3ABN Spring Camp Meeting 2013: Showers of Blessings

Stephen Bohr

Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN)

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.

Another Look at Thyatira

Good evening What a pleasure it is to see so many of you here on a Wednesday night You know somebody said it was Thursday night out there and they're right Because biblically this is Thursday night Because the night comes before the day.

It's good to be here once again at 3ABN for Camp Meeting.

Before we study God's Word this evening however we want to ask for the Lord's special blessing and so I invite you along with me to bow your heads reverently as we pray Our Father and our God what a privilege it is to be here in this beautiful place we thank you Father for your word which is a sure guide in a world that is so confused as we look at the world it seems to be falling apart at the seams.

But we thank you that in your word you tell us that you have everything under control.

You still sit on the throne and you rule in the affairs of men.

We ask that you will bless us as we open the pages of your holy book and we thank you for your presence and we're certain of it because we pray in the precious name of Jesus Amen.

I'd like to begin by mentioning that in the book of Revelation we have 7 churches which represent 7 periods in the history of the Christian Church.

I'd like to begin by reading a statement that we find in the book Acts of the Apostles page 585 where Ellen White describes the 7 churches and their specific meaning.

This is what she says, the names of the 7 churches are symbolic of the church in different periods of the Christian era.

The number 7 indicates completeness and is symbolic of the fact that the messages extend to the end of time while the symbols used reveal the condition of the church at different periods in the history of the world.

So clearly the spirit of prophecy tells us here that the 7 churches represent 7 consecutive periods in the history of the Christian Church from apostolic times to the very end of time Now it's interesting to notice that Ellen White is not alone in this concept because most conservative evangelical scholars agree that the 7 churches represent 7 periods of church history.

I just like to read a statement by 1 of those scholars so that you can see that this is not unique to Ellen White.

Now I'm going to read from someone with whom Ellen White disagrees probably 99.99% of the time.

And in his book, Vanished into Thin Air, page 276, Hal Lindsey said this, which is correct.

I believe, along with many scholars, that these 7 letters were not only written to 7 literal churches with real problems, but also that they have a prophetic application to church history.

I believe that these 7 churches were selected and arranged by our omniscient Lord because they had problems and characteristics that would prophesy 7 stages of history through which the church universal would pass very similar to what we read from Acts of the Apostles page 585 and Hal Lindsay is not the only 1 there are many, many other scholars that I could read that believe that the 7 churches represent 7 periods of church history from the days of the apostles till the end of time.

Now evangelical Protestant scholars believe that the church of Ephesus represents the apostolic church.

They believe that the church of Smyrna represents the church that was persecuted during the period of the Roman emperors.

They believe that the church of Pergamum represents the church during the period when apostasy entered the church, darkness entered the church in the times of Emperor Constantine.

They believe that the church of Thyatira represents the church during the period of papal supremacy, the period of the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages if you please.

They believe that the church of Sardis represents the Protestant Reformation.

Believe it or not, not only Adventist writers but also non-Adventist evangelicals have believed that.

Now when you get to Philadelphia and Laodicea they become a little fuzzier as to what it applies to but virtually all who believe the 7 churches represent 7 periods of church history agree that Ephesus is the Apostolic Church, Smyrna is the persecuted church by the Roman Emperors, Pergamum is the church of the days of Constantine, Thyatira is the church of papal supremacy, and Sardis is the church of the Protestant Reformation.

Now as I've studied the 7 churches I've come to a very important conclusion And that is that the 7 churches are to Revelation what Daniel 2 is to the book of Daniel.

Now Daniel 2 is foundational to all of the book.

The book of Daniel builds upon chapter 2.

And I believe that the same is true about the 7 churches.

The 7 churches provide the foundational prophecy of the book of Revelation.

It gives us the skeleton or the basic chronological structure for the rest of the book.

If you please it gives us the framework upon which the book of Revelation in its entirety presents itself.

Now this evening we are going to begin our four-part study with 1 of the 7 churches the Church of Thyatira.

Now the Church of Thyatira is the fourth church in the sequence.

Before we study the Church of Thyatira however, we need to take a look at some principles that will guide us in our study.

You see, in scripture you really have 4 stages to Elijah and Elijah is linked with the message to the church of Thyatira.

The first stage of Elijah is the historical Elijah in the Old Testament who was called to speak to literal Israel.

The second Elijah or the second stage of Elijah is John the Baptist and we'll be studying John the Baptist a little bit later on in this series.

The third stage, which is the 1 that we're going to take a look at tonight, is the stage of Elijah during the 1260 years, during the period of the church of Thyatira.

And the fourth stage is the end time Elijah.

The Elijah that will exist and be alive when Jesus comes, if you please.

So there are actually 4 stages to the Elijah prophecy.

Now the first 2 Elijahs are literal individuals.

And they have 3 literal enemies, personal enemies the last 2 Elijah's are not individuals the individuals represent world wide movements and world wide systems or powers in other words you're dealing with type and anti-type Elijah in the Old Testament and John the Baptist in the New Testament become symbolic individuals along with their enemies of the Elijah during the 1260 years and the end time Elijah but at the end time Elijah is not an individual Elijah is a movement and his 3 enemies are not individuals his 3 enemies represent global worldwide systems.

Now there are 4 main protagonists in the story of Elijah, the first protagonist is a determined and strong-willed harlot woman whose name is Jezebel.

The second protagonist of the story is a weak and easily influenced king whose name was Ahab.

The third protagonist or we could say protagonists of the story are apostate false prophets that did the bidding of this harlot Jezebel.

And of course the fourth protagonist was none less than Elijah who was called by God to denounce this union of the king with Jezebel and the prophets of Baal.

Now it's very important to realize that whenever Elijah appears in Scripture he never appears alone.

Whenever Elijah appears he always appears in bad company.

In other words his 3 enemies appear with him.

Whether it's the Old Testament Elijah, whether it's John the Baptist, whether it's the Elijah during the 1260 years or the very end time Elijah whenever Elijah appears in scripture his 3 enemies appear along with him and so in the 4 stages of Elijah we're going to have to find a determined and strong-willed harlot woman, we're going to have to find a weak and easily influenced king, we're going to have to find false prophets who do the bidding of this woman, and we are going to have to find Elijah who is called to rebuke this unity of this threefold alliance.

Now I would like us to begin by reading the message to the church of Thyatira.

It's found in Revelation chapter 2 and verses 18 through 29 and I'm going to read it slowly because it has several very important details.

Remember that Thyatira is the church that exists during the period of the dark ages, during the period of papal supremacy, that is the key point that we want to remember.

Now notice what we find beginning in verse 18.

And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, These things says the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass.

I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience, and as for your works the last are more than the first.

Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman, now here comes 1 of the protagonists, you allow that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess, let me ask you can this be literal Jezebel?

No, because Jezebel had been dead for 800 years at this point, So this cannot be literal Jezebel that arises in the time of the church of Thyatira.

So it says because you allow that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality other versions translate fornication and eat things sacrificed to idols.

In other words she introduces fornication and idolatry.

In the Old Testament this is literal, people bow before literal images and she's committing literal fornication with the king.

It continues saying here in verse 21 notice, and I gave her time, the word time here is the Greek word chronos where we get chronology from.

So I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality or of her fornication and she did not repent.

Therefore notice what God does, because she didn't repent after God gave her this time.

Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery or fornication with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.

And then it tells us I will kill her children with death.

Interesting, all sorts of interesting details that we find in this passage.

I will kill her children with death and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and the hearts, and I will give to each 1 of you according to your works.

But now notice that in this church there's a faithful remnant, verse 24 says, now to you I say and to the rest that word rest really is the same word that is translated remnant in Revelation 12 17 it's the Greek word loypos in other words it could be translated now to you I say and to the remnant in Thyatira as many as do not have this doctrine in other words as many as are against fornication and against idolatry who have not known the depths of Satan as they say I will put on you no other burden but hold fast what you have till I come and he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end to him I will give power over the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessel, as I also have received from my father.

And I will give him the morning star, he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

And so because we have Jezebel in the church of Thyatira that would tell us that we also have to have whom?

There also has to be the king, there also has to be Elijah, and there also have to be the false prophets.

That's right, because when 1 of the protagonists appears all of the other protagonists appear along with that 1.

So we know that in the period of the church of Thyatira Jezebel appears with all of the other protagonists of the story.

Now in the Old Testament Jezebel is a literal pagan priestess who links up with a literal king and used his executive authority to introduce a mixture of God worship and Baal worship in literal Israel.

She had a group of literal false prophets who extended her influence in the literal geographical territory of Israel.

In other words, the story in the Old Testament is a story that deals with literal individuals in literal Israel.

However, in the church of Thyatira, what was literal in the Old Testament now becomes symbolic of movements and becomes symbolic of systems, of global systems.

So in the church of Thyatira, which is right in the middle of the history of the Christian church, we have a woman, symbolically speaking, which represents an apostate church, that blends paganism with Christianity.

She links up with the kings of the earth not just with 1 king and she has spiritual children that at some point were born to her and she persecutes those who disagree with her points of view.

And so what was literal in the Old Testament now becomes symbolic and it becomes global.

Now let me just summarize some of the details of the story from the Old Testament.

Tomorrow morning we're going to take a look at the story as it appears in the Old Testament which is really the root to all of the other Elijah passages that we find in scripture.

Let's just review the main points before we draw a parallel between the days of Elijah and what happened during the church of Thyatira.

The harlot Jezebel as we've noticed fornicated with the king and used his executive authority to extend her counterfeit religion and to persecute those who were opposed to her agenda.

The second point is that she was involved in the occult because in 2nd Kings chapter 9 and verse 22 it says that she was involved in witchcraft.

In other words she was involved in the occult.

Furthermore we notice that she blended the worship of God with the worship of Baal.

In other words it was a mixture of God worship of genuine worship with counterfeit worship.

She instituted a false sacrificial system.

Remember that the altar of the Lord was torn down in the days of Elijah because they had forgotten the gospel they had forgotten that the victim represented the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and they were offering sacrifices to Baal furthermore we know that in the days of Elijah she was leading the people to break the commandments of God because when Elijah met Ahab, Ahab says oh so you're the 1 who troubles Israel and Elijah said no I have not troubled Israel but you and your father's house have done it because you have forsaken what?

You have forsaken the commandments of God.

Also false worship was involved because we're told clearly in 1st Kings chapter 16 and verse 30 through 33 that Jezebel implemented the false worship of the sun god Baal.

We also know that she had a group of false prophets that did her bidding and we know that Elijah was called to unmask this counterfeit religion at the risk of his own life.

Now let me just read you some texts that we find in Scripture that describes some of these details that I've mentioned.

Mark Finley

Warrenton SDA Church

Making Healthy Choices

Welcome, and I'm delighted that you are here, and I'm delighted that I am here.

I just came back from spending the last month in Dublin, Ireland.

You know, Ireland is really 2 countries, not 1.

The Republic of Ireland is Southern Ireland.

It has its own central government, and it is on the euro for currency.

Northern Ireland, its capital is Belfast, and it functions on the pound, the British currency, and it's tied into Britain.

And they have had significant tension there for many, many years.

1 of the things that really impressed me this last month, and it impresses me here in Warrington as well, is how God is leading people who are honest-hearted to know Jesus and his truth.

Let me give you 3 short examples of that.

Georgia was a young art student in Italy.

Her roots were in Dublin, and she went to a wedding in Scotland.

She had no background in religious things at all.

She was drinking, smoking, typical 26-year-old European, secular.

But there was something missing in her heart.

She left the wedding and got on a bus and somebody sat next to her and gave her a copy of the book Patriarchs and Prophets by Ellen White.

Now I'm not sure whether that's the first book I would give somebody, rather weighty, rather heavy, But she got home and read the first chapter of the book and said, I don't know who this Ellen White person is, but she has to be inspired.

Now here's a drinking, smoking 26-year-old that has little interest in spiritual things, but reads the first chapter of that book, and it changes her life.

She read the book and looked up the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and I was teaching a Bible class, and she walked through the door.

We began to talk, she came to our meetings, I made an appeal, and Georgia made a decision to follow Jesus and be baptized I Think about Chris Chris is brilliant 33 years old PhD biochemistry student He works in some of the large hospitals in biochemistry in Dublin.

As he was working on his PhD, obviously he came from an evolutionary background.

All of the science that he had taught that we evolved and were here by a matter of chance.

But Chris, as he looked into biochemistry, said, for some reason, this doesn't make sense to me.

Everything I study in chemistry is order, design, symmetry.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

That Woman Jezebel

51m

Another Look at Thyatira

48m

Making Healthy Choices

53m

Revelation’s Victorious Christ

47m

From Stressed to Blessed

34m

The Beatitudes of Revelation- What’s Your Legacy?

29m

The Beatitudes of Revelation- Do You Hear What I Hear?

29m

How Do I Keep the Sabbath?

45m

Between the Mountain and the Multitude

44m

Crisis At the Close: The Trials

56m

Deceived

51m

Is Anything Too Hard For the Lord?

46m

Sound Doctrine