BABerean2 said in post 278:
Christians who are promoting a rebuilt temple, with renewed animal sacrifices should rethink the idea in terms of the New Testament.
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 very careful to protect the Muslim Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque ever since Israel took military control of the Temple Mount back in 1967. For the Israeli government knows that if the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel were to destroy these 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 that the 3rd temple must nonetheless be built exactly where the prior 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 that the current, secular government of Israel doesn't want to let the ultra-Orthodox Jews build a 3rd temple: out of fear that 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 in Israel. So the secular leaders could want to simply place a hold on any drift in that direction by forbidding the building of a 3rd 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. (Any such handover won't happen without a removal of Netanyahu from power, possibly by assassination.) 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 suddenly mass in their tens of thousands, armed with machine guns (which they are allowed to have for self-defense against the Palestinians). And led by 3 huge bulldozers, they could march as a great army to the Old City of Jerusalem, and go up onto 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 that the Israeli government refuses to hinder Jewish settlement activity in Samaria, Judaea, and eastern Jerusalem. It could also be one of the reasons that the U.S. government has been convinced by Israel to back off from requiring any such hindrance. But if down the road, pressure from the Arab masses for a Palestinian state becomes so extreme that it begins to threaten to overthrow U.S. hegemony over the Arab world, the U.S. could decide to force Israel to surrender all of the Jewish settlements to a Palestinian state.)
Besides getting squeezed out of their settlements at some point in our future, something else which could help to tip the scales toward the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel 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 upon 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 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 Muslims to trample His Holy Mountain. We must now reassert total Jewish 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 that 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, all armed with machine guns, and they could suddenly swarm the location, overwhelm any armed guards there, and hold off any subsequently-arrived IDF troops long enough to get the Ark out of the ground. Once it is out and the IDF troops actually see it, it is unlikely that they are 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 Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, it is unlikely that 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 that 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.
BABerean2 said in post 278:
Renewed animal sacrifices in a rebuilt temple promoted by Dispensationalists would be an abomination to God and Christ.
Do you mean because the church is now the temple? If so, note that while the church as a whole is indeed a figurative temple building (Ephesians 2:21), it isn't the only temple of God. For it coexisted with the literal, 2nd temple building which was in Jerusalem in the 1st century AD (Luke 24:53, Acts 2:46, Acts 22:17), just as the church coexisted, and still coexists today, with the literal temple building in heaven (Revelation 11:19), and with the temple of Jesus' individual human body (John 2:21), and with the temple of every Christian's individual human body (1 Corinthians 6:19). And if the church-as-a-whole temple can currently coexist with all of these other temples of God, it will be able to coexist with the future, 3rd-earthly-literal temple building which Revelation 11:1-2, Matthew 24:15, Daniel 11:31,36, and 2 Thessalonians 2:4 show will exist in Jerusalem during the future tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24. This 3rd temple building will be accepted by God as a valid temple, just as the 2nd temple building was accepted by God as a valid temple, even at the time of Jesus' first coming (Matthew 23:21), and even at the time of the early church (Luke 24:53, Acts 2:46, Acts 22:17).
For the ultra-Orthodox Jews will build the 3rd temple, and they will offer animal sacrifices in front of it, under the auspices of the Old Covenant Mosaic law, which remains holy before God (Romans 7:12). That is why God still keeps an ark of the Old Covenant Mosaic law in his temple building in heaven (Revelation 11:19), and why it was possible for the apostle Paul one time to involve himself with the 2nd temple's Old Covenant Mosaic law practices without him committing sin (Acts 21:20-26; 1 Corinthians 9:20). This isn't to say that the Jesus-denying motives of the ultra-Orthodox Jews will be holy before God, but that the Old-Covenant-Mosaic-law 3rd temple in itself and its animal sacrifices in themselves will be holy before God, because the Old Covenant Mosaic law in itself remains holy before God (Romans 7:12), even though its letter is no longer meant to be practiced by people (Romans 7:6), because the New Covenant has been inaugurated by Jesus and his once-for-all-time sacrifice on the Cross for our sins (Hebrews 10:1-23, Matthew 26:28).
