Gateway Church's Podcast
Battle for Jerusalem
A Gateway Sermon
Well, bless the Lord. Glad to be with all of you here tonight. In fact, let me just do a quick survey. Alright, if you are here tonight and only if you are here, would you raise your hand? Alright, almost 30 minutes. Sunday morning, sometimes it's a little lower percentage of those that are here that are actually here. Alright, good. If you're here and you raised your hand, God has a message for you. Do you believe that? Alright, wonderful. Let's pray and open the word together. Father, we rejoice in Your goodness to us and our hearts are open to know You and to understand Your purposes for our lives and for this generation. I pray, God, that You give us insight and understanding that a deposit would be made into Your people tonight that would have an eternal effect for Your honor and glory. Speak to us, Lord, for Your servants are listening. In Jesus' name. Amen. Turn with me to Zechariah, the 12th chapter. I intended to speak on this in the earlier service and want in a different direction. Don't know which direction will go tomorrow morning. So if you're comparing notes with friends, you may have five different messages to select from by the time the weekend is out. Zechariah, 12, the battle for Jerusalem, you might say, "I didn't come here to hear about Jerusalem tonight. I didn't come here to hear about Israel tonight. I came here because I had a personal lead." Well, if you will open your heart to God, God will speak something to you of definite importance not just for your life but for the world. Would you rather have something that has relevance to your life only or would you rather have something that has relevance to the entire world? Listen, this is not arrogance because it has nothing to do with me or the message but it has to do with God and His purposes. What I'm speaking about tonight is important for every human being on the planet because it has to do with God's eternal purposes. And I'm also bringing this message not because I am Jewish. I'm bringing it despite the fact that I'm Jewish. I do not spend most of my time going from church to church teaching about Jewish things which is fine if someone's called to do that. My main message is to stir the hearts of God's people and repentance and revival and things of Jesus' revolution and stirring of a generation and spiritual hunger and things like that. But from time to time God specifically lays it on my heart especially with congregations that have a heart for this to deepen their understanding because this is critical. There is a battle over Jerusalem. There is a battle, a world battle over the Jewish people. This is in the center of world controversy for a major spiritual reason. To him who has ears to hear here with the Spirit is saying through his word. Zechariah 12 verse 1, this is the word of the Lord concerning Israel, the Lord who stretches out the heavens who lays the foundation of the earth and who forms the Spirit of man within the declares, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Let me just point out this has not yet happened. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. Now look at this, on that day when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations all who try to move it will injure themselves. Now let's skip down to verse 10 or verse 9. On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attacked Jerusalem. There will be a worldwide attack of the nations of the earth against Jerusalem. Why? And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me the one they have pierced and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. There will be a massive turning of Jewish hearts and repentance and embracing Jesus Yeshua as the Messiah. As all of this comes to a grand climax. Verse 11 and 12 and 13 and 14 talk about the death of the weeping and the death of repentance. Chapter 13 verse 1 on that day as a result of the repenting and the broken heart on that day a fount will be open to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and impurity. And then Matthew chapter 23, the words of Jesus. This is shortly before his betrayal and crucifixion. He says in verse 37 of Matthew 23, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stole most sent you, how often I have long to gather your children together as a hand gathers your chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Many of you have heard those words in Hebrew, Baruch Haba, Bisham al-Danai, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Why all this controversy over Jerusalem? You realize that out of all cities on the face of the earth, no city, right now as we speak and live, no city in the world has more controversy surrounding it than Jerusalem. You realize that of all the cities in the world, there is more media attention on Jerusalem in terms of what they should and shouldn't do what's right and wrong, and more people wanted to divide this city up than any other city in the entire world. Why Jerusalem? And why is it that Scripture singles this city out long in advance? I remember being in Kenya in 1989 and hearing an evangelist preach and he wanted people to recognize that the Bible and not the Quran was the true word of God and he was showing how the Bible accurately predicted things to come and he went to the very verse in Zechariah that all nations will come against Jerusalem and he said, "Look, the Bible actually speaks about the world's animosity towards Jerusalem. How did it know that? Out of all the cities in Scripture, there's only one where it's recorded and Jesus wept over that city. He may have wept over many, but it's only recorded over one. Luke 19, he wept over Jerusalem. Out of all the cities in the world, we are only commanded to pray for one. Psalm 122 tells us to pray and ask for the peace of Jerusalem. And Isaiah 62, the prophet is told to put watchmen on the walls who will give God no rest, keep asking him, keep reminding him, keep speaking to him until he establishes Jerusalem as the praise of the entire earth. Why Jerusalem? I want you to consider something for a moment because what is happening in front of our eyes is spiritual. We are living in days that are unprecedented. I'm not setting dates and times we don't know when Jesus is coming back, but we know that many scriptures that did not have a specific relevance before are speaking right to us today, speaking right into our situation. Any nation in the world, they say this is our capital city and all of the other nations recognize the capital city. Washington DC, that's where all the nations have their embassy. They don't have their embassy in Dallas. They don't have their embassy in Tulsa. They don't have their embassy in New York. They have it in DC. Why? Because that's the capital. Every city selected by every nation around the entire earth is recognized by every other nation with one exception, Jerusalem. Almost no nations in the earth have moved their embassies to Jerusalem. And even though Congress passed a bill saying that our embassy should be in Jerusalem, it still hasn't happened. Why this one city? I was on a plane with an unsaved Jewish lawyer. I was flying from Pensacola to Atlanta. And I found out, by the way, if you live in Pensacola and you are a Christian, you go to heaven by way of Atlanta. I spent more time in the Atlanta airport. I mean, every flight was in and out of Atlanta. So I fly from Pensacola to Atlanta. I sit next to a guy. I don't say a word to him. He doesn't say a word to me. I took out my computer. I was at work. Sometimes I'll take it out and have Hebrew on their different languages just to see if the person next to me is going to talk, try to engage them in something, get their interest. Not a word. In fact, he napped the whole flight. I get on the next flight and he's sitting next to me again. Going to New York. That got my attention. It got my attention more when I found out he sat in the wrong seat by accident. And five different people, literally. I'll switch. Okay, you switch. Five different people had a switch seats for him to sit there. I knew God put him there. We started talking. He knew all about the revival in Pensacola. He knew about the church's love for the Jewish people and all that. But he didn't want to talk about Jesus. Didn't want to talk about the gospel. Nothing. Until he brought up to me. Why Jerusalem? Why is there such world hatred? Why does everybody care about our city? Why is it such a big issue? Why did Jews? Why are we hated by people around the world? And I was able to take out the word of God and read to him scriptures and tell him stuff that I'm going to tell you in a moment that in a million years I never could have spoken to him about. Why this battle? And why all the attention on Israel? Do you understand that worldwide today, anti-Semitism, hatred of the Jewish people and violent acts against the Jewish people are at the highest that they've been except for right before the Holocaust? They're at the same level now that they were at right before the Holocaust? You know in countries like Belgium, there's a massive rise of anti-Semitism. I just got this news item a couple days ago thought it would be relevant to share with you. Here in England, the award was given to the every year they have an annual prize for the best cartoon, news cartoon of the year. You know what won the prize this year? It's a grotesque picture of the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sheron naked. His private parts covered by a votely coup, that's his political party badge, chairing the head off of Palestinian child with his teeth while a Palestinian city burns behind him. This was awarded the cartoon of the year in England. And he also expressed his thanks to the Israeli Embassy in London for being so angry about it. He said that helped me win the award. You know you can go to campus there, to campus in America and if you stand up for Israel, you get smashed down. You know at Harvard University, there is a move among professors and students to make them give away money that's been giving to them from Israel. Harvard University, why all the controversy? And then if you go back through history, it becomes an amazing thing. You ever hear of the Black Plague in Europe? In the Middle Ages, two thirds of the population died in some parts of the country, a third in much of the world. You know who got blamed for the Black Plague and poisoning the wells? It was the Jews. Do you know that in Japan today, there are best-selling books blaming economic problems in Japan on the Jews? You can go from one religion to another. Go from Islam. What do you find? Intense hatred of the Jew. Go to an atheistic idea like communism. What do you find? Intense hatred for the Jew. Go read some white supremacist literature and you know what you find? Hatred for the Jew. And then go and read some black supremacist literature. And what do you find? Hatred for the Jew. How in the world do these different groups agree and how is it that this Jew hatred has gone on for 2,500 years? When you get a chance, take a look at the Book of Esther. When you get a chance, read an Ezra and Nehemiah and find out the Jews and Jerusalem are getting blamed for everything, 2,500 years ago. Why? Why is it that this Jew hatred even crept its way into the church? You think if there is any group that should love the Jewish people and any group that should feel a solidarity with the Jewish people and any group that should pray for the Jewish people with Jews, it would be the church because after all, Jesus, Yeshua is Jewish and his mother's real name was Miriam and he's Jewish and the apostles are Jewish and almost every writer in the New Testament is Jewish and this is a Jewish message that went to the whole world. Surely the church would be filled with love for Israel. Tragically, and I want you to understand this, if you talk to a religious Jew or a Jew who knows his history, when he thinks of Jesus, he doesn't think of the love of God. When he thinks of Jesus, he doesn't think of his saving power. When he thinks of Jesus, he doesn't think of the beauty of the Sermon of the Mount, he thinks of bloodshed and hatred against the Jewish people. One of the greatest preachers in the 1500 years ago, John Chrysostom, he'd be known as a Billy Graham of his day, one of the best known speakers, powerful revival preacher. He preached seven famous sermons against the Jews in which he said the synagogue is worse than a house of prostitution and the souls of the Jewish people are worse than that. He said I hate the synagogue and I hate the Jews. God hates the Jews. One of the greatest preachers of his day, the church developed the theology that to the extent you can help the Jewish people suffer, you are helping the purposes of God because God has cursed them and scattered them forever. There's even a myth called the Myth of the Wandering Jew that there was a Jewish man that cursed Jesus on his way to his crucifixion and Jesus in turn cursed him and said you will never die. You will wander all over the earth. He said what a silly myth. Do you understand that this wandering Jew has been spotted around the world for 2,000 years now? That there are whole books written about him that people actually believe he exists and has gone from place to place to place. He said how can anyone believe? Do you know that when the Catholic church decided that the elements of the communion were actually the body and blood of Jesus? That some of the church leaders realized wait a second, wait a second. These Jews can get back to Jesus again because that wafer is actually the body of Christ. Do you know that the whole Jewish communities were burned to death 800 years ago for allegedly torturing a wafer? You said that's insane. I understand it's insane. Why the insane hatred? There is a story that circulated widely that every spring at the time of Passover, Easter in the church and Passover in the synagogue, that the Jewish rabbis would take a Christian leader or child, a Christian child and kill him and drink some of their blood and drain out the rest. And then the blood would be used for the making of matzah, unleavened bread that you eat at Passover time. I don't know if you're aware of this but this is widely believed by Palestinians today. I actually just saw an ad for television showing the rabbis killing one of these kids and now they're using the blood for their ritual purposes. How can this be? And if I speak of Palestinians or Muslims, I speak of them with my heart going out to them to see God's promises and mercy come to them as well. It's not to say Israel is right. Everyone else is wrong. It's to say that there is clearly a satanic conspiracy against Israel and the Jewish people. The question is why? You know, in the Middle Ages 800, 900, 1000 years ago, there was a time when the Muslims ruled over the Holy Land. Some of the Christians in Europe were very upset over that. They said there are unbelievers who are ruling the Holy Land and we need to go and rescue it out of their hands. And as they began to march through Europe, they said, "Wait a second. We have somebody far worse than the Muslims. We have the killers of Christ. We have the assassins of the Messiah in our own backyard and they begin to turn on the Jewish people and offer them baptism or death." In fact, it was one of the models of the Crusades, "Kill a Jew and save your soul." He said, "Well, I never read about that in history." One Catholic scholar said the pages of history that Jews have memorized, "We have torn out of our books." Speaking as a Christian. When the Crusaders reached Jerusalem in July of 1099, there was Jewish and Muslim resistance that was put down. Jews were herded together in the great synagogue in Jerusalem. The Crusaders with giant crosses on their uniforms. They herded the Jews together in the great synagogue of Jerusalem and burned them to death alive as they marched around the synagogue singing Christ we adore thee. That's what a lot of Jews think of. I've witnessed to them. Peter can tell you about them. Religious backgrounds. That's the history they know. As they were little kids growing up, that's what they were taught about Jesus. How can this be? You say, "Well, brother, most of us here in our Catholics were Protestants. We have different perspectives." How about Martin Luther? A man miter used by God to restore key truths to the church. It was books he wrote that God used as the final blow in the conversion of John and Charles Wesley. This guy was used by God, courageous hero. In 1523, he wrote a little book that Jesus Christ was born to Jew. He was so upset at the way the Catholic Church had treated the Jews and he spoke against them. He said, "Look, we're just the younger brothers and sisters. They're the older brothers and sisters. Jesus was born a Jew and maybe if we act kindly towards these Jews, they'll come and be saved." Twenty years later, when they did not come and get saved, Luther was old and sick. When people gave him writings of the rabbis that were against Jesus, he was outraged. He wrote his famous little track concerning the Jews in their lives. It's still a favorite. You can still find it in neo-Nazi catalogues today. And what did he do? He gave seven directives to the princes of Germany how to deal with the Jews, beginning with their synagogues and houses of worship should be set on fire. Their rabbis forbidden to teach under penalty of death. And it goes on from their scattering and humiliating and degrading them. Whatever it takes, get rid of them. Many of the contemporaries of Luther did not accept those writings and they remembered his earlier kind writings, but a few centuries later, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rediscovered the writings of Martin Luther. Do you know that he has been called a John the Baptist of Adolf Hitler, the man who helped prepare the way for the Holocaust? Do you know the historian's date, the beginning of the Holocaust to what is called Kristalmach, the night of broken glass when the synagogues in Germany were set on fire and the places of business destroyed in the beginning of the murder of separation against the Jews. You know, that was launched on the birthday of Martin Luther in his honor. You say, how in the world could it possibly be? I've done outreaches at Yale University and Columbia University. Outreaches to reach Jewish people with the gospel, the most recent one we did was in April. One of the young men that had a lot of questions came two straight nights just showed up at a service, a Hispanic Pentecostal church in Brooklyn, New York where I was preaching. This guy walks in with two young ladies from our school in New York City and I thought I've seen him before. Who is he? This is a Holy Ghost meeting. You know what I'm saying? We're kind of charting. I'm not lecturing like I would on a college campus. I'm preaching. Who comes in? I see these two young ladies from the school. I see this guy thought it's a brother of one of them. I thought, no, it's not a brother. Then I thought he sat in on one of the classes. I said, no. I said, is he one of our graduates? I don't even remember his face. I said, no. I said, that's the unsaved Jewish guy from Columbia University. Come into a black Hispanic Holy Ghost Pentecostal service in Brooklyn where I'm not lecturing on preaching, maybe even spitting. I hope I wasn't spitting, but they come in halfway through the meeting and they go, what in the world is he doing here? In the end of the service, I call people up who are just desperate and hungry for a breakthrough. He couldn't live any longer without a breakthrough from God and everybody comes swarming up to the altar. I see this guy there, unsaved secular guy with his eyes closed. He's kind of going like this with his hands. I thought he's trying to connect with God what's going on. Afterwards, I spoke with him and he actually felt God come down on him. He's not tingled. He felt God come down on him in the meeting. I said, can I pray for you that he will make himself known to us, but when he does, you're going to have to follow him. He said, that's exactly what I'm praying when I went to lay my hands and he grabbed my arms. Why was he even there in the meeting? When I went to Columbia, I talked about antisemitism and I go through the history of it, in detail. I talk about how you can find it from Islam to communism and from Japan to Iran and from the Catholic Church to the Protestant Church. How can you explain it in the media today? My ultimate answer is, it's because God has chosen the Jewish people for salvation, that God has chosen to bring salvation to the world through the Jewish people, and because God has chosen to bring Jesus into the world through the Jewish people for the salvation of the ends of the earth, and I go on, I'll come back to that point in a minute, and then after I give my thesis, and here's my fundamental thesis at Yale and Columbia, that the devil is behind antisemitism. Oh, they love that there. That's my ultimate argument. The thing that I'll feel questions, God's given me grace not to get clustered. You know, I love being on the hot seat, whether it's some secular TV guy or some rabbi just getting challenged in the attack. God's given me grace just to reply graciously, not to get all worked up. So I feel questions from every imaginable perspective, including the guy, man, probably my age, well-educated, who suggested perhaps that there was just some explanation that we had not yet learned, because we had not yet advanced scientifically enough, and his ultimate point was perhaps it's aliens, not the devil. We can't believe in the devil. He said, this guy is an atheist. He's an atheist, but he suggested perhaps aliens are behind him. So I just very politely said the reason I wouldn't believe in that. And by the way, I went to the Rayleighan website when these guys had never heard of them, you know, claimed that they had cloned a human being and so on. So like others, I was just curious to see who they were. And you know, I read on their website and attack on Israel, even the Rayleighans ran into me. So I said to this guy, my problem with believing that is that the Bible itself has laid out what's going to happen in advance. And this Bible tells me about God. And when I cried out to that God, he's made himself real to me. So that's my problem with believing that it's aliens. I mean, that's how far they're stretched because nobody can come up with an answer. Well, it's economic. That's why the Jews are hated because the Jews have all the money. Well, first, that's an anti-Semitic lie to start. And secondly, Jews were hated when they had no money. And we go through, you know, one after another after another after another after another, and there's no answer except it's the devil. He said, devil hates the Jews. And they hate that because it's a supernatural answer. In fact, for fans of the ex-files in Columbia, I call it the paranormal nature of anti-Semitism. It's paranormal. And then I explain what I meant by it. You see, God's given a promise in Jeremiah 31. You can jot the reference down beginning in verse 35. He's given a promise that as long as heaven and earth endure it, there will be a Jewish people. No matter what sins we have committed, there will still be Jewish people. If the devil can wipe out the Jews, he makes God into a liar. If the devil can destroy the Jewish people so they no longer exist and my people are wiped out, then God is alive. Think of when some NFL quarterback gets up and guarantees his team is going to win. Think of the pressure that's on that guy. Or at the beginning of a year, he says, I guarantee our team's going to the Super Bowl or something like that. Think of the pressure that they live on. Picture being God and declaring 2,500 years ago that as long as heaven and earth endure, there will be a Jewish people here on the earth no matter what sins they commit. He will preserve them and teach them. He will discipline them, but he will preserve them and teach them. Think of all the hell that's going to come against them to try to wipe them out and God won't let it happen. God won't let it happen. There's another reason that the devil hates the Jewish people. I want you to hear me clearly. According to Romans the 11th chapter, I believe Peter will get into this on Friday night. Romans 11, beginning in verse 11. In fact, we'll just turn there briefly. Romans 11. Listen to what Paul says there. Romans the 11th chapter, beginning in verse 11. Again I asked, did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all. Rather because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. God has saved you because he loves you and he saved you to make Jewish people jealous. You should have enough of God, enough of a walk with God, of a quality of being a forgiven, liberated, changed people that it should make a Jewish person jealous. That's how much God wants to give his people. But if their transgression, if Jewish transgression means riches for the world and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring? Verse 15, "For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?" Can you give me another word for life from the dead? Resurrection. Do you understand what Paul is saying here? Not just spiritually that the Jewish people being saved will be life from the dead, but it will literally bring about resurrection. And when does resurrection take place for the righteous when Jesus the Messiah returns? Isn't it written in Matthew 24, 14 that this gospel has to go as a witness to all nations before the end comes? Therefore we must preach the gospel to all people because God loves those people and he will not let his son return until those people have heard the gospel? Well, not only must all nations here, but the Jewish people must turn. It's not only have a burden for Jews. If you want to see Jesus come back and if resurrection from the dead sounds like a good idea, you should have a burden for the Jewish people. Remember what we read from Matthew 23, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you stole the prophet's kiddo senti, that whole passage, what does he say? You will not see me again until you say baruch hababa shen habana, lest it is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And it says in Revelation 1, 7 that when he comes, every eye will see him. So hear me. If Jerusalem won't see him until it welcomes him, nobody will see him until Jerusalem welcomes him. It's like, guys, we're praying for you. We want to see you open your hearts so you can be saved and receive forgiveness. And I want to point something out. It is a Jewish Jerusalem that must welcome him back. If you wonder why the whole world cares about who owns Jerusalem, it's because a Jewish Jerusalem has to welcome the Messiah back. And when the Messiah returns and establishes his kingdom on the earth, it's resurrection, it's life for the dead, for the dead. And it's over for the devil. So if you're the devil, you do not want Jesus to come back. Don't say amen because you don't have to devil. But you understand, right? If you and I were the devil, we would not want Jesus to come back. And if you were the devil, you would understand that the last key, the last piece of the puzzle for the return of the Messiah is his own people, his own family welcoming him back to Jerusalem. So you will do everything in your power to kill, destroy, decimate those people, to alienate the church for those people, to speak lies about those people, to get hatred instead of love for those people, and to keep their hearts hard against the gospel. Because when the Jewish people in the end open their hearts to God, it's over. That's why it is critically important that as God's people living today, you open your heart and say, God, would you give me a heart for the salvation of the Jewish people? Not because of anything special about us. We may be lovable, we may be unlovable, we may be nice, we may not be nice. If you think you have a burden for the Jewish people, go live in Brooklyn for a year and check it out. This is not some sentimental thing. This is about Jesus. There are plenty of people who deserve love as much as the Jews and more than the Jews. It's because of the purposes of God. Let me just close with this illustration. Forgive the stereotypes, but I'm in Texas, so I'll use a Texas evangelist and a little Jewish guy from New York. Is that all right? It's heaven. Everybody is enjoying the blessings of God. This Texas evangelist has still got his cowboy hat. He still got his cowboy hat. He comes up with this Jewish guy, he still has glasses, little guy with glasses. Forgive the stereotypes. No, I haven't mentioned my name, Brother Colorado. I preached to more than 1 million people face to face. In fact, 50,000 people got saved through my ministry. In fact, in one meeting, three people got out of wheelchair. What are you doing, son? I haven't really done much. I'm involved in Jewish ministry. I lived in Israel at the end. I helped Jewish people come and receive Jesus. As a result, he returned and millions of people got out of their graves. That's what we're talking about. Life from the dead. Forgive my poor southern accent. I'm not a Texan. You get the point. This is a critical issue. Not everyone here is called to have a special ministry to reach in Jewish people. But everyone here, just like you call to have a heart for the lost, just like you call to have a heart for missions, just like you call to have a heart for purity and holiness, we're all called to have a heart for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is only the prayers of the church, the loving prayers of the church that are going to bring about the radical change. I appeal to you as a Jewish brother to a people who already have a heart for Israel this day before you leave. If there's prayer time at the end, ask God, give me a heart for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Break my heart with the things that break your heart. No people are so near and yet so far. When we pray with a broken heart for the salvation of the Jewish people, the smile