Christ in Ezekiel’s Temple – The Tabernacles Through the Eyes of Christ #22
Sometimes standing for what’s right will lead to your certain demise. But in God’s book, standing for what’s right, especially standing on God’s word, one ought to not be afraid and not have anxiety and not worry because God knows what’s in the heart of those who stand firm on His word. And His word has a definitive promise: Do not worry about what they can do to the body, but what they can do to the soul. You bend a little bit for the world, you bend a little bit for Satan, you just move a little bit sideways for the flesh, or you stay the course. And sometimes staying the course, just as a footnote, can be lonely. People can ostracize you or kind of put you in the camp of “there’s something wrong with you,” because you’re marching to what they think is your drumbeat, they, not recognizing that you are walking according to this word. ♪ ♪ So after 21 messages on the shadows and types of Christ and the Tabernacle, its furnishings, the set times, the offerings, and so forth, I sat kind of reflecting on those messages.And as I began preparing for today, earlier in the week, I realized something. I’ve got to do one more message. If you missed the other messages, please, at your leisure, go back and they’re, they are replaying on the network. So at least this will give you some comfort. You’re coming in at the tail end, which is always the worst, but you can always go back and revisit all the other messages. All right, so a little backdrop before we get into the message. In the twentieth chapter of the book of Revelation, we read, and in multiple places; don’t, don’t turn there just yet, we read about Christ’s triumphant return. We are told that at this particular time, Satan will be bound for a thousand years, cast into the bottomless pit, and that means for the duration of the kingdom. And we’re talking about a thousand years. So bear with me, because there’s a lot of confusion on this too, but during those thousand years, Satan’s power to deceive, to pervert, to lure the saints into temptation and whatnot, will become null and void for those thousand years.Following this time, the saints who refused to take the mark of the beast and were martyred during the tribulation; tribulation, the Great Tribulation, will be resurrected. So the period, the tribulation, the Great Tribulation is mentioned at least five times in the area that I’m kind of looking at in Revelation, but don’t think it ends there. What I’d like to call these thousand years is the first installment of eternity, kind of, we’ll call it the foretaste because a thousand years come to an end, and then other events take place.So we’re looking at this particular, we’ll call it a swath of time for a particular reason. And also, if people are confused about this, a promise was given to King David that a descendant, remember from that line, would sit on the throne forever. And God will make good on that when Christ returns. He is of that line, essentially. So we have this kind of coming together, we’ll call them biblical meshing’s of verses that just kind of mold together and you see everything kind of take shape. After that period, they will be what we call new heavens and new earth, the re-creation period. And we will have all the saints from all ages; past biblical, like the references made to Daniel. Let’s, just for people who are not familiar, I want to make sure that people go, “I don’t know, I’m not familiar with that,” just in case, it’s always good to have references where people can see things with their own eyes. In the twelfth chapter of Daniel, which is about the future, there are several references here that say that Daniel and those with him shall be resurrected during that period.And if you read it plainly; we’re using the King James Bible. If, if you read the Hebrew Bible, it’s even more staggering. It’s even more clear. But this particular section says, “At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince, which standeth for the children of thy people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” If you keep reading, you’ll see several things are said to till the time of the end.For example, verse 13, says, “But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of days.” Essentially, “You’ll die, Daniel, you’ll go to sleep, and you will resurrect.” So there is that promise. The whole twelfth chapter is extremely powerful if you’re thinking about how this could have been written by someone who was in captivity, not knowing the time ahead, so God gave this word as a future prophecy that many who are asleep in the dust of the ground shall rise to everlasting life. And so at your leisure, if you want to read this; I don’t want to take up too much time, but there’s clarity here talking about when we read “a time of trouble” or “the day of the LORD,” these are all pointing to that period I’m; a precursor to that period that I’m referring to. There’s also a mention in Revelation 20, verse 4, of those that die during the tribulation who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus, who didn’t worship the beast nor his image.It says that they will come to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years. John calls this the first resurrection. Let me stop there. I want you to think about something and identify with something because it’s very easy. You know, we live in a world that it’s, everything is changing so quickly. It’s very easy to lose focus on what matters. And I think for these people that didn’t take, didn’t worship the beast or his image or didn’t; these paid a price.But notice that they are mentioned here. They are memorialized here; a future time by the way. So sometimes, I have to say it like this, standing for what’s right will lead to your certain demise. But in God’s book, standing for what’s right, especially standing on God’s word, one ought to not be afraid and not have anxiety and not worry because God knows what’s in the heart of those who stand firm on His word. And His word has a definitive promise: Do not worry about what they can do to the body, but what they can do to the soul. You bend a little bit for the world, you bend a little bit for Satan, you just move a little bit sideways for the flesh, or you stay the course. And sometimes staying the course, just as a footnote, can be lonely. People can ostracize you or kind of put you in the camp of “there’s something wrong with you,” because you’re marching to what they think is your drumbeat, they, not recognizing that you are walking according to this word. A lot of times you’ll get people who just, maybe don’t even say something to you, to your face.They don’t have the courage or they’re hypocrites. But the reality is, people want you to go with the flow. Now, I, for one, have never been one to go with the flow and that, I’m sure has cost me at times, but I’m counting the cost for Christ’s sake, not for anyone else’s. So, you might say, “Well, you know if that’s such a lonely path, why would you go that way?” Because I’m not alone and it’s not lonely; Christ is always with me. And when I stand for what’s right, just like these people stood for what’s right, they did not succumb. “Well, what about the consequences? What about the pressure? What about “we all have choices to make.And I’m not going to tell you what choice to make. I’m just going to tell you, there’s an expression, “Those that stay by the stuff get the goods.” And in God’s book that means those that stay by God’s word, God stays by them. So, you know, don’t, don’t ever think that there’s not an immediate application in the here and now, because I look at these folks that didn’t worship, didn’t bow down, didn’t cater, and there’s many in the Bible, even Daniel’s time.Look at Daniel. Daniel refused to do that. And his courage and his faith, I can say we need more Daniels. We need more Esthers. We need more people who say, “No matter what it looks like, I’m going to stay by the stuff, because that’s what God said.” It is to those people who will be faithful on that wise. So, just that was my little footnote there. There’s also a reference in 2 Timothy as well as 1 Corinthians that lets us know that the church-age saints will be resurrected at this time as well.And there is another group that is suggested. So several groups in succession are mentioned as redeemed and resurrected. But they are from all ages, including this age, and yet the age to come until God says, “It’s time.” This group will be made up, interestingly enough, of both Jews and Gentiles. And like it says in Matthew 25, where Jesus speaks and says, “Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” So, you know, it’s still going to be His choice of who gets, who gets in, all right? The prophet Isaiah says that the people will turn their weapons of war into plowshares and pruning hooks.Essentially, the weapons meant for protection will be turned into weapons or tools to grow and work the land. That’s a future time. You might say, isn’t that a little bit archaic? And especially right now, if you look at many governments are banning agricultural land and banning growing food. I don’t know how you can survive if you don’t grow food, but that’s a story for another day unless you’re eating bugs. “Yummy, I’d like another serving please.” Yes. The prophet Isaiah speaks of our Lord as the Prince of Peace, and he says there will be no end to the increase of His government or peace. That’s Isaiah 9:7. This encompasses both people and the animal kingdom. Now there’s another point that I want to make during this period which commences, this thousand-year period which commences, as I said, it’s, we’ll call it the first deposit of eternity without the new heavens and new earth yet to come.No more sickness, no more death, no more dying, the eyes of the blind you know, you start thinking about the impossible-ness of this all the eyes of the blind being able to see, the deaf being able to hear, those who are crippled can be made whole. And it’s, I mean, it’s almost like a fantasy land that sounds too good to be true where everyone is in perfect health. But that is the picture that we are given during this time. Now, I don’t know about you, but you know, I get to read a lot of prayer requests, especially of the saints in this church of people who are battling cancer. And it, that’s always the thought that comes to my mind, is that that day will be so amazing when every human who is in that millennial kingdom, there will be no cancer, there will be no sickness; there won’t be any of the things we suffer now.And it almost makes you think, you know, this is the mindset that a Christian should have, especially in these times: “I’m prepared for whatever comes my way. I know whom I’m going to be with. I know where I’m going,” so what a joyous day when I don’t have to think about cancer ever again when you don’t have to think about a heart condition or crippling pain in your body. What a day that’s going to be. I mean, you know, it’s, it can just make the statement, but it’s still kind of mind-boggling to know that the person to your left and your right will be perfectly healed. That’s pretty amazing. Now why am I telling you all this? Because I felt it important to bring this particular timeframe into, we’ll call it all of these messages that dealt with the Tabernacle and also subsequently the temple. Because on that day, as I’m referring to, it says, “Behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst.” That’s from Zechariah speaking about our Lord.Christ’s kingdom will be one of peace, one of joy, and all who are in the kingdom of God; this is the kicker; we will all get to see Him. I mean, okay, you’ve read that before, but when you say it out of your mouth, like, I’m looking at you, that’s how you’re going to see Christ. It’s kind of like, you know, the person that we’ve, we’ve worshiped, that we’ve spoken about, that I’ve preached on. But still, we only know Him from the pictures of artist renderings or from descriptions, the few that are in this book. But seeing Him face to face kind of, it blows my mind. But that is what we are promised during that time. So if you remember what I said during all these messages, the epicenter of all this is going to be Jerusalem. And this is why when people say, “I don’t get it. What’s, what’s the deal? Why is there all this warring over that land and that little, it’s just “look at the map. It’s just a little spot on the map.Why all of this back and forth? Because that’s the place that God said, “Jerusalem, the foundation of peace,” that is the place that God said, “I am going to establish where all nations will flow into.” The place that God chose, that David, we’ll call it, this, we’ll say it this way, that David “founded,” but God led him to that, will once again be the epicenter of all worship. Zechariah says in those days “the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let us go speedily to pray before the LORD, and to seek the LORD of hosts; I will go also. Many people and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem.” So, for all of you out there who just cannot understand what the deal with Israel is, some people are tired of hearing about it, and some people pray for Israel.Just know this; it is going to be the epicenter of the last chapter on Earth. And it will be, again, once there are new heavens, new earth, it will be the epicenter once more, but in a different way, completely. Now, all of that is the backdrop for a purpose. We’ve been going through, as I said, the tabernacle and temple. And so it’s important to look at the last temple because that makes it the last chapter. And why this is important, if you remember I started out and throughout all these messages I said, “Everything points to and is a shadow and type of Christ” Remember, the exterior of the tabernacle, the furnishings inside, I described the metals or the, the materials used, the colors; it all points to shadow and type of our Lord and Savior so clear that when you go back to read it, you can’t, you can never read it the same way ever again.And what I found was that when you get to read what Ezekiel defines as the last temple, eight items are missing that were previously; now, I want to make sure that people understand this. The Tabernacle was the transportable worship center for Israel as they wandered through the desert for 40 years. And then once a period, we’ll say David probably labored to keep things as they were until Solomon, David’s son, has the revelation that he should build a permanent house for God which becomes Solomon’s temple. You’ve got the temple that will be quasi-rebuilt when the people come back from captivity.And then you’ve got Herod’s temple. Think of it, it’s all the same place more or less. Some parts of Herod’s temple are slightly changed. And obviously, we have the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., and then we have this revelation of the last temple in Ezekiel. So eight items are missing. I’m going to itemize this. I’ll just tell you what they are and then I, I’ll give you the information on each one of them: the wall of partition, the court of the women, the laver, the lampstand, the table of showbread, the altar of incense, the veil, and the Ark of the Covenant. Those are the items that are missing in Ezekiel’s temple. That’s future time. And one other thing, the altar itself, the altar of sacrifice, undergoes some changes and they are substantial. And one of them is like, wow, okay.So, the wall of partition, which would have been a part of the temple in its day, was a low, four-foot wall that traversed the inner court separating the inner and outer court. The wall prevented Gentiles from passing what was the entrance into the inner court. So it’s a low, short wall and several gates that gave access to this area. There was signage posted written in Latin and Greek, so that tells you it’s at a little bit later time, that was a warning against people who were not allowed to enter and the consequences of breaching that area.The sign basically, the gist of it is that no foreigner may enter. Anyone caught doing so would most likely face death. Welcome. You’re all welcome, right? So, the apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:14 says that the wall of partition was torn down all this kind of gives flavor and new meaning to things placing all believers together with no separation and adding to it something that many scholars find interesting. Jesus says He has other sheep. I remember having this discussion with a good friend of mine who is an imam and he asked me if I thought the other sheep could be people of another faith. And I’m going to tell you, other sheep means other sheep. And that could be other sheep from anywhere else, just not the ones that He’s come to take hold of or take care of in the now. So, the other sheep could be. I’m not going to speculate and see who they are, but, in Jesus’ own words, there are other people outside of the people He’s chosen that He’s going to include. So, it’s kind of interesting because that wall of partition tells us a lot.That it’s missing from Ezekiel’s temple says that all who are present at that time will be welcome. No one will be kept out. So, think about that. That’s number one. The next one is the court of the women. This too is missing from the future temple in Ezekiel’s book. If you go, or if you’ve seen pictures, if you have the luxury to go to the Western or Wailing Wall, there is still a partition, although that partition is suggestive, and it is not the original partition whatsoever. But especially if you go to that site and many synagogues to this day separate the men and the women. Women have their area, usually in a two-story temple the women are upstairs, and the men are downstairs, however, you want to describe that. But what’s interesting is that the sexes were separated in worship.Just think about this. No court of the women, no; I just started with no foreigners allowed. All would be welcome. No distinction between; when I say that “distinction,” there will be no more separating men and women in God’s eyes. I think that’s more of a manmade scenario than anything else, especially when I look at the references to Christ. If He was so concerned, remember, He would have been steeped in understanding Jewish traditions and He didn’t seem too concerned to have women around Him, let alone the first one that encountered Him at the tomb at His Resurrection, Mary Magdalene. So, I’ll leave that with you. I’ve said enough about that. But that passage for our sake, there is no distinction between men and women here, especially within the temple of God. The next item that’s missing is the laver. Now the inner court would have had; would have been the place where one would have found the laver, which would have been a large basin filled with water, traditionally used by the priests to wash before proceeding to do their ministerial duties. We would no longer need the laver, future time.Remember, we’re talking about a future time and we’re talking about a time when Christ will be here on earth. This is very important. There is no need for the laver of cleansing anymore. Why? Because Jesus, by His mouth, says, “You are made clean by the word,” you’ve been washed by the word, and by His shed blood. So, you know, there’s even a Scripture in Titus that talks about the washing, regenerative washing. We are made whole and clean by that, Titus 3:5, I believe. So no more need for the laver and especially, think of it this way, if, if the Laver Himself is present, who needs a basin of water to wash their hands and feet in? I’ll leave that one, too. All right, I want to turn to Ezekiel 26 for just, or 36, I think, for just a second.And we can peruse something that Ezekiel says, which I think is of interest. Ezekiel 36, beginning at verse 24, because this will tell you exactly from the prophet, the Old Testament prophet talking. “For I will take you from among the heathen, gather you out of all countries, will bring you into your land. Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” So it’s kind of interesting, the cleansing, even if you want to do the interpretation by the Old Testament fashion, not even looking to Christ right away.There is a passage saying, “In future time, you will be cleansed.” But we know the cleansing occurs through the finished work of Christ. So the next one, the next item on our list is the golden lampstand. And I had previously taught on this, the menorah or the lampstand would have illuminated the holy place. Remember, we tend to take for granted electricity. There was none on that day, so they would have been in a dark room, save for the menorah illuminating the holy place. And of course, in the Holy of Holies, God’s Shekinah glory would, when His presence descended, would light up the rest of that room, the closed Holy of Holies.Isaiah refers to Messiah as the light of the nations. And he said, “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in dark, in a dark land will see the light shine on them.” And in many of the messages past, I’ve referred to the glory of God as bright, radiant, sometimes being referred to in Scripture as fire, the presence of God, like the burning of the bush that burned but was not consumed; the presence of God, so when we think about the menorah, don’t necessarily think about the golden candlestick, but think about the light and the fire that it represents. Well, who needs the light and the fire when the Light will be present? That is Christ.He says, “I’m the light of the world.” And who needs the fire, the fire burning when the presence of God shall be with us? That’s why I said, all these things in the Old Testament reveal Christ; you cannot, sorry, you can’t ignore it. So I think probably one of these things I also mentioned to you previously was in the book of Ezekiel, we have a passage that kind of refers to Ezekiel seeing the glory of God incrementally, basically departing from the temple. And then in this vision that he receives, by the end of the book, the glory of God comes back. So, I want you to think about even that, because you can read it and you can either make it a caricature or you can make it a reality. The glory of God essentially left, and I think it left before the destruction of the temple.And I’ve mentioned this before, but for all this to come to pass, yes, God’s presence must return and it won’t be in a pillar of cloud or fire. It will be in the person of Jesus Christ. I equally find it interesting even in the book of Revelation, the opening passages you’ve got, which if you started reading it wouldn’t be clear at first, but you’ve got Christ in the middle of these seven candlesticks, and we’re talking about the churches of Asia Minor. It seems very clear to me that that symbolizes God’s presence, our Lord’s presence through the ages. And if you want to make the churches of Asia Minor church age through time, He has been present even in, we’ll call it the dark ages of the church He’s been present.But there will be a time where His presence will be with us, and that’s probably He’s with us now, but visually where we can look and see and behold Him. And as I said, that’s kind of mind-boggling. All right, the next one that’s missing is the table of showbread. Now this I taught on, this I covered. And if you remember, I told you that the bread put on that table, was twelve loaves, one for each of the tribes of Israel, and people tend to get this wrong. The bread was an offering from the people who gathered up the manna every single day or when they were prescribed to. So they were taking what God had given, making bread, and presenting it to God.So it was technically an offering from the people to the Lord, that table of showbread. So what’s missing? And I think this is also interesting because when we talk about the bread, we read in the New Testament, of course, and this is one where everyone should know, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” Why would we need a table with baked goods on it, representing twelve tribes when we have the actual Bread or the Manna from heaven Himself live and in our presence? Again, there are all of these things you have to take note of. The altar of incense is missing.And I said that, usually symbolic of prayers ascending. Now if you remember in Solomon’s temple, this altar stood before the veil in the holy place. And this, on this altar of incense was burned morning and evening incense. So why would we need an altar that represents our prayers ascending if the One we’re praying to is with us? See, this is why I love; this is why I love this type of teaching because you can be very dogmatic, “Oh, I don’t want to read the Old Testament.” Why would you do that? You’re robbing yourself of the riches of the revelation of Christ when you really can see it.And it’s almost like scales. You know, when we first start off studying the Bible, it’s a little bit confusing. We may not understand, but once you, you start putting these pieces together, how could you not look at the whole thing and say, “This was God’s plan all along” God didn’t change His mind or do something different. This was His plan all along that we will be with Him. Remember, I said last week, bookends; what was, in the beginning, shall be in the end. The tree that started it all will be the tree for the healing of the nations. And the presence of God that was with Adam and Eve in the garden, His presence was there, He was with them. He shall be with us, the resurrected saints. So it’s like, I don’t know, you can’t escape the beauty of what God has put forth for us.It’s just mind-boggling to me. The veil, missing. “Huh?” Yeah, not there; go ahead and try and find it in Ezekiel’s writing. It’s not there. That is what separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies. And this is another thing that I love. It should be self-evident, right? When our Lord was crucified on the cross and He died, we read that the temple veil was rent from top to bottom, not from bottom to top, from top to bottom. No human hands could have ascended to rend that veil. But why the veil? Because no one was allowed to go into the Holy of Holies except for the singular priest once who was allotted the time or times to go in, now no more.No more; we, we are no, we are no longer walled out of God’s holiness. I just think that’s pretty amazing. And then there’s one other thing I’d like to point out. When people talk about the temple and I address this, you know, the folks that say, “Well, there, no sacrifices are going on right now and there are no practices like the Old Testament for our Jewish friends.” And that’s correct. I want you to think of the veil this way. And know this is; please, I don’t mean to be blasphemous, but I want you to think of it this way.Have you ever owned a credit card? Got a credit card? And they send you a replacement? Now, before they issued special metal cards or whatever they are, they tell you, “Cut up your card. Cut the card up so that it’s null and void.” I want you to think of that veil being rendered from top to bottom as God’s way of saying, “I’m cutting up the old to usher in the new. I’m destroying that which was, for a reason, to usher in the new.” And keep that thought in your mind because that helps us to understand God was closing the door on the old dispensation. And the way that He did that was by, whoosh! rending that veil. So I think, again, God’s depiction is just unbelievable. Okay, Ark of the Covenant, which I think I have probably driven most of you crazy talking about, right? You just read the book of Revelation where it says, “I saw heaven open up.” There is the Ark, if you will. So the Ark is in heaven. It was always in heaven because that’s why God told Moses, “See to it that you build it exactly according to the pattern; don’t deviate.” Otherwise, it wouldn’t be matching.And I said to you previously the reason why that Ark of the Covenant; by the way, it, it’s not like they’re going to find it and put it into the last temple. Ezekiel says it’s not there. It’s madness. Go look for it. It’s madness. I get it. If you’re an archaeologist, you’re on a mission. You want to uncover, discover.You want to be the one a little bit like, you know, you want the notoriety maybe of a Howard Carter finding King Tut’s tomb and opening it up only to go, “Whoa,” and the whole world’s looking in. That’s great. But I’ve said to you, the reason why I don’t think that the Ark will ever be found, or if there is an Ark found, it’ll be a replica. There was at least one replica we know of made for certain. But the Ark itself, remember that Ark was not just a box containing the pot of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded overnight symbolizing the Resurrection, the pot of manna symbolizing Christ, and the two unbroken tables of stone which also symbolize only Christ could fulfill everything in the law contained in the Ark, which is basically, we’ll call it the heart of God or God’s presence. We would not, I would say to you, even if somebody says, “Oh, I found the Ark,” people would end up worshipping the Ark and not God.That’s what happened in Catholicism. You know, you find a sliver of hair, “This, this hair belonged to John.” And people bow down and venerate it. Well, why would you venerate that? I’m only interested in one thing pointing you to Christ, pointing you to worship, and getting Him to know why would I want to venerate somebody’s thumb. I don’t know. You tell me. You’re probably smarter than I am on that, okay? I’m not, I’m, okay, let’s leave that one alone. It doesn’t sound too good either. So, let me talk to you now about the altar, because the altar probably is, there’s such a unique scenario that plays out.This one, I think possibly, is a little, might be a little bit confusing for people who don’t know, but if you would study the temple, the temple would have had an altar that would have been accessed by the south. And it would have had some type of ramp; no stairs. Remember that God said no stairs. It would have had a ramp and accessed by the south. Ezekiel 43 and beginning at verse 17, there’s━I, you don’t need to understand the whole lot of it. You can read it your own time, but there’s something at the very end of that verse that tells you something very distinct.It says, “And his stairs,” Ezekiel 43:17, “and his stairs shall look towards the east.” That’s referring to the altar. There will be stairs, which weren’t━previously not allowed, and it will look towards the east. So, the access will not be from the south. Now, I’m going to tell you what I think. If Christ has His throne in the temple, that’s why you don’t need an Ark; He will be sitting on His throne, then the altar and the placement of the altar will be where He can see it, where He, from His perspective, if you were to actually look at the layout of the temple and just change the direction, it would be that He would be looking upon the altar and be able to see those ministering and worshiping at the altar.That’s kind of interesting, but there’s one more thing that’s interesting. Every reference in Hebrew, every single reference to an altar, altar specifically a tabernacle, or temple, the Hebrew word is mizbêach. Every occurrence, except for two references in Ezekiel 43:15 and 16, won’t see in English, but if you read Hebrew, I highly urge you to look it up. We’re not talking about the name, the nomenclature of the altar being mizbêach, but suddenly the altar is renamed something. The altar is called Ariel.Ariel means “Lion of God.” Remember I told you, everything in this book points to Christ. Christ is called “the Lion from the tribe of Judah.” He is the Lion of God. That altar is called the “Lion of God.” Now, I said, English doesn’t reveal that, but Hebrew does. And if you read Hebrew, even if you fumble through it or you’ve got some phonetic look it up, don’t take my word.It’s kind of mind-boggling. It blows my mind that right there tells you if there was a change. Now, if there was any doubt, somebody says, “Well, you know, you’re reading a lot into Scripture,” but I’m not. See, back, way back in Genesis when Jacob is blessing, Jacob who is Israel is blessing his children, which are the children of Israel. He pronounces a blessing on Judah. And he says, “The scepter shall not depart between his feet until Shiloh comes.” Shiloh is Christ. And then you read another part of that blessing which talks about a lion’s whelp, the lion that is crouching or crouched down. These are all pointing to Christ, “until Shiloh comes.” Again, if you start putting all these pieces together, you see there’s no error here. And when I say I speak with certainty on these interpretations, because the Bible, it’s not my opinion, the Bible backs it up. I said to you, if you can find repeated Scripture that repeats something, it becomes sound doctrine.So, when we talk about this period of what’s missing, eight items, I also think that’s equally interesting because eight is usually the number of resurrection, it’s also the number of fulfillment, and could also be the number of new beginnings. So, I find that fascinating. These eight items are missing; all the other items that would have been present in the former temple, Solomon’s or Herod’s will be present. The change of the direction of the altar and its name, which point to Christ, and then last but not least, we have something else to dissect here for a second: the location of the temple. Now, let’s talk about this in real-time. Everybody knows, or at least to some degree, we know the history of the occupation before Israel became a state in 1948. We know there were successive occupations that were not Jewish of origin; mostly Turk, Ottoman, and the Romans attempted, but everybody had, their try at it. And for a successive space of probably what would be well over a thousand years, I’m sure, don’t quote me on the timeline here, because I’m just kind of pulling it up like that; there was no temple and there were no Jewish people and there was a Jewish state.That all happened because of the Balfour Declaration. You’ve got to go back and kind of sort through the weeds of actually the why. And there’s a weird reason why Israel became a state in 1948 and not the one that we’re commonly told. Because it is important that that land basically, it’s like a page holder. God said, “I’m going to give you a place, and it’s going to become a page holder, like a stake in the ground that no one else can claim again until I’m ready to execute My plan. You will keep Me, My place until I say I’m taking it back to do what I need to do,” which is what I’m describing right now. So the glaring problem here is that most people talk about the Dome of the Rock and they say, “Well, how can the temple be erected if the Dome of the Rock, which is under Muslim control and no one is allowed?” So how do we solve this problem? Because people say, “Well, how, how is this going to come about?” Well, I want you to; I want to remind you of something.There will be geographical and topographical changes when Christ returns. So just, just think about this for a second. The reference in Zechariah 14 talks about the Mount of Olives being cleaved open east to west when Christ’s feet touch down. And you don’t think that that particular incident will not change the lay of the land but don’t think that’s the only change because another change’s mentioned. The other change that’s mentioned is that water will flow from underneath the temple eastward building up into a larger body that will eventually become a river that will make the Dead Sea alive again and the Dead Sea will have fish and vegetation in it once more. It’s not right now, of course. So there are plenty of changes and there are Scriptures that talk about how high mountains will be made low. So, you know, I think God’s, if God’s got all this solved here and He’s got it all laid out, I’m pretty sure that He’s able to handle the Dome of the Rock.Okay? I’m pretty sure about that. That seems like a very minor thing right there. There is one other thing I’d like to mention and I want to mention it to dispel something because I do go online and I look at a lot of what people say and there’s a lot of, a lot of lunacy out there. So one of the things that’s being propagated right now is the River Euphrates is essentially almost dried up. Okay? And our Bible talks about the angel in the book of Revelation, I think it’s Revelation 16.I just quoted it this morning to somebody. I’m pretty sure it’s Revelation 16. Yeah, Revelation 16 and verse 12, “The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” The River Euphrates is drying up right now. It is almost virtually dried up except for one curve in it that looks actually; it’s got a curve with two legs; it looks like an Omega, a Greek Omega.I don’t know if that’s a coincidence or not. But don’t be confused. It’s being dried up now is not the same as the event being spoken of here where the vial that is poured out is wrath and the events that come; this is the sixth angel, so there are five events prior that must happen that has not happened and they are sequential. So what’s interesting is you’ve got a lot of people online saying, “Oh, I see the River Euphrates is dried up and this is preparing the way.” No, it’s not. The only thing that it’s done, if you’re interested in archaeology, which you know I’m an archaeology nut, the only thing it’s done is it has revealed things that we could not find previously. And one of them is, okay; some of you will go, “Oh my God, she’s excited about this?” But it revealed, for example, the Mitanni Kingdom.If you remember when I was teaching on the Lost Tribes, I mentioned the Mitanni, but they’re like people who just basically vanished. Now that there’s been a sufficient amount of water that has dried up, they have found what is tantamount to the Mitanni Kingdom. They’ve also found traces of the Sumerian Kingdom, an Akkadian Kingdom. This was all underwater, and still yet underwater is a cemetery, very interesting. And so, you know, but I don’t want people to be confused. So I’m just putting this as a gratuitous footnote here. So that, if in case you do see things like this, you don’t get confused, other things must happen before. And God, by the way, is pretty organized in what He does. So it’s not like He says, “Okay, well, I think I’m going to start with number 5 over there and I’ll come back to number 1.” No, okay, very orderly, He does it in such a fashion. We’re reading His instructions. We’re reading Him, His map for the future, okay? So I don’t want people to think, “This is it.” Now, what is interesting, and I’m not going to lie to you, there has to be another event.What probably will happen is; now, bear with me, they’re saying that the water is drying up because of climate change. Yeah, whatever your opinion is, okay? I’m not going to go there, okay? It’s drying up because of climate change or because they’ve created so many dams. And if you look at the area, there’s a long; these people have fought over water rights for so long that certain countries started, we’ll call them the neighboring areas, Turkey is one, you’ve got Armenia on the other side, and then if you follow the Euphrates down, you have a lot of folks who want to divert the water, so there have been a lot of dams.There’s been a lot of water theft if you will; there’s a lot of parts to this. I don’t think there’s one singular explanation. But in any event, I can tell you, if that completely dries up, there’s a bigger problem on the horizon. Wrath has not yet been poured out and people are going to die of starvation because they depend on that for their crops. Remember, they’re in a very arid place. That’s, that has been the lifeline for those people. So, you know, until God says, “This is it,” and this time, the sixth angel, I do pray for those people who depend on that for, for life, as a source of life, that it be replenished because this is, this event I’m talking to you about is not correlated to the end here. But I tell you what, when it does dry up, I’m sure there’ll be water somehow again, but in the future, when it does dry up, this will be used almost like a tool to deceive people, to say, “Oh no, this isn’t the end, because that already happened before.” And people will just go, “Okay,” and move on.That’s what we do, right? We’re just conditioned to do that. So, what I want to tell you though is, geographically there will be a lot of changes, and topographically there will be a lot of changes. So when people talk about, and there’s all this talk about what will happen, what will happen, well, we at least know that there will be changes. And as I said, the things that, we grapple with in our human frame, God’s already got it. He knows what He’s doing. So, I’m going to leave that driving machine to Him and enjoy the ride, whatever that’s like. But I will tell you, the Israeli Department of Antiquities says, their claim, they say that the temple needs to be, the future temple needs to be right where the Dome of the Rock is. And I’m going to tell you something, I’m not sure. And I’ll tell you why. And this is just another footnote you can look this up for yourself. In the 1800s, the Palestine Exploration Fund sent tons of people to do different maps.And I have many of them in my possession. They were topographical maps. And there’s something a little bit off in how we understand the exact location. Do I believe that it’s close? Yes. It might be slightly to the north or slightly to the south. I’m not exactly sure that it’s smack dab right there, regardless, it’s in the general area. And what I’d like to tell you is, again, whether it’s north, south, or smack dab in the middle, God will take care of that and God will figure it out. And let me backtrack to one more thing. With regards to our Bible talking about what will happen, the Euphrates River at that time, there’s another mention of what will come up from underneath these, if you want to call them locust demons or whatever that comes out from underneath to attack.Well, interestingly enough, if you read the Qur’an, the Qur’an talks about the Euphrates River drying up. And what will be uncovered, according to the Qur’an, is there will be gold that will be found. Well, listen, you know, a fool’s gold is, is wonderful. But what is crazy is that there are pools in the distance, we’ll call them tributaries of the Euphrates that have been gold laden. They found a lot of gold. But I’m going to go with my Bible which was dictated from God’s heart, Spirit, and mind to the mouth and pen of John. And I’m going to stick with what’s in the Bible because I believe what will come out of that river is exactly what God said. It will prepare the way for a conglomerate if you want to call it Russia, China, China alone, Russia, China, or any combination to march through that land. And you can find those critical passages in Ezekiel. But anyway, so it’s important to just understand, sometimes you hear things and it’s not what you think it is.So beware. No one knows the day or the hour. We are supposed to be just anticipating, staying the course, keeping the faith, and anticipating His return. Now, what, I love about this is I’m going to leave you with a final thought here. And the final thought comes out of Revelation 21 and 22. So remember, I started by saying that thousand years is like the first installment of eternity, but not really because the new heavens and new earth need to be; we have, we have to have a destruction, a burning up of the earth, and then a re-creative period, which will bring new heavens and new earth.In Revelation 21, John says, “And I saw a new heaven and new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men.” Now, look at verse 22. There’s a description of the city and then this, “And I saw no temple therein,” so this lets you understand something. There will be a temple for those thousand years and then there will be a re-creation; new heavens, new earth, new Jerusalem, no temple. No temple is needed. Why? This is the place that we talk about when we talk about eternity and living forever and living forever with God, this is what we’re talking about.He says, “I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb is the temple of it.” So, you know, I look back at all the messages and they all culminate here, right here in this message that any person who takes the time to study this book from cover to cover, looking for understanding, even looking to disprove the book will encounter a massive amount of problems because the substantiation of everything that’s in here from Old to New that just meshes together to build a singular picture. What was in the beginning, what was meant to be, perfect fellowship, perfect shalom, perfect communion, no sin, no death, no dying. God says, “This period must pass,” tribulation, the Great Tribulation, these thousand years, and then the re-creation of new heavens and new earth where all the resurrected saints of God now, when I say saints, don’t think holiness, don’t think halo; think those, who took the time in their lifetime, whether you were living at the time of Abraham or the time of Esther or the time of Martin Luther or this time, through every age God preveniently, He takes the initiative to open up eyes, hearts, and minds for us to see, receive and not just believe, but faith.So, think about this. This will be a time when God’s people through all ages will be gathered together, brother and sister. When I say that, I don’t mean as family members, I mean as one body in the Lord. And here we see the final word, verse 4 of this twenty-first chapter, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things that are passed away.” Now, I cannot make somebody believe this. I cannot say to you, “Look, it’s there.” But if Christ is already in your heart and you’ve been studying and reading the book, this is why I keep telling you, do not fear, do not be afraid. These are incredibly tumultuous times and I believe they’re only going to get worse. But for those of us who are looking at this, we can have the confidence God is not only with us in our troubles right now and in all the turmoil right now it may not look like it, but He is, but the promises here say, “There will be a time when all of this insanity ceases when all of the sinfulness and perversion of the nations and the people ceases.” And there will be a time that God intended at the beginning and it shall be in the end and we shall be with Him forever, for all eternity.And that’s why when I tell people, “You can make your own decisions about what you do now,” but for me, and I’m not a self-righteous person or I’m up here and you’re down there; we’re all in the same boat, I want to spend my time getting to know Him as much as I can. If I’m going to meet Him in eternity, I want Him to know who I am and I want to know exactly who He is. And when I sit before Him, which is just that words coming out of my mouth, it’s kind of like, “Huh?” But when I sit before Him, I don’t want to be thinking, “What do I need to know?” I spent my time down here preparing for it and spending time with Him in eternity is far better than you could say, “Well, can’t you spend your time doing something else?” Yeah, I could.But I choose to spend my time learning and knowing about Him. That’s why I said, “You don’t have to come to church to be a Christian, but you need to know who He is and it starts now. This is boot camp for eternity. You learn Him, you learn His word, you get to know Him. That’s the relationship and that relationship is going to take you all the way through and forever.I pray for the people who are still vacillating on this subject and not sure and uncertain, to have confidence in God’s word. God has already made good on so many of His promises and I’ve pointed them out over the years. There are so many that He’s already made good on historically, we can look at, historically, not just biblically; historically we can look at and say, “Yeah, God did that. He said He would. He did it. He said He’d do that. He did it.” And I could go down the list. There are too many of them. So, what’s yet to be fulfilled and the fact that God left this treasure for us to know, yes, the missing items are missing for a reason. We won’t need them because all those things that were shadows and types were just that. We shall see the real thing and that will be quite a day. And I pray for those who are just grappling to get with it and figure out that God has a great plan, even though, as I said, may not look like it to you.He’s got a great plan for you right now and He’s got a great plan for the future. No matter what’s going on in your life, focus on that and you will navigate all of the troubles down here and we’ll all meet up over there. That’s my message. 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