“Jezebel his wife said to Ahab (her husband and Israel’s king), Do you not govern Israel? Arise, eat food, and let your heart be happy. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.”
Jezebel whispers, “Trust me. I’ll get you what you want.” She has uncanny ways of being available for people with a complaint, helping them voice their complaint. In this way, she is there when the moment is right for rebellion. Jezebel will partner with people angry or disgruntled and complaining that they aren’t getting what they want. She will blend rejection and rebellion into doubleminded confusion. She will assist you into a passive surrender to her control, giving you a sense of supernatural peace.
Step 1 – provide plausible justification for their false dreams, desires, and demands. Being king of Israel give Ahab no legal right to this property. The vineyard remains in the family through inheritance, and that inheritance is God’s law of the land. Jezebel justifies Ahab’s entitlement to something that doesn’t belong to him with an appeal to an exaggeration of a king’s authority and power. She actually accuses him of the very thing she will use to trap him: passivity. “You are too passive. So, be more passive, and I’ll get you what you want.” Jezebel influence produces this doublemindedness, an internal contradiction through which the person being mean preaches against meanness, Ahab believing someone is being mean to him or dishonoring him because he isn’t getting what he feels entitled to.
Jezebel operates well within people who entertain or harbor false expectations. She justifies their false expectations with quirky viewpoints filled with common misconceptions of false equality and falsified entitlement.
In this case, Jezebel redefines the power and authority of the king of Israel.
She says, “Forget God’s kingdom protocols for inheritance, private property, and justice. Exert your kingship. Establish new standards for justice. Making him feel strong, she is really saying, “Surrender to me and I’ll get you what you want. You are entitled to this vineyard. You are the king! God put you into that position, so He wants you to have what you dream, experience all to which you are entitled.”
Consider the common misconception of modern believers toward kingdom privileges and standing that assumes false equality and falsified entitlement: “I’m a believer. All believers are equal. All believers are entitled. So, I want that and I can have that because I want that.”
“Covetousness is idolatry,” Paul clarifies. Immediately you covet, you look for a source to provide what you desire. That source usurps God’s place of leadership, and you demand what God has not promised you. Jezebel loves idolatry because idolatry produces covetousness, thrives on covetousness, and assumes that the idol can be appeased so that you win the lottery of personal fantasy and false expectation. In a larger context of corporate influence, Jezebel creates the politics of envy through this deception.
Jezebel is at work, right now, in your life, to whisper in your ear, “Trust me. I’ll get you what you want.” Position. Power. “My own ministry.” Friendship. Money. Love. Name it and immediately Jezebel prophesies false destiny as a means of establishing herself as your source. You embrace a false deity to gain a false destiny.
Jezebel thrives on pride. Pride is delusion; a deception that assumes you should have something not yours or be someone you are not. Jezebel says, “Trust me. I’ll show you how to get what you want. That should be yours!”
Remember this: if you decide what should be yours, you will look for a source for your desires other than God. The very concept of deciding you should be the source of your dreams and desires initializes idolatry. The name, “Jezebel,” has “baal” in it. In this sense, it reads, “Without a lord, husband, or god.” The sense of her name alone hints at her character.
Step 2 – gain the surrender of the victim to her method. “Allow me to work for you. Relax. Be happy. Put your feet up emotionally and mentally about this and allow me to work. Feel the peace.” That is the “don’t worry; be happy” verse she sings. However, the source of peace and relaxation remains delusional and doubleminded. The victim surrenders to Jezebel and feels real, sustainable peace.
Immediately Jezebel victimizes a leader, that leader will gain greater pride and peace in their passivity. By assuming they have an enforcer for their desires, they seldom see themselves as victims of Jezebel. They have already bought and paid for the victim viewpoint that separates them from the legitimate authority and leadership God has provided.
In other words, Jezebel will convince a man that he has the right to something God has said is off limits just as satan convinced Eve to eat forbidden fruit. Jezebel whispers, “Trust me. I’ll get you what you want.” Next thing you know, a leader is in pornography, adultery of another sort, or leaving his wife. All the time, his mind and heart tell him how justified this behavior must be because the whisper of Jezebel and his own passive doublemindedness produce supernatural peace.
Jezebel will convince a woman to reject her husband’s leadership role with justification of his failures to live up to her expectations, her desires for ‘what isn’t really hers,’ or legitimate complaints about the very real feelings she has that Jezebel uses to diminish her inhibitions.
She surrenders to “peace” that comes when the relationship no longer requires her proper and legitimate participation because she redefines that participation along the lines of Jezebel’s method. Suddenly, the person supposed to meet her needs has been pushed into a corner while Jezebel works to provide substitutes for God’s design for marriage.
Apply this method to Ecclesia and kingdom leadership to uncover the hidden motivations at work. Desiring leadership when you have a leadership calling makes perfect sense. Desiring leadership position or authorization that isn’t yours or belongs to someone else immediately opens the door to the Jezebel whisper because it assumes that you are the source of what you should be and do. Jezebel loves to cut off Body parts but will be happy with dislocations if she has no leverage for ‘severage.’
She will dislocate a member at the place of joining so that this member loses function and becomes a liability to the rest of the Body.
Jezebel, by character, separates a victim from leadership submission. Jezebel means “without a husband, lord, or god” and translates into rebellion against assigned authority because that authority isn’t living up to false expectations. The deception that “I am free!” follows along with the “false peace” provided by the sudden end of struggle. The person struggling against their submission to authority suddenly feels “peace,” and feels convinced that they have had a breakthrough.
Step 3 – attack the voice of God to substitute Jezebel justifications for legitimate discipline. Jezebel’s character remains “without a leader.” Her appeal sounds perfectly sensible to people who wish to be a law unto themselves, lawless, or “have a problem with authority.” Jezebel makes perfect sense to a people who believe in false equality as a means of avoiding obedience and submission.
The greater the mindset of pretense, the more powerfully it opens the opportunity for Jezebel. Pretense is rebellion. Pretense is presumption. Presumption is pride. (In a different discussion, we could trace how Jezebel embraces religion because religion offers justification for substitutions based upon pride, pretense, and presumption.)
Jezebel always offers justification for pretense based upon erroneous presumptions. The presumption opens the door to pride. The pride opens the door to deception. The deception turns desire into sin. Desire becomes selfish ambition, and passion for purpose turns to striving to get from Jezebel what never yours in the first place!
“For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.” [James 3:16]
Jezebel attacks the voice of leadership in marriage, family, Ecclesia, kingdom, and government. On a cultural level, she presses people into envy, entitlement, and equality that are all based upon false presuppositions about “rights.” Jezebels moves people toward a different voice, one that allows them to continue justifying their rejection of God’s order and God as their Source.
People feel peace about their passivity and deception when they surrender to Jezebel, of course, but they must continue to reinforce this peace by hearing voices that falsely prophesy consistent with their desires and destinies. These voices provide greater justification for their deceptions, until they can say “right is wrong and wrong is right” with a perfectly straight face, in a voice filled with passionate conviction.
When you hear that voice you recognize Jezebel’s tone of voice, a voice that lacks God’s heart or mind, but the person speaking may sound like a prophet in their sense of purpose and conviction. They will reinforce the validity of Jezebel’s point of view with Scripture and quotes from their new voices and sources that justify their rebellion.
The voices the person will appreciate least will be the very ones God sets into their lives because those voices will not tell them they can have what they want or be who they have decided to be. At some point they will say, “Well, I have freedom to choose. I have wisdom of my own. I hear God too!” At some point they will have Scriptures to prove, beyond discussion, that they have confirmations. Then, they will shut the mouths of all legitimate sources of wisdom and counsel with their doubleminded confusion.
Several months ago, I talked with a person I love and believe in as a kingdom leader who made really poor choices at one point in life. At that time, I was a leader speaking Truth, and this person rejected both my words and my leadership. Then, they rejected me personally to the point that they justified lying and cursing my ministry. The person later repented.
Looking back over the decisions that never produced what the person wanted and allowed the person to become what the person demanded to be. This person realized that all the voices that spoke to the contrary were voices sought out to justify rejecting the leaders God had put into that person’s life.
“I felt such peace when I listened to them. I felt such conflict when I continued to press for what you were sharing with me, Dr Don,” they said. “I went away from your leadership with peace because the Bible says that peace is the umpire, quoting Scripture to myself to justify my rejection of your leadership. I finally realized my justifications for God’s assignment on my life were not coming from God, but from my rejection and rebellion.”
Of course, I quote that Scripture to people all the time – “allow God’s peace to be the umpire” – because God’s peace is an umpire when you are standing in a good place. I explained to this friend that false peace comes when you abandon your place of alignment with kingdom leadership. False peace comes from a different source, and does not umpire at all; false peace eliminates your responsibility to choose between conflicting sources of information. Peace comes from surrender whether or not that surrender is to God.
Tragically, when Jezebel gets you what you want and enables you to pursue being someone you are not, having forfeited what God wants you to have and who God wants you to be, you awaken one day with the painful regret that you didn’t really want what you finally received!
The vineyard, once acquired, did nothing to satisfy Ahab.
The Way Home
The way home begins when you ‘come to yourself’ in real spiritual awakening. No matter what Jezebel supplies you, you remain unfulfilled. You fail to pursue God’s will for your life, chasing a Jezebel justified fantasy. Once you surrender to Jezebel so she can get you what you want, you begin walking the path that leads to what Jezebel wants. You end up with what Jezebel wants, not what you want, because you assume they are the same things.
If you still want what you want, you are not awakened. You have not hit bottom. When you do reach the end of that deception, you will be ready for what God wants you to have and who God want you to be.
Step 1 – overcome despair. Despair killed Judas. All the disciples forsook Jesus and returned, except Judas. He hung himself in the city dump because of despair. Despair is hopelessness. Despair says, “There is no way back. Learn to live with it, or learn to die with it.” Despair is a lie!
Despair will always get the better of you if you continue to run things in your own strength. Since you surrendered to Jezebel, the “after Jezebel” moment may cause you to surrender to despair. You require a different surrender.
The prodigal son recognized that surrender to his father would put him in a better situation than the surrender to a stranger. He came to himself and said, “I’ll go home and serve my father. At least I’ll eat. But I still will not ever be a son again.”
Note that he didn’t have any sentiment of “I’m going get what I want and deserve from God now that Jezebel failed me.”
You have not hit bottom and awakened when you continue to embrace the false expectations that opened your heart to Jezebel in the first place. The returning son had no such a sentiment, no residue of the subtle witchcraft that uses God and spiritual power for selfish ambition. That deception continues to produce striving behaviors because it assumes that “no leader” equals “freedom.” This means Jezebel remains in control of this victim through that person’s entitlement mentality. The person has not come to himself or herself in awakening at all if they continue to assume that coming home is just another way of getting what they want. They are simply looking for a different source, cycling back to Jezebel’s control. They are not in despair or danger of despair, just disgust. Their return will mean that leaders will continue to be a limitation to their destinies instead of Divine strategy.
When the person returns unawakened, they demand to be restored with experiencing restoration. They demand to be restored as a son or daughter by entitlement. They will create a greater sense of confusion by calling attention to their limiting leaders because those leaders cannot restore them when they continue to harbor rebellion.
The truly repentant person assumes hope lies in surrendering to God without questions or reservations. There is no longer a “who can I trust to get me what I want or make me who I want to be?” in the soul. Instead, there is an offering of self as a sacrifice to be consumed by God’s will through transformation. [See Romans 12:1, 2.]
Step 2 – fall upon God’s mercy. Mercy means, “I don’t get what I deserve; and, I get what I don’t deserve.” Mercy offers us the opportunity to fully surrender: “By the mercies of God offer your body as a living sacrifice.” Mercy produces the opportunity for sacrificial surrender; the door is wide open for full restoration! Fall upon God’s mercy!
Many people fail to properly discern the prodigal’s response to awakening. They assume that he understood that being a servant was better than eating with pigs. They interpret his return as “I will get a better situation for myself.”
The prodigal returns to father with the idea of being father’s servant because his disconnect with father remains in place, the very disconnect with father that caused him to leave in the first place. He has given up on being a son when he never functioned as a son in the first place! The prodigal son used his father to get what he wanted so he could be what he wanted to be. He rejected his father from the beginning.
When the prodigal came to himself, he didn’t see himself as a son. He did know that his father had a better sense of what he should want and who he should be than he did. He hit bottom and gave up on his own wisdom and strength and returned to seek mercy from father, not as a son, but a servant.
Some modern viewpoints seem to define both grace and mercy in ways that make this story sound different than it did in Jesus’ discussion of “lost and found.” A father cannot go get a prodigal son. A prodigal son has no basis for receiving him as a father. That is, the son wishes to be an employee because he remains dysfunctional in his sonship. His father doesn’t recruit him for employment in order to get his “son” back home. Hitting bottom, the prodigal lets go of his own false expectations and entitlement. He receives the father he didn’t wish to honor as his boss!
In order for the open door to Jezebel to be closed, the person must return to the place of pretense. There, they must surrender to God’s strategy.
God has a strategy for that person to “get what God wants” instead of what he or she wants. God has a strategy for that person to “be who God wants him or her to be” instead of who he or she wants to be. That strategy always includes leaders who are people, the father he left for a stranger.
Step 3 – receive the restoration of relationship to regain the fullness of inheritance. To inherit, you must become the person prepared and positioned for the purpose. The father restores a son, not a prodigal. “Prodigal” means “waster.” Inheritance wasted is not the same as inheritance lost. The father maintains the source of inheritance, so the fields the son left behind were continuing to produce, waiting for their true heir to return and work them again. (This really ticked off the elder brother.)
To be restored as a son or daughter, you should begin with your relationship with your father.
How many assume the restoration process means they should go choose a different father. They continue the “I’m in charge and I’m free to do what I want” mentality that opened the door to Jezebel influence in the first place!
If the father was not the problem in rebellion, the father will not be the problem in restoration. Return to the place of your last disobedience to step into your process of full restoration. Do not expect God to create a new inheritance for you somewhere else!
