February 06, 2007

Islamic leaders warn archaeologists that they are playing with fire if they continue excavations near and at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem

The excavations of a tunnel under Jerusalem's City of David and the construction of a bridge leading up to the entrance of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have ignited the Muslim leadership of the Temple Mount who have warned Israeli archaeologists that they are playing with fire and have now triggered threats of violence from Islamic Trust officials.

The bridge construction causing the controversy is the one to replace the original stone ramp leading up to the Macrabe Gate that has been the entrance to the Temple Mount for decades. Archaeological work at the City of David site, the original site of the city of Jerusalem, is centered on a tunnel underneath the Palestinian village of Silwan, which is the hometown for a number of Palestinian militants.

Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News

The increasing tensions surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem with threats of violence if Israeli archaeologists continue their excavations are setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.

The headlines in the Jerusalem Post revealed that the Islamic Trust, the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, has issued threats of violence over a planned bridge leading up to the Temple Mount. Meanwhile, the exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, condemned the excavations of the tunnel near the archaeological site of the City of David and warned that these Israeli archaeologists are playing with fire, saying that the Muslim masses and all of its groups and military wings would rise up to protect the Muslim holy site known as Al Aqsa, also known as the Temple Mount. These two stories have us focused on the Temple Mount, the most sacred piece of real estate in all of Creation.

The ancient Jewish prophet Zechariah wrote some 2,500 years ago that Jerusalem would be the center of controversy and that is exactly what it's becoming today, that prophecy by the way found in Zechariah 12:2-3.

Zechariah 1:12-16 reveals to the reader that the Lord is aggressively possessive of Jerusalem and that one day, seemingly very soon, Jesus Christ will return to Jerusalem to build His Temple on this controversial site known as the Temple Mount.