(OPINION) Game-changing developments are happening right now in Israel concerning the Third Temple. Probably the most critical missing link preventing the rebuilding of the Temple, is set to fall into place within months with crucial help from Christians.
Meanwhile Hamas is watching the developments closely and have even claimed it to be a major part of their motivation for the heinous Oct. 7 terror attack. With tensions already at boiling point across the Middle East, will we shortly see Israel take bold steps towards rebuilding the Temple?
The final missing piece of the Third Temple project – the infamous ashes of a red heifer – is now only months away from falling into place. Theses ashes are Biblically mandated for purification in a range of situations including contact with dead bodies (see Num. 19).
Without the red heifer ashes, priests and Levites currently in training with the Temple Institute are disqualified from serving in a future rebuilt Temple. Furthermore, with all the bloodshed on the Temple Mount down through the centuries, the Mount itself must be cleansed before the Temple can be built.
The problem is that finding an unblemished red heifer is extremely rare. In recent years, Temple activists have had their efforts end in frustration time and again.
Potential red heifer candidates have been located with great excitement, only to end up later developing white hairs or getting otherwise disqualified before they reach the required age to be sacrificed.
It was in this context that Byron Stinson, a Christian rancher from Texas, baffled Rabbis in 2022 as he invited them to his ranch to inspect what turned out to be five unblemished red heifers.
What happened next sounds almost like it was taken from a Hollywood movie script as the heifers were airlifted to Israel at around 1 year old (how do you even go about flying cows to the Holy Land?).
Being greeted at the airport with a special ceremony officiated by Rabbis, the heifers were then taken out of the public eye to continue being quietly and meticulously groomed for the sacrifice.
Although one of the five was disqualified last year due to the emergence of a few white hairs, the remaining four remain on track to be eligible to be sacrificed this year.
According to All Israel News, Temple Institute Rabbis hope to perform this ceremony prior to Passover this year while other sources claim it will happen sometime between Passover and Pentecost.
While the story of the flight of the five heifers to Israel and their subsequent journey has certainly stirred great excitement among Temple activists as well as Christian students of Bible Prophecy, it curiously hardly got a mention in mainstream Israeli news.
It will surprise many Christians to discover that by and large, secular Israelis are uninterested and unaware of these developments. In addition, many Orthodox Jews are opposed to the any current moves to rebuild the Temple as most hold that it can only be rebuilt by the Messiah in the Messianic era.
However, the radical Islamic world understands the significance of the arrival of the red heifers and are incensed by their presence. It was no co-incidence that Hamas called its infamous and deadly October 7 terror attack “Operation Al Aqsa Flood”.
Speaking at the 100 day mark of the current war with Israel, Abu Obeida, a military spokesman for Hamas, said that the aggression against “our path and Al-Aqsa” reached its peak with the “bringing of red cows.”
Hamas’ passionate calls for the ‘liberation’ of the Al Aqsa mosque from the Israeli threat, hits receptive ears in the Islamic world. Highlighting the broad level of Islamic concern for this site, the Organization of Islamic Co-Operation was founded in 1969 with the specific goal of protecting the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Today this influential organization boasts 56 member states and is the second largest intergovernmental organization in the world after the UN. (READ MORE)
