Sign #5: The Temple Rebuilt In Jerusalem

Let’s take a little tour today. It doesn’t cost you anything now that the offering plates have been passed. It’s going to be free from here on [laughter]. We’re standing on the Mount of Olives. As you stand on the Mount of Olives, if you were to look to the left within the city walls, you would see the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It’s that silver domed building. But if you looked to the right—in fact, practically in front of you, you would see the Dome of the Rock, that golden domed building. Now can you imagine that building has been standing there for 1,300 years. It’s amazing how well they knew how to build even way back then.

But let’s go into the Dome of the Rock. Let’s go through and let’s take our shoes off as we have to, and those of us who have been tourists there have complied, of course, to go into the Dome of the Rock, and let’s walk around. There isn’t that much to see. There’s a railing, and behind the railing there is a rock, an outcropping of rock. I’m going to estimate it’s about 150 feet in diameter, and the circumference would be 3.14 multiplied by that. As many of you know from your early days in geometry. We’re simply walking around it and there are a couple of other things that I won’t describe. There’s a little hair in a little glass case that supposedly belongs to Muhammad, and a number of other artifacts. But why is this little piece of real estate, these few thousand square feet, so important? Why is it the most sacred site in all the world? The most fought over? Why is it that it elicits the deepest emotions?

Well, Genesis 22. One day God said to Abraham, “Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son, and I want you to take him onto Moriah and there offer him for a sacrifice.” Abraham gets up early in the morning and he goes according to the command of God, and he gets to Mount Moriah, and he is willing to sacrifice Isaac on the altar and prepares to. God interrupts him and says, “No, you don’t have to do that. Now I know that you really love me.” God was saying, “Abraham, could it be that Isaac has so wormed his way into your heart that he means more to you than I do?” That was a test and Abraham proved that the answer was no. He said, “God means more than my son.”

We wouldn’t know where Mount Moriah really was. I mean where is Mount Moriah? Except in the Bible in 2 Chronicles 3:1, it says Solomon built the temple on Mount Moriah. The very spot David had purchased from Araunah, the Jebusite, who had used it as a threshing floor. David bought that site, and that’s where the temple was built. So, when you go into the Dome of the Rock scholars disagree as to whether or not that rock actually is the place where the burnt altar stood, or whether it was where the Holy of Holies stood, or some people even suggest the Holy of Holies and temple was about 200 feet north of that area. Whatever, that’s the significance of the spot.

Why all of this in a series on prophecy? As you know, we are doing a series entitled Seven Signs of Christ’s Return, and some of us believe a temple is going to be built there before the Lord Jesus Christ comes in glory. Now before that time there is going to be the rapture of the church. As we are going to see at the end of this message, it could well be that temple could be quite quickly built under certain political circumstances, though of course, right now, it seems so unlikely and even impossible. But I want you to stay with me because what we’re going to do is to tour the first two temples and then talk about the possibility of a third and how that might fulfill biblical prophecy. That’s the agenda.

But first of all, I want to begin with Solomon’s Temple, the first temple. The date is about 950 years before the time of Jesus Christ. David wants to build the temple, but God says, “No, you’ve been a man of bloodshed.” He said, “Solomon is going to build the temple,” so Solomon does. So, let’s take a tour of Solomon’s Temple. It was about ten feet high on a platform. Now we’re talking about the inner shrines, the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place. What we have to do is go up ten stairs, so we take our time going up those ten stairs, and we notice on either side of us there are bronze pillars, something like 40 feet in the air. This is indeed an amazing spectacle. We come into the porch and then we walk into what is known as the Holy Place.

Once in the Holy Place we notice in addition to the gorgeous various jewels and stones Solomon had there, there is a Table of Shewbread that has to be changed regularly. There is also the Menorah, the seven-branch candle stick. Then we look ahead of ourselves, and there, wouldn’t you know it, is an altar of incense. The incense was continually burned upon that altar, and the reason was because the stench of the sacrifices which were being offered to God outside were so continuous, and it smelled so awful, that it masked the smell.

We’d like to continue on because there is a curtain before us, and we wonder whether or not we can go behind that curtain, but the answer is no because behind those double curtains is the Holy of Holies. That’s the place where the high priest could go only one day a year, so we’re forbidden to go into that room which would be about 35-by-35 feet in terms of its area.

We turn around, we go back out, we’re going back to the stairs again, and this time we notice there is the brazen altar where sacrifices are continually offered. Off to the right there is a basin that holds about 15,000 gallons of water, and that basin was used for the purification of the priests and so forth. An amazing spectacle that Solomon built.

We can’t be there physically but, at least let’s read about the dedication. The dedication is found in   1 Kings 8, and you may turn to that in the Scriptures. Let me simply say, people say, “Well, isn’t this just like the pagans? They used to build altars and temples to their gods too.” Two very big differences.

Number one, there is no representation of God in the tabernacle or the temple. The ark was not a representation of God. The ark is where God was going to come in the Holy Place there, but the ark does not represent God because God had said very clearly in the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any image, or any likeness of God.” So that is different from the pagan temple.

Another difference is this. The pagans were there to help their god. They were supposed to bring their god food and water and so forth. You do have to wonder what kind of a god there would be that needed to be fed, but nevertheless the pagans believed that. In this case the purpose of the tabernacle, and then the temple, which is what we’re talking about, was really that God might do something for His people. It is there He is going to meet with them. It is there He is going to bless them, so it is a different conception.

But you’ll notice it says in 1 Kings 8:9–10, “There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. And when the priests came out of the Holy Place.” Now they are bringing the ark. The ark had been somewhere else, and now the building was finished, and somebody had to carry the ark, and there were certain restrictions as to how it might be carried, and they bring it in. “The priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:10–11).

What an experience that was. This cloud of glory. God was saying, “This is indeed where I’m going to dwell.” Now God, of course, dwells everywhere. Solomon says this in his prayer. You’ll notice in 1 Kings 8:27 he says, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” Of course, God can’t be put into that building, into that temple. But God says, “I’m going to manifest myself there even though the heavens and the heavens cannot possibly contain me.” But this will be the meeting point between God and man.

By the way, another characteristic of this temple is it was to be a house of prayer. You’ll notice Solomon said in 1 Kings 8:28, “Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day.” 1 Kings 8:41–43, “Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name’s sake (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.”

What an amazing prayer, and this is why Jesus is going to say later in the second temple, “My temple is supposed to be a house of prayer and you have made it a den of thieves.” We sometimes think, “Well, you know, God gave the oracles to the Jews.” What about the non-Jews? Well, notice God is inviting everybody to this temple and saying, “Come and pray there.”

Now the splendor of Solomon’s Temple was so great that people came from the then known world simply to see it. It was awesome. What happened to that temple? Well, first of all, it served Israel for nearly 400 years. That’s a long time. We think of the United States of America—200 years. Within time it will be 250, 300 years, 400 years. What an old country. Four-hundred years this temple served the people, and then various kings ruled who were idolatrous and God said, “I’m going to destroy you. I’m going to take the temple from you.”

And so you have the king of Egypt coming and taking some of the treasures because some of the kings had to buy him off. You have the king of Assyria coming, and Ahaz stripped the silver and the gold from the temple in order to buy him off, so that Israel might not be destroyed. Then finally you get good King Hezekiah who does a very foolish thing. There’s a delegation that comes from Babylon and they say, “You know, we’d just like to see the temple. We’re just tourists. We have a tourist visa.” He said, “Fine.” He said, “I want to show you the treasures that are left,” and so he took them and he showed them the treasures. Actually, they were casing the place so that they could come and get everything.

And then under Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BC, the city of Jerusalem was besieged and more damage was done. Finally in 586 BC, the Babylonians came and they destroyed that temple completely. Totally destroyed it because in those days if you destroyed the temple you also destroyed the people’s god. So the pagan Babylonians said to themselves, “What we want to do is we want to do away with Israel’s God, and in order to do that we’ll destroy Israel’s temple.” That temple has no ruins that we know of today are in existence. We know where those ruins probably are, but nobody has any. You can’t go to Jerusalem and see any of the ruins.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if archeologists could dig 30 or 40 feet beneath the Dome of the Rock and come to all of the things that pertain to the ruins that were left of Solomon’s Temple? Now that would be a real archeological site.

And you remember a number of years ago there were some people who were digging in that area. There’s that controversial tunnel in Jerusalem that was opened a few years ago, and some of us had the privilege of walking through it a few months after the controversy. But there was a passageway there where someone actually was able to go under the Dome of the Rock and he claims he believes he actually saw the Ark of the Covenant, and it’s buried there somewhere. Nobody’s ever been able to find it for sure. Not even Harrison Ford has been able to find it for sure [laughter]. Some people think the Ark of the Covenant is buried somewhere else. It’s buried in the hills, or whatever. We’re not sure, but imagine capturing that Ark of the Covenant.

What happened when that temple was destroyed? Ezekiel tells us the Shekinah Glory, the cloud that we just read about, left. It went where the Eastern gate is today, and then after that it went through the Kidron Valley and then up to the Mount of Olives, and it disappeared. Ichabod! God says, “The glory has departed. It’s all over.” What a tragedy to think that we’ll never see that building again, unless I always think that we’re going to see video tapes in heaven, and maybe we’ll get a chance to see it then.

Now, the question is does God say “Hey, you know, you Jewish people, you know you are always turning to idols, and I had to judge you. I had to take the temple and have it destroyed, and that’s the end.” No, it’s never the end for God. Here you have these people being taken into Babylon and 70 years later a man by the name of Cyrus—because the Medes and the Persians now conquered Babylon—says to himself, “You know what? You Jews can go back and you can rebuild your temple.” And he allows 50,000 of them to return.

Now we’re talking about the second temple. And the leader of the second temple, the man who organized it all, was a man by the name of Zerubbabel. I was thinking of that name the other day and thinking if you don’t like your name—some of us may not be very happy with our name—we could have been stuck with Zerubbabel [laughter].

Now 1 and 2 King—you have your Bibles open—1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and we get to the book of Ezra 3, and here we have the story of the dedication of that temple. If you go home today and somebody says, “What were you doing in church?” you say, “We attended the dedication of two temples.”

Notice Ezra 3:10–13. It says, “And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel. And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, ‘For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.’ And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, (Another thing I want to see on videotape is Ezra 3:13) so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.”

What’s going on here? We have to understand the people were gone for 70 years, but some of these people who went to Babylon were teenagers. They were just kids. They lived in Babylon for 70 years. They come back, but bless their hearts, they remembered what Solomon’s Temple looked like. They remembered the splendor. They remembered the stones, the glory. They remembered those brass pillars, or those pillars that go to the heavens. They saw all of that and now Zerubbabel comes back, organizes some men, and they lay the foundation stone for this temple, and it was so pitifully small in comparison to the glory of the one they once remembered. In fact, that’s why Zechariah—and I have to put this together—you remember he was a prophet who was prophesying during that period of time. He said, “Don’t despise the day of small things.” He was encouraging the people because the people were saying, “You know, this temple is so small that it’s just heartbreaking.” He says, “Don’t despise that day because who knows what God is going to do in this temple?”

And another prophet, Haggai, who was prophesying during that time said, “Wait a moment. The glory of this house is going to be greater than the glory of the other one.” Boy, that was some encouragement, and how in the world was that prophecy ever fulfilled? Well, you stay with me and you’ll understand how it was fulfilled.

What happened to that temple? We’re talking about 538 BC now, Solomon’s [Temple was built in] 950 BC. Now we’re to 538 BC, and Zerubbabel builds it. It’s used by the Jews for 200 years. Antiochus Epiphanes—you’ve heard of him—comes with the Greek Hellenization of the area because Greece comes to conquer the area. Antiochus appoints someone to be a high priest who is a Greek, who is a blasphemer, and against the wishes of the people. Obviously, a sow, a pig, is sacrificed on the altar, and he puts up a statue within the Holy of Holies to a foreign god. He desecrates the place, just like the prophet Daniel predicted would happen. The people, were very angry and upset, and they fought against the Greeks, and that’s where you have the wars of the Maccabees.

And then in 63 BC, Ptolomy comes, and he’s a Roman. Because Greece is beginning to fade in its influence, Rome is beginning to come, and as he marches into Jerusalem. He sees all of these Jews who were lying physically in front of the temple, saying, “We would rather be killed. Do not go in here. Do not desecrate this place.” Well, when he saw them protecting the temple that way, he said to himself, “This must be because there’s lots of treasures in the temple.” So obviously he went in. And according to Josephus the historian, when he went into the holy place, and then he went into the Holy of Holies, he noticed that there was just a barren rock. There was no ark, because you see, that ark that was lost during the time of Solomons Temple, was never rebuilt. There was only one Ark, and he was shocked at the fact that there was no representation of deity, and really no treasures, at least within the Holy of Holies.

Then what happens is a man by the name or Herod the Great comes, and he’s an Idumean, and he is put there by the Romans who basically are responsible for ruling the land, because now, you remember, the land is under Roman authority and Roman power. And he says, “I want to do the Jews a favor.” Of course, the Jews didn’t trust him at all. He said, “I want to build you a temple.” And they said, “Oh yeah, we know what you are going to do. You’re going to tear this temple down and then you won’t build us another one.” And so, in order to curry favor with the Jews he said, “Look, I’ll make you a deal. I will not even tear your temple down. I will build another one on top of it, and really the building of the new temple and the tearing down of the old one will go on simultaneously, and I will train one-thousand priests to work as masons, so only priests will be working on those holy areas in the temple, and I want to build it for you.”

And so he does. He begins in 19 B.C., nineteen years before Jesus Christ was born approximately. And what happens? This temple is absolutely gorgeous, and it is still called the second temple. You say, “Well, actually there were three. There was Zerubbabel’s temple, and then there’s Herod’s temple.” But ah, no, no, no. They don’t count it that way, because Herod’s temple was a “continuation of the second.” It is therefore also called the second, so you have the second temple period.

When you go to Israel today, and you are at the Wailing Wall, and you see those huge stones that weigh tons, those are the stones that Herod’s men put in place to build the sanctuary area. That’s the part you see. There are no remains of Solomon’s Temple, but plenty remains, or at least some remains, I should say, of Herod’s Temple. That’s the temple that’s there when Jesus is there. And you remember they even said it wasn’t finished yet in Christ’s time. “Forty and six years was this temple in building,” the disciples said, “and thou will raise it up in three days?” They had built on it that many years. You’ve seen replicas of it. It is gorgeous.

So now turn to Matthew 24. Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives, and He’s there in the temple area. He came out from the temple and was going away. That very probably means He was going through the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to him, and he answer and said to them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). Then He goes into the destruction of Jerusalem.

In AD 70, Titus comes and he destroys Herod’s temple, and they surround the city, and Jerusalem. It is said that a million people died in and around the city. And the atrocities are unbelievable. I will not even say them publicly because one time I did and someone rebuked me and said, “You should never talk about such graphic things publicly.” So I won’t, except to say that people were crucified on the Mount of Olives. People who had starved to death were thrown over the walls because they had no place to bury them, and women were eating their children. It was terrible, terrible. Just like Jesus said later on that the tribulation was such that there hasn’t been a tribulation like it. Now, I think there’s still a tribulation coming that’s even going to be worse, but up until that time nothing that horrible had happened.

Would you believe that if you go to Israel with Roy Schwartz—and he’d be a good man to go to Israel with—you’ll actually see some of the stones that fell down during the destruction of the temple in AD 70. You will notice on those stones, if you look carefully, some soot that you can actually rub with your hands and know that that soot is nearly 2,000 years old. That’s the fire that was set by Titus and his men when Jerusalem was so terribly destroyed and the temple was destroyed in AD 70.

That’s the story of the two temples. The question is what about the future? Will there be a third temple? The Jews who have the heart—Israel is in their heart, and the temple is in their heart. Will they ever get a chance to build a third temple now that nearly 2,000 years have passed?

Take your Bibles and turn to 2 Thessalonians and the passage is one that we read earlier in this series on prophecy. It says in 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4, “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 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.” Now if this is the Antichrist there has to be a temple in Jerusalem so that he can go there and pretend that he is God.

Take your Bibles also and look at Revelation 11. If the book of Revelation was written after the destruction of Jerusalem, the only sense that one could make of this is that there will be a temple because it says, “Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, ‘Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months (which is really three and a half years)’” (Revelation 11:1–2). What’s going on in the text? When you measure something it means you’re evaluating it. You are evaluating the people.

Now the question is, how could a temple possibly be built? All of us know the obstacles to it are formidable. You have the two Muslim buildings that are on the Temple Mount. You have the whole Middle East as a powder keg ready to explode anyway. How could a temple be built in the temple area today?

First of all, I have to tell you that there is a group called The Temple Mount Faithful who are absolutely convinced that it’s going to happen, and they are preparing for it to happen. In Jerusalem you can go into their rooms, and their workplaces, and they will take you there and they will show you. All of the utensils are being readied just like in the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament. They already have them and these aren’t replicas. These, they say, they are making to use.

Some of you have heard discussions regarding finding the ashes of the red heifer. That may really sound strange to us, finding the ashes of a red heifer. I mean number one, who in the world would want to find the ashes? And number two, what’s the significance of the red heifer anyway?

In the book of Numbers, God says when you purify the priest, you are supposed to take some water and mix it with the ashes of a red heifer. So, what they are trying to do is to do either one of two things. Either find the ashes because there were only a few red heifers that were killed and apparently the ashes were kept in a bowl because they were very sparingly used. So, you have these people looking for these ashes all over the place. In the Qumran area outside of Jerusalem, they are looking for ashes. Now, personally—it’s just a personal thing—but I do think possibly there are other priorities that I could have other than looking for these ashes, but some people are intent. The others are saying, “No, we can breed some red heifers that are so red that they do not even have one single white hair. If we can do that, we can meet the requirements.” Either way, the bottom line is you have people that are fanatically committed to the establishment of the temple.

How in the world could it possibly happen? Well, one is that there might be some peace agreement and people might be able to say, “Look, let’s let the Jews build a temple. They don’t have to tear down the Dome of the Rock. Some people think that the temple was 300 feet north of the Dome of the Rock anyway. Build the temple there, and they can build a small one there, and then you can have two houses of worship. There’s the El Aqsa Mosque, there’s also the Dome of the Rock, and let’s have the temple too. Let’s be lovey-dovey. Let’s get along nicely.” What are the chances of that? Very, very slim. Could we say maybe zero with a minus sign? At least that’s the way it appears.

Another possibility is, there are those who say, “Oh, you know what’s going to happen? There’s going to be an earthquake, and if the earthquake destroys the Dome of the Rock, it’ll be a whole brand new day. Then we can have discussions as to owns it, and we won’t have to tear it down. God will tear it down.”

Another possibility, and I suggest it only as a possibility. If it is true that there’s going to be a world leader who is going to rise out of Europe, and who is going to make a covenant of protection with Israel, who is going to be able to say, “I will protect you against the foe,” and he will appear to be a friend of Israel at first. Might it be that he has so much clout, and so much political power—and this is one of the reasons that the people on the earth will worship him because he seems to be able to even solve the Middle East crisis by having enough muscle to allow a temple, perhaps even at least a small one, to be built in Jerusalem to give the Jews their own worship place? And then three and a half years later he breaks his covenant and he personally goes into Jerusalem and does, in effect, what Antiochus Epiphanes does. He establishes himself as the ruler, the god, as we just read in        2 Thessalonians where he says, “I’m taking over. I’m the one who is going to control the events of the world. I am God.” And after that period of time, Jerusalem is trodden underfoot by the Gentiles for 42 months, as it says in the book of Revelation, until the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ on the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives splits in the middle, as we shall see in the final message of this series, and Jesus Christ comes to rule and to reign.

Now where will we be when that’s happening? Well, the rapture could happen any moment. We could be taken up, and then after that there may be several years for all of the political pieces to come together. Antichrist arises and the events that we’ve just talked about take place. But the bottom line is, there are many people committed to the idea that Jerusalem needs a temple.

Now, it will not be there to worship the Lord Jesus Christ because the Jewish people today, as a whole, there are many individual Jews that believe in Jesus, but as a nation and as a whole they do not accept Christ as Messiah. They want to establish their own worship, but in establishing that they will be fulfilling an end-time prophecy.

Now let me give you a couple of words in conclusion. What lessons can we learn? First of all, a lesson regarding God and His judgment. When I think of this history, I am reminded of the fact that here’s God who chose the Jews. He loved them. He says, “You, I have chosen above all the families of the earth.” What could be more beautiful than that? And even though they were chosen of God, He said, “Because you have turned from me, I will take away your worship place and your land. I will be the one to see to it that your temple will be destroyed.” Do you know that Jesus actually talked about Titus as being God’s armies? He says, “The Lord sent forth His armies (He’s predicting the destruction of Jerusalem) and he destroyed their city.” You mean just because God chose you and just because you’re special people that doesn’t mean you are exempt from His judgment.

I think of America today. We say, “Well, you know, we’re America. We’re founded with all of these Christian influences, and look at all the good things we’ve done.” But we as a nation are also becoming idolatrous. We are turning from God and you never know when God might say, “You have crossed the line.” I’m not making any predictions because I’ll tell you some nations have become very, very rotten before they’ve crossed the line. But I also want to remind you that God judges us not just in the end in some cataclysmic judgement, but sin is always being judged. Sin is judged by the break-up of our families. Sin is being judged by the diseases that we have. There’s always sin that is being judged immediately, even though there’s also a future judgment of sin as well. And we never know. We can’t take God’s blessings for granted. They are given to us as a gift, and He make take them from us when He wills. That’s the first lesson.

The second lesson is on the faithfulness of God. Here’s God who throughout all these centuries—and if you’ve studied the history of Jerusalem since the destruction of the temple, you know how many centuries there were. There are centuries here when the Muslims were in charge. There were centuries here when the Turks were. There were centuries here when this took over, and that took over. You’re just dizzy, and you are saying, “Century, after century, after century, the Jews were out of their homeland.” Yet, God predicted, “I will give you the land as an everlasting possession.” It was God who said these things, and you can see even though God may take His time, God works nonetheless consistently with His word, and we see the faithfulness of God.

Some of you individually are going through difficulties and trials today and you wonder how you can even face tomorrow. You say, “How do I get through Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday with all of this pain?” Well, I want you to know today that God walks with us and is faithful even in the midst of our difficulties. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. The Scripture is clear. “When you walk through the fire I will be with you. When you are in the floods, I’ll be with you so that you will not drown.” The faithfulness of God.

A final conclusion, the jealousy of God. The Bible says God is a jealous God because He does not want rival worship. As a matter of fact, the reason, as we mentioned, that the temple was destroyed is because of that rival worship. And I need to ask you today, where is the temple of God? The Shekinah Glory left after the first temple as we mentioned a moment ago. It never came back during the time of Zerubbabel so far as we know. It certainly is not there today. Where is this cloud of glory? Would you be surprised if I were to tell you that it is within your own heart and within your own body if you are a believer in Christ? The Apostle Paul says that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And he didn’t use the word that means the outer court. He meant our body is the inner shrine. Our body is the Holy of Holies, he says.

Now you know how protected the Holy of Holies was? The priest could only go in one day a year. It’s not the kind of thing in which you wanted to drag anything that was unholy unless you were to desecrate it like some of the evil people did. My dear friend, that’s exactly who we are though. When we are walking down the street, when we are riding the ‘L’, when we are traveling, whatever it is that we are doing, when we are working in the office with all of these pressures, it is God that lives in us. As God has said, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I shall be their God, and they shall be my people,” says the Lord. You take God with you wherever you go, and He dwells within you.

I’ve given you that illustration, of an usher who stopped someone who was reading a trashy novel from coming into the church. The usher, I am sure, was doing his job. But actually, the building itself is not holy. Did you know that? Even this building is not holy. It is the people who are holy. And if there is something that you should not bring into the church sanctuary it is something that you should never bring into your soul because it is within you that exists that Holy of Holies that God jealousy wants us to guard.

Finally, let’s go back to the Dome of the Rock one more time. It was there that Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac. You know the story of how he lifted the knife to heaven, and was willing to do it, and God said, “No, Abraham, don’t do it. Now I know that thou fearest me because thou has not withheld thy only son from me” (See Genesis 22:12). And then Abraham looked and there was a ram that was caught in the thicket, and God said, “Offer the ram in the place of Isaac.” And that is the best message that comes out of the city of Jerusalem.

The best message is when Jesus died on the cross, just a few hundred yards really from where Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, when Jesus died there He was a sacrifice for sinners, and it is because of Him that we can be forgiven and cleansed because God has provided for us a lamb who would take away the sins of the world. And if we believe in Him, we shall be saved. If we reject Him, we shall be lost forever.

A word about the judgment of God, the faithfulness of God, but the jealousy of God of wanting us for Himself, and the wonder of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Let’s bow in prayer.

Our Father, we pray today that you might give us a great sense of your awesomeness and your sovereignty in the working of world events. And Lord, we look at Jerusalem today with all of its needs and we know that you are focused there because your Word says that you’ve chosen Jerusalem as the place where you put your name. And we pray for the believers in Jerusalem. We thank You that there are some. We pray, oh God, that in that city we look forward to the time when the name of God shall be honored, and then during the Millennial Kingdom when many people shall go and say, “Come, let us go unto the Mountain of the Lord, unto the God of Jacob, for He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths. For the law shall go out from Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” We long, Father, for that day when Christ is honored in that great city. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Editor’s Note: In this transcript, the verbatim intelligent transcription process simplifies and enhances spoken content by eliminating redundant words, unnecessary sounds, fixing grammar errors, and clarifying meaning while preserving the author's original intent. All Scripture quotes are according to the biblical text, not as they were originally spoken.