Jezebel is Attacking Pastors

Hello, welcome to Self Talk I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. This is going to be a very interesting show because I'm going to be talking about the spirit of Jezebel and the impact it's had on so many pastors around our country. And it's going to be a heavy duty show but hopefully, we'll find some really positive answers. I want you to know that you can go to my website for our podcast and there you can subscribe, like, follow, do all the things which really helps us. And the site is icmcollege.org/selftalk. icmcollege.org/selftalk. Also, at my ICM College site, don't forget to check out all the cool stuff we have. You can take some free courses, you can get a free evaluation to determine what it would take to get a degree, there's so much information on there that- maybe you want to get your college degree, maybe it's time you finish up that associate’s, bachelor's or master's program, you're called to the ministry but you've never got equipped. Now it's your time. We have a lot of resources to help you and even some hardship scholarships if you're struggling financially. That is at ICM, icmcollege.org. Now, the podcast is at icmcollege.org/selftalk. I love you much, thank you for listening.

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Again, welcome to Self Talk. I want to read a scripture to you which is critical for us today and it has a huge impact on the church. Revelation 2:20, the Lord Jesus talking, speaking to the church “but I have this against you”, “but I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and she teaches and leads my bond servants astray so they commit acts of immorality.” That's a serious warning and that spirit, that Jezebel spirit unfortunately is alive and well and attacking so many pastors and church leaders that it is just becoming increasingly awful. I live in the Central Florida area, beautiful town called Winter Park that is just outside of Orlando and even in our area I think there's been either four or five pastors who have ruined their ministries and their, their lives by falling into immorality. Just recently, there was the news of a, a pastor down in a town south of Orlando called Kissimmee who was caught doing something immoral at a Starbucks, believe it or not.

And this just, it just hurts the body of Christ. It hurts the reputation of the church, it hurts everyone because you see, if you can take down the pastor, you can help you can hurt the congregation. You can hurt the message, you can hurt the vision of the church, you can hurt God's kingdom. And so Jezebel is alive and well. And when you look at the scripture, “Jezebel teaches and leads my servants astray”. “She leads them astray so they will commit acts of immorality,” and that's exactly what's happened. Now, I know not everything that happens is because of a demon, I understand that it's not always a demon who, that, that causes the problem, you know. It's flesh, and is flesh, but the sexual temptations of a pastor are many. 

I'm a former pastor and I really do understand this. I don't fully get why, but so many pastors seem to… how do I… just, maybe just use the right word here, they seem to be, excuse the expression, chick magnets. I don't know what it is about a pastor, but pastors seem to attract women, especially women that are in an unhealthy or unhappy marriage. Here's the pastor, the man of God. He's usually charismatic, he's a great speaker, he's full of love, he's full of compassion, he's full of wisdom, and it seems to be an attraction to women. And there's a, there's a danger there, and a temptation there, and the spirit of Jezebel realizes this and they know, the spirit of Jezebel knows if she can tempt a pastor to commit adultery, fornication or whatever, she can hurt the entire church. Now usually when you're dealing with the demonic realm, you're you're dealing with a combination of factors. You have flesh, natural desire, or maybe a weakness in your flesh and the demons exploit weaknesses. 

So I believe most pastors who have fallen, and there's been some pastors of some large churches that have um, got caught, one a few years ago with, with his secretary, I won't get into all the details, but it usually, it'll make the news. Uh, it'll, it'll make the grapevine, the church grapevine. Uh, it's embarrassing. A lot of things happen. Um, the family is hurt, the church is hurt, the pastor's hurt, so much devastation, so much destruction, and the only one that's smiling is the devil who says “aha, I got another one.” But the temptation is there and it is there, and I've often said this, that temptation is not the sin, falling into temptation, agreeing with the temptation, acting on the temptation is the sin. Even Jesus was tempted but he did not go for it. He did not take the bait. And sexual temptation is alluring, um, and pastors, you know, they're men. They're quote, the man of God. They're spiritual, they get all that, but they're also human and they are men and they do have their own weaknesses.

So the spirit of Jezebel, of course, it goes way back to the story of Ahab and Jezebel and how she attacked the prophets. Uh, Isaiah after he had, you know, after he had killed the 300 prophets of Baal, then Jezebel targets him out and he goes and hides in the cave, you know the story. Jezebel also had a husband who was very appeasing to her and allowed her to dominate and rule and control and that was Ahab. Sometimes when you have the Jezebel spirit, many times you'll also have the Ahab spirit, and the Ahab spirit cooperates with the Jezebel spirit. What is a Jezebel spirit like? Well, the Jezebel spirit will manifest through, through people. Usually it's through a woman but sometimes through men as well, let's be fair. The characteristics of a person operating with this spirit, and let me say this before we go any further, a person can be operating with this spirit and can be completely unaware that they're doing it, but a person with this spirit generally has control issues. They are controlling and they are manipulating and they are gossipers and they are slanderers, but you look in the scripture here, and it says “she leads my bond servants astray so they commit acts of immorality.” So one of her greatest weapons not only is control and manipulation, but also immorality. 

And so the spirit will try to manipulate, try to control, try to dominate, and then tempt with sexual immorality. And if the pastors are not fully aware of the spirit of Jezebel, they're very likely to be victimized by the spirit and I don't know about you, but I'm tired of reading horrible things, sexual misdeeds of pastors. There could be a, a big book written about it, how many more pastors, how many more pastors have to fall into this temptation? One thing we can do is be aware. Remember, the Apostle Paul said in Corinthians we should not be ignorant of satan's schemes and then in Ephesians, put on the full armor of God so we can stand firm against the schemes of the enemy. You've heard me in a previous show talk about schemes. Well, Jezebel has a scheme. Her scheme is to ruin the pastor and again, she will use control, manipulation, and sexual temptation to ruin that pastor.

The spirit is very subtle, the spirit is very influential, the spirit operates behind the scenes and causes havoc and tempts the pastor, tempts the woman, uh, tempts the pastor, and it's, it's, the scenario is bad. Let's talk about uh, again some of the characteristics. Control, manipulation, um, immorality, sexual temptation, um, they can be alluring. Uh, so many different things. But the motivation is always the same. It's to, it’s to steal, kill, kill and destroy. That's what the spirit wants to do.

I'm tired of Jezebel, I'm tired of what Jezebel's doing to the church, I'm tired of what Jezebel is doing to our pastors. So if you're aware of the spirit and you're aware of who she is and her tactics, you can guard yourself. You can take authority, you can, you can do warfare to cast this spirit out of the church. And maybe you intercessors, you church members, what you can do is be praying for your pastor. Pray protection over him that this spirit will not harass him and not hurt him and not come into his life or into the church. Jezebel is an ugly, mean, awful spirit that has had too many victories lately. Too many victories. I'm tired of Jezebel winning. I'm tired. And when I read this news article, this has just been maybe three or four days ago about the pastor committing a lewd act in the Starbucks, we're going “wow, there goes Jezebel again, Jezebel again.”

Now look, we have responsibility. If we cooperate with a demon, if a pastor cooperates with Jezebel, God holds him accountable. It is a sin, you can't say “well, I didn't know what I was doing because Jezebel had hold of me,” and uh, the pastor can’t say that. The demons are influencers, demons are magnifiers, demons are tempters, demons cause confusion, demons muddy the truth, but we still have control over our senses and we still have control over our bodies. We have control over whether we give in to temptation or not so these pastors are accountable but I promise you, Jezebel is the real culprit. Jezebel put the temptation there to begin with. Jezebel weakened the pastor's resolve so he fell into the temptation. Jezebel was all over this and so if we defeat Jezebel, which we can with the authority and the blood and the power of Jesus Christ, if we defeat Jezebel, then these pastors are not going to have the same temptation. Yeah, they still need to guard themselves and be careful, but Jezebel is just compounding things so, so, so much worse.

Jezebel is tied into the spirit of witchcraft, I talked about that in the last two shows. The spirit of witchcraft generally is a controlling spirit trying to control people against their will and when you try to control people against their will, you will see confusion, always confusion. Jezebel creates a lot of confusion, she creates frustration, she creates anger, she creates just about every fruit of the devil, every fruit of the flesh you could imagine. Jezebel has that fruit. Now, Jezebel may disguise herself and I've seen her do this before, Jezebel would disguise herself as a, as a woman, as an attractive woman, and things happen that just shouldn't happen. 

Years ago, I knew a lady at church. She was a very attractive lady and this lady had, was a very compassionate woman, very, she was single and attractive and very compassionate, very friendly, and she was a church hugger, you know, church hugger. But the problem with this lady was, you know, the typical church hug is when you put some of your, kind of side to side, you, you sort of squeeze her shoulder just a little bit. But this lady, I'll call her, I'll just make up a name for her, I'll call her Sue, Sweet Sue. Well, Sweet Sue liked to do full body hugs, full body frontal hugs. Now, she was the same with everybody, she would hug anybody, a man, woman, child, whatever, with a full body hug, you know, she would just wrap her arms around and hug someone. And it, it was innocent and I know her, she was a devout Christian, she was not meaning anything by it, but she would also hug the husbands and the men in the church, and she would also hug the women and the children. Well, one day the women had a meeting with the pastor and said “pastor, we need you to do something for us.” The pastor said “well what's wrong? What's happening?” “It's Sweet Sue, I need you to ask her to quit hugging our husbands,” and you see, Sweet Sue without meaning to was making it look sexual and Jezebel is all over something like that, okay? It wasn't sexual, it wasn't flirtation, it was really innocent but you can see where Jezebel would come in and maybe cause some temptation or problems there. The women of the church said “hey, we just don't want this beautiful woman hugging our husbands” and the pastor had to gently talk to her and, you know, and she cooperated with it.

But Jezebel, let me, let me tell you how Jezebel gets in the door. So a woman with the spirit of Jezebel comes in and perhaps she has some personal needs. Maybe she's struggling in her marriage or maybe she's struggling in her job, she just needs prayer, you know, how somebody's “I need somebody to pray for me.” So she's always at the altar, you know, the churches have altar calls and the pastor comes down after the sermon and prays for people. So here comes Jezebel, or the woman with the spirit of Jezebel, she's very attractive and so she comes up for prayer and the pastor comes down and puts his hand on her shoulder and says, you know, “how can I pray for you?” “Oh, pastor, I'm just struggling so much. I'm just suffering so much. Could you please pray, pray for the Lord to help me?” “Why sure, I'll do that.” He puts his hand on her and he prays this beautiful, sweet, loving, Godly prayer and it feels so good, so wonderful, to the woman and she literally melts in the presence of the Lord because the Holy Spirit touches her. Now, it is the Holy Spirit who's touching her but Jezebel would pervert that will, pervert that.

So perhaps the woman comes up again the next week, “Oh, pastor, could you just pray for me again? It was so wonderful when you prayed for me last time.” So he prays for her again. Same thing happens, she feels the soft love of God and all this, really, well; well next thing you know, she calls the pastor at home, “pastor, could you please talk to me? I'm just, I'm really struggling. I just need help and you know, my boyfriend broke up with me and,” or maybe it’s her husband, “and I just don't know what to do.” So he has a nice little counseling session with her, so that goes on and goes on and then next thing you know, the woman shows up at the pastor's office and says “pastor, can I talk to you for a while? You're just the most amazing man. You're so wonderful, you're so sweet, I just love the anointing of God upon your life and the way you preach the word, you're so amazing.” Of course, now here's the pastor thinking “wow, that's really nice,” you know, “here's a beautiful woman and she's giving me all these great compliments.” Now, I mean, no pastor's gonna think “well, that's an awful thing to say,” so he's, he counsels with her but then here's what happens: all of a sudden, a little connection starts to develop, just, it's under the surface, nothing obvious, nothing that, nothing wrong at this point but there's a little, I call it a spiritual bond that begins to develop between the pastor and this woman who just needed prayer, needed someone to talk to, needed a little counseling. Now, the obvious answer is where's the pastor's wife? Well, she should be right by his side the whole time this is going on but a lot of times that doesn't happen.

So here's this woman, she just needed prayer, she just needed someone to talk to and the pastor just felt so sorry for her and she just felt so grateful for the pastor, so it's so wonderful. His sweet anointing, his, his kind voice, his gentle touch, all this kind of stuff which is leading, you know, to something not good. So the bond begins to grow between the pastor and this woman who he's just counseling and praying for. Next thing you know, the bond grows to a point where there really is a connection between the pastor and this woman when it should not be there. It's a connection that is reserved for the pastor and his wife. All of a sudden, Jezebel has created a situation and got him connected to this other woman, I call these other women spiritual wives. If you're a pastor and you're listening to me, please be careful, careful, careful of spiritual wives, it's a tremendous scheme of the enemy. It seems so innocent, you're just praying for her, you're just talking to her, you're just counseling her, but there's a, an attraction develops, a bond develops, and you can see where this is going. And so they continue to talk, he continues to pray, he continues to counsel her. Next thing you know, it steps over the line. And all of a sudden, the woman is so attracted and she's, she's feeding the pastor's ego, she's showing him an enormous amount of respect and admiration and maybe she's offered him something he's not getting at home, I, I don't know the answer to that but that could possibly be part of the trap. And so, a side effect of all this attention and this spiritual connection, which Jezebel is influencing and orchestrating the whole time, the side effect of this is sexual sin. An affair. And I promise you, I might not be 100% here, but this scenario, I believe it's what's playing out when a lot of these pastors end up having affairs with church members, with a lady in the church.

I have been a pastor before. I've pastored three different churches and I remember women, you know, calling me, talking to me. Now, at one time I was a single pastor, for about eight or nine years, and I, I remember the women, you know, calling me wanting me to counsel them, come into my office. Now what I would always try to do is leave the door open, I had a secretary right across the hall who's always there. So I was careful, but I remember the women coming in and talking to me and complimenting me, hanging on my every word, whenever I preach a sermon they're just nodding their heads yes, yes, amen, amen, hallelujah all that kind of stuff. And you could see the temptation there and an extraordinary friendship could develop there. Fortunately, I was smart enough, wise enough not to fall and not to go over the line, you know, I never, never, ever, ever did anything, you know, inappropriate like that. I was, you know, I was good but I could see how that temptation could come in. And Jezebel, remember what does Jezebel do? “She leads my bond servants astray so they commit acts of immorality,” because once the pastor commits the acts of immorality, the church is going to suffer, he's going to suffer, the woman who he had the affair with will suffer, all the, both families will suffer, the members will suffer, the kingdom of God will be hurt, and we just cannot be ignorant of this spirit anymore. Jezebel is a controlling, sexual spirit. It's a sexual spirit that- she'll use sexual temptation to destroy a pastor. And you know, I'm focusing on pastors on this podcast but this same principle could be with anybody. Jezebel can use this to destroy a marriage, to destroy any good man, any, any marriage, any wife. The Jezebel spirit is horrible, horrible. And the reason I'm doing this show is time and time and time again, I'm seeing pastors make the news because they've been, they've been having an affair and the church is hurt.

There was a pastor not too long ago here in a very large church in Central Florida area who had an affair. That affair was found out, it was discovered, and he ends up committing suicide. It's just horrible, horrible. But we should not be unaware of the enemy. I don't want to focus on Jezebel, I don't want to give Jezebel any more attention that she has earned, I'm not here to focus on Jezebel, focus on demons. We should “seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things should be added unto us” however, Jesus dealt with demons. When they were present and they were active, he cast them out. So we need to be aware when Jezebel is tempting someone into imm- immorality, using her controlling, manipulating spirit to influence Godly men and women. This spirit needs to be recognized for what it is. We need to take authority by the name and the power and the authority of Jesus Christ and cast Jezebel out. Cast Jezebel out. No more, no more, no more. 

Next week I'm going to do an interview with Dr. Steve Whittmann who wrote a fantastic book called Unchained and Undercover. He's got an entire chapter in his book about Jezebel and he's going to go deeper into this topic. One of the gifts of the spirit you need is discerning of spirits. In first Corinthians 12, there's nine manifestation gifts of the Holy Spirit. One of them is discerning of spirits. What that gift does is it tells you what spirit is in operation. Is it the Holy Spirit that's manifesting or is it another spirit and what spirit is it? You can ask the Lord. Ask the Lord, “Lord, give me the gift of discernment,” and you'll be able to discern what spirit is in operation. The Lord will give you an impression, a picture, an idea. He'll speak to you prophetically into your mind what spirit is in operation and then you know how to fight it.

Dr. Whittmann in one interview I did with him maybe a year or so ago, he was talking about why it's important to know the name of a demon. I said “why do we know the name of a demon?” He said well, imagine walking into a room with a hundred people and you're, you want to talk to a guy named Bob, he's in the room somewhere, and you just walk into the room and go “hey, hey, hello, hello, hello!” everybody just kind of looks at you but if you walk into the room and go “hey Bob! Bob, where are you Bob! Well, Bob will pick- Bob will speak up and go “hey, here I am! Here I am!” and you can go direct to Bob. Well, a silly example maybe, but knowing the name of a demon, what demon it is, can allow you to focus your spiritual warfare in a more concentrated form and get rid of the spirit.

One thing about spiritual warfare I've taught many times, spiritual warfare is like a boxing match. You have to hit the demon over and over and over until you knock it out, so it may not just be one prayer, one, one moment of warfare. You have to hit it again and again and again. Now, two types of prayers to when dealing with demons: Prayer of petition, that's where I'm asking God for help, I'm seeking God's wisdom, seeking God's guidance and petitioning God. Then there's proclamation. Proclamation is when you take authority, with the authority God has downloaded to you, and you proclaim and you speak God's truth and you cast, with the authority that's been given you, you act on that authority and you command the spirit to stop its operation now. If there's any obvious spirits attacking you and there's any obvious doorway you've given the spirit- what I mean by a doorway: if you've got unrepented sin, if you've got occultic objects in your house, if you're involved in immorality and have not repented of it, then Jezebel, it's got an open invitation. 

So close any door, close any door that might be inviting Jezebel into your life, any sin or rebellion on your part that might be inviting Jezebel into your life, and then throw her little you-know-what out and do not allow her to attack you or your family. Pray over your pastor, rebuke and pray against Jezebel harassing your church, your pastor, your church leaders, especially- now if, Jezebel attacks women too, but so much more so- well, now I'll be careful, no, Jezebel attacks women and men. This, this, this immoral, this immoral spirit, the temptation to fall into immorality, that can affect men and women. So there's a lot of incredible women leaders in the church and they too, and I'll say this, the attack of Jezebel is upon God's anointed. Now, if you're called as a prophet, you have dealt with, if you're called as a prophet, you know Jezebel very well because that's the primary target. 

But also, lately what I'm seeing is Jezebel is after the fivefold ministers, especially pastors, knowing that, “ruin the pastor's life and I can ruin the church”, and that's what she's doing. But we're aware of this scheme, we're going to start praying against this scheme and not let this spirit in our church, and we pray over our pastors and church lead- let's just do that now, we'll get ready to close.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for each person listen- each person listening to me. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we rebuke and renounce this spirit of Jezebel that's been attacking our churches, our pastors, our church leaders, and our families. In the name of Jesus Christ, we say no more Jezebel, no more of this horrible spirit. We renounce the spirit of Jezebel, spirit of witchcraft, spirit of control and manipulation, spirit of temptation, all these related to Jezebel, and we command this assignment out of our homes, out of our churches, out of our ministries. In the name of Jesus Christ, we will not allow it anymore. In the name of Jesus, we pray and proclaim and believe. Amen, amen.

I really appreciate you listening to me today. It's so, it's an honor and a privilege. I know it's kind of a cliche, but it really is an honor and privilege. Remember, it helps me if you will go to my website and uh, you know, icmcollege.org/selftalk. Follow me, subscribe, give a review, that always helps. Share this with someone, share it, it helps. The more people we get the message out to, the more people will be free, amen. I'm Dr. Ray Self and I want to thank you so much for listening to me today. I hope this show has been a blessing to you, I hope it wasn't too, too heavy for you. Amen, amen, amen. God bless you and good night, or good morning, or good day.

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Thank you again for listening to my show. In the next episode, I'm going to be interviewing Dr. Steve Whittmann and we're going to go deeper into the spirit of Jezebel problem. Dr. Whittmann has incredible, very sound biblical solutions to the spirit. I think you will really enjoy this show and another, just thought for you, if you have an idea for a podcast, something you would like to uh, to really talk about or address, let me know. You can do this by making um, you know, by subscribing and sending me an email on our website or I can give you my direct email address, drrayself@gmail.com, how simple can you get? d-r-r-a-y-s-e-l-f @ gmail.com. Email me your show ideas, would love to hear from you again. Don't forget the college, my college at icmcollege.org, now enrolling. God bless you.