Jerusalem: The Holy City of the Holy God

Jerusalem: The Holy City of the Holy God

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Dr. Carl Broggi

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 7/29/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Stand in the Gap Today. And it’s also our bimonthly focus on Israel, the Middle East and biblical prophecy. And joining me again today, I’m so glad to have back with me again is Dr. Carl Broggi. He is the senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina, as well as host of his own program and biblical teaching ministry called Search the Scriptures, where you can find sermons and prophecy instruction and Bible-based Q&A programs and more. And that site, which I’ll give again, is searchthescriptures.org. No one can read scripture. At least this is my finding. No one can honestly read scripture without noticing the unique emphasis and the continual reference to the city of Jerusalem. And no one can observe the headline news of our current day without noticing the nearly magnetic obsession it appears with Israel and the Jewish people.

And of course, Jerusalem, as well as the three major world religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. All three lay some spiritual claim to the city of Jerusalem. But way before the advent of Christianity or Islam, frankly, even Judaism, the city of Jerusalem was claimed by God himself and therefore holds, I would submit, a profound prophetical significance. And it’s this significance that I’ve chosen to frame today’s conversation with Dr. Broggi. And the title I’ve chosen is this, Jerusalem, the Holy City of the Holy God. And to understand the modern geopolitical battle over Jerusalem, we can’t begin with contemporary news headlines or international peace summits. We have to go back to the very beginning. Long before Jerusalem ever became an international lightning rod, God himself set this specific geographic location apart for himself. And we see in its earliest biblical footprints, we see it in Genesis. First with Melchizedek, the King of Salem, and the priest of the most high God.

We read that there. And then later on Mount Moriah where Abraham was instructed to offer Isaac, where God declared on the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided. Now, God explicitly designated Jerusalem as the place where he would establish his name, house his sanctuary, and receive true worship. And in passages throughout the Old Testament, God himself refers to this location as my city and the holy city. And it’s not merely a secular capital or a piece of real estate to be bartered on the global stage. It’s the earthly footstool of Almighty’s throne. So after hour here, Dr. Broggi and I are going to trace Jerusalem’s covenantal story from its sacred foundation and prophetic warnings to its future role as the epicenter of Christ’s earthly kingdom and its ultimate eternal destiny. All of that here today. So stay with us. Carl, thanks for being back with me today.

Carl Broggi:

Great to be with you, Sam. You’re right. Jerusalem is like any other city on the face of the earth. And someday what happens there will matter to everyone on the planet. So what an important topic you’ve chosen.

Sam Rohrer:

Well, let’s get right into it. Let’s begin by exploring Jerusalem’s earliest appearances in scripture, Carl, and why God chose the specific geographic mountain effectively to bear his name and sanctuary. For example, what do we know from scripture that would indicate why God himself designated that location, which earned the divine distinction in such places as my city in Isaiah 43:15 or the Holy City in Isaiah 48: two or Nehemiah 11 or your holy city in Daniel 9:24 or the city of our God and the city of the Lord Almighty in Psalm 48. Those are just a few references, but why? Explain some of that, please.

Carl Broggi:

Well, God promised that he was going to have a place where his name would dwell because his presence would be there and he would unfold salvation history. Deuteronomy, Moses will write, but you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose. And he hadn’t even chosen it yet or at least revealed it yet. He had chosen it, but hadn’t revealed it to Israel. And so as you read through the Old Testament, there’s a progression you noted. It starts with Melchizedek. He’s an interesting historical figure. He’s a picture. He’s a type of a priest king that ultimately is fulfilled in Christ. And so Jerusalem becomes my city, not because the soil is holy, but because God sovereignly ordained it to happen. And it becomes very plain. You don’t have to get very far into Genesis. So Melchizedek meets Abraham there. It’s there in the city of Jerusalem, further up the hill that Abraham will literally offer Isaac on nearby Mount Mariah.

Abraham offers them on Mount Mariah that will later become the Temple Mount. If you remember that situation where David will capture the city of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and he’ll bring the ark there to Jerusalem. There’s a plague that comes because of his rebellion and he’ll buy a threshing floor from Aruna, which is where the Temple Mount is today. Two Chronicles three dictates that Solomon will literally build the temple on the exact same spot where the Lord appeared to his father, David. The prophets minister as their headquarters in Jerusalem. It literally dies in Jerusalem. He rises from the dead in Jerusalem. He has sensed the heaven from Jerusalem from the top of the Mount of Olives. God, the Holy Spirit descends from heaven at Pentecost to Jerusalem. Christ will literally actually return to the same spot to the Mount of Olives. Zechariah 14 indicates, and he’ll reign from Jerusalem during the thousand year reign of the Messiah.

So Jerusalem is not just some ancient old historical city from a human standpoint, but from Genesis to Revelation, it occupies a unique picture in God’s plan. He calls it again, the place which the Lord your God will choose. I have chosen Jerusalem that my name might be there. So the choice just flows from the hand of a sovereign God because he’s going to accomplish his redemptive plan because he loves man. And after we rebel, he’s going to provide a way of escape and it’s going to take place in and around Israel, specifically Jerusalem.

Sam Rohrer:

And what you’re describing, Carl, people to have a tendency mean for those who own their home, we have a title to our house, but a fire can come and burn the house down the ground and whatever. But there’s something special about who holds the deed, so to speak, for Jerusalem, isn’t there?

Carl Broggi:

Yeah. So it’s not Israel’s land. God calls it my land. He describes it through Ezekiel the prophet as the navel of the earth, the center of the earth. So when we’re kids, we’d look down at a picture of the world and the United States would be in the center of those flat maps. In God’s eyes, he looks down, he sees Israel. He sees Jerusalem as the center of the world from which he’s going to execute his plan. All

Sam Rohrer:

Right, ladies and gentlemen of just joining us, we’re pursuing an interesting theme today. Stay with us. I think you’ll be benefit by it. The title is this Jerusalem, the Holy City of the Holy God. Jerusalem’s in the news today, is it not? But you can’t read the pages of scripture without finding that God has placed his stamp on that place called Jerusalem. We’re going to try to unpack that further as we come back. Stay with us. We’ll be back in just a moment. Well, welcome back to Stand in the Gap today as today we continue our bimonthly emphasis, that is today we do it every other Wednesday and have really since the inception of this program, because of the importance that God places on Israel, the Middle East and biblical prophecy, we’ve chosen to spend this amount of time every other Wednesday in the middle of the week focusing on Israel, the Middle East and biblical prophecy.

Today, along with Dr. Carl Broggi, who’s generally with me once a month, pastors his own church, the Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. We’re looking at this theme of Jerusalem. The title I’ve chosen is Jerusalem, the Holy City of the Holy God. And having established Jerusalem’s sacred origin and divine ownership, which we did in the first segment, we’re now going to turn to prophetic warnings issued by God to the surrounding world. For instance, in Zechariah chapter 12, God there declares that he will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling or some definition will be a cup of staggering to all surrounding nations, as well as an immovable rock that will severely injure anyone attempting to lift or some could interpret a manipulate or reallocate that city of Jerusalem and what’s associated with it. Some Old Testament scholars note that nations attempting to, for instance, partition or conquer or to control Jerusalem do not gain power.

Instead, they actually drink a spiritual cup that induces policy confusion, delusion, and self-destruction. In Joel three, God explicitly warns as well that he will judge the nations who have scattered the people of the city of Jerusalem, his people, and dividing his land. There’s a lot of factored into that sustainable as we try to break this up, but Carl, walk us through this, reference this cup of trembling. First of all, what does this warning really mean? And does it apply just to the Gentile nations around Jerusalem only? Or perhaps is there even an application to the people of Israel itself?

Carl Broggi:

Yeah, actually on both sides. I’ve just opened here to Zechariah 12 and it says, “Thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens and lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him. Behold, I’m going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around.” And then here in verse three, “I’m going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling and all the nations will be gathered against it.” So it’s a cup of reeling or staggering. It’s the imagery here of someone who’s drunk. It’s like the nations, the Goyim, the non-Jews of the world are intoxicated by their obsession to control Jerusalem, which represents Israel. That a small little place, yet they’re consumed with it. And God further says he’ll make it a heavy stone. Those who attempt to maneuver it or manipulate it are only going to hurt themselves.

And so the imagery here is really incredible. Rather than they’re being able to reshape Jerusalem like they want it, they’re going to find themselves ensnared under the sovereignty and the judgment of a holy God. What they think they can control actually becomes the means of their own judgment. And you mentioned here to Joel three, and Joel three is an incredible passage. It says, “For beholden those days and at that time, I will restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem.” That hasn’t happened yet. The process has started. God’s re-gathered them back in the land, but contextually this happens when the Messiah comes. And at that point, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehosaphat. It’s a new valley. It appears that it’s going to be formed when Jesus steps in the Mount of Olive, splits it in two. It’s going to be in that area that today we call the Kidron Valley.

And then he says, “I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of my people and my inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and have divided up not Israel’s land, but my land.” So it’s God’s land. The land belongs to him, but he entrusts it via the Abrahamic covenant to the people of Israel. So when Joel writes this, he views as dividing the land up as an assault against God’s sovereign purposes and God will deal with that. Does it apply only to the Gentiles? I don’t think so. That’s what the focus is of Joel where he speaks of all the Goyim, the nations, the Gentile powers who’ve habitually historically enslaved the people of Israel and sought to destroy them. But this is looking again to the ahead when the Messiah comes back and he deals with the nations, but it’s not limited to them.

You see it sometimes in microscopic form. You got someone like King Ahab, if you remember, he sees Nabal’s Vineyard and God judged him because the land was an inheritance that was entrusted by God to that particular family. And whenever Israel’s kings did something like that, they were held accountable. In addition, God judged the nation as a whole when they violated his covenant. The Babylonian exile was a result because of the idolatry that they had acted out on his land. So I would say just parenthetically here, Joel certainly is not condemning every political land agreement where we’re trying to build peace. We should seek peace. But if we don’t recognize that God owns the land, he’s entrusted it to Israel and we think that we can control it. We are messing with God Almighty and we’re headed for real trouble when that happens.

Sam Rohrer:

And that brings us right back to the whole concept we talked about the title deed, for instance, of that area, the city and all around it. It’s gods. It’s not Israel’s even. It’s not the Knesset of today. It’s not certainly America of today or Russia of today or Turkey of the day who all has interest in Israel or not having Israel there. They’re tampering with God himself, which is very interesting. Carl, let me go on here. Why do you think the leaders of the world, particularly as we see magnified today, because that area of the world, Jerusalem, everything is just out there in front. And to me, there’s a singular ambition or desire that we see manifested without a doubt in Donald Trump because of everything that’s happening there. But also organizations like the United Nations and others who, as you used the word intoxicated, they seem to be intoxicated with some concept of altering or manipulating or shaping the future of Israel, which centers on Jerusalem.

What is it do you think that they are attempting to get? I mean, what is there that makes Jerusalem so captivating for particularly political powers of the world? But I’m going to submit even maybe spiritual powers of the world.

Carl Broggi:

Yeah. I think behind it all is the evil one himself. Satan is called small letter G, the god of this world. When Adam rebelled against God, he lost his authority of his right to rule. And Satan wants to hold on to that. And so God makes a prophecy in Genesis three of a Messiah where God will reclaim the earth, the world as he intended it. And so Satan does everything in his power to keep first Jesus from coming. Cain murders Abel. That’s significant prophetically in terms of the line that will come. And so Seth takes his place. The demons intermarry with humans. Genesis six. What’s he trying to do to corrupt the human race so Messiah can’t come? Pharaoh wants every baby boy killed. He’s trying to stop the coming of Messiah. Athalia, the queen, she murders every Jewish boy, at least she thinks, that could go to the throne from which the Messiah must come, the tribe of Judah.

Haman wants to murder all the Jews. King Herod, he wants to slaughter all the baby boys so Messiah can’t come. You say, well, that’s just King Herod. Well, actually not because Revelation 12: four tells us behind King Herod was Herod the great inspired by Satan himself. Herod Archalas, his son, wants to wipe out the Jews. There’s a temptation from Satan to jump off the Temple Mount because he wants to kill Messiah in a less than biblical way. The people of Nazareth want to throw him off a cliff. They try to stone him, some other folks. Every attempt is thwarted. And so Satan lost round one. So what’s left? Round two. For Messiah to come back, he has to have a people whom he can rule. And so now that he couldn’t prevent the Messiah from coming, he’s going to try to prevent him from coming at least any sooner.

Because if there’s no Jewish people to reign, then Messiah can’t come back and Satan keeps his crown, so to speak. And that to me is what’s driving this spirit of antisemitism. There’s no human rationale for it. There’s a supernatural evil force working behind the scenes that is orchestrating this hatred for the Jews to annihilate him. And we’ll see that in the future. We saw it when Hitler tried to destroy them. And we’re going to see it as we’ve read this morning from Zechariah where all the nations of the world, Revelation 19 teaches it as well, we’ll try to go against the Jews and to obliterate them, but Satan will not be successful. So his wisdom, it’s corrupted, it’s thwarted, but he has a plan. And I think that’s the only explanation on why this little patch of land and this small group of people. I mean, we blame everything on the Jews.

13, maybe at the most, 15 million people. And we’re blaming all the problems on the Middle East with a hundred million Muslims on the Jewish people. This is the devil’s hand at work.

Sam Rohrer:

And Carl, you laid out a great chronology there. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you caught that. If not, go back and listen to this program again. Again, you can find it in our archives. Go back and just walk down through that list if you didn’t get it all that Dr. Carl Broggi just gave. Because this conflict that we are seeing manifested in the ways that we see in the headlines of the day and the world’s attention focusing on Israel is only one slice of the spiritual battle between Satan himself and God Almighty Himself that began at the beginning and is working itself out through. That’s what scripture tells us. That’s what we’re looking at today because a lot of it centers right on this holy city of Jerusalem. So that’s our focus today. Jerusalem, the Holy City of the Holy God. Come back and we’re going to move this forward into the millennial.

Well, today’s world views as it looks at Jerusalem, as a city of endless diplomatic conflict, it seems, biblical prophecy reveals a dramatic turning point centered squarely in Jerusalem. Now, following the climax of end times judgment, which my guest today, Dr. Carl Burugi, referred to briefly in the last segment, that end times judgment, which we’ve talked about much on this program, represented as the seven-year tribulation period, also known as the time of Jacob’s trouble. In that period of time, just ahead, I believe, of us from today, Jerusalem will assume its primary earthly purpose after that period of time. How does that happen? Well, it actually becomes the physical sovereign capital of the world. Jerusalem becomes the capital of the world, literally. Now, passages in Isaiah and in Zechariah 14 in Psalm two, for instance, declare that Jesus Christ, King of Kings, will return to reign physically, not metaphorically, physically from Jerusalem.

Not metaphorically, but geographically real. Jerusalem will during the thousand year period of time called the millennial kingdom. Nations at that time then will no longer gather against Jerusalem in war, just like they did. And they will just prior to King Jesus coming back at that final battle before the millennial kingdom. But instead, those kingdoms of the world are going to travel to Zion, to Jerusalem. For what purpose? Not to wage war, but to worship the King of kings and receive his instruction. Now, imagine that. I mean, different days are coming, ladies and gentlemen. The city is going to be transformed into the focal point of global peace. True peace, not fake peace. Global peace. True justice, not injustice, not man’s justice, God’s justice and righteousness. All of that’s going to happen. It’s ahead of us. So Carl, before I ask you to describe, I’m going to say the city of Jerusalem in its central position as the world’s capital city, because that’s just a magnificent thought.

Explain what the scripture says will happen. And you’ve already referred to it, but build it out a little bit more. Will happen to all of the nations who tampered with Jerusalem, that stone of stumbling and that kind of thing that we refer to, including their participation in scattering and persecuting the Jewish people as well as dividing up the land because those things are all there. And why is this important to understand?

Carl Broggi:

Well, when Jesus comes back, he is going to set up his kingdom, but only those who are born again will be able to enter the kingdom. So at the initial start, there’ll be a time of judgment. And we can read about that in Matthew 25:31 to 46. We often refer to it as the sheep goats judgment. Now, sadly, there are those who spiritualize and allegorize scripture. They see no future for Israel and they think this is just the final judgment, like the great white throne where God separates believers from unbelievers, but it’s not. There are four future judgments, one in heaven, four believers only to reward us accordingly. Two on earth amongst unbelieving and believing Jews, amongst believing Gentiles and unbelieving Gentiles. And then the final judgment between heaven and earth, the great white throne judgment. So in Matthew 25, there’s sheep, there’s goats, and there’s my brethren.

And so Jesus makes these incredible statements and they ask, Lord, when did we see you hungry? When did we see you? So on and so forth. And he said, Whatever you did to the least of these, my brethren, you did to me. So he’s describing that how people treat the Jewish people when he comes back at the second coming will be indicative of whether or not they were born again. You’re saved by grace alone, but the grace that saves never is alone. And when you meet the Lord, your attitude towards the Jewish people changes. And what we’ll see in the greatest expression of antisemitism that we’ve ever known since the inception of the nation will happen during the great tribulation period. So he will separate the sheep from the goat, the sheep being believers, the goats being unbelievers, and only God’s people will enter into the kingdom.

And when that happens, the promises concerning the Abrahamic, the Davidic and the New Covenant will begin to see their fullest earthly realization. The land, the seed, and the blessing of new life in Christ. And it will be dramatic. Listen, I just turned to Isaiah two. It says, “It will come about in the last days. The mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains.” And he’s referring to, if you know the passage, our listeners contextually to Jerusalem, the chief of the mountains. In fact, God will literally physically raise it up geographically when Jesus comes back. And many peoples will come and say, “Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord. That he may teach us his ways and so on. And the word of the Lord will go out from Jerusalem.” I mean, it’s incredible. Can you imagine a world, Sam, where the authority internationally is not Washington, not London, not Moscow, not Beijing, not Brussels, but Jerusalem.

There’ll be no politician who will be corrupted because the sinless king of the universe will be ruling over it and he’ll reign with righteousness. And Jerusalem will not just be a political capital, it will become the spiritual capital of the world.

Sam Rohrer:

Carl, build this out a little bit further. Describe for us as you visualize the scripture would tell us, and you already have right now, maybe the mountain of Jerusalem is actually lifted up physically. There’s going to be a new temple there. Explain how that’s going to be. Jesus Christ himself in the flesh is going to sit on that throne. It’s hard for us. It almost seems like a myth. It’s not a myth, it’s reality. But there’s a governing power as well, us. Explain how that’s going to work because in reality, it’s not some fictitious world. There are going to be nations just like there are right now. There are going to be earthly rulers, just like they are now. But explain more how that will be and what will happen during that thousand years of perfect administration.

Carl Broggi:

Gabriel at the conception of Jesus said to Mary, He, your son in your womb, will be great, will be called the son of the most high, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. David never reigned in heaven. David reigned on the earth. David never ruled from heaven. He ruled from Jerusalem. And when Jesus comes back, he will literally rule from Jerusalem and will become the centerpiece where all the nations will come and worship. And it will be absolutely amazing the transformation that will happen on the earth. Christ will reign. Isaiah two. There’ll be global peace. You go to the United Nations and there’s that Soviet statue that was made in the 1950s. And it has a quote from, at the bottom, it says, “Let us beat swords into plowshares.” And the implication is that the United Nations is going to pull this off.

And of course, across the street is the Isaiah owned that park and they have a partial quotation, “They shall beat their swords in the plow shares.” And again, the implication is the United Nations and man is going to pull this off. Well, they’ve never done it and they won’t do it. Not the United Nations, not some board of peace that our president hopes to establish or has established. I’m not against working for peace. God teaches it. He’s not going to pull it off. The man of peace will not pull it off. The antichrist. Only the prince of peace will pull it off. And it’s during that time, the world will be regenerated. There’ll be harmony in the creation. The Bible teaches that the wolf and the lamb, the lion and the ox will lay down. The baby will play next to the cobras and vipers nest and not be harmed.

We’ll see a renewal of the planet as God originally intended it before the fall. There’ll be health and longevity physically, long lifespans. If someone lives only to a hundred, he’s considered like a youth. There’ll be this widespread knowledge of the Lord. The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. But this will happen when Jesus comes back and he will literally fulfill it. And man, what a glorious magnificent day it’s going to be, which by the way, he will rule with a rod of iron. Why does he have to rule with a rod of iron? Because the people who enter the kingdom are tribulation saints, believers only, but they can live up to a thousand years. They’ll have children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. And even with the devil bound with no opportunity to tempt people, their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren will have to make a decision about Jesus who will be on the earth.

And yet not all of them will respond such that at the end of the millennium, Satan is loose and he tempts the nations to go against the Lord. And by the way, this argues for a pre-tribulational rapture because if we go up at the end of the tribulation and we all come back and glorify bodies, there’s no one who can sin. But people take these passages that I quoted and they spiritualize them and they said, “Well, that’s heaven.” It’s not heaven. There’s death during the millennial reign of the Messiah. He’s speaking of a specific future time where God will keep his promises to Israel because he is a promise keeping God. And what we pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven will literally have actually wonderfully be fulfilled.

Sam Rohrer:

Carl, what a graphic way of explaining that. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope, I hope, I pray that as you listen to the program that you know Jesus Christ as your personal savior, because if you do, I do, Carl does, we know that we are, I hope that you know and that you are, but if you do, when the Lord returns for us in the rapture and he will, and it’s right at the door, it appears by all evidences, we will be with him. We will come back with him, but with change to bodies just like him, and we will rule with him. So the time we’re talking about, the government of God, the government of Jesus Christ, King of Kings from Jerusalem, the governance structure at that point will be comprised of believers of today. So think about that. This is what scripture says. This is why we are sharing.

When we come back, there will be not just the Jerusalem of the millennial kingdom, there will ultimately be a new Jerusalem, and we’re going to describe that in the next slide. Well, welcome back to our final segment now of Stand in the Gap today with Dr. Carl Broggie. I’ve given you the website of a place that you can go to find more information about him, sermons, Q&A, and that kind of thing. And that place would be searchthescriptures.org, searchthescriptures.org. But our theme today, and if you’ve not been with us from the beginning, go back and listen to the entire program. I truly believe that you’ll be benefited and encouraged by all that we’ve shared today, but we’ve focused on the reality, the location called Jerusalem. And our title’s been this, Jerusalem, the Holy City. Why do we say that? Well, because it’s called that in scripture.

God refers to it in scripture as his city. So the Holy City of the Holy God. Why do we say that? Well, because our God alone is holy. So Jerusalem, the holy city of the Holy God. And we’ve established that as we’ve gone through the program. It wasn’t man’s idea that Jerusalem become important. It wasn’t Israel’s idea because the identifying, the separating, the making sacred of that location called Jerusalem was established by God himself before he made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So all that’s laid out, but we’ve journeyed from Jerusalem’s earliest sacred beginnings through the warnings of Jerusalem, where God says there that Jerusalem would become a cup of trembling, which is now and has been, but is particularly now, to the location of Christ’s future millennial reign, which we just described in the last segment. But God’s narrative for Zion, for Jerusalem, does not end on a temporal earth.

Even the glorious earth that it will be during the thousand year reign of Christ when things will be so much different and people will live longer and harvest will overtake the planting and all of that. That’ll be a magnificent time, that thousand year reign, but it doesn’t end there. Because in Hebrews chapter 12 and in Revelation 21, the prophetic lens, there shifts to the ultimate culmination, the new Jerusalem, which descends down out of heaven from God above as the eternal dwelling place where God resides directly with his redeemed people forever. And in this holy city, there is no temple. For the Lord God, Almighty and the lamb are its temple. That’s what scripture says. And all sorrow and death in the curse of sin is wiped away. That’s yet to come. So Dr. Broggi, Carl, as we begin today’s program, I mean, as we bring today’s program here to a close, how should the knowledge of all that we’ve discussed today about God’s ultimate plan of redemption, the prophetical revelation of Jesus Christ, especially if we find the Book of Revelation and beyond, the physical location of the holy city, the very city of God in Jerusalem, how should that shape what we are seeing and hearing all around us as the world, I’m going to say, increasingly focuses on Israel and the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem?

Carl Broggi:

Well, first Sam, I would say as we look at all that is unfolding, it should influence us and shape us not only how we interpret what’s happening, but how we live. We’re not just supposed to be newspaper exegetes looking at every event and saying, “Well, this applies to this.” What we’re supposed to do is we’re to be motivated and changed and share the good news with those who are lost because God knows the beginning from the end as Isaiah unfolds. And so what we see happening shouldn’t surprise us. When I think about what Zechariah, I was thinking about it a few days ago, he speaks of this future where all the nations will go against Jerusalem. And I think, well, what was Jerusalem like when Zechariah wrote? Well, when he wrote the temple had not yet been rebuilt, the city’s defensive walls were down. Jerusalem was sparsely populated.

It was weak economically. Politically, it had no say. It’s just a small province of the Persian Empire. And yet he looks into the future by the revelation given to him by God, and he speaks of these coming events. It reminds me what Peter will say about the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come. And then after they prophesied it, he said they had to go and make careful searches and inquiries concerning what person or time the spirit of Christ within them was indicating. In other words, they were so inspired. They wrote about it before it happened. Then they had to go back and study it. And so Jerusalem was not an international capital when these things happened. And so it should influence us today because God tells us the future and the same God who literally with every single prophecy fulfilled Christ’s first coming is going to pull off the same for the second coming.

So I suppose, Sam, we could go to one of two extremes. On the one hand, we’re to resist sensationalism where we take every headline and we try to say, this is what it means. On the other hand, we shouldn’t ignore the significance of what is happening before our eyes. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees. He said, you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but you can’t discern the signs of the time and neither should we. So we should walk in humility. We recognize that God has not abandoned Israel, that he’s faithful to the people of Israel. And our hearts, I think, should be filled with a sense of great hope because it reminds us that we have a God who is in control and that the Lord Jesus who wept over the city will someday reign over the world from that very place. And it’s going to be a marvelous, marvelous day for us in the future.

And again, God is faithful to Israel just as he’s faithful to the church.

Sam Rohrer:

Don’t have much time, but fill in just a little bit. This new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven, explain that just a little bit if you can, just briefly.

Carl Broggi:

Yeah, it’s interesting. He’ll say, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth passed away.” And so Peter tells us that at the final end of the millennial reign at the universe and he’ll burn it with fire. During the millennial rain, there’ll be a regeneration. Same term used to describe us. I’m in a regenerated body, but it ain’t yet perfect. And there’ll be a regenerated earth, but it won’t be perfect. It’s an earth where a lot of sins drama unfolded. And so God’s going to destroy it. He’s going to make a brand new heaven, a brand new earth, and the holy city, the new Jerusalem, which is where your loved ones go today. We call it the father’s house. We call it heaven. We call it paradasis in two Corinthians 12. It will literally physically actually come and sit on a new earth, which becomes the capital of the place where we will spend eternity.

But I think it’s interesting. He calls it the new Jerusalem because again, God caused his name to dwell there. It is there that God unfolded salvation history. And this is why it is so important that we know the Lord.

Sam Rohrer:

Amen and amen. And Carl, okay, we got one minute left. Please close this program in prayer.

Carl Broggi:

Yes. Our father, we thank you that you are the God who is sovereign in an absolute control, that you know the beginning from the end. You wrote of it after man rebelled that you’d send a savior who would die in our place. And I pray for some dear listener somewhere who’s uncertain that heaven is their home, that they’ll be a part of this future reign with Messiah, and that they’ll spend eternity in heaven. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you didn’t partially, but completely paid our sin debt. And you demonstrated your ability when you were raised from the dead. So you can promise anyone who will believe it that if they will call on your name, you will instantly eternally give them the gift of eternal life that can never end. Help someone to do that and help the rest of us to live in light of it.

We ask it in Jesus’ holy name and for his honor. Amen.

Sam Rohrer:

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Dr. Carl Broggi, for being with us here today and the Stand in the Gap listening audience. Ladies and gentlemen, I trust that you’ve been benefited by this. And again, I would imagine that if you’ve been blessed by this program, so will your friend. So buy our app or on our standonagapradio.com site, take and forward this program to a friend. You can also get a transcript along with it there and read along with it. Study through this again. What’s shared today is just unbelievable information right off the pages of scripture. God has set aside Jerusalem, his holy city. We ought to know about it and why. Thanks for being with us today. God bless you, and Lord willing, we’ll see you back here tomorrow.