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Chapter 13: The Temple Of The Lord
After the Lord had delivered the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt they sojourned in the wilderness for forty years. During that time God commanded Moses to have the skilled people build a tabernacle, which was a tent like structure, to be used for sacrifice and worship. Exodus 25:8-9 & 39:32 "Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you. So all the work on the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, was completed. The Israelites did everything just as the LORD commanded Moses. Hebrews 8:5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain." The tabernacle was built according to the pattern given to Moses by the Lord and in it was placed the Ark of the Covenant that God had also command Moses to make. The First Temple
Acts 7:45-47 Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, who enjoyed God's favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built the house for him. David's son Solomon, built the first temple for the Lord after the Israelites had conquered their enemies and dwelt securely in the land God had given to Abraham and his descendants. 1 Kings 8:12-13 Then Solomon said, "The LORD has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever." 1 Kings 8:27-30 "But will God really dwell on Earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! Yet give attention to your servant's prayer and his plea for mercy, O LORD my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence this day. May your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, this place of which you said, 'My Name shall be there,' so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place. Hear the supplication of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive. 1 Kings 8:37-40 "When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when an enemy besieges them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come, and when a prayer or plea is made by any of your people Israel--each one aware of the afflictions of his own heart, and spreading out his hands toward this temple--then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with each man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you alone know the hearts of all men), so that they will fear you all the time they live in the land you gave our fathers. 1 Kings 8:44-45 & 62 "When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to the LORD toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name, then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the LORD. 1 Kings 9:1-9 When Solomon had finished building the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, the LORD appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. The LORD said to him: "I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. "As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, 'You shall never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.' "But if you or your sons turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other Gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. And though this temple is now imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, 'Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?' People will answer, 'Because they have forsaken the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of Egypt, and have embraced other Gods, worshiping and serving them-- that is why the LORD brought all this disaster on them.'" God heard the prayer of Solomon and promised to bless both the people and the temple as long as they obeyed his laws. The temple of the Lord in Jerusalem was the focal point of the Jewish religion during the golden age of Israel’s history. Because of the glorious promises that were given to David and Solomon concerning the temple, the Israelites were confident that the temple in Jerusalem would never be destroyed and that a descendant of David would always be ruling over them in Jerusalem. Jeremiah 7:1-3 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Stand at the gate of the Lord's house and there proclaim this message: "'Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!" The Jews had a saying they would repeat over and over to any prophet who would dare to say that God would bring judgment on them in Jerusalem. They would continuously repeat in that prophets face, "the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord," until the prophet ceased speaking with them. The meaning of the saying was that, in their opinion, the Lord would never send judgment on Jerusalem no matter what evil the people living there did, because the temple was there. God gave Jeremiah a message to preach to those people. Jeremiah 7:5-16 & 23:11 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other Gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. "'Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other Gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, "We are safe"--safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD. "'Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your fathers. "Both prophet and priest are Godless; even in my temple I find their wickedness," declares the LORD. 2 Kings 23:27 So the LORD said, "I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, 'There shall my Name be.'" Because of their evil doings, God permitted the king of Babylon to conquer Israel, destroy the temple, and take most of the Israelites who were not killed in the war into captivity in Babylon for seventy years. 2 Kings 25:8-12 On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of the LORD, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. every important building he burned down. The whole Babylonian army, under the commander of the imperial guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who had gone over to the king of Babylon. But the commander left behind some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and exiled the Jews to Babylonia in 586 BC. Daniel was one of the captives and the angel of the Lord appeared to him in Babylon where he wrote the book that bears his name. Jeremiah 51:51 "We are disgraced, for we have been insulted and shame covers our faces, because foreigners have entered the holy places of the Lord's house." Isaiah 64:11 Our holy and glorious temple, where our fathers praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins. The Second Temple
Seventy years later Cyrus the great of Persia conquered Babylonia and permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. Ezra 1:1-3 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: "'The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the Earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you--may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the LORD, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem. Ezra 6:14 & 16 So the elders of the Jews continued to build and prosper under the preaching of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah, a descendant of Iddo. They finished building the temple according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes, kings of Persia. Then the people of Israel--the priests, the Levites and the rest of the exiles--celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy. This rebuilt temple was the one that was in existence during the time of Christ. It was prophesied that the Messiah would suddenly come to his temple. This was fulfilled when Christ went to the temple and read Isaiah chapter sixty one. Malachi 3:1 "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. Antichrist will someday imitate the fulfillment of that prophecy and come to the temple in Jerusalem and declare himself to be God. John 2:18-22 Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day fulfilling his prophecy, but it will be fulfilled again when he returns and builds a new temple. Jesus prophesied during his ministry that the temple would be destroyed, and it was in 70 AD. Matthew 24:1-2 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. "Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." While suppressing a major Jewish revolt, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in AD 70. In 135, after the failure of another revolt, the Jews were banished from Jerusalem. From the early 4th century, when Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire, Jerusalem developed as a center of Christian pilgrimage. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher and many other Christian shrines were erected. Except for a brief period of Persian rule (614-28) the city remained under Roman (later, Byzantine) control until 638, when the Muslim Arabs took Jerusalem. The Arabs built (688-91) the Dome of the Rock mosque on the site of the Temple. The Software Toolworks Encyclopedia The Future Temples
It is the desire of many devout Jews to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The temple must be rebuilt either before or during the reign of Antichrist so that he can desecrate it in the middle of the tribulation period. It is possible that the Antichrist may have the tribulation temple pre constructed and erect it in three days time, similar to a mobile home being trucked and put on trailer park lot. Then he may claim that he fulfilled the scripture about building the temple in three days. This is pure speculation on my part, but something interesting to watch for. Zechariah 6:12-13 Tell him this is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the LORD. It is he who will build the temple of the LORD, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. There will be a temple during the tribulation period, but it will be destroyed and Jesus Christ will build his own temple from which he will reign during the Millennium. |