It Is Time to Cry Out!

By Pastor Skip Dodson

“You shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out. . .”  Deut. 22:24

Introduction

Sexual assault has become so commonplace in our present society that many have become desensitized to its trauma.  Despite the prevailing indifference, we can rest assured that the Judge of all the earth will, indeed, do right with regards to every perpetrator and every victim.  I want to be clear that in writing this article it is not my intention to make any judgments regarding anyone who has been a victim of such an assault.  It is not my intention to tell you what you could have, should have, or should not have done.  God is aware of every situation and circumstance.  You can trust your case with Him and find healing and restoration in His love.  My purpose is to understand how a particular case presented in Scripture applies to our current situation as Christ’s betrothed virgin – the remnant church, and what faithful church membersshould do at the present time.

Deuteronomy 22:22-29 presents a window into the heart of a loving God as it relates to certain cases of this crime.  The case that caught my attention was that of the betrothed virgin who is violated in the city.  “If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife; so you shall put away the evil from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NKJV)

Exposition

Note the following observations about the passage:.

1. This young woman is called a virgin, indicating her prior moral purity.

2. She is betrothed to a husband, meaning that a commitment has already been made, though the marriage has not yet been consummated.

3. Another man finds her and engages in a sexual relationship with her in a center of population.

4. There is nothing mentioned here regarding how such an encounter might come to light.  Pregnancy would reveal it.  It is also possible that the couple was observed together.  

5. So what was to be done once the situation was discovered?  Bothwere brought to the place of judgment and placed side by side.  The same penalty of death is meted out to both of them.  Why?  Because in such cases the woman was assumed to have been submissive to and thus complicit with the man.  In that populous place, no one heard a cry of protest from her lips.  This is quite a different scenario to that of vss. 25-27 in the same chapter in which a betrothed virgin is assaulted in the countryside.  It was assumed that she had cried out and done all she could to resist but was unable because there was no one there to hear her and no one to come to her aid.  Therefore, she was presumed to be innocent and suffered no penalty.  Only the man was stoned in that case.  But in the case of the city virgin, it was assumed that if she were really resistant to this other man that she was well able to have elicited help. She was punished equally with the perpetrator because she did not resist him.

Application

Two obvious points of application should be pointed out here that are vital for our consideration at this present time.

6. In the Old and New Testaments alike, the church is likened to a virgin betrothed to Christ.  Jeremiah asks, “Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?  Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.”  Jeremiah 2:32.  And Paul says to the Corinthians, “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”  2 Corinthians 11:2.

7. Similarly, in both the Old and New Testaments, the devil is presented as one who wishes to take the place of Christ, the Bridegroom and defile His bride.  This idolatry is the spiritual equivalent of adultery.   Hosea records God’s lament: “My people ask counsel from their wooden idols, and their staff informs them.  For the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray, and they have played the harlot against their God.”  Hosea 4:12.  “But I fear,” warns Paul, “lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”  2 Corinthians 11:3.  In both the Old and the New Testaments, the attempts by Satan to interpose between Christ and His people are classified as spiritual adultery – the corruption of a marriage relationship.

Satan’s Attempt to Seduce the Remnant

Satan can’t force the bride of Christ to submit to his assault.  But he is attempting to seduce her.  So what does that look like?  Let me propose a short list.  I have included here only a selection of the most recent efforts to sully the purity of the bride of Christ:

8. It looks like exchanging the precious, God given health message for a program of drugs and vaccines.  “Pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, trust in divine power—these are the true remedies.”  MH 127.  But the past five years have shown us how attached we have become to big Pharma.  Are we going to just submit to this, or will we cry out and resist?

9. It looks like cozying up to and taking substantial amounts of money from governments.  For instance, for fiscal 2020, roughly 70% of the budget for Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA) came from government grants.  This is not a secret – ADRA’s tax filings are public information available here.  Such government entanglements are not safe because they have the real potential to dilute the message and mission of the remnant.  It is time to cry out and resist.

10. It also looks like collaboration with globalist organizations like the United Nations. The General Conference of SDA sought for an received Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council in 1985.  The areas of collaboration include health, human rights, and religious liberty.   ADRA went a step further, receiving General Consultative Status with the UN since 1997.  It is a fact that no organization receives this status unless it can demonstrate that its work is substantially relevant to and supportive of the aims and purposes of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.  This council is the primary driver behind the UN Sustainable Development Goals, also known as Agenda 2030.  We should ask ourselves the question – is this God’s agenda, or is another power behind it?  Are the United Nations’ ideas of health, human rights, liberty of conscience, or even the true needs of society in harmony with the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy?  The answer is a firm NO.  So why are we working to promote views on these things that are out of harmony with our beliefs?  And why have we we, since 1985, made numerous “official statements” that obviously promote the UN agenda?  What master are we serving?  Will we just submit to this, or will we cry out and resist?

11. It looks like the exercise of kingly power in our conference offices.  It is true that whenever human beings are placed in leadership roles, there will always be a measure of this that has to be kept in check.  But it seems that in recent times these things have become the rule, rather than the exception.  Firing godly, effective ministers like Pastor Ron Kelly, censoring speakers like Conrad Vine are only the most recent examples of a growing trend toward dictatorial power.  Are we going to just submit to these things, or will we cry out and resist?

12. It looks like the embrace of feminist and LGBTQ ideology manifested in the relentless drive to have women elders and pastors, and in the growing compromise with the LGBTQ agenda in our schools and in some of our churches.  Fulcrum 7 has reported on this numerous times.  The latter has followed right on the heels of the former just as those of us who have opposed the ordination of women predicted it would.  Are we going to just submit to these things, or will we cry out and resist?

So the question must be asked – what is driving these deviations?  I think the answer is as obvious as it is uncomfortable.  Satan is vigorously attempting to seduce the bride of Christ.  He is doing it in the same way that He tempted the Lord Himself.  He presented the kingdoms of the world to Christ and told Him that He could have it all if He would bow to him.  Jesus, our Bridegroom, firmly resisted the devil with Scripture – hallelujah!.  But how is the bride doing?  We are in trouble, I’m afraid.  The devil tells the bride she’s beautiful.  He tells her that her mission is good, and that he can help her achieve it.  But he is lying to her about this.  He wants nothing else than to defile and ruin her.  He offers her wealth, status, and influence.  But all this comes with a price tag – a subtle but vital shift in priorities.  Institutional preservation must take precedence over the gospel commission. Compromise with worldly ideologies must replace strict fidelity to Scripture.  The evidence presented above demonstrates that the bride is beginning to contemplate this adulterous proposal.  Now is the time to wake up, cry out, and vigorously resist these impulses!  

Can God’s church resist persecution and stand firm for the Third Angel’s Message under present circumstances?  Do we really believe that we will be able to suddenly downshift into an aggressive mission mindset, resisting persecuting powers and standing for truth, once we’ve established a consistent pattern of submission to worldly priorities?  Satan knows that the answer to this question is NO.  That’s why he wants us to keep quiet.  But friends, we must not be silent.  We are assured that “the time is not far distant when the test will come to every soul. The mark of the beast will be urged upon us. Those who have step by step yielded to worldly demands and conformed to worldly customs will not find it a hard matter to yield to the powers that be, rather than subject themselves to derision, insult, threatened imprisonment, and death.”  5T 81.

It is time for an outcry by those in our leadership class who still hold their integrity, but have, up to this point, been beset by timidity.  And it is high time for an outcry by those among the membership who have not bowed the knee to Baal.  To remain silent at such a time as this is to express complicity with him who seeks to displace the Bridegroom and disgrace His virgin.  If we do not cry out, we will ultimately face the same legal consequences as the devil and his angels.  We will be regarded as co-conspirators.

Practical Suggestions

I will close with some practical suggestions for God’s church.  

• Institutional board members – rise up and demand accountability and change where God requires it.  Do not endorse the status quo unless it is in harmony with the Word of God.

• Pastors – find in God the courage to preach the word faithfully and give the full three angels’ messages, which includes a recognition of the judgment hour and a denunciation of the sins of Babylon.

• Conference officers – recognize that the institution you lead is not an end in itself, but is supposed to be an instrument in the hand of God to be used for the proclamation of the everlasting gospel.  Be faithful to what God says, rather than listening to voices that seek to perpetuate and protect bureaucracy rather than finish the work.  Have no part with injustice or oppression.  Refuse to participate in cancel culture.  Trust that God will sustain you, and then stand fearlessly for the right, though the heavens fall.

• Teachers – teach your students God’s views of life and learning.  Seek to prepare them for eternity in the heavenly school rather than pressing them to spend an eternity of time and a near infinity of money in the schools here on earth.  Refuse to indoctrinate your students with the woke, social justice “gospel”; instead, teach them the simple gospel message of the Bible.

• Church members – Speak up!  Do not allow corrupt, doctrinally unsound ministers to preach unscriptural views without your protest.  I don’t mean that you should demand conformity to your own peculiar doctrinal idiosyncrasies or to arbitrary tests of fellowship.  If you do this, how are you any different from the pastor preaching his own ideas?  But what I mean is this – no pastor should be allowed to preach things that clearly do not align with the Bible without a couple of elders taking him aside in remonstrance.  This should be done with kindness and respect, but with firmness.  Hold the leaders of your local conference accountable when they misstep, but do not miss an opportunity to commend and encourage them when they do what is right.  Allow no faultfinding spirit to arise in your midst, even while you call sin by its right name. Above all, recognize that it is the Lord who stands at the Head of this movement, and that He will see it through to the end.  What He asks of us is faithfulness within our own sphere of influence and responsibility.  

Let us all be in earnest prayer over the condition of God’s church at this time.  We must weep between the porch and the altar.  “Spare Your people, O Lord. . .” must be our cry (Joel 2:17).  But this is not all we are obligated to do.  If we pray, but refuse to act, this is hypocrisy.  And to act without prayer is presumption.  We are called by God to do BOTH!  Let us, by God’s grace, cry out and resist!