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. One announcement before we start. I'm going to be going to the Kern High School District Board Meeting on Monday. And one of the issues that I'm bringing up is they need to do something about this woman at Del Oro High School, this teacher who works for GLAD or Gleason or whatever and who believes it's her job to groom the ninth graders in her class and not tell parents. So I believe Terry here. Not yet, okay. So I believe the thing starts at seven. I'll give you more details on Sunday. But we're wanting to flood the place with people from our community that is against children being groomed. and that the fact that they need to step up, initiate a policy, maybe have some disciplinary action upon this person and this individual who thinks it's her right to tell kids sexual stuff and transitioning stuff and thinks it's her right to do that without parents knowing. And so we're gonna do that. and present it to them in a nice way, but say you need to do something about this, and then the fact that we're gonna keep coming back to board meetings until this is resolved, and you have a plan of action that's set before us about what measures you will take to prevent teachers from doing something like this, because at the end of the day, the teachers need to teach their subjects, not their ideologies, and the, The group she's with, I can't remember if it's Gleason or GLAAD or something like that, is a highly, highly leftist organization. radical, I mean radical off the chart. And so I'm gonna bring that into the discussion that you have not only a woman that's taking it upon herself to push gender dysphoria and having the kids question their gender and all this, but you also have an individual that is so radically affiliated with a group that I wonder if she's pushing those ideologies in that classroom because this was made on national news, it was New York Times, Fox News, it made national news and so national spotlight's on it and basically we're going to call them out. to do something about it since it's made national news and since we're aware of it as the community. So it would be nice if you can come there. I asked Terry how much people should we try to bring. He says bring as many as you want. So okay. So I will. And so I am also going to have it filmed. I will film it. for us, that we make sure that we're not thinking out of context, that we have documentation about what we're saying, what we're doing, and then also as just a protective mechanism for our people as well. So Ty will be there filming the whole thing. at that time. So, join me on Monday at the school board meeting. I'll give you that later on. Seven o'clock, I believe, on Monday night coming up, okay? And again, at some point, man, you just gotta start taking stands against this. I'm not expecting them probably to do anything. I'm just gonna be on the record of saying, I took a stand. I told you about it and I warned you. Because one of the things that you have to understand when you're called to a prophetic role, like our church is, our role sometimes is just simply to state the truth. regardless of how they respond to it. That was the role of a prophet. A prophet would go in there, say this is wrong, you need to correct it, you need to repent, and that was it. He wasn't there to convince them. He wasn't there to, you know, try to sit down and have tea and discuss the ins and outs of the transgender movement. He was just saying, this is wrong, you need to stop, and I'm putting you on warning. Not warning that we're going to do anything, but warning from God. And that's it. And when the Lord asks us, what did you do to stop this grooming of children? We can say, we took our stand, we said what we needed to do, we warned, and we created our own school. That's what we did. And so I want to have those talking points with the Lord. to not be able to say, not say, well, I didn't do anything. I saw the evil that was happening. I watched kids get groomed and I did nothing about it. I didn't even say anything about it. I don't want any heat from the LGBT community or something like that. I'm gonna talk about that a little bit more. In the Prophecy Update and talking about current events, the whole thing is structured toward what these child groomers are doing and how it's now entering into the church. My whole presentation on that will be in line with that. Anywho, I want to put that out there, because I know some of you leave after the first session, but I want you to be aware of it. I'll mention this on Sunday, and my hope is that we can flood that whole boardroom with people inside and out. So anyway, that's what we're going to be doing, okay? Let's start with a word of prayer. Father, thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to gather on Wednesday night and discuss things that we're having to deal with in our personal lives. And we see the perilous times coming and around us, so be our teacher tonight. May the Holy Spirit illuminate us to your word, to understand it, and to prepare ourselves for what's coming. We pray now in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so let me get back to where we were at and see. We talked about wisdom, right? Okay. Got that. We talked about that, okay. So let's go to the big ideas, okay? So we talked about the perilous times that are gonna be coming, as Paul mentions, okay? We're in the perilous times. We talked about why we're in the last days. The last days, the birth pains have been given to us. We see the return of Israel. We also see that World War I was nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom is a rabbinic term for the last days. So the last days has started since World War I. We're in them, we don't know how long they go. But the perilous times that Paul talks about is where we're at, okay? So just to recap what he just said, he says, but you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, and afflictions. He names nine things. with the coming perilous times that a believer has to do in order to prepare themselves for these perilous times that he enumerates in this chapter. So we went through that last week. So now I wanna then key in on each thing he mentions here one by one. So the first thing I wanna talk about is I wanna talk about, notice he says, you have carefully followed my doctrine. Now, what you have to understand, in Biblical history you have what's called dispensations or economias in the Greek. And what that means is that the Bible indicates there are different eras or different dispensations or different economies in which God deals with man. Salvation is always the same, it's by faith. But in each economy, the rules and the laws are different and don't typically carry over. Some do, some don't. So for instance, the law that Adam and Eve had to go with, it was only one law, and it was do not partake of the knowledge of the tree of, sorry, take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right? That's the one law. We don't have that law today in this dispensation because the tree doesn't exist here. And that was for Eden, that was an Edenic law, okay? So then we go to the Mosaic era, for instance, that's another dispensation. And in that dispensation, he forbid the Jews to eat pork. Okay, so that's, that's in that disposition. In this dispensation, you're allowed to eat anything, basically, as long as you give Thanksgiving for it. So you can eat pork, and that's not a problem in this dispensational law structure. Okay, so this dispensation that we're in is called the dispensation of grace. Paul names it. He says, the dispensation of grace of God, which was given to me for you. Now, in each dispensation, there is a head of that dispensation. So under like, for instance, the Mosaic dispensation, the head guy, the guy who wrote most of the Old Testament, not all, but most of it was Moses, okay? The first five books was written by Moses, okay? So Moses is the head of that dispensation. Now, in the Abraham dispensation of the patriarchs, Abraham is the head of that dispensation. So he's the main guy getting the revelation about God, okay? So when we move into the New Testament era, the dispensation of grace, Paul is the main guy that gets the revelation that writes the New Testament. He wrote three-fourths of the New Testament. And Paul is the one who explains many of the laws under this dispensation and practices and whatnot, okay? And in the dispensation of the messianic reign of the Messiah, it will be Jesus who is the head of that dispensation who will dispense explaining the law and the principles to us all. So each dispensation has its own guide. Paul is our dispensational revelator, if that makes sense. He's the one spelling a lot of things out, and he's the one developing what we call church doctrine. Okay? So when he says, but you have carefully followed my doctrine, he's talking about being the explainer of the dispensation of grace. Okay? Does that make sense? So really, I don't want you to get this confused that Paul has a different theology than the Bible. He doesn't. He is the one who is explaining the theology of this era. Okay? He's doing the job of that. That doesn't put him higher than anyone else, but His theology is biblical theology, so it's the same. If you said biblical theology or Paul's theology, you're saying the same thing, if that makes sense, in the dispensation of grace. So Paul tells us what to do in the churches, Paul tells us the order of the churches, Paul tells us what is going to happen in the last days and warnings and this and that. So when he tells them, when you're living in perilous times, you're gonna have to follow Bible doctrine, okay? And since the perilous times will happen during the age and dispensation of grace, you need to follow closely the dispensational laws and rules and practices. So, for instance, you shouldn't bring over something from a previous dispensation into this dispensation. For instance, during the patriarchal dispensation, they would create their own altars and make sacrifices to God, on the family altar. We don't do that, right? So you don't want to take something they practiced a long time ago and bring it into this dispensation. So you must go according to the rules of dispensation. Okay, how many rules are there? There's a little over 1,200. Okay? A little over 1,200. It's double of that which is Moses' law. Moses' law contains 613 commands. So we're not under Mosaic law. The Mosaic law has been rendered inoperative because of the cross. But under the new dispensation, there are laws and rules and practices, not for salvation, but how God wants us to conduct ourselves in this dispensation. Okay, so it's about 1200. Nine of the Ten Commandments carry over into this new dispensation. The only one that's changed as far as the Ten Commandments is the Sabbath. And you have the freedom to whether or not you're going to keep the Sabbath or not. It's your option. You can do it or you don't have to do it. So it's your option. So anyway, the reason I'm going through this is because the first thing he says to the church is, you're gonna have to follow my doctrine in perilous times. Okay? Got it, Paul. So why? Well, he says this to Timothy in the first letter to Timothy, and the real concentration is on the pastoral epistles at the end of Paul's life about the last days of the dispensation of grace. Now, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, expressly says that in the latter times, again, in reference to the latter times of the church age, the dispensation of grace, Some, not all, but some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. So we have to unpack this because this explains why the perilous times will come, and if you don't know your doctrine, this is what will happen to you. So the key in all of this is you must know biblical doctrine, okay? So for instance, why do so many Christians follow Bethel? Because Bill Johnson has come out and said, and this is part of the Aryan heresy, that Jesus was God, and then he came to earth and ceased being God, a misunderstanding of the kenosis in Philippians chapter two, was only a man, and then after the resurrection and the ascension, then he became God again. That was dealt with like in the third century. And yet we have a revival of it at Bethel. And so their leader, under definitions, is a cult leader. Bethel is now a cult for not believing in the full incarnation. In order to understand the incarnation, you must believe that Jesus is the God-man. He never ceased being God. What he did was limit his individual rights and use of his deity and submit him to the will of the Father. That's what the biblical thing is called called kenosis. is limiting his ability of deity to the Father, a wind that's gonna be used. And hence, when he does miracles, it is not him personally, the second person of the Trinity, doing the miracles. It is the Holy Spirit doing the miracles through him, and that's why when Israel went after him and said, you do works by the power of Beelzebub, Jesus calls that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. because they're claiming that the gifts and the works of the Holy Spirit through the Messiah is really nothing but works from the devil, and that's the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Okay, so that's an example of a grade-A cult. You deny the essentials of Christian, you're a cult. Bingo. But why don't people know that? Why don't people just get up when he made those statements and just leave? Why do they stay there? You see what I'm talking about? Why do they continue to go to churches that practice wokeism? Why do they continue to practice churches that promote the jab? Why do they continue to go to churches that won't say anything about what's going on in the world? Why do they go to churches that are not pro-Israel? Why is that? Why do they keep putting up with it? Why do they keep giving their money to these churches? Why do they keep supporting those pastors that are heretics? It's this. It's this. And so what I'm going to show you is why they leave proper theology or Paul's doctrine and what causes them to become Laodicea will cause them to apostatize. Can a believer apostatize? Of course they can apostatize. That's why there are all these warnings in the scriptures not to do it. And the penalty is a loss of rewards. in eternal life, not a loss of salvation, but a loss of rewards. So, yes, believers can apostatize. Obviously, unbelievers apostatize, and what we call apostates, but believers can do the same. And to the degree that they apostatize will be the degree to which they lose rewards, Hebrews chapter 6. So, let's unpack this. First thing he says, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, okay? So what is he saying? He's saying this, that believers during these perilous times that we're in, they will actually accept spiritual doctrines that do not originate from God nor the Bible, but from demonic beings, okay? But why is the question? Okay? Why would they accept spiritual doctrines that go against the Bible? Why would you do that? Is it because of ignorance? Okay, so that's one issue. So the ignorance... Let's just take American Christians as is at an all time high as far as Bible doctrine. They have no idea. They say they love Jesus, but they couldn't tell you about the hypostatic union of Jesus. They just can't. They don't know what you're talking about. They don't understand the incarnation. They don't even understand the atonement and what it did. They don't understand the terms of propitiation and what it did. They don't understand the resurrection on the third day. They know you came back, but for what? What was that a theological indication of? of why did he resurrect? They don't know. They can't even tell you, and we find this on our church tracker. We got churches that people wanna put on our church tracker, and they cannot, the pastor and the church, cannot define how someone gets saved. They simply are muddying up the water. They say things like you love Jesus, you're committed to Jesus, you're a follower. No, they cannot even describe how one gets saved. So there's a massive ignorance, okay? As you can see, the problem then is if there's a massive ignorance, they don't even know if a doctrine comes to them, whether it's from the Bible or not, okay? And so one of the main reasons of why people accept deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons is because they don't know biblical doctrine. And hence, that leads into them accepting it. So what happens is, you go to a church, a church is spewing out doctrines of demons, and the people in the audience don't even know it. So as an example, you get, what's his name? Max Locato. Max Locato coming in front of his audience. telling people they need to basically apologize for their white privilege, and he was a perpetrator of white privilege, and he's been a racist, and yada, yada, yada. The person in the pew should say, that's Marxism. He's dividing by race. That's a lie. That comes from Black Lives Matter, which is a Marxist story. How come they don't know that? How come there's no such thing as white privilege in the Bible? How come they don't know that? Because they're ignorant. And Max LoCato is not talking theology. Max LoCato is a great storyteller, but he is not a theologian. That's the problem. And people would rather listen to spun, home-spun yarns rather than doctrine. So when you go to these churches, all you hear is story after story after story after story, but no biblical doctrine. Like Joel Osteen, who goes after story, after story, after story, after story. Or the pastor's nothing but a narcissist, and all they wanna do is talk about how wonderful and blessed their life is. Right? Stephen Furtick, Andy Stanley, and the rest of the ilk. So, I saw people here. And so, when now we're in perilous times, and these doctrines of demons are coming out like an all-time high, They buy into it because of their biblical ignorance of the pastors and churches they go to. And so it's not surprising that this is happening and people are ingesting it. Okay, what's another reason? We've got ignorance, but what's another reason that they would accept spiritual doctrine that do not originate in the Bible? Okay, let's just, tell me this. Churches start saying that gay marriage is okay. and that you need to be who you want to be, and your identity is who you claim to be, and so if you want to be a woman, if you want to be a man, if you want to be gay, if you want to be lesbian, whatever, it's your choice, and we're going to be the church that affirms you and welcomes you without repenting, and you just live the way you want to live. If it's not ignorance, what is that? They know what the truth is, but they don't want to live it, okay? They're denying biblical truth. There's seven passages that talk about this, and then Deuteronomy 22 talks about transgenderism, and it's as if they don't know those passages exist. Or, this is what they'll do. They know they exist, but they'll explain them away. And one very clever thing is to do, well, that was some of the political laws are part of the Old Testament, and we're not under that dispensation. And I wanna say, you're absolutely right. The problem you have, though, in this dispensation, it's also repeated. It's also repeated in Romans 1. It's also repeated in 1 Corinthians 6. It's repeated in Revelation 21 and 22. It's repeated also in the Greek word porneia. Except for porneia, you may not divorce your spouse. What does porneia mean? It's where we get the word pornography. But what did porneia encapsulate? If you look what porneia encapsulated, it wasn't just having an affair on your spouse. It included bestiality, it included homosexuality, lesbianism, polygamous relationships, polygamy, all those things were under the umbrella of porneia. So when they say Jesus didn't talk about gays or lesbians or gay marriage, he did because the word in Greek is porneia and it's an umbrella term for all sexual immorality that can be defined in Leviticus. Okay, so in this dispensation, homosexuality is just as wrong as it was in the Mosaic period. And what you realize is that streaming through the Bible, there is one moral code that keeps going through all the dispensations. Okay, and how does it fit? It fits under the sexual paradigm of thou shall not commit adultery. And under that law, which is repeated in the New Testament, is the whole rubric and category of all sexual immorality under that law. So if you look at the Ten Commandments, they're a rubric or a category that filters into the rest of the law laws and what's under that. So sexual immorality is under the Asherah Adultery. Okay, and so the same thing in this dispensation. But when they wanna play games like that, or then you'll have somebody say, well, homosexuality in Paul's day, which he was addressing, was attached to temple prostitution. So they were having sexual encounters at the temple in pagan worship. But he was not talking about a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, being monogamous and having an intimate relationship. That's bogus. That's absolutely bogus. That's taking that out of context. In fact, what Paul will say is, he lines everyone up and he says, that's not acceptable in 1 Corinthians 6. It's not acceptable behavior for a Christian. So, it's dealt with. It's very plain, it's black and white. So the reason people go against it and accept doctrines of demons, which would be have sex with anyone you want, which is a doctrine, or be free to be what you want, a boy or a girl, be free to love what you want, okay? That's a doctrine of demons. It goes against the paradigm of what God restricts. Therefore, they accept it because it gives, sorry, they reject God's law because it gives them the ability to practice what they want to practice guilt-free. And that's the big issue, is guilt-free. Why do you think they want societal acceptance? Because it relieves them of the guilt of the practice. Because your conscience, if it's tender, can't hardly bear when you break God's law. It breaks you. It brings pain to your conscience. You feel bad, and that's a good thing. It's supposed to drive you to repentance. But if you're doing something and you don't want to repent, then you have to find a way to reprieve the guilt. and the pain of the guilt. So you do it by twisting scripture, going to a church that approves it, and then pushing it on society so you'll get society approval so you can sleep at night. That's what's happening. But this is why they accept doctrines of demons. It's a demon, okay? Yeah, Carol and Karen. We'll have the microphone there in just one second. Would you explain 1 Timothy 4, verse 3, forbidding to marry? I will. Hang on. It's on the agenda. It's in this passage. So you have, okay, let's establish that. You have ignorance and then you have willful disobedience. Okay? That's why they accept doctrines of demons. So to the next one. Speaking lies and hypocrisy. Okay? What is this about? Well, as I put there in the red, you can see, it's that they know what they are saying is not truthful. They personally don't believe it, but they do it anyway. Now, why would they do that? I believe something is wrong, and yet I'm gonna lie and say it's right. And I know deep down inside me it's wrong, but I'm gonna say it's right. Why in the world would anybody, are you psycho? But that's what he's saying. He says this is one of the reasons why they will fall into apostasy. Christians, why would a Christian say they believe in something that's not biblical, even though they know it's not right, but continue to perpetrate it anyway. No courage. And what would be the lack of courage coming from? Hmm? Who are they afraid of? Man, thank you. You're not gonna live two ways in this life. You either fear God or you fear man. If you fear man, you will speak lies and hypocrisy. You realize, you know, when you look at the politicians today, This is a quintessential example of people who speak lies and hypocrisy. A lot of them don't believe, especially on the globalist level, they don't believe in the gay agenda. They don't believe in the LGP movement. They don't believe in transgenderism. They are simply using this to destroy Christianity. Okay, so they don't actually believe in this. They're using them as haunts in the game to come against us. So that's somebody as an example who doesn't believe it. Let me give you another example. The globalist stuff and people of that ilk do not really believe in global warming. They know it's a lie and they keep perpetrating because it helps them achieve their agenda, right? So that's an example of that. So when you look at it from a global scale, on a societal scale, why people do things like that, it's for political reasons. They're afraid. They don't want to be looked at as not going with the crowds and things of that nature. So what will happen, and Paul is saying that perilous times Pressure is going to be put on you from the outside and also from the inside to conform to what's going on in society. And even though Christians say they don't support gay marriage, they keep going to the churches that do. They keep giving money to churches that do. They don't want to raise a stink because they don't want to be persecuted. And that's where it ends and begins. They're afraid of the persecution that will come their way if they go against the grain. That is exactly what happened to our medical industry. These doctors knew that it was wrong what was being put in people, but they stayed silent to save their lives. And you know that. That speaking lies and hypocrisy. Now don't get me wrong, there are good doctors that tell the truth, that do what they need to do, and they put everything on the line. You look at where we were, we brought in Simone Gold. She got thrown in jail, right? But she spoke out, frontline doctors spoke out, and a lot of good doctors, remnant doctors did, no doubt about that. But I'm saying the medical community failed us. Because of what? Fear. I don't want to say anything. Well, that's what's happening to the churches. So Paul is saying in these perilous times, the pressure on you to conform is going to be so overwhelming that people won't say anything. They will actually self-edit because they know it's going to cost them. And so they'll go with a lie even though they know it's a lie. That's pretty bad. I don't know how that stands up on judgment day. I don't understand that, but it's being done. So this is why apostasy happens. The people know what's wrong, and they allow it to happen. I mean, how many people, Christians, have you talked to, and you find the knuckleheads at the church they go to and what the knucklehead pastors are doing, and you ask them, why do you put up with that? Why don't you leave? What do they say? Well, grandma's buried in the church's cemetery. I can't leave, Brandon. My friends are there. Well, are your friends a bunch of apostates? Do they accept that nonsense? Well, my friends are there. My Sunday school class is there. My Bible study is there. Why do you continue to go and give them money and show up and give them your presents when you know they're doing wrong? Why do you do that? Well, you know, none of it is valid. None of the excuses are valid. I know what the excuses are. I've heard them all my life. But none of them are valid. If you see someone promoting lies, you're supposed to leave. Otherwise, you're a hypocrite. And that's basically what it turns into. You're a walking hypocrite. You know it's wrong, and you continue to go there. Okay. I'm not answering for you on Judgment Day. That's you. Let's go to the next one. having their conscience seared with a hot iron. What? Having their conscience seared with a hot iron. So this is the third aspect that why people apostatize. So in the red, I've explained it. They won't feel the pain coming from their conscience concerning their hypocrisy and their lies. They don't feel anything. But here's what happens. Not only does the Holy Spirit convict you as a believer, Your conscience should condemn you too. So let me explain how the conscience works. The conscience works and grows as your theological knowledge grows. If you grow mature, your conscience goes up to that level. If you don't mature, your conscience stays down at a very low level, which means that a lot of things pass before you that you're just simply not aware of. That's wrong, and you're just not seeing it, and your conscience is not convicting you because your conscience is at maybe a kindergarten level when you should be at a college level in your conscience as far as knowing biblical theology right and wrong and this and that, okay? This is the problem with most Christians. They have kept their conscience so low because they refuse to know theology and that their conscience is like a baby, like a child. They can't see what's coming or going in their life. They don't know if that's right or that's wrong, even on black and white issues, because their conscience doesn't convict them, okay? Now, there's a thing you have to understand. We all start out that way as believers. When you first get saved, our consciences are very low. That's why you have a difficult time with young believers. It's because they keep stepping back into their old life, right? They keep going back to the same things that they were practicing because their conscience is not where it's at, okay? It doesn't convict them, even though they know it's wrong. But as they grow, and as you grow, your conscience becomes aware, and more aware, and more discerning, and more willing to see what's around you. And so by the time you're a mature believer, you can spot it. Boom, boom, boom, boom. That's wrong, that's wrong. What that guy said is wrong. Boom, boom, boom. You can spot it. And if you do something wrong, your conscience will bear in on that and say, hey man, you messed up here, dude. So you have that as a help along with the Holy Spirit. Okay. But if you decide to not grow out of a immature conscience, and things keep happening to you, you keep falling into sin, and you keep doing this, and you don't ever get out of that, what happens is the conviction from the conscience gets calloused. You don't feel the pain anymore in what you're doing when you should. And that's after many repeated times of doing the same thing over and over again. And before you know it, the abnormal that you've been practicing has now become normal to you, but you're in full-blown sin and you don't know it. And so that's when he's talking about a conscience seared with a hard iron. You know, in the old days, you see these movies where, you know, oh, he's got a big cut or a laceration from a sword, and we've got to stop the bleeding. So they get, I remember a Braveheart scene, you know, and the guy had an arrow in him. and he got drunk before, remember, and they put that hot iron in the old guy, and they seared where that arrow went, remember? They seared it, that's how you closed up a wound back in the old days, and you'd have to get drunk to take the searing pain of, at least it stopped your bleeding, okay? That's what Paul's referring to, is that, That searing iron that should awaken them up has been put on them and it's created a callus, a big scar, that now they can't feel anything anymore. That's what he's trying to say, that their conscience doesn't feel nothing anymore. And so, when someone gets to that point, They'll accept anything, right or wrong. I mean, wrong or right. I mean, they're just like, okay, if this is what people do, I don't feel any pain. I guess we should support gay marriage. I guess we should support critical race theory. I guess we should support the globalism and Yuval Harai is a nice guy and Klaus Schwab is my buddy. They'll just accept it. Right? And they'll just say, okay, you know, fine, fine. So they'll move because they can't feel it anymore. When you are pricked in your conscience, you're like, feel it immediately. Like, oh, man, that was stupid for me to say. Man, that was stupid for me to do. You know that? That's it. You get convicted. Boom. They don't feel that at all. They're like numb spiritually. That's a bad way to go through life, numb spiritually. That's really dangerous spiritually. So anyway, how did that happen? I explained it. Okay, so now he gives two examples. And he says, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods. which we've talked about the abstaining from foods. It can be translated abstaining from meat, okay? Which is exactly what we're seeing in perilous times now. They want us to stop eating meat, want us to go to crickets and bugs and junk like that and false meat, fake meat by Bill Gates and get us off protein, animal protein, which is allowed after Noah's flood. And Paul reiterates this in this passage that, hey, you can eat anything you want. Don't let them tell you you can't eat meat. Okay. And so we have that one, but then forbidding to marry. And I think that one's coming in the near future. And I think it has to do with selective breeding, what they're gonna propose for depopulation agendas, and they're gonna choose to do those kinds of things. And forbidding basically people to marry, what it means basically is you're not gonna be able to have babies. We will designate who we want to have babies in the future, and we'll grow them in labs, and we'll grow them in the pods, and we'll do whatever we need to do, but not everybody's gonna be allowed to marry and breed. So, again, this is what's coming, okay? I think the food thing's already here. But what is this? What is this? Okay? You forbid someone to marry, you forbid someone from eating foods. But notice in the context in which it's in. The context in which it's in is in the church. It's in society. So it's both society and the church will be practicing this. Okay? So the church is not immune to this, and in fact, the church will be promoting this at some point. Okay? But when you forbid these things, what is it called? Asceticism. That's what Paul is saying that's going to happen, is they're going to practice asceticism for spiritual gain. So let's explain this a little bit more. What is real asceticism? It's following demonic or man-made doctrines to achieve a higher spiritual state. to spiritually evolve and become one with the God. The person will feel closer to God when they do these practices. So you have the gurus or whatever that starve themselves to death. Part of asceticism is self-denial, but that in the self-denial, you can achieve spiritual evolution and become closer to the God, okay, whatever that God is. You see this a lot in Hindu practices. It's paganism, Satanism, all kinds of stuff like that. You see it. But really, it's man-made demonic religion to forbid, to say no, to don't do this. But it doesn't come from God. I want to give you a full-blown definition. of what asceticism is, and I'm going to take it slowly, and I'm going to give examples as I go through this, because that's what Paul is saying will happen, that instead of practicing biblical doctrines, and in the biblical doctrines, you are forbidden to do certain things from what the Bible says, right? Can't steal. You can't lie, you can't covet. Those are commands that you're not supposed to do those things. Asceticism goes not from the Bible, but from doctrines of demons of what not to do. Okay? So it's the principles and practices of extreme self-denial, abstinence, and strictness, not according to biblical standards, but demonic and human standards, in order to become more spiritual and one with the so-called divine pantheism or panentheism. So I'm gonna explain panentheism and pantheism. Pantheism is the belief that all is God. The rock is God, the tree is God, the earth is God. Panentheism believes that God is in the creation. Not is the creation, but is in the creation. So he's not the tree, but he's inside the tree. He's not the rock, but he's inside the rock. He's not the planet, but he's inside the planet. So that's the difference. This is clearly pagan, Nimrod type of religious belief. What Paul is saying is because these people lack doctrine, they will start employing asceticism into their life, thinking that it will allow them to become more spiritual and closer to God in their experience. Now, that's a loaded thing I just said. They believe that not getting married, not having babies, not eating meat makes them closer to God, makes them one with God. And saving the planet, riding a bike is self-denial asceticism. Driving an electric car because they wanna save the planet is asceticism. Getting vaccinated for the good of the whole is asceticism. Did you see how religious it became about the vaccinations? And still is. There's a religious component that no one's picking up on, but those in the know see it. It became a spiritual issue. It wasn't a medical issue. It was a form of asceticism. then I'm gonna deny my health for the good of others, the collective. There is no such thing in the Bible as the collective. The Bible starts with the individual and the responsibility of the individual. We don't sacrifice the individual for the collective, that's Marxism, that's communism. And no one's picking up on that. So it's okay in their worldview for people to die for the good of the collective. So it's okay to experiment on humans as rats for the good of the collective. And really it's not the good of the collective, it's for depopulation. But this becomes how people religiously attach themselves to it, okay? That's what Paul's gonna say. And that's why he's saying in these perilous times, you can't think like this. You can't think about how many Christians just went for it. Why did they do that? Did they not have any trick in their conscience? Well, sorry, their conscience is seared. How could they? Did they know the doctrines that I'm not supposed to put anything in my body? That's experimental, the Nuremberg Code, but also as my body is the temple, I'm not supposed to do anything that would damage my temple? And beyond that, the Nuremberg Code said we're not test pigs or guinea pigs for medical experiments? What was that about? It's fear. It's fear-driven because I don't know doctrine. It's fear-driven because I speak lies in hypocrisy. I know I shouldn't do this, but I'm going to do it anyway for the sake of the good for the society. That's speaking lies in hypocrisy. That's why what you're seeing is a religious apostasy and people don't know what's happening to them. Okay, let's continue on. Notice what I keep saying. It's not biblical standards, it's demonic human standards. Whether that's Fauci, whether that's Bill Gates, or whatever religious guru is up there telling people what to do, okay? Notice the pantheism or the panentheism encapsulates the whole entire save the planet movement right now. That's it. It's panentheism and pantheism. That Mother Earth is actually alive, Gaia, and we must do everything to save her. We have the ability to save the planet, which nothing's happening to it, but that's the idea. That's pantheism. So right now, this whole save the planet, you can't look at it as a political issue, it's a religious issue. It's the worship of the creation rather than the creator, right? It's Romans 1. And what happens to people when they start worshiping the creation? They end up getting reprobate minds, according to the Apostle Paul in Romans 1. Their minds and hearts go darkened, and the word in the Greek is they're moronized. That's where we get the word moron. Okay, I'm not being derogatory. I'm telling you what the Greek says, that when they suppress the truth and worship the creation rather than the creator, they are moronized, and they start thinking like a moron, and they do things like a moron. That's why none of it makes sense when you're looking at people because a religious moronic thing is happening because they're following Standards of demons are human standards. Okay, let's continue on. Positively, it also allows the individual the ability to unify on non-biblical issues. Unify on non-biblical issues. You see that? This is part of the woke culture. They want us to unify to eliminate poverty. They want us to unify for racial reconciliation, okay? I didn't know we had a problem until they introduced the CRT, right? We were getting way better than we are. Now we went back to the Stone Age on racism because of the critical race theory, okay? But they're trying to unify through this panentheism, through asceticism, to unify to become one with the God, okay? So you do it religiously through common cause issues, okay? So like the World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab and all of them saying, look, guys, we've got to get all together for the next pandemic. We've got to get together for equitable economy. And we want to eliminate poverty by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Robin Hood. Right? That's their motto. But the idea is we want unity, want unity. Don't buy that. Unity is only allowed biblically if truth is behind it. You do not unify with anyone that's not practicing or believing in truth. So what's happening to Christians? They're getting caught up in this, well, we just gotta put our differences aside and come together because we all love Jesus. No, no, no, no. The prayer that Jesus had in John 17 is, Lord, sanctify them, set them apart in unity by your truth. That's what they miss. You can only have unity if it's involving the truth, not man-made things. Okay, let's continue on. Positively, it allows the individual to unify non-liberal issues that have been spiritualized by demons and mankind. So it's a spiritual issue when they unify, okay? And they express these demonic or man-made spiritual virtues in accord with the spiritual will of the demon or human via submission to the practice and mode of life. This is why you saw so many people buckle under the tyranny of Anthony Fauci or the CDC or anything like that. This is why you see so many people bow a knee to a fake pastor or a fake church. Furthermore, the practice allows one to feel closer to the divine and more pious. What do you mean? Well, the hard truth of the matter in Christianity, if you want to draw closer to God, there's only one way to do it. It's through obedience. That's it. If you love me, you will keep my commands. If you want to be more spiritual, you want to be closer to God, obey him. It's that simple. But that's hard. That's not easy. That's a long process. That's a long road because people want to do the shortcut. They want a shortcut to spiritual maturity without going through the process of the day in, day out obedience and growing and learning about their issues. They want a shortcut. Ah, so the demons and humans will give them a shortcut. Do this or not do this and you'll be spiritually mature. That's what the cults do through their rituals. Whether you, like the Mormons, they get married in the temple, when they do that, now they're super spiritual now. And the guy gives her her secret name, can you imagine the guy's gonna resurrect the woman from the dead, not Jesus, in Mormonism, with her secret name that he gives at this wedding ceremony. That's insane, right? But when you look at Mitt Romney, you understand he believes that. And he understands he's gonna be a god on Star of Kolob, and have multiple sexual wives for the rest of his life, in his polygamous afterlife. So when you look at that, you're like, dude, you're fouled up spiritually. Why would anyone follow you politically? But anyway, what happens is, it puts experience over theology. And that is the problem we're having in Christianity right now. People are putting experience over their theology. So theology's not taught, so what happens is, I can tell you what the church services look like. You got 40, 45 minutes of worship music, and they turn that thing so loud that you have to put things in your ear, and there's churches here in town that do that, and people have left and told me they can't take the volume. And you look, and Bruce, our sound guy, professional sound guy, he'll tell you anything over 80 decibels, it starts jacking you up. So you walk into a church, and you have to put your things in, and they say, well, you're just an old fuddy-duddy, and you're just old. Donors don't believe that. That's a spiritual issue. What are they trying to do? I know what they're trying to do, is the intent of playing that music that loud is to put you in an altered state of consciousness. And by the time the pastor gets up there, he can say, I tiptoe with tulips and fairies, and you would believe it. After 45 minutes of head-banging, mega-deaf music that is so loud that you can't even hear anything, and you leave the church with ringing in your ears, that's meant for your experience. And so people walk away, I had a great experience, love the smoking lights. Yeah, you can see that on the local churches here. Love the smoking lights. What, are you insane? What do you think the Apostle Paul walked in the church and saw smoking lights and a laser show, and the music's up about 95 to 100 decibels, what do you think Paul would say? Because you ruined the church. But anyway, experience over theology, okay? This sets the condition necessary to achieve oneness with the deity, and then the adherent is compelled to force the spiritual practices on others. So they evangelize for these spiritual practices. Beth Moore will tell you that you need to practice contemplative prayer, even though that comes from demons. Okay? And people will follow Beth more. So what happens is, they not only do it themselves, they actually start evangelizing for the demonic practice. And they start pushing this all over. They're not content with staying where it's at. So this is where you have false methodologies spreading through Christianity, and they're all experience-based driven. All of them. All of them experience-based driven. Prayer circles, prayer labyrinths, walking the labyrinth. Centering prayer. What? Enneagram, all these kinds of practices are just experiences. And it leads people away, obviously, but they buy into it. Okay, so then what happens at the end of it, the renunciation of the biblical principles and practices allows the person to feel free of biblical restraint. This is what they consider freedom, okay? And it's deceiving into thinking that they can achieve a higher spiritual state through these practices and experiences. So think about how dangerous that is. That the demons, through asceticism, are getting you to the point where there's no moral restraint on you anymore, and have convinced you that that is the true nature of freedom, spiritually, is to have no restraints on you. Now that's what a lot of people believe. That's why they say they're religious and they're spiritual, but they're not. You are not free to do anything you want to do because you will destroy yourself. So the parameters that God sets up for us and the rules are there to protect us from destroying not only ourselves, but our family, our culture, our society. Our society is being ruined by people who want to do anything they want. And then, like this is saying, what will they do? They will promote it to other people. just like the teacher at Del Oro is promoting her unrestrained lifestyle on kids, so that she can sleep at night thinking that she did her spiritual duty and that she's closer to God, whatever God she believes in, and that this is a way to achieve her higher spiritual state. It's all religious. It's all about religion. That's what the whore of Babylon is about. And it's mainly driven through asceticism. So Karen, I hope that answers your question about why, and then some, about why they will forbid the practice of marriage. It's not just as simple as we don't forbid you to marry. It's all about asceticism. and making you feel higher and closer to God, when you're not obeying, you're actually disobeying. It's a con job by demons. Okay, I gotta stop there. Any questions? Clear as mud, I hope. That's a lot, that's a lot. But that's what Paul is trying to say. So we're gonna continue this next time in understanding and flushing out the doctrine that Paul established, but that's what we have to first understand. Why is this so dangerous not to believe doctrine? Because this will happen to you. This kind of state will happen to you if you don't. Anyway, let's close, let's close, take a five minute break, we'll come back and do some current events, 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