Matt 24 Pt. 5: Wars, Famines, Plagues, Earthquakes, and Signs in the Heavens

Well, as you guys know, we're still in the Olivet Discourse, right, and we're gonna be talking about how we did the study. We read the whole passage, that was a while ago. We summarized it, we did an overview.

The Hermeneutic of the Olivet Discourse and the Fulfilled-Prophecy Framework

We went through each verse individually and explained it. Our hermeneutic was the analogy of faith where scripture interprets scripture. Then we're up to the point where we're more deeply addressing some larger issues, some key points and themes in the context to show why we believe that Matthew 24 has been fulfilled already.

And later on, we'll address opposing views to those points. So tonight, we're gonna cover wars, famines, plagues, earthquakes, signs in the heavens. And basically, excuse me, if these things took place within the generation that Jesus was addressing, then Jesus's words were proved true.

And we should not be looking for another or future fulfillment of them. Jesus said these things would happen within this generation. Then they do happen. There's no reason at that point to look for future comings of those signs, a future coming of his because the signs were already here.

Wars and Rumors of Wars in the First Century

So let's talk about wars and rumors of wars because that's one of the things that Jesus said would be one of the signs. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Jesus warns us of wars and rumors of wars and the rise of kingdom against kingdom.

But the question is, did that really take place in the first century? Don't we see many wars and rumors of wars happening now? I mean, all you gotta do is turn on the news and you can see it's all around us.

But why aren't these the current times of the age that Jesus spoke about? Well, Darrell Bach, who's a theologian, he writes, Matthew 24, six appears to suggest that these calamities are in the near future by noting that the disciples are about to hear of wars and rumors of wars.

And he puts up this Greek word here, meleste, right? And he says, are about to hear is not an indicator of events in the distant future. This is an indicator of events that would happen soon, that would be about to happen.

The annals of Tacitus, and remember Tacitus is a Roman historian and politician, and he was covering the historical period from 14 AD to the death of Nero in AD 68. And he describes this time, the generation that Jesus was talking about, with phrases such as disturbances in Germany, commotions in Africa, commotions in Thrace, insurrections in Gaul, intrigues among the Parthians, the war in Britain and the war in Armenia.

So he's basically saying that there was much talk about wars happening in that region. And wars were fought from one end of the Roman Empire to the other in the days of the apostles. So the context of the Olivet Discourse requires that wars and rumors of wars fit into the timeframe of that era, since Jesus said they would take place before this generation passed away in Matthew 24, 34.

The New Testament itself does not mention Roman Empire-wide wars, but we know that they took place. Providentially, we have secular sources to help fill us in in the historical gaps. So basically what he's telling us is that there were, Tacitus, the historian, told us of these wars that were happening during the time that Jesus said that they would happen.

Where's my cursor? There we go, okay. Some will argue that global wars are what Jesus has in view in the Olivet Discourse. So when Jesus says wars and rumors of wars are gonna take place, they're saying, dispensationalists would say, that Jesus was talking about worldwide wars.

Rather than the local war in Judea, the account in Matthew depicts something on a much broader scale. In the words of Craig Evans, the expectation of global warfare and chaos. However, there were no major wars prior to the Jewish revolt.

And the key word here is global. Jesus was not predicting global warfare. Otherwise, why direct the people of Jerusalem to flee to the mountains? If Jesus was describing a global war, there wouldn't be any place to escape.

Does that make sense? In other words, when Jesus says there's gonna be wars and rumors of wars in that region, that's what happened. But the people who disagree that Matthew 24 has been fulfilled will say that's because Jesus was talking about worldwide, global wars.

But the scripture never talks about it being a global war. And if it was a global war, why would Jesus tell them to flee Judea and run to the mountains? Global war would mean that wars throughout the whole entire world.

So that wouldn't make sense or that wouldn't fit the predictions that Jesus was talking about. Again, keeping in mind last week's study, Jesus is clear on the subject. He said, you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars.

Jesus identifies the audience that would hear about these wars, both real and rumored. And he was clear, he was direct, and he was right. These wars and rumors of wars were fulfilled in that century. It's also important not to read modern day conceptions of war into the Bible.

The Greek word polemos can mean anything from personal to armed conflict and everything in between, including wars against Christians, which we see in Revelation 11, 12, and 13. In James 4, he says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? So that word war was an internal conflict. It does not need to be global. Then in Hebrews 11, 32, the author says, and what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Again, war in that context is not global war. It's not entire worldwide war, but war within a region. So there's no reason to impose the word global to the wars that Jesus said we would see and hear rumors of.

So were there such conflicts in the apostolic era prior to the destruction of Jerusalem? Absolutely. In AD 40, there was this disturbance at Mesopotamia, which Josephus says caused the deaths of more than 50 ,000 people.

In AD 49, tumult at Jerusalem at the time of the Passover resulted in 10 ,000 to 20 ,000 deaths. At Caesarea, contentions between Jewish people and other inhabitants resulted in over 20 ,000 Jews being killed.

As Jews moved elsewhere, over 20 ,000 were destroyed by the Syrians. At Syctopolis, over 13 ,000 Jews were killed. Thousands were killed in other places. And at Alexandria, 50 ,000 were killed. At Damascus, 10 ,000 were killed in an hour's time.

These were not wars of a worldwide scope as we know the world today. They were in Galilee and in Syria and in the areas east and south of Judea. And Judea was in revolt against Rome while the armies of Spain, Gaul, and Germany, Elytrium, and Syria converged upon Italy to decide who should succeed to Nero's purple or his robe.

That was by John Bray, who wrote an article for American Vision. So basically, we have historical evidence that there were many wars happening at this point in time during that apostolic area between Jesus and AD 70, where over 100 ,000 people were killed in these wars.

There's no reason to not think that these were the wars that Jesus said would take place. Notice the national identities that we spoke about, Spain, Gaul, Germany. We find similar national identities in the Book of Acts existing in the context of the Roman Empire.

In Acts 2 .5 says, "'Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, "'the mountain men, from every nation under heaven.'". Paul says he was planning on going to Spain. Paul had written that the gospel had been made known to all the nations.

So when Jesus says all the nations are gonna hear about wars and rumors of wars, it does not have to be, it does not have to mean globally, like we talked about several lessons ago with the word oikoumeni, oikoumeni, which meant the region of the Roman Empire, does not have to be a worldwide war for Jesus' prophecy to come true.

Again, the Roman historian Tacitus writes the following of the period that we're talking about. He says, "'I am entering on the history of a period "'rich in disasters, frightful in its wars, "'torn by civil strife, and even in peace, full of horrors.

"'There was three civil wars. "'There were more within foreign enemies. "'There were often wars that had both characters at once. "'There were disturbances in Elycria, sorry, "'Elycrium, Gaul, wavered in its allegiance.

"'Britain was thoroughly subdued and immediately abandoned. "'The tribes of the Suedi and the Samaritai "'rose in concert against us. "'The Dacians had the glory of inflicting "'as well as suffering defeat.

"'The armies of Parthia were all but set in motion "'by the cheat of a counterfeit Nero.'". So as you can see, again, the historian Tacitus is talking about all these things that were happening at that time, and in some of the areas that Paul was talking about.

This is made witness to in the scriptures in the book of Acts. Again, there was no reason to think that these were not the wars and rumors of wars that Jesus was speaking of. To impose upon his words the word global and insist that it has to be global warring doesn't make sense in light of the context that we have in front of us.

So even though Tacitus describes these conflicts as wars, civil strife, and civil wars, an author by the name of Wayne House argues that conflicts within the Roman Empire were not really wars between kingdoms and nations in the first century AD as described in Matthew 24.

And to that I say, you gotta be kidding me. So wars, civil strife, and wars were not really the wars that were happening in the first century. You have to really stretch the definition to come to the conclusion that they weren't really wars happening.

However, contrary to House's claim, nations dominated by Rome still considered themselves to be nations and kingdoms. Israel is a perfect example. Israel was considered a nation. A point Pilate and his fellow Romans understood.

He said, now Jesus stood before the governor and the governor questioned him saying, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus said to him, it is as you say. Now kings are kings over kingdoms, right? Israel was a separate nation under the control of the Roman Empire.

The high priest Caiaphas said the following about the work of Jesus and how it would affect the Jewish nation. It is expedient for you to say that one man died for the people and that the whole nation not perish.

Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation and not for the nation only.

So, hold on a second, sorry.

So we see the term nation being used in the gospels. So this is nation rising against nation and kingdom rising against kingdom. So for this guy, Wayne House, to say that these were not really wars between kingdoms and nations is not accurate.

I don't know what else would have had to happen for people to understand that Jesus's words were actually fulfilled. He talked about wars and rumors of wars and we see all this historical evidence that points to that.

We even see internal evidence within the gospels and the book of Acts that confirm this. But what about kingdoms? We rarely use that word kingdom today to represent political entities, but the use of the word does fit well within a biblical timeframe.

Adam Clark writes this about kingdom against kingdom. He says, this foreshadowed the open wars of different tetrarchies and provinces against each other. First, of the Jews and Galileans against the Samaritans for the murder of some Galileans going up to the Feast of Jerusalem while Comanus was procurator.

Second, of the whole nation of Jews against the Romans and Agrippa, other allies of the Roman Empire, which began when Gessius Florus was procreator. And third, of the civil war in Italy while Otho and Vitellius were contending for the empire.

So this does, again, this is historical evidence of kingdoms fighting against each other. And it's worth noting that the Jews themselves say, in the time of Messiah, war shall be stirred up in the world.

Nations shall rise against nation and city against city. And that was written by Rabbi Sohar Kadesh. And another writing, Rabbi Eliezer, son of Abina said, when you see kingdom rising against kingdom, then expect the immediate appearance of Messiah.

So that's written in Jewish sources by rabbis talking about the time when Messiah comes, which we as Christians would recognize as Jesus. We do see these wars and rumors of wars and nations fighting against nations and kingdoms fighting against kingdom.

There's no reason to think that this is not exactly what Jesus was talking about in the Olivet Discourse. All right, let's switch topics now. We'll talk about famines, because Jesus said that this would be a time when famines would take place.

Famines, Famine Relief, and the Siege of Jerusalem

So were there really famines in the first century? Again, yes, Jesus told his disciples that famines would be another sign before he came. Before he came, famines were prevalent in the period prior to Jerusalem's destruction in AD 70.

In fact, the Bible itself tells us this. Now at this time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world, and that's that word oikumeni.

Doesn't mean global, it means large region, like the Roman Empire. And this took place in the reign of Claudius, and in the proportion that any of the disciple had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea.

So not only was there a famine, but the famine affected Christians in the area, and other Christians, recognizing their need, took a collection, a contribution, to bring them food and money, to bring them supplies that they needed.

So this is obviously something that happened during that time period. Somebody's microphone went on here, who is it? Famine and disease are often the result of war. Josephus records the story of a woman so desperate for food during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans that she cooked and ate her own child.

As disgusting as that may sound, it was true. Again, Adam Clark, he references Josephus in his commentary on Leviticus 26 -29 that parallels with 2 Kings 6 -29. He says, further, you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.

You shall eat the flesh of your sons. This was literally fulfilled at the siege of Jerusalem. Josephus in Wars of the Jews gives us a particular instance in dreadful detail of a woman named Mary who in the extremity of famine during the siege killed her child, roasted it, and had eaten part of it when discovered by the soldiers.

Horrific. And that brings us to a point, there's a curious law in the Bible that says, you are not to boil a young goat in the milk of its mother. And lots of people don't understand what that means, including myself.

That's something that you, as you're reading through the scriptures, you come across that and you're like, why on earth is somebody not to boil a young goat in its mother's milk? Is that a sin? Well, we're gonna get into what it means in a second.

But modern day Jews apply this to not mixing meat with dairy products, something the text does not prohibit. In fact, the text does not even prohibit Jews from boiling a kid in milk. But what exactly does it mean?

So I'm gonna give you an interpretation by someone by the name of James Jordan. And he interprets it like this symbolically. He says, Jerusalem is the mother of the seed, which is Jesus. When Jerusalem crucified Jesus Christ, her seed, she was boiling her kid in her own milk.

In Revelation 17, the apostate Jerusalem has been devouring her faithful children. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witness of Jesus. Her punishment under the law of equivalence is to be devoured by the Gentile kings who supported her.

So his take on it is this would be a symbolic foreshadowing of what was going to happen to Jesus being the mother, Jerusalem, bringing forth the seed of the woman, which is again, Jesus, being destroyed by that very city.

It's like a woman boiling her child in her own milk. And in terms of reciprocity, the mothers of Israel would consume their own children, similar to how the people of Israel consumed Jesus, the son of God, who was their deliverer.

Again, they cried out, we have no king but Caesar. And they said, let his blood be upon our heads and our children's heads, which unfortunately that was a curse that would hold true. Still on famines, in Matthew 24, seven, Jesus also spoke of earthquakes that would take place in their generation.

Earthquakes as Signs Before the Fall of Jerusalem

A great earthquake occurred at the time of Jesus's crucifixion. And another one at his resurrection. The Bible records a great earthquake that shook the foundations of the prison house that resulted in the release of Paul and Silas and the other prisoners.

This was the Philippian jailer. So we remember there was an earthquake that happened at that point in time. There was an earthquake that happened at the time of Jesus's crucifixion, such that the tombs were cracked open and people rose from the dead at that point in time.

According to historical accounts, earthquakes were just as common for that time as they are for our time and all time. There were earthquakes in Crete, Smyrna, Miletus, Chios, Samos, Laodicea, Hierapolis, Colossae, Campania, Rome, and Judea.

The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were almost destroyed by an earthquake in AD 62, 17 years before the cities were wiped off the face of the earth by a volcanic eruption from Mount Vesuvius. Josephus, again, records a great earthquake that struck Jerusalem.

This up here should not be famines. This topic right now, we move from famines into earthquakes, as you can tell. So Jesus said there would be wars and rumors of wars. That took place within that generation.

He said that there would be famines. That took place within that generation. He also said that there would be earthquakes. And as you can see, we have internal evidence within the scriptures saying that there were earthquakes that took place.

And we have extra biblical sources from Josephus that talk about many other earthquakes taking place also. Here's earthquakes again, all right. In Revelation 11, 13, we read, and in that hour, there was a great earthquake and a 10th of the city fell and 7 ,000 people were killed in the earthquake and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

The temple was still standing when John recorded this event. If you read Revelation 11, chapter 11, verses one and two, the angel tells John to go measure the temple. So if John was told to go measure the temple, obviously the temple must still have been standing.

For us, this great earthquake is a past event and is another fulfillment of what Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse. Many prophecy writers argue that it has to be an increase in earthquakes, which would be the sign of the end.

But scripturally, there is no mention of an increase in the frequency or intensity of earthquakes in what Jesus says, only that they will occur in various places before this generation passes away. In other words, the generation of Jesus' day.

As history records, Jesus' prophecy came to pass as he said it would. News of earthquakes in our day hold prophetic significance for many Christians because we are, to such an extent, strangers to the past.

We easily read into the events and circumstances of our own day a distinctiveness and uniqueness that may not actually be there. Unfortunately, it's within the heart of man to constantly try to place himself in the center of the universe and think that everything revolves around us.

We do this a lot of times as Americans. Things are going on around the world and we think that because they're not happening to us or because something is happening to us, it's happening elsewhere. And that's what people do with this particular passage.

When they see earthquakes happening and they see the word earthquake in the scriptures, they say, this must be us. Meanwhile, there's been earthquakes happening since AD 70 on through till today for the past 2 ,000 years.

The question is, Jesus said that there would be famines, wars, earthquakes, all these things happened within that generation as a sign of his coming in judgment upon the Jews in 70 AD. Again, there's no reason to think that this isn't a fulfillment of what Jesus said.

You would have to do more work to prove that it wasn't a fulfillment of what he said than to prove that it was. It's easy to prove that it was. It gets a little crazy. In 1997, Hal Lindsey writes, earthquakes continue to increase in frequency and intensity just as the Bible predicts for the last days before the return of Christ.

In 1994, he published similar statistics in the first edition of the late great planet Earth in 2000 AD. The source for Lindsey's statistics is the authoritative United States Geological Survey in Boulder, Colorado.

But he doesn't give details of the report, the report name, author, date, or location. Convenient when you're writing a book about prophecy and not having to give the particulars of where you got the facts from.

Now, geologist Charles Richter, former president of the Seismological Society of America and developer of what you would probably recognize as the Richter scale, which is the way we measure earthquakes, stated the following in 1969.

One notices with some amusement that certain religious groups have picked this rather unfortunate time to insist that the number of earthquakes is increasing. In part, they are misled by the increasing number of small earthquakes that are being cataloged and listed by newer, more sensitive stations throughout the world.

It is worth remarking that the number of great earthquakes from 1896 to 1906, about 25, was greater than any 10-year interval since. So there were a lot of earthquakes happening between 1896 to 1906, and then it diminished.

So we weren't getting more earthquakes and a larger frequency of earthquakes. We were actually getting a less frequency, less a frequent amount of earthquakes during that period. So Hal Lindsey is wrong.

And the guy who he doesn't give the name or the author of where he got the information, but the guy who measures earthquakes and who the Richter scale is named after tells us that the frequency of earthquakes wasn't there.

It wasn't what Hal Lindsey said. The way some prophecy analysts talk, only a dozen or so major earthquakes have been recorded over the century, and that is just far from the truth. The Roman writer Seneca, before his death in AD 65, stated that frequent earthquakes had been a characteristic of the ancient world.

How often have cities in Asia, often in Acacia, been laid low by a single shock of earthquake? How many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia have been swallowed up? How often has this kind of devastation laid Cyprus in ruins?

How often has Paphos collapsed? Not infrequently are tidings brought to us of the utter destruction of entire cities. Now, notice the date of Seneca's writings. He's writing in AD 65. This is five years before the destruction of Jerusalem, which is kind of like the fulcrum, the turning point that Jesus was talking about.

This is where Jesus, again, would come back in judgment upon the Jews and destroy their temple, which is what he told the disciples was going to happen. See that temple there? Again, not one stone will be left upon another.

And before that, you'll hear of wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, all the stuff that we're reading about that historically happened. Again, there's no reason to think or impose upon this that it didn't happen and it's gonna have a future fulfillment.

As much as some might want to believe that we are the rapture generation or the terminal generation, there is no statistical or biblical evidence to support such a contention based on earthquakes. That's not gonna do it.

We're gonna need more evidence than that. Jesus also talked about roaring seas and waves, okay? Tim LaHaye, which is another dispensational writer who holds to a rapture, three and a half years, we're raptured out, and then another three and a half years of destruction, he mentions hurricanes as a sign of the last days.

A great deal of attention was paid to the number of hurricanes that struck the United States in 2005. Climatologists argued that 2005 was a trend and prophecy writers like LaHaye assured their readers that such storms are a fulfillment of Luke 21, 25.

There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars and on the earth, dismay among the nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves. The spate of hurricanes turned out not to be a trend. In fact, a study of the history of massive storms goes back to the time of recorded history.

These are very common occurrences. This was nothing new and to point to a hurricane and say this is a fulfillment of what Jesus said at this time is fruitless. In context, the prophecy in Luke 21 is a reference to what was going to take place before the generation to whom Jesus was speaking to passed away.

There were storms prior to Jerusalem's destruction and we often forget the violent storm of the Sea of Galilee that Jesus talked about. Luke describes a massive storm where the passengers did not see the sun or the stars for many days.

The ship finally ran aground whereas broken up by force. That was the ship that Paul was on, okay? In fact, Paul was shipwrecked three times so we can say that there probably was three violent storms that took place during the Book of Acts prior to 70 AD.

But there always seems to be this desire to make the fulfillment happen in our time versus looking at it historically, biblically and saying, no, this happened already. We always, again, wanna put ourselves in the center of the universe and the center of all the action.

It seems more exciting, it sells a lot more books when you talk about the future coming of Christ and what all these signs are pointing to and it seems kind of boring when you recognize that this has been fulfilled already.

But we can't go based on emotions and look for excitement, we need to look for truth. Next, we're gonna talk about plagues because Jesus said that there will be plagues. Now Luke's version of the destruction of the temple includes plagues and great signs from heaven.

Plagues, Pestilence, and Historical Judgments

Plagues in the ancient world were common as they were centuries later also. For example, the Black Death or the Bubonic Plague. The total number of deaths worldwide is estimated at 75 million people, approximately 25 to 50 million of which occurred in Europe.

The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s. During this period, more than 100 plague academics swept across Europe. Now that obviously happened after the destruction of 70 AD but there were plagues happening before 70 AD.

Now most likely those people believed that the end of the world was near for them, but it wasn't. As to the plagues in the lead up to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, Josephus mentions both pestilence and famine as the immediate preludes of the storming of Jerusalem.

They were due like the plague at Athens in 430 BC to the vast masses of people, Passover pilgrims who were at the time crowded in the city. So again, Josephus is talking about a famine that happened before 70 AD.

The Roman historian Suetonius wrote that there were such a pestilence at Rome during the reign of Nero that within the space of one autumn there died no less than 30 ,000 persons as appeared from the registers in the temple of Libitina.

Okay, again, another historian Tacitus, he also confirms pestilences and much more prior to at 70 AD. Is this not showing up? You guys seeing that?

Can everybody see that? It's not a blank screen, right? No, it's up there, it says plagues.

Okay, all right, thank you. Just wanna make sure it's not showing up on my other screen. So Tacitus also confirms pestilences and much more prior to AD 70. A year of shame and of so many evil deeds, heaven also marked by storms and pestilence.

Campania was devastated by a hurricane which destroyed everywhere, country houses, plantations and crops and carried its fury to the neighborhood of Rome where a terrible plague was sweeping away all classes of human beings without any such derangement of the atmosphere as to be visibly apparent.

Yet the houses were filled with lifeless forms and the streets with funerals. So here again, we have several historians saying that there were biblical, there were plagues prior to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.

Signs in the Heavens and the Fall of Jerusalem

Okay, signs in the heavens. This is probably gonna be the last thing that we talk about tonight before we recap. Signs in the heavens were also evident during this period and Jesus said that there would be signs in the heavens.

The appearance of a comet was often taken as a warning of some approaching calamity or a sign of change in existing political structures. For example, a comet appeared in the sky in 44 BC, the year of Julius Caesar's assassination.

Another comet appeared in 11 BC. This time it was thought to have had something to do with the death of Marcus Agrippa, a Roman statesman who died the year before. We know that the star in the east was a sign of joy for the Magi, but it was a bad omen for Herod who feared political competition.

So there were, prior to Jesus being born, there was a star in the east, a sign in the heavens that the Messiah was coming and the Magi recognized that and that's why they came to Bethlehem and Herod also knew of it, that's why he tried to kill all the infants.

So stars were seen as signs. So were there any signs from heaven prior to AD 70 that would fulfill what Jesus said in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 11, which is a parallel passage to that? And of course the answer is yes.

This was the comet which St. Peter and Josephus saw over the city of Jerusalem before the fall of the holy city. Josephus wrote of it, amongst other warnings, a comet of the kind called Ziphus, because their tales of Peter represent the blade of a sword, was seen above the doomed city for the space of nearly a whole year.

Jerusalem was ravaged by pestilence and famine and soon afterward was stormed by the Roman soldiery led by Titus. The temple was burned down and the streets of the holy city ran with blood. It was the end of Jerusalem and of the Jews as a free city and people.

This was written by a man by the name of Edwin Emerson, who chronicled Halley's Comet throughout history. He was an astronomer. He recognizes that the Halley's Comet would pass through that area. People could see it.

And this was accompanied by pestilence and famine and the temple being burned down. So again, we have scientific historical evidence that there was a sign in the sky. A comet appeared during the reign of Nero in AD 66, what we know today as Halley's Comet, which is visible from earth around every 75 to 79 years.

So yes, there were signs in the heavens. Historians have linked the appearance of Halley's Comet not only with the death of Nero in AD 68, but with the destruction of Jerusalem two years later. A 17th century print graphically depicts the phenomenon as it passes over Jerusalem.

The print is reproduced in Asimov's Guide to Halley's Comet, the awesome story of the comets. The following caption accompanies the print. Halley's Comet of AD 66 shown over Jerusalem. The comet was regarded as an omen predicting the fall of the city to the Romans, which actually occurred four years later.

Now that appears in a scientific journal, Isaac Asimov's Guide, who is, you know, Isaac Asimov is a, he's an atheist actually, and he's an astronomer. So the people who helped him put that together showed that this happened during the time of AD 66, which is four years before the fall of Jerusalem.

Now, despite the words of our Lord and the historical evidence that supports them, there are some people who are just not convinced. For example, Chuck Missler, who is a brother in Christ, just I think wrong on this particular issue.

Chuck Missler concocts an elaborate UFO alien demon scenario that he claims must take place for Luke 21, 11 to be fulfilled. Again, Jesus's words are stretched beyond their intended meaning to avoid the obvious first century fulfillment.

In fact, on December 31st, 1979, Chuck Smith, who's the founding pastor of Calvary Chapel, told those who gathered on the last day of the year that the rapture would take place before the end of 1981.

He went on to say that because of the ozone depletion, Revelation 16, eight would be fulfilled during the tribulation period. And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun and it was given it to scorch men with fire.

People are constantly reading the newspapers and trying to import them into the Bible to make the events that Jesus spoke about happen in our time. In addition, he told those in attendance that Halley's Comet would pass near earth in 1986 and would wreck havoc on those left behind as debris from its million mile long tail plummeted the planet.