The Fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. The Ruled Church Podcast.

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I am your host, Alan Nelson. I am one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas.

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ProvidenceBaptistAR .com. You wanna know more about us. What we're gonna do in this episode is you're gonna hear a teaching from our

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Wednesday night eschatology course. And this teaching is a segment. It's actually not the full night.

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You can find that on our website, ProvidenceBaptistAR .com. But this section of the teaching deals with the fall of Jerusalem in 70

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A .D. So no matter what your eschatology is, you need to be able to understand what happened in Jerusalem in 70

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A .D. It's really important. Actually, it does fulfill some of the things that are written in the

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New Testament. In fact, I would make the argument that most every eschatological position should have a partial preterist understanding.

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Certainly, full preterism is heresy, and it's a problem. But there are certain aspects, and from this, it's from Matthew 24, things in Luke 21 and Mark 13, things that Jesus said would happen, and they did happen.

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So you need to be able to work through those things and understand. What happened in 70

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A .D. is absolutely devastating. It's horrific. It's sad that it's not taught more.

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We don't understand it more. A lot of what we have is written from Josephus.

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What's important about Josephus is he is not a believer. He rejects

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Christ. So he has no reason to make what happened historically, he has no reason to make what happened in 70

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A .D. line up with Scripture. But what he writes does line up with Scripture, and so I think it's an important case to be made.

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So you'll hear this episode talk about the fall of Jerusalem.

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It's important to understand what happened. It helps us with our eschatology, and I hope that you are benefited.

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If you have any questions, you can call me. You can't call me. Well, you can, but I'm not putting out my number, but you can email me, quatronelson at gmail .com,

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c -u -a -t -r -o -n -e -l -s -o -n at gmail .com. I hope that you enjoy this episode, and we'll get started now.

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What I want to do tonight is I just want to set forth what happened historically, what happened, and then we can try to piece it together.

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I put some other quotes on there. I'm just not going to read that because we just don't have time for that.

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I'll read the shorter one, Daniel Doriani. He said, The fall of Jerusalem was a major event in itself, yet it also rehearses for and foreshadows another event, the last day.

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You can set that aside if you want, but I will say, and anybody that does, anybody that says to you,

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Matthew 24 is not difficult. I've got this figured out. Listen to me. I would say, hold up, because major theologians and commentators that you read, they will say, this is my position, but they're humble about it, right?

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They're like, hey, look, if you read R .C. Sproul, he takes one position, but he's humble about it.

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You can read William Hendrickson. He takes a position, but he's humble about it, and I think that we ought to approach the text with humility.

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I have a position, but we should carry those positions with humility, but here is a position that I think most everybody that I read agrees on, and that is that there is a significant part of the text that is unquestionably referring to the actual destruction of the temple, and this destruction happens depending on when you date the death of Jesus.

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So some would say 30, some say 33, but the point is, you know, because the date of his birth is, you know, it's not, history doesn't work perfect, right?

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He was born year zero. Well, there's not a year zero, first of all, right? But you understand.

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So he either dies around 30 AD or 33 AD, depending on the dating.

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We do know this happens in AD 70, so that is 40 years or less, less than 40 years, meaning what?

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Meaning some of the people, a lot of the people even, that are listening to him in the Olivet Discourse, what?

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They'll be alive when this happens. So that's something else to consider.

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Okay, I would just mention this. There are some secular scholars who would say there's no way, because of what

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Jesus says, there's no way these Gospels were written before AD 70. Why would they say that?

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Why would secular unbelievers say the Gospel accounts were not written before AD 70?

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Because it's so accurate in the prediction of the fall of Jerusalem. Of course, they're wrong, but I'm just saying you understand that's the argument.

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So these accounts were written before AD 70, and Jesus predicts these, you know, roughly 40 years before.

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So a bit of a history lesson tonight. I'm sorry, and we'll just do as much as we can.

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Some of you will be bored by this. I find it fascinating and also gut -wrenching. You'll see why.

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Okay, so in 66 AD, there's a Jewish uprising in Jerusalem. I don't care so much about the cause of it.

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You just know that's the history of the Jewish people a lot, right? You read that. But here's what's important.

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This is in 66. Emperor Nero sends General Cestius Gallus to take care of this uprising.

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So in your mind, 66, if you don't remember the name, he won't be on the test anyway, right? Okay, so he comes to take care of this uprising.

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He marches to the city. He surrounds it or, you know, approaches it anyway.

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He's there outside the city for five days. This is in 66.

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And then inexplicably, he retreats. Historians don't know why he retreats. But as he retreats, zealots, you understand the word zealot, like Jewish zealots who were wanting to get rid of the

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Roman rule, they chase him and they actually attack him. And I think he loses like more than 5 ,000 men.

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He had like 30 ,000 or something and he loses 5 ,000. I mean, it's a significant Roman defeat. Now, Pastor Jacob, I need you to do this real quick.

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Can you turn to Luke 21? As Jacob's turning there, just note that what would this do to the zealots?

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Would it defeat them? Would they be sad? Or would they be encouraged? They're encouraged.

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They're emboldened. Hear the Roman army. They've come to our city. They stood outside.

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They left. On their way out, we kicked them in the tail, as it were, and we killed their men. And so what's the idea?

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Does this help fuel the uprising or does it like, everybody's like, okay, now we'll go back to Roman subjugation?

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It fuels the uprising. But note this from Luke 21. Jacob, would you read verses 20 -24?

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So Luke 21, verses 20 -24. But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.

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Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart.

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And let not those who are out in the country enter it. For these are the days of vengeance to fulfill all that is written.

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Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days. For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people.

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They will fall on the edge of the sword and be left captive among all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the

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Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. So you think, so a lot of people, I mean, growing up, maybe you thought you read that and you're like, that's talking about the seven years' tribulation or whatever.

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But I'm just going to tell you historically what happened. Historically, when

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Cestus Gallus left, the church in Jerusalem left.

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So you have Eusebius, he's writing in the 300s, and he notes that the church in Jerusalem saw the

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Roman army, and when they left, they saw that as their cue to get out of the city.

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Now, why would they think that? Why would the church in Jerusalem think, here's the Roman army, they've approached the city, we've got to get out of here.

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Why would they think that? Luke 21. It's what Jesus said. Remember, this is only 40 years.

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There were people, theoretically, I mean, it would have to be, there were people who actually had perhaps even heard this, right?

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And who were in Jerusalem still alive at this time, and they're like, we've got to get out of here. So historically, that's what happened.

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They fled to a town called Pella, about 20 miles away from Jerusalem. So historical accounts would say that all or at least most

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Christians left the city. Now, the rest of what we're going to talk about tonight is primarily we take from the records of Josephus.

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Now, here's what I want to tell you about Josephus. He's born around 37 AD. He dies around 100

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AD. It's very important. I think this fact is very important. He is a

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Jew. He is a Jew, ethnically a Jew, religiously, he is a

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Jew. He's not a Christian, and he rejects Christ. Now, this is why

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I think that's important. Eusebius is a Christian. That's in the 300s.

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It doesn't mean you can't believe Christian historians. We should, right? That's great. But it does mean a

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Christian historian, you would expect what? You'd expect a little bias, right?

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I mean, we try not to be biased, but you would expect a Christian historian is going to say, this is the fulfillment of what

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Jesus said, right? Okay, but Josephus is not a

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Christian, so his bias is going to run which way? Against Christianity. So if you had a

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Christ follower telling us about the fall of Jerusalem and say, hey, look, all these events lined up with Jesus saying, what

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Jesus said, you might say, well, okay. Yeah, I believe that, but maybe in the back of your mind, you'd think maybe he also really just wanted what

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Jesus said to come true, right? Okay, but a secular historian, okay, if Jesus is a liar, by the way, that destroys

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Christianity. We understand that? So you say, if Jesus said something wrong about Jerusalem, I want to try to make sure it lines up somehow because if Jesus is a liar, that destroys

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Christianity. But here's the good thing about Josephus. He's not a Christian. And so if he tells us the fall of Jerusalem in such a way that it lines up with Jesus' teaching, there's not a bias there.

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You understand? You understand the point I'm trying to make? Yes, he's a hostile witness.

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He's against Christianity, but he testifies in such a way that it verifies what

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Jesus has said. All right, so in Matthew 24 and Luke 21.

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We're going to walk through this if I can get past the guys talking in the kitchen. We're going to walk through this as quickly as I can in the next few minutes.

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So here's what happens. Three days before Passover in 70 AD. So that's less than four.

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So 66 AD is the first, you know, affair, if you will. 70

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AD, three days before Passover, the Roman army under General Titus surrounds

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Jerusalem. Now this is important, guys. Why is Passover significant about Jerusalem? Yeah, so there's a historical and theological point here.

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Theologically, I think it's not happenstance that when was Jesus crucified during Passover.

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That's certainly not happenstance. But I certainly don't think it's happenstance either when the very destruction of Jerusalem begins during the feast or around the feast of Passover, same time as Jesus crucified.

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That's the theological point. Historical point is what? Jerusalem is decreasing or increasing during Passover?

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Increasing. So more people are coming during Passover. Tons of people come into the city.

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And what happens now? All these people come to the city. The Roman army surrounds the city. So what has happened?

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They're trapped. And even some accounts would say that Titus lets people through, but he won't let them out, right?

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So if you're like, well, hey, man, I know you're like surrounding the city, but can we go in and do our Passover thing? Sure, you can go.

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But if they try to come back out, he's not letting them. So now the city is overrun with people.

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Now what has happened in the last almost four years is the city has no leadership. They have various factions.

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They're fighting for leadership. They're at odds with one another. So it's not like one unified, let's fight the

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Roman army. You've got at least two factions fighting one another as General Titus surrounds the city.

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He surrounds the city. He demands surrender. When you read Josephus, you kind of get this idea of a good impression of General Titus.

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So Josephus is pro -Titus. He's later going to be emperor. But you get the feel in reading

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Josephus anyway, you get the feel that Titus wanted the city to lay down. Stop, stop doing this, right?

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Stop your rebellion, surrender, and let's all get home and back to things.

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But the zealots refused. They had been emboldened, remember? They'd been emboldened by their win in 66.

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They felt that God was with them, and they thought that the city absolutely could not be taken.

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Now the city has three walls around, or had three walls around it. So you've got the outer wall, a middle wall, and then the inner wall.

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And in just a few weeks, General Titus breaks through the outer wall, and not much longer, he's through the middle wall.

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And so everything's going well for the Roman army, but the zealots refuse to surrender. Now we need to think for a moment so you understand what's going to happen.

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It's terrible. But you need to think a moment what's happening during siege warfare. What's happening in siege warfare?

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Yeah. So you've got the Roman army surrounding the city, and they're letting what?

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Nothing gets in. Now it also helps you to remember what's compounding the issue is if there are more people, let's say all these people show up.

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Harps has a sale while all these people are here. And everybody runs in, and what happens?

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The food's gone. Why? Because there are more people here. Okay, now let's go 2 ,000 years ago.

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Where's the food? Is it going to be consumed less or more?

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More. Why? Simply because there's more people. So you're a month into the siege, both walls are broken through, but this is where things get bad.

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It's going to take several more months before they can break through this third wall.

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And this is when things get unimaginable inside the city. Sometimes, let me say this, while this is going on, there'd be little attacks, like people inside the city, they'd get the courage, they'd run out like, let's fight the

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Roman army. So they'd go, and they'd do little skirmishes and stuff. Sometimes they'd win, and they'd get back. But there's at least one occasion where people were caught, and General Titus crucified them before the walls.

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What's he trying to do? He's trying to intimidate the city. He's saying, you've got to stop.

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You're not going to win, right? So he crucifies them before the wall, you get that. But inside the city, the food is going away.

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And you guys and I, it's only by the mercy of God, you really don't understand what happens when people get hungry.

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So inside the city is devastating. Now, we get hangry, and we joke about that. But I'm talking about starvation.

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Different groups of people inside the city, they begin raiding each other's houses. There's some accounts that go to people's houses, and they find them eating, and so they would forcefully open them and pull food from out of their mouth and eat the food.

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I'm not going to tell you all the detail about this, but they would take hot iron, and they would poke people with it.

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I won't go into detail with that. But they would torture people to try to figure out if they were hiding any food.

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This is how, I think this quote's on your sheet, how Josephus describes it. All hope of escaping was now cut off from the

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Jews, together with their liberty of going out of the city. Then did the famine widen its progress and devour the people by whole houses and families.

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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.

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The children also and the young men wondered about the marketplaces like shadows, all swelled with famine and fell down dead, wheresoever their misery seized them.

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So the famine is consuming people inside the city. And I don't know if you know this or not, but during times of famine, you can swell up.

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It's just because of lack of nutrition and all that. And so there is at least one story, Josephus says, of a group of people, they're just like, look, we're done.

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If we're inside the city, we're going to die. So we're going to go outside the city. Titus is so overwhelmed with compassion for these people because of how miserable they look, that he says, okay, you can feed these people.

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And Josephus says, they eat so fast and so much. The way he describes it is their stomachs explode.

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That's a terrible way to die. Okay, back inside the city, one of the worst things that can ever happen to a civilization happens, cannibalism.

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There are multiple accounts. This is terrible to tell you. I wouldn't tell you if it wasn't true, but there's multiple accounts of nursing women.

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They just boil their babies and they eat them. And they've descended into such chaos and misery that people inside Jerusalem are killing one another and they're actually eating one another.

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And I'm talking about nursing women actually killing their children and eating them.

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Finally, the third wall was breached. This is the end of August. The third wall is breached and the people rallied to the temple.

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Those that are left, they rallied to the temple. First of all, it makes sense because it was where the breach was made.

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It was natural to use in that sense, but also symbolically important. They want to defend the temple.

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Why? Why would the Jews want to defend the temple? That's God's house.

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Except, is it? Not in AD 70. God's not there.

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God's not with them, but they rallied to the temple. We're going to do it. We're going to take our last stand.

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And accounts are different about this, but General Titus supposedly, Josephus says that General Titus says he doesn't want the temple to be destroyed.

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But somebody in his army sets fire to it and it is destroyed and it is demolished.

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God had come to the people of the Jews in the person of Christ and they rejected

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Him. They abandoned Him. They killed Him. And even after His resurrection, they refused to believe.

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Man, I've got another. Okay, I'm just going to push through. If you've got to go, go, go. Just push through real quick.

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Real quick. 1 Thessalonians 2, 14 -16, verse 16. Paul says wrath has come upon them.

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Now this is before AD 70, but he's alluding to that event. So we need to understand what happens in AD 70 is an act of God's judgment.

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We'll talk about the significance more next time. But the final holdout's the temple and the temple is destroyed and the battle is a slaughter.

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No mercy. You think outside this city as a Roman army person for four months, what are you going to do when you get inside the city and you finally get a hold of these people?

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No mercy. They slaughter them. And then after this battle, there's still more killings because people, you remember what happened in COVID and everybody was like, they'd call the police or whatever in certain places, like they're not wearing a mask and report on each other.

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That's happening here. So after the battle's over and everything, then people's kind of reporting on others' activities and then there's more people that are killed and the

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Jews are again placed under forceful subjugation. This is important. A lot of them are dispersed.

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They're taken, the younger ones, they're taken and they're dispersed. That's important.

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And Josephus says 1 .1 million people. This is from Josephus.

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1 .1 million people were either killed from the famine or the killings or the battle and this is absolutely devastating.

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I quoted Hebrews 8 .13. You can look at that. What is old is becoming obsolete and ready to vanish away.

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We're going to put the pieces together next time. I'm just kind of finishing to get to a good stopping point. And how about that will be our stopping point?

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I've got a few more but I don't want to rush through it. So all you need to understand tonight is this. All we've tried to say is that at least part of Matthew 24 and Luke 21 and Mark 13 are referring to a real historical event that was terrible and devastating and was an act of God's judgment upon the city of Jerusalem.

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And we'll talk about why more next time and make the connections. I'll stop the recording and then you can ask me.

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If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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God's doing. This is His work. If we really believe what Ephesians says we are the poimos, the masterpiece of God.