The path for today, and this will extend into next week as well, is, as you can see from the title, the Eastern Gate. Eastern Gate is the gate, what a surprise, on the eastern side of the old city of Jerusalem. And it has a very rich history and many things which are really very impacting in its long years of existence. As you can see from the picture, let me roll it up a little bit more. It's sealed. What a surprise. Notice how you can't get through that gate. It's been walled up. The gate is a double portal. You can see there are two doorways, two entrances through the gate, and both of them have been sealed. And we're going to talk about the history of that gate and the things that surround it, literally and figuratively. Now, here's a very interesting picture because there's the gate again, but now a wider view. And behind the gate, you can clearly see the Dome of the Rock, the central point of Islamic religion. The Dome of the Rock happens to be the oldest surviving piece of Islamic architecture in the world. There are other fragmented pieces in various places, but this is the sole surviving full piece of architecture. It was built in the 1600s, and it sits on what is called the Temple Mount, which is right beyond the Eastern Gate Wall. The Temple Mount is, as you may know, also the site of the Second Temple. So this piece of ground is very, very important to Jews in particular and also to those practicing Islam. The claim of that property has always been contentious. The Jews believe it's theirs, and Muslims believe it's theirs. Right now, it is under the control and has been under the control of the Islamic religion for a very long time. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that. For several years now, There's a group of people in Israel, a bunch of Jews, who are the Temple Mouth faithful, and they have been preparing the Third Temple. They have created many of the implements that are going to be necessary for that Third Temple. They are going to return when the moment is right to sacrifices, as they did previously when the Second Temple was in existence. So this movement has been going on for some time. The movement was led by a man named Gershon Solomon. Some of you may know of him. He actually came to our church here on more than one occasion. He was a very good friend of Pastor Lindstrom's, the founder of this church. Gershon came here and spoke about his desire to have people support the efforts of the Temple Mouth faithful in the rebuilding of the temple. He was an Orthodox Jew. His story is rather interesting. He was a member of the Israeli Defense Forces during the 67 War. And while he was in the field, in the open field fighting, he was seriously wounded. I say that almost with a chuckle because he was run over by a tank and he survived. After that encounter with the tank, he was in the field and there were Arab soldiers approaching him and it seemed very grim. He was not gonna survive this night. And yet he did. They seemingly didn't see him. He became invisible to them, even though he was in the open field. Gershon was a wonderful man. He clearly, without question, believed that God had saved his life that night and had done it for a purpose. And the purpose was to rebuild the temple. So he took on that responsibility. Hank Lindstrom tried for years to reach Gershon, to have him become a believer, but Gershon never believed. He passed away in 2022, as a matter of fact. Interesting story, I was here in the church when services were over one day and Hank asked me if I would, Kershawn and his wife had come to visit and to speak, if I could take them to the airport. And I said, sure, I'll take them to the airport. So we get in the car and I find out that the airport is Orlando. Not Tampa. So we had a long ride. And witnessing to Gershon was like banging your head against the wall. Again, Hank had been trying for years. I did not know that. I did not know that. And I tried unsuccessfully. But it was a very interesting hour and a half or so on that ride. Again, a really wonderful man. Some of the implements include a golden menorah, which is completed and is actually in Jerusalem. If you went to Israel, you could see it. And other things, clerical garments that the priests will wear. They prepared those things and other kinds of things that would be used in the temple. Let's see what we got here. All right, now, this may be a little hard to see. Hopefully, you'll be able to catch it well enough. So this is an aerial shot of the old city, as you can tell. And dotted in the photograph are the areas of the various gates, the locations. You can see them. Oops. Oops. It's a little unscreened. You see the red dots? Those are the gate locations. So let's go down here. We're going to try to get if, oh, I'm having a lot of trouble with this. OK. That one here, I have a little guide for myself because I can't remember them exactly. I know them fairly well. So the one in the lower left corner is the Zion Gate. And that's where it's, I think you can see the lower left, pink, pink square, pinkish reddish square. That's the Zion gate. In Hebrew, it is called Sha'ar Tzion. Sha'ar is the Hebrew word for gate. Tzion is, in this case, Zion. Tzion, Zion. In Arabic, the Arabs give it a name, too. They call it Bab Anabi Dawud, named after the prophet David, who they have great respect for. as a prophet. Then we're going to go, let's see, this guy right here, oops, right there, that's the Jaffa Gate. Again, Sha'ar Yafo, Sha'ar Gate, Yafo Gate. And here we have Bab el-Halil, Bab el-Halil in Arabic. Go up here. That's the New Gate. Shahar Hadash. See if I can scroll down. Not going to go through all of them. You can see they're listed below. Let me go back up again here. No, wait. Hang on a second. All right. The Eastern Gate is the one we've seen. Now you can see here, let me get the cursor to move properly, there you go. So there is the Dome of the Rock that we have in that first picture. So that's the area looking right down on the Dome of the Rock. And you can see to the right, right there, is the Eastern Gate. And across the valley, the Kidron Valley, which is that low area to the right in this photograph, on the other side of the Kidron Valley is the Mount of Olives, which you're familiar with, I'm sure. The elevation of both the city and the Mount of Olives is pretty steep. It's over 2,000 feet. Interestingly, when people refer to Jerusalem, no matter what direction they're heading from. Like, for example, if we were going, if we were up in Gainesville and we wanted to come to Tampa, we would generally say, well, I'm going down to Tampa. If we were in Miami and we were coming up to Jacksonville, you would say, I'm going up to Jacksonville, that's what we do. You know, we use north is up and south is down. However, in Israel, everything is up to Jerusalem. And you say, well, is that because it's sacred? And that's why people say up. No, that's not the reason, because Jerusalem is elevated. So you have to always go up to Jerusalem. So whether you're heading south, north, east, or west, that's how it's referred to. It's always up to Jerusalem. Let me go down a little bit more here. OK. So here's the Eastern Gate, also called the Golden Gate, also called the Mercy Gate. Those three names are given to it. And you can see again, here we go, sha'ar, in this case, harachamim, sha'ar, harachamim, and then in Arabic, bab el-rachmeh, very similar, rachmeh, rachamim, interesting. Before we get into these quick facts, just a little history on Jerusalem itself. We know that Jerusalem was conquered and then it was destroyed in 586 BC. I'm going to read from the Bible about the description of that. So bear with me while I do that. This is in 2 Kings. Chapter 25. And we're going to begin with verse 8. And this is what it says. And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came Nebuchadzandan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem. And he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire. And all the army of the Chaldees, that are with the captain of the guard, break down the walls of Jerusalem roundabout. Now the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the fugitives that fell away to the king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, did Nebuchadzadan, the captain of the guard, carry away. But the captain of the guard left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen. And the pillars of brass that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the brazen sea that was in the house of the Lord, did the Chaldees break in pieces and carry the brass of them to Babylon. And the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass wherewith they ministered took they away. And the firepans, and the bowls, and such things as were of gold, In gold or silver, the captain of the guard took away the two pillars, one sea, and the bases which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord. The brass of these vessels was without weight. The height of the one pillar was 18 cubits, and the chapter upon, it was brass, and the height of the chapter, three cubits. And the wreathen work and the pomegranates upon the chapter roundabout and all of the brass, like unto these, had the second pillar with wreathen work. And the captain of the guard took Saria, the chief priest, and Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three keepers of the door. And out of the city he took an officer that was set over the men of war, and five men of them were in the king's presence. which were found in the city, and the principal scribe of the host, which mustered the people of the land, and threescore men of the people of the land, they were found in the city. Ednebrizar Adan, captain of the guard, took these and brought them to the king of Babylon. And the king of Babylon smote them and slew them in Rabla in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away out of their land and into the Babylonian captivity, which lasted about 70 years. So Jerusalem was destroyed. This was prophesied by Daniel, and also Jeremiah prophesied it about 100 years before it happened as well. We're not going to read those passages. The long history of Jerusalem is also marked by a lot of destruction, and that's not the end of the destruction either. That was that one moment in time, but we're gonna talk about more than that. Okay, so some facts about the gates. We named them, and here's just some background on some. I mentioned the Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF, of which Gershon Solomon was a part. When Israel, which was victorious during that war, entered Jerusalem, they came in primarily through this gate. And if you go to Jerusalem and you pay attention, if you know that's even the case, and you happen to view the gate, you'll see the pockmarks from the shells and from the various small arms fire that occurred during the engagements. And then you have this entrance leading to the, These two quarters, they call them quarters, the Jewish and Armenian quarters. They're really not quarters. In other words, you're not gonna take Jerusalem and divide it into four equal parts. Quarters means really sections. But because there are four, they say quarters. The next gate is the Jaffa Gate. And it leads to Jaffa. Jaffa is a section which is, if you can visualize Jerusalem, Jerusalem sitting south, Tel Aviv sitting up near the coast northwest of Jerusalem, so the Jaffa Gate There was a road that connected that part of the old city, Jerusalem, through the Jaffa Gate. And if you follow that road, it will take you to Jaffa, which is a suburb, we'll call it, of Tel Aviv. It's in the southern part of Tel Aviv. So you would reach Jaffa before you reach the main city of Tel Aviv. The next is the New Gate. It says here that it's about 600 years old. It's open to debate. Nobody has an exact time frame for it. It's an educated guess. It is, however, the newest gate, regardless. It had a remodeling done. Nothing historic about that, just that, to remodel it, to repair it, back in the late 1800s. They wanted to increase the access to the neighboring communities back then, so they remodeled it, made it more accessible than it had been before. It also, if you come through that particular gate, you'll have access to the Christian quarter, the Christian section of Jerusalem. Okay. All right, the Damascus Gate. We are very familiar, many of us, with the road to Damascus. This is the gate leading to that road. And because of that, because of its importance, I'd like to read from Acts 9, beginning with verse 1. You'll find it on page 1160 if you have the church Bible, the old Schofield Bible. So again, this is. Okay. All right, Acts 9, verse 1, page 1160. And Saul, yet breathing, out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem." So just to digress for a second, Saul is on a Christian hunt, so to speak. Saul, who by his own admission, the worst of it all, a dedicated, a very dedicated and avowed Pharisee, very knowledgeable, bright man, very, very, very smart, understanding of all Jewish custom, but a dogged, relentless pursuer. So that's what this is about. Give me permission. Give me authority. Give me letters so that I can go bring back in chains, if necessary, these people who are spreading such vicious information, I call it. So there he goes. He's on his way to Damascus. And as he journeyed, we're in three, verse three, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecuted. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what will thou have me do? And the Lord said unto him, arise and go unto the city, and it should be told thee what thou must do. Well, he continued. We're not going to get into Saul's, ultimately Paul's story, but this is the gate in that this is the gate in that famous section of the Bible. So let's talk a little bit more about the gate. We'll talk more about it as well. Jesus came into Jerusalem through the Eastern Gate before it was walled up. We'll talk about the walling up of it. But when he was brought to Calvary, to Golgotha, how many people here in the church today have been to Israel? Raise your hand if you've been to Israel. If you go to Israel and you go to where we believe the garden tomb is located, not everybody necessarily believes that that's the case, but I think for the most part, we from this church firmly believe that that garden tomb that exists is the tomb. It fits the complete description of what's necessary. Not only that, but above the garden tomb is a rock formation. And it looks precisely like a human skull. There's no mistaking it. You don't have to kind of squint and go, I'm not so sure. The person asks you, can't you see it? Really? It's kind of like clouds in the sky. Somebody said, oh, it looks like a dog. And someone else says, I don't think so. It looks like a peacock. This looks exactly like that. It's a skull. And Golgotha is the name given to it. So when Jesus was led to his crucifixion, they went out through this gate. So it is an incredibly historic location. It's also, in present day, as it says there, the busiest gate. And its structure is a beautiful structure. Some of these gates, like you saw in the Eastern Gate, the Eastern Gate has two portals. which are now sealed. In this particular case, we have a large portal in and two smaller ones on either side. So it's a little bit more involved. The gates are not all the same throughout the city. They have different configurations. OK. OK. Herod's Gate. Well, Herod was a king. also called the Flower Gate. This particular gate leads into the Muslim quarter of the city. Okay, you've got the four quarters, I actually didn't mention, you've got the Jewish quarter, you've got the Christian quarter, you've got the Armenian quarter, and you've got the Muslim quarter. Well, this one leads into the Muslim quarter. They call it Herod's Gate. It was given a name, Herod's Gate, that name, actually incorrectly, but it stuck. Because when pilgrims came to the city, they saw what they thought was Herod's Palace nearby. And said, oh, it's Herod's Palace. This must be Herod's Gate. And they associated that structure, which they thought was his palace, with the gate, and the name stuck. In fact, the structure wasn't Herod's Palace. It happened to be a church. But it was so elaborate and so magnificent, they thought it was a palace. So the name has always stuck. So everyone refers to it as Herod's Gate. Let me read one more thing because this gate has significance. All the gates have some significance, some more than others, like we've just learned. Okay, I'm gonna read now from Luke 23. I can get to it. It's on page 1109. Okay, 1109, beginning with verse six. Let me make sure I get the right page. Okay, verse six. Okay. Give me one sec. Okay. 23, six, okay, here we go. Verse six. Jesus is now under arrest, and the major players in this moment, some are mentioned in this section of Luke. So here we go. When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilean. He's talking about Jesus. And as soon as he knew that he belonged onto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent them to Herod. It's like, okay, he's yours. He sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at the time. And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad, for he was desirous to see of him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him, and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. Then he questioned with him in many words, but he answered him nothing. And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him. And Herod, with his men of war, set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. In the same day, Pilate and Herod were made friends together, for before they were at enmity between themselves." OK. So here's Herod. As it says in the Bible, Herod and Pilate did not get along prior to this, but they had a common agreement, we'll call it, when viewing Jesus and what he was capable of. This kind of distant admiration, I'll call it. It's my words. There's nothing in the Bible to support that. So when the two of them got together again and likely talked about Jesus, a relationship of sorts developed, better than it was before. OK, Lionsgate. Lions Gate. Also, St. Stephen's Gate. So what happened near this gate? Stephen was stoned to death near this gate. And who was viewing the stoning? Saul. Saul was viewing the stoning. Saul, who we talked about, we know Saul. who became, who was renamed Paul by Jesus. He viewed it. He was in favor of that stoning, of course. This particular gate leads also to the Via Della Rosa, which is the path that Jesus took through the city on his way to his crucifixion. So you can see. how many important things these various gates are related to. Jerusalem is not, the Old City is not a huge area. It's very busy, very congested, can be raucous, very noisy. There's a lot of buying and selling going on in Jerusalem. And the reason for that is very simple. It's a giant tourist mecca. So you can find a lot of stuff if you want to buy. Now, I'm not necessarily a bargainer, but I've seen people. I'll tell you a quick story. I've been fortunate with my wife to have been to Israel a couple of times. So the first time we went, we went with a woman from this church, and she was very interested in getting, buying her son, one of her sons, a cross that he could wear on a necklace. So we were with her that day. They gave us some time off if we wanted to go shopping. And so we're walking through the city. I believe we actually were in the Muslim quarter at that time. I'm pretty certain of that. But anyway, we go past this jewelry shop. And there was absolutely, I mean, a beautiful cross in the window. But the doors were closed and locked to the shop. So we're out of luck. So we start walking away, and this gentleman comes running up. Oh, no, it's my shop. It's my shop. It's my shop. And she said she was interested in buying a piece of jewelry. She liked that cross in the window. So he opened the door, and we went in. And I'm going to make up these numbers, but it'll give you some flavor for how much wiggle room you have if you want to buy something. I'm pretty certain of this number. He quoted a number of about $300 for this cross, which for that shop would have been a pretty sizable sum. She didn't really want to spend that much, so she said, no, it's too much money. And thinking that he was pretty steadfast about it, we started to leave. And he said, wait, wait, wait. And the numbers started coming down. And it came down, and way down. She left the shop, and she paid $40 for the cross. And believe me, it was worth a lot more than 40 bucks, by American standards, okay? Not that I'm giving anybody advice on how to buy stuff, but if you go to an area like this, okay, they almost want you to bargain. They almost feel insulted. I didn't spend enough time haggling. They want to spend some time. The fact that he had to shop clothes probably speaks to the fact that he just wanted to talk to somebody to sell something. And he did for $40. What are we up to now? Oh, yes. Where are we? Oh, Dungate. The Dungate. What do you suppose that's about? It's not a mystery. It's not tricky. It's not a play on words. It is the Dung Gate. That's the name. The interesting thing about this gate is, I mean, the area around it serves a specific purpose, which you can see on the screen. But it also leads to the Temple Mount, which is interesting. So what do we got? We've got the gate leads to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. We're going to talk a little more about the Western Wall in a bit. And also, the stables were there. So OK, take a guess. The dung gate and stables. You don't have to know too much about horses. I think you understand. And what does it say in the third bullet? Since the second century, a refuse has been hauled out of the city through this gate. That's where it gets its name, the Dungate. Now, the reason why they chose this particular gate for this stuff is because the prevailing winds tend to, unlike the other gates, okay, the prevailing ones tend to carry odor away from that part of the city. So it is, if you have to pick a place, it's the best place to do it, okay? And so therein lies the Dung Gate. We don't need to talk much more about that, unless you want to talk about horses, and I don't know that much about horses. But you can imagine what Solomon's stable of horses must have been like. I think he had more than three or four, probably. Where am I? OK. All right. We're back to the Eastern Gate. OK. Now, of course, the Eastern Gate, as we talked at the very beginning, became sealed. We've seen the pictures of the sealed gate. Why? Who did it? And why was it done? In the 1500s, Suleiman conquered Jerusalem. I'm not gonna give an exact date, nobody's exactly certain, but somewhere during his reign, during the 1500s, he ordered that the Eastern Gate be sealed, and it's been sealed ever since. The reason this happened is because he was nervous, as were his people. They were concerned because they heard the stories that the Messiah would come. Now, they heard these stories from the Jews. Now, the Jews, we know, didn't believe that the Messiah had already come. Again, this is the 1500s. Now, for those of you who don't know, I happen to be Jewish. I'm a Christian, but I'm Jewish. I and the rest, at one point in my life, believed just that, waiting for the Messiah. A great war hero would come and save Jerusalem and save the rest and save Israel. I didn't know the truth back then, but I do know the truth now. But anyway, he was told by the rabbis in Jerusalem Hey, listen, this messiah, he's not going to be your friend, Suleiman, OK? He's going to come through the Eastern Gate. So Suleiman goes, oh, well, hmm. Well, we can solve that problem, he thinks. And so he orders what? He orders the sealing of the Eastern Gate. And it is sealed up. Now, you and I can't get through there, OK? Not easily, OK? We could blast our way through. But certainly, no Messiah is capable of coming through a sealed wall. Do I hear chuckles? Yes. OK. So what does it say? I'm going to read what it says. They described the Messiah as a great military leader who would be sent by God. OK. Not wrong so far, except that they're a little late, OK? Because they should have said this a long time ago, but they didn't. from the east. He would enter the eastern gate and liberate the city from foreign control." That's what they told him. He must be going, well, I don't like that. I've got control of this place. Okay, guys, seal it up. So those that say, Suleiman then decided to put an end to Jewish hopes by ordering the Eastern Gate sealed. Like, oh yeah, that's going to stop Jesus, right? Because they believe it's their territory. They still obviously do. There's no change there. We talked about the Temple Mount and how the Dome of the Rock sits on top of it because the Muslims say, this is ours. And the Jews say, no, it's ours. The interesting thing is that there was proposed a confrontation, I'll use that word, many years ago, that the Jews attempt to take the Dome of the Rock. It was shot down, not literally shot down. It was by the Israeli government. They said, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna do that. Leave it alone, let it stay, and it stays. Okay, so what else did he do? Gets even funnier. He also put a Muslim cemetery in front of the gate, believing that no Jewish holy man would defile himself by walking through a Muslim cemetery. Sounds logical, right? No, it's not. The Muslims also believe that a Gadol Kohen, A Jewish high priest generally cannot enter a cemetery. So they buried their dead there. So they actually built a cemetery and put the Muslims in the cemetery, saying, well, we're safe. We've got two things going for us. We sealed up the eastern gate. Nobody can walk through there. And we put a cemetery in front of it, our cemetery. OK? We're good. Not really. as it says. However, the ploy is flawed, as Jewish biblical teaching states that the Messiah will be from the family of King David. Now, you may know this already, from the family of King David, who is a descendant of the tribe of Judah, not Levi, and therefore he's not a Kohen. Oops. Hmm. So, problem there because the Messiah, like he cares, he walked right through the cemetery. He's not prevented from doing that because he's not a Kohen. Also, there are circumstances which currently, anyway, permit a Kohen from entering a cemetery. It's not forbidden. Oops, they messed up. We have got about a minute. And maybe I can get this in, I think I can. Let's go to Ezekiel 44, it's on page 890. And I think we'll close today with that. Page 890. You can get to it. 890. Okay. Ezekiel 890. Ezekiel 44. Verses 1 to 3. Short read. And this is about a gate. Speaking about a gate. Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary. which looketh toward the east, and it was shut. Then said the Lord unto me, this gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it, because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. So, what happened? I close with this. Suleiman just fulfilled prophecy. when he sealed the gate. Here we have Ezekiel. And Ezekiel wasn't written before the sealing of the gate, as you can imagine. So all things work as God chooses for these sorts of things to work. And that is it for today. Thank you very much.