Getting Rid of the Slave Woman—Selfish Ambition—and Her Son 2

In the last post we mentioned David's turn that put him at the wrong place during an important season in his life. We saw that he was supposed to be at war to defend his kingdom, but instead remained at the palace falling into the temptation of sleeping with Uriah's wife and impregnating her, and then devising a plan to cover up his sin. But David, a man after God's own heart, repented of his sin. Likewise, other people lost their positions in the kingdom for the same reasons. For them, one act of selfish-ambition led to another with little to no remorse. Among them were King Ahab and his Queen Jezebel.

There are several examples in the Old Testament of the awful ways of these two rulers that took their positions in the land of Israel only to detract the people away from the worship of their one true God. Jezebel tried to kill all of the Lord's prophets (1 Kings 18:4,13); and instead of having prophets in the land appointed by God through the king, Jezebel appointed her own prophets to worship her gods—Baal [450 prophets] and Ashera [400 prophets] (1 Kings 18:19).

1 Kings 21:25-26 says, “(No one else so completely sold himself to what was evil in the Lord’s sight as Ahab did under the influence of his wife Jezebel. His worst outrage was worshiping idols just as the Amorites had done—the people whom the Lord had driven out from the land ahead of the Israelites)” NLT.  

This shows that Ahab did not start being so caught up in selfish ambition until Jezebel became his wife and started to influence him to act out his own desires and wants while undermining God and His Lordship over his life. Then came the time when Elijah, the prophet of God killed Jezebel's prophets and Jezebel zealously bent on evil, threatened to also kill him within the next 24 hours (1 kings 19:2). Something she could not accomplish because before she made this threat to the man of God, she had committed one last act of selfish-ambition that seemed to have filled the cup of her iniquity and the Lord sentenced her to death as the only way to stop her vile acts.

1 King 21 says that a man named Naboth owned a vineyard next door to the palace of King Ahab in Jezreel. King Ahab visited Naboth to ask him to either trade his vineyard for a better one somewhere else or sell it to him because he wanted to make a vegetable garden there. But Naboth, who seemed to have a good understanding of the importance of preserving and sustaining his place of dominion in the land he obtained from his ancestors, turned down the king`s proposition. But Naboth`s answer sent the king into depression, and once his wife Jezebel found out what had happened, she devised a plot against Naboth in order to get what she wanted without any regards for the life of another human being. Verses 7-16 relate her response to king Ahab.  

“'Are you the king of Israel or not?'” Jezebel demanded. “'Get up and eat something, and don’t worry about it. I’ll get you Naboth’s vineyard!'”

So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and sent them to the elders and other leaders of the town where Naboth lived. In her letters she commanded: “'Call the citizens together for fasting and prayer, and give Naboth a place of honor. And then seat two scoundrels across from him who will accuse him of cursing God and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death.'”
So the elders and other town leaders followed the instructions Jezebel had written in the letters. They called for a fast and put Naboth at a prominent place before the people. Then the two scoundrels came and sat down across from him. And they accused Naboth before all the people, saying, “'He cursed God and the king.'” So he was dragged outside the town and stoned to death. The town leaders then sent word to Jezebel, “'Naboth has been stoned to death.'”

When Jezebel heard the news, she said to Ahab, “'You know the vineyard Naboth wouldn’t sell you? Well, you can have it now! He’s dead!” So Ahab immediately went down to the vineyard of Naboth to claim it.'” The Message

Doing this meant nothing to Jezebel who was raised to become a high-priestess for her god Baal. The name means “lord” or “master,” a god of agriculture. According to Bible Scholars, the basic involvement in the worship of Baal included sex, commanded religious prostitution, and human sacrifice,  such as killing and burying their young children in the foundations of their houses or public buildings at the time of construction. ¹

Also her goddess was Asherah, or Asherim (groves), a sensual Canaanite goddess whose symbol was the stem of a tree deprived of its boughs, and rudely shaped into a sexual image, and planted in the ground. ²

Due to these practices, Jezebel had become what was always on her mind—murder, seduction, and control. During the times of her upbringing as a high-priestess, she had adopted a deep rooted mindset concerning the worship practices of these gods. First, the minset became a mentality: the characteristic attitude of mind of a person or group. The more she practiced these habits and thought about them, the more deep rooted they became inside of her. 

Then the mentality became a stronghold: A place of security or survival; a fortified place. Like a castle, its deep walls protect what is inside (the belief that there is security and value in their behavior). A person with a stronghold also looks for those that share the same values and beliefs as a means of security and to spread the mentality and behavior to attempt to keep it from dying. These strongholds can be cultural, educational, national, racial, denominational, from worldly knowledge, generational, demonic, and so on.

A person who continues to find security in their strong beliefs can be led to a reprobate mind. A reprobate mind is a mind that is corrupted and utterly resists the truth; their abominable behavior is acceptable to them and they justify themselves in what they believe. They have some knowledge of the deity of God, but reject it, and it can get worse from there. That is why at this point God leaves these people to their own devices. It is upon these people that the wrath of God rests (Romans 1:8). That is why the Lord stepped in to put an end to both Ahab and Jezebel's practices against the people`s worship of Him, and their opposition of His people, especially His prophets. 1 Kings 21:17-24 shows us,

“But the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He will be at Naboth’s vineyard in Jezreel, claiming it for himself. Give him this message: ‘This is what the Lord says: Wasn’t it enough that you killed Naboth? Must you rob him, too? Because you have done this, dogs will lick your blood at the very place where they licked the blood of Naboth!’”

“So, my enemy, you have found me!” Ahab exclaimed to Elijah.
“Yes,” Elijah answered, “I have come because you have sold yourself to what is evil in the Lord’s sight. So now the Lord says, ‘I will bring disaster on you and consume you. I will destroy every one of your male descendants, slave and free alike, anywhere in Israel! I am going to destroy your family as I did the family of Jeroboam son of Nebat and the family of Baasha son of Ahijah, for you have made me very angry and have led Israel into sin.’
“And regarding Jezebel, the Lord says, ‘Dogs will eat Jezebel’s body at the plot of land in Jezreel.’
“The members of Ahab’s family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures” NLT.

After hearing God's verdict for him and his family, king Ahab repented of his wrong doing, and God said to the Prophet Elijah in verses 26-27, “Do you see how penitently submissive Ahab has become to me? Because of his repentance I'll not bring the doom during his lifetime; Ahab's son, though, will get it” MSG.

It takes repentance like Kings David and King Ahab to turn the judicial hand of God from moving against someone for their wrong doing. After God has given them time of grace to repent and they have not turned from their disobedience, when the grace period expires, then the disobedience turns into sin, and God judges sin by His Spirit (John 16:8-11). However, Revelation 2:20-21 says to not tolerate the spirit of Jezebel, and one of the reasons is that people under this influence walk in different levels of the mindsets mentioned above that shields them from seeing their wrong doings so they can turn from them. If they are around people that encourage their behavior or that are easy for them to dominate, it is hard for them to change because this spirit thrives in darkness and when challenged, the person under this influence will turn to retaliation instead of examining his or her ways.

This influence is seen running rampant among those who practice the occult and even in the body of Christ. This is also the spirit behind the acts of members of the mafia, gangs, terrorists, drug cartels, and all other groups bent on destruction of other human beings to satisfy their selfish ambitions. This spirit is also called the spirit of murder. You can see how in the passage of 1 Kings 21 Jezebel had given orders to set up a murder plot for Naboth. She used slanderous and false accusations, and used others to do her work so she could hide behind them and not be recognized as the mastermind behind the murder. This spirit is all about killing other people's influence and everyone who wholeheartedly stands for the righteousness of God in order to continue spreading its death. But it takes something totally opposite to death and murder to confront and devastate the influence of this spirit in a person's life which is love.

Elijah did something in 1 Kings 18:19-21 that God strategized as the only thing that would end the spreading of Jezebel's wickedness in the land of Israel. Elijah said, “Assemble everyone in Israel at Mount Carmel. And make sure that the special pets of Jezebel, the four hundred and fifty prophets of the local gods, the Baals, and the four hundred prophets of the whore goddess Ashera, are there.”

So Ahab summoned in Israel, particularly the prophets, to Mount Carmel.
Elijah challenged the people: “How long are you going to sit on the fence? If God is the real God, follow him; if it's Baal, follow him. Make up your minds!”
Nobody said a word; nobody made a move.” MSG

Afterwards, Elijah proposed something to the prophets of Baal and Ashera in order to prove the real God. He told them to choose an ox and lay down the pieces on wood with no fire under it. Then they could call on the name of their god and see if it will answer by fire. They did this from morning till noon, with dancing and even cutting themselves with knives and swords, but to no avail. Their god did not answer. Seeing this Elijah started mocking them, and then called them to watch him repair the altar of the Lord that had been demolished. He did it as shown in 1 Kings 18:30-39,

“Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes of Jacob, the same Jacob to whom God had said, 'From now on your name is Israel.' He built the stones into the altar in honor of God, then Elijah built a fairly wide trench around the altar. He laid firewood on the altar, cut up the ox, put it on the wood, and said, 'Fill your buckets with water and drench both the ox and the firewood.' Then he said, do it again,' and they did it. Then he said, 'Do it a third time,' and they did it a third time. The altar was drenched and the trench was filled with water.

When it was time for the sacrifice to be offered, Elijah the prophet came up and prayed, O God, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, make it known right now that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I'm doing what I'm doing under your orders. Answer me, God; O answer me and reveal to these people that you are God, the true God, and that you are giving these people another chance at repentance.'
Immediately the fire of God fell and burned up the offering, the wood, the stones, the dirt, and even the water in the trench.
All the people saw it happen and fell on their faces in awed worship, exclaiming, 'God is the true God! God is the true God!” MSG

Here God proved that He is love, and love covers all sins, and no matter how far people have gone in their rejection of Him, they are one repentance away from encountering His goodness and His love that endures forever. Elijah had his servants pour twelve buckets of water altogether. This is an apostolic number that means that God will step into a situation and establish His Sovereign Kingdom and government in order to drive out Satan's kingdom and all his works.

Proverbs 20:28 says, 

Unfailing love and faithfulness protect the king;
his throne is made secure through love. NLT

This means that God will lead His people to repentance. However, He will wait until the last minute after He has pronounced a judicial sentence against someone who has refused to repent because of their acts of rebellion against Him, and against His people. These two types of acts, sinning against God and against His people violate His commandments summed up in these two outlined in Luke 10:27, ...“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” NLT

Love is not the main objective in Satan's kingdom, but the opposite—he came to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). The prophets of Baal and Ashera were even cutting themselves proving that they were not capable of loving someone for they didn't have love for themselves either. This is why God's intervention was necessary and an encounter with His divine love proved to be something that these false prophets could not fathom for they knew not love like this.

All that water could not have quenched the fire of God. This water and fire culd not cancel each other out for they both came from the same source—His Holy Spirit whose nature is love and truth. This demonstration of divine love drove some of the prophets to cry out and recognize that the Lord is indeed the One True God. 

To God alone be all the glory. ■

© 2014.

Endnotes:

1. Howard E. Vos, "An Introduction To Bible Archaeology" Revised ed. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1953) pp. 17-19.

2. M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition,
published by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain, copy freely.

Getting Rid of the Slave Woman—Selfish-Ambition—and Her Slave Son 1

Galatians 4:28-30

Isn't it clear friends, that you like Issac, are children of promise? In the day of Hagar and Sarah, the child who came from faithless connivance (Ishmael) harassed the child who came—empowered by the Spirit—from the faithful promise (Isaac). Isn't it clear that the harassment you are now experiencing from the Jerusalem heretics follows that old pattern? There is a Scripture that tells us what to do: “Expel the slave mother with her son, for the slave son will not inherit with the free son.” MSG

One sheer manifestation of the influence of the Antichrist spirit in a person's life is selfish-ambition. This is the motivation that leads a person to do things independently from God with works of the flesh that drive them to accomplish their own ambitions, but only for them to benefit, even at the expense of the suffering of others. An ambition is not the same as following God's vision for our lives because a vision from God is bigger than our own capabilities and takes God and His supernatural power to help us fulfill it. But there are times a person may have received a vision from the Lord and still they have not learned to live solely under the direction of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis because He will direct them to lay down their lives so they can learn to walk by faith, and this is faith in God which works through love. 

Love has to become the main motivation for us to accomplish anything in our lives because we are called to love God above all else and our neighbors as we love ourselves. There's a lot to say about this subject alone, but let's focus right now on the consequences of walking and working out of our own strength rather than by the grace of God in our lives. For us to forsake living by our own strength and view of things we must seek the counsel and follow the direction of the Holy Spirit daily. This is a process we must pay attention to, for God has selected a path to walk out His purpose for us individually as well as corporately (our family, business, ministry, community, region, city, or nation).

Galatians 4:24 says in the Message Bible that a slave life gives birth to slave children. This means that we cannot live our lives apart from a relationship with God which involves loving and following Him with reverent and dependent obedience, and times of fellowship with Him by His Spirit so we know how to proceed in the situations we encounter daily from a life of prayer, worship, and reading of the Word, and our partnership and cooperation with Him. This will cause us to be used of Him to bring life to the world around us because we have learned to always be thinking of others as better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). 

The more we spend intimate times with our Lord and receive our new mindset from Him, the more we learn to see others with the same eyes of love that He does. He sees them as the finished work that He has called them to be even though right now they are a work in progress just as we are no matter how mature we may be in the things of the Spirit. This is what a life of faith that works through love looks like. Therefore, learning to see others the way God sees them should lead us to want to help and serve them as God assigns us to, so they too can encounter God like we have. Also, as we make our gifts and all other things God directs us to make available to them, we are helping them be partakers of the gift God has also given to us since we have this in common with them: we are children of the Most-High God and are also called and purposed according to His promises. 

Ishmael was born to Abraham as a result of the works of his flesh because he and his wife Sarah panicked and thought that years were going by and they would have to use their own strengths and abilities to see their promise from God fulfilled. For this, they went on ahead of God to bring the manifestation of the “promise” outside of the His ways and the process He chose for them. They decided to skip the process. However, a process takes time for God to accomplish everything He deems necessary on the inside of us. This way, those things He deposits in us can be brought out at the right time and season He has appointed for us. This, the result of their trying to skip the process was then that when the child of the real promise came empowered by the Spirit of God for its completion and manifestation, the child born of the works of the flesh then started harassing the child of the Spirit. 

This child of the flesh came from a slavery mentality led by the Antichrist spirit that is all about selfish ambitions and obtaining things even in the name of God, apart from His leading and authority over our lives. This causes the contaminated person (s) to become obstruction (s) of the way for others and stumbling blocks to someone else's inheritance. When we live as children of God that are free indeed, we are eager to hear what the Lord wants us to do and we choose to die to our selfish-ambitions daily, and instead we choose to do His will and obey His authority over us whether we understand why He is asking us to do something or not. This helps us to courageously take risks and be ready to go out on a limb when prompted to do so because we know that if He asked us to jump He'll catch us and we will not get hurt because an obedient life is a life protected from the wiles of the enemy.

The other part of selfish ambition is that there is a rule-keeping system that keeps a person bound to the slavery of the law. This means that they obey the letter of the Word, but have not known to walk in obedience to the Spirit of the Word. These are specific personal directions from the word of God for our lives that God commands us to do and stick with until their manifestation or until He changes directions no matter how much opposition we may encounter. As we follow these commands by the leading of the Spirit of God, we will learn to recognize that we were made free to obey God's authority over us and how He has chosen to direct our lives. In other words, when we understand that God has planned our lives ahead of time and has given us His grace to accomplish this plan only, then we can learn to walk following His purpose for us and not live outside of this frame.

Following our own religious plans and purposes apart from the authority and direction of God by His Spirit will cause us to fall out of the grace Christ died to give us when He died on the Cross because our focus is not to walk by faith, but to fulfill our own desires to see things done according to our plans. This is how we destroy the freedom Christ gave us because this freedom does not mean that we live doing whatever we please but instead, we live concerning ourselves with what pleases God. Another side of that is that we lose authority in the spirit realm when we do not obey God's authority for our lives. This  makes us rebellious and stubborn and to inherit serious consequences that we cannot stand against because we no longer have the necessary spiritual authority to fight.

In addition, Christ gave us this freedom to serve one another in love (Gal.5:13) for that is how the freedom grows and expands because others are touched by the love of God in us. The result from this touch of God`s love through us is that others are filled with hope and a desire to extend the same love to others and that way we spread the batch of good yeast like probiotics in the body that promote a healthy movement. Acts of freedom beget children of freedom because they are motivated by their love of others as they love themselves. Following the direction of the Holy Spirit daily is what helps us live this way. Our flesh is not capable of doing this because “there is a root of self-interest in us that is at odds with the free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness” (Gal. 5:17). These two ways are contrary to one another and each one produces behaviors and mindsets which can become strongholds if allowed to grow in us. The stronghold we allow to grow is totally opposite to the other. We cannot choose to follow one day one and the other the next day for God is calling us to be set apart for Him.

There are “erratic compulsions of a law-dominated life” (selfish-ambition) that Galatians 5:19-21 highlights in the Message version, “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.”

On the other hand, following and submitting to the ruling of the Holy Spirit in our lives on a daily basis leads us to a different outcome according to Galatians 5:22-26 also in the Message version, “But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.” 

Selfish-Ambition is dangerous and it can certainly backfire. It has been the cause of the fall of many powerful Bible leaders including King Saul (1 Samuel 15), King Ahab and Queen Jezebel (1 Kings 22:1-26), and King David. Notice that these were all people who held positions of leadership and authority. Therefore, God is shining His light of warning for us as we pursue such positions and even more when we reach those positions. King David gives us the example of one recorded time he acted out of selfish-ambition. This act caused him the building of the temple of God. In 1 Samuel 11, at a time when he was supposed to go to war, he decided to stay behind in the palace and from his roof he saw Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite. 

The king sent for the beautiful woman when her husband was on the battlefield and slept with her and impregnating her. After he found out Bathsheba was pregnant, he devised a plot to have Uriah, a faithful man to his kingship and his kingdom killed on the battle field because Uriah would not violate his duties to the King and the kingdom of Israel by sleeping with his wife at a time when he was to be at war with the rest of the army. But in 1 Samuel 12:1-14, the Lord showed his displeasure of David's selfish actions and sent Nathan, the seer to him. The seer told him a riddle that infuriated David but revealed him as the master mind behind the death of Uriah in order to cover up his sin. God spoke through the seer and reminded David of all the things He had done for him and how much more He was willing to do for him, but David had “treated His word with brazen contempt, doing this great evil” MSG. For this reason, he was sentenced by God.

In verses 11-14 the Lord declared, “And now because you treated God with such contempt and took Uriah the Hittite's wife as your wife, killing and murder will continually plague your family. This is God speaking, remember! I'll make trouble for you out of your own family. I'll take your wives from right out in front of you. I'll give them to some neighbor, and he'll go to bed with them openly. You did your deed in secret; I'm doing mine with the whole country watching!”Then David confessed to Nathan, “I've sinned against God.” Nathan pronounced, “yes, but that's not the last word. God forgives your sin. You won't die for it. But because of your blasphemous behavior, the son born to you will die” MSG.

David and Bathsheba later had Solomon and he was the one who built God a temple because he was considered to have peaceful hands. 1 Chronicles 22:7-10 says, "David said to Solomon, 'I wanted in the worst way to build a sanctuary to honor my God. But God prevented me saying, ‘You've killed too many people, fought too many wars. You are not the one to honor me by building a sanctuary—you've been responsible for too much killing, too much bloodshed. But you are going to have a son and he will be a quiet and peaceful man, and I will calm his enemies down on all sides. His very name will speak peace—that is, Solomon, which means peace—and I will give peace and rest under his rule. He will be the one to build a sanctuary in my honor. He'll be my royal adopted son and I'll be His father, and I'll make sure that the authority of his kingdom over Israel lasts forever.” MSG

In this passage, at a glance we could think that God was talking about the blood David shed in the many wars he fought to defend his kingdom and rulership as the reason that kept him from building the temple, but God was referring here to the blood of Uriah the Hittite that David was charged with shedding along with other blood sheds done by his family members that were not God`s will, until Solomon came to rule. The blood David shed during times of war, those were ordained and authorized by God and His Kingdom in order to advance and expand his kingship in the land. But the killings of Uriah and others, including some members of his family were done out of selfish ambitions. This led to more killings among them to fulfill God's decree, and those too were done out of selfish-ambition. 

To God alone be all the glory.■
© 2014.

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