Isa 22:12  And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning…………but instead joy and gladness.

God almighty calls His people to weeping and to mourning but instead of that, there is a call for joy and gladness. We do not understand the nature of the times in which we live. We have blinded ourselves to the overflowing sewers that run open down the middle of the streets. We are so long among it we cannot smell the stench. We overcome the stench by “slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine.” And the verse concludes with this “let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” This is a people that have thrown off any vestiges of the fear of God. They have made their deal with their souls, every man is a law unto himself. And so wine it is and feasting it is, when God has called for weeping and mourning.

Paul quotes this very scripture in 1 Cor 15:32. “If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” It comes after a series of “if’s.” 1. If there is no resurrection of the dead then Christ is not risen. 2. If Christ is not risen then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. 3. If Christ is not risen your faith is futile you are still in your sins. 4. If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are all men most pitiable. Can I argue that in this Christ-less Christianity, this Cross-less religion, this generation of practical atheists, their faith is indeed empty, they are indeed still in their sins and they are most pitiable. This is why they eat and drink and are merry, for tomorrow, in the depths of their souls, they know they die eternally. Only in this life do they have “hope,’ in Christ. There is nothing eternal in them.

God’s people of the cross mourn and weep for the state of what passes for the church. Ravenhill says “this is an hour of anarchy in the world and lawlessness in the church.” Surely he was truly speaking of this hour in which we now live, he just did not know it. The church in Ephesus had labored and not fainted according to Jesus, but they had left their first love and had fallen. They were fallen. They were in a fallen state even although they confessed the name of Jesus. Jesus commands them to repent. They were to weep and mourn over their state and repent. Or they would simply be no more, they would devolve into the vast swamp known as religion. It seems the choice has been made around the world by those who call themselves after the name of Jesus. They will not mourn, they will not weep and neither shall they repent. Rather, they have decided to eat and drink and be merry. The die is cast and the writing is on the wall.