1/30/06

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The Fuse of Armageddon, part 1

by Hal Lindsey (2003 article)

So any significant changes to the status of these sites bear great significance as far as the timetable of the final prophetic events is concerned.

Indeed, the Hebrew prophet Zechariah predicted that all Israel’s neighboring nations would be intoxicated by their religious passions for Jerusalem in the last days. He predicted, “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples …” (Zechariah 12:2 NKJV)

This prophecy is set in the last days just before the coming of the Messiah Jesus to set up God’s Kingdom on earth. It assumes that Israel would be returned from its worldwide dispersion and reborn as a nation. All the surrounding peoples are the Muslim nations of today.

Zechariah predicts that the conflict between Israel and their Muslim neighbors will burden the whole world. It will eventually cause all the nations of the world to gather for war. (Zechariah 12:3)

The fuse of Armageddon was set up from the moment Israel conquered Jerusalem in June of 1967. The presence of a Jewish State has been intolerable for the Muslims.

But the Jewish possession of Jerusalem, particularly the Temple Mount, is considered a sacrilege to the Muslim world. It is an insult to Allah that must be avenged at any cost. This is the third holiest site of Islam. And Muslims place much more importance on holy places than do other religions.

As a result of the Six-Day War in 1967, Jerusalem for the first time in nearly 2000 years came under Jewish control. On June 27, the Knesset passed an amendment to the Law and Administration Ordinance that extended Israeli sovereignty to the eastern part of the city of Jerusalem, including the Old City where the Temple Mount stands.

At the same time, the Knesset also passed the Safeguarding of the Holy Places Law, which states: “The holy places shall be safeguarded against desecration and any other harm, and from anything liable to impede freedom of access of members of religious denominations to the places sacred to them or to their feelings regarding those places.”

In other words, freedom of access of the various religious denominations to their holy places is anchored in the laws of the state and in decisions of the High Court of Justice.6

Soon after its capture, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan handed the keys to the Temple Mount to the Muslim Waqf authorities of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in a gesture of respect for the rights of Muslims at the site.

However, the Temple Mount is the holiest site of Judaism too. God told King David the exact site on which to build the Temple, and particular the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was placed.

The Ark of the Covenant contained the broken tablets of the ten Commandments that God gave to Moses; a pot of Manna that was the food God gave miraculously to the Israelites in the wilderness; and Aaron’s rod of leadership.

On top of the Ark is a golden throne with two golden Angels. Their wings are outstretched over the throne and their faces look downward at the place where the blood of atonement was applied once a year and turned the throne into what God called the “Mercy Seat.”

Most important of all, the manifest presence of God hovered over the golden throne of mercy. God’s presence was in the form of a blazing multicolored light that was called the Shekinah glory. It was toward this throne that the Israelites have prayed for nearly 3000 years, 2000 plus years of which was from places of captivity and dispersion.

Solomon built the first Temple. Jerusalem was sacked and the Judeans were taken to Babylon as slaves in 606BC by King Nebuchadnezzar of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

Because of continued rebellion led by a Jewish remnant left in Jerusalem, the Temple was destroyed it in 586BC. Exactly as God predicted, the first Israelites were released from captivity 70 years after 606BC in 536BC.

The re-building of the Temple was completed in 516BC, also 70 years after its destruction in 586BC. The rebuilding of the walls and the city of Jerusalem was completed by the third wave of returning exiles under Nehemiah after they returned in 445BC.

Daniel predicted that the Second Temple would be destroyed by the Romans after the Messiah would come as Prince and be rejected and put to death. Daniel wrote:

“So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined”. (Daniel 9:25-26 NASB)

Without getting into the mathematics of this amazing prophecy, there are several things that are very clear:

First, Messiah would come as prince and heir apparent to David’s throne after a certain time period during which the second Temple would be built.

Second, the Messiah would be rejected and “cut off” or executed by the Israelites.
Third, soon afterward, the people from whom a different prince would come later would destroy the Second Temple.

We know historically that this was fulfilled by the Roman destruction of AD70. (It should be noted that “the coming Roman Prince” with whom Israel will make a covenant will be the Antichrist.)

So without any if, ands or buts, this clearly predicts that whomever the Messiah would be, he had to come, be rejected and put to death before the destruction of the Second Temple.

There is only one candidate that fits this prophecy, the carpenter from Nazareth, Jesus.

It is concerning the Third Temple that Zechariah prophesies. Jesus also predicts that there will be a Temple standing on the Temple Mount at the time of His Second Coming.

He warns of a blasphemous desecration of that Temple that is technically known in Biblical terminology as “the abomination that causes desolations.” (See Daniel 9:27 and 12:11 compared with Matthew 24:15)

So how will all of this come to be in the light of current developments in Israeli-Muslim conflict? More than ever before, the Muslims are working to remove all evidence of any previous Jewish presence on the Temple Mount.

The Palestinian Mufti of the Al Aqsa Mosque has just claimed that no one but Muslims has any right to the Temple Mount.

If you want to know where this is going and how it fits into prophecy, see Part Two tomorrow.