In phase 3, everything turns unto the making of disciples. Everything will turn around: “Becoming a disciple of Jesus and making disciples of Jesus.”
(2 Chronicles: Chapters 22 – 24)
- SAVED FROM DEATH
- HIDDEN FROM DANGER
- MADE KING
- DISCIPLED TO PLEASE
- DISTINCT SERVICE FOR GOD
- BACKSLIDING
- THE EXCOMMUNICATION
So, in this first course, I selected one aspect of discipling the children. I selected a couple that discipled a child. Jehoiada the high priest and his wife Jehosheba. They were ministers to children; they were not idle ministers to children. Jehoiada was the high priest, so he was like the big spiritual leader of the nation, but he had a vision for the ministry to children. The wife was a princess, the daughter of the king, but she had a spiritual mind, that is why she married the high priest. And both of them, they built one child who became a king. He and his wife were kingmakers by discipling a child, by building a child spiritually.
By building a child spiritually, they produced a king.
We are in phase 3, the ministers to children must be disciples of Christ; must themselves be disciples of Christ, and must make disciples. They must disciple the children. And the best way to learn is by learning from an example.
There was a young boy who was a baby when there was a crisis in the family, the baby was called Joash, he was one of the sons of the king. His father was called Ahaziah, he was the king of Judea. But his father made a terrible mistake in his marriage, he married the daughter of Ahab, who resembled her mother. The mother was Jezebel, the wife of Ahab.
Ahaziah was the son of a good man called Jehoshaphat, but he had a weakness, he believed that everybody who was a child of God could live together. So, Jehoshaphat befriended Ahab, he was the kind of person who believed that you should not judge anybody. So Jehoshaphat befriended Ahab, whose wife was Jezebel. Jezebel was the daughter of Ed-Baal, something like the high priest of Baal, she was the daughter of a “babalawo” (witch doctor), a “ngambe” man (witch doctor). The father was a king, but the father was a “ngambe” king. The father was the high priest of Baal worshippers and Jezebel was the daughter.
Ahab was an Israelite, but he went and married an unbeliever and that unbeliever showed him pepper. And that unbeliever wife put him in her pocket, zipped it, and when he wanted to even shout it that he wanted to repent, she will tap him in the pocket as to say: keep quiet. Because Ahab wanted to repent when Elisha preached; Ahab did not want to kill Naboth. Jezebel told him: you are a fool, you don’t know how to be a king, you have a signature for what? Give me your royal stamp. She wrote a letter to all the minister of the town, the next day, Naboth was dead and buried. Ahab was the king, but he did not really know how to use the stamp. Jezebel knew how to use the stamp and the name of the king and she taught to this king how to be a wicked king.
The Bible says that Ahab was already a bad man, but by marrying Jezebel, he filled the cup of wickedness. His wife was the fullness of wickedness. The Bible says that he was already a sinner, but to have married that wife, he completed his wickedness. So Ahab married Jezebel, but Jehoshaphat who was a believer did not believe in judging and separating the other believers. So he befriended Ahab and in order to seal the friendship, they arranged a marriage between his first son Ahaziah, with the daughter of Jezebel, Athaliah. A diplomatic marriage, between the son of a believer and the daughter of another religious leader whose mother is an unbeliever. Jezebel was Jezebel. Her name has come to mean wickedness, beautiful even in old age when Jehu was anointed to deal with the family of Ahab. Jezebel was truly Jezebel. She tried to seduce Jehu. When Jehu entered, Jezebel went first to the mirror, painted her mouth first before going to talk to Jehu. You are near death and you go and do make-up to go and talk to your enemy?. Make-up to neutralise! So, Jezebel knew that make-up was a neutraliser. Jezebel knew that good looks were to her favour. But she fought with all the weapons she had, she fought with the name of the king, with good looks. She was a warrior, a missionary of Baal. Be careful with all these counselling of Jezebels with make-up. Brethren it must be a very wicked woman whose before dying goes for make-up, but it tells you how much she believed in her neutralising power. Unfortunately, she was unfortunate, because when Jehu entered, he asked: who was on my side? And one of the eunuchs just made an eye sign to Jehu that “I am with you”, but near her, his voice did not come out. A strong woman, a beautiful woman, a witch, a politician, a wicked woman, a seductress. She is the only woman in the bible, along with the women of Isaiah 4 that the bible shows us are experts in beauty.
Jehoshaphat, that godly brother, he loved the word of God, he was a profile in Bible reading, he followed God, he believed the prophets, he was a godly man. Jehoshaphat, a godly king, a lover of God’s Word, but a terrible weakness: compromise, compromise. He was broader than God, he was latitudinal, he believed Ecumenism, the fellowship of Pentecostal pastors, everybody, let us find out the points where we agree and forget the points where we disagree. Let us meet at our points of convergence and forget about our points of divergence. So, Jehoshaphat used marriage, political marriage, he took his first son to marry the daughter of Jezebel. So, Athaliah married the king of Judah, and she told her husband, “let’s go and visit my father”. Gradually, she connected her husband to her own family and they loved him. When Ahaziah is coming, they will say: “Ah! the king has come!” and they would treat him well and they finally became his counsellors. His wife connected him to other influences, to the relationships she brought into the marriage. She did not start by controlling him, she started by connecting him to her family and they became his counsellors; after they became his counsellors, Ahaziah would do anything to please his counsellor. So the son of a pastor, of a godly man became now the person being counselled by the family of a wicked witch. So, he started doing everything to please them and by doing everything to please them, he became less and less committed to the people who are following God. His sister, Jehosheba, because Jehoshaphat had loved God, the sister married the pastor: Jehoiada . Jehosheba, the sister of Ahaziah, the daughter of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat allowed his girls to be spiritual by marrying spiritual men, and then he allowed his first son to marry a worldly girl, that will bring good connections, that will ensure peace, a marriage that will neutralise war. Jehoshaphat: compromise. He loved God but he loved compromised. His first son married the daughter of Jezebel. His daughter married the high priest, in the same family, the marriages show the different tendencies of the parents. He wanted his son to marry into a good family. And he wanted his daughter to marry in a holy family.
Ahaziah, the king of Judah, decided to visit Athaliah’s family, his wife’s family.
Ahaziah was going to visit Joram, his brother- in- law, and he was going to visit Joram after God had anointed Jehu to destroy the family of Ahab. So, on that visit, Jehu the revivalist destroyed the whole family of Ahab and killed Athaliah. The only thing they did not know is that Jezebel had exported one missionary in Judah. So, when God anointed Jehu to destroy the family of Ahab, the marriage of Athaliah spared her from the judgement to Jehu. It was the compromise of Jehoshaphat that protected Athaliah from being destroyed by Jehu. Her husband went to visit her brother and was killed by Jehu. Athaliah said: I understand, you want to destroy my whole family so that the worship of Baal will end. Ok, I will destroy the whole family of Judah so that there will be no worship to Jehovah. Jehu in Israel, raised by God, Athaliah in Judah, raised by the devil, all of them with the same mission. Jehu was to destroy the worship of a foreign god in order to bring Israel, back to God. Athaliah decided to destroy God’s covenant with David related to the coming of the Messiah. There is no period in the whole of the Bible where God’s promises to Abraham and David came to be nearest extinguished, all the purposes of God, through the descendants of Abraham and of David, it was under Athaliah that satan came nearest to blocking the Messiah from ever coming. Athaliah was the Jehu against God. As Jehu was zealous to destroy Baal, Athaliah was zealous to destroy Jehovah. How did Athaliah enter into Judah? Through marriage, through the compromising marriage of the parents!
Jehu in Israel, bringing Israel nearer to God than it had ever been.
Jehu in Israel, satan raised Athaliah.
In the long run, Jehu was waging war against a thought that was baptized in paganism many years before. Who won? Jehu only lasted four generations as king.
The minister to children ought to pray for the right marriages.
The children that we are struggling to save may already have been ruined at 90% by the marriages of their parents. A believer that married through compromise. The children’s ministry starts with the marriage of the church. All our girls and all our boys, who like marrying from other ministries, to bring in the Jezebels, bring in the Athaliahs, who don’t understand our vision, they will give us children that will be dangerous.
The ministry to children starts with strategic marriages.
It was Ahaziah’s marriage to Athaliah that brought ungodliness, moral depravity and death to the children of the king. The danger was from the marriage! The danger was from the marriage!! The danger was from the marriage, And the marriage was the compromise of a person being latitudinal. And there are many brethren like that. They want their brothers and sisters who don’t know God to be married in the church. Many leaders want their unconverted children to marry believers. They know the advantages of marrying a believer, but they don’t think about the danger that their own child who is not a believer represents, they have imported Athaliah into the purposes of God. Athaliahs don’t get converted to carry the purposes of God, they kill the purposes of God. There is a shameful compromising natural love.
The ministry to children starts with the marriages of the believer.
I want you to read the three chapters.
Pray that we shall remove all compromise in the area of marriages because of what God said David would fail to accomplish.
Pray so that if we must accomplish the goal, we must be strict at the level of marriages.
And if you already have a bad marriage, pray that you will be the opposite of Jezebel. If your husband is an unbeliever, the believing wife may not have the power of Jezebel .
