When people look at the future and look at Jerusalem they sometimes ask: “Will there be another Temple?” The first Temple stood in the heart of Jerusalem. It was the Temple of King Solomon. It stood in the centre of Mount Zion. Then the Babylonians came, destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and took the Jews into captivity. It has happened between 600 and 500 BCE. After that, the Second Temple was built.
In November 2011 the United Nations of the world decided to give to the Palestinians, meaning Arabs who live in Israel, permission to have a state and that state would be called Palestine. One hundred thirty-eight nations voted for it, nine nations voted against it and forty-one nations abstained from voting. Now, when you read the Bible, the prophet Joel, you read something that will surprise you.
When you look at the map of the world you see many countries. There are over two hundred countries spread all over the world, all with their own boundaries and so forth. In these lands there live people. Now take for instance Kenya, you live in Kenya and so you’re called a Kenyan. But you could very well be a member of a tribe in Kenya maybe Kikuyu. So you are a Kikuyu, but you’re also a Kenyan because you live in the land of Kenya.
The Bible is a wonderful book! It speaks about to future too, so we focus on the future. It is a shame that the Book of Revelation has remained such a closed Book throughout world history. Even today, Pastors don’t preach from the Book of Revelation, maybe only the first three chapters, but that’s it. There are many sects who have all kinds of eschatological science fiction like theories.
When you look at the future the Bible speaks very clearly about the end times. And part of the end times is also about the coming of what the Bible calls: “antichrist”. The word antichrist has two parts. The word anti and Christ. Anti in Greek means “instead of”, “in the place of”. So antichrist means “a christ” instead of Christ. “A Christ” in the place of Christ.
A lot of people talk about end times, “we are living in the end times” they say. How do they know? Some say: “well, they have talked about the end times for thousands of years already and nothing happened. How do you know that today is the end times?” How do you even know when these end times started?
I travel around the world to many countries. Many churches invite me to speak about the future, about the coming of Jesus, about Israel, about the fulfilment of prophecy. Now I come to churches and the people say: “Well this is wonderful, you speak about Israel, about the coming of Jesus. You speak about the Kingdom of Peace that will come to this planet earth. But our pastor doesn’t speak much about it, hardly ever. Why not?