Welcome to Bible Believers Fellowship and the ministry of bbfohio.com. I'm Pastor Greg and I welcome you to our study in 1st Timothy chapter 4 verse 3 titled, Forbidding to Marry. Alright. Forbidding to Marry. 1st Timothy chapter 4 verse 3. We're going to continue our study in chapter 4 we began last week, and we're going to take a closer look at the doctrine of devils. Forbidding marriage. It's a doctrine of devils. Let's read verses 1 through 3 for context. Read the odds and jump right in there verse 1 with me. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. Amen? So the text clearly says that forbidding to marry is a doctrine of devils. Giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, forbidding to marry. I just have to make that clear before we move on. There's no question. The connection in our text right there. There's one major pseudo-Christian religion that enforces that doctrine of devils. How many of you want to guess? The Roman Catholic Church and the priesthood. And I believe in the Eastern Latin Church, as they call it, the priestly orders, certain priestly orders, and then also the deacons even can't marry, you know. This is from their website. a fourth century legislation, they call it, which isn't true. Convincing testimonies to the normative nature of clerical continents in the fourth century can be found in individual Western patristic authors such as Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome. It's because they're heretics. The first known example of actual legislation is C-33 of the Spanish Council of Elvira, the usual date of which is given of 305. And it reads, we decree that all bishops, priests, and deacons in the service of the ministry are entirely forbidden to have conjugal relations with their wives. and to beget children. Should anyone do so, let him be excluded from the honor of the clergy." Now, if you believe your Bible, all that tells you is that as early as Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome, there were doctrines of devils. That's all that tells you. People make a big deal about these guys because they were in, say, fourth century. Hey, man. It was the first century when Paul wrote and warned us that they would come in among us. We were reading it just last week in Acts chapter 20. And these wolves would teach doctrines to try to pull you away from the truth and make you follow them. That was in the first century. This is 300 years later. And I have all kinds of these guys who think they're so smart. And they talk about the patristic fathers. That's called the church fathers, you know. Most of these guys know that most of Christians are too busy to take time to read the Church Fathers. And if you did read the Church Fathers, you'd say, see, number one, they contradict each other constantly, and they are filled with false teachings. The Church Fathers, you know what? A Church Father is nothing more than anybody here in the pew right now who's saved. If they were saved. Some of them, like Origen, he's in hell right now. And Augustine, I hope he was saved. His testimony was something about, he heard a voice, the sound of a voice of a young man saying, pick up and read. And so he picked up the Bible and started reading it. And if you look, you can't find where Augustine was ever confronted with his sins, believed the gospel, and said he was saved by faith in the gospel. And he taught salvation included the need to be baptized, to be a part of the Roman church, to keep the sacraments and so forth. So he believed his own salvation was based on works. And yet you spend top dollar to go to evangelical seminaries where they tell you that Augustine was wonderful. And again, he's a man, and if he says something and you wanna talk about it, that's fine, but he was not, as we said, even the Apostle Paul, when he wasn't writing these letters that we have in our Bible, he was fallible too. So somebody next week says, we found a lost letter of the Apostle Paul. And you know what, a lot of people say, well, we should add that to the Bible. No, we shouldn't. God's Word is complete. And so I don't care if you find something even you can prove came from the Apostle Paul. He wrote a lot of things that didn't end up in the Bible, and none of them should be in the Bible. And so, the whole thing back here, when they passed this, See, they're already married. They're telling men to disobey 1 Corinthians 7 where it says not to defraud your spouse of due benevolence. You get married, don't get married if you don't want to have sex and be intimate. I had a lady come to me one time and complain that her husband did, you know, she was kind of done, you know. And she didn't like it because he still wanted to have sexual relations. I said, you need to understand something. You're violating God's word and he could take you to court right now and you'd be the one to lose because you are not allowed to do that as a wife or husband. When you get married, you agree that you're going to give due benevolence. What is that? It's according to the person. You marry the wrong guy, he'll drive you crazy, but hey, you're married to him. Amen? I love Christians. I've always loved Christians because I know you guys go home and a lot of you watch filth on TV. They talk about sex and everything, but then when you come into the church and the preacher talks about sex, everybody's like, ooh, ooh. My ears are bleeding. But we shouldn't be filthy about it and get, you know, dirty about it. But let me tell you, I got in trouble with some parents. Their kids had listened to this filthy sex music, watched the filthy sitcoms, go to school, and most of them are in public school, where they hear the F word and filthy jokes and everything. And then they'd come in, and I just talked to them real about this stuff. I said, kids, do you have sex before you're married? you can get diseases, you can have what they call unwanted pregnancies, where you end up raising the kid alone because your boyfriend runs out on you and that sort of thing. Or a young man, if you try to do the same, the right thing, you may end up still not married and you have to pay child support, you know, till you're like 30 or 35 or however old when you, and listen, if you wait, and you wait till you're married, you can have all the sex you want. Did you know that? That's God's will. See, God doesn't think sex is dirty. So if you think sex is dirty, there's something wrong with you. There's something wrong with these people passing these laws, these ecclesiastical laws, telling men not to have sex with their wives and not to beget children. They're sick. That's why it's called a doctrine of devils. That's not the Holy Spirit. Do you want to say something? It's the same spirit that wants to teach people about the perpetual virginity of Mary. Like, she's holy because she didn't have sex. It'd be dirty if after she had Jesus, her and Joseph had sex and had children, which they did. We don't even know how many children. They may have had as many as the Duggars by the time it's all over with. Look at Hebrews 13.4. Instead of just quoting it, I want you to turn there with me. Get my thing to work there so you can see it on there. Hebrews 13.4. Of course, we're not going to run all the references about this topic tonight, but I just want to lay some groundwork here. This is God's Word on it. If you're there, read it with me. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. See, marriage is honorable, and the bed is referring to the intimacy of sex between a man and a woman. When we say marriage, the Bible is always, only, ever talking about a man and a woman. Two men in bed together is a disgusting abomination. Two women in bed together, a disgusting abomination. And you take any combination of men, women, and whatever else outside of a man and a woman in marriage, in bed, having sex, is a disgusting abomination. But the marriage bed is undefiled. There's nothing dirty or nasty or anything about it. And these nuts in the Roman Catholic Church, there's something wrong with them. What? Yeah, there's some teaching on that. I don't go that far with it, but it is definitely something that God has ordained, you know, and it's a beautiful thing. It's not something to be ashamed of. And the reality is that priestly celibacy originates in the seducing spirits of Babylon. That's where it originates. This is from Alexander Hislop in his book, The Two Babylons. Quote, but every scholar knows that when the worship of Sibyl, the Babylonian goddess, was introduced into pagan Rome, it was introduced in its primitive form with its celibate clergy. That's where it originates. When the Pope appropriated to himself so much that was peculiar to the worship of that goddess, study the history of the Popes and Roman Catholicism, they incorporated these pagan acts of idolatry and worship into the Roman Catholic system. From the very same source, also he introduced into the priesthood under his authority the binding obligation of celibacy. Not from the Bible, it's from a sick man calling himself and being called Pope. They also call him Holy Father, which is blasphemous. Goes on to say, the introduction of such a principle into the Christian church had been distinctly predicted as one grand mark of the apostasy. And guess what he's going to refer to? This is Hislop talking. When men should depart from the faith and speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with the hot iron, should forbid to marry. That's what he's referring to in our text. The effects of its introduction were most disastrous. The records of all nations where priestly celibacy has been introduced have proved that, instead of ministering to the purity of those condemned to it, it has only plunged them in the deepest pollution. In other words, it's not God's will. Unless there's an exception. There are exceptions where people of their own will choose to be celibate. But that's voluntary. It's not by force. But in every other case, you take somebody who tries to fight their nature and fight this desire they have, and then they go into the priesthood, they end up abusing women and children. And it's a track record. Private intimacy between a married male and female is undefiled. But ironically, priests who do not marry but then engage in sex become the whoremongers and adulterers that God will judge in our text, Hebrews 13.4. It says, marriage is honorable and all, and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. I just call it ironic that those who teach this doctrine of devils, deny this marital situation, they become the whoremongers and the adulterers that God will judge. Isn't that something? And I could go on and on with these kind of headlines. These are just some recent ones. AG report details abuse allegations against 52 priests in one diocese in Lansing, Michigan. Folks, think of that. That's one little small area in that state up north. 52 priests abusing children sexually. This is in New Orleans. They covered up child rape. How the New Orleans Archdiocese protected a priest who prayed on children, prayed spelled P-R-E-Y. E.D. An elderly priest guilty plea exposes the church's history of shielding predators in its midst for decades. Now, of course, there's there's all kinds of people say, well, it happens in Baptist churches and Pentecostal churches. Yes, it does. But in each form, in each example of that, those are people who are doing it in spite of the teachings of their church. These priests are doing it as a consequence of the teachings of their church. See the difference? We denounce all forms of child abuse and child sexual abuse, no matter what name is on the door of the church or organization. But we also can look and see that on one side, you have doctrine that is producing it, while on the other hand, they have to go against the doctrine being taught. Big difference. And we could do a series of studies on the disgusting consequences of this doctrine of devils. This wasn't actually a Romish ecclesiastical law until the Middle Ages, by the way. A lot of Catholics try to act like, well, it's been that way since the beginning. No, it hasn't been that way since the beginning. It wasn't that way. The Catholic Church, by the way, didn't really come into existence until the fourth century. And it was about almost a thousand years later before this happened when it comes to the priests being required to be celibate. Jason Barry, of all things, he was quoted in the New York Times. The requirement of celibacy is not dogma. It is an ecclesiastical law that was adopted in the Middle Ages because Rome was worried that clerics' children would inherit church property and create dynasties. Isn't that amazing? So this resulted in rampant illegitimate births producing bastards, that's the biblical term for it, forcing Rome to ban such bastards from the priesthood for the same reasons stated above. So you had two things. First of all, you had all these babies being born out of wedlock and then so they would call them their nephews. It's well known there were untold thousands of nephews who then went into the priesthood themselves and were given titles and lands, and this was becoming then a kind of an oligarchy type of priesthood and cult. It is already a cult. But the Pope and some of the others in power say, we got to, as Barney would say, nip it in the bud, you know, because this was getting out of hand. And so that's why they passed these laws, not allowing any of those children who were born out of wedlock to become a priest until the 20th century. And then things have changed, so they did away with those laws. But this is the difference. The biblical teaching is voluntary celibacy versus enforced priestly order of celibacy. That's, again, the difference. We have the difference of doctrine causing it and then acts of opposition to the doctrine when it comes. But also, one form is an order, literally, and the other is voluntary when it comes to celibacy. Matthew 19.12, turn over there, look at what Jesus said here. about this just so we get it clear what the biblical teaching is. Matthew 19 verse 12, he's been talking about divorce and we'll come back to that in a minute, but verse 12 Read that with me. For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. So that's saying that these are people who voluntarily, or some were born without the ability to engage in marital relations. And so they choose not to get married because they can't consummate and procreate and all that. That's a sad thing. It's a one in a million thing, but it does happen. Then there are others who have just decided, as Paul, We'll see in a minute. He decided not to get married so that he could focus his attention on the ministry. But I want to remind you that I believe Paul knew he was gonna die real soon. And that played into his decision. Let's look at that. 1 Corinthians 7. And when it comes to marriage issues, you ought to make note of and always remember to read 1 Corinthians 7. Jesus deals with some things regarding marriage, but most of the time he's refuting error and confronting the Pharisees and the Sadducees with their error. So he's not really teaching about marriage. He's trying to confront the error and straighten things out. Whereas Paul, 1 Corinthians 7 is a long discourse. We don't have time to go through it all. But he says in verse 1 of chapter 7, now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me. So these were questions, people were like, they had a lot of questions about sex and marriage and all that. First century. It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, read verse 2 with me. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 30 years plus and I've had dozens of men over the years come to me and tell me that as a single man they struggle and they struggle with pornography or they struggle with the temptations and fornication and all that and I'm sorry I have one answer the answer for that is marriage and that's what the bible says and uh so Now it's not easy to find, it's getting harder and harder for Christians to find a good spouse, I give you that. But you should be praying about that and going and doing what you need to do to meet people to meet that need, if you have that need. Now, there's some people who don't. They're not bothered by being single. Then, you know, that's fine. But if you're having issues with it, you can't, you know... Well, we already talked about this earlier, but I want to read it now. Verse 3 says, "...let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence, and likewise also the wife unto the husband." That doesn't mean you curtsy and say, hello. This is due benevolence. It's talking about physical intimacy. And so that's what it's talking about. Read verse 4. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband. And likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Let me tell you something, the doctrine of devils gets into, I've seen it more in women than men, but I've seen it in men, and that is withholding intimacy from their partner, and then it's not an excuse, but it is a reason why that partner then falls into the temptations of pornography and sexual adultery. Why? Because God has given the cure, and if you're his wife, you're her husband, you're the cure. And if you're disobeying God and withholding your relations with that spouse, you're partially to blame when they get into sin. I mean, the buck stops with the guy or the gal who cheats, or most of the time it's men into pornography or whatever, but you have contributed if you have not done what God has told you to do in the Bible when it comes to this issue. You won't hear it preached very often, but that's what the Bible says. Look at verse 5, read that. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your income. See there? Satan will successfully tempt those who are married to somebody who is not willing to provide due benevolence, to use the nice language. And too often, a lot of young people, especially, they don't have this talked to them. And they get married, and then they see on TV that you can use sex for a weapon. And they try to use, you know, there are women right now who, because Kamala Harris lost, are telling their husbands they're not going to have sex with them because they voted for Trump. I mean, if you're to believe what you see out there, that's what's going on. Shame on them. Celibacy is simply unnatural and cruel unless voluntary or for health reasons or whatever. I want you to understand that whole statement. If it is not voluntary or it's for health reasons and such, it is unnatural and cruel. It is Yes, these guys voluntarily go into the priesthood, and so they bear that responsibility, but it's still a cruel and unnatural law within the Roman system to force people to do that. And we're still in 1 Corinthians. Look at verses 7-9. This is Paul teaching celibacy, but he doesn't ever try to force it. Verse 7, For I would that all men were even as I myself. He's unmarried at this point. But every man, by the way, I say that because there's evidence he was married. We don't know if his wife died or left him. He doesn't address it. But he was a Pharisee, and the Pharisees were supposed to be married. And we don't have a lot more information on that, but at this point he's single. And so we know that. He says, for I would that all men were even as I myself, but every man have this, his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that. I say, therefore, to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I am. See, it's all voluntary. But read verse 9 with me. But if they cannot contain, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn. That's not talking about hell. That's talking about burning with passion, with the natural desire for intimacy with the opposite sex. And it's better to marry than to burn. I mean, it's just, that's the cure. Anytime anybody's come to me, I've encouraged them to pray for a spouse, start looking, start making yourself available, but also don't wait till the right person comes along to straighten your life up and try to make yourself, you know, attractive to them. You know, some of these people I've known through the years, their lives are a mess, their finances are a mess, they're mentally, spiritually not growing in the Lord. And then when the right person comes along, suddenly they want everything to just snap in place and to be an attractive option for that other person, and they blow it. So there's all that. That's your premarital counseling in a nutshell there. So this is Pauline celibacy. But Paul never tied celibacy to the ministry and only ever advocated for voluntary celibacy. And that's all the difference in the world. Sadly, a lot of evangelicals forbid marriage for various other reasons. We've talked about that a few weeks ago, but number one, do you know there are some churches that if you marry outside of their little cult, I mean, some of these people profess to believe the gospel and have a same or similar statement of faith to us, but yet they have this more formal membership type system, and if you marry outside of that, you can get excommunicated, can't you? It is a blessing in disguise. Dismembered. I think disfellowshipped is what a lot of them call it. Listen, I'll tell you the truth. You shouldn't marry a non-Christian. If you come to me and I know something, and I say, well, you know what, you need to be very careful. That person's got some issues that, you know, I'll be honest with you. I won't tell you anything in confidence, but I'll tell you whatever is known, you know, and that sort of thing. But that's your ballgame. I'm not going to pick who you marry. I'm not going to try to tell you who to marry. Because like I've said many, many times, I don't want that responsibility. You marry that person, that was you. That's on you. You come back later saying, oh, I made a mistake. I say, well, maybe you did. I didn't have anything to do with it. Hey, man, give me that pot of water so I can wash my hands. You know, I'm not talking about anybody in the room. I've done a couple of weddings for folks here. Number two, excommunication for anyone remarrying ever. No matter what caused the divorce. There are churches who teach that all remarriage is sin. They're stupid, but they teach that. and someone, your spouse, could cheat on you, they could even get the divorce and pay for it, whatever the case may be, but even if you had biblical grounds, then they say, now you're doomed to spend the rest of your life alone. Unless they die. That's it. That's probably why there's a higher murder rate. I don't know if that's true or not. Number three, then, is disqualification from the ministry. for remarriage, even if divorced by the spouse without biblical grounds or that sort of situation. I was divorced in 2004 was final. I lived alone for a number of years and fought it for a while. Then I fought custody and won the custody and so forth. and then shortly after we were divorced, she died. It was a lot there. I won't get into all that, but let me tell you something. Before that, you know, I supported Noah Hutchings being in the ministry and Peter Ruppman being in the ministry and Walter Martin and C.I. Schofield deceased, but I supported his ministry. They were all divorced men and remarried, but the reason why I supported them was because they didn't cheat on their wives. They didn't do anything. Their spouses didn't have biblical grounds to divorce them. And Ruckman went through it twice. And the first time, he fought it all the way up to the Alabama State Supreme Court. People still didn't give him credit for trying to save his marriage. Second time, his wife ran off with his assistant pastor. And I like what John Rollins, wasn't that his name, down there at Landmark Baptist Church in Cincinnati, back when it was a King James Fundamental Church down in Cincinnati, and he had a fellow who was an evangelist, and his wife left him and divorced him, and so he came to John Rollins and he was quitting the ministry. because he was disqualified. He said, what'd you do to be disqualified? He said, well, my wife divorced me. I'll be divorced, I'll be disqualified. He said, the Bible never says that. He said, let me ask you something. Did God call you into the ministry or your wife? And he said, well, he called me in the ministry. You gonna quit the ministry because she quit? And I don't know if that guy stayed in the ministry. I never heard the rest of the story. But that's the question, you know, I tell people all the time, you know, preachers are called in the ministry, their wives. That's why I've never introduced my wife as my associate pastor. Women are not called in the ministry and they marry a man if they are unfaithful and they run off, then that man is free. So I can't go on and on about all this, but these are all doctrines of devils. The brother or sister who divorces an adulterous spouse is free to remarry. We were in Matthew 19. Sorry, I should have told you to keep your finger there, but I didn't even keep my own open. So let's go to Matthew 19 real quick. I want to move quickly. Matthew 19, 9. Look closely at what Jesus says here. People actually use this as a basis for telling people that if they're divorced, they can't remarry. Look what it says, "'And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery.'" So right there, Jesus says that if your spouse has cheated on you, committed adultery, and you get a divorce, this doesn't apply. But if you divorce her just because, you know, she burnt your toast, or whatever, some other reason that isn't biblical grounds, then you're in trouble. Is that clear? That's what it says. Amen. The brother or sister divorced by a spouse unwilling to reconcile is free to remarry and is not to be held in bondage by such satanic doctrines. We're back in 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 15. clearly says a couple things here. But if the unbelieving depart, what? Let them depart. I mean, we don't want to be too flippant about it, but you know what? When a woman looks at her husband and says, if you quit the ministry and quit church, I might stay. You know what I say? See ya. And I know I'll never have to, if I ever have to say that to her, you know, she's on, she's probably, I don't know, lost her mind or whatever, but I never, never expected to hear that at all. But I've heard other men go through the same thing. And you know what? Some of them quit the ministry. You know, I told, I had a conversation many years ago with a guy like that. And I said, you know, you made your wife, your God. You're, you're not serving the Lord. You're serving your wife. She's your little goddess. Nope. So think about this, though. Satanic celibacy, it's kind of counterintuitive, but Satan's endgame is perversion and death, including forced sterility, celibacy, and such. So he doesn't just want you to be a sex pervert. If that works, he'll do that. But if he can then get you to go the other way and become celibate, guess what? Many times you still turn out to be a sex pervert. See? But you also succeed in depleting the command to go forth and replenish the earth, be fruitful and multiply. You know, so he wants to end the human race. He loves death, celibacy, sterility, you know, that kind of thing with the vaccines going on, you know. Satan's behind that. So we must beware of such man-made, satanically inspired lies. Forbidding in Mary, but we're gonna talk about a couple more as we go through this book. But this is a memory verse of ours, Colossians 2.8. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. And a lot of religion is right there. A lot of religion isn't theology, it's philosophy, it's man-made philosophy, and of course, tradition. And that Roman Catholic cult, they're very open about how they trump, to use that word, the Bible with tradition. But of course, if you have two authorities, tradition and the Bible, you may say they're equal, but they're not. All you did was, as we've talked about before, you made yourself God. You get to choose which one's right and when. So Satan has a million traps, and the Bible beats them all. Real quick. What does it mean, the rudiments of this world? It just means the teachings and ideas of the world, worldly wisdom that isn't really wisdom. I just want to tell you, most of what you're getting with pop psychology is hogwash. And a lot of what you're getting in modern theology is hogwash. There's man-made things being brought in. You watch this stuff, they come out with a new movie about Mary, and it's filled with all that kind of stuff. And I just saw some clips from it, it's just ridiculous. And The Chosen, some of those things, filled with that stuff. It's not Bible. You know, if you sit there with your Bible open and pause it every time they're supposed to be teaching or they say something, you check it with the Bible, you see how often they go completely astray from the Word of God. Father, we thank you, Lord, for this time again in your book. We're so thankful that we have this infallible source with the help of your Holy Spirit to help us guard from those things that our traditions of men and rudiments of the world philosophy and vain deceit and we thank you lord for uh this local church and all the I don't know how many thousands around the world that do come in and study the Bible. They're far and few between, but they're out there, and we're thankful for every single one of them. Every man who stands in the pulpit and teaches with a faith in the book and directs people to the book, thank you so much for the fellowship that we have. And Lord, help us just to continue with that commitment. not only as we end this year and go into a new year if you tarry, but for as long as you tarry. In Jesus' name, Amen.