The Spirit of Jezebel, by Pastor Glendy Hamilton

Revelation 2:18-23, 32

DISCERNING THE SPIRIT OF JEZEBEL

I'm going to ask you not to judge this message on whether or not it is popular, but on whether or not it is biblical. We are said to be a Bible-believing people and if truth is revealed truth should be shared. It's important if we are to stand in these last and evil days (we see our world growing more and more wicked), to make sure that we are not caught up as some others are caught up. The Bible says the love of many shall wax cold and people will fall away. And people, who are saved, people who are born into the family of God, will be caught away as well.

But how will they be caught away? First Timothy 4:1 says by "seducing spirits and doctrines of devils." The Bible says that will be a sign of His soon return. So, it's important that you judge this message as well as discern in your own heart whether there are some opinions and attitudes in you that also were in this lady called Jezebel. I will also alert you to the fact that that spirit existed before Jezebel but the Holy Writ in writing to the churches used her as, maybe, a model that we might discern and see what's going on today.

The spirit of Jezebel is a way of thinking that exists unchecked in most churches. So therefore we shall put light on the subject. We'll bring truth forward. We'll ask people to be honest with themselves. And if you'll be honest with yourself the Bible says the truth will make you free.

As we read these verses here, I'm sure you might challenge it and say, I don't know of any church where some woman gets up and teach people to commit fornication and to eat things unto idols. It's not so much the woman physically doing that, as it is the thinking that exists in people who come to the church. I understand that in our society in which we live, there is an attitude that there are male chauvinists today. And that is true. But all men are not male chauvinists. Also, I recognize that many ladies are being hurt or have been hurt in their lives. So, we will show you that that is the reason why the spirit of Jezebel can find such easy access to ladies today. I will quickly say, as I am talking about this spirit, that it is not just a spirit that comes up in females, but this spirit can also be found in men. However, it loves a place where the nature of that person is to manipulate. And sad to say, this spirit finds easy access in a lot of ladies because their nature is one of manipulation. 

I'm going to ask you to be honest with yourself, and that you will examine yourself, and that you won't look and you won't blame, but you will identify that, yes, I have been hurt--maybe by a father, maybe by a husband, maybe by a brother, maybe by an uncle, maybe by whoever. And by not dealing with that hurt according to the Scriptures, a root of bitterness has taken place in your hearts that later on the spirit of Jezebel comes by and finds a house (the house of bitterness) to live in.

When we speak of Jezebel, we are identifying in our society the group that is involved in sensuality. A couple of Sundays ago, I preached a message entitled "When Lust Says, Yes, How to Say, No," and you understand from that message that people are given over to sensuality. People are given over to doing things according to the flesh. People are given over to living by what they see and feel. Like Samson said, He saw her and he said I want her. Get her for me. We live in a society that is that way in its thinking.

We live in a society even in America where there is unbridled witchcraft. More and more we are seeing, and we are hearing about witchcraft. We also live in a society where there's a hatred for male authority. I'm talking about God-ordained male authority. There is a hatred for male authority.

To understand the spirit of Jezebel, we must understand how that personality was seen in the Bible. Her name means, "without habitation." Her name means, "unmarried." But as you looked at the Scripture, you saw that she got married. She got married for position--not to follow nor to submit. She got married for position and as I read those Scriptures to you, as you noticed (I hope you saw them), who was controlling the kingdom? It was not Ahab. Ahab would not control it. The spirit of Jezebel has an intense ambition for control. "I must control. Even if I put up a front that I am following, I'm really in control. And I will use my manipulation to control." See this spirit still operates today.

And once again, ladies, I hope you will hear me out. I am not picking on you women. I'm saying there is a spirit, there is an attitude, there is an opinion that has been pre-programmed in people today and even though we know what the Bible says, we live contrary to the Word. We are fighting against a spirit and Jesus says He has a rebuke for this church. He said, 'Church, there is a spirit of Jezebel in the church and she's controlling the church.'

When this spirit seems submissive and servant-like, it's only to gain an advantage. For her heart submits to no man. "I will have no one to rule over me." We know what the Bible says. We know what First Corinthians says that the "woman was made for the man, not man for the woman." We know that! But yet, when the man wants to take control there is a resisting, there is a rebellion, there is an out-and-out refusal to submit by most women. Or there is manipulation that goes on in order to gain control.

Bear in mind that this spirit of Jezebel existed before its namesake. It's important to note that while men in leadership are the main target of most principalities (Listen, most of the wickedness that we fight today go for the male in authority), the spirit of jezebel is attractive to women because of her sophistication to manipulate without physical force. Ladies, you will agree and you need not say, Amen that you do know how to manipulate without being physical. It comes natural. You know how to cry when there's nothing wrong with you. You know how to look depressed when you are not depressed. You know how to do it. And it comes natural. (I know you're smiling but you're saying, "That's not so.") You know that's so. I won't belabor that point. But that's where you open up yourself to the spirit of Jezebel that can find lodging in your life.

You say, "Preacher, I have the Holy Spirit of God in me." Yes, but any area or thought that you have not surrendered to God is the dark areas in your life. Why would the Bible say, we must pull down strongholds? Why would the Bible say, pull them down? Bring them down! And He does not name the stronghold, but He says to pull them down. And there are strongholds in people's lives today and there is the stronghold of the spirit of Jezebel that exists today.

Now when I talk about Jezebel, I am not talking so much about the lady, as I am talking about the spirit. Look for Jezebel to target women who are bitter against men. How did they get bitter against men, Preacher? Maybe from a father. Their father committed incest with them. Maybe their father beat them physically and they were unfair in their beating. Maybe they verbally put them down. Maybe their father committed adultery on their mother. Maybe their father deserted them and they never knew who their father was. Maybe their father shamed them by being a drunk or being a doper or being a jailbird. But in some kind of a way, this lady was embittered by her father. Or maybe this lady was not embittered by her father but maybe she was married to a husband who did some of the same things--beat her, neglected her, cursed her, used her, committed adultery on her, always was critical of her, never spent any time with her. And therefore this spirit will target women who are embittered against men.

I will not ask you to raise your hand, but I am sure it will be one hundred percent that just about every lady in this church has been hurt by a man. Somewhere in your life you have been hurt or at the very present is being hurt by a man. But the thing is, if you don't war against this spirit you will be used for destruction.

Remember there was a prophecy concerning Jezebel. Jezebel means, without habitation, and also idolatry. You see, she is not controlled by anybody. But God says, 'I am the Lord thy God.' What God says comes to past and Jezebel was thrown to the dogs.

Not only had she been embittered by men either through neglect or misuse of authority (and sometimes, men, we are guilty of misusing our authority), but this spirit operates through women who because of insecurity, jealousy, or vanity, desire to control and to dominate others. The spirit of Jezebel is behind the woman who will publicly humiliate her husband with her tongue and then thereafter control him by fear of public embarrassment. All she has to do if that spirit is influencing her, is to embarrass that man one time in public, and from then on she just lets him know, if you act up, I'll do it again. The Bible says, "A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones." And no man who has an ego loves to be embarrassed, especially by his wife. He might take embarrassment from a man or even children, but not from his wife. All I am asking you to do is, check your thinking. Is this spirit there? Do you possess the spirit of Jezebel? Let's go on.

CONTROL IS WHAT THE SPIRIT OF JEZEBEL SEEKS

While she will use every means of sexual perversion found in hell, immorality is not the issue. Control is what she seeks. She will use the power of sexual passion for the purpose of possessing men and there are many men today who are controlled through sex. There are many men today who are controlled through sex! Yet the Word of God tells us that we are not to defraud one another. The Word of God says that the man's body is not his own and the wife's body is not her own. But yet if this spirit is operating today in a woman, she will use that to control her man. And there are many men who will do anything for sex. I am talking about a spirit that goes on even in our churches unchecked. To a woman under the influence of Jezebel's spirit, conquering a man need not involve physical contact. Seduction from her eyes can capture him. There are many men, who are not falling because of the act itself, but because she seduces him and gets all she wants and then leaves him.

Well, has the battle expanded? Yes, it has. How could the battle expand when we've gone from over 300 million to 5 billion souls and the demons have not expanded? Only one third of them fell when they fell. How has this battle expanded? 

Turn in your Bible to Revelation 12:15: "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood." The word "water" symbolizes words. Therefore, there existed a flood of words and visible images coming out of the mouth of Satan. Our society, through technological advances, has made sins of the mind and the heart more accessible. The satanic flood of filth and rebellion is a stronghold of the devil. It comes through the media. Our information, film, entertainment oriented world have people who are controlled by demons, and therefore (the demons) control what they write. And the Bible says it will be like a flood. Therefore the filth and the rebellion of our society exist even through the media. 

The Bible says in Ephesians 2:2: "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." The devil is the prince of the power of the air. He's talking here about the airwaves and that includes the radio and television signals. So therefore the satanic heroes in our lives comes through giving our mind to the television and the radio and the newspaper and the pornography books and all those things. And the more we fill our minds with that, the more we fill our minds with the spirit of Jezebel. Because you will agree that on the Soap Operas we find men committing adultery after adultery after adultery. What does that tell your mind if you're a lady looking at that? That tells your mind in a conclusive statement that all men are dogs. So therefore, that spirit finds access. And before you know it, there comes a submissive-like spirit but not submissive for real. Because your mind automatically says, he's a man, and all man are like dogs.

We cannot worship God on Sunday and tolerate the Jezebel spirit all during the week through television. When you start to tolerate that spirit you are developing a door for that attitude to get in you. Because of the manipulation of the enemy we fight against, we say there is nothing wrong with television. And the devil says, 'atta boy, atta girl.' And some of us even say, "Yea, I know it's wrong, but I'm just going to watch a little bit of it anyway." You're being led down a dark road of destruction of your own home because of the spirit. You're saying, I want a home, and I want it to work right. The only way it's going to work right is according to the principles of the Bible! That's the only way it's going to work right because God is in the business of instructing us and teaching us and leading us. So, therefore, you might be in a situation that seems bad but God wants to develop character in your life. And you'll never get the character if you get out of the classroom! You've got to stay. The Bible even says if you don't understand just stay in and God will develop something in you that nobody else will be able to take out of you. But we say, "No.' That spirit says, "No, don't take that! Get out." We must stop the small foxes because the Bible says it's the small foxes that spoil the vine.

Most of us let thoughts come into our mind and we never check them. Most of us let an attitude creep in unchecked and most of us let other people say things to us but we never check it. We just listen to it. We don't rebuke it. We don't say, "No, I'm not going to put that in my mind. I'm not agreeing with you. I'm not going to do that. But we have where sometimes an embittered mother raises a daughter and the mother constantly tells her daughter, "Never let a man control you. Never let a man lead you." And that little girl hears that over and over again--"Never let a man control you. Always be on top of him." And that preprogramming is there. And she might marry a man who loves her dearly but she has been pre-programmed. She has brought excess baggage into the marriage and that mindset eventually destroys the marriage.

The Jezebel spirit flows unhindered throughout the entertainment world, through the world of fashion. Remember, folks, the Bible says that ladies are to dress modestly. But the fashion world says, dress sexy. And remember that one thing about the spirit is to seduce them all by what they see.

As a pastor, I never knew that I was fighting against the spirit of Jezebel when I preached for all these years, and finally God gave me the truth to let me know what I've been fighting against. And I'd say, "Dress up. Button that top button. Pull that dress down. Get out of those pants." And those ladies would go..."You're just a male chauvinist. You are just old fashioned." But now I know--There is a spirit. It's a spirit that exists that says, 'Nobody tells me how to dress.' Well, that's what the fashion world does. They tell you how to dress. Somebody is telling you how to dress. Sometimes, even a husband can contribute to this by making his wife dress immodestly.

Do you know who controls most of the schools today? Women! Do you know who controls most of the churches today? Women! That's why sometimes when people come here and they see men in operation they go, this is a male chauvinist church. No, this is a God-instructed church. There is no place in our society we can't go where this spirit does not exist.

That Jezebel spirit is the motivator behind abortion. I want my independence. I don't want to be tied down to motherhood. I want to commit my sins. Later for motherhood. I want to do my playing. If I get pregnant, I'll just kill it.

It's that Jezebel spirit that generates dissatisfaction among wives. I'm not happy at home. I'm not happy. And then you get with another woman who has the Jezebel spirit and she says, I'm not happy at home either. And then they get with another lady and she says I am not happy either. And before you know it, you conclude that there are no happy women at home. And most ladies didn't even know they weren't happy until somebody told them they weren't happy.

THE FAVORITE PLACE OF THE SPIRIT OF JEZEBEL

The favorite place of the spirit of Jezebel is in the church. See, those are respectable men who love God and seek to serve Him yet secretly in their hearts they are in prison to Jezebel. Even now, some are deeply ashamed. They are in bondage to pornography. They can barely control their desires for women. When they pray, they really are overtaken by guilt and shame. Mostly, it's just a whisper of trying to pray. Many men (and you see it today more and more), and I'm not putting them down, but how about Bro. Swaggart, why did he say he was where he was? Because as a young boy he loved pornography. And still people don't believe what Mr. Bundy said. Ted Bundy said there are a lot of Ted Bundys left today. And our educated people say he's just saying that. But as we read our newspapers, we find more and more men saying, "I killed 40 and 50 women. I killed little girls," etc.

And yet you say, nobody tells me how to dress! There may be a Ted Bundy watching you. And the less you give him to look at, the safer you are. You say, "Ah, I'm independent. I can live by myself." There's a Ted Bundy watching you and he knows you don't have the protection of a man.

There are many good women who come to church seeking God, but this spirit starts to fantasize with other men; starts to say, boy, that's a spiritual man there and my husband isn't spiritual. After a while some women develop problems that "only the pastor can understand." But the instruction of the Bible from Titus chapter two says this: the older women of the church are to teach the younger women.  And one of the first things it says is that the older women are to teach the younger women "to love their husbands." Corinthians says this, if you have a question, ladies, ask who? Your husband. That's what the Bible says. But the Jezebel spirit says, "My husband doesn't know anything. No, I want the pastor to answer the question, and that privately."

Just this week in the revival, a lady wanted to talk with me, and I took her and another lady in the office with me. After talking to her she said she wasn't saved so I left her in there with the lady and went out. Then the lady said she didn't want to be saved. But she wanted to talk with the pastor. (You see, folks, I am getting wiser and wiser.)

My Bible tells me the preacher is supposed to be given to prayer and to the ministry. Many good men of God have gotten themselves entangled in adultery with too much counseling. That Jezebel spirit is a manipulator. That Jezebel spirit says, I want some counseling. "When can you come counsel me, preacher?" And because of the naiveness of a lot of men, they say, "O. K. We'll counsel."

This story is true of a man in the preachers' fellowship. A lady called him and said, "Preacher, I want you to come by to see me." He said, "O. K." It was eleven o'clock at night. So he got his wife and told his wife to come and go with him. They went to the house and rang the doorbell and she said, "Come on in, the door is open." He sent his wife in there and there she was laying in the bed naked. (You may not think that exists, but it does.)

Anyone can be hit by this spirit. We need to recognize that if that attitude exists in us today, we need to repent. First, we have to say, hey, that's the wrong way to think. I have to war against it. Maybe you had that attitude developing in you from youth, but you can pick up the Sword, the Word of God and war against this spirit of Jezebel. See, if you war against Jezebel when you encounter it, eventually you are going to become dangerous because you'll start telling other people how to look out for it, and therefore you will counter-attack that spirit. You can help other ladies and say, wait a minute. That's the wrong kind of attitude. That's not a biblical attitude. That's not a godly attitude. Let's line up with the Bible, Sister.

Most pastors who have that spirit do not have accountability of fellowship with other pastors. They find themselves flirting with the ladies in the church and sooner or later, they find themselves overcome by adultery. I'm sure a lot of people can name preachers who have fallen because of adultery. So, accountability is important.

Turn to Revelation 2:20: "Not withstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess..." She desires authority and control. You had better be careful of the different female ministries because all that spirit wants to do is control. Have you noticed how many more women pastors exist today? I guarantee you that the spirit of Jezebel is in them. You say, "No, they are called of God." Which God? The Bible does not contradict itself. So which God? You say, "Well, God has got to use somebody." Listen, friend, God doesn't need any help! God isn't on welfare. He doesn't need any public assistance. He still has all power in His hand.

The Scribes said tell those people to stop saying, Hosanna, Hosanna and shut up. Jesus said, 'If they be quiet even the rocks will get up and praise Me. So God will make a rock preach if he wants a preacher. If God can use a donkey He can use a rock. This spirit manipulates itself into control so therefore you have to be careful about this spirit of Jezebel. All leaders of churches are targets of that spirit. When we serve, wherever we serve, we are to serve to glorify God.

WHO DOES THE SPIRIT OF JEZEBEL HATE THE MOST?

Who does the spirit of Jezebel hate the most? Jezebel's most feared enemies are the prophets or the preachers. Her worst fear is that people will embrace repentance. I told you about Ahab. When the man of God told Ahab what God was going to do, Ahab repented. Ahab humbled himself.

If I have this kind of thinking inside my head, it won't come out unless I humble myself and say, I have that kind of thinking in my head. That spirit can even exist in churches where there is good Christian doctrine. But the Bible says, pull down "strongholds."

Jezebel's spirit hates humility. For Jesus says in Matthew eighteen, the kingdom of God is like a child. A person must become like a child and humble himself. Therefore humility is eager to submit itself to authority.

Jezebel's spirit hates prayer for intercessory prayer prys her fingers off the hearts and souls of men. It sets people free because when I pray, I am praying to the real God. I'm praying to the Lord God. I'm praying to Him. That Jezebel spirit wants to be worshipped, therefore, she says, "Don't pray. Don't repent. Don't humble yourself. Be proud. Be independent." But God says, 'Humble yourself because I resist the proud.' When you pray it binds her. When you pray against fornication and adultery it cripples her. When you pray for a submissive heart, it's like trampling the horses of Jehu upon her body.

Jezebel hates the prophet because the prophet speaks out against her. The prophets are her worst enemy. When she wars she wars to stir up people against the man of God. 

More than that, she hates the Word that the man of God preaches. Her real enemy is the spoken Word of God. Her hatred, therefore, her real enemy is the God of the Word. Her real enemy is God, Himself. She hates the fact that God will take people who are weak and lowly and use them to bring her down.

She hates holiness. She hates the purity that comes from God and surrounds those who serve in His courts. She hates the grace of God. For even though she had used people--men and women, against the things of God, God by His grace will still save people. She hates the grace of God.

That is a spirit that God says exists in churches today. That is a spirit that exists in women who have been embittered by men. That is a spirit that exists in men in leadership. That is a spirit that exists in Harvest Baptist Church. Let's repent of it today.