1) The Sidonians descended from Noah’s grandson Canaan, through Ham – the son that was cursed for gazing upon his father’s naked, drunken form. “May Canaan be cursed! May he be the lowest of servants to his relatives” (Gen 9:25, 10:15) Imagine the mental complex the outworking of that curse would give a person, of constantly trying to get to the top but never being able to succeed because of a generational curse spoken hundreds of years ago. The power of blessing and curses flows generationally. What are we releasing out of our mouths?
2) Jezebel was the daughter of the king of Sidon. He offered his daughter Jezebel to the one who was blessed to be the head and not the tail, King Ahab of Israel, who willingly violated God’s commandments to not marry foreign wives. Ahab was willing to compromise God’s standards to strengthen political ties with a wicked nation that APPEARED prosperous on the outside for selfish gain at the expense of his personal and national purity before God. We see the outworking of the curse upon Canaan’s descendants still manifesting.
Although Jezebel gets a lot of the attention from pulpits, she was still JUST serving Ahab. She was JUST trying to stand out among many of his women, as we know biologically it is impossible to birth 70 sons from a single womb. In fact, we don’t hear anything about Jezebel’s sons, just Jezebel’s daughter, Athaliah. Imagine how devastating that would have been in a male-dominant society. She JUST had a daughter. Never measuring up. She had the opportunity to shift her alliances to the Most High God that valued women and gave them a legal right to have an inheritance like the 5 daughters of Zelophehad (Num 27), yet her own husband failed to disciple her. Her past and father’s house were not what defined her as foreign wives as Rahab and Ruth demonstrate but rather that her husband and nation in the present were so weak spiritually that they couldn’t demonstrate and convert her the beauty of holiness. Due to a lack of inward beauty that always shines outward, she resorted to a mask of makeup to try to seduce Jehu that he saw right through. Jezebel’s lack of identity and her father’s absence of love demonstrated by his failure to train her up in the nurture and admonition of the Most High God resulted in Athaliah growing up to be an insecure cut-throat without morals. She was capable of murdering her own grandchildren, so desperate was she for acceptance and approval. She was the product of a father’s failure to take spiritual responsibility for his family.
Modern-day churches have released so much teaching about the spirit of Jezebel, but who is talking about the spirit of Ahab, which is the greater problem??? What we see here is the classic blame-game of a self-pitying victim mentality ((aka pride!) to keep the focus off the church’s irresponsibility and failure to be overcomers of the flesh and rather pointing the finger at the world. If King Ahab had never compromised to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, and not loved himself more than God, we would have never had a Jezebel in the first place! Exalting the power of one cursed to servitude demonstrates the utter lack of one’s identity available as a mature son of God that has been wisely tutored by the Law. And we wonder why the earthquakes so violently?
Proverbs 30:21-23 – 21 There are three things that make the earth tremble – no, four it cannot endure: 22 a slave who becomes a king, an overbearing fool who prospers, 23 a bitter woman who finally gets a husband, a servant girl who supplants her mistress.
The solution to all of this mess goes back to the foundation so many prominent black speakers such as Candace Owens point to – fix the fathers and you’ll transform a nation. But this solution isn’t a “racist” solution. It’s common sense that applies to all humanity.
3) Ashtoreth was the goddess of the Sidonians. (2 Kings 23:13) We still see worship of Ashtoreth, which is prohibited by God’s commandments (Deut 12:29-32), in our religious systems today if you know what you’re looking for. Think of dipping eggs in child sacrificed blood to make them pretty colors and eating the fertility symbol of bunny rabbits and gathering to watch the sunrise as an act of worship. Society is right – we DO need cancel culture, just pointed in the right direction! Jesus Christ promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail. It’s time to start believing it and ACT, fearing the LORD more than the reaction of the exposing the church’s love of their pagan practices within their midst.
Deuteronomy 12:29-32 – 29The LORD your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, 30and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” 31You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. 32See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.
4) When Elijah’s provision from the brook of Cherith (“Cutting”) dried up, he was sent to go live in Sidon (“Hunting”) with the widow of Zarephath (“Refinery”). (1 Kings 17:9) She was living in a country plagued by lack to the point of death demonstrating the long-reaching clutches of that territorial curse. However, she confronted a gate of hell (1 Kings 17:10) called LACK by stepping through Heaven’s gate of GENEROSITY into Kingdom of God culture at the instruction of the voice of God through a stranger.
She reaped life not only for herself and her son but a man of God that needed further refining, also. Her provision never ran dry. She had the potential to become the provision portal for her entire city! Will we take responsibility to be that portal over our own cities? Although she was still under the curse of serving, she learned how to flip that into a positive by serving God’s servant, which produced abundance for her own family. Those who desire to be greatest must first be the servant of all.
5) The Sidonians were the best at cutting timber (trees) (1 Kings 5:6). This was highlighted in 2 ways.
a. God plants fruitful trees of righteousness (Is 61:3) but the Sidonians cut them down to size, resulting in barrenness, for a tree without roots is just an impotent and passive bump on a log.
b. When we have fallen into that place of lack and servitude, God reminds us to go get wood OURSELVES and build the temple instead of relying on uncircumcised foreigners to build God’s house like Solomon did and the Israelites during the days of Ezekiel 44.
Haggai 1:3-11 – 3 Then the Lord sent this message through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins? 5 This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! 6 You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes! 7 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! 8 Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. 9 You hoped for rich harvests, but they were poor. And when you brought your harvest home, I blew it away. Why? Because my house lies in ruins, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, while all of you are busy building your own fine houses. 10 It’s because of you that the heavens withhold the dew and the earth produces no crops. 11 I have called for a drought on your fields and hills—a drought to wither the grain and grapes and olive trees and all your other crops, a drought to starve you and your livestock and to ruin everything you have worked so hard to get.”
Ezekiel 44:6-16– 6 And give these rebels, the people of Israel, this message from the Sovereign Lord: O people of Israel, enough of your detestable sins! 7 You have brought uncircumcised foreigners into my sanctuary—people who have no heart for God. In this way, you defiled my Temple even as you offered me my food, the fat and blood of sacrifices. In addition to all your other detestable sins, you have broken my covenant. 8 Instead of safeguarding my sacred rituals, you have hired foreigners to take charge of my sanctuary. 9 “So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: No foreigners, including those who live among the people of Israel, will enter my sanctuary if they have not been circumcised and have not surrendered themselves to the Lord. 10 And the men of the tribe of Levi who abandoned me when Israel strayed away from me to worship idols[a] must bear the consequences of their unfaithfulness. 11 They may still be Temple guards and gatekeepers, and they may slaughter the animals brought for burnt offerings and be present to help the people. 12 But they encouraged my people to worship idols, causing Israel to fall into deep sin. So I have taken a solemn oath that they must bear the consequences for their sins, says the Sovereign Lord. 13 They may not approach me to minister as priests. They may not touch any of my holy things or the holy offerings, for they must bear the shame of all the detestable sins they have committed. 14 They are to serve as the Temple caretakers, taking charge of the maintenance work and performing general duties. 15 “However, the Levitical priests of the family of Zadok continued to minister faithfully in the Temple when Israel abandoned me for idols. These men will serve as my ministers. They will stand in my presence and offer the fat and blood of the sacrifices, says the Sovereign Lord. 16 They alone will enter my sanctuary and approach my table to serve me. They will fulfill all my requirements.
6) Sidon was cursed to be mourning merchants (Isaiah 23:2) a place of shame (Isaiah 23:4), a place void of rejoicing (Isaiah 23:12), a place of always being crushed underneath instead of being the head (Isaiah 23:12), a place where they would never enter His rest. (Isaiah 23:12) They are destined for destruction along with the Philistines. (Jer 47:4) Sidonians were decreed to be God’s enemy and slated for judgment (Eze 28:22) as shameful outcasts. (Eze 32:30) Doom is their portion even though they think they are clever. (Zech 9:2) Yet we also discover that Sidon became a place where a deaf & dumb man was healed. (Mark 7:31)
The destiny of Sidon was pathetic yet in a single decision to break rank with the territorial destiny, the widow of Zarephath and that deaf-mute man chose to embrace a new destiny – the destiny of heaven whose plans and purposes are to give a hope and a future – by listening to the voice of the LORD and walking in obedience to His commandments. They manifested on earth that which is in heaven.
Each of us has the same opportunity before us, if we are only willing to act on that which the LORD instructs us. Those instructions are usually so simple, yet so seemingly impossible in the moment for one consumed with pride and self. A wild-looking homeless bum with an accent that has been living in the wilderness walks by and demands to a defenseless widow, “Give me the last of what you have…and I’ll multiply it.” Or how about a stranger wanting to get you alone outside of a city without anyone to defend you, then starts putting wet body parts in weird places. Honestly, how comfortable would YOU be with a total stranger you can’t understand giving you a wet willy in your ear and shoving their finger in your mouth in the name of “healing” you? Would YOU be able to recognize the presence of God waiting to pour out a miracle in your midst? Ask the LORD to raise your discernment and give you the courage to break rank with the territorial principalities and partner with a piece of heaven when it walks past. Better yet, YOU become that portal of heaven on legs!
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