When The Leaders Weep Before The Lord!

Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. Let the priests, who minister before the LORD, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, LORD. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ” Then the LORD was jealous for his land and took pity on his people. The LORD replied to them: “I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations. “I will drive the northern horde far from you, pushing it into a parched and barren land; its eastern ranks will drown in the Dead Sea and its western ranks in the Mediterranean Sea. And its stench will go up; its smell will rise.” Surely he has done great things!  Joel 2:16-20 NIV

Instead of being fearful about the situations broiling around us, the church leaders should be weeping--crying out in repentance and turning away from all the wrong they have done as an example to the people, so they too will weep before The Lord.

Until leaders–in any capacity–recognize the wrong they have done and repent and cry unto The Lord for forgiveness, not much is going to change and if nothing is going to change, we will reap the consequences of our sinful, unrepentant behavior.

Our God–the God of heaven and all Creation is the same–yesterday, today and forever. Whatever He promised the people He chose, then is relevant today. Through the prophets we are warned and if we do not heed the warning, we are doomed to suffer the same as the people did then–we put ourselves in position to be held captive, scorned, and ridiculed.

We should never concern ourselves about those who do not believe–those who are influenced by the enemy, who try to tell us–“there is no God!” For them, there are no gods that will save them, but there is One who loves us enough to save us from ourselves when we obey.

For the church leaders who beat up the congregations by trying to heap all the problems of the world on their heads–repent and weep before The Lord–owning your own sin and seek His forgiveness.

For the church leaders who do nothing but raise money for community causes or are more political than Godly, but never teach The Word or the consequences of sin–repent and weep before The Lord–owning your lack of responsibility in teaching Truth.

For the church leaders who are more concerned about adding numbers to the church–repent and weep before The Lord–recognizing that God is not interested in the numbers in a building, but the condition of the hearts of the people.

For the church leaders who live according to the dictates of the flesh and co-sign like behavior within the congregation of the church–repent and weep before The Lord.

For the church leaders who are doing everything they can to please God–stay the course–weeping before The Lord on behalf of all who refuse to hear Truth and obey.

When the church leaders understand the need for them to stay before The Lord–in repentance, and out of compassion for the people–change will come and no one will ever be ashamed to acknowledge our Living God and we will move towards peace in the land!

Advertisement

Who’s Crying Now?

Then they will cry to the LORD,
But He will not hear them;
He will even hide His face from them at that time,
Because they have been evil in their deeds. Micah 3:4 NKJV

There will come a time when those who perpetuate evil, leading others astray intentionally, manipulating people and circumventing true authority will cry unto The Lord, when they refuse to obey Him.

It would appear that people–across the board–choose to ignore God and enjoy the fruits of their wickedness until the time comes when, God exposes the wickedness for what it is and the tables are turned on them. Then, with truth exposed, they call upon The Lord expecting Him to hear and answer, but as the Prophet Micah reveals–He won’t hear them.

What I’ve observed in human nature is that those who say they don’t know if there’s a god or not; don’t know whether they believe in Jesus or not, and then live any way they want to live, back-peddle quickly, when things don’t go their way. And the situation is even worse when those who say they believe God, but don’t want to obey Him. When they have caused others to cry–with their schemes and lies–they are quick to call on Jesus when life causes them to cry.

I wonder–do people really think that God does not see, cannot hear all that goes on in the earth? Do people think God is winking an eye at sin and that truth will never reign? We have in our society those who have no problem causing strife and dissension in the midst of things, but when the tables turn–oh my! “What did I do? O God, help me!”

Those who fuel drama and discord, lead people astray with lies and perpetuate nonsense leading to the deaths of others, will one day pay and we who have been watching them terrorize nation after nation, will see them exposed for who they really are–just as it came to pass when Micah was prophesying to God’s people. It’s amazing to me that those who don’t recognize truth when they see or hear it, are quick to twist their version of truth into lies and they cry–hoping others will never know who they really are.

We need not despair over the fate of those who create one dilemma after another for others. Weeping may endure for us–for a moment, but joy is coming!