Sunday, June 8, 2024 Eschatology Workshop Session 2

The Synoptic Gospels and the Documentary Shape of the Gospels

It says, a series of importunate events, has these gray boxes and the triple references to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, okay? Now, one of the interesting things about the Synoptic Gospels, as we call them, because they all kind of flow together generally, is that you can follow the basic same storyline in all three as you move through.

Luke is the only one of the four Gospel writers who said that he's going to set down an ordered set of events about the life of Christ. That's important to know because Mark and Matthew, to some degree, and John, to a great degree, will tell you about the events and teachings of Jesus Christ, not exactly in chronological order.

Not being tricky, they're making documentaries, okay? When you watch a documentary, it's bringing you a message. And when you get done with the documentary, the person who put it together wants you to believe the message that they've put together with all the evidences, and they want you to agree with them.

And that's what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are. But more importantly, they're Gospels, right? So these are documentaries meant to, like John would say, many other things Jesus did, but these were written down that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and believing in His name, you would have eternal life in Him.

So that's important to note. Matthew, Mark, and Luke very much tied together event-wise, and John's going to be a bit more.

Free.

He's not being deceptive, he's trying to be clear about who Jesus Christ is, okay? So there's going to be, God has blessed us with four Gospels, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke very much come together, and they get much more tighter in sync the closer you get to these things, right before Jesus declares judgment on Jerusalem, the temple, and the whole Old Covenant system.

So you can look at this for yourself, I encourage you to read through and see how they all correspond to each other, okay? The point of this handout is to show you the context for what Jesus is about to say in Matthew 24, or in, you know, Mark 13 or Luke 20.

There has been a build-up, a build-up of tension, conflict, not simply personality conflict, but doctrinal conflict, false teachers versus true gospel kind of conflict. Here comes Jesus Christ as the true servant of God, and those who are stewards of the Old Covenant are jealous.

And you have a jealousy between the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes, all the Jewish leaders, the temple controllers on the one side, and then Jesus Christ who comes and says such audacious things as, destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up.

And they just explode and want to kill him, you know, they plot to kill him so many times. So there's a real genuine conflict that's building up all the way to the point where he begins to pronounce judgment, very important.

Judgment on Jerusalem and the Meaning of “This Generation”

Now, seeing the importance of how synced up all this is in the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the detail that Jesus goes into talking about the destruction of what we're going to see is the destruction of the temple, right?

He says the destruction of the temple, which means the destruction of Jerusalem and all these things. You say, well, you know, you read through John, well, John never talks about that. Well, on the backside, as an example, everything, here's a sampling of like the conflict portions of the Olivet discourse in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the certain types of language to describe warfare and destruction and so on.

All of that's present in Revelation 6, just about the same order. And in fact, many of the themes that we find in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 20, and Luke 17 are also in Revelation. So in a sense, it's not exact, but in a sense, Revelation is John's Olivet discourse, just greatly expanded.

Okay, it's a far more beautiful piece of artistry as well, the way that John put it together under the Holy Spirit. It's just, it's beautiful. There are 404 verses of Revelation, and I think 750 allusions to the Old Testament.

That's impressive. All right, so let's look at Matthew, and I want to begin before chapter 24. I want to back up just a little bit, because as I said on the passage here, let's start in verse 29. Let's start in verse 29.

Okay, and we're in the woes as Jesus, and now, woe is not telling your horse to stop. This, that's W-O-A-H. This is W-O-E, which means the damnation of God be upon you. Okay, so that's what Jesus is saying.

Matthew 23, verse 29. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous and say, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

And so, they're saying, hey, we honor the prophets around here, and we honor the prophets Jesus says, therefore, you are witnesses against yourselves, but you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

Well, it's not their fault that their fathers murdered the prophets, is it? Have you read the old covenant? In the old covenant, the sins of the fathers come upon the sons. Not the new covenant, but in the old covenant, it does.

Jesus says, see, you're testifying to your guilt according to old covenant standards. Verse 32, fill up then the measure of your father's guilt. They're bearing the vessel, the shape of their father's guilt.

Jesus says, why don't you go ahead and fill it all the way up? Serpents, brood of vipers. Jesus is being very unclear here, using soft euphemisms. Jesus is saying, you are satanic. Okay, serpents, brood of vipers.

He's not against the actual snakes that go around on the ground and take care of your rat problem. He's talking about they are satanic. Serpents, brood of vipers. How can you escape the condemnation of hell?

Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will. What is he saying? I'm going to send you even more prophets, scribes. I'm going to send you even more. And I'm going to prove my point.

You say you're the sons of those who killed the prophets. Well, you're going to fill up the measure of your guilt because I'm going to send you even more. And this is what you're going to do to them when they show up.

Some of them you will kill and crucify. They killed Stephen. They made sure the Roman authorities crucified the preachers of the gospel. And some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.

So, he's talking to the Jews who are in control of the temple, who have a synagogue system that supports the temple throughout the whole Roman Empire. And Jesus is saying to them, I will be sending to you my prophets, my scribes, my wise men.

And you're going to treat them just the way your fathers treated the old covenant prophets.

Okay.

Why?

Verse 35. That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth. What a heavy burden to bear. The guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth came upon who? Jesus says to these Jewish religious leaders, the Jewish temple system.

From the blood of righteous Abel. Remember, the blood of Abel that cries out for justice. The blood of Jesus cries out, it is finished, far greater. The blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Barakai, whom you murdered, whom you murder between the temple and the altar.

Assuredly, I say to you. Now, what does verse 36 say? Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Who's he talking to?

He's like, you, you, you, you, you, you, you.

You murderers of Zechariah, son of Barakai. Upon you, all the blood of all the righteous is going to come upon this generation. Now, what does Jesus mean that all these things will come upon this generation?

Well, Matthew is full of references to this generation. Jesus uses it time and time again. It's a play on what happened when the Israelites were brought up out of Egypt. What happened to that first generation?

Died.

They wandered around the wilderness for how long? First generation. Second generation went in to where? Promised land. First generation perished under who? Moses. Second generation went into the promised land.

All the blessings under who?

Yeshua.

That's correct.

Yeshua.

Hosea changed his name. His name was changed to Yeshua. Which is where you have the prophecies in the New Testament say this was to fulfill. Why was his name Jesus?

Right.

Law came through Moses. Truth and grace came through Jesus Christ. The contrast, the greater servant to the lesser. So, Jesus is saying to this generation, this generation is going to perish. Now, this is where you have this other two-sided handout called this generation right at the top.

And I encourage you to read it for yourself. How does Jesus use the phrase this generation throughout the book of Matthew? Since we're reading in Matthew, okay, but we can also look in Luke and Mark. How does he talk about this generation?

Well, of course, we have the generations in Matthew, the genealogy, which is, you know, normal, typical generation in the Bible. It's about 40 years.

Okay.

But when you get to Matthew 11, he says, what shall I compare? But to what shall I compare this generation? And that was the generation that rejected John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. And that was the context of that passage, Matthew 12, 38 through 45.

The scribes and Pharisees, the very same ones he's saying, whoa, to in chapter 23, back here in chapter 12. They say to him, we want to see a sign from you. But he answered and said to them, an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign.

What did the evil and adulterous generation in the wilderness do? But test God and ask for signs.

All right.

So, Jesus is comparing them to the old generation who are not going to see what? The promised land. They're not going to get in.

Okay.

So, that's what he's saying. And yet no sign will be given to it, but the sign of Jonah, the prophet. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment. The ones who repented, remember? So, at the judgment, those who repented and those who did not repent will both stand up together at the same time of the judgment.

You see that?

John 5, Matthew 25. They will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. Of course, we know what a great guy Jonah was. Terrible prophet.

Terrible preacher. But they still repented. And behold, Jesus says, something greater than Jonah is here. Now, this is pretty amazing. And this is repeated more than once in the gospels, the sign of Jonah.

So, Jonah, in the whale, back out of the whale, preaches, you all need to repent. How many days did Nineveh get to repent?

40 days.

How many years did Jerusalem get to repent? 40 years.

That's right.

This generation. When Jesus preaches this sermon, 40 years later, the temple is falling down. The Romans are pillaging the gold. A million Jews are dead. The walls are down. 40 years from when Jesus is preaching this.

Okay?

So, we also have verses 42 through verse 45. Again, saying, this evil generation. Well, verse 45, notice that verse 45 says in Matthew 12 about the demons. The demon that got cast out goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go and live there.

They come back to the same place, the same man, and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation. So, Jesus went out, and he just cast out demons everywhere, didn't he?

Everywhere he went.

Goodbye.

Everywhere he went, from legion to the small boy throwing himself in the fire. No matter where Jesus went, he cast out all those demons throughout his entire time there. And then he died on the cross, was raised from the dead, and sent to the heavens.

And then what happened? He kicked all the demons out of the whole place. All Judea, Jerusalem, he kicked them all out. And then what happened? Jesus said, upon this generation, this evil generation, there's going to be a sevenfold more influx of demons coming back in to terrorize and create havoc.

Now, I encourage you to follow up on the history of the fall of Jerusalem from Josephus, and you can identify all manner of demonic activity going on. From all sorts of horrendous things happening. Horrendous things happen.

The level of bloodshed and violence, sexual violence, just destruction everywhere, and the way that they dress themselves, very much so even like the demons described in Revelation. Yeah, I'll bring it up for Q &A.

All right.

So, Jesus is talking about the generation right in front of him that are non-believing, okay? Matthew 17, verse 17 on the handout, unbelieving and perverted generation. So, that's how he uses the term generation.

If you're going to say it from the Greek, it's geneia. Geneia means generation. And Jesus always means the people right in front of him, you know, the 40-year time period, the people right in front of him.

Now, when we read in verse 36 of Matthew 23, back to the text we're going through, Matthew 23, verse 36, all the blood of all the righteous come upon this generation. He said, all this will come upon this generation.

And then who does he meet? That's a heavy burden, a heavy weight. What does he immediately do?

He weeps.

He laments. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. So, what do you think Jesus means when he says that all the blood of all the righteous are going to come upon, the guilt of all that is going to come upon this generation, and then that heavy judicial guilty burden, they're going to be judged for it.

And then he immediately says, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Who is going to bear that guilt? Where is the Lord's justice and vengeance going to fall? Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets, he was just talking about that, and stones those who are sent to her.

How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. See your house, the word house, see the word house? That is the word also in the Greek used to describe the temple.

What was the house of Jerusalem? What were they famous for? What did Roman citizens across the empire donate to? They donated to the beautification of the temple because they felt like it was one of the wonders of their empire, and they wanted to beautify it.

They were proud of it. Your house is left to you desolate, not just empty, not just deserted, but also destroyed. For I say to you, you will see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

So he says, your house is left to you desolate. There were no chapter divisions or verse divisions. Keep reading. Don't stop. Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple. He says, your house is being left to you desolate, and then he leaves the temple.

His disciples are a little concerned about what he just said. Like, seriously, Jesus, you're going to be all down on the temple? They come to him and say, his disciples come up to him and show him the building to the temple.

And in Mark and Luke's account, also we hear them saying, look at the splendor and the.

Beauty of all this.

Like, why are you so down on it? Jesus said to them, do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. To understand what's going on here is very much like what happened to Jeremiah, where Jeremiah is preaching repentance and then the people, or else, because there's judgment coming, and then the people say, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple.

Of the Lord.

Because they worshipped the temple, not at the temple, but they worshipped the temple. The temple was their security blanket. As long as we've got the temple, we can never fall. And the temple worship was such that they would even take a widow's last two mites to.

Beautify it.

Jesus was condemning the Pharisees who gave out of their excess because they were preying upon the widow, willing to give her last two mites to put just that little bit more sheen on the temple. Jesus was very against that.

And he's saying here, all that gold, when it melted in the intense crucible of flame during the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, got melted into the cracks of all the bricks and stones. And so when the Roman soldiers decided to plunder, they cracked every single stone apart.

Not one stone was left upon the other because they had to get all that gold for their plunder. So he just told the disciples, this temple is going to be destroyed. And to them, that means to them that the world is going to end.

Second Temple. Judaism, which is this, they're living in a time when there was no Ark of the Covenant because it was destroyed by Babylon in 586 BC. This temple was rebuilt by Ezra and those with him.

It was beautified. Herod the Great started a great building project, began to beautify this temple. And it's taken, by the time Jesus was on the scene, taken him 46 years to beautify it. They weren't done with the temple until about AD 65 of beautifying it.

And temple worship was one of three legs of a three-legged stool for the life of a Jew. There was Torah observance. There was temple worship. And there was this adherence and loyalty to the land. But if you're on a three-legged stool and one of those legs is taken out, you're going down.

The world's going to end.

There's no temple.

The Temple as Heaven and Earth, and Jesus as the True Mediator

Important to remember, when the tabernacle was commissioned in Exodus, it was patterned after the same elements as the Garden of Eden, but also incorporated into it elements of heaven and earth. So you had the stars incorporated into the veil.

You had angels or seraphim, cherubim infused into various parts of it. There were the heavens and then there was the earth, different parts of the earth, from the olive tree-like menorah to the altar made out of rock stone covered over with gold with four horns pointing the four directions on earth.

Heaven and earth came at an intersection in the tabernacle where there was a mediator called the high priest. Jacob goes to sleep, has a vision, and there's a ladder, a steep staircase going up, probably saw something like a ziggurat, going all the way up to heaven.

And there's a mediator between heaven and earth, Jacob's ladder. Jesus comes and says to Nathanael, you're going to see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man, not Jacob's ladder, upon me.

He's Jacob's ladder. He's the mediator between heaven and earth. The whole idea of there being a relationship between God and man was there needed to be some sort of intermediary. There needed to be some kind of way for God and man to fellowship.

After man is cast out of Eden, God starts making covenants with him, always on mountains, up here, not down here, somewhere in between, right? So, Noahic covenant, mountains of Ararat, Abrahamic covenant, Mount Moriah, Sinaitic covenant, Mount Sinai, Davidic covenant, Mount Zion, okay, intersection between heaven and earth.

We had to have a mediator. So, the temple itself was on a temple mount. It had all the elements of heaven and earth combined into one. And for a Jew to hear that the temple will be destroyed, to them, that's the end of heaven and earth.

And they thought it was like the actual end of the space-time continuum, planet Earth's going to go away. Isaiah's point about the end of heaven and earth, and others who have picked up that same language, Peter, John, Revelation, so on, is, yeah, it kind of is.

But there's a new heaven and new earth. There's a new way of mediating between God and man. There's a new way of being, to be related to God and man, and that is Jesus Christ. So, the disciples are very disturbed at the idea of the temple being destroyed, because they say, in verse three, tell us when these things will be, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age, the end of the age.

King James probably had the end of the world, but it's aeon in the Greek, not cosmos. It's not the end of the space-time continuum, it's the end of the time period. So, Matthew 24, and verse three, the end of the age.

Now, notice, when they say, what will be the sign of your coming, okay? Now, what you're going to want to do is grab this handout right here. It says sun, moon, and stars at the top. We'll get to that.

On the bottom, it says coming in clouds. We'll get to more of that. But the very number under the handout, coming in clouds, and point number one, judgment as a coming, okay? Now, this is a biblical word.

We want to have our interpretation of the text to be as biblical as we can. Throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, when God shows up, when there's a coming of the Lord, it doesn't mean that planet Earth gets blown up.

It does mean that there's judgment. The Hebrew word is b 'kad. Whenever God visits or shows up, there's like some kind of judgment that happens. And you can see that from the Tower of Babel, where God comes down, and there's a judgment, to Exodus chapter three, when God comes, and there's a judgment in Egypt.

There's descriptions of coming in judgment. So when we read that there is the last days, or the last day, or the day of the Lord, we can't say just simply because it says day, and it's a big day, that that must mean the end of the world.

Completely, totally, no more time. So also, when we read about the coming of the Lord, we can't say always that that is the same judgment every single time we read in the Bible. Otherwise, we're going to get really confused.

It's kind of like having several friends named Jack, and all of a sudden, your other friends don't know which Jack you're talking about. You have to specify, which coming was this? Which judgment was this?

And there's some passages that you can reference, and it can help guide you in that. The disciples immediately understand that the destruction of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem is a judgment, so they use the word coming.

It's a very biblical term to use. And Jesus says, chill, calm down, and carry on.

Deception, Wars, Birth Pangs, and the Great Tribulation

Right?

Jesus answered and said to them, take heed that no one deceives you. Whose responsibility is that?

Theirs.

You see that?

Number one responsibility when it comes to things of the end times, the last days, Jesus says to them, number one responsibility, let no one deceive you. Okay, that's great. Let's start there. Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ.

There are about 17 claims to be Messiah within the same time period that we're talking about, just prior to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth to before 80, 70, about 17 different Messianic movements. So Jesus was pastoring his flock saying, hey, don't let anyone deceive you.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that you are not troubled. Be calm, chill. For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

Remember that the Roman empire is filled of nations and kingdoms. An empire is like a university that has many colleges, right? An empire has many kingdoms. Now, this will be very disturbing for the disciples who grew up during the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, in which there was hardly any kind of warfare on the interior of Rome at all.

And to live your life without having any kind of war at all, and all of a sudden have rumors of war, that would be very disturbing indeed. My whole lifetime has been filled with war. Not so the disciples.

They hadn't heard a lot about war. They're about to, because there's going to be destabilization of the Roman empire. There will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All those things are recorded in history about this time period, all leading up to 80, 70.

And all these are the beginnings of sorrows or birth pangs, the beginning of birth pangs. He's picking up on Isaiah, where Isaiah talks about Jerusalem being barren, but in need to have a child. And then she has her child before the labor pangs hit.

Surprise!

So Isaiah 66, she has the child, the child, talked about all the way through Isaiah, who is Christ. She has the child before the labor pangs hit. So he's born, he comes, he dies on the cross, he's raised from the dead, says this is the new covenant, welcome to the new covenant.

So the child has come, the birth has happened, and then the labor pains hit afterwards. And Jesus said this is when they're going to happen. In the destruction of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you. You will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. For three and a half, the last three and a half years of Nero's life, he opened up the floodgates of persecution upon Christians.

He authorized the killing of Christians, the destruction of their property, the enslavement, and the whole empire opened up against the Christians. Exactly. Now what will happen? And then many will be offended and will betray one another and will hate one another.

There are people who were part of the church that would betray. They weren't true Christians after all. Verse 11, the many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

Nero came to the throne because his mother Agrippina poisoned the current Roman emperor Claudius, make sure Nero got onto the throne. And then Nero was always, after that point, suspicious that somebody was going to off him.

Makes sense.

And then like meteors would come around and then people were like, well, I guess that's it for Nero. And then Nero would kill all his family members, kill his own mother. But eventually Halley's Comet came by and it was just too much.

And Nero tried to flee from his own soldiers and ended up killing himself by the sword. And after that came the year of the four emperors. Now it's not exactly the same, but in our American empire filled with many nations, what if we had the year of four presidents?

Would you call that a stable year or? And maybe it was just tossed like a civil war on top of it. OK, no, that'd be really bad. But that happened. So Nero died. And then Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian came right after.

And Galba was just there for six months. And they just started killing each other. There was conflict all over the place. And so lawlessness abounded. The love of many grew cold. Notice verse 13. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.

Now, sometimes people take that to mean the I get to go to heaven when I die saved, which is true. But this is more about the saved like they pulled me out of the whirlpool of death. That kind of saved, physical saved.

And verse 14 says, and this gospel, meaning the gospel of the gospel of the kingdom that Jesus preached all the way through all the gospels will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations.

And then the end will come. And Romans and Colossians and Acts all testify to the gospel being preached in all the known world before the end of the destruction of Jerusalem. You can read it at Luke chapter two when Caesar attacks the whole world.

He wasn't taxing North America and he wasn't taxing China. The vernacular, the whole world meant their world, the Roman empire.

The Abomination of Desolation, Flight from Judea, and the Fall of Jerusalem

Okay.

Now, verse 15. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel, the prophet standing in the holy place, whoever reads, let them understand. Jesus is saying, understand what Daniel was on about when he said that.

Compare this to Luke and Luke explains it. Luke doesn't have abomination of desolation standing in the holy place in the exact same location that Mark and Matthew have this verse. Luke just explains it to his Greek patron Theophilus who wouldn't get Daniel.

Right.

And he says, when you see Roman armies surrounding Jerusalem, so we don't have to guess at what the abomination of desolation is. Luke tells us just straight up in the exact same place, in the exact same order.

When you see the armies of Jerusalem, armies of Rome surrounding Jerusalem, armies surrounding Jerusalem, then what are you supposed to do? Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Abomination of desolation.

Here's the great tribulation. Jesus has some advice for you. If you're scared about the coming great tribulation, here's all you have to do.

Leave Judea.

Now, does that sound like the great tribulation of the left behind series? Jesus says, now look, I know you want to escape great tribulation and I agree with you.

So here's what you do. Leave Judea.

Okay, we can do that. We can leave Judea. In fact, he's saying this to his disciples. He's pastoring his disciples. Those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Guess what the Christians did in AD 66 and a half?

Cestius and the Roman legion that was with him came to Jerusalem, surrounded Jerusalem. They advanced upon the eastern gate and they had their tortoise formation. They had all their shields and they got up real close to the gate.

They started setting it on fire. And according to the Roman historian, Suetonius said, and for no reason whatsoever, Cestius retreated. He had them on the ropes. They were all about to go down. He had them on the ropes about to take Jerusalem because Jerusalem had rebelled against Rome.

Nero had sent Cestius to go do this. He didn't finish the job, stopped, turned around, fled for five days, was harassed by Jewish paramilitary forces, had a horrible time of it, lost most of his legion and all that Roman equipment went to the Jewish zealots.

Roman armies surrounding Jerusalem. And then Jesus says, you need to flee Jerusalem. How did he get out? Cestius left, apparently for no reason whatsoever. And then all of a sudden, so Roman army surrounding Jerusalem was the sign.

And then he says, flee to the mountains. You know what the Christians did? They went to Pella. They fled to the mountains where the Christian church survived. They obeyed Jesus exactly. And you can go visit Pella today and all the artifacts.

So verse 17, let him who was on the housetop not go down, take anything out of his house. Who's he talking to? He's not talking to us. We don't spend a lot of time in our housetop, do we? I don't sit on my roof.

I don't go out on top of my roof at the end of the day and have me some hummus. I don't do that.

But they did.

That's where they spent a lot of time. They just hanging out on top of the house because they had flat roofs. Verse 18, let him who was in the field not go back to get his clothes. Soon as you see it, get out.

Woe to those who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies in those days. No problem if you can use a car, but a big problem if you have to walk. And pray that your flight might not be in winter or on the Sabbath.

You don't have heated cars in the winter with all-terrain tires. Or on the Sabbath, because on the Sabbath, nobody would offer you hospitality in a Jewish nation. You're trying to move from city to city.

There weren't a lot of motels and inns. You had to go to a city and somebody had to put you up. But they're not going to put you up on the Sabbath because you're not supposed to be traveling that far on the Sabbath.

Two-thirds of a mile, max. So what are you doing coming into our place, traveling farther than you should on the Sabbath? We're not going to host you, heretic. For then there will be a great tribulation which has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, nor shall ever be.

Now, this is the first verse, I would say, where we say, well, that couldn't be AD 70 because we've had the atomic bomb and more horrible things since. So are we going to measure it in terms of violence?

Pretty violent. You can read about the accounts for yourself, but they are atrocious. In fact, if you want to read a good listing of everything that happened, according to Josephus, who was an eyewitness, better than Josephus, go read Deuteronomy 28.

Deuteronomy 28, last half of the chapter, God says to Israel, this is what I'm going to do to you if you break covenant with me. And if you read the last half of Deuteronomy 28, you are going to read exactly what happened, according to all historical accounts in Jerusalem in AD 66 through 70.

Down to the letter, even to the point where God says, you know, Egypt, where I said I was never going to send you again. Actually, you're going to go back there as slaves, but nobody will buy you. And you know what happened when the Romans took over Jerusalem and they had all these Jewish captives.