(upbeat guitar music) ♪ I love growing in your grace ♪ ♪ You are your end on me ♪ ♪ And all that I do wrong ♪ ♪ Love will keep me strong ♪ ♪ I love to be in your grace ♪ - Revelation chapter 11. Our study through Revelation, we've been at it for quite some time, but it is really God's word to us, the church about his faithfulness because he's gonna fulfill everything that he has ever said in the scriptures beginning in the first chapter of the book. It is also an assurance to us that things will be made right, justice will be served, this isn't always the end of the story when we see things that are unjust or don't seem to be fair. And yet for most of the book, and we've mentioned it to you before, the church is gone. You know, John was in his 90s when he was exiled to Patmos off the coast of Ephesus for his faith. I think he thought his life was probably done. He certainly outlived all the other apostles. There was now a third generation of Christians alive and he wrote, you know, the gospels, he wrote three of those little epistles. And I don't think he had any plans to write this, but God saw that to communicate this to him. And what you are given is really the report of all the things that are coming. From chapter one, where John is told in verse 19, write down the things that you see, write down the things which are, and then write down the things which shall be hereafter. In chapter one, the things that he saw, he saw Jesus glorified in all of his glory. It is certainly what we look forward to, the Lord coming to rule and reign in his power. Chapters two and three are really the things that are. They are the church age, Jesus writes seven churches, represents really his heart for the church. And then by the time you get to chapter four, verse one, so the church is already taken up into heaven with the rapture. Chapter four and five is spent in heaven with the Lord around his throne. We look at the scroll and the judgment that is coming. Chapter six, verses one and two, is the first three and a half years of that last seven year period. And we've gone through those very carefully. If you've missed anything, you can find them online, you can get them in the stores, you put in the time. I think the book, I think it presents itself very easily. But you just gotta kind of commit to going through it. But by the time you get to chapter six, verse two, and the anti-Christ has weaseled his way into the hearts of men. At the half of the tribulation period, at the three and a half year mark, the temple will be finished. He will come and present himself as the Messiah, as the Savior, as the one to be worshiped under penalty of death. And they take his mark, you don't buy, you don't sell. And the world will realize that he's been, that they've been fooled. From that point forwards, chapter six, verse three, everything falls into the last three and a half years, the last 42 months. And we won't be here. But I think one of the things that you walk away saying to yourself hopefully is, we've got a war in a world that doesn't see it coming. As it was in the days of Noah. As it was in the days of Lot, people just live their lives oblivious. Maybe this pandemic has opened the eyes of some, but not enough. They'll get over it and they'll move on without the Lord. And that's not what God wants. So I think that we study these things. It's cool to think about it and sometimes it's horrifying, but at the other, it's great to get to the end where the Lord comes back and we rule and reign. But I suspect that a lot of these chapters are here just to warn us and prepare us for what is coming. So there are three sets of judgments that the Lord pours out upon man. His patience is run out. There'll be more people saved during this time than probably since the beginning, if you will. But at the same time, there was great price to be paid for trying to live apart from the Lord. And death here is only the first part of it. So you're gonna find his judgment. So there's a warning. Seven seals, we've looked at those. Trumpets, which we're working on now. And then finally, those last judgments that will come in very quick succession, but we really don't start them in chapter 16. The vile judgments, which the Lord tells us will happen very quickly. So chapter eight and nine are really those judgments, the trumpet judgments, if you will. We looked at the first four of them in chapter eight. It is, they're called the one-third judgments because one-third of something dies, or at least loses its strength, if you will. One-third of the vegetation that gives life one-third of the seas and the fish in them. One-third of the fresh water springs. One-third of the light that man is given, the stars in all, loser or depleted or are destroyed. And then there's this pause in chapter eight, verse 13, where before the fifth trumpet sounds, there was a warning from an angel that says, whoa, whoa, whoa to the earth and the inhabitants. There are still three trumpets to be, had three trumpets to sound. And so in chapter nine, verse one, we then see the fifth trumpet, which is the release of these demons from the abus of the bottom was pit. Like locust, they come to sting men. It lasts for five months. People want to die. They cannot. Chapter, verse what? Verse 13 of chapter nine, the sixth trumpet sounds for angels that have been chained in the Euphrates River are released to gather these myriads of demons, millions of them. And they are given their time upon the earth. And a third of the population dies. You add that number to chapter six, verse eight, a half of the population of the planet is gonna be healed during this time. Chapter nine though ends, unfortunately, with many heart and hearts unwilling to turn to the Lord. But you can imagine John, can you imagine? 90 year old guy loves the Lord, seen three generations come and go. And the excitement for the Lord was not the same in 100 AD as it was in 35 AD, right? The new work was kind of in many ways, a lot of the fervor was gone. And John writes in his epistles about the love that he has for the Lord and how he's maintained his relationship with God. But imagine writing all of these things down and seeing the tragedies that are coming. And you trust the Lord, you know he's telling you the truth. You can't get rid of this. And so by the time you get to chapter 10, and by the way, chapter 10 through 14 are assides. Most of the book is chronological, but there are times where God puts the breaks on and it just says, let's stop right here and look around. And sometimes you get to look back a little or look ahead a little bit, but it's just basically kind of filling in the blanks. And so chapters 10 through 14, they're parenthetical, we call them. They're in parentheses, if you will. They don't take the story forward, but they fill in the story, if you like. And so they give us more information. In chapter 10, which we finished last time before we went on vacation, God gave to John a vision of a very mighty angel that stood upon the earth and upon the seas. He had a lot of divine attributes. I think I gave you the reasons why I personally believe this wasn't Jesus, but it was an angel that certainly represented him. And he stands upon the earth and upon the sea with a small book in his hand. And he declares something to John very important to John's, I think, psyche, and maybe to our understanding of the chronology. And he said this, when the seventh trumpet sounds, and it won't be long, the mysteries of God revealed through the prophets will be fully accomplished. Or, if you will, when that seventh trumpet sounds, which brings those last seven seal judgments are the last ones to come, then we will find the end of the judgments and the coming of the Lord. I said seal judgments, I meant vile judgments, the last seven. Then it'll happen very quickly. And so we set before you chronologically, we're only halfway through the book, but what we're gonna read in these next several chapters, when it gets to going again, gonna happen very quick. And I would suggest it would be weeks and months, not years at all. And it seems to be, so the Lord in chapter 10, I think just stops and says, "John, take a deep breath." You know, what a horrible job to have to write these things down, what a horrible time to think about that the world is gonna meet their maker in this way, but judgment is gonna come. So John is encouraged, he is given some hope, that we're nearing the end, the glory is almost here, Jesus is almost back, but not yet. And so he is told by the angel to eat this little book that is in his hand, it seems to be a reference to what is yet to come, it wasn't very thick. I don't think it has anything to do with the scroll that Jesus had in his hand, 'cause he's still reading from it, if you will, or opening it in heaven. But it seems to symbolize there's just a little bit left. And he says to him, "It's gonna taste good when you eat," because there's an end there, there's a reward, there's a blessing to come. But to get there is gonna be tough, and so it's gonna be kind of tough on your stomach. You've still gotta preach to the nations, you've still gotta bring God's message to the people. It'll go fast once it gets going again, but there's still some suffering to go in the midst of delivering the message. So tonight we get to chapter 11, which is still part of that parenthetical group, which just means by the time we got to the end of chapter nine, the movement forward stopped, but the looking around began, and we're gonna get a lot of information about this time, sometimes after the three and a half year mark, and as we get closer to the Lord's coming. But like John was told, there's a weeping and a sowing, and then a reaping with joy, there's a two-edged sword, and so he's gotta hang in there. Tonight, and for the next couple of weeks, we're gonna focus upon, because the Lord sets it before us, the condition of the spiritual life of Israel. We told you, I think, when we began that these last seven years were this great tribulation time, this 70th week of Daniel. We went through the Daniel nine prophecies that this is a time where God specifically turns again to work with national Israel, right? The Lord set the aside, and the gospel went out to all man Jew and Gentile alike, but it wasn't a national work. It was a personal work, and it still is today, the work of the Lord through the life of the church in the world. But when the rapture takes place and the church work is done, God turns to finish these last seven years with a nation again that he's made great promises to, and that he has to fulfill a lot of promises that he made over the years too as well. And so these chapters give us some insights into God's relationship with Israel, their place in his work, how he has worked through them, how he's protected them, where he's gonna keep them during the great tribulation, how many are gonna make it, how many are not, we're even told that. So there's a lot to learn, and so tonight I thought, since I just got back from vacation, I'm exhausted. We're only gonna do two verses. (congregation laughing) That's no reason, that's no reason at all. But we're only gonna do two verses. And we're gonna focus specifically on the temple. Now here's the thing, during the great tribulation, Israel's gonna revert, if you will, back to an Old Testament kind of relationship with God. So everything that you read back there is gonna at least be sought to be re-implemented again in their life. You should know that this temple that will be built during this time is an abomination to God. This isn't God's will, this isn't God's desire. Read the book of Hebrews, that was all the old. And Jesus came to fulfill the old. So this isn't gonna be a blessing, but God is gonna allow it to happen because he has given us the time frame. He's shown us what will take place. And because his son has once and for all died for our sins and risen again, we don't need this temple. However, this is God's way of reaching the world, right? And declaring what is going to happen. And so we are given some interesting things to understand as we look for the Lord to come in our generation. And in terms of the temple, I think there's some interesting things that we can learn tonight. Next week, we will turn to the two Jewish witnesses who have tremendous power and see who they are and what they can accomplish. But again, it's all that old testament relationship between God and the people that he has chosen through whom he seeks to reach the world. And it really is a focus that you don't wanna miss. So we'll look at the temple for a little while this evening. It has an important role in biblical history, certainly. It provided access to God's people to a holy God, though they were sinful. It became the type of Jesus's work upon the cross and set the example through years and generations of the bloodshed for sin. It is integral to the last days because it gives to those who are alive the ability to say, so when that temple is built, where are they gonna put it? And when are they gonna do with it? If all of the nations and cities in the world, there's no greater historical spot for Christians than Jerusalem for the believer. It was there that God chose to put his name. He chose the place. He chose the people. And to this place, when all is said and done, the Lord will return. He's coming back to Jerusalem, right? To rule and to reign. In Jerusalem, the most desired area, the one that produces the most conflict is the temple mount, right? It is on Mount Moriah. God gave this mountaintop great prominence beginning in Genesis chapter 22, 1872 BC. Abraham was called by the Lord to bring his son, his only son Isaac to a place that the Lord would show him. And he was asked to sacrifice his son there upon an altar. Abraham was 125 years old. His son was 25. Genesis 22, if you wanna go study it on your own, is the place that you learn most what it did to the heart of God the Father in sending his son. What he had to go through in sacrificing his son. If you go to Psalm 22, you will hear from Jesus' perspective what he went through to give his life. So, Genesis 22 is a revealing passage because it shows the fellowship of God's suffering on our behalf. For Abraham, it took a tremendous act of faith. This boy that they had prayed for, messed around to try to help God out with, finally found out only God could do these things. This boy shows up 25 years earlier. God promises a descendancy through him. Isaac's not married. I don't even know if he's dating yet, but he's 25. And now he's gotta take his boy and sacrifice him to the Lord. And that pretty much cuts off the lineage, the descendancy, the promises of God. It's all wrapped up in this kid. But Abraham, it says, "Believe God." In fact, if you read chapter 11 of Hebrews, it says, "By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered Isaac, whom he had received in a promise to an only begotten son." And the Lord had said to him, "In Isaac, your seed will be called." And it says there, "He concluded that God was able to raise up even from the dead, from which he received him in a figurative sense." So Abraham, great time of faith. God can even raise the dead. Imagine having to live with that as you watched your son travel with you. Thereupon the mountain, he took the wood, he took the fire. He said to his men, after three days of seeing his son as dead in the travel, my son and I are gonna go over there and worship and we're coming back. Isaac wasn't an idiot. He looked around and went, "Hey, we got everything, except to sacrifice." And what are you looking at me like that for? And Abraham says, "God will provide himself a sacrifice." And you know how the story went. Tied the boy up. I think 25 year old Isaac could have taken Abraham at 195. Must have just been a man of faith as well. Just stood, don't get much explanation. Wish we had the film. But in the last minute, God said, "I know you wouldn't keep anything from me." And God provided in there that animal caught in the thicket and they offered him to the Lord and Isaac went home with his dad. 874 years later, 998 BC. David was the king of Israel. He was sitting in his beautiful palace in Jerusalem, looked out a window and saw this tabernacle that they had carried around for years. A big tent at best. A torn up tent at worst. A place where the people had been able to meet with God and bring their offerings so that their sin could be covered. And David thought to himself, "I should build God the most beautiful place ever." He deserves it. And the more he thought about it, the more he was determined to do it. And one night when Nathan the prophet was at his house, he said, "Here's what I want to do for the Lord." And Nathan was excited. He went, "Yeah, man, do that, the Lord would love that. Give me high five." And Nathan went home and the Lord said, "What are you doing?" What? What'd you tell David to go ahead for? I thought you'd like that. Well, I don't. All right, go tell him you spoke too soon. And he went back. He said, "David, I'm sorry." The Lord said, "No, you're a man of war. You've shed a lot of blood. Your son can build hell, but I've got a better offer for you." He said, "You build me a house. How about I build you one?" And he began to tell him about his descendency and how in his lineage and through his loins and through his family, God would bring forth a savior, a deliverer of the Messiah. And David, a man who is tremendously good with word, the most, maybe, articulate man in the Bible if you read the Psalms, was left speechless. He said, "Lord, I don't know what to say. You've given me so much and now you've made this promise to me of years to come." So David, by God's direction, commissioned his son Solomon to build. You can read the commissioning in first Chronicles, I think it's chapter 22. And about 973 or so, BC, Solomon became king. Earlier David had, before that commissioning, offended the Lord. If you go back and read 2 Samuel 24, I think it's the last chapter of that book. David, in his heyday and things were going well. So, told Joab the commander of his army to go number the army, who number our strength. Let's see how powerful we are, which was really a sin against the Lord. In fact, we read in Chronicles that Satan stood next to David suggesting a count would be really good. Well, Joab wasn't a very nice guy. In fact, if you read the stories of Joab, he's kind of a meat guy. But even he thought, man, this is a horrible idea 'cause God's always let us win. Forget numbers, we can always be outnumbered. God seems to always come through. He thought it was a horrible idea. For the next nine and a half months or so, Joab ran around. David kept asking, what's the number? I'm working on it. But he was not willing to really count everyone. In fact, he came up with a number of 1.3 million army men, but he didn't even count a lot of the groups, and he was against it. But it angered the Lord so greatly that David would turn to trust his own strength, if you will, rather than the Lord. Eventually, his own heart would condemn him. But at this time when that number came to him, and whatever David's response was, the Lord sent a prophet named Gad to David to say how angry the Lord was that David would turn there. And so he said, I'm gonna punish you and your people for your lack of faith. And then he gave them a couple of different choices, seven months running from the enemy, three months in their hands, three days with the plague of God. And David, what do you want, man? You can take one of those. And David said, I'll just take the plague of God, because I don't wanna fall into the hands of man. He's not fair, God's always fair. And in one day, 70,000 people died. And David just said, oh my God, shit. The Lord showed him, and I angel with a sword out, standing over Jerusalem. And David, Lord, please kill me, don't kill the people. It's my fault, it's not them. Stop. And the Lord, seeing the destruction and the despair, stopped this angel that was bringing judgment. And as they stopped, they were at a field on a hill, on Mount Mariah, belonged to a different fella. David didn't own it. It was called a couple of names in the Bible. One of them is Ornan. And Gad the prophet said to David, the Lord wants you to go build a temple, a place of worship, a tabernacle, an altar, on the land of Ornan and sacrifice for your sin, and the sin of the people. And so David went to Ornan, who was seeing the destruction in town as well, and said to David, just take everything, man, just go build. We put an end to this. And David said, I can't just offer to God something that doesn't cost me anything. I wanna pay full price. I wanna pay for your land, for the offerings. Tell me what it's worth. And David bought this land, and they built a place of sacrifice, if you will, an altar. And they offered it to the Lord. And rather than three days and one day, the judgment of God ceased as the blood was shed. And God stayed the judgment. So jumping back to 1 Chronicles 22, when Solomon became king, and David spent the last 10 or 15 years of his life just saving up to build this temple, by the time that Solomon got to build it, I don't think he needed to lurk for much stuff. It was basically there. But when David died, and when Solomon actually began to build, even before David passed away, the place that Solomon began to build was this very same place that Ornan's land was, where the altar had stood, which just happened to be the same place that Abraham had brought Isaac. And so this first temple was built upon a place where there were a couple of altars that were built at Sabernacle's places of worship. It was the place that David had envisioned. It was the place Abraham had brought his son and Solomon began to build. For the next seven years, Solomon built, can you imagine what this place must've looked like? Seven years of building. Chronicles tells us that he had 70,000 men that just carried bricks and rocks and boulders, that there were 80,000 men in a quarry just to chisel stones, 3,600 supervisors, and everything was done offside because they didn't want the noise of the work to show up at the place of the temple. It was the, you know, God's work doesn't require our sweat, just our faith. And so this went on, if you go to Israel with us sometime, we're going next March, Lord be willing. I think we're on our second busload of people if you wanna go with us. But we'll take you to Solomon's quarries, they're still there. And you'll see how far they had to travel and how big these stones were. It's a modern miracle, for sure. But like I said, no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was there in the temple area. And so Solomon, after seven years, finished this. And when he finished, he prayed over this temple, first temple. It was an unbelievable place. If you look at the measurements, you begin to listen to what was taking place. It cost hundreds of millions of dollars. And if it was done from the heart of love to the Lord, it wasn't an idle place of worship. It was just a place of, you know, putting your best foot forward and serving the Lord. But even when Solomon dedicated the temple, he was able to say to the Lord, can God really dwell upon the earth? Does a building and can the heavens of heaven contain him? And if that can't, how can this temple hold him? First Kings, I think it's chapter eight. And so he just said, Lord, when you look to this place, see us, you know, listen to our prayers. And when we turn here, know that we're turning to you. After this temple was built, if you continue to read through the scriptures, the temple in Jerusalem experienced lots of ups and downs. It's effectiveness or it's holiness or it's lack thereof, influence, had a lot to do with who the king was at the time, who's in charge, who cared about the things of God. And you can follow the history of this first temple through the books of, especially of kings and of chronicles from a guy named Ahaz, who desecrated the temple, robbed of all of its treasures to a king like Hezekiah, who sought to restore worship there after king years of neglect. The final nail in the coffin, maybe, was during the reign of a king named Jehoia Kin. He really marked the beginning of the end for Judah prior to their captivity. He was a king, but he wasn't very powerful. And Nebuchadnezzar, the big shot from Babylon, kind of had put him under his thumb as a vassal and made him pay a lot of taxes. And for a while, he paid and then he, you know, he got it in his heart. He was going to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar. And so it brought the first of three invasions from the Babylonians against Judah. The first one in 606, the second one in 597, the first one Daniel and all these rich kids were kidnapped and trained to be the kind of the inter-media areas between Israel and the Babylonians. In 597, a lot of things were destroyed. Things were stolen. In 586, he came back for good and leveled this temple and the first temple was destroyed and just laid to waste. The 70 years of captivity that had begun in 606, 20 years later, finds the temple just ruined. So the first temple at best was short-lived. If you go back in the history of Israel, it lasted 375 years and many of those 375 years, the temple, the place of meeting between God and man. I understand, from God's standpoint, that was the only place you met with him. You didn't make your little temple in your backyard. You didn't have your offers wherever you wanted. You came here. This was God's presence with God's people. Most of the time it was neglected and abused and set aside. The people turned their backs on the presence of the Lord. The worship of God came and went and oftentimes judged for sin. But in the mercy of God, he promised that he would restore them again, bring them back to the land. Just the longest introduction you've ever had. So the first temple is gone, right? 586, it's gone. 50 more years of captivity to follow. After a 70 years total or to 536 BC, God again began a work of restoration amongst his people to bring them both back to the land, which was given to them by him and back to a reconstruction of the temple, which was the place, the only place you could meet with God. So it was important to the Lord that this meeting place was always maintained. You can find an amazing prophecy about the second temple in Isaiah chapter 44 and chapter 45 where the Lord says this through the prophet. He confirms the words of his prophet, speaks the counsel of his to his messengers, says to the Jerusalem, you will be inhabited and to the cities of Judah, you will be built. I will raise up you out out of waste places. He says to the deep be dry, he dries up rivers and he says to Cyrus, he is my shepherd. He shall perform all of my pleasure. And he says to Jerusalem, he shall be built. He says to the temple, your foundation will be laid. And so the Lord says to his anointed to Cyrus whose right hand I have held to subdue nations before him and to lose the armor of kings and to open the double doors so that the gates won't close. I will go before you and make crooked places straight. I will break down in pieces the gates of bronze and the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness, the hidden treasures of secret places that you may know. I am the Lord who has called you by name. I'm the God of Israel and for Jacob, my servant's sake and for Israel, my elect. I have called you by name. I have named you, even though you have not known me. And if you go again back into the history, and by the way, that is reported in second Chronicles chapter 36 when it all took place. Isaiah wrote this in 683 BC. Right? Years before Cyrus was ever even born. Years before the first temple was destroyed. And Isaiah says, oh, Jerusalem's gonna be built up again. The cities are gonna be strengthened. The temple is gonna be rebuilt. In the book of Ezra, 536 BC, you find the first group of about 50,000 people from captivity going back to Jerusalem with one purpose. Let's rebuild the temple. Let's rebuild the place of fellowship with God. For years, they sat by the Babylon rivers crying. They missed God. They had neglected him for most of their lives. The people wanted to go back. And the work when they got back started immediately and stopped immediately. They laid the base for it, if you will. The foundation. And then some public political pressure and danger came their way. And then a lot of lust and, you know, wanting your, we should build our own houses. And then we can build the order. I'll do better if I can sleep my own bed. And so they began to import, you know, wood from different places, spend a lot of money in their house. And for the next 16 years, the thing just sat there with a foundation port. But God's people ignorant of the fact that they could only meet with them, God, there. And they hadn't built it up. God hadn't showed up. He was waiting. And they had ignored him. In five 60, no, no, sorry, in 520 BC, 16 years later, God sent some folks to Jerusalem to get them going. Sent Haggii, sent Zachariah, began to encourage the people. In fact, said to them, Haggii did. You can read that little book in your Old Testament. You know, you're working so hard to put your money in pockets with holes. And every time you sow something, nothing comes up. And, you know, it just wastes the land. You think you're getting somewhere, but you're getting nowhere. Why? Because you put the Lord's second. The work of Haggii and Zachariah had a great impact. Four years later, five, 16 BC. 20 years, if you will, after the return of the people, the temple was finished. At the dedication of the second temple, there were old and young folks alike who had tremendously different opinions of what they saw. Ezra writes to us in chapter three that the old people, when they saw what was being built, they began to weep, the priests, the Levites, the folks who had seen the first temple, they were just like, this thing stinks. You should have seen the one Solomon built. The young kids who had only seen what they had built went, that's the coolest temple ever. It was the only one that they ever seen. And so there was both crying and weeping Haggii, our hero, writes in chapter two, verse nine, that the glory of the second temple would be greater than the first one. Because to this place, God said, I'll give peace. And all you have to do is read ahead. You know, it is to this temple, the second one, that Jesus came, that he did his ministries. He presented himself. He was dedicated at this temple. This temple would stand for years. Even through the intertestimate times, your old testament runs out about 400 BC. In 166 BC, there was a saluted king named Antichas Epiphany, the fourth, read about him in your history books, if you like. He came and he began to force the worship of pagan gods in this temple. He set up Jupiter in the temple. He slew a pig upon the altar. He put pagan images in the holy of holies. He stole every treasure that he could find in the temple. He was, according to Daniel in chapter 11, a picture of, if you will, of the Antichrist. He was a type of what the Antichrist would come to do. And he's compared to that by the Lord there in Daniel. In 165 BC, or three years after this happened, you know, it's not just one of those things. 165 BC or three years after this happened, there was a outbreak in Israel called the Bat Maccabean Revolt. And they revolted against the Syrians who at this time were in control of Jerusalem, if you will. And they were led by a fellow named Judas Maccabias, who tried to retrieve the place of worship from the pagans who had overruned at the heathen, wanted to restore it to their glory again and to use it for the things of God. The miracles that God did for the people during that time is the basis for the Feast of Hanukkah, his provision of oil that lasted longer than it should. The tremendous victories that they got. The Hasmoneans ruled the city of Jerusalem until 63 or so BC. When the Romans overthrew them, you might remember General Pompey, if you read old Roman history. But he captured Jerusalem and he found the temple completely abandoned. It was just sitting there not in use. 25 years later or so, Herod the Great in 37 BC came to power and 20 years before Jesus was born began to remodel the temple. Took it on as a project. He was a builder. He sought his own glory by what he built. The project would continue to be rebuilt from 37 BC until 63 AD. So it was literally 60 years in the building. In fact, you might remember in your Bibles that the apostles would walk around with Jesus and said, have you seen how beautiful the temple's becoming? Because this guy could build. He built a lot of stuff. And it was Jesus who would predict about the destruction that it was coming to it. But needless to say, it got finished in 63 AD. That means it was only done for seven years because in 70 AD, Titus and the Roman army came and overthrew Jerusalem in response to the rebels there, if you will. And in a battle that took a year and a half or so, in 70 AD, this second temple was leveled by the Romans. And again, that place of meeting between God and his people was removed. Herod doubled the size of the temple. He built platforms around it on the northwest corner of the temple mountain. He built a fortress or a barracks, almost we could call it, called the Antonio fortress, where he housed a garrison of soldiers, because if there was ever trouble amongst the Jews, it was always in the temple mount, kind of like today. So this is the second temple, the one that Jesus was brought to to be dedicated in Luke chapter 2, the place where Jesus at 12 years old stayed behind, while his families went home, they had to come find him in their anxiety and found him confounding the teachers of the law. This temple where Jesus came, both at the beginning and the end of his public ministry, where he cleansed right the temple and drove out the money changers. This place that had a beginning now has a conclusion. It was the place that the early church gathered. It was the place that the early church outside gathered together for worship. When Jesus walked with his disciples a couple of days before the cross and they bragged about how beautiful the place looked, Jesus said, these things that you see, the days are coming where not one stone will be left upon another that is not thrown down. In the invasion that took place under Titus, some Roman on his own started to shoot arrows of fire through the windows. And the place caught fire. They were actually told not to do that if you read Josephus. But they did it in their fur, where we're going to take over. And because of the fire, all of the gold melted into the cracks. And being greedy, they took one stone upon another and they started to take the gold away so that they could keep it for themselves. And the very prophecy of Daniel that 62 weeks later, the Messiah would be cut off, but not for himself. And then the people of the prince that would come would destroy the city and the sanctuary. And it was destroyed. And the second temple was lost. On August 12 of that year, Titus overthrew the temple. Interestingly enough, it was August 12 in 586 that Nebuchadnezzar overthrew the temple. Don't have any idea what that meant, but they're both on the same day. I'll let you figure out why. I have no idea. But in the first day of the attack, 1.1 million people died in Jerusalem. So with the destruction of the second temple, the Jews were scattered, right? It is the second exile of the Jews from their homeland. They were scattered across the earth. And for the next 1,900 years effectively, they had no place to call their own. The temple mount has no or had no significant Jewish presence during all of those years. I'm getting to verse one. I know, I am. There are still two temples to be built. This one in the tribulation time, the first 3 and 1/2 years, on the site of, I'm sure, the other two. And the plans, as we know, are well-undered away for that. And then a fourth temple, a millennial temple, which will be built during the 1,000-year reign of Christ, not as a place of sacrifice, but as a memorial, just as you can go and look and understand and rejoice in all that the Lord did. There are many scholars, and I have-- I'm almost persuaded to believe some of them, although I can't give you a biblical reason for it. But that believe that the fourth temple during the millennial will not be built in Jerusalem. It'll be built in Shiloh. It stood in Shiloh, by the way. The fabric I got much longer than it ever did in Jerusalem. But that's neither here nor there. That's extra credit right there. And I can't even tell you why. I'm convinced that we don't have the time. It is the third temple that we find in these two verses, right? It's the third temple. And the fourth temple is discussed in very detailed verses in Ezekiel chapter 40 through 48. If you go read those nine chapters, that's where you'll find the fourth temple. All right, verse one. How am I doing? Good. Then I was given a read, John says, like a measuring rod. And the angel said, rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there. But leave out the court, which is outside the temple. Do not measure it for it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread the holy city underfoot for three and a half years, 42 months. Those are all the same reference. John is given a, the Greek word is calamos. It means a yard stick, a measuring stick, a reed like plants that grow along the Jordan. They're very lightweight. They're very sturdy. John is told to measure, take a measurement. We don't know who this angel is. We assume it's the angel from the previous chapter, verse nine and 11. It doesn't really tell us whether an other angel begins to get involved. But the measurement is certainly intended to convey more to us than inches in feet. In fact, the word measurement, oftentimes when the Lord uses it, He uses it to measure purpose or heart or intent or commitment. So it made me more than just, like I said, a measurement. If you read Ezekiel chapter two, Ezekiel is told to measure, not Ezekiel, Zachariah chapter two, sorry. Zachariah is told to go measure the city of Jerusalem and what kind of worship it finds there and to measure the worshipers, which is interesting. Yeah, he's about six, two and about, you know. No, God was measuring something else. In Ezekiel chapter 40, where I told you you can look for this fourth temple, there is an equal kind of a challenge to measure out the place of the temple and the same word measure is used. We know, and hopefully by now you would do as well, that this third temple will be built during the first half of the tribulation period. In direct violation of God's word, in rebellion to the work of Jesus, but having rejected Him, Israel is now returning to the Old Testament sacrifice system and the Antichrist in a kind of incognito way will be their ambassador, right? You read that in chapter six verses one and two. According to the prophecy of Daniel chapter nine, verse 27, the Antichrist will play a significant role in getting this third temple built and especially where it wants to be built on the temple mount, Mount Moriah. Can you imagine? You know what's standing up there now, right? That Dome of the Rock is not exactly gonna just move on its own. During the first half and the relatively peaceful half of the tribulation, the Antichrist through deceitful love, support for Israel, come up with all kinds of ideas, is gonna be able to pull this thing off, really enamour himself to the people because this is, for Israel is a huge issue, you gotta understand. It's their temple, it's their lineage, it's their history. We are told by Daniel and many others that at this halfway point, the Antichrist will show his true colors. He'll come to the, finally a temple that is finished, declare himself to be God, demand, worship as God. Jesus in Matthew 24 said to the disciples, "When you see the abomination that will make desolate, "standing in the holy place, "as Daniel spoke about, run for your life." Actually, he says, "Run, Judah flee to the mountains. "Get out of dodge 'cause now all hell's about to break loose." And the Lord warned about that. We read in 2 Thessalonians that same kind of wording, the abomination of desolation, that day will come when the man of sin is revealed, he exhausts himself as God demands worship as God. So we'll see more of this, particularly with the Antichrist in chapter 12 and 13 when we get there. But notice here the reference in verse two, that there is gonna be a treading of the holy city under foot for those last three and a half years of the great tribulation. The only thing that we have, I think, covered so far is that one of the next biblical events that will take place, but after you leave, will be the move of God against the Soviet Republics, the former ones anyway, mostly Muslim today, who will attack Israel from the north, and God will intervene and defeat them soundly Ezekiel 38 and 39, which will promote the climate for the rise of this man of sin from Europe. So today in Israel, by the way, if you go to Israel, there is quite a move to build the next temple. They actually have a organization that raises millions of dollars a year called the Temple Society. In fact, if you go to the whaling wall, I think the big candelabras are already on display. It's surrounded by plexiglass and lots of security. I think it's worth, what, $28 million or something? It just sits out there. It's ready when the new temple is ready. It's facing the whaling wall, but behind there is the Temple Mount. So we're just telling you, we're bringing it. It's coming. There's a lot of, well, you probably have watched the recent riots that began in Israel really began from a couple of things. The desire for Jewish zealots to demand houses back there now in Arab neighborhoods, and they claim that they had rights to it. And then the showing up in the Temple Mount of the Jews to celebrate their victory in 1967 with the annexation and just all hell broke loose. I mean, there was 11 days of bombing and thousands of people dying, and Israel was back bombing again yesterday. But anyway, this Temple Society is hard at work. The Dome of the Rocks, you know what that looks like, right? It is the third holiest site for the Muslims next to Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad and Medina. To try to remove the Dome of the Rock will be World War III. We have been on the Temple Mount with our groups over the years. It's never peaceful. There's always like trouble. I tried bringing my Bible up there one year. Do you remember just to teach out of it? And they tell you don't bring your Bible. So I got stopped by one of their guards and he said, "What's that in your hand?" I said, "History book." And he said, "That's a Bible." So I said to our tour guys, I thought you guys were in this place. He said, "I can guarantee you that I can bring the army here "and they'll let you speak and they'll guard you. "I just can't guarantee you'll get out of the country alive." So I put the Bible away and went by memory pretty much. But we've had some, you know, there's always that tension there. They don't really want you on the Temple Mount. So you can just imagine the guarding, you know, that they do of this place. After 300 years of Christian Byzantine rule, just six years after the death of Muhammad and he died in 632, I think, AD, the Muslims overthrew Jerusalem. And that fella Caliph Malik, I think was his name. He built this Dome of the Rock over a stone that they contend Muhammad ascended to heaven out from in 684 AD. So what is spoken here by John or by the angel to John, if you will, in verse two, is that they should measure the place of worship and the altar, the place of sacrifice and the place where the worshipers gather, but they should leave out of the measurement. The outer court, don't mention it. It used to be called the court of the Gentiles where Gentiles could only come so far. Here it is just called the place of the Gentiles. In other words, just give it to those who are unbelievers that are not here to worship. That doesn't, that they don't really want to worship the Lord. Interestingly enough, recent archaeological discoveries have been made in Jerusalem by very well-known scientists that would support, and even Israel has kicked around the idea of how they might be able to pull this off. Though it will be the temple that most offends the Lord, it's gonna be built. The Dome of the Rock today sets, if you look at a map, just slightly south of center on the Temple Mount. If you look at it, there's an Eastern Gate here, right? The one that came into the city. And rather than line up with it, it is just a bit to the south. According to all of the writings and comments found in Ezekiel, the Holy of Holies, the place where God's presence was in the temple, should stand directly in the middle, right? So that if you leave that you should go right out the East Gate up the slopes of the Mount of Olives. Exactly in the East West line, through the Eastern Gate to the temple area. By the way, that gate is sealed today because those who don't believe in Jesus say, well, he'll never enter into a burial ground, and so they bury people there. But what they don't know is the Lord shows up, everybody's getting out of there. He's just gonna come right through, it'll be just fine. The Dome of the Rock misses the center line by 322 feet. Now, I didn't make that up, it didn't even measure it. But there is a doctor named Asher Kaufman, who is a professor of physics at the Hebrew University of Mount Scopus, who spent years investigating the layout of the temple, the archeological findings. He published, I don't know if you've ever any of you subscribed to the bar magazine, not a bar, biblical archeological review. But in 1983, the whole magazine was committed to what he discovered about the placement of the Dome of the Rock. As a result, he came up with a theory that he believes one of the little domed cupolas up on the temple mount. It is known as the Dome of the Spirits, sometimes called the Dome of the Tablets, stands directly on the ancient site where the Holy of Holies would have lined up exactly in this east-west line through the eastern gate. Interestingly enough, around that cupola are the only two exposed bedrock in the entire temple area. So, that information along with various studies of the cornerstone discovered in the inner court, the subterranean cisterns that they've unearthed, have led Kaufmann and a lot of people with him to develop the theory, gains a lot of weight in Israel with biblical scholars, that you could build this third temple over from the Dome of the Rock over here, and as long as you leave the court of the Gentiles alone, you could build a place of worship, build the temple, it would fulfill the scriptures, line up with all the prophecies, and probably not cause World War III, and it may vary, will be that that's something that the Antichrist will look into. It does shed a light upon the great issue of the problem that being there, there is plenty of room here, and John has told that in our text. By the way, we used to go into the Dome of the Rock with our travel group, now they forbid anybody to go in there, but around the top of the Dome of the Rock written in Arabic are the words God does not beget nor is he begotten. A direct kind of blasphemy of John chapter three, verse 16. So we've seen where the worst temple went 375 years, we've seen how the second temple lasted till 70 AD, this third temple is gonna be built when you're gone, but there is a lot of movement in Israel on how they're gonna position that, where it's gonna go, and leading physicists are writing books to convince the temple society and others, and by the way, it's a simple society, it's not really a biblical group, they're just a zealous group of people, but they're pushing this agenda forward. You know, there's radical groups in Israel that just wanna storm and take the temple mount. Anyway, there seems to be a workable solution that even man has come up with, and then, you know, exciting days in which we live. David prepared for the temple, Solomon built it, there's a preparing for the temple these days among many living in Israel. It'll be used by the Antichrist once it's built to launch his I Am God campaign. But look, if that's that close, and the coming of the Lord for you and I is at least three and a half years sooner, I think you should be encouraged. We could be out of here before you know it, which is okay with me, how about you? All right, next week, we'll try to take more verses. Father, thank you for your word to us tonight, I know there's a lot to be taken in, but so exciting to just, you give us all this information, we wanna learn. We wanna watch and see, and we saw that the first temple so often lost because of non-use. The door was open for fellowship with God, the method, the way it was open, and few took it, and even when they did, it didn't last long, the second temple. Built with fervor, even people who started in fervor needed to be encouraged, but finally, it was done. And then it just kind of became a religious symbol built by an unbeliever that people could be proud of, but no access to the Lord, and God's people sent back him. And soon and very soon, the church, the believers, taken home, and this move again to rebuild a religious monument that has done very little to move the hearts of the people, even though it's God's plan to bring us to himself through his son, through the blood that is shed. And then the defilement by this man of sin. Lord, we pray you come quickly for the church, we're ready to be with you. But as we watch the news, and as we read, and just listen to what the world is trying to accomplish, we realize how close we are to your coming. And before all of these things, the church is taken up. Praise the Lord, exciting days, Lord, may we be busy for you, inviting folks to church, telling them about Jesus, and sharing our faith, living it in their eyes. And if tonight you don't know Jesus, he knows you, knows you by name, and just like he named Cyrus, hundreds of years before he was born, called him by name, even though he says you don't know me. God knows you before you know him, but here's the good news, he wants you to know him, he's called you to know him. He sent his son to die so that you could have that wall of sin that separates you from God removed, as Jesus dies in your place, and he gives to you grace and mercy, forgiveness, and you can become his child. And then you can belong to the first group here in Revelation chapter 4, taken up into heaven, before the judgment of God falls upon the rest of the world, who's decided life without him is fine. If God is speaking to you tonight, open your heart. Pray, ask him to be your Lord, to forgive your sins. Father, forgive me, Father, save me. I put my trust in you. If you're here in the sanctuary, you can come up afterwards and pray with one of the pastors or over in the fellowship, all the overflow as well. If you're watching online, like I know many of you are, you can just follow the clicks down there at the description and it'll take you to a page of scriptures and promises that God has made to those who will turn to his son. Don't wait, tomorrow might be too late, do it now, while the fire is hot, while God has your attention, do it now. And the Lord will rejoice, heaven will rejoice. If you'll just open your heart to him. Well, thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and rating our podcast. You can visit us on the web at morningstarcc.org and on our YouTube channel at MorningstarCC. Again, that's at MorningstarCC. If you'd like to support this podcast, please look us up at patreon.com/morningstarcc. Again, that's patreon, p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com/morningstarcc. (gentle music)
