No Nations in Heaven

 

 

No nations in heaven

Not a single one,

God ushered in the heavenly Jerusalem

And the old was gone.

 

He didn’t start with a nation

But with one man

To whom he gave a woman

For redemption’s plan.

 

The first Adam failed

With his eyes opened wide,

That he knew what God required

Cannot be denied.

 

 

Judgement came later

In the form of a great flood,

Noah preached for 120 years

But nobody budged.

 

Eight people were saved

To repopulate the world:

Noah, his wife and six others

According to the Word.

 

Next it was Abraham

Called from among his clan

And who was instructed by God

To journey to a land.

 

Followed by Isaac

And Jacob renamed Israel

Out of whom came the twelve tribes

God’s chosen people.

 

 

In faithful Abraham

All nations are blessed

Becoming one people in Christ

Thus, entering God’s rest.

 

No nation at the start

And no nation in the end

But a people out of many nations

Christ calls his friends.

 

To all that received him

They are children of God:

A people not limited to ethnic Israel

But scattered abroad.

 

 

 

Made up of every nation,

Every kindred and tongue

Having heard the everlasting gospel

To YAHWEH now belong.

 

A people, not a nation,

Do not be mistaken!

All of ethnic Israel will not be saved;

Only those that are forgiven.

 

Now no wall of partition,

No longer Gentile and Jew,

All are one people in Christ Jesus

No chosen nation in view.

 

 

No nations in heaven

Only the people of God,

And with these God tabernacles

Though scattered abroad.

 

1 John 3:2

 

Beloved,

Now are we the sons of God,

And it doth not yet appear

What we shall be:

 

But we know that,

When he shall appear,

We shall be like him;

For we shall see him as he is.

 

The New Jerusalem

Prepared as Christ’s bride,

Coming from God out of heaven

With us to forever abide.

 

Stewart Russell ©June 13, 2025

 

Consider This

 

 

 Consider this if you will

Not all Jews are Jews,

This sounds particularly contradictory

Now listen for the news.

 

For they are not all Israel

Which are of Israel

How should we take this:

Physical, natural or spiritual?

 

The truth of the matter is

All three are involved,

If we look carefully at the transition

This matter can be resolved.

 

Jesus once said to the Jews

You are of your father, the devil

And if he were not who he was

It would have been to his peril.

 

The Jews had challenged him

Regarding their father, Abraham

But Jesus seemed to be saying

You do not know the plan.

 

Being natural has no rights

To that which belongs to the spiritual,

From the old covenant to the new

The spiritual regulates the natural.

 

This will probably be hard

For any naturalized Israelite Jew,

He sees himself as the chosen

And he must have his due.

 

His due to a promised land

As a son of Abraham,

How dare Jesus come and change

What was the original plan!

 

We see a little bit at a time,

That is but a tiny dot

But all too often it swells in our eyes

And our dot becomes the lot.

 

 

A single piece of the puzzle

Becomes the whole puzzle

And such was the case with the Jews

As it related to Israel.

 

God has a glorious plan

It proceeds from the natural to the spiritual,

From Eden’s creation to a new creation

From the old Israel to the new Israel.

 

No longer the middle wall of partition

No longer the gentile and the Jew,

Where once these were separate

They are now one not two.

 

Only one way to the kingdom

That is through Jesus Christ the Lord,

Only one way to salvation

That is by believing on his word.

 

Consider this, I urge one and all

It is not a replacement theology,

It is the working out of God’s glorious plan

Upon which hangs our destiny.

 

Stewart Russell © November 2019

 

The Enclave

 

 

I know of an enclave

Unlike any other,

It was provided for me

By my Heavenly Father.

 

It is in this world

But not a part thereof,

It’s really the New Jerusalem

Coming down from above.

 

The Apostle saw it

On the Isle of Patmos,

In a vision most clear

When he saw Jesus.

 

It replaced the old one

Covenanted to the Jews,

This one includes you and me

As the Father did choose.

 

Unless there was an old

They can’t be a new

I am speaking of Jerusalem

I trust you catch the view.

 

The old Jerusalem

Has come to an end,

Now there is the New Jerusalem

That the Father did send.

 

 

It is finished, said Jesus,

The old covenant went out,

And with it, the old enclave

It is the new we are about.

 

We don’t have to run in

If we are already inside

For already in Christ,

The believer resides.

 

There is no mix within

As there are in the world,

There is just one in Christ

As shown in the Word.

 

No Jew and Gentile

No black and/or White,

But those indwelt by the Spirit

Having come to the Light.

 

In there we find refuge

During the storms of life

And there, we have the solution,

Re the problem of world-strife.

 

It is God’s kingdom

That is present on the earth

And the entry qualification

Is the new birth.

 

It is the light in the world

And also, the salt,

And if you are not a resident

Then, that is your fault.

 

But that can be corrected

Just respond to the call

That says, “Come into the enclave.

Why do you yet stall?”

 

If your name is whosoever

There is room for you,

And it doesn’t really matter

If you are Gentile or Jew.

 

Come in today

Do no longer delay,

Just heed what the Spirit says

And He’ll show you the way.

 

Stewart Russell © June 2020