jgr said in post #99:
Re. posts 95-97.
Can you cite one Reformer who would agree?
Regarding post 96, do you mean agree that a 3rd Jewish temple must be built?
If so, did the Reformers believe the state of Israel would be restored, as it was in 1948 AD?
And if they all would have utterly rejected any idea put forth in their own time that the state of Israel would be restored, then they were mistakenly rejecting the truth regarding what would happen in the future, just as it's a mistake today for Christians to reject the idea that a 3rd Jewish temple must be built.
One reason the 3rd Jewish temple of Revelation 11:1-2, Matthew 24:15, Daniel 11:31,36 and 2 Thessalonians 2:4 hasn't been built yet is the Israeli government has been careful to protect the Muslim Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque (which are on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) ever since Israel took military control of the Temple Mount back in 1967. For the Israeli government knows if the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel were to destroy these two buildings (the 3rd-holiest sites in Islam) in order to clear the Temple Mount for a 3rd Jewish temple, this could mean the end of the current state of Israel. For enraged Muslim armies and militias could attack Israel en masse in an all-out jihad and defeat it completely.
While the ultra-Orthodox Jews are no doubt aware of this danger, they believe the 3rd Jewish temple must nonetheless be built exactly where the prior Jewish temples stood: right over the Rock of Sacrifice (the Rock of the Dome of the Rock) on which Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac. And the ultra-Orthodox Jews could be brought to the point where they will even desire to see the end of the current, secular state of Israel, believing that only in its demise will God make it possible for them to establish a new, perfectly ultra-Orthodox, theocratic city-state of (what they could call) "the True Israel". They could establish this within the walled Old City of Jerusalem (which contains the Temple Mount), and build on the Temple Mount a 3rd Jewish temple before which they can restart the daily Mosaic animal sacrifices, and perfectly keep every jot and tittle of the Mosaic law, and banish every non-kosher person and thing from ever entering within Old Jerusalem's "Holy walls".
(This could point to another reason the current, secular government of Israel doesn't want to let the ultra-Orthodox Jews build a 3rd Jewish temple: out of fear the secular authority of the Israeli government could subsequently get undermined. For once temple practices resumed and a priesthood came into power, a creep toward theocracy could ensue in Israel, where priests and rabbis would become powerful enough to replace the secular leaders. So the latter could want to place a hold on any drift in that direction by forbidding the building of a 3rd Jewish temple.)
Something which could help to bring the ultra-Orthodox Jews to the point of desiring to see the end of the current, secular state of Israel would be them getting squeezed out of their settlements in Samaria and Judaea (also called the West Bank), and in eastern Jerusalem, as part of a peace deal handing these areas over to a Palestinian state. For the ultra-Orthodox Jews (rightly) see Samaria, Judaea and Jerusalem as the historically most important and holy parts of the land promised by God to Israel since the time of Abraham (Exodus 32:13). So when they start to get squeezed out of these areas, in a rage they could mass in their tens of thousands, armed with machine guns (which they're allowed to have for self-defense against the Palestinians). And led by three huge bulldozers they could march as a great army to the Old City of Jerusalem and go up on the Temple Mount and completely destroy the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque.
(A fear of the ultra-Orthodox Jews resorting to violence could be one of the reasons the current Israeli government refuses to hinder Jewish settlement activity in Samaria, Judaea and eastern Jerusalem. It could also be one of the reasons the U.S. government has been convinced by Israel to back off from requiring any such hindrance, even though the U.S. sometimes complains about the settlements. But if down the road, the current, geriatric, lifeless, Palestinian leadership of Fatah in the West Bank is replaced by a younger, very-energetic leadership, which is able to whip up pressure from the Middle East's Arab masses and governments (and even from non-Arab governments such as the French and the EU) for a Palestinian state; and if this pressure becomes so extreme it begins to threaten to overthrow the current U.S. hegemony over the Arab world, the U.S. could decide to force Israel to surrender the Jewish settlements to a Palestinian state. Also, there could be a change within Israel itself so that a majority of Israelis, including civilians, army leaders, judges, etc., decide it's time to remove the current, hard-line Israeli government and replace it, during an election, with a more liberal government willing to implement a two-state solution with the Palestinians.)
Besides the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel getting squeezed out of their settlements at some point in our future, something else which could help to tip the scales toward them becoming violent would be the rising up of a miracle-working, ultra-Orthodox Jewish false "Messiah" (cf. Matthew 24:24), who could tell the ultra-Orthodox Jews something like:
"God says that now is the time for us to take back religious control of the Holy Temple Mount, and rid it of all the detestable shrines which the Muslims have placed upon it. We are to sanctify it in the name of our God, so that we might rebuild His Holy Temple there. Listen, my brethren, fear not the Muslims' reaction when we retake religious control of the Holy Temple Mount. For God Himself is with us. He will protect us perfectly. Have I not shown you His mighty Power working through Me? Fear not any men, but fear only our Mighty God, who now commands us to rebuild His Holy Temple at the place which He determined from the time of our Father Abraham. Our God gave us back the Holy Temple Mount way back in 1967 C.E. But what have we done with it over all the time since then? Nothing! How can this be? How can we have allowed some merely-secular, so-called 'Israeli' government invented by sinful men to keep us, God's holy people, from even setting foot back on the Temple Mount, and to let it remain under the religious control of the vile Muslims? Let us all rise up now, my brethren! Let us all rise up, in the name of our God, and let us do mighty exploits to the Glory of His Holy Name!"
With such rhetoric, accompanied by his working of amazing miracles (cf. Matthew 24:24), a false ultra-Orthodox Jewish "Messiah" in Israel could whip up the ultra-Orthodox Jews there into a religious frenzy, so that they will all with great zeal, and without any fear, march in their tens of thousands to the Temple Mount, and take total control of it, and then rejoice there and dance and sing holy hymns to God "for His great and mighty Victory".
Something else which could help to tip the scales toward the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel becoming violent is the occurrence of a series of great earthquakes in Jerusalem which will severely damage the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque, to the point where they will stop being used. For the ultra-Orthodox Jews could see this as (in their words)
"Clearly a portent from God that He will no longer allow the Muslims to trample His Holy Mountain. We must now reassert Jewish religious control over it and rebuild His Holy Temple there".
Something else which could help tip the scales toward the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel becoming violent is their finding out the location of the Ark of the Covenant, which could be buried under an ancient ruined fort in the desert east of Jerusalem. The Copper Scroll could contain the clues as to where the Ark is buried in the fort (e.g. "under the third step"). The Ark could have been located there already with ground-penetrating radar by some non-religious treasure hunters, but the Israeli government could be holding up a digging permit to retrieve the Ark, because the government is afraid the ultra-Orthodox Jews could see a retrieval of the Ark as (in their words)
"An unmistakable sign from God that now is the time for us to rebuild His Holy Temple". So the Israeli government has a motive to keep the location of the buried Ark top secret.
Fearing that some ultra-Orthodox Jews could nonetheless somehow discover the top secret location of the buried Ark, and go there in the dead of night and dig it up without a permit from, or any notification to, the Israeli government, the government could have placed armed guards and surveillance cameras to watch over the buried Ark's location day and night.
But if the buried Ark's location is found out by some ultra-Orthodox Jews, they could round up tens of thousands of their fellows, armed with machine guns, and they could suddenly swarm the location, overwhelm any armed guards there, and hold off any subsequently-arrived IDF troops and tanks long enough to get the Ark out of the ground. Once it's out and the IDF troops actually see it, it's unlikely they're going to try to stop the ultra-Orthodox Jews from parading it to the Temple Mount, they will be in such awe.
Also, once the ultra-Orthodox Jews make it to the Temple Mount and begin completely destroying the Muslim Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, it's unlikely the IDF troops are going to open fire, whether with lead bullets or rubber bullets, on their fellow Jews, slaughtering or injuring hundreds or thousands of them. Also, increasing numbers of IDF officers are very religious, so they could order their troops to stand down. And if some non-religious officers convince their troops to employ tear gas in an attempt to simply disperse the ultra-Orthodox Jews without harming them, this could be thwarted by the ultra-Orthodox Jews having brought along gas masks (which, ironically, could have been issued to them by the Israeli government itself, back when there was a fear Saddam Hussein would send Scud missiles into Israel with chemical weapons payloads).
So the Israeli government could be unable to prevent the complete destruction of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque at the hands of the ultra-Orthodox Jews. And so the Israeli government could be unable to prevent the subsequent, retaliatory destruction of the state of Israel at the hands of enraged Muslim armies and militias.