A Call to Repent From the Spiritual Seduction of Jezebel — Dan Biser

Good evening. We wanna finish up looking at Revelation chapter two and three on a call to repentance to the church in North America today. This is not a new command of the scripture. It's not a new thing of myself or anyone else.

The Church’s Call to Repentance

This is just the way that the gospel is presented. So I wanted to look at, and already had started as we was looking at the church, mainly of Ephesus and those first verses of Revelation chapter two. Was able to get through the most of that, although there is still multiple things that are left for us that we need to look at and to apply to our condition, to the church's condition as a whole.

Because again, where we're at right now is that the church has responded to a call to prayer, which as I mentioned last time, I've done numerous calls to prayers. And some of those went unheeded, but others it is, is that some of them were embraced and that is a joy.

Others are picking that up and there is a movement happening of prayer. Now, it's not just enough for me, as I've said before, not just enough to say, let's pray, or we are praying. There's that essence of prevailing prayer where God says, I have heard your prayer and I'm going to answer your prayer.

Psalm 66 that I gave you last time, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. And there are numerous verses found throughout scripture where God says, you can pray all you want, I'm not gonna listen.

And so it is, is that most time, because we are so focused on what we want and by half truths in error that's preached is that you'll hear a scripture like Matthew chapter seven, ask and you shall receive, and that's as far as it goes.

But that's not the whole condition of the state of the church. That's not the whole condition of prayer. You know, there are numerous people praying, but we still don't see the power of God operating in the church in North America.

We still don't see prayer movements that are sustained by tears, by brokenness, by being contrite. And that's where we need to get. Now, in order to get there, that's where this comes into play. I gave to you, church of Ephesus, I gave to you the first verse five, chapter two, verse five, repent.

And I walked us through that and he gave the warning because if you don't repent, after God gives the call to repent, if the church doesn't respond, then as according to the church at Ephesus, what they faced was is that he says, I will come to you quickly and I'll remove your candlestick.

And as I shared in closing last time, that's exactly what happened. When Robert Murray McShane went to where the church of Ephesus was, he found the foundation stone underneath the cornfield or at the corner of a cornfield and the church candlestick had been removed.

Now, lest we be doomed to repeat that, denominations need to respond to this. Denominations are groups of like-minded Christians that come together and form for a purpose. But if the denomination becomes corrupt, if they become humanistic, if they become self-reliant and they lose the essence of relying upon God, then God simply withdraws his spirit from them and they fade away.

Their candlestick is removed. Now, lest we be doomed to repeat that as the church in North America, because God does not need the church in North America to complete or to finish his purposes. But as the church of North America, you and I as brothers and sisters in Christ should desire and should want to be a part of that, which I'm sure that you would say, yes, I am.

So then we got to do it God's way. Denominations need to do it God's way. Church leaders need to do it God's way. Pastors need to do it God's way. And laymen that are in the churches need to do it God's way.

Now, the warnings come, the call comes, repent. And if you don't repent, then I will come to you quickly and I'll remove your candlestick. The blessedness is that if you do repent, then you find God's favor, you find God's forgiveness, you find God's restoration.

And we are in a process right now that we are in desperate need of God's favor and restoration and that's where the church is at. So this is crucial to this hour that we're in right now, because as the church shrinks in numerics, population in the churches, the churches are getting smaller, the denominations are getting smaller, the churches we know it of evangelical Christians are getting smaller that believe in the absolute truth of God's word and follow after it.

They're not a majority out there, it's a minority. And so as the minority, it doesn't matter about the numbers. It's just this one thing that does matter. Are we obedient? And so I wanna read in the next passage, I wanna give you the next three phrases that use this word repent to finish up this call to repentance for the church in North America.

And as I said, chapter two, we've started off with the church of Ephesus. I've read verse one through seven. You go down through the seven churches that are spoken, that Christ speaks to the seven churches that are in chapters two and three.

And we're gonna look at two more of those. And so we start down and let's go to verse 18. And we will pick up with the church of Thyatira and we will read down through this church. And then the next one is in chapter three.

And I'll go ahead and I'll read that one from verse one as well. Chapter two, Revelation, begin reading in verse 18. And we will read down through the end of this chapter in chapter three with the churches of Sardis.

And we'll come to our next word repent there. And then I'll have a word of prayer and we'll begin. Verse 18, and unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write, these things saith the son of God, who hath his eyes likened to a flame of fire and his feet are like fine brass.

I know thy works and charity and service and faith and thy patience and thy works and the last to be more than the first. Notwithstanding, I have a few things against you because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel which calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.

And I gave her space to repent of her fornication and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed and then they commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

And I will kill her children with death and all the churches shall know that I am he which searches the brains and the hearts and I will give unto every one of you according to your words. But unto you I say and unto the rest of Thyatira as many as have not the star and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden but that which you have already hold fast till I come.

And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations. And he shall raise them with a rod, rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of a potter, shall they be broken to shivers even as I received of my father.

And I will give him the morning star. He that has an ear, let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches. Chapter three, and unto the angel of the church in Sardis write, these things saith he that has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead.

Be watchful, strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. For I have not found thou works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou has received and heard, hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on you as a thief and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon you.

Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments and they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy. Neither to overcome it, the same shall be clothed in white raiment.

And I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the spirit says unto the church. Let us go to Lord in prayer now.

Blessed Father, we thank you. Upon reading your blessed word, upon the address to the seven churches, we see these addresses by Christ our Lord, our master, and unto us as the church, we hear the same words from your most wonderful voice.

Lord, it is a voice that you also give us a condemnation. So Lord, it is that we would pay attention. Lord, it is that your spirit would work and move to saturate us, that we would be found complete obedience unto you, Lord.

How we need you tonight, Lord. May you come across to us and over us and work in us, Lord, that we would cast away all that which is offensive unto you having the works of repentance, Lord, as our testimony so that you might bless us once again.

In the name of Christ Jesus, I ask and I pray, amen. Now, I wanna begin with the three mentions here of this that I just read to you. And if you're paying attention, you noted it already, or if you have markings in your Bible, you've already got this.

Thyatira, Jezebel, and the Need for Repentance

The Church of Thyatira. Now, I'm not in so much interested in going down through these churches and all the background and the studies of those that a lot of people like to do. I take words out in my Bible readings that God points out to me and then the application of that which says, what does this mean to men?

Now, here's the warning that is before us today is that what our nation, the church in this nation has experienced in the 1700s and the 1800s and even in the early part of the 1900s where there may not have been such a great awakening, but there was definitely a movement across this nation that was responding to God's spirit across the nations.

And we've seen centuries now where God's spirit has come upon the church, shaken them, revived them, and now the outflow of that, we've gone out into the highways and the byways and we've compelled them to come in and they found Christ and the numbers of Christians has increased.

Now, that is the bliss of the way that God expected it to be, the way he wanted it to be. But when a church, God's people, whether that be Old Testament, Israel walked away from God in the covenant, Judah walked away from God in the covenant, Jerusalem and the kings of Judah forsook God and walked away from that, then God gives them an opportunity to repent and to reconcile and to restore their relationship with him.

If they don't do that, then he continues to send judgments and tribulations to them that forces them to begin to see this is not the way life is supposed to be. And if they respond to that, then God meets them.

If they refuse to respond to that, then it continues until we get to the end of 2 Chronicles chapter 36, where Judah had transgressed for so long against God. Over 400 years, they rejected God's calls of repentance, and they continued to slide further away from him until at that close, is that 2 Chronicles 36, it says, until there was no remedy.

Meaning is that they crossed the line, they went over the line and God said, I'm done with you. And so he sent them into captivity and scores of tens of thousands were killed of the sword, of famine and of pestilence.

And there was great death and there was great shaking of the nation. Now, now we have the church and after Christ has come, after Christ has said to Peter, upon you, Peter, I'll build my church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And yet we see now that St. John that wrote Revelation is that within his lifetime, that this is like within 50 years of the time that Christ had ascended back to the throne, the day of Pentecost, the churches were spreading and growing and happening.

And here's this, this elder of the church receiving the words from the master, from the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking about his beloved bride, the church. And within this short amount of time of decades, they've already defiled themselves.

They've already lost their way. They've already forsaken him and they're already starting to be corrupted. And if they don't repent, then we read these horrible things that are going to happen. Now it's the same for us today.

We're on a path, we're on a collision course is that God has been merciful for decades, over a hundred years, he has been merciful with us. The 1920s were called the Roaring Twenties. And in the process of the Roaring Twenties, there was great fluency, there was great social breakthroughs and people lived it up.

And immediately after that came the stock market crash. And all that where we increased in goods and we increased in indulgences and we increased in our immorality. And we began to live life the way we wanted to do instead of the way that God wanted to do because God did not bless the United States of America and the church which sits inside the United States of America with wealth, with technology, with advancement, with all kinds of talent and opportunities that we have.

He did not bless us as a nation so that we could corrupt ourselves as the church and work against him to satisfy our flesh. He blessed the United States so that the church which has this wealth, which has this power, which has this opportunity that we could go evangelize the nation and we should have done it 50 years ago.

Now because we have repeated the same sin and transgressions that we just got done reading about, he says, repent. And we have rejected that call that we have heard over and over, repent. And now we're in a place of dire consequences.

That we are on the last hurdle of repentance that before God says until there is no remedy. Now when is that? I don't know and neither does anybody else. I know that there are all kinds of prophets out there who want to predict and all that, more power to them.

But as far as I am able to say by what I see in the scriptures is that we have not reached that point of no return yet. There is still hope. And there is still a call just like this one to repent. But our failure to respond to it only deepens and dooms us faster and more.

So let's pay attention to what God wants to do in this nation and in the church today. And the first thing here is is that he says, I know thy works. God knows everything. Christ knows everything. He's omnipresent, he's omniscient.

He knows everything. He knows exactly what's in our hearts. He knows exactly what our lives are all about. And he knows that these things is that again, I am not looking at the church today to criticize them and to say they woke up in darkness and blindness and they have continued as it.

I believe with all my heart that there are numerous Christian brothers and sisters who may not be as advanced spiritually in their walk with God as they need to be, as they want to be, but their integrity is there.

Their intent is good. They are hungering and thirsting after righteousness. They may not know how to get there, but they are hungering and thirsting because God birthed it within them. Now I'm able to say before you tonight and share again my testimony, I am no specially favored person by God's kingdom or by God's mercy or hand of him to say, this is my beloved son and Dan Bizer is it.

No way, shape or form. My sin is just as gross and just as high as anybody else's. I am found in iniquity, but there are mercy drops round me falling. All my life is that I've been able to see God's hand work in the midst of this, putting things in my life that would remind me of where God wants me to be.

That's a call. A call from God to a man that says, this is the way now walk in. Have you heard that call? Have you had that leading of the Holy Spirit where God put a person in your life and they taught you and they fed you spiritually and you grew?

Is that not the command in first Peter at the end of that where he says, let us grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Can you count them on your fingers and able to say, God put this man, this woman in my life.

It was a Sunday school teacher. It was a parent. It was a grandparent. It was one of my blessed friends. It was somebody there and they fed me the word of God. They gave me the spirit and the things of God.

And I grew in grace and knowledge of my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. That's God. Not everybody's got that. There are some that I believe that are hungering and thirsting and they're looking around for someone but they can't find anybody.

They're alone. I don't understand all the ins and the outs of that. I can't explain it. I just know is that there are those that are out there that have shared their testimony and say, if I could only find one to pray with me.

If I could only find someone that would befriend me so that we might be able to sit and to talk and have spiritual conversations. God says, I know thy works. And it is good. And there are those that are good in the church today.

And there are good Christians in this land that is seeking his face as he has said. But you and I got to understand no matter how good we think we're doing it, there's another level up. If you think that you've arrived, that mean you need to talk.

You know, there are those who say, you know, I have one guy, I remember one time he was talking and he said, oh, God answers all my prayers. And I said, well, then I've got about 3000 for you and I'm gonna pass them on to you.

The idea and the opportunity of this is not to think more of ourselves because if we're thinking more of ourselves then we've already become guilty of the sin of pride. The idea of this is that God wants us to grow.

God needs us to grow. But when we allow for sin, when we allow for shortcuts and compromises, when we become less diligent and when we become less steadfast in what we're supposed to be, then we fall.

And the church in North America has fallen into a trap of laziness and selfishness and contentment. And we've lost the sight of the prize. The prize of his kingdom, the prize of his glory, the prize of his name being exalted in all the earth.

And God says, I know that works. And he's able to take us and to put us into a place that we might be able to do more for him. It's not about us. It's not about a denomination. It's about him. And if that becomes the vocabulary and the pronouns used that it's more about us, listen to people when they talk.

Church, a family, a pastor, a denominational leader, a church leader. When they're talking about us, then they're not talking about the inclusiveness of the kingdom of God. As much as we have here in this country, it is not for us to lose sight of those who don't have it.

Only for some that when they've gone across seas into the mission field and they've sat with other brothers and sisters in Christ in these places of persecution and able to see it and able to weep with them and able to rejoice with them by seeing their faith and seeing that they don't have what we have, but they're still a part of the kingdom.

And in some ways they're doing it better than we are because they're totally relying on God. Whereas we have become self-reliant. God says to them the same as he says to us, I know your works. Now, what does he say?

The Four Pillars of a Faithful Church

Verse 20, he begins this condemnation of something that was happening in this place that is something that we need to understand and to make sure that we're not guilty of. And there's several facets to this, so let's look at it.

He says, notwithstanding I have a few things against you, a few things, what's God going to say about you and about the church and about us as a nation of the church in this nation, what's he going to say towards us about this?

Just a few things, I have much against you, it's given. Much is required. A few things, I hope that we're not so foolish to think that we just have, if we could just get a few kinks out of the system, if we could just get a few rust spots off the gears, we'll be back in shape.

But the repentance that's required today, that's not this call to repentance. This call to repentance is that there are enormous amounts of things that is wrong inside the church and they are detrimental to our spiritual health and livelihood and they've got to be addressed.

And in these few things, the very fundamentals of the faith that I think is required of us, I always say that there are four pillars inside the church that maintains the church in its spiritual life and its maturity.

The first thing is the word of God, how it's preached, how it's taught, how it's read, how it's studied, how it's memorized. You go into a church that the word of God is preached 15, 20 minutes, very little is taught in that opportunity of 45 minutes in a church service or in a Sunday school class where there's only about 30 minutes allotted to that or a 20 minute Sunday school lesson.

There is no feeding of the word of God in them. They don't go home and read it. The same Bible, if they bring a Bible to church, it stays in the car all week long. They never crack it open. Most of those that sit in churches like that, if you was to say, how many of you have ever read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation, you get a blank look on their face and you get people that automatically feel like they have to defend themselves as to say, well, you know, I've read a number of portions over and over and over.

They're justifying their sin of neglect of the word of God. That's the first pillar. A few things, how can you be a church without the word of God? Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

We have been allotted that great opportunity of education and knowledge and opportunity to do this book. We've got everything, seminaries, Bible schools, CDs, DVDs, tapes, teachers, professors, preachers all over the place.

We've got them everywhere. The word of God is not a few things. It is a major pillar in the church, which has led to the crumbling of the church because we took our eyes off God's promises, God's directives, God's people, and we put them on things of our own making, of our own choosing.

The second pillar is prayer. You already know my forte on this. What can we do without prayer? Well, we can do all things with prayer, but the church in North America has learned to do what we can do without prayer.

Oh, God bless us. It's the same prayer that I hear at the 7-Eleven when I'm standing there and getting ready to buy a newspaper and a cup of coffee, and the people in front of me are buying their lottery tickets.

They say the same prayer. God bless this ticket. Virtually, should I say, or qualify that statement on that, but they're praying, but they're not praying until God adheres them, and the church says prayers every Sunday without God ever hearing them.

Same prayers that you could probably repeat over the offering when it's collected, or the opening prayer, or the closing prayer, and it's the same old phrases and the same old statements, and there's no brokenness, and there's no freshness, and there's no conversation, and there's no worship, and there's no glory to God.

Prayer is missing in the church today, and it is as I opened with that, is that there is a movement coming back to it, but it has crippled and weakened us so bad is that the absence of God's power is due directly to the absence of God's people praying.

Word of God, prayer. A few things, the church itself. In my lifetime, I am a middle-aged man in my 40s, and in my lifetime, I've seen the church shorten itself and compromise because of the world. I've seen Sunday night services hacked and cut off because people didn't wanna come back that evening.

I've seen people that they come for an hour on Sunday, and they can't even come for the Sunday school class. I can remember the great exodus where people would come to Sunday school in the summertime and immediately leave after Sunday school, not even stay for worship, because they had to get to the river, they had to get to their vacation spot, they had to get to what they wanted to do, and they would go to worship and still declare it as the Lord's Day.

And now we see this wicked generation that's infiltrating into the church, and now every holiday cancels church services. Easter services are now canceled on Sunday nights because of the holiday, Memorial Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day.

They're starting with almost one Sunday per month where this nation has to have its vacation, has to have its holidays, and they're cutting away the church services. This doesn't even take into place, is that something that I grew up with, the discipleship class, training union, where on Sunday nights at six o 'clock, you went to training union, and then you went into seven o 'clock worship service because you was discipled, and then you went in to hear the word of God and worship.

A night of visitation, unheard of today. A night a day, one day a week given for prayer, a night of prayer, not done anymore. Very remote, isolated places, yes. I'm talking as the whole. Wednesday night Bible study and prayer meeting, one of the greatest jokes that's upon the church in North America, and I say jokes irreverently, prayer meeting and Bible study.

We've lost it. One third of God's people won't even, oh, well, the church isn't a building. That has nothing to do with it. Church is a building, and in every building location, and I don't care whether it's a structure, I don't care whether it's a storefront, I don't care if it's a living room in a home, I don't care if it's the mock room at the factory.

It's a gathering for God's people, and God's people aren't faithful to God's gatherings. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together after the manner of some is. Testimony in the church in North America, absence of the word, absence of prayer, absence of the church, and then the fourth one, which is all because of the effects of these other three, is that you're not gonna be a witness.

You are not gonna be evangelistic in soul winning if all those other things are missing. If you're just evangelizing, and you're giving out tracts, and you're knocking on doors, and you're talking to people, but there's no power because you're not praying, and you can't answer them or lead them to Christ, other by the decisionism and believism of saying, would you like to go to heaven?

Yes, okay, God bless you, but not able to instruct them in the things of God because you don't know the word of God, and you don't have a house church to bring them to because you're not attending yourself, lest you be found the hypocrite.

Now all four pillars of the church are eroded away. A few things I have against you, oh, I'm telling you, is that that might have been true for the church of Thyatira, but that's not true for the church of North America.

He has more than a few things against us, and we're gonna have to answer for it. Much like Leonard Ravenhill, the more that I've listened to him preach and read on his about the judgment seat of Christ, I am horrified by what will be there.

Jezebel’s Seduction and Compromise

This is that I have this few things against you because you suffer that woman, Jezebel, which calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants, to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.

Now here is a illustration made about what we already know from the days of Elijah the prophet and first kings. We have a wicked king, a wicked queen, Jezebel. She was a Baal worshiper. She made all of her servants, she made her husband, she made the nation of Israel bow down to Baal.

And we got that one encounter on the Mount where Elijah and Jezebel's prophets squared off, and he prevailed and God was glorified, and he killed the Baal prophets, and then took off running. But she declared herself as a prophetess, that she ruled and reigned them in these things of religion.

A lot of religions out there, and I'm not talking so much about Catholicism or Islam or Jehovah Witness or Mormonism or any of these other cults that are out there that have blemished the truth, come up with false heresies and blasphemies out of their own pockets and out of their own making, like some of these false religions that we know about today that's in our land.

And every corner stop is that there's somebody else that rises up as a Jezebel who declares himself to be a prophet, who declares himself to be a pastor. I wanna tell you something. If God didn't call you, you got no business speaking on his behalf.

That's the anointing and the unction that comes from God, not from men. Jezebel was a self-proclaimed prophetess. She had no power. The only thing that she did was use her feminine allurement. She seduced them to commit fornication and to lead them and to keep them under her spell.

There is a host of tricks out of hell just like that. Entertainment is used to draw young people into churches today, to hold them there on a Wednesday night, a Sunday night youth program, to feed them pizza and hot dogs, to feed them and entertain them in front of the television and the games and those kinds of social areas.

What it is is that it is completely removed from the gospel to say you gotta die to self in order to live for him. The allurements of Christians today are just as dangerous and just as out of hell as some of the things that we're talking about in false religions and cults.

And we better watch it because he says, and I gave you a season here to repent. Verse 21, and I gave her space to repent. Time was allotted. Here's God's mercy. He could've just cut her off. He could've just destroyed her.

But he didn't. He gave him time to repent so that his mercy might find him and his long suffering might reach them. His desire is that none should perish and none should go away from him. And he is beckoning unto religionists today that sit in the pews and stand in the pulpits that declare half-truths and falsehoods done to people and they use the name of Christianity and they disguise themselves that it's all about them.

He gave them a season to repent. And our time of repentance is there. But if they don't respond, there is huge consequences that lie at the very door front of what we're talking about here. And she would not repent.

Oh, the hardness, the pride, the vanity of people that has seduced thousands upon millions of people into this lying deception. I can remember going into a Chinese restaurant, not too far from here. And when I went into there now, I'd been over in Taiwan.

I had seen family ancestor worship. I can remember talking to young people that was there and they had to hold up the tradition of their elders and of their families. And if they didn't, their father would cut them off and they would be renounced from their homes.

And they, I mean, sacrifices that we don't know anything about. I'm walking in this Chinese restaurant and I could see this shrine up on the wall. And there was a couple incense candles that was there and a little pot and a Buddha statue and a couple oranges were there.

Automatically, no, I'm in the place of a false religionist. I sat in a Jehovah Witness Kingdom hall and listened to them preach and open up their Bible, Watchtower Publication Bible, that's full of that which they want to promote their doctrine.

And it is just as much of Jezebel and of hell as anything else. See, these things are all around about us. Do we have eyes to see? Do we have minds to understand? Do we have a knowledge about the good and the evil?

Cain killed Abel, his brother, because of the sin of his father, Adam, and mother Eve. Because God said, you can have all the fruit that's in this garden, but of that tree, don't touch it. And they didn't listen.

And the sons became products of the parents' sin. And there are children and grandchildren today that are byproducts of the parents' sins who demoted Christianity to a compromising, self-serving, religionist kind of attitude is to say, just try the best you can.

Well, we're all good in God's eyes. Nobody goes to hell and they believe lies rather than believing the truth. Jezebel is still among us today. That wicked woman who seduces the feeble minds of men, women, and children, leads them on the path to hell, holds them at bay by her seductions, and keeps them there so that they can't hear the truth or respond to the truth.