The Lord gave me this word, a hard word to be sure. My only charge is to deliver it. –

In Lamentations chapter four we see a very different Jerusalem. That once tremendous city, shining like gold above all other cities, is now tarnished and under siege. It is slowly starving and its once proud stones that made up the temple now lay scattered in the streets like common rubble. Zion was about to fall. Impregnable Zion, on the verge of utter ruin. They were surrounded by the world outside in a siege that would only end in its utter ruin. And in the greatest horror of all, the women would cook and eat their own children. There is no lower state in all the world. This was worse than Sodom for Sodom fell in one day, there would be no such luxury for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The symbols of their God lay ruined and they were about to be devoured by the world. Matthew Henry asks this question of the women in Jerusalem who cooked and ate their own children. This act, was it “the power of necessity, or the power of iniquity.” Such a powerful question, ponder on it for a moment reader.

In a secular sense America was the shining light for the nations. It shone like gold in comparison to old Europe that had grown tired and dim. It took the world’s huddles masses. It gave hope to people from all around the world, like a city set on a hill, it drew them to herself. In two word wars she fought and in the second war she saved civilization itself and the name of God was never far from the lips of her citizens. Now look at America if you dare. Her institutions have been corrupted. Over ninety percent of all the porn in the world spew forth from her bowels. Her merchants and statesmen sold her out to the highest bidders and she became the whore of the world whereby many became rich by her. Yet her greatest iniquity lay with her mothers. Now the question Matthew Henry raised about the mothers of Jerusalem. Was their horrendous act born out of necessity or iniquity? Can I argue that a righteous woman would never cook and eat her own child. Only the hardest iniquitous hearts would ever contemplate such an act never-mind carry it out.

I asked a question recently, a rhetorical one. What is more horrendous, to slaughter an infant in the gas chambers or in their mothers womb? What human being would allow their wombs to be so violated and their child to be so mutilated? A woman, a generation, ripe for judgement. Ripe to be surrounded by the world and put under siege. Ripe to have the stones of their temples torn down and scattered in the streets like rubble only fit to be buried. Sixty five million babies slaughtered and dedicated to the world. A world that would consume them, darken them and ultimately destroy them. Zion was impregnable, yet it fell. America the proud, you will fall. Not like Sodom, not like Gomoragh but you will slowly starve to death. Most definately spiritually, but perhaps even physically. In the history of the world, no nation has sinned to this extent. God has sent His warnings. The towers fell and the cry was not one of repentance, but “we will rebuild.” The whole world has come to a standill and the cry is not one of repentance. From their ministers it is ” soon it will be business as usual for we have not missed a beat.”

The real tragedy we are facing right now in Christendom is a blindness to the need for repentance. The virus that causes this blindness is wilfull ignorance. They choose not to see. Not only no repentance, but a doubling down on wickedness, and most of the world cheers, or peeks out from behind the curtain and says nothing. Our silence is our guilt. The cheers from the world we should expect, the silence from Christendom is a deafening roar. We stay behind our curtains, our walls, as the world spirals downwards. Our highest ambition is to get back to “normal.” God help us. So saints, if you abide in such a place, can you stay there? It is time for the saints of God to step out of the boat, step into the storm, lift your eyes and fix them on Jesus, our soon coming King. Where will He find you when He comes? Behind the walls? Hanging onto the boat for dear life? Shall you not walk upon the water? It is there that you shall find Him, we must go to where He is and leave behind where He is not.

One the clergy/laity distinction is removed the concept of ministry changes. It ceases to be the proprietary right of the few and becomes the privilege of all. ( Arthur Wallis.)

This point made by Wallis is the beating heart of religion. The clergy/laity system is a perpetuation of the ancient religions and is a death blow to a royal priesthood. Imagine a system where is everyone is a priest in a spiritual priesthood set up by Jesus Himself. It is a shame that for the most part we have to imagine that. One thing is for sure, where this clergy/laity system exists, there is no functioning priesthood. One may say there is and fool oneself, but where the clergy/laity exists then the royal priesthood has been reduced to a mere mental assent to an abstract truth.

It is one or the other for it cannot be both. Men want to lead or be led, most want to be led. They want a mediator between them and God and there are plenty of men willing to play that role. The rewards of the role is status and power. There is hierarchy and talk of authority and submission. Yet the leadership model of the priesthood is a bottom up servant leadership where one washes the feet of the others.

Diotrephes rejected the Apostle John. Think about that. The Apostle that Jesus loved was rejected by a “leader,” and why? He loved the preeminence. He wanted to be the leader, he was jealous of any other voice. This is absolute evidence that Jesus was not preeminent in the church that Diotrephes “ran.” How often we ask the question “who runs your church.” If the answer is anything other than Jesus, if 95% of the time only one man speaks, you can be sure the spirit of Diotrephes roams the corridors of power in that place. Jesus has been dethroned and is now as unwanted as the Apostle John was. The question is, how welcome would the Apostle John be in your gathering?

I have noticed over the years that most of the encouragement we give to other saints is outcome based. What do I mean by that? Well, the most basic example would be ” there, there, everything is going to be okay.” It is very hard to say anything against this kind of encouragement because, on the one hand, it is spiritually true. Yet, what holds true for us as saints in the spiritual realm, does not necessarily hold true in the realm of this world. Let me give you an example. Someone is dying of cancer. Do you tell them everything is going to be ok, meaning they are not going to die, or is everything going to be okay because Jesus rules and reigns in their lives? I believe that is the fundamental difference between spiritual encouragement and what is often just a very human reaction to someone in a difficult situation. When Jesus was talking to the thief on the cross, in the natural realm, everything was not nor was it going to be ok. Yet, the encouragement that the thief gets is two-fold. First, he is in the presence of Jesus and he recognizes it, secondly, his encouragement from Jesus was that this very day he would be with Him in paradise. Obviously that is an extreme example but I believe the principles and the applications are sound. First and foremost, the greatest help for any saint is to be in the presence of the Lord. Secondly, the sure knowledge that no matter what happens, we will be with Him eternally is our firm foundation. This is why there is no victory for death and the grave has indeed lost its sting. Unless that foundational truth rules and reigns in our hearts, then the enemy will always have some kind of access to our hearts and minds, set up some kind of stronghold in our flesh, and from there could mount daily attacks.

We are called to comfort one another with the very comfort we ourselves have been comforted with. What is the greatest, or should I say who is the greatest comfort? The comforter, the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ. When we bring Him to bear in every situation then we are in a good place to encourage one another. A focus on Him, He being preeminent in every situation, brings the power of God right into every situation. It is from that place we may well say to someone “there there, everything is going to be ok.” We may say that the Lord is going to heal you, if the Lord said that. We may say that this very day you will be with Him in paradise. There are many things we may say in the midst of comforting someone, and when it flows from the Holy Spirit of the Living God it will never be wrong. Where we often go astray is when we replace the Spirit of God with wishful thinking and positive thoughts. The key of course, for this and for all things, is to be walking in the Spirit of God and not to get ahead of Him. This is where we run into trouble. We feel the need to say something so we say the first positive thing that comes into our head. Yet, when we actually allow the Lord to go before us, then He becomes a cloud by day and a fire by night. Let Him ever go before us.

A sieve is an apparatus that allows the finer particles through while trapping the courser elements. The process is known as sifting. In Isaiah 30:28 the prophet describes God in this way “His breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity.” This sieve is designed to catch and separate vanity-the proud. The sieve requires shaking in order to find what it wants to reject and to let pass through what is desirable. His breath is like a raging river which reaches up to the neck. Imagine that. In a flash flood it only takes six inches of water to knock a man off of his feet, yet here we see the raging river of the breath of God reaching up to the neck. Who can stand when the Lord moves? Only those who stand upon the Rock.

What particular pride are we seeing here referred to by Isaiah? In the previous verse, verse 27 it says that: Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire. The name of the Lord had been blasphemed against by Rabshakeh, the Assyrian general. He likened the one true God to every other god whom had fallen before them. Now that name, the name he took in vain, has come and He would be like a devouring fire who would overthrow their pride and they would be helpless in the midst of it all.

The world has mocked the one true God. They want nothing to do with Him and in their vanity they ridicule Him. They have systematically violated His word. He says that Homosexuality is an abomination, they say that no, in fact this is merely an expression of Gods creation. He says that He made man and women, they say no, there are many genders and you can be anything you like. He said that those who pass their children through the fire are an abomination, they say,no, it is a moral right to be able to kill your unwanted children. He says that He is the way the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father but by Him. They say that there is no heaven and if there is there are multiple ways to get there. He says that the name of Jesus is high and lifted up, they use that name as a curse. He says suffer the little children to come unto me and woe to them who hurt them. they indoctrinate these children from the early age in defiant rebellion against the one true living God.

God also sifts those who are called by His name and there are multiple siftings. Fire and storm is a form of sifting. As the heat intensifies, many called by His name fall away. As the world makes ever greater demands for compromise, many more fall away. As the cost begins to rise for bearing the name of Jesus, more fall away. As Jesus reveals that His people must suffer, more fall. As He removes all of the trappings of religion, again the chaff blows away in the wind. God will have a refined people when He returns for His own. He will come back for a pure and spotless Bride. Brothers and sisters, we live in the midst of such days. We are called to withstand in the evil day, meaning to resist, stand against, and having done all, cloaked in the armor of God, to stand and not fall.

Stand against who or what? Principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood but rather the spiritual reality of what lies behind flesh and blood. The battle takes place in heavenly places. It requires violent men in terms of the spirit. Men and women who can resist, and who will resist and who are covered by the Blood of the Lamb, have the word of their testimony and who love not their lives unto death. This is the few and our enemy is the spiritual reality behind the many. Remember brothers and sisters, greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.