Out of Zion

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Israel Answers Series, connecting Israel, the Bible, and you. Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural perspective to equip the Christian world with a balanced and biblical response. Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith and bring the Bible to life in your everyday world. Now, let's join Susan with your Israel answers.

Shelley Neese: Welcome to the Out of Zion podcast. I'm Shelley Neese, I'm filling in for Dr. Susan Michael, and I have with me today a longtime friend, Rabbi Yehuda Glick. Rabbi Glick’s story is super inspirational. So I want to start off, and I hate probably doing this to you because I know you have told this story a million times and most of our listeners hopefully already know, but it is a miracle that you are with us here today and God has His sovereign hand over you. So can you tell me the story of what happened on that fateful day when Rabbi Glick was identified in the most unkindest way?

Rabbi Yehuda Glick: I can just say that we are all living in miracles. We are all living in miracles, and I will just say very simply that I share a Wikipedia page with President Donald Trump. We are both survivors of an assassination attempt, a targeted assassination attempt because of being who we are and doing what we do.

What I have been doing for the last few decades has to do with the name of this show, Out of Zion. I think we'll start from there because that's the concept. The thing is very simple. I survived four bullets that were shot at me on October 29th, 2014, but it all has to do with Zion.

What does Zion mean? Zion is a Hebrew word, Tzion, from the verb letzayen, to point. Tzion is the pointed place, the marked place, the place that Hashem chose. Psalm 132 says Hashem chose Zion and He longed for it to be His throne. This is the story. The story is that I began 40 years ago going up to the Temple Mount, Zion, the mountain of His holiness, and encouraging people to go there.

I read the Bible and I see that is the place that God chose. That is the holiest place in the world. It has been neglected and it was taken over by a religion that is exclusive and not wanting others to be there. When I started going there, maybe a hundred Jews went there annually for a whole year. I started going there and said, "What's going on? This is the holiest place in the world."

Step by step, I started bringing more and more people to come there. We've made a change. If I started off where we were 100 Jews a year, last year we had 70,000 Jews on the Temple Mount. Not only did they go there, because when I started going there, any Jew or any Christian who would whisper would be arrested because only Muslims were allowed to pray there.

Today, Jews can pray openly. Jews can serve God by prostrating, by singing, by dancing, and that is a change we've made. But unfortunately, the change has not yet touched my dear friends in the Christian world. Christians who go up to the mountain go up as tourists. They look at it as another archaeological dig. I love archaeology, and I know you do too. You not only love it, but you actually do it.

But the Temple Mount is not just another Masada, not just another Caesarea. It is the place. It is the place where King Solomon built the first temple, the place where the second temple stood. Even you as Christians know that Jesus walked there and said, "Guys, don't desecrate this place." So we as believers in the Bible, we as believers in the Hebrew Bible, understand that that is the center of where it all took place.

That is where the history of the Jewish people took place, but that is where the redemption process is supposed to take place. The fact that the return of the Jewish people to Israel was called the Zionist movement was the national Zionist movement, the movement of the Jewish people understanding that we can't just wait for it to happen. We have to take our destiny in our hands and we have to return to the land.

Now, the call has to go to the non-Jewish world because it has to be a house of prayer for all nations. From day one when God chose Abraham, He said, "I'm choosing you and I'm blessing you and you're going to be great and I'm going to bless those who bless you." But you have a destiny. You have to be a source of blessing to the families of the earth.

Therefore, we have to make sure that all people in the world who believe in God come to Israel, come to Jerusalem, go to the mountain, and pray on the mountain. We have to make sure the place becomes a house of prayer. We have to make sure that every pastor who comes to bring a group to Israel goes up to the mountain.

We in Shalom Jerusalem Foundation bring pastors up to the mountain and bring groups up to the mountain, but it's not enough. First of all, of course, we'll be happy to bring any group who wants to come up to the mountain. We'll be happy to go there, but you have to know we go there to pray. We go there to recharge our spiritual batteries and to go back as ambassadors to the world to announce it.

What does it mean to announce God's kingdom on the mountain? It means to commit ourselves to the biblical values. It means to commit ourselves to the value of family, to commit ourselves to the recognition of God Almighty, Hashem, who created the world. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the creator of the world, the God of Zion.

We have to commit ourselves to His commandments, to putting concepts like Shabbat, like familyhood, like recognition of His oneness in the world. This is what Zion is all about. So if I speak here to you on a podcast that says Out of Zion, for me, it's really touching. It's my life's call.

It's not my life's call; it's the Bible's life's call. It's the call of the Bible to the world. Guys, sometimes I think to myself, there are more than a billion and a half Chinese, more than a billion and a half Indians, more than a billion and a half Christians, more than a billion and a half Muslims, and they're all supposed to be blessed by 15 million Jews. They all care about 15 million Jews.

Yes, this is the way God created the world. This is the book. This is the concept. Anybody who believes in the Hebrew Bible and says the Bible is my book, this is what he believes. He believes that he has to devote himself to Hashem, wherever you are, wherever you live. If you connect and understand, our mission today in my eye is to turn the mountain, Zion, into a house of prayer for all nations.

It's so wonderful when I see, when I bring believers to the mountain and everybody shares what's on his heart and pours his blessing out to God. It's a local call to God. It's God's throne, God's kingdom. I always say the Ark of Noah was a man's place in a world of God. The Ark of the Covenant is God's place in the world of man.

The Holy of Holies, which is on the location of Zion on the mountain, that's our ability to be able to connect to Hashem, the creator in this world. Children grow up and they see God in their parents. We're living in a world where family is at stake, and I think that if we strengthen the concept of the family as a foundation issue of life and teach children to look up at your parents as God, as the source of blessing to yourself from God. The source of the blessing of the world from God is Zion.

This is my call. As you said, in 2014, there was somebody who didn't like it. He came over to me at the end of an event that I had with Jews and non-Jews together praising the return to the mountain. At the end of the event, he walked over to me, took out a pistol, and said to me, "You are an enemy of Al-Aqsa." He shot point-blank four bullets at the center of my body.

Miraculously, thanks to Jews and Christians around the world who were praying on my behalf, and thanks to the Israeli medical system, I am here. Thanks to God who wanted me to be here and wanted me to speak up about this topic, I think that it's so important to remind ourselves: love Israel, love God, love Jerusalem, come to Israel, come to Jerusalem, and let's do it.

Let's make Temple Mount a house of prayer for all nations. It's not going to happen by itself, only if we do it. Can you imagine all nations united around Temple Mount? The words of the Bible will definitely be fulfilled and from there will come out shalom to the entire universe.

Shelley Neese: Six months after you were shot, I walked with you through the Old City of Jerusalem. We were filming a documentary together. You had a bulletproof vest under your shirt, and there was security surrounding you, which happened for a while afterwards. Of course, the worry was that anyone would try and finish the job. You didn't care; you were still doing the same mission that you had done before. You didn't hardly skip a beat.

Even in your courageous attitude towards the Temple Mount, I feel like you would have your task already cut out for you if you were just trying to educate Jews on the Temple Mount and the importance of the Temple Mount. But for some reason, you have decided to bring Christians into this passion, into this focus and mission. Why Christians?

Rabbi Yehuda Glick: Look, the last almost three years, Israel's been facing a war. Not just a terror attack, not just a massacre, a war. It started by a sort of a state called Gaza, and they started the war and you know what they called the war? They called the war the Al-Aqsa Flood. They know that the center of this whole issue, the center of this whole issue is the ruling over the mountain, Zion.

Their war was not only against Israel. Their war was against God. I don't call it antisemitism; I call it anti-Hashemism. Their battle was against the Western world who believe in liberty, who believe in faith, who believe in the one and only God. Their exclusive God, anybody who does not believe in their God, they can destroy. This is something very important to understand, the way I understand this.

When the State of Israel was established, our two biggest friends should have been two populations. Here is coming a new nation establishing a believing state, a Jewish state, and a democratic state. So you would expect the believers in the Middle East, the Muslims, to be so happy; here's a believing state coming up. And the liberals who were seeing a new democratic state being established, they should have all been best friends.

What happened? Our biggest enemies, the Muslims, hate us because we're a democracy. The liberals hate us because we're believers. But the Bible, what is the difference? Islam puts God in the center, and in the name of God you can do anything you want, you can kill people. Liberalism puts man in the center, and in the name of man you can kill God.

But the Bible does not put God in the center, does not put man in the center; it puts the dialogue between man and God in the center. The very concept of the Bible is that Hashem created man in His image and He wants a continuous dialogue. This continuous dialogue begins and ends at the place that God chose.

The Temple Mount is the Jewish answer to the Babylonian tower that said, "We're going to make a name for ourselves." The temple says, "No, we're making a name for Hashem so we can have a permanent dialogue." When I see the greatest miracle in the history of mankind, it is the State of Israel. But the second greatest miracle in the history of mankind, in my eyes, is the love that Christians have for Israel.

When I see that, I cannot not look at it as a godly phenomenon. I say this is our mission. If this godly phenomenon is happening and so many millions, hundreds of millions of Christian believers understand that Israel is their commitment, then let's take it on to the next step.

We can't remain in old school. We have to take it on to the next step. The next step is, they call it Al-Aqsa Flood, and we will call it the Peace of Zion. They call it the war against the West, the war sanctifying evil, sanctifying death, sanctifying murder. We're going to call it Mount Zion, the mountain of the living God, the mountain of the God who wants a connection with all mankind. The God who sanctifies life and sanctifies shalom.

In Hebrew, we say shalom, shalem, complete, comprehensive. Because God looks at the world like a concert. In the concert, the violin will never become a trumpet and the drum will never become a cello. The beauty is that they're all playing together. You know something beautiful? The word harmony in Hebrew means the palace of God, Armon Yah. That's exactly what it is, harmony, and that's the story. We are here together for one God.

Shelley Neese: I have been in Christian audiences before that you've spoken in and heard people whisper, "He's preaching!" So you are a Rabbi who is completely comfortable in the Christian circle. I think one reason why it is so important is because you are calling Christians to a higher order. Christians don't want to be seen by our Jewish allies as a side story in the grand redemption. We really appreciate you for seeing us, for calling us to something bigger, and calling us to be part of this huge mission.

Rabbi Yehuda Glick: Thank you for calling me a preacher, and I'll tell you one last sentence. Somebody once told me, "I don't teach Bible; Bible teaches me." But a teacher is somebody who teaches words. A preacher is a call for action. Call me a teacher, call me a preacher, call me late for dinner, as long as this call is a call for action. Amen. Thank you so much, Shelley, and God bless you and God bless all those who are watching us. Shalom.

Shelley Neese: Hey, just give me one more minute. I want to offer you one of our free resources. We have wonderful resources in our show notes, and if you go to our website at ICEJUSA.org/shownotes, you'll find links for a number of our free offers. We have downloadables to help root you in scripture, help you to understand the issues surrounding Israel and the importance of Christian support for Israel. And don't forget, please follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn and stay connected. Thank you and God bless.

Guest (Male): We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael. Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Pray.com, Salem Webcast, Salem Life Audio. Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA. All rights reserved.