7 Good Lessons From 7 Bad Bible Characters [Pt. 4: Jezebel]

For part 4 of our series on exploring deeply spiritual lessons from the lives of 7 different Bible “villains,” we’re going to talk about a Bible character who has a VERY DARK reputation.
Today, in this blog post, let’s get into 3 meaty spiritual lessons from the life of JEZEBEL!

Who Was Jezebel?

According to 1 Kings 16:31, we learn the following about Jezebel:

And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for [King Ahab] to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; and he went and served Baal and worshiped him.
(1 Kings 16:31)

So, based on the verse above, Jezebel was the daughter of King Ethbaal. In the book Prophets and Kings, Ellen White mentions that Jezebel’s father was not only a king, but also a “high priest of Baal” (see Prophets and Kings pg. 114).

So, with that kind of background information, we could conclude that Jezebel grew up in a very devout Baal-worshiping home. We could conclude that Jezebel most likely LOVED Baal, and that her sinful love for pagan idolatry caused a flood of nationwide religious and spiritual corruption across Israel.

We shall now get deeper into this in the 3 lessons below.

1. Jezebel’s Atmosphere

Shortly after marrying Jezebel, King Ahab began to “set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1 Kings 16:32-33).
How in the world did Ahab leap into all this crazy idolatry? Ellen White gives us an insightful commentary that answers that question:

“Not only did Ahab introduce Baal worship at the capital city, but under the leadership of Jezebel he erected heathen altars in many “high places,” where in the shelter of surrounding groves the priests and others connected with this seductive form of idolatry exerted their baleful influence, until well-nigh all Israel were following after Baal……………..Through the influence of Jezebel and her impious priests, the people were taught that the idol gods that had been set up were deities, ruling by their mystic power the elements of earth, fire, and water.”

~Prophets & Kings pages 114, 115, emphasis added~

It was Jezebel’s INFLUENCE that caused all of Israel to be pushed down into spiritual and religious corruption.
How does this apply to us as Christians in our modern 21st century lives?

In my favorite book, Christ’s Object Lessons, the writer says this about influence:

“Every soul is surrounded by an atmosphere of its own—an atmosphere, it may be, charged with the life-giving power of faith, courage, and hope, and sweet with the fragrance of love. Or it may be heavy and chill with the gloom of discontent and selfishness, or poisonous with the deadly taint of cherished sin. By the atmosphere surrounding us, every person with whom we come in contact is consciously or unconsciously affected.”

~Christ’s object Lessons page 339~

If Jezebel’s chilling “atmosphere” of idolatry could shove a whole nation into deep dark spiritual corruption, what about you and me? Is your influence and mine causing some friend or family member to fall into some corrupting sin? Into some sinful addiction? Or is your influence and mine doing the complete opposite and causing friends and family members to love God more and spend more time with Him?

2. Jezebel’s Attitude

The second lesson we can learn from Jezebel is found in 1 Kings 18:4–

For so it was, while Jezebel massacred the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah had taken one hundred prophets and hidden them, fifty to a cave, and had fed them with bread and water.)
(1 Kings 18:4, emphasis added)

Ellen White gives us some deep commentary on the above verse:

“Jezebel utterly refused to recognize the drought as a judgment from Jehovah. Unyielding in her determination to defy the God of heaven, she, with nearly the whole of Israel, united in denouncing Elijah as the cause of all their misery………….Failing in her efforts against Elijah [to kill him], Jezebel determined to avenge herself by slaying all the prophets of Jehovah in Israel. Not one should be left alive. The infuriated woman carried out her purpose in the massacre of many of God’s servants.”

~Prophets & Kings page 126~

Whoah! Here’s another lesson from Jezebel:

NEVER THROW THE BLAME ON GOD’S SERVANTS!

How does this lesson apply to us?
I’d like to illustrate the primary application of this lesson with a story.

My Contemporary Christian Life

Ever since I was little, I’ve always loved listening to music. When my parents became Seventh-Day Adventist Christians, our whole lifestyle changed. Including what we listened to on the car radio. Now, instead of listening to secular music, we listened to contemporary Christian music. So, at the age of 7, I was introduced to various CCM songs and artists through a certain Christian radio station.
And since that time, contemporary Christian music became one of the things I greatly loved–and even greatly idolized.

A Cry From An Elijah

When I was about 15 years old, a Christian music seminar called The Distraction Dilemma by Pastor Christian Berdahl blasted through the online scene. My mom and I watched it one lazy summer day, and I only had one reaction after watching it.
Deep within my heart,

I WAS ANGRY!!!

Just like Jezebel was furious at Elijah for his rebuke against the idolatry she grew up with and loved, I myself felt that same fury against Pastor Christian Berdahl and his rebuking seminar against the contemporary Christian music that I grew up with, loved, and idolized.

But praise God that now I no longer have that anger against Pastor Christian Berdahl, and that His Holy Spirit has set me free from my idolatrous love toward contemporary Christian music! But now as I look back during that time, I realized that the person to blame wasn’t Pastor Christian Berdahl; what was to blame was MY SIN-LOVING HEART! And the same thing applies to Jezebel! The issue wasn’t Elijah; the issue was her own SIN-LOVING HEART.

And how many of us copy Jezebel’s angry attitude and pin the blame on pastors, church elders, teachers, and parents when all they’re simply doing is trying to lovingly lead us in the right direction? How many of us must finally learn the lesson that I eventually learned; the lesson that the issue isn’t the words of some pastor, parent, church elder, or teacher–but rather the issue is our own sin-loving hearts?

Friends, we must ask God to take away our Jezebel-like angry attitudes and fill us with His love to accept the truths that He is trying to communicate to us through pastors, parents, teachers, church elders, and other authority figures. We need to ask God to give us new hearts!

3. Jezebel’s Adornment

Skipping back to Jezebel, we will now learn the third and final lesson from her life. In 2 Kings chapter 9 verse 30, we read:

Now when Jehu had come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she put paint on her eyes and adorned her head, and looked through a window.
(2 Kings 9:30)

In the verses following, Jezebel ends up dying a horribly gruesome death. What a huge contrast to her prettying up herself just moments before she died!

What can we learn from this? How does it apply to us?

Like Jezebel, we too as Seventh-Day Adventist Christian teens may take time “prettying up” ourselves when morbid destruction is just around the corner. This doesn’t just mean putting on makeup, as this verse is normally used when discussing the “makeup issue.” What I mean is that we, like Jezebel, may take time prettying up our grades, prettying up our reputation records, prettying up our social media profiles. Prettying up every temporal thing we have while the time of trouble, the time of great persecution, the time of dark tribulation is only MOMENTS away! The signs are all around us, urgently forewarning us that the end of the world is near! It’s time to set our homes and hearts in order! Now is the time to prepare to meet our God!

Yet, how many of us are acting like Jezebel, and painting and adorning our academic, social, and even physical beings when the death of all worldliness and sin is only MOMENTS away?

It’s like what Jesus said in the book of Luke:

But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly.
(Luke 21:34)

A Prayer

Dear reader, if you sense the Holy Spirit convicting you that you’ve been copying one of Jezebel’s character traits–or all three of them–I wanna appeal to you to pray this simple prayer below:

Amen! Maranatha!

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Stay tuned for part 5 of this series on “7 Good Lessons From 7 Bad Bible Characters,” where we’ll explore several lessons from the story of Haman!
[***UPDATE: You can now view part 5 by clicking HERE***]