Why Everything Feels Like It’s Falling Apart

People in America right now are trying to remove the laws. A person walks up and puts a knife through a girl's throat who's just sitting. What in the world? We have no laws anymore. When we're not ignorant of his devices, we end up recognizing when he's trying to lead us astray. Satanic Bible, the number one command is do what you will. In other words, do what is right to you. Jesus comes along and says, I've come not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. What does lawlessness do? It gets the person to think what is good for me is actually evil, and what is evil for me is actually good, to the point we think now God is the one enslaving us. God just says, okay, you don't want me, you don't want my ways, I'm just going to leave you to yourself. You go back to the early 1900s, people didn't think about getting divorced because it was against the law. God is the one that says I hate divorce, yet we got people, Christian people, divorcing because they don't get along. Living together— prior to 1980, it was against the law to live together in most every state in the United States. Still today, in 7 states, it's technically illegal to live together, but they don't enforce it. So now we're at the point where we're really talking about— why am I saying all this. Let's just really, really drill down here. Okay. Hey everybody, welcome to the Jon Bevere Podcast. I am here joined by my son Arden. Arden, it's great to see you.

Always good to be here.

Your hair is short again. I know.

It's just, that's what happens.

Okay.

Haircut.

Was it an accident? Yes. The barber made a mistake?

The barber is my wife and she cut it way too short on the back and then we had to cut it short everywhere.

Oh, okay. That's what happened. I think your mother was bemoaning it. Yeah, she was like loving your really long hair.

I mean, I think I was enjoying it too, but then, yeah, and Christian liked it as well, but she just got it too short. It's the wrong blade.

Well, everyone, we just— I'm very excited about today's podcast because I really believe this message is so crucial to the time that we're living in. I believe it's going to provide answers. I believe it's going to provide strength. I believe it's going to protect you from massive, massive, massive deception that is going on right now. And so it's kind of a special. We, in our last episode, talked about the church of Sardis. I opened up a can of beans in the midst of that one, but I felt the Holy Spirit just say, son, you need to amplify this. So it's a mystery right now. It is a mystery, but we are talking about a mystery. Okay, that's not a pun. That's really bad.

Well, and then also they would have seen the episodes, I think.

They haven't said— well, by the time this comes out, they will have seen the episode. So, um, I don't want to talk about the specific thing I brought up when we had that podcast. I want to I wanna open up with a question. The question is this, what is the secret power of lawlessness? Now the epistles talk about this. Paul writes to the Thessalonian church. He says, "The secret power of lawlessness," or the King James, the New King James, ESV say, "The mystery of lawlessness." I don't really care for the word mystery because when people hear the word mystery, they think mysterious.

Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

You know, a murder mystery or this or that.

Well, actually, murder mystery would kind of COVID it, but it kind of is like uncovering to me. I've got a hidden truth, the mystery. Yeah, but you're saying secret power.

Yep.

Which kind of leads to— I feel like gives me a completely different definition, which I like.

And so the translators of the New Living Translation chose to go that way because I think it is really more descriptive. It is a very powerful force, lawlessness, and it's secret. So we're going to uncover, we're going to expose the Let's call it the double agent in the midst.

Yeah. And can I ask you, like, I think people will even wonder is why is it like, 'cause you talk about lawlessness so much and I know it's always so pressing on your heart. Well, just even reminding people like, why is it so important that we focus in on talking about these things?

Because when we understand, the Bible says we're not ignorant of Satan's devices. When we're not ignorant of his devices, we end up recognizing when he's trying to lead us astray. If you look at the nations of the world, the number one nation in the world as far as knowing their enemy is Israel. Now you look at Israel, that little tiny country who has neighbors that really don't like that nation and would really wish that nation didn't exist. How have they been able to stand up against these neighbors? Because they have such good intel. So I look at the same thing when Paul said we should not be ignorant of Satan's devices. So in other words, these means plans. This word devices means plans or schemes, strategies. So Israel understands the strategy of the nations around them. They're keen to it. All right? We as believers are supposed to be aware of the strategy of the enemy so that we don't get taken by his device.

Yeah, that's really good.

And so where does this secret power of lawlessness come? It comes from Paul's letter to the Thessalonian church. And he's actually talking about the catching away of the church. He's talking about the man of sin being revealed. But he says in verse 3, "Let no one deceive you by any means for that day." Now what day are we talking about? The day of the Lord. What is the day of the Lord? We hear about it all through scripture. What's the day of the Lord?

It's his return.

Nope. No? It is the 7-year tribulation. Oh, okay. Okay, so the day of the Lord is the 7-year tribulation and Paul is saying, the beginning, really like the kickoff of that day. All right, so that day will not come unless the falling away comes first. Now this is massive. In the Amplified, it actually says those who profess Christianity will literally walk away from their faith. So the falling away, some people have tried to take this scripture and use it for quote rapture. This is not at all what he's talking about. Anytime this word is used, it's talking about a departure from the faith. Okay, as we know, Barna did a study, a deep in-depth study, polled 95,000 people, which most studies are 4,000 to 5,000 people, and they discovered from the year 2000 to 2020, over 33 million people walked away from the faith. So are we living in these days? Absolutely.

Yeah. All right, well, and I think you're highlighting something important because I have a Barna study here, and it says 52% of US adults see themselves as sinners. You're talking about people who have walked away from faith, but then of course this study is showing people who just see themselves as sinners, which I think obviously why we're talking so much about lawlessness is if you have 52% of US adults saying that they see themselves as sinners, they need to be aware of the schemes of the enemy that's continuing to make them feel like, man, I Every single day it just feels like I'm messing up or I'm doing these things.

And if you feel like you're messing up and you're doing these things, I want you to stay around because I believe you're going to be greatly encouraged. And I do want to say this, that Barna studies— these, these people were practicing Christians, these 33 million, which meant that they prayed on a regular basis, they attended church on a regular basis. Now they are non-believers, which means they don't pray at all and they will not go to church and they do not profess their faith. But if pushed in the corner. Really? Well, actually, not even that one. They just are unbelievers now. Many of them profess to be agnostic, spiritualists, and atheists. This is heartbreaking. Yeah. And, and so he says, unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. So this is obviously talking about what is called one time in the New Testament, the Antichrist. He's more called the man of sin, the man of perdition, the man of lawlessness. So do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time. So there's actually something that's restraining him from coming on the stage. 'For the mystery,' here's our verse, 'for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.' So before this guy is revealed, who is the perfect embodiment of lawlessness, the mystery of lawlessness is at work. This is what's pulling millions away from the faith. This is what's causing millions to go cold. This is what's deceiving millions into thinking sin is just okay and it won't hurt me. 'Only he who now restrains.' Now the word he is actually a person or an entity. Entity in the original. So it could be the Holy Spirit, it could be the church, it could be something, an entity.

Well, and are you saying that that is restraining him? Because I am confused and I'm curious about this is saying, and now you know what this person or entity is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time. So it's his time period, not like, how does that work?

Not God's time period within that or not His own time would be during the day of the Lord. Okay. He's the one that comes and deceives millions or hundreds of millions.

So it's a day that's basically— it's not he's the one who's deciding the day. That's what I think I'm asking.

No, I don't believe he's deciding the day. I believe God is the Father because he has the restrainer. Now, I'm going to tell people right now, I believe the church, the body of Christ, is that restrainer. If you look at the body of Christ, we are in all constructs of society. What would happen if we remove the body of Christ from education, from, from, you know, healthcare, from government, from prophetic professional athletics? I mean, we would see a very narcissistic world. We would see no more charity organizations, nursing homes, things like that. I mean, we are the church. We're the light of the world. We're the ones that are actually restraining this man from darkness. And if you look at it, there's no such thing as a flash dark. I can't flash something and make darkness go through light. So light is a restrainer. It restrains darkness from taking over, right? So we, I believe the body of Christ, because Jesus said we are the light of the world, are the one that's, we are the ones that's holding this man back and we're the ones that are supposed to be restraining the secret power of lawlessness.

Interesting. Okay. I just wanna make sure.

Okay, so now the New Living actually says, for this lawlessness is already at work secretly, which I like better. The best.

Which I was going to say, because even off of that, I think now more than ever, I think people are noticing works of— like, if just speaking very plainly— works of evil, where it's like, how in the world is society even thinking in this way? And I think obviously so much of it is we're seeing that there is demonic forces and evil that is at play. And when we have almost in so long time period taken the church out of so many different areas, whether it's school systems or families or things like that. There's just darkness that has continued to creep its way in. And then when it has been revealed in a magnitude that we've seen recently, of course it's been there. And I think we're seeing the spiritual side of things.

You've just put in a capsule the whole focus of this podcast.

Yeah.

All right. But we're going to methodically work to what you just said. Okay. And we're gonna see how that has happened. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive. Now this is key. They did not receive the love of the truth. It doesn't say they didn't receive the truth. Those 33 million Americans that walked away from the faith, they received the truth. Problem was they didn't love the truth. Jesus said, hey, the person that walks in darkness, and practices walking in darkness does not come to the truth because the light of the truth will expose that his deeds are evil. So people that love sin are not going to come to the truth because the truth exposes me. When Adam sins against God, he hides from the presence of God because he doesn't want what he did exposed. Because God is light, in him there's zero darkness at all.

Yeah.

Now Jesus warns 4 times In Matthew 24, the disciples said, "What's it gonna be like right before you return?" He said 4 times, 4 times in that one gospel, "Be careful that you're not deceived." Now I've said it for years and years, and I'm gonna keep saying, the problem with deception is it's—

Deceiving.

It's deceiving, right? The person who's deceived believes with all their heart they're right when reality, they're wrong, okay? What creates deception? The secret power of lawlessness. So Jesus actually makes this statement in Matthew 24:12, talking about our day. He said lawlessness will abound. Yeah. So we see this secret power is already at work in society. And not only that, Jesus said it's going to be having such an effect that it's going to abound. Wow. Now, what is the Greek word for lawlessness? It's the Greek word anomia, and it is defined as this: state or condition of being inclined to do what is lawless. That's good, but here's a better definition: not being submitted to the law of God. Yeah. In essence, 1 John 3:4 says sin is lawlessness. Now, to me, this is fascinating. This is the only time in the Bible we see sin is. Yeah. Okay.

It doesn't say lawlessness is sin, which is interesting. Yeah.

So we say adultery's sin.

Yeah.

We say murder's sin. We say witchcraft is sin.

Yeah.

The Bible says sin is lawlessness. So in other words, this is sin's definition. This is the root cause. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. And this is amazing. Now, here's the thing. I remember one day I was praying and I was thinking about I was thinking about sin, deception, all this, and the Holy Spirit said something to me. He said, son, people have reduced sin down to the big ones.

Yeah, yeah. The same-sex attraction, all these things.

Same-sex acts.

Yes.

Adultery, fornication, which is sex before marriage. He said, son, Adam didn't sleep With a prostitute in the garden.

Yeah.

I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He simply disobeyed what I told him not to do. He disobeyed what? Yeah, he didn't obey what I told him not to do.

Right.

All right. So the whole root of this lawless thing goes back to the garden. So just let me develop this. We got the tree of life. We got the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden. What is the tree of life? It's very simple. God is my creator. He's pure love, perfect love. All right? And he knows what's good for me and he knows what's bad for me. So he says, just trust me, just live in what I say and what— and you will have what's good for you. Yeah. All right. So I always, always do this story and I got to do it in case somebody's not heard me say it. But when you guys were toddlers, Christmas is a workday for Dad, right? What do I do? I'm your typical dad. I'm building the toys all day. I rip open the box, throw the pieces on the floor, throw the box, the manual over in the corner, and I build the toy, spend about an hour.

Wow.

For some reason I'm finished, but there's still 5 pieces on the floor. I think it's excess. I hit the switch and the thing doesn't work. Now, initially, I'm really angry. I'm angry at the guy who designed the toy, the manufacturer.

You think he did it wrong.

He gave me a defective toy.

Yeah, it doesn't work.

But it's Christmas. I can't call the 1-800 number.

Yeah.

So what do I do? I go get the instruction manual. This is the guy that designs it. I deconstruct the toy, reconstruct it. There's not 5 pieces. Now I see. I construct it the way he said to do it. And now I hit the switch and the thing works. Okay, that's the tree of life. God says, I know exactly what's good for you. Yeah, I know what will create health in you, what will create life in you, what will create eternal life in you. Just do this. Now, what's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? The Bible says when she saw the tree was good and desirable to make her wise. So now wait a minute, it doesn't say when she saw the tree was evil and it would make her wicked. Yeah.

Okay, or wise. Yeah, there's something good.

So what is she doing? She is choosing what is good for her outside of what God says. Yeah. Now let me show you how the secret power of lawlessness has kept creeping in. It's gone to the point of even gender. David makes the statement that God fearfully and wonderfully made us, created us in our mother's womb. The Bible says he created them male and female. Okay, he created them male and female. When you hold up a dress and a pair of jeans in front of a 12-year-old and you say, hey, which one are you more drawn to? You are telling that child to forget the fact that they were fearfully and wonderfully made by their creator in their mother's womb. And you get to choose the gender that's good for you.

Well, and can I ask this? Because obviously I think we come to expect that from the world. Like, I think you, you don't need to have those expectations of the world. They're going to do what they think is right in their own mind. But I think what even is more of the problem is you see that there are Christians that are taking scripture and trying to morph it to fit their thinking of whether, oh hey, I can be same-sex attracted, I can change my gender. So I feel like, you know, those are two groups of people that we have to kind of acknowledge within this situation, because I think obviously one is, yeah, of course you're away from truth, you don't know what truth is. Then the other one is you're twisting truth. So you're taking the instruction manual that you did have, and it's not that you're completely throwing it to the side, but you're actually looking at it and saying, well, no, I actually don't think that's the best place for that piece. What if I put it over here? And you're changing it, which is still what we're—

You're wonderfully getting ahead of what we're saying.

Okay, sorry.

So in essence, no, in essence, the world is captive by the lawlessness. Yeah. But the mystery, the secret power of lawlessness that Paul's talking about is creeping into the people of God. This is why Jesus, when he says that lawlessness will abound, and he said because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. The Greek word for love there is agape. Okay, agape, See, there's 4 Greek words for love. There's eros, which is sexual love, storge, which is the awe kind of love that's like the love people had for Michael Jordan, right? Then there's phileo, which is affectionate love. Now the world has those 3. But agape is the love of God that's shed abroad in a believer's heart. It is the love that Jesus said the world cannot receive. So when Jesus said lawlessness is gonna abound, he's not talking about society. He's talking about the church because, because that lawlessness is abounding, the love of many is gonna grow cold. So now we're looking at the word love is agape. The agape, the love of God that's shed abroad in our heart is growing cold. So yes, you correctly said, yeah, but the world, it's been under lawlessness since the garden. So in essence, when Adam and Eve choose to do this, they take on a nature of sin or what is sin? It's lawlessness. Okay, so in other words, now they are going to automatically gravitate. They're going to look at what is attractive and it's actually going to be damaging for them. Does that make sense? It's like looking at arsenic and going, oh, that looks wonderful. I want to eat it. Well, we know it's going to kill me. Yeah, the doctor would. If I'm an uneducated man, I'm just going to take that and and go, you know what, that's got a lot of chocolate around it, and just pop it in my mouth, I'm done. Yeah. Okay. So God says, all right, everything they choose is going to look good to them, but it's actually going to destroy them. And I love them so much, I got to set up laws. What are these laws? Are they restrictive? Are they for bondage? No, they're to tell us what to do so we don't damage ourselves. Yeah. So in essence, once mankind sinned and took the nature of sin, laws had to be put in place by God to protect man from themselves. Okay. Yeah. Big, big key. So when people say we're preachers of hate because we preach the laws of God, we're actually trying to keep you from building a toy that's not going to work. We're actually trying to keep you from doing this something down the road you're going to regret. It's going to hurt you in the long run, even though you don't know it right now. Yeah. So God says, I gotta tell them. All right, so now, you know, here they have this nature of death. They gravitate to what's upside down. And so what appears to bring life to a person with this nature of sin actually ends up resulting in death. So this is why Isaiah comes along and writes, what sorrow. Now listen to the word sorrow. For those who say that evil is good and good is evil. What does lawlessness do? It gets the person to think, what is good for me, what is really good for me, what God knows is good for me, is actually evil. And what is evil for me is actually good. So I'm going to end up with sorrow in my life if I don't believe what my Creator says is good for me, who is perfect love. So that's why Isaiah says, oh, such great sorrow. "for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter." So in other words, lawless gets us to flip everything upside down and we really believe we're right. And to the point we think now God is the one enslaving us. This is why Psalm 2:3 says, "We will free ourselves from slavery to God." The nations cry out, right? Against the Lord and against his anointed. And they cry out and they say, we are gonna free ourselves from slavery to God. So the person who's taken by lawlessness, who has a nature of sin, nature of lawlessness, is gonna see actually God's laws that actually would end up protecting them in the wrong, being bondage and slavery.

[Speaker] Yeah, yeah, can I ask you, because, Obviously going to so many different countries, we have seen the works of God in supernatural ways, right? And I feel like in obviously the Western society, we don't see that. And I'm reading right here is understanding like lawlessness leads to a counterfeit Christianity. It's power without purity. It's, you're basically, you know, it's what the Bible says is you're rejecting its power. So Is it because we have allowed lawlessness to so creep into the Western society in a very underlining way that we're not seeing the same, same miracles or things that were happening, same moves of God that happens overseas that we see these people get to partake in? Is it just because there's been so much lawlessness that has crept in, or do you feel like it's kind of something different and we just, we are not as spiritually aware of things here as maybe other overseas?

I think I think it's an aspect. I do think it's an aspect. If you look at back in the days of Eli and Samuel, the Bible says the word of the Lord was rare and there was no widespread revelation. Well, that's because the leaders of the quote church, I know it was the tabernacle, his sons Hophni and Phinehas were committing adultery and taking offerings by force. So the word of the Lord was rare. There's no widespread revelation. The power of God was very dim. That's why they could do what they did 90 feet walk in from that Holy of Holies and not be judged by it. Whereas a couple hundred years earlier, Nadab and Abihu just walked in with the irreverence and they were struck dead because the greater the glory, the swifter the judgment.

That's a good point. Okay. I've never actually heard about that. I've never thought about Eli's sons, like understanding they weren't just struck dead right there, but yet in a different stage.

Well, why have people lied to preachers? And here's Ananias and Sapphira who lied to Peter and they're struck down dead. Because when you bring sin into the presence of the glory, sin is immediately judged. Okay, now this is why God's withheld his glory from us, because he doesn't want half of us to fall over dead. Because when Peter walks out of that meeting, I mean, a man and a wife who came to bring their offering for their typical church service, they lie about the offering, okay? And they both fall over dead as soon as they lie. And here Peter walks out of that room and they lay the sick on the streets. And just his shadow has to touch them and they're healed. Now we have people that lie to preachers all the time today and they're not falling over dead. Why is that? Because the glory is not as strong right now as it was in the days of Peter. Well, if you look at Hophni and Phinehas, they're doing this where it was dim. The power of God was dim. A couple hundred years earlier, the glory of the Lord had manifested in that tabernacle when Moses had everything erected according to the pattern. And they walk in with irreverence, Nadab and Abihu, the first two sons of Aaron, and they fall over dead just because of their irreverence.

Yeah. What would get it to shift though, like in this nation, in this, in this time period, is the glory of God being able to be so strong? Because I'm sure there's tons of people would be like, no, I want to, like, I want to be back in holiness.

Jesus said, I will manifest myself to those who keep my commandments. So in other words, go ahead.

But what I was going to ask you, is it the church or is it the church leaders? Because obviously you honed in on Eli's sons. And yet you have here over here, Hannah, you have her family that's going on and their reverence for God is very strong from what it seems like. So you feel like it's the church as large?

So the prophet said, like priest, like people, like leader, like people. So if we had leaders that were calling people to godliness and holiness, we would have a church that would walk in godliness and holiness. So you technically are right. It begins with the leaders. That's why the Bible says, Let not many of you be teachers knowing will incur stricter judgment. We literally are the ones that are responsible for not withholding that which is needful. Paul said, I'm innocent of the blood of all men because why, Paul? Because I didn't shun to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Today, what's getting us in trouble is we're not preaching holiness, we're not preaching purity, we're not preaching obeying the commands of God. And I'm gonna get into this in a second. I'm gonna show everybody that there are over 500 commands in the New Testament.

Yeah.

Okay, okay, we're going to take a break from what we're talking about, and we're going to talk to you about something that's very important, and that is our health. And the reason is, is our bodies are not our own. They are the temple of the Holy Spirit. If you go to goodranchers.com, you're going to end up getting meat that is grown on small-town American farms. This is meat that has not been polluted with steroids, antibiotics, and all this other stuff. And what is really cool is that they mail it right to your front door. Now here's the really cool thing. If you go to goodranchers.com and use our last name, just Bevir, as the code, you're going to get $40 off your order, plus you're going to get free meat for life. And they send very healthy chicken nuggets and chicken wings and stuff, things that we didn't order, they put it in there if you use the code Bevir. So again, goodranchers.com. Please, please invest in your health so that you can live longer and bear more fruit for the kingdom of God. Goodranchers.com, American meat delivered.

So, well, and then can I ask, sorry, one more question? As we, as the body of Christ, then what do we do about that when you have leaders? Because I know you are very much, very much aware of authority and the design that God has created for authority. And so when you have leaders that are not speaking truth, what does that look like for us as the body of Christ to be able to say like, We want our leaders to speak truth. We don't want our leaders to be silent on certain things. We do want our leaders to speak up on things.

How do you think people felt when kings went away from the ways of God and the whole nation suffered? Yeah, this is it. I mean, Adam, our great-great-great forefather, disobeys God, and now look at what we got. Sickness, disease, poverty. We've got wars, we've got strife. God showed me when I was younger in ministry, he said, son, the enemy goes hard after leaders because if the leader falls, the people under the leader now are vulnerable and susceptible and they suffer. And so sadly, I believe the great move of God begins when we have leaders that will proclaim what God's saying and walk holy lives. I really believe that with all of my heart.

Yeah, but it's not on— you're saying it's not on the body of Christ to call out those leaders? Is that what you're saying?

It's what now?

Are you saying it's not on the body of Christ to call out those leaders? Because that's what I'm—

I'm on the body of Christ to pray for those leaders. I never see people that going to leaders. I see leaders going to leaders and bringing a rebuke, but I don't see younger men going to fathers and bringing a rebuke. The Bible says they're to entreat them as fathers, okay? To speak to them as mothers.

Yeah.

And so we've got to pray that the leaders of this nation really start becoming bold. And with what happened with Charlie Kirk, I hope it empowers. I look at Paul with the prison guard. He said, hey, me being beaten here in prison has actually emboldened the people to preach the word of God with greater passion. Greater authority. And I hope the same thing happens. I hope we're waking up in America and realize we as leaders have got to preach the truth and not skirt it thinking we're going to lose people out of our seats in our churches.

Yeah, well, we might, but we also might see a greater manifestation of his presence that would actually take—

we actually would. Yeah. So if you look at what Paul writes to Timothy, this is amazing. We know that the law is good. When used correctly. All right, for the law was not intended for people who do what is right. It was meant for those who are— I'm reading straight from 1 Timothy 1:8-14. The law was for people who are sexually immoral, who practice homosexuality, or slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that contradicts wholesome teaching that comes from the glorious good news entrusted to me by our blessed God. You know, Art and I go to Singapore quite frequently. Singapore, you can walk downtown in the worst parts of town at 2 in the morning and not even be concerned for your life. Want to know why? You steal in Singapore, you lose your hand. You bring drugs into Singapore, you lose your life. You rape in Singapore, you are hung, you're put to death. Um, so you murder in Singapore, you're, you're, you're executed with the capital punishment. Wow. So they have very little crime. Yeah, why? Because they're using the law correctly. Because people are going to gravitate, which is bad, to that which is bad for them without something in place. So the law brings us to the grace of God, which the grace of God changes our nature and empowers us now to be able to keep the law of God out of a willing heart not out of compulsion.

Yeah. Which is, of course, the amazing thing of the grace of God, because obviously you're saying they're using the law correctly, but they're using it without— there's no grace. So I don't want people to hear that and think, oh, they're using the law, so we should go back to using the law.

This is where I'm going right now. People in America right now are trying to remove the laws. So now you got murder— people who murder somebody, literally, A person walks up and puts a knife through a girl's throat who's just sitting there on the subway. And he's already been arrested 14 times. What in the world? We have no laws anymore. Back in the '60s when I was a young boy, the first thing he committed, he would have been in jail for probably years. That girl would still be alive today. So you see us and Singapore, totally different. They're using the law in a good way. We're not using the law at all. So what's happening is the Bible says in the days that there was no king, people did what was right in their own eyes. Well, what is right in our own eyes in our fallen state gravitates to what is actually bad for me in the long run.

And I even say this too, is that on the Satanic Bible, like this is pretty interesting, but the Satanic Bible, the first thing that it mentions, it says like the first commandment, number one commandment is do what?

Thou wilt. Yep.

Do as thou will.

Now think about it. Do whatever you will. Jesus comes along and says, I've come not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. The Satanic Bible, the number one command is do what you will. In other words, do what is right to you, whatever pleases you. So in other words, the Satanic Bible is trying to get people to gravitate towards lawlessness so that they end up getting what is not good for them. All right, so now with unbelievers, okay, this is amazing. Romans 2:14-15 says, even the Gentiles who do not have God's written law show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it. So this is Gentiles, this is unbelievers. Even without having heard it, they demonstrate that God's law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right. Okay, so I'm going to go to the Complete Word Study Dictionary. It says, God has placed in our hearts an innate knowledge of what is good and evil. The non-existence of a specific law forbidding an act does not absolve a person from being lawless. So did you hear that? So, so in other words, we've got this in us. So even if there's not a written law not to do this, we know inside that it's not right. But Paul had previously come along in Romans chapter 1 and told us how we suppress those laws that are written in our heart. And this is what he says: but God's wrath from heaven is revealed against all sinful, wicked people. Now listen to this: who suppress the truth. What does the word suppress mean? Hold down. Yeah, by their wickedness. In other words, by their lawless behavior, they suppress the truth. All right. In other words, the truth looks very unattractive. The truth looks very much of a bondage type of thing. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. We just read in Romans 2, right? He is— they instinctively know it because he wrote it in their hearts. They know the truth about God because he's made it obvious to them. That's verse 19. Verse 20, they have no excuse for not knowing God and his ways, right? As a result, their minds become dark. And confused, claiming to be wise. Okay, this is a lot of our university professors right now. They instead become utter fools. So they think they're really, really wise. They got degrees behind their name. They become utter fools. This is not all university professors. There's a lot of godly ones. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. Now listen to the word abandoned. God didn't cause them. It's not, okay, I'm gonna punish you now for this. God just says, okay, you don't want me, you don't want my ways, I'm just gonna leave you to yourself. Now what happens when we have a sin nature? We're gonna gravitate to lawlessness because that's our nature, okay? That was verse 24. Verse 26, that is why God abandoned them. So second time we hear the word abandoned. To their shameful desires, even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Yeah, men did shameful things with other men. As a result of this sin, this lawlessness, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. So in other words, here they're doing what's bad for them. God doesn't want it. He gave them laws to protect them, and then now they're blaming God. All right, verse 28. Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them. Third time we hear abandoned. So in other words, we keep pushing God away, we keep pushing God away, we keep pushing God away. So God says, okay, you guys can rule yourselves, you guys can. And now they— everybody starts doing what's right in their own eyes, and now we have a chaotic society. God abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do the things that never should have been done. Now listen to verse 32. They know God's justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, here's worse yet. Here's what we're getting to that I talked about in the last podcast. They encourage others to do them too. All right, now let's briefly go to believers. All right, we just talked about unbelievers. Let's go to believers. Hebrews 10:16. This is the new covenant God says I'll make with my people on that day, says the Lord. I'll put my laws in their heart and I'll write them on their minds. Hebrews 8:10, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. There's 613 commands, Arden, in the Old Testament. There's 600— there's over 500 commands in the New Testament. All right, these commands are actually God's laws. They are given to protect us. Listen to me carefully, not restrict us. Yeah, if you look at Leviticus 19—

yes, no, I was going to say, even going back to it, like, because what you're saying, because I think people need to understand that, because that is a big shift. People always look at the laws and say no, like like, that's, that's the Old Testament. Don't put that bondage on me. But going back even to the garden is understanding where you can oftentimes look, it's like, oh, well, God put that one tree there. It's like, no, God put thousands, thousands of trees, thousands of things. And yet if we look at this in the wrong way, we'll only see, well, there's that one thing that God said, no, I know that's not good for you.

Yep. So here's, here's Leviticus 19, because you get God's laws in Leviticus. Okay, remember, laws aren't restrictive. They're to protect us from hurting ourselves. Do not steal. Do not deceive or cheat one another. This is verse 12. Do not bring shame on the name of the Lord your God by using it to swear falsely. I am the Lord. Verse 13. Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. Verse 14. Do not insult the deaf or cause the blind to stumble. You must fear God, for I am the Lord. Now, it's just a couple I brought up, right? So Jesus comes along and says in Matthew 5, don't think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these laws or commandments and teaches men to do so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom. Now, what are some of the laws in the New Testament of the 500? Let's just look at Ephesians 4 and 5, okay? Verse 25 of Ephesians 4: Stop telling lies. Don't sin by letting anger control you. If you are a thief, quit stealing. Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Let there be no obscene stories, foolish talk, coarse jokes— coarse jokes— foolish talking, Okay, you can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the kingdom of Christ and God. Don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on those who disobey them. Don't participate in these things. He's trying to protect them, right? But take part— take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness. Instead, instead, expose them. That's what we're doing on this program, okay? It is shameful to even talk about these things ungodly people do in secret. So be careful how you live, not be careful what you believe. That's important too. But he's specifically saying, be careful how you live. Don't live like fools who are unwise. Okay, now—

Don't be drunk with wine.

Don't be drunk with wine. There's 14 commands right there in 13 verses.

Yeah.

All right, so people that think the commands are gone in the New Testament, they're wrong. The commands aren't given to be saved. The commands in the Old Testament proved we could never earn a relationship with God by keeping his commands. It's impossible 'cause we had a sin nature. Grace says, I'm putting a new nature in you, my nature in you, so now you can keep them so you can stay in fellowship with me.

So can I ask you too, because obviously there are commands in the Old Testament and laws in the Old Testament that we as Christians, we don't like even, we don't continue to follow. There's some people who do, like not, you know, not cutting your hair, not doing certain things.

Those are ceremonial. Okay. So they were ritualistic laws that dropped. Yeah. When you funnel the laws of the Old Testament through the New Testament, New Testament either deletes it, revises it, or leaves it alone.

Okay, so when you say—

Not steal is left alone when you pass it through the cross. Not having a tattoo is not spoken about in the New Testament, okay? Just don't destroy the body, which is the temple. I don't have a tattoo, but it's not a sin for a person to get a tattoo. It was in the Old Testament. So there are laws that get eradicated by the cross. There are laws that get revived.

But can I ask that, is like, when you're saying eradicated, how does that go in corresponding to Jesus said, I did not come to abolish the law but fulfill it? Well, so it's like you're saying he's not talking about the ceremonial—

like, you couldn't even sit on the couch with a woman who was on her menstruation period.

What was God doing?

He was protecting people from getting infected.

Yeah, right.

So today we have tampons, we have— what, what are they called— napkins and all that stuff, right? Yeah. So it's not an issue. So God is just simply like when he said put somebody that's got a skin disease outside of the camp, right? He was just quarantining so everybody didn't get this disease and die off. And now the seed can't come.

Well, I remember a long time ago you told me is a lot of the things that was done outwardly in the Old Testament are things that you need to do inwardly in the New Testament in terms of the New Testament believers and underneath this covenant and things that it's like, yeah, you're not going to go and do this externally with you, but is there something like maybe you need to check this internally within your body in terms of what you're believing, what you're allowing yourself to do to actually maybe like— maybe you need to circumcise your heart, like in these things that needed to take place that I think is— you don't just read that and throw them out, but you actually say, God, how does this deal with me internally? I'm reading this law. How does this actually work inside of me?

Because Jesus said, you clean up the inside, the outside is clean.

Yeah.

And that's what the New Testament— that is the beauty of the New Testament grace of God. It cleans us up inside. We can now— it's a flow out of our heart. It's not a restrainer that it was in the Old Testament. Yeah.

Or a list of things.

So now we're at the point where we're really talking about, why am I saying all this from the last podcast, we kind of interrupted the churches. There's a couple who have written books about their faith in Jesus. They are seen as, as a beautiful Christian couple, but they have just in the fall of 2025 come out with a reality show of bringing people back to the frontier. They chose 3— watch me— families that they're going to highlight on this program, which you put up quotes. And the reason I do— I'm just saying, for those who are listening on audio, the reason is one of those three families is two men that have, I think, two boys. Yeah. Now, adopted. I'm not wanting to address those men. I'm wanting to address this couple. My question is, why in the world would you want to platform that which is lawless. Now hold on a minute, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's just really, really drill down here, okay? What if this couple had showcased a family that were slave traders? How do you think people would respond?

Um, they'd be up in arms, okay?

These guys are literally traffickers. They're selling people as slaves that are a certain race to farms so that they can make them work ruthlessly on those farms, like what was happening back in the 1800s. What would happen if they would have gotten two men that were known slave traders and put them on that program? There would have been outrage. What would happen if this couple showcased a family who were serial murderers? I mean, they've, they've done all these mass murders and they said, you know what, we're just going to have this man and wife on here because we really believe they're going to show something like this. People would have been outraged. So Let's talk about the history of the United States. 1860, Supreme Court rules unanimously that if a public high school in the United States does not teach the word of God, the Bible, they will lose government funding. So here we are saying, you don't teach the word of God to your, your students, you lose government funding. Go 100 years later, 1962, we've got Engel versus Vitale. All right. The Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools was unconstitutional, and shortly after, they pulled the Bible out of schools.

All right.

And then in 1963, we have the Abington School District versus Schempp. The court extended the ban to include mandatory reading for devotional purposes. So now they have effectively taken prayer and the Bible out of the school in the early 1960s. Now, Divorce. Let's just talk about divorce. Divorce, before 1970, it was against the law to get a divorce in the United States. The only way you would be granted a divorce is if you proved your spouse's unfaithfulness and you had to have proof. Okay, so if both spouses committed unfaithfulness, no divorce was granted. If neither spouse had committed divorce, no divorce granted. The only way you, it was called suing for divorce. You had to prove that spouse was unfaithful. Okay. California was the first state in the United States to pass the no-fault divorce. And that was done in 1969. So, in other words, if you go back to the early 1900s, people didn't think about getting divorced because it was against the law. Yeah. Now, you come today and you got over 50% of the population. What's happened? Lawlessness has secretly worked its way in. Okay, because God is the one that says, I hate divorce. All right, yet we got people, Christian people, divorcing because they don't get along. Living together— are you ready for this? Prior to 1980, it was against the law to live together in most every state in the United States.

I did not know this.

Still today, in 7 states, it's technically illegal to live together, but they don't enforce it. Now let's think about a movie. If a movie was shown in the 1950s of a couple living together, If a movie was shown, the nation would go in an outrage. Like if you had even two actors playing husband and wife and they're in bed together, the nation went in an outrage. Now today we got people sleeping together, aren't even married, and they're considered weird if they don't sleep together before they get married.

Yeah.

Okay. So what's happened? The secret power of lawlessness. We're actually doing now what's hurting us. Okay. If you look at homosexuality, Prior to 1962, it was against the law in every state of the United States to commit the act of homosexuality. Why? Because the Bible says homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God. I want to read something, okay? Let's, let's just read this. Here's God's laws. God gives laws to protect us. Leviticus 18. God says never have sexual relations with: number 1, verse 6, a close relative; number 2, verse 7, your mother; number 3, Verse 9, your sister. Number 4, your granddaughter. Verse 10, number 5, your stepdaughter. Verse 11, your aunt. Verse 12, your daughter-in-law. Verse 15, your neighbor's wife. Verse 20, with an animal. Verse 23, all of those people do, except for maybe the animal, and we're probably heading that direction. Now listen to what God says in Leviticus 18:22. Do not practice homosexuality. Having sex with another man as with a woman, it is a detestable— God puts the word detestable— sin. If you look, look again at Leviticus 20, 2 chapters later: If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty— God calls it— of a capital offense. Are we seeing this now? Let's go back to homosexuality. 1962, it's against the law in every state in the United States to commit homosexuality. All right, so we wouldn't even be having this discussion prior to that. This couple never would have done that prior to that. Supreme Court, Bowers v. Hardwick, in 1986 made it permissible for states to continue to make it against the law to commit an act of homosexuality. And this continued for several more years. So in other words, as far as 1986, it was still against the law in many states. But the Supreme Court, Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, Arden, made it mandatory for all states to eliminate sodomy, homosexual, anti-homosexual laws, thus removing all laws banning homosexuality. Now, what does God's word say? Paul the Apostle writes in New Testament, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, who worship idols, who commit adultery, or male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality. 1 Thessalonians, stay away from all sexual sin. We are commanded that, right? Mm-hmm. So What do we have here? We have a couple that is platforming— everybody says this couple is a Christian in America because they've written books on it, they've professed it, confessed it. Now they're platforming what God calls a detestable sin. I'm not condemning those two men that are civilly united, or whatever you want to call it. I know, I think in America they borrowed God's word and called it married, but God said marriage is between a male and a female. Am I being mean to those two men? No. But what I'm asking is, why is a Christian couple platforming those two men? Because Paul says when you platform something like that, you cause that sin to now spread throughout the whole church. Because listen to this, and this is where we're gonna conclude. I know we've gone really long today.

Well, and I do have one question off of this.

Okay, so Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, "I can hardly believe the report about sexual immorality going on among you." All right? Then he says, "You're so proud of yourselves, but you should mourn in sorrow and shame, and you should remove this man from your fellowship." Here's a man committing sex, having sex with his stepmother. Paul said, "Remove him from the fellowship." Arden, do you know there are only, only 13 verses in this chapter? And do you know 4 times Paul says, "Throw this man out," "Remove this man from your fellowship," Verse 5, throw this man out. Verse 7, remove the wicked person from among you. And the very last verse, you must remove the evil person from among you. Now, why does Paul say that? Because a little yeast spreads through the whole bunch of dough. He's saying, guys, by you allowing this man to commit willful sin and you not putting him out of your fellowship, this is going to spread through your whole church. Why isn't there mass murder in Singapore? Why isn't there people stealing in Singapore? Because they have the law in place. What happens when we platform this kind of behavior? We release this into Christians all over America going, okay, I guess it's fine.

It's okay.

It's okay.

Yeah. My question is, is obviously, what do you say though to the idea that they have probably platformed people who are indulging in all different other kinds of sin. Like, you know, one of those other couples could be extreme alcoholics. Like, what do you say to that? Because I think obviously we're focusing—

It's a very good question.

And I want to make sure, because I think I've obviously heard a lot of people ask that question.

So if you look at the homosexual sin, here they are boasting that they're married, they're flaunting it, making it clear. Yeah, I know you can't go. I remember a pastor said, I told our people in our church to not eat anywhere in the city that has homosexuals working at it. And I said, so you're going to tell them not to? What about all the people that lie? What about all the people that do this and do that? And I said, exactly, they're not going to be able to eat anywhere. Now, for us to platform this open behavior, when you platform open sin, because Paul said there are some sins that are evident, there are others that are concealed. When we know a sin is evident and we know that evidence is going to spread to people, we don't platform it. If you know somebody is a drunkard and people know he's a drunkard, that's an open sin. We don't want to platform it. If people know that person's a murderer, Yeah, right. We don't want to platform it. Yeah, it's platforming this something that is very obviously lawless to people when I say I'm a believer. And that's a really good question. Yeah, yeah. I can't sit there and— and this is not meant for people to go and say, well, are you lying? Did you— did you tell your wife the truth, you know, this past year? Of course. Yeah. Now you become a witch hunter. Now you become a lawless hunter.

Yeah.

And it's not about that. It's something that people boast about, put out in front of people, and then now we platform it. Yeah.

Well, I think it's really good what you did say to that pastor and understanding is like, we are supposed to be in this world to be a light to this world, to not allow darkness to creep into the light, but to be able to reach those people that are that are stuck in same-sex attraction, that are stuck in those different things that they're navigating and dealing, but to not platform them, to not normalize those things, but to call them out of a kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of light.

Sin is sin. I never committed homosexuality. I was involved in pornography. God had to get me delivered from that. I don't sit here and say, hey, pornography is okay. It will really, if your wife's pregnant or something like that, it's really a good alternative. I'm not going to platform that because I knew I was in sin. And all of us before we met Jesus, we were sinners. And even after meeting Jesus, we are still addressing things in our flesh that we need to get out to match what he's done for us on the in side. But when I, as a Christian, platform— again, it would be like today, it would be outrageous for them to platform people that were sex traders. All right. Taking people of a certain race and selling them to farms to work, taking young girls, selling them for sex. People would be outraged because that law is still in place. The other laws have been systematically removed when we got away from the word of God. Now those laws are still to protect us from ourselves. We have now removed those ways of protecting people, and now we have people that are just bringing themselves into deeper and deeper darkness. And it's very tragic.

Well, and I think it's going back to what we talked about in the very beginning of lawlessness is sin. Because I think obviously people can keep hearing like, well, sin is lawlessness. Well, I'm hearing all these things about law, law, law. And we got to understand, when we're looking at laws, what actually the hope and the benefit of it for your life will be, and the opposite of that, which is sin. Just plain and simple, it's sin.

So yeah, well, we've said a lot today, and I want you to think about very carefully, maybe go back over to this, make sure you don't misunderstand what's being construed. God absolutely loves that homosexual couple. Yeah, right, that is on that program. He wants to see them come to Jesus. Yeah, we're not dealing with them. We're dealing with the fact that Christian couple has platformed sin. Yeah, open sin, blatant sin.

And in people, we're supposed to love the people but deal with the sin, you know, unmaking them.

I go into a store and I see somebody's in bondage to that, I go out of my way to be kind to them, to be, yeah, to be, to engage in conversation with them because I want to reach every single person. God loves every single person that is bound to homosexuality, just like he loves every person that's bound to pornography, bound to murder, bound to stealing. He loves every person. He wants all men to come to the knowledge of the truth and to repent so that they can come to life and not continue to destroy themselves. Sin is so damaging. It damages us. God is trying to protect us from ourselves. With that, I hope you've enjoyed. Remember, please share this, this, this particular one with your friends. Review it, rate it, subscribe. But until next time, this has been the John Bevere Podcast with Arden Bevere and John Bevere.