part0018

Joyful excitement abounds among some today over prospects for the rebuilding of a Jewish Temple. This variety of excitement, however, displays a profound lack of understanding about what God’s Word has to say about the Third Temple that will certainly, without a shadow of doubt, be constructed atop Mount Moriah. And, as I said at the start of this book, I predict US President Donald Trump will, as the rabbis in Israel hold, soon speak in favor of its construction. This will be the single most important and prophetic event in our lifetime! And when it happens, those who find great joy in the Temple’s recreation will shortly thereafter experience exuberance turning to terror. From that Temple will flow the very source of all the hatred that has existed since the third part of the angelic throng rebelled in Heaven.

Its construction and establishment as the first Temple Mount place of worship for the Jews since the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70 will indeed produce elation. It will be the answer to the desire most religious Jews have clung to down through the centuries.

When the announcement allowing that Temple construction is made, there will be celebrations like nothing that has been seen in the streets of Jerusalem since the time of King David. Not only the Jews, but most people around the globe who are aware of matters involved in the peace agreement, will be ecstatic. Cessation of hostilities will at last have come to this one place on Earth where World War III could have broken out at any moment.

Diplomats of the international community, of the United Nations and all other such august geopolitical bodies, will congratulate themselves for such a master stroke of genius, guaranteeing the peace of the Middle East, and of the world. And, it will, indeed, be a genius at the heart of confirming such a brilliant covenant, as that coming document will appear to be.

As has been pointed out several times before in this book, everything is already in preparation for the moment the Temple is built and the Temple worship is again established. The priests and their attire, all the vessels, and other items of Temple activity are in place. The sacrifices and oblations will begin in earnest. The sons and daughters of Abraham will have returned to the most holy place of their Mosaic system. No longer will it be: “Next year in Jerusalem!”

It is easy to imagine that even the totally secular, that is, the non-religious Jewish populations of the world, will feel their Jewishness. They will feel victorious as they sense their biological ties to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob surging within.

They have been outcasts throughout the millennia. They have been hated, hunted, and hounded in practically every nation into which they have been scattered. Now…now…they can cry with a loud voice as one, “Peace and safety at last!”

All who have hated, hunted, and hounded them will now be governed by a personage like no other in memory. His sense of fairness and his passionate and compassionate championing of the Jewish race that has been so persecuted throughout the centuries will no doubt bring tears of love and adulation for the leader who has stepped forth from the nations to set all things right to give them a respectful place among their fellow man.

His preternatural ability to convince Israel’s most hate-filled antagonists to allow the Jews to establish their Temple upon its holy place where the Ark of the Covenant once sat will move many within Judaism to declare him their long-awaited Messiah. This leader of unprecedented abilities will appear to have answers to not only the problems of the Jews, but to all the world’s problems.

Those who hold to the literalist view of end-time matters believe there is first coming a an event that will bring the world into chaos, anarchy, and great trouble—socially, geopolitically, economically, and religiously. When it occurs, normal life will be turned upside down. People will clamor for a savior—one who will make things right. But, they will not seek the true Savior. They will look to the one the apostle John called “Antichrist.”

This man who will seem to have the answers to the great dilemmas of mankind will step onto the stage of human history for his prophesied destiny as earth’s last and most terrible despot. He will be the man of the hour ready to step forward and take control.

At first, Antichrist will seem to restore sensibility to a world gone mad. He will start the process that appears to bring world peace through the covenant that Israel will accept. That covenant will almost certainly include the guarantee of Israel’s security and will allow the building of the Third Temple on Mount Moriah.

This will happen because Antichrist’s irresistible presence will be the result of an invisible network of thousands of years of collective knowledge. He will be the embodiment of a very old, super-intelligent spirit. As Jesus Christ was the “seed of the woman” (Genesis 3:15), this man will be the “seed of the serpent.” Moreover, though his arrival in the form of a man is foretold by numerous Scriptures, the broad masses will not immediately recognize him for what he actually is—paganism’s ultimate incarnation: the “beast” of Revelation 13:1.

It’s been assumed for centuries that a prerequisite for the coming of Antichrist would be a disturbance in the world order—such as we’ve witnessed with the election of Donald Trump—following which national boundaries would dissolve and ethnic groups, ideologies, religions, and economics from around the world would grow to orchestrate a single and dominant sovereignty. At the head of the utopian administration, a single personality will surface. He will appear to be a man of distinguished character, but will ultimately become “a king of fierce countenance” (Daniel 8:23). With imperious decree, he will facilitate a one-world government, universal religion, and global socialism. Those who refuse his New World Order will inevitably be imprisoned or destroyed until at last he exalts himself “above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

The question arises for those unfamiliar with the subject of the building of the Third Temple, the one that Antichrist will be instrumental in getting built: Where in the Bible do we find the fact that the Temple will be built? On top of that, where in the Bible do we read where that Temple will be placed?

The prophet had his mind, heart, and prayers, directed toward the one place on Earth considered the Most Holy: the Temple Mount, Mount Moriah. Daniel prayed that God would restore that place of worship to his people, the the Jews. The dumbfounded prophet could barely take in the breathtaking words of the angel:

Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. (Daniel 9:24–27)

Gabriel laid out the entire plan from the time the prophet sat praying toward Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. The angel said everything was set to put an end to the miserable mess Satan had made of his creation and man’s part in the rebellion against the Lord.

Gabriel’s message from the Lord jumped forward quickly, telling that the city—Jerusalem—and the sanctuary—the Temple on Moriah—would be destroyed. This, of course, happened in AD 70 when the Roman legion did just as the prophecy foretold.

There was no Temple at the time Daniel sat dumbfounded before Gabriel as he took in the prophecy, but obviously one would be built.. But, that one yet to be built would be destroyed—again—in AD 70 by General Titus and the Roman soldiers, as covered earlier.

Gabriel indicated that the people who would destroy the city and sanctuary (the Romans, as it turned out) would produce the “prince that shall come” who would at some point “confirm the covenant with many.” Then the rest of human history leading up to the end of the age would gush upon the world like a flood.

This whole prophetic process would encompass seventy prophetic weeks, which adds up to 490 prophetic years. The Messiah being “cut off”—crucified—happened at the sixty-ninth prophetic week mark. The last of the seventy weeks won’t begin until the “prince that shall come” “confirms the covenant with many.” This is when Antichrist assures the peace and safety of the Jewish people. [128]

Jesus plainly prophesied that the “desolation of abomination” was spoken of by “Daniel the prophet.” This would be the “prince that will come” Daniel was told about by Gabriel. This “abomination of desolation”—Antichrist, according to the apostle John (1 John 2:18)—will declare himself to be God while standing in the “holy place.”

Jesus and Daniel tell us that the worse time of human history will unfold from this point. The time when Antichrist stands in the “holy place,” the Temple atop Moriah, will be especially bad for the Jewish people, whom Jesus warns to flee into the mountains. They are not to even gather clothing. “Just go” is the command.

Antichrist will begin his reign of absolute terror in the middle of Daniel’s seventieth prophetic week, according to Jesus. Three and one-half years into the Tribulation, this abomination of a man will declare himself to be God, demand worship, and immediately begin genocide against the Jewish people worse than anything Hitler, Himmler, and Goering could have imagined. As mentioned throughout this book, Jeremiah the prophet called this period “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” More about that prophecy later.

Daniel calls him “the prince that shall come.” Jesus calls him “the abomination of desolation.” Paul calls him “the son of perdition [Apollo (see the must-watch new documentary “Belly of the Beast” for the chilling truth around this)].” Regardless of the names by which he is called, he will sit in the Third Temple—the Tribulation Temple—and declare himself to be God. He will demand that all on earth worship him. He will have a hatred for the Jewish people that is directly from the mind of Lucifer the fallen one —Satan.

This, of course, describes how the non-Jewish people will move about the outside of the Temple while Jews worship within. The reference to forty-two months has to be the first three and one-half years of Daniel’s seventieth week—the seven-year Tribulation period. This means, it is very likely that the Tribulation Temple will be standing atop Mount Moriah almost at the very beginning of this last seven years before Christ’s Second Advent.

The Jews are worshiping, according to John’s description, in a rebuilt Temple until the halfway mark of the seven years, and then Antichrist desecrates the Temple and declares himself to be god. He then begins slaughtering every Jewish person he can lay hands on. So, this reference is to the first half of the seventieth week described by Daniel.

The point is that this is yet another proof that a Temple—the Third Temple— will stand on top of the Temple Mount at some point. It will be, again, a Temple, not of joy, but for carrying out Antichrist’s genocide against the house of Israel. It will be set up to carry out the time of Jacob’s trouble.

For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord , that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord : and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.

And these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the Lord ; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. (Jeremiah 30:3–7)

Just as Jesus in the Olivet Discourse likened the Tribulation to a woman about to give birth, Jeremiah also likens all of Israel under Antichrist’s evil persecution to a woman in labor pain. The end-times scenario above is one that many early Church Fathers agreed with. The late Grant Jeffrey once noted:

Lactantius wrote about a rebuilt Temple that would stand in the last days prior to Christ’s return. In his book The Divine Institutes , he described the seven-year Tribulation period and the persecution that will be brought about by the Antichrist: “Then he will attempt to destroy the temple of God and persecute the righteous people; and there will be distress and tribulation, such as there never has been from the beginning of the world.”

Another early church theologian, Victorinus, also wrote about the Third Temple. His Commentary on the Apocalypse explored the prophecies found in the book of Revelation. Victorinus wrote about the False Prophet, the partner of the coming Antichrist, saying the False Prophet will place an image, or statue, of the Antichrist in the rebuilt Temple.…”

One of the greatest of the early church writers, Irenaeus, taught that the new Temple would be a genuine Temple built by the religious Jews…and in his book Against Heresies [he] affirmed his understanding of the Scripture’s prophecies about animal sacrifice being reinstated in the future Temple. [129]

The last seven words of this Tribulation prophecy in Jeremiah constitute God’s bottom line in dealing with His chosen people. They are wonderful words promising a magnificent future for all of believing Israel: “he shall be saved out of it.”

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)

The building of the Third Temple is out there in the hazy future of things to come. While the student of Bible prophecy cannot say for sure at this point exactly when that edifice will be built, knowing how Bible prophecy is scheduled to unfold provides an idea of how close the building of that Temple—and all other prophecies scheduled—might be to coming to pass.

The nations of earth will be in chaos. The turmoil will cause severe ramifications while governments seek to restore civil order and regain governmental and economic equilibrium. According to prophecy, one man will step forward to proffer a plan to quell the fears of war in the Middle East (Daniel 9:27). This prophecy correlates to Revelation 6:2, with the rider on the white horse coming forth.

The great world leader will arrive just in time to look like the shining knight on the white horse. He will have the answer to the looming all-out war in the Middle East. He will be able to sell a seven-year peace plan that is already available, apparently. Israel will agree to the covenant, as will her enemies, and, in effect, the whole world will accept the (European?) leader’s masterful sales pitch. But Israel’s acceptance will fly in the face of God. This “covenant made with death and Hell,” as it is called in Isaiah 28 will cause God’s judgmental wrath to begin to fall.

The Gog-Magog attack prophesied by Ezekiel is controversial, as far as where it will fit into the end-times timeline is concerned. Some have the event just before or in conjunction with a Rapture, while others believe it will happen right after a Rapture or nearer the mid point of the Tribulation period. Russia is destined to present some of the most fearsome trials and tribulations for Israel. Gog, “chief prince of Rosh,” is the leader of Russia described in Ezekiel 38 and 39. In ancient language, Gog means “leader.” “Rosh” is the ancient name for the land of Russia. In the last days, Russia will be the leading nation of the Gog-Magog coalition of nations that will make a move against Israel and be defeated by a supernatural act of God. Persia (Iran) comes right along beside Russia, in prophetic parlance. According to Ezekiel 38:5, Iran will aid Russia in attacking Israel before or during the Tribulation. Even now, Iran acts as a destabilizing force in the world.

The Lord will not allow the dark, satanic realm to go unchallenged. He will seal (protect from Satan and his minions) 144,000 Jewish men with the gospel message of Jesus Christ, the only way to salvation, redemption, and reconciliation to God, the Father. (Read Revelation 7:3–8.) These will proclaim that message throughout the world, and millions upon millions of people will hear it and become Christians of the Tribulation period.

Two Jewish men will be placed during this period to preach the gospel and to point the finger of judgment if repentance doesn’t occur. No one knows for sure who these men will be, but there seems good evidence that at least one of them will be Elijah, the Old Testament prophet whom God took up from earth in a fiery whirlwind. The satanic governmental regime will seek to kill these men, but won’t be able to until God allows. Anyone who tries to kill them will, in like manner, be killed. Finally, the regime will be able to kill them. Their dead bodies will lie in the streets of Jerusalem for three days, then they will be resurrected to life and will lift into the sky before the astonished eyes of their murderers and of the whole world.

The great world leader who confirmed the seven-year peace covenant, convincing Israel and its enemies to rely on him and his regime to keep the peace, will be struck with a deadly head wound. But he will be “resurrected” from death (see Revelation 13). The astonishing new documentary film, Belly of the Beast, reveals when and where this event will take place, and even points to the exact (shocking) location where the “raising” ceremony will unfold! This revived man of sin will, following this, suddenly appear in the new Jewish temple atop Mount Moriah at Jerusalem and declare himself to be God. He will demand worship from all the world’s inhabitants. (Read 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 13.) He is then revealed as Antichrist, the son of perdition, the man of sin. He will cause all to accept his mark or be cut out of the economic system—all buying and selling. He will order that all who do not worship him should be killed—chiefly by beheading. His partner in the satanic duo will point all worship to the beast, Antichrist. The false prophet will be Antichrist’s John the Baptist figure.

Jesus forewarned the Jews who will occupy Jerusalem at the time of Antichrist’s revelation to flee to the mountains. (Read Matthew 24 and Revelation 12.) This era, as discussed earlier, the midpoint of the Tribulation era, will begin the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7)—a time Jesus says will be the worst in all of history (Matthew 24:21). Antichrist will begin the greatest genocide ever to be visited upon the planet.

Antichrist’s regime will cause all to worship the beast, the Revelation 13 term for Antichrist. He will apparently set up some sort of idol, before which all must bow. This will likely be done by the image of himself being telecast in some way to all the world (Revelation 13.) His regime will consist of ten kingdoms, whose newly crowned kings (political leaders of the region) will give all their authority and power to Antichrist. We might be seeing the formative months and years of the formation of this ten-kingdom development with the various trading blocs beginning to form. The European Union seems to be the prototype for those that will follow. The North American Union (NAU) that seems to be underway in development, bringing America, Canada, and Mexico together in an economic trading bloc, appears to be one such “kingdom” in the making. Antichrist will bring together one world government, one world economy, and one world religion, to some extent—for a brief time, at least. This is a Babylonian-type system that will all but enslave the entire world.

The Babylonian system will be an extension of the revived Roman Empire. This was prophesied in Daniel 2, 7, 9, and 11, as well as in Revelation 13. Ancient Babylon and the Roman Empire’s influence upon this end-time regime of hell on earth are described in Revelation 17 and 18. God will destroy the chief city of the end-time Babylon in one hour, the Bible prophesies in Revelation 18.

China, today, is a growing economic and military behemoth. It exerts hegemony over its neighbors of the Orient. The Bible predicts a day during the Tribulation when the “kings of the east” will march across the dried-up Euphrates River to do battle at Armageddon. This juggernaut will consist of two hundred million troops—all, prophecy seems to indicate, demon-possessed while they cross the area of the Euphrates. (Read Revelation 9 and 16.)

I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3:1–2). (Also read Revelation 16:16 and 19:17–18.)

Just as the battle is becoming so violent that it threatens the end of all people and animals on earth, the black clouds of apocalypse will unroll like a scroll, and brilliant light from Heaven’s core will break through, revealing the King of kings and His armies and myriad angelic hosts.

And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. (Revelation 19:11–15)

The conquering Creator of all things will establish His earthly throne atop Mount Moriah, which will be supernaturally reconfigured from topographical renovations made for the Millennium. All the nations of the world will come before the Lord Jesus Christ. (Read about the sheep-goats judgment in Matthew 25.) The people who have made it alive through the Tribulation will either be believers or unbelievers. Believers will be ushered into Christ’s thousand-year reign on Earth while unbelievers will be cast into everlasting darkness.

The millennial reign of Christ will begin, a time during which the false prophet and the beast (Antichrist), the first to be thrown into the Lake of Fire, will begin to serve their eternal sentences. Satan will be confined in the bottomless pit, and none of his minions will be able to torment and tempt the millennial earth-dwellers. This period will be much like the times of Eden, with the Earth restored to its pristine beauty (Revelation 20–10). After the thousand years, the devil will be released from the pit for a short time. He will lead millions who will have been born during the Millennium in an assault on Christ at Jerusalem. God will send down fire and consume them all. Satan will be cast into the Lake of Fire. The lost dead will be resurrected (their eternal bodies joined to their souls), and all will stand before the great white throne of Christ to be judged. All will be cast into the Lake of Fire for eternity (Revelation 20:10–15). Jesus Christ will remake the heavens and the earth in preparation for everlasting, ever-growing ecstasy in God’s presence. (Read Revelation 20:16–22:16.)