Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S13 || False Prophets - Ancient Warnings for Today's Church || Ezekiel 13:1-23 || Session 13 || Bible Study
The plague of false prophets is nothing new. From ancient Israel to today's church, those claiming to speak for God while promoting their own ideas have caused immense spiritual damage. In this powerful examination of Ezekiel 13, we explore God's strong condemnation of false teachers and the striking parallels to modern religious deception.
What should alarm every believer is how false teachers operate – not by announcing their falsehood but by claiming divine authority. "Thus says the Lord" rolls off their tongues while God has said nothing of the sort. Throughout Scripture, God commands us not to tolerate such deception but to actively oppose it. This stands in stark contrast to today's "feel-good" church culture where confronting false teaching is often considered divisive or unloving.
Christian mysticism – the belief that we can receive direct, new messages from God – receives particular attention in our discussion. When someone says, "The Lord told me," they position themselves as either a true prophet or a false one. The metaphor in Ezekiel of a poorly built wall covered with attractive whitewash brilliantly illustrates how false teaching appears solid while being fundamentally unsound. We examine how many contemporary churches have built their ministries on what "seems right" rather than biblical foundations, incorporating entertainment and worldly elements that might attract crowds but cannot withstand divine judgment.
The ultimate consequence for false teachers is sobering. Jesus' words, "I never knew you," echo Ezekiel's warning that false prophets will have no place among God's people. This episode serves as a challenging reminder that discernment is not optional for believers in any age. How firm is your foundation? Are you following God's revealed Word or chasing after new "revelations" that tickle your ears?
Curious about idolatry in its most subtle forms? Subscribe now and join us next week as we explore Ezekiel 14 and God's warnings about the idols we harbor not just in our homes, but in our hearts.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
False teachers and false prophets have plagued the church since the first century when Jesus came. Even prior to that, false teachers and false prophets plagued the nation Israel for many years. It seems that there's no end to false teachers and false prophets, at least during this age on the earth. However, god doesn't just wink at it. He will deal with it. The New Testament and the Old Testament both have strong words against false teachers and false prophets, and that's what we're going to see today. On Reasoning Through the Bible. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We do verse-by-verse studies. Today we are in Ezekiel, chapter 13, where God is speaking through the prophet Ezekiel about false teachers and false prophets. So let's go ahead and dive in. If you have your copy of the Word of God, open there. Ezekiel 13. Steve, can you read the first seven verses?
Speaker 2:Then the word of the Lord came to me saying Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy from their own inspiration, listen to the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God. Woe to the foolish prophets who are following their own spirit and has seen nothing. O Israel, your prophets have been like foxes among ruins. You have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the day of the Lord. They see falsehood and lying divination. Who are saying the Lord declares when the Lord has not sent them yet? They hope for the fulfillment of their word. Did you not see a false vision and speak a lying divination when you said the Lord declares? But it is not I who has spoken.
Speaker 1:Therefore, we have here another message from God to Ezekiel. Again, verse 1,. He says the word of the Lord came to me. As we've mentioned several times, that is a clue that a new section of the book is here and it's written in first person the word came to me. This is Ezekiel writing this. It's an eyewitness account of him getting direct words from God to the people of Israel and, of course, he's speaking against people who prophesy false prophets, false teachers. Here, steve, we have God speaking against and he has his leader here, ezekiel, speaking against false teachers and false prophets. Does God command us to speak against false teachers?
Speaker 2:Absolutely he does. We're warned of that over in the New Testament several times by Paul. Paul even calls out some of them by name. So yes, absolutely, we're to speak out against false teachers and false prophets. And the way that you do that is you know the Word of God. You match what they're saying against what the Word of God says In these verses. Here God is essentially saying the same thing. These people are saying certain things in the name of the Lord, but he's not actually giving them the vision he's giving them to Ezekiel and he's telling Ezekiel to tell them what they're doing, to expose them to these other people here that are in the exile of Babylon.
Speaker 1:If we ask the question what should the church today do with false teachers and against false teachers? Too many times our churches are plagued with the sin of just feel good. We don't want to do anything that rocks the boat or doesn't feel good. We don't want to come across as anything but nice. We're somehow taught the false teaching that we should just be nice and have our Bible studies and not deal with false teachers. Well, my friend, the Word of God says quite differently. Many of the Old Testament prophets have speaking against false teachers. This right here in Ezekiel 13 is one of them. Steve, as you alluded, in the New Testament we have many of the books that are written specifically to refute false teachings and some of them are mentioned by name. We have commands to speak against false teachers. We are not to tolerate false teaching in our churches, but we are to point it out, as the New Testament did 2 Timothy 2.25, 2 Timothy 2.17,. 2 Peter 2.1.
Speaker 1:There's many passages that tell us to deal with false teachers. We have many books of the New Testament that were specifically written against false teaching. 1 John was written because of a Gnostic heresy that had crept in. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians because of a lot of false teachers that had crept into the Corinthian church and he was specifically writing instructions to refute that. 1 and 2 Thessalonians dealt with false teachers. So there's many places in the Bible, both Old Testament and New, and not dealing with it is a sin and that's a hard message. It doesn't fall well on the modern soft ear, but it is the clear word of God, verse 7 that we just read.
Speaker 1:The false teachers were saying that God had told them things, but the true God said they were lying. So still today we have people claiming to get messages from God and, steve, I think that is what is probably the most sobering thing People don't wear big signs around their neck that says I'm a false teacher. No, they come in with God words and it sounds good and they say, oh, I've gotten the word from the Lord. Or it's too common today Say, well, the Lord told me. This is exactly what he's speaking against here In verse 7, he's saying people that come up that says God said, and it's not true, are the ones that you should condemn. We need to be extremely cautious when people claim to get messages from God, people saying, oh, the Lord spoke to me. We need to be very, very cautious, don't you?
Speaker 2:think, glenn, there was just an expose done here in the last few days of just such a thing A person that was going around and still is as we're recording this session, saying that he is a prophet and that he receives words from God about people In this interview. It was about a prophecy that was given to this man of something that he was going to do, and this man happened to be a filmmaker and he went off of the prophecy that was given to him by. This man, invested over $100,000 of his time and effort and spent seven to eight years on this film, and the man that gave him the prophecy the supposed prophet, who has turned out to be a false prophet was in the film. As the gentleman started getting ready to produce the film and put it out for show, people were backtracking and saying, yeah, I don't think that you should have that person in your film. Well, he happened to be about one-third of the film, or one-quarter of the film.
Speaker 2:So the long story short was that this man went off and invested years of his life and hundreds of thousands of dollars of his money and other investors' money off of a word from God that this man had told him that he had received, only to find out that he had actually got this information from social media, and they backtracked and found out how he could do it. And this is how this false prophet has been doing this for several years just looking up people's identifications and information online and then at a church service calling them out, acting like he's receiving words from God. The point of the interview was basically this man is destroying many, many people's lives because they actually believe that he is receiving a word from God when he actually isn't. So this isn't just saying that we should avoid them, because they need to be avoided that is a true statement but following them could be a devastation to a person's life.
Speaker 1:The teaching that we can get direct messages from God is called mysticism, that somehow I would have, or you would have, a direct channel to God that would speak through us. The word for that is mysticism, and Christian mysticism is rampant in our day. People are everywhere saying that, oh, god told me and I got this message. And the Holy Spirit says, and things like that Well, my friend Ezekiel 13.7 says be very, very cautious. If you're going around saying the Lord declares and he didn't really, then you will be judged, as these false teachers in Ezekiel 13 are judged, which is quite severe. So we need to be very careful about saying in our day well, god said and here's a message from the Lord, and okay, I believe the Holy Spirit leads us in a direction. But if we're getting new messages from God, then you're either a true prophet or a false prophet. And, my friend, there's not blank pages in the backs of our Bible. We do not need to be looking for new words from God. What we need to learn is the words that he's already given us, that's, the ones that we don't know near as well. We need to be satisfied with what he's already told us and spend some time learning that rather than going and seeking some new ones.
Speaker 1:The next couple of verses starting in verse 8, says this Therefore, thus says the Lord God, because you have spoken falsehood and seen a lie, verses starting in verse 8 of my people. Nor will they be written down in the register of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. That you may know that I am the Lord God, verse 8 that we just read there, god says he is against anyone who claims to speak for him. But it is not true. Steve, I'm reminded of over the New Testament. Jesus said that many will come in the last days saying did I not prophesy in your name? But he's going to say what I never knew you Do.
Speaker 1:We need to be very serious and sober about this idea of getting messages from God, and I would even take the passage we just read. We that are Bible teachers need to be very careful that we're only giving out exactly what it says. The New Testament tells us we're going to be judged at a higher standard. So there's two areas. One is people claiming to get new messages from God and there's also people just claiming to be explaining the old one and not getting it right. This is very serious.
Speaker 2:That passage is in James, where it says some of you ought not to be teachers because you're going to be judged at a higher standard. There are people that are out there running around the countryside that apparently are not fearful of God because they're doing these things, that are false things, saying that they're hearing from the Lord when actually they're not. And, glenn, what you said a while ago is when Jesus says leave me because I never knew you. The question isn't whether or not you know the Lord. That is a question to ask some people. But the true question is does the Lord know you? Because there are some people that will claim oh yes, I know Jesus and I am a believer, but the true and actual fact is is that the Lord doesn't know them, jesus doesn't know them, which means they're not really true believers.
Speaker 2:We should have discernment. I'm curious that the word that is used here in these passages that we've been reading, is divination. Divination is not of God. It's going and getting information from divine spirits, spirits from the other world, and those spirits are giving false information. The first thing we should do is learn about God's Word that he has left us. That gives us enough time and enough information to where we can find everything out we need about God. If we're out there trying to find out new things about God from new people without even knowing what the Word of God says, we're off base and we're going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1:Don't lose sight of the emphasis and force of what he's saying. Again, people don't wear a sign or announce in front of them I'm a false teacher. No, they claim to be teaching the truth and they claim to be speaking for God. That's exactly what Ezekiel is speaking against here. Really, god, through Ezekiel, and he's telling us in Ezekiel 13.9 that people that claim to be speaking the truth of God but are not and there are such people in every generation, he says they will have no place in the council of my people, nor will they be written down in the register of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the house of Israel. And Jesus repeated that same idea when he said depart from me, I never knew you. You came to me saying Lord, lord, did we not prophesy, which is teach or give out words? Did we not cast out demons? And he said Depart from me, I never knew you. Notice, he didn't say I knew you and you were a believer. And then you fell away. No, he said, I never knew you. The word here, both in New Testament, old Ezekiel 13.9 and 13 and following, is quite clear. We need to be very careful about saying here's what God actually says, if we're getting some new word from God. My friend, I strongly urge you to take these words very seriously.
Speaker 1:Now the second half of chapter 13,. He uses an example of a poorly built wall that had fundamental problems with the wall, but it was whitewashed to look good, and God says I'm going to come along and destroy it. Verse 15, he says quote I will spend my wrath on the wall. And that means that God is angry and will tear down the weak defenses that the people have built. Imagine a poorly built wall that was just painted to look good, but underneath the foundation's cracked and the wall's not standing very sturdily. And God says I'm going to come and knock that down. No matter how good it looks, I'm going to knock it down because it's a poorly built wall. Steve, if I try to think of the applications, first of all to my life internally, are we guilty of trying to cover over sin and cover over disobedience rather than fix the fundamental problems between us and God? Are we ever guilty of that.
Speaker 2:Not only cover over our sin, but on these false teachers. They try and cover over the false things that they say whenever it doesn't come true and excuses are given for them as to why it wasn't true. It's very much so that we want to cover it up. We don't want to have it exposed to God, and that's really what it's saying. Here is the Hebrew word that's used for this wall is that it's not only weakly built, but it's hastily built, and the proper way to do it would be to use mortar, and they don't do that. They just put them together with no mortar, Then they put this whitewashed plaster over it so that it appears as if it is a strong wall. And he's saying this of these people that are prophesying, it appears that what he is giving is word from the Lord, but they're not, and that doesn't stand up.
Speaker 2:I get the picture, Glenn, is that if people would have just pushed back a little bit on the prophecies that they were giving, that they would have been able to push the wall over, so to speak, and they would have been able to know wait a minute. There's something wrong and something off about what this person is prophesying and this false teacher is giving all the time. It's off base from the Word of God, the things that he says. They don't come true. Maybe I shouldn't be following him, but the reason why they continue in our day and age is because the people continue to go to the churches where they are. They continue to give their money and support those ministries of them. So the people are enabling these false prophets and false teachers to stay out there. Same thing in Ezekiel's time. The people are listening to these false prophets. If they wouldn't listen to them then the false prophets would go away.
Speaker 1:Let me read verse 14. It'll give you the emphasis of what he's saying here. This is God speaking. So I will tear down the wall which you plastered over with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground so that its foundation is laid bare, and when it falls, you will be consumed in its midst and you will know that I am the Lord. So what he's saying again? This poorly constructed wall that looked good because of the whitewashed plaster, not only is it going to fall, but it's going to fall on you and you're going to be consumed with it.
Speaker 1:Steve, I think of these churches that build their ministries on what seems to them to be the right way. Isaiah says there is a way that seems right unto a man, but at the end of it is death thereof. We need to realize that we're sinners and we're flawed from the very beginning. Because of our sin, we're damaged, we're separated from God, and the only way we're going to know what's right is to look at the Word of God. The only way we know a true north is to look at a compass. So we have to have that. If we're just judging the world by what seems to me to be right, then we're in big trouble.
Speaker 1:I see that, steve, in way, way, way too many churches. They've disconnected themselves from the Word of God. They think they know better than the Word of God. They think the Word of God is old-fashioned or too restrictive or whatever. They've built a superstructure of morality based on their feelings and they've whitewashed it over so that it may look good from the outside. It may appear good at first glance, but fundamentally it's hanging in midair and the first little puff of God's wrath it's going to blow over, and not only is the wall going to collapse, the church will collapse, but it's going to consume them as well. That's what I think of when I see this. Are these churches that have built their entire religion I'll call it a religion, because it's certainly not Christianity on what seems to them, and then they couch it in Christianity as just a whitewash.
Speaker 2:A couple of things to what you said, glenn. One was that they put together a program that they think is right in their own eyes and then they have a worldly program. There are churches in our day and age that have secular music that they bring in to their so-called worship services, and the reason why they do it very out in the open is that we have to get people's attention. The way that they have chosen to do it is to bring worldly music, not worship music that praises and honors God or Jesus Christ that praises and honors God or Jesus Christ. It's worldly music that is heard on the radio, airwaves and on the internet every day, in order to supposedly get worldly people into their congregation so that they can then, in turn, then teach them the Word of God. Well, I will submit to you that if you have to entertain people and that's what it is, they're doing entertainment. They're not worshiping God, they're entertaining the people. If you have to entertain people to get them in and to get their attention, then whenever you start truly preaching the Word of God, what makes you think that they're going to sit there for 30 minutes and listen to the Word of God, and what I see ends up happening is that the sermons then also contain entertainment in the sermons and that 10, 15 minutes of the sermons are nice little stories that have something to do. That might match the verses they're talking about, might not, and the Word of God is very few and very minimalistic as far as what's actually being taught to the people. And it goes to what you said. They have put this program together because they think that this is the right way to do it and they are being judged by the world. The world itself is judging the world. It's not being judged against the Word of God. I am cautious about those type of ministries. I would not want to be a part of those type of ministries. Same thing they're only there because the people continue to go to them.
Speaker 2:Whenever you face judgment, your judgment is not going to be based off of what pastor said and they told you and taught you this. No, it's going to be based off of the Word of God and what Jesus Christ has taught us. The only place that you're really going to find where it is is in the Word of God. Know the Word of God for yourself and balance that against whatever church that you're going to and if the church is out there entertaining rather than preaching the Word of God, I would run to the nearest exit. Find a church that does it.
Speaker 2:Cautionary note to pastors that are out there be cautious of how much of the world you allow into your church, because guess what People want the world, that's what they want. The more world that you let in, the more world they're going to want. Second, timothy says there's going to be a time whenever people are going to turn away from sound doctrine and want to have the tickling of the ears. If you're having entertainment rather than worship, you're tickling their ears. You're having entertainment rather than worship. You're tickling their ears, is that?
Speaker 1:really what you want to say whenever you face God as far as the ministry that you have? All of us need to bend our desires and will to the Word of God. In fact, we need to be regenerated from the inside out, and too many churches are molding the teachings around their own feelings and what seems right to them. My friend, the primary message of God is not to solve social problems or not to solve race relations or not to fix sexual frustrations or not to make the wars in the world go away. All those things are issues and we could possibly deal with them, but that's not the fundamental message of the Word of God. The fundamental message of the Word of God is that we are all sinners and we've lost our way, and the only way we know which way is true is to open up the Word of God and follow that. If we're not submitting to that, if we're never in a situation where the old flesh is rebelling against the Word of God, and follow that, if we're not submitting to that, if we're never in a situation where the old flesh is rebelling against the Word of God, then we're not teaching the Word of God.
Speaker 1:Next, in this passage, in this chapter, ezekiel 13,. He speaks of against rather making what it calls magic bands, which were armbands or bracelets that were supposed to bring luck or ward off problems. And here God is speaking against all forms of good luck charms and amulets, and it would even cover things like witchcraft or spell casting, these type of things. My friend, if you think that because you've got a cross around your neck or a bracelet or a ring, then therefore it's going to protect you against something. I think of cheesy old bad movies where the vampire comes in and the guy waves a cross at him and the vampire has to go run away.
Speaker 1:Well, that's where that belongs, which is cheesy old movies. It doesn't really work In reality. The devil is not scared about the cross around your neck or whatever cross you may have on a bracelet or a ring. None of that has any place with God. There's no room for spell casting. There's no room for good luck charms. There's no room for any sort of thing that looks or smells like I've got some object that I have to carry around with me and it's going to keep off evil spirits or bring me luck, things like that. I've used things that remind me to pray, but it's the prayer that caused something and not the little amulet of good luck charm.
Speaker 2:And that's what these people were doing. They were going to these sorceresses and they were sewing these armbands for them and it was to remind them of the incantations that the false prophecies were putting into them. That's the reason for them. They were completely again, didn't have anything to do with God and were actually trying to hide the Lord himself within them.
Speaker 2:Remember, earlier on in the prophecies that he gave Ezekiel, there's going to come a time whenever he was going to remove their heart of stone and give them a flesh heart and there would follow his statues and ordinances on their flesh heart that he gives them, he being Yahweh. This is speaking of a time when the people are not going to Yahweh for direction and guidance. They're going to false prophets and prophetesses, basically sorcerers and witches to get incantations from other spirits not anything from the Lord and then wear certain things to remind them or to carry through with. The incantations that they were getting totally off base had nothing to do with the Word of God that they had at all. It was totally worldly things that they were dealing with.
Speaker 1:This is strong medicine. We're in a section of the Word of God that's very strong, very direct. Our flesh doesn't always want to take it, but it's something we need and will ultimately make us more spiritually healthy. So that brings us to the end of Ezekiel 13. Next time, in Ezekiel 14, we're going to learn what God says about idols, and not only idols that may be sitting across the room, but idols that are sitting in our hearts. And we're going to learn about that next time on Reasoning Through the Bible.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
