Sighing & Crying… or Fleeing! | Part D

The King James Version (KJV) is mostly used in these lessons. Click here to access the KJV online.

Sealed & Safe

Ezekiel’s vision showed people in the city sighing and crying. Religious leaders interpret this to mean that people are to stay in the church. They teach that the very act of sighing and crying proves they are the remnant and must therefore stay with the “remnant church.” Any change, they say, can only be brought about from members within the church.

This is wrong! Sighing and crying by itself proves nothing. The Pharisees of Yahushua’s day were great believers in “sighing and crying,” fasting, and doing any number of outward demonstrations to prove their holiness. They would even hire people to sigh and cry at funerals. Sighing and crying that is merely an external show to demonstrate one’s devotion holds no merit with Yahuwah. As Yahushua said: “When you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:7, NKJV)

Laodiceans, like the Pharisees, are also great sighers and criers. By sighing and crying over the sins of others, they prove to themselves that they are not Laodicean. After all, they have the spiritual discernment to recognize that there is something to sigh and cry about! They aren’t blind!

However, these sighers and criers are not the ones who will receive the mark by the man with the writer’s inkhorn. People who make a show of bemoaning the apostasy in the church, but who would rather die than actually leave the church, will not be sealed. Satan uses these pretenders to discourage others from pressing forward with their convictions. They silence the voice of the Holy Spirit urging the sincere-hearted to flee.

Those who receive the mark are those who are sighing and crying from true anguish of soul. It is not any pharisaical show or Laodicean charade to prove to themselves and others how devout they are. Those who receive the mark are open to leaving the church—and would!—if they had more time and more clarity to understand that Yahuwah does not require them to remain.

Yahuwah “is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9, KJV) He will not reject anyone whose heart is willing to follow truth regardless of the cost, even if they have not yet had the time or the opportunity to learn all present truth. Their sincere sorrow reveals that their hearts are sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s guidance because recognizing the apostasy in the church is the first step to eventually leaving the church. They just have not arrived at the point of understanding that they can and should leave. Yahuwah reads their hearts and has a mark placed upon them anyway.

The mark itself is further evidence that they would eventually leave if they had time to develop a more mature understanding. The mark itself is the Spirit of Yahuwah which leads into truth. Yahushua explained that the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict of sin and to lead into more truth! “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” (John 16:7-8, NKJV)

This is the key to understanding how some—even at this late date—can be in the church, sighing and crying, and still receive the mark of salvation. The sincere-hearted that are crying over the abominations done in the church do so from a true understanding of the sinfulness of sin. This can only be learned from the Holy Spirit.