Well, happy Mother's Day. If you're a mom, would you please stand so we can recognize you today? Let's give them a round of applause for everything they do for us. God bless you guys. We appreciate you. And we guys couldn't survive without you, that's for sure. We would lose our way in this world. I won't do what a pastor friend of mine did on Mother's Day apparently the week before. He didn't remember it was Mother's Day and he felt the Lord really impress upon him to preach a sermon. So on Mother's Day he unwittingly preached a lesson on seven steps to hell on Mother's Day and that didn't go over very well. But we're not going to make that mistake. We will stay in Exodus. I'm going to make some applications to the family, to moms, to other things as well in light of Mother's Day. But we're going to look at the first commandment in the Ten Commandments. We're going to take each commandment one at a time and unpack it and show you the implications of the Ten Commandments. Just some preliminary things before we start. The Ten Commandments are the first of 613 commands under the Mosaic system. So it's not just Ten Commandments, it's the beginning of the rest of the 613 laws under Moses that God will give Israel. One thing I will say about the Ten Commandments is they form the foundation for the rest of them. So it's the idea that if you're going to have a hard time obeying the first ten, you're going to have a hard time with the rest of the commandments in Israel. And let me add one more thing to this as far as the commandments are concerned. We are no longer under the Mosaic system anymore that was rendered inoperative by the Messiah's death, burial and resurrection. And so according to the New Testament, we're under the law of the Messiah, the law of the Messiah, not the law of Moses. Now, most people have not grasped that concept, and they think it's like two commands, you know, love God and love your neighbor. And it's more than that. There are actually over 1,200 commands under the law of the Messiah, and Moses only had 613. But law never saves, never was intended to save anybody, but it was a general idea of the commands of God of how to generally deal with our relation with God and how to deal with other people, how He wanted us to behave and how He currently wants us to behave. And so kind of a rule of life type of thing. But also the commandments are meant to push us to the Messiah in the fact that you and I cannot do the commandments perfectly. So it drives us to the Messiah who actually can. So that was the basis of understanding the law. But just please know that nine of the Ten Commandments carry over into the law of the Messiah. The only one that didn't carry over is the Sabbath law. And under the law of the Messiah, you are free to keep the Sabbath or you're free not to. It's your choice. But remember, Sunday is not the Sabbath. The Sabbath is always on Saturday. And you have the freedom to keep it or not. But the Sabbath was created for Israel. That's who the Sabbath was created for. So that one commandment doesn't carry over. into the church age. That being stated, I wanted to get those preliminary things out of the way and one more thing I will mention. The commandments aren't obviously written on stone, God wrote them, gave them to Israel and they are, this is the kind of what the paleo Hebrew would have looked like, this is kind of like a copy or something like that obviously, what the paleo would have looked like. But the thing about the commandments If you've seen the movie Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston, or anything after that, any movie that's made, they typically have two commandments, and they have a set of laws, like four or five laws on one side, and then they'll have a set of six or five laws on the other. And that's not really how they were cut out. The scripture indicates that there's two stones, but they have writing on both sides. And what we typically understand under the Jewish law system, the Mosaic law system, is that in order to establish something, you create two witnesses. And so the witnesses that God gave Israel the law is obviously the two tablets, but both tablets have front and back the Ten Commandments and serve as a witness to Israel. And that's what was put into the Ark of the Covenant. to witness that. So it's a lot of legal ideas, but it's very Middle Eastern, very Semitic to have witnesses. And obviously in the church age you still need witnesses. You have to have two or three witnesses to establish things. Anyway, that being the case, let's dive into this passage and understand the implications for you and I, the church, our nation, and how it applies. It says this in verse 1, Now, one of the things I brought out last week that obviously it's God who's speaking these words, not Moses, not a man, not an angel, it is God doing this, it's given the commands. Okay, so like last week I said this is, because it's coming from God, it's absolute, can't change it. The other thing I want to point out is that the commands are timeless. Any command that comes from God is timeless. So like the nine of the ten commandments, those are timeless. You put those commandments over any era and those commandments will apply. So we have to understand that there are what's called the eternal laws of God, no matter what era we're in. And because because their eternal laws, they apply in every era. Now you think, what's the big deal about that? Because the attack now on Christianity, on the Bible, on believers, is the fact that you and I are worshiping antiquated laws and principles, that those are for Bible days, that's not up for the modern day and age. So, There are, they'll say, 52 genders instead of two. You just gotta get with the times, Brandon. And you know, yeah, Genesis says that, but that was for back then for who to marry. Now anyone can marry anything they want, right? No. Because God's law are timeless, they don't change. Therefore, you and I have to stand on these laws and not be moved. and they keep pushing this stuff on you, you have to stand in the gap. You cannot let them move you off of it. You cannot get them to make you compromise, saying, well, you know, if you want to live together before you're married, it's a new age, and new people are doing it, you know. No! It's called fornication. If two guys want to get married, that's an abomination. Two girls want to get married, that's an abomination. And we stand on that. We don't move off of that. No matter how much they call you a racist, bigot, homophobe, Islamophobe, whatever it is, you stand on it because God's laws don't change. Let's continue on. I am Yahweh, your Elohim, your God. The personal name is now brought out, Yahweh, that's the covenantal personal name of God. And here's the personal thing that He did for them. Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Now, there's several implications there in that passage. First of all, it's talking that Elohim, God, Yahweh, is a personal God. He's not just simply the Creator and let things go. He is a personal God, and that personal God does things for His people. He interacts with them throughout history, just like He's interacting with us. We believe in a personal relationship with the Messiah, right? That's what we all tout. Jesus is intimately associated with every facet of our lives, and that's what God's trying to establish. And notice He's putting the principle there, I'm Yahweh, I'm the personal God who saved you out of Egypt. The idea is this, and it's the principle you're gonna continue to see, and I'm gonna continue to repeat. Grace comes first and then truth. The truth is the Ten Commandments. The grace is, I delivered you out of Egypt. I saved you. I did this for you. I demonstrated my love for you, which is exactly the same thing Jesus did for us. Paul says he demonstrates his love for us, his relationship, his desire for relationship by dying on a cross while we were still sinners. Hence, once we are saved, then He will give us the truth about how to live. You don't put the cart before the horse. And so the application is in any relationship, any human relationship you're going to have, there are times, yes, when you have to give the truth and you have to shout it from the rooftops, I get it. But most of the time, your interactions with people, you're gonna have to start with relationship first and then truth. Grace, then truth. Jesus came in grace and truth. And they'll say this about even children and things of that nature. Parents who want to just constantly pound the kids with rule, rule, rule, but don't have a relationship with a child will get rebellion on their hands. So you have to establish the relationship first. and then the rules come out. What does that mean? Hey, I'm for you, I want the best for you, I want your life to go well, and I'm trying to help you, so follow these rules. That's the principle you have to do with anybody, per se. So he does that, and the second aspect I want you to see is that I brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage. So you go from bondage to freedom. We're going to create a free society now, now that we've pulled you out of Egypt. Now, the reason he can say this is because when you follow Yahweh, when you follow Jesus, you get freedom in your society. When you follow foreign gods, you get bondage, you get servanthood, you get totalitarian regimes, you get dictatorships, you get no rights. And that's an important point. If you follow foreign gods, you will end up enslaved to those foreign gods. If you follow Yahweh, He gives you freedom. And I'll make that point about when we come to applying that to America. But unfortunately, Even though our Liberty Bell in Pennsylvania says, from the Hebrew Scriptures, "...proclaim liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof." Unfortunately, we're watching this go by the wayside. Because, unfortunately, we're watching foreign gods take over America. We've kicked Yahweh out, we've kicked Jesus out, and therefore that vacuum is left and now foreign gods are filling that. This will be relegated to the ashes of history of America if we continue to go this route. We will end up in servitude to the government. We will end up in bondage and enslavement and having no rights. We'll talk more about that. One more thing. One more thing I want to point out. When he says this, I think it's a power-packed verse, what Yahweh is indicating to Israel is that I am now in a chesed relationship with you, a loving-kindness relationship with you. Therefore, that chesed is seen by me delivering you out of bondage to freedom. Therefore, you are obligated to me for loyal love." The Bible from a Middle Eastern mindset coming from that kind of context, we don't really relate to it very well in our modern day, but let me explain this. In the Hebrew mindset, in the Middle Eastern mindset, if you saved an individual's life, then that individual owed you their life for the rest of your life. They were indebted to you. And I was thinking about some movies, and you see this sometimes in the movies where they portray people in the Middle East, and whether it's Lawrence of Arabia or even Robin Hood, you know, with Kevin Costner, and what's the other guy, the old boy that's in there? I can't remember his name. It was a terrible movie, it was Robin Hood, but he saves this guy's life and he's a Muslim, right? And so what does the Muslim guy do? He says, I owe you my life and he follows him up to England or whatever to protect him for the rest of his life. That concept comes straight from the Bible. It's a chesed relationship based on the rescuing of somebody. And so what God is pointing out to Israel is, you Israel, because I rescued you, are obligated now to worship me alone among the Elohims. That's why he says, I am your Elohim, you owe me. Now, it's not about salvation, it's about owing what? Loyal love. Hence, because Israel owes loyal love, that segues into the first commandment. So we go into verse 3. You shall have no other elohim before me. The Hebrew is al-panim, over and against me, or in distinction to me. So, Israel, I deserve your loyal love as your only Elohim. Now, this is interesting that God is throwing this term around, Elohim. I'm your Elohim. What it suggests from the Hebrew mindset is that there are other Elohims out there. Now, let me explain this a little bit. There's only one Creator Sustainer, Yahweh, right? He is the one true God. But in the Hebrew world, they called other spirit creatures, other supernatural spirit creatures, Elohims as well. So you would have God being called Elohim, but then other gods being called Elohims as well. What does that mean? It means that it was a general term that referenced a spiritual being that occupied the spiritual realm. Not the natural realm, but the spiritual realm. And hence, these are real creatures. Now God is a being that's uncreated, but these other beings, these other Elohims, are created by God, by Yahweh. But they are spirit, supernatural creatures. And hence the term in the Hebrew is Elohim, plural, for them. They're real. So, when you saw these foreign gods that these Egyptians worshipped, or the Babylonians, or Assyrians, They were actually worshiping real spirit creatures, very powerful spiritual creatures. And they worshiped them as that country's God. And that's why God says, I'm your Elohim, they are not to be your Elohim. So it's God's recognition of the spiritual world that he wants the Hebrews to understand and wants you and I to understand. Folks, it's real. And there are billions of them. I mean billions of them. There are good ones, and there are evil ones. And we need to know who these other Elohims are. Let me show you the first category of the good Elohims. Now we're not talking, they're called gods, but really they're spirit creatures. We call them angels, but that's not really the proper term to use for them. These first class of spirit creatures are called the not a little teams sons of God because they're a direct creation of God and he's a good ones the first one is the Caribbean we don't have actually know in Hebrew what Caribbean means we don't we can't translate this hard to translate so all we can do is guess based on their their what they do their blessers prayers will go back protectors, approachers, internal ones. They're the protectors of God's throne. And that's about as much as we know, but they're very powerful and they're very high-ranking. More, you have burning ones, the seraphim. They're the second class of these creatures. They surround the throne and they look like serpentine fire is how they look. You have other ones called the host, the sava'ot. And then you have the mighty ones, which is the Abireem. You have watchers, and there are good watchers. They're called the Irene. Every church has a watcher assigned to it. We have a watcher assigned to us. Every church does. And that watcher is there to protect us and watch over the local church that it's assigned to. Every local church will have one, a legitimate one. Then you have ministers, the Shearit. And then you have the last one, which we generally term for this spiritual class, the angel, which is Malachim. Angels basically talk about this spirit creature's function. he's a messenger, that's what they do. So there's the good side and there's probably billions of these. And then there's obviously the bad side, the evil side. And there's a first class of these creatures are called Banaha Elohim as well. These B'naha Elohims are direct creations of God, but they're spirit creatures that do not want to possess people. They are fallen angels, we call them, but they're very powerful, very high-ranking. Here's the different names of them. The first one is Halel Ben-Shakar. That's commonly known. His personal name is Halel Ben-Shakar, but we call him Satan. Satan is the verb. But he is the anointed cherubim that rebelled. He was the covering canopy cherub. And he rebelled along with others. Then you have Azazel. This is the goat that goes away. He was apparently the leader that caused the Genesis 6 eruption, Azazel. And then you have the Watchers. This is who Azazel convinced to leave their state and create the problem in Genesis 6. Then you have princes, you have rulers, you have principalities, you have powers and authorities. These are all very high-ranking. You have powers, dominions, lords, thrones, world rulers. And one of the princes, remember, was opposing Gabriel to get the message to Daniel and withheld him 21 days. So these are very high-ranking Elohims. These are what the other nations worship. Then there's a second class called demons. Demons are different than Banah Elohims because they weren't created by God, they were actually created by the Banah Elohims cohabitating with women in Genesis 6. Once they died, the giants or Nephilim died, it produced a spirit obviously, and these spirits are what we call demons. Most people won't understand the distinction between a fallen angel and a demon, but you have to because demons want to possess bodies. Fallen angels do not. They have no concern to possess an individual, but demons do. Demons usually haunt areas that are deserted. They haunt deserts and things of that nature, but they look to possess because they're now without a body. They're disembodied. Fallen angels never had a body, even though they can manifest one. There's different names for them. One is a ruler, a Shadim. Other one that's very popular is the goat demons, the Sararim. Many people, that's why Satanism has a goat head and things of that nature as its symbol because of these demonics. I had a lady recently ride in to our ministry from somewhere in the United States. telling me that she was molested for many years by a goat demon. And it's very common to have that happen. These things are real, not meant to frighten you, but you have to understand that there's this side of the spirit world. There's wild beasts, the Shayim, then there's the night creatures, the Liliths, The Lilith, typically demonic activities that happen at night are from these typical demons. And then you have the donkey centaur. It's a demon that is a half-man, a half-donkey looking type of creature. They're called the Ayim. And then you have the midday creature, which is the daytime demons of the Keteb, and their activity is during daytime. Now, the reason I show you this is because God is trying to make the point to Israel, Hey, look, I understand and acknowledge, and so do you, that there are other spirit creatures out there. But I am the one true God. I'm the one who created all of them, except for the demons. And he's trying to say in scripture that I am El Elyon, above all of them. I am the most high Elohim. comparative to them. They can't compare to Yahweh. That's why you'll see passages in the Old Testament that says no gods compare to Yahweh. There's no other god like Yahweh. No other Elohim. That's right. They do not possess the Omnis. God possesses the three Omnis. And demons, fallen angels do not possess that. Now, where am I going with this? I'm going with it because when he says, you shall not have other foreign gods, these are the creatures people start worshiping. Now, it's not like someone just says, I'm going to worship a demon. It's very subtle. They actually sometimes will just incorporate the system of the demon. They will incorporate the system of the Elohim and not even know it. And what they'll do is synchronize the worship of Yahweh with the worship of a demon and not know it because they're incorporating the demon system. And you think, well, how can this happen? Well, it happens real simple. When you allow false doctrine to come into your belief system, you are now giving a demon to have a foothold in your life and to deceive you and misdirect you. And that's what they will do. And it will get you to start doing things you shouldn't be doing. The point is, If you ever get caught in a situation where you're having an encounter with either a fallen angel, or a fallen Elohim, or even a demon, the first thing you should do is start praying to God, and the thing is, demons, fallen angels, have to flee at the name of Jesus. You say Jesus' name out loud, and you plead His blood. That stops everything, okay? That's the one thing they're afraid of is the name of Jesus. And so if you ever have an encounter, and many people do, you need to plead Jesus' name, pray, and resist, and the devil or the demons will flee at that point in time. And this is a real occurrence. It's happening more than ever. I've dealt with people who are More than I've ever had to deal with it in the last few years The demonic activity is on the rise the fallen angel activity is on the rise like I've never seen it before And so I'm telling you this because what God's trying to tell Israel is wake them up to the spiritual realm the there are billions of these creatures and here's the deal they want to destroy you and I and Okay? That's the end goal. Get you to go crazy, do crazy things, and eventually you either commit suicide, or you do something stupid that gets yourself killed. Because they're not a fan of you, by the way. They're not a fan of you. Anyway, this is why he's making this distinction. But let's go on to the application of all of this. The application is that Yahweh's theology is the only form of true theology. No other Elohim can give proper theology other than God. And therefore, because of that, if your society is based on Yahweh's theology, your society will be free and function correctly. And unfortunately, America is functioning under another god now. Can you guess what kind of God America serves? The God of hedonism, the God of wealth, the God of affluence, the God of all this other stuff, but what's the major God in America right now? What's the major God? The God of America that's forming and is the dominant God in America as America practices polytheism now, now that they've removed the system of Yahweh out, is the God of government. That's the God. That's the main God in the pantheon that's going on in America. It's the God of government. And people are obeying that God. They're not questioning that God. And unfortunately, it's destroying America. Because Yahweh's system creates ethical monotheism. Ethical monotheism. One God. What does it say on our documents? that people are endowed by the Creator, right? All of the documents point to ethical monotheism. And what God is it? It's the God of the Bible, Yahweh, Jesus. It's the God of the Bible. Our form of government cannot survive, a constitutional republic cannot survive if it goes away from ethical monotheism. Because right now, polytheism is taking over in America. And hence, we're having problems. So, think about what happened this week. National Day of Prayer, right? Did you guys watch what happened on National Day of Prayer? I was dumbfounded. So Joe Biden gets up there, gives his speech on the National Day of Prayer, which is a Christian thing that was developed in the United States. It's not Islamic, it's not Hindu, it's Christian, because we're a Christian nation. He gets up there and not one time does he mention praying to God. or Jesus, or Yahweh, or anything like that. He just talked about prayer and then threw in a bunch of critical race theory and woke-ism into his speech. Not once did he mention God. Well, Joe, who are you praying to? What are you talking about? This is a Christian nation. We pray to the God of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Messiah, obviously, the Jewish Messiah. And then the capital was shut down to Christian groups praying at the capital. The first time in 70 years, the first time ever that Christians were shut out of the capital to not pray. Do we have that picture? This is what it looked like. In 70 years, this has not occurred. What's happening? They're worshiping a foreign god is what's happening. Or gods, I should say. Elohims. Unbelievable. Now, a couple points I want to make. You're seeing the worship of these foreign gods in other elements in our society. You're first seeing the worship of a particular god in the economy. What do you mean? Well, the free market system bases itself in the Bible, okay? So when they say, capitalism is bad, capitalism is greed, capitalism is evil, and capitalism is racist, what they're in effect saying is that the free market system that derives from God is evil. So when they say that, they're blaspheming. And so what's now happening? You know, our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, says all men are created what? Equal! Which means, economically, Americans have equal opportunity in their economics. And we've strived to get that equality for everybody, more than any other nation on the planet. But now the new term is, no, no, no, we don't want equality of opportunity, we want equality of outcomes. And they're calling it equity. We want people to have equity, equity, equity. You know what that means? It's a communistic, socialistic term, Marxist term, which means the ditch digger over here that's digging ditches needs to make the same amount of money as a neurosurgeon. It's not right that the neurosurgeon has white privilege and can make $450,500,000. So we need to lower him down through taxes and raise the ditch digger up. Because we want everybody to be on the same plane here. Don't you understand we're trying to create equity? Do you know how this equity works? Do you know the end game for this? It goes into the tribulation. The end game is a quart of wheat for a day's wages, three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and don't harm the oil and the wine. Every human being, by the time the tribulation hits and the sealed judgments are opened, Everybody will have equity at that point. They'll all be broke, and it will take one day to make one meal by the time the Revelation 6 rolls in. That's where it's going. We already know that, and they're starting to do that now. What's another thing we see of a foreign god running our country? Well, our legal system. See, our legal system's based on due process, witnesses, and evidence. Now they're saying, no, he's racist. Just throw him in jail. No, no, no. Don't even look at the evidence. We're ignoring the evidence. We're going with a narrative. That's a foreign god. And now patriotism is evil. See, patriotism is rooted in the Bible, because God wants countries to have language, culture, and borders. He wants countries. He wants individual nations. He does not want globalism. So now what they're trying to do to make you a global citizen is tell you that patriotism is racist. Tell you that love of your country is wrong. You should be wanting to be a global citizen. That flying an American flag is about as racist and xenophobic as you could possibly be. See, they're teaching our young kids that. That's a foreign God, and that foreign God wants globalism behind all of that. And now we're in a medical dictatorship now. Now we have people who are the Gestapo or the Nazis demanding that we do certain things health-wise. Vaccinations, masks. And by the way, it's not just going to be out there, it's coming here. Let me give you an example. Someone showed me a letter that they received from Costco in the southwest area. Yeah, one of our Costco's, not that one, but the Southwest one. They received a letter, and the Costco manager said, don't ever come back here. You're banned from the store. You're banned from Costco for life, and we're never gonna change our opinion on this. You will not come to Costco ever again. Banned her. Got the letter, saw the letter. Do you know why Costco here locally banned her for life? Not wearing a mask. So this woke manager of Costco decides that he's going to be so woke as he's going to ban somebody from Costco because she wasn't wearing a mask. I'll teach her, he thought. I am a good citizen, and we're not going to put up with these anti-vaxxers and these anti-maskers. We'll show them. Folks, that guy, that manager, whoever he is, Has accepted a foreign God's system and what is how do I know he's doing it because he pushes a dictatorship He pushes less freedom your band your censored your cutoff That is a foreign God because if you worship Yahweh you actually get freedom That's how I know so whoever this guy is He worships a foreign God And that's what's happening to America. I saw a video, and you notice how everyone's just going along with everything. You just don't even question anything. I saw this video from Wendy's. It's about a hamburger from Wendy's. But when I saw the video, I thought, that's America right now. This is America. Let me show you this video. That's us. Hey. Something's not right here. This feels a little creepy. They're not thinking straight. Why? I added that tagline on the end. They have been Romans to one. Is that not capture what's going on in America? What's wrong with that? Hey, wear a mask. Okay. Get a vaccine. Okay. Stay in your house, okay. Don't go to church, okay. Don't sing to God, okay. What's happened to people? They've been Romans one'd, that's why. They worship a foreign God. And if you worship a foreign God, you will follow that God, won't you? And who is that God? It's the government. That's who they're obeying. Because they don't obey Yahweh, they're obeying the government. What is the implications for the church living in the mystery kingdom? The mystery kingdom means that the kingdom of God lives in our heart at this point in time. The implications for the church is simple. It's the same thing as our society. Our churches are turning into the society. They are becoming the church of Judas. Because they're betraying their master in whom they say they love and who they follow. And all of a sudden we're incorporating foreign gods into the theology of the churches. So now the pastor gets up there and says, we all need to apologize for our white privilege. So get on our knees and apologize and repent for your white privilege. Hey, that's a foreign god. What are you doing bringing that into the church? That's Marxism. That's cultural Marxism. But see, these pastors, they're hirelings. And they have no problem bringing a foreign God system into the church. The church is rapidly becoming the church of Judas. What are the implications for us? That's where we start drilling down here a little bit. Number one, the first implication is this. The Lord's theology must be protected and kept pure to prevent us from fellowshipping with demons. What? What are you talking about? I didn't make it up. Paul did. Let me explain this. Go to 1 Corinthians now in 10. Rather that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. So he's talking about unbelievers out there. When they do things, they're worshiping Elohim, the fallen angels or demons, right? But he says the application, you can do the same thing. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. That's telling the Corinth church. What? Is it possible that a believer can have fellowship with a demon? Yes! That's what Paul's point is. Verse 21, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can't do both. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Now he's talking to believers, he's not talking about unbelievers. What is he talking about? He is talking about when the Corinth Church started incorporating and syncretizing false religion, paganism into Christianity, they were in effect worshiping or fellowshipping with demons. Now, what's the problem with that? Well, there's a big problem. When you incorporate false theology into the worship of Yahweh that comes from a demon, something will happen to you. Look what Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 4. Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, that's apostasy, giving heed to what? Deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Two things are noted there. If you incorporate a false system into your theology, the first thing that's going to happen to you is you're going to be deceived. That's the first thing they're going to do is deceive you. But then they're going to turn around once they deceive you and start in filling your mind with false doctrine. And this is where it starts. And you say, does it end there? No, it gets worse. So once they have a foothold in your life, Ephesians 4.27, in which they can operate, a beachhead in which they can operate in your soul, they will now seek to destroy you with false doctrine and deceive you. And then how does that work? Well, remember, James says, what you believe correlates to how you behave. If you want to know what someone believes, look at their behavior. Their behavior will tell you everything. So then what the false doctrine will do is get you to behave and think wrongly about the world, reality, God, and others, and yourself. And before you know it, the person doesn't even realize that another Elohim is controlling them, a believer. Believer that should shock us that that possibility does exist In fact, it's happening an all-time high because we're seeing what in the latter times some will depart from the faith We're seeing that now the great apostasy is happening and this very thing is happening right now Christians are apostatizing because they're in fellowship with demons and don't even know it Yikes Wow, this is why you're seeing Christians not hold to the tenets of Christianity anymore. And other things are happening. You know, on this Mother's Day, now, and you watch, the church is gonna be pushing this because this last week, what's her name, Cori Bush, came out and said, you can't call people moms. I know this is Mother's Day. Did you know that we can't call our moms moms anymore? We gotta call them birthing people. No joke, man, really, it's so crazy. This is what she said this week. We can't call people moms, we have to call them birthing people. Why would we have to call someone a birthing people or person? Oh, because in their world, in their God system, guys can pretend to be women and pretend that they're pregnant. Or girls, can pretend to be a guy, take hormone blockers, but still get pregnant and have a baby. But she's pregnant, but she says she's a guy. Or whatever, if you can understand that. Because I can't unravel that. So that's why we have to use the politically correct term birthing people. Bless God, you go out today and say to people, happy Mother's Day. And make sure you never move off that point to where you compromise and say, happy birthing person day. That's crazy, isn't it? Is that nuts? We've lost our ever living minds. Another point of application. The Lord's theology must be protected and kept pure to prevent us from synchronizing another foreign God's system. Now, you'll see this in Joshua, you'll see this in Psalms, and it's all over the scriptures. It'll say in Joshua, for instance, now, therefore, he said, put away foreign gods which are among you and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel. I want you to think about that. They're going into the promised land after 40 years in the desert, and Joshua still has to say, hey, no more foreign gods. What does that imply? That for 40 years, messing around in the desert, they were worshiping foreign gods along with Yahweh. They were syncretizing. And then you'll see later on through the Bible, like Psalm 81, there shall be no foreign God among you, nor shall you worship any foreign God. Okay, so in the Old Testament history what happened was they built a temple and they had compartments in the temple and in the temple these priests who were worshipping other foreign gods would stick their little statue inside the temple in their little cubby holes around the temple. So you had the worship of Yahweh and then all around the temple inside of it they had foreign gods. So they were practicing syncretism. And that meant that they brought in the system of that foreign god into the worship of Yahweh. And you think, well, we don't do that now. We're more sophisticated than that. Well, I beg to differ. After all these years of being in ministry and counseling, I have seen more than what you would think, many Christians who have brought in a foreign God into their Christianity and don't even know it. They have no idea that it's operating. And they're trying to keep one foot in Christianity, but they're keeping this other foot in this other Elohim, this other deity that they really don't know exists, but it does, because they're practicing their system. And there's three major areas in which this happens. The first one, we can inherit in false theology from our family of origin and not even know it. Now, what do you mean? Now, you inherit good things from your family. Obviously, I'm not saying every family's bad or anything like that. I'm just saying there's good aspects to your family, but then there's also bad aspects, and the bad aspects have to be purged out, because what starts happening is you function in how you were raised, and you get into that system, and what you have to understand is family of origins have functioning systems of belief. that are contrary many times to the Bible, to proper theology. And this starts messing people up. So for instance, let me give you some examples of how this works. In their families, living together before marriage is completely acceptable. In these family of origins, we only accept higher education. You must have a higher education. You must have high degrees or we don't accept you. So if you become a TV repairman, you're rejected. You have to be on certain paths in your life. If you're not on our path, if you don't ride motorcycles, then you're not part of this family. I know it sounds stupid, but it is true. It happens. In our family, we value workaholism, and if you're not a workaholic, then we reject you. Or in our family, we're lazy, and if you're trying to outdo us all, we're going to make fun of you, because we value laziness in this family. And in certain families, you've got to look a certain way. You've got to speak a certain way. You have to not talk about the elephant in the room. Cover up problems. Sweep them under the carpet. Don't say anything. Don't ruffle feathers. Shut your mouth. Just let's get through Christmas and Thanksgiving without a problem. In certain families, they allow emotional incest, which means one of the spouses is not getting their emotional needs met by their other spouse, and so they go to the kids and tap the kids for emotional support, and they become thick as thieves, man, and you can't separate them. It's called emotional incest. Many families practice this. Or how about in this family? We have the women rule the family instead of the man. Yeah, that means you're upside down. You see what I'm talking about? Things you wouldn't consider that we are getting from our family of origin, and all of a sudden we practice that and think it's godly, and it's not even part of God's system. Second, we get it from our trauma. We can be given false theology from our hurt and trauma. What do you mean? All of us are gonna go through bad stuff, no doubt about that. We're all gonna go through it, but it's how you process that in a biblical way is what matters. Because if you allow a demon to deceive you, you will misprocess what happened to you. So for instance, people will say, I cannot trust God for protection, so I'll seek my own protection. I cannot trust God to provide, so I will have to seek my own provision. I cannot trust God to be there for me, so I will create my own security around me. I don't trust people because I've been burned so many times, so therefore I will isolate. I cannot forgive people who have done me wrong until God punishes them. So I will wait to forgive them until I see God punish them. So I'll hold on to the unforgiveness. A man hurt me in the past, so all men are pigs. A woman hurt me in the past, so all women are evil. You see where that's going? You see what's happening? That's a foreign god. That's coming from a demon. But we're doing that because we misprocessed hurt. That means you've incorporated a fallen system. Third. We create our own false theology because we want the world to be as we want it. See, once you become an adult, you start realizing life is unfair. Very unfair. And it starts stinking. And you don't like it. And so what does God say to do about it? Well, I don't know, but I'm gonna take the bull by the horns and I'm gonna make it right. How are you gonna make it right? Well, I'll become a politician. Right? This is the main reason people go into politics, by the way. A study has been done on this. Many of these crazy politicians, these leftist crazies, they go into politics because when they were younger, they saw that life was unfair. And so instead of following God's way to handle the unfairness of life, they go to trying to get power in order to make life fair. And by doing so, they follow a demon and they end up with a communistic Marxist socialist system because they want to make equity. So isn't that funny that when people don't handle life's unfairness in a biblical way, they will turn to a demon's way of handling it. Well, since life is unfair, I guess that gives me the right to steal. I guess since life is unfair, it gives me the right to cheat on my taxes. I guess because life is unfair, I get to do what I'm entitled, I feel I should be able to do. Before you know it, you're operating on a completely different system. You do not have the right to do whatever you want to do. Because God describes what we should be doing in our behavior. And he says, you shall not steal, you shall not lie. Well, I'm entitled to it. You don't know what I went through, God. I just got to get through my life, man. I'm just trying to make my way. And if you're not going to help me, I'll help myself. Foreign God, foreign system. Now, let me give you an example on this, and I'll end on this. Of a biblical character incorporating a false system, and watch what it caused this biblical character to do. Rachel. You all know Rachel's story, don't you? Jacob loved her, wanted her, wanted to marry her, but then Laban, the crook that he is, switched and gave him Leah. So he had worked seven years for Rachel, but he was given Leah. So now Laban makes him work another seven years to get Rachel, okay? He's a crook. Jacob puts up with this apparently, because he wants Rachel so bad, he puts up with it. So for 14 years, Jacob is laboring for Laban to get the two girls. So at the end of the 14 years to come, Jacob has really no profits whatsoever. Laban has all the profits. And the two girls have been cut off in their inheritance. Laban is taking their inheritance. He has no dowry for them to give to Jacob. And so the girls are ticked. You can read this in the scriptures. They're mad at their dad. And they're like, all right, man, he's cut us off from our inheritance. We're done. Let's get out of here. I'm paraphrasing. And so they go to Jacob and they're like, we've got to head out of Dodge. Let's get out of here. My dad's crazy, man. He's cut us off. I have no money, no inheritance. I can't believe he did this to you and me. Let's go. So they leave. So Jacob takes what's his, and Leah and Rachel go with him, and it doesn't take but a day that raging Laban comes through, and smoke is coming out of his ears, and he confronts Jacob, and he says, hey man, why did you just leave like that? And Jacob responds, because if I didn't, you'd probably steal more from me. But anyway, he goes, hey, It was worse that you left without telling me, but the thing is, man, somebody in your party stole my household idols. And Jacob's like, who could have done now? He goes, look, if you find anybody in my camp that did that, we'll kill them. Because I did not advocate that. Household items would have been little idols of the household. Laban was a pagan, right? He worshiped other gods. And so here's his household idols. So you know the story. Laban's searching through tents. He finally goes to Rachel's tent, and Rachel knows what's up. So she, because she's practicing a different system, has stolen the household idols from Laban. She has stolen them, and she believes she has a right to steal them. And then she's gonna lie to Laban because they're in a backpack that would go on a camel, and so she sits on them, and she spreads up her cloak around it, and she's sitting there, and Laban comes in because in the Middle East, women are to rise when a man walks in the tent. Well, anyway, she doesn't rise. She says, I can't get up, I'm menstruating. And so Laban goes, okay, no problem. And he looks around the tent, didn't find anything. She's sitting on the household gods. So two sins have been committed. You stole and you lied. But there's one more thing that I wanna bring out. Most commentators don't get the idea why Rachel sold the idols. They'll say, well, she was worshiping foreign gods and she was practicing syncretism. Not on the surface, no. Rachel was committed to Yahweh, no doubt about that. But what's happened is Rachel has assumed another system into Yahweh's system. And what system is that, Brandon? The law of Hammurabi. At that time, the law of Hammurabi said this, that if you want the inheritance, the way you prove that you have the right to the inheritance is to have the household gods in your possession. Anyone who has the possession of the household gods has a claim to the entire property and wealth. Okay? So what she did by stealing it is she wants to, once Laban dies, go back home and say, I have the household idols, give me all of the inheritance. Give me all of it. I want it all back. She didn't just want what was owed to her, she wanted all of it. It's all mine. That's what she was doing. And she felt justified because she was keeping the law of Hammurabi, which allowed her to do this. But ask yourself, was that what God would have her do? No, you can't lie and steal just because you feel entitled to get your inheritance. Jesus said this, if someone wants your cloak, give it to them. Cut your losses and go. Quit trying to gain back stuff that people have taken away from you. Just let it go. That's what God would have told her to do. But she's not operating under God's system, she's operating under the law of Hammurabi. But that's, it only gets better. Her intent is to keep these idols until she dies. Or sorry, until her husband, till Laban dies, sorry. So she keeps them. She keeps them. She didn't get rid of them and say, I repent, I shouldn't have done this. No, no, she keeps them. So she has Joseph, firstborn, and then she has a second child. And what happens during the second delivery? She's dying. She's dying. And as she's dying, she says, name the child Ben-Ami, the son of my sorrows. She's dying. She's still in childbearing years, so she should be relatively young, 20s, 30s, somewhere in that neighborhood, okay? So she's dying. We don't know if Laban has died. So she dies giving birth to Ben-Omi. Jacob changes the name from Ben-Omi, the son of sorrow, to the son of my right hand, Benjamin, okay? But what's the point, Brandon? The point is, in her mind, she thought she was going to outlive her father. And once he died, she was going to claim the inheritance. But what happened? She died before being able to claim the inheritance according to the law of Hammurabi. What's the point? The point is, when you worship foreign gods, they cannot deliver what they promise. See, one of the aspects that Yahweh always tells Israel is, I am faithful, I can deliver on my promises. So Rachel didn't get what she was delivered, or what she wanted to be delivered, because she worshiped a foreign god. And so God is making the point with Rachel and all of us. I am the only one that can deliver on my promises. And it begins with, thou shall have no other gods before me. Let's pray.