“And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name.”

 Isaiah 65:15

CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 13, 2023 – About 600 years before the birth of Jesus the Christ, when Zedekiah was King of Judah, Jerusalem was burned to the ground. God permitted Jerusalem to be rebuilt only after 70 years of exile and only after the returning remnant had sincerely repented. Their repentance was so extreme that they had to divorce their non-Jewish wives and desert their non-Jewish children before the temple elders and prophets considered the re-settlers sufficiently “purified” to enter and rebuild the city. This was some serious repenting going on, not just half-hearted mumbling of a few Hail Mary’s and then sliding back to business as usual.

Fast-forward to 2023. The depravity that characterizes Jerusalem today far outdoes that of Zedekiah’s Jerusalem just before its destruction. The majority of the population has vehemently turned from God and now identifies as “secular” or outright atheist. The city is well known for being the unofficial homosexual capitol of the Middle East. Added to these sins is a recent campaign to forcibly remove Christians from Jerusalem or at the very least to stop them from preaching God’s Word. Christians are now being mocked, spat on, and assaulted in the streets of Jerusalem, much like Jews were in the streets of Nazi Germany or like Jesus was at his crucifixion. None of this bodes well for the former Holy Land. It also doesn’t in any way point to God having a hand in bringing these people back from their nearly 2000-year exile, at least not as a blessing.

Scripture gives abundant examples of God blessing his people when they keep his Commandments and cursing them when they don’t. At no point does God reward the unrepentant with anything but the due reward of unrepentant sin, which is punishment. You cannot in all honesty look at Jerusalem today and say that God’s people have returned as prophesied in scripture. These are not God’s people; they are deeply sinful unrepentant agnostics and atheists who despise the Word of God and have vehemently rejected God’s Messiah and those who follow him. In other words, they’re no different from any other unbelievers anywhere else in the world.

But that doesn’t mean that these unbelievers, like other unbelievers, can’t while there’s still time become God’s people, if they sincerely repent. As things stand now, however, the majority of the population in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel in no way fulfills scripture.

The Kingdom of God on Earth, established by Jesus 2000 years ago, fulfills scripture. The Israel that was to come is a spiritual realm, not a geopolitical one, and only born-again Spirit-filled followers of Jesus live in it. This is the Zion foretold by the Old Testament prophets. This is the one and only; there will be no other.

It’s important to remember that God’s people are those who do the will of God, regardless of their genetics or cultural heritage. The lineage of the children of Israel since Jesus has been solely a spiritual lineage, not a genetic one. Even before Jesus’ resurrection, strangers (i.e., non-Hebrews) who joined themselves to Israel were considered God’s children if they followed the Law given by God through Moses. Again – those who do God’s will are God’s people. Cultural and genetic background has nothing to do with it.

After the razing of Zedekiah’s Jerusalem, those who resettled the city understood that their return hinged on the sincerity of their repentance both as individuals and as a nation. The returnees were hand-picked by elders, priests, and prophets; they couldn’t just decide one day to up and move to Jerusalem. They had to be chosen to go. A list of these hand-picked and chosen returnees is in the Bible. Had they not sincerely repented and turned back to God with all their heart and all their soul and demonstrated it by willingly doing whatever was required of them, they could not return.

Given the rigor of these pre-conditions, the remnant that made the trek back to the ravaged city did not take their return lightly or for granted. They didn’t demand it; they were humbly grateful for it. They understood the gravity of the situation. They understood the precariousness of their situation. They also understood that it would be their last chance to get right with God as a people.

No such pre-conditions of repentance and turning back to God were imposed on those who have resettled Palestine since the late 1940s. The demonically inspired excesses that have become the norm in today’s Jerusalem would have made even Zedekiah blush. The whole city has become one big seething abomination, a playground for legions of demons that have expanded their turf across the entire geopolitical state of Israel. There is nothing holy about that land anymore. God removed his Spirit from it millennia ago, and other than for the odd Witness or two, he won’t be sending it back.

“I will surely consume them, saith the Lord… and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.”

Jeremiah 8:13