O God, why have You cast us off forever?

Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep
of Your pasture?

Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased
of old,

The tribe of Your inheritance, which You have redeemed—

This Mount Zion where You have dwelt.

Lift up Your feet to the perpetual desolations.

The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary.

Your enemies roar in the midst of Your meeting place;

They set up their banners for signs.

They seem like men who lift up

Axes among the thick trees.

And now they break down its carved work, all at once,

With axes and hammers.

They have set fire to Your sanctuary;

They have defiled the dwelling place of Your name
to the ground.

They said in their hearts,

“Let us destroy them altogether.”

They have burned up all the meeting places of God
in the land.

We do not see our signs;

There is no longer any prophet;

Nor is there any among us who knows how long.

O God, how long will the adversary reproach?

Will the enemy blaspheme Your name forever?

Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand?

Take it out of Your bosom and destroy them.

For God is my King from of old,

Working salvation in the midst of the earth.

You divided the sea by Your strength;

You broke the heads of the sea serpents in the waters.

You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces,

And gave him as food to the people inhabiting
the wilderness.

You broke open the fountain and the flood;

You dried up mighty rivers.

The day is Yours, the night also is Yours;

You have prepared the light and the sun.

You have set all the borders of the earth;

You have made summer and winter.

Remember this, that the enemy has reproached, O LORD,

And that a foolish people has blasphemed Your name.

Oh, do not deliver the life of Your turtledove
to the wild beast!

Do not forget the life of Your poor forever.

Have respect to the covenant;

For the dark places of the earth are full of the haunts
of cruelty.

Oh, do not let the oppressed return ashamed!

Let the poor and needy praise Your name.

Arise, O God, plead Your own cause;

Remember how the foolish man reproaches You daily.

Do not forget the voice of Your enemies;

The tumult of those who rise up against You
increases continually.

–Psalm 74

Imagine the scene: You see the young wife of a local pastor—your pastor—at the market on a Saturday evening.  Several men are talking to her.  You walk a little closer to see if you recognize them.  You do.  And then you overhear their words to her.  They are making suggestive remarks, crude jokes that demean her beauty and purity—even using Bible verses, entirely twisting their holy meaning, in their assault.  They strike her down, one after another.  They defile her.

 

In shock, you have to look away for a moment, and it is then that you notice two young men from your church standing by and watching this attack on the pastor’s wife.  In disbelief, you see one smirk at the next crude joke uttered against the young lady, as the other man standing by steps forward and slaps one of the attackers on the back—”How ya doin’, brother?” he greets his friend warmly, as if he hadn’t seen a thing.

 

Recently, I witnessed a scene like this.  Many of you have, as well.  My first response was to say something, protest the crime—”Stop!  Don’t you see what you’re saying and who you’re doing this to?”  After that I felt total anger and grief over the lack of response from all others.  I felt total despair.  If you’re not yet feeling equal to how I feel right now, perhaps I should explain a bit further.  The scene I witnessed was worse than what I just described for two reasons: the attackers were pastors and the victim was God’s Bride.

 

Here we stand as God’s Bride is defiled by men in the pulpit.  Here I stand, and cry out, and fall to my knees and weep, and plead with you to do something to stop the madness, as you stand by and do nothing—or worse, support the very men who viciously defile God’s beautiful, pure, young Bride.

 

Famous “men of god” have unrepentantly defiled or are continuing to defile God’s Bride with curse words, lewd speech, and dangerous allusions.  Oh, true men of God who respect and copy and quote these well-known men, I plead with you to look beneath the surface facade to the character of the man to test whether you are bringing a good shepherd or a wolf into our midst!

 

Sometimes it is the human tendency to add quotes to sound well-read or in a search to lend “authority” to our words.  But God calls us to something different than the religious world does.  Tell me, what happened to the men of God who resolved to preach nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified and risen?  Tell me, beloved friends, what happened to the true men of God who were willing to be thought fools if only they could preach the truth unhindered by compromise?  Tell me, what happened to the men of God who preached and were seen to be the ordinary, uneducated men that all men are deep down so that the crowds knew that they had been with Jesus?  Let the Word of God spoken to us, God Himself Living and True, be our only sought after Authority as we speak and write.  Oh, may God make us all such men and women of God—so that all will know, without one shadow of a doubt, that we have been with Jesus.

 

Someday we will stand before the Throne of Judgement, and God, seated there, will reveal and consume with His fire our every work and word—maybe even us.  Someday, probably soon, we will all find ourselves before the One before whom Isaiah the prophet cried out, “Woe is me!  For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”  Oh, I fear that day!  I fear Him!  Do you?  Do you fear Him like that?

 

Then hear with me today the Voice of the LORD saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  And respond the only way you can if you truly fear Him as Isaiah did, “Here am I!  Send me.”  Preach His truth.  Defend His Bride.  Protect her purity.  Lay your life down for her—in the Footsteps of Jesus.  If Jesus the Christ truly abides within you, you will do nothing less.  Does He?  Oh, does He?

 

Yes, you will lose much, like Jesus—and like I have.  Yes, you will be hated, rumored about, turned away, and even attacked.  Yes, the cost is great.  But the cost is much greater if you do nothing, remain as you are, for what do you think will happen to you when the Bridegroom avenges His Bride if you are but another man on the sidelines?  Stand!  Break free.  Return to His Heart of Holiness and Justice and Love and Righteousness and Purity.  Return to Him.  The prodigal son could not return to his father while in the embrace of harlots.  Neither can you.

 

Break free, stand strong, run home, oh, professed men of God!  Pull yourself from the clutches of harlots before it is the Judgement day that is coming so soon!  No, I have no right to judge, but with tears I tell you, plead with you, warn you desperately because my God comes swiftly and He will Judge you and I have never seen even one of you step from the sidelines—and out from among the wicked who with malicious intent or good intent, with deliberate action or the apathetic cowardice of silence and inaction, conspire in the defiling and trafficking of God’s Bride.

I heard groaning and crying.

Was it a woman giving birth to her first child?

No, it was Jerusalem.

She was gasping for breath and begging for help.

“I’m dying!” she said.

“They have murdered me.”

–Jeremiah 4:31 (cev)

Copyrighted material, used with permission.