DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM: CHRIST'S PROPHECIES
(Message by Tanny Keng)
1. Destruction Of Jerusalem
a) Now enters the last Times of Israel — THE KINGDOM IN ALL THE WORLD — the period in which we still live today.
b) God's spiritual kingdom, the new Israel, had been spreading rapidly throughout the world. Churches had been established in numerous cities. The Holy Spirit's blessing, and the risen Christ's power, had been manifested everywhere. It was clear that Christ was reigning as both king and high priest in heaven.
c) Many, nevertheless, were blind to all this, and the Jews, especially in Jerusalem, generally just kept right on following the old way as if nothing had happened. They rejected their Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. They clung to their temple worship for forty years. But in AD 70 it was suddenly taken from them by the Romans who besieged and destroyed their city and temple — just as Jesus himself had foretold.
2. Christ's Prophecies
a) The statements Jesus made about Jerusalem's future were a response to the questions of his disciples after he had predicted. the destruction of the temple. They had connected this with his predictions of his coming at the last day (Matthew 24:1-3).
b) Certainly the two events (the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and Christ's second coming) are connected in principle. The first is a microcosm of the second.
Note — MICROCOSM: any system that exhibits, on a small scale, the elements and parts of the greater system of which it is part. The destruction of Sodom and the salvation of Lot is a small-scale version of the end of the world.
c) However there is one important difference. There was a warning sign preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, giving people who heeded the sign a chance to quickly escape and save their lives (Matthew 24:15-16). There will be no warning sign of the second coming and the end of the world (Matthew 24:35-36).
d) The destruction of Jerusalem took place in AD 70 when Titus surrounded and attacked the city. To this day a relief on the Titus Arch in Rome portrays plunder being carried from the temple. Herod's beautiful temple was razed to the ground and a million people cruelly lost their lives in Jerusalem's fall. It was worse than the destruction which the Babylonians had inflicted centuries earlier.
e) Matthew 24 is mostly plain in its language, but does have figurative elements, especially verses 29-31 which bear similarities to passages among the old testament prophets (such as Isaiah 13:10, Daniel 7:13, Isaiah 27:13, Zechariah 9:14).
The End ...
1. Destruction Of Jerusalema) Now enters the last Times of Israel — THE KINGDOM IN ALL THE WORLD — the period in which we still live today.
b) God's spiritual kingdom, the new Israel, had been spreading rapidly throughout the world. Churches had been established in numerous cities. The Holy Spirit's blessing, and the risen Christ's power, had been manifested everywhere. It was clear that Christ was reigning as both king and high priest in heaven.
c) Many, nevertheless, were blind to all this, and the Jews, especially in Jerusalem, generally just kept right on following the old way as if nothing had happened. They rejected their Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. They clung to their temple worship for forty years. But in AD 70 it was suddenly taken from them by the Romans who besieged and destroyed their city and temple — just as Jesus himself had foretold.
2. Christ's Prophecies
a) The statements Jesus made about Jerusalem's future were a response to the questions of his disciples after he had predicted. the destruction of the temple. They had connected this with his predictions of his coming at the last day (Matthew 24:1-3).
b) Certainly the two events (the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and Christ's second coming) are connected in principle. The first is a microcosm of the second.
Note — MICROCOSM: any system that exhibits, on a small scale, the elements and parts of the greater system of which it is part. The destruction of Sodom and the salvation of Lot is a small-scale version of the end of the world.
c) However there is one important difference. There was a warning sign preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, giving people who heeded the sign a chance to quickly escape and save their lives (Matthew 24:15-16). There will be no warning sign of the second coming and the end of the world (Matthew 24:35-36).
d) The destruction of Jerusalem took place in AD 70 when Titus surrounded and attacked the city. To this day a relief on the Titus Arch in Rome portrays plunder being carried from the temple. Herod's beautiful temple was razed to the ground and a million people cruelly lost their lives in Jerusalem's fall. It was worse than the destruction which the Babylonians had inflicted centuries earlier.
e) Matthew 24 is mostly plain in its language, but does have figurative elements, especially verses 29-31 which bear similarities to passages among the old testament prophets (such as Isaiah 13:10, Daniel 7:13, Isaiah 27:13, Zechariah 9:14).
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