The Temple and the Lost Tribes of Israel: A Biblical View

By Jon Eric Lambert

THE TEMPLE AND THE LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL addresses two main prophecies that must occur before the return of Christ. First, the lost tribes of Israel must be located in order for all Israel to be saved. Second, Gentile Christians must help Israel build the Temple in its ancient and proper location. These two missions begin to bring all Israel to faith in Jesus. And so, all Israel will be Saved (Romans 11:26).

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664279773

Jon Eric Lambert

Jon Eric Lambert graduated from the Washington Bible College (1975) and the Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary (now Denver Seminary, 1980). His interest is in the prophetic Word of God—both first and second comings of Christ. He served as a chaplain in the United States Army for twenty-one years with tours of duty in Somalia and Iraq. He also served as pastor for two churches (New York and Virginia) and taught at a Christian school for many years.

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Copyright © 2022 Jon Eric Lambert.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-7976-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7975-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7977-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022918266

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/07/2022

And so all Israel will be saved.

—Romans 11:26

For the Glory of God.

My thanks to a daughter who helped me understand a bit about editing when I was not so willing. For another daughter who prayed and traveled with me when traveling was not her thing. And a son who put up with my constant frustration with computers.

Thanks also to all the students at my school who listened to me over the years and supported my efforts.

And, most of all, to my wife who has amazingly put up with my need to research these things for forty years.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 John 3:3–4 and What it Implies

Chapter 2 Hastening the Day of God and Christopher Columbus

Chapter 3 John 10 and the Other Sheep—the Lost Tribes of Israel: Part I

Chapter 4 The Lost Tribes of Israel: Part II

Chapter 5 The Sur Gate and the Foundation Gate

Chapter 6 The Seven Branched Candlestick: The Symbol of the Holy Spirit in Both Testaments

Chapter 7 Asaph Predicted the Destruction of the Temple Two Times

Chapter 8 God’s Future Temple in the Right Location: Part I

Chapter 9 God’s Future Temple in the Right Location: Part II

Chapter 10 God’s Future Temple in the Right Location: Part III

Chapter 11 The Red Heifer

Chapter 12 The Messiah’s First and Last Names Predicted in the Old Testament. (How This Can Bring about Israel’s Salvation)

Chapter 13 Additional Matters and Critics

Conclusion

Afterword

Temple Memorial 2022

About the Author

Introduction

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This is a how-to book about winning all Israel to Christ. It is a book about overcoming hurdles—or we might say it is about moving mountains that stand in the way before the return of Christ. Two mountains stand in our way before the final fulfillment of this age and the return of Christ: finding and winning the Lost Tribes of Israel and rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem in its correct location.

The information presented here contradicts the notion that northern Israel is lost and gone for good. It also disputes that the current, traditional Temple Mount is the correct location for the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. At the same time, we present new understandings of ancient historians and present new finds on the old walls from Nehemiah’s day. With the Bible in hand to interpret what we found, we can show that the ancient location of the Temple was in the City of David and not on the traditional Temple Mount.

In addition, this book contains the Scriptures’ ultimate guide to witnessing to anyone without fear. It features a brief review (or revelation) about what Columbus was up to when he sailed west in order to hasten the Day of Christ. This includes things that the older European world may have known long ago but were withheld from Americans by omission from today’s history books.

The Temple and the Lost Tribes of Israel is a book is about winning all Israel to Christ; it is a simple formula, but getting there is a journey. It is a story that has not been told before because the time was not ripe. In explaining this research to others, I was told by a Chinese student that it was too confusing—even though he was the most brilliant English student I have ever had. To remedy this, I have added five maps and several photos to help convey new and difficult thoughts. As has been said, A picture is worth a thousand words.

These maps and pictures lessen the difficulty considerably. The maps are from the American archeologist Frederick Jones Bliss (1859–1937) and the Scottish archeologist Archibald Campbell Dickie (1845–1920) whose mission in the 1890s was to uncover the walls of ancient Jerusalem. They worked under the auspices of a nineteenth-century British organization, the Palestinian Exploration Fund, the PEF, which still exists today.

To Bliss and Dickie and their sponsors, we owe a large debt of gratitude. The two archeologists were said to be extraordinarily accurate in their mapmaking, complimented for this more than sixty years after their work by the great British archeologist, Dame Kenyon (Hallote 2006, 130).

Some information declared here is new, and other details have been corroborated by nineteenth-century archeologists and more modern scholars. On the one hand, my style is to say many things as a matter of fact, but bear in mind, they may be entirely new and outside the present ideas of most theologians, historians, and archeologists of Jerusalem and its ancient sites.

I have corresponded with secular scholars and Bible scholars. Many thanks to all of them. Some have agreed with a part of what follows, and others have argued against our theory of the Temple’s location—this seems to be the normal way that theologians and archeologists do business—no hard feelings. Others have ignored the theory. Most academics named here would not ascribe to all that I say in any case. I have mentioned some of their names only to let you know what they have written to me or spoken to me on a specific issue.

Jesus said that we, by faith, could move mountains that stand in our way (Matthew 17:20). The task of winning the nation of Israel to Christ has a few mountains standing in our path, one of which is rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. What we can do about it is important for the return of Jesus and winning the nation of Israel to Christ. Though the traditional Temple Mount is where the observant Jew expects the Temple to be built, there is an abundance of evidence from the Bible, from history, and from archeology that shows otherwise. Some of the following is original research from these records, and some is from a search of old Jerusalem in 2015, 2017, and 2019 to tie these all together. This will hasten the Day by hastening the building of the Temple on its site (Ezra 5:15).

Huge credit goes to the late Ernest L. Martin for originating this theory of the Temple’s true location (Martin 2000). He started with the idea that the Temple was actually south of the traditional Mount, and I have reviewed his research and corroborated it further by expanding on our new discoveries of the walls of Nehemiah’s Jerusalem. After some archeological finds were revealed in recent days that were not known to Dr. Martin, and after new identifications made about the location of Nehemiah’s walls, his original position for the Temple had to be moved to the east a bit. While Ernest L. Martin and I do not share the same convictions in matters of religion, I appreciate the insights and research that he pioneered in this very important matter.

For sure, both Israel and Judah are included in the promises of God. Since we are speaking of winning all Israel to Christ, we show from the Bible and from history the whereabouts of the Lost Tribes of Israel. I say lost in quotes since they are not lost to themselves; they are confident of their own whereabouts and their own boast to be those tribes.

After many years of interest and study on the one subject and almost as many on the other, I hope what you are about to read thrills your soul as a believer in Christ as much as it did mine to search these things out. But why such a long wait—and why now? I believe the time may be ripe in our day.

In particular, if you are convinced and willing, please remove, copy, share, sign, and send to me the Temple Memorial at the end of the book. After we have gathered enough signatures on the Temple Memorial, these will be presented to the president of the United States, God willing, just as Blackstone’s original Zionist Memorial was sent to President Harrison many years ago.

The Jewish people are not automatically right with God by following the outward signs of their religion. Even in the days of the Second Temple, the Jews needed to be saved. Jesus had harsh words for their leaders who followed the word of man over the Word of God. Not much has changed in the succeeding two thousand years. Surprisingly, even today for the rabbis, the Old Testament (the Word of God) is studied as a secular pursuit, but the Talmud (the opinion of men) as a religious endeavor. The true sign of being right with God was a circumcision of the heart as Moses said:

Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. (Deuteronomy 10:16—right after the golden calf idol)

And years later, Jeremiah was still pleading:

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done—burn with no one to quench it. (Jeremiah 4:4—still in the middle of gross idolatry)

Our first chapter notes that Jesus expected that the Jews needed to be born again as much as the Gentiles did, and so to this we turn first.

References:

Hallote, Rachel. 2006. Bible, Map, and Spade: The American Palestine Exploration Society, Frederick Jones Bliss, and the Forgotten Story of Early American Biblical Archaeology, Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press.

Martin, Ernest L. 2000. The Temples That Jerusalem Forgot. Portland, Oregon: ASK Publications.

Chapter 1

John 3:3–4 and What it Implies

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This chapter may seem out of place at first, but it is intended to show believers in Christ a connection to the city of Jerusalem they may not have known about or felt before. It is not a part of our two-part answer to the question of how to win all Israel to Christ, but it is important foundational material since Judah also needs to be born again—even the very religious among them.

The Issue

Jesus told Nicodemus, a very religious man, that he had to be born a second time in order to see the kingdom of God.

The Puzzle

Jesus questioned Nicodemus, You are Israel’s teacher, said Jesus, and do you not understand these things? (John 3:10) The problem is this: Why should Nicodemus have known these things?

Preparation for Study: Read John 3

The familiar verse, John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life, is so familiar that it is not a passage for critical study for our purposes. This chapter is not a commentary on John 3 per se; rather, it is a look at what might bother us and what begs for an explanation. For instance, what was Jesus’s answer to a very devout man’s query about being born again? Just this: You are a teacher in Israel and you don’t know these things? (John 3:10). What things should Nicodemus have known?

We may have been bothered with the thought, Why was Nicodemus responsible for knowing this brand-new teaching that Jesus was espousing about being born again or born the second time? A derivative question might be this: What could anyone (we too) be responsible to know straight out of the spiritual ether in order to recognize Jesus’s new teaching as factual and true without prior training? This is a confusion worth clearing up.

One thing we certainly know is that Jesus must not have been teaching anything new. He certainly did not expect Nicodemus to know something out of the blue; rather, He expected Nicodemus to be knowledgeable of Israel’s Scriptures. We know that Jesus did not teach anything that was not already in the Bible. Think for a moment: Is turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39) in the Old Testament? Indeed, it is. It is not a brand-new teaching (Lamentations 3:30). Is love your enemies (Matthew 5:44) in the Old Testament? Indeed, it is (Psalm 35:11–14). Many other references from Jesus’s teachings could be presented from the Sermon on the Mount that come from the Old Testament. Nearly 99 percent of all that Jesus taught is found in the Old Testament.

David Baron, Jewish Christian missionary to his Jewish brethren, writes:

The New Testament is in historic continuity, and true order of sequence to the Old Testament, and that there is not a single essential doctrine in the New Testament, the roots of which are not to be found in Moses and the prophets. (Baron 1916, 272–273)

However, I believe the church, in its haste to distance itself from the Jewish religion, tried to forget the roots of the New Testament and tried to present Jesus as unique and otherworldly, teaching new things never heard before. Yet Jesus’s born-again theology is straight out of Psalm 87:

I will record Rahab [i.e., Egypt] and Babylon among those who acknowledge me—Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush—and will say, This one was born in Zion. Indeed, of Zion it will be said, This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High himself will establish her. The LORD will write in the register of the peoples: This one was born in Zion. (Psalm 87:4–6)

These foreigners from Egypt, Babylon, and Philistia were obviously born somewhere else first, yet God records their names in the book of the peoples as if they were born in Zion—born for a second time. They acknowledge the God of Israel and are considered citizens of the city of the Great King (Psalm 48:2, Mount Zion, the city of the Great King).

you [Israel and Judah] who call yourselves citizens of the holy city and rely on the God of Israel—the LORD Almighty is his name: … (Isaiah 48:2)

Note, as you read the context of this passage in Isaiah, that the standards of being a citizen are high since the context of Isaiah 48 is Israel’s sin—having invoked falsely the name of the God of Israel (48:1); they were stubborn (v. 4); they were idolatrous (v. 5); they were treacherous and they were rebellious (v. 8). And Psalm 101:8 says, I will cut off every evildoer from the city of the LORD.

Psalm 14 goes on to paint a bad picture of the goodness of any human being:

The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:2, emphasis added)

While the Old Testament’s assessment of humankind is bleak, this also included Israel. Solomon, the wisest of the wise, declared it often:

The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. (Ecclesiastes 9:3)

Who can say, I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin? (Proverbs 20:9)

There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins. (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin… (1 Kings 8:46)

The Talmud agrees with this assessment (Rodkinson 1918, Tract Sanhedrin, 321), and:

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

Moses himself taught the Israelites that the book of the Law would stand as a witness not for them but against them. He knew how rebellious and stiff-necked they were when he was alive and how much more they would rebel after he died when he was no longer with them (Deuteronomy 31:26–27). For Christians, Paul’s declaration, There is no one righteous, not even one is a New Testament quote affirming the Old Testament’s assessment of humankind (Romans 3:10; Psalm 14:3).

In spite of the Scriptures of the Old Testament declaring humanity is in a desperate state before a Holy God, some rabbis have declared that humanity is basically born in a righteous state. Oh, yes, some become evil later, but in their professional opinion, humanity is basically good. Genghis Khan, Hitler, Pol Pot, and the like are bad, but on the whole, humanity is pretty decent. If the study of the Word of God is considered a secular pursuit (Jewish thought says this), but the study of the word of man (the Talmud is a commentary on the Bible) is considered religious, what kind of outcome can we expect from human opinion, knowing that God’s assessment of us is that we are desperate sinners? Do we understand what God values?

I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. (Psalm 138:2, emphasis added)

His opinion counts; ours is very, very secondary. Though the rabbis have taught that valuing the name of God is of utmost importance, they do not seem to have taught that God’s Word is more important than man’s opinions about His Word. He exalts His name and His Word above all things.

Many in the modern world agree with the rabbis’ positive assessment of the world—humankind is basically good and can look God in the face and not feel ashamed or too guilty about their lives in His sight. After all, He is a God of love, more like a cuddly grandfather with a long white beard than a God whom we have sinned against. The desperate need of a Savior is thus obviated—what’s all this fuss about a crucifixion? Why the need for a sacrifice for sin—what sin?

In fact, it is stated that the big difference between Jews and Christians is not Jesus, but rather one’s view of the human race. The one view sees the need for a Savior—and God Himself is the only one who could save us; the other view tries to hide the truth about the human race.

This Pollyanna version of the human race forgets all of history. The holocaust of the Islamic conquest, the Armenian holocaust, the Jewish holocaust, infanticide, incessant wars of aggression, nonstop murder, incest, rape, abductions, crucifixions, adultery, lust, pornography, bearing false witness, prostitution, not honoring parents, coveting, the martyrdom of Christ’s followers, the constant persecution of the Jews, not loving God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, having no other gods before Him, idolatry, and the list goes on. What good people?

Jesus answered His accusers:

But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say? (John 5:45–47)

So, the first thing to do is to believe Moses’s assessment of the sinfulness of humanity.

The new birth that Jesus talked about is taught in the Old Testament Scriptures that Nicodemus should have known. Peace with God and citizenship in the city of the Great King finds its fulfillment in the New Testament. We are born with new papers and new birth certificates, and we actually pass the test of citizenship in the city of our God through the righteousness of our Savior. Nicodemus was not good enough to make it into the kingdom of God. He too had to be born the second time. He should have known this from his Scriptures.

Nicodemus should have known that the new birth was required of any citizen of the city of the Great King. It was not enough to be born to the right family, nation, or religion. Entry into the kingdom is not by wealth or status. God is not interested in human achievement or its so-called righteousness. Salvation is for the world; knowledge of God is for the world; citizenship in God’s city is through a new birth—and it is for the entire world. It cannot come by mere happenstance or chance of birth into the right family or nation— the standard of citizenship being very high. The question is then, How can we attain it?

The new birth is necessary because our first birth into this world is not the guarantee of salvation or personal righteousness. A mere human birth certificate is not enough. Being a leader in Israel is not enough. Doing acts of righteousness is not enough because perfection is the standard for citizenship, and perfection is not the lot of humanity. Those who love the Law and look to it for their personal righteousness are only fooling themselves when it comes to entering the kingdom of God. The Law is nothing to be trifled with. God is not one to be trifled with. No one can say they have fulfilled the Law—the One is the only exception. They never have and never will, but perfection is the standard anyway.

The Solution

Salvation is by a single act of obedience. When the Jews rushed around the Sea of Galilee after the miraculous feeding of the five thousand in an attempt to find Jesus on the other side, Jesus told them to work not for food that spoils but for the food that endures to eternal life. They misunderstood Jesus and asked Him what works they might do. He corrected them, The work [singular] of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent (John 6:29).

This is the one act of obedience that gains eternal life. We are called on to do only this. This involves repentance (turning around) from the way of sin, but there is not a laundry list of things we must accomplish in order to inherit eternal life. The only additional thing John adds, and this from Jesus, and it flows from believing in Jesus, is to love the brothers, our fellow members of the family of God (1 John 3:23). This second command proves the first (James 2:14–19). Doing the best that we can do is not enough. Perfection is the standard.

Jesus said of the one work that gains eternal life:

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. (John 3:14–15)

In the days of Moses, God had become angry with the people for their lack of trust and their complaining ways, so He sent venomous serpents to kill them. The people went to Moses, confessed they had sinned, and asked him for help. God directed Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole for the salvation of all who had been bitten by a snake; if they looked at the snake on the pole, they lived (Numbers 21:4–9). The expression lifted up meant crucifixion in Jesus’s day. Jesus had to be lifted up just as the serpent had been.

To believe God in Moses’s day meant acting on the Word of God by going to the pole and looking at the snake. In the same manner, we obtain salvation when we know we are sinners and confess that—own that—and trust that Jesus (God in human flesh) died for our sins. We look to Him, believing He died for us. At the cross in repentance, we call on His name for salvation. His righteousness is placed on us; our sin is removed from us to the cross.

This is how we enter the city of the Great King with perfection—the perfection of a pardoned sinner, completely reborn into the family of God and into the citizenship of His great city. God places the perfection of Jesus on us, and there we stand complete. This is the implication of Jesus’s query to Nicodemus and mild rebuke:

You are Israel’s teacher, said Jesus, and do you not understand these things? (John 3:10)

The Takeaway

The takeaway is the snake on the pole. I have ruined many paper clips in explaining the good news of Jesus to students and soldiers alike. Unbend and straighten a perfectly good paper clip. Take a pen, and starting a third of the way down, wrap the straightened paper clip around the pen so that the tip of the clip ends up near the top of the pen. Hold and lift the pen straight up. Next, tell the story of Moses, the snakes in the wilderness, the serpent on the pole, and how Jesus applied it to faith in Himself.

Temple Implications

We are being built into a living sanctuary. The Messiah is building His First Temple. The church consists of Jews and Gentiles (like me) in the same assembly:

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4–5)

My favorite political hero from England in the nineteenth century, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, also known as the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was the great transformer of England. After his conversion, he used his Christian faith for the good. He literally transformed all the tragedies in his country described by Charles Dickens. You should know about him. He also had a keen interest in the Jews. Shaftesbury had a ring made and inscribed with O, Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem from Psalm 122:6. At the very least, we, as citizens of the city of the Great King, should pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your prosperity. (Psalm 122:9)

References

Baron, David. 1916. The Ancient Scriptures and the Modern Jew. London, England: Morgan & Scott Ltd. Sixth edition.

Rodkinson, Michael L. (translator). 1918. The Babylonian Talmud. Boston: The Talmud Society.

Chapter 2

Hastening the Day of God and Christopher Columbus

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May it please God that the city and the temple be rebuilt, and that the scattered of Judah and Ephraim may come together here and prostrate themselves before God at the holy mountain. … Sent in haste from Jerusalem, Ellul the 27th, 5249 (1489).

From your Brother,

Obadiah Jare

—Elkan Nathan Adler 1930/1987, 248

This chapter establishes a foundational principle that lays out a motivation for our efforts.

The Issue

Peter told us to hasten the Day of God, or to speed its coming (2 Peter 3:12)

The Puzzle

You wouldn’t think that hastening the Day of Christ and Christopher Columbus would have anything to do with each other. Actually, first of all, how can we, mere mortals, hasten the Day of Christ? Most of us don’t believe we could change one day of God’s schedule or move it up an hour—or even a second. And why would Columbus have anything to do with this topic?

Preparation for Study: 2 Peter 3:11–12

Columbus, the magnificent explorer, has fallen on hard times. He once was a hero who discovered the New World, but times have changed, and everything and everyone from our past history is vilified as evil. Columbus is not an exception. He is thought to have enslaved Native Americans in the Caribbean.

It is true; terrible things were done in Columbus’s name. Columbus, newly awakened people proclaim, was a bad man. That this is not the whole story is not a problem for modern times, yet we should want to know the truth about him. He did indeed enslave the Carib people. But, if you knew their character, you would have enslaved them too. He enslaved them in order to stop them from doing horrific things to nearby tribes. He wanted to reform their ways—not make them his servants. If you want to know what the Carib people were up to, you can find this information elsewhere—it is entirely revolting (Delaney 2011; Eidsmoe 1998).

What is true is that Columbus was an intrepid discoverer and explorer. What you may not know is that he was also a keen student of the Bible. History today does not generally know this, and secular history books do not proclaim it. He read Latin, and he also pored over the Latin Bible. He found that the world needed to hear about Jesus and that the islands of the sea needed to hear—in order to fulfill the Great Commission and hasten the Day of Christ. He even wrote a book about the prophetic significance of this and dedicated it to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain in his Libro de Las Profecias. He went on an exploration to the west oceans