Why is Jerusalem the Most Sought After Piece of Real Estate in the World?

 

The city of Jerusalem belongs to God. It does not belong to the Palestinians, the U.N., the E.U or the United States and technically it doesn't even belong to Israel! God says that it is His city, He has set His name upon that city. When you listen to Rabbi's speak about how God spoke creation into existence, not only did the land form beneath His feet but also the Temple Mount. He takes the city of Jerusalem seriously and here in Revelation, we hear God comparing them to Sodom and Egypt. When God has issues with you, He brings them to your attention. Doesn't mean He doesn't love you any less, but He does have to address what is displeasing to Him that you are doing. Remember that God has already done this in the letters to the seven churches earlier in our studies. It is a way of bringing these things to focus and help us to get right with God again.

If you have ever visited the city of Jerusalem, as you are walking around the city, you can get a sense that this is not how God intended it to be. It's like that in almost any city you walk around in, yet the one big difference in Jerusalem compared to anywhere else is that God is not done with Jerusalem yet. He has eternal plans for Jerusalem! Like those amazing renovations shows, Jesus when He returns will be doing the ultimate restoration on this city and what a city it will be!

Revelation 11:8 ~ "Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified."

The great city is referring to Jerusalem because it was the city in which our Lord was crucified. But why is God calling it Sodom and Egypt? How does God use these two cities to compare His own city and people with those who have deep spiritual issues? We know that the city of Jerusalem belongs to God and it makes you wonder why so many people fight over this small little pieces of land and why it is so widely contested. The most sacred piece of real estate in the world today and most sought after is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It is what all the wars have been about going back as far historically as we can. It's a spiritual battle and a spiritual situation.

God refers to any city when it is not walking with Him, being obedient to Him, worshiping Him as it should be, God calls it as it is. So what does God do to a city that isn't doing what it should be doing? He brings judgment to the city. That is how God disciplines even though we don't want to hear about it. Even to the own Christian, when we walk in disobedience, God brings about chastisement. This does not mean your salvation is being called into question. Your salvation is fine, just like you don't disown one of your children when they make a mistake, the same is true for God. Discipline is necessary to get you back where you need to be. The Bible says, "Whom the Lord loves, He chastens!" The Bible also says that if you are not a child of God, He will not discipline you. As a parent, you don't discipline someone else's child when they are misbehaving, each parent takes care of their own child because they have a vested interest in their child's well being. So does God. Just because you think you're getting away with stuff doesn't mean God doesn't care. You might just want to be sure you are truly a child of God's.

From the beginning of time, God has chosen the land of Israel, the city of Jerusalem and the Jews to be His people. Nothing that the world does will change that. As Christians, God has placed His seal upon us as His chosen children as well. Just because discipline comes doesn't mean God has rejected you. So when we look at the first of the two cities that God compares Jerusalem to in looking at Sodom, we need to remember what they were known for. God judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their rebelliousness to God, and that they went after strange flesh. God has sanctioned special perimeters in regards to sexual activity. Only a male and a female in marriage! God only blesses the sexual activity between a married husband and wife ONLY! All other bets are not sanctioned or approved by God. In the Book of Hebrews, God says the marriage bed is undefiled. God is against fornication and adultery. Did you know from a scientific perspective that when a husband and wife come together as one in marriage that the exchange of bodily fluids help build each other's immunities up instead of tearing them down? God brings the biology of a husband and a wife together to strengthen them. 

If you step outside those perimeters and do things you aren't supposed to do, is it any wonder that you feel run down, get sick or fall victim to certain diseases? The Bible says if we sow to the flesh of the flesh and we will reap corruption. Have you seen how the pornographic industry is reeling from the impacts of aids and other sexually transmitted diseases? It's slowly killing them all off and then they wonder what is happening to them and why? God is saying that He is calling Jerusalem, spiritual Sodom, God is looking at spiritual diversity, paganism, or as God calls it harlotry. God calls it adultery in the spirit.

Jerusalem during this great time of Tribulation will be it a city of internationalism embracing all religions and all faiths, and most of the Jews you meet today in the city are atheistic Jews who do not believe in God while they walk in the Holy land. They refuse to believe in Scriptures, our God and simply chalk it up to being in our culture. The Bible says that God would bring Israel back into their own land in unbelief. If you go to Israel today, you will meet people who don't believe in God. We know that the Pope has even given credence that Jerusalem in the spiritual center of the world, that the top three leading religions or beliefs come together there. It will shift from Rome and Mecca and all combine in a homogenization of the religions in the city of Jerusalem, or a one world religion. Just type in one world religion and see what you come up with today. There is a great movement in the world today for us all to worship one God. They say that Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe in God and that they are all the same God. Yet let me ask these questions? If we worship the same God, then why aren't you Christians trying to build a temple to sacrifice animals for the removal of your sins? If we worship the same God, why aren't we going out and beheading our enemies? It's not that it isn't politically correct, it's that we do NOT worship the same God.

Jesus says, "You can't come to the Father, except through Him." The other thing is that the Bible says we know God's name. Adonai, is what God calls Himself. He introduces Himself as being our Father who art in Heaven. Yahweh or YHWH,  the LORD God, and He is approachable. We can pray to Him. The Bible says that there is one mediator between God and man and that is Jesus Christ. We can pray directly to the Father through Jesus Christ. You don't need to go through anyone to get prayer to God. We can pray for you, but so can you. You can pray to God yourself. We can't talk to God for you, God expects you to talk to Him yourself. That's gotta set you free no matter where you are in the world. How liberating is that!

You don't have to get a little lamb and sacrifice it to God while talking to Him while the blood runs out. You don't have to go out and perpetrate all kinds of evil against humanity to earn God's favor, and to enter some sort of paradise. The Bible says, you bow your knee or open your heart to pray to the Lord in Jesus Name. Anyone and everyone can do that. God says however that Jerusalem is a spiritual Sodom. It will become a place of paganism and spiritual adultery and fornication. God also says that Jerusalem is compared to a spiritual Egypt. We have to consider what is Egypt famous for regarding the children of Israel? Bondage, slavery. Did you know that when Israel was in the bondage and slavery of Egypt, they were completely ignorant? That is why the way Pharaoh dealt with Moses is so unique. He was saved by Pharaoh's daughter and raised up in his house, being schooled in their ways and would have been given the best the world had to offer.

In the Book of Hebrews, it says that when Moses saw his people, he put away everything he had access to at his fingertips for a moment, so he could be associated with the inflections of God's people. Moses left Egypt. Then the people of Israel through Moses also left Egypt. God led them out and they became a great nation. Egypt in Scripture, is also a reference to the world. When the Bible refers to Egypt you can also use it as a reference to the world and its system. Worldliness, flesh and the like.

Matthew 23:37-38 ~ "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets ad stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate."

It was left desolate, referring to the house which represents the Temple, because of paganism and not recognizing Him.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ~ "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

God does want to be number one on a list of ten. He wants to be number one on a list of one. Idolaters are those that put anything before God. ANYTHING. Things can be idols and the things we most identify with. What we spend our money and time on. As you read this list, repent of them as you read them. Remember we don't have to do the actual act, but simply looking at another man or woman is guilty of adultery. Simply tell God you have sinned against Him and ask for His forgiveness. The Bible says if we confess our sins, God will forgive us from all unrighteousness. God doesn't make people idolaters, adulterers, fornicators, thieves or homosexuals. These are all sins of choice. The rest of the list continues with sins of choice as well. We are wanting things others want and we are willing to do whatever it takes to get there. Even paying taxes. While we may not like how our government spends our money, the Bible says we have to do what He has commanded. They will have to give an account to how they spent that money. We need to keep on doing it until God changed it now matter how much we might not like doing it.

Even though God knows all of this, He is not surprised. He is hurt and it pains Him to see how much His own creation rejects Him, those are human emotions and He wants us to know He understands it all. God announces in all the Book of the Prophets, Amos, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Isaiah and promises that He will gather together His people from all the corners of the world because they have been scattered, and He will bring them back to their own land in unbelief. They are very made at God because they want to know where He was through the Holocaust. How can you be angry at someone you don't believe exists? The Jews won't believe in God again until Ezekiel 38, where God rescues them from an impending war that is being lead by Israel's enemies from the furthest points north!

What Are You Investing In?

Welcome back to our ongoing study into the Book of Revelation, after a long break and I pray that today you find comfort and encouragement in this study as a believer of Jesus Christ, for the sole purpose that what we are reading is not what the believer will face but those in a Christ-rejecting world during the 7-year Tribulation Period when the believers have been raptured from the earth and are now in heaven as this judgment of God begins to unfold upon the earth.

Daniel 9 is considered the holy of holies in reference to Bible prophecy and most people don't understand it because they find it confusing but it shouldn't be. You can't possibly understand the Book of Revelation without understanding Daniel 9 or any Bible prophecy for that matter concerning End Times events. I will begin by translating the language into what it says in plain English if I can as it is referred to in your Bible as weeks, but I will translate it for you in years.

Daniel 9:24 ~ Seventy 'sevens' (490 years) are decreed for your people (the Jews) and your holy city (Jerusalem) (483 years have passed, 7 years remain in reference to the Book of Revelation) to finish transgression (the life of Christ, Jesus came to save us), to put an end to sin (the death of Christ), to atone for wickedness (the resurrection of Christ), to bring in every lasting righteousness (the offering of Christ), to seal up vision and prophecy (waiting for this to happen) and to anoint the most holy. (eternity future) "

This dovetails into exactly what we have been studying up to this point when the mystery of God would be finished. We are now approaching the end of the Book of Revelation, and the latter portion of the last 3 1/2 years of the 7-year Tribulation Period. In this chapter, time wise, we are not far from the rule and reign of Christ, in a chronological form we see in the Book of Revelation, from this chapter on to the end of the Book, it will cover a very brief period of time.

So what is the great mystery of God that we are waiting to be finished, the great rule and reign of Jesus Christ in the Millennium, when He comes back during the Second Coming. Jesus does not come to rule and reign via the Rapture. A lot of people confuse the Rapture and the Second Coming. They are diametrically opposed to one another. One is an appearance, the other is a physical coming. The one has no warnings while the other has over 300 warnings. One is to the believer only and apparently the world has no knowledge of it. The other one states that all the world will mourn and weep at His coming. The other one presupposes no prophetic fulfillment to predate it or to introduce it while the Second Coming has tremendous amounts of things that predate it. Isn't it interesting that the church looks to the coming of Christ? Those in the Tribulation Period however, dread and look forward to the coming of the Antichrist.

We are instructed as a church to be alive and to live for Christ. To be alert for His imminent return. The Tribulation Saints are told that they must die for their faith. One will be at least 7 years away from the other event.

Genesis 6:3 ~ "Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

We live in a time zone. Don't forget that. God is saying that there will come a day when His dealing with us is done. Our time will cease. This was signified in Noah's day by the closing of the door. The Bible says, that after Noah entered the ark, God closed the door. Time expired.

Revelation 11:15 ~ "The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever."

Daniel 7:21 ~ "As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom."

Time will expire and the mystery of God will be fulfilled. You may be an atheist, an agnostic, an evolutionist, or in a cult of some sort and you need to understand that time is ticking, you can look around at this world and see what is happening, things are getting worse. As a believer we can look forward to a day when we will be with Christ. We've read the Book, we know what's coming. Remember Paul the apostle, when Jesus showed him a glimpse of heaven, he couldn't even speak about it. It was simply beyond what he could put into words. Yet you can go to any bookstore and find all kinds of books of what heaven will be like. Paul saw it and he said it is so awesome, I can't begin to explain it. Is that your assurance today? Do you have that hope today? You can, and it's a comforting thing. It is where I am going.

You shouldn't believe in a church or a specific pastor, or even a group of people. Some people might argue that they need a person in leadership that dresses up in a robe and a hat, not that I am putting anyone down because I am not, but they feel they need this resemblance in order to strengthen their faith. What? We don't want to encourage people to fall into a weakened state of their faith to be in awe of some person's robe or attire. It causes us to put forth an image that would cause someone to lean towards some earthly thing that can't do anything for you. This is very important! We want to make sure that our faith is securely founded upon Him. When God takes a break, when He pauses in His act of grace, He gives His mandate to mankind.

Revelation 10:8-11 ~ "Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more: "Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land." So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, "Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey." I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. Then I was told, "You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings."

The Lord is giving His love and His righteousness, His righteous love. Throughout the Book of Revelation, John has been asked to speak it, write it, tell it to others what he has seen. Remember that John is an old man who had been left on the island of Patmos to die. God had another plan. He will be rescued and he will be taken to Ephesus. He will be the only apostle to die of natural causes by the way. He may have been an old man, but he still preached. Was he not the author of the gospel of John in the Bible? Did he not write 1, 2 and 3rd John? Did he not write the Book of Revelation? Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Bible without error! John is an author of several books of the Bible.

What you and I do as Christians, apparently will last forever! So when people ask you how your investments are doing, you can honestly answer them, they are quite effective! Make an investment today by telling people about Jesus! What we do to help further the kingdom of God will make eternal investments in the furthering of the gospel of Jesus to the world.

What is happening here is that the angel is telling John to know it, take it in, digest it, understand it. For you will experience that my Word is pleasant and wonderful to taste, because I love, save, forgive and redeem. But John the more you eat of my Word and know it more, you will see that when it is rejected and ignored, it brings terrible judgment and horrific destruction to mankind. It will make you so glad and joyous, because of My grace and mercy, and at times you will be filled with such sadness over evil and because of man's rebellion.

As a Christian, I can see where the world is going and I know what is coming. As a Christian, I am glad about a lot of things, heaven and my assurance that I will be going there when I die or when I am raptured. I am sad about the evil in the world today and how far people are going in their rebellion against God.

As a mother, I am glad that my daughters know the Lord and will be going to heaven. I am commanded to bring them up in the ways of the Lord as I am instructed, but sad to know that world they are living in and will be will only get worse in the days and years ahead.

I am glad that God is working things out by the readers who stop by here and encouraged in their faith, to pick up where they have stopped and have come back to Him after a time of being away and are growing again. I am sad when I see others I know that have lost their faith in Him because of circumstances that they feel He has fallen short of investing in their own marriages, spouses and children. They are spending tremendous efforts of time and money to buy things they want in life. They have divorced themselves from their families. Their children don't know the Lord. This is sad and an indictment on us.

What shall it profit you to gain the whole world but lose your soul?

It breaks my heart to see people giving up on God. They give up on God and His will in their life, in pursuit of more money. It's a house of cards, it's all going to come down. Talk to someone who is dying and your alignment will line up real quick. If God has blessed you, turn it around and crank it up for God. He will never be indebted to you. There are rich people, who die rich and are super rich in heaven because they have invested in God's kingdom! There are poor people, who die poor and are poor in heaven because they have invested little in God's kingdom. This doesn't have anything to do with how much you have, it has everything to do with what you do with what you have! A poor person could invest what they do have time, effort, it could be a dollar, but it is spent wisely and they are rich in heaven.

It could be a rich believer invests very little with God and it winds up that they are very very poor in heaven. It's all about making eternal investments in heaven. The greatest investment is the one in God's economy that has eternal dividends that have blessings right now. What are you investing in? God's not impressed by the millionaires status, but by the offering that comes from our heart instead.