Hello, everyone. The Preacher Profile series is back, and this time I'm here with Pastor Bruce Mejia,
and it starts right after this. Stay tuned.
Pastor Bruce Mejia started out as the boots on the ground at a satellite church plant in El Monte, California.
The congregation was under the umbrella of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona,
with Pastor Steven Anderson leading the way.
But in August 2019, Pastor Mejia was ordained, and his church became fully independent.
Since then, Pastor Mejia just keeps feeding his flock with doctrine and hard preaching against sin
and edifying applicable sermons.
If you ever visit FWBC, what you'll notice is it's a tight-knit group of believers.
They're a family. They love the Lord, they love soul winning, and they hate false doctrine.
But this is exactly what God is talking about.
You lame shepherds who are not helping my people grow knowledge and doctrine.
This is what the church is here for, man.
You come to church, the Bible says so you're not tossed to and fro,
carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness,
whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
You're here to grow, to learn doctrine, to learn eschatology, end times Bible prophecy.
You're here to learn about salvation, about sanctification.
You're here to learn that the Jews are not God's chosen people.
That's what you're here to learn.
You're here to learn the Bible.
And people get bored with church. You know why?
Because they're not learning anything.
Not only do you get sound Bible preaching at First Works Baptist Church,
you also get a family integrated church where you and your children can enjoy the sermon together.
You get old fashioned hymns and psalms and great fellowship.
When I visited the church myself, I noticed the congregation hung around after the service.
They weren't in a rush to leave.
There's laughter, discussion, and planning on where to go for dinner that night.
Never a dull moment.
If you're a fan of Pastor Mejia's preaching,
and you've always been interested to learn more about him,
well stay tuned because he's about to join me for another episode of the Creature Profile interview series right now.
Alright, it's February 18th, 2020.
I'm here on my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Bible Baptist.
This is episode 11 of what I like to call Creature Profile.
Now if you've never tuned into this before or you're not sure exactly what this is,
I wanted to start a series.
This is an idea I came up with a long time ago now.
It's crazy how quickly time flies,
but the idea was essentially that an ordained person in the ministry,
whether it's a missionary, an evangelist, or a pastor,
I wanted to highlight on this interview series, on this live stream,
just so that they can tell their story and also so I can point my audience to their ministry.
So they can go check it out and listen to the preaching and get some good content.
And it continues this time with the pastor of First Works Baptist Church.
It's truly an honor to be with him live right now.
Pastor Bruce Mejia is here.
Pastor Mejia, thank you very much for doing this and taking time out of your schedule to come on to this live stream.
I really appreciate it. How are you doing tonight?
Doing well. Thank you, Brother Ben, for having me. It's an honor to be here with you.
Excited about tonight.
All right. It's going to be a lot of fun.
We'll be talking about yourself for an hour.
I'm just kidding. It's always fun to talk about yourself, right?
So we'll be talking a lot about your church and your rise, if you will, to the ministry,
becoming a pastor, what it's like to be a pastor, and things of that nature.
And then also I did want to touch on your current revelation series
because I'm looking at the comments section and people are definitely being edified by this series.
A lot of interesting sermons and doctrines that you've fleshed out so far,
and you're sort of just getting started.
There's a lot of really cool parts of the Book of Revelation that you still have yet to cover,
so we'll touch on that tonight as well.
But I really look forward to it.
What I want to start off with first is what I usually start with on these shows, and it's your background.
Let's talk a little about where you grew up, how you got your start,
and just a little bit about where Pastor Mejia began. What's your background?
Well, I primarily grew up in Long Beach, California, and I don't come from a Christian home.
I actually grew up with my mom, my older brother and sister, and my mom had a Catholic background,
and so I guess if you were to ask me then what religion I was, I would say I was Catholic.
But we never really even went to Catholic mass or even practiced it at home or anything like that.
But my mom, she did a really good job as far as protecting me from gangs and just vices and things that would harm me.
And partly the reason for that, I would say, is because she disciplined me quite a bit.
So I credit a lot of that to her discipline and spankings.
But growing up, I wasn't really involved in church.
And it just probably around the age of between 18 and 21, I started, I guess, kind of wanted to know more about God.
Or maybe there are some things that I was going through that was causing me to seek after the Lord.
And at the age of 21, I was invited to an independent fundamental Baptist church, and that's where I got saved.
And that's where I began to grow.
I learned about the King James Bible, about sowing and all these important things that we value, I learned there.
And so that's where I come from, from Long Beach.
All right. And when did you decide? Obviously, you got saved.
You talked about it there, your salvation testimony.
But when did you realize that you wanted to do a little bit more, that you wanted to be a pastor actually one day?
Well, when I got saved, I just I was under a really hard preacher and he was very exciting and just inspiration.
And so I think being under that, it kind of inspired me to want to be a pastor.
And so, you know, initially when I wanted to be a pastor, I just thought, well, I want to be a pastor because I want to preach the word of God.
I want to be able to teach the Bible the way my pastor does.
But as the years go by, you start realizing that there's more involved in that and just influence influencing other people's lives and discipling them and developing them and helping them grow spiritually.
And I had a heart for that. And so throughout the years, I can't really pinpoint a time where I said, well, you know, I want to be this kind of a pastor.
But I just knew that from the beginning I wanted to preach the Bible.
And then as I began to grow, I realized that there was more involved in pastoring and I desired that I really wanted that.
And I had my pastor as an example. And so I would just emulate a lot of what he did and try to have his heart.
And that's kind of how I grew my desire to want to shepherd people one day.
Of course, you started out as a satellite church leader, Faithful Word Baptist Church, L.A. in El Monte, California.
What was it like to start with the satellite church model before cutting the umbilical cord, if you will, and becoming an independent, fundamental Baptist church?
Because as you're aware of, and I'm going to get into this now, in 2019, Adam Fanon was exposed as a devil.
A couple of months later, though, this is the main part of the question.
His followers and Fanon himself started attacking the satellite church model, claiming it's not biblical, claiming it's wrong in support of their congregational ordination doctrine and saying that it's wrong.
For a church to be under another one, basically against church planting. Totally ridiculous.
But you're an example of someone who did it right. And it's a success, obviously.
So talk about that model a little bit. You having experienced it from beginning to end to its completion, cutting the umbilical cord.
What was it like?
Well, I definitely believe in this model of church planting. You know, obviously, Fanon is a complete infiltrator, and this is one of the reasons why he did what he did.
But I have, you know, before we even did Faithful Word Baptist Church of L.A., I was actually involved in another church plant in my previous church that was started in Los Angeles as well.
And so my father in law is the one who taught me about this model, and he showed me all the ins and outs and how to start a church.
And so I believed in this model because of that. You know, that church plant was very successful.
It grew initially when we first started that in 2009, I believe is when it was.
It was running about 300 people, but it was led by my father in law in a different site.
And I was kind of like under him and overseeing the ministry there and all the all the ins and outs of that.
And so when we came here, it was basically the same thing. And I believed in it. I saw how successful it was.
I saw the importance of being under an experienced leader.
And we just we just always knew that, you know, a church needs a leader and a church needs a pastor.
There's only one leader, one pastor. And so, you know, we don't go about it like absolutely trying to steal the hearts of the people.
We basically try to follow as best as we possibly can with the pastor wants.
And so when we started here, I kind of had already had that experience from my old church.
And we I implemented as best as I possibly could what I learned there here.
And to be quite honest with you, it was it was very simple. Pastor Anderson was very hands off, but he was definitely there.
Mentoring me and teaching me and completing a lot of my training.
And so I think that's one of the reasons why it was very successful is because of the fact that, you know, he was kind of he was the pastor,
but he had someone boots on the ground just taking care of the actual the administration and taking care of the people and preaching on a weekly basis.
And so I love this model. I hope to emulate it one day when we started church.
I think it's a very good way to go about it. And especially for someone who maybe wants to be a pastor.
You know, it's a good way to kind of cut your teeth and get, you know, get your get your feet wet in regards to church planning,
because, you know, you can still be under a pastor and if you fail or you make a mistake, it's OK.
You know, the pastor still there training you, teaching you and you kind of learn from your mistakes.
And so it's a great way to to to start a church. My opinion.
And after serving as the boots on the ground, faithful Word Baptist Church under the leadership of Pastor Stephen Anderson,
eventually you get ordained because when people aren't self-willed and just in it for themselves, guess what?
They serve and serve and serve until they get ordained.
And that's what happened with you. And I want to show this real quick here for the people watching on YouTube.
I'm not going to play this, but we see the still shot. I paused it of Pastor Anderson laying hands on at that time,
Brother Bruce Mejia. And then, of course, he became Pastor Bruce Mejia and Faithful Word Baptist Church became First Works Baptist Church.
Now, what I want to ask you is this as he's laying hands on you, as he's praying and you're being ordained, what's going through your mind?
Are you nervous? Are you anxious? What are the thoughts going through your head as this is happening?
Yes, I was very nervous. I was anxious.
And, you know, I was I was just really excited about just the new chapter.
And I was I was really thankful to be able to serve under Pastor Anderson. And, you know, I consider him to be a mentor of mine.
I admire him. I love him. And, you know, I really I respect him a lot.
And so for him to lay hands on me said, you know, it's old volumes to me.
And I just felt very honored and privileged to be able to be ordained by him. But it also came with like a big responsibility.
You know, being a pastor now, it's kind of like it's the balls on my court. And so everything rises and falls on leadership.
So, you know, if the if the church plant fails, then, you know, I can't really blame anybody else but myself.
And if it succeeds, you know, obviously we do our part. We understand that God deserves all the glory.
But, you know, we could obviously say that success is comes as it comes as a means of, you know,
the training that we receive from the people who've taught us in years past. And I credit a lot of that to my father in law who taught me.
And of course, Pastor Anderson, who I would say completed that training. And so I was definitely very excited.
And I was just excited about the future, you know, to know what the future held for First Works Baptist Church and the people.
It's it was a great day. When most people talk about the new IFB,
a lot of the times they'll talk about how they found out about the movement because of after the tribulation or marching to Zion or New World Order Bible versions,
or they saw a sermon from Pastor Anderson online and they got hooked.
And then one thing led to another. And all of a sudden they're moving their family to a new IFB church or they're going to one that they found out was in their city, etc.
And there's some pretty cool stories when I go to conferences and different events like that.
I like hearing those stories and asking people, hey, how'd you get saved? How'd you hear about the new IFB? How'd you hear about Pastor Anderson?
I think you have a unique story when it comes to your, quote, transition to the new IFB.
And you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure that prior to meeting Pastor Anderson, you weren't even aware of who he was.
So talk a little about that and how you were introduced to him and eventually became a part of this, quote, movement, if you will.
And someone that a lot of people now who have listened to Pastor Anderson now listen to you as well.
But talk about that transition. How'd that happen?
Well, the funny thing is, is like the first time I met Pastor Anderson wasn't when I went to his church.
It's actually when he came to my church.
And I remember years ago, Paul Winberger used to attend our church and he was a member of our church.
He ended up leaving and Pastor Anderson was coming to Los Angeles for a surgical procedure for his wife.
And he ended up visiting our church. And that's that was actually the first time I ever met him.
I didn't know about him, but not necessarily because of his videos.
He was just a name that was kind of like thrown around a little bit because of some crazy sermons that he preached or something.
But, you know, I think maybe some people in our church had mentioned something about it, but I wasn't I didn't know too much about it.
I don't know anything about him other than he was a pastor who said some crazy stuff on the Internet.
But when he came to our church, I remember, you know, I was preaching at the church plant there and we're about to start our service.
And I saw him come in and I shook his hand and I thought to myself, I was like, hey, I think I recognize you.
I was like, aren't you? And he said, Pastor Steven Anderson, nice to meet you.
I was like, oh, yeah. I was like, thanks for coming. And, you know, I said Paul used to come here.
And so welcome to our church. And man, it was it was it was a great meeting.
I didn't have anything negative to say about him.
I didn't think he was like weird or anything. And in fact, a lot of what I heard about him was was wrong based upon my my initial contact with him.
I thought he was just a normal person and was very involved in the service, sung and just said, say amen throughout the sermon.
And so we hit it off pretty well. And then throughout the years, we kept in contact off and on.
But it was when Paul Winberger, I think when he finished after the tribulation, that he sent me a copy.
So he sent the copy to the church and I opened the package and I saw and I was like, wow, this looks cool.
You know, and I watched it and I remember thinking to myself, like, wow, this is this is a lot to swallow.
You know, so I I wrote down all the verses and then I studied it afterwards and eventually I came around and I became poster pre-wrath.
And then, you know, you just you just start watching everything else and then, you know, start growing from there.
But I will say this, like the church that I got saved that it was it was a red hot IFB church that emphasized like the King James Bible, soul winning, hard preaching separation.
But when the new leadership took over, those things kind of died out. They weren't as strong on it.
And I'll be honest with you, I was kind of you know, I wasn't strong on it as I used to be when I when I first got saved at that point.
But when I started listening to Pastor Anderson, he the thing that caught my attention about him was the fact that he was emphasizing the things that I was once zealous over, which is sowing the Bible.
And I remember that caught my attention and really he was very instrumental in reigniting the flames of zeal for those things,
because there's a lot of people in my church that weren't excited about those things anymore.
They weren't excited about being more really strong about the King James Bible. And I still love those things.
But, you know, I kind of wasn't I wasn't zealous anymore. And I remember hearing him preach and I thought to myself, hey, there's other people out there that are still zealous about these things.
So he kind of helped redid the wells once again. And so that's kind of how I became new IFB.
And little by little, you know, I just started learning and growing in that area.
And I would say this, like, to me, the new IFB is they're basically the believers who've taken the baton of zeal from the old IFB, you know, because I've known a lot of old IFB pastors who were zealous.
There were great soul owners and zealous people, and I'm sure there's some out there still.
But I think the new IFB has basically taken that baton and and of zeal and run with it.
And so that was my introduction to the new IFB. And then, of course, a couple of years after that, I went to go visit his church in Arizona with my wife.
We're on vacation and my son. And that's when we got in trouble and we got kicked out of our church because of it.
But it was it was great. And I'm really thankful for it.
Yeah, there seems to be some insecurity or something when it comes to being associated with Pastor Anderson or the post-Trib pre-wrath doctrine.
I was preaching at a friend's wedding for 10 minutes before Pastor Anderson did the actual service.
And one of the I guess the pastor of the church that the wedding was being held pulled me into his office and said, hey, I'm not really sure who you are,
but I heard that, you know, you kind of believe this post-Trib doctrine.
And I said, I actually I didn't say this, but I was thinking in my mind, I said, it's a wedding. I'm not preaching on the timing of the rapture.
But that was the first time where I was introduced because I've heard so many stories about that,
where people are getting pulled into offices and this doctrine of the timing of the rapture post-Trib pre-wrath is treated as if it's damnable heresy.
I heard these stories and it always didn't sit well with me. I'm like, this is insane.
I can't believe that these people went through those kind of experiences getting kicked out of a church for listening to a pastor like Pastor Anderson,
which, you know, what's he doing? He's committing the thought crime of liking or I should say being zealous for soul winning or believing strongly in the King James Bible and salvation by grace through faith, etc.
But it was the first time I had experienced it myself.
So for you to talk about how, you know, they kicked you out for associating with them, obviously, that's a lot more hard core than what I went through.
But man, it just, I think, underscores the insecurity that some pastors have with regard to the new IFB.
And I don't know. What do you think? Why is it there?
I think it's because they're just, you know, they maybe it's because they just they know they're dying spiritually and they probably know they're going to be replaced.
You know, they know that a generation is coming up to replace them and they don't necessarily want that.
They know they're losing influence over the I mean, if you look at our churches in the new IFB, it's filled with a lot of young people.
And I know, like, for example, the church I came from, they wanted to reach the next generation and they understood that they were losing the next generation.
And they're losing them to liberal churches or just getting out of church period.
But you look at churches like us and we actually have a lot of young people.
You know, we have a lot of young couples, young people and not just young people, but young people that are zealous for the things of God.
They're zealous for the Bible. They're zealous to learn the word of God, preach the gospel, to be separated.
And I think that's the product that they want.
And so it bothers them that they're not getting it with the process that they're implementing and that someone else is coming in and actually has a different process, which is what we would consider to be a biblical process, which is hard preaching.
You know, being real from the pulpit and being zealous about the things of God.
And, you know, it's it's attracting those who who want the truth.
And so I think, like you said, it's just insecurity. And so what they'll do is, you know, they'll attack the doctrine or they'll attack the man.
They'll say, well, you're just a Pastor Anderson listener. You know, he's wrong on the rapture.
But, you know, Pastor Anderson is not the first person to teach the post-trib pre-wrath rapture.
In fact, I know someone who was in their 70s before I even heard about Pastor Anderson who believed the post-trib pre-wrath rapture.
And he actually learned it from Pastor Robinson a year ago.
And the funny thing about that is that this particular person, when when they found out when they found out that I was post-trib, they actually came up to me and they said, hey, whatever you do, don't tell anybody that you're a post-trib pre-wrath.
Because if you tell anybody here the leadership, they're going to ostracize you and you're going to get in big trouble.
And I thought to myself, that's ridiculous. You know, the church, this is where I got saved. I work here.
This is my family. You know, I don't think something like that would cause separation. And they specifically warned me.
They said, if you do, you know, they're going to separate from you. And lo and behold, that's what happened.
But, you know, I think, like you said, it's just a matter of just insecure and pastors that are just dying out.
And so they're afraid of being replaced. That's why they don't like replacement theology.
Make a connection there. That's good. I guess they don't seem to like Matthew 24 29.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be dark and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven, etc.
But anyway, different topic for a different time. You end up getting tapped to start the satellite church by Pastor Anderson.
And slowly but surely, you have this group that comes together.
And when I visited your church, Pastor Mejia, what I noticed is the unity. You guys, it's like a family over there.
And, you know, the Bible, of course, says, famous verse, Psalm 133, behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.
But it continues. It's like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments as the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. Psalm chapter 133.
And that's the passage that came to mind when I visited First Works Baptist Church. Can you talk a little about that unity that you guys have going on there, the family?
Not that you haven't had to exercise church discipline in the past, you've talked to me about that, but the guys there are like family.
What have you done to perpetuate this atmosphere?
I think if I were to, you know, if I were to pinpoint it on something, I would say I just I try my hardest to spend a lot of time with the people in our church after church.
And, you know, sometimes it's it calls for late nights to just be at church and just walk with the guys and spend time with them and just let them see you outside of the pulpit.
I think that's important. And, you know, just talking to them as though they're family.
And, you know, I think I would say that I tried my best to work hard on that.
And honestly, you know, just really loving the people and being there with them and allowing the church to be like your world, basically.
Like for me and my family, our life is the church. And, you know, that's it's where we are. It's where we'll always be.
And so the people in our church, that's our life. You know, that's what we that's what we think about.
That's what we want to do for the rest of our lives. These are the people we want to be with for the rest of our lives.
And so they mean a lot to us. And I think one of the things that has helped to keep the unity in our church is though I spend a lot of time with a lot of the people in our church,
I try to spend my time with a select few specifically who actually take care of everyone else.
So there's a group of men in our church who I've selected like as leaders.
And the men have people that are basically designated to them where they're supposed to train, disciple, take care of, follow up on and care for so that we make sure that no one falls through the cracks in a sense.
And I think that helps a lot because as the church grows, you know, I'm not gonna be able to spend time with everyone.
But I want everyone to be able to be taken care of. And the only one only way we're able to do that is by getting them connected with the leader in our church to spend time with them, have them go over to their house and go out to eat with them and fellowship with them outside of church.
And so I try to work hard on making sure that the leaders are taken care of so they can take care of the rest of the people as well.
But I mean, I would say the major thing is just spending a lot of time with them after church and just letting them see, and it sends you with your hair down,
choosing with your hair down, letting them know that I'm your pastor, but you know, I'm also just a regular person.
And, you know, I struggle with the same things you struggle with, or sometimes I can have the same fears and, you know, same failures and successes and, you know, just trying to make it a family atmosphere.
That's what we try to do.
Well, you talk about hanging out with everyone and just saying, you know, sort of not being condescending and patronizing in the sense that they see you with your quote, hair down.
Look what you meant. You're not walking around the church just like, oh, yeah, nobody can talk to me and match my brilliance.
You know what I mean? You're a friend of these people.
They used to teach us, like in Bible college or like in the old IFB, they would say, you know, you got to have mystique.
You know, you can't let people see you with your hair down.
And like, you got to make sure that people recognize that you're like the leader.
And, you know, it's just this facade that they want you to have because they want, they're trying to create like this artificial respect that people should respect it because you're the pastor, you have the title.
But I don't agree with that. You know, I think respect comes when you tell people the truth, when you teach the word of God and you know what you're talking about.
And people genuinely see that you're not perfect, but you love them and you are leading them and you care for them.
This is how people respect you. You know, they used to say, you know, don't walk around with shorts on.
You know, if you're ever, you know, in public, you shouldn't have shorts on and, you know, no flip flops or something like that.
So they, you know, they gain respect or they wanted to gain respect based upon how they looked.
That was important to them. Whereas, in my opinion, the way you gain respect is by having integrity and preaching the truth and being a man of your word and just seeking to be God's man, God's leader.
Making the right decisions and, you know, having integrity in those areas because people can see through that stuff.
They see through when you're being a phony and you're just worried about your appearance rather than what the doctrine you're preaching or if you really care about people, you know.
So in my opinion, you know, that stuff doesn't matter. What matters is, you know, being a man of integrity, being a man of your word, being faithful and loving your people.
You know, and that includes them allowing them to see you when with your hair down, quote unquote, you know, just having fun, fellowshipping, laughing, laughing.
And you guys laugh a lot. Oh, yeah. When we were having the tacos at the taco stand, just constant laughter from start to finish.
It's very hard to feel like a medicine. Exactly. We have a continual feast at our church.
Here's the thing, though, to me, it shows that you're genuine. You're not trying to be fake.
And I think that's what the Bible calls. I've never been to Bible college, but it seems like that's what the Bible college was trying to get you to do.
Just be fake or put on some character like you're the CEO of a company that's unreachable.
That's how it is. And a lot of big businesses, you don't get to really interact too much with the top dog because he's always busy.
He's got this mystique about him. He's in meetings and you don't really know who he is. You don't know his personality.
But with the pastors in our movement, even if they are big churches like Faithful Word Baptist Church, for example, I'm sure not everyone there gets equal time with the pastor or whatever.
But Pastor Anderson is not a fake guy. He's a genuine down to earth guy.
And I noticed that with all the pastors in this movement, they're genuine down to earth people who, when you hang out with them, want to be your friend and kind and love on you, etc.
And during that time of fellowship, you are yourself. Now, that's not to say that the people don't respect you as an authority figure, because of course they do.
But you're able to hang out with them and have fun and really just promote this atmosphere, like I said, of a family, one big family that you guys have going on there.
And you're like that Bible college want to do the opposite. Yeah. You mentioned, for example, like Pastor Anderson.
I remember when he would come here and preach, you know, he really didn't have anything to prove he can.
You know, if if if we're hanging out in one of the rooms in the back and there's no seats, he would just sit on the ground and talk or something.
You know, it wasn't it just wasn't a big deal to him. And because he already had the respect of the people because of the fact that they knew who he was.
They knew his doctrine. He knew what he was talking about from the pulpit. You know, he's a man of God.
And so it said for me, it said a lot when I would hang out with Pastor Anderson just to see him just kind of chilling out and having fun.
And you can laugh about things. In fact, I think my respect for people like that grow.
You know, I respect people like that more when I see that they don't they don't have to try to put up this front about themselves.
It's not a facade. Yeah, right. Yeah. There's no facade of elitist this elitist attitude.
Well, I am way better than you. And, you know, I I would not ever be seen hanging out with a simpleton like a lay person at the church.
Are you kidding me? Yeah. That actually doesn't exist in the movement. And I think it's a really great thing.
There we go. Further proof you brought up Bible college, further proof that the members of First Works Baptist Church are getting an infinitely better, quote, education, sit in the pew, listening to the pastor preach a sermon.
They're going to some waste of time, waste of money Bible college that teaches false doctrine and instills people with that elitist attitude that you talked about.
And they have to pay for it. They pay a lot of money to learn false doctrine.
You know, and obviously I learned some good things in Bible college as far as like administration.
And there's some good things that I learned. But the doctrine was pretty bad. Yeah.
Sensational theology and even Calvinistic theology, you know. But well, we're talking about doctrine.
This is another question I like to ask ask the people I get on this show. What kind of sermons get you the most fired up? Is it the sermon on the reprobates?
Is it the sermon on Zionism at the sermon on the timing of the rapture, salvation?
What gets you most excited when you know that's the topic you'll be covering on a given Sunday?
So I think when I thought about this, you know, I like to preach on the things.
Obviously, I want to preach on things that we're known for. Like you mentioned, you know, preaching against the homos, against the Jews or post pre-rapture.
These are things I remember. Like when we first started the church, we met in the house.
And, you know, I had I was preaching that that Sunday morning and I just like unloaded the truck, you know, because you're keeping all these things bottled up.
I don't even remember what the first sermon was about, but somehow I tied in homos and, you know, the Jews and poster pre-wrath and soul-wording.
And I just like unloaded the truck on everyone on that day. But I like those those topics.
But I would say whatever I'm studying at that time, I get excited. Like right now, I'm excited about the Revelation series.
I'm excited. That's what you're studying. Right. That's on my mind. And I'm really excited about that.
But if I were to pinpoint something, let's say on Sundays, what's one of my favorite topics to preach on?
I would say I really like to preach on the future. And what I mean by that is, you know, the things that could be.
So I like to I like to talk about vision and where our church can be, where our people can be five years from now, 10 years from now.
I like to kind of like get our people to dream a little bit about the future.
Yeah, it excites us, you know, so I like to talk about what could be. I spent a lot of time thinking about things like that.
And so that's often in my heart because I know that within a time span of five years, 10 years, so much can happen.
And there's a lot of potential within a church and an individual. So I think that's one of my favorite topics to talk about is just vision, dreaming.
I think the sermon you preached when I was there was sort of along those lines. The half has not yet been told.
Sort of about how, hey, you know, there's still a lot left for us to experience in the Christian life, which falls under that category, I think.
But when people think about pastoring, I think maybe there's a misconception that it's just about what goes on behind the pulpit.
But what I've learned talking to you and others who I've interviewed for this show is there's a heck of a lot more that you have to take care of as a pastor.
I was a pastor leading a flock, shepherding a flock, and the Bible does say in Jeremiah chapter 3,
Of course, that's part of your role. You feed the people with knowledge. You feed the flock. You help them to understand the Bible better, to be better Christians.
However, there's a lot more, like I said. And my question is, what would you say is the most difficult aspect of pastoring now that you've done it for some time now?
I would say, you know, when you think about or when I think about like pastoring, sometimes people think it must be hard dealing with the heretics and stuff like that, you know, but honestly, that's kind of like the fun part.
I'm dealing with pastoring and just picking out the heretics. You like the battle. Yeah. You know, there's no tears there. You know, we're not bad when we kick out heretics and reprobates and stuff like that.
Addition by subtraction is what it is. Right. And it gets to people, people love it when we have to throw like a reprobate out because it unifies our church and it causes us to grow stronger.
I would say like the hardest part of pastoring is when you see good people make bad decisions or when you see your people backslide and they get away from the Lord.
That's hard because, you know, I think every pastor, they genuinely love their people and they want their people to succeed and to have successful marriages and be successful parents and be successful.
They want to see them like thrive and prosper. And so when your people make bad decisions, that's hard because then you see people that you love kind of get destroyed by their actions, by sin.
And that's one of the hardest things because, you know, obviously from the pulpit, we, you know, we preach the Bible and even there's times when we opinionate what we believe, but I don't necessarily try to get involved in everyone's business and tell them what to do.
You know, I preach the Bible and I hope that the people just take my advice from the pulpit. And if they ask me for advice, I'll give it to them.
But sometimes there's people that don't. And sometimes they just make bad decisions. And that hurts a lot sometimes because then you think, man, this is going to affect you in the long run.
This might destroy your family, your children. You know, this can lead to something bad.
So I think that's the hardest part when people make bad decisions and you have to kind of just step aside and just kind of have an outside perspective, seeing what people make, the decisions that they make.
And then just seeing people's potential go to waste, I think is hard sometimes too. Because you think about like, wow, this guy would make a great preacher or, you know, these people would do a great job if they, you know, five years, if they just stuck it out a little longer.
But then you again, you see bad decisions being made and it's hard to see that. Because I guess, you know, one of the responsibilities of the pastor is kind of to see the future, is to have vision and see where people can be.
And when you see people kind of taking a left turn or right turn and just get off the path, that's kind of difficult to see that, especially if you've invested in them.
If you've invested your time and energy and emotions into them and then they decide not to pan out for whatever reason, that's kind of hard.
Well, how about the opposite? Let's say you see an individual start attending your church, whether it's somebody that came in because of the soul winning or a friend that came in courtesy of another church member, whatever the case may be.
But the individual comes in as a babe in Christ and then you witness the growth. You see them start to go out soul winning. You see them start to gain more Bible knowledge and to get more maturity in their faith and in their Christian life.
As a pastor, what's that like from your perspective? Are you kind of like the proud papa in a sense, sort of watching that transpire?
What does it feel like to be leading a congregation? And you talked about the difficulties of seeing people fall away, but what about seeing people excel under your leadership? What's that like?
I love it. I can, as you're saying, I'm like thinking of people in our church. I'm thinking of a guy in our church who I got him saved about maybe a year and a half ago or something.
And he's actually a family member of one of our faithful church families here. And man, since he came back to church, he's just been growing and thriving. And he's a young man. His name is Damian, actually, Damian Rosales.
And he's just been growing leaps and bounds and not just in his Bible knowledge, not just in soul winning. These are important things. But just as a man, he's been growing in his work ethic and getting a job and becoming a responsible young man.
Just being valuable in the church. We observe people like that. When I see that, it gets me excited and it makes me thankful. Just looking at people like that and seeing them grow, it kind of motivates me to continue doing what I'm doing.
And it kind of confirms that the way we're going about things is right, because we see the fruit, we see the growth, we see people repenting of their sins and getting right with God and learning and growing, not just as a Christian, but just as a human being in general.
Becoming a good functioning member of society, a good employee, a good husband, a good wife. It's great to see those things. And that's exciting. I love seeing that.
Sorry, I didn't mean to switch it. I was not cutting you off. I didn't switch to my mistake.
I think seeing someone saved is exciting, but seeing a safe person grow in their faith is almost just as exciting. I like both. And yeah, it's a great thing.
I wanted to just read a few things from the chat room here. This person says, Pastor Anderson is one of my favorite preachers. I will watch every pastor he ordains.
Well, that's great. What else do we have here? I pray God continues to bless and protect Pastor Mejia and his mission and his family and church.
This person says you have to be aloof when you teach false doctrine or people may feel emboldened to question things like the pre-trib rapture.
This other person says Pastor Bruce is type of guy you want to eat out with or go to a football game with. What do you think of that, Pastor Mejia?
Sounds good.
This person wants to hang out with you.
I'm not sure if he'll go to the football game, but he'll definitely eat out with you if you'd like.
So you don't just preach John 3.16 every week, and I love John 3.16. You do too, I'm sure.
But you're preaching the whole counsel of God. You're giving your congregation the milk and the meat of the word.
So my question is, how much work goes into doing that? How much work goes into preparing sermons?
Because, again, you're not just doing easy stuff every week. You're going into deep, especially with this Revelation series.
You're going into some deep doctrines, the meat, the heavy meat of the word. Just, I guess, help people understand the work that goes into doing that.
So I think the bulk of the work goes into just, you know, reading the Bible a lot, obviously.
But I think the hardest part for me when it comes to preparing a sermon literally is just coming up with an idea.
And, you know, that's why I like teaching through a book during the midweek service,
because it takes a lot out of the equation, you know, having to come up with an idea and points and stuff like that.
Because a lot of the preaching throughout the, during the week, it's expository.
So you're just going line upon line, precept upon precept.
The hardest part for me is just coming up with an idea.
And sometimes I struggle with just trying to think of like, what does the church need or what is something that I haven't talked about?
You know, what is something that maybe there's, you know, something going on in the church that needs to be addressed?
Or maybe I just need, maybe I just need to talk about fornication and drunkenness and church discipline.
You know, it's been a couple months or it's been two months or whatever.
I need to talk about that. So for me, like the hardest part is just the idea.
Because once you come up with the idea, you know, it's already, it's in the Bible.
So you just got to look to see what the Bible says about that particular subject and you just go from there.
So the ideas are often the most difficult aspect for the sermon for me.
And there's times when I'm just, you know, I'm just stuck.
I'm thinking to myself, like, man, I don't have an idea.
And what I try to do is I'll keep like a little booklet and I think I have it right here.
And I typically journal every single day when I read out of my Bible.
And this works great as just a category of ideas that I have because I'll write down what I learned in my Bible reading that day.
And so if I ever get stuck, I reference that and I look for ideas there and then I'll just expound on whatever it is that I learned at that time.
So that's what I do. But as far as writing out a sermon, what I typically would do is if I come up with an idea,
then I will search the Bible for every verse or passage, story having to do with that topic.
And then I put those verses on my notes. And then at that point, I just try to rearrange everything.
So it flows well and make points if needed, you know, in order for people to grasp the truth a little better,
to help them to remember the points or the topic of the sermon a little better. But that's that's the way I do it.
I do it probably the hardest one.
You put out that video about journaling and writing your thoughts down.
I after I watched that video, I remember when it was done, I said to myself, how the hell have I not been doing that?
Because I'm someone who has struggled throughout my life with reading comprehension in the sense of I tend to sometimes forget things when I read them.
And there are times where my mind wanders.
But sitting there and forcing myself to write things down as I'm going through the Bible and doing my Bible reading cover to cover has helped tremendously.
And I could see how that also would lend itself to you coming up with sermon ideas and nuggets that you can put in sermons, etc.
So I really appreciated you putting out that video and it would help me personally with that specific issue I was having.
And the next thing I wanted to ask you about, it's pertaining to the Revelation series.
And I brought it up a few times already.
But I have to ask about this because Revelation, you want to talk about, it depends on the time of year, I guess.
I'm kind of like you or if I'm sort of on a topic that tends to be my favorite topic because I've been studying it.
But I absolutely love the book of Revelation.
I love end times Bible prophecy and now you're going through it yourself.
And let's just say that you're not slacking.
OK, there's some deep doctrines being taught in these sermons.
What gave you the idea and I know you like sermons about the future,
but what gave you the idea to dive into the book of Revelation and take your church in that direction and go through this series?
Well, like you, I really love the book of Revelation.
And I remember watching Pastor Anderson's series on the book of Revelation that was like a major game changer for me years ago.
And it was it holds a special place in my heart that that series that he preached because it taught me so much.
But I think, you know, just I really like end times Bible prophecy.
And I just thought to myself, it would be good to start the year off in the book of Revelation just because we're looking towards the future.
It's the year 2020. And also, you know, we can potentially be living in these days that precede all the events that are going to be taking place.
So that's one of the reasons I wanted to do it.
And I've been learning a lot in the book of Revelation. I wanted to kind of hit it from a different perspective.
And it's such a deep book and there's so many, you know, doctrines and ways we can, you know, cross reference things with different stories in the Bible.
It's just there's a lot of deep truths in there.
And so, you know, as I've as I've taught the book, I've grown and I feel like our people, my people have grown as well.
They've grown a lot. And in the sense of like, it's helped us to be more eternally minded and less temporal minded because it kind of helps us to realize that the time is at hand.
And we could be living in the days that precede all all the events that are going to take place.
And so it's kind of causing us to think, man, we need to make sure that, you know, we are we're walking with the Lord, living lives that are pleasing unto the Lord.
We're soul winning. We are strong in the Lord and the power of his might because we don't want to we don't want to be asleep at the wheel.
And so it's been an emotional book to teach, though. I will say that just meditating on the truth here and and teaching it.
It's caused me to think about my family a lot and my wife and my kids because they're little and wondering if this takes place in my time.
You know, will we be ready for this and how can I get my kids ready for this?
And and so I think that's, you know, the Bible revelation tells us that there's a blessing that comes when you read the book of Revelation.
I think that's part of it. You know, it helps you to realize that the time is at hand and we need to make sure that we clean up our lives and and learn the Bible and, you know, see first the kingdom of God and his righteousness because the time is at hand.
Well, there's a lot of confusion, I feel like, on end times as well. So many different false doctrines out there.
And to me, there seems to be this sort of left right paradigm on end times Bible prophecy, which is preterism or futurism.
And people get in one camp and then they fight with the other side.
When I put up videos on this, a lot of the time I'll see it in the comments section where I'll get attacked and say, oh, come on, how could you be teaching this?
It already happened in the past. One thing I liked is in the first part of Revelation six, you're doing two sermons on Revelation six.
The first sermon you did, you talked about the abomination of desolation. You went to Daniel Chapter 11 and you mentioned, hey, yeah, part of this, the shadow fulfillment occurred.
I believe it was the second century. Correct me if I'm wrong. Second century B.C. with Antiochus Epiphanes.
But that doesn't mean it's all fulfilled. It doesn't mean preterism is true.
Preterism is true. There's still things that are yet to come. And people get really confused on this. I watched a debate, quote unquote, with Kent.
I just skimmed through a little bit of it because I was interested to see what he would say. But Kent Hovind, he was on with some, I don't know, Presbyterian or something.
And the Presbyterian was totally preterist. Kent Hovind wasn't. And I'm sitting there watching and I'm thinking, man, they're both missing the mark because Kent Hovind is coming up with some pretty bad arguments to try and defend, quote, futurism.
And the other guys talk about how all this already happened in history when they both don't understand that there are shadow fulfillments in the Bible.
That doesn't mean that there isn't something that is yet to come. Doesn't mean Jesus Christ already came in 70 A.D.
So just speak to that. There seems to be so much confusion on Bible prophecy. People have all these different theories.
And I think the more pastors that get up behind the pulpit and just just lay out the truth, the better.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of confusion just because there's a lot of preconceived ideas that come from Bible college or even just books in general.
When people start going outside of the Bible to learn doctrine, whether from books or, you know, just false teachers who seem to be experts in the subject, you know, people get they get off the road of the correct doctrine and start learning bad doctrine.
And so I think that's why it's important to when you're studying these things, you know, just allow the Holy Spirit to teach you through the Bible.
And I think that's why it's important to give attendance to reading the expectation to doctrine because of the fact that once you've read the Bible through many times,
I mean, in my opinion, when you read through the Book of Revelation, stories and different verses come to mind from the Old Testament and even from the New Testament.
And the Holy Spirit is just kind of connecting those dots for you just to give you a greater understanding of it.
And so, you know, the the Preterist view says that everything has happened, you know, and I've had people attack me on that as well.
They'll say this has already happened. How can you say that this is going to happen?
But, you know, Preterism is such a stupid doctrine because of the fact that, you know, Jesus Christ has not set up his millennial reign yet.
It's like, are we in the millennial reign now? Are we reigning on thrones?
And they'll say, well, he's the king of our heart, though, you know, he's ruling on our hearts.
Yeah, but here's the thing is like the Bible literally teaches that there's going to be a millennial reign where we're going to be literally reigning for a thousand years, you know.
And, you know, if Jesus Christ is reigning, it looks like he's not doing a really good job because, you know, evil is still present.
People are still doing wickedly. The law of God is not being instituted or executed, you know, today in the land.
And so that goes to show you that Preterism is foolish if it's saying that these things have already taken place.
So, you know, when you study the book of Revelation and you compare with scriptures from the Old Testament and even the New Testament,
you got to realize that a lot of what God is doing in the Old Testament is just kind of conditioning us for that final fleshing out of that prophecy.
You know, you look throughout the Old Testament, you'll see pictures of the abomination of desolation, whether it's in Daniel chapter three,
it's the golden calf with Aaron and Moses. And these stories are meant to kind of help you connect the dots later on.
It's meant to kind of precondition you for that final abomination of desolation.
And that happens multiple times throughout the Bible, you know, with different things.
And so I think, you know, just as Satan has his preprogramming, you know, God has his.
And he preprograms us for the things that are going to take place in the end times by placing these events also throughout the Bible.
I mean, you have the day of the Lord multiple times in the Old Testament.
And many of the elements that are found in the day of the Lord can be looked at in the Old Testament and application can be made to the final day of the Lord in Revelation chapter number six.
So it kind of expands your understanding a little bit of it.
And it helps you to realize that the end times is important to the Lord.
This is why he's kind of permeated this teaching throughout the Bible to kind of help you prepare for that.
Amen. Amen to that.
There's a lot of young guys in your church.
You mentioned that earlier.
And I'm sure there's a few that want to be a pastor one day.
They look up to you.
I'm sure they're following your leadership and trying to learn as much as they can to get themselves ready to one day be eligible to get ordained.
What advice would you have for a young guy sitting in your church or a young guy outside your church, maybe out there in YouTube land that wants to pastor?
Is there any advice you can give them since you now have the experience under your belt to those out there who want to one day be a pastor?
Yeah, I would say a couple of things. I would say use First Timothy chapter three, not necessarily as a checklist to be a pastor, but just as a checklist to be a good husband and a leader.
You know, I think you should use First Timothy chapter three.
I think every man, whether you're going to be a pastor or not, should use First Timothy chapter three as a template to, you know, being a good husband, a good leader, a good father and just a good servant of the Lord.
I think that's good, but I think also like if you're serving in a church, whether it's an old IFP church, a new IFP, you know, I think you should just be a servant, you know, and when you see the need, take the lead.
Seek to be your pastor's right hand man and to be a blessing to the church.
So don't see yourself as a gift to the church.
You know, you know how to preach well, you know, you know how to you're a good soul winner, but you know, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be a good pastor.
I think you should you should be a good servant and be a blessing to your pastor and follow him and seek to do ministry the way he wants you to do it.
Obviously, we wanted to ministry the way the Bible tells us to do it, the way Jesus tells us to do it.
But on an earthly level, we want to make sure that we're following someone and doing things the way our pastor wants it to be done.
And so wherever you are, be all there, make sure you are serving in your church and being a blessing so that when the opportunity comes, you know, you're going to pop up in the mind of the person who's going to send you out to say, well, this person has been faithful.
He's been a servant. You know, he's always there when I need him. He's always available.
Church for him is not just on Sundays or on Thursdays. He's doing things in between those days to improve the church or help people out, spending time with people, taking people out to eat, you know, discipling people, bringing people to church.
This person is a valuable person. I think that's important for young men to learn and then just learn to develop a tender heart for people.
You know, preaching the Bible is very much important, and that'll come with time. But I think it's important to just develop a heart that loves the people in your church, that loves the lost because, you know, that's important.
And so if you love your people and you love the lost, you know, you're going to preach with the right motives and you're going to you're going to go so many with the right motives because you love people.
And so that's what I would say to those who aspire to be a pastor one day.
All right, well, we'll go ahead and begin to wrap it up. Let me just take a quick glance at the chat to see if there's anything interesting in there.
Guzman1611 says, I started hitting down notes. That's a typo. Jotting. I started jotting down notes. It has helped my Bible reading. So it's another person impacted there when it comes to writing notes.
And pillar and ground, Peter James, he says, did Pastor Mejia give his salvation testimony on the stream? If not, can he give it?
I know you had mentioned that you got saved at 21. We are out of time. But is there anything you could say to that? I guess real quickly, just a short abbreviated.
I was invited to a youth conference at an independent fundamental Baptist church and Pastor Bob Gray Jr. the second was preaching.
So I got saved under him. So I really appreciate him. He holds a special place in my heart. I love that man.
And I'm thankful that he preached the right gospel. And that's why I got saved. Amen. That's awesome.
Well, Pastor Mejia, is there anything else you wanted to plug? Any upcoming projects or anything like that that you want the people to know about?
Yeah, just pray for a missions trip to Belize coming up. We hope to see a lot of people saved there and just pray for First Works Baptist Church that we continue to reach Los Angeles with the gospel.
And it's a receptive area, but there's a lot of work to be done. There's much land to be possessed.
And so if you can pray for us out here that we get a lot of people saved and disciple a lot of people and train more labors for the harvest, we greatly appreciate that.
All right. Well, that's it for Preacher Profile. Pastor, I want to thank you again for taking time to do this.
I know you're busy like all pastors are, but it really means a lot that you took the time out to come on to this live stream.
So God bless you, sir. And I'll keep your church in prayer moving forward.
And I look forward to one day getting back out there and maybe having some more street tacos and enjoying the fellowship.
Thank you.
Thanks, Pastor. Appreciate your time. And that's it for this stream.
So, folks, if you haven't done so already, let me guide you right now to the FWBC LA YouTube channel.
You see it on your screen. There it is. Six thousand point six point one seven subscribers there.
So he's got a pretty good audience. And look at the sermons right there in front of you, smoother than butter, softer than oil.
I like that about flattery. But the Revelation series, if you're listening to us talk about the Revelation series and you think to yourself,
man, I want to follow that myself. Well, it's right here on his YouTube channel.
He's got a playlist ready for you. So just hit the subscribe button on the top right hand corner of your screen.
And then you could subscribe to Pastor Bruce Mejia's channel if this is the first time you've ever heard of him.
Then you're missing out if you don't go and subscribe. But that's it for the live stream.
If you want more of my content, all you got to do is go to YouTube dot com slash Ben the Baptist and hit the subscribe button.
And you can get more from me. But I will be back again next Monday for another episode of the of the Sword of the Spirit, actually.
And I'll be with Pastor Jason Robinson for that one. We'll be talking about out of context scriptures that people will twist to push false doctrines.
And Pastor Robinson's going to set the record straight on things like James 2 and other passages as well that people contort to push a bunch of false doctrine.
That's going to be a lot of fun. We'll be taking questions and things like that.
So I look forward to it next Monday at 8 p.m. Central Time. But until then, I'm going to sign off for now.
God bless you all. And I will talk to you guys again after a while.