Journey to the Center of the Earth, Part 4 | The Gathering Place

Previously, in Part 2 of this series:

Occasionally, in the farming and ranching world, the need arises to navigate in semi-unfamiliar country to a specific location out in the middle of the brush—most often a branding party on a neighbor’s place (meaning within a 50-mile radius)... You know you’re almost there when you see a dust cloud in the distance, hanging over the place where the cowboys are gathering cow/calf pairs into portable corrals to be worked.

When the county road brings you as close to the goings-on as it can, there is seemingly always more than one rough, two-track path to choose from between you and the gathering place, the right one rarely being obvious at the start. In fact, more often than not (in my jaded opinion), the most logical-looking route is just as likely to take you on a meandering excursion, bringing you within 100 yards of the gathering— on the wrong side of a gateless barbed-wire fence.

I find this familiar experience to be an uncanny reflection of the situation in which we (followers of Jesus) find ourselves today. As sojourners in the world, we are on a long journey, ultimately, headed toward unfamiliar territory, to the place the prophet, Ezekial, calls “the center of the earth,” (Israel, Ezekiel 38:10-12). We will one day stand before the throne of Jesus in Jerusalem. 

We can see the proverbial dust cloud hanging over Israel as we near the end of this age, kicked up by the violent, rhythmic contractions that will one day culminate in the final battle and birth of the eternal kingdom of the Messiah. The signs of the times, the “landmarks” for which Jesus  told us to watch, are emerging one after another (no time predictions here).

We can see the Day and the place on the horizon and, though it is still some distance away, we are standing at a critical (and soon a very personal) juncture now...[1]

 I am writing the continuation of this article with the sober recognition that, while the Church is sojourning her way toward the earthly enthronement of our coming Jewish King in Jerusalem, to live and rule amongst his Jewish family-nation, the Western Church is currently under a deluge of ruthless antisemitic/anti-Israel rhetoric, the work of a multi-pronged global campaign, the American face of which is a handful of popular commentators, personalities, and influencers whose efforts I will not add traction to by speaking their names. I will, however, offer some basic data for the sake of creating context for what follows. (A discussion on other external pressures and threats to the Jewish people and the Church will be for a future time.)

Openly antisemitic commentator number one is a popular figure who holds an audience of 17.1 million online (previously on network news), 62% of whom self-identify as Christian. Openly antisemitic influencer number two is a woman who carries an online following of 6.9-million people. She claims a Catholic faith and her audience engagement reveals a large professing-Christian presence (precise percentage data is unavailable). Openly-antisemitic influencer number three, the most extreme among the three, carries a following of 1.3 million followers made up of a high proportion of young, professing-Christian men.[2]

These examples are merely a miniature manifestation of the hydra-like enemy-of-God working behind the scenes with one ambition—to usurp the rightful throne from the coming King and destroy his people. But take heart! He has already been defeated and is in the throes of his final, grotesque breaths of wasted life. We need not fear his clever designs, but we must make every effort to avoid being fooled by them.

The aim of this article is to put forward some basic, biblical clarity—a series of landmarks and signposts, if you will—set firmly in the biblical record, by which we can defend and navigate our way securely to “the gathering place,” designated from antiquity, where God will dwell among his people forever. The eyelids of the “wedding party” have been drooping in the very late hour, our sense of anticipation of Jesus’ return lulled to sleep (Matthew 25:1-13). But now, we are being awakened and are lighting our lamps once again. The story of Israel’s final restoration and divine occupation (after the formation of a remnant from every nation) is being retrieved and refreshed. The signposts are fixed and true, simply waiting for us to search them out and follow them.

Signpost: The chosen city is introduced in Genesis 14, when Abram (Israel’s patriarch, future Abraham) battles and defeats five enemy kings to recover his captured relatives (the family of Lot). After his victory, a mysterious man named Melchizedek ( meaning “righteous king”) appears on the scene from nowhere. He is both king of “Salem” (future Jerusalem, “City of Peace”) and the priest of El Elyon (God Most High). After Abram’s victory, Melchizedek meets him with bread and wine and receives Abram’s tithe (a tenth) of all his possessions. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews describes Jesus as the foreshadowed Priest-King “after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:6-10, 7).

Signpost: In Genesis 15, God makes an eternal covenant-promise to Abram (also 12:7; 13:14-18; 17:1-8; 22:14-18). After revealing to Abram that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky (another story for another time), God says this:

...And [God] said to [Abram], “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” But [Abram] said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

                                                                        Genesis 15:7-8

In a culturally customary ceremony (an animal sacrifice through which God himself “walks” in the form of a smoking pot and flaming torch), God swears by himself to seal the unconditional covenant with these words:

...On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

Signposts: God renews the covenant promises (including the land) to Abraham’s son Isaac (Genesis 26:2-5), and to Isaac’s son, Jacob, who would be renamed Israel (Genesis 28:10-15).

Signpost: Centuries later, the exponentially-multiplied children of Israel, after 40 years of wilderness-wandering, are standing in preparation to enter the promised land under Joshua’s leadership. In Moses’ final addresses before he dies, he specifically instructs the Israelites to look ahead to “the place” within future Israel where God will choose out of all [Israel’s] tribes to put his name and make his habitation there” (Deuteronomy 12:5).

Signpost: Several generations, many judges, and one failed king later, “the place” is established when King David takes the city of Jerusalem (Melchizedek’s Salem) for his capital as king over Israel (2 Samuel 5:1-10).[3] Finally enjoying rest from all his enemies, and having brought the ark of God to Jerusalem, David expresses the desire to build God a house. But David will not be the one to build God’s house; rather, God will build David’s “house.”

‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’” [4]

The royal lineage of the coming Messiah is identified, but he has not yet appeared. The people of Israel are planted in Israel, with Jerusalem as their capital, but “no more disturbance” and “no more affliction by violent men” are yet to be fulfilled. Yet, again, both the people and the land of Israel are securely anchored in the renewed and expanded covenant-promises to David that undergird our Christian faith. Friends, as long as the King and his Bride stand rooted in the covenant promises to Abram and to David, we must also confirm the inclusion of the people and land of Israel in the covenants. If we reject part, we are suggesting the irrevocability of God’s word to us in his covenant-promises. But the unfolding is not yet finished.

At this point in the narrative, it’s easy (and common) to get confused regarding the “conditional” Mosaic covenant, “the law” in which the Israelites agreed to God’s terms of obedience and chronically failed to uphold them, forfeiting the blessings and incurring the curses spelled out in the covenant. The covenant-promises issued to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, and David are unconditional covenants, in which one Person, YHWH-God, swore by himself and will, himself, fulfill the promises—not on the condition of Israel’s faithfulness, but for his own Name’s sake, irrespective of Israel’s incurable unfaithfulness (Ezekiel 36:22-36). Jesus secured the future blessings for future Israel. The permanency of the land and the people of Israel are securely imbedded in the unconditional covenant-promises.

Signposts: The Books of the Kings and Chronicles contain the record of significant historical events and Israel’s chronic and grievous unfaithfulness to their God, yet the covenant promises are confirmed there (1 Kings 9:3; 1 Chronicles 17:7-14; 2 Chronicles 7:16). The Prophets give a detailed witness of Israel’s ongoing rebellion, God’s repeated warnings and inevitable punishments, and great suffering producing repentance and gracious forgiveness for a given moment.

Israel and Judah (the divided kingdom after Solomon, 1 Kings 12) were sacked, Jerusalem captured, the temple destroyed, and the people exiled. A second chance provided (see Ezra and Nehemiah), Jerusalem and the second temple were destroyed again, after Jesus’ ascension to heaven (70 AD), and the people scattered (135 AD) for what would turn out to be two thousand years. But the prophets sent the covenant-promises forward for the people and the land of Israel.[5]

Signpost:

...And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you [Israel] have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.

                                                         Ezekiel 36:23-29 (parentheses and emphases mine) 

Signpost: The New Testament author of the Letter to the Hebrews confirms these promises in the context of the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood.

...“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,   when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel   and with the house of Judah,not like the covenant that I made with their fathers   on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.For they did not continue in my covenant,   and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel   after those days, declares the Lord:I will put my laws into their minds,   and write them on their hearts,and I will be their God,   and they shall be my people.And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor   and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’for they shall all know me,   from the least of them to the greatest.For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,   and I will remember their sins no more.”

                                    Hebrews 8:6-12, citing Jeremiah 31:31(emphasis mine)

The covenant-promises for the people and the land of Israel will be fulfilled. But it will not be gentle or easy.

Signpost:

...“Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah. On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it....

                                                                                          Zechariah 12:2-3 (emphasis mine)

The issue of Jerusalem, Israel, and the Jews is even now landing like a heavy stone on the peoples of the earth, and not in a way that we in the periphery may avoid. All of us are going to be, and are now being, tested on the matter of which side of the “heavy stone,”—Jesus’ rightful occupation of the throne in Jerusalem—we will come down on.

Simple decisions we make now, as we interact with a world that is drawing deep lines between the friends and the enemies of Israel, are going to put each of us on a pathway toward future Jerusalem. We may not all arrive there in our current bodies, but we will all have made clear whose King we serve in spirit and deed by the responses we give, positions we take, and decisions we make where we live and work and worship. Jerusalem is coming to us now.

Our allegiance will be recognized by the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters we feed, clothe, house, and visit in prison, but this is another conversation, soon...

Signpost:

 Behold, a day is coming for the Lord, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city.  Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him...

                                                                             Zechariah 14:1-5 (emphasis mine)

As the Day draws nearer (as always, no predictions), and the terrain grows darker and more treacherous, we must be careful to follow the biblical signposts forward to the end. Jesus has gone before us and shown us the way. The narrow road will be lighted as we press into the darkness, and we will not be alone.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca [weeping]they make it a place of springs;the early rain also covers it with pools.They go from strength to strength;each one appears before God in Zion.

                                                      Psalm 84:5-7 (parentheses mine)

Maranatha.

[1] https://www.oneleggedsojourner.com/post/journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth-part-2-the-murderer-the-martyr-and-the-longest-hardest-mile

[2] A simple online search will produce the identities and corroborating data of these personalities and several more. My intent here is to bring awareness without increasing their audience.

[3] Before David’s enthronement over Israel in Jerusalem, he ruled for 7 years over the tribe of Judah from the city of Hebron.

[4] 1) In ancient Hebrew culture, “house” often referred to a dynasty or the family line of a patriarch. God is speaking of the family line and dynasty of David. 2) There are at least two levels of fulfillment in this prophecy. David’s son, Solomon, would build the temple in Jerusalem for God’s “house.” And Jesus would build the eternal “house” of God as King of kings.

[5] The Books of the Prophets are laced through and through with confirmation of God’s final deliverance of Israel and future dwelling place with them in Jerusalem. I encourage the reader to study and become familiar with them, taking responsible note of the contemporary contexts and events woven together with the future, yet unfulfilled aspects of them. Books and resources by Joel Richardson will supplement well and open the reader to many more valuable resources.