My furnace had broken down and as the repairman worked to install a new motor, we shared an animated conversation. It turned out that he was a Christian and he told me a little about his job and some of the things that were going on in his life. His wife had left him for another man and he was glad that the Lord had found him a new born again girlfriend. He told me how badly her old boyfriend had treated her.

     "She was on the roof putting up Christmas decorations, " he said. "She fell off and landed on the lower part of the roof with a broken ankle. She lay there for two hours crying in the rain before anyone found her. Her boyfriend wasn't even home. He never helped her do anything."
     "She was living with him?" I asked.
     "Yes." He answered.
     "And was she a Christian at the time?"
     "Yes."
     "Well," I responded, "that's probably why she ended up on the roof with a broken ankle crying in the rain for two hours. She wasn't supposed to be living with him."

     He quickly made a brief justification of her behavior and in the process revealed his own intention of wanting to live with her as a way of protecting himself from the situation he had been in with his ex-wife. His summation of the whole thing was that everyone was entitled to his own opinion.
     So where does that leave the authority of the Word of God?

     To the minds of these "Born Again Christians" the Word of God had little or no authority over their behavior. Let's take a look at Revelation 2:20-23. -

"But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.
     And I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality.
     Behold, I will cast her upon a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.
     And I will kill her children with pestilence and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds."

These are strong words from Jesus, our Lord of mercy, love and grace. And it is His love for us that seeks to intercept us from our sins. Sometimes He has to get our attention and so we land in great tribulation, whether it be lying on a roof with a broken ankle, or spending several years in prison, or dying in a hospital with aids. This doesn’t mean that every tribulation is the result of sin, but whatever form our compromise leads us God wants us to know there will be consequences. God is not mocked. Whatever we reap, we will sow. (Galatians 6:7)

Getting back to this Jezebel spirit - this spirit of compromise that causes God's people to sin sexually and "To eat things sacrificed to idols". In other words, the distinction between what is clean and what is unclean is no longer clearly defined in the minds of those who are blinded by this spirit. A Christian under Jezebel's influence will allow themselves to be entertained by images of compromise that saturate the secular media.

Jezebel will dilute and compromise the Word of God until there are no longer any absolutes. Eventually the Truth of the Cross will be dismissed as only one of many ways to salvation. Entertainment in church services prevails and the word "Repentance" disappears from view. Those who choose repentance as the Biblical way to receive Christ are labeled as being "Old Fashioned".

Jezebel prepares the way for a new age mindset to enter the church. The "have it your way" approach to Christianity predominates over "Have it His Way". Jesus is not Lord over the lives of Jezebel's followers. To them, He is merely a figurehead to be visited for a time on Sunday mornings.

Children, we are being called to make a choice. In these few moments we are being given a season of grace in which God is calling us to "Repent". He is calling us to submit to His Lordship totally.

I look at the shining picture of the 144,000, the symbolic number of multitudes of uncompromised souls standing with Jesus upon Mount Zion, (Rev.14:1) these ones who kept themselves chaste and follow the Lord wherever He goes. I want to be on that mountain with Him victorious - not crying in the rain abandoned in unrepented sin.

Children, it's time to make a choice - Jezebel - or Jesus?

copyright 2000 by H.D. Shively