Global SITREP A4-24: The Parah Adumah (Red Heifer), Numbers 19 and October 7, 2023

 

2 March 2024: In approximately, or within the next 50 days time, the Numbers 19:1-10 ordinance (statue) given to Moses and Aaron by God will be carried out on a newly constructed platform on the western side of the Mount of Olives. This day is has been reported since last year to be just prior to the 2024 observance of Passover on 22 April. 

The Numbers 19 ordinance is news to no one who has read Eschatology Today or any truly Christian publication in recent months. This blog has brought the subject forward several times since 2015 when the Parah Adumah (Red Heifer) was first mentioned here. 

Simply put, without the priestly sacrifice and burning and mixing with water of the ashes of the red heifer there can be no cleansed person, rabbi or priest to rabbi fully ascend Mount Moriah to the place where the second temple stood and the third temple will soon be standing. 

To the truly observant Jew this event without question marks what they believe is the start of the "Messianic Era." But that is not the half of it, as the other half is how the adherents of Islam regard the mere presence of red heifers (there are now four highly protected red angus red heifers in Israel) in Israel. To them the cows are a casus belli, or cause for war. 

When the Muslim enemies of Israel cry out to their brethren to "defend Al Quds" (Jerusalem) and Al-Aqsa, what they mean is the temple mount, its mosques and the Dome of the Rock because the Numbers 19:1-10 unblemished red heifer ordinance indicates to them that the Jews intend to wipe their places from where they stand on the mount and erect in their place a new temple and its outer court. They will do anything and everything to prevent this from taking place.

It is a fact that this is true. 100 days after the October 7 massacre the spokesman for HAMAS' Al-Qassam Brigades issued a televised proclamation reminding all Muslim faithful the reasons for why they started the war against Israel on October 7. Here are excerpts from the English translation of Abu Obeida's proclamation for those who do not wish to click on the embedded Palestine Chronicle link above.

"We look back 100 days to remember the educated, the complicit, and the incapacitated among the world powers governed by the law of the jungle, reminding them of an aggression that reached its peak against our path (Al-Quds) and Al-Aqsa, with the start of its actual temporal and spatial division, and the “bringing of red cows as an application of a detestable religious myth designed for aggression against the feelings of an entire nation in the heart of its Arab identity, and the path of its prophet (the Night Journey) and Ascension to heaven...

As we have been informed by various sources in the resistance fronts that they are seeking to expand their strikes against the enemy in the coming days in light of the continued aggression on Gaza, we will not tire or falter in calling all the free people of the nation to rise to support their Aqsa and the path of their prophet, which the criminal Zionists are practically advancing towards destroying and establishing their temple. This is what we have chosen with our blood in Gaza for 100 days and for which the epic of October 7th was about." 

Talk about Indications and Warnings (I&W), as if another flash point for the ongoing war was necessary, make no mistake the Islamists have had the purpose for the red cows foremost in their minds for a very long time. They follow Jewish media very closely and this particular subject is for them the mother of all hut buttons. The events of October 7 and everything since then is proof of  this war which they view in the terms of jihad or martyrdom (holy war or death).

Eyes and ears wide open...

Global SITREP B5-17: The Coming Jerusalem Temple

UPDATE 3 April 2017: During a ceremony at Hatzor Air Base in Israel yesterday, PM Bibi Netanyahu led an array of Israeli civilian defense, military officers and other dignitaries in announcing the operational deployment of the joint U.S.-Israel developed David's Sling Defense System. Among the many Bibi quotes being reported in the media I find the Prime Minister's initial statement to be key with respect to this SITREP covering the Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 prophecies: "Whoever seeks to hit us will be hit. Whoever threatens our existence places himself in existential danger.” 

The fully operational David's Sling is aptly named. In 1 Samuel 17 is told the epic encounter between the 9 foot 6 inch tall Philistine giant, Golyath of Gath, and his equally epic weaponry against the youthful son of Jesse named David. And David stunned Golyath with a single stone flung from his sling. David then stood upon the unconscious giant and removed Golyath's head with Golyath's own sword. The David's Sling state-of-the-art weapon is a hunt-to-kill missile known as the Stunner. The Stunner missile is designed to race toward the target and destroy it though the sheer power of impact, just like the stone from young David's sling.

David went forward into battle against an armed enemy which both sides saw for him as having zero chance of victory. But young David went forth knowing in faith that the living God of Israel would deliver the enemy into his hand, and it was so. 

For the purposes of the enemy nations named in Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83, and as discussed here in previous blog posts, the prophetic past as prologue template which follows the fulfillment of Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 fully applies to the building of the coming third Temple. That template is found in 1 Kings 5:3-5.

"You know how my father David could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the wars which were fought against him on every side, until the Lord put his foes under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor evil occurrence. And behold, I propose to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spoke to my father David, saying, “Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, he shall build the house for My name.”"

The aftermath of the final fulfillment of Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 there will be no enemy on any of Israel's borders, not one on any side. The past as prologue.


1 April 2017: In the previous SITREP B4-17 the case was made that the final fulfillment of Psalm 83 does appear to be quite imminent as evidenced by the statements made by King Abdullah II of Jordan. While Psalm 83 has been a prophecy long in a process of fulfillment, another pair of prophecies, found in Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49:23-27, have in the last 6 years also begun their own parallel process towards total fulfillment along with Psalm 83. 

As stated many times during the course of the now 9-year blog, I happen to hold to the eschatological view that these pre-70th Week fulfillment's happen in rapid sequence, like a prophetic flood, and like a series of prophetic dominoes to fall in their proper sequence. I believe Isaiah and Jeremiah's prophecies are the domino which will topple the Psalm 83 domino over. This SITREP will look at the sum total of what Eschatology Today consistently refers to as the "big picture" painted by the fulfillment of these prophecies. 

That is to say, specifically per Isaiah 17:1-3, that the destruction of Damascus and the nation-state we know as Syria, plus the damage which is done to Israel as seen in Isaiah 17:4-6, will lead the named enemies in Psalm 83:6-8 to believe their golden opportunity to “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more” has finally arrived. They will execute this action as Muslims waging jihad in full submission to their god and in his name.

This will be a unique phase to the Psalm 83 war in that there will almost certainly be no external intervention by other nations on behalf of the Islamic nations or on the behalf of Israel. Why and how can I arrive at this conclusion? Because i believe the Lord has declared it will be so through His prophets. 

Make a key note of what I am going to say here, it is that important to understand. In the ongoing war in Syria, a truly internationalized civil war if there ever was one, there are the intervening gentile military forces of Russia, Iran and its Lebanese Shi'a proxy Hezbollah, plus Iranian Shi'a mercenary forces from Iraq and Afghanistan on the side of the government and army in Damascus. On the other side there are the gentile forces of 61 nations, plus the EU and Arab League, which are led by the United States of America. This coalition of nations is known as Operation Inherent Resolve (clickable image below).

The Nations within the Operation Inherent Resolve Coalition

The palm wreath is a symbol of honor; the scimitars indicate the dual nature of the coalition-the defeat of ISIL and the restoration of stability to the area.  The three stars indicate the command and are colored gold for excellence.  Buff and flag blue denote the land, sea and air components of the military.

Both of the groups of forces operating in Syria are opposed to and engaged in destroying the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Sunni Muslim). They are also on opposite sides with respect to the Alawite (Branch of Shi'a Islam) government in Damascus. 

This is where we turn our attention to the Lord's prophetic word in Isaiah 17:12-13 (NKJV with my emphasis added) which describes a result of what is going to shortly take place in the course of the Isaiah 17 prophetic fulfillment:

Woe to the multitude of many people
Who make a noise like the roar of the seas,
And to the rushing of nations
That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters;
But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away,
And be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind,Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

All of these gentile nations on both sides of the conflict in Syria are going to make a tumult which the prophet describes as the roaring and rushing of the seas. The seas of this planet being in such a state are normally an immovable and overwhelming force of nature. Yet in this God will rebuke them all and they will flee far away. Now you have to think about this, consider it carefully. What kind of a rebuke does the LORD God bring down on these gentile nations that they would all turn tail and immediately flee far away? I guarantee you that I would not want to be the object of such a rebuke where the better part of 100 gentile nations are forced from the battlefield that is Syria! 

Nevertheless, what the LORD God (YHWH) declares through Isaiah is exactly what will happen: both the Russian-led coalition and the U.S.-led coalition will be shattered by the coming rebuke from God. This means that His sovereign will will be manifest, not the will of these two groups of gentile nations fighting over control of this land, but God's will shall rule that day and is what will take place. Now some will say this sounds like 'Divine intervention,' and they would be right, it will be Divine intervention in the course of events in Syria, and in Israel, in the fulfillment of Isaiah 17. Scripture leaves no doubt about it.

That brings us to Psalm 83. All of the other gentile nations, except for Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, Gaza and Sinai will have fled the battlefield of the MidEast, and these nations, which Asaph clearly identified, are left to execute their attempt at making Psalm 83:4 come true. But as we know their hate-filled conspiracy against God and His people Israel has no chance of success. In fact exactly the opposite will occur and Israel will emerge victorious, and perhaps three, or four or five times its current territorial size. The greater Israel will include Lebanon (Joshua 13), control over much of Syria, all of western Jordan, Judea and Samaria, Gaza and probably all of the Sinai.

Yet this is not the greatest part of what occurs as a result of the sequential fulfillment of Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83. The greatest part of result of this has been foretold by Asaph in Psalm 83:16-18 (NKJV with my emphasis added):

Fill their faces with shame,That they may seek Your name, O Lord.Let them be confounded and dismayed forever;Yes, let them be put to shame and perish,That they may know that You, whose name alone is the Lord,Are the Most High over all the earth.

This prophetic passage described the end of Islam, the conversion of a great number of Muslims from submission to their god allah to the God of Israel. The end result of these prophetic wars is that Muslims will seek the name of YHWH. They will be confounded and dismayed that allah was powerless, a false god, and their devotion to that false god will abruptly come to an end; Islam, which is specifically submission to allah, will perish. Muslims will come to know that YHWH God is truly "the existing One;" that He is the El-yōn' meaning Most High over all of the earth.

And this bring us finally to the pair of clickable images at the top. Those images are taken from a modern reproduction of a 1924 publication by the Muslim Orphanage Printing Press, Jerusalem, which was run by the Muslim Supreme Council (the Waqf) in Jerusalem.  An identical 1925 reproduction is available through a TempleInstitute.org online .pdf file (link) if anyone is interested.

Whether or not the current edifices (Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque) are destroyed during the fulfillment of Psalm 83 is beside the point made above about Muslims finally recognizing YHWH God, the God of Israel. Given that the generation of Muslims which wrote that the identity of the site of the Dome of the Rock with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute, how likely would it be that any YHWH worshiping former Muslim would object to a new Temple standing on this same site for the purposes of worshiping "the existing One; the El-yōn'?  None I would say, or at least not enough to make a difference in objection. In fact, I would tend to think those former Muslims which are now YHWH devotees would even assist their Jewish cousins in any manner possible to construct it as quickly as possible.  

Global SITREP D9-14: Going ... Going ... (soon to be)Gone!

 Dome of the Rock, Temple Mount, Jerusalem

FINAL UPDATE 21 October 2014: Brothers and Sisters in Christ, it seems as though the point of all this may have been missed. We're not getting it, so to speak. Many of us complain that their pastors do not teach prophecy. Okay, so they're not fully teaching the word of God. So why are they still your pastor?

Under the title of this 'Eschatology Today' blog are the words "Current world events seen through the clarifying lens of the Lord's inerrant prophetic word." The Lord's inerrant prophetic word. I teach Bible prophecy on this blog, through current events especially because so very much of the imminent fulfillment of Bible prophecy is about military conflict and the weapons of modern warfare. These are the finer details of the bigger picture that has already been given to us by God.

Allow me illustrate my conclusion that "we're not getting it" by asking a question. Is there a more perfect word than what God has already given us in the Holy Bible? Or would it be better if I were to quote directly from the English Standard Version of The Second Epistle of Peter ? "And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."

What of these future things have the prophetic words of the Lord failed to inform us about? Do we really need more books and DVDs on the subject of Bible prophecy, or do we really need just to read and study what the Lord has already put directly in front of our eyes in virtually every language of mankind? 

Yet many of us say, "we will not be here to see these things, we cannot know how they will come to pass."  Not true! We have already seen them occur through the fully confirmed prophetic word of God! 

In the prophetic Book of Daniel we are instructed point blank about the person and ethnic origin of the man who will be the Antichrist. There is no mystery about that man. This was absolutely confirmed in 168-67 BC via the exploits of the Macedonian-Greek king of the Seleucid Empire, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the ultra-specific forerunner of Antichrist. And of the coming 70th Week, what part of that yet future event was not precisely foretold to us via the historical events of the 7-year long war from 66 to 73 AD that was neatly divided into two distinct halves between the Roman Empire and Israel? We won't be here to witness the European Antichrist or the 70th Week of Israel? Not true, we already are witness to these events because God has told us about them in great detail and has shown us through the historical record how they will happen in the future.

And the 3rd Jewish Temple, is that construction on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem going to be some kind of exception to the already established prophetic word of God?  Of course not.  Are you still not sure about what is going to happen in the near future fulfillment of Bible prophecy? Are you still not "getting it?" Then read about it in the historical record, and be mindful of the Apostle Peter's unambiguous instruction which I shall once more repeat in a slightly altered paraphrase: The fully confirmed prophetic word of God which you do well to pay attention to as a lamp in a dark place until the Harpazo takes place.

17 October 2014: We know from Bible prophecy, such as the verse from Jesus' Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:15 and the angel Gabriel's earlier prophecy of Daniel 9:27, that the structure occupying the physical site of the first and second Temples on Mount Moriah continues to exist on time borrowed from God the Father, just as the Bride of Christ's continued presence on this earth is based upon His Supreme Authority alone. 

However, it's been some time since I have seen jihadist muslims exhibiting a palpable fear of the inevitable demise of the Dome of the Rock. This notice came in the form of two articles this week at YNETNews.com.

The first was Wednesday, 15 October's "Powder Keg on Temple Mount" by Assaf Kamar, and the second is yesterday's follow up published by Reuters News Service, "HAMAS leader urges Muslims to defend Temple Mount mosque from 'Israeli takeover'." 

The physical disappearance of the Dome of the Rock from Mount Moriah, only to be replaced by the third and final Temple to be constructed by human hands, is essentially the LORD God declaring His eternal sovereignty over Jerusalem and the Mount for His sovereign people, the whole House of Israel. This inevitability is expressed in modern parlance in the title of this SITREP, as "Going... Going... (soon to be)Gone!"

Then what? Then the conditions will be right for the 3rd Temple, the 70th Week Temple, the temple of the final Abomination of Desolation, to be constructed. Israel will have secured national sovereignty over the Mount to construct "the temple of God," or "naos Theos" in the original Greek written by John of Patmos in The Revelation of Jesus Christ, chapter 11, verse 1. The Greek word Naos refers only to that part of the physical, measurable temple structure on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem which contains both the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place. The Greek word Theos, refers specifically to the Godhead Trinity, that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The LORD God.

Jewish men will construct this 3rd Temple in absolute accordance with the positive commandment given to them in ancient times by God on Mount Sinai the day after Yom Kippur. According to the Temple Mount Institute, the Lord's commandment to rebuild the temple is "one of the 613 mitzvot, the commandments that Israel is perpetually obligated to fulfill." It has been a binding obligation to rebuild the Holy Temple upon every successive generation of Jews since the destruction of the last temple in 70 AD. And as it is written in 1st Chronicles 28:19 per David's instructions to Solomon in building the 1st Temple, “All this,” said David, “the Lord made me understand in writing, by His hand upon me, all the works of these plans.” And follow these plans they did and will do so yet again in our time!

All of the vessels of the Holy Temple are an integral part of its full construction, and its physical design is detailed within the Tractate Middot of the Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud) and conforms to the dimensions, characteristics and attributes of the Second Temple begun by Zerubabbel in 538 BC, precisely 70 years after the destruction of the Solomon's Temple by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 587 BC, and completed in 515 BC. This completion is fully celebrated in Ezra 3:10, and so pleased God that He prompted the prophet Haggai (Haggai 2:23) to present Zerubabbel with a special blessing: "On that day, declares the LORD of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the LORD, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the LORD of hosts."

Notice something in the above two paragraphs. There is nothing here from the Christian perspective. Not a single word in any interpretation of prophecy, nor is there any distinctly Christian perspective. There is just the written commandment of God carried out by His people. There is no Christian interference in something uniquely Jewish! And so shall it be with the rebuilding of the coming Holy Temple, by Jewish hands and in strict conformity with Divine instructions. 

It is most interesting to make an important note of fact here that none of the Holy Temple instructions in the Book of Ezekiel are 100% relevant to what the Jews will soon be rebuilding on Mount Moriah. Most of the 2nd Temple's construction was after the 1st Temple that Solomon built, with only certain aspects of Ezekiel's Temple (Chapters 40-43) included in the overall design as it represented a far future Temple. That fact would make the full application of Ezekiel's prophetic instructions specifically relevant to the future post-70th Week Temple, the Holy Temple of Jesus' Millennial Kingdom, and the time when very specific geographic and topographical considerations as described will become totally fulfilled in the very act of the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Marana'tha!