- So you've been married for eight years.
I've been married for 25 years.
You've been married for how long?
- 2009, May, so-- - I'm gonna do math.
- What is that, like 16 years?
- Yeah, so it's like we got, you know, eight.
- 16. - You know, 16, 25.
And you know, obviously marriage changes over time too.
Like the first 10 years is not necessarily the same as,
the second 10 years, and then the third 10 years.
You know, you go through different stages
and different phases, but you know,
obviously the Bible gives us some instructions.
Husbands, love your wives, be not bitter against them,
dwell with them according to knowledge,
giving honor unto the wife is unto the weaker vessel
and so forth.
So you know, the Bible gives us some general principles,
but I think that when it comes to actually succeeding
in marriage, it's something that you really just have
to learn by doing because of the fact
that everybody's different.
You know, every wife is different and different things
are going to work differently for different people
and maybe what works for you doesn't work for me
and vice versa.
So it's marriage is something that you have to figure out.
And I wish sometimes that God had given us more instructions
on how to be a good leader, how to be a good husband,
and that he'd give us more scripture.
But maybe the reason why God just kept it pretty general
and just gave us some basic outline is because it's just
one of those things that's just gonna be different every time
and you gotta figure out your own situation.
So I can't understand why anyone would wanna start over
and go back to the drawing board by getting divorced
and marrying someone else is so stupid.
And I'll turn it over to you in a moment,
but one thing that I think about a lot too,
with regard to marriage is just how my wife loved me,
cared about me, believed in me, and stood with me
from the beginning when I was nobody.
I wasn't a pastor, I didn't have any achievements,
I didn't really have anything going for me,
and she was there with me from the beginning,
and that's why I will always be loyal to her.
Obviously I'll be loyal to her because God said so,
but I also just love her from the bottom of my heart
and wanna be super loyal to her
because she was there with me in the beginning
when no one else gave a crap about me.
So why would I just sit there
and care more about what someone else thinks
or some Johnny come lately person,
what their opinion is or their view is.
My wife is the most important person to me.
- Yeah, I think that's a good point.
And I think when it comes to just loyalty in general,
men and women peak at different ages, I think a little bit.
And if a woman is going to make that commitment with you
kind of in the peak of her years,
it's not fair for you in the peak of your years
to kind of like reciprocate evil for good.
And you know, you sometimes see men quote trading up
later in life or ditching the wife or a girlfriend
or trying to get a younger model or something like this.
And you know, that's just a wicked attitude.
It's a wicked thing to do.
- Let's stay with the wife of your joy.
- Rejoice with the wife of that youth,
that's what the Bible says.
And so this is definitely an important topic.
You know, marriage is going to have its pros and cons.
It's going to have its ups and downs.
There's going to be times when it's difficult.
But you know, to me, I think defining marriage success
is kind of important on this topic.
And to me, like, I've kind of thought about this a lot too.
And I think one of the metrics of success
is just number one, that you've just stayed together.
- Absolutely.
- Just staying together is a metric of success.
And you know, continuing to communicate.
So still having conversations with each other,
having fun together.
- Yep.
- And basically having the duty aspect of marriage.
I think as long as you're doing,
those things are still intact.
You can almost just say it's a successful marriage.
You're gonna have bumps along the road,
you could have lots of arguments,
you could have had problems, you could have difficulties.
It's not about how much money you have,
it's not about these other things.
Hey, you're still together, you're still talking,
you're still having fun together,
and you're still, for lack of a better word,
having that other fun together.
It's the fun word.
What else do you want?
Yeah.
So Ben, like I said, you're at the skating rink,
and you seem real happy.
What is something that you've learned,
or something that you've done in your marriage
that really works, like maybe something practical
that you could share with others?
I've never stopped dating my wife,
and I think that's probably what you might have noticed
when we were there, is that I treated it like it was a date,
and I'm, as the kids say, running game.
You know what I mean?
Like, we're still flirting and all that kind of thing,
and so the mentality that says I'm always gonna date you,
I'm always gonna put that effort in
to make sure that you're laughing and having a good time
and that we're spending time together
and just enjoying each other's company
is really the biggest thing,
and that's something I learned through preaching, actually,
'cause I've heard it preached behind the pulpit,
never stop dating your wife.
Even though, through the years,
that, quote, honeymoon period may fade away,
it doesn't mean that you can't still enjoy
the relationship and allow that
to really transition into something even more meaningful,
and something that brings you even more joy,
because then you move on to a stage of the relationship
where your bond is just stronger than it's ever been.
But, I mean, just in a nutshell,
I would just say never stop dating your wife,
and that's something that I am very passionate about.
- I think that's great advice.
I mean, my dad and mom went on a date
every Friday night.
Just pretty much, I can never remember a time
when they didn't.
They just always went on dates.
And maybe that's not practical for every single person
and every single relationship all the time.
But, you know, just still making an effort.
And it's funny how people that end up, you know,
being discontent with their relationship
or end up divorcing or doing whatever,
then they start dating other people,
and they're like, "Oh, this is fun."
But it's like, why didn't you just start
dating your spouse, you know?
And really, in marriage, I think that a lot of people,
they just kind of give up on their spouse.
But if you put a lot of effort, energy into it,
you start dating them again, you're treating them well,
I think you're gonna see them respond again,
and you can have new honeymoon phases
within the marriage cycle.
Just because you had that one honeymoon
doesn't mean you're limited to having another season
that's kind of like a honeymoon phase.
And you kind of get out of it what you put into it.
I think of marriage as kind of like a field,
and sometimes you plant seeds,
and it takes six months, nine months, maybe a year
to actually reap some of that work
that you've been putting in your relationship.
But at the end of the day, if you're not sowing seeds,
if you're not planting, if you're not doing anything,
then you never really have much to reap.
So you kind of just have to keep putting seeds
in the ground and watering and tending to that garden.
The Bible uses that analogy in the Song of Solomon
that the spouse is like a garden.
And I kind of use that one of my sermons,
My Wife's Body, My Choice.
It was like, you know,
she's like, let him come into his garden
and eat of his pleasant fruits.
But it's just kind of like, you know,
couples could look at each other like a garden
that they're taking care of and nourishing and cherishing.
- But just from a practical standpoint,
'cause you had asked just from, you know,
in terms of just a practical thing that I do,
it's just setting at least one day a week aside
to say, let's, and I'm not saying it's perfect.
I'm not saying we do this every single week
of our entire relationship.
But in general, one day a week,
let's go do something together.
Let's go, you know, whether it's go out for dinner
or she loves being outside.
So we'll go find a park somewhere
and go take a walk together and talk to each other.
And the thing about it is I married someone
who is smart, able to hold a great conversation,
and I'm very compatible with.
So spending time with her doesn't take very much effort.
It's something that we just enjoy being around each other.
So that obviously helps a lot.
- I mean, she's the ghostwriter for your sermons, right?
- She does it all.
- I mean, that's pretty impressive, honestly.
No, I think that's a great tip too,
'cause my wife and I started taking some walks
recently again, and honestly, it's a lot of fun
just because we like to talk to each other,
and we have a lot of good conversations.
And again, to me, one of the litmus test is the marriage,
like I said, is conversation.
You should set aside time on, I think even daily basis,
but just time where you're having conversations
with your wife, and sometimes even dedicated.
You know, we have a lot of kids, you have a lot of kids.
It's nice to have adult conversations.
Even at the dinner tables, sometimes I do this,
is I tell the kids, like they're not allowed to talk,
they just have to eat dinner,
so that me and my wife can kinda like have conversations.
'Cause they're always wanting to butt in, interrupt,
ask like all these questions about stuff,
and it's like, hey, y'all just need to eat right now,
and then when you're done,
so then that maybe we can have
a little bit more conversation.
But you need to keep conversation,
and I feel like in the lower parts of our marriage,
we're not conversating as much,
and in the better times,
I'm making a better effort to have conversations.
You know, do you feel like you're trying to have
like a lot of conversations with your wife, or like,
how does that work? - Yeah, absolutely,
but honestly, I'm kind of just a big talker in general,
and so-- - Really?
- Yeah, I totally-- - I don't even believe that.
- You know, I'm a pastor, I'm a preacher,
I like to talk, I do a lot of talking, obviously,
and so obviously, yeah, it's important for couples
to communicate and spend time together and talk,
but a lot of times, probably, my wife doesn't want me
to necessarily talk to her too much
or talk her ear off or something,
and so a lot of times, I just have to give my wife space,
too, because my wife sometimes just gets overdone
from just so many kids talking to her,
I'm talking to her, she hears me preach
three times a week and everything,
and so I don't think that my wife is really just dying
for me to talk to her more,
because I already talk to her a lot,
but I think that one of the things
that's important to realize is that everybody's different,
and so when you listen to people give marriage advice
and say, hey, this is what I do,
now, but something from the Bible,
it's universal to everyone.
Obviously, for example, every marriage
should have the husband as the head,
and the wife should be reverencing her husband,
submitting, obeying, the husband should be loving,
and leading, and setting the tone spiritually,
and so forth.
Those are like universal principles,
but when you listen to people give
their own individual advice about going on dates,
or taking walks, or having conversations,
you've gotta figure out what works for your own wife,
and I think that's why the Bible says
dwell with them according to knowledge,
is that you have to get to know your wife's needs,
and so sometimes I have to just back off from my wife
and just give her space,
and allow her to have some her time,
or some time by herself,
give her a break, some time apart,
because I think also it's important to understand
that in every single relationship,
there is kind of the person that's gonna be
the needier person in the relationship.
One person is gonna be needier.
One person will wanna spend more time together
or get more out of it or put more into it or whatever.
There's gonna be always an imbalance.
I mean, unless you just happen to marry someone
who just has the exact level of need that you have.
- Is this like almost a tautology,
like one person's needier than the other?
- Exactly, because the bottom line is
that we all want to spend time with our spouse
and to enjoy one another,
but then we also all wanna be by ourselves and get a break.
And I think everybody,
I think even the most extroverted person
wants to be by themselves and get a break,
get some space.
And I remember when I first got married,
I was just gonna get a studio apartment
because you're just getting started,
but I had like no money,
barely could even afford to even just get married
and have a household.
And I remember my sister telling me like,
no, you can't do a studio apartment.
You've got to get the one bedroom
because she said like,
you've got to be able to close that door
and kind of just go and have space.
She might need space, you might need space.
And it is just such a bad idea, she said,
to be in that studio apartment,
you got to have a door to slam.
You know, she was kidding when she said that,
but she's like, you got to be able to slam a door.
And that was a joke, but in all seriousness though,
you've got to be able to have some space
and to be able to give each other a break too.
And I think that you could make an error in both areas.
You could neglect or ignore your spouse, that's bad.
But you know, I think you could also smother
your spouse too much.
If you're this really needy woman or this really needy guy,
and it could be either the guy or the gal,
it's not either one.
And you can smother your spouse and not give them space.
And I think that, you know,
you have to understand if you're that needier person
to give your spouse a little bit of space.
- So according to a lot of marriage advice out there,
they talk about like the five love languages.
- I've read that book.
- And I mean, I'm not saying like
there's anything wrong with it,
but I'm just saying in a big picture,
it's kind of saying some people love each other
in different ways,
or some things are more important to other people.
And I feel like that's kind of what maybe you're alluding to
is the idea that maybe some couples need to talk more,
or some couples need to talk less.
Some people like walks, some people don't like walks.
- Yeah, one of the five love languages in that book,
'cause I have read that book.
I think it's a great concept,
but you could probably just kind of write it
on the back of a postage stamp,
and the book is kind of superfluous.
Like I don't think it's a great book at all.
I think probably if you just read like a Cliffs Notes
of the book, it's a great concept.
And one of the five love languages in that book
is quality time.
- Right.
- And that's probably more than anything,
in my love language is quality time.
And I tend to be the needier person in our relationship.
But that's just gonna be different with every couple.
And so yeah, if you're the less needy person,
you have to maybe make the effort to spend the quality time
with your spouse that wants that.
Or if you're the more needy person,
you need to know when to back off and give some space
and not be overbearing or smothering or whatever.
And so, yeah, different people show love in different ways.
I feel like one of my wife's love languages
is probably words of affirmation.
That's one of the ones in the book
'cause there's like physical touch,
but that's not talking about being intimate.
It's talking about other--
- It's kind of broader.
I think it includes it, but it's broader.
- No, it specifically says in the book,
this is not intimacy.
- Really?
- Yeah, 'cause it said intimacy is everybody.
Everybody wants to get down.
- Okay.
- Everybody wants to--
- I've read the book, it's been a long time.
- Yeah, everybody wants to get it on, you know,
but that's not what it's, when it says physical touch,
it's talking about just like more like a hug,
a pat on the back.
- Basically, holding hands, yeah.
- Yeah, just that kind of physical touch.
There's the physical touch, there's the--
- Words of affirmation.
- Quality time.
- Quality time, there's gifts.
- And then there's acts of service.
- And acts of service, exactly.
And so, and a lot of times, you know, you'll show,
here's the thesis of the book.
We're gonna save you having to read the book,
basically just by giving it to you in a nutshell,
is basically just saying, you know what?
A lot of times, you're showing love to your spouse
in a way that they don't understand,
or that they don't grasp.
So you feel like, man, I'm showing all this love,
and she's just not picking up what I'm putting down,
but it's 'cause you're not speaking her language.
Or you're like, man, I feel totally unloved.
And in reality, your wife's doing all this stuff for you,
but it's just not your language.
That's kind of the point of the book is,
like maybe your wife gives you gifts,
and you're just like, you don't care
because what you really want is quality time.
Or maybe you're giving your wife a gift
and she doesn't want that, she wants quality time.
Or you're spending all this quality time,
and she's like, hey, you're smothering me
when I really want a gift, or whatever, I don't know.
You get what I'm saying, though.
- I think that the book is like--
- Did you read the book?
- Yeah, I have, it's been a while.
I think that the book is a little oversimplifying
some things, and I feel like most people want all of it.
It's just kind of like maybe you're emphasizing
one more than the other, or you're neglecting
one over the other, and so it is important.
I think, to bring an analogy of golf into the scenario,
it's like in golf you can kind of have
all kinds of different swings and still hit the ball,
but there's just some fundamentals
that you just kind of like everybody has to have.
- Exactly.
- And so when it comes to marriage,
there's gonna be some fundamentals and some guidelines,
like the husband leading the wife.
- The Bible stuff is fundamental.
- And being intimate and things like that.
- Exactly.
- You're not gonna be successful without those,
but you can kind of swing however you want,
and you can still kind of get the job done
in a specific way.
I think though in this show,
maybe some of our advice doesn't necessarily hit
your specific situation, you need to be sensitive to that,
but at the same time,
we still wanna just give you some practical tips.
If you have questions or you wanna ask about a practical tip,
put it in the Rumble chat, we're streaming
on the Baptist Bias.
Rumble, we're streaming on other platforms,
streaming on Pastor Anderson's platforms as well.
So we got this everywhere.
I'll try to look and see if I can find
the YouTube comments as well.
But if you have a question, put it in the comments
and I'll try to see if I can find it and read it.
But give us kind of just a marriage tip.
What is just something that you find, Pastor Anderson,
that you like saw, hey, this really kind of helped us
or like my wife really likes it when I do this.
- Well, let me think on that for a minute
'cause I just kind of gave a talk.
So let's hear from Ben.
You got a tip ready while I kind of think on that?
What else besides, what I got from you a minute ago
was basically just putting in effort,
putting in the effort, not taking her for granted,
continuing to woo her and spend time with her data.
What else?
Is there another subject you think is helpful?
- Well, I think for my wife specifically,
something that she values a lot is she's somebody
that loves affirmation.
I think that's for sure her love language.
I never read that book, but just listening to you
kind of talk about what the five love languages are,
that one came to my mind immediately
because she can kind of struggle sometimes
with her self-confidence and things like that.
So just reminding her that I find her to be beautiful
and that she's gorgeous and that kind of thing
and kind of building her up with words
I think has really helped our relationship tremendously.
She does need that reminder from time to time,
so hopefully that answers the question,
but that's something that comes to mind immediately.
- Yeah, so in the book that falls
under words of affirmation. - Words of affirmation.
- And basically the idea is to, you know,
express yourself, and it's kind of like the Bible verse,
open rebuke is better than secret love.
So express your love. - Yeah, and I think as guys,
we can sometimes fall into the mentality
that says, well, of course I love you.
I mean, I'm going out and working really hard.
I'm putting a roof over your head.
I'm doing X, Y, and Z.
That should be enough to demonstrate that.
But I think for some women, and mine in particular,
yes, she does take that into account,
but she does wanna hear nice things.
You know, she wants to hear I love you.
She wants to hear you look beautiful today.
I really like that dress, et cetera.
So that's something that I try to incorporate
on a regular basis that helps to keep that fire going
and keep that fire alive and raging.
- I find that you can't compliment your wife enough.
And I think in the song of Solomon,
you kind of just see that example,
just like a constant praise.
And he uses like just so many,
he doesn't like bin rants about his wife,
'cause he's just like my sister, my spouse, my beloved.
- They're positive.
- Yeah, he's just like, yeah, sure,
but you just, this adjective rant,
I just call them bin rants 'cause it's just like,
you do have a good job of just articulating yourself
with just so many synonyms and just like,
you just kind of like overemphasize the point.
But it's like women love that, women love to be praised,
women love to be complimented.
And so I think that that's definitely a good tip.
My parents, especially my dad,
would try to give me little tips and stuff.
He always wanted me to be like
kind of old school chivalrous,
chivalrous like opening doors,
like not just to the restaurant,
but like going over the side of the car,
opening her car door,
just kind of like pulling out her seat
and trying to help her get seated
and just kind of catering to her,
just kind of like just making her feel special
and like you're just kind of doting upon her
and things like that.
And I find that while women may not ask for that,
I think they kind of enjoy that.
I think a lot of women do kind of like that.
Obviously if your wife just kind of like is like back off,
like what are you doing?
Like I can get in the car myself,
then I guess maybe, you know, maybe she's not like that.
But I think some women especially
just really kind of appreciate that.
They feel like they're being treated special,
treated like a princess.
And some of that old school chivalry
just kind of like resonates with them.
I know that even with, when dating my wife,
I think that her parents would compliment me to them,
and say like, "Oh, it always seems like kind of like
"open the door for you and take care of you and whatever."
And again, you're just kind of like thinking about them,
right, you're not just like only thinking about yourself.
So that's definitely a tip I think you could try
to implement, and anytime you do something new,
I think that's also good.
Like if you just start something or you try something
that you haven't been doing in your relationship,
it just kind of like signifies to your spouse like,
"Hey, this person's putting in effort."
And I think across the board, husbands and wives,
they just like to see each other putting an effort
into the relationship.
One other thing I know is from the other side
is I worked with a guy in software development
and his wife packed his lunch every single day.
And she wrote a hand personalized note,
like just kind of like a special little love letter
note thing to him every single day.
And I mean, he seemed to really enjoy that and like that.
And they had a great marriage
and they still have a great marriage.
I'm still good friends with, his name's Ben.
So all my friends are Ben.
- I mean, you like that Ben better.
I got it, it's fine.
- He's a pretty great guy, I'll be honest.
- But that's almost a tip for the wives even.
- Yeah.
- Because I remember even back
when I was working a blue collar job
and I was doing fire alarms and everything,
my wife would always pack me these just awesome lunches.
And that's a really nice thing as a man
to have your wife pack you this really good lunch
and she would write notes to me, handwritten notes,
and put them in the lunch and everything like.
So I've actually gotten that treatment a lot as well.
- And did you like it?
- Absolutely, I loved it, yeah, it's great.
So I think that that's just a fantastic tip.
And again, none of these tips
are necessarily even universal.
- Right.
- Because it's just different people like different things.
- Some guys might need to buy their lunch
or there could be different scenarios so it may not work.
But it's just putting any kind of effort in.
- But I like what you said about just trying things,
trying different things.
And I think that, you know,
even when you've been married for a long time,
you can still change your relationship.
You know, 'cause as long as we get stuck in a rut
or something, I don't think it's ever too late
to kind of revamp your relationship, retool it,
try something different,
maybe even make, you know, dramatic changes or radicals.
Especially if people aren't really following the Bible.
And then they might think like,
hey, we've been married for six years or 10 years
or 12 years, 20 years.
It's, you know, we can't really turn the ship at this point.
We've got a routine, but you know,
obviously if things are working for you, then yeah,
you definitely don't want to jerk the steering wheel.
If your marriage is going good, don't jerk the steering wheel
because, you know, obviously marriage is difficult.
And so if things are going smooth, then, you know,
you'd want to make only very gradual changes.
But you know, if you're struggling in your marriage,
you know, there's nothing wrong with trying things
different and change things and fix things
and implement new things and everything.
And, you know, I've always cared about this.
Even before I was married, you know, I really,
when I was going into marriage, it was like,
I really wanted to have a good marriage.
Like it was really important to me
that I was never a guy where marriage
was going to be on the back burner in my life,
something that I don't really care about.
It was always something that I cared about
that was important to me.
I felt like it was going to be a big part of my life
that needed a lot of effort.
And so I've always really cared about having a good marriage.
And so I've read, you know, not just that book.
I mean, I've read a lot of books about marriage.
Like I've just gone online and just read reviews
and just found all the books I could and just to read.
And I mean, I think that that in and of itself shows effort
to try to read the books and try to implement things.
And there are times when I read these books
and just feel like, yeah, this is not my wife at all.
My wife would hate this.
This isn't gonna work.
And then other times I'm like, oh, okay.
This could be really good.
And so I hesitate to even recommend books
because I think that it's just, it's so subjective
and it's so unique and different for each situation.
And people think that my wife and I have a bad marriage
just because of slander and lies and garbage
that's out there.
But it's like, at the end of the day, I know the truth.
God knows the truth.
My wife, like we love each other
and we are happily married and we love our relationship.
- Well, number one, you're still together.
You still conversate, you still have fun.
So like you're pretty much meeting all the metrics.
What else is there?
- And I just wanna say on that real quickly.
It's mind blowing that anybody would think that
considering the fact that she is so outspoken
in your defense and so unapologetic
about how much she loves you and is loyal to you
on social media and things like that,
especially during the recent persecution
that you went through.
It's just absurd to think that there's some giant issue
there when she's obviously so publicly loyal to you.
- Yeah.
- And it's like, is that just an act?
Like what do they even think that is?
- And here's the thing, you know, we just went,
we just went on vacation for our 25 year wedding anniversary.
And we went on this seven day Alaska cruise.
And I can honestly say, it was the funnest vacation
I've ever been on in my entire life.
And you know, it's nice to be at a point in your marriage
when you know each other really well.
And so you can get along really well
and just have a super smooth week and just super fun.
Everything's totally cool.
- It was just you and her?
- It was just me and her, which is very rare.
Like because we've had so many kids
and just life and work and everything.
So we've really only had a very small number
of trips like this where it was just the two of us.
Like we got to go about 10 years ago
to Hawaii, just the two of us.
And that was also just an incredible, awesome time.
Like we had just such a good time.
And then we got to do this other trip
at some point many years ago
where we went to Baja, California.
And we went to Cabo San Lucas and some of those places.
La Playa, or not La Playa, what's La Paz.
Yeah, went to like La Plaz and other places in BCS.
And so we had a great time on that trip.
But this trip was like the best vacation
that we've ever had.
Super fun, beautiful time.
Like just, you know, just went by too fast
was the only issue.
And so, you know, we have a great relationship.
We love each other very much.
But you know, people criticize us too
for sleeping in separate bedrooms.
You know, and act like, oh, this is like some big scandal.
And what's funny is that the reason that people know
that we sleep in separate bedrooms
is because I literally said that from the pulpit
like 12 years ago, you know what I mean?
Like, I've been open about that.
And here's the thing, we slept in the same bedroom
for a very long time.
Now we sleep in separate bedrooms
because we like sleeping in separate bedrooms, okay?
And here's the thing about that is that, you know,
I got up and announced that publicly,
even though I knew that people are gonna criticize me,
make fun of me and, you know,
do you think that we have a bad marriage or something?
- People make fun of you for that?
- Yeah, I know it's hard to believe.
But here's the reason why, because I'm a pastor
and I actually love other people
and actually care about other people.
And I don't go through life just trying to make myself
look as good as possible and make sure
that everybody just thinks that I'm whatever.
You know, my goal as a pastor,
the heart that I have is to help people.
And I know that there are some people out there
who struggle with the issues of sleeping in the same room
or sleeping in the same bed
because of just maybe somebody's snoring really bad
or just somebody's a really light sleeper.
Somebody's getting up all the time
in the middle of the night. - Different schedules.
- Totally different schedules.
One person has to get up. - Different bed preferences.
- Different, yeah, they like a different bed.
One person's getting up at, oh, dark 30 every morning.
The other person's staying up super late
and just totally different things.
And I've had so many people say that it was like liberating
to hear me say that, like, okay, it's okay to do this.
Like if Pastor Anderson's doing it,
then it's okay to do it or whatever.
Because there's like a stigma of,
oh, if you sleep in several bedrooms,
you must not have a great marriage.
And we were told our whole lives that like,
oh, leave it to Beaver, they have two different beds
because, you know, TV was just so prudish
that they didn't want, I think that's a bunch of baloney.
I think the reason why there's two beds
on Leave It to Beaver is because that generation,
a lot of them just slept in separate beds.
That was popular at that time to have the twin beds
or, you know, even in the Bible,
it seems like the patriarchs, Sarah's got her tent,
Abraham's got his tent, Jacob's got a tent,
Leah's got a tent.
You know, at the end of the day, you know, let's be real.
It's not like you're just copulating all night long.
You're sleeping.
You know what I mean?
You're asleep.
That's a Bible word.
- Yeah.
- Well, the each zone, I looked it up on Grok.
- Yeah.
- It says 25% of married couples sleep in separate beds.
- And here's the thing,
I'm not trying to get anyone to do this
because I think probably most people prefer
to sleep in the same bed.
Most people prefer the same bedroom.
- I mean, to me and my wife, we find that personally,
like we would hate that.
- It's crazy to you.
- We would think that it's just like not a good idea.
But not like we are imposing our opinion on you,
just more like for us, like we would never want that.
- So just to be clear, you would never want to sleep
in separate beds is what you're saying.
- No, I sleep in my bed and my wife sleeps in our bed.
- I'm a mix between the two of you.
- There's probably been a handful or like a dozen times
where we haven't slept in the same bed
and it's usually because either like I'm super sick
or she was super sick or there was a kid
like co-sleeping or something.
And it's like a handful of times.
But again, even when we did that, it wasn't like a problem.
It's just, there's just a life situation, right?
So we enjoy being in the same bed.
- It's funny how people think they're like exposing me.
It's like, bro, I announced this publicly to the world
because I'm just trying to just liberate people's minds
that, hey, do what works for you.
You don't have to have a stigma.
But what were you gonna say?
You're kind of a mix.
- I was gonna say I am a mix between the two of you
in the sense that it's not every single night
where we're in separate beds,
but I would say probably most nights I'm in my own room
and people will bring up all these things,
but I will say this, it is,
and without going too graphic or anything,
it is easier to have alone time, in my experience,
when you have your own space.
- Of course, absolutely.
- Because with the coast--
- Well, and it could be a function of money,
your life circumstance, you know,
when you don't have kids, when you do have kids,
when you have more money, you have the space,
you have your own finished basement.
I mean, you kind of have,
maybe based on life circumstances, you know,
you have more flexibility. - How much space you have.
- But at the end of the day, like,
if something works better in your relationship,
don't try to fix what's not broken.
And so, there's nothing wrong with that.
- I'm not trying to push it on anybody else.
It doesn't work for them, no problem.
- I think another problem with marriage tips,
which has been important to this show,
is that a lot of people act like,
if you just do exactly like me,
you're gonna have a great marriage.
Or if you do this tip, you're gonna have a marriage.
- Dude, I wish that were true.
- And this is not reality.
- Dude, I wish that were true.
I wish that these frauds who just pretend
that they just never find, they just have all the answers
and always have such great teaching on marriage,
such great teaching on the family, and it's 99.99,
and you send in for this series, and these CDs,
and these tapes, and these books.
I'm sorry, but no book is the silver bullet.
No sermon series is the silver bullet.
I don't believe it.
I'm sorry, I've been married for 25 years.
I've tried all the books, and the CDs, and the tapes,
and I've listened to everybody.
I've listened to preachers.
You gotta figure it out on your own,
and I feel like I have figured it out.
In many ways, I've cracked the code
when it comes to my own personal relationship,
but it was not by following anybody's advice to a T
or patterning it after someone else.
It's really, you have to, you know, a la carte,
get different teachings from different people
and try things.
It's trial and error.
And here's the thing,
obviously you gotta go into marriage
with the teachings that we've been emphasizing of,
it's kill death do us part,
it's do or die, it's for life.
Then within that, you know, you trial and error,
you experiment, you try things, you see what works,
you see what doesn't work,
and eventually you figure it out.
But man, I wish that it was as easy as just,
oh, just read this book and do what it says,
and it's all gonna be great.
And the people that talk like that often crash and burn.
I had this guy tell me like, oh, it's so easy,
just love your wives, husbands love your wives,
the Bible, it's all right in the Bible.
- Come on, man.
- And then bro's marriage lasted for three months,
and I'm not joking.
Bro's marriage, he got married,
like three months later it was over.
And it's like, this guy was telling me how easy it is
and how it's gonna be great and whatever.
You know, it's like, nah, I wish it were that simple.
If it were that easy, everybody'd be doing it.
- And one thing I wanna say, 'cause you bring up the idea
that some people will say, well, we never fight.
As the layman listening to a pastor say that,
it is so damaging, and here's why.
You're going to fight in your marriage, period.
So when it happens, and you've been inundated
with this concept that says, well, we'd ever fight
if you fight, there's a big problem.
You're going to look at your marriage
through the lenses of extreme negativity.
And I think it'll really bring the morale down,
and you're not going to have an accurate view
of how your marriage is actually going.
And that can be harmful, you know what I mean?
That can be demoralizing, in a sense.
So in reality, the way I look at it is,
yes, I fight every once in a while with my spouse,
and that is a product of the passion
that we have for the relationship.
That's the way it is.
- I don't feel like fighting.
I don't feel like fighting is a metric for me,
because, and I didn't put that in mind.
My metrics were, you know, specifically,
you stayed together, you're communicating,
that you're having fun,
and that you're having the duty of marriage.
And to me, like, there's gonna be seasons
where you may be fighting more than other seasons,
maybe because of life circumstances,
or maybe one person is kind of going through a hard time,
so they're having-- - Formals.
- Yeah, you're gonna have,
you're just gonna have life circumstances.
Maybe you guys are making life decisions
that you're kind of having a little bit of tension,
you're trying to work out those issues.
The amount of fighting, to me,
doesn't really determine how healthy the marriage is.
And so, I don't want people to be discouraged
because of fighting.
And I like something you said about trying things.
To me, you need to have an all-a-cart marriage,
where you're hearing advice from this guy and this guy,
and you're just kind of trying stuff that works.
And you're staying in separate bedrooms,
and I heard that advice when I was going
to Faithful Word Baptist Church,
and I'm like, okay, I don't want that option.
That's like Indian food to me.
But I heard you bring up this idea of like,
and I don't know if you still do this,
or I don't remember exactly how you word it,
but I felt like it came, this idea for me was like,
ordering for your wife, maybe, at a restaurant.
- Yeah. - Is that from you?
- And I think maybe-- - I mean, I guess,
I also came up with the reprobate doctrine,
and I wrote Leviticus 2013. - That's impressive.
- I came up with, I wrote all those commentaries
on Leviticus 2013. - That's true.
- No, no, no, I mean, I thought ordering
for a woman is just like what literally millions
of people do every single day.
- Well, I'm just saying, I mean, I have recommended that.
But again. - You introduce the idea.
- But again, some women are gonna hate that.
Some women are gonna hate it if you order for them.
But I think in general, women like it if you order for them.
But like with my wife, she's really serious
about getting what she wants off that menu.
But here's the thing, what I'll do though,
is I'll go over the menu with her,
figure out what she wants.
But then when the waitress comes,
I'm still the one that's going to articulate it
to the waiter.
- That's exactly how I do it.
But I'm just saying, I thought--
- It's kind of a both, it's kind of a mix.
- I kind of thought that's something I want to try.
- Yeah, but some women, it's better if you literally
just say, "Hey, I'm going to get you something
"you're really going to like.
"I know what you like."
And you just order for them,
and they don't even see the menu.
That's what some women are going to want, seriously.
They love the fact that you know them,
and that you're just taking charge,
just command and control.
This is what you're going to have.
Some women are going to love that.
Like my wife, she's probably more particular
about what she wants off the menu.
So I'll go over the menu with her,
and she's maybe between a few things,
and I might just kind of settle it for her
and say, hey, you're going to go with this one.
You know, but it's what she's already
kind of said she wanted.
And then when the waiter comes,
I'll articulate that to the waiter.
So it could be a hybrid, you know.
- Which, and some women may hate that.
And I think that that's totally reasonable.
But it's just like to me, like I heard that,
I thought about it, I thought about our situation.
I thought, hey, that's something I want to try
and I've implemented that.
And I feel like it really works well.
I think it kind of improved things.
I think when it comes to just food
and picking a place to eat is a common contention
in marriage that is just, it's just common demand
that a lot of people struggle in that particular realm.
- First world problem.
- And I would say like, oh yeah.
And I would say like, I don't even think
that there is the right answer for this.
But this is just my tip, is that what I try to do
is I try to think of a few different restaurant options
that my wife would like.
I suggest those, and I try to get a feel.
And if she's kind of leaning into one,
then I'll just go with that one.
But sometimes she doesn't really know,
and then you just kind of have to pick.
But I just found for our marriage,
and I think other people struggle with this,
is if I just say, hey, where do you want to eat?
And she's like, I don't know.
And then you're just trying to get her to pick a place.
Like it just gets into a really contentious situation,
and it's just kind of like hard to deal with.
Like I found success in that scenario,
is just saying like, hey, are you, you know,
I want to go to this restaurant or this restaurant.
You know, what do you think?
Get a feel.
And sometimes she can lean in.
As a woman, I think they want to have someone
lead them a little bit more.
And so by providing some options,
you often kind of help yourself a little bit.
I don't know if you guys have ever struggled
with picking a place to go eat or what to eat or whatever.
- I mean, yeah, obviously that's, like you said,
it's common to man.
But I think that it is definitely a first world problem.
- But we live in the first world.
- 'Cause we're going out to eat and like--
- Yeah, the luxury of that in other countries
would be unheard of.
- Yeah, because I think about when I first got married,
we just couldn't even afford to go to eat.
So it was like, the first few years of our marriage,
we weren't going out, oh, date night, let's go out to dinner.
Because we had such a small grocery allowance.
So we would go out to dinner every Friday night
with my parents, 'cause my parents would pay.
- And it was wherever they wanted.
- It was where they wanted, which is Chili's.
- Wow.
- So we went to Chili's.
- What would you eat?
- Every single Friday night.
- I love Chili's.
- And we would--
- I worked at Chili's.
- My parents would always get the fajitas.
- Steak fajitas, chicken combo.
- They'd get the combo.
The fajitas for two, it was called.
They always got the fajitas.
I would rotate between different things.
Sometimes I would get fajitas, I'd get fajita nachos.
They had fajita quesadillas at one point.
I would get a burger.
I was all over the place.
Like I was ordering different things.
- You wanted variety.
- Yeah, whereas my parents would always get the fajitas.
They had the same waiter every week.
They went to the waiter's wedding.
His name was Skip, so they were like,
this was like the routine for them.
- In the restaurant business,
you really do have customers like that,
where they have their server, their booth.
They like, they're just the regulars.
- Exactly, and so, you know,
we would go out to dinner with them.
We were just so happy to be going out to dinner.
We didn't care what the restaurant was.
So it's nice when you start marriage like that,
because then, I think that my wife now,
my wife is not super picky, I don't think,
about where we go.
There's certain places that I know she's not into,
but I think if I took her to any like sit-down restaurant,
I don't care if it's Longhorn Steakhouse,
or if I took her to Cheesecake Factory,
or you know, any kind of place like that,
she's definitely gonna like it.
- Yeah.
- And there's gonna be stuff that she likes there.
- It's funny 'cause I have the exact same scenario.
My parents would always take us to Jason's Deli though.
So every Saturday night, we would just join
the family train. - It's another good place.
- And we would go to Jason's Deli like every single week.
And they used to have this thing on the menu
called the Deli Cowboy.
It was like this brisket sandwich
with like cheddar cheese and like onions,
and it was like fantastic, but they took it off the menu.
So I'm a little bitter about that, but.
- Obviously I also deal with this.
- Not everybody gets to just go out to eat,
so you have to think that about it.
- Yeah, obviously I also deal with this,
but Pastor Shelley, it's funny you bring up
giving her multiple options to choose from
'cause that's exactly what I do.
And it works for us.
She appears to have adopted your doctrine on food.
She's a lot pickier than I am.
- Amen.
- But honestly, it works for us
because I'm gonna like it anyway,
'cause I'm not as picky at all.
But I wanna bring one thing into this conversation as well
'cause we're talking about marriage tips.
And I think that's something guys have to understand
about women in general is that they are emotional.
Especially when they're going through a stressful situation.
They're emotional beings.
And so you have to realize that they may say things
when they're in that hyper emotional state
that they don't really mean.
And you have to recognize that, understand that,
not pick apart their words when they're in that state.
Let them calm down first.
Then once they're back to normal,
then you can resume the conversation.
- Be not bitter against them.
- Exactly.
- That's what the Bible's saying, be not bitter against them.
So if somebody says something to you that's hurtful,
you let it go.
- Amen. Amen to that.
You let it go.
You realize they didn't mean it.
They're just in that hyper emotional state.
I mean, you've talked about this before, Pastor Shelly,
that they can't be emotional.
- It's really the marriage, but it's definitely
a part of marriage.
'Cause you know, the Bible talks about in Ecclesiastes,
they're like not hearkening to all the words
that are spoken, and it talks about your servants
sometimes curse their masters, and we've all done that.
And so, yeah, sometimes, you know, in a marriage,
you're married to an imperfect person.
You're around each other all the time.
Being around somebody is gonna sometimes
bring out your worst.
You're gonna let your guard down the most.
And as a result, sometimes you are gonna have
the ugly side, the ugly version of yourself.
You're gonna just say things that you didn't really
want to say or mean or communicate.
So yeah, obviously we need to have grace for our spouse.
We shouldn't get nit-picky about which words they used
or oh my goodness, my wife cussed one time
or my husband cussed one time or something.
People that get so nit-picky about this kind of stuff,
it's not gonna be very successful.
You just kinda have to let people be themselves.
And I feel like that actually helps you grow closer.
When you have your lower moments or you have your moments
and you just kinda get over it and move on
and you just kinda appreciate each other,
I feel like you feel safe with that individual.
Because if someone's always triggered by your behavior,
triggered by your word choices,
triggered by every single thing you do,
you don't feel very safe around them.
You feel like you have to be guarded,
you feel like you can't be yourself,
you feel like you can't have a closer intimacy.
- If you can't let your hair down in your own home,
then where can you?
And if you can't be your true, authentic self
around your wife, then it's like, give me a break.
You know what I mean?
So yeah, you wanna be able to be casual and be yourself
and let your hair down and say what you mean
and not feel like you have to walk on eggshells
in your own house, right?
Is that kind of what you're saying a little bit?
- Yeah, but I'm just saying it's important, I think too,
not so much that you let your guard down,
but that when your spouse does, you give them grace.
- Yeah, exactly.
- You allow them to have their bad day,
have their bad moment, have their bad whatever,
and you don't treat them negatively,
you kind of give them grace, you empathize with them,
you come alongside them.
As husbands, it's gonna be hard.
Women that are gonna be having lots of kids,
giving birth, going through hormones,
they're gonna have hard days.
I think it's important for men to just kind of be there,
allow them to go through emotions.
Sometimes women are just gonna cry for no reason.
Sometimes they're gonna just get upset
and they don't really even know why.
Sometimes they don't communicate very well
just because they don't know exactly
how to communicate how they're feeling.
And so I think, like y'all said,
husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them.
Sometimes we just kind of have to just give them
a new mercy every single day.
So giving your spouse a lot of second chances.
When you're dating, I feel like you're more gracious
by nature, you're just kind of letting things go
and just kind of like allowing them to just have mistakes.
And we need to have that in marriage as well.
- So we're running low on time,
so let's kind of rapid fire,
'cause we've really gone deep on some great subjects,
but let's kind of just rapid fire a bunch of just
little tips that we've learned,
little things that we've gleaned or bad ideas
or things that don't work or something like that.
And again, you know, all the haters out there
that want to think that, oh, what do these guys know?
And it's like, bro, you know,
we've been successfully married.
He's been successfully married for 16 years.
I've been married for 25.
He's been married for eight.
Our wives love us.
Our wives think that we're awesome.
And you know, whether you think that about us or not,
like our wives think that.
And we get along great with our wives.
And here's the thing, we're still married.
So if you're divorced and you have anything critical
to say about my marriage, you can go shove it
where the sun don't shine, because it's like,
I'm still married 25 years later.
I don't need advice from people
that aren't even still married
or they're on their second or third spouse.
It's like--
- Or that divorce shortly after criticizing you,
but that's a different topic for a different time.
- Exactly, and then so, you know, I'm happy.
And at the end of the day, you know what matters
is that I like my marriage and then my wife likes it.
Like, it doesn't really matter if other people like it.
So here's my tip in the kind of speed round
where we rapid fire. - Yeah, I have lots of
speed rounds. - Where we rapid fire
through some tips. - I'm gonna rapid fire
some stuff. - Okay, let me just,
let me say this, that, you know, quit caring so much
what other people think about your marriage
as much as have the marriage that's right for you.
You know, so I'm not gonna let other people
tell me how to be married.
It's like, if my wife like it and I like it,
then that's what matters, you know.
Obviously, the bedroom thing,
the separate bedrooms are where, that's one example,
but there could be 20 other examples of things
that people could criticize.
Oh, don't do marriage that way.
Or even my own children, like I care what they think
about how to be married when they're either not married
or when they have barely been married for a year
or six months or two years or something.
It's like, bro, I've been married for 25 years.
I don't really care what you think about how I do my marriage.
Like, at the end of the day,
I'm gonna do what works for me and for her.
And if she's happy and I'm happy,
then everybody else can go stick it.
- I like that.
I'll introduce something,
and then we'll go to Pastor Shelley.
If you had a particularly bad argument about something,
whatever it is, you could always make up alone.
You could always make up,
and it'll be like it never happened
and everything goes back to being fantastic and great.
Go ahead. - Wait, wait, hold on.
I thought, you know what I thought
the next thing you were gonna say is,
you can always make up alone,
but when you put it out publicly to the world,
then it's a little harder to recover
from your marriage problems.
- Sure. - So how about this?
Don't broadcast your marriage problems to the world.
- I didn't even think of that
'cause that's just so preposterous
for anybody to even do that. - It's so stupid.
But here's the thing, like people have recovered
from some very serious marriage problems,
but when those things get blabbed to the world
by other people, or even by the parties themselves,
or by other people, or whatever,
when it gets blabbed to the world,
it's way harder to recover from those.
The worst marriage problem is adultery.
Thank God we've never gone through that.
Most people haven't gone through that, thankfully,
and never will, thankfully.
The majority of people never commit adultery, thank God.
But here's the thing about that, though,
is that I've seen people recover from adultery,
but it's when the adultery gets public,
and when the marriage problems get public,
that's usually when it's way harder.
- I still seem to be public, and they still recover.
- Amen.
- Yeah. - Amen.
- And you don't want to, and just to piggyback off
of that a little bit, you never want to say anything
negative about your spouse in public,
or in conversations like this at church.
You see sometimes where wives will be saying
negative things, criticizing their husbands.
- To other women.
- To other women. - Don't do it.
- Husbands may do it about their wives as well.
- Never do it.
- Exactly, you never do that.
- You should be the number one fan of your wife
at all times.
You know, there's this guy in North Korea
who's just this Hispanic dude.
I don't know if you've seen this before, but anyway.
All he does is talk about how great the regime is
and how wonderful and awesome and everything like that.
You need to be that guy.
- I thought that's who you did for the new IMD.
Don't you always support the regime?
- You need to be like I am for the new IMD.
- Yeah, exactly.
- You're the Chris Foust, okay?
- Exactly, I like that.
- Dude, don't criticize propagandists of your marriage.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
- Just don't criticize your spouse to other people.
- Amen.
- So in the rapid fire,
here's just some thoughts I had real quick
and things that I do.
Like I just help by just making dinner
or taking care of dinner every Friday night.
- I know.
- And that just kinda like helps me.
- I can't do that, I can't cook.
- I sometimes--
- My wife would hate that.
- I just sometimes help with chores
and she really likes that.
We'll go on walks.
I think it's important
just keeping the appointments with your wife.
If you say you're gonna be somewhere,
if you're gonna do something,
like it's important to just keep that appointment.
Sometimes just hold her hand, you know,
she really likes that.
Play a game with your wife.
- What's up?
- Work out together.
- Come on in.
- Pass the mic in or just interrupt it.
- How you doing?
- Just kidding.
Great to see you.
Looking forward to your sermon.
We're having a little podcast here about marriage.
- Get him a seat or come take my seat.
- Want him to come crash the party real quick?
- Just ask the mic.
- I'm just here.
- We got a mic for you,
you can come and join us or whatever.
- Going on.
- Hey, we got another chair right here.
Perfect.
Some other quick tips,
these are just quick tips that I wanna give
about how to have a good marriage.
Always side with your wife in front of the children
or with your parents.
I think you should be direct with your spouse.
So if you wanna need, you have a need,
you should just tell them.
Make sure, sometimes it's good to just leave and cleave.
Being apart from your in-laws
is sometimes just like a blessing to marriage
and just being in a different city, town,
sometimes it just grows you closer together.
I think you should text your wife often
and just kinda like communicate with her.
Send her memes.
- Yeah, my wife sends epic memes.
- My wife and I exchange some memes.
- She, I think it's important to put her first.
Hey, sometimes it's good to be at church,
just sit right next to your spouse.
You know, I know even if you have a lot of kids,
just figure out a way to sit right next to her,
to flirt with her.
And here's one thing I also consider is like,
I try to dress the way that my wife wants
as long as like it's within my boundaries.
But like if she prefers like a certain tie
or a certain look or like Lexus shoes or whatever,
or she gets me a gift or something like that.
I just try really hard to just incorporate that
because I'm not really picky about clothes that much.
And like she probably has better fashion sense than me
anyways, but at the end of the day,
like I just try to dress in a way
that either pleases God first and then my wife second.
And so those are just some quick tips.
Do you have any tips like what can people do
in their marriage that just kind of like helps
or what things that help you in your marriage
that you could think of anything?
- Aside from the electrical?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, well that's a given.
- I'm sure that joke has already been used.
- Well, you're actually the first one to run out.
You're the first one to go there.
- So I always say when I'm counseling anybody
regarding marriage is just be very quick to forgive.
And always be ready to forgive and ask for forgiveness.
And anytime there's conflict, just humble yourself
and just be willing to just resolve the conflict,
whether it's you admitting that you're wrong
and be honest and transparent with your spouse
if they've offended you.
And just be willing to just, you know,
if they say, you know, I'm really sorry I was wrong,
don't hang it over their heads just to say I forgive you
and move on.
We practice that in our marriage all the time
and it's helped us a lot.
- Yeah, and for the record, I've never hit my wife
with an electrical cord.
I just wanna just put that out there.
- I know that.
(laughing)
But he's speaking for himself.
- Man, the internet just doesn't seem
to get anything right these days,
but no, we're here at the Missions Conference.
We're here with super famous Pastor Bruce Medea,
and we're just honored to be in his presence here.
Mr. Wild Olive Tree, he's just so wild and everything.
But no, he really brings the heat with his preaching.
He brings the visitors.
He brought 27 people to our church
in the Dallas Forth area, and it was a great blessing.
And it's great to have you.
Didn't you bring your family with you?
- Yeah, my wife and my children and my mom is here.
- Oh, cool. - She's excited to see you.
- Yeah. - Yeah, your mom's cool.
- So grandmas can come for Pastor Mejia's.
- Oh, yeah, yeah. - So that's important.
- Yeah, that's right. - The grandmas.
- I brought her on the wrong day.
Could have brought her yesterday.
- Yeah.
I asked, there was 10 grandmas
in attendance approximately last night.
So we'll see how it-- - Hopefully,
there hasn't been a lot of interruption.
- Hopefully, it'll grow, like we can have more
as the series goes on.
But thanks for joining us.
- I had a question since we have--
- Yeah. - We have three pastors
on the table now, and it's a question about counseling.
When it comes to counseling, is this something
that you recommend for all couples, some couples?
Like at what point does somebody cross the threshold
where you think they should seek counseling
from their pastor?
I only had it one time and it was with a pastor
who shouldn't have been getting counseling.
We'll leave it at that.
- I do almost no marriage counseling.
I do very little marriage counseling.
And frankly, most of the people in our church,
I don't think really need it that much.
'Cause I think they're getting the preaching,
they're doing good in their marriages.
So usually when people come to me,
it's because they're having like a serious problem.
So I'll kind of, I'll jump in and fix serious problems
or help out in serious situations.
But you know, I'm not just having a parade
of people coming through and getting marriage counseling.
You know, I have not gotten marriage counseling
and I don't think it's, I don't think it's,
I don't think it's good in general.
I think it's like a last resort.
- Yeah, the guy who married me and my wife,
he made us do it a year later, just to be clear.
- Isn't preaching, isn't this podcast counseling
or isn't the preaching counseling?
Like I don't need to sit and talk to people
about their own personal, I don't really wanna know
that much about them necessarily
because it could be like too personal, too private.
I don't need the sordid details.
- I think counseling is something
that you should take with caution
and I think that's what we had mentioned earlier
in the podcast that not everything
fits every single marriage.
And so what, and you said like maybe you wish God
would give us more instruction,
but maybe he didn't because he wants us to figure it out.
And I think figuring it out yourself is always the best,
even when you have issues.
And I think as long as people have realistic expectations
that there's gonna be issues,
there's gonna be fights and whatever,
they may not be bombarding the pastor
with a bunch of marriage counseling requests.
Whereas if you're putting forth this idea
like we're never gonna fight, it's gonna be perfect,
if you're just doing this, you didn't have problems,
then maybe a lot of people are feeling like,
man, I guess we need counseling because we fight,
we have problems or whatever.
- Oh, I married the wrong person.
- Yeah, exactly.
- 'Cause I don't have the same relationship
that Mr. Pastor perfect and whatever.
You know, these ex-NIFB people
with their little perfect marriages,
the sad thing is I actually know these people in real life
and they're full of crap.
But anyway,
- But I'm just saying like, I think people,
if you're feeling like I need marriage counseling,
I think the best is like,
if you feel like you can figure it out on your own,
that's probably best.
- Amen.
- I'm not against marriage counseling.
I have counseled people and I've tried to help them,
but most of my counseling is just trying to give them
like the tools to fix, for them to fix it themselves.
Like here's the conversations you guys need to have.
Here's kind of the boundaries
of the things I'm gonna be doing.
- Like teach a man to fish
instead of just giving the man the fish.
- Yeah, I'm not gonna tell you the answers.
I'm gonna tell you who's right or wrong.
It's like, what are y'all's problems?
Talk to each other about it.
What solutions do you have? - We gotta be over
in two minutes, so what do you got Pastor Mejia?
- Yeah, I'm not against marriage counseling.
I do do marriage counseling, not often.
And quite frankly, anytime I counsel someone in marriage,
it's because they're going through like a really hard time.
And most of the time, I'm simply reinforcing
the biblical rules within that marriage.
And a lot of it is just solved by doing that.
So it's like, he's in charge.
You'll be happy if you obey him, you know.
And it's just kind of just expressing and showing
what the Bible says.
And a lot of it is like stuff that I've already preached,
but maybe they weren't paying attention.
- So if you do a good job from the pulpit,
you need less counseling to happen as if--
- Or sometimes just people don't listen.
- Yeah, that's true, too.
- You know, they just don't pay attention
or just they don't need it at that season,
but now they do and they don't really remember what I said.
So then, you know, you have to counsel them.
But I don't like counseling
if it turns into like a referee match.
- Exactly. - Like a referee fight.
Once it turns into that, we're done.
- Well, listen up, man.
I wish we could talk about this all night.
It's such a great subject, a beautiful subject.
It's a beautiful relationship.
It's, there's so much potential.
But we gotta set up for church.
I think-- - Thanks for letting us
take over your office. - We're using some
of the same equipment for church.
- Yeah, right. - Yeah, we gotta do
some rest and breathing. - So let's wrap it up.
- Thanks for joining us on The Baptist Bias.
Make sure to check out Faith Board Baptist Church.
Pastor Anderson, listen to the sermon
from Pastor Bruce Mia tonight from First Works.
- Let's go. - God bless.
- Make sure you get The Baptist Bias.
- And this is The Baptist, I thought this was your part.
- It's both.
It was, we were doing double duty.
♪ For the glory of Jesus ♪
- The memorial tribute to Brother Kevin Rowe
as to the Armory Center.
Everybody's invited because you didn't know Kevin very well
or didn't know him at all.
You know, we'd love to have you come out
and I think you'll be inspired by all the testimony
about our brother Kevin Rowe who passed away tragically.
He was killed by a drunk driver
and he was the one who dreamed up the whole idea
that we've been running with this year
for missions, with the cruise missions and so forth.
And so we're gonna do that tomorrow morning.
It's gonna be 30 minutes tomorrow, one o'clock.
We're gonna have the first picnic.
Everybody's invited, there's no charge.
We're gonna provide lunch,
burgers, hot dogs, drinks, everything.
And then if you do wanna bring something,
you don't have to bring anything, of course,
but if you do wanna bring something
and you wanna make some kind of a side dish or something,
if your name is ending in a,
your last name doesn't really mean anything,
but your last name, if it's A through L,
you wanna make some kind of a side dish,
like for those of our local church people,
or if your last name starts with N through G
and you wanna make some kind of a dessert,
then yeah, go ahead and bring that,
but you don't have to bring anything.
We're gonna have a barbecue.
It says have a go-kart, one o'clock tomorrow,
and remember don't just type in have a go-kart,
the have a go-kart is huge,
you might end up at the wrong place,
but typically we're gonna be at the southwest corner
of College and Curry.
Our church has been having picnics there
for probably 15 years or something,
so our church people, most of them know,
but it is the southwest corner of College and Curry
in Tahiti, and then tomorrow night
we're gonna have another evening service
with Brother Sean Conlon, preaching from Stur Foundation
up at Seattle, Washington.
Then Sunday we're gonna have our normal
get-together service from Sunday
with yours truly preaching in the morning and night.
I hope you're having a great time at the conference.
I know I am, lots of fellowship,
lots of great school winning has been happening,
and all kinds of good things.
Speaking of school winning, let's go ahead
and tally up the salvation system today's school winning.
We usually just do this twice a week,
but we're doing it on a daily basis during the conference,
and make sure nothing sticks to the cracks.
And I know that we have that full meeting,
if you saw anything going on,
I know we had a crew that was out
and coming in at five o'clock here,
we'll see in the area.
So any salvations for reports from today,
there's today only, anything from today, got it?
Okay, anything else from today?
Okay, I got it, let's do that one, yep.
Okay, that's right here.
Any other salvations for reports, is that a two?
That's two, okay, all right, and then,
what do we got here, for the bad walker?
Take this one from the front row and the middle.
For the whole crew, okay, so it was 18 plus 64,
we already got a score, so just do anything.
15, okay, and we got one here from Schrodinger, all right.
Anybody else from today?
There's been five for the church band,
but did any church band people already tell me?
Okay, four for the church band.
Anybody else from the church band?
Everybody already talked about it, we already got it.
Not gonna duplicate it.
All right, very good.
Fucking great work, how's somebody?
Oh, yes.
So tomorrow morning, there is a hike
that is gonna be happening at Piestewa Peak.
If you wanna go hiking with a bunch of people from church,
6.30 a.m. at the trailhead, Piestewa Peak.
Now look, whenever anybody comes to Phoenix,
they're all excited about hiking Camelback.
And you know, Camelback's cool, but guess what?
Piestewa is a little bit better, okay?
Now the reason everybody is excited about Camelback
is because Camelback's a college.
Piestewa is like less than 100 feet different.
So it's pretty much the same height.
I think it's a lot more interesting.
If you're gonna watch the play, I'll get you fascinated.
(audience laughing)
Your car, trailhead, logistics are all better.
I think it's the funner height.
And it's pretty much the identical level of exertion,
being a reunion, you know, second place.
Not the college, it's the second college.
But it's the fear.
So anyway, I love it.
If you've never had to dance the walk,
I really recommend that.
Tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. to 3 a.m. would be brilliant.
And I think that's about it for now.
All right, let's go ahead and sing our national anthem.
All right, there should be an insert
in front of your head, though, if you don't already have one.
Please raise your hand, and the doctor will get you one,
but he'll sing the song entitled
"We have a story to tell to the nation."
(indistinct)
- True God, and to wait for his son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead,
even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
- To come before you tonight.
Lord, and we just thank you so much
for letting us be here again.
And we just thank you so much for this mission conference.
And we just lift everyone up that has been so winning
and everyone that will be going this next year
to all nations, giving the gospel
and teaching them all good things.
Tonight, we just lift up Pastor Mejia.
We ask you to bless him with the Holy Spirit,
let him deliver us to your word.
Let us have ears to hear, in name we pray, amen.
- I wanna thank Pastor Anderson for the invitation
to come to this year's missions conference.
It's exciting to see what God is doing
throughout our churches,
how many people have been saved throughout the year,
how many new soul owners have been sent out
to preach the gospel,
and they are definite signs of success
within these local New Testament churches.
Now, today, you know, we're obviously focusing on Mexico.
I'm not sure why they asked me to preach today.
You know, I don't know if it has anything to do,
if it's a coincidence or something like that, you know.
I don't know.
But, you know, our church has focused on Mexico
quite a bit over the last couple of years,
especially this year.
We go once a month to TJ,
and yes, that is still considered Mexico.
You know, we go there to preach the gospel,
eat good tacos, win people to Christ,
and we come back, and we always have a great rapport,
a lot of salvations, and it's really opened my eyes
to the reality of how open people are
in Mexico to the gospel.
Obviously, when we're preaching the gospel here
in the United States, specifically for me in California,
there's a lot of receptive people, a lot of receptive Mexicans,
but I feel like it's a different atmosphere there in Mexico.
The receptivity there is a lot greater.
And so it's exciting to see what the Lord is doing.
And I'm always encouraging people, man, you know,
you don't necessarily have to go across the world
to preach the gospel.
You can literally just go across the border to Mexico
and get a bunch of people saved.
And obviously, you got to learn some Spanish.
You got to know a little bit of Spanglish
in order to win people to Christ.
But people have gone in our church.
A lot of gringos have gone who are learning Spanish.
But you know, those guys can preach the gospel.
They get a lot of people saved.
And it's just exciting to see what the Lord is doing.
We're going to continue our mission to Mexico
in this coming year and the years to come.
And quite frankly, let me just give a little brief testimony
regarding TJ.
You know, we don't actually go there
and knock on doors, believe it or not.
We don't go there.
We don't have a thing mapped out.
We literally go to one park every single time.
And the reason we do that is because it's literally
a revolving door of various Mexicans
that come from all different parts of Mexico.
So we never run into the same people twice
except for the security guards, of course.
And we run into different people.
And so it's exciting.
Sorry, my mic fell off here.
I move a little too much.
So we just literally just go to the park.
We spend a couple hours there preaching the gospel.
We get people saved.
And we just keep going back and back and back
because if it ain't broke, don't fix it, amen.
And so it's exciting.
Pray for us as we continue our endeavor to win
Mexicans to Christ there in Mexico
on a monthly basis in the year 2026.
We're in 1st Thessalonians chapter one and verse number nine.
The Bible says for they themselves show of us
what manner of entering in we had unto you
and how ye turn to God from idols
to serve the living and true God.
And the title of my sermon this evening
is Catholicism's reign of error.
Catholicism's reign of error,
and specifically when it comes to the nation of Mexico.
See, the reality is this is Catholicism
has reigned spiritually in Mexico for many, many years.
It's caused a lot of major destruction,
a lot of false doctrine, and quite frankly,
there's a lot of Mexicans going to hell today
because of Catholicism.
Why? Because they have a reign of error.
They have deceived the people of Mexico
to believe a false gospel, a false doctrine,
to become a superstitious people,
and for that reason, they will split hell wide open
if we don't go there to make a difference.
You say, why are you preaching on Catholicism
during a mission?
What does preaching against Catholicism have to do
with a missions conference?
Well, I'll tell you what it has to do.
You know, when we go to Mexico,
we're not just going there to win people to Christ.
We're also going there to turn them from idols to God.
We want them to turn from their Virgin Mary
and their saints and their sacraments
and all the things that they're relying upon,
the sacraments in order to be saved
in terms of Jesus Christ.
We need to show them that Catholicism
is a bastardization of Christianity.
It's not true biblical Christianity.
You know, today the lines are constantly being blurred.
You say, well, how do you know that?
Well, have you been on social media lately?
If you're on Instagram, if you're on X,
if you're on Facebook,
you see these militant Catholics out there
constantly promoting Catholicism,
acting as though, oh, we're the first Christians
and we're the legitimate Christians.
You proddies this and you proddies that.
Constantly deceiving people.
How can anybody be a Protestant?
How can anybody be a Baptist with the internet today?
I'll tell you how, 'cause we read the Bible.
We know what the Bible actually says.
And you know what?
Baptist has always been an adversary
of the Roman Catholic whore.
And you know, we should continue to be
and fight against it and make sure
that we're preaching the right gospel,
getting people saved.
Go to 1 Kings chapter 12, 1 Kings chapter 12.
The apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians chapter one
explains to the Thessalonians
that they've turned to God from idols.
And that's exactly what our goal should be
when we're dealing with a nation like Mexico
that is enthralled, it is saturated with idolatry.
1 Kings chapter 12, let me give you
a little bit of introductory statements
before I get into my main points this evening.
You see, I thought you preached on Catholicism before.
I'm probably gonna do it again
and again and again and again and again.
Why?
Because you know what?
They're kind of ignorant of this particular subject.
And there's even Protestants online
that kind of turn a blind eye to Catholicism.
Some even will say that some Catholics are saved.
You'll have Protestants that kind of pay lip service
to Christian doctrine.
But they believe that Catholics are brothers
and sisters in Christ.
Folks, no Catholic is saved
unless a soul winner actually gives them the gospel.
They call upon the name of the Lord
and ignorantly continue to go to the Catholic church.
I would say that person's saved, yeah.
But you know what?
The reality is this.
The Roman Catholic church has gotten nobody saved.
No one gets accidentally saved in the Roman Catholic church.
And I know a lot of Catholics are gonna hate on this.
They're gonna get mad.
They're gonna say, "Who's this Mexican?
"Who's this brownie?
"Who's this?"
You know, I'm a man of God telling you
what the Bible says, okay?
And so this is important when it comes
to the context of Mexico.
And you know, I'm not trying to destroy the conference
tonight or anything like that.
I heard you guys had a bad in last night.
You had a Polly on preach here last night.
And it looks like the conference is still, you know,
functioning here.
So, you know, maybe I won't succeed at destroying it.
But you know, we should be able to preach against
Catholicism in a fundamental Baptist church
and get full participation of the congregation
to agree with everything that's being stated today.
There should be no sympathy for the Roman Catholic church
by Christians.
It was like, well, you know, well, what folks, you like,
well, you know, yeah, but when you look
at the Roman Catholic church,
look how many people they're reaching.
Yeah, it's 'cause broad as the way
they're leading to destruction
and many there be which go in there.
So the sheer numbers doesn't lend veracity to the religion
'cause the reality is this,
hell is filled with more people than heaven.
That's a fact.
Catholicism in Mexico, obviously we know,
historically began in the 1500s with the Spanish crown
and the Roman Catholic conquest there.
And I wanna draw some parallels here
before I get into my main points from 1 Kings chapter 12.
Here in 1 Kings 12, you have Jeroboam,
who's essentially the king of the northern kingdom
of Israel.
And when you look at these two kingdoms,
the southern kingdom, the northern kingdom,
the southern kingdom,
we would consider to be like the legit kingdom, right?
They're the ones who are actually worshiping the Lord.
Obviously they have instances where they backslide,
they stray from the ways of the Lord,
but they're nothing compared to like the northern kingdom
that's very much an apostasized kingdom, right?
It's a very pagan northern kingdom
and Jeroboam is ruling over this particular kingdom
and he has this fear that the people of Israel
are gonna reject him as their leader
and they're gonna eventually go to Judah
to worship the God of the Bible as God intended.
And so, you know, obviously he sees reigning
and having the people worship there in Israel
as a move, as a political power move tied into religion.
Look at verse 26.
It says, "Then Jeroboam said in his heart,
now shall the kingdom return to the house of David.
If these people go up to do sacrifice
in the house of the Lord of Jerusalem,
then shall the heart of this people
turn again into their Lord,
even into Rehoboam, king of Judah,
and they shall kill me
and go again to Rehoboam, king of Judah."
So obviously he has fear that he's gonna lose the people
based upon the religion of Israel.
So what's his solution?
Well, his solution is, is that he's gonna mix God's religion
of the Old Testament with paganism, right?
He says in verse 28,
"Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold."
What is this?
This is idolatry.
"And said unto them,
"It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem.
"Behold thy gods, O Israel,
"which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."
So what do we see here?
We see Jeroboam is trying to come up with a solution
to retain people within his nation.
And he's saying, hey, you can worship God, here they are.
These golden calves, these idols here,
they're the ones that brought you out of the land of Egypt.
What is he doing?
He's mixing God's religion with paganism,
providing Israel with an alternative to worshiping God,
an alternative that's mixed with paganism.
Verse 29 says, "And he set the one in Bethel,
"and the other he put in Dan."
So this is a very strategic move for Jeroboam.
He said, why is that?
Well, because he's setting up the idol
that it's clearly something that is against the Bible,
but he's setting it up where?
In Bethel, which geographically
is a very notable place for the people of God,
because Bethel means what?
The house of God.
So in order to kind of gain credibility
in the eyes of the people,
he's like, we gotta put this idol in Bethel
because people are associating Bethel with the house of God,
and therefore they're gonna think
this is the place where we ought to worship,
'cause it's called Bethel.
He says in verse 30, "And this thing became a sin,
"for the people went to worship before the one,
"even unto them."
And this is kind of similar to what we see
with the Roman Catholic Church, is it not?
Why, because it's centralized location is in Rome.
And Rome is essentially the place
where maybe historical people have said that Peter,
the apostle Peter, might've pastored a church there.
And so if they could use that geographical location
and say, well, this is where the apostles were,
this is where the apostle Paul was at,
this is where a lot of the work was done,
this is where Christianity began,
this is essentially the cradle of Christianity here,
you know, you guys should come and worship here, okay?
Now, what does he begin to do?
Look at verse 31, and he made a house of high places
and made priests of the lowest of the people,
which were not of the sons of Levi.
So aside from the fact that he is committing
gross idolatry, he's situating it
in a geographical location that people are associating
with biblical religion, he's also ordaining priests,
these spiritual leaders, who are not sanctioned
for the office, because he's ordaining these men,
these of the lowest of the people,
these wicked individuals who are not qualified,
they're not of the house of Levi, to become priests, right?
You say, well, how is this tied into Roman Catholicism?
Well, today, Roman Catholicism has ordained priests, right?
These so-called men of God, these are the priests
of the Roman Catholic Church,
but they're not sanctioned to be leaders in the house of God.
They're not sanctioned to be called father, right?
But this is the title that they give to themselves.
Why? Because of the fact that they are mixing
God's religion with paganism.
Verse 32 says, "And Jeroboam ordained a feast
in the eighth month, and on the fifteenth day of the month,
likened to the feast that is in Judah,
and he offered upon the altar.
So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calf
that he had made, and he placed in Bethel
the priest of the high places which he had made."
So aside from the fact that he is creating these idols,
placing them in Bethel, in the house of God,
he's ordaining priests that are not sanctioned
to be priests of the lowest of the people,
he's also creating new holidays as well, right?
According to verse 32 and verse 33.
What are we looking at here?
This is a foreshadowing of the Roman Catholic Church.
'Cause that's exactly what they did, you know?
Oh, man, there you go again.
What do you mean, call no man father?
What do you call your father, dad?
But you know what, even if I decided to call him father,
it would still be more biblical
than what you call the guy in the dress
at the Roman Catholic Church.
Because when Jesus Christ gave the commandment
to call no man father, it's referring to people
who are in spiritual positions of leadership.
Don't call them Pope, don't call them Papa,
don't call them father, why?
It's an unbiblical thing to do.
And I always find it interesting
when Catholics criticize Christians
for what the Bible says, that you should call no man father.
And it's like they're arguing against the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, what are you trying to say?
What do you mean what I'm trying to say?
It's what Jesus said.
I quote Jesus and then you're contradicting Jesus.
So it's important for us to realize
that what we see here with the Roman Catholic Church
was foreshadowed with Jeroboam
in the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
Jeroboam essentially created this adaptation
of the true religion of Israel that was mainly pagan.
And just as Jeroboam degraded the religion of Israel
by creating this corrupted adaptation with false gods,
replacing the God of the Bible, their own feast practices,
and even their own variation of priesthood,
that's exactly what the Roman Catholic Church
has done today.
The Roman Catholic Church is no stranger
to infusing paganism of the heathen
and integrated it into their own church and practices
and rebranding it Christianity.
She said, "Oh really, give me an example."
Okay, Mexico, because when the Roman Catholic Church
went to Mexico, who was there?
The pagan Aztecs, right?
The pagan Aztecs were there,
the indigenous people were there,
they were worshiping false gods, they were heathen,
they were pagan, and the Roman Catholic Church,
when they conquered them in 1500,
they essentially integrated their form of Christianity,
quote unquote, with their paganism.
And they compromised many of the biblical doctrines
of the faith in order to integrate these Mexicans
into Catholicism.
Basically saying, "Oh, you worship, you know, Tatsin,
that's okay, you know, Tatsin's actually Mary,
who's the mother of God."
'Cause literally that's exactly what they did.
In fact, when you research this and see what historians
have said regarding the false goddess known as Tatsin,
with Mary they say Mexicans, indigenous people
virtually see them as being the same exact thing.
There's like no difference between the two.
So the indigenous people obviously had deep pagan roots
worshiping false gods like Quetzalcoatl
and Tonanstein is actually the name
of their false mother goddess.
And instead of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ,
Rome simply amalgamated the two and created Catholicism.
Tonanstein was replaced with the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The ancient feast and rituals were simply Christianized,
so to speak, creating this hybrid religion.
Go to 2nd Kings chapter 17, if you would.
2nd Kings chapter 17.
Oh, you proddy.
You bunch of proddies.
Heresy detected, proddy rejected.
Bunch of proddies, yeah.
When did your church start?
2017?
Yeah, but ours started way back when.
Yeah, Satan's pretty old too.
Satan was in the Garden of Eden.
Does that make him a legit, you know, Cain was the first false religion and he's older
than the Roman Catholic Church.
Does it make him right?
How long has your church been, well, you know, my church has been around since 2017 and we
still got more things right than you and you've had 2000 years.
So why can't you get it in 2000 years?
We've got it in like eight, eight years, going on nine years and you still can't seem to
get it right.
Oh man, you got a bunch of Protestants and let me just clarify something.
I'm not a Protestant.
I'm an independent fundamental Baptist.
I'm a rejectionist.
I'm not protesting the Catholic.
I'm rejecting the Roman Catholic Church.
I don't believe the Roman Catholic Church started good and became bad.
I believe it was always bad.
It was always pagan.
It was always wicked.
It's always been a bastardization of Christianity.
There's some apostate Christian from the first century that became apostate, was reprobate
and created the Roman Catholic Church.
That's what it is.
I don't believe that it's just a bunch of good Christians that somehow veered off the
path and then, you know, you know, that's how Roman Catholicism was and they just got
off the path.
No, I think it was just absolute unsafe people who came up with this stuff.
Okay.
Yeah, but you know what?
We're not for the Catholic conquest.
You know, you're criticizing Catholicism for bringing Catholicism to the indigenous people
of Mexico, you know, but we brought morality to them.
We improved their society.
If not, they would have been steeped in deep paganism, you know, we brought Christianity
to them.
Yeah, but here's the thing.
You brought a bastardization of Christianity to them.
You didn't bring true biblical Christianity to them.
And let me just be quite frank with you.
Let me be real honest with you.
Catholicism, in my opinion, was a punishment to the pagans in Mexico because, you know,
instead of receiving true biblical Christianity, they're essentially given a degraded version
of it.
You know, just like when Prince wanted to find God, he became a Jehovah's Witness, that
was like a punishment to him.
Right?
So in one manner, I believe the punishment that Mexico got, the indigenous people of
Mexico for their pagan, heathenistic worship, the rejection of the light that was in them,
he gave them Roman Catholicism and made them think it was true biblical Christianity.
It was a delusion.
Look at 2 Kings chapter 17 and verse 27 says, then the king of Assyria commanded saying,
by the way, is there a clock here?
There's a glare.
So I'm just going to keep going until the glare goes away.
Then the king of Assyria commanded saying, Terry Fither, one of the priests, when he
brought from thence and let them go and dwell there, and let them teach them the manner of
God of the Lamb.
Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel
and taught them how they should fear the Lord.
So you know, you have these priests of the lowest of the people, those who are not sanctioned
to become priests, to take this position of authority and they're being placed into Samaria
in order to teach the people how to fear God.
You know, it's like these priests, these Catholics who came to Mexico to teach the Pagans, the
indigenous people, how to fear God.
How be it, every nation made gods of their own and put them in the houses of the high
places which the Samaritans had made, and every nation in their cities wherein they
dwell.
And the men of Babylon made Sukkot Benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of
Hamath made Ashaimah, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt
their children in the fire, to Adramalek and Anamalek, the gods of Sepharvaim.
So they feared the Lord and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high
places which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.
Oh, well, what Catholicism did to Mexico was simply introduce the God of the Bible.
Then why are they still idolaters?
I'll tell you why, because it's simply a mixture of both.
It's exactly what we see here in Second Kings, Chapter 17.
Look at verse 33.
He says, "They feared the Lord."
Oh, I see, pastors, it's not all bad.
They feared the Lord.
You know, some of these indigenous people
probably actually believed in God.
They probably feared God.
Catholicism did some good.
They feared the Lord and served their own gods
after the manner of the nations
whom they carried away from thence.
Unto this day, they do after the former manners.
I want you to notice this, they fear not the Lord.
Neither do they after their statutes
or after their ordinances or after the law and commandments
which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob
whom he named Israel.
So before you start saying, "Oh no, they're fearing God."
Well, in God's assessment, they don't fear God.
Why? Because if you claim to believe in the God of the Bible
but you worship false gods, you don't really fear God.
Now, do you?
And this is exactly what we see with Mexico.
You see, the reality is this folks,
is that when biblical Christianity comes to a nation,
it improves it drastically.
Christianity is good for nations.
The laws of God, the unadulterated laws of God,
Bible-believing churches,
churches that preach the word of God,
that bring the gospel of Jesus Christ,
the true gospel improves every nation,
spiritually, morally, it's all intertwined, right?
People's souls are saved.
The laws of God benefit the citizens of that nation.
God blesses that nation.
And that's why America has been blessed,
because America started off as a Christian nation.
It was established by Christians in Christian principles.
Protestants were the ones who were here, right?
And you know, a lot of times Catholics are just like,
you know, they don't want to really own up to that.
They hate to admit that.
And sometimes they'll even say,
yeah, yeah, you guys were like the first ones,
but look at the mess we're in now though.
Because of you Protestants that the mess we're in.
Oh, oh, oh.
So let's go ahead and talk about Mexico then.
'Cause Mexico is predominantly Catholic since the 1500s.
And how's that worked out?
Now, how moral has Mexico been since the Catholic reign?
Yeah, not a good argument there.
Catholicism has not improved Mexico.
Folks, Mexico is super wicked.
I mean, literally, one of the worst things
that could ever happen to Mexico just happened.
You say, what is that?
They got a woman president.
It's the worst thing that could ever happen.
When a woman rules over a man or a nation,
that's the worst possible thing that could happen.
She's a Jew, aside from the fact that she's a female
who has no place ruling over men, ruling over a nation,
which according to Isaiah chapter three,
is an indication that God has cursed that nation
when women rule over them.
That's what the Bible says.
So what happened with Mexico with all this Catholicism
and the reign of Catholicism?
Oh, they get a woman president.
And just to add a cherry on top, she's a Jew.
You know, Catholic is like,
"Oh, we're the ones who introduced replacement theology."
No, bro, Mexico's got a female Jew as a president.
You guys got no place to talk, okay?
Now look, obviously we got a lot of Judaizers, you know,
in America who are the rulers.
But, you know, thank God we don't have a female yet.
And once the female is elected,
then I'll take the sermon down, not really, okay?
But here's the thing, folks,
is that Mexico has been predominantly Catholic,
and yet they have not gotten better.
It is a cesspool of crime and sin,
and they are a curse of the Lord.
Now, thankfully, Mexico has become less Catholic
over the last 20 years.
You know, in general, Mexico has been about 98% Catholic,
believe it or not.
But then, within the last 20 years,
it's dropped to about 77%,
which is not a lot, but it is kind of a lot, you know?
Because of the fact that, obviously,
fundamental Baptist churches have been started there.
You have Kevin Nguyen out there.
Kevin Nguyen, who is pastoring a fundamental Baptist church,
winning tons of people to Christ.
This is the guy who smashed the Virgin Mary statue
on his platform, and the Santa Muerte, you know,
and just doing great works there.
And you know, not just him, but other Baptist churches,
other Protestants have been preaching the gospel there.
You know, that's brought the numbers down a little bit, right?
And so thank God for that.
And this kind of shows us that, you know what,
we can make an impact in this world.
We can make a significant impact.
And quite frankly, let me just be real honest with you.
Let me give you a reality check if you are discouraged
because of the Catholics online.
'Cause look, if you are online for any length of time,
you might run into Catholics,
and I'll be honest with you, they're insufferable.
They're some of the most insufferable people
you'll ever meet online.
They're stubborn, they're insufferable.
It's just like they're blinded,
and you just wanna smack 'em.
Just grab 'em and wake 'em up.
'Cause it's so stubborn
and a lot of them are just liars too.
But let me just tell you this though,
is that the Catholic at the door
is different from the Catholic online.
I'll be honest with you,
there's like two different animals, okay?
So how do you know?
'Cause I knock on doors.
You knock on doors.
When I'm out there in California knocking on doors,
I run into, the vast majority of people
that our church wins to Christ are Catholics.
We'll get some nom denominers every once in a while.
But you know what?
If I had a decision,
if I had a choice between witnessing to a non-denom
or a Catholic, give me the Catholic.
If you give me a choice between a Pentecostal
and a Catholic, give me the Catholic.
If you gave me a Jehovah's Witness for Mormon,
give me the Catholic.
'Cause a lot of the times the Catholic
will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
And quite frankly, I'll run into Catholics at the door.
I'll knock on doors.
And a lot of them will express
how they're just jaded by the Roman Catholic Church.
They're kind of just tired of it.
And the only reason they attend is because of tradition.
My grandmother was a Catholic,
and this is just what we've always done.
But they will express the fact
that they're very discontent with the Roman Catholic Church.
So you'll run into the Catholics online,
and they're very militant.
They memorize all their apologetic statements
against Protestants and Christianity.
But it's a different story
when you actually run to them at the door.
They're not the same person, okay?
And so don't get discouraged witnessing to Catholics.
Just don't witness to the ones online, okay?
Witness to the ones who are at the door.
And obviously, you know, one of the biggest things
that we did in our church this year
to win a lot of people to Christ was Omi TV.
And let me just put a plug in for Omi TV, homie.
Omi TV is awesome.
That's like, that's the life hack right there.
You know, if you're ever down on your salvations
for the week, just like right there, you know what I mean?
You can get a ton of people saved through Omi TV.
You know, I got my first Greek saved on Omi TV.
In Greek list.
I was just like, I pressed Greek.
I was like, let's just do it.
He was an Orthodox guy, the guy got saved.
And you know, I've witnessed a couple Catholics,
but the majority of Catholics that I've gotten saved
are at the door.
They're very receptive and you know,
they're kind of tired of the Roman Catholic Church.
They're tired of the nonsense.
They see the hypocrisy.
They recognize how vastly different it is from the Bible
and they'll express that to me.
You know, at a moment's notice, they always tell me like,
yeah, you know, that's always bothered me that like,
you know, that we worship things
or that we worship Mary or how they talk about Mary
or this, that and the other.
And so it makes them receptive
to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So don't, don't misunderstand the sermon tonight.
I don't hate Catholics.
I love Catholics.
I was a former Catholic.
I'm sure there's a lot of former Catholics in here tonight,
but I hate Roman Catholicism though.
And the main reason why I hate Roman Catholicism
is because it's sent millions and millions
and millions of people to hell.
And you know, there's a lot of, you know,
well-meaning people who are just deceived in Catholicism
who will die and go to hell because they wanna be loyal
to the Roman Catholic Church.
And so we want to make sure
that we stop this reign of error of Catholicism,
not just here, but even abroad, okay?
So let me give you a couple points this evening
regarding Catholicism's reign of error.
And of course, a lot of this stuff you already,
go to First John chapter two,
First John chapter two, if you would.
First John chapter two.
And those are the missions conference,
but I just want to inspire you to win Mexicans to Christ.
I want to inspire you, maybe you've been learning Spanish
and you got off track this year to get back on track,
to learn some Spanish, to win people to Christ.
I can get a little discouraging sometimes.
You're like, man, I was doing so well,
just learning Spanish.
And I had this goal by the end of the year
to win a Spanish speaker to the Lord.
And I just kind of fell off.
Well, hit the reset button today, right?
And say, you know what, I'm gonna, 2026,
I'm gonna start it again,
because I wanna win some Mexicans to Christ.
I wanna be able to cross the border,
go into TJ, go into Sonora,
go into these areas of Mexico to win people to Christ.
It's a great thing to do.
So let's talk about Catholicism's reign of error in Mexico.
First and foremost, let's talk about the error,
excuse me, the error of the Magisterium.
And I got three points tonight,
the Magisterium, the Mass, and Marian dogma.
Point number one is the error of the Magisterium.
What am I talking about?
The Magisterium claims,
which is part of the Roman Catholic Church,
it's a belief that claims that the authority
to interpret God's word
is only for the Roman Catholic Church.
So in order for us to understand the Bible,
in order for us to understand the interpretation
of scripture, we gotta go through the Roman Catholic Church.
This is one of the reasons why Catholics in Mexico,
sometimes they don't listen to Christians,
they're not open to the gospel.
I'll tell you why, because they're like,
well, I gotta see what the priest has to say about this.
I gotta see what the Roman Catholic Church
has to say about this.
This is their belief that in order for us to understand
the interpretation of the scriptures,
we need to go to the Roman Catholic Church.
But folks, let me just remind you that the Bible says
that the natural man receive it,
not the things of the spirit of God,
neither can he know them, their foolishness of them,
and the Bible says that they're spiritually disarmed.
Meaning that Roman Catholics can't understand the Bible.
Can they memorize information for the Bible?
Of course, can they memorize names of the Bible?
Yes, but they can't memorize the spiritual truths
of the Bible.
They don't know what the word of God actually says.
And look, I've seen apologists,
Catholic apologists online, wax eloquent,
and just destroy Protestants.
But when the subject comes up, salvation comes up,
it's just like, I don't really know.
A style master of Israel knows not these things?
How is it that you claim to be the source
and the authority of Bible interpretation,
but you don't even know how to be saved?
You don't even know if you're saved.
I'll tell you why, because the Roman Catholic Church
is notorious for corrupting the scriptures, that's why.
And you know what, the Roman Catholic Church
is a major gaslighting institution.
You know, for years, everyone has understood
that the Roman Catholic Church was responsible
for keeping the Bible from the people.
Burning people out of the states for translation,
no, we didn't burn anybody out of the state
for translating, we translated the Bible.
That's such a big lie from the Protestants.
We burn people out of the states for being heretics.
But what are they referring to?
They're referring to Christians.
And it's just like, oh, okay,
can you show me a New Testament verse?
When the Bible says to burn heretics.
I thought we were just supposed to reject them,
walk away from them.
Am I not, like the Greek text, does it say,
when it says like to reject,
does that mean burn them at the stake?
Help me out here, Magisterium.
They're like, oh no, these guys are lying.
We didn't keep the Bible from the people.
We just burned people and persecuted people
who were translating the Bible
because they were teaching heresy.
And of course, their heresy that they're referring to
is what the Bible actually says.
But let's just say, for example,
that they were burning people at the stake
for teaching damnable heresy, okay?
That's still wrong because the New Testament,
nowhere in the Bible does it give the authority
to Christians to burn, kill people,
persecute people for teaching false doctrine, right?
No one has the authority to hurt someone
just because they don't believe what the Bible says.
Doesn't exist in the Bible.
The Bible teaches us not to cast our pearls before swine.
The Bible teaches us to avoid foolish questions,
endless genealogies.
It says to reject the heretics
after the first and second admonition.
It says to walk away from them.
It says to cast them out of the church
if they're not willing to repent.
But it never says to burn them at the stake.
This is this gaslighting ideology and doctrine
that the Roman Catholics are constantly putting forth
to essentially hide the fact that, yes, they
did persecute Bible-believing Christians for translating
the Bible, withholding the Word of God,
chaining it to the pulpit so no one gets access to it.
And I've talked to a lot of Catholics.
I'm talking to you about my experience
with Catholics online.
Because I've heard a lot of their arguments and whatnot.
And they'll say, well, what gives you?
What makes you think?
What gives you the authority to know the Bible?
And I'm like, well, what gives you the authority?
How do you know you know the Bible?
And he's just like, well, because, you know,
because this is the church that Christ started.
What do you-- where?
You know?
And then they'll have to respond with this.
Well, we gave you the Bible, right?
How many of you heard that before?
They're like, oh, yeah, you proddies.
We gave you the Bible.
Then why did you leave Catholic out of it?
Why isn't the term Catholic ever found?
Why isn't Purgatory ever found?
Why is, like, the major doctrines of the Catholic faith,
why is it that none of them are in the Bible?
I'll tell you why.
Because Catholics didn't write the Bible.
And if they did, they did a horrible job.
Because none of it mentions Roman Catholicism whatsoever, OK?
Well, it gives you the authority.
God gives me the authority.
The fact that I'm saved gives me the authority, OK?
You're in 1 John.
I'm going to read to you from Matthew 22, verse 29.
It says, "Jesus answered and said unto them,
Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures,
nor the power of God."
And when I think of the Roman Catholic Church,
I think of Luke chapter 11, verse 52, that says,
"Woe unto you, lawyers, for ye have taken away
the key of knowledge.
Ye enter not in yourselves.
And them that were entering in, ye hindered."
Meaning that they're taking away
the interpretation of the Bible,
and people who are receptive to the gospel,
they're hindering them from going into the kingdom of God.
And you know what, that can be said of today,
because there's plenty of Gen Zers
who are open to the gospel, they're open to the truth,
but they're being carried away with Catholicism.
A lot of Gen Zers are like that right now.
Tons of them.
They're either going the Catholic route
or the Orthodox route.
And you know, I get this in my comment section all the time.
Oh man, be Catholic, come home.
What do you mean come home?
What is that?
This is Instagram.
This is a comment section.
I'm, I am home.
What is this nonsense?
You know, they want to sound so mystical.
Come home.
No, 'cause I don't dwell in hell.
I don't dwell in perdition.
My home is not, you know,
this den of idolatry and iniquity.
That's not where I belong.
I came out from among them.
What concord hath Christ with Belial?
What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
I can't be what you are.
And look, I know I'm attracting a lot of Catholics right now on
Instagram because of the Israel stuff,
but they need to get right with God and get saved.
They need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's funny how they want to criticize me
for not knowing the Bible,
yet they're on my Instagram learning the Bible.
That's funny.
How embarrassing for a Catholic to go on my Instagram
to learn Bible doctrine from a proddy, shameful.
And you know, a lot of times they'll come up and they'll say,
oh, you know what, this is a great video,
but this is the problem with Protestants.
So many interpretations, you know,
then why are you here learning from me?
Isn't this like a shameful thing for you?
Aren't you the authority?
Why are you as the authority learning from me?
I'll tell you why, 'cause you're not saved.
You don't know the Bible.
You need saved people to teach you the Bible.
And look folks, don't come at me with,
oh, they just believe in Jesus,
but they're just off in other areas.
Look, when it comes to salvation,
you can't even be off a little bit.
You need to be spot on, you know,
and we need to stop blurring the lines
of what Christianity is.
Christianity is a reflection
of what the Bible actually says.
Roman Catholicism is not Christianity.
Orthodoxy is not Christianity.
And if a Christian who comes to a Bible-believing church
like this leaves our church to become a Roman Catholic,
that's called an apostate.
That's called a person who believed in vain.
That's called a person who has denied the doctrines of Christ.
They transgress the doctrines of Christ.
Roll into you lawyers, the Bible says.
Why, 'cause your job is to take away the key of knowledge
and hinder those who want to go in.
And you know what, it's vexing to me as a Christian
to see that with young people.
Last year, I was going at it with the Catholics 24/7
and it just vexed my righteous soul from day to day.
Seeing these young men who are so sick and tired
of all the feminism and all the liberalism
and all the nonsense and all the sin in this culture
and be turned to Roman Catholicism.
But you know what, just as Roman Catholicism
was a punishment to the indigenous,
it's probably a punishment to them too.
Because quite honestly, if you're truly looking
for the truth, you'll come to what the Bible actually says.
So how do you know?
Right here baby, I came to the truth.
That's why I'm a fundamental Baptist.
That's why I believe the Bible.
That's why you're here.
You know why?
'Cause you sought the truth and you found the truth.
It's a punishment to discover delusion
rather than the real thing.
Bible says in John 16, we're gonna go to 1 John 2,
don't worry.
John 16 verse 13 says,
"Howbeit when he the spirit of truth has come,
"he will guide you into all truth."
No magisterium needed.
"For he shall not speak of himself,
"but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak,
"and he will show you things to come."
And let me just remind you
that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ today,
you have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within you,
and whom you also trusted after that,
you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,
and whom also after that you believed,
you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
You know what the Bible calls that?
The spirit of truth that dwells within you.
He's the one who teaches us the word of God
when we open up the scriptures.
Open down my eyes that I may behold wondrous things
out of thy law.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to guide us
into all truths of the scriptures.
We don't need no magisteria.
I don't need a dude in a dress
to teach me what the Bible says.
I don't need to eat a wafer to know what the Bible says.
I don't need to congregate with the Roman Catholic church
to know what the Bible says.
I have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within me
according to the Bible.
Who gave you the authority?
Well, how about the fact that the authority lives in me?
Look at 1 John chapter two, verse 26.
These things have I written unto you
concerning them that seduce you.
Referring to people who are deceiving others, right?
Seducing people with heresy, with false doctrine.
He says verse 27, but the anointing which he have received
of him abideth in you,
and ye need not that any man teach you.
What did that, how can we interpret this?
No Magisterium needed.
You need not that any man teach you,
but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things,
and is truth, and is no lie,
and even as it hath taught you,
ye shall abide in him, the Bible says.
Well then how do you explain all these other denominations
and why, you know, they're involved in heresies?
'Cause they're wrong.
They're wrong, that's why, that's it.
Next question, what else do you want me to say?
They're just wrong.
They're obviously not teaching what the Bible says.
If they're wrong on salvation, it's just wrong.
What makes you right and him wrong?
Well, how about the fact that the spirit bears witness
with my spirit, right, with his spirit.
How about the fact that it just clearly says that
in the Bible.
How about the fact that we could search the scriptures
to see if these things are so.
How about the fact that we can study
to show ourselves to prove them to God.
How about the fact that we have the spirit of God
dwelling within us and we can learn what the Bible says.
And obviously there's certain things in the scriptures
that require a little more study, right?
But when it comes to the essentials of the faith,
you know, the most newest of Christians
can understand salvation, right?
No, you need the Magisterium to be able to like
interpret the scriptures correctly.
You know, that hasn't worked for the Roman Catholic Church.
So how do you know?
'Cause we win Mexicans to Christ every month.
That's proof.
I go to a Mexican in Mexico.
I say, are you 100% sure that if you die today,
you go to heaven?
He tells me no, you know what that tells me?
Oh, his Magisterium isn't working very well.
His Magisterium got it wrong.
And if they tell me yes, and I ask them,
oh, what do you have to do to be saved?
Be a good person.
Oh, his Magisterium got it wrong.
Don't know what he's talking about.
And then when they actually believe what the Bible says,
and a lot of the times when we talk to these Mexicans,
and they get saved, we often tell them like,
hey, you understand now that Roman Catholicism
was leading you astray.
Like you understand that what they taught you was wrong.
And they're just like, yes,
because I've never heard this before.
Oh yeah, you're so bold.
Why don't you get on the podium and debate?
Why am I gonna debate people
who have already rejected the truth?
I'm commanding not to cast my pearls before swine.
So by debating a person who has clearly rejected the truth,
I'd be disobeying the Bible,
'cause the Bible tells me not to cast
that which is holy to the dogs.
I'd rather just go for the fish that are biting me, man.
What am I talking about today?
I'm talking about Catholicism's reign of error in Mexico.
The first thing is the Magisterium,
their interpretation of the scriptures.
They claim to be the source of all authority
of the interpretation of the Bible,
but they don't even know the Bible.
They don't know what the Bible says.
They can't verbalize salvation.
They don't know what's gonna happen when they die.
And quite frankly, folks, it's sad.
There's millions and millions of people in hell today who thought they were going
to heaven because they were Roman Catholic and you know what?
They got a reality check and they're there forever.
Why are you so hard on the Catholics?
Because there's millions of people in hell because of Catholicism.
That's why I go to John chapter six. If you would, John chapter six.
Can I get a water? Is there a water here somewhere?
Let's check out the drawer real quick. Recola glasses, batteries,
Catholicism's reign of error. Number one is magisterium.
Number two is the error of the mass.
Now when you actually talk to a Catholic that knows what he's talking about,
as far as like what he believes about Catholicism,
they believe that the gospel is the mass. They'll say, in order to be saved,
you have to participate in the mass.
And this is one of the reasons why they will often say there's no salvation
outside of the Catholic church, because in their mind, in order to be saved,
they have to be, or they have to participate in the mass that's found in the
local, in their Roman Catholic church. Okay. And what am I referring to the mass?
I'm referring to participating in the Eucharist, eating the wafer,
drinking the alcohol. Thank you. The wafer drinking alcohol.
They believe that's how they receive salvation. Now, you know,
as a brand new Christian, you hear that. You're like, what?
Eating a wafer and drinking alcohol gets you saved. That's stupid, huh?
And you know, you know why it sounds stupid? Cause it is stupid. Oh,
didn't say that about, you know, the Lord's Supper. Oh,
I'm not talking about the Lord's Supper. I'm not talking about communion.
I'm talking about the Eucharist,
what Catholics render as the Eucharist or their Lord's Supper, their communion,
you know, they believe that this is how they receive salvation.
And they essentially believe that once they take the bread and the wine,
alcoholic wine at that that through his,
through this mystical transformation known as transubstantiation,
it becomes the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. And you know,
this is essentially cannibalism, right? They hate when you call it that,
but that's, that's what it is. Okay. And let me just remind you,
the Bible says that meat commended us not to God for neither if we eat,
are we the better? Neither. If we not, are we the worst? Understand? And so,
you know, taking the Eucharist, doesn't make you better or worse.
It's just, it doesn't do anything to you.
Just like circumcision doesn't do anything to you.
Doesn't mean anything to you spiritually. Now let's look at John chapter six,
because this is what they'll use to try to prove their false doctrine of
transubstantiation. Let's look at verse 47, get some context here.
Because verily, verily saying to you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
Now it's always good to read things in its context, right? When you read verse 47,
like, Oh yeah, that makes sense. That's what John chapter three says.
So John chapter five says, that's what John chapter one says.
That's what virtually the entire New Testament says. But if we believe on him,
we will have everlasting life. Verse 48, I am that bread of life.
Your fathers did eat man in the wilderness and are dead.
This is the bread which coming down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and
not die. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven.
If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.
And the bread that I will give is my flesh,
which I will give for the life of the world.
Now what is Jesus talking about?
He's referring to the fact that he is going to sacrifice himself on the cross to
pay for our sins. When he says here that he's giving his flesh,
he's not referring to the Eucharist. And I'll tell you why,
because the Eucharist wasn't or the Lord's supper was not instituted until
Matthew chapter 26, long after this was taking place here in John chapter six.
When he says I'm going to give my flesh for people to have everlasting life,
he expects people to understand that the parallel passage,
if you believe on him, you'll have everlasting life.
You're essentially believing in the sacrifice that he made for you, right?
That he paid for your sins for his temple. First verse 52,
the Jews thereof show up among themselves saying,
how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And by the way, you know, uh,
Catholics just basically took the baton from these unsaved Jews.
The Catholics are today are basically the Pharisees of yesteryear. Okay.
Verse 53, then Jesus said unto them, barely, barely saying to you,
except he eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood.
We have no life in you who so eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood,
hath eternal life. And I will raise them up in the lab at the last day for my
flesh is meat indeed. And my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me.
And I am I in him.
So these are the passages that Roman Catholics often use to try to teach this
false doctrine of transubstantiation,
asserting what Jesus is saying here is that when you eat the bread,
it becomes the flesh of Jesus Christ. When you drink the wine,
it becomes the blood of Jesus Christ. And they believe that this passage is
explicitly teaching that now we obviously know that this is a hundred percent
false. Okay.
The result of eating his flesh and drinking his blood according to 54 verse 54
is eternal life and being raised up in the last day, right?
Cause he says here that you'll in verse 54, that if you eat his flesh,
drink his blood,
you'll have eternal life and you'll be raised up in the last day.
That's an important part of the verse right there. You say why?
We'll look at verse 40 because verse 40 gives them some clarification. It says,
this is the will of him that sent me that everyone would see the sun and believe
it on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day.
So verse 40 or should we say verse 54 can be interpreted through verse 40.
So when he says here, Hey, if you eat my flesh and drink my blood,
we can use verse 40 to interpret that to me. Oh, that means believe on him. Why?
Because Jesus Christ is sacrificing his flesh to pay for our sins and without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sense. Or you're cherry picking.
No cherry picking is when you take verses 53, 54, 55, 56,
and say, this is all that the Bible's teaching here.
Why don't you use the entire chapter instead?
Jesus is explaining here that this is spiritual,
not literal when he says eat and drink.
He's describing faith appropriation of his sacrifice,
right? Just as bread and water sustains the body, faith in Christ.
And Christ's death and resurrection sustains the soul eternally.
Now look at verse 63, if you would, verse 63.
This is essentially the coup de grace for this passage. It says in verse 63,
it is the spirit that quicken it. The flesh prophet is nothing.
The words that I speak into you, they are spirit and they are life.
Let me interpret it for you.
This is a spiritual thing that I'm talking about here.
The flesh prophet is nothing. That verse alone destroys Catholicism's
literal interpretation. Christ was not invited them to cannibalize his body,
but to trust holy in his sacrifice for salvation. And again,
John six occurs before the last supper had been even instituted later on in
Matthew chapter 26. There was no Eucharist back then. Okay.
You know, to read communion back into the texts is chronological nonsense,
right?
It's anachronistic to say that this is when Christ instituted the Lord's
supper. Cause that wasn't instituted then. And in fact,
we have various times thereafter where he explicitly says Lazarus believed on
him though he were dead, yet shall he live.
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. And he didn't say,
by the way, he ate my flesh and drink my blood.
And by the way, you got to make sure you eat my flesh and drink my blood,
right? This is before the Lord's supper being instituted. And you know,
they were offended precisely because they were thinking in fleshly terms,
just as Catholics do today. A lot of people are just like, Oh,
this is too much for us. Well, it's because you're listening to the magisterium.
That's why. Okay. You're getting it wrong. Don't turn with me. If you would go to
Matthew chapter 13, Matthew chapter 13.
We're talking about Catholicism's reign of error in Mexico,
the reign of error when it comes to the magisterium,
the reign of error when it comes to the mass.
We know that in order to be saved,
all we have to do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
place our faith exclusively upon him, recognize that his death and his
resurrection is sufficient to save not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy,
he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
Right. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of worse than any man should boast.
Over and over again, the Bible reiterates this concept clearly,
explicitly so that no one is confused about salvation.
Okay. Here's number three. And that is the area, the era of Marian dogma.
Okay. And in Mexico, you know,
prior to the Roman Catholic Inquisition and the conquest that they had there,
Tonantin was replaced.
Tonantin was the mother goddess of Mexico and was eventually replaced by the
Virgin of Guadalupe. And of course, you know,
the Roman Catholic Church is known for their Mariology, their worship of Mary.
Now the funny thing is, okay, that when you talk to Catholics online, they're like,
Oh, we don't worship Mary. We venerate her. And it's like, it's the same thing.
Okay. No veneration. That's the same as worship.
And it's just like corporate wants you to make, you know,
tell the difference between worship and Mary's is like, they're the same thing.
You know, biblically speaking, they're the same thing. Now for ages,
Christians have rebuked and corrected Catholics on this doctrine because their
worship of Mary is just flat out just embarrassing. It's so shameful.
It's so disgusting. It's so idolatrous. I mean, it's, it's crazy.
Like they literally call her the queen of heaven,
which is the phrase that you see in the Bible when dealing with the false God.
And he's like, no,
she's the queen of heaven because in order to go to the site and it's just this
gross idolatry of the Virgin Mary. And then, you know, they'll say, no,
no, we're not worshiping her. We are just venerating her. You proddies this,
you proddies that. But the Pope literally came out this week. Okay.
How many know what I'm talking about? The Pope literally came out this week,
you know,
clarifying and essentially telling Catholics to no longer use the term co-
redemptrix or co-mediator. Now he's speaking outside of ex-cathedra or whatever.
So he's not, he can't, he can't, this is not infallible,
but he is their authority and he's saying, Hey, we don't want to use this
because too many people are getting confused by this, you know,
and it's just like, so we don't want to take co-redemptrix because you know,
you know, Jesus Christ is actually the redeemer. She didn't redeem us.
And you know, Jesus Christ is the only mediator and you know,
she's not a mediator and all of these Protestants who bow down to the Roman
Catholic church is like, yeah, it's just like, bro,
we've been saying this this whole time. Why are you like praising this, this,
this, this cunning move. It's just like the Pope gets up in 2025 and says,
Hey guys, Mary's not the Redeemer. It's just like, duh, bro.
We know, but here's the thing folks, you know, he says this, okay, because,
you know, we've been rebuking Catholics about this for years on end.
And there's people like, Oh yeah, no, he's just trying to clarify here.
You know, he's right. But hold on a second.
There's other Catholics that don't like what he said though. And they're like,
no, she is the co-redemptrix.
And I've seen this over and over on X or they're just in defiance against the
Pope. You know, they're protesting the Pope or whatever, you know,
in defiance of it, they're like, Mary is the co-redemptrix.
He is the co-mediator. And then other Catholics hopping on there. They're like,
Hey, the Pope said not to say this. We're not supposed to use this.
You need to obey the Pope. And they're like, no, no, she's the co, you know,
cause there's such crazy idolaters.
There's such an idolatrous people that don't even care what their own authority
says. They want to keep committing idolatry.
And so you have this schism right now in social media with the Roman Catholics
where these militant Catholics who are just constantly bowing down to Mary are
really mad at the Pope right now for making this statement. Oh, you know,
that's funny. Weren't you the one that was saying that it's just all Protestants
who always have these differences and you know,
that's the problem of Protestantism. You know,
look at all these different denominations, which interpretation,
what are you talking about? You don't even agree with your own Pope.
You're openly shaming him. And you know what?
We don't care if they do that for us is like, let them fight each other,
let them destroy each other, let them eat each other,
let them devour each other alive, pull out the popcorn, eat and laugh.
Because you know what? This isn't,
this isn't Catholicism making a good step back into Christianity because quite
frankly they change the terminology, but they're not changing the practice.
My friends, they can say, Oh, we don't worship Mary.
We're not going to say co-redemptor, ex-co-mediator. That's funny.
Then why are you still doing it then? Why are you still acting like she is?
Why are you still bowing down to her? Why are you still praying to her?
I'll tell you why, because you're an idolater. That's why. And look,
we don't hate on Mary. We think Mary was awesome. Amen. Godly woman.
But you know what? She's a sinner. She was a sinner in need of a savior.
And let me just say this.
If Mary rejected her son, Jesus Christ,
and didn't believe on him for salvation, she would be in hell today.
And that's a fact because God is no respecter of people, my friends.
And you know what? The Roman Catholic church has exalted Mary to an ungodless
pedestal where they worship her and emplace her on the same level as the Lord
Jesus Christ. How? I'll tell you how. How about the immaculate conception, right?
Oh, she was just born sinless. Jesus Christ was born sinless.
For all of sin and come short of the glory of God.
Mary herself called Jesus her savior. Well,
that would make no sense if she was already sinless because she wouldn't need a
savior. How about perpetual virginity?
This teaching that Mary only had Jesus didn't have any other children.
And I would have sucked for Joseph, truly. And let me,
let me just clarify something to you indetermined regarding this,
this nonsensical teaching of perpetual virginity. You know,
they're basically saying that Mary sinned against her husband and actually broke
God's commandments. Cause according to the Bible, you know,
a wife is supposed to render due benevolence to her husband.
And for them to teach, Oh no, she abstained from that. You know,
she only had a Jesus. And after that they never came together all day.
You're basically saying she broke what the Bible says.
She's disobeying the word of God. But look at Matthew 13 verse 55.
It's not this the carpenter's son is not his mother called Mary and his
brethren, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas and his
sisters. Are they not all with us? I mean, man, you know,
it looks like they had a lot of kids after Jesus. I mean, whoever's saying this,
you know, he's naming all the brothers and he's just like, and all the sisters,
you know, it's like a lot of, a lot of siblings. And you know,
Catholics would say, well, brethren is just referring to like, you know,
the kinsmen or something like that. No, he says Mary first referring to the fact
that he's referred to his mom. And then he says brethren,
he specifically names his siblings. And look, Galatians chapter one,
the apostle Paul talks about the Lord's brother, right? He says,
he sees James the Lord's brother. What's the point that I'm making here?
The point that I'm making is that, you know,
Catholicism's reign of error even extends into
the false doctrine of Mariology. The assumption of Mary,
the fact that they believe that Mary was resurrected,
you know, sinless or in a glorified state, should I say.
She was raised in a glorified state, but this actually contradicts
the chronology of resurrection in the Bible, because it talks about Jesus
Christ being the firstfruits, then they which are his that is coming,
meaning that Jesus Christ is the only person who has been raised from the dead
in a glorified state, and nobody else has been raised thereafter in a glorified state
until the rapture takes place. Okay, I'm pretty much done, go with me if you would to
turn to second Timothy chapter two, second Timothy chapter two, what's the point that I'm making,
I'm just kind of reminding you of the false heretical nonsensical doctrines of the Roman
Catholic Church, and their reign over Mexico with erroneous teachings, and how it just absolutely
destroyed people for years on end, and you know when the Roman Catholic Church went to Mexico,
they went in a conquest of souls, they forced people to convert with the sword, they forced
people into baptism against their will, they didn't believe in Roman Catholicism, but they
subjected them and forced them to become Catholic by the sword, well you and I in like manner need
to go to the Mexicans with the sword, not a physical one but with the sword of the word of
God, and you know what we don't need to force anybody to be saved, we need to compel them to
be saved, we need to implore them and beg them to be saved, show them what the Bible says and win
them to Christ, look at 2nd Timothy chapter 2 and verse 24 says the servant of the Lord must not
strive but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach patience and meekness instructing those that oppose
themselves if God for eventual would give them the repentance to the acknowledging of the truth
and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him
at his will you know what we're doing when we go to Mexico we're giving people the gospel
you know I'm preaching the gospel to these people when I'm there and I'm looking them straight in
the eyes and I'm just begging God in my heart please please help this person to recover themselves
out of the snare of Catholicism out of the snare of false religion out of the snare of these false
ideologies that's going to take them to hell and you know it's it's a spiritual battle sometimes
because you can see it in their face they're just struggling and they're just like you know this is
what I've always believed and this is how I was raised and it's just yeah but it's not what the
Bible says you know this is what the Bible says you have to be saved do you believe it are you
willing to believe it they're just like yeah yeah I believe it and I get it you know their religion
is tied to their cultural identity so it's just like when they forsake when they get saved it's
like forsaking their cultural identity forsaking their family and quite frankly I'm sure a lot of
the people that get saved don't tell their family that they got saved you know for fear of the Jews
right they don't confess them openly for fear of the Catholics why because they're in a predominantly
Catholic area and so you know I hope that you have a burden for Mexicans I know you like their food
some of you like their music many of you like their women hey but you know we ought to love
their souls though we ought to be burdened to reach Mexicans with the gospel of Jesus Christ
and and bring the sword not force them to convert but you know just beg them to believe in the Lord
Jesus compel them persuade them through the scriptures to be saved let's pray father we
thank you so much for your word and thank you for the power of the gospel that is able to bring
salvation to those who have been blinded by false religion help us as your people to continue this
war that's waging against the roman catholic church and many false religions like it and Lord
I'm not looking to win against roman catholicism looking to win the individual that's lost within
it and I pray father God that you would bless our endeavors as we continue to do so in the coming
year fill us with your spirit Lord and your power to continue to get people saved and to preach the
gospel in Spanish and and press people into the kingdom of God Lord and I pray you give
us a greater burden to do so we love you we thank you pray this seems in Jesus name amen.
Let's turn it over turn over in our handles to song number 407 song number 407 faith of
our fathers song begins faith of our fathers living still against the fight of the dungeon
fire and storm song number 407 faith of our fathers