The King and His Bride...and the Shepherds: Conclusion

 

Months passed into years…and then one cold and snowy night, with the wind howling and the temperature plummeting…in a wooden house with rags stuffed between holes in the walls and small fire in a cast iron wood stove…with men and women and children huddled under worn quilts and blankets…with the Betrothed between two grandmothers to give her warmth…there is a knock at the door.

 

An aged and stooped pastor slowly rises and makes his way to the door…and then…and then…as he opens it…light fills the room, falling on the faces of all and warming them…caressing them with tenderness, and transforming them from weary to hopeful, from hopeful to joyful.

 

The Betrothed has her eyes closed, her face is wrinkled, her pulse weak, she sleeps in sorrow. A resplendent figure enters the room, and the eyes of all but the Betrothed are fixed on Him…and they know…they know who He is. With rising anticipation, they watch Him quietly walk to the Betrothed between the two grandmothers. The grandmothers? Well, they feel like giddy teenage girls again, for they know what is coming.

 

The King nods to the two grandmas and they leave Her side. Gently the King lifts the old quilt from his soon to be Bride.

 

He whispers, “Ishshah, My Beloved.”

 

“Come my dear, we have work to do.”

 

 

“Many shepherds have ruined My vineyard, they have trampled down My field; they have made My pleasant field a desolate wilderness” (Jeremiah 12:10).

 

“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture! Declares the LORD” (Jer. 23:1).

 

“I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding" (Jer. 3:15).

 

“For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2 – 3).

 

Well pastor, elder, deacon, trustee, teacher, small group leader, which will it be?

 

Which shepherds will you be found among when the King returns for His Bride?

 

Robert L. Withers, May 2, 2026

Ezekiel 33:1 – 9.

 

 

 

 

The King and His Bride...and the Shepherds: Part Three

 

From this point forward every day brought new delegations to the pastors, new offers for them to lend the future queen to various ventures (all of course with the very best intentions, for the greater good; and if the pastors should benefit, well, so much the better.)

 

The pastors formed their own company, King and Queen Enterprises. They had a marketing department, a fashion department, they launched a music industry, a construction company, an entertainment division, an investment firm. They used the images of the King and Queen to be on their letterhead and marketing material.

 

They kept the betrothed so busy and in motion that she could no longer think, all she could do is what she was told to do, with the learned pastors saying, “We know best. Trust us, we know best.”

 

Her ladies-in-waiting, who served out of love for both her and the king, were replaced by women from the City of Fashion, the City of Marketing, the City of Politics, and the City of Dollar. Her food was laced with sedatives one meal and stimulants the next meal. She was never allowed to rest. She was never allowed to contemplate the return of her beloved King. Her heart was never permitted to behold Him.

 

As the pastors’ wealth and power accumulated, they became convinced that the king would not return, at least not in their lifetime. Why not align themselves with the political and national and military powers of the region? Why not endorse them – of course endorse them in the name of the King – why not insist that all people give their hearts to power and might and national identity – rather than allegiance to the King of kings?

 

Well, dear reader…again, my heart breaks.

 

Now to be sure not all pastors and shepherds got caught up in the insanity, but if you had traveled to this land you will not have found them at the royal court – which had become an Imperial Court with an Imperial Cult, with its leader from the City of Dollar and its council from the cities of the World.

 

The faithful pastors could be found walking the streets and looking for the disenfranchised, the hurting, the sick, the refugee, the hungry, and those who remembered the good and kind and gentle King (Matthew 12:18 – 21). These pastors were binding up wounds and carrying the hurting to the inn for healing at their own expense (Luke 10:30 – 37).  These shepherds were giving their lives for the sheep (John 10:1 – 18).

 

And the bride-to-be? She was cast out of her royal lodgings in rags after she was used up by the faithless pastors (they had no shortage of women to replace her as a figurehead). She wandered the streets, eating from dumpsters, sleeping under bridges in cardboard boxes.

 

Yet, as the Father of the Great and Good King would have it, she was discovered by some nondescript faithful pastors in their search for the untouchable and unlovable, and they and their little flocks brought her in and clothed her and fed her and gave her shelter and love and care. Most importantly of all they spoke of her beloved, of the Great and Good King…for they loved Him with all that they had and all that they were.