Jerusalem and Paths to Peace

Jerusalem certainly continues to be at the center of the latest news cycle.  Of course this is one other sign the Bible tells us to watch for.

Jerusalem crisis: Amid violence, seeking paths to peace

The question of how to govern a shared Jerusalem, sacred to both Jews and Muslims, often seems intractable. But many potential solutions are already under consideration.

For decades, Jerusalem has presented successive teams of Middle East negotiators with an array of complex and emotional issues that touch the heart of the Israeli-Arab conflict. It produ­ces the highest of passions, but also unique opportunities to forge a solution.


Since July, political resentment, religious tensions, and social ills have boiled over into the worst violence the city has seen in a decade – from the brutal revenge murder of a Palestinian teenager to the killing of rabbis at prayer in a synagogue – pushing Jerusalem back into the global spotlight.

When the United Nations outlined the division of British Mandatory Palestine in 1947, it envisioned Jerusalem as an internationally administered city between two sovereign states. When the fighting over Israel’s creation in 1948 ended, the armistice line, which became known as the Green Line, divided the city between Israeli and Jordanian control.

In the 1967 war, Israel conquered the eastern half of Jerusalem and declared full sovereignty over the city as its “eternal and undivided” capital – a move no major world power has yet recognized.


Palestinians call for a capital in East Jerusalem that is contiguous with the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the West Bank. They decry the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, where nearly all of Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods are located, and they demand that Israel withdraw to the 1949 Green Line.

The most recognizable building in Jerusalem is the Dome of the Rock, a magnificent, golden-domed, 7th-century mosque built atop the most contentious religious site in the city: the Temple Mount as it is known to Jews, and known as Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) to Muslims.

The man-made plateau, visible from the surrounding countryside and rising above the Old City’s crowded Muslim and Jewish quarters, is the holiest place in Judaism, the site of the first and second biblical temples. Muslims, who believe the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from the rock under the dome, built the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the same rectangular plaza and consider it the third holiest place in Islam.


Both Israelis and Palestinians demand freedom of worship at their respective holy sites. Neither side trusts the other to guarantee that right.

The plaza is administered by Jordanian religious authorities, but Israeli police are responsible for security. Palestinians are concerned by the provocative visits and proposals of right-wing Israeli lawmakers to establish Jewish prayer times and even a third temple on the plaza, which would involve the destruction of Muslim sites. Israel is concerned about freedom of access, after Jordan banned Jewish worship there during its 1949-67 rule over East Jerusalem.

Palestinians have previously agreed to Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall of the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa compound. Israelis have agreed to international control of the compound itself. Palestinians have traditionally demanded full sovereignty of the compound, but according to the leaked Palestine Papers, negotiator Saeb Erekat indicated a willingness to cede control to an international body.


Other proposals suggest giving the Old City and its holy sites the status of “divine ownership” or diplomatic status, such as the UN enjoys in New York.

Here;  http://news.yahoo.com/jerusalem-crisis-amid-violence-seeking-paths-peace-120000351.html

The Bible tells us quite a lot about Jerusalem...past and future.

Micah 4:2 
Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Zechariah 1:16 
“Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,’ declares the Lord Almighty.

Zechariah 3:2
The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”

Zechariah 8:3
This is what the Lord says: “I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.”

Zechariah 8:8
I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.”

Zechariah 8:22
And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord Almighty and to entreat him.”

Zechariah 12:3
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.

Zechariah 12:9 
On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.

Zechariah 14:8 
On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it east to the Dead Sea and half of it west to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and in winter.

Friends, Jerusalem is God's Holy City.  There are MANY things that are yet to happen in Jerusalem that God has foretold.  Because of this, the Prince of this world (Satan) wants Jerusalem for his own. He wants nothing more than to thwart God's plan and God's word.

The world is demanding PEACE to happen in Jerusalem.  They don't want Jews building anymore houses in Jerusalem.  They don't want Jews standing on the Temple Mount because Satan has temporarily claimed the Holy mount for his own...using his proxy religion of Islam to build a Golden Dome and a mosque directly on God's hill....and yet they want Israel to make peace with a bunch of Muslims who are sworn to Israel's destruction.

Remember, there will never be true peace in Jerusalem until Jesus returns to sit on David's throne and rule the earth.  Until then, we can expect the world to scream for peace but when it comes it will be only a temporary and false peace most likely brought about by the Antichrist.

2 Thessalonians 2
Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

5 Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.