"The People Whose God Is Jehovah"- A RENEGADE PEOPLE

Sadly, Israel did not prove faithful to their God, Jehovah.  They allowed themselves to be influenced  by nations that worshipped gods of wood and stone.  In the eighty century B.C.E., the prophet Hosea wrote:  "Israel is a degenerate vine . . .He multiplies his altars . . . Their heart is hypocritical, now they will be found guilty." (Hosea 10:1, 2) About a century and a half later, Jeremiah recorded these words of Jehovah to His unfaithful people: "I planted you as a choice vine, all of it pure seed; so how have you turned into the degenerate shoots of a foreign vine before me? . . . Where are your gods that you made for yourself?  Let them rise up if they can save you in your time of calamity . . . My own people forgotten me."- JEREMIAH 2:21, 28, 32.

Instead of producing fine fruitage by practicing pure worship and acting as Jehovah's faithful witnesses, Israel produced rotten fruitage of idolatry.  Thus, Jesus  told hypocritical Jewish leaders of his day: "The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits." (Matthew 21:43) Only those in the "new covenant," foretold by Jehovah through his prophet Jeremiah, could be part of that new nation, spiritual Israel.  Of the spiritual Israelites who would be brought into that new covenant, Jehovah had prophesied: "I will become their God, and they will become my people." - JEREMIAH 31:31-33.

After fleshly Israel proved unfaithful, Jehovah made spiritual Israel his people in the first century, as already noted.  But who are  his people on earth today? How  can honest-hearted ones identify God's true worshippers? 

Next time: Questions From Readers/How Are Elders and Ministerial Servants Appointed in Each Congregation?

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