A Pure Virgin or a Harlot

A Pure Virgin or a Harlot

In these days it is indeed as it is written: “For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication . . . .” “For by your sorcery all the nations were deceived.” Rev. 18:3, 23. Therefore everyone who hears God’s voice must now consider what is written in verse 4: “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.”

God’s children should be like pure virgins (2 Cor. 11:2-3; Matt. 25:1; Rev. 14:4-5), but almost all of them have drunk of the harlot’s wine of fornication and are therefore more like harlots than pure virgins.

What does it mean to be a harlot? A harlot is unfaithful! What does it mean to be unfaithful to Christ? It is neither keeping His commandments nor considering it necessary to do so. It is to have drunk the wine (preaching) that causes a person to think such thoughts as: “It is not so important, that is not so dangerous, for God is love; He is gracious and Jesus’ blood cleanses from all sin. We shall do nothing for He has done everything. We are free (free love!). Being zealous to do God’s will is too burdensome and confining; it is bondage!”

When a person entertains such thoughts, he is truly on a slippery slope! He has been deceived! He has begun to live a harlot’s life! He loves others besides Christ! He also loves the world and the things in the world. He has surely watered down the truth in order to please man. Gal. 1:10. Then he is certainly not unacquainted with luxurious living. Rev. 18:7; 1 John 2:15-17; 2 Pet. 2:13; Phil. 3:18-19.

The harlot exercises formidable power in these days in virtually all churches and assemblies. Almost all of confessing Christendom is representative of the harlot. To them, doing God’s will is bondage. Keeping God’s commandments is bondage! Godliness is bondage! This is how the harlot speaks! But she is insolent, unfaithful, and a liar! She bewitches people on earth today! The liberty that every harlot cultivates in the spiritual realm is extremely desirable among God’s people in these days.

However, even in these days there are God-fearing people, faithful souls who hear God’s voice and obey it. They do as it is written: “Come out of her, my people!” They distance themselves completely from the usual preaching that could aptly be called the “harlot gospel” or the “gospel of unfaithfulness.” They depart from all this Babel, from all this superficiality and unfaithfulness.

Just as the false prophets in former days plastered with untempered mortar (read Ezekiel 13!), so the preachers in these days abuse the blood of Christ—the very blood that is meant to cleanse us through and through from all sin—and use it to plaster over and over, endlessly. They cover themselves with the blood of Christ and continue to live a bad life. They live luxuriously under this “cover,” gathering up money and doing all kinds of things, thinking they are protected by the blood of Christ.

In these days, upright souls leave such assemblies where the harlot gospel is preached, gathering outside the camps in order to walk faithfully in Christ’s steps and be presented as a pure virgin to their pure Bridegroom. God be praised for all such souls who in these days find each other outside the camp.