Every year we visit a little shop near the Cardo in Jerusalem.

Moshe, the owner, is an Orthodox Jew, yet friendly to Christians and MJ’s.

Every year Moshe gives a speech.

He gives us a delightful interpretation of prophecies and Israel and people.

Moshe says he sees Zephaniah 3:9 coming true now:

    For then I will change the peoples,

    so that they will have pure lips,

    to call on the name of ADONAI, all of them, and serve him with one accord.

Moshe says, Since the tower of Babel we have been speaking different languages, both physically and spiritually. . . HaShem is bringing us closer to speaking one language.

Why does he say this?

He says it because group after group of Christians are coming into his shop and seeing things the same way Moshe does, as an Orthodox Jew.

Christians and some Jews are seeing prophecy in the same way.

Moshe told a story…

...standing in Poland where the Soviets made a big memorial…

...gathered the ashes and bones from Auschwitz in a large mound…

...Someone told Moshe, “These are the bones that will live, the bones Ezekiel spoke of.”

The bones are from WWII, the Shoah, the Holocaust.

The prophecy is Ezekiel 37:

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley; it was full of bones.  2 And he led me round among them; and behold, there were very many upon the valley; and lo, they were very dry.  3 And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, thou knowest.”  4 Again he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.  5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.  6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.”

When Moshe told that story, it opened my eyes.

I usually think of Ezekiel 37 as mostly being future.

Israel is not yet fully alive.

Most do not love God.

So I have discounted the miracle that has already come true.

The bones were laid in crematoria all over Eastern Europe.

And God raised from the bones a nation.

This is evident when you go through Yad VaShem...the Holocaust Memorial.

You walk through the sad displays.

At the end you walk out into the light overlooking a great valley.

On the mountains across the valley are the new neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

And in the 1990’s another thing happened. Hundreds of thousands of Jews came into Israel.

Moshe reminded us that Jeremiah said:

Therefore,’ says ADONAI, ‘the day will come when people will no longer swear, “As ADONAI lives, who brought the people of Isra’el out of the land of Egypt,”  15 but, “As ADONAI lives, who brought the people of Isra’el out of the land to the north and out of all the countries where he drove them”; for I will bring them back to their own land, which I gave to their ancestors.

These Jews in the 1990’s came out of the former Soviet Union.

And Moscow is due north of Jerusalem.

And as we walked through the old city of Jerusalem we saw children, Jewish and Arab, playing in the streets.

We saw little Jewish kids, some as young as 4 or 5, running around with little kippahs.

Some in our group said, How can parents let such little children run around unattended in a city like this?

And Moshe reminded us what Zechariah said:

ADONAI-Tzva’ot says, ‘Old men and old women will once again sit in the open places of Yerushalayim, each one with his cane in his hand, because of their great age.  5 The city’s open places will also be full of boys and girls playing there.’

And Moshe sees Christians from all over.

They come to his shop from the U.S. and from Europe.

A Swedish pastor visited Israel and got a new perspective.

He said, “I was dumbfounded and overwhelmed when I finally understood and realized that the Zion that God spoke of was not Christendom or heaven, but was indeed Zion and that his people Israel were really the Jewish people.”

Moshe is seeing Christians catch a vision for Israel’s renewal and restoration.

And this is not like the Crusades.

This is not Christians wanting to build churches and make the Jews quit being Jews.

This is Christians excited about seeing Jewish renewal.

Of course, the Christians hope this will all lead to Jews knowing Jesus.

And Moshe cannot go there.

But still, it is like the Tower of Babel is reversing.

And it is encouraging.

I learned from Moshe’s shop to be encouraged anew about all of this.

And both Moshe and I see a great future ahead.

Moshe doesn’t know it yet,  but the true son of Israel who is coming has already been here.

He is Yeshua.

And all the children dancing in the street in Jerusalem now, maybe they are the ones Yeshua talked about.

Maybe they are the generation that will say, Blessed is He who comes.

I saw that standing on the Mount of Olives.

The Catholics built a church on a certain spot there.

The dome of the church is shaped like a tear.

I never knew why until this year.

It is because it commemorates the place where Yeshua said something very important:

Luke 19

As he was now drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen,  38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”  39 And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”  40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Luke 19:41

  And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it,  42 saying, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.  43 For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side,  44 and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

We are drawing nearer to speaking one language.

But I believe with all my heart, Yeshua is the key.

And a day is coming when all Israel will be saved.

I rejoice with Moshe, I am almost certain he will realize it too.

There is a giant tear still today on the Mount of Olives.

It is Yeshua’s tear.

And it must be ours as well until that day comes.