By Grace Through Faith

Written by Drake O’Bryant

Howdy!

Today was our first day to spend in Jerusalem, and all I have to say is wow. What. A. Day. While working at camp during the summer, we always say that the days are long and the weeks are short, and that statement holds very true here in Israel. It’s hard to believe that we have just one full day left before coming home, but nevertheless, it’s true. However, the Lord provided us with an incredible day here in the Holy City, so here are some highlights!

Breakfast started off with our hotel serving us cake for breakfast, and no one was more excited for this than Matt Lantz. Not a big part of the day, but still funny enough to mention. We left the hotel with our bellies full of chocolate milk and cake and went to our first sight, the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is located on Mount Moriah, which is where Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac, but God provided a ram in the thicket instead. In addition to that, the Temple Mount is the location of both of the Jewish temples. Needless to say, this is huge sight for Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, but more on that later. From there we walked through Hezekiah’s tunnel (and by walk, I mean slosh through water up to our knees at some point through a mountain tunnel built some 3000 years ago). Lunch in a park preceded our visit to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum in Jerusalem. While Yad Vashem is not a biblical sight, it still had so much to teach us. And as if all of that wasn’t enough, to close out our day we went to Bethlehem. Yes, That Bethlehem. We went to the Church of the Nativity, the place where Jesus was born. We visited the place where our lives, our true lives began. For believers, our “zoe” life (life as it is meant to be) begins with the birth of Jesus. And by God’s grace we got to visit it. So I guess you can say its kind of a big day.

As great as today was, with the exception of Hezekiah’s tunnel, all of our sights today really had a heavy and sobering atmosphere. Perhaps the heaviest of which is the Temple Mount. As you approach the Temple Mount and go through security you can just feel the heaviness in the air. As I mentioned before, the Temple Mount is a very important place to a lot of people. To Christians and Jews, it is where God provided a substitutionary sacrifice for Abraham and is the location of the temple, which held the holy of holies (Where God’s presence dwelled). It is where the Jews could come and worship God. On the top of the temple mount is the Dome of the Rock, which is a mosque and big shrine to Islam. The Jewish people are not allowed to pray on top of the temple mount, so whenever they go up there they have an armed guard with them to make sure they don’t pray while up there. Because of this they go to the Western Wall to pray. The Western Wall is the closest they can get to where the temple was and pray. So men and women will sit there and pray and read the Torah throughout to day. As Ronan was teaching us about the history of the Temple Mount and how it got to be what it is today, I was driven to praise. I was reminded that it is not the Christians, or Jews, or Palestinians or Americans or Israelis who are in charge, but God. “ For there is no authority except that which is from God. The authorities that exist has been appointed by God” (Romans 13:1) God is in control, and the only reason people are in positions of authority is because God put them there. God is in control. So while things in the middle east are tense, and a lot of people are worried about a lot of different things, we can take heart in knowing that our God, Yahweh, the living God is sovereign. He is in control of all things. So our hope as Christians should not be in the American government or our army or the Israelis, but God!

As I went to the western wall, I was driven to praise again. I looked on the Jewish people praying and reading the text, and I was reminded of something that Chris Sherrod has said to us on numerous occasions,” You can be sincere, but be sincerely wrong.” No one is doubting the sincerity or devotion of the Jews studying the text or the Palestinians who control the temple mount. They are very devoted, the only problem is that they put their faith in the wrong thing. I found myself praising and thanking God because he has opened my eyes to see him as he truly is and has predestined me to adoption as his son (Ephesians 1). As we talked about in Caesarea Philippi, the only reason I can recognize Jesus as messiah is because God has revealed it to me (Matthew 16:17). And he did this by grace through faith. I was also drawn to praise and thanksgiving because we no longer have to go and worship at a temple, because as 1 Corinthians 6:19 says we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. The presence of God resides in us, not in a temple, not behind a veil, but in us. And we no longer have to go through a priest making sacrifices; we can now go boldly to the throne of grace because we have the true high priest, Jesus. How humbling is that? That these Rabbis and Jewish people who are studying the text and know it far better than I ever will still haven’t put two and two together about Jesus, yet God for whatever reason chose to reveal himself to me. That alone is worthy of my praise. I have been praying that God would reveal more of himself to me and bring me back to a place of awe and wonder of him, and he has more than done that through this trip, especially today. I pray that he will do that to you as well, because we serve a gracious and loving God who is worthy of all praise.

In Christ,
Drake O’Bryant