What God Said Will Happen

Did you miss the part of Matthew 23

“
32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”

Note. This generation.

Note. The destruction of 2nd temple Jerusalem

And let’s look at Matthew 24

“24 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

Note He talks of the immanent destruction of the temple, not 2000 years later

And
“6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
“
68 AD the Julio Claudian dynasty fell, and wars between Otho, Vitellus and Vespasian threatened to destroy the Pax Augustus. And the Parthians were threatening an invasion.

AND THE ZEALOT JEWISH SECT TRIGGERED THE JEWISH REVOLT.

Read Josephus who wrote at that time and described perfectly the signs in heaven , the earthquakes, the wars and the famines

The Olivet Discourse contains Jesus’ answers to two very short questions asked by the disciples: “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the close of the age?” (24:3).

In response, Jesus predicts many signs and events. About halfway through this long passage, Jesus promises the coming of the Son of man within a generation by stating, “They will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory.… Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place” (24:30, 34).

Note THIS GENERATION TO WHOM HE WAS SPEAKING TO WILL NOT PASS UNTIL THE TEMPLE IS DESTROYED

Jesus uses the phrase “this generation” many times, as does the rest of the New Testament. The word generation is used thirty-four times in the New Testament, and the phrase “this generation” is used twenty times. Without exception, it always refers to the people who were alive, listening to the speaker. In fact, Jesus uses this same word just a few verses before the Olivet Discourse to refer to His own generation. No one tries to reinterpret the meaning of this word on that occasion (Matt. 23:36).

Further, the word generation is not used in a vacuum. Jesus continually speaks during the discourse in the second person, you (Matt. 24:9, 15, 20, 25, 32, 33, 34). He obviously meant the generation of those hearing Him. One of these references within the Olivet Discourse is particularly interesting: “You will be beaten in synagogues” (Mark 13:9). It would be hard to imagine this prophecy being fulfilled anywhere in the twenty-first century. When was the last time you heard of a Christian taken away to the local synagogue for a good, old-fashioned whipping? Jesus must have been referring to the generation of those listening, the “you.” That is the meaning of the word and the implication of the context.

The conclusion from all of this is that Jesus really did mean the generation that included His disciples

Between 70 and 73 A.D., the Temple complex was destroyed by the Roman army. In their rage in 70 A.D., the Roman legions disobeyed General Titus’s orders and set fire to the Temple. As a result, the gold in the Temple melted down between its huge stones. To their chagrin, these same Roman soldiers were then ordered to dismantle everything stone by stone over a period of three years. By the time they had finished recovering the gold, nothing was left but a field.

The Romans then plowed the field under. The Jewish Talmud understood the defeat at the hand of Titus to be the final fulfillment of Micah 3:12. It states that the Romans “ploughed up Sion as a field, and made Jerusalem become as heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest”

Sign 1: False messiahs

“Take heed that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray” (Matt. 24:4–5).

During the period leading up to the Jewish-Roman War that culminated in the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., there were several supposed messiahs in Judea who collected an army to fight the Romans. Every one of these messiahs was hunted down and killed by the Roman legions. Their followers were killed or sold into slavery.

Josephus mentions these false messiahs: “Imposters and deceivers persuaded the multitude to follow them into the wilderness, and pretended that they would exhibit manifest wonders and signs that should be performed by the providence of God. And many that were prevailed on by them suffered the punishments of their folly”

Sign 2: Wars

“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars” (Matt. 24:6).

The decade before 70 A.D. began with rebellion in Britain and ended with rebellion in Judea. The Pax Romana, the Roman-imposed peace that reigned throughout the ancient world, was deteriorating. As if that were not bad enough, there was civil war within the city of Rome itself, among generals fighting for the throne. This fighting was one reason Vespasian suspended his efforts in the war with the Jews in 68 A.D. He “foresaw already the civil wars which were coming upon them, nay, that the very government was in danger” Josephus

Signs 3 and 4: Famines and earthquakes Signs 3 and 4 each merit only a word each in the text. “There will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (24:7).

I assume you are aware of the famine that plagued the Jews in Jerusalem. St. Paul wrote about it in his letter to the Corinthians Corinthian Church. He seems to have been regularly collecting donations from the gentile Christians to ameliorate the suffering of the Church in Judea (2 Cor. 8).

Eusebius also documents the famine: “Under [Claudius] the world was visited with a famine, which writers that are entire strangers to our religion have recorded in their histories”

Perhaps you are less aware that earthquakes frequently erupted during the decades leading to the destruction of Jerusalem. The city of Colossae was totally destroyed in an earthquake in the 50s. That was the end of the Church there, the same Church that St. Paul addressed in the letter to the Colossians.

Perhaps the most famous earthquake of ancient times was the one in 63 A.D. in Pompeii. The ruins have been excavated by archeologists in our own day. (This earthquake is now famous because Pompeii was utterly destroyed by volcano in 79 A.D.) The earthquake of 63 A.D., along with others, would have been a warning to the Christians about three or four years before the Jewish-Rome War began.

Sign 5: Persecution

“They will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Matt. 24:9).

The Sanhedrin persecuted Christians in Jerusalem and used the synagogues as a base for persecution elsewhere in the empire. But the persecution of sign 5 would come not only from the Jewish leaders in the synagogues

Remember, the Christian’s are still a Jewish sect in 67 AD.

Nero, in his desire to deflect the anger of Rome’s citizenry, singled out the Christians as the scapegoat. Rome officially sided with the Sanhedrin: the Christians were declared seditious. In this new persecution, the entire weight of the Roman political bureaucracy was brought to bear against the tiny Christian community.

The ancient Roman historian Tacitus has documented Nero’s persecution. Christians became hunted creatures in the empire. Many met their death in the Coliseum in Rome as the audiences cheered and jeered. Some were strapped to stakes in Nero’s gardens and burned alive as human torches

This sign was sure to get the attention of the early Church. The end—the destruction of the Temple, to which all eight signs pointed—was approaching when the gentile state turned on the Christian Church.

Sign 6: Apostasy

Jesus predicts the reaction of His followers to this new and concentrated form of persecution. “Many will fall away, and betray one another.… Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.… Most men’s love will grow cold” (24:10–12)

We find evidence of this apostasy in the letters to the seven churches that St. John includes in The Apocalypse. The letter to the Hebrews was written in the decade preceding 70 A.D. and gives further evidence that all of this occurred as Jesus predicted. Times would be extremely difficult during the Great Tribulation of 64 to 67 A.D. But Jesus predicts that even the Roman Empire will not be able to snuff out His Church. The Christians that endure the trials all the way to the end are assured of salvation by the Savior Himself: “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13)

Sign 7: The gospel worldwide

Jesus predicts, “This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14).

Paul states that in his lifetime, the Faith of the Church in Rome “is proclaimed in all the world” (Rom. 1:8). In Colossians 1:5–6, he writes, “You have heard … the gospel … as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing.” There was certainly no doubt in St. Paul’s mind, while writing under inspiration, that the gospel had gone out into the whole world

the early Church certainly understood that the gospel had been preached to the entire world before 70 A.D. Clement of Rome was bishop when the signs of the Olivet Discourse were being fulfilled (67–73 A.D.). He wrote that Peter and Paul had been martyred, but not before they “taught righteousness to the whole world, and [they came] to the extreme limit of the west”

Justin Martyr, born around the turn of the first century, wrote that “from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God” (FA, XXXIX).

Eusebius even connected the seventh sign to Jerusalem’s desolation: “The teaching of the new covenant was borne to all nations, and at once the Romans besieged Jerusalem and destroyed it and the Temple” (

You confused, jmt? Perhaps you knew that there are two Greek words for world. The Olivet Discourse uses the word oikoumene at this point, which specifically means the civilized world, delineated at the time by the boundaries of the Roman Empire. In other words, the gospel would be preached throughout the entire empire. There is another word for world that designates the entire earth, kosmos.

Kosmos appears later in this same chapter: “from the beginning of the world until now” (Matt. 24:21). Since both words are used in the same passage, it seems quite certain that the Apostles were fully cognizant of these two concepts. Therefore, we can be confident that Jesus taught His disciples that the “end” of the Temple would follow the preaching of the gospel throughout the civilized world, the Roman Empire.

Sign 8: Daniel’s desolating sacrilege

Sign 8 is the last sign. It is so closely associated with the end of the Temple that Jesus exhorts His followers to immediate action when it appears. Jesus urges Christians, “When you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matt. 24:15–19). The previous signs have been a warning. Now danger is imminent for anyone near Jerusalem’s Temple.

In the summer of 66 A.D., the Roman general Cestius Gallus attacked Jerusalem in response to the cessation of the sacrifices for Nero in the Temple. He actually led his soldiers up to the gates of the Temple, and many Jews thought the Romans had won the battle. The Temple was about to fall. For some unknown reason, however, Cestius unexpectedly retreated. At this sign of weakness, the Jews pursued the retreating army and killed hundreds of Roman soldiers while acquiring a great amount of war materiel. The Roman garrison, now an island in a sea of hostile territory, was promised safe conduct, but the Roman soldiers were slaughtered once they laid their weapons aside. This repulsion of the Roman army left Jerusalem with the impression that God would continue to protect His Temple, and that they could defeat Rome when it came to battle as Josephus notes.

In February of 67 A.D. General Vespasian set about subduing Galilee and the Judean countryside. He was not about to make the mistake Cestius had. Vespasian fought a campaign in the summer of 67 A.D., and then again the following summer. Upon the completion of these campaigns, he planned to bring his entire army to the siege of Jerusalem.

Yet within the besieged Jerusalem, the Jews had A CIVIL WAR WHILE BEING BESIEGED!!

The Temple itself was controlled now by one of the groups of outlaw Zealots, battling the priestly class and city residents. The Idumeans, who were the descendants of Esau, had gained entry and were rampaging through the city. And a band of lawless Zealots, who had been encamped outside the walls, eventually got into the city and joined the fray (WJ, IV, 6:2).

Eusebius recorded that the Christians fled en masse because of the prophecy of Jesus, probably in 68 A.D. “The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, entrusted to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella.… And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem … the judgment of God at length overtook … and totally destroyed that generation of impious men”

Athanasius informs us that the revelation that Eusebius mentions was the very words of Christ that we have been examining. After quoting the warning of Jesus, Athanasius describes the actions of the Judean Church: “Knowing these things, the Saints regulated their conduct accordingly” (DHF).

Without thought of possessions, they fled for their lives. Virtually no one escaped the Roman army alive once the siege was staged in earnest. Those trying to escape Jerusalem were caught, whipped, and then crucified by the Romans: five hundred people or more each day.

Titus “hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear.… Their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies.” (WJ, V, 11:1).

Eusebius records that not a single Christian was caught within Jerusalem when Titus successfully surrounded the city (EH, III, V)!

The early Church had seen the signs of the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy. Their faith in Christ’s words had saved the fledgling Judean Church from extinction.

Neither the Jewish historian Josephus nor the Roman historian Tacitus ever claimed to be a Christian, nor was either particularly sympathetic to the Christian cause. Yet without ulterior motive, both recorded the appearance of strange heavenly signs at the time of the fall of Jerusalem (WJ, VI, 5:3; THI, 1:5–7, 1:2–3). These could have been “the sign of the Son of man in the Heaven.”

Josephus assures his readers that these events were hard to believe and credible only because of the eyewitnesses involved: “I suppose [this] account … would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those who saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals.

“There was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year.… Before the Jews’ rebellion … so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright daytime; which lasted for half an hour.… Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner court of the Temple … was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night.… The men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord.… So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them.… A few days after … before sunsetting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds.… Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner court of the Temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, ‘Let us remove hence.’ ”

Utter nonsense that Russia moved its embassy to Jerusalem and recognised Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel one year BEFORE the usa did?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-historic-first-russia-recognizes-west-jerusalem-as-israels-capital/

In curious first, Russia recognizes West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
Taken aback, Foreign Ministry says it is studying Moscow’s statement, which also calls for Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem
By RAPHAEL AHREN
6 April 2017

Face it, your pre tribulation rapture fails over and over. It is not from God, but your ideas are from Darby

Utter nonsense that Russia moved its embassy to Jerusalem and recognised Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel one year BEFORE the usa did?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-historic-first-russia-recognizes-west-jerusalem-as-israels-capital/

Russia’s surprising announcement came as US President Donald Trump considers moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It is unclear what prompted Moscow’s decision and whether other countries in its sphere of influence will follow suit.

Face it, your pre tribulation rapture fails over and over. It is not from God, but your ideas are from Darby

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