If John the Baptist Preached Today

You serpents wrapped in lace! You gleam with tradition, but your bones are full of rot.

You speak of Rome, but your hearts are Babylon.

You brandish beads with blood on your hands.

Not the martyrs’ blood, but your own brother’s….

And you dare call it holy?

You cloak your lust for dominion in the language of sacraments. You hoist your party’s flag over Calvary and then weep not for the crucified Christ but for your fading relevance.

Repent!

You, who would baptize Hero if it meant your name would trend.
You, who would sell out the Beatitudes for a seat at Caesar’s banquet.
You, who would rather be right than be crucified.

You take the pearl of great price and trade it for clicks…
For followers, for angry crowds who cheer when love is mocked and mercy is drowned in rhetoric.

You forget:
The Lamb was silent before power.
You roar like lions, but you do not roar for Him.
You roar for your own names, your own tribes, your own platforms built of ash and vanity.

Where is your sackcloth, priest?
Where is your fasting, prophet?
Where is your brokenness, influencer?
Where is your weeping, Church?

I see no tears.
I see no ashes.
I see teeth, bared.
I see robes, pristine.
I see temples, tall and empty.

Woe to you who call darkness doctrine, and division discernment.
Woe to you who lift up Christ in word and drive the nails with your lives.

The fire is coming. The threshing floor is prepared.
He holds the winnowing fan, and He does not forget.

This Christ you invoke…
He sees.
He sees the child you ignored, the migrant you mocked, the poor man turned away from your polished door.

You call yourselves defenders of truth, but truth does not need your venom.
Truth is a Lamb, slain.
Truth is a Man, weeping over the city you have desecrated.

And yet:
Still He calls.
Still He bleeds.
Still He waits.

But not forever.

Let the false temples fall.
Let the branded gospels burn.
Let the proud be scattered,
and the lowly raised.

The Kingdom is not in your image.
It is in His wounds.

And if you will not turn—
those wounds will open again,
but not for your salvation—
for your judgment.

The blood you mock will testify.
The flesh you trample will rise.
And the Lamb you betrayed
will be your Judge—
and He remembers everything.