CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – As the cost of living soars and the quality of life plummets for most people in former Christian nations, few of the affected people are willing to identify the real source of these phenomena. They instead blame high prices on ‘greedy oligarchs’, ‘greedy landlords’, ‘greedy baby boomers’, etc., while pointing the rest of their fingers of blame at the flood of “gimmegrants” and refugees from third-world countries. At the same time, they bemoan government inaction on all these fronts, dismissing politicians as ‘stupid’, ‘incompetent’, and unable to foresee the damage their policies are causing.

Very few know that their afflictions were described in detail by Moses over 3000 years ago, and that the oligarchs, landlords, baby boomers, immigrants, etc., are not the cause of their problems, but the fruit of it. In other words, something else other than those factors is causing the consequence of soaring cost of living and plummeting quality of life.

That something else is described in detail in Deuteronomy 28.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a big fan of Deuteronomy 28. I think it perfectly describes our time, just as it perfectly described the time of the children of Israel before the destruction of their nation in 586 B.C., just as it perfectly described the time of the Israelites and Judeans before the destruction of their nation in 70 A.D.

And now it’s our turn.

Our churches have been given over to idols and desecration, as were the synagogues during the pre-destruction times of our spiritual forefathers. Our so-called Christian belief system has been so compromised, that even practicing witches incorporate portions of it into their belief system. But again, this is the fruit – not the cause – of our current situation.

Jesus was very clear that the measure we mete is the measure we get in return. At no time does he indicate we’re punished for something we didn’t do (he’s the only one who was punished for that). If our cost of living is soaring and our quality of life is plummeting, it’s because we’ve brought it on ourselves. If our streets, schools, malls, churches, grocery stores, and public transit systems are rife with random violence, it’s because we’ve brought it on ourselves. If greed is the defining characteristic of our people, from the top to the bottom of the socioeconomic scale, it’s because we’ve brought it on ourselves. If foreigners rule over us, it’s because we’ve brought it on ourselves.

See a pattern there?

Reread Jeremiah and the other books in the Old Testament that describe the years leading up to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon’s temple. The corruption of the powers-that-be was off the charts. But here again, the corruption wasn’t a cause of the bad times, but the fruit of it. All the chronicled kings who did what was “evil in the eyes of God”, including colluding with pagan rulers, were the reward earned by the people they ruled over. The children of Israel, by their evil ways, had earned their evil kings, just as their spiritual descendants — Christians – have earned their corrupt leaders and fast deteriorating quality of life.

The same situation occurred during the time of Jesus’ ministry, shortly before the destruction of the second temple and Judaism’s final deathblow in 70 A.D. Israel and Judea were under Roman occupation, and the religious powers-that-be were willingly colluding with Rome. The Gospels leave no doubt as to how those powers-that-be, including the kings, treated their Messiah. They were so blinded and deafened as a result of their evil choices, they not only couldn’t see Jesus for who and what he was, they demanded his execution.

Fast-forward to today and the deep state that rules over all nations from behind the scenes. Ours is a world under Satan, as Jesus taught us. The only thing limiting Satan’s worldly power is godly people, that is, people who live according to God’s Ten Commandments and Jesus’ gospel teachings. “Spiritual warfare” prayers do not limit Satan’s power; the careful placement of so-called holy relics do not limit Satan’s power; removing politicians who do the bidding of the deep state does not limit Satan’s power. The only thing that limits Satan’s power is people making godly choices and living godly lives. The fruit of godliness is a better home, a better neighbourhood, a better community, a better city, a better nation, and a better world.

Jesus doesn’t want his followers to live sequestered in monasteries or nunneries. He wants us to live in the world, showing the way to those who are lost but are open to being found. Living in the world, we can’t help but see the worst of it. We know how bad things are because we experience it up close and personal every day. We see how the Ten Commandments are mocked and ignored and how Jesus and his teachings are mocked and ignored, and we see the fruit of the mockery and ignorance. That is, we see broken people, broken homes, broken communities, broken lives. We see band-aid solutions like rent control, welfare and EBT only making things worse. We see people openly worshiping rainbow demons in our neighbourhood churches. We see all mention of Jesus and God removed from public spaces, and people who defy their removal being arrested and imprisoned.

I personally was removed from a chapel at Toronto’s Pearson Airport a few months ago and threatened with arrest if I didn’t leave. I’d only been in the chapel for about 20 minutes and was reading the Bible and praying when the two police officers arrived to remove me. They said I was trespassing. For those who don’t know, the chapel at Pearson Airport’s Terminal 1 is open to the public, as is the airport, which means you don’t need a plane ticket either to enter the chapel or to enter the airport, and there is no limit to how long you can stay in either place. The chapel was consecrated many decades ago, upon its opening, which means it was set apart from the world and from worldly authorities.

When I took this up with God, asking him if I should pursue my removal from the chapel from a legal standpoint, he told me the chapel was deconsecrated years ago when it was changed to a “worship room” and welcomed people of all faiths to worship there. Because it was deconsecrated, the chapel was no longer his jurisdiction. In other words, the world and its worldly authorities now had jurisdiction over the chapel, as they have over most if not all chapels and churches in the world, and so the worldly authorities were in their right to handle me as they saw fit, including removing me. I was hounded out of the chapel in the same way Jesus was hounded out of the synagogue in Nazareth, where God by that point no longer had jurisdiction (“See, your house is left to you desolate”).

It’s a real eye-opener when you realize that houses ostensibly set aside for the worship of God are no longer under his jurisdiction. Jesus told us that the time would come (and in fact had already come during his ministry years) when we would no longer worship God in specific places set aside for that purpose, with set rituals and timeframes, but would instead worship God in spirit and in truth, and that God craved such worshipers.

That means we can worship God wherever we are and at any given time and without external paraphernalia, the way Jesus worshiped him.

That means that while there are no longer any designated worship places under God’s jurisdiction (as the world is under Satan), we born-again Spirit-filled believers are ourselves the perambulating church, as Jesus was. Where we are – and only where we are – is holy ground.