The Temple Mount (Har haBáyit in Hebrew) in Jerusalem where the two Temples of the God of Israel stood, and where the present Islamic Mosque, the Golden Dome of the Rock, now stands, is arguably the most valuable piece of real estate in the entire world. It is currently a point of intense conflict between the Jewish State of Israel and the Arab/Muslim world. The Temple plays a central role in the spiritual life of Judaism prompting every serious Orthodox Jew to pray daily that the Beit Hamikdash (Hebrew phrase for the Holy Temple in Jerusalem) “be speedily rebuilt within our lifetime.” Bible prophecy has important things to say about how the Temple Mount figures prominently in the plan of God—past, present, and future. In this chapter we will explore the various ramifications of this and how current events in the Middle East surrounding the Temple Mount are prophetically significant for the world and the Bible believer. For the Jewish people the Temple Mount, a small elevated area measuring only 35.5 acres wide and 2,580 feet high, is the holiest site in all Judaism. For 3,000 years now it has served as the central place of prayer and worship to the God of Israel by the Jewish people.
Scripture repeatedly mentions this place of Divine habitation throughout all sixty-six books of the Bible—from Genesis to Revelation. The history of this holy piece of real estate goes back four thousands years ago when the Patriarch Abraham was planning to offer up his son, Isaac, for sacrifice. Genesis 22:2 calls this place, “the land of Moriah” where God would later chose to place His name and reveal His physical presence there (2 Chronicles 6:6; 7:1-3).[1] This was confirmed some one thousand years later when Solomon dedicated the first Temple to Yahweh on Mount Moriah where a generation earlier his father, King David, purchased the land for building the Temple structure (2 Samuel 24:25). When Israel disobeyed the Lord and embraced the worship of idols and turned the Holy Temple into a center for pagan idolatry (Ezekiel 8), God brought the cruel Babylonians armies of King Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem and they destroyed the Temple in 586 B.C. This was the clear judgment of the Lord for the desecration of the Temple by the Jewish people of that day (see Jeremiah 6-7).
Seventy years later God brought Israel back into their land to rebuild a second Temple under the joint leadership of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel. The project was completed in 515 B.C. Almost five hundred years later in 19 B.C., King Herod the Great, began a massive renovation of this Temple which was completed around 65-66 A.D. No less than a year later the First Jewish revolt against the Roman occupation began. Four years later in A.D. 70 the Roman General Titus led a 70,000 men army comprising of four legions to lay siege to Jerusalem and breach the walls of the Temple. The Roman armies eventually set it on fire until it was finally destroyed on the ninth day of Av in the Jewish calendar; which was, ironically, the very same day the first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians.[2] Josephus, a Jewish historian of that time, personally recounts that about 1.1 million Jewish inhabitants were killed in the Roman siege and 97, 000 sold into slavery. When the Temple itself was burned and razed 10,000 Jewish partisans died in their desperate defense of the holy structure. Josephus, who likely witnessed this event, wrote:
While the holy house was on fire, every thing was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity, but children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests were all slain in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men, and brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication for their lives, as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans of those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works at the temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had been on fire. Nor can one imagine any thing either greater or more terrible than this noise; for there was at once a shout of the Roman legions, who were marching all together, and a sad clamor of the seditious, who were now surrounded with fire and sword. The people also that were left above were beaten back upon the enemy, and under a great consternation, and made sad moans at the calamity they were under; the multitude also that was in the city joined in this outcry with those that were upon the hill. And besides, many of those that were worn away by the famine, and their mouths almost closed, when they saw the fire of the holy house, they exerted their utmost strength, and brake out into groans and outcries again: Pera did also return the echo, as well as the mountains round about [the city,] and augmented the force of the entire noise. Yet was the misery itself more terrible than this disorder; for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it, that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain more in number than those that slew them; for the ground did no where appear visible, for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled from them. And now it was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out [of the inner court of the temple by the Romans,] and had much ado to get into the outward court and from thence into the city, while the remainder of the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court. As for the priests, some of them plucked up from the holy house the spikes that were upon it, with their bases, which were made of lead, and shot them at the Romans instead of darts. But then as they gained nothing by so doing, and as the fire burst out upon them, they retired to the wall that was eight cubits broad, and there they tarried; yet did two of these of eminence among them, who might have saved themselves by going over to the Romans, or have borne up with courage, and taken their fortune with the others, throw themselves into the fire, and were burnt together with the holy house; their names were Meirus the son of Belgas, and Joseph the son of Daleus. And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what was round about the holy house, burnt all those places, as also the remains of the cloisters and the gates, two excepted; the one on the east side, and the other on the south; both which, however, they burnt afterward. They also burnt down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense quantity of money, and an immense number of garments, and other precious goods there reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it was that the entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the rich people had there built themselves chambers [to contain such furniture]. The soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer [court of the] temple, whither the women and children, and a great mixed multitude of the people, fled, in number about six thousand. But before Caesar had determined any thing about these people, or given the commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were in such a rage, that they set that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and some were burnt in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of them escape with his life.[3]
Forty years earlier the Lord Jesus Christ predicted this very same destruction for the nation of Israel’s rejection of Him in Matthew 23:38-24:1-2 and Luke 19:41-43. Indeed, in the Gospel of Luke the Lord gave specific details in the prophesied destruction of how Jerusalem and the Temple would be ransacked in 70 A.D. as He was approaching the Jewish capital for the last time. “And when he was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side and shall lay thee even to the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave one stone upon another; because thou knowest not the time of thy visitation” (Luke 19:41-44).
This proved to be the precise method of attack against Jerusalem and the Temple Titus and his Roman legions utilized forty years later. Titus trapped thousands of Jews in the city who were attending the feast of Passover cutting off all supplies going into the city. He then systematically built military embankments around the city and starved to death all the men, women, and children trapped within the walls of the city. Once the city of Jerusalem was taken the Roman legions dismantled the Temple stone by stone literally not leaving any stone upon another.[4] A recent excavation in the early 1990’s, along the southwest area of the Western Wall near the Temple Mount, uncovered huge stones from the second Temple period that were literally thrown onto the streets by the Romans in 70 A.D. Once again archaeology has proved the prophecy of Jesus accurate and true.
The Second Temple was destroyed chiefly because the Jewish people did not recognize the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus and they rejected His offer of the Messianic kingdom conditioned upon their national repentance. Consequently, God’s judgment fell on the Jewish nation which further led Jesus to declare that the city of Jerusalem and its Temple location would be trampled underfoot and controlled by Gentile powers until the end of the present age. “And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke21:24).[5] The volatile- history of this pivotal piece of sacred real estate in the last 1,900 has fulfilled this prophecy to the letter! The term, “the times of the Gentiles”, with reference to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, describes a time period in which the Gentile powers of the world would exercise dominance and control over these two places.
The duration of this Gentile supremacy stretches over a long period of time lasting from the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C. to the future desecration and assault by the anti-Christ during the future seven year tribulation of Daniel’s 70th week (Daniel 9:27; Revelation 11:1-2). This extensive period of Gentile control, specifically over the Temple Mount, does not, however, negate the temporary control of both city and Temple Mount by the Jewish people as the Maccabean revolt (163 B.C.) or the Six Day War of June 1967 proves. Both of these events afford only temporary control for now because the prophecies of Zechariah 9-10 and Revelation 11:1-2 predict the Gentile attack of Jerusalem and the seizure and subsequent desecration of the rebuilt third Temple by the Anti-Christ to control and rule over Israel and the Middle East. Messianic Jewish scholar, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, making the same observation writes:
“Any Jewish takeover of the City of Jerusalem before the Second Coming must therefore be viewed as a temporary one and does not mean that The Times of the Gentiles have ended. The Times of the Gentiles can only end when the Gentiles can no longer tread down the City of Jerusalem.”[6]
Bible prophecy is clear that there will be two more Temples built on the Temple Mount where the Muslim Dome of the Rock Mosque now currently stands. Two Temples have already stood on this thirty-five acre area—Solomon’s Temple and the enlarged and renovated Temple of Herod the Great. The third Temple will be built and present for the future Anti-Christ to go into and desecrate by demanding he be worshipped as God within the holy of holies of the rebuilt Temple itself. Bible prophecy indicates this will occur three and a half years into the seven year tribulation period (Daniel 9: 27; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). At the conclusion of the seven year tribulation period, the Lord Jesus Christ will return and the fourth Temple will be built where He will personally live and rule over the world from (Ezekiel 43:1-7). The prophet Ezekiel provides meticulous details on the size, configuration, and physical dimensions of this magnificent structure that will stand someday on the Temple Mount (See Ezekiel 40-47). Bible prophecy scholars commonly call this the Millennial Temple.
At the First Coming, the Temple played a prominent role throughout the life and ministry of Jesus the Messiah. On the eighth day of his life, Joseph and Mary presented the infant Jesus before the Lord in the Temple at Jerusalem in accordance with the Law of Moses (Luke 2:21-24). When Jesus was twelve, he went up to Jerusalem with Joseph and Mary for the celebration of the Passover—whose sacrifices of the Pesach lambs took place in the Temple. Traveling with a caravan from Nazareth, His mother and Joseph noticed he was missing from the group and hurriedly returned to Jerusalem. Three days later they found the precocious child sitting in the Temple with the learned doctors of the Torah engaging in deep theological conversation. Exasperated, His mother asked why He did such a thing that led to their deep worry and long search. Jesus replied, that they should have known He could be found in His Heavenly Father’s house (Luke 2:49). Although the AV reads “My Father’s business” the ASV and other competent English translations of the New Testament translates Luke 2:49 to say: “My Father’s house.” Such phrases like this rightly
Attests to Jesus’ affirmation of the Temple as the house of God (Hebrew, Beit ‘elohim), a term He continued to use throughout His life (see John 2:16)…If we accept that the point of His mission here is to identify with His Father’s house…then this phrase not only indicates that the Temple was an acceptable place of worship and teaching for Jesus (as well as revealing His filial relationship with God as His father), but that as Messiah He was connected with the Temple as the One who would one day restore its glory in His Millennial kingdom (Jeremiah 3:17; Zechariah 6:13: 14:16) [7]
Obviously by the young age of twelve (the Bar-Mitzvah age for every Jewish boy), Jesus already realized, at this early age, that the Temple was in fact the earthly house of God where He, His Only begotten Son, naturally belonged. Undoubtedly, the young Jesus knew, that as God’s unique and divine Son, it was His responsibility and mission to work in and keep guard over His Father’s dwelling place on earth—a mission that will resume when Christ returns to Jerusalem to rebuild and restore the Temple for the Millennial kingdom at the close of the present age when the divine glory will return to the holy city (Ezekiel 43:1-5). When Jesus faced the three temptations imposed on Him by the Devil in the Judean desert for forty days, the Temple was used for one of those temptations. Satan was permitted to take Jesus to the highest point of the Temple. Matthew and Luke tell us it was the “pinnacle of the Temple” (Matthew 4:5; Luke 4:9). This location was the highest point of the Temple probably located at the southeastern corner of the Temple proper measuring some 450 feet high overlooking the Kidron Valley.[8] This area was literally called “the wing of the Temple” and was characterized by wing shape protrusions to prevent pigeons and other birds from resting there and defiling the Temple façade.
This is prophetically significant because the same phrase, possibly denoting the same place, is also mentioned in the prophecy of Daniel 9:27 with regard to the Abomination of Desolation committed by the Anti-Christ in the Third Temple yet to be rebuilt. Daniel 9:27b literally reads from the Hebrew: “Upon the wing of abominations.” This, in all likelihood, refers to “the pinnacle of the temple which has become so desecrated that it no longer serves as the temple of the Lord, but as an idol temple.”[9] The wing of the temple (Matt. 4:5; Luke 4:8) is the summit of the temple itself, the same area the devil took Jesus when tempting Him from the highest point on the Temple Mount. Satan wanted Jesus to force God’s hand by daring Him to supernaturally intervene to protect His Son if Jesus chose to act on the insidious and presumptuous suggestion of the Devil to throw Himself down from the dizzying heights of the pinnacle of the Temple. This was Satan’s’ attempt to misuse the place of the Temple where God’s presence was manifested and in effect desecrate it by trying to get the Son to act independently from the Father—an utter impossibility (see John 5:17-21; 6:38).
Satan has continually attempted to usurp the place and authority of God and naturally desires to be worshipped in this role (Isaiah 14:12-14; Luke 4:5-7). So the rebuilt Temple will serve that blasphemous purpose in the future. During the Tribulation period, the Devil will accomplish this through the Anti-Christ who will commit the Abomination of Desolation by going into the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem and demand to be worshipped as God by Israel and the world.[10] During His ministry in Judea and Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus spent most of His time teaching and healing the sick in and around the Temple. He zealously guarded the sanctity of this Holy habitation of God when driving out the moneychangers who were misusing it for selfish gain. Twice He performed this bold act at the beginning and conclusion of His public ministry. He personally defended the Temple calling it “His Father’s house” and remonstrated the crass profiteers under the avaricious supervision of the priestly class for turning the Temple into “a den of thieves” (John 2:13-16; Matthew 21:12-14). The last words of Jesus’ public ministry on earth concerned the Temple.
After the nation of Israel had formally rejected Jesus as the Messiah, He proclaimed that the Temple would remain in a desolate condition until His return to Israel at the Second Coming followed by Israel’s repentance of sin and acceptance of Him. “Behold, your house is left unto desolate. For I say unto, ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:38-39). This desolation period has lasted now for almost two thousand years with a large part of it involving Muslim dominance of the Temple Mount. Muslim control of the Temple Mount has lasted over 1,300 years since 691 A.D. with the construction of the octagonal shaped Dome of the Rock Mosque. In 715 A.D., Muslim Caliph Al-Walid I converted the remains of the chanuyot (the storehouse for the Temple in Jerusalem where the Levites stored the implements for the daily functioning of the Temple) into the al-Aqsa Mosque. The Arabic word, al-Aqsa means, “The furthest place” and refers to the belief in the Koran that Muhammad was miraculously transported on his horse to the city of Jerusalem cryptically alluded to as “the far away place” (Surah 17:1); this in spite of the fact Jerusalem is never explicitly mentioned once by name in the Koran!
The presence of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque make Jerusalem the third holiest place in Islam next to Mecca and Medina, respectively. And so the Temple Mount has remained in a “desolate” and desecrated condition as Jesus foretold with shrines and Mosques, unwittingly dedicated to the Mesopotamian mood god, Allah, standing in mute testimony of this fact for the last 1,300 years.[11] But all that potentially changed with the 1967 Six-Day War when the army of Israel recaptured control of the Temple Mount (along with East Jerusalem and the West Bank) from Jordan who had previous control of it since 1948. With Jewish sovereignty now reestablished over the Temple Mount, the third Temple can now conceivably be built as End-Time Bible prophecy has clearly predicted. Currently, the Temple Mount is under the stringent control and management of the Muslim Waqf authority with the permission of the Israeli government. Christians and Jews visiting the Temple Mount cannot so much as pray or crack open a prayer book or Bible while visiting this sacred site. Violators who do are accosted and physically removed. Such a precarious arrangement over the Temple Mount, however, does not erase the threats of war, terrorism, and calls for the destruction of the State of Israel from the Waqf authority. Several times a day from the al-Aqsa Mosque, the Muezzin prays to Allah over the Minaret loudspeakers for the destruction of the Jews knowing full well that Israel allows them full, unhindered control of this ancient Jewish holy site as an act of good will for the sake of peace! One disturbing example, from so many, of Islam’s threats of war and destruction over ownership of the Temple Mount came on May 19, 2000 when a Muslim cleric speaking on behalf of the Waqf alliance belligerently exclaimed that Islam will never surrender the Temple Mount or the Mosques built on it; but will decapitate anyone who thinks otherwise:
This Mosque will not be entered through negotiations or peace agreements. This Mosque will be entered (liberated) through armies. The armies that will "pound the earth to powder”, that will behead the heads of the disbelievers and their agents. Jerusalem will return to Muslims but not through treason. It will return to Islam and Muslims. It will not be the capital of the Palestinian state, but it will be, Insha'Allah, the capital of the Islamic Khilafah State. The Islamic Khilafah State that will tread on the heads of Europe, Russia and the U.S. This is what Islam tells us, and this how history was. Read history if you want and you will see wars after wars between Islam and the disbelievers that will continue...[12]
Four months later, in September of 2000, former Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, with a group from the Knesset, were escorted by a security detail to walk through the Temple Mount area to investigate illegal construction of an underground Mosque with the subsequent destruction of Jewish antiquities dating back to the time of King Solomon! In response to this basic right of every Jew to return to the Temple Mount, the Palestinian Authority rioted the next day and its leader, the late Yasser Arafat, called for a second Intifada against Israel that unleashed a bloody wave of Palestinian terrorism against the innocent Israeli population for the next three years. Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount served as a poor pretense for this since Arafat had already planned the second Intifada well in advance ever since his return from the Camp David II Summit in July of 2000 where he unexpectedly rejected President Clinton’s offer and reduced the so called “peace process” with Israel to shambles again.[13] In November of 2003, the PA (The Palestinian Authority) declared that any Jewish visitation to the Temple Mount was a “crime” against the Muslim world. Archaeology, history, the victories of war, and most importantly, the Word of God establish the unimpeachable fact that Jerusalem and the Temple Mount have been under Jewish control and Israeli ownership going back to the “everlasting covenant” God made with Abraham in which He gave the Patriarch and his physical descendants (the Jewish people) the land of Israel for an “everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:7-8). This divine land grand most certainly includes permanent, Jewish ownership of the Temple Mount; their two Diasporas notwithstanding (see Leviticus 26:40-45). This is what is at the heart of the Temple Mount tempest between Israel and the Arab/Muslim world and will only greatly intensify to become a key flash point in the Tribulation period leading up to the Second Coming of Jesus the Messiah.
Bible prophecy is quite clear that the Jews will rebuild a Third Temple on the Temple Mount where the Dome of the Rock currently stands (Daniel 9:27: Matthew 24:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4; Revelation 11:1-2). Orthodox Jewish groups such as The Temple Mount Faithful, and The Temple Institute, have been quietly making serious preparations for the rebuilding of the Third Temple. Both groups believe that at the proper time God will providentially remove the Dome of the Rock so that the third Temple can be built on the same exact location where the two prior Temples of Judaism stood. In the last fifteen years the Temple Institute, and their group of rabbinic leaders and followers, have made many of the instruments and implements necessary for Temple worship in eager anticipation of its reconstruction. But in order to rebuild the Temple as the Bible predicts there must also be a reconstituting and restoration of the Levitical priesthood for proper sacrifice in the Temple as the prophecy of Malachi 3:3-4 requires. This would necessitate determining with utmost genetic accuracy which Jewish males, eligible for the priesthood, have truly descended from the Cohanim (the priestly descendents from Levi). Such a task would seem impossible two thousand years after the Second Temple was destroyed along with the genealogical records of who descended from the priestly tribe in Israel that were kept there. All of that dramatically changed within the last decade. In 1996 Jewish Doctor, Karl Skorecki, Professor Michael Hammer, and Doctor Neil Bradman conducted a study among Jewish males from Israel, North America, and England who were thought to be a Kohen or Levi in their family background. The scientific analysis amazingly discovered certain genetic ‘markers’ that were distinct, unique, and only present among Jews with a Levite lineage.[14] This new discovery is now called “the Levite gene” and is currently being used to restore the Levitical priesthood in time for the rebuilding of the third Temple.
Several Yeshivas and schools among the Orthodox in Israel are devoted to the training of the Cohanim so that the young men in training will be ready to officiate in the Third Temple once it is rebuilt. One such training center in Israel is located in the town of Mitzpe Yericho where a field school for the Cohanim and Levim, members of the Greater and Lesser Priestly classes, has been opened in order to teach them the work they have to do in Jerusalem when the Temple is rebuilt. The training center is in the process (at the time of this writing) of building a replica of the Temple that will serve as a school to educate the Levitical priests on how to serve in the Temple so that when the time comes for it to be rebuilt in Jerusalem they will know exactly what to do.[15] A recent survey taken in Israel by the Ynetnews and the Gersher organizations also revealed that sixty-four percent of Israelis, including half of the secular Jewish population, would like to see the Temple rebuilt![16] This is a radical shift among the Jewish population in Israel where for years the Orthodox Jews who were, a small minority, the only ones who wanted the Temple rebuilt. Now it is becoming a national ground swell that is supported by the majority of the Jewish State for the first time since its inception!
The ongoing controversy over the ownership of the Temple Mount between Muslims and the Jewish people is really a lager battle between Satan and the God of Israel. The Temple Mount was, and will be again, the central place on earth where God’s sovereign rule over the world will be established and emanate from; it is the place all nations will go to serve and submit to King Messiah in the Millennial kingdom (Isaiah 2:1-4; Zechariah 14:16-19). At the closing of the coming Tribulation, the Devil will use the Anti-Christ to gather the world’s armies to lead a military invasion of Israel and Jerusalem to destroy the tiny Jewish State for their lone resistance and rebellion against his global rule and their refusal to worship him as God Almighty. Remember that Scripture tells us that sometime in eternity past Satan fell after he sought to usurp the supreme authority of the Creator by removing Him and placing himself on God’s throne over the angelic hosts of heaven, which is described by the five I will’s of Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12-14. Note that in verse 13 this throne is located on a mountain in heaven on the highest point of that supernatural dimension. It is described as the “mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north.”
The result of Lucifer’s rebellious attempt to establish his throne above God’s throne was utter defeat wherein God cast him out of heaven with only limited access from time to time afterwards, as the case of Job would indicate (see Job 2). Since his expulsion, the Devil has sought to establish his throne on earth starting with the fall of Man in the Garden of Eden and lasting until the conclusion of Christ’s thousand year kingdom on earth (Genesis 3:1-4; Revelation 20:7-10). During the seven year Tribulation period, and leading up to it, Satan has and will again attempt to maintain and take control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem so that through the nefarious person of the Anti-Christ he can finally establish his evil rule over the earth and prevent the King of Kings and Lord of Lords from returning to rule and reign over all the earth from an elevated Mount Zion where His throne, located in the glorious Millennial Temple, will stand (Psalm 48:1-2; Isaiah 2:1-3).
The historical struggle for control of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount is a clear indication of this spiritual battle between God and Satan, between the people of God and the children of the devil, and between good and evil. It still rages on in our day and awaits the glorious return of Israel’s Messiah, Jesus Christ, when He will defeat these evil forces of usurpation and foreign occupation and deliver the Jewish people to live in their God given land and worship Him as their King and Savior in His Temple that shall never be defiled or trampled under foot ever again. God has spoken in His prophetic Word and made the decree to His Son, our Messiah, that in the end He will successfully sit enthroned on the Temple Mount, notwithstanding the uproar of the Gentile nations, or the global alliance of the ant-Semitic nations that will side with the future Anti-Christ in their vain attempt to take the Temple Mount and destroy the Jewish people of Israel at the Battle of Armageddon.
“Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel. Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him” (Psalm 2:6-12).
When the Temple Mount is permanently restored to its greatest glory under the just and beneficent reign of Messiah Jesus it will be a place of joyous fellowship and feasting where death shall be abolished and tears of pain associated with it will be forever wiped away as Israel’s long awaited Messiah will come to them bringing final deliverance and salvation. “And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over the people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isaiah 25:6-9). Even so come Lord Jesus!
You can reach Todd at:
Brit Hadashah Ministries
P.O. Box 796127
Dallas, Texas 75379-6127
E-mail: todd@brit-hadashah.org
Web site: www.Brit-Hadashah.org or www.searchthescripturesonline.org
[1]This fact was powerfully reinforced to the writer when attending an archaeology seminar some years ago in the city of Jerusalem. The Israeli archaeologist showed the group in attendance an aerial photograph of Jerusalem trisected by the three valleys of the city with the Temple Mount slightly north and right of center and lying between the Kidron and Tyropoeon Valleys. He pointed out to us that these three valleys (the Kidron Valley, Tyropoeon Valley, and the Hinnom Valley) naturally form the Hebrew letter “Shin” in the landscape of the city. The Shin, written as שּ, was clearly evident in the topography. The Shin represents the Hebrew name for God, which is Shaddai—a name that denotes God as the Almighty God or El Shaddai. It was this name and characteristic that God revealed Himself to the Patriarchs by (Exodus 6:2-3). So when God promises that His name shall be placed in Jerusalem and in the Temple, it has been physically confirmed on the very landscape! The letter Shin is also found on the Mezuzah traditionally placed on the doorposts of Jewish homes to signify the presence of Almighty God in that place (Deuteronomy 6:9).
[2] Tisha B’Av is an annual observance day of mourning and fasting in Judaism that laments over the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem. This day usually falls in early August and has now come to include the mourning of other major tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout history.
[3] Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews VI.5.1-2.
[4]The War of the Jews, Books V-VII.
[5]The phrase “times of the Gentiles” is used only one time in the Bible –found in Luke 21:24 and is prophetic of the mistreatment of the dispersed Jews by the Gentile nations coupled with the wresting of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount from Israeli hands by the Gentile armies and rulers of the world. Permanent Jewish control of Jerusalem and the Temple will finally be established when Jesus the Messiah returns and is enthroned on an supernaturally elevated Mount Zion where the laws of the Millennial kingdom will be issued with the reigning Messiah sitting in the glorious Temple of Ezekiel 40-47 where the center of His world wide government is located (Psalm 2:6-9; Isaiah 2:1-4).
[6] Fruchtenbaum, Arnold G. The Footsteps of the Messiah, Rev. ed. (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 2003), p. 21.
[7] Price, Randall The Temple and Bible Prophecy. (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1999/ 2005), p. 258.
[8] Wilkins, Michael J. Matthew from The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), p. 159.
[9] Young, Edward J. The Prophecy of Daniel. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), p. 218; Bultema, Harry, Commentary on Daniel. (Grand Rapids: Grace Publications, 2002), p. 289.
[10] Throughout history Satan has attempted this in the past through certain individuals. In 167 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Jerusalem and defiled the Temple. He then proceeded to erect a statue of Zeus with his face on it in the holy of Holies demanding the Jews worship him as “God manifest.” First century Roman Emperor, Caligula attempted to place a statue of himself in the Temple of Jerusalem in A.D. 40 so that the Jews of Judea would give the emperor proper homage. They revolted and Caligula rescinded the order on the adv ice from his governor in Syria. One of the fundamental truths of
Bible prophecy is that future events always cast their shadows, in a smaller measure, in past events of history. The future Abomination of Desolation with the worship of the Anti-Christ as god in the rebuilt Temple of Jerusalem is no different in this respect.
[11]Morey, Robert. The Islamic Invasion (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1992), pp.35-47, 211-218.
[12] “The Archaeological Destruction of the Temple Mount By the Muslim Wakf” at http://www.israel-wat.com/c1_eng.htm
[13] Honest Reporting Communiqué: October 26, 2009 at http://www.honestreporting.co.uk/articles/critiques/new/Temple_Mount_Troubles.asp. This web site provides good expose on how flawed and biased the media coverage is for the Palestinian violence against Jews visiting and praying at their Temple Mount and the Western Wall below it.
[14]Kleiman , Yaakov. DNA & Tradition: The Genetic Link to the Ancient Hebrews, (Devorah: New York, 2004), pp. 17-24.
[15]October 11, 2009 video edition of Arutz Sheva at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/133801.
[16] July 30, 2009 edition of Ynetnews at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3754367,00.html