False teaching has always had a strong correlation with sexual immorality since the Old Testament times. Baal worship, which encompasses polytheism, idolatry, and sexual immorality was against Yahweh’s commandments and laws He established with the nation of Israel. Jezebel and Ahab were prime examples of Old Testament figures that corrupted Israel with the false teaching that Baal and Ashtoreth were god's. Their teachings stated that they were the god and goddess to be worship along with Yahweh. They also taught that indulgence in sexual immorality was a part of temple worship.
In the New Testament there were many teachers who integrated false teachings into the teachings of the church as a method Christians away from the true gospel of Jesus Christ. The most popular type of false teaching is known as Gnostic teaching. It was used to subvert the gospel and incorporated sexually immorality. It was used to subvert the gospel.
Revelation 2:14-15, 20 talks about doctrines of
Balaam and
Nicolaitans, and the
prophetess Jezebel. Through their doctrine, people were led into believing that leading a life of sexual immorality was okay. Anyone could lead an ungodly lifestyle and practice idolatry without affecting their relationship with Christ Jesus. The false teachers of that era were perverting the truth of God’s Word.
There are also examples of men in and around our time that are or were false teachers. Their connection with sexual immorality and perverted teaching was brought about by their own perverted sexual appetites.
Detroit’s Prophet Jones
One of the most prominent black ministers and so called prophet of the 1940s and 1950s was considered being queer/homosexual was
Detroit’s Prophet Jones (James Frances Jones). Jones built a religious empire on pimping the poor disenfranchised Black people in and around his area. Jones would pay for a hundred newspapers with a picture of him for ten cents each. He would then turn around and sell them for five dollars each claiming the papers had “miraculous curative” properties. He lived like a millionaire, drove luxury cars, and lived in a mansion[
source]. False Prophet Jones taught that
all men would become immortal by the year 2000. He said they would not go to heaven, but heaven would be brought down to earth abolishing death.
So was “Profit” Jones right about his prophecy? After all, it is now 2012! What happened with all men becoming immortal by the year 2000?
Father Divine
Now George Baker Jr., better known as
Father Divine, arose in the late 1910s. He founded the International Peace Mission. He believed he was God and was worshipped as God by his followers. Although Divine preached sexual abstinence to his followers; he did not practice what he preached. He was not only perverse in his teachings and doctrine, but he was also perverted sexually. Father Divine would tell his mistresses, “When I have sex relations with you I am bringing your desires to the surface so that I can eliminate it, god is the only one who can do as he pleases”[
source]. Doesn’t that sound like Genesis 3:5? Father Divine was best known for being the mentor of Jim Jones. Yup you guess it right. The same Jim Jones that led over nine hundred people down to Guyana to eventually drink poison kool-aid in a mass suicide.
Jim Jones
Jim Jones was a mentee of Father Divine. He structured his People’s Temple in the same fashion as Divine’s International Peace Mission. Jones also thought he was God. He sexually abused some of his followers and was bisexual. In short, he was a sexual pervert and taught many false doctrines. Jones believed in reincarnation which was a doctrine he picked up from his mentor Father Divine. Jim Jones eventually attempted to take over Divine’s International Peace Mission in 1972 after his mentor’s death. Jones had claimed to be Father Divine reincarnated. Jones was a “spiritual murderer” with his lies and false teaching. He led 909 people to mass suicide down in the jungles of Guyana, leading them all too eternal damnation.
David Berg
The group Children of God (now called The Family International), was founded by
David Berg in the late 1960s as a Christian organization. Berg established all sorts of wild teachings for his group. Berg’s method to gain proselyte was to introduced “
flirty fishing” in 1974. This is when he encouraged female members to have sex with potential members to show God’s love. By 1978 it was a wide spread among members, and in some areas “flirty fishers” used escort services to meet people. It was also a means to raise money for the group. Talk about evangelism!
Some of the other beliefs of the group were that[
source]:
● Female bisexuality is sanctioned,
● Spirit helpers (i.e.: angels; departed humans and goddesses) give spiritual instruction,
● Otherwise known as bridal theology, members visualized that they were having sex with Jesus through sexual intercourse or masturbation. Male members were to visualize they were women to prevent having homosexual relationship with Jesus.
Berg was seen as the prophet of the group and was called Moses David or King David. Since he is now deceased he is looked at as one of the spirit helpers. He was known for being outspoken and reputed as an anti-Semite and pedophile.
David Koresh
David Koresh was the leader of the
branch Davidians. The Davidians was a group that broke off from the Seventh Day Adventist. Koresh moved to Waco, Texas in 1981 to join the branch Davidians and in 1983 claimed he had the gift of prophecy. He then started an affair with the prophetess and leader of the group Lois Roden who was in her late sixties at that time. She began to let Koresh teach. Roden died in 1986 and Koresh took over the group and begin to teach polygamy. He taught that he was entitled to
140 wives, sixty women as his queens, and eighty as his concubines. He based this teaching on his interpretation of the Song of Solomon. Eventually Koresh and his group were killed in 1993 in a standoff with the federal government. His followers followed him to their death.
Todd Bentley
In most recent times false perverse evangelist/prophet Todd Bentley, who lead the false Lakeland, Florida Revival, had an affair on his wife with a female ministry staffer[
source]. He later divorced his wife to marry this woman. Bentley was like a shooting star. He led this revival for a couple of months in 2008. However, he exhibit perverse behavior before the Lakeland Revival by getting multiple tattoos and body piercings well after being a Christian for a length of time. Not only was Bentley sexually immoral, his teaching was through a “perverse spirit.” Bentley received messages and wild revelations from a female angel Emma. He was quoted as saying Emma was an angel of the prophetic. There are two essential problems with this.
The first is that biblically, angels always appear in the human form as male. Secondly, the moving of the true prophetic ministry is always through the Holy Spirit and not an angel. In truth, Emma is a demonic spirit that influenced Bentley. In Japanese mythology, Emma is known as the demon god.
Emma-O is the lord of death or the god of the underworld. Bentley’s perverse teaching lines up with his perverse lifestyle and this perverse spirit Emma used him to deceive many during that False Lakeland Revival through lying signs and wonders.
Second Peter two verses one through three says, “But there is false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”
In these last days, there will be an increase of false teachers and false prophets. As true Christians we must be established in the Word of God, have the ability through the Holy Spirit to discern spirits, and lastly know ministers by the fruit they bear and not through lying signs and wonders. We need to guard ourselves from deception.