- Today we're in the
city of Jerusalem and we're going to be
exploring some of the past in order to try and understand a little bit about the future, I get to go to an
archeological site and we're gonna be talking
to some really great people, that's next on First
Century Foundations. (upbeat rock music) Welcome back to the show. I'm standing between the
Old City of Jerusalem and the New City of Jerusalem, right here at the intersection. I love coming to Israel, because this is
such a reality here, everywhere you go, the old
bumps up against the new and here in Jerusalem,
it's no different. We're gonna be visiting
today an amazing site called the City of
David and it's where they have discovered the
ancient Jebusite city, the original Old
City of Jerusalem and so we want to invite
you along on our journey, we're gonna be standing in
some very, very cool places, maybe possibly the place
where Abraham and Melchizedek met for that very first time
back in Genesis Chapter 14, it's almost 4,000
years of history, it's an amazing, amazing feeling to be able to
participate in that and so we want you to come
along with us on that journey. Also today, we're going to visit with Chad Holland
in the New City, Chad is the lead Pastor of
The King of Kings Community, a vibrant church
here in Jerusalem, that is reaching out to
all kinds of people in need and people who need to know the truth about Messiah Yeshua and so stay with us, we'll be back with
the City of David and later with Chad
Holland in just a moment. - [Announcer] Stay tuned,
coming up after the break, Jeff visits the ancient
ruins of the City of David. (upbeat rock music) First Century
Foundations is continuing to bless the Land of Israel
and this is all possible, because of people like you. With your help, we have
been able to support local ministries within Israel, who are caring for some
of the nation's most needy by providing food and clothing
for the poor and much more. The House of Light
is one such ministry, that not only
ministers in prisons, but also runs a summer
camp for children. - We're in the
middle of this camp and all the noise of
the children around us, rejoicing in the Lord and in your help and we just want
to say thank you. - [Announcer] This
is all possible because of your
prayers and support. Call or write today and become a monthly partner
for $30 a month, or more. And be sure to ask for your
free Israel Prayer Watch, so you can be up to date
on all that is happening with these ministries
in the Holy Land. We're waiting to hear from you. (upbeat rock music) - Well, welcome to
the City of David, we're here with AnaRina, you're gonna be our
guide and our host today and we're standing kind
of in a very unique place right now with a
great perspective, so tell us about where we are,
what was the great discovery, that sort of helped to
bring all this to light and what do we learn from where
we're standing right here? - Jeff, welcome to
the City of David, to the viewers as well.
- Thank you. - As you say, a very important
place, in my opinion, the most important place,
not because I think so, because the Bible says so, so let's figure
out where we are. Up to 150 years ago, everybody
thought that the ancient, Biblical Jerusalem, that
you read in the Bible lies within the confines
of the Old City, that you see behind us.
- Right. - Now, the questions is
what happened 150 years ago and where is the ancient,
Biblical Jerusalem? To appreciate that,
we have to understand the time period that
we're talking about, we're talking about 2,000 years after the destruction
of Jerusalem, - [Jeff] Right. - Where nothing happened,
there was nothing here, so the ancient city
slowly disappeared, she was covered by
civilizations of time and so 150 years ago, Queen
Victoria wakes up one morning and she wants to know what's
happening in Jerusalem, the only thing that she
knows is the Old City, - Okay. - so she sends a guy with
the name, Charles Warren to come and figure
out what's going on. He comes here during
the Ottoman period, the Ottomans told him, "No way that you're
gonna get in here," so he gets redirected,
- Right. - same thing that happens
with us in our lives when sometimes you
believe that this is God, what God wants for
you, you see the goal, you're going for
it and the moment when you are at the point
where you can touch it, boom, it redirects you to something
completely different. - (laughs) Ah-ha. - Now this was very important,
- Right. - because for God,
this was important, that this whole city
had to be rediscovered, because she needs to wake
up for the end of days - Yeah. - of the things that
we are about to see and what we're seeing already, we are seeing
prophecy fulfillment every day in the City of David (speaks in Hebrew) Shake off your dust, arise,
take your rightful place over Jerusalem and it also says (speaks in Hebrew) This city will be built
again exactly on its place, - Wow. - So for all of that
that had to happen, somebody had to rediscover her and that's exactly what
happened 150 years ago. - So as we look around us,
what all are we seeing? I mean, you referred to
the Old City, that's here - Correct. - We know that
the City of David, that Charles Warren, one
of the first archeologists discovered over here to our left and give us the rest
of the perspective. - Okay, so, let's just
see what we're looking at, when we look at the Old
City, so we see Temple Mount, so the only thing of
ancient, Biblical Jerusalem, that is within the confines of
the Old City is Temple Mount. - Is the Temple Mount. - Everything else lies
within this sort of island, that we have here, because
we have the Kidron Valley, as you can see here on my right,
to the east and to the west going up to the Dung Gate, we have another valley
called the Tyropoeon Valley and between those two valleys, the City of David lies
enclaved between those valleys. That is what made
it so difficult for people to take the city,
- Right. - it was one of the last
cities that was taken during the 300-year
Conquest of Joshua, it was so difficult
to take that, the Jebusite king said, "No way that you're
gonna get in here "and we'll put the
blind and the lames "on these very walls
that you can't get in," but we know the story further, we will go a little
bit into that and see how David actually
then took the city, - Right. - but let's talk a little bit
about the valley over here, the Kidron, we will discuss
it a little bit later as well, but this is the valley
that was called, in the times of Abraham,
(speaks in Hebrew) The Valley of Equality and
he met with somebody here, he met with? - [Jeff] Melchizedek. - [AnaRina] Exactly,
- Yes. - [AnaRina] So
this is the valley, exact valley where they met and we will discover a little
bit more of that story. - Alright, great, so where
are we heading after this? - I think, let's
go and figure out how they rediscovered the city and also how the city was
taken in the first place, when David came to
conquer this city, let's go, let's go.
- Okay, lead the way. To start our journey into
the ancient City of David, AnaRina led me to
a very dark cave, that is actually beneath the
excavation of the city ruins. We are underground today
in the City of David and AnaRina, tell us
what am I seeing here. What are we learning about? - Jeff, we're
standing in a place where history was
made twice already and what you see here
is the wine shaft, this is where wine came up
through this natural fissure and he saw this
massive cavity here and he realized, listen,
this tunnel is some kind of protective system
over the Gihon Spring, - Yes. - and he realized that
this might just be the ancient, Biblical Jerusalem, 'cause he wanted to
find it in the Old City and the Ottomans
stopped him and said, "You can't get in here,"
and he found this tunnel, but when we saw this, we also
realized, but wait a minute, this is the place probable,
the most probable place - Yeah. - where the story of David
taking the city took place. Why do we say that? In the Bible, we
don't read anything about how David took this
city, he did it with a reason, he didn't want to tell
people how he took this City, because then people will read it and the next king will
come and take this city, but he did give some
kind of hint, he said, "He who touches the
pipe will take the city "and this man will become
the head of my armies," so obviously whatever
this pipe was - Yeah. - and whoever this guy was,
he must have been something, - Yeah. - and when you look
down here, you can see how you had to scale up
this wall and go through and it was almost
an impossible feat, so impossible that the
Jebusite king said to him, "There's no way that you're
gonna take this city, "and we even put the blind
and the lame on the walls "to mock you."
- Yeah. - What the Jebusite
king didn't understand, that in time, when God chooses
the king that he wants, - Yeah. - Everything works the
way that God wants, - That's right.
- So Johab came, he scaled through this
cavity that you see here, - So, Johab came
right through here? - Exactly, now imagine,
- That's amazing. - what kind of guy
(laughs) he must have been to scale through these...
- Wow. - this cavity here. So he came up here, he had to
run all the way through there and he had to open up the gates for David's army
to take the city. - So it must have
been, I mean, not easy, but certainly it would have
helped Johab to climb up here and go through these tunnels with all of these
nice lights here and the stairs and everything, that would have worked
well for him, right? - Would have if he had that, but we're talking
about 3,000 years ago, - Right. - so obviously this
tunnel existed, (laughing) but they probably had some
kind of wooden structure here and the lights that they
would have had here, we have it very
romantically lit here (laughing) for people to feel
the adventure, - Yeah. - but you will see even
there, inside the rock, - [Jeff] Okay. - they hollowed out where
they would put the candles - The candles.
- to light up this tunnel. This tunnel was actually there
only for the times of war, because when war came, they had
to protect the water source, take the water, take
the town, take the city, - That's right, yeah. - so he probably had
it a little bit harder than what we have
today, we have today, (laughing) we just make it a pleasant
experience for you, everybody to come and
visit us here. (laughs) - That's kind of what
we figured, yeah, good. Continuing on, we
passed so much history. AnaRina led me to a place, that isn't exactly
on the regular tour. Okay guys, we are in a place, where the tourists
don't get to come and this is a very
special place, we believe that this
could be the place that Abraham met Melchizedek, correct?
- Correct. - Wow! So, tell us why
do we think that? - Jeff, we're standing at the
bedrock of the Kidron Valley, it's closed now,
because we close it off to protect the excavations, - That's right, yeah.
- but this was open air. - Okay. - So we are standing at the
foot of these massive towers, that we just saw when
we came from the top. Now, if a king from those times, we're talking between
3,000, 4,000 years, this was already here,
this is Canaanite. If you wanted to meet
people outside the city, it would probably
would have been here, because you can protect him. If anything happens, then they
can get back into the Tower and they can protect him.
- It's close to the, okay. - So in those days, this was
called the Valley of Shaveh, of Equality and we know that
Jerusalem equals everybody out, there's no rich, no poor, anybody comes here
stands equally before God and what happened
with Melchizedek, what happened with Abraham? Firstly he was the king of? - Salem.
- Salem, but now we are in Israel,
so we have to speak Hebrew, so he was the King of Shalem
- Shalem. - and Shalem actually
sounds like which word, that everybody knows? - Shalom. - There we go.
- Yes. - Now most people think
that Shalom means peace, it doesn't really, it's a very, very surface-level
meaning of that, Shalom actually
means to be a whole, to be complete on the
deepest part of your soul, it means where all the paradoxes come together in
complete harmony, - so if I wish you Shalom,
- That's right. - I wish for you to be exactly
what God made you to be, so that you can also see
anybody else that way - Hm, wow. - and now we are
waiting for that time, when Jerusalem is the place
where this will be seen, where this peace will come from, but it will be a
spontaneous peace, because the moment when
we can be at that level, peace will reign spontaneously and that was Melchizedek,
he came from this place. They did two things,
very important two things between the two of them.
- Yeah. - First, they broke bread
together and they drank wine, - [Jeff] Yes. - the first time that
we hear about that. - [Jeff] Yeah. - The second thing
was that Abraham paid a tithe to Jerusalem, it's the first time that we
hear that through the father, through all nations
who will be blessed, paid this tithe to Jerusalem - Yeah. - and this set a certain
setting for what we do today, through drinking wine together
and breaking bread or Shabbat and also when we see the
tithe being paid to the poor and taking care of
the Levites etc. - Yeah, wow. This was incredible,
thank you so much for bringing us down here and we're gonna talk a
little bit more about this later in the show, so make
sure that you stay with us. (upbeat rock music) - [Announcer] After the break, Jeff returns to
visit Chad Holland, the Pastor of the King of
Kings church in Jerusalem. - [Announcer] Jerusalem,
the Holy City, is the focus of much of
the world's attention. In Psalm 122 tells us to pray
for the peace of Jerusalem, yet do we really
know why or even how. Why does God want us
to specifically pray for the peace of
this ancient city? And how do you pray for a city that for most of us seems
so foreign and so far away. Praying for the
Peace of Jerusalem, the new book by Jeff Futers
now reveals God's purpose for the Holy City
and all of Israel and why He wants every believer
to pray for His holy land. Now more than ever
the people of Israel need our prayers and support and when you order
your copy of the book Praying for the
Peace of Jerusalem for just $10
plus shipping and handling, you are also helping
these precious people in a very real way, call the
number on your screen now, or go online to
FirstCenturyFoundations.com and order Praying for
the Peace of Jerusalem and begin to pray for Israel
with understanding and purpose. - Well, welcome
back, I'm here today at King of Kings
with Chad Holland - Yes, sir. - and Chad, you are, I think
it's still recent enough, we can call you the new guy, it's been about what,
a year and a half, two years?
- Almost two years now. - Almost two years?
- Yeah. - Great, well we talked with
Wayne on a previous show, we talked about sort
of how King of Kings came into being and so on but you're here and you're
leading into the future, so tell me first of all,
who is Chad Holland, where did you come from,
how did you get here? - Praise God. Who am I? Well, I have a unique story,
I'll try to do it quickly. - Yeah. - Born of two gentile parents, but adopted by a Jewish father, so my introduction into
the Messianic Jewish world was through my adopted father,
we grew up in synagogue, I went to a Jewish school,
where we were in Hebrew classes, so I grew up in Jewish space,
when I became a leader, I first became a leader in
a Messianic Jewish setting. - Okay, alright. - So I married into
a Jewish family. Over time the Lord called
us to (speaks Hebrew) to come and be citizens
here in Israel, so I married, had three kids,
about to have our fourth, - [Jeff] Congratulations. - [Chad] and we were honored
to have the call to come and work with not just The
King of Kings Community, but the whole King
of Kings family. - Yeah, yeah, so now you
know, leadership transition, that's always, that's always
an interesting animal, as you know, I'm doing
something similar right now - Sure. - with First Century Foundations and you know, following someone who's had a long
history in a ministry, talk to me about how that's
been going with you and Wayne and you know, what's the deal? - What's gracious of the Lord is this is my third time to
transition after a founder, - Ah, okay. - So this time, it was a
lot easier than before. I don't have a lot of secrets, other than to simply say this, I feel that it's my joyful duty to honor the founders,
in this case, Wayne, - Amen. - as at every turn possible and then Wayne, to his
great credit is so humble and such a team player
and kingdom builder, that I feel nothing but honor
coming back in my direction, - Yeah. - so we typically flow
in a mutual deference, kind of a teamwork,
- Good. - whether it's on
the network level, or whether it's on the
congregational level as Pastors and elders, you
couldn't be on a better team and if you're building a team,
you want Wayne on your team, so for us, it's been
smooth, it's been easy, there's a lot of
honor and trust, we try to build a high-trust
culture at King of Kings and because that culture
was already established, I think it made it
pretty easy to step in. - You didn't just
take something over, you're not just sort of
tending to something, that was already created, you're building here a
great family of ministries. Talk to us a little bit
about some of what's new, some of what you're
excited about. - Yeah, so in the
last couple of years, we've doubled in size.
- Wow. - Now, what does that mean? Well, King of Kings is a
network family of ministries. We plant and adopt
congregations, we establish training centers
and humanitarian aid centers, we have marketplace ministries and we plant
heritage ministries, things that we don't run the
daily operations of anymore, - Right. - but we were in the
pioneering stage, we were very instrumental.
- Okay. - Altogether there's 35
to 40 ministries connected inside the King
of Kings network, I have the privilege
of serving as the CEO, - [Jeff] Yes. - I help oversee
all the ministries, make sure things
are running well, make sure all the
leaders, Pastors and directors are
well resourced. My other hat that I get
the privilege of wearing is I get to be the Senior Pastor of King of Kings
Community, Jerusalem. We planted several new
congregations this year, some here in Jerusalem,
some in Herzliya, some in Tel Aviv,
- Right. - so we're excited
about what God is doing and even some of the
ministries that existed prior, like the Yuval School of
Music, have now expanded to multiple city
campuses as well from Israel Academy of Ministry, - [Jeff] Yeah. - We started with
the Jerusalem campus and this year we planted
the German campus, so it's both new projects, new
congregations, new ministries and it's watching the expansion
of existing ministries onto expanded campuses
and locations as well. So we're excited to have passion
for lots of these things, we're kingdom builders,
- Yeah. - we're people uniters,
we're not into building the King of Kings
network brand only, that's not what we're about, but we're kingdom
of God builders and we are open and happy
to partner with anyone who has that like-minded vision and that's why First
Century Foundations and King of Kings
work so well together, that's why we go so far
back together in ministry and we're looking forward
to a great future as well. - Well, thank you and
we appreciate so much the way that you
help us to facilitate in all the ministry that we
do here in the Land of Israel with so many different
ministries around the Land and that just is... well, it's critical for us, we couldn't do what we
do without you guys, so thank you and we
wanna know, you know, how do we pray
alongside King of Kings, how can we continue
to be involved and to help with the ministry
that you are doing here? - I think for us right now,
the stage of most needed prayer is when you're stewarding
- Hm-mm. - a new movement
or momentum of God as the Holy Spirit is
blowing on different ministry areas and
planted ministries, we do need significant prayer
on our leadership team, - Okay. - that is keeping
pace with the growth. What may have started
with two or three guys can't stay two or three guys,
once the tent pegs are grown, - Yes. - So we have embarked
on and prayed many hours on the expansion of
our executive team, - Okay. - I'm very happy
to say that in all of the congregations
and the ministries, we are very excited
about the eldership teams and the local Pastors,
who are in place and the directors and
assistant directors. Our leadership teams
across the board are doing wonderfully well, the executive team has now grown to include five new advisors, so our prayers are
already being answered, - Praise God.
- but for us, you know, how do you keep this momentum? You need financial support,
you need prayer support and we need to make sure that the leadership
infrastructure - Yeah. - can handle the weight
to be good stewards and move forward in wisdom, so if there's some
prayer topics, that's what we would ask for. - Awesome, well, thank you so
much for being with us today. - My pleasure. - And you know, I
appreciate very much being able to come and be
a part of the community on Sunday, when we
are in the Land. This is kind of our home
church when I'm away from home and so it's been a joy, I've
been able to hear you speak a number of times over
the last couple of years and so you're kind of
becoming my Pastor, or you know,
- Well, that's... - in some small way.
- What an exciting thought. - Yeah, absolutely.
- It's exciting for us. - So, great to have
you on the show today, - Thanks, Jeff. - and to all of our
viewers back at home, continue to pray for
King of Kings, for Chad, his leadership,
you've heard him share about some of those needs
that they need prayer for and we wanna just ask you to
continue to come alongside and make sure if
you're not signed up for the Israel Prayer Watch,
that you get signed up for that bi-monthly
bulletin, that will give you lots of ammunition
in your prayer time and we want you to be
encouraged with that and then also, if you're ever
here in the Land of Israel and you can come with us,
we encourage you to do that, but if you're ever here, make
sure you visit King of Kings, go to the Prayer Tower
and spend some time, it really is an amazing
experience to be here and a part of this community, so thanks for being
with us today, Chad, thank you, - Thank you Jeff for your time. - and God Bless. (upbeat rock music) - [Announcer] First
Century Foundations has been making a
difference, in the lives of some of Israel's
most needy for years. And you have been a vital
part of this important work. Because of your gifts, we
have been able to support the believers in the
Holy Land, who everyday are sharing the love of
God with the elderly, Holocaust survivors, refugees,
underprivileged children, and everyone in need,
from all backgrounds and walks of life. This practical approach,
of feeding the hungry, clothing the poor,
and visiting the sick, is making a real
difference in many lives, throughout the land of Israel. Call or write today! And become a montly
partner for just $30
a month or more. And begin to make
a real difference in
the lives of Israel's
most needy. And when you call, be sure to ask for the free
Israel Prayer Watch, so you will be
up to date on all that happening with the
ministries that you
are supporting. We're waiting to hear from you. (upbeat rock music) - Wow, what an amazing day
being at the City of David, so appreciated that AnaRina
and all of her information. Sometimes you know, I
get a little overwhelmed, 'cause I'm learning as we go
along on this journey as well and we're gonna
talk a little bit about some of those
things that we discussed. Chad Holland is an amazing guy, he's building an incredible
family of ministries on the foundation that
was built by Wayne Hilsden at King of Kings and
we just appreciate their ministry so much. But let me go back to the story of Abraham and Melchizedek. There's some very,
very interesting things
about this story, first of all, the fact that,
you know, Melchizedek comes, he is the king of
Salem, a king of peace, but you know, of the place that would eventually
be Jerusalem as well and then he brings out bread
and he brings out wine, I don't know if you pick up on the potential
symbolism of that or not, but as you think
about bread and wine, this is really the first time that it's kind of mentioned
in combination in scripture, it's not unusual, you know,
it would be a traditional form of you know, sustenance
in those days, but if you think about
it, bread and wine also became
significant later on, during Pesach, during
the Passover celebrations as the Israelites left Egypt and of course, if you're
a Christian like I am, you also think about
the Communion service, the fact that Jesus
took those two emblems, he took bread and he took wine and he broke it and
gave it to his disciples as a, you know, as a way for
them to remember his death and we do the very same
thing right up to this day, kind of incredible when
you think about that. I wanna go back to
the verse in Hebrews, that talks about
Abraham and Melchizedek and we're gonna
read it together. This Melchizedek
was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning
from the defeat of the kings and he blessed him and Abraham gave him
a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek
means king of righteousness; then also, it means
king of Salem, which means king of peace. Without father or mother,
without genealogy, without beginning of
days or end of life, resembling the Son of God,
he remains a priest forever. You know, there's been
a lot of speculation over the years about
Melchizedek and his origins, some have even
postulated the idea that perhaps he was a theophany, although there's really not all that much evidence
to support that. He was a man, he was the
king of Salem at the time, but the symbolism around him and the fact that the writer
of Hebrews in the New Testament actually draws out the
fact that he was someone, who resembled the Son of
God, that's significant and so we see this
foreshadowing in the story of Abraham and
Melchizedek all the way up to the coming of Yeshua
Mashiach, Jesus Christ. I just think it's
incredible that we are able to learn these things together, as we walk on these ancient
stones in the City of David. I'm so glad that you've been
able to be with us today, so glad that you
could find out more about King of Kings
Community and Chad Holland, who is the new lead
Pastor at that community, that church, that congregation and so we want you
to continue praying, pray for the ministries
here in the Land, that are reaching out
in the current day to touch the hearts
and lives of people and lead them to faith
in Yeshua Mashiach. Thank you so much for your
support and God bless you, it's been great to have you
with us on the show today. (upbeat rock music) - [Announcer] Thank
you for watching. To learn more about this program and the ministries in
Israel that we help, or to receive the
Israel Prayer Watch, call the number on the screen or visit us online at
FirstCenturyFoundations.com and to keep up to date
on all that we're doing, you can follow us on
Facebook and Instagram. Join Jeff Futers again
in Israel next week on First Century Foundations.
