Is it possible that the temple mount, which has been desolate for nearly two thousand year now, stays desolate until the end, when Jesus returns?
When Daniel prayed, the temple mount, there in Jerusalem, and all Jerusalem for that matter, had been desolate since the time of Nebuchadnezzar.
Daniel 9:2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
17 Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake.
When the 70 years were up, the Jews were allowed to return and build their temple, and it was no longer desolate again.
It had gone through repairs and modifications after that, like by Herod.
So the temple was up and not desolate when Jesus showed up there.
Daniel was told, in answer to his prayer, in the first part of chapter 9, of the things that would come to pass, one line in particular:
Daniel 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Here Daniel was told that the sanctuary would be desolate again, and that this second desolation of the sanctuary would last even to the consummation.
However, I, like many others, had been taught that it would become “un-desolate” yet again, before the consummation, be a third temple being built.
And that the sanctuary would become desolate a third time, and that it would be the 3rd desolation, not the 2nd, which would last until the consummation.
Daniel 11:31 And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.
I have been taught that line 31 can only mean what happens in the third temple.
However, the sanctuary is currently desolate.
Also, on the temple mount itself is the Dome of the Rock and the El Aksa Mosque, dedicated to false god, not to the God of Israel.
It looks like, that prior to that, the Romans put up a temple to Jupiter, and a statue of Hadrian facing east.
At that time there was an unsuccessful attempt to rebuild a third temple.
A couple hundred years later the Jews were allowed to rebuild the temple, but the work was stopped by a tragic event.
300 some years later a mosque was built there.
During the crusades, there was a Jewish return to the temple mount.
Finally the Muslims took full control.
in 1967 Israel took Jerusalem and the temple mount, but they allowed to administration to remain in the hands of the Muslims.
So it has remained desolate, as far as a temple to the God of Israel, all this time, nearly 2,000 years.
I was taught that the 2nd desolation began in 70 AD, when the Romans destroyed it.
However, it looks like it went desolate, as Jesus left the temple the last time before his crucifixion:
Matthew 23:38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Matthew 24:1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
Jesus said, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” in line 38, and in 24:1 it said that went out and departed from the temple.
That looks to me like when it went desolate.
It went desolate because the LORD of glory, who had come in a body, born of a virgin, left the temple.
That is similar to Ezekiel seeing the glory of the LORD depart from temple
That is when the temple really was desolate
The same when the LORD Jesus departed from the temple and left it desolate
So if that is the case, then it will remain desolate until he comes back
But in line 39 Jesus said they wouldn’t see him from that point on until
They would say, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”
That won’t happen until the second coming.
So it has been desolate since that time, and is desolate at this very moment.
So what could possibly be the abomination of that desolation be?
Not an abomination of a desolation, but “the” abomination.
Abomination: something so despised and disgusting that it is hated
What could be so despicable to the LORD, that end up standing right there?
Matthew 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
Does it mean stand in the holy place of a re-“un-desolated” temple?
Or does it mean stand on the exact spot of the holy place of the previous temple?
Possibly that may also be where the holy place of the first temple was, too.
The spot is already desolate, but an abomination could stand there.
What if Satan in the flesh, the son of perdition, possessed by Satan himself,
stands right there, and before the world declares himself to be god,
and blasphemes the LORD and those in heaven?
Would that not be an extreme abomination? Possibly, the abomination?
Can Daniel 9:27 be fulfilled without rebuilding the third temple?
Isn’t supposed to remain desolate until the end?
Not, rather, desolate until the last seven years, then “un-desolated”,
for 3.5 years, then “re-desolated” again?
Didn’t Mathman already prove from the scriptures that now, in the epistles it says,
“Ye are the temple of God”?
So from the time of the apostles, the church is the temple and indwelt by the Holy Ghost.
So I Thessalonians 2:4 could be fulfilled in the Laodicean church of the last days,
and that could happened without the Jews rebuilding the temple a third time.
Can any of this be true, or should I quietly stick by what I was taught?
And keep my mouth shut, and not mention any of this to anyone else?
Gino