Today we'll be discussing the well-known conference speaker, author, and Bible teacher, Joyce Meyer. In case you never heard of Joyce Meyer, I'll start out with some background about her. She's a very popular author, conference speaker, and Bible teacher based in the St. Louis area. Meyer has a multi-million dollar ministry called Joyce Meyer Ministries and can be found on the net at JoyceMeyer.org. She also has an extremely popular TV and radio program called Enjoying Everyday Life which can be seen and heard on hundreds and hundreds of radio and TV stations nationally and worldwide. Meyer teaches on some very practical issues making her well-received, such as forgiveness, dealing with a busy life, emotional healing, anxiety, addictions, and self-discipline. She is especially loved by tens of thousands of women who hold her teachings up as being life-changing. Joyce Meyer gained even more prominence when she made it to the cover story of Time magazine in February of 2005 as one in the list of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America. And by the way, she's also in the September 18, 2006 issue of Time magazine. And she's also been on the cover of Charisma magazine. Well, as popular as Joyce Meyer is, this certainly doesn't mean her teachings shouldn't be held up under the light of the scriptures. were commanded to test all things, examine the prophets, rightly divide the word of truth, and test the spirits, for not all come from God. As always, I will be testing the teaching of Joyce Meyer and not judging her relationship with God. Only God knows if she has been born again by the Spirit. Only He knows what's in her heart and if she has truly repented and trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of her sins. Although Meyer has some good teachings, perhaps the most striking, unbiblical, and problematic teaching from Joyce Meyer is her teaching on the atonement of Jesus Christ, particularly about what happened between the point of Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection. It isn't so much that Meyer doesn't believe in the atonement of Jesus, but the problem lies in where he paid for our sins. The following teaching from Meyer comes from her 1991 booklet called, The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make. It also is repeated on her audio teaching called, From the Cross to the Throne, which I have heard is currently unavailable. Well, the crux of Meyer's teaching on the Atonement is that Jesus Christ paid for our sins in hell. That's right, in hell. She teaches that on the cross Jesus literally became not just our sin-bearer but sin itself and ceased to be the Son of God. After Jesus died on the cross he went to hell not to proclaim the gospel or to announce his victory as some Christians believe, but he went to hell to be tortured for three days and three nights by Satan and his demons as part of the punishment for our sins. After three days of demons jumping all over him and laughing at him, God finally had enough and seeing that the price for sin was finally paid, God ended the suffering and Jesus then physically rose from the dead as the first born-again man. You know, this teaching is nothing real new. It's been taught in different forms by many Word Faith teachers such as Benny Hinn, Frederick Price, Charles Capps, Kenneth Copeland, and the late Kenneth Hagen. You know, it's one thing to plagiarize someone else's teachings, but it's another thing to plagiarize heresy and call it orthodox. Well, in her 1991 booklet called, The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make, Meyer writes, quote, During that time he entered hell, where you and I deserve to go because of our sin. He paid the price there. No plan was too extreme. Jesus paid on the cross and in hell. Listen for a minute to sound clips of Meyer's teaching on this subject from the audio tape, From the Cross to the Throne. The devil thought he had it. The devil thought he'd won. Oh, they were having the biggest party they'd ever been had. They had my Jesus in the floor, and they were standing on his back, jumping up and down, laughing. And he had become sin. Don't you think that God was pacing, wanting to put a stop to what was going on? All the hosts of hell were up on him. Up on Him. Up on Him. The angels are in agony. All the creation is groaning. All the host of hell was upon Him. Up on Him. They got on Him. They got Him down in the floor and got on Him. And they were laughing and mocking. Ah ha ha ha ha. You trusted God and look where you ended up. You thought he'd save you and get you off that cross, he didn't, ha ha ha! Just in case you doubt Joyce right now, she wrote in her above-mentioned booklet, quote, There is no hope of anyone going to heaven unless they believe this truth I am presenting. You cannot go to heaven unless you believe with all your heart that Jesus took your place in hell. Now I'm not going to split hairs with someone who believes a different theology than mine on the order of where Jesus' soul slash spirit went during the three days and three nights that his body laid in the tomb. Did he go directly to paradise to be with the repentant thief? Did he go to the second compartment mentioned in Luke 16 where the damned souls were suffering in torment? Or did Jesus go to Hades or to hell? Did he go there to preach the gospel? Or to proclaim his victory? Or to bring the Old Testament righteous souls waiting in Abraham's bosom to heaven? This can be argued and friendly debated, but what cannot be considered is what you heard Joyce Meyer teach, that Jesus paid for our sin in hell. Jesus certainly did not pay for our sin in hell. The Bible is extremely clear that it was on the cross where our fine was paid. It was on the cross where the blood of Jesus was spilled and accepted as a ransom for us. The cross was the place, the only place, where our atonement was bought. You know, Satan loves to take our attention away from the cross. He did it with the Mormons, as they teach that Jesus paid for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane. Islam teaches that Jesus didn't die on the cross at all, but perhaps Judas may have died in his place. Christian science teaches that Jesus didn't even die because death is an illusion. But the Bible says much different. The atonement was made on the cross where Jesus bled and died for us. 1 Peter 2.24 says, "...who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, not in hell." Ephesians 1.7 says that we have redemption and forgiveness through his blood, not through his suffering in hell. I remember that on the cross, not in hell, Jesus declared these words in John chapter 19. He said, it is finished. According to Meyer, Jesus only meant that the Old Covenant was finished, but she said that the Atonement was really just getting started when Jesus said these words. However, Meyer fails to understand that the words, it is finished, are one Greek word which means to complete a process, to accomplish, to pay in full. Joyce Meyer should take James 3.1 seriously as it says, My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. You know, it's very interesting that you can search the New Testament from front to back and never exegete the sensationalistic teaching from it. Meyer, like many in the WordFaith camp who teach extra-biblical doctrine, appeals to what she would call revelation knowledge to substantiate her teachings as coming from God. In other words, the Bible doesn't actually teach this. I got it through a direct revelation from God's spirit to my spirit. That's why Meyer said in her audio tape dealing with the exact same subject, quote, the Bible can't even find any way to explain this. Not really. That's why you've got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I'm telling you. I've got to just trust God that he's putting it into your spirit like he put it into mine. The Bible can't even find any way to explain this. Not really. That's why you've got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I'm telling you. I've got to just trust God that he's putting it into your spirit like he put it into mine. Here's one example of this revelation knowledge on the now unavailable audio tape by Joyce Meyer called From the Cross to the Throne. Well, here comes Jesus into hell. Now I don't know what hell looks like. But God gave me a few ideas. It's hot, fire hot, but at the same time it's cold and clammy. That's kind of different, isn't it? Fire hot, but cold and clammy. Chapter and verse please. I can understand the fiery hot part, but where in the Bible does it say hell is cold and clammy? This is the kind of thing that Joyce Meyer and others in the Word of Faith movement do. They appeal to a special revelation knowledge from God and teach it as Bible truth, even though it has no scriptural basis at all. They use this as a way to make themselves appear to possess an anointing from God, and if you don't get what they're teaching, you must not have the anointing. For example, on the audio tape, Meyer categorizes her heretical atonement theology as something so special that most of the church doesn't even know about it. For 2,000 years the church didn't even know what happened between Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection. That is, until Joyce. Do you know something a large majority of the church really doesn't even know? Honestly and truly, they really don't even know! Well, you're gonna know when this night's over. Another example of extra-biblical teaching from Meyer is this. SUNDAY MORNING! SUNDAY MORNING! Here comes the sun! SUNDAY MORNING! God gets himself together. Ho-ho! Justice has been met. Somehow the thing's been taken care of. And oh God gets his voice together. And he hollers out three words. and they go roaring through the universe and entering the gates of hell. He said, IT IS ENOUGH! IT IS ENOUGH! Again, chapter and verse please, where in the world does the Bible say this? Well, we'll pick up more about Joyce Meyer and her Born Again Jesus teaching next week. Last week we began to discuss the theology of popular TV, radio, and conference speaker Joyce Meyer. Meyer has a multi-million dollar Bible teaching ministry with an audience spanning nationally in the US and reaching the world abroad. Meyer is especially attractive to many women who enjoy her practical teaching on topics such as forgiveness, relieving stress, obedience, and addictions. However, as we covered last week, Meyer has some huge problems in her theology when it comes to where Jesus atoned for the sins of mankind. You might say, that's easy. It was on the cross. Well, Meyer actually teaches that it was in hell where Jesus did the work. That's right, in hell. Meyer doesn't deny the cross outright, but says the cross is only the place where the Atonement began. This would mean, like every cult teaches, that the work Jesus did on the cross was insufficient for salvation. Cults and many religions teach there's always more work to be done. The cross wasn't enough. That, my friends, is heresy. According to the Atonement According to Joyce Meyer, when Jesus was on the cross he literally became sin and ceased to be the Son of God. He then died and went to hell for three days and three nights where Jesus was beaten and mocked by the devil and his angels. It was this suffering in hell that paid for our sins. Meyer teaches that after God had enough of watching Jesus being beaten with demons jumping up all over him, God finally got himself together and yelled out, it is enough! which is nowhere to be found in scripture at this point, and the point where we'll pick up today, Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead as the first man ever to be born again. In her 1991 booklet, The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make, Meyer wrote, quote, God rose up from his throne and said to the demon powers tormenting the sinless Son of God, let him go. Then the resurrection power of the Almighty God went through hell and filled Jesus He was resurrected from the dead, the first born-again man. This, again, is a heresy taught by several of the word-faith teachers out there like Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Frederick Price, Benny Hinn, and more. Joyce Meyer teaches that on the cross Jesus literally became sin and died spiritually. Not that he became a sin offering on whom God poured out his divine wrath, but that Jesus became sin, died spiritually, ceasing to be the Son of God. You can hear her teach this on her audio tape titled, From the Cross to the Throne. 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! My friend, God cannot cease to be God. And Jesus never ceased to be the Son of God. Yes, He added the nature of humanity in the Incarnation. Yes, He took our sin upon Himself. Yes, He underwent God's holy wrath for us. But no, Jesus never ceased to be deity, nor did He cease to be the Son of God. Psalm 92 says, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Hebrews 13.8 says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus always was God and always will be God. There is no point in eternity past or eternity future where the Son can cease to be Almighty God. Now to the born-again Jesus teaching. Listen to Meyer here. Do you know something? The minute that blood sacrifice was accepted, Jesus was the first human being that was ever born again. That was still. I mean, it happened when he was in hell. Is this true? Was Jesus the first human ever to be born again? Well, it might be good to quickly review why we need to be born again in the first place. Well, the reason why we must experience the new birth is because our physical birth was a birth tainted with sin. Romans 5.12 says, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. Psalm 51.5 says, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. The fact that we are sinners by birth and by choice makes it necessary to be reborn into a right spiritual relationship with God, having our sins forgiven and declared righteous. since nothing unholy can dwell in God's presence, we must be made holy by the imputed righteousness of Christ where he removes our sin and credits his righteousness into our account. Now, was Jesus a sinner? No. Was he born with original sin? No. He was born sinless through a virgin. As Joyce Meyer confuses in her teaching, Jesus was not made sin or a sinner on the cross but he bore our sins. He was the holy and sinless Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb, whom the sins of the world and God's holy wrath were laid upon, appeasing the justice of God so he could be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus." The point is that Jesus had no need to be born again because his nature was not sinful like ours, but sinless. Well, the fact that Jesus did not need to suffer in hell to atone for our sins is evident in Luke 23 43 where Jesus said to the repentant thief, surely I say to you today you will be with me in paradise. The problem is this. How could Jesus be in paradise that day with the thief if he had to further suffer in hell under the control of the devil and his demons for three more days and three more nights? The answer is He couldn't make that statement to the repentant thief if he needed to continue the atonement in hell. Well, Joyce Meyer knows this and addresses this on her audio tape called, From the Cross to the Throne. Her answer is amazing, especially to those who have some knowledge of Jehovah's Witness theology. Since Jehovah's Witnesses teach that man does not have an immortal soul that lives on after the death of the body, Jesus' statement to the thief that they would be together in paradise that same day is problematic to them. They couldn't be there together that day if their body is all they possessed and is lying there dead in the grave. In Joyce Meyer's theology, she has another slant. Again, they couldn't be together in paradise that same day if Jesus had more work to do in hell before going to paradise. Joyce Meyer does the same thing that the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible does. She moves the comma in Jesus' statement forward one word. Listen to this. And in Luke 23, 43, Jesus said unto him, I say unto you today, you shall be in paradise with me. There's no punctuation in the original translations of the Bible. We have punctuated it. And in this particular scripture, it was punctuated wrong. They put in there, I say unto you, comma, today you shall be in paradise with me. Making it appear that the minute Jesus died on the cross, He went straight to paradise. No, no, no. He did not. The way it should read is, I say unto you today, comma, I'm telling you this today. Today I'm telling you that you are going to be in paradise with me. But he didn't say, you're going to be there today. He said, I'm telling you this today. But I would ask Joyce Meyer the same thing that I would ask a Jehovah's Witness. Number one, Jesus uses the statement, I say unto you, dozens of times in the Gospels, perhaps as many as 70 times. Every time he uses this statement, the translators place the comma after the word you. I say unto you, comma. Why would this be the only instance where the translators misplaced the comma? Is it more reasonable to assume that the Bible is reliable, placing the comma in the same location in every translation, which translators have done for hundreds of years, or is it more reasonable to assume that this is the only location where they got it wrong? Number two, why would Jesus have to say, I say unto you today? What other day would Jesus be making this statement to the thief? He certainly wasn't making it yesterday or tomorrow. It would be silly, a waste of a word. The answer is that although there is no comment in the ancient Greek manuscripts, the translations have been consistent, logical, and reliable for years. Joyce Meyer, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, has changed the intended words of Jesus, twisting the scriptures, making the Bible fit into her own warped theology. Instead of letting the Bible form her doctrine, she forms the Bible's doctrine. Another very disturbing teaching of Joyce Meyer is her teaching of sinless perfection. On her audio tape, From the Cross to the Throne, Meyer teaches that she is not a sinner. All I was ever taught to say was I'm a poor, miserable sinner. I am not poor. I am not miserable. And I am not a sinner that is alive from the pit of hell. That is what I were. And if I still was, then Jesus died in vain. I'm going to tell you something, folks. I didn't stop sinning until I finally got it through my thick head. I wasn't a sinner anymore. And the religious world thinks that's heresy and may want to hang you for it. But the Bible says that I'm righteous and I can't be righteous and be a sinner at the same time. Yes, you can. It's called imputed righteousness. God's wrath was poured out on Jesus so His righteousness could be imputed or credited to us. When God looks down on a born-again child, He sees us positionally as possessing the righteousness of Christ in us. Now, practically speaking, we are still sinners. Although positionally we are in a right standing before God, practically we do still sin. As a pastor friend of mine says, I am not sinless, but I do sin less. The point is that we still sin. To say that we have reached a state of sinless perfection is calling God a liar. 1 John 1 says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 1.15 says he is, not was, the chief of sinners. Now remember that God doesn't just see our outward actions. He doesn't just hear our lies, see our fornications and thefts, but God sees the thought life of the heart. Every thought and attitude of our heart is bare before God. God sees our lust as adultery, our hatred as murder. He sees our selfishness, our pride, our covetousness. Our lack of thanksgiving to say that we are not sinners is something no one on this earth will be able to say until he is resurrected and glorified in his eternal body. But thanks be to God that he doesn't hold our sin against us if we have repented and trusted in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Only in him are we made worthy and acceptable before the throne of God and able to approach him with confidence. As I close this examination of Joyce Meyer's theology, I hope you can see that this is a serious matter. It's one thing to be off on eschatology or sign gifts. It's another thing to be off on the atonement of Jesus Christ. The Bible is very clear that Jesus paid for our sins on the cross when he shed his blood and died. The Bible nowhere says that Jesus ceased to be the Son of God on the cross. It never says that he suffered in hell as part of the atonement and was resurrected as a born-again man. This is a blatant false teaching, a blatant lie from hell. And I know that many good Christians who love Jesus and are obedient to the word follow Joyce Meyer and her teachings. I didn't do this critique to ridicule you or to pick on Meyer. but I would plead with you to examine this evidence and be discerning as you place yourself under the teaching of Joyce Meyer or anyone else, including me. If you're interested in a CD of both parts of this teaching, Contact me. My email address is help at tower2truth.net. My phone number is 610-513-5525. That's 610-513-5525. Our website again is tower2truth.net. Don't forget to tune in next week for another apologetic issue facing Christianity today. And remember, don't just believe everything you hear, but test all things. We hope this message has been a benefit to you. If you would like to donate to the Underground Christian Network, or if you don't have a home church, you can send a donation of any amount to the Underground Christian Network. Just go to theundergroundchristiannetwork.com and click the donation link at the top of the page. That's theundergroundchristiannetwork.com.