The Ark and the Rebuilding of the Temple — Grant Jeffrey

The Bible as the Foundation of Absolute Truth

Told and amazed me. I am, as my wife could share with you, an intensely logical person. By nature a skeptic, I want to know the truth. I believe the truth will set you free. I do not believe in blind faith in Jesus Christ.

I believe faith is not a leap into the dark, but a leap into light, where we can know that we know that we know, not just based on feeling, yes, there's feeling and it's wonderful, but based on absolute truth, this book is the very word of God.

I can tell you that having studied all of the other religious literature of the world, that this Bible is different than any other book. It dares to declare on every page that it is the very word of God, and I hope by the end of today you will agree with me that it also dares and fulfills a proof that it is the word of God, because God does in this book what no man and not even Satan can do, and that is he prophesies and brings it to pass.

Isaiah chapter 46, 9 and 10, God says, I am God. There is none else. I am God. There is none like me, telling the end from the beginning, and from things that are not yet done, and saying my counsel shall stand.

I will do all my pleasure. God says, not only do I foreknow what will happen, but I will purpose it, and I will bring it to pass, and nobody can stop him. God is in control of history, and by the time you leave here tonight, I pray that you will understand that God truly holds this world in his hand, and he holds your life in his hand, and you can trust him, because he intensely cares about your life just as much as he does about the nation.

He has set throughout history appointments with destiny, and that is why I named my book Armageddon Appointments with Destiny. My study has revealed that God has declared his sovereignty and glory throughout human history by divinely appointing appointments with destiny for nations, for Israel, for individuals, and has brought them to pass, and thus manifest his glory.

He has put prophecy on almost every page of the Bible. There is hardly a book in the Bible that does not contain prophecy which has already been fulfilled or is in the process of being fulfilled now. If you want to understand why I believe that is a mark of God, let me share with you something very briefly.

Biblical Prophecy and the Limits of Human Prediction

Prophecy is something that is impossible for anyone, including Satan, to do accurately. It is simply impossible. When you read 10 top amazing psychic predictions, 10 amazing predictions for 1989, you know what that is worth?

It is excellent paper for wrapping fish innards in. It is absolute garbage. A study was done called The Shattered Crystal Ball, studying psychic prophecies from 1976, 1977, and 1978. They covered the top 10 amazing psychics and their predictions for three years.

Remember, these were not precise predictions such as, Ronald Reagan will be assassinated or have an attempted assassination attempt on such and such a day. Oh, no. Not like the Bible that precisely tells when something will happen to the day and names the participants and names who else will be involved and describes it in detail.

No, no. These psychics wanted to be much more careful. What they did is said someone close to the royal family will come near death or injury in the next few years. Now, since there is a good 50 members in the royal family and hangers-on would amount to hundreds, it is a fairly safe prediction.

If anybody stubs their toe or breaks a leg, they will say, see, I got it right. When you hear that Jeanne Dixon prophesied the assassination of Kennedy, garbage. She did no such thing. What she said is someone high in political office will come near death or injury or assassination sometime in the next few years.

And so, President Kennedy was fascinated and she said, after the fact, oh, you see, I predicted that. If only they had listened to me, then that would have been avoided. But God predicts precisely the things that will happen and brings in the past to the day.

And because it is impossible for man to do this, I believe that is an absolute signature of God upon the Bible. Why is that important? Because if the Bible is true, if the Bible contains an absolutely unmistakable mark that it is the word of God, then when it says what my eternal destiny is, I can believe it.

It isn't based on I hope it's so. It's not based on a childish experience when I was at a camp meeting at the age of seven. It is based on a foundation of truth that will stand when this universe no longer stands.

The word of God will say it is absolute foundation truth that you can rest your life in. I want to share with you this evening on a phenomenon called amazing biblical anniversary. And in my book, I devote three chapters to it.

I'll be the appointments with destiny. And I want to show you tonight. And I please would ask you if you have any friends or family that really wonder, is there absolute proof that God is the God of the Bible and that we can trust in him?

Please bring them out, because I want to share with you 40 major events in the history of Israel that have happened precisely to the day on biblical anniversaries. This phenomenon is so unparalleled in the history of the nations.

Not one other nation has anniversary events. England and Canada and America win World War One on November 11th. They do not win World War Two or the Korean War or every other war in the last 100 years on that day.

They win it on random days. We win against Europe in May. We win against Japan in August. And that's exactly what you'd expect to this 365 days in a year. But when you study the history of Israel, we'll find that God has so arranged history that every major event has happened on a biblical anniversary of Passover, Pentecost, Feast of Tabernacles, and Feast of Trumpets.

And this phenomenon is the most exciting thing I have seen in my study as a proof that God is in command of history. And folks, the anniversaries are still happening. There's more events still to come involving the second coming of Jesus Christ to set up an eternal kingdom.

And I believe there's a strong indication from prophecy that they too will happen, not on any old Tuesday, but on those precise prophetic anniversaries. And I want to share those with you tonight. This morning, I'd like to share with you something that has really thrilled me.

The Rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem

And that is the study about the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and the possible recovery of the lost Ark of the Covenant. You say, Grant, the recovery of the lost Ark, the rebuilding of the temple?

For 2000 years, the Temple Mount has not had a Jewish temple on it. How could that be? The Jews today, primarily in Israel, are not all that religious. About 15 consider themselves very religious. You couldn't find any Jews today, other than maybe 100, who really believe they should resume a temple sacrifice system with animals.

And yet the Bible prophesies just such a thing in our very near future. How could that be? Well, let's take a look at what the Bible has to say. This Bible that has been so accurate in so many other things.

And one of the prophecies I examined in my book is a prophecy of the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 4, where I showed that he predicted to the day when Israel would be reborn as a nation on May 14, 1948. And that prophecy shows that God's prophetic clock is still working.

But I want you to go with me to Micah, the prophet Micah, at the end of the Old Testament, chapter 4. And let's see what God says about whether there will be a temple in our future. Now, please understand, when I give you what the Bible is saying about what will happen on earth, we may be here to see it, or we may be in heaven to see it from there.

The rapture could occur before we complete this morning's service. The rapture could occur at any point. I believe the burden of Scripture indicates we could be here right up until the Antichrist appears to go into the rebuilt temple.

But when that occurs, we've already left. Somewhere between this morning and then, I believe God and his sovereignty will take the church home. I believe one of the things that's very clear from Scripture is that whenever God deals with Israel and the nations, he deals with them in terms of time, and he deals with them in terms of the land of Israel, the holy land, the most important piece of real estate in this universe, centered upon the most important part of Israel, which is Jerusalem, and the most important part of Jerusalem, which is the Temple Mount, and the most important part of the Temple Mount, the very Holy of Holies, where God said, my Shekinah glory will dwell with Israel.

All of the world is focused on that. If you had said this 100 years ago, people would have laughed. Yet over 50 of all the United Nations resolutions in the last three or four years have concerned this spot of territory, a piece of territory that would go between here and the Atlantic Ocean, a very insignificant piece of land in the world, and yet half of all the UN General Assembly resolutions concern Zionism, concern Israel, concern Jerusalem, concern the Arab-Israeli war.

This is the center of history. It is the center of prophetic futures as well. God says the temple that it was destroyed in 70 AD, almost 2 ,000 years ago, will have a place in our future. We may be here to see it built, or we may be in heaven, but it will be built.

Micah's Vision of the Messianic Temple and Kingdom

Micah 4, but in the last days. In the last days is a code in the Old and New Testament for the generation that just proceeds Armageddon when Christ comes to set up his kingdom. But in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and the people shall flow unto it.

The mountain of the house of the Lord is the entire temple mount area that contains the dome of the rock, and does contain the ancient site of the temple. That whole temple mount that you see in the pictures of Jerusalem is what the Jews called the mountain of the house of the Lord, and it says it will be established, including the house of the Lord, in verse 2.

And many nations shall come. This is future. It hasn't happened yet. Many nations will come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his way, and we will walk in his paths.

For the law shall go forth from Zion in the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he, the Messiah, shall judge among many peoples and rebuke strong nations afar off. This is the kingdom when Christ will rule from Jerusalem, the capital of the world at that point when the blessings will flow.

There will be finally true peace in the Middle East when the Arabs will be at peace and come into their blessings which were promised from before. We as Christians are commanded to bless Israel, and we are told that if we bless Israel, we will be blessed, and if we curse Israel, we will be cursed.

You can measure nations rise and fall in whether they have obeyed Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 in blessing Israel or cursing Israel, but Christians sometimes make a mistake and forget that Ishmael also is a child of Abraham, and that Abraham's seed were promised incredible blessings, that Ishmael was promised by the angel of the Lord, which is Jesus Christ himself, that appeared to Hagar in the wilderness when she and her son were cast off, and said that he would be a mighty nation.

As a child of Abraham, mighty blessings are going to come for the Arab people. So when people sometimes talk about anti-Semitic feelings, they don't realize that the Semitic race includes both the Jews and the Arabs, and we are to love both because they are both children of Abraham.

But I can tell you that an Arab Christian friend of mine who went back to Israel, walking the streets of Jerusalem in this tremendous conflict that is going on today, found that Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, and Israeli Jews all said the same thing when he said, what is the solution to peace here?

How can we stop this intifada? How can we come to a real peace that will go on forever, that will allow the Arabs and the Jews to live as brothers? The answer from all three groups, very curiously, was the same.

There will not be real peace until the Prince of Peace shall come. But even Arab Muslims understood that God is going to have to intervene in history to bring about a peace in this incredibly complex piece of territory where so many conflicting promises were given to people that has led to this tragic situation today.

And so God says that he is going to establish the temple once more. In verse 3, he shall judge among many peoples and rebuke strong nations afar off. Let me quote what the Russians curiously chose as a donation on beautiful rock to have inscribed in New York outside the United Nations.

They didn't quote the first part of the verse. They quoted from this part of verse 3, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

They didn't quote the first part, which would have made it make sense and would have indicated how that's going to happen, and that is verse 2. And many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.

And he, Jesus, will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For the law shall go forth from the Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And Jesus, he shall judge among many peoples and rebuke strong nations far off.

We will have peace, but not as the Soviets imply by some United Nations causing the swords to be beaten into plowshares. It's going to be Jesus. Jesus is coming back. I can tell you folks, most people think of prophecy as being negative, dealing with war and Armageddon.

Prophetic Judgment, the Rapture, and the Coming Kingdom

And I have to tell you, yes, there's some very, very difficult times coming upon the world according to prophecy, and those appointments with destiny will not be postponed no matter what we want. We are chosen as Christians to be peacemakers, and we must do everything we can both to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and to work for peace in our world.

But the Bible has said thousands of years ago that the nations would gather together against Israel in the last days, that the nations, both the East and West, would gather to fight each other over the supremacy of this world, and that Jesus Christ would come back to set up his kingdom.

And while the Bible does tell us some heavy times are ahead, he tells us in Thessalonians that we, the church, the children of light, are not appointed under wrath, but to obtain salvation. Two opposing destinies.

One, an appointment of the wrath of God, which is going to be visited upon the nations in the rebellion and sin. Another appointment for his church, those that look to Jesus Christ who will be raptured and lifted up to heaven to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb during this period of great tribulation upon the earth, and then we will come down with him as a heavenly army that will set up a kingdom which will never end.

I want you to know that prophecy tells you, yes, the bad news, but I want to tell you the good news. There is coming a day, and if prophecy teachers and scholars like myself understand prophecy at all, in this generation we will see, yes, the worst war in history, but following that, a day in which the nations of this world, the kingdoms of this world, will become the kingdoms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

There will never be another child starving. There won't be any more torture in prisons around the world. There won't be rape and assault and burglary and all of the horrors that go on and broken marriages and all of the pain and suffering, because Jesus Christ is coming back to make this world what it was meant to be.

We are going to step into that paradise that mankind has searched for with tears through all these generations and never found. We are going to find it, because Jesus Christ is coming back, and that is the good news of prophecy.

Yes, there is a dark hour before the dawn, but I want you to know the dawn is coming. People say, Grant, what about Antichrist? Are you looking for Antichrist? No, I'm looking for Jesus Christ. I know that he is coming back, and he is coming back to bring joy and peace and prosperity to his people, the church first, and then to the whole world.

The world is finally going to find its rest. God says that in the last days he is going to establish the temple. Look with me at Amos 9. He says in the last days he will establish once again the tabernacle of David and raise up the waste places.

The tabernacle of David, the temple that was built by his son Solomon, and David had prepared all of those materials, we know that that tabernacle was destroyed in 70 A .D. God so controlled history that Solomon's temple was destroyed on the ninth day of Av of the biblical calendar, which corresponds to our August.

On that ninth day of Av the Solomon's temple was destroyed in 587 B .C. It is no accident of history, there are no coincidence, folks, that in 70 A .D. the Romans destroyed and burned the second temple to the ground on the very same day, the ninth of Av.

The Jews at the time wrote about it and said this was a mark of God's judgment upon that temple because they had rebelled against God and forsaken him and rejected their king. God is in control of history, but he says in the last days he will raise again the tabernacle of David.

Daniel's Seventy Weeks and the Future Temple Sacrifice

We know that in Daniel 9, verses 24 -27, in talking about the future antichrist that would make a seven year treaty with Israel, that would commence with a treaty, seven years later would end with the battle of Armageddon with Christ coming to defeat the armies of the world and setting up his kingdom.

We're told that halfway through that seven years, after three and a half years after that treaty, three and a half years before the battle of Armageddon, in fact it's to the day, 1260 days, because God in history and in prophecy uses the biblical year of 360 days.

Everywhere in the Bible when it talks about a year they meant 360 days. That was the biblical year of the Jews, the Babylonians and the Egyptians. If Ezekiel said I'll see you in a year, you better be there 360 days later, because that's when he's coming.

Every month has 30 days. Now the Jewish calendar now just has a mixed number of days in a year, but the biblical calendar that God uses in history and the future has 360 days, and so we are told that 1260 days before Armageddon, the antichrist is going to go into a rebuilt temple and he will cut off the daily sacrifice.

Now you can't cut off something unless it's already continuing. You can't, for 2 ,000 years there's been no daily sacrifice anywhere in the world, let alone on the Temple Mount. Right now the Muslims control the Temple Mount.

Moshe Dayan, the defense minister, after 1967 when Israel conquered the holy city, the East Jerusalem, and conquered the Temple Mount, made a political decision to allow the political control of the Temple Mount and then hoped that that would lead to peace, which unfortunately did not.

And in that situation, obviously there can be no temple sacrifice. Something is going to have to happen to allow that to occur. Yet the Bible has said that it will occur, and I'm going to believe it. Somehow God's going to bring it about.

The Jews don't want it. The Muslims don't want it. The world doesn't want it. God says it will happen. Who are you going to believe? I'm going to believe the Bible and God. God says there will be a temple.

The Tabernacle, the Ark, and God's Dwelling

What was the reason for the temple in the first place? What was the reason for the tabernacle in the first place? It was to house the Holy of Holies, and the Holy of Holies was to house the Ark of the Covenant.

Would you look with me at the book of Exodus? Exodus 25. We know that if we go back to Genesis, before mankind screwed up, before we rebelled against God, before we sinned, we know that God's plan A for mankind was to commune with him daily.

We know that Adam had the privilege of God walking with him in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden. A lot of people have a very phony idea about heaven, and one of my next books is coming out in about the end of the year on heaven, the greatest promise ever made.

They think heaven is going to be 10 ,000 years of church service singing the first chorus, and then we move on to the second chorus. Nothing could be further from the truth. God created a universe with incredible variety and adventure.

He created you with intelligence and emotion and a desire for variety. And what did he do in the Garden of Eden? Did he have Adam and Eve sitting in church 10 ,000 years at a time? Nothing like it. He had Adam and Eve enjoying each other's company, relating to each other, having great joy, working with the animals and with the plants, and he walked with Adam in the cool of the day.

And there was a perfect relationship without sin and without rebellion. Plan A gives you an indication of what the architect will do for Plan B of the future. Heaven will be the greatest promise ever made.

It is the most incredible thing. But God walked with Adam in the cool of the day, and it was Jesus Christ that walked with Adam. Wherever God appears face-to-face in the Old Testament, it's Jesus Christ.

The reason we look like Jesus and he looks like us is that he created Adam in his image, and when Jesus Christ, when God chooses to put on a three-dimensional form, it looks like a man. That was his choice, and that's why we look like we look like.

And God walked with Adam in the cool of the day. He appeared to Abraham with two angels. They looked like men, just as Jesus did. And God walked with Adam in the cool of the day. He wanted to commune with Adam.

We rebelled. Then there was a separation. We know that he walked with Enoch, and Enoch who walked with God was raptured up to heaven in a symbolic source that shows us how we will be raptured ultimately to be with God and never know death.

And then we find that with Moses, God told him that he would meet with him face-to-face on Mount Sinai. And he then told him, I will commune and dwell with Israel, my people, face-to-face, and I will be with them, and I will choose a place for my dwelling, and I want you to build an ark of the covenant of 47 inches by 27 inches by 27 inches of acacia wood, both covered with gold within and without, and build the cherubim on top of it, and a mercy seat of pure gold, and there will I dwell with you.

Look at Exodus 25, verse 8,. And let them make me a sanctuary, this is the tabernacle, and the holy of holies, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of the instruments thereof, even so ye shall make it.

This verse and many more, both in Hebrews and in other places in the Old Testament, in Numbers, tells us that the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant were made precise copies after the blueprint of the original heavenly, which is in heaven and remains so to this day.

Some people have said about my work on the ark of the covenant that it may still exist. They've said, Grant, Revelation 11 says clearly the ark of the covenant is in heaven. And I say, yes, that's the original heavenly.

That was the one that was copied upon earth. But that didn't mean there wasn't one on earth at the same time there was one in heaven. And the fact that the one in heaven continues and is in heaven in the future does not mean there is not one on earth still.

We'll see if the Bible indicates that. God said, I will dwell with you. In verse 21 and 22,. And they shall put a mercy seat above the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.

The ark of the covenant to the Jews means the covenant. It is the covenant because the very law that God in the most unique thing in history on the feast of Pentecost gave the Ten Commandments to Israel.

No accident. The very day the Ten Commandments were given to man, the law, the dispensation of law begins, is the very same day, 1500 years later, that the Holy Spirit comes and launches the dispensation of grace.

And the church is born. No accident, no coincidence. And so it goes on in verse 22,. And there will I meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim, which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.

The Ark's History from the Wilderness to Solomon's Temple

God said something incredible, that he would dwell with Israel in connection with the ark of the covenant. Let me briefly give you the history. The ark of the covenant is created, the most beautiful object, the most valuable object archaeologically and spiritually in history.

This object goes before Israel in their wandering through the wilderness, and they defeat enemy after enemy. The cloud of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day is connected with the ark and is outside the tabernacle of testimony.

And the tabernacle that dwells in the wilderness has the Shekinah glory of God. The Shekinah glory of God falls upon this on the very feast of tabernacles. Now we see that they cross Jordan forty years later.

And as they cross Jordan, the ark of the covenant goes before them, and the waters back up supernaturally so that they can cross through Jordan dry shod. Then they circle Jericho. And as they circle Jericho seven times, God said, And I will then cause the walls to fall.

Well, every other city in the Mideast, you find all the walls are pushed in because that's how you conquer a city. You push the walls inward. But Jericho was one of these tough cities that the walls were so thick that they were certainly as thick as from here to the video camera.

I've been there. These walls were almost square, rectangular walls, and they were so thick they couldn't fall over. So what did God do? He pushed them into the ground. And archaeologists say that those walls are pushed right down about thirty feet below where they should be.

The ark of the covenant contained the glory of God. The power of God chose to dwell there, and God said, I will come in with you there. This object was so important, so powerful that even to touch it inappropriately, like you touched it, attempting to keep it from falling when they had improperly carried it on upon a cart instead of on those rods that God had declared they should carry it on, he died.

We know that 50 ,000 men of Beth Shemesh who lifted up the lid of the ark in curiosity to see the ark of the testimony, they died of the plague. 50 ,000 died. This object, so powerful but so central, the very focus of Israel's religion and spiritual life, is then brought up 500 years later to the temple built by Solomon, prepared the materials by David, Solomon built it.

We find that in 1 Kings 8 we are told that when they brought the ark of the covenant up to this most incredibly beautiful temple, that the glory of God fell upon the temple and supernaturally lit the altar fire.

120 ,000 sheep were sacrificed that day in recognition, in an acting out of the covenant that was made with blood, that there was no salvation without blood. We find that the ark of the covenant was brought up to the temple and brought into the Holy of Holies, and when the glory of God fell it says that the priests could not even stand because of the glory of God.

They couldn't even stand to worship. The glory so overpowered them, and this too was on another anniversary, the very Feast of Tabernacles, the falling of the glory in the tabernacle, the falling of the glory in the first temple.

Solomon's Apostasy and the Disappearance of the Ark

Solomon begins so well. Here he is, the most brilliant king who ever lived, the richest king. He has everything one could ever want, but in his prime he begins to disobey God. God had told him that the same sin of his father was the problem he had to watch out for.

He said, don't marry pagan wives because you will, in trying to please your pagan wives, begin to adopt their pagan religious practices. And Solomon, who begins so well, ends his life by worshiping foreign gods, bringing idols literally right into the temple, setting up high places upon the Mount of Olives where he would worship Asherah and the god of Moloch and the various gods of the Midianites.

Solomon brought in all of these idols and God said, I will judge you, but because of your father David, because I loved him, I won't take the kingdom from you. But when you die, I will cause Israel to be split, and Israel will go downhill, and I will hide my face from Israel.

Remember, the face of God, the Shekinah glory of God, dwelt with Israel in the ark in the temple. Isn't it strange that immediately after the reign of Solomon there is no mention of the ark of the covenant from that point and forward?

Here this object, the very center of Israel's life, is gone. What could have happened? We know that various invasions came, Pharaoh Necho of Egypt, we know the Babylonians came 400 years later, it listed all the things they captured, and in fact 70 years later brought back, and there's no listing of the ark of the covenant.

This object that was so important that to even touch it was to die. What could have happened? Well, I love a good mystery, and I began doing some research years ago, and I found that there is evidence both within the Bible and within the history of an African nation that indicates where the ark of the covenant was taken, and it is consistent with the Bible story.

I do not say dogmatically it has to be, but I believe the burden of evidence is very strong that the ark of the covenant still exists. I cannot believe that the ark of the covenant, where the glory of God dwelt, could simply have been destroyed, nor do I believe it could have been lost.

The Queen of Sheba and the Ethiopian Ark Tradition

I believe it has a place in the past, it has a place in the present, and it has a place in your future. Let me share with you what God, I believe, has indicated has happened to it. If we go back to 1 Kings, we find that when Solomon was at the peak of his glory and loved God and had not yet fallen into great sin, he was beginning to marry the pagan wives.

He had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and along comes a beautiful lady from Africa called the Queen of Sheba. She was an incredibly rich, beautiful lady, the empress of a huge country in the middle of Africa called Ethiopia.

It also contained southern Saudi Arabia, Yemen, south and north Yemen, and Aden, and Oman, which were then called Sheba. She comes 2 ,500 miles on an arduous journey to really see this incredibly wise king and to inquire, not about riddles as some have supposed, but as God says, to inquire about God.

She comes to talk to him about God, and she becomes, according to Ethiopian history, a believer in Jehovah. She becomes a converted Jew. She, according to Ethiopian history, marries Solomon and has a son.

Look with me at the book of Kings, back to 1 Kings, chapter 8. Let's go to 1 Kings, chapter 10. We've seen the Ark of the Covenant brought up to the temple. 1 Kings, chapter 10, verse 1. And when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, that was his fame that brought her to Israel, she came to prove him with hard questions.

In the end of verse 2, when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him all that was in her heart. In other words, she became very close to him about the things of her heart. It tells us in verse 10, and she gave the king 120 talents of gold and spices, a very great store.

Look in verse 13, and King Solomon gave unto the Queen of Sheba all her desire whatsoever she asked besides that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. In other words, he gave her tremendous royal treasure and the desire of her heart.

What do you think the desire of the heart of the Queen of Sheba might be? She's traveled 2 ,500 miles to visit the most handsome, brilliant, wisest, richest king in the whole world. The Ethiopian glory of the kings in a gasp tells us that she came and desired a son.

He had married 700 other wives. It probably wasn't a particularly difficult sale. And so, the Ethiopian records say they had a son by the name of Menelik I. I have seen the Ethiopian murals, stone carvings, the glory of the kings.

The Ethiopian royal family has shared their history with me. And universally, they say, as does the Encyclopedia Britannica, the National Geographic article of 1935 by Al Roberts, and many other sources, that the whole Haile Selassie dynasty, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, is descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, from Menelik I.

Haile Selassie called himself the conquering lion of Judah. The royal crest of Ethiopia has a cross on it because the emperors became Christian, but it also has the Star of David. They claim descendancy from Israel.

10 of the Ethiopians are black Jewish Ethiopians called by the Ethiopians Falasha, but called by themselves Beta Israel, exiles of Israel. Here's the story. Menelik at age 19, his mother dies. He now has to go back and become emperor.