Sep. 06, 2020

The Church’s Compromise

 Primary Text:  Revelation 2:18-22                September 5 & 6, 2020

 Last Week’s Teaching:  The Church’s Battle

 1)  False American Deities

 1)  Baal (which means lord, plural: Baalim – lords) evil spirit of fertility; associated with greed, carnality, sensuality, materialism, infanticide, apostasy and opposition to the true God 

 2)  Molech/Moloch - the god to whom people offered children as sacrifices for the purpose of prosperity (infanticide, loss of a sense of the sacredness of life)

 3)  Asherah or Ashtoreth - female goddess of lust, sexual immorality, prostitution, pornography, (yielding to a sexually charged culture that separates sex from the sanctity of marriage) 

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2)  Ahab’s Queen

 1 Kings 16:29-33:  In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years.  Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him.  He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.  He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria.  Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. 

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This Week’s Teaching: 

 1)  The Church of Jezebel

 Revelation 2:18-22:  "To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.  I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.  Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess.  By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.  I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.  So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 

 DQ 1) Why do demonic spirits strongly encourage sexual immorality?

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2)  A Personal Jezebel

 Proverbs 16:18:  Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. 

 1 Samuel 15:22-23:  But Samuel replied: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.  For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.  Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king."  

 Exodus 20:3-4:  "You shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." 

 DQ 2) What characterizes persons who are under the influence of a “Jezebel spirit”?

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3)  Opening the Door

 Revelation 3:14-19:   To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation.  I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish you were either one or the other!  So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth.  You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.'  But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.  Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline.  So be earnest, and repent. 

DQ 3) What are indications a “spirit of Jezebel” has infiltrated a church body?

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4)  Jezebel’s Demise 

 2 Kings 9:30-36:  Then Jehu went to Jezreel.  When Jezebel heard about it, she painted her eyes, arranged her hair and looked out of a window.  As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, "Have you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?"  He looked up at the window and called out, "Who is on my side?  Who?"  Two or three eunuchs looked down at him.  "Throw her down!" Jehu said.  So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot….  They went back and told Jehu, who said, "This is the word of the LORD that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will devour Jezebel's flesh."

DQ 4) Under what circumstances are spirits of evil rendered powerless?

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