The Antichrist and the church will build the Third Temple

 Daniel 9:26

26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

How can a people of God come to this? They at one time had followed after their God.

It is a repeat of what happened in the days of the return of the Jewish people from the captivity in the Babylonian empire revealed in the Prophets.

. 

The angel told Daniel that the destruction would come not by edict or by an executive order of a world leader or  ruler. This outrage against the Holy Temple would be committed by a "people", a "people" who belonged to a coming prince, a "prince who is to come". 

The destruction of the Temple would come as an impulsive act springing up from the grassroots movement of this lawless people, a destructive sacrilegious action waged by an unruly and lawless mob. Remember where they came from? John in 1 John 2 declares they come “out of the church”.

Daniel was told specifically that "the people of the prince who is to come", that is the people who belonged to "the prince" who was to come or were of the spiritual likeness of the coming latter day Beast Antichrist, would be the ones who would destroy the temple.

The prophet Daniel received this information over 600 years earlier, in the first year of King Darius in the Medo-Persian era. This was not an event that was unknown revelation.

So this history of the destruction of the Second Temple coming as it did, bears out the remarkable accuracy of his prophecy. 

A profane, lawless, and godless crowd  were totally influenced or driven over by the spirit of Antichrist or anti-Messiah which stirs up an absolute hatred of the Messiah, the One who will come to judge the beast demon of the Abyss and the entire wicked angelic host at the close of this age.

 The  mob gathering before that Holy Place was driven into a veritable frenzy on that awful day. They stormed the Temple and set fire to it. Then they began tearing down the entire temple stone by stone.

It was the people who carried out this total destruction of the Temple.  Tearing one stone from another in their frenzy. Daniel's prophecy of "a people" destroying the holy temple was fulfilled precisely.

Jesus in Matthew 24 had predicted this very thing. In 32 A.D. during passion week He said that the temple would be destroyed and that "not one stone would stand upon another". See Luke 21:6-7.

The "people of the prince who is to come" destroyed the temple. Remember Daniel had received God's specific Word on this event from the angel Gabriel.

 
A repeat of early Jewish history from the prophets is a warning to us today.

The returning exiled Jews or The younger Jews who had never seen the Temple or made a pilgrimage to it for any of Biblical Feasts.  Feast they were to honor and attend. A people who had lost almost all of the laws of God and the Torah, 

Through the captivity and life in a foreign land with their pagan gods these younger generations never had the opportunity to take their firstborn sons to the Temple and redeem them as commanded by the Torah. 

After God delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and redeemed them, next He gave them the Torah, which centered upon the Law of Moses.

The Torah defined everything for them; from how to conduct their relationship with God to how to conduct their relationships with humans (Hebrew and gentile), with animals, and with their earthly surroundings in general even including the lands they lived on. 

 

This resulted in a uniqueness and distinctiveness of culture, religion, and daily life that was not only in complete harmony with God’s heavenly principles but was also in obvious contrast (I would say even in direct opposition) to the other cultures, religions, and daily lives of everyone else on Earth. 

 

This unique Torah lifestyle was to be strictly maintained as a sign of trust and loyalty and as a visible acknowledgment of their separation for Yah, the God of Abraham, the living God of all Creation. 

 

These younger Jewish people had never brought an animal sacrifice with them to atone for their sins and watched as a priest laid the sacrificial  animal on the Altar to fulfill the required ceremonies declared by God. 

They had never been purified from uncleanness by entering a Mikvah, also spelled Mikveh, or Miqwe, (“collection [of water]”), in Judaism, a pool of natural water in which one bathes for the restoration of ritual purity under the watchful eye of an ordained priest so that the living water they submerged under washed away their sin or ritual defilements before God. 

Even the covenant with Abraham was all but forgotten by this captivity and lack of God’s law. They were so separated from the laws of God, they had no memory of them.  They just had "a way that seemed right unto them.”

So up in Babylon the system that the Jews had formerly relied upon (the Temple and Priesthood and the Torah) to keep them in good stead with God was no longer in operation. 
It was the priests who had long ago been assigned the duty to teach and enforce the Law of Moses by God Himself, and they alone had the divine right to perform the atoning and sanctifying rituals that were critical if a Jew hoped to maintain a pleasing and harmonious life  with Yah.

Thus up in Babylon the knowledge of the Torah, which had already greatly diminished for many years prior to Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah, nearly vanished. 

What remained were nothing more than Jewish cultural traditions and customs; but along with it new ways were created to deal with the impossible situation of having no means to atone or purify. 

This was a judgement  that the Lord fully intended the Jews to experience, because that was as much the point of their exile as was the loss of their homes and homeland. All a result of sin.

 

Just a side note to understand, the people of God and the land God gave them is necessary for them to be in God’s will. In the end, in Revelations 21, you will find that the New Jerusalem and the people redeemed is the bride of Christ. It takes both the city and the people to be God’s people. You can not separate them.

These newly contrived ways resulting from not having a system of God to follow, while seemingly acceptable and in and of themselves not necessarily bad things, were nonetheless manmade and never was ordained by God. 

So therefore these new ways accomplished little (in God’s eyes) except to make the captive Jews feel less uncomfortable but more religious in their foreign pagan surroundings. An acceptable lawlessness. One they could live with. It was such a gradual loss, that no one recognized how far away from God they were. (As the church today)

 Prayer replaced animal sacrifice. No one noticed.

Houses of meeting and worship were created in the place  of the Temple gatherings.
Later these new houses would be called synagogues. From the tabernacle to the temple to now the synagogue. Nothing close to the day of Moses. I call the time just a religious replacement of God. And seemingly no one was concerned. 

Non-priests or at least non-practicing priests became the new worship and religious leaders. These new ways were the beginning of Judaism and in some cases the end of actual Torah observance.
They had become lawless. No Torah or God law to create in them the forgiveness men need.

How many times do I warn this generation, it too has done away with the Torah and the prophets and are as lawless as any generation of man. As with John a group so lawless, that this antichrist ruled people will again "come out from us", the church. A group that will be the followers of the prince and bid his works.