This week, John Shorey will be back with us to discuss the timing of the Lord’s return. I think it’s the right time to share with you my studies on this topic.

To me, Revelation 11 is one of the most exciting chapters in the Bible, because I am convinced that we see the Second Coming in these verses! The chapter begins with some strange instructions for John to measure the temple (11:1–2). The prophet Ezekiel was directed to do something similar after God’s people had been taken captive and exiled in Babylon (Ezekiel 40–43). What’s the purpose of these measurements? In Ezekiel, I believe God was reminding His people that the temple belonged to Him and it would be preserved. I think that same message underlies these initial verses in Revelation 11.

I believe the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem. The temple was destroyed in AD 70, about twenty-five years before John wrote the book of Revelation. There’s evidence today that many Jews are preparing for the temple’s reconstruction and preparing to worship there (see The Temple Institute). Because the Antichrist will secure peace in Israel, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the Antichrist may help or encourage the Jews to rebuild the temple.

Interestingly, John was told to “leave out the court which is outside the temple” from his measurements (Revelation 11:2). The outer court of the original temple was known as the court of the Gentiles. There were three other courts in the temple area: the court of women, the court of the Israelites, and the court of the priests. Within the latter was a special area known as the Holy of Holies, where the presence of God resided in a special way. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, once a year, on the Day of Atonement.

The idea of the various courts emphasized the separation and exclusivity of certain groups as well as a separation of the holy from the profane, with the people outside the courts excluded. That’s why, when Jesus was crucified and paid the price for our sins, the veil of the temple was torn, indicating that there was no longer any separation between God and people, that the way into God’s presence was open to all. John was instructed to measure the courts in preparation, I believe, for the building of another temple, but the instructions also included a dire warning: the court of the Gentiles, the area outside the temple, would be given to the Gentiles—that is, people who are not Jews—to use for three and a half years: “They will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months” (11:2).

According to God’s previous commands, the temple was to be built on Mount Moriah, the place where Abraham prepared to offer his son Isaac to God. That site creates a problem, because the Temple Mount is the site today of the Dome of the Rock, the second most revered shrine in the Muslim religion. Could it be that the new temple will be built on land adjacent to an Islamic shrine? If so, there would be no need to measure the outer court, so that may be why the outer court was excluded in the instructions to John.

Asher Kaufman, a professor of physics at Hebrew University, says the temple site is twenty-six meters from the Dome of the Rock, which means the new temple could be built on its ancient location without disturbing the Muslim shrine. Why is that important? Well, if the Muslim world suspected that Christians or Jews had any intention to destroy their sacred site, a holy war unlike anything we have ever seen would follow. But if the Jewish temple could be built without disturbing the Dome of the Rock, Muslims would be perceived as gracious and benevolent neighbors, despite Islam’s antipathy to Christianity and Judaism.