When a red cow named Melody was born in August 1996 and briefly believed to be “the one,” a veritable media avalanche ensued. TV crews from ABC, CBS, CNN, and others from Japan, Holland, and France covered the event, as did print journalists from around the world. Most of the media found Israeli interest in the cow and the rebuilding of the Temple quaint or bemusing. But Haaretz columnist David Landau “argued that the security services should see the red heifer as a ‘four-legged bomb’ potentially more dangerous than any terrorist: ‘It’s equal, in its ability to set the entire region on fire, to the power of non-conventional weapons in the hands of Iranian ayatollahs.’”292
Ultimately, Melody was pronounced “unclean” by Israeli rabbis. She grew several white hairs at the tip of her red tail and thus proved that she was not the one. Now efforts are being made by some to genetically engineer a perfect red heifer.
OTHER FUTURE HEADLINES?
All this constitutes further evidence that the building of the Third Temple is increasingly close at hand and that the events of Ezekiel 38–39 are as well. They are like strobe lights along an airport runway at night, guiding a pilot in for a landing. When we see such lights, we are not yet at our final destination, but we know we are closer than ever. On this final approach, therefore, we would be well advised to keep our eyes peeled for other events that, while not explicitly promised in Scripture, would certainly be consistent with the rebuilding of the Temple.
In my fourth novel, The Copper Scroll, I write about the possible discovery of the Second Temple treasures. I cannot point to biblical prophecies that assure us with any finality that such treasures will be found. But there are a number of intriguing Scriptures that seem to hint that such discoveries could happen in the last days.
In Jeremiah 27:21-22 we read that during the Jewish exile in Babylon, the Lord planned to safeguard the First Temple treasures and would restore them to the children of Israel when it was time to build the Second Temple. “Yes, this is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says about the precious things still in the Temple and in the palace of Judah’s king: ‘They will all be carried away to Babylon and will stay there until I send for them,’ says the LORD. ‘Then I will bring them back to Jerusalem again.’”
Likewise, the prophet Isaiah promised the children of Israel that the First Temple treasures would be restored to them when it was time to build the Second Temple. In Isaiah 52:11, instructing the Israelites to return from their captivity in Babylon, the prophet wrote, “Purify yourselves, you who carry home the sacred objects of the LORD.”
Do such verses, as well as others found in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra, provide a precedent that God is safeguarding the Second Temple’s treasures for the children of Israel and will reveal them when it is time to build the Third Temple? Some Jewish and Christian scholars think so. We simply do not know for sure. But the notion is tantalizing.
I, for one, would not be surprised at all if it happened. The discovery of these priceless treasures—each more than two thousand years old—would make huge headlines around the world. Would they not also cause many to have to reconsider their skeptical and/or negative views about God and the Bible?
Imagine the international uproar that would be caused by the sudden rediscovery of the Ark of the Covenant—so long as it was not locked away in some U.S. government storage facility, the way it is at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. We have no definitive prophecies that say the Ark will be found in the last days. But again, a number of Jewish and Christian scholars believe the Temple treasures and the Ark will be rediscovered when it is time for the Third Temple to be built.
As with the other Temple treasures, there is biblical precedent for the Ark of the Covenant being hidden from those who would destroy or desecrate the Temple, only to be restored to the Temple when the time was right and the coast was clear. In 2 Chronicles 35:3, for example, we read that “[King Josiah] issued this order to the Levites, who were to teach all Israel and who had been set apart to serve the LORD: ‘Put the holy Ark in the Temple that was built by Solomon son of David, the king of Israel. You no longer need to carry it back and forth on your shoulders. Now spend your time serving the LORD your God and his people Israel.’”293
Some are convinced they already know where the Ark is but cannot yet reach it. “Tradition records that even as King Solomon built the First Temple, he already knew, through Divine inspiration, that eventually it would be destroyed,” notes Rabbi Ariel on his Temple Institute Web site. “Thus Solomon, the wisest of all men, oversaw the construction of a vast system of labyrinths, mazes, chambers, and corridors underneath the Temple Mount complex. He commanded that a special place be built in the bowels of the earth, where the sacred vessels of the Temple could be hidden in case of approaching danger. Midrashic [Jewish commentaries] tradition teaches that King Josiah of Israel, who lived about forty years before the destruction of the First Temple, commanded the Levites to hide the Ark, together with the original menorah and several other items, in this secret hiding place which Solomon had prepared.”294
Rabbi Ariel goes on to claim that “this location is recorded in our sources, and today, there are those who know exactly where this chamber is. And we know that the Ark is still there, undisturbed, and waiting for the day when it will be revealed. An attempt was made some few years ago to excavate towards the direction of this chamber. This resulted in widespread Moslem unrest and rioting. They stand a great deal to lose if the Ark is revealed—for it will prove to the whole world that there really was a Holy Temple, and thus, that the Jews really do have a claim to the Temple Mount.”
Imagine, then, what might be found after the War of Gog and Magog.
EZEKIEL AND THE MESSIAH
One of the things that has struck me while writing my novels is the growing number of Jews, regardless of their specific religious traditions, who see the landing lights as well, who are convinced that the Messiah is coming soon.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, belief that Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi Menachem Schneerson (known as “the Rebbe”) was the Messiah reached a fever pitch among hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world. “Schneerson purportedly has healed the sick, restored fertility to barren women and averted family tragedies,” said a 1988 Washington Post profile. “He has never claimed publicly to be the messiah, but critics say he has been slow to deny the claim when made by his followers. They contend that this is why Schneerson has never set foot in Israel; under Jewish tradition, the messiah will arrive only when the era of redemption begins.”295
Even when Schneerson suffered a massive stroke in 1992, there were still those who refused to give up their beliefs. “The Rebbe will surprise all,” one follower told U.S. News & World Report, claiming that the Messiah would announce himself after doctors gave up. “The Rebbe will lead all of us to Jerusalem,” he said, “and you and I may find ourselves standing shoulder to shoulder.”296
After Schneerson’s death in 1994 at the age of ninety-two, his supporters praised him for at least having prepared the way for someone else. “In virtually every talk the Rebbe gave, every letter he wrote and every action he initiated, the theme, the sign-off and the objective was: the coming of Moshiach [the Messiah], the attainment of the Redemption,” notes the Chabad.org Web site, adding that “perhaps no leader in history emphasized the urgency and immediacy of Moshiach as did the Rebbe.”297
Today Rabbi Ariel and his colleagues at the Temple Institute are not only convinced that the Messiah is coming soon; they are convinced the Third Temple is coming sooner. In one article posted on his Web site, Ariel wrote, “Which comes first, the Messiah or the Temple? There seems to be ample indication that the building of the Holy Temple will precede the Messiah’s arrival. Various biblical verses and statements made by the great sages prove this. This is actually the opinion of Maimonides, a Jewish rabbi and philosopher, who quotes an astounding verse from the prophecy of Malachi (3:1) in his classic Letter to Yemen: ‘For suddenly the master
whom you are seeking will come to the sanctuary.’ It appears that this prophecy, referring to the arrival of the Messiah, specifies that he will indeed arrive at the already built Temple.”298
While I was writing this book, I came across this headline from the Times of London: “Old Shack Will Give Madonna Front-Row Seat for Arrival of her Messiah.” According to the article, the pop singer was “trying to buy a house overlooking the Sea of Galilee at the place where followers of her Kabbalist faith expect the Messiah to reappear to herald world peace. . . . The star—who was raised an Italian Catholic but adopted the Hebrew name Esther several years ago—wants the house to turn it into a Kabbalah study centre where followers can pore over the mystical texts. Kabbalists believe that the Messiah will appear at Safed and walk to Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.”299
There is also a growing sense among the Jewish community worldwide that the cataclysmic events of recent decades are signs of the last days and the Messiah’s nearing appearance as well. The famed twentieth-century Jewish writer Martin Buber, for example, wrote an entire novel called Gog and Magog (it was much different from my novels). In it, he spoke of the “three hours of speechless terror after the tumult of the wars of Gog and Magog and before the coming of the Messiah,” which will be “more difficult to endure than all the tumult and thunder” that had gone before, and “only he who endures them will see the Messiah.”300
Elie Wiesel, the widely beloved Jewish Nobel laureate, also wove Ezekiel’s prophecies into his work and has long believed their fulfillment will signal the Messiah’s arrival. In his moving 1972 novel Souls on Fire, he wrote of Jewish communities watching unfolding world events in great fear. “Frontiers, thrones, loyalties, and systems change overnight. The earth trembles. Nations discover new passions, liberating but deadly. History moves and bursts into flame. And the blood flows. . . . In the rabbinical courts, these events are endowed with a messianic dimension. One speaks of Gog and Magog, of their gigantic, apocalyptic war. . . . The Jews needed the Messiah, perhaps more than ever.”301 Years later, Wiesel told an interviewer that “Messianism is the gift of the Jew to the world, but in our tradition we believe that before redemption there will be a huge catastrophe. We call it the war of ‘Gog and Magog.’”302
I agree. The war of which Ezekiel wrote will precede the appearing of the Messiah on earth. But it will be his second appearing, not his first, and his name will be Yeshua HaMoshiach, Jesus the Messiah.
Few people have any idea just how many Jewish people have come to faith in Jesus in recent years, but the numbers are dramatic. Indeed, more Jews are coming to faith in Jesus today than at any time since the first century.
In 1967, when I was born, there were only five or six native Israeli believers in Jesus and fewer than 250 Jewish believers in Jesus in all of the Holy Land. Today there are more than 1,000 “sabra” believers—native-born Israeli Christians—and some 10,000 messianic Jews total in Israel.303
Worldwide in 1967, there were fewer than 2,000 Jewish followers of Jesus. Today conservative estimates say there are at least 100,000 Jewish believers, while some put the number at over 300,000.304 One respected international Christian research agency says there are 132,000 Jewish believers connected to messianic congregations and 200,000 Jewish believers in Jesus attending Gentile churches worldwide.305
For a follower of Jesus from an Orthodox Jewish heritage like myself, not only is this exciting, it is also startling evidence of an ancient prophecy coming to pass before our eyes. Jesus once spoke to the Jews of Israel, saying, “For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD’” (Matthew 23:39, NASB). In other words, until Jewish people turn to him in dramatic numbers—and get excited about his Second Coming—Jesus said he would delay his return.
How many are enough to trigger the Second Coming? I have no idea. But the trend lines are exciting, and I believe many, many more Jews will turn to Jesus in the time leading up to the War of Gog and Magog and in its immediate aftermath.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: FUTURE HEADLINE
MUSLIMS TURN TO CHRIST IN RECORD NUMBERS
Charles Sennott was the Middle East bureau chief for the Boston Globe from 1997 to 2001. As he left that role to cover events in Europe, he published a book that became a best seller in the Boston area entitled The Body and the Blood: The Middle East’s Vanishing Christians and the Possibility for Peace.
The book purported to document “the dramatically diminishing Christian presence” in the Middle East, a veritable “Christian exodus” that has left the Christian community there “withering” and “imperiled” in the face of war, persecution, and radical Islam. “What will happen if those [Christian] ideas and those institutions are abandoned, if they become barren, empty, echoing halls of the past?” Sennott asked. “Is Christianity truly going to die out in the land where it began?”306
The Christian Science Monitor called the book “a powerful and moving narrative. . . . Valuable and timely, it illuminates the human struggles while providing the in-depth historical context essential to understanding today’s conflicts.” Foreign Affairs called the book a “touching account of a venerable community whose numbers are sharply declining.” The Hartford Courant called it “profound and moving . . . a major achievement of insight, understanding, and interpretation.”307
Sennott’s book on the potentially imminent death of Christianity echoes a prevailing media worldview. “Christians Leaving Middle East,” declared a CNN headline.308 “Christians Quit Christ’s Birthplace,” proclaimed the BBC.309 A National Public Radio story talked of “the dwindling number of Christians in the Middle East.”310 A Denver Post article claimed that “once significant Christian communities” in the Middle East “have shrunk to a miniscule portion of their former robust selves” and “in 50 years they may well be extinct.”311 An article in the Guardian newspaper in London suggested the Christians of the Middle East have become “an endangered species.”312 A story in the Toronto Sun suggested that “a time might come, unless the political situation dramatically improves, when Christian communities of the Middle East no longer exist.”313
This Christianity-is-dying theme is complemented by the Islam-is-taking-over-the-world theme, so fashionable in academic and media circles over the past decade. In his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, for example, Samuel P. Huntington argued that the percentage of Christians in the world will fall sharply in the twenty-first century and will be overtaken by the explosive growth of Muslims. “In the long run,” wrote Huntington, “Mohammed wins out.”314 CNN, meanwhile, called Islam the world’s “fastest-growing religion.”315 PBS called Islam “the world’s fastest growing faith.”316 If you do a Google search of Islam and fastest-growing religion, you will find dozens of Muslim Web sites that abound with similar quotes from sources ranging from ABC News to Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes to USA Today.317
There is just one problem with such stories. They are not quite accurate. Not anymore, at least.
THE BIG (UNTOLD) STORY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The War of Gog and Magog, as we have seen, will bring about a shattering of radical Islam that will trigger a spiritual crisis for Muslims all around the world as they see, to their shock, the hand of the God of Israel defending—not demolishing—the Jewish people. The soul-searching that results will be intense. As they monitor saturation coverage on radio, television, and the Internet, Muslims will hear followers of Christ explaining what will happen and why, and they will see the prophecies of the Bible—not the Koran—coming true before their own eyes. What’s more, they will see the power of the God of the Bible displayed before the eyes of the world.
In the process, many will realize for the first time that Jesus Christ did, in fact, die on the cross for them. He also rose again for them—to give them assurance of salvation, a place in heaven for eternity, and an abundant, joyful life here on earth, if they will only receive his free gift of
salvation. When that happens, Muslims will turn to Jesus Christ en masse.
But even today, an exciting and dramatic spiritual revolution that is being completely missed by the mainstream media is under way throughout the Islamic world. The big (untold) story in the Middle East is that more Muslims are turning to Christ today than at any other time in human history, and much of it has happened since 9/11.
Over the past several years, I have had the privilege of interviewing more than three dozen Arab and Iranian pastors and Christian leaders throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia. In sharp contrast to the picture the media is painting, the picture they present is one of Christianity being dramatically resurrected in the lands where the Bible was written.
While I was writing this book, for instance, my wife and kids and I lived for two months in Egypt, where scores of Arabs are coming to Christ in the most amazing ways. During our time there we visited the largest church of born-again believers in the Middle East, which meets in a cave on the outskirts of Cairo beside what is known as the “garbage village.” Some 10,000 new and growing believers worship there every weekend. In May of 2005, more than 20,000 Arab believers gathered for a day of prayer for their unsaved Muslim friends to become followers of Christ. The event was broadcast throughout the Middle East on a Christian satellite-television network, allowing millions more to see God powerfully at work.
This extraordinary church ministry began in 1972 when a young Egyptian businessman named Farahat lost an $11,000 watch and was stunned when a garbageman found it and gave it back to him.
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