Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Dave McAllister: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and proctor of our faith.

Dave McAllister: The sacrifice is made in the Jewish temple foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ. That temple was destroyed, but it will be rebuilt. That's because prophecy speaks of an Antichrist stopping the sacrifices. For them to be stopped, they must have resumed in a new temple in Jerusalem. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is running to win with Dr. Irwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Irwin Lutzer is in a series on seven signs of Christ's return. Today, we're learning about sign number five, the temple rebuilt in Jerusalem.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: 400 years this temple served the people. And then various kings ruled who were idolatrous and God says, I'm going to destroy you. I'm going to take the temple from you. And so you have the king of Egypt coming and taking some of the treasures because some of the kings had to buy them off. You have the king of Assyria coming and Ahaz stripped the silver and the gold from the temple in order to buy him off so that Israel might not be destroyed. Then finally you get good king Hezekiah who does a very foolish thing.

There's a delegation that comes from Babylon and they say, you know, we just like to see the temple. We're just tourists. We have a tourist visa. He said, fine. He said, I want to show you the treasures that are left. And so he took them and he showed them the treasures. Actually, they were casing the place so that they could come and get everything. And then under Nebuchadnezzar in 605, the city of Jerusalem was besieged and more damage was done. And finally in 586 BC, the Babylonians came and they destroyed that temple completely. Totally destroyed it because you see in those days if you destroyed the temple, you also destroyed the people's god.

So the pagan Babylonians said to themselves, what we want to do is we want to do away with Israel's god. And in order to do that, we'll destroy Israel's temple. And that temple has no ruins that we know of today are in existence. We know where those ruins probably are, but nobody has any. You can't go to Jerusalem and see any of the ruins. Wouldn't it be wonderful if archaeologists could dig 30 or 40 ft beneath the Dome of the Rock and come to all of the things that pertained, the ruins that were left of Solomon's temple.

Now that would be a real archaeological site. And you remember that a number of years ago, there were some people who were digging in that area. You know, there's that controversial tunnel in Jerusalem that was opened a few years ago. And some of us had the privilege of walking through it a few months after the controversy. But there was a passageway there where someone actually was able to go under the Dome of the Rock and he claims that he believes he actually saw the Ark of the Covenant. And it's buried there somewhere. But nobody's ever been able to find it for sure.

Not even Harrison Ford has been able to find it for sure. Some people think the Ark of the Covenant is buried somewhere else. It's buried in the hills or whatever. We're not sure. But imagine capturing that Ark of the Covenant. What happened when the temple was destroyed? Ezekiel tells us that the Shekhinah glory, the cloud that we just read about left. It went where the Eastern Gate is today. And then after that, it went through the Kidron Valley and then up to the Mount of Olives and it disappeared. Ichabod, God says, the glory has departed.

It's all over. Wow, what a tragedy to think that we'll never see that building unless again. I always think that we're going to see videotapes in heaven and maybe we'll get a chance to see it then. Now question is does God say, hey, you know, you Jewish people, you know, you're always turning to idols and I had to judge you. I had to take the temple and have it destroyed and that's the end. No, it's never the end for God. Here you have these people being taken into Babylon and 70 years later, a man by the name of Cyrus because the Cyrus, the Medes and the Persians now conquer Babylon, he says to himself, you know what, you Jews can go back and you can rebuild your temple.

And he allows 50,000 of them to return. Now we're talking about the second temple. And the leader of the second temple, the man who organized it all was a man by the name of Zerubbabel. Was thinking of that name the other day and thinking that if you don't like your name, and some of us may not be very happy with our name, we could have been stuck with Zerubbabel. Now first and second Kings, you have your Bibles open, first and second Chronicles, Ezra. And we get to the book of Ezra and chapter three. And here we have the story of the dedication of that temple.

You go home today, somebody says, what were you doing in church? You say, we attended the dedication of two temples. All right. Notice Ezra chapter three, we pick it up in verse 10. The people, it says now when the builders had laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets and the Levites and the sons of Asaph with symbols to praise the Lord according to the directions of King David of Israel. And they sang praising and giving thanks to God saying, for he is good, for his loving kindness is upon Israel forever.

And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. Yet many of the priests and the Levites and the heads of fathers' households, the old man who had seen the first temple, they wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes while many shouted aloud for joy. Another thing I want to see on videotape is verse 13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people.

For the people shouted with a loud shout and the sound was heard far away. What's going on here? We have to understand that the people were gone for 70 years, but some of these people who went to Babylon, they were teenagers. They were just kids. They live in Babylon for 70 years. They come back, but bless their hearts, they remembered what Solomon's temple looked like. They remembered the splendor. They remembered the stones, the glory. They remember those brass pillars or those those pillars that go to the heavens. They they saw all that. And now Zerubbabel comes back, organizes some men, and they lay the foundation stone for this temple.

And it was so pitifully small in comparison to the glory of the one they once remembered. In fact, that's why Zechariah, you have to put this together. You remember he was a prophet who was prophesying during that period of time. He says, don't despise the day of small things. He was encouraging the people because the people were saying, you know, this temple is so small that it's it's just heartbreaking. And he says, don't despise that day because who knows what God is going to do in this temple. And another prophet Haggai who was prophesying during that time said, wait a moment.

The glory of this house is going to be greater than the glory of the other one. Boy, that was some encouragement. And how in the world was that prophecy ever fulfilled? Will you stay with me and you'll understand how it was fulfilled. What happened to that temple? We're talking about 538 BC now. You understand the 538 Solomon's 950 BC. Now we're to 538 and Zerubbabel builds it. And Antiochus, it's it's used by the Jews for 200 years. And Antiochus Epiphanes, you've heard of him. Here he comes with the Greek Hellenization of the area because Greece comes to conquer the area.

And Antiochus appoints someone to be a high priest who is a Greek and who is a blasphemer. And against the wishes of the people obviously, a sow, a pig is actually sacrificed on the altar. And he puts up a statue within the Holy of Holies to a foreign god. He desecrates the place just like the prophet Daniel predicted what happened. The people of course were very very angry and upset and they fought against the Greeks and that's where you have the wars of the Maccabees. And then in 63 BC, 63 Ptolemy comes and he's a Roman now because you know Greece is beginning to fade in its influence.

Rome is beginning to come. And and as he marches into Jerusalem, he sees all of these Jews who are lying physically in front of the temple saying, we would rather be killed. Do not go in here. Do not desecrate this place. Well, when he saw them protecting the temple that way, he said to himself, this must be because there's lots of treasures in the temple. So obviously he went in. And according to Josephus the historian, when he went into the holy place and then he went into the Holy of Holies, he noticed that there was just a barren rock.

There was no Ark because you see that Ark that was lost during the time of Solomon temple was never rebuilt. There was only one Ark. And he was shocked at the fact that there was no representation of deity and really no treasures at least within the Holy of Holies. Then what happens is a man by the name of Herod the Great comes. And he's an Idumean. And he is put there by the Romans who basically has the responsibility for ruling the land because now you remember the land is under Roman authority and Roman power. And he says, I want to do the Jews a favor.

Of course the Jews didn't trust him at all. He says, I want to build you a temple. And they said, oh yeah, we know what you're going to do. You're going to tear this temple down and then you won't build us another one. And so in order to curry favor with the Jews, he said, look, I'll make you a deal. I will not even tear your temple down. I will build another one on top of it. And really the building of the new temple and the tearing down of the old one will go on simultaneously and I will train 1,000 priests to work as masons so only priests will be working on those holy areas in the temple.

And I want to build it for you. And so he does. He begins in 19 BC, 19 years before Jesus Christ was born approximately. And what happens? This temple is absolutely gorgeous. And it is still called the second temple. You say, well actually there are three. There was Zerubbabel's temple and then there's Herod's temple. But oh no no no no no, they don't count it that way because Herod's temple was a quote continuation of the second. It is therefore also called the second. So you have the second temple period. And then of course when you go to Israel today and you're at the Wailing Wall and you see those huge stones that weigh tons, those are the stones that Herod's men put in place to build the sanctuary area.

That's the part that you see. No remains of Solomon's temple, but plenty remains or at least some remains I should say of Herod's temple.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well, my friend, this is Pastor Lutzer. When we look at history, we see the judgment of God on nations. Particularly, we are interested in the nation of Israel and its history. But we need to understand that God also judges nations today. I'm holding in my hands a book entitled When Jesus Returns. Actually, it's a collection of authors put together by Jan Markell, a woman whom I got to know many years ago at a prophecy conference. Each of the chapters is geared to help us to prepare for the future and to give us hope. But I must point out one chapter is entitled The Sabotage of Christianity from within.

It's a chapter on apostasy. I've written a chapter in the book entitled One Minute After You Die. I mentioned that only so that you understand it has a variety of authors, a variety of topics, but all of them pointing to eternity, all of them pointing to warnings, but thankfully also hope. And so we live in anticipation of the future. And as the subtitle of this book reads, Living in Expectation of the end times. For a gift of any amount, we're making it available for you.

Dave McAllister: That was Pastor Irwin Lutzer with part two of The Temple Rebuilt in Jerusalem. Sign number five in his series Seven Signs of Christ's Return. Next time, we sum up the history of temples past and look forward to the temple rebuilt. When Jesus returns, living in expectation of the end times, that's a book compiled by Jan Markell. It contains the best teachings on Bible prophecy from a wide range of authors. This book is our gift to you for your gift of any amount to support Running to Win. For full information, call us at 1 800 215 5001.

That's 1 800 215 5001. Online, go to offer runningtowin.com. That's offer runningtowin.com or write to us at Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Ask about When Jesus Returns. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win comes to you as a ministry of the Moody Church.