One that calls for a response

Rabbi Chaim Richman, director of the Temple Institute of Jerusalem said: “Tisha B’Av was not intended to be a day of perpetual mourning, but rather, a bridge to the future; the yearning and desire which our mourning inspires is designed to motivate us to rebuild, … “we hear many excuses, such as ‘who are we to rebuild the Temple? We are not ready. The time has not yet come. The Temple is a thing of the past.’”… “The renewal of Israel and the building of the Holy Temple is a process that has begun and is now unstoppable … This nation is preparing to ‘rise up like a lion’ (Numbers 23:24). We are moving ever closer to the day on which we can truly say, without jaded cynicism or facetiousness but with true sincerity, that Tisha B’Av is no longer relevant, for it will have turned into a day of gladness.”

God says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the he house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored’ I am with you says Yahweh…. So Yahweh stirred up the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They began to work on the house of Yahweh Almighty.”… “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way for the day [of the LORD] will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed , the man doomed to destruction. He opposes and exalts himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped and even sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” [Haggai 1:7, 14; II Thessalonians 2:3-4].

The Jerusalem Connection says: There’s good news and bad news. The good news is there is a growing acceptance among Jews, and especially Israelis, for the building of the third Temple in Jerusalem. It is a fact of the prophetic future. It will happen. The Bible says so. And we can rejoice with our Jewish elder brothers that it will happen. Of course for followers of Jesus as Messiah it will never take the place of the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lamb of God for the sins of the world. The bad news is, shortly after it is built, The Man of Sin (the anti-Messiah) will irreparably defile and desecrate the rebuilt Temple so that Messiah, when he comes, will have to totally destroy it. But there’s more good news. When Messiah comes he will set up his Kingdom on earth and there will be no need for a Temple then, “because Yahweh God Almighty and the Lamb are its Temple.”… “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’” [Revelation 21:22; 22:20].