This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Life of Elijah” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, March 27, 1988.

And Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. And it came about, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel, the daughter of Beth Baal, king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worship him. So he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria, and Ahab also made the Asherah. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

In his days, Hiel, the Bethelite, built Jericho. He laid its foundations with the loss of Abiram, his firstborn, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son, Shebu. According to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Joshua, the son of Nun. Now Elijah, the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word.” And then Deuteronomy 28, looking at verse 15.

But it shall come about, if you will not obey the Lord your God to observe all, to observe rather to do all his commandments and his statutes which I charge you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.

Cursed shall you be in the basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall you be when you go out.

The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion and review. in all you undertake to do until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds because you have forsaken me. The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you until he has consumed you from the land where you are entering to possess it. The Lord will smite you with consumption and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with the sword, and with blight, and with mildew, and they shall pursue you until you perish. And the heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust. From heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies.

You shall go out one way against them, but you shall flee seven ways before them, and you shall be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. And your carcasses shall be food to all birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away.”

Your servants are taught by your instruction, Lord. They are to be humble in the earth and before your people. So, O God, may it be for your servants who carry your word, who proclaim it in truth, that their own hearts may match the word which you have given to them, and may it please you, Lord, to strengthen them by your spirit that they may not depart from that word. O Father, we ask that the example of Elijah may in fact impress itself upon the servants who bear your word to this present generation. May there be boldness and strength, a strength that truly comes from you. May it please you, Father, to warn those who are abiding in sin, and may it please you as well to shake them in such a way that they will flee the wrath to come. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

How blind sin is. How blind sin is. It professes to see, but it doesn’t see at all. Claiming to have sight has no sight whatsoever. Looking, it misses even the obvious, the obvious truth. Ahab, the son of Amri. Maybe the greatest king, as far as the secular world would be concerned, may be the greatest king over the northern tribes since the days of Jeroboam. Ahab is seventh. He is seventh from Jeroboam, now ruling over those ten northern tribes. He has eyes, but he is blind. He sees, but he recognizes nothing. He looks, but he misses the obvious truth. playing with a trifle.

His heart aspires to adorn his court with a beautiful bauble from the North and the West, an ornament for the royal precincts one by the name of Jezebel, who is in actual fact a courtesan, a courtesan of one Baal. You see, Jezebel before she is married to Ahab is married to another.

She is married to the vile god of Sidon. Did you know that her name actually means purity? One who is chaste. Believe it or not, this woman who has become the byword of wickedness has a name that means chaste purity and so she is if you understand her for she is absolutely pure and absolutely chaste in her devotion to her Lord.

Her Lord is Baal. So it is then, that in her soul, she is devoted to the service of her God. Her Father also has a name which has memorialized the name of her God. Beth Bale is his name, King over Sidon. She in her spirit is reflective of a spiritual kingdom to which she is utterly committed. absolutely committed. That is in her spirit. But what of her flesh? In her flesh, she now sleeps in Ahab’s bed.

She now prostitutes herself in such a way that she becomes the epitome of prostitution when her name appears again in scripture in Revelation chapter 2 verse 20 she has prostituted herself in the flesh in order to gain the victory in the spirit in order, you see, to seduce a son of Abraham who is supposed to be a servant of the true God through him, her spiritual mission is to seduce all the sons of Abraham.

We now begin to understand the scope, the scope of the story, its height, its depth. What is at stake? Indeed, the kingdom of hell and the kingdom of God. Elijah will step forward for the kingdom of God. Jezebel has already offered herself as the servant of the kingdom of God. Well Ahab, not seeing he likes what he sees. He looks to the north and to the west and he is intrigued by this bobble, this ornament. Not seeing, blind, he likes what he sees.

She promises political and economic advantage. Seal a treaty with the Sidonians and you have access to the Mediterranean Sea. Seal a treaty with the Sidonians and the prosperity experienced by the Phoenicians will spread to you. Seal a treaty with the with the Sidonians and you will not have to worry about an attack from the North and the West your border will be secure you have gained for yourself an incomparable ally the richest of allies to fight with you in your battles against the Syrians. Ahab, blind, he can’t see, but he loves what he sees. Not just the economic advantage, the political advantage, but he likes what he sees in terms of the sensuality offered.

In terms of the spirit preached by the gospel, there is nothing of the spirit left to Jezebel. Though she in her spirit serves Baal, she is the perfect servant of the flesh, and she flaunts it well. There is no modesty in her, none at all. She plays the part to the and Ahab likes what he sees.

He succumbs. If a surrender was necessary, as he played the game of seduction with Jezebel, he willingly surrender. She now is his bond. A bond for the peace that has been effected with Sidon, with the prosperous Phoenician a bond beyond that sealed in the flesh for the triumph of the same. What a fool. What a fool. How blind sin is. how willfully blind sin is. Seeing it sees nothing, looking it utterly misses the point.

Jezebel, on the loose in his she preaches her doctrine of purity she expounds her name to the sons of Abraham and her message begets unrestrained and unrestrained promiscuity her purity service to that purity builds a house and if there ever was a house of ill repute it was constructed for her by her husband at Samaria in the precincts of that city now the capital city of the ten northern tribes into the precincts of that city she has now imported others to help her seduce the sons of Abraham can you imagine 950 I’m not going to spare you the language 950 parents under the protection of the king’s edict serving under the protection and the guise of religion That is what is going on at Samaritan.

They are prophets of Baal and of the Asherah. The groves along with the wooden symbols representing female sexuality, built in those groves. These now gods in Israel. This purity and chastity This devotion in spirit that Jezebel preaches makes war on the prophets of Jehovah. Because, you see, now the prophets of Jehovah are considered the intruders. They no longer belong.

The boundaries which were formally set for the northern tribes as those boundaries of the land promised by God to the sons of Abraham have now been taken over by one who calls himself the Lord of the Heavens, the Lord of the Storm, Baal by name, and by his Queen, the Goddess of the Earth, Ashtartha memorialized in the Asherah. The judgment coming upon the northern tribes hastens.

Already Under Jeroboam, their first king, they had been led away from the ordinance of God. Jeroboam had been told by the prophet of the Lord that he was to maintain his contact with the sanctuary of God in the city that God had determined to place his name. The ordinance of God had declared that God’s name would be situated, placed, that it would adorn the precincts of Jerusalem, and that proper service unto God would take place there, despite the division in the nation. So it was. According to the word of Jeroboam that the sanctuary of God at Jerusalem was forsaken.

He did not want them going up there to serve because he considered that a threat to himself and to his authority, to his power over those tribes. So he established cultic centers at Bethel and Dan. And the people were to worship there rather than to go to Jerusalem. But now the people have embraced the religion of the Canaanite.

In forsaking the sanctuary of God, they have embraced that which was driven from the land by God, They have embraced it in direct contradiction to the prescribed word of God. Had not Moses written, Watch yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the Lord your God has commanded you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Deuteronomy 4, verses 23 and 24.

But sin is blind. Seeing, it sees nothing. Looking, it fails to recognize the obvious truth. The Word had been given. Promises had been made. That word in time is ignored, and Ahab here, king over the sons of Abraham, willfully, blindfully, pursues a course destined for doom. Now underscoring the situation, is what we find in the 34th verse of the 16th chapter in 1 Kings. Jericho is rebuilt. The word was sure, it was certain, it was set. It came to the Israelites through Joshua. You can read it.

Joshua 6 verse 26, Then Joshua made them take an oath at that time, saying, Cursed before the Lord is the man who raises up and builds this city Jericho. With the loss of his firstborn he will lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest he will set up its gates.

Then you read 1 Kings 16.34 How could they possibly miss it? How could they possibly not see?

As with Ahab, so with the nation as a whole. The complete blindness of the people despite the obvious revelation of God. This then itself becoming an indictment against the entire age. connected with Ahab and Jezebel. The spirit of the time, not just the spirit of the woman, not just the spirit of the king, the spirit of the time was a willful and arrogant blindness.

All knew what the Word said, and they deliberately turned against it. Knowing what it said, they rejected it, and they rejected it willfully. But they continue. They continue in their disobedience. That which the word speaks concerning the Spirit, speaking rightly about that Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord has been lost to them, so that they, like their king and like their queen, are servants only of the flesh, they cannot even see the Spirit, nor can they hear the words of the Spirit. They pursue their disobedience despite clear judgments from God.

Hiel builds Jericho with the laying of the foundations, he loses his firstborn, with the setting up of the gates, he loses his lastborn. But now, the heavens themselves are shut up by the word of Elijah. That one who considers himself, at least according to the doctrine of Jezebel, that one that considers himself the Lord of the heavens, the Lord of the storm, cannot control the heavens, and he cannot manipulate the storms. The religion of the flesh rises no further than the flesh. Above it is the spirit. The Spirit comes forth with its message that takes precedence over any word of the Spirit. The word of the Lord reigns.

This in keeping also with the judgments that had been spoken out by Moses previously. Hear what Moses said in Deuteronomy chapter 11. I will give you reign. says the Lord, for your land in its seasons, the early and the late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. Beware, lest your hearts be deceived and you turn away and serve other gods.” It’s almost as if he had in mind the circumstances in 1 Kings. Turn away and serve other gods and worship them. or the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain, and the ground will not yield its fruit, and you will perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving to you.”

How could it be made more clear Then later, Moses speaks again in that incomparable 28th chapter of Deuteronomy. Speaking for the Lord, he cites again God’s gift of the rain in verse 12. But he also, in that overwhelming section about the curse due to sin, says, The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust. from heaven it will come down upon you until you are destroyed.” Verse 24.

So Elijah prays to God, and Elijah then gives word to Ahab, no rain. Dael and his consort were the deities of the created order of the flesh. of the world, guaranteeing the productivity of the flesh, the created order, the world. But now there is no reign, and this is a direct assault by the true God upon those who are no gods at all. how blind sin is. To those buried in sin, the word comes. The events transpire. but nothing registers nothing registers a whole nation of sons of Abraham hear the message of the Lord’s true King is anointed. He proclaims to them the certain judgment that shall overtake them in keeping with the Lord’s word.

But seeing, they see nothing. Hearing, they don’t understand. And after they have nailed him to a cross they go on their way willfully, blindly into oblivion the spirit speaks to the seven churches in Asia Minor in the opening chapters of the book of Revelation warning the churches that if they turn from the word they will be consumed will the church be spared if she ignores the truth if she runs hell-mell after the promise of the flesh and the opportunities of the world bowing down before the creature rather than the creator Revelation 2 verse 20 tells us that Jezebel still lives and those who love the flesh even though they be in the church are being thrown into bed with her and they will suffer with her her end now as it is for the people as a whole So it is for you.

Have you been warned? Have you been told? Do you see? Do you understand? Do you realize the seriousness of the matter the end of the matter. If you willfully turn your back on the true God and service to Him, if you claim to see when living in your blindness, you will be destroyed. There is grace. After three and a half years, rain comes.

Even though Christ is crucified Redemption flows from His side. His blood covers the sins of His people. And while the Spirit is speaking about judgments for the churches in Asia Minor, He is also saying, if you will repent, I will heal you, and I will bless you incomparably and wonderfully. how blind Satan is, but how powerful our God. He shows it in the ministry of Christ when Christ reaches out his hand and touches the eyes of one blind. and the blind see. Against the flesh, against the lasciviousness in the service of Dale, is the sight in the Spirit, the Spirit of God.

That, our heritage. For once we are blind, but now we see. O Lord, in pride your church even may rise up to claim that she sees, but her sin deceives her. We ourselves may be deceived by that deception that comes forth from Satan, a deception that we accept willingly. but we appeal to your grace and to your power and the fact that by that power you can heal us that repentance in fact is that to which we have been called that we might indeed see truly after the order of the spirit of the living God against all pretenses of hell and of Satan.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.