But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities, then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die. Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be well with you. (Deuteronomy 19:11-13)

Let me apply this Scripture by paraphrasing it a bit:

If anyone hates his wife and sets traps for her and attacks her and strikes her so that her health is ruined and over time she sees herself dying, and he runs off to another church, the elders of his first church shall contact the elders of the church to which he has fled and he shall be put out of both churches, handed over to the Lord for the destruction of his flesh. You shall not pity him, but you shall purge your church from him, lest your entire church share in the guilt of innocent blood, so that the Lord will bless you and it might be well with you.

You shall not pity him! To pity him is to keep him in your midst, and in doing so everyone in that church stands guilty before the Lord of the wicked man’s evil! How many churches today are guilty then before the Lord? How many have innocent blood on their hands because they are harboring and enabling the wicked?

You shall not pity him! Abusers use pity. They use pity to manipulate us. Tricking us into pitying them is one of the tactics they use to keep up their disguise. How many of our readers have told us this? Many! “He pointed a gun at me. He abused me for years and years. But he went to church every Sunday and wept and wailed and prayed and raised his hands up in ‘worship’ and everyone thought he was such a godly man. Then, when I left him, he wept and wailed and raised his hands some more, and the people all came over to him in his pew and put their hands on the poor, poor godly man and prayed for him as he ‘suffered’ the grief of having lost his beloved, yet heartless wife.” The thing is sickening and putrid, but it happens over and over again.

You shall not pity him! Stop it! Stop pitying the wicked. He wants you to pity him. He knows that pity is one of his most powerful means of winning you as his ally and turning you against his victim. If you pity him, you will enable him. You will be siding with him, and you will be guilty of innocent blood before God!

The 69th Psalm is messianic. These words are a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ suffering on the cross. But they also speak of the abuse victim, describing her painful plight very accurately:

Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. (Psalms 69:20)

Understand the irony? The one we should pity, finds no pity. The one the Lord commands us not to pity, is pitied. Pity the righteous and the Lord will bless you. Pity the unrighteous and He will be against you.

Most local churches stand under divine indictment today. They pity the wicked man, and they harden themselves against the righteous who are oppressed by the wicked. This means necessarily that most churches do not have the Lord’s blessing upon them. Did you hear that? Most local churches do not have the Lord’s blessing upon them, because they pity the wicked.

We do have One however, who hears our cry. The One who has no pity for the wicked, has treasures of pity for the righteous: