/That's incredible to hear that you couldn't even take your bibles with you on the temple mount. President Trump said he is going to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but this week on Tuesday they seemed to down play or side step those plans in a Q&A the press sec. had when asked. My guess is it will happen once we have pieces in place to protect the infrastructure against domestic attacks from what the intelligence community calls sleeper cells here in America. Did you have a sense that things could get volatile real quick there if certain conditions were present? And what is the over all view of Christianity, is it mainly just a way for them to make money from us or what? Do you see or hear of persecution there?/
Nope, everyone moving through Islamic security had to lay thier Bibles aside if they had one and come back afterward and pick them up. The saying was no religious literature at all on the Holy Site yet I didn't see any Korans laid aside.
/My guess is it will happen once we have pieces in place to protect the infrastructure against domestic attacks from what the intelligence community calls sleeper cells here in America./
That's likely in my opinion. I remember also that Zechariah wrote that Jerusalem is to increasingly become a cup of reeling and a heavy stone to the nations before the end of the age (Zechariah 12:1-3). Muslim over reach and over reaction may still yet work in Israel's favor if even for a while. The U.N. passed 23 resolutions last year and 20 of them were against Israel.
/Did you have a sense that things could get volatile real quick there if certain conditions were present?/
I didn't feel any real danger while there but at the same time I may be a bit naieve. Just because I didn't feel it does not mean it was or is not there. We stood on a spot on the Mount of Olives looking down on Jerusalem and a few weeks after we left Israel a Palestinian rammed a truck into a grouip of soldiers and killed four soldiers. The scene of this incident was probably within 50 yards of where we stood on the Mount of Olives looking down. The heretofore peaceful Palestinian said he was concerned and annoyed that the Jews were planning to tinker with and move on the Dome of the Rock shrine. No one iota of which is true. The driving forces in Islam are superstition, poverty and violence. So if I didn't sense any danger does not mean it wasn't lurking. A armed tour guide used his weapon on this Palestinian to stop him. My my! Not very far from this spot I haver described is Golgotha and the Garden Tomb.
The Dome of the Rock is not a mosque. It is a shrine where Muhammad supposedly sat upon a celestial horse and was taken to heaven and shown many things. So this sixth century myth perpetrated by Islam is today a source of unneeded friction. It's all a myth!
The overall spot with the highest tension while we were there was in Hebron where Abraham and Ruth and others are buried under a Muslim building. That place was tense and is the site of a 1929 massacre of Jews by rampaging Arabs fueled in part by rumors that the Jews wrere going to attempt to take over the temple mount and the Dome of the Rock. On this day in 1929, armed British soldiers stood by and did nothing. There is a plaque in a museum in Hebron that is a apology from the British government for standing idle that day. It reads,
"We recognise that officers of the British administration neglected their duty to protect the citizens of Hebron during the Arab uprising in 1929. "Father, forgive us, we pray."
At the tomb of Abraham, there were Islamic plain clothesmen with rifles, Jordanian soldiers with weapons, Israeli soldiers with rifles and weapons and Christian tour guides with pistols (some, not all) were mingling together. Hebron is where Abraham first enetered the Promised Land and Hebron was eventually bequeathed to Caleb for his steadfast faith that whatever the Lord said we can conquer then we can surely do so! Meanwhile, the father of the Christian faith is lying under Muslim edifices.
I remember at one point in old Jerusalem I asked a Jordanian keeper of a gate if the water fountains close by were open for drinking. I didn;t hear his answer altogether clearly but I'm pretty sure he said we could drink if we were not a Jew.
/And what is the over all view of Christianity, is it mainly just a way for them to make money from us or what?/
The Christin church and faith has long been the most friendly toward modern Isarel and they are aware of that. I wouldn't say they necessarily are cuddling up just to get money from us. One still has to employ a bit of discretion though regarding who to witness to and where to do this? We met several Jewish believers in Christ and several non Jewish believers living there who bel;ieve Christ is the Messiah. There is a living, growing and dedcitated body of Christ in the land which I can only pray will increase. They are just normal p[eople with the same struggles we all have. One of the the main impressions I got was that this present return of the Jewish people to this land is not a happensatnce of history fueled ONLY by Jewish tenacity and secular Zionism. The consequences of what God has done bringing about Israel's existence is palpable when there. The nations of the world need to be warned to lay off and a mocking Christian church that sees Israel's present unbelief ONLY and has no spiritual regard for Isarel and this present return is in my opinion storing up a bit of discipline and chastisement against is own self. If I speak for myself I still speak.
/Do you see or hear of persecution there?/
Yes. While we staying with Jewish believers in the Negev Desert regiona couple drop[ped in for a visit. The lady was a member of a Christian work and outreach in Jersualem near the Damascus Gate. The church had been located in a building for 10 years and the Muslim person who owned 3% of the property had began to work against the church and try and get them evicted. Right before Thanksgiving, vandals enetered the building and jack hammered the walls and floors and knocked down many things and set a destructive fire. The building was essentially ruined as to any further use.
Christian Zionsim, the belief that one days the Jews would return, has been trashed and ridiculed to a large degree by many in the church and has been counter productive. Many see it as a recent invention that came along beginning with Darby around the 1830s. Nothing could be further from the truth! It actually began much earlier and had a very large surge in the 1600s and after that. 1948 was jsut the culmination of a centuries long effort. Zionism can be defended politically, morally, spiritually and theologically. It's no shame to believe in what has happened and to believe it is going to have a large bearing on the future and the end of the age. Herzyl, Blackstone and Balfour and the numerous others involved in this against all odds modern return were not just deceived men who got caught up with carnal Jewish aspirations and "superceded" OT notions. Are we to say God has been non involved and just standing passively by? The Mount of Olives I stood on and looked down upon Jerusalem, the site where Christ is prophesied and therefore certain to return to, didn't seem as an allegory to me. It was very very real.
While in the Negev Desert region we travelled about a hour one night and visited with a Palestinain Bedouin family. None of this family was saved but we had the most wonderful time with them. They knew we were Christians. They were very glad we were there and bent over backward to seve us and it was a time of real fun and joy. Loud laughter abounded. So this situation confronting the world has many layers and is very nuanced. Palestinians are not all devils by any means nor has Isarel done everything correctly at all times. Yet the bottom line reality is that Israel is there and exists.
We need to pray diligently for the Christians in Israel while we pray for the veil to continue to be removed from Jewish eyes. If their blindness be for the reconciliation of the world, what will their seeing again be but life from the dead? Amen!
