203. WE ARE BACK!!!!! The Future of Fundamentalism - Jack Trieber and Golden State Bible College

Welcome back to the 4 Freedom Podcast. We're back from our Christmas break and I'm going to start out this episode this morning with a question. James, were you a good little boy and did Santa come and visit you? Did you get coal or did you get what you wanted for Christmas? I never want anything but hanging out with family, so I got that and so it was great. Yeah, we had a good time. My wife hates buying Christmas for me because she doesn't know what to buy. I don't have a lot. The only hobby I have is cigars. She's like, I don't want to just buy you cigars because you do that all year long. We had a good time. We had family over with Brett. The one thing that I got for Christmas that I didn't want was I got sick at Christmas time. The day before Christmas, Christmas Eve, I wake up and man, I'm not feeling well. A friend of mine had told me that there's this new like over-the-counter homeopathic medicine that you can take. It's like a Socolon or something. It's little bitty pellets that you, it has a little tube of them. You take them like every six hours. They dissolve in your mouth. I think I OD'd on medicine just to get through Christmas Eve at my in-laws' house. Finally got through that. I got home that evening and I told my wife, I said, I am exhausted. I need to take a nap. I laid down from like five to seven, a couple hours. I said, I hate to do this to you. It's Christmas Eve. We normally do like a Nerf gun or some type of battle with the kids, but I couldn't do it. And she said, I'd rather you feel better later and skip right now than be out for tomorrow for Christmas Day. So the nap was good. I took some NyQuil. I think I downed like half a bottle that night just to get better. Woke up the next morning. We have 50 people at our house on Christmas Day. My entire family came over. Mom, Dad made it through Christmas. I never threw up once. I just, I felt bad. And then by the day after Christmas, I was completely fine. So I don't know if it was a 24 hour bug or whatever happened, but dude, it was not fun. And I'm glad I'm over that, but we had great time at Christmas. If I did get coal as Donald Trump, as daddy Trump said, we, it's that beautiful, clean burning coal that we got with that. I don't know if you saw that clip on the little girl. He called that little girl on Christmas. Did you see that at all? Didn't see that. He called her and he said, he said, were you a good little girl or bad little girl? What are you getting for Christmas? And she said, I don't know. I think I've been bad this year. I may be getting coal. And he said, well, it'll be good, clean burning coal. I had to say that. It was great. So I got a good kick out of that. But yeah, so we had a great Christmas. We went on Christmas Day. We went two hours north to Emily's family. And then that Saturday, we went two hours south to my family. So that's kind of what it's like with us living in the middle of the state. And I'm from the south of the state. She's from the north of the state. And we live right in the middle. So it kind of splits the difference there for our family. We're about two, two and a half hours away from everything. And man, it was great. I had my Christmas present was watching my family get all their Christmas presents. Of course, my wife got me a nice knife, a nice pocket knife, and I loved it. But it was being able to, you know, get my family some stuff that they really wanted. I gave my wife a espresso machine that she wanted. And my oldest son was able to get him a car. And so now he's mobile, which it has been super, super convenient to have another driver in the family. That has been something that has been out. Now he wants a job. He says, Dad, I'm tired of sitting at the house. I want to go work. And so he's going out today to fill out some job applications. Good homestead kids work at Chick-fil-A for their first job. So tell him to go get Chick-fil-A. They'll hire him tomorrow. Well, if it wasn't far away, that might be. But I think, you know, we're rescinding him. We're going to send him to the Hall of the Wall. Yeah. Well, and some of our listeners may not know, when you say another driver, Emily is blind in one eye, so she can't drive. That's why. That is correct. Yeah. So having him to be able to drive her around and manage that driving definitely helps a little bit. That's why Brett looks so good to Emily, because she's half blind. And so I always sit on the blind side. That's how we've made it as a couple. Yes. But yeah, we're sending him to the Hall of the Wall of the Wall and see if we can get a little Piggly Wiggly revival going on. There we go. So but yeah, so he's going to be out there, hopefully bagging groceries and things like that. But man, other than that, Christmas was great. We had a great time with our church. We had a great time with family. Holiday season was is always a great time for us. And look, I don't know if it's excuse me. I don't know if it's like this for your church, but the Christmas season is so busy. There's so much to do. We can't even hardly fit it all in. We didn't even go Carolyn this year and we didn't miss it because we were so busy. And then we get to January and January is about the only month of the year for our church that we've got a little bit of downtime. That there's not a lot going on. I've got a little break from school. I said I'll start school till next week. We were so busy during December that January is kind of a chill time. We don't have a whole lot planned. And so January is just kind of chill for us. Yeah, no, January is chill, but it's slowly becoming more and more busy as the church grows. As things begin to move forward, we're starting to put some things in January because, hey, we didn't do it in December. Let's push it to January or move things around. So we strategically moved our calendar around this year. First time since I've been here that we actually changed dates like hardcore. We moved Bible school from July to June. We moved homecoming from November to October. So we moved some things around to be able to accommodate more and to be more strategic with our calendar. And some of this was maybe my idea. This was some of our church council planning. And so we just we went with it. We're going to see how it goes. If things go well this year, we'll continue for next year. But we're just sort of strategically changing some things to be a little more advantageous with what we've got going on. One of the things that we had to do this year, because the schools in our counties in Mississippi, they're going to year round school. And so our school starts back like in July. Right before July is over. That's why we had to move our VBS, because school starts back the third week of July. And of course, we've got a fair here that everybody goes to. Then the Shoba County Fair. Everybody's got their little houses at the fairgrounds. Well, that moved up to the same week as our VBS because of school. And so we had to change our VBS to the same week as every other church, which is going to hurt our numbers. But, you know, I know it's not all about numbers. But at the same time, you know, we had to rearrange some things. Yeah. No, that's that's where we're at. My June has become the busiest month of my of my life this year. We'll be at the convention in Orlando the first week or two of June. I'll get back the what is it? The third week of June. Yeah. The third week of June is vacation Bible school for us. The fourth week of June is youth camp. The last week of June going into July is kids camp. So I've got four or five weeks there just every single week packed full for the entire week. So, yeah, it's gonna be great. We're praying for lots of strength during that time. And it's going to be a great time. But, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, hey, we're back in the saddle here. Man, yeah, we're here, baby. We're here. Holidays are over. We are a present and accounted for. And, man, by the time this comes out, we will be just less than two weeks away from being in the Holy Land, man. Yeah. Yeah. When this comes out, I think this is going to come out the 22nd of January. And so we're going to be like a week and a day away from going to the Holy Lands. It's going to be a phenomenal time. We've already started looking at where we're going to be speaking. We've got a group, I think, 32 of us going, 32, 33 of us going. But it's packed full. It's going to be a great time. We've got people from our, that we've signed up on our trip. We're combining with Marcus. He's got a group of pastors that are going. So it's going to be a great time. Looking forward, I've been talking with Pari and some others. And, man, we're just excited about being there, stepping where Jesus stepped. I'm excited about the places that we didn't get to go that we're going to be able to go. And just leading the trip and being able to, listen, Brett, I went to a Greek restaurant the other day. I walked in and everything on the board was Israeli-style food. I mean, they had the falafels. They had the shawarma. They had hummus. They had everything. And I didn't order any of it on purpose because I didn't want to be disappointed by it not being as good as when we go to Israel. And so I just avoided ordering it. I ordered like a burger or something that was, it was still phenomenal what I had. I don't even remember what I had. Oh, it was a Philly steak. That's what it was. It was a Philly cheesesteak. And so I'm excited about getting that chicken shawarma and rolling that hummus all in it and having that hummus. And my mouth is salivating just thinking about the food that we're going to have while we're there. My wife has said, man, what kind of buffet is it going to be if it doesn't have pork on it? I was like, Emily, you have no clue. There's plenty of stuff you can have on a breakfast buffet that doesn't involve pork, bacon, sausage, things like that. But you can attest those buffet lines. They're just, they're as long as the entire hall. There's four or five of them. Man, the food there, just the buffets in the morning and the evenings at the hotels that we stay at are just unbelievable, phenomenal. And this time, James, we're going to get there. You know, when we went last time, we got there late. And so they had our food and our rooms wrapped up. But we're going to get there Saturday afternoon with some daylight left. So that's going to be really cool. Yeah, I'm pumped about that. I think it's going to be phenomenal. I'm excited about flying in and seeing the terrain from the air that we got to sort of not get to see because it was so dark. And we sort of were just lost riding because it's all dark. We're just on the bus. Yeah, you're riding the bus and you can't see nothing because it's pit. Well, yeah, we went all the way to our hotel to spend the night and we hadn't seen Israel yet because it was dark on the bus. We woke up and the first thing we saw was the Sea of Galilee. And we really didn't even I mean, we knew it was the Sea of Galilee, but like we we didn't get to see it. We came in and we're just like, it's just a body of water. What is this? And then we our first night we were there, we didn't or the first tour, we didn't actually go to the Sea of Galilee. We drove away from it. And then we came back that evening and did the Sea of Galilee. I think we were on the boat that evening. I remember right. But like we're going to know those things now. We're going to see it. It's yeah, it's going to be I'm excited. I'm excited about I hate that our mirror won't be there to lead us. We're going to have a meet who's going to be leading us this time. So a different voice from a different perspective. And so that'll be interesting to see and hear and new information. And so, yeah, I'm excited. I can't wait. I can't wait for you as listeners because, Brett, we're going to be recording everything we do there. All the different talks that we give. We're going to be doing some special live interviews or not live, but we'll be on on location interviews with Mark. And me and you and be able to talk through some stuff. And so that's going to be a great time to get some of that content out to you guys as well. Now, listen, I know they say that no non-Muslims can go into the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. But when we tell them we're going to record the For Freedom podcast inside the Dome of the Rock. They're going to swing the doors wide open. I mean, swing wide the gates. Here we come. It's going to happen. Yeah. For freedom. Come. Come for freedom. Yes. For freedom. Come on. Come on. You guys. Come. Come. Yes. Come. Yeah. So it's going to be great. I'm excited about it. Brett, transitioning from Israel. I had some sad news this last week that I found out. I didn't even get to tell you yet. But one of our dear podcast partners, Shana and Kristen with the Growing Grace podcast, they've officially shut their podcast down and closed it down. Five seasons. 89 episodes, I believe, is what they recorded. Over my Christmas break, I was using some of that time to just catch up on fellow podcasters and listening to some episodes as I was working or cleaning or cleaning up and moving things around. And they were one that I had on my pending or in my playlist to get to. And they have officially decided to disband the podcast. 89 great episodes. Kristen is trying to start her new family and get pregnant. And Shana is busy with writing and other things. And so I just want to thank them for their hard work. The things that they've done to encourage women in ministry and women that just oftentimes can feel like they're on an island. And the encouragement they gave. I know for me and my family, meeting them there at the Danville meetup and other places. I think I met them the very first time when we were in Missouri. Bourbon is where I met them for the first time. That was sort of the launch of the Growing Grace podcast. And so I just want to thank you guys, you ladies, for all your hard work. I know you're going to still do great things. Go by, check out their episodes. If you are struggling with things or want a different perspective, their episodes are still out there. They're just not releasing anything new. But thank you, Growing Grace, for your faithfulness and your work over the last five years. Absolutely. Awesome podcast. Great, great ladies. Good friends. We love to listen to them. And we wish them all the best in the world. Yeah. We actually, Brett, me and John, I think it's me and John, maybe me and you. I can't remember. We have an unreleased episode of Growing Grace that we recorded a long time ago that we did with them. It's in my file somewhere. I remember we never put it out. It was just one of those we did. And so we may pull that out here in a couple of weeks and drop it. If you know anything about me, you've listened to us long enough, you know that I never say names right. And so I think it's Shana, but I said Shana like 17 times. Or maybe I'm saying it wrong right now. I don't even know. But we are definitely saddened to hear that, but excited for what they've got going on as well. Absolutely. And then, hey, then when we get back, we've got Orlando. We're going to the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Florida. So if you are any of our listeners are going to be there at the Southern Baptist Convention this year in Orlando, hit us up. Let us know. You're going to be there. We'll have a meet up. We'll get together. We've got a big house this year, Brett. We've just booked our house that me and you will be, our churches will be partnering with splitting that cost. And so it's a nice house. It's got its own pool as well. So it's going to be a great time with our kids. And come by, hang out with us. We'll let you know where we'll be at for that. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to that for sure. Yeah. Hey, if you haven't checked out our podcast, our cigars company, they're at 1689 Cigars and our For Freedom podcast, For Freedom Cigar Company. Go by and check it out. Thank you for all of you who made 2025 a great year. We sold around 500 cigars, I believe, best number that I can count. We've sold a lot of our boxes, our experience boxes with our sampler of all four cigars, coffee that helps our church plants in Nicaragua. Our soap company that the lady started there in Tennessee that we're partnering with, Humble Soap. And so that's all part of that box. And it's a great little box that you get. You get to sort of sample all those. It's been great. We had a great year. Looking forward to this next year, 2026. And just seeing where the Lord takes that company and how it's used. Brett, over this past Christmas break, I've had so many conversations about the Lord just over a cigar. And just being able to sit down with guys, have a great time, talk, relax, and share the gospel with them through this unordinary means of tent making, as Paul put it. And so thankful for that. Thankful for the opportunity that we have for that. And so if you want to go by and check out that, our link is in the description. It's your little small way where you can support the podcast. Our third quarter was the best quarter that we've done to date during our big Thanksgiving Black Friday sale. And so thank you. I think we sold multiple boxes of cigars. And so please go by, check it out. We'll be running different promo codes this year. And so we'll let you know as those come out. But thank you again for supporting us and supporting the podcast the way you do. I've sent out several books that were donated that we were able to give out. And so we've still got just a couple of those left. I know Brett got some and John got some. And I gave some to our church. And then there were a couple that reached out to me that said, hey, I'd like a copy. And so we put those in the mail a couple of weeks ago. If you'd like one of those copies, a free copy. If you want to support us by going and buying a copy, of course, that's on Amazon as well. And definitely be a way of supporting us as well. And let me say that I had some people reach out to me for some copies of the book. And I'm about to drop those in the mail this week. So if you've asked me for a book and you haven't gotten it yet, they're about to be in the wind. I just got them in a week or so ago. And so we're getting ready to send those out. But I am looking forward to that. I've had people reach out to me for copies of the book as well. And we're looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to this new season. We're starting a brand new season. We've got some where we're closing, finishing up our footprints fundamentalism. We've got some other things that we're really, really looking forward to this season of going into. We're looking forward to letting you guys know about that. But we are ready to go for another season of the For Freedom Podcast. Absolutely. We're going to jump right into it today. And we've had a longer opening banter, but it was a good time. But we are closing the chapter on the future of fundamentalism for the fundamental footprints. And today we're going to be going to a different character. And so it's the last one here. This one, we put him in this category because he's still pastoring. But, Brett, why don't you get started? Tell us who we're heading out to. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man-made code. Blood bought my freedom, now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing, that's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with saints. Sipping grace from the bottle, no room for fakes. I light one for liberty, toast to the king. Every ash a sermon, death has lost its sting. For freedom, he set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. For freedom, he set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin. For freedom, he set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Now here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Martin. Well, today we are heading out to the West Coast to Santa Clara, California. Talk about Dr. Jack Treber, North Valley Baptist Church, and of course, Golden State Baptist College. Yeah, now Brett, so he's been there 50 years, just celebrated 50 years as pastor there. This was one of those colleges that I looked into going. I was very close to going to Golden State. It was Golden State champion, and then there was a college up north that I was looking at. Can't remember the name of it right now. But Golden State was one of those top lines that I had strongly considered. I looked into California. The main reason I didn't go there was because I wouldn't have been able to drive back and forth. I'm a big proponent of being within driving distance of things. And so every time I would have came home would have been a plane ticket. And so that was just one of those cross-country negatives for me that put Golden State out of it. But I was very interested in Golden State as a kid. As a young person looking up to Jack Treber and hearing what was going on there. Treber has been a stalwart in the West Coast IFB for decades. Pastor, author, broadcaster, college founder. I mean, the list goes on and on. The college launched in 96. And the since trained generations. He claims that they've had like 6 million individual people come to their bus ministry at any given time. Don't know if that's true or not. But he said that that's different individual, unique people. 6 million have come through their bus ministry to their church. So a big stalwart out there. Absolutely. And what makes him fascinating, James, is his commitment to old school IFB distinctives. But kind of mixed with this polished media presence. I've seen so much of him on Twitter and Facebook and social media and things like that. But, you know, during and we might talk about this later, but I'll bring it up now. He became kind of famous across the country back in COVID. Yeah. Because he was one of those churches that refused to close. And a lot of the Southern Baptist churches that I knew were talking about him and praying for him in his church. Not understanding. They didn't know that he was an independent fundamental Baptist. They were just seeing the government try to tell a church what to do. And so he kind of got a little notoriety. I heard the local, on my local news channel, talk about Jack Treber and talk about, you know, two worlds coming together. It was like, what in the world? Because I knew Jack, going to House Anderson, I knew who Jack Treber was. I knew Golden State. And so it was kind of weird to him get that notoriety and that fame during that time. But we're also going to talk about today a few of the serious controversies. We're going to unpack those. But I think we got to start with the roots. We got to find out who is Jack Treber? How did he come to be who he is, where he is? Yeah. Well, we'll start at the closer to the beginning of his ministry. So Jack Treber was called to pastor what would become North Valley Baptist Church around the mid-1970s. I was listening to something by him today just in research. And one of the things they do often is like this day in church history, which I think is pretty cool. But they had mentioned like a vote that was made to do something in the church. One of those founding years that he was there in the mid-70s. And it was like 98 to 1 was the vote. So like 99 people voted. So it wasn't a large church when he took it. It was a relatively smaller church there in North, there in San Clara, California. And it was struggling near the San Jose area. And from the small beginnings, he began to grow this church into a major IFB hub. Hundreds and thousands of pastors have got training and came in and out of this church. One of our good friends or one of my good pastors who was in college graduated from Golden State. Love that. Love the ministry there. Still goes there. His son graduated from there. So there is this heritage of people going and retaining this love for Golden State Baptist Bible College. Right. And you mentioned this alongside the church. He launched North Valley Schools, which was a KC-12 educational ministry. You've got the KNNVBC Revival Radio, a broadcast network to extend preaching and teaching to the area and has exerted a lot of influence that way. Yeah. He's also an author, pastors, pastorals, devotionals, leadership books that he's put out. They do a leadership conference every year. They do a youth workers conference every year. And he also runs what is called the North Valley Publications, which keeps all of his material in circulation. And it's a way for him to be in the IFB circles. Everyone's always looking for literature, right? Everyone's always looking for a good curriculum. And so, hey, if we can provide that through our publications, hey, let's do that. And so that's sort of one of his ways have been out there. And he learned that from the great, right? He learned that from Jack Howes. Jack Howes learned if you can put out books and curriculum and things that people can buy, you can really help profit what you're doing through what you're saying and then promulgate your ideology. I think the statistic was, and this was pre-social media, this is pre-anything, but Jack Howes, every time he put a book out, it sold a million copies just because it had the name Jack Howes on it. So if he made a dollar off every book, he's making a million dollars off every book he puts out. And we know he made more than just a dollar off a book. And so there's a lot there. I mean, I've still got Jack Howes books on my shelf that I bought while I was in college. And so that's a big thing. So he's pushing his ideas through his publication company. Everybody else is throwing their Howes books away, but I kept mine because you never know, especially when I was doing TikTok and things. I might need props and whatnot. Go back to refer to them. So I don't have them on my shelf. Hey, I've got a box of them, and it's labeled IFB Research. It's all the IFB books. It is. In Treebury, North Valley, they've got a lot of different layers of influence. I mean, you've got the church, schooling, media, publishing. They're all under the same leadership umbrella. This is a church and a pastor that has a lot of irons in the fire. Yeah. Well, we fast forward from his founding and how he went through all that to 1996. We said this sort of in the opening part. 1996, Jack Trouber founded Golden State Bible College, GSBC as a lot of people call it, to train pastors, missionaries, and music workers. Those are the three keys that they have, and they emphasize music. If you watch any of their bad preacher clips of Jack Trouber, I mean, tons of music clips, tons of things that are involving music and the way music style is. Anytime Tony Hudson comes out there, he preaches on music. I mean, it's like every single time he's out there, he preaches a sermon on music. They also say that they're for Christian educators and more. But those first three, pastors, missionaries, and music workers are the three big things that they really harp on a lot. You know, back growing up in church, we didn't get a whole – I mean, we've got singing groups come through. We would have hit like Crown and Hiles and things like that, but they would be hit and miss. They wouldn't come every year. But Golden State came every year. Yeah. You know, they're out there in California. If they're going to get people there, they've got to promote. And that's what their singing group was around for, to go out, promote the college, and Golden State would come every year. So they do have a lot of influence in music and very musical. And the college, you know, it wasn't just an academic add-on. It wasn't an afterthought. GSBC embraced the IFB college model. All unaccredited, church-sponsored, spiritually immersive, strict lifestyle standards, the whole nine yards, the whole kit and caboodle. They went all in in the IFB college model. Yeah. I was able to come across a catalog or a policy manual, a guideline book, and this is what their guideline said. They teach. They clearly laid out they teach soul winning. They require chapel daily. They enforce modest address standards. They restrict dating to supervise college dates, church dates, and maintain a curfew and music screening. Ultimately, their goal was to make ministers, not scholars. And so very heavily legalistic in their mindsets. Academically, they are not in the idea of we're going to be heavy on the academics, which is true to the IFB model, right? Me and you, me and John have talked about this often. Me and when we had on a couple of guests with talking through this college mindset, college model is we're going to give you ministry. We're not going to give you any mental stress on your mind. And so a lot of this is afterward where we challenge ourselves through reading and studying. And we didn't get that while we were in college. Now, there's a balance, I think, to both. But they stress the idea of maintaining a high moral standard versus a high mental standard. I'm going to be honest. That saying right there, that statement that you just made, it kind of hits me the wrong way. Make ministers, not scholars, says to me the word of God is not that important. Yeah. You know, I mean, how can you be an effective minister if you're not a scholar of the word of God? The word of God is central to what we do. Yeah. I talked about Sunday. You know, you've got pastors out there that are sent up in the pulpit and they make TED talks and they do motivational speeches and they wax eloquent on psychology. But where's the Bible? Where's the word of God? You know, I just I believe too much in text-driven preaching. Well, you know, and I don't think Paul ever said to Timothy, study to sell yourself approved. I don't think he ever said that at all. Yeah. Obviously, you know. No, no. He just said, hey, get up and preach whatever you decide to preach on, whatever is big in the day, you know, whatever you're whatever's in your crawl that day, you just get up and you preach it. That's what he was telling Timothy to do. Right. Okay. Okay. Now we get that clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, as we continue on, part of what we want to do at this moment is share just a couple of clips, some idea of what he is and who he is. Maybe you've never heard of Jack Trouber. I will say Brett listening to him in this research. He looks like he's going to cry every time he says a word. He's got that like just emotional face the whole time. And a lot of time he is crying. But he is polished in his performance, in his delivery of his preaching. He's been doing it for 50 years in one church. He is passionate about his preaching. He has a strong emphasis on, and I'm going to say these three things, and it's his version of sound doctrine. His version of holiness and his idea of revival style preaching. And what I say by that is it's his version of sound doctrine. He's going to preach a sermon where it's not maybe, like we just said, the doctrine is not there in the traditional sense of doctrine of scripture. The doctrine of the holiness is his version of making sure the outside is right and the holiness of God is right on the outside, not necessarily the inside. And so, and then revival preaching, he mentions a lot of old names all the time. And so, we've got a couple of sermon clips that we'll drop at this time. One was from June that was on I've Played the Fool, and that's the first one that you'll hear. And so, let's play that one real quick, a 30-second clip on just family and heritage. And I don't have anything to disagree too much about this little clip, but listen to it right here. Hey, young people, stop complaining about your parents. I think of the parents God has given to you and how God has blessed you with a father or with a mother or perhaps even both. Or perhaps you don't have a family, you live with your grandparents or your aunt or uncle or a foster home. But God's given you somebody that loves you. Amen. Love your family. Brett, what's your thoughts on that? You know, nothing, you know, like you said, nothing to disagree with. You know, he kind of was loud the whole time, but that was just probably, I don't think he like screams the whole time he preaches every time. But, you know, nothing to disagree with there. Yeah. And I think, you know, as you listen to that, yeah, I mean, family's important. Respect your mom. Respect your dad. There's going to be a time where, and I know all young people do this, all teenagers rebel against mom and dad. And so, it's a good idea to preach this honoring your parents. I think it's biblical. Yeah. The next clip we're going to play is one courtesy of IFB Sermon Clips. I thank you for them, Bad Sermon Clips. They pulled this one out, and it is the idea or the sermon that he preached on believing in the hope of not this generation, but the next generation that's coming up, not his generation. And he dropped some names of guys that have passed away. And so, listen to this little two-minute clip that they pulled out for us. See, I really believe, I believe the hope's not in my generation. I think the hope's in your generation. There's very few left in my generation. You know, I had all these heroes. I have all these letters from Brother Roloff and Lee Robertson, Tom Malone, Jack Hiles, and from great preachers of yesteryear. A whole file of them. I've thrown almost everything away, but I've kept those letters. I've kept the letters from all my grandkids and my wife and from our family. But I want you to know that most of all the fellows that I look to are all gone. But I think we're in good shape. We've got some young men that are raising up. You say, well, aren't you embarrassed being an independent fundamental Baptist? You young preachers, listen. It's just the opposite. As I see what's happening, I am more wanting to identify as an independent, separated, pre-millennial, King James Version, separated Baptist preacher. I'm glad I'm an independent. You say, well, I'm trying to figure it out. If I'm a contemporary, you better flee to what's going to have some heritage and what's going to endure in these last days. We need your churches. Young people, don't go home and fight your pastor. If he says, hey, let's all sit up front, then sit up front. Life is not that difficult. But when we rebel all the time, you know, if a police officer pulls me over and I really wasn't speeding, I was just speeding but going with the flow of traffic. And he gives me a ticket. I'm not going to debate with them because they have missed so many opportunities to give me tickets. Brett, we got the name Roloff and Jack Howells. And, you know, he's throwing away a bunch of stuff over the years. And you're name dropping, dude. Yeah, but, man, I will never throw away my Jack Howells note that he gave me. I'll keep it in my book. I'm going to keep it there to read it because Jack gave it to me. Like, I mean, man worship, man. I just, you know, when I listen to it, I don't listen to these clips often. But, man, the amount of man worship that comes out of these guys' mouth, it blows my mind. And, you know, James, with the state of our world and our country and where we're headed, it's good to know that there are churches out there that stand for the, that make the main thing the main thing and stand for premillennialism. Man, when you want to identify, that's how you're going to make a difference for Christ is standing for premillennialism. Oh, and, of course, King James only. We got to make sure we get that in there because that's one of the most important monikers we can put on there. Now, listen, I am a premillennialist. I am a premillennialist, and I get a lot of flack from some of my friends for it, but I don't, like, make that part of my identity. It's just my eschatology. It's not, you know, the main thing needs to be Christ, not your eschatological views. And, of course, KJ, the only ism is idol worship, and you'll never convince me otherwise. But just making that just your main identity, that's what we are. I'm proud to be this, you know. So, I don't know. Yeah, no, I agree with you, man. I think that is a moniker of we're going to say these things because it's going to give us the IFB sound doctrine, right? We are these 17 things, independent, fundamental, premillennial, pre-trib, King James only, Bible, soul winning, preaching church. You know, this is the idea that they give, and it gives this thought that we are sound doctrinally. When that has nothing to do with doctrine. Nowhere in scripture does it say premillennial. Nowhere does it say you have to be King James only. And so, this is some of the style that you'll hear when you do some of your own research and look up what these guys are saying and doing. So, yeah. Next is the harder part, Brett. What's up next? The hard part. We've got some things, some controversies, some accountability challenges that we want to talk about. GSBC and North Valley have not been immune to broader IFB controversies. It's around abuse, a lack of accountability, which is kind of par for the course for IFB, the IFB realm, and IFB churches. Yeah, absolutely. The investigative outlet, like the Star Telegraph, Star Telegraph mapped dozens of abuse cases across IFB institutions. While IFB, Church, Golden State, and North Valley weren't specifically singled out, they were in that ecosystem of names that had been associated with that ministry, but had not had anything alleged happened during that time. Right. More specifically, in the mid-2010, Survivor Counts came out accusing a former faculty member, Cameron Giovanelli, of sexual misconduct. These were raised in blogs, YouTube, exposés, and forums, criticizing how GSBC leadership reportedly handled this matter. Yeah. Yeah. And Cameron Giovanelli, he has been out there specifically on multiple different raises. There's a – Stacey Shiflett brought that to the attention of social media during that time and called out what Cameron was doing. They moved him to Florida, and he opened a college there. And then all of a sudden, again, Stacey Shiflett brought it back up again. And so that is a big, big issue that has been brought up over the years of Golden State and under Jack Kruber stuff. The old, let's ship them to another, to my buddy in one state over, or ship them across the country, sweep it under the rug. That's always a – that's an IFB MO. So, yeah. Before I get to this last one, Brett, let's talk through the COVID situation, the controversy that happened there. Again, this was during the 2000 times. CBN, Christian Broadcasters Network, talks about it. They said that they had up to $52,000 in fines. They were facing penalties for holding in-service services on Sunday mornings and evenings and Wednesday nights. The county issued additional fines and violations for not social distancing during this time. And Kruber said these were bogus charges. They told them that they did not immediately correct the violation. They would take additional legal actions, including civil or criminal prosecutions. I remember there was a picture that was out where Jack Kruber was out in front of his church, and there was an American flag and a Christian flag, and he's on his knees out in front of the church. And he said, America's at a serious moment. The government must stop. It cannot continue this way. And he continued to do what he was doing. And I applaud him for doing that, but I believe that the spirit about what he was doing was different and almost in a way to pump himself up. If I were under serious litigation from the state, I don't know if I would go out in front of my church and take a picture and pray for the world. I just don't see the social side of that. This is a local church issue. It's not a national situation that I can bring everyone in on. Right. It was a serious issue. It was something that a lot of people were dealing with. A lot of people resonated with what his church was going through and the stand that he was taking. But at the same time, he was using it as a platform, as a platform to grandstand. And so that's what I think about the situation. Yeah. And this was during Gavin Newsom's reign there as governor. He was the one that was pushing all this. And this was simultaneously the same time what was going on at Grace Community Church under the late, great John MacArthur, who passed away just recently. He was going through the same thing. And his fines were $250,000, $300,000 fines because they were using parking lots that the government had allowed them to use. And so Gavin was doing this on a massive scale to churches, not just Jack Treber. And you can sort of, if you follow John MacArthur, you can see how his response was a little bit different than Jack Treber's response to what he was doing. And he was specifically going to the government versus social media. And so you can see a little bit of that. One other important note that I want to make is no public criminal charges have ever been confirmed or appeared confirmed to what we can see. There have been allegations that have been widely circulated online and some investigations were inadequate. And so we want to handle these properly and adequately as we address them. There is one lady on the Preacher Boys podcast. I know her specifically. I'm not going to give her name, but she was actually at the church that I was at in Arkansas, her and her husband. And I believe in that podcast, she had talked about how they had settled a lawsuit where she was, there was an allegation or there was a situation that happened while she was a teenager. And so she had sued the church and the church had settled that out under the insurance law investigation later and working to try to get her on to share her story about what happened and her involvement there under Jack Treber. But what a horrible situation. And so there are some of those, like, again, this wasn't in court, so it's not public, but it was handled outside. And so that's how they were able to not have any public allegations against them because they handled them outside of court. Right. Now, regardless of controversy, GSBC has trained countless pastors and workers who now serve in independent Baptist churches across the West and beyond. We know several people, several missionaries, several pastors. Golden State has had a large reach. Yeah, absolutely. You know, you can, they put all their chapel messages, youth conferences, their choir stuff, all that's out there. Revival radios. Golden State continues to shape West Coast Fundamentals identity. They are really the gold standard, Golden State gold standard for the production quality and the way they do a lot of what they do. And so a lot of people try to emulate that. They see that. They try to do a lot of what they're doing in their area because their reach is so big. I mean, even their online stuff during COVID. I mean, they built, like, outside churches where cars could pull up and they had this elevated place. They still did Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. They did their revival services outside. I mean, they did all, they didn't stop anything. They just went to outside church and it was crazy to see. Right. You know, in Shreber's survival of multiple decades in Northern California's shift in culture landscape, it's notable for sure. It shows a sustained core despite cultural and institutional headwinds. And I give my hat to any church in California. Yeah. When you're ministering in California, whether you're IFB or not, whether you've got a good church or whatnot, when you're in California, you're fighting against the system. California has got some of the most progressive laws in our country and probably most anti-church laws there are in the country. And, you know, my hat is off to anyone who is willing to minister and fight those battles in the state of California. Absolutely. Absolutely. So where, as we wrap this up, where does Golden State sit on the IFB map? All right. It represents continuity, right? Preserving the separatist doctrine and training the next generation. It's institutionally streamlined. It has a college, chapel services, school, radio, all under one roof, right? They have learned the idea. He has modeled Jack Howells. He went to pastor school all the time, and he is modeling Golden State after Howells Anderson, the way Jack Howells institutionalized everything and streamlined everything. Yet it's also vulnerable. They've been called in many controversies and scrutiny because of their lack of oversight. And as we heard, and we had a couple other clips that I didn't play, but here's one clip. I think it's the top clip on Bad Preacher Clips, if you type in his name, where he says that the man of God should be respected. The wife of the man of God shouldn't even be slandered against. And if I tell you to do something as the man of God, you should listen. No questions asked. I mean, he lays the law down in that episode, that clip. And so there is this vulnerability when there is no oversight, when there is no type of accountability, when you are the sole authority of structure, where abuse can happen and cover up can happen as well. And so it's vital to have that council of people around you. And where did you get that from? You got that? From the man. From the man. That I'm never going to throw away his note that he gave me. You know, that's what he said. That's right. Never throw it away. Make the case for it. Right. We're going to elevate. I mean, when he said that, again, I'm getting back to it. I'm getting off this rabbit again. It's like he's elevating this note by Jack Howells that's greater than even scripture. Right? It's like the Apostle Paul hand-wrote a note to him. The Apostle Jack wrote a note to me, and I'm never going to get rid of it. I don't care about the scandals and the immorality that he lived and the debauchery that he had in his life. You know, this is a note by Jack Howells. I can't get rid of it. Well, guess what? Hey, I got a note from the Apostle Paul. I'm not going to throw away, brother. Amen. Amen. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. But, you know, the key question is, will Golden State, North Valley, will they remain relevant as younger Christians gravitate toward mainstream evangelicalism or more open ecumenical spaces? It's traditional. It's the traditional model. It's traditional model appeals to a kind of a shrinking niche group. And, you know, is that for the best? Yeah. You know, that's a question we've got to ask ourselves, and that's a question that we'll be exploring over the years of the podcast as the IFB, it is a shrinking movement. We've got some big, big stalwart things that are going on, but Jack Trouber's nearing the end of his life, right? He's served 50 years faithfully. What's going to happen to Golden State when he's no longer on the scene, when the manipulation of the man of God, you know, we saw the same thing happen with Jack Howells and Howells Anderson, how the church and the school struggled for many years with abuse and scandal with Scop and others. What's going to happen when he steps off the scene and what happens to the church there? Be interesting to see. But that's our dive into Jack Trouber, North Valley and Golden State. Thank you for listening. We've got some exciting things coming up with our episodes coming out from Israel and some other things that we'll be dropping. We hope you enjoyed it today. Until next time, to God be the glory. Great things he has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. That has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast.

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