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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Man of Faith

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

There's no other place like it in the entire world.

People flock here from all around the planet, pilgrims many of them.

They come to walk where Jesus walked, to see places spoken of in the Bible, to see where Jesus died, or just a few miles away in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.

Unlike some historic sites in the world, there's no doubt that this 1 is legitimate.

Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, the son of David, the son of God, lived here.

Now he didn't spend as much time here as many people think.

Matthew 9.1 describes Capernaum as Jesus' own city.

It was there in Capernaum on the north side of the Sea of Galilee and in other places nearby that Jesus cast out demons, healed the mother of Peter, healed a man who was lowered through the roof of that home.

It was in Galilee that many of the disciples were called.

Some were fishermen, and they fished on the Sea of Galilee.

It was there, 70 miles from Jerusalem in a straight line, and of course much further if you walked like Jesus did, that Jesus walked on water, that Peter walked on water, that Jesus calmed the storm.

When Jesus spoke of the future of the church and told Peter that he would build a church upon a rock, the rock being Jesus himself, that was north of Capernaum in Caesarea Philippi, the Sermon on the Mount, on a hillside in Galilee, not here in Jerusalem.

But there was something in Jerusalem that drew Jesus here often, the temple.

The temple in Jerusalem was first built by Solomon and was destroyed some years later by Nebuchadnezzar.

That temple was rebuilt by exiles who returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity.

It was refurbished by Herod the Great, the ruler in Israel when Jesus was born.

That's the man who was so alarmed by word that a king had been born in Bethlehem, that he ordered the killing of every baby boy under the age of 2 in Bethlehem.

Herod was ruthless and an incredible builder.

He built the royal complex called Herodium, another colossal palace, fortress-type building, where his own tomb was located by archaeologist Ehud Netzer.

He built a lot more, all of it grand, including that third temple.

He was determined to make it a huge complex, so he constructed, or at least he had constructed, The Temple Mount, an enormous platform upon which the temple would rest.

Enormous stones were used in the wall of the Temple Mount, many of them weighing an estimated 120 tons, or almost 109 tons in metric, and some of those stones, much more.

He built the Western Wall, where Jews still come to worship today.

When Jesus visited the temple during Passover, it's said in John 2 verse 20 that the temple had been under construction for 46 years.

When it was destroyed in 70 AD, it's thought construction had been fully completed only a few years earlier.

Visit the Temple Mount today and you're able to see prophecy fulfilled.

Of course, there's no temple on the Temple Mount now.

Jesus, speaking to his disciples in Matthew 24, from the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from here, told his disciples that the temple would be destroyed to the extent that there would not be 1 stone left upon another.

I've been asked about that by people many times who see the wall very much intact, stones on top of stones, and they wonder whether that prophecy failed.

But no, Jesus was speaking about the stones in the buildings of the temple complex.

And if you come here today, you're able to see some of those same stones pushed off the temple mount lying in piles today.

In the 2nd century AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian built a temple for the worship of Jupiter on the Temple Mount, later demolished by the Emperor Constantine.

The area later became a rubbish dump, but today the Temple Mount is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, considered to be the third holiest site in Islam, and the magnificent Dome of the Rock.

It was completed in around 691 AD and then rebuilt a little over 300 years later.

It's the most recognized landmark in Jerusalem today.

Now there's no shortage of controversy and tension in Jerusalem concerning the Temple Mount.

There are some Jews and some Christians too who believe that the Jewish Temple will be rebuilt here.

Now the question is asked, how can that possibly happen when the site is currently under Muslim control?

And then there are those who ask whether the temple even needs to be rebuilt, considering that Jesus brought about an end of the sacrificial system when he died on the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Jesus came and went from the temple that stood on the Temple Mount during His life and ministry.

It was there that Jesus overturned the money changers tables.

It was on the steps just in front of the Temple Mount that Jesus anointed a blind man's eyes with dirt and saliva and had him go and wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam, which the man did.

It was on that same Temple Mount when, as a 12-year-old, Jesus engaged the religious leaders in a discussion.

His parents had left town, not realizing that they had failed to bring Jesus with them.

But another very significant event happened on that same spot 2, 000 years earlier, an event that prefigured the coming of Jesus to this world.

Well, some great faith and a fair amount of faithlessness, but it's a story in which faith triumphs.

It's a challenging story, but this story announces that Jesus would come to the world to save us from our sins.

God promised elderly Abram, whose name was later changed to Abraham, that he would have a son.

In fact, God told the old man that his descendants would become a great nation.

The Bible says, the Lord visited Abraham in Mamre, which was located southwest of Jerusalem down near Hebron.

And he said, I will certainly return to you according to the time of life.

And behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.

Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.

The next verse says, Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age, and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.

God stated a physical impossibility, and Sarah reacted as many people do when they're confronted by God's power, God's promises, God's Word.

Or there's no way in the world a big fish could possibly have swallowed up Jonah.

How could God possibly forgive me of my sins?

When God speaks and He has spoken, the right way to respond is by exercising faith in God's Word.

Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord being old also?

And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?

At the appointed time I will return to you according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son." Now there's a question, is there anything too hard for the Lord?

Believe that and you'll be in good shape.

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Thanks for joining me today on it is written Jerusalem the city of peace.

Well, of course over the last number of years.

Jerusalem, most of it, was under the control of Jordan until the 6 Day War in 1967.

At that time, a large amount of territory was taken, including the old city of Jerusalem.

Jews hadn't held the Old City for hundreds and hundreds of years.

And when Israeli soldiers made it to the wall of the Temple Mount, they wept, which is why the Western Wall is referred to today as the Wailing Wall.

And since then, there hasn't been anything resembling real peace, in spite of many attempts at securing peace.

Jesus is referred to as the Prince of Peace.

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