This is Blocking Your Connection with God

If Jesus is not Lord of your entire life, he's not Lord of any part of your life, because Jesus will never come into your heart a second place. But you know what God started doing, Arden? He started exposing the idols in my heart. I didn't know there was idols, but he started exposing them. The very first idol he exposed was— we got a church that right now isn't convicted by the fact that I can jump in bed with the world. Preachers of old, if you look at Spurgeon and you looked at Wesley and you looked at Whitefield, they confronted confronted the church and said, hey, we are called to be separate. But Jezebel comes along and goes, oh, it's all beautiful. It's all lovely. Today we're not saying things about this. And let's face it, in order to become like Jesus, one of us is going to have to change. And I got news for you. It's not Jesus. We're keeping people happy. But are they going off a cliff? Are they going to hear the master one day say to them, I don't know who you are. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the John Bevere Podcast. I'm John Bevere, joined with my son Arden. Arden, it's great to see you. And we are journeying through the 7 churches in Revelation because I believe they all really speak to us today. So we've gotten through 3 of them and now we come to this church called Thyatira, which happened to be the smallest city of the 7 cities, but it gets the longest letter.

I was going to say they got the longest letters.

They do.

I know.

It's pretty Pretty interesting, isn't it? But anyway, I want to just read this. Of course, this is a letter to the angel, and all these words are red, which means they are all straight from the mouth of Jesus. To the angel of the church of Thyatira, which would mean the bishop, the overseer, the pastor. This is a message from the Son of God whose eyes are like flames of fire. In other words, I like to say they're like laser beams. In other words, he's about to do some laser surgery on this church. Okay. And he said, whose feet are like polished bronze. He said, I know all the things you do. Do you know that 5 out of the 7 churches he said, I know the things you do, not the things you believe? Today we've put more emphasis on what we believe rather than what we do. Now let me, let me stress this. Our salvation is not a salvation of works, but, but our works are an evidence that we really do have grace.

Going even off of what we talked about last time, is the toleration of sin and making sure that sin's not coming back into your life. I think a great way to truly see sin not continuing to rule your life is—

well, I mean, James says, show me your faith without your works, I'll show you my faith by my works.

Yeah.

And there is a verse of scripture that people just— if you isolate this verse of scripture, it will throw some people into a tizzy. But James made this statement. He said in James 1 or 2:24, I believe it is, or 3:24, he said, so you see then a man is justified by works and not by faith only. You go, whoa, whoa, whoa. I remember I got up in front of a church on a Sunday morning, Arden, and I read that verse of scripture. This is a really, you know, free, relevant, and the Holy Spirit put in my heart, read James. Can you go there, James? Here, I'll go there. James, let's see, 2, I think it's 2:24. Yeah, okay. This is New Living Translation. So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone. So what he's making a point of is this. Hey, if you got an electric outlet and you're wondering if there's power in there or not, just put a brand new blow dryer in there. If the blow dryer doesn't work, that means there's no power in the outlet. The evidence that the outlet's got power is the fact that the blow dryer's working. And you can say, hey, I'm a Christian, this is what I believe, I believe Jesus died for my sins, but if you're living like the world, and you're not living a separated life unto him like a beloved betrothed bride. This is what James is saying.

Can I ask this argument? Because people always say, well, I'm not of the world, but I'm in the world. So what does that look like, though, on a practical standpoint?

On a practical standpoint, we are called to be bedside to the world. In other words, we go and minister to them. If you look at Jesus, Jesus controlled the atmosphere where he went into. They were like, he eats with notorious sinners. Yeah, but he was controlling the conversation. I mean, I watched pastors in our day, celebrity pastors. Some of them, they would sit there and go to the bars and drink shots with celebrities. And, and they were like, well, I'm befriending them so I can reach them. Well, you're befriending them by getting drunk with them. That's, that's, that's, that's being of the world. That's not going to the world.

You're also watering down your argument, or I think your greatest argument of ministering to that person, which is the example of your life. Like if they're looking at your life and they're like, well, you're a pastor I should look up to, but yet you're taking shots right alongside of me, why is it, do I need to change my life? Like you're doing the same thing. Why would I need to?

So you're part of a subculture. What's a subculture? A subculture is a culture that's inside the overall culture. I mean, if you look at, it's really interesting. If you go back 75 years, United States of America, freaked out when two, an actor and an actress were in bed together and they weren't married. The whole society of the United States freaked out. Hollywood was scorned because they showed a scene with a, in the movie, the husband and wife were married, but the actors weren't married and society freaked out. Now you go 75 years later and we're watching people not even married on movies and they're in bed together and we have believers watching it. What happened? Society moved, the subculture moved, because a subculture is a culture within the overall culture. So the question is, are we really not of this world? Are we really citizens of heaven, or are we part of a subculture that really we've got the identification as Christians, we got the t-shirts of Christians, we got the songs of Christians, But yet we're living no different than the world. And if we're jumping in bed with the world, how are they going to know? They're going to go, hey, you want me to be a part of your subculture? But, but, but there are, there are things that come along with that I really don't want to do. So I don't see any difference with you. So why should I be like you? This is why James says, show me your faith without your works. I'll show you my faith by my works. I'll show you the fact that by the way I live, I really have the grace of God in my life. This is the issue here with this church in Thyatira. Okay, Jesus says, and this is amazing, Jesus says to this church, I know all the things you do. So again, he's looking at not what they believe, he's looking at what they do, how they live. I know all the things you do. I have seen your love, your faith, your service, and your patient endurance.

Wow.

Okay, these are four big ones: love, faith, service, and patient endurance. "and I can see your constant improvement of all these things." Hold on a minute here. If Messenger International staff, if Jesus came and spoke to our staff and he looked at Lisa and I and he said, "I see your love, your faith, your patient endurance, and I see your service and the way the staff is serving, and as a matter of fact, they're growing in their love, they're growing in their faith, they're growing in their service and their patient endurance," I'd go, "Yes, yes, yes." I'm so happy our staff is like that. Jesus, you're actually saying that about our staff. But then he goes, I have this complaint against you. And you're like, whoa, wait a minute. Brakes. Hold it. Okay, you just said this is, this is not a dead church. This is an alive church. They're actually constantly improving in all the key areas of faith. But he says, I have this complaint against you. What's the complaint? Okay, you are permitting— here's the word tolerance. Okay, when we talked about Pergamon, you're tolerating the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. You're tolerating what Balaam taught Balak to do, to put a stumbling block in front of Israel, Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication. Right. We got the same thing here. It's the same thing. You are permitting that woman. And he says that Jezebel. So he's not saying her name is Jezebel. He's saying that Jezebel. In other words, she's a little bit like, you know, and I want to say this, she's a little bit like the woman in 1 Kings 17 who was so persuasive and able to get Ahab to do what he knew he shouldn't do. Okay. So he's saying you're permitting that woman, that Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet, Okay, she is a self-appointed minister. How many people today do we have that have been self-appointed? They get a YouTube channel, they get a following, now I'm self-appointed. Look, Lisa and I, I will never forget, we were serving faithfully in our local church and God gave a prophetic word to our pastor and said, John and Lisa, you're supposed to have a ministry that will call people back to the heart of God. And I remember the night he laid hands on us, it was so powerful., and it was in front of 2,500 people. We had served faithfully at that church. I look at the Apostle Paul. He and Barnabas were teachers in the church at Antioch, and they were fasting and praying, and the Holy Spirit spoke through the eldership of that church, separate Paul and Barnabas for the work I've called them to do, and they were sent out by the Holy Spirit. We have so many people today that are self-appointing, okay? They get their YouTube channel, they start preaching, they criticize people, or they preach about you know, all kinds of stuff. And, you know, Jesus is saying this woman is the same way in the Thyatira church. She appointed herself. Hey everybody, as you know, health is a big, big premium for me. It's important that we take care of the temple, the Holy Spirit. Well, did you know that 85% of the meat that you get in grocery stores is imported? Well, guess what? Goodranchers.com com. These are friends of ours. We know them personally. They are feeding tons of people in the United States by going to small farms and getting animals that were born in the USA, have had no steroids, hormones, or any kind of other preservatives added. They are eating grass out in the fields. They're healthy. Lisa and I, we get a delivery every single month, and you can taste the difference. So They are giving a $40 discount and some extra little goodies for all of our patrons, Arden. Yeah. So what do they have to do to get it?

Well, I mean, those extra little goodies is free meat for life, so that's a pretty good thing to jump on. And all they need to go is go to goodranchers.com, and they can use the, the link below, and then they can use the code BEVERE, and they'll be able to access this limited time special. So please, please jump on it. I can't tell you how nice it is to have the meat coming directly to your door. So go over to goodranchers.com and use the code BEVERE. Good Ranchers American meat delivered. Now, which— can I ask this question, kind of even going back to what we talked about a couple podcasts ago of the self-appointed, um, idea that's going on? What would it look like to be appointed in the right way within a platform in a world where you probably have a lot of young people that are like, well, I want to do this right, and I would love to be self-appointed. What does that look like for me to take the steps? Because we talked about it a couple of times ago about dealing with the issue of women preachers and understanding like, hey, regardless of if the woman's preaching or not, the gospel is still going out. So what does that look like? Because I think The repercussions are not so much of the self-appointed, self-appointed appointment that happens on the beginning or the repercussions that happens in the beginning. But I think it's actually more about the repercussions that happen at the end later, because I think you have a lot of people that, you know, they're getting off, they're getting off the ground and doing these things. But I think what you have probably experienced and seen is that self-appointed appointment, self-appointment appointment. There you go. It is, is more detrimental in the long run.

All right, so the Bible says those that are planted in the house of God shall flourish in the courts of our God. First of all, you got to be planted in a local church, and a local church is a church that had somebody that was appointed by their eldership. Okay, so we— Lisa and I, we were, we were youth pastors in our church. We were faithful. We served. First of all, we were, we were serving in a capacity of meeting our pastor's needs the first 4 and a half years. And then he felt like we were supposed to be youth pastors at this church, and he gave us our blessing. He laid hands on us. We went to another church. We were youth pastors there. And this— two different ministers from South Africa came in not knowing each other, and they both called me out of the 11 pastors, and they said, hey, God is about to separate you and send you forth. Then Prior to that, God had given my senior pastor a vision of us doing what we're doing right now. So there was my senior pastor and two visiting ministers that came in with all the same words, right? So my senior pastor was like, look, this is God. So we're going to send you forth. You work for another 5 months here and then you are going to develop Messenger International. He didn't know it was going to be called Messenger International. But he said, you, you develop, you start your own ministry, which it was John Bevere Ministries. It became John Bevere Ministries, then it became Messenger International. And, and so I, I look at that and I didn't dare. I had actually ministers saying to me, hey, John, there's a call on your life. Why don't you just go start a church somewhere? Why don't you just go to the Caribbean and preach and do open-air meetings in the Caribbean? And inside, I knew there was something wrong with that. Well, I didn't realize it 'cause I wasn't as well-versed in scripture as I am now. Here's the Apostle Paul serving for 11 years, knowing that he's got a call on his life to the Gentile church. But it wasn't until the elders in that church said, "Hey, separate unto us," the Holy Spirit spoke to him, "Paul and Barnabas for the work I've called them to do." So the first thing to do is get planted in a church. Get planted in a ministry. I look at you, you're planted in Messenger International. You've been planted here for how many years now has it been? It's over 10 years, isn't it?

It's coming up, yeah, over 10 years.

10 years.

Since I was 18.

You've been faithful. Now God's put it in the heart of leadership here that, hey, we want you to be able to go out and start ministering at some places. You've been going and it's been very powerful. I believe you're under a protective covering because you're submitted to the authority. Authority is not given to constrict us, constrain us, to put us in bondage. Authority is given to protect us. And I saw the protection of me not jumping out prematurely. I mean, Abraham knew he was supposed to have a baby, but he tried to do it in his own strength after 11 years of waiting. I knew there I was called to ministry,, but I already tried to do it in my own strength and it was a miserable failure. I felt it was off, it was, people weren't getting ministered to. And I'll never forget when God spoke to me, I was reading the Gospel of John, I believe it was, and I was flying to the Philippines trying to birth my own ministry. And I remember seeing the statement, there was a man sent by God whose name was John. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me, Art, and He said, do you wanna be sent by John Bevere or do you wanna be sent by God? I want to be sent by God. He said, that's good, because if John Bevere sends John Bevere, John Bevere goes in John Bevere's authority. He said, if I send John Bevere, John Bevere goes in my authority. And there has been a comfort in my heart knowing that Lisa and I didn't appoint ourselves to this, that it was our pastor. It was confirmed. I remember when he laid hands on us, Arden, I felt like 10,000 volts of electricity went through us, and both of us went literally almost flying back into into two ushers' arms, and we were on the ground literally just like groaning, birthing something. Something was happening on the inside of us. And that was the beginning of it. And that was 35 years ago. And, you know, I look at today and I think, wow, I look at the lives that have been changed, the fruit, and it's because it's been him that has done it. I didn't go in my authority. Yeah.

And so, well, can I, can I just say this? Yes. There's two things that I feel like I picked up is number one is there's lasting influence that takes place. I do think as you build a platform and a lot of these young people, and I hope there's a lot of young ministers listening to this, as you build a platform that is in your own strength, it will ultimately probably kind of reside with you and it doesn't outgrow or outlive you, which I think I've seen that and I've watched as the expressions of what you and mom have done when you guys have been sent by God. If you're sent by John Bevere, then you're going to end end with John Bevere. When you're sent by God, you are building a lasting legacy. So I think that's really good right there, what you said. Then also too, you said protection, and I think that's probably the biggest thing, is spiritual covering of making sure that what you are preaching on, what you are ministering on, is being protected and oversaw by someone who understands the word of God better than you can, and also can be that spiritual covering to help keep you in line, to make sure, hey, your doctrine's getting swayed a little bit. I need to remind you of what the word of God says. I need to challenge you in area, because that's what's going to help you from— that's going to help you finish well. And I think you do have a lot of people that have platforms. And, and again, the, the word of God is being preached, and I love that. I'm like, that's awesome. That's amazing. That's incredible. But make sure building that, that appointment of laying on the hands and spiritual covering so that way what you're doing is not being done in vain.

Hey, everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment. But first, I want to thank the patrons make this podcast possible. Your support behind the scenes is critical to sharing these messages. So thank you. To become a patron, just click the link in the show description or go to johnbevere.com/patron. Now let's get back to the show. So here's this woman that calls herself a prophet. She appointed herself. Obviously she's got influence, so there must be something on her life that gives her that influence. My gift, your gift, anybody's gift that God puts on our life, it works. It's irrevocable. And so my gift can work whether I'm under obedience to God or whether I'm not. Example, doesn't Balaam prophesy, but yet he's in rebellion? Doesn't Jesus say a multitude are going to come to him and say, Lord, we cast out devils in your name, we did miracles in your name? Well, think about it. There were people that received miracles from these self-appointed people, these people who practice lawlessness while they were ministering. That gift was on them. I believe with all my heart that we could have gone out prior to our pastor, our overseers sending us out, and we would have borne some fruit because there was a gift on us, but it didn't have that authority of heaven on us. She's obviously got a gift on her life, but she's self-appointed. And when she's self-appointed, now she's getting into error. And what is she doing? She's leading people astray. How is she leading them astray? I guarantee you, she is not looking at the people in this church and going, "Oh, just commit sexual immorality. Just offer things to idols and worship idols." They never would've tolerated in that church. She's doing it in a very seductive way. She's coming along with the fact saying, "You know, grace, we are human beings." We have weaknesses, we have challenges. Salvation didn't really change us. We're just sinners saved by grace. So you know what? Don't be concerned. Now, what she's doing is seducing them. She's drawing them over to go, hey, I can actually be involved in idolatry. Now, let's talk about idolatry for a second. Okay. What is idolatry? Idolatry. Of course, if you look at it in the Old Testament, they would build statues, they would build these monuments, and they would say they were gods and they would bow down and worship. But who created the god? It was the person. So the person knows there is deity because God puts eternity in the heart. So they create a god who will give them what their flesh desires. In other words, if I want to have great sex with anybody I meet, my god that I build— let's say it's an asterisk pole because that won't emphasize illicit sex— I can make that god, and that god can tell me, hey, go out and have sex with whoever you want. Okay, so in essence, we are the ones that make it an idol. We give power to an idol. So an idol is anything we give our strength to or draw our strength from. It is anything that we put before Jesus. All right, so idolatry in the Old Testament might have been statues. In the New Testament, Paul said covetousness is idolatry. Why is covetousness idolatry? Because we love the things of this world more than we love Jesus. Okay, so an idol is anything I love, like, or trust more than I love, like, or trust Jesus. Now I want to bring you back to when I first got saved. When I first got saved, I'll never ever, ever forget this as long as I live. I had left engineering, I had been working for my church for 4 years, and I went to the Philippines. Remember the same trip when God said, you send yourself, right? And I'm going there to minister, and the guy I'm going there with stands up on the first night, and now today it's the biggest church in the Philippines. He stands up on the first night and he preaches on the Lordship of Jesus. And he said, the word Lord appears over 7,000 times in the Bible, the word Savior 36. He said, if Jesus is not Lord of your entire life, he's not Lord of any part of your life. He said, because Jesus will never come into your heart a second place. The King of Kings will never come into your heart as second place. And I'm sitting there and I'm going, is he really my Lord? And I'm sitting there going, my head's going, you're crazy. You left a high-paying engineering job 4 years ago. You've been serving in your church like 70 hours a week. You're crazy. And yet my heart would go, Judas left everything he had. Judas healed the sick. Judas cleansed the lepers. Judas is in hell. And I started trembling. I came back home and I got into a room. It was like a 20 by 20 room. And, and I put a chair in the middle of the room. The room had nothing in it. It was like a meeting room that was empty. And I walked around that chair for 2 hours and I said, that's the throne of my heart. And I'm not leaving this room until I know you're seated on that throne and nothing or no one else. 2 hours into it, I collapsed and I literally wept for 30 minutes. I couldn't stop weeping. I got up and I walked out of that room a changed man. But you know what God started doing, Arden? He started exposing the idols in my heart. Okay, now I didn't know there was idols, but he started exposing them. The very first idol he exposed was golf. Okay, I would get up in Dallas, Texas. Golf courses, public golf courses were so popular, the only way you could get a tee time— you could make your tee time 3 days in advance— is you had to be the first one there. There were those of us who would get to the golf course at 4:30 in the morning, and we'd wait until 6 when the pro shop opened up to make our tee time for 3 days later. Wow.

Okay. So now— Not to play that day. You'd get up at 4:00 AM to go just make a tee time.

Tee time to play 3 days later. Okay. Okay.

So now—

That's dedication. I had a set of golf clubs. I had a very— it was average set of golf clubs stolen out of our garage. When they were stolen, now you got to understand, your mom and I were making $18,000 a year. So, We don't have anything extra, right? We don't have any money to buy golf clubs. When they get stolen on my garage, the insurance company comes along and says, we'll buy you a new set. So I got a brand new set of clubs. One week later, I'm in church and the Holy Spirit says, I want you to give your golf clubs to Pastor Matt. It took me 4 days. 4 days. I'm like, 4 days. I'm like, if I give these golf clubs away, Lisa will never let me buy another set of golf clubs. I knew if I give these golf clubs away, I'm not playing golf anymore. And I remember 4 days later, I thought, you know what, I remembered that prayer. I called up Pastor Matt. I said, can I come over your house? I give him this brand new set of clubs and the bag, everything. And he's like, oh my Gosh, he was so excited, right? So I get in the clubs. 2 years later, no, 18 months later, I'm at church at the parking lot, and a guy who used to play on the mini tour said, God told me to give all my golf clubs to you. So he throws in my trunk, I mean, like $3,000 worth of golf equipment. And I remember putting my garage thinking, I'm done with golf. So then about a month later, a pastor came to me and said, God told me to give you my golf clubs. So he puts his set of golf clubs in my trunk. So now I'm sitting there looking at two sets of golf clubs in my garage. So one day I was out praying. I said, God, what do I do with this? He said, Son, go play golf. He said, it's not an idol to you anymore. He said, it's recreation to you now. And I look at golf now and millions of dollars have come into the ministry for missions because of golf, right? You know what else was an idol in my life? Food. I loved eating. I would eat even when I wasn't hungry 'cause I loved eating. So one day, I'll never forget this as long as I live, I had a favorite cereal. I think it was muesli or something like that. I'm getting ready to pour this Kashi muesli, whatever it was, And the Holy Spirit said, son, I want you to fast today. And I remember going, I got a busy— Lord, I'll fast 3 days next week. And I poured the cereal and ate it. And God showed me, you couldn't obey me because it's an idol. And I remember I was like, oh my goodness. And he dealt with that one. And you know what the third one was? I was a big Dallas Cowboys fan, man.

I have no idea why.

I have no idea. I have no idea now why. Yeah, I would come home from church. We used to wear suits. My suit would come off, my tie would come off, and I am putting that Cowboy game on. And baby, we are eating dinner at halftime or after the game, but we are not eating dinner during this game. If Addison's diaper needed changing, I am not available.

I feel like I'm getting convicted.

So I remember, I remember this, this one particular day, it was a big game. The Cowboys were playing the Eagles and the winner was going to the playoffs and the loser was, was staying home. And it was in the fourth quarter. And the quarterback back in those days was a guy named Danny White. And he was notorious— not notorious. He was, he was renowned for driving the ball down the field in the fourth quarter and just winning the game in the last moment. He was, he was like one of those guys. He was— this is before Tom Brady ever came on. I mean, we're talking '80s right now. Okay. So There's 8 minutes left in the game. 8 minutes left. Cowboys are down by 4 points. Danny's got the ball. He's driving the Cowboys down the field. I am on my feet, like I am pacing. I am like, I'm going nuts. He's gonna drive down, they're gonna score a touchdown, they're gonna win, they're going to the playoffs. And all of a sudden the urge came on me to pray. You know, like that burden, pray, pray, pray, something's wrong. And I remember saying this— now Lisa's not around, so I go, Lord, um, there's only 8 minutes left. I'll pray, I'll pray when the game's over. And the burden got stronger. And I remember they keep driving, he keeps making first downs, and I'm like, okay God, I'll pray 5 hours when this game's over. 5 hours. I will literally go to my office, I'll pray for 5 hours. He keeps going, right? I watched the rest of the game and they won the game. They did win the game. I go up to my study and I close the door and I'm ready to pray 5 hours because I get— I meant it. And the burden's totally gone. And I mean, I have no burden to pray at all. And I said, I dropped my face into the carpet. I'll never forget this. I said, God, if anybody would have said to me, who's more important to you, the Dallas Cowboys or Jesus? I would have said Jesus is my Lord. I said, I've just proven I've just proven you wanted me to pray and I chose to watch the rest of this game. And you know what he said to me? He said, I don't want your 5 hours of sacrifice. I want obedience. And all of a sudden I realized the Cowboys were out of place. Now, do I watch football games today?

Yeah.

You and I watch it. I love watching a football game with you.

And now you're luckily a full-blown still Lions fan, not Cowboys fan.

But You know what? I'm constantly keeping it in check. Am I— is this out of place? I'm asking myself, what do I do if somebody comes to my door in need right now? What do I do if God puts it in my heart to pray during this game right now? I'm— I've learned nothing is more important. I mean, I enjoy the game of golf, but the game of golf isn't what it used to be. I enjoy pickleball, but it's not— well, I never— it never really was an idol. I look at these things now as recreation, refreshment. So what may be an idol to you is not necessarily an idol to me because we're the ones that make it an idol. So what she's doing is she's seducing God's people and saying, it's okay, don't worry about idolatry, don't worry about separating yourself from the world. She's permitting them. She's teaching them in such a way that I'm allowed to keep my idolatry going. I'm allowed to keep my sexual immorality going. It's all right, pornography. You know, 47% of the men that attend church on a regular basis that are watching pornography have no— so in other words, right now the stats are 60% of the men that attend church regularly watch pornography regularly. 47% of those 60%, so we're talking about 30% of the overall men that attend church, I would think it'd be more, have no problem with it. Have no problem with it. Yeah. So 60% are actually watching on a regular basis. I thought it was 80%. 30%. Now the figures have actually dropped a little, which is great. That's great news. It's great news.

Yeah. But 30% have no problem with it.

37%. So they're under the influence of Jezebel. Yeah. Jezebel has influenced them. Hey, you don't need to be concerned about this. It's sexual morality. Jesus said you look at a woman to lust after, you've committed adultery already in your heart. That's sexual immorality. Okay. And these are married men, a lot of them. Some of them are single men. It doesn't matter if you're married or you're single. Sex is reserved for our wives. Okay? Our spouse, our wife. If you're a woman, your husband. And God made that a beautiful thing for the covenant of marriage.

And now it just comes along and goes, oh, it's all beautiful.

Yeah, it's all lovely. It's all one. And, you know, Hollywood makes it so precious. They make it so enticing.

They also throw it into everything. They throw it into everything. Yeah.

Yeah.

But it replaces an intimacy with your wife, an opportunity, because even that's kind of like everything that you're saying right there is as you're looking at these men that think pornography is completely fine, they're understanding it's what you experienced of, oh, here I am, watch the end of this Dallas Cowboys game. And God's like, here's a, here's a moment of intimacy that I want you to step away from this game and come over here and have intimacy with me, have prayer with me. And then yet you missed it. You come back and you're like, no, I didn't do it. With a lot of people, why? I mean, obviously, there's a lot of reasons why pornography is detrimental to your marriage. But one of the things too is it's stealing intimacy with your spouse. Yeah, you're, you're missing out on opportunities to connect. And now there's a lot, there's a lot more reasons why it's wrong. But I'm just saying, there's a very, like, kind of basic thing of what we're talking about. If it's taking away from that intimacy that you have, which is ultimately when we're looking at idolatry with the things of your life that are on the throne of your heart over God, what it's doing is it's stealing from opportunities for you to connect with God on a deeper level.

So the problem with this church wasn't Jezebel, because Jesus said, I gave her time to repent, but she doesn't want to turn away from her immorality. So he said, hey, she's, she's stuck. Okay. What he's addressing is the fact that they're permitting it and tolerating it. Yeah.

Which I mean, even he kind of shows us here. She does not wish to repent of her sexual immorality. I think even kind of clearing that up is that she's partaking in the sexual immorality. She's seducing them. She's doing these things. And he gave her an opportunity. It's not that she's teaching this stuff yet, or per se. She's partaking in them, right? Like she's leading them astray, or she doing both? Because he's saying teaching and deceiving my slaves. And then he said, I gave her a chance to repent. She does not wish to repent of her sexual immorality.

So he's past dealing with her. Yeah, he's actually addressing the people that are tolerating what she's teaching.

So he's— so he's done. In other words, which is a scary place.

So this is the thing we're dealing with, both Pergamum and Thyatira, that they're tolerating. And I look at this and I just had it open and I closed it and I feel so bad that I did.

Well, can I even say that as you're finding that is I think that's a good point for— he's past dealing with her. And I think if you are on here and you have sin that you know has been left in your life, whether it's pornography, and you're actually one of those people that says, I think it's fine, and you don't feel the Holy Spirit dealing with you anymore, it might be time that the Holy Spirit said, you know, I'm done dealing with you in this area and I'm not going to keep dealing with it. Like, at first it was the sear of— you've been searing your conscience. And I would really highly encourage you, repent of that and say, God, give me the sensitivity of your spirit for this. Like, correct me. I give you my heart. I humble myself so that if your correction comes in, I hear it.

So if you look at the apostles that were faithful, Paul the Apostle, he said, hey, men are going to come in, they're going to distort the truth, right? Jude says, hey, I wanted to write to you about our common salvation, but I've found it necessary to write to you saying those that come in that what say that the grace of God allows us to live in immorality, right? So these guys are speaking out against it. They're not tolerating it. This church is tolerating it. And there's an old Latin proverb, and I'm trying to remember what it says, that tolerance is consent.

Okay, I'm thinking of tolerance is consent. He ought to have— I thought silence is consent.

Silence is consent. Yeah.

Yeah.

He ought to have spoken when he was able to. I look at G.K. Chesterton said tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions. So in other words, we realize today if we confront these things, we got a church that right now, a good part of our church isn't convicted by the fact that I can jump in bed with the world, and we're not confronting that. You know, preachers of old, preachers like, if you look at Spurgeon and you looked at Wesley and you looked at all these guys, Whitefield, they confronted the church and said, hey, we are called to be separate. They didn't tolerate it. Today, we're not saying things about this. Okay, so we're gonna go in and we're gonna show, we're gonna illustrate this tolerance, this unwillingness to confront the damage that can occur in this short video that our team made. Now, if you're listening just by audio, Go over to YouTube and watch this video because it is not only comical, but there is a very powerful lesson we want to talk about when we come out of the video.

So watch this. Hey, bro, look, check it out. Labradoodle. What? Yeah, right down there.

Oh, I love a good breed. So good. Yes, half lab, half Moodle. Wait, what? Incredible.

Moodle?

Yeah.

No, that's not a thing ever. No, no, it totally is.

A Moodle.

Isn't that Dave from Econ? Oh yeah, what is he doing up here? He's probably just enjoying the view, man. Wait, isn't Dave blind?

We gotta warn him.

Hey, hey, Dave!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, bro! What are you doing? You can't just tell Dave what to do.

Wait, why?

Are you blind? Uh, no. Okay, so then you don't know what Dave's gone through. You can't really relate to him, man. Just, just Just let him be. He's totally fine. He's literally slipping right now.

Okay, you're gonna—

you're gonna get all up on him for slipping? Like, everyone slips from here and there.

I don't care if he slips.

I'm just trying to keep a guy from falling off a cliff. No, no. Okay, listen. What I think you need to do right now is you just need to love him. You need to not point out his weaknesses. What does that have to do with anything? It has everything to do with everything, okay? Like, if you— If you point out his weaknesses, he won't feel loved, he won't feel accepted. I'm just trying to keep a guy from going off the cliff. No, he's not even stopping. Dave, no, no, no, stop it, stop it, stop it. You speak out against blind people, so many people will be upset with you. No, so many people won't like you. Also, what if he doesn't like us anymore? You ever thought about that?

Dave will be dead. I need to say—

hey, Dave, Dave!

Someone?

Is someone there? Uh, yeah. Hey Dave, how's it going? It's, uh, it's Charlie from school.

Oh, hey man.

I'm doing this for Dave's birthday. Maybe you can help me out. I seem to have lost the trail somewhere. You want to tell me if I'm going the right way?

Maybe he is lost. You're right, we should still just encourage him. Yeah, yeah. Hey, no, Dave, you know, you're doing great, man. You know, I love I love that you're out here, man, too. I'm proud of you being out on this trail. You're doing great, man. You're doing great.

Oh, okay. Thanks, man. I guess I am going the right way.

Watch, he'll figure it out. Just gotta love him through his problems. Yeah, you got it, man.

Dave, what are you doing?

What?

Dave?

Dave?

Dave? Okay, that's a pretty riveting video. And I think the thing that I want everybody to think about is if you look at the two guys that are sitting there in the chair and they see their classmate and he's blind, he's heading to destruction. And the one is like, hey, you'll lose him as a friend. You'll have people that will think you're against blind people. But the other one's like, I just wanna keep him from going off the cliff. But remember when he covers his mouth and he yells out to his classmate, his classmate is like, anybody out there? And the one guy, says, "Hey, I'm really proud of you. You're doing great." He doesn't confront him. He doesn't say, "You're on a path heading to destruction." And I think the part that really I love that our team did when they made this short video is the guy went, "Oh, okay." So he was happy. And he walked off the cliff, Arden, happy. He went to his death happy. And I almost think sometimes because because we tolerate, because we don't confront. We're keeping people happy, but are they going off a cliff? Are they going to hear the master one day say to them, "I don't know who you are, you who practice lawlessness." My pastor told me it was okay. My home group leader told me it was okay. I gave you my character, my divine nature. I gave you my seed. It wasn't just a sinner's prayer. I put my nature in you. You chose to continue to listen to your flesh instead of the divine nature I placed on the inside of you. Therefore, we were separated. We didn't— we don't know each other. And that's what we don't want to see happen. I would much rather be a voice that warns people, confronts people, and warns people so they don't hear one day, depart from me, than somebody that keeps somebody smiling with nice, encouraging preaching, you know, inspiring preaching. That's— they're still on a path to destruction.

Can I— can I add this in? Because I think this is really important, is he says, and 'He who overcomes, he who keeps my deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations.' Now you've talked about this, is you talked about back in the early days when you're preaching how you're like, God, I'm preaching these messages and I feel like they're completely void of power, like what is going on? You said why God spoke to you and says because you tolerate sin not only in your life but in the lives of others. And so what he's dealing with right here is he's saying, look, if you don't tolerate the sin that's going on, if you don't tolerate this Jezebel spirit, if you don't tolerate what she's leading these people astray on, I'm going to give you the authority to speak and see the nation shift, to speak and see the blind eyes open, speak and do these things. And I think that's really an incredible promise that comes from this and a great reminder of why We don't want to just— it's what we accept, a form of Christianity, but yet completely void of all of its power. Like we're just going—

Paul said to Timothy, you as a man of God are to show people in what way their lives are wrong. That's the Amplified Bible, 1 Timothy 4 or 2 Timothy 4:2. He said you're to reprove, convict, exhort. I mean, 2 out of 3 are corrective. And let's face it, in order to become like Jesus, one of us is going to have to change. And I got news for you. It's not Jesus. So it's got to be us, which means that much of the preaching we do is going to be corrective. But yet all we try to do is inspire. And when you inspire only, you tolerate because people are on a path to destruction.

And, and it's up to— it's up to pastors and people sensitive to the Spirit to understand what are the things that they need to correct. Because if you correct out of the wrong heart, then you're an Ephesus church. You might even— you might have to even have people dig their heels even deeper because they don't understand why it is that you're saying.

Do you understand what I mean? You're an Ephesus church. Yeah.

You ran out of your first love.

You don't have the love for me or people anymore. So it's so important that we keep the love for Jesus and we keep the love for truth.

Which, can I ask you too, he says, and I will give him the morning star. What is— do you know what that means?

Well, I mean, I have thoughts about that one, but I can't speak authoritatively about it because I don't really quite have the revelation.. But I do know that Jesus said that the righteous will shine in their Father's kingdom like the sun. Yeah.

And so I have even something that we pulled up and it talks about it's the symbol of new beginning, new life, resurrection. And Jesus refers to himself even as the morning star. And so what kind of even this is a promise to is that I am actually— Jesus is offering more of himself to the believers of Thyatira. You don't tolerate this. Everything that we talked about of idolatry, not allowing Jesus to be on the throne or God to be on the throne of our heart. It's a deeper invitation to intimacy, revelation, and eternal fellowship with him.

I just feel right now some of you have tolerated things in your life. You've tolerated sin. Some of you have found teachers that will tell you what your itching ears wanted to hear. But as you've been listening to this, you, you feel this overwhelming conviction. Listen, let me tell you something. God's not condemning you. Conviction and condemnation both hurt. One gives you a way out, the other one doesn't. This is not condemnation, this is called conviction. And what conviction, the way out of, the way out is called repentance. In other words, I have been listening to my own wisdom, to the wisdom of Jezebel, a self-appointed preacher, or I've been listening to the wisdom of Jesus. If you've been listening to a self-appointed preacher's wisdom, that is not scriptural. Repentance means I'm going to let that go and I'm going to embrace what Jesus says. I got news for you, and this is great news. Not only did he save you from your sins in the sense of he saved you from the judgment of your sins, he saved you from the bondage of your sins. He broke the power of sin. Go read Romans 6. You will see 5 times it is recorded that you are no longer a slave to what used to enslave you, what enslaves the world, the idolatry that enslaves the world. You're no longer a slave to sin, but you now have the choice to obey righteousness because he's changed you from the inside out. So if you sit there and say, man, I have tolerated, I have tolerated these things, I can see now that I have listened to the wrong spirit speaking, then guess what? All you need to do is say, Father, forgive me. I repent of living in a way that is offensive to my Lord Jesus Christ. I repent of embracing the sin that He died to set me free from, flirting with the sin that He died to set me free from. I give my life fully and completely to Your Lordship, Jesus, and whatever Your word says, that I see in your word, I will obey it by your help and by your grace. I humble myself under that right now in Jesus' mighty name. You prayed that prayer, you're gonna see a difference in your life. You're gonna see the power to overcome and to walk away from things that used to enslave you, and you are going to be free because whom the Son makes free is free indeed. Amen. Hey guys, it's been a pleasure. And listen, this book, The Awe of God, I've had more people tell me that it has liberated their life. It's really the core of what Arden and I are talking about right now. If you have not gotten this book, please go to Amazon. If you're a Prime member, it's so easy. Do one click, it'll be at your doorstep in 2 days. And go through this book because it will put that holy, healthy fear of God, because the Bible says by the fear of the Lord, one departs from sin. This is why Jesus delighted in the holy, healthy fear of God, and I pray you do the same as well. Until next time, this has been the John Bevere Podcast.

God bless you.