EVENTS OF THE LAST 1335 DAYS OF THE GENTILE AGE – PART 5
November 17, 2009
CONSULT DIAGRAM SENT BY E-MAIL ON NOVEMBER 12, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
EVENT 5 – For more than three years, with the Suez Canal under his control, he will gain worldwide recogniti on
and acclaim in his capital city of Cairo. Israel will be trapped in the Negev for more than three years (See previous Blogs), and a degree of stability will have come to the troubled Middle East. He will supposedly have done what all nations say they are seeking, that is, to bring stability to the Middle East. But, between the third and fourth year of his rule, something will cause him to quickly head for Jerusalem.
Daniel 11:44,45 – But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many. [45] And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
Please bear in mind that Daniel does not bring him out of the Egypt he has conquered until verse 44, and that he heads back for the glorious holy mountain, which is the middle hill of the three hills upon which the eastern part of the city of Jerusalem rests. It is better known as the Mount of Moriah, where the first three temples sat, which is located between the two seas, the Mediterranean Sea,
and the Dead Sea. Before the mighty former Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin arose, some identified this troubling news out of the north as being about Attila the Hun, after him it was about the German Kaiser of WW1, then about Hitler of WW2, and so forth and so on. Before the great communist revolution of Mao brought forth the present huge sleeping giant of Red China, some identified the troubling news out of the east as being about Genghis Khan, the great Mongol conqueror from the east. But modern day expositors generally now tend to make it news concerning Russia in the north and China in the east. I do not believe it is either. When Daniel wrote his book, it was written to the people of his day. So it is important to consider what they knew to be immediately to the north and to the east of Egypt. But before we discuss what was, and still is, immediately north of Egypt, and what was, and still is, immediately east of Egypt, let me advise you why I do not believe it involves Russia or China. Get out a world map and measure how far it is from Cairo to the borders of China and Russia. The population of Russia today is more than 150 million, and the population of China is more than 1 billion, 300 million. Do you really think he is going to take them on? And are they not supposed to join forces with him at the final battle of Armageddon? If he were, it would be rank insanity to return to Jerusalem to take them on!
And, besides all that, the land we know as China and Russia, for all practical purposes, was perhaps mentioned only in fables in Daniel’s day. Do you really think he will “go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly make away many” from two distant, vast, countries with a combined population of almost one and one-half billion?
So what is immediately north of Egypt? What touches its northern border? The Mediterranean Sea! And what land is immediately east of Egypt
? What touches its eastern border? The Negev! And what could possibly be in the Mediterranean Sea that would trouble him? The U.S. Fleet! And what could possibly be in the Negev that would trouble him? Between 1.7 and 1.9 million Israelis! The U.S. Navy & Marine Corps publish periodical “TRANSITIONS” of “All the Ships at Sea.” You will find it amazing how many vessels we routinely have on scheduled patrols in the Mediterranean Sea. We keep a carrier constantly on station patrolling that section of the Mediterranean immediately south of Turkey and north of Egypt. The carriers USS Enterprise and the USS Theodore Roosevelt have often relieved each other on this permanent patrol station, along with other carriers. There is also a report issued periodically on marine units deployed on the many ships that patrol the seas of the Middle East from the Mediterranean through the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean and up into the Persian Gulf. It is simply called “All the Marines Deployed.” The U.S. Marines and IDF have been conducting joint operations in the Negev off and on for some 25 years.
So the antichrist has had Israel bottled up in the Negev for more than three years at this future point in time. I believe the news he hears is simply this: the U.S. Marines and IDF are planning to close his rear flank back to the country from which he originally came, Syria. He will have left a strip heavily fortified across Gaza and the northern Sinai, but he will begin to have reservations about the ability of his troops to hold it. He will then head back for Jerusalem to finally do what he wishes he had previously done, that is, to end the Jewish problem. He will “go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.” He will super fortify the northeast Sinai and Gaza Strip, and head northeast to Jerusalem to prepare for the destruction of Israel in the Negev.
Daniel 11:45 – And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
He has returned to do what he was unable to more than three years before, that is, to end forever “the Jewish problem.” From his capital in Egypt, based on his former success against Israel, he has become the dimpled darling of ALL the Islamic world, and MOST of the Old World countries. So he plants himself as Allah’s Prophet on the sacred ground where Solomon’s Temple once stood, and sends out a call to all nations to come and help him forever eliminate the descendants of Jacob, the nation of Israel. These invitations are extended to those nations who were once part of the old Roman Empire, which reached its maximum expansion under Trajan. The nations will come from the known world at the time the Book of Revelation was written, which was “the whole world” of the prophetic writings. They will come from Europe, Eurasia, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The antichrist will direct them from the Temple mount in Jerusalem, and they will “go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.” The reason that “none can help him” does not mean no one will make the attempt, it means that 10,000 nations could not help him when God decides to destroy him and his army with the greatest display of geological and meteorological hell ever unleashed on this earth. In verse 45 the word translated as “tabernacles” is OHEL. It always means “tents,” never a temple made of stone. The word translated as “palace” is APPEDEN, meaning a pavilion or palace tent, and it is never translated as “temple.” APPEDEN refers not to a rebuilt temple on Jerusalem’s temple mount, but to a command post pavilion on the Temple mount from which the antichrist issues his commands. At the time of Daniel’s writings, it was the custom for all kings to have a portable type of command post that could be quickly set up in a position from which the king could issue his orders to the men in the field. The picture painted in Daniel’s account is of the antichrist in his command post on the Temple Mount with the tents of his men stretching from Haifa, past the Tel of Armageddon, through the Plain of Jezreel, down the Jordan Valley, and up to Jerusalem. He will, by this time, consider himself a God, and his followers will follow him as the God of their final Jihad. He will sit in his pavilion command post on the Temple mount claiming to be like Allah.
There are many who insist, because of what is written in Daniel 11:45 and II Thessalonians 2:4, that a temple must be rebuilt on the existing temple mount before Jesus returns.
I rather doubt that this will happen. I KNOW that one will be built AFTER He returns, but I do not believe one will be built BEFORE He comes to rule and reign from Jerusalem.
II Thessalonians 2:4 – Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself
that he is God.
When Paul wrote this verse he used the Greek word NAOS for “temple.” There are two Greek words in the New Testament that are translated as “temple,” NAOS and HIERON. HIERON is always used to refer to a temple made of stone, like the three that once historically stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. However, NAOS can refer to any type of container that houses something, such as a local one made up of human bodies as an assembly (ekklesia) among which the Spirit dwells, or an individual human body where the Spirit of Christ dwells, or as a collected family of people in which the Spirit dwells individually. Paul used NAOS a total of eight times in all his epistles. But he always used HIERON to refer to a temple of stone, that is, unless he used NAOS in II Thessalonians 2:4 for such a structure. My point is this: if Paul wanted to leave no doubt he was referring to the antichrist perched in a rebuilt temple of stone on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, he would have used HIERON, rather than NAOS in II Thessalonians 2:4.
The word NAOS means “an inner sanctuary, a dwelling place.” The suffix on it varies as to the part of speech it represents. The total number of times Paul used NAOS in his epistles, where it is translated as “temple,” are found in the following Scriptures.
I Corinthians 6:19 – What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
I Corinthians 3:16,17 – Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? [17] If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
(The “you” and the two “ye’s” are plural)
II Corinthians 6:16 – And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols
? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (The two “in’s” may be translated as “among” or “in” – either is correct.
The “ye” is plural).
Ephesians 2:21,22 – In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: [22] In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
II Thessalonians 2:4 – Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
I believe this pictures him as claiming to be the God of all men, and he is proving it to himself, and the whole world, by setting on God’s Temple Mount in his Command Pavilion to establish himself as the sanctuary of God.
Paul only used the word HIERON twice where it is translated as “temple,” once by writing it himself, and again in dictating a previous episode in his life to Luke in the Book of Acts.
Acts 26:21 – For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me.
I Corinthians 9:13 – Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
In both these cases there is no doubt he meant the Jerusalem Temple of stone. For better, or for worst, I am convinced he would have used HIERON, rather than NAOS, if he meant a temple of stone in Jerusalem.
Daniel 11:45 – And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
The reason that “none shall help him” is very simple, it is because none CAN help him, as the first verse following in the 12th Chapter validates. He, and the mighty army he calls together, to come and destroy Israel (which has been militarily trapped in the Negev for three and one-half years), are both on the verge of being zapped by God. When God’s wrath is poured out on them there is no power that can help antichrist, or his army. The verse following Daniel 11:45, which is the last verse in Chapter 11, and, remembering the chapter divisions were supplied by the KJV translators, the next verse in a continuous narrative would be 12:1.
Daniel 12:1 – And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
According to Ezekiel 38:19 to 39:2, five-sixths of the antichrist’s army will be destroyed by natural phenomena God unleashes on them.
Ezekiel 38:19-23 – For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; [20] So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. [21] And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord God: every man’s sword shall be against his brother. [22] And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. [23] Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord. [1] Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: [2] And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
This unleashing of God’s power is also mirrored by most of the Old Testament prophets in many places, and most emphatically by John when God’s wrath is poured out at Armageddon.
Revelation 16:16-21 – And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. [17] And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
(Verses 18 to 21 describe the absolute horror of God’s wrath in the final geological upheaval of the earth).