Jerusalem, comparatively speaking, is a very small city. Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived in the days of the apostles, gives dimensions which indicate that it had an area of little more than one square mile within the walls. In its palmier days some adjoining areas were a part of the city, as they are today, but even then it was small.
Most cities no larger than Jerusalem would attract little attention, and their names would scarcely be known outside of their own country, but the eyes of the world have focused on it intermittently for 3000 years. It has been honored and defamed; it has been besieged, captured, pillaged, and destroyed again and again. But for all that, it is there today as a prize sought after by Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians, and its troubles are not over.
Jerusalem has been connected with events that have changed the course of the world, and have affected the lives, manners, and even destinies of people everywhere. It has a bright and glorious fu ture as the city of the Great King, and the metropolis of the whole earth; but today it serves to honor the inspired Word of God, for our Lord said, "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled " Luke 21:2424And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. (Luke 21:24). As it now stands, most of the old part of the city, including the famous temple site, is in the hands of the Mohammedans- descendants of the children of Ammon and perhaps of Moab and others—while the Jews hold the newer section of the city.
This partition of the city is not satisfactory to either party concerned. The Jews want the whole of it, and the Arabs stubbornly cling to that historic old section with all its memories. The Jews have recently announced that they are allocating $5,000,000 of a recent bond issue for economic development of the newer part of the city. They have also transferred government offices there in an attempt to make it, rather than the modern city of Tel Aviv on the coast, their capital. Then the Jordan government announced its decision to open offices of all its ministries in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jordan premier declared: "We are determined to defend the city at all costs and we are going to strengthen it economically. Jerusalem is dear to us and to all the world." Thus the two contenders vie with each other in attempting to establish their hold on the city.
Israel's latest step was to move its foreign offices there so that the nations of the world would have to have their representatives go to Jerusalem to do business with its government. Great Britain and the United States protested the removal, and the United States representatives have carefully avoided doing business there; they thus refuse to acknowledge Israel's right to Jerusalem, even the newer part, as their capital.
There is another strange involvement in the struggle for the city of Jerusalem. In December of 1949 the United Nations meeting in New York voted that a permanent international regime should be established to administer the city. How this could be done without an army, great cost, and considerable bloodshed is difficult to see, but the strange part of it is that this resolution was passed by the United Nations under pressure from the Catholic Church. According to reports, they put pressure on all predominantly Catholic countries to vote for the internationalization, and in doing so they joined forces with the Arab nations and India-Mohanunedans-and with atheistic Russia.
The latest in this move is a letter to the present United Nations Secretary General from the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, of which Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York is head, protesting Israel's transfer of its foreign ministry from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and charging the Jewish State of violating the UN resolutions on the internationalization of Jerusalem.
All of this shows the increasing importance and power of the Roman Church in international affairs, and how that which claims to be the Church does not hesitate to promote her affairs with the nations of the world.
But the great question is this: What special interest does Rome have in Jerusalem? What is the purpose of these unholy alliances respecting the "holy city"? Is it not that Rome wants control of the so-called holy places in Jerusalem? Some of us have very little idea of the traffic in what tradition has set up as holy places and shrines in that city which will be spiritually "called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified" (Rev. 11:88And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. (Revelation 11:8)).
Strange as it may seem, the Jews, Mohammedans, Roman Church, Greek Church, Armenians, and even Protestants cling to that which antiquity has built up into tradition and legend respecting Jerusalem and its environs. Thousands upon thousands of pilgrims flock to these so-called sacred places with their countless relics, which for the most part are fraudulent inventions to beguile unwary, superstitious people. When we remember what ravages time works, and that Jerusalem was sacked and pillaged several times in this era, how could these things have been kept intact? Think of finding the stone on which the angel sat, the sepulcher room, the rock on which the body of the Lord was laid, three holes where the three crosses were placed, the altar on which Isaac was placed, etc., etc., etc.!
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is supposed to house the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea where our Lord was laid with loving hands, but its location is altogether unsatisfactory; it is also said to cover the spot where He was crucified, and yet it is within the city, whereas He "suffered without the gate," and the sepulcher was near by-"it was nigh at hand." One who visited the famous church there wrote: "Within this vast enclosure there seems to be no end to aisles, windows, stairways, vaults, tombs, dark recesses, chapels, oratories, altars, concealed relics, and other holy `inventions.' Verily, nothing is too hard for stout-hearted Credulity. She has not only removed mountains, but wrought impossibilities of transposition and aggregation. At her bidding, rocks and caves, and distant localities gathered from all quarters into this temple, as the wild beasts came to the ark."*
The same visitor wrote regarding asserted locations where each event took place: "Now I am devoutly thankful that no amount of learning or research can establish the remotest connection between any act of our Savior and any of these so-called holy places. And I seem to find, in this uncertainty which hangs over every sacred locality, the indications of a watchful Providence in beautiful accordance with many similar interpositions to save God's people from idolatry. The grave... of Moses,... of David,... of John the Baptist,... and Mary-the tombs of these have been irrecoverably concealed: and the same watchful care has hid forever the instruments of the Savior's passion; the exact spot where He was crucified, buried, and whence He rose to life again; and also the place from which He ascended to heaven. I would have it thus. And since God has concealed the realities, we have no need of these fictitious sites to confirm our faith."*
Again this writer says: "If sure, to the fraction of a foot, in regard to the sepulcher, I could no more worship it than I could worship the boat in which He sailed over Gennesaret, or the ass upon which He rode into Jerusalem, and hence I have no need of these 'inventions'; and since they are perverted to an idolatry worse than burning incense to the brazen serpent [2 Kings 18:44He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. (2 Kings 18:4)], I would have them all removed out of sight."*
Human ingenuity must have worked hard and long to prepare all these things for "pilgrims" to see, and Protestants are not free from these superstitions and inventions. One of them recently told us that the real tomb of Lazarus was still there as it was. Who could prove that it is? And if it were duly ascertained, what would it add to our faith? Our faith rests on the Word of God, and not on finding a tomb or any other object. The same writer previously quoted says of the reputed sepulcher of Lazarus to which he descended "twenty-five slippery steps": "It is a wretched cavern, every way unsatisfactory, and almost disgusting."*
The words of our Lord, when He viewed the rebuilt tombs of the prophets of Israel, come to mind: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisee; hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets Matt. 23:29-3129Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 30And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. (Matthew 23:29‑31).
And so the struggle for the control of that little piece of the earth called Jerusalem goes on and on, and will go on through much turmoil and trouble, and will at least see one more desolation before the rightful Heir will come and possess it.
Thus we see that the passing events are constantly calling our attention to the close proximity of the consummation of the ages. As things continue to focus attention on Jerusalem, we see the ground being laid for the coming time of Jacob's trouble, and for apostate Christendom's Satanic delusion from the man of sin, whom "the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming." 2 Thess. 2:88And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: (2 Thessalonians 2:8). But first He must come and take His redeemed ones to Himself.
If the events that will occur after we are with Christ in glory are already casting deep shadows across the world's landscape, surely His coming for us is even at the door. Any moment we may hear that blessed shout, and be caught up to meet Him in the air. "Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Rev. 22:2020He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:20).