The King's Decree

It was to punish us for our sins that we were, for a time, put out of the possession of this house; not because the gods of the nations have prevailed against our God, but because we had provoked him for which he delivered us and our temple into the hands of the king of Babylon, but never intended thereby to put a final period to our religion. We were only suspended for time, not deprived forever, an excerpt from Matthew Henry's Commentary On The Whole Bible, page 493

Canadians held captive by the king of Babylon. This would be a laughable concept a mere seventy years ago. Seventy is one of those numbers that holds mystical power Biblically. Seventy years of captivity, seventy years before the temple was destroyed, seventy years of life for you and me? My father was an immigrant to Canada in his twenties. He had escaped communist Albania and built a life for himself and his family on foreign soil, the land of the free. As his daughter, I fight the good fight with God as my strength, against the invisible enemy that threatens enslavement. My dad was Mr. No Nonsense, and I am very grateful for his earthly example. My Father in heaven commands the universe, and I daily wonder at his magnificence and power. 

Are you a heathen, dear reader? I laugh a little as I type, considering myself a former heathen. As punishment for my sins, for a time, I was put out of possession of my place in the heavenly kingdom. There can be no peace on earth when rebelling against God; only stolen pleasure, that fades into a sense of shame, can be experienced. Thankfully, God corrects and chastens his children, and I have been given the gift of renewal, the opportunity to worship in his temple without censure; I fear not the enemy, and trust only in the Lord, the King of kings. As pointed at above, provoking God puts humanity in peril, as individual's and in groups or nations. Can you see how the enemy of our souls has managed effectively, to put many in shackles, as only a wicked Babylonian king can do? 

Cumulative sin, outrageous and egregious unspeakable sin, amassed and grotesquely on display for all of heaven to see, has brought about the demise of nations. Forsaking the one true living God for idol demon worship, the worlds population now suffers in the throes of death, since we have been delivered into the temple of Babylon, after forsaking true religion, which is living the will of God Almighty. 

But not all is lost, in fact, all is as prophesied. Christians have always been aliens/foreigners while walking the earth. Christ followers stand out as heavenly ambassadors, walking talking living temples, priests among the populace. Currently many a professing Christian has waxed cold, while the enemies of God have run hot with hell fire giving them burning ambition to do damage to the Kingdom of God... alas, they know they are already lost, and while they have momentum now, they will soon run out of fuel. With the question of freedom on the tip of many a tongue, perhaps cool Christians will be ignited, as the godly of old were when God called them back into service, to set the captives free. 

If you feel like a foreigner in your own country, perhaps you recognize the seismic shifts in the spiritual realm. God is allowing us to collectively suffer the consequences of denying him as Sovereign: imagine what he sees every moment of the day, dear reader. Does the thought make you cringe?, as it does me.

In the book of Ezra, the king of Babylon decreed that the Jews rebuild their temple in their own Holy city, Jerusalem. They had been put out of it, taken captive, been displaced and subjected to governance in foreign lands. God purposed a temporary suspension, but not permanent depravation. Is this, dear Christian, not the very same situation we find ourselves in? Is it not time, to rebuild the temple of God, otherwise known as the church?

You, dear one, if you belong to Jesus, the King of kings, Saviour of the world, are called to be a walking talking living stone of the temple of God. Your purpose is to firstly, live the commands of God, and secondly without hesitation, preach the Gospel for the salvation of souls! We are God's ambassadors; is this not marvellous to know? 

Read the Bible, and delight in seeing our brethren harken to us of the hardships they endured that heightened their faith in God as their King. God decrees, we obey... and let not your heart be faint in the doing of his will, his way. 

Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29)