“…I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants…” (Rev. 2:20).

“But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife incited him.  And he behaved very abominably…” (1 Kings 21:25).

“All Scripture … is profitable for teaching, for disciplinary correction, for restoration, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16, adjusted translation). 

Let’s take a walk back in time for a bit.

Ahab was king of Israel subsequent to his father Omri and prior to his son Ahaziah, whose story you can find in 1 Kings 16-22.  He is remembered as the most wicked leader of Israel who “behaved very abominably” (1 Kings 21:25) and, by almost any accurate account, demonstrated the record of a man of lawlessness.  Ahab’s reign most notoriously called for the ministry of Elijah.

Jezebel was daughter of a Sidonian king – a gentile, which, in the Old Covenant, signified that she was (at best) the modern equivalent of an unbeliever.  Ahab, “as though it were a trivial thing for him,” (1 Kings 16:31) took her as his wife after he was made king of Israel.  And that woman had nothing in her heart other than blasphemy against the God of Israel and hatred toward His servants.  And by Jezebel’s reign through Ahab, all Israel was polluted (excluding 7,000 men) as they forsook the Covenant, the Worship, and the living and active Word of God.

Depending on which circles you frequent in the church, you may have heard either too much or almost nothing about Jezebel.  While it is important to understand what Jezebel did, it is much more important to accurately hear what the Lord actually said to the church in Thyatira: “…you allow that woman Jezebel…”  Jesus placed the locus of responsibility on the church and called the elders, the men, and the women alike to stop tolerating Jezebel. 

I’m a project manager who specializes in business process improvement, and whenever a problem surfaces in day-to-day execution, we run a root cause analysis (RCA) – we look for the true, underlying roots that led to the bad fruit.  Jezebel would not have had free reign in Israel without the ways of Ahab.  And due to Ahab’s ways – his passivity, his cowardice, his lawlessness – she was effectively given free reign in Israel to persecute and pollute all Israel.

I invite you, now, to consider with me the ways of Ahab, who gave Jezebel a place in Israel, so that we would collectively turn, rest, and receive restoration from God.

1. As leader of Israel, Ahab himself forsook, and permitted the corporate forsaking of, the covenant between God and Israel (1 Kings 19:10, 14).

Before continuing with this first point, it is very important that we understand that the Old Covenant – the covenant cut at Sinai – was the operating covenant between God and Israel during the time of Ahab. A covenant is simply an agreement which establishes a relationship between two parties. The Old Covenant stipulated that “…if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people…” (Ex. 19:5). God did not say (as many today think), “If you will partially obey My voice,” or, “If you will mostly obey My voice…” God said, “If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, …” There was no partial obedience agreement – the covenant was “weakened by the flesh” (Rom. 8:3) because it required perfect obedience on the part of Israel, for as the Law also said, “Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law” (Deut. 27:26; see also Paul’s explanation of this in Galatians 3, e.g., v. 10). Imperfect obedience necessitated the curse of the Law.

Ahab demonstrated complete disdain for the Law – the commandments associated with the Old Covenant. He flagrantly and proactively married a gentile woman contrary to the Law (Deut. 7:3-4). He believed the lie of a defeated foreign king and made a treaty with him, contrary to what the Law commanded (Deut. 7:2). He coveted and eventually stole his neighbor’s inheritance through the murderous kangaroo court orchestrated by Jezebel (1 Kings 21). Ahab demonstrated little to no regard for the Law and Covenant of the LORD God. 

Consider: Do we have regard for the New Covenant and the commands of Christ? 

Jesus Christ is the one who fulfilled the perfect obedience requirement of the Old Covenant, who took those requirements, which were contrary to us (Col. 2:14-17) to the cross, who rose from the grave as the promised first fruits (Lev. 23), and who by His own sacrifice forever established in His blood that New and better Covenant. Praise God that our relationship with Him has forever been sealed by the perfect obedience, the propitiatory sacrifice, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus, who is forever both Messenger and Mediator of the New Covenant, which by Himself He sealed in His blood, and which forever acquitted and justified those who are His. Because of Jesus’s work alone, those who have received Him through faith forever have a secured relationship with God through Him. He earned it for us and then gave it to us freely by His own grace. This is why He calls us to walk with Him and follow Him – because the relationship has been secured only through Him, and the fruit only comes as we abide in a relationship with Him.

Jesus did for us what we could never accomplish on our own by lavishing His Father’s (and now, through Him, our Father’s) love on us. “As the Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:9:-10). As a means of abiding in His love, He called us to keep His commandments – not so that we would gain or maintain our relationship with God; but so that we would bear fruit.

Many are stuck in bondage somewhere because they refuse to enter into this rest through fear. Like unrepentant Israel in the time of Ezekiel, you believe the lie that God has forsaken you and your land, so you turn to idols to save you; but you don’t understand that God will never leave you nor forsake you because of Jesus. You start by believing rejection to be inevitable and you work to gain acceptance, but that inevitably ends in alienation.

Contrary to that, the gospel announces to us that in Christ, we are accepted by God through Him, and out of that acceptance, we rest and walk by the Spirit until we see Him face to face.  He has promised, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father” (John 5:45). A person who has battled drugs his whole life will continue losing his battle if he thinks that he has to get off drugs in order to be accepted by God. When he instead turns from dead works and believes the gospel – when he rests in God’s unconditional acceptance of him through faith in Jesus Christ no matter where he’s at, then he no longer makes an idol out of his own obedience by bowing down to it and asking it to save him. Our obedience is powerless to save! We cannot earn God’s acceptance! That is freely given to us through Christ, and out of that freely received acceptance, we fight and put to death our sin (and by His grace, we win).

There’s so much I want to say about the commands of Christ and how the modern church seems alienated from many of them. For example, why is it so acceptable today to try to turn the church of God into a den of robbers? “I don’t want your merchandise, I want your hearts.” Why is sincere love for one another cast aside for silence in the pews, neglected needs, and systemic division?

Has the Lord offended us in some way, that we should look at systemic division in the church as if it were an acceptable thing?

But I honestly don’t think many are secure enough in their understanding of the New Covenant to focus on that right now. I thank God for those ministers of the New Covenant who have worked tirelessly to ground the people of God (myself included) in an accurate understanding of the New Covenant. Let’s rest in the finished work of Christ; and in believing, bear good fruit. 

Let’s not follow the way of Ahab, who forsook the covenant and commands of God.

2. As leader of Israel, Ahab himself forsook, and permitted the corporate forsaking of, the appropriate worship of God (1 Kings 19:10, 14). 

Ahab “served Baal and worshipped him” (1 Kings 16:31). He set up an altar to Baal and further built a temple where Baal could be worshipped (1 Kings 16:32). Like the popes and rulers of Roman Catholicism, he permitted the custom of religious self-mutilation (1 Kings 18:28). He altogether instituted and condoned the worship of demons in Israel.

In Romans 11, Paul used this situation to contrast grace- versus works-based righteousness. “‘I have reserved for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace” (Rom. 11:4-6). When we believe we can be justified by our own works – rather than the grace of God – we believe a lie and, like Ahab, our heart departs from the Lord. We end up estranged from Christ and we bear evil fruit.

Our obedience and our stewardship of the grace given to us by God through Christ is our worship. Romans 12 is priestly language: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” Those who believe they can be proven righteous by their own works render themselves dead sacrifices to Baal (where there is no fuel for fire); but those who are in Christ – who are declared to be the just who live by faith – present themselves to God to be consumed by the fire of His Spirit.

What are you (individually and corporately) doing with the Spirit of grace that has been entrusted to you? Do you know that what you do with your gifts impacts the health of the entire body of Christ (Rom. 12:4)? Do you know that it is a matter of humility that we think seriously about how God has dealt to each of us a measure of faith (Rom. 12:3)?

I don’t say this to all, but I do say it to many: Has the Lord offended you in some way, that you should embrace and spread that doctrine of demons known as cessationism? Has Jezebel proven so satisfying to you that you should hop into bed with her while she picks off the prophets and gifts one by one from the church? Do you not know that we will appear before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of how we stewarded what was entrusted to us (Matt. 25:14-30, vv. 31-46)? Is it a small thing for some of you to steer all Israel into passivity and apathy regarding the investment of God?

Those who worship God must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. Trying to earn salvation will never lead to true worship, and neither will self-imposed fleshly will-worship which feigns a form of godliness but denies it’s power.

Let’s not follow the way of Ahab, who erected false, demonic worship in Israel. 

3. As leader of Israel, Ahab himself hated, and permitted the corporate persecution of, the servants of God (1 Kings 19:10, 14).

Of all the acts of Ahab that I observed when preparing for this article, this was the most frequent: Ahab hated the prophets and counted them his enemy (1 Kings 21:20). Most obviously, he sat passively by while his wife massacred them (1 Kings 18:4, 19:2). He accused Elijah of troubling Israel (18:17). He hated anyone who would dare tell him the truth or speak the Word of God to him, like Micaiah – one man in four hundred (22:8).

He surrounded himself with false prophets and made his table their table (18:19, 22:6; in other words, he had established fellowship with them). He either commanded or permitted the persecution of the true prophets of the Lord (22:26). When the Word of the Lord did come to him, his response demonstrated unbelief and fear rather than trust and confidence (1 Kings 20:13-14).

I don’t understand why wicked religious leaders tend to hate the prophets. Jesus promised He would send to them “prophets, wise men, and scribes” (Matt. 23:34) so that they would turn and “escape the condemnation of hell” (Matt. 23:33). Paul said that “love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the Law” (Rom. 13:10); so, one would hope that at least the call for less harm in the church would be perceived as a desirable outcome. 

Paul said that apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers have been given “til we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-13). I hope we don’t have the collective arrogance to think that we’ve corporately or individually made it to perfection. I also hope that we aren’t inviting the judgment of God by cutting out the parts of His Word that we don’t agree with (cf. Deut. 4:2). 

When we realize that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets – with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20) – then fresh oil might be provided for the lampstand (Zech. 4:14). Until then, faithful men and women will continue to call for a turning away from lawless tradition back to the commands, parables, promises, and instructions of Jesus Christ. May it be so in abundance. 

Let’s not follow the way of Ahab, who refused to admit his own wrong-doing; who refused to hear the call to repent; who surrounded himself with a lying echo chamber and who cut off the prophets from Israel; and who, in leading all Israel astray into his own lawlessness, secured the judgment of God (1 Kings 21:20-24; which things foreshadow final judgments, e.g., 2 Thess. 2, Rev. 17-19).

“But God, who is rich in mercy, …”

Close to the end of his life, God had mercy on a repentant Ahab (1 Kings 21:27-29). Despite all that Ahab did, God deferred judgment in light of his repentance. Do we have any idea how merciful God is? 

This year, I had a Peter-type season where I denied Christ through my actions three times after serving Him for a few years. Each time, the only thing the Lord brought to my awareness – either internally in my spirit or by a prophecy from an elder or brother or sister – was His boundless mercy. I thought previously that I believed that God was merciful, but today I realize I had no conception of how deep His mercy actually goes. Truly there is no one like the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Do you have any idea how deep God’s mercy goes? Guys like me are proof positive that God can save and keep anyone – because the truth is, in and of myself, I’m no better than Ahab; and if you’re honest, you aren’t either. The truth is, God saves the worst of the worst – the weak, the despised, the insignificant – these are whom God has chosen (1 Cor. 1:26-29). So maybe we could do each other a favor by taking our religious masks off, by confessing our sins to one another and renouncing them, and by receiving one another just as Christ has received us (Rom. 15:7) – which is to say, with warm, welcoming arms, no matter what our backgrounds, stories, struggles, and situations are like. Maybe we could put an end to the religious motions and instead create truly safe spaces for those who need the Physician to heal. Maybe we can stop condemning the poor and instead bring them into our communities and provide for them. And maybe we could stop judging and condemning those we partially disagree with and instead affirm the good in one another with ears attentive to the truth. 

In light of the mercy of God, let’s turn from the ways of Ahab, who allowed Jezebel to run rampant in Israel. And may the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob restore the lampstand of His people in America. To Him be the glory, honor, and power forever.

Soon heaven and earth will be shaken twice. A cloud of grace and favor will surround the friend of God – the one who believes Him and does His commands – and the Lord will lift him up and protect him. But the Lord will unleash fury on the earth as He breaks it apart as in an earthquake. The friend of God will be guarded, but I have no such consolation for the wicked.

Know that the Lord is displeased with the division which claims the name of His people. Christ is not divided and it is beyond justification to continue in a systemic quenching of His Spirit. We are called to be made perfectly one – to be of one mind, one accord, one Spirit in Him.

Let it be so.