Stage setting for prophetic fulfillment surrounding all things Israel unfolds while we continue to examine developments on an hour-by-hour basis.

There continues to be constant intrigues involving interactions around and upon Moriah, with Muslim-Jewish contentions keeping an atmosphere for potential war brewing. Yet there is a drumbeat to produce peace, with hostile insistence at its core that Israel give in to enemy demands.

Incoming rockets, intended to weaken Israel’s resolve to resist the need to make peace, only hardens IDF dedication to punish the terrorist organizations. We get reports often of IDF forces taking out their leaders with precision drones and other strikes. Too many times, American mainstream media and left-wing political entities take the side of the Israel-hating enemies of the Jewish state.

Yet preparation continues for a time when, the religious factions in Israel believe, peace will reign and worship can again take place on the Temple Mount.

At present, that seems to be a pipe dream. Any such attempt to reestablish worship by the Jews on the Temple Mount would certainly bring down the wrath of all Islam. Yet the preparation continues.

The most previous Jewish Temple was destroyed in AD 70 when General Titus and the Roman legions tore down every stone of the structure. This was exactly as Jesus had foretold while teaching on the Mount of Olives. However, the Lord, while speaking during that discourse, indicated there will be a future Temple–the one the “abomination of desolation” (Antichrist) would sit in, declaring himself to be God.

So there must be a Third Temple—God Himself has said so.

We have watched developments, as stated above, intensely examining everything surrounding modern Israel. For example, we’ve seen that the implements of worship in that future Temple are already prepared. The red heifers have apparently been produced that will act as cleansing purification in the worship process. Even a rail system is in preparation that, the experts say, is meant to bring Jews in from around the world to the Temple Mount once the edifice is constructed.

In the latest regard for that construction, the following item is of interest:

Haim Dotan, an acclaimed architect who has won several international awards and also serves as a professor of architecture at leading institutes in China, recently became involved in the ambitious project of designing the third Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

Known for his extravagant projects, such as the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge in China—renowned as the tallest glass-bottomed bridge in the world—Dotan last year joined the right-wing activist and literature scholar Professor Hillel Weiss and pitched a session of the Jerusalem International Conference: “From the Umbilicus Mundi to the Four Corners of the Earth and Back.”

The conference, scheduled to take place this summer in Jerusalem, will be organized by the Yad Ben Zvi Institute, a prestigious research center in Israel. Dotan’s pitch, “Building Jerusalem, the temple city, and the road to peace,” was divided into three sections.

The first was dedicated to the transportation and economy of the future “temple city” of the Israeli capital. The next pitch, entitled “From Vision to Practice,” described future plans for the Jerusalem of the Third Temple era, inspired by biblical sources.

“In the center of the plan, an open structure will be built above the Old City of Jerusalem. It will be shaped like a tent, a cloud, or a mountain. Six or eight bridges will connect constructive towers which will combine stairways and elevators, supporting upper Jerusalem,” the outline seen by i24NEWS stated…

This may be another far-fetched attempt that is ignored by authorities, but the fact that a prestigious architect – who is secular and doesn’t have any political background – is involved in such a project makes this case all the more interesting, if not more tangible.

Plans to rebuild the third Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, are not new but have mostly faced strong resistance. In 1990, a deadly riot erupted on the Mount after a fringe Jewish group tried to lay the cornerstone of a third temple. (“The architect and activist who want to build Jerusalem’s third temple,” by Uri Shapira, senior producer, Holy Land Uncovered, I24NEWS, May 19, 2023)

David, king of Israel, wanted to build a house wherein God could reside. Jehovah, who called David “a man after my own heart,” proposed the question of whether He could be contained in such a structure. The answer, of course, was, “No.” Of course not.

The Lord did appreciate the thought, though, obviously. He told David that he couldn’t build a place where God could dwell among His people because David had too much blood on his hands from all the wars he had fought to defend Israel and acquire land God gave the chosen people.

Instead, God told David that Solomon, David’s son, would build God such a dwelling place.

The Temple Solomon built had at its heart the Holy of Holies, a fifteen-foot cubed inner sanctum that housed the Ark of the Covenant, the elaborately prepared container wherein the Shekinah glory, the very presence of God, would dwell.

That spot is still somewhere upon the Temple Mount—Mt Moriah, most scholars believe. Religious Jews are still afraid to walk upon the Temple Mount grounds for fear of accidentally treading upon that one spot on earth where God chose to reside.

The Temple and the Holy of Holies constituted God’s touchstone to humanity—and particularly to the Jews. It is the place where Abraham was to offer Isaac before God Intervened with the ram caught by its horns in a thicket, thus providing the sacrifice Abraham made to the God of Heaven.

Not far from the spot of the Holy of Holies is Golgotha, where Jesus Christ hung on the cross. When Christ died, the veil in the Temple’s Holy of Holies tore from top to bottom, giving people direct access to God the Father through that Sacrifice.

Solomon’s Temple, then, was the First Temple. It was the most glorious in beauty; it stunned even the queen of Sheba when her eyes fell upon its splendor. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it in 587 BC.

The building of the Second Temple took place following Israel’s Babylonian captivity. It lasted from 516 BC to AD 70. It became known as Herod’s Temple when it was commissioned by the king to be greatly expanded in size and beauty.

As stated earlier, this Temple was destroyed by the Roman military in AD 70.

The Third Temple is foretold to be in place during the last seven years of human history prior to Christ’s return. Daniel prophesied about Antichrist: “…in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease” (Daniel 9:27b) This last, most vicious, tyrant will enter the Third Temple and desecrate it.

This Tribulation Temple, like all other developments toward fulfilling the coming seven years of hell on earth Bible prophecy calls Daniel’s seventieth week, can be constructed very quickly, according to those who study the matters involved. Many believe, as do I, that the rebuilding of the Temple will be a major stipulation for getting Israel to agree to a peace covenant with its blood-vowed enemies–the covenant “made with death and hell.” (Isaiah 28:15, 18).

Those seven years of horror must be very near. All who are left behind following the Rapture will have to endure the time Jesus, Himself, said will be the worst time of all human history (Matthew 24:21).

As we always say, you don’t want to be here during that time of horror worse than even the death camps of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Here again is how to be ready to go to Jesus when He calls in the Rapture.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)