The Fight For Jerusalem (prt. 1)

Jerusalem; also known as the city of Peace, has known nothing else than having to fight for its continued existence. Jerusalem is also known as the Holy City where God dwells and looks after it. Although, this continued fight doesn’t start where one thinks. We would have to go back to around 1000-1003 BC when King David was around. Briefly, David was the little boy who killed the giant goliath who before this chapter became King of Israel. But Israel had no capital city to base itself on. This is where the real fight was initiated.

One of the the accounts of this sotry is found in 1st Chronicles 11 vs. 4-9 which states "Then David and all Israel went to Jerusalem (or Jebus, as it used to be called), where the Jebusites, the original inhabitants of the land, were living. The people of Jebus taunted David, saying, “You’ll never get in here!” But David captured the fortress of Zion, which is now called the City of David.David had said to his troops, “Whoever is first to attack the Jebusites will become the commander of my armies!” And Joab, the son of David’s sister Zeruiah, was first to attack, so he became the commander of David’s armies. David made the fortress his home, and that is why it is called the City of David. He extended the city from the supporting terraces to the surrounding area, while Joab rebuilt the rest of Jerusalem. And David became more and more powerful, because the Lord of Heaven’s Armies was with him.

One of the things that we start to see in David's life is the way he would response. First of all, David always broke everyone’s expectations. For example, his brothers and King Saul thought he couldn’t fight Goliath but he went out and did. Goliath thought David was just a little boy but he won the battle. And even the Jebusites told him He wouldn’t get in; but he did and he over took the city. The second intersting thig would be his attack procedure; but before getting there, let's see what led up to this event. Jewish Rabbis teach that the phrase “the blind and lame” was a phrase to, how we would now say, throw shade, at Israel. It is also said that Jebusites would put manikins on poles and at night they would light torches and raise the manikin to mock Israel. One resembled a blind and the other resembled a lame person. The Blind Man resembled Isaac due to being blind when he passed the blessing to Jacob. The Lame Man ressembled as Jacob; due to limping after fighting an angel. This led up to what is better described in 2nd Samuel 5; the attack on Jebus. But woah, what's David doing in a sewer? well this was part of the plan. Let’s just take a minute and imagine ourselves walking in a water sewer. Imagine David and his men having to walk in water that was dirty, cold, and fast moving. Sometimes life can get so mundane that it makes us want to hide and even burn out. But what if Jesus is daring you to have enough courage to walk into the water? John Wayne once defined courage as “Being scared to death but saddling up anyway”. David and his men were challenged to walk through some ugly water but they did not let it forfeit their mission.

Next time we are going to take a look at a more modern version of this same story and compare it to today’s. So in closing,Here’s the point; The enemy can put negative expectations on you; but you, through God’s power, can break all of them just like David and all of Israel did. Secondly, God gives us courage to be soldiers in His army but there may be some spiritual sewers that we have to walk through , and after all that, All of this has an outcome that will give God all the glory at the end.