When the Jews were driven out of the Holy City (Jerusalem), and the Holy Land (Israel), by the Romans starting in 70 A.D., they hoped against hope that one day they will return to Jerusalem and Israel. Their hope did not disappoint them. And it couldn’t because hundreds of years before they lost the beloved city (as Revelation 20:9 calls it), and were expelled from the Holy Land (as Zechariah 2:12 calls it), they had not only received from God a prophecy that indeed the expulsion would happen, but also a promise that they would indeed return home one day.
Read more: Tikvah (Hope) Does Not Disappoint (23rd Sept 2020)
In 1999, on the last day of a twelve-hour forty-day fast, I heard the distinct audible voice of God say to me, “Guard jealously what you have received.” A year later, the last day of another twelve-hour forty-day fast found me on Buvuma Island where a group of us had gone for evangelism. On the morning of that last day of fasting, as we prayed, our prayer leader repeatedly told us in Luganda, “Kuuma ekyo kyofunye” which when translated means “guard what you have received.”