A Unique Christian Peace Perspective: There Goes The Temple Mount

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With growing numbers of people concerned about the end times, frontier mission strategist David Taylor (a pseudonym) [who is senior editor of the Global Mission Database (and see here) and author of Operation 10/40 Window] offers an in-depth look at history, current events, and biblical prophecies that together point to 21 specific signs that should occur before the second coming of Jesus Christ....[he]...spoke to The Christian Post this week about his new book entitled 21 Signs of His Coming. (*)

Excerpts from the interview:-

CP: Why do you say there can never be peace in the Middle East?

Taylor: ...the whole idea of creating a settlement between Jews and Arabs, while it seems like a good idea to us in the West, the Arab mentality is that you take as much as you can get and you don’t fully disclose your intention. This is something that has been in Islam from the very beginning...
CP: Are you against the two-state solution to the Israel and Palestinian problem then?

Taylor: I’m not against it. I am not against people working for peace and the Bible says we are to pray for peace in Jerusalem. This is one of the ironies of Biblical Christian eschatology because even though we know the outcome, for example, that evil will prevail up until the end, we are to fight evil and we are to resist all forms of darkness. We are to resist all things Satan is doing up until the end even though we know we are not going to win. This is one of the paradoxes we find in the scripture...
CP: In the book you talk about the “abomination.” What is the Muslim and Christian claim to this and how is this connected to World War III?

Taylor: In fact, Jesus mentions this and it’s mentioned very prominently in [the Book] of Daniel about the abomination that causes the desolation it’s called. The reason why it is an abomination is because it is something that has to relate to the Temple Mount, to that sacred place. It causes desolation because when this abomination is removed or destroyed in order to make way for the Jewish preparation to rebuild the temple, the entire world goes berserk.

And so you bring that up to modern day times and what you find there on the Temple Mount is the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque, which is the third holiest site in Islam. This is something that is all over the news in the Middle East. You will find cartoon being published all over the place in newspapers and magazines in the Middle East depicting what the Jews are trying to do to destroy the Dome of the Rock through their archaeological tunneling and digging around this area. And of course there is the ever-present fear that some Jewish radical is going to destroy the Dome of the Rock. So this is kind of a ticking time bomb. It is something that is waiting to happen. If this site is ever destroyed then the whole Muslim world will be up in arms.

The significance for Christians is that the Dome of the Rock is over this giant rock that was a Christian pilgrimage site for many centuries. The Dome of the Rock itself was a Christian shrine. There was a Christian building there over that rock and it was one of the most popular tourist destinations for pilgrims going to Jerusalem. So when Muslims conquered Jerusalem, they promised in the terms of surrender that they would not turn any of the Christian buildings into Muslim buildings and mosques, but with two buildings they violated that and those were the two buildings on the Temple Mount.

The one Christian church they turned into the Al-Aqsa mosque and the other, which is really like a shrine, they turned into the Dome of the Rock. In fact, the Dome of the Rock is not a mosque but a shrine. The idea behind it was to basically proclaim the supremacy of Islam over Christianity...They knew this was a popular pilgrimage site so they wanted to convert all of this attention to this site. They wanted to use it for evangelistic purposes for Islam.

Well, now we know.
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(*)

B. THE JEWS OF JESUS’ DAY HAD BEEN GIVEN SIGNS


1. Micah gave them a sign.
2. Micah 5:2 prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
3. Daniel gave them a sign.
4. Daniel 9:25 prophesied the exact year that the Messiah would be "cut off."
5. It would happen 483 years after an edict was issued to rebuild Jerusalem.
6. David gave them a sign.
7. Psalm 22:16 prophesied that the Messiah's hands and feet would be pierced.

C. THEY SHOULD HAVE READ THE SIGNS

1. They knew the birthplace of the Messiah – Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
2. They knew the timing of the Messiah
3. The edict that Daniel prophesied of was issued in 457 BC.
4. 457BC plus 483 brought them up to their current year.
5. They knew the manner of death of the Messiah
6. The method of execution at the time David wrote Psalm 22 was stoning.
7. The method of execution in their day was piercing on a cross.
8. Crucifixion was not even invented by the Romans until 700 years after David.
9. This is why Jesus said, “…can ye not discern the signs of the times?”