The Spirit of Jezebel, Part 1
August 23, 2013
OK, OK! I said we were going to begin talking this week about the Spirit and the Bride, and we will get there, but after seeing comments concerning the things shared in the series on Babylon, and then having several back-to-back phone calls this week, it became clear that I needed to switch gears and deal with this subject for now.
Some seven years ago or so I did a series of Coffee Breaks on the spirit of Jezebel and raised a lot of sand in the process. This is not a "feel-good" kind of teaching. It is rather unpleasant for some folks -- especially those who've been infected by this spirit. The common misconception is that this is a female spirit, and that it infects women more than it infects men. Not so! It just seems that way because a lot of men have a knack for camouflaging the presence of Jezebel, and most folks don't recognize it for what it is.
That said, let me begin by saying that if this teaching makes you very uncomfortable, or even very angry, sit up and take notice! This is one spirit that hates to be exposed, and it will create anger and hostility within the people in which it has taken up residence.
Earlier this week I received a phone call from a gentleman who was absolutely baffled by a series of events that had just taken place in his church, and more specifically, within the church's leadership.
This man -- for the sake of this discussion, we'll refer to him as "Fred" (not his real name) -- lives in a part of the country where there is a large Jewish concentration, the majority of whom are Orthodox Jews. The church of which he is a part had decided to launch a major evangelical thrust into the Jewish community. Sounds OK, thus far, right?
When we think "evangelism" we think the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, if we are actually doing what Jesus instructed, we are preaching "the Gospel of the Kingdom," which has distinctly larger parameters than simply preaching salvation through Jesus Christ. We won't go there today because it would take us off topic. Suffice it to say that Fred's church had proposed a major inroad with the Gospel.
Before we get too far along with this topic, let me ask you a question. Is it possible to preach the Gospel -- whether you want to preach the "Gospel of Jesus Christ" or the "Gospel of the Kingdom" -- without naming the name or the onoma, if you will, of the Lord Jesus Christ? Let's leave it there for the moment, and continue.
Weeks of preparation went into this evangelistic thrust as the associate pastor of Fred's church prepared the evangelistic team. Fred, of course, was an integral part of the preparation since, as he put it, "the Jewish people are near and dear to my heart." We now get to the final week of preparation and the associate pastor stands us and says to the people, "I want to make absolutely sure that as we go out that you NEVER mention the name of Jesus Christ."
Whaaattt??? Wait a minute! There is no "Gospel" without Jesus Christ.
He continued, "Our purpose is simply to show them the love of God. We don't want to offend anyone by mentioning Jesus to them."
Fred, being a spirit-filled Christian, was more than taken aback. He went immediately to the associate pastor and questioned him on this approach. The associate pastor became instantly defensive. He didn't modify his policy by saying, "I only mean this as a temporary stance until we win the people to ourselves first." He didn't take the time to clarify anything whatever. He simply responded with, "If you can't adhere to what I've instructed, you don't need to be a part of this."
Still looking for some understanding and not really willing to back away from the evangelical effort, Fred went to talk to the senior pastor. The senior pastor said to him, quite dismissively, "Let me make it abundantly clear! We stand behind (the associate pastor) completely and totally! The entire staff of this church stands behind him. Whatever he says goes!"
Baffled and not yet ready to accept that they could "evangelize" without the name of Jesus, Fred quoted the scripture from Matthew 10:33, "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."
He might very well have added the following verses in which Jesus makes it clear that His Gospel is neither "seeker friendly" nor comfortable: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household."
As Fred was to quickly discover, his foes were going to be those of his own church leadership. The senior pastor followed up Fred's quote by saying (and I'm paraphrasing), "If you can't abide by the instructions you've been given, then you don't need to be a part at all."
In the just-concluded Coffee Break series on the fall of Babylon, I commented that the spirit of Jezebel (which John clearly describes as sitting atop the beast -- Babylon -- and being subservient to the beast) absolutely hates and detests "with a purple passion" rebuke and reproof. Anyone who dares to rebuke or to reprove the actions and activities of those under the domination of this spirit of rebellion frequently (and increasingly in this day and time) suffers as a result.
Because this spirit is so pervasive in the church world, and more specifically, among religious denominations and religions of the world in general, it has become the dominant spirit in most of the mainline denominations. The overwhelming majority of our Presbyterian friends here in the northwest, along with their churches and church leadership, are in the process of parting ways with the PCUSA (The Presbyterian Church - USA) and becoming part of different groups because the large denomination has yielded to Jezebel as the presiding spirit and has begun ordaining homosexual ministers.
Sexual perversion, homosexual and lesbian behavior are all fundamentals of Jezebel's behavior, and are characteristics of the dominance of that spirit. I won't go into this aspect in today's discussion (we'll pick it up later), but the spirit of Jezebel only operates where there is a spirit of Ahab present, and Ahab (if you remember your Scripture) was a purveyor of compromise with false idols and utter wickedness in Israel.
Getting back to Fred's story, his disappointment knew no bounds when he learned that his pastor attended a denominational convention within the past few weeks and was lauded by the General Superintendent of that denomination as an example for all of their churches to follow.
I'm not here to roast individuals or to point fingers at anyone. I haven't spoken to this pastor in person and haven't had the opportunity to hear his reasoning, or to find out if indeed he intended this as only a first approach. Nevertheless, this is a clear picture of Jezebel's behavior. Jezebel absolutely does not want the name of Jesus. This spirit is fearful of the authority contained within the onoma of Jesus Christ.
Let's take a look for a few minutes at some historical background of Jezebel, and some of the characteristics of the spirit of Jezebel as recorded in the Word.
Some folks, by the way, have asked me why I describe this as “the spirit of Jezebel” when that term doesn’t appear anywhere in Scripture. Without taking the time today to go into all of the characteristics the Scripture DOES clearly define as being those of evil spirits and making clear that the term “evil spirit” or “demon” is not simply a metaphor but a tangible being with personality, let me simply say that it is very clear that Jezebel was not alive at the end of the first century when John was writing down the words of the vision and the Revelation given to him by the Holy Spirit.
Jezebel, the Queen of Israel, the wife of King Ahab, had lived more than a millennia previously. The daughter of an Amorite king, she became the epitome of that spirit that ruled the Amorite nation. Each of the seven nations that God commanded Israel to wipe out and destroy when they came into Canaan so as to prevent the contamination of God’s people exhibited a master spirit. That spirit was manifested in the nature, the culture, and the characteristics of each of those nations – seven master spirits in all.
An example you might more readily relate to comes in Daniel 10 where Daniel describes fasting for 21 days, after which the angel of the Lord appears to him and tells him that he was withstood by the “prince of the kingdom of Persia” and delayed in coming with Daniel’s answer because of the ongoing warfare until Michael came to his assistance. He then said, “…now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come.”
Quite obviously, no angel of the Lord is being withstood or battling with earthly kings or princes. He is making reference to a demonic principality (Paul uses the word, kosmokrator --world ruler of darkness, in the Greek text of Ephesians 6:12) that ruled over the region with wickedness: a demon prince whose characteristics and nature were being woven into the makeup of the people.
The Jezebel that John speaks of, therefore, is not a human entity but a demonic spirit infiltrating the body of Christ. This is an important distinction, and it gives us understanding as to the nature of the spiritual battle being waged against the people of God, and -- in this hour especially -- the Bride of Christ.
Although the Word is filled with illustrations and examples of the behavior of the spirit of Jezebel, I'd like to begin with a picture John gives us in the fourth of the seven letters that open Revelation. This letter is the letter to Thyatira and begins in Revelation 2:18:
1. “She calleth herself a prophetess.” Right. False prophet(-ess) and false prophecy. We unfortunately have a lot of wanna-be prophets in the body of Christ today pushing either comfy prophecies or doom and gloom prophecies which completely omit the victory we have in Christ Jesus.
2. “to teach and seduce my servants…” This spirit poses as a seductive teacher, promoting doctrines and teachings that lead the people of God astray. These are doctrines which sell short the price that Jesus paid on the Cross and leave Christians in a place where what Jesus did wasn't good enough; they still have to do more.
3. “to commit fornication.” This seduction is both spiritual and physical, often with sexual manifestation. There is another aspect of this as well seen recently in the so-called preaching of "Chrislam" which suggests that Christianity and Islam are compatible and that both religions "serve" the same God.
4. “and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.” Idolatry: the worship or reverence of things, or individuals, or entities other than the Lord Himself: the prioritizing of doctrines over a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. The suggestion (to draw a few examples) that "Jesus paid it all" on the Cross, that we all live under grace, and that there is no Hell.
5. “I gave her space to repent of her fornication,” We'll get into this picture in due time as we progress in this series to talk about God's mercy and the opportunities presented to believers who've been contaminated by this spirit.
6. “and she repented not.” Those afflicted with this spirit generally tend to be unrepentant. They have no remorse over their sin, can’t see that what they are doing is sin, and refuse to repent when faced with exposure of their sin. They generally rise up in anger and rebellion when confronted.
7. “Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.” It’s more than just fornication: it is adultery, too. We will get into this characteristic shortly.
8. “And I will kill all her children with death.” How do you kill someone with death? This is an interesting Hebrew metaphor occurring in the Greek text that we will be exploring later in this series.
The judgment of the Lord against those who commit adultery with this spirit (and we’ll talk about that more in a second) is “great tribulation.” The Greek text uses a couple of interesting words for this phrase: megas (we get our “mega-” from this word) thlipsis.
It literally translates to: enormous pressure; great persecution, much affliction.
So what does it mean to “commit adultery with her”?
Adultery is a term applied to those who are married. In this instance, we – as members of the body of Christ – have been betrothed in marriage to the Lord Jesus Christ. Betrothal is/was a legal status indicating a state of marriage in which the marriage has yet to be consummated because the Bride-to-be was not yet ready to take on the duties and responsibilities for marriage, and in a period of preparation for the final wedding day. For one to be betrothed in marriage to a Bridegroom meant that vows of purity and chastity were in force.
For the betrothed bride to get into bed with another, even though the marriage had yet to be consummated, was the same as adultery. The picture John draws in Revelation is that of a betrothed Bride of Christ yielding to the seducing ways of the spirit of Jezebel, essentially “sleeping with” that spirit, having intercourse with Jezebel and taking on the marital characteristics of being married to Jezebel, along with all of the attendant idolatry, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment and seduction.
We'll continue with this next week.
Before I wrap up today, however, I think it is important to remind everyone that our freedom from this spirit comes in the intimate presence of the Lord. This is a pretty heavy subject, and I don't want to weight folks down unnecessarily without reminding you all that there is no substitute for the presence of the Lord. In His presence comes revelation. In His presence comes deliverance. In His presence comes the kind of true authority necessary to take on evil spirits like Jezebel.
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
CAPENER MINISTRIES
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