Fidel Christo - Jan 17, 2004 - Prophetic suspicions about the Pope becoming the primary facilitator for the rebuilding of the Third Jewish Temple (and thus THE candidate to fulfill the role of the Beast/Antichrist) seem to be materializing, as the reposted news article below reveals...

Pope John Paul II just met yesterday with Israel's chief rabbis to assure them of his commitment to improve Catholic-Jewish relations. On the rabbis' agenda was to bring up the issue about the Vatican housing their Second Temple's golden menorah, which Rome's Arch of Titus depicts having been carried off (along with other temple artifacts) to Rome following the 70 A.D. destruction of the Temple. Israeli President Moshe Katzav, had similarly requested the Vatican to return the Menorah and Temple artifacts sometime ago during a visit to Italy...

Rabbinical Judaism, shaped by the writings of 12th-century Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides, is conditioned to accept the one who helps rebuild their Third Temple, as their Messiah. The Vatican, as the following article discloses, displayed some of Maimonides' original manuscripts as though dangling bait in front of the chief rabbis to further win their trust towards the Papacy. This makes Jewish rabbis and their followers prime candidates for the deceptions of the Beast/Antichrist, which earlier Beast Watch newsletters have logically and scripturally shown to be the Pope backed by the Vatican powers...

More about the issues surrounding the rebuilding of the Third Jewish Temple are covered in detail in this past Beast Watch newsletter...

In the meantime, witness the works of the Antichrist preparing the way for himself and Satan's greatest endtime deception of the Jewish people...

The Associated Press January 16, 2004 Tevet 22, 5764 - Pope John Paul II met Friday with Israel's chief rabbis and assured them of his commitment to improve Catholic-Jewish relations and promote cooperation between the two faiths.

For their part, the rabbis said they asked the pope to keep speaking out against anti-Semitism, to intercede in favor of Israeli prisoners taken by the Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon and to dedicate a day on the Catholic calendar for study and reflection on the Jewish faith.

The audience with Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar was the first by Israel's chief rabbis in the Vatican. The pope met Israel's previous chief rabbis in the Holy Land during his visit in 2000.

Before leaving Israel, the rabbis said they would ask to search Vatican storerooms for artifacts such as the huge golden menorah that stood in the temple in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

But Metzger said they didn't mention the menorah.

"We left it to his discretion to find an object that would be important to us," Metzger said. "We don't know if it (the menorah) exists but if it does and they decide to give it to us there will be no greater joy for us."

They were shown manuscripts written by the 12th century Jewish scholar Moses Maimondes and asked that they be lent to Israel.

John Paul told them that in his 25 years as pope "I have striven to promote Jewish-Catholic dialogue and to foster ever greater understanding, respect and cooperation between us."

He called the Holy Land visit one of the highlights of his papacy, recalling his stops at the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial and the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site.

"The official dialogue established between the Catholic Church and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel is a sign of great hope. We must spare no effort in working together to build a world of justice, peace and reconciliation," the pope said.

The audience was arranged in connection with an interfaith concert at the Vatican on Saturday evening.

Amar, spiritual leader of Israel's Jews of North African origin, told Army Radio on Thursday that when he received the invitation, "the truth is I asked them, I could not resist ... I asked them about the Temple vessels and the menorah."

When the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 A.D., they took huge amounts of booty home. Legend has it that religious articles from the Temple, including the menorah, were among them.

The Arch of Titus in Rome depicts victorious Roman legions marching off with the seven-branch menorah in hand.

Amar said the Vatican official denied the menorah was there.

"My heart tells me this is not the truth, but that it is some kind of camouflage," Amar said.

The Vatican will allow the rabbis to view rare Jewish manuscripts in its possession, Amar said.

The menorah was the most important symbol of the Temple after the Ark of the Covenant. The image of the biblical menorah is the symbol of the modern state of Israel.

Some Orthodox Jews believe the restoration of the menorah and other holy vessels to Jerusalem would be the first step in rebuilding the Temple, whose site is now occupied by the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine of Islam.

The "rebirth" of the nation/State of Israel in 1948 was seen by Zionists as a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 66:8, initiating the regathering of Jews (for "Aliyah") from all around the world to their long-awaited homeland. While 1948 was indeed a biblically significant year, the recapture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day-War has even greater significance in setting the stage for the biblical prophecies about the "time of the end".

Thursday's repost of excerpts from the article "The Incredible Six Day War and Daniel's 2300 Day Prophecy!" established 1967 as a significant milestone year in biblical prophecy. Counting from 334 B.C., the date of the goat-ram (Greek-MedoPersian) conflict described in Daniel 8:4-7,20-21, to the year 1967 when "the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled under foot" (Daniel 8:13) came to an end, makes EXACTLY 2300 years. This fits in EXACTLY with the distant-prophetic meaning of the 2300-days in Daniel 8:14, taking a day to represent a year (according to the principle in Num. 14:34; Ezek. 4:1-6).

The above article also establishes the fact that the literal 2300-days of Daniel 8:14 were completed during Antiochus Epiphanes' persecution of Jews and his desecration of their Temple's sanctuary by sacrificing a pig on the altar. The outcome was the Maccabean revolt for Jewish independence from Antiochus' dictates. The "abomination of desolation" was removed and the Jews' zeal for the LORD and His House was rekindled - thus the Temple's sanctuary was "cleansed," as Daniel 8:14 states...

After Yeshua was rejected by the Jews at large, around 30 A.D. He wept over Jerusalem and prophesied the upcoming destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem by her Roman enemies (which occurred 70 A.D., approximately 40 years later):
"If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation" (Luke 19:41-44).

Quoting from the above article, "In 70 A.D., Roman armies under Titus and Vespasian, conquered the Jews and destroyed the Temple. In 132-135 A.D., during the Bar Kochba rebellion, another generation of Jews rebelled against Rome -- after which Jews were BANISHED from Jerusalem and expelled from their homeland by the angry Romans who were furious that they had had to fight two fierce and costly wars with the Jews in a space of sixty two years. They were a shattered people. Hope of a Jewish Kingdom was annihilated -- destroyed. The period of Jewish exile -- the SECOND major exile in history -- was begun. It was a time of hopelessness, consternation, shame, and ridicule."

The Jewish prayer for the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) has expressed the heart-longings of the Jewish people for their Temple during their 2000-year exile:
"How glorious was the appearance of the high priest when he came forth safely from the Holy of Holies without any evil occurrence ... Happy the eye which saw our Temple and the joy of our congregation; but verily only to hear of them afflicts our soul .. But the iniquities of our fathers have caused the desolation of the Temple ... And because of our abundant iniquities we have no burnt offering, nor trespass offering ... no Temple, nor sprinkling; no confession nor sin-offering."

AND

"O Lord, build your house as at the first, set your Temple on its foundations, allow us to see it built and make us joyous in its establishment, return priests to their service and Levites to their songs and music, and return Israel to their pleasant places, and there we will ascend and be seen and bow down before you."

In Luke 21:20-24 Yeshua further elaborated on the first-century-A.D. desolation of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people, referring to an unspecified period of time during which "Jerusalem will be TRAMPLED by the Gentiles UNTIL the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." This seems to be what Daniel 8:13-14 is also referring to: "How long will the vision be, concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary AND the host to be TRAMPLED under foot?...For two thousand three hundred days ["evenings and mornings" - Dan. 8:26]; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed."

We have seen that the 2300 "days" in Daniel 8:14 are both literal days as well as prophetic years, representing the 2300-day time frame of Antiochus Epiphanes' declaration as a god, his persecution of the Jewish people and the desecration of their Temple in 168 B.C., as well as the 2300-year period from Alexander the Great's conquest of Medo-Persia to the Israeli reclamation of East Jerusalem in 1967. This period includes the "times of the Gentiles" during which Jerusalem would be "trampled underfoot by Gentiles" (Luke 21:24), which began when the Temple was destroyed by Roman armies in 70 A.D...

Therefore THE sign that the "times of the Gentiles" are COMPLETE would be the restoration of Jerusalem to the Jews, especially the restoration of the foundation of their Temple, known as the Temple Mount. This historical SIGN was apparently FULFILLED in 1967, when East Jerusalem (which included the Temple Mount upon which the Al Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock Islamic shrines sat) was recaptured by the Israelis....

From a modern Jewish standpoint, the recapturing of East Jerusalem in 1967 meant they could once again rebuild a Third Jewish Temple upon their reclaimed Temple Mount - the foundation of their Second Temple which had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. After nearly 2000 years of being without a Temple to perform the atoning sacrifices for their sins which were instituted under Moses, the Jewish people could once again look forward to rebuilding and regathering into the "House of the LORD". Thus they could prepare their hearts to anticipate the arrival of their long-awaited Messiah - the son of David, Root of Jesse - to reign as king on the throne of David for Jews AND Gentiles (Isa. 11:10; 49:6; 60:3,5), fulfilling God's promise to Abraham that "in you all the families of the earth will be blessed..." (Gen. 12:3).

HOWEVER, God's prophetic clock was once again "set back" following the recapture of the Temple Mount. There was a tragic blow to Jewish people's aspirations for the rebuilding of their Third Temple when Israel's top military leader Moshe Dayan, returned the Temple Mount to Arab/Muslim sovereignty as a diplomatic move towards peace with Muslims living in the secular democratic state of Israel. Being done in complete disregard of God's ultimate purposes for Israel, this move had just the opposite effect. With the Al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock shrines resting on Jewish-dominated soil, Muslims saw Dayan's pacifist return of their shrines as the ultimate "humiliation" to Islam. It only gave more opportunity for Islamic pride to seek excuses to continually provoke Jews to fight and then declare jihad against them to "liberate" their shrines. After annihilating Zionists and the very notion of a "State of Israel", Muslims could then fulfill their vision of imposing Islamic theocracy in place of the Democracy of the "infidels", throughout the land of formerly know as "Palestine"...

Moreover, the Muslim Waqf overseeing the Dome of the Rock shrine atop the Temple Mount has been adamantly quenching and suppressing the slightest aspiration of Jews to rebuild their Third Temple, severely restricting Jews from even setting foot on the Temple Mount upon which the Dome of the Rock rests, and completely forbidding even a hint of on-site prayer. Moreover, they have systematically carried out illegal excavations under the Temple Mount (which resulted in a recent collapse of the Temple Mount's southern wall) to hijack the historical evidence that the Temple Mount and the land of Israel were given by GOD to the Jews. Yet it is of interest to note that the Qur'an itself mentions a mysterious "chest" along with the "relics of the children of Israel" - most Muslims are in the dark about this verse, which is actually referring to the ark of the covenant and the relics/treasures of the destroyed Jewish Temple...

Nevertheless, fearing the LORD rather than Muslims, the zealous Orthodox-Jewish Temple Mount Faithful have prepared the cornerstaone as well as vessels and articles for the Third Temple, and are now attempting to persuade the Israeli Government to allow them, as Nehemiah was allowed by Artaxerxes, to "rise up and build" . The Temple Mount Faithful Movement's founder, Gershon Solomon, has a dramatic testimony of God supernaturally intervening on the battlefield to save his life, and God supernaturallly calling him to lead in the rebuilding of the Third Temple. That God seems to have called Gershon Solomon to oversee the rebuilding of the Temple in his lifetime, means that this time is approaching very soon - just this past October 13th, 2003, significant spiritual progress seems to have been made, according to the Temple Mount Faithful...

Ironically, it has been the ISRAELI Government that has restricted the Temple Mount Faithful from proceeding with the reconstruction of the Third Temple for fear of an Arab uprising. It has taken at least the last 3 years of Intifada (resulting from failed Camp David 2000 peace talks) to begun to desensitize the Israeli Government to diplomatic solutions to Arab enmity, and to begin to hearken to the urgings of spiritual leaders, just as the Jews did under Maccabeus' leadership during Antiochus Epiphanes' tyrannical rule. Only recently has the Israeli Government begun to allow open displays of Jewish zeal for the rebuilding of the Temple, as well as persuading the Waqf to allow more Jewish visitors to the Dome of the Rock, though praying is still forbidden. Either a Jewish rebellion matching the zeal of the Maccabean revolt, or an Arab uprising of such unmanageable proportions which will warrant the peacemaking skills of the upcoming Beast/Antichrist, will bring about what is needed for the reconstruction of the Jewish Temple...

What remains veiled from the eyes of the Jewish people is that the Beast/Antichrist will "make a covenant with the many" (Daniel 9:27), and may become the very mediator of an unusual time of Jewish-Arab peace during which Jews can rebuild their Third Temple (just as Solomon built the First and Nehemiah the Second during peaceful times). The Temple will be the final prop that must be set up on the prophetic stage, after which the Antichrist's False Prophet will set up the "abomination of desolation" in the rebuilt Temple's sanctuary ("holy place"), as spoken of by Yeshua in Daniel 12:10 and Matthew 24:15, which is also called "the image of the Beast" in Revelation 13:14-15 and 14:9...

Jewish Rabbis have been unknowingly setting up their people to receive and be deceived by the Beast/Antichrist. This web article articulately explains how:
"According to Maimonides, the medieval Rabbi whose writings are the basis of much of modern Judaism, the Messiah will be revealed by the successful building of the Temple:
'If there arises a ruler from the House of David, ... who leads Israel back to the Torah, strengthening its laws and fighting God's battles, then we may assume he is the Messiah. If he is further successful in rebuilding the Temple on its original site and gathering the dispersed of Israel, then his identity as the Messiah is a certainty.'
"In the light of this it is interesting to read a book by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, 'The Real Messiah?' which rejects Jesus' claim to be Messiah and tells Jewish people to look for a Messiah to come, who will solve the Middle East problem with 'such a demonstration of statesmanship and political genius' that he is put in a position of world leadership.'In his position of leadership, through direct negotiation and perhaps the concurrence of the world powers this Tzadik (righteous man) might just be able to regain the Temple Mount for the Jewish people. With a Sanhedrin to iron out the many halachic questions (matters of Jewish law), it might then be possible to rebuild the Holy Temple. If this is accomplished we will already have fulfilled the essential part of the Messianic promise. ('The Real Messiah?' page 93) For the rest of the story we recommend Rabbi Kaplan to read Daniel and Revelation..."

Clearly, God's prophetic time-clock was once again "set back" when the Temple Mount was returned by Moshe Dayan to the Arab Muslims. However, considering that the Second Jewish Temple was rebuilt 40 years after the Jews had returned to their land, we once again have a prophetic time-frame for the rebuilding of the Third Temple. We can anticipate that by 40 years after 1967, which is the year 2007, there may be a temporary time of peace which will facilitate Temple reconstruction...

Once again we should consider the revelation the LORD gave to New Zealand Pastor Peter Kumar that following Arafat's removal (and likely a period of great Palestinian-Israeli tribulation), we would witness the works of the Antichrist. In view of our earlier studies establishing the Pope as head of the Vatican to be the FOREMOST logical candidate for the Beast/Antichrist, it is not surprising that the Temple Mount Faithful are demanding that the VATICAN return the stolen treasures of the destroyed Second Temple which were carried off to Rome, in particular the Golden Menorah (a seven-branched candlestick). How the Pope and Vatican will confess their guilt in hiding these treasures for so long, and how they will mediate in the Temple rebuilding process, remains to be seen... http://www.injesus.com/Groups/ViewMessage.cfm?MessageId=VA007X0O&GroupID=0A007TVT&UCD=6fm