Breaking Free From a Controlling Spirit — Don Wilkerson

This message is one of the Times Square pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to World Challenge, PO Box 260, Lindale, Texas, 75771, or calling 214 -963 -8626.

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Rest From the Bondage of Oppression

1 Kings chapter 21, just leave your Bible open there for a bit, breaking free from the bondage of a controlling spirit, 1 Kings 21, but let me read to you Isaiah 14 .3. You don't need to turn there, just keep your Bible on 1 Kings chapter 21.

By the way, if you're a visitor here, Pastor David is away on his vacation and taking a little rest, as each of us pastors have done during the past month or so, and he's away and will be back with us very, very shortly.

Isaiah 14 .3 says, and it will be in that day, when the Lord gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and harsh service, and in the King James it uses the word bondage instead of harsh service, the Lord will give you rest from your pain and turmoil and bondage in which you have been enslaved, 1 Kings 21.

We'll get to that in just a moment. Recently, a couple in our church here shared with me the following experience, and I asked the permission that I could share it. They were being interviewed for a position in a certain Christian organization, and at first it appeared that this was an open door from the Lord, so it seemed to them.

The work that they were going to be asked to do is something that they had been praying about, something they felt God was calling them to do. There were other things about it that seemed to be to their liking in a material way, not regarding salary, but regarding housing and so forth, and the conditions seemed to be just right.

The way they heard about it also seemed to be providential, and yet when they came away from the interview, something in both of their spirits, there was something in their spirit that wasn't right. A red flag went up, and so they prayed about it, and they decided that they would talk to me and ask that the Lord would speak as we were discussing it, that the Lord would say something through me.

And so when they shared it with me, I paused, and then the Spirit of God gave me a warning, and I turned to them, and I said two words. I said, controlling spirit, and they looked at each other, and they said, that's exactly what the Spirit showed us.

And it was the exact word, the exact warning that they had already felt from the Holy Spirit, and therefore it confirmed it, and obviously they did not accept the position in the organization. I think of another case tonight of a wife who is having numerous difficulties in her marriage because her husband seems to be incapable or unwilling to be the priest, a proper husband, a leader, and proper provider in the home.

And the reason is that the husband's mother is trying to control the marriage, control her son, and as the wife says, though my mother-in-law does not live in the house, she may as well. It's as if she's here because my husband can't seem to do anything without her.

He's on the phone with her all the time, she's on the phone with him. He doesn't do anything, and what she was saying, though she didn't use these words, I got the picture of a mama's boy. And furthermore, she said, it's almost as if she is purposely trying to put a wedge between us and pull him away from me.

And she admitted that it was eating her inside, it was making her physically sick. And no wonder this poor wife is the unfortunate victim of her husband's bondage to a controlling spirit, happens to be through this son's own mother, and this often happens in family situations.

I think of a third case that I dealt with recently and one that seems to come up or come to my attention quite often, and that is of a missionary, a young missionary serving in a particular area of the world.

He and other missionaries have to relate to a senior missionary supervisor in that particular area of the world. And this young man shared this with me, he said, Brother Don, it seems like everything that I initiate, everything that other missionaries initiate and try to bring to birth, this man tries one way or another to slow it down or to kill it or to control it.

And he said, it's as if a revival would break out over here, he wouldn't want it to break out because he would have no control over it. And as soon as I heard him share this, I knew that he and other missionaries were up against what they were up against.

It's called a controlling spirit. Now whether it's in the church or it's in the ministry or in a marriage or in interpersonal relationships or wherever, there are controlling persons and controlling personalities and controlling spirits that seek to bring other people under their power, under their position and under their influence.

And from the beginning of time, men and nations have sought to hold other men and nations under their control and creating an oppressive bondage. Just now in Russia and the communist countries, people are finally waking up to the control and the oppression and the bondage that they have been under for decades.

And we all rejoice with them in being able to shake off the chains of years and years of controlling dictators and controlling dogmas. But you see, you don't have to go to Russia, you don't have to go to Romania or you don't have to go to Nicaragua to see the tragedy of a controlling spirit.

They take place every day in a marriage, in a home, in a family, in interpersonal relationships between male and female, between male and male, female and female. It takes place in businesses and sad to say it happens in churches, it happens in denominations, it happens in religious organizations.

I've seen a pastor, I've seen a pastor with a controlling spirit literally enslave a people to his personality using either doctrine or dogma or the abuse of personal charisma to hold a people in bondage.

I've seen the opposite. I've seen when deacons and what I would call the power structure of churches, I've seen it when those deacons have held a church in its grip. And I've seen in some cases a series of pastors come and go, never able to break the stronghold that certain men and personalities have in that church and God has to pass it by.

My father was a pastor and I remember just as a young fella, I didn't understand it all but I look back now and I remember this one brother, one deacon in the church, very, very personable man, very, very well-liked man.

My father came to find out that he held sway over that church. Now it so happened that he was the biggest tithe payer of the church as well. And I suppose that's one of the reasons he was never dealt with.

And I watched my father with godly wisdoms who withstand that controlling spirit. And that man, he left, he left without a scene but he left and he left with his tithe. But God replaced him, more than replaced him and brought others in, hallelujah.

Recognizing Controlling Spirits and Spiritual Bondage

Now this message then tonight is about facing the potential bondage of a controlling spirit. Psalm 54, 3 says,. For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul. They have not set God before them.

Now tonight you may be under the bondage. You may be under such a bondage in your life right now. You may, like the wife or the missionary that I just mentioned, you may indirectly and through no fault of your own be catching the fallout of somebody's controlling spirit, somebody who's being controlled by somebody else.

And therefore your life is affected by it through no fault of your own. Or you may be recovering from a bondage in your past that makes it difficult for you to trust other people now and for you to have wholesome, interpersonal, godly relationships now where it's difficult for you to trust pastors, it's difficult for you to trust a man, it's difficult for you to trust somebody else because at one time you were under a controlling spirit.

Jezebel, Ahab, and Naboth's Vineyard

Let me take you to the most classical and worst case of a controlling spirit found in Scripture apart from Satan himself. And I want you to note here in 1 Kings chapter 21 the story of Jezebel. Jezebel, a tool of Satan, controlled by Satan himself, she in turn controlling men and situations.

Now it used to be that we often referred to, they used to refer to it Jezebel. When I was little, and I think I'm going to try to explain this as best as I can, they used to call a Jezebel when I was in the church, anybody who wore makeup.

And of course, back then in the church they didn't believe that women, and so they classified everybody, anybody that wore a little bit of makeup, they just classified as a Jezebel. Well, we learned later that sometimes, as Billy Graham said one time, someone would do well to put a little on and let all things be done in moderation.

But particularly, more importantly, or more accurately I should say, we speak of a Jezebel or someone who was seductively painted up. A floozy if you please, a loose woman. She was called a Jezebel. Well, she may be that, but she is much, much more than that as we're going to see.

And by the way, a woman, a female, does not have an exclusive franchise on a Jezebel spirit. It's not male or female. A man can have a Jezebel spirit just as much as a woman, as we'll see. Now here's the story of Jezebel.

1 Kings 21, verses 1 and 2. Now it came about that after these things that Naboth, the Jezreelite, had a vineyard which was in Jezreel beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spoke to Naboth saying, Give me your vineyard that I may have it for a vegetable garden because it is close beside my house and I will give you a better vineyard in its place if you like.

I will give you the price of it in money. Now Naboth was a God-fearing man who could not be bought, bribed or baffled. He refused to sell his vineyard because it was against Levitical law. It was against the law of Moses to do so.

You see, to sell God's property to a foreigner was against God's law. Now Naboth normally would have been glad to oblige the king. He probably would have said, Look, if you want to borrow it, if you want to have a little plot here, if you want me to plant something for you, I'll be glad to do so.

But he said, I cannot sell it to you. And he was saying by that that he had to obey God rather than man. And so he politely but firmly refused the king. Now Ahab knew the law, or he should have known it, and thus he was wrong even for asking for it.

But Naboth had the courage to resist the king because he looked on his earthly inheritance as an earnest of his lot in the heavenly Canaan, and therefore he would not part with his earthly piece of real estate lest he forfeit his heavenly piece of real estate.

Now you see, Naboth was one of the 7 ,000 of the remnant of those who did not bow their knee down and cave in to the evil surroundings of the day, did not follow the New Age religion of Baal that was popular in that day.

And so he stands up to the king. Now Ahab gets all bent out of shape over Naboth's righteous stand. You see, there's nothing like a holy man's unbending compromise that will arouse the ira of a wicked, covetous man.

And after Ahab is refused, he storms into the palace. He refuses to eat his supper. He goes up into his room in a rage and he lies down on his bed and he starts to pout. Look at it in verse 4. So Ahab came into his house sullen and vexed because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him, for he said, I will not give you the inheritance of my father's.

And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and ate no food. Poor king. The poor king, he could not get his way. And so he sulks. King James says he was heavy with displeasure. He sulks and he pouts and he storms off into his room like a little kid who has been denied a toy that he so desperately wants.

And to make matters worse, Ahab, you see, is such a proud man. And his haughtiness further ignites the indignity that Naboth did in denying him his desires. You see, people of power and of prestige and of greed, they hate it.

They hate it when they come up against a man of holy convictions. They don't know what to do with him. They don't know what to do with that type of a man. Ah, but Jezebel did. Waiting in the wings was Jezebel, a woman always looking for her next victim, always waiting for the next opportunity to strike.

Look at verse 5. But Jezebel, his wife, came to him and said to him, How is it that your spirit is so sullen that you are not eating food? And verse 7, she says, Do you now reign over Israel? In other words, don't you, Ahab, aren't you in charge?

Aren't you the king? Don't you reign over Israel? She said, Arise, get up out of your bed, quit pouting. Go down to supper and eat your bread and let your heart be joyful. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth, the Dresrelite.

And you see, under the guise, under the pretense of comforting her husband, Jezebel feeds his pride and his passion and she blows on the coals of his angry heart. And in the process, she takes up his cause.

Note what she said again. She said, Get up, go down to supper, let your heart be joyful, and I, I've got everything under control. I will give you the vineyard. You see, Jezebel is a woman of confidence.

It sounds like, doesn't it sound like she's been down this road of defiance before? And she knew she could get her way. She'd gotten her way before. And she tells her husband, who's acting like a spoiled child, she says, Big mama will get it for you.

Distinguishing Godly Leadership From Manipulation

Now, let me, let me interject something right now. Let me, let me interject something. We must not confuse competence and a take charge person with a controlling spirit. There's a difference. Many godly people are qualified people who know how to get things done and motivate other people to work.

I'm not talking about this quality of character. There are people who lead and control in a godly manner. And let's not confuse it just because you happen to know somebody that is a good leader. Jezebel did take charge, but in a controlling manner.

She had an evil controlling spirit in her. And you see, one of the keys by identifying it is that the spirit of control always wants to rule over people and things. It wants to dominate, to manipulate.

In biblical terms, it's an oppressive spirit. Hosea 12, 7 sounds a warning to a man who is a merchant in whose hands is a balance of deceit. It says he loveth to oppress. He loves to control. Isaiah 3, 13 and 14 says, As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them.

O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err and destroy the way of thy paths. The Lord standeth up to plead. And he says he will enter into judgment against the oppressor. And over and over in the Scriptures, you see that God always stands up.

God fights against the oppressive controlling spirit, and He takes the place of a humble heart. Now, oppression means the cruel or unjust use of power or authority. Now, Jezebel connived and manipulated to obtain Naboth's vineyard by this misuse and abuse of power.

First of all, she chided Ahab for not using his power. Look at verse 7,. And Jezebel his wife said to him, Do you not now reign over Israel? Arise, eat bread, and let your heart be joyful. She said, I know how to get things done.

Verse 8, what did she do? So she wrote letters in Ahab's name. And sealed them with his seal. And sent letters to the nobles who were working with Naboth in the city. You see, a controlling oppressive spirit wants power.

And they will get it any way that they can. In order to advance their cause or somebody else's cause who they enjoy controlling. And I've seen Jezebels do this very... I've seen them write letters, as it were, in their husband's name.

Or in the name of somebody else in a power or authority. In order to manipulate people and events. I've seen more. I've seen on occasion. I've seen a pastor. A pastor's ministry sometimes has been destroyed by a wife behind the scenes who wants to manipulate a congregation.

I know of a situation right now, where a pastor's wife, in the name of prophecy, in the name of prophetic utterances, has a prophecy for this one, has a prophecy for that one, and a prophecy for another one.

And in the process, she is the neck that turns the head. And she is behind the scene just very quietly, very quietly, innocently as it were, but working herself into a position to control people in the congregation.

I've seen also in a marriage, I've seen a husband who can misuse his leadership role, or even misuse the concept of being the priest in the home, or being the head, I should say, the head of the house.

And he'll misuse the concept of submission. Misuse the concept of submission in order to control his wife, or to bring about a harsh slave-like relationship, treating his wife, as it were, like a slave.

Sometimes it comes out of culture. Sometimes that kind of situation comes out of the culture, where the man says, well, you know, I'm the macho attitude, the macho man who's controlling his wife, never giving her room to move.

And then when they move, if they move into the Christian realm, and they hear the teaching about a woman is to be into submission, oh, they love that. They love that, forgetting the teaching that says husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it.

And the only way a husband, by the way, earns the right for his wife's submission, is if he, first of all, is in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and thereby he gains the right of his wife's submission by his submission unto the Lord.

But I've seen this whole thing of submission. A husband misuses it. I've seen a controlling woman, a controlling woman who sometimes will look for a man she can control. She'll look for a passive man.

Try to marry him. Try to control him. I've got a few amens from a few men. The sad thing, however, about Jezebel, and this is one of the points that I'm making, is that Jezebel controlled the situation all under a religious cloak or covering.

Religious Manipulation and the Abuse of Prophecy

Look at verse 9. Look at verse 9. And she wrote in the letters, she sent out these letters in Ahab's name, and this is what she did, she said, Proclaim a fast. Let's have a fast. Let's have a religious fast.

And by doing so, whenever you proclaimed a fast, it meant that your city or your house or your people were under judgment. And so what she's saying by this is that, listen, there's some trouble in your city, and I want you to proclaim a fast, and we've got to get to the bottom of it, and we've got to see what the cause of it is.

And so under the guise of this religious cloak, under the guise of this fast, she says, call it, and then seat Naboth at the head of the people. And by this she told the elders of Naboth's city that some dreadful judgment was about to come upon them, which they must divert by prayer and fasting, and by finding out what it was that was causing God's anger to be against them.

And you see, the most dangerous kind of control is when people will use Scripture, or they will use prophecy, or they will use God's name. They will use the name of Christ, and in fact taking it in vain, but they will use His name in order to control other people's lives.

There was over the past decade or so, there was in the body of Christ, there was a whole movement. There was a whole movement of people. It was called the Discipleship Movement that started out with all good intentions, but it ended up that men would control other men's lives.

And do you see how slick and cunning Jezebel operates? Jezebel set Naboth up to be tried, to be judged and to be convicted by a courtroom of her peers, all under the cloak of a religious fast. And in verse 10 she said, She had it all set up.

She said, Seek two worthless men before Him, and let them testify against Him, saying, You cursed God and the King. Then take Him out and stone Him. You see, ultimately, here's the sad thing about it, ultimately a controlling spirit will stop at nothing to get her way or His way.

Jezebel lies and connives and deceives and causes a godly man's death. And remember, she didn't want the vineyard. That is not what it was all about. Gardening wasn't her thing. She said, Bless my poor husband, you know, let him have it.

But she sees it as an opportunity. She enjoyed the game more than the prize. She sat back and played the puppeteer pulling all the strings. Ahab wanted a vineyard, but Jezebel wanted power to be able to control.

There's one more tragic picture, one of the most sad, tragic pictures in all of the Old Testament. One more picture. Go to 2 Kings chapter 9. 2 Kings chapter 9.

This is the end of side 1. You may now turn the tape over to side 2.

Jezebel's Judgment and the Collapse of Her Power

Twenty years later, Jezebel and Ahab's despicable cruelty to Nabath is judged and God anoints, the prophet anoints a man, Jeho, and says, I have anointed you for the throne of Israel. But before doing so, I want you to wipe out Ahab and his household.

And avenge Nabath. And so there is a picture after Jeho goes out and he begins to accomplish this and Ahab is slain, is done away with. And Jezebel knows that the kingdom is under siege. She knows that her time is up.

And Jezebel hides. She tries to hide and save her own neck. And here is a picture of Jeho. He comes riding in on his chariot. He comes riding in fiercely where she is hiding out. And she's taking a position up in a palace overlooking a courtyard where she can see Jeho coming down.

And she stands out there in chapter 9 and verse 30. And when Jeho came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it. Here's where we get the term of Jezebel. It says she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out the window.

Now get the picture. Foolishly, foolishly she thinks that perhaps she can use... Now she's 20 years older now. She's an older woman. And yet she foolishly thinks, I can still control the situation. I can still be in charge.

And she paints herself up. Stands out there as if to say, I can seduce Jeho. And I can still control this situation. She has no other power of manipulation left to her. Ahab's power is gone. It's just her against the world.

And she is a pitiful picture of an older woman trying to lure a young warrior into her trap. And listen to me tonight. Beware of a painted up Jezebel who will use her personal, physical, or fleshly charm to gain control or mislead you.

Well, I got an amen. Somebody got the point. But Jehu was able to see right through Jezebel's facade. You see, he was under the anointing of God. He was under the anointing of God to rid the nation of Ahab and Jezebel.

And when we are walking in God's will, He will expose a painted up, falsely adorned head of a Jezebel for us and a controlling spirit that may come and may look good and talk good and talk even religious, but you'll be able to see through it and judge it.

Hallelujah! Now, there's one last thing that she tried. The physical charms didn't work. And look at the next verse. And she saw that she was getting nowhere with the physical approach. And so she tries by words.

She tries by intimidation. She tries by smooth talking and by threatening. And she says, and as Jehu entered the gate, she said, Is it well, Zimri, your master's murderer? Now, instead of trembling before Jehu, the instrument of God's judgment on her, she tries to make him tremble by pointing out or posing a threatening question.

She says, in effect, Did Zimri have any peace after he flew his master? In other words, if you kill me, it's going to be on your conscience. It's going to be on your conscience. And you see, it's another practice of a Jezebel spirit to always divert the attention off of themselves and try to pick out a moat in the eye of somebody else who opposes them.

And they will try to smooth talk themselves out of trouble once it's been discovered who they are and how they operate and once it's been discerned what they're trying to do. But this didn't work either.

This didn't work either. Then Jehu lifted up his face to the window and said, Who is on my side who? And two or three officials looked down on him. And he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down.

And some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses. And he trampled her underfoot. And when he came in, he ate and drank and he said, See now to this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king's daughter.

And they went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands. Oh my friend, I don't know about you, but that strikes fear in my heart. But at the same time, it encourages me to know that God knows how to deal with controlling spirits.

Hallelujah! And He is able to cast them down. He is able to cast them down out of your life so that they no longer control you. Now, how do you deal with a controlling spirit? How do you rid yourself of a Jezebel spirit?

The prophet Elijah gives us the answer. Interesting enough, he also knew all too well what it was like to be under Jezebel's spirit. Go with me to 1 Kings 19. Back to 1 Kings 19. Very, very interesting, encouraging picture.

Important that you receive this as a part of my message tonight. The prophet Elijah gives us the answer. Verse 1, chapter 19 says,. Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with a sword.

Now this refers to the time on Mount Carmel. As you know, the New Age religion came up against the Old Time religion. And you know what happened. The New Age religion was wiped out. 450 prophets of Baal, 400 prophets of Asherah who ate at Jezebel's table, they were wiped out.

You see, and Jezebel of course is angry because she got her authority and power from this devilish religion, this religion of demons. And so she sends a messenger to Elijah saying,. So may the gods do to me and even more if I do not make your life, your life Elijah, as a life of one of them, slain prophets by tomorrow of this time.

And look at verse 3,. And Elijah was afraid and arose for his life and he came to Beersheba. Now it seems strange, yes it seems strange that Elijah was so bold before the altar contesting Baal, but now that the contest is over, he's in a state of physical exhaustion and now we see him coming under her spell, coming under her oppression.

And strangely enough, Elijah allows himself to come under Jezebel's control. He believes her threats and they were mere threats because if she wanted to do away with him, she wouldn't have given him a warning.

It was just a threat. But he runs away, he hides so to escape what he thought might be the fulfillment of her prophecy. And let's read verse 4,. And he himself won a day's journey into the wilderness.

And he came and he sat down under a juniper tree. But remember, he's also sitting down under this Jezebel's spell. And he says, what did he say? And he requested for himself that he might die. And he said, It's enough now, Lord.

It's enough now. In other words, Lord, I've had it. Lord, take my life for am I not better than my father's. But you see, something marvelous happened here in the wilderness. Something so beautiful happened under the juniper tree.

And he got up out from under the controlling spirit of Jezebel. And listen to me tonight. If you're here in this meeting, and if you're sitting under a juniper tree, if you're sitting here tonight defeated or weary, running, hiding, being overcome because of a Jezebel spirit, I want you to note what God did for His servant.

Because you, hallelujah, you can break free from a controlling spirit tonight. Hallelujah. Now, first of all, you can't fight a controlling spirit in your own power or authority. The victory over controlling spirits has to be won in the spiritual realm through spiritual warfare.

Look at 1 Kings 19 again. He said himself, the fourth verse, I just read that to you. And he laid down and he slept under a juniper tree. And behold, there was an angel touching him and said to him, well, let me go back again to verse 4 where Elijah is there and he's under the juniper tree.

And what I see about this, even though he's run, yet in the end, he does not take matters into his own hands. He did not try to fight fire with fire or flesh with flesh. He did not try to control a controlling spirit in his own strength.

The fact that he sleeps, he goes to sleep, shows me that he had reached the end of himself. And when we hear him saying, Lord, it's enough, and he wants to die, I hear a man admitting and saying, God, only You can get me out of this mess.

Only You can overcome this Jezebel. And this is the very position that God wants us to be in. Whenever you come up against an attack of Satan, especially when he will use an enemy, or he'll use a friend, or he'll use a family member, he'll use somebody on the job, he'll use a fellow worker, whoever he can, he will use to try to control us and make life miserable for us.

And beware when you come under that kind of attack or control. There is a right way to fight and there's a wrong way to fight. And I've been down both roads. And I know there have been times when individuals have come into my life, in my past, when I have reacted in an unrighteous way to unrighteous people and to personal injustices that were done to me.

And at times I fought back in the flesh instead of the Spirit. Do you remember once when the disciples were on the way to Jerusalem and the Samaritans would not let them in their village? They said, No, you can't come here.

We control this village. They would not let the disciples pass through their territory. And James and John wanted to fight fire with fire and call fire down out of heaven to gain control over the situation.

And the Lord said to them, You know not what manner of spirit you are. In other words, that's the same spirit that wants to control Samaria. That's the same spirit that's coming up against Me. You can't fight that spirit with the same spirit of Samaria.

That's not the way to do it. And I say tonight, Lord, preserve us from that spirit. The Lord let Elijah go into the wilderness by himself so that he could come to the end of himself. Look at verse 4 again.

He says, Am I not better than my fathers? And what a truth! He spoke without recognizing it. You see, his fathers in Egypt, his fathers in Canaan could not fight their oppressors by their own strength.

They had to totally rely on the Lord. And tonight, if you're under a controlling spirit, if you're under an oppressive spirit, either a direct attack to Satan or Satan using somebody else as an instrument, the word from the Lord for you tonight is this, is that you must let the Lord fight those kinds of battles.

Take your hands off of it. You cannot win. You cannot win. You must fight this battle by the Spirit, not in the flesh. Like Elijah, you and I are not better than our fathers. The Lord told them, for example, in Exodus 14.

He said, The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace. Deuteronomy 3 .22. Ye shall not fear them, for the Lord your God, He shall fight for you. Now listen, whenever you're in the kind of situation Elijah was in, we take one or two reactions.

One is to do what Elijah did and run. Run and hide and you give in to discouragement and despair. Or secondly, we can attack our attackers trying to meet sword with sword and flesh with flesh and evil with evil.

And unless you want to allow yourself to stoop down to the level of a Jezebel, listen, you can never fight against that Spirit on her terms or in her territory. You'll never win. If you have a heart for God, you can never win.