By Christine Darg

Jerusalem Channel

Jewish and Bible-believing Christians all over the world celebrated Jerusalem Day on the Hebrew calendar but celebrations in Israel’s capital will continue into June on the secular calendar–it’s 55 years since Jerusalem was reunified during the June 1967 Six Day War.

I’ve never seen Jerusalem so packed with enthusiastic revellers as it was this Jerusalem Day despite threats of terrorism. As we continually point out on the Jerusalem Channel, the restoration of Jewish sovereignty to all of Jerusalem is yet another fulfillment of Bible prophecies and a major sign of the Second Coming of Jesus. God favours the return of the Jews at this time, although much of the world is tragically ignorant of God’s prophetic calendar.

The biblically illiterate mistakenly frown upon real history unfolding before our eyes.

In an  article entitled “Celebrating Jerusalem Every Day,” my friend Jonathan Feldstein, director of the Genesis 123 Foundation, wrote that “for Jews and Christians, there is no place more central or significant to our faith than Jerusalem.  . . the place that Kings built, prophets prophesied, where the Temples stood, where Jesus preached and was crucified, and much more.  Jerusalem is mentioned several hundred times in the Bible. It’s the only place by name that God specifically tells us to pray for, and to be guardians on the walls of.”

But sadly, not everyone understands these spiritual weighty matters, and now there is a new and dangerous narrative denying that there was ever a Temple on the Temple Mount. Furthermore, the narrative claims Jesus as a Palestinian, and there is slander of Jerusalem being “defiled” by Jews and Christians, and that the City of the Great King is being “Judaized–”that’s just too ironical!

“This narrative,” wrote Feldstein, “undermines the very foundation of Judaism and Christianity.  It is the mother of all replacement theology, to erase actual Biblical history and our deep roots in Jerusalem as Jews and Christians to the holy city.”

Last year, Hamas and other terrorists used the occasion of Jerusalem Day to start an 11-day war, launching over 4,000 rockets at Israeli communities. They call the observance a provocation, but Prime Minister Bennet said it is normal for people in a country to wave their flags. This year threats were issued by Gaza-based terror organizations and the Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. In response, Israeli leaders vowed that its people would not be intimidated.

Lion of Judah, Jerusalem Flag’s Emblem

We have to stop amongst all the rhetoric and realize it’s simply a privilege to live here or even to sojourn here. It is a privilege to imbibe of the very Presence of the GOD OF THE BIBLE in His City, to go back to the future and to watch Bible prophecy unfolding. . in. . . real. . . time!

Let us not be deceived, Jerusalem Day is not political in God’s eyes. Jerusalem Day is particularly prophetic. On the one hand the day is an orgy of happiness for Israelis who just a generation ago stepped out of the Holocaust. But Jerusalem Day has also become a provocation to the nations and especially to the powers of darkness.  Despite threats from Hamas and the Biden Administration to tone down their celebrations, Israelis came out in force with their songs and flag dancing. The Old City of Jerusalem was awash with blue and white flags.

But the powers of darkness hate the dance of the flags –to them it like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

The fact that the nations resent Israelis enjoying their sovereignty after nearly two millennia is ominous. It tells us we are living in the days of Zechariah 12: 3 where God says: “On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.”

Pray, pray for the shalom [wholeness] of Jerusalem!

Yesterday Israelis waved not only their national flags but also the Jerusalem flags which feature the Lion of the tribe of Judah –and that says to me, “RAISE A FLAG, MESSIAH IS COMING!”