"AM I A GOD?"
I. THE HISTORIC SETTING.
A. The city of Tyre was one of the most beautiful and richest cities in the world.
1. The king of Tyre was very wise and a shrewd business man who had increased greatly the riches of Tyre.
2. As the people began to laud him for his great wisdom, they began to hold him up and worship him as a God.
3. The problem was he began to believe it and began to declare that he indeed was God. His heart was lifted up and he was saying that he was God.
B. The city of Tyre is soon to be destroyed, and the king of Tyre slain. The prophet asks, "When you are slain will you say to the man ready to slay you that you are God?"
II. THE FALLACY THAT MAN IS A GOD GOES BACK INTO THE HISTORY OF MAN.
A. Today we hear many voices declaring the man is a god.
1. The new age movement with it's demonic channeling is bringing this enlightened truth to man.
a. As the demons speak through the channelers the consistent message is to discover the truth of your deity.
b. We hear constantly the message of the human potential.
c. School children are taught to meditate and find the help from the powers within themselves.
d. We have programs designed to elevate the self esteem of the child.
e. The rich, the beautiful and the talented Hollywood movie stars who are leading the world down the tube to moral corruption are worshipped as gods and goddesses.
2. The guru's, the professed holy men of India, have brought this enlightenment to the Western world, and the rich and famous, and jaded people of the West, as they try to fill the void in their lives, flock to their Ashrams in India to sit at the feet of these god men to learn how to ascend into godhood.
3. For a long time the Mormons have been telling their adherents how to become gods. If you will follow faithfully the tenants of Mormonism, go through the temple rites, that Joseph Smith borrowed from the Scottish Masonic Order, you will become gods, and will be granted some planet in the universe to start and watch over your own world.
4. Not to be outdone many heretical Charismatic evangelist have taken up this doctrine of demons, and are now proclaiming that we are gods.
a. This was a natural progression of thought from their faith teachings.
b. They taught that if you exercised the proper faith that you could have whatever you wanted. That God in some way was obligated to grant your every faith spoken word. Thus riches, healings, power, was all available to you by you claiming it in faith.
c. Nothing was said about the will of God. To them the prayer, "Thy will be done," was scoffed at as a cop out.
d. God became as the magic genie who was bound to respond to your demands as you created your own reality through words of faith.
e. If I am the one who is now in control of running things according to my desire and wishes, and God is running the errands for me, then that makes me god, and He with His super power fulfills my whims.
f. If the prophet today were writing to some of these people who have purchased their Rolls Royces in faith, their lavish diamonds, he would probably say to them "Are you going to say to the bankruptcy judge that you are god?"
III. THERE IS NOTHING NEW ABOUT THIS LIE.
A. In verse 12 as Ezekiel takes up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, the text takes on an interesting form, for it goes behind the scene, and describes the origin of the you are gods message. The king of Tyre suddenly becomes Satan, or Lucifer.
1. He is described as the seal of perfection.
2. Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
3. As having been the Eden the garden of God.
4. Covered with precious gems.
5. A ruling cherub.
6. Having been in the holy mountain of God.
7. He is to be cast out of the mountain of God and destroyed.
8.
Isaiah 14 tells us of the sin that caused him to be brought down. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning. For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds: I will be like the Most High."
B. When God created man, He created man in His own image, and likeness. Whatever that may have entailed.
1. Man through sin fell from that image and likeness.
2. What temptation did Satan use to lure man into sinning? "You shall be as gods." The very same temptation that he had succumbed to.
3. It has been such a successful line through the ages that he has not changed it.
4. I am not suprised at the lie, only at the variety of messengers who are spreading the lie.
C. There is something in man that desires to be like God. Perhaps that desire goes back to the Garden of Eden when man fell from the likeness of God.
1. There is a vast difference between the desire to be like God, and the declaration that you are god.
2. In
Isaiah 46:8 God asks, "Is there a God beside Me? There is no God, I know not any." When these men who are claiming to be gods, as they come before the Lord seeking an entrance into His Kingdom on the basis of the healings and miracles done in His name, will they be those to whom He declares, "Depart, I never knew you."? He said that He did not know any God other than Himself.
3. Man takes this desire of his fellowman to be like god, and exploits it, but being a god takes a lot of money, it will cost you a lot, your money is a false god that keeps you from being like god, so you must give all of your money to the guru, who only is able to handle the pressures of having wealth, for he is already god.
4. The desire to be like God I believe is planted in the heart of man by God.
a. In my heart I want to be like God, I want to be pure as He is pure, holy as He is holy, true as He is true. Gracious as He is gracious, forgiving as He is forgiving, merciful as He is merciful.
b. To this end He has given me the indwelling of His Holy Spirit that He might conform me into the image of Jesus Christ.
c. John tells us that we are now the sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we are going to be, but we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.
d. Paul tells us that as we behold the glory of the Lord we are being changed from glory to glory, into that same image by the power of His Spirit working in us.
5. Like God, yes, God please make it a reality in my life.
6. A god? never, that is a lie from the pit of hell, you are a man, and your glasses, or contacts, your decaying teeth, and your wrinkled skin, and death in time will prove it.
Verse-Reference
Square — [Jhn 1:1 KJV]
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