What would it take for the Jews to regain control of Jerusalem? Three things:
First, they would have to once again have supreme authority over the entire city of Jerusalem. This has not happened in over two thousand years, and it will never happen again
. "thus says the Lord God: “Remove the turban, and take off the crown; Nothing shall remain the same. Exalt the humble, and humble the exalted. Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown! It shall be no longer, Until He comes whose right it is, And I will give it to Him.” Ezekiel 21:26-27.
The prophecy cannot be changed. Israel lost Jerusalem because it slew Christ, and the Lord has no intention of giving it back to them now. When
"He comes whose right it is," the New Jerusalem will be given to Him and His people.
The land (Jerusalem included) was always promised to them on condition of obedience to Gods laws. Failing to do this, they lost the land. Take a concordance and check all the promises to the patriarchs. They were all conditioned on obedience, and the reward was always the land.
They lost part of the land when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Samaria (2 Kings 18:9-10) and they lost the southern part and Jerusalem when the Babylonians took it
(2 Kings 25:1-21) in the eleventh year of Zedekiah. The final loss
(Matthew 24:1-2) came in A.D. 70. (A small effort by the Jews to retake Jerusalem, in A.D. 135, did not amount to anything and was quickly put down.)
Second, the Jews will not have regained control of Jerusalem until they have supreme control over the Temple Mount. Do not underrate this! In answer to questions as to why the Jews no longer have the required animal sacrifices, the rabbis explain to their people that they cannot do so until they can once again sacrifice them in a restored Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
But that will never happen. Never again will they rebuild their Temple. Never again will they offer the required animal sacrifices. All the rabbis can now do is to instruct the faithful to kill a chicken at home once a year on Passover evening, as the father waves it over the heads of the family, prior to its being roasted and eaten. Until they regain control of the Temple Mount, the Jews cannot even have priests!
What is the holiest place in the world for a Jew? It is no longer the Temple Mount, for that is no longer theirs. They go to the base of the Temple Mount, before the Wailing Wall (now called the Western Wall). Why do they not go up on top and hold their religious services there? Because the Arabs, who control it, would riot and slay them.
Recognizing their helplessness in the situation, the highest governmental authority in Israel decreed, after the Six-day War in 1967, that only the Arabs may hold religious services on the Temple Mount and that all other Gentiles may trample, day after day, over its once-sacred precincts. The only churches up on top are Islamic ones, where Mohammed, the man who hated the God of Israel, is worshipped along with a false god.
Instead, Jews stand before an old rock wall, down at the base of the Temple Mount, while the two Islamic mosques on top are second only to the mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia the holiest place in the Islamic world. The Dome of the Rock (also called the Mosque of Omar) is the large golden-domed one. Just south of it is the Al Aqsa Mosque, from whence, according to Islamic legend, Mohammed flew to heaven on a winged horse. Every faithful Muslim wants to journey to Mecca once and, hopefully, to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem also, so he can be assured a place in heaven.
What makes the Temple Mount the second most sacred place in the world to the Muslim? That legend about Mohammed taking flight to heaven from there.
Third, the Gentiles must be kept from treading on the Temple Mount. It is an abomination for Gentiles to stand on, or near the holy place. Not even Jewish women or children were permitted near it. The Gentiles must be kept from treading on the Temple Mount.
The Bible says:
"And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." Luke 21:24.
That is the carefully worded prediction of Christ, and it is being fulfilled to the letter. Jerusalem all of it, including the Temple Mount continues to be trodden down by Gentiles. More foreign tourists tramp across its face than ever occurred before in its 4,000-year history. This will continue until Christ returns.
Intriguingly enough, the Jews excuse the fact that they are not permitted to worship on top of the Temple Mount, by saying the opposite of what Christ said!
"The presence of God is so strong [on the Temple Mount] that, according to Jewish halacha (law), human beings are too impure to tread atop the Temple Mount until, that is, the End of Days and the coming of the Messiah. So the devout [Jews] go [below] to the large Western Wall and to the Kotel ha-Katan, or Little Wall." Newsweek, July 24, 2000.
Their excuse is a mammoth effort at self-deception, since tourists from all over the world daily tramp all over the Temple Mount, and the worst people of all are the Arabs who are by Israeli law the only group permitted to pray and worship on the Temple Mount!
Who are the
"Gentiles" of Luke 21:24? The Greek word for this mean
s "nations"; that is, all non-Jewish races. Everyone not a Jew is a Gentile. This includes nearly all the tourists from Europe and North America. It also includes all the Muslims. Although descendants of Ishmael, they are not Jews!
The Temple Mount was overrun by Babylonians when they razed it in 586 B.C. Later, upon their return, although they never again regained supreme authority over the land, the Jews were permitted at various times to control and access the Temple and its environs. But all this ended in A.D. 70 forever after the Romans attacked it.
Never again will the Jews be able to have the authority to say who can step on the Temple Mount and who can not. The feet of the Gentiles have trodden upon it from that day to this. Indeed, since the 1967 Six-day War, more Gentiles than ever have been treading on the Temple Mount!
Although the Jews know better than to visit it very often, a continual horde of Arabs and tourists flock to the Dome of the Rock. In order to placate the Western powers, the Israeli government decreed that people of all religions could walk on the Temple Mount. Does that sound like the treading of Gentile feet on its sacred precincts has stopped? When they retook West Jerusalem in 1946, to placate the Western powers, the Israelis declared that all portions of Jerusalem were
"internationalized." Does that sound like Jerusalem is really theirs?
The truth is this: There is nothing sacred about the top of the Temple Mount any more to Protestants, Catholics, or Jews. It just represents where something used to be, but no longer is.
What would happen if the Jews tried to stop the treading of Gentile feet on the Temple Mount? Muslims in the world would arise in warfare.
What would happen if the Jews tried to rebuild the Temple, so they could once again proclaim that they had truly returned to Jerusalem? A holy gihad would be sounded.
