Praying for the Peace of Jerusalem?

[Sojourner]

Just wondering where the SDA stands on this command in the Psalms - "Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem" - Psalm 122:6?

Does the leadership of the SDA see this as something members should be doing on a regular basis, or do they feel its no longer necessary because the church is Spiritual Israel?

[Gregory Matthews]

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Does the leadership of the SDA see this as something members should be doing on a regular basis, or do they feel its no longer necessary because the church is Spiritual Israel?

I would say that the answer to your question is: None of the above.

Ellen White does not make a significant comment on that verse. Neither does the SDABC.

[phkrause]

I agree Gregory. Jerusalem, as far as I can remember, was never at peace when king David wrote/said that. He was, it seems to me, asking all his countrymen to pray over the Holy City of God, to actually have peace for a change. I think the only peace I can recall, at least in Bible times, was when Solomon was king. Is pray necessary today? All cities should be prayed over for peace, would be my pray, not just Jerusalem. Even though it probably can use prayer more than most!

[Kevin H]

I pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but also hold it intension with the knowledge of eschatological events that we know are going to come and to pray for the residents to be ready for them.

[Gail]

I agree Gregory. Jerusalem, as far as I can remember, was never at peace when king David wrote/said that. He was, it seems to me, asking all his countrymen to pray over the Holy City of God, to actually have peace for a change. I think the only peace I can recall, at least in Bible times, was when Solomon was king. Is pray necessary today? All cities should be prayed over for peace, would be my pray, not just Jerusalem. Even though it probably can use prayer more than most!

[Myron]

Paul gets pretty clear about this in a number of places in his writings, but never so clear as in Galatians 4.

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21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.

24 These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written:

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“Be glad, barren woman,

you who never bore a child;

shout for joy and cry aloud,

you who were never in labor;

because more are the children of the desolate woman

than of her who has a husband.”

28 Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30 But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” 31 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

According to what Paul says here, those who look to Jerusalem, as do Jews and Christian Zionists are under the authority of Hagar and Ishmael, who Muslims consider to be the legitimate heir of Abraham. Those looking toward the Old Covenant, its form of law -- which is letter, not spirit -- and its places of worship all come under the authority of Ishmael.

Ever since the Jews rejected Jesus as their king and crucified him they have been under this authority, as are any Christians who look to the Old Jerusalem as the continued center of worship. It is the Arabs (and their Old Covenant religions (Islam), not the Jews, who have possession rights over the city after God expelled the Jews in 70 AD. This is according to what Paul wrote here years before that expulsion.

I don't know of any official stance taken on this matter by the denomination. In Hebrew the word Jerusalem is plural because there are two Jerusalems, the earthly and the Heavenly. The earthly has never seen much peace and is not prophesied to see any in the end. Many point to the prophecies of Jeremiah 19 and Isaiah 29, both of which speak of the destruction of the city, Jeremiah 19 saying it will never be rebuilt (after some final destruction since Jeremiah also prophesied the return and rebuilding after 70 years) and say that it will eventually be destroyed in some great (probably nuclear) disaster and never be rebuilt. They are probably right.

Which Jerusalem do you want to pray for? Only the Jerusalem above will see and bring any real peace. The Jerusalem in Israel has considerably different prophecies applied to it, and never has brought lasting peace to anyone. Praying for its peace is probably an exercise in futility and places you under the authority of the Old Covenant and Ishmael and his religion.

[Sojourner]

Isaiah 11:11-12, "Its shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time To recover the remnant of His people who are left, from Assyria and Egypt, From Pathros and Cush, From Elan and Shinar, From Hanath and the islands of the sea. He will set up a banner for the nations and will assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

Interesting that the Bible specifically says "Four corners of the earth". That is no mistake, nor can it be explained away by suggesting that the punctuation used in the Bible is not correct or has been mistranslated. If it referred to the Jews captive in Babylon that would be a single corner of the earth, not four.

AD 70, Jesus prophecy that Jerusalem would be destroyed is fulfilled. The Jews rise up against their Roman overlords and are destroyed and cast out into the nations of the world. Yet a small community remain in the local area. Over the centuries Jerusalem is rebuilt, Jews are again slaughtered in the Crusades led by the Roman Catholic church along with the muslims. By the 1800's a strong thriving community of Jews are living in these areas. In the 1930's Jews begin pouring out of Europe and into Israel. 1939-1945, Hitler exterminates 6 Million Jews along with a number of Seventh Day Adventists. 1946-1948, Jews that survive are no longer welcome in their countries of birth and join the Jewish community in Israel. In 1949 the nation of Israel is declared. The neighboring nations vastly outnumbering the Jews declare war and are defeated by the fledgling Jewish nation. All over the middle east Jews are expelled from their home nation of Iran and Saudi Arabia and so forth and are taken in by Israel. 1950-2014 Jews from the four corners of the world including Messianic Christians return to Israel. New Zealand, Australia, Phillipines, just as Isaiah prophesied.

1849 - Clorinda S. Minor, begins the work of the Seventh Day Adventist Church after being called by God to minister to the Jewish Community in Israel, then called Palestine.

1904 - records have been located of SDA Baptisms in Jerusalem and Jaffa.

1930 - Adventists purchase their first property and are able to have permanent buildings to worship in near the King David Hotel.

1970 - A further two SDA churches are planted and experience growth.

1990's - Growth explodes in the SDA in Israel, Three churches become 20+ Churches.

2014 - SDA number over 30 different churches with two more churches planted this year. The SDA are experiencing growth in their Messianic Synagogue fellowships as well as regular SDA congregations.

Via the ministry of the Seventh Day Adventist church, Jewish people are getting a revelation of who Jesus Christ really is and are being born again all over the nation of Israel including in Jerusalem.

It is no coincidence that the SDA are growing rapidly in Israel as the end times approach. God has placed the SDA there for that reason. God still has a plan and a purpose for the nation of Israel whether people wish to acknowledge it or not. God has not "turned his back" on the Jewish people, he has brought them to Israel and is presenting them with the truth of the Gospel as prophesied. In addition to the SDA there are other Messianic Christian Churches meeting each Sabbath over there and seeing similar growth patterns. God is not finished with Israel just yet!

[Tom Wetmore]

I agree Gregory. Jerusalem, as far as I can remember, was never at peace when king David wrote/said that. He was, it seems to me, asking all his countrymen to pray over the Holy City of God, to actually have peace for a change. I think the only peace I can recall, at least in Bible times, was when Solomon was king. Is pray necessary today? All cities should be prayed over for peace, would be my pray, not just Jerusalem. Even though it probably can use prayer more than most!

Good points. Timing and context are important in reading Scripture. There are also calls in Scripture to pray for the king. And Paul frequently asks for his fellow believers to pray for him. I don't think we need to pray for that which is in the past. It would seem a pointless thing to do. Understanding the principle involved would however bring us to pray for those who today are laboring for the Lord in spreading the Gospel and to pray for our leaders, both secular and religious, and to pray for any place near and dear to our hearts and heritage, just as Jerusalem was to David and all of Israel in those days.

[Myron]

Sojourner,

There are some things I want you to notice. First and least important, the two verses you quote, Isaiah 11:11 & 12, are about the regathering and have nothing to do with Jerusalem. If you read on to verse 13 you see something that quickly proves problems with how SDAs, indeed all evangelicals, believe these prophecies should be interpreted. Israel and Judah are spoken of as two separate nations prophetically, and as two who will start getting along and cooperating (something that didn't happen terribly much. even during the united kingdom years.

Although Isaiah was in Judah during the siege of Jerusalem and was based there after the fall of Samaria he was primarily a prophet to Israel. However, he prophesied to both, and in many of these prophecies he had clear, distinct and separate prophecies for each nation, many of which have end time applications, cannot be fulfilled in the end times by a single nation, and is either ignored, by Christians if too negative, or all applied to Judah (Jews), or to Christians as spiritual Israel, but completely ignoring who Israel really is and that for geographers, archaeologists and historians they are not nearly so lost as they are for the church, which for the most part IS physical Israel. While the northern 10 tribes scattered all over the world once they left the areas of the Caucasus and central and southern Turkey where the Assyrians resettled them, the vast majority of their progeny ended up settling in northern and central Europe.

Well into the second century AD many of these settlements of former Israelites knew precisely who they were and were saying so on their tombstones, and Judah and the Church were just as aware of who and where they were. Judah has known all along, and openly admitted until recently that they are not Israel and have no legal right to that name and the rabbis taught (as does scripture) that they could not return until they reunited with Israel. Peter, who died before the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews addressed his first epistle to these former Israelites of the dispersion, using language the Jews commonly used when speaking of them.

In Ezekiel 34 God chastised the priests of Jerusalem for being bad shepherds and refusing to seek his lost sheep of the northern House of Israel when they were scattered and said he would seek them himself. In the New Testament he sent his disciples out with the great gospel commission to convert the whole world, but concentrate on the lost sheep of Israel. The prophecies of Isaiah and Hosea speak of Israel being scattered so that when they are regathered many more who are not Israel will be harvested with them and brought into God's house in this way. This is also the meaning of the parable of the treasure found in the field. Matthew 13 tells us the field is the world. Jesus bought the whole field to have legal right to the particular treasure (Exodus 19) which he scattered and hid there, and he will harvest that whole field, not just the Israel treasure.

Ezekiel 37, after the story of the valley of dry bones (in which the four winds resurrect the nation of Israel -- this is their real purpose in the last days) we find the prophecy of the two sticks combined into one nation under one king. Jesus is that king and the prophecy itself says that the two sticks are the northern Kingdom (Joseph) and the nation of Judah.

A little additional explanation is necessary here since it involves prophecies and laws SDAs (and most other evangelicals) never examine. Generally we teach that Judah got the birthright, but this only proves that we do not study these things thoroughly and only read scripture to find proof of what we believe, not to learn what scripture really says.

We point to Genesis 49 where Jacob, on his death bed, blessed his sons, and say, "See, Judah got the scepter, that means he got the birthright." That is simply not the case. We see the ceremony passing the birthright in the previous chapter, although that particular term was not used in that ceremony. Here Jacob says of the sons of Joseph, "Let my name be on named through them." This is the birthright and the double portion, not placed on Joseph because he was already a king, but placed on his two sons. The birthright is the name itself, but is further defined later in scripture.

I once asked one of my academy bible teachers why the name went to the northern Kingdom if the southern kingdom had the right to rule which was given to Judah. The teacher I asked could not tell me. A few years ago I had the opportunity to teach him this truth. Up until Jacob all the offices of the birthright was held in one person. For some reason that is never really explained in scripture Jacob split it up. The priesthood and most other offices held by the firtborn went to Levi, the right to rule went to Judah, and the property rights and name went to Joseph. These continued to be called the birthright. It is for this reason that when the nation split Judah was not able to keep the national name Israel.

In 1 Chronicles 5:1,2 we read,

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The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (he was the firstborn, but when he defiled his father’s marriage bed, his rights as firstborn were given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel; so he could not be listed in the genealogical record in accordance with his birthright, 2 and though Judah was the strongest of his brothers and a ruler came from him, the rights of the firstborn belonged to Joseph)—

So we see that the birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, but Judah received (only) the right to rule. The birthright is later defined further when God took the Kingdom from Solomon (but did not make this effective until the days of his son.) In 1 Kings 11 we read,

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29 About that time Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, and Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh met him on the way, wearing a new cloak. The two of them were alone out in the country, 30 and Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. 31 Then he said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand and give you ten tribes. 32 But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. 33 I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Molek the god of the Ammonites, and have not walked in obedience to me, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my decrees and laws as David, Solomon’s father, did.

34 “‘But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon’s hand; I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose and who obeyed my commands and decrees. 35 I will take the kingdom from his son’s hands and give you ten tribes. 36 I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name. 37 However, as for you, I will take you, and you will rule over all that your heart desires; you will be king over Israel. 38 If you do whatever I command you and walk in obedience to me and do what is right in my eyes by obeying my decrees and commands, as David my servant did, I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you. 39 I will humble David’s descendants because of this, but not forever.’”

So we see that the kingdom is the birthright. Solomon's son retained the tribe of Benjamin. What good is it to be a king if you have no one over which to rule? The purpose of Benjamin was to be a light to Judah. We see this fulfilled in the church. When the "Jews" (Judahites) returned from Exile the tribe of Benjamin settled in the north, primarily, in the area of Galilee. Few Judahites were up in that region, most settled around Jerusalem. All the disciples except Judah were of the tribe of Benjamin. All the apostles (including Paul), except for the brothers of Jesus, were of the tribe of Benjamin. This is the church. You posted all that stuff about the growth of this denomination in Israel, that also is all part of it, although the denominational attitude that we and we only are the true church is a sin that separates us from the body of Christ, and thus from the head of that body which is Christ himself. Please do not be guilty of this sin.

When Joseph was found he first revealed himself to Benjamin, then to the rest of his brothers. When Israel is found it will be the church first then the Jews and rest of the world to whom he is revealed. Paul tells us in Romans 11 that all Israel will be saved. This includes Judah (the Jews), but he tells us in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 that it will be as through a fire which tests our works and burns up the works of the flesh within us. This is the work of combining those sticks into a single piece of wood.

As I said before, Jeremiah 19 speaks of the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem such that it cannot be repaired. In the case of the nation of Judah, it is by this combining with Israel (referred to in Isaiah as the repairing of the breach -- one of many applications of that particular prophecy) that destroys Judah so that it cannot be rebuilt. It will no longer be an independent nation and never can be again, but it will be better for having entered into the Kindgom/birthright with their brothers and as subjects of the King of the Jews who is Jesus.

As for old Jerusalem itself, Jeremiah 7 says,

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12 “‘Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. 13 While you were doing all these things, declares the Lord, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. 14 Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your ancestors. 15 I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim.’

Since that time Shiloh, if it even existed, was nothing more than a small farming village as it is today.

In Ezekiel 10 the prophet saw in vision the glory of God leaving the Most Holy Place and stopping for a short time in the courtyard before it left the temple grounds completely and settled on the top of the Mount of Olives in chapter 11. When the temple was rebuilt and dedicated the glory of God did not return until it came in the fleshly veil of Jesus body, and the people really did not recognize it for what it was. It left the temple for the last time in Matthew 23 when Jesus said to them, "Your house is left to you desolate."

Jesus won the scepter on the cross. Then according to his parables and his direct words to the disciples he went to a far country to win a kingdom. He took the glory of God with him when he rose, but 10 days later a portion of it came and fell as tongues of fire on the 120 in the upper room, and was passed on by them to others by the laying on of hands.

God no longer wrote his name on the temple in Jerusalem and did not indwell it. Instead, he writes his name in the foreheads of his elect (Revelation 14:1, 22:4) who then become living stones in his New Covenant temple (1 Peter 2:5) which is being built without hands (Mark 14:58, Colossians 2:11). He is never again going to occupy a temple of wood and stone, even one on some planet in the Orion Nebula.

In Jerusalem, in the middle of the week before he died the house in which bore his name became irrelevant because he left it never to return, just has he left Shiloh (in the ark of the covenant) never to return, and later left Solomon's temple, never to return. Only Solomon's temple was promptly destroyed in a physical sense right away after he left it, but once that building was no longer relevant to the worship of Israel the temple was destroyed, even as it stood.

I do not necessarily look for a physical destruction of Jerusalem as some do. That place is already destroyed by God's having abandoned it, and it will only be restored to a subordinate place in God's system of worship where we are to take our sacrifices, tithes and offerings to the place where God has written his name. That place is his living temple, his elect, and will never again be placed in Jerusalem, just as it has never again been in Shiloh.

Finally regarding the word Jerusalem. We are generally told it means city of peace, but I have recently been told by someone I trust that it means teach peace. I have not yet verified this for myself, but that is an interesting idea. The old Jerusalem cannot teach peace. It is a place of discord and war. Only the Jerusalem from above can teach us peace. When we pray for the peace of Jerusalem we are not praying for peace to come over some war torn city of wood and stone, built with hands of flesh; instead we are praying for God to come establish his peace in our hearts and make us one of those living stones in his new temple and new city built by his hand, not by our hands of flesh.

[Gregory Matthews]

The background for the name Jerusalem is extensive and from that perspective one might be able to attach a number of meaning to it:

The history of the work Jerusalem can be traced back to the 19th century. This was well before a group of Hebrews settled in Palestine.

Jerusalem, as a word existed in both the Canaanite and Amorite languages. In that background, it likely had the meaning of: City of the god.

The word also occurs in ancient Egyptian texts, in the Amarna (correct spelling) Letters, and in Assyrian as well as Aramaic languages.

So, pick your language choice along with the meaning that was given the word in that language. You will probably be partially correct, but will have excluded other valid meanings.