As we prayer walked the streets of Jerusalem we had many divine appointments. After beginning our journey at the New Gate we met two Arabs, one who grew up Christian and one who grew up Muslim but they both said they are atheists. What a perfect opportunity to share the love of Messiah and they received our prayers. When I told Sammy about a song that said Yeshua didn’t need nails to hold him on the cross because his love would’ve held him there, you could see his heart was stirred.
As we walked down the Via Dolorosa the call to pray from a nearby mosque began. One of the intercessors began to declare that our G-d is greater and as I held my phone up to the loudspeaker, the sound of the muezzin immediately stopped!
We visited with five heavily armed soldiers who told us that in the very spot we were standing there has been terrible violence the last few nights. What a great place to pray!
While walking through the Shuk, a young Haredi man looked up at me and smiled so I asked him if he’d just come from praying at the Kotel, which he affirmed. Men like this almost never even look at, let alone talk with women on the street. But he had a tender and searching heart so we had a long conversation and were able to pray for him. He even took my phone number as he considered asking more questions later.
During our time at the Kotel we witnessed an induction ceremony with a large contingency of soldiers and greeted some of them. Then we took time to read the Scriptures that the L-rd had put on our hearts that morning:
2 Chronicles 29:5-7,10, 15-16
Then he said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites. Consecrate yourselves now, and consecrate the house of the L-rd, the G-d of your fathers, and carry the uncleanness out of the holy place. For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done evil in the sight of the L-rd our G-d, and they have abandoned Him and turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the L-rd, and have turned their backs. They have also shut the doors of the porch and extinguished the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the G-d of Israel. Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the L-rd G-d of Israel, so that His burning anger may turn away from us.”
They assembled their brothers, consecrated themselves, and went in to cleanse the house of the L-rd, according to the commandment of the king by the words of the L-rd. So the priests went into the inner part of the house of the L-rd to cleanse it, and they brought every unclean thing which they found in the temple of the L-rd out to the courtyard of the house of the L-rd. Then the Levites received it to carry out to the Kidron Valley.
After praying at the Kotel, which was very special, we walked to the Dung Gate and as we passed through it, we declared that we were taking out the trash – the religious spirits, the spirit of hopelessness and doubt, rebellion, idolatry, murder in the form of abortion, pride, etc. We walked up the hill and while overlooking the Kidron Valley, we threw the religious spirits and all the other ones out.
Then we read Jeremiah 31:31-40 over the valley and drew the analogy that the people of Israel are like the Kidron and yet verse 40 says, “And the entire valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the L-rd; it will not be uprooted or overthrown ever again.”
What a beautiful promise that even though Israel has turned away from G-d and become a place of hopelessness and rejection, a day will come when our people will be holy to the L-rd and restoration through Yeshua will beautify the land and the people.