“He will pitch his royal tents between the seas at the beautiful holy Mountain. Yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.” (Daniel 11:45)
From the year 1516 AD for 400 years the Turkish Ottoman Empire ruled over Jerusalem until the British forces under General Allenby liberated the city from Turkish Ottoman domination at the end of WW1. It was a devastating blow to Turkish Ottoman Power that had maintained dominion in the Middle-East or over 600 years. In 1922 the Turkish Ottoman caliphate was abolished in the following year 1923 when Turkey was declared a republic by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938), an army officer who founded the independent Republic of Turkey. Added to this Ataturk changed the Hagia Sofia into a Museum further distancing Turkey from its Turkish Ottoman influence.
Today the Hagia Sofia, originally the Vatican of Eastern Orthodox Christendom before it was turned into a mosque by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, is now a Mosque once again at the behest of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has clearly revealed his desire to see the resurrection of the Turkish Ottoman Caliphate with himself as the supreme Caliph of the Islamic world. To the mindset of Turkish Ottoman ideology Jerusalem was the key prize for the establishment of Islam which for centuries had been at war with the Jews and Christians.
The man from Turkey has also been building many Mosques in Turkey and upping the ante on the persecution of Christians in that nation. From his rhetoric in the past concerning the so called ‘liberation’ of Jerusalem for the Muslims world-wide he clearly reveals his agenda to have the whole city of Jerusalem under Ottoman rule once again with himself as the new Caliph of a resurrected Ottoman Empire. If he can succeed in capturing Jerusalem then he may well be hailed as the Mahdi of Islam by Muslims around the world.
It is clear with his Ottoman mindset that by converting the Hagia Sofia into a Mosque once again he is declaring Islam superior to Judaism and Christianity and wanting to show the whole world the resurgence of the Ottoman power of the past. He also wants Jerusalem and the Temple Mount precinct. He has no qualms either about Islamic migration onto Europe and has supported it. There is no doubt he is on a quest to see Turkish Ottoman Power control the Middle-East and even Europe if the truth be known, but more so Israel. This is what he is up to. While the Ottoman Turks invaded much of Europe they were never able to take Rome.
Of course the Vatican, being the ‘Hagia Sofia’ of western Christendom, would also be a great prize for the ascendency of Turkish Ottoman power in Europe. Through refuges and migration from Muslim countries into Europe Islam has already been established in most European nations. It is the Islamic ‘Trojan Horse’ within Europe and spreading to other western democracies. So the man from Turkey wants Jerusalem. This is his ultimate goal.
Now in Daniel Chapter 11:45 we are told that the man of sin will magnify himself to be God or a ‘god’ over everything that is worshipped as god or called god. (Vs. 36) He will also sit in God’s temple to proclaim himself to be God. (2 Thessalonians 2: 4) Daniel tells us that this man of sin “will pitch his royal tents between the seas at the beautiful holy mountain.” The beautiful holy mountain refers to the city of Jerusalem but more so refers to Mt Zion upon which the former Temple was built in the city of David. To the west of Israel you have the Mediterranean Sea, which makes up the majority of Israel’s coastline, and the Gaza Strip. Then you have to the east the Dead Sea. So the two seas would have to be The Mediterranean and the Dead Sea.
There are some within wider prophetic circles who are now saying that the reconverting of the Hagia Sofia back into a Mosque at the behest of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who himself was leading prayers in the Mosque that this fulfils 2 Thessalonians 2: 4. However, the beautiful holy mountain (The real Mt Zion) is not located in Turkey, even though Turkey lies between two seas being the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. What we do see with the man from Turkey leading prayers in the Hagia Sofia, is a foreshadowing or harbinger of what will happen in Jerusalem and within wider Christendom for that matter.
It is highly likely that the Man from Turkey will want to sit on his throne in God’s Temple in Jerusalem once it has been rebuilt. He will magnify himself over every other so called ‘god’ and proclaim himself to be God or the chief ‘god’ among other ‘gods.’ With this mindset he will want to be worshipped as God. When this happens in Israel the man of sin will also be worshipped within wider Christendom by many because God’s Temple is not just the Temple in Jerusalem but also refers to the living Temple made up of living stones (people) (1 Peter 2:5).
When we see the apostasy, now in full-swing within wider Christendom, with its ecumenism and interfaith associations, with the rise of many false prophets and teachers displaying all kinds of counterfeit miracles signs and wonders, we know that these things are paving the way for the man of sin to invade God’s ‘Temple’ and that many will be spiritually deceived. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)
As yet the third temple is still to be built and even if it is built on the current site of the supposed Temple Mount, it will not be the Temple that God will raise up in the millennial kingdom on the real site of Mt Zion in the City of David. Would God build His temple on a site where a mosque now stands that has inscribed on its inner wall that “God has no son?” Selah…
Now notice in Daniel 11:45 we are also told what will ultimately happen to this man of sin; “yet he will come to his end and no one will help him.” The Messiah will personally see to it! (Revelation 19:19-20). From other passages of scripture the man of sin’s kingdom will be terminated at Jerusalem and his armies and those of other nations that have, attacked Jerusalem, judged and killed on the mountains of Israel. (Ezekiel 38:18-23; 39:1-14) (Joel 3:1-3) (Zechariah 12:2-5; 1-13) These armies of the nations will all go down into the pit of Hades in wholesale lots to join the man of sin there, and the nations mentioned by name are all Islamic today (Ezekiel 32:18-32).
The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus and the establishment of his Messianic kingdom on earth, is that great “Rock” or “Boulder”, not cut out by human hands, that Daniel describes in his vision in Daniel Chapter two. This boulder or huge rock that smashes Nebuchadnezzar’s statue all-together and at once represents the empire of the man of sin and the other nations associated with his empire. All of the kings of ancient Babylon were types of the man of sin.
After this “rock” or “boulder,” representing the Messiah’s Kingdom, has smashed all opposition, it will fill the whole earth. After this, the Messianic Kingdom established on earth by the Messiah Himself will commence. He will co-reign with His saints from Mt Zion in the City of David over the nations of the world that have survived the Time of the Big Trouble. (Daniel 2:32-35) (Zechariah 14:16-21) (Isaiah 2:1-5) (Revelation 5:9-10) If you are a born again, blood washed, blood redeemed and blood protected believer in the Lord Jesus, you will have a royal seat at His Inauguration!
