Transcript

Grab your Bibles and go to Colossians 3. Colossians 3. You know, I was just thinking that if you were to go out into the world today and say, “You know, as a husband, I’m devoted to work hard out here in the world so that I can support my wife so she can stay home and be a homemaker, and I come out here in the world and I work hard because I want to put her first. She’s my one-and-only and I want to be a protector for her and I want to protect my children, I want to make sure there’s a mortgage that’s paid, there are automobiles that are provided, there’s a retirement fund for her if something happens to me.” If you just basically said that the things that a biblical Christian husband should be about, almost no one in the world would refute that. Think about that, even the liberals would kind of, “Well, yeah, okay, that’s good.” But now take the role of a woman, the biblical role of a woman, ladies, you can’t even start one word of one verse of the Bible before the spirit of this age rages and rails and reviles against you. The role of the godly woman is under the most unrelenting, unbelievable, malicious attack. I mean, ladies, my heart goes out to the ladies today because Satan is doing a number on ladies and the church has in many ways just surrendered and just thrown in the towel on this. Now we have not, not saying that we don’t have growing and repenting and learning to do, of course we do but we’ve not thrown in the towel on it.

Most of you know the name Megyn Kelly. Megyn Kelly was with Fox News and I watch too much Fox News, some of you do too. You need to turn even Fox News off sometimes and read more of the Good News, amen? It’ll depress you because remind yourself when you hear all this stuff, it’s a 24 hour news cycle, they’ve got to take everything they can and spin it every way they can to make it interesting. So they have ways of making things something they’re not. I remember many many many years ago coming back, I was at the Southern Baptist Convention, and there might have been, I’m not exaggerating, there might have been eight people protesting at the Southern Baptist Convention because we were defining marriage as one man and one woman and we were against gay marriage. There might have been eight protesters. Well, I watched on the news that night and the way they spun it and the way they put their cameras, you’d think there was 50,000 protesters out there. There is a giant hoop light. It was nothing, really, and that goes on and on and on, just to say that don’t listen and believe everything you hear by the news media.

But anyway, Megyn Kelly was on there and she’s fairly conservative. I would disagree with her on some points but, boy, is she a powerful person, assertive and confident and kind of a hard veneer to her personality and I don’t know where I heard it, but I ran across an interview with her first husband. She’s been divorced and her first husband was a surgeon if I remember correctly. He’s a surgeon and quite prominent in the medical field and they asked him, they said, “You were married to Megyn Kelly. A beautiful woman,” and he said, “Yes,” and he didn’t seem bitter or ugly spirited about it, and they said, “Well, why did you guys break up?” You ever have a time when you hear something and you never get over it, it just kind of sticks with you? This was one of those times. I wasn’t even looking for this. I don’t know where the article was but when I read this, I’ve never gotten over it. Here’s what he said, he said, “Megyn and I both needed a wife. I had a demanding career that engulfed me and took so much of my energy and my time and I needed a helpmeet, I needed a support, I needed a wife. But Megyn also had a demanding career and something she was passionate about so we were just two heads going in different directions and we both needed support, and since she decided she was going to do her thing and I was already doing my thing, there wasn’t a wife for both of us.” I don’t know that I should say this but it looks like she’s now married her a wife. Are you with me here this morning? She found her little husband/wife and then he got him a wife, looks like.

Here’s my point: when we try to rearrange what God’s ordained, it never does work. It just doesn’t work. Marriage and the home is designed and ordained of God and the home is the keystone in the arch of society and it was the first institution created by God. God ordained the home before the church and before government. He did it in the garden of Eden when he gave Eve to Adam to be Adam’s helpmeet. Our God is a God of order and structure. Now listen to me: God is axiomatic, he is absolute, he cannot err. He does not evolve and he does not change and everything he says and everything he’s ordained is right and true and he gave order and structure to the family and this order and structure is essential for the well-being of the home and the family, it is essential for the well-being of the individual, it’s essential for the well-being of the society or the culture. You find a place where they have thrown in the towel on a biblical approach to marriage and you’ll find the society disintegrating. It just begins to fall apart. It’s no coincidence that the greatest crime areas in our nation are areas where 70-80% of the homes have no father present. Now the government steps in and their liberal policies and the government becomes a surrogate father in many ways and a surrogate husband in many ways, but God didn’t ordained the government to do that. That’s the dad’s job to do that. You can’t improve on God’s structure. You can’t improve on the ordinances of God. And not only is this honoring God’s order and structure for the home necessary for the well-being of the family, the individual and the culture at large, it’s essential for God’s glory. You see, when God saves you, when God changes you through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, something has changed inside of you where you have a new desire to begin to prove to the world God’s wisdom revealed in Scripture is true and right and everything else is a lie. Now my job is to proclaim that but all of our jobs is to live that out.

So on Mother’s Day, I preached to fathers and on Father’s Day today, I’m going to preach to mothers, alright? That’s where we are. Now be mindful that Satan as I illustrated earlier about he’s unrelentingly attacking Christian ladies today, his desire always is to usurp God’s authority and mar God’s glory, and Satan can have no greater strategy than to weaken marriage and weaken the family because if the home fails, society crumbles.

When we get to this role of the wife in Colossians 3:18, you’ve got to understand again as I’ve said to you many many many many times, when you get to the practical instructions of an epistle like Colossians or like Ephesians that we’ve been looking at primarily on Sunday nights, you’ve got to remember the foundation stone has already been laid of the glories and the wonders of Jesus Christ in his saving work. That has to be there. Now ladies, are you listening this morning? If you are not sure you’ve truly had the new birth, if you’ve not been changed and saved by the power of God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then none of this will work. The last thing we need is a bunch of proud pharisaical women trying to put this on in the power of their flesh. This must be lived out in the power of the changed life, the new heart, the new Spirit-empowered man inside of you ladies that only Jesus Christ can put there.

So Colossians 3:18 as Paul gets to this part of the book and he is laying out these practical guidelines on how born-again changed people should live in the culture, he simply says to the wives, verse 18, Colossians 3,

18 Wives, be subject to your husbands [some translations will put the word ‘to your own husbands’ and I think that fits the spirit of the text], as is fitting in the Lord.

So Paul is giving these principles that govern the lifestyle of the child of God and now for the wife’s role, he makes one simple statement. Now other parts of the New Testament, we’re going to look at those briefly, they give a lot more descriptives about the role of the wife or the role of the mother but Paul for this application to the church at Colossae gives the one primary foundational aspect and that is, “Wives, be submissive, be in subjection to your own husbands.” That’s fitting in the Lord because everything builds on that. Everything starts there as far as the outworking of how God has called ladies to live in the culture.

Now, I. we’re just going to outline it the way the text outlines it, “Wives, be subject.” This concept of wives being subject is a military concept, actually. It means that wives now that their hearts are changed – now listen, this is so important – you are not under the arm twisting drudgery of oppressiveness, of oppressively making you do this. Paul’s point is now you voluntarily do what as a lost lady you would have abhorred to try to do. God has changed you. You now recognize God’s word is wise and the world’s lies are not wise.

So this isn’t a forceful thing. Husbands are not allowed to force their wives in subjection. Absolutely not. This is a voluntary submission but it is clear. This is the same word the Bible uses when it requires that all Christians be subject, submissive to the governing authorities: the police officers, the civil magistrates, unless of course they are asking us to violate Scripture. That’s what he says in Romans 13:1, “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities.” The Bible also tells us that all of us are to be subject to Christ. Same word. All of us are to line up under. There is a sense in which a lady lines herself up under her husband and conforms to what God’s called him to do and what God is leading him to do, just as we line ourselves up under Christ. So we want to be conformed to you. The same Greek word used in all of these instances.

Now, sometimes ladies will say, “Well, that’s just dated. That’s cultural to the Apostle Paul’s day,” but that simply is not true. We have several thoughts here and if you go and put the first one up there, Tommy, how this is so thoroughly scriptural. It’s all throughout the Scriptures. I hope I’ve got my order right here with our screens and we’ll make it work either way. But just get the gist of these verses.

1 Corinthians 11:3, the Bible says, “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” Very clear as he writes to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 14:34 let, “The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.” Now the Greek word here for “speak” does not mean a woman cannot speak. I don’t know of a setting when we’ve had an open floor when we have not allowed a lady to speak. That’s not what it’s saying, it’s saying she is not to be contentious and boisterous and domineering and taking over the meeting. It’s that spirit that was common among the pagan ladies of the day. That does not befit a Christian lady. Certainly she can speak but she is not to speak with an authoritative and demeaning tone, a taking control kind of tone. I believe that’s where that text is coming from.

It’s thorough in the Scriptures. The Bible says in Titus 2:5 women are “to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.” What does that mean, be subject to your own husband that the word of God might not be dishonored? Here’s what it means: God has written his law in every person’s heart and the ordinances of God are just intrinsically anchored in the soul of every person made in the image of of God, every human being, and so even though those who rebel against God’s ordinances and rebel against God’s truth, deep down in their heart of hearts something says to them, “I know that’s right.” It’s just in them and so I believe that’s one of the reasons why the loudest ranters and revilers in our culture today are the flaming feminists. Do you know why? There trying every way they can to drown out the noise of conscience. God put it in there. They know God’s ordained order does not fit the direction they’re going and they want it to be silenced. The point is when a Christian lady goes out into the world and she says to the world, “I accept the Bible as the authority of God and I accept the Bible as revealing the ordinances of God, the orders of God for our lifestyles,” when you live contrary to that, even the heathen know you’re not acting right. The doctrine is being dishonored. Now they like to cut it both ways. On the one hand they’ll rant, revile and sneer at you and many other things for saying you believe the biblical truths, on the other hand, they secretly if not vocally will say, “But we expect you to live that way. We’re going to condemn you for doing it but we really expect you to do it.” I’ll never forget watching Larry King, do y’all remember Larry King? He used to interview folks on TV. He was interviewing Joel Osteen, clown meets clown, and of all things, secular and I guess unbeliever Larry King basically says to Joel Osteen, “Where is repentance? Where’s sin in your message? You don’t seem to talk about that.” You could tell by the way Larry was saying it, it was like, “I don’t agree with those things but aren’t you supposed to be telling us all that stuff?” There was something in him that he knew this wasn’t right. This new false Gospel that Joel Osteen’s of the world preach is not right. Even the heathens see it and, ladies, they see it when you conduct yourself as a willful lifestyle of dishonoring the headship of your husband. In their heart of hearts, even the heathen are saying, “That’s not right. That’s not right.” Now let me just say a word of balance here. I shouldn’t have to say it, you should understand that’s what I mean. Obviously there are abuse situations, mistreatments, we never stand for that, amen? That’s not what we’re talking about. That’s violating other biblical truths and that has to be dealt with and never ask a lady to stay under that. But it’s the rebellious spirit that Paul is writing against here.

“Wives, be subject.” The Bible is so thorough on this point. 1 Peter 3:6, let’s go to 1 Peter 3:5 and 6, “For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves,” what was their adornment? Their adornment was being submissive to their own husbands. “Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.” Someone wrote that men are more tempted to become angry but ladies are more tempted to become afraid, and that’s where Satan gets ladies, he puts fear in their soul, “If I honor God, it’s going to turn out bad. If I honor God, I’m going to be hurt. If I honor God, my children are going to miss out.” So the Scripture clearly says, “Be like Sarah who honored Abraham, who didn’t deserve to be honored but he had the position of headship in the home, and she honored him and God worked mighty things for Sarah’s favor because of that. Be like Sarah,” he says.

This was God’s ordinance from the very beginning. God ordained this before the fall into sin. 1 Timothy 2:11 through 13, let “A woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.” That’s the word again, submit, subjection. “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” And then Paul says, here’s why, verse 13, “For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.” There is an order to the way God set things up. A male person is not superior to a woman, he has a different role and responsibility than a woman. And a woman is certainly not superior to a man, she has a different role and responsibility than a man does. This is God’s ordinance established before the fall.

II. Not only to be subject, it’s fitting in the Lord. It’s fitting. Very simply, it’s the necessary duty of a follower of Jesus Christ. Ladies, it’s really this simple: embrace this truth out of the heart God has given you to love him and his truth, or denounce your loyalty to Jesus Christ. It’s fitting, it’s right. There is no other right and fitting approach to those who belong to the Lord. In other words, this practice fits your profession. A married woman submits to a heavenly Christ expressing that through a visible and actual submission to an earthly husband.

Now you might ask the question as you’re looking at this part of Colossians as the Apostle Paul is getting down to the brass tacks of everyday life and he’s dealing with the home now and he begins with the woman’s role. He didn’t begin with the man, he began with a woman’s role. “Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.” I think it’s likely and a lot of scholars agree with this, it’s likely to restrain an unbalanced view of Gospel liberation. You see, the Gospel brought true liberation to these Greek women. Women were horribly abused under the old Greek Roman system. Most husbands of any means had a wife and then he had his concubines and both of them were not much more than a piece of property, but then the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes and it’s applied equally to men and to women. That was radical. “You mean our wife is going to get in on this too?” Yes, the Gospel elevated them equal to you before the eyes of God. Different roles in society, everybody can’t be the quarterback, everybody can’t be the head coach. We live in a day when everybody gets a trophy and is one of the worst things that ever happened. Your children need to learn to go on and be productive and be thankful and serve the Lord and be diligent in their efforts whether they won the trophy or not. Everybody shouldn’t get a trophy. But wives were wonderfully liberated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I’ll skip that, but anyway, what was happening, some of the ladies as is true with about all of us, when they first learn a glorious liberating truth, they get unbalanced and they are prone to excess. Have you ever heard the phrase that when somebody first comes to embrace the doctrines of grace, the sovereignty of God in salvation, we need to lock them in a room somewhere for two or three years? Because everywhere they’ll go they’ll talk about election and predestination and they get so out of balance. They’re excited, they mean well, but they just misuse it. Well, that’s what scholars say was likely happening in the church at Colossae. They had in effect, as Jude 4 says, turned the grace of God into licentiousness, turned it into a permission to go too far. So that’s what was likely happening, in their immaturity, they were turning this new liberation and freedom into an opportunity for the flesh and they were beginning to reject God’s order and structure for the home and for marriage and that’s a very common thing to happen. We can remind ourselves as Christians, a child comes to Jesus Christ and they are equal in standing before God as mom and dad are but they don’t stop being a child under the authority of their parents. Amen? And so it is for ladies.

Liberation always must bring with it responsibility. Liberation must always bring with it responsibility. An example would be our founding fathers after the Continental Congress someone asked these founding fathers, “What have you ordained?” And one of them said, “A Republic if you can keep it.” You’ve just gained great new freedoms, you’re no longer under the dictates of an absolute monarchy in Great Britain, you’ve got a great new freedom but can you keep it? Can you be restrained and disciplined and responsible in your behavior so there will not be a need for another absolute dictator just to keep things in order? Liberation and freedom requires responsibility. You see, liberation or freedom – listen – is not the right to do what you want, it’s the freedom or liberation to do what you ought. Women are empowered today who know Jesus Christ. Women are set free today who know Jesus Christ. Women who know Jesus Christ are liberated from the slavery to the world and Satan’s lies and bondage. They are liberated to take the great blessed truths of the word of God and apply them to their lives. They are liberated from the bondage to the lies to honor and understand the truth. That’s true female empowerment.

One of the most powerful entities on earth is a godly Christian lady who honors her husband, who understands that principle of submission, and does so with dignity, joy and strength. The world can’t get that. The world hates that. They don’t know how that works. I’ll say a little bit more about this in a moment.

Are you listening to me, ladies? Have you looked very closely at how these old feminists end up? Have you looked at them? Have you looked at them? That stuff doesn’t end well. It just does not end up well. Hard. Bitter. Caustic. The ugliest being in the universe is Hillary Clinton. You can tell her I said that, and I don’t just mean her physical makeup, I mean the woman’s spirit is death on a stick. It’s like, dear God, get me away from this. I can’t stand it. It’s just so, aw, the bitter, the vitriol, the hatred, the envy, the jealousy. You say, “Well, Bill Clinton’s been quite the rounder.” Well, God knows how to punish him, doesn’t he?

You see, that is kind of comical but, brothers and sisters, I’m not making this up. You open your eyes, open your ears and you see it. Oh, but my goodness, what a blessing the world is not worthy to understand to see a lady in her senior years sweet, content, loving Jesus, has honored her husband and is at peace with God and her family and the world and the church. That’s the most beautiful blessed picture I know, especially if they can cook good. That’s not in the text so that’s just Jeff Noblit, alright? It doesn’t hurt anything, by the way.

So this liberation that these Colossian women were experiencing was most likely being carried too far and Paul said, “Wait a minute, you’re perverting the doctrine of your liberation. Your children will get to rebel against you now that they are free in Christ Jesus from the law and, ladies, you don’t get to leave the headship of your husband because you are free in Christ Jesus. Let’s get back to God’s order so that we’ll not avert the doctrine and show something with our lives that is not true in the text.”

Number 3, III. Your own husband. Other texts point this out, I believe it’s strongly implied in this text. In other words, ladies, you are to subject yourself – now ladies, don’t turn me off this morning, listen to me – you are to subject yourselves to the one and only human being who is bound by a sacred duty back to you. Did you get that? I’ve never told you it’s sin for a lady to have a job outside of her home but I do think more of you need to pray that through and find out where that lands. But that guy you’re answering to in the office or at the factory is not bound by God to love you like Christ loves the church, and God is not bound to discipline him if he doesn’t do it, but your husband is. You want to see God – listen – you want to see God tear a man’s tail up? Yeah, I said it because I mean it. I’m talking like we are at the deer camp this morning. You want to see God tear a guy up? You let his wife love Jesus and honor him when he doesn’t deserve it and you watch God tear him up.

You ladies are so powerful and you don’t even know it. You’re so powerful and you throw it away listening to the lies of Gloria Steinem and the rest of the filthy reprobates who dishonor God’s truth claiming they want to help you. They don’t want to help you, they want you to join in their rebellion so they don’t feel so guilty. Are you with me? That’s what they’re doing. Scream and cry and yell and march in the streets, put on perverse human genitalia and march in the streets and join our vileness so we don’t feel so bad about it. That’s what they’re doing and that’s why they are crashing in on the church today. That’s why the Southern Baptist Convention is leaning over to accommodating this nonsense because they are putting pressure pressure pressure and we need some men of God to say, “We’re not moving! We’re the bookends. That’s what we are. Where the book is not clear, we’ll have some charity and some flexibility but where God is clear, we will not be moved. Period.” Did I make that clear?

Ladies have such power. That’s the one you are to submit to but do you know what? Your husband has a task you know not of. Are you listening to me? Since he’s your head, he represents you before the civil magistrates. He bears the burden of submitting to governing authorities because he’s over the whole family. He bears the primary responsibility of submitting to church authority because he’s the head of the family. He bears the responsibility to submit to the employer because he’s responsible to provide for the family. So God says, “I’ve given you one, I’ve given him at least three.” No, but we get smarter than God and we get kind of out of balance on these things and it’s hard to see the wisdom in it when we do that. He is the one who is required by God to act toward his wife according to God’s instructions, never as a lord or a tyrant but as a devoted husband who puts her first and makes sure she understands that she is his one-and-only. She is first place in his life.

It’s interesting to me that the feminist will submit to everyone except her husband. She’ll submit to the so-called professor in the university as he propagates his false doctrine about what life is and marriage is and how our country should be run. She’ll submit to her employer. She’ll submit to the civil authorities. None of these are commanded by God to love her like Christ loves the church. Professing to be wise, she’s become a fool.

You ladies get on your knees and say, “God, I blow it a lot but I’m going to do what your word says because you’ve changed my heart and I believe this is wise. Now God, you keep him right.” Watch what God will do. I’ve lived out that truth here. I’ve tried to lead you biblically and I’ve gotten on my knees and said, “God, now keep them right. Give them a heart for what we’re about.” And he has done that. The Bible says God can move the king’s heart like rivers of water and he can move a husband’s heart wherever he wants it to be moved.

Conclusions for practical application. We’ll not be long here. What if a wife rebels against this truth? Well, first of all, she is destroying her own home. She destroys her own home. The Bible says in Proverbs, what is it, Proverbs 14:1, that a foolish woman tears down her own house with her own hands. You begin to destroy with your own hands what God has given you.

The second conclusion here if a woman rebels: it leads the children to rebellion. It leads your children. It puts an awful temptation on the children to rebel because the Bible says you can’t serve two masters and when a child comes home and dad is supposed to be in charge but mom keeps taking charge, that child doesn’t know who is in charge and there is just something intrinsic in a child that wants to rebel and he can say, “Well, mom rebels against God-ordained authority, I think I will too. I think I’ll rebel against my parents. I think I’ll rebel against the police. I think I’ll rebel against the norms of society because mom discipled us that way.” You force a child to honor one and dishonor the other, but when a father is the head, always he should counsel with his wife and take her input and then they should come to a decision but he’s the head and the primary responsible one before God to make those decisions, and then the child looks at mom and dad as one single mind: mom, dad, God, and there is no room for rebellion. They can’t pit one against the other.

The third thought: it hinders your husband’s response to God. When you are a rebel to being in subjection to your husband, you hinder your husband’s spiritual development. You see, ladies, God has given you a powerful place. Take up your power as a godly woman. 1 Peter 3:1 and 2, “In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.” God says, “I will use your honoring of your head, even if he’s not worthy.” I’m not talking about tolerating physical abuse. Nothing like that. Even though you know you are smarter and you may be, you know the Bible better and you may know the Bible better, but you don’t have the position, and when you honor that, God unleashes work on his heart to humble him and draw him spiritually to the Lord. Some of you are so busy making your husband something, God says, “Okay, then you make him. I’ll take my hands off. Let’s see how well this works.” The problem is some ladies don’t realize they did that until they are about 60 or 70 and it’s too late. But do you see the position of authority and power God has given you?

Think about how powerful these people were that were under authority. Joseph, he never became Pharaoh, he was under Pharaoh, but what power he had. Daniel, he never became King Nebuchadnezzar, he was under Nebuchadnezzar but God powerfully used him. He brought revival to the whole land. Esther, she was never king, she was the queen under the king, but what power God gave her. Jesus. Jesus said, “I didn’t come to do my own will but to submit to my Father’s will.” What power he has. Ladies, don’t believe the lies of this world. Don’t step down from the glorious power God has given you to wallow in the muck of failure that this unsaved world throws at us.

Lastly, it puts an oppressive burden upon a lady. You see, God knew, he has designed you to handle one head. You don’t need your husband as your head and an employer as your head and So-and-so here as your head and So-and-so there as your head. And one of the things that burdens me about so many of our ladies, you have too much on you. You have too much on you. I’m not saying it has to absolutely be like this but some of you ladies would be wise to say, “You know, all I do is react. This one yells and I run. This one says and I go and I just go and I’m just running in circles.” Sit down with your husbands, have prayer, share with him your heart, and then let him guide you to say no to this, this and this, and yes to this, this and this, and I’ll answer to God for it. That would be releasing our ladies from many an oppression and a burden. Ladies have too much on them. The Bible says each one should carry his own load but the lie of this world is we are going to load ladies down with all kinds of stuff. I don’t want you to be there. My heart goes out to you because I know so many of you struggle there.

In closing, I bring before you two women: Jezebel and Sarah, and you are the seed of one or the other. We see that Jezebel and Sarah are both actual figures in the Old Testament but they are referred to in the New Testament also, and God is saying this type of spirit and this type of seed keeps continuing on. Jezebel has her daughters and Sarah has her daughters.

You remember Jezebel. She was married to the wicked ungodly king of Israel named King Ahab. Ahab goes to a pagan country, he goes to Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and he marries his daughter, an avid Baal worshiper named Jezebel. Jezebel worships the Baals. She begins immediately to try to rid Israel of any remnant of godly prophets who worship and serve Jehovah, and establish Baal as the only religion in the whole area. She systematically begins slaying and killing the true men of God in the country. She vows to kill Elijah. You remember the showdown at Mount Carmel where God and Elijah said, “Okay, let’s build a couple of altars. You Baal prophets, build your altar and I’ll build an altar to Jehovah and whichever God answers by fire, he’s the true God.” You know how the story plays out, Elijah just kept mocking them and teasing them. They would cut themselves, cry out and scream and all this stuff, and nothing happened, and all of a sudden in honor of Elijah, the true called man of God, God reaches down from heaven with fire and licks up Elijah’s offering and then Elijah turns around and has all the false prophets of Baal executed at the Kishon Brook.

Then Jezebel heard about it. It’s interesting how 1 Kings 19:1 words this. Look at this, 1 Kings 19:1, “Now Ahab,” the king, “told Jezebel,” the queen, “all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.” That whiny effeminate mouse, he goes and tells Jezebel on Elijah. You silly little twerp. You go and deal with Elijah. But do you know why he goes to Jezebel? Because she’s the real power on the throne. She’s the cold adder on the throne. Ahab was just the human toad sitting beside her. And she swears and she vows, “I’ll have Elijah before you know it. I’ll get him killed one way or the other.”

Some thoughts about Jezebel. Jezebel is a controller. She has to have control. Let’s remind ourselves that those who are of the Jezebel spirit, it just doesn’t end well. In 1 Kings 21:23, “Of Jezebel also has the LORD spoken, saying, ‘The dogs will eat Jezebel in the district of Jezreel.'” God said, “I’m getting her.” He let it go a long time. He said, “There’s a payday some day. There’s a payday some day.”

Jehu was God’s righteous instrument. 2 Kings 9:30-35, “When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out the window.” Literally, they could crush carbon or charcoal and they would put it with oils and they would paint their eyes up. Now, Jezebel is not doing this to look sexually alluring, she’s doing it to be intimidating because just a few ladies could do that, only queens and those in authority could do that. So she’s going to be imposing and intimidating to Jehu as he comes to her house.

Verse 31, “As Jehu entered the gate, she said, ‘Is it well, Zimri, your master’s murderer?'” And really what the Hebrew is saying here is Zimri killed his masters, it didn’t go well for him, are you going to do the same thing, Jehu? Now notice the manipulation and scheming here, like, “I’m a good and righteous queen and you should honor and submit to me, not murder me.”

Verse 32, “Then he lifted up his face to the window and said, ‘Who is on my side? Who?’ And two or three officials looked down at him. He said, ‘Throw her down.’ So they threw her down, and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses, and he trampled her under foot. When he came in, he ate and drank; and he said, ‘See now to this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king’s daughter.’ They went to bury her, but they found nothing more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands.” Even the dogs wouldn’t eat that vile brain. Even the dogs wouldn’t touch those filthy hands. Even the dogs wouldn’t touch those filthy feet.

You might say, “Well, I’m just a mild version of Jezebel.” Trust me, ladies, it doesn’t end well. It doesn’t end well. I can preach this sermon and not know of one full-blooded Jezebel in this church. I mean that. Now some of you get a little tempted there, but I don’t know of one out and out Jezebel in this church and I appreciate that.

In Revelation 2:20 we have the New Testament church at Thyatira and this is God’s condemnation of the church. Notice this, “I’m condemning you, church.” Why? Because “I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel.” I don’t think he literally means her name is Jezebel but she’s just of the seed of Jezebel, she is a daughter of Jezebel. She’s acting like a Jezebel, “who calls herself a prophetess,” control, she needs power and control, “and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray,” that’s contentious, she contends against the God-ordained authority to lead the men and the women in the church into her error, “so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols,” that’s callous to take the people of God and lead them into ungodly pagan worship and honoring false gods.

We don’t want to end like Jezebel. I’ll tell you what we want to do: we want to end like Sarah. Sarah. Remember Abraham and Sarah? They are traveling through Canaan, they’ve already come through the drama with Sodom and Gomorrah, they come to Gerar, through that region, and Abraham is just sure that those people must be as sexually perverted and immoral as the ones of Sodom and Gomorrah, so he looks at his wife Sarah, she’s pretty, and he says, “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do, we’re going to lie, we’re going to tell the king here that you’re actually my sister because if he finds out you’re my wife, he’ll want you and he’ll kill me and he’ll take you.” So now we have Abraham who is not a man, he’s a mouse. King sure enough, comes to him, “Who is this?” This is my sister Sarah. He takes Sarah to his house to become one of his wives.

Listen to what Genesis 20:3 says, “But God came to Abimelech,” that’s the king, “in a dream of the night, and said to him, ‘Behold, you are a dead man.'” Woo! Sarah is a powerful woman, she knows how to unleash the power of God on her behalf. God says to this king, “I’m going to kill you because the woman whom you have taken, she’s already married.” Genesis 20:6, “Then God said to him in the dream, ‘Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.'” In other words God said, “I know you didn’t know she was already married, and just be thankful, king, that you didn’t touch her because I would have killed you if you had. Sarah honors me and I’ll take care of her.” Have we got any Sarahs who really believe God? Who really trust the Lord? We do and I’m thankful for you.

So how does he bless Sarah? Genesis 21:1 and 2, “Then the LORD took note of Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had promised. So Sarah conceived,” that long-awaited promised child, the greatest blessing Sarah could receive in this earthly life was to have a son to bear the name of her husband to the nations. So Sarah conceived “and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.”

So now let’s go forward to the New Testament. 1 Peter 3:5 and 6. I don’t know if we have that one. Yeah, we’ve got that one. “For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God,” now notice that phrase, ladies, you hope in God, you hope in God, that’s why you do what you do, “used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; just as Sarah,” he’s saying Sarah is an example of this, “Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children,” you have become her daughters, that is, “if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.”

Don’t let this world intimidate you ladies into doing things the world’s way instead of God’s way. Proverbs 31, the Proverbs woman is a beautiful picture of a daughter of Sarah. In Proverbs 31:28 and 29, the Bible says, “Her children rise up and bless her; Her husband also, and he praises her, saying: Many daughters have done nobly, But you excel them all.”

Boy, I’d rather end that way, hadn’t you? There are two courses: a daughter of Jezebel or a daughter of Sarah. God’s word is true. It’s right and it’s best. It’s best.