THAT WOMAN JEZEBEL
The apostle James showed us the course that sin takes. James 1:14-15, "But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death." Now that is a picture of exactly what is happening in the church ages. As sin started in nothing but a feeling, so the death to the church started with the simple, little noticed deeds of the Nicolaitanes. From the deeds it went to a doctrine. From the doctrine it embraced the power of the state and the introduction of paganism. Now in this age it goes to its own prophetess (teacher) and so it travels on until it will find itself in the lake of fire, for that is exactly where it is going to end up, in the second death.
Now the whole cry of God against this fourth age is found in His denunciation of this prophetess, Jezebel. And to understand exactly why He denounces her so, we will have to look up her history in the Bible and when we find what she did back there, we will know what is going on at this time.
The first and very important thing that we learn about Jezebel is that she is NOT a daughter of Abraham, nor is her induction into the tribes of Israel one of spiritual admission as was that of Ruth, the Moabitess. No sir. This woman was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon (I Kings 16:31), who was the priest unto Astarte. He had gained the throne by murdering his predecessor, Pheles. So we see right away that she was the daughter of a murderer. (This certainly reminds us of Cain.) And the way she became a part of Israel was not through the spiritual channels that God had ordained for Gentile admission; but she came in by MARRIAGE to Ahab, the king of the ten tribes of Israel. Now this union as we have seen was not Spiritual; it was political. And so this woman who was steeped in idolatry did not have the least desire to become a worshipper of the One True God, but rather she came with the avowed intentions of turning Israel away from the Lord. Now Israel (the ten tribes) had already known what it was to worship the golden calves, but as yet they were not sold out to idolatry, for God was worshipped and the law of Moses was acknowledged. But from the time of Ahab's marriage to Jezebel, idolatry progressed in a deadly fashion. It was when this woman became a priestess in the temples that she erected to Astarte (Venus) and Baal (sun god) that Israel came to the crisis point of her life.
With this in mind we can now begin to see what the Spirit of God is setting forth in this Thyatirean Age. Here it is.
Ahab married Jezebel and he did it as a political maneuver to strengthen his kingdom and secure it. That is exactly what the church did when it married under Constantine. They both got together for political reasons, though they put a spiritual air to it. Now no one can convince me that Constantine was a Christian. He was a pagan with what looked like Christian trappings. He painted white crosses on the soldiers' shields. He was the originator of the Knights of Columbus. He put a cross on the steeple of Saint Sophia's thereby starting a tradition.
It was Constantine's idea to get everyone together, the pagans, nominal Christians and true Christians. And for awhile it looked as if he would succeed for the real believers came along to see if they could bring back the ones that had drifted away from the Word. When they saw that they couldn't bring them back into the truth, they were forced to break away from the body political. Then when they did, they were called heretics and persecuted.
Let me say right here that we have the very same thing going on right now. The people are all coming together. They are writing a Bible that will suit everyone whether it be a Jew, Catholic or Protestant. They have their own Nicene Council but they call it the Ecumenical Council. And do you know whom all these organizations fight? They fight the true Pentecostals. I don't mean the organization called Pentecostal. I mean the ones who are Pentecostal because they are filled with the Holy Ghost and have the signs and gifts in their midst because they walk in truth.
When Ahab married Jezebel for political reasons he sold his birthright. You join up with an organization and you sell your birthright, brother, whether you want to believe it or not. Every Protestant group that ever came out and then went back sold their birthright, and when you sell your birthright, you're just like Esau - you can cry and repent all you want, but it won't do you any good. There is only one thing you can do and that is, "Come out of her, my people, and stop partaking of her sins!" Now if you don't think I am right, just answer this one question. Can any man living tell me what church or what move of God ever had revival and came back after she went into organization and became a denomination? Read your histories. You can't find one - not even one.
It was the midnight hour for Israel when she joined with the world and left the Spiritual for the political. It was the midnight hour at Nicaea when the church did the same thing. It is the midnight hour now that the churches are coming together.
Now when Ahab married Jezebel he allowed her to take the state money and erect two huge houses of worship of Astarte and Baal. The one that was erected for Baal was big enough for all Israel to come and worship thereat. And when Constantine and the church married he gave the church buildings, and set up altars and images, and organized the hierarchy that had already been shaping up.
When Jezebel got the power of the state behind her she forced her religion on the people and killed the prophets and priests of God. It got so bad that Elijah, the messenger to his day, thought he was the only one left; but God had 7000 more that hadn't bowed the knee to Baal. And right now out there amongst those denominations of Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc., there are some that will come out and come back to God. I want you to know I am not, now, and never have been against the people. It is the denomination - the system of organization that I am against. I have to be against it for God hates it.
Now just let us stop a minute here and rehearse what we brought out about the worship in Thyatira. I said that they worshipped Apollo (who was the sun god) along with the emperor. Now this Apollo was called the 'averter of evil.' He turned evil away from people. He blessed them and was a real god to them. He was supposed to teach the people. He explained about worship, and temple rites, services to gods, about sacrifices and death and life after death. The way he did this was through a prophetess who sat entranced upon a tripod chair. My! Do you see it? Here is that prophetess called Jezebel and she is teaching the people. And her teaching is seducing the servants of God and causing them to commit fornication. Now fornication means 'idol worship.' That is what its spiritual meaning is. It is an illegal union. Ahab's union and Constantine's union were both illegal. Both committed spiritual fornication. Every fornicator will wind up in the lake of fire. God said so.
Now then, the teaching of the Catholic Church (the church is female, it is a woman) denies the Word of God. The pope who is literally Apollo in a modern version has taught the people to join themselves to idols. The Roman Church has now become a false prophetess to the people because she has taken away the Word of the Lord from the people and given her own ideas as to what constitutes forgiveness of sins, what brings the blessings of God; and the priests have gone so far as to state categorically that they have power not only in life but in death. They teach on their own that there is a purgatory, but you can't find that in the Word. They teach that prayers and masses and money will get you out of purgatory and into heaven. The whole system that is based upon its teaching is false. It does not lie on the sure foundation of the revelation of God in His Word but lies on the shifting, sinking, sands of its own diabolical untruths.
The church went right from organization to denomination and hence to false teaching. That is right. The Roman Catholics don't believe that God is in His Word. No sir. If they did they would have to repent and back up, but they say God is in His church. That would make the Bible the history of the Catholic Church. That isn't so. Look what they did to water baptism alone. They took it away from being Christian Baptism and made it a pagan one of titles. Let me tell you about an experience I had with a Catholic priest. A girl that I had baptized at one time turned Catholic, so the priest wanted to interview me about her. He asked what kind of baptism she had. I told him I baptized her in Christian Baptism which is the only kind there was to my knowledge. I had buried her in water in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The priest remarked to me that at one time the Catholic Church did that. Right away I asked him when the Catholic Church did that, for I have read their histories and I could not find what he said. He told me that it was found in the Bible, and that Jesus had organized the Catholic Church. I asked him if he thought Peter was really the first pope. He emphatically said that Peter was. I asked him if the masses were said in Latin in order to insure that they were correct and would never change. He said that was true. I told him that I thought they had wandered a long way from what they had in the beginning, I let him know that if the Catholic Church really believed the Book of Acts, then I was on old fashioned Catholic. He told me that the Bible was the record of the Catholic Church and that God was in the church. I disagreed with him for God is in His Word. Let God be true but every man a liar. If you take away or add to that Book, God has promised that He will add plagues to those who add and take away their part from the Book of Life if they dare to subtract from it. Revelation 22:18,19.
Let me just show how the Roman Catholic Church believes that God is in the church instead of the Word. Here is an excerpt from the diary of Pope John the 23rd. "My experience during these three years as Pope, since 'in fear and trembling' I accepted this service in pure obedience to the Lord's Will, conveyed to me through the Sacred College of Cardinals in conclave, bears witness to this maxim and is a moving and lasting reason for me to be true to it; absolute trust in God, in all that concerns the present, and perfect tranquillity as regards the future." This pope states that God spoke through the church revealing His will. How false. God is in His Word and speaks by the Word revealing His will. He also stated that he placed absolute trust in the word of men and thereby obeyed it with tranquillity. It sounds so beautiful but it is so false. Just like the perversion in the Garden of Eden.
Now let us get over here in Revelation 17 and see this woman, the church, who is living on false prophecies and not the Word of God. In verse 1 God calls her the great whore. Why is she a whore? Because she is in idolatry. She has caught the people up into the same thing. What' s the cure for idolatry? The Word of God. So this woman is a whore because she has left the Word. There she is sitting upon many waters, which means multitudes of people. This surely has to be the false church because the church of God is small - few there be that find it.
Notice what she is like in the eyes of God, no matter how wonderful she looks to people and how philosophical she sounds. She is filthy drunk on her fornications. Now she was drunk with the blood of the martyrs. Just like Jezebel who killed the prophets and priests and destroyed the people of God who would not bow down and worship Baal. And that is exactly what the Catholic Church did. They killed those that would not bow down to the popish rule. Those who wanted the Word of God instead of the words of men were put to death, usually by cruel methods. But this church that dealt in death was dead herself and didn't know it. There was no life in her and no signs ever followed her.
SPACE TO REPENT
Revelation 2:21; "And I gave her space to repent of her fornications; and she repented not." Do you know that this church was actually more wicked than Ahab? Do you know that he repented for awhile and walked softly before God? You can't say that of the Roman Catholic Church. No sir. She has never repented but has stubbornly destroyed any and all who tried to help her repent. That is history. Now God kept raising up not only the messengers to each age but He raised up some wonderful helpers for those messengers. He gave every age some wonderful men of God and they did everything they could to bring the church back to God. God certainly gave her opportunity and help to repent. Did she ever repent and show she did by her fruits? No sir. She never has and she never will. She is drunk. She has lost her senses in spiritual things.
Now don't be confused and start thinking that the Church of Rome has repented of her slaughter of the saints because she is attempting to unite with the Protestants by making her creeds to line up with Protestant Creeds. Not once has she ever apologized and said she was wrong for her mass murders. And she won't either. And no matter how mellow and sweet she appears at this particular time, she will yet rise up to kill, for murder lies in her evil and unrepentant heart. 7ch031.htm
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