PERSECUTION BY WATCHMEN

PERSECUTION BY WATCHMEN

“The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me” laments the bride in verse 7 of Chapter 5 in the Song of Songs as her beloved has withdrawn himself leaving her to the mercies of the watchmen of the city. The watchmen of the city who found the bride of the song were the ones who persecuted her and took away her veil. Spiritually meaning, the watchmen whom you come across are not the prophets appointed by God to the Body of Christ. They are of the “Christian religion”, watching over their own sectarian churches or their own evangelical ministries without having the least concern for the Body of Christ or for the masses living in the obscure villages that are not yet evangelized. These watchmen are also called “the keepers of the walls”. They have their own walls around their churches and ministries. They are concerned about their own congregations or ministries. They are least concerned about that individual bride who is in search of her beloved. They are not interested in the single “lost sheep” but are interested in the ninety-nine sheep.

Dear bride of Christ, have you come across such watchmen of the city? They have smitten and wounded you emotionally and spiritually. They have condemned and smitten you by their words from the pulpits and expelled you from their churches or institutions. They have wounded your heart. Their ministry is of condemnation and not of “abundant life”.

The watchmen of the city took away the veil of the bride of the Song, which was a covering for her head and face. The veil was everything to her. It was protecting her peculiar personality and individuality. Now the watchmen, after smiting and wounding her, took away her veil also. They exposed her face to the public. She had hidden her face from the public saying, “I am black”. This is what happens today. The so-called pastors find fault with some of their “weak sheep” (congregation members) and identify the gray areas in their lives. The pastors may not be able to bear with their shortcomings or weaknesses. They may not like those church members who don’t dance to their tune. The pastors condemn such people of God from the pulpits by preaching some messages of their own but lying that God has given them such messages of “condemnation”. They thus smite and wound their sheep spiritually and emotionally. Not only this, the pastors also go on whispering into the ears of the other congregation members about the backsliding or the secrets of such believers, thus exposing their private life to public ridicule, under the pretext of soliciting the intercessory prayers of the congregation members. The watchmen of the present day churches thus remove the veil of the individual believers.

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