Jerusalem

       They sit alongside the highway that runs from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They have been there since1948.  They are badly rusted now – in a state of stabilized decay.  But in 1948 they were part of a convoy of supply laden armored trucks that the Jews were attempting to move to Jerusalem.  The convoy was attacked by Arab irregulars from the surrounding towns and villages.  Many trucks were destroyed and many Israeli’s killed. 

       Eventually the road was opened and Jerusalem – or at least the western part of the city – stayed in Jewish hands.  The eastern part, including the biblical Old City inside the walls was under Arab control.  The Jews who lived there were expelled. The city was divided.  It stayed divided until the Six Day War in June, 1967.

       I was in Colorado when it happened.  I was working the summer after my freshman year at college at the Y camp in Estes Park.  But I wasn’t cut off from the news.  My Mom wouldn’t let me be uninformed. She phoned me in great excitement to announce, “It’s happened! The Jews have retaken Jerusalem.”

       Mom always knew it would happen. For her the only question was when. My Mom was what is known as a Christian Zionist – Christians who support Israel because they believe that modern Israel is a direct fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Christian Zionists are a huge source of support for Israel especially in the United States.   Our president George Bush is a Christian Zionist.  That has helped shape his policies in the Middle East. 

       This sermon on Jerusalem is relevant to anyone who cares about what is going on in the world today because the road to peace in the Middle East today runs right through Jerusalem. It is also relevant for anyone who cares about what God has prophesied about what is coming – and what He still intends for the Jewish people.  It is relevant for anyone who cares whether of not the Bible is true and for those who care that God keeps His promises.

        The fuse of Jerusalem in human history was lit by David about 1,000 B.C.  1967 was hardly the first time Jerusalem was attacked and captured. 

        After the death of Saul and Saul’s son Ishbaal, the elders of Israel come to David at Hebron and offer to make him their king.  He accepts. He immediately turns his eyes to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a piece of unfinished business from the conquest of the land under Joshua – a foreign enclave right in the midst of Israel.  And if David can capture Jerusalem with his private army it will not belong to any tribe. It will be the city of David – a neutral capital between Judah and the north. 

         So David and his men march to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites who live there. The Jebusites are confident that their city is invulnerable.  They say to David, "You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off."  But David doesn’t try to scale the walls. Instead he sends his men up through the shaft that connects the stronghold with fresh water.  The fortress of Zion becomes David’s home and the political and religious capital of the nation.

       But Jerusalem continued to attract foreign armies.  The Assyrians tried to take Jerusalem and failed.  The Babylonians tried and succeeded.  Then came the Persians, the Greeks, the Syrians, the Jews again, the Romans, the Jews again, the Romans again, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Arabs again, the Turks, the British, the Jordanians and finally the Jews again.  That’s a long history of conquest for a city whose very name stands for peace. 

       David conquered Jerusalem about 1,000 B.C.  It’s still being fought over in 2008.  That’s a 3,000 year history of conflict.

       So with all those conquests, who owns Jerusalem?

       It belongs to God.

       In 2 Chronicles and several of the psalms, God declares that Jerusalem is the place He has put His name on.  With all the places God could have chosen as His special place – New York, Rome, Moscow, Paris, Salt Lake, Mecca or Moorpark, God has chosen Jerusalem.  He says, “Jerusalem is the place I have put my name.” 

       Jerusalem is the place of prophetic fulfillment.  It is a place or renewal.  It is a place of sacrifice.  Jesus Himself, as he headed for His crucifixion, said that it is not fitting for a prophet to die outside of Jerusalem.  Jerusalem is also the place of resurrection. 

        That is why I love the answer an Anglican bishop gave to a man he met on a train who asked, “Are you saved?”  When the bishop said that he was saved the man persisted.  “Where and when were you saved?”  The bishop answered, “I was saved on a Friday afternoon in 28 A.D. on a hill outside Jerusalem.”

       That’s when and where he was saved.   That’s when and where we were saved.  Jerusalem is the place God chose and chose to work out our salvation.  Jesus made it clear that it couldn’t happen anywhere else.

       Now many people are shocked by claims that God might choose one place out of all the earth as His special place.  They say that the God, who created the whole earth, let alone the cosmos, is too big and too inclusive to have put his name on one place on one city.  They suggest that any statements in the Bible about God putting his name on Jerusalem are just propaganda -- words put into the mouth of God by those who were devoted to the religious worship in Jerusalem and the Davidic kingship in Jerusalem. They are equally shocked by the idea that God might have actually chosen one people, the Jews, for a special role in His plan of salvation.

       But the Bible is clear that this is exactly what God has done.  And those who deny it have thrown away God’s revelation of Himself for a God of their own imagination. 

       God gets to define Himself and His will.  And Jesus, God made flesh, made it very clear that the Jews have a special place.  He said to the Samarian woman at the well that “salvation is from the Jews.” Paul writes in Romans 1 that the gospel is meant first for the Jews and then to the Gentiles. As God made flesh Jesus wept over the City of Jerusalem as He wept over no other spot. He said, “How often I wanted to gather you to me as a hen gathers her young.”  Jesus said in His teaching on the ends times in Matthew 24 that Jerusalem would be destroyed as it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.  He said that Jerusalem would then be “trod down by the Gentiles” until the time of the Gentiles came to and end and Jerusalem returned to the Jews.

        Despite this clarity, in 2004 the Presbyterian General Assembly denounced Christian Zionism as a legitimate theological stance.  I was at the Assembly when the decision was made and served as a team member with Presbyterians for Renewal with the Assembly Committee on Peacemaking and International Issues.  I’ve become very familiar with this debate.  Since 1967, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church has joined other churches including the Roman Catholic Church in calling for the internationalization of Jerusalem under the United Nations. 

        Now I have to agree that that sounds smart. The idea is that Jerusalem can be a neutral holy city for Christians, Muslim and Jews and anyone else who wants to stake a claim.  It makes sense.  It would be fair.  It would remove Jerusalem as a flash point for conflict – the one great unsolvable issue in the Middle-east.  In a papal bull on the Year 2000 Jubilee, John Paul II again rejected Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. In mid-February 2000, the Vatican signed an agreement with the PLO calling for "international guarantees" to keep Jerusalem under international control

        But Jerusalem doesn’t belong to the Presbyterian Church or the Vatican.  It’s not ours to dispose of according to our own enlightened ideas.  Because while we are good at sense as a denomination, we are not so good at believing what God’s word clearly says.  I may be out of step with the official position of the church on this but I believe I am in tune with the Word of God. 

        Jerusalem belongs to God. It is the place where He has put His name.  And the Bible clearly says that God wants Jerusalem in the hands of the Jews at this point in history.  There is no other way, humanly speaking, to explain the continued distinctiveness of the Jewish people during almost 2,000 years without a national home.  There is no other way to account for the restoration of a nation after almost 1,900 years of exile.  That hasn’t happened anywhere else. 

      And the thing is, it was promised before it happened.  The prophet Isaiah wrote what would happen about 2,500 years ago in Isaiah 11:11-12:  “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.  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.”

        The first regathering was after the Babylonian Captivity.   The second regathering is the one that began as the 19th century drew to a close with the efforts of Theodor Herzl and others, and finally climaxed with the restoration of Israel in 1948. 

       Now you might be surprised that God would actually work in the events of history – in the actions of modern politicians and soldiers. But as Gandalf said to Frodo at the end of The Hobbit, “Don’t disbelieve the prophecies just because you have had a hand in bringing them about yourself.”  God has always worked real, gritty history. If there’s one thing we have learned from our look at the life of David is that God does His work with real imperfect people in real imperfect history.

        The Middle East isn’t a mortality play enacted for our benefit. It’s real people facing real suffering.  We certainly don’t need to agree with and support everything modern Israel does. I don’t.  Old Testament Israel was also a fulfillment of prophecy and Old Testament Israel was regularly rebuked and judged for her sins.  Modern Israel has done some unrighteous actions.   Those who are close to the Palestinian people, including missionaries from the Presbyterian Church, see the tragic results.  One of the issues I have with some of the Christian Zionist leaders like John Hagee is they don’t seem to care about the Israeli’s and Palestinians as people but only as actors in their end time drama – to the extent that they are calling on Israel and the U.S. to launch a preemptive strike on Iran as a step toward Armageddon. 

        At the same time, we still need to deal honestly with God’s word.  Real history is dirty history.  It includes soldiers in the streets, rocket attacks on peaceful towns, the suffering of innocents. 

      It’s also real people coming to real faith.  That’s the second part of the prophecy.  The Jew Paul tells us in Romans 11 that there will come the time when the Jewish people as a whole will turn in faith in Jesus as the Messiah of Israel. He says that Israel's blindness will be removed and the nation will recognize the truth it had rejected so long, long ago.  Paul says that God will persist with Israel because God always keeps His promises.  “The calling and the promises of God are irrevocable.” Despite what some claim, God has not completely replaced Israel with the church.

       It’s not just Paul  The prophet Zechariah also clearly confirms this coming to faith by the Jewish people when he writes in Zechariah 12:10 these words:  “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”

       Many Jews don’t like this aspect of the prophecy – even if they like the restoration of the nation.  They say it feels like they are targeted.  But if they are, they are targeted by God so they are targeted in love. 

       God promised two things about Israel.  He promised that He would re-gather His chosen people to their land. He's kept that promise.  And God will also keep his promise that Israel's spiritual eyes are to be re-opened. Always remember that the nation of Israel is still chosen.    Not every single Jew will be saved just because they are Jewish.  Paul makes that clear in Romans 9.  But Israel will be saved as it recognizes its Messiah and “mourn over the one they have pierced.” The future of Israel and the future of the church is one future in Jesus Christ.  

       What will it take to achieve peace in the Middle East?  I don’t want to be negative toward those who are seeking to accomplish good things – including those in the Presbyterian Church.  But as I read scripture, I don’t believe that it will happen.  Scripture clearly points toward a plan of God that will lead toward the end times and the final judgment.  Jerusalem will be a part of that.  

       I’m not saying that that is soon.  I’m not ready to write a book about how the Iranian nuclear program is the first step toward Armageddon.   I’m simply saying that it will happen, and when it happens, Jerusalem will be the trigger.   If you want to explore this further, please come to my adult class on prophecy and the Book of Revelation that will begin in January.

       How do I know Jerusalem will be the trigger?  God says it. 

       As I preach this sermon leaders over the entire world are wondering what is going to happen to Jerusalem.  About 2,500 years ago, Zechariah 12:2-3 recorded God's predictions regarding this troubled city:  “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be torn in pieces, though all the people of the earth are gathered together against it.”

        On the face of it, this prophecy would seem an absurd prediction for our modern day!  Here is a city with no natural resources, no oil, no harbor, no river - no reason to have any strategic significance.  It no longer controls any trade routes or has any apparent reason for geopolitical strategic relevance.  Jerusalem is really unimportant. 

        It wouldn't seem that important culturally.  Only some of the Jewish people regard it as significant.  Even if all Jews were concerned, it still would not represent a focus for "all the people of the earth to be gathered together against it."

       The Muslims controlled it for a thousand years and they let it crumble into rubble - until they discovered it was significant to Christians and Jews; then, it became critical to Islam. They made up a legend that the “far place” mentioned in the Koran where Mohammed ascended to heaven on his horse was the Temple Mount of Jerusalem.  There’s nothing in the Koran to support that.  The claim was made years after the Koran was written.  But when it comes to Jerusalem things don’t have to make sense.

        Christians regard Jerusalem for historical and Biblical reasons.  I plan to lead a group there in 2009 – but not if it’s dangerous. Jerusalem is fascinating but not to die for.

        Jerusalem’s not that important.  And yet the status of Jerusalem is indisputably, year after year, one of the top news stories in the world. That fact reflects the fulfillment of multiple prophecies concerning this remarkable city and its unique place in God’s will. The ongoing actualization of these prophecies in our day is absolute proof that God exists, that the Bible is His Word and that the Jews still have a place in His plan.

       When David sent his men up the water shaft to capture Jerusalem, he lit a fuse that has burned in history and will continue to burn until the very end. The Bible predicted some 2500 years ago that the city of Jerusalem would be a 'cup of trembling,' an 'awkward boulder,' a 'fiery torch amidst the nations. Though the name Jerusalem means 'foundation of peace,'   it is currently a city of bloodshed and war. Only when the Messiah returns will it live up to its name. So when we 'pray for the peace of Jerusalem' (Psalm 22:6), we are, in effect, praying for the Messiah's return.  That will be when we will walk in the new Jerusalem. There won’t be a new of heavenly New York, Paris, London, Mecca, Las Vegas, Peking, or Moscow.  But there will be a new Jerusalem.  It is where God has put His name.  And it is where God will finally meet us. 

       That is the beautiful promise of Revelation 21 and 22.  John writes: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with people, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away -- No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve him. They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”

       If the Lord comes back before next Sunday I’ll see you in Jerusalem.