A Cry For Justice

Awakening the Evangelical Church to Domestic Violence and Abuse in its Midst

We Love the Lord’s House, But We Cannot Abide the Assembly of the Wicked

♦ 16th February 2014 ♦ 7 Comments

UPDATE Sept 2021: I have come to believe that Jeff Crippen does not practise what he preaches. He vilely persecuted an abuse victim and spiritually abused many other people in the Tillamook congregation. Go here to read the evidence. Jeff has not gone to the people that he spiritually and emotionally abused. He has not apologised to them, let alone asked for their forgiveness.

***

This is an amazing Psalm. Amazing in its content and amazing in its timelessness. This Psalm serves as a huge encouragement to me, and so it will for you. We who have experienced abuse and injustice from people who claim to be Christians have been impelled by Christ’s Spirit to embrace David’s declaration in vss 4-7. We are done sitting with men of falsehood and we refuse to consort with hypocrites. We hate places where Christ is professed but which are nothing more than the assembly of evildoers and we will not sit with them.

In fact, though many of us are unable to be in a local church, we can say more than anyone else, “we love the habitation of the Lord’s house, the place where His glory dwells.”  Many times that glorious habitation is not in a group of people on a street corner in a building, but in the true temple of the Lord – His true flock wherever it gathers.  So take heart this Lord’s Day and hear the Word of God spoken through King David:

Psa 26:1-12 Of David. Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. (2) Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind. (3) For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.

(4) I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites. (5) I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. (6) I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O LORD, (7) proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds.

(8) O LORD, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. (9) Do not sweep my soul away with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men, (10) in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. (11) But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. (12) My foot stands on level ground; in the great assembly I will bless the LORD.

7 Comments

  1. Healinginprocess
    16th February 2014 – 6:29 am

    Thank you Pastor Jeff! I agree this is truly encouraging and timeless…actually very timely for me and a source of strength besides encouraging.

    Reply
  2. For My Daughter's Sake
    16th February 2014 – 9:32 am

    Jeff,
    Thank you for your concern, and desire to minister to the wounded scattered flocks of the Lord.
    How great a need there is for such a minister.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous
    16th February 2014 – 3:09 pm

    AMEN

    Reply
  4. His Child
    16th February 2014 – 3:42 pm

    We are done sitting with men of falsehood and refuse to consort with hypocrites. Yes, yes, yes! That’s why I decided not to go to my church on the weekend. I’m refusing to be a part of something called church when they are just playing a game, trying to look good and protect their reputation. It shuts its eyes to the cries of the poor and abused while claiming to reach out to the lost. Yeah, I’m done.

    Reply
  5. speakingtruthinlove
    16th February 2014 – 6:10 pm

    Reblogged this on Speakingtruthinlove's Blog [Internet Archive link].

    Reply
  6. Barbara Roberts
    16th February 2014 – 8:50 pm

    This comment was sent in by one of our Anons but I accidentally deleted it so am putting it here under my own gravatar.

    Here is an excerpt from a chapter in CS Lewis’ book “Reflection on the Psalms”. It is called Connivance and based on Psalm 26.

    How ought we to behave in the presence of very bad people? I will limit this by changing ‘very bad people’ to ‘very bad people who are powerful, prosperous and impenitent’. If they are outcasts, poor and miserable, whose wrongness obviously has not ‘paid’, then every Christian knows the answer…

    . . . there are subtler, more social or intellectual forms of band-wagoning which might deceive us.. Many people have a very strong desire to meet celebrated or ‘important’ people, including those whom they disapprove, from curiosity or vanity…I don’t think that the desire is itself a very serious defect. But I am inclined to think a Christian would be wise to avoid where he decently can, any meeting with people who are bullies, lascivious, cruel, dishonest, spiteful and so forth.

    Not because we are ‘too good’ for them. In a sense because we are not good enough. We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations, nor clever enough to cope with all the problems, which an evening spent in such society produces. The temptation is to condone, to connive at; by our words, looks and laughter, to ‘consent’…

    What is one to do? For on the one hand, quite certainly, there is a degree of unprotesting participation in such talk which is very bad. We are strengthening the hand of the enemy…

    What makes this contact with wicked people so difficult is that to handle the situation successfully requires not merely good intentions, even with humility and courage thrown in; it may call for social and even intellectual talents which God has not given us. It is therefore no self-righteousness but mere prudence to avoid it when we can. The Psalmists were not quite wrong when they described the good man as avoiding ‘the seat of the scornful’ and fearing to consort with the ungodly lest he should ‘eat of’ (shall we say, laugh at, admire, approve, justify?) ‘such things as please them’. As usual in their
    attitude, with all its dangers, there is a core of very good sense. ‘Lead us not into temptation’ often means, among other things, ‘Deny me those gratifying invitations, those highly interesting contacts, that participation in the brilliant movements of our age, which I so often, at such risk, desire.’

    Reply
  7. Brenda R
    17th February 2014 – 4:12 am

    Quite true. I do not feel good enough to take on these people.

    Reply

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