Calvary Baptist Church of Waterbury, CT

The Third Temple - Rev. 11:1-2

Mar 14, 2021    Dr. Craig P. Scott

The site where the Temple mount sits is the same place Abraham 4000 years ago met with a priest of the true God named Melchisedec (Genesis 14, Hebrews 5-7). A few years later, Abraham went to this site to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice, but God provided, a ram for him to offer instead (Genesis 22).
The First Temple: Approximately 1000 years later, in 988 BC, King David purchased this same site from a local resident named Ornan (1 Chronicles 21.) Twelve years after that, in 975 BC, King Solomon dedicated the First Jewish Temple. Both the Tabernacle and the Temple were built according a pattern revealed by God. Both were blessed with the presence of the Shechinah Glory.
The Second Temple was built in 516 BC by the returning Jews from their Babylonian captivity. It was modest in comparison to the 1st Temple, causing those who remembered the 1st Temple to weep. Unlike the Tabernacle and the First Temple, the Second Temple did not begin with a manifestation of the Shechinah Glory. But Haggai’s prophecy makes clear that the glory that was once part of the First Temple will come in a greater way to this Second Temple. Zerubbabel’s Temple was later razed and enlarged by Herod the Great beginning around 20 BC and lasted for 46 years. It was destroyed by the Romans on the 9th of Av, in 70 AD.
Nineteen hundred and fifty-one years after the Second Temple was destroyed, the Jewish people are still without a temple. Today, there are many speculations as to when the Third Temple would be built, but to date, this has not happened.