Jerusalem of Gold
Deep and Hidden Things: Jerusalem
Have you ever been told something from God but not realised exactly when it came to pass, until after all the pieces were in place? This can happen to me alot! Maybe I'm slow! Maybe I doubt myself and He has to show me many times! Maybe it's just so that when events happen I'm often calm, like I've felt it before. Here is a copy of an email I sent to some friends from my house-church on 1st November 2016. Note the dates and times. The original email text is in blue:
"Dear friends, you are invited to an evening of Worship, Intercession for Israel/Britain, and Fellowship on Friday December 16th at 7:00 pm. Some weeks ago the LORD gave me this date as the next evening at my home. I said, "LORD, that's a strange date to pray for Israel and England. Won't everyone be busy?"
"Look up the Hebrew date," He said.
It's Kislev 17th.
He continued, "Look up what's happened on that date before."
To my amazement, this is what happened: "On Kislev 17th 1947, the United Nations voted in favour of the partition of Palestine. The Jewish area was split into three non-contiguous plots, with no consideration of security: the eastern Galilee, the coastal plain from Haifa down to Tel Aviv, and the majority being the uncultivatable Negev desert. The other half of the land was to form a new Arab state. Jerusalem and its 100,000 Jews was to be completely surrounded on four sides by the Arab state, and administered as an international zone. Despite these unfavorable terms, the Jewish Agency immediately accepted the Partition Plan; the Arabs immediately rejected it. Fighting began soon after, leading to a full-scale assault in 1948 by troops from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi and Yemen." (The War of Independence)." I was quite amazed. I don't know what yet but I feel in my heart that plans are afoot in the nations (through the U.N. particularly) to club together to vote to try to once again unilaterally divide Eretz Yisrael. They won't succeed. What an amazing prophetic time to be living on this planet."
Wow! Not only was that written and emailed back in November 2016 but - in light of recent international events - it's only now I finally read it back that I realise how profoundly prophectic and accurate His voice was to me! I doubt I hear Him so many times, mainly because I'm a shy, quiet person, purposely avoiding the traps of public ministry and prophecy. Little did I know what was about to happen. How can He tell us things in advance in such detail?
But there's way more detail! You see, I'd written this email above for the prayer evening at my place because God had been prompting me for some weeks to do so, following a dream I'd had on Yom Kippur! To my amazement, the dream was about the nations (the UN) gathering over the Wall and Temple Mount and striking it twice! Once again, almost to prove to me that He is talking to me, and therefore about other things as well, I'd emailed this dream out to some close associates, giving the dream a recorded time and date that even my questioning heart couldn't ignore in retrospect.
Dream on Yom Kippur (12 October 2016 / 10 Tishrei 5777). A little background: I've been through times when I've had a lot of dreams but I hadn't remembered one for a while. If I'm honest, I'd been busy and tired. I also wanted everything He showed me to be based on His Biblical Word, as there's a lot of crooks out there, saying "Thus says the LORD!" when the LORD has said no such thing.
This year on Yom Kippur I'd moved all my work committments to free up the day to pray, listen to the Love of my life and spend the day how He wanted me to. This had taken considerable negotiation; as a freelancer my work commitments involve a number of people. A few knew it was for Yom Kippur, some didn't; as again, I'm quite private about my faith. I am sad to say this is the first year I had taken Yom Kippur so whole-heartedly in clearing the day completely. On the eve and beginning of Yom Kippur I sat on the floor watching the lights from my olive oil menorah in my bedroom, a beautiful top room in the house with large roof windows looking out at the stars. Some years ago I moved from London out to the countryside, and it still amazes me how stunning and vast the stars are away from the city. There is a chair in which I've prayed many times but for some reason it felt perfect sitting on the floor, looking at the menorah like a child really.
I’d spent some time marvelling at His atonement for my sins, for the greatest gift to humankind in history. Yom Kippur means Day of Atonement. It was a big sweeping sense He gave me. Deep in my soul I found myself focussing on the fact that atonement by the blood of the perfect sacrifice ("korban") cannot come through human effort but only by the gift from the Creator Himself, the God of Israel, the One True God. The perfection of His Gift and Plan for humanity hit me deeply. I prayed for all people to come to know Him as their Messiah. I prayed especially for those of my Jewish people, who know every word of the Biblical Hebrew yet do not recognise their Messiah, that they would see Him during this night of Atonement.
Then I fell peacefully asleep. And He gave me the following dream. The words below in blue are the exact words I emailed my friends on the morning of 13th October 2016 to describe the dream. IT IS A POWERFUL, POWERFUL MESSAGE - AND WARNING - TO THE CHURCH:
DREAM: "I’m looking out the window of a hotel in the modern section of Jerusalem. I’m there with a tour, this trip hasn’t happened yet and is in the future. A woman came to the hotel saying she had just walked to the Old City. She was a local Israeli. I desperately wanted to go to the Old City, to pray at the Wall (the Kotel), to be in the old city of Jerusalem. I was waiting for one of the other Christian ladies on the tour in the hotel to be ready. [I'm Messianic, so I'm Jewish and a believer that Jesus is the Messiah] I didn’t recognise anyone in the dream and I didn’t know who she was but she had agreed to go to the Old City with me [to the Kotel].
[The Wall, or Kotel in Hebrew, is directly below the Temple Mount in the Old City, the two holiest sites in Judaism. For those of you who haven’t been to Jerusalem, there is the older part of the city; with the Wall, the Temple Mount, the Jewish Quarter, the historical sites, the Old City of David, the tunnel of Hezekiah, the pool of Siloam, the archaeological sites, the passages under the Temple Mount and Mount Zion etc – an incredible place. Then there is the more modern district of Jerusalem to the West which has several tall hotels and is a fair distance of a tram ride and walk away from the Old City. This is where I was in the dream, looking over to the East to the historical ancient city of my ancestors.]
As I waited, I looked out the window of the hotel over to the Old City of Jerusalem in the near-distance. It was sunny mild weather at this point and the sky was blue and clear. I could feel the strong yearning in me to go into the city as I waited for the Christian lady to be ready. The window from which I was looking was elevated several floors up. I was looking out with just my head, not my body, which seemed like a funny position but I was protecting myself, because somehow I knew I needed to.
In the hotel window I was overlooking Jerusalem in the near-distance. Then, I came away from the window to find out if the Christian lady within the hotel was now ready. She wasn’t. In fact she had cancelled our plans because she had decided to go to a meeting with another Christian, someone else in the hotel. At this point I felt very alone.
I was disappointed, but there were now three others in the hotel room talking and they seemed nice ladies, although I didn’t recognise anyone. I asked if anyone else would like to walk with me to the Old City and thankfully another lady said yes but she also wasn’t ready and said she had to go to get changed. One of the other ladies said something about "this being the only gap in the itinerary we’ll get, so this is the one chance to go to the Old City.” I felt frustrated that this time-gap was being used up waiting.
I went back to the window and looked over at the Old City. By now I could feel a really, really strong and heart-pulling yearning to go and had been waiting a long while. But now I noticed that it was no longer sunny. The sun had gone in and light grey clouds had come over the city and the air from the open window began to feel a bit chilly. I then spent a little time in the dream trying to find the right clothes to wear as I waited. It was getting colder.
Then, the second lady still wasn’t ready, as she hadn’t returned. So, I asked the tour guide – who was now in the room with me - if it was safe to walk on my own. But she said something like, “It isn’t safe” and as she said it I had a small quick vision within the dream. I saw myself walking toward the Old City but seeing that I needed someone beside me, that for some reason I wasn’t able to go on my own.
[I remember that this very short vision within the dream was hard to accept even in the dream, because even in my sleep I knew that in the natural I have gone into the Old City once before on my own, from the modern outskirts of Jerusalem via tram and walking. Last year in 2015 I’d purposely flown to Israel overnight so that I could arrive at 5:00 am – 12 hours before the start of a conference I was attending – precisely so I could go to the Old City, start the day praying at the Wall at dawn, have breakfast overlooking the city and explore the city and pray by myself. My hours praying at the Wall were so, so beautiful. So, in my dream my mind knew I’d done it once before in the natural. But this tour guide was saying, “It’s not safe” and that I needed someone beside me to go.]
So, by now in the dream I was just completely overwhelmed with the feeling of yearning to go but could not yet go, because I was still waiting for the second Christian woman to be ready while she changed her clothes. So, I was peering out the window at the Old City and still waiting and almost aching at this point.
But something had changed. Now I saw shocking thick dark low storm clouds over the Old City and more precisely I knew this was directly over the Kotel (Western Wall) and Temple area. I felt a sense of fearful alarm. Then, I saw two flashes of lightning coming down from the very dark ominous clouds over the Old City of Jerusalem, one after the other, and I knew it was no longer safe to go there as THE STORM HAD ARRIVED. I felt sad and I was very concerned for people under the dark storm clouds with the lightning. I only saw two lightning strikes but I knew it was now no longer safe to go. The air was now very chilly for Israel."
I woke up. God urgently told me to email my friends the dream that morning, on Yom Kippur! (The dream actually included a few more events regarding Israel but, due to length, today I'm only including the events regarding the Wall and the Temple Mount.)
Link this dream of 12th October together with the email of 1st November about the U.N. and the LORD God of Israel, the Messiah, had told me so much but I didn't realise it at the time! I just knew that the dark storm clouds where the nations gathering against the Wall and the Temple Mount. So, on the holiest night of the Biblical and Jewish year - Yom Kippur - He'd just shared with me what was about to happen to the Land of my soul. But I had no idea at the time how quickly and how accurately it was about to happen! This experience has increased my faith that God is far above what the human brain can understand or imagine.
The UN's Lightning Strike One:
The very next day after Yom Kippur, in the evening, so less than 12 hours after the dream, to my utter shock, the first lightning strike hit the Wall and Temple Mount, and from precisely where the LORD had told me - the UN:
"In an UNESCO resolution on “Occupied Palestine,” Jerusalem holy sites are referred to by Muslim names only, ignoring the historic ties of Jews and Christians. Approved at committee stage in Paris on October 13, 2016, it passed by 24 votes to 6, with 26 abstentions." (Times of Israel, 16th October 2016) The international commentary was wide and ridiculed the obvious insanity of trying to cut off the Temple Mount and Western Wall (Kotel) from their ancient Jewish heritage. Strike One.
This news was shocking, particularly as after the dream I felt like I'd been away in Israel for the night; like I could still feel the warmth of the sun and the dust on my feet. I felt an overwhelming need to pray for my people, to pray for them to know that their atonement is in Yeshua alone, not in human effort. We try to obey because we love Him because He died for us, not to earn our salvation. We cannot bridge the breadth of the gap between the Holy and the profane. It is a ridiculous human belief that doesn’t understand how Holy He is and how wide the abyss is between Him and us. Only His Holiness can bridge that eternal gap and only His atonement can wipe our sins clean; atonement cannot be attained through human effort. The depth of rest in our soul and spirit that comes from knowing He has done it is too deep to describe. I immediately knew God wanted me to spend the morning of Yom Kippur writing up the dream and emailing it out to several of my Jewish and Christian friends. In addition, I'd made the following note in the dream email:
"Jerusalem and the Temple Mount: Please intercede. The Biblical Hebrew word for intercede also means “to meet.” Meeting with God for His people."
The UN's Lightning Strike Two:
As I'm pretty sure you'll all know by now, on 23rd December, the day before the beginning of Chanukah, "By a 14-0 vote, the UN Security Council declared all “settlements” over the Green Line (the 1949 armistice) illegal. This not only includes densely populated towns (10,000+) as well as cities of 50,000 and more, but the eastern part of Jerusalem including the Old City with the Jewish Quarter, Western Wall and Temple Mount, all central to Judaism. That’s right, Jewish presence in our most sacred places with thousands of years of centrality to, and in, Judaism is, according to the UN, illegal." (extract from article by Israeli journalist Jonathan Feldstein, published 2nd January 2017 entitled "Stab Me Twice, Shame on You.")
When I saw the title "Stab Me Twice" I was, to be honest, a little freaked out by how accurate the imagery of the dream had been. The article was linking the 2nd U.N. strike against Jerusalem with a concurrent real-life stabbing of a Jewish father walking with his family on Shabbat, by a Palestianian Arab terrorist. Two lightning strikes stabbing the places nearest the centre of the heart of the Jewish people, two UN resolutions two months apart, both striking the Wall and the Temple Mount. I don't doubt Him, I doubted myself. The article "Stab Me Twice" was published twelve weeks after the dream!
PROPHETIC PRECISION: THE DETAILS!
The U.N. vote (23rd December) came exactly 7 days after the date the LORD gave me for our prayer meeting (16th December). Seven in Hebrew (sheva) is the same root-word as the Hebrew verb for: "to swear and to make a covenant." (shava) It also means "a curse."
It gets even more exact. Remember I asked you at the beginning of this study to make a note of the date and time of the prayer meeting? God told me to start it at 7:00 pm. The U.N. Resolution meeting held exactly "seven" days later ("to swear a covenant, a curse") started at exaclty the same time, even though we were in different time zones!! 7:00 pm in the U.K. is 2:00 pm in New York, exactly when the official records of the meeting begin.
Now remember the words He gave me in that email of 1st November: "I don't know what yet but I feel in my heart that plans are afoot in the nations (through the U.N. particularly) to club together to vote to try to once again unilaterally divide Eretz Yisrael. They won't succeed."
Because of the phrase "THE STORM HAD ARRIVED" I expect to see further unrest and difficulties for Israel from the nations from here on in. There were two initial lightning strikes that marked the fact that "the storm had arrived."
And lastly, it wasn't until I finally started typing up this webpage study, in January 2017, that God pointed something else out that I hadn't realised at the time! In the dream I'd been looking towards Jerusalem to the East. It was a detail He got me to specify, without understanding why back on 13th October in the email to friends: "This is where I was in the dream, looking over to the East to the historical ancient city of my ancestors."
Then bam! As I was typing this week God said to me, "Why is that familiar?" And I got it immediately! It's a line from Israel's National Anthem - HaTikvah (The Hope):
"As long as the Jewish spirit is yearning deep in the heart,
With eyes turned toward the East, looking toward Zion,
Then our hope - the two-thousand-year-old hope - will not be lost:
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem."
I can't really put it into words: that He would give a Jewish soul, who's lived her whole life in England and didn't receive a Jewish education, a dream on Yom Kippur about Jerusalem and give that accurate a detail, which I didn't even notice until three months after, when I'm sharing the dream with you lovely people!
How does He do that? Do I understand what God can do at all?! LORD show me and keep me learning.
But here's the thing. The dream was showing me what was about to happen. Looking back, it felt like watching a Heavenly documentary, more than an event to pray away. Is it arrogance, a little bit of pride, or innocence that makes us think we can pray away the pre-declared future events of God? My heart cries out for people's salvation and safety, not just in Israel. But doesn't He say in the Bible that all nations will gather against Jerusalem? (Zechariah 12:2-3) As a great, and actually fairly new friend, told me this week, "God hardened Pharoah's heart after all", to bring about miracles of deliverance, freedom and wonder.
Our prayer meeting was not like previous evenings hanging out together. We prayed yes, but only after the whole room of us sat in complete silence for half an hour! It happened after we'd worshipped and His Presence was so real, strong, holy and beautiful than none of us said a word. We all felt a very deep peace that God is in control. I don't grasp that - most of the time - as deeply as I want to from here on in.
"For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat ("God judges"), and will plead with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel,
whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted My land." (Joel 3:1-2)
The nations' attacks on Israel through the UN have not caught the God of the Universe by surprise. If we are hidden under His Wings and in His gorgeous Love we are safe. He knows who His friends are. I watch in awe. There's no need to fret. But there is a need to show His Salvational Love to people with whom He crosses our path and to pray for the people He gently puts in our heart and spirit. He loves you. He's real. He's speaking; repeating Himself if need be and showing Himself as Someone Who really wants to talk with you. And He's in control of all things, even the difficult things and the shocks to our lives:
"Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’
From the east I summon a bird of prey;
from a far-off land, a man to fulfill My purpose.
What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do.
Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, you who are now far from My righteousness.
I am bringing My righteousness near, it is not far away; and My salvation will not be delayed.
I will grant salvation to Zion, My splendor to Israel."
(Isaiah/Yeshayahu 46: 9-13)
"During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said: “Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are His. He changes times and seasons; He deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him. I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of You." (Daniel 2: 20 - 23)
In conclusion, listen to what Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef (Isaac Joseph) said this week after the UN's 2nd Lightning Strike against the Kotel (Wall) and the Temple Mount:
"The US has forsaken Israel, and the Jewish state can now place its trust only in God. Sometimes, we need to be reminded from above that we can count on no one but our Father who art in heaven,” Yosef told followers at the Western Wall. "We mustn’t forget that the hearts of kings and captains are in the hands of the Lord, and we can count on no one but the Lord." He even said it at the place that got struck by lightning in the dream, the Wall; the place in the dream I was so achingly trying to reach. Do you want a best friend Who is also the God of Time and the Universe, Who can tell you anything you really need to know and if He doesn't tell you, you don't need to know it? Do you want to feel so safe in this world, as the waves rise, the earth shakes and those things you thought were central to your life go out to the edges, as He stands in front of you smiling with Love in His beautiful eternal eyes? Nothing is sweeter.
And finally, did you notice it? The Chief Rabbi called God 'our Father Who art in heaven.' This phrase only appears twice in the entire Bible. Both are in the New Testament (Matthew 6 & Luke 11) and these are the words of Jesus Himself when He taught us how to pray; these are the words of Yeshua the Messiah!
"Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
(Luke 24: 44-49)
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and my Father are One."
(John 10:27-30)
Below is a 10 minute video, recently recorded on 3rd January 2017, with Mike Huckabee discussing Jerusalem, as the eternal undivided capital of Israel, and, from the 7:27 minute mark, the U.N. Resolution of 23rd December to attempt to divide Jerusalem. As Netanyahu stated on 25th December 2016 at a Cabinet meeting: "I'm encouraged by the statements of our friends in the U.S., Republicans and Democrats alike. They understand how reckless and destructive this UN resolution was, they understand that the Western Wall isn't occupied territory." Later that day, Bibi wrote on his twitter feed "The Western Wall and Jewish Quarter are not occupied. The other places are not occupied either. We do not, nor can we, accept this resolution. We are certain of our future as we are certain of our past. And here I would like to light Chanukah candles on behalf of the Glory of Israel." Amen and amen!!