This week I am in Israel

It is my second visit to this special place this year, and my tenth since 1974. Obviously I love this land and its people. In May, there were forty of us, and this month (September) there are thirty-five more friends who have joined me here, most for their first visit. It is a pilgrimage, giving opportunity for spiritual nurture and education, and for augmenting our understanding of Scripture by being here “hands on” in the lands of the Bible.

Speaking of “hands on,” during our first full day in Israel, we participate in a “live” dig at the Beit Govrin archaeological site, followed up by a camel ride into the wilderness, then on for a late afternoon of relaxation, floating on (one doesn’t ‘swim in’) the Dead Sea, earth’s lowest surface point.

The day following, after a visit to historic Masada, we turn northward into the Galilee and for three days visit various sites where Jesus began his ministry. This coming weekend and into next week will find us in the Jerusalem area, until at last we cross over the border into Jordan, where we will visit Mount Nebo, the rose-colored city of Petra, and the ancient/modern capital city of Amman.

While exploring these sites, with their biblical and historical relevance, it is impossible to disassociate the past from today’s headlines. Where we are standing today is perhaps the most valued and contested of all the regions of the world. We are learning much about modern Israel and about ourselves, too.

Earlier this summer, two Israeli police were shot at the Temple Mount by radicalized Muslim terrorists, armed with guns stockpiled in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, adjacent to the Dome of the Rock. In past years, I have visited inside both the Mosque and the Dome and, in fact, drew from this site for the novel, Without Warning (orig. September Strike), but in more recent times these sites are off-limits to non-Muslims.

Following the shooting, the Israeli government closed the Temple Mount to Muslims, until metal detectors were installed for Muslims who wanted to enter (something already required for non-Muslims), Muslims boycotted the site in protest.

Bryan Mistele (www.bryanmistele.org), respected student of biblical prophecy and a personal friend who recently returned from Israel, states “Because of the boycott, Christians and Jews were able to pray on the Mount for the very first time in two millennia.”

For all of Israel’s statehood, control of the Temple Mount has been complicated, to say the least. Since 2000, Jordan’s oversight of the Mount has been upgraded as a result of better agreements and mutual interests. Jordan is, in fact, an open partner with Israel in administering the Temple Mount. Still the public debate continues. Meanwhile Israeli police provide the security for this holy site, so important to Jews, Muslims and Christians around the world.

It is an amazing place, as is the city itself, and the surrounding lands of the Bible. These are times in which God is at work. The possibility of rebuilding the Temple, a Third Temple, has in my lifetime been a never-ending topic of interest to prophetic writers and speakers. Will it be rebuilt? When? Will animal sacrifices be reinstated?

Next week, we will again visit the Temple Mount Institute and be told that architectural plans for the Third Temple and its required sacrificial instruments have already been completed.

At our most recent visit in May, 2017, we were also informed of TMI knowing where the Ark of the Covenant is presently located. At this revelation I must confess to being ‘conflicted.’ There have been several such non-verifiable claims made in the past. Like the post-resurrection apostle Thomas, when word spread that Jesus was alive, I find myself wanting to ‘see’ and ‘touch’ in order to fully believe.

The Ark was ancient Israel’s holiest relic. A golden chest made to hold the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, kept in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem until the city was sacked by the Babylonians in 597 BC.

According to two non-biblical sources, the Second Book of Maccabees (still in the Roman Catholic Bible) and the Paralipomena of Jeremiah, shortly before Jerusalem’s fall the prophet Jeremiah, “ordered that the tent and the ark should follow with him, and that he went out to the mountain where Moses had gone up and had seen the inheritance of God. Jeremiah came and found a cave-dwelling, and he brought there the tent and the ark and the altar of incense; then he sealed up the entrance” ~ Mac 2;4,5.

The Maccabean account goes on to say the Ark was never recovered.

And indeed, it remains lost to this day. No verifiably authentic objects related to the Ark are known to have been identified. If in fact, TMI personnel have located the Ark, it is destined to be one of the most amazing archaeological finds of all time.

So, will the Temple be rebuilt? This possibility is closer today than ever before. However, I think Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg, President of the Israel Study Center, sums it up well when he says, “Perhaps (it is possible), but we must always remember that the ultimate Temple is located in the person of Jewish Christ and in the lives of his Jewish and Gentile followers. Jewish Christ and those in Him are the ultimate Temple of God (1 Pet. 2:5).”