This evening, if you have your Bibles, if you’ll turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 8. The event that we’re going to be looking at this evening is happening a period of time after Ezekiel’s last vision that he received from the Lord and his last sharing with the people where he was talking about the fact that God’s judgment was coming and it was going to be a severe judgment just as the Lord had said because of their unfaithfulness. One of the things that they looked at is well we have the temple and we have the temple worship. Well this evening we’re going to be taking a look at what the Lord’s going to reveal to Ezekiel because Ezekiel’s been out of Israel and away from the temple but God’s going to show him why one of the reasons the judgment is coming is because of how the people have shown such a horrible disdain for the Lord and they worship everything but God.
So let’s take a look at Ezekiel chapter 8.
And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me. 2 Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. 3 And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy. 4 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain.
5 Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry. 6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.
7 And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. 8 Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. 9 And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. 10 So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about. 11 And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. 12 Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.
13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. 14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. 16 And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.
17 Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. 18 Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.Let’s just bow and pray. Heavenly Father we come before you.
Lord I pray that you just speak to us through your word this evening. Lord it’s very sobering what the nation of Israel and those that claim to be the (6:28) spiritual leaders and the elders of the land and the priests were doing. They were walking in open abomination to you and thought they could hide it from you.
Lord help us to see how this is an abomination to you and what they were (6:47) doing was not only sacrilegious it was it was truly denying who you were and (6:58) worshipping the adversary and the enemy and all that he puts forth. Lord help us to understand the seriousness of what Ezekiel saw. This we ask in Jesus name.
As the scene opens Ezekiel’s with the elders of Judah that were in captivity with him. Oftentimes he would meet with them and he would be their priest. If you would even though he couldn’t carry out all the priestly duties because he couldn’t offer sacrifices. He couldn’t do many of the things that the priests would do if they were in the temple. But as he’s meeting with these men all of a sudden one appears to him. As you look at the description I truly believe it was probably the Lord himself that was appearing to Ezekiel.
He was appearing as he does when he’s coming in judgment. You see that he’s surrounded with fire in his loins and a brazen color and his upper body and he’s coming in anger to show Ezekiel. Why he is in so much anger at Judah?
What he does is he takes him not physically out of the presence of those people. He takes them and Ezekiel has a vision that the Lord takes him to the temple in Jerusalem which is hundreds of miles from where Ezekiel is in Babylon. And as he is ushered into the temple the Lord has him approach the temple. The first thing he says is look at what you see. The first thing that Ezekiel says or that the Lord tells Ezekiel is he says unto him son of man lift up thine eyes now in verse 5. The way toward the north so I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north and behold northward at the gate of the altar. This image of jealousy in the entry. What is the image of jealousy? Well it was some type of an idol that had been placed there that the people would worship.
Manasseh had done things like this during his reign as king. Josiah had removed many of them but now the people were coming back to reinstall many of the things that Josiah had removed. One of the things that Manasseh did is he put into the entry of the temple a statue of Ashtoreth. Ashtoreth was a goddess of fertility not only of the Canaanites but also of many of the other people in the nation. If you look back at where Ashtoreth came from it was really Semiramis who was the wife of Nimrod at the time of the Tower of Babel. If you look at Ashtoreth what she did is she (10:28) became the mother of Tammuz who was to be the the equivalent of Jesus. This wickedness that Satan created for the people to worship and it’s an abomination to the Lord. If you look at even today within the Roman Catholic Church they have placed Mary in really the same position as Ashtoreth or Diana or any of the other goddesses that have been worshipped by people throughout history. You see that they make Mary into something that the Bible never says she is.
They make her to be worshipped. If you ask a Roman Catholic do you worship Mary they say oh no we don’t worship Mary. We just adore her but adoration and the way that adoration is they pray to Mary. For example, one of the things that they have is the rosary and if you look at the rosary. The rosary is found in pagan religions. A rosary, similar prayer beads, are found in Islam they’re not found in biblical Christianity. Nor are they found in Judaism biblical Judaism but they’re found in the Catholic Church and when you pray the prayer beads you pray our father which is where they pray the Lord’s Prayer is what they call it our father our father who art in heaven. But they also pray Hail Mary’s. Hail Mother Hail Mary full of grace and they go through a litany of prayers to her.
If you go through the rosary there’s more Hail Mary’s than there are our fathers. They exalt Mary above Christ. If you ever look at the Catholic Church what you’ll see is you’ll see Jesus oftentimes portrayed as an infant and Mary holding this infant. I remember a number of years ago I had to do some work up at the Catholic Diocese in Fargo. I went up there and they had some brochures laying out on the table. I looked at this brochures and on the cover it had a picture of a woman that was portrayed to be Mary. I picked up one of these brochures and it said that the Catholic Diocese of Fargo had been dedicated to our our mother the Virgin Mary.
That then it had a prayer from Pope John the second who was Pope at the time honoring Mary and uplifting the Fargo Diocese to her and her honor. Then if you read further it said that you were to pray to Mary to seek her to intercede on your behalf to her son. If you ask someone who is a Catholic oftentimes you say well why would you do that the scriptures that tell us to pray to no one but God. I had asked a Catholic one time and they told me well if you if you if your father’s mad at you you go to your mother because she will be able to quell the anger of your father. So that’s what we’re doing we’re going to the mother of mother of God. We’re going to the mother of God so that she will quell his anger on our behalf.
This was the abomination of jealousy that you saw when you walked into the temple. An idol or a statue made to Asherah that had been placed there not to honor God but to honor the false gods that were from Satan’s religious system that he had placed on earth that’s still here today. They only get worse the further you go into the temple the further the Lord takes Ezekiel into the temple the worse it gets. What happens next he said furthermore in verse 6.
Unto me son of man seest thou what they do even the great abominations at the house of Israel committed here that I should go far off from my sanctuary but turn thee yet again and thou shalt see a greater abomination.
In other words, they want God to leave so that they can worship they way they want to worship. That’s exactly what you have in Roman Catholicism it’s what you have in many other religious systems where they really take God and say God leave because we want to create our own religious system. We want to create our own means of worship and we’re going to do it. We don’t want you here. That’s exactly what they were doing in Israel in Judah at the time that the Babylonians have begun to take them into captivity verse 7.
And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.
That was hidden so that it could conceal what these people were doing and it wasn’t supposed to be seen by the people and as we’re going to see in a moment. All of this they thought they could conceal from God. It’s kind of like what happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned the first thing they did is they realized they were naked. Now what does that mean because they’ve been naked ever since God created them. You didn’t create them with clothes but what happened is it was more than just their physical nakedness. It was a fact that they stood now naked before the Lord.
The Lord they understood God realizes what we’ve done and we can’t conceal it, but they tried to conceal it. What did they do they went out and they got leaves from the tree to try and cover themselves and figured they could cover their nakedness. That way and God wouldn’t know what they’d done. Then they tried to hide and they tried to go over they thought God would not find them.
Now remember what happened when God came walking out into the Garden of Eden. He said where are you well it’s not like God didn’t know where they were but he wanted them to understand what they were doing. He confronted them and he said why are you hiding from me. He said because we’re naked and he said who told you you were naked well then the truth came out what had happened now God in his mercy it says slew animals and covered their nakedness with the skins of the animals. The scriptures don’t tell us what animals it was but I believe it was sheep. I believe it was a way that he was telling them this nakedness is more than physical nakedness. That you’re experiencing its spiritual nakedness.
I’m going to tell you I’m going to cover your physical nakedness with a lamb but there’s coming a lamb one day that will cover your spiritual nakedness. The elders of Judah should have known this remember when Jesus came. Nicodemus came to Jesus and he was asking Jesus really was asking Jesus about salvation. Jesus told him you must be born again. Nicodemus all he could think about was the physical he said this is impossible. How do I enter again into my mother’s womb to be born again? He was thinking of physical birth Jesus was thinking about the rebirth of the soul. The transformation from darkness to light. The fact that you would once be delivered from your sin. You could be a new creature in Christ.
That is the rebirth Jesus was talking about and as a the conversation went on Nicodemus was having trouble grasping this and and what did Jesus tell Nicodemus you’re you’re an elder. A teacher in Israel. You should know these things because Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a Pharisee he was one who claimed to understand the Scriptures and could enunciate the Scriptures to other men to help them understand the Scriptures. Yet he did not understand them himself when it came to the very most important thing salvation. These same men in Jerusalem in the temple that Ezekiel was taken to see should have had the same understanding and they should have known the truth. Yet instead of knowing the truth they embraced the lie.
What did he see behind these door this door. What did he see that they were trying to conceal from God. It says here and he said on to me go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do there do here. So I went in and I saw and behold every form of creeping things and abominable beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the walls. There about icons and and idols portrayed everywhere and they were worshipping them. Go to a Catholic Church sometime. Look around to see what you see all kinds of icons and idols pictures all things that are supposed to worship. This command us tell us we’re not to have these things in our life we’re not to have idols and icons that we worship. It’s part of Satan’s worship and these people have brought it into the temple now if you went into the temple.
The temple was constructed by Solomon. After the instructions that have been given to Moses to build the tabernacle. It was built the same way the tabernacle was. It’s just that it was larger and permanent. The tabernacle was designed to be able to take it down and be moved because the nation of Israel hadn’t gotten into the land their permanent home When they got into the land they did not get to Jerusalem.
Initially, Mount Zion was to be the place where God dwelt—God’s holy mountain. It was where He met Abraham, and where David would later purchase the land on which the tabernacle would one day be placed and, eventually, where the Temple would be built.
But we see here that these men did not understand this. There were to be no idols—no icons, no pictures of animals to be worshiped, no creeping things. Yet everything they were lifting up in worship was pagan. Go to a pagan temple or a Hindu temple and you will see all kinds of pagan symbols, icons, and idols. They have statues made to their gods. They place snakes and creeping things around to worship. That is exactly what these people were doing.
And yet, they claimed to be the children of God. They believed that because the Temple was standing, God would deliver them and bring them back to Jerusalem before it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. But this was not the temple God had intended them to be in. They had desecrated what was holy to the Lord with idols, pictures, and icons. These abominable things were everywhere.
It says that all the idols of the house of Israel were portrayed on the walls all around. And it wasn’t just a few men doing this. Scripture says there stood before them men of the ancients of the house of Israel.
What does that mean? It refers to the elders—the older men—those who should have possessed wisdom and understanding. Ezekiel had already been taken into captivity. Before him was Daniel, and before Daniel was Jeremiah. The ancients Ezekiel was seeing would likely have been alive during the time of Josiah.
Stop and think about what that means. Josiah brought reform to Israel. He removed the high places, the idols, and the icons—at least outwardly. Scripture tells us Josiah did more to cleanse the land of idolatry than any other king. He reestablished the Passover for the first time since the days of Solomon, and he did it properly. He even called the people of the northern kingdom who remained there to come to Jerusalem to celebrate.
And yet, just one generation later, we see this happening. Why? Because not all hearts had repented. They had been externally reformed, but repentance had not occurred inwardly. There is a difference between reformation and repentance.
You can be reformed on the outside, but repentance happens on the inside. Repentance means a change of heart, a change of direction—turning away from the idols, the icons, the creeping things, and the perversion of worship, and turning toward the true and living God according to His Word and His standards.
Reformation alone is not enough. When I was young, we had reform schools. Some children went there and learned how to look different on the outside, but their hearts remained unchanged. When they got out, they returned to their old ways because nothing had changed within them.
That is what happened here. Under Josiah, the nation was cleansed outwardly, but many hearts were never filled with repentance. Some truly did repent and followed the Lord—Josiah himself led the way—but many did not. These men returned to the wicked ways of Manasseh, to the practices of the kings of Israel, and to the worship of false gods.
Next verse “There stood before them men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan.”
All we know about Jaazaniah is this: he was the son of Shaphan, and he was an elder of Israel. He stood among the elders—likely as one of their leaders. Shaphan, his father, may be the same man who lived during the time of King Josiah and served as a close and trusted advisor. While we cannot be certain, the connection strongly suggests this was a family that once stood near righteousness, yet here we find the son standing at the center of corruption.
And there stood before them 70 men of the ancients of the house of Israel and in the midst of them stood Jasaniah the son of Shaphan. Now all we know about Jasaniah is two things. He was a son of Shaphan and he was an elder of Israel.
We know those two things because there were elders and Jasaniah stood in the center of them. So he was a one of the elders. He was probably one of the leaders of the elders.
Shaphaniah, his father, we’re not certain if it’s the same one but the only one that’s mentioned that appears to be tied to this that would have been of the age of Josiah. And there is a man that would live during the time of Josiah that was like Josiah’s right hand man and tearing down the idols and bringing reform and bringing repentance and restoration to those that would receive it. Simply because a father goes one way does not mean the son will go the same way.
And here you have someone who had seen in the King Josiah and in all likelihood this was his father, had seen in his father someone who tore all this down, got rid of it all and now he stands in the midst of it. He stands as one who puts it up on the walls. Simply because your your parents are Christians doesn’t mean you’re a Christian.
And simply because they understood the truth doesn’t mean that you will walk in the truth. It has to be your heart relationship, not theirs. And the thing is this man, even though he had godly influence in his history growing up, did not go a godly way and instead turned to the wickedness of the world.
It says he stood there and every man had his censer in his hand and a thick cloud of incense went up. Now what is the significance of incense? Well if you go look at the significance of incense in the in the tabernacle, the incense was burned and it was to be symbolic of the people of Israel lifting their prayers before the Lord. It was to be a sweet savor as the people would lift up their praises to God.
That’s what this incense was to symbol in the worship of the temple and the tabernacle. This incense wasn’t being lifted up to God but there was so much of it you couldn’t even see. It was so thick.
I want you to understand today Jesus says that in the book of Hebrews that our incense today, we don’t have incense for church service because it says our incense is our prayers that are offered before the Lord. They come before his throne as sweet incense. That’s what the believer after Christ, our prayers go directly to the throne of God.
We don’t have to do incense like they did in the tabernacle or the temple. But if you go to pagan religions they also do incense. You go to Hinduism they have incense.
Go to Roman Catholicism and the incense gets very very heavy sometimes and it’s part of their worship. But God says our incense is something that we can’t smell because it’s been changed from what it once was which was symbolic or a picture of to now the reality of in that we boldly come into the throne room of God with our prayers and it’s sweet incense before his throne. These people all the religious systems and the things that they’re doing were involved in pagan religion and you begin to look at it it’s in the pagan religions today.
Hinduism, Roman Catholicism and a lot of people think Roman Catholics are Christians. They’re not. It’s not Christianity.
It’s Christian terms that have been paganized. Now I want you to see what else happens. Then said he unto me, son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark? It’s bad enough where there’s a little bit of light.
Have you seen what they do in the dark? Have you ever noticed that a lot of wickedness always occurs not in the light of day but in the dark of night? A lot of the most wicked and evil things occur in the dark of night. It’s kind of like man thinks like Adam and Eve. I can somehow hide from God and if I hide in the dark he won’t see what I’m doing.
That’s evidently what these guys thought because if you go into the temple there were there was candles and there was the menorah and there was light but they come to worship and their most evil forms of worship are done in the dark and somehow they think that they can seal this from God. It says here every man in the chambers of his imagery, every man in the chambers of his imagery where they were worshipping with all of these icons and idols and false gods, every man had his own little place of worship. He says for they say the Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth.
Why were they doing this? They were doing this because they felt that God wasn’t God and that God’s word wasn’t true and that God wouldn’t do what he said and so consequently he had forsaken the earth. I want you to understand why do many people today that walk in darkness walk in darkness? What is one of the things you often hear them say? Why don’t you believe in God? God’s the cause of all the issues of the world. He’s the cause of all the problems.
He’s the cause of all the things that are evil and wicked and so I don’t believe in God. That’s where these guys were. They were looking at Nebuchadnezzar and they were saying well God’s made these promises but God’s not really in control because look at all the things that are happening to us.
So we don’t believe in God anymore and we don’t believe that he can really have the power that he says so we’re going to go hide in the dark and worship our false gods and God’s not going to know about it. That’s a lot of the way people are today. They deny that God will see them.
They deny that God will know them. They deny that God will see the horror and the sin in their own hearts but that’s not the worst. It only keeps getting worse.
He said to me, turn ye yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. What could be greater than the things we’ve seen already? He says, then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north and behold there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Who’s Tammuz? Tammuz was Semiramis’ son, Nimrod’s son.
Tammuz had been put to death or had died and supposedly he would rise again but they were weeping for Tammuz. The days before the resurrection Sunday, they have days which are really based on weeping for Tammuz. That’s come into Catholicism and now it’s made its way into all forms of Christianity.
A number of years ago when I was fairly young, I was in my s, there was a man on KFNW when KFNW used to have really good programming which was a long time ago. They had good Bible teachers on at that time and one of the teachers’ name was John D. Jess. And John D. Jess had a program that was called the Chapel of the Air and he did really good Bible study expository teaching God’s Word.
He’d take a passage of scripture and teach on it and it was really good. Well, John D. Jess got to be in his late s and it was getting a lot harder for him to teach and make a daily preparation for this program and he had a nephew by the name of David Maynes. And so David Maynes, he turned it over to his nephew.
Well, his nephew started bringing in false teachings. And one of the teachings that he brought in was, he called it the day spiritual adventure. Well, the Roman Catholic Church has the days of Lent, which is based upon the days of weeping for Tammuz.
That’s where it comes from, paganism. But now he’s brought it into all, just about all evangelical churches begin to do this days of spiritual adventure. And what you were supposed to do during days of spiritual adventure is to think of things that you were willing to give up so that you’d be drawn closer to the Lord.
That sure sounds a lot like Lent to me, because that’s exactly what Roman Catholics and Lutherans are asked to do during Lent, is to give up something. Give it up for the Lord until after Lent. These women were out weeping for Tammuz.
Tammuz, the son of Nimrod. Nimrod, the man who was trying to make a world religion and getting all the people of the world to worship at his feet, he would take them to worship Satan. The same thing is happening in our world today, a one world religion, a one world government, a one world economy that would be based around a strong man who would be their leader.
Satan did it at the Tower of Babel. God scattered the people, but they took the remembrance of this with them. And you will find this in every pagan religion, some form of it.
And it’s in Roman Catholicism. And today it’s in just about every evangelical church, because what they’ve done is they’ve adopted what the Catholic Church refers to as Lent into some type of spiritual adventure for days, the weeping of Tammuz. And that’s what these women were doing.
They were doing this at the temple of God. They were weeping for the son of Nimrod, who God had condemned for what he did. Can you see it’s getting to be a worse and a worse and a worse abomination? But it doesn’t stop there.
He says, Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see a greater abomination than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house. And behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord between the porch and the altar were about five and twenty men with their backs towards the temple of the Lord and their face toward the east, and they worshiped the sun toward the east.
They were sun worshipers. No more sun worshipers today in Japan. What is the Japan flag? The flag has got the rising sun on it.
Japan is filled with paganism. It’s been one of the hardest countries in the world to reach with the gospel. They are spirit worshipers, their ancestor worshipers.
Same thing with China. And the thing is, many of these cultures worship the creation rather than the creator. And you know what the Roman Catholic Church does? Every time they have mass and they have a high mass, they will bring the monstrance and place a wafer in the center of the monstrance.
And if you study what the monstrance is fashioned after, the sun god, the sun, not Jesus Christ the sun, but the sun these people were worshiping. The sun. There are people in religions today that worship the sun because they said that is what gives us life is the sun, the physical sun.
The monstrance is the same thing that is the sun god in many of these religions where they have at the center of it what they’re doing here. Everything that’s an abomination here has come into Christianity and it’s filtering in to the evangelical church. In summary, I just like to tell you there are three types of religion of worship that he gives here.
Ezekiel is seeing the people in idol worship and that’s we see that all in all false religions. They have idol worship icons and idols that they worship. He also has spirit worship.
Which we see in verses through . You know what’s happening today in the evangelical church? People say well we don’t worship spirits. You know how many people pray to their ancestors in the evangelical church? They pray to their dead family members and look to them for help.
You know what they do in Roman Catholicism? Pray to the dead family members thinking that somehow they can help them. It’s gotten so bad that necromancy has come into the evangelical church where there are actually evangelical men who are pastors who claim to be able to speak with the dead. And a few Sundays ago or well just a couple months ago now I gave you the example of one big Baptist church in down south and I forget whether I think it was might have been in Texas I’m not sure what state.
I have to go back and look. But they did an AI voice of Charlie Kirk after Charlie Kirk had died. It was about a week or two after Charlie Kirk had died.
They had an AI voice that did Charlie Kirk’s voice and gave a message to the people and it sounded just like Charlie Kirk. You couldn’t have told the difference if you played Charlie Kirk’s voice and then played this AI configuration of the voice. And the first thing that he said is, do not worry about me.
I am in heaven with Jesus today. That is necromancy via AI. We are not to speak to the dead, but they worship spirits.
There’s ancestor worship in many cultures. They were worshipping those that were dead to Moose. Worshipping him as somehow this wicked and evil son of a wicked, wicked man and a very evil mother could somehow help them.
And they were crying and weeping. And the third thing they did was sun worship or worshipping the creature and the creation rather than the creator. Elijah comes and he’s given this message to bring back to the people.
Verse , Therefore will I also deal in fury? Mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity. And though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them. That’s the Lord’s message to Elijah, to Ezekiel.
I want you to know today, things haven’t changed. God doesn’t change. What’s an abomination to the Lord? It’s an abomination to the Lord.
And you don’t dress it up with Christian terms and you don’t say it’s revival and it’s really just exterior reformation. But things haven’t changed in the heart. And you still want to worship idols and icons and dead people.
And dead things and Mary instead of God. And you don’t want to do what God says. And you don’t want to worship the Lord on His terms and come to Him in His form and fashion.
Yet many Christians today say we’re having revival. How do you have revival with this? This isn’t revival, it’s not even reform. It’s thinking that you can hide all that which is an abomination to the Lord from the Lord if you just put it behind closed doors in the dark where people can’t see.
And you give it different names. We’re going inside to worship God. No we’re not if we don’t come with a pure heart to worship God in His way.
Let’s just close in prayer. Lord I pray that you just help us to understand this. Help us to apply these things to our life.
Help us to realize that these same abominations that were seen in the land of Judah are seen in the church today. And help us to call them out. And help us to repent from ever doing them.
And help us to walk with You. And to walk in the light as You are the light. This we ask in Jesus’ name.