Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
You can please find your seats and grab your songbooks.
We're going to start off this evening with song 327.
Higher ground, 327.
Higher ground, 27, higher ground.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this evening's service,
and thank you.
Just pray for all the individuals that got saved today
that they would grow in the Lord,
start reading their Bibles, and come to church.
And we love you, and thank you for all that you do for us.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
- All right, for our next song, let's go to 207.
Only a sinner, 207.
A sinner, 207, only a sinner.
The bulletin, lift up your hand nice and high
for us just can come by and get you guys a bulletin.
The inside, we have our service soul-wanting times.
Make sure you're still texting
and sending in your information to your church,
soul-wanting captains and lieutenants.
Just as an FYI, and this is kind of based
on our upcoming events as well.
Since Brother Oz is going to end up leaving,
I'm gonna just take on that responsibility
of being the tribe captain for the Oz tribe.
And we can start that on August 4th, which is that Sunday.
So we'll just make that transition.
And so if you have your soul-wanting totals and stuff
that you've been sending to the Oz tribe,
you can just text me that information or send that to me.
If you don't have my information, you can contact me
and I'll try to send out a message to the tribe as well
when we get closer to that date.
Also, please be in prayer for expecting ladies.
And then of course, August 4th,
please join us in the PM service
for a Going Away Dessert Fellowship.
You'd like to give the Oz a gift.
I'm sure they would greatly appreciate that.
Again, we don't know the exact time
of when he may be heading out of here,
but that's a good and safe date.
And so we definitely look forward
to their next journey in life.
And they have to live the promised land.
It's okay, but not everybody can live here.
So, but of course, now they're excited
and we're excited to see the Lord work with them
in Oklahoma.
So also August 15th through the 17th,
we have the Mighty Men's Conference.
There should be a signup sheet out here.
So please make sure you're signing up for that.
Dr. Stringer is gonna be preaching for us
on the 8th of September, October 4th through the 6th
is our Heritage of the Lord Conference.
And we'll have some guest preachers,
Pastor Anderson and Pastor Bruce Mejia
are gonna be joining us.
And so highly encourage you to participate,
come out.
Also church rules and reminders,
please make sure no one's running in the building.
Children shouldn't be on the stage.
Also, children should not be in the kitchen area
unaccompanied.
If you have upset children or crying babies,
you can just take them out and then come back in.
Or you can still just use our mother baby rooms
the entire time.
We just ask that mothers would accompany their children
at all times while in those areas.
Also, just as a friendly reminder,
the areas are designed for just basically toddlers
and infants to be roaming around.
So if you bring in older children,
please make sure they're sitting quietly in the service
with their mother.
Also, we have our quiet times in the afternoons.
Please make sure if you stay around in the sanctuary,
there's no talking.
And we have our mother baby room areas are shared for all.
If you'd like to read or use an electronic device,
you can use our fellowship room.
We have a separate prayer list card here.
So if you'd like to be prayer for our church,
that's there for you.
If you'd like to be added or you have an additional prayer
request, please just make sure you're emailing that in,
or you could always fill out one of our communication cards.
Did we find the, we had a lot, okay, all right, good.
All right, that's pretty much all I have for announcements.
We'll go ahead and sing our third song.
We're going to be singing Psalm 139 again,
and our special handouts, Psalm 139.
Sing it out together.
(piano music)
- Passed around, please turn in your Bibles to Romans 13.
Romans chapter 13.
- Chapter 13, the Bible says,
let every soul be subject unto the higher powers,
for there is no power but of God.
The powers that be are ordained of God.
Whosoever therefore resisteth the power,
resisteth the ordinance of God,
and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
For rulers are not a terror to good works,
but to the evil.
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?
Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same.
For he is the minister of God to thee for good.
But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid.
For he beareth not the sword in vain.
For he is the minister of God,
a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
Wherefore ye must needs be subject,
not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
For for this cause pay ye tribute also,
for they are God's ministers,
attending continually upon this very thing.
Render therefore to all their dues.
Tribute to whom tribute is due,
custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear,
honor to whom honor.
Oh, no man anything but to love one another.
For he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
For this thou shalt not commit adultery,
thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal,
thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet.
And if there be any other commandment,
it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Love worketh no ill to his neighbor,
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time
to awake out of sleep.
For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand.
Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness,
and let us put on the armor of light.
Let us walk honestly as in the day,
not in rioting and drunkenness,
not in chambering and wantonness,
not in strife and envying.
But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make not provision for the flesh
to fulfill the lust thereof.
Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this chapter.
I pray that you would please bless Pastor Shelley
as he preaches your word.
Please open our hearts to receive it in Jesus' name, amen.
- Amen.
So I'm kind of continuing a sermon series idea
of just like controversial topics.
And when I was thinking about this subject,
it's not necessarily that everything's controversial to us,
but sometimes it's controversial to the world,
or sometimes it is controversial to us
and not to the world.
So it just kind of ebbs and flows.
But specifically, I want to talk about police
in light of the Bible.
And I feel like this subject is a little bit controversial,
even amongst our crowd.
But it's pretty controversial in the world today.
And in the last several years, we've
kind of had this idea of like a defund the police movement.
And there's a lot of just ideas about police in general.
And the defund the police movement is really
an idea of trying to eliminate as many officer positions
as we have currently, like reduce the amount of police
force that is in our society, and replace them
with social workers, and social programs, and education,
and all of these other concepts, community type concepts,
that would supposedly better help our society as a whole.
So I really just think it's important to kind of get an idea of
what does the Bible say about police, and what should be our attitude towards
police officers in general. Now I'm going to go through
three different points this evening. The first point that I want to make though,
and I think it's important to put this in context, is that
police in a sense are appointed by God. They're appointed by God and they're
ordained of God according to Romans chapter number 13.
Let's read the first few verses here again. The Bible says, "Let every soul be
subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power
but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God." So God has
put authority structures in place in this world,
and the Bible says, generally speaking, these
powers that exist are ordained of God. God's allowing them to have this power,
have this authority, and so we are to be subject under them.
Of course, in an authority structure there are powers that are higher than one
another, and we're supposed to give respect to
those powers as they fit that little pyramid structure,
that that hierarchical structure where we have whatever is the
most immediate authority above us or power, and then
as we go further and further up. Now for all of us,
we have varying degrees of authority structures in our own lives
and depending on what context or what situation we're in,
those authority structures shift a little bit. So
in a family, you know, the authority structure is essentially
if the children have no power and authority, okay, all of you kids,
you're in charge of no one. Your mom is in charge of y'all,
okay, so she is your kind of usually your immediate
power structure or authority. Above your mom though is your dad and
really if you were to come to there was a conflict,
the dad is the one you're supposed to obey, okay, but then there's another
structure in the family that goes above that and that would be the Bible.
And so even if your parents told you to do something,
you're supposed to do what God told you, what the Bible says above what your mom
and dad say. So that's kind of that structure. That is
a complete structure. There's no one else in between necessarily
or above dad. Now of course some people have different family units. If you're
raised by your grandparents or you're raised by
some other authority figure then it might be a little bit different, but
generally speaking you know if you have a mom and dad then
essentially you know that's the hierarchy structural, that's the power
structure that exists. In the church it's a little bit different.
Of course within the church we have potentially maybe an evangelist
or deacons they can exist and then you have a pastor
and those layers would go you could even have multiple pastors
and but at that point once you get past the pastor
then the authority goes again straight to God and we kind of have that structure.
Well within society you're going to have again different layers and depends on
what country, what state, all kinds of different things. In our
potential or in our specific area we have what we
call local law enforcement agents and they're going to usually be the
lowest level. You know above them they sometimes have
sergeants or deputies or whatever and then they're going to have a chief of
police. Then that chief of police is going to
potentially have someone that he responds to.
He has to obey and even within that structure there's even
other law enforcement agencies that exist. You have state
agencies that exist. You have sheriffs. You also have federal agents and then
you know essentially kind of goes all the way up to the president of the
United States who's considered our commander-in-chief.
So in theory, Joe Biden is our commander-in-chief, okay?
And it's not even just theory, it's real to a certain degree. It's just crazy
that he's in charge of anything, right? But above him is still God, okay?
Now some people get kind of mad at their lowest level that they interact
with. Like we don't interact with Joe Biden on a regular basis. We don't have
to see him. We don't really deal with federal agents.
We usually don't deal with sheriffs or any of these people.
But we may run into local law enforcement. And sometimes people get
mad at those individuals or don't like those individuals or wish they didn't
exist. Or some people believe police shouldn't even exist.
Okay. And you know, that's a different conversation that we're going to have in
a minute. But whether or not you believe they exist,
they are an appointed authority. And according to the Bible, we are supposed
to obey them as long as they are not violating whatever
higher power structure or authority has ruled.
And again, that comes from a top-down tier of God,
President, and then we could go all the way down the list to essentially those
authority structures that exist. Of course, according to
our actual government, there's someone above the President, and that's the
Constitution of the United States. And in theory, you know, if they were to
tell you something contrary to the Constitution, we're supposed to obey the
Constitution even. So, you know, there is all these different
layers and we're supposed to obey them in those different positions. And
according to the Bible, they're ordained of God. Now, if you live in a different
country, there's different structures. But essentially, everybody's gonna have
police. Whether you call it police or you call it something else, there's pretty
much usually just a law enforcement agency that exists. There's officers that
exist in every country, in every area. And generally speaking, you are supposed
to obey them and you're supposed to be subject under them. That's what the Bible
is saying. Verse 2, "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the
ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
Basically saying, you know, just kind of do whatever they say, because if you
don't, you could literally die. They could kill you. They could take you and
put you in prison. And so essentially you're supposed to be subject under them.
Verse 3, "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou
then not be afraid of power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same.
For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid,
for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of God, a revenger
to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." So according to the Bible, law enforcement,
generally speaking, is a minister of God and it's good. And they even potentially bring the death
penalty to revenge and execute wrath upon really evil people. Now, if you just look at America,
generally speaking, and we're just talking in broad sweeping statements here for a moment,
though. I mean, law enforcement, local law enforcement, most of these people are doing
good, generally speaking. I mean, most of them are pretty much, they're going out there and
they're having to deal with ugly situations. They're having to deal with murder. They're
having to deal with rape. They're having to deal with theft and all these different things. Now,
we can argue all day long about all these people's intentions and corrupt police and they don't do as
good a job as they should and blah, blah, blah. But just generally speaking, if you're a decent
citizen in America right now, in 2024 America, if you're a law abiding citizen, the police really
aren't doing much to you at all. You don't really have to have much interaction with them. And
they're generally doing, you know, mostly good. Again, does that mean that everything they do is
right? No. Does that mean that they're enforcing good laws? No. Does that mean that they're
catching every criminal that they should? No. But generally speaking, they're doing a pretty
normal job. I think that it takes, it kind of takes a warping and a perverting of reality to just
start thinking that like cops are just only bad and just doing bad all the time. Like they're just
weird and you just must not know a lot about law enforcement because there's just so many bad,
horrible people in this world they're having to deal with regularly that you and I don't have to
deal with. That you're just kind of being, you're just kind of being naive to reality. Okay. And I
want to talk about that in a minute. But generally speaking, what does the Bible say? They're ministers
of God to thee for good. Does that mean that every police officer and every regime and every state
of all time have always been good? No. Of course there's been bad law enforcement. Of course there's
been bad governments. Of course there's been some exceptions. But just generally speaking, law
enforcement is relatively good. Am I supposed to believe that the Roman soldiers, which are basically
the local law enforcement of the time of Christ, were just all great people and wonderful humans
and doing all the right things all the time? No. But they kept peace, they kept civility, and Jesus
Christ was still capable of doing a great ministry while the Roman soldiers existed. Okay. And so,
you know, law enforcement is not really having a huge impact on the spiritual. So in my opinion,
we should just kind of stay away and stay out of it and just be a law-abiding citizen and just be
subject for conscience sake and generally recognize that these people are just ministers of God for
good. Okay. Does that mean every single one? No. But I'm just saying again, generally speaking.
And it even says here in verse five, "Wherefore ye must need to be subject not only for wrath,
but also for conscience sake." So being disrespectful and rude and telling cops they
shouldn't exist and all this attitude is just not a good attitude. It's not really a biblical attitude
because according to the Bible you're supposed to consider them as a minister of God. You're
supposed to give them the benefit of the doubt and we should respect the position above the person.
We should respect the position not necessarily every single individual and so we have to be
careful that we don't go so overboard and just hating cops because bad cops exist. But again,
I see this attitude, I hear this attitude, and I don't really agree with it is an attitude of like
cops shouldn't even exist. But wait a minute, who are these ministers of God that God's talking
about? It sounds like these people should exist. It sounds like there's somebody out there that
needs to exist that's the minister of God, that's the executor of wrath, and I'm going to prove here
in a minute that I believe law enforcement is ordained of God, okay, but even more than what
we just read. But I just want to make it abundantly clear that the Bible is saying positive things
about this individual. Not only that, it says this, verse 6, "For for this cause pay ye tribute also,
for they are God's ministers attending continually upon this very thing." Meaning not only should we
have individuals that are responsible for taking care of law issues, they should be paid. That's
what the Bible says. The Bible is saying that we should have paid law enforcement in Romans chapter
number 13. That's what it's saying. And I guarantee you this makes perfect sense. If you actually
understand how society works and all the evils that are out there, it makes total sense to have
paid law enforcement in your local areas. Okay. And it says in verse seven, render therefore to
all their dues, tribute to them, tribute is due, custom to them, custom, fear to whom fear, honor
to whom honor. Think about this. It's not even saying just money. It's saying fear to whom fear
and even honor to whom honor, meaning that we should pay them some level of respect. We should
just by default be respectful, be kind, be courteous. Okay. Now go to Matthew chapter five,
Matthew chapter five. Here's what I want to explain and some people might get mad about what
I'm saying already because there is an attitude out there that just hates all cops. There is people
out there that just think like all cops are terrible, bad people. We should always be
disrespectful of them. They shouldn't even exist. They're basically just hirelings or something.
Like they're just the scum of the world. And I don't have that attitude. I don't think that's
the right attitude. And I don't want our church to have that attitude, especially soul winning.
And then there's this other view that's kind of the extreme opposite. And I would say it's like
what a lot of churches do. It's where they kind of worship law enforcement. So I think we should
have a healthy balance. Let's not go to this extreme and say like all cops are scumbags who
should be spat on. And then let's not go to this other extreme of saying like let's just bring law
enforcement up and let's parade them on the stage at church. Because okay why wouldn't we just let's
bring all the plumbers up and we're gonna just have it we're gonna have national plumber day.
Let's recognize them. Let's I mean think about it. If you were to say like is plumbing important? I
would say absolutely. You know love plumbing right? I really like it. They have a dirty job
that no one wants to do. You know hey electricians they're important. Truck drivers hey I like having
food. You know like every part of our society is important. We can't just start eliminating
major professions and not have major consequences. Okay but I'm not going to sit here and say like
let's make sure to bring up law enforcement and just recognize law enforcement and worship law
enforcement as if they're somehow special or something like that. No I don't think we should
I don't think we need to do that either. Okay so again old IFB typically kind of like worship cops
and then a lot of new IFB churches they kind of like hate cops. I want to just be in the middle
where I just respect cops. Okay I don't want to worship you but I don't want to act like you're
the scum of the earth. Okay I want to be somewhere in the middle and I want to kind of prove to you
how you know this position makes sense biblically. Not only does it make sense it's mandated. Okay
but I want to show you in Matthew chapter 5 look at verse 25 for a moment okay. This is Jesus Christ
speaking. He says agree with thine adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way with him
lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge and the judge deliver thee to the officer
and thou be cast into prison. Notice that Jesus Christ is warning you about officers but he didn't
say warning police officers are bad people. Warning officers just randomly put people in jail.
No he said hey if someone does something wrong make sure to settle that issue with somebody
before they take you to the judge and the judge with their officer will throw you into prison.
And if you understand even our society our society is built on biblical principles and
biblical structures. Go if you would to Deuteronomy chapter 16 now go to Deuteronomy chapter 16.
Our current system if for a law enforcement agent to even search your house or go above and beyond
they have to go to a judge and they have to get a search warrant. They have to actually get judges
to approve the actions they're going to take and then they're the officers of the court to go out
and make arrests. And what do they do when they arrest you? They bring you to the court and then
the judge has to make a hearing and then based on his determination you're punished according to
that judge. This is the system that God set up and it's not even like the secondary. It was the
primary system that God set up. It is the ideal system that God set up. God set up an ideal system
of having judges and officers and what we call them is police officers. Okay. Same thing. This
is literally commanded in the Bible in Deuteronomy chapter number 16. Look at verse number 18.
"Judges and officers shall thou make thee in all thy gates." Did you read the Bible?
I read the Bible. What does it say? "Judges and officers shall thou make thee in all thy gates."
Notice this. "Which the Lord thy God giveth thee throughout thy tribes and they shall judge the
people with just judgment." So what is the Bible? If you were going to set up a biblical society
based on the ideal situation of the government, what does the Bible teach? You would set up local
judges with local law enforcement agents that enforce the orders of those judges. I mean,
you have to understand that's basically what America is. And you know why it is? It's because
the people that created America were saying, "What do we do?" That's literally how America was
established. And it's so funny to me how people think that it's so horrifying, all the things that
we bring up in the Old Testament law. How could you want that? And it's like, you love this country,
right? You think this is the best country, right? The reason why is because it was literally
established on this. Like literally, in the most literal way, they praised the Bible. They said,
"Hey, we're trying to set up a nation. We're looking for laws. Let's go to the great lawgiver,
Jehovah, and let's let him implement the laws for us. This is what we're going to do." And when we
were the closest to that, we were the best, the most successful, and it works. This government
works, okay? Now, here's the problem with this system is it said with just judgment. Okay,
here's where people get confused is they look at bad people and they think that the system's bad
rather than not recognizing it's the people, not the system. The American system by and large is
not bad. It's very well orchestrated, very well crafted, and it fits a biblical model very well.
The problem with our system in America is we don't have just people in charge,
and that we as a nation have turned away from God and forgotten what the Bible teaches on some
really important principles, and as a result of that, that's why we're suffering greatly.
You know, if we recognized who fags and Jews were, our country would be a lot different, okay?
If we recognized who Catholics are, the pagan idolaters that they are,
and again, how do you learn that from the Bible? I mean, if we were just kind of like a little bit
biblically literate as a nation, and we could discard all the false prophets, the Catholics,
the Jews, and the fags as the wicked, evil people that they are in our nation,
it'd be different overnight. And we don't even have to change our structure. We don't have to
change having a president and an executive branch, and we don't even have to change the
constitution. In fact, we just start marking out some of those amendments. We'd be really great.
You know, like the 19th Amendment. Let's mark that one off real quick, okay? There's plenty
of amendments. There's plenty of Supreme Court rulings that overturn laws that need to be
undone, like Lawrence versus Texas. Sodomy needs to be a crime again. And, you know,
then we can haggle on the punishment, right? But let's just start with it's a crime, all right?
I like starting there, which was, in Texas, in 2000, the law. It was illegal to be a sodomite,
okay? And commit an act of sodomy. That was illegal in the state of Texas. That was the
Republican position back then. Now it's, you know, we love trannies or whatever because they change
every five seconds. But, you know, the problem in our country is not police officers. In many cases,
it's the laws that they have to enforce. And here's another problem that I think that a lot of people
don't understand is a lot of the injustice in our system specifically is not really police officers.
It's the judges. It's the layers above them that are much worse. And that's what's causing a lot
of problems. Did you notice that we need to have just judgment? Verse 19, thou shalt not rest
judgment, thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift for a gift of blind the eyes of the
wise and pervert the words of the righteous. So here we understand that what would cause a problem
with this system if judges are taking bribes, if judges have a financial incentive to rule
in an unjust way. It says in verse 20, that which is altogether just shalt thou follow,
that thou mayest live and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
So what brings success and prosperity is having good judges that are following the law of God,
that they're not perverting judgment and specifically with gifts. Go if you go to
Proverbs chapter 29 for a moment. Go to Proverbs 29. I really just, I don't know how after I could
show you the verses that I've shown you so far, someone would really argue with me about officers
being a mandate by God. Now we can argue exactly what that looks like and some of the details and
how many do we need and certain things like that. You know of course when it comes to federal agents
we can argue about exactly what that should look like but I think I mean generally speaking they
pretty much have a God mandate here to ordain officers in certain capacities. We should have
some and it makes sense. Think about it this way in the Old Testament law obviously if someone was
committing a crime then they need to be captured and brought toward the judge and then they have to
get some kind of a sentencing. Well you know I have a day job. I don't really want to have to just
like stop my day job every single time someone does something bad and go grab a couple random
guys off the street and see if we can haul this guy in and grab him. He may not fit in my car seat
very well you know like doesn't it kind of make sense if we just pick like certain men that are
going to do this regularly and we can pay them and they can have cars that are designed to house
someone that's a little bit you know antagonistic right and maybe the car doors even lock specifically
so they can't get out and we give them handcuffs so they can kind of arrest these people and we
arm them and supposedly they're training okay and they're in fit they're in good shape right
like that just kind of makes sense to just pick the cream of the crop of society and we all as a
society empower that individual to go out and do this for us so i don't have to do it so the
plumber can go plumb and the electrician can go do electrical work right just practically speaking
this makes perfect sense in society and we don't necessarily have to all do vigilante justice
every single time something happens now again there's nothing wrong with vigilante justice
and even in the state of texas you can technically do a citizen's arrest in a very extreme scenario
i'm not necessarily recommending this i'm just saying generally speaking and a lot of people
do this if someone breaks in their own house you hold them down until the cops show up right and
then you just allow the cops to deal with the situation or someone notices something bad
happening in society and they take the person out or hold them down or whatever until law enforcement
can then take over that still makes perfect sense in a society but just generally speaking it's
probably better if we just empower a certain group that's chosen out of our society to lead this
effort and they're the officers of the court and they're the ones that are trained they're the
ones that know the law really well they're the ones that are responsible and in fact our cops
today have so much scrutiny on them they all have to wear a gopro or whatever they basically have to
wear a body cam 24/7 monitoring i mean what if we did that to you at your job how many times are
they going to be like you're looking at facebook you know you or what were you doing you know where
are you at i mean they're basically tracked and monitored and every single one of their actions
every single thing they said is being recorded i mean that's a high level of accountability that
almost no i mean what about you women how many of y'all want to wear a camera that records every
single thing you're doing and all your actions and you have someone micromanaging every step and
hey you need to get out of bed hey you need to get to work hey what do you say to the kids what
do you do like do you really want that and then we sit here and we complain about police officers
even though that's their literal life it's not i'm not like joking literally police officers
are being monitored 24/7 every single thing they're doing tons of accountability on that
plus just the pressure from our society of hating cops already so much i mean just generally
speaking that's a tough job you can see why so many people are not wanting to do it today
the pay is not probably as well compensated as it even should be considering the inflation and the
stresses and demands that are put on those individuals but you know just generally speaking
if we didn't have them we would have a lot of problems now why is it that we still have a lot
of problems it's because the people above them are taking a lot of bribes and a lot of money
and the judges are making bad judgments okay proverbs 29 look at verse four here the king
by judgment established at the land but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it so we notice that
the gifts is where it really comes into play and again you look at a lot of these judges they're
getting gifts from people like george soros they're getting all kinds of gifts from campaign donations
from wealthy businessmen other individuals and because of the corrupt judges that affects law
enforcement because they know hey if i haul this person to the judge they're going to let them off
they're going to get off the hook they're not going to send them to prison they're not going
to deal with them so then the police officer is thinking why waste my time or why put my own neck
in jeopardy because if i arrest this person that's going to bring heat on me because the judge isn't
going to actually haul this person to prison or deal with them correctly and so a lot of the time
people don't understand that cops seemingly don't do stuff because they know that the judges won't
actually enforce the law they even know the prosecutor well prosecutors won't prosecute
this case so they don't even pursue and places like california they've raised the bar so high
on theft that law enforcement just doesn't get involved even though somebody steals something
that's a thousand dollars because they know no one will prosecute it so why waste time hauling
that person off to the judge even though they've committed a crime and so the problem with the law
enforcement isn't the law enforcement it's the laws that they're having to enforce and those laws
are being perverted by perverted judges and there's a big problem with judges in our country today
we don't have judges that hate covetousness we don't have righteous men that are leading
it's a it's a political thing and honestly if we were to fix law enforcement we need to be
addressing the judge issue way more than the law enforcement issue than the actual agents and the
officers because the judges is where we're having so many problems in fact when we had some we've
had a lot of problems but one of the problems was when people literally stole over a hundred
thousand dollars of our money and we took it to the law enforcement and I remember they had a female
district attorney for Fort Worth at the time and he said she basically won't approve search warrants
or anything like that right now and so just nobody the police and the detectives just weren't doing
the job and I remember he said like in times past we would average about 50,000 search warrants a
year and he said now we're down to like eight and again this is his testimony I don't know how
accurate that is but I mean it seems like reasonable that he's just saying like hey we've
had a major reduction in the amount of search warrants that are being approved right now
and so criminal activity is just skyrocketing people aren't actually being held responsible
and it's not because the law enforcement or the detectives or whatever don't want to pursue it
and in fact even in our case because I literally I mean me and Dylan we worked on this stuff
and I prepared very specific detailed information I mean I was in my mind handing the police
officers like here's a free you know arrest like here you want the detective case here you go
I filled it all out for you I mean I have the statutes written out exactly what happened all
the evidence all the witnesses all the time stamps all I mean just everything just like here you go
and the detective says I agree I believe you he takes it to the prosecutor the prosecutor says we
don't want to prosecute this so it's like is that really the detective's fault that he doesn't want
to pursue it now unfortunately for those criminals you know now the feds are looking into it but
you know that's their problem all right not my problem so have fun with them but you know at
the end of the day it's you know even if they don't do anything a lot of times it's not the
lower level people it's the judges it's the prosecutors it's the whatever and of course
they love getting paid off they they want to make sure they get all their campaign donations and so
a lot of the issues that we have in our society are not with the local people with the low level
people and i just i'm trying to explain this to you so you don't hate on the wrong person please
just stop hating on cops just because they exist and just because they have to enforce garbage laws
doesn't make them a bad person okay now go to the judges chapter 17 go to judges chapter
chapter 17 here's the thing if we didn't have them if we really start eliminating them and
start putting in social workers here's what you just don't understand someone will rule your area
by force whether it's the law enforcement that you empower or someone else but there's no such
thing as anarchy anarchy is a fake idea of bad people that want to convince you that anarchy
somehow wonderful and good when really they just want to take advantage of you and they want to
destroy you now you do see anarchy a few times in the bible and judges is probably a pretty
good example of what anarchy would kind of look like but it brings up this phrase often in the
book of judges and i just want to look at it it says in judges chapter 17 look at verse 6
in those days there was no king in israel but every man did that which was right in his own eyes if
you eliminate law enforcement then you have this every man does that which is right in his own eyes
this is an extremely dangerous scenario even in america we have experienced some times where
we've had more anarchy as a politic as kind of a system and one of those times in history was in
the 1920s where you had uh essentially alcohol being outlawed the temperance movement alcohol
was illegal in america and as a result you had a lot of individuals that were called like bootleggers
and individuals that were still selling alcohol but on the black market essentially and as a
result of this you had large mafias gangsters all kinds of crazy stuff happening um because of this
time period you had like the federal reserve coming in you had a lot of wicked stuff just being
coming into america it leads up to the great depression america just changed dramatically
in this period of time okay the 1920s so we have like the titanic you have a lot of stuff that's
interesting in this timeline but it was in some cases called the roaring 20s and it was really
just a lot of immorality a lot of evil a lot of casinos a lot of illegal stuff and law enforcement
basically stopped doing their job because of fear of how much power a lot of these mafias had brought
in and here's the thing it's not like law enforcement didn't exist it was just they
weren't very empowered and a lot of the judges and individuals were corrupt at this time so
law enforcement's hands were tied in many cases so it kind of gives you a sneak peek what would
it look like if we start eliminating police officers what would happen if we eliminate a
lot of positions what if we kind of took away from them a lot of their power and authority
what would society look like well it would look like a bunch of gangs ruling over us
a lot of mafia ruling over us in fact it was so bad in some parts of america at this time
in chicago specifically they had over 1300 gangs like you're just a fool if you think
eliminating cops will solve any problems of yours if we eliminate law enforcement immediately we
would have things like ms-13 crips bloods the sinaloa cartel all these kind of people coming
in and just literally taking over the streets of our area and not only that you'd have local
individuals just forming large groups of quote gangs and they would enforce the streets and it
would be whatever they want they would do whatever is right in their own constitution state of texas
legislation they don't care their law is whatever they say at that moment just many dictators
everywhere that's what anarchy really is it is extremely dangerous at this time murder was off
the charts according to some statistics they said in 1926 there was an average of 12 000 murders a
year in america lots and lots of murder and you have certain people like al capone being a really
prominent and well-known gangster he is and again there's different estimates conservatively he was
involved directly or indirectly with at least 33 murders some reports said 200 some said 400 but
just one individual at the time is responsible for potentially hundreds and hundreds of murderers
and he was a big gangster notorious gangster killing a lot of other gangsters of course but
even other individuals as well police officers. Go to chapter 21 and look at verse 25 it's the
same thing this is what it's like and in the book of judges you kind of notice this just hordes of
people just coming around just doing whatever they want you know people just just wandering around in
little mini militaries and armies and just you know destroying things killing things it's just
chaos there's no peace there's no safety there's no civility and the book of judges is just like a
complete failure children of israel are just completely always under control of either the
philistines or some evil horde and this is how it literally finishes this is how the book of judges
finishes verse 25 in those days there was no king in israel every man did that which is right in
his own eyes so it's like it's god is trying to like explain to you anarchy bad anarchy bad
anarchy bad what was god's system judges with officers and those judges being righteous judges
but the problem was they didn't have the rights as judges it wasn't the fact that like oh they
brought in police officers bad no police officers aren't bad by and by themselves obviously
individuals could be bad certain officers could be bad but generally speaking that office is not a
bad office there's nothing inherently sinful or wrong with that particular position and i would
argue it even makes sense biblically now again i want to just tell you a little bit more history
go over to axe chapter five for a moment go to axe chapter five anarchy is extremely extremely
dangerous because if you think you have a problem with bad laws at that point there's no laws and
they just do whatever they want gangsters kill whoever they want they walk into your business
and just say give us five hundred dollars or we're going to break your legs that's what they say
and then you give them five hundred dollars and they say you know i don't even like the way you
look to me so i'm going to break your leg anyways and then and we're going to come back next week
make it 750 you're like i don't have 750 well i hope you like your legs and it's like where
are you going to go that's your business you've invested your time your money your energy your
family's here well go cry to the cops they don't care there's literally no one to advocate for you
plus it's just these gangs are the most powerful individuals with all the weaponry all the all the
money and they say hey if you don't do it we'll kill you your mom your family your wife your
children we'll burn your your business down to the ground and nobody will care i mean that's
what it's like when you don't have law enforcement that's empowered if you think law enforcement
shakes you down bad the mafia will shake you down way worse okay now and they don't have they don't
have body cams you know worrying about what they're doing or something like that now another part of
this history that's interesting is you had huge horrible gangs and they're all glorified on tv
and movies and they kind of glorify a certain group of people they don't really talk about
these other group of people that existed but there is these certain gangsters i'm going to bring up
a few other names abe bernstein i don't know if you know anything about him he was in detroit
he's by some argued the most deadly gangster to ever live and is the estimated like at least 500
murderers attached to this abe bernstein now this is what's also interesting about abe bernstein
he's a jewish person i didn't know i don't know if you understood that but guess what country he's
from russia exactly what happened in 1917 in russia oh yeah that bolshevik revolution again
where a bunch of jews came in and literally assassinated the king and literally took over
with anarchy and then slaughter like in the process 50 to 60 million russians in the process
and then this abe bernstein bernstein comes from there to america what a wonderful person i'm sure
he is and with a lot of his jewish buddies and they formed the purple gang and they're one of the
worst gangs who just were ruthless really you could just call it the reprobate gang if you
just really want to know not only that there was another major gang in new york by a guy named
arnold rothstein a jewish interesting it's interesting i forgot that history lesson where
it was like hey you remember all those gangsters in the past they always talk about them being
from it from like italy right it's like all these sicilians or something and it's not to say there
wasn't some but it's also like a major jewish thing many of these gangs especially the more
ruthless horrible and you know why you didn't hear about the jewish gangs more than the sicilian
ones you want to know why because you hear about the ones that got caught and thrown in prison
not the ones that are capable of paying off the judges and staying out of prison right and i
wonder who's the ones in with the government and all the politicians and have all the money and
whatever hmm it's probably the bankers okay just throwing some stuff out there arnold rostein is
really famous though still because he fixed the 1919 world series so the world series of baseball
he paid a bunch of players on the white sox to throw the game on purpose because they were
heavily favored against the cincinnati reds and he bet a bunch of money on the cincinnati reds
knowing that they're going to pay like a huge payment because everybody knows the white sox
are going to win but not when you pay the other team to lose on purpose and so he literally fixed
the world series and think about this is the most important you know event for these athletes who
played their whole life they're willing to still take money to throw the game and you know some
people say like i think professional sports is fake this is proof it's literally fake now i'm not
saying every time i'm not saying every single situation some people get really weird at this
stuff but to say that there isn't cheating in professional sports or people throwing games on
purpose for money it's it's been proven that has happened multiple multiple times there's been nba
refs that have gotten caught for literally cheating on games and so you know there's a lot a lot of
cheating when there's all this money on the line and it's called the black socks scandal okay but
i'm just i'm just trying to throw these things out there because i just don't want you to think like
oh anarchy awesome anarchy is is horrible and you know who comes in to take over
steins a bunch of steins will come in okay that's who comes in they try to come in either way but
you know they're literally in charge and that's just not what you want whether it's in russia or
here now i want to finish with one last point okay point one police officers i believe are
appointed by god they're ordained of god but we shouldn't worship them point two
anarchy is dangerous so we shouldn't hate cops we should say like hey let's let's balance this and
say let's respect that position because we want cops to be empowered and to be able to fight all
these individuals and you know why we even have a more normal society is because a lot of cops
finally got the courage got the ability to actually conquer a lot of these gangs take over those
areas stop a lot of the crime stop a lot of the threat they brought in agencies like the FBI I
know you love them but they have major federal agencies intervening knocking out narcotics
a lot of these gangsters and ending a lot of this violence okay so whether or not you love all these
agencies or not they did actually eliminate a lot of these really horrible people a lot of these
gangs and stop them from literally walking into your business and saying pay us money or we'll
break your legs i mean when's the last time that happened to you okay so you have to recognize that
they were still ministers of god for good to america generally speaking and they helped
eliminate a lot of these gangs and mafias and they still do that work today okay generally speaking
so we're not going to worship them we're not going to hate them and here's the last thing though
is if a police officer tells you to do something that's not right we ought to obey god rather than
men and it says in x chapter number five look at verse 26 this is a context of peter and james
being brought before the council verse 26 then when the captain with the officers and brought
them without violence for they feared the people lest they should have been stoned and when they
had brought them they set them before the council and the high priest asked them saying did not we
straightly command you that you should not teach in this name and be able to you have filled
jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood upon us then peter and the other
apostles answered and said we ought to obey god rather than men so here's the thing the officers
brought them to the judge who is really at fault here the officers didn't even cause them any
violence they did nothing wrong to them can we really hate the officer here or are we mad at
the judge for preaching against jesus and basically trying to stop the preaching the judge is the real
problem here it's not even the officer and the officer wouldn't have gotten arrested them if the
judge if the council hadn't told the officers to go and arrest them they weren't just wandering
around like let's just arrest some christians today it sounds like fun you know they were just
doing their job and they still didn't even do a bad job there was nothing wrong with them just
bringing them out the problem is that these councils these individuals these judges these
high priests they're the ones that are trying to stop the gospel from being preached and if
they are trying to do that well we ought to obey god rather than men so again i'm not necessarily
going to resist arrest they didn't resist arrest but you know if they get free again i'm going to
go preach the gospel again i'm going to keep preaching in this name right go to roman's
chapter 12 go to roman's chapter 12 so here's the practical application for us today
i'm going to go out soul winning and i don't care if kamala harris president kamala harris
says you can't preach in jesus name i'm going to go preach in jesus name now praise god we
don't live in that scenario yet but we can preach the gospel now here's the thing sometimes law
enforcement gets confused on this so so what do we do when a when a police officer shows up
because they've been got they got a call from some old white person that hates jesus and we've been
knocking doors or something and the cops show up you know i don't i don't go you shouldn't even
exist you're an enemy of all righteousness you work for george soros you know i'm just courteous
and i just i talk to them normal and usually it's over so quick in fact the last it actually
happened here in cedar hill recently some loser was mad that i was carrying a gun and called the
cops on us or whatever it's like i'm kind of walking away from a door that we knocked and the
cops just kind of like walking towards us and he's just like already talking he's like already
talking to me and i was already kind of like ready to just you know say like hey we're just
out soul winning and before i can even get a word he's like i don't even care what y'all are doing
someone called so i just had to show up you know whatever just keep going okay and i like i couldn't
even get a word in and then and then i'm just like do you want a card he's like no and then he's
back in his car and just drives away and i was just like okay and i was like i like this cop you
know he's just kind of doing his job he's just like i don't even care he's like it's obvious you're
not doing anything weird you know it's just like bye i mean it was probably like 10 seconds and i'm
like i'm not mad at that guy and hey he had to do his job he was called out there he's gotta go
out there i'm not mad he showed up even if he was like hey ask me a few more questions even if he
asked me to look at my id i don't really care because you know what my name is jonathan shelly
and i'm a soul winner okay and my every all of my private information is on the internet anyways
like do you think i'm really afraid of a local cedar hill police officer looking at my id
but i'm not going to sit here and just be like how dare you i will never show you this
you know like like really like what are you winning like i'm being persecuted for jesus man
you better not even look at my id i'm not going to give you that you know why can't you just comply
and just move on and uh another area white settlement which is should be called like worst
settlement was over by our other church and it seemed like almost every wednesday night when
we go out soul hunting there the cops are called on us just like every single time and the cops
always made me give me my give my idea i'm just like don't you know me by now i'm just like what
is wrong with you okay but i still did it and i'm still here and it wasn't that big a deal and you
know to me there's just no point in just like pissing the cops off for no reason you know i
just try to like and again i'm not going to volunteer information either you know keep your mouth shut
but just give them as as much as they need i've had a couple cops just be kind of ignorant of the
law and with taga i don't know if you're shocked by that but in with taga i had a law enforcement
tell me like i couldn't do that and i'm like quoting him his own statute of like because at
that time we were under a lot of pressure so i like actually learned it but i'm just like well
this actual statute proves that we can go door to door it's in your own literal law and he's just
like no it's not yeah can you read probably not but i didn't like that individual but i was trying
to be respectful of them and then later you know i talked to the chief of police and stuff and he
straightened it out with their officers so they stopped harassing us for soul winning but you know
again even if even if they were wrong even if they're going to be really hard-nosed about it
because of the society we live in and because i know it's not necessarily a big fight i'm usually
just going to do whatever they say even if i'm if i'm at an apartment apartment complex and they're
like hey you know we kind of want you to leave i'll probably be like no we're just going to keep
going because you know we we're not soliciting and if they're like no you have to leave then i'll be
like okay you know i might be like hey we just want to keep going we're going to just go or hey
we have 10 minutes can we just please finish and a lot of times they'll just comply but if they're
going to be hard-nosed i'm not going to be like you better arrest me right now you know i'm willing
to fight you know to the death for the it's like just move on right now again here's the thing if
they pass a law in texas and they say you're not allowed to go sowing anymore it's illegal and law
enforcement's going to enforce that order then i will get arrested for it okay but right now when
it's not a big deal and it would only be like a bad cop on a bad day that would make a dumb decision
and arrest you for that i'm just like i don't want to waste my time getting processed because
this cop can't read okay so i might as well just go along with it and just file a complaint later
or talk to the chief police or just go to another neighborhood or whatever i'm not like sacrificing
or compromising the gospel i'm just trying to be practical and smart here okay so you know again
we ought to obey god rather than man but let's be practical about that let's just be logistical
about that and say look cops aren't stopping us from going soul winning i mean 99 percent of our
soul winning is completely unharassed by law enforcement so the one percent or the one random
time it happens let's just be as nice and respectful and just move on and just we'll
come back later right when you're not here okay and we just won't knock on the karen's door or
whatever that called on us or something when we were there but to me it just doesn't make sense
to just fight and be antagonistic and just be like well i just hate all cops and you're all bad you're
all pigs i'm gonna spit on you and you know somebody's gonna like listen to my sermon and
be like oh man you're a boomer and you're a compromiser and you're just a bootlicker and
whatever and it's like come on i don't care you're carnal and i bet you don't even go soul-winning
anyways you loser but what does the bible even say romans chapter 12 verse 18 if it be possible
as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men it's like do i really need some incel individual
online to approve of my sermon no i don't care about you you troll okay i go to a real church
and none of us are compromisers we walk through hordes of angry protesters for years and look we
preached in their face how much we hate them and want them to die literally okay it's not like
we're cowards or something or afraid or something like that but you know what the bible tells us to
be respectful and to show fear under whom fear is due and to hey be peaceful as much as possible
and you know it's possible for me one day to just say like hey this cop's having a bad day all right
bye it's not it's not like a death situation here life or death i can just move on and i want our
church to have a good reputation and not just have every cop be like i hate steadfast baptist
church i hate all their members they're so disrespectful they just they're mean-spirited
individuals i'd rather them say like man those people are kind of nice wow those people are
pretty reasonable maybe we should put facts of death that's what that's what i want them to think
okay not like well i understand why people protest that church they're a bunch of jerks
they're a bunch of weirdos and idiots and they don't even understand that we're protecting them
from a bernstein and arnold rostein and a lot of these individuals that would literally come into
your neighborhood and rule with an iron fist if you didn't have local law enforcement and so don't
just hate on them for no reason go to proverbs 15 this last verse i'm going to show you but you know
what be courteous and you can be firm at the same time say like hey this is my right we're not
soliciting we have the law on our side on this issue we would like to still go soul winning if
a cop is trying to harass you on this but if you know they're going to have if they're going to
force their way then i'm just going to let it happen and i'm going to be courteous about it
and say well you know what officer i'll do what you're saying i just disagree i hope you'll look
into this later you know have a good day right i mean there's sometimes you have to tell people
that they're wrong but you can still be nice as nice about as you can be peaceable about it move
on some of these cops may just be bad people okay but generally speaking most cops are not like that
okay proverbs chapter 15 look at what it says in verse 1 a soft answer turneth away wrath that's
just good wisdom you know if if the police are mad let's be nice let's be kind let's give them
a soft answer not just you're an enemy of all righteousness you're such a corruptor of the
gospel you're such a you must hate christianity you know like i just don't think there's a a
benefit or a pro to that you know and so i think we should try to be respectful give them benefit
doubt be peaceable show fear unto whom fear is due not have a vitriolic attitude but on the flip
side i'm not saying worship them i'm not saying we're going to parade them up here on the stage
and clap for them just because they exist you know we want to have a balanced view of law
enforcement and of police and you know as a church i hope that you don't take the preaching the wrong
way and think that just because i get up here and kind of scream and yell that's how you should just
act in life you know that's not how i am as a person i don't just walk in a subway and i'm like
make me a sandwich you know i'm like what's with your wicked hairstyle what are you wearing you're
such a reprobate you know i'm not like you know i try to walk around and be nice and courteous
and respectful there's a time to preach and you know what that's behind the pulpit if you're not
buying a pulpit don't worry about preaching okay it's just not the time and place and if you want
to preach we preach the gospel with the tear in the eye and with kindness and with grace and
discernment right we want to be nice people we want to be kind people we want people to
think that we have a good religion not that we're just these mean-spirited judge like judgment
filled legalist you know people we want them to think hey they're kind gracious compassionate
and they're not stupid and think that cops shouldn't exist okay because it just to me it's
just not a it's not a biblical viewpoint if you just say let's eliminate all cops you know i
think the bible is really clear on this subject but if you have a question you can always ask me
about it but let us try our best when we go so wanting to be respectful of them all right let's
go some perfect thank you only father so much for giving us the bible and and giving us you know
ministers of god to help protect us from evil that have to do a tough job in many cases i pray that
you would just help society recognize the good parts of law enforcement and recognize the real
issues and the real problems that we have with a lot of corrupt judges and if possible i pray that
you could just eliminate as many corrupt judges that are in this area you could just expose them
that you could if possible raise up people that actually love the law love the bible love the word
of god if possible change our laws to be more biblical but no matter what i pray that we would
have an attitude where we are seeking peace that you'll give us a a soft answer to turn away wrath
and that we would be respectful and subject to those whom we need to be subject in jesus name we
pray amen all right for a final song let's go to song 210 wonderful grace of jesus song 210
wonderful grace of jesus 210 let's sing it out wonderful grace of jesus
bless you are dismissed