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Tag: marriage

  • Put away your revelries

    Put away your revelries

    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.

    Ezekiel 16

    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.”

    in-sicknessNumbers 30:13 Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void.

     Matthew 19

    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.”

     Jeremiah 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

    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?

    Joel 1

    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.”

     

  • The Scandal of a Virgin

    The Scandal of a Virgin

    Everything seemed to be in chaos; no real leadership to speak of in households in my country or surrounding countries. Armies of men, young men and even boys terrorizing our lives, then running away. Soldiers, they call themselves; robbing homes, taking what they please and offering it back to helpless widows.

    The men flee and fear radical zealot followers of traditionalist religious men. The powerful army of an enemy has occupied once more in a place where no one will be led – a place where men and women will only do what is right in their own eyes.

    Life seems hopeless for us. What little semblance of order we once had in our families is now broken by the futility of war and the occupiers of peace.

    Is this scenario from which we are constantly distracted so unfamiliar?

    When judea mapRome occupied Syria and Palestine  and there was no longer an Israel (recall from your history), the traditional local leaders had failed in leading a rebellious people that will not be led – a history much repeated over the centuries.

    War and conflict: familiar and frequent in these lands of the Bible ripe for the picking of wealthy nations, open to opportunists conquering the wealth of weak peoples.

    Life has little value to those who fight for an army of conquerors. They have no home any more; these soldiers and those who flee from them.

    Family: husbands and wives, boys and girls – these are of little importance to those who wage war, men who desire riches and glory for themselves.

    Is anything new under the sun? Yet this is not God’s intention for God’s family.

    Deuteronomy 12:8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters…

     —

    As we prepare to celebrate a ‘Christmas’ season in the year of our Lord, 2014; rich Americans, prosperous Europeans, several wealthy Arabs, select Asians, a few Africans and some South Americans are much distracted by our addictive daily entertainment and games. It was no different in the games of Rome years before the Roman Empire fell, miles away from Palestine and the birth we mark in Bethlehem.

    Christmas is now a time of self-indulgent shopping and entertainments of blockbuster movies. A box-office hit might well suggest movie-scene destruction of a country the size of Argentina or Poland. How like a video game must all the violence seem to these boy warriors.

    Who would even bat an eyelash at so many deaths in a war-like scene where men of war are determined to wipe out their enemies; where young boys will break up communities and families and men who lead armies will cause them to take their crusade of higher cause to unfamiliar lands, wreaking havoc and devastation in the most evil ways upon the innocent?

    It would not seem unusual in this time of surreal, video game-like violence for a man like me, who drives through a city like Allentown PA US, to go to work to discover that in just one day some violent, evil force had destroyed every living being the entire city (or in a year the deaths of the entire population of Poland). This is the deception of our industrious entertainment empires.

    This unimaginable violence, both real and portrayed, whether in the dramas of the Roman Colosseum or the movies of Hollywood, trivializes the value of every human life intended for a place on this earth by God; a place in a marriage by God; a place in a family of God; a place in a community of God in a place where war is no more. We are a world corrupted by sin and peoples led by evil men.

    —

    iraqis refugeesAbout 850,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have fled the conflict in central Iraq to seek safety further north in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). They are scattered across the KRI in a variety of temporary housing situations: though a small number of them are in camps, most live informally in local schools, unfinished buildings, and public parks. Half a million of them are in the city of Dohuk alone. The great majority of these 850,000 internally displaced are members of religious minorities – Christians from the Ninewa Plains and Yazidis from the Sinjar area, in particular.
    As humanitarian agencies scramble to meet their needs, there must be a plan for longer-term support that reflects the increasingly complex and unpredictable environment in the country as a whole: an environment that is likely to result in more displacement.

    Syrian-refugees-setting-up-camp-receiveing-aid-in-IraqThese 850,000 refugees are in addition to the 640,000+ registered refugees from Syria in Jordan, not to mention the hundreds of thousands who have fled war in many parts of Africa and the Middle East; more than a million refugees from Ukraine and other countries.

    ‘What does all this have to do with a virgin?’ you ask.

    An introduction to our ‘cover girl’

    West_Bank_&_Gaza_Map_2007_(Settlements)

    The young girl featured above the title of this post lives in the troubled land of Israel of today. She is part of a group of young Jewish girls born in the troubled settlements of the West Bank.

    Tzuriya, a recent graduate of Ma’ale Levona, is doing her National Service as a guide at a Jordan Valley farm for kids with drug and alcohol problems.

    Two thousand, fourteen years ago, she would not be unlike a young Galilean girl named Mary, betrothed to a man a little bit older than her named Joseph. In those days young girls adhered to strict Biblical standards for young women prior to their betrothal to their future husband.

    They were called virgins. Their virginity was expected and guaranteed by their fathers as virgins were given to a husband as his bride and wife. A young woman’s life could be forfeited if she became pregnant. No honorable young man would consider having intercourse with just any young virgin (girl) and fathers protected their daughters with all power and authority until they were married. The family and pureness were held to the highest standards by all Hebrews.

    Babies were protected by mothers and fathers; all women, children and elderly preserved and protected by brothers and by close-knit biological families of the husband and his wife.

    Do you recall my reference above to an unimaginable violence of a movie scene that destroyed a city like Allentown PA US in just one day (and then another one, say, Hartford Connecticut, tomorrow)? That is the scope of the violence now being done to unborn babies executed by abortions each day of every year!

    The global holocaust of deaths of babies by abortion destroys the equivalent population of Argentina or Poland each and every year!

    The threats of the duplicitous government of Herod were small by comparison to what we matter-of-factly call ‘planned‘ in destroying the lives of babies for the indiscretions of their mothers. As a matter of fact, Mary and Joseph (you may remember) did have to flee Herod and the political troubles of the day for their baby Jesus to grow up in Egypt for a time (until it was safe for these refugees to return to Galilee (after their eventful visit to Bethlehem).

    Yes, the problem of refugees and violence against babies and families is not new and was familiar even to Jesus.

    Matthew 1 ESV [notes]

     The Birth of Jesus Christ

    18 Now the birth of the Christ [the Messiah] took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed [That is, legally pledged to be married] to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

    19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

    21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

    23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and they shall call his name Immanuel”
    (which means, God with us).

    24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

    —

    A Light in the darkness

    Christians make much of the pageantry of the Christmas story and the child-like delight to which our Lord calls us as we hopefully hear the annual re-telling of the birth of Christ Jesus.

    The Gospel of Luke recounts the events in even more detail than our account from Matthew (above); however the Gospel of John tells us why a young virgin girl giving birth in Bethlehem of Judea remains the most scandalous birth of all time – the virgin birth of the most controversial son of man ever born, Christ Jesus, Immanuel, God With Us, Redeemer of the Jews, Hope of the Nations, Sacrifice for our sins, Judge of all men; Perfect and Holy example of what it means to be made in the Image of God.

    Jesus was a sinless man, sacrificed for your sins and for mine. No other man (or woman) born of a woman can claim Christ’s sinlessness.

    John 1

    4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…

    9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

    12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

    14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

    32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.

    —

    The same Jews who believed John the Baptist to be a Prophet, rejected Jesus for political and traditional religious expediency. Only a remnant of the Jews accepted Jesus as the Messiah. [v.11] Christ Jesus adopted the people of the Nations (gentiles) who believe in Him. He gave those who believe the right of being part of the family of God. [v.12]

    It is not the land that is important; it is the God of the land.

    Jesus even praised some Romans and commended hated Samaritans (formerly part of the Israel of David) for their faith.

    Jesus chastened the rich to be generous and the ‘religious’ to be faithful, compassionate and loving.

    Love one another. Love your neighbor and pray for those who persecute you.

    Jesus performed many miracles, fulfilled many scriptures, taught scripture (the Bible) with authority, lived and died righteously, and most importantly of all – rose from the dead (witnessed by over five hundred men and several women). Yet most Jews do not accept Jesus as the Christ to this day.

    Did the Prophets not condemn the hardness of their hearts? Have the hearts of some christians not now become just as rebellious to the commands of Christ Jesus? Just read what the Prophets had to say about the darkness and disobedience of the time before Jesus Immanuel came into the world.

    Is it not the same darkness which now permeates the border-less regions of the nations and secret places in the hard hearts of mankind in these last days before our Lord’s triumphal return on the clouds?

    The Apostle John speaks well of the overflowing love of God, the love of Christ Jesus and the necessity of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men.

    IF we expect to inherit eternal life and the eternal Kingdom of God and His only Son, Christ Jesus, then we must repent of our sin and follow Jesus as our Lord. The Good News of Christmas is that you are invited to do this. You need not live in Israel or be of Hebrew descent.

    John also cautions that many will not accept Jesus, the light of life; and John tells us why many (including some who would claim to be ‘christians’) will not follow Jesus as Lord. The words following near to the well-pronounced John 3:16 remain a relevant caution to all in these last days.

    John 3:

    19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world,

    and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

    20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

    Jesus confronted Pharisees of the Jews as whitewashed tombs. They are dead in their religion and dead in their life – dead in their witness of the love of God and dead to eternal life. Jesus acknowledged that accepting His righteousness – accepting God, worshiping God as Lord of your life and not merely doing what is right in your own eyes is controversial; even more controversial than the scandal of a virgin giving birth.

    Ask a Jew who rejects Jesus; ask a Muslim who rejects most of what Jesus taught (as just one more prophet before Muhammad); ask a Hindu or Buddhist, who believe in many gods; ask a post-modern agnostic or atheist, who speak of peace yet believe only the science of the provable:

    Did Jesus come into the world to bring peace? Is Jesus God Incarnate; God With Us? Does Christ Jesus still live, resurrected in the body (as the Gospels witness)?

    Matthew records Jesus’ own comment about ‘peace’ on earth.

    Matthew 10:

    18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. 19 When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. 20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved…

    Not Peace, but a Sword

    34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

    36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

    37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

    —

    Is it not true? Is it not scandalous that a virgin should give birth to God Incarnate?

    Is it not true, that God is NOT one (in a definable sense), but infinitely unknowable by a being – a human being – of His creation; rather, the LORD GOD is a trinity – Father: Abba Father, a loving Father, as Christ Jesus taught, a Father overflowing with love for those who love Him; Son: Christ Jesus, the Messiah, Sacrifice for our sins, Redeemer of our eternal life in Him, example in the Person of God’s love and teacher of God’s very Word, the same ‘Word’ which spoke all being into existence [John 1:1]; and Holy Spirit: The same Person of the Holy Spirit which descended on Jesus and His Baptism (not a bird), the same Person of the Holy Spirit that descended on the Apostles (no more a fire than the burning bush, but something more of the Holiness of God), and the same Person of the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost, hagios pneuma) which gave the Son to Mary.

    Matthew 1:20 …for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

    Scandalous!

    —

    Love and follow Jesus Christ as your Lord. Build a personal relationship with the Son of God, that you may be known in His eternal Kingdom.

    My Christmas messages to follow in this year of our Lord, 2014,  are not a traditional rendering of the Christmas story, a message of ‘peace on earth, good will to men.’

    It is not a message of peace for those who will not receive the peace and love of Christ Jesus, God Immanuel, the Person of Christ returning in victory.

    It is not truly the Gospel, the Good News that IF you accept Jesus as your Lord and follow Him, as I pray you will; that in Christ Jesus you will have an inner peace in addition to eternal life. It is not the message of love to which I pray my Muslim, Jewish, and unbelieving friends will come as they humbly accept that no works or laws can earn our right to eternal life with God.

    Rather, my Christmas messages to follow are a plea to the church; a trumpet call to marginal ‘christians’ to do what Jesus would have us do, to say what Jesus would have us say, and as best we can to live as Jesus would have us live. Christians must love one another as God has loved us in the Person of Jesus Christ – the Christ of ‘Christ-Mass’ – coming to us; for our LORD has commanded that His love be evident in us as we live in the world, while we are no longer part of the condemned.

    Are we not here to do something about a world of devastating darkness, hearts of uncaring coldness; lives lived without love, souls surviving with no hope, no faith and no love?

    Is it not scandalous that even God is not loved by those whom He created – those whom He knew even before we were in our mother’s womb, souls who the Word of God spoke into existence in the beginning and will judge in the end?

    Can you think of any lasting scandal more divisive (even now) than the birth of Christ Jesus to a virgin in Bethlehem?

    If you do not believe it, I challenge you to share the love of Christ and witness the Name of Jesus.

    Those who love the darkness will hear nothing of our sin; they will scandalize and reject the Name of Jesus, this Christmas and until the Judgment.

  • A Vineyard

    A Vineyard

    Now will I sing to my wellbeloved

    a song of my beloved

    touching his vineyard.

    My wellbeloved hath a vineyard

    in a very fruitful hill:

    And he fenced it,

    and gathered out the stones thereof,

    and planted it

    with the choicest vine,

    and built a tower

    in the midst of it,

    and also made

    a winepress therein:

    and he looked

    that it should bring forth grapes,

    and it brought forth

    wild grapes.

    Isaiah 5:1-2 KJV

    ‘Ah, another song’ you say, after having just read the beautiful Song of Songs.

    Perhaps the beautiful bride comes to mind and what she might say in a wedding toast of her beloved bridegroom, her husband. Yet this lyric is more than that – much more.

    The preceding book of the Bible paints a seductive and loving picture of a woman seeking the love of Solomon.

     Song of Songs

    1:2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

    4:10 How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

    5:1 I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.

    How the loving wife desires her husband. How the fruit of the wedding becomes the celebration of the bride and of the bridegroom!

    But what has happened here in Isaiah, first of the books of the Prophets?

    Hear first, a young virgin bride praising her husband.

    Isaiah 5 ESV

    Let me sing for my beloved
    my love song concerning his vineyard:

    Yes, well ought the loving bride sing a love song of the anticipation of her beloved.

    My beloved had a vineyard
    on a very fertile hill.
    2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,
    and planted it with choice vines;
    he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
    and hewed out a wine vat in it;

    An idyllic photo of a bridegroom and husband-to-be. He has prepared a place for the woman of his love, the woman of his betrothal. He will live in this place with his a bride-to-be forever (‘until we are parted by death,’ say our solemn vows before witnesses).

    100215-winepress-hmed-8a.grid-6x2The bridegroom planted a vineyard in the fertile place, digging it out for the day the grapes could be pressed into choice wine. It would take some time, but the bridegroom has done this for his bride. The bridegroom has set a watchtower over what he has claimed for his bride-to-be.

    On the side of a hill where grapevines grow a  wine vat hewn from stone  testifies to the groom preparing a place of permanence for his bride.

    Then (as so often happens in familiar romances) the song of love takes a tragic turn. The perspective of the groom – the bridegroom who has prepared all this for his beloved now laments over the unfaithfulness of his bride.

    and he looked for it to yield grapes,
    but it yielded wild grapes.

    The vineyard is the Lord’s! He has planted it. Jerusalem and Judah and the earth are His – He has planted it.

    Listen now to the Groom:

    3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
    and men of Judah,
    judge between me and my vineyard.
    4 What more was there to do for my vineyard,
    that I have not done in it?
    When I looked for it to yield grapes,
    why did it yield wild grapes?

    Isaiah continues (later) to tell of the rule of the Lord over the end of the earth.

    I ask you, dear brother, dear sister in the Lord – dear church, Bride of Christ Jesus – have you become a ‘wild grapevine’ in the garden of the Lord?

    Isaiah 24:

    Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate,
    and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants…

    7 The wine mourns,
    the vine languishes,
    all the merry-hearted sigh.
    8 The mirth of the tambourines is stilled,
    the noise of the jubilant has ceased,
    the mirth of the lyre is stilled.
    9 No more do they drink wine with singing;
    strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
    10 The wasted city is broken down;
    every house is shut up so that none can enter.
    11 There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine;
    all joy has grown dark;
    the gladness of the earth is banished.
    12 Desolation is left in the city;
    the gates are battered into ruins.

    13 For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth
    among the nations,
    as when an olive tree is beaten,
    as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.

    Was the righteous olive tree, Christ Jesus, not beaten for your sins?

    Will the Lord of all the earth not give the Son of Righteousness reign and judgement over all the earth?

    Does the Song of the Vineyard of Isaiah, Prophet who so accurately foresaw the life of Christ Jesus as God Incarnate, not seem somewhat familiar from a parable of Jesus?

    Mark 12: And he began to speak to them in parables.

    “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.

    6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

    7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’

    8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

    O, beloved Bride of Christ:

    Have we thrown the beloved Son out of the vineyard?

    What will the Owner surely do?

    Did our Lord not warn us (wild vines worshiping whatever we would)?

    John 15 KJV

    1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

    2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

    3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

    4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

    5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

    O beloved Bride, vineyard of the Bridegroom, betrothed of the King of Righteousness:

    Do you abide in the life of Christ Jesus?

    Surely He will return to the vineyard. Will the Bridegroom not expect grapes, and not wild grapes? Will the One who has prepared a place for his Bride not throw into the fire the one who would not wait for the Bridegroom’s on the clouds?

    Will the Lord not take with Him only the faithful Bride?