For decades, politicians and evangelical preachers have insisted that the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of prophecy. And they excitedly anticipate the building of another temple in Jerusalem.
But are these developments actually prophetic? Or is this theology a massive and deadly deception?
About 7 in 10 (69 percent) of evangelicals say the modern nation of Israel was formed as result of biblical prophecy.
Not Prophetic
The Bible did indeed prophesy that the Israelites would lose possession of their land and then be resettled in their land.
But these prophecies were already fulfilled in the Bible times when the Jews were taken into Babylonian captivity and later returned to their land under the leadership of Nehemiah and Ezra.
Could the prophecies about resettlement of the land be fulfilled twice? Is it possible that the founding of the state of Israel of 1948 was also prophetic?
No. And here’s why.
The foundational prophetic text on this is Deuteronomy 30. God tells Israel here that they will be taken away then be brought back. But the resettlement of the people in the land was conditional upon their obedience and repentance,
“for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they did not know and that He had not given to them. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against this land, to bring on it every curse that is written in this book. And the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’”
“Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live” (Deuteronomy 29:26-28, 30:1-6)
Don’t miss that point. In order for a resettlement of the land to be a prophetic fulfillment, the Jews would need to have returned to the Lord.
Did the Jews as a nation, as the state was being founded in 1948, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah and Savior?
Sadly, no. There was no national returning to God that validated this settlement as being a fulfillment of prophecy.
Third Temple
Are the efforts toward establishing a third temple in Israel prophetic? Does the Bible prophesy a third temple?
This one shouldn’t take long. Let’s do a comprehensive Bible study on every verse in the Bible that prophesies a third temple.
That’s it. We’re done. There aren’t any verses predicting a third temple.
The Deception
This part is one of the strangest developments. It is Christians of all people who are wanting a new Jewish temple to be built. Evangelicals actually want animal sacrifices to return! Have they forgotten that Jesus is our sacrifice?
Forgive the indignation, but why on planet earth would Christians get excited about such a blasphemous denial of the sacrifice of Christ!?
The temple system expired after Jesus said: “Your house is left unto you desolate.” (Matthew 23:38)
And He predicted its destruction: “There shall not be left one stone upon another.” (Mark 13:2)
Did Jesus ever yearn for a “miracle of the re-establishment of the temple on the Temple Mount,” as it has been said by at least one evangelical Christian in the foreign policy establishment? No.
There is, however, a miracle of God happening for us in the true tabernacle:
“Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man” (Hebrews 8:1-2).
Satan's scheme here is clearly to redirect people from the solemn heavenly judgment scene in the temple in heaven – among the most vital of prophetic truths for this time – to a prophetic fiction about a third temple.
The True Temple – In Heaven and on Earth
This judgment in the true temple is an awesome scene upon which we ought to dwell!
“Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail” (Revelation 11:19).
“A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, And the books were opened” (Daniel 7:10).
As far as a temple on this earth - that’s a real thing too. The New Testament teaches that the true temple is the people of God, themselves.
“In whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21–22).
Peter adds:
“You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5).
And Paul again says plainly: “You are the temple of the living God” (2 Corinthians 6:16).
Where does the living God dwell upon this earth today? Not in a physical temple. The New Testament clearly teaches that the church is the temple upon this earth. Earthly temples are history.
Prophetic Confusion
Virtually all of Protestant Christianity, utilizing the simple, historicist understanding of Bible prophecy, once knew the identity of the beast power of Revelation 13 – that man of sin, antichrist, or little horn power. Without being politically correct, they identified these prophetic entities as Papal Rome, no apologies made.
And none of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation saw any prophetic significance in a potential third temple or a Zionist movement to reconstitute national Israel. Regardless of one’s opinion about the Israel controversies of our day, these developments are strictly modern inventions, fanciful prophetic fiction, and the geopolitical machinations of man.
Israel-centered prophetic misinterpretations flow from the theology of John Nelson Darby in the nineteenth century. They spread further through The Scofield Reference Bible (1909), then through The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), and finally through the Left Behind series (1995–2007). Through these influences, dispensational—often sensational—interpretations have largely taken over evangelical thinking on prophecy.
Israel-centered futurist prophetic interpretation (along with the rapture) is probably the biggest prophetic deception of our time.
So, let us, with Bible in hand, lovingly help our evangelical brothers and sisters, 70% of whom are misguided on this, to look to the Bible and the Bible only as our prophetic guide through the deceptions of these last days.
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Scott Ritsema is the founder and director of Belt of Truth Ministries and Media on the Brain. He lives in Lakeview Michigan with his wife Cami and three amazing children!
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