My Journey to Jerusalem

A few months ago my husband and I received a prophetic word, somewhat ‘left field’, that we would be going to Israel, that this would be very significant, and that there was a person in our area who would be instrumental in linking us with Israel. And so it was! Thus, in late September 2023 we made a visit to Israel with the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. This was a wonderful experience but sadly culminated with the war breaking out on our last day there! Much more could be said but that is not the purpose of this article.

However, the Lord has been stirring me up to seek Him for more understanding from His word on the topic of Israel and the new testament church. I was first presented with the importance of a focus on Israel right at the start of my born-again encounter with Jesus. What follows is my personal experience since coming to a revelation of salvation back in 1978, and my journey of grasping God’s heart, plan and purpose not only for myself as a follower of Christ, but for the land of Israel and the Jewish nation also.

With hindsight I realise what I experienced even as a new believer in Christ actually caused me to be blinded to some most important truths that can be found in the word of God.

To give some context, I was a church goer, a sincere regular attender, but I knew deep down in my heart that I was missing something vital. The problem was I had no idea of what that was! It was only through receiving a book from my father as a Christmas present, “In search of God” by David Watson, that I finally understood the gospel message. At long last it dawned on me that I needed to repent of my sin and receive God’s great gift of forgiveness and a brand new life with Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

I was radically impacted by the message of the love and the grace of God, floored by the wonder of knowing Jesus Christ in a personal way, and the knowledge that I was born again into the family of God, my heavenly Father. Within a short time I was to experience the Holy Spirit in a powerful way, and thank God that He would never leave me! My passion for the Lord, and for His word simply increases as time goes on.

How thankful I am to my earthly father who, in spite of the fact that we had been alienated in our relationship for eleven years, decided to send me that book. Our family had been broken in a somewhat traumatic way when my father revealed some quite extraordinary truths about his life, resulting in his abandonment of our family. I was trying to support my mother through this trauma and could not cope with the pressure I felt from him to accept his new life. So I decided to cut him out of my life at that time – leading to that eleven year separation between us.

However, having responded to the gospel through reading this book, I clearly needed to tell my dad, and to thank him for the wonderful gift leading to my salvation. So began a process of reconciliation and restoration of relationship. This was indeed to be a ‘journey’, and one that was to be very much influenced by my past experience of my dad often being somewhat ‘over the top’ in his life choices.

My father was delighted that I had responded to the gospel and wanted to encourage me in my new found relationship with God.

As I look back and recall some of our conversations at that time, I remember how my father majored in on the topic of Israel and God’s heart for the Jewish people. That was his passion! However, I was simply in awe and wonder of my new found relationship with Jesus, and felt uncomfortable with the pressure I experienced as he seemed to stress that I should have Israel as my most important focus. Sadly, my father’s presentation of the significance of Israel in God’s purposes appeared to be somewhat extreme and off-putting, even somewhat ‘OTT’. It felt like a distraction from my passion to share my new found faith in Christ with everyone I possibly could! With the benefit of hindsight, I think what happened is that I simply ‘shelved’ or ‘parked’ that whole area of God’s heart for Israel – my passion was to know Christ and to make Him known.

My relationship with my earthly father, and in fact my response to his message, was complicated by his increasingly extreme opinions and beliefs regarding the issue of Israel and the church.

His focus and opinions on Israel developed to such an extent that he considered almost all churches to be apostate. He would only fellowship with those of the same opinion, and they met, as he said, “outside the camp”.
In his opinion, even the church we pastored was unacceptable, even though my husband is an ordained minister and the church was vibrant, healthy and growing.

Again, with hindsight, I realise that my father had simply ‘broad-brushed’ the majority of churches as holding a ‘replacement theology’. Sadly he had made up his mind without finding out what we actually believed.
My relationship with my father was further tested when I received a letter from him saying, to put it mildly, we were not welcome at his home. All this was part of my journey, not only as a follower of Christ but in grasping the truth of God’s purpose for Israel and the Jewish people.

I think that all of this made me wary of the topic, and of those who had a major focus on it, and possibly I became a little resistant to discuss it. However, I am delighted to say that my relationship with my father was wonderfully restored some years later. I am so grateful to the Lord who makes all things new.

I would add that as far as I am aware, over all these 45 years during which I have served alongside my husband in church leadership, we have never taught or promoted teaching on replacement theology. However, I do remember being taught that Christians could claim all the promises of God in the Old Testament that were given to Israel – and realise that somehow that blinded me to the fact that many of those promises refer specifically to the land and nation of Israel.

After receiving the prophetic word about a visit to the land of Israel, surely something most believers would love to do, it seemed that my spirit was stirred up to search the scriptures and research books. I was blessed particularly through reading books by Malcolm Hedding, Lance Lambert and other respected Christian authors who have a deep knowledge and insight. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem have a number of great resources to help bring insight and understanding.

As I read again books of the bible – particularly the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Daniel, and also Romans 9-11, I was convinced by the word that God has not changed His mind regarding His promises, and His covenant with Israel.

I had no doubt that God’s faithfulness to His promises was just the same for Israel as well as for the church. (see Genesis 12:11-7 and 15)

Through my researching my eyes have been opened to the difficulty the Jewish people have in responding to the Christian message. In fact, I was completely stunned to learn that men such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, even though bringing wonderful transforming revelation to the church, also had some terrible anti-semitic views. Through my research I have learnt the fact that Hitler quoted Martin Luther as an inspiration and justification for his own policy resulting in the Holocaust. I find these facts very shocking and impossible to reconcile.

The words and beliefs they shared and promoted had a powerful impact on decisions made by world leaders, and had the most terrible consequences on the Jewish people. It is not surprising that Jewish people do not readily warm to our Christian message! I must admit I had been completely ignorant of these facts.

I am still ‘on a journey’ of learning but convinced of God’s faithfulness to His word. As I read Romans 9-11 I am reminded how blessed I am, as a gentile believer, to be grafted in to the Jewish roots of the olive tree and thus benefit from all the blessings on those of faith in Christ. How amazing it is to grasp the truth that the time is coming when Jesus Christ, Yeshua, will return to the actual land of Israel as their Messiah.

There is, undoubtedly, much going on in the land of Israel that may be hard to justify but much to pray for – particularly for a revelation of Jesus Christ for the Jewish people, their Yeshua as Messiah, for the Lord to direct hearts and decisions, and for all those who are suffering through the current situation.