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

On this edition of the Sword of the Spirit podcast, I'm going to be joined by Pastor Jonathan Shelley, and we'll be talking about the state of Steadfast and Pure Words Baptist Church. I'll also ask him about what it's like to celebrate not just the one-year anniversary of Pure Words Baptist Church, but also the two-year anniversary of Steadfast Jacksonville all in the same week, plus I'll talk to him about what it was like to preach at the Red Hot Preaching Conference, why he chose to preach the sermon that he preached at that conference and so much more. Folks, you're listening to the third episode of the Sword of the Spirit podcast, and the live broadcast starts right after this. It's the Sword of the Spirit podcast here on YouTube.com slash Bend the Baptist. You can also find this broadcast on iTunes. It's actually called Apple Podcasts now, so make sure you subscribe there if you want to listen to the archive of the show, use the keyword Bend the Baptist, all one word, to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, and we're also available on the Stitcher Radio app. Again, use the keyword Bend the Baptist, all one word, or you can also search for Sword of the Spirit podcast on the Stitcher Radio app, and you can subscribe to this show, listen to it on the go. Whether you're out and about, at the gym, at work, wherever you may be, if you want to listen to this podcast outside of your home, you can do so by subscribing to those platforms and have the broadcast downloaded to your mobile device or streamed to your mobile device. It's also useful if someone's talking to you and you're not that interested in what they're saying, just slip in a headset or slip in an earphone, I should say, and totally ignore what they're saying, and in reality, listen to the Sword of the Spirit in one ear while pretending to listen to whatever uninteresting thing that person has to say in your other ear. Of course I'm just kidding, you probably shouldn't do that, that would be rude. But regardless of that folks, thank you very much for watching episode three of the Sword of the Spirit podcast, my new live podcast that is airing Monday nights at nine o'clock eastern time. Again, Monday nights, nine o'clock eastern time, here on my YouTube channel. The archive is available on the YouTube channel and, like I said, on the aforementioned podcast platforms that I just talked about there. I want to welcome everyone in the chat room. We've got Guzman1611 in there, Javier Ramos is there as well, Rain, Heath Hendricks, I saw Maria YouTube in the pre-show, she's always in the live stream, always contributing in the chat room, and TheBlackBaptist is there, and for those of you who don't know who that is, TheBlackBaptist is one of the preachers at Steadfast Jacksonville, Brother Owen is listening there in the chat, we'll see how long he lasts. If he ends up tuning out before this show goes off the air, I'm gonna make fun of him for it when I see him in church this week, and walk up to him and say, hey, what happened, man? Why didn't you finish my show? And I'm sure he'll enjoy that. Also in there is Amanda Nicole. Thank you, Amanda Nicole, for tuning in, and everyone else who's watching live tonight. My name is Benjamin Naim here, you know me as Ben the Baptist, and I'm gonna be joined in moments by Pastor Jonathan Shelley. And some of the things we're gonna talk about tonight pertain to not just the anniversary, we're all celebrating if you're part of the Steadfast Baptist Jacksonville family this week. Pastor Steven Anderson will be joining us this week, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, of course, he's gonna be preaching, and then on Saturday, we'll be hosting a soul-winning marathon in Jacksonville to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the church. We're gonna go out and we're gonna preach the gospel of Jesus Christ just like God commanded us to do. He's given us the ministry of reconciliation. He's relying on us to go out and get people saved and clear up the confusion when it comes to what it takes to go to heaven. We'll be knocking some doors in our local area around the church to get some people saved, and we'll do it all day. I look forward to that. It's been a while since I've taken part in a soul-winning marathon. I think the last time I did was at the mega marathon earlier this year, which was epic, as it was the year before. Also on Sunday, Brother Theo will be preaching, and then at night, everyone's gonna have to suffer through me preaching at night. After five straight days of church, there might be some sleepy eyes as I preach my sermon will see. I have something in mind I'll be working on throughout the week for Sunday night. Brother Theo will do a good job in the morning, as he always does, but everyone's gonna be coming into town, I'm sure, to listen to Pastor Steven Anderson and Pastor Jonathan Shelley rip some face to highly skilled preachers, and they'll be in town for the festivities. Pure Words Baptist Church is also celebrating an anniversary, and when Pastor Shelley joins me, I'll be asking him about what he plans to do for that. How is he gonna celebrate the anniversary of Pure Words Baptist Church? I heard they're doing a fake Bible burning. That might trigger some milquetoast Christians out there who don't like standing for the true word of God. And so I'll ask Pastor Shelley about where he got the idea to do that, of a fake Bible burning, burning the NIV, the NLT, and other fake Bibles. We'll see where he got the idea, and what fake Bibles he's gonna use to burn. I would enjoy going to an event like that. A part of me's a little jealous that Pure Words gets to do that, but you know what? I'm also happy for them as well. It's a great church, a great congregation. I love the people there. I got a chance to go there earlier this year, a couple of months ago, to preach in Houston, Texas. The folks who attend regularly there had a great time fellowshipping with them, soul winning with them. And so I'm excited for them to celebrate their one year anniversary, to hear Pastor Shelley tear it up, and then of course that awesome fake Bible burning they are gonna be hosting there in Houston, Texas. If you're just joining me, my name is Benjamin Naim, and I'll be joined by Pastor Jonathan Shelley in just a few moments here. But before we get to him, I have to talk about the importance of supporting the local church as we talk a lot in this broadcast tonight about the anniversaries of Steadfast Jacksonville and Pure Words Baptist Church. I think throughout the night I want to also underscore the importance of supporting your local church. If you're going to a church that's right on the gospel, that has the candlestick, that goes out soul winning, and preaches hard against sin. Folks, you have to be thankful and gracious for that church you go to, even if the preaching isn't the best preaching in the world. No one's perfect. And be gracious that you have a place you can go every Sunday. There are people living outside the United States, even folks living inside the United States who can't, for the life of them, find a decent church to go to with their family. And that is a travesty of justice. It's really too bad. There are lots of people out there who have a real zeal for the Lord Jesus Christ and who want to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and who want to go to church and be under some solid fire-breathing Baptist preaching. But unfortunately they just don't have the opportunity to do so. Many people have been forced to move across the country to go to a good church because there's just nothing in their area. And so if you've got something in your town, in your city, that's good enough, then you should thank God for that church and support the local church. The Bible tells us in 1 John 5, that whosoever believeth it that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone that loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments, for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and the Bible says his commandments are not grievous. The commandments of the Lord are not grievous. And one of the commandments that we must follow in order to please God, in order to be right with God, obviously not for salvation, salvation is by grace through faith, without any works and you can sit at home and eat Oreos all day and you'd still be saved, but if you want to make God happy, if you want to offer a spiritual sacrifice, if you want to be right with God and earn a blessing, then you should go to church. And the Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter number 10, let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. And I can't tell you the amount of growth I've seen in brothers and sisters in Christ at my local church who have been provoked unto love and to good works by the brethren. Why? Because they have been faithful to go to church each and every single Sunday here at Steadfast Jacksonville. They have done a really great job of being faithful. They've done a great job of coming every week and listening to the preaching and growing in the Lord. And it's very difficult to do that by yourself. That's why the Bible puts an emphasis on loving the brethren. One of the commandments of God is love the brotherhood. Why do you think God emphasizes that? Why do you think God underscores that? Why do you think God highlights that so much? The reason is that you can't grow if you're sitting home alone, or at least it's very difficult to grow by yourself. Once you have that fellowship, iron sharpeneth iron, the Bible says. When you have that fellowship, when you have people to hold you accountable, and when you have people that you can learn from, that you can talk doctrine with, you're going to find yourself learning more doctrine, learning more about the Scriptures, learning more about the Lord. And it's so important to have that fellowship, but you can't have it if you're not in church, if you're totally backslidden. And it's also important as a member of your local church that you present yourself as someone who can be looked up to, that you present yourself as someone who people can look to as a positive example when it comes to living right, when it comes to being the model church member, and ultimately, when it comes to the Christian life, that people can look to you as a positive example for living the Christian life and provoking others like the Bible tells us in Hebrews 10 24, unto love and good works. Because it's not just about love, it's not just about love for the lost, it's not just about love for the brethren, it's also about provoking others unto good works. When I see, and I'll name drop him, Brother Marcel mentioned to me, Brother Marcel at Steadfast Jacksonville, not sure if he's even watching, but if he is, when I see a guy like him talk to me about the Scriptures he's memorizing, it provokes me to want to do the same thing. Not just because I don't want to be the guy that lags behind, but when I see that zeal, that's why I love hanging out with guys who have a very real zeal for the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why I love Jehu, when he said, come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. That gets me pumped up when I read that Scripture because you can't be zealous. If you're not around zealous people, it's at least very difficult to be zealous for the Lord when everyone else around you is apathetic. That's like an infection, it can infect you and you can find yourself backsliding into apathy as well. So when I see brothers in Christ who are zealous for the things of God, who want to talk about the Bible, who want to talk about doctrine, who want to learn about the things of God, it gets me pumped up, it gets me excited about the things of God and spiritual things. That's why going to a good church is just so important. Like I said, thank God for the church you have, thank God for the brothers and sisters in Christ that you have in your local city, in your local town, because at the end of the day, they help you, they provoke you. And folks, if they're on fire for God, you'll notice if you hang out with them, that you're going to end up being on fire for the Lord as well. I see him, I believe, in the background there, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, and I in fact just got the text confirmation. Pastor Jonathan Shelley is joining us now here on the broadcast. I spent the first few minutes talking about the importance of church just to lay the groundwork because we'll be spending a portion of tonight's show talking about the anniversaries of Pure Words Baptist Church and Steadfast Baptist Church Jacksonville, but for right now, let me introduce to you the pastor of those two churches. Pastor Shelley, thank you so much for joining me tonight, I really appreciate it. How you doing tonight? Doing great, how are you? Pretty good myself, and definitely there's a dialogue box covering your face, let me go ahead and get rid of that there. And I just did, alright, so we're good. Pastor Shelley, thank you for coming on, and you know, you have a lot on your plate, you always do, so I always appreciate it when you take time out to do one of these live streams and participate in one of these goofy podcasts that I'm doing, so thank you for that, I appreciate it. Yeah, I like being on here, and I like the fact that I get to do lots of work, so it's fun. Yeah, there's never a dull moment in your life, I'm sure. I want to start things off by asking you about the Red Hot Preaching Conference, I covered it last week, but it was your first time preaching at the conference, and you preached a great sermon on going to church with all your might, and really challenging people not to just do the bare minimum, which is just show up at the church building and sit down and kind of halfway pay attention to the sermon, but you challenged people to put an effort in and go to church with all their might and make sure that they're not just kind of lazily mope, you know, just kind of being mopey, and actually going in there just to check it off of their list for the day, but really care about church, and so that challenged me because, you know, I think anybody could potentially make some of those mistakes that you cited in your sermon. What was the inspiration for preaching that, why did you decide to go with going to church with all your might, or with all thy might, at the Red Hot Preaching Conference? Yeah, I mean, you know, going to preach at the Red Hot Preaching Conference is a great honor, it's a great privilege, it's something that I always looked at as one of the best events of the year, and something that I was fortunate of, able to go my second, the second year they had it, and, you know, when it comes to Red Hot Preaching, I guess there's a lot of different viewpoints as far as what's red hot, you know, what's red hot to the world, and what's red hot to save Christians, and for me, you know, I really, as I kind of tried to think about what sermon I wanted to preach, I didn't really want to preach anything that I felt like was necessarily red hot to just unsaved people outside the church, but rather something that would really influence the people in the room, and being kind of an annual conference, I know in a special conference, there's going to be a lot of people coming in that maybe don't go to church regularly, or not in a good church, and so it's kind of an opportunity to preach something I feel like that's going to affect a wide variety of people, and for me, as I tried to think about what to preach, I mean, there's a multiplicity of options you could have, but I really was trying to think, what's going to be the most impactful thing that I could preach? So I tried to think of, like, what's the most important thing, and honestly, it kind of ties in with the Pure Words One Year anniversary, and like, y'all's anniversary, is one of the things that's cool for me, or what I think about is special, is when I think about some of the people that have been coming to our church, that started, you know, day one in Pure Words Baptist Church, and now as almost a year has ended, just kind of the growth that I've seen in some of these people, the changes that they've made, how they're a lot different of a person, and so to me, you know, the catalyst there was them going to church, and you know, I haven't been pastoring very long at all, I mean, it's coming up on a year, but just being a part of church, and having been pastor for a little while, it seems like it's still pretty obvious that church is kind of the central point of what really makes or breaks someone's spirituality, you know, obviously there's a lot of factors as far as Bible reading, you know, memorization, going soul winning, these things are obviously major and impactful, and admittedly, soul winning is probably the most important thing that we can possibly do while we're on this earth, but the reality is, people don't go soul winning just on their own, people don't just decide to go soul winning, the vehicle that God has ordained to basically send people out to preach the gospel is church, so if you're not in church, to me, you're not going to be going soul winning, you're not going to be reading the Bible, you're not going to really be thinking about spiritual things, you're not going to have Christian fellowship, you know, and all these things kind of work together in a person's life to motivate them to keep going preaching the gospel, keep reading the Bible, and the reality is there's nobody out there that's just, you know, 100% of the time, they just want to read the Bible, they want to go soul winning, they want to go all these things, there's going to be points in our life where it's kind of like, yeah, I don't really want to go, but, you know, I'm at church, and everybody else is going, so I need to just do it, you know, and I think that's the importance of church is the fact that church is going to motivate you and encourage you to do the right thing, even when sometimes you don't really want to, and some of the people that I've seen in, you know, the last two years, as far as me going to church three times a week myself, that the people that aren't going, you know, consistently, they're missing a lot of services, or they're not really involved in the programs, they're not growing, they're not really, you know, their lives are not changing. And it's kind of, it's kind of like in vain that they just show up every once in a while, it's kind of like just surviving. And, you know, I preach the sermon in a period of time called Three to Thrive, but I really was just challenged when I read the, you know, the verse in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four, which talks about, you know, that we're supposed to, you know, four and five, that we're supposed to love the Lord thy God with thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And obviously that can be applied in an area. And when I looked at that verse, I said, you know, what's the most important area? It was church. And I was going to do my sermon at first when I was thinking about it, I was like, oh, let's just apply this to all kinds of areas of our life, you know, but every time I sat down to write, the only thing that came out was church. And it's just, you know, I sit there and like anything that I tried to do, like I tried to write other sermons, I tried to think about other things. And it was like, the only thing that ever come to mind is just church. And so for me, you know, that's why I preach that. I'm sure that the other guys have a lot better ways of coming up with sermons. But, you know, admittedly, for me, it was just, that was the only thing that would come out. I mean, I honestly started working on a sermon like three or four months before the Red Hot Preaching Conference. And I tried to change it several times. And I just I couldn't do it. And I kind of just kept thinking about it. And, and to me, it was just it was really important. I kind of at first I thought it's not red hot enough or something, you know, it's not like, you know, something that's real controversial. But, you know, to me, I would rather preach a sermon that's going to change all the people in that room's lives than get a bunch of atheist triggered or something like that. And obviously, with a sermon about church attendance, you know, the fags and atheists, they're just kind of like, wow, this news fest. But, you know, my goal is not to please them or to upset them. It's to help the people in the room. And I mean, I truly mean it that the one thing that's going to change your life is just being plugged into church as much as you can. I mean, you know, for Christ to purchase the church of his own blood, I just, you know, I feel like why would God go through all that trouble, you know, for us to just be like, well, I don't want to go to church. And there's a lot of reasons why people will go. They'll say, oh, it's too far drive. And I know people who drive two hours, you know, and they'll say, you know, it's too hard. But I know people that go to church four times a week, you know, like Pastor Joe Major, he has a church in where he's at in Biola, Louisiana. And then he also started a church playing Baton Rouge. And every Thursday, he's driving over there, preaching for them, you know, so these people are making sacrifices, because it's that important. And so, you know, I just wanted to kind of teach that the best that I could, you know, in hindsight, I'm sure there's other things that I could have talked about or done better throughout it. But I just wanted to preach, but it just to me is just what God, you know, kind of laid on my heart and the one thing that just kind of came out. So if I get an opportunity to preach there again, I still don't know what I'm going to preach, but I hope it works out. You have some time to come up with something. 365 days. But I will say this, when it comes to red-hot preaching, I don't think it ends with just preaching against atheists or preaching against sodomites or preaching against, you know, dykes, feminism, whatever the case may be. I think red-hot preaching also can provoke people sitting there in the church, and isn't that what it's all about? Preaching something that'll help people get better at the Christian life. Sometimes it's not just about preaching against the homos, and of course there is a place for that, and I love those sermons, make no mistake about it. I was having a great time at Massa, okay, and there's definitely a place. But I think that hard preaching isn't limited to just preaching against the sodomites, and sometimes hard preaching might not be very convenient for even somebody who considers themselves to be a red-hot, Bible-believing, new-IFB-style Christian. Because you know what? We go to church not just to watch a performance or, you know, not to be just entertained, we go to be challenged sometimes. And so a sermon about going to church the right way and not taking it for granted, I think is something that everyone needs to hear. Well I preached a sermon at Pure Words called We Need Hard Preaching, and I think it was a really important sermon, you know, and I really wanted to emphasize that for Pure Words Baptist Church, but it could be its own sermon, and probably should be, but I shortly just stated that what I believe hard preaching is, is it's three things. It's biblical, it's specific, and it's corrective. So, you know, even when I think about some topics that some people kind of associate with red-hot preaching, it didn't really hit all three of those for me, because, you know, if I get up there and I scream about how homos are wicked and, you know, whatever, a lot of our crowd is already there, you know. So while it might be biblical and specific, for a lot of people it might not be corrective anymore, just because they've already made that correction, you know, they've already applied that truth in their own lives, and so, you know, obviously there would be visitors and other people that it would still be impactful to, but in my opinion, the wise pastor, the wise preacher, he's going to consider and think of what do people need the most, what's the most corrective, and that's where the hard preaching really comes in, because sermons that I preached on that the world would consider really difficult sermons, I don't think has been my hardest preaching, I think my hardest preaching as a pastor is when, you know, you're really hitting it home with a lot of people in the room, you're calling out things that they're dealing with, that they're guilty of, that they're, you know, seeing day to day, and so, and that's a shame that a lot of pastors today just won't preach anything that's corrective, and if they do, it's not specific enough, so then it really doesn't hit home. Right, I mean, that's hard preaching, is that there are going to be some sermons that are red hot, that are fire breathing, that are going to affect the people listening personally, some things that they're doing wrong, some things that they need to improve on, and folks, we all need that, myself included, and I listen to sermons all the time where I'm thinking in my mind, man, he's preaching on me, I've got to get better in this area, and it helps, because that's how we get provoked. Now, of course, just because you're talking right now about being well-balanced doesn't mean that you've eschewed preaching against the Sodomites by any means, or triggering the atheists, you've done plenty of that since you've started at Steadfast, and recently some of them have showed up at your church. Why? That's a good question, you know, I asked the same question, so we've had a protest at our church, I'm not going to get the exact number correct, I would say eight or nine weeks in a row, something like that, so, and it's been varied as far as like how many people have been there, there's one guy in particular, he doesn't miss, he's there Sunday morning. He's Steadfast. I think he makes a new sign for me every week, too. This week it said, this pastor lies a lot, so that was a sign, but you know, the first week they were out there, I think I kind of left them alone, and then the second week that I was out there, the second week that I went out there, there was a bigger group, so I think the first week they had like 13 protesters or something, and then the second week we had like 40 or something around those lines, I went out there and I tried to talk to them because the first week they were out there I just left them alone, I didn't say anything to them, but then the second week I decided to go talk to them because Aaron Raw was kind of like a famous atheist on YouTube land, only his mind or whatever, he went there and, sorry one second, so whenever I was there the second week, I went out there to talk to him and I was talking to Aaron Raw because the first week he'd worn a kilt, and I said, hey, you know, what are you guys doing out here, and you know, why are you protesting our church, and they said, well, your church preachers hate, and I said, well, the Bible says that, doesn't every church believe the Bible, and they were like, well, not every church preaches like you guys do, and I was like, I thought every Bible, you know, I thought every Baptist church believe the Bible, why are you protesting my church, and they couldn't really give me an answer, and so they were just kind of, you know, saying obscenities and different things at me, so I thought that then one of them was really mad, he says, you keep saying that we're fags and that we should go to hell and whatever, and I said, well, if you're, you know, a dude in a dress and wearing a rainbow flag and like waving it and protect, you know, saying something about homos, why wouldn't I assume that you're a homo, and this guy got really mad, so he looks at me, I wasn't wearing a bleepity bleep skirt, I was wearing a kilt, and I was like, same thing, I said, what's the difference, and he says, a skirt you wrap around yourself, but a kilt you step into, what, I guess because in pants you like step into pants that somehow, you know, since the kilt or whatever you step into, it's different, but look, most skirts aren't wraparound skirts, most skirts you step into too, so even his little logic was foolish, but it just goes to show that they can't even stand the idea of being called a fag, like they were so triggered, and this other guy comes up and says, we're not fags, none of us here are fags, and I was just like, why are you, you know, protesting our church, and you know, having all these rainbow flags and everything, and they're like, because your church preaches hate, and you, you know, you guys are advocating child abuse, and I was like, when am I advocating child abuse, and they wouldn't really answer, and then finally this guy just gets my face turned around to where I can't film or talk to anybody, so I just kind of walked away at that point, and I kind of rambled off, I rambled off like Romans 1.20 about how they have no excuse and how they need to believe in Jesus Christ or they're gonna go to hell, and then I just kind of went back in, but since then I haven't really talked to them that much, I mean, there's this one guy, he's always there, and I figured I would just go talk to him, it's like two or three weeks ago, I just went up and I just said, hey man, why are you protesting our church, like, you just, you don't like me, you don't like our church, and he's like, no, I don't, it's not that, I just, you know, I don't think you should be preaching the Bible, because the Bible is a bunch of lies, and I was like, well, why is it a lie, and he says, well, you know what, I was a Baptist pastor for 18 years in the Southern Baptist Convention, and, you know, so I know, I know all the junk that you preach, and I said, well, what happened, you know, and he's just like, well, I took 10 years of soul searching and I just realized there's a bunch of lies, and, you know, it was just sad, it's sad to see somebody who had supposedly been a Baptist pastor for 18 years, and is now an atheist, and you know, it just rings true with 1 John chapter 2, that it says, they went out from us, but they were not of us, or they've been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest, they were not all of us, so we see, like, there's imposters, and there's fakes, and there's phonies, and even in the Baptist churches, they, you know, unfortunately it's sad, it's sad also that this guy, he's more faithful than some of my church members, but, you know, that's some hard preaching right there, so I'll stop. Right. Hey, like we already established. And he's there every week, he's like, I'm not going away, and, you know, for seven, eight weeks, I mean, they've been out there every single Sunday. Absolutely, and like we already established, hard preaching is not limited to just preaching against the homos, it also means preaching that ought to provoke you to be better. Let's talk about Pure Words Baptist Church for a minute here. You'll be celebrating the PWBC, if you will, the Pure Words Baptist Church one-year anniversary this week, and what are your thoughts on that? The church has hit the one-year mark, and what a great year it was. I got a chance, and thank you, Pastor, for the opportunity to go preach there. That was so much fun, and of course, it was also fun to meet the people there and go soul winning with them and fellowship. I had a blast, but Pastor Shelley, one year, what are your thoughts on this anniversary you'll be celebrating this week? One of two anniversaries you're going to be celebrating this week. We'll get to the steadfast Jacksonville portion in moments. I see some steadfast Jacksonville people in the chat room patiently waiting for us to get to that, and if you just tuned in, I'm here with Pastor Jonathan Shelley. We'll talk now about the anniversary week. Pastor Shelley, Pure Words, one-year anniversary, your thoughts? Yeah, it's kind of like I got Irish twins there with Jackson and Pure Words, but I mean, it's incredible. Pure Words Baptist Church is a great church, great people in it, and honestly, God has really blessed us, you know, and really what I had ever thought, that I would be where I am now, and the things that are going on right now would happen never. I didn't even know if I would ever do a church plant, so you know, to be where I am right now has definitely been an interesting journey. I think it's allowed me to realize that I can't plan my future, so obviously I'm not against planning. I'm just saying that it's kind of like the Bible, if the Lord will, you know, God willing, then we'll go and do this. So obviously it's important for us to have plans and goals, but I think the most important thing is being willing to change, and when you read the book of Acts, you see the apostles and the disciples, they always have some kind of idea in their head, and then God just kind of has to push them along and nudge them and change their idea and get them on the right path. And you know, one aspect of that I think is in Acts, everybody kind of has a small vision, and God has to keep giving them a bigger vision. And so, you know, I myself don't want to be like the disciples stuck in Jerusalem preaching to the Jews. I want to be, you know, willing to do whatever I can, and honestly, I just feel honored and privileged to be able to pastor Pure Words Baptist Church and Step Fast Baptist Church because it's like great people. And I honestly feel like Paul, when he said, you know, I've been put into the ministry, you know, a lot of the fruits that I get to enjoy are not my own labors, they're the labors of other men. You know, Pure Words Baptist Church is a lot of the labor of Pastor Anderson, his preaching, his teaching, his impact that he's made in this world. And I get to just enter into a lot of the labors that he's done. And you know, all of us get to really ultimately enter into the labors of other men. And these churches themselves, obviously, there's a lot of people there that don't get any recognition, you don't know their name, but they work hard and they do a lot of things for the church. You know, Pure Words Baptist Church has not had just one or two, but several people contribute a lot of different things, money, time, energy, effort, sacrifice to make that church what it is. So, you know, I really enjoy getting to be there and to share, you know, fellowship with those people. And I really the thing that's the greatest to me is just to see people's growth, Christian growth, because at the end of the day, it's hard to figure out like, what's the most important metric when it comes to church success? Some people would say attendance. Some people might say the number of people were saved. But for me, I think the most important thing is church growth. So when I see someone who's never gone soul winning, and now they're getting people saved every week, or I see people who were not going to church and now they're going to church three times a week. So those type of things is for me, what really changes my perspective. And so, like, if I look at Pure Words Baptist Church, and let's say we lost five people next year, but more people are coming more often and more people are going soul winning, I would consider it a success. And so, you know, there's different ways to look at church success and the health of a church. And really, I think Pure Words Baptist Church is very healthy, very, very strong. The people in there are doing well, we've had a couple new families actually start coming recently, they're real excited about the church, they're really involved. I've had some, I asked you one day to help share the burden and do the work of the Lord. So you know, I'm looking forward to Pure Words Baptist Church one year anniversary service. And I'm not going to give away my sermon completely. But I'm really going to, you know, emphasize the importance of looking at your life and saying, where was I a year ago, Christian, you know, in my Christian spirituality? Where was I in my spiritual walk? And where am I now? And have I improved? Am I the same? Am I worse? And to me, what we should try to strive for is always improving. You know, okay, I've read the Bible this many more times than I did last year. And I have this many more verses memorized, and I preach this many more sermons, and I've got this many more people saved, and I've done this many more missions trips, or, you know, whatever kind of certain things, goals you have looking at those and realizing, wow, you know, a year's time and be being plugged in, in church, I've really made a lot of changes and a lot of good things have happened. So I think that's an important thing for us to do. And if you do that every single year, you know, what is 20 years look like? I mean, if you improve just a little bit every single year, just imagine where you could be in 20 years or 30 years. And the Christian life is not five minutes, it's not six months, it's not two years, it's a lifetime. So I think it's important for us to just take baby steps in the right direction, and then we'll look back and see the Lord led us all the way. Yeah, I was talking before you came on the air about the growth of some of the guys at Steadfast Jacksonville that I've noticed since the church started. Some of my good friends there, we've been through the fire together and, you know, guys like Brother Joe, Brother Owen, Brother Graham, and Brother Marcel as well, good friend of mine and, you know, just to see where he came from, guy who moved from Miami to come to Steadfast Jacksonville and now in 2019, all the doctrine he knows and, you know, his zeal for the Lord, that's infectious. And one of the first things you taught me when I first met you, and we went on, we did that interview for the other podcast, The Preacher Profile, is just how much you appreciate people who are zealous and how much you detest apathy. That was the first thing I kind of learned about you, is just how you can't stand people who are apathetic, and you can't stand people who just don't care, you can't stand people who you just got to drag everywhere and practically force them to do things. So you know, we're, I think, fortunate to have a church, at least here in Jacksonville, and certainly when I went to Pure Words, I saw the same thing as well. People who really love the Lord and who care and who want to be better and who want to do what you just recommended there is, a year later, look back at the last 365 days and say, hey, where am I at now? And look at some areas in which they can improve for the next year. That's what it's all about, that personal improvement, being honest with yourself, looking at the areas of strength and weakness, and figuring out what your goals should be for the next year. Definitely a practical sermon there. Yeah, I mean, I'm really excited about the one year anniversary because Thursday we're going to have Brother Chris Segura come in. He's always a real exciting preacher. He has so much zeal, so like you said, it's infectious. And then Friday night at seven, Pure Words Baptist Church is going to have Pastor Manley Perry, and some of the old pastors are going to be coming out, and they're going to have a good time. We're going to have ice cream and some dessert and fellowship. And then Saturday we're going to have a soul-winning marathon. We'll be meeting at the church at 9 a.m. and we'll have some breakfast and we'll go out soul-winning at 10. And then we'll meet at a Chick-fil-A at 5001 Beach Street in Houston, Texas for lunch. And I'm actually going to be in the, hopefully God willing, meeting them there right at lunch right at 1 p.m. because I'll have been in Jacksonville for Thursday and Friday. And then we'll have soul-winning again for the afternoon. And then at five, around five o'clock, we're going to meet back at the church and we're going to have the first annual false Bible burning. And I'm really excited about this. We've been collecting Bibles for the whole year throughout soul-winning and other avenues. And we're going to get to put these things to good use by creating a big fire. We'll have some s'mores. And I'm really looking forward to it because I think that some people, they don't see how zealous we are for the King James. And I just want to take it to the next level and say, you know what, we're burning these other books because they're of the devil. They're wicked. They're wicked as hell. They're not to be used. And I'm not going to stop preaching it or doing it until they're all gone. Why not get rid of them? So I'm really excited about, there's a lot of cool fake Bibles, false Bibles we got. So I'm hoping we can kind of have some story time, you know, we'll talk about some stories, how we got some of these things. And you know, some people, you know, you show them a couple of verses and they get it right away. And I had a guy recently, he was actually in Jacksonville. I got a guy in Jacksonville to give me his Bible for the false Bible burning for pure words. Nice. And he was out soloing with Brian Zartovitz and he, we got the guys, Brian got him saved. And then I kind of showed him Max 837 and his NIV. And I said, hey, do you think we could get, you know, we could take that and destroy it for you. And he was just like, here, have it right here, you know, take it. And so it was like, great, we're going to burn this thing. You know, the guy was real excited and so, you know, it was just kind of cool to see someone just really wholeheartedly accept the obvious truth that you can't have two things say opposite and still be God's work. Exactly. You know, they can both be wrong, but they can't both be right. And if you just put all your faith in the King James Bible to save you, you know, you just trust in John 3.16 and Romans 10, 9, and 10, Acts 16, 30, and 31, how could you accept a book that lies about it and takes whole verses out? I mean, you got to burn that thing. So I'm really excited. I think it's a, it's a, it'll be a good statement for our church. You know, obviously I started pure words Baptist church for a reason, you know, to me, the most important thing that we can have in our hands is the Bible and specifically the King James Bible. And if I were to point to the one thing that's made the biggest impact in my life, it's the King James Bible. So obviously, you know, we got to have the threefold cord of the King James Bible church and soul winning. And you can't really do it with any of them without any of those, you know, can't go soul winning without the Bible. You're not going to be sent out and do soul winning without the church. And you're not going to get any early rewards if you're not going out soul winning. So you know, we don't really have any purpose about those three things. And I just want to combine them all for a great weekend and I'm looking forward to it. The Bible burning is what stuck out to me regarding the pure words Baptist church anniversary this year. And you brought up a story of getting someone saved or brother Brian getting someone saved and then switching out the person's Bible. At the mega marathon, I was able to get someone saved and I asked her what kind of Bible she had. She went back into her apartment, brought it out, and it was an NIV. So I did exactly the same thing you did, went to Acts chapter eight. After I showed this person the discrepancy, I asked, well, where'd you get this Bible from? Just to make sure she didn't have some sort of emotional attachment to it because obviously I wanted to take it and replace it. And she told me her late father gave it to her. It was from her dead dad. So I'm thinking, all right, she's probably not going to want to get rid of this. But when I showed her that there was a missing verse in there, she said, I don't want anything to do with this. She completely detached to it, even though I wouldn't have blamed her if there was an emotional attachment to that Bible, considering where it came from. But she gave it up and she took a picture of the difference with her phone. And she was like, I can't believe this. That's crazy. Why would it delete a verse? So some people, Pastor Shelley, are humble enough that when they see the difference between the fake and the authentic, they're willing to give up the fake. They're willing to give up the fraud. They're willing to give up the satanic lie. And I think that's a beautiful thing when you witness that happen out soul-winning. Absolutely. And you're going to be burning some Bibles, fake Bibles, we need to preface, fake fraud Bibles. Now, Pastor Shelley—that sounded wrong—Pastor Shelley, there might be some people who get offended though. What's your response to those who would email you or text you or start crying because you've decided to do this? Well, you know, I mean, obviously, I'm not really afraid of negative response. You know, to me, the reason why we're doing it is to make a bold statement. You know, for two people, in my mind, the first is the people at the church, you know, for kids, for the kids there, and for everybody to realize, like, these Bibles are just bad. It's not, it's not like it's, well, it's not the best. It's like this thing's worthy of being burned. This is serious error. And to really get people sharp in their minds, like, we believe God has preserved His Word. His Word is the King James Bible for English-speaking people. And we're not going to accept any imitation. We're not going to accept, you know, a cheap substitute. And then additionally, for people that are kind of insensitive, or kind of apathetic, or just, you know, they don't really know where they stand. They kind of double-minded on the issue. When they see someone taking a really bold stand, I think it could kind of spur some zeal into them. You know, Joab comes to mind, and he says, come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. Obviously, to me, what's going to fix apathy, potentially, is seeing people's zeal. When you get excited about something, it can cause other people to get excited about it. And so I'm just hoping to create zeal in some people that are kind of lacking. And, you know, there's always going to be naysayers, there's always going to be people that just don't get it, don't want to get it, or ignorant of those positions. But you know, him that is ignorant, let him be ignorant still, is what the Bible says. So I'm not really worried about him. I'm just worried about the people that I can affect positively. Amen to that. Now transitioning to Steadfast Jacksonville, we'll be celebrating our two-year anniversary. And I go to that church, for those who don't know, it's my home church here in Jacksonville, Florida. I'm really excited about the two-year anniversary of this church. We have been through a lot, especially at the beginning of this year. But since January, things have stabilized, and I think it's gotten a lot better, obviously, considering now we don't have corrupt leadership, and the person who is leading our satellite church is actually saved and isn't a false prophet. I think that's a good start when it comes to leading a church being saved. But regardless of that, Pastor Shelley, what are your thoughts on this event you'll be celebrating in Jacksonville? In particular, I want to ask you this. The state of Steadfast Jacksonville, we know you're not here every week, but I'm sure you check in. How would you describe that? The state of Steadfast Jacksonville right now at the end of July 2019, considering what we went through to start the year? Well, I mean, like you said, I mean, when you get Hoffnien Finneas out of leadership and you put in Samuel, it makes a pretty big difference. Even if Samuel's like a five-year-old boy or whatever, even a suckling at that. I mean, obviously, you know, a change in leadership is going to be, it's going to make it positive or negative. So obviously, you hope that being a leader that you're going to positively affect people. And for me, again, like I had already said about pure words, it would be similar to Steadfast Jacksonville when I think about the state of that church. So if I'm going to evaluate how healthy it is, the most important thing for me is looking at people's lives when I first came on into now and say, is there a difference? And like you said, I can't necessarily see everything from a distance. So I only get snippets here and there. But I am watching and, you know, we've had a few preaching classes there that we've gone through and I've heard a lot of the preaching and we've given a lot of guys opportunity to preach. And, you know, you guys have been on rotation, a lot of guys have been preaching. And from my perspective, I've seen a vast improvement in some of you guys. And in my opinion, probably the biggest growth of any preacher I've seen at your church is probably Brother Joe, you can, you know, he's very dynamic. He's made a lot of improvements. You know, going to the preaching class, I like a lot of his sermons. I have other people who listen to your sermons and kind of give me some feedback and they would say, reiterate the same point. And so, you know, it's really encouraging for me to see people that were not preaching January 1st of this year, at least on any kind of regular basis. And now they're preaching often and not just doing it, but doing the job. And so, you know, it really excites me to see these people stepping up. And you know, one thing that people like to criticize about church planting or maybe the our style of what's going on is that, well, you don't have a pastor there and, you know, you don't have a pastor doing everything. But in the absence of a, you know, pastor being present for every service, what that enables is other men to step up, take charge, learn how to teach, learn how to do the work of the Lord. And it actually allows us to multiply and to grow people quicker. And so, you know, while it might have some negatives to it, it also has some positives to it. And I've seen a lot of men step up, not only your church and other churches, where they're really running the show and taking charge and doing good work, and really not getting any thanks for it. You know, they're not getting, it's not like their names on the building and, you know, everybody's just telling them how special they are every single week or something like that. So for me, that's real important. And I like to see people working hard and doing a good job when they're not getting a lot of recognition or, you know, they're not necessarily in the limelight, as it were, because there's a lot of wicked people that the only reason they want to be a pastor, they only want to be in charge of a church because of limelight, because of power, because of all these different things. And really, if we're going to be successful, we need people that are humble servants, that they're not trying to get in the limelight for the purpose of fame, but rather, their good works are just going to be manifest, because that's what the Bible says, that was just some, you know, some good works are manifest beforehand, going before the judgment. So you know, obviously, being a pastor, you can't really completely hide some of the things that are being done. But at the end of the day, that's not the purpose. The goal is not to see how many people can find out about Jonathan Shelley, but rather, how many people can return to the Lord and love the King James Bible, the soul wanting to get plugged into the church and ultimately reproduce themselves with other saved believers. It's exciting. So go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. Let me let me go back to your question, though. Okay. I want to wrap up. I'm encouraged by steadfast Jacksonville. And like I said earlier, to me, if you were to say, how many people do you have your church, you know, before the split to now, obviously, the church did go through a split and had less people coming to the church. But to me, that's not indicative of the health of the church. To me, if I were to look at the families that are going there, and how involved they're in ministry, and how excited they are coming to church, I think majority of those people are way better off. You know, they give me good reports, they say, I'm excited to come to church now. I've got a new zeal, I've been doing more soul winning, you know, I've been talking to more people, you know, specifically, like Brian's art events, you know, just being around him and being spent some time with him the most recent time I came, you know, he's trying to get people saved that are just in his personal life, we're out we're going soul winning, and then he's just running to people in his personal life, he's wanting to get them saved. And, you know, he seems really zealous and real fired up. And for me, that's where I, I see, okay, this church is really healthy, this church is doing really good, you know, whether they're adding people or not, is not always going to be the most important stage, sometimes churches have to contract a little bit in order to have natural growth, good growth, organic growth, you got to prune some of the bad branches, so that you can produce more fruit with the branches that were there already. You mentioned brother Brian, he's a guy that we've talked about it already, zeal, right, and the importance of zeal and not being apathetic. Well, he's certainly the antithesis of apathetic, definitely someone who has a very real love for the lost and wants to get people saved. He's talked to me about getting people saved in his personal life and things like that. You mentioned brother Joe and his improvements behind the pulpit. He's been great. I've really enjoyed brother Theo, and I've seen a lot of growth in him as well. And as a leader, you had to pick somebody, Pastor Shelley, to help us locally. Why did you go with brother Theo? Well, you know, you see in Acts chapter number six, when the apostles are needing extra help, that they just say, look you out, seven men of honest report. And he basically just gets a consensus from the people, like, who's the real deal? And so I kind of employed the same approach and just kind of asked everybody to give me their opinion of who they think is doing the work and who would be a good person to kind of put in charge, because I kind of just asked who's already doing the work, who's already a good preacher, who's already, you know, who's doing all this stuff without getting recognition? Well, let's put that guy in charge, you know? And so that, it came out unanimous with brother Theo, and so it seemed like an obvious choice. I communicated with him already, and he seemed like a pretty humble guy. And so I figured it's a good chance, it's a good idea to just go ahead and put him in there and give him a chance. And honestly, he's done an excellent job. He does a lot of things for the church that people don't realize. And taking care of a church is a lot of work, there's a lot of things that go into it. You know, it's not something that's, people think that it's just cool and fun, and I would love to be in charge, but really, you don't get to enjoy any of that. All you see is just all this work, and it's a burden, and it's stressful, and you have to always kind of step up and kind of fill gaps. And so, you know, I have a lot of respect for brother Theo, who's willing to kind of just step in a crisis and take charge and lead by example. And, you know, obviously, his spiritual growth, I'm sure is enormous during this process, and I really appreciate his hard work. You guys are just, you guys are a good group, and you know, it's fun to work with, and I'm real excited to be there at the end of this week, so get to recharge my batteries with y'all's zeal. That's right, year two, the second anniversary of Steadfast Jacksonville, year two definitely a lot different than year one, like we've already mentioned. But for the better, we definitely have grown spiritually, that's for sure, and at the end of the day, that's what matters more. The flesh probably looks at the superficial things and says, oh, well, it's smaller, so therefore it's a failure, but in reality, that's a lie. What matters more is quality over quantity, and we've improved from a quality standpoint. Tell us what we can expect, not just for the people who are going to attend the anniversary festivities in Jacksonville, but maybe those who are going to watch online and who want to catch it from the comfort of their own home. We've got Pastor Anderson coming to town, we know that, but what else can people expect for the two-year anniversary of Steadfast Jacksonville that we'll be celebrating this week? ...services, and we're doing a Bible study currently through Matthew, so 7 p.m., Wednesday night, we're going to have our Bible study, we're going to be in chapter number 24, which is a great chapter, you know, immediately after tribulation, so I'm sure we'll get some good post-trib, pre-wrath Bible preaching there, because that's obviously the context, it's not to these Christ-rejecting Jews or whatever garbage people want to throw at us. But then Thursday night, there's going to be a dinner at the church, so we'd love for people to come, it's going to be at 5.30 at the church, and then I'm going to be preaching that evening at 7. So again, we'll get another dose of preaching at 7, and then we're going to top it off the next evening with another dose of 7, so it's way better than the casino 7-7-7, as we're going to have preaching 7-7-7. And Pastor Steven Anderson from Faith Ward Baptist Church is going to come out, and he's always a real exciting preacher, he carries the zeal for everybody. And I think we're also having an evening dinner after that, so we're going to spiritually feed you, and then you're going to get carny-fed after that service. So I'm really looking forward to that triple threat there, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday, y'all are going to have soul-winning again. We'll have a soul-winning event, we'll meet at the church at 9 a.m., have breakfast, go soul-winning from 10 to about 11.45, then we'll have lunch again at the church from 12-1.30, and then have another round of soul-winning from 2-4. So if you're anywhere in the Florida area, Georgia, any of these areas, Arkansas, Atlanta, you'd love to come down and support our one-year anniversary, we'd love to have you, we're going to have lots of food, lots of fellowship, lots of soul-winning, additionally, Sunday services are going to be great, we're going to have some of our local guys, they're preaching, and their preaching is really good, it's really on fire, so I would try to be there for Wednesday all the way to Sunday, you know, if I could, and I'm really excited to be there. I'm going to be fled, since I've got my Irish twins or whatever, I'm going to be flying back to Pure Words on Saturday morning real early and driving down there, so I wish I could be there the whole week, maybe next year we might split it, I don't know, we'll have to see, but I'm just excited that we have all these churches and we have people that are fired up and, you know, to comment, piggyback on your comment about losing numbers, you know, Jesus Christ, at one point, had 5,000, right, he had the feeding of the 5,000, and then it's whittled down to the 12, and then he's got to lose a Judas, and now he's down to 11, and then pretty much when you get to the book of Acts, you know, after you get through it a little while, it's basically just Paul, so, you know, it seems like they just keep whittling down just to one guy, and Paul even says that all men forsook him, you know, but the Lord's freaked him, the Lord didn't forsake him, so, you know, to me, as long as we could just raise up one Paul, you know, and turn the world upside down with the gospel, you know, that's all we need, we just need one man to get on fire and to make a charge, and so, you know, like I said, quality will always outweigh quantity. Gideon's 300 men come into mind as well, and you know that God is glorified when we're outnumbered vastly. There are many more wicked churches than good churches, but like I said, God is glorified when we turn the world upside down with the gospel, despite being so vastly outnumbered. I want to ask you this question now while we're on the topic of steadfast Jacksonville and church plants and things like that, is recently you emphasized in your sermon, and I believe it was in one of your Wednesday night Bible studies on the book of 1 Corinthians, that the importance of church members being gracious about the church they attend and not skipping a particular service just because their favorite preacher isn't behind the pulpit for that particular service, and my question to you is this. You talked about the rotating preachers that we have going on here at Steadfast Jacksonville, the way this church plant operates is Brother Theo, Brother Owen, myself, and Brother Joe, and we also have Brother Graham every once in a while will jump into the deep end of the pool and he'll preach a good sermon for us as well, but my point is that we have rotating preachers and men that are stepping in to fill the pulpit. Do you believe this mentality of, I'm only going to go to church when this guy is preaching? Could that fester at a church plant where multiple men are taking on the responsibility of preaching, and is that why you emphasized it so much in your sermon recently? Yeah, I mean obviously it's very practical for our church, but it's also biblical and you know, I'll read a verse, or a couple verses, in 1 Corinthians, just in chapter 1, it says in verse 11, for it happened to clear it unto me of you my brethren, by them which are the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say that every one of you say, if I am with Paul, I am with Apollos, and I have Cephas, and I have Christ. Is Christ divided? Is Paul crucified for you? Are you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius, thus then you should say that I baptized in my own name. So we see in this passage the apostle Paul, he's addressing this with the Christian church that they're really becoming respecter persons, and there's a lot of division and contention in this church because they like a particular minister over another one, and in fact even the church of Jerusalem, it had multiple elders, so maybe, you know, Peter's not preaching, and John's preaching, or perhaps John's preaching, and you know, instead of James, or whoever, and obviously the flesh is always going to say, you know, well I want to hear Peter preach, or I want to hear John preach, or I want to hear, you know, I want to hear James preach, and it's like, well, why don't you just go to church for God? You know, is Christ divided? Why is it that you're showing up at church to hear a particular minister, you know, we should be there to worship God, to serve God, and no matter what minister is coming up behind the pulpit, I can still serve God, I can still sing praise to God, and I can still hear God's word being preached, and you know, search the scriptures, whether those things are so. I don't have to just hear the most amazing preacher every single week, and in fact, God doesn't use the most amazing preacher, he sometimes uses a weak person in the flesh, or someone who's contemptible in the flesh, Paul said that he was rude in speech, so he's not even, you know, making it sound like he was the best preacher, he is the best orator, he just, you know, obviously made things plain, and preached things that were biblical, and so, you know, what may seem appealing to our flesh may not be what we need spiritually. And frankly, you know, I choose this illustration, I read the hot preaching conference when I preached there, but there was a time where me and my wife didn't necessarily see eye to eye on some issues. And sometimes it's just hard when someone's your family member, your friend, your spouse, or whatever, for you to want to listen to what they're having to say. But even the just weak, watered-down, lame preacher, or whatever, gets up, reads God's Word, and you know what, it made an impact in our family and our marriage. And so, you know, God can use a weak vessel. So these guys that even say, oh, I have to go to this badling church, so I'm not even going to go, you need to get to church, period. And no matter what, who's preaching my whole bit, and, you know, God's Word is what's going to change your hearts anyways, it's not a particular person. So I don't buy into this junk of picking to go to church whenever so-and-so is in the pulpit or whatever. Obviously, if you got someone in the hole of preaching lies, there's a false prophet, you know, I'm not going to go there, but I wouldn't go to that church anyways. So it's not about like whether or not someone's a false prophet, it's just someone's personal skill or personal ability or whatever. And so it's important that we just go to church for the right reason and get the flesh out of the way and stop trying to cause a vision, stop trying to cause contention, and trying to pit people against one another, and just let your brother grow. You know, I listen to a ton of the sermons that I preach. I listen to you, Brother Joe, Brother Theo, Brother Owen, you know, I listen to the guys in Oklahoma City, I listen to the guys with your words, I listen to the guys at Fort Worth, I listen to their sermons all the time, and I constantly am learning things or, oh, that's an interesting point, or that was a good way of expounding that. So I just find it so interesting that if I can learn things and I can grow, how all these other people, they're just so, you know, I'm not learning, I'm not growing. It's like, well, if you've arrived, then why don't you just show us how to do it then? Why don't you just show us how smart and wise you are? But usually the people that have that kind of a bad attitude usually are just puffed up with pride anyways. So for me- Yeah, that's right, it's a pride issue. You know, I think that it's very difficult to have multiple preachers. I mean, even when we get to First Corinthians chapter 14, which I haven't gotten there yet, but it talks about having multiple preachers, multiple speakers. And, you know, I'm not going to dogmatic about this at all. But I do believe that some of these epistles that are written are written to churches at a time when they don't even have a pastor. And so, you know, they're giving them instructions of how to run a church, and they have multiple people preaching. So, you know, the First Corinthians church, you know, again, I'm not going to be dogmatic, but I think it's very possible when studying the timeline of Acts and studying this epistle that it's plausible, at least, that there wasn't even a pastor per se, an ordained elder at the time. And so they have multiple people preaching, and that just makes a lot of sense. You know, obviously, even if you had a pastor, I don't know a single church where the pastor preaches 100% of the time. Sometimes he's sick, sometimes he's traveling, his wife's pregnant, his wife's going to birth or whatever. You know, someone's got to fill in, should we just all skip church because the pastor just can't be there 100% of the time, literally? No, that would be silly. Obviously, God, you know, ordained the local church, and we need to be in church, period. So then some people attack the idea of, well, how often, you know, or how acceptable is it for your pastor to not be in a pulpit? But, you know, the Bible doesn't say that, and, you know, frankly, I don't think that there is any requirement because we see even the Apostle Peter making long journeys, long evangelistic journeys away from his church and then coming back and doing these type of things. So I don't think that an elder or pastor has to be behind his pulpit 100% of the time for it to be legitimate. Right. And you've definitely, though, been generous with your time in the sense that you do come visit us regularly, and you did the preaching class that you mentioned earlier. But you're right, I don't see where that requirement would be. And a lot of the backlash we get are from people who reject the idea of church planting all together and think it's not biblical. And so they'll make fun of it, they'll mock, they'll scoff the setup that we have going on right now here at Steadfast Jackson. And anybody who has fallen into that or is a little confused about that issue, I would watch the Wednesday night series by Pastor Jonathan Shelley where he really hits it hard, I don't need to talk about him in the third person because he's on the line with me, but Pastor, you really hit that issue pretty hard there and cleared up some confusion for those who might be confused on this. But when you— Yeah, obviously the most important thing you can listen to if you're still questioning is the sermon I preached about lessons from Acts. So I preached that on Sunday morning at Steadfast in Fort Worth, but that's a real important sermon, I think, for understanding church planting and just how churches would be structured. We are all done for the night, but Pastor Shelley, I just want to say, before I let you go, is I look forward very much to you coming on to preach for us at Steadfast Jacksonville for our second year anniversary. It's always lots of fun to get a chance to fellowship and hear you rip some face. I'm guessing you're not going to give us any sort of hints about what's to come on Thursday, but regardless, still look forward to seeing you. Thank you for taking the time out tonight and joining me on this live podcast. Is there anything else you want to say before I let you go? Yeah, here's your opportunity. What would you like to hear preached on Thursday? Oh, man, put me on the spot. But I don't know, I mean, I guess when in doubt, preach against the homos, right? Yeah, I don't think I'm going to touch that. I don't think that'll be the main topic. You never know when you might touch it, but— It has a tendency to come up. Yeah. It's just fun to preach. I just find that fun. That's not even hard preaching for me, so, you know, to me that's just sugar on top, that's the icing, so. Absolutely. Well, Pastor Shelley, I do appreciate your time. Again, I know you got a lot of stuff going on, so thanks for coming on, sir, and God bless you, and have a safe trip here. Is the travel okay? I mean, is it kind of annoying to do the trip via airfare, or how does that work? I mean, you know, traveling is obviously frustrating sometimes, and it's difficult, but you know, that's just the capacity in business, so it is what it is. I've never been a big fan of traveling, but you know, I like going and seeing you guys, and I like preaching, so it's kind of like Jesus Christ. I don't think he really wanted to go to hell, but, you know, he threw his bra up, he threw it back into the tunnel. He knew that he wouldn't be left. You know, his soul wouldn't be left in hell, so you know, I see that light at the end of the tunnel. All right, well I'm gonna let you go, Pastor. Thanks again. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Y'all have a great day. I'm looking forward to Thursday. If you're hearing us, our voice is, and you're anywhere in the area, you need to be there, and you need to go with all your might. That's right. Go to church with all thy might. That was the sermon at the Red Hot Preaching Conference, and if you missed it, I would go back and listen to it, because if you want to be provoked unto love and good works, if you want to be provoked to be a better church member than you are today, that message could be the key ingredient for you. That's all for this edition of the Sword of the Spirit Podcast, Episode 3. Thank you for tuning in. I'll be back again like I always am, Monday nights, 9 o'clock Eastern Time, on YouTube.com slash Bend the Baptist. You can also find this show on Apple Podcasts. Use the keyword, Bend the Baptist, all one word, and also the Stitcher Radio app. It was a pleasure to get a chance to talk to Pastor Jonathan Shelley tonight and pick his brain, not just about the Pure Words Baptist Church anniversary, but also Steadfast Jacksonville. The state of steadfast, that's what I called the YouTube video tonight, not just because I wanted to get some clicks, but I also wanted to see what Pastor Shelley thought about the state of our church here in Jacksonville. He'll also be celebrating, later on, the five-year anniversary of Steadfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, so these congregations continue to chug along here as we continue to do the work of the Lord, and my hope is that things just grow, not just carnally, but spiritually, that everyone grows more and more as the years go by, that people know more Bible, and that's the purpose of preaching. Like we talked about, hard preaching isn't just about preaching against the Sodomites. It's also about provoking other people. It's about ripping some face if you have to, to get people to recognize what they can do better, and I'm in that group. There's been sermons I've heard that have made me think, man, this is an area of weakness that needs to be rectified. Tune back in again next week, Monday at 9 Eastern. Thanks to the chat room, Rain, Guzman1611, Heath Hendricks, Taylor, Home, Instead. I think that's how you pronounce it, Home Instead, and that's an interesting name. I'm assuming that's a woman, and it's a woman who's glorifying being at home instead of being in the workforce. That's a godly woman right there. Javier Ramos, William Edward Hackman, Amanda Nicole, and all the rest of them, Brother Owen I saw in there, TheBlackBaptist is his YouTube channel. Thank you all for listening live tonight. I appreciate your support. It's always a pleasure to record this podcast each and every single week, and again, Monday nights, 9 o'clock Eastern time, Monday nights, 9 o'clock Eastern time is when this podcast airs. If you want more content, subscribe to youtube.com slash Ben the Baptist. Until next time, God bless you all, and I'll talk to you guys again after a while. God bless you all, and I'll talk to you again after a while. God bless you all. God bless you all. God bless you all.