The Allure of Pet Doctrines

Well, good afternoon, brethren. Good to see you all here today.

Well, there’s been an interesting thing that’s occurred on the campus here lately. We’ve seen it, you’ve heard about it in messages more lately over the last few months and over the last year, and that is the subject of pets. We all have... those of us who are here at headquarters have heard more stories about pets than over the last number of years because I think a lot of people have gotten them, and it’s been fun to see; nice to be able to go pet these dogs and cats and things like this. I don’t own one myself because of the babies that we’ve got around the house, but there’s one member here at headquarters in particular who’s trying to persuade me to get Huskies for my daughters, and he’s so far failed at his task, but he’s really pushing for it. I think he wants them more for himself than for me, my family. He wants to come visit them himself.

Anyway, pets are a big subject on the campus, nowadays, and we’ve gotten a lot of dogs, a lot of cats, and we’ve, of course, had the horses. If you’re interested in horses, we have three of them. I grew up having a couple pets. We had two rabbits when I was a kid, but I wasn’t old enough to really connect with them or know much about them. They stayed in their cage. I vaguely remember my parents having to put a separation wall between the two of them because they fought a lot, so we don’t really... Then we got rid of them. I don’t remember having a lot of... We never had pets. We never had dogs, cats, or anything like this.

When I got into college, I think I had a little bit of a rebellious streak in me. I wanted to get some kind of a pet in the dorm room where you weren’t allowed to have pets, so I got a little snake. Me and my roommate got snakes, and the one snake ended up not faring so well in the cold snow, and the other one was handed off to a friend. The snake that I owned actually was given to a friend of mine because I didn’t want it anymore, and it ended up biting him. So I’m glad that these snakes got...we got rid of them. These weren’t very good pets, but it was more just for the sake of saying that we had something in the dorm that we weren’t allowed to have. That was really the whole point.

I didn’t have a lot of pets growing up, but I know people who did. I know people who own horses, who’ve owned horses for many, many, many years. They become almost part of the family. Same with dogs, cats, rabbits, and various other pets. They almost... You grow so close to these animals that it’s like they’re part of your family. They have a personality. You know what they’re going to do. You feel tender toward them when they get sick. You feel close to them, and you want to take care of them and nourish them and play with them and enjoy them as much as you enjoy seeing them enjoying your company as much as you enjoy their company themselves.

My wife had a lot of barn cats around the house, growing up that she was very fond of. They’d come and go. She never really owned any pets that she purchased. I guess she had dogs. She had some dogs, but they never really had any cats that they had purchased. They just came by, and they’d, all of a sudden, show up. To this day, my in-laws still have cats around the house, outdoor cats, whom they love.

There’s a wonderful video of my mother-in-law. I don’t want to tell too much about it, but this one cat, she’s calling for the cat. It’s such a great story. She’s calling for the cat, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, and the cat is just quietly walking right behind her. We’ve got this all on video, quietly walking right behind her, and she’s just calling out, Charlie, Charlie. It’s one of the greatest videos I ever saw. It’s so sweet. But people love their pets.

Mr. Habboush has talked a lot about his pets growing up. There was one in particular that he was most fond of. It was a Japanese bobtail cat, and I asked him, why was it that you grew so close to it? And he said, “Well, what happened one day was it got hit by a car, and it broke its hip. The vets gave him basically three options.” He wasn’t particularly... He enjoyed this cat beforehand, but once the cat broke its hip, he became very close to it and had three different options. One was they could put it down. Two, they could go through this massive surgery that would cost thousands of dollars, which they didn’t really have or were able to afford at the time. But then three, they could keep the cat for a couple months in a very tight and confined area. Maybe he’s explained this story before, but, of course, he chose the third option. So, he kept this cat in a very confined box, a cage in his room.

Over the course of the next couple of months, the cat became extremely affectionate, extremely caring, and Mr. Habboush grew very close to this cat as well. And then when it was out and healed, the cat just was a totally different cat. It was very affectionate, very loving, and he grew so close to that cat because of that. And you see these animals; they’ve got a spirit in them. They’ve got a personality to them, and God says that they have a spirit in them. We don’t know whether it goes up or down, but truly God says that we ought to regard the life of the beast that we own. We ought to regard the life of the animals that we own. He wants us to take care of them. He wants us to care for them and nurture them and deal with them almost not like they are another human being, but pretty close. Pretty close.

I know people who probably spend more time with their cats than they do their own human children. So it’s amazing how God has created this bond, you could say, between a pet and its owner. Proverbs twelve, ten, and I’ll just read it to you here, it says this, “A righteous man regards the life of his beast.” He regards it. He cares for it. He lends to them, enjoys their company.

So why do I bring up the subject of pets? Well, this is an introduction to a subject that is, it’s one that you’ve probably heard the term before, but the subject we’re going to get into today is that of pet doctrines. Maybe many of you have heard this term, pet doctrines. It’s used in the Church today, and it’s one that we’re going to discuss in great detail. So what are pet doctrines? What are they? Why are they important? Why is it important for us to talk about them today? They’re not something we necessarily hear a lot about, but it is a term that we do use in the Church. What are they exactly?

Well, a pet doctrine is, think of it almost like a pet. It’s a doctrine that somebody has sort of created in their own mind. If I go off and I start studying some subject in the Bible, and I see something and I’m thinking, “Wow, this is kind of interesting. This is an interesting subject to get into.” It can maybe be a kind of a speculative topic. I start reading into something and I see something that maybe we’ve never talked about before or heard about, or it’s a little bit different from what we’ve taught in the Church before. But I really find it interesting, and I think I’m going to keep studying it a little bit further.

This is the origins of what you could call a pet doctrine, something that somebody starts to find interest in in their own mind, but it’s not necessarily something that’s been taught in the Church before, nor is it necessarily something that aligns with Church doctrine itself. You know, there’s this thing called speculation. We’ve all heard about it in the Church. There’s a difference between speculating on something and getting into a pet doctrine. Speculation is understood as when you’re in discussion with other people or you’re thinking on your own, meditating on God’s Word. Speculation is something where you think about something that you can’t necessarily prove, but it’s fun to think about.

Think about the kingdom. There’s a lot of things we can speculate about with respect to the kingdom of God coming, what it’s going to be like, what our roles are going to be like, what will it be like in the God family, how will we administer this government across all mankind? There are lots of things we can speculate on, how it will function, and these kinds of things that we can’t necessarily prove, but it’s fun to think about them. It’s fun to get into discussions, and it’s good to get into discussions. It keeps our minds nimble. It keeps our minds sharp and focused on the things above as opposed to things on this earth.

So speculation is very good. Where it crosses the line into pet doctrine, is when our speculations begin to take root and say, you know, “I don’t think that this is actually just an idea or something. This is something that I actually believe is going to happen,” and it’s in contrast to established Church doctrine. That’s where a pet doctrine comes in. Pet doctrines are a nice way to say heresy. Heresy.

You know, I think about a pet doctrine, why I introduced the message with how wonderful it is to have pets. How special it is to have pets. Why is it that people spend so much time with pets? Because they love them, they cherish them, they nurture them. They want to grow a close bond to that animal. Pet doctrines are exactly the same. A pet doctrine is something that you have decided, I want to nourish, I want to nurture it. I want to cherish it. I want to raise it from a puppy, from a small puppy. This small idea that I might have in my mind about something that is contrary to what we already believe or teach, but begins with speculation, and it can begin with, I like this little puppy over here. This puppy is wonderful. It’s soft, I can pet it.

Maybe you find a couple other verses in the Bible that can kind of support, at least in your mind, what it is that your idea is. And you want to feed it on a daily basis. You want to take it to the vet. You want to give it its shots. You want to make sure that you spend, maybe you’re not like Mr. Habboush and you decide, I’m going to go all out and I’m going to spend thousands of dollars on the surgery to make sure that the hip is back in place properly.

Maybe you want to walk them in the freezing cold. Nobody wants to do that, but you do if it’s a dog or... you don’t walk cats, but if it’s a dog that you love, you’ll take it out in the cold winter and you’ll take it to do its business. You’ll want to cuddle them, and they’ll become part of the family. That’s exactly what a pet doctrine is like. A pet doctrine starts out small and it grows in your mind. Grows in importance, grows in size, and again, it’s different from speculation. Heresy is a stronger term for a pet doctrine. Heresy goes beyond speculation and becomes something held to as truth in your own mind, but that is contrary to Church doctrine.

Now curiously, we live in the Laodicean era. We all know that. We live in the Laodicean era. The environment we are sitting in and dwelling in breeds this kind of thinking. Four hundred splinter groups have been created in part because of pet doctrines. Consider that. Ideas that they wanted to hold to, whether it’s little things like it could be makeup or it could be... I was going on another big splinters website recently just to see what it is that they’re teaching these days. And I saw right on the front of their website, the very few doctrines that they list, get into the Sabbath, they say, “Oh, the Sabbath and the holy days,” that’s fine. Then they got into the gospel.

When I clicked into the gospel, immediately, on the very front page of this website, says that, of course, Jesus Christ Himself, His suffering, His death, all of that, His resurrection, what He went through and all of that, that that symbolizes, is part of the gospel. But it’s more than that. It’s about the kingdom of God as well. And I thought to myself, this is astonishing.

It might seem like, “Oh, well, it’s just... they’re just saying that Jesus Christ being part of the gospel is the gospel. It goes beyond that to include the kingdom of God. Brethren, that is not the gospel. The gospel does not include Jesus Christ. It is not about Jesus Christ. It is about the coming kingdom of God and the government that is going to be established on earth.

I was shocked when I saw that. That is a pet doctrine, if you could, that crept into one of the biggest subjects in the Bible, which is that of what is the gospel. Never mind that if we teach a false gospel, if you teach a false gospel, you’re bringing a double curse on yourself. How dangerous it is to meddle with the gospel. It’s just, “Oh, it’s just a little element of the gospel. It’s no big deal. It’s just a pet doctrine. It’s just this little puppy that I can pet over here. It’s fine. Just leave him alone. He’ll be fine. It’s no problem.”

Pet doctrines abound in the Laodicean era. They abound. They’re everywhere. Every single group that you see that broke off of the Worldwide Church of God held to certain elements of what the Tkaches taught coming out when they took over the Worldwide Church of God. That’s why it’s the Laodicean era. They’re not holding fast to what Mr. Armstrong taught. They’re holding fast to a lot of what Mr. Armstrong taught with some bits and pieces of what the apostates taught, who eventually went back full-on to Protestantism.

Throughout the Sabbath and the Law and the God of the Bible, the Trinity, they went back to the Trinity. They threw out everything. So that’s where pet doctrines can become very deceptive. Might see the term in and of itself seems a bit deceptive. It’s like, “Oh, it’s just a pet doctrine. It’s just a pet doctrine. It’s nothing big. No, brethren, it’s heresy. It’s false thinking. It’s wrong. It’s like taking a pet and looking at it and seeing that you have this pet, you think that it’s wonderful, you think, “Oh, this is just such a great pet, nothing harmful about it, no problems with it.” But it’s like taking a pet and looking at it, nurturing it up, building it up, only to find out that it has rabies. And once you realize that it has rabies, you decide, “Oh, I’m still going to keep it.” Even though you know that eventually it could bite you and kill you, it’s like having a rabid dog.

Pet doctrines are deadly. Heresies are deadly. It’s not like buying a marmoset, like what Mr. Habboush just recently came in contact with at the thrift store. It’s not like a little marmoset, “Oh, it’s so cute, so cute and sweet.” It’d be like going out and deciding, rather than buying a marmoset or buying a puppy or a kitten, to go out and buy a swarm of mosquitoes or something. That’s what you decided. That’s my new pets. I’m going to keep an entire room in my house for this swarm of mosquitoes. I’m going to make sure there’s some standing water over here.

Oh, I’ve got these beautiful mosquitoes. You could bring people over to show them your mosquitoes. You spend time on them, make sure that you nurture them. Brethren, nobody would ever spend time buying a swarm of mosquitoes and tending to them, making sure that they have lots of standing water, to make sure that there’s eggs that are being hatched over here in the corner and more mosquitoes can come from it. Nobody thinks that way. But we have to see pet doctrines like that. Like we’re going out and buying, not a puppy, but a swarm of mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes are the number one killer on earth. They suck blood and then transmit it to others. They’re the worst, they’re the most terrible, disgusting creatures. I imagine God created them, but it wouldn’t be a far fetch to think that maybe Satan created them, not sure, but I’m just kidding, of course. But we don’t know, we don’t even know what the benefits of mosquitoes are. You can look it up. There are no known benefits to mosquitoes. That’s how we have to view pet doctrines. We have to look at them like they’re a brood of mosquitoes, something that has no real redeemable value to you.

At least if we think of a pet doctrine, and we think of a puppy or something, there’s at least, even if it got rabid, you could still have a certain kind of affection toward it. Oh, the poor thing, it’s rabid, it’s whatever. But eventually you’d have to put it down. But there’s no redeemable value to having mosquitoes. That’s what heresy, that’s what a pet doctrine is like. False thinking that may seem harmless on the surface, but it’s deadly, deadly underneath.

Turn over to First Corinthians chapter eleven. We’re just going to spend a bit of time first on this idea, the subject of what is a pet doctrine exactly. We got to understand the seriousness of it. I know you know what it is now, but I want you to understand the gravity of them. If I leave you without understanding the gravity of a pet doctrine, of a heresy, getting into this stuff, I’ve not done my job. I want you to understand what they are exactly, and just how serious they are, before we get into how to prevent them.

Turn over to First Corinthians chapter eleven. First Corinthians chapter eleven, and verse seventeen, we’ll pick it up, First Corinthians eleven, seventeen. “Now in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not that you come together not for the better but for the worse...” First of all, when you come together in the Church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. There are divisions among the Corinthian brethren. “...for there must also be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.”

God inspired Paul to tell the brethren that he heard that there were divisions, and tied to those divisions was heresy. That heresy had crept into the Corinthian congregation. And Paul said something fascinating about it. He said, heresy must come, he said, but there must also be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest. What he was saying was, heresies are inevitable in God’s Church. They are going to come. Most of the time, except for during the apostasy, they don’t often come from the pulpit. They don’t often come from the top government, you know, they don’t often come from the top of the government down, like they did under the Tkaches in the Worldwide Church of God. That’s horrendous when that happens.

When heresy comes in from the very top of the government, and is spread through the rest of the Church, it destroys the Church utterly, and it creates the Laodicean era. But most of the time where pet doctrines and heresies come in are through individuals. It could be through one of the brethren. It could be through the minister in the congregation, which is terrible, not good. Absolutely not good.

But what we’re learning here is that heresies have to come. You and I will at some point in God’s way experience or come across, brush shoulders with a heresy that has come through the congregation or come through an individual in the congregation. We will, because that’s what Paul says. So the question becomes, what do we do about it? The heresy could come through us. It could come through us as individuals. That’s where the danger is, brethren.

We have to be alert to heresy both coming from our own minds or heresies coming from around us in the Church. Because this is a way that God tests us, to prove us, to see whether or not we are holding fast to the truth, whether or not we have proven that this is God’s Church, whether or not we have proven the doctrines of the Bible and will hold to them. Heresies must come through the Church. It’s inevitable.

Turn to Galatians chapter five. Galatians five, verse seventeen. Just pick it up in nineteen, actually. Now the works of the flesh are manifest. They’re obvious. The works of the flesh, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like.

Heresies are a work of the flesh. What does that mean? What it means, brethren, is naturally we are bent to want to fall into heresy. The carnal mind is enmity against God. It hates God. So therefore, what it loves, if you flip it on its head, what the carnal mind loves is the things that are against God, including any form of heresy. The carnal mind loves heresy. The natural mind loves it. It’s part of the works of the flesh. We love things that are different. We love things that, “Oh, wow, I found this special thing that’s different from what the Church teaches.” That’s what human nature loves.

Doesn’t want to fit in with the rest of everybody necessarily, but it wants to stick out. It wants to say, “I found something special. I found something unique. I found something different from what the Church teaches.” And that comes natural. And while pet doctrines or heresy may seem, again, innocuous on the surface, just go back to the idea of having a little puppy, it may seem innocuous on the surface, but it’s extremely, pet doctrines and heresy are extremely erosive.

Let’s turn over to Second Timothy chapter two. Let’s look at an example of heresy, pet doctrines that crept into the Church back in the first century. Second Timothy chapter two and verse fifteen, verse fourteen, “Of these things put them in remembrance...” This is Paul speaking to Timothy, who was an evangelist. “Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.”

Now we’re going to go verse by verse here. This passage is packed full of fascinating things that absolutely tie to pet doctrines and heresy creeping in. “Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit...” Pet doctrines often become, come into being because people are worried about striving about, have contentions or disagreements about little picky words, little nothings in the Bible, strivings about mats, basically, stuff that doesn’t matter, but nevertheless they occurred. People were striving about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.

Here’s Paul’s advice, “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Understand God’s Word and use it correctly, but shun profane and vain babblings.” Babblings means fruitless discussions, stuff that just doesn’t bear any fruit. Babblings about your idea of over here, about what this Greek or Hebrew word can mean and how it could change the way that we view certain things. Forget that stuff. Forget it. It’s unprofitable and vain, empty, unfruitful, but shun it. So shun it. Get rid of it.

“And their word will eat as does a canker.” We’ve all had cankers in our mouths, or canker sores, or the word canker actually means, actually means, believe it actually means cancer. It’ll eat like cancer. When a pet doctrine creeps its way into the Church, just like cancer, it will start to spread. It’ll start to eat the host and spread. Not good. We’re the body of Christ and if we allow the heresy of cancer, you know, cancerous heresy to creep into the body of Christ, it will spread through the body. That’s the way that it works.

And here’s the point, verse seventeen, the last half, of whom Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection has passed already and overthrew the faith of some. We have an exact example in the Bible from Hymenaeus and Philetus of a pet doctrine that actually crept into the Church in the first century. And we know what that pet doctrine was.

Their pet doctrine was saying the resurrection is over. Christ was already resurrected. We don’t have any more details, so maybe they thought, “Oh, well, there were Old Testament saints that were resurrected at Christ’s... at the end of the three days and three nights when Christ was in the grave. The resurrection is over.” That was their pet doctrine. They didn’t believe that there was a resurrection coming up in the future.

Their heresy that spread like a canker, or cancer, ended up overthrowing the faith of some, as it says at the end of verse eighteen. This is why it is so extremely dangerous to get into this stuff. It’s so dangerous. It’s dangerous for you personally, because it can destroy your eternal life, because you can start to hold to false thinking that will end up taking you out of the Church. But where it’s even more dangerous is the fact that inevitably, brethren, and I’ll get more into this in a minute, misery loves its company.

If you’re an island alone with your idea, this “wonderful” new idea that you have, this new heretical idea that you have, you want to share it with other people and become, get their, you know, become engaged with them. Because ultimately, what we’re seeing here is heresy creates disunity. It creates division in the Church. It divides people. It creates strife and contention. It makes people into... it turns the Church into factions, which is exactly what we’re seeing today in the Laodicean era. It’s no different. That’s why we’re seeing it. We’re just seeing a biblical prescription of what led to the Laodicean era as we see it to this day. It divides us. And we must not let this cancer grow.

First Timothy one and verse eighteen, just go back a couple pages. First Timothy one, eighteen proves that this person, Hymenaeus, had to be put out of the Church because of these things. “This charge I commit unto you, Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on you, that you by them might war a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning the faith have made shipwreck...” This is what happens when you fall into heresy. You put away your conscience and you shipwreck your conscience. “...of whom Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, put them out of the Church that they may learn not to blaspheme.”

Paul had hoped that they could come back from it, which is also another wonderful thing to consider. It’s not like when somebody falls into heresy they’re doomed forever. Paul put them out of the Church so that the sting of being separated from the body of Christ would take effect, and in hopes that maybe they would repent of their heresy, their pet doctrines, and come back. But that’s what pet doctrines ultimately lead to, is being put out of the Church.

Now here’s the real danger of falling into heresy. Turn over to Proverbs chapter six. The real danger of falling into heresy, and I just covered it briefly, is that it diametrically opposes unity. When we fall into heresy, we are falling into a way of separating ourselves. If this is the rest of the congregation, we’re separating ourselves from the congregation. We’re separating ourselves from the body of Christ in this one area, in this idea. The thing is, if you think about it, misery loves its company. This person over here who got into this heresy doesn’t like being over here alone. He liked the unity that he had before when he was with the rest of the congregation, but he also really likes his new idea.

So what does he do? What does this person over here do, decide? Well, maybe I’ll hold to my idea, but I’ll kind of come over here and talk with one of these brethren over here, see how to kind of throw the line out, cast the line out, and see if they take it. “Oh, that’s an interesting idea. I like what you’re having to say. You know what? The Church doesn’t teach that, but there it is. I see it in the Bible.” Not considering all the verses on the Bible, by the way. They’re just looking at two or three, or they’re striving about words, or whatever it is.

So now this one person becomes two. Oh, I’ve got people with me on this. And then two becomes three and four, and eventually you’ve got this division in the Church where you’ve got a group over here who believe this one thing, and a group over here who believe the opposite. Brethren, that’s the danger. That’s where division comes in, and it must be stopped. That’s why it’s cancerous, it grows.

Proverbs chapter six and verse sixteen. Check this out. Wow, what a fascinating series of verses we’re going to go through here. Proverbs six and verse sixteen says this. These, brethren, there are memory verses in the Bible. I’d encourage you, I haven’t had this as a memory verse before, but after thinking about it this way and looking at it, these next few verses should or could become powerful memory verses because of what they say.

Look at this. “These six things does the Lord hate.” If God says He hates something, and He means hates it, we ought to... our ears should perk up. What does God hate? “Yes, seven are an abomination unto Him.” Oh, okay. Let’s really look and see what we’re about to see. God hates “a proud look.” We haven’t gotten into this subject yet, but one of the things that breeds the environment, an environment that breeds pet doctrines is that of being proud, having pride, thinking your ideas mean something more than they really are, valuing your ideas and your thoughts greater than they really should. Pride is a massive way to fall into pet doctrines. So having a proud look, God hates it. God absolutely thinks it’s an abomination, having a proud look. But a proud look can lead to pet doctrines.

“A lying tongue.” What is a pet doctrine? It’s a heresy. It’s fallacy. It’s wrong. “A lying tongue. Hands that shed innocent blood.” When we have pet doctrines, we not only want to have them ourselves, but we want to drag other people in with us and kill them spiritually as well. Misery loves its company. Every single one of these points ties to pet doctrines. And God hates it.

Verse eighteen, “a heart that devises wicked imaginations.” You’re literally creating evil things. That’s what a pet doctrine is. You’re creating and devising with intent things that are wicked in your imagination. That’s what a pet... it’s literally a pet doctrine right there. “Feet that are swift and running to mischief…” again, going and quickly going off and trying to find these ideas and then share them with other people. “A false witness that speaks lies.” You know in your heart of hearts that this may be wrong, but you grab onto it, and you hold onto it, and you’re lying to yourself. “And he that sows discord among brethren.” All of those things relate to and connect with pet doctrines. And God hates them all.

It’s one thing if the things that we choose to do in life end up hurting us or killing us in the end. People can choose to go skydiving or in these wingsuits now where they narrowly... you see them flying with wingsuits between mountains, in small valleys between mountains, missing massive rocks, flying... I don’t know how fast they’re flying, probably sixty or a hundred miles... Who knows how fast they’re going? They’re going very, very, very fast through these mountains, and they just very narrowly miss hitting rocks and all of these things. That person probably at some point will miscalculate something or hit the wind in the wrong way or whatever, and they know that they’re taking their life in their hands. They know that they could potentially die from this.

But it’s one thing to choose certain things, paths in life, where you know that you could personally die from it, but it’s a whole different thing when the choices that you make could potentially affect other people, where you’re not the only one in the wingsuit now. You’ve got five or ten other people that you’ve dragged behind you that you are taking through that mountain as well. And if you die, they’re going to die too. When we fall into pet doctrines, we’re not just harming ourselves, we’re harming those around us as well. Spiritually, potentially eternally harming them.

Now what makes RCG, The Restored Church of God so special and sets us apart from the Splinters is that we all speak with the same voice. You can go to Abu Dhabi, or you can go to Perth, or you can go to anywhere in India, anywhere in Africa, anywhere around the world, and hear God’s brethren, sweet brethren, and ministers all speaking the same thing. Of course, heresies can come in. That’s the whole point. But we are unlike a lot of these other organizations that allow and almost encourage. Some of these Splinter groups encourage you to write in papers to see where it is that they may be doctrinally off. They submit what are called white papers to the headquarters so that they can change their doctrine. It’s unbelievable. That’s not how God’s government works. That’s not how God has functioned through his government.

We all talk and walk with unity in God’s Church. But pet doctrines create separation from us and the rest of the Church. And inevitably you will want to share them with others. So before we get into the environments that we can have to cultivate or bring about these pet doctrines, how do we spot them? How do we spot a pet doctrine? How do we spot one either in ourselves or in the brethren around us? Because we know that they’re going to come through the Church. Paul said so.

Somebody recently left the Church with a pet doctrine. It was a big pet doctrine, potentially damaging to other brethren. But thankfully, one of the brethren spoke up. You could wish that more of the brethren would have spoken up. Why was it that only one of the brethren, two of the brethren technically, husband and wife, why was it that only two of them spoke up and not the entire congregation when they heard what was said? We all need to be vigilant, watching for these things.

And here was a key phrase that this man said right as he was about to spew a pet doctrine on the rest of the congregation. He said, “I know what I’m about to say will get me in trouble.” And then he vomited. “I know what I’m about to say will get me in trouble.” That’s a sure sign that what you’re about to hear is going to be heresy. You know why we get them in trouble? Because it’s contrary to what we teach, what the Bible teaches.

Such as when we say doctrines, brethren, we’re not just saying what the Church teaches. No, the Church teaches what the Bible teaches, what God teaches, what has been established for decades from starting with Mr. Armstrong and under Mr. Pack now. The truths of the Bible are what they are. When we speak of heresy, we’re not just talking about things that are contrary to what the Church teaches. These are heresies. These are contrary to what the Bible teaches. We can’t conflate those two things.

So when this man said, “I know this will get me in trouble, but blah, blah, blah,” that’s a sure sign that what you’re about to hear is heresy. What are some other signs of heresy? How do you spot heresy if you hear it?

Matthew twenty-three. This subject gets me fired up. It’s so important. It’s so dangerous because it can just take people out like that. Can take people out instantly. Matthew twenty-three and verse twenty-three. Here’s another way to spot heresy. It says, “Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint, anise and cummin and you’ve omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, faith. These ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone.”

Of course, the Pharisees were getting into tithing and the specifics and pickiness of the tithing. He’s saying, Paul’s saying, you should tithe, but your focus is in the wrong stuff. You need to focus on the bigger picture, the weightier matters. If we see people who are constantly, endlessly, never able to talk about anything except for these little, tiny, picky things, or maybe they’re questioning what it is that’s being taught because they saw some little micro verse here, some micro verse there, and they’re just simply not focused on the big picture, that’s a great way to start to see that heresy can come in.

If we see it in ourselves, if all we’re studying are just the micro elements of doctrine, whatever it could be, and we’re not thinking about the big picture enough, we’re not going back and restudying faith, we’re not going back and studying all kinds of matters of the law, we’re not going back and studying the big things of the Bible, and we’re only focused on the little things, that’s dangerous. And that’s a way to spot how pet doctrines can come in.

Titus chapter three, Titus chapter three, verse nine, “But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law for they’re unprofitable and vain. A man that’s a heretic, after the first and second admonition reject,” heresy comes from strivings about the law, strivings about picky things, defined by Paul to Titus. Heresies come from those things. So that’s how you know that if we are getting into heresy ourselves or we spot heresy around us, it’s because we’re spotting people who are just only focused on the little things of the Bible, the inconsequential stuff that they turn into a big thing, stuff that’s maybe a tiny little, like you’ve heard the mountain to a mole hill, they turn a mole hill into a mountain, or an anthill into a mountain.

And here’s the other thing, here’s the last way to spot false doctrines. Go to Acts chapter seventeen, Acts seventeen, verse sixteen. Now this is Paul when he was in Greece, Athens. Here’s what he saw. “Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred up in him when he saw a city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout persons in the market daily with them that met with him. When certain philosophers of the Epicureans and the Stoics encountered him, and some said, ‘What will this babbler say?’ Other some said, ‘He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods.’”

They were intrigued by what Paul was saying, because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. “And they took him and brought him to Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new doctrine whereof you speak is? For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We would know therefore what these things mean.’”

Paul was bringing the truth, the truth of the Bible and of God and the creator God and Christ. He was bringing the truth of those things to people who had never heard it before. To them it was new and strange doctrine. But you and I know the truth of the Bible. We know the doctrines of the Bible. But nevertheless, a danger for all of us, because heresies is part of human nature, it’s part of the way of man, Paul warned about these new doctrines, these new, strange things. Because we love things to be new. We don’t like, naturally speaking, we don’t like doing the same thing over and over and over again.

But at a point, once we’re in God’s Church for long enough, you come to realize that doctrines are what they are. The truths of the Bible are what they are. They’re not going to change. There’s nothing new about keeping the holy days, new about keeping the Sabbath. What can be new and exciting is how we explain them, how we look at them. Maybe there’s certain ways that we view the Bible that we’ve never seen before that support doctrines that we already believe. That’s wonderful. But we can’t bring new doctrines in to kind of get us excited and intrigued in these kinds of things.

So new is not wrong if it’s coming from God’s apostle. I wanted to say that because truth comes to the Church through God’s apostle. Truth couldn’t have been established through Mr. Armstrong, nor Mr. Pack, if we were to just never look at the Bible with a fresh set of eyes in certain regards. But that’s not anyone’s responsibility other than God’s apostle. So, I say that because, obviously, truth does have to come back in.

The Sardis era lost almost everything with respect to the truths of the Bible. Mr. Armstrong had to separate from Sardis and teach things that were different from Sardis because he was an apostle and had the ability to restore the doctrines back to the Church just like Mr. Pack is doing the same thing today, restoring the truths back to God’s people that had been lost or maybe even never known before. So that’s how you spot false doctrine.

Now we know that, imagine we’ve got this, let’s just take this mosquito parable or example a little further now. There are ways that you can and environments that you can have in your life that encourage the growth and the breeding of mosquitoes in your life, meaning pet doctrines, or there are ways and things that you can do in your life to discourage the mosquitoes from growing. Now that’s the remainder of the message, we’re just going to cover the things to watch out for in your own personal life, the environments in your own personal life that can encourage pet doctrines to come up, that can encourage heresies to come, and then we’re going to follow that with ways to discourage heresies and cut them off and stop them, quench them, how to get rid of them.

So the first point in the environment that breeds heresy is isolation. Proverbs chapter eighteen. Proverbs eighteen. Isolation is a difficult subject because in God’s Church today, a lot of brethren are isolated, not because of desire, not because we want to be isolated, not because we choose to be isolated, but because we are so scattered and we’re a little flock. That’s what God had prophesied would occur at the end of the age, that we’d be a little flock. “Fear not, little flock, it’s your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

We are not destined to become a massive Church where everybody in the Church has a congregation of five, ten, or thirty, or a hundred. That’s not the way that it will be at the end of the age. So by nature, by definition, we’re going to be somewhat isolated. Thankfully, we live in the twenty-first century, and we can be very grateful for that because eras past, if you knew the truth and you were alone, you could even just think of fifty or a hundred years ago, the most you had was telephone, but even a hundred years ago, nothing. You didn’t have the ability to communicate with people regularly across seas. Never mind being able to see their face at an instant.

We can be very thankful for the technology in the era that we live in, but nevertheless, if we sink too comfortably into the isolation that we have, which can be possible, if we find that we’re alone a lot, away from the brethren, away from our minister, not spending enough time with them, or not choosing to spend enough time with them because we can contact one another very easily nowadays, and we ought to. That’s the important lesson from this. Proverbs chapter eighteen and verse one explains the danger of isolation.

Now the King James reads, “Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeks and intermeddles with all wisdom.” It’s not a very clear way of putting it. The New King James is much better. Let me read what the New King James says, “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire and he rages against all wise judgment.” When we isolate ourselves, and choose to do so, inevitably, we’re left with our own imaginations and our own desires and our own thoughts. And pet doctrines, this verse perfectly explains this, pet doctrines can erupt, can be created.

A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire. That’s dangerous. That is an environment that we don’t want to put ourselves in if we don’t have to. That’s why I say it’s good that we contact the brethren. We live in the twenty-first century. Take advantage of the fact that we have team hub. We’ve got lots of different opportunities on social media and to contact one another. We can get one another’s phone numbers. We can FaceTime with one another, Skype with one another, Teams with one another. We can do all kinds of things to make sure that we’re engaging with the brethren.

Because here’s the thing, when we engage with the brethren, the more we do that, the less opportunity we have to fall into our own bad ideas. The more we’re reinforced with the good ideas, the things that Spokesman Club encourages. If you haven’t been part of Spokesman Club and you’re a man, we live in the twenty-first century. You can be part of Spokesman Club. It doesn’t matter where you are. There’s a club out there for you because everything is being done digitally these days. There are ways that we can connect with brethren to ensure that we are not staying isolated and potentially dangerously falling into pet doctrines.

Here’s the second point, the second part of the environment. We talked about this a little bit earlier. Pride. If we have great pride in ourselves or we think too highly of ourselves or our opinions, that is a very dangerous thing when it comes to falling into heresy. It can be very easy for us to see our ideas as being something more than they really are. The real danger with heresy is we look at one verse or two verses and we say, “Oh, that’s it. I’ve got a brand-new idea.” But we’re not considering the vast amounts of the Bible that probably disprove that idea. Particularly in prophecy, it’s very easy.

This is why Mr. Pack, what he has to go through is so challenging because even as God’s apostle, putting together one-third of the Bible in such a way that it’s a puzzle that we know are going to have missing parts at the end of it because we still see through a glass darkly. So putting together an incomplete puzzle to begin with is incredibly challenging. And it ought to not be really taken on by anyone other than God’s apostle. That’s where if we have ideas that are different from particularly in prophecy, it’s so easy to find, “Well, look at this one verse. It says such and such and such and such that’s different from what the Church...”

Are you considering the five hundred other verses that contradict that? Because that’s where it gets very dangerous. Prophecy in particular. So if you start to see yourself diving into the minutia of prophecy yourself in such a way that’s differing or trying to find a new angle on something, whoa, don’t do that. Don’t do that. It’s not good. It can lead to very dangerous things because prophecy is very, very, very challenging. It’s not easy. And it’s meant to be challenging. It’s meant to hide the truth of what God is going to do from the masses so that they will be snared and taken by it.

But if we think too highly of ourselves, let’s turn over to Second Timothy chapter three, if we think too highly of ourselves, it can be very easy to allow ourselves to think that our new idea has great meaning and purpose. Second Timothy chapter three, verse one. These are the things that are, of course, happening in prophecy, but they have application today. These, of course, these things can apply today as well. “This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. Men will be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, love themselves, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away.”

These people who are proud and think highly of themselves, high-minded it says in verse four, they have a form of godliness. They look like they’re being godly, but they’re utterly treacherous. But they deny the truth. They deny God and the power in His government. From such turn away, Paul told Timothy. Turn away from these people that look godly.

People aren’t going to come up with false doctrines and look like they’re atheists. They’re going to come up with false doctrines and look like they’re godly. They’re going to look like they’re something when they’re not. From such turn away, God says. Turn away from that pride. That’s why God says, I hate these things. The six things I hate, seven things are an abomination. He hates pride. He hates it when people think too highly of themselves. Because He knows where it leads. He knows that it will lead to false ideas that will try and sway other people away from the truth.

Now here’s the third part of the environment that can breed these pet doctrines, these mosquitoes, these horrendous mosquitoes. Lack of knowledge. Proverbs nineteen. Proverbs nineteen, we’ll just read one verse. In verse one, excuse me, verse two, if we lack knowledge, if we’re just, out of ignorance, because we don’t know the doctrines of the Bible, it’s so much easier to fall into false doctrines. It’s easier to be persuaded by false doctrines. If we don’t have an incredibly solid foundation ourselves, if we don’t know the doctrines of the Bible ourselves, one great defense against false doctrine is study your word. Study the word of God.

Don’t let just a vacancy of the truth in your mind to be filled with false doctrines. Fill your mind with the truth so that you’re then equipped to fight against false doctrine when they come. But if we are in ignorance of false doctrine, it’s easy for us to say, “Oh, well, that’s a vacant thought in my mind, I’m going to let that false doctrine just enter right in. No big deal.”

And in a good conscience, you’ll let it in there because you didn’t know the truth. Here’s the thing. Proverbs chapter nineteen and verse two. Also, verse one, “Better is the poor that walks in his integrity than he that is perverse in his lips and is a fool. Also that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good. And he that haste with his feet sins.” To be without knowledge is not good. It’s not a good place to be in. We have to know the doctrines of God. We have to know the truths of the Word of God.

So now that we’ve covered these breeding grounds for pet doctrines, what can we do to eradicate them? What can we do to make sure that the environment that we have in our mind doesn’t breed these mosquitoes? What can we do? It’s the three contrary things to the three problems that we just saw. The first issue we just saw was isolation. So what do we do in order to no longer be isolated? Pretty simple. Talk to the brethren. Talk to one another. Talk to your minister.

Ecclesiastes chapter four. Should be just a few pages ahead. Ecclesiastes four and verse nine. Talking to the brethren, Ecclesiastes four, nine says this. “Two are better than one. Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.” Brethren, if we engage with the other brethren, even if we feel like we’re isolated sometimes, if we engage with the brethren and we find ourselves maybe slipping into some kind of wrong thinking, the other brethren can bring it to our attention and say, “Hey, you know what? I don’t think that’s a good idea. What you’re getting into is not in alignment with the truth.”

And here’s the reasons why. Because if you study to show you’re self-approved and you know the doctrines of God, then you can help them stay away from false doctrine. You can prove to them the opposite. But isolation can be easily removed when we engage with the brethren. Two are better than one. When one falls, the other will help them up, “But woe to him that’s alone when he falls, for he has not another to help him up.” Verse ten. Woe to us.

We don’t have any excuse to be isolated in this final era, thankfully. We have no excuse to be isolated in God’s Church because we’re all a big family. And wherever you go, wherever you see brethren or meet with them, it’s like you’ve known them forever. It doesn’t matter where their backgrounds came from. Two are better than one. So that’s the first point. That’s the first way to break the isolation cycle is to engage with other people, engage with the brethren, fellowship with them, enjoy that time.

The second point is the opposite of pride. The opposite of thinking highly of your own self and your own opinions is to lower your opinion of yourself and remain teachable. The more teachable we are, if we’re teachable, brethren, and our minister brings to our attention or one of the brethren brings to our attention that we’re kind of going off into a bad idea or wrong idea, as long as we’re teachable, it’ll be easy for us to say, “Oh, you’re right. I don’t at all want to get into that. I want to stay away from that because it could harm me eternally. And then it could potentially harm others eternally too if I keep going down that trail. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

All it takes is a teachable attitude to be told, “Well, that’s not really a good idea to go down that trail. That’s not a good idea. That’s a wrong way of thinking.” And here are the verses why. Romans chapter twelve. Romans chapter twelve and verse three. “For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.”

We ought not think more highly of ourselves than we should, “but to think soberly according as God has dealt to every man a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ and every one member is one of another.” The more pride we have, the more easily we’ll fall into false doctrines and fall out of that body. We want to stay unified with the body of Christ. We want to stay together with them. And the greatest way to do that is to have a humble attitude. Lower your opinion of yourself. Lower the opinion of your ideas. The more we remain low in our own sight, it lowers our chances of falling into heresy and unifies us with those around us.

And the last point is this. If a breeding ground for pet doctrines is to just be out of ignorance, what’s the opposite? Study God’s Word. Inform yourself. Remember Second Timothy two, fifteen. Study to show yourself approved. Right there in that very context, that was the very context that we read Paul was warning about Hymenaeus and Philetus. Hymenaeus and Philetus fell into pet doctrines and heresy and overthrew the faith of other people in the congregation. And Paul’s response to that was to study to show yourself approved.

The greatest way to combat heresies that come through the Church is to be well informed. I hope that all of us, if we were to have just happened upon what it said on the home page of one of these Splinter websites, that they include Jesus Christ in the Gospel, that none of us would be shocked and say, “Well, what’s wrong with that? There’s nothing wrong with that.” No, there’s a lot wrong with that. That’s heresy. That’s wrong. It’s false doctrine. It’s false teaching. And we explain it in our literature.

So oftentimes if we go back through our literature, Mr. Pack has explained things in such detail, such clarity and detail in our literature. If we go back and study those things, we’ll be shocked to see how easy it is to understand and fill ourselves with the truths of God’s Word. So if we’re going to spot heresy among other brethren or in ourselves, it requires us to know the truths of the Bible and Church doctrine.

Jude twenty-three talks about pulling people from the fire. You don’t need to go there. But we can not only save ourselves from a fire, but we can save other people if we spot these doctrines, false doctrines, in others.

Turn over to First Peter chapter three, First Peter chapter three and verse fifteen. “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you the reason of the hope that’s in you with meekness and fear.” We often look at this verse and say, well, when you encounter people in the world and they ask you a question about the truth, be ready to give them an answer. That’s true. We want to be able to give them an answer as well. But what happens if somebody in the Church asks you a question about something that’s a little bit fuzzier, a little bit more specific, and they’re in the Church and they might be getting into a heresy? This verse has application to them too. We often don’t think about this verse having application to the brethren, but it does.

Be ready. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man, including the brethren, that ask you the reason of the hope that’s in you with meekness and fear. Know the doctrines of the Bible and be ready to answer in case heresy crops up in your life. But some brethren, sadly, will listen to false thinking and do nothing. That’s why, brethren, if you see something or hear something, talk to your minister. If it’s your minister who’s the one doing it, talk to headquarters. Write in.

We don’t want to become a Church of just constantly writing headquarters about little picky things, but if you see a heresy, if you see something that’s explicitly wrong and against Church doctrine, write in. Talk to your minister. Write to headquarters if it’s your minister. Let’s be our brother’s keeper and protect not only yourself but the brethren around you. If you see something, say something. We don’t want to be an accomplice in the crime, if you will. If we see something and don’t say something, we can consider ourselves an accomplice in the crime. “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just going to let this person slit the throat or bury these other people over here. Let them spiritually destroy them.” We don’t want to be in that position. We don’t want to be in that position.

So brethren, if we see something, say something. So as we conclude, we should never underestimate the power and the allure that pet doctrines can have. They won’t look like mosquitoes, brethren. They’ll look like a little puppy when you first start off with them. They may seem wonderful. They may seem gentle. No problem on the surface, but inside this little pet that you’ve created has rabies. Take heart the lessons that we learned and discussed today. Stay close to the brethren. Don’t remain isolated. Lower your opinion of yourself and study God’s Word. Study the truths of the Bible. Don’t get bit by seemingly harmless yet deadly heresy.