Today, The Bible & You

Today’s Front Page

The Nation’s Christian Newspaper

December 2023

Will the Dome of the Rock Mosque

on the Temple Mount Soon be Destroyed?

Is it time for the Third Temple to be built?

 Prophesy is at Hand!

If they do, it will fulfill the Biblical prophecy in Matthew 24:15….“When ye therefore shall see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ [Anti-Christ] spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place [Jewish Temple]…”

  (In other words, the Jewish Temple MUST be built for it to be desecrated.)

 The word, “holy place,” used in this Scripture above, is referencing the New Jewish Temple that will be rebuilt in Jerusalem in the near future.  Today there is an institution that is devoted specifically to this cause, it is called, “The Temple Institute.”  On my many visits to Israel, we have visited this Institute several times. They were founded in 1987 and are currently planning and developing the construction of the New Temple, which they claim that everything is ready and prepared.  All they need is the go-ahead.

 In fact, the Temple Institute has currently restored over 60 different sacred temple vessels including the Priest’s breastplate, the crown of the priest, the shofar, musical instruments, the laver, the  mizrak, and more.  Even some of the most important vessels: the Menorah, the Incense Alter, the Golden Table of Showbread, and a mock-up of the “Ark of the Covenant.”

  It is only a matter of time before this Temple gets built and fulfills the prophecy in Matthew!  Be Ready!  If a major earthquake destroys the Al-Aqsa Mosque, what should happen to the holy site?

 NBC, in 2004, predicted that a major earthquake would hit the old city before 2054: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna3980139

 Given that the infrastructure is old and crumbling due to excavations underneath the mosque, it is conceivable that the entire structure, if not the entire Mount, could collapse.  The last major earthquake was in 1927 and caused extensive but reparable damage, next time that may not be the case.  Such a collapse would be viewed with religious fervor by Jews and Christians as a possible sign of the arrival of the Messiah.

We have a DVD, “Israel’s Prophesied Annihilation of the Palestinians” that tells the following possibility regarding the possible fulfillment of clearing Mt. Moriah to build the third Temple.  Obadiah 15-18 — Set in End Times because verse 15 begins with the prophetic words, “For the Day of the Lord …”.  God consistently uses these words to denote the End of the Age prophecies, and this is time is no exception.

 “For the Day of the Lord is near upon all the nations.  As you have done, it shall be done to you; your dealings will return upon your own head.  For as you have drunk upon the mountain of My holiness [desecrating it in the wild revelry of the destroyers] so shall all the nations drink continually [in turn, of My wrath]; yes, they shall drink, talk foolishly, and swallow down [the full measure of punishment] and they shall be [destroyed] as though they had not been.” [Verses 15-16]

 “But on Mount Zion [in Jerusalem] there shall be deliverance [for those who escape], and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess its [own former] possessions.  The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, but the house Esau shall be stubble; they shall kindle and burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor of the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken it.” [Verses 17-18; Emphasis added].

 The remaining three verses [19-21] tell in great detail how completely Israel will expand out to possess the land God had promised to Israel.  This land includes Lebanon, part of Syria, two-thirds of Jordan [Moab and Edom provinces], and the Negev Desert.  When Israel expands her borders following this war with the Palestinians, Egyptians, and Jordanians, she will not only win but will send her armed forces out to occupy all the land God had promised them.

 But God will also bring about the purification of Mount Zion through this war.  Notice in verse 17 that God says: “But on Mount Zion [in Jerusalem] there shall be deliverance [for those who escape], and it shall be holy.”  The only way that Mount Zion [the Temple Mount] could be made holy in God’s sight is for the Muslim Dome of the Rock to be removed!

 This is a very interesting concept, because the New World Order Plan to produce Antichrist calls for just such a destruction of the Dome of the Rock.

 Since the most important pagan edifice on Mount Zion [Temple Mount] is the Muslim Dome of the Rock, then the question immediately coming to mind is, “Could the Arabs be planning to blow up the Dome and blame the Jews, to instantly unite all one billion Muslims in the world, in a Holy War against Israel?”  When I read this CNN report, I immediately reached back to my bookcase to pull down the most important New World Order book that details how the Antichrist is going to deceive the world.  In a matter of seconds, I had located the place in which the Dome of the Rock is mentioned.

 Note: “If the Messiah is to appear, then he must be produced.  And producing the Messiah … is just as much a function of humanity as of Divinity … There are doubtless many Jews … who will be willing to regard him as their long-awaited Messiah.  Some Muslims may take a similar view … it may be possible for the New David to ride into Jerusalem in all resplendent majesty.  Note the word ‘ride’ … on a donkey as predicted in Zechariah 9:9 … it would seem advisable for the new Messiah to repeat it, donkey and all … The processional route will, of course, lie directly across the Kidron ravine, as close as possible to the Temple Mount … he must be duly enthroned and anointed with oil (in token of Psalm 45:5-7) amid the rubble of the Dome of the Rock …” [The Armageddon Script, page 233-335]

  Antichrist will receive the recognition of being the Jewish Messiah as he is standing “amid the rubble of the Dome of the Rock!”  Most interestingly, our search amongst the proganda of the Palestinians and Hamas [the terrorist organization supporting Arafat], turned up an unbelievable fact: Palestinian propagandists are already preparing their people for rhe blowing up of the Dome of the Rock!  Time and time again, militant Palestinian organizations have warned that Israel is planning to blow up their beloved Aqsa (Dome of the Rock).

 Therefore, the deed is not only prophesied in Obadiah, but it is now verified twice from Palestinians sources — Arafat on CNN on September 7, 2000, and now by the Palestinian propagandists.  The Arabs will be God’s human agent by which God will fulfill His prophecy in Obadiah 17, that “On Mount Zion, there shall be deliverance … and it shall be holy“.  The Arabs do not realize they are going to purge Mount Zion of the pagan Dome to make it holy; they think they are doing it because such an act would instantly unite all one billion Muslims in the world into such a frenzy that Israel cannot possibly survive the ensuring furious onslaught.

   

ISRAEL’S FUTURE THIRD

AND FOURTH TEMPLES

The Old Testament devotes considerable attention to describing the portable tent, or tabernacle, of the Jewish people built under the leadership of Moses.  After the conquest of Canaan, the tabernacle and its contents remained at Shiloh throughout the time of Judges.  After Shiloh was destroyed (about 1050 BC), the Ark traveled through various Philistine cities and finally was brought to David’s palace south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and then into the holy of holies of the First Temple dedicated by Solomon about 952 BC.

 The First Temple geometrically resembled the Tabernacle through it was twice as large and built of immense quantities of stone, cedar wood, and lined with gold. [See Exodus 25-31; Exodus 35-40, Numbers 3:25 ff, Numbers 4: ff, also Philo (2nd Mos. 91) and Josephus (Ant. 3:122 ff).  Moses built everything according to a pattern revealed to him on Mt. Sinai, Hebrews 8:5.]

 After the First Temple was completed (1st Kings 5-8), the Tabernacle of Moses was dismantled.  It may have been stored in a room under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  There is some evidence that it may still lie there to this day.

 Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple on the 9th of Av 586 BC, the Jews were then taken captive to Babylon and the city had no center of worship until Zerubbabel and the returning exiles built the Second Temple, completing it in 516 BC.

 The Second Temple, modest in comparison with its predecessor, was rebuilt and enlarged by Herod the Great beginning in 20 BC, Herod recruited 10,000 workmen and set them to the task commencing in the 17th year of this reign.   Josephus gives vivid descriptions of the Second Temple and its environs and also records the terrible destruction by the Roman general Titus in 70 AD.

 1st Kings 6 ff, 1st Chronicles 22 ff. 3, Ezra, Nehemiah and Haggai describe the rebuilding of the temple after the Babylonian captivity.  This is the so-called “Second Temple” which Herod the Great later greatly enlarged.  Jesus was dedicated in the Second Temple, He cast out money changers there on two occasions, and He taught frequently in the temple courts.

 During the 70-year captivity of the Jews in Babylon and again in the diaspora, just ending in the last century, the Jewish people have centered their worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in synagogues around the world.  Since the terrible destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in AD 70, temple sacrifices, offerings, instruction, and worship have ceased in accordance with an Old Testament prophecy of Hosea (about 746 BC):

 “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim.  Afterward, the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.” (Hosea 3:4, 5)

 The regathering of the Jewish people to their homeland in our time (as predicted in Ezekiel 37) is being accompanied by a rapidly accelerating religious consciousness in Israel, the awakening of ancient longings and aspirations, and the rediscovery of many immutable promises God has made to the chosen seed of Abraham.  The fact that a Third Temple is to be built can be shown from the Tanach.  But three passages in the New Testament also refer to such a building not now in existence as of this writing in 1996 AD.  Many Christians have thus speculated in recent years about when the Third Temple would be built.  This is considered by many to be an important milestone pointing to the end of the age.  Plus, since the Third Temple will be used by the Antichrist to declare he is God, those followers of the new world order are in full agreement with this plan.

             

 The entire Temple Mount contains cisterns and passages most of which have been inaccessible since 70 AD.  The Temple Mount proper was liberated from Jordanian control in the Six-Day War of 1967 but then returned by Israel to the custody of the Muslim Waqf (Jordan).  The site is some 34 acres in extent with the prominent “Dome of the Rock” near the center and Al Aqsa mosque at the South end.  Jews pray night and day at the Western Wall which is below the Temple Mount, along a section of the great retaining wall of the Mount, in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.  The Western Wall is as close as Jews can get these days to the site of their ancient temples.

 Dr. Asher Kaufman formerly of the Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, for many years made careful studies on Mount Moriah leading him to believe the Temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel were both located just north of the Dome of the Rock on the paved platform area.  The Holy of Holies is believed to have been approximately on the bedrock covered by a small shrine, the Dome of the Spirits.  The Muslim stewards of the site have systematically destroyed or covered over all evidence that the site was once important to the Jews or Christians.

 Others, including Dan Bahat the Dean of Jerusalem archaeologists today, have argued persuasively that the First and Second Temples were most certainly located where the present Dome of the Rock shrine now stands.  A third view is that of Architect Tuvia Sagiv who presents striking evidence that the Temple locaton was South of the Dome of the Rock, but North of Al Aqsa Mosque, under the present Muslim El Kas fountain.

 The Temple Mount area is also the location of the birth of the Christian church at the feast of Pentecost which followed seven sabbaths plus one day after the death of Messiah.  Neither Christians nor Jews are presently allowed to pray or worship on the site despite its historic importance to all of Abraham’s children.

 To go back even further in time the Temple Mount has great historical importance to the Jews.  Abraham met a priest of the true God named Melchidezek at Mount Moriah about 4000 years ago (Genesis 14, Hebrews 5-7).  A few years later, Abraham offered his son as a sacrifice there (Genesis 22), and King David purchased the site from a local resident named Ornan (1st Chronicles 21), in about 1015 BC.

 Muslim claims to the Temple Mount date only from 638 AD.  The Crusaders turned the Muslim buidlings of the Mount into churches in 1099 until Saladin restored the Arab rule of Jerusalem in 1187 AD.

 The New Testament makes only brief references to temples, in fact, the Apostle Paul speaking to a crowd in Athens from Mars HIll said:

 “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of Heaven and Earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life, and breadth, and everything…” (Acts 17:24-25).

 Instead, the emphasis of the New Covenant is the personal presence of Jesus as Messiah, Immanuel (which means “God with us”) dwelling within and in the midst of his people whenever and wherever they gather in his name.

 The New Testament opens with the four-gospel revelation of God’s Son, Jesus.  John in his gospel says that God in Christ “tabernacled” among men.  Later in the First Century, both Paul and Peter call the true church “living temple.” Individual believers are “living stones” and Christ is Himself the foundation stone or the “chief cornerstone.”   For two thousand years of Biblical history the emphasis has been on assemblies or congregations of Christians or Jews, not on sacred buildings.

 Yet there are at least three references in the New Testament to a temple building existing in Jerusalem in the future.  From the context, these references appear to refer to a new, or “Third Temple” yet to be built in the city. There has been growing interest since the rebirth of Israel in 1948 among the Jews for a central  place of worship in their capital city.  Although synagogues have served admirably as centers of worship and community for the Jews in their dispersion, a temple in Jerusalem on the exact site of the Second Temple is required by the Jews as a central house of prayer and focal point of the faith until Messiah comes.

 Our Lord Jesus spoke of the Third Temple building in Jerusalem when discussing with His disciples the chain of events that would bring the close of the present age and His return.  He spoke of an event yet future predicted by Daniel the prophet when the temple in Jerusalem would suffer ultimate defilement by a false Messiah who claimed to be God:

 “When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), Let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains; let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house; Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.  And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!  Pray that your flight be not in winter or on a sabbath.  For then there shall be great tribulation, such as was since the beginning of the world to this time, no, and nor ever shall be.” (Matthew 24:15-21)

 Since only properly consecrated temple can be defiled, this passage implies a functioning, dedicated Third Temple and priesthood in existence in the end time at the time Jesus said He would return.  The apostle Paul, writing a few years later, describes this same event:

 “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the Day of the Lord is at hand.  Let no one deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called god, showing himself that he is God.,” (2nd Thessalonians 2:1-4).

   

 The coming false Jewish messiah, resembling his predecessor Antiochus Epiphanes (~175 BC), is the “worthless shepherd” spoken of by the prophet Zechariah — and the man Jesus spoke of when he said to the Jews, “I have come in my Father’s name and you would not receive me.  Another will come in his own name, him you will receive.” (John 5:43) (See also Daniel 9:27, Revelation 13:18).

 Finally, the existence of the Third Temple in Jerusalem at the close of the age is confirmed by the aged apostle John when he recorded the Book of the Revelation:

 “And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.  But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.” (Revelation 11:1-2).

 In contrast to the earthly city the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, describes the heavenly city of New Jerusalem, descending from space, as a city that contains no temple at all:

 “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.  And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” (Revelation 21:22, 23).

 

 There may yet be a fourth Temple bullt in Israel.  The prophet Zechariah (c. 550 BC) says that Messiah, whom he calls the “Branch” will yet build a temple in Israel, that would be during the Millennium.

 Since all orthodox born again believers hold to a literal, physical return of our Lord Jesus, the construction of the Fourth Temple, would be the responsibility of their Lord, Yeshua Hamashiach.  This temple may well be that seen by Ezekiel (ca. 570 BC) in a vision.  A temple that matches his description has never yet been built.

  Time to keep looking up.

Printed with permission of Today, The Bible & You located at P.O. Box 1722, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma 74013, Phone No. (918) 279-1136.  The name of the original article in the December 2023 issue of Today’s Front Page was “Will the Dome of the Rock Mosque on the Temple Mount Soon be Destroyed?” www.JohnBarela.com