REMEMBER JERUSALEM

ISRAEL IS CURSED OF GOD; JERUSALEM FORGOTTEN AND OF NO ACCOUNT!
I first heard Christians saying such things in 1994 when I was briefly in England. The argument was that Israel had broken the everlasting Covenant and thus was doomed. Jerusalem also was doomed, and not to be desired in any way. I found such pronouncements more than strange - they just did not ring true in my inner spirit, and because of that I went back to the Word of God - and found them to be a total misrepresentation of the TRUTH.

THIS WEEK we (Esther, myself, and all our Homes Staff) were reading together at our early morning fellowship prayer time, Psalm 122.

PRAY for the peace of Jerusalem;

they shall prosper who love thee. v6

It is said that King David wrote this song of degrees, and thus we may assume that the Temple had not yet been built! It may well have been in his mind, for he had gathered material to build it for years before he confided in Solomon his son, who built it after David's death. Yet Jerusalem was already special. David had gone on to say in v.7-8 that we should pray for 'peace within the city walls, and within its great houses.' He exhorts us to pray, for his brethren and companions sakes - to pray for peace in Jerusalem - and for the house of the Lord - in order to bring good to the people - the people of Israel. Here is a King who loves his people, and who loves the City of God - a city that will house the THRONES (plural) of the House of David. A City out of which will go world justice and judgement perhaps, and where all the people of all the nations of earth will go to give Thanks to God. Amazing description! Wonderful description! Should we then just turn our back upon its importance? Discard its significance, to even despise it, and with it the Nation of Israel.

If any should in fact do this, then I feel that person is miss led and is asking for God's wrath to be upon him - 'Christian' or not!

SATAN knows all about Jerusalem. He has always known God had an eye upon it and in it. He knew it was to be a 'power' point in God's plan for Earth and its people. He knew It was where God would sit and rule. Geographically it could be said that it is cited at the very centre of the the world's enjoined land mass. Satan did not hate Jerusalem but he coveted it for himself. In Isaiah 14v13 we read (of Satan) -

You have said in your heart,

I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;

I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation,

in the sides of the north.....'

Satan saw ahead to the building of Jerusalem and even the Temple, and he KNEW where it would be - on the slopes of the northern hills of Jerusalem - a little lower and to the south of Zion, on Mount Moriah, (just where the Dome of the Rock - the Mosque of Omar - stands). He lusted to sit there as GOD himself, and to exalt himself over the very People of God. He has thirsted, hungered and painstakingly planned to have it so.

JERUSALEM has been the focal point of trouble down through history, and it's people with it have suffered war and persecution, becoming the despised of the earth. What is it about that City and its people that brings such animosity and bitterness. Some have said it is because the Jews crucified Christ there! But the trouble, the dislike, the ridicule began long before that.

But the City STILL exists, and remains restored (at the midst of this generation in 1966) as the Capital City of a restored Nation of Israel. WHY - if God has cast them off and forsaken Jerusalem because He was rejected in Christ? Of course it is true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, IS a Jealous God; He can get very Angry! But He is also Righteous and Merciful, full of Longsuffering and Forgiveness!

King Solomon built the first stone Temple for God to meet His people in. Nebuchadnezzar warred against Israel and destroyed it. Long years later Herod the Great built another Temple, though not so beautiful as the first, and the Romans levelled it to the ground, enslaving and scattering the people across the known world, leaving their land to the other tribes that lived in the area. 600 years later the Muslims built their Temple on Temple Mount, preventing any Jew to have any right to that site - BUT in 1948 the Jews, the modern nation of Israel, raised a flag there and declared themselves once again as ISRAEL, and Jerusalem their City. The City of there God. And of course it should also be the Christian's City also, for it is written that all those who proclaim Jesus as God and as their Messiah have been grafted into Abraham, and have become as his family, sharing in all God's Promises made to him.. Well well!

Isaiah 11v12

'And He shall set up an ensign for the nations,

and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel,

and gather together the dispersed of Judah

from the four corners of the earth.'

ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM ARE FOR SIGNS AND WONDERS. Keep your eye and your mind open and in no way discount the importance of either the People or the Place PRAY for the People and for Jerusalem, and do not be persuaded to do otherwise. The Word of God clearly tells us that those who pray for Israel and for Jerusalem WILL prosper. Take it or leave it - but know that if you leave the Word of God you will NOT in any way succeed.

Yes! The Jewish People are wonderfully conjoined to the Christian Believer as one family, and we need to pray for their Salvation and Blessing. In our time they are again being abused and persecuted, and anti-semitism is gaining ground all over the earth. Perhaps we also, as their brethren will share in some of this. Growing antagonism grows against the Nation of Israel, and we must be ready to hear of serious war against Jerusalem - a war that may well drag in ALL the nations of the earth - and it may be soon. I will leave this commentary with some verses from the Amplified Bible's rendering of Zechariah 12 -

v.2 - BEHOLD, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup or bowl of reeling to all the peoples round about, and in the siege against Jerusalem will there also be a siege against and upon Judah.

v.3 - AND IN THAT DAY I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples; all who lift it or burden themselves with it shall be sorely wounded. And all the nations of the earth shall come and gather together against it.

v.8 - IN THAT DAY will the Lord guard and defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and he who is spiritually feeble and stumbles among them in that day of persecution shall become strong and noble like David; and the house of David shall maintain its supremacy like God, like the Angel of the Lord Who is before them.

v.9 - AND I SHALL MAKE IT MY AIM to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

v.10 - AND I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace or unmerited favour and supplication,. And they shall look earnestly upon Me, Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son...

JESUS is going to be IN Jerusalem during this Conflict, and all that have ever known Him past, and present, will appear there with Him. Then we shall see Jerusalem in a NEW way!!

UNDERSTAND clearly that a great testing and persecution IS coming upon Jerusalem and Israel, and that GOD will stand with them against all comers - and that He will WIN. Make sure you are not with the losers. Do not be in any way deceived in this. SO pray, pray as you never have prayed before, for Jerusalem, and the Jewish Nation, for this is the Will of God.

WE are well in His Grace and Mercy. We are glad to be ALIVE, and humbled to be in His Hands. Our hearts reach out to you all in prayer and love - that He may also do and be to you as He IS to us.

John and Esther