3ABN Spring Camp Meeting 2013: Showers of Blessings

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN)

Stephen Bohr

That Woman Jezebel

Did you survive the graveyard shift last night?

It's kind of difficult, you know, when you're from the Eastern time zone to have a meeting late at night but I hope that you weren't agreeing with me all during the presentation.

Before we begin our study we do want to pray and so I invite you to bow your heads with me as we implore the Lord's presence.

Our Father and our God thank you for giving us life this day.

Thank you Father for being a wonderful father.

Thank you because you've told us exactly what is happening and what will soon happen in this world.

We thank you that you have not left us in the dark.

We thank you that we know that the final movements will be rapid ones and we see this transparent before our eyes we ask that as we open your holy word this morning your Holy Spirit will be with us through the ministry of your holy angels to open minds and hearts and thank you father for hearing our prayer because we come boldly to the throne of grace in the name of Jesus amen in this series we're studying about the 4 Elijah's that are mentioned in scripture.

The first Elijah is the historical Elijah or the Old Testament Elijah.

He is the root and foundation of the other Elijah's.

The second Elijah is the 1 that I call the prophetic Elijah and the prophetic Elijah can also be called the New Testament Elijah it is John the Baptist and this evening we will be studying about the prophetic Elijah and then we have the Ecclesiastical Elijah which is what we studied last night the Church of Thyatira the Elijah during the Dark Ages and finally we have what I call the Apocalyptic Elijah that's the Elijah that will come to this world immediately before the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Now there's a governing principle that we need to keep in mind when we study these Elijah prophecies and that principle is that the first 2 Elijah's are literal individuals and their enemies are literal individuals localized in the land of Israel.

Whereas the last 2 Elijah's the ecclesiastical Elijah and the apocalyptic Elijah are actually worldwide systems, worldwide movements that are symbolized by the literal individuals in the Elijah story.

Now the Bible tells us that God promises to send Elijah immediately before the second coming.

I'd like to read Malachi chapter 4 and verses 5 and 6 where we find this Elijah prophecy about the end time.

It says there, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

Now as I mentioned in our first study Elijah never appears alone You can't say that Elijah comes at the end without also having the 3 enemies of Elijah along with him because the entire story of the Old Testament and of the New Testament Elijah is repeated on a larger scale in the last 2 Elijah's and so when Elijah appears which he will before the second coming we must expect his 3 enemies to appear with him as well and we should also expect that the message of the end-time Elijah will be like the message of the Elijah's of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

In other words the Old Testament and New Testament stories are the root and the New Testament stories that we find in the case of the church in the Middle Ages and the end time church must be global and based on the root prophecy of the Old Testament.

Now let's review what we studied last evening in our first presentation.

Let's review what we said about the ecclesiastical Elijah.

You'll remember that in Revelation chapter 2 beginning with verse 18 Jezebel is mentioned.

Now if Jezebel is mentioned immediately that should awaken in our minds the Elijah story and we should look for the protagonists that accompany Jezebel in the Old Testament story And so we find Jezebel this apostate church of the Middle Ages or of the Dark Ages fornicating with the kings of Europe beginning with the days of Constantine in Western Europe the church becomes linked with the political powers.

You're not only dealing with 1 king now in Israel, it's much broader.

You're dealing with a religious apostate system symbolized by Jezebel that is fornicating with the kings.

In other words, has illicit relationships with the state.

We also noticed in the story that daughters were born from this system.

And we know that in the 16th century daughters that share many of the beliefs and practices of this apostate religious system were born from her.

We also noticed that this system mixed paganism with Christianity just like Jezebel mixed God worship with Baal worship.

Also we found that this Jezebel of the Middle Ages, this apostate religious system actually embraced the worship on the day of the sun from paganism.

Just like in the Old Testament story you have Jezebel imposing the worship of the sun god Baal we also notice that because of this apostasy no rain was to fall during the period of her dominion and of course rain represents doctrine and when there is rain there's true doctrine there's true teaching.

When there is no rain, there's a scarcity of true doctrine.

This is exactly what happened during the 1260 years.

We also noticed that God gave this religious system time to repent, but this system did not repent.

The period that God gave her to repent was time, times, and the dividing of time.

3 and a half prophetic years, just like in the Old Testament story we have 3 ½ literal years in the case of literal Elijah.

We also notice that in the story that we find concerning the Middle Ages the faithful remnant had to flee to the wilderness and immediately we think of the Waldensees and the Albigensees and all those who had to flee to the desolated places of the earth because they were being persecuted by this apostate religious system that had blended Christianity with paganism We notice also that Elijah was blamed for the calamities just like the Waldenses and the Albigenses were blamed because of all of the turmoil and the disease and all of the problems that existed in Western Europe.

We also notice that spiritual Jezebel wanted to slay or wanted to kill these people who were followers of God.

We notice that God prepared a place for those who were being persecuted.

So you have all kinds of Elijah terminology.

And of course this lasted 3 and a half symbolic years.

We also notice that at the end of her career she was thrown into a sick bed.

But the sick bed does not mean that she's out of commission forever because the book of Revelation says that her deadly wound will be healed which means that Jezebel will reign again.

And if Jezebel will reign again that means that the other protagonists of the story will also come into view because Jezebel never appears alone.

You have to study the entire and complete story as we find it in the Old Testament.

Now let's talk about the Old Testament Elijah.

This is the root prophecy and this is the 1 that we're gonna look at this morning because everything else is based on the root story of the Old Testament Elijah.

Now in the story of Elijah there is a threefold alliance.

In other words, he can make political decrees.

This harlot woman also has false prophets that do her bidding and extend her religion.

Through these false prophets, she actually controls the children of Israel.

God calls Elijah to denounce this apostasy, to denounce this going astray from the Lord.

And Elijah of course when he preaches God's message is hated and he's persecuted.

His main message to Israel is come back to the Lord your Creator.

Now let's analyze each 1 of the protagonists individually because as we study the Old Testament story we're going to see that these...

The characters of these individuals actually foreshadow the characters in the case of the days of Jesus John the Baptist.

They also foreshadow the character of the individuals during the Middle Ages as well as the end time Elijah.

Go with me to 1 Kings chapter 16 and verses 30 and 31.

I want you to notice here that the king carries on an illegitimate relationship with this harlot woman Jezebel and she instigates him as the king to do her bidding in other words Jezebel controls the king and gets the king to do what she wants Notice once again 1st Kings 16 30 and 31 says there, Now Ahab the son of Amri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him, and it came to pass as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat that he took as a wife Jezebel the daughter of Ephbel king of the Sidonians and he went and served Baal and worshipped Him.

So here we find a king linking up with this apostate woman Jezebel with this harlot Jezebel as she's called in 2 Kings 9 and verse 22.

Now what kind of character did Ahab have?

He was easily manipulated by the strong-willed Jezebel.

Notice what we find in Prophets and Kings page 115 where Ellen White describes the character of this king Ahab.

His union by marriage with an idolatrous woman of decided character and positive temperament resulted disastrously both to himself and to the nation.

Then she says unprincipled and with no high standard of right doing his character was easily molded by the determined spirit of Jezebel.

In other words Jezebel manipulates the king, she uses the king and the king who has no principles who has a weak moral character simply goes along.

Does this sound like something that's going to happen in the end time with the kings of the earth?

Now let's look at the character of Jezebel, the harlot woman.

Go with me to 2nd Kings chapter 9 and verse 22 where we find several details about this apostate woman.

It says there, Now it happened when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, Is it peace, Jehu?

She's called the mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many.

So notice she was a harlot, she was involved in witchcraft and she is called the mother.

Now go with me to 1st Kings chapter 21 and verses 8 through 10 where once again we find how Jezebel uses the political power to accomplish her purposes.

He simply goes along with what she wants.

It says there, and this is of course speaking about the experience of Naboth.

You know Ahab wanted Naboth's vineyard and he bargained with him.

Back to Menu

That Woman Jezebel

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine