Global SITREP B5-17: The Coming Jerusalem Temple

UPDATE 3 April 2017: During a ceremony at Hatzor Air Base in Israel yesterday, PM Bibi Netanyahu led an array of Israeli civilian defense, military officers and other dignitaries in announcing the operational deployment of the joint U.S.-Israel developed David's Sling Defense System. Among the many Bibi quotes being reported in the media I find the Prime Minister's initial statement to be key with respect to this SITREP covering the Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 prophecies: "Whoever seeks to hit us will be hit. Whoever threatens our existence places himself in existential danger.” 

The fully operational David's Sling is aptly named. In 1 Samuel 17 is told the epic encounter between the 9 foot 6 inch tall Philistine giant, Golyath of Gath, and his equally epic weaponry against the youthful son of Jesse named David. And David stunned Golyath with a single stone flung from his sling. David then stood upon the unconscious giant and removed Golyath's head with Golyath's own sword. The David's Sling state-of-the-art weapon is a hunt-to-kill missile known as the Stunner. The Stunner missile is designed to race toward the target and destroy it though the sheer power of impact, just like the stone from young David's sling.

David went forward into battle against an armed enemy which both sides saw for him as having zero chance of victory. But young David went forth knowing in faith that the living God of Israel would deliver the enemy into his hand, and it was so. 

For the purposes of the enemy nations named in Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83, and as discussed here in previous blog posts, the prophetic past as prologue template which follows the fulfillment of Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 fully applies to the building of the coming third Temple. That template is found in 1 Kings 5:3-5.

"You know how my father David could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the wars which were fought against him on every side, until the Lord put his foes under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor evil occurrence. And behold, I propose to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spoke to my father David, saying, “Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, he shall build the house for My name.”"

The aftermath of the final fulfillment of Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 there will be no enemy on any of Israel's borders, not one on any side. The past as prologue.


1 April 2017: In the previous SITREP B4-17 the case was made that the final fulfillment of Psalm 83 does appear to be quite imminent as evidenced by the statements made by King Abdullah II of Jordan. While Psalm 83 has been a prophecy long in a process of fulfillment, another pair of prophecies, found in Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49:23-27, have in the last 6 years also begun their own parallel process towards total fulfillment along with Psalm 83. 

As stated many times during the course of the now 9-year blog, I happen to hold to the eschatological view that these pre-70th Week fulfillment's happen in rapid sequence, like a prophetic flood, and like a series of prophetic dominoes to fall in their proper sequence. I believe Isaiah and Jeremiah's prophecies are the domino which will topple the Psalm 83 domino over. This SITREP will look at the sum total of what Eschatology Today consistently refers to as the "big picture" painted by the fulfillment of these prophecies. 

That is to say, specifically per Isaiah 17:1-3, that the destruction of Damascus and the nation-state we know as Syria, plus the damage which is done to Israel as seen in Isaiah 17:4-6, will lead the named enemies in Psalm 83:6-8 to believe their golden opportunity to “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more” has finally arrived. They will execute this action as Muslims waging jihad in full submission to their god and in his name.

This will be a unique phase to the Psalm 83 war in that there will almost certainly be no external intervention by other nations on behalf of the Islamic nations or on the behalf of Israel. Why and how can I arrive at this conclusion? Because i believe the Lord has declared it will be so through His prophets. 

Make a key note of what I am going to say here, it is that important to understand. In the ongoing war in Syria, a truly internationalized civil war if there ever was one, there are the intervening gentile military forces of Russia, Iran and its Lebanese Shi'a proxy Hezbollah, plus Iranian Shi'a mercenary forces from Iraq and Afghanistan on the side of the government and army in Damascus. On the other side there are the gentile forces of 61 nations, plus the EU and Arab League, which are led by the United States of America. This coalition of nations is known as Operation Inherent Resolve (clickable image below).

The Nations within the Operation Inherent Resolve Coalition

The palm wreath is a symbol of honor; the scimitars indicate the dual nature of the coalition-the defeat of ISIL and the restoration of stability to the area.  The three stars indicate the command and are colored gold for excellence.  Buff and flag blue denote the land, sea and air components of the military.

Both of the groups of forces operating in Syria are opposed to and engaged in destroying the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Sunni Muslim). They are also on opposite sides with respect to the Alawite (Branch of Shi'a Islam) government in Damascus. 

This is where we turn our attention to the Lord's prophetic word in Isaiah 17:12-13 (NKJV with my emphasis added) which describes a result of what is going to shortly take place in the course of the Isaiah 17 prophetic fulfillment:

Woe to the multitude of many people
Who make a noise like the roar of the seas,
And to the rushing of nations
That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters;
But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away,
And be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind,Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

All of these gentile nations on both sides of the conflict in Syria are going to make a tumult which the prophet describes as the roaring and rushing of the seas. The seas of this planet being in such a state are normally an immovable and overwhelming force of nature. Yet in this God will rebuke them all and they will flee far away. Now you have to think about this, consider it carefully. What kind of a rebuke does the LORD God bring down on these gentile nations that they would all turn tail and immediately flee far away? I guarantee you that I would not want to be the object of such a rebuke where the better part of 100 gentile nations are forced from the battlefield that is Syria! 

Nevertheless, what the LORD God (YHWH) declares through Isaiah is exactly what will happen: both the Russian-led coalition and the U.S.-led coalition will be shattered by the coming rebuke from God. This means that His sovereign will will be manifest, not the will of these two groups of gentile nations fighting over control of this land, but God's will shall rule that day and is what will take place. Now some will say this sounds like 'Divine intervention,' and they would be right, it will be Divine intervention in the course of events in Syria, and in Israel, in the fulfillment of Isaiah 17. Scripture leaves no doubt about it.

That brings us to Psalm 83. All of the other gentile nations, except for Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, Gaza and Sinai will have fled the battlefield of the MidEast, and these nations, which Asaph clearly identified, are left to execute their attempt at making Psalm 83:4 come true. But as we know their hate-filled conspiracy against God and His people Israel has no chance of success. In fact exactly the opposite will occur and Israel will emerge victorious, and perhaps three, or four or five times its current territorial size. The greater Israel will include Lebanon (Joshua 13), control over much of Syria, all of western Jordan, Judea and Samaria, Gaza and probably all of the Sinai.

Yet this is not the greatest part of what occurs as a result of the sequential fulfillment of Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83. The greatest part of result of this has been foretold by Asaph in Psalm 83:16-18 (NKJV with my emphasis added):

Fill their faces with shame,That they may seek Your name, O Lord.Let them be confounded and dismayed forever;Yes, let them be put to shame and perish,That they may know that You, whose name alone is the Lord,Are the Most High over all the earth.

This prophetic passage described the end of Islam, the conversion of a great number of Muslims from submission to their god allah to the God of Israel. The end result of these prophetic wars is that Muslims will seek the name of YHWH. They will be confounded and dismayed that allah was powerless, a false god, and their devotion to that false god will abruptly come to an end; Islam, which is specifically submission to allah, will perish. Muslims will come to know that YHWH God is truly "the existing One;" that He is the El-yōn' meaning Most High over all of the earth.

And this bring us finally to the pair of clickable images at the top. Those images are taken from a modern reproduction of a 1924 publication by the Muslim Orphanage Printing Press, Jerusalem, which was run by the Muslim Supreme Council (the Waqf) in Jerusalem.  An identical 1925 reproduction is available through a TempleInstitute.org online .pdf file (link) if anyone is interested.

Whether or not the current edifices (Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque) are destroyed during the fulfillment of Psalm 83 is beside the point made above about Muslims finally recognizing YHWH God, the God of Israel. Given that the generation of Muslims which wrote that the identity of the site of the Dome of the Rock with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute, how likely would it be that any YHWH worshiping former Muslim would object to a new Temple standing on this same site for the purposes of worshiping "the existing One; the El-yōn'?  None I would say, or at least not enough to make a difference in objection. In fact, I would tend to think those former Muslims which are now YHWH devotees would even assist their Jewish cousins in any manner possible to construct it as quickly as possible.