Derek Prince - How A False Church Operates
This is an excerpt from: True and False Church - Part 1
Now, I’d like to begin to sketch out the picture of the harlot, the product of Cain’s religion. And if you just pause for a moment and consider the servants of God through the Bible, who gave them the most trouble? Religious people or non-religious people? Religious people. What religion did they have? The religion of Cain, that’s right. Who put the prophets to death or persecuted them? The followers of Cain. Who were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus? The followers of Cain. See? And it hasn’t changed through 2,000 years, it’s gone on the same way.
Taking a glimpse of the harlot, the false church, the first thing I want to say is that it exploits political power. It uses political power to obtain its ends. That’s why I am always somewhat reserved when I heard Christians talking about taking over politics. Because, every time it’s happened in the past it’s been a disaster for the Church. It happened in the 4th century when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine. And from that moment Christianity went into decline. It happened in the Middle Ages when the pope wielded the two swords, the sword of spiritual government and the sword of political government, and the Church was in a state of almost total darkness. I don’t believe there’ll ever be a change in that. We are not called to run the political system. We are called to pray for our leaders and from time-to-time God raises up outstanding men who play a vital role in the political system. Men like Joseph and Daniel and Wilburforce and others. But never has the Church been ordained by God to take over the political system.
Let’s look at the picture of the Church and the political system in Revelation 13. We get a picture of a political federation which is described as a beast. Revelation 13:1, John says: I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns are ten crowns, and on his head a blasphemous name. That’s the political system, the federation. I think the last end time political system. But in Revelation 17:3, and Revelation 17 is the picture of the harlot, it says: The angel carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a woman [that’s the false church] sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. So, there is the woman, the harlot, the false church, sitting on the political system and riding to power on it. It’s not the true Church.
Now, there is a very clear sort of anticipation of this in Israeli’s history in the time of King Ahab. Ahab was king of the northern kingdom, Israel. The northern kingdom was already backslidden, they were already involved in the worship of the golden calves and other evil things. But they went much further into rebellion under Ahab because Ahab married a woman called Jezebel. And Jezebel was the daughter of a pagan king and was a follower and a promoter of the worship of Baal. And Baal, in a certain sense, was the ultimate evil alternative to the worship of the true God. And by her marriage to the king Jezebel introduced the worship of Baal into Israel and in many ways, she’s a very vivid picture of the false church. One of the things that’s always been clear to me for years is that Elijah had no illusions as to what Jezebel would do to him if she could get hold of him. And I have to say I think it’s the same with the false church.
Let’s just look at a few passages in 1 Kings 16. Verses 30 and following. Now, Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. And the Bible makes it clear, the reason is he was incited to it by his wife Jezebel. And it came to pass as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat [who had introduced the worship of the golden calves], that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. Then he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a wooden image. The Hebrew word is Asherah, which was a wooden idol of a female, probably extremely sexual which was habitually worshiped by the Canaanites.
So, he introduced the worship of Baal and the worship of Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. And what was the root cause? His wife Jezebel. And then in 1 Kings 21, verse 8, we read how Jezebel manipulated Ahab. Ahab wanted to get hold of the vineyard of Naboth and Naboth wouldn’t sell it to him. So, Ahab, who was really a grown-up baby, just sulked. He turned his face to the wall, he wouldn’t eat, and he lay there. Jezebel came in and Said: What’s the matter? He said, Naboth won’t sell me his vineyard. She said, don’t worry about that, I’ll handle that. And, this is what she did. Verse 8: So, she wrote letters in Ahabís name, sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders, and the nobles who were dwelling in the city with Naboth. The result of which was Naboth was falsely accused of blasphemy and stoned to death. But notice Ahab wouldn’t have done it. He would have stopped there but it was Jezebel who took over, took his seal, which was the evidence of his kingly authority, wrote a letter in his name and got the job done. What would you call that? I call that manipulation.
And let me tell you just as a matter of information. God never manipulates. And any time you encounter manipulation you are not dealing with the true God. So, the next mark of Jezebel was her terrible attitude towards the Lord’s prophets. Going back to 1 Kings 18 and verse 13, Obadiah who was a worshiper of the true God, although he served in Ahabís court, said to Elijah: Was it not reported to my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid one hundred men of the Lord’s prophets, fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water. And in the same chapter, verse 19, this is Elijah speaking: Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me on Mount Carmel, the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table. In other words, who are maintained by Jezebel. So, she killed the true prophets and supported the false prophets.
And then in 2 Kings, chapter 9, we get another glimpse of Jezebel when Jehu rode into Samaria. Jezebel knew that her number was up, that he’d come there to kill her. So, her reaction was typical, she made herself up, put mascara on her eyes, and looked out of the window, and trusted that her sex appeal would change Jehu’s attitude. But Jehu was not the kind of person to yield to that. So, Jehu responded. This is to Joram, king of Israel, but Joram said to Jehu as he rode into Samaria: Is it peace, Jehu? So, he answered, what peace, as long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many. So, the two things that she was responsible for were harlotry, prostitution, immorality and witchcraft. Witchcraft is nearly always referred to spiritual harlotry but generally speaking, it produces actual physical immorality.
So, you get a picture of Jezebel. She murdered the true prophets, supported the false prophets, practiced immorality and witchcraft. I personally believe that almost anywhere you find witchcraft, sooner or later, you’ll find immorality. Spiritual adultery leads to the physical adultery. And so, in 1 Kings 17:1 and 18:1, in each of these we find the Lord sending Elijah into the situation to deal with it. And the lesson that I want to bring out is this, that Elijah was God’s answer to Jezebel. And this, I think, is very significant because of what’s prophesied in Malachi, the 4th chapter. You see, again we’re dealing with the close of the age and in Malachi 4 and verse 5 the Lord says: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
Now, when Elijah comes on the scene you know what the problem is. It’s witchcraft. Elijah is God’s, shall I say, secret weapon against witchcraft. And then notice the problem, and this is the last verse of the Old Testament: And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the Earth with a curse. So, not only does this indicate that the end time threat to society and to God’s people is a false church is witchcraft, but it gives the basic primary problem which is the breakup of family life. There’s a situation were fathers are alienated from their children and children from their parents. God says if this isn’t changed it will bring a curse on the whole Earth.
So, we learn a lot from that because we learn the source of the break up of family life, which is witchcraft. Wherever witchcraft prevails, family life is going to be destroyed. Family relationships are going to be broken up. And in many cases the authority of the male, the father, the head of the family, will be superseded by female authority. And all that is just a part of the activity of Jezebel. So, there is a kind of a little glimpse out of history of the activity of the false church.