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Are you ready to be put to work for God's End-Time Army? It is NOW or NEVER! Angelia Ruth, “Angie”, has ministered in over 35 countries in some of the most dangerous places in the world. Author and co-author of over a dozen books, she has led mission teams and college groups over the past 30 years and is recognized for her prison ministry program by the State of Texas. She teaches God has a hilariously exciting life for every believer who will take Him at His Word and follow Him into R-I-S-K. If you have ears for truth and a sincere desire to sell out to God, this podcast is for you.
Alright. We're gonna get started this morning and I was gonna talk to you a minute in our introduction about something, but I want you to think of this as a car manufacturer. You know, he can create a unbelievable model of a car. Like, he can have the great design. He can do a very good job of the engineering.
Speaker 1:He can have great systems which work on the car. He can have a car that does something that no one else is doing. You can literally be producing cars that everyone wants, that no one else can match, but you can have one little thing that's missing. One little thing that's missing. And this one thing can jeopardize the safety of the whole car.
Speaker 1:And so at that point, guess what the company does? The company issues a recall. So this morning, I'm issuing a recall for training for our cross liners and I am making a recall of asking that you have to learn something that we have found that is a safety problem for you and everyone concerned with you. And this is something that you're gonna have to do. You must be able to recognize and defeat the spirit, and I'm gonna show it to you in scripture.
Speaker 1:1st, we're gonna look at something of understanding what the goals are and what we do. First of all, for years, we've been a launching ministry. We would do cross liners and the goal of it was to launch you into whatever your calling was. And the things that we would teach you as your authority, we would prepare you to do spiritual warfare. Some people have never heard about their authority.
Speaker 1:And we would disciple you in every kind of problem known to man and we would do everything we could to prevent you from getting into something that was deception or to watch for pitfalls. This would be considered a discipleship ministry and many have gone from here into international ministry. And that includes any mission trips but especially if you have a calling to disciple the nations. You've got to hear what we're talking about in today's recall. So in Matthew 28, I want us to start with the importance and I'm gonna show you something that Jesus did to make you understand what you've gotta have inside of you working in order to accomplish the will of God.
Speaker 1:So in Matthew 28, it's called the great commission. You will find a similar thing in the book of Mark and Luke, and it will tell you things that you need to have for what God's leading you into doing. We're gonna just use the one that everyone's most familiar with and that's in verse 17 of Matthew 28. And this is so true. And when they saw him, they worshiped him.
Speaker 1:But some were doubtful. That's gonna be the rest of your life in ministry. When they saw Jesus, they worshiped him. But some were doubtful. This is what you're going into.
Speaker 1:This is gonna be every people group. This is gonna be exactly what you're up against is that some people will find worship, others will find doubt. And this is the atmosphere that you're called into. So Jesus then came up and he spoke to them saying, it doesn't seem like he divided them out, he just spoke to them saying, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. All authority.
Speaker 1:So he has been handed the authority. In Mark, it tells you some of the things that this authority that he transferred to you to do. It'll give you understanding, but we will say that you have already understood the concept or you're beginning to look into and you already know the authority that God has given you as a believer. What's shocking is you look around and not many people teach. People that are aspiring to go into ministry about their authority.
Speaker 1:That's been something that's been left out of understanding. Even though it's something that you'll read in the bible where people look and they'd look at Jesus and they go, we're amazed at him. He didn't teach like anyone else. He teaches as one who has authority. Or they'd say his authority over certain spirits or over storms.
Speaker 1:And they were like, who is this man that he can speak to something that doesn't have ears and it obeys him? And so, they were amazed at his authority and he's telling you, all authority has been given to me. And then with that, he commissions you to do something. And if you were the one translating this piece in the bible, they've had lots of trouble to be true to the original text. But to put 2 verbs together where it says, therefore, go and make disciples.
Speaker 1:But actually in the Greek, it has the words go and make, go make. All you have is energy, action is calling you into the mission field. It's looking at the map and saying, go. Go. What are you doing sitting here?
Speaker 1:Go. Go. Go. Don't be doing nothing with your life Monday through Saturday, go and make. So strong words, strong verbs that the Lord's telling you that you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1:So he gives you authority, he gives you giftings that Mark tells you about, he close you with hour and literally he's saying, go make disciples. So it's not headhunting, you know, it's not a matter of putting notches on your belt and saying, I've won this many people the Lord. It's actually the long haul. It's the work of the ministry. It's discipling people.
Speaker 1:You can't just get it over with one shot. It takes a lot of work to actually do what it's saying. And what's unusual is discipling the nations of all the nations and you baptize them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. And you teach him to observe everything he's commanded us and then he makes you a promise. He says, you teach him to observe everything that he's commanded you.
Speaker 1:He says, behold, I'm gonna promise you, I will be with you always even to the end of the age. So you just feel the strength of that commissioning. You see that it lasts till the end. And you're so excited. I bet they were ready to just get up and run out of there.
Speaker 1:They're like, great. Judas is dead. We've got the bad one among us, gone, and Peter's returned, and we're ready to go out. Then he does something that's amazing. After the fact that he has literally commissioned them, then suddenly it goes from a green light to a caution light.
Speaker 1:It's a white sign. You almost can't think of what kind of traffic sign you would say. It's a yield, it's a wait. And he says, wait for what? Wait for the holy spirit.
Speaker 1:So in other words, as strong as the call is to missions, you need the empowerment of the holy spirit. Otherwise, to do this, you're gonna be crushed. I'll tell you what you're gonna feel like. You're gonna feel like you've run out of gas. You're gonna feel like you're a roller coaster.
Speaker 1:You're gonna feel like your tanks on low. You're gonna start trying to feed people and you'll be feeding them out of yourself if you don't have the power of the Holy Spirit on your life. You're gonna do the best you can do and it won't be enough and you will eventually collapse in ministry. And so, this is the setting that he gives you that you're supposed to go, but you have to be given them something more than you to be able to make a difference. You must wait for the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon you in a manifestation, falls from heaven where it shakes the place and it changes your life forever.
Speaker 1:It's an experience with the lord that it takes you where the holy spirit is not just something that made you reborn, but it's actually in you for the world. It's in you to be a witness. It's both in you and outside of you with this experience. And so it gives you the power. You know what power is?
Speaker 1:It's dunamis. And you'd start experiencing this power that sends you into the nations. This is what we wanted to fulfill is acts 10:38 where it's actually Jesus mission statement. You know of Jesus, how he was anointed by God, he healed everyone that was oppressed by the devil and he went about and he did good. You're supposed to be going out, healing all, you're supposed to be getting people that are oppressed by the devil, getting the oppression off of their life.
Speaker 1:You don't just leave that up to the world to do it, you have the power to do it and you go about doing good because you're anointed by the Holy Spirit. I said, wow, this is great. Let's make sure that you got the authority part that it talked about and let's make sure that you know Luke 10/19 that God has given you both power and authority over snakes and scorpions because those are on the mission field. This will happen to you on the mission field. These are mission field examples.
Speaker 1:People get kinda weird if they stay in this little glass cage and it's meant for a mission field experience with taking the gospel. The power The power of the Holy Spirit, you learned your authority, what could possibly go wrong now? And I've sent you out. And I was like, don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you, just go. You're called to the nations.
Speaker 1:And that's what was called launching. And compared to all the other models of cars and makes, I thought, wow. I mean, we've covered a lot of territory in these 4 years of training. Anyway, you have that calling on your life to do something great for God. And this is training that's good so far for reaching the nations.
Speaker 1:And this is what happened here to us at Crosslines, but lo and behold, there was something that 5 years ago I didn't know. That 5 years ago I had the concept because I was like, we're leading in an area of the deliverance ministry. We have seen countless people's lives be set free from something that oppressed them. I felt like that that was something that was a gift that we were able to give based on the fact that my mother was gloriously set free and our family has operated in it since I was 10 years of age. I've seen people be loosed from spirits like suicide and depression and fear, and all types of bondages.
Speaker 1:And so, I was very happy with the training in this area only to find out, I was running up against something that it wasn't working, it wasn't yielding. And so I'm gonna give it to you today and this is the training that you must have if you're interested in the nations, if you're interested in the mission field. We're gonna look at an attack that happens to you. Now, in revelations 2/20, when it's talking about who's gonna receive the nations. And when Jesus is speaking to the believers in the church, the one time that he mentions that you have authority over the nations, it is right after you have defeated the spirit.
Speaker 1:And revelations 220 is the one who tells you the spirit that you must defeat in order to be given authority over the nations. And it says, do not tolerate this woman, Jezebel. Because anytime someone rises up with a true calling of God on their ministry, there will be a Jezebel attack on the ministry. It's not a matter of, oh, some people get this attack. It is literally a spirit that comes after it.
Speaker 1:It will come out in full force with jealousies, control, manipulation, and the worst of all, if it comes out sweet, if it comes out in a way that if it looks like it's coming in the right spirit and it overcomes you. So notice that the one place that he says he will give you the nations is to the one who has defeated Jezebel. You can't have the nations without defeating this spirit. So, it says to the one who overcomes and the one who keeps my deeds until the end, I will give them authority over the nations. So, it's very unusual that it brings up who keeps my deeds until the end.
Speaker 1:When it says until the end, you realize that this is not just a certain church age even though this is smack in the middle of them. This is literally saying, this goes clear to the end. This is something that must be done and I would just dare to say, increasingly it has to be done. That even more, that this is becoming more prevalent. I would see these things that happen.
Speaker 1:I would see these attack. They're not unusual. They've been all the way through church history. But literally, they're worse than they've ever been. So do not tolerate this woman, Jezebel.
Speaker 1:The new living translation says it this way, but I have this complaint against you. You are permitting that woman, that Jezebel who calls herself a prophet to lead my servants astray and she teaches them her bad habits. This is not a lesson on how to defeat Jezebel, it is a lesson on you must defeat Jezebel. You have to. Jezebels have an assignment to attack people in ministry.
Speaker 1:They attack the prophet. They attack the person who has had a tremendous day in ministry. That is exactly what you're gonna see is that literally she is the reprisal attack. She is the one where you have knocked out all her servants, you've knocked out all her priests and she looks at you dig her heels in and says, now I'm gonna kill you. What makes you think that she can kill you when you've just killed 900 and 50 of hers?
Speaker 1:But in her mind, you must be killed. And so this is the attack that will happen to you and you will hear this voice speaking to you. And you ask yourself, why am I being attacked by a Jezebel spirit? Now, it is a spirit of control. It is a spirit of manipulation.
Speaker 1:It is that thing that tries to divide you and it tries always to make you compromise. But there's something different about this spirit of control than any other. The way she uses it is different. Yes. It has seduction to it.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's bait. Yes, there's all these different things. Yes, she will get you to into idolatry or eating things sacrificed out of Yes, she doesn't. But let me tell you what she does, she wants to get to know you in order to use you. She is after the authority.
Speaker 1:She doesn't have her own in the earth, she has to use authority. And guess who she want? Yours. To whatever extent you have authority, she wants to know you. So when Jezebel wants to get to know you, it's not for normal reasons.
Speaker 1:It is in an attempt to figure you out. It's an attempt to see what makes you work, your vulnerabilities, your weaknesses. Jezebel gets in close and that's why a lot of times it's referred to as what I said, a dormant Jezebel. Because during this time that she's figuring you out, she's working to understand what makes you tick. Now let's clear up some things because I've pondered over these.
Speaker 1:But for the most part, I have always seen Jezebel as a woman, as a spirit that mainly attacks men. She usually hates men. 1st, we're just gonna say Jezebel makes attacks on men called in ministry. And so there is a Jezebel spirit, but Jezebel also makes attacks on women who are called by God. So you see this spirit, this embodiment of this spirit that literally she so took over Jezebel that her name and the personality became 1.
Speaker 1:Like Jezebel herself, the person Jezebel, in the historical sense, so merged with the spirit, you can't separate her from the spirit. Remember, she didn't find the crack in her thoughts. We they never found a place to divide her from that. And, oh, yeah, she could cause your emotions to roar, rage, or tremble in fear. And she attacks strong men.
Speaker 1:She attacks people that are called by the Lord to accomplish something in the Earth. This concept of number 2, I never thought about the Jezebel spirit being in a man. Even though I've had an advisor who was telling me constantly, yes, it's not a gender specific spirit. It will inhabit whoever it can. I was like, no.
Speaker 1:Let's call that one something else. I mean, that could be the soul spirit. I don't care what we call it. It's just there's other controllers. But Jezebel's a woman and you just can't forget her womanly charms.
Speaker 1:I mean, you could speak all day on Jezebel's spirit as a woman. But what happened to me, I have one man that advises me and he calls certain men in ministry yo yos. Now, it would take too long to explain to you what a yo yo means, but when he says it, I'm alert because I'm in what? The discipleship ministry and I don't wanna produce too many yo yos or they'll think I'm manufacturing yoyos. So this yoyo thing is a big problem.
Speaker 1:You can kinda just figure out what kind of men that we're talking about here and that's the yo yos. This means that you're gonna succumb to the Jezebel attack. I don't know. Some of you may surprise me. I had 5, 6, 7 roosters in my chicken house.
Speaker 1:I don't know why. Everything goes back to my chickens. And and we had about 7 hens and 7 roosters and then we lost a hen and I mean, chaos went to a new level. And so when you leave town, you think of who you have as a good friend. And I thought of a dear dear friend of mine.
Speaker 1:I thought, she would be blessed if I gave her one of my roosters. And so I looked in my hen house and I looked at the roosters and I thought, who do I want breeding chickens? Like, who do I want as the daddy DNA on these chicks? And we had this fun, fun specimen of a rooster. He's a great specimen.
Speaker 1:So I gave him as a gift to my dear friend. He has the best of manners, I mean, he's just a nice rooster. But I told myself when I gave the rooster away, who in the other 6 is gonna become the dominant rooster? And man, there were some beautiful prideful roosters. I had this black specimen of glory.
Speaker 1:And I was like, I thought he could become the dominant rooster. I have one that Herb took from me. It's red rooster that any fighting rooster people would be pleased with this rooster. Professional competitions would love this rooster. I was like, which one is gonna take over the hen house?
Speaker 1:Well, the problem was we had this neck and neck one. And when you looked at him, he looked like the turkey you get on Thanksgiving that's frozen. I mean, he had the vulture neck. He was so ugly but he thought himself cute. And so I took mother out to the hen house and I said, mother, I know this ain't too spiritual but let's have a bet.
Speaker 1:How much are we gonna wager of who will take number 2 position? Well, I was shocked and devastated. I mean, I just don't even have words to tell you that I'm looking on my mails and I'm counting on their power of who will dominate. And literally, this one that's the neck and neck one is the one I call Danny k. Now, any of you who watch old movies, you understand that Danny k is a little light on his feet.
Speaker 1:Danny k is a good dancer and Danny k might be considered a yo yo if you were evaluating him spiritually. I went to my hen house and literally, Danny Kaye had all the roosters at bay. He was running around and given his DNA to the future generations of my chickens. I was horrified. I went out and I saw my beautiful red glorious rooster.
Speaker 1:Where is he? And I went and he was sitting on a nest of eggs hiding. It can't get any worse than that. So you've got to think cleverly. I'm leaving town and I just knew Catherine needed a gift for me to remember me while I'm gone.
Speaker 1:In her British accent, what she said about that rooster cannot be repeated. So when I'm thinking in terms of Jezebel and the roosters, because if you can understand it with the roosters, you can understand it with the young men we're producing. Sometimes, the ones that look the best will not succeed out on the field. Sometimes, they won't triumph. I'll find them sitting on an s somewhere.
Speaker 1:I'll find them just giving up all their duties. It's worse than passive. I don't know what to say. I looked at him and told him, you've got to be kidding. I looked at him, it made no difference in that rooster's mind.
Speaker 1:Mother opened the gate, he ran out and some coon enjoyed it. So Jezebel and a man, my intercessor wrote me a lengthy email and she told me this recently. She said, you are dealing with a Jezebel spirit in a man. And so she gave me instructions when I was giving this word, it finally hit me. I thought, if you're gonna have someone write me, lord, and confirm what others are coaching into me, I'll receive that in some instances, some men have received the spirit of Jezebel in them and it will reside inside of them.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna put Nahum 313 as a verse because I was seeing it before my eyes. Some men act like women. The way a Jezebel attacks, you know, at times, Jezebel gets someone else to do all the conflict or all the dirty deeds that have to be done and they stay hidden. But other times, these Jezebels, they will stay hidden and other times they will rage like a witch. It's odd.
Speaker 1:Female characteristics of controlling a man always comes with a lot of drama. If there's a lot of drama around a man, there's a problem. He's either being controlled by Jezebel or he has a spirit of it. If he's being controlled by, it's to take him out. But if he has the spirit in him, then he's a control freak.
Speaker 1:So in this situation of female characteristics of controlling a man with a lot of drama, I'm gonna say this, he throws a lot of gasoline on the problem. Anytime a problem occurs, his way of handling it is throwing gasoline on it and he scatters everyone. Rather than having the anointing of authority, the anointing to go in and resolve problems and deescalate conflicts that the enemy tries to raise up, rather than being able to gather sheep and keeping them from dividing. He does the worst possible thing that can be done. So, Jezebel, after the anointing, in this man he wants control because of his position.
Speaker 1:He thinks he's entitled to control because of his position, but he's weak in courage. And at this point, you can make your own list here. I'm not here to express to you. I'm just saying, evidently, this spirit will take whoever will yield itself very courageous Cyrus sort of a man is attacked by the Jezebel spirit. I watch who can throw these spirits off.
Speaker 1:You see them attack women that have anointings and calling on them. And then you have these other types of attacks which are men against men attacks. And so in saying that you're being recalled, I want you at least consider that when you start a great project by the Lord, you will have your Sanballats, your Tobias', and the local Arab Gershom, who will come and that's what happened to Nehemiah. I just read his list of people and this is what they all have in common, these attacks. Threats.
Speaker 1:Threats. Threats. Threats. Threats. Constantly, you'll have no other thoughts but threats.
Speaker 1:Threats. You see this in businesses. You see this everywhere you go. And what you have to have in your training to be able to see the issue, have to have training and this is called training where you must win. Your training has to have where you must win on this situation.
Speaker 1:You cannot lay down and die. You cannot run. You cannot take a sabbatical. You cannot sit on your nest of eggs. You must win.
Speaker 1:The next thing is to stop it in its tracks before it takes other people with it because if you don't do this one, it's gonna take some people with it out the door. For sure, if you get rid of the spirit and you win against it, but you didn't have a strong initial reaction, this is when it takes others. You must, the minute that Jezebel reveals herself, you must not tolerate it. It is not gonna look real Christian on you. It is not gonna fit the sweet, come on in, I'm comforting you.
Speaker 1:Let's give you other try. When the person discerns Jezebel, she must be dealt with as a Jezebel. As my good friend said, Angie, you have good discernment. You discerned the person in episode 1. In episode 10, you decide they need to be taken out.
Speaker 1:It would have been so much better if you had taken them out in episode 1. That's called youth. That's called not understanding the spirit. So you cannot tolerate, you cannot permit a Jezebel. The biggest problem is if you do not discern the spirit, you cannot defeat it and it will take you out of ministry.
Speaker 1:And she comes in many forms. That's why I've I've given you just the lightest and the briefest of understandings of her because if you don't discern her, you cannot take her out. You will not be able to defeat her. And my problem has been on this recall, it's not just the lack of courage, it's not just the not taking her out, It's not just that. It's the lack of discernment.
Speaker 1:It's the lack of realizing you have people being harmed. You have people that are getting swept away. They're getting into deception and it's under your watch, and it's with your authority. But you're busy and she contributes money. It's always the case.
Speaker 1:She makes her play, she serves. You couldn't do without her. I mean, the original Jezebel, she was a contract. She was the peace agreement, like, our nations are not gonna war with each other. She's the daughter of both the priest and the king on her side and she's what you've made covenant with the enemy over to take her in in order to have peace with the devil.
Speaker 1:And that's what it is, is you're avoiding conflict by having Jesse around. She's your avoid conflict. Get out of jail free. She's what keeps the relationship warm between you and your enemies, the Jezebel spirit. I have seen people seduced by this spirit.
Speaker 1:We can all picture what that's gonna be, a sexual seduction of Jezebel in her bed. This is what revelation is gonna talk about. And I've seen men in ministry seduced by her. I had a friend. I rattled his cage up and down because Jezebel was in a bar and a spirit came to her.
Speaker 1:This is how she tells the story and says that it told her to go to a certain place to work, and it would show her a man that she had to seduce. And she had the capabilities of doing it. So she went and joined the bible study, she conveniently got saved in the bible study, And when a man sees a beautiful woman get saved, it does something to a single man. He starts having that feeling that all men do. She is the will of God for my life.
Speaker 1:That's the only thing that's been confusing to me in my years of working with young men hearing the Lord, is when they tell me that she's God's will for their life. And I have 10 young men who I trust their discernment and judgment, and they've all come to me and said, she is God's will for my life. I've tried to think of arrangements we could make, I can't make it work in my mind. She's God's will. Unfortunately, this guy not only was seduced by her, but eventually, she got him out of ministry and it cost him 13 years.
Speaker 1:It cost him a lot of years. So I sat there and I started kicking and screaming. Someone asked me, how do you have the authority to do this? In fact, I had a minister that I was asking for help from. I went to every man and I would call and say, are you seeing what is happening to this guy?
Speaker 1:Why are we doing nothing? They're just like that. They won't make it. They have a short shelf life. Guys like that, good testimony, came out of drugs, out of jail, they won't last.
Speaker 1:How many of you have heard that? Give you 6 months, you'll be back with your friends. You better be the top that says, when I'm told no, that's when I overcome, so help me God. I finally went and got my Christmas card from the guy and said, he's my brother. He declared me his sister.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm gonna make his life miserable till he comes back to faith. He's in the pulpit today. There are men that are spiritual that the devil tries to take out. All the carnal men, they've got Jezebel over all the time. But men call of god, it's a problem because her aim is not the man, it's the ministry, it's the authority.
Speaker 1:Men in ministry. A man, this is what's odd that will happen, will turn on the women who are trying to help them by telling them this woman is dangerous to them and they will think that the women are misjudging this woman. This is the deception. Mature. Sometimes they're not even mature, they're carnal and they can say she's a Jezebel.
Speaker 1:And I would say, man, you need to have sisters in the Lord, mamas in the faith that can help you discern the spirit. Because from my experience, I don't care how much that guy had told me he submitted to the authority that I've raised him up under. When it comes to this spirit, they will turn on me and they will tell me that I'm misjudging the woman and they will make the problem be me in their mind. And they are completely blind and on judgment day, it's gonna be a problem because I watch what starts happening in their ministry and they will credit everything else is causing this in their ministry, the problems. But they will not go back to the moment that I told them, this is something that must not be tolerated.
Speaker 1:You must deal with it and you have to deal with it swiftly. And let me tell you why it's a problem. Men know how to deal with other men. Like my dad says, he's a man. I can hit him.
Speaker 1:Men understand men. Men don't understand women. Amen. Thank you. You've heard the book of, now I understand my why.
Speaker 1:And you look at it's a very thick book and you open it up and you flip through it. Young men that are single, you won't exactly understand it by emotions, but when you flip through it, it's all blank pages. So let me say, if you don't understand the one you love, who is iron sharpening iron and gives you a little godly conflict and is a strong woman, you sure won't understand conflict and is a strong woman. You sure won't understand a Jezebel who is after your very soul. And so, they don't understand the spirit and so they judge the person that tried to help them, that has experience in it.
Speaker 1:And they will protect the Jesse at all cost. I'll tell you how crazy it is. No matter how much good you've done for this person, no matter how many testimonies, no matter how much that you have done to establish them, they will choose the Jezebel over you every single time because they're under the spirit. It's sad. You would think they would say, oh, I can have both in my life.
Speaker 1:I can at least hear you out and hear what you're saying. No. It will come to it that you will be taken out of their life because suddenly, you're impossible. You're not acting Christian. You are misjudging this person.
Speaker 1:They will not take care of the sheep, but they're blind to what the spirit is doing. Let's say you're a pastor and there are certain ones in your church that will work it, and where you can't ever confront them or correct them. They've done too much for you. They've been, quote, loyal to you. They're the biggest givers.
Speaker 1:They finance themselves and they get you in a position that you feel like you can't correct them. You are in a dangerous place. Even King David, he once said, I have a problem because I have a guy that's in a ministry position, he's in a leadership position in my kingdom and he's too strong for me. And I've told myself, I cannot have an employee that I cannot feel the strength to go in and correct them. The same thing is, you don't need to be in here unless you really want correction.
Speaker 1:Trust the fact that someone that has a lot more mileage on their odometer might see some things down the road that you're not seeing and take courage in that that that is a gift to your life. That's why the Lord says, you give up your mother and you'll get a 100 times as many. That's what you're gonna feel like in here, I have a 100 mothers, and brothers, and sisters, but God alone is your father. Okay. So it says in verse 19 of this beautiful scripture in Revelation, I know your deeds, your love, your faith, and your service, your perseverance, and that your deeds of light are greater than at first.
Speaker 1:And it says, but I have this against you. It's the big but. But I have this against you. I have this complaint that you're tolerating Jezebel. So let me tell you, when Jezebel will come is in the moment of growth.
Speaker 1:You can have some things you're pointing to and that's why you're gonna justify and say there's no way, look at the strength of my ministry, and I'm gonna say that's the point. Because it says that clearly, your deeds of light are greater than it first. You're growing your great guns, you're going stroke, then then it's being pointed out. The one who overcomes. The one who keeps my deeds until the end.
Speaker 1:Let me say this. It tells you some things about the authority over the nations and then I'm gonna skip to the end of the verse because we'll come back and deal with it. And it says, I'm gonna give you something and you're gonna have some ruler ship in your life just as I've received authority from my father. You, at this point, are gonna have a co sharing of authority with the Lord. I mean, when you look at this promise, I mean, the commentary said this is so great, we can't even comment on it.
Speaker 1:One guy that I love reading, he just says, oh, wow. All the other promises deal with something in the remote future, but with something that begins to take effect in the moment, in the midst, because it said at this point, the vessels of the potter will be shattered. So it says it begins to take effect as the dust and the confusion and the garments rolled in blood and the battlefield is swept away. In other words, Jezebel is defeated. And at this moment, you're gonna be promised something, and it's called a rod of iron.
Speaker 1:And it says you will rule with a rod of iron. Man, take the noodles out of your hand. Take the willow branches out of your hand. It says you will rule the nations with a rod of iron because you have overcome. I want you to hear it.
Speaker 1:The one who overcomes and the ones who keeps my deeds until the end. And you've gotta get it. Jezebel has been dealt with and defeated earlier. I will give him authority over the nations. If you're gonna go preach to the nations, you need authority over the nations.
Speaker 1:Believe me, when you get into another atmosphere, environment, nation, it's another set of spirits you're working up against. It will feel differently to you in different territories. There's different things that will attack you. You may not be used to what is coming in that area. I call them foreign devils.
Speaker 1:And it says, I will give him authority over the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of the potter are shattered as I have received authority from my father. Are you hearing that? The one who overcomes is giving a rod of iron. That's pretty strong authority. If I said, okay, I have authority like a ruler, well that means I can measure things.
Speaker 1:But if I have authority like a rod of iron, it means what you say goes because you're able to defeat the enemy. So, with the rod of iron, with irresistible power, employed on those who will not otherwise submit will hereby be dashed into pieces. You know, the first appearance of Jesus was our time to repent. He came humbly riding on a donkey. But the second one, he comes riding on a white stallion with the sword, with eyes on fire, and he rules with a rod iron.
Speaker 1:It takes a greater stomach. It takes a stomach for what must take place. The wicked have increased in the land. We have not been able with the grace message to get them saved. We have not done what we should in evangelism.
Speaker 1:Oh, if we counted our numbers of every organization who says I've gotten this many saved, we would have had the world saved. But somehow, it has not computed in the fact that I can even find a whole city that is serving the Lord. Not even a big city, but a small little town You can't find it's in the basis of the Bible bill. I can't find those righteous people all bearing fruit. Our evangelistic efforts are not working even in the safest parts of the world.
Speaker 1:Hence, so he comes with a rod of iron and that's your Jesus too. I mean, you saw him pick up a whip the first time and say judgment starts in the house of the lord, but then it will be dealt out to the nations. And your joining in the authority will be a rulership that is very very tough on those who are in rebellion. And it's more difficult for you as a man when your enemy, Jezebel, isn't a woman. It's a huge problem, but you must overcome it.
Speaker 1:You must have a plan. You must decide how you will win the battle. All it gives you as a guideline is don't tolerate it. If she's in your office, don't tolerate it. You've got to come up with a plan to get it out of there.
Speaker 1:I have a very good friend and he had had a very successful life. He makes 1,000,000. He had a Jezebel come in his office and cursing and getting fired and wrecked his life, and the spirit jumped off into his home. He was powerless against it. It did something to his inside, his health started felony.
Speaker 1:Jezebel has a bed of sickness. So but let us not forget that all the access of power and all the enlargement of emotional explosion will be inside. Fear, trapped, pressured to quit, Fear, trapped, pressure to quit, and pressure to compromise. That is what will take place in this attack. One young man, I warned about the spirit and he said, this person won't be able to hurt me.
Speaker 1:This will not hurt me. I said, I'm not asking you to protect yourself, I'm asking you to protect the sheep. And the story is tragic. You cannot handle this spirit no matter how spiritually mature you are or you think you are, if you don't do what the Bible says and don't tolerate it. You can't defeat it.
Speaker 1:You can't tolerate it and defeat it. Those 2 don't go together. So I had an argument. I gave it to him ahead of time. I didn't make him have to discern it.
Speaker 1:I didn't make it hard for him. I told him, the spirit, you must not let it near your sheep. And he says, but it won't hurt me. And I said, you aren't what I'm worried about. But alas, the story is tragic.
Speaker 1:One of the number one signs of witchcraft is compromise, and compromise is the only way to get along with the Jezebel spirit. It will see to it you compromise with her. And it is not just the young man who is trapped, but they try to subject everyone that they have in their authority over to the spirit. This can go alone for years without Jezebel doing something big enough to make an issue from it. But by then, you're trapped and it played out just like I said.
Speaker 1:There's one thing that Jezebel wants from you. The pressure to quit what you're doing. It will take the escalation of works that have been going and getting greater. People get so worried. I said that word works.
Speaker 1:Oh, my Lance. I said the word works. It's a cuss word now in theology. People go, well, great. I said the word because Revelation said the word.
Speaker 1:And it said the word according to the end time. Your works will be increasing at this point. It should be happening. I am not ashamed of increasing works. If I don't have increasing works, it's not my failure, it's the failure of the power of the holy spirit being on my life.
Speaker 1:That is a problem. I will not let myself be argued out of the fact that I have to produce works. It's a sign of the power of the holy spirit being upon you, upon me. It is a sign of the power. We're making it be about us when we discuss the works, rather than Christ in us, rather than the shared authority we have.
Speaker 1:Of course, you'll have works. If you don't, you're fired. You need to come back. Recall. So this begs the question, this is the mentality, but in reality, this is what you're saying when you're trapped by spirit.
Speaker 1:Why get out of the trap? But in reality, you're saying, if I am a lamb being fattened for slaughter, I must eat as long as I can at the table of those who are compromising with Jezebel. You're eating at her table, that's what it says. You're eating at her table. And so you're okay with the fact that you're getting along with her because the reality is you're a lamb being fattened up.
Speaker 1:I guess this is our problem. We have all city people now that read the scripture and they don't understand what it means of why you feed an animal extra good. The animal that's getting fatter and fatter looks at all the animals and said, see, you're not as favored as me. Only a country person understands what is happening, and this verse is written to you so that country people understand exactly what's happening. You have a responsibility to not allow yourself to be controlled.
Speaker 1:Now, if you want to test it, test all things. If you wanna see if I'm right, let me tell you what to do. Tell it no, and it will reveal it to Jezebel. Just one time, get your courage up, mister Rooster, and say, no, You're not gonna do that. Or try to leave it and see what happens.
Speaker 1:All those things will be the ability to discern the Jezebel. Some people will never believe this and they will stay under it their whole lives and trap, never reaching their full potential. They never do that they were seduced and they for sure will never admit they're wrong. At this point, you don't need to be teaching anymore because you are not laying the blame at the right place and you will make up all kinds of excuses and justifications. You will blame the wrong people your whole life.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about unforgiveness. I'm not talking about don't show mercy. I'm not talking about not meeting people where they are. What I'm describing is the difference between someone who is genuinely seeking God versus someone who is only in it for what they can get out of it. I'm saying it again.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about unforgiveness. I'm not talking about being offended. I'm not talking about you being a person that can't and won't show mercy to people. I'm not talking about someone who is not meeting people where they are, that you come to cross in faith just as you are. What I'm describing is the difference between a genuine person who is really seeking God and someone who is in it for the sake of what they can get out of it.
Speaker 1:You have to use your discernment and ask the Lord before you allow this person into a position, and y'all that's harder than you would think. When God wants to bless you, he sends you a person. When the enemy wants to take you captive, he sends you a person. Many times, the Jezebel is given a place of authority within the ministry. Yet, most Christians, pastors, ministers of the gospel are not prepared for a witchcraft attack, and they will be the ones who will defend the witchcraft person until the ship sinks, until they're beneath the water and blowing bubbles before they figure out it's too late.
Speaker 1:I'm not emotionally attached to the person, so this ain't true about me. I'm not trapped. I'm not emotionally attached. I can name you 3 people that went under the Jezebel spread this year who are non connectors and were not emotionally attached, but it took them out of ministry. One of them came up and apologized to me this month and she said, you were right.
Speaker 1:So a friend of mine called me desperate from overseas. My husband and I are under a Jezebel attack. Oh, she has so many Jezzies around her. My gosh. Sometimes they cluster.
Speaker 1:Angie, will you help me? And I really thought it was interesting when she reached out to me because she had a lot of courage. She was relatively new. I put myself in her shoes and I thought, how did she know for sure that I had the discernment to know who was lying? The lies were very, very compelling.
Speaker 1:They had turned on her. She's stealing. She's this. She's that. She's and she reaches.
Speaker 1:I called over to the people who were holding a meeting and called the meeting that they were having to leave the church and to discuss what was wrong. I called the meeting to a halt And I asked them, will you fast for 1 week and pray and we will speak in a week? Instead, they continued the meeting and split the church. This began a 3 month ordeal and everything these people had came under attack. Their friends turned on them.
Speaker 1:The pastors underneath them turned on them. All the pastors of all the branch churches they had. It became litigation. Government agencies investigating them. Threats, insults, threats to take their children, take their house, legally, seize it, put someone else in it, try to break them financially, try to get people to leave them, lying vicious assaults and false paperwork filed.
Speaker 1:That is the mess. Every day, some drama. Every day, the spirit had been quiet. And one day, the spirit reaches for the people. How did I know?
Speaker 1:Because I'd been over there and I had already discerned these people had the wrong spirit. The very thing the accusers were saying, I had always suspected they were doing it themselves. They took to social media. They began their campaign. They were determined to destroy the church.
Speaker 1:This went on for a few months. And I remember having to handle this by phone and text all through my Christmas celebration. I was texting. I called brother Jacob and this is where you're gonna see the thing turn. I called brother Jacob and he told me what to do and he told me, you're not gonna have to go over there, go to your prayer closet.
Speaker 1:You can rebuke it from here and it will stop over there. God has given you the authority and if you do it this way, god will get the glory. Ain't that something? You don't have to go over there, go to your prayer closet. Cry out to the Lord and give the spirit hard rebukes, but he gave me a warning, don't bring the person who is seduced even though this was a very close person to me that they had taken advantage of.
Speaker 1:He said they're throwing lawsuits. Don't bring the litigation spirit in contact with you. Don't make contact with it. And just like I was told by brother Jacob, the ministries, that split that caused the chaos, they have failed. And their attempts to destroy the church has failed.
Speaker 1:And the ones who rebelled that refused to fast says Jezebel has a time to repent. Let's take into account all the people harmed in this. Another friend of mine called us, we are being attacked viciously by pastoral leaders that are over us. That's always a challenge when you're at mid level. The first thing you have to do is start speaking truth to yourself.
Speaker 1:That started changing what they were saying to themselves. Start speaking truth to yourself. You have to love truth to get out of these Jezebel attacks. Meetings took place where the couple was criticized and it acted like they had done something very wrong and treacherous in the ministry. Literally, nothing that these over sought pastors were saying or doing were making any sense.
Speaker 1:The pastor then turned into a battering ram of accusations. They threw away a 2 year working relationship, the first time that he had to handle conflict. This was a Jezebel attack by the pastor on the couple. This is his indictment. Do you know what's wrong?
Speaker 1:You know why I'm attacking you? Do you know why I'm throwing you out of ministry? Because I do not feel that you are submitted enough to me. Though the pastor's insecurity as a leader made him start making moves, he had no ability to work out conflict and he tried to harm the couple at a distance. He tried to get others to do his dirty work.
Speaker 1:They called and read me the most slanderous, lying text that was put out in the entire ministry circles against them. This is where most people get lost in ministry. They're going through a trial of their faith and the leadership makes it be about them. The enemy did not want their message out, Never before have we needed this message this much. Then now, do not let them stop this message.
Speaker 1:You have to realize there is no grace to yielding when it comes to the message of the Lord. Remember what the apostle said, you are not fighting against us, you are fighting against God and we will not submit to you, but we will continue to preach and declare what God has done. Governmental authorities, we will continue to preach and declare what God has done. I've known people who have served God in ministry all their lives and in their last days they were trapped by the spirit, but we're gonna end with the story. Let's get comfortable now and not talk about current events.
Speaker 1:Current people, that makes me nervous. Who am I talking about? Who am I referring to? What name is it? What is it that has gone wrong?
Speaker 1:Please explain your heart. No. Let's just stop current events and let's talk about one that happened. The revival when the holy spirit was being poured back across the earth in the latter rain. I'm gonna tell you a story about someone that this happened to in a historical moment.
Speaker 1:I'm a tell you one of the most famous revival moments of all times. You can make a case that perhaps this is one of the greatest revivals that we have ever had certainly in modern history. Now, I will give you a period of time. It was before Azusa Street. Azusa Street was 1906 and this was the Welsh revival in 190 4.
Speaker 1:Evan Roberts was a 26 year old man and he is considered the leader of the Welsh Revival. Most of the leaders with him were in their late teens or early twenties. Listen to this, he was raised in a Calvinistic Methodist home. He was a devout child, who attended church regularly and memorized scripture at night. Roberts was known as a young man who spent many hours praying each week both personally and at group prayer meetings.
Speaker 1:He reported having visitations from the holy spirit depicting all of Wells being lifted up to heavens. They said that when he cried out for the Holy Spirit to come baptize him, his bed would shake. And in this moment, he would see a picture of heaven coming down on his nation of wells. At one time, asking his roommate and later his brother-in-law if he believed that God could give him a 100,000 souls. Roberts was petitioning the Lord.
Speaker 1:Is it possible that God would put a 100,000 souls? Would God do it? Will he give us a 100,000? Within a few months of October 1904, this was indeed the case. The numbers of conversions were chronicled daily in the newspapers, the national newspaper of Wells.
Speaker 1:You are making secular publication. He was soon attracting congregations numbering in the 1,000. He had 4 points to his message, confess all known sin. Wonder how the devil likes confession of sin. Receive forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Remove anything in your life that you're in doubt or feel unsure about. Be ready to obey the Holy Spirit instantly and publicly confess the Lord Jesus Christ. Meetings lasted hours and from the very beginning, there was such a conviction of sin. Wrongdoing was confessed, lifestyles were affected and the pubs went from full to empty. This is in the UK.
Speaker 1:When he was asked to pray at his father's funeral in 1928, witnesses said the prayer was like an electric force. So great, in fact, they thought revival was gonna break out all over again. By year 2, way over a 100000 people were saved. A 100000 people, just like he asked. The Welsh Society had had transformation.
Speaker 1:That's what you wanna do is transform your society culture. Entire towns recorded no arrests for a whole year. The police department started their layoffs because their officers were idle. Places that were formerly the hotbeds of crime, the crime dissolved. Professional sports teams were disbanded because no one wanted to miss a revival meeting to go to a game.
Speaker 1:Everyone in Wells was hearing about this revival. Meetings moved to wherever Evan would go. Wherever he felt led to go, the meetings would be moved. Young teenagers would travel with him, and they had such intense intercession urging surrender to God and they would give testimony. Evan would often be seen on his knees and he'd be pleading for God's mercy, tears streaming down his face.
Speaker 1:The crowds would come and be moved upon by wave after wave of the Holy Spirit's presence. Spontaneous prayer, confession, testimony, and so would erupt in the meetings. Evan or his helpers would approach those in spiritual distress and urge them, go ahead, let it go, surrender to Christ. Many times, there was no musical instruments and most of the time, no preaching. Yet, the crowds would come.
Speaker 1:They would continue to come with nothing being done and thousands were professing their conversions. The meetings would go on into the early hours of the morning. Evan and his team would go home, sleep 2 to 3 hours, but would be back at the pit head by 5 AM because they didn't wanna miss the minors coming off of night duty that wanted to come to the chapel meetings. That's what had taken place in 2 years, but by year 2, Jezebel was sent to him. An older rich woman, she gave financial support to him.
Speaker 1:She too was a speaker and author in the Methodist Calvinist movement. His friends were suddenly concerned about Evan because she seemed to be isolating him. He told his friends he had the greatest confidence in her and he trusted her completely. Should we stop the story here? I wanna say something, this is not a young man who thought he was great and he was doing so much for God, but didn't bear real fruit.
Speaker 1:This wasn't a man who had the youthful pride that had to be shaped by the spirit of God because he thought of himself in grand terms when there was no real work being done. This guy had an intense encounter with Jesus and he was a dedicated servant of the Lord, but this lady said, I wanna speak into your life, What do you think was the message that she gave him? What would she have to say to him that could do the most harm? Break his heart, make him stop what he was doing. She would give him spiritual messages, she would give him correction from the Lord and he was filled with condemnation and confusion.
Speaker 1:She had a message for him, she told him, I'm so concerned that the revival's great success that is giving you too much glory and that all the glory is going to you. The thought that he was still in God's glory horrified this earnest young man. Can I say something to you? Why do you tolerate this woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess? The key is she calls herself a prophetess.
Speaker 1:So she had this great concern that too much glory is going to him and he received the thought and it horrified him. How could I take God's glory? He began having bouts of depression. She suggested that he move into her home, called the Penn Lewis home. He would be into bed for 5 days at a time with deep darkness.
Speaker 1:They said he was getting rude, he was startling people in the congregation. With the depression, his house started to fail. Meanwhile, Penn Lewis, the woman, began writing articles and letters in Evan Roberts' name and on his behalf. These were published in both Roberts and Pen Lewis' name and eventually in her name alone. According to many former close associates of Evan Roberts, some of the works attributed to him could not possibly have had his approval.
Speaker 1:Her writings had no traction until she put his name on the book with hers. Writing for the periodical, The Overcomer, Penn Lewis, criticized the speaking of tongues as the work of evil spirits. She was highly critical of other movements and targeted the Pentecostal revivals, calling it out as wrong. Her books continued the calling it out as wrong. Her books continued the controversy over whether demons were influencing revival associated beliefs.
Speaker 1:Penn Lewis thought her writings were of divine inspiration. They said that Roberts became completely dominated. He never returned again to ministry. Eventually Evan Roberts, he wizened up, he broke all ties with Penn Lewis and died at 72. I put a marker up, this is the man who started the Welsh revivals, but he didn't know that there would be a Jezebel that would come.
Speaker 1:There is always a sign something to the work of God, to the prophet of God, to the ministry of God. Jezebel wasn't hard to figure out, She took him away from the work and put all attention on herself. I have this against you, that you tolerate a woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and she teaches and leads my bond servants astray. My bond servants. It says, if you'll overcome her, you'll not tolerate her.
Speaker 1:Her time to repent is over. I've given you authority over the nation, so you can be successful and sustain it, and you will be able to overcome the spirit. The authority comes after after the attack, after the trap, after the spirit is defeated. This is something you have to be prepared to recognize and subdue to him who overcomes and keeps my work till the end. You gotta make it to the end.
Speaker 1:I will give him authority over the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron. And as the vessels of the potter are shattered, as I have received authority from my father, you're sharing authority. Jesus is letting you share authority. What an honor. Well, when I read this rule with a rod of iron as the vessels of the potter are shattered, I'm gonna say, there's some manly authority here.
Speaker 1:Shatter them with the rod of our the Jezebel spirit and the authority over the nations is not for wimps. I was doing a little researches. I'm doing my conclusion. We started with the introduction. There's been so many recalls this year already.
Speaker 1:Mercedes Benz had a recall and it says, tens of millions of vehicles are recalled every year in the US. Tens of millions are recalled in the US, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And they say, we recommend checking for recalls at least twice a year. So, we have your recall ready on something we're just now learning, to not tolerate Jezebel and to defeat the threats that Jezebel is making and get the attention off of her. Amen.