Standing on the Mount of Olives today overlooking the Old City wall I am amazed to gaze upon the Eastern gate which is currently blocked according to prophecy. I was determined to dig further for the why and when the gate was blocked.
When Christ returns His feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives, on the very place from which He ascended, and thus fulfill a prophecy made almost 2,000 years by two angels on the Mount of Olives: He will enter Jerusalem through this exact Eastern Gate I am actually looking at! In so doing, He will fulfill not only the prophecy of these two angels, but innumerable prophecies recorded by God’s prophets.
The fact that the Lord Jesus Christ will once again walk through that Eastern Gate is confirmed in
Ezekiel 44:1-2
Then the man brought me back to the east gateway in the outer wall of the Temple area, but it was closed. And the Lord said to me, “This gate must remain closed; it will never again be opened. No one will ever open it and pass through, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered here. Therefore, it must always remain shut”
Not only does this passage confirm certain details of the Lord’s Glorious Appearing, but it offers substantial evidence to the unbeliever that the Bible is the Word of God.
Why? Because Ezekiel 44 demonstrates the astounding accuracy of Bible prophecy, providing evidence that can be verified firsthand by anyone who doubts.
Over 2,600 years ago, the Lord declared the Eastern Gate would be shut and would remain closed until the Messiah arrived to open it. For hundreds of years, the Eastern Gate had offered convenient, unfettered access to the Temple courtyard. Yet, for almost five hundred years now, it’s been closed. I believe it could be in this generation, the Messiah will open it.
The Eastern Gate is one of eight gates built into the walls which surround the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Eastern Gate provides the only entrance from the East, and it faces the Mount of Olives.
The Eastern Gate was destroyed during the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, and the subsequent destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, thus fulfilling Christ’s prophecy that “not one stone will be left on top of another” Matthew 24:2. Prior to this, the Eastern Gate had never been sealed.
Sometime in the sixth century, the Byzantines rebuilt that Eastern Gate. However, for our purposes, what happened after it was rebuilt is of much greater importance. In the year 1541, the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I sealed the Eastern Gate learning of the prophecies which predicted the Messiah’s entrance through the Eastern Gate. The Sultan tried his best to make sure that wouldn’t happen during his reign. And just in case a sealed entrance didn’t thwart the Messiah’s coming, the Muslim Sultan built a cemetery directly in front of the gate – conventional wisdom being that a Jewish Holy man would never defile himself by walking through a Muslim cemetery. That cemetery still remains to this very day right in front of the closed Eastern gate.
It’s been over 475 years since Sultan Suleiman sealed the Eastern Gate, and despite numerous well-documented attempts to open it, the gate has remained sealed just as the Lord proclaimed to Ezekiel over 2,600 years ago.
The fact that the Eastern Gate remains closed to this day is God’s testimony to doubters throughout the world. How amazing is that!
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