Government and Media Victim-Blame Bombed California Church
Since the bombing didn’t occur at a mosque, you may not have heard: First Works Baptist Church in El Monte, California was attacked with an improvised explosive device last Saturday. Authorities hesitated to call it a hate crime since the attack was not directed at a protected class like homosexuals, Muslims, or men calling themselves women. Instead, they were quick to label the church and its pastor as the hateful ones.
Worse, media and government authorities blamed the church for “raising tensions” by holding to a traditional view of gender roles and daring to preach it from the pulpit. Guess those horrible misogynists had it coming, huh?
LA County County supervisor Hilda Solis released a statement focused on the church being the reason such an attack happened, due to their “anti-LGBTQ+ and misogynistic sermons,” and revealed her move to refer the pastor to a government commission to “deescalate the situation”:
In response to the attack, pastor Bruce Mejia said, “I’m still going to preach God’s Word. I’m never going to stop.” Amen, brother.
The government response to this attack is absolutely horrifying, but not surprising in the wake of LA County and governments around the country engaging in the most egregious violations of religious liberty seen in the modern age. We must expect this persecution to increase.
Buckle up Christians, because your government is showing that it has no interest in protecting your freedom to worship or express your beliefs, and will instead blame you for any violence that befalls you or your church. Arm yourselves spiritually and physically for the war that is at your doorstep.
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Don’t arm yourselves physically.
Matthew 5:43-44 “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
It isn’t American, but it is biblical to respond to such things by moving to another location, or “dusting your feet off” from that city. Matthew 10:23 “But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.”
Violently responding to persecution is satanic. Don’t do it.
We are never allowed to use violence to promote the gospel. We are, however, permitted to protect ourselves from violence.
(Luk 22:36) He said to them, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.
Be careful who you call “Brother.”
While I condemn the attack on First Works Baptist Church, and I am a firm believer in the biblical standard of only two genders (and they are not changeable), and the biblical standard of marriage is only between one biological male and one biological female; and I also hold to the biblical standard that homosexuality, transgenderism, and all of the assorted what-have-you’s that go along with the LGBTQETC nonsense are all abominable sins, First Works Baptist Church is not, I repeat NOT, a Christian church, and Pastor Bruce Mejia is not a Christian.
I do not say this lightly. First Works Baptist Church is part of the New IFB movement that was started by Steven Anderson in 2005, and Bruce Mejia was one of Anderson’s hand picked proteges. I don’t have a problem with their stand against homosexuality, and I don’t consider them a hate group because of their so-called “anti-LGBTQ” and “Misogynistic” beliefs. I hold those same beliefs. Their delivery could use some improvement, but that’s a subjective personal preference. What isn’t subjective though are the heretical beliefs they hold and preach regarding God, Jesus Christ, and the atonement.
Regarding God, the New IFB (and this includes all New IFB pastors, including Mejia) teaches that God is one God that consists of three “separate” persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They believe and teach that each one of these persons is separate from the others, and each one of these persons has their own individual body, their own individual spirit (except Jesus whom they say has seven spirits), their own individual mind, will, and seat of consciousness. The teach that each one of these three separate persons looks identical to one another, in the same way that identical triplets do.
Regarding Jesus, they believe and teach that Jesus has always been a man, for all eternity He has been a man as well as one of the three separate persons in the Godhead. Jesus did not become the God-Man at the incarnation, but rather has always, for all eternity, been the God-Man. They believe and teach that Jesus is, and has been for all eternity, the words of the Bible. In other words, when you pick up your Bible and open it and look at the pages, that’s Jesus on the pages. They take this from a literal reading of John 1:1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. They understand “the word” to be both Jesus, and the actual words of Scripture.
Regarding the Atonement, they believe and teach that Jesus did not atone for sins on the cross, that His death on the cross was nothing more than a phase that Jesus went through so as to be able to go to hell and when there, they say, Jesus was burned up in the fires of hell as a burnt offering, a burnt sacrifice, to God. They teach that it was the burnt offering of Jesus that actually atoned for our sins.
As you can see, the New IFB, including Steven Anderson, his protege Bruce Mejia, and all of the New IFB pastors, all teach a different (tritheistic, not omnipresent) god, a different Jesus (who has always been a human man), and a different gospel (with Jesus as a burned sacrifice to atone for sin), which the Apostle Paul anathematized. These churches are not Christian, and these New IFB pastors are not Christian.
Their website says they’re trinitarian. Unfortunetly, the sermon they linked has been removed off of youtube (It’s been a reoccuring issue with his videos). Do you have any evidence of the stance “they are IFB”?