Why We Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May those who love you be secure.
May there be peace within your walls
and security within your citadels.”
For the sake of my family and friends,
I will say, “Peace be within you.”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your prosperity. (Psalm 122:6-9)

What is going on in Israel is hard to fathom. Civilians murdered. Women and children taken hostage. Babies slaughtered.

It is hatred. It is brutality. It is evil.

It is demonic.

Satan hates the nation of Israel.

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. (Revelation 12:1-4)

The woman in Revelation 12 is not Mary. It is Israel.

Israel is the nation that gave birth to the Messiah (Micah 5:2).

Israel is at the heart of God’s redemptive story (Romans 11:1-32).

Israel is the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8).

And the dragon (Satan), the serpent of old, hates them.

When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. (Revelation 12:13)

Satan has always sought the destruction of Israel. There is a reason that Israel has been hated throughout human history. There is a reason that the Babylonians sought to destroy them, that the Seleucids defiled and massacred them, that the Romans subjugated them and tried to wipe Jerusalem off the map, that nations around the world have persecuted them, that the Germans dehumanized them and tried to annihilate them.

There is a reason that the Jews are hated today…by the nations around them…by anti-Semites around the world…by deceived students on American college campuses.

Yet the nation of Israel still stands.

A testimony of God’s faithfulness.

A testament to fulfilled prophecy.

A timetable for Christ’ return.

Frederick the Great (1712-86), the King of Prussia, once asked his physician, “Can you name me a single proof of the existence of God?”

His physician replied, “Your majesty, the Jews.”

Mark Twain (1835-1910) once commented, in amazement and wonder:

The Egyptian, Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away. The Greek and Roman followed, made a vast noise and they are gone. Other peoples have sprung up, and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out and they sit in twilight now or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal, but the Jew. All other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

British historian, Martin Gilbert (1936-2015), noted:

As my research into Jewish history progressed, I was surprised, depressed, and to some extent overwhelmed by the perpetual and irrational violence which pursued the Jews in every country and to almost every corner of the globe. If, therefore, persecution, expulsion, torture, humiliation, and mass murder haunt these pages, it is because they also haunt the Jewish story.

The nation of Israel was destroyed and scattered around the world in AD 70.

The nation was dead. The language was dead. The hope of any kind of national regathering seemed impossible.

Yet, in 1948, the miraculous happened.

The nation of Israel was reborn.

The language of Hebrew was relearned.

The hope of a people was restored.

If you need proof of God, look to Israel.

Israel today, slightly bigger than New Jersey, surrounded by nations that want to drive them into the sea, is still the centerpiece of history.

Does that mean that everything that the nation of Israel does is absolutely right?

Absolutely not.

Just read the Bible and you will see that God has not always been pleased with His people, the Jews.

But God still loves them…and He has not cast them aside.

One day a national revival will come to Israel.

One day they will turn to their Messiah, Jesus, the One whom they have pierced.

And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.” (Romans 11:26-27)

So we pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Their peace is our peace.

We pray for God’s protection of His people.

We pray for their repentance and faith.

We pray for the people around them…that they would not believe the lies of the evil one, that they would see the truth of God’s Word, that they would know the grace of God’s Son.

And we pray with believers throughout the ages.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)

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One Response to Why We Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

  1. C.J.Goux says:

    you have explain it all perfectly

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