And by the way, go to 2 Corinthians chapter 6, if you would.
2 Corinthians chapter 6, let me just unload the whole truck while I'm here.
2 Corinthians chapter 6, how about this?
Don't team up with or promote false prophets because you like their politics.
You know, there's something wrong when we just basically drop all boundaries of separation
so that we can all rally and unite for politics, especially when it happens in the church house.
Let me bring up some examples of this.
You know, it's funny, but I was in a great big giant independent fundamental Baptist
church for years, and this church was always schmoozing with all the politicians.
So they'd always bring in like the mayor and the chief of police and the fire chief
and the congressman and the governor.
They'd bring in all the worldly politicians into church on Sunday morning and give them
awards and honor them and praise them and give them chances to make speeches behind
the pulpit in church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, in the house of God, you know, bringing
in all these worldly, unsaved politicians.
I remember they brought in the mayor of the town and he was Roman Catholic and he got
up and he's telling, I'm sorry, it was the chief of police because he was talking about
how he was in his police car and he flipped over his police car and he almost died, but
he said, you know, but if I died, I'm pretty sure I would have gone to heaven because every
night I pray this prayer.
He unfolds a piece of paper and reads a Catholic prayer.
I think I would have gone to heaven because I pray this every night.
First of all, number one, if you pray that every night, you wouldn't have to read it
off a paper, would you?
You big, fat, lying politician.
If you pray it every night, why do you have a script?
If I prayed something literally every night, that's 365 times for 10 years, that's like
3,650 times and you're still reading it off a script, but number two, if you don't know
for sure that you're going to heaven, you know, it sounds like you're not fully trusting
Christ because if Christ did everything, if it's all paid for by Christ, how come you're
not sure?
You're not sure if Jesus really died?
Are you not sure he rose from the dead?
You know, but typically when people say, well, I think I'm going to heaven, I hope I'm going
to heaven.
Why is it that they say that?
It's because they're wondering, am I good enough?
You know, I've done good, I've done bad.
I think I would have gone to heaven.
This guy's like, well, I've done a lot of bad stuff, but I pray this prayer every night.
Whoop!
I'm in, I made it.
You know what that's called?
A vain repetition.
The Bible says when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think
that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
You know what that means?
They're not going to, they think they're going to be heard.
You know what it means when he says they think they shall be heard?
What does that actually mean?
God's not, is God listening?
Hail Mary, full of grace.
God's not listening.
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
God's not listening.
Because if you're just vainly repeating things, if you're just chanting, he's not listening.
And by the way, if you're not saved, he's not listening.
The only prayer that he'll hear from an unsaved person is one either seeking the gospel or
confessing that Christ is their savior.
You know, he's not going to, you just hear all your prayers and you're not his, you're
not his child.
You got to get saved.
This guy's a Roman Catholic.
Why is he in, why is he promoting a false gospel on Sunday morning in an independent
Baptist church?
But you know, there's another church that's the same way out in California, Pastor Jack
Treiber.
And, but you know, for decades they've brought in the politicians and schmoozed them and
the police chief and the mayor and the governor and praising the Congress and the city council
and oh, they have such a good relationship with all of their local officials.
And when I was in Bible college, they taught me, you got to make good relationships with
all these local officials, which, okay, I mean, I can see if somebody said, hey, take
them out to breakfast or something and try to get along, okay, I get that.
But you know what?
Bringing them into the house of God has gone too far.
When you're bringing unsaved people and honoring them in the house of God, giving them awards
in the house of God, we need to honor Christ.
This is God's house, not a political house.
But anyway, so he did this for decades.
And then during the whole coronavirus thing, when California was saying that churches can't
meet or they can't meet indoors or they have to be socially distanced or whatever, and
this is a church running thousands of people.
So Pastor Jack Treeberg gets up and says, you know, I think he didn't meet for a while,
but then he gets up and says, we're meeting anyway.
We're doing it anyway.
You know, we, we, we, we tried to slow the spread and we, we, we shut down for a while,
but you know what?
It's time for us to get back to church.
We're just going to do it anyway.
Okay.
His local officials that he'd been schmoozing for the last 30 years, right?
All of the wining and dining and awards and praising them and how wonderful they are.
Guess how they repaid him?
Does anybody remember the dollar amount?
Does somebody remember or no?
It's like $50,000 a service.
They fined him like 50 grand in the morning and 50 grand at night.
And then he's making all these videos like, please let us have church.
We need to have church.
They charge us 50 grand in the morning, 50 grand at night.
It's like, well, you know what, here's the lesson to be learned.
Guess what you get for desecrating God's house, bringing in all these worthless, ungodly,
wicked corrupt politicians and praising them and exalting them and lifting them up in church.
Guess what you get for that?
You get precisely nothing for that.
You get nothing.
You receive nothing.
And you know, isn't that kind of a poetic justice?
Now let's talk about our church.
All of our local leadership hates me and hates our church.
Pastor Roger Jimenez, his local leaders hate him and hate Verity Baptist Church.
He had the police chief of Sacramento screaming at him over the phone, literally screaming
at Pastor Jimenez.
I mean, and then talk about Pastor Bruce Mejia in El Monte.
They basically ran him out of town literally because basically the Sodomites blew up his
church building and then basically, you know, they want to go in and fix it and, you know,
make it structurally sound so that they can have church again.
And basically the government gave him a list of stuff that he has to do to meet in that
building.
It was literally impossible to perform.
It was a list of things that were literally impossible.
They said like, give us the history of the occupancy of this building for the last 30
years.
Tell us about every church that's ever met in this building.
It was just like, it was these bizarre requests that were just pages and pages and pages.
It was like something that no one could ever achieve.
No one could ever get done.
So he ended up just moving to another town because basically, and this is what, you know,
I was talking about on the phone.
He said, look, it's just the leadership of our city just wants us in a different town.
They just want us gone.
They just want us in a different city, right?
But think about this.
You know, here we are faithful, but here's the, it's a blessing anyway cause now he's
got a better building, a better gig.
That building had issues anyway.
There's no parking lot.
Now he's got a parking lot, a better building, better set up.
All things work together for good to them that love God.
But here's the thing, you know, our politicians hate our goods.
Our politicians have literally done press conferences in our parking lot where they're
like, we're going to stop this guy.
You know, that, that one of our congressmen's like this guy every six months or so says
something hateful.
It's like, well, you're not listening to enough of my preaching, okay?
But he's like, you know, we're going to stop him where, you know, here we are seven years
later or something, six years later and they haven't stopped us.
They've called our, our city councilman has called our landlord and tried to get him to
throw us out of this building.
And our landlord said, as soon as you're willing to rent 11,000 square feet from me, let's
talk doctrine.
But until then, I don't want to talk theology with you.
That's how, you know, because it's, you know, but he's like, and he's like, by the way,
they signed a five year lease.
I can't just put them out because I don't like his preaching.
It's nonsense.
That's why I always sign a five year lease, by the way.
It's like, you want to renew?
You know, how about three?
How about five?
How about 10?
How about till Jesus comes?
But the thing is, you know, the politicians don't support us here.
They don't support Pastor Jimenez.
But yet, you know, Pastor Jimenez and I are doing just fine.
I mean, here we are just preaching away, doing just fine.
Do I have any regrets?
Not about that at all, because you know what, why should I have schmoozed a bunch of politicians
when the chips are down, they're not going to do anything for you.
They're only going to serve themselves in their own interest.
Oh, hey, Jack Treiber learned a really powerful lesson the hard way.
Politicians don't tell the truth.
They're not loyal to you.
See some of us already knew that when we were like knee high to a grasshopper.
But he had to get to be like 60 years old or something to figure out.
Politicians aren't honest and they don't stand up for you and they don't have any loyalty
to you.
They only are loyal to themselves.
What a lesson.