Tuesday, January 23rd | The Past, Present, and Future of Jerusalem

This episode of Clearview today is brought to you by Mighty Muscadine. Ryan, are you looking to boost your immune system? I'm so ill that I fainted right before we turn the show on.

I hate to hear it, but I do think I have a solution. Introducing Mighty Muscadine, king of the super fruits. Sounds like a superhero. Well, these guys are practically superheroes. Every single one of their products are packed with organic polyphenol content, essential micronutrients, and I'm telling you, these grapes are just dripping with antioxidants designed to strengthen your body's defenses.

It's going to help you stay resilient all year round. And these guys have everything. They have grape juice. They have all natural energy shots, protein powders. They've got seed oil, toothpaste, body lotion, shampoo.

And here's the best part. You can use promo code TODAY, that's T-O-D-A-Y, to unlock exclusive savings at checkout. Again, use promo code T-O-D-A-Y at checkout to enjoy a significant discount on your purchase of Mighty Muscadine products. And every single dollar you spend using that promo code helps us here at the Clearview Today Show. So don't miss this opportunity to supercharge your health and well-being with the incredible power of Mighty Muscadine. Visit their website now, that's MightyMuscadine.com, and experience the difference firsthand. Remember, that's promo code T-O-D-A-Y.

A healthier, happier you is just a click away. That said, let's start the show. That's right, and you guys can help us keep the conversation moving forward by supporting the show. You can do that by sharing it online with your friends and family, or you can leave us a good 5-star review on iTunes or Spotify. Absolutely nothing less.

Actually, why don't you just do both? Why don't you share it with your friends and family and leave us a 5-star? This is crazy. That's not hard. Would you leave us a 6-star review? Dang. That would be nice. If you could do that, that would be great.

Just do 5-stars, and in the comments field, just put another star. I don't have the authority to say this, but I will send you money. If you leave us a 5-star review, I will write you a personal check. This is Ellie. Ellie's calling me about your financial habits. Hello? Uh-huh. Just kidding. Oh, thanks. That would have been—because I know how that conversation would go.

We're going to leave a couple of links so you can leave those reviews in the description below. Today's verse of the day is coming to us from Titus chapter 1 and verse 15. It says, To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but even their mind and conscience are defiled.

So, this is a good example of a verse that can be taken out of context, because some people can take this verse and be like, See? To the pure all things are pure. As a Christian, I can do whatever I want.

Right. I'm free from sin. I have freedom in Christ.

I can do whatever I want. When, in reality, what Paul is saying to Titus here is that you're going to find fault with things if the defilement resides in you. If it begins in you, if you have some sort of unresolved sin or unresolved issue in you, you're going to begin to pick apart things that other people are doing and that other people are engaged in.

You're going to see wrongdoing everywhere, because that's the lens that you're viewing the world through. And the Bible does not pull punches when it comes to sin. Like, Christians, when it comes to sin, we pull punches. We're like, well, I mean, that's true. They ought not to be doing that, but you don't know what they've been through.

What you've got to understand is— Yeah, you need to understand this. This is how this person is. And, you know, at the end of the day, judge not lest you be judged. The Bible says not only are they defiled and unbelieving and nothing is pure to them, they're very mined. Their conscience is messed up.

It's rotten. Their mind and their conscience are defiled. It doesn't get clearer than that. Like, sin is very, very prevalent in our lives and in our culture, and the Bible is very, very clear on what its stance is. So then the question is, what is your stance on sin?

You know, how long are you willing to look the other way? Yeah, if God takes it seriously, we ought to do the same. You know, there's people in our lives that, they behave certain ways.

They do. And they do things that we don't really— What are you doing with that pen? I'm just saying we do things that we don't think about the implications of our sin. And so we kind of just, we kind of just do whatever— Oh, sorry about that. I seem to have—seem to have forgotten to close—look, look, that one's open, too.

That one's open over there, too. Hold on just a second. I'm so glad that it is, because this leads me to something that I need to talk about. Right, sure. My conscience is defiled.

Talking about calling out sin? Yes. Let's do it. Welcome to the gripe vine, everybody. Welcome to the gripe vine. Oh, this one's sour.

Here's my gripe. Ready? Here it is. Here it is. Uh-oh. It's pins that are left open.

Here it is. Pins that are left open. Here's what I mean. If it has a cap, the cap is removed, stuck on the—if you're lucky it's stuck on the back, it might just be discarded to the four winds. Yeah, yeah. And that's just left laying around. That cap is gone. Or one of these bad boys just left, just left like that. You know what happens when you leave it like this? What's that? The cap dries out in the pin. If it is exposed to the air, it's going to dry out. Anyway, that's the gripe vine. Write in and let us know.

252-582-5028. Do you leave pins open? And if you do, please don't do it around me.

Because it's really going to hinder my spirit of worship. Bro, Dr. Shaw won if he leaves pins open. I don't think that he does. I don't see him use cheap pins, though. I think if they're little cheapo pins, I think that he might if he's in the middle of something. But Dr. Shaw has nice pins. Yeah, I don't see him using cheap pins. I don't think he leaves them laying around. Yeah, let's ask him. Write in and let us know what your pin habits are and we're going to get Dr. Shaw.

We'll be back after this. Dr. Shaw sermons, original music, a full online store, weekly prayer gatherings, and so much more. Not to mention the number one best selling Christian talk show of all time.

I don't know if that's accurate. Well, maybe not yet, but that's why we want people to download the app. If you're listening from the Triangle area, we encourage you to check out Clearview Church in person. But if not, you can still follow all of our content on the Clearview app.

It's 100% free on the Apple Store and Google Play Store. And best of all, all of our content is right there in one convenient spot. Make sure you download the Clearview app today, and let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028.

That's right. We are here in the Clearview Today studio right now with Dr. Abbadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, a professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr. Shah is an author. I imagine you do a lot of writing.

I do. So these little guys, these pins, we see them laying around all over the church. We had a grapevine earlier today. I think it was a little much, if I may. It got a little out of hand.

It got a little out of hand. If you see pins and they're clicked open and they're just kind of laying around willy-nilly, right, like this right here, if I just got this pin and I just leave it, but I'm not paying for the pin. It's a 30-cent pin. I'll just not worry about that. If you come across pins laying around and they're open, does that bug you?

Well, it does, but there's another thing that used to bug me, but I don't have to be bugged by it anymore, but let's finish this conversation and I will talk about that. So if you didn't discern from this, the grapevine was mine, and just you clicking those pins and tossing them, I could feel my blood pressure just starting to ooh. For the sake of the show, I won't put them up.

For the sake of the show, I'm going to need you to. I tell you what, out of respect, I'll unclick them. He doesn't like for pins to be left out. I can't stand it. It's a waste.

It dries up a tenth of the ink, I think. Someone's going to drop the pin and it's going to mark all over something, and all that could have been avoided by just... So do you want me to share my part of the thing?

Yeah, let's go for it. So when Jon first came to work at Clearview... Oh, I already know. You're bringing up some bad memories.

We knew which pen Jon was using based on the bite marks. Yep. True.

I forgot all about that. And I couldn't understand. I was like, who does this?

And nobody would say a word. And then finally one day I saw him sitting there and I was like, oh, you're the one who's been biting these pens. It's the cereal biter.

I said, now Jon, now I have to touch this pen and click where you have put your mouth all over it. Yep. It even smells. And it doesn't smell good.

I forgot about that. I wonder if these have bite marks. No, you've done well. I think I've kicked the habit. Yeah, you've broken the habit.

I think I've kicked the habit because I don't really bite on pens as much. I do remember that. It was like a dog with a bone. You just look over and you're just like... Rebecca, you're just looking at me about that hard. I think Rebecca finally broke me because she was like, she would find it. She was like, ew, this is gross.

She was like, here, you throw it away. So speaking of pens, you use pens to sign important things into documents, into being. Very nice. And today is actually the anniversary of, back in 1950, the Knesset in Israel recognized Jerusalem officially as the capital of the nation of Israel. An important date in Israel. We're using them good fountain pens.

Anytime you've got a legal document, it's got to be one of those real nice fancy pens that you just... That's a big decision to be making, too. That's right, that's right. Now, we have been inside the Knesset. Oh, wow, I didn't realize that. In fact, John and David and Nicholas, all of us have been inside the Knesset, sat in there, taken pictures inside.

With the microphones and stuff. Yes, we've been all up in the Knesset. And it was amazing to think, I have been to the U.S. Capitol, I've been inside, I've been to the house and the chamber and all that stuff, but you're not allowed to take pictures there. But here, I'm doing all this, and they're like, okay, whatever.

Yeah, take the pictures. So is the Knesset the place where a ruling body meets, or is the Knesset the name of the group of governors? Both, both. It is the ruling body, that's what the Knesset means, and it is also the building. It's kind of like the White House. It's the people and the place.

Like they say, the White House came out today and said this, but it's really the people, but it's also the White House. It looks like a white house. Gotcha. So a white-colored house. Yeah.

That's kind of cool. So talking about Jerusalem, so the history of Jerusalem goes back thousands of years. The Bible talks about this. It goes as far back as Melchizedek, king of Salem. He was the priest of the Most High God, and he met Abraham 4,000 years ago. He was the king of Salem. This is before it became Jerusalem. He was the king of Salem. I believe he was a Jebusite priest-king. The Jebusites occupied that land prior to the coming of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I believe they were also followers of the one true, living, triune God.

And most people, when they hear Jebusite, might not come to that conclusion. Right. But Melchizedek.

Right. Okay, Melchizedek means king. Melchizedek means righteousness.

He's the king of righteousness. Now, many other Jebusite kings carried a similar title of something Melchizedek, but they were not very righteous. History tells us they were not very good kings. They were evil.

They were immoral, but it began with God giving them this perfect land so that they will be a light unto the world. Wow. And then in God's providential, sovereign plan, time's up, here come the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Going back to Jerusalem for a moment, David captured it, and he bought it from Arunah, the Jebusite, because they were still there a thousand years after the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek. Jebusites still control Jerusalem.

Wow. And then we come down to the time of Solomon. Solomon built his temple in Jerusalem, and we believe, based on our best evidence, that probably on the same site where the Jebusites had their temple to the living true God.

Albeit it was probably corrupted by this time, and they were probably worshiping many gods and false gods and all that, but I think it is the same site. That's pretty amazing, too. I've walked on the temple mound before. Well, I was going to say that the fact that we're able to walk in these places where the Bible talks about, and you see the history that's there, and you see the reality of Scripture come to life before your eyes, I would never have valued that unless I had gone to Israel and actually seen it. Yeah, trips like that, it's such a unique experience to be able to see, like you said, see Scripture come to life. And any time you read those passages from here on out, you read them differently.

That's right. And what else do we know about Jerusalem? It is the only city that God calls my city.

There are a lot of great cities in the world, ancient cities in the world, like Athens and Memphis and Babylon. God doesn't say those are my cities. Jerusalem, my city. Something else about them, it was invaded and captured countless times throughout history, and then, of course, as you know, this is a place where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. This is also Jerusalem. And three major religions of our time, or even ancient times for that matter, claim Jerusalem to be sort of a city with some hope and anticipation.

Of course, we know the Jewish people, Judaism, and then Christianity, and then Islam. It's funny because it does seem that Jerusalem really is this centerpiece, this center-set piece, not only of Scripture, but really of just, like you said, multiple different religions really put a lot of importance on this city. And I guess over time that has, well, maybe not even over time, maybe even from the very beginning, it's just caused conflict, and it's caused, what am I trying to say, just, I guess conflict really is the best word.

Controversy. This is a city that has people who want peace in Jerusalem. The Bible talks about praying for the peace of Jerusalem, and yet we know it does not have peace, and there's always turmoil. In 2 Kings 21, verse 4, it says, He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord has said, In Jerusalem I will put My name. And then Jerusalem shows up in the Bible 800 times, of course. In Psalm 137, verse 5, If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let My right hand forget its skill.

If I do not remember you, let My tongue cling to the roof of My mouth. If I do not exalt Jerusalem above My chief joy. So it's a very important city, especially in the Bible.

There's something you said once, I think it was in an article you wrote, but you said that there's nothing magical about that city. There's only lessons of extreme significance that it has taught you, that it's teaching us as Christians. And I think one of the things that I learned, and I'm grateful that I was able to go, is at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, just seeing the significance of the cross being here. Even if I don't know the exact spot, I have walked past where the cross was. More than likely you did, because people go here and there in Jerusalem near the place of the skull, or they go to some other sites outside the city, they think this may be the place. But I think the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is more than likely the place where this took place, because repeatedly people came there, or they destroyed that place, and there was a garden there.

We walked inside the garden. There's not a garden there now, but you can see those tombs inside that place. So going back to Jerusalem for a moment, I gave a quick history of that, but kind of backing up for a moment, in AD 70 Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. I mean, it was a horrible, horrible time. Temple was destroyed. All this went on. In 135, Jewish nationalism ended, and Jewish people were exiled from their homeland.

That's about that same time. And then, of course, in the 7th century, we're talking about the coming of Muhammad in 613 AD. They made their way towards Jerusalem as well.

Not Muhammad, but of course he had a dream that he went to Jerusalem and all that. In 638, the Muslims conquered the Holy Land, and they built the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. And it's still there to this day?

It's still there to this day. You said the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. Had Revelation been written by that point? No. So John, when he wrote Revelation, the Temple was already gone.

It's gone. You don't think about that. I typically think by that point, Scripture is Scripture, but by the time Revelation is being written, Jerusalem is gone. It's Roman now. Well, it's not necessarily Roman now, it's just the Temple is destroyed. So they didn't take the city for their own?

Not quite yet. That's going to happen in 135. When that happens, then Aelia Capitolina is a new name for Jerusalem, and Jewish people are kicked out. It's odd because you get the whole Babylonian exile, they're taken away, but still within the story of Scripture, they've learned their lesson, now is the triumphal entry.

Not the triumphal entry, like we know it, but you get to go home. Right. But then later on, it's taken away again. Right.

And you sort of don't think about it that way. Right. That's right. And in 691, the Dome of the Rock was built on the Temple Mount.

Wow. And that's still standing to this day as well. That's the big gold. Yeah, the gold dome. That's the Dome of the Rock.

It's considered to be the site from where Muhammad took his flight into the heavens, and he stepped off that rock to do that. Wow. Now, in 1947, the UN made a resolution. This is Resolution 181. According to this resolution, they recommended that the partition of Palestine into separate states, Jewish state and Arab state, and Jerusalem would kind of be under international control. And Jewish leaders were like, okay, we're okay with that, but the Arab leaders did not want that. Right.

Kind of very strange. You would think the Jewish leaders would say, no, we don't want that. Right. They were like, okay, you want Jerusalem to be controlled by you? I mean, the UN?

Okay. But the Arab leaders were like, absolutely not. We're going to control it. And this later led to the establishment of Israel. And, of course, there was a lot of opposition from the Arab nations. And then the Arab-Israeli war began.

What is the source of that? Like, we want to control this. This is ours.

No one else can have access to this. Because, like you said, you would think that the Jewish people would feel that way, but it was the Arab nations. If we truly want peace in Jerusalem, someone else, the UN is proposing peace, the Jewish people are okay with accepting peace, but we're saying, no, there won't be peace. But we want peace in Jerusalem.

Right, right. And it's been a problem. And, unfortunately, the UN always ends up on the wrong side of things many, many, many times.

And here, again, I think they did that. But later on in 1967, in the Six-Day War, which, of course, lasted six days, June 5th to June 10th, there was an intense conflict. It was a short conflict, intense conflict. And, as you know, Arab states like Egypt, Jordan, Syria, they came together. They were defeated. And it resulted in a great victory for Israel. Large territories were sort of captured from the Arab states.

And it brought about the reunification of Jerusalem, again, which marked the coming of the Jewish, of Jerusalem under Jewish rule. And this was the first time in 2,000 years when Jerusalem came under Jewish rule in 1967. In 2,000 years. 2,003 years, I guess. Wow.

That's insane. And we just don't think about it. Or, I think, 1900. And it's easy to think that the Jewish people have just always lived there.

They may have gone exile time or two, but it's easy to think, like, for the most of human history that Israel is Jewish. Well, I'm trying to, like, just trying to put myself in that place. Like, what would that be like if this is our home, but it has not been our home in many lifetimes? Yeah, because we feel a strong sense of patriotism for America that's only been our home for 400-something years. Right.

But imagine 4,000 years. That's a big deal. And, of course, through the years, with a lot of conflicts, ups and downs. One illustration in 2007, the Israeli prime minister at the time, Ehud Olmert, he worked with the Palestinian Authority, President Mahmoud Abbas, and they tried to make an offer where Jerusalem would be now divided and under Palestinian-Jewish control kind of thing, but he never got a reply back. And so that's where it ended. You know, sort of stopped right there. Then came 2017, when the capital was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and this was a very significant moment.

Yeah, yeah. Something I'm thinking through is, like, all this conflict and all of this contention over this land, we as Christians know that the land itself is not sacred, but it's what Christ has done there and what God has ordained for that land that makes it special. And I guess my question is, like, if the Jewish people are willing to share it, even though it's even more sacred to them than it is to us, where is this contention coming from where we just won't? Is it that the people of Islam believe that theirs is so sacred that... You know what I'm saying? Like, is the animosity written into their belief system? Yeah, because Mecca Madina, Jerusalem.

That's how they look at it. That's the third holiest city for them. Because Muhammad, in one of his flights, he went there, and from there he had this trip or travel into the heavens and all that. So now they claim that city. Right, but the Jewish people, that's their number one holy city. And yet you still don't see this animosity like, no, we have to keep all the Islam influence out.

They're willing to share it. Right, but it's kind of like all or nothing from the other side. And that makes negotiations very difficult. And unfortunately sometimes the international community, especially the European side of things, are not always friendly.

And I mean, there are a lot of people who are supportive, but then there are those bodies like UN and others who are not very supportive, and it makes things very difficult. So in October 1995, the Senate, we're talking about our Senate, 93 to 5, and the House, 374 to 37, they adopted this ruling, 1322, that the Jerusalem embassy would be, it's called the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act, that the capital would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. We're going to recognize Jerusalem as a capital. And the congressional resolution also called for the city to remain united. It says that Jerusalem should remain a united city, should be recognized as a capital of the state of Israel, and the U.S. embassy should move there from Tel Aviv no later than May 31st.

This happened in October by May 31st of 1999. So four years are given for this change, for this move to take place. And unfortunately, they also put in there six waivers, or waivers every six months to keep the embassy in Tel Aviv.

And so they kept waiving that, and they kept waiving it, and different presidents came, and they kept waiving it, and Barack Obama came, and he issued the final waiver on December the 1st, 2016. And at that point, this was kind of like, okay, I don't know, what are we going to do after this? And then President Trump actually made that final decision to say on December the 6th, 2017, that the United States formally recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and on May 14th, 2018, the U.S. embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And that was a huge deal because we were there the following year. Yes, and we saw, and our guide actually took us by there, we got some pictures and things like that. And since then, we've been there one more time. Yeah, we've been there twice since the embassy moved, and both times we kind of went by the embassy, took some pictures, and it's a big deal.

Yeah, it was really cool to be able to see that and to see, I guess, America's influence there. And like you said, that decision to finally, okay, we're going to take a stand, we're going to make a decision, we're going to more or less pick sides. And it's something that I think a lot of Christians are just unwilling to do. I don't know why so many Christians want to play judge and be like, well, you know, there's two sides to every conflict. It's just important to hear both sides, you know, and I don't know why we're so afraid to stand against that. Yeah, people are scared to, it could be ignorance, I guess, it could be, I feel like a lack of, people don't understand that it matters. I think a lot of people just view it as something over there.

Why are we making a big deal out of it? Right, or the Jewish people are, that's Old Testament, weird New Testament. When that's not true. Yeah, and it's odd because we, when you get pushback from conversations like this and people are like, well, you don't know, you don't know what the Jewish people have done and you don't know this, it's like, I'm truly asking where is this coming from? Is it coming from ignorance or is it just coming from fear?

Do you just fear retaliation or is there, there has to be coming from somewhere because none of the evidence suggests that what you're saying is true. And also, are you truly, and this is coming from Christians too, like are these God's people or not? Right, and that's a shame because the scriptures unequivocally declare that they're God's people, there's still prophecies to be fulfilled for ethnic Israel, and guess what? In the book of Revelation, it's not the new Athens, it's not the new New York, it's not the new Washington, D.C., or new Paris or new London or new Delhi, it is new Jerusalem that's coming back. And so if that is the case, then we have to once again realize there's something special about this city. That's a good point. Think about that. We have the hope of living in new Jerusalem one day, but we won't even stand up for the Jerusalem that exists right now. The Jerusalem God's already given to us, we won't stand up for it, but we want that new one.

I want to be a citizen there. That's a good point. Man, I hope that was helpful for you guys today. Certainly it was helpful for me, for those of us here at the show. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, write in and let us know 252-582-5028. Or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website. Scroll to the bottom, click that donate button, and let us know that gift that's coming from our Clear View Today Show family. Also, I want to encourage you to visit MightyMuscadine.com, check out their line of products, and use that promo code TODAY, that's T-O-D-A-Y, when you check out. It's going to give you a discount, and a portion of your purchase is going to come right back here to the Clear View Today Show. That's right. Thank you for supporting.

Absolutely. Jon, what's coming up tomorrow on Clear View Today? Talking about how God has given us life. He wants us to face every single stage of life, but life has ups, and it's got downs, it's got good, and it's got bad. What we tend to do is we want to minimize the bad, maximize the good.

God is using all of them to bring the most amount of glory to Him. So it's not about what you go through, it's not about where you start. Ultimately, and this is something Dr. Shah has taught me, it's how you finish life. You want to finish life well. And that's what we're talking about tomorrow. That's right. Make sure you guys tune in. Love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today. Thank you.