Episode 13: Jezebel - Women of the Bible Series

On this episode, we are actually swinging to the opposite extreme from last episode's (12) conversation about the Proverbs 31 Women. Basically,  for every wonderful thing that describes that women of wisdom, this month's woman is the exact opposite to an evil and murderous degree.  Such extremes.

Today, we are talking about JEZEBEL.

She is not someone we want sitting at our table. She would not fit into our beautiful community of broken yet redeemed women. Although she was definitely broken, she never accepted the truth of God and his redemption. To her bitter end, she was plotting, prideful, vengeful, and contemptuous. She is everything we don't want to be.

So why talk about her? Well, there are still many things to learn from her defiance and disobedience:
- how pride can blind us to the beautiful surrender of redemption
- how idolatry defines our purpose and passion
- how our strengths can become twisted and lead us to deployable actions when used for our own selfish motives

There is much to avoid and learn from her life.

Who is she? She was:
1. driven by what her heart worshipped (Baal).
2. a fixer (at all costs).
3. stubborn.

Who was God to her?
He was the all-powerful one that she just could not accept, so much bigger than her sin and would not be manipulated or handled or out-witted, and just, dealing with her sin with justice.

Although this is a story about a really evil woman who would go to any lengths to get what she wanted, we pray that you will see how her worship determined her path and chose not to do the same.  

Let's live as redeemed women.
 
Much love,
Amy and Jamy

SHOW NOTES:
If you would like to talk more about how to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior that we mentioned in the episode, we would love to chat with you! Feel free to reach out to Amy (amyp672@gmail.com) or Jamy (jamyfisher5@gmail.com). We are praying for you!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
*See episode description in the show notes. Review I Kings 16, 18, 19, 21; 2 Kings 9  for her story.

1. What did you learn for the first time about Jezebel? What surprised you about her?

2. After listening to the podcast, how would you define worship? What did Jezebel worship?

3. What is idolatry? How do you see the struggle against idolatry in your life?

4. How do you see the need to “fix” in Jezebel’s story? Why do you think is at the core of our needs to fix things?

5. Describing Jezebel’s husband 1 Kings 21:25 says that “no one else so completely sold himself to do what was evil in the Lord’s sight as Ahab under the influence of his wife Jezebel.”  Review the word studies below and paraphrase the verse in your own word. 

· sold here means to build, work, toil

· influence means to stir up

6. How do we use our influence to stir up the wrong things? Read Hebrews 10:24 for a reminder of what we SHOULD be stirring up.

7. Amy contrasted the Proverbs 31 Woman with Jezebel. What are the differences you see?

8. Review the three descriptions from the podcast and discuss which one resonates the most with you. 

· Driven by what her heart worshipped

· A Fixer

· Stubborn

9. “She is us. Who God is to her, He is to me.” This is the primary question we seek to answer with each character study podcast. In the story of Jezebel we see a woman who refused to seek God; the warning is chilling. Who is God in this passage? What does that mean to you in your life today?

Transcript

Amy: 0:06

Hey everyone, welcome to Car Chat Podcast. I'm Amy, I'm Jamy and each month we chat in my car about one woman of the Bible and I just love these women of the Bible and I feel like we are in such great community with them and each other and I'm learning so much about them and about who God is to me and who God is to you in their stories. Well, we hope that through these conversations, that you will know that you are not alone in your faith, in your struggle and in your growth, even when you look around and don't see anyone chasing after God like you are, or you feel like you're walking this life of faith by yourself. Today is episode 13. 13, okay.

Jamy: 0:47

Lucky 13 or not so lucky 13.

Amy: 0:51

And today we are getting to know a woman who we wouldn't want to have sitting at the table with us. She is everything of who not to be, and not only because of all the awful things that she did, but because of her stubborn and unrepentant heart that was turned away from God even up until her death. Yes, this woman that we're talking about today in episode 13 is Jezebel, and typically we say that we love this community of broken yet redeemed women and we are when we choose Jesus but Jezebel never made the choice to be redeemed, and so we see the story of a woman who is broken and stays broken without the redemption of God shown in her life. She did have a choice, and so do we, and so let's get to know her today.

Jamy: 1:39

Yeah, I think sometimes we think of her as a cautionary tale and don't really take to heart how seriously rebellious she was. She's not a joke.

Amy: 1:48

She's not a joke and she's not an insult slam that you just throw around. And I've been fascinated as I was studying her in prep for this conversation, all the things I didn't know about her and, like I do with most of these women, I try to step into their shoes. And it was. It just gave me a whole new perspective on her. And, like I do with most of these women, I try to step into their shoes. And it was. It just gave me a whole new perspective on her depravity. When I stepped into her shoes and truly didn't grasp all of what she was Cause I think she was really, really dark.

Amy: 2:18

Yeah, um, we're answering the question who is she? And discovering these two things she is a lot like me and who God is to her, he is to me. He always has the offering of who he can be, but we each have the choice to choose him and we will see that Jezebel, to her dying minute, did not choose God. And let's just give a snapshot of Jezebel's life. And let's just give a snapshot of Jezebel's life and for reference, her story is found in 1 Kings, 16, 18, 19, 21, and then 2 Kings 9. And I love this first phrase because it captures everything. Jezebel was a power-hungry murderess who stopped at nothing to get what she wanted. Yep, that's a good one, but let's peel back kind of the history of her. She was the daughter of Ethbaal, the priest of Baal, so her dad was the priest of Baal and the king of Tyre, who murdered his brother to take over the throne. Oh, so that is a family in which she grew up with. Yes, not a real good father figure.

Jamy: 3:19

No, Well, probably to her. He was because he was ruthless and got what he wanted and all of those things. Like she became, I wonder how much she emulated him. That's interesting. And we don't know that that's not in the Bible.

Amy: 3:30

Yeah, but that is curious Because that was normal to her. Yeah.

Jamy: 3:36

His behaviors were. What was norm of how a person acts, I wondered. I want there to be some explanation for why she's so bad.

Amy: 3:42

Yeah no-transcript, and just the little bit that we're going to talk about it today is really uncomfortable even to talk about because it's just so evil. But I think it's rooted in that. I think that that is what brings it in. So Jezebel then married King Ahab of Israel, who himself was evil and did terrible things against God, and he replaced the worship of Yahweh with Baal because of her influence. Then there was a showdown with Elijah on Mount Carmel because between Baal and Yahweh and you may or may not know this story it's a crazy cool story about God's omnipotence and his power and how he tried and true, absolutely defeated any kind of thought that he would not be the preeminent powerful one, god of the universe.

Amy: 4:56

She then manipulated and had killed a righteous man, naboth. She had him stoned so that her husband, king Ahab, could get a vineyard, because he wanted it, because he was pouting.

Jamy: 5:08

So she stepped in and tried to fix that for him. Which I think she was just annoyed that he was pouting and did the whole thing.

Amy: 5:13

It wasn't out of compassion, it was out of annoyance that she moved.

Jamy: 5:17

Because he wouldn't turn his face away from the wall and eat, and he wouldn't eat.

Amy: 5:20

And such a baby. And even on the day she died and we're going to get into this, but I have to just give you a little caveat here she died by being pushed out the window, trampled by horses and eaten by dogs and even to that day she was indignant and defiant to the Yahweh God. Before we dive into three ways to describe Jezebel, I want to just bring up the fact that this is a stark contrast from our last episode and the women we talked about of Proverbs 31.

Jamy: 5:48

Interesting and we didn't play in that part. We didn't we are just trying to keep them in chronology.

Amy: 5:52

We are and so it's interesting with the Proverbs 31 woman, how intimidated we can be because of the picture it gives us of what we can be in, in, in, in, when we are devoted to the Lord. So Proverbs 31 is all the wonderful and beautiful things that we can be and what God can grow in us as we are worshiping him. Yes, now, on the other extreme, we're taking today and Jezebel and seeing all the evil and ugly and terrible and painful things that can happen when we worship anything other than God.

Jamy: 6:29

Same devotion, just the object is different. Bingo.

Amy: 6:34

And I think I love that connection.

Jamy: 6:35

I'm so glad you're bringing that up.

Amy: 6:37

Yeah, I think it's a really, um, timely point to ponder, yeah, of the contrast of the two and to really ask ourselves. I know and really asked ourselves where is my heart's devotion looking towards? And so, uh, I just thought that was interesting If you haven't listened to Proverbs 31 and and woman, our last episode, episode 12. And um, after this one, you need a little upper.

Jamy: 7:06

You may need to go listen to that. And one of the best things about that one Amy gives some great definitions all the way through that, Some great character definitions. It was really great.

Amy: 7:16

It was a really great one. Go back, listen, all right. So now let's sip our tea and talk about three ways to describe Jezebel.

Jamy: 7:25

Let us do that.

Amy: 7:26

The first one is she was driven by what her heart worshiped.

Jamy: 7:31

Yeah, which shouldn't be a bad thing.

Amy: 7:32

This is kind of what you've already said with devotion.

Jamy: 7:36

There's a part of that. Yes, it's all about what your object is. Who, what. It can be both things.

Amy: 7:43

And this is the core feeding source of her behaviors.

Amy: 7:49

Absolutely, this was it, and it is not just a sideline to describe her. It is the reason why she was who she was. She worshipped Baal, yes, and in the Bible we see in 1 Kings, 16, 29 through 33, but really verse 31. And it says Ahab married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab had also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him. So that combination brought a lot of evil. Ahab was already doing evil.

Amy: 8:38

Jezebel comes in with her worship of Baal, and it just continues to accentuate. Just need to kind of understand what it was like to worship Baal, and it just continues to accentuate. Just need to kind of understand what it was like to worship Baal. He took on the shape of a bull or a ram and was associated with fertility and thunder or rain, but yep, the worship of Baal included child sacrifice, and just that alone, y'all. I just can't even imagine sacrificing a baby to an object to hopefully get something that I want, so that was a part of it, and just think of how that would set the culture of the people who saw that as right.

Jamy: 9:20

Yeah, how misguided it was to the blessings of fertility with a child to think that giving that in sacrifice was going to keep getting the blessing of fertility throughout your life. It's so backwards and twisted and such an aberration of what God intended.

Amy: 9:40

Yeah, it's so twisted. Another aspect of worshiping Baal was ritual sex and there was sacred harlotry and um, all the things that would go along with that. Uh, that's all I can say about it. So those are some of the. That's the environment in which worship Baal was, and any poly, polytheistic, polytheistic, polytheistic, polytheistic Many gods, many gods, society. It is rooted in the fact of giving each of them a power or an attribute, fertility, reign, and then you give them something and then you get what you want from them.

Jamy: 10:18

It's transactional.

Amy: 10:19

Always they would give something to get something, and I think we like to operate in that type of exchange because then we get what we want. And that's why it was difficult for the Israelites sometimes to really serve and honor God and worship him, because there were some intangibilities and trust involved with that. And so that is the culture in which Jezebel grew up in. Her dad was a priest.

Jamy: 10:47

He did awful things and that was normal for her and who knows all that she saw as a little girl and had been subjected to for the sake of honoring her father, honoring her God, honoring her country and then it being seen as religious honoring her country and then it being seen as religious and that spiritual manipulation and kind of an imprint on her as a little girl.

Amy: 11:14

I'm sure that she saw horrific things and that just really marks somebody and so I think that that is an important thing to understand about her background, of what she was exposed to and what she grew up as normal, but her Baal worship defined her existence, her meaning, her purpose and her worldview, and just thinking about how that would impact her mindset.

Jamy: 11:43

That was a big thing. And even she we learned pretty early in her story that she comes in and she starts getting rid of the because, even though she is a Baal worshiper and even though the country she's marrying into to be this new queen, they're not supposed to be doing that. They're supposed to be following Yahweh, but they aren't and their leadership isn't. So she can just kind of follow along and get rid of this ridiculous God that she sees that they still kind of have some attachments to. And so she gets right after it with encouraging him to build and also murdering all the prophets the prophets that were loyal to God. She sets out to eradicate the country.

Amy: 12:27

She kills a bunch of them. Yes, and it's interesting that it says Jezebel sought out to kill all the prophets. It's the woman seeking out the queen seeking out to kill the prophets, and that's listed in Scripture Because there's one faithful prophet who hides them hides a hundred.

Jamy: 12:43

So there's still a remnant. A prophet who hides them hides a hundred. So there's still a remnant. There always is a remnant of those loyal to worship, to stay loyal, loyally worshiping God. Those words didn't come out quite right, but you guys know what I mean. But she was. I mean she was intent, she was focused and she was driven You're right, she was driven, very loyal and a hard worker, to see that happen. So it's. You know, if she had heard the call of God and listened and become a woman after God's heart, I wonder what she could have done.

Amy: 13:09

I wonder what she could have done and I wonder what influences she stepped into that were actually God-fearing around her. Yeah. I wonder but just she didn't hear she killed or she ran from, she was terrified?

Jamy: 13:21

No one. There's this whole section I read about, where the prophet that is hiding the other prophets, where God makes it clear that he's supposed to go and tell the king that anyway, it's this whole thing. You guys can go and find out the whole story, but he goes back and forth like you're sending me to her. She's definitely going to kill me. Why would you do this? I've been so loyal. Why are you sending me to?

Amy: 13:52

do this. They were so afraid to even have any interaction with Jezebel or Ahab. They were scary, scary, wicked, yeah. And so that's all of what it looked like for her to be driven by what she worshiped in the Bible. But then let's bring it into our life. About building this connection of what we worship drives us. It defines our experience, our meaning, our purpose and our worldview, just like it did her, and there's a couple definitions that I think we need to talk about. One is what is worship, and two, what is an idol, because it's easy to think that that's just an archaic method of not following God, but we listeners all worship so many things other than God.

Jamy: 14:37

Idolatry is alive and well.

Amy: 14:38

We just need to make sure we know, so let's call it out and let's talk about it. So the definition that I have is for worship is when we give our deepest affection and highest praise to something.

Jamy: 14:50

Yes, and we worship at church. Affection is the key word. Yeah, I think what, what is what your heart is most attached to? I've heard it, even though I think this is a little trite, just to help you remember like your worship is worth, like what put the word worth in there what's worth my touch and my attention? Yeah, and so we worship at church. What were you going to say?

Amy: 15:10

Yeah, we worship. You know, sometimes it's just connected. Sometimes some people call it worship service, and so it's the whole time. Other people call worship music, and so sometimes people only associate worship with music.

Jamy: 15:22

Yeah.

Amy: 15:23

But we worship day in and day out in identifying and acting on what our heart is attached to. That's right, okay. Well, let's talk about idol, okay, and that's. Those are the things apart from God, yes, that we worship. So idol is the worship of someone or something other than God, as though it were God. Yes, and it's what or who we give our deepest affections to, other than God. That's right. So they go back, they kind of their definitions layer in with each other, and it's really what I put my value in is what I've had to say. And what are some other things that you, you, you think that we generally, or you personally, you uh, deem as an idol in your life and worship other than God?

Jamy: 16:12

I think, idols for me. I often see it in relationships because it's harder to see them as idols because there are responsibilities. They're good when we're we're supposed to have, um, these attachments to our husband and our children and our friends and community, and in ministry we're supposed to be doing that. And so I think sometimes it's easy to miss the warning when it, when that attachment supersedes God and becomes idolatrous. I think that can be a big one. Just when we're willing to do anything and sacrifice anything for certain relationships, that gets us really off. I think that can be a big one. Just when we're willing to do anything and sacrifice anything for certain relationships, that gets us really off. I think, uh, comfort and ease is a huge one. I think a lot of times we think we somehow again make life transactional where if something is hard then I gotta fix that. That. That can't be right, that can't be something that God has for any purpose allowed. So I got to get this all right. For something to be difficult or painful or hard is an automatic no for us, and so we go into fix it mode and begin to problem solve and try to eradicate things that are, that are hard for us and because of the day and time we live. We can do that. We have almost every resource we need to be able to do that. So I think that's a big one.

Jamy: 17:25

And of course, I mean there's things the way we waste our time. A lot of times, our, our phones and our, the shows we watch on TV and things like that can just become an attachment and we call it rest. But often that is feeding attachments that are not godly or taking away from the relationship we should have with him and being able to hear his voice and being able to to receive and give that attachment, if you're. We can all make life look good, we can all look right, we can all do the things that we're supposed to do to be okay on the outside, but he's, he's concerned. Idolatry is what's happening on the inside. So it really is. What am I loving most? What am I thinking about the most?

Jamy: 18:08

What can I not live without what? What am I always working for? What am I building?

Amy: 18:13

And for me is what am I obsessing about?

Jamy: 18:15

Yeah, I mean, my brain is my, my thought identifier.

Amy: 18:18

Yeah, and so if you think I, I don't do, I'm not in idolatry yeah, because we don't worship little gold statues, exactly.

Amy: 18:28

But there are things, and so this may not be a new idea to you, because you may have heard this before and really even worked through and grown through identifying your own idols.

Amy: 18:39

But for those of you who are still like I don't know, let me give you a real life example. My kids are so quickly and easily idols in my life and they preempt my worship, devotion and love for the Lord, because pretty much at all costs I'm going to seek their comfort and their best 100%, and that is what we need to do as moms. But when it trumps being able to trust God with the outcome, that's when we get into trouble. So when we lived in South Carolina, we had a system of magnet schools in our school district magnet schools in our school district and so there was a lot of direction that you could give to where your kid went to school, based on interviewing, and this happened all the way from kindergarten all the way through high school, and so you could have the opportunity to go to any school within the district, and there were a number of ones that had really excellent magnet programs, and so it was this feverish um journey of what school's the best, how can I get them in it, and there's no guarantee.

Jamy: 19:53

So much competition and so much on my control because I could do all that I can.

Amy: 19:57

But if my kid bombs in the interview, then forget it all Right.

Amy: 20:01

But I cannot tell you and my girlfriends who walked with me through these seasons in South Carolina can totally testify what a crazy nutball I was.

Amy: 20:09

But I was so obsessed with making sure I had all the information, making sure that they got in the right school, making sure they wore the right thing to the interview, making sure their portfolio was great, making sure that when they were in that school, that they got the best teacher, that they were around the best kids that they because this was dependent for the rest of their lives.

Amy: 20:29

I mean, I had this massive um, this was going to set the course for their whole lives and it was up to me, it was dependent on you, it was dependent on me and it was a very. I thought that by controlling it it would give me peace, right, but in, by controlling it and created them as such an idol of, of, of this is what I'm attached to and it's going to happen, or else, right, um, that was the attitude that I took and it drove me crazy, yeah, and I was a frazzled mess that not only overflowed on my kids, it overflowed on my friendship, on my marriage, on my relationship with the Lord, and so, after the two olders kind of made it through and I realized it's really not that big of a deal who their teacher is or what magnet program they're in.

Amy: 21:19

And even looking back, I think maybe that wasn't even the best for them Right, because I see who they are now and even though I was making it be who I wanted them to be, it really wasn't who one of them was Right and so I was forcing something that wasn't even natural or organic to the personality of this kid. With this our last one who there's a seven year span in between our middle and last, and I've learned a whole lot and I'm older and I'm tired and I have a I'm able to just kind of reflect on all the things I wish I would have done differently. It's like, dude, you gotta, if your iPad's not working, you gotta talk to your teacher.

Amy: 22:02

But I'm not going to be freaking out, and if you choose not to, then you're going to have to deal with consequences. It's fascinating and I think sometimes for me it was prompted by the uh, the pain and the stress that was wrapped up in what I thought I was doing. The right thing really ended up not being the right thing. And so with the this third, um, our third kid, I just am like it's not that big of a deal. Plus, the Lord has grown me in such broken places over the last seven years of really realizing the extent to what I can control and the extent of what I know is best is really not truly what's best. And then my dependence on him and my trust in him, and my dependence on him and my trust in him, my faith in him, has grown so much that I'm I don't hold as obsessive as I used to this last one, yeah, although when my olders, or any of them, go through struggle, my first thing to do is get in a frantic freak out mode. How?

Jamy: 23:01

can I fix? How can I help?

Amy: 23:03

And that's my indicator that some things are out of whack, and it's okay. But if I can be aware of that and then ratchet it back in line with the Lord, that's where the obedience come from. That's what Jezebel did not have.

Jamy: 23:19

No, she didn't. She didn't have that as her foundation or as her desire, and so she never. She just kept pushing.

Amy: 23:26

She just kept pushing. And so if you're listening and maybe the parenting story relates to you and you never really identified that as an idol in your life, ask the Lord what he thinks about it, because your story is not my story and it may not be parenting for you. It may be prestige, it may be shoes, it may be your image, it may be your marriage, it may be your husband's position, it may be your position, but anything that you begin to grab too tight to opposed from releasing it and trusting the Lord with it, that's the indicator for me, that's a good way to describe it Something we're clinging to instead of giving to the Lord with open hands.

Jamy: 24:08

I think you're right. I think our desire to control outcome can be a huge idol for us in many ways.

Amy: 24:17

So we leave that with you to kind of think about and talk about with the Lord, because you don't want to get it out of control or not even not think it's a big deal. Right, because this is back in the scripture of 1st Kings, 16 in verse 31. It talks about Ahab and this is right before it says that he married Jezebel, daughter of the Baal priest. It says Ahab not only considered it trivial to commit sins, but he also married Jezebel. But he also married Jezebel. So the fact that he was trivializing his sins is a way big yellow flashing light for us to caution when we begin to trivialize our sins. That is a red flag shining yellow light to say hold on, lord, I don't want to go down this path. That's right, so good.

Amy: 25:09

So three ways to describe Jezebel. The first one was driven by what her heart worshipped. The second one is that she was a fixer at all costs. At all costs. And I had to look up what a fixer was and it actually is in the dictionary and it's someone who carries out assignments for others, is skillful at solving problems for others, especially dishonestly, a person who serves as an agent to arrange for a desired result, perhaps by improper means. How does that to you?

Jamy: 25:41

jamie define, uh, who jasabelle was well, the, the two of the stories we have about her. When she gets so mad at Elijah for the cookout on Mount Carmel, her response to that, to what happens, this miraculous showing of God's power, instead of being humbled by the power of God, she immediately, I mean, and she is resolute when she hears about it, she just sends a message that is, that is so harsh, and she just tells him you will be dead by this time tomorrow. What you have done to my priest will happen to you by this time tomorrow. And I always think is, I would typically think of this story with thinking about Elijah, because he like melts and crumbles under this and that's a whole nother story talking about him. But he's just had, single handedly, has been the, the, the person, the human that God has used to show his sovereignty and to show his power over all of these other false, false prophets. Huge win. And then this threat from this scary woman, I mean, sends him to the hills when he doesn't even want to keep going.

Amy: 26:55

Exactly he's completely done.

Jamy: 26:57

So that's, I think, the first story we have of her being a fixer, Because she's like oh no, you're not going to show off your God over my God and you're not going to take all of my prophets, even though she'd already killed all of his prophets. You know, that's not a concern.

Amy: 27:11

And then the second story hold on before you go there, because I think this is, this is in first Kings 19,. One through two. And it says now Ahab the King told Jezebel, his wife, everything that Elijah had done, and now he had killed all the prophets with a sword, because then they went out and killed all the Baal prophets. And then, at the very end, it says that Elijah outran Ahab in a chariot, and so he not only saw the power of God, he experienced the power of God, because it says, god gave him the ability to outrun the chariot and so then we have Jezebel, in verse two.

Amy: 27:45

Sent a messenger to Elijah to say may the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if, by this time tomorrow, I do not make your life like that of one of them, the one that he killed, the ones that he killed.

Jamy: 27:58

And the one right after that say he was scared and fled for his life. After all this courage, y'all he. He believed her, he knew she could do it, after he saw God, maybe that's it.

Amy: 28:14

He knew that she would do it. Yes, and that's scary. And so in one front I think, okay, that makes me feel better because of my up-down devotion to the Lord, like Elijah was all on. I mean just experiencing the power of God and then, all of a sudden, one threat from a person.

Jamy: 28:25

There's lots of good points for us on that one.

Amy: 28:27

Oh man. But I also can see it as Jezebel, as such a venomous, scary woman.

Jamy: 28:36

This is how terrifying and resolute she was. She was going to fix it.

Amy: 28:40

Yeah, she was going to fix it, okay. And then the second one, jamie.

Jamy: 28:43

Okay. So the second one is a story where they have, right next to their palace is a vineyard, and he wants it to, ahab wants it for his vegetable garden, and so he goes and tries to get it and he, because it's in his family, he won't give it, he won't sell it. And so he goes home and his power like he's not gonna force it, he's gonna leave it alone. But he goes home and is pouting and so she, she, she fixes it, she gets this whole ridiculous, horrible, wicked plan to take this vineyard away from this man Very premeditated.

Jamy: 29:17

And it's, it's homicidal. So she gets these two people Scoundrels, yeah, scoundrels, it says she gets them cause she knows the Jewish law. She gets them to testify against him in court, lie about him in court, and so he's stoned. They just they say that they say these horrible things about him since there's two of them. Everyone believes it. And they take him out and they stone him and she goes home and is like he's dead. You can have it, it's yours. Yes, she fixed that problem. She fixed that she had at all cost. The New Living Translation says when Jezebel heard the news, so, talking about her plan working, she said to Ahab you know the vineyard Naboth wouldn't sell you. Well, you can have it now he's dead. That's how the New Living Translation does 1 Kings 21, 15.

Jamy: 30:03

And then it says so he immediately went down to the vineyard to claim it.

Amy: 30:06

I mean she fixed it, she fixed it and and so in our lives, how do we then jump into fixer mode?

Jamy: 30:14

Yeah, I think that, uh, we don't really consider ourselves cause we're not going to kill anybody, so we're not that bad. But when we just walk away from God to make our life work in a way that seems right to us, we're doing the same thing.

Amy: 30:31

Yeah, and it's interesting because, as moms, we are the fixer of our little kids. If our baby cries, we feed them. If they skin their knee, we get a bandaid.

Amy: 30:41

Um, if they come naturally it does come naturally to us, and so there's an element like everything, a God-given, nurturing aspect of us as moms. We can take it to being our mission, apart from God, to get the end result that we want. And I think for me, in our, in my family, whether it be my husband or my kids, if they're sad, oh, I'll fix it, yeah.

Jamy: 31:07

And I think, for our ministry wives, our ministry context here. We can do this in leadership as well. When we see something, if it's not going according to the plan we originally had, instead of taking a minute to say, all right, God, what would you have us learn from this? Do we need to do? We need to rethink this. How can I hear you in this? We just immediately go into a management fixing mode that can be very manipulative, because it works.

Amy: 31:33

That's so true when we're not humble and stop, but we want to forge forward to fix. That is a sign that we are in fix it mode.

Jamy: 31:43

Maybe in fix it mode we just always need to just take a minute, take a deep breath and really ask God get some good language in our spirit for how to entrust this to God a little bit. I'm not sure how to do that, but just maybe not being so quick to rush to fix yeah.

Amy: 31:59

Um, maybe it would be okay, god, though, because this didn't think, this didn't work out like I thought.

Jamy: 32:04

Yeah, do I need to go a different direction.

Amy: 32:07

Show me in my heart or the steps that I need to take next, but to pause, I think and ask of him, pause is better.

Amy: 32:14

Yeah, than just going into fix-it mode and y'all, because I am a very empathetic person.

Amy: 32:21

I feel what someone else's feels, and so when someone else is sad, I'm sad.

Amy: 32:24

I don't like to be sad and so for them and for me, I want to fix their sadness, and that could be in a ministry setting.

Amy: 32:34

I learned way long ago that that is a crushing responsibility that is not mine to have is to make someone happier, to fix their problem, and it has created such sweet freedom in ministry when I realize God's the fixer and I'm not. And when someone comes to me with aer and I'm not, and when someone comes to me with a problem that I need to be obedient to the Lord and whatever he calls me to do. But I can let them own the responsibility of their choice and I don't have to be the the one who fixes it for them. And that sounds a little silly coming out of my mouth, but it's something that I got tripped up on in the first five years of our marriage and thought I can't survive in ministry like this not in our marriage, but in our ministry and I can't survive like this. And so the Lord really helped me see that it's not up to me to change people.

Jamy: 33:21

When it comes to fixing, a lot of times what seems right to us can actually hurt the people we're trying to. We're trying to help.

Jamy: 33:27

And it can make our husbands feel helpless and it can make our children feel run over and unheard, and so I think to focus instead, as far as relationally, to be a safe place for people to talk about their, maybe talk through some of their confusion without having to be afraid that we're going to take action, that that might be not what they wanted or it might end up having repercussions that come back on them.

Amy: 33:53

I think that's important, to sit in the mess for a little bit, and I think with our husbands that plays, because, if he's, you know, we don't like to see loved ones struggle. But when our husband comes with us to problems and we said, well, you just need to do this, this and this, that is, you're right going to just shut them down.

Jamy: 34:11

Well, and how do we feel when we want to talk about something that's bothering us and someone goes in to fix it? I often feel kind of like they're not listening to me or I feel like they don't think I'm capable of taking care of something. So I think there's an isolation that Fix it can create around us too. There's an isolation that fix it can create around us too, and I was. I was looking at her legacy, jezebel's legacy, and the things that she says, and Liz Curtis Higgs in her, in her chapter on Jezebel, she says there's five things that Jezebel says and I think this goes with her what our talk, our discussion about being a fixer and what.

Jamy: 34:45

The first was a complaint or the first was a threat, the second was a complaint, the third was sarcastic, the fourth was an order and the fifth was a complaint, or the first was a threat, the second was a complaint, the third was sarcastic, the fourth was an order and the fifth was an insult. Two referred to murder and three were direct hits on Ahab's leadership. So I think you can see that right there. She was a fixer but it hurt her husband. He was actually pretty capable, but she treated him like an imbecile, wow, and I think that being a fixer can really can put us in a place where we can become very toxic in our language. I mean, this is talking about her voice. She was sarcastic, yeah.

Amy: 35:17

Gosh and I don't want that.

Jamy: 35:19

I don't want to fall into that mode so much that I become someone where the things coming out of my mouth are painful and hurtful to my people. You know, if someone is going to describe my voice after I'm gone, I don't want it to be that, that it was threats and complaints and sarcasm and insults.

Amy: 35:41

That's, that's that really got me. Yeah, that's a mirror to look at, right. Um, well, one of the things that that I love about God is that he's the fixer of all things. And so for the things that we can't fix and fail miserably at and mess up the whole thing because we're trying to, god is the fixer of all things. Listen to these verses First Timothy 6, 14 through 16. God brings it about in his own time. He is the blessed and only ruler, the king of kings and lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light. He works all things together for good. He is the master controller of all things and he holds all things together. Yes, god is the fixer. He is the fixer and he knows the best. Also, in Romans 8, 28,. And we know that in all things, god works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. And then in Colossians 1, 17,. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

Amy: 36:40

I love that he holds it together.

Jamy: 36:47

So maybe our job, instead of being fixers, is just to be reflected in our worship and our refusing idolatry to be reflective of the one who does fix things point our people toward him.

Amy: 36:55

And trust that he is at work, trust that he is good and everything he does is good and through hands of love, and he is thinking eternally and not just here on earth, he knows. I think that's something that.

Jamy: 37:13

I need to marinate in Yep, all right.

Amy: 37:15

So Jezebel was a fixer. She was driven by what her heart worshiped and finally, she was stubborn. I really went around about what word to land on here, but I think that we all understand stubbornness, because we see it in ourselves and we see it in other people all the time. But the definition for stubbornness is having, or showing and listen to this dogged determination not to change one's attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so.

Jamy: 37:47

Yeah, and stubborn, I think, is saying it even a little bit lightly. This is she absolutely was resolutely stubborn. That's right, she was not going to be moved. Right, that pride was resolutely stubborn.

Amy: 37:56

That's right.

Jamy: 37:57

She was not going to be moved.

Amy: 37:58

Right, that prideful resoluteness? Yes. So let's look in the Bible about what it looks like for Jezebel to be stubborn. Ahab died and then, 10 years later, elisha had just anointed Jehu as king over Israel, and so we see in 2 Kings, 9, 6-7, the prophet saying this. Then the prophet poured the oil on Jehu's head and declared this is what the Lord of God, israel says I anoint you king of the Lord's people, israel. You are to destroy the house of Ahab, your master, and I will avenge the blood of my servants, the prophets, and the blood of all the Lord's servants shed by Jezebel.

Jamy: 38:36

So that's something she called out my name.

Amy: 38:39

So that is the context of where we see Jezebel's stubbornness to the very end, to the very end. So in 2 Kings 9, 30-37, we see her put on makeup, arrange her hair and look out the window when she heard that Jehu was coming. Arrange her hair and look out the window when she heard that Jehu was coming and as Jehu enters the gate, she asked have you come in peace, you Zimri, you murderer of your master, insulting to the end, insulting and jeering and sarcastic All those things we just talked about that came out of her heart of control, continues to come out of her heart in every situation.

Jamy: 39:16

Think about the images that we have from the Bible of when people are sorrowful and repentant and it's ashes on their head and wearing sackcloth. I mean she is. She is in every way, every detail being the opposite of sorrowful, and she knows, she has to know this. She doesn't have the force to survive this, but she will.

Amy: 39:45

Go out swinging.

Jamy: 39:46

Going out swinging. Yeah, and I read in the ESV study Bible note. It said that her being the posture about being the woman in the window may represent the goddess Astarte, who was one of the wives of Baal. So perhaps she is being represented as the very incarnation of the religion that she brought and I don't.

Amy: 40:04

I don't know if you saw that anywhere.

Jamy: 40:06

I hadn't seen that before, but that was just in one of the study notes in the ESV Bible that even her, her getting ready and sitting like that, all of it is. She's controlling what she can, yes, and being exactly who she always has been, to the end.

Amy: 40:20

And going out with a bang. She didn't run and hide, she didn't go somewhere else, she got all dolled up or beg for forgiveness. Or humility? No, nothing.

Jamy: 40:28

She got dolled up and she's insulting him as he's coming to kill her. I know.

Amy: 40:37

So this is how the rest of it plays out. Jehu looks up in the window. This is verse 32 of second Kings nine. Jehu looks up in the window and calls out okay, who's on my side, who's on my side? And two or three eunuchs look down and then Jehu says throw her down. So they threw her out of the window and this gets a little gory. Some of her blood splattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot. And jay, who went in and ate and drank and said take care of that cursed woman. He said, and bury her, for she was a king's daughter. But when they went out to barry her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet, in her hand. So all the things that she had wanted to build for herself in her own efforts proved to be nothing in the end. What do you make of that? In her stubbornness and connected to who she worshiped.

Jamy: 41:26

It's interesting to me that God's word, and I don't think he wanted this for her. I think all along he would have welcomed her, but he knows the state of her heart. I don't think God rejoices in it at all, but I just think it shows that no matter how strongly we force our way and how much power we exert in our life, if it's apart from God or if it's against God that we have no power. His plan will always come through. And even you know part of her legacy that saddens me so much and we don't have time, so you guys go look at it on your own.

Jamy: 42:07

She has a daughter who marries a king of the Southern kingdom of Judah and her legacy is so clear in her daughter because her daughter's character is very similar. She does similar murderous, manipulative, godless things, and I just think what a waste it is to uh, to find yourself at the, you know, pushed out of a window because you never could acknowledge and never could go to God and and just submit to the plans he had. So she was always in chains. She never found any freedom because she wouldn't live her life with God.

Amy: 42:44

Gosh, she never would attach to the Lord.

Jamy: 42:47

She was so tethered to false gods and I don't know what it means that they only found her skull and her hands and her feet. That's interesting. Yeah, I wonder what that meant. I didn't see anything on that, but she was. I think it means she was. The things that she had always done to be recognized were gone.

Amy: 43:04

That's a good, good way to explain that.

Jamy: 43:07

As herself. Everything she had fought and sought was no longer there. She was not recognized.

Amy: 43:16

Only she was not recognizing. Only God's word was recognizable at the end. Only God's word was recognizable at the end. And for us, only God's word is going to be recognizable in us in the end. And I think that I relate to her because I too am stubborn, and what would you say is at the root of stubbornness.

Jamy: 43:35

I think selfishness probably fear a desire to have to control.

Amy: 43:42

Because there's not, because you want what you want and maybe I don't trust that God's going to bring it as I want it to, and I don't believe that his way is best. I think that my way of doing it is going to be better than God's, and so I've got to do it.

Jamy: 43:56

Absolutely.

Amy: 44:00

I have to do it. Yeah, I have to do it. Um, we are all stubborn. Is there any example of stubbornness in your life, jamie, that that you can give like illustration to of how this looks?

Jamy: 44:05

I think just how slow I am often to to let go of my efforts to control and manipulate maybe not manipulate I don't see it as that all the time, but when I'm out, when I'm past it, or when I'm when I'm listening to God about it, I can see that I think stubbornness for me comes for wanting to dig my heels in in a place where I don't understand something or don't want something and I want God to do it the way I expect. That is stubbornness which turns to rebellion. And instead, when I'm in that place, it's okay to doubt and wonder and not not understand what's going on and even be hurt and disappointed in it. But it's not. I dig my heels in and demand to be the one in charge that that stubbornness gets me in trouble because it becomes rebellion and God won't have it. He won't have it. He's not going to reject me forever with it, but he will not be pushed around.

Amy: 44:57

He won't be pushed around and it never gives the end result that you want it to do. It never leads to a good place.

Jamy: 45:04

Let's be stubborn in the right ways. I know If we could take all of Jezebel's character traits and just flip them into. What if she had loved God? Yeah, she would have been a force to be reckoned with for God's kingdom, like none she was in that resolute stubbornness and devotion.

Amy: 45:24

Oh, it's so tragic it is. She could have been a massive force to be reckoned with, with her personality and her understanding and what she could have done and her influence. We have so much influence. She had tremendous influence and all of us do.

Jamy: 45:37

We don't always see it, but all of us do, and there's so many places that that is being seen and watched, and so it matters whether we're giving these instincts we have these kind of natural things that come out of us whether we're submitting them to God and letting him redeem them and shape them and teach us.

Amy: 45:56

Man.

Amy: 45:56

She could have been a Proverbs 31 woman if she had been fully devoted to the Lord and she seems to always be spinning and she's a doer and she could have done all those things that are listed in the poem of the Proverbs 31 woman, but she just didn't and she stayed attached to the things that she stayed attached to and could not even acknowledge the power of God to the very end.

Amy: 46:27

Well, this is a warning of who not to be and really what not to get tripped up on, right. So if you're listening and at any point along the way, certain topics or connection points of our conversation hit your heart, really take some time and investigate in prayer what God wants to say to you in that place. Whether it be you are a controller, a fixer, a manipulator of situations, so that those things that you hold in so much value your kids, your family, your job, your position, your image those are places in which you need to really take a look at. Jamie, what would you say to the listener? It's like, yeah, I know I'm stubborn, or I know that that is an idol in my life. What would you say to her and what would you encourage her to do?

Jamy: 47:24

I, you know, I keep thinking of um years ago when I studied Hosea and how there's a section in there and I'm I'm just I can't remember the exact references to give you, but there's a part where they're like we're sorry.

Jamy: 47:37

You know, they have this quick apology to God because they want what they want, they want to be okay with him, but at the end he gives this model of specifically being specific in your apology to God and I would, I would encourage us, all of us, to take the things that this, that talking about Jezebel, the idolatrous parts of our hearts, the things, like you said, that we're attached to, that have superseded our love for God.

Jamy: 48:03

Take them specifically and go to God and if you can't quite do it, ask him to help you and start listing them out, being really specific about the things that you have put in front of him and let him, let him show you the sorrow over that and just just stay with it. That's not very practical and I'm trying to think of how to how to make that a more practical exercise. But that's what I would say is to be really specific in as soon as you realize that the things that are keeping you from God, the places where you are being arrogant and demanding your own way and even murderous in your language, and some of the things that you say. You can be right and still be killing your husband and your kids in the way that you say it. Those things bring it to him and be specifically apologetic and stay with him and let him change your mind, let him change your heart.

Amy: 48:56

And would you say that that has happened to you, where you've brought things to him? You have no idea how it's going to turn to better, but God does it yeah.

Jamy: 49:05

Yeah, especially for me in the sorrow of it, the sorrow of just being so worn out with trying to keep life working by my own strength and coming to him specifically with the things that I know I'm I'm keeping holding ahead of him.

Jamy: 49:20

He brings comfort and he brings direction and a lot of times, gives gives me an idea of specific things that I need to be changing course on, things that I need to be letting go of. I think that I don't need to be doing things that I'm watching or listening to, or even places I'm serving or relationships I'm chasing, letting go of those, holding those with more of an open hand. When I was young, I remember reading a book that gave me the idea of praying for red flags, and so when, something like this, I know there's a habit or something that God is dealing with me, a sin, I ask him to give it a red flag in my thoughts. And so when I realize I'm going that way to this day, sometimes I'll just kind of see a little mental red flag, you know, giving some imagery to those things in your prayers so that, so that you're more cooperative with that process, with him, cause it's a spiritual thing.

Jamy: 50:11

So we can't make it an absolute checklist, but those are some of the things that I've practiced over the years.

Amy: 50:17

No, that's really good. There's a verse in Psalm that says Then I acknowledged the guilt of my, or the weight of my, iniquities, and he forgave the guilt of my sin. And there's such power in acknowledgement, yeah. And when I began to tap into that of really exposing those, oh man, lord, I am stubborn, and I wrote it down and go, I am stubborn, show me what this looks like in my life. And then, whenever I'm faced with it too, I've gone. This is big, I don't know how to get out of this. And when I say, lord, help me, even know how to grow through this, I don't even know what to do. I look back on a couple of situations in which I'm like, wow, without me having a three-point plan, he changed my heart as I kept coming to him, and so it's about relationship y'all. And if this were a religion with points and an equation to do, we'd be right back where Jezebel was. Yes, transactional.

Amy: 51:21

Yeah, I'll give you this, you give me that, yeah, and that's but this is a relationship, and so it's all rooted to um, you know, we can talk about God. We can, and talk about his redemption and who he would have been with Jezebel, but with us today we have the salvation of Jesus, who covers us to do. He covers what we could not do for ourselves. In his perfection, he gave his life to cover imperfections and he died for our sins and rose again to set us free. And as we choose him to be Lord and savior, as we choose him to uh, be the one that we follow, his Holy spirit works in our way, in our, in our hearts, in ways, and so, if you have never begun a relationship with Jesus and you are living with only the old Testament God in your mind, you are missing the power of what he offers you today, and it's a relationship with Jesus and be empowered by the Holy spirit to do things that you can't do in your own, and I think that that that is something that needs to be said, that I have prayed about this last month, that we haven't articulated as much on this podcast, but but for those of you listening who don't have a relationship with Jesus, um, it is the reason why Jamie and I can sit here and and talk about things that that we have struggled with, are struggling with, with still hope that's right, and with the truth, that's right. And so, um, reach out to one of us through the information on the show notes if you have questions about how to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and we would love to talk with you through that. Absolutely Well, who was she In many?

Jamy: 53:08

ways she is a lot like me.

Amy: 53:10

But it is a warning of what can happen if we attach our hearts to anything other than God. That's right, 100%. She was driven by what her heart worshiped. She was a fixer and she was stubborn. And who was God to her?

Amy: 53:21

His plan will not be derailed by the most evilest of people and God's power is supreme, yes, and those who defy him will come to a terrible end. That's right. So she is one of us, but we have a choice of not to end like her. That's right. And who God is to her? His powerful plan superseding anything that we can do it also applies to us.

Jamy: 53:49

Yes, so anything else you want to add to that, I just love that. The only other thing I would say is that you can be courageous to take the worst of the worst of the worst in you to him, because he is always receiving us. When we are, when we are repentant, he receives and he forgives, always, always. So don't hold anything back. Bring it all to him.

Amy: 54:07

I love that, and he would have been that to Joseph. He is that so?

Jamy: 54:13

let this be just your call to be courageous, to bring your worst of the worst to him, because he will receive you.

Amy: 54:20

I love that. Well, we thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time on car chat podcast.