Something significant is shifting on the Temple Mount.
In an interview with Charisma Media, CBN News correspondent Joshua Swanson described what he personally witnessed in Jerusalem: Orthodox Jews openly praying at one of the most spiritually and prophetically significant sites on earth.
“There has been a major shift,” Swanson said.
Not long ago, such a scene would have been almost unimaginable. Swanson recalled a time when a friend was arrested on the Temple Mount simply for raising his hands to pray. Visitors could not bring a Bible onto the site, and openly praying could result in removal.
However, things have started to change recently.
A few months ago, Swanson went onto the Temple Mount with Rabbi Yehuda Glick and a group of roughly 50 Orthodox Jews under police escort. There, near the area of the Golden, or Eastern, Gate, something remarkable happened.
“They laid prostrate and they prayed on the Temple Mount,” Swanson said. “That is earth-shattering.”
And Swanson believes something much bigger is taking place for the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, describing “definite momentum towards a house of prayer for all nations on that rock.”
For those of us watching Jerusalem and the prophetic clock, those words should grab our attention. However, something extraordinary is also happening beneath the City of David, where the stones themselves are crying out.
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Swanson recently walked the Pilgrimage Road, which connects the Pool of Siloam to the Temple Mount, the route Jewish pilgrims would have traveled during the Second Temple period.
“This would have been a road that Yeshua, that Jesus, would have walked on,” he said.
Archaeologists have uncovered remarkable artifacts throughout the area, including Second Temple-era coins and seals. Perhaps the most fascinating discovery Swanson witnessed is a small golden bell that archaeologist Eli Shukron found near the Pilgrimage Road, which fits the biblical description of priestly garments.
While researchers have not definitively said this particular bell once belonged to a priest, finding such an object near the Temple Mount provides yet another fascinating glimpse into the world described throughout Scripture.
And for Swanson, that is the point.
“This book that we study and these people in this book, they’re real,” he said. “Isaiah is real. King David is real. Yeshua, King Jesus, is real.”
These are not simply names printed on the pages of an ancient book. Archaeologists continue to dig up physical evidence connected to the people, places and world described in Scripture.
And that should make us pay attention to what the Bible says about what is still to come. The past is literally coming out of the ground while developments with enormous biblical significance continue to unfold above it. In fact, it points to one truth: everything we read about in the Bible is true.
As Swanson put it: “They’re not stories. They are historical facts in our Bible that are coming out of the ground here in Israel right now.”
The stones are crying out.
And perhaps the question for Christians isn’t whether Jerusalem deserves our attention, but whether we’re paying attention to what God may be showing us through it.
Abby Trivett is a writer and editor for Charisma Media and has a passion for sharing the gospel through the written word. She holds two degrees from Regent University, a B.A. in Communication with a concentration in Journalism and a Master of Arts in Journalism. She is the author of the newly released book, The Power of Suddenly: Discover How God Can Change Everything in a Moment. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected]. Learn more about Abby at abbytrivett.com.
