Dearest hijas and hijo,
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wing, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD‘” (Luke 13:34-35).
Perhaps you are saddened, as I, by the news coming out of the Middle East that Israel has been brutally attacked by Hamas terrorists. The attack was not against military targets, but against civilians—babies beheaded; women raped, murdered, and dragged into the streets; old people shot up and taken hostage; young people gunned down while attending a music festival. The death toll as I write stands at 1000+. The whole world is watching the news and they are mortified by the utter brutality of these senseless and inhumane atrocities.
As Jesus approached Jerusalem in the last week of his earthly life (AD 30), knowing He was headed towards His crucifixion and the purpose for which He had come down from heaven to earth, He wept over the city and spoke prophetically about Jerusalem saying:
“If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:42-44).
This prophecy was literally fulfilled when Rome sacked Jerusalem in AD 70 (cf. Mark 13:1-2) and destroyed the city and burned their magnificent temple. Stone upon stone was torn down leaving nothing but rubble except a retaining wall on the Temple Mount (the Western Wall or “Wailing Wall”).
The city of Jerusalem and the Jewish people carry significant and ultimate eschatological plans in God’s economy. (Read Jesus’ own description of His return and the signs of the end in His Olivet Discourse, Matt. 24 & 25, Mark 13, Luke 21: 5-38, see also Luke 17: 22-37). He is not done with His chosen people Israel (Deut. 7:6-8) (see my post A Perspective on Suffering). He loves them; “a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.” He is not finished with His promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David. He is still calling out His elect from among the Jews.
That call is an invitation by Jesus to a complete surrender to His Lordship—a complete surrender of our will under His will, and a complete bowing of our mind in acknowledgment of Him as sovereign God. He is there. He exists. He is not silent. This invitation goes out to both Jews and Gentiles—to all peoples of the earth.
His will is only known through His self-attesting revelation to man in the Judeo-Christian scriptures—the Bible. It is a call to repent of our offenses against this Holy God and follow Him. We follow Him by being obedient to Him and His Word in Scripture. It’s that simple, but that necessary to avoid His wrath in judgment.
Remember, we are sinners against better knowledge. We know this God; know that we have an obligation to this God; know that our attitude of unbelief is a grave act of rebellion against this God; know that we fall miserably short in thought and deed throughout the entirety of our lives (see how many of the Ten Commandments you keep, Ex. 20: 1-17); yet sin against this God by not honoring Him as God, nor accepting the solution He has provided in Jesus.
So what is the significance of the current horror happening to Israel? It is this: Watch Jerusalem. Keep your eyes on Jerusalem. This city, above all cities on the face of the earth, is the focus of God’s final plans for the history of mankind. Read Zechariah 14 and Zechariah’s prophecy about the ‘day of the LORD’ and Jesus’ return to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem (Zech. 14:3-4).
Pray for Jerusalem. Pray for God’s plan to redeem a people for Himself to quickly come to pass for the Jews. Pray that as a nation they collectively repent and recognize Jesus of Nazareth as their rightful Messiah. Pray that they acknowledge Jesus’ ministry to them in AD 27-30 was “the time of their visitation.” Pray that “God will pour out on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication so that they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born” (Zech. 12:10). Pray that they quickly then come to say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.”
It is then, and only then, that Jesus will return: “Behold He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. So it is to be. Amen” (Revelation 1:7).
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8).
[Update 10/30/2023: As the Israeli ground invasion to root out the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered 1400 Israeli’s on Oct. 7th begins, and as world hate for Jews ramps up all over the globe, e.g., the anti-semitic mob who were hunting down Jews in a Russian airport; the anti-semitic protests all over this country on college campuses, etc., watch the northern front with Lebanon and Iran.
If Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon enters this fight in a more significant way than they already have, we could see a regional conflict swell into a major conflict with other world powers forced to take sides either ‘for’ Israel or ‘against’ Israel. Know that in everything we see and hear concerning this, God’s kingdom will come and His will be done (Matt. 6: 10)].
All my love,
Dad
Vaya con Dios!
Luv Notes To Daughters 