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

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to The Baptist Bias. I'm your host, Pastor Shelley, and we've got a really great show for you this evening. We're going to talk about Christian persecution. We've got some guests for you this evening, and we're going to start with our Benelog. What kind of show is this? This is The Baptist Bias. I'm your host, Pastor Shelley. According to popular TV preachers, persecution is actually not the will of God for Christians today, but rather private jets, talk show appearances, champagne, and wealth untold are the things that believers should expect in their lives. In fact, you might even get raptured before I finish this sentence, because apparently Jesus is coming back, according to most churches, before the tribulation. Sure, Christians are getting censored all over social media right now for espousing a biblical perspective. Churches are literally blowing up. Baptist preachers are getting banned from entire countries for having the audacity to believe in Leviticus chapter 20, verse 13. And yeah, Christians who actually believe the Bible are blacklisted and are getting banned more often than Rick Warren begs for money on television. But that's not real. You're supposed to put your hand on the screen and send Kenneth Copeland your life savings. Sure, nobody in America is getting sawn asunder for soul winning, and Christians here don't have to choose between serving God and imprisonment, but we're getting closer. Marco Polo. All right, families are disowning their own mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, all because they believe the Bible. YouTube channels with hundreds of videos and decades worth of content are disappearing in the blink of an eye because of wrongthink. Jobs are scoffing at religious exemptions. Drag queen shows are being scheduled outside of fundamental Baptist churches hurling the most disgusting filth imaginable at families. Those who are watching can see the warning signs that let us know the fig tree is tender and putting forth its leaves. The Great Tribulation is coming, and Christians need to wake up and get the Baptist bias. Well, that was really exciting. I've been a log. I really like the comments about putting hand on the screen because I really thought, you know, I was feeling that electromagnet magnetism. I thought I was going to get, you know, all of my prayers answered by sending in my money to Kenneth Copeland. So, hey, thanks for joining us this evening. We've got our official L.A. gear for our special guest this evening. Pastor Bruce Mejia of First Works Baptist Church L.A. That's right. It doesn't stand for Losers Aloud. It's for something else, okay? So we'll make sure that he helps us out with that. But we have our co-host, Ben the Baptist, wants to say hi to everyone this evening. It's great to be here. I'm really looking forward to this. Pastor Bruce Mejia, of course, is from First Works Baptist Church, and his YouTube channel, if you guys want to check it out, is available right now. It has a lot of different subscribers, and people are flocking to this at this point. He's got a lot of videos, a lot of content. First Works BC is the place to go. If you want to check out Pastor Mejia's preaching for yourself, again, that's First Works BC. I would highly recommend that you subscribe today. In fact, do it before this podcast goes off the air, if you haven't done it already. He's got some really great reels, and some of them have gone pretty viral. I know he's had one particular video. He talked about crosses. I think it got 160,000 views already. It might even be higher. It's constantly ticking up. This guy makes a lot of great content, a lot of great documentaries, but he's just blowing up in every way you could possibly imagine. That's why we're having him on the show this evening to talk about Christian persecution. Why don't we bring in our guest, Pastor Bruce Mejia here, and we'll pull him up. Hey, Pastor Mejia, how's it going? What's up? You got some coffee ready for the show? Oh, yeah. Mascafé. Hey, I like that sweatshirt. KJV Oldie. Thanks. I like your hat. We like to have some fun. I like Pastor Mejia. So if we throw some jokes around, it's just because we like each other. You know, it's not persecution when it's your friends. OK, so. That's right. Well, we want to get started and just kind of talk about persecution from a biblical perspective for a moment, because. Can you guys hear me? Can you guys hear me fine? Yeah. Yes. Can you hear me pretty good? OK, sir. All right. So a lot of people believe in the preacher of rapture still, and a lot of people are kind of confused, especially, you know, evangelicals on persecution in relation to the Bible. And so we wanted you to kick us off with some scripture here. What are some verses that you can think of, Pastor Mejia, that talk about Christians having to suffer tribulation or persecution, especially in the New Testament? Well, you know, you know, to say that as Christians, we're not going to go through the great tribulation, even though the Bible constantly reiterates throughout the New Testament that we are is pretty nonsensical, especially when you think about famous verses such as what the apostle Paul said, that when he stated, we must do much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God. And then you have Jesus saying in Matthew, chapter five, verse 10, he says, blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding. Glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets were triggered for you. And so that's just not even scratching the surface when it comes to verses in the Bible talking about persecutions, for people to say that, you know, we're not going to be here during the great tribulation or we're not going to be here during the beginning of sorrows, even though we see over and over again in the Bible talking about the fact that, you know, yea, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. I think it's just, you know, it's just Christians who are just afraid to go to go through persecution. So they so they come up with this excuse of what will be gone before that takes place. Well, you know, I know a lot of Christians who have been through persecution and suffering and affliction, and God allowed them to suffer that affliction while they're here on this earth. And so, you know, I just think it's part of the Christian life. And it's it's basically an indication that you're living godly in Christ Jesus. You know, you're doing that, which is right in the sight of the Lord. You're serving God. You believe the Bible. You're preaching the Bible. You're living the Bible. And this is the repercussion of doing those things. And so, yeah, I think you kind of brought up another verse there just in your in talking. Yea, and all the will of God in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. You know, it'd be kind of silly to tell the apostle Paul, hey, buddy, slow down with all this tribulation talk. I mean, we're not going to have any tribulation. Jesus is coming back in the Book of Acts. I mean, it's got his own many little great tribulation, in my opinion. And from a personal level, I don't think that you could say that the apostles could have suffered any greater. Really, when it talks about great tribulation, it's talking about just more people involved in that level of persecution. But from an individualistic perspective, haven't we seen the greatest tribulation in many different Christians' lives throughout the centuries? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can go even back to what they would consider to be Baptist history, where, you know, you think of the Waldensians and the Albigenzis and Petributions and these Christian groups in times past who had suffered persecution for hundreds of years. They were killed, they were martyred. And so, you know, I know of a lot of Baptist churches that would look to these groups of times past as heroes of the faith, but yet they don't seem to want to follow in their example. They don't seem to think that that can happen in their lifetime as well. Ben, I know you had some verses you wanted to share with us, too, and persecution doesn't always have to be, you know, just getting cut in half or being crucified. There's all manner of persecution that's going to come. When your Benelog even brought up just rejection of family or internal disputes or just people not liking you or speaking evil of you, what was this that you wanted to share? Well, I'll go with, since you brought up people speaking evil of you and hating you and things of that nature, the Bible tells us in 1 John 3, verse number 13, when it says, Marvel, not my brethren, if the world hate you. And I think that's a really impactful reminder that if you believe the word of God, if you're serving Jesus Christ, that, hey, the world is going to hate you. And it's not something that we should be, you know, marveling at. It's something we should expect to happen. And when it comes to pass, it shouldn't take us by surprise because of the warnings like that one that we see in scripture. You know, a verse that I wanted to share, too, that I was thinking of was in Matthew, chapter number 10, where the Bible brings up kind of an interesting point that Jesus says. He says, Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword says for I am come to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. And I think that from Christianity in general, you know, not every single person is going to experience the same tribulation of persecution that the Apostle Paul did, getting beaten with rods or being shipwrecked. A lot of people aren't going to be a pastor or be an evangelist and travel the world and have to go through the perils of robbers and some of these other tribulations. But everybody has family. Everybody has a mother and a father. And if you get married, you get a mother in law, you get a father in law. You're going to have brothers, sisters, cousins, all kinds of different people in your life. And and they matter a lot to you, just instinctively, just natural affection. And when you start standing up for the word of God, when you actually believe the Bible, it can cause a lot of tension within your own family. And it can cause a lot of personal rejection in your family. And the Bible already prescribed this. And it even talks about in the end times how it's going to be so bad, so extreme that children would literally betray their own parents and cause them to be put to death or vice versa. Parents, you know, killing their own children. And we already see, you know, warning signs of this through things like abortion. And we see just horrible atrocities of children and parents being able to kill each other and hatred towards one another. And a lot of times it even just stems simply from the fact that people are believing the Bible and people don't. What about you, Pastor me? Have you ever experienced? Have you experienced really this kind of like internal family conflict the Bible brings up? Well, you know, when I first got saved, I do remember experiencing some backlash from from family. And obviously it wasn't really extreme backlash or extreme persecution, but it was a rejection that I've never experienced before from my family. You know, and I think it hurt the most because of the fact that I wanted them to be saved. I wanted them to know God. I wanted them to know the Bible and believe the Bible. And my effort and to try to get them saved and believe the Bible was at first immediately rejected. And it hurt, you know, because a lot of the times they didn't want to be with me. They didn't want to be around me. And, you know, obviously the Bible says that we are light of this the light of this world and we're salt in this earth. And salt, although it is a preservative or it can preserve life at the same time, you know, it can sting a little bit. And so I think that's what was taking place. And, you know, it was it was a painful experience as a brand new Christian being rejected of my family members because of it. But, you know, thankfully, over the years, they've they've seen consistency and they've seen that, you know, this wasn't just a phase that I was going through or something like that. And, you know, a lot of them got saved. But, you know, I definitely can can relate to the rejection of family members and how painful that could be. When you get persecuted by people you don't know or by haters of God, that kind of motivates you. It kind of energizes you. It pumps you up type kind of thing. But when it comes from those closest to you, that's where it really hurts. Yeah, I think that's great. The testimony that you said how just being consistent can kind of win over those family members. And I usually try to encourage other Christians to do the same thing. You know, my church members or other people to say, hey, you know, just keep being consistent, keep serving the Lord. And a lot of times you can kind of win them over by just being faithful, giving them grace and everything like that. I want to get a clip ready. I know Brother Ben's going to show us something here in Luke Chapter 14. But kind of for the show, Pastor Mahia, I want to go through some real life examples of persecution. And I have a few clips that I want to kind of go through and get your perspective on. And then kind of at the end of the show, we want to kind of just walk through and get your own personal life experiences when it comes to persecution. Because we know that your church has definitely gone through some difficult persecution and tribulation. But Brother Ben, why don't you go ahead and give us your Luke 14 here? I know that's something you wanted to share. Yeah, I wanted to share these verses and get your guys's perspective on it, both Pastor Shelley and Pastor Mahia. Because some people, I think, have maybe struggled with these verses. They seem jarring on the onset. And I'll go ahead and read it so everybody can know exactly what I'm referring to. Luke Chapter 14, starting at verse 25, where the Bible said, And there went great multitudes with him, and he turned and said unto them, If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. So people will look at these verses here, specifically verse 26, and they'll ask the question, Well, hold on a minute. Is the Bible prescribing for me to actually hate my family members? And perhaps it leads to a little bit of confusion. They might not know how to actually apply this in their lives. And so I just wanted to get the perspective from you, Pastor Mahia, and Pastor Shelley, you as well. What do you think about this verse? How would you apply this practically for someone who might be struggling to figure out exactly how they ought to be applying it? Well, I have two interpretations to this, and I think they're both valid. One would be the fact that when he says, If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife, obviously, you know, the Bible commands us to honor thy father and honor thy mother. And that is the default setting that we should always have. And in verse 26, when it says hate, I what I personally interpreted it as initially when I first came across this verse is that my love for Christ and my love for the Bible should almost seem like a hatred for everything else, which is actually something that I personally experienced, even from personal family members where they feel like I'm just not with them anymore. I'm always in church or I'm always serving God. And they almost think like I hate them or I don't want to be around them anymore. But really what it is is just that I just love the Lord. I love the Lord. I want to be in church. I love preaching. And so I've always interpreted this verse. You know, the first application I would make is that my love for Christ should almost seem as though I'm disdaining everything else because of the fact that I'm committed unto the Lord. I'm committed unto his word and his service. But I think a great secondary application to this verse would be could be applied to people who have reprobate parents, for example. You know, sometimes not all sometimes, but, you know, our parents mean a lot to us. And it would be devastating to find out that one of our parents is a reprobate or a God hater. And there might be a temptation there to maintain that relationship with that parent because they're our mom or our dad. Whereas the Bible tells us that we should have nothing to do with the haters of God. And so at that point, that individual would have the choice to either choose the Lord or, you know, choose their father or mother. And of course, we're not referring to salvation or anything like that. This is referring to taking up your cross and following him, being a disciple of Jesus Christ, you know, being a servant of the Lord. We can't serve God and rub shoulders with reprobates and haters of God. And so that's why he says, if any man come to me and hate not his father or mother. So I think that would be a great secondary application, but that's how I would interpret that verse. Yeah, I agree with those interpretations. I for me, when I read these verses, you have to you always have to balance everything in the scripture. And I think Jesus actually illustrates this verse for us in different parts of the Bible, because like Pastor Me, he has said, we have to honor our father and mother. You know, the verse in the Bible that says no man yet ever hated his own flesh, but nourish us and cherish it. So, you know, when it's talking about hating here, it doesn't even say father. It says his own life also. So it's very clear, you know, the Bible, Jesus uses really strong language such as, you know, we're supposed to die daily and we're supposed to crucify the flesh. And so I believe that a lot of these wordings are really to illustrate the fact that we're supposed to choose Christ over anything and everything. And it does not matter what obstacle would come our way. We see someone coming and asking Jesus Christ about going and burying his father before he can go and follow him. And he says, let the dead bury the dead. And so kind of just almost showing a hatred in the sense that, you know, not come to your own father's funeral is kind of extreme if you think about it. I mean, to tell someone not to show up for their father's funeral is really it almost seems like you would you would hate your father not to go to his funeral. But Jesus is basically saying, like, you have this one opportunity to come and follow me and you should be willing to choose me even above going to your father's funeral, not really giving any kind of second thought to these type of relationships. If you think about Jesus Christ preaching, they came to him and said his brother and his mother were standing without to speak with him. And he didn't give them the time of day at all. He's just like, you know, behold, are my mother and father and brother and sisters. And he's like, you know, they that do the will of God, these be my mother and father and brethren. They would hear the word of God and do it. So to me, it's almost just elevating the spiritual journey, your ministry above all carnal things, whether that be a physical relationship, even your own life, kind of dying to those relationships. But I would not interpret this as like, you know, hatred could kind of almost seem like you're attacking someone. Obviously, I don't believe you should be attacking your family members or aggressively going after them or trying to do evil unto your family members. I believe you should only do good unto your family members, but essentially that you would be willing to discard that relationship if it really came between serving God or not. But again, I try to tell my church members and everybody that I never try to leave relationships. I let them walk away. You know, I try to engage with my family and friends and try to have relationship with them as much as I can. But at the end of the day, I'm just going to serve Christ. And if they don't want to serve Christ with me, then, you know, that relationship may diminish. And it could appear that I hate them. But like Pastor, he has said, it's more that I just love Christ. And there are ultimatums at times, you know, as a Christian, you might hit a crossroads where somebody you're related to makes you pick between them and going to church or them and the Bible, them and the doctrines you believe. And I think that's where perhaps Luke Chapter 14, verse 26 would come into play as well. And, you know, Pastor Mihai, you brought up that it hurts a lot more when it's people you're related to. And I can 100 percent not only agree with that, but relate to that, because I've been in a situation where I had family members who wanted nothing to do with me and, you know, attacked me for what I believe in, things like that. And I remember, you know, even one time when Pastor Shelley was driving back from the Houston area and I called him and I was like, hey, you know, I just need some advice on this because I'm not going to go into great detail on what happened. But it was something to do with familial persecution. And he helped me out, helped me get through it, things like that. But it makes you stronger. It grows your faith. It makes you a stronger Christian. And so I feel like even though it's really, really hard, you come out on the other side battle tested in a sense. Well, I'd like to play a few clips here this evening. And, you know, there's a particular pastor that really kind of inspired me when it comes to tribulation. And I think Pastor Mejia knows who I'm talking about. But have you listened to the Dean Miller life story, Pastor Mejia? I actually have not listened to that. OK, I have a new clip then, but I'm not going to share everything. But he went to Colorado to basically plant a church and he kind of shares his testimony a little bit, starting that church. And I want to play a clip from this. It's going to just be a few minutes, but it's going to explain what they did to him personally. The first like the first weekend or the first like week of him starting this church, just like is basically welcome party. And his church is there in Colorado Springs, which is kind of like a parachurch Mecca of the world. They've got like hocus pocus on the family. And they've got I mean, they've just got all manner of parachurch ministries. But he really paints it as kind of a demonic stronghold. And when you listen to this clip, it's going to really it's really kind of surprising what these people did to him. But see if you can play those clips for us for the Tim. And I don't feel I was, but he associated me after some of the things that we've gone through as one of these martyrs as he made reference to our ministry. And when he'd introduced me, he'd call me the martyr of the 21st century. Because of the things that we've gone through, and I want to tell you some of them right now. After the first service that I preached at the Cornerstone Baptist Church, after we got the church started, you will not believe what happened. I announced to that church, by the way, before that, I was on television. Somebody paid a spot for us to be on 15 minutes of television and to be able to announce to the Colorado Springs community that we were going to start this church, where we're going to be starting at, what kind of a church. And I had 15 minutes to give it and I announced to them what kind of a church this was going to be. And after our first service of that church, my wife and I woke up the next morning. And Brother Ron, nobody had ever believed this. Except we got pictures, we can prove everything that we ever questioned on. We woke up that morning and we could not even get out of our house. Somebody had taken huge earth movers. You know these big earth movers, you see them out here on construction sites and they got these big tires on them? They had taken these huge tires of the earth movers and laid them against the door of our house so we couldn't even get out. We peered through the windows and looked out our windows and it looked like literally that they had backed up garbage trucks. They go around and pick up garbage from the garbage cans. It looked like they backed up garbage trucks and unloaded the garbage trucks in our lawn. We never saw such piles of garbage in our lives, never before. And I'm not talking about just bags of garbage, I'm talking about strewn garbage, raw garbage, filthy garbage. And when we finally got out of the house and the police came and helped us, we got out of the house. On the side of my car, both sides were hand painted with a spray, probably a spray can. Some of you won't even know who this is, but spray painted the words, Jim Jones. On the front of my house, across the top, on the eaves, Jim Jones. Down the sidewalk, Jim Jones. Down the driveway, Jim Jones. They literally strewn our whole property with raw garbage. And that was the welcome we had to Colorado. And that was the welcome we had to Colorado Springs for the first week that we arrived. Man, this is like one of the coolest life stories and he kind of preaches a two-parter. I highly recommend people listen to it. I think we put it on our YouTube channel still for people to listen to. But this guy says he went to start a church in Colorado Springs. And the like first week or the first night, he basically tries to get out of his house. He can't even open the door because they've just put these like giant tires or something like on the door. So he can't even open it. And then he says they literally just put just open bags of trash and just like all kinds of stuff everywhere in his lawn, all over his house. They spray painted his house, put Jim Jones and everything. And this was decades ago. This isn't like yesterday. This is like a few decades ago. He just starts a fundamental Baptist church in this area. And I mean, honestly, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, his story is really incredible, but it would be crazy to me and I don't even know. But it'd be crazy me for to ask him or his church members, like, are you all pre-trib? Like, you know, like I don't even know what they believe on these type of things. But like, you know, the persecution and the tribulation. I mean, he even said that other pastors call him a martyr of the 21st century. And he really has a pretty gripping testimony. I highly recommend people listen to it. But, you know, Pastor Mia, what do you think about someone coming and just putting trash all over your house and stuff? I mean, that I know, you know, we we talk like we're these, you know, spiritual giants and everything, but that's going to mess with your head when people are messing with your house and all that kind of stuff. I mean, what kind of emotional toil do you think that's like? Yeah, that plays a lot of psychological. It's like it's like a psychological warfare going on there. But I think I'm pretty when I heard that little clip right now, you know, it made me think of Matthew chapter 10 and verse 24 because he's saying that they spray painted Jim Jones. Jim Jones. Well, the Bible says the disciples not above his master nor the servant of his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his lord, if they have called the master of the house of Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? And so, you know, if they called Jesus a devil and they said he was possessed with the devil, how much more are they going to call his servants who are also preaching the same message and preaching out of the same Bible and believing the same things? You know, that sounds to me like this pastor was obviously a godly man. If they're if they're willing to go so far as to call him and spray paint on his house, Jim Jones, I mean, that's pretty wicked. Yeah, I mean, he has literal fights with like Satan worshipers and all kinds of stuff. I don't want to I don't want to spoil it because it's really an incredible sermon that he just delivers through his life story. But I highly recommend everybody listen to it. And, you know, he seems new IFB, even though he's he's not really, but, you know, or whatever. And I really like his testimony a lot. But I wanted to kind of share that and I wanted to share another story that I found pretty compelling. But what what do you think about the email? Have you listened to the whole email parts? Give us your feedback about I listed both. But I mean, I would think it would make anyone the temptation. Here's what I'm trying to say, the temptation to quit. I'm sure it would be immense in a situation like that when you think about all the things that this guy went through. And in addition, them attacking his home, you know, that's his personal life and having it, you know, the the garbage and the desecration. Like I said, I'm sure the temptation is there to quit. The temptation is there to just draw back and say, you know what, I can't do this. The enemy is too adamant about me not being here. So to me, the fact that he was able to overcome that and keep trucking along despite so much affliction is, I think, the most powerful portion of his testimony, that he was able to overcome all of that. And I think it gives your everyday Christian hope. You listen to something like that. It makes you think, you know what, I can go through what I'm going through. You know, it's OK. Yeah, my family might not want to talk to me and I've been cut off by some of my closest friends and things of that nature, but I can overcome that. I can get through that because of testimonies like this Dean Miller life story and obviously, you know, other pastors throughout history as well. Well, I want to play another clip. This is from the Hamilton Square Baptist Church. It's in San Francisco, and I believe this was 1993, if I remember the timeline correctly, it's on YouTube. The footage is really kind of sketch, but you can still hear it pretty well. So I want you to listen to this clip and you can still kind of watch it a little bit. But it's really kind of crazy to me that this happened in the 90s in the San Francisco area. But Hamilton Square Baptist Church was being attacked by sodomites and they had a lot of news coverage about this event. And so I want to play it's going to be a little bit longer of a clip, but it's really powerful in my mind, just kind of watching some of the persecution that some of our Baptist brethren have gone through in the 90s in San Francisco in September. Now, since that story aired, that attack has gained a great deal more media attention in San Francisco itself. On Monday of this week, the city's board of supervisors looked into the incident and people on both sides spoke out very strongly. CBN news reporter Richard Hunt brought you that first report, and now he has this update. Jesus, protect us from your followers. That was the message on a banner unfurled by homosexual activists Monday morning as they held a press conference on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. But in order to understand the unusual banner, it's important to provide you with some quick background information. On September 19th, homosexuals targeted San Francisco's Hamilton Square Baptist Church for a protest. The guest speaker that evening was Reverend Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. Because police protection was minimal, activists were able to deface the church building and vandalize property. Worse yet, worshippers like Carrie Vaughn were accosted by demonstrators. This one guy, great big guy, dark hair, shoved his face in my face. I mean, like right up to here, menacing again, and called me a bitch, a bigot. During the service, angry gays pounded on doors to the sanctuary, frightening young and old alike. In an exclusive interview in October, Captain Rich Carnes told CBN News that under some circumstances, the politics of the liberal board of supervisors does impact police operations. In reality, there is some politics that are going to override what might occur. Reverend David Ennis, pastor of Hamilton Square Baptist, blames the supervisors, not the police, for the attack on his church, and he decided to take on City Hall. More than 300 ministers from 28 states responded to Ennis' call to rally, then march on the board of supervisors this past Monday. Just four hours before the pastor's rally, homosexuals held a hastily arranged press conference. Their cry was, Christian bigots are trying to hurt us, Rebecca Hensler with ACT UP. We would be wrong to allow Louis Sheldon or anyone else to promote violence against us simply because he cloaks his bigotry in scripture and plans our holocaust in a church. Pro-homosexual activist Margie Covino. The problem is not with good Christian people. It is with the new ayatollahs in America who use feminism and who use gays and lesbians to manipulate those good Christian people to further their own political agendas and to reconstruct America into a fascist theocracy. However, the activists refused to hold homosexual protesters responsible for their actions against Hamilton Square Church. Back at the church, ministers had received word that the gays were going to try to fill all the available seats at the board of supervisors meeting in hopes of keeping the Christians out. As a result, Christians immediately marched to City Hall with police escort, then waited outside the chambers alongside homosexuals for the doors to open. There were encounters. You are not of Christ, you are of Beelzebub. In response to homosexual taunts, the ministers broke out in song. It was a crowded and rowdy session of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors as Christian pastors and homosexual activists took turns at the microphone. San Francisco is a city of refuge for us, the gay men and the lesbians and the bisexuals. We come here to escape hostility, to escape bigotry, to escape hatred and physical harm perpetrated on us by our families and by our neighbors and by the churches in which we were raised. Now, the same intolerant biggest that drove us from our homes and from our cities are here in San Francisco. Is there a double standard in this city? One opposing gay bashing and another winking at Christian bashing? There is so much Christian phobia and anti-Christian bigotry in this supposedly tolerant city that it ain't funny. I just want to say that no people were prevented entry into that church. Everyone who wanted in got in. They might not have got in exactly when they wanted to, but they got in. I also want to say that I do not apologize for my community or its outrage. Never. We will not stand to be intimidated on how to preach, what to preach, and when to preach. Amid cat calls and interruptions, Reverend Louis Sheldon was finally allowed to speak after Angela Alioto, chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, threatened to clear the room. This is a First Amendment right he has, and he's exercising it, and it's important. I want to hear what he has to say. I've been fighting him for six years. I want to hear this. I preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we will not have any particular group tell us what is politically correct. We will do what is morally correct. Now, watch your television carefully as a man with glasses in the lower right part of your screen spits into Sheldon's face. We will not have any particular group tell us what is politically correct. Police immediately moved in and arrested the man, dragging him away. Homosexual activists were outraged by this. He did not spit on him. Somebody needs to go to jail and somebody does. What does that mean, Angela? Can we pick out Christians to arrest for no reason? I want to make a citizen arrest him, and he assaulted me. A few more people were allowed to speak. Then, as Reverend Chuck McElhenney was about to talk, the Supervisors moved to stop the public comments. Hamilton Square's David Ennis, who had planned to present the gay flag raised over his church to Carol Migdon, a lesbian supervisor, was not permitted to or to speak. Hamilton issued a media statement that read, This demonstration today is not a call for justice. It is a well-orchestrated publicity stunt to generate support for an extremist attack on lesbians and gay men. And Supervisor Sue Bierman voiced this assurance to homosexuals that all but confirms the special status given to gays by city government. And I want to speak for just a minute to the gays and the lesbians and transsexuals in this room. You just don't have to get all upset here, because we know what you're going through. But later, back at Hamilton Square, the mood was joyous, not because any Supervisors had been won over, but because politicians had shown their true colors, and Christians had taken a bold stand in the chambers of what is likely the most pro-homosexual city government in America. Richard Hunt, CBN News, San Francisco. Ladies and gentlemen, when you hear of these initiatives to give... Man, I know we played a lot there, but it's a really powerful clip in my opinion. And it illustrates a lot of truths, and it kind of helps, you know, I think a lot of Baptists not feel alone in their fight for the truth and taking a stand. In fact, if you go to Wikipedia, which is not a conservative website, it's not even usually the truth, they lie. But even on this particular issue, they have a page called Hamilton Square Baptist Church Protests. And of course, with the media coverage, you're never going to get a very accurate portrayal of the events. Most of the clips of the preachers speaking were very highly edited, didn't let them say hardly anything, whereas, you know, the sodomites are getting to just blah, blah, blah. But on the Wikipedia page, it literally says this. It says that the sodomites occupied the church grounds, shouted obscenities, and threw rocks at worshippers who wanted to enter the church. They damaged walls and fixtures, plastered obscene posters on walls and windows, and tore down a Christian flag inside the building, replacing it with the rainbow-colored queer nation flag of the homosexual right activist. When they saw children standing in the lobby, the homosexual activists begin shouting, we want your children! Literally. They didn't even just stand outside. They broke into the church, ripped their flag, put their own flag up, were screaming at the children, saying that they want the children. They're getting in ladies' faces, using obscenities, you know, that is the real picture of what these sodomites are like. And it's not a new thing. You know, some people would say like, oh, this never happened, you know, back in my day. But this is the 1990s. And, you know, a lot of people would think that this never even happened. But one of our great friends from Verity Baptist Church, Deacon Oliver Gonzalez, literally went to this church. I think he like grew up there or he spent a large portion of his Christian life in this church, which it's pretty cool that there was a church in San Francisco that was taking a stand like this. And they had many pastors come and support them. So obviously there's a righteous remnant even in San Francisco, at least in the 90s. I don't know where they are today, but, you know, I feel like they're a kindred spirit with us. And I really wanted to play that clip because of our guest this evening, Pastor Bruce Mejia. And I know that he's had to go through, you know, probably what feels like a pretty it feels like he's probably just reliving his past with that clip or something. I don't know. Have you ever seen that clip or heard about the Hamilton Square Baptist Church, Pastor Mejia? No, I've never seen that before. That's the first time I've ever seen it really tick me off. But it kind of made me feel good, though, too, just to see that because it's almost like exactly what happened to us. That's almost like everything that would have taken place there obviously was in the city hall. We had ours at our church, but it's just there's nothing new under the sun. And so that's an awesome pastor there. I wish I had known about him. What did you think about that clip? I think all I could do is echo what Pastor Mejia just said. There's nothing new under the sun, the same vile, grotesque and evil enemies of God that we're faced with today. Our opposition, the enemies of the gospel, the enemies of righteousness, children, by the way, screaming about how they want to get the children and defile them. It's the same people that were back then as well in the late 90s. And it goes all the way back to Genesis Chapter 19 and Sodom and Gomorrah. There is nothing new under the sun. These people have always been this way. They hate this. They despise Jesus Christ. And Pastor Mejia, I'm with you. That did tick me off as well. And I'm doing everything within my power not to get our YouTube channel nuked. Well, yeah. And also, I mean, like you had I was going to say, you know, it also is encouraging to see that, you know, because sometimes people can get this this thought or Christians can get this thought that we're the only ones who have ever taken this stand. We're the only ones who have preached this hard. But it really shows you that throughout the generations, there's always been 7000 prophets who have not bowled the need to bail. There's always been someone who's had the spirit of Elijah and, you know, who's who's kind of standing their ground and he was hated of the world. And so that's that's really encouraging to me because that's like a spiritual father to me, so to speak, to look at that pastor, even though I don't know him personally. You know, it's pretty amazing that there are men of God like that in times past, even so close to. I mean, as far as like the 90s is concerned, that's that's awesome. Yeah. And it really illustrates a lot of verses, like when the Bible talks about we wrestle not against flesh and blood and it's talking about spiritual wickedness in high places. They literally said that one of the board supervisors is a lesbian. And we noticed that some of the talking points, they haven't changed their talking points because they say Christians are these fascists, these bigots. And really, they just keep repeating these narratives. And it's funny to me, the signs that first sign, it was something like, Jesus, please help protect us from your followers. And it just reminds me of our church because we've had a lot of protesters and there's this one guy and like every time I walk into church, he just screams at me and he's like, my Jesus doesn't hate. And I'm just like, dude, that sounds pretty hateful, bro. The hypocrisy is just so funny to me. Love, not hate. F you. Do you not have any self-awareness whatsoever? Oh, yeah, you don't. Well, they want to be protected from the violence of these Christians while they throw rocks at them, spit and physically assault them. You know, it's like, what in the world? Who can't see through this narrative? And they're also calling the Christians above. They're like, there'll be they're not Jesus. There'll be like, yeah, talk about that's exactly the point you made. Yeah, you just made that point about how they're going to call us. And then they just call them Beelzebub and every evil thing. And it's funny to me, though, how they use scriptural points to attack Christians because they know that there's no worse insults. There's no worse insults than to say someone's a reprobate or to say someone's a Beelzebub or to say go to hell because there's no worse punishment than hell. So it's interesting to me that this this, you know, group of people that reject the Bible, they hate the word of God. They say that it's fairy tales, that they're atheists and everything else. Yet they can't come up with any original ideas. Every single thing that they say to us is just coming straight from the Bible, straight from the word of God. Why can't they come up with some better attacks or some better name calling? It's like all they can do is just borrow from the word of God because they realize that's the only thing that has true power. And they'll, of course, falsely accused Christians of being themselves. They'll say, oh, no, you're the homosexual. Oh, no, you're the pedophile or whatever, knowing that that's the worst thing someone could ever be. And they just want to try and drag you down in the mud with them. Well, I want to talk a little bit about the reaction here, because what kind of blew me away at this clip is this this pastor gets protested by several sodomites. But it said that, like all these other pastors came out of nowhere, you know, basically to show up and to support this guy. And, you know, I think that that's important. I think that it's really important that Christians could put aside whatever differences they may or may not have to take bold stands against the sodomites or on these big issues. You know, when the children of Israel were hearing about this woman who basically got killed by a bunch of sons of Belial and judges, you know, they all they all got this body part in the mail, which has got to be kind of weird. But, you know, all these tribes, they may not be like the best of buds. Like, I don't know that is a car just loves, you know, Manasseh and like they probably have a little bit of tension. Yet when it comes to this issue, they all just rally together as one man. The Bible says they're like knit together as one man and they come and fight it. And, you know, it makes me really sick is when Baptist so-called will get up and literally denounce a pastor who's being attacked by sodomites and try to make him feel bad about it or try to attack him. And it makes me think of this fake pastor named Michael Johnson. And he's really just a nobody. But he he tried to act like he was our friend for a little bit. But then whenever Pastor Mejia went through something really similar to this, instead of rallying against the God hating psychopath, pedophile reprobates, he's just he's literally going against Pastor Mejia, almost siding with the sodomites. Almost happy that it happened, it seemed like. I think we have a Facebook post of this, don't we? Have we got the proof? Well, let's bring the receipts for those watching on video. Where's the where's the receipt? Do we have this? Can we pull this up? All right. Michael Johnson, MJ, right there. Let's see what he said. He said Bruce Mejia is a proven liar. Well, I don't know what proof he has there that has been bringing railing accusations against, quote, true men of God. I wouldn't stand with him or anywhere near him, for that matter. Looks like the hedge of protection is gone and he's no joke. Now I'm going to get my thoughts and we're going to kind of go to Ben here for a second, too. But what what's stupid about this is let's let's just for a half a second, let's just say Michael Johnson was true. Let's just say Pastor Mejia is like the biggest liar that we've ever met in our entire life. OK, and let's even say Pastor Mejia doesn't like some other Christian or something like that or had a bad spirit. Here's a question. Is Pastor Mejia saved? Because if Pastor Mejia is saved and sodomites are attacking him, you know who I'm going to stand with? The saved person, no matter how big a sinner they are. As evidenced by Lot, who's like literally one of the worst Christians in the Bible living in Sodom and Gomorrah, literally. And yet Abram isn't like, well, you know, Lot's kind of a screwed up guy. I'm going to stand with the sodomites on this issue. No, no, no. He wants Lot to be rescued. He even rescues him himself. And what kind of, you know, pastor are you so called that you literally would not stand with another brother in Christ against God hating psychopaths? You would literally condemn. You would literally be pleased or happy that a saved person would just be fed to the wolves. You know, even if it was the lost lamb, which again, let me make it clear, I don't believe that Pastor Mejia is a proven liar whatsoever. And I know of no true man of God that he's ever attacked. So, you know, the railing accusations are really just a projection from Michael Johnson's own heart. But it's just insane to me that anybody that's got the Holy Spirit inside of them would ever want to join up with Belial and be their buddy. I mean, how does this make you feel, Brother Ben? It's almost like Michael Johnson's referring to himself when he talks about the true men of God that Pastor Mejia supposedly. And it's like Elihu who claimed that he wouldn't give a flattering title. And then he says that he's there in God's stead speaking to Job. He is Elihu incarnate. But, you know, the choice is so easy for those who maybe are unaware. Pastor Bruce Mejia, like Pastor Shelley just said, had undergone an attack wave after wave. I should say attacks, plural, by the Sodomites. And, you know, they bombed this church. They persecuted him. They persecuted his family. They persecuted his church, his church members. And so you have a choice here. You have the man of God who believes unapologetically every word of the Bible. And then you have a bunch of degenerate freaks. The choice should be simple. It should take you a nanosecond to figure out who you're going to stand with if you have a brain in your head. Excuse me. Go ahead, Pastor Mejia. Well, here's the thing is that let's say, for example, there's a pastor out there who I just don't get along with. And, you know, I don't think he's a good person. And let's say the reprobates begin attacking him. Well, here's an option. You just stay out of it or don't make any comment about it. You know, you're just kind of like, well, you know, I think this person is a bad person or I think this this this pastor is maybe a false prophet or whatever. Maybe, you know, then at that point you stay out of it because the the option of siding with reprobates shouldn't be an option. It shouldn't even be on the table because obviously that's wicked. But, you know, the Bible says that they there forsake the law, praise the wicked, but such as keep the law, contend with them. And so all this shows me is that Michael Johnson is just a person who's forsaken the law. You know, when he's siding with wicked people against men of God and he rather stand with with queers and stuff like that. I mean, that's that's just it's weird. And it's kind of embarrassing. You know, this story, this this Facebook post makes me think of a story in the Bible. It makes me think of David, because David is literally being hunted down by Saul. So you could say he's, you know, attacking true men of God because Saul's attacking David, who is literally the man after God's own heart. Not only that, Saul's lied multiple times throughout the entire charade of trying to kill David and his true motives. He lies to Jonathan about the the reason why he even wants David to come to the feast. And he has other times when he's lying. So Saul, in my opinion, literally fits the bill for a person who's a proven liar and attacking true men of God. Yet when someone comes and tells David that they've killed Saul or something bad's happened to Saul, David's not like, oh, glad he got what's coming to him or may really deserve that. He actually very sad and it grieves him and he's frustrated and even kills the guy that killed Saul because David doesn't want anything bad to happen to King Saul. And here's my viewpoint. If I know someone was saved, like it's not really questionable whether or not they're saved. Even if they were my own personal enemy, I feel like it would be like my obligation to stand with them against the sodomites. Like that's just not even, you know, really a question for me. It's not like, oh, well, this guy did me bad or lied about me or attacked me. It's like he saved and he's being attacked by sodomites. Well, now we're buddies. You know, now what can I do to help you? You know, it's like a silly, stupid mentality, which I think it goes beyond stupidity. It almost like you said, just shows a wicked heart. Someone that doesn't even have any love for the brethren. You know, someone that would just side with the devil incarnate in people. Well, shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them? They hate the Lord. You know, that's the question that these people should be asking themselves. That's a great verse. Second Chronicles 19, too. It's almost like he thinks that persecution constitutes God's judgment. So do you want to take that logic then and apply it to Dean Miller's life story? Was he getting judged by God, you think? What about the Hamilton Square video? Was that church under God's judgment or chastisement because a bunch of freaks were attacking it? Give me a break. Yeah, and I mean, obviously no one is Job literally, but the Book of the Bible is written for our admonition. So there's going to be in samples to us. There's going to be men in our generation that are like Job, just trying to serve God, caring about their family, and then just evil just befalls them. And it's a really silly mentality to just go ahead and just, well, getting what you deserve, buddy. You must be wicked. You know, we should actually just encourage our brethren, support our brethren, and not wish evil to ever happen to any saved child of God, no matter how bad they are. I don't care if they're the worst Christian on the planet. You're not supposed to hope that bad things happened to your brothers and sisters in Christ. We should be interceding for them and loving them. And, you know, I kind of wanted to show these clips to do a build up to really kind of go back through Pastor Mejia and talk about some of his personal tribulation. So I want to take a trip through memory lane before we do this. We've got some clips here of some of the events that you and your church had to go through. And I'm thinking you've probably seen some of these. But we have a Fox News, Fox 11 News snippet that they kind of did some coverage on your church, First Works Baptist Church, L.A. Now, y'all were in El Monte, California, at the time that these attacks were taking place and this news coverage was taken. And I want to just kind of play this clip. We've got this clip aired up right for the Tim. Let's kick it off with this Fox News clip. Has residents asking the city to kick him out of town? Gina Silva talked to residents of El Monte who have been protesting against the pastor and his church. We're making El Monte a righteous city. At First Works Baptist Church in El Monte, Pastor Bruce Mejia is preaching against people in the LGBTQ community. So how does God view them as rapists? How does God view them as child molesters? He tells the men in his congregation not to let their wives work. And much of adultery that takes place in marriage is when a woman is working out in the world. That happens all the time. Why? Because women are weak. I'm not downplaying them. I'm not degrading them. It's fat. It's also a fact in his book that Disney characters like Elsa from Frozen are sinners. She's not a princess. She's a whore. How are residents in El Monte reacting to all of this? Stop being on the phone. Stop being transphoned. They plan to continue holding demonstrations like this one. He preaches so much hate against everyone. The way that he's twisting things in the Bible, the way that he is trying to put down women. It worries me that we have been living here our whole lives and that there are people who agree with this rhetoric. And we're potentially targets to hate crimes. But Pastor Mejia doesn't care what they think. I'm not afraid of these freaks. The First World Baptists are calling for the government execution of the LGBT community. While conducting interviews, a parishioner came outside of the church to speak with us. I agree 100% with this message and it's not a message of hate. You don't think it's hateful to say that the government should execute them? That's not hateful. That's what God says. That's what the Bible says. You believe that that is okay? Yeah, that is okay because God said it. I am completely disgusted that this city has allowed these people to be able to continue to say their hate speech. We spoke with the El Monte chief of police and the city manager who told us they are offering mediators. To help facilitate a conversation, a round table dialogue around these issues. But with anything else, the parties have to be willing to sit down and participate in that dialogue. But Mejia has refused to meet with any mediators. And while his speech may be considered hateful, police chief David Reynoso says it's not criminal. Well criminal speech is when you directly threaten a crime against someone. Threaten or hurt someone to kill someone. As opposed to every general hate speech. I'm still not apologizing. We're getting you guys out of here. Okay, you're still filthy. That was Gina Silva reporting. Now of course we have reached out to the pastor for comment, but he has not gotten back to us. I feel like they made you look so awesome in that clip. It made me feel like Ben edited that clip personally. Especially the part where it's just like, I'm not apologizing. I remember when I first saw that, I was just like, man, this is like the best clip ever. Because obviously they meant it unto evil. But when I saw it, I was like, man, this is good. I couldn't have edited a clip better myself. So I am curious, did they even contact you about this supposed mediation? Is that even true? So when they did this interview, they hadn't contacted me about it. But then they contacted me afterwards. And what happened was the chief of police had called me and said that the city manager wanted to have a meeting with me. And I asked him, I was like, well, what about? And he just said, oh, we just want to talk to you about some things. And so I drove down there, we went to the city hall and then we went into this office. And she said that, she was basically saying like, hey, I understand that you believe you're preaching the Bible. We just want to have a round table discussion with the other party, with the other group. And just kind of get you guys to kind of agree. And I basically told him, I was like, well, I have nothing to say to the other side. Everything that you, any question that you want to ask me, I probably have already answered. And I'm not apologizing for it because they wanted me to apologize, basically. They wanted me to go before the group and say, you know what? You know, I was kind of extreme on some of my views, but there's no reason we can't coexist or whatever. And I told him, I said, I'm not going to apologize. Nothing's going to change. And so this is and she says, well, help me then. She said, help me. What can we do? What can I do so that we can have peace in our city? That's what she said. And I said, well, here's your answer. Leave me alone. I said, if you just leave me alone and allow me and my church to serve God and preach the Bible and just do my thing. I said, God's not going to judge this city. I said, just leave me alone and you will have peace. And she said, I get that. But what can we do? And I said, I just answered you. Leave my church alone and God will not judge this city. And then she said, well, what can I do to have peace? I said, well, you just got to get saved as I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that shall be saved. I said, I don't know what else you want from me, but that's the only advice I have for you. But I'm not going to have a roundtable discussion with the other party when you already know that I hate them and, you know, my views. And so I'm not taking anything back. That's my answer. And that was it. That was the discussion we had. That's funny to me, because when you said, what can we do to have peace? My immediate thought was Leviticus 2013. But I like your answer. And, you know, this is what I like, because hearing this story, because I didn't even know this. But in Proverbs 22, the Bible says, See, is thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean men. So the Bible talks about men of God, people that work really hard. They're going to get notice and they're going to get these opportunity to speak to, you know, really elevated positions of power like, you know, the city commissioner or the chief of police or these people. And you literally gave her some of the word of God. I mean, you were able to sit there. Yeah. And tell her how to get saved. And, you know, that's that's pretty cool. If you think about it. Obviously, I went through a lot of evil to get there. You know, you should have had a roundtable with Elsa because she obviously, you know, was really offended. Whore. By you calling her a whore. I like how the lady said she's a sinner. And then it's like cuts the buzz. She's a whore. Tell us how you really feel. Now, I think we have another clip I want to keep. I want to give some more clips because I know for us, we kind of have an idea of what happened. But for our audience out there, we want to give a little bit more viewpoint of what kind of happened with your church and kind of the events as they unfolded. I think we have another bombing clip here because these sodomites didn't just protest. They literally bombed Pastor Mejia's church. Let's let's play this other clip here. They set off an improvised explosive device at an El Monte church this morning. The FBI now handling this investigation. CBS2's Joy Benedict shows us the damage it did and she talked to neighbors who heard it. It's a scene that lingered all day in this El Monte community after a night that was hard to believe. I heard a loud boom. It sounded like a firework, but way louder. Hell, it sounded like I'm forming military, so it sounded like artillery. The FBI is calling it an IED, an improvised explosive device, a phrase rarely heard to describe violence in this community. The idea that something like that would happen in this neighborhood is beyond, you know, comprehension. But investigators say someone targeted this church. El Monte police officers responded just after 1 a.m. It was filled with graffiti and just obscene things that they wrote on the walls and the windows were blown out. They had thrown a bomb in there. Bruce Mejia is the pastor at First Works Baptist Church. He says their security cameras captured two people walking up before the attack. People may not like your message, but people need to understand that if you don't like it, then go somewhere else. If you don't like it, just turn off my sermon. First Works Baptist Church has been the target of demonstrations recently by a group called Keep El Monte Friendly after organizers say sermons posted on the church's YouTube page preach hate. Now welcome here, folks. On several occasions, the pastor uses offensive slurs towards the LGBTQ community and says he doesn't care that some want him to stop. We're going to sign all these petitions and get all these signatures, try to get the mayor to come to you and throw you out. Then what? You think I'm going to stop preaching after that? But when you use certain words and say you're not welcome here, I mean, you have to understand how that can upset people. Yeah, and you know what? Everyone has the right to be upset, but no one has the right to come and bomb a building because they're upset. The El Monte Police Department says they have had several calls in the past to this church because of demonstrations, but none of them have been violent. We can't really say what the motive was for this attack. I don't want to say those groups in any way were responsible for this. No one was injured in the explosion, and investigators are searching the area for security video, but neighbors have had enough. You don't like what someone else protests about. You don't like somebody's religion, that's your choice, that's your belief, but you don't have the right to put somebody's life in jeopardy. For those who live around here, hope and arrests will not only bring justice, but peace. Joy Benedict, CBS2 News. You know, I want you to help us just get a little context here because we kind of saw the first clip which was based on the initial demonstrations, people protesting at church, and then that kind of escalated to this bombing, but kind of walk us through this a little bit, Pastor Mejia. What is kind of like a timeline as far as like what started happening and then kind of how these two clips run together? So what basically took place was that towards the end of 2020, I started getting messages on my Instagram about a particular person that found my preaching against the sodomites and began to repost it and trying to, you know, get some attention. And so my DMs and emails started filling up, and then it started catching a lot of momentum. And then this particular person basically wanted to get a petition signed to get me kicked out of the city. So they wanted to collect like 10,000, but then they got 15,000. They were trying to go up to 25,000. And then at the beginning of January, they started handing out flyers and putting my face all over the city of El Monte with some of my quotes about sodomites and Elsa and just a lot of these things that they... And a lot of the quotes weren't even real, though, like some of the stuff that was on there, I didn't say at all. But I mean, obviously, who cares, you know? But so they're posting that all over the city of El Monte and just bringing more attention. And so this began to escalate. And then I remember, you know, a couple weeks prior to the actual bombing, I just instructed some of the men like, hey, we need to stand outside of the church just to be a presence, just to let these people know that they're not just dealing with a pastor. There's men at this church, there's people here, and we're not going to back down. And it was, you know, during that time, people would drive by and they take pictures and they flip us off and say wicked things or whatever. And so that was taking place for a couple of weeks. And then they scheduled a protest. So then they scheduled the protest. And obviously, this was during COVID. And so they wanted to do like a car caravan type of a protest. And so we kind of just took the liberty to just kind of make fun of them because of that. It was like a drive by protest that was kind of lame. And so they're doing this protest, which some of the cars actually end up crashing, which is pretty funny. They ended up like crashing into each other because they're looking out the window, they're looking at a church and they're not paying attention. And then they crashed into each other. It was funny. And so they did that. And then but they actually came out. So a lot of the people that were there, a lot of the Sodomites, I don't think were part of Omani. Because there's a wide spectrum of Omanis is predominantly Hispanic. And so there is a wide variety of different races there. And they had cameras and when they came to protest. And so they did that. And that the Sunday morning protest was pretty wild because obviously we don't have a buffering. We have a buffering zone at that time. So they're right there up against the church walls and the church door and they had horns. And then they had hired this transvestite heavy metal band to come and play outside of the church, like with speakers and drums and snares and all that and a guitar. And it was just this overweight tranny that couldn't even get out of the car or out of the truck. It had to sing from inside the truck. And so they're singing these and it was the most disgusting thing you ever hear ever. We have it recorded and we have it on video, but it's the most vile, disgusting, perverse things you ever hear in your life. And so they were out there and then they had the sodomites out in front. And then they had what they were called agitators who we don't really know where they came from, but they were just there just to kind of create chaos. And so there's a time when I actually went out there and I was just kind of walking back and forth. And one of the agitators came up from behind me and just kind of shoved me from behind and yelled F you in my ear. And as soon as I turned around, he like ran into the crowd and was trying to get me to come and fight him. You know, he's like, come out here and fight, come out here and fight. And so the police were there and I just told him, I was like, hey, this guy, you know, he's on our property. He just shoved me right now. So just letting you guys know. And he's like, you want us to arrest him? And I just said, no, not really, whatever. And so I went in and then we had some protocols that we had to go through. And I basically told the man, hey, I told him, I said, whatever you do, do not engage these people at all physically. Okay. I don't want you to throw blows with them. I don't want you to punch them. I don't want you to like, don't touch them. Because obviously, you know, when they're yelling at you, some of the most vile things and they're screaming at your wife, you know, in the flesh, you want to respond. And so I like emphasize that I hammer that so much. I was like, do not like if you love your church, if you love me, if you love the Lord, don't do it. You know, you just got to not you just got to kind of ignore it as best as you can. Well, that kind of went out the window. Because what happened was, there's a there's a particular sodomite that had a blowhorn and she was on our property. Because there's like a blue strip that was considered our property and she was on our property and she was putting the blowhorn through the door. And so one of the guys just went out there and just just shoved her, shoved her off the property said get off our property and just shoved her. And then all these sodomites just rushed him. They all rushed him. And this is actually during the announcements. So I'm giving the announcements. I'm giving announcements and I'm like, you know, hey, make sure no man allowed in the mother baby room, you know, we're hey, we're having a potluck at this time, you know, service times, we're going to the book of whatever on Thursday nights. And then this happens. And so we have a family in the back and the wife, one of the wives at the back looked at me and said, they're hitting him. And as soon as she said that, all the men just rushed out. It was like a mob. And it was like my worst nightmare. Because this is exactly what I didn't want to happen. Yeah. So I jumped off the platform and I'm running down the aisle like a Pentecostal and I'm running and I'm just, I'm like moving guys out of the way. And then, and then I didn't know who it was. But one of them was Ray. Well, Ray was out there. He was, he was out there, shout out, shout out to the sod slayer. And, um, I saw him and I thought, I was like, no. So I go out there and they're out there and I just, I just grab all the men by the collars and I'm just throwing them in and I'm pulling them in. And then they're just rushing. They're coming, like they're not rushing me, but they're just like yelling at me. And then at that point, I'm actually going to put out a clip sometime this week because we're making like a compilation video of it. There was a new family that was just coming to our church and they're walking up right at that time. So they're brand new. And I'm just kind of like, yeah, come on in, come on, welcome to church, you know, as these sodomites are like yelling at us. And so then I just closed the door and I go up to that particular person and I said, you did what I told you not to do. I said, but it's okay. Everything's going to be all right. And then luckily, you know, the sodomites had gone to the police and there's like a video out there. This is the reason we know about it. And she's like, he shoved me, he laid his hands on me. And do you need to go in there and arrest him? And he said, he told her, he goes, he said, listen, and she said this, he goes, they're not wearing their masks in there. They're not social distancing in there. And he said, listen, we know exactly what they're doing in there. They're exercising their rights, you know, as Americans to meet in a church and to exercise their religious freedom. And he said, you're on their property. So they have every right to remove you from the property. And so, and he said, and then he told her this, he said, let me say this, you being across the street, or I'm sorry, he said, when I was across the street, he said, you flipping me off and saying F you? He's like, doesn't help you. So at that point, like the sodomites knew that the police had taken our side. And, you know, obviously they took our side because initially they had said, we're going to remain neutral. We're not your bodyguards. We're not, you know, we're not here to like protect you guys or anything like that. But then they had to, because they were seeing families come in with children and wives and these family units. And then you have these sodomites just yelling the most foul perverse things there is. And so after a while, the police literally would just stand in front of the building with like their hands like this and just kind of guard us, which I thought was great. But, um, so that happened. And then they came in protest at night. What were you gonna say? Your story makes me think that you're like, literally the angels in Genesis 19, lots outside the door. It's like going to break the door and he just grabs them and pulls them back. It's like, pastor, he is like angel from God. Crazy. I was about to smite them with blindness, but their heart had been darkened. And so that was a long time ago. Well, yeah. Now fast forward. Obviously that was, that's intense, but then it gets even more explosive. What happens later? Well, you know, so when the service would end, we just had to kind of dismiss. And I told them, I told all the men, like, we just need to go to our cars. And there's particular men who basically had volunteered just to kind of escort my family and I, because my band was like right out on the front. And so I went out last and so everyone kind of disbanded and I went out last and the men were just kind of overseeing me. And as we're, I'm putting my, my kids and my, my wife is pregnant. She's great with child during this time. You know, I got my kids with me and we're trying to put them in their car seats and they're just like, I mean, they're in our face yelling at us. And so, um, we get in the car and we drive off or whatever. And then we come back for Sunday night service and it's the same thing. Like they basically, um, they're harassing our church members. And, you know, I'll share this story. Uh, you know, I told the man, you know, Hey, you know, you're not allowed to get physical with any of these people, especially when we're on our, on our property. But obviously you have every right to defend yourself when you're out there. And I have no bearing over what you do. You know what I mean? Like if you're with your family, you have to do what you have to do, but I'm not deputizing you to be a security guard or anything like that. And, and the reality is, I mean, pastor show you've been to that. You were in that building at one point, you know, you seen there's no parking there. We have no parking lot. And so sometimes putting a nice really far. Yeah. Parking is atrocious at that whole building. Oh yeah. We didn't have a parking lot. So sometimes people would have to park really far. Oh, that's right. So then, uh, one of our church members, you know, he's with his wife and he's like walking down and this is at night and some sodomites began to follow him. And, you know, one of our church members kind of turned around and said, you need to disengage and leave me alone. And they're just coming, they're coming at him. They're coming at him. And he's saying, he's like disengage, disengage. And so the one of the sodomites had a bike. And so he got off his bike and he was kind of coming at him with his bike. And that particular person, church member had bear spray on him. And so he just pulled out the bear spray, give him a little sprinkle in the eyes there. And, you know, um, the guy yelled out in pain, obviously, because he's, you know, pepper spray. But there's, there's a couple of instances like that when that took place. So that, that happened on that Sunday. And then after that, we're just like, well, Thursday's coming around and then, you know, we'll see, we'll see what happens. Then they had announced that they were going to have like a drag queen contest the following Sunday. And that really grieved me. I was, I was very vexed by that. And I remember thinking to myself, like, just kind of praying unto the Lord saying like, Lord, like, just please don't stand by and just like allow this to happen. Like, there's nothing that we can do. And I remember trying to devise a witty invention to try to counterbalance that or to counter attack that. Like we're going to put like large speakers outside the church, just bumping my preaching at them. Um, we're going to build a wall or something. We bought like, like face coverings for the kids. So they wouldn't see them. And I'm, I'm just trying to come up with every single witty invention there. There possibly was just to, so our kids will not be violated by this. You need like the 300 men with shields, like from the movie 300. Yeah. I have this shield barricade. Oh man, that's gross. And they had literally posted on their Instagram and said, uh, you know, when they're promoting the drag queen contest, they're saying, you know, let's make them throw up. Let's make them throw up. That's what they had put on there. So, you know, they obviously know that that's so disgusting. Do you want to throw up? So then Thursday came around and, and pastor persons, um, he was, he had offered, he was going to be in town. So he's like, you want me to preach for you? I'm like, yeah, for sure. So he came out and preached and I told him everything that was happening. And so he preached a pretty epic sermon at our church, but we had no protesters there that Thursday. And so, um, you know, I thought that was kind of weird, but we didn't have any protesters. We had some demonic encounters, kind of like what you and I experienced when we went over to preach for the, for the fire Baptist Baptist fire, fire breathing Baptist fellowship. Do you remember when we went out to eat that night pastor Shelley? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At the restaurant, there was some trolling you or whatever at the bar or something. It was weird. He was like, demonically possessed. He was possessed for sure. Because he had been kind of harassed, not harassing, but he was kind of like looking through the windows and then he came into the restaurant and sat at the bar and just stared at pastor birds and for a long time, but we had an encounter like that when pastor persons came out to preach for us. Well, he preaches that sermon and then Friday comes around and we, I have a meeting with the men in our church and just say, you know, we're not going to do any of these witty inventions that I came up with. We're just going to, we're just have to pray that God makes it rain really hard. And then that lightning strikes, you know, and that's just what we're going to have to do. And so we have a prayer meeting and we're, we're just, you know, real men pray in precatory prayers. And so we're just praying in precatory prayers and we're just like, Lord, destroy them, send lightning bolts, increase our faith. And well, I mean, he answered our prayer just not in the way we would want. Sometimes God answers our prayers in different ways, you know? Right. And works in mysterious ways. He does. And so Friday night, or should I say early Saturday morning? I don't know. I think it was like around two o'clock in the morning. My wife gets a phone call and it's from our evangelist, brother Ulysses, who was part time at that time. And then he wants to talk to me and he said, because I had told him, I said, hey, unless, you know, like our church gets blown up or something like that. I said, don't contact me. I don't want to know about people threatening me online. I don't need to know about people saying they're going to do things to my family. And I was like, just keep that stuff to yourself. Just trash those emails, unless like the church gets bombed. And I was like joking about it. And so he told me, he said, hey, you didn't want me to, he's a prophet. And I told him, I said, look, or he said, you told me not to call you unless the church gets bombed. So I'm just calling you because the church got bombed. Wow. And I said, what? And he's like, yeah, I'm out. I'm at the building right now. And basically what happened was his wife was just up in the middle of the night and she's just kind of going through her phone. And I think like she looked at the security cameras or something like that. And we had just put security cameras the week before because I told him, I said, we need to put security cameras just thinking something happens. And they were offline. So then he's like, what in the world? So then he goes and then he finds out that, you know, it got bombed. And of course, the fire department's there. And then the FBI came. And then I had to come and, you know, they basically placed an explosive inside. They put graffiti all over the walls, and then they broke out one of the windows, hoping to throw a bomb all the way inside the building. But because the windows were kind of gated, they couldn't fit one. So they put it almost like on the windowsill. And it blew up the wall along with like the inside of the ceiling. And so then that happened. And then they were looking for like a second bomb and whatnot. But we have the people on camera. So the FBI came and then they, you know, questioned us and whatnot. And I just remember thinking to myself, like, this is crazy. I can't believe this just happened. And I think I text Pastor Anderson or something like that, like at four o'clock in the morning, and I just said, like, our church got bombed. Like, you know, because I was communicating with them throughout the week. And I was just kind of, you know, pouring out my heart, just telling them, like, hey, I'm not going to quit. I'm not planning on quitting. I'm not going to throw in the towel or anything like that. But I'm just letting you know, like, I need to tell someone that this is really hard because, you know, they're threatening my family and they're doing all these things. And so I feel like it's taken a toll on me. And I told him, I was like, I'm not telling you this because I'm telling you that, like, I need you to come help me or I can't preach. I can't pastor anymore. I'm just saying, like, I just need to tell someone this. And so, you know, he gave me some words of encouragement because, of course, Pastor Anderson has been through that multiple times. And so we're just communicating back and forth. And then I told him that and I think he just responded with, like, wow, sorry. What do you say? That's such a horrible text to get. You're just kind of like, oh, man, like. I don't even know what words to, you know, outside of just giving scripture or something, like, I don't even know what I would say. Yeah, I mean, like, well, we ended up talking on the phone and he just he basically told me, he said, well, this is what you signed up for when you became a pastor. And I said, no, this is what I signed up for when I became a Christian. You know, this is what it's all about. There you go. And so, yeah, I ended up going home and I told my wife, I said, I'm going to sleep because I'm tired. Just hold the take messages and I'll figure out what we're going to do in a couple of hours. So I want to sleep in the night. I woke up and I said, well, we need to find a place to meet because we're still going to meet. And so we we we we found a location and we met under a tabernacle for a couple of weeks. And it was great. I mean, it was it was an awesome experience, to be quite honest. So obviously, during that time, it was very difficult. And even weeks after that, because weeks after that, they stole our vehicle, my vehicle from my house. They camped out in front of my house and a bunch of other stuff took place. But, you know, during that time, it was very, very stressful. It was very difficult. But looking back, I mean, I wouldn't have if I can go back and if I had the chance to go back and say, you know, and change something, I wouldn't. You know what I mean? I would do it exactly the same way because of the fact that it helped our church. It strengthened our church. It endeared the hearts of their church members one to another. And and I wasn't the only one who was persecuted. I mean, our church members till this day are still being persecuted from family members. You know, they were persecuted by the sodomites. A lot of the sodomites went after the jobs of the people in our church and try to get them fired from their jobs. And, you know, even even try to get them expelled from like private schools that their children were attending. They would contact the principals and just just a lot of wicked stuff. And they would threaten them and dox their address and post their address online. You know, things of that nature. But but it's strengthen our church. So, you know, when Michael Johnson says, hey, the hedge of protection has been removed and God is judging me. Well, that's funny because God blessed us with more church members, more salvations. You know, we were Baptist church members. We all baptize people like or baptisms. Yes, I don't know. I mean, this is a pretty cool judgment that that's what that's what it is, you know, and I'm thankful for that. You know, I want the listener at home to realize, you know, I'm kind of we're kind of laughing at all this now and kind of almost see me happy. But it's not like we think that it's cool to bomb church buildings. It's not like we think that this is awesome or we want buildings to be burned or we want people to harass us or or any of that kind of stuff, because, you know, from a Christian perspective, we shouldn't desire for evil. The Bible tells us that we're supposed to pray that we wouldn't be delivered to evil and we're supposed to pray that we're not entered into temptation. And so we certainly don't ask for it. You know, the Bible says, I when I I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war. So, you know, we definitely want to be peaceful in the community. It's these sodomites and these God hating atheists that want to attack us. But when you look at it from hindsight, all you can do is just what the Bible said, because in Matthew Chapter five, the Bible says, rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven. So when the Bible talks about being persecuted or being reviled or people doing evil unto you, the literal commandment of God is to rejoice and be exceeding glad. So someone's mad at us for laughing or enjoying living, reliving these experiences. You know, they're the ones that are not right with God, because the right attitude in hindsight is to have joy and to just see how the Lord works in mysterious ways. But obviously, at the time, you know, when I first heard I wasn't laughing or or joyful or anything like that, I was very grieved. I was very upset to hear that your church was going through that. And I know that, well, I remember I remember you Christians are affected. I remember I remember you called me and I was at home and you were like vexed. I remember you calling me and telling me, like, I need to send security to your house. What can I do? Can I send police over there? Can I send security over there? And you're like calling people like in Montebello and trying to get people to come and like watch over us. And I was so mentally and emotionally drained. I was just like, thank you. You know, do whatever you can. Like, I can't really even think of what we need to do. But it was taxing. It was a very taxing situation. Well, I mean, the emotional stress is hard on not just the pastor, but everybody else. And I think that we don't want to downplay that. I like how you said I signed up for this when I'm a Christian. Like you said, your church members, your wife, your children, these children of these other family members, they're going to the same church. They got bombed. It's not like it's just your church by yourself. I mean, it's a whole group of Christians that have to experience this type of persecution and tribulation. And it's very real. You know, this is a this isn't we're not just making stuff up this evening. These are literal news stories. This this is a literal bombing of a church. And, you know, for just preaching what the Bible says, you know, it's not like we're asking for people to do evil unto us. It's not like Pastor Mahia was hoping for bad. He already told us. He talked to the city commissioner, said, just leave us alone. Like, we just want to, you know, preach the gospel. We just want to reach people for Jesus Christ. And we want to get people saved and get them baptized. And, you know, we don't want to hurt a fly. Even Pastor Mahia, he's telling his whole church, like, don't touch them. Yeah, don't engage with them. You know, yet while they're the ones that the provocateurs, they're the ones that are screaming and spitting and throwing stuff and trying to cause the units. You know, what's funny about that is that the week before the protest, I had preached a sermon called Preparations for Warfare. And it was just basically my pep talk to my church to kind of get them ready for their onslaught, so to speak. And I was explaining the fact that this is a spiritual warfare. It's a spiritual battle. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. And the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God. And I'm just explaining to them, like, we can't allow this to get physical. This is spiritual. We need to pray our way through this, preach our way through this, stand our ground. And they reposted, the Sodomites reposted that sermon, but only, like, a small clip and said, this guy is asking for literal war. He wants to go to physical war with us. And then I remember people commenting, like, he literally said in that sermon that it's spiritual. He's telling his church members not to go. And then all the comments are just filled with, like, if war is what he wants, then war is what he's going to get. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. So it's just like, it's crazy. You know, there's no way to placate these people. And they're always going to twist and pervert your word, no matter what you say. Well, and for some Christians, it's crazy to me. We can show them Genesis 9, Genesis 19, Judges 19, Judges 20. Show them throughout the kings. Throw them Romans 1. And it's like they just pretend like that's not real. You can show them the Hamilton Square Baptist. You can show them Pastor Mahia. You can show them all these different examples of real persecution, real tribulation. And they just kind of want to put their finger in the air and say, my best, you know, my best life now. I just want to, you know, basically have my 401K and my vacation home. And there's never going to be any tribulation. I'm never going to see any evil. You know, any bad thing that happens to me is because I'm not right with God or something like that. Kind of like Job's friends. You know, it seems like there's a lot of Job's friends out there. And we wanted to bring you on here and talk about this to help people realize that tribulation should be expected. And I really love that quote. It's like the quote of the show. That's what I signed up for when I became a Christian. And I want Christians to realize that tribulation is real. Whether you make it all the way to the rapture or not, you're going to suffer tribulation if you're going to try and live godly. Well, one thing that I learned from all that is I learned a lot of things. But one thing in particular, you know, is the fact that, you know, obviously we're all going to go through some form of tribulation, whether it's, you know, we're going through a tough time, we're going through trials, whether that's persecution, affliction that stems from relationships with our families because of what we believe. But at the end of the day, people just have to realize that if you're going through a trial and it seems really difficult, seems really hard, then just remember that God allowed you to go through that. So if he's allowing you to experience that much pain and affliction, it means that he knows that you can handle it. Because he's not going to give us more than we can bear. And so the fact that we're going through tribulation is simply an indication that God believes in you. You know, he believes that you can go through it because he's not going to give us more than we can handle. He's going to strengthen us. And, you know, to a certain extent, you know, to a certain extent we can kind of say based upon the scriptures that hast thou considered my servant, Pastor Shelley, hast thou considered my servant Ben the Baptist? And the reason God said that about Job is because he knew Job could handle it. And the reason I say that is because, you know, sometimes when you're in the midst of a trial or tribulation, you can kind of feel like you're pressed out above measure, where it's just like, I don't know if I can handle more. I don't know how much more I can handle. I don't know how much more I can take. But if you find yourself in that situation, it means that God knows that you can. And you just need to kind of grind your way through it, pray your way through it, read the Bible your way through it, just keep doing what you're doing, and joy cometh in the morning. Well, and so, yeah, I think that's great. And I mean, for you and me, you know, becoming a pastor, to some degree, we did kind of sign up for, you know, being on the front lines. But I want to get Brother Ben's perspective here, too, because, you know, he's just a church member. You know, he just comes to church, you know, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday evening. He's real active in the ministry, but there's nothing stopping Ben from just walking away. There's nothing stopping, you know, some of our church members from just deciding to go do whatever they want. It's not going to really affect their income. It's not going to affect, you know, a lot of things from a carnal perspective. But, you know, when you hear stories like this, when you hear about Pastor Mejia's church, you hear kind of the inside baseball here, what are kind of your thoughts about this testimony? Well, from a layman's perspective, I think it underscores the importance of, especially during a time, I think we should back our pastor and always be a blessing to the church, but especially when the church is undergoing an onslaught like what you described there, Pastor Mejia. Pastor Shelley, you've gone through it as well. I mean, both of you have. From a layman's perspective, I take that as an opportunity to make sure that I call up my pastor and say, I just want to let you know I got your back. If there's anything I can do to help you get through this, even if you just need somebody to talk to, you know, if you want to just get your mind off of some things and we could, you know, talk about some funny YouTube videos right now, whatever I can do to be a blessing in this particular scenario, I really want to be able to be that person for you, a positive influence for you. And like I said, we should always back our pastor, but, you know, as they're following Christ, we should follow the men of God as they follow Christ. But especially when there's an onslaught, be there as a layman for your pastor and say, I'm here and I'm backing you up and I'm ready to defend the cause of Christ alongside you. And especially during that time, as much of a blessing as you can. And you know what, Pastor Shelley, I think that I'm sure you've experienced that as well. People call, and Pastor Mejia as well, people calling you up and saying, hey, I just want to let you know I support you. I'm with you. I got your back. We're going to go through this thing together. Yeah, it's nice to have people say that as opposed to the opposite. Sometimes you get calls and it's like, so when are you going to apologize? Or, you know, do you really have to say that? Or I think I'm going to take a break from the church right now. Or, you know, it's this thing, you never stop being a pastor. And people, even though you're going through all this turmoil, people still have their issues. And so they'll call you up and they're like, hey, I know that your life's kind of hard right now, but let me tell you about all my problems. Yeah, it's like that's probably the wrong move at that point. Well, I don't know that it's the wrong move. I mean, obviously signing up to be a pastor, I think that people should be able to come to you with their problems and we should try to help them. But I think that the point that I'm trying to make is that sometimes it's easy to get real self-involved, or real kind of just self-absorbed, thinking about you're the only one that's suffering or hurting in these issues. And it's really, you know, a lot of people are being affected by these type of issues, by these problems. And it's important to try and really encourage other people, even when you're going through a hard time. And I find that helping other people when you're struggling kind of helps you just kind of forget about how bad your life is. Like when you're just kind of like thinking about other people and trying to help other people, kind of distracts you from your issues, your problems, and allows you to just basically feel good about just helping other people. And just kind of casting all your care upon Christ and really just trying to bear the burden of other people who maybe don't have the same level of courage, or the same stamina, or the same level of faith that you're trying to try and encourage them. I know that pastor... Yeah, and also if you think about it, like, you know, sometimes we go through trials and tribulations just so we can have an answer for someone when they experience a trial or tribulation. Like we empathize with people so much more when we've experienced some sort of hard difficulty in our lives. So it's like as a pastor, God is going to allow the pastor to go through some pretty difficult things because he wants them to be equipped to help people and to weep with those that weep, you know, when they're going through a difficult time. I think of like 2 Corinthians 1, 6, where it says that whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual and the enduring of the same suffering, which we also suffer, or whether we be comforted is for your consolation and salvation. A lot of times it's like we go through difficult times just so we can find out a solution or come out as gold so that when someone goes to that tribulation or trial, we have the answers, we have the experience, and we can instill confidence in that individual to kind of hang on and endure that affliction as well. Well, and I think it's important to have shows like this to kind of talk about some of the issues and some of the problems that churches have already gone through, because as we get closer to the return of Christ and as we get closer to the coming Antichrist, as we come to the end times, tribulation and persecution is going to ramp up. It's going to become extreme, as you already mentioned, the Great Tribulation. And so I think it's important that we try to prepare people now rather than allowing them to be caught off guard with this like pre-trib mentality or your best life now mentality, or there's a lot of just bad Christian doctrine that's being preached in regards to this topic. I think it's important for us to put out real life examples and a lot of scripture to illustrate that tribulation is a real thing. It's happening right now in 2022 America, and Christians need to join the battle. They need to get into a church that's experiencing the persecution, experiencing the tribulation, get on the front lines, try to find a place to start serving. You know, bearing the burden of other people. I certainly wouldn't want to live in 2022 America, a communist country that's pro baby killing, pro sodomite, pro drinking, pro whore. And my church is just like, there's no problem. Like, it's just like, it's everything's just so grand. You'd be kind of wondering like, what's going on here? Like, how are we getting along with the world so well when it's just this evil? It's wicked. It's promoting so much false doctrine. It seems like people are mad about the Democrats and Republicans, but yet their church is experiencing no persecution. I mean, that just doesn't seem to add up for me. I know you've been to other churches, right? Brother Ben, I mean, are other churches, you know, experiencing the same level of persecution or what do you what is kind of your viewpoint on this? Not in my experience at all. No persecution. I mean, for them, I guess persecution would be that the line at Starbucks was a little too long or they had to wait for hours and they wanted at the DMV or something like that, you know, apparently. But you know, the Bible says in Psalm chapter 78, verse nine, the children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows turned back, turned back in the day of battle. And I don't want that to be the listener today. I don't want that. You know, whoever's listening to this podcast, take this as motivation to say, I'm not going to be the one who I'm not going to be like the children of Ephraim here. I'm not going to turn back in the day of battle. I'm going to stand for the word of God and the cause of Christ. And the Bible also says that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to the promise. And I think with regard to what you went through, pastor Mejia, that verse comes to life because you ended up getting a better building, a way better building. My wife has visited on multiple occasions. She's practically a church member of yours as well because she has family out there. She goes a few times a year, but you know, she's seen it. She's told me how nice it is. So you got a better building. It all worked out. And here's how it worked out for me. Your story actually made an impact for me in my life. My in-laws couldn't understand my hatred for the Sodomites for the longest time, despite some of the verses I shared with them. When they found it, because they're from, again, that's where my wife is from, that area, the El Mani area, pastor Mejia. When they found out about your church getting bombed, my mother-in-law gave me a call. She said nothing but this. I get it now. I know where you're coming from. I see it now. I see why you have this much vitriol and why you view it this way. Why you view the Sodomite issue this way. And to me, that's a blessing, pastor Mejia. For me, it's a blessing for other people to get red-pilled and realize there is no equivalency between preaching the Bible to your congregation and actual threats, violent threats, threats of murder that these Sodomites will leave for pastors who preach the Word of God. The voicemails that you guys get and the emails that you guys get. There's no equivalency between you preaching the Bible to your congregation within the confines of your church and these bunch of deviants, these depraved enemies of God sending you the most vile filth imaginable to your email and your phone. And also, Pastor Mejia, I think it shows that we're right about this issue. Their actions, their behavior, them manifesting the attributes of Romans 1 before our eyes only serves to prove not just our point, it serves to prove the point that's made in Scripture. And for me, that's a blessing. Yeah, man. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What you said there regarding the fact that what we're going through, you know, it reminds me of Romans 836 where it says, as it is written, for thy sake, we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. So it's almost like we have to be, in a sense, sacrificed in order for people to see how bad this can really get. And, you know, I've heard that testimony many times. And even in my personal experience, people who didn't agree with me contacted me and said, OK, now I believe you, you know, or I get what you're saying now. You know, there is even actually, you know, there's a there's a person on social media who during the protest, a little bit before the protest, all the way up into the protest, they weren't they weren't necessarily like friends of ours. They were just kind of like or I'm sorry, they weren't necessarily like full blown enemies of ours, but they didn't like us very much. And they were Christians. And, you know, they just thought like, hey, I think you're taking the Bible out of context. You know, you really got to do your best to love these people. They need Jesus, too. And, you know, they're kind of blowing up my DMS with just kind of like nonsensical things that I just was kind of frustrating to read. And but then we got bombed. And after we got bombed, I had posted that we met under the tabernacle and he messaged me. And he says, you know, he basically said something to the extent of I'm so happy you're still serving the Lord in spite of what happened. But then he went silent for for a while. He went silent for a while and hear from very long. But then within the last, I would say, six months, he started popping up again in my on my comments section and on Instagram, defending me against the sodomites. And even now, preaching post-Tripi wrath, once saved, always saved. And he's just like he's fully like new IFB. And he's like, this guy has the truth. Those are bombing. I've been listening to all his sermons. And through him, I found these other pastors. These guys have the truth. And so, you know, I feel like those type of trials and tribulations are not only inevitable, but they're necessary. They're necessary in order to convert more people. They're necessary to reach more people. It's a necessary evil in order for us to get the word out there, get more people saved. And and like Pastor Shelley said when he came out with the sodomite deception, if this just moved, as long as it moves people a little closer to our side, that's still a victory. You know, the people who now agree with us, they may not be all the way to our side, but we moved them a little closer to the biblical view, you know, to biblical doctrines and the teaching of the reprobate doctrine. They now are a little closer than they were before. But, you know, if this wouldn't have happened, you know, who knows if that would have taken place? Well, I'm really glad you plugged sodomite deceptions, because I didn't even think about it. But that's a great documentary. Well, it was like crap. It was like perfect timing. Oh, man, that was crazy how things work out as far as timing. But you can go to sodomite deception dot com. Watch the movie for free. We have free DVDs we give away at our church. I should probably bring a bunch out with me when I come to L.A., shouldn't I? Do y'all have any like physical copies? Yeah, we have some. OK, I'll make sure to bring some more just in case. We got we got Pastor Anderson because I think you sent some to Pastor Anderson and he brought us. OK, that's good. I was thinking like, how did you get? We'll take more. Great. I'll bring more. Well, you know, your story. He brought he brought the Sodomite deception and he brought your New Testament. OK, do you like the New Testament, too? Yeah, those are cool. Yeah, I mean, I'll bring some of those, too. Well, you know, here's the thing. The point of this podcast is to highlight some of these stories. You know, the Dean Millers of this world, the Hamilton Square Baptists of this world, the pastor Bruce Mejias of this world. And we want to relive these stories. We want to tell these stories that people are aware of what's really going on, because like you said, some people just they kind of just don't want to believe Genesis 19 like reality. But then when they see it, you know, once Lot sees it, he can't really go back. You know, eventually when slot sees it, he realize how wicked these people are. And he's like, do not such a vile thing. And he's like, oh, now you're going to judge. And for some people, we need to make sure to wake them up before their lot, before they're literally surrounded by the sodomites and basically going through this evil. You know, if even if we have to be the lot, we have to be the guy that has to go through the pain and the suffering a little bit just to wake some more people up to get some people on fire for God, then so be it. But, you know, that's why we need to have podcasts like this. We need to have shows like this. And we need to really emphasize that tribulation is a real part of Christianity. It is not a hypothetical. It's not just in the book of Acts. It's not just for the apostle Paul's of this world. It's not just for pastors of this world. As Pastor Mejia put it, I signed up for this when I became a Christian. And so I think that's going to do it for us this evening. This has been a great show. You need to check out Pastor Mejia. He's in the Los Angeles area specifically. I think it's Orange County or the Anaheim area. Why don't you go and plug your church for us so the listeners out there can find you. Yeah, come pay us a visit. You can find us at 5223 East Orange Storp Avenue here in Anaheim Hills, Orange County. And the address is on the website. Come pay us a visit. We have services on Sunday 10 30 a.m. and then Sunday evening 5 p.m. Thursday night 7 p.m. I do want to say this before we conclude. It's something Brother Ben mentioned. And I think this is so important that church members out there, you know, that you do support your pastor, you know, throughout these trials and tribulations and persecutions. I think it's important that you support him, you know, by by literally encouraging them with words or spending time with them. Honestly, I don't think that can be overemphasized just because I remember those times when it was really difficult. And, you know, looking back and seeing the support that I got from my church members. I loved my church members before, but I love them so much the more now. You know, they mean the world to me. And I'm so thankful for the men in our church. Although I'm their pastor, like I feel like that trial endeared my hearts to them. Like I love them so much the more. I feel like I would I would take a bullet for them. And, you know, don't let trials go to waste. You know, trials and tribulations are the best is is the best type of environment to cultivate deep personal relationships with people. And we made some memories with these church with my church members that we'll never forget. You know, it endeared my heart to them and endeared their hearts to me. And, you know, take advantage of that as church members, you know, support your pastor, love your pastor, pray for him. Be there for him. Spend time with him. Be the mighty men for David. You know that he needs be be the zero eyes every once in a while and just kind of tell them, hey, do you want me to go take off their heads? Is that what you want me to go do? I'm just kidding about that. Sort of. But, you know, be a blessing to your pastor. Yeah, spiritually, of course, you know, be be that that that that person who's there for your pastor, that right hand man, because it'll not only be a blessing to your pastor, but it'll be a blessing to you because you build these really deep, deep relationships in the church. And I couldn't have asked for a better church. I couldn't have asked for better church members. They're wonderful people. And so take advantage of it. Well, those are some really encouraging words, and I didn't even think about it, but it is a true benefit to go through these hardships, because the relationship bond that you create with other church members becomes that much more tangible, real. And you have a deeper love, a deeper joy, and you can relive a lot of these experiences. Well, that's going to end up doing it for us this evening. You can catch the Baptist Bias on all kinds of podcasts. Apple, other podcasts. Ben, why don't you sign us out? That's it for the show tonight. If you want to hear more from Pastor Mejia, First Works B.C., subscribe on YouTube. First Works B.C. He proudly proclaimed Elsa's a whore. I agree 100 percent. Folks, we'll talk to you guys again after a while.