Jezebel Wants Your Vineyard
Clo DiPlato
1/24/02
Dearest Friends in Jesus,
Over the past few years much has been said and written about the subject of Jezebel. There is the Old Testament figure who brought much distress and headache to the prophet Elijah, and then there is the reference in Revelation to a woman who calls herself a prophetess who teaches God's servants to commit fornication. They are one and the same spirit. Adultery and fornication among the servants of the Lord should be clearly understood as scripturally forbidden. It's too bad that mixing with doctrines of devils and corrupting the pure seed of the word of God with mixture are not as easily perceived by Christians as the "spiritual adultery" this scripture is referring to far more than any act of the flesh: but when one understands that most of the dealings with Israel in the Old Testament had to do with a backsliding into idolatry and paganism and mixing with the multitudes and how God likened it again and again to "adultery", once can clearly see that the subject of adultery is a spiritual subject.
Many have concluded that "Jezebel" is someone with a strong spirit who is an irritant to the pastor or prophet and his vision. Many have been labeled, and had to battle this accusation when in truth the Lord was using that person to bring conviction to keep a pastor from going down the wrong road in his ambitions. Teachings and words about Jezebel have very conveniently armed many in the ministry with a scapegoat for all their problems in their churches, and though they will say it's a "spirit", they are quick to find the resident "body" in which such "spirit" resides. The current rave and attention to "Jezebel" has probably brought more unnecessary division to the household of faith than any other present understanding of the word of God.
I would advise and beseech any anointed servant of the Lord to be extremely cautious in whom you are labeling with diabolical titles because if you are coming against a servant of the Lord, God will not hold you blameless in all of this. Some very precious servants of the Lord have been greatly wounded and damaged by these titles when they are the ones who have truly been willing to "go without the Camp unto Him, bearing His reproach" even as Elijah was. (Hebrews 13:13) The cries of "Jezebel" are often coming out of some of the most highly polished and organized machinery of organized religion and ministries......which often sadly find it's
spiritual predecessor much more likely in the house of Ahab and the prophets of Baal than in the prophet Elijah fleeing through the woods and the wilderness for his life in fear of the true Jezebel. Besides, you do not want to be one of those who "think they are doing God a service" (John 16:2) when you put someone out of the church because you've discerned that person is a Jezebel, when truly they may have been sent of God to be even as some of that "spiritual sandpaper" to help smooth off some of the rough edges, and someone the Lord very much wants in your midst for His refining purposes.
I am sure each and everyone of us is capable of being influenced by a Jezebel spirit as we are being led to understand it's operation today......a spirit to oppose or make life difficult for any ministry or prophet. But as I was reading the Word, I came to another understanding about this spirit of Jezebel; and I conclude that Jezebel is VERY MUCH alive and at work, and where I see the operation of Jezebel is in this little portion of understanding of her story and how I see it playing out in the Church today:
And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
And Ahab spake unto Naboth saying, "Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seems good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it for money.
And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. 1 Kings 21:1-3.
You know the rest of the story by reading 1 Kings 21. Ahab pouted, and Jezebel saw to it that the vineyard was delivered to him by having Naboth killed and his land confiscated for the wicked king, Ahab.
The name "Naboth" means fruit. Fruit speaks of evidence. It's the "evidence" of "abiding in the vine". Naboth is a type of those who have an active and vibrant and discernible revelation that there is a heritage of holiness ( true fruitfulness---not the absence of color) handed down from the Father that is precious--- to be guarded and NOT lightly sold or given away or traded for any prestige or position or connection or alliance.
Don't you think that Naboth would have immediately procured some favor with King Ahab if he would have just obliged him, and given him what he wanted. Naboth could have risen in both favor and association with the king had he just done what Ahab wanted him to do. But Naboth didn't care how close his vineyard was to the king. He had something within his spirit that said a resounding "NO" to having the inheritance of his fathers associated with the name and likes of Ahab.
Naboth has a revelation of how horrible it would be to have "the heathen come into thine inheritance, and the temple defiled....." (Psalm 79:1)
Naboth knows that there is no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, that the true inheritance and vineyard of the Father is one where the wine of the kingdom flows pure and undefiled and that he couldn't in any sense of spiritual integrity come into an unequal yoke with Ahab. (2 Cor. 6:14)
Naboth knows that there is no fellowship with unrighteousnes, and no communion with darkness.
(2 Cor. 6:14 AGAIN)
Naboth KNOWS the temple of God ( His inheritance, which we are) is a separated and sanctified and set apart temple.....His own vineyard......UNTO God, and though it's "right next door to Ahab"......though it must exist and operate in this world and next door to the world, it is NOT the world's, it belongs to God, and Naboth will NEVER sell out to Ahab (the world.) 2 Cor. 6:16-18.)
But that evil and wicked spirit of Jezebel is out to rob the church of the heritage of holiness, of separation, and righteous living, and being called and set apart and landmarked toward God and NOT toward the world. Ahab comes to sow a thought in your mind to get you to compromise on your standards, and you may be strong as Naboth was to resist such wickedness, but Jezebel is there soon to follow up with deceit and trickery to both kill you and rob you. Oh, had Naboth been on his guard!! Jezebel may have never succeeded in killing him and taking his vineyard.
But he wasn't. He wasn't spiritually alert. He got pre-occupied with other things, instead of guarding and watching over his vineyard as he should have been doing. Naboth said NO, but he neglected the standards.
When I say "standards", I am not talking about a clothesline list of do's and don'ts from your holiness or Pentecostal church background. I"m talking about those things that the Holy Ghost has wrought true conviction in your soul regarding as you have drawn close to Him, and been in His Presence......again 'abiding in the vine" from which true fruitfulness comes. It could be about the length of your skirt, or the make-up on your face, or how much TV you watch---or it might not be about any of those things. Maybe it's about how God tells you to fast, and instead you eat a piece of cherry pie.
It's whatever God is talking to you about in the place of communion with Him; and if 99 per cent of a church is NOT in that place of communion with Him, and there is no "Naboth anointing" to say "NO" to Ahab when he comes into rob and steal the inheritance then you can be sure you have one worldly and unsanctified church and Jezebel absolutely having a hey day in your midst, and believe me.......she is NOT out to steal your ambitious dreams and visions any where NEAR as much as she is out to steal your INHERITANCE......the place of your fruitfulness.......that place of "abiding in the Vine"........that place of communion and intimacy and time with the Lord from which springs ALL true fruitfulness and holiness in God.
While you are thinking that your life is so hard because "Jezebel" gets up too much and prophecies in church, or gets a little "undercurrent" of a following running after her, and is taking the attention away from you, and even distracts true Christians from a very good and worthy vision, the TRUE Jezebel spirit has already brought death to your house because you have been so busy with all your own plans and pursuits of what you wanted that you've been neglecting your vineyard, and through deceit and trickery the wicked Jezebel has executed an insidious plot to get it out of your hands. That which at one time was holy and separated unto God now looks like the world. It doesn't look like Jesus, and it doesn't act like Jesus and it doesn't talk like Jesus.
It looks like Ahab. It sounds like Ahab. It smells like Ahab. It's the vineyard that once belonged to God for His saints, but it's now very much the world's real estate.
The spirit of Jezebel changes the church of Jesus Christ into the world's herb garden. Remember Ahab wanted that vineyard for an "herb garden". Intead of the wine (the joy of the Lord) being multiplied in the kingdom, and strengthening God's people to fight the good fight of faith, every sort of "cure all" program is introduced in the church for every sort of problem---all sorts of courses, and all sorts of classes and programs of glorified psychology to get "delivered".
Anything and everything but the good old fashioned preaching of repentance, being filled with the Holy Ghost and fire, living right before God and His people , cleaning up, perfecting holiness in the fear of God and a recognition that while we have been saved FROM sin, we are saved FOR GOD, and for His purposes. The application of a true Word from God received in the Presence of God will do more for you and all your problems than all the support groups you can dream up....
they are nothing but Ahab's "herb garden". They might fix you up and make you feel somewhat better, but they are a counterfeit of true Holy Ghost deliverance and cleansing from sin and uncleanness. Praise, God.....there IS a fountain opened in the house of David, for sin and uncleanness that a priesthood might wash themselves , and His Name is JESUS!!!!
God's purpose is that WE be that "holy inheritance" even passing the very substance of our experience, our walk with Him down to our children. Our time alone with our heavenly Father
that does the deep inner work in our souls of an enduring value that gives us the true and enduring riches of the kingdom to pass onto our children and our children's children. This is what that wicked and alluring and provocative and adulterous Jezebel comes to steal, and this is where she is most at work in the Church.
Get that Naboth anointing working in your spirit and in your soul and in your body, and say a resounding NO to Jezebel, and don't let her steal your vineyard. In Jesus Name, don't you let her take your vineyard!!! It belongs to YOUR family and YOUR children, and it's your holy inheritance to pass on, and so don't you let her steal it from you!!
In Jesus Name, AMEN AND AMEN.
Clo DiPilato
