We are told in a news report that an asteroid is on a possible collision course with the earth. Here is a link to the article:
Asteroid update issued as ‘city-destroying’ space rock continues towards Earth
I thought upon another ‘star’, and its devastating collision with the earth, when I read this report.
“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter,” Revelation 8:10-11.
The news article reports that scientists, who are following the course of this asteroid, estimate the date of a possible, and that word is to be emphasised, collision with the earth, in 2032. Were it to hit the earth, it is again estimated by the scientists that the impact would be 500 times more destructive than the explosion at Hiroshima in 1945, when the Americans dropped an atom bomb upon the Japanese city, in order to force the Japanese to surrender.
Illustration
This news item is most illustrative of the glorious event of the second coming of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Few are aware of the approach of this asteroid. Indeed, this article might be the first you have heard of it! In like manner, few, even amongst Christians, are aware of the signs of the nearing of the Saviour’s return. This is a time of ‘slumbering and sleeping’ (Matthew 25:5) instead of watching and waiting (1 Thessalonians 5:6)!
However, as 2032 looms nearer, I am sure that virtually all mankind will be aware of this event and, depending upon what further news the scientists tracking this asteroid publish, might well be filled with trepidation and fear.
This is how it will be as the second advent draws near and signs of that event become more obvious to those who have been indifferent and careless about eternal matters. Hear what the Saviour says.
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory,” Luke 21:25-27.
Bible
The Bible says that at the close of this age, when the Lord causes the third of seven trumpets to sound, a ‘great star’, a celestial body, will strike the earth with most serious consequences.
Do I believe that this great rock, estimated to be some 200 feet in diameter and codified as ‘2024 YR4’, is the ‘star’ referred to in Revelation 8:10?
I simply have no idea!
But some things I do know are suggested by this item of news about the matter prophesied in our text.
I. AS A STAR HERALDED THE FIRST ADVENT OF CHRIST, WE ARE TOLD A STAR WILL HERALD HIS SECOND ADVENT.
There are very significant differences in the circumstances surrounding the sighting of the two stars.
1. The first star was seen by very few. The wise men from the east alone were able to say, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him,” Matthew 2:2.
The enquiries of the wise men created disturbance in the court of Herod and in all Jerusalem. “When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him,” verse 3’
It is obvious that Jerusalem had not seen the ‘star’. That is because the Saviour’s first advent was a quiet affair! We read of the news of His birth spreading slowly and judiciously.
Before the visit of the wise men, there was the informing of the humble shepherds.
“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger,” Luke 2:8-12.
Humble shepherds found the Saviour in very humble surroundings as a result of a heavenly announcement.
That is the story of the gospel!
It is ONLY the humble who hear of the location of the Saviour in this age through the testimony of believers. “I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad,” Psalm 34:1-2.
The ‘location’ of the Saviour has ever been a ‘humble’ unappealing place in the opinion of men! The followers of the “meek and lowly Jesus, the Lamb of God”, have ever met in places that men deemed ‘lowly’. Pretentious church buildings speak of men seeking to accrue honour to themselves but it was not so with the Saviour in His birth or in the early days of the gospel!
2. The second star will be seen by millions! By 2032, the world will be watching for this asteroid!!
Such a scene, as is depicted in Revelation 8:10-11, is indicative of the return of Christ. He will not come secretively, as He did to Bethlehem’s manger, but in a display of power and great glory.
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other,” Matthew 24:29-31.
“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen,” Revelation 1:7.
What a day that will be!
3. The first star was a harbinger of mercy, but not the second star! As the angel of the Lord told the shepherds, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”
That is not the announcement of heaven at the second advent of Christ.
“And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God,” Revelation 14:13-19.
To die trusting in the Saviour is an immeasurable and eternal blessing but to die without Christ is to be cast into “the great winepress of the wrath of God”!
Mercy today is extended to men and women and the young, to obey the gospel and call upon the Lord to be pardoned from their sins, washed in the precious atoning blood of Christ and be saved.
II. THE STAR IN OUR TEXT IS BUT A TOKEN OF THE APPROACHING WRATH OF GOD’S JUDGMENT ON WICKED MEN.
1. The three-fold series of events, the opening of the seven seals, the sounding of the seven trumpets and the pouring out of the seven last plagues, all take place, if I might give my opinion, during the final three and a half years of this age. This is the period of the ‘great tribulation’. It is that time when Antichrist will reign in Jerusalem and persecute the Jewish people with the intention of wiping them out.
That intention has been ‘mirrored’ many times in history. It has even been the objective of the devil through such agents of his as Pharaoh (Exodus 14:5), Haman the Agagite (Esther 3:8-11) and in modern times, the evil desire of Hitler and in these days, the devilish aspiration of Muslims allied with Iran.
2. It is the final manifestation of such wicked intentions toward His ancient and covenant people that will bring about God’s intervention to save the Jewish people and take vengeance upon His enemies. “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness. And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God. In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah. In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem,” Zechariah 12:2-9. It is the day of Israel’s restoration and salvation. “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. . . . In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land,” Zechariah 12:10, 13:1-2.
Dear reader, there are days of political upheavals coming to this world that will make the confusion and turmoil, within the financial circles of many nations following Donald Trump’s recent ‘tariff announcements’, mere splashes of a tiny pebble dropped in a puddle!
3. The consequences of the fall of the star is a bitter death for many. “The third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter”.
Scientists have been likening the possible striking of the earth by this asteroid, as being 500 hundred times more devastating than the bombing of Hiroshima. It is estimated that some 90,000–166,000 died as an immediate result of the bombing and many tens of thousands have died since from the effects of ration sickness.
There certainly was bitterness linked to the atomic bombing of Japan. That bombing was made necessary, it must be said, by the stubborn refusal of the Japanese leaders to recognise they were defeated and unable to continue the war, though they could have caused the death of hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers, were Japan to be invaded in order to end the war in the pacific!
III. IF AGAIN I MIGHT GIVE MY OPINION, I BELIEVE THE IMPACT OF THE STAR ‘WORMWOOD’ WILL BE UPON THE RIVERS WITHIN THE EMPIRE OF ANTICHRIST, THAT IS, THE GEOGRAPHICAL TERRITORY OF THE OLD ROMAN EMPIRE.
1. The ‘great tribulation’ is not a world-wide event but will be centred upon Jerusalem, the seat of the Antichrist and the outer reaches of his territory.
We are told in Revelation 13:1, that the ‘Beast’, one of the ignominious titles given by God to the Antichrist, arises “out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.”
That sea is the Mediterranean Sea, the ‘middle of the earth’ sea! It must ever be remembered that the territory which is the centre of the Bible’s revelation is Isreal and its neighbouring countries. The ‘world’ and the ‘earth’ of God’s Word is, in the majority of cases, the territories in the vicinity of the Mediterranean Sea. Here is an example of the use of the word ‘world’ when it obviously is used of a limited area.
“Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth,” Colossians 1:6. At the time when Paul wrote those words the gospel had only been preached within the vicinity of the Roman Empire.
That is the ‘world’ in which the activities of the Antichrist will be centred and it follows that it is the area that will chiefly feel the judgments of God upon the ‘man of sin’!
Ripples
It is true that there will be world-wide apostasy as depicted in prophecy and there will be a repeat, as it were, of the days of Noah, when “GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” Genesis 6:5.
But when it says that, “All the world wondered after the beast,” Revelation 13:3, the Greek word γῆ (ghay), first appears in the New Testament in a reference to the land of Judah. “And thou Bethlehem, in the land (γῆ ) of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel” Matthew 2:6.
Yes, the whole world may ‘marvel at and admire’ the Antichrist. His wickedness will create ripples to the very ends of the earth, but not all nations will worship the ‘beast’. That will be confined to the peoples of his empire.
2. That worship will be centred in Jerusalem. Paul states in 2 Thessalonians 2:4:
“Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”
The Jewish people have already laid plans for the rebuilding of the temple and restoring the ceremonial activities within it.
The ‘Internet’ is filled with reports of that preparation. Not all are to believed but without doubt, there is no ‘smoke without fire’, and there are such activities going on.
Visit
I recall a visit I paid to the The Temple Institute in Jerusalem in 2010, along with Dr John Douglas, my wife, Ann, both of whom have gone to be with the Lord, and my dear friends, Mr and Mrs Stephen Toms.
A Jewish member of staff, on hearing some Ulster accents, came forward and introduced himself as a Jew from Belfast who had moved to work in the Institute. Indeed, he shouted out, ‘How’s the craic?’, upon hearing our accents!
He was most informative about the preparations that are being made.
Webpage
On the Institute’s webpage, there is this introductory statement:
‘The Temple Institute has founded more than 30 years ago in the purpose of studying the various first and second Temple matters. Throughout the years, The Temple Institute has recreated vessles (Sic) that were used at the first and second Temples and they are ready to be used in the third Temple that will be built.’
There are models on display of many of the instruments and garments associated with Jewish temple worship.
There is an interesting video available on the site.
3. It is not the efforts and labours of men that will bring about the rebuilding of the third temple. No, God has revealed in prophecy that this will take and therefore we can be sure it will happen.
The Jews who are anxious to build a new temple have all sorts of reasons and deductions based upon those reasons, as to why a temple must be built again.
However, the Christian believes what God’s Word declares.
Paul speaks of the Antichrist as: “that man of sin . . . , the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God,” 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4. This, of course, will take place during the last three and a half years of his dominance.
Many, indeed it is likely correct to say most, of the orthodox commentators, forsake logic and reverence for the Word of God and regard for the truth of divine inspiration and declare the ‘temple’ spoken of here as the ‘Church’.
That is ‘spiritualising’ the truth of God and seeking to put words in the Lord’s mouth and have Him say what He does not!
This notion accords the Antichrist a place within the Church of Christ! Now, no man can be “in Christ” or in “His Church” who has not been born again, as Paul says! “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” 2 Corinthians 5:17.
This method of ‘interpreting the words of Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, would make the ‘Man of Sin’ a child of God!
Antichrist will no more be a child of God than was his predecessor, Judas Iscariot, the first ‘son of perdition’. Of him the Saviour said: “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled,” John 17:12.
No, when Scripture speaks of Antichrist sitting in “the temple of God”, it is a building that is referred to. The word “temple’ (Greek – ναός, nah-os) in its first use in the New Testament, is a reference to physical temple, Matthew 23:16.
Metaphorical
Where the word ‘temple’ is applied metaphorically, the context makes it very clear.
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are,” 1 Corinthians 3:16-17.
“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” 1 Corinthians 6:19.
“In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit,”Ephesians 2:21-22.
“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name,” Revelation 3:12.
Where there is a metaphorical use of the word ‘Temple’ it is made plain that is referring to a spiritual temple.
Paul speaks of the Antichrist sitting in a physical structure yet to be built in Jerusalem!
I believe that the planning by Orthodox Jewry is but one of those indications that “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” (James 5:8) and we ought to be patient and stablish our hearts!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
5th April 2025
(the 61st anniversary of my conversion to Christ)