Recently I have been watching videos produced by the YouTube channel, Temple Mount Report. As a pre-millennialist, futurist, and Zionist I believe in the restoration of the Temple on the Temple Mount. While I understand the arguments of Christians who say that the Epistle to the Hebrews bans future sacrifices, I do not accept those arguments. I believe that third Temple will be a true House of Prayer when Christ rules from Jerusalem in the Millennium.
Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. The Lord God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.
-Isaiah 56:7-8
The Lord has done a marvellous thing in recent years. President Trump, whom many consider to be a Cyrus figure, declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and moved the American embassy there. (I was ashamed that the UK did not do this, but it is my prayer that one day we will under a righteous government.) I believe that America, who has been such a friend to Israel, will one day help her to rebuild the Temple. The contributions from Gentiles to the funds of groups that work for the restoration of the Temple is itself a wonderful thing, a kind of fulfilment of prophecy about the nations contributing to the restoration of Israel.
In the New Testament, the Temple is used in various metaphors to describe the Christ, the Church, and individual believers. Just as the stone Temple was a residence for the Shekinah, so the Holy Spirit lives in believers as a pledge-payment for the resurrection, and in the community of Christians. The Temple was sanctified, set apart from God, and so are we called to be. Attacks on the Temple were attacks on God, and so attacks on Christians and on the Church as a whole are attacks on God.
The Bible also uses women as metaphors for God’s people. In exploring the library of prophetic words at Richard’s Watch, I came across one on the Parable of the Wheat and Tares, using the Bible’s women metaphors: http://www.colinwinfield.co.uk/assets/PDFs/The%20Separation%20Of%20The%20Harlot%20%20Bride.pdf
Readers of my eschatology blogposts may know that some years back I wrote two posts on the difficulty of interpreting the vision of Mystery Babylon in Revelation 17 and 18. We frequently discuss the current problems besetting the institutional churches on this blog: the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church (Orthodoxy has been mentioned little in this regard here at AATW). Perhaps the time has come to think more earnestly about whether this is Wheat and Tares territory and what that really means for us in prayer and practical steps.
All Along the Watchtower 
Many thanks for your kind cross-reference Nicholas and for digging deeply into my blog’s Library for I’d almost forgotten that excellent vision recorded 26 years ago by Colin Winfield.
The current ripening of the ‘wheat and poisonous darnel’ has featured in a few recent prophetic words, as may be found at https://richards-watch.org/?s=Tares&submit=Search
Events relating to the EU and its Western European Alliance’s attempts to establish an army have got me reconsidering discredited claims of Dispensational eschatologists in late 20th Century that ‘Mystery Babylon’ is the modern empire set up through The Treaty of Rome.
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Many thanks for the link, Richard. I’ve been rethinking Babylon and the Beast too. When I first became a Christian in my teens, someone I knew pointed me to pre-trib resources and I became a pretribber, believing the Beast was the revived Roman Empire and Babylon was the Roman Catholic Church. Since then, I came across the Islamic Antichrist theory and abandoned those views, becoming pre-wrath, and believing the Beast was a revived Caliphate and Babylon was Saudi Arabia. I’m still pre-wrath, but I’m wondering if the Beast and Babylon are not as simple as I originally thought.
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Agree and JR’s thesis has certain merits, especially when we realise ‘Da’sh’ has the meaning of ‘trample/crush underfoot’, thus aligning with description of the 4th beast at Dan 7:23.
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PS. Imho, many theologians naturally assume a direct, literal interpretation of visions but these often have a highly symbolic element as they’re conveying situations existing in the spiritual realm that have potential for manifesting here on earth. In other words, there’s a need to be aware of necessity of ‘decoding’ too.
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I’ve been thinking a little in that direction about how power will be transferred to the saints: a literal fulfilment at the Parousia makes sense, but maybe there is a prior fulfilment in various countries as people start turning to Christians for answers and help rather than the conventional institutions of our society: e.g. healing services not NHS; church mediation rather than law courts; etc.
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‘Holy Spirit’s seed thoughts’ Nicholas? Both are, imho, part of the greater whole, which may feature within the eventual great revival foreseen by Smith Wigglesworth.
Christian International Europe (Revd Dr Sharon Stone) already has your first point in hand as her principle purpose for prophetic office is that of providing solutions for society, in addition to one-on-one prophetic gifting in being applied in our ordinary lives and ‘in the street’!
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