Sept 5

Ezekiel's visions of the Temple. Trying to explain all this will be a bit like trying to understand the book of Revelation. If you have followed my blog for any time you know I rarely come down on one school of thought and get dogmatically tied it. Even if I did, I don't see it as my role to convince you of any theories that I 'like'. But I like to throw out some ideas and point you in the direction of some theories that I think are valid and have you learn more on your own.

Here are the main points as I see them: this is a real temple (in the future, it doesn't match anything that has ever been), not just a figurative one (hense all the measurements etc). Israel, as you may have heard me mention has been in the planning stages of building a 3rd temple for quite some time. They have the furnishings, the priests, the garments etc. What they don't have is 'real estate' a place to build it (Temple Mount is of course under the control of the Muslims) and they don't have a red heifer which is required for temple worship (that's a whole different topic- they have been close a couple times, but then the heifer sprouted a white hair here or there and was disqualified). I do believe that Israel may experience some degree of success in building this 3rd Temple and that it is all tied in with prophesies related to the Anti-Christ. But the temple described in Ezekiel seems to be far beyond what could be accomplished in earthly terms and leads me to believe that it is describing something that will be present in the millenium (1000 year reign) after Christ's Second Coming. I've also heard it said of Ezekiel's temple that it will be built at Shiloh a few miles from Jerusalem where the Tabernacle of Moses stood for 369 years. We should be learning more about this temple from other minor prophets and then maybe we will be able to make conclusions. Until then, we will learn together. If anyone has other theories they know of or have heard, feel free to share.