Third Temple and Trump

Rather than slowing prophetic progression, the election of Donald Trump to be the 47th president of the United States seemingly continues to speed things up. (That’s although we know God’s timing is perfect and He doesn’t speed up or slow things down. He knows precisely when each prophetic event will take place.)

My thinking involves the fact that movement toward war on a global scale, emerging out of profound rumors of war, seems to be on the fast track now that Trump is president-elect. The Biden administration, under the ominous guiding hand of the deep state (the globalist elite), has slapped Russian President Vladimir Putin with the militaristic glove of insult. The US military complex now will give Ukraine advanced missile weaponry that can reach deep into Russian territory with greater firepower and precision.

This is being done following Putin’s declaration that such direct intervention by the US will likely bring a nuclear retaliation—at a minimum, that of a tactical sort. In fact, the Russians did release, in an unprecedented action, an experimental mid-range missile in a precision strike into Ukraine. The missile, which travels at a rate ten times the speed of sound, had no nuclear warhead. But Putin intimated in a speech following the attack that the next such superweapon launched might be nuclear-tipped.

It is conjectured, and I’m convinced, that this militant move by the military/industrial complex of which Eisenhower warned is intended to somehow hamstring Donald Trump’s presidency–perhaps even prevent him from taking office next January.

Whatsoever the case, Jesus’ words come to the forefront of current events.

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matthew 24:6).

I point you to the last of Jesus’ words here: “the end is not yet.” Jesus has this totally in control. There will be no all-out nuclear war this side of His taking God’s family of Church Age believers into the clouds of Glory!

So, as referenced above, the Trump election seems to have speeded up prophetic progression. Jesus’ words seem to be today’s prophetic headlines. The prophetic progression continues as part of this spectacular comeback of Donald J. Trump as president. We remember that Trump was in the middle of some prophetically important diplomatic movement when he was shortly thereafter defeated for a second term in what I continue to believe was a stolen election.

His involvement with God’s chosen nation, Israel, was, to those who observe Bible prophecy as absolute truth, action as from the hand of God. (Not meaning that Trump is godly, but that God used him to accomplish His holy will.)

President Trump announced the movement of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a matter that had been declared pending by previous presidents. A 2017 Jerusalem Post report explains.

SEOUL—President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the US recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and would move its embassy there, upending decades of a diplomatic consensus over the status of the city pioneered by his predecessors.

Citing a 1995 law, the Jerusalem Embassy Act, compelling the president to make the move absent national security risks, Trump said the time had come to recognize what everyone already knows to be true. “Jerusalem is the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times,” he said. “Today Jerusalem is the seat of Israel’s government.” (“Trump announces US moving embassy to Jerusalem, US president told regional leaders he intended to declare the city the capital of the Jewish State,” By Michael Wilner, Jerusalem Post, December 6, 2017.)

The United States Embassy was indeed moved to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018, despite major angst of world diplomats and fierce threats from Israel’s blood-vowed enemies.

In keeping with that obvious use of this less-than-godly individual to move prophetic progression along at what looks to be an increasing pace, we now consider the words of one of the new administration’s presidential cabinet picks.

Donald Trump’s choice as the next United States defense secretary has called for the building of a third Jewish temple on the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Speaking at an event in Jerusalem in 2018, he said there was “no reason why the miracle of re-establishing the temple on the Temple Mount isn’t possible,” using the Israeli name for the raised plateau in occupied East Jerusalem where Al-Aqsa Mosque stands. “I don’t know how it would happen, you don’t know how it would happen, but I know that it could happen. (“Next US defense secretary Pete Hegseth called for new Jewish temple at Al-Aqsa,” Middle East Eye, November 16, 2024)

While Mr. Trump, who has appointed a Baptist preacher and former governor, Mike Huckabee, to be US ambassador to Israel, observably supports the Jewish state, background issues in the former president’s dealing with Israel are less than perfect.

Trump, so far as I know, continues to support the idea of a two-state solution to the Mideast trouble. This perhaps is forewarned of in Joel 3:2.

His advocating that Israel have the third temple is also an issue to consider. This will not be a temple approved of by the God of Heaven. God has announced it will be built, but it will be a temple of false worship (Judaism is a false worship system). It will be where the Antichrist will declare himself to be God.

This all means that things are aligning exactly as we have been told in God’s Word. The next great event on God’s prophetic timeline is not Israel’s capital being divided or the Jews having the third temple. The very next great event is the Rapture of the Church–the taking of all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation into Heaven.

God will then again begin dealing with His chosen people and nation as before His crucifixion. This will be the Tribulation, which Jesus said will be the worst time of all human history.

Here again is how to go to Jesus when He calls and not go through that terrible era ruled for a time by Antichrist.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10: 9-10).

—Terry

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So That You May Believe

The Bible is a book of prophecy. Over one-third of its verses predict the future, with every fulfillment happening with one hundred percent accuracy down to the smallest of details.

The Old Testament contains forty-eight specific prophecies related to Jesus’ first coming, which happened precisely as the prophets of old foretold. The odds that one person could fulfill all of them stagger the imagination, and together, they verify that He was truly the promised Messiah, the Christ.

During His earthly ministry, the Lord prepared His disciples for what was coming by repeatedly telling them about His future death and resurrection. In the Upper Room, the Savior again told them what was to happen so as to calm their troubled hearts concerning the news that He would soon leave them. His words on this occasion provide us with a key for understanding the purpose of Bible prophecy:

“And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe” (John 14:29).

Although His followers already believed that He was indeed the Christ, the Son of God, He warned them about His arrest, death, and soon departure so they wouldn’t give into doubt but would instead remain confident in spite of what they would see in the coming hours and days.

Jesus’ Promises for Us

During that same evening, the Lord also promised His disciples, and us, that He would prepare a place for us in Heaven and take us to His “Father’s house” (John 14:1-3). The apostles later expounded upon this assurance by adding many details about it. They told us He would someday:

• Resurrect the dead in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:47-55; I Thessalonians 4:16).
• Transform living saints into the same immortal and resurrection bodies (1 Corinthians 15:51-55; Philippians 3:20-21; Romans 8:23-24; 1 John 3:1-3).
• Catch living believers up to meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
• Take His Church to Heaven, to the place He’s preparing for us (John 14:2-3; Colossians 3:4).

Why did Jesus provide us with so many precious promises of our future? He did so for the purpose of providing a means of mutual encouragement among believers (1 Thessalonians 4:18-5:11). While Paul was in Thessalonica, he emphasized future things, perhaps sensing that the Jews living there would persecute the new believers. Amid severe and painful opposition to their faith, the Thessalonians saints remained faithful as they held on to the hope of Jesus’ imminent appearing.

The World We Live In

Amid growing opposition to and, in many cases, persecution for our faith Bible amid daily warnings of nuclear WWIII, prophecy comforts us today in at least two ways. First, it assures us of a glorious future after the end of this life. The pre-Tribulation Rapture is biblically sound and most definitely a very “blessed hope” (Titus 2:11-14) that fills us with joyous anticipation regardless of what we face in this life.

Second, it calms our hearts by assuring us that our world today precisely resembles what Scripture foretold about the last days. The Lord revealed these things long ago so that we might remain confident in our faith as everything falls apart around us. We recognize the buildup to the blasphemous kingdom of the beast and know that regardless of the wait, Jesus is coming for us in the near future.

For example, if the antichrist is to control all the buying and selling in the world, we would expect to see the development of the means for this well ahead of the time he needs it. And that’s exactly what’s happening. The globalists are feverishly working on a cashless and digital payment system that will enable the coming beast to fulfill the words of Revelation 13:16-18.

The Bible tells us that the Tribulation will be a time of great lawlessness, deception, and wickedness. Although these things have existed to some degree throughout history, they define the day in which we live like no other time. When asked about the end of the age, Jesus’ first words were, “See to it that no one deceives you” (Matthew 24:4, LSB). Each and every day, we witness deceit on a scale that was once far beyond my imagination. I struggle to know what’s real, and as a result, constantly thank the Lord for the words of Scripture that anchor my soul amid the storms of gaslighting.

These things are just a sample of how God’s Word long ago described the day in which we live, the time leading up to the Rapture of the Church, and, after that, the start of the seven-year Tribulation. Do you not now hear the echo of the Lord’s words from the Upper Room, “And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe?”

Jesus knew all about the difficulties we would face in the days before His appearing to take us home. He realized it would be difficult to wait as we watch the Tribulation approach and wonder how much closer we can get to the Tribulation before it happens. Perhaps that’s why, as Jesus spoke of His return to the church at Philadelphia, He emphasized “patient endurance” and holding on to what we have (Revelation 3:10-11). He knew we would need these things in order to keep our focus on His appearing.

Everything remains under His sovereign control and is unfolding precisely as he said it would in the days leading up to the Rapture. As we wait, we remember His last words to His church:

“I am coming quickly” (Revelation 22:20).

He is.

-Jonathan

Back to Business as Usual

Once again, I want to address the belief expressed by a number of those who watch in anticipation of the Rapture of the Church. I’m referring to those who assert that now it looks like that glorious event will occur later than expected. Things now look not so Tribulation-like in the wake of the election of Donald Trump. It is now back to business as usual, with prospects much brighter. “It will have to get much darker again before Christ will call the Church out of this doomed planet of God-rejecting rebels” represents the thought of many.

The prophecy by Jesus frames how the times must be when He calls the Church in the Rapture. I’ve written about this prophecy many times. I believe this prophecy is exactly where the world is on God’s prophetic timeline. I believe it is the most relevant prophecy for this moment in regard to expecting the Rapture. Here, again, are Jesus’ words:

“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:28-30).

My series of articles I titled “Scanning a Fearful Future” had this prophecy at its center. I, therefore, did have some reflective/introspective moments when I observed the economies of America and the world growing extremely tenuous under the Biden regime. With inflation, the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, and an invasion of illegal aliens, this administration was increasingly funding with US taxpayer money; I was reflecting on whether my thoughts about this prophecy might be in error. It didn’t look like it was the “business as usual” environment I thought necessary to meet Jesus’ words recorded in Luke 17:28–30.

Here is a snippet of what I wrote in the series–written at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011.

Yet Jesus tells us that it will be business as usual right up until the moment He removes believers from the planet. There is no man-made, worldwide catastrophe in Christ’s prophecy. As a matter of fact, Jesus says all will be relatively normal, in terms of human activity, until that removal. Then He will be revealed by way of His cataclysmic judgment that begins to devastate planet Earth. It is God who causes the cataclysm, not George Soros or any other human or other entity.

I went on to say in the series that business as usual, like in the days of Lot in Sodom, meant that business would be more or less booming, not on a downward trajectory like during these last four years.

So, unlike those who look for the Rapture in a darkening economic environment as the most likely time for Christ to call in the Rapture, I see the opposite. Jesus says business will be as usual. And business in Sodom in Lot’s time was apparently booming, even though the culture and society beneath the surface of activity there was as wicked and evil as our own subculture has become within the last number of years.

And unlike those who think the Rapture must be farther off than before because of Mr. Trump’s election, my thinking is opposite. I believe it is Back to business as usual… There will be no collapse into economic dystopia that will be in effect at the moment of Rapture.

Since Trump’s landslide election, the business world, even as reported in Trump-hating European media, is looking for business to boom. The American stock market recorded a record high immediately following election results.

Here is one such report.

LONDON, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Global investors changed their expectations on the global economy in the wake of Donald Trump’s election win, and now see higher growth than they did before, as well as higher inflation, according to Bank of America’s monthly fund manager survey.

As a result, investors have increased their allocations to U.S. stocks and to U.S. small caps, which are more domestically focused and so potentially likely to benefit particularly from a stronger U.S. economy.

BofA polled 179 participants with $503 billion assets under management. Of those, 22% responded after the U.S. election, won by Republican former president Trump.

A net 23% of those polled after the result said they expected the global economy would get stronger in the next 12 months, the most optimistic since August 2021.

This is a turnaround from October’s survey, which had shown more respondents thought the economy would be weaker in 12 months’ time…

Investors upped their allocations to U.S. stocks. A net 29% are overweight U.S. equities, the highest since August 2013, the survey showed. (“Investors expect more growth and inflation after Trump win, BofA survey shows,” Reuters, November 13, 2024)

All of America’s most knowledgeable folks in the world of finance and business are optimistic about the coming Trump presidency. He is a businessman of first order. It is provable that he had the nation going in a positive direction that verged on a boom when, in my view, the election was stolen in 2020.

My desire is to exhort pre-Trib Rapture believers to not be part of the think not generation. We are certainly in times like the days of Lot as recorded in Genesis chapter 19. At the same time, there appears on the immediate horizon every signal Jesus gave as what to look for when the time of His Return nears.

Let us therefore do as our Lord instructs through that conversation He had with the disciples who were at His side that day on the Mount of Olives:

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

—Terry

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On the Edge of Suddenly

In just the past few weeks, we have witnessed a dizzying array of signs pointing to the nearness of the Tribulation and, thus, to the Rapture, which happens before it begins. The world lies breathtakingly close to the start of the catastrophic conditions described throughout Revelation 6, and yet God’s judgments seem mysteriously paused.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8, Paul explains why the world can rest on the edge of cataclysmic events and yet escape the dire consequences of what surely lies ahead:

“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”

Revelation 6 begins with the antichrist riding throughout the world on a white horse, but this can’t happen until the Lord removes His restraining hand, which for now keeps him from unveiling his true nature. The restricting force is the Holy Spirit’s presence in true believers through which He not only holds back the man of lawlessness, but also the start of all we read about in Revelation 6.

After the Rapture, the beast will be free to ride.

Closer to the Edge of Destruction

Just this month, we have witnessed events that have brought the world closer to the time when we will watch the Lord open the seven seals. What follows are but a couple of examples of this.

On Sunday, November 17, President Biden took the world a giant step closer to a nuclear world war by allowing Ukraine to fire U.S. missiles into Russia, which happened two days later. As I write, we await Vladimir Putin’s response. Will he carry through on his threats of a nuclear response? If nothing else, the President’s decision has put many people on edge and will surely escalate the war, resulting in the deaths of many more people.

And just this past week, the U.S. debt total passed the thirty-six trillion-dollar mark. There’s no rational explanation for why the American economy hasn’t completely collapsed with worldwide implications that align with Revelation 6:5-6.

Suddenly

How does this seeming delay fit with Bible prophecy? 1 Thessalonians 5:3 reveals that when the world falls off the edge into the coming series of catastrophic events, it will happen abruptly and unexpectedly:

“While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”

In a moment, everything will change. The word normal will remain in dictionaries, but any sense of normality will instantly disappear.

As New Testament saints, we will disappear in the “twinkling of an eye” (1 Corinthians 15:52). The Lord will instantly change our mortal bodies into ones that will never perish or grow old. We will immediately experience the eternal life that we now possess through faith.

Our departure alone will cause a rapid deterioration of any remaining sense of calm and result in great chaos throughout the world. I believe that the antichrist will begin his crusade for peace in the weeks or perhaps months after the Rapture.

Revelation 1:1 provides us with another indication of just how quickly world conditions will deteriorate.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place.

The Greek word for “soon” in this verse is tachos, which more often denotes the speed or quickness of an action. John is not saying that the prophecies of the apocalypse would happen soon, at least with how we reckon time, but rather that they would happen quickly. Like a large boulder rolling downhill, they will happen with increased speed and intensity.

Yes, the Bible tells us that the Tribulation will last seven years, beginning with a peace agreement between the Antichrist and Israel. However, the Day of the Lord will begin suddenly and continue with a series of judgments that will continue in rapid-fire succession. The experience of “sudden destruction” will repeat over and over again through the Tribulation.

The Warning

Everywhere we look, we see precursors to the fulfillment of so many things that we read about in the book of Revelation and, in particular, chapters 6 and 13. As a result, some mistakenly believe that the four horsemen of the apocalypse are already riding through the earth. I believe the Lord is allowing the world to see glimpses of what lies ahead as a warning of what’s to come.

At the moment, the world is speeding down the road to a nuclear war. Could we be hours, days, or weeks away from the “sudden destruction” that will inaugurate the Day of the Lord after we are safely in Heaven with Jesus? Yes, we are that close to the Lord’s appearing. Or might He continue to restrain the forces that He has allowed to take the world to the edge of suddenly?

If nothing else, the events of the past few weeks should be a wake-up call of just how quickly our lives can instantly change. I know that many in the world still cling to the belief that normality will prevail, but what about the church?

Sadly, many saints plan for their future with no thought of the Lord’s nearing intervention in their future aspirations nor with any consideration of the warning that comes from James 4:13-17.

-Jonathan