Introduction
Pawson opens with a personal note: he had asked the Lord many years earlier whether he could preach until he was 80, and this year — having now completed his 80th year — that prayer was answered.
He then sets the scene with a vivid personal memory. In June 1967 he was in Jerusalem, on the first bus to cross from West Jerusalem to East Jerusalem in twenty years. The road ran across what had been a minefield. That morning the ground was bare and broken. By the time his group returned from Jericho that evening, the same stretch had been transformed into a tarmac road complete with pavements and lampposts — the whole city reunited in the space of hours.
Pawson had known Jerusalem as a divided city. A strip of land sown with landmines had separated the two halves for two decades. His own friend, a Baptist pastor in Jerusalem, had lost a leg to a mine while rescuing a child who had strayed into the minefield.
Background: 1948 and 1967
Twenty years before 1967, the newly declared state of Israel had been attacked immediately by three Arab nations. Jordan won the battle for Jerusalem and took control of the entire old city, including the Jewish quarter. The synagogues were destroyed. The Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was despoiled and a road was driven through its centre.
The Wailing Wall — the only remaining section of the platform on which Solomon had built the temple — fell under Jordanian control. Jews were cut off from their most sacred site for twenty years. The wall itself was not even part of the temple building; it was the western side of the enormous platform Solomon constructed over the hill of Moriah, a surface of some thirteen acres.
In June 1967 the three nations attacked again. Israel launched a pre-emptive strike that destroyed the air forces of Syria, Egypt and Jordan before they could take off. The Six Day War ended in a decisive Israeli victory, and the whole of Jerusalem — including the old city — was reunited under Israeli control. Pawson was there to witness it: thousands of Israeli soldiers, still in uniform, weeping as they touched the stones of the Western Wall for the first time in a generation. The wall was running with tears.
Now, decades later, the world is discussing dividing the city again. The proposed two-state solution would create East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state and West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It is this question — who is entitled to Jerusalem? — that forms the subject of the lecture.
Why Does Jerusalem Matter to the World?
Jerusalem is not a large or strategically obvious city. It sits hidden in the Judean hills, not on a major river or trade route. And yet it commands the attention of the United Nations and the world’s media with an intensity that would seem extraordinary if applied to any comparable small town elsewhere. Why?
The primary practical reason is oil. The world’s energy supply depends on the Middle East, and peace in that region is essential to the Western economy. The central obstacle to that peace is the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis — and at the heart of that conflict is Jerusalem.
Pawson makes the point that the occupied territories are not, in reality, the core issue. Four times Israel has offered the Palestinians up to 94% of the occupied territories, and four times the offer has been refused. The real issue is Jerusalem. Behind the local conflict, moreover, lies a deeper religious conflict — between Islam and Judaism, between Allah and Yahweh — which politicians are reluctant to acknowledge but which drives the hostility at a fundamental level.
The Human Claims
Pawson divides the human arguments into three categories: historical, political, and religious. For the first half of his lecture he examines these claims as the world discusses them — without reference to the Bible — because this is the level at which all political discussion takes place.
1. The Historical Claim: Who Had It First, Most, and Last?
Who had it first? Nobody knows with certainty. Jerusalem was occupied as early as 2500 BC by people whose descendants are unknown. When the biblical record opens, it was held by the Jebusites. King David then took the city and made it the Israelite capital, where it remained for the next thousand years.
Who had it most? The Israelites held Jerusalem for approximately one thousand years — five hundred years as an independent capital, and another five hundred under various occupations during which it remained the centre of Jewish religious and civic life. In AD 135 the Romans destroyed the temple, ploughed up the temple mount, renamed the city Aelia Capitolina, and renamed the entire region Palestina — the origin of the modern name Palestine, derived not from the Philistines but from this Roman administrative term.
After Constantine, Byzantine Christian rule followed. Then Muslim Arab rule began in the seventh century — approximately six hundred years, interrupted briefly by the Crusades, then continuing under the Ottoman Turks — a total Muslim tenure of approximately seven hundred years. In 1917, British General Allenby — a devout Christian and Bible student — entered Jerusalem on foot and bareheaded, taking it without firing a shot. Britain administered Palestine under a League of Nations mandate until 1947. In 1948 Israel declared independence; Jordan took old Jerusalem; then came 1967.
Who had it last?Many nations — Pawson estimates approximately seventeen — have conquered Jerusalem at one time or another. The most that can be said is that the Jews held it for longer than anyone else: approximately a thousand years against Islam’s approximately seven hundred. The historical claim is real but inconclusive.
He adds a note on the contradictory British promises: Lawrence of Arabia negotiated assurances to the Arabs, while Lord Balfour simultaneously promised the Jews a national homeland in the same territory. The Balfour Declaration promised a homeland for the Jews, not specifically Jerusalem.
2. The Political Claim: Justice and Peace
Justice. The loudest cry for justice comes from the Palestinian refugees. In 1948, approximately 500,000 Palestinians fled during the War of Independence. Some fled out of fear; some were told by Arab nations to leave temporarily while the Arab armies destroyed the new Jewish state — a promise never fulfilled.
At the same time, approximately 850,000 Jews were forced to flee from Arab countries. The difference, Pawson argues, is in how the two groups of refugees were treated. The Arab nations kept the Palestinian refugees in camps as a political tool, refusing to resettle them. Israel, with far fewer resources, took in all the Jewish refugees and gave them homes, land and work. The Palestinian right of return remains a central demand in every peace negotiation; the Jewish right of return to their homes in Arab countries is never discussed.
Peace. The fundamental difficulty with territorial withdrawal is that handing over the occupied West Bank would place Israeli population centres within range of the missiles the Palestinians already possess, making it effectively impossible for any Israeli government to agree without placing its own citizens in mortal danger. The political arguments, like the historical ones, are real but do not yield a clear answer.
3. The Religious Claim
Judaism. The Jewish claim is both historical and religious. Jerusalem is their most sacred place — the site of the temple, the city of David, the centre of their faith for three thousand years.
Christianity. Christians today do not make a territorial claim to Jerusalem as a city. The Crusades represented a Catholic attempt to do so, but that chapter is closed. What Christians legitimately defend is their property — churches, hospitals and schools — and their right to free access as pilgrims.
Islam.The Muslim claim is that Jerusalem is Islam’s third holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. Significantly, Jerusalem is never mentioned by name in the Quran — not once, compared to approximately 800 times in the Bible. The Muslim connection rests on a single account: a vision in which Muhammad rode from ‘a distant place’ to heaven and back, subsequently identified as Jerusalem and specifically the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.
The consequences are practical and volatile. Any perceived threat to the Temple Mount ignites conflict. When Israeli engineers excavated further along the Western Wall, Arab leaders claimed tunnels were being dug under the Dome of the Rock, and the first Intifada erupted. When Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, the second Intifada began.
Pawson notes that Orthodox Jews will not visit the Temple Mount at all, because they cannot be certain where the Holy of Holies stood. He believes the location has been identified by Israeli archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer: slightly to the left of the Dome of the Rock, marked by a small ring of columns with a dome overhead, directly aligned with the Golden Gate and the Mount of Olives.
The religious debate comes down to a contest between two claimants: Judaism and Islam. Christianity is not in the running.
The Divine Factor
All of the arguments surveyed so far operate at a purely human level. The politicians, the United Nations and the International Court of Justice are the arbiters being appealed to. Pawson now turns to what he considers the decisive factor — one that the world’s political discussions entirely ignore.
The Bible or the Quran?
The two books with the greatest influence in the world today are the Bible and the Quran. They cannot be harmonised — they contain too many direct contradictions. We must choose between them. Pawson states clearly that Allah is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is three persons in love with one another. Allah is a single person, alone. The two words never used of Allah are ‘love’ and ‘father.’ That is not a minor theological difference; it is a fundamental one.
Pawson gives three reasons for choosing the Bible over the Quran: it is full of historical and geographical facts confirmed by archaeology; it presents the most balanced theology of any holy book; and it makes the most sense of the world and of human nature as they actually are.
Who Is Entitled to Entitle?
When asked who is entitled to Jerusalem, Pawson answers with a question: who is entitled to entitle? Who has both the authority and the power to give it to anyone?
The world looks to the United Nations or the International Court of Justice. But there is someone with greater authority — the one who made the city, and the whole earth. The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. God alone is entitled to entitle. And he has already given the title deeds — to the Jewish people. Permanently. Irrevocably.
He cites both Deuteronomy 32 and Acts 17: God determines how much time and space every nation has on earth. It is God who gives empires and takes them away. Pawson illustrates this with the British Empire: when Britain washed her hands of Palestine in 1947, the empire that had covered the world was reduced within five years to a handful of territories. Every empire that has ever overrun Jerusalem — Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, the British Empire — has vanished from history. Israel alone remains. That is not explicable by purely human factors. Twice expelled from their land, without their own language, army, currency or flag for centuries, the Jewish people have returned to the centre of the world’s attention.
A Personal Aside: Margaret Thatcher
Pawson recounts that in 1979, while alone in a hotel in Tel Aviv, he asked God who would win the coming British election. He received a clear answer: Margaret Thatcher. He drafted a letter telling her that God had chosen her to be Prime Minister. Walking down the street in Tel Aviv, he glanced into a Jewish bookshop window and saw a framed text: ‘For Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep silent, for Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace.’ He took it as his answer, went to the post office, and sent the letter.
He then flew home on an El Al flight he had not originally booked, and found himself seated near Menachem Begin, who was travelling to London to try to meet the new Prime Minister. One of the things Pawson had written in his letter was a recommendation to make friends with Begin.
He notes, to prevent any impression that God is Conservative, that some months later in Australia he felt the same clear conviction about a left-wing trade union leader — that this man would be the next Prime Minister of Australia. He announced it in churches. He was right. The point of both stories is the same: God has the casting vote, because it is God who assigns to every nation its time and its territory.
Replacement Theology
Pawson acknowledges that the majority of churches in Britain do not see any future for Israel or Jerusalem in God’s purposes. They have adopted replacement theology — the position that the church has replaced Israel and Christians have replaced Jews in God’s redemptive plan.
He also acknowledges what is undeniably true: that on the day Jesus died, the Shekinah — the visible glory of God’s presence — departed from the temple. The curtain was torn from top to bottom; the darkness was the sign of God’s withdrawal. The glory left Jerusalem.
But Pawson’s response is direct: the glory is coming back.
The Future of Jerusalem
The Bible does not merely describe Jerusalem’s past. It describes its future — and that future is unambiguous. God has plans for his people that will persist to the very end of history. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.
Jesus is returning. And the Bible is clear about where: not to Washington, Moscow, Rome or Canterbury, but to Jerusalem — specifically, above the Mount of Olives. When he returns, the Shekinah returns with him — in the face of Jesus Christ, who always reflected the glory of God. And when he reigns, it will not be merely over the twelve tribes of Israel but over every nation on earth. Every tongue will confess and every knee bow. Jerusalem will become the centre of God’s glory for the whole world.
Pawson notes that he is watching for the signs Jesus gave. Of the four major signs of his return, he believes one and a half are now clearly present. If he dies before the Lord returns, he gets a front seat at the event, since the dead in Christ rise first. Either way, he will be there.
Full Circle: Melchizedek
Pawson concludes with an observation that brings the whole story of Jerusalem back to its beginning. The very first thing the Bible records about Jerusalem is that it was ruled by a king who was also a priest — Melchizedek, who met Abraham and blessed him. There has only ever been one other person who combined the offices of king and priest in that way: Jesus Christ, the Melchizedek of the New Testament (as the letter to the Hebrews makes clear).
Jerusalem began under a priest-king. It will end under a priest-king. God has brought the whole story full circle. The God of Israel, and the Father of Jesus, gave the title deeds to the Jews. Forever.
Conclusion
If Jerusalem in the past belonged to the Jews for the longest period of any people, and if Jerusalem in the future belongs to a Jew — the Son of David — then, Pawson argues, the Jewish claim in the present is the strongest. They must be in Jerusalem for Christ’s return, because he told them he was coming back to them.
Pawson closes by saying he looks forward to the day when Jerusalem is in the hands of the Son of David again — the day when the title God gave to the Jewish people forever is finally, visibly, and permanently recognised by the whole world.
© David Pawson Ministry CIO
Listen to the original teaching at davidpawson.co.uk
© David Pawson Ministry — Transcript prepared for Koinonia.nu | koinonia.nu