and cleanse your whitewashed walls;
for the church is a soiled bride
and christians no witness of waiting,
no longer virgin and spotless,
uncovered in view of the world
naked before the eyes of the LORD.
7 I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.
8 “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.
15 “But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his. 16 You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be.
23 “And after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! declares the Lord God), 24 you built yourself a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square. 25 At the head of every street you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring.
32 Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! 33 Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. 34 So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore you were different.
35 “Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the Lord: 36 Thus says the Lord God, Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whorings with your lovers, and with all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, 37 therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. 38 And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy. 39 And I will give you into their hands, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places. They shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful jewels and leave you naked and bare.
52 Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have intervened on behalf of your sisters. Because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.
59 “For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, 60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant…
62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, 63 that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.”
Numbers 30:13 Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void.
Numbers 30:13 Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void.6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
“Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
WHY do you celebrate? Why do you claim your fellowship is with Christ?
Is the LORD not angered by your licentiousness? Is the LORD not jealous for the love of the Bride of His promise?
Woe to you, churches! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
Why do you celebrate year’s end? Why do you call communion worship? Are these not an abomination of hidden sin?
Is your adultery not against the cleansing Blood of the Bridegroom of righteousness? Where is your account of Christ’s righteousness? Where is your evidence of Christ’s love?
Run. Run to hide from the wrath of the Bridegroom; for He will return to find you faithless!
Ephesians 5: 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Beloved church, Bride of Christ Jesus, are we not whitewashed tombs? Are we not divorcing one another? Are we not unrepentant of our sin which we witness boldly before our worldly neighbors?
How then will we win others to Jesus Christ, if we can not even hold our own sisters and brothers in the Lord to His Holy standard?
Do we not impugn the Blood of Jesus sacrificed for the sins we commit over and again in witness against the Bridegroom of the Church?
For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
Why then, do we, Christ’s Church, act no differently than the world of unbelievers?
2 Hear this, you elders;
give ear, all inhabitants of the land!
5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep,
and wail, all you drinkers of wine,
because of the sweet wine,
for it is cut off from your mouth.
8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth
for the bridegroom of her youth.
13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests;
wail, O ministers of the altar.
Go in, pass the night in sackcloth,
O ministers of my God!
Because grain offering and drink offering
are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders
and all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.
15 Alas for the day!
For the day of the Lord is near,
and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
Joel 2: 12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
Was your Baptism in Christ permanent change?
or just one more bath for the sin of your filthiness?
Is your word and your vow truth before God
or a lie for the world?
Put away your revelries, dear believer, IF in truth you worship the Lord your God and look to the coming of the Bridegroom of the Church, Christ Jesus, as your Lord.
For the time is near when the Lord will say, ‘Well done,’ or for the adulterous Bride, “I never knew you.”
Why does the prodigal wife drown her meaninglessness in booze asking: ‘Is that all there is?’ rather than remembering the blood of Christ, whom she once called, “Lord?” Why does she betray her vow to her husband and to her ‘Lord?’
14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.