Would you like to turn to 2 Samuel,
chapter 5?
2 Samuel, chapter 5.
We're just going back 1,000 years before
Christ, to when David the king reigned in
Hebron.
I think you would find in the Bible
that Jerusalem is first mentioned relative to Joshua
and his march across the land from Jericho.
You read about it in Joshua 10, and
you read again about it in Joshua 15.
Which would make Jerusalem one of the oldest
cities in the world.
But we're not going to go back as
far as that.
We're going to content ourselves with 2 Samuel
5, verse 4.
David was thirty years old when he began
to reign, and he reigned forty years.
In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years
and six months.
And in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three
years over all Israel and Judah.
And the king and his men went to
Jerusalem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the
land, which spake unto David, saying, Except thou
take away the blind and the lame, thou
shalt not come in hither.
Thinking David cannot come in hither.
Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion.
The same is the city of David.
And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth
up to the gutter and smiteth the Jebusites,
and the lame and the blind, that are
heeded of David's soul, he shall be chief
and satisfied.
Whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth
the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind,
he shall not come in hither.
Whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth
the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind,
he shall be chief and satisfied.
Whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth
the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind,
he shall not come in hither.
Whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth
the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind,
he shall not come in hither.
Whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth
the Jebusites, and the lame and the
blind, he shall not come in hither.
And David went and brought up the ark
of God from the house of Ubegedim into
the city of David with gladness.
And it was so, that when the ark
of the Lord had gone six places, he
sacrificed oxen and slaughterings, and David danced before
the Lord with all his might, and David
was girded with a linen ephor.
So David and all the house of Israel
brought up the ark of the Lord with
shouting and with the sound of the trumpet.
Now I want to go to the New
Testament, to Matthew's Gospel, to the same city,
Matthew chapter 23, a city that has grown
and developed, a city which is on the
heart of God.
And here Jesus is coming over the Mount
of Olives, and he has a beautiful panoramic
view of Jerusalem.
From the Mount of Olives he's looking straight
on to Mount Moriah, and here's what he
says, 37th verse of Matthew 23.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets
and stonest them which are settled beneath, how
often would I have gathered thy children together,
even as a hen gathers her chickens under
her wing, and you would not.
Behold, your house is left unto you, for
I say unto you, you shall not see
me henceforth, for ye shall say, Blessed is
he that cometh in the name of the
Lord.
There's a judgment of God on Jerusalem.
We want to read those familiar verses in
Zechariah, chapter 14.
Zechariah, the second-last book in the Old
Testament, and here we have another reference to
the same city, and this is a future
reference.
Zechariah 14, verse 1.
Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and
thy spoils shall be divided in the midst
of thee.
For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem
to battle, and the city shall be taken,
and the houses rifled, and the women ravished.
And half of the city shall go forth
into captivity, and the residue of the people
shall not be cut off from the city.
Then shall the Lord go forth and fight
against those nations as when he fought in
the day of battle.
And if we shall stand on that day
upon the Mount of Olives, which is before
Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of
Olives shall cleave in the midst of the
rocks toward the east and toward the west,
and there shall be a very great valley.
And half of the mountain shall remove toward
the north, and half of it toward the
south.
And it shall come to pass on that
day that the light shall not be clear
nor dark.
But it shall be one day which shall
be known to the Lord, not day nor
night, but it shall come to pass that
at evening time it shall be night.
And it shall be on that day that
living water shall go out from Jerusalem, half
of them toward the former sea, and half
of them toward the hinder sea.
In summer and in winter shall it be.
And the Lord shall be king over all
the earth.
In that day shall there be one Lord,
and his name one."
Now, the Lord will bless this reading of
his word to our hearts.
I think it's generally agreed that Jerusalem will
be the center of world government, the center
of world worship, during the reign of Christ
on earth.
It is the most important city on earth.
It's not the greatest city, it's not the
most beautiful city, it's not the largest city,
it hasn't got what most cities have.
But God says, Jerusalem, I will not forget
thee.
If I should forget thee, Jerusalem, let my
right hand forget her coming.
Let me be named if I forget Jerusalem.
For some reason that we don't have the
answer to.
God selected a site in a country area,
and only he knew that he was going
to build a city there that would be
spoken of throughout the world, that would be
spoken of forever and ever.
And one morning he said to an old
man, Abraham, get up and take your son,
your only son.
Somehow I don't think Abraham liked that, because
Abraham was very conscious he had another son
called Ishmael.
But God said, thy son, thy only son.
God was underscoring the fact that he wasn't
recognizing the other boy.
Thy son, thy only son.
I'm looking into a land that I can
tell thee of.
And here God is going to put his
feet on a lonely hillside, which would eventually
become the greatest city on earth.
And the old man with his servant and
his son, a son of promise, a miracle
son, Isaac, left walking for three days, and
came up a valley, later to be called
the Kidron Valley.
And there it rose before him, a barren,
lonely hillside.
And God said, that's it.
That's what?
That's the hill.
The hill that my children, from which I
will receive sacrifice, and from no other hill,
will climb that hill.
And Abraham climbed the hill, blithe, thistles, loose
stones, some grass, not much.
And found a grok on the top of
the hill.
Built an altar to the Son of God.
And you know the great story.
The story that has thrilled the world.
The offering up of Isaac, and the staying
of his hand by God.
And the substitute ram caught in the thicket.
And Abraham marked the place.
His descendants worshipped the place.
And some men bought the place.
A fellow called Ornan.
He eventually bought that site.
He used the great rock at which the
papyarch stood with his son.
He used it as a flashing floor.
They built a few little houses on the
hillside.
The people gathered around.
They called them, Judges' Sites.
And they called the village on the hill,
Geba.
And things moved on quietly.
And then we had David.
And you know the great story of David.
Exile.
Isaac, on the run.
Ran from Saul.
From the city of Jerusalem to the Dead
Sea he ran, and back again a few
times.
Lived in the cave of the Dolomites.
Judah, the tribe of Judah, separated from the
other tribes, said, David you'll be our king.
And David became king of Judah, and set
up the royal palace in Hebron.
Hebron is the place where Abraham and Isaac
and Joseph are buried.
The cave of Machpelah.
And up the road was the royal palace
of David.
Thirty years of age.
Without the title of his majesty.
Big thing for a shepherd boy.
An unwanted son.
His majesty.
The king.
The king of Judah.
After seven years, the elders came down to
him of the other tribes and said, David,
why don't you move your palace to Jerusalem,
and be the king of Israel.
That was a good job.
Mah!
And David listened to them, accepted their invitation
to be king over the trial tribes, and
to move his palace to Jerusalem.
But the Jebusites lived on the hillside.
So David came up, realizing that these were
hard men, and difficult men, and exciting men,
but fearlessly said, I'll take it.
I'll take it.
I'll take the grueling city of Jebus.
And so he took it by coming in
at the south, on the way that Abraham
had come in at the beginning.
And the mound and the hill, one of
the five hills in Jerusalem, is called Mount
Zion.
So Elijah thought to take Mount Zion as
a springboard, to take Mount Moriah, which was
Jebus.
So he took Mount Zion.
And it's reported that he is, at this
moment, resting on Mount Zion.
In a cave.
His remains are right there.
Not being a great moment for him, to
take over that bit of a hill.
His strategy was good.
And as he was going to move, only
less than half a mile, to Mount Moriah,
to the lock, to the houses, to the
people, the Jebusites, he discovered their density.
Their density.
They put arch to meet him, the named,
the crippled, and the blind.
And it says Jebus here and there.
Did he lack compassion?
No, no, no, no.
It wasn't a matter of compassion.
He didn't like the depth to which they
were going to stoop.
There was a recognized procedure, that if anybody
was coming to attack you, privately or as
an army, and you could put out before
the army crippled people or blind people, the
curse that they reckoned was on them, would
be passed on to the advancing troops.
If you ever fought against a crippled person
or a blind person, you became crippled and
blind yourself.
So that was a good defense.
That meant, naturally, people ran away and didn't
fight.
And Jebus said, look at these blind Jews.
They're trying to curse my men with blindness
and deformity.
But I tell you, the men who will
go forward in the face of that threat
and put their city, yours will be a
great reward.
David cared not, and he took the city.
And he owned Mount Moriah, and he owned
Mount Zion.
And in typical David style, he called it
the City of David.
I think, you know, he did lack humility,
and I wouldn't blame him for that, as
most of you do.
And I think if it had been possible,
he would have put a big neon sign
up over Mount Moriah, floodlit every night, the
City of David.
What a man.
With a merely great word of champion boxer,
I think.
I think he was the greatest.
David, the City of David.
Get my name in there.
Let the world know that I have taken
the Holy Hill.
And he set up his throne, and it
became the capital of the people that were
called Israel.
There wasn't a nation at that time.
There wasn't a state at that time.
The children's fight, Abraham and Isaac.
The place of sacrifice was now God given
to David of the capital of Israel.
And he was the king of Israel, and
he brought the Israeli Parliament to Jerusalem.
He brought all the councils of government to
Jerusalem.
And then somebody told him that up the
country a little bit, about 20 miles, there
was a great old seller called Ubedidim, and
he was storing the Ark.
Oh, David treasured the Ark.
The Ark of the Covenant was the center
of Jewish religion.
And David sent up to the house of
Ubedidim, and went up himself.
And God had blessed Ubedidim because the Ark
was in his house.
And David said, let's have the Ark found
in Jerusalem.
And so Jerusalem not only became the center
of government, the center of royalty, but it
became the center of religious worship.
Then they moved the Ark there.
God was controlling his plan, and his purpose.
And then David, when he had accomplished all
that, allowed his humanity to come through, I
think.
He knew that he was only a man,
and so he had a celebration, a party
to celebrate the victory.
And he said to some of his generals,
OK men, let's see how they're getting on
now.
We've done an awful lot of fighting.
We've got the capital.
We have got the land.
We're in power.
There's nobody going to touch us.
Count those men.
How many hundreds of thousands of soldiers have
we?
Where is there an army like us?
God said, don't do that.
That's all.
You put it in.
You really think, David, in the back of
your head, that you won the battle.
I give you the hill.
I give you the enemy.
Oh, I've forgotten about that, God.
You give it to me.
You see, it's remarkable that in our business
there, of victory and triumph and business, graduation
and honors, that we don't really give God
the glory, but we do appreciate how hard
you work to get it.
But in our dark days, when things are
slipping from us, we blame God.
God had you allow this to happen to
me.
We don't ever blame ourselves for the dark
days.
We always praise ourselves for the good days.
That's all wrong.
And God said, I am going to destroy.
I am going to do the work here,
David, that's going to show the world that
I disapprove of your attitude.
That was true.
David wept and cried to God, don't do
it.
And as he reached up to Moriah's hill,
on the very rock on which Abraham offered
up his life, there was a angel silhouetted
against the sky, a sword drawn across the
city.
And he said, God, don't do it, don't
do it.
I'll do anything you say, God, I'm sorry.
We're losers.
Go to the city, spread the people.
And God said, right, right.
God loves a humble heart.
If you're in trouble with God, get down
on your knees and bow before him and
surrender.
Admit everything.
A contrite heart he will not despise.
God said, go up onto the floor of
Ornon, the Jesuit site, and build me an
altar.
Offer me up a sacrifice of bullets.
That was remarkable.
And David went up and talked to Ornon.
And I'm sure he was excited to see
him.
And he said, I want a piece of
ground here on the top of this hill.
And I want to include this rock here.
Because we're in trouble.
I have sinned against God.
And I'm going to offer a sin altar.
Fine, fine, go ahead then.
Build an altar anywhere you like.
No, no, go ahead.
I want a piece of ground out here.
I want to know how much you want
for it.
Oh, don't talk about paying.
You're going to have to take the money.
I want this ground.
He took 15 acres.
Look at this.
15 acres of the flat plateau.
And what he said, now, fine.
I forget what it was.
We'll need some of your fine bullets, your
best bullets.
Bring them in.
Yes, anything you want, David.
Take it, take it, take it, take it.
For God, yes, anything.
All that I have is his.
And David said, but I will not offer
to God something that didn't cost me anything.
That's a good lesson to learn, isn't it?
I don't want it for nothing.
It's because I want to give it to
God.
I want to buy boots off you and
slay them on the altar.
This is serious.
All right.
So he bought the land and then he
bought the boots.
They built the altar.
And God removed that curse and spared Jerusalem
and David.
And later, God could say, he's a man
after my own heart.
Because he hated sin.
Not many of us hate sin.
We try not to sin, but we don't
hate it.
Sometimes we're sorry we can't sin.
And then we do.
But David hated sin and repented and confessed.
And God said, he's a man after my
own heart.
And then David said, now God, at the
end of his wonderful life, he said, I
want to build you a house.
I want to build a house for God.
God said, no, not you, your son.
And when we come to that great story
of Solomon building a house for God, that
house became what was known as Solomon's Temple.
And God gave him directions in the chronicles
we read, to build the house of God
on the flashing store of horn in Jebusite,
where Abram offered a bite.
God's not going to move on that hill,
you can see that.
And he says, where David offered up to
sacrifice.
So they built a temple on a 15
acre site in Jerusalem.
And built an altar on top of the
rock.
The very same rock.
And they managed to chisel a hole through
the rock into a vault below, so that
all the blood could flow away.
And on that rock, there were tens of
thousands of sacrifices.
Sin offerings, etc., lambs, bullets, seagulls.
They were cheering up to find Moriah, to
go to the place to give their sacrifice.
The blood was flowing freely through the very
rock.
This is God.
This is the holy city.
This is Jerusalem.
I'm here, and only here, I live.
God lived in Jerusalem, did you know that?
He had an area at the back of
the temple called the Holy of Holies.
And God lived on Mount Moriah.
And Jesus came, and he climbed Mount Moriah.
I wonder why Jesus didn't go.
I wonder why Jesus didn't go to some
of the other hills.
There were no other hills that he could
have gone to.
When he was only a baby and went
right in on top of that rock area.
And old Simeon took him in his arms
and said, Now, Lord, let us bow thyself
in the quiet and peace of my mind
to receive thy salvation.
That was the start of 33 years.
Which was to end with him clearing the
temple out with cords, and be led away
to be crucified.
But after God working with Jerusalem, and struggling
with them for centuries, The Son of God
came from Bethany, which was just on the
other side of all of this, a little
village down the other side of the hill.
So he came up the hill, all of
it, and from the top, he viewed the
temple.
He saw the 15 acres.
He saw the temple in the portions.
The capital of the world.
The capital of religion.
God's house.
It was only in his closing days that
Jesus identified the temple.
As my Father's house.
No matter what you think.
It's my Father's house.
And don't make my Father's house a den
of thieves.
It is the house of God.
And he cried to them, from all of
it, across the valley of the Kidron.
Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft could I have
gathered thee to the hand of a bearer
of fruit that you would not.
Jerusalem that was given to David.
Jerusalem whose foundation was given to Abraham.
Jerusalem that was spared in the peace of
sacrifice and worship to God.
Rejected the Son of God.
And Jesus said, your height will be left
unto you decorated.
Until you say, Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord.
What a history.
Jerusalem.
God is not going to run away from
Jerusalem.
It must have been hard for heaven to
watch.
In AD 70.
As the Romans took the walls down.
And the temple down.
And 700 years later, for the Muslims to
build the mosque on it.
And to propagate the story worldwide that Muhammad
sat on the rock.
And one day when he was sitting on
the rock.
With his horse.
He went up to heaven.
Now, I don't know how you feel about
that, but I don't believe it personally.
And so the whole thing became a godless
place.
Where Jesus Christ was unseated.
Where his very memory was removed.
And Muhammad took complete control of the mind
of the people.
Who came from all over the world to
worship Muhammad.
Where?
At Jerusalem.
But God said it's time to get up
to my house.
It's for my son.
And Jesus said, I'll not be back.
Until you say, Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord.
So at least he's coming back, that's one
good thing.
And he's coming back to Jerusalem.
In Zechariah 14.
Because his feet are going to stand on
the mind of all of us that live
on the east of Jerusalem.
Where he announced to them, riding on the
donkey.
Your horse is left unto you, gentlemen.
His feet will stand on that hill in
the coming day.
And they will reply, Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord.
They'll receive him.
Because he's coming in a most spectacular way.
With all his saints.
I'll be there.
And all the armies of heaven, the angels
will be there.
This is the end of the Armageddon battle.
It'll not take this year or next year.
Because he's got to have us all in
heaven.
And we've got to be there for seven
years before he comes back.
So he'll not be coming back for at
least seven years.
That's interesting.
I want you to keep that number in
your mind.
I know that most of you are familiar
with it, but some of you might not
be.
But keep that seven years between the day
he takes us away and the day he
comes back to stand over Mount of Olives.
That arrival tells us that Jerusalem will be
the focal point of the world.
The armies and the nations and the kings
will assemble there.
The media, the television, newsmen.
They'll be there from every country.
And country.
Where will it be?
Jerusalem.
Not Rome?
No.
Moscow?
No.
New York?
No.
Washington?
No.
Jerusalem.
There will not be a city of greater
attraction and greater importance than Jerusalem.
He is coming to Jerusalem, I think, very
soon.
Because when Israel became a nation in 1948
on the 14th of May, and in this
decade she'll be 40 years old.
1988, she'll be 40 years old.
And when they made her a nation again,
they made a mistake.
Well, of course, men make mistakes.
In order not to hurt the Arabs too
much, they entered into all kinds of agreements.
Well, by the key of the Arabs, the
holy places and the Temple area and the
Wailing Wall, and the Jews going back were
not allowed to go there.
But not only that, they did something else.
They said, I'll tell you what.
You folks, you Arabs, you keep Jerusalem.
And we'll make Tel Aviv the capital of
the city.
That's okay.
Keep them out of the road.
And so Tel Aviv, a beautiful seaside city,
very big, very modern, was the capital.
Now, if any armies were going to come,
and leaders were going to negotiate terms of
peace, they would naturally go to the capital.
Yes, I think that Hitler, if he were
going to take over your country in 1940,
1941, he wouldn't have gone to Manchester, or
Sunderland, or both of them.
He'd have wanted to talk in London.
And so, if anybody's going to destroy Israel,
they'll have to go to Tel Aviv.
And all the dignitaries flew into Tel Aviv,
and they were met there, and had an
official reception, and then they were taken up
to this old, dirty, dusty, smelly city of
Jerusalem.
That seems funny.
Because if the king is going to come,
on a royal occasion, and the king of
Israel is going to come, he's going to
have to come to Tel Aviv.
So they get legal, of course.
They get rights.
If only the king could go to the
capital.
But I searched this book again for any
reference to Tel Aviv.
Never read about Tel Aviv, did you?
So, God seemed to tap them on the
shoulder last year, and said to Menachem Begum,
there's just a little thing you want to
sell in here before the coronation.
You've got to change your capital.
It's Jerusalem he's coming to now, and you've
got to mix it up.
So there was a big flurry in the
Knesset.
And against world opinion, and against world leaders'
advice, against the threats that the Arabs were,
the threat of oil being cut off.
On the 30th of July, 1980, this act
of Parliament was passed in the Knesset.
Whereby Jerusalem, in its entirety, would become the
capital of Israel.
Undivided.
Undeterred.
Eternal.
Who did it?
The gods are still on the soldiers.
They must have carried the same Jesus to
Israel very soon.
You can get that little thing fixed up
legally, will you?
Because I don't want you boys to be
waiting at Tel Aviv on him coming to
Jerusalem, because he's going to Jerusalem.
So, immediately, eleven embassies left it, and ran
away.
In fact, embassies had gone to Jerusalem because,
again, against the advice of world rulers, they
built the Parliament of Israel on another hill,
Mount Scopias, which links to Mount Zion, and
Mount Moriah, and the Mount of Olives.
And they said, well, no matter about the
capital, we're having the Parliament of Jerusalem.
So the embassies of the world assembled in
Jerusalem, but as soon as Israel said, we're
taking over the whole city.
Because, you see, Jerusalem is divided, not militarily,
but religiously, with the Jewish quarter, the Muslim
quarter, the Arab quarter, and the Christian quarter.
But since July 1980, there's just the Jewish
quarter.
Now, I think that's tough.
If they did that to Northern Ireland, the
world would be up in arms against them
for discrimination.
But even like that, the Muslims are.
So the Prime Minister decided to move his
office into the Arab quarter.
Well, thank goodness he has solved that move
at the moment, and hasn't done it just
yet.
He's still up the hill, Mount Scopias, beside
the University.
But there you are.
Eleven embassies ran away.
Some have said on.
But a big Christian organization in America, they
did a wonderful thing, I think, because it
takes the Americans to do wonderful things, doesn't
it?
They made a representation to the Israeli Parliament
and said, we would like to have a
Christian embassy in Jerusalem.
And since they were running short of embassies,
they said, all right.
And tonight, since July 1980, there is established
in Jerusalem an embassy that represents a few
news about Jerusalem, and thought enough about it
that it emerged that they would recognize Jesus
Christ, evangelical Christian embassy, under pressure, in Jerusalem
tonight.
Tonight, Jerusalem is standing ready, seriously, morally, spiritually,
to receive our King.
We're standing in the Mount of Olives, and
the Mount of Olives, if you haven't been
there, but the more I talk about this,
the more people come and tell me I've
seen it, I've been there, and so forth.
You know that the Mount of Olives is
coming down like this, right into the Keeneland
Valley, and then Mount Moriah just goes up
there.
You can walk from the top of Olivet
to the top of Moriah in 10 or
15 minutes time.
Just come down one hill and climb up
the other hill.
And there's this great valley down here, which
stretches all the way down to Beersheba.
And it was up that valley that Abraham
must have walked to get up onto the
Mount Moriah.
And I read to you that this is
the East, and this is the West.
And the first movement, when his feet touches
the Mount, it's going to move East and
West.
It's going to slide up like that there.
It's going to fill the valley, and form
a ramp over to the Golden Gate.
And then it's going to go North and
South.
And that North and South division is going
to go through all of it on Moriah,
and rush away through the Mediterranean Sea.
There is a spot on the top of
the Mount of Olives that I discovered where
we can park the coach on a clear
day, right on the ridge of Olivet.
And you look out that way there to
the East, and you can see the Dead
Sea.
It's only about 15 miles away.
And you can look out that way there,
way in the distance, on a clear day,
and you can see the Mediterranean.
Right from the top, because it's 1,600
feet above sea level, you can see the
two seas.
And I get excited, you know, really excited,
that when he comes and stands on this
old hillside, there's a big hotel right on
the top of it, at the back of
it.
The American Intercontinental Hotel.
One of the lovely hotels.
God help anybody sleep in the nap when
Jesus comes.
It'll be down there in the will.
But the front of it, the temple area,
there's nothing built on it.
Just graves of soldiers who died in the
battle.
What has built on it?
It's that the crust is cracked.
And I read to you from Zechariah 14
that the water will flow in from the
former sea to the hinder sea.
Well, you've probably read about it.
I have a cutting from the Times, a
cutting from the new Civil Engineer magazine of
the 4th of September 1980, giving the details
of a near-dead canal plan.
Dead sea power steam revised.
Waterway across Israel becomes costly factor.
Money is now being supplied for the steam
by British, American and Jewish speculators.
A sum of 300 million pounds is now
held in reserve to build the canal.
They were carrying a man to the dead.
This was passed and approved by Corby.
After they made Jerusalem the capital of Israel,
then they passed and approved the canal.
It is their intention to use it as
a great hydroelectric system, as the waters come
rushing in to Jerusalem and then drop down
to the dead sea.
They'll drive all kinds of hydroelectric schemes and
systems and they'll produce power and they'll do
without oil.
I don't think they'll ever do that, whether
they do.
Well, they're not going to have two canals,
are they?
God wouldn't do that.
And he's going to open a canal and
his feet touches the mountain.
So I personally don't have any difficulty in
believing that the King of Israel will come
personally to open the new near-dead canal
which they're starting to build this year.
I was given these pamphlets when I came
home from Israel last year before Christmas and
I was excited about it.
I was in Libya last month and we
had along to talk to our group, the
Senior Secretary of the Foreign Ministry of Israel.
We are privileged to have men like that
to come and talk to us for an
evening and they answer any question that you
want to know about the land.
And when they have asked him a few
questions, I ventured to ask him, I said,
tell us something more about the canal, the
waterway.
Oh yes, this is the most wonderful thing.
We are very excited about it.
And he said we are more excited when
we consider that we haven't to pay the
money is all here for us.
And he explained where he's going to come
in, the front of Tel Aviv, and come
right over to Olavet, and go round Olavet
and drop into the Dead Sea.
I said, when do you think it will
start?
He said, it will definitely start this year,
probably in the autumn.
He said, most of the things are tied
up now.
And then I asked him the hard question.
I said, how long do you think it
will take?
He said, it is scheduled to take six
years.
But it might take seven.
And I thought, well, it will certainly start
with that.
Because I think the Lord has given the
courage across to Olavet, would you?
He said, it doesn't say there that his
feet will touch the land of Israel and
open the water away.
It's only going to touch the mouth of
Olavet and open the water away.
But they're cutting the ribbons in Olavet.
Cutting the ribbons.
And then when you come to Ezekiel and
read about the temple, he said, I saw
the water coming from the north.
So if he comes in round the north
side of Olavet, Ezekiel would see it coming
towards the mouth of Olavet from the north!
And there's water to the ankles, water to
the knees, water to the thighs, water to
swim in, a great river!
And on the bank of the river there's
also a new temple.
Is Israel telling us, unknown to themselves, that
their king will be back in seven or
eight or nine years?
Is it?
To open the waterway?
Does it not kill your spies?
But that will bring him back around about
the fortieth anniversary.
Have they been forty years in a political
wilderness?
And are they going to move into a
millennium?
I don't know.
Could they have this canal waterway open?
Could Zachariah be fulfilled immediately?
I don't know.
I'm not a prophet.
But they'll not build it for now.
I mean, theirs and his.
And he's coming for me seven years before
he opens the canal.
Hallelujah.
He'll be here tonight.
Do you believe he'll be here tonight?
Well, maybe next week.
It wouldn't matter.
We'd all be glad to see him, wouldn't
we?
After you get over the shop and leave
in the car.
And the fur coat.
And the hair.
And the business.
You know what you want to do?
Really.
See your lawyer tomorrow.
And make plans for the disposal of your
property and business.
Properly.
Properly dispose of it.
So that the vandals don't get it.
And the communists don't get it.
If you were planning to go to America,
you'd have done something about your house.
And your business.
And if you told me you were emigrating
to America next week, and I said, have
you sold your house yet?
No, never father.
First thing, I'll leave it.
What about your shop?
I don't know what will happen.
You know, they wouldn't do that.
When you say we're going to have him
tomorrow, you'd better impress the world.
And the lawyer.
And the neighbors with the fact.
That you're prepared to leave.
And when you leave, there'll be no problems.
The fur coat is still loaded up.
And they'll have an auction.
And then they'll say, you know, she did
that a couple of years ago.
She was expecting it.
Are you expecting it?
Let the world know you're expecting it.
That it can't be long.
And surely from our hearts we can say,
even so come Lord Jesus.
Let us pray.
Father, we do thank thee that we believe
your word.
We have nothing else, Lord.
And we thank you that you've allowed us
to live in an age when Bible prophecy
is being fulfilled.
We don't know anything about this other than
that the Israelis have put it into print.
And we don't know how it'll happen.
But Lord, we believe with another message to
our heart that Jesus is coming soon.
And we thank thee he's going to come
for us first.
And we'll see him in the air.
What a thought, how precious that is.
And Lord, we might see him there tomorrow.
Help us to prepare for that.
To live in view of that.
Bless this company of thy people.
Bless their ministry wherever they serve thee.
Whatever companies of people they work with, encourage
them and bless them.
And send us home rejoicing, undetermined to serve
thee better.
Until we see him face to face.
This we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.