The Warning Still Stands!

Woe to those pregnant and nursing?

What did Jesus mean when He said,

“Woe to those who are with child, and to those who nurse babies in those days”?

Most people read past this warning in Matthew 24, but hidden within it is a powerful picture of readiness, obedience, and spiritual maturity.

In this episode of The Myrrhologist Podcast, Marissa Saint Luc explores the prophetic imagery of pregnancy, nursing, labor, and birth throughout Scripture. What happens when a promise is carried but never delivered? What happens when we continue feeding what should have already been weaned? And what can Jesus’ warning teach us about the season we are living in right now?

From Matthew 24 to Romans 8 and Revelation 12, this episode examines the tension between carrying and delivering, waiting and obeying, preparation and fulfillment.

Topics include:

• The prophetic significance of pregnancy in Scripture
• Why Jesus said “woe” in Matthew 24:19
• The danger of delaying obedience
• Feeding what should have been weaned
• Birth pains, readiness, and the end of the age
• The call to spiritual maturity and preparation

The Bridegroom is drawing near.

The question is not what you are carrying.

The question is what you will deliver.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to the Mirologist Podcast. I'm your host, Marissa St. Luke, and today we're opening one of the most overlooked warnings that Jesus ever spoke. Matthew 24 feels like a landslide at the end of the timeline. Every sentence moves with prophetic weight, layer after layer, one event tumbling into the next. And Jesus sits on the Mount of Olives and looks straight through time. And in the middle of that avalanche of revelation, he says something almost everybody skips because it's incongruent with the version of Jesus that they've been comfortable with. We have no problem with the loving, gentle, comforting Jesus, the one who blesses and heals and forgives. Jesus is love. But some of us don't quite know what to do with the Jesus who warns. The Jesus who once said, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. We see Matthew 28, 19, go and make disciples of all nations. It's printed on coffee cups, t-shirts, and church banners, but not Luke 14, 26, though, because that one costs something. This saying isn't one that can be merchandised. This statement from Jesus divides soul from spirit. And often we don't like to engage with this text because we struggle with the Jesus who sifts. If Jesus were walking the streets today, not only would they call him offensive, they would call him anti-Semitic, unloving, a disruptor, they would label him divisive and even dangerous. Most of our churches would label him too extreme because much of the modern church has only branded him as the shepherd who doesn't wield the sword. But Jesus was and still is the shepherd who protects by telling the truth. He is the watchman who loves you enough to sound the alarm. And after he warned about deception, persecution, and betrayal, after laying out the timeline of the end with perfect precision, he paused and said something that's a little disturbing. Woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days. It sounds harsh until you realize he wasn't condemning them. He saw a generation that would be pregnant with promise but too afraid to deliver. A people who would keep feeding what should have been weaned and nurturing comfort in a season that demands courage. So he said, Woe, as a warning before the contractions begin. This is a cry of mercy before the midnight cry. Now I know the first thing people will say is, you got it wrong. Jesus was talking to his disciples about Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. And yes, I understand that. There was a real warning there, a real moment where Jesus was telling them, when you see this begin to happen, don't play any games. Run, obey quickly, and do not look back. So, yes, there is historical fulfillment, but I also believe that Jesus was doing what he always does. He was speaking to the moment in front of him while revealing a pattern that would speak beyond them. And what happened to Jerusalem was not just history on a page, it was a picture of what happens when visitation comes and warning comes and when people were not ready. And every time I read the warnings of Jesus, I can't just leave it in 70 AD because I see patterns fitting like a glove in our time. And I can almost see him looking across generations, past Jerusalem, past Rome, past church history, straight into this age that we are living in right now. An age that's pregnant with prophecy, but terrified of the pain of delivery. And I don't believe that he was just talking about mothers and infants. I believe he was exposing a people, a people that were carrying promise but resisting obedience. A people that was full of potential, but still waiting for a more comfortable time to push, feeding what should have already been weaned. A people asking God for comfort in a season that is calling for courage. So let's slow down here because this one line holds a blueprint, a map for how to survive shaking, a map for how to move when the contractions begin. It's a map for what cannot come with you when the age starts closing in. Jesus saw people carrying dreams, songs, assignments, mantles, ministry, and movements, but paralyzed by comfort, still floating in what was only supposed to protect them for a season, still living off of another man's placenta when they were supposed to be breathing for themselves. There's so many that are still attached to old systems, old identities, old relationships, old ministries, old wineskins, things that God never told them to carry into the birth. He saw a bride who loved the promise but feared the pain of delivery. When the time comes, the womb has to open, the child has to come forth, and whatever was feeding you in the hidden place cannot feed you in the hour of delivery. There comes a moment when what once protected you begins to confine you. There comes a moment when the womb becomes too small for the assignment. And when the contractions begin, you don't get to negotiate with birth. You either yield to what God is bringing forth or you fight in the very pain sent to deliver you. You either birth or you break, and some will break off as stillborn prophecies, promises carried full term but never pushed out into purpose. Others miscarry what was meant for movement, losing it in the trauma of hesitation. And some, after nurturing the word for years, they put their pledge up for adoption, handing their assignment to another because they grew weary in waiting. And to be honest, a year and a half ago, I barely made it into this ark myself. So don't mistake what I'm saying for condemnation or ignoring the reality of how difficult it can be to follow Christ. But hear his message for what it is. This is an alarm sounding in the night. You can walk with the Lord for decades, just like I've done and many a times missed the day of my visitation. You can live around the presence and never encounter the person. You can serve faithfully and still sleep through the very hour that Jesus came knocking. Jesus said, I will come like a thief in the night. If the master of the house had known when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake. Many are too busy polishing the doorframe to notice the knock. And he's coming at an hour we least expect. And the only thing more dangerous than disobedience is spiritual drowsiness. The bridegroom doesn't announce the exact hour. Actually, in the parable of the ten virgins, which I will be covering in another video, the bridegroom was delayed. This is why they had an extra vessel of oil. But this is why they couldn't share what they had with the one without. And we have just entered into that season where it will appear unkind and unloving, even ungodly to have to choose. Only those who are watching are gonna notice the movement. Those who are awake will hear the sound of the door opening in the spirit long before the world realizes he is standing at the threshold. Now, going back to Jesus grieving over pregnancy, it's a very holy metaphor. Pregnancy is the hidden season. It is where what God planted begins to take shape. What you carried in prayer, in secret obedience, in the dark places that no one saw, that's when it starts forming. But pregnancy is not permanent. It's a promise that delivers and it becomes pressure. A womb that never opens becomes dangerous. The womb is a waiting room, not a tomb, and yet so many believers live spiritually nine months overdue, still talking about what God said years ago, still rehearsing old prophecies, or possibly still holding a death grip on false prophecies, still holding on to a word that they were meant to walk out. Romans 8 says, all creation groans in labor pains, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. Even the earth is waiting for you to deliver what God put inside of you. All of the storms that deliver testimonies in you, these are contractions. Every quake, every war, every deception is God pushing and announcing that something is about to be born. And if you're listening in the spirit, you should be hearing one word, push, because when the water breaks, hiding is no longer possible. And what was forming in secret must now come forth in power. If you stay pregnant with potential and never give birth to obedience, your promise is going to become pressure. It starts to press against your ribs, it keeps you up at night, and it drains you because what was meant to be born is still stuck inside. And then Jesus said, Woe to those who nurse. Now nursing is feeding, and what you feed will live. So when Jesus said that, he was warning us don't keep feeding what I've already called finish. Don't keep nourishing yesterday's version of you. Don't keep pouring energy into relationships or ministries or habits that no longer carry my life. Hebrews 5 says, by now you ought to be teachers, but you still need milk. To nurse spiritually means you keep drawing from a source that you should have outgrown, and you keep feeding nostalgia instead of revelation. In the wilderness, God gave Israel manna every morning. And when they tried to store it overnight, it rotted. Yesterday's manna cannot sustain today's mission. So when Jesus said woe to those who nurse, he meant don't get caught feeding what should have been weaned. And I'll be completely honest with you. Sometimes feels like a loss, like detaching from the very thing that once kept you alive. But if you don't release it, it will become bondage and it will choke out the word. You can't enter new wine with old appetites. And we also see where Jesus talks about contractions in the earth, wars, pestilence, shaking. He says these are the beginnings of sorrows. And that word sorrow means birth pains. So the world isn't dying, it's delivering. Heaven and earth are travail together, waiting for the revealing of the mature sons and daughters of God. And from a mother of three, let me tell you, birth never waits for the right moment. When the water breaks, the time is up. Revelation 12 shows a woman clothed with the sun and crying out in labor, the dragon waiting to devour her child. That's the tension that we live in right now. God is calling the bride to deliver, while all of hell has been preparing to destroy what's delivered. So we got to treat these woes like a clock. It's the ticking sound of mercy, waking us up out of our comfort zones. We are watching prophecy contract, nations shaking, economies trembling, minds unraveling. And yet so is heaven. Heaven is pushing too. Heaven is laboring for the bride to come forth, without spot, without wrinkle, fully awake and fully alive. Paul said in Galatians 4 19, My little children, I travail in birth again until Christ can be formed in you. And that's the cry of this hour. Jesus isn't looking for people who can quote prophecy. He's looking for people who become prophecy, who live it and who embody it. The end time church isn't pregnant with potential anymore. She is in active labor with fulfillment. She's not nursing old seasons. She's feeding on fresh oil. The spirit and the bride are both crying, come. It is the sound of synchronization. It's heaven and earth breathing in the same rhythm again. So if you are feeling that pressure right now, if everything around you feels like contraction after contraction and you don't get a break, you're not breaking down. You're birthing the will of God. So push and release it. Let go of what has expired. Birth before the trumpet sound. Thank you so much for listening today. This message has been brought to you by Ahover Overflow Counseling, where we believe that Jesus is the key that unlocks every door to your soul, body, and spirit. And you can visit MarissaStluke.com for Hebrew name scrolls, kingdom crest designs, and more. If you haven't done so already, I want to invite you to like, subscribe, and share this message with someone who is carrying promise but needs courage to bring it forth. Until next time, keep watching, keep listening. And when the Spirit says it's time, push.