Where are the Nazarites? Where are the prophets?

I had the privelage of listening to Dwayne Roberts speak tonight and I am absolutely undone. He spoke out of Jeremiah 23 and I perhaps am feeling the heaviness of this word for the first time. I have never been this sober of Jer. 23. What I'm about to write may be offensive to some but that's not the point. This is what the bible has to say about the hour in which we live. Please do not discard this but I pray that the Holy Spirit would allow you to feel the weight of this message.
"Woe to the shepards who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!" Says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepards who feed my people: You have scattered my flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings," says the Lord. (Jer. 23: 1-2)
In order to grasp the sobriety of this word we must understand the audience to whom Jeremiah delivers this word. It is addressed to the people of God. For our terms it was addressed to believers in Christ - this message is for the church.
Israel was in a time of economic and social prosperity only a few years prior to the invasion of Israel, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, which was God's judgment upon the wickedness of Israel. The nation was prosperous and feeling like they were doing well in the sight of the Lord. The prophets of the day were telling the people that they were fine; that the lives of moral compromise they were living were ok; that there comfort was the peace of God in the land and He was pleased with the nation and the church in the nation. Jeremiah 6:14 states very clearly that this was accually no peace at all but a pagan peace. "They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, 'peace, peace!" When there is no peace." The people, in their compromise with the impending judgment on the horizon, were informed of God's pleasure with them in their blatant wickedness. The leaders in that day were acctually paying the prophets to water down their message and tell the people that their compromise was ok with God. Then the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah declaring that the compromise of Israel is absolutely not ok with God!
"Both the prophet and Priest (spiritual leaders of the nation of Israel) are profane; Yes, in My house (the temple/church) I have found their wickedness," ways the Lord.
This speaks directly of the compromise of the leaders of the people of God. There are so many leaders in the body of Christ today who are in secret sin. I'm not talking about struggling in a war with sin. I'm not talking about christian perfection though I do believe that the Lord will have a bride equally yoked in purity and agreement before He returns. What I am talking about is the settling in sin and refusing to make war against it, and then encouraging others to do the same. A man recently shared a story about a ministry trip he went on to a church where the Pastors were having Keg parties on Friday nights in the name of the guys having a hard week needing to relax. These are trusted leaders in the body of Christ. That is disturbing. The compromise in the pulpit today is absolutely astounding. The pornography, adultery, alcoholism, drug use, lustful thoughts, present in the leadership is not only damaging their own bodies but the body of Christ. This is not ok. It's time to eliminate these compromises from our lives, for our own sakes and for the sake of those we lead. Wheather 10 or 10,000 people we are accountable to the way they imitate our own perseverance or lack thereof in the war against sin in this age.
We must also recognize, however, that this is not only about personal compromise, though that is a piece of it. This is also about those who preach a watered down gospel. "Also I have seen a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem they commit adultery and walk in lies; THEY ALSO STRENGTHEN THE HANDS OF EVIL DOERS SO THAT NO ONE TURNS BACK FROM HIS WICKEDNESS. All of them are like Sodom to Me, and her inhabitants like Gomorrah." (Jer. 23:14) I know that some will say, "Well that's the Old Testament." Don't discount the words of Paul in Romans 1 who at the end of a discourse about the decline of the believer into a hardened heart and wickedness says that you, "Who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but ALSO APPROVE OF THOSE WHO DO THEM." (Rom. 1:32) The reality is that, in the western church, the gospel of grace has been reduced to a message of mercy. Yes, we are cleansed by the blood of Christ, yet when the gospel of grace stops with mercy the hearers are handed a liscene by the fathers in the faith to live in compromise and have it be ok in the name of living in the dispensation of the mercy of God through Christ. He forgives us our transgressions and failures. This is true but He requires the 100% pursuit of 100% obedience. He requires a willingness to wage war upon sin and the lusts of the flesh and to pursue life in the Spirit considering ourselves dead to sin, yet alive to God in righteousness.
We have taken the word of God and diminshed it's power and truth to our own private interpretation and allowed room for compromise in the name of weakness. We have accepted that which the word of God clearly calls sin as mere cultural difference. We have been permeated with the ideologies of Western liberal Universities. Our hearts are full of the messages of huminism, moral relativity, and universalism which are all of the of the antichrist spirit, for they deny the reality of Christ and the Father. We have swallowed the lies of those who call the nations to be politically correct and not rock the boat. We have allowed the seeds to take root within us - those seeds that say, "Everyone will find truth along the way of His or her own journey. There's no need to say someone is wrong for something they do. Morality is relative. How can you say don't lust after a woman in a culture that is filled with promiscuity? I mean really, in the bible times women couldn't even show their ankles. Is it really realistic to place such a heavy yoke on people?" Absolutely Yes! To preach a gospel that is permeated with these demonic ideologies is devastating compromise for the body of Christ. So what is the true gospel we are to be preaching? Titus gives us perhaps one of the clearest pictures of what the fullness of the gospel of grace is and what the effects of its preaching are supposed to be.
"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and Godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from EVERY lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works." (Titus 2:11-14) The fullness of the gopsel is supposed to catapult us into the pursuit of holiness, fear of the Lord, and the eager awaiting of the Return of Jesus. The reality is that we are preaching a watered down gospel that contains none of these realities. Instead we are having pizza parties in our youth groups and expecting that we are fine in the eyes of God because its all in the name of fellowship and the great commission. In reality we are preparing a generation to fall away from the truth they have initially recieved.
Some might ask why this is such a pressing issue. Jeremiah makes it clear. "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord." There are so many leaders who can gain a following for their own vision. Youth and the masses of Christians follow after whatever is believable and presented with a decent platform. However, this watered down gospel, though popular, makes the people of God worthless in the light of eternity.
You see this prominent in the western church: a people without power, true Godly authority, minimal annointing, and all believing that it's the norm for modern day Christianity. Radical Christianity is looked at as odd and even unbiblical. That which the Bible, Jesus, and the 1st century Church believed to be Christianity 101 is now a radical lifestyle. Yet in the midst of this, God is raising up a people who are true to the gospel, but even these are being affected by this compromise. Amos 2:11-12 says, "I raised up some of your sons as prophets, and some of your young men as Nazirites. Is it not so, O you children of Israel?" Says the Lord. "But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets saying, 'Do not prophesy!'" In other words God raised up consecrated ones to call the people of God to repentance and the fathers in the faith corrupted their consecration and silenced the only true oracle of the Lord for the hour. This is happening again in our day. Jeremiah brought a word of repentance and the leadership of Israel told him not to prophesy. There are young prophets and nazirites in your midst and the Lord is raising them as a voice to call the people of God to repentance in bold humility. The Lord is raising up the trumpet blowers who will boldly speak the truth in love and call forth the Joel 2 sacred assembly that the people of God might rend their hearts in true repentance and turn fully to the Lord. It's time to stop watering down the gospel, preaching the visions of our own hearts, embrace the vision of God and stand in His councils by meditating upon the Word of God through fasting and prayer; and from there to declare the truth of of His word. (Jer. 23:18, 21-22)
This is the hour in which we live. Where are the Nazarites? They are being made drunk with the wine of the spirit of this age through the destructive leadership of compromised leaders, enterntainment, and a faulty foundation of cheap grace. Where are the prophets? They are being commanded by arrogant, fearful, man-pleasing men and women not to prophesy in the name of political correctness and universalist, tolerant Christianity.
It's time for the wine of the spirit of the age to be vomited out of our mouths and to spit out the ungodly gags that have kept the church in fearful silence, embrace the true gospel of grace and blow the trumpet in zion, call a fast, and live the consecrated life we were called to live. Leaders, I charge you to be bold in your procalamation of the true gospel as laid out in Titus 2. I challenge you to pour yourself out less in minstry and more in the place of fasting and prayer. (Acts 6:2-4) It is in this place only that authority that turns hearts is gained. It's time o Prophets of God. Arise into the fullness of who you are, and by the Spirit of the Lord lead the saints into repentance. This is your mandate as leaders and we will all stand accountable before the judgment seat for the way you lead the people of God.