In this enlightening episode, Dr. David Jeremiah delves into the significant role that Jerusalem plays in our world today and in the prophecies of tomorrow. From its historical grandeur to its spiritual significance, Jerusalem is not just a place on the map but a pivotal point in divine prophecy. Explore the Bible’s detailed description of the New Jerusalem, a real and magnificent city that awaits believers, and learn why our prayers and support for this holy city are more crucial than ever.
Jerusalem plays a prominent role in matters of peace, politics, and religion. And the New Jerusalem will play a far more significant role. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah takes a closer look at the destiny of this important city and explains why it deserves the prayers and support of believers. Here’s David to introduce the conclusion of his message, A Geographical Prophecy.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you know, the Bible tells us that one day Jerusalem will be the center of the world in every way, geographically, philosophically, spiritually, financially. And in that day during the millennium, the Lord Jesus will sit on the throne of David. And the Bible speaks of his reign during the thousand-year time of the kingdom on this earth. Jerusalem will be present during the eternal state as well. So, Jerusalem is really an important city. It’s wonderful to go there and to see history everywhere. I remember the first time I stood by the wall there and looked at it and realized the history of it all. And I’ve been in so many churches and places there that threw your life back into the history of that time. And As you study the Bible, you realize you’re standing in the place where all of this took place. It’s really a marvelous experience. If you’ve never done it, I hope you get a chance to do it. During your lifetime, I hope you get a chance to go on a tour there, not necessarily with us if we go again, but with somebody and see the beautiful city of Jerusalem, God’s special city as we have been learning. We’ll get back to our discussion of that in just a moment as we continue our discussion of where do we go from here, tomorrow’s prophecy, today’s problems. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being a part of what we do through every avenue of ministry. One of those avenues is our magazine and devotional, which comes into your home every month when you’re on the list to get it. And we’d love for you to have it. We’d love for you to receive it. I know that it will be a blessing to you. It’s filled with articles to strengthen your faith. It is filled with devotionals for every day of the week and an extra one for the weekend. all kinds of information about what God is doing through Turning Point. We’d love for you to have this magazine, so ask for your copy. When you write to us or through the Internet, get in touch with us. We’d be happy to add you to the list. I know you’ll join with thousands of other people. I think the list now is well over 300,000 people that read that every month, and you can be a part of that group. I hope you will let us have the opportunity to do that. Here is Part 2 of Jerusalem, A Geographical Prophecy. The New Jerusalem is the city we read about in the Bible in Revelation 20 and 21. And the Bible says in 21 too, the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. And men and women, this is a real city. The final two chapters of the Bible use the word city 11 times to describe the New Jerusalem. This isn’t a figure of speech. This is not some spiritual thing. Let’s face it, because our resurrection bodies are going to be real, the body of Jesus was real after he came out of the grave. We’re going to have resurrection bodies just like Jesus had. Because our bodies will be real, we’re going to need a real place to live, a real place in which to function. And the new Jerusalem will be just that. It will be a physical location. In the book of Revelation, we have our fullest glimpse of the details of that city. It is the capital city of heaven. And I want to read to you a rather extended section of Revelation chapter 21 so you can remember what the Bible says about this place, which be our eternal home. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people. And God himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away. Then he who sat on the throne said, behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, right, for these words are faithful and true. Now that’s a long section, but this description implies the holy city was designed and built and made ready for the earth. And John didn’t see the new Jerusalem being created. It exists now. The New Jerusalem is heaven. It’s where my parents are. It’s where many of your loved ones are. It’s where we go when we die. It’s the New Jerusalem. It’s in heaven. But the Bible says in the end times, it will descend to this earth, this four square city. And a lot of people say, well, how could that city be big enough to handle all the Christians who are going to be there? People who ask that question probably are overestimating how many Christians are going to be there. And they’re underestimating the incredible volume of space in a four-square city. What a city it will be. The city of my God. So try this exercise. What do you think this is going to look like? Think of the most beautiful spot you’ve ever seen on planet Earth. For me, it’s an island in the Aegean Sea called Santorini. I’ve been there twice. I have to tell you there’s some homes there, but it’s basically wall-to-wall jewelry stores. So I have quite an investment in this city. But it’s an amazing city because it’s built on the top of a volcano that obviously is dead, and everything is white. When you’re in a ship coming toward the city, it’s up high. You have to take an escalator to get up there. And when you see it, I remember saying to Donna, it looks like we’re floating toward heaven. That’s what it looks like. And it is a beautiful city. Unbelievable. As we stood on the deck of the ship and looked at the white little town with its rounded roofs and quaint simplicity, it looked like it was suspended in space. But ladies and gentlemen, as breathtaking as Santorini is, it’s nothing compared to the beauty of the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem will be so overwhelming, you will not be able to take it in in one breath. I’ve written a lot about the New Jerusalem. And I’m not going to go back over everything I’ve written about it today, but I do want to summarize just a few things so that you’ll understand that what’s happened in Jerusalem now is a prediction of the Jerusalem that is to come. And that you’ll understand that Jerusalem in Israel is a city which in essence never ends. It’s an eternal city. The old Jerusalem will be replaced by the new Jerusalem and continue on forever and ever. When you see the New Jerusalem, you’ll be overjoyed with its beauty. That’s the first thing I want you to think about. The Bible describes the New Jerusalem as a city built on a foundation of precious stones. Entry into the city will be through gates of pearl, and the streets will be paved with gold. The light of the city will come from the Lamb of God himself, who is the light of the world. Near the city center, you’ll find the tree of life, which has been missing since the book of Genesis and chapter 3. The inhabitants of the city will be able to eat the leaves of the tree of life, and those leaves will somehow provide a deeper sense of our well-being in heaven. In the heart of the city is the river of life, which will come from beneath the throne of God and flow through the landscape and delight the whole earth. This will be a beautiful river. So you’ll be overjoyed with its beauty, you’ll be overwhelmed with its holiness. Three times in Revelation 21 and 22, John calls the New Jerusalem a holy city. The Wycliffe Bible commentary says that a holy city will be one in which no lie will be uttered in 100 million years. No evil word will ever be spoken No shady deal will ever be discussed. No unclean picture will ever be seen. No corruption of life will ever be manifest. It will be holy because everyone in it will be holy. In fact, John lists eight kinds of people who will never step foot inside the gates of the New Jerusalem. Here they are in Revelation 21, 8. The cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexual immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, all liars, they shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. So when you see the New Jerusalem, you’ll be overwhelmed by its beauty. When you enter the city, you’ll be overwhelmed by its holiness. And I say that today with some context for where we are now. Is there any place where you can go today that’s truly holy, where it hasn’t been touched by the icy fingers of sin? Oh, there’s some good places. I hope this is one of them. BUT WHILE THIS CHURCH IS FILLED WITH GOOD PEOPLE, IT’S NOT HOLY, BECAUSE SITTING IN THIS ROOM TODAY, AMONG US, MAYBE YOU’RE ONE OF THEM, IS UNHOLINESS. But when you get to heaven, there won’t be anything that’s unholy. Everything will be perfectly holy. There will be no sin, no thought of sin, no death, no sickness, no crying, no sorrow, none of the results of sin that we experience in the world today, none of that will be present. And so the New Jerusalem will overjoy you with its beauty. It will overwhelm you with its holiness. and it will overcome you with its savior. You know, we talk about how beautiful the city is and the pearly gates and walking on streets of gold and all of that sort of stuff. But I want to tell you something that I know. Once you get to heaven, that won’t be what you care about. You won’t think about that. You’ll see it and say, oh, this is beautiful. But the Bible says that the new city of Jerusalem, you will find the Lord Jesus Christ. seeing his face, glimpsing his smile, enjoying his fellowship, worshiping his glory. Revelation 22, 4 says, they shall see his face and his name shall be on their foreheads. I’m not really sure what that means. Apparently, we’re going to have some little identification of Jesus Christ on our foreheads. There’s a hymn writer by the name of Fanny Crosby who’s written a lot of the hymns that we sing. She has a hymn about this moment, and she calls this hymn, My Savior First of All. She writes about the mansion prepared for her, of the loved ones she longs to see, and of the beautiful gates and the sparkling river. but her song has as its chorus, but I long to meet my Savior first of all. Let me tell you what I know, men and women. When you see the Lord Jesus Christ, it will almost make you forget about all the beauty of the city itself. What a moment that will be to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. So as we describe the city of Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem and try to understand how it relates to where we are today, let me just give you a couple of takeaways which are part of every one of these messages. Here’s where we are, here’s what it means, and now where do we go from here? First of all, let me encourage you to stay fervent in your prayer for Israel. The psalmist tells us to do that. The psalmist says, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they prosper who love you. The Bible commands us to pray for Israel, this chosen city of God, this unique city of the future. If you visit Jerusalem and walk through the old city from end to end, you will encounter a labyrinth of languages and cultures and passions. There are more religions in the city of Jerusalem than you can imagine. Only Jesus Christ can ever bring unity to such a tangle of tongues and tempers. We need to pray for the Jews. We need to pray for the Palestinians. We need to pray for the Christians and all the others who make this land their home. But not only must we pray for the internal culture of Israel, we must pray for the international safety of Israel. Modern Israel has been forced to maintain a continual state of warfare almost throughout its entire existence. The Bible says, God will bless those who bless Israel, and he will curse those who curse Israel. If we take a stand against Israel, if we don’t support them, if we’re not Israel’s friends, we put ourselves in great jeopardy. If you don’t think Israel is under hostility, I’m gonna tell you something that I know you wouldn’t hear anyplace else, because nobody will tell you this. You’ll be jolted by this as I was. Listen, this statistics comes from the United Nations. Israel has been the single most discriminated against state at the United Nations. From 2012 through 2019, the United Nations has made 202 resolutions criticizing other countries. Israel was the subject of 163 of those 202 resolutions. 81% of the resolutions against other countries by the United Nations is against Israel. Now, you and I know that’s not possible. That couldn’t be real. Israel is responsible for 81% of the hostility in the world today. That’s not true. But it is true that it represents the hostility that the world still has for this little nation we call Israel. So let me tell you again, pray for Israel. They count on us as their prayer partners. And I hope you will join me in doing that. Number two, stay faithful in your service and in your ministry. 2 Peter 3, 11 and 12 says, since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. Peter said, since it’s true that God’s going to renovate this earth, it’s not going to be destroyed, but it’s going to be cleansed. And it’s going to all be made new. We hear about the new heavens and the new earth and the new Jerusalem coming down. Peter says, since all this is true, what kind of people should we be? Here is Peter telling us, where do we go from here? And this is what he’s saying. This ought to solicit within us a greater sense of holiness and godliness than ever before. There’s an old adage that says that sanctification, which is to be holy, sanctification is defined like this. it is being in practice what you already are in position the bible says that when we accept christ we get the righteousness of jesus christ so before god we’re just as righteous as jesus is but the reality is we still have to live on this earth and our responsibility is to live our lives in such a way that we are living as if we really are holy we’re to live lives that are representative of the holiness which God has given us. Oh, how important that is today, because we are being surrounded with evil as never before, and it has never been more important that we as Christians refuse to live our lives in a lie and live our lives in the truth of who we are in Jesus Christ. So stay fervent in your prayer for Israel. And then stay focused on Israel and Jerusalem. This is a really important thing for us to remember because today the largest country in the world by population is China. China has 1.5 billion people. Of the 193 countries in the world, Israel is in the bottom half in terms of its citizens. It has a population of 9 million. That’s less than 1% of China’s population. Israel is 1% of China’s population. And yet Israel’s international influence far outweighs the number of people that are living there. The New York Times reported that Israel is the seventh most mentioned country in their newspaper, just behind Russia, England, and Germany, and way ahead of much larger countries like Japan, India, and Italy. And you know that. You can’t listen to the news without Israel being mentioned. It’s in all the writings. It’s in all of the news shows. And as you witness the United States Embassy being moved to Jerusalem, you see again that Israel’s at the center of the geopolitical world. Along with that are all of these nations which have now become a part of the Abraham Accords. You probably know about this. The United Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan All Arab nations have made accords with Israel, and they now are trading with them and working with them, and they’ve drawn close to Israel. I understand that there are more of these nations on the way. While the Palestinian controversy still exists, as you know, the Palestinians are very upset with the embassy being in Jerusalem. The Palestinian situation is in some ways being put on the back burner as the Arabic nations create coalitions with Israel in their defense against Iran. According to the US News and World Report Israel is the tenth most powerful nation in the world And it is certainly the most powerful military force in the Middle East But the leadership of Iran is plotting and the neighborhood is nervous So keep your eyes on the chessboard of the Middle East Follow the news from there become an expert on the land that God has marked as the flashpoint of prophecy speaking of experts Many people around the world have enjoyed the wit and personality of Kathie Lee Gifford, who has been a TV host on Regis and Kathie, as well as the Today Show. What many people don’t know is that Kathie Lee is a dedicated student of the Bible, a huge evangelical fan of Israel. In her words, my love affair with the land of Israel began the moment I took my very first step onto the Promised Land in June of 1971. She writes, I missed my graduation ceremony, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was there where it all happened, and all the stories I had heard, all the scriptures I had studied since I was a young girl, everything I believed from the Word of God had taken place thousands of years in this land, and I was there experiencing it for the very first time. That thought took my breath away all those years ago, she wrote, and it still does today. Like me, Kathie Lee Gifford has been a frequent visitor to Israel. She even wrote a book called The Rock, The Road, and The Rabbi, My Journey into the Heart of Scriptural Faith and the Land Where It All Began. That book hit the New York Times bestselling list. One trip in particular was especially memorable. That was when Kathie Lee’s husband, Frank Gifford, agreed to join her in Israel for the first time. Frank had grown up in poverty, and he later became a very famous football player and TV announcer. He also was a man of faith, or at least he thought he was. According to Kathy Lee, what Frank didn’t realize until our trip to Israel is that he had a religion all of his life, but he never had a relationship with the living God. During that trip, the group visited the Valley of Elah where David fought Goliath. The leader explained that the miracle of that story was not David’s victory over the giant. After all, David had already defeated a lion and a bear. Instead, the miracle of that story was David’s genuine personal relationship with Almighty God. The leader then instructed everyone in the group to go down to the same brook David had visited and pick up a stone. He asked, what is your stone? Where are you going to throw it? In Kathie Lee’s words, I will never forget the look in Frank’s eyes as this man who was in six halls of fame obediently reached down to pick up his stone, just as a young shepherd boy had done 3,000 years ago. This experience lit a fire in my belly, and it satisfied a deep longing in Frank’s soul. Though the rest of the trip was profoundly moving and illuminating, it was this truth he learned in the Valley of Elah, that religion is nothing without relationship. That gave Frank a strong sense of peace and purpose until the day he died. And finally, at the age of 82, he had found his stone. What I learned from this is Jerusalem is the center of religion, but Jesus Christ is the center of faith. Don’t go to your grave a religious person. Go to your grave a Christian person. Go to heaven. Don’t go to the other place. Don’t live all of your life under the facade of being a religious person as Frank Gifford did. Find Jesus Christ in a personal way. Accept him as your Lord and Savior. Invite him to come and forgive your sin and receive him into your life. And you will be a person who has a relationship, not a religion. Relationship is what gets you to heaven. Religion will fool you into thinking you’re going there and you will be disappointed at the end. So my appeal to you today is this. Make sure Jesus Christ is not only the center of Jerusalem and the new Jerusalem, but that he is the center of your life because you have put him on the throne of your heart. Every message should end like that, shouldn’t it? Every message should draw us to Christ. Help us to realize that life is only meaningful when Jesus Christ is on the throne of our hearts, giving us direction each day and walking with us into every situation. Tomorrow on Turning Point, we begin the last major message of this series as we talk about the triumph of the gospel, the final prophecy. The Bible says that the gospel will be spread throughout the earth. When will that happen, and how will it happen? We’ll talk about it in the next two days here on Turning Point. Understanding Biblical Prophecy is a beautiful book that we want you to have this month. It is our resource for the month of March, and as you know, March is getting away from us, so if you haven’t already, ask for this book. Be sure to ask for your copy of Understanding Biblical Prophecy when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point during the month of March. Thanks for listening today. We’ll see you next time right here on This Good Station.
SPEAKER 01 :
Today’s message from Dr. Jeremiah came to you from the Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. How is this ministry drawing you closer to God? Let us know by writing to Turning Point, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. Visiting our website at davidjeremiah.org slash radio or calling 800-947-1993. ask for your copy of david’s new book understanding biblical prophecy a 30-day bible study it’s yours for a gift of any amount you can also view over 1200 of dr jeremiah’s sermons on any screen anytime you like on our turning point plus streaming service for a monthly gift of any amount visit turningpointplus.org for details that’s turningpointplus.org This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue, Where Do We Go From Here? on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
