The Cornerstone Lost: Second Book

By Cooper McGuireii

Many people go through the Bible for years and are surprised when they find something they had not seen or heard before.

This happened to me.

I found the verse in Zechariah 3:10 speaking about a cornerstone that had the engraving cleaned out and to be set back in the temple stones covering the foundation by Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua.

This led to other verses.

I became like a detective searching for all the clues.

The Bible gives the history of the temples built from Solomon to Herod the Great. The cornerstone is not mentioned in the history Solomon’s temple or of Herod’s temple.

A lot of details are given to the building of Solomon’s temple. The amount of gold, silver, and iron used are recorded. The contract between Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre is recorded. How many men working in the forest of Lebanon are recorded, and how often they were relieved. There is no mention of the cornerstone there.

It is not mentioned in the history of King Herod. This is because he never set it in his temple. He hid it. We can know it was there because of the record of it being replaced by Zerubbabel, and it was the temple built by Zerubbabel that Herod was tearing apart and remodeling.

Zechariah qualifies it being in Solomon’s temple by telling of the cleaning out the engraving and of the old men who saw it reset by Zerubbabel, and when they saw it, they wept loudly from the remembrance of it in the first temple (Ezra 3:12).

What is the importance of this stone?

It is the engraving. What is the meaning of the seven eyes engraved on it? This is what gives you its importance. Revelation 5:6 tells you what the seven eyes represent.

Here is where people get uncomfortable. Revelations speak of God having seven spirits. They get confused, and this is unsettling. But let us think for just a moment. Yes, the Bible speaks of God being one Spirit. He is! The spirit used in Revelation is used in a different way. As God has the spirit of wrath, grief, long-suffering, forgiveness, and others. Why eyes? This represents God looking into the affairs of men in the ways of wrath, patience, and the five others

Jesus came in the fullness of God with these ways of looking into men.

The cornerstone is the token sign of the coming Messiah to the Jews. He was the cornerstone of their faith, unknowingly. But the cornerstone significance will become known. The Messiah, Jesus, would become their Messiah as they learn and understand the scriptures and his life.

This Old Testament verse from Habakkuk 2:11 tie it up: “For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.”

It is this author’s belief that King Herod the Great hid the cornerstone in the walls around the temple complex as he remodeled and enlarged it. There are still walls left that were built by him. Question: Why are the Jews and Christians drawn to the section called the “Wailing Wall?”

The beam out of the timber is the cross. The stone cried out. The Messiah is coming. The beam out of the timber answered, He has come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638746157

Book preview

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The Cornerstone Lost

Second Book

Cooper McGuireii

ISBN 978-1-63874-614-0 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63874-615-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Cooper McGuireii

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

King Jehoiakim Gives Treasures to Nebuchadnezzar

Chapter 2

Jerusalem's First Invasion

Chapter 3

Miracles of Daniel and His Friends

Chapter 4

Life on the River Chebar

Chapter 5

Gibbar Observes Ezekiel

Chapter 6

Jeremiah's Prophesies Debated

Chapter 7

March to Jerusalem

Chapter 8

Zedekiah Loses Sons and Sight

About the Author

Introduction

In our first book, Engraved Cornerstone in Solomon's Temple to Be Found in the Last Days, we told the story of Barpetra, a young boy whose life was in Jerusalem when the temple was built.

His father was a mason building stones structures in Tyre and became the master mason when building the temple in Israel.

The time was when King Solomon contracted with King Hiram of Tyre for skilled labor. His father was one of many masons sent from Tyre.

Barpetra''s father was killed after Barpetra became a young man while working on the temple. Barpetra was chosen by Solomon to be the master mason to finish the stonework of the temple and was used by God to engrave the cornerstone and set it in the temple corner.

This book is another fiction story about a young lad, Gibbar, who was a descendant of eight generations from Barpetra four hundred years later. The history is in truth, and many of the characters are real. These historical parts of the story are set aside with a star at the beginning.

Gibbar is taken as a prisoner with many others to spend his life in the land of Babylon after the first conquering of Jerusalem.

We will follow his life through the second oppression by Babylon over Jerusalem when the temple is destroyed and the cornerstone is lost.

This book is about the cornerstone removed and lost. At the end of this book, the cornerstone will be lying in the earth face down.

The third book will be about when the cornerstone is found and set again in the corner of Zerubbabel's rebuilt temple; the title is Cornerstone Found.

The fourth book will be Cornerstone Hid. The fourth book is when Herod the Great is king and remodels Zerubbabel's temple.

Herod tears down Zerubbable's temple porch and hides the cornerstone, and the cornerstone is still hidden today.

The fifth book will be The Cornerstone Exposed. This book is in the future when the cornerstone is found again and revealed in The Last Days.

The cornerstone is and has been a greatly unnoticed physical sign in God's dispensation of times when changes in Israel's future occurs. It is the icon of Jesus Christ as the Messiah in the Jewish and Christian faiths. When the cornerstone is found in The Last Days, it's revealing will make known to Israel that Jesus Christ is the Messiah.

The first dispensation of time was when the cornerstone was first set in the temple. Israel became a great and united nation. All twelve tribes dwelled in unison and worshiped God in Jerusalem. God came and showed himself in their temple.

The second dispensation is when the sin of idolatry receives retribution by losing the Ark of the Covenant, the cornerstone, and the temple. These three icons are representative of the holy trinity.

The Ark of the Covenant is representative of God the Father by the things in it: the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them, Aaron's rod that budded and gave fruit, and the bowl of manna that was the food of angels received by them in the desert.

These three articles God gave them are the signs of his desire for their having a relationship with him.

Stone tablets are of his will and his ways to live as given in the Ten Commandments.

Aaron's rod is the way of worship by faith, knowing that God can do anything.

The bowl of manna shows that he can and did provide.

The cornerstone is representative of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who was made the head of the corner of the foundation of his church and the Messiah of the Jewish faith.

The cornerstone laid in the Temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel represents the fullness of God in the seven spirits of God, shown by the seven eyes engraved on the cornerstone. These seven eyes are God as he sees us through his seven spirits.

God, in the person of Jesus Christ, lived with us in these seven spirits. The spirits are of grace, of mercy, of wrath, of justice, of patience, of grief, of forgiveness, and the spirit of his love.

The temple is representative of the presence of God.

The history of the ten northern tribes of Israel that were taken by Assyria over one hundred and fifty years before the exile of Judah by Babylon is not a part of this book in this portion of Israel's history.

The focus of Cornerstone Lost is on the time of Judah's part of Israel's exile.¹

Chapter 1

King Jehoiakim Gives Treasures to Nebuchadnezzar

The kings of Persia, Media, and Babylon joined forces to repel the oncoming forces of Assyria with Egypt.

Egypt came in answer to a call from the Assyrians to aid in combating the three kings, but Egypt had eyes also on collecting more nations to be subservient to their dominance. Why else would they go through the expense and trouble to come?

The armies met at Carchemish, a city located on the southern border of Assyria. It is about seven hundred miles north of Jerusalem.

The Assyrians and Egyptians were repelled at Carchemish, and Egypt was sent running back to their homeland to nurse their wounds.

Pride has lifted itself in the collection of kings, and one chooses to pursue Egypt to their homeland and bring Egypt under their subjection.

The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, the new king in the group, sees an opportunity to build his nation and increase his power. He heads toward Egypt to overcome them while still in their weakened state.

Nebuchadnezzar Passes by Jerusalem on His Way to Egypt

In the morning watch, a watchman on the wall blows his horn and gives out a cry, There is dust over the land. Many feet must be coming because the dust clouds are big and rising higher.

Later that evening, a runner comes to the gates struggling to get his breath. When he can answer all who are questioning him, he says, "I come from Bethel. I was to the north of my city looking for honey when I saw the dust. I think I must look to see if it is an army because no caravan would raise that much dust.

"It takes me half a day, and as I went, I met others that are going to see also. We agreed to climb a mountain to see far over the land. We find an army, and it went as far as we could see.

We decided I should run here to Jerusalem's king and warn him. I was the ablest and lived nearer to Jerusalem.

It Would Take Two Days Before the Army Would Arrive and Surround the City

The king, Jehoiakim, had for months been preparing for a battle. Spies had come from King Nebuchadnezzar's city and had warned him of what they had seen and heard about the possible invasion when he passed.

As kings moved to conquer other nations, they would take from all