The Battle for The Temple Mount
In this article, I wish to uncover the crucial importance of God’s Holy Hill in Jerusalem by demonstrating:
I. The Intent of God — the God of Israel — that His Holy Hill should be His dwelling place and that of His King Messiah and the place of prayer and worship for His People.
II. The Contradiction of the Present Reality in and around this hill in respect to God’s original intent.
III. Our Responsibility – the need for intensive prayer and efforts to fulfill the glorious all-encompassing destiny of the holiest place in Jerusalem.
I. The Intent of God
According to Scripture, The Holy Mount of Jerusalem was especially chosen by God as His dwelling place.
“Surely I will not go into the chamber of my house, or go up to the comfort of my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for The LORD, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.
Let us go into His Tabernacle; let us worship at His footstool.
Arise, O LORD, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength. For The LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place: this is My resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.” Psalm 132:3-5, 7-8, 13-14 NKJV.
Furthermore, God decreed that the Messiah and King would inhabit His Holy Hill:
“Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.
I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.’” Psalm 2: 6-7 NKJV.
Lastly, it was God’s Holy Intent for His People — scattered among the Nations — not to follow in the ways of the gods of the Gentiles (as we find in Tel Aviv and elsewhere) but to return — “all of them” — to their land to live and to worship Him on His Holy Hill.
“What you have in your mind shall never be, when you say, ‘We will be like the Gentiles, like the families in other countries, serving wood and stone.’
I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel.
Then you will know that I am The LORD.
‘As for you, O house of Israel,’ thus says The LORD God: ‘Go, serve every one of you his idols — and hereafter — if you will not obey Me; but profane My holy name no more with your gifts and your idols.
For on My holy mountain, on the mountain height of Israel,’ says The LORD God, ‘there all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, shall serve Me; there I will accept them, and there I will require your offerings and the first-fruits of your sacrifices, together with all your holy things.
I will accept you as a sweet aroma when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered; and I will be hallowed in you before the Gentiles.
Then you shall know that I am The LORD, when I bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for which I raised My hand in an oath to give to your fathers.” Ezekiel 20:34, 38-42 NKJV.
II. The Contradiction of the Present Reality
The following excerpt, written by Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Scholar of Arabic, Islam and Middle East issues, further uncovers the illegitimacy of the Muslim claim to Jerusalem:
“Early Islamic sources state that the ‘Al Aqsa Mosque”’ (literal meaning: ‘the farther mosque’), mentioned only once in the Koran, was one of two mosques located near Ji’irrana, a village located between Mecca and Taaf in the Arabian Peninsula (now Saudi Arabia.)
One of the mosques was called ‘al-Masjid al-Adna,’ meaning the ‘closer mosque’ and the other ‘al-Masjid al-Aqsa,’ the ‘farther mosque.’
When the Koran refers to the al Aqsa mosque while telling the myth of the Prophet Mohammad’s night time journey from the ‘holy mosque’ of Mecca to al Aqsa, that is, the ‘farther mosque,’ it is referring to the mosque in Ji’irrana.
In 682 C.E., fifty years after Mohammed’s death, Abd allah Ibn al-Zubayr, the tough man of Mecca, rebelled against the Umayyads who ruled Damascus and would not allow them to fulfill the Haj in Mecca.
Since the Haj pilgrimage is one of the five basic Islamic commandments, they were forced to choose Jerusalem as their alternative for a pilgrimage site.
In order to justify choosing Jerusalem, the Umayyads rewrote the story told in the Koran, moving the al Aqsa mosque to Jerusalem, and adding, for good measure, the myth of the night time journey of Mohammed to al Aqsa. This is the reason the Sunnis now consider Jerusalem their third holiest city.
Shia Islam, mercilessly persecuted by the Umayya Caliphate, did not accept the holy Jerusalem canard, which is the reason the second holiest city to Shiites is Najif in Iraq, the burial place of Shiite founder Ali bin Abi Talib.
Many of the Shiite elders — Iranian and Hezbollah — only began to call Jerusalem holy after the Khomeni rebellion in 1979 so as to keep the Sunnis from accusing them of being soft on Zionism.
The first lie, in that case, is the spurious claim that the ‘farther mosque’ is in Jerusalem.”
At this moment, it is the Muslims who on this hill of The LORD God of Israel, are allowed by the Israeli government to pray to and worship their god Allah, on the very place where God awaits and destined His own people to pray and worship Him!
Therefore, the very basis of Hamas’ recent terror on Israel — to defend the Al Aqka mosque and the Temple Mount for Muslims (as Dr. M. Kedar explains above) is founded entirely upon a lie!
III. Our Responsibility
So what is our responsibility in light of these findings?
David fought hard, as we see from the following verses, to make sure that God’s chosen hill for His residence would be wrested from the Jebusites who had claimed it as their own.
“For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns.
The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. You shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of The LORD will name.
You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of The LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no longer be termed Forsaken, nor shall your land any more be termed desolate; but you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for The LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married.
I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of The LORD, do not keep silent.
And give Him no rest till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” Isaiah 62:1-4, 6-7 NKJV.
“And the King and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who spoke to David, saying, “You shall not come in here; but the blind and the lame will repel you,” thinking, “David cannot come in here.”
Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion (that is, the City of David). Now David said on that day, “Whoever climbs up by way of the water shaft and defeats the Jebusites he shall be chief and captain. ”Therefore, they say, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”
Then David dwelt in the stronghold, and called it the City of David. And David built all around from the Millo and inward.
So David went on and became great, and The LORD God of hosts was with him.” 2 Samuel 5: 6-9 NKJV.
In short, those with a legitimate claim to God’s Holy Hill — besides God Himself — is Israel, His people, as is written by Israel’s Prophet Ezekiel in Chapter 20:40:
“For on My Holy Mountain, on the mountain height of Israel,” says The LORD God, “there all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, shall serve Me; there I will accept them, and there I will require your offerings and the first-fruits of your sacrifices, together with all your holy things.”
This suggests that the whole of Israel — “all of them” — shall not only come back to their God-given land, but also to His Holy Hill in Jerusalem, to pray and worship Him there.
May this also — through our prayers and efforts — soon become a reality!
~ Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director
International Christian Zionist Center
Newsletter of May 27, 2021.
Republished with the kind permission of Author Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director of International Christian Zionist Center.
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I thank everyone of you who by his prayers and support is helping us to continue to be a voice for lonely Israel. Jan Willem van der Hoeven.
Thank you for this Truth. I will continue to pray fervently for the Peace of Jerusalem now & beyond. Hod bless you all over there. Shalom Jerusalem!