Bible prophecy reveals that the Jewish temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem (on the Temple Mount) as a key component of the end-times treaty with Israel. Now a leading Jewish rabbi says everything is ready to rebuild the temple today.

The rabbi is Rabbi Nachman Kahane, who has guided many Jewish students of the Scriptures on the subject of the temple. In addition, he has been the main source of serious study and preparation to rebuild the Jewish temple.

How soon will the temple be rebuilt? Rabbi Yehuda Glick, the former head of the Temple Institute, says even the priestly garments are ready and the temple will stand in full operation very soon.

Where will it be rebuilt? Rabbi Chaim Richman, the leading authority on the red heifer, says the temple will be built on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Rebuilding the temple will be an important fulfillment of Bible prophecy. It will be integral to the seven-year (end-times) treaty with Israel. After all, the rebuilt temple shows up in Jesus' warning to His Jewish followers in Matthew 24:15 ("the holy place"); and it appears in Paul's revelation that the "man of sin" (a.k.a. the beast of Revelation) will enter into the temple (after killing God's two prophets) and set himself up to be worshipped as God. FULL POST

President Obama is
committed to a negotiated solution with Iran; the president himself indicated that
this week. This means, that, say what he will, the president does not have the
possibility of a military attack on the table. Instead, President Obama is
using sanctions in an attempt to lure Iranian leaders to the table for talks.

On
Monday, President Obama tightened
sanctions on Iran
by freezing property related to the Central Bank of Iran. However, because the
U.S. has sanctioned transactions with Iran for an entire decade, and because
has so few assets in America, these new measures
are unlikely to have much effect. So why is the president making such a
spectacle of these measures?

Consider
that this is an election year. Well, enough said about that.

Also
consider that it is widely known that the president does not want Israel to
launch a military strike on Iran. President Obama has sent a parade of
emissaries to Israel in recent weeks in an attempt to persuade Israeli leaders
from launching an attack, with no visible success. So, what could the president
do that would delay a strike by the Jewish state? He could introduce new
sanctions against Iran. FULL POST

On Monday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court struck down Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex marriages in California. In May of 2009, the California Supreme Court upheld proposition 8, while, at the same time, ruling that same-sex marriages convened prior to the acceptance of this constitutional amendment are legally binding. However, this week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the amendment by a 2-1 ruling, which will now send the challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A number of Christian leaders have spoken out against this Circuit Court ruling, and perhaps they should. However, too much vitriol on this, or any other issue, will not help the cause of evangelism.

In fact, it could be argued that the extreme focus on this issue, by the Christian community, serves as taking the Church down a rabbit trail away from fulfilling Jesus' call to make disciples. After all, Jesus did not call Christians to clean up society or make this world more moral. Instead, He issued the call to the Church to evangelize the world (Mark 16:15) and to help those who have believed in Jesus for eternal life to grow as His followers (cf. Matthew 28:18-20). In other words, He is calling us to help people prepare for the coming kingdom, which He will initiate at His return. FULL POST

The slaughter continues. Over the weekend, Syria's army unleashed a massacre on Homs, killing 350 and wounding 1,300.

Nearly a year ago, protestors began to call for change in Syria. President Bashar al-Assad responded by sending his forces to put down these protests by shooting into crowds and by imprisoning and torturing survivors. However, his tactics effectively poured gasoline on the fire, as protests massively grew across the nation. But Assad continued his gruesome tactic, which then spawned an epidemic of desertions from his military, providing the opposition movement armed soldiers. Thus, a civil war is now waging across Syria, and Assad is desperately seeking to hang onto power—and onto life itself.

Assad's troubles are heaping up. For example, last week, Syrian opposition leader Colonel Riyad al-As'ad declared that half of Syria is no longer under Assad's control. In addition, there is mounting pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down from Arab leaders. Furthermore, Syrian army defections are rising sharply. FULL POST

The big story in the news right now is that Israel could strike Iran this spring. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will launch a military strike against Iran in April, May or June.

The reason for the apparent nearness of this coming attack is that the Israelis fear that, very soon, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon — and only the United States could then stop them militarily. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want to leave the fate of the Jewish nation on American action. This is because Israeli leadership is far from convinced that the White House really intends to halt Iran's progress toward building a bomb.

Right now, according to Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon, all of Iran's nuclear facilities are currently vulnerable to a military strike. But Iran is seeking to enter into a "zone of immunity" to protect its nuclear program. Defense Secretary Panetta believes "there is strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran" before Iran can accomplish this. FULL POST

Belief in God is on the rise in Israel. More than 80 percent of Israeli Jews believe in God, as discovered from a survey by the Guttman-Avi Chai foundation. This same survey also found that over 70 percent of Israeli Jews accept the Biblical principle that the Jewish people have been "chosen" by God for a specific prophetic destiny. Seventy-one percent of respondents said they want increased biblical studies in Israeli schools.

Moreover, statistics provided by Google showed Israelis search for Jesus more than 25,000 times per month. They do so, not by the name "Jesus," but by the Hebrew equivalent, "Yeshua," which makes this fact even more fascinating. For it shows they are not looking for the American Jesus; instead, they are searching for the Hebrew Jesus.

This spiritual interest among Israeli Jews is unprecedented. Since the Jewish nation achieved its modern statehood in 1948, it has never demonstrated such attraction to belief in God or the pursuit of information in the Hebrew Jesus. FULL POST

The Putin-led government signed a $550 million contract with Syria in December to provide 36 Yak-130 Mitten combat trainers to the Syrian government, which can serve as a heavily-armed ground attack and counterinsurgency aircraft. It is estimated that Russia has $5 billion in potential arms exports to Syria in the works, with this latest project aimed to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stay in power.

Thus, Russia is placing its bets on Assad's regime. However, regional experts do not see this as a good and wise bet. Why?

The fall of the Syrian regime could be imminent, as it appears momentum is picking up to turn Assad out of office. For example, within the past week, a Syrian intelligence general was killed by his own men when they refused to follow his order to shoot protesting citizens in the Syrian city of Hama. This follows an epidemic desertion of Assad's troops from his army to the rebel cause. FULL POST

Once upon a time, a tailor became very wealthy through diligence to his craft and, as a result, he became the object of envy by others and of great respect by many. As his long life drew to a close, he felt the desire to give the benefit of his secret to success to other tailors, so he invited them from all over to come at an appointed time to learn the great secret by which they, too, might become wealthy. A great many knights of the thimble responded to this seemingly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; and while they waited in anxious silence to hear the important revelation, he was raised up in his bed, and with his expiring breath uttered this brief and final statement: "Always put a knot in your thread."

That is certainly sage advice for any tailor, but grasping the basics is critical for success in any venture, including—and especially—the undertaking of understanding God's future plan. One "knot in the thread" for understanding Bible prophecy is the realization that Israel is at the very center of God's epic plan. This has certainly been true in the past. God called Abraham to be the forefather of His special people, the Jews, and He promised through Abraham's descendants—Isaac, Jacob, etc.—that the Jewish nation would have a land, that the dimensions of that land would far exceed any possession Israel has yet had (cf. Genesis 15:18-21), and that the Messiah would rule from Jerusalem while Israel would be highly favored by God and the world, while at complete peace and security from any enemies. FULL POST

With recent explosions taking the lives of scientists working on Iran's nuclear program, the average lifespan of an Iranian nuclear scientist is quickly growing ever shorter. A number of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear process—Iranian, North Korean, and Russian—have been killed within the past year by explosions. Recently, another Iranian nuclear scientist was added to the list by being killed in an explosion.

Five Russian scientists, who were working at an Iranian nuclear facility, were killed in 2011 in an airplane explosion, as they were heading back to Russia. The North Korean scientists were killed by an explosion at a steel mill which made steel to be used in the uranium enrichment process. The source of this latest one was a magnetic car bomb planted on the car by a motorcyclist.

Is this all coincidence? If you believe it is, then you probably also believe in the likelihood of a tornado whipping through a junkyard and, by chance, creating a Boeing 747.

Many see the stamp of Israel (and possibly the U.S., in support) in these incidents. (After all, there is a working assumption that Israel knows who is involved in Iran's nuclear program and how to find them.) If so, this latest occurrence could be added to faulty materials sold to the Iranians for the centrifuges in the enrichment process and to the high-powered Stuxnet computer virus which affected the operation of the centrifuges. FULL POST

Suddenly, formerly pro-Arab Greece appears to be very pro-Israel. On Tuesday, Greece and Israel pledged to increase defense cooperation. So, what is behind this? It appears that economics may be the answer. Greece is essentially broke and spiraling downward economically, while Israel's financial state looks exceedingly good.

But beyond that, Greece is a typical European nation that is dependent on foreign oil and natural gas providers, while Israel has an abundance of both, thanks to discoveries in the past three years. In fact, it has been estimated that Israel has more oil shale than does Saudi Arabia. In addition, the Jewish nation has two massive natural gas deposits. Greece has a keen interest in participating with its traditional Greek ally Cyprus, which has made a deal with Israel to develop the undersea gas deposits in the Mediterranean.

With the increase in natural disasters (the U.S. government reports that 2011 was a record-breaking year in total cost brought about by the assault of disasters in America), the world's focus on Israel, the fixation by world leaders on a regional treaty with the Jewish nation, the race by Iran toward a nuclear apocalypse, the Arab Spring, and the global financial crisis, many are wondering if 2012 may be the year when the world as we know it may end. While the Bible does not follow the Mayan calendar, the current alignment of key events could indicate the beginning of fulfillment of end-times prophecy—very soon. FULL POST