You cannot claim the mount on which the presence of God will reside. I'm talking about the Temple Mount. The first and second temples were there and evidence shows that. This is a mount on which not only the temple but the Holy of Holies, with the Ark of the Covenant, sat. On top of the Ark of the Covenant is The Mercy Seat. This is where our Lord Jesus Christ sits. Within the Holy of Holies dwells the Presence of God. We are talking about the literal, visible, Divine Presence of God on Earth. In this spot is where the fulfillment of God's Law takes place upon which all humanity rests and of which Christ fulfilled on Earth.

I don't care who you are, you cannot fight God and win. To me the idea of fighting God is preposterous. After all He knows all and is in all. This is His creation and we are just allowed to live upon it. After all, I love God. But Satan doesn't. Satan hates God and he hates love. Those are two things that Satan will definitely fight. We're not just talking about any fight either. We're talking about Satan stepping in and trying to steal God's Home on earth away from him. It's all written there in the Scriptures. The temple is God's home on Earth where the Ark of the Covenant dwells.

Are people beginning to get the idea? Jerusalem has had many earthquakes since those hit Turkey and Syria. Some of those damaged the mosque on the Temple Mount. The first damage from the disaster broke tiles that had upon them Anti-Christian and Anti-Jesus inscriptions. That in itself was a sign if there ever was one. Did people listen? Now it seems that rains have damaged the mosque even more. Apparently God is still trying to get someone's attention.

As we know God speaks through his creation. He speaks the disasters like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes and even storms. He speaks through the wind and the rain. Are we listening? He's been known to speak to the animals and the shrubbery as well. He speaks through the clouds. Are we listening?

This damage to the mosque on the Temple Mount is a definite sign from God and sometimes God uses the ones he is speaking to against their own selves. It seems that the Arabs might be doing some of the damage to the mosque themselves by illegal digging.

Now nature is damaging it. People, listen to God. This damage is in the prayer building. Don't you think that's significant? Sometimes you don't have another choice but to listen to God.

Rev. Lady Angelia W. Brown

Read the article below:

More damage reported at the Muslim structures on the Temple Mount

https://www.israel365news.com/366818/more-damage-reported-at-the-muslim-structures-on-the-temple-mount/

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

For the second time in one week, structural damage as reported at a Muslim structure on the Temple Mount. Though the damage seems minor and its cause is undetermined, the Muslim structures standing on Judaism’s holiest site have a long history of collapse due to the earthquakes that are common to the region.

Arab media is reporting that rain damage led to the collapse of sections of the floor inside the Aqsa Mosque’s Marwani prayer building on the Temple Mount. The damage took place on Thursday and the Arab officials blamed Israel:

“Sheikh Najeh Bakirat, deputy head of the Islamic Awqaf Administration in Occupied Jerusalem, warned that the Israeli occupation authority’s (IOA) refusal to allow the Islamic Awqaf to carry out renovations to the Aqsa Mosque’s prayer buildings and premises constitutes a great danger to its existence,” Qods International News Agency wrote.

The reference points described in the articles were a bit confusing as the Marwani Mosque and the al-Aqsa Mosque are separate locations. Al Aqsa, also known as the Qibli Mosque, is the prayer hall with a dark gray dome located at the southern end of the Temple Mount. The al-Marwani Mosque is a different location, constructed under the Temple Mount Plaza in an underground vaulted space referred to as Solomon’s stables. In December 1996 the Waqf carried out an illegal construction project using heavy equipment to remove approximately 9,000 tons (an estimated 350 truckloads) of archaeologically rich soil, dumping it in the Kidron Valley. The underground area was converted into a Muslim prayer hall.

While the term ‘al-Aqsa Mosque’ (the further mosque) refers to a specific structure, the Palestinian media have, in recent years, begun to use it to refer to the entire Temple Mount (al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf in Arabic). According to Dr. Mordechai Kedar, an expert Arabist, this is an intentional lie intended to allow the Palestinians to claim the entire Temple Mount. He suggested that the term will continue to be subverted with the intention of claiming the entire city of Jerusalem for Islam.

The Arabic media reports claimed the damage was in a structure near the “Al-Ghawanmeh Gate.” This gate, previously called the al-Khalil Gate, is located on the northwestern corner of the Temple Mount. As noted above, the Aqsa Mosque and the Marwani Mosque are located in the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount.

Akiva Ariel, a spokesman for the Temple Mount activist organization, Beyadenu, told Israel365 News that it is not uncommon for the Muslim structures on the Temple Mount to experience minor structural collapses.

“Underneath the mosque is a structure known as Al-Aqsa el-Qadima, or Baq’at el-Baida just close to the Southern wall of the Temple Mount,” Ariel said. Just a few months ago, the Waqf was angry that rocks were falling in the underground al-Aqsa.”

“The Waqf is blaming Israel but as we saw in the case of the Marwani, the Waqf carries out illegal and unsupervised digging and construction. Jews are restricted and are not allowed near the buildings. We certainly do not dig. But the Arabs are known to do illegal digging. Not only is the Temple Mount archaeologically significant, but it is honeycombed with tunnels that were used in the Temples. It is dangerous to dig there.”

“Two years ago, a Palestinian truck was on the Temple Mount and broke through the plaza, revealing a previously unknown tunnel right near al-Aqsa,” Ariel said.

Last week, Israel365 News reported that tiles were falling off the western facade of the Dome of the Rock located on the Temple Mount. In fact, Israel has recently experienced a number of earthquakes, and the Muslim structures on the Temple Mount have a history of collapsing in the wake of the earthquakes.

Constructed in 692 CE by the Umayyad Caliphate on the orders of Abd al-Malik on the site of the Jewish Temple, the Dome of the Rock is the oldest Muslim structure in existence. The building was severely damaged by earthquakes in 808 and again in 846. The dome collapsed in an earthquake in 1015 and was rebuilt in 1022–23. The mosaics on the drum were repaired in 1027–28. The earthquake of 1033 resulted in the introduction of wooden beams to enforce the dome. Parts of the Dome of the Rock collapsed during the 11 July 1927 earthquake, and the walls were left badly cracked.

Al Aqsa has also suffered from natural catastrophes. Shortly after it was built, it was destroyed in an earthquake in 746 CE. The mosque was rebuilt in 758 CE but was damaged in another earthquake. It was again destroyed during the 1033 Jordan Rift Valley earthquake. Severe damage was caused by the 1837 and 1927 earthquakes, but the mosque was repaired in 1938 and 1942.

Earthquakes in 2004 opened cracks in the walls of the Dome of the Rock and the Marwani Mosque. The Waqf refused to allow Israeli experts to aid in the repairs. Eilat Mazar, a noted archeologist and activist on the Committee for Preventing the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, conjectured that a major disaster at the site was imminent.

“It is falling apart,” Mazar said to Globe-News. “It is just a matter of time until some big section of the inside of the compound will fall in — from [the weight of] tens of thousands of Muslims, from trucks, from the next earthquake. . . . It is pure stupidity to think if we do nothing that nothing will happen.”

The wooden bridge connecting the Western Wall Plaza with the Mughrabi Gate is the only access to the site for non-Muslims. Built in 2007, it was intended as a temporary replacement for an ancient stone and earth ramp that collapsed in 2004. Due to complaints by the Waqf, the wooden bridge was never replaced. Last year, a structural engineer wrote an official letter to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation after finding “extreme dryness” and “many longitudinal cracks,” warning that the bridge was in danger of collapse.

A tragedy of a different sort struck on 20 July 1951 when Jordanian King Abdullah I was shot three times by a Palestinian gunman as he entered the mosque, killing him. Judea and Samaria and the eastern half of Jerusalem were, at the time, occupied by Jordan. His grandson Prince Hussein was at his side and was also hit, though a medal he was wearing on his chest deflected the bullet.

Earthquakes in Jerusalem: Geological Insights From the Bible

https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/earthquakes-in-jerusalem-whens-the-next-big-one/

From biblical references to modern-day monitoring, earthquakes have left their mark on Jerusalem for centuries. A top Israeli expert surveys the history of Holy Land tremors and tells us what we can expect today.

By Prof. Amotz Agnon

Jerusalem earthquakes have left written marks long before the recording of detailed history, with the first one in the mid-8th century BC. This earthquake hit Jerusalem during the reign of King Uzziah and earned several references in the Bible. One particular reference (to be reviewed below) is by the prophet Zechariah, whose words convey a surprising geological insight. Some documented earthquakes merely created panic to such an extent as to be recorded, some toppled houses, and a few devastated massive edifices accompanied by heavy death tolls.

Tremblers in the Holy City

A score of documented earthquakes have hit Jerusalem during the last couple millennia. The latest serious earthquake, the Jericho earthquake, devastated numerous houses in in the city on July 11, 1927. Almost four centuries earlier, an earthquake of similar magnitude shook Jerusalem’s defensive walls five years after having been rebuilt by order of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

Hundreds of earthquakes every year

Earthquakes are routinely monitored in Israel, hundreds of which occur annually, mostly below the detection limit of human senses. Dozens of earthquakes can be felt every year, and include those with an epicenter in the East Mediterranean, which occur due to a plummeting of the submarine plate under Anatolia (the Cypriot Arc) and under the Aegean (the Hellenic Arc). The rest are mostly from the Red Sea and the fracture branching northward, namely the Dead Sea Fault. This fault together with the Red Sea was referred to as the Syrian-African Rift until the advent of the theory of Plate Tectonics, some six decades ago.

Israel is an earthquake zone

Minor shocks are felt around the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) nearly every year, and are recorded by the instruments of the Geological Survey of Israel. Two earlier and larger bursts of activity were felt and recorded in the Kinneret during the last decade. This minor activity serves to remind us that Israel is an earthquake zone.

Even so, tectonic activity in this earthquake zone is moderate relative to countries straddling faster moving faults (such as New Zealand, California, Turkey) and those positioned above plunging plates (such as Chile, Japan, Greece). Local building codes include provisions for earthquake hazard, though these are not always updated as fast as our scientific knowledge grows.

Explaining Israel’s fault lines

The Dead Sea fault is where the Arabian Plate, moving northward at a speed of a few centimeters per year, meets the Levant/Sinai Block that moves at a slower speed. The difference in speed as measured with GPS is half a centimeter per year. So a station in Amman, Jordan moves about half a centimeter faster than one positioned in Jerusalem. This is sufficient to load the system with elastic energy to be periodically released with devastating earthquakes.

The main strand of the southern Dead Sea fault comprises the Gulf of Aqaba, the Arava Valley (Wadi Araba) and the Jordan Valley (including the basins hosting the Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee and the Hula lakes).

The prophet Zechariah (14:4, 5) warned that God would set His feet east of Jerusalem, on a mountain that would split in two, with the eastern half moving north and the western moving south. This type of motion, prophesied to clog the streams, conforms to the plate slip across the Dead Sea fault that modern geology uncovered; the geological insight has been subsequently corroborated by GPS measurements, seismological analysis, and the novel sub-disciplines of paleoseismology and archaeoseismology.

The prophet further compared the geomorphological changes with those during the mid-8th century earthquake, two centuries before his time. Some scholars have suggested that only an earthquake of magnitude circa 8 could cause geomorphological changes that humans could detect and discern from them the relative motion of mountains.

A secondary branch of the Dead Sea fault splays off from the Jordan Valley to Haifa Bay. This fault, known under a variety of names (Carmel, Yagur, Fari’a/Glibo’a, Tirza), accommodates the relative motion of two adjacent sub-blocks: Jezreel Valley, Galilee and southern Lebanon versus the rest of the Levant/Sinai Block, slipping to the south-east at a speed of 0.1 centimeters per year. While this speed is lower than the speed across the main strand (by a factor of 4-5), the risk posed by the Carmel fault is perhaps higher: the fault runs through the heavily populated and industrialized Haifa Bay, where the population of the port city of Haifa exceeds a million people.

An earthquake of magnitude 5.3 shook Haifa on August 24, 1984, with an epicenter about 20 km south-east of the city, rupturing a buried strand of the fault.

The Carmel fault generated a large and devastating earthquake in 363 CE, a year of political and religious turmoil in the Roman Empire. Julian the Apostate tried to return the empire to paganism, four decades after Justin had established Christianity as the empire’s religion. Julian allegedly allowed the Jews to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, a city they had been prohibited to enter for the previous three centuries. A most detailed letter ascribed to the Bishop of Jerusalem reported widespread damage across the country. Inspection of the damaged area (augmented by archaeological excavations) reveals two separate regions of devastation: one cut by the Carmel fault, and one by the southern Arava/Araba Valley. This suggests that two separate earthquakes were amalgamated into one in the Bishop’s report.

Recent geological excavations in the Wadi Araba fault, the southern on-land segment of the Dead Sea fault, confirmed the southern rupture to be limited to the southern Arava. Hence the Carmel fault is the culprit for the widespread devastation in the north, an area incidentally limited to the western side of the Dead Sea fault. The scarcity of damage reports and ruins east of the fault, in a then-populated province, rules out the Jordan Valley segment as the causative fault. Serious damage from the 363 CE earthquake reached south as far as Ashkelon (a hundred kilometers away) covering all central Israel, and north to the Galilee.

Israel’s biggest earthquake to date

Dating of damage at cave deposits has revealed signs of prehistorical earthquakes, likely stronger than all the historical ones in Israel and its environs, with magnitudes extending to 8. This is similar in size to the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Maximum magnitude estimates for the largest historic earthquakes range between 7.5 and 7.8.

In 1995, a magnitude 7.2 that ruptured in the Gulf of Aqaba was felt in most of Israel and caused minor damage in Eilat (the southernmost city of Israel), some 80 km north of the epicenter. By comparison, the 1927 Jericho earthquake mentioned above reached a magnitude of 6.2 and shook much of the Holy Land.

The next ‘Big One’

Scientists do not have an accepted method for predicting the time of a big event, but some considerations allow for educated guesses. I will take you now on a brief tour of what science has learned in the last three decades owing to the fantastic opportunities offered by the Dead Sea and the uniquely long and detailed human history and archaeology of its surroundings.

A team led by Israeli scientists has established the connection between ground shaking and disruption of lake-bed sediments in the Dead Sea Basin. Here some sediments appear as alternating dark-white millimeter-thick beds (aka laminas). During droughts the brine precipitates thick sequences of rock salt. During humid periods, torrents in the rainy seasons send dark mud into the lake, whereas summer evaporation causes precipitation of lime. Hence each pair of laminas represent a year in the history of the lake, and lamina-pairs are considered annual pages in the book recording the environmental history of the country.

Key proxies to climate changes include the percentages of chemically-precipitated lime and rock-salt during intervals represented by any sedimentary accumulation in the Dead Sea. These proxies are coupled with surveys of dated fossil shorelines enabling a rather detailed history of lake level elevation. This elevation history correlates with the history of earthquakes in a somewhat surprising manner.

Strong ground-shaking events obliterate the alternating laminas of dark mud and white lime, but at the same time they add invaluable information on the timing and extent of earthquake damage. Sub-meter-scale chaotic layers that preserve folded lamina sequences and torn laminas have been found juxtaposed to lake-bottom faults, and elsewhere their isotopic dates were correlated with historical earthquakes. One of the key findings of this study (that started almost three decades ago) is that earthquakes come in clusters, which challenges simplistic predictions.

Clusters have been known for earthquakes around the world for some time. The unique finding in the Dead Sea record is that such clusters may last tens of millennia. A recent publication by an international team analyzed a 460-meter-long core pulled from the bottom of the lake (under 300 meters of hypersaline water) and established an irregular and clustered behavior over 220 millennia. A possible key to clustering may lie in the complex interactions between rocks and fluids contained in their pores. Considerations of such pore fluids and the pressure they sustain brings us to consider the ever-changing levels of the lake that has been filling the Dead Sea Basin.

Comparing histories of lake-levels and earthquakes tests the correlation between these phenomena. Correlation between elevations of lake levels and recurrence intervals of earthquakes are to be expected both on an empirical basis and from mechanical considerations. The empirical aspect arises from over half a century of observations on artificial reservoirs. Shortly after the damming of many reservoirs in previously quiescent regions across the world, alarming earthquake activity has been reported, with some potentially damaging earthquakes (with a magnitude 6.4 in India being the largest). The mechanical aspect is based on the universal observation that rock strength diminishes as a linear function of the pressure sustained by pore fluids. The aquifer underneath the lake, often fractured in relevant regions, may respond quickly to lake-level changes: the strength of rocks diminishes with the rising of the water level. It follows that earthquake recurrence intervals should diminish with lake-level elevation. A recent study of an Israeli team working on the environmental history of the Dead Sea has confirmed such a correlation for levels and earthquakes during the last two millennia.

Assuming that the uncertainties in the historical observations obey certain statistical patterns, the pore-pressure model predicts that, at its current low lake-level, two centuries should pass until the next destructive earthquake will erupt beneath the Dead Sea Basin. However, we should not disregard the hazard to Jerusalem and its environs. Regardless of lake elevation, large earthquakes might nucleate on the Jordan and Arava (Wadi Araba) fault segments, adjacent to the Dead Sea, and propagate into it. Such a scenario cannot be ruled out by the pore-pressure model from the present data set.

Professor Amotz Agnon teaches geology and geophysics at the Fredy and Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he co-founded Neev’s Center for Geoinfomatics.

The Bible says that when Jesus returns that His feet will touch the Mount of Olives and it will split in two. There's a fault line running through the Mount of Olives and makes this a great visual that the Bible is true. I have heard reports that the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria were on the same fault line as the one running through the Mount of Olives but I can't confirm that.

Rev. Lady Angelia W. Brown

Israel Braces for Major Earthquake as Leaders Sound Alarm

https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/a-great-danger-is-knocking-at-our-door/

“A great danger is knocking at our door. The State of Israel doesn’t know how to handle an earthquake and the number of casualties will be insane.”

By Israel Today Staff

The devastating earthquake that has ravaged Turkey and Syria grabbed the attention of Israel’s leaders.

Everyone knows, or at least assumes, that one day Israel will be hit by another massive earthquake of the kind that has laid waste to the Holy Land in centuries past. But with so many other concerns and dangers, focus on the earthquake threat quickly fades.

“It gives us a reminder of the enormous danger knocking on our door. In my opinion this is not given enough attention,” said Shuki Ohana, mayor of the northern town of Tsefat (Safed), after two tremors measuring 3.7 and 3.5 respectively on the Richter scale hit last year.

Those were relatively minor earthquakes. But Israel sits on one of the longest and most volatile continental rifts in the world. There is consensus among experts that a “big one” is coming.

According to Mayor Jacky Levy, when that big one does come, his town of Beit Shean, which sits right in that rift valley, is going to face catastrophe. Government assessments presented by Levy to Army Radio speak of at least 10,000 dead, which is half of Beit Shean’s population.

“Everyone knows that there is going to be an earthquake but no one is doing anything,” Levy warned. “The State of Israel doesn’t know how to handle an earthquake and the number of casualties will be insane.”

Levy and others have been lobbying for years for an increased budget to reinforce sub-standard buildings, many of them residential, across the country. But with the Corona pandemic further stretching Israel’s state budget, it’s an uphill battle, to say the least.

Don’t wait until it’s too late

Israel’s Knesset will hold a top-level ministerial meeting next week to assess the nation’s preparedness for a major earthquake.

Meanwhile, State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman has urged authorities, both national and local, to take action now before it’s too late.

“Instead of waiting for a commission of inquiry after a disaster, the government should act on pre-disaster preparedness,” Englman said following the earthquake in Turkey.

While Israel’s Homefront Command routinely trains for major man-made and natural disasters, many of the buildings in Israel are as likely to collapse as those seen tumbling in Turkey this week. In the early years of the state, building codes regarding earthquakes were not up to modern standards, and many of those buildings are still standing. In more recent decades, local contractors have not always adhered to up-to-date building codes.

The bottom line, according to Englman, is that in Israel there are about 600,000 buildings, residential and commercial, that do not meet the standard for earthquake resistance. The result, if a major earthquake hits here, will be an estimated 7,000 dead and 160,000 homeless Israelis.

Third Temple Preparations Are in Full Swing

https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/the-third-temple/

Somewhat under the radar, a group of religious Jews have been eagerly preparing for the day a Third Temple will stand in Jerusalem.

By Aviel Schneider

During Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, Jewish priests (kohenim) and Levites wearing white robes draw water from the Pool of Siloam in order to perform the traditional “Pouring of the Water” (Nissuch HaMayim). This is a biblical ceremony according to which water is drawn in silver vessels from the pool on the eastern slope below the Western Wall, and is then poured out on an altar especially erected for this purpose.

The ceremony that accompanies this water libation is called Simchat Beit HaShoeva, rejoicing at the place of the drawing of water. This water is called, according to Isaiah 12:3, Waters of Salvation:

“You will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation.”

The kings of the House of David were anointed at this source.

Jesus was also familiar with this water-drawing ceremony (John 7:37).

“Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.”’”

Jesus was thereby proclaiming that he is the long-awaited redeemer and Messiah. Jesus also healed the blind man at this pool (John 9).

The traditional Pouring of the Water at Sukkot is always the most joyful ceremony, as the Bible speaks of the Feast of Tabernacles as the most joyous of all the feasts. By comparison, joyfulness is not mentioned in connection with Pessach (Passover), and only once in connection to Shavuot (Pentecost).

“And you shall rejoice before your God.” (Leviticus 23:40)

“And you shall rejoice in your feast.” (Deuteronomy 16:14)

“So that you shall be altogether joyful.” (Deuteronomy 16:15)

This joy was both noticeable and tangible during the last week of September in Jerusalem.

The Temple Institute sees its role as being to build a house to contain the presence of God, in other words a Third Temple, on Mount Moriah. In order to do so they need education, research, activism and preparation. Awareness regarding the Temple has to be rekindled, and the laws regulating its operation must be retaught. “We hope to thereby make our contribution to the process which will lead to the holy Temple becoming a reality once again,” Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, founder of the Temple Institute, commented.

One of the main tasks is the manufacturing, faithful down to the last detail, of all the equipment necessary for Temple service. The Temple Institute already houses the three most important items for the new Temple, which have been produced precisely in accordance with the biblical specifications: the golden altar of incense, showbread table and the Temple menorah made of 24-carat gold.

I think it's a sign of things to come concerning the end times.

https://m.jpost.com/opinion/article-729175