The infamous 9th of Av will fall on August 4-5, a week from today.  Menachem Av is the 5th month on the Jewish calendar. Why is this significant?

• After Moses sent 12 spies into the land of Canaan, the spies return on the eighth day of Av and report that the land is unconquerable. That night, the 9th of Av, the people cry. They did not believe that God could help them, and the people as a whole were persuaded that it was not possible to take the land. As a result, the entire nation was made to wander in the desert for 40 years Numbers 13, 14.
• The First Temple was destroyed on the 9th of Av (423 BCE).
• The second Temple was destroyed on the 9th of Av (68 CE).
• Betar, the last stronghold in the heroic Bar Kochba rebellion, fell to the Romans on the 9th of Av of the year 3893 (133 CE) after a three-year siege. 580,000 Jews died by starvation or the sword, including Bar Kochba, the leader of the rebellion.
• The Jews of England were expelled by King Edward I on the 9th of Av in 1290.
• The Jews of Spain were expelled by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on the 9th of Av of 1492, terminating many centuries of flourishing Jewish life in that country.
• World War II and the Holocaust, historians conclude, was actually the long drawn-out conclusion of World War I that began in 1914. Germany declared war on Russia, effectively catapulting the First World War into motion, on the 9th of Av.

Clearly the 9th of Av historically has been a day of judgment against Israel. Will something of significance happen this year? Israel does not currently have a temple but there is some new significant movement in this area with the recent statement of finding a perfect Red Heifer and now a campaign to complete architectural plans for the Temple.

The Temple Institute launches an Indiegogo campaign to build the Third Temple, under the title: ‘Don’t make history, make the future.’

“Now is time for one of its most ambitious projects yet: completing architectural plans for the actual construction……

“It is not enough to wait and pray for the Third Temple,” it concludes. “It is a Biblical obligation to build it.”

The Temple Institute’s campaign will run for sixty days, ending on September 25 – during the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashana.

The campaign aims to raise $100,000 toward a building fund for the Third Temple, as part of its wider campaigns to train kohen-priests for Temple duties and rebuild the instruments in the priestly services.

https://www.templeinstitute.org/archive/28-07-14a.htm

Building the temple, says the Indiegogo campaign statement, would “usher in a new era of universal harmony and peace,” as prophesied in the Bible.

As Christians know and understand, the building of the third temple will usher in the 7 year Tribulation.

¹⁵ When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)……….

²¹ For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Mattthew 24:15-21