The Bride of Christ and the Temple Mount

Shalom,

I pray this update finds all of you well and chasing after Him!  It amazes me how we can chase after Him, but no matter how hard we chase Him He is chasing us harder.  If you think about that for very long it kind of makes you a bit teary eyed. Two of the early morning sets I help with have been focused on Song of Solomon, I’m so loving it!  I’ve been wanting a deeper revelation and understanding of this book for a while and nothing does that quite like praying and singing it.  We just have such a great time singing, declaring and praying over the Bride every week.  This week one of the things that we focused on was declaring that it is time for the Bride to stop focusing on the fact that she is “dark but lovely” and focus instead on how He sees her.  We must begin to see ourselves as the Bride that He looks at and says “turn your eyes away from Me, for they have overcome Me”, then we will step out and be the mature Bride who joyfully leaps on the mountains with Him.  Granted, I’m not saying that we are sinless or should never take time to repent etc., but if we only focus on our sin or the past He rescued us from we will never move forward to who He has called us to be.  Praise God that He saved us and set us free, so be set free!  I desperately want to be the Bride I have been called to be.

On a slightly different note, I want to share a bit about the Temple Mount.  It says in Acts that 3,000 were saved and baptized all at once on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ death. In Jerusalem there are very few areas where Peter could have gathered that kind of a crowd, and even fewer places where that many could have been baptized in a relatively short amount of time.  It is thought that perhaps the Southern Steps leading up to the Temple Mount is where Peter stood and preached for the first time.  Since they were in the middle of a feast time there would have been large numbers of people coming to the Temple, plus amongst the steps are Mikvaot (places for the people to ceremonially bathe before entering the Temple).  So it would have been the perfect spot for that many people to hear the message and then be baptized.  Acts 2:46-47 says “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple…having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily”, which makes it seem even more likely that Peter was speaking somewhere near the temple.  We have been praying for a fresh or new outpouring in the same location.  Interestingly enough, on Monday (we were praying several days later) of last week Benny Hinn took 800 people to the Southern Steps and had them face the wall and pray in tongues for quite some time.  Think maybe God is saying something??  Anyway, we had a great time praying together for this, and I am looking forward to the day when we see the physical seeds of this.

I also believe that a lot of what has motivated the Muslims over the years has been jealousy.  This week I just really could feel that when I was around them.  It reminded me of when my brothers were a lot younger; no matter what my older brother said he wanted to do, my younger brother demanded that he get the same thing. This became especially annoying to my older brother when it came to seating in the car. No matter which seat he said he wanted my little brother would pitch a fit if he didn’t get the same seat.  Eventually my older brother was able to manipulate this to his favor by saying he wanted the opposite of what he really wanted. It’s a bit twisted with these two people groups since technically Ishmael was Abraham’s oldest, but Isaac received the blessings of the first born.  I believe that there have been seeds of jealousy ever since.  It’s not so much that Muslims deep down hate the Jews, they are just craving to have the same blessings and love that has been promised to Israel. Therefore, no matter what is said to belong to Israel, the Muslims try to find a way to get it for themselves.  This revelation has given me such compassion for them which makes it hard to be angry with them.  I believe they have felt a huge amount of rejection because of all of this, but God has room for them too! It says He wishes that none would perish.  There is no way to create lasting peace between these two people groups until both are made whole in Jesus.  This is made so obvious when you are around Muslim believers who have let go of their anger and found that God has more than enough love and blessings to go around! It is so wonderful to see this restoration, we must pray for the completion of it!!!

Picture #1 – painting my “prophetic” rain boots, the rain is coming!

~Lydia

Trusting in the Lion of Judah

Shalom Friends!

The last week or so has been really exciting! I just love the things God has been speaking out during times of prayer. There is a storm coming but when you can hear what God is saying the storm loses much of its fear factor. Ultimately God is in control. Sometimes we hear the report of the Enemy’s actions and we allow ourselves to fear that he is able to defeat our God. If we know God, and trust God then we will have no fear of the Enemy. Remember, we are to listen to the Caleb’s and Joshua’s of our day and not the other 10. Does this mean life will be all flowers and sunshine? No, we will have to endure some very difficult things, but we are not to lose hope when we walk through the fire for He is with us and ultimately He will win. There just is no other option for the end, He will win.

Last week someone said she had been seeing the Lion of Judah as she traveled around Israel and every time she saw Him she was struck by the fact that He was not roaring (we often hear of the Lion of Judah roaring). When she said this I saw a picture of this huge lion laying down (with his head up so he could look around). All around the lion were things (animals, people) coming against the lion trying to scare it, but he was looking at them all with an expression of “is that all the better you can do?” This picture has made me so excited! That is why the Lion of Judah is not roaring, He is not the least bit threatened by the plans of the Enemy. I suggest you read all of Psalms 2, here is what verse 4 says “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision.” This verse is referring to those coming against the Lord and His people. He is not threatened by the Enemy because He knows who He is and that when He does roar the Enemy will run. So instead He yawns, as bored cats often do, and doesn’t pay him anymore attention. When His Bride is dressed in white and ready for her wedding He will roar and make a final and complete end of Satan. How exciting is that!

I was able to get out and do a few fun things recently, the first was going through Hezekiah’s tunnel. When David captured Jerusalem to make it his capital, it was a heavily fortified city on a hill with a strong wall. However, it had an underground tunnel that went to the Gihon Spring outside the city wall at the bottom of the hill so that the inhabitants could get water without being easily seen. David sent his men up through this shaft and took the city from the inside out. There are ruins from this tunnel that date back to the time of Abraham and the King of Salem, Melchizedek. Salem was an ancient Jebusite city, it was later renamed Jerusalem. This section of present day Jerusalem is very small and generally referred to as the City of David (not to be confused with Bethlehem), because this is where he built his palace and also where the Tabernacle of David stood. At the very top of the hill where this portion of the city sits is the Temple Mount. Near the bottom of the hill is the Gihon Spring. During the reign of Hezekiah he had the underground tunnel system expanded so that it went from the Gihon Spring all the way to the Pool of Siloam inside the city, this way they could be under siege for a very long time without their water being cut off. As soon as he completed this tunnel system he went to war against Assyria. Much of this is in II Kings 18-19.

Anyway, we got to walk through the entire water system (takes 30-40 minutes). There were a few parts where the water came up mid-thigh, and it was cold! I highly suggest doing this if any of you visit Israel. They have also recently uncovered a portion of the original Pool of Siloam (this is where Jesus sent the blind man to wash after He had put spit and mud in his eyes). Siloam means sent. Interesting! They have also uncovered a road which lead directly from the Pool of Siloam up to the Temple Mount since the Pool was used as a Micvah (place of cleansing before going to the Temple). This road won’t be open to the public for several more weeks but we were able to walk partway up it! They have also been making major progress in the last 5 years on excavating David’s palace. God is uncovering some ancient things all of a sudden! I think He is trying to shine the light on David once more.

The second fun thing we did was gathering olives in the City of David! This required lots of tree climbing, which resulted in some very happy but very scratched up people. Afterward we were rewarded with an Arabic meal made by our friend’s Arab landlords. We were in the trees for hours picking and shaking. The olives were not the type you want to eat straight from the tree, maybe after they are pickled! The landlord gathers them every year and has them pressed to make olive oil.

Many blessings to all of you! I love and miss you all. I hope that you are using all of the information I am sending you to pray. Please do not forward these emails to other people without my consent as they sometimes contain sensitive information about the things we are doing here. You can always give them my blog site where they can read portions of my updates and request to be added to my mailing list.

Big hugs to you all!

Pictures: #1 Me in Hezekiah’s Tunnel

#2 Me picking olives

#3 buckets of rocks that the Arabs collected for throwing (their uprisings have to be planned or else these rocks wouldn’t be sitting in buckets, no matter what the news says, they are not spontaneous uprisings, and the Arabs are the ones starting them)

#4 one of the rocks, they aren’t little