(With all that is currently happening the past few days, this podcast is particularly appropriate, even though recorded several weeks ago.)

Scott Moore: Welcome to the "Building Faith and Family" podcast with Steve Demme. I'm your host, Scott Moore. Thanks for joining us today. Good morning, Steve. How are you today?

Steve: I'm recovered from Easter. How was your Easter weekend?

Scott: It was good. Nice weather, nice family time. Didn't get to see Henry, but that's OK. We saw him on Zoom call.

Steve: We had 20. I played grandpa. I shouldn't have. I was out playing kickball. Next thing you know, we're wrestling, and then I barely made it to bed that night. Scott: Calling the ambulance after that?

Steve: I was tired. I love them all to pieces, but boy, I shouldn't be doing that stuff. Everybody else was in the house doing old people things. The kids kept saying, "Papa, let's go play kickball. Let's play kickball." Of course, I had to be the steady pitcher, bringing some parity to both teams.

Scott: Nice.

Steve: This morning, we're going to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. I believe it's near and dear to God's heart. It's about praying for Jerusalem. There are two passages that I probably shouldn't say them as much as I do, but they're so important to me when it comes to the matter of prayer, which 1 John 5 :14-15. "This is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. If we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of Him."

Whenever we pray, pray according to God's will. Also, be immersed in scripture. It says in John 15:7, "If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."

As you read through the Bible, notice prayers that Nehemiah prayed, like Daniel prayed, they are praying according to scripture, and they're using God's words to remind Him of things that He said. Moses did this when he interceded for the children of Israel. It's important to be saturated in the word.

The obvious ingredient, which I didn't mention, is faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. It's the conviction of things not seen. When we pray, we need to believe, but regardless of what we see or read in the morning paper, we need to have the conviction and the assurance that even though we don't see it, it's a fact. That's a lot what we're going to talk about today because Jerusalem is not what it is, but what it will be. That's part of our job as priests to remind God of His word and His promises that He's made about people, about places, about Jerusalem, as an example. The principles that will apply to this study apply to anything that we're talking about. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for this opportunity to meditate, and to ponder, and to mix with faith, your word and your promises. These are things that are on your heart. I pray 1

that you'll put them on our heart. I pray that you will look down from heaven, and you'll see people that are believing, that are asking, that are on your team along this line to see that your will is done on Earth just as you see it's being done right now in heaven. That's our job and I pray that you'll give us faith. In Jesus' name. Amen. Scott: Amen.

Steve: I pray for Jerusalem regularly. I'm one of Jerusalem's remembrancers. That word comes from Isaiah and we'll come to it in just a minute.

We're going to read pretty much chronologically through the Bible. We're going to begin in the Psalms, and then we're going to read in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, in Daniel, and in Zechariah. These are promises in God's word.

We know that God's word is inspired, it doesn't change, and that He says in Jeremiah, He watches over His word to perform it. He's watching over all the promises he made and will fulfill them to the letter.

He's made a bunch of promises to Jerusalem, and we're going to look at several of them. Even if we don't stop and pray, which we may once or twice, we'll see, but just believe these things. Whoever's listening, along with Scott and me today, are cooperating with God. We're working with Him.

This is the work of God that you believe, and we're believing, and we're mixing these scriptures with faith. I think it's also important that we sense God's love for that city. He loves it. He's put His name there, and He is going to see it restored in such a way that the world will just be amazed.

Psalm 87. "His foundation is in the Holy Mountains. Jehovah loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you O city of God." Psalm 122. "Let us go to the house of Jehovah. Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem, that is built as a city that is compact together to which the tribes go up, even the tribes of Jehovah. An ordinance for Israel to give thanks to the name of Jehovah, for their thrones were set for judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they be secure who love you. Peace be within your walls and security within your towers.

"For my brothers and companions' sake, I will say, ‘Peace be within you.' For the sake of the house of Jehovah our God, I will seek your God." Right in the middle of that passage is a command. "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem."

Lord, I pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I might even say what the scripture says, "Peace be within you. For the sake of the house of Jehovah, our God, I will seek your good." I pray for Jerusalem regularly.

I have friends that have lived there and spent hours every day just holding up promises to Jerusalem, praying for Jerusalem, walking about her walls, walking about the city, praying for the peace of Jerusalem.

Psalm 137:1-6. This is written when the children of Israel have been taken captive. They were in Babylon. "By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there, we hung up our lyres.

"For there, our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' How shall we sing Jehovah's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, oh Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. If I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy."

You can sense the heart of God's people, the heart of the children of Israel. They were in Babylon, but their hearts were still in Jerusalem. That phrase, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem." I'm going to go into a little contemporary history.

77 years and four days ago. Today is April 22nd when we're recording this. April 18th, 1948, Jerusalem was under siege. They were in a state of famine. They had made some extreme cuts to the food supply because they didn't have any food coming into the city. There was lots of Jews in the city. They were surrounded by Arabs, and it was desperate.

They were trying to get food into the city. They were trying to get a convoy of trucks to come through. It's a fascinating story. I could go through the history of it, but instead, I found this wonderful letter that was written April 18th, 1948 by someone that was in Jerusalem.

"Dearest Mother, Dad, and Naomi, hallelujah, a convoy. I don't know which is more exciting, the fact that a convoy finally got through at dawn yesterday with supplies for Passover or that it came with a slew of friends, all alive and well, including Yehudah and Ami.

“Last night was certainly cause for celebration, but in the midst of the revelry, the shooting started again, and we had to head for shelter. The convoy was enormous, over 200 lorries, and not a shot fired at it.

"For two weeks, the Palmach," (this was the Haganah's commando force) "has been carrying out an intensive operation battling every inch of the way with the Arabs for control of the hilly territory dominated by the Kastel Fortification.

"My friends were in the thick of this all‑out effort to open the road for our convoys. (It was code‑named Operation Nachshon after the fellow who was the first to plunge in when Moses divided the Red Sea). Dare we hope that this is the beginning of clear traffic? For the first time in months, life is looking a little brighter. "It started when people ran into the streets to greet the convoy, and the first thing they saw were the heartwarming words, 'If I forget thee O Jerusalem,' chalked on the lead lorries."

If you've ever read the book or if you haven't and you want to get an understanding of the 1948 war when Israel became a nation, it's called "O Jerusalem!" It's a nonfiction book. It's written by a couple of French reporters. It represents both sides, the Arab side, the Jewish side. It's from journals and is factual.

I don't know about you, Scott, but I'm going to do a little Spirit trail here. Because as I'm preparing for this, I was just going to read 137, then go down to the passages and the prophets, but I thought, Nahshon. Who is Nahshon? I looked up in the Bible. His name appears 11 times in the Bible.

Turns out that he was Aaron's brother‑in‑law because it says in Exodus 6, "Aaron took his wife, Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab and the sister of Nahshon." He was also, according to Numbers 2:3, the chief of the people of Judah. There were 12 tribes, 12 chiefs, Nahshon was the chief of Judah. In Numbers 7:12, he was the one who offered his offering the first day. When all the chiefs of the people were offering things for the tabernacle and for sacrifices, Nahshon was the first. That was interesting.

I also discovered that Nahshon was in the line of David. It says in 1 Chronicles 2, Ram fathered Amminadab. Amminadab fathered Nahshon, prince of the sons of Judah. Nahshon fathered Salmon. Salmon fathered Boaz, who we know was the father of Obed, who was then the father of Jesse, who was then the father of David. This was something that I had never heard of before. According to the Midrash, which is a commentary or studies put together by Jewish scholars, Nahshon came out of Egypt in the Exodus, so he was there for a long time.

He initiated the trek through the Red Sea. When Moses said, "Move forward," he was the first one in, which apparently made a big impression because that's why they named this operation Nahshon, since they were going to make their way not through the Red Sea, but through the Arab armies and find a way to bring food to the city of Jerusalem. Did you find that interesting?

Scott: Yeah. That's powerful, man.

Steve: I read a big chunk of “O Jerusalem” when I had the opportunity to go to Israel 1979. You don't sleep the first night as you're flying throughout the night. When we got there, we wanted to dress nicely because we were going to go to the Temple Mount. I wasn't dressed appropriately and it rained on us. I got walking pneumonia. For the next two days, the group was going through the city of Jerusalem. I was lying in my bed coughing and reading the book, O Jerusalem!, which was awesome. Then I finished the book on my honeymoon, which was just a few months later. I remember my wife had a friend over. We were newlyweds and had moved into an apartment. She had her maid of honor over to visit. They were having lunch, and they were all chipper and laughing.

I was deep into O Jerusalem!, about that same spot in the book. I come down to eat, and my face was intense. I was suffering. When they looked at me, "What's the matter?" I said, "There's a famine in Jerusalem." I was really into this book. If you want to get a taste of Jerusalem and that war of '48, read that book, O Jerusalem! We've got time for a few more promises. We'll read the ones in Isaiah. Isaiah 2, "The word that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of Jehovah shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it.

"Many people shall come and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah to the house of the god of Jacob, that He may teach us His ways and that we may walk in

His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.'"

That prophecy is one of the only ones in the Bible that's repeated almost verbatim in Micah 4.

Isaiah 62, ”For Zion's sake, I will not hold my peace. And for Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burns. And the nations shall see your righteousness, and all kings, your glory, and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of Jehovah shall name. "You shall also be a crown of beauty in the hand of Jehovah and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed forsaken, neither shall your land anymore be termed desolate, but you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah. For Jehovah delights in you," which is what Hephzibah means. "Your land shall be married." That's what Beulah means. "For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you."

According to that, we're going to marry this city. We're going to marry this land. When I was in Israel for the very first time, 1979, and I had the opportunity two more times to go, there was a certain place near Mount Carmel. We got out of the bus, and were walking across a field. It just swept over me, I was home.

I've never felt that before or since. I don't know how else to describe it, but I felt like this is where my home is. This is where I'm supposed to be. I don't know. Something happened then. Maybe this is what it means when it says, "Your sons shall marry you," but there was a deep connection with that land, which I haven't lost. Then he says in verses 6-7, "O, Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls. They will pray day and night continually. You that are Jehovah's remembrancers, take no rest and give Him no rest till He establish, until He make Jerusalem a praise in the Earth."

Let’s pray: Father, you love Jerusalem. I love Jerusalem. Help us all to love what you love. Help us to have a heart that's beating with your heart. Thank you for setting up watchmen on the walls. I know there are people that have been called that are just there praying, and they're praying continually.

I want to be one of those remembrancers. I want to be one of those ones who continue to pray for you to establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the Earth. Right now, we're not just learning new information this morning, we're believing your word, and we're praying that you will establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the Earth. I pray that you will lift up the mountain of Jehovah so that all the nations shall come to the God of Jacob. I pray for the peace of Jerusalem, which you said way back in Psalm 122 at the beginning. Give that city peace. Deliver her from evil. Deliver her from physical enemies and spiritual enemies. Make her a praise in the Earth and help us to not forget Jerusalem.

We see it as a city that seems like it's always under attack, but at the same time, by faith, we see it as the joy of the whole Earth. Bless her today. Bless her people. Bless the people that are living there. In Jesus' name, amen.

Scott: Amen. That's our show for this week, folks. Thanks for joining us for the Building Faith and Family podcast with Steve Demme. If you have a question for the show, email Steve at sbdemme@Gmail.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.