Chapter 3 – 3^RD TEMPLE BUILT

Duration: Stands for 2,300 days
Timing: 295 days after the “Covenant” between antichrist and the Jews
Key Scriptures: Daniel 8:13-14; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11-12; 2 Thessalonians 2

A very important piece of this End Times puzzle is this building that is erected in Jerusalem. It isn’t important so much for religious reasons as it is for prophetic fulfillment. 

Paul, the apostle, gave us a prophecy about this temple. In his second letter to the Thessalonian church he said that the Lord won’t come back for His church until after the antichrist shows himself in the temple. 

2^nd Thessalonians 2:¹ Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, ² not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. ³ Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness [sin] is revealed, the son of destruction [perdition], ⁴ who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 

If no temple is built, then the antichrist doesn’t take a seat in it. If antichrist doesn’t take a seat in the temple, the Lord doesn’t return.

Unfortunately, this temple we are going to talk about is not a thing of unity and beauty. It isn’t going to house the Spirit of God, as previous temples were made to do. Instead, this building is going to be more of a stage, or arena, for battle and blasphemy. It is really going to be a possession of Satan and the antichrist, for longer than of the people of God.

I don’t express these things with happiness at all. It is a sad state of affairs, indeed. Its presence is going to be a kind of last-ditch effort for demons and man to grasp at some sort of legitimacy in the eyes of the world. But also for the Jews it will be a final attempt at finding favor with God without the cross. It’s all so empty and meaningless in this light.

Of course, it will really be a symbol used by God to show that His return is imminent (AFTER it is built and the antichrist defiles it). For when we see this temple being built, we can know without any shadow of a doubt that we are already in the tribulation period.

So let’s examine the temple for just a little bit before moving on.

None of these is the third temple. It’ll probably copy Herod’s, mostly.

Today in Jerusalem there is the thing called “The Temple Mount”. On the west side of it is what the Jews call “The Wailing Wall” or “Western Wall”, where they go to be close to YHWH (G-d) and say their prayers.  It’s an ancient wall that is part of a huge foundation for a structure that was standing in the days when Jesus walked the streets of Israel. 

In our study, we talk about the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus sat opposite the temple on the Mount of Olives and gave His friends a look into the distant future. Well, the focal point of the discussion was initially the temple that they were gazing at across the valley.

Back then the temple area was very different from what we see today. In fact, it was not at all what the overwhelming majority of people living today suppose that it was. In the first place, this foundation that still exists was not built by Jews for their temple, it was the foundation of a Roman fort, called Antonia (not the small structure on the NW corner today). 

The actual temple mount was located a little bit to the south of the current “Temple Mount”, on the hill known to be part of the old City of David, which is over the Gihon Spring. That spring is still there, gushing out water to this day. It’s the same spring that was used by the ancient Jewish priests in their temple rituals. 

This Fort Antonia was later added by the Romans to dominate the city and show that they are the new power over the Jews. They only allowed them to have their temple so long as they were good Roman citizens paying taxes. In fact, they built a colonnade (a raised bridge) that stretched from the temple to their fort, immediately north of the temple. Talk about a presence of intimidation!

So all of this talk about the huge stones of the Wailing Wall being left over from the temple is flatly wrong. In fact, there is really no reason why the Jews could not build their temple on the correct site immediately. 

If people were paying attention to the words of Jesus (and a first century Jewish historian named Josephus) then they would know that not one stone was left on top of another from the temple.

Matthew 24:²“Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!” (NLT)

Obviously, stones are still stacked up. Really big ones. 

According to Josephus, the southeastern corner of the temple reached all the way to the floor of the Kedron Valley. This is not the case with the current remains of Fort Antonia. 

Josephus also wrote that if he had not seen where the temple was with his own eyes before its destruction, then he would have never suspected that it existed at all. (Since he saw the temple grounds before and after the destruction in 70 AD.) Would he have written this if the so-called “Temple Mount” were the temple’s foundation? Not likely.

And getting back to the Gihon Spring, it’s still there – SOUTH of the so-called “Temple Mount”!! Completely south and not a part of the structure at all. Yet Tacitus told us in his work, History, V, 11-12 “[The temple] contained an inexhaustible spring”. Well, there is no spring in the limits of the so-called “Temple Mount” of today. Not even close.

Also, the City of David is to the south of the so-called “Temple Mount”. Well, the temples of Solomon and Herod were built ON the City of David, not north of it. 

So, the temple could be built right now without any conflict at all with that Muslim structure on top of the old foundation of Fort Antonia. 

I recommend that you look into the writings of Dr. Ernest L. Martin (now deceased). Or check out his website where there is a very nice presentation on the true site of the temple. You can find the website at www.askelm.com. Or, look for his book called, The Temples That Jerusalem Forgot, which is also available to read online for free through the web address above.  You’ll never see the Temple Mount the same afterward.

Getting back to our study, we can determine approximately how long it will take to build this 3^rd (unholy) temple. It’s really just a matter of plugging in some numbers into some very simple arithmetic.

In Daniel 9:27, we know that there is an agreement between antichrist and an Israeli leader that is supposed to last for seven years. That would be 2,520 days using the prophetic way of counting days (30 per month). Daniel says that halfway through this period, the temple is violated. 2,520 ÷ 2 = 1,260 days. That’s when the Abomination of Desolation occurs and the Great Tribulation begins. 

In Daniel 8:14, we read that “the temple will be made right again” after 2,300 days. That seems like a happy thought in the midst of all this gloom and despair. Well, in Daniel 12:11-12 we get some more numbers. He says in verse 11 that the abominable statue erected in the temple will stand for 1,290 days. But in verse 12 he gives us another small tidbit of happy news. He says that after 1,335 days some people will be “blessed”. 

Can the happy news of 8:14 and the blessing of 12:12 be the same event? I don’t think anyone knows for sure, but let’s just say that they are connected; that something happens on that day that has to do with the temple. If this is true, then we have some numbers to play with. Take 1,260 (days from the beginning to the tribulation to when the statue is set up) plus 1,335 (the happy, blessed day) and we get 2,595 days. Then we just subtract the 2,300 days for the temple to be made “right” again and we come up with 295 days. That’s my best guess at how long it will take the Jews to rebuild their temple (which won’t really be theirs for long at all – 965 days in all).  

Again, this 295 days count may start when the two leaders sit at a table and try to deceive each other in Daniel 11:27. It looks like the deceitful antichrist is the craftier of the two. Plus, the Jews just don’t seem to be paying attention to these prophecies about the temple and the antichrist and Armageddon and Jesus’ return. 

My guess is that the smooth-tongued antichrist very graciously tells the Jews that they can have their precious temple, knowing all the while that he will take it over in a very short period of time after it is constructed. This means that the temple will be his longer than it’s theirs. 

We can know for certain, according to scripture, that antichrist does go into a temple in Jerusalem and declares himself to be god (2 Thes 2). The false prophet, antichrist’s right hand man, erects a statue of antichrist in the temple grounds, which everyone must worship (Rev 13). These things MUST happen before the Lord returns. 

And that is why the 3^rd temple is so important. It is a place where these things happen and where the Two Witnesses take the stage to proclaim the soon arrival of King Jesus, Lord of all creation. Even though antichrist outwits the Jews, God still makes antichrist’s victory a little bitter for the villain by placing His Two Witnesses right there at ground zero where antichrist makes his big announcement (though probably not right when he makes it). They will torment him and his unholy followers for the entire 42 months of the Great Tribulation period. Yay God!

Revelation 11:¹ Then I was given a measuring stick, and I was told, “Go and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count the number of worshipers. ² But do not measure the outer courtyard, for it has been turned over to the nations. They will trample the holy city for 42 months. ³ And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will be clothed in burlap and will prophesy during those 1,260 days.”

Not everyone agrees that the temple just discussed is a real, physical building in Jerusalem.  They wish to make the message of the temple a spiritual concept, saying that it represents the Holy Spirit in the Church and so forth. It isn’t my place to conjecture as to why they say this, I can only tell them and you that the Bible seems to be pretty clear that this is an actual temple, as real as those of Solomon and Herod – the one that Jesus and his disciples gazed at from across the Kidron Valley from the Mount of Olives. Do we pull out a measuring stick to measure the Holy Spirit?

While it is made clear in Hebrews and other New Testament works that the Church is the new “temple of God”, this truth does not seem to affect the Jewish people at this time. The Jews giving up on their temple rites is not laid out in scripture that I can find. In fact, they continue their temple rites on into the Millennium (Ezekiel 40-48). Therefore, I do not think that this condition will affect how the Jews live out their religion as a people in the last days. If the Jews are permitted to rebuild their temple, I think that they will do so. If we are to attempt to “spiritualize” these references to the temple, saying that it refers to the Church and not the Jews, then I believe we are at risk of misunderstanding the End Times – and the Millennium.

If God’s Word says that there is going to be a temple, I believe that there’s going to be a temple. If it’s a marker for us to know that His return is very close, then that’s the way I’m going to look at it. And if this thing must be built before His return, then I’m not going to agree that His return is “imminent” until it’s built. 

If we are to believe those who say that this temple is the Church, then we must believe that the Church can be possessed (entered) by the antichrist and defiled. Naturally, the Bible squarely debunks this notion with the words of John, “…He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

The only way to make the End Times “easy” to understand is to take the Bible for what it says. We can’t be making stuff up as we go along. Or if we do, make sure that we aren’t playing with the cold, hard facts. It’s fun to embellish, I do it all the time, but changing the word to fit what we want it to say is completely another matter, and should be avoided completely. 

Questions to Ponder

1. Is the return of Jesus imminent (meaning that nothing prophetic must happen first)?
2. Does the place called “The Temple Mount” in Jerusalem fit what Jesus said about it in Matthew 24:2?
3. Should we take the Bible to mean what it says about the temple (a physical building with measurements, see Rev 11, that is inhabited by the antichrist, see 2 Thes 2)? Or do we spiritualize the message in order for our own false stories to have validity?

Answers

1. No. Regardless of how many times the Bible discusses how eagerly we are to await the return of our beloved Savior, the prophecies say that the temple must first be built and defiled by antichrist.
2. No, for at least 3 reasons:
   • Jesus said that not one stone would remain.
   • Josephus said the same thing and testified to it before and after.
   • Gihon Spring is not under Fort Antonia.
3. We should use Exegetics over Eisegetics every time. The End Times will never be “easy” to understand otherwise. Take the Bible at its word.

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Preface/Introduction
Ch 1: Ezekiel’s War
Ch 2: The Tribulation
Ch 3: 3rd Temple Built
Ch 4: The Great Tribulation
Ch 5: The Wrath of God
Ch 6: The Return of Christ
Ch 7: The Resurrection of the Dead in Christ
Ch 8: The Rapture
Ch 9: Armageddon
Ch 10: The Millennium
Ch 11: The Judgment
Ch 12: The New Creation
Ch 13: Conclusion
Ch 14: Summary
Glossary