September 21, 2013

Good, Good, Good Morning! Wired up? Are ya cookin’ today? Got your coffee poured, yet? You’re drinkin’ the good stuff today, aren’t you? Dark Roast? Columbian, or maybe Ethiopian, or perhaps Jamaican Blue Mountain? Hehehehehe…………….

 

If there is any hallmark of the spirit of Jezebel, or some particular characteristic that sums up and describes its overall purpose, it would be “usurper.” The primary objective of the spirit of Jezebel is to usurp the operational authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in those who are anointed and appointed by the Holy Spirit to minister, to present itself as THE voice of the Lord instead, and to take control of the leadership of God’s people. See that word, “control”? It goes with manipulation. It’s called witchcraft.

 

Now, let’s resume our continuing look at more of the descriptive characteristics of the Spirit of Jezebel as outlined in Revelation 2:20-23.

 

Most of us think of false prophets and false prophetesses as being folks who stand up and make predictions about future events that go wrong. Unfortunately, that completely misses the whole picture of what prophecy is all about, and what a prophet – true or false – is all about.

 

Only the tiniest part of prophecy is about foretelling events to come, and we mistakenly refer to ministers or leaders within the body of Christ as “false prophets” if they predict something that doesn’t unfold in exactly the manner they describe. Real prophecy comes out of the character and makeup of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus spent very little of His teaching and preaching dealing with future events, and yet He IS the Spirit of Prophecy.

 

John wrote in Revelation 19:10b, “…your brethren that have the witness and evidence of Jesus worship God: for the witness and evidence of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy.” (My translation)

Does that make sense to you? We can come back to this later, if necessary, but I want to show you how the spirit of Jezebel counterfeits this witness and evidence.

One of the biggest evidences of this spirit in the body of Christ is the very seductiveness of it. I’ll get to the fornication part momentarily.

 

Stop and think about this for a second. How do you seduce someone who is a Bible-believing Christian? How do you entrap them with words that are seductive?

 

Seduction, by its very nature, uses pleasant thoughts, draws mental images with carefully chosen words that sound good and – in this case – usually quotes verses of Scripture to support enticement to disobedience. The biggest area of seduction is self-justification for committing sin. The enticement comes in making you feel OK about your disobedience to the Word of the Lord.

 

The enticement is doctrines that please the flesh, allowing Christians to avoid the disciplines of the Gospel and permitting them a route of escape from the necessary processing of the Holy Spirit.

 

The seduction is the teaching of doctrines that make you believe that you are just fine where you are in the Lord – that healing the sick, raising the dead, performing miracles and doing the works that Jesus did (never mind doing greater works! were ONLY for the apostles, or for a select few chosen by the Lord; that all of this passed away out of the life of the body of Christ in the second century AD with the death of the last of the apostles.

 

The body of Christ today is peppered with many of these doctrines. Let me cite and enumerate just a few for your edification.

 

1. Speaking in tongues is of the Devil.

2. The gifts of the Spirit died out with the apostles.

3. God picks and chooses those whom He heals.

4. It is not the will of God to heal everyone.

5. Poverty is God's will, and it is correspondingly more spiritual for Christians to live in need with just barely enough to get by.

6. The "Prosperity Doctrine" is a lie. Jesus never wanted His followers to be wealthy.

7. Who do you think you are to believe that you can heal the sick, raise the dead and cast out demons?

8. Satan is almost as powerful as God and Christians need to really be careful in how they address him.

9. God kills certain people and "takes" them out of this world when their time is up.

10. If you don't keep all of the Ten Commandments, you can't go to Heaven.

11. People who cast out evil spirits are doing so by the power of Satan.

12. Women have no place of leadership within the body of Christ because they are commanded to keep silence.

13. Because Eve was the one deceived, women cannot fill any of the five-fold ministries in the body of Christ.

 

The seduction – AND THE FORNICATION – comes in compelling people to be obedient to the Law (and/or more importantly, man-made interpretations and applications of the Law) AND live under the Grace of Jesus Christ. The fornication comes into the picture because people say they love the Lord Jesus Christ (and they believe that they do!), that they have accepted the atonement for their sins through His death and resurrection, while at the same time placing upon them requirements of the Law with obedience to Mosaic commandments and statutes.

 

The apostle Paul put it like this (See Galatians 2:16-20), “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified……

 

"For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

 

One cannot be married (using the metaphor of Bridegroom (Jesus) and Bride (us) to the Lord and then run to the Law for mental (read that: reasoning or logical) or emotional satisfaction. It is impossible to keep the Law and please the Lord. One does not keep the Law by faith because the Law holds power over the flesh – NOT the spirit. Flesh can have no faith: faith is a function of our spirit working through our love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

To supposedly claim we love the Lord, therefore, and then justify ourselves by the Law is to commit adultery. Are you seeing now the seduction of the Spirit of Jezebel?

 

This is a spirit which entices men and women to measure themselves and their righteousness according to the Law – and quotes a bazillion scriptures to justify it, thus negating Jesus’ redemptive work on the Cross on our behalf and making salvation of none effect.

 

If the Spirit of Prophecy is the Word of God, consider then the deadly nature of the spirit of Jezebel calling itself a “prophetess” (or in the case of it taking up residence and operating through a man, a “prophet”). This spirit stands in many pulpits today – both in men and women – usurping the name, the authority and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, all the while passing itself off as speaking in the name of, and on behalf of, the Lord.

 

Those that succumb to its voice and its seductive deception (usually) unknowingly commit spiritual fornication and adultery by virtue of doing things either directly contrary to the expressed will of God, or setting aside and ignoring the demonstration of the Spirit and Power.

 

The spirit of Jezebel is usually very selective in the choice of people it has around it, and those so afflicted become spiritually effeminate and powerless, lacking in true authority but reveling in a show of pretended authority along with lots of public recognition, praise and adulation. Those so afflicted come under the control and manipulation of a spirit of witchcraft that works hand in hand.

 

The spirit of Jezebel, you see, IS a spirit of witchcraft and sorcery. It’s entire purpose for existing is to entice men and women, to control them and to manipulate them with lies and seduction in such a way that they are rendered impotent as Christians. They become spiritual homosexuals or lesbians, making love to one another instead of having a true Bride/Bridegroom relationship that produces spiritual offspring.

 

One of the manifestations of the spirit of Jezebel and its operation in churches today is the acceptance of, or presence of just about every kind of sexual perversion known to man. This is the driving spirit behind physical homosexuality and physical lesbianism, and churches that pervert the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ are often populated with sexual perverts and  deviants.

 

Strong stuff, I know, but the body of Christ needs a housecleaning! It’s time for Christians to wake up and realize just how impotent this spirit has rendered them, and the fellowships of which they are a part.

 

Don’t somebody, please, now suggest that I hate homosexuals and lesbians! I don’t hate the people. I do hate the sin! But that sin is just as forgivable as lying, cheating, stealing and every other sin. It just needs repenting and renunciation from/of in the same way one repents of every other sin.

 

You see, the lie of this perversion is its inherent lack of procreative ability. EVERYTHING about God’s creation is predicated on the Law of Seedtime and Harvest. Everything is predicated on creation, the planting of seed and the reproduction of that seed. It requires male and female to procreate.

 

The spirit of Jezebel wipes out our spiritual ability to procreate. It attempts to neuter the Word of God. It destroys the Father image of God, the Son of God, and the spiritual procreation that comes between the Son as the Bridegroom and us as His Bride.

 

The neutering of the Word is clearly evidenced in many churches across America and around the world today in the fact that there is no ongoing spiritual procreation. People aren’t coming to Jesus Christ, being saved, healed, delivered, growing into abundant life, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and then reproducing new Christians by virtue of the new life within them. Sure, you see churches where folks supposedly get “saved” after they respond to a salvation message on Sunday morning or Sunday night, but they get stuck there! There is no life in Christ that leads them to abundance, to prosperity, to growth in the Spirit, to a life of miracles one after another after another after another with the Word of God coming forth through their lives in a demonstration of the Spirit and of Power!

They die in their Christian baby cribs. They never grow up in God! They never learn what it is to walk in the Spirit, to live in the Spirit, to speak in the Spirit, to demonstrate the abundant life available in the Spirit.

 

I was going to tell you another personal story of an experience I had several years ago to illustrate the deceptiveness of the Spirit of Jezebel and how it seeks to gain control in the body of Christ, but it’s pretty clear that there just isn’t time to accomplish that today. Maybe I can get to that in our next Coffee Break.

 

The point I want to leave with you today is the understanding that the false prophecy of Jezebel isn’t so much in the fake foretelling of events; it is literally embodied in the false “forth telling” of what supposes to be a rhema or a direct, spoken Word from the Lord to His people. That false “forth telling” comes in the form of preaching and teaching – and prophesying, although usually the prophesying of extremes.

 

Those extremes either come in the form of dire warnings of doom and gloom from which we must escape, or they come in the form of spiritual niceties, great abundance, health, wealth and prosperity MINUS any teaching or understanding of what it takes in the way of obedience to walk in that abundance, health or wealth.

 

Folks get lulled to sleep with this garbage, or led down some primrose path following some leader who hasn’t a clue to what the Holy Spirit is saying and doing in the earth today. Thus, they get sucked in by false prophecy, seduced and enticed by words that please their fleshly nature, and they commit fornication or adultery with the Lord through their unfaithfulness to Him.

 

We still need to cover that portion of the eight characteristics that depict the nature and character of this spirit which deal with the inherent lack of ability to repent, and that’s where we will go with it next week.

 

Blessings on you!