Jonathan Cahn and Muslim Authorities Have Prophetic Showdown at Temple Mount

You probably didn’t hear of it, but it could have caused an international incident, and it was a major sign of the times.

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn and over 400 other believers were thrown off the Temple Mount a week before Thanksgiving for a shocking reason: mentioning the word “temple.”

The Temple Mount is the center of Jerusalem, the center of Israel, the center of the world. It’s the center of the center of the center—biblically, historically, and prophetically. In the Bible, it was the site of God’s House, the place where His glory rested. In the kingdom of God, it will be the place of His throne, from where Messiah will reign.  

That, says Cahn, author of The Book of Mysteries and The Harbinger, makes it the center of warfare, the most contested ground on earth, physically and spiritually. In that context, the sudden eviction is not all that surprising.

“The Temple Mount is the most sacred site in the Bible and to Jewish people. But centuries after the destruction of the Temple, the Muslims invaded the land, took the Temple Mount, and built on it the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Among other things, these were acts of defiance, as if to say to the Jewish people, and believers in the Bible, there will never be a Temple again,” Cahn told me.

“Spiritually we know that the powers of darkness will always seek to stop and preempt the purposes of God. So it is written in Ezekiel that the enemy says to Israel, your high places are our possession,” he continued. “The highest of high places in Israel is the Temple Mount and it remains in the possession of Israel’s enemies.”  

Here’s a little history worth noting: When Israel won the Six Day War and regained Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, the decision was made to allow the Muslim authorities to retain control over the Temple Mount. Though Israel oversees the mount, its daily running was entrusted to the Muslims.

“The Temple Mount is so highly charged and so much the center of conflict, that more than once it has been the site from which international conflicts have begun,” Cahn says. “When Ariel Sharon visited the mount, it sparked an Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israel.  Another incident on the Temple Mount became the subject of United Nations Intervention in 2015, on Elul 29, the peak day of the Shemitah, another battle began on the Temple Mount.”

To go up on the Temple Mount is for most people a tense experience. The Muslim authorities typically reprimand visitors, warning them not to carry a Bible, not to pray, not even to hold hands. Charisma News has reported on believers being harassed there over the past year.

Cahn was going up to the Temple Mount with over 400 like-minded believers. 

“We made our way past the Dome of the Rock to the open area just to the north of it, by the Dome of the Spirits. There, our different groups gathered together. As I spoke, one of the Muslim authorities came in back of me, listening to my words. I spoke of how the Temple once stood on the mount but was destroyed by Roman armies in 70 A.D. on the Hebrew Ninth of Av,” Cahn said.

“I then shared how throughout Jewish history, calamity after calamity has taken place on that same day. It’s actually one of the mysteries from The Book of Mysteries. I then shared how the birth of America actually begins with the same ancient mystery and day. I then began to speak of the connection between the Temple Mount and Eden.  The Muslim authority pulled me aside—as hundreds looked on, some praying.

“Others of the Muslim authorities began to converge around me. They told me I had committed a major transgression:  I had spoken of the Temple on the Temple Mount! They said that the Temple Mount is a Muslim holy site. They deny that there was ever a Temple on the Temple Mount. Our Israeli tour guides, along with Joseph Farah of WND, now also converged. 

 “The situation now grew even more tense. It went on for several minutes. Then they told me and the group to leave the Temple Mount immediately. One of our guides informed me he could have called the Israeli authorities.  I decided it best to avoid causing an international incident. I went back to the group and told them that what was happening now was exactly what I had spoken of earlier, the warfare over the mount.

“So now hundreds of people were ejected from the mount through a side entrance that led us to the Pools of Bethesda where we reconvened and I shared with the group.  It was noteworthy, since the Pools of Bethesda happened to be the very next place we were scheduled to go to.  We initially weren’t sure that we had time for it, but since the Muslim authorities kicked us off the mount through that entrance, it took us through a shortcut to the very place we had hoped to go to in the first place.   So by kicking us off, the Muslim authorities actually escorted us to the next holy place and enabled us to fulfill the itinerary we would not have otherwise been able to fulfill.  A principle, in God, that applies not only to the Temple Mount and the itinerary of a pilgrimage, but to all of our lives – that which comes against the will of God, will, in the end, end up bringing it to pass.”

Word spread of the incident throughout the Muslim community. Contacts inside the Muslim community later informed Cahn and the believers with him that when the Muslim authorities saw a rabbi (Cahn) going up to the Temple Mount, and leading a group of others, they gave instructions to follow him and get something from his lips by which they could throw him and the others off the mount.

“The following day, we went up the Temple Mount by another way, the ancient Temple steps. When I reached the top, I turned around to the people below, put on the tallit, the prayer shawl, and gave the blessing of God, from Numbers 6, in Hebrew and English, the blessings my ancestors would have given from that same place,” Cahn said. “As I did, the onlookers could see Muslims looking out from the windows on the Temple Mount shouting down at us in anger. As I gave the blessing, loudspeakers began blasting Islamic chants in Arabic.  As it wasn’t the appointed time for the Islamic chants to be broadcast, any, including some of the Israeli tour guides, believed that the blasting of the Arabic chanting was done out the Hebrew blessing I was giving from the steps.  In either case, the sense of spiritual warfare was palpable.  The words of the Koran blasting through the loudspeakers on one hand, and the ancient Aaronic Blessing given by God in the Torah, on the other.   The blasting of the loudspeakers didn’t cause me to stop or pause in the giving of the blessing, but rather to proclaim it more strongly.  In the end, nothing stops the purposes or the blessings of God.”