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Man, Titus chapter 1, I want to begin in verse number 5 where the Bible reads, For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. Title of my sermon tonight is Church Planting, Church Planting. And the Bible here is talking about the area known as Crete, which is an island that's part of Greece. And Crete has a lot of different cities in it. It's not a big island, but yet back then when you don't have cars or trains or buses, obviously things were a little further apart back then. And what God's saying here is that he wanted there to be elders in every city of Crete. You know, not just one church for the whole island of Crete, but rather that there would be elders in every city. Now it sounds like they already had churches in some of these cities, but they just didn't have elders. The thing that was wanting or the thing that was lacking was that they needed to ordain elders in every city as Paul appointed him. He needed to set in order some things that were lacking. He's saying, look, I want to leave you in Crete so that you could make sure that elders are ordained in every city as I had appointed you. This is the will of God, not just for Crete, but also for the entire world. It's God's plan that in every city of Arizona, that there would be churches with ordained elders in them doing the work of God, that all over California, every city would have elders ordained in the churches. Now thankfully, because of technology, because of cars and other modes of transportation, the churches don't have to be placed necessarily as close together. A church could cover a little bit larger of an area just because God has given us more tools and more means to get around. But still, we need a church in every area. We need a church in every city. And not just a church, but a church that has an ordained elder. Now what's the elder? An elder is a pastor or a bishop. Those three words are used interchangeably in the Bible. And it's a man who lives up to certain qualifications that are laid out in scripture. And he's also a man who is a full-time servant of the church. The Bible explains that in the passages on elders. Right here, it says at the end of verse 5, ordained elders in every city as I had appointed thee, if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly, for a bishop must be blameless. So notice that the bishop and the elder are the same guy. Because he said, ordained elders, these are the qualifications. Why? Because the bishop must be blameless. So the elder is the bishop. And as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. You see, today in America and elsewhere in the world, there's a lack of leadership. You see, we need churches. And not only do we need churches, but we need leaders in those churches that will sound the trumpet, not with an uncertain sound, but that will preach in words that are easy to be understood so that God's people might prepare themselves for the battle and be ready to do the work of the Lord. The Bible says, how shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? You see, what that means is that people don't tend to go out and preach the gospel unless someone sends them out to go preach the gospel. Most people aren't just going to be self-motivated enough to get themselves out there and go soul winning. They've got to be sent by the church. Now look, if someone is self-motivated, if somebody's out in some spiritual desert somewhere where there's no church around and they just go out and go, hey, praise God, and I'll take my hat off to that person, but that's an uncommon person. It's not that it's wrong for them to do that. It's that it's not common. I'll tell you this about myself. I love soul winning. I've been soul winning now consistently for the last 19 years, virtually every week, going on two decades, but I'll tell you something. I was not that guy who just motivated myself and got out there and went soul winning. I needed to be sent. I had a burning desire throughout my whole childhood and throughout my teenage years to win souls to Christ, but I never did until I got into a soul winning church and I got sent and I showed up for a soul winning time where we were sent out by the pastor and we were paired up and we went out soul winning. That's when I started winning souls. It's a very rare person indeed that's going to get themselves out soul winning. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from doing that. I'm just being real and the Bible is just being real when he says, look, how are they going to preach except they be sent? We need local churches with a strong leader in order to send the people out to preach the gospel in order to evangelize an area, but not just to evangelize the area. There's more life than just being saved and getting people saved. How about to teach us how to raise our families, how to be married and how to have kids and how to work at our job and how to study our Bibles and pray. Just all the things that God's word teaches us. You know, we need leaders to get up and preach to us and motivate us to exhort us and also to rebuke us and to preach against sin to help us get the sin out of our lives, motivate us to kick us in the rear end, get us moving and get the sin out of our lives. So that's what we need in order for God's work to go forward. We must have the local church and we must have elders, leaders, bishops. We need someone to model the way, to lead the way, to lead the charge, to sound the battle cry. That's what we need today all over America. You see, the problem with America today is a lack of such leaders, a lack of such churches. Everything rises and falls on leadership. You know, all you have to do is read the book of Judges to figure that out. When there's no leader, it falls apart really fast. And then God raises up a leader and things go well. And then the leader's gone and everything falls apart just over and over again. Same thing when you're going through 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles. I mean, that lesson is pounded into you as you read those books. I mean, how can you walk away from those books and not understand that leadership is critical? It's critical in your home. It's critical in the church. It's critical in a nation. We must have leadership. And so this is a very important scripture when it talks about setting in order the things that are wanting and ordaining elders in every city. Now flip over to Acts, Chapter 14. Now when it comes to church planting, because that's what I'm talking about today. You say, well, why do we need church planting when we already have over 6,000 independent fundamental Baptist churches in the United States? What do we need church planting for? Well, the problem is that many of these churches are apostate. And the other problem is that many of the churches that are not apostate, they're just dead. They're just watered down. They're not getting the job done effectively. So we can't just look at those cities and say, oh, well, they already have an independent fundamental Baptist church. Never mind that it's not doing any soul winning. Never mind that the people right across the street from the church are on their way to hell and have never even heard the gospel. You know, never mind that they haven't even knocked the doors even of their own zip code, let alone the whole town or the whole county. You know, we can't just sit there and say, oh, it's covered. They've got an independent fundamental Baptist church there. Well, it needs to be one that's actually doing the job. You know, that's what we need today. And so look down, if you would, at Acts, Chapter 14. Let's look at an example of some elders being ordained in scripture. It says in Acts, Chapter 14, Verse 21, and when they had preached the gospel to that city and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch. Now, these are cities that they had gone through and evangelized and won people to Christ and preached and established churches. And it says in Verse 22, confirming the souls of the disciples. So they're confirming them, they're shoring them up on some things, they're getting them more established and rooted and grounded in the faith and exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must all be raptured before the tribulation. Oh, I'm sorry. It says, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. And when they had ordained them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed. Now here's what I want to point out here that's pretty important in this scripture, is that when they ordain elders in the churches and they pray and they fast, what do they do? They commend them to the Lord on whom they believed. Now here's what's important about that, is that we see a model of churches becoming independent. Okay? You see, commending them unto the Lord. What does it mean to commend someone to something? It's entrusting it. So if I were to commend unto you my most prized possession, I am entrusting it to you. I'm giving it to you for safekeeping, right? That's what it means to commend them unto the Lord. So what it's saying here is that he is commending them unto the Lord saying, all right guys, I'm no longer responsible for you. I'm no longer here guiding you and running things. Now you know what? It's between you and the Lord now. I'm going to commend you unto the Lord. He's the one you believed in. You didn't believe in me. You weren't baptized in the name of Paul. I'm going to commend you unto the Lord upon whom you believed. Okay? The idea is that when a church is founded and that church has an ordained pastor and ordained elder or bishop or one or more that are ordained and they're elders, then it's time at that point to commend them unto the Lord and go start a church somewhere else. Go deal with something else. But we need churches to be independent. Now why is it important that churches are independent? Because if we're all linked together in what's known as a denomination or other type of hierarchy, then the problem is that the whole thing can get corrupted really easily. Okay, so for example, let's say we got together with all of our friends that believe like us and we got a whole bunch of independent fundamental Baptists together and we said, we're going to join up and we're going to form a union, a coalition, a confederacy, a denomination. It's going to be called the faithful word Baptists, all right? And we're all going to join up and be collected together. Well, here's the problem with that. The problem is that if heresy creeps in or if wickedness creeps in, then the whole thing is going to go bad. You know, if everybody's looking to one leader, let's say Pastor Anderson becomes like the pope of this new little denomination or I'm the archbishop or whatever, well then what would happen is what happens if I go liberal? The whole thing's going to go liberal. Oh, how about this? What happens if I die and then my successor's a bozo? The whole thing falls apart, you see what I mean? And so what's better than that is to decentralize power because not only if we're all linked together can the devil just attack one person and then bring it all down and just all that garbage would filter down from the top. Not only that, but then when you put a bunch of power in one person's hands like that, you know what it does? It goes to their head. Look at King David, man after God's own heart, but when he's in power, he starts doing all kinds of crazy things. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. You put a guy in charge of a hundred churches, a thousand churches. I mean there are denominations today that have ten thousand churches, twenty thousand churches, thirty thousand churches, and you have one guy at the top of all that? First of all, that's too much power. That's too much exaltation for one man to be exalted. Even the apostle Paul, the great man of God that he was, he said, you know, lest I would be exalted above measure, I was given the thorn in the flesh. He realized that God didn't want him to be exalted too highly. So we need to realize that putting all that power in one man's hands where a hundred churches live or die, succeed or fail based on one person or one church is a bad idea. It's much better to decentralize power to where each church is independent, autonomous, self-governing, and they each have their own pastor that's accountable to Jesus Christ, not accountable to some other pastor in another city. Now this doesn't mean that we can't be friends with other churches, fellowship with other churches, work together with other churches, but we need to do it as equals, not as one guy is above the other. We do it as equals, and it's totally voluntary, and it's not a dependency. What does it mean to be dependent? It means to rely on something. It means that these churches need to be able to stand on their own two feet and not rely on any other church. If they're relying financially on another church, they're not independent. You see, independent means you are standing on your own two feet, autonomous, self-governing, and Christ is the head of that church, not any kind of denomination or organization. So if the pastor doesn't like the way his buddies are taking their churches, the pastor doesn't like the way his friends or mentors or proteges are taking their churches, he can say, you know what? I'm looking at the scripture. I don't think that's a scriptural direction. I'm going to stay on the biblical path here. And then one church might go bad, but they don't all have to go bad. It's good to decentralize power for a lot of reasons. So here we see that example in scripture. Once they ordained elders in these churches, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed. And that's what we need to do. When we start churches and ordain elders, we need to commend them unto the Lord on whom they believe, and not try to be like that mother-in-law from hell that basically even after her daughter has already gotten married, she wants to come in and run the household that's not hers. See, it's the same thing with our kids, right? You know, when our kids grow up, they need to leave father and mother, cleave unto their wife, and we can't go in there and try to run their home. We have to let them, what? Do their own thing and be an independent household at that point. It's the same thing when we start churches. We don't want to be a meddling mother-in-law of a Baptist church. We want to be sure that we cut that umbilical cord. And that's what we see in Acts chapter 14 verse 23. Now in this scripture, we see that churches are started, churches exist even without having the pastor ordained and in place. That came after. Now let me just clear up some confusion on this because some people are confused on this and some people just have different opinions on this. And I'm not saying that my opinion is the only valid opinion, but I am saying that my opinion is the only opinion that's valid to me. And if there was another opinion that were valid, I would embrace that other opinion. I believe that the way that we do things and the way that we teach it here at this church is right. That's why we do it that way. Now other people might do it differently and, you know, I can see where they're coming from perhaps, but we need to understand what we believe about church planting and why we believe it that way and why we do things the way that we do things. Here's a key principle as we go into this subject, okay? First of all, we need to understand that everything brings forth after its own kind. And so a biblical principle would be that the church begets the church. The church begets the church, okay? So churches should plant churches. So whose responsibility is it to plant churches? I believe it's our responsibility because we're a church. We plant another church just as everything brings forth after its own kind. Titus is ordained by Paul and he's being told to ordain elders in every city. So we see a reproduction there. We see things bringing forth after their own kind. Now a lot of people will look at this model here in Acts 14 and elsewhere in the book of Acts and say, oh, well, there's no problem having a church with no pastor. No problem. Let's just get together with our buddies in the living room and call it church and just, well, we just don't have a pastor yet, but we're just going to get together and have church in the living room with our buddies. Here's the problem with that, and I want you to listen to this very carefully. I don't want you to misunderstand this, and I think this is important. Here's the problem with that. The problem with that is that there's a real bonafide Baptist church down the street while you're doing that in your living room. That's the problem. Don't miss what I'm saying right now. That is the problem with that. The problem with that is that there are 6,000 independent Baptist churches in America, which means that there's one everywhere, and we should not boycott already established existing Baptist churches simply for not being perfect. Now, what I said earlier was that we don't want to just chalk it up as, oh, we've already got a church in that city. Let's not do any church planting. No, no, no, no. We need to do the church planting, but until we do the church planting, you need to go to whatever church is the best church in your area until the church can be legitimately planted, because you're better off in a church that's a little bit watered down or dead that's a bonafide Baptist church with an ordained pastor than you are with your buddies in the living room planting another church two miles away. Okay. Now, let me prove that to you from the Bible. Go to Revelation chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3. Now, that being said, let's say somebody's in a foreign country. Well guess what? Foreign countries don't have the concentration of Baptist churches that we have. So if somebody's in a foreign country where there really is no biblical church anywhere within a reasonable traveling distance of where they live, then you know what they should do? Yeah. They should just get together with whatever other believers they can find and just join together with whatever believers are there and have fellowship and, you know, if any of them can preach, they could preach to each other, they could sing songs, listen to a recording of preaching, whatever, and just join together and get something started in a place where there's nothing, but the key is that there's nothing there. So what we have today is people who want to say that there's nothing where there is something. Something's there and people want to claim that there's nothing there. That's the problem. And then they're forsaking the assembly and just starting up something that is off to a bad start. Does everybody see what I'm saying? Now look, when you're out, let's say you're in Sweden. You know, there's nothing there. I mean, look, I did a bunch of research on Sweden. I found like two Baptist churches in the whole country. This is one of the most liberal places in the world and I found literally two Baptist churches and I would never set foot in either of them for any reason. One of them was saying that, oh, here's some great examples of Baptist preachers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham. I mean, it was just a total false gospel on their website, just wrong Bible version, false gospel. Now look, there are certain things that are deal breakers. If the pastor's not even saved, that's a deal breaker. If it's not the King James Bible, if we're talking about the English language, that's a deal breaker. And you say, how can that be a deal breaker which version you read? Because there is only one version that's actually God's word. The NIV is straight out of hell. It's not just a little different version. The Bible condemns anyone to hell who would tamper with God's word, remove from or add to. Read Revelation chapter 22 verses 18 and 19 and then tell me that's not a deal breaker. It's a deal breaker for your soul. Anybody who tampers with it is damned. How can you say, oh, that's not a big deal. Yeah, it's such a big deal. It's the last thing in the Bible is this huge curse on anybody who would do it. Oh, not a big deal, huh? Yeah, who cares? It's not a big deal that entire verses are missing, that salvation doctrine is perverted, that the Trinity and the deity of Christ are perverted. You know, of course, it's a huge. If everything we believe is based on the Bible, it's our sole authority in all matters of faith and practice and you have a completely different Bible that says completely different things. Yeah, that's going to be a big problem. So look, if it's not King James, that's a deal breaker, period. No, I will never go to a church that preaches out of the ESV, the NIV or any of this garbage. It's got to be King James. And look, if you're in a foreign language, it's got to be whatever is the traditional Bible in that language, whatever is the Textus Receptus based Bible, okay? So whatever is the, you know, Reformation era Bible or if there's a more modern Bible translation that's actually from the traditional text from the Textus Receptus, something that is a KJV equivalent in that language that, you know, something that is not one of these modern corrupt versions. And look, it's not hard to find usually as long as you just go back before the 20th century, pretty much all the Bibles are based on the traditional texts. It's only modern versions that are corrupt. And look, there are some languages where they've done good translations recently, but English isn't one of them, all right? In English, you go back to 1611 and a lot of other languages, you got to go back to the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s to find the right Bible. That's a deal breaker. Salvation is a deal breaker, okay, if they have the wrong salvation. But we don't want to boycott a biblical church simply for not being perfect. Now look, if you're in Sweden, yeah, okay, there is no Baptist church and if there is one, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to criticize anybody, but the two Baptist churches that I found were both garbage and they had every deal breaker wrong, okay? And there are other countries like that, you know, let's say you're in some Muslim country or let's say you're in some other just really godless country. Well, you know what, you might actually not have any church in your area and then what do you do? You just try to find other believers, try to win people to Christ, you know, you say I don't have any other believers, well, win somebody to Christ and then there's two of you and fellowship with that person, right, and build from there. And then eventually, hopefully, you can get a group going and hopefully, eventually, you can get a pastor and you can get someone that's ordained to come in there and take over and be great, right, for a church to be established. But the problem is we have people in America who are trying to claim that that's their situation when it's not. I can't even count on me to, oh, there's just no good church in this area. It's like, come on, and then I do a little research and I find it. Now the proof, are you over in Revelation chapter 3? The proof is in Revelation, some of these churches were pretty messed up and yet all seven of these churches, God considered it a legitimate church. God would have blessed anyone for being a part of these seven churches. God saw these as legitimate options if you lived in those areas. Now some of them were in danger of getting to a point where they were no longer going to be a legitimate option, where he says, hey, if you don't repent, I'm going to remove the candlestick. But they still all had the candlestick, so they're still all legit at that time. Look at verse 1 of Revelation 3, and under the angel of the church in Sardis write, these things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. This is a dead church. It had a reputation from the past where it used to be alive. But now it's dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. For I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou has received and heard and hold fast and repent. But therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. What's he doing? He's praising some of these church members. Even though the church is dead, not everybody's dead, because some of the people in the church had not defiled their garments. Some of the people in the church were great people, and he doesn't tell them, hey, all right, leave the church and go meet in the living room. That's not what he's telling them. He's saying, you know, why don't you strengthen the things that remain? You know, the people that are right, he's telling them, I'm going to bless you even in a dead church, and you're there to be a good influence in that church and to help strengthen the things that remain. Don't just give up on the church or boycott the church because it's not perfect. You know, look, if there's a better church in the city, I'll switch churches any day. I'm always going to take my family to the best church I can find, because life's too short and my family's too important to just take them to some mediocre church if there's something better down the street. So this is the teaching that I've always given, is just go to the best church that you can find in your area. And you might have to hold your nose and go there if they've got some messed up things, but God will bless you for being in church. He's not going to bless you if you forsake the assembly. You need to be in the congregation. Flip back to chapter 2, verse 24. It says in Revelation 2, 24, But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden. But that which ye have already, hold fast till I come. Here are some people in the church in Thyatira. The church is messed up. Some people in the church are in such wicked sin that God even called the depths of Satan. And look, there are some fundamental Baptist churches today that allow some very wicked sin to happen in their church, and they don't throw the people out. They'll allow people to just delve into the depths of Satan in the church, just fornication, adultery, and they just let it go on. So this is a church that has some wrong doctrine, and this is a church that also has some wicked sin going on, but to the people that are in the church that have the good doctrine, and that are not involved in wicked sin, you know what he says? Keep doing what you're doing. Keep on doing what you're doing. So God can bless you in a church that's not perfect. You can still serve God. You can be blessed by God. You can even get a shout out from the Lord Jesus Christ himself in the Bible, even not being in a great church. I mean what do you think about that? I mean, look, I would like to get a personal shout out in the word of God from Christ for all eternity. I mean, these are real people, and those people are up in heaven thinking, you know, that's me. Let me give you my claim to fame. You know, we're meeting everybody in heaven talking to people. So who are you? Well, you remember that part in Revelation where he talks about the people in Thyatira who didn't have that bad doctrine? I was one of those people, yeah. You know those people that were worthy in Sardis? I was one of those people. Oh wow, cool. I mean that's, you got mentioned more times than I did, you know, great. So you can be a great Christian in a lukewarm church. Now I don't want to go to a lukewarm church. You don't want to go to a lukewarm church. I don't want to go to Sardis Baptist. You don't want to go to Sardis Baptist. I don't want to go to Thyatira Baptist. I want to be in Philadelphia Baptist. I want to be in Smyrna Baptist. But here's the thing, you're better off in Sardis Baptist than not going to church at all or saying, oh, you know, we're just going to get together with our buddies and just, you know, pull out and start our own church even though we have no qualified pastor. You're better off just staying with something that's established until you can get something better that's started the right way, okay? So what is the right way to start a church? And what do we even mean by someone being ordained? What does it even mean? You know, sometimes we use these words and we throw them around and we don't even necessarily know what they mean or sometimes people will twist or pervert the meaning of what that word even means. What does it even mean to be ordained? Well, let's start out by letting the Bible define itself. Go to Acts chapter 1. What does it mean to be ordained? And different churches and different denominations have different views on what it means to be ordained. You know, is this some certificate? Is this some legally binding document? Is this some council of churches? Is this 10? I mean, look, even a lot of independent fundamental Baptists, a whole bunch of churches will get together and have like this ordination panel. And I've been to some ordinations and they were all different and some of them were dramatically different from one another and some of them to me didn't really make any sense. And some of them did make sense. But let's just go back to basics and just figure out what it means to be ordained or what it means to ordain someone when we talk about a pastor being ordained. Is he ordained or is he not ordained? What does that mean? Did he self-ordain? Right? Let's figure this out, okay? First of all, I want to show you that scripturally, ordained means appointed. That's what it means. That's all it means. Look at Acts chapter 1 verse 22. Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection and they appointed too. So notice that ordained and appointed are used interchangeably here. You say, well, I don't know if they're really being used interchangeably. Okay, well, let me show you one that's even clearer. Go to 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 7. We're going to compare 1 Timothy 2-7 with 2 Timothy 1-11. 1 Timothy 2-7, 2 Timothy 1-11, those are the two places we're going. Now if you look up ordain in the dictionary, ordain says to invest with ministerial or sacerdotal functions. Now you say, I don't know what the word sacerdotal means. Well, you probably don't speak Spanish then, right, because everybody who speaks Spanish knows what sacerdotal means. It means priestly, okay. And so it's saying ministerial or priestly functions. Now we as Christians, we believe in what's known as the priesthood of the believer. So we don't believe in a special classification of priests in the New Testament. We believe that every born again child of God is a priest. God has made us priests unto God and Christ has made us priests unto God and his Father. So it's to be invested with ministerial functions or to be selected or appointed for an office. Selected or appointed for an office. Remember it says, let another take his office in Psalm 109. That's quoted in Acts 1 as his bishopric, let another take. They that desire the office of a bishop, right, the work of a bishop. Office is a position and an appointment is when you're selected or ordained or appointed to that position, right? Does that make sense? So let's look at 1 Timothy 2, 7. It says, where unto I am ordained, a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. Look at 2 Timothy 1-11, where unto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles. Notice that those two verses say the same thing. One of them says ordained, one of them says appointed, right? Where unto I am ordained a preacher and apostle, teacher of the Gentiles, where unto I am appointed a preacher and apostle, teacher of the Gentiles. So ordained is appointed. Go to Acts 13, Acts chapter 13. So all it means to be ordained is that you've been appointed as the pastor. You've been appointed as the deacon. You've been appointed as the bishop. That's what that simply means. What it means is basically that your church has said, all right, you're going to do this job. That's it. So if the church sends you out and says, all right, Billy, go start a church. You're ordained. If the church says, all right, buddy, you're going to the mission field. You've just been appointed as a missionary, right? You've just been sent out to do a certain task. That's what that means. Go if you would to Acts chapter 13. It says in verse 1, and there were in the church that was at Antioch, certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrena, and Manan, which had been brought up with Herod the teatruck, and Saul, as they ministered to the Lord. So these people are already serving God. They're already doing the work. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I've called them. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. This is ordination in the Bible. These guys are being ordained to go be a missionary for the church. All right, go out and evangelize the church. You know, we see deacons, evangelists, pastors, people being ordained in the Bible. They're appointed to a position. So why is ordination important? Why do we say, hey, that guy needs to be ordained? Hey, is he ordained? Why do we even ask that question or wonder about that? Here's why. It matters because of the qualifications. That's why it matters. Because ordination or appointment simply means that you've been found faithful in your local church. It simply means that your church has looked at you and said, husband of one wife, ruling his house, he's not a brawler, he's not given to wine, he's apt to teach. We believe that it is God's will that this guy start a church. We believe it's God's will that this guy become the pastor of the church. We believe it's God's will that this man be the deacon or be sent out as an evangelist or missionary. That's what ordination is. That's what it means to be appointed simply. Now, the qualifications are listed, for the sake of time, I'm not going to spend time on the qualifications. I've done that in other sermons. They're found in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 1. But I do want to mention that our church has some additional qualifications not in the Bible. Now you say, how dare you add to the qualifications. Well, the qualifications in the Bible are not that specific. Now they do speak to certain things that are specific, like being the husband of one wife, having children that are faithful, and so forth. But there are certain things in the Bible that are more vague, like when it just says blameless. Or how about when it says not a novice. Well, you could interpret that different ways. It is not a novice, meaning that you have to be saved for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years. How long do you have to be serving God before you're not a novice anymore? The Bible doesn't tell us. That's why our church has some standards. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's a biblical principle to create standards based on the word of God. So we will not ordain a pastor who does not meet all of the biblical qualifications plus a few of our own qualifications that we have laid out just as sort of a basis. Now those things are that we don't ordain someone to be a pastor who hasn't been saved for at least 7 years. Why? Because we don't want them to be a novice. Novice simply means beginner. New to the faith. So we won't ordain somebody that hasn't been saved for at least 7 years. That makes sense to me because it takes a while to learn the Bible, to grow in the Lord, and to pastor a church of big responsibility. For example, we ordained Pastor Dave Berzins and he'd been saved for much more than 7 years but he didn't grow at all for a long time. He got saved but he didn't even get baptized, didn't go to church, and for like 9 or 11 years or something he was just kind of floating out there without being in church. So once he got in church, that's when he really started growing and getting trained. He got baptized. He started soul winning. Started reading his Bible. And he grew quickly and he worked hard and he was faithful and we sent him out to start a church after being here for 7 years. Now to me, that was a guy who was growing pretty fast to be ready to roll after 7 years. A lot of people, you know, they're going to need to be saved for 8 years, 9 years, 10 years, 15 years, maybe even 20 years before they're ready to do this. When I started church, I was saved for 18 years at that point. I'd been saved for 18 years. But I'd been really serious about my walk with God for about 7 years because I really got serious when I was about 17, 16, 17 years old. So that's a standard that we have is that you've got to be saved for 7 years. Another standard that we have is that you've got to be married for 4 years. Why? Because we want to make sure that you have your house in order. And marriage kind of goes through phases. And the first 2 years, you know, that's the honeymoon, okay? You've got to get past that and get into some real life. So at least 4 years of marriage. And also you've got to have at least 2 children. That's not us adding to the Bible though. The Bible uses the word children. So if you don't have 2 children, well then you're not meeting the qualification. And you say, well it's not fair because God didn't bless us with children. We wanted to have kids but they never came. Well did you ever stop and think that maybe God doesn't want you to be a pastor then? Because if he wanted you to be a pastor, he'll give you the children. And there are plenty of other ways to serve God without being a pastor. You could be a wonderful servant of God and do great things for God without being a pastor. But to be a pastor you've got to be married with children. Okay. And then another standard that we have at our church is you have to have read the Bible cover to cover 10 times. Why? Because we already have enough pastors out there who don't know the Bible. Who don't know what they're talking about. So we want to make sure that guys that we ordain know the Bible. And that they've read it at least 10 times. Now look, that's not to say that 10 times is the ceiling. That's the floor. That's the bottom. Okay. Now you say, well that's a lot. Oh really? Because if you've been saved for 7 years, if you're reading it twice a year you'd have read it 14 times. You say, well I only read it once a year. Look if Joe Christian reads it once a year, good for him. You're going to be a pastor. You need to do some serious reading. That's a minimum. You need to get, you know you should be reading more than that. Okay. You need to read a lot of Bible. This is who you are. This is what you do for a living. You know people go to school for other jobs and they spend hours a day studying. And then you're going to spend 15 minutes in your Bible and expect us to ordain you. It's a joke. Get serious or go home. You know if you want to be a pastor that's a big responsibility. It's a great honor to be a pastor. And so you got to pay your dues. You got to earn it. You got to work hard. And obviously they got to be found faithful in the ministry. They got to be a blessing. The church has to approve of them. Now why is it important to be ordained? Because the church finds you faithful and appoints you. That's why. That's what's important about it. You see the problem with these guys who quote unquote you know self-ordain is that you'll have a guy sometimes who doesn't go to church anywhere. He doesn't go to church anywhere. And then he just starts a church and ordains himself as the pastor. The problem with that is that that guy has been in sin by not even being in church. He is not ready to lead a church when he can't even get his butt in church. He needs to get under another pastor and learn from him. He needs to pour water on the hands of Elijah for a while. Before honor comes humility. So he needs to learn to be a follower before he can be a leader. You can't be a great leader without first being a great follower. So that's the problem with this idea of the self-ordained or self-appointed preacher. So if you would flip over to. Are you already there in Acts chapter 13? Okay look at verse 2 it says as they minister to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where unto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away. Now when they sent these guys away what did they do? They went out and established churches. They went out and evangelized new areas. You know Paul sought to preach where Christ hadn't even been named. I mean he wanted to go as far as he could out into this world and start churches. Now there are a couple different. Let me just kind of make this practical. We've looked at some scripture. We've got some biblical definitions here. Now let's make practical application. What does this look like at Faithful Word Baptist Church in 2018 in the United States of America? What does church planning look like? Well the way I see it is that our church is following two main strategies for starting churches or ordaining elders. Strategy number one is kind of an Acts 13 model where we basically send out a guy. You know here's a guy he already meets all the qualifications and we just appoint this guy and say you know what you're going to go start a church and X the city. And we pray for him. We lay hands on him and say all right go start that church. Now when we do that the church that he starts is already independent from day one. He's already being sent out. He's already qualified. He's already ordained as hey you're going to be the pastor buddy go for it. That church is independent from day one. You know we're not going to lord over that church or try to run that church. That church is independent from day one. That's a way to start a church. Now look that's the way I started this church. You know I was sent out from my local church. I came here. I started the church. It was independent. That's the way it is with Word of Truth Baptist up in Prescott Valley. Same thing. That's the way it is with Pastor Donnie Romero in Steadfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. He came to our church. He went here for years. He was found faithful. He was ordained and sent. Go start a church in Fort Worth right. Umbilical cord is cut. That's a way to start a church. That is not the only way to start a church though. Another biblical way to start a church would be to start a church without having the pastor ordained yet. Without having a pastor at all yet. You could start a church in that way. That's what we saw earlier in the Book of Acts where we saw them or not earlier in the Book of Acts but earlier in the sermon in Acts chapter 14 where there were churches that they established and then later after establishing those churches later they ordained elders to lead those churches and then they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed. So this is the style of church planting that we're doing in Los Angeles right now with FWBCLA where we have a church there that we've planted. We're evangelizing that area. We're establishing a congregation but we haven't ordained a pastor yet and so we haven't yet commended them unto the Lord. We're still guiding them. We're still shepherding them. I'm the pastor of that church okay. This is the same thing that Verity Baptist is doing up in Vancouver, Washington where they've got a church plant up there. This is the same thing that Brother Romero and Steadfast Baptist Church have done when they sent Adam Fanon to Florida to start that church in Jacksonville, Florida. Now you say well why would we do that model of church planting? Now in some ways that model is superior. Both of the different models have their pros and cons and we at Faith Forward Baptist Church we're planning on continuing to do both styles. We're going to continue to just ordain and send out men like a Brother Berzins or a Brother Romero and then we're also going to continue to have church planting where we start a church and let it be embryonic and grow and establish and then ordain a pastor over it. Why? Well if you look at what our church has done, what Verity has done and what Steadfast has done you'll see kind of some common denominators about why it made sense to plant churches in those places the way that we've done. The reason why is because there's already a group of people that's there that are basically ready to go to this church. They're looking for a church like this and here's the key, here's the important thing. There's already a guy there who can be a de facto leader, who can provide some on the ground leadership even though he's not ready yet to be ordained as a pastor, right? Because being ordained as a pastor is a big deal. You know you're independent, Baptist Church and that's a big responsibility to be leading that church in the position of the bishop. So basically if you have a guy that's able to preach, he's able to run things but he's not ready yet for that big responsibility or that title or that position then you can basically get the church started so that people can be fed, so that souls can be won to Christ, so that the work of God can go forward full speed ahead in that area and then when the time comes that he's ready he can be ordained. Brother Aaron Thompson was up there in the Portland, Oregon area, Vancouver, Washington area. Brother Aaron Thompson's up there, he had the ability to preach, he's able to run things but just he wasn't ready to be a pastor yet so basically he's being faithful under Pastor Roger Jimenez's leadership and under his authority so Pastor Jimenez is guiding him and mentoring him right until such a time as he's ready to be ordained and commended unto the Lord on whom he believed. Same thing with Brother Bruce Mejia out in L.A., out in El Monte, California. You know we've got our guy there and he's being mentored, he's doing the work, he has the ability to preach, he has the ability to run things but he just hasn't been married long enough, he just needs to meet the criteria for taking that role as pastor. Same thing with Brother Adam Fannin, when people are just a little too young, maybe they don't have the kids, they haven't been married long enough, maybe they just need to study a little more, get a little more experience, learn the ropes a little more, but you don't want to just say well let's just wait. You want to get it started because there's a group of people that's hungry and you can do a great work for God. Look, the church plant in Vancouver, Washington is a big success, it's a huge success. It's thriving, people are being saved, the church is growing and you know God willing I believe that they're planning on being independent I think by the end of this year. I know that our plan for FWBCLA is that it would be God willing independent in August of next year, okay, and then I'm not sure what Brother Romero's plans are with Steadfast Baptist Church in Jacksonville but look, all three of these are succeeding, they're thriving and it's just a great example of what can be done as far as planning a church. So the advantage of it is that we can get started right away when we have a group that's already there, they're already excited, they're already zealous and again the key is that there's a guy there that's a faithful man in the church that can get the thing off the ground, that can get the thing rolling. Without that guy there to provide some on the ground leadership, you know, it just can't work, it can't happen. That's kind of a key component there, okay. And then you know the advantages of just sending the guy out are obvious, you know, because you just already have an independent Baptist Church and then see, Faithful Word Baptist Church, we don't want to be running a bunch of different churches in a bunch of different places, why? Because we have enough to say grace over right here, you know, we want to focus on our own job. So it's just a lot less work and hassle and headache to just commend them unto the Lord, right, and let them do their own thing. You want to run everybody's lives, you mother-in-laws need to realize this, you know, run your own life, right? Let them do their own thing. So that's the point. So there's kind of pros and cons to both, you know, both approaches are good. If we have guys who can preach well and there's a group of people that are just ready for them to start a church but they're not quite to the qualification, then let them do it under the authority of the church and under the pastor as a mentor and get them to the point where they are ready. Or if guys remain here until they get fully trained, fully qualified, and then they're just sent out, so much the better. And let me just close the sermon by saying this. There's a dramatic lack of leadership in this country and we must have churches established. And again, we want to make sure we get the balance and understand that the existing independent fundamental Baptist churches throughout this nation, they are scriptural churches, okay? Look, there are 40 independent Baptist churches in the Phoenix area here that are King James preaching and that are, I believe, are hopefully right on salvation. I mean, most of them are right on salvation for sure. I hope they're all right on salvation but I know that most of them are, okay? Let me just make this clear. Those are scriptural churches. Those are biblical churches. God looks down from heaven and he sees those churches as a candlestick. Don't get this weird cult-like attitude of, faithful word Baptist church is the only legitimate church. False. There are other churches in this area that if faithful word Baptist church ceased to exist, you could go to and you could grow there and you could serve God there. And God loves those people and they pray to God every night and God hears their prayers and God loves them and works through them and they get people saved. Now some of them might get people saved at a very slow rate and maybe they're not taking the stands that they need to take. Maybe they have a name that they live and they're dead. But look, there are scriptural biblical churches all over America, okay? So we don't want to just tell people, oh everybody pull out of those churches and just start something with no leadership, with no man of God, with no pastor. Bad idea. Stay with those churches and strengthen the things that remain. But that being said, we need to understand that these churches are not getting the job done for the most part. If we were not here in Phoenix, this city would not be reached with the gospel. If we were not here, the Indian reservations would not be getting evangelized at all. It wouldn't be happening, we're doing it, okay? So what we need to, we need to balance those two ideas and understand, hey, there are scriptural churches out there, but let's start some better churches. It's not a matter of wicked and good, it's a matter of good, better, best. You know, big cities like Phoenix and LA and Tucson, you know, they need a great church. I mean, when we're dealing with millions of people who need the gospel, we need some powerhouses of churches, right? That's what I want to make clear tonight, that we understand that. And look, like I said, and look, I don't really know, here's a disclaimer, I don't really know much about the churches in this area. I don't sit around, you know, learning about every other church in this area, because I like to just work like it all relies on us, right? You know, let's just evangelize this place like it all relies on us, and whatever they do is bonus. So I don't really know. So I'm not an expert on the churches in this area, but just from the limited knowledge that I have, I know that there are a lot of scriptural churches in this area. For example, how about Valley Baptist out in Mesa with Pastor Cowling? That's a scriptural church. That's a soul-winning church. That's a church that's right on the gospel. They're King James. You know, I've been to Desert Gateway Baptist Church, and I'm just naming the ones that come to my mind. I'm not an expert on these churches or what exactly they do and don't do. But look, those are a couple churches where I know they're right on the gospel, and I know that they have a soul-winning program, and I know that they're King James. And I could start rattling off more. Now, there are other, and listen, 35th Avenue Baptist Church is not one of them, because that Pastor Tim Coleman has come out and denied the Trinity and preached the Pentecostal oneness heresy. It's a different God, a different Jesus. We will not have any fellowship with them, and if you leave our church and go to that church, you're an idiot. Period. Okay. That's a church filled with heretics and faithful word rejects. We excommunicate people. We throw people out for heresy. We throw people out for perversion, and that's where they end up. Come on in. It's like a trash can for faithful word Baptist Church. And let me tell you something. That pastor is not saved. There, I said it. Because anybody who gets up and denies the Trinity is not saved. The Trinity is a biblical doctrine, and anybody who teaches another Jesus, modalism, oneness Pentecostalism isn't saved. You know, that's what I believe. That's where I stand. And you know, it's just amazing to me how people could think that that's a valid option after that guy got up and just embraced that oneness heresy. Why? Why did he even embrace it? I'll tell you why. Because he's been in this town for 20 years, and he's been running 20. And all of a sudden, we throw out a bunch of families for damnable heresy, and then he's just like, score, double my church. And brings all these, you know what, well, you know what, you can have them, buddy. He brings in all those heretics, and he gets up and says, he literally, this is what he said, I'm oneness. He got up behind the pulpit and literally put his hands out and said, I'm oneness. Just to bring in the heretics. And you know what, let me just get off on this right now. Let me just, let me just roll up my sleeves, and let me just take the gloves off, and let me just say something about this oneness garbage. Hey, it's a lie out of the pit of hell. The Trinity is the only legitimate view that all Bible-believing Christians have stood on for centuries. Nobody believes in this oneness garbage except a bunch of tongue-talking, Acts 2-38, twisting, oneness, Pentecostal, charismatic, demon-possessed fools. Let me tell you something, that oneness doctrine, that doctrine didn't even exist in modern times until 1913. You know why? Because they argued about this in the early days of Christianity, and you know what, the modalism died. That oneness doctrine, if you don't understand what I'm talking about, look up my sermon on oneness. Look up my sermons on the Trinity. That doctrine was something that they argued about in the early days of Christianity. It fell off the face of the earth. You know, 1700s, 1800s, nobody believed in it. Everybody either believed in the Trinity or you had people denying the deity of Christ just outright and just saying, you know, he's not even, he's not even God. But then in 1913, you have this camp meeting in Azusa, California, where you got a bunch of holy rollers. You have a female preacher, Maria Woodworth Eder, female healing evangelist, has some charismatic convention, and you know, watch Brother Romero's new documentary on being demon-possessed. And look at all those Pentecostals in his demon-possessed documentary flopping around. That's what, that's what kind of meeting this was. So at this tongue-talking, flopping around meeting, a preacher gets up, one of these tongue-talking, demonic Pentecostal, charismatic preachers, he gets up and says, you know, it's interesting that in Matthew 28, Christ told them to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but in the book of Acts, they're just baptized in the name of Jesus. Why weren't they baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? You know, somebody should have just grabbed the guy and shook him and said, hey buddy, the Son is Jesus. So if you get baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Jesus is part of that. So it's a, guess what, Luke is a different author than Matthew. Have you noticed how different authors word things different? Acts is not written by Matthew. It's written by Luke. And is Acts telling the truth when it says they're baptized in the name of Jesus? Absolutely. And as Brother Garrett proved in his sermon that he did a few years ago, he proved that even from the book of Acts, you can prove that they were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost if you dig a little deeper. But the point is that there's no conflict. Nobody saw a conflict. Nobody cared until this bozo gets up and preaches that and these charismatic like, oh wow, that's really interesting. So this guy named Robert Shape, this is all off the top of my head by the way, he goes in to his room that night and he starts praying and agonizing and speaking in tongues and rolling around like somebody who's got rabies has to be locked in a room and he comes out in the morning and he starts running through the campground saying, I've got the answer. The name of the Father is Jesus. The name of the Holy Spirit is Jesus. It's the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, all Jesus. So a whole bunch of people just ate that up with fork and spoon because they're a bunch of unsaved demonic false teachers. So then over the next few years, this doctrine started to develop into what's known as a Jesus only baptism where they baptized in the name of Jesus only because the Father is Jesus. So they don't believe in the Trinity. They don't believe in three persons, Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost who collectively make up the Godhead. They just believe that, oh, the Father is Jesus. Same person, just in a different mode. That's why it's called modalism. So it becomes a big point of contention. It's called the new issue, they called it. So people argued about this for a few years. Well after several years, the biggest Pentecostal denomination known as the Assemblies of God, they brought it to a vote. They said, we've got to settle this new issue. And so they voted, and there were like 500 and some pastors there, and like 170 some of them went with modalism. And the vast majority went with the Trinity. So basically, the guys who went modalist are kicked out of the denomination. And they went and started their own oneness Pentecostal denominations, okay? Everybody listening? Pay attention. Yes, it's a cult. Pay attention. So then, today, what we have is, we have all different denominations of Pentecostals, right? The vast majority of Pentecostals believe in the Trinity, 75% in the United States. 25% of Pentecostals are what's known as oneness Pentecostals, the biggest denomination being the UPCI, United Pentecostal Church Incorporated. So let me say this. This new issue, this new doctrine came out in 1913. And of course, it's a recycled heresy from the third, fourth century AD. But the new spin on it came out in 1913. And for the last 105 years, no Baptists have accepted this doctrine. For the last 105 years, it's only been the tongue talkers. It's only been the holy rollers. It's only been the worst denomination of Pentecostals. I mean, oneness Pentecostals, if you meet them out soul-witting, oneness Pentecostals, they're not just Pentecostals. They're the worst, meaning that their doctrine is the worst. They are hardcore that you have to be baptized to be saved. They are hardcore that you have to repent of your sins to be saved. They are hardcore on losing your salvation. I mean, they just are hardcore on every damnable heresy. They are the most difficult Pentecostals to even reach with the gospel or to even have a conversation with that makes sense. So for 105 years, this lie, this heresy has been kept at bay. God's people have... The Southern Baptists didn't believe in it. The Independent Fundamental Baptists didn't believe in it. Calvary Chapel didn't believe in it. Non-denominational churches didn't believe in it. Anything that is evangelical Christianity has eschewed this oneness, modalist heresy. It's been limited to this fringe group of oneness Pentecostal weirdos, right? But then in 2017, 104 years later, we had people in our church secretly spreading this heresy around the church. I didn't hear anything about it because as soon as I heard about it, I would have brought the hammer down on it. And as soon as I heard about it, I brought the hammer down on it. Okay. You know, Tyler Baker and his minions were fired, he was fired and everybody who was teaching that was excommunicated, thrown out of the church, 2017. Thirty-fifth Avenue Baptist, Pastor Coleman, just come on in, I'm oneness. You say, well, I'm offended, I like him, he's my friend. Well, you know what, be offended then because you know what, he's the one who got up and said I'm oneness and denied the Trinity and brought in heretics and even sexual perverts into his church. And those aren't the same people but he brought in both. Anybody who gets thrown out of our church, that's just, that's where they end up somehow. You get expelled from fellowship, that's where you end up. I don't know how I got off on this but I'm glad I did. Now let me tell you something. 2017, to my knowledge, and I did a whole bunch of research, I searched, is there any Baptist who believes in oneness? Is there any Baptist who denies the Trinity? Is there any Baptist who believes in modalism? And guess what, I couldn't find any, I found none. Well now there's one. 105 years later we have one right here in Phoenix, a Trinity-rejecting, modalist teaching Baptist church. And not only that but now Tyler Baker, he's gonna go start a church in Jacksonville, Florida on March the 25th and it's modalist. Even after being rebuked, even after all the sermons that we've all preached about the Trinity, all the teaching, all the admonition, zero repentance, he's got a statement of faith up that denies the Trinity and says we reject three persons, one God. Now he words it kind of tricky so that basically if Joe Independent Baptist goes on his website and they don't know this issue they might just read over it but it's right there in black and white. We reject the teaching of three persons. We just believe that there's one God, yeah we believe there's one God too in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So now there's gonna be two. And you know what? This doctrine is an end times heresy and it has, I mean it's historic that it finally crossed over, they've been trying to infiltrate for over a hundred years and it's finally crossed over into Baptist churches. Well you know what? Not on my watch. I'm gonna do everything I can to fight these people. I'm gonna earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. And if you're confused on this issue, go back and listen to the three sermons that I did on the Trinity back when this happened in June of last year. And if you still listen, if you listen to those three sermons and you don't believe in the Trinity or if you still don't understand that modalism's heresy, then you know what? Maybe you need to get saved. Because maybe the Holy Spirit doesn't even live inside you. If you can't even understand the things of God when they're plainly explained to you and when just scores of scriptures are brought out. And let me just say it again since we haven't talked about this in a while, anybody who believes in that modalism or oneness heresy is going to be thrown out of our church. If you're here right now and you believe in that, leave and don't come back. And if we catch you talking about it and teaching it, we will throw you out of the church. That is a damnable heresy. It's another God, it's another Jesus, it's a major false doctrine. And even though it seems like an affirmation of the deity of Christ, when you follow it all the way around, it actually ends up destroying the deity of Christ. And even more importantly, it ends up destroying the fact that Jesus is the son of God. And I've already preached all those sermons. But I'm just putting it out there again, I'm just making it clear that that doctrine is not acceptable in our church. Anybody who believes in it will be thrown out of the church and we will not have fellowship with any of these churches ever that teach this new heresy. And don't even for one second be foolish enough to think that there is some difference between what they're teaching and the oneness Pentecostal doctrine. Look, go on Wikipedia, look up oneness Pentecostalism, it's verbatim what they believe. It's verbatim what they teach, word for word. Word for word. No, we need to start some good Bible believing churches. Are there other good churches out there? Yeah, Valley Baptist is a good church, Desert Gateway, and I could list like 10 more. Okay, churches that reject the Trinity aren't one of them. But churches that have the essentials, you know, that are right on salvation, right on who God is, who Jesus is, I mean, you know, just little things like who God is. You know, Jesus being the son of God, just little issues like that. Just trifles. You know, those are legitimate bonafide churches but it doesn't mean they're getting the job done and that's why we're going to get the job done and that's why we need to ordain some guys. And you know what, thank God we didn't ordain Tyler Baker. We dodged a bullet on that one. He was about to go start a church a month later before he was found out. And thank God for the people who came and told me. And please tell me if other people are teaching weird junk. So that we can stop. Then you say, well, he started a church anyway. Yeah, but at least we're not the ones who ordained him. You know what I mean? We'd rather that he got ordained by some other bozo. And we can fight against his cult and expose it and preach against it and I will fight it until I die. Father, we thank you so much for this church, Lord, and thank you for all the churches that have been a blessing to me, Lord, over the years like the churches that I grew up in, church that I was sent out of, Lord, other churches that I visited over the years, Lord, just people who love you, churches that are striving to serve you the best they know how. And Lord, we know that no church is perfect and we pray that you would just bless our church and bless every scriptural church, Lord, and help them to strengthen the things that remain. But Lord, we also just know the reality that some new churches are going to need to be established, Lord, and so help us to do our best. And Lord, I pray that there would be some men even tonight under the sound of my voice that would decide, you know what, I'm going to go out and start a church. I want to be that man to stand in the gap in one of these towns. Lord, we pray that you'd raise up a whole generation of preachers that would contend for the faith. Amen.