Temple Teaching #8

Here Comes The Temple Of Antichrist*

The Jews, whenever they have been put out of the land of promise, have wanted above all else to return to Jerusalem and worship at the Temple.

When there was no Temple, they wanted to build one. For two thousand years, the religious Jews have prayed five times a day for a return to worship in a rebuilt Temple. Passover every year brings the reverently whispered words, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

Many Jewish people mean these words only in a ritual sense. They don’t really think it is possible to build a Temple on or near where the Muslim Dome of the Rock now sits. After all, even though the area is under Israeli sovereignty, the Mount itself—called by Muslims Haram al-Sharif—is controlled by the Islamic Waqf, a joint Palestinian-Jordanian religious body.

The third most holy site in Islam (after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, Saudi Arabia), the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden-crowned Dome of the Rock overlooking the city attract crowds of Muslim worshipers, with Jews only having access for four and a half hours per day under Waqf regulations that, among other things, prohibit Jews from praying, kneeling, bowing, prostrating, dancing, singing, and/or ripping clothes. However, there is growing demand gathering political support for this status quo on the Temple Mount to be changed: The outcry is for Jews to be allowed to pray upon their ancient site of worship (a fact that Muslims dispute; they say no Temple existed there before).

To accomplish this—and in spite of many Goliath-like obstacles—there are Jews who are not only interested in rebuilding a Third Temple, but who are absolutely determined to see it done…and in their lifetime! Probably the most notable movement toward this end in recent times is the Temple Mount Faithful, founded by Israeli Gershon Salomon. The Temple Mount Faithful tried to place a cornerstone on the Temple Mount site in 1990, causing a tremendous riot in which seventeen people were killed. Salomon hasn’t been allowed to visit the place since that time. Under his leadership, the Temple Mount Faithful conducts a symbolic cornerstone laying each October to remind the people of Israel that God has commissioned the Jewish people to build His house. These people still intend to lay a cornerstone on Moriah soon. They believe the Temple will be built upon and around that foundation.

The very thought of such an action drives the fundamentalist Muslim radicals wild. They will stop the laying of a cornerstone for the Third Jewish Temple at all costs. That is what most worries the international politicians who have taken it upon themselves to make sure World War III doesn’t break out beginning at Mount Moriah.

Weapons of Worship

Adding to the mix of Middle East worries are the activities carried on by the Temple Institute. Located near the Western Wall Plaza with a clear view of both the Western Wall and the Mount, the Institute is “dedicated to every aspect of the Biblical commandment to build the Holy Temple of G-d on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.”

“Our goal is to fulfill the commandment of ‘They shall make a Temple for me and I will dwell among them,’” says Rabbi Chaim Richman, international director for the organization that, reportedly, has had blueprints for the Third Temple completed for quite some time.

Holding that religious law on the matter is too unclear, rabbis have generally taken the position that rebuilding the Temple shouldn’t be undertaken until the Messiah comes. However, Richman and the Institute take a different position, stating that there are no Jewish legal barriers against rebuilding a Temple. The only obstacles that exist are political ones, they say.

Since its establishment in 1987, the Institute’s primary goal has been to make preparations for worship in the Temple once it has been rebuilt.

Under the guidance of twenty scholars who study Temple law full time, much of that preparation centers on carefully restoring and crafting the sacred instruments of worship “from the original source materials, such as gold, copper, silver and wood.” The instruments, the Institute emphasizes, “are authentic, accurate vessels, not merely replicas or models,” and are all “fit and ready for use in the service of the Holy Temple.” Reports have it that more than half of the required items have already been made, and cases at the Institute’s headquarters display forty such objects, including the following:

• Silver trumpets to be blown by priests
• A wooden lyre —Pans with lengthy handles—one for collecting blood from small animal offerings and another for large sacrifices such as the Passover lamb
• Vestments with azure weaves, gold thread, and a breastplate with twelve precious stones to be worn by deputy priests and the high priest (It reportedly took eleven years and more than $100,000 to complete the outfits for worship.)
• A massive, twelve-spigot sink with electric faucets, modern technology Richman says will be permitted in the Temple
• A golden, two-hundred-pound, seven-branch menorah

Further, the Temple Institute has recreated the rituals and ceremonies that duplicate as nearly as possible the methods of worship used in the First and Second Temples, and it has been training young men to serve as the rabbis who will perform the services of offerings and sacrifices.

Another component essential for Temple worship is a pure red heifer, which must be sacrificed by burning it to ashes. The ashes are then to be added to water and the water used to wash parts of the Temple and the implements of worship in a cleansing ritual stipulated by God in preparation for worship. Anyone who has been around a dead person, whether in a hospital room, a funeral home, or even a graveyard, must be
ritually cleansed with this mixture before they can enter the holy site.

There is not yet a red heifer of three years old, as required. Those responsible for the quest to find one thought they had succeeded in1994. But the heifer, named Melody, born to a black-and-white Holstein mother, was found to have several white hairs in her tail. Reportedly, there are a number of red cows in Israel now that might eventually produce such a heifer.

The menorah planned for use in the Third Temple has already been crafted.

Rabbi Richman’s passion—obvious from the following excerpt—reflects the strong sense of longing for a return to Temple worship atop earth’s most holy spot: “All of our outreach here at the Temple Institute is about deepening our feeling of connection—not our feeling of loss, not our feeling of mourning—but our joy with the possibility of our generation being the generation that is leading to the rebuilding of the temple,” said Rabbi Chaim Richman, head of the Temple Institute International department in an interview with Israel National News.

The Temple Institute website says its short-term goal is to “rekindle the flame” of the temple in people’s hearts, and its long-term goal is to rebuild the temple in “our time.” “We consider the rebuilding of the holy temple to be one of the positive commandments. Unfortunately because of the whole long diaspora experience, a lot of ideas crept into our subconsciousness, and even our consciousness, and there are those that say that the temple is going to come down from heaven, there are those that say that only Mashiach (the Messiah) can build the temple, there are those that say, ‘well, the whole idea is just not relevant at all,’” Richman said. “Our position is really just that our lives are like, on hold. The Jewish people are just a skeleton of what they could be. The whole world is really, totally muted and just completely drained of its vibrancy because we don’t have the holy temple. And so what we’re really trying to emphasize during these days is to rekindle the anticipation and the beauty and the longing for having that closer relationship…when the divine presence returns to the world.”

Claim: “Lost Ark” Isn’t Lost

The reason God directed construction of a Temple in the first place was to provide His people with a way to meet with Him, a place where, through a detailed system of highly symbolic guidelines, they could worship Him, make offerings to Him, and receive His mercy and forgiveness. The sacred Ark of the Covenant was the very essence of that system. For a glimpse at the supernatural significance of the chest-like vessel, we need only read the description of its placement in the First Temple that was completed by Solomon:

Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers of the children of Israel, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of Yehovah out of the city of David, which is Zion…. And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim…. And…when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of Yehovah, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of Yehovah had filled the house of Yehovah

1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10, 11

Theories about where that original chest-like vessel is located now have abounded (and David Flynn in Temple at the Center of Time actually provided an astonishing map to its location!, some biblical scholars throughout history have worried it might have been destroyed along with the Temple by the Babylonians in 587 BC. However, Jewish tradition holds that the Ark of the Covenant is not lost, but is actually hidden: Tradition records that even as King Solomon built the First Temple, he already knew, through Divine inspiration, that eventually it would be destroyed. Thus Solomon, the wisest of all men, oversaw the construction of a vast system of labyrinths, mazes, chambers and corridors underneath the Temple Mount complex. He commanded that a special place be built in the bowels of the earth, where the sacred vessels of the Temple could be hidden in case of approaching danger.

Midrashic tradition teaches that King Josiah of Israel, who lived about forty years before the destruction of the First Temple, commanded the Levites to hide the Ark, together with the original menorah and several other items, in this secret hiding place which Solomon had prepared. This location is recorded in our sources, and today, there are those who know exactly where this chamber is. And we know that the ark is still there, undisturbed, and waiting for the day when it will be revealed. That’s definitely an intriguing theory—but are there those who really believe this? Absolutely. One journalist’s recent interview with Rabbi Richman indicates that of all the obstacles standing in the way of the rebuilding of the Third Temple, having an Ark—to place in the Holy of Holies is not even a remote concern: “Rabbi Chaim Richman shows me into a darkened room, strokes his beard and pulls out his smartphone. He has a specially designed app that works the lights. The room illuminates. He taps the screen again, and a heavy curtain slides open. There, resplendent in brilliant gold—and rather smaller than I expected—lies the Ark of the Covenant.”

“This isn’t the real lost ark,” he says. “The real one is hidden about a kilometer from here, in underground chambers created during the time of Solomon.” I look at him askance. “It’s true,” he says. “Jews have an unbroken chain of recorded information, passed down from generation to generation, which indicates its exact location. There is a big fascination with finding the lost ark, but nobody asked a Jew. We have known where it is for thousands of years. It could be reached if we excavated Temple Mount, but that area is controlled by Muslims.”Many folks in addition to those affiliated with the Temple Mount Faithful and the Temple Institute are just as devoted to a Third Temple being built—and are involved in political pressures to do just that.

They engage in political lobbying and try to persuade the Jewish community to visit the Temple site at every opportunity. Some who carefully observe efforts surrounding the project see hope for a peaceful way of accomplishing its construction. One analysis of why
that is so states, in part, the following:

Although the prospects of peace are always tantalizing, the likelihood that peace talks will raise unrealistic hopes and stir long-held tension is a real and present danger.
The proposed Two State Solution is an imposition on Israel’s 70-year peace process, and does not necessarily address the sensitivities of the people and regimes required to actually make and maintain peace.

Besides settlements, recognition of Israel, Gaza and other significant issues, the heart and soul of the conflict is reflected in the microcosm of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount….The prospects of sharing the Rock are difficult because the traditional location associated with the Jewish Temple Holy of Holies is also the Dome of the Rock—a Muslim shrine built in 691 CE.…

No amount of coercion can stem the tides of Jewish or Muslim demands for exclusive access to, and possession of, the Temple Mount.… But there is an authentic and ancient proposition…offering hope that a Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah can be realized in peace. If religious authorities agree that the new excavation at the recently discovered site in Jerusalem’s City of David is the penultimate location for the Third Temple’s altar, then according to Orthodox Jewish law, a sea-change will have occurred. This site, if true, could shift perspective, tradition, and reality. The emergence of a peaceful solution from the epicenter of conflict is a characteristic of Jewish thinking and could be persuasive.

Most prophecy watchers who take a literal view of the prophetic Scriptures believe it will take the supernatural, satanic powers of Antichrist to clear the way for the rebuilding to begin. Under current circumstances, any effort to remove the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque would mean that the more than 1-billion-strong Muslim world would launch World War III. At this point, talk of a Third Temple must remain just talk.

Strangely, it must be noted, seemingly right on cue, there comes a most perplexing proposal from a most unexpected source. A Muslim pundit, no less, interjects his opinion that the Islamist world should also promote the idea of a Third Temple on Moriah.

Freedom of worship is an essential issue. The Temple Mount, where the First and Second Temples stood, is the holiest place to the people of Israel. However, it is no less holy to both Muslims and Christians. Since this is a location that God has announced to be a “house of prayer for all nations,” it should be a place of festivity for all believers. As all who call on the God of Abraham are brothers, Jews and Christians should be able to offer prayers there in dignity and peace along with Muslims. To cast believers out from such a place, to prevent worship there, is a heinous and, quite frankly, cruel policy, which is an offense not only to men, but to Islam. God Himself condemns anyone who forbids worship:

And who is more unjust than he who forbids that in places for the worship of God, God’s name should be celebrated? —whose zeal is (in fact) to ruin them? It was not fitting that such should themselves enter them except in fear. For them there is nothing but disgrace in
this world, and in the world to come, an exceeding torment.

Koran2:214

Likewise, the Tanakh declares the will of God to make this unique spot a common sanctuary where all people learn to coexist and pray together:

For then will I turn clear language to the Nations, that they may all call upon the name of God, to serve Him shoulder to shoulder.

Zephaniah 3:9

Anywhere one prays to the One and Only Almighty God is a house of prayer. Therefore, it is an atrocious thing to forbid anyone from praying at the Temple Mount. The longings of Bnei Israel to pray in that place can never be an offense to a Muslim. On the contrary, it is very pleasant to see Jewish people praying at the Temple Mount. Indeed, all the faithful people should be able to pray there

Again, Daniel 9:26–27 is the place in the Bible that holds the key to understanding that a Temple must stand on Mount Moriah before Christ’s Second Coming. There will first come, however, a tremendous end-of-the-age supernatural storm. Its center of power will hover over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Tribulation Temple Preparations Are Underway Now For Temple Of The Antichrist. BUT THIS WILL BE FOLLOWED BY THE TEMPLE OF Yeshua.

The Lord has declared that His Son sitting on the throne in Jerusalem is as good as done: Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. (Psalms 2:6–8)

A Third Temple will be built, God says. However, with all the plans in place, the terrible fact remains that it will be a Temple not of great joy, but of great sorrow, for the Jewish people. As a matter of fact, the Third Temple will be the Tribulation Temple—the Temple during the
time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7), which Jesus said will be the most horrendous time in human history (Matthew 24:21). This is where the Antichrist will take center stage. When the Antichrist enters the rebuilt Jewish Temple in Jerusalem exactly three and one-half years into the seven-year treaty [the peace covenant Antichrist will confirm, according to Daniel 9], he will stop the daily sacrifice and defile the temple after which he will be assassinated by a wound to the head and resurrected by satanic power. At that time, he will be indwelled by Satan. The false prophet will declare the Antichrist to be God on earth. The Antichrist will demand that everyone worship him as God at which time the false prophet will institute the Mark of the Beast.”Thankfully, this most terrible time in the planet’s history will pass. A glorious future is promised to all who love the Lord in spirit and in truth. Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah and the Savior of the world, will one day Himself build a Temple—the Fourth Temple—not bilt with hands—that will be His headquarters throughout His millennial reign. King David will also rule there at the side of Yeshua for a thousand years. Yeshua will reign as King of all Kings; David, in his resurrected body, will reign as king over all of Israel. Thus, his is called the “Throne of David.”

It will be a time of joy and great glory beyond any mankind has known, when Yeshua builds that Temple:

And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Yehovah of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of Adonai: Even he shall build the temple of Adonai; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.

Zechariah 6:12–13

Who can avoid astonishment as we witness with our own eyes the unfolding throughout the Middle East of what does indeed appear to be the end of the end-times?