1 Kings
19
– 22
Verse 19:2 will open a dialogue on occult and Satan:
Jezebel sent an urgent message
to Elijah.
Jezebel’s Message: May
the gods kill me and worse, if I haven’t killed you the way you killed their
priests by this time tomorrow. Your end is near, Elijah.
Satan is just
repeating history here with the success he had with Nimrod and Semiramis in
Babylon. Jezebel took over Ahab’s heart and almost destroyed Israel. Notice how
much attention the author places on Ahab’s rule, partially this is due to the
evil he did.
Verse 21:29 shows
that Ahab was trying to make things right with God:
Eternal One: 29 Have
you witnessed Ahab’s repentance? He has shed his pride and wickedness
and humbled his heart before Me. Therefore I will not send evil
against his house while he is still alive; instead I will send it during the
lifetime of his son.
I look at this
passage and go back to Jezebel and how she controlled the game. Often we hear
about the “Spirit of Jezebel” which describes a woman trying to take over men
of power. As we read Ahab’s rule we see Jezebel quickly turns him away from God
in almost every instance.
Before this Jezebel
had sent letters to kill two men and signed it with Ahab’s name. The leaders
obeyed assuming it was legit and executed these men. As with Semiramis, Jezebel
took over the rule of Ahab and almost destroyed Israel. Satan decided to try a
play that worked in Babylon and almost succeeded in destroying Israel.
We see the numbers
faithful to God had dropped to 7000 due to Elijah showing God’s glory on Mt.
Carmel. Yet God did not let this happen and ended the rule. Unfortunately we
end with verses 22:52 & 53 where the next king returns to evil and Baal
worship:
52 Ahaziah
committed evil in the Eternal’s eyes. He walked the wicked path
of his father and mother and Jeroboam (Nebat’s son) who caused the Israelites
to live sinful lives. 53 He gave his heart
and life to Baal and offered his services and worship to him. This
caused the Eternal God of Israel’s wrath to be provoked just as it had
at the wickedness of his father.
I can’t say this
enough but Satan is working all the time to destroy our relationship with God.
Semiramis, Jezebel and the goddess Asherah all represent evil and a conduit
Satan uses to get perform this task. The enemies of God are great, and the
woman appears to be the conduit to destruction.
Why? We need not
look any further than David and Solomon, both great kings who allowed women to
affect their rule. In David’s case, he appears to have been redeemed yet the
ramification went generations onward. Solomon did not appear to repent in his
later life and was led astray into demonic conjuring’s and such. Unfortunately,
we see this over and over again today where a man’s weakest “link” appears to
be his sex drive. Look at the fall of most of our great leaders today, there
are a few financial falls, but most can be linked to sex as the root.
We men MUST run
from evil and hold true to God’s word. The Lord ’s Prayer says “deliver us from
evil” where I like Jabaz’s prayer that says “keep me from evil”. I honestly
would rather not be in the mire of it, but at the same time as warriors for
Jesus we often cannot avoid it. So maybe “protect me from evil” is better?
On last thought
about the number of prostitutes mentioned in the Bible, think about this the
church is the bride of Christ and therefore a church that has prostituted
itself is far away from Jesus. Now this requires an exercise, but google
symbols for baal then look at the Vatican on Google Maps … see what you find
(look at the square). I am not judging
the Catholic Church, but I wonder why an Asherah pole along with other symbols
is there. They key is be vigilant to
know evil and it’s various forms, be it Jezebel or a symbol or monument, say to
President Washington.