This past week marked the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem. President Donald Trump tells the story that he was told that the construction would cost a billion dollars and take at least 5-10 years. Trump explains how he made it happen with a few hundred thousand dollars and only three months to erect.
My point of invoking this story is that many students of prophecy have this notion that prophetic events in Jerusalem need to take a long time, not that this is a specific prophetic event. But a good example of this is thinking that the 70th-week-of-Daniel temple will be some large, Solomonic temple that will take years to build. However, Paul mentioning the future temple in 2 Thess 2 uses the Greek term naos, which refers to a temple that will likely be a tent-like structure that could be erected in a matter of days or weeks. I talk at more length on this point in my book Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord.
The moral of the story is: be spiritually ready now. When these key prophetic events begin to be fulfilled, they will happen rapidly. Those who are not prepared will be caught off guard and susceptible to the temptations to apostatize. “But if that evil slave should say to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time’ . . . ” (Matt 24:48).
