Overcoming Evil in the Last Days by Rick Joyner

Author:Rick Joyner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Comparative Religion, Religion, Christian Life, General
ISBN: 9780768496222
Publisher: Destiny Image, Inc.
Published: 1991-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

OTHER MASKS OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT

What is popularly called the “Jezebel spirit” is a form of the religious spirit. Just as Jezebel was the ambitious and manipulative wife of King Ahab—a weak leader who allowed her to dictate policy in his kingdom—the Jezebel spirit will usually be found supplanting weak leadership. The Jezebel spirit usually gains its dominion by making political alliances and often uses a deceptively humble and submissive demeanor in order to manipulate. However, once this spirit gains authority, it will usually manifest a strong control spirit and shameless presumption. Despite its name, this spiritual problem is not limited to women.

Jezebel “calls herself a prophetess” (Rev. 2:20). Often one of the telltale signs of false prophets who are operating in a religious spirit is that they are preoccupied with their own recognition. To the degree that self-seeking and the need for recognition abides within us, our ministry will be corrupted. Those who are easily offended because they are not given an important title or position should never be accepted by that title or given that position. The key difference between those motivated by a desire for recognition and those motivated by love for the Lord is the difference between the false prophet and the true. As we read in John 7:17-18, those who seek their own recognition speak from themselves, but those who are seeking the recognition of the One who sent them are true.

Demanding recognition for herself, Jezebel serves as the enemy of the true prophetic ministry. Jezebel was the greatest enemy of one of the Old Covenant’s most powerful prophets, Elijah, whose ministry especially typified preparing the way for the Lord. The Jezebel spirit is one of the most potent forms of the religious spirit, which seeks to keep the Church and the world from being prepared for the return of the Lord.

The Jezebel spirit especially attacks the prophetic ministry because that ministry has an important place in preparing the way for the Lord. This is why John the Baptist was persecuted by a personification of Jezebel in the wife of Herod (see Mark 6:14-29). The prophetic ministry is the primary vehicle through which the Lord gives timely, strategic direction to His people. Jezebel knows that removing the true prophets will make the people vulnerable to her false prophets, which always results in idolatry and spiritual adultery.

When there is a void of hearing the true voice of the Lord, the people will be much more susceptible to the deceptions of the enemy. This is why Jesus called the religious leaders of His own day “blind guides” (Matt. 23:16 NKJV). These men, who knew the Messianic prophecies better than anyone else in the world, looked into the face of the One who perfectly fulfilled those prophecies and thought that He was sent from Beelzebub.

Jezebel’s prophets of Baal were also given to sacrifice, even to the point of cutting and flailing themselves while seeking the manifestation of their god. A primary strategy of the religious spirit is

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