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. We're going to be back and finishing up in Thyatira. And let me get back to where I was at. Last week I made an application to having to deal with a Jezebel personally. So there's three ways to look at that now, is historical, there was a woman in the church that was actually doing it, and she had the Jezebel spirit on her, then there's the Jezebel monolithic spirit, which is the whore of Babylon, and then there's the Jezebel spirit that you can contend with in your own personal lives, whether it's at work, whether it's in your family, whether it's in your church, or Bible study, whatever, these people exist. and they're more often likely females, but there are males that are fit the role. So we learned about that, learned how to spot that. I will say this then, one more parting application before I move on. I will say this, if you see all the characteristics of this kind of person that we've displayed, understand at some point in time that they're, Their wounds, which they never healed with truth, by processing it through God's Word, because it was unhealed, demonic activity starts taking advantage of that. And then that person becomes a tool in the hands of a demon. Because behind the Jezebel spirit, that's why it's called the Jezebel spirit, is a spirit. And the spirit is a demon. And the demon then uses the hurts and wounds of this individual to cause and wreak havoc. And so, It's a pretty serious thing, because you're not just dealing with a human element, you're dealing with satanic forces that are involved on the person. Now, look, that shouldn't shock anybody. For goodness sakes, even believers can be influenced by the devil. I mean, take Peter, for instance, right? Peter's saying to Jesus, you're not gonna go to the cross, and what does Jesus say to him? Get behind me, Satan. Right? And rebuking Peter because he's being influenced by Satan. Well, if Peter can be influenced, so can you and I. That's the concept. The concept is you and I can be influenced or tempted in the spiritual realm. But let me go one step further. Temptation is common to man. Influence is common to man from the demonic realm. What is uncommon is when you have hurts and trauma, then they are capitalized by the demonic realm. That's what starts going down that path. And so people, they wanna bury their past under the rug, they just don't wanna deal with it, they wanna forget, they have amnesia, so to speak, I don't know, they just put it out of their mind. You doing that is opening yourself up. because it's not hidden to the demonic realm. So you can block it out all you want, but if it's not, if they know the trauma, and they know it very well, by the way, then they can capitalize on that and use that. I'm not saying they do that every time, but I'm just saying that's what creates this Jezebel spirit eventually is that, They take advantage of a person like that. So my admonition application is, well, how do I protect against that? Number one, fix your wounds. I'm not saying you're not gonna have scars. You're gonna have scars in this life, there's no doubt about that. But if you have a gaping open wound from the past that has not been healed, you better get on that. It's not just simply for your benefit, it's for the benefit of people around you, because then you will be used against those people, and you won't even know you're being used against them. You become a useful idiot in the hands of a demon, and you don't think for a moment you can outsmart a demon, because the demon's intellect is far superior than our human intellect, and so you won't even see it coming. So that's one thing. The other application then is if you're on the receiving end of a Jezebel spirit, okay? If you're on the receiving end of a Jezebel spirit, to counteract this woman or this man or whoever's doing this to you, you have to know your own weaknesses. because she capitalizes on your weaknesses. So the weakness that she capitalized in the Church of Thyatira was the weakness of the people needed an income. People needed to have support for their family. And that's, again, working in the trade guilds is where she said, look, go ahead and work and serve in there because God knows your heart. You're really not, you know, you don't believe these things are idols and whatnot. And so go ahead and bow a knee and do the rituals. And even if you have to practice sexual immorality by going to a typical prostitute, God knows your heart. He's fine with it. Just do it so you can make an income to support your family. So God knows your heart and he will overlook you know, the sin that you're doing by bowing a knee to a false god and then committing temple prostitution. I know that sounds bizarre, but her message worked and people bought into it. And what you have to understand is she will capitalize on your weakness. So the first thing you have to do is know your weakness. What is my weakness? And like I said, if a Jezebel spirit is typically a female, then she will manipulate a male through rejection. So if the male has rejection issues, typically males do, about 80 to 90% of them do, which is a very common trait among males, then she'll take advantage of the rejection issue in the male. So if you're in that situation and you have rejection issues, you would do yourself well to make sure you're protected in those areas, because that's your gaping wound. And she will take advantage of that wound of rejection every single time. That's how she manipulates men. And then one more thing. As a guy, and I need to put this out there, so you need to understand the kinds of guys she gravitates to, okay? So Jezebel was married to Ahab. Ahab is a weak man to begin with, okay? He's just a weak man, he's a wimp. And he can't corral her, even though he's the king, he's really, you know. by law is the king, but by de facto, he's really not, she is. And so she's ruling through him, and so he's a very weak man, so she tends to go to weak men. Then what she'll do is not only surround herself with a posse, but she surrounds herself with eunuchs. So if you look what she did, is eunuchs are always around her, okay? Now eunuchs is a castrated man, right? And she capitalizes on spiritually castrated men. And every man in this room better understand what that means. If you do not want to possess spiritual authority, that means you have committed, you know, castration, spiritual castration, because you're not wanting to lead. You're not wanting to take on the responsibility. And so what the Bible sees that as is you're a spiritual eunuch. Okay, because you're not taking the lead like a male is supposed to. So what ends up happening is she surrounds herself with weak males. Not only is her husband weak, but the males around her are weak, and they're eunuchs, they're spiritual eunuchs. And that's what she gravitates around and surrounds herself with. Now, understand this. Being a spiritual eunuch It's like the worst decision you can make. Because the longer you're in it, the more permanent the position is. So let me ask you this question. I'm not saying you can't repent of it and get back right on track, but again, you stay in the spiritual unisy of 20 and 30 and 40 years of not taking the lead. Let me ask you this about a physical unit. When they were castrated, could they reverse that? No, they cannot. Forever they will be a eunuch. And you must pay attention to that. I'm not telling you can't get out of it. I'm just telling you the longer you stay in it, you will eventually never get out of it. and it would become a permanent part of you spiritually because you refused to be a leader for 30, 40, 50 years, whatever it was, and then you get solidified in that, and that's it. You have now the marker of a spiritual eunuch, and that's how you're cemented into your final self. So it's a big deal. It's a lot to think about, and I think everyone needs to be very cautious of this and take heed to it. Okay. So, now we move on to what Messiah's going to do to her. And he'll do this to the whore of Babylon. He's going to do this to her offspring. He says, and I have given her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. So there's the grace given to this individual woman in the church that was doing this, okay? Now, in a more church history time period, This is referring to the Catholic Church, okay? And he's going to give the Catholic Church a time to repent of this particular issue. And again, the issue is the Whore of Babylon. That's who's infiltrated the church in Rome, okay? And I mean, if you wanna look... No further than how the Pope is, he's the epitome of the whore of Babylon, the current Pope, right? He emphasizes everything she emphasizes. She's Marxism, globalism, gay marriage, civil unions, whatever you want to call them, you know, all this whole stuff. Transgenderism, all that sort of stuff, bowing down to idols. That's him. So he epitomizes, as the head of the Catholic Church, the whore of Babylon, just him alone, personally. So he's been infiltrated, no doubt about that. So, he's not only gonna give the individual that's doing this a time to repent, but he's gonna give the Catholic Church a time to repent and get rid of her, and get the Babylonian element out of her. And then he says, indeed, I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. So this application then goes to the church in general, to the Catholic church, to the church era of the pornography. And what he is saying is, I'm gonna give you this time because you have committed adultery with her. And if you don't stop it, I'm gonna cast you into the great tribulation. And the Great Tribulation is a reference to the Olivet Discourse, the Great Tribulation that's mentioned by Messiah, and is a reference to the Seven-Year Tribulation. He's threatening the Catholic Church that you will be left behind if you don't overcome her. Now, again, in salvation, the Catholic Church does not teach faith alone. In salvation, the Catholic Church teaches faith plus good works, faith plus the sacraments. Therefore, it teaches a different gospel, okay? You might have good Catholic friends, I have Catholic family, but if they believe in a works-based salvation, they're lost as a ball in high weeds, that's it. That's just the way it is theologically. They could be good people and they could say they love Jesus and everything like that, but if you believe that it's Jesus plus what you do, you have a different gospel and you cannot be saved. by theology. I'm not saying Catholics can't be saved if they listen to a gospel message and they hear it's by faith alone, and despite the teachings of Vatican, they get saved, they can be saved. I mean, I was saved as a Catholic. I didn't leave the Catholic Church and then get saved. I got saved in the Catholic Church, and it took me two years to find myself out of that place once the Holy Spirit did enough conviction on me to say this place is rank heresy. But I didn't know it once I got saved. I heard a gospel message, and that's how I got saved. Okay, I'm not saying that Catholics can't be saved. I'm saying if you believe in official teachings of the Catholic Church, going from Council of Trent all the way to Vatican II, up until modern day, it's a works-based salvation. Okay? And so it's a different gospel, and Paul said anathema to that. They, in fact, are not very happy with us either, As Protestants, and they never want to talk about the Catholic priests, and even Catholics may not even understand this, but when you leave the Catholic Church, anathema is pronounced on you. You are cursed to hell for leaving the Catholic Church and not being a part of the Catholic Church. And they say, in their doctrine, if you believe in faith alone, you are anathematized. You are cursed to hell. Okay, so when you deal, I don't care what smile they put on their face, that's their official teaching. And I don't go by what a priest says here locally, or a Catholic person that lives across the street, I go by your doctrine of the official Catholic church, which was reemphasized by Vatican II, pronounces an anathema on every Protestant that believes in faith alone, okay? If you believe it's Jesus plus good works, you're not saved. Okay? Because that's the dividing line. It's Jesus alone, faith alone. That's it. That's what the whole Protestant Reformation's about. If you're not on that ticket, you don't understand salvation. You're lost if you think it's you plus baptism, you plus taking the Eucharist, you plus marriage, you plus being confirmed, you plus whatever sacrament, extreme unction, or whatever it is. That's a false gospel. So when he's rebuking the Catholic Church in this passage, he is telling the Catholic Church, if you don't overcome this works-based salvation that you got from Babylon, you're going into the tribulation. You may call yourself a Christian all you want, but you'll be part of the false church that goes into the tribulation. And believe you me, there will be plenty of false believers who claim to be Christian that were never really saved, that will make up the false church in the tribulation. That false church will then marry itself with the whore of Babylon, okay? Now, can they get saved in the tribulation? Yes, they can, absolutely. There will be a great revival, according to Revelation chapter seven, of Jew and Gentile, and then the sprinkling of the remnants of Israel will start coming to faith a little bit in the first half of the tribulation, and then the second half, the remnant of Israel gets saved. But there will be a massive revival among the Gentiles in the first half of the tribulation. So I'm not saying they can't be saved. The last point which a mortal can be saved or not saved is when the mark of the beast is ushered. And at that point, you take the mark of the beast, that's it, you're done. You can't come back from that. That's the final straw. That's the division of humanity at that point is taking the mark of the beast. And that's Revelation 14, you can read it. It says who takes the mark will be tortured and tormented and fire and brimstone forever and ever and ever and ever. So that's the dividing line. So people say, well, you know, if you miss the rapture, then you can't be saved. Well, that's not true, technically. You can be saved, and you will then be able to make your decision, even though it's hell on earth. up into the mark of the beast being issued, which is at the midpoint of the tribulation. So anyway, she is being threatened that I'm going to put you on a sickbed of suffering, which is the great tribulation, unless they repent, unless they get back to a faith alone message. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. Now her children are her offspring. It's all those who follow her teachings. It's all of those who blend the gospel of Jesus plus works. It's all of those who misunderstand the person of the Messiah and works as well. Because you have to have two things in your content of salvation. You have to get the person of Jesus right. Jesus is the God-man, 100% God, 100% man. He's the second person of the Trinity. If you don't get that right, you have the person of Jesus wrong, and you cannot be saved. You have to have the person of Jesus right. Okay, that's why the Mormons are not saved. That's why the Jehovah Witnesses are not saved. That's why Christian science are not saved. They claim to be Christians, but they tamper with the nature of the divinity of Christ. So Mormons say he's the offspring, which was sired by the Father to Mary, and basically he's half God and half human. Well, theology says he's 100% God and 100% human, so he can't say he's half God, demigod. He's not a demigod. If you get that wrong, you're not saved. Jehovah Witnesses, they say he's the Archangel Michael, right? He's a created being. He's the first created being. That's wrong. He's the creator. So you have to have the person of Jesus right. Then, the second aspect of the gospel, you have to have the work of Jesus correct. And the work is, what did he do? Okay, so he fulfilled the law for you and I, then he made the ultimate sacrifice for you by suffering and dying. So he suffered and died. The suffering allows the shedding of blood, which is for the remission of sin, and the death is what makes the substitutionary atonement of the exchange of his righteousness and our sins being put on him. So you have to have the suffering and death of the Messiah. And then of course he's buried and rises on the third day in fulfillment of scriptures, and that's the gospel. So that's the work of the Messiah. And it's that work that he gives you if you accept him by faith. Okay, pretty simple. So simple I think a five-year-old can understand. But that's it in a nutshell. The problem is the cults make one of two mistakes. The Catholic church gets the person of Jesus correct, right? They believe in the deity of the Messiah, the God-man, the hypostatic union, and they believe in the Trinity, right? No problem there. But what the Catholics don't believe is the work of the Messiah, okay? So they get that one wrong. So that's what we're talking about. And so this is the problem with the Catholic Church. So I will kill her children with death. So all of those that she produces that don't have the correct gospel, that don't have the correct understanding of salvation, well, guess what? They're gonna be left behind and they're gonna go through the tribulation. That's the warning here. And they will taste death. They will be killed in the tribulation even if they don't. Even if they get saved or not saved, they were gonna physically die. during this period of time. So why? Why do that? So that all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one according to your works. So it's a negative in the sense that if you continue to operate this way, I'm going to give you what you deserve. If you keep rejecting the person and work of the Messiah, I'm going to give you what you deserve. I'm going to give you the Antichrist. I'm going to give you the tribulation. Because that's really what you're asking for. You're asking not to escape from hell. Because if a five-year-old can understand the gospel message, then there's something wrong with you in not understanding that, if a five-year-old can understand it. So what is it? Well, I can tell you, it's the sinfulness of the human heart. It's the pride of the human heart. And so the pride of the human heart, the older someone gets, the more hardened they become to the simple gospel. And so a lot of their pride thinks that they need to earn things, they deserve things, entitlement, all that stuff starts popping up. Well, he's telling, he's warning every person who claims to be a Christian and is not, you're gonna go into tribulation. Because I will only rapture true believers. I will only rapture those who have been born again and regenerated. And so this is a threat. And of course, the great tribulation is, you definitely don't want that because that's hell come to earth, right? Now I say to the rest, now I say, And to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, so there is a saved element in there, okay? And you have to say this because even in the Middle Ages, you have to say there was a remnant of believing element in the Catholic Church. You have to say that because Christ in Matthew 16 says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail. So there's always been a remnant of believers, even though the Catholic Church dominated, there was always people that believed in faith alone. They read the scriptures, they knew exactly what it said. There was many priests that were saved, and they knew exactly what it said. But if they went against the official teachings of the Catholic Church, they were burned at the stake. And so a lot of those believers didn't step out because they would be persecuted by the Catholic Church. But there was plenty of people that believed that. And again, it wasn't just like Martin Luther came up with the novel idea, oh, he read the Bible and all of a sudden he discovered faith alone. Faith alone had already been discovered through church history many, many times, but it had been buried and crushed by the Catholic Church. Eventually, whether it was Martin Luther or someone else, it would have broke out because things had broken up in the Catholic Church and in Europe, and kings were already getting ticked off at the Catholic Church having too much power, and there was already breaking away politically from the Catholic Church. So inevitably, someone would have had the freedom eventually to say what everyone already knew in the undercurrent of the remnant. But a lot of them were persecuted and put to death for saying faith alone. Luther, what saved his neck is the German king when he came out with Faith Alone. And again, it's not anything new to Martin Luther. It's just he had the protection of a king that couldn't stand the Pope. and the German king protected him. So as long as he stayed in Germany and it was protected, he could do what he needed to do, and he was protected. And the same thing goes with a lot of the other ones, whether it's Calvin, and I'm not a fan of him. I'm not a fan of Martin Luther. I'm not a fan of a lot of these reformists because they're ex-priests and they kept a lot of their Catholic baggage with them and Augustinianism with them. But anyway, the point is that that they escaped this, okay? They escaped this. And that's who he's referring to, to the rest in Thyatira. Now the funny thing about this, and I mean funny that I mean in the sense of a connection point, the next church is Sardis that we'll study. And I don't know if we'll get to that tonight, but Sardis means escaping. So Sardis represents the Protestants escaping out of Catholicism. And so those who don't hold to this doctrine, they knew it was wrong, they knew it was Babylon, who have not known the depths of Satan as they say, I will put on you no other burden. So the idea is just get out of it, get out of this situation of a workspace salvation. And what is this idea of, who have not known the depths of Satan as they say. Jesus is using sarcasm here because she is saying that she has revelation from God and has more deeper revelation to give if you will just listen to her. She'll give you more insight. She has an in with God and she gets more insight. And that's what this particular woman was doing in 95 AD. Now, when you go to the church era of the Catholic Church, obviously the Whore of Babylon is bringing in occultic mysteries. Okay, so the Catholic Church is known for mysteries, right? You'll hear about the mysteries. And you're like, where did that come from? Well, they claim it comes from the New Testament, and there is the term mystery, but they're not referring to the mysteries in the New Testament. There's eight good mysteries and two good mysteries. Demonic or satanic mysteries and all they all they are is revealing things that weren't revealed in the Old Testament But the church the Catholic Church has mysteries And it's kind of a weird thing. I'm like, what's the mystery? What's the big deal? What are you hiding? Well, it's the concept that comes from Babylon, the Babylonian mysteries, that in order to get inside information religiously, you had to pay the Babylonian priests to get that information, to get a blessing or to get whatever you needed from them. So you paid for religion in Babylon. Well, the same idea got put into the Catholic Church through the Whore of Babylon, is that she has these deeper levels of understanding about God and man and what God's doing, and it's a secret class that's inside. It's these priests, these popes, these bishops, cardinals, whatever it is, and they have these mysteries, and they contain all the mysteries, but they can't give it to you lay people, because you're too stupid to understand it, but they hold the mysteries. Right, they pride themselves on holding the mysteries. That is straight out of Babylon. Okay, that's straight out of Babylon. And apparently these mysteries are the depths that you can go, and they'll have these famous Catholic priests that were able to plunge the depths, and they have these Catholic miracles that happen on them, and they have stigmatas appearing on them, and they have, you know, Lord's France, Mary appearing to whatever, or Yugoslavia, she appears to children or something like this, and you have all these wackadoo things going on, right? And it's very mystical, very mystical. Well, would you end up understanding when you delve into Catholic doctrine, and you go into these depths of things, it opens people up to the occult. That's what happens. Anytime you mess around with idolatry, you're opening yourself up to the occult. Well, you go to a Catholic church, it's full of idolatry. And so there's, behind every idol is demons, according to Apostle Paul. Not me, but the Apostle Paul. So, You have rank idolatry in there, which means there's gonna be demonic activity. And when you have these mysteries, what they really are are portals. They're gateways to the spiritual realm. And some of these Catholic saints were able to go into these portals with, whether it was starvation, asceticism, desert fathers out there in caves and whatever, they would tap into the spiritual, but it wasn't God. It's demonic. And it opened them up to a lot of very evil things that were going on. And still do. So for instance, I'll give you an example. Like praying the rosary. That can actually put you into an altered state of consciousness. by praying the rosary. The prayer beads originated from Babylon, because every false religion will typically have beads for prayers, and you count the beads every time you make your prayer. Well, that's essentially what a rosary is. It's just dressed up in Hail Mary's, Our Fathers, and acts of contrition. And if you pray the rosary and blank your mind out, you can get to the same spot as doing Eastern meditation. Now, how do I know that? Because I grew up Catholic. I watched people go into trances, almost, in the church, going through the rosary, because it's a blanking of the mind. You're saying the prayer rotely. It's almost like you're sitting there, Indian style, saying, um, over and over and over again. It gets you to the same location. I'm not saying that every Catholic that prays the rosary goes into that. I'm just saying it is another vehicle. to allow that. And especially if it's done without thought, and it's wrote, and it puts a person in an altered state of consciousness, definitely can do that. The other thing too, is some of their practices opens you up. There's feast days of different saints, and they'll bring out the idol, and you're supposed to kiss the feet, or touch the feet, or touch the statue, or whatever it might be. Those are opening people up to the demonic realm. because that's an idol. And just like the whore of Babylon, or this girl was saying in 95 AD, look man, you know it's not real, just do it, right? Just do it to get your money. Well, that's what a lot of Catholics do, they just do it. And it's just, you're bowing a knee to a demon, and you don't realize that, and they don't realize that. And quite frankly, if you had this conversation with your Catholic friends, they would be shocked that you're telling them this. But look, I was on the inside. I know what I'm talking about on this. And most Catholics are completely ignorant about what's going on in their churches. They're completely ignorant. It is the most demonic thing to watch. Look, and I'll put the Mormons right in there. You get married in the Mormon temple, you're talking to Lucifer during the ceremony? I mean, what are we talking about here? So it's not just the Catholics. It gets really stinking deep. in Satanology in these cults. And of course, you know, the secret name that the guy gives you as a Mormon, and you're the wife, you know why? Because the guy's gonna become a God, and that's the name he's gonna use to resurrect you from the dead. Okay, that's what happens in the marriage ceremony, and they're talking to Lucifer in the marriage ceremony. Now, what rational person says, I wanna be a part of that? Okay? And I know plenty of smart Mormons and plenty of intelligent Mormons. So here's the thing, it's not intelligence. It's spiritual. Okay? And so people make these decisions and they could be the smartest person on earth and they do the dumbest thing spiritually. And what happens is it opens them up to demonic oppression, demonic possession. It opens them up to demonic influence, demonic suppression, all kinds of stuff. And people don't know what's going on in their lives. And so they have all this spiritual chaos going on because of demonic oppression, or whatever it is, and they can't make heads or tails out of it. So, let me give you a couple things. So it's beyond... what can happen in the Catholic Church, what can happen beyond Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, Christian science, Scientology, any of the cults, all right? Even Islam, Islam puts their people in altered states of consciousness, right? And then they start having things going on. But anyway. Altered states of consciousness are a big deal in the occult. This is part of the Babylonian practice, is to get the person to an altered state of consciousness. Now this can be done in many, many ways, and so I'm gonna give you tips on how to prevent yourself doing this. So if you notice, let's talk about Protestantism, okay? So now let's pick on Protestantism. Protestantism has figured out a way of getting people into altered states of consciousness, and they do it through music. and they're pretty slick about doing it. So if you go to churches, some of these churches that are out there today, if you have about 40 to 45 minutes of music and it's probably above, I don't know, 90 to 100 decibels, to where I've literally watched people go into churches and they have to put earplugs in to go to the church, and they're playing it really loud, okay? And then the other key factor is the drums. Okay? The drums are not kept at a certain level. You wanna hear the drums, it's fine, but when it becomes beyond and it's this rhythm beat that keeps going on, that is the same rhythm beat of whether I'm in Greece, in Athens, in 350 BC, that's putting people in an altered state of consciousness, or it's the same drum beat from the American Indian dancing around fire, or it's the same drum beat in an African country, and they're dancing around the fire to a drum beat. It puts people in altered states of consciousness, prolonged music with heavy, heavy beats from the drums. That's just, everybody knows that, okay? And yet, you go into these churches and that's what they're doing. So here's what happens. I'm not saying everybody goes into a trance. I'm not saying that. I'm saying it can put people in an altered state of consciousness, and it doesn't mean that they're zoned out. It means that they're in a state of hyper-suggestibility, okay? Hyper-suggestibility, which means I can then come up after 45 minutes of music beyond 100 decibels, and I can pretty much come out here and say anything I want to say, and I will get acceptance of it. I can come out and say, we're all racists. I can come out and say, we all need to repent of our white privilege. I can say anything crazy off the wall, and the majority of people will accept it because they're in an altered state of consciousness, because they're not thinking anymore. They're on autopilot. That is a technique that's actually being used all across America, and no one's picking up on this. Okay, you gotta have music, I get it, and everyone wants to watch music, but look, when Satan fell, he fell in the choir loft. What was Satan's purpose in heaven? He's a worship leader. He knows all about music. He knows all about it, all about music. Okay? He knows how to manipulate it through music. So music is a way of tapping into the emotional state of the individual. Okay? And so he knows how to do that. And that is the place in the emotional state of the individual where there's no thinking involved. It's just raw emotions. Okay? So music has that ability to do that. And you all know that on a surface level. But when you go to a deeper level, it's actually being used to put you into an altered state of consciousness. The other thing that can happen is pharmacological, drugs, alcohol can get you there, there's no doubt about that. Many people tripping out on drugs go into that state and they have experiences. And when you hear people wanting to legalize drugs, I had an argument one time with some kid, what a goofball, he was arguing with me that there's no problems with marijuana. And he wasn't trying to smoke it because he's got cancer or anything like that. He's just a dopehead, okay? And his dad had brought him in and, you know, he, well, there's no scientific evidence. And this was like, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago. And I said, I don't care what your arguments are. I said, I got one argument against the whole thing. It puts you in an altered state of consciousness and opens you up to demonic warfare. He didn't know how to answer that. You're gonna sit there and argue with him about the good and the bad and all this other drug use. I said, look, drugs have been used for 6,000 years to get people into altered states of consciousness. And when they do, they encounter beings, and these beings do information downloads to them and open things up to them and give them information. It's not a coincidence that many in the music industry are doing LSD or ASA, whatever they're doing, and mushrooms or whatever, and tapping into that, and then they tell you that their song and their lyrics and the whole music genre was downloaded into their brain, and then they just wrote it out. Okay? That's not an accident. And they say, well, how did you get that? I don't know, it just came to me. When? When I was doing acid. And the song is like, you know, a best hit, right? It doesn't shock me that those in the tech industry that are tripping out on drugs, then get into that world and then have technology information dumped into their brains in Silicon Valley, and then they're producing the AIs and different things that are going to enslave humanity, that are very anti-human. And it wasn't an accident. Now there's an old story about Steve Jobs, the creator of Macintosh or Apple. And the story was that Steve was having dreams, because I think he was on dope or something like that, but these dreams would come to him at night and give him information about how to create Macintosh or the Apple computer. And then he said all he would do is go in the office the next day and implement what he had in the dream. Why does his symbol on the Apple computer have a bite out of an apple? You ever thought about that? Did anyone ever, did you miss the imagery on that? It's not just an apple, it's an apple with a bite out of it. So one of the leading math guys in the world, he's from India, I can't remember his name off the top of my head. They had a math problem that no human on earth could solve. And they asked him, okay, you're the leading guy. Can you go and solve this math problem? And he goes, well, I'll try. And so he took it, took it home or whatever. And he came back to him a couple of days later and solved the problem. And they said, how in the world did you do that? We couldn't figure out how you solve the problem. And he said, well, I went into my alter state of consciousness. My avatar appeared to me and my avatar solved the problem and gave me how to solve the problem. So here it is. So he didn't solve it, the avatar did. Whatever you wanna call that, but that's a demon fallen angel. There was a lady in Mexico, obviously could do amazing surgeries in Mexico with her bare hands, and she was very full of the occult. She would go into altered states of consciousness, and then the demons took over, and she could do surgeries, heal people with cancer, heal people with tumors. She actually would just reach into their bodies and pull the tumor out, and there'd be nothing left of the tumor. amazing, amazing miracle things. And a lot of people in Mexico used to go to her. I don't know if she's even alive today, but stories, you would hear all kinds of stories how she could amazingly do these surgeries and do a massive surgery where you would typically in America, you'd have to cut the whole... person open to get to the thing, and she would just make a little slit, and then she'd run her hand up there, grab the tumor, whatever it needed, and fix it, and then pull it out, and then it was just a little thing. But she did it in an altered state of consciousness, so some demon or fallen angel had taken possession of her and was actually performing the surgery on these individuals. So this stuff is real, and it's true, and it does happen, and people, They have all kinds of stuff happening to them. They have telepathy, they can experience, they know what's going on in other parts of the world, they know what's going on in their house, they know what's going on over here, because the demons are filling them with information. Fasting can do this. Now, there's a good aspect of fasting, but if you fast too long, it can put you in an altered state of consciousness. So if we've had people that have told me they went like a 40-day fast, Okay, you go to 40 day fast, you're risking a lot of health issues at that point, especially if you are not able to do something like that. Fasting is a good thing. Don't get me wrong. I mean, Dr. Mencing will tell you it's a good thing. You do one day up to three days or something like that, it's a really good thing for your body. But you go out to the point where you start losing consciousness. You start going into an altered state of consciousness. This is what happens with the yogis. This is what happens with the Hindus, okay? They will fast and fast and fast, and then they go into an altered state of consciousness at that point. That's why they can sit there, the Buddhist priests can sit there in ice coming down and they don't feel it anymore. Or they don't feel heat or anything like that because they put themselves there. So you gotta be careful about that. Sexual immorality is another gateway. If you listen to people that have been involved in the occult, sex is a big deal. And when there's demonic activity going on, sex becomes a conduit for power going back and forth and trading it back and forth. And it comes in opening for that. Especially if it's done under occultic auspices. But sexual immorality gets you there. It's not a guarantee, but it can get you there. Visualization can get you there. You have practices of people visualizing things. That can do it. Erotic dancing actually can get you there. Incubi and succubi is a real thing. I think I mentioned this to you guys before, but this still goes on. That is a demon or a fallen angel. Well, it could be both. will have sex with human beings. Now, they won't produce Nephilim, but this goes all the way back into early church. And this doctrine, believe it or not, this doctrine here is even embedded in the Catholic church as well, because they had to deal with it, and they still deal with it. But in Protestants, we still deal with it. Some of the singers in the music industry have said that in exchange for their music, they would have sex with the demons. And so they've cut that deal. So that's happening in Hollywood and music industry. Look, man, they made a movie about this back in the 80s called The Entity, and it was a well-documented case. A woman kept getting raped by, they said a ghost, but they even documented it, and she would continue to get raped. And what that really is, it's a demon or a fallen angel. I've had people tell me that they've had sexual encounters with demons. They even knew it was, and the demon loved them, or at least pretended to love them. And one of the demons was a Nephilim, so he was a demon, and he had a father who was a fallen angel that he was very close to. And she carried out this relationship for like 14 years. So it's real. So it's not anything you probably hear, but when we're dealing with the whore of Babylon, this is how deep the depths of Satan go. So that happens. People actually open themselves up to it, of being raped or molested by demons. You mess with them. They can do that to you. Religious rituals, like I said, whether it's Catholic, Mormon rituals, Jehovah Witness rituals, it doesn't matter. Any religious ritual can get you there. So that's why it's very important to stay away from religious rituals. The only two ordinances, obviously, in the church is Lord's Supper and baptism. That's it. There are no other rituals. Okay, so if you go to a church and they have rituals, that's a problem. Communion with the dead, what do you mean? Well, this is where people go to psychics, they can go to necromancers, tarot card readers, whatever, and they wanna commune with the dead, a dead loved one or whatnot. Well, they're not gonna get their dead loved one. they're gonna get what's called a familiar spirit. And that familiar spirit's gonna impersonate the dead loved one. And please understand, the familiar spirit's called a familiar spirit because that familiar spirit knows everything about that person. They know the smells of that person, they can do the voice. they can tell you where things are at, they can tell you secrets that only you and that person knew, and they do a real good job of convincing people that it's grandma, it's an aunt, it's an uncle, it's dad, or whatever, and people fall for it. And obviously they fall for it because they're in such grief, they wanna have some type of... Security, I guess you want to call it, you know, that their loved one's okay and stuff, and I get that, but Satan will capitalize on that if you try to do that. Breathing techniques, be very careful, because most of the breathing techniques they try to tell people to do are from Hindu Eastern mysticism, and breathing can put you into this. If you're doing this alternative breathing, and slowing down everything, and getting to a certain pace with it, and then chanting a word, that's classic Eastern mysticism. I mentioned music already. Eastern meditation. What's the difference between Eastern meditation and Biblical meditation? Biblical meditation takes the Word of God and you ruminate over it. You think about it. You figure out how to apply it and how to live that out. That's called meditating on God's Word. It's not an exercise where you blank out your mind, because that's what Eastern mysticism does. You blank out your mind. And you'll hear them say, when I open myself up, that's it. And that's what the demons capitalize. In the spiritual realm, when you open yourself up, I know this is gonna sound bizarre, but it gives them the license to do anything they want to do to you because you have invaded their area. You're on their territory now and you walked right into it. And so you've opened yourself up, okay? Obviously mysticism, crystals, new age type of things, all that weird stuff, candles, all that junk that people start doing. Body posturing, which is usually found in yoga, can get there. A lot of people that did yoga experience voices, alternative consciousness, speaking to them, all kinds of weird stuff. Chanting repetitive phrases, and obviously idolatry can open you up there. Those are just the common ones, okay? There are other things that can get you there. And here's the other thing that I will warn you about, and I did this a lot of times when I was teaching spiritual warfare, but since we're talking about this, I think everyone in this room needs to understand that demons and fallen angels do not play fair. They do play by rules, but they don't play by your rules. They don't play by God's rules. They do have rules. One of the things they understand is authority. They're very, very, very good on authority. They're better than humans are on authority. And they can only do, what the human allows them to do. So there's where they get their authority. So when people are crying and screaming, and I can't get this to stop, it's because they have allowed it. So it starts with them. And so my first thing to them is you must close the door. I can't close the door for you. You must close the door and you must stop doing what you're doing immediately. God has opened the door because the demons have free reign. So in some situations, you will talk to a demon that's in possession of an individual. And the first thing you wanna ascertain if you're having to, I don't recommend this, but if you're having that discussion is what gives you the right to this person? And you have to say that in the authority of the Messiah, what gives you the right to this person? And if you ask that and you can't talk to a demon, you only can give commands. You do not talk to a demon, you only give commands. And the command is always coming from the Messiah. In the name of the Messiah, tell me how you have control of this person. What gave you the license to have control of this person? And typically they will tell you, they're doing porno. They're doing drugs, they're doing this, they're doing that, they're doing this. Okay, so you can try to cast the demon out in the name of Jesus, I cast you out, but he probably won't leave. Do you know why? Because as long as that person has an open door, they're not going anywhere, because they have legal rights to that. They have a legal right to torment the individual, whether that's in possession or whether that's in oppression. Now, a believer cannot be possessed, but a believer can be oppressed. A believer can be influenced. A believer can be suppressed. And so with all of that said, the issue becomes incumbent upon the person to close the door. They have to do it. Now, you can help them to do that. You can help them close the door, but the door has to be closed. And once the door's closed and they renounce it, they have to repent, and then they have to renounce publicly, in the name of Jesus, the opening door, and they can't go back to it. The minute they go back to it, guess what'll happen? It starts again, okay? And Jesus gave an illustration for Israel, that if I sweep the house clean, and the demon gets out, and I bind up the strong man, and the house is clean, but then he doesn't fill the house, then what happens? seven demons will return even stronger. So the issue then is, for the person is, okay, you opened yourself up, now close it. But if you go back and you open this up again, it will hit you harder than before. Instead of one, you might have two. Instead of two, you might have three. Instead of three, you might have four. Instead of four, you might have 12. Or you might have 20. You don't know what you're dealing with. And typically, there's multiple demons in possession in the person, and what you end up having to find out is that probably the one you're interfacing with is not the one in charge. That's the front guy. So he's the front guy to protect the big guy from behind. And they're protecting the big guy. So the first guy you're dealing with, he will show off in front of you to try to scare you. And he will do all kinds of supernatural things. They can levitate, they can do all kinds of stuff, they can crawl on walls, they can do anything they want. But what you have to understand is that guy is showing off. It's usually the lower ranked ones that show off. But typically, they're hiding the higher ranked ones in the person. And the problem is, even if you got rid of him, you still have the higher rank that's hiding. The higher ranks won't show off. They actually hide better. They don't need to show off. And so it's that guy you're trying to get at in a possession. And that's sometimes hard to do because you have to get through the middlemen that are protecting him. from the possession of the individual. It's a very well-played game. They know how to play it very well. And they play by rules. And if you go in there and you don't play by the rules, welcome to getting thrashed. Because they will thrash you if you don't know what you're doing. Like I said, you don't talk to them. You don't give them any information. You only give commands in the name of Yeshua. That's it. That's it. You do not have a conversation. You get their name, you get why they have the ability to be in that person, and you try to cast them out in the name of Yeshua. And if that doesn't work, it's because the person won't close the door. And that's it, and that's all you can do. And you can give the gospel all you want, if the person's not saved, obviously, but that's all you can do. And really it comes down to, in demonic warfare, the person has to stop it. They are the ones responsible with their lives. They are the ones that have the authority. So it's a big authority issue. So if you go in there thinking you're gonna wield authority, you don't have any authority. The only authority you have is under the Messiah. But if you act outside of that authority, they will rip you to shreds. And that's what gets people in trouble, they get ripped to shreds. They don't know what they're dealing with. My recommendation is stay away from it. Stay away from it. If you can, but you may not be able to. Because some of them might be your very own family members that you're having to deal with. And you might have to go toe to toe and face one right in the face. and I don't wish that on you, but I know what that looks like. I know what that feels like, I know what that looks like, I've seen it, I see the eyes, I know the eyes rolled back in the head, I know the whole thing, seen it, I've seen the hatred, it's all there. So my thing is, this is weird. And I need to end on this, but this is why I can't understand When I've dealt with it, I've studied it, and I give these things, and yet people will continue to do them. People will tell me they went to a channeler. People will tell me they went to a psychic. People will tell me they went to do tarot cards, and I'm like, Are you not understanding what you're doing? What is wrong with you? And I know this is a Wednesday night, and I'm preaching to the crowd, and none of you would ever probably do that, but you don't understand. There's concentric circles in Christianity. You're probably on the core inside, and you think this is like, I can't even imagine myself doing something like that. Yeah, I know, but you know what? The majority do. The majority of Christians actually do this stuff. That's what gets them in trouble. That's why they end up seeing me or someone else, because they have done these things, and they don't know what to do, and they're jammed up, man, and they have demonic activity happening all around them. And so it is real. It's just, I know you're probably looking at me saying, man, that's crazy talk. But you get on this side of ministry, you'll actually see it. And it's not pretty, it's real. And what I'm noticing about this, and I'll let you go, it's increasing. More and more, more and more Christians are having to deal with this because of some family member or something like that. So yeah. Thanks for joining us for another lesson. We hope that this message is a blessing for you and helps you grow towards a more mature understanding of God's word. For more information about our ministry, we invite you to check out our website at rockharborchurch.net. Until next time, remember, keep looking up for our redemption draws near.