Prayer Mobilized for Israel's Physical, Spiritual Battle - Tzippe Barrow, Jerusalem)

Prayer Mobilized for Israel's Physical, Spiritual Battle

By Tzippe Barrow

CBN News Internet Producer - Jerusalem

Thursday, October 15, 2015

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- The letter to the Ephesians in the Bible says much of what happens in the natural realm has spiritual roots.

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12)

So how are people praying into the terror wave sweeping across Israel?

Intercessory groups in Israel, along with Christian and Jewish groups worldwide, are calling on people to pray at this critical time in Israel's history.

Intercessors for Israel, an indigenous Israeli ministry that sponsors a weekly prayer meeting and annual intercessory prayer conference in Jerusalem, posted an emergency prayer alert this week.

According to IFI, the basis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in the Palestinian Authority's unwillingness to acknowledge in any way that the Jewish Temples once stood on the same mount where the al-Aksa Mosque now sits.

P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas recently said Jews should not be allowed to soil the area with their "filthy feet."

There have been a variety of efforts over the years to destroy archaeological evidence of a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. The Islamic Movement in Israel, for example, denies any historical Jewish connection to the Western Wall.

But the last remaining vestige of the Temples has great spiritual significance to the Jewish people, some calling it Judaism's holiest site.

During the Jordanian occupation from 1948 until Jerusalem was reunited under Israeli sovereignty in 1967, Jews were forbidden to enter the Old City.

Despite the fact that Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran, Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Raed Salah still claims the wall is part of the al-Aksa Mosque's western tower.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem-based headquarters of Bridges for Peace called on people "to bring prayers and petitions before the Lord on behalf of the nation of Israel, which exists for His purposes and His glory."

"Call upon Him to strengthen the resolve of His people as they face increasing acts of violence meant to dislodge them from the Land of their inheritance," Bridges wrote, citing Jeremiah 31:35-36.

Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, Who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar (The Lord of hosts is His name): "If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever."

On the Huffington Post website, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson admonished people not to lose hope and to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

"Our brothers' and sisters' blood cries out to us from the ground. We have watched with pain and sorrow as the recent wave of terror attacks have claimed too many lives and orphaned too many children," Artson writes.

"We unconditionally condemn these violent attacks on innocent Israeli citizens. No political motive justifies murdering or injuring civilians. We call on the Palestinian and international leadership to condemn these attacks in no uncertain terms," he continued, noting "the shock of attack after attack…can immobilize."

"I beg of you: don't lose hope. Stand tall and proud as Jews, as a Jewish community -- and reach out to anyone you know in Israel or with Israeli family and friends. Let's model the love we pray influence our political reality, soon and in our days," he wrote.

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Please God, may it be so: right now," Rabbi Artson concluded, expressing the hearts of Christians and Jews alike.