THE AHAB SPIRIT

By Edwin & Sophia Christiaan

"For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places." 

Ephesians 6:12 NLT

One of the evil spirits that we have given much attention in our studies in past years, explaining its devastating nature, is the Jezebel Spirit. Now we thought it was time to put her counterpart spirit, Ahab, on full display. This evil spirit manifested itself through one of Israel’s kings named Ahab, as it does through countless of men worldwide today. The Ahab Spirit brings with it the curse of serious problems in the family, relationships, health, and finances, and if not stopped, it will go from generation to generation.

The Origin of the Spirit of Ahab
“Ahab son of Omri began to rule over Israel in the thirty-eighth year of King Asa's reign in Judah. He reigned in Samaria twenty-two years. But Ahab son of Omri did what was evil in the Lord's sight, even more than any of the kings before him. And as though it were not enough to follow the example of Jeroboam, he married Jezebel, the daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and he began to bow down in worship of Baal. First Ahab built a temple and an altar for Baal in Samaria. Then he set up an Asherah pole. He did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than any of the other kings of Israel before him.” 

1. Kings 16:29-33 NLT

There was a clear generational curse of idol worshiping in the family of Ahab. His father Omri set the pattern of doing evil for his son to follow, since he himself did more evil than any of the kings before him.

“But Omri did what was evil in the Lord's sight, even more than any of the kings before him. He followed the example of Jeroboam son of Nebat in all the sins he had committed and led Israel to commit. The people provoked the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, with their worthless idols.” 

1. Kings 16:25-26 NLT

Ahab was influenced by his evil wife Jezebel, a woman devoted to everything that God hated and forbid. As a result, Ahab submitted to his wife and ended up serving and worshiping Baal. Baal was the male god, and Asherah was Baal’s female counterpart. This opened the door upon Israel through which Satan gained astonishing power and flooded Israel with tremendous sin and evil.

Ahab would not take responsibility for his problems, but rather shifted the blame on to others, like the prophet Elijah who confronted him.

When Ahab saw him, he exclaimed, "So, is it really you, you troublemaker of Israel?"

"I have made no trouble for Israel," Elijah replied. "You and your family are the troublemakers, for you have refused to obey the commands of the Lord and have worshiped the images of Baal instead."
1. Kings 18:17-19 NLT

Ahab, led by his wife Jezebel, persecuted and threatened to kill the prophets of God.

“Once when Jezebel had tried to kill all the Lord's prophets, Obadiah had hidden 100 of them in two caves. He put fifty prophets in each cave and supplied them with food and water.” 

1. Kings 18:4 NLT

Ahab told Jezebel about the prophet Elijah killing the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. Then Jezebel, not Ahab, immediately took action against Elijah, vowing to kill him. He let his wife do the job.

When Ahab got home, he told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, including the way he had killed all the prophets of Baal. So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah: "May the gods strike me and even kill me if by this time tomorrow I have not killed you just as you killed them." 

1. Kings 19:1-2 NLT

Ahab also let his wife Jezebel do his dirty work of stealing the vineyard of Naboth, by having Naboth falsely accused of cursing God and the king, and then killed. Jezebel acted on her own, and stole the authority of her husband to carry out her plan. She belittled her husband the king, schemed behind his back, and used her influence to control people in her murder plot of Naboth. Ahab did not even mind hearing about the death of Naboth.

Now there was a man named Naboth, from Jezreel, who owned a vineyard in Jezreel beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. One day Ahab said to Naboth, "Since your vineyard is so convenient to my palace, I would like to buy it to use as a vegetable garden. I will give you a better vineyard in exchange, or if you prefer, I will pay you for it." But Naboth replied, "The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance that was passed down by my ancestors."

So Ahab went home angry and sullen because of Naboth's answer. The king went to bed with his face to the wall and refused to eat!

"What's the matter?" his wife Jezebel asked him. "What's made you so upset that you're not eating?"

"I asked Naboth to sell me his vineyard or trade it, but he refused!" Ahab told her.

"Are you the king of Israel or not?" Jezebel demanded. "Get up and eat something, and don't worry about it. I'll get you Naboth's vineyard!"

So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, sealed them with his seal, and sent them to the elders and other leaders of the town where Naboth lived. In her letters she commanded: "Call the citizens together for fasting and prayer, and give Naboth a place of honor. And then seat two scoundrels across from him who will accuse him of cursing God and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death."

So the elders and other town leaders followed the instructions Jezebel had written in the letters. They called for a fast and put Naboth at a prominent place before the people. Then the two scoundrels came and sat down across from him. And they accused Naboth before all the people, saying, "He cursed God and the king." So he was dragged outside the town and stoned to death. The town leaders then sent word to Jezebel, "Naboth has been stoned to death."

When Jezebel heard the news, she said to Ahab, "You know the vineyard Naboth wouldn't sell you? Well, you can have it now! He's dead!" So Ahab immediately went down to the vineyard of Naboth to claim it.
1. Kings 21:1-16 NLT

Ahab was dominated by his wife to do evil. There was one moment, though, when the prophet Elijah confronted Ahab for what he had done to Naboth, prophesying that God would wipe him and his entire family out, that Ahab humbled himself before God.

But when Ahab heard this message, he tore his clothing, dressed in burlap, and fasted. He even slept in burlap and went about in deep mourning.

Then another message from the Lord came to Elijah: "Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has done this, I will not do what I promised during his lifetime. It will happen to his sons; I will destroy his dynasty."
1. Kings 21:27-29 NLT

But then Ahab went right back into his own self again, hating the truth and God’s prophets, whom he was willing to imprison and torture. That is exactly what Ahab did to the prophet Micaiah, who prophesied that Ahab would be killed in battle.

The king of Israel replied to Jehoshaphat, "There is one more man who could consult the Lord for us, but I hate him. He never prophesies anything but trouble for me! His name is Micaiah son of Imlah." 

1. Kings 22:8 NLT

"Arrest him!" the king of Israel ordered. "Take him back to Amon, the governor of the city, and to my son Joash. Give them this order from the king: 'Put this man in prison, and feed him nothing but bread and water until I return safely from the battle!'"

But Micaiah replied, "If you return safely, it will mean that the Lord has not spoken through me!" Then he added to those standing around, "Everyone mark my words!"
1. Kings 22:26-28 NLT

Ahab was such a conniving man that he enticed Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to go to war with him as a decoy to be attacked.

“Then Ahab enticed Jehoshaphat to join forces with him to recover Ramoth-gilead.” 

2. Chronicles 18:2 NLT

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "As we go into battle, I will disguise myself so no one will recognize me, but you wear your royal robes." 

1. Kings 22:30 NLT

The Generational Curse at Work
“I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.” 

Exodus 20:5 NLT

Ahab's son Ahaziah followed his parents' evil ways.

“Ahaziah son of Ahab began to rule over Israel in the seventeenth year of King Jehoshaphat's reign in Judah. He reigned in Samaria two years. But he did what was evil in the Lord's sight, following the example of his father and mother and the example of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had led Israel to sin. He served Baal and worshiped him, provoking the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, just as his father had done.” 

1. Kings 22:51-53 NLT

Another son of Ahab, Joram, did evil, but not to the same extent as his father and mother.

“Ahab's son Joram began to rule over Israel in the eighteenth year of King Jehoshaphat's reign in Judah. He reigned in Samaria twelve years. He did what was evil in the Lord's sight, but not to the same extent as his father and mother. He at least tore down the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had set up. Nevertheless, he continued in the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had committed and led the people of Israel to commit.” 

2. Kings 3:1-3 NLT

Then you have King Jehoram, who married the daughter of Ahab. He also did evil in God’s sight.

“Jehoram son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah began to rule over Judah in the fifth year of the reign of Joram son of Ahab, king of Israel. Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. But Jehoram followed the example of the kings of Israel and was as wicked as King Ahab, for he had married one of Ahab's daughters. So Jehoram did what was evil in the Lord's sight.” 

2. Kings 8:16-18 NLT

Ahab exhibited characteristics of confusion, disobedience, resentfulness, sullenness, and greed. As an accomplice to his wife Jezebel, he lived in compromise and deception, refused to believe God, and begat rebellious children.

The Curse of the Spirit of Ahab and Jezebel on Children
The relationship of Ahab and Jezebel provides an excellent illustration of the curse brought about by a husband and wife being out of God's divine order for the family. When you have an Ahab/Jezebel marriage, you will have men not committed to God, home, or children, but they instead seek to achieve personal, selfish satisfaction in other things like money, career, alcohol, women, sports, and other activities.

Ahab men are spiritually weak and blame others for their own problems. They are easily influenced and persuaded by their wives to make wrong decisions, and then later they don’t own up to their mistakes. By passivity or laziness, they push their wives to take over their own chores and responsibilities in the home and family, which puts the wife in a position of priest and head of the home, a task she is not designed to handle. They set the wrong pattern for their children to follow, causing them to spend the rest of their adult lives struggling to live normal lives.

A mother, who is a Jezebel, and a father, who is an Ahab, will raise Jezebel daughters and Ahab sons. If sons do not see their father respected in his office of being the father and leader, they have no other example to the contrary, and will grow up following in his footsteps. Likewise, the girls will likely choose a husband who is the same passive type as the father. Daughters will grow up not knowing how to respect a man and/or a future husband.

Ahab fathers place curses on male children and Jezebel mothers place curses on female children. Both male and female children easily fall into homosexual lifestyles, not necessarily because they want to or are convinced they are gay, but because of the gender confusion that comes with growing up in a Jezebel/Ahab environment, where the roles are swapped so the mother is the leader of the home, and the father is the follower. Children will later on have broken marriages and families like their parents. Jezebel mothers cause children to be manipulative. Children are full of rebellion and under pressure to prove their love to their parents. Children are often very depressed, are afraid, insecurity, frustration, and difficulty learning, but at the same time, they learn to develop skills of how to manipulate people with faking sickness and injuries and with other hypochondriac behavior. This Ahab curse can potentially lead to the total corruption of the child, causing them to live in discord, selfishness, and distrust, as they start looking for heroes in the occult world and a sense of belonging in cultic environments where they can have some sort of status of importance.

Under the Ahab curse, children are interested in violence and fascinated with death because of tensions, confusions, hurts, and insults given them by the family structure being out of order. All this confusion, frustration, resentment, and hate in many cases lead to these children wanting to commit suicide or finding release in self affliction like for instance cutting, drug abuse or sexual promiscuity. In trying to find their place, these children frequently give in to demonic spirits that drive them to the love of power, money, praise, and fame. The children are totally vulnerable and open to satanic attacks, and will usually become just like their parents!

A Man’s Responsibility
This curse of the Ahab Spirit can be traced back all the way to Adam and Eve, when Adam allowed Eve, who was deceived by the serpent, the Devil, to convince him to eat the fruit of the tree that God warned not to eat from.

But the Lord God warned him, "You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden — except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die." 

Genesis 2:16-17 NLT

"You won't die!" the serpent replied to the woman. "God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil." The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

Genesis 4-6 NLT

Then God called Adam, (not Eve) to confront him, and to hold him responsible for what he had done. Adam then cowardly and conveniently shifted the blame on to Eve.

Then the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" He replied, "I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked." "Who told you that you were naked?" the Lord God asked. "Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?" The man replied, "It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it." 

Genesis 3:9-12 NLT

God puts the greatest burden of responsibility on the men, not the women! The Ahab man cannot escape his responsibility by blaming his problems on the woman.