The NXR Podcast - June 16, 2022


QUESTIONS - Why Do ā€œConservativeā€ Christians Tolerate Jezebelļ¼Ÿ


Episode Stats


Length

46 minutes

Words per minute

139.81609

Word count

6,533

Sentence count

347


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
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00:00:21.120 All right, so our first question that we're going to take came ahead of time.
00:00:25.960 It's from Reformed Watchmen, and it's this.
00:00:29.140 what's your take on the Jezebels in conservative churches? Why won't anyone speak up? And those
00:00:35.700 who do are canceled. Let me read it one more time. What's your take on the Jezebels in
00:00:40.640 conservative churches? Why won't anyone speak up? And those who do are canceled. I appreciate you,
00:00:47.180 Reformed Watchmen, giving us this question. I also appreciate you putting conservative,
00:00:52.040 that word in quotation marks, because of course, when this occurs, what you've just described,
00:00:57.940 these churches are quasi-conservative. They're not truly being conservative if they are not
00:01:03.320 biblically faithful, and if they're not willing to actually address sin as the Bible requires us
00:01:10.000 to do so. So let me go ahead and start with scripture. This is 2 Kings chapter 9 verses 30
00:01:16.540 through 37. 2 Kings chapter 9 verses 30 through 37. What I want us to start with is looking at
00:01:23.340 the final demise, the end of Jezebel, because eventually she was dealt with, although it took
00:01:29.480 quite some time. Beginning in verse 30, when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it and she
00:01:37.200 painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out of the window. All right, let me stop there
00:01:43.320 for a second. She knows she's in trouble, right? This is Jehu. He is the king in northern Israel
00:01:49.460 and he is coming to eradicate the house of Ahab. Ahab had done much terror in Israel, right? He's
00:01:58.540 the one who famously says to Elijah, what do you want, you troubler of Israel? And Elijah the
00:02:04.800 prophet responds correctly by saying, I am not the one who is troubling Israel. You are. You are.
00:02:12.400 Let me stop right there for a moment. In our evangelical churches today, when we think of
00:02:18.160 troublemakers, right? The Apostle Paul was labeled one who stirs up riots. One who, not just a rioter,
00:02:25.600 but someone who orchestrates and causes riots, right? So the Apostle Paul was labeled divisive
00:02:32.980 by the pagans, by the pagans. They thought he was a rioter. They thought he was quarrelsome,
00:02:41.440 right? The same Apostle Paul who tells us that the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome
00:02:46.360 is is accused of being quarrelsome and a rioter and one who stirs up riots somebody who is
00:02:53.160 divisive Elijah is accused by Ahab of being a troublemaker and Israel but what we find in the
00:03:01.540 pattern of scripture especially in the writings of Paul is that the one who is actually the cause
00:03:06.200 of trouble for Israel for the church for the people of God the one who actually causes trouble
00:03:12.620 the one who is actually the rioter the divisive person the quarrelsome person is the one who
00:03:18.460 introduces error the one who introduces error we've got to get this listen we label people as
00:03:27.400 divisive based off of exclusively one criteria their tongue their tongue if we think that their
00:03:35.740 tone is not sugar and spice and everything nice we say that they are quarrelsome argumentative
00:03:42.060 divisive not gentle not winsome but what we see again and again throughout scripture especially
00:03:50.940 in the writings of Paul is that how we say something matters but first and foremost when
00:03:56.820 we're trying to discern what is truly divisive the first category that we address is not how
00:04:04.300 something is said but what is said not not the messenger but the message not the tone but the
00:04:15.400 substance what is actually being said and what the apostle paul tells us multiple times is this
00:04:21.260 it's the false teachers who most often have smooth and flattering speech in other words
00:04:29.860 by evangelical standards today, the false teachers have the good tone. They're the ones with good
00:04:38.640 tone. They're the ones with what would appear to be gentle tone. But the apostle Paul says that
00:04:45.860 they are the ones who are instigating division. They are the divisive party. They're the party
00:04:53.440 guilty of division. Why? Because they're the ones who introduced error. They're the ones who
00:04:59.760 introduced error. So then when someone comes and corrects, reproofs, rebukes them, even if they use
00:05:07.540 strong language at times, that person using strong language to rebuke the heretic is not the one
00:05:16.020 who's divisive. You know who's divisive? The heretic. The heretic is divisive. They're the
00:05:23.260 ones upsetting whole households. They're the ones who are troubling Israel. They're the ones who are
00:05:29.720 causing division. They're the ones who are stirring up quarrels. They are the divisive party by virtue
00:05:37.400 of not first and foremost, how they say things, but first and foremost, what they say. The one
00:05:44.540 who introduces error is the one who is first and foremost divisive. Now, can we correct theological
00:05:53.060 error in a way that is lacking the fruit of the spirit in regards to how we speak even though
00:06:01.040 what we say is true sure sure but i think that jesus would speak to many of our big evil leaders
00:06:09.120 today and tell them exactly what he told the pharisees you are straining gnats and swallowing
00:06:16.640 camels. How'd that camel taste? Hope it doesn't choke you on the way down. How's that camel
00:06:23.360 treating you, right? You're straining gnats and swallowing camels. In other words, you are spending
00:06:29.460 all of your efforts punching to the right, punching without, without pulling any of your
00:06:36.900 punches, without weakening any of your blows. You are punching as hard as you can to the
00:06:42.240 conservative christian on your right who is correcting error and and doing nothing with the
00:06:51.480 ones who introduced the error in the first place because they had smooth and flattering speech
00:06:59.440 one of the reasons that error is successful in infiltrating a community is because it's it's
00:07:08.300 introduced like poison in a spoonful of sugary, smooth, flattering speech. That's one of the
00:07:18.880 reasons why error and false teachers are as successful as they are. Because even though
00:07:27.700 what they're saying is poison, how they're saying it is smooth and flattering. So Elijah,
00:07:34.820 right he combats ahab and ahab is married to jezebel just so we know all the players in the
00:07:41.860 game to answer this question so jezebel is queen she is the wife of ahab ahab is the king and ahab
00:07:49.920 what is his sin well there are multiple sins but one is it he's a little boy he's a child right
00:07:56.620 somebody has a vineyard and he wants the vineyard he wants the land and he goes and offers to buy it
00:08:02.340 for a certain price and the person says, this is my family's land. It's not just valuable in terms
00:08:07.980 of money, but it has sentiment. It has a legacy. It's not for sale. And Ahab, he goes away and he
00:08:16.660 doesn't just say, okay, well, I'll find some other land. That's fine. That's your right. No, he goes
00:08:20.680 away moping for the rest of the day. He doesn't want to be consoled. He's moping. He's pouting.
00:08:28.260 he's a child. And then Jezebel counsels him, his wife counsels him on how to get the land
00:08:35.860 by doing something that is wicked and unethical, sinful. So Ahab is a little boy. He is whiny.
00:08:47.440 He is emotional. He is unhealthy. He is selfish. He is vain. And he's also apathetic.
00:08:57.920 This is what you have, the dynamic between Ahab and Jezebel.
00:09:01.280 Right there in that picture that I just described of Ahab wanting this vineyard and moping because the guy wouldn't sell it to him.
00:09:08.720 And then the dynamic, the way that Jezebel engages her husband.
00:09:12.920 This is what you have.
00:09:13.600 You have a boy and his mom rather than a husband and his wife.
00:09:20.100 And sadly, that would be an accurate description of many marriages in our nation and our culture today.
00:09:26.640 And sadly, many marriages, even within the evangelical church.
00:09:31.560 In my pastoral tenure, by God's grace, not recently, not since I've been planting a church
00:09:40.380 here in central Texas, but in the past, when I pastored in California, I had to do pastoral
00:09:47.080 counsel with many couples where the husband was a son and the wife was his mother.
00:09:53.920 for all intents and purposes. That was the dynamic. It was not husband and wife. It was boy
00:10:01.980 and mom. And that came through loud and clear in every counseling session. And these were the
00:10:10.360 couples that were troublers in my ministry and troublers of the church. And what they would do
00:10:18.280 they would often accuse me or somebody else who was speaking the truth of being quarrelsome and
00:10:24.460 divisive as they were introducing error whether it be antinomianism they didn't like when i preached
00:10:32.700 god's law whether it be feminism they didn't like patriarchy whether it be and the list goes on and
00:10:39.900 on and on and this is common in the church and what usually happens is that a pastor doesn't
00:10:47.720 even have the courage to address these things to begin with, or if he does, when he inevitably
00:10:56.960 experiences the slightest degree of opposition, he folds like a cheap suit. He throws in the towel,
00:11:07.380 he retreats, he quits, and he marks kind of that territory, that whole doctrine,
00:11:12.740 patriarchy whatever it is fill in the blank uh can't go there can't go there anymore and he
00:11:19.180 doesn't go there and he appeases this woman who's functioning not as a wife in submission to her
00:11:26.720 husband but rather as a mother leading her little boy husband around by a leash and that is a common
00:11:36.540 dynamic. All right. So all that being said, the players in the game, you've got Jezebel
00:11:41.280 and Jezebel is the queen, the wife of Ahab. You've got Ahab. He's the king who's a little boy
00:11:48.280 and he is apathetic and he is weak. He's effeminate. All those things. Jezebel is
00:11:56.440 domineering. She, just like what God said in the curse given to Eve, your desire will be for your
00:12:03.480 husband. That's not a romantic desire. Your desire will be for your husband, which means you're just
00:12:07.580 going to want to be with him and love him. No, it's the same verbiage later used in Genesis chapter
00:12:12.300 four, when God says to Cain, he says, sin is crouching at your door. Its desire is for you.
00:12:21.020 Sin's desire is for you. A romantic, sin just wants to love you. No, it's crouching at your door like
00:12:26.680 a lion, like a predator about to devour its prey. Its desire is for you, meaning its desire is to
00:12:33.840 rule you, to master you, to subdue you, but you must rule over it, right? So the curse in Genesis
00:12:41.820 3 is that the woman's desire would be for her husband, meaning her desire will be to rule her
00:12:47.120 husband, but he will rule over you. Now, the curse of sin is not patriarchy. Let me say that again.
00:12:55.620 The curse of sin, when sin entered the world, the consequence of sin was not patriarchy.
00:13:01.840 The consequence of sin is that women won't like patriarchy.
00:13:07.200 Now I'm going to be, I'm going to be real in today's episode.
00:13:10.160 I'll say it again because some of you, you need to hear it, right?
00:13:13.500 So this is for the proverbial back row.
00:13:16.020 The curse of sin is not patriarchy.
00:13:19.480 The curse of sin is that women don't like patriarchy.
00:13:23.440 and you might say well men don't like it either they're soft men yep there are but especially
00:13:28.660 women well give me a verse for that i already did genesis chapter 3 it's built into the judgment
00:13:35.160 that god delivers specifically to the women the man adam has his own set of judgment he has his
00:13:42.760 own set of consequences but particularly to the woman one of the consequences one of the curses
00:13:49.480 of sin is that she will want to rule her husband. Patriarchy is not the curse. Adam named his wife.
00:13:57.080 That's a form of exercising dominion. That was the mandate. That was the calling, the vocation
00:14:02.940 given to Adam before sin ever entered the world. He was to be fruitful and multiply. He was to work
00:14:10.040 and keep the ground. And he was to exercise dominion over the birds of the air and the fish
00:14:17.120 of the sea and all the beasts of the field. To Adam was given dominion. And one of the ways
00:14:22.740 practically that we see Adam before sin enters the picture, exercising his dominion is that God
00:14:28.880 brought to Adam each of the different kinds of animals and Adam gave them their name. And so
00:14:35.980 they were called. And then God saw that there was no suitable helper, no helpmate for Adam that was
00:14:43.240 suitable to him from among all the animals so God caused a deep sleep to come over Adam for it is not
00:14:49.820 good that man should be alone and God removed one of his ribs and from the rib not the dust of the
00:14:56.460 ground as God made Adam but from Adam himself God made woman woman was made from man and for man
00:15:06.380 as a helpmate suitable to man in helping him to carry out the commission that was assigned to him
00:15:15.080 by God to work and keep the ground to be fruitful and multiply and to exercise dominion and when
00:15:25.440 God woke Adam back up and he saw the woman the woman this is bone of my bone flesh of my flesh
00:15:34.000 And what we see is that Adam, later on, he gives, the Bible tells us, he names Eve.
00:15:41.000 In the same way that he names each of the different animals, because he has dominion
00:15:46.280 over them, he therefore has the right and authority to name them, he also names his
00:15:52.260 wife.
00:15:54.520 That's patriarchy.
00:15:57.380 God is a father.
00:15:58.660 We live in the father's world.
00:16:00.300 Adam was a father.
00:16:01.180 right even the devil is a father the father of lies john chapter 8 says you're not children of
00:16:09.100 abraham you're not children of god jesus says your children speaking to the pharisees you're
00:16:13.660 children of the devil you're a chip off the old block children bear a striking resemblance to
00:16:18.720 their father you look just like your father he was a murderer from the beginning and here you
00:16:22.560 are trying to murder me. Everyone has a daddy. It's either the devil or God. And in the human
00:16:31.220 sense, there are civil fathers, there are familial fathers in the home, and there are ecclesiastical
00:16:37.720 fathers in the church. Elders are to be men. And in that sense, elders play a role of spiritual
00:16:45.040 fatherhood. Fathers in the home, fathers in the church, fathers in the state. So human fathers
00:16:51.040 in each of the divinely instituted spheres and then father god reigning over all of that and
00:16:58.020 even the father of lies the devil who is father of all those who have not been adopted by grace
00:17:04.920 alone through faith alone in the lord jesus christ alone patriarchy is inevitable it's not whether
00:17:11.900 but which it's not whether you will be underneath fatherly rule that's what patriarchy means
00:17:18.520 fatherly rule. It is not whether fatherly rule will exist and whether or not you will participate
00:17:25.100 in it. It's simply which father will you have? Which father will you have? So the curse is not
00:17:34.080 patriarchy. The curse is a woman's aversion to patriarchy. And that's what we see in Jezebel.
00:17:42.620 So one, we see a domineering spirit. We see a feminist spirit. But in addition to that,
00:17:52.280 and these two things typically go hand in hand, not always, but typically, we also see perversion.
00:17:59.000 We see sensuality. We see sexual enticement. Jezebel uses her feminine power in order to
00:18:11.380 rule over men. God has given, men are powerful, but so are women, just in a different way.
00:18:20.880 God has given to women power. Women listening right now, you have a remarkable power given to
00:18:29.920 you. And you know this, and you need to be very careful in submission to God, not to abuse that
00:18:39.580 power and to use the power that he has given you for loving your husband serving your husband
00:18:47.600 pleasing your husband not to use that power to usurp fatherly rule not to use that power
00:18:55.220 to somehow entice your husband or hold sexual engagement over your husband's head or to seduce
00:19:04.280 God forbid other men who are not your husband, right? We preach all the time in the church,
00:19:10.340 right? Every Father's Day sermon is men do better. And every Mother's Day sermon is thank God for
00:19:14.920 mothers. I thank God for mothers. That's a good sermon. And on Father's Day, I think we could also
00:19:20.900 do thank God for fathers. I think both are good sermons. There are plenty of sermons that address
00:19:27.840 the sin of men, but not many sermons addressing the sin of women. But the Bible addresses the sin
00:19:35.660 of women. The only way you can avoid it as a pastor in your preaching is by not being an
00:19:39.760 expositional preacher, not preaching the Bible, right? The Proverbs are filled with verses about
00:19:47.600 dangerous seductive domineering feminist women right her her house is like a graveyard with
00:19:58.660 dead men's bones she's a man eater she's a man eater my son stay away from her the wayward woman
00:20:07.980 the loud woman right rather than being beautiful in the way that god defines beauty first peter
00:20:14.220 chapter three, a quiet and gentle spirit, an inward beauty, an imperishable beauty in the
00:20:21.100 sight of God. Instead of that, right, God sees beauty as an inward imperishable beauty of the
00:20:26.840 heart, which is defined as a quiet and gentle spirit. And what we see in our culture today,
00:20:32.240 and sadly, even in the church, is we see not gentle and quiet women, but loud women. They talk
00:20:39.920 loud. They talk a lot. They draw attention to themselves on social media and TikTok. They are
00:20:48.260 loud. The way that they dress, scoffing at modesty, they dress loud. Their speech is loud. Their dress
00:20:57.780 is loud. The way they walk, the way they talk, it's loud. It's look at me. It's the opposite of
00:21:04.720 a gentle and quiet woman. And therefore, it is like a gold ring in a pig's snout, as the Proverbs
00:21:12.240 also say, particularly of a woman who is not being quiet in her dress, that is not being modest,
00:21:19.980 that doesn't have discretion. A woman like that is beauty wasted. It's beauty wasted. It's something
00:21:28.840 precious and priceless misapplied completely thrown away completely cast off that's jezebel
00:21:40.000 domineering and seductive and in both ways we could say in her speech and behaviors and even
00:21:46.880 in her sexuality in her misuse of that power her abuse of that womanly sexual power in both regards
00:21:55.660 both her seduction and her speech and behaviors and wanting authority. In both ways, we could
00:22:02.840 define her in a single word. Jezebel is loud. She's a loud woman. And oh, how we have loud
00:22:14.400 women in the church today. First Corinthians chapter 14 says, it is shameful for a woman
00:22:20.940 to speak in church. And we do exegetical gymnastics like you wouldn't believe triple
00:22:28.160 backflips and aerials, somersaults and cartwheels to get out of that. Nope. The text says it is
00:22:35.340 shameful for a woman to speak in church. First Timothy chapter two, verses nine through 15.
00:22:42.600 women must learn quietly and in full submission i do not permit a woman to teach or exercise
00:22:52.060 authority over a man why because of a cultural issue happening right here in this time and place
00:22:58.980 nope because of a creation order the created order before sin ever even entered the world
00:23:06.680 this is God's patriarchal design it's his design so women should learn they should learn theology
00:23:15.660 they should learn the things of God and they should do so quietly they should do so submissively
00:23:21.820 they should do so humbly and according to first Peter 3 if they do so in all the ways I've just
00:23:28.440 named, they will be doing so beautifully, beautifully in the sight of God. We have loud
00:23:36.200 women in the church today, much like their mother Jezebel. And because they're loud, according to
00:23:42.460 scripture, they would also be what God would consider ugly. Instead of a quiet and gentle
00:23:49.260 spirit that is beautiful in the sight of God, we have loud domineering spirits that are, we can
00:23:55.660 only surmise implicitly from the text, ugly in the sight of God, a perishable beauty that is
00:24:03.900 fleeting, right? That external physical beauty that goes away. It doesn't last very long, right?
00:24:11.640 We all die ugly. Just give it a little while. We all eventually die and rot and decay. We all
00:24:18.260 eventually are ugly. And it's like the flower in the field. It's like the grass that withers. It's
00:24:24.700 like the dew in the morning that's gone by afternoon. It's fleeting like a vapor.
00:24:30.540 We have women who are loud and ugly instead of quiet and beautiful. Is it all women? Of course
00:24:38.960 not. Are there beautiful, precious women in the church? You betcha. You betcha. But there are also
00:24:46.980 Jezebel's. All right. So Ahab, a weak, pathetic boy, Jezebel functioning as his mom rather than
00:24:55.560 his wife, domineering and seductive, loud and ugly. And you have Elijah who is the prophet who
00:25:03.400 has his own problems. By the way, Elijah has his showdown at Mount Carmel against the prophets of
00:25:10.760 ball. And he wins by the grace and power of God. And he puts all those false prophets to death by
00:25:19.740 the sword and slits their throats. And then he gets scared and runs away. Scared of Jezebel.
00:25:30.700 God just answered by fire from heaven. And all of Israel, the people on the sidelines watching
00:25:38.980 that have been limping back and forth between two opinions, they now declare with a unified front
00:25:46.320 that the Lord is God. So you've got the people at your back. They're with you. And all the prophets
00:25:55.160 that Jezebel was harboring have been slain. And yet Jezebel makes one threat and Elijah runs.
00:26:06.320 he runs scared. Not Elijah's greatest moment. All right. So Ahab, Jezebel, Elijah, the fourth
00:26:15.240 player in the game, Jehu. Elijah is the prophet. Jehu is the king, the king in northern Israel.
00:26:26.120 Jehu comes into play. Verse 30, 2 Kings chapter 9, when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it.
00:26:35.180 And so what did she do? She knew she was in trouble. She tried to save her life by doing
00:26:42.540 what she had always done, using her power in an abusive, wicked way. She painted her eyes
00:26:49.920 and adorned her head and looked out the window. There's a lot right there. She doesn't go down
00:26:56.140 to meet him. She stays up in her fortified tower. She stays behind the defensive measures. She looks
00:27:04.660 from the window and she paints her eyes and adorns her hair trying to use her feminine beauty
00:27:12.640 to exercise dominance over jehu to dissuade him from what he's come to do verse 31 and as jehu
00:27:22.080 entered the gate she said is it peace you zimri murderer of your master well what is she saying
00:27:30.000 you're the troublemaker you're the you're the sinner you're the divisive one you're the one
00:27:37.280 causing problems you're the one who's done bad things not me you spoken like every squishy
00:27:47.040 evangelical over the last not just two years but five years six years i remember preaching
00:27:53.080 against critical race theory in 2018, I think. And tons of people in my church lost their minds,
00:28:03.340 lost their ever loving minds that I was the one who was being critical, that I was the one who
00:28:11.420 was being quarrelsome. And I've gone back. I mean, the sermon is recorded. You can find it
00:28:15.400 on Right Response Ministries. It's a great sermon. I regret nothing. I recant nothing.
00:28:23.080 but we lost dozens of people as I preached on that. And it was in the middle of my first Timothy
00:28:29.660 series. Some of you guys have heard me mention this series where I lost 40 people in my church
00:28:33.820 and my church was only 180 adults at the time. So pretty big chunk right there, almost a quarter
00:28:38.880 of the church. We lost a ton of people for saying critical race theory is a bad idea
00:28:44.400 and complementarianism shouldn't just be in the home and the church, but I also don't think that
00:28:51.600 women should be serving in combat roles in the military i kid you not 40 people because of that
00:28:58.400 and and to my shame right i mean those 40 people shouldn't have been in the church in the first
00:29:06.140 place what does that say about me right i admit that's my failure god was reforming me and as he
00:29:12.460 was reforming me i was repenting of my sin and my idolatry as a pastor but then what am i going to
00:29:18.200 do? Reform in my private life? Be sanctified in my private life, but then leave the people to starve?
00:29:25.360 Because I know that it's hard and I know that some of them won't like? No. Everything that the Lord
00:29:30.020 was feeding me with, I want to feed the sheep with, right? That's one way you could define a
00:29:34.880 good pastor. Many ways that you could talk about this, but one way you could define a good pastor
00:29:38.380 is number one, that he's going to Christ on a daily basis for daily bread. And he doesn't
00:29:46.260 withhold any of the bread he's given personally by Christ from the sheep in his flock. There's no
00:29:54.320 bread that Christ has given to me that I don't give to my congregation. In my counsel, in my
00:30:02.260 preaching, in all of my ministry duties, whatever God is revealing to me, whatever grace he is
00:30:09.020 extending to me, I am giving to his people. I am giving to the flock. As an under shepherd,
00:30:15.340 as the chief shepherd nourishes me, I nourish his flock. That's what Jesus says to Peter at the end
00:30:23.000 of the gospel of John, right? When Jesus is restoring Peter, after Peter denied him three
00:30:27.760 times, Jesus is restoring him. He said, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Do you love me? Feed my
00:30:34.680 lambs. Do you love me? Feed my sheep. What does it look like for a pastor to love Jesus?
00:30:40.540 feeding his sheep. And therefore, by way of consequence, what does it mean when a pastor
00:30:48.060 takes specific food groups, to use this analogy, like meat or vegetables or fruit or grain and
00:30:58.500 says, I'll feed your sheep. But this food group over here, we're just going to take that off the
00:31:06.120 menu. There won't be any vegetables in their diet. Because I've noticed that when I feed
00:31:13.420 your sheep vegetables, they get a lot of regurgitation and they start vomiting on each
00:31:20.460 other and me. So we'll just take vegetables out of their diet. I'm sure they'll be fine.
00:31:29.280 The analogy breaks down because I'm not really sure what sheep eat, little sheep,
00:31:33.180 but you get my point. And pastors don't have the right to do that. We give the people of God
00:31:38.820 exactly what God gives us, well-balanced meals. Every food group that we need,
00:31:46.480 every nutrients that we need represented and present and accounted for. That's what we do.
00:31:54.700 But I get it. I understand the temptation of pastors to avoid this form of faithfulness
00:32:02.200 because of the outright demonic reaction i mean shrieking and wailing and gnashing of teeth
00:32:11.280 that comes from evangelicals within the church whenever we address certain sins primarily
00:32:18.800 the sin that is unique among women a jezebel spirit there's a lot of different idols that
00:32:30.480 you can go in and tear down. And nobody likes when you tear down idols, but you can get away
00:32:38.460 with a lot of that reform, a lot of that reformation. But you start calling out Jezebel,
00:32:46.340 that particular adulteress, that pagan, that troubler. Brace yourself. Brace yourself.
00:32:57.100 all right verse 31 jehu enters the gate jezebel says you're the troubler you're a murderer of
00:33:04.780 your master verse 32 he lifted up his face to the window and said who is on my side who
00:33:12.380 he's not speaking to jezebel he's speaking past jezebel he's speaking to the people who's on my
00:33:23.240 side he's not even acknowledging her so she throws out a false accusation he doesn't even
00:33:30.820 engage it notice that he's not even dealing with it's just what you're saying is so slanderous
00:33:37.040 so ridiculous i'm not even going to to dignify it with a response he speaks right past jezebel
00:33:45.300 says who's on my side another way to put it who is not on the side of this witch
00:33:54.900 you know what she's saying is slander you've known it all along who is going to finally
00:34:02.460 take a stand and stop tolerating what god hates who will do it
00:34:10.380 two or three eunuchs looked out at him two or three eunuchs behind past Jezebel
00:34:20.380 also looked out the window that she's looking out and look at Jehu and he said not to her
00:34:28.940 but to them throw her down and so they threw her down out of the window and some of her blood
00:34:39.980 splattered on the wall and on the horses and they trampled on her. Then he went in and ate and drank
00:34:48.360 and he said, see now to this cursed woman and bury her for she is a king's daughter. But when they
00:34:55.920 went out to bury her, so he's saying she's a cursed woman, she's wicked, she needed to die, but she is
00:35:01.940 the king's daughter, we'll give her a burial. But when they went out to bury her,
00:35:09.020 they found no more of her than her skull and the feet and the palms of her hands.
00:35:16.020 When they came back and told him, he said, this is the word of the Lord, which he spoke by his
00:35:22.080 servant, Elijah, the Tishbite in the territory of Jezreel. The dog shall eat the flesh of Jezebel
00:35:29.220 and the corpse of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the field in the territory of Jezreel
00:35:36.260 so that no one can say this is Jezebel and her corpse would be unrecognizable ripped to shreds
00:35:45.060 and the majority of it eaten and digested by the dogs precisely what she deserves
00:35:53.340 because that's how we deal with sin.
00:35:58.220 I've used this illustration a ton of times,
00:36:01.040 but I think it's fantastic
00:36:02.680 and it always gives me a bit of a chuckle,
00:36:05.380 so I'll use it again.
00:36:07.340 Batman and Joker.
00:36:10.900 Joker keeps causing trouble.
00:36:14.200 Batman, he beats him again and again and again.
00:36:19.320 But at some point as a little kid,
00:36:21.440 I remember just thinking, Batman, why won't you just kill Joker? You keep subduing him.
00:36:30.520 You keep making sure that he's imprisoned. But we know that in the case of Joker, there's no reform.
00:36:38.960 He's not a good guy deep down who's going to eventually come around and mend his ways.
00:36:45.040 the only way to truly neutralize the threat of joker is to put them down not just put them away
00:36:54.120 but put them down kill joker and so it is with sin so it is in the christian life with idolatry
00:37:04.740 We are called not to subdue and not to quarantine, not to manage, not to imprison, not to quarter, but to mortify sin.
00:37:23.780 Kill sin.
00:37:26.680 The Puritans said, be killing sin or it will be killing you.
00:37:31.940 The reason why we tolerate sinners is because we tolerate in our own hearts sin.
00:37:40.320 The reason why we tolerate people like Jezebel is because we, at some extent, are tolerating some of those very same sins that give birth to the terror of someone like Jezebel.
00:37:58.240 And so what you need is this.
00:38:00.440 I'll finish the question with this. What you need, I think, is number one, you need a team.
00:38:08.120 There are multiple players in this equation. Jezebel would not have been the terror that she
00:38:13.140 was. She would have been just as wicked of a woman, but her wickedness would have been more
00:38:17.560 restrained in terms of what she was able to do, the wickedness she was able to accomplish,
00:38:23.000 if it wasn't for her position, her proximity to the king and a weak king at that, King Ahab.
00:38:33.100 So one of the things that we need to do if we're going to deal with Jezebel in the church
00:38:38.600 is we need to deal with Ahabs that empower her. Guys who would never actually say the garbage
00:38:49.020 that she says out loud, but they are the ones responsible for creating the protections that
00:39:00.020 allow her to say what she says, right? The Ahabs. There are Ahabs in the SBC. There are Ahabs in the
00:39:10.780 PCA. There are Ahabs in the Gospel Coalition. They're also just flat out Marxists in the
00:39:18.240 gospel coalition, but some of them, they're not Marxists, but they're Ahabs that make provisions
00:39:24.260 for the Marxist, right? So one, you got to deal with Ahab in order to deal with Jezebel.
00:39:33.940 Two, you need prophets, kings, and eunuchs. Prophets, kings, and eunuchs. You need an Elijah,
00:39:46.240 but you also need a Jehu. Notice Elijah, he knew that Jezebel was wrong and Elijah was used by God,
00:39:55.440 by the spirit of God to get a lot of progress on that particular issue. He cried out against both
00:40:02.460 Ahab and Jezebel and he ultimately was the one who God used to put all of Jezebel's henchmen,
00:40:10.240 the prophets of Baal to death, and he won the people of Israel back over. So Elijah was used
00:40:17.440 by God to do a lot, but the death blow delivered to Jezebel herself so that she couldn't regroup
00:40:24.520 and become a terror again in the future was not the prophet, but the king, Jehu.
00:40:31.420 we can't just have prophets we need prophets oh my don't misunderstand me we need more prophets
00:40:40.680 they are willing to speak unapologetically the word of god and to speak it boldly to speak it
00:40:48.780 publicly but we also need kings and what i mean by that is we need christian men in positions
00:40:56.940 of leadership that will actually listen to the prophets and do what they say.
00:41:04.660 See, one of my concerns is, I mean, I'll look at Twitter, you know, or I'll look at YouTube,
00:41:08.920 or I'll look at, you know, all these different, you know, platforms and by God's grace, there's
00:41:14.020 still not a lot of us, but God is raising up some prophets, right? You got A.D. Robles,
00:41:19.740 you got John Harris, you know, you've got guys in this sphere of evangelicalism who are sounding
00:41:27.940 the alarm and speaking truth. But a lot of these guys, like John Harris and A.D. and myself,
00:41:36.120 don't have a whole lot of institutional power and leadership.
00:41:41.960 One of the reasons we put our finger on Big Eva is because we're not a part of it.
00:41:45.740 we're not headline speakers at their conferences we don't have a seat on the board at gospel
00:41:52.300 coalition nor would we want it we don't pastor large churches ad and john actually don't pastor
00:41:57.760 at all but i don't pastor a large church we're prophets but you also need kings
00:42:04.440 right and and the prayer is not just for common grace kings for lack of a better phrase right
00:42:15.060 Like King Cyrus, King Cyrus is the one who funded the rebuilding of Jerusalem in the
00:42:21.240 temple, but he wasn't necessarily a Christian himself.
00:42:25.280 So he was willing to use his kingly power and position to fund righteous deeds, but
00:42:34.760 it's doubtful that an unregenerate king like Cyrus, who in God's common grace was willing
00:42:41.360 to fund righteousness, it's doubtful that he would punish wickedness. That takes, in most cases,
00:42:51.000 a regenerate king, a Christian king, someone who is willing, who is led by the Spirit of God,
00:43:00.180 submitted to the Word of God, convicted, and willing to listen to the Elijahs, the prophets,
00:43:06.740 and then execute his Jehu kingly power to actually put down all the idols and all the
00:43:20.200 priests and priestess in these false pagan deities like Jezebel. The last piece of the puzzle,
00:43:29.260 you need prophets like Elijah, you need kings like Jehu, but you also need eunuchs.
00:43:33.380 Jehu gives an order to the people. He doesn't climb up and grab Jezebel himself and cast her
00:43:42.280 down. So you have Elijah who gives the word of the Lord, the prophet. You have Jehu the king
00:43:50.380 who gives the order to the people. But then you have the people themselves that actually kill
00:43:56.960 jezebel it's the people themselves until the people get it the people are the ones who have
00:44:04.360 to say no more tolerating jezebel i'll just be real frank you will not get rid of beth moore
00:44:12.320 until the people in the pews of the sbc say we've had enough
00:44:17.900 so you need kings and institutions like al moeller to make a stand and you need prophets that they
00:44:28.600 are prophets in the sbc but to actually be listened to but then you need eunuchs notice
00:44:34.260 it's the people but a particular kind of people eunuchs what's unique about a eunuch as it relates
00:44:41.340 to Jezebel. Jezebel is a seductress and eunuchs are invulnerable to her seduction.
00:44:51.080 It has no power over them. They can't be bought. They can't be tempted. They can't be deceived.
00:45:00.060 They can't be bribed. They can't be seduced. They can't be won over. They will not tolerate
00:45:08.520 wickedness. And they're the ones in the final analysis that pick that woman Jezebel up and
00:45:18.120 throw her down to the dogs on the ground. We need prophets like Elijah. We've got some,
00:45:26.000 but oh, how we need kings like Jehu that'll listen to those prophets and partner with them.
00:45:32.680 And you, listener, we need faithful Christians in the pews who can resist sinners like Jezebel
00:45:43.260 because they themselves, in their own pursuit of holiness and sanctification, have not been
00:45:49.860 harboring the sin of Jezebel in their own hearts. Meaning, it's not a coincidence that eunuchs
00:45:57.160 throw Jezebel down from the window. You know who doesn't throw Jezebel down from the window?
00:46:01.300 people in the SBC sitting in the pews that in secret have been using porn.
00:46:07.140 There you go. That's real clear.
00:46:12.160 Whatever sinner you see causing trouble for the people of God, Israel,
00:46:18.460 you cannot effectively address it if that very same sin is harbored in your own heart,
00:46:24.860 just to a lesser degree. Thanks so much for listening. But real quick, before you go,
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