If you will, turn back in your
Bibles to the book of Revelation chapter 2. Revelation chapter
2. And you can start us with our
outline, which you also can follow me in your pastor's commentary. The outline is there. We are
dealing with our second message in the book of Revelation concerning
the seven churches. We are dealing with the church
of Thyatira right now. We will have a third message
simply because the details need to be developed with regards
to one of the churches where the Lord Jesus Christ has given
probably the most stern of warnings. It's one of the churches to whom
he also wrote the lengthiest letter. The church at Thyatira
has many lessons for us, but for time's sake and the weariness
of our nature will only deal with it from three standpoints.
Last week, we closed out as our Lord had commended the church
at Thyatira for all of the blessed gifts and the good works that
they had engaged in, of which he does, keeping true to form,
he acknowledged those things that were good. And then he began
his process of admonishing them for things that they were tolerating,
tolerating. We see this in verse 18, and
unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write, these things
saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of
fire, and his feet like fine brass. And he says over in verse
20, notwithstanding, notwithstanding, I have somewhat against you.
Few is a weak translation. I have this against you. because
you suffer that woman Jezebel which calleth herself a prophetess
to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to
eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent
of her fornications and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her
into a bed and them that commit adultery with her into great
tribulation, except they repent of their deeds, and I will kill
her children with death. And all the churches shall know
that I am He which searcheth the reins and the hearts. I give
unto every one of you according to your works." Two weeks ago,
a member of our church came to me acknowledging that he had
went about visiting some other churches, not because it was
a bad thing, but he was doing somewhat of a reconnaissance
mission. He has a very evangelical mindset,
and he has a heart also for congregations that are struggling, that are
sometimes weak and fledgling in their spiritual makeup and
character. And because he's solid in the
gospel, he often wants to go in and see where the weakness
is and offer advice maybe wanna share our resources with them
because we do help out congregations from time to time. Every local
church is not solid. Every local church is not grounded. Every local church does not have
all the gifts of every other church. And so frequently we
do help churches. So he went to a church recently
a couple of weeks ago and as he was making his rounds, visiting
people after the service, he ran across one of the sisters
in the church And he talking with her, he said that he went
to Grace Bible Church. And then she said, say that again.
He said, I go to Grace Bible Church. And he said, my pastor
is Pastor Jesse Gistan. She said, oh, that man hates
women. Oh, he hates women. And my pastor
says, what do you mean? Well, he just always talks about
them staying in their place and running in their lane and making
sure they understand their roles before God. He hates women. And
he couldn't say anything else after that that would be of any
salvific significance. So he just made his way on back
to me and made sure that I heard that that was what she stated.
There is a tactic on the part of the liberal, progressive,
pluralistic, relativist, who's not willing to reason through
biblical truth in a sound, thorough, and progressive or comprehensive
way. There's a tactic on the part
of people who are not willing to deal with truth on a propositional
level. They will call you haters. You
will be called haters simply because you hold to biblical
truth. That's a kind of an ad hominem attack. It basically
is a concession that they really don't want to deal with the validity
of their claims. So they try to scare you with
ad hominems. So in our present culture, it's
kind of a threatening thing for you to say you don't agree with
the homosexual practice or the homosexual lifestyle. Or it's
a threatening thing when you say that two people should not
be living together in an uncovenanted fashion in terms of sexual relations. When you say that sex outside
of marriage is fornication and it's an abomination against God,
you are hating. You are hating. Do you understand
that? This is the culture we're living
in and these are the tactics that are falling out at this
present time. And I only say that because every
time I find myself having to deal with some of the basic structures
that constitutes biblical truth in the area particularly of men
and women, I get this sort of pushback on my sister's part
and they default quickly to the notion that somehow those of
us who hold to a biblical model of roles between men and women
are somehow pushing our women down and holding them back and
wanting to keep them back from reaching their fullest potential
and that somehow we want to control them and rule over them. Now
any man that's been on planet earth for 10 years know that
you can't control a woman. Any man been on planet Earth
knows you can't control a woman. But God does not tell a man to
control a woman. He tells the woman to submit
to her husband. That's a whole different imperative.
It's her obligation, if she's a child of God, to submit. You
guys understand what I just stated there? It's not the man's role
to make her submit. It's not his job to confine her
and control her. It's his job to provide for her
as she submits to the will of God. Now, when we bring this
thing over into the matter of the church, It becomes the same
fundamental principle. And I've taught this years ago.
If you do not have a biblical worldview, if you don't know
how to see the world through the eyes of God's word, you are
going to be lost as to what God prioritizes in terms of order,
protocol and conduct in his church. This is why we have so many churches
presently that are functioning precisely like our present culture. and have absolutely no representation
of the kingdom of God to speak of with regards to their profession
of faith in Christ. And that's because you do not
have a biblical worldview. You do not know that God created
the world and that He created you out of the dust of the ground.
He breathed into your nostrils the breath of life and you became
the image bearer of the true and the living God. And your
job was to represent God in the earth. And the man and the woman
was to work in a complementarian relationship. as we spread sons
and daughters all over planet Earth who actually live for God's
glory. People that don't know that then
don't understand that you can't have any kind of relationship
with any kind of person or any kind of thing you want to and
call yourself Christian and yet that's what we are in our present
time. Furthermore, when it comes to roles of men and women in
the church, We are dealing with at the present time a downgrade,
a declension. This is what you guys are learning
in the Greek language, a morphing, a departure from the original
design and structure in our culture. We are experiencing a downgrade,
a transformation, not upwards, but downwards in terms of God's
calling of dignity on the part of men and women and the distinctions
and the gifts that apply to the one over against the other. And
we are conflating them. We are denying the radically
divine call of the distinction between male and females. And
we are playing with the idea that the male or the female can
operate in either role. As I was heading to church this
morning, I heard a program that was talking about some young
African-American boy who was very young and had a strong propensity
towards making clothing. All right, we know where that's
going, don't we? As opposed to playing basketball, he wants
to make clothes. All that's cool, but don't tell
him that if he has a pecan for making clothing, that he's probably
gay. Did you hear me? Because such
a leap would be a fallacy of the facts on a multitude of levels. The point being is the culture
in which the church has always existed has been trending towards
rebellion against God. So let's call this for the moment,
just in case some of you have a difficulty following long arguments
and syllogism, let's call this for a moment the idolatry of
cultural trends. The idolatry of cultural trends. When people are led by the authority
of the trends of the culture rather than the Word of God.
When culture dictates to you as to even how to interpret the
Bible. Well, pastor, those are the things that they used to
do long ago. Today we're doing a new thing.
I'm here to tell you this new thing is as old as sin And it
goes back to the beginning of time. Now, this is very important
as I open up and begin to actually deal with a historiography of
Jezebel and Ahab because without us, again, remember a couple
of weeks ago, we said we have to know how to hold on to the
old. hold on to the new and let both of them actually advise
us in the book of Revelation that you will never understand
the depths of the teachings of the book of Revelation unless
you have an Old Testament foundation. So today we're going to look
at a number of passages concerning Ahab and Jezebel. That's why
the title of our message today is Thyatira, a representation
of Ahab and Jezebel's reign The Old Testament, it's critical
for you and I didn't know that without a biblical worldview.
You will never get it, right? If you don't understand what
the Word of God says Concerning how we are to live who we are
our calling our purpose the distinctions in relationships the understanding
of covenant both in terms of marriage and our walk with God
you will never live to your highest potential and you will always
be trapped in You will always be trapped by the prejudice of
both this trendy culture and your own fallen nature. Let me
say it again. Unless you understand a biblical
worldview, your fallen nature will always be inclined to go
with the multitude. And the Bible is clear for God's
covenant people. You shall not follow a multitude
to do evil. Your judgment as to what's right
and wrong can never be, well, when I look around and see the
culture doing it, and it doesn't appear to be bad, then maybe
that's the way we ought to do it. Listen, you have at that
point denied your unique calling as the people of God. You can't
help anybody in the world by you simply dancing to the beat
of our present cultural trends, when our present cultural trends
is the very world God tells you and me not to love. Love not
the world, neither the things that are in the world. For all
that's in the world is the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh,
and the pride of life. Watch this, ladies and gentlemen.
It is not of the Father. It's of the world. So there is
a world that you are not to love. If you're going to love it evangelically,
you must not love it for its own sake. I know that crashed
your paradigm again. But if you're going to love the
world evangelically, you must not love it for the world's sake.
You must not conform to the world. You must not capitulate to the
trends of the world. You must see the world through
the eyes of Christ. You must have a biblical worldview.
Am I pressing it home right now? Or you cannot be Christian. The
battle is raging against the church today along these lines. And so it's so very important
for us to be able to comprehend these critical and necessary
truths. There was something that happened
in the days of the apostle as we prepare to deal with our first
point. And I want you to see this. Go
with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter 15. I'm going to lay
this foundation, and then we're going to deal with the history
of Ahab and Jezebel. Just in the points that you have
in your outline, we won't do a full It's exposition but we're
gonna touch on highlight ten things with regards to Ahab and
Jezebel and what they're gonna do for you and me is give us
a real clear picture as to why the Lord Jesus Christ is justified
in his severe judgment Against what's taking place in Thyatira?
Because it's severe He's talking about killing children Killing
he's talking about himself. Not another agency. I will kill
her children with death By the way, he's talking like that because
what Jezebel is doing is the same thing that Balaam was doing
the same thing the Nicolaitans were doing in the previous churches
of which he said these things I hate If you never heard that
word before hate because in our present generation God didn't
hate nothing I know one I will remind you that God hates. He
necessarily hates evil. Evil is hated by a holy God. And so he hates all workers of
iniquity. That's a lot of people to hate,
isn't it? I know that puts it right up against your own heart,
but it's true. God must hate if he's holy. And you know what he teaches
his own people to do? Hate evil too. You who love the
Lord, what? Hate evil. Hate evil. Do not love evil. Love doesn't
rejoice in iniquity. Love doesn't rejoice in sin.
Love doesn't rejoice in those things that are contrary to God.
Love rejoices in the what? Truth. And so you and I get to
examine ourselves to see which camp we are in today. Welcome
to Grace Bible Church to those of you who are visitors. The
apostles under inspiration of the Holy Ghost recognized that
there was a need to actually arrest a trend that was already
in practice ensue in the early church when God had opened the
door wide to the Gentiles. It's in Acts chapter 15 where
the apostle Paul and Barnabas are coming back to give an account
to the Jerusalem church of the power of God in bringing Gentiles
to the faith which is in Christ. And when they work out some of
the critical doctrinal issues about salvation and about how
grace is the only basis upon which you and I can have a relationship
with God when they agreed upon salvation by grace alone in Christ
alone apart from works when they agreed upon that what the elders
at Jerusalem did was say to the Apostle Paul and Barnabas listen
then we understand that the Gentiles have entered in they have received
the Spirit of God embraced Christ but please tell them this Now
notice what the text says in Acts chapter 15, verse 20 and
21, verse 19 and 20. Wherefore, my sentence is that
we trouble not them, this Peter speaking for the rest of the
apostles, which from among the Gentiles are what? Turn to God. Look at verse 20 though. But
that we write unto them that they what? Abstain from pollutions
of idols and from fornication and from things strangled and
from blood. Now you and I might think that
that was sort of the restraining kind of inclination on the part
of the elders of the church because they were Jewish. So they weren't
eating blood and they weren't worshiping idols and they weren't
bound to things strangled. And because they did have a biblical
worldview and understanding of covenant, the Jewish people did,
salvations of the Jews, in that context, they understood biblically
that a man and a woman were to be married a context for sexual
conjugation and intimacy. They understood that. But they
also knew that those pagan Gentile brethren that were coming in,
they liked having sex with everything that moved. And that somehow,
that if the Gentiles were not taught a covenantal paradigm
of relationship between men and women, that they would drag a
lot of that cultural stuff into the church. And the church would
be ruined even before it started. And they are right. They are
right. They said, now you're saved by
grace, but that grace must impact you in a transformational way. And particularly in these two
areas, you must not think that you can worship Christ and idols
too. You must not think that you can
worship Christ and fulfill the lust of your flesh in the context
of sexual porneia, unclean sex, and think that God will honor
that. Boy, we are speaking contemporarily today, are we not? Are we not
speaking into the very culture in which we live in? Do you know
what I'm talking about right now is what Paul said in Ephesians
chapter five should not even be once named in the church. The church should not have one
whisper about fornication among its people in the church. And
look at us 20 centuries later. The church is riddled with fornication. Why? Because it's violated all
of the warnings these 2,000 years that Christ has given to the
church. I gave her space to repent. Now I want you to watch how the
Holy Ghost endorses the Apostle's conclusion. He endorsed it over
in verse 28 and 29. Are you ready? Watch this. For
it seemed good to the Holy Ghost. Do you see that? For it seemed
good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you, Gentiles,
no greater burden than these necessary things. They sound
like the Lord Jesus in Matthew's 11. Christ says, my burden is
easy. My yoke is easy. My burden is
light. And in the book of Revelation,
you'll see him say the same thing. Children of God, there is a burden
laid upon you and me when we come to Christ. You know what
that burden is? Obedience to Christ. He calls
it a light burden. But it's a burden nonetheless.
When He saves you, He does not save you to live like you want
to live. When God redeems you from iniquity, He does not set
you free to run around willy-nilly making decisions and choices
of what you are going to do, who you're going to hang out
with, and how you're going to live. Do you know when God saved you,
He gave you an instruction manual? so that you might follow Him
on your journey to glory. And this is why, ladies and gentlemen,
I am so serious today. Examine yourself whether you
are a biblical Christian or not. Because I must tell you, in all
honesty, I meet very few biblical Christians. I meet very few biblical
Christians. God helped me today. I meet very
few. Most of the time, I meet people
who talk a good talk. But they do not crack the book
open. And the average Christian in
this present generation avoids like the plague a serious Bible-based
church. Do you understand why? Because
you're going to be told from that book that you are not your
own. You've been bought with a price.
Lock, stock and barrel by the blood of Jesus Christ. He's your
master. You're his slave. You do what
he wants you to do, not what you want to do, if you want to
affirm the fact that you're truly a child of God. And after almost
20 years of ministry at Grace, we don't mind dividing the Red
Sea, making a distinction between the elect and non-elect. We just
don't mind because we see you as well as seeing ourselves.
fully and visibly in the presence of the Lord on that day, having
to give an account for everything we said to you and everything
we did in your presence. We will not be held accountable
of not holding back, or holding back rather, the truth to you.
Anytime you come in this assembly, God help us, you will not go
away from here without being told the naked, plain truth of
the gospel. And you'll just have to deal
with the offense that rises up in your nature. We have no desire
for you to be lost. We have no, and we are under
obligation to prove all things and hold fast to that which is
good. Listen to me, our elders and teachers here are obligated
to open the book, lay it out before you, show you its propositions,
explain those propositions to you and say what say ye about
the word of God. And if we're wrong, help us to
see where we're wrong and we'll let you know. We can clearly
see where we made our error and we will change. But if we have
told you the truth in Christ, We have done our job, whether
you run with us or not. This is critical. Listen, we're
talking eternity. Do you believe in hell? We're not playing games here.
Listen, there's so much stuff. Technology is wonderful today.
You know, you can live like a king and be a pauper. You and I, we
can live it up like Paul says, hey, if this thing is not true,
we are of most men, of all men, most miserable because we're
wasting our time. Do you see how glorious it is
outside today? On the Monday show, don't you
hear me talking about how much I love the sun? Do you know I could
be doing something else besides standing in here for an hour
talking to you? If all this is for naught. It's
very important for you to understand that what the Bible is teaching
is men and women coming into a right relationship with God
through Christ and then being conformed to his image. The cultural trends, the idolatrous
cultural trends of which I have stated before is and has been
the main problem of the church is what the apostles guarded
against here, they warned against in the book of Acts, but apparently
by the time we get to the Revelation, The churches have failed to adhere
to apostolic doctrine. Is that true? The church at Corinth
failed to do it. Paul told the church at Ephesus,
you better stop. For these things sake, the wrath
of God comes upon the children of what? Disobedience. He told
the church at Colossae, you better tell them these things don't
make for the new man. And he told the brethren in Crete,
he said, the Cretans, those Cretans, Christians in Crete, tell them
they better stop. because their works are abominable.
It's so important for us to hear these things. Now, why did our
Lord use this epithet, this very negative epithet? It's a pejorative
epithet. How many of you would name your
daughter Jezebel? So I wanna get you now, take a breath, because
I know you're offended. Take a breath now, breathe in
and breathe out, because we're flipping channels now. Why would
you name your daughter Jezebel? And do you know why you wouldn't?
Because today Jezebel has a very negative connotation in terms
of its attachment to this very woman we're dealing with, right?
Like you wouldn't name your son Hitler. You know, you wouldn't
name your son some notorious character only because of the
pejorative nature of the name. Not that the name inherently
or etymologically is bad. Jezebel actually is a beautiful
name. The problem is there is an infamous
woman who has destroyed the beauty of that name. So we would not
dare, as it were, burden our children with Jezebel because
that girl will be haunted all the days of her life as a loose
living woman who does whatever she wants to, seducing men and
women to the pit. It now has been used over the
last several three or four hundred years as a term for the sluttish
woman. I'm simply saying that because
our Lord, the one who was speaking in our text, calls this woman
Jezebel. That's bad. When we actually
know that her name wasn't literally Jezebel, this here is an appellation
to help us understand that intrinsic to her conduct and behavior are
the patterns that are consistent with the Old Testament Jezebel.
Just like in the previous chapter, we dealt with the Balaamite doctrine,
right? And the Balaamite doctrine, there's
nobody in the first century church that are calling themselves Balaam,
but what our Lord is doing is teaching us that the same spirit
and doctrine and teaching that Balaam was practicing is now
in the first century church. Hence, the Balaamites. And by
the way, let me say this quickly as we get ready to unpack the
historiography of Ahab and Jezebel. For those of you who have been
coming to grace for years and you know, we teach theology here
We really want our people to go deep in the Word of God. We
have just finished our course in Biblical theology right for
the semester and our women are have a biblical theology class,
and our men have a biblical theology class. We do not want our women
dumb, ignorant, or naive about biblical truth. And we have a
very enthusiastic class. But ladies, have we not learned
that when you read your Bibles carefully, that God is very much
even-handed in both using men and women in the Scriptures.
Have we not learned that? And have we not learned that
the job of redemption cannot get done by a man alone, but
it must be both the man and the woman? Are you guys hearing what
I'm saying? And so we teach it very clearly, the even-handedness
of God in using that which He has called His own image. He
made them in the image of God. Male and female created He them. But He meant them to operate
in complement. not contention, not conflict. He did not mean for mankind to
define himself. He did not mean for mankind to
choose whether or not he wants to be what he feels like he wants
to be or she wants to be like what she feels like she wants
to be. I was talking to our kids last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
as we were dealing with our football camp and it went well. It went
well. It's so hard, however, it's so
hard, however, dealing with eight-year-olds all the way up to 17-year-olds.
I don't even know which one's more difficult, 17 or eight,
y'all tell me. All boys raging with testosterone. They wanna be everything from
Superman to, what's one of them, Chris Brown. And I said, oh Lord,
we got work to do there. And so we were teaching them
principles of success. that you can be passionate and
you can also practice. But if you're not a person of
principle, you will never succeed. You can be passionate and you
can practice because it's intrinsic to our physiology. But if you're
not a person of principle, if you don't know how to prioritize
your life, that is what principle is. Keeping first things first,
you will never succeed. The vast majority of us know
multitudes of people who almost succeeded. You know, all those
cats, we know all those girls. They almost made it. They almost
crossed that yellow tape and got distracted because they were
not people of principle. See, unless you and I understand
first things first, we will always fail to reach our highest goal.
And so we had to teach the children that we are to seek first the
kingdom of God, then his righteousness. his righteousness and all the
other things will flow out of that well ladies and gentlemen
this is what our Lord would say to us as well regards to the
church the church is not free to simply operate willy-nilly
we have a principled hierarchical order of conduct and purpose
for which we are to operate otherwise we fail as a church are you hearing
me point number one then in your outline the historical premise
for the severe judgment Please take the judgment that our Lord
rendered against those people at Thyatira very seriously. I
do not have time today to go into my own experience with the
judgments of God that come upon churches that play games with
God's word. I don't have time for it. You know, best we can
do is an hour. I get away with about an hour
and 15 minutes, have been for 20 years, don't know how it happens.
Maybe you just, you just get too scared to get up and leave
or something, but in any event, I get away with it right now.
And I'm going to keep getting away with it until the building empties
out. In any event, the threatenings and warnings to me of Christ
against this church is germane to us. And I think I'll be able
to emphasize that next week more fully as we deal with those of
whom Christ clearly separates. In the book of Revelation chapter
two, the church of Thyatira, he separates those who did not
buy into our doctrine from those who did. But unto the rest of
you, I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have
not this doctrine, do you see it? In which have not known the
depths of Satan, verse 24, as they speak, I will put no other
burden on you. There it is. Watch this. God
has an elect people in the church who don't fall prey to false
doctrine. Then the rest do. The challenge
is, is we are all kind of in the same place. And the struggle
is, separating the two before one becomes 11 that corrupts
the whole thing. And so let me see if I can persuade
you that our Lord's very pejorative epithet concerning Jezebel is
a worthy epithet that would merit our praise and our alarm. The historical premise for the
severe judgment is found for us in the book of Kings. I want
you to turn in your Bible to the book of Kings, 1 Kings chapter
16. Let us go through this list fairly
quickly. Who is Jezebel? Jezebel is a
Gentile pagan woman who happened to have married into the Israelite
family through a man named Ahab. Jezebel is actually a prince,
the daughter of a king, who was a real, real worshipper of Baal. In 1st Kings chapter 16 verse
30, listen to what the text says. Here it is. Now follow what happens
in verse 31. Ahab decides to marry the kind
of woman he wants to. So the Bible tells us that we
are not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. So
Ahab, while he is a Jew, he is a disobedient Jew, is he not?
So he could be saved, he could be lost. Let me just help you
with that. He's lost. However, he could have been saved.
Some say folks make the dumb, dumb mistake of marrying a non-believer
and think that somehow they're going to win them to Christ or
get them right with Christ. And especially when they are
a non-believer who has been forged into idolatry, like this woman
Jezebel, this was the greatest mistake Ahab could have ever
made. But the biggest mistake that Ahab made was doing this
as a king in Israel. Remember, ladies and gentlemen,
to whom much is given, much is required. who whenever our leaders
are compromising biblical truth, when our leaders are violating
the Word of God, when our leaders are going contrary to biblical
truth, they open the floodgates for the common people to do the
same thing. That's just the nature of things. You always look to
the president. and then to your senators and
to your congressmen and then to your local leaders and then
to your parents to see how well they are complying with biblical
truth. And if they're not, you justify yourselves to do just
the same thing. And so Ahab becomes a major problem
because not only does he marry her, the text says he then goes
and serves Baal and worships him. Why? Because of the influence
of his wife. Is that true? This is so very
clear. Listen, and then as a consequence
of marrying Jezebel, and Jezebel is a very strong headed woman,
that means when she gets into the marriage, she made it very
clear to Ahab, you don't tell me what to do. This is what we
call a very, very, very egalitarian relationship. In fact, I would
call it a lopsided one because as you follow the whole course
from 1st Kings 16, the 2nd Kings 10, Jezebel runs this show. Be
sure of it. Be sure that Ahab represents
wimpy leadership. who does not know how to restrain
undisciplined, unruly persons, including his own wife. By the
way, some of the earlier manuscripts of Revelation chapter 2, the
letter to the church of Thyatira, has Jezebel as the wife of the
pastor of this church to whom Christ is writing. I thought
that was fascinating. Why? Because the parallels are
there in terms of Jezebel being married to Ahab. So we need to
follow this through. That's just a marker. Why was
she allowed to do so much in the church of Thyatira? Maybe
it was because she had inroads into the leadership in such a
way that they had compromised even in the context of marriage.
See, why I say that is because presently today a lot of my Christian
brothers and sisters are buying into unbiblical authority positions. Like you guys are still holding
to apostles and you guys are still holding to classical prophet
roles. You guys are still using lauded
terms like bishops and right reverence and all of that kind
of stuff today when the Bible actually forbids that kind of
highfalutin terminology. And particularly in the context
of women. Very clearly so. Very clearly so. And so what
I have said to you guys many a time, do not call me the king
of the church. Christ is king. Do you understand
that? What that means is my wife is
not the first lady. Did you get that? See, and this
is why my Christian brothers and sisters, I know they don't
think, because see, if you sisters call Ms. Barbara Gistan first
lady, what does that make you? Second lady? Third lady? See, you destroy your own dignity
when you adopt unbiblical practices. Got a lot to teach today, you
better write it down. Get the message, listen to it 10 times.
Because some of you are going to be delivered from false religion
today. Some of you are going to be delivered.
So Ahab marries her. What is the outcome of a person
who's supposed to be faithful to God marrying someone who is
not faithful to God? We call that syncretism, don't
we? The true religion represented in Ahab, the false religion represented
in Jezebel, right? The two coming together in an
affinity that's called syncretism. That's like marrying Christianity
to Catholicism, which Catholicism is your big old ecumenical syncretistic
system, where they open the door to everything to come in. Are
you guys hearing me? Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam,
all the other religions of the world coming right on into the
doors of the church. That's a marriage made for hell. And this is the foundation laid
in the Jezebelian paradigm that our Lord is teaching us about.
Do I have your attention right now? Do not go to sleep. Some
of you will not have been taught this ever in your life. And you
need to learn it now. The very marriage of the two
opened the door for the proliferation of false prophets and false teachers.
The very marriage of Ahab and Jezebel produced in Israel's
body politic Hundreds and hundreds of false prophets. Why? Because
Jezebel was able to marshal them on in when she came in. False
prophets, false teachers, veil worshipers, grove worshipers,
they all came in. 1 Kings chapter 18. Look at what
it says. In 1 Kings 18 verses 18 and 19. I'm going to share with you the
implications of it as well. You need to know. Look at what
it says over in 1 Kings 18 verses 18 and 19. Are you there? And it came to pass when Ahab
saw Elijah that Ahab said unto him, are you he that troubled
us? That's a whole nother message.
And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father's
house, and that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord
and you have followed after Baal. See, that's the kind of preacher
that talks directly at the leadership of compromise. Verse 19, now
therefore send and gather to me all Israel to Mount Carmel. This brother is bad. He said,
I want them all to come to this show. This is a big show. I want
everybody in Israel to come to Mount Carmel. And the prophets
of Baal, 450. That's a lot of false prophets. And the prophets of the grove,
400. Can you guys count? I know we
went to government school, but can we count? That's 800 and
what? 850 prophets to one preacher of the
gospel. 850 to one. Those are some horrible
odds when it comes to what churches are actually preaching the truth
versus not. I'm just sharing with you that
contextually Israel was in a bad place when Ahab ruled, right? And yet, here Elijah is calling
the whole band of them to the mountain to prove that they are
all false gods. What do we do as those who are
called to tell the truth? We expose the unfruitful works
of darkness. We expose those who corrupt the
Word of God. We make manifest to the conscience
of every man the difference between true preaching and false preaching.
That's our job. That's our job. That's exactly
what Elijah is doing right now. He's calling them all to the
table. And see, even though this is going to shake the earth a
little bit around everybody, do you know what? When you actually
get an opportunity to see a man who actually knows what the Word
of God says and teaches and boldly sets it forth over against the
manipulative, Deceptive, seductive, enticing teachings of false prophets. It does your soul good to have
a straight plumb line expose the errors of false teaching,
which in your soul you knew something was wrong, but you just couldn't
put your finger on it. until somebody stood up and told
the truth about what was right and wrong in the teachings of
those people that are so popular and make so many inroads into
your life. And yes, it destabilizes, it
does. But you know what it does? It
separates God's true people from God's false people. And you and
I need that today. Listen to what it goes on to
say. Not only were there 850 false prophets in Israel over
against this one prophet Elijah, listen to what the last line
said, and the prophets of the groves, 400, which do what? Eat at Jezebel's table. Do you understand that Jezebel,
the queen, the queen ultimate, the queen ultimate, the king
penultimate, Overcoming the king. Hyperscripting the king. Has
all of these false prophets around her. You know what she does with
them? They do enchantments. They do seances. They go into
prayers and all kinds of invocations to their pagan gods as to how
to run Israel. What am I showing you? I'm showing
you Ezekiel chapter 8. Remember you heard how all the
rulers had dug holes in the wall Went down into the cellar and
start worshiping all of these pagan gods in the dark And what
the text said was God says do I not see all these things? Isn't
it what Jesus said in Revelation chapter 2? He that had eyes like
a flaming fire. I See, because Jehovah of the
Old is Jesus of the New, revealing to you and me that he sees everything
crystal clear. This is what I might say as we
go on to develop our points. When you and I are under the
influence of false doctrine and false teaching, you are blinded.
When you and I are under the influence of false doctrine and
false teaching, you're blinded. You actually don't know that
you are being deceived. because that's the nature of
deception. The only time that you know that you were deceived
is when the light of the truth comes in to expose it for what
it is. It's part of our fallen nature
to embrace lies and to worship according to, again, the idolatrous
trends of the culture because everybody's doing it. You ought
to be appalled at the possibility of any leadership in any church
having a secret chamber to go into and commit all of these
abominations and then come out on Sunday and pretend that they
love Jesus. You ought to be appalled at it,
but you ought to know it's still happening in our present 21st
century culture. What are the idols on the walls
in the present day 21st century culture? The idols on that wall
are self. The idols on that wall is money.
The idols on that wall is prestige, prominence, largeness, materialism,
secularism. The idols on that wall are prosperity
and power. Did you guys get that? On the
walls in most churches that do not honor Christ and love the
gospel, on the walls are self, images of self. That's why their
messages are about self and not about Christ. It's about you.
It's about them and not about Christ. It's about the flesh.
It's about secularism. It's about money, materialism. It's about all you can get. Those
are the idols on the walls. Please get it. Please get it. Those are the idols on the wall.
If you don't have a biblical paradigm, here's one, take it
home. When you go to someone's church and you leave their church,
ask the question, who did he preach? Did he preach self or
did he preach Christ? Did he tell me the truth according
to this book or did he make me feel good? The two constitutes
the difference between discernment and ignorance. You don't come
to church to just get a word from the Lord. You come to church
to learn about Christ, to learn more and more about Jesus. Did
you get that? More and more about Christ. And you come to be sanctified
by the Spirit of God in the preaching of biblical truth to clean up
your filthy heart. because our hearts are filthy.
Our present generation is a group of unclean Christians. Wicked
are we. And we need to be born again,
most of us, because we are complete slaves of the idolatrous trends
of our present culture. I am telling the God honest truth.
And we crave for a Jezebelian Ahab type of reign over the church. We don't crave for a right relationship
with Christ. He's the king and we are the
bride. We want models of Ahab and Jezebel
everywhere. So today, you know what's prominent
in our churches? Pastor and his wife, Mrs. Pastor. The pastor and his wife, Mrs.
Pastor. Follow me. Just because the man
is a pastor does not make the wife a pastor. But because we
don't know our Bibles, because we don't have a sound mode of
exegesis, because we cannot properly expound Scripture, we're buying
into these notions, because these notions exalt the flesh. They
exalt the flesh. So now she can climb up and teach
the men an open violation of the Word of God. So now she's
holding a pedestal position that Jezebel is holding, whether assumably
or ostensibly teaching truth or not. She is out of her position. These are positions that they
hold that are unbiblical and Christians accept it. Jeremiah
chapter 5, 31, the priest ruled by their own means and the people
love to have it so. Now, see, actually, if you understand
the implications of where I'm going right now, it's really
alarming to you because you know what you got to do? You actually
got to open your Bible now. And you have to go back and say,
is that what that preacher is saying is true? Now I got to
start telling people I don't agree with you. See, because
you got taught in this generation that you are more godly if you
just agree with everybody. Am I telling the truth, though?
So you're OK if you agree. You see, we're told that we're
more mature in the faith if we just get along with everybody.
Now, the reason why that position holds sway is because of this. Are you ready? Again, it goes
back to pluralism. and relativism. What that means
is we really don't believe in absolute truth. And because we
don't believe in absolute truth, everybody's opinion is just as
valid as everyone else's. You know what that means? I don't
have a right to challenge your views. Now, if I care about you
and I understand or accept the premise that your view and my
view are equal views, then, hey, girl, go on, go on, do your thing.
If you feel like God is calling you to preach, go on, girl. Go
on, girl. I'll pray for you, girl. Are
you hearing what I'm saying? Rather than being a diligent
Christian and say, sister, would you go with me to 1 Corinthians
14? Would you go with me to 1st Timothy chapter 2? Would you
go with me to Revelation chapter 2, sister? Will you go with me
to 1st Corinthians chapter 11, sister? Then will you go with
me back to Genesis chapter 2? Then will you go with me to Deuteronomy
chapter 21, which says that a woman should not wear that which pertains
to a man, nor a man wear that which pertains to a woman, because
that's role-playing, role-switching. It's not about clothes, it's
about roles. Ooh, that's a good one for a t-shirt too. It's not
about clothes, it's about roles. See, in the legalistic church,
in the legalist church, you remember how they used to do it? Girl,
if you don't wear your skirt way down here, if you wear pants,
oh, you're unsaved. Because they got the text wrong.
It wasn't about pants or dresses. In those days, everybody wore
dresses, men too. See, we have to be able to soundly
interpret the scriptures, right? It's about role reversal. that
the woman was not to appear like the man, put on a suit, a double-breasted
suit with a tie, sharp navy blue with a red tie, and come off
as if she is male, alpha male, and then begin to lord over the
people as if she's a man, which goes on in lots of churches today. And the man is not to regress
into some weak, wimpy position of passivity as if that's spiritual. It is not spiritual, men, for
you to cower in the face of rebellion against God's Word. It is not
spiritual. It's not spiritual. I'm not hanging
out with brothers like that. And they don't hang out with
me. I'm not raising my boys to cower like that. I'm raising
my boys to be men. And watch this. And this kind
of man of which I'm talking about will lay down his life for a
woman. So long as she is willing to
be a woman. I mean, because if she willing
to be a man, save him. So the proliferation of false
prophets, see the proliferation of false prophets? It's prevailing
everywhere. And on top of that, notice our
next point, an abandonment of the gospel. So it would be necessary
to follow, this is what we call a natural consequence of the
proliferation of false prophets and false teachers, is the cutting
off of the gospel, right? Look at our text in 1 Kings chapter
19, I want you to see it. First Kings chapter 19 notice
what it says in verse 10 here is Elijah's complaint watch it
now Okay, Ahab marries Jezebel Jezebel brings in her entourage
of false prophets and false teachers and they go in and they start
Filling the land and causing the children of Israel to enter
into these abominations. Look at it. Listen to what it
says first Kings chapter 19 verse 9 10 Listen to it And he came thither to a cave
and lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord
came to him. This is Elijah. And he said unto him, what are
you doing here, Elijah? And here's what Elijah said in
his clear and his objective analysis of the state of the nation. He
said, I have been very jealous. For the Lord God of hosts. I
would that there were men like this. I have been very jealous for
the Lord God of hosts. I would that there were men like
this. Do you guys hear what I'm saying? You know what Elijah
was saying? He was saying to God, not only did I not tolerate
it, which I'm gonna get back to that in a moment, but I went
out and challenged them. Not only did I challenge them,
I beat them in the challenge. Not only did I beat them in the
challenge, I destroyed them. That's how zealous I am for God.
See, zeal today is looked at as a sort of a radical lack of
composure. But I might remind you that when
our Lord showed up for ministry, he was just as zealous. First
time he goes into the temple, he goes in with switches. That's
kind of male if you ask me, isn't it? He cleans the temple up in
his zeal for God. And when he finishes his ministry
three and a half years later, guess what he does? The same
thing as he heads to Calvary to die for sinners. To be zealous
for God is to be ready to tell men and women the truth. To be
zealous for God is to expose false doctrine and false teaching.
To be zealous for God is to bring everything into captivity to
the obedience of Christ. To be zealous for God is to expose
the light, expose the darkness, and demolish the darkness. That's
what it means to be zealous for God. Otherwise, the darkness
is going to take over your home. It's going to take over your
business. It's going to take over your children. It's going
to take over your own heart. And you're going to be paralyzed.
You know what we call that? Tolerance. We'll get there in
a moment. Listen to what the text goes
on to say. Do I have your attention? Listen to what he says. I have
been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts for the children
of Israel have forsaken your covenant. See the impact that
Jezebel made? Do you see the impact? What impact
did she make? She caused the whole of the nation
to forsake God's covenant. Just in case you don't know what
the covenant is, it's the gospel. They forsook the covenant, the
promises of God that he made to them that if you be my people,
I'll be your God. That if you follow me, I'll take
care of you. That if you do my will, I'll make you kings and
queens on the earth. Do you guys understand what's
going on? The impact of false teaching as it's flowing out
from the influence and leadership of Jezebel has now caused Israel
to leave the gospel. Do you know what we call that
in the church? Apostasy. Look at the next line. Here it
is. Not only have they forsaken the covenant, they have broken
down, thrown down your what? Do you understand what that means?
No Christ, no crucifixion, no atonement. The altar is where
the burnt sacrifices were. The burnt sacrifices pointed
to the shed blood of Christ. It pointed to the necessity of
an atonement for our sins. Where we are not worshipping
God according to the crucified Christ, we do not have the gospel.
Not only was the covenant removed, the gospel was removed. This
is the condition of most of your churches. You will go in a church
on a given day and Christ will never be preached. You will never
be told you are a hell-bound sinner. You will never be told
that Christ is the propitiation for our sins. You will never
be told that unless you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for
the forgiveness of your sins, you are doomed to hell. Christ
is the only atonement of God the Father for hell-bound sinners.
You will not be told that. You'll go out of church just
like you came in church ignorant of the central objective for
which God calls men and women into the assembly, the exaltation
of Christ and Him crucified. The altars are knocked down today.
They're knocked down today. See, the reason they don't preach
Christ is because they don't believe you're sinners. See,
if I didn't believe you're a sinner, I would not demand that all our
men and women preach Christ to you. If I didn't believe that,
you were hell-bound. But if I didn't believe that
you were culpable for eternal destruction, and if I didn't
believe that God has made it very plain to the whole human
race, there's only one way out of your predicament, and that's
Christ! Then we wouldn't preach Christ. We'd find something else
to preach to make you feel good, get as much money out of your
pockets as we possibly could. We'd probably be preaching tithing.
Blow that up. Tell you you're going to hell
if you don't pay your tithes. Here's what Elijah says. They
have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars. Here
it is. Are you ready, ladies and gentlemen? And slain your
prophets with the sword. So you see then false religion
is not passive, it's very active. And false religion not only blinds
people from the truth, its objective is to kill all true gospel preaching. She's killing the prophets. Now
do you see the connection between Christ's severe judgment on her
and the character of the judgment he's laying on her? Watch this.
He's saying, because you're killing my prophets, I'm going to kill
your prophets. Because you're killing my seed, I'm going to
kill your seed. Are you hearing me? Because you are seeking to
destroy my seed, my servants, I'm going to kill your servants.
That's what Elijah did. Took them all out and killed
them. This is why Jezebel put a hit
out on him, didn't she? Put a hit out on him and the
false church will put a hit out on Faithful gospel preaching
if it could Our next point she kills the prophets of God She
kills the prophets of God. That's first Kings 18 for and
then first Kings 18 13. I just want you to see it before
we go on 18 for here's what it says For it was so that when
Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah took
a hundred prophets and hid them fifty in a cave and fed them
with bread and water." Isn't that a good Bible? Cut them off. What do you mean by cut them
off? Look at verse 13. "'Was it not told my Lord what I did
when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred
men of the Lord's prophets by fifty in a cave and fed them
with water and bread. You see how God watches over
his servants? But many of them died, didn't they? What was the
condition of Israel at that time? The condition of Israel's reign
at that time was that there was a famine. There was a famine
in the land. First Kings 17.1. Look at it. First Kings 17.1. Are you there? Because Ahab was
such a wicked king, because Jezebel was such a wicked woman, what
God did was bring the covenant curse upon the whole land. You
guys have been taught well at grace that when God acted in
the life of Israel, he always acted according to covenant principles,
right? God never acts outside of covenant principles. So God's
not arbitrary in his judgments. When he brought famine into the
land of Israel, it was always in response to Israel's rebellion.
Leviticus chapter 26 and 27 Deuteronomy chapter 28 through 30 are the
two chapters in God's contract with Israel of which he said
if you do not obey me and worship me alone I will turn your heavens
into brass. I will turn your land into dust
I will cause famine to come upon your land It will be so severe
that your mothers will be eating the very babies that come out
of the womb and that's what was taking place right here and stupid
Ahab was so ignorant of the covenant. You know what he told his servants
to do? Go run around and find grass and water to feed our horses
so they don't die in this famine. His priorities are twisted. Very
much like what's going on in our churches today. Had Ahab
known that God brought that famine, he would have known that he was
going to fail at even being able to feed the horses. But because
he was a pretending preacher, He had no idea of how God worked. Listen to what the text says.
In chapter 17, verse 1, And Elijah the Tishbite, who was an inhabitant
of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel lives
before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years
but according to my word. Do you see that? But according
to my word. And how long was that famine,
ladies and gentlemen? Three and a half years. This is the premise
upon which you and I are introduced to Ahab and Jezebel. And you
know what Amos says in Amos chapter 11? There's a famine coming in
the land. Not a famine of bread, nor a
famine of water, but a famine of hearing the words of the living
God. You and I are in a famine today. We are in a famine of
the Bible not being soundly taught and soundly preached like you
are hearing today. I am not saying this with any
boast, but I do know that this is the truth. You will not go
into many of your local churches and get a diet of biblical truth
on the order that you're getting here. And it's not because we
are better than any other local church. It's because there's
a famine in the land. And the famine is a direct result
of all of the previous exposures that I've just made in our text.
Wicked leadership, corrupt leadership, pinching off the covenant, pinching
off the gospel, pinching off the preaching of Christ. Do you
know the Spirit of God only flows in an efficacious way to save
and sanctify people through the preaching of Christ? He only
flows in a saving and sanctified way only when Christ is preached. Your sons and daughters need
to hear the gospel week in and week out. You need to hear it
week in and week out. If for no other reason to be
reminded that you need a Savior every day, every day. So I'm going to jump to our 7.2467. Her lack of respect for divine
boundaries. This is going to get us close
to the end of our message here. Her lack of respect for divine
boundaries. I understand why God actually
called the woman in the Church of Thyatira Jezebel. Not only
because of her propensity for idolatry and her rank and avarice,
insatiable lust for fornication, Which again, we have also warned,
where churches are not faithful to the word of God, they are
filled with adultery and fornication. See, bad doctrine leads to bad
practice. It takes grace to restrain sinners
from committing adultery and adultery and fornication. Are
you guys hearing what I'm saying? Takes grace! Takes grace! You can talk all you want apart
from the grace of God. You cannot keep to yourself in
a culture that is idolatrous and fornicating as ours. Because
every day, 24-7, it gives you the right to fulfill the lust
of yourself, violating some other person's property just to fulfill
and gratify your own needs. This is narcissism at its highest. Her lack of respect and bounty.
Do you guys remember what happened with that wimpy Ahab in 1st Kings
21? Let's go there. I'm glad some
of y'all know your Bibles. Because I can cut through the
details. Ahab is ruining the fact that Elijah has destroyed
the prophets, exposed him to be a wimp. And so what do wimpy
people do? They continue to anesthetize
their weakness through catering to the lust of their flesh. That's
what weak people do. And so what does Ahab want? He wants Naboth's vineyard. Now Naboth has a vineyard in
Jezreel where Ahab lives. Now Ahab looks out of his window
and he, Ahab got so much property you can't even begin to imagine. The research says he built houses
of ivory and of all kinds of precious stones and he had lands
galore, but it wasn't enough for this man. He wanted Nabal's
neighbor's vineyard because it was a beautiful vineyard and
he comes to neighbor and he says neighbor listen man I'll give
you some money for your vineyard I'll give you whatever you want
for your vineyard this indicates again that Ahab does not know
the covenant or he does not care about the covenant for the covenant
is gave every man an inheritance in Israel and that inheritance
could not be sold whether it was to a pauper or a prince or
a king or anyone else. You must transfer that inheritance
down to your generations in order that it might be kept. What is
Ahab doing? He's simply disregarding the
covenant of God. And then when Nabal says, I can't
do it, he goes home whining and crying to Jezebel. Listen to
what the text says. This is 1st Kings chapter 21
verse 7. Are you there? Listen to this. Let me start back and make sure
you get this. Verse 4. And Ahab came to his house heavy
and displeased, because the word which Naboth the Jesuit had spoken
to him. For he had said, I will not give
you the inheritance of my fathers. That's bold, isn't it? And he
laid him down upon his bed, and turned his face toward the wall
and wouldn't eat and dream. This is the pastor of the church. But Jezebel, his wife, came to
him and said unto him, why is your spirit so sad that you're
not eating bread? And he said unto her, because
I spoke to neighbors down the street that just like he said,
and I said to them, give me my, give me your venue for money
or else if it please you, I will give thee another venue for it.
And he answered, I will not give it. He told me no. Man, this is amazing. That's
why I like biblical stories. Listen to this. Now listen to
this woman Jezebel. And Jezebel, his wife said unto
him, do you not govern the kingdom? Oh, do you see my point? You're
the king. You do whatever you want to. Let me ask you the question.
Is that true? Does the pastor do whatever he wants to? Does
Mrs. Pastor do whatever she wants
to? Does the leadership in the church
do whatever it wants to? If it does, it means the church
knows nothing about this covenant we call the Bible. Am I making
some sense? When the pastor and his wife
can do whatever they want. I have people coming to me all
the time. My pastor does this, my pastor do that, my pastor...
I say, why y'all let him do that? What do you mean? Why do you
let him do that? Because they have set up a monarchy in the
church. It's a monarchy. It's not a presbytery. It's not an eldership. It's not
a pastorate. It's a monarchy. And your monarchial
churches steal the crown rights of Christ from him, and they
usurp it for the leaders of the church. These are apostate churches. You guys have learned a lot today,
especially those of you who have never been here before. Mark
what I am saying, because these things are true. The paradigm
and model and structure of the government in your church also
is indicative as to whether or not that church is going to be
obedient to the word of God. Obedient to the word of God.
Watch what she goes on to do. I want you to see this. I'm going
to stop it here and we'll have to take it up next week. Because
I have a class to teach at 1.30. Listen to what it goes on to
say. In her lack of respect for the boundaries that God has set
up, she said, are you not the king? Do you not govern the kingdom? Arise, eat bread, let your heart
be merry. I will give you the vineyard
of Naboth, the Jezreelite." Whoa! Do you see that? So she wrote
letters in Ahab's name, sealed them with a seal, sent letters
unto the elders and unto the nobles that were in his city
dwelling with Naboth. Might as well, they all are idolaters
too. They don't read their Bible. And she wrote a letter saying
proclaim a fast and set Naboth on high among the people You
know what they get ready to do judge this man and hang him and
take the vineyard from him in plain day Verse 12 they proclaim
the fast at Naboth on high among the people and there came in
two men children of Belial You know what children of Belial
is? That's a bad word. I can't say it That's an ugly
apathet in Hebrew Wicked man, that's the best I can do and
sat before him and the men of Belial witnessed against him
even against Nabal and the president of the people saying Nabal did
blaspheme God. I want you to see this parallel.
I'm going to show you the conflation of politics with religion. Watch
this. Did blaspheme God and the what? How on earth do you make
the king equal to God? You see my point? So in your
churches, you are told And if you question the man of God,
the woman of God, you're touching God's anointed, you bring a curse
to yourself. How many of y'all heard that?
Tell it true, tell it true. Get saved today, sanctified,
washed up. If there's a conflation between
God and the king, God is the father, the king is the Lord
Jesus Christ. Are you hearing me? We don't take his crown rights
from him and do whatever we want to do. This is so very important. Listen to what it goes on to
say. And so they stoned him with stones, and he died. Then they
sent Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned and is dead. And it
came to pass when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned and was
dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the
vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which refused to give thee money,
for Naboth is not alive, but dead. And it came to pass when
Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down
to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take possession
of it. Do you see that? Can I say something to you as
I close now? God saw it. Verse 17. And the Lord came and
said unto Elijah the Tishbite saying, you go down to meet Ahab,
which is in Samaria. Behold, he is in the vineyard
of Naboth, whither he had gone down to possess. And you speak
to him saying thus, thus said the Lord, you have killed and
you have taken possession. and you shall speak unto him
saying, thus said the Lord, in the place where the dogs lick
the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick the blood even of you. Do
you see that? Ahab is under a death sentence
now. Jezebel is under a death sentence
now. And all of her children are under
a death sentence now. And God is getting ready to kill
all of her children. You read chapter 17 of 1st Kings
through chapter 9 of 2nd Kings, and then you're going to be able
to see the connection between the old and the new when Christ
says, I am going to kill her children with death. And I've
already shared with you, because I'm closing here for time's sake,
that Jesus has made a clear distinction between those who are holding
to her doctrine and teaching and those who are not. And those
who are not holding to our doctrine and teachings have great and
precious promises at the end of the letter to the church at
Thyatira. We want to look at those great
and precious promises next week and ask ourselves as we prepare
to take the Lord's table, am I numbered amongst God's elect? Do I know what the word of God
really teaches? Am I on the Lord's side when
it comes to biblical truth? Do I know what biblical leadership
is all about? Do I understand boundaries? Do
I understand parameters? Do I understand who made me? Why he made me? How he made me? Do I understand relationships
in terms of covenant? Do I understand the trends of
our present culture? that is so, so desperate to depart
from a biblical model of human kind and mankind, men and women. Do I understand the trend departing
from a biblical model of a lifestyle? I do. I do. And you should too. And you should do everything
in your power to stand for biblical truth if you want to be saved. Amen.