Resurrection

Resurrection

CCCAG, April 9th, 2023

Scripture: Luke 24:1-6, but starting in Rev 2

Introduction

We are going to take a break from our study in Colossians to celebrate the resurrection of our LORD.

I want to talk about something that is making news everywhere and seemingly tearing at the very seams that hold this country together.

It seems like we are living in a world that is making less and less sense. People who are normally nice, kind, and seem to be people that use common sense in most areas of their lives seem to have been blinded by the culture and what is popular.

It’s this insidious ideology called being woke. It’s important for us to address this head on because it’s only going to get worse, so I want to dig into that this morning so you have an idea as to it’s origins and the spiritual forces behind it.

The first thing I want to say- this is nothing new. Over the course of human history, this kind of thing has reared it’s ugly head many times, and it’s one of the things that Jesus HIMself addresses in the 7 letters to the church’s in the book of Revelation.

In Revelation chapter 2, the resurrected Jesus dictates 7 letters to the Apostle John that he is to send to the churches of Asia Minor. In the letter to the church at Thyatira Jesus says this-

Rev 2:18-25

These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. 24 Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets (I will not impose any other burden on you): 25 Only hold on to what you have until I come.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus used the Apostle John to speak to an actual church that existed at that time. In doing so, Jesus also prophesied what the world would be like in 2023.

Jesus predicted what it meant to be woke.

Being woke means to take on a series of beliefs that fly in the face of God’s order, natural order, and common sense. From the biblical and spiritual perspective, being woke means to surrender to the influence of what is known as the Jezebel Spirit.

Let me speak to what the Jezebel spirit is-

The name of Jezebel first appears in 1 Kings 16, and then spoken more about in 18-21. She is the queen of Israel and wife of the wicked King Ahab. Jezebel served very evil foreign god’s, and she enticed and then forced Israel to do the same.

Sound familiar? It starts with an optional lifestyle choice, then everyone is forced to accept it and then practice it themselves.

The gods that Jezebel served used sexuality as an act of worship, particularly deviant sexuality having to do with all kinds of perversion that I won’t burden you with this morning- because all of you see it on the nightly news. This is what Jesus was speaking about in the letter to the church at Thyatira when he uses the phrase- satan’s so called deep secrets- that you can experience freedom through following these so-called gods and participating in acts of deviancy.

The Jezebel spirit is also seen in church’s through people usurping spiritual authority. When the church trades in biblical doctrine to be popular with the world, the demonic power of the Jezebel spirit is behind that move.

That Jezebel Spirit is what is destroying us today.

But, it’s also nothing new. The enemy has deployed this tactic over and over again throughout history. He wants to destroy any chance of us coming to faith in Jesus and he does so by destroying that image of God within us.

The enemy did that in the beginning with Adam and Eve. He destroyed the image of God within everyone who was born since that time, causing us to be dead men walking.