So Mike, after it's been He's introducing him now, a pastor introducing candidate Trump to a room full of pastors. And Mike was kind of stumbling through it, and I get it, 'cause it's hard. This is a guy that probably cusses like a sailor. - No filter. - Yeah, and he was pro-choice, and he, you know, so I was, Mike came out for my anniversary as a pastor, and he was speaking in an event we did.

And I said, "Mike, Samson." And he goes, "What do you mean?" I said, "Trump, Samson." I said, "Name one moral thing about Samson's life." He was in a prostitutes bed all night, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. I can't teach that in Sunday school. It's like, "Pfft, pfft, pfft." He went to go pay off a gambling debt, and the Spirit, - Try doing that one in the youth service, right? - And he went to go pay off a gambling debt, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. And he's in the hall of faith, and he goes 11. So you think, "This guy's gotta be special." So you read the very first words, out of Samson's mouth. He said, "It's basically Mom, Dad, "that Philistine woman I want to go get her." This was a guy who was raised with a Nazarite vow. You can't cut his hair. He's not allowed to touch a dead body. You can't touch alcohol. And this guy basically was homeschooled, and the first words out of his mouth, "That Philistine woman I want to go get her." I mean, this kid went off the reservation, and you're like, "Why is he in the hall of faith?" Judges 14, 4. But Samson's parents didn't realize as God was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines.

You see, Samson was willing to do what God's people weren't, and that was to confront the Philistines. And he was a man equipped for that task. There's seven areas that move culture. Arts, entertainment, media, business, politics, education, religion, and family. And you look at Trump. Yeah, he's been three times married twice to divorce. He's probably slept with every woman in New York, whatever a playboy does, okay? I get all that. Not thrilled about it. But let's look at those seven areas that move culture. Arts and entertainment. He had the number one television show in America, Media. He won the first campaign with a Twitter account. Yeah. Business, the Trump brand's world renowned. Politics, he took out what, 17 Republican candidates in the most heavily funded Democrat candidate in the history of the US. You know, religion. Okay, two Corinthians. He's got a little ways to work on that one. Family. That's a two Corinthians. Yeah, family. You know, his ex-wives always had a respect for him and they were friends, even until one of them just recently passed, and then he can't fake good kids.

Yeah. So in those areas that move society or move a culture, Trump is equipped, just like Samson was equipped to take on the Philistines. And again, I'm not hiring a pastor in chief. And what were the things that brought Samson down? Women. And his iconic hair. Sound familiar? I mean, Trump says... (laughing) But name one president who's done more for life. When name one president in our lifetime who's done more for religious freedom. And you know, he doesn't get the Christian community. He has victory that Roe v. Wade is stopped. Yeah. And now it's at the state level. He didn't stop abortion. He took it to the state level. And Christians aren't even, they're 70% turnout in this last election. And they're not even winning at the state level because Christians are all about evangelism and they're not about stepping into the ecclesia, the ecclesia, the content for the culture. They don't love their neighbor. And Trump is, the guy was facing 700 years in prison. He had multiple, you know, assassination attempts. They shot him.

And everyone who ever served with him was facing prison time. Charlie was expecting to be raided by the FBI during that the four years in the, what I call the BSD degree, the backside of the desert. They were going after everyone connected to him. And this guy has put it all on the line as wealth, everything. And all Christians can say is I can't vote for him. He's been three times married and twice divorced. Okay. And take Samson out of the hall of faith. Because that's moral pietism. That somehow you can sit back in your barca lounge and you're not going to participate in contending in the public square for your neighbor's kids who are being given hormone blockers in California. So inhumane, you won't give them to a serial rapist in prison, but you'll give them to a 15 year old without parental permission. And Christians are silent. I just, you know, everyone wants to pick on the guy. I'm not the defender of him. All I'm saying is he's doing a lot more than all these folks that are silent. And by the way, and I said this last night, when, when officiating a wedding, couple being married, speak now or forever hold your peace. Your silence is consent and the reverse is true. Silence in the face of this mess that your, your, your neighbor's kids are dealing with in California, you're consenting with it. And pastor or Christian

out there saying, Oh, I don't do politics. I just preach the gospel. That's a first century heresy. That's Gnosticism that you what you're saying is, I don't love my neighbor. Let's just be real. You're not contending because you're lazy and you don't know the issues. One of the reasons why I liked this podcast and when you told me about it, I checked in on it. Yeah, you have fun, but you take on issues that the pulpit does it. And that's solid. And Christians need to do that. We, we need to study to show ourselves approved. Workman need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And then as it says, I think in Philippians, whatever's pure, whatever's true, whatever's noble, yeah, meditate on these things. Do your job. They're just some great super cat. Oh, yeah, oh, come on, get my cat brothers and sisters. Today is the day's and survey of salvation. That's a George would feel cat real quick. Um, something that she said yesterday, I wanted to just kind of see if you could expand a little bit more about it. Um, well, you weren't paying attention. You mentioned how much you said, he mentioned the percentage of LGBTQ that votes. He mentioned the percentage of the Muslim percentage that votes. So my question is this is that it seems like as Christians, should we be trying to convince outside the outside people to vote or the people in the church to vote? That's a great question. So the statistics are pretty simple and I'm just going to leave it kind of open ended. This is very, this, this one, and it, and it doesn't matter which study you look at. Yeah. Over 90% of the Muslim community is registered and there's over 90% voter turnout. Wow. LGBTQ that the alphabet community over 90% registration over 90% voter turnout. Evangelical Christians, largest, largest voting block in the US 60 to 80 million self professing evangelical Christians constitutes 30% of the electorate and 70% of the Republican party, 60 to 80 million of us. Only half of them are registered to vote. And of the half that are registered to vote, only half of those vote in this last election, 17% turnout. And now you've got social midterms or presidential. This, this midterm was 17%. Presidential is on a, on a good day, 25%. It's been as low as 11%. I never heard that. Oh, it's pathetic. Instead of being mad at the world, we should be mad at the church. Oh, and you, you sit back and you complain, but you're responsible. You're silent in a constitutional republic where you have the freedom of speech where you have an obligation. The apostle Paul knew his Roman citizenship better than we know ours. It's the freest form of government ever designed in the history of the world where you're the

first 16 words of the first amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. You have freedom and you don't exercise it and you remain silent while your neighbors kids are being mutilated and you call it health care and you say it's loving to lie to them to tell them they can become the opposite sex while you give them a double massectomy at 15 and Christians are silent. Passers won't even pick it up in the pulpit. I don't do politics. I just preach the gospel. You're not morally superior. You're lazy and you're a Gnostic Gnosticism, first century heresy. So pastor, who gets the more rebuke the congregation or the pastor? Well, I'm going to say both because if you're attending a church that doesn't take on these issues, well, you're feeding the monster and pastor, he who knows the good to do and does not do it to him it is sin. So we're all accountable before God. Yeah. So do your job. Yeah. Do you think because of the moral decline and many church leadership that the pulpit has lost its influence? Well, okay. Here's it. You could be breathless. Well, I just had to switch gears a little bit because it's a different angle, but I would say this. And I covered this last night. One in a thousand Christians can recite the Ten Commandments from memory and an order. Now, the Ten Commandments is the foundation of Western civilization. We covered, we covered historically the University of Houston did a study of our founding fathers and went through this was before chat GPT, before Grock. And, and, and they did a study of the number one sources that our founders quoted and had to be in quotations, Marx, not in the vernacular of the language. Yeah. And, and the number one source our founders quoted. the Bible. Now, the number one book of the Bible they quoted was Deuteronomy, because they looked in Deuteronomy for the Constitution Republic, and the model they used was the Children of Israel and the Wilderness. You had three to five million people enslaved in Egypt crying out to God for delivery. He sends an 80-year-old man by the name of Moses. Moses confronts Pharaoh and does what God tells him to do. He says, "Let my people go." Pharaoh, who's a tyrant, says, "Who's God that I should obey him, double the brick output, reduce the materials they want to kill Moses, because people don't want freedom,

they don't want liberty, they just want to be taken care of, and they don't want to be slaves, but they don't want to have to work hard to maintain the freedom that they've been given." Yet God is the majority, so Moses is on his side. The 10 plagues devastates all the gods, small G in Egypt, with the 10 plagues. This one is the Passover, the Pesach, and Pharaoh Relents releases the Israelites. They leave with the wealth of the Egyptians. Pharaoh realizes he's losing a slave economy and sends the entirety of the Egyptian army after the Israelites. You have mountain ranges on either side, the Egyptian army bearing down on the Israelites and the Red Sea in front. People start to complain again. Moses prays God parts the Red Sea, complete clarity for the Israelites to pass through, to the abstract darkness for the Egyptian army and their drowned. God provides manna in the wilderness, the desert, which is a food that knows the day of the week. They're closed on wire for 40 years, for 40 years they're shused on wire for 40 years. God is a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. I mean, they whine about meat, God blows quail off course. Water comes out of rocks in the middle of the desert, but the greatest miracle of all, and this is so critical for Christians to understand this, and this is why our founders looked at the children of Israel in the wilderness for the foundation of this nation. Never before in the history world, 6,000 years recorded history, never before as a freer nation been designed. The greatest miracle of all is Moses goes up on Mount Sinai, and God gives him a downloaded moral app, the Decalogue. One God. You guys know the next one? Yeah. That's not a bow.

No idols? Yeah. Don't take the name of the Lord you got in vain. Oh, I love the song of the Sabbath, come on pastors. Honor your mother and father. Okay. Not murder. That's not a commit murder. Oh, oh wait, that's not, that's not a committed don't treat. There's two and a marriage, not five, yeah, eight. If you steal, we cut off your thumbs. I shall not steal. This is five, not four. This is four, not five. Don't lie. Don't bear false witness. And then 10 is don't covet. Don't covet. He brings that moral law down from the mountain places it in the center of the community instructs the children. Now here's the greatest miracle. Three to five million people live together for 40 years without a police force or a standing army, because the first five commandments are governed by God and the second five they're accountable to each other. That's good. When you're governed by God, you need limited government. And when the moral laws apply to civil law, it becomes a wise restraint to make men free. That's why Galatians three says the law is a school teacher guardian to point us to Christ until faith comes. And so this, this, this idea of, of instructing and understanding that we, we have a moral

foundation, but we don't disciple anymore. We just, we just evangelize. I like when you said that yesterday, because when, when people evangelize, there's always, of course, we need to reach people for Jesus. Of course it needs to be done. Of course, a great commission, but the great commission actually says to make disciples. Yeah, it says, yeah, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on the earth. Go therefore, make disciples, all nations, how do you turn into the father, the son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you and lo I'm with you always even to the end of the age. Don't you think Christian that you should memorize the decalogue and teach your children? It used to be on the edifices of our buildings and on our legal buildings. And yet we have walked away from discipleship. Christianity is nothing more than do you believe in the death burial and resurrection of Christ? If you believe in your heart, confess to your tongue, Jesus, Lord, you will be saving the Lord. Father, God bless you. I see your hand and you're done and you're, you're an evangelist and a spiritual gigolo and you go into town, you birth all these babies and nobody raises them. Exactly. And I've said that. I've said that before. You're right. Because when, at what point did it change into evangelism means going out and giving out oatmeal on a cold day? This is a good one. So there's been 10, 10 great revivals in American history, first great awakening, second great A revival is where many people come to Christ. A profession of faith in Christ.

An awakening is where those new converts change the culture. And they're awakened. But here's the difference. Guys like George Whitfield who who preached to 80% of the 13 colonies in person. They heard him in person. His voice would carry to 30,000 people without amplification. Yeah, wow. He was good friends with Benjamin Franklin because he made him a lot of money. Benjamin Franklin reprinted his sermons, published them in pamphlet form. And they were sold up and down the eastern seaboard of the 13 colonies. These weren't sermons on evangelism. They would take a news aggregate like Breitbart or any one of these aggregate of news stories with all the issues that their community was dealing with in the colonies. And they would teach let's say there was an earthquake in the colonies. They would do sermons on everything the Bible has to say about earthquakes on tariffs on immigration on. Whatever. And so they were all discipled with a Christian worldview on every topic. And, and, and this is what transformed the culture. The topics were relevant to what was happening. They taught on civil government, even the Geneva Bible in, in the margins were all footnotes on civil government. And this is, this is how we came up with a constitutional republic and they knew where to go in Deuteronomy. And that's why they quoted it. They had an understanding of the whole council of God's word in 70. And in 1870, it became all about evangelism because it's easy. It was Finney and deal, Moody, and you just got people to raise your hand and you were done. You go, Hey, 500 people got saved today. Oh, praise the Lord. Well, that's great that there was a decision point. Nobody disciples, but no disciple. And so there's no cultural change case in point.

Remember the Jesus revolution? Yeah. That's where Calvary chapels came out of it. Yeah. Part of Greg to right in the red glory. So that was 1968. Calvary Chapel started. So in the late sixties, when Calvary Chapel started with the Jesus movement, it coincided with the sexual revolution. So the Jesus revolution, the sexual revolution hippies, hippies, but it was about evangelism. And we didn't disciple. If we did disciple, we discipled on how to share your faith with evangelism instead of what the Bible has to say. You know, about homosexuality or abortion or transgenderism. And so here we are today. 81% of Christian women who've had an abortion did so after they became a Christian. There's no cultural change. The church is the same as the world until we start discipling. Yeah. Look, I'm glad that you do the work of an evangelist. God said, make disciples. Yeah. Share your faith. But know the whole council of God and how to create a society that honors God where there's freedom of speech, freedom of religion. That's why Sharia law is not compatible in a constitutional republic because it demands adherence and you must submit to Sharia law. Islam is not a religion. It is a political structure. Disguises a religion and secular progressivism is a religion. Disguises a political structure. The red green axis is secular progressives come in and destroy the foundation of Western civilization. And then Islam comes in and consumes it like a cancer. You said something yesterday. You said something about something about assimilation and invasion.

What is it you said? Yeah, so oftentimes, especially in the press, they're going to throw out things like, you know, when you were a stranger, I fit. Yeah, that's right. And that's immigration. No, no, no, no, no. Look at the three words in Hebrew, all pertaining to immigration. And every single one of them is assimilation, meaning you have to assimilate into the culture of the Israelites, of the Hebrew community. You have to assimilate, live by their laws, understand what God is commanding. You can be a sojourner, but you still have to abide by the laws. Assimilation is exactly what the Bible teaches on immigration. Remember reading Old Testament where the women had to cut their hair, get rid of their clothes to assimilate into the nation. But immigration without assimilation is invasion. That's good. Immigration without assimilation is invasion. Now, I want to go. I want to go back to what you were touching on. I was listening. I don't know if you ever listened to Patrick, but David PVD, who Patrick, David, a little bit. Well, he did. He did one with Lee Strobel. Okay. And so and he was going through and at the very end, they were talking about the commission. And so I was listening to this yesterday and it reminded me because of what comes up with how many years or church. Oh, George Barnas. Yeah. So does Nancy. I love this stuff. I've followed this stuff for years, decades. And I was, and so I went back. And so his research was talking about the Great Commission. And he said 51% never heard of the term the Great Commission. This is talking about Christians and that research. Yeah. 25%. They heard the term but couldn't recall its meaning. But all of them probably can recite the sinner's prayer, which doesn't exist in the scriptures. Yeah. No, exactly. And it just reminded me of that. 17% heard they heard the term knew it. They knew what it meant. I doubt that 6% says one,

sure whether they had heard heard the term. And it goes back to what you were saying as far as the the discipleship side that I think as a church, you know, I remember when Gavin News, we talked about this here, when Gavin Newsome, that's not what we call him. Which one? Calling with Trump calls him. News come. Yeah, he's a strong bag. Okay. Anyways. And me and my brother were on the phone. We, you know, and when he had said no worship in California. And I remember we were talking and you were, you were in a different building at the time. And, you know, we, we, we, we were just kind of having that conversation. One of the things that came to my mind, and I, I told my brother, I said, you know, I'm glad. I'm glad I'm glad of that. I said, because now pastors are not going to be able to hide behind the entertainment. Now, you're going to have to say something. And for the first time in America, now preachers are going to have to have something to say. And I think since the pandemic, we've been able to see that. Now, you have a church that's drawing a line. And you have to keep, you have kingdom builders that are drawing a line. And I think, I think more and more of that is coming. I think this is when we had started this podcast through that going up to Trump's second election. Maybe, well, that's when we started about three months prior, three, four months, and we realized our own community, the Hispanic community here locally, Christians, how many of them do not vote. And it stirred something for us, because we were having conversations and realized we're building their politics on soundbites. Yeah. And there was no discipleship, but we didn't want to take the time of just every Sunday preaching on politics. But we wanted to integrate it. And so that was the mindset. Politics is the highest form of community. It combines morality with sociability. Christians think that politics is Pauli, meaning many in ticks, meaning blood sucking parasites. It's just, it's not the case. Well, man, politics in its original. Yeah, it comes from the word, it comes from the word polis, which is the affairs or concerns of the city. Jeremiah 29 seven says, pray for the peace of the city in which you dwell for in its peace, you'll have peace. And when Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees in Matthew 22, but by the Pharisee, he said, what's the greatest commandment, Rabbi? And he said to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is like it, love your neighbors yourself on these two commandments, hang the law on the prophets. And I say this to people, do you love your neighbors yourself? Because if you do, you're not going to let them be mutilated. Yeah. You're not going to have the highest abortion

rate of any state in the union that we do in California, in California, abortion was legal long before 73. And, and we don't just rip the baby apart in the womb of its mother and flush its parts into the sewer system of the state. We harvest the organs on the downbeat of the heart. We make Nazi Germany look like Girl Scouts. But pastors say, I don't do politics. I just preach the gospel as though you're morally superior. You're just lazy. And they go, well, you know, politics is dirty. So is your life. And so is the church. You're trying to improve both of those. Why? Why? Why the excuses, pastor? Well, I'm tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. Unless Jesus is running for office, you're always voting for the lesser two evils. What is your point? That there's a, are they scared? Are they scared? Or are they so what I call the, uh, soul spirit where they want to be more impressed from the people than they do from God himself? So fear of man is a snare, the Bible says. Okay. And we're going to go back to COVID. Had they told us that COVID would only affect us from the ground to four feet, they could have had the whole country crawling. Okay. Yeah. And I used to ask this question and I stopped doing it. And so did Charlie before the Lord took him home. And it was, because you believed in its efficacy and how many of you took it because you were afraid of losing your job or not getting to see your grandkids or you wanted to travel if you answered the second one your fear of man was greater than your fear of god and the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom but you didn't stand in opposition because you didn't want your church shut down you didn't want to have to be fined you didn't want to have your doors closed and actually it was a lot easier to sit at home with your latte and your pajamas and and preach to a crowd that's online like this one and listen watching church online is like watching a fireplace you can hear it and you can see it but you can't feel the warmth and and that's fellowship great and you're held accountable and you hold pastors accountable they just want to collect the tithe and then they want to do more evangelism so you raise your hand then we get more giving units and it becomes a business this is discipleship and you contend in a culture for your neighbors and you're fighting you're fighting for them you care enough that you don't count your life dear to yourself I mean silence is not acceptable right now amen and you want to talk christians 17 turnout

you realize how pathetic that is that's great and you make excuses and you don't like the circumstances or the condition of the nation people people fought bled and died for you to be apathetic may I ask where did you get those numbers what numbers 17 percent christians oh it's he well first of all Megan Basham did a deep study she's a she's an investigative reporter she used to work for daily wire she's done invest she's gone deep dive on it you can get it on any of the results and the returns the republican party already did it you can talk to frank gorgi who is the faith coordinator for the RNC he his jobs in jeopardy because he's already seen the numbers so they're out there you just got to find him okay yeah so um uh i'm very blessed because i because i'm breathing but anyways it's like i go the side of the ground yeah so um i go to southern california because that's where i'm from and so my sister uh and my mom they live in chino hill so i'm over at pastor jack's church hope of Protestant whenever i'm down there that guy's awesome and um i'm sure you know him his friend okay so i mean you know you said about the tithe one of the things is is that you keep talking about evangelism and about how it's great but it's more about discipleship and then you brought up right now about the tithe and you know i i was talking to my sister one time because my sister started off at greg's church when he was in river side and then she ended up over at role's church when he opened up in diamond bar and now she's over here and i'm like man god is just blessing you with some wisdom so anyways come all the way circle back is where when i sit in pastor jack's church that man is not afraid to say whatever he feels like saying i've literally heard him say let me repeat what offended so many people last week so hopefully it offends you this week and then you leave also and we need the parking spot and then he continued speaking when trump he brought hilton we were there one time when steve hilton ended up showing up he is so open and the other thing that caught my eye was um i asked my sister when does he ever talk about i money yeah never and i saw an interview with him where he said that when they started off in his living room that his wife put a box right on their coffee table and he has never once from that time ever known what comes in and out of that church and that church he's doing five services or something like that filled up Wednesday nights remember i showed it's bigger than most cities in california and i and and that's why i ask you are they scared to do that yeah so so the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil not all but all kinds and you know i i pastored uh i covered chapel god speak for 25 years non pastor meritis

i never passed an offering back not once and i never talked on tithing unless the text talked on the tithing as i went expositionally through sixty six books of the bible first by verse chapter by chapter book by book we had an increase in giving every year people said that when we stayed open during covid and we defied the governor in the lockdown orders that our church would would implode we stayed open we faced three over three hundred thousand dollars in fines i got two contempt charges i was being threatened with jail every sunday And you know, the governor has a lot of authority and I'll respect that. Well, God appoints all positions of authority and we're to submit to that authority and I go you left something out Which makes you in violation of Romans 13? That that authority is there for our good When they cease to do good. They cease to be to be the authority It was Jonathan Mayhew who was a preacher in the eastern seaboard of the colonies that John Adams attributed with the war of independence He gave us this nation the freest nation in the six thousand years of recorded history And he said disobedience to tyrants is obedience to God And we stayed open Not only did our church not implode it exploded in attendance We baptized four times as many people in the course of a year than the attendance of the church was a year earlier And this wasn't transfer growth from other churches. This was conversion growth Mormons You know Seventh-day. Well, I wouldn't say something Mormons Atheists agnostics they they they came to Christ because we protected their businesses We contended for their art. We loved our neighbor. They saw that it came at a cost But everyone else was scared to lose their 501c3. They were scared of the government that was Violating a constitution. They don't know anything about The governor was saying that strip clubs were essential Abortion clinics were essential bars cannabis distributors were essential liquor stores were essential and The church the bride of Christ was non-essential Look, I'm not gonna argue about those others But I will say this they aren't covered by the first 16 words of the First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof and Even if you didn't know science you at least knew enough history to realize never in the history of mankind Did you do we quarantine the healthy? How stupid But we bought it because we wanted to be shut. It's easier to collect the tithe than it is to contend with the government And the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Are you running a business? Are you captain stooping of the love boat or is this a battleship? It you know blocking the the entrance into hell It's just I can't process and Charlie Kurt bless us hard. He made the worst prediction in radio history When he heard that Newsom during our holy week said that the church was non-essential and we weren't permitted to worship He said on national radio the churches in California aren't gonna take this lying down He couldn't have been more wrong. They folded like a cheap suit and A handful of us stayed open and you know what it was brutal. They keyed my car. We had windows broken. I had death threats and Pastors are the ones calling me saying I'm in violation of Romans 13. Well, they're silent in the face of this tyranny And people are being injected with this experimental mRNA that's given him strokes and blood clots and nobody's speaking We have a couple super cats come on all right Alex Oh Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, all right process life over you Right process life over you, okay, there it is Um, man, I I had a Charlie Kurt question I'm gonna buy go ahead You know, I was I was listening to Mark Driscoll and like maybe you know mark. Yeah, okay, and I I'd listen to mark probably since the early 2000s early early Mars He introduced him to me when he was still in yeah And so this Sunday I was I listened to I hadn't heard him in a while, but I heard this Sunday sir this Sunday morning sermon And I I put it on our chat I'm if you had a chance to listen. Yeah, but I watch him. Yeah often and

And he just you know, he started off. You know, he was going and he started off a sermon and he just said he said guys I was telling you this 30 years ago this was coming You know in the seabed of seattle I seen this coming And but it reminded me of a conversation shortly after the the murder of charlie curd That he had said that he had a conversation that charlie had called him And he had said hey man. I want to I want to share some Surely like Mark. Yeah. And that they had they were they were they had a relationship about being more ministry. Yeah. Right. Possibly the possibility. He didn't know it wasn't all that all the details that was there. But based on the conversation that they were having that he said, I feel like God is is is maybe making a shift. And and Mark had said, he said, I never had I never got to have that conversation. It was maybe a few days right before. And so with that being said, I've always just wondered and just kind of, what did you sense? Where the direction where where God was going with with Charlie? What did he sense? What was that? Those conversations, like Charlie had a profound love for the for the bride of Christ, the body of Christ. Matter of fact, he spoke at my retirement. I hate to call it retirement. It was me becoming Pastor Meredith. And Charlie's last directive to me was to go start turning point Israel. And I was with him four days before he's murdered in Korea. And I said, we can start this in January. He goes, yeah, we'll start in January. It's okay. And then four days later, he's murdered. But at my he was a keynote speaker in June of that year that he was murdered. And he it was kind of sad because he said, you know, I don't want this to sound gosh, hard to say it now. I wanted to sound like a eulogy as he was speaking about my life. And he explained why he called me as pastor. I just called him my friend. And Charlie ran with big dogs, Driscoll, you know, Jack Hibbs, Robert Jeffers, Alan Jackson, Steve Riggle. He knew him all, Steve's mothermen. But here's why he called me as

pastor. I didn't know who Charlie Kirk was. My son was a big fan of his I was at a council for national policy. And and he was there. And he was debating Lila Rose. And I thought I liked the huts by this kid. When we came back from the event, all my kids, I got five kids, they all said, Hey, how was the event mom and dad? And did you meet any cool people? Because at the CNP usually do. And I said, yeah, you know, the usual suspects. But hey, there was this new guy named Charlie Kirk, my youngest son at the time, a junior in high school goes, you, you saw Charlie Kirk, dad? Like, you know, who he is? God, I listened to him all the time. I didn't have a clue. I go, Oh, yeah, he was amazing. So I'm I'm speaking in a conservative radio convention in Ontario. And I'm on a panel with Jack Hibbs and Tim Thompson. And that the panel was pastors in politics. And I was the only guy on the panel who was holding office at the time. Yeah. And and Jack bless his heart kept deferring the questions to me as did Tim. And then when we were finished, I'm coming down and Charlie's the next speaker, I'm like, perfect opportunity to get a video for my son is a big fan. As I'm approaching him to ask him for a video, he just like blurts out, I didn't know a guy like you existed. Which is a weird thing to say to some day, I'm sorry, because I didn't know a guy like you just like, what do you mean? And he goes a pastor in politics. I go, I didn't know a guy like you existed. He goes, what do you mean? I said a young conservative and we've become friends over a period of time. What year was that? It would have been 2018. Okay. Wow. And no 2019. Excuse me, 2019. Right before COVID. Yeah. I was Mayor Pro Tem at the time, not mayor. It's probably 18. I'll look it up. What a time. But anyways, we end up becoming friends. And here's I ended up traveling with him during Trump's second campaign for office. Went, I think 11 states in nine days. And we had an open day and we were back in California and I was cooked. And I didn't want to add to his schedule. But I just said, look, Charlie, I don't know what you're doing Sunday, but you're welcome to have the pulpit at God speak. And I'll never forget his response. He goes, Oh, no, I don't, I've never spoken in church and

don't speak in churches. And I go, why? And he goes, I'm two political churches don't want me. I go, Charlie, I'm the mayor of the city and the pastor of the church. And that's what I said to him. And I'd use it because I'd learned it from the Hillsdale online courses. And for all the folks tuning in, if you are looking for stuff to study, do the Hillsdale online free courses. I have it. Yeah, they're telling me about it. Do it. It'll it'll be a life changer. And so I started using some of the stuff I just sent me out their CDs. They're some of their CDs that they'll send out their packages of different, you know, on the constitution, you can order them for free and American history. Yeah, give it. I think I gave a gift of $20 and they sent me over. Like a four, four pack of DVDs. I know. Well, so, so train of thought loss. Appreciate that. is the highest form of community. It combines morality with sociability goes, where'd you get that? I'm not telling you because he was a voracious reader. He's an auto die deck. And, and he'd be self taught. And if you gave him books, they would be consumed the next day. And then he would know the subject better than you did. It was irritated and he gave you stretch marks on your brain. And, and I, I just, I said, Charlie, if God didn't want us in politics, he would have invented marriage. And he laughed. But I said, Charlie, come on. And he said, okay, I'll speak on Sunday. That Sunday, I was in, in this, the wings of, of the, of the sanctuary, getting ready to go out on, on the platform. And they're showing the announcements at the church. And I, I'll go up after the announcements, introduce Charlie and he'll come out. So I'm standing next to Charlie. The announcements are running and I look over at Charlie and I, by this time I'd been with him probably 50 different occasions of him speaking in every kind of venue imaginable. And he's shaking. And I'm thinking, he needs some food. I go, Charlie, you need something to drink. You need some food. You had sugar low and he goes, no, I'm just nervous. I've never seen him nervous. This guy woke up with credible death threats every day. And he's nervous. I go, why are you nervous? He goes, I've never, man. He had such a respect for the pulpit. And he didn't want to fail the Lord. Well, he walked out that Sunday and it's not an exaggeration. He hit the ball so far out of the park. I mean, sailing. And I get a call still sailing. Oh, yeah. And,

and Monday, following that Sunday, I get a call from Jack Hibbs. Jack's so cool. And Jack invites me to do his Wednesday night service. If you get invited to speak at Calvary Coast or Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, you've arrived. And I mean, this is one of the biggest honor of it. Honors, I've ever been extended. And I'm like, I want to say yes. And what came out was you don't want me, you want Charlie Kurt. And he goes, any kind of political, I said, listen to Sunday's message. And Jack, Jack being as busy as he is, bless us already did. He called me back. He says, let's have him. And Jack gave him a platform and sent him into the stratosphere to where by the end of Charlie's life, he had spoken probably a thousand churches and it meant every pastor in the country just putting on these these pastor events. But I was the first pastor to ever give him permission to put his faith first in the body of Christ. Super good. That guy was the most misunderstood missionary in American history. You know, pastor, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I know historically there has been mayors, the individuals that were in politics that were pastors. But doing ministry almost 30 years. I don't know of anyone that I've ever met that I know in person over the new garfield, Muleinburg, the first speaker of the house. His brother was a governor. I mean, but today, that I have met person, I don't know. I've met a handful of them. Yeah. But yeah, it's because what happened, and this is what I was covering earlier, revival and awakening. We, we walked away from discipleship and and no longer, you know, no longer do we contend in the ecclesia, the public square. And this is something that Charlie is credited for, especially in my life. When, when pastors would dismiss, I don't do politics. I just preach the gospel and, and I, you know, Charlie, Charlie did a deep dive on Matthew 16, 18, when Jesus takes his disciples to the headwaters of the Jordan. And it's a resplendent area, a park like setting, and every culture that's dominated the region is set up a temple to their God or goddess in the cliffs. And the Romans were occupying the region at the time. They probably were worshipping back as the God of alcohol or Aphrodite, the goddess of sexuality. And the Romans knew how to party. It was probably drunken nudity going on. And these, these Jewish boys with their rabbi had come all the way up from the Galilee, crossing the Galilee to the headwaters. They're a long way from home. And they're, they're watching this drunken nudity in the cacophony of noise of pagan worship. Jesus turns to his disciples and says, who do men say that I am? And then some say your Jeremiah, others say you're

John the Baptist. And then Jesus says, who do you say that I am? And we know Peter, he says, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God, you're, you're the Messiah of the world. Jesus responds, blessed are you Simon bargeona for flesh and blood is not revealed as tea but my father in heaven. And upon this rock, I'll build mine. Everyone says church. It's not the word. Tyndale who wrote the first English Bible from the original languages translated the word correctly. And for that one word, the king of England had him hung and his remains burned. Jesus didn't use a religious term. He didn't say synagogueate and say temple. He said, ecclesia. And Charlie did an etymological study of that word going all the way back to Aristotle. The ecclesia was where the citizens of the Greek city state would gather to decide the welfare of their neighbors. As Christians who we love more than ourselves. It was the city hall. - City Hall. - It was the public square. Upon this rock, I will build my city hall. And the gates, which enslave, will not prevail. And that when the moral laws apply to civil laws and wise restraints that make men free, the freedom of speech, how will they know unless someone tells them you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free? We're contending for the freedom of man. Freedom's not man's idea, it's God's idea. And Charlie got it. - Yeah. - And this is what set him apart and caused him

to just go through the stratosphere. And that's why he called me his pastor. - What do you think? Well, actually, I got two super cats. - I didn't think I answered your question. I don't even remember what it was. - I don't know, but I got two super cats here. - Super cats. - Here, here. - All right, spread cats. (upbeat music) - And letters him to get it. - Cholo cat. (upbeat music) - My question was the direction of Charlie Kirk where he felt going in. - Yeah. So from that point on, he led with his faith. He led with his faith. And a matter of fact, he was getting beat up and we saw this after he had died. Zionists called him an anti-Semite. An anti-Semite's called him a Zionist. - Yeah. - He believed Ezekiel 37 that Israel would be a political nation first and a spiritual nation second. He wasn't a starry-eyed Zionist at the Likud party and Prime Minister Netanyahu could do no wrong. But he also realized that they were God's chosen people

and he would get beat up on both sides. So he pivoted at the last pastor's conference he spoke at in Teremia down there, the palisades. And he pivoted and he took on Islam. He took on Islam. He was tired of what he called lazy intellectualism that everyone plays six degrees of separation to blame a Jew for anything. And you know what? You think yourself tough. There's 15 million Jews worldwide. Oh, and they control the world. That's why Netanyahu did get reelected. Oh, okay. And they control the world. I mean, yeah, it's true. A Jew invented communism. A Jew invented Ziklon B, the gas that was responsible for six and a half million Jews being killed. Christians have invented some pretty awful things too. But six degrees of separation blame a Jew for anything. He got seven and a half million Jews in Israel, 15 million worldwide. And it's the only democracy in the 1040 window longitude and latitude where 90% of the Muslim world exists. And it's easier to pick on a Jew because they're not gonna kill you than to take on the two billion Muslims and the 52 Muslim nations that are 85% Muslim or more that have Sharia law implemented

where there is no freedom of speech. 10% of the Knesset is Muslim. Good luck having a Jew sit in any government place in one of those 52 Muslim nations. You can't even go into the Palestinian territory of your Jewish, but, you know, so Charlie Pivoted, he was contending and realized that the church has to wake up to the greatest enemy coming towards our nation. And I presented to him the American pastor's guild with a simple mission statement, discipling America's pastors to contend with the greatest enemies of the church and of the nation, which would have been secular progressivism, Islam, communism, had pastors been discipled and discipled their congregations. And we just saw this bloodbath with socialists coming into office. Any young person, 18 to 30 years of age, which was on a traditional conservative voter, had they been discipled properly, they would have realized that socialism is a violation of two of the 10 commandments. Now she'll not steal, now she'll not covet. But they haven't been discipled. They've just been evangelized. Charlie saw the need for that. - And every time I've heard you bring up the 10 commandments, every single time I tell myself, I'm going to memorize it in the right order.

'Cause I'd be on, I'm guilty of it, where we were going through just that exercise. And you've convicted me every single time and yet I haven't done it. So I'm going to work on that. I'm, that's a little hand thing, easier. - Yeah, I have a children's book for you, that a guy did the illustrations for you. Yeah, and it's Sully the Monkey, don't take any more name, Lord, you got in vain. Honor the Sabbath, honor your mother and father. Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't bear, or don't steal, don't bear false witness, and don't covet, it's not simple. - Yeah, no, because I also have a five year old. - Yeah. - And so the last time, every time, you know, either from there or the first time I was next to my wife and I went, I got it, I got it, I got to memorize that. But just sitting right here right now, for the third time, you know, it was just very convicted for me. - Three times a charm. - Exactly. And so three strikes them out. - No. - There's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. - But your grandkids and your kids will suffer. - You know, I remember that morning, I remember 9/11, what I was doing, and I remember what happened, what I was doing when Charlie Kirk was murdered.

And automatically, I knew I was going to talk about it on Sunday morning. I mean, I'm a pastor, he's Christian. He was murdered on camera, you know? So it was a automatic thing to talk about it on Sunday morning. I was so surprised. I remember going home and kind of flipping through YouTube. And pastors were not saying anything about it, nothing. I saw people walking out of churches on YouTube saying, I will never come back here again. - What were your thoughts when you saw that happening? I was surprised, I expected every pastor in America to talk about it. - I didn't. - You did? - Yeah, no. - So, because of Charlie Kirk, the largest segment in the evangelical church today is 18 to 30 year old males. - Yeah. - A missionary goes where he's not loved but needed and leaves when he's no longer needed but loved. And Charlie would go into these universities of indoctrination and he would give these young people a Christian worldview on abortion, transgenderism, gay marriage, immigration, you name it. And at the beginning of that, when Charlie started it, it'd be Charlie a handful of people and a sea of detractors. They'd throw fecal matter in urine at him. At the end of his life, it was Charlie a handful of folks

and a sea of red hats in their chin, Charlie's name. - Yeah. - He'd changed the culture. He'd given these young people a Christian worldview. He took them out of the bondage of indoctrination and now it's time to enter the Promised Land and they show up at church on Sunday, the Sunday following Charlie's murder. And not only would the pastor not invoke the topics that Charlie had discipled them on with a Christian worldview, they wouldn't even invoke Charlie's name because they're Gnostics. And the church is all about evangelism and it's the idol of evangelism that they don't want to compromise anything that would cause someone not be able to hear the gospel. And they're like, "Use car salesmen's." They don't want you to see the fine print. It's a fear of man. And so they compromised the truth to try to sell you on this. And Charlie watched all these young people come to Christ 'cause he gave them a Christian worldview which gave them a hope for their future and for the nation. And these young people are now rudderless because they're looking for someone who's gonna lead them like Charlie did. And these pastors aren't shepherds. They're hirelings who are fearful of man. And it's just, it's sad.

And now these young people have been placed in this cul-de-sac of confusion where for the first time in modern American history, as I said before, 30% of the electorate are evangelical Christians and 70% of the Republican party are evangelical Christians. And never in the history of our country, in modern history, have we ever been split over Israel or Jews? - Yeah, that's crazy. - But the enemy came after these 18 to 30 year olds by regurgitating Eastern European lies, repackaged that were, they've been around since I was a kid, repackaged and pumping it in the airways. So these kids start to believe in blood libel and blaming Jews for everything. And they've been subject to DEI and critical race theory. So they're on the bottom of the totem pole. And in my lifetime, it took three times my annual income to buy a house for their generation. And Charlie saw this. It takes seven times their annual income. They're buying pizzas on four monthly payments with predatory lending. The American dream is out of their grasp. And Charlie understood that, that if we don't fix this, they're gonna go after Mamdani and AOC and they're gonna burn it down.

El Syed. And this was the challenge and where the pastor's up for that, because it was Moses who got the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, What's the Promised Land? It's where they, it's not heaven. The Promised Land was where they could build houses on property. Plant vineyards have Bible income. Raise a family. Get married young and have kids you can't afford. And freely, and freely worship God. That's called building a culture. All they're doing is evangelizing. They're building nothing. And only a carpenter can build a barn door, but any donkey can knock it down. King James says jackass. So Charlie, by the logos, built the spoken word from chaos to order, built the largest conservative youth movement in world history, modern world history. And he built the second largest parachurch ministry in America on the spoken word. Everyone who comes after him and all these commentators and even pastors who decry him and misrepresent him. They're building nothing but their bank account. All they can do is find loose threads and unravel it by innuendo, speculation, guilt by association. And they go after contrary to the book of James, they go after his widow and his orphan kit or his fatherless kids. Yeah, somebody asked her that girl Phyllis, she says, does Pastor Robert know why Rob? Why Candace has turned weird on Charlie's wife? I want to expand it. Why has she turned weird in the first place to anybody? I'm sure you don't have an answer, but what? I've met Candace once.

I know her husband better than I know her and I don't know George all that well. I know that George's father, Sir Michael Farmer, was the head of the Jewish Christian Alliance in England. He's knighted by the Queen. I know he's pro-Israel. He believes that God's chosen people. I know that one of the nicest human-- The father or the-- The father. And I know there's tension there. I know that one of the nicest human beings I've ever met is Dennis Prager. I love that man. And he hired Candace and she said vile things. And then Dennis took time to address every single claim she made and backed it and gave it. I think it was a very lengthy letter. She never even responded to, at least not to this point that I've heard of. You think it's something deeper than financial gain from her YouTube? Something more sinister? Again, I am not into speculation. I don't know. Yeah, you don't know. But I will say this. I signed a petition. It was actually a call to repentance to both Tucker and Candace and Nick Fuentes. Repenting from propagating Jew hatred. I didn't accuse them of Jew hatred. I said they're propagating Jew hatred. And one of the three I mentioned called me and said what is this that you're telling me that I hate Jews? So I didn't say that. I said you're propagating Jew hatred. I've said that I stand in opposition to anti-Semitism.

I said, and Bill Clinton said that he didn't have sex with that woman. What you're saying doesn't match what you're doing. And I said, I said, they said, I don't sign these things because they're just gimmicks to get mailing lists and funding. But I know the guys that put this together and they footnoted and gave it evidence for every single claim they made similar to the Declaration of Independence that they listed not for light or transient causes. They listed all their grievances to the king. And I said, take a look at it. Take a look at it. And, you know, it was amicable when we hung up. Yeah. I don't. And that's one of the things they said. I don't. I didn't say you hate Jews. I said you're propagating Jew hatred. The response was, oh, that's that's semantics. I go, no, it's not. I said, I don't know your heart. I don't know if you hate Jews. But what you're doing is propagating Jew hatred. I can't. I don't know. Candice's heart. I do know this. I officiated Charlie and Erica's wedding. I witnessed their relationship. I saw the love they had for each other and the purity of their relationship. And I know that certain people weren't there or invited to that wedding for a reason. But I'll leave it at that. Well, it says a lot, actually. Before I forget, somebody's asking, did you have any of your children books with you?

Do I have what? Did you do you have any of your children's books with you? No, but, but, you know, if they want to give an address, you can get it on Amazon, but just it's cheaper if you let me. It's somebody that attends here. He's just asked, I'll bring that. He'll sell you. - I'll send you some. - What's the title of it? Just put "Sully" as you, LLY. - Is that on Amazon? - Yeah, "Sully", the Ten Commandments. - You know the title to your book? - No. - You know... - But I know the Ten Commandments. - Yeah. - Do you? - Hey, hey. - Shot's by. - Wait, that deserves a super cat. Actually, do I deserve a cat to somebody? - Oh, man. - No, you haven't given it to this one. - Okay, hold on. - So I leave the mouse? The monkey? - The monkey, yeah. - Wait. - The pirate cat. - Yeah, that's it. - Do you want to post it for everybody? - Yeah, I'm going to put it on the chat. - Yeah, I did. It's sort of scripture. - So I had thoughts the intense of the heart. - I had something here too, is that, let's see. Well, you know, do you think that now after what happened just in his last voting, what's going to happen to America if it continues this way? You know, I used to read, you know, obviously "Revelation" and I used to think it was talking about the Catholic Church when it says, "My people come out of her." I'm starting to change my mind in the last couple years because I say this is because where those seven letters were written originally in Turkey, Turkey is Islamic. Those seven churches don't exist anymore. Matter of fact, you know, sometimes we forget that the Bible is written in the Middle East and we see what's there and it just makes me think.

It's making me rethink a lot of things of how I saw the book "Revelation." I'm not going to sit here and say, "Oh, I know what the book "Revelation" means. Obviously, there's so much symbolism, so many things, but I'm going to say this is that, you know, I told you a little bit about my life. I was willing to die for the cause of the streets. I was willing and had laid my life down so many times. I had a gun to my head. I refused to budge because that's what was instilled in me. And as I come to the Lord, how could I not say, "Lord, I lay it all down for you? It is not I who live with Christ who lives in you." And my thing is this is that I often say this to my congregation. I say, "You know what? I'm going to preach the God. I'm not going to walk on eggshells on my sermons because the moment I do that is a moment to compromise and the moment it's going to be expected of me." I'm not on payroll here. We barely make our bills. But you know what? You can't fire me. So I'm going to preach the word of God the way the word of God says for me to preach. And I say this to the congregation many times. I said, "The day Christianity becomes illegal, it's not going to be those outside that are going to turn me in when I'm hiding up in the Sierra Nevada or something. It's going to be the Christians, those that are compromising the church." Not only enough, there's a question in there. But I just wanted to... You were saying what's going to happen to America? Yes. Let me address that. Winston Churchill used to say that the man was cursed to have been born in uninteresting times. And that's not true for us. We're alive for one of the most significant moments in American history. We've gone through three winter seasons of what they call the secular. It's in the fourth turning. It's a pretty cool book. I like the fourth turning is here. It's an addendum and it's pretty solid. In the winter season with the War of Independence, then we had the Civil War, then we had the Great Depression in World War II, and we're just now in the fourth winter season. And we're going to come out now. Will the spring following this winter be an Arab spring or a Christian spring?

Is dependent on the church. My great hope, and listen, eschatology is what you brought up. Yes. It's a tertiary issue as far as I'm concerned. Pre-esque etology comes with an asset in the liability. Cabaret chapels are pre-trip, pre-millennial. We believe that Chuck believed he'd see the rapture in his lifetime. We believe the next thing on God's day planner is a rapture. The asset of that is you evangelize. The last thing on God's day planner is the rapture, so the house is on fire. You've got to get the kids out. So you're evangelizing. The liability is you don't build anything lasting. There are no Supreme Court justices currently that were educated in Cabaret chapels. We don't have a higher goal of learning, and we don't seek to, as our founders did, establish this kingdom on the earth, not in perfection, but an invitation where we set up Harvard and Yale, which were schools to educate ministers and to establish a constitutional republic and the freedom of speech and designing, that's just not in our wheelhouse. is this, I don't know the day or the hour. And if God chooses to go another thousand years, that's His deal, I do know this. Not knowing the day or the hour, I do know this. He commanded us to occupy until He comes. And we've got neighbors to love and a culture to contend for so that people would know the truth and the truth would set them free. To build these bulwarks in a type of society where speech is protected, where freedom of religion is protected, Islam's not consuming Christianity. People aren't killing six and a half million Jews. You call Gaza a genocide, 1.4% of the population. Let me tell you a genocide is 60 over 60% of the Jewish population. That's genocide in World War II, six and a half million. And you know, I am optimistic because I believe we're coming out of a winter season into a

new spring. We just sent astronauts further in space than any humans ever gone. We're on the cusp of new technology that technologies neither moral nor immoral. It's a morals dependent on who's loading it. And with AI, this could this could be a brave new move. But if you want to use technology as justification for the rapture and you give up on contending for freedom in a culture, that's lazy. I know this, God loved this generation so much, and Charlie called him the lost boys of the West, 18 to 30 year olds. And now constitute the largest segment of the Christian Church in America. When he started turning point at 18 was murdered at 31, you take everything he ever posted on the internet and all the views, the cumulative number, which is massive, from 31 when he was murdered to today, which is just a little bit over a year, take that previous number and multiply it by 10. The number of people who have come to Christ listening to someone they didn't even know existed a year ago. In addition, it's estimated that anywhere between 1 billion and 1.7 billion people watched his memorial service. Had a bomb gone off at State Farm Arena in Arizona on Charlie's memorial, I think they would have to gone to the seventh in line for the presidency. I was eight seats away from Elon Musk, but the world's first trillionaire surrounded by his bodyguards, and Charlie's favorite song was playing, and 62 years in this earth, I've never sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit like I did that day, and his wife was there. And you're captivated, it's just, it's awe-inspiring, and I look over Elon Musk, and here's a man with all the money he has, couldn't buy what he was witnessing. This 31-year-old man changed the world, and he inspired this generation, inspired this generation, and here's where I'm excited about the future. This generation was given a gift from God, a modern-day martyr, who woke up every day with credible death threats, and would often say, "I'm immortal until God takes me home."

He worked every day tirelessly, changed the course of the nation, probably just in his lifetime bought us 50 more years of freedom, because Trump attributed election to him. Charlie was ready during those four years in the wilderness to be raided every night by the FBI. They wanted to put him in jail and come hunt him down. We were on the cusp of socialism, and then Charlie, in this term of office, he's ready to go through the stratosphere. At 31 years of age, he's sitting, deciding who's going to be on cabinets with the president. This man changed the culture, and listen, what? Did he know that? He took copious notes, I know that he thought about eternity, he was prepared for the future, he had a will and a testament, let me finish my thoughts before you jump in, because this is important. Yes. Sorry. So this man at 31 years of age changes the culture, and he was getting ready to be launched into the stratosphere. He was going to have a show on Fox. He was speed dialed to Trump. This guy was a beast, and he refused to have bulletproof glass. He insisted on being in the presence of these folks. The university said no. The university said we have the roofs covered. They knew that that was an issue. - Wow. - And you can come up with all your stupid scenarios. You don't care about the truth. You're just all about controversy and conspiracy. I'm not saying you guys, I'm saying what the garbage that's out there.

And his life was taken. Now let's put that in contrast. God could have stopped that bullet. You know, only in 4% of all of Trump's bloviating campaign speeches, did he ever use PowerPoint? It was always an indoor venues. He shows up at Butler, Pennsylvania. And this is a trained gunman hitting that shot is like a professional golfer sinking a three foot putt. He's a trained shooter. Trump comes out and he says that slide on immigration, I want it. And they said, Mr. President, we didn't bring the slides. It's an outdoor venue. He says, get it, I want it. Then we don't find it. So he's out there and he's speaking. He's zeroing in on his head, ready to just obliterate him on national television. CNN is prepared to cover it live, which they hadn't done for any of these. And Trump calls for the slide. They say we have it. He turns and the bullet misses him. He sees a blood and then he's down. Now, it missed him by, I mean, that was a miracle. - Yeah. - Well, I could have done that for Charlie. He didn't.

And so this is my point. God gave to 18 to 30 year olds who are facing the greatest challenge of this nation in the world right now. A living martyr who said God hasn't given you a spirit of fear, but a power love and a sound mind. Greater is he who's in you than he is in the world. You are, you are more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. Well, courage isn't the absence of fear. Courage is the presence of Christ in the midst of the fear. Moses got the children out of slavery. Joshua, just read Joshua one. He courageous, be of strong courage. I am with you. These young people needed to hear that and see a modern day person willing to not just live for his faith, but die for it as well. And Charlie used to say, what are they going to threaten me with? Heaven? Is heaven so real that you're willing to live for it? Or are you enamored with the babbles in the trinkets of this world? This generation got to see it. They're equipped. I'm excited. Five years from now, you have thousands of Charlie's about ready to launch.

All they need is their BSD degree, back side of the desert. They got to sit and table at a university and get yelled at. - Yeah. - And then start to know how to banter and they're going to slay it. 'Cause they already have the courage. - Would you say that this full circles all the way back to what you've been talking about? Discipleship. - Charlie, yeah. - He just basically, he gathered all together. So basically there was this, he moved as the split was already seen and he brought him out to the desert. Now it's up to these pastors, those pulpit features to come in and disciple these young equipped people. Would you say, is that where you're going with this? Because it really sounds like he did the groundwork for people like these two, for them to just step into the role and do what God has already called them to do. - He did. And he discipled them. He gave him a Christian worldview. The number of, you know, as I travel the country, the real world, real world doesn't live on X.

And I don't hear all the garbage you see on X. As I travel, young people come up. I'm 62 years old, I've got a face for radio. And some of you guys are going, you should just put a bag on your head, even a radio. (laughing) But I'll show up at a venue. I'll show up at a venue. I'm not Charlie Kurt. I'm not even close. I could live 10,000 lifetimes and never repay that man for all he did for me. Now, of course, my son's been attacked. I've been attacked. But worse, Eric has been attacked. Her kids have been attacked by these monsters. And yet these young people come up to me and they want a picture with me. 'Cause I was with Charlie. Do you understand what he did to their lives? - I do. - He not only taught them, he modeled it and then gave the ultimate sacrifice to prove it. And now they have a vision of an America, and that's why they're the target of all this anti-Semitism garbage because they want to split that. And we're gonna be looking for pastors who are going to bring them in and disciple them. - We obviously didn't get to stand now.

was what it was but the they can obviously speak for themselves obviously but the three of us we were like we we saw one of the greatest patriots at least in my lifetime ever did I see something along like that a martyr go the way he went and we all tip our hats and pay nothing but respect to what he did here and watching him move one of the greatest things um I'm probably the biggest sissy on the show but uh one of the the greatest things I've ever heard a man say live is I want to be remembered for my and uh and I thought that was one of the greatest because I followed Charlie I I bumped into a clip of Shapiro saying some stuff about some statistics to uh two black people onstage and then right after that a clip of Charlie came up and I was just like hey that's pretty cool I like that and another one and another one I ended up just becoming a fan and so it was like and watching him do what he did and then uh like I said is one of the greatest things I've ever seen on TV I want to be remembered for my faith so remember when I said only a carpenter can build a barn door but any jack asking knocked it down Charlie built turning point he he built the courage of a generation he built the largest parachurch ministry and these folks that have come after him they they've built nothing but their bank accounts and all they do is they find a loose thread and they unravel it by innuendo guilt by association speculation yeah the slander and and and I would just simply say Charlie was a builder they're they're just they're just deconstructing and and they're just destroyers they don't lead people to the Lord there's no testimonies from their show about people walking with Christ they they it's sad and when you see something like that you know the enemy is working overtime to silence Charlie's life going after his wife his kids and you know who's paying that middle-aged Christian women it's like a carnal Christian soap opera tellin novella and they want to be in the know and it's feeding their flesh while in tenor entire generation their hero that god gave them as a testament and a witness is is his family and everyone he's loved and everything he's built is being attacked and they're funding that attack so so this is a war right now will it be an Arab spring or a christian spring is dependent upon what the church does super good and if your pastor is a coward the number one qualification in revelation 21 is the cowardly go somewhere else right now because if you're still there you're part of the problem well i'm a spaster so you know pastor rob uh man you know i i think that um obviously you might disagree because you'd say you know i can't even step in the shoes of of charting

but i will say this is as a pastor um i'm not in a major city i don't have i don't know all these big shot pastors i don't know politicians other than a couple councilmen here in town um and the average christian is watching here they're just living their life working their job doing you know just raising their kids what do we do what do we do you know what do i do as a pastor from a pastor to a pastor what do i do to help what's coming next so evil wants to concentrate power right our founders understood that that's why they push power down to the individual we the people of united states in order to form a more perfect union so the people of the nation of the sovereign they push the power down to the individual evil wants to concentrate and dominate the masses that's why jesus said be aware of the doctrine of the Pharisees Sadducees and then a mark gate of and of Herod because the priests and the kings um controlled the masses the masses are the saddles for the elite to ride your question is as as a pastor and the church is as Reverend Dr. King said is not the slave of the state nor its master its its conscience hmm so as the shepherd you you have a community in your city and and people complain about the swamp and politicians say i'm going to d.c. to clean the swamp and sacrament What is a swamp? A swamp is where water finds the lowest source and it brings all the sediment and the garbage down. If you want to change where it ends up and the content of the water where it ends up, change it at its source. All politics is local. Power wants to even wants to concentrate. God wants it to go to the individual. So if every pastor, even small church pastors, which is 85% of the church is in America, 150 or less, it brings me to first Samuel 21, David's Mighty Men. He is 21.

The third in line is a guy by the name of Shema and the Lord told him to protect the lentil field, lentil field from the Philistines. Lentils were poor man's food. This was a worthless field and he was to stand in that field and defend it from the Philistines. He killed, I think, 800 Philistines defending this worthless field. Someone one time gave me a jar of lentils and I looked at it. They look like beans. - Yeah. - They're just, they're ugly looking. I don't even like lentils. I don't even know what to do with a lentil. But as I held that jar, I realized something. They're beans and God told Shema to protect his bean patch. So I called it bean patch politics. Instead of thinking your salvation's coming on Air Force One and have Trump do everything and making it all about partisan politics and having the church become an arm of a party, which is so stupid. Go for every nonpartisan seat that you can affect locally. You know your city council members, know your supervisors, know your county, know your city. You can make a difference. One church can make a difference.

I applied this principle and I ran for office. I ran for the state assembly. I won the primary, lost the general. And the reason why I ran for office is because an elderly man who was a dear friend, his name was Tom Honey, he's now gone to be with the Lord. He'd had a stroke and half his face was paralyzed and I went to visit him in the hospital and mumbling through his paralyzed face. He said, if God heals me, I'm going to make phone calls for you and you're going to run for office. I'm like, I ain't going to win with that, boys. And God healed him and he made 40,000 phone calls for me. And I won the primary, lost the general. He called me and I was so discouraged. He said, don't be discouraged. You learn how not to win. He said, now you're going to run for the office that your opponent vacated on the city council. I said, Tom, I don't have it in me. He goes, I'll make phone calls and Nick will walk precincts and so will Ron and I said, okay. And these guys walked tens of thousands of homes for me and he made tens of thousands of phone calls leading people to the Lord. On election night, I was losing by 178 votes. And Tom with his healed face said, Rob, you're going to win by a little over 50 votes. I said, how do you know, Tom? He said, I made phone calls.

I won by 52 votes. I won re-election by thousands. And I was the mayor of the city during one of the most critical times in the city's history. And those offices we fought for we've held to this day even in a blue wave. We made a difference in our city. And I'll conclude with this, it's a great illustration. The grandpa's walking with his grandson on the beach after a hurricane. And the storm is subsided and the seas have receded. And all these starfish during the storm, hundreds of thousands of them had washed up under the shore. And as the waves had receded, they're all dying in the sun. And there's thousands, hundreds as far as the eye can see. And the grandson is throwing one back and throwing another back. And the grandpa says, you can't make a difference. There's too many of them. He says, grandpa, I'm making a difference for this one. And I'm making a difference for this one. And the grandpa joins him in the output's exponential. - Yeah. - Take your eyes off the horizon and fix what's in front of you. Throw your starfish back. Local. - Your lentils. - Your lentil, own your bean patch. If pastors across the country simply owned their bean patch

and didn't allow the Philistines in, they couldn't stop us. - Man, I mean, I couldn't see that any better. Wow. - You patch politics. - Sheila Skaggs, you deserve a cat. Let's give you, oh, here's one. - All right. - The bling cat. (upbeat music) - Alright. After he leaves I'll make one I would just captain has a not a forehead, but a five head I couldn't help when you were just going through Charlie's history the impact and in one two questions Did Charlie realize I know we realized To your knowledge did he realize What what the Holy Spirit was stirring through him in a culture and in a society number one and number two One of the most moving moments for me just watching Was when charlie kur got the news that trump won And in that in that studio we played it here. Mm-hmm. And he just breaks Was 20 feet away from him when that happened? Oh wow and and uh He'd left everything on the field And he knew what was going to happen and when and he and everyone expected drunk to lose And charlie knew what was going to happen. He went all in which means he's going to be one of the guys going to prison. Yep and And he had he'd already surrendered it And and we all knew what would he put into it And you know a 31-year-old

And I'm 62. I don't have a will He was 31. He had a will He had copious notes all the way to 2028 The man the man knew What challenges he was up against because these were credible death threats every single day And He He'd wake up With joy my son was his his body or not his body man as chief of staff And charlie loved to laugh He found joy in every single day He loved erica. He loved his kids. He was a good dad He'd get up every morning and spend time in the war to god He would send scriptures to all of us He responded to every text in every email. I don't know where he found the time to do it I've heard that from so many people. Oh and and then After his devotion, he would spend a minimum of two-hour studying topics pertinent to 18 to 30-year-olds Because that was his mission field He would contend for them on these campuses And he was smarter than all the professors there And he knew what he was facing every time he went and it was almost as though you could sense it and Yet he did it anyways All the room Yeah, he's he's a man for the ages And listen for the generation tune and end and even for all of us who are present even older folks It's not about you anymore. It's bigger than all of us We were we were given a testimony

You say oh if I could have walked with jesus or could you just witness somebody who put it all on the line Broadcast ridiculed and mocked as a bullet took out four vertebrae And and vice president vance had to carry his casket at an angle because his head would have fallen off And he did it to set the captives free Everybody wants to claim him as their own like lincoln Quick claiming him as your own instead go out and do what he did Everybody wants to profit from it That's good Those are true words You know You know pastor rob, uh, I think I speak on behalf of us three We are um so honored And humbled That you come and and even as you're just just flippantly sharing like oh, yeah, I'm I know my drisco I know this I know that you know it it becomes even more overwhelming That you would come Just sit with us You know and that really I will never forget this day And it means a lot It truly does and just sitting with you meeting your wife Um, so the way you embrace my wife, you know, um We're willing to go to to you guys don't know he you know sharing volunteers at a pregnancy from Planned Parenthood. Or the one equivalent to Planned Parenthood. Yeah, equivalent to that. And you went just to talk with them and pray over an expansion. We're so humbled by it and just thank you. You know what, thank you. One of the hardest things is to receive compliments and Charlie was the same way. He just deflected them. And I remember Corey Tenboom. I was reading her book. She was dead before I was born, but her life was a testimony to me. And Corey used to say she struggled over compliments and she'd say she looked at each compliment as a rose and she would collect them at the end of the day. She'd give the bouquet to the Lord. You know, in all fairness, I shouldn't be here. How I ended up in Charlie's life is beyond me. And I said earlier,

it's the Forest Gumpenointing. And look, whatever you say about me, the truth of the matter is I'm looking at guys that are contending in one of the most like attack cities in California. The San Joaquin Valley has been the target of evil and what has been perpetrated on the population of the San Joaquin. And you guys look at, you know, just driving through and seeing the homeless and the drug addiction. And here you are sitting next to me. You were in federal prison. Dude, you can kill me a thousand different ways. And yet the two of us are brothers because of the miracle that I met Charlie on a fluke. And the fact that we're sitting together, I mean, we can go all day about this. But I'll tell you what I love about the table is we're gathered here and all those tuning in. We're starting to realize there's something big happening. We were born for this moment. Yeah, we all got a corner of the stretcher. Let's carry it. You know, when I was arrested, it was it was under the Rico. And remember, I told you that you had the gift of administration from the Holy Spirit, but you're just using it for you. Yeah. They said originally because Reagan had set up the federal guidelines because that way all the federal courts could give sentences that matched, you know, from all the way from the West Coast to East Coast. And it was basically as a multiplication table that this is your criminal history. This is a crime you did. This is a time you did no matter what, you could be the judge's son. That's what you had to do. So under the federal guidelines, mine was 23 to life minimum mandatory. And after court, he was there, my parents were there, my family was there, and they went up to my lawyer say, what's going to happen? And she's basically like, it's 23 to life. There's nothing I can do. And my brother was like, what I was told, what do you mean there's nothing you do? You're his lawyer. And she says, not even God can help him. And what did you say? I said, well, you remember those words when this is done. Faster. I was fighting my case in federal holding. The day I was going to get sentenced, I had already signed to 13 years. That was you'd call me the night before. Yeah. And and I'm just like, it's done. I there's nothing I can do. I already signed it. So I had another date to go to be formally sentenced. On the day I was going to get sentenced, the front page of the Sacramento Bee, I opened it because I was the one that would clean the cell and I had to clean clean the unit and I was going to take a shower because I had to go to court. I opened the front page. Federal guidelines found unconstitutional. On the day of my sentencing.

And here I am sitting in a beautiful church. I call it beautiful. It's an old building with a beautiful wife, amazing friends on this podcast. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. And I mean, I went in prison. I don't we wouldn't have known each other. But lunch today, didn't you feel like we'd known each other forever? Yeah. That's the economy of God's grace. But the minute I met you, especially in Houston, and I called it your entourage, but it was everybody. It's everybody you've discipled. Yeah. And the joy of their Christian walk contagious by your discipleship in their lives. And I just thought, all right, Lord, how do I serve them? There's no amount of good that can be accomplished if we But I'll tell you, no one here deserves a credit. That takes the foolish things of the world to confound the wisdom of the wise. Oh, yeah, I proved that that verse. Amen and we're just we're just we're just pennies looking for change. But the Lord decided, you know what the you know what the sanctified vessels were, but the holy vessels in the temple, you know what they were? They were beat up old pots and pans. Yeah, yep. Yeah, but they were they were they were God's beat up old pots and pans. Then I'm good with that. Yeah, I'll be I'll be beat up pot. I love Greg Laurie's statement. He said, God makes a lot of straight lines with crooked sticks. I love that. Well, uh, I'm rubber, your glue, whatever you said. Nice about me bounces off me in 60 years. Well, you know, as we finish up our episode, uh, you're always invited. You're always welcome. Thank you, you know, and, uh, you found a friend in us and like, you found a friend in me. Toy Story. We need a coach, a toy story.

I know, I don't know. I want to thank you guys. I know we were going to do this on Tuesday, um, but just other things, you know, we wanted to accommodate Pastor Robert. And I was like, yeah, man, we'll do it Monday. And then I put it out on social media so you guys would join in. And you guys are here, man. It's a whole day early and you still showed up. So shout out to you. God bless you. And that means I love you. Okay, that's the devil. That's devil. Oh, I thought it was gang signs. I thought that was Houston. Well, this is I love you. Yeah, man. All right. So God bless you guys. Any last anything last? Oh, man, I just want to say thank you very much. I'm one of those ones who don't deserve to be here. And, uh, yeah, man, it's a true, true honor. And, uh, thank you very much for sharing and taking your time. We appreciate time, uh, the three around us understand time. And we know how valuable that is. So we appreciate it. We just want to say thank you very much. Oh, my, my joy. Angel.

Yeah. No, um, I walked in the door and your wife starts joking with me. And it made perfect sense. Yeah. Yeah, you know, and just the graciousness of of you, perhaps, perhaps since we've met and and seen that in your wife, you know, you can, you know, a lot by a man by looking at his family and his home and his marriage. And and seeing that in the first five seconds, I told that that shared with me volumes based on Lauren. So I just want to thank you for coming. Thank you for receiving our invite and just the words of with everything. Yeah. Yes, of everything. Babies. Happy look at them, but we are going to need you back because you told us that you were going to do it the whole time in your, in your Scottish accent. Well, we'll have to do that next time. Don't you worry, but we'll be back. No, soon. That's right. Number two with no Gibson after that releases and you can come back. It just reminded me of freedom. Braveheart, Braveheart. That's great. No. Yeah. All right, guys, God bless you. Thank you so much. Have a blessed week and see you later. Be blessed.

Hey, man, how's everyone doing? I know there's oh, there it is. I thought it was in space. Unfortunately, Pastor Angel and Diana are sick. There's no youth. There's no young adults. And instead of being sad about that, pray for your pastors because everybody sick at that house, Ezra, Justin, the whole family. And so just keep them in prayer. And I know we are releasing children, though, right? All right, so we are releasing children. Amen. So we are changing things up a little bit, coming back into the sanctuary. As you can see, some of the chairs are blocked because I don't want to lose that closeness, but it was time to move this way and to be back in here. And for those of you that are online, super chats will be coming back, probably hopefully next week. This computer does not have the super cats loaded up on there. So they have to set that up and put that in there because the super cats, for those of you online, they were on my laptop because when we would do it in the lobby, I had the laptop there and all of the super cats are on there. But I have to put it on a memory stick and give it to them and they have to load it in. So we are going to continue. And let's just, let's bow our heads. [BLANK_AUDIO] (laughing) Huh? After prayer, all right, all right. Well, just for now, just look around and say, "Hey, what's up?"

You know what I mean? (laughing) All right. - I don't think it's true. - Yeah. Lord God, we thank you for this opportunity, Lord God, to read your word, to open our scriptures, Lord God, and to dive deeper into what it is that you were saying to us. We thank you for this sermon, this Bible study series that we've been doing for quite some time, Lord God, is living a life of a Christian following after you, Lord. And we thank you for what we are learning. We give you honor and all glory in Jesus, name, amen. So we are in 1 Timothy chapter three, verse eight. This is where we left off last week. And we're gonna dive right in, and it's really interesting because something that, well, I'll just read it and then we'll talk about some things. First, Timothy chapter three, starting at verse eight. You know, if you were here Sunday, I did a message called the master counterfeiter. And talking about just, I basically was saying, to be careful, be careful of what you are taught, careful of what people are saying, especially in this day and age of social media and TikTok and Instagram and YouTube and faith. You know, a lot of times you hear teachings or you hear different things and even here. I mean, you should always test everything. The Bible says it tests everything.

And that's why it's so important to be a biblical church. A lot of people say, well, this is biblical because it says it in the Bible, but they'll take it out of context, you know, because you can make the Bible say anything you wanna say without any context, you know. And you gotta just be careful to understand. If I gave you a letter that somebody wrote to me 50 years ago and all you read was one sentence, you could take that whole letter completely wrong because all you're doing is taking that one sentence, not having any idea of who that letter was written to, what they were going through, what was happening at the time that letter was written, you know, and so think about it. You read the Bible that was written, you know, thousands of years ago. And if you don't understand who was written to, why was written to, what was going on, what was happening, who wrote it, you don't get the full context of it and that's really dangerous. And that is why there's so many false teachings around, you know, and so this is why we purposely do our Bible studies on Wednesday, book by book, line by line, scripture by scripture, you know, so we can try to get the best understanding we possibly can. Could it be possible that when we face the Lord and we're in heaven, he's gonna say, you know,

Pastor David, I don't know if he'll call me Pastor David, probably son, he'll be like, you got that one teaching, all wrong, you know what I mean? But it's like, while we're here on this earth, we're gonna try our hardest to be as biblically sound in context as we possibly can. And I think that's important, especially the way things are going. And this is what he's warning about, he's pouring into Timothy who was his student, he almost sees him like a son and he's pouring into him and he's sharing with him the way things are going. And so right here he's telling him how a leader of a ministry or a church should be. And I said this last week and I'm gonna say it again, is that this doesn't mean for somebody to be here, say, well, I'm not a pastor, that doesn't pertain to me. Well, you're a leader of somebody. Men, if you're a man, you're a leader of your house, women, if you're a leader of your children, you are leading those who are in your family who don't know Christ yet. So this applies to everybody. Okay, so first Timothy chapter three, verse eight says this. It says deacons, likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with the clear conscience

and let them also be tested first, then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanders, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. I'm gonna read that portion in the message. It's the same scripture, but the message is worded very more. It's a lot more simpler and it goes like this, eight through 13 in the message. It says the same goes for those who wanna be servants in the church, serious, not deceitful, not too free with a bottle, not in it for what they can get out of it. They must be reverent before the mystery of the faith, not using their position to try to run things, let them prove themselves first. If they show they can do it, take them on. No exceptions are to be made for women, same qualifications, serious, dependable, not sharp tongue, not over fond of wine. Servants in the church are to be committed to their spouses, attentive to their own children and diligent in looking after their own affairs.

Those who do this servant work will come to be highly respected, a real credit to this Jesus faith. I find it very interesting that we're reading this part in First Timothy because I think two days ago, this pastor in Ohio basically presented to his congregation his second wife. And he literally called both women up and he, and not only did he say he had two wives, but he said it was unbiblical for a man to only have one wife. And this is all over the internet, all over YouTube. And I'm just like, this is insane because what Bible does he have? You know, and again, like this is a perfect example is that we have to be careful because I literally saw him in an interview last night where he was not doubling down, not, he was full on saying this is biblical. And it was the strangest thing when you see somebody completely blind by the enemy, not able to see the very scriptures in your face. You know, and actually this scripture was brought up to him because he proclaims himself a prophet and somebody asked him, what about First Timothy? Chapter three, where it says bishops and deacons. And he goes, oh, I'm not a bishop and I'm not a deacon. So that doesn't pertain to me, you know? And I'm just, are you kidding me? Are you serious?

Because you got to remember Bishop and Deacon were English words, but original in the original context of Greek, an overseer was a leader, a pastor, a minister. Anyone that is over a flock that pertains to you, you know? And it's like doing these spiritual gymnastics to try to make the scripture say what they don't say. I mean, in the very beginning of Genesis, what did God establish in the very beginning? He says, a man will leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife. And together they shall become one flesh. Let no one separate that. That's one thing, you know? And it's funny because what's not funny, it's sad actually, but the situation that he, even in his claim, let's pertain for a second that he was right. That because he has two wives and they're okay and it's biblical, but it's crazy because they asked him, well, how did this come about? And he says, well, she was really close to my wife and she was always over at the house and I started to get feelings for her. And I shared it with my wife and I'm like, boom, hold on. So Jesus says, if you look at a woman and lust after her, you're an adulter. I mean, there's so, there's so much wrong in so many ways that even led him to that position. And you know what the sad part, see, people are gonna do what people are gonna do. Here's the crazy part, the congregation clapped

when he introduced the second wife. If I ever do that, guys, jump me. Just beat me down like I'm in the gang or something and jump me. It's sharing the dude on their own too, but. Of course. But my point is this. Oh, you had a question? - The first wife, let him live. - Yeah. Yeah, a lot more stuff is coming out now that kind of brings light to that 'cause I thought the same thing at first. And I don't wanna make this whole video about this couple, but I'm just saying it's insane because the fact that we're reading this right now, you know, I think it's only fitting because it straight up says here, as we read in verse 11, no, I'm sorry, in verse where we at, where we at, 12, let deacons each be the husband of one wife. And if we back up, even till last week's study, it says for overseers or somebody who is leading the church in verse three, two, therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober mind itself, control, and all that. So then if you go down actually to verse seven, I know we're going into last week, but this is important too, and then I'll keep it moving. Verse seven says, "Moreover, this leader must be well thought of

by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace." Today me and Sharon were kind of going, seeing who else was talking about this online, and there was so many non-Christian channels. And here's the thing, right? What happens when somebody looks bad? It makes, so all these people were talking about pastors because of what this clown did. And this is exactly because we bring shame. We bring shame to the name of Christ. We bring shame. You know, that's why it's so important is that we have to have, we have to be well thought of by the outsiders. It doesn't mean we're going to be liked by the outsiders, but we're not going to give them a reason to talk. You know, and that's exactly what this person has done. So he's bringing damage, not only to his own self, he's bringing condemnation to his own self, his own relationship, his own whatever it is, but he's bringing condemnation to the body because it brings shame, you know? So yeah, man, it's just wild, you know? So, but besides that part, we can't ignore this other part where it says to be dignified. Oh, actually, let me back up, let's back up. Yeah, verse eight, be dignified. Has some dignity, which again, goes back to, you know, living a dignified life, living a way that has dignity, not double-tongued. So when it says double-tongued, it says to not be deceitful,

don't be deceiving, don't lie, don't manipulate, don't be a master counterfeiter. Don't be double-tongued, not addicted to too much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. So even scripture says that we are not to chase after money in a dishonest way, it doesn't say that you can't be successful. If you have a job, if you do overtime, if you have a business, there's nothing wrong with saying, Lord, bless my business. You know, because there's nothing wrong with that. God bless, he says, does scripture not say that he will bless everything you touch? You know, when I paint something to sell at a gallery, you don't think I'm asking God to bless my hands? You know, when I'm writing a book or whatever it is I do, you don't think, you know, so everything we do, if you're a landscaper, you say, Lord, God bless my hands, let me be a good landscaper, let me be a good example for you. You know, so there's nothing wrong, but it says don't be greedy for dishonest gain. You know, to gain financial by dishonesty, because then that's wrong. And it says that they must hold the mystery of the faith or the clear conscience. Whatever it is that you do, do the clear conscience that you know that you're not doing nothing that's manipulative. Make your money, grow your business, do your job, get some overtime, do all those things, you know, and do it with a clear conscience.

And like verse 10 says, and let them also be tested first, then let them serve as deacons. So even before you give somebody a position of authority, a position of leadership, let them be tested first. See how they are, see how they carry themselves, how they, you know, having a lot of knowledge means nothing without wisdom. How do I know that? There's a bunch of people coming out of universities that have a lot of knowledge. And there's a lot of 80 year old men that haven't been to college but have wisdom and older women. You know what I mean? So wisdom is different than knowledge. So we want to test people first. And then I love this because in verse 11, he doesn't get the women off the hook. He says their wives likewise must be dignified. Again, hold yourself with dignity. Hold yourself where people respect you. Have dignity for yourself. Have principles for yourself and the way you present yourself in all ways. And it says not slanderers. So don't go slandering people. Don't go just talking about, you know, in here and the message just says don't be sharp-tongued. Like just, what's the Spanish word? Go mad at this.

Just gossiping. The Bible says don't do that. Don't do that. You know, and I know a lot of times in church circles, we do it but we do it in a, you know, like you don't want to really be gossiping. So you're just like, man, let's pray for that sister because you know, she's... It says don't be slanderers but be sober-minded and faithful in all things. Be faithful in all things. And again, it goes back to the husband of one wife, managing their children and their households well. You know, to a certain point, we can't control your children, especially when they get older. But are you setting an example for your house? You know, I've heard parents say, well, you know, they're gonna hear cussing and this and that. They're gonna see smoking and all that out in the world. I said, so are you gonna show them at home too? How about if you show them a different way of life, separate from the world? Now, every child grows up to being adult and we're all gonna make our own decisions. But are you gonna set them up for failure now? That's why it says that to be attentive to your own children and diligent and looking after their own affairs? Are you doing things in a way that's teaching them right?

And verse 13, for those who serve well as deacons, they gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. So in the message that last verse is those who do this servant work will come to be highly respected. And that's important, not for our sake, but for Christ's sake. 'Cause remember, again, we are ambassadors and ambassadors are representative of the kingdom of God. So how we present ourselves reflects him. You know, have you ever seen a semi-trux that says, how's my driving? Call this number? Because if you're driving for a company and you're just all over the road, you're making the company look bad. You know, so we have to conduct ourselves in a way that holds great confidence and is highly respected in the way people see us. People see you, you know, and a lot of people that you know that don't serve the Lord, they don't say nothing, but they're watching. They're watching, man. And the moment it slips up to the first ones that call you on it. You know, so verse 14 through 16 says this, he says, "I hope to come to you soon." This is Paul writing to Timothy.

He says, "But I am writing these things to you "so that if I delay, "you may know how one ought to behave "in the household of God, "which is the church of the living God, "a pillar and a buttress of the truth." That's 14 and 15. And the message says, "I hope to visit you soon, "but just in case I'm delayed, "I'm writing this letter "so you'll know how things ought to go in God's household. So as we read these, these scriptures, we have to read these scriptures in a way is this is how God instituted the church to be. He orders that there be order, that there be dignity, that there be respect, that the leaders not have a bunch of wives and all this stuff, all this list, because you know, if whatever leadership is in the church, whether it's a pastor, leader of a ministry, whatever, we are setting the example of everyone else that comes in the building. We cannot expect the congregation to be a certain way. If the leaders are not a certain way. So we we are held to a higher standard. And that is important. That is why we have to be careful and say, well, are you really called? Because a calling is a heavy calling. It is a heavy call. And how many times have you seen pastors fall in the entire church disperses? That pastor is going to have to answer to God for that. You know, and that is something that that is heavy. That is something that's real heavy. Because I remember when I first got saved, the Lord, I felt he was telling me to preach, I want to say, almost two years later, after I got saved. And I argued against it. Because

by that time, I probably read the Bible five times. And and I would see the warning where God says, he would say to the shepherds, to the pastors. He would say, if people if you tell people and you teach them and you teach them false teachings, they will go to hell. But their blood will be on your shoulders on your head. And I used to read that. And then so two years later, when the Lord says, you're going to preach. That's the verse that popped in my head. I'm like, I don't want nobody's blood on my hands. So it's it's it's a serious thing. So and I don't think I think that goes beyond just the pastor. If you're leading a ministry, if you're leading evangelism, if you're leading ushers or greeters or worship or teachers, are you doing it in a dignified way that that is respectful to the Lord? Because we are setting the example in this. Okay, put it this way in the same way I said, okay, the world's going to hear those things. But that don't mean your children have to hear that stuff in the house, right? Well, guess what? The congregation is going to be hit with all kinds of garbage Monday through Saturday. But then they got to come into the house of God and see it too. That shouldn't be so. This should be a place where people come almost like a, like a refreshing from what they've been, especially if you come from a family that is not saved. And you could work and your work is not saved. And you're just hearing all this garbage at work and all this garbage at home. And then, and then you come Sunday and you hear more garbage. This should be a place of refreshing. This should be a place that it's fresh water. It's fresh bread, where you have been had loaded down with the things of this world all week. And Sunday, you come to the house of God, not because this building is holy, because the people come and we

are holy, we're set apart for God. And we set an example. And we give people breath of fresh air with a clean conscience. You know, and that is so, so important. And unfortunately, I think that many times, many places of worship forget that and they want to be so cool. They want to be so inviting to the world that we end up diluting ourselves to the world and that can't be. I truly believe that people are going to get hungry for what's real. And I think that's going to sweep across this nation. I think that God is raising up some generals that are that are that are catching attention of people across the nation. And people are seeing that. And that's awesome. That's great. But then they're going to say, Where's in Modesto? Can I go? That's like that. And sometimes people are looking for what's real. You know, many times I compare it to fast food. You know, it's weird because the last few years almost ever since maybe after COVID, you started seeing a lot of mom and pop stores pop up again, like they used to. Little coffee shops, little burger places, little taco places, little, you know, and it wasn't for a minute there in the maybe the late 80s, 90s, 2000s, everything was like the same no matter what city So people were buying into those franchises and say, well, there's everybody's in McDonald's, so let me open one in town. But after a while, you get tired of it, and you're just like, I want a real burger. I want a real taco. I want some real, I want some coffee that don't taste burnt. And they start popping up, and I believe in the spirit, people are going to do that in cities across America. People are sick and tired of the fast food gospel. And people are going to say, where is it where it just served for real? And I believe that there's going to be a turn and people are going to look for that, but it all starts with us. Because even if you're sitting here at part of house of rest and maybe you're not in leadership, but what if there's a flood of people coming that don't know Jesus and they're going to get to know you before they know me?

Well, guess what? You're the example now for them. So we have to live according to this, because we don't ever, we don't ever want to make God look bad. I don't want to make the Lord look bad, do you? No, I want to exalt him. I want to raise him up, lift him up. I want people to come up and be like, man, what do you got? Why do you have this peace? Why do you have this, a man? Because Jesus, Jesus, he set me free. But instead with people like this clown, it makes people say I want nothing to do with Christianity. Because look at, they're just a bunch of circuses. We don't know, can't have that. Okay, so this verse here is one of my favorite, I say that all the time, but it's one of my favorite. In verse 16, he tells Timothy this beautiful thing. He says, "Great indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness, that he, Jesus, was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world and taken up in glory." In the message, it says this, "He appeared in a human body, was proved right by the invisible spirit, was seen by angels, he was proclaimed among all kinds of peoples, believed in all over the world, taken up into heavenly glory." Why do I love this verse? Because this verse is saying that God was made into flesh. Islam denies that, Judaism denies that. But the Bible says that he, God the Creator, the one that all things were made by him and for him, that somehow he was born through Mary through the Virgin Mary, and yes she was a virgin because the Bible says so, because if she was born from the seed of a man, he would have been born in sin, but he came through the Holy Spirit and conceived in Mary, and because of that, God was manifested in the flesh, he walked among us, it was the artist of the painting going into his own painting. See, this is what separates Christianity from everything else. Don't ever allow somebody to tell you, don't allow Muslims to tell you, don't allow anybody else to tell you that, "Oh, we all worship the same God." Jesus says, "If you deny the Son, then you deny the Father too." So, that's what separates us because we believe that God was manifested in the flesh. See, here's the thing, saying don't mind churches talking about God, because God can be anything. Heck, our money with the all seen eye with the pyramids says in God we trust, which God does the government trust though. Our God has a name, and as a name is the one that's above every name, and every niche about confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Satan doesn't have a problem with us talking about God. Why do you think a lot of times that you have like the, what's it called, the inauguration of presidents, many times, and they'll have all these people come up, these spiritual people come up and they'll talk about God, talk about God, talk about God. There's a pastor out of Sacramento, they had him pray in a few years ago, I don't even remember which president it was. Yeah, Pastor Rodriguez, I don't think he's a simply of God in Sacramento. They asked them to pray the inauguration, but they Just don't say Jesus. You think he listened? He could go back in YouTube and watch it.

At least Samuel Rodriguez. Yeah. And he went on there and they told him not to say it. And he said it, man, you can go back and watch it. He did this long prayer about God, and then he goes, "And the name of Jesus." And he just goes off and you know what I mean? So here's the thing that Satan doesn't want you to say the name because, oh man, at the name of Jesus demons tremble. I'm getting excited here. I'm told you I like this verse. "He was manifested in the flesh." So that's the good verse. Okay, chapter four, verse one through five. So it goes on and says this. Now the spirit, talking about the Holy Spirit, expressly says that in later times, in the last days, right? How many of you believe were in the last days? Okay, so this pertains to now, look what it says. The Holy Spirit says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. So what do you think this guy bringing up a second wife? It is blasphemy. It's blasphemy. Jesus says he's coming back for his bride, not brides.

And a marriage actually represents Christ in the church. He's not coming for churches, he's coming for his church. But look what happens is, here's the thing, right? It is, I was watching their testimony and the wife, the first wife, will technically the only wife in God's eyes. She's like, you know, my husband was saying about a second and I didn't know, I didn't know. So I fasted and I prayed until the Lord told me himself that he was right. And it's like, here's the thing, okay, let me say this. Don't ever pray for something that the Bible already gives you the answer. That's ridiculous. What was she doing fasting and praying whether her husband sure have a second wife? Why are you asking God for an answer if the answer's already here? God is not gonna go against his own word. I quoted it on Sunday, the Bible says that God's word is even above his name. So God's not gonna go against his word. So why are you praying for something that's already written? Why? Because that person, that couple, their own lustful desires are being led by. And when you do that, then you're being led by deceitful spirits. Look what it says. It says, in the later times, they will depart by the faith

by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. In the message, it says, the spirit makes it clear that as time goes on, some are going to give up on the faith and chase after demonic illusions put forth by professional liars. Man. That's pretty clear, right? It's pretty clear. Verse two, how are they gonna do it? Look what it says, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. Who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Verse four, for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God in prayer. Let's read that in the message. It says this, it says, these liars have lied so well and for so long that they've lost their capacity for truth. Think about that, have you ever met a liar that they lie so much they don't even know the truth is anymore? Yeah, it lies upon lies upon lies and they don't even know how to get out of it. It's a sport. So that's what he's saying right here is that the lies are upon lies upon lies.

These liars have lied so well and for so long they've lost their capacity for truth. I have met people in my life that they lie so much they're just like, why did you have to lie for that? That's weird. Why did you lie? They're just, they're just such liars. It says they will tell you not to get married. They'll tell you not to eat this or that food. Perfectly good food God created to be eaten heartily and with thanksgiving by believers who know better. Everything God created is good. I sure hope so because I had some pork belly the other night. So good. I know is good. I'm just saying because they didn't eat swine. Remember the Jewish people had certain foods. And that's why when Peter had that dream in the animal. I think there's a pork belly in there. And God says what God has created what God says is clean. Let it be clean. Everything God created is good to be received with thanks. Nothing is to be sneered at and thrown out God's word in our prayers make every item in creation holy. But he's talking about not just food. He's talking about everything the things that that we that we take in ting things that you know to to do things right to do things in a clear conscience. Not to follow after lies not to follow people that that have devoted themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. You know what that scripture lets us know that means there's demons trying to teach. Right. I don't I don't understand. You know, I don't understand how someone can be behind a pulpit and not have the fear of God. That makes zero sense to me because I don't fear the congregation. I fear God because he knows all things. We can't hide from him. Matter of fact, he says what's done in the dark will be brought to the light. See, I don't like humble pie. It doesn't taste

good. So I want to live my life that's according where I don't have to eat humble pie. I just. Huh. See, where's the mic guy? That way online can hear you. I just have a really hard time understanding a church full of people that are there applauding and following and doesn't have the discernment to walk away from something like that and can support that. Yeah, that's what I had really that. No, it's not. It's not Mormon. So what what we have learned is that he's been teaching this slowly to his congregation for the last five years. So that that is what's that called when you do that. Pull again. Pull again me. No, no, when you when you Oh, when you you're grooming. Yeah, it's like he was grooming his congregation. Some I found out that over the years as he's done talking about it, more and more people have left. But I'm not talking about just this pastor. I'm talking about a lot of as a whole. There's so many. There's just been just a lot of different pastors that have that I've just made a mockery of the things of God. Yeah. And I see large, large congregations that just feed into it and feed into it and feed into it. And I just, to me, it just it's grieving. It doesn't make sense. It's it's just it's such grieving. And to me, I just that's what I don't understand. You know, how somebody can be so blinded to it. And that's blinded blind. And just if if somebody, if you know the word, and that's the problem is because they're not reading the word for themselves. They're not there. They're relying on, I believe that they're just coming and relying on what they're learning instead of opening up for themselves and learning and being Bereans on for themselves. And I think that that's what the problem is. Well, the book of Acts, I'm glad you brought up

Bereans in the book of Acts, everywhere Paul went, he would the gospel with them through the scriptures, and they didn't reject him. The Bible says that the Bereans, after Paul taught, he left, and they checked the scriptures to see if what he said was true. And then when they realized it was, many of them got saved. So have a hard of a Berean, you know? Dale, are you going to say something? Yeah. Yes. Well, sorry about that. Anyway, a lot of things the pastor has said, I was raised Catholic. And what I want to say is, I was taught everything that was just said about not eating certain foods. I used to eat fish on Friday, telling my sins to a man in the box. And what I want to bring out is, if the priest got up there and said a certain thing, I want to clap for it, because that's what I was raised to do. My parents taught me to go to this church and this and that. It wasn't until I really met Jesus that I found out the truth. The blinds were lifted from me and praise God, you know? And that's what I'm saying. These people are, like Sharon was saying, they're blind. And that's what makes the cross so important, because I heard about Jesus before I was going to take my life at the return of the big. No, I heard about the cross. I've heard about Jesus. I said, well, I'm going to see if he's real. So that's why, especially us, tell him, tell him about the cross of Jesus. Tell him, give him a way out, you know? Because a lot of them been raised in that type of environment, and they're blind that they can't see it. I couldn't see it. I had to get knocked off the stool. That's what Jesus did to me. And then when I got up, I was saved. I mean, that's all really, you know, that's how you share what I'm saying. You can't understand how people would do that. Well, I can. Yeah, because that's the way they were trained. That's the way they were taught, or since they were little. Amen. And us being Latin, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You know, I've said this before. You know, one of the things that I found freedom in Christ, like I think all of us when we say, man, you know, the Lord set me free. I think that matters. I think that's a different definition to all of us because some of us were addicted to drugs and God set you free. Some of us are addicted to alcohol and Jesus set you free. So many people for different reasons say, man, the Lord set me free. I didn't have an alcohol problem. I didn't have a drug problem. I had a bunch of other problems. But one of the major problems, I think that is almost the root of my other problems was that I would

live a double triple life. I was somebody else to my family, somebody else to my friends, somebody else to the mother of my kids. So I was all over the place. I was like three, four or five different people. So when I say the Lord set me free, that's what I'm talking about. So why would I want to leave that then to have that here? That makes zero sense to me. When I say the Lord set me free, it's because I'm able to be myself. I'm able to be, you know, if you watch our YouTube, whatever, there's a reason why I don't edit like the prison stuff like I'm like, man, if I'm yawning, sometimes we bump heads on the video. I don't edit that stuff out because I'm not going to be fake. I'm going to be who I am. And that's it. You know, and but that's, that's why I say that the Lord set me free. And I don't want to live a life like that. It's it's exhausting. It's exhausting to be fake. You know, and it's tiring and it's so freeing to just be you and Christ to allow Christ to shape you, allow Christ to grow you, mature you and and be who you are in Christ. You know, and if I'm just saying, man, if that is you, if that's part of you, just repent. Repent and say, Lord, I don't want to be two people out to three people, four people. I want to be the same person I am all the time. I want to be free. You know, so if we go on to verse six, he says, if you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you you have followed. So basically he's telling, listen, teach the brothers this. And the message that says you've been raised on the message of the faith and have followed sound teachings. Now pass on this council to the followers of Jesus there and you'll be a good servant of Jesus. So this is what he's telling Timothy. He's like, listen, all these things that I'm telling you, you have been faithful in it. Now teach it to them. How can we teach it unless we're following it? You know, there's a reason Paul says follow me

as I follow Christ. We need to be good examples, you know? And it's like, I've said it before. I've said, you know, you can teach somebody how to preach, but you can't teach somebody to have a dignified life. You can't teach somebody principles. I will take somebody that has principles and needs some learning on how to present the gospel rather than somebody that can present the gospel in good ways, but their life is wicked. And verse seven, look what he says, have nothing to do with the reverent, silly myths rather train yourself for godliness. And the message is to stay clear of silly stories that get dressed up as religion, exercise daily in God, no spiritual flabbiness, please. And it says in verse, is that eight? Yeah, for a while bodily training is of some value. Godliness is a value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. So you guys know the Olympics started in Greece, right? So they had something, our Olympics now comes from the time of the New Testament. So they would train and train and train to see who's the best. That's why the Olympics are very, you know, Greek oriented. So there was a lot of people that were into being fit and being at the best of things. That's why he's using that example.

It's interesting 'cause he says, yeah, you know what? Yeah, okay, it's good, you're healthy. Cool, you're buff, nice. That's why he says for bodily training, is it some value? Paul's like, okay, all right. You're looking good. He says, but godliness is a valuable, is value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and for the life to come. Being healthy, it's good. We wanna be healthy in this life. But being healthy in the spirit carries over from this life into eternity. That's why in the message, he says, workouts in the gym are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so making you fit both today and forever. So then in nine, it says the same is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Verse 10, for to this end, we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. In the message, it says, making you fit both today and forever, you can count on this, take it to heart. That is why we've thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We're banking on the living God,

savior of all men and women, especially believers. So he's pouring into Timothy, telling him this is how church should be. This is how you need to pick your leaders. This is how the leader should be. This is how they should live. So all of these are kind of instructions on how to have a healthy functional church. But then he says this in verse 11. He says, command and teach these things. In the message, it says, get the word out, teach all these things. So he said, you gotta teach this. You gotta teach this. You gotta show them. And then see, Timothy was a young man. And it doesn't say how young he was, but I think he was very young because Paul would send him places and maybe the older men were like, man, this young man don't know nothing. And maybe I think some were treating him bad because he was young. The reason I say that is 'cause verse 12. Paul says, let no one despise you for your youth. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example of speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. In the message, it says, don't let anyone put you down because you're young.

Teach believers with your life. No, he says, "Teach him with your life. Let your life be a walking sermon. Let your life be a walking teaching. Teach with your life and by word, by demeanor, by the way you are, by the way you show yourself, by the way you walk and live." He says, "By love also, by faith and by integrity." So again, you want to know, those are things of underlying right there, guys. If you want to grow and mature in your walk, I would underline the word right here. Be an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. Live things, you want to be a good example, then do it in the way you live, the way you talk, and the way you conduct yourself, and how you love others, and your faith in Christ, and in purity. How do you live your life? Do you live your life set apart for the Lord? He's given instructions of how to be a good leader, and we can't ignore that. So once he says that, let me read 12 again, "Let no one despise you for your youth. Set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity." 13 says, "Until I come." This is Paul saying that. He says, "Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching." So this is why our Bible studies are line by line. Because if I sat here for an hour and gave just opinion and never opened this book, I'd be wasting your time. But at the same time, can you imagine we had a Bible study, and all I did was read scripture and said nothing about it. If you didn't understand the chapter, you're going to leave not understanding the chapter. That's why he says here, "devil yourself to the public read Scripture, to exhortation." What does that mean? To exhortation means to encourage.

So Paul is telling Timothy, "Read the word, encourage the people, exhort them, and to teach." Three things, read the scripture, encourage people, and teach them. Read the word. So he's telling them how to have church. Straight up. He's like, "Read the word." So I don't know where this came from. I don't know where it became a thing for pastors to read one scripture in the beginning of the sermon, and that's it. I don't know where that came from. I don't understand it. Now don't get me wrong. I think you can preach on one verse, because some verses are so rich when you really talk about it and dive into the context, and even the Greek, and the Hebrew, and break that down. And if that happens to turn into a message, but you're on that one verse, praise God. I'm not talking about that. I think that's awesome. But when you literally say a verse, and then the rest is just other stuff that's going against this. What does he tell them? Let's read it again. He says, 13, "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, which is encouraging, and to teaching." And then he says in 14, "Do not neglect the gift you have." We're about to have a pinholders meeting November 21st. And those of you that took the six classes, you didn't take the six classes just to take the six classes, get a pen and sit here. I know a lot of you said, "Man, I don't want to do something."

And we want to make that opportunity for you because of 14. Do not neglect the gift you have. Everybody has a gift, and everyone in the church can benefit from your gift. Your gift is not meant to exalt you. Your gift is so you can encourage others. And some of you have an amazing gift, and it can't be laid dormant. It has to be put to use for the church, for the body, for the believers. So do not neglect Spirit is talking to us. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the Council of Elders laid their hands on you. He says, practice these things. Okay, there's another one. Practice these things. I believe that I remember hearing this story about Mike Tyson. I don't know if it's true, but some guy, some trainer, some coach saw Mike Tyson in a street fight. And he says, man, you're a good fighter, but I can make you a great fighter. You might know how to fight in the street, but I'll show you how to be a champion in the ring. But you can't take a street fighter and make him a world-class champion unless he trains, unless he practices. You know, I've heard stories that Michael Jordan didn't make his basketball team in high school. Michael Jordan didn't make the team. You know what he did? He went home in practice and practice and practice and practice. He didn't let a setback like that destroy him or break him. And now you think of basketball, you're going to think Michael Jordan. So why do I say that? Because if you have a gift, now he says, practice these things. If you're called to preach, if you're called to teach, if you're called to evangelize, because if you are amazing with kids, like I would be horrible with what Jessica does with the kids. I would be a horrible teacher of kids. I don't know how to talk to kids. I don't know how I would. I don't know. I don't know how to talk to kids. I get real quiet around your kids because I don't know how to talk to them. Some people, they just know how to talk to kids. I'm like, how did you make them like you? I don't get it. I don't have that. You know, I don't have it. I made, I made your daughter cry. I mean, I cry. I made your daughter laugh because nobody was around. So I started dancing and she started, she was crying. And there was no adults around. And I started acting real silly. She saw

me because I don't mind being silly in front of my wife. And she stopped crying. And she just looked at me like, what's he doing? You know, so I guess I can make babies stop crying. But the moment she called, I think she told your wife, I stopped, you know, like that frog that dances until somebody comes and he just, that was me. I was just like, hey, I got to be serious. You know, but but he says, practice these things. And look at this, the next part of that verse, practice these things, immerse yourself in them. If you're a teacher, if you're there for children or for youth or for evangelizing or whatever, if you have a gift, if you have a heart to evangelize, that don't mean you're good at it. How do I know that? Because God told me to preach. And because God told me to preach, I thought I was going to be awesome. And I remember he told me I was in solitary confinement. God said, I'm a preach. I started writing sermons and writing sermons. I'll send them to my parents. They're probably horrible sermons, but my parents be like, wow, that was awesome. You know, and so then I finally got to prison. And I was there for three months. And when they asked me to preach, because they would take turns preaching on the yard. And I didn't say nothing. I'm like, God, I'm not going to say nothing. If they asked me, it's you, because I'm not going to say nothing. And then they finally went to the brother that was leading. His name was Mario. He says, Hey, you know, I want you to preach on Thursday. I'm like, finally, oh, man, I'm going to this thing's in turn to revival up in here. Everybody's going to get saved in this yard, because I'd been practicing and practicing within myself. And he's like, you're going to preach Thursday and like, Oh, man, this is going to be fire. Holy goes fire in his place. Even the correction offers are going to get saved. I had all these papers and everything I'm ready. And there was no pulpit. So I wrote the garbage can with the little floppy lids, but the top was flat. And I'm like, that's my pulpit, put my Bible there in my notes. And I put my head down to pray. And a wind came and blew all my notes. And and that was the best part, because it just got worse after that. I stuttered through the whole thing. I kept losing my place. I didn't know what I was doing. Man, I got so discouraged. I'm like, Lord, I know you're a perfect God, but I think you were wrong when you called me to preach. I was so discouraged. It was horrible. It was really bad. And then after I preached, Mario comes up to me and he goes, Hey, he goes, I want you to preach next Thursday. And I'm like, Mario, You don't got to be nice to me man. I suck man "Just let the other guys," he goes,

"No, I want you to preach." And I'm like, "It was horrible." And he says, "The Lord told me that "I'm supposed to teach you how to preach, "and you have a calling to preach, "so I want you to preach next Thursday." So just because I had the call don't mean I knew how. So I didn't realize there was a, what's it called, a learning curve? I didn't know that. I thought if God calls me to preach, he's gonna all of a sudden give me these eloquent words. If God called me to evangelize, he's gonna give me these eloquent words. If God called me to teach children, he's gonna give me this, it's not that way. It's the ugly stage. Yeah, so every painting, guys, when I do paintings, I didn't know at first. I would have a bunch of paintings that I would start, and I would never end because it would look ugly. And then I learned from an artist, he says every painting has an ugly stage. First, you have a blank canvas, then you start to kind of lay your painting down, and at that point, everything in you want you to quit, 'cause you're like, this thing looks horrible, but you gotta get past that, you gotta push through it. And all of a sudden, you have something beautiful. And a lot of us in our gifts,

many of us in our gifts, we've never pushed through, 'cause we only get to the ugly stage and we give up. And we start second guessing yourself and thinking like this, God's not calling me for this, this isn't for me. I'm telling you, push through it, because scripture says practice these things, immerse yourself in them, and push through it. Because you know who else? The enemy wants to come too. See, God didn't call you for that. God didn't call you for that, huh? Yeah, exactly. So in the message, it says, cultivate these things, immerse yourself in them. And then it says here in 10 and... Verse 10? Whoa, what is that? 15, sorry. It says, practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. Look at that. People will see your progress. It says, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this. For by doing so, you will save both yourself and your hearers. And the message is to keep a firm grasp on both your character and your teaching. Don't be diverted, just keep at it.

Both you and those who hear you will experience salvation. I wanted to quit, guys, at that time. And Mario says, I want you to come again. And you know what happened next Thursday? It was still horrible. And I just, and every Thursday, he's like, I want you to do it again, I want you to do it again. And after the next day, he would sit with me. He goes, do it like this, or say this, or don't do this. How about you? And he would just coach me, he helped me. This is another inmate. Yeah, it was teachable. I love this brother. I love his brother, and he was like a magnet. I wanted to be next to him, I wanted to be by him, I wanted to just learn and glean from him. And one day, they came like at three in the morning and they came and took a whole bunch of inmates. And they took Mario. He was our leader, he was my leader, and they took him. And he was the leader of the group, and I ain't gonna lie, man, I was crying, I was crying. I felt like they had just ripped something from me. 'Cause remember, before that, I was in solitary, I didn't have nobody, and now I had Mario, and then they took him amongst a bunch of people. And this was three months after that. So just for three months, I had him as far as me. So I was there for three months without preaching,

then three months with him preaching. And he kept telling me, David, you gotta be ready. David, you gotta be ready. David, you gotta be ready. And he was showing me, showing me, and then they took him. And I was crying at the table, and all the brothers that were there longer than me were praying. And all of them basically said, 'cause I was like, who's gonna lead us now? And all of them were like, well, we were just in prayer, David, and the Lord told all of us individually that you are. And I'm just like, I'm the new guy. But Mario saw something in you, you know? And he ended up getting deported. He was from Mexico. I've never seen him again. if it wasn't for him telling me not to quit. Dale? Yes, I have something to say might help somebody. I don't know, but when I was first got saved, I wanted everything I can get from the Lord. And I heard people speaking in tongues. That's why I want that. So I was 22 years old. And so I went to my pastor in the co-passure. So I want that gift. How do I get it? He says, all you got to do is ask Jesus for it. That's all? Yes. So I did. Lord Jesus, I want to speak to give the tongues, give the tongues. And I got these two words that came to me. I still remember Santa Kai, Santa Kai. And the pastor and co-passure told me, Jesus told me to tell you to keep on saying M2 words that he's going to multiply him. And he did. And it's one of the strongest gifts you can have. Because there's times I didn't even know what to pray for. So that's when I go in my gift. I'm speaking of a known tongue. And if you ever want that gift, you got the pastor here, you got Sharon here. They could lay hands on you, Pastor Al. Any other believer, lay hands, just ask Jesus for him. He'll give it to you. Amen. God bless you. Good evening. I'm pretty sure all the kids already released to you, the young adults. Welcome to our Wednesday Bible study. Before we go on, I want to remind you that we have on November 21st, our first

annual pinholders meeting, those that have the lapel pin. I just want to remind you also that if you have done your classes and you're missing one or two classes, I don't want you to miss the meeting. We're not having any more discipleship classes on Sundays until the new year. But tomorrow and Thursday and Friday, we're having a, do you have the flyer up? Can you put the flyer up? I mean, all right. Sorry about that. I should have let you guys know I was going to talk about that. While he's looking for it, did you get the super chat set up? Oh, they are. Okay. So Thursday, which is tomorrow and Friday, we're going to have makeup classes. This is the only time we're going to do it. Excell, ignite, accelerate a discipleship. If you want to be able to be part of that meeting, it's going to be really good. We're going to have a guest speaker, Vice President of Grace International, Pastor Larry, Irig is going to be coming down. And it's a, but to make up the classes, there's different time slots because if you only have one class of makeup, there's no reason for you to sit through all six of them. But talk to Sharon after this, because this is the only chance you're going to get to make up for it until 2027. So I just wanted to let you know about that. And those of you that are on YouTube, we do have the super chats, the super cat set up. Just so you guys let, I know last week we didn't have that. What else is there? So just the, just make sure that that meeting, if that's something that you want to do, make sure you go to that. And then obviously November 21st, we have that meeting. If we could just bow our heads, Lord God, we thank you for this opportunity, Lord, to read your word. We thank you for this Bible study, this chance to open the scriptures, the holy scriptures, Lord God, it is the only truth, Lord God, because it is your inspired word that in the midst of this entire world, Lord God, the only truth is you because you are truth. And we thank you for that. We thank you for your word. We thank you for, for just your word withstanding nations and kingdoms and empires. And even though many have come and gone, your word is still here. And it will always be here. We thank you. In Jesus name, Amen. Shout out to Anthony De La Garza. Marcelo, thank you for that. And like I said, I can't control what super chats, what super cats. So it's up to the guys in media. And and Jorge Luis, thank you so much. There's two of them for you guys right there. All right, I'm going to try some right profit life over you. I know I'm going to stand. I'm going to I'm going to say it. I just have all kinds of options now. And I just want to try something different. Sometimes when I'm sitting in the desk, I feel very confined. And sometimes when I'm standing, I get tired. So therefore, you know, I thought of putting a bed there,

you know, but we'll see. I'll get slain in the spirit, you know, and we are I just want to remind you that Paul is writing a letter to Timothy and Timothy was a young man, one of one of the men that Paul was pouring into. And this letter is many times it's called the pastoral epistle because he was pouring into Timothy, teaching Timothy of of being a spiritual leader. Dolores, thank you for that super chat. Before that, you get a super cat. All right, so he was pouring into Timothy and then that was before the Holy Spirit was writing to us on how to be leaders, how to have church service, how to function as a body, as a church family. You know, so I want to go ahead and read verses one through two. In first Timothy chapter five, one through two, it says this. It says, "Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity." I want to read it in the message. It says, "Don't be harsh or impatient with an older man. Talk to him as you would your own father and to the younger men as your brothers, reverently honor an older woman as you would your mother and the younger women as sisters." You know, this seems like common sense, but this was, Paul was telling Timothy, "Listen, you're a young man and I don't want you to go into the cities that I'm sending you and just because you know more or you've been around me, it doesn't mean you can go around and be arrogant to the older men in the church." You know, and I think this is good wisdom for us. This is something that even my father instilled in me. He says, "Respect your elders." And that's something many of us grew up with, but somehow or along the line, our generations have forgot that. You know, but you've got to remember that this is Bible. Sister Phyllis, thank you for that super chat. Thank you. So, I like the way it says, "Don't be harsh or impatient with an older man." You know, and so he's encouraging him. He's like, "Listen, sometimes if we get older, we don't grasp things as fast as when we were younger and it's like just be patient. Timothy, be patient and when you talk to your brothers, the ones that are your age, talk to them as brothers." You know, and for me, when I read this, I think that a lot of times if we know a lot of scripture, if we know a lot of things like that, we can become arrogant or conceited or holier than thou or like we know more because think about this. It's not just age. Sometimes we've been serving God for a long time and somebody comes brand new in the church and they're just learning and instead of helping them, you start rebuking them for everything they're doing wrong. Why did you post that? Why did you say that? Why this? Why that? Instead of realizing,

wait, you were once young in the Lord too. You know, and we have to remember that, especially when we serve God for a long time, it's like we tend to think that everybody's, sometimes we forget where we were. You know, and there's times that I remember kind of being rebuked by some of the Christian brothers when I was first saved and I'd be like, why are you making such a big deal about it? And I get all offended. And I realize now that they were trying to teach me something. You know, there's a brother here that recently got baptized a few couple months ago and it was during altar call. And big brother Matt, you know, big, you can't miss the guy, right? He's like 10 feet tall. And he was there praising God. Was he like 12 feet tall? And he was there and I saw a new brother in the Lord kind of come up next to him. Yeah, almost as tall. And I notice this, I'm watching because I'm sitting there during Sunday service and he goes up because he saw Matt go up and then Matt starts worshiping. And I see him look at Matt and he goes. like this and then he looks at Matthew and then he kneels down. And I thought that's the most beautiful thing because like little babies, they mimic you, right? When you're raising a child, they mimic you. And in a sense, that's a spiritual baby. That's, that was a perfect example when I say follow me as I follow Christ. So a lot of times, you know, like, how many of you have pet peeps, things that just, all right, we all do, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, raise both arms. Tino has a lot of pet peeves. Yeah, and no oatmeal at restaurants. I've learned that. Yeah, a lot of stuff. Yeah. Anyways, we could, huh? Yeah, it's a lot. Team Mickey. Team Mickey. So there's just pet peeves, right? And I'm going to tell you one of mine as a pastor, because there's a list as a husband pet peeves, there's a list as a brother pet peeves, there's a list as a father. So one of the pet peeves as a pastor is when somebody new comes in the Lord, they had just last week, they were out smoking dope. And now they're broken, they're saved, they're hungry for the Lord. And then I see somebody coming up beside them and start to lead them. And I know that brother ain't living, right? And next thing you know, it's starting that person wrong. So instead of bringing, because I'm going to tell you right now, man, like when I first was out, I would visit churches. I didn't know where God wanted me to be at. And I would visit these churches and I would go and I would instantly make a beeline for the pastor every single time. Every single time, because I didn't want to be thrown off course. I knew what God told me to do,

and I had a mission to do it. So what better to do than to then seem to be a bother to the pastor. And I don't care what church it was because I didn't have house arrested and I'll make a beeline to the pastor and I'll be like, Hey, how you know? My name is Dave Rocha. I just got out of prison. I got saved six years ago and God has called me to pastors anyway. I can have coffee with you. Can I have lunch with you something? You know, every single time, you know, and because I wanted to be next to the man of God, because I wanted to be by somebody who's going to influence me and help me. And you know, if you want to learn mechanics, who's the best person to hang out with? I'm a mechanic. You want to be a chef? Who's the best person to hang out with? A chef. So in the same way, I'm just like, okay, God, I know what my calling is. So I'm going to come along somebody that is already in that. Gerald Bainbridge, thank you for that super chat and Constance but gang, thank you. That's two of them. Thank you so much for that super chat. You get a super chat. You get a super cat. So, you know, reading that scripture again, do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity. Same thing with the women. You know, if you see somebody young in the Lord, I'm not talking about just age but just young in Christ, come alongside them and help them. You know, maybe they're not maybe they're new in the Lord. Maybe they're not dressed as appropriately as you would like them. But instead of talking to the other sisters and be like, oh my God, you see what she's wearing? Come alongside her. Whether she doesn't know, you know, what if she doesn't know or what if she doesn't have anything else, you know, and it's like so but also he's telling Timothy reverently honor an older woman as he would your mother. So, he's telling Timothy have respect for the older women. Honor them. How many of you have heard it said treat an older woman the way you want somebody to treat your mom? You know, sometimes like somebody in traffic will get on my nerves and then I pull alongside and it's an older woman and I instantly feel bad because I wouldn't want somebody doing that to my mom, you know, and we'll drive along and be like, man, who's this person? I don't know why we always want to see what they look like for whatever reason, you know, and and I'm just like, oh man, and I instantly feel bad, you know, when I see an older woman struggling at a store when I see the other day, you know, I I I looked outside and there was our neighbor directly across the street from us and he was trying to lift a headboard into a truck and those headboards are heavy. It's all wood.

there and I said hey you need help and he was no I got it I said no really do you need help and he was yeah I do you know so we went over there and and and helped them lift it because that's what we should do we should honor those who are older who lost his father oh did he how do you know oh really okay yeah oh yeah I don't know anything yeah but that's that's what we should do in verse three honor widows who are truly widows and the message is says take care of widows who are destitute so what does it mean by that so even in verse four is but if a widow has children or grandchildren let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents for this is pleasing in the sight of god in the message it says take care of widows who are destitute if a widow has family members to take care of her let them learn that religion begins at their own doorstep and that they should pay back with gratitude some of what they receive this pleases god immensely you got to remember this time and age there was no social security there was no food stamps ebt there was nothing so instead of people so think about it so as the example of the church Paul is telling Timothy to teach the men there and he's like listen if if there's a widow a true widow because not all women could have children because women do you know that in that time when they would have a baby boy they will say god has blessed me why because that boy was going to grow up and take care of her if something happened to her husband so so a woman would want to have baby boys because if she had daughters guess what they were going to do they're going to get married and go another family you know but she knew if she had sons that she would be taken care of that was her social security that was her ebt that was her inheritance you know so but there was widows that their husbands would die they had no sons maybe they had only daughters their daughters married off so now that's a true widow she truly was destitute she really literally had nothing but notice what he's saying because and he's gonna explain why later but what was happening right is that some people were taking advantage of this so there was women that were widows and they had boys they had sons but because mom was a Christian they assumed well the church has to take care of her and and that was draining the resources from the church because now you had a whole bunch of women who were widows and even though they had sons the sons were in taking care of them so I understand that in the context of this maybe that doesn't make sense to us because we in America you know when somebody gets older they're gonna get taken care of they're gonna

get housing they're gonna get put on just different types of programs or whatnot but back then that didn't exist it didn't exist at all and because of that that's why he says listen if a widow has children or grandchildren let them first learn to show godliness to their own household you know like it says in the message I read it earlier but says here let them learn that religion begins at their own doorstep and they should pay back with gratitude some of what they received be like take care of your mom like she took care of you change your diapers fed you make sure you're safe educated you touch you all these things but now that you're grown you can't take it you can't go back and now take care of the person that took care of you because you and so so Paul is saying you want to learn godliness let it start at the house I know a minister that would go and preach the gospel with fire, but treated his mother bad, treated his mother bad, you know, even to the point where she died. And I was angry, you know what I'm talking about? I was so angry because I'm like, how dare you go? Who cares how good you can preach the gospel if you can't take care of your mother? You know, and it just says here, he's meant to pay back with gratitude. This pleases God. So we need to take care. We take care of us, you know, I know it's fresh and I don't want to dwell there, Johnny, because I know you're still hurting. But I know you're always at mom's always, you know, and that's something that I enjoyed seeing, seeing both of you, you know, that's something that I respect you for, you know, because you, you, you honored her. And you know, at the celebration of life, you were up here and you're probably thinking a bunch of million things, but you said, man, she wasn't always nice, you know, but you understood that that was mom, you know, so it says here, brother, that this pleases God. It pleases the Lord. And then in verse five, it says, she who is truly a widow left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. In the message, it says, you can tell a legitimate widow by the way she has put all her hope in God, praying to him constantly for the needs of others as well as her own.

So he's trying to tell Timothy, you've got to use discernment, man, because we're not aware for a system. He's like the churches in a world, yes, we pick up tithe and yes, we pick up all these things, but it's going to drain if we're constantly taking care of the widows, because the family should take care. There's a woman there that is truly a widow, and you see her serving the Lord, and you see her having hope in the Lord, and you see her praying for others, taking care of others, and not only for others, but for herself. He says, that is a true widow, praying to God constantly. So it's interesting because like I said, we, you know, we're not only doing a Bible study to see like, what can I get from this? But we want to understand the context of what was happening back then, right? So that's what we're reading. So, so what makes the difference? And then he says this, and it kind of gives us a hint of, of maybe what was happening back then. Abraham Rodriguez, thank you for that super chat. Thank you. Um, brothers and sisters, today is the day since the ray of salvation. Brothers and sisters, even while she lives. Okay, what does that say in the message? It says this, but a widow who exploits people's emotions and pocketbooks, well, there's nothing to her. Wow, you know, I wanted to make sure, so I actually had my amplified Bible here, because I wanted to read that and make sure I understand what it's saying. And it says this, she who lives for pleasure and self indulgence is spiritually dead, even while she still lives. So what does that let us know? It gives us some insight about what was happening at that time. So some women, yeah, they lost their husband and yeah, that's sad and, and, and, and things

are hard and things are harsh. But there was some women who were using it to emotionally have people take care of them and taking from the church for her own pleasures. So, so Paul is like, listen, not every widow is the same. There are some that are seeking after God, helping others. That's something different, but some are self indulgent, using the emotions of others. In other words, they're taking, and so, so that's why he says this. This was something that was happening, something that was going on. This is the widow who explains says there's nothing to her. And I get it, you know, I know that might sound harsh, but we're reading with the word of God says, so clearly this was happening back then. And we're gonna kind of compare it to nowadays, but I wanna get a few verses down more, but I'm gonna read it again, but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. And verse seven says, command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach. It says, tell these things to the people so that they will do the right thing in their extended family. So we have to teach these things. We have to understand these things. And so you might say, how does that relate to today? So, you know, a lot of times, we never wanna be that person. Maybe we're not a widow, but we never wanna be where we're, man, let me back up here.

Because our society and our culture is so broken down away from scripture. You know, and back then, the people who were elders in our family were actually a value. And sometimes it feels like nowadays, there's no value to those who are older. They get pushed aside. They get pushed out of the way. And we're literally pushing away wisdom. And we expect the state to take care of them. We get mad because the state don't give us stuff. We get mad because we don't get enough EBT. We get mad because this. We get mad because of that. And the whole time we have become slaves to a government instead of being self-sustaining. But we've created in systems now to where it's hard to break away from it. You know, I'm gonna give you a perfect example. When I met Sharon, she had just had some major stuff going on with her brain, a botched surgery. There was a lot of things going on. And she had worked since she was like, were you the mouse at Chuck E. Cheese? Or you worked with the mouse of Chuck E. Cheese? - The mouse of Chuck E. Cheese. - 13? You're the mouse?

And the mouse is on Roller Skates back then? It's funny, right? Because we go down to San Fernando. She's like, oh, I worked there before. I worked there before. I worked there. Like, how many lifetimes have you lived? Like how? She was, I worked since I was 13. All my life. She goes, I worked. So all of a sudden she finds herself in a hospital. All these things are going on. Barbara, thank you for that super chat. And Lawrence Tracy, thank you. And she's in a hospital. She doesn't know what to do. She's worked all her life. And all of a sudden, because of these issues, they offer her section of 8,000, something like that. They granted her housing instantly right away. So, and that's a blessing, right? Because those things are there. They're in place for situations like this. And then she moved over here. Her neighbor had moved over here. I was living at my parents. We were courting. She lived in Stockton and had this little place. And then when we did get married,

I moved into that little place. And I'm like, yeah, this ain't cool. - It was the only thing I could find on it. - Yeah. And so, I was going on a bike ride. We were married, I don't know how many months. I couldn't take it anymore in that house, you know? And I drove by the house where we lived. We ended up living there for nine years. But anyways, I drove by there. It was said for rent. I told her, we called the number. And I was in a way better neighborhood than where she was living at. And where she was living at, there was a lot of firecrackers all the time. And so the owner showed us the house. He's like, matter of fact, I was about to take the for rent sign off, you know? And, but you know what? I don't want to make a long story short. We saw the house and asked the guy, do you take section eight housing? He goes, I don't. He goes, but I want to give you guys the house. I want you guys to get, not give it to us, but you know what I mean? So we had a choice of me cause I'm just like, man, you know? And, but I told Sharon, I said, you know what? It was a blessing that you got that when you needed it.

I said, but you know what? We're not going to let that I said, so let's tell them that we're gonna take it anyways and we're gonna just trust that God provides. Because you know what, there's probably somebody else that could use that housing. But you know what, you're married now. And you have me and I gotta be a man and I gotta do what I gotta do for my household. And she gave it up because we didn't want to become a weight to the system. And unfortunately, a lot of times in our society, in our culture, we want more government, more government to help us. But the moment you allow somebody to help you, you're enslaved to them now. So, where are we at? Seven. He says, "Command these things as well "so that they may be without reproach. "But if anyone does not provide for his relatives," check this out, "for if anyone does not provide "for his relatives, and especially for members "of his household, he has denied the faith "and is worse than an unbeliever." Wow. And the message just says, "Anyone who neglects "to care for family members in need repudiates the faith "that's worse than refusing to believe in the first place." Wow.

So even scripture says this, that if you don't provide for your family, especially for members of your household, you've denied the faith. And Paul says, "You're even worse than an unbeliever." He's talking to the people at that time, but the Holy Spirit is talking to the people of this time. And so remember, let's get out of the context that he's Paul is talking to Timothy, telling him, "This is what I want you to teach, "these men and these women." As you're pouring into these future leaders, these future pastors, these future evangelists, these future prophets, and all these things, he goes, "You need to instill this in them "because what good is it if you go around preaching "the gospel and home falls apart?" You need to take care of home. And matter of fact, if you don't take care of home, you're worse than the non-believer. It's like, "Wow." So it's important for us to instill that in our children. It's important because this is biblical. This is what the Word of God says. Raven, thank you for that super chat. Thank you. (upbeat music) So in verse nine. So this now goes into a little more detail about who this widow is.

Let a widow be enrolled. So obviously they had some kind of system, some kind of enrollment or something where these are the widows we take care of and these are the ones that we don't. And the ones that we don't, we need to rebuke their families 'cause if they have families, they gotta take care of them. But those that are enrolled, let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband. So in other words, if she's an elderly woman, she's 60 years old and she has no help and she has no family and has no sons and she was upright in her life, then enroll her. And verse 10, "And having a reputation for good works." What are those good works? It tells us if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted and has devoted herself to every good work. So just because somebody was a widow didn't mean they were gonna get taken care of it this time. It says here in the message, it says, sign some widows up for the special ministry of offering assistance. They will in turn receive support from the church. They must be over 60, married only once and have a reputation for helping out

with children, strangers, tired Christians, their hurt and the trouble. So he had an enrollment, he had a system, he had a way of who he was gonna say, "Listen, this is who we take care of." You gotta remember that people were bringing tithe, people were bringing offering, but at this time, they didn't have electricity bills, internet bills, security camera bills, they didn't have garbage bills. All that money was coming in, so they're like, "Let's take care." Part of it is we're gonna take care of some of these. widows were men of God that were preaching the gospel. So now that they're gone, we can't just let these women just not be taken care of, we got to take care of them. So they were using a lot of the finances and helping them. But I imagine that maybe some women are coming along that weren't doing things right, and they're like, Hey, I'm a widow too. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. No. Verse 11, check this out, refuse to enroll younger widows. For when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry. Hmm. It says, don't put young widows on this list. No sooner will they get on that they want to get off obsessed with wanting to get a husband rather than serving Christ in this way. You know, I imagine Paul had already seen it over and over and over this this woman, she turns into a widow. She's young. She has her beauty. And she's going to go chasing after a man and what we're going to enroll her and help her for what? So so he had criteria. And then verse 12. And so incur condemnation for having abandoned

their former faith. You know, you know what that tells me again, sometimes you got to read what it says, and you got to see what it doesn't say. So I have, I imagine some of these widows, maybe their husbands were in the church, their husbands were serving, but then their husband dies and the woman goes and marry somebody not even in the faith. Marry somebody that's an idol worshipper made marry somebody that's a pagan and was pulling her away from the faith. Man, again, I always say this all the time. I say, you know, people, they want to know like, I met this guy or I met this girl and I want to I think it's from God. I need counseling. I said, it'll take me two seconds. You don't need counseling. You don't need an hour. Is that person drawing you closer to God or further from God? That's your answer. If somebody if God is going to bring somebody to your life, you think is going to bring somebody that's going to draw you away from the Lord. You know, and not every time man, but a lot of women, you want a man you can fix. I can fix them. No, you can't. Only he can fix them. Only he can fix them. You know, so it's like, you can. You want to fix them and then you so you end up getting a broken husband and you're getting mad all day long because he ain't doing the things you want him to do. Huh? Yeah, I know. You know, when when Sharon, sometimes I don't know if it's a joke or not, but she's like, man, David courted me for three and a half years before he asked me to marry him. Three years? I added six months to it. And she remembers a Yeah, well, Lydia and Al tried doing a intervention and they'd like, Hey, pastor, you know, come to a, you know, we want to take you to dinner, you and sharing your fiance and like, sure, let's go, you know, and take us the strings, Italian food, okay. And then before the food even gets there, how can

you ain't married yet? And they start just drilling to me drilling me and I'm just like, I just want food, you know, I mean? And I joke, I joke with them and like, you know what, because you did that I made her wait another year. It wasn't all because here's the thing, right? Here's the here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. No, no, no, no, it's right here. I just got to say the right words. Here's the thing, is that, you know, as you guys know, I already had five kids. I had another life I had, you know, we all lived our life. And I didn't want to make the same mistakes of the past You know and I wanted my prayer like oh seriousness. My prayer was like God. I have I don't want to I Don't want to I don't want to mess this woman up And instead of me having these expectations like okay Sharon you want to be my wife I want you like this like this like this like this. I'm like Lord make me the man. I need to be Fix in me and help me help me be the man you know and and That was my prayer and and a lot of things didn't get answered right away and man we clashed in the beginning And I had a pastor tell me this one time and maybe for some of you who are about to get married Or you're just married and you're like this is nuts. This guy's crazy or she's crazy I had a pastor tell me this he says every life is a river a River's powerful stand in front of a Russian river and try to stop the water. You can't it'll take you right? Every life is a river your river and this woman's a river. What do you think's gonna happen when these two rivers become one? It's gonna clash and it's gonna be like those those Yeah, there's wrapping the wrap door. What are they called? roaring rapids I Mean you can have rocks and this and that is gonna be crazy And the pastor says that's what happens to mighty rivers. They join together and it just gets crazy He was in most people don't realize that the further it goes down The water water becomes calmer and calmer when they learn to become one river

He says that most people give up while it's still in the rapids Cuz you think man, I can't do this and you bounce and you get a divorce you start cheating you start this you start that start looking up X's on Facebook or whatever it is you do and it's like if you just would hang a little longer and Let the river calm down and and and let it just go It literally you know scripture says let a man leave his father and mother cleaving to his wife together They shall become one you know, so I Just think that that's That's wisdom But back to verse 13 He's still talking about the widows not to take care of he says besides that They learn to be idlers going about from house to house Not only idlers, but also gossip's and busy bodies saying what they should not Man It says here in the message It is by breaking their word that are liable to go from bad to worse Frittering away their day their days on empty talk gossip and trivial teas And then he says in 14 so I would have younger widows Mary So he's like Have them get married Have them get married instead of just being eyed on being a busybody and going in gossiping and all these things just Just get married bear children Manage your household and give the adversary no occasion for slander Don't allow the enemy to come in and slander you and and and and Ruin your reputation and ruin these things and and all this stuff You know, you know and it kind of goes along with Paul said and another time he says, you know what? It's better to be married than to burn with passion He'll just get married And He's basically saying the same thing

Because then he says in 15 for some have already strayed after Satan He's these young widows they've been led away And they're chasing people that aren't serving God and they're led away and they're led astray And in verse 16 if any believing woman has relatives who are widows, so now he's talking to the relatives If somebody in your family now We're a family There are widows here in this church So this is to us if any believing widow has relatives or widows let her care for them Take care of them Watch over them Let the church not be burdened so that it So he stayed a long time there. So obviously there was an issue and there was a problem that was going on at that time. And he wanted to address it. In verse 17. Well, actually let me read that last part in the message. Is is any Christian woman who has widows in her family is responsible for them? They shouldn't be dumped on the church. The church has its hands full already with widows who need help. In 17 and 18, he goes on and he changes the subject. We're like, man, we talked about widows this whole time. 17 and 18 says, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor. So now he's talking about the leaders. He's like, listen, man, you have your pastor, you have this person who's teaching, you have this person who's pouring into you.

He says, give a bonus to the leaders who do good work. In the message, it says, especially the ones who work hard at preaching and teaching. Take care of them. Let the elders who rule well. Not every person, if somebody does it well, if somebody, if you're learning, if you were growing in the Lord, let them be considered of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. So even Paul is telling them, he's telling Timothy, tell them, tell the church. If somebody is truly pouring into you, give them double honor, especially if they're preaching the word of God. - Super cat, no, we already, I think we already did that one. - Yeah. - Yeah, we did Raven already. She already got one. And then it says in 18, for the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain. And the labor deserves his wages. And the message, it says, give a bonus to leaders who do a good job, especially the ones who work hard at preaching and teaching. The scripture tells us, don't muzzle a working ox and a worker deserves his pay.

You know what a muzzle is, right? They would put it on the animal. So they would make this ox work the fields and the very same field that the ox is working in, they muzzle him so he can't eat. And they're like, that ain't fair, man. If this animal is putting all of his energy in us growing this crop, then unmuzzle him and let him eat because he's the one working the land. And so Paul is comparing that to the pastors. He's like, why is it that you're muzzling the pastor and he can't eat from the very fruit that he's laying? He says, that's not right. You should not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the labor deserves his wages. If somebody hires you to clean their yard, do you expect to be paid? Yeah, if they hired you, if somebody does work, they deserve it. They're deserving of that. So in the same way, the labor deserves his wages. Verse 19, and 20, it says this. Wait, did I read it in the message? No, I didn't, hold on, no, I did. 19, it says, do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin,

rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear. I'm gonna read that in the message is don't listen to a complaint against a leader that isn't backed up by two or three responsible witnesses. So again, obviously this was an issue, this was a problem. It's really easy to bring accusation to the one that's in the limelight. So he's kind of balancing the scale here and he's saying, listen, if you see somebody doing wrong, have two or three people that witnessed it, that are responsible witnesses. But then he says this though, on term, because somebody might say, well, that ain't fair, he's exalting the pastor that, if the pastor does something wrong, then nobody can say something, anything. If anyone falls, if that leader falls into sin, call that person on the carpet. If there's two or three witnesses, call it out. Call it out for what it is. Those who are inclined that way will know right off that they can't get by with it. So he's saying, listen, you can't just make accusations and all of a sudden that's true. He says, but if it's true, then expose it. Expose it to the whole church. Bring it out, bring it out in the open. Yeah, everything that happens in the dark will be brought to the light.

That's what scripture says. 21. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing with partiality. Do not be hasty in the lane on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others, keep yourselves pure. The message is, God and Jesus and angels all back me up in these instructions. Man, those are strong words. Paul is saying, listen, this is what I'm telling you to do. If you see a leader do wrong, you better get two or three responsible Peter, people, and instead of bringing this person down and ruining his reputation over just hearsay. But if that person is doing wrong, man, bring it out in the open. And then that's why he says, but you know what? God, Jesus and angels all back me up in this. So Paul, that's a serious thing for Paul to say. He says, carry them out without favoritism, without taking sides. So again, this whole favoritism, this whole thing, like a lot of times we let people get away with things because we're friends with them, but if somebody else that you didn't like does it, oh man, it's all over Facebook. He's like, there shouldn't be favoritism in this thing. That shouldn't be happening. And he says something really important here next,

don't appoint people to church leadership positions too hastily. So obviously that was happening, which again, I remember a pastor told me, he says, don't ever make somebody a leader till you see them go through a storm. 'Cause everybody cannot Christian when everything's good. Everybody cannot Christian, but let them go through a storm, let them go through some stuff and see their true character. So he says, don't allow it too fast. I remember Pastor Larry, our vice president of the Grace International, he says, it's real easy to choose leaders and it's almost impossible to take leadership away. And I was like, man, he says, hey, I learned the hard way, David. He says, a lot of times when you choose a leader too fast and you find out that you should have never done that, by the time you take it away, they will split the church in half. He says, be very careful and use a lot of wisdom. And then it says this in verse, I think it's a 22. Now 23. Now, you gotta remember something, Timothy, for whatever reason, he had a stomach issue. So kind of like this parentheses, this is no longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. Some people read that like, oh, no water,

I'm just gonna drink wine all day. It says it in the Bible, is your name Timothy? Israel was known to, they had really bad water. So the lot of people in Israel, 'cause they had a lot of grapes. So in Israel, they would drink wine to help the stomach. So there was something wrong with Timothy or whatever, so he kind of throws that in there. It kind of sounds like kind of like off topic, but anyways, he says that, but then he says this. In 24, he says, the sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. So remember, he's talking about choosing a leader. He's saying, man, don't choose a leader too quick. He's don't don't do that. You know, I'm gonna say this too, is a lot of times, to be honest with you in the past, favoritism because I really liked them and so I let them be in a certain position in the church they were not spiritually ready. Do you know who Satan attacks people in leadership? I have seen divorces happen. I have seen the most horrible things happen to somebody that wants leadership so bad and we let them in because it was favoritism because of this because of that and I felt bad and okay man okay and before you knew it their whole marriage fell apart their family for everything just everything happened because Satan knows. He knows so he attacks and that's a hard thing to watch because you think I don't feel a part of that. That weighs heavily but it says here the sins of some people are conspicuous in other words in the message Bible I'm going to read that it says this the sins of some people are blatant and march them right into court so you bring somebody in leadership and they're saying everybody sees it. Their secret

life their secret stuff whatever they were doing is just blaming is out there and there's nothing they can do and then he says this in the next part of that verse he says but the sins of others appear later so you're gonna let somebody in leadership too fast and a lot of times once you bring them into leadership then all the stuff that they were doing in the church starts to pop up. He says the sins of others don't show up until much later. He says he'll be really careful now now you know Paul is trying to share some wisdom with Timothy's like I'm sending you to these churches I'm sending you to these cities I want you to raise up leaders but don't raise up leaders too quick be careful make sure they respect the widows make sure the widows are taken care of make sure who's a real widow and who's not and if they're not make sure the family's taking care of them because even though their widows are not living right they got to be taking care of any ways and make sure you respect the man and make sure you talk to the brothers right and do things in the right way but if before you pre-break somebody up to leadership maybe make sure you see their walk make sure everything is right because some of them their sins gonna show up right away some of them later and when that sin shows up later it destroys the church so verse 25 so also good works are conspicuous and even those that are not cannot remain hidden it says the same with good beads some you see right off but none are hidden forever so in the same way he's saying in the same way he says let somebody be safe let them grow let them learn let them grow and mature in the things of the Lord because if they're doing things right in the same way things that are done in a dark doesn't show up until later then you know somebody is doing things right maybe their stuff don't show up but then later you're gonna see that they've been doing things right they've been doing things good and then you choose that person to be a leader he's trying to pour some wisdom into Timothy he's like Timothy man this can go really wrong you got to be really careful this is a huge responsibility not only for the sake of the church but the sake of that man or that woman because the enemy wants to come to seek kill and destroy you know so he's like just be really

careful in who you choose because people's good deeds or people's bad deeds will catch up it will catch up because it says and he ends it with this but none are hidden forever you know and I think that's really important for us as we're finishing up here because even you know in my Bible obviously this isn't part of the Bible people just whoever published this put titles you know and but for my title is this instructions for the church and that's not written original Bible but these are instructions this is literally how to choose your leadership and so I want you to understand because November 21st is coming up pinholders meaning the whole reason about it is because you many of you went through the six classes and you're like now what I want to do something now what you know and and we're going to have an opportunity to share all these media, grocery giveaway, you name it. But these are things that we're taking into account in Scripture because it's not like I'm trying to hold you back. It's like, man, I have seen horrible things happen to somebody that wants to lead a ministry and you ain't living right. And you think you're hiding it from everybody, but you're not hiding it from God, and you're definitely not hiding it from the enemy. You have a wide open door to Satan, and the moment you get brought into leadership, Satan is going to wreak havoc on your family and on you. I don't want that. So this is why it's so important. I think it's only-- it's timely. I didn't time this to have the November 21st meeting. But I think it's timely. These are things we're taking into account because you might want to do some ministry. You might be going home, but I'm just like, hold on.

Wait a minute, let's mature you. Let's grow more. Let's disciple you more. And that's something I also want to talk about, too, because we want to create an atmosphere and a place for discipleship to happen, for men to grow in the Lord, for women to grow in the Lord. These are other things that we want to talk about. How can we do this discipleship to help you grow, to help you grow as a single or as a married or whatever it may be? We want to do everything we can to help that maturity grow because God has called every person. God has called you. There's gifts and there's talents in you. But if you're maturing the Lord hasn't caught up with your talents, it will destroy you. And I don't want to see that happen. I've seen it happen too much. I've seen it happen too much. So sometimes, if we have a conversation and you feel like maybe I'm holding you back, I have had people leave because I didn't put them in leadership and they left to another church and they'll go find a real tiny church, we're a tiny church, but even tinier. And because it's a tiny church and this person has a lot of wisdom, a lot of knowledge, but no wisdom yet, they will put them in leadership and I will see them fall.

And then they're like, what happened? I'm like, I told you what would happen. But instead of sitting down and being discipled, you wanted to go off and do that and Satan had his way. Tino? Sure. I thought you were gonna worship like Sunday when you raise your hand. - Satan is, Lucifer is looking at it in a way that when you get put into leadership and given the title, now he has more than just you. Because your corruption and your sin will be taught instead of the word of God. And so now those people are like, oh, amen and believing that person because they have a title and they're put in front of them. And so that's what Lucifer is looking at. He's looking at like, okay, cool. Not only did I get you, but you're doing my work for me and now I got more. Oh yeah. Exactly. So. Real quick, let me see. Lawrence, what did you ask? Yes, a question. Back in the day, people used to make wine to have good drinking water.

It was not strong drink. Yeah, you're right. Obviously back then, I mean, fruit ferments. But the wine of the time of Jesus and that time is not the same type of wine. It's still got you drunk. But do you guys know that the wine made right now? They literally extract all the alcohol out of it and then they put it back and it's not the same, right? It's the same way like bread. You eat bread in Italy, you're not gonna get plumpy. And you come to America and you get plumpy 'cause it's made differently. They add all kinds of stuff to it. In the same way, the wine of today is not the wine of them. Back then, it was literally grape juice but they didn't have refrigeration, so it fermented. But yeah, they didn't have good drinking water in that time. Thank you, Lawrence. Thank you for sharing that. So we're gonna bow our heads. We're gonna pray and thank God for this chapter. Lord God, we thank you so much for this opportunity to share your word. We thank you, Lord God, because of just your wisdom. We thank you for the wisdom that you through the Holy Spirit was imparting to Paul to share with Timothy but not realizing sharing to us here in Modesto. That we need to be careful. That when we want leadership or choose leadership

to know what we're truly asking for. And we just thank you so much, Lord God, All those who are doing what they're supposed to be doing. All those that are pushing the front lines of your kingdom. We thank you, Lord God. We thank you for those that have yet to be discipled, that we have an atmosphere of discipleship, that we have a place of discipleship. Help us, Lord God, build that so we can have a place where people can grow so they can flourish in the calling that you have called them for, because everyone has gifts, everyone has talents, but let us raise that wisdom to match it, because it takes a lot to harness the gifts that you have given us. And when we don't raise those things to harness, Lord God, instead of helping it destroys. And we don't wanna destroy, we wanna build. And we just thank you, we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.