The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2020 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 84

Will another Temple be Built on Mount MoriYah?

Why would there be another Temple to Yahweh?

Two have already been built, one by Solomon and one by Zerubbabel.

Two others already exist.

There is a temple in heaven with the Ark of the Covenant, which held manna, Aaron’s rod, and the Ten Commandments.

Rev 11
19) God’s temple that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant was seen in his temple. Lightnings, sounds, thunders, an earthquake, and great hail followed.

Rev 15
5) After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened.
6) The seven angels who had the seven plagues came out, clothed with pure, bright linen, and wearing golden sashes around their breasts.
7) One of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever.
8) The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power. No one was able to enter into the temple, until the seven plagues of the seven angels would be finished.

This Temple exists now and it existed when the physical Temples were built. Just because this ultimate Temple existed did not prevent the physical Temples from being built, as a copy of what was in heaven.

The temple of the body of Christ also already exists.

Each individual believer begotten with God’s spirit is a temple.

1Cor 3:16
16) Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?
17) If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are.

1Cor 6
18) Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
19) Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own,

2Cor 6:14-16
14) Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
15) What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever?
16) What agreement has a temple of God with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

By extension, all the begotten together are the household of God, a holy temple.

Eph 2
19) So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,
20) being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Yeshua himself being the chief cornerstone;
21) in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord;

1 Pet 2
5) You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Yeshua Christ.

Like the temple in heaven, this temple of believers is currently present. It is often said that because this temple of believers already exists, there is no further need for a physical Temple, and that means another physical temple will not be built. Yet when Paul and Peter wrote about the temple of believers, the physical Temple was present. Just because the second Temple still stood did not mean that there could not also be a temple of believers. The one did not necessarily preclude the other. Forty years after the first flock began, that Temple was destroyed and not rebuilt since, but for those four decades, both existed.

Along with the temple in heaven and the temple of believers, the New Testament certainly seems to mention an end time physical temple.

Matt 24
1) Yeshua went out from the temple, and was going on his way. His disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple.
2) But he answered them, “You see all of these things, don’t you? Most certainly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down.”
3) As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?”

This Mount of Olives prophecy has points that apply to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans from 66 to 70 CE, such as the fact that no Temple stones would be left that were not thrown down. But its main application points to the end time. In fact, that was the disciples’ question: “What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?”

Matt 24
4) Yeshua answered them, “Be careful that no one leads you astray.
5) For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will lead many astray.
6) You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you aren’t troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet.
7) For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places.
8) But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.
9) Then they will deliver you up to oppression, and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name’s sake.
10) Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another.
11) Many false prophets will arise, and will lead many astray.
12) Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.
13) But he who endures to the end, the same will be saved.
14) This Good News of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Famines, plagues and earthquakes in various places around the world have not been bunched together in human history. Christ was speaking to Jews, yes, but Christian Jews. So the oppression He spoke of was not against Jews, but against Christianos, or commandment keeping Christians as the first flock was. Rome sporadically persecuted Christians from 64 until 313, but that was within the Roman Empire, and Christians were by Jews and Rome for following Christ, but not by all nations. Finally, in the first century CE the Good News of the Kingdom had not been preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations.

All that indicates not just a Roman time prophecy, but an end time prophecy.

Christ brought out some more points showing the same.

Matt 24
15) “When, therefore, you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),
16) then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
17) Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take out things that are in his house.
18) Let him who is in the field not return back to get his clothes.
19) But woe to those who are with child and to nursing mothers in those days!
20) Pray that your flight will not be in the winter, nor on a Sabbath,
21) for then there will be great oppression, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.
22) Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved. But for the sake of the chosen ones, those days will be shortened.

“Great oppression, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now” has not yet happened. Further, “Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved” has not happened, because Christ has not returned and fleshly people still exist. Again, these statements apply to the very last part of the age of man, yet to come.

And when Yeshua spoke of “the abomination of desolation… standing in the holy place,” that requires a temple. The holy place, the Holy of Holies, was first in the Tabernacle, and then in the Temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel. This end time prophecy includes the holy place, which requires a temple.

Paul spoke directly of an end time temple.

2Thess 2
1) Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Yeshua Christ, and our gathering together to him, we ask you
2) not to be quickly shaken in your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as from us, saying that the day of Christ had come.
3) Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction,
4) he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.
5) Don’t you remember that, when I was still with you, I told you these things?
6) Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season.
7) For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way.
8) Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming;
9) even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

Paul writes about “the day of Christ,” and the appearing of “the lawless one…whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.” Those are obviously end time references. And in that end time discussion, Paul says that the man of sin “sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.”  That’s a very direct reference to a temple.

In his Revelations vision, John also wrote about a physical temple at the end time.

Rev 11
1) A reed like a rod was given to me. Someone said, “Rise, and measure God’s temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it.
2) Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don’t measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.

This says that the temple will be given to the nations, or the Gentiles, who will control the holy city and the temple for three and one-half years.

Those direct New Testament references to another temple do not necessarily mean that such a temple has to be built in our brief lifetimes. Many think we are close to the end of the age of man. Many have thought that before. However, the fact is that humankind now has the capability to bring about what Christ warned against –

“…that no flesh would be saved.”

That fact alone indicates the end of the age is near, because six thousand years of human history shows humanity as a whole lacks the ability to restrain itself. Left to themselves, humans will destroy themselves.

But if a thousand years are as a day with God, then how long is near? – ten years, twenty-five years, a century?

Our individual lives are very short – James said like “a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away” — so the building of a temple might be near and many of us would still not be alive to see it.

With two Temples already built and destroyed, and two spiritual temples already existing, why would Yahweh allow another temple to Yahweh to be built?

In discussing the possible building of another temple, we must relate it to the overall happenings of the end time.

• 1. Great signs and wonders will be done.

Matt 24
24) For there will arise false christs, and false prophets, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones.

Rev 13
13) He performs great signs, even making fire come down out of the sky to the earth in the sight of people.

• 2. Roman style religion, all in, no one allowed out, under the guise of love for all, will be the religion of the whole world.

Rev 13
11) I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon.
12) He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. He makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.

• 3. This beast power rules from the very temple of God.

2Thess 2
4) he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.

How deceptive is all that?

This last Roman ruler does great signs and wonders, even calling fire down from heaven as happened with Elijah on Mt. Carmel. His religion is the all-inclusive Roman religion – justice, equality and love for all, freedom for none.

And, on top of all that, he rules from the very temple of God.

Wow!

This person must really be the real thing!

This is the one true church!

How could a false messiah be more convincing than doing great miracles, preaching a worldwide message of “love,” and sitting in the very temple of Yahweh, in the Holy of Holies?

And that seems like a pretty convincing reason that a temple will be built.

Will another physical temple be built?

One thing is for sure –

The Jews who are now back in the Holy Land are preparing like crazy to build one.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2020 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 83

Four Temples in Jerusalem?

David wanted to build his Father a new house.

Now that’s not too unusual. News stories appear every so often about someone who became rich, then built his parents a house. David was the long time king of Israel and before he passed on, he wanted to build his Father a house – a Temple to Yahweh.

The place where the Temple would be built was a special place, Mt. Moriah or Moriyah, the spot where Abraham had offered to sacrifice Isaac, his only son by his wife Sarah.

Gen 22:2
2) He said, “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of.”

Moriyah means “seen” or “provided by Yah”. That was a special place picked by Yahweh, where He provided a sacrifice to replace Isaac.

About a thousand years later –

Satan led David to show how powerful the king was by vainly taking a census of his army. Seventy thousand Hebrews were then killed in a plague sent by Yahweh. The plague stopped at that same special spot.

1Chr 21:15
15) God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he relented of the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough; now stay your hand.” The angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

God then told David to build an altar at that spot, Mount Moriyah.

1Chr 21
18) Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to tell David that David should go up, and raise an altar to Yahweh in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

David paid Ornan 600 pieces of gold for his threshing area, and that was where the Temple was to be built.

Temple 1

2Chr 3
1) Then Solomon began to build the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where Yahweh appeared to David his father, which he prepared in the place that David had appointed, in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

Unlike human parents who never refuse a new house from their kid, Yahweh would not let David build His house.

1Chr 28
2) Then David the king stood up on his feet, and said, “Hear me, my brothers, and my people! As for me, it was in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, and for the footstool of our God; and I had prepared for the building.
3) But God said to me, ‘You shall not build a house for my name, because you are a man of war, and have shed blood.’

But, Yahweh would allow David’s son to build the Temple.

1Chr 28
5) Of all my sons (for Yahweh has given me many sons), he has chosen Solomon my son to sit on the throne of Yahweh’s kingdom over Israel.
6) He said to me, ‘Solomon, your son, shall build my house and my courts; for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father.

God also personally gave David the plans for His house.

1Chr 28
11) Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch of the temple, and of its houses, and of its treasuries, and of the upper rooms of it, and of the inner rooms of it, and of the place of the mercy seat;
12) and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, for the courts of the house of Yahweh, and for all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the house of God, and for the treasuries of the dedicated things;

So for the building of the first Temple, God communicated directly with David; and supernaturally gave him the plans for the building that was to be built in that one certain spot, Mount Moriyah.

Temple 2

Nearly five centuries later, at the building of the second Temple, Yahweh was again directly and personally involved.

First, He told the Persian king to get the construction going.

Ezra 1
1) Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,
2) “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
3) Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of Yahweh, the God of Israel (he is God), which is in Jerusalem.

So Cyrus sent the Jews back from captivity to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple.

Next, Yahweh picked two Israelites, Zerubbabel the governor and Yeshua the high priest, often rendered in Bible translations as Joshua, to oversee the work.

Ezra 3:8
8) Now in the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, began Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brothers the priests and the Levites, and all those who were come out of the captivity to Jerusalem, and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to have the oversight of the work of the house of Yahweh.

This Temple was built in the same spot as the first. The construction was stopped, though, when a later Persian king after Cyrus ordered the Jews to stop. Then, two decades from the time they first returned to Jerusalem, Yahweh sent two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, to tell the Jews to get on the stick and stick His house up.

Haggai 1
1) In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, the Word of Yahweh came by Haggai, the prophet, to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying,
2) “This is what Yahweh of Armies says: These people say, ‘The time hasn’t yet come, the time for Yahweh’s house to be built.’”
3) Then the Word of Yahweh came by Haggai, the prophet, saying,
4) “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste?

7) This is what Yahweh of Armies says: “Consider your ways.
8) Go up to the mountain, bring wood, and build the house. I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified,” says Yahweh.

Zechariah 1
16) Therefore thus says Yahweh: “I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built in it,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and a line shall be stretched forth over Jerusalem.”’

The Jews did get on the stick and under Zerubbabel and Yeshua, they did get the second Temple finished.

In the construction of both Temples, God was directly involved in the building of His house. His Temples were not just the ideas of men.

After those two Temples, though, there were a couple that were just the ideas of men, and God was not directly involved in building them.

Temple 3

Less than a century after the Romans destroyed the second Temple in 70 CE, a third temple was built on Mount Moriyah, in the same spot that Ornan tossed his wheat into the wind. Roman emperor Hadrian built that temple.

He led the Jews to believe that he was rebuilding their Temple, the house of Yahweh, as the Jewish Virtual Library says.

When Hadrian first became the Roman emperor in 118 C.E., he was sympathetic to the Jews. He allowed them to return to Jerusalem and granted permission for the rebuilding of their Holy Temple. The Jews’ expectations rose as they made organizational and financial preparations to rebuild the temple. (article, “The Bar Kokhba Revolt”)

The Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE) visited many of the Roman provinces, including Judaea in 130 CE. Immediately, the rumor spread among the Jewish inhabitants that the Emperor, one of the great ancient builders, intended to rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. He did intend to build a temple on this holy site … however it was to be a pagan Roman temple dedicated to the god Jupiter (Zeus). (article. “Coins from Hadrian’s Trip to Judea”.)

So who was Jupiter?

The New World Encyclopedia says:
Jupiter … was the supreme God in the Roman mythology pantheon. Like many of the figures of Roman mythology, Jupiter was appropriated from the Greeks, and is virtually identical to the supreme God Zeus in Greek mythology.

Jupiter was known as the Roman god of the heavens and the sky. He was considered to be the patron deity of the Roman state, in charge of laws and social order. Along with Juno and Minerva, Jupiter was the chief member of the Capitoline Triad, a group of the three foremost deities in Roman religion.

Hadrian, instead of rebuilding the Temple to Yahweh, built the Jupiter world headquarters temple.

…Hadrian deceived the Jews to believe that he was peacefully rebuilding the Jewish Temple, when in fact he was constructing the world headquarters “Temple of Jupiter”. As construction began, the Jews probably even helped in thankfulness and praise to Hadrian. But when the Jews finally learned of Hadrian’s true intent…they rebelled and a huge war broke out in 132 AD… The Temple of Jupiter was completed on the temple mount in 135 AD and was the most important (Jupiter Capitolinus) “Temple to Jupiter” in the world.
bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-jerusalem-temple-mount-threshing-floor.htm

Temples to Jupiter were scattered throughout the Roman Empire, including one in Rome itself from early in the republic that was destroyed and rebuilt several times. Hadrian himself built more than just the one in Jerusalem. The ruins of a temple to Jupiter that Hadrian built in Baalbek, Lebanon still exist today.

Encyclopedia Britannica says that Baalbeck is:

… an ancient Roman town in eastern Lebanon…

One of the principal structures on the site is the Temple of Jupiter (completed 2nd century CE), only portions of which remain. It was a massive building…  https://www.britannica.com/place/Baalbeck#ref127742

Even after nearly nineteen centuries, the columns of that temple still stand among the ruins. The remains of the Jupiter temple in Jerusalem have not been found, but the assumption is that it was similar to the Jupiter temple in Lebanon.

1921 drawing of Baalbek with this caption in German.
The temples of Heliopolis – Baalbek according to the results of the German excavations in 1900-1904; reconstructed and shown from a bird’s eye view (Translated from the original German description)

Pillars of the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek, Created: 13 July 1876

Hadrian built a similar temple in Jerusalem, except perhaps even more impressive, for the world headquarters of Jupiter/Zeus worship. And according to Roman historian Cassio Dio, Hadrian built it on the spot where Abraham offered Isaac, and where the census plague stopped at Ornan’s threshing floor, and where the first and second Temples to Yahweh were built.

Surprise, surprise! The Jews thought Hadrian was going to rebuild a third temple to Yahweh. Instead, the third temple in Jerusalem was to Jupiter-Zeus.

Temple 4

Constantine, the new Christian, had the Jerusalem Jupiter temple destroyed about 324 CE. Not long after that, Constantine’s nephew did decide to rebuild the Temple to Yahweh at Jerusalem.

Julian the Apostate became emperor in 361 CE. His father and relatives had been killed by Constantine’s “Christian” heirs. When Julian became emperor, he reverted back to paganism. He hated the Roman Church so much that he discriminated against Christians and supported everything that wasn’t Christian, such as paganism and the Jews. In line with that anti-Christian thinking, he proposed to the Jews that he would rebuild the Yahweh Temple. In his edict of tolerance in 362, he also reopened pagan temples that had been closed, so rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple was in line with his policies.

In a letter to the Community of the Jews, in early 363, Julian laid out his intentions.

1906, Jewish Encyclopedia, article “Promise to Restore the Temple”.Julian wrote: “Desiring to extend yet further favors to you, I have exhorted my brother, the venerable Patriarch Julos [i.e., Hillel II.], to put a stop to the collection of the so-called Apostolé [see Jew. Encyc. ii. 20, s.v.] among you; and henceforward no one will be able to oppress your people by the collection of such imposts, so that everywhere throughout my kingdom you may be free from care:”

That is, Julian reversed some taxes levied specifically on Jews.

Julian continued:
“…. and thus enjoying freedom, you may address still more fervent prayers for my empire to the Almighty Creator of the Universe, who has deigned to crown me with his own undefiled right hand. . . . Thus should you do, in order that when I return safely from the Persian war, I may restore the Holy City of Jerusalem, and rebuild it at my own expense, even as you have for so many years desired it to be restored; and therein will I unite with you in giving praise to the Almighty.”

And, of course, in the rebuilding of Jerusalem, it was assumed that would include the temple.

Jewish Encyclopedia, not Julian, then says:
…”Many eminent writers upon Jewish and Church history, however, believe that the work of rebuilding the Temple was commenced immediately after the above-mentioned letter was written, but that, owing to certain strange causes which are explained in different ways, it was unexpectedly interrupted. Grätz, Gibbon, and Milman accept this view; but a careful inquiry into the evidence for the opinion results in tracing its origin to a fanciful legend first narrated by a bitter Christian enemy of Julian, Gregory Nazienzus. This fable is the source of the account given by the heathen historian Ammianus Marcellinus, and of the various versions detailed by the Church chroniclers. The only references in Jewish writings to the project of the emperor are to be met with in works of the sixteenth century, which references are without independent value.”
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9078-julian-the-apostate-flavius-claudius-julianus

In their article on “Julian”, the modern Britannica says that “The plan [to rebuild the temple] was dropped when it was reported (as it was on both an earlier and a later occasion) that “balls of fire” had issued from the old foundations and scared away the workmen.” There is also speculation that an earthquake in Galilee caused the rebuilding to stop.

Whether or not temple construction was affected by great balls of fire or an earthquake in the north of Israel, this temple was actually stopped by another event.

Julian and his Roman army attacked Persia. In his letter to the Jews, he mentioned his intention to do that and he was very confident he would make it through the battle. In reality, he was killed by a spear in the gut in the early summer of 363.

Julian only ruled for two years, and the fourth temple on the Temple Mount never got off the ground. Julian the Apostate did not rebuild the Temple.

The 21^st century Temple?

Solomon’s Temple was a magnificent building. The second Temple was less spectacular but was enhanced by Herod. The third temple by Hadrian was to another god. The fourth temple by Julian wasn’t a temple, because he never made it back from his Persian war. The building of the first two Temples were directed by Yahweh God Himself. The last two weren’t.

Now we have again come to a time when people are seriously considering rebuilding the Temple to Yahweh. No one has received direct communication from Yahweh about this, and no Yahweh prophets today have given God’s command to “Go up to the mountain, bring wood, and build the house.” The first two Temples were destroyed because of the Jews’ conduct, and God did not look favorably on Hadrian’s and Julian’s efforts.

The timing of Julian’s temple contradicted God’s timing, because He had dispersed the Jews into far parts of the earth. But now, He has brought the Jews back to the Holy Land, and they now possess that special spot on Mount Moriyah, where Abraham offered Isaac but Yahweh provided a sheep instead; where the messenger of Yahweh stopped the plague at Ornan’s threshing floor, where Solomon’s Temple was built and where Zerubbabel laid the foundation for the second Temple, causing the old people to cry because it was so small.

Is it time to build another Temple to Yahweh, on Mount Moriyah? Mount Moriyah means seen or provided by Yah. Will He provide for the building of this temple and bless it?

The Jews fully intend to build this Temple. Will they be like Solomon or like Julian?