A House of Gold

The spot on which the temple was built had long been regarded as a consecrated place. It was here that Abraham, the father of the faithful, had revealed his willingness to sacrifice his only son in obedience to the command of Jehovah.

Here God had renewed with Abraham the covenant of blessing, which included the glorious Messianic promise to the human race of deliverance through the sacrifice of the Son of the Most High. See Genesis 22:9, 16-18. Here it was that when David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings to stay the avenging sword of the destroying angel, God had answered him by fire from heaven. See 1 Chronicles 21.” Solomon’s temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and a second temple was rebuilt five hundred years before Christ.

It was inferior to the first and did not contain the visible tokens of God’s presence. “The excellent construction of the building gave assurance that it would withstand the elements indefinitely. The city of Jerusalem itself was held to be, for all practical purposes, impregnable, but Jesus predicted that it would be destroyed by force.” “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:1, 2).

The prophecy came true in AD 70.

The Roman general Titus had tried to save the building from destruction following his siege of Jerusalem. But Jews, using the building as a fortress, attacked the Roman soldiers one night and during the fight a firebrand was thrown into the building.

The cedar walls immediately caught fire and gold ran down into the spaces between stones. “That magnificent structure fell. Angels of God were sent to do the work of destruction, so that one stone was not left one upon another that was not thrown down.” God’s prophecies always come true (Amos 3:7; Micah 3:10–12).