The third Jewish temple has been in the planning stage for three decades. The Temple Institute in Jerusalem has completed all its furnishings with the exception of the Ark of the Covenant for which they claim to know the location of the original one. The institute is currently training Levites to serve as priests in the temple.

On its Facebook page, the Temple Institute just announced a major development in its quest to find the perfect red heifer necessary for the cleansing sacrifice of the next temple. Judging from the live video that I am watching as I write, it appears that five red heifers vying for perfection have arrived in Israel amid much excitement. We live in amazing times!

The government of Israel is also preparing for the completion of the third temple. Consider the quote below from an article on the Israel 365 News website:

Israel is upgrading its already impressive international airport. The government is also working on a railway infrastructure that will bring international travelers directly from the airport to the Temple Mount. This will enable all 70 nations to come to worship God in Jerusalem’s House of prayer, a vision that the government has already hinted is their true intention.[i]

The Israeli government plans to have this train in operation by the time of Passover in April 2023, which is about the time that red heifers that arrived in Jerusalem will start reaching the age of two years and one day. This is the minimum age a red heifer must be in order to be sacrificed for the temple cleansing.

Are all these things relevant to scriptural prophecies regarding the last days? Absolutely! They all point to the fulfillment of biblical prophecies concerning the construction of the third temple, which is a biblical necessity. It must happen in order to fulfill scriptural prophecy.

Lest you think I’m crazy for putting it that strongly, please allow me to build my case.

Daniel’s Prophecy Regarding the Desecration of a Future Temple

In Daniel 9:24-27, the prophet lays out a timeframe of seventy weeks of years that God had determined to fulfill His purposes for the nation of Israel. Verse 27 describes a significant event that occurs during the last “week,” or final period of seven years:

“And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

Daniel 12:11 also refers to this time when “the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up.”

The Lord, though the prophet Daniel, tells us that a future prince will make a seven-year agreement with Israel, and at the halfway point of the covenant, he will desecrate the temple in Jerusalem. He will put an end to animal sacrifices, which will have started during the first half of Daniel’s seventieth week.

If you doubt that there will be another temple with sacrifices, please know that the Israeli government envisions religious Jews with “vegetable and animal sacrifices” riding the train to the Temple.[ii]

The nation of Israel is not only preparing to get travelers from the Ben Gurion Airport to the future temple, but it’s also making provisions to get the sacrifices there as well.

Jesus Placed the Temple Desecration in the Future

How do we know Daniel’s prophecy did not already happen in history? How can we be sure that there’s a lengthy gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week?

Almost four centuries after the time of Daniel, Antiochus Epiphanes came to power in BC 170. He later desecrated the second Jewish temple by setting up idols in it and by offering pigs on its altar.

Although the actions of Antiochus Epiphanes may have foreshadowed what the prophet wrote about, it was not it. We know this because Jesus, in Matthew 24:15, referred to the fulfillment of Daniel 9:27 as a still future event:

“So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)…”

About two hundred years after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, Jesus said that the fulfillment of Daniel 9:27 would happen in the future. He also predicted that it would lead to severe persecution of the Jewish people during a time of “great tribulation” on the earth (Matthew 24:16-21).

Roughly forty years after Jesus spoke those words, a Roman general named Titus destroyed the second Jewish Temple along with much of Jerusalem. This set off a persecution of the Jewish populace that resulted in the deaths of a great many.

Did Titus fulfill Daniel’s prophecy regarding the “abomination of desolation?” No, he did not. We know this because of a key detail that the Apostle Paul adds to the prophetic fulfillment of Daniel 9:27 and Matthew 24:15.

Jesus Himself Will Destroy the Desolator at His Second Coming

In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul identifies the one who will desecrate the temple as the “man of lawlessness,” or the one we refer to today as the “antichrist.”

“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” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

The apostle tells us here that the coming desolator will be blasphemous against the Lord, sit in the “temple of God,” and “proclaim himself to be God.” Then he adds one essential detail about the one that will commit Daniel’s “abomination of desolation:” The Lord Jesus Himself will kill him at His Second Coming:

“And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8).

At His return to earth, Jesus will destroy the man that fulfills Daniel’s prophecy in 9:27. Since the Lord did not kill Titus, nor did the Second Coming happen during the Roman general’s lifetime, he cannot be the one who fulfilled this prophecy as the desolator of the temple.

The Apostle John Witnessed the Desolator’s Future Demise as Predicted by Paul

In Revelation 13:6, John tells us that the coming beast, whom we today identify as the antichrist, will open “its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling.” This is the guy of Daniel’s prophecy (9:27 and 11:36) as well as the one Jesus referred to in Matthew 24:15. He is the “man of lawlessness” of 2 Thessalonians 2.

In Revelation 19:19-20, John provides an eyewitness of the future destruction of this future beast that will desecrate the Jewish temple:

“And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.”

Just as the Apostle Paul prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, Jesus Himself will destroy the “desolator” of Daniel 9:27 at His Second Coming. He will cast him into the lake of fire.

No one has ever fulfilled all that we know about Daniel’s “abomination of desolation” from Matthew 24:15 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8.

The Witness of Irenaeus (AD 130-202)

Irenaeus, an early church leader, bishop in Lyons, France, and prominent theologian, wrote Against Heresies in AD 180 to combat the spread of Gnosticism in the early church. He was born in Smyrna and received his training in the faith by Polycarp, whom the Apostle John himself discipled.

In Against Heresies, book 5, chapter 30, section 4, Irenaeus wrote these words:

“But when the antichrist shall have devastated all things in this world, he will reign for three years and six months, and sit in the temple in Jerusalem; and then the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man and those who follow him into the lake of fire; but bringing in for the righteous times of the kingdom….”[iii]

This direct quote from Irenaeus reveals significant details about his beliefs regarding the desecration of a future temple:

1. Irenaeus, writing 110 years after Titus destroyed the second temple, believed that there would be another temple in Jerusalem.
2. Irenaeus said that the antichrist would “sit in the temple in Jerusalem,” just as Paul said he would do in 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
3. Irenaeus predicted that Jesus Himself would destroy the antichrist at His Second Coming, exactly as Paul prophesied and as John witnessed in Revelation 19:20.

Although Irenaeus believed that God had rejected Israel, he nonetheless asserted that there would be a third temple in Jerusalem, which the antichrist would someday defile. I cannot explain such a glaring contradiction, but I believe the words of Daniel 12:9-13 shed light on it. There the prophet said that the understanding of the prophecies regarding the last days would greatly increase when that time arrives, which is now.

Although Irenaeus’ words are not Scripture, it’s highly significant that a highly respected second-century AD theologian believed there would be a third temple in Jerusalem in which the antichrist would sit and defile.

Scripture Tells us There Must be a Third Jewish Temple

The above evidence for the biblical necessity of a third Jewish temple in Jerusalem finds its basis in the words of Scripture. If the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture apply to the words written by its many human authors, and that’s most certainly the case, then we know that God’s purposes for Israel and Jerusalem remain intact; there absolutely must be a third Jewish temple in Jerusalem by the midpoint of the Tribulation.

In addition, since a key event in the seventieth week of Daniel remains unfulfilled to this day, that signifies that the entire time frame of the prophet’s last week of years awaits a future fulfillment. We have not reached the completion of the Lord’s purpose that He determined for the seventy weeks of years, as Daniel wrote about in 9:24:

“Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place” (Daniel 9:24).

God’s ultimate purposes for both the people of Israel and Jerusalem are still in play. At the end of the seventieth week, the Lord will “bring in everlasting righteousness” with His return to earth and the setting up of His thousand-year reign over all the nations of the world.

Since God’s purposes for the nation of Israel, as laid out in Daniel 9:24, remain unfulfilled, there remains a future for the Jewish people and the restoration of a glorious kingdom to them.

What Does This Mean for Us Today?

Since the seventieth week of Daniel is all about God wrapping up the purposes that He revealed in Daniel 9:24 (and we see this time rapidly approaching), this tells us that Jesus’ appearing for His church is ever so close.

This seven-year period is all about Israel and Jerusalem, not the church. The Rapture must happen before this time begins since it’s then that God’s focus turns once again to Israel.

A Welsh Baptist preacher named Morgan Edwards, who lived 1722-1795, wrote about his belief in a pretribulation Rapture:

I say, somewhat more—, because the dead saints will be raised, and the living changed at Christ’s “appearing in the air” (I Thess. iv. 17); and this will be about three years and a half before the millennium, as we shall see hereafter: but will he and they abide in the air all that time? No: they will ascend to paradise, or to some one of those many “mansions in the father’s house” (John xiv. 2) and disappear during the foresaid period of time. The design of this retreat and disappearing will be to judge the risen and changed saints; for “now the time is come that judgment must begin,” and that will be “at the house of God” (I Pet. iv. 17).[iv]

A century later, John Darby, like Morgan Edwards, initially believed that the Tribulation would last three and a half years, the second half of Daniel’s seventieth week. However, as he studied the differences between the church and Israel, he then placed Jesus’ appearing before the antichrist’s covenant with Israel. He realized that the church did not belong in any part of the seventieth week of Daniel.

All these things tell us that we are very close to the fulfillment of Jesus’s promise in John 14:2-3:

“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

He’s coming for us just as He said, and He will take us to the place He’s preparing for us. This is the future tense of the Gospel. Jesus will not break His promise.

In the meantime, hold the words of Philippians 3:12-4:1 close to your heart and never forget that when Jesus appears, we will appear with Him in glory (not from on the earth):                      

“When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:4).

My book, The Triumph of the Redeemed-An eternal Perspective that Calms Our Fears in Perilous Times, is available on Amazon. In it, I lay a firm biblical foundation for our hope in Jesus’ soon appearing to take us home.

Note: Please consider signing up for my newsletter on the home page of my website at https://www.jonathanbrentner.com/. It will gr

[i] Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Ben Gurion Gearing Up To Bring All 70 Nations Straight From The Airport To Third Temple,  September 7, 2022 @ https://www.israel365news.com/274549/ben-gurion-gearing-up-to-bring-all-70-nations-straight-from-the-airport-to-third-temple/

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols., Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 560.

[iv] Morgan Edwards, Two Academical Exercises on Subjects Bearing the Following Titles; Millennium, Last-Novelties (Philadelphia: Dobson and Lang, 1788), p. 7.

I want to revisit this important subject of delusion mainly because it grows worse, and like a vortex, it is sucking more and more people into it.

The end of the Church age is going to see a great increase in deceivers and imposters as promised by God through Paul – 2Timothy 3:13, “Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” There are two parts to that verse. These people will deceive others because they are deceived themselves. It becomes an ever-growing cycle, something like what the old pyramid money schemes were about.

I will be moving to climate change shortly, not because I find delight in attacking it, but because it becomes more serious daily. There are all sorts of delusions, so much so that the people of earth are getting so used to them; half the time, they don’t question any details.

We all know about commercial delusion. That is when you buy a packet of something like breakfast cereal in a showy packet, but when you open it, the top third of the package is empty. It is made to look good on the outside but has deception on the inside. I do not need to cite a lot of examples. In fact, I think we could fill pages with them.

Just one more I will mention in the retail advertising. We get here on television these infomercials screaming out at us about all sorts of fabulous inventions (actually a rehash of something already existing and made in China in a junky way. It never lasts). The way these things are presented makes you feel you are getting a huge bargain, BUT THERE IS MORE – if you are one of the first 97 callers, then you’ll get another (piece of junk) for free. “Yes, the first 97 callers will get that (piece of junk).” Of course, these commercials go on television stations all over the country at all different times, and they have no idea of “the first 97 callers.” The people who take up the offer are deluded.

SEPARATING DELUSION AND DECEPTION

There is a very fine difference between delusion and deception, but both of them are spawned from the one who was a liar from the beginning. When people are deliberately tricked, they are deceived and have been deluded. One of the very worst plagues the world has at the moment are the India scammers, and I doubt if anyone has not been contacted by them. They run scams like the refund scam and pretend to be with Microsoft, Amazon, Telstra, Norton, Romance, Internet, and a whole lot more. Most operate out of Kolkata and Delhi.

Roughly 59.4 million Americans have lost money to phone scams over the past year. Americans lost $29.8 billion to phone scams alone over the past year (from CNBC.com). Also reported in PC Magazine.

“Australians lost a record amount of more than $2 billion to scams in 2021 despite government, law enforcement, and the private sector disrupting more scam activity than ever before,” the ACCC’s latest Targeting Scams report reveals.

People are deluded and deceived; sadly, the Indian Government does very little about it. Delusion is an octopus with many arms, and scams are but one. We could include evolution, homosexual “love,” and so much of what drives this world today.

If that sort of delusion was around when I was a boy in the 1950s, people would be decrying it. Television stations most likely would not have shown it. How times have changed! People are becoming numb with the insidious delusion that is everywhere. It will get worse because God has said it will get worse!

THE WORLD HAS CHANGED

Something really changed in this world in the past 4 decades. Once, everything had to be confirmed and proven. Those days are gone. People get on TV or radio and into magazines and make the worst of unproven statements, and they are not challenged over it. Politicians lie and say what they like, and there is no media scrutiny except from a couple of pockets of decent journalists. One reason for that is the hard-left media these days that refuses to challenge any socialist or socialist agenda.

Delusion is poured out in school curricula and infused in subtle ways in all parts of life. It is said that when a frog is in water that is slowly heated up to become hot, it does not notice. I have never done that, so I do not know. If it is true, then the frog is being conditioned to its environment. People are being conditioned to the acceptance of a particular system of beliefs and, over time, come to accept them. Another way to say it is that they are being numbed into pacification. Or maybe just dumbed down.

Christians seem to be aware of these things more than other people, and that does make sense. However, too many Christians are part of the delusion, especially climate change, and I will do that shortly. What I am amazed at these days is the almost lack of critical thinking and examination from the public. It is like the public just does not care anymore. Six decades ago, when I was in secondary and tertiary education, students were trained how to think, analyze material, and make conclusions. The modern education system is all about socialism and agenda-driven humanism, and students, for some time now, cannot apply critical analysis.

Social media formulates society’s values, and we all know how that loves to promote delusion on everything.

WHERE IS THIS GOING TO END?

It does have an end, but we will not be there for it. This is the end – this is part of it.

2Thessalonians 2: ⁸ “and then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming, ⁹ that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, ¹⁰ and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. ¹¹ For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, ¹² in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”

“The lawless one” (v 8) is the Antichrist/World Ruler “whose coming is in accord” (v 9), that is, when he is revealed on the white horse of Revelation 6. “Signs, false wonders and deception of wickedness” (v 9-10) is the Tribulation period of great deception and open lies. Verse 10 says the population rejected any love of the truth. These people had been programmed in the last days of the Church age, dumbed down, and will be compliant with receiving wickedness as their love in the Tribulation.

What is left for God to do? Verse 11 tells us God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false. They already believe what is false, so this will be something more severe. I think it might be that they will believe the lie of the Antichrist and follow him and receive his mark. That great delusion will be enormous.

I used to think that climate change might have been that specific delusion, but I am fairly sure now that is not the case. Rather, I think the Tribulation delusion will be the acceptance of Antichrist as being Jesus Himself. Don’t hold me to that. What we are seeing in these closing days of the Church age is a delusion unlike any other that has descended on the world, for it encompasses the whole world with a fanaticism not seen before. Climate change is the modern religion of the world.

In delusion, honesty is sidelined. It spreads like a wildfire and sweeps all before it. It progresses relentlessly and is not questioned. Can you remember the nonsense that the Thunberg girl was saying? To begin with, the girl is mentally challenged, so one had to exercise great care, but no media outlet did. She had the highest billing, and, along with the deceived Al Gore, held the world stage on climate change. That is what a delusion does. It rejects logic, common sense, and the truth.

In what is known as the “Christian church as the Christian religion,” I think there is much delusion, and I claim this pertains to the now biggest factor in Protestantism. It is like the path is strewn with so much that is false, and true Christians must remain vigilant, for deception will increase. When speaking of the days in the Tribulation, Jesus said this – Matthew 24:24, “For false christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” It will be very hard for the saints in the Tribulation, but with Satan’s influence on the increase today, deception and delusion is on the increase in our own time. We must stand against it, and I am thinking it might mean we stand alone on a lot of occasions.

TO BE MORE SPECIFIC ON CLIMATE CHANGE

I am a life member of National Geographic (there would be very few remaining, for they stopped the applications in the late 1970s). Over the past few years, National Geographic has taken a giant step into the climate change arena, so much so that now every issue is packed with a radical climate change agenda. It is the demise of a great institution.

The August 2022 issue had a special feature called “India’s Energy Challenge,” written by an Indian now living near Washington DC. The article was alarmist, a cunning portrayal of events, but here is a paragraph from it:

“India has plenty of reasons to be worried. The country’s 4,670-mile coastline, especially the low-lying eastern coast, could be calamitous for tens of millions of people. This spring, after the hottest March on record, and extended heat wave, it sent temperatures soaring above 100° across much of the country, withering crops in the field. Droughts also are becoming more severe. Cyclones are lashing the coasts with increasing fury, flooding urban areas.”

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been keeping records for 122 years. 122 years is a drop in the bucket as for history and records. In July this year, many parts of Australia had the coldest July ever recorded, but you hear nothing from climate activists about that. They love only the warming and hot parts.

That is how climate change activists work. They tell lies, use distortions, use partial truths, and coat all they say with lots of alarmism and emotive language. (Not all of India had the highest temperature since 1901 – the NW section did.) The whole article in National Geographic was written that way. It is very sad, but this once great Magazine has become the play child of the radical left. If I was not a life member, I would cancel my subscription.

FINDING FROM RESEARCHERS

Just after I started writing this article, a very revealing video appeared on YouTube that was previously on Sky News Australia. “It is called “Report finds ‘no evidence’ of a climate emergency.” That is the conclusion of an International Study by Italian Researchers. This is an absolutely top video from the program and runs for 4 and a half minutes.

Sky News Australia has 2.87 million subscribers, many of them American, as Americans can get proper news of America from this channel. It is denied them from the left-wing media in the USA. This video is worth checking out.

Its URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7P4zyxM8zc

Sky News Australia (2.87M subscribers): “An international study has found that there is ‘no evidence’ of a climate emergency,” says Sky News host Chris Smith.

Don’t forget, Germany went down the path of climate change fanaticism and shut its power stations. Then they wanted Russian gas, but then Russia closed off the gas. Now Germany freezes. This is the stupidity of blindfolding yourself with an ideology from the WEF and unproven – a hoax. I think God is allowing us to see what a hoax/delusion is like before the Rapture, and we can appreciate how bad it will be after the Rapture, but Christians will not be here.

I was not going to make this long, and this is enough for now.

Just one closing thought – Those who deceive others are themselves deceived in the first place.

ronaldf@aapt.net.au