Cities Geographically Condemned by God

Cities Geographically Condemned by God                       9-20-15     by Kelly Durant  

Ezekiel 26:1 And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste 3 Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.4 And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.5 It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God: and it shall become a spoil to the nations.

2. How many of you have heard of Timbuktu? When I was a kid if you did something wrong you always heard that they would send you to Timbuktu! People would get scared but nobody knew where it was but you imagined that that figure of speech meant some hellish lonely place. And Timbuktu exists and is actually a hellish lonely place! It is city in Mali, Africa on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. It use to be a part of one of the most important trade routes for centuries. The people there for a few centuries were very wealthy. It was a prestigious educational center trading in gold, ivory, salt, and slaves. Over time the city was conquered and today it is extremely poor, partially covered in sand, and has no tourism. Consider this verse: Psalm 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God!

Have you ever wondered why some cities on earth get destroyed or turn into hell? Is it due to poor management, bad economics, natural phenomena such as earthquakes or volcanos, or is it random coincidence that wealthy corrupted cities throughout history just seem to get destroyed and abandoned? Or is there the possibility that God curses and judges certain cities over their sins? In today’s secular mentality, a loss of reasoning mind frame, to suggest that God would destroy a place for their sins implies you are hateful bigot! But is God cruel to allow destruction? Or does He allow strategic destructions with a purpose to put the brakes on evil man’s global contamination of his horrendous sinful practices?

3. Today many people, except some of the Christian or Jewish faith, live in ignorance of what brings on God’s blessings or cursings on places! People would like to believe that God is only a god of the forces of nature and not a God of morals interfering and punishing men’s sins. If you try to discuss God’s repeating patterns of blessings or judgements with the “so called” prestigious educated ones in the universities, the political correct, or the ultra-wealthy you soon discover that your Christian convictions and values will be mocked and shunned as ignorant and judgmental. You will be condemned as one of those bigoted hateful conservatives that society should hate and stone! But the people who ignore God’s active hand in the world are the real ignorant fools being rejecters of

God’s historical record; sadly they have no possible way to understand or interpret blessings and punishments intelligently!

Consider these verses, Romans 1: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. (Read the whole chapter)

One thing that Satan cannot hide is the geographical and historical evidence recording cataclysmic events. One of the first arguments of the uneducated is that the Bible is just a collection of fairy tales and fables, but geographical evidence around the world backs up the Bible.  Sea shells are on most every mountains, proving that there was a flood that covered the earth and other evidence proves none of the Holy Scripture records are myths. I am going to take you on a journey to give examples of how certain places fell out of God’s favor and were destroyed. When one can find a dozen examples, then no longer can one with any intelligence claim that the Bible is fallacious, that it is just coincidence, and that God is not involved in rewarding the righteous and stopping the wicked. Ezekiel 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?   

4. From the beginning in Genesis there is the record of the tower of Babel how men in their pride to become as “gods” were dispersed experiencing language confusion and a reduced mental function. That language and mental confusion continues on until today! Sodom and Gomorrah were warned but the people after many warnings did not repent (Genesis 18) and only Lot and his family escaped the total destruction.  Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities have been unearthed and skeletal evidence shows the people died instantly by a disaster, possibly a volcano, a meteorite, or a nuclear event. Glassy rock can be found in the sands proving extreme heat (fire from the sky) which likens a nuclear event. It rained fire from heaven, do you recall?

Exodus 1:8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

Egypt prospered under Joseph but when a pharaoh arose that ‘knew not Joseph’ their worship became as covered in Romans 1 with the worship of creatures and God’s blessings departed. They were condemned by God until finally Moses left with all the Israelites and the Egyptian empire fell drown in the river and it has ever since been conquered over and over by neighboring nations. Egypt in the Bible represents “the world” or the worship of false gods in the world.

When we get further along in the Bible we observe how the Israelites won battle after battle wiping out pagan tribes that practiced human sacrifice (of children too) and other perversions. However, King Saul lost a battle and a city that cost him his life due to a disobedience. We deduct that God does take the side of the ones who are righteous helping them to win, but if the righteous fail to remain obedient and pure, then the wicked prevail by default.

5. The verses of today concern the city of Tyre of the Phoenicians that was prosperous for several centuries. It was a city on an island where world trading took place and no one was able to conquer it due to its height out of the water and fortifications. It was a prosperous but wicked city. It was made an example of and this is why I chose it for today. (See verses of today Tyre=Tyrus)  

God’s prophets historically have been known to prophesy over certain future occurrences and this is one of the means through which God proves to be true and supernatural. In the prophecy above in Ezekiel 26 about the 6^th century B.C. God exposes the destruction that will happen to the city. There are some main points that the walls and towers will fall, that it will be scraped flat and the rubble will be used as a bridge for the fisherman to cast their nets from. Did this happen? Yes it did a few centuries later! It happened in part with an attack from Babylon but later it was fulfilled totally with the Greeks. If you want every detail you may read about it at this website     http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=1790

The ultimate fulfilment occurred centuries later when Alexander the Great arrived and he took rock from the shoreline with his dozens of thousands of men to build a land bridge right up to the island of Tyre. With ships no one ever could conquer the island before as no army could breach the walls but the land bridge idea worked and they seized the city with siege towers. When in the city he decided to destroy it completely and cast the towers and walls out to sea as well. The original island remains abandoned and even still today the land bridge is used for what? For fishing and from there nets are cast out! It was also prophesied in that chapter that it would never be inhabited ever again and it has not been. When too many fulfilled coincidences coincide no intelligent person can deny that it is supernatural prophecy fulfilled by God! Remember Ezekiel, like other prophets never saw the fulfillment of these things in their lifetime yet they believed them to be true. Another thing, the Greeks and their false gods did not please God either, half of the great city of Alexandria is found submerged in the Mediterranean Sea!

6. Why is it that most all the wealthy cities throughout time that get corrupted with cruelty, slavery, thievery, prostitution, perversions, greed, arrogance, violence and idol worship all seem to have their destruction in common? If we were to review the ancient world we would conclude that many cities in Europe, North and South America, Africa, and everywhere where centers of wealth and power were, there later suddenly came destructions by unexpected events. The entire country of Israel is an archeological museum where hundreds of cities lay empty as the Canaanites were horrible. Volcanos, earthquakes, famines, pestilences and plagues, wars, and even meteorites play a role in controlling man’s spread of oppression, suffering, sin, and filth. God is in control, and it is obviously not coincidence that dozens of times over these places just happen to be destroyed.

Think of the famous examples of wicked cities destroyed such as Pompeii, Italy; The abandoned Aztec and Inca cities such as Machu Pichu, Carthage that Rome destroyed, Constantinople, and on and on. Could it be God is slowing down the entire corruption of man permitting these judgments? In cultures past the effect of witnessing a destruction or a fallen city for the people of the world meant that they would fear God and repent and get their lives right! More than ever today people must get back to that healthy respect for God!

Here is a strange coincidence to think about, man has always been careless and foolish to build again where danger fault zones exist such as in San Francisco. Today people know about the “ring of fire”, yet prideful ones do not heed warnings. What did Jesus say? Matthew 7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.:

7. Man has always been setting his own self up for destruction by his own foolish choices with the confidence that it would never happen to him. Another city famous for being “the wickedest city on earth” is where all the loot of the pirates resided at Port Royal, Jamaica. An earthquake sunk the city on June 7^th, 1692. More sunken ships are around there than any other place on earth! It never regained its glory. It was a city built on the sand, or an earthquake fault, and God hears the cries of the oppressed to free them.

What a physical coincidence that man builds castles on the sand, so can dark spiritual forces present in a certain place invoke upon it an early end as in these places?

Certain geographical places have been cursed in the Bible. Jesus even cursed cities where they rejected Him and His message. Luke 10:13 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. All of these cities do not exist today, only buried or sunken ruins!

8. God’s history repeats to us this message of warning: your house is built on the sand! This implies the wrong foundation, morally, religiously, financially, geopraphically, and politically. The world’s places are divided by evil replacing the good, yet the evil falls! Six major world empires have fallen, the next one, the seventh, being a united new world order will fall as well. When we read Revelation we get the warning that a massive earthquake will tople towers and level many great cities in the world. I think the ones most wicked, as the ones on fault lines. Will they get hit the hardest? Even Jerusalem (refered to as the great city in ancient days) will be divided into 3 parts.

Revelation 16:19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

We are living on borrowed time! When you read what the major religions predict, what the scientists warn, and observe what the governements are doing, it all points to the fact that everyone believes a major destruction is headed our way. People are nervous like how we see the animals get spooked just before and earthquake.

9. Is it possible that you or I are living in a wicked city that will see judgement one day? God only knows! Well, actually God does warn us when danger is near. Amos 3:7 Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

We all need to be ready to face God at any moment! Never think you will get a last minute chance to repent when panic is everywhere. The perverse pompous citizens of Pompeii were covered in ash almost instantly! Maybe not all of them were guilty, but God sorts that out when their souls arrive to Him. The sad reality is that even if God warns people for years and years of impending doom, as in Noah’s case, people still do not repent. God may warn us only a few hours or minutes notice as in the case with hurricanes and tornados, yet those who turn to him will be saved but yet they are almost always few in number.

Matthew 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:  The destruction of the God hating rebellious, destructive, sinful, divisive, evil people will inevidently reoccur as history proves it does. But if you are God’s child, you can be assured you will go to heaven! Have you truelly accepted Jesus? All human bodies, yours included, will pass away so are you sure you are doing God’s will warning the world of it’s sin? History proves sinful people in sinful cities are punished with destruction. What a wake up call! Spread the warning! Jesus is the rock of salvation! He will guide and protect in our future.