Question: Why do so many focus on Trump and America in regard to Israel?

Question: Why do so many focus on President Trump and America in regards to Israel? I am expecting all nations to turn against Israel, but others seem to think America is the answer to Israel’s problems. I have quite a few of your books (Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon) and have been getting your newsletter for many years. I’m not swayed by these kinds of ideas, but I am bewildered at what is being promoted. Building the Third Temple? I know some are working on breeding red heifers, too.

Response:Some may consider America and President Trump to be the answer to Israel’s problems, but Scripture has another view. In Joel:3:2I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
See All..., the prophet writes, “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land [emphasis added].”

“All nations” must include the United States (if it still exists at that time). So, while Trump’s administration and possibly Vance’s (if he is elected) may grant some time for Israel to build a Third Temple, 2 Thessalonians:2:1-5 [1] Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, [2] That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. [3] Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; [4] Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. [5] Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
See All... tells us: “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?”

As to “the man of sin” (the Antichrist), there has to be a Third Temple existing for the desecration of “the temple of God” to take place. Further, we are reminded that in the Olivet discourse, Jesus prophesied, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place…Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains…. For then shall be great tribulation…” (Matthew:24:15-21 [15] When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) [16] Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: [17] Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: [18] Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. [19] And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! [20] But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: [21] For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
See All...).

As we have noted, there are a growing number of “Bible teachers” who spiritualize these words of Jesus and them, for one example, to speak of the event or personage as symbolic of something else. Nevertheless, Jesus’ Jewish listeners clearly understood His Words quite literally. Indeed, they would point to an almost identical event when Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), the king of Syria, captured Jerusalem in 167 BC and desecrated the temple by offering the sacrifice of a pig on an altar to Zeus (the Abomination of Desolation). The Words of Jesus are easily recognized as predicting a repetition of what Antiochus did, and to do so, there must be a real physical temple in Jerusalem at the End of Days.