"You who hate good and love evil; who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones; who eat my people's flesh, strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces; who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?" (v 2-3 NIV)
Each time I read this chapter these verses strike hard. They are gruesome and severe. We all must fight a tendency of our flesh, you see we so often discredit or underestimate the importance of our spiritual man. But realize how severe the prophet is describing the effect of misguided leadership.
Without Godly leadership pointing you to the cross destruction will start on the outside, your skin; then the structure of your life will begin to crumble, your bones; and finally the small fragments will be consumed like the scraps we use in a stew.
Thankfully the opposite is also true. When a man, a family, a church is placed under the authority of sound biblical leadership the result is not destruction. The Lord will "gather up the fragments so that nothing is lost." He will "heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds," and the Spirit of the Lord will "set at liberty them that are bruised."
