Have You Bought Into Jezebel’s Widespread Lie About Your Sexuality?

The church of Jesus Christ is at one of the most pivotal moments in history. She will either enter a great revival and heal the cultural woes of our times, as she has done in the past, or go the route of social compliance and irrelevancy. Many souls are weighing in the balance of this choice, and what it may come down to is your sexual integrity as a leader.

Our previous generation of leaders was birthed in a culture of morality. They knew that character was what you did when you were all by yourself. They feared God and tried to live a godly life from a sexual perspective.

This generation had the sexual influences of Hugh Hefner and a culture that told them if it feels good, do it. We need sexually pure leaders more today than any other time in the world’s history.

I want to share with you here a few really good ideas as it relates to sexuality and leadership. Your sexuality, which includes lust, pornography, flirting or any sex act outside of marriage, can determine how God sees you.

If you read Leviticus 18, the Old Testament sex chapter, God tells the people not to engage in a list of various sexual behaviors. In verse 23, God says, “Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for in these practices the nations I am casting out before you have defiled themselves.” You see, our sexual behavior is how God determines if we are defiled or clean. In verse 28, if we are not sexually clean, we are told the land will vomit us up. Jeremiah 3:1 and 3:9 also support the way God looks at a nation to evaluate if it’s defiled or clean by its sexual behavior.

If this is true, America is more defiled than clean. What about your state, your city, your church or even you?  Would God see you as defiled or clean?

Secondly, let’s go to the New Testament in the book of Revelation, where we see two very important thoughts regarding sexuality. Revelation 2:20-26 is talking about the church of Thyatira. There was a woman in the church Jesus called Jezebel who was teaching immorality. Jesus gave her time to repent, but she wouldn’t, so he was going to kill her children. Jesus was upset with this church because they tolerated this teaching of permissiveness toward immorality.

You see, God is patient, but He is not tolerant. He has never tolerated sexual sins, even with leaders in the church. Jezebel was teaching that you could do what you want sexually and still have God (Rev. 2:20). This is directly opposed to Scriptures that tell us we are the temple and not to be immoral.

If Jezebel were alive today, she would say to church leaders, whether male or female, “You can have secret email accounts, chat online inappropriately with people on the internet, look at porn on your cell phone or church computer or have secret liaisons.” You see, Jezebel would not be a controlling woman in your church. Instead, she would have an attitude of permission to be sexually immoral.

The most powerful portion of this Scripture is in verse 26. Revelation 2:26 (NIV) says, “to the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations.”  God wants you to have authority over the nations, but you can’t be immoral and have it. If we as leaders will overcome in this sexual area in our lives, God will give us authority over multiple nations.

It’s not just your sexuality the devil is after; it’s your spiritual authority. We all know leaders who have fallen and have not repented. Notice how their authority has shriveled.

Spiritual leaders are at an all-time high of viewing pornography and having sexual secrets. This cancer can’t continue to grow yet still expect the church to be strong in our nation. As a Christian leader, I too had to face this question within our counseling center. We decided as a group of counselors to take polygraphs regularly to verify our sexual purity.

This keeps our counseling center clean, and everyone who calls us for telephone sessions, groups or three- and five-day intensives knows their counselor is sexually clean. I long for the day churches are proactive and not tolerant of secrets. We can’t heal what we won’t confront in our leadership. {eoa}

Doug Weiss, Ph.D., is a nationally known author, speaker and licensed psychologist. He is the executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the author of several books including, Clean. You may contact Dr. Weiss via his website, drdougweiss.com or on his Facebook or by phone at 719-278-3708 or through email at [email protected].