By Stan Goodenough
October 03, 2006
Hundreds of Christian lovers of Israel gathered with Jewish friends inside the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem Sunday morning to obey the biblical commandment and pray for peace to come to the war-weary capital of Israel.
Led by well-known American Evangelicals Robert Stearns and Jack Hayford, and attended by a number of Israeli parliamentarians and a small crowd of Israel-based Christian leaders, the occasion in the ancient Tower of David was the central event in the fourth annual global Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem.
It plugged into meetings which, according to the organizers, were scheduled to be held in 150,000 churches around the world on the first Sunday in October.
This massive participation guaranteed that, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, a multitude of believers in more than 169 nations would be petitioning heaven on behalf of what the Bible calls the city of the great King.
Newly-Jerusalem-based Christian satellite television network God-TV also broadcast the gathering live around the world.
Among the Israeli dignitaries who welcomed the Christians and thanked them for their stand with Israel were former USSR Prisoner of Zion and Knesset Member Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus (KCAC), Yuri Shtern, and the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Yigal Amedi.
Addressing the crowds before him and around the world, Stearns said the Judeo-Christian culture was under attack “from the forces of secular humanism and materialism on one hand, and the forces of radical Islam on the other.
“We find ourselves united in faith,” he said. “We may not fully agree on all points of theology, but we agree that we call on the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob … and that we will stand united in faith to see God’s purposes for this city come to pass.”
Stearns, who heads up the US-based ministry Eagles Wings, said that the call to pray for the peace of Jerusalem was “not so much a call to a celebration, but “a call to consecration.
“It is a call to change the trajectory of your life and to begin to realize that you have a responsibility to this city and that you have a responsibility before the Lord to become a watchman on the wall.
“That is why we will lift our voices and petition God for heaven’s peace plan to come to this region; for the kingdom of our Lord to come and to bring His solution to this place.”
It was clear from the start that the meeting was not going to be restricted to a few formal prayers “for the peace of Jerusalem.” Included in the petitions for a peace only the Prince of Peace could bring, appeals also went up on behalf of His almost universally despised and hated people – the Jews.
The executive director of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, Malcolm Hedding, thanked God for all the blessings that had come to the Christian world from the Jewish people.
In his welcome, Sharansky spoke of the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jews through the ages. He recounted how, when the KGB arrested him all those years ago on charges that he was “an American spy,” and when the court that was about to sentence him to death asked him what he wanted his last words to them to be, he responded:
“To your court I want to say nothing. But to my people; to my country and to my family I am saying, 'B’shana ha’ba b’yerushalayim,’ next year in Jerusalem.”
This oath and this hope was what had kept the Jewish people from disappearing during hundreds of years in exile.
Slamming the international efforts to cater to Arab demands by trying to bring about the re-division of Jerusalem via the so-called peace process, Sharansky declared that “Jerusalem is the city of peace; not the city of appeasement.”
As the Christian crowd cheered, Sharansky saluted them: “God bless all of you: defenders and protectors of Jerusalem.”
The director of the KCAC, Josh Reinstein, who recently voiced his conviction that the relationship between Christians and Israel would prove to be the most important development in the 21st Century, riveted the believers when he told them:
“I’ve come here to tell you that the long years of the unrequited love for Israel are over. Its people and its government have had their eyes opened, and they realize who their friends are, and who will stand with them in their time of need.”
KCAC Chairman Yuri Shtern, who has been battling cancer over the past year, said the effort of the Islamic world to take control of Jerusalem represented, “for the Jewish people, a fight against the clear danger of physical destruction.
“The physical destruction of the Jewish people proclaimed by those who are trying to ‘liberate’ the city of Jerusalem from the Bible-believing nations is supported not only by extreme religious radicals in Islam, but also by extreme secularists in what are supposed to be Christian nations.”
Shtern warned that “to lose this country is not only an extreme danger for the Jewish people; it is the death blow to the very heart of Christianity. That is my deep belief. In this fight we [Christians and Jews] are one.”
He appealed to those present not to stop at praying, but to follow up their prayers with actions.
“We must work to create a global Christian commitment to the security and well-being of Israel, not just for the Jewish people, but for the Christian heart, for the Christian soul, for the survival of our civilization …. We have to win this together.”
Following the speeches, songs and words of praise ascended over the battlements of ancient Jerusalem, and leaders of different ministries in Israel led the multitude in prayer.
They included Reverend Naim Khoury, a Palestinian Arab pastor from the First Baptist Church in Bethlehem, Reverend Petra Heldt from the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity, Pastor David Davis from Carmel Assembly in Haifa, Sharon Sanders from Christian Friends of Israel and Rick Ridings from the 24/7 praise, worship and prayer ministry called Sukkat Hallel – the Tabernacle of Praise.
Khoury – whose life has been threatened for his bold stand with Israel – thanked the Lord for teaching him to love the Jews, and pleaded with God to keep Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty.
Heldt – who was badly wounded in a 1997 “suicide” bombing in the Jerusalem market place – asked God to forgive Christians for drawing up statements and resolutions denouncing Israel, for calling on people to divest from Israel, or to institute economic or academic or culturally boycotts against Israel, and for supporting enemies of Israel instead of Israel.
Davis called for the “fire of God’s presence” to be poured out across the land of Israel; that He would come back to the nation, from Dan to Beersheba, so that, referring to a prophecy in Ezekiel 37, “these bones shall live!”
Sanders called on the Lord to continue to bring Jews and Christians to stand together as God’s witnesses in the days in which we are living.
Ridings cried out to God for His forgiveness for the “very bad history” of Christian persecution of the Jews.
“By your grace,” he prayed, “we will stand with Israel at this time. Like Ruth we will say, ‘your people will be my people and your God will be our God.’
“We call on you mighty Lion of Judah, arise over Israel. Roar over the city of Jerusalem and roar over the people of Israel. Arise to protect Your city.”
Original Source