Alright, let's open our Bibles up to Matthew chapter 27. Just about finished with our series on the temple. We're going to look at a couple things this week, next week, maybe three weeks, probably just this week and next week. And last week we talked about the temple that the remnant who returned from the Babylonian captivity, rebuilt under Zerubbabel and Ezra. And of course then the city walls were built under Nehemiah. And later on we know that Herod, about 16 to 20 BC, he began construction on the renovations that he made to the temple. And that's the temple that Christ went into when he was on the earth. Jesus Christ made some predictions about the temple, but I did want to point out something that took place, Matthew 27. Then we'll look at these predictions here. I think I mentioned them last week. We're running out of time, but look at Matthew 27. When Christ died on the cross, a very important thing took place. Matthew 27, come down, if you will, to verse number 50. Matthew 27, 50. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And the earth did quake and the rocks rent. So that big veil that separated the most holy place from the holy of holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was, it tore from the top to the bottom. So man didn't tear it, God tore it from the top to the bottom, signifying, Hebrews chapter nine tells us that the way to God is made open. And the tight picture of that is that Christ is the veil. If you want to enter into God, you go through Jesus Christ. And his body was broken, not a bone of him was broken, but he was pierced and his flesh was torn. And Jesus Christ, because of his atonement and his sacrifice, the door opens up for God. So anybody can go in there. So all of that time we spent talking when we studied the tabernacle and then we started studying the Old Testament temple, all the time we talked about how sacred the holy place, the most holy place was, where the Ark of the Covenant was. Remember how we said that nobody could go in there but the high priest. He could only go one time a year. And he couldn't go in there without blood. He had to take the blood for atonement and put it on the mercy seat. And even whenever they moved, whenever they were back in the tabernacle days and the wilderness journeys, what they would do is the priests would go in there and they would take a cloth and they'd cover that thing up. So nobody ever saw the Ark of the Covenant in the mercy seat. That stuff was covered up. And nobody could go in there except the high priest once a year with the blood. And so Jesus Christ makes a way for anybody to come straight to God when he dies on Calvary's cross. So that's a very significant thing that happens. Now take a, just go ahead and go to the book of Luke and notice some of the predictions Christ makes about that same temple. Luke 19. The Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapter 24 is real similar because the disciples were like, look at the buildings of the temple. And they were showing off all the extravagant work that had been done. And he says, there's not going to be one stone left upon another. It's all going to be thrown down. And then he goes into a discourse on the Great Tribulation. Because here's what you want to remember. When you study Bible prophecy, everything that Daniel had prophesied, and we'll get into Daniel in just a minute, but everything Daniel had prophesied was on cue. The Messiah had come. And then he's going to be cut off. And the next events that follow on Daniel's prophecy is, after that we have the prince that shall come, the Antichrist. and then the desecration and all those kind of things. So everything is about to fall in place. And then of course, we know that the church age, what we call the church age, the time that we live now after the cross, is more like a parenthesis. In other words, that Jewish clock is basically put on hold. And until the Lord snatches the church out of here, those Old Testament prophecies relating to Israel will not unfold. And so Jesus makes some mention of those prophecies in Matthew 24 when he talks about that. He talks about Daniel and the prophecies of the temple in the future as well. But notice here he predicts Luke chapter 19. Come down, if you will, to verse number 41. Luke 19, 41. the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the day shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, encompass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. And so that literally takes place when Titus comes in, the Roman emperor, in 70 AD, and they destroy and decimate the temple. You'll see it again in 21. Well, that's the Olivet Discourse. I already kind of quoted it from Matthew 24, so you don't have to look at it, but that's 21 verses five and six. Then also come down to verse number 20. Luke chapter 21, verse number 20. Dual fulfillments, it's real similar to what you read in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah will be talking about Nebuchadnezzar. He's like, look, Nebuchadnezzar's gonna come in here, he's gonna take this stuff, and then he starts talking about the day of the Lord. That thing begins, it's kind of like those maps I've told you about. I've got one back in my office. You can see all the old maps, and it has all the old names of Israel and Syria and Babylon. where the Philistines were and all those kind of things. And then you can have a clear pane overlay and overlay it on top of that and then you see the new names. of the places, like where Armenia was and stuff. You'll see Turkey and you'll see Syria and you'll see Iraq and all those things. It's overlaid on top of that. Scripture's that way in the Old Testament and in the New Testament sometimes. And so those prophets will be prophesying of an immediate invasion like Nebuchadnezzar, but then there's an overlaid prophecy. And you say, how do you know that? Because of how the language is. There's no way that those things could be fulfilled. And if you start trying to allegorize it or spiritualize it, then you just create way more problems than you solve. The best thing to do is to take it absolutely literal. And then when you take it literal, you realize, okay, that prophet's speaking and God's giving you some dual application. And we know that because Jesus Christ, whenever he quotes the book of Daniel, he's still looking at it as future. And people try to say, oh, Daniel went ahead and prophesied and it all came to pass. No, it didn't. All right, look over here in Luke chapter number 20. Here's one of those dual things as well. Verse number 20, Luke 21 rather, verse number 20. And when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. That word desolation is used over and over in Daniel. Then let them which are in Judah, Judea, flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter therein too. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child and then that give suck in those days, for there shall be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. and they shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive unto all nations. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." You say, well, all of that points to Titus in 70 AD. Well, you might find an immediate application, but flip on over to the book of Revelation real quick. Look in Revelation chapter 11. Jerusalem is gonna be compassed about again. Revelation chapter 11, which we know is future, and John wrote Revelation in 96 AD, after Titus had already destroyed Jerusalem. Revelation chapter 11, verse one. There was given unto me a reed like unto a rod, and the angel stood, saying, Rise and measure the temple of God. So this is John writing about the tribulation period. There is a temple that will be in the tribulation. There it is. And the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court, which is without the temple, leave out and measure it not, for it is given unto the Gentiles, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months." 1260 days, three and a half years. That's the time of the Great Tribulation. All right, so let's, there's no reason to think when we talk about the temple that's coming in the future, there's no reason to think that it would be in any other place than where the temple always has been. Some people try to say, well, the Temple Mount is not really the Temple Mount. I don't know if I buy all that. I think that Temple Mount's a Temple Mount. I think where that mosque is now is right on top of that site over in Jerusalem. And there's no reason to doubt that that temple is not going to be there. Now, here's the question everybody has. They say, well, are we gonna see the temple rebuilt in our lifetime? I don't know. I will say this. When you think about it dispensationally, think about it this way. We know that Judas Iscariot, who is the son of perdition, John chapter six, John chapter 17, 2 Thessalonians chapter two, Judas goes out and hangs himself before or after Christ dies. Who wants to guess? Not at the same time, it's right before. Right before. You had three choices. Now here's the thing that's interesting to me. Judas, he goes off, he hangs himself, he dies, he goes to his own place, Acts chapter 1 verse 25. Jesus Christ then dies on the cross. The body of Christ spiritually can now be open. In other words, his physical body has died and now at Passover time, then you have Pentecost where the church actually comes to fruition and people understand, they begin to understand throughout the period of the book of Acts, the mystery of the body of Christ. But the way for the body of Christ happens when Christ dies on the cross. That's after Judas is dead. I think that is a great proof for the rapture of the church to take place before the Antichrist shows up. Judas was gone before the church ever came into existence and the church will be gone before the Antichrist ever shows up. And there's other reasons I have for saying that. However, let me throw this caveat into it. The Jewish temple was still on the earth until 70 AD. I mean, Paul writes 2 Timothy about 64 AD, the temple's still there. So the temple, the Jewish temple is still in existence during the church period. You read about it in the book of Acts, Peter and John going up to the temple and they heal the lame man. The temple's still there. It's not destroyed till 70 AD, well into the first century there of the church. So that leads me to say it's possible we could see in our lifetime, I would not get all freaked out and think, oh no, we're going in the tribulation. If all of a sudden some kind of thing takes place and they work some kind of arrangement out and they start building a temple over there, it'd just get me excited. It wouldn't worry me one bit. But we know a temple's gonna be over there. And I gave you the reference before in 1 Samuel chapter number one, the Old Testament tabernacle is actually called the temple. So if you really wanna use Bible terminology only, those Jews, if they leveled that place, and they could level it pretty quickly. They've got some technology to take care of that mosque. And they could get them a tabernacle and erect that thing in 24 hours. It wouldn't take very long. Right on that spot where Abraham moffed up Isaac, right on that spot where David saw the angel of the Lord put up his sheath and he bought that place from the Jebusite, that very same spot, they could put up a makeshift tabernacle. And it could be called a temple. It's called a temple in the Old Testament. So there's a few scenarios. Now I do believe it's gonna be in the exact same location. Now whether we're gonna see it in our lifetime or not, I know that a lot of people never thought they would see Israel officially become a nation again. And then 1948, they did. So that's just exciting news. It's not something that I'm gonna get all flipped out if we do see or if we don't see. But I think it's definitely gonna be in that spot. Now let's go back to the Old Testament and look at some reasons that there's gonna be a Jewish temple built again. Like I've told you before, the reason we studied this is because the temple structure is the most important building that's ever been on the face of the planet. If you could find one spot outside for us, Calvary, you know, a lot of people think we're talking about horses and guns when you say Calvary. They really do. People are far removed from the Bible. It only appears one time in the Bible, the word Calvary. And new versions don't even have the word Calvary in it. Only a King James Bible has the word Calvary, Luke chapter 23. And so that to us is the most important spot, because that's where Jesus died for us, but in God's eyes, where his throne's gonna be, where Jesus is gonna receive worship from the whole world, is gonna be in that temple spot. And that structure has been the most important building ever, and of course the Old Testament temple under Solomon was the most expensive structure ever. whatever, I gave you the figures a few lessons ago, whatever billions of dollars it was, it was unbelievable. You could never match that again. And so when you begin to think about that, you realize, okay, there's a purpose for all of this, and there's a purpose and prophecy for this Jewish temple to be erected during the time of the tribulation, even before Christ returns and fights the battle of Armageddon and takes over the world. Now go to Daniel chapter number eight, And here we have some of the layers of prophecy again. Daniel's prophesying about the kingdoms that are to come. We know that Babylon gives way to Persia, and Persia gives way to Greece. And he gives these prophecies here, but there's also more to it. Look in Daniel chapter 8, you'll notice there's more to it because he says in verse 17, look at the last part of verse 17. Understand, O son of man, for at the time of the end shall be the vision. So you can't just regulate everything to the times of the Medes and the Persians and the Greeks taking everything over. Notice verse number 19, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation, for the time appointed the end shall be. The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia. And the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. We know in history that's Alexander the Great, which is a great type of the Antichrist. But in prophecy, this would go past the history of Alexander and point to the Antichrist. Verse 22, now that being broken, whereof, as four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up, and his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power." You remember reading in Revelation 13 how that the dragon gave the beast his seat and his authority and his great power? There's a satanic trinity in the tribulation. You have the dragon, which is the devil, Satan. You have the Antichrist, the first beast. That's the Antichrist, the political ruler. Then you have the second beast, which is the false prophet. That dragon gives him his power. So this guy's gonna stand up, this political ruler that everybody's gonna worship, he's gonna speak these things beyond human ability. And somebody else will be feeding him his His technology or something, I don't know. The other day I heard something on the radio about these kings. Have y'all heard about the AI kings? That's some wild stuff, man. I haven't looked it up yet. Some of y'all that are all into tech, they're building these giants. You know, the Bible says there were giants in the earth in those days. It's like a museum deal. They're building these big, tall, 20, 30-foot giants out of computer LED stuff, and they're able to move and kind of come to life and talk to people. And it's all to celebrate going green and celebrate the earth and all this kind of stuff. When you start reading Daniel chapter 2 and you begin to see some of that stuff and compare it to Revelation chapter number 13 with those ten kings, begins to really spark your interest. Anyway, there's a different type of technology here. Somebody able to understand dark sentences. Verse 24, and his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. And he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper in practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. That's the Jews. Verse 25, and through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand, and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many. He shall also stand up against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without hand. Thank God for that. So here's what you'll understand. There is some type of peace and some way to placate the Jews. I mean, the Jews, to really find fulfillment, I think they have a common saying even here in the States. Jews all over the world have a common saying basically is, I'll see you in Jerusalem. I'll see you in Jerusalem. Because that land is part of their heritage. The Jew without his land is nothing. And in the Old Testament, he told those Jews, you can't sacrifice and you can't do anything outside of this land. You have to sacrifice in this land. So the next stage is not just to get the Jews in the land, but how better to get them in the land than if you have a temple and you can restore the ancient religion. I look over in chapter 11. You've probably heard people talk about a possible peace treaty that's made. This is where people get that idea. Daniel chapter 11, you'll notice you move beyond just the history of the different, the Ptolemies and the Seleucid kings that come after Alexander. That's a lot of the history there, but the overlaid prophecy, verse 21, his estate shall stand up a vile person to whom they shall not give the honor of the kingdom, but he shall come in peaceably and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. And with the arms of a flood shall they be overthrown from before him, and shall be broken. Yea, also the prince of the covenant. There's that covenant. And after the league made with him, he shall work deceitfully, for he shall come up and shall become strong with a small people. He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province, and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, or his father's fathers. He shall scatter among them the prey and spoil and riches, yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strongholds even for a time. A time is one year in Daniel's prophecy. You have a time, times, and a half. So it's a three and a half year period. A time is a year. And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army, and the king of the south, that'd be Egypt, shall be stirred up the battle with a very great and mighty army, but he shall not stand, for they shall forecast devices against him. Yea, they that feed of the portion of his meat shall destroy him, and his army shall overflow, and many shall fall down slain. And both these kings' hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table, but it shall not prosper, for yet the end shall be at the time appointed. You keep on reading about this guy, obviously he's a wicked person. Verse number 32, he corrupts by flatteries. There's some type of peace that takes place, and I believe that temple's an integral part of that. Notice also verse number 36. We'll look at this, we'll just go ahead and read it, and we'll look at some other references in a minute. And the king shall do according to his will, and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the god of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished, for that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the god of his fathers, implying he has some kind of Jewish descent. nor the desire of women, implying that he is a sodomite, nor regard any god, for he shall magnify himself above all, but in his estate shall he honor the god of forces, and a god whom his father knew not shall he honor with gold and silver," and so forth. Now, I believe that the prophecy points to some type of peace that takes place for the Jews to gather. When Jesus gives his prophecy in Matthew 24, he tells the Jews, when you see the abomination of desolation, you need to flee, implying that they've all gathered. Now, obviously they haven't all gathered now. I mean, the United States has almost as many Jewish people as Israel. I think finally the scales tipped and there's a few more maybe in population in Israel now than is in the United States, but the Lord makes it very clear in Jeremiah chapter 30 and also chapter 46, I believe. He said He will destroy all those nations where the Jews are scattered. So, goodbye red, white, and blue. We're doomed. And thank God, hopefully we'll be out of here before that happens, but When you begin to try to put these pieces of the puzzle together, there's definitely Jewish sacrifices. Go back to Daniel 8 again and notice that the temple's there because they're doing sacrifices. Now they can claim and all their different types of, by the way, the Jews in Jerusalem and in Israel, they're practical atheists. They have their tradition much like a lot of the Catholics that you might know. They're Catholic in name, but they don't go to church or whatever and they don't even They don't know a whole lot, and they just go through the motions. There are even some people that way that are Baptist. They don't know much. They come to church at Easter and Christmas, and that's about it. The Jews have their culture, but a lot of them are practical atheists. They worship themselves. They think that they endured the Holocaust, and they can prove to humanity how much the human spirit can endure. It was God that got them through that thing. The devil's trying to wipe them out, and if you think the Holocaust was anything, it's nothing compared to what the Antichrist is gonna do. Because that's the whole scope of things. Here's what you wanna get. It's called the time of Jacob's trouble, the tribulation. The whole reason for all this prophecy is the devil is gonna try to make God to be a liar. God made a promise way back 1900 B.C. and he said, Abraham, I want to bless you, I'm going to bless your son, I'm going to bless your son's son, your son's son's, I'm going to bless that group of people right there. The devil says, we'll see about that. And the Lord says, I'm going to give you a perpetual generations. The devil says, we're going to wipe you out. And you read the history of the Old Testament, of course, with Egypt, and then with Assyria, and then with Babylon, and then with the Persians, and the Greeks, and the Romans, and all the way through history. You can study even what the Spanish did, and what the English did, and some of the policies the United States have made. There's been some, you talk about anti-Semitism. And why in the world would the entire world hate the Jew? Because of the devil, that's why. And the Antichrist is going to literally try to wipe them out. Now they're going to have sacrifices, they're going to have a temple, there's going to be a gathering back into the land. And you see this mentioned here in the book of Daniel. Look in Daniel chapter number 8, verse 11. 8 verse 11, speaking of the Antichrist again, Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of the sanctuary was cast down, and a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgressions, and it cast down the truth to the ground and it practiced and prospered. So the Antichrist is going to have armed guards. He's going to have a way to stop these sacrifices. This is what Jesus refers to. And He refers to it from Daniel chapter number 9. Just flip over to Daniel 9. Daniel 9 verse number 27. The crucifixion is in verse 26. Notice verse 27, speaking of the Antichrist, the prince that shall come. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week. We know from the prophecy one week is seven years. And in the midst of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations, he shall make it desolate, even unto the consumption, and that determent shall be poured upon the desolate. So he's gonna stop the sacrifice. Go over to the book of Matthew and look at Jesus' warning here. Matthew 24. So they'll have a Jewish temple, they'll have sacrifice, there's some type of normalcy. And when you look at it in Daniel's prophecy, we don't have time to get into it. Way back, I think I actually drew a chart when I preached through the book of Daniel on this 2,300 days that are mentioned in Daniel chapter 8. What it looks like is that first 1,260 days, there's a 220-day period where there's some stuff being worked out. And after those 220 days, the Jews are allowed to have sacrifices. This is one view anyway. And everything goes good for about 1,040 days. After 1,040 days, the abomination of desolation takes place. And when you tie other things that you read about the Antichrist, and this is where the theories come from, we'll get into it in our Sunday school lessons, probably several months down the road. But in Revelation chapter 13, it talks about one of his heads being wounded to death and the deadly wound was healed. And when you read 2 Thessalonians 2, which we'll turn to in a minute, the man of sin is the son of perdition. So this is, when you start tying all this together, there's a period of peace, there seems to be some type of agreement with the Muslims and the Catholics and the Jews and everything seems to be going along okay, and then it appears there's some type of political treason, something takes place, and like I said, some of this is just possibilities, just throwing it out there. The political ruler, the man of sin, gets killed. Three days later, he comes up. And everybody's like, oh, this is the Messiah. He's not the man of sin. This guy. And boy, when that happens, he walks into the temple and he sits on the mercy seat and says, I am that I am. And then when he does that, the Jews are like, uh-oh. And they take off. And then he starts killing them left and right. And so that's what we read here. Turn to Matthew chapter 24. And like I said, some of that's speculation, but it's kind of putting little pieces together, and it may not work out exactly like that. But the main thing you want to know is there will be a temple, there will be sacrifices, and the Antichrist will desecrate and pollute those sacrifices. Look at Matthew 24. He preaches about this end times. Notice verse 13, he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. This gospel of the kingdom. See, that's not the gospel of the grace of God. That's a kingdom Jewish gospel. The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come. When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place. Whoso readeth, let him understand. He's quoting Daniel chapter 9. Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house, neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. Woe unto them that are with child, to them that give suck in those days. But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. and he goes down through the rest of it. So the Jewish sacrifices will be taking place, and then the Antichrist will stop those sacrifices. He will declare himself to be God, and then from Revelation chapter six, turn over there real quick, you'll notice what sacrifices replace the Jewish sacrifices. Look in Revelation six. Revelation six takes you all the way through the whole tribulation. The Book of Revelation takes you through the Great Tribulation four times. Look at my fingers like this is the best way I can describe it. A lot of times people teach that the Book of Revelation teaches the Tribulation like this. Like you go, one, two, you're going like this, you have the seals, the bowls, the vials, the trumpets, and you're going through. But if you look at it like this, It's all taking place at the same time. They're just being described differently. Kind of like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You're not starting over with another Jesus and Mark and another Jesus and Luke. It's the same thing, different accounts. The seals, bowls, trumpets, seals, vials, bowls, and trumpets. It's the same account. Revelation six takes you all the way through the tribulation. Now notice what's happening here in Revelation chapter six. Come down to verse nine. Revelation 6, 9, and when he had opened the fifth seal, five stands for death, I saw unto the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them. It was said they should rest a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled. I flip over to chapter number 20. You'll read about how this took place. Look at the resurrection here after the advent when Christ returns. Revelation chapter 20, verse number four. And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them. And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had he received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. So they're beheaded. All right, come back to, let's see here, I gotta wrap this up. So the main thing is get this. There'll be a temple, and by the way, you're in Revelation flip to 11. Notice what it's called. This is kind of strange to me, but this is what it's called, Revelation 11.1. And I think we've got to understand the workings of God with the Jewish people and how that Jewish tribulation remnant, you read all those verses, Revelation 12, 17, Revelation 14, 12, Revelation 22, 14, all three of those verses, those Jewish tribulation saints, not only do they believe in Jesus, but they keep the commandments of God. There's a Jewish Old Testament element in that tribulation, those tribulation saints' salvation. But notice this in verse number one of Revelation 11. There was given to me a reed like unto a rod. The angel said, Rise, measure the temple of God. So that thing is gonna be built by Jews. Now maybe it'll be after the rapture and you have those Jewish saints, maybe the 144,000 are connected. We could just speculate, but the reason I'm giving some emphasis on this actual temple that the Antichrist is going to go in and use basically is because that thing is called the Temple of God. All right, now go to 2 Thessalonians. Let's look at some of these things here. So the Antichrist is going to reveal himself Keep your hand on Revelation real quick because we're going to come back to 13. Go to 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 13. Paul lays out the order of how things are going to take place. Verse number 3, the man of sin be revealed, so there's a revealing. Man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, verse four, who opposeth and exalted himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, it's called the temple of God again. This is in the tribulation. Showing himself that he is God. That matches what we read in Daniel chapter 11 and in Daniel 8. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things? Now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. So on and so forth. Come down to verse 9. Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders. And so you see this wickedness that's going to take place when the Antichrist goes in there and declares himself to be God, that is the most blasphemous thing that could take place. Now go back to Revelation 13 and look at the beast here. Revelation 13, this is that passage I quoted earlier about his head being wounded to death. Verse number three, and I saw one of his heads, as it were, wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world wondered after the beast, and they worshiped the dragon, which gave power into the beast. We know Revelation 12, 10, the dragon's the devil. And they worshiped the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast, and who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies. And power was given unto him to continue 40 and two months. So when the Antichrist declares himself God, that is the beginning point of what we call the tribulation. It's a three and a half year period. And that first three and a half, wherever you want to put that time, really is kind of beside the point. Though when he declares himself God, That 42 months, that's all that's mentioned in the book of Revelation. There's not a seven-year period mentioned anywhere in the entire book of Revelation. There's only a 1260-day period, a three-and-a-half-year period, or a 42-month period. Time, times, and half a time. And so notice what happens, he declares himself God, he has this power, in verse six, look at the wording, he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name. Remember all those verses we read about the Lord having that place, and he's gonna put the temple, and he said, I'm gonna put my name there. God's name was associated with that temple. The Antichrist goes in there and says, I just postulate, you know, I am that I am. That's the only thing God could say about himself, and Moses said, who are you? But he blasphemes and he blasphemes his name and his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven. It was given unto him to make war with the saints and overcome them. And so he begins to wipe them out and he begins to try to kill them. And of course Jesus says, take off and run. You read Revelation chapter 12. And he talks about them running into the wilderness where they have a place prepared, and he takes care of them, and he keeps that remnant there. And the tight picture of that is from the Old Testament. Remember David and his remnant? He had 600 guys, 400, and grew up to 600. And those 600 guys were running from Saul. Saul's a type of the Antichrist, chasing after the anointed. And he's called the anointed one there. The remnant's called the anointed there in Revelation chapter 12. And those Jewish remnant, they will be running because at that point, basically, the Antichrist will be trying to wipe them all out. And finally, let me give you this, and we'll revisit it next week. Go to Malachi. We'll look at the rest of these next week, but the last book in the Old Testament, the prophecy of Christ's return. We know the route of the second advent matches how Joshua came into the promised land. He goes to Mount Paran down to that Edom area from the Minor Prophets. I think the book of Habakkuk talks about that way before he lands on the Mount of Olives. That's the last place he lands. But then he's gonna go from there to his temple. Look in Malachi chapter three. Malachi 3.1, behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek, not the messenger, the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant. There are two messengers in the passage. One of them is John the Baptist, typified by Elijah, who does come back in the Tribulation. The second messenger is the messenger of the covenant. That's Jesus Christ. And he comes back, he's the messenger of the covenant, that covenant that Daniel keeps talking about when you trace the thing back in Daniel 9 and Daniel 8, it goes all the way back to that promise made to Abraham. It's the Abrahamic covenant. And Satan said, I'm gonna try to wipe that covenant out and prove God a liar and blaspheme God and destroy these people. And Jesus Christ comes back and says, I'm the messenger of the covenant. And I'm gonna make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And he goes right to that temple. And then we'll look at some other verses next week. He actually builds it up. There's a period of time described in Daniel that takes place where the land's cleansed and the temple's cleansed and everything's set up. That's the desecrated temple. And it's very important because, you know, things are kind of leading in that direction. And I don't know if we're gonna see it in our time or not. It would not surprise me. And sometimes I wonder, and like I say, a lot of this is just guesswork. Don't misconstrue when I say this might be and this might be with what the Bible actually says. Because sometimes people don't listen. And they think, oh, that's what the Bible said. No, that's just what the preacher said. And that's just a guess. And I'll tell you what I'm guessing. But sometimes I wonder if, I mean, there's no United States of America in Bible prophecy. I hate to bust your patriotic bubble. I wonder if we go out either because the rapture takes place and there's so many that disappear, but as time goes on there's going to be fewer and fewer that disappear, or if maybe we go down in some type of engagement to strategically help the Jews set up that temple in some type of war. I don't know. Who knows? But those are just some guesses, but that temple is going to be built. And people made fun of all those dispensational scholars and people like Schofield. Anybody got a Schofield reference Bible? 1909, they prophesied the Jews are going to be back on their land. And all those amillennial scholars and postmillennial scholars, now you have all the scholars. None of the major seminaries are premillennial anymore. None of them. I mean, we're way down the road from even Schofield and those guys. They all made fun. Now you have the, they call it holistic eschatology. Heaven on earth. And they're adopting the same ideas that the Jehovah's Witness have. These are your big think tanks. They, all those Old Testament, amillennial and postmillennial scholars, they made fun of the premillennialists. And then lo and behold, 1948, there they are. There's that Jewish flag. There they are speaking biblical Hebrew that Moses spoke. I mean, go back and try to speak English that Chaucer spoke. You ever try to read a Wycliffe Bible? Man, you can't hardly. And they're speaking biblical Hebrew. It's absolutely a miracle. Somebody said, how do you prove the Bible's true? And they said, the Jew. The Jew, man. They've tried to wipe them out. The sign of the Jews, the burning bush. They try to exterminate them, and you can't consume them. He said, Malachi, thus saith the Lord of hosts, therefore, he says, you sons of Jacob, because I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. God said, I made a promise, so nobody's gonna wipe you off the face of the earth. All right, we gotta stop there for tonight. Let's all stand and be dismissed.