This post is to all participants of the thread.
I believe others have stepped up and made many points concerning the third temple, so I will leave that for now. So long as we all understand what the Temple of God is today, then all is well regardless of whether you understand a physical building to be built or not.
The God I've come to know, doesn't do the obvious... Or at least what the world would consider the obvious to be.
That said: I think, in our day (not statements of fact, just pet theory ATM) that we are facing something very spiritual and very evil rising in the world. A war going on beyond the sight of our eyes (something we can all agree I imagine, since proof of this abounds).
First I have to say that I am not one to say whether Donald Trump is saved or not. I would have to know the man personally both before and after the moment DT is claiming to have been saved. Since I don't have this knowledge of Trump I have to say I don't find myself qualified to judge him as a Christian.
That leaves me judging him as a potential president the same as I would judge people from the other side of the aisle: according to their actions right now and recently.
I believe DT could be Christian. Anyone who was saved has a past.
I believe being a Christian is far more than how we may come across to people. While we always want to come across in a positive manner, I believe the Bible about guarantees people will hate us - and they certainly do in spades.
If we see the progress the LGBTQIA+ have made in my life, they went from "just wanting their bedrooms and private lives safe from policing", to demanding our churches bless their marriages, demanding we teach it's okay before God to be gay, demanding positions of authority within the Christian churches and suing Christian businesses out of existence...
Basically demanding we stop calling sin sin, and teach sin is okay in Church.
They hate us with a passion no matter how kind we are... Because they hate Christ, and because they hate His Holiness.
In America Christians, true Christians, are protected by the constitution. We are entering a period in this country where even cultural Christianity is in decline, and true Christians face persecution in our immediate futures. Therefore, the protection offered us in the foundational principles of this nation are important, because they are something that was ultimately designed to protect us.
Of course, only God will decide what our futures actually bring, whether we go through persecution or whether this country will remain a symbol of freedom and the escape that the most persecuted among us [Christian] desperately needs..
We are like the apostle Paul, all of us are. We have both a citizenship in the Heavenly Jerusalem and a citizenship in Rome, we have an Heavenly King and an earthly government over our life.
Paul never failed to take advantage of his rights as a Roman citizen when it suited his needs and helped him. There was an amount of "how dare you treat a Roman citizen this way" in Scripture spoken by Paul.
I imagine then, that if he had the right to vote Nero, for example, out of office he would have. No proof of this certainly since that wasn't possible, it's just a feeling I have that Paul would've.
As Christians I think we can't be overly worldly or overly concerned with the world, we can't forget that Christ is our King, and that any other authority over us is placed there by God.
That's the only reason Christians can say things like the pledge of allegiance, because it acknowledges God's order as head over the government.
And the constitution acknowledges God as the head of man, and man's rights as stemming from God with government in the position of protecting the rights God gave us all.
I think most of us can agree the above order is under direct attack by the far left.
Much like how the order instituted by God (God, man, woman) was turned on it's head in the fall by Satan, we are facing a people who want our modern government in God's place of authority over man.
Nikki Haley, for instance, is ready to remove freedom of speech and freedom of anonymous speech the second she gets into office.
Though she claims to be Christian, she is not acknowledging God's order as head and government as protective of the rights God gave to all mankind.
She thinks government is the one to dole out our rights, not God, and I say this because her stated goal is to force people to register to use the internet, placing the government in control of who gets to speak what information in our modern public square.
The left (if you want to call Haley right, which I don't) is also attacking freedom of speech, religious freedoms, our 4th amendment freedom as well as the freedom of citizens to vote for the candidate of our choice - our democratic republic itself.
Why? Because they want God's order turned on it's head. They don't believe we are born with freedom given to us by God, a freedom that no man has the right to remove. They want government in the place of God, doling out rights. (There's a difference between rights, and privileges that come from government but the founders believed speech was a right from God)
Every single tyrannical government in history attacks this order. When governments place themselves in God's seat, doling out the rights God gave us as they see fit (freedom of speech, religion, of movement and property etc) the people are oppressed and abused and ultimately, are deprived from hearing God's Word in Truth and practicing the Faith as led by God.
As "citizens of Rome", we are surrounded by "Romans", but it doesn't mean we aren't citizens with a God given voice, and I see these elections lately as a fight for the order God instilled. A Biblical worldview, versus a secular worldview.
When someone calling themselves Christian stands against God's order, stand's against a Biblical worldview, I can't vote for them.
That's just me and my personal faith.
I imagine, with the biblical worldview giving people freedom in truth, that many who aren't Christian enjoy the blessings thereof and would vote for it even if they aren't Christian. I know I enjoyed it prior to becoming Christian personally.
Unbelievers may not understand exactly why they support it, but some truly do. They are at the least, open to the plan of God and believe it's good.
It's not perfect because men run it, and men are flawed, but it's a system we derive from Scripture and attempt to uphold positively.
My opinion, is that the antichrist will rise out of those who oppose God and oppose God's order, but still are surrounded by His people to an extent people will mistake him or her for being Christian too.
I'm saying no one is mistaking Trump for the picture of Christian priesthood, but the one thing he doesn't do in action is oppose the order God instituted.
Whereas on the other side of the proverbial aisle, there are many who appear to us as God's people, but who stand against God's order, to such an extent as to openly fight against it.
Therefore, I don't think Trump is the antichrist, if the antichrist is embodied in one human being.
I think it will be someone else, someone who embodies the picture of a good Christian, but who in action opposes God's order.
^^ Trump is actually the opposite of this.
However, I think before we finger point about the antichrist, we are better served just trying to uphold the constitution as it was intended, because it does enshrine a Christian worldview; being humble enough to realize God can use anyone for that. He has a habit of using the foolish things of this world to confound those who are dead and dying.