In Ezekiel chapter eight the prophet Ezekiel says he was sitting in his home and Judah's leaders were sitting in front of him. He says at that time, “The power of the Almighty LORD came over me” and he saw a vision of something that looked like a human but whose body looked like fire and glowing metal.
Ezekiel says, “It stretched out what looked like a hand and grabbed me by the hair on my head. In these visions from God, the Spirit carried me between heaven and earth. He took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance to the north gate of the inner courtyard of the temple. That was where an idol that stirs up God's anger was located.”
In verse 4-6 he writes, “There I saw the glory of Israel's God as I did in the vision that I saw in the valley. God said to me, "Son of man, look toward the north." So I looked toward the north, and there in the entrance to the north gate beside the altar, I saw the idol that stirs up God's anger. He asked me, "Son of man, do you see what the people of Israel are doing? The people of Israel are doing very disgusting things here, things that will force me to go far away from my holy place. But you will see even more disgusting things."”
In this vision God took Ezekiel to the entrance of the courtyard of the temple of God where there was a hole in the wall. God told him to dig through the wall and as he did he saw a door and entered through the door and saw all kinds of disgusting things the people of Israel were doing right in the very Temple of God where His holy presence was to be worshipped.
The walls of the temple were covered with drawings of every kind of crawling creature…every kind of disgusting animal and all the idols in the nation of Israel. In front of these drawings stood 70 of Israel's leaders, each of them holding an incense burner in his hand, and a cloud of incense went up as they led God’s people in the idolatrous worship of these false gods.
Ezekiel says in verse 12-13, “God asked me, "Son of man, do you see what the leaders of the nation of Israel are doing in secret? Each of them is in the room where his god is, and each one of them is thinking, 'The LORD doesn't see me. The LORD has abandoned this land.’ Then he said to me, "You will see even more disgusting things that they are doing."
God brought Ezekiel to the entrance of the north gate of the LORD'S temple. Women were sitting there and crying for the god Tammuz. The worship of Tammuz was a pagan fertility ritual where the king had intercourse with a priest at the beginning of each planting season so that there would be a prosperous harvest.
If that wasn’t disgusting, God asked Ezekiel, "Son of man, do you see this? You will see even more disgusting things than these." Then He brought him into the inner courtyard of the LORD'S temple. There at the entrance to the LORD'S temple, between the entrance and the altar, were about 25 men who had their backs facing the LORD'S temple. At the same time, they were looking eastward and worshiping the rising sun.
They had their backs to the Holy of Holies, their faces toward the east and they worshiped the sun. No doubt influenced by the Egyptians who worship the sun god Ra.
In verses 17-18 God asks Ezekiel, "Son of man, do you see this? Isn't it bad enough that the people of Judah have done these disgusting things that you have seen here? Yet, they also fill the land with violence and continue to provoke me even more. Look how they insult me in the worst possible way. So I will take action because I'm angry, and I won't have compassion for them or feel sorry for them. Even if they shout in my ears, I won't listen to them."
The temple of the Lord was utterly defiled, abominated and desecrated. This takes us to Ezekiel chapter nine where it starts out with God assembling what appears to be a group of six angelic beings to carry out His judgment on Jerusalem. Alongside the angels was another who was dressed in linen and carrying paper and a writing instrument.
Eze 9:3 Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the angels, where it had been, to the temple's entrance. The LORD called to the person dressed in linen who was carrying paper and pen.
Eze 9:4 The LORD said to that person, "Go throughout the city of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of those who sigh and groan about all the disgusting things that are being done in the city."
Eze 9:5 Then he said to the others as I was listening, "Follow him throughout the city and kill. Don't have any compassion, and don't feel sorry.
Eze 9:6 Kill old men, young men, old women, young women, and children. But don't come near anyone who has a mark on him. Start with my holy place." So they started with the old men in front of the temple.
Eze 9:7 He said to them, "Dishonor the temple! Fill its courtyards with dead people, and then leave." So they went out and killed the people in the city.
Ezekiel laments and says:
Eze 9:8 As they were killing people, I was left alone. So I immediately bowed down. I cried, "Almighty LORD, will you destroy everyone who is left in Israel while you pour out your anger on Jerusalem?"
Eze 9:9 He answered me, "The wickedness of the nations of Israel and Judah is terrible. The land is filled with murder, and the city is filled with wrongdoing. They think that the LORD has abandoned the land and that he doesn't see.
Eze 9:10 But I will not have compassion or feel sorry. I will do to them what they have done to others."
Eze 9:11 Then the person dressed in linen who was carrying paper and pen reported, "I did everything you commanded."
This past week I was listening to these chapters in Ezekiel from my Bible app and as I listened, a question came to my mind. I asked myself, “When the LORD said to the angel, ‘Go throughout the city of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of those who sigh and groan about all the disgusting things that are being done in the city’ would I have been among the faithful few who received the mark?”
This mark identified you as belonging to the Lord and were one that hated what He hated and loved what He loved. Do you sigh and groan about all the disgusting things that are being done across our nation today?
Also remember that the context for God’s judgment on Judah wasn’t because of the sin in the city of Jerusalem, but the defilement, abomination and desecration of God’s temple.
Today we look at the city of Baltimore and the surrounding area and see the sin but it wasn’t the sin of the citizens of Jerusalem that God showed Ezekiel, it was the sins of those who were responsible for making God’s ways known to the people. The Temple of God was being defiled by false teaching and practices. Do you sigh and groan about all the false teaching that is being disseminated by those in the church today?
As we continue through the epistle of 1st John, having completed chapter three, we arrive at chapter four where John writes the following:
1Jn 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
1Jn 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God;
1Jn 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the antichrist you heard is coming, and even now is already in the world.
1Jn 4:4 You are of God, little children, and you have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
1Jn 4:5 They are of the world, therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them.
1Jn 4:6 We are of God. He who knows God hears us. The one who is not of God does not hear us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
John wrote this letter to refute the teaching of gnosticism that had found its way into the church. There were two doctrines basic to the Gnostic beliefs:
Supremacy of knowledge (gnosis)- They believed that only a few, the Gnostics, are the ones who are privy to the deep, deep knowledge of God. The Gnostic believes he has pierced through the ignorance and trappings of organized religion and has reached the core of special spiritual knowledge about God and what they believed to be “the God-nature in each of us.”
Separation of spirit and matter - All matter was considered evil and detestable and the source of evil. The spirit of a person was considered good and desirable and impervious to evil.
Thus many Gnostics believed that Jesus did not really come in the flesh, only appearing to do so. They believe that Jesus could not be “God in flesh” because matter is evil.
John the Apostle writes to refute this false teaching:
1Jn 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God;
1Jn 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the antichrist you heard is coming, and even now is already in the world.
Remember, in 1st John, John presents us with some “tests” but this time he moves from “how to tell the difference between the children of God and the children of the devil” to “how to tell the difference between truth and error, false teachers and teachers of the truth.”
John ended chapter three telling his readers that God lives in the person who obeys His commands. He writes, “and we know that He abides in us by the Spirit He has given to us.” John’s use of the word Spirit in 3:24 leaves him, as he begins chapter four, with the word “spirit” on his mind.
John is letting us know that there are other “spirits” in the world besides the Holy Spirit of God. He is letting us know that while Jesus refers in John 14:17 and 16:13 to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of truth,” there are other spirits that need to be tested because they are the demonic forces of deceit that enable the false teachers that are in the world.
You can’t take everything being taught from the pulpits, radio and TV on face value just because the person teaching calls themselves a teacher or preacher. You and I need to be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11 who “received the word with all readiness of the mind, examined the Scriptures each day to see whether Paul and Silas' teaching was true.”
Teachers must be tested. “Test the spirits.” We have a mandate…a command from the Lord: “Test the spirits.”
“Spirits” meaning “persons,” persons.
“Test,” dokimazo, a term used in metallurgy to assess the purity of metal.
We are to test the persons, whether they be human or whether they be demonic.
We are reminded to do this also in 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 where Paul writes, “Do not despise prophesying. But examine…” The same word is used, to test what we’re hearing.
This is critical. It is critical because Satan exists, and because demons exist, and oversee a kingdom of lies that govern the world. The Bible lets us know how to tell the difference between a true teacher of God’s Word and false teachers.
One way to tell the difference between the two is by testing them to see who denies one or more of the essential doctrines of Christianity.
Here is a basic list of what the Bible teaches as essential doctrine:
There is only one God in all existence (Exodus 20:1-4, Isaiah 43:10, 44:6, 8, 45:5).
Jesus is divine (or deity) (John 1:1, 14, 8:24, Col. 2:9).
Forgiveness of sins is by grace alone through faith alone; without works (Eph. 2:8-9, Rom. 3:28, 4:1-5).
Jesus rose from the dead…physically (John 2:19-21, Luke 24:39).
The Gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:1-4).
If you are one who teaches something different that one or more of these essential Christian doctrines you are a false teacher.
In John’s day there were many false teachings that plagued the first century church but the false teaching that he honed in on was that concerning the deity of Jesus Christ.
So John writes in verse 2-3 of chapter four, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the antichrist you heard is coming, and even now is already in the world.”
Most, if not all of the religions of the world except for Christianity fail this test.
Hinduism
Hinduism views mankind as divine. Because Brahma is everything, Hinduism asserts that everyone is a God-man. Hinduism fails the test in 1 John because it does not recognize Jesus as the uniquely incarnated God-Man and Savior, the one solely sufficient source of salvation for humanity.
Islam
Islam also fails the test of truth about Jesus because they believe that He was created by their God Allah. They also deny that Jesus died for sins and believe you are cursed if you say Jesus is God's Son.
Mormonism
Mormonism is not Christian because it denies that there is only one God, denies the true Gospel, adds works to salvation, denies that Jesus is the uncreated Creator, distorts the Biblical teaching of the atonement, undermines the authority and reliability of the Bible, says that God used to be a man who came from another planet and we can become gods, and there is a goddess mother in heaven, etc.
Jehovah’s Witnesses
The Jehovah’s Witnesses are not Christian because they deny the Trinity, they deny the deity of Christ, and deny His physical resurrection.
Roman Catholics
The official Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation is that the grace of God is infused into a baby at baptism--making him/her justified before God. This justification can be lost through sin and must be regained by repeated participation in the many sacraments (some seven) found in the Roman Catholic Church.
Roman Catholics believe that by observing these sacraments they increase the measure of grace in the person by which he or she is enabled to do good works, which are in turn rewarded with the joy of heaven. So it is a works-based religion which fails the test of Scripture (Ephesians 2:8-10). The RCC does not teach the Biblical doctrine of justification by faith. It teaches justification by faith and works.
False Evangelical Christians
But then there are those who may call themselves Evangelical Christians but do not believe that Jesus is God in the flesh. Some of them are famous and on TV and are followed by hundreds of thousands but even they need to be tested as the Bible teaches in 1 John: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.” (1 John 4:2-3)
Benny Hinn
He said, “Jesus who is righteous by choice”-- rather than by nature. He said, “Jesus who is righteous by choice said, ‘The only way I can stop sin is by becoming it. I can’t just stop it by letting it touch me; I and it must become one.’ Here this, He who is the nature of God became the nature of Satan and became sin.”
Kenneth Copeland
Copeland once asked, “Why didn’t Jesus openly proclaim Himself as God during His 33 years on earth? For one single reason, He hadn’t come to earth as God. He had come as a man.” Copeland thus denies the uniqueness of Christ, saying that Christ was not God, only that He walked closely with God.
Referring to Jesus Kenneth Copeland has said, “The righteousness of God was made to be sin. He accepted the sin nature of Satan in His own spirit. You don’t know what happened at the cross. Why do you think Moses upon instruction of God raised the serpent upon that pole instead of a lamb? That used to bug me. I said, ‘Why in the world would you want to put a snake up there, the sign of Satan, why didn’t you put a lamb on the pole?’ And the Lord said, ‘Because it was a sign of Satan that was hanging on the cross.’”
Copeland says, “Jesus said, ‘I accept it in My own spirit, spiritual death, and the light was turned off.’ The light of deity turned off, He becomes the nature of Satan on the cross.”
Commenting on this, Pastor John MacArthur says, “Staggering blasphemies against the nature of Christ. Staggering misunderstandings of who He is. A man who became God and took on the nature of Satan? Kenneth Copeland again exhibits the blasphemous and dangerous way in which the Lord Jesus is treated in Word of Faith circles...”
Marilyn Hickey and her daughter Sarah
Marilyn Hickey and her daughter promote William Brahman who once said that the Trinity is a “doctrine of demons” and calls the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, “one God in three dispensations.”
Creflo Dollar
Creflo Dollar also questions the deity of our Lord, saying: “Jesus didn’t show up perfect; He grew into His perfection. You know Jesus in one Scripture in the Bible, He went on a journey and He was tired. You better hope God don’t get tired, but Jesus did. If He came as God and He got tired. He says He sat down by the well because He was tired. Boy, we’re in trouble. And somebody said, ‘Well Jesus came as God.’ Well, how many of you know the Bible? Says God never sleeps or slumbers. And yet in the book of Mark we see Jesus asleep in the back of the boat,” end quote.
Joyce Meyer
Then there is Joyce Meyer’s teaching on the deity of Jesus Christ. She once said in one of her messages, "He could have helped himself up until the point where he said “I commend my spirit into your hands”, at that point he couldn’t do nothing for himself anymore. He had become sin, he was no longer the Son of God. He was sin."
This is heresy. Jesus never stopped becoming the son of God. Essentially what she is saying is that Jesus stopped being divine, the eternal son, second person of the Trinity. According to the Bible (1 John 4:2-3) this is an attack on the very nature of Christ and it is a dangerous false teaching.
Jesse Duplantis
In his video Close Encounters of the God Kind, Duplantis relates how one day he was ushered into Heaven itself. There King David told Jesse that he regretted writing some of his Psalms (what does this imply about biblical inerrancy?) and then upon seeing Jesus, Jesse noted that He “was taller than I thought He would be.” Safely back on earth, one day Jesse sensed that Jesus was sad over something. After being asked what was wrong by the concerned Duplantis, the Alpha and Omega told him, “I need you, boy.” (emphasis original)
T.D. Jakes and the Oneness Pentecostal Movement
There is the Oneness Pentecostal Movement. Out of the 100 million Pentecostal/Charismatics it is estimated that there are 24-25 million people in the Oneness Movement. 24-25 million Charismatics deny the Trinity.
The most well-known of this group would be T.D. Jakes who denies the existence of the Trinity. They espouse an old heresy called Modalism. Modalism says that God is not three persons, not three co-equal, co-existent, co-eternal persons but God is only one person who sometimes acts like or are “manifestations” of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit…in other words, sometimes God acts like the Father, sometimes he acts like the Son and sometimes he acts like the Holy Spirit, which then destroys the nature of the Father, the nature of the Son, and the nature of the Spirit. This is a heretical view of everyone in the Trinity.
Again John writes, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the antichrist you heard is coming, and even now is already in the world.”
Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. He is God in the flesh.
Joh 1:9 He was the true Light; He enlightens every man coming into the world.
Joh 1:10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him.
Joh 1:11 He came to His own, and His own received Him not.
Joh 1:12 But as many as received Him, He gave to them authority to become the children of God, to those who believe on His name,
Joh 1:13 who were born, not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God.
Joh 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and of truth.
By comparing both Old Testament and New Testament passages of Scripture one can only come to the conclusion that Jesus is God.
In Revelation 1:8 it says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End," says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." (this verse is probably referring to Jesus, but Jehovah's Witnesses state it is referring to God the Father)
In Revelation 1:11 Jesus says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and, "What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”
We find out who this is in verse 12 and 13 where John writes, “And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the seven lampstands I saw One like the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and tied around the breast with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And His eyes were like a flame of fire.”
In Revelation 2:8 Jesus says, “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, 'These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life.” Now it is obvious who this verse is referring to.
In Revelation 21:5-7 we find these words (notice the context leads us to believe that God the Father is speaking), “Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." And He said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. "He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son."
In Revelation 22:12 it says “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”
Who is talking here? Verse 16 answers this question: “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
There can only be one "first" and one "last".
ISAIAH 41:4 - “Who has performed and done it, Calling the generations from the beginning?’I, the LORD, am the first; And with the last I am He.'"
ISAIAH 44:6 - “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God."
C. ISAIAH 48:12 - “Listen to Me, O Jacob, And Israel, My call: I am He, I am the First, I am also the Last."
We started this sermon hearing Ezekiel lamenting and mourning about how the temple of the Lord was utterly defiled, abominated and desecrated because of the false teaching and practices in his day.
We also saw God’s response to this sin among His people as He sends an angel to, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of everyone who is in anguish over the outrageous obscenities being done in the city.”
Does it bother you…do you feel a sense of anguish…that some of the most admired teachers and preachers on TV are denying that Jesus is God? Or does it bother you more that I dare to call out one of your favorite preachers in a sermon on Sunday morning?
Do you, like so many others in the church, say like Rodney King, “Can we all {just} get along?” When you should be more outraged that the nature of God the Son has been attacked and distorted?
Someone has rightly said, “If Jesus is something less than God, He has no right and no power to forgive our sins. If Jesus can’t forgive our sins, we have no hope.”
And so, the doctrine of the deity of Christ is worth contending for. As I close let me share with you someone God used mightily to contend for this biblical truth.
Athanasius was born in the year 298AD in Egypt. In his early twenties he was a deacon in the church in Alexandria (North Africa). During that time, the doctrine of the deity of Christ came under attack by a highly influential pastor named Arius. Arius taught that Jesus was a created being, that he had a beginning, and there was a time when Jesus was not. Therefore, according to Arius, Jesus is the son of God, but not God the son. His heresy was later known as the Arian heresy (named after Arius).
Arianism (as it was later called) sparked a flame throughout the empire that would dominate the church for 60 years. It was a 20 year old young man by the name of Athanasius, 40 years younger than Arius, that God would use to contend for the doctrine of the deity of Christ (what an encouragement to our young adults that you don’t need to wait to have a huge impact in the kingdom. God can use you now).
Athanasius would endure decades of persecution, banished from the church, sent into exile five times, framed for murder, threatened with death, slandered by emperors and bishops, all for standing firm to the doctrine of the deity of Christ. In the end he prevailed, truth was preserved, and the church has stood on his shoulders ever since.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's, a German theologian known for his stand against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party once said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Yet today, this essential doctrine and many others, are under attack again. Next time we are going to examine the doctrine of the deity of Christ more fully. But until then know that it is a very essential doctrine of the Christian faith. This is why the Apostle John zeros in on it in his letter.
