by Brett Jacobsen

 

The focus of this teaching is to promote the biblical truth that Christ’s Kingdom is active and increasing right now on this earth, in this age. Erroneous eschatology has detracted from this truth in many circles of the Christian faith.

All of the major eschatological (study of how things end) passages are covered but the end of the world is not the important issue and true eschatology is merely a means to an end- Christ Himself as King of kings. Though we will look at the glorious end of earthly history from time to time, we will more so continually use the scriptures to interpret the scriptures and arrive at the present victorious Kingdom of Christ.

For most Christians this teaching will challenge you deeply in your understanding of the New Covenant and Christ’s Kingdom as well as liberate you greatly in the truth of His Word.

The Olivet Discourse- The Great Tribulation Part 2

 

Below are the scriptures that are in this teaching so you can read along:

*The remnant flees

 

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: 17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 19 And woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 20 But pray you that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: (Matt 24:16-20)

 

…then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains: 15 And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house: 16 And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. 17 But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 18 And pray you that your flight be not in the winter. (Mark 13:14b-18)

 

Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. (Luke 21:21)

 

 

-“In 66 A.D., when the Romans besieged Jerusalem, the believers within the city realised that the time of judgement had arrived and that they were not to join the fight but leave for the mountains. Later in that year, the siege was temporarily lifted and the entire Jewish Christian community from Jerusalem and the whole Land of Israel (some 100, 000 people) left Israel and found refuge in Pella, east of the Jordan River. In 68 A.D. the siege was reimposed and in 70 A.D. the final destruction came.”

                                                       Messianic Christology page 70 (Fruchtenbaum)

 

-Cestius Gallus, President of Syria, arrived on 30 October, 66, with the Twelfth Legion, but only met with repulses, and had to retire (Antiq. Jud., XX, xxi; Bell. Jud., II, xvii, 6; xix, 1-9). The Christians, recalling Christ’s prophecies (Luke 19:43, 44), withdrew beyond the Jordan into Agrippa’s territory… Nero commanded his general, Vespasian, to suppress the insurrection, and Vespasian, accompanied by his son Titus, invaded Galilee, in A.D. 67, with an army of 60,000 men.

 

-”The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella. Here those that believed in Christ, having removed from Jerusalem, as if holy men had entirely abandoned the royal city itself, and the whole land of Judea; the divine justice, for their crimes against Christ and his apostles finally overtook them, totally destroying the whole generation of these evildoers form the earth. (Eusebius, 3:5.)

 

-Did Jerusalem Christians Flee to Pella (article)-

http://www.preteristarchive.com/JewishWars/articles/1998_scott_flee-pella.html

 

- Nero’s death stopped the Jewish War briefly so that Christians trapped in Jerusalem could escape (TWOTJ iv:xi:5)

 

-“And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.” (1 Thess 1:10)

 

 

*Great tribulation/Days of Vengeance

 

For then shall be great tribulation [thlipsis], such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor [ou me- a double neg. strengthening the denial; not at all. oude- ever] ever [ou me] shall be. (Matt 24:21)

 

For in those days shall be affliction [thlipsis], such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created to this time, neither shall be. (Mark 13:19)

 

And when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is near. 21 Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. 22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 23 But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land [ge], and wrath upon this people. 24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. (Luke 21:20-24)

 

1 100 000 killed, 97 000 taken into slavery

 

The Wars of the Jews - Josephus

 

-”The Day-Time Was Spent in the Shedding of Blood, and the night in fear” (ii:xviii:1-5)

 

-Alexandria- “fifty thousand of them lay dead upon heaps;” (ii:xviii:8)

 

-“Galilee was all over filled with fire and blood;” (iii:iv:1)

 

-Joppa – “the sea was bloody a long way, and the maritime parts were full of dead bodies” (iii:ix:2-4)

 

-Lake Gennesareth – “one might then see the lake all bloody, and full of dead bodies” (iii:x:9)

 

-The temple – “the blood of all sorts of dead carcasses stood in lakes in the holy courts themselves” (v:i:3b)

 

-Terrible famine – “children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their infants” (v:x:3)

 

-Wickedness – “It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men’s iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly:—That neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world….” (v:x:5)

 

-“were then crucified before the wall of the city” “they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they caught more” “their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies”. (v:xi:1-2)

 

-Famine – “Then did the famine widen its progress, and devoured the people by whole houses and families; the upper rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children also and the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows, all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever their misery seized them.” (v:xii:3a)

 

-The robbers cruelty – “they brake open those houses which were no other than graves of dead bodies, and plundered them of what they had; and carrying off the coverings of their bodies, went out laughing, and tried the points of their swords in their dead bodies” (v:xii:3b)

 

-Desolation - “the multitude of carcasses that lay in heaps one upon another was a horrible sight, and produced a pestilential stench” “places which were before adorned with trees and pleasant gardens were now become a desolate country every way, … any foreigner that had formerly seen Judea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert” (vi:i:1)

 

-Eat anything - “Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable, that it obliged them to chew every thing, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals would not touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at length abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to their shields they pulled off and gnawed: the very wisps of old hay became food to some” (vi:iii:3)

 

- Cannibal mother - “snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, “O thou miserable infant! For whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews.” As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed.” (vi:iii:4)

 

-Slaves – “were the deserters many more in number. They were all received by the Romans, because Titus himself grew negligent as to his former orders for killing them, and because the very soldiers grew weary of killing them, and because they hoped to get some money by sparing them; for they left only the populace, and sold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and children, and every one of them at a very low price, and that because such as were sold were very many, and the buyers were few…” (vi:viii:2)

 

-Lasting effects – “While Titus was at Cesarea, he solemnized the birthday of his brother Domitian] after a splendid manner, and inflicted a great deal of the punishment intended for the Jews in honor of him; for the number of those that were now slain in fighting with the beasts, and were burnt, and fought with one another, exceeded two thousand five hundred.” (vii:iii:1)

 

 

- “nor [ou me- a double neg. strengthening the denial; not at all. oude- ever] ever [ou me] shall be.” – There will never be another great tribulation- one of this nature- where national Israel (besides remnant) was ejected from covenant and judged with great tribulation.

 

Though spiritual Israel will never be ejected and judged with the great tribulation, prophesy does repeat in a non exact manner- personally saints can be ejected and judged with tribulation:

 

And if some of the branches be broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree; 18 Boast not against the branches. But if you boast, you bear not the root, but the root you. 19 You will say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. 20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: 21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not you. (Rom 11:17-21)

 

 

  

*Days shortened

 

And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. (Matt 24:22)

 

And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he has chosen, he has shortened the days. (Mark 13:20)

 

 

If the siege would have lasted too long the war would have spread throughout Palestine and then the Christians (the elect) would have fallen to it. If it wasn’t for the famine the Romans wouldn’t have been able to get the Jews down from the towers.

“And here one may chiefly reflect on the power of God exercised upon these wicked wretches, and on the good fortune of the Romans; for these tyrants did now wholly deprive themselves of the security they had in their own power, and came down from those very towers of their own accord, wherein they could have never been taken by force, nor indeed by any other way than by famine. And thus did the Romans, when they had taken such great pains about weaker walls, get by good fortune what they could never have gotten by their engines; for three of these towers were too strong for all mechanical engines whatsoever, concerning which we have treated above. 5. So they now left these towers of themselves, or rather they were ejected out of them by God himself” (The Wars of the Jews Josephus vi:viii:4-5)

 

 

*False Christs/false prophets

 

Then [during the great tribulation] if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. 24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect [eklektos- chosen]. 25 Behold, I have told you before. 26 Wherefore if they shall say to you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. (Matt 24:23-26)

 

And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not: 22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. (Mark 13:21-22)

 

“The soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer [court of the] temple, whither the women and children, and a great mixed multitude of the people, fled, in number about six thousand. But before Caesar had determined any thing about these people, or given the commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were in such a rage, that they set that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and some were burnt in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of them escape with his life. A false prophet was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Now there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God; and this was in order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such his deliverance.” (The Wars of the Jews Josephus vi:v:2)

 

- Also, Manahem…

 

 

*Take heed- I have foretold YOU

 

But take you heed: behold, I have foretold you [the 1^st century disciples] all things. (Mark 13:23)

 

 

Duplication and embedding of these videos is permitted as long as they are complete and a link to www.christisall.org is included.

Thank you.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Audio/Video, Brett Jacobsen's teaching, Christ's Kingdom, Eschatology (How it ends), Living Christianity, Reformation/ Revival. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.