An increasing number of Jews are visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and calling for the building of the Third Temple. Elhanan Miller reports, “More and more religious Jews are visiting the holy site, part of a movement defying a centuries-old rabbinic ban and stoking tension with Muslims who also lay claim to the esplanade” (“On Temple Mount, some see a dome and imagine an altar, Times of Israel, Aug. 31, 2015). Visits by Jews to the Temple Mount have nearly doubled since 2009. It is called “a new revival movement sweeping Israel’s national religious community.” Yehudah Glick, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, just published Arise and Ascend, a guidebook for Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. (Glick survived an attempt made on his life last October.) The book is endorsed by Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Ze’ev Elkin and mainstream orthodox rabbi Shlomo Riskin. The Temple Institute is preparing the articles for the temple, including a menorah constructed of $2 million worth of gold, and is training priests in animal sacrifices. When asked, “What about the Dome of the Rock?” Temple Mount activist Elishama Sandman replies, “If a burglar entered your home and told you that you don’t own it, you wouldn’t think about getting along with him. You’d remove him and take the place. It’s the same here: The people of Israel own this place and it’s not our duty to consider those who stole it from us” (Times of Israel, Aug. 31, 2015). Aviya Fraenkel, a doctoral student in Assyriology and Bible, says she can’t completely explain her attraction to the Temple Mount. “Part of it has to do with the belief that there’s a next stage, that our ideals aren’t limited to a state--which is a lot--but that the state must manifest our religious yearnings of the past 2,000 years.” She doesn’t know it, but the “yearning” is God’s Spirit which is drawing the Jews into the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and the return of Christ Jesus, but first will come the Antichrist, who will probably make the building of the next temple possible and will then occupy it, setting himself up as God. “Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4). (Friday Church News Notes, September 4, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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