"I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. 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 12:2-3

Ever since I spent those five life-changing months in Jerusalem, my eyes have been continually fixed on her, my heart beating with her own throbbing pulse.  People ask me continually why the world and the news media are so fixated upon Israel and Jerusalem - this tiny land, the size of Vermont!  The answer is so very simple: it is because the eyes and the heart of the Creator of the Universe are forever focused right there!

Jerusalem - the ONLY city where God chose to put His own Name; the place where He brought forth creation, the place where His Son shed His blood to reconcile Himself back to a sinful creation!  The nations and religions of the earth vie for control of this place. It is the most coveted piece of real estate in the Universe - and the navel of this land is the Temple Mount. 

This week we feel the pulsating tension over the Temple Mount.  Gun shots, rioting, convulsions of rage fill the streets there, and blood is flowing in homes of the innocent. All these chaotic scenes of this past week cause my memory to flash back to 2005, when I was living up on the Mount of Olives and the Muslim Feast of Ramadan broke out in wild gun shots, drunken revelry and closed-off streets. At my window, overlooking all this chaos, I was praying for the peace of Jerusalem, when God gave me a vision.  I saw a great, radiant, flowing form seated on an enormous throne, and His feet were propped upon a footstool!  I was in awe at the scene and then the Spirit spoke to me: "I am not wringing My hands over this mess in Jerusalem. Do I look frightened and anxious to you? Am I not reclining, with my feet upon a footstool? Who does that if they are worried or afraid of what is happening? I tell you, Heaven is My throne and the earth is my footstool. (Isa 66:1) Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is God's throne or by the earth, for it is His footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the City of the Great King." (Matt 5:35) 

I remember being overwhelmed by this vision and these words from the Spirit, and I recall them now, as we begin to see the stage being set for Zechariah's prophecies. Satan is stirring up the nations of the earth against Jerusalem, only because it truly is the City of the Great King, the very location of the future Kingdom of Messiah Yeshua.

He said: “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet. This is where I will live among the Israelites forever. The people of Israel will never again defile my holy name—neither they nor their kings..."  (Ezekiel 43:7)

Hallelujah!