Welcome to Rock Harbor Church's channel on Sermon Audio. We hope this message is a blessing to you and helps you in your daily walk with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So please, settle in and grab your Bibles. Here's Pastor Brandon with this message. Father, thank you, Lord, for so much that you have done in our nation's life. What is absolutely a miracle. We now understand, Father, why Trump avoided two assassination attempts, and because you have exalted him to be president. We see that, and we see the implications of that. We thank you for that, Father. We don't deserve it as a country. God knows we don't deserve that, Father. We've done all kinds of weird stuff in promoting the most sin in America, but yet you have given us a reprieve. And we realize that we will not take that for granted. We will use that to further your gospel, to further the truth and to help Israel. And so Lord, thank you for that. Thank you for this time and the ability to have the freedom to speak freely and not worry about being censored. We pray now in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, let's jump into Laodicea because that's exactly where we're at in the church age. And we talked about, I think, where we left off. Because you say, I'm rich, I've become wealthy, I've needed nothing, and the problem with all of Laodicea is their affluence. had created a sense of uselessness, right? Because, and we remember the water, the Laodicean water that was mixture of the Colossi water that was cool and refreshing and the Heropolis water that came in and then was therapeutic and hot. And when it blended together, it obviously made a lukewarm condition of the water that was useless. And when you drank it, you would vomit. So we talked about that. And so the key principle then for Laodicea is, they're in a useless state. It doesn't mean they're not a believer, it means they're in a useless state. But that useless state then is created because of the love of materialism, a love of wealth and a love of affluence, okay? So then, like Jesus said, even in a salvation issue, it's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle because riches are very deceiving. And just to talk about that, When someone is affluent, they don't feel their spiritual needs because their physical needs are met. When you're not worried about your next meal, and you're not scrapping out a living and trying to pay bills and stuff, and you're on Easy Street, and you're building your barns bigger, like the parable Jesus gave, your spiritual needs get kind of doused. You don't feel them anymore. And that's what happens to a lot of people, especially in America, that are affluent. They don't have their spiritual needs. The two sometimes go hand in hand. So that's why, typically, all throughout church history, it has been the downtrodden, it's been the poor, it's been the outcast, it's been those types of individuals that have gravitated to Christianity. And this is why Paul will say something, so not many wise, but the foolish actually are the ones who see their need for Christ, right? Not the wealthy. So anyway, I'm not saying you can't handle wealth, but very few people do actually handle wealth at a spiritual level that they can manage it correctly. So anyway, that's what's happened to them. So what has it done? Well, you can see the spiritual state of them. It's made them wretched. miserable, poor, blind, and naked. So their condition is not loss of salvation, because you can't lose your salvation, but they're in a wretched and miserable state, and a poor state. Spiritually speaking, right? And they're blind spiritually, and they're naked spiritually. And naked spiritually has to do with not having rewards, or they're losing rewards because of this. So this is not a good condition to be in, obviously. And can Christians get into this kind of state? Of course they can. And of course, this type of Christian is not going to look like the dude on the street. This kind of Christian is going to look like they have it put all together. They have the outward adornment of affluence, and that gives a perception to people that they have it together, and they don't spiritually. So this is a tricky thing to see. because they're not dressed in rags, so to speak, even though spiritually that's what they are. So I want to go through all of this, what this means, as far as how he counsels them. So he comes back to them and says, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich. So this is one way of getting out of it, that you have to go after the true spiritual riches, not the earthly riches, and that has to be your agenda. Well, That's storing up treasure in heaven and that has to do with rewards. But that's tied to obviously good works. So all of that is... them getting off their agenda for materialism and what money does for them and getting onto a spiritual agenda and that's the only way you can earn spiritual riches is if you're doing the spiritual agenda. If you're doing your own agenda, you're not gonna get any rewards. You might get richer, you might have a better business or whatever, but you're not gonna get any spiritual rewards unless those things are funneled that way. And so they have to get onto God's agenda. In order to get on God's agenda, then you have to start making sacrifices. That's the problem that a lot of people don't wanna make. It will cost you something. It will cost you money. It will cost you time. It'll cost you convenience. It starts costing you to get on God's agenda. And that is a hard switch. Because when you're in the affluent agenda, life goes pretty smooth. And a lot of people, obviously, I've tried to recruit over the years and we're talking not just at Rock Harbor but my previous ministry, you would ask them to serve somewhere and they simply can't because they're so busy on the weekends doing their own thing that they can't serve. And they have their agendas and they like to vacation and nothing wrong with vacationing but when you vacation every weekend, you only can vacation every weekend if you have a lot of money. If you're being able to go out of town, and staying in hotels and you're doing a Friday through Sunday thing or a Friday through Monday thing every weekend, that implies that you have money. We can do that every once in a while when we take a vacation and stuff, but when you're starting to do that every weekend, that's a problem. And when you ask them to serve, they can't do that because they can't commit to anything because this weekend they're doing that. And then this weekend they're going to the beach. And then this weekend they're going skiing in Aspen. And then this weekend they're going to the Matterhorn. And then this weekend they're going to Canada. And this weekend they're going to Japan. And it's like, okay, nevermind, can't use you. and they're too busy, or whatever it is. Or affluence could be sports, and we've all seen what sports has done to families. Well, and I've always made this argument, if you have kids that are playing sports, especially in travel ball, that costs a lot of money, by the way. That's why we really never did that because couldn't afford it. I can't afford, and number one, I wouldn't do it because it always took, I wouldn't want my kids taken away from Sunday morning. But think about this. So if my kid's gonna be in travel ball, he's got a game in Vegas, or he's got a game in Southern California, he's got a game in Arizona, he's got a game in Northern California, whatever it is. I have to travel, that's gas, that's overnight, he's got a double header on Saturday, a double header on Sunday, and so then I gotta pay for all the food, then I gotta pay for the hotels, and the gas coming back, and I gotta do this every weekend for the next six months. Okay? The only way you can do that is if you're affluent. Okay? That's the only way you can do that. Poor people can't do that. But what I'm saying is, and was, well, I'm trying to get my kid the best advantage they can. Yeah, I get that, but at what expense? At what expense because you don't serve? At what expense because you guys don't even come to church? Or what expense you're taking away your kid from church because you're constantly doing this thing? And it's not just a thing in Bakersfield, it's all over the nation that's happening, okay? That's what I'm talking about. And you try to recruit that person to help you do something in the church. They can't do it. They're just too busy. And so what ends up happening is they lose these rewards because they're not on the right agenda. And so I know I'm speaking to the choir, but I'm sure you can think about other Christians that are in this dilemma, and they go to particular churches, but they don't do anything. They don't serve. There's nothing that they actually do other than attend when they can when they're not on vacation. right? Or whatever. So anyway So he wants him to buy this gold that's refined into fire. And refined into fire means that you're gonna build with the proper materials. And this goes all the way back to 1 Corinthians chapter three, again, what we studied at the outset of rewards. And again, this is the Bema Seat in Corinth. I was just at this place where we couldn't film. The stinking lady there was like a Nazi. I hope she's listening to me. I go all the way to Greece, and they're gonna prevent me from filming at the Bema Seat. I couldn't believe it. We still film, by the way. Don't worry about it. I practice civil disobedience for the sake of the truth getting out. So anyway, we film there. But that's in Corinth, that's the Bema Seat, that's where Paul got the mentality of the Bema Seat, right, is what he saw there in Corinth, and he referred to that. And it would be a top ledge, and you would sit on the top and judge people on the bottom. Anyway, going back to 1 Corinthians, this is where this idea of gold, buy gold from him, that is refined in the fire. Well, this is what he says, according to the grace of God, which was given to me, a wise master builder, I've laid the foundation. and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So the apostles and the prophets laid the foundation for the Messiah. That's what we build our Christian lives on, okay? And the key is what you're building with, right? You're building a building, so to speak. That's the imagery that Paul's trying to give you. And if you're building a building, you have to understand that this building's gonna go through fire. And so you've gotta use the proper building materials that will survive a fire. So if you build with wood, hay, and stubble, that's not gonna survive a fire. And the fire is the Bema Seat Judgment, is what he's talking about. So he says, now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, and precious stones, wood, hay, and straw, each one's work will become clear. For the day will declare it, the day is the Bema Seat Judgment of believers, because it was revealed by fire, the fire that is a metaphor for judgment. And the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is. And so, what Paul is saying is, okay, make sure when you're building your building, you're using gold and silver and precious stones, not wood, hay, and straw, because wood, hay, and straw will be burned. It won't pass the judgment. You'll be found wanting. So that goes back to this loss of rewards, and he says, if anyone's work which he has built on it endures the fire of judgment, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet as though through fire. So you still have your salvation, but you suffer loss of reward. 1 Corinthians 3. So going back to when he says, counsel you to buy gold refined in the fire, he's saying, look, this is what you have to build your life on is with these precious metals that will stand the test of the fire. So why? So you can be rich or so you, in other words, you can be rewarded. That's what he's telling them. So the first thing they have to do is get out of a useless state. That's the first thing. They have to get out of the state they're in, okay? That's the first move. Then the second move then is become useful, okay? And in order to be useful, you have to get on the proper agenda of what's important to God, what he calls you to do, and then you do what he has called you to do, okay? And that means I know my gifts, I know my history, I know my pain, I know my weaknesses, and I know all of that about myself, and I know my heart's desires. And that package then will tell you what you need to be doing. That's how you do it. And that's how you build with gold and silver and precious stones, because now you're doing what you're called to do. If you don't, if you don't pay attention to how you're built, if you don't pay attention to your gifting and your calling and your history and your pain, if you don't pay attention to that, you'll be off track. And then what ends up happening is you start You start with your own agenda, and then if you're on your own agenda, you're inevitably gonna build with wood, hay, and stubble, because you're gonna be using the wrong materials. And using the wrong materials means that you're not going according to what you're supposed to do. You're doing your own thing. And there's plenty of people that have decided to do their own thing. And what ends up happening is they're mismatched. They're working against the grain of how they're built. And so they grudgingly do it, they really don't want to, they're complaining all the time, they're critical, and you get a lot of that coming out of them. And so they'll serve, but they're always sour, right? And that's sometimes how you can tell someone's mismatched. They're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And so look, if you're mismatched and if you're serving and you don't like what you're doing, you're probably not in the right position. Because when you're in your groove and where you're supposed to be, it's like you feel great. It actually gives you more energy. It actually fuels you to do more. You never get tired of the work, but you do get tired in the work. You still get fatigued. but you never get tired of doing it. Once you get refreshed, you're back at it, and you're doing it again. You want that happening in your life, because that's when you know you're on the right agenda, and that's when you know you're starting to accumulate rewards because of that. So, building with that proper, Tools is important. The other thing about building with the proper tools, or proper building materials, is if your theology is in concert with the foundation of that being Christ. So the foundation of Christ is the theology behind him. It's the Christology, we would call that. Everything I build on that must be in concert with that theology. I have to be in concert with that. And if I don't, I'm off. So, as an example, let's say you start building, you start doing activity, and it's social justice warrior stuff. And somebody has convinced you that social justice warrior stuff is the way to go, and now you're going to go dig water wells and not give the gospel, but just dig the water wells and show the love of Christ. That actually is building with the wrong materials right there. because that's not in concert with the Christology of the Messiah. The Messiah has given us a mandate of the Great Commission. Social justice, warrior stuff, is not in concert with the Great Commission. So you can go dig all the water wells you want in Africa, but If the gospel's not there and you're not leading people to the Lord using that, then all of that is a waste. That's wood, hay, and stubble. That's what will be burned up. Or if you're giving peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out to homeless people and never giving them the gospel, then you're wasting your time. You're doing good, but just understand you're not building kingdom rewards because that's not in concert with the Great Commission. What would be rewarded is if you gave the peanut butter and jelly sandwich out and gave the gospel. you would use that as a springboard to get the Great Commission out, right? That kind of thing. So that's what starts happening. And so what I would say then on a larger scale, 80% of our missions into South America, unfortunately, are social gospel. They're not giving them the gospel anymore. And so, For instance, what are they doing? Well, they'll go down there and they'll bring dentists or doctors down there and fix their teeth or whatever and stuff like that, and then fix their teeth or whatever, and then they'll let them go without giving them the gospel. And it's like, well, that defeats the whole purpose. We wanna do good for people, there's no doubt about it, but that becomes the launching board, so the reason I do this is to share the gospel with you. And it's like, well then you can do all the dental work on these people you want, but if they're still going to hell with straight teeth, what's the difference? What are you doing? Right? Okay, you got braces on. Okay, you got straightened teeth, but you're still going to hell. It's crazy. That's not gonna get rewarded, right? Because those are all good things, but they don't have any internal value. Only souls have eternal value. People have eternal value, right? So you gotta do the things, when you're serving Christ, That's how you know if what you're doing has eternal value because you're doing it for other people. The only thing that matters in life is other people. Realize that. It's not money. It's people. People are the most valuable commodity to God because people are made in God's image. So if you understand what true wealth is, true wealth then is helping other people in a gospel way. Not in a philanthropy way, but in a gospel way. that I'm gonna try to lead these people to the Lord as much as I can. Maybe I'm gonna plant seeds, maybe I'm gonna water. It doesn't mean I'm gonna pull the net in. So it just depends on where you're at. But that's my motive. And then if I do get them saved, I wanna disciple them, because that would be the rest of the Great Commission, right? That's how you build rewards. That's building with gold and silver and precious stones. But wood, hay, and stubble is those other things. Philanthropy. And you might win, you know, the Rotary Club Award, okay? For your philanthropy. And you might win the Kiwanis Award, and the Lions Award, or the Elks Lodge Award, or whatever they do at the, or be the Grand Poobah at, you know, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble's Water Buffaloes, or whatever. Remember that? The Grand Puba. So you're going to Fred Flintstone and you might be man of the year for the water buffaloes. But it's all good stuff, but it's not eternal. It's not eternal. And that's what he's trying to say. So buy the gold from me, get on my agenda, and do what I've told you to do, and you will get those rewards. Okay. Then, as you know, and then I'm just gonna reiterate this again, and I've told you this multiple times, but it just keeps popping up, right? And he says, buy not only the gold, but get the white garments that you may be clothed that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed. And again, you probably heard me say this, but again, it's being reiterated by the text. It's reiterated a lot by the Messiah, by the way. And for those of you who don't know, this is a, a Jewish idiom that's in there, and the white garments go back to Revelation 19, and it goes back to what used to happen in that period of time with the high priests. A lot of times you'll see this being clothed and the shame of your nakedness in concert with the coming of the Lord and in concert with the Bema Seat judgment. And so what does all this mean? Well, again, it's usually coupled with, I come as a thief in the night, which was a Jewish idiom for the high priest that would do surprise visits in the temple at night to make sure his temple guard was awake and the priests were awake doing their jobs, okay? And so the high priest would show up unannounced to check on them, and he got labeled the thief in the night, because a thief comes in the night, but he was referring to the high priest just showing up and doing an inspection to make sure everyone's awake. And like I told you, if he found a priest sleeping on the ground, the high priest got a torch and lit his clothes on fire, right? That's what happened. And what would happen is that priest that was laying on the ground, like you see in this picture, he would wake up and realize his clothes are on fire, and he would instantly strip off his clothes to get the fire off of him, and then would run out of the temple naked. Therefore, this became a Jewish idiom that Messiah is using for his coming. He says, look, the white garments, I'll show you that, that's Revelation 19, eight, are the righteous acts of the saints. They're not the robes of righteousness, but the righteous acts of the saints. And then he says that you may be clothed, that your shame of your nakedness may not be revealed. Well, nakedness, has to do with how the guy would be once he took his clothes off, right? And he would be ashamed because number one, I fell asleep, and number two, I'm naked, and number three, I'm running. There's three aspects of shame there in the Hebrew mindset. Being without clothes, right? Being asleep on the job, and then running. Running is something you never did. That's why the prodigal son's father, when he runs to them, is out of concert with the culture. You didn't run in that culture. That was a sign of indignity if you ran. So you would run out. So there's three forms of shame. The nakedness then obviously refers to him leaving his clothes, but what is the word nakedness referred to? It refers to being at the Bema seat and not having any rewards. So you're naked in front of him. And so here's Revelation 19, and to her it was granted, this is the church, to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Notice it doesn't say, the righteousness of the saints, it is the righteous acts of the saints. So it's a reward. That's what the passage is referring to. So that's how you understand this passage. So he's telling them, look, you need to start doing things that gain you rewards, and one of the rewards is wearing these white garments. And there's gonna be some people that don't have these outer garments. They'll have the robes of righteousness, but they won't have the outer garments of reward. So it'd be like kind of a special tunic that you would put on, like Joseph's coat of many colors type of thing, where it'd be an outer tunic, an outer coat that would symbolize your royalty, your position, your rewards by all of that. And so he says, look, if you continue in this useless state, you're not gonna get any rewards, okay? So it means get busy, right? And then he says, and anoint your eyes with eye salve that you may see. Now again, he's talking to believers. And remember, contextually, Laodicea sold what's called the Phrygian eye salve. And they made it there in Laodicea and they sold it there. And a lot of people from all over the world went there to get that eye salve because it did have some healing properties in it that helped a lot of people. And so they went there and got it. So they made a lot of money off it, by the way. You know, how effective it was, I don't know, but apparently people wanted it and they bought it. So he's using that to say, hey look, I've got the real ISAF. You come to me and you'll be able to see, but the problem is you're blind. You can't see spiritually your condition because of the state you're in. And I want you to be able to see, not physically, but spiritually. They can't see spiritually is the problem. Now, can that happen? Yes, absolutely it can happen. And so here's the warning in scripture about it. And this is 2 Peter 1. And he goes, but also for this reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue and virtue knowledge, to knowledge, self-control, to self-control, perseverance, perseverance, godliness. So what is happening here? What Peter is referring to is discipleship. And he's saying, look, you gotta build into your life these character traits, going from faith to virtue, to knowledge, to self-control, all of these are character traits of becoming more like Christ. And if you'll continue to do this, certain things will happen. He says, to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. Okay, so here's the result. If you grow in these areas, or grow in discipleship, he says, for if these things are yours, and you will bound with them, you have a lot of them in excess, you will neither be barren, nor unfruitful in your knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ." So the first thing you have is you will have a discernment and a content of knowledge that will actually fuel this. So part of being able to see is having the right content, okay? What is the problem with Laodicea? Yes, they're not only useless, but because they think they're spiritually blessed of God, this has led to a neglect of them understanding the word of God, okay? So you can see the connection here with the ISAP. In order to see, you have to know the word of God. And that's why Peter is talking about all of this, of how to grow in all of this, but he says, so you'll neither be barren nor unfruitful in your knowledge of Jesus Christ. Okay, so that's the key. In order to discern what's happening, you have to have biblical knowledge. So that's why when we talk about this voting in the second half, and we had one of the lowest voting turnouts for evangelicals in this last election, and a lot of them already told you, like I said, they're not gonna vote, I can already tell you what it's linked to. It's their lack of biblical knowledge. because if you have biblical knowledge, you actually can understand what's going on around you, but they're blind. Most of the church has went blind because of Laodicea, okay? So this is important about your personal Bible study, your personal discipleship, and whatever you're doing to increase that. And please understand, a five-minute devotion is not gonna cut it, okay? It's not. I'm just gonna be honest with you. You're going to have to spend hours upon hours upon hours investigating the scripture and digging as deep as you can and then trying to apply it. It's not enough to do a cursory thing to where you just read a few verses and then you move on with your day. That ain't gonna help you. You've got to dig. And the way to dig is, look, you've got to get yourself some commentaries, man. And I'm not saying that you go by what every commentary says, but you're going to have to get some tools to help you. Most people I talk to, I ask them, do you have a Bible? Yes. Do you have commentaries? No. I'm like, okay, we need to start supplying you with commentaries. And it's not like the commentaries are gold and they're gonna, but the commentaries provide you the background. They provide you the cultural understanding. They might help you with the language. They might help you in connecting dots with other passages and what's going on in the text. Because if you don't know that, you're gonna misapply passages when you read the text, or you won't know why is this happening. Why is he saying this? I'll give you an example. And I think I've given you this example before. I talked to a lady one time that went to, I think it was BSF? Is that where they go to the ladies thing and they study a thing? Is that BSF? Okay, so I'm not trying to knock it, I'm just telling you what this lady told me. I think studying the Bible's great, but you gotta know what you're studying, okay? And you gotta know how to study. So I was following this lady one time, and she was all excited and pumped up that they had spent an entire semester on learning the Sermon on the Mount. And I think she had memorized it, too. And I think, you know, If you know BSF, they take their time, they go through things, and they sit in groups and all this other stuff. I said, okay, that's great, man, that's wonderful. So tell me this, what was the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount? Crickets. Crickets. Crickets. And he says, well, he was explaining how to live. I said, no. That's not what he was doing. I said, so tell me this, you studied this for an entire semester at BSF, right? You circled all the ands, and you got all the conjunctions, and how many this and that, and all this other stuff, right? And you studied this in your ladies group, and here you are, and I'm asking you a simple question, and you can't tell me the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount. And she says, I can't. I said, then how are you guys studying then? Because if you can't tell me what that Sermon on the Mount was for, that's the entire context. Because the context tells me why he's saying what he's saying, and you just wasted an entire semester not understanding the very passage you memorized. And that's what I'm trying to say to you guys. that there are people studying the Bible but they actually don't know how to study the Bible and they're studying it incorrectly and they're actually not retaining anything and not knowing the big picture about what's really happening because they don't have help. And what I said is to the lady, I said, did you guys use any commentaries to help you on the background and give you some cultural Jewish background, help you with the language a little bit and understand why he said this and why he said that? No, they won't let us use any commentaries. I said, that's your problem. I said, if you think you can read the Bible without extra help, you're out of your mind. Because you know why? I didn't live in the first century. I don't speak Hebrew, and I don't speak Greek, and I didn't live in the time of Moses, I didn't live in the time of Jeremiah, I didn't live in the time of Jesus, I definitely didn't live in the time when Romans was written. I definitely didn't, when John wrote Revelation in 95 AD, I didn't live there. I didn't have the apostles at my beck and call to say, John, what did you mean by that? because the language seems really awkward in what you're saying. And I said, you have to have helps with this. And he said, well, I've heard Pentecostal say, will the Holy Spirit be my guide? Really, he will? I go, you're misunderstanding that passage where the Holy Spirit would remind you of all things. That's to remind you about the gospel. That's why you need a teacher. If you didn't need a teacher, the church wouldn't be given teachers. Because what that passage is referring to is to remind you of the gospel, not theology. So you misunderstand the passage. And what I was trying to tell her is like, look, the lack of you knowing the background caused you not to understand the text you read for the entire semester. And she goes, well, what am I supposed to do? I said, well, let me recommend some commentaries to you. And I'm not saying the commentaries are always gonna be right. They're gonna give their opinion, but at least you'll have the background and the understanding of what was going on when you read that text. So my admission to her is you're not studying the Bible correctly. I remember a pastor, I was asking him, in my previous ministry, I said, hey, what are you gonna be preaching on? Because we would take turns when we were younger, preaching on Wednesday nights and stuff like that, get kind of our feet wet. So I asked him, what are you gonna be preaching? I'm gonna be preaching a passage in Romans. I said, oh, okay. I said, what helps are you using, man? He goes, I'm not using any helps. I said, what do you mean? He goes, I'm just gonna preach what, the chapter says. I said, how are you gonna do that? I go, because you didn't live when the book of Romans was written, and you weren't in that audience, and you weren't in that church, and how do you know what was going on in that church? And how do you know why Paul was writing that? And you don't know Greek, what do you mean? And like, he got up there, and I just, I was flabbergasted by that. And he got up there and proceeded to give the most shallow sermon you could possibly imagine. And then the passage somehow made a reference to the incarnation somehow. I can't remember what passage he was in, but he was in Romans. And he likened that to chili con carne. the incarnation. And he's like, yeah, it's like kind of chili con carne, you know. And I said, oh my gosh, this is bad. This is like, I want to get the hook or the gong shofar, gong, and say, please shut up right now and sit down and go back to studying because you blew it. You really, really blew it. So all those things I'm giving to you is a lesson learned. Hey, get some helps. Email me or whatever and say, hey, is there some good commentaries I can have? And what you do is you study the Bible, read your Bible, and then you look at your commentaries and see what the commentators are saying. And you can weigh in. Sometimes, I'm not saying the commentators are always right. Don't get that. But, You use the Bible as your main resource, but you gotta know the background, but the Bible's not gonna give you the background. You have to have the background, and you have to have the context, and you have to know why. Okay, so what's the answer to the question? What's the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount? What's the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount? You know the Sermon on the Mount, right? You got the Beatitudes in there, you've got You've got, you know, saying, look, if you look on a woman with lust, you've committed adultery. If you said raka, you've committed murder. You know the Sermon on the Mount, right? What's the purpose of it? Moral teaching. How to be moral. So who's in the audience? So you always gotta know authorial intent. Authorial intent is what is the author's intent, who's his audience, and who's he talking to? Who's he dealing with? Is he talking to the followers? Yes. But what's the problem with the followers? What is in the background in their mind? What religion are they coming from? Judaism, but primarily Phariseeism. Okay, so the primary emphasis of the religion of the day is Phariseeism. And what Phariseeism, if you notice what Jesus is doing in that text, he's counteracting Phariseeism and their misinterpretation of the law. So what was predicted by the Messiah, and all the rabbis even predicted, that they didn't fully understand all of what Moses wrote about the law. So there was debates about the law. And they said, look, on a lot of the debates, what'll happen is when Messiah gets here, he'll teach us the proper interpretation of the law. So in the Sermon on the Mount, which is where he starts his main, well, his ministry had already started, but this is his main sermon. The sermon is a confrontation with Phariseeism. And the confrontation is how to properly interpret the Mosaic law. That's what it's about. And so what he's doing is showing them that the law is not simply external, like your Pharisees are teaching you, your religious leaders are teaching you wrong. The law is also internal. So that's why he makes the segue, oh, you say you haven't committed adultery, but I tell you, as the Messiah interpreting Moses' law correctly, if you look on a woman with lust, the intent of the law is also in your heart. It's internal as well. So here's the thing. So by doing that, he confronts the Pharisaism of that day, he shows the people the true intent of the law, and therefore, what is the final result of looking at that? and understanding it from that perspective. Because what the Pharisee said is that you gain righteousness by keeping the law. Okay? You gain righteousness by keeping the law. So the debate of that day was how does one earn righteousness? How does one get righteousness? Pharisee said, keep the law. But when Jesus then interprets the law correctly and says it's not just outwardly, It's inwardly. What did that do in terms of being righteous? The Pharisees thought they could do all the righteous acts outwardly, but then when he turned the tables on them and he said, no, it's inwardly. Two. What happened? It puts them on their heels. Because they're like, well, I can't keep that. Because what he is saying, I have broke. And so what ended up happening, it generated two reactions. And the two reactions is, I reject what you're saying about the law, or the other one says, I'm dead in the water. And if I'm dead in the water, and I can attain righteousness by keeping the law, because I can't keep it internally, then what is my only answer? you need a Messiah. So that's real simple, okay? That's the whole point of the Sermon on the Mount, okay? But she couldn't tell me that. You know why? Because she didn't have any background information. She just read the text, and if you just read the text, you won't know the background information, and you won't know the fight that was going on in that culture. and you won't know the background about what's the argument about how someone attains righteousness? What's the argument about the law? When Messiah comes, he'll interpret the law. She didn't know that. Therefore, she read the Sermon on the Mount and didn't know what it was about. Now she knows the words, but you see what happens if you don't know the background? You lose meaning. You won't see it. Okay, so here's my thing. I think everyone in this room understands. The better you know the scriptures at that level, the more you see spiritually. Now, who in this room doesn't want to see more? Ah, okay, I wanna see more. Okay, if you want to see more in what the scripture's trying to say, then you have to study, and you have to have Bible help, you have to have concordances, you have to look at the Greek word, and you have to look at the Hebrew word. You don't have to know Greek, you don't have to know Hebrew, but just get Blue Letter Bible, and just look at your Greek, and look at your Hebrew, what it says. It will tell you what the word says. and you get your definitions, and then you start doing these deep dives, and all of a sudden, things start opening up, and your discernment starts ramping up, and you can see better. The problem with most Christians is they can't tell you what any passage means. They read it, but they don't know what it means. Well, if you don't know what it means, how do you apply it? How could you apply that? Okay, so here's a practical application of Sermon on the Mount. which goes against what people are saying. So right now, people say, mistakenly, and this is wrong, this is heresy, they're saying that as long as you don't act on your homosexual desires, you can have homosexual desires as long as you don't act on them. Based on what I just said on the Sermon on the Mount, how would you correct that? That's a lie. Because when Messiah interpreted the law correctly in the Sermon on the Mount, he says the law is not simply external in what you do, it's also your attitude and your belief system inside of your heart. So your desires are just as important to him as you even acting it out. So saying that you can have homosexual desires would go counter to what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying, no, no, your outward acts and your desires have to be in concert with the law. Oh, well then that discredits everybody that says it, Andy Stanley or whoever's saying that, right? And that would be a practical application of the Sermon on the Mount that would militate against that kind of mentality that, you know, as long as I don't do it physically. Well, part of the law is coveting. Coveting is not a physical act. Coveting is what? A desire, an illicit desire inside you for something that's off limits. So that's why it stacks on the bottom of the Ten Commandments, because through all of this stuff, you're going to start with a desire. and it's gonna be an illicit desire that causes you to sin. So what Jesus is trying to say is, you gotta get to the heart of the matter at the desire level. The desire level has to change, and then that will change the behavior outwardly. Okay, that's just application, right? That's a simple application, but that's what I'm talking about being able to see. So the people in Andy Stanley's church, the 30,000, apparently, and I'm not trying to knock them, can't see. Because when he says that, how come 30,000 people just say, that's wrong, I'm outta here? That's wrong, you can't say that, Andy, that's totally wrong. Because the 30,000 people don't know the intent of the Sermon on the Mount. And that's just one thing. That's just one thing, right? And see, none of these jokers would last a day if people knew their Bibles. They just couldn't stand up to it. But these false teachers like Andy Stanley and whoever else they are, they thrive on people not knowing their Bible. Okay, so he says, you will abound in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, for he who lacks these things is myopic or short-sighted. We get the word myopic. What is myopic? Very narrow. Okay, but then the myopic idea turns to blindness. Okay, and then it affects your memory. So that's scary. So, has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sin. So, let's talk about the blindness and I'll get to the memory issue. So, he says, look, if you're not growing in your knowledge of Jesus Christ, in your content, which is gonna affect the way you see, you're gonna go myopic first. And what's gonna happen, everything's gonna narrow down, okay? You're like a horse with blinders on, okay? Not only Are you not going to be aware of what's going on in the world and around you? You're not even aware of yourself. What's the problem with Laodicea? He has to tell them their state. You're blind, you're naked, you're wretched, you're poor, you're all jacked up, and you don't even know it. So the myopathy goes down from not understanding the world, but I don't even understand myself spiritually. I can't even evaluate myself spiritually where I'm walking at. Well, that's pretty scary. And then what happens? Everything goes dark. So it's like my eyesight, my spiritual eyesight's closing in, closing in, closing in to where I go blind spiritually. And you got people walking around spiritually blind. They can't discern themselves, they can't discern others, they definitely can't discern the world. That is a scary position to be in. when you can't even see yourself. Are there Christians like that? We're loaded with them out there in the nation. We're loaded with them. Christians for Kamala. You have to be blind as a bat spiritually to say Christians for Kamala. You have to be. That means you're blind, okay? He just says a believer can go blind. Now what is this idea forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sin? So now we're talking about a memory problem. So, the interesting thing, if you see in scripture, it's constantly happening. where if God even takes Israel through the desert, they're always going re-back and remembering and he's restating and he keeps saying it over and over and over again. Remember, remember, remember. It's constant in the scripture, constant, okay? It's this idea. That's why God actually creates traditions for Israel so they will be forced to remember. So this is why they have Passover, this is why they have Pentecost, and Sukkot, and Tabernacles, and Rosh Hashanah, and all this other stuff. Why? Because every time they do the ritual, they are forced to remember. When you do the Lord's Supper, you do it in what? Memory of me. Remember me, remember what I did, always this remember thing. Okay, so what you see in scripture is this a dominant theme that God keeps saying this. Why do you think that's the problem? Why are people so forgetful then? What's the problem with this? Don't you think, man, you go through the exodus, you're never gonna forget that event, and yet he still has them do the Passover every year over and over again. Really, I went through it, why would you make me go through it again? What's the problem? There's something wrong with our nature, okay? We're not... We're broke, okay? So our sin nature causes us to forget, okay? It causes us to forget. That's the problem with the sin nature. It's a part in us that's broke. And what tends to happen is if you're withdrawing from the Scripture and not studying, like that's the whole context here, right? Knowledge of Christ. As you're studying it, you are constantly reminding yourselves of those same truths. Because if you don't constantly remind yourself, you will forget, and you actually start going backwards. And not only do you go blind, but you go backwards. And going backwards means you're starting to forget where you came from, because you're starting to go back to it. And this is a weird concept, it's a metaphor. So scripture says, like today, if you say, I'm not gonna read the Bible anymore for this point in my life anymore, you don't get to stay here. you actually start going back, okay? The writer of Hebrews says this. You actually just go backwards. Hebrews chapter five, right? You go back. He goes, I gotta reteach you guys all again. Why? Because they forget. So when you go backwards, you start forgetting, but where are you going back to? You're gonna go back to your old defaults, your old life. He has forgotten that he's cleansed from his old sins. So the person actually starts going backwards into their old life. and they start going back to default. Now remember, I've always told you this. Before you came to Christ, you ran patterns in your brain of how you defaulted and how you handled things in life. That pattern is a neural pathway that has been dug in your brain and it's still there. It actually never goes away. The only thing you can do is what the Apostle Paul said is renew your mind and actually make new neural pathways. Okay, that's the only thing, here's the thing. So remembering causes you to go and use the new neural pathway of how I'm going to react to whatever situation I'm dealing with, okay? So I go back, so that's what it teaches me. And the more you do that neural pathway, the more ingrained and habitual it becomes to where it becomes habit. Okay? But if I don't do that and I don't keep drilling down in my head the new pathway, I will access my old pathways that are still there because they come from the frontal lobe and they go in the back and they stay in the back of your brain forever until you die and we get a new body. So if you don't go on that new neuropathway, you start going back to the old ways, and you start accessing the new neuropathways. Look, if you're codependent, you will be codependent if you don't access the new neuropathways. If you're an addict, you will go right back to the old neuropathways. Whatever the issue is, I don't care what it is, if you're a neurotic, you will go back to neuroticism. You'll go back to it. And so this thing that Christ is saying, it's important, obviously, because who in the world in this room wants to go back to the old way we lived? I know it's there. You know it's there. You know if you're not staying up on your word, you're not being edified in your study, you know what you're gonna do. You're gonna go back to the way you handled things. And it could be as simple as, I handle things through sugar. I handle things through alcohol. I handle things through drugs. I handle things through freaking out. I don't know, I handle things through control freak stuff. I handle things by vacuuming the house three times a day. Whatever it is, whatever that is, it's your old default. So that's what he is saying. And this is a condition believers are getting into. And so he says, that's why I want you to see. Here he says, oh, wow. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, therefore be zealous and repent. So that's what they need to repent of, okay, is they need to get over this stuff and get back on track. So with that, we're gonna stop right there, and then next week, then we're gonna look at the rewards that come from overcoming this issue, okay? Thanks for joining us for another lesson. We hope that this message is a blessing for you and helps you grow towards a more mature understanding of God's Word. For more information about our ministry, we invite you to check out our website at rockharborchurch.net. Until next time, remember, keep looking up for our redemption draws near.