Who is the Antichrist? (part one)

Bernie Kruger

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October 26, 2007

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Part 1

A literal one and will be and Arab. I don't think so. Even if we assume there to be an Antichrist literally, current versions fail. The Muslims also await a messiah of sorts so he would need to be someone who Jews, Christians and Arabs would identify with.

All the ETM prophets have us waiting for a rapture that is never going to happen, not in the popular sense anyway and the revelation of this mystical being that will be possessed by the devil, perform signs and wonders et al. and will stand in the temple and blaspheme the most High in that people will worship his image or the image of his name yada yada.....

Pray tell, where in the bible do we see satan or his minions performing signs and wonders? What makes you so sure that a demoniac possession could not be cast out? How come if a person is possessed by satan personally with prayer and fasting of all the saints and by the power and authority we have in Christ, why pray tell could we not all say GO! Like Jesus did and it would be over? Last time I looked, he satan is under our feet. Or do you not believe we have authority over him ol’ little red guy?

Well I suppose if he, satan, is able to deceive more than what God is able to draw, he is a giant of sorts and our God is a dwarf by comparison

Let us look at Matthew 24. It relates so much to the antichrists and the prophesy of Daniel and others.

Although I believe scripture has dual meanings, this one has been misinterpreted for too long now.

Interspersed with my questions and comments (Navy) are extracts from “Prophesy Fulfilled” by:

David P. Crews
Teleios Books
NEW LIGHT PUBLISHING AUSTIN, TEXAS (Source)

Before you cry heresy, read it. It is also interspersed with comments by the early church fathers Eusebius, Josephus the historian etc.

Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5 For many will come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and will deceive many.
Mat 24:6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must occur; but the end is not yet.
Mat 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in different places.

It says many will come and deceive many, not one, many. Wars, rumors of wars, now pray tell when did we not have wars and rumors of wars ever?

Were there wars and rumors of wars during the years between Jesus and the destruction of A.D. 70? We can turn to another non – Christian source, the Roman historian Tacitus, to determine this. In his Histories, Tacitus states concerning these years, “there were three civil wars; there were more [than three wars] with foreign enemies; there were often wars that had both characteristics at once.” More importantly, there were the rumors of the approaching Roman army throughout Palestine as the final war began against the Jews. Many, upon hearing of the defeats in Galilee, would retreat to Jerusalem, only to be caught in the siege and destruction there.

All the famines and pestilences earthquakes different places, been happening for a long, long time now. I have not done it but I am sure there are sites with history of earthquakes and yes they have all happened in different places.

During the reign of Claudius Caesar, prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, there was an unparalleled famine. It was prophesied and verified in Acts 11:28. The actuality of it is also verified by Josephus. Disease, of course, goes hand in hand with drought and famine, especially in the ancient world. It is noteworthy; also, that famine was one of the most important factors in the fall of Jerusalem.

Again, earthquakes happen all the time, all over the world. If, however, we look to these particular times, we find a large earthquake that occurred about A.D. 61, some nine years prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, which destroyed the cities of Colosse, Hierapolis, and Laodicia in Asia Minor. Also, the Roman Tacitus states: “cities in Campania’s richest plains were swallowed up and overwhelmed.”

Mat 24:9 Then they will deliver you up to be afflicted and will kill you. And you will be hated of all nations for My name's sake.
Mat 24:10 And then many will be offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another.
Mat 24:11 And many false prophets will rise and deceive many.
Mat 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will become cold.
Mat 24:13 But he who endures to the end, the same shall be kept safe.
Mat 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all nations. And then the end shall come.

Who do we know was delivered up and afflicted and killed? Recently? Yes we fear madam guillotine as the van Impi’s and Hal Lindsey’s would have you believe; the literal chopping off of the heads for refusing the mark et al. Nobody read the news? Death penalty abolished in almost all nations.

Introduction of a mass death penalty by a few, don’t you think an insurrection by the masses would be possible. Look what happened in France, who ended up getting their head’s chopped off, the elite. Kinda makes me wonder why so many are fearful of what will be nigh on impossible to implement?

Who hates who by all nations? Israel?

Now who are the many that are offended, and where is this hatred most prevalent today? Amongst Christians.

The unbelieving Jews were the prime persecutors of Christians from the time of Christ’s death until AD. 70, and the heathen powers of Rome persecuted them for a season beyond that. Paul himself was a dedicated persecutor of Christians before his conversion. Stephen, Peter, Paul, James, and many others were put to death before the destruction of Jerusalem. Today, there is no comparison to this kind of persecution. Although individuals may suffer in various places, the church as a whole is not in danger of being eliminated by persecutions from non–Christians. At that time, however, the tribulations were exceedingly dangerous and they were ongoing for as long as the Jewish state and religion still existed.

And here again we have many false prophets deceiving whom? Who are the many becoming cold?

Here is another reference to the increase in anti–Christs that would appear and proliferate during this period. Josephus, to quote one example, tells of a magician who told the people he was a prophet and persuaded a large number of them to follow him to the Jordan river, which he had promised to part for them.

This loss of faith by so many persecuted Christians is also the “falling away” mentioned by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. A great many of those calling themselves Christians would lose faith under the pressure of the tribulations and would not inherit the spiritual Kingdom. Many would return to their Jewish beliefs and traditions and, ignoring the prophecies, would perish in the war events.

The authors of the scriptures did not use the word “world” to mean “planet” as we commonly use it today. It was the “world” of the Jews to whom the gospel was preached. It was preached on the day of Pentecost to thousands of them from all over the Jewish world. The second century historian Eusebius understood this when he wrote: “the doctrine of the Saviour, like the rays of the sun, quickly irradiated the whole world. Presently…the sound of his inspired evangelists and apostles had gone throughout all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”

As soon as all these things had happened, the “end” would come. The end of what? It was the end of the age, or the end of the “world” that the disciples had asked Jesus about. It was the end of the age of the Hebrews as the holy, set-aside people of God. In the parallel Prophecy in Matthew 5:18, Jesus characterized it as the “passing away” of the “heaven and earth,” and in Revelation 21:1, John saw the “first heaven and the first earth” passing away.

See if there was no WWII there probably would be no Israel today. In fact Israel exists thanks to Hitler in part and the occupants are not representative of the Israel of old. God used Israel to seed the coming of Jesus. The old covenant is over. When God establishes a new-thing does the old still remain valid or is it a shadow of things to come?

Mat 24:15 Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand).
Mat 24:16 Then let those in Judea flee into the mountains.

“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whosoever readeth, let him understand:) then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.”

This verse has been a puzzle to most people. It is difficult to understand what Jesus is talking about unless we place the prophecy in its proper time and environment. The KJV doesn’t help in this instance, either. It should read “standing in the holy place.” What, then, is this “abomination of desolation” that is being given as a warning sign? If we are subject to this prophecy ourselves, we had better know what it is so we can watch out for it! The mystery is solved when we take a look at the actual historical events of the Roman invasion of Jerusalem.

When the army first reached the Temple grounds, they did several things.

They committed acts of war against the Zealots and other Jews who were trying to keep the Romans out.

They also, in their normal manner of war conduct, raised their Roman standards – the flag-like banners that proclaimed who they were, which segment of the army they belonged to, and which established their claim of political power over the place where they erected them.

These acts were an abomination, a sacrilege, to the great and holy Temple of God in Jerusalem. This was repeated later during the final siege of the city, when the Romans made their way into the actual Temple and raised their standards within the sanctuary itself before they burned it down. This was, as Mark puts it in the parallel passage in Mark 13:14:

“…the abomination of the desolation...standing where it ought not….”

If we examine the source prophecy in Daniel that Jesus is referring to (Daniel 9:27), we can see the same thing a bit clearer.

“And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate....”

I guess the only ones doing sacrifice must have been the Jews. Do Christians sacrifice?

Oblation, an offering [Late Latin oblatio, from offerre, oblatum, to offer], a term, particularly in ecclesiastical usage.

No, we offer praise, worship and thanksgiving.

Here, we see God dealing with his wayward people, causing the destruction of the city and Temple in the middle of the prophetic ‘‘week’’ or “seven” (which symbolically means seven years — the seven years of the entire Jewish war from Nero’s command to the fall of Masada).

That takes care of the mid-tribbers.

It was three and one half years into the war (“in the midst”) that the Temple was destroyed and the sacrifices and oblations were “caused to cease” by the acts of the Roman army. By that time, the abominations of the Romans, and the Jews as well, had so corrupted the Temple and the people that Daniel prophetically described it as an “overspreading” of abominations. The end result was that the city was made truly and literally desolate. The buildings were torn down and no one lived on the site of Jerusalem for many years thereafter. More importantly, the Jewish nation and political/ religious system was made spiritually and physically desolate. The people were carried off into slavery and the old ways of Judaism were abolished.

Eusebius understood the subject of Christ’s prophecy when he wrote:

“…finally, the abomination of desolation, according to the prophetic declaration, stood in the very temple of God, so celebrated of old, but which now was approaching its total downfall and final destruction by fire.”

Jesus was using this imagery as another warning sign for the disciples to watch out for. At the first instance of this activity by the Romans, they were to react. What were the disciples supposed to do? Verse 16 makes it plain –

“Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.”

It was time to run – run for their physical lives! They had to get out of the city of Jerusalem and the political country of Judea if they were to be saved from the Roman invasion and destruction. When they saw the signs, they were to get out fast and not even take time to gather their personal belongings. It should be plain that this has nothing to do with us today.

If it does, then we should all be heading for the hills. Know some folk in USA have done this literally arming themselves to the teeth, weird thing is, why fear if your destination is in heaven?

Does not compute, is this life we have more precious than what is to come, only 70 odd years folk then eternity.

It is revealing to see just how these prophecies and predictions actually came true during the first part of the war. According to Josephus, the first attack on the city of Jerusalem in A.D. 66, led by the Roman general Cestius Gallus, got the Romans into the city and up to the walls and gate of the Holy Temple itself, which had been commandeered as a fortress by the radical Jews who wanted to fight it out with the Romans. This act of turning the Temple into a military fortress, full of armaments and violence instead of reverence and prayers, was one of the greatest abominations of it.

The Romans advanced under their shields to the actual gates of the Temple, which they intended to burn open. Then, something very strange happened. Gallus, at the verge of military success, decided for some unknown reason to retreat – and he took his men out of Jerusalem entirely! As a Jewish historian, Josephus was at a loss to explain this withdrawal by Gallus, whom he stated “retired from the city, without any reason in the world.” Importantly, Josephus states that after this event, many people “swam away from the city, as from a ship when it was going to sink.”
We can turn to the history by Eusebius once again to discover what really happened.

He wrote:

“The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella. Here, those that believed in Christ [had] removed from Jerusalem, as if holy men had entirely abandoned the royal city itself, and the whole land of Judea.”

The town of Pella was near the Sea of Galilee, but it lay outside of the country of Judea, in the political region called Decapolis. This was out of the path of the invading Romans. Can we explain why the Roman general withdrew so unexpectedly and suddenly from Jerusalem? Josephus actually stated the correct answer earlier in the passage quoted above when he states:

“It was, I suppose, owing to the aversion God had already at the city and the sanctuary, that he [Gallus] was hindered from putting an end to the war that very day.”

Indeed, it was God who was making war on Judea. In Zechariah 14:2, we hear God say:

“I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it…”[NIV]

God had brought forth the Romans as his tool of punishment and it was God who arranged that a period of time should be provided, as he had promised, for the escape of the believing Christians. That time was provided, and the Christians did flee!

In the parallel account of this prophecy in Luke, Jesus said in chapter 21:20 –

“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.”[NIV]

Here, the reference to the Roman invasion is clear. He goes on to say in Luke 21:22:

“Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written.”[NIV]

Earlier, in Luke 19:43-44, Jesus addressed the doomed Jerusalem with these words:

“The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”[NIV]

This is an extremely accurate prediction and picture of the actual siege and destruction of Jerusalem. The Roman armies under Titus dug trenches and built a huge containing wall or berm, made of earth, completely encircling the city so that no one could escape. After the siege and the final battle, only three towers were left standing by the Romans to show what manner of city they had destroyed. As for the rest of the city of Jerusalem and its walls.

Josephus tells us:

“It was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.”

Returning now to our study passage in Matthew, in verse 16 Jesus told the disciples to watch for these signs and then “flee to the mountains.” In verses 17-25, we hear Jesus describe the danger and the panic that would occur during the invasion:

Mat 24:17 Let him on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house;
Mat 24:18 nor let him in the field turn back to take his clothes.
Mat 24:19 And woe to those who are with child, and to those who give suck in those days!
Mat 24:20 But pray that your flight is not in the winter, nor on the sabbath day;
Mat 24:21 for then shall be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world to this time; no, nor ever shall be.

nor ever shall be talks about a post tribulation time does it not?

Obviously, the “Gentiles” here were the Romans themselves, but what are these “times of the Gentiles” that were to be fulfilled? The use of the word “fulfilled” should trigger us to think that this is the culmination of some prophesy concerning the Gentiles. We can find some references of interest in two places in the Bible. The first is back in the book of Daniel, where, in chapter 12:7, Daniel is listening to the messenger of God tell him:

“It will be for a time, times, and half a time. When the power of the holy people has been finally broken, all these things will be completed.”[NIV]

Here is a prophetic vision of these times when the power of the “holy people” would be broken (that is, the religious authority would be removed from them), and a specific time frame is placed on the process. In the type of symbolic language used in the Hebrew prophecies, the term “time” when used in this way means “one year.” The amount of time that was prophesied for the destruction of the Jews was: 1 year (“time”) + 2 years (“times”) + 1/2 year (“half a time”), equaling 3 1/2 years total. Numerous other references in Daniel, like “thousand two hundred and ninety days,” confirm that he means 3 1/2 years for the prophetic time span.

Now let us examine the other place in the Bible that has reference to this event and this prophesied time. Let us look for a moment at Revelation, chapters 11 and 12. In 11:2, we read:

“[the Temple of God] has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.”[NIV]

and the next verse:

“And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days....”[NIV]

and verse 9:

“For three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial.”12[NIV]

and chapter 12:6 –

“The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.”[NIV]

and verse 14:

“The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half time, out of the serpent’s reach.”

In all of these prophecy passages the same time period is repeatedly spoken of. The period was to be 3 1/2 years and this would be the times of the Gentiles to overcome the city and people of Jerusalem and Judea. Was the prophecy accurate? Did the Romans take this particular amount of time to accomplish their destructions? The answer is yes. From the date, February of A.D. 67, when the Roman emperor Nero gave the official order to his general Vespasian to go and subdue Judea, to the final destruction of the Temple of Herod and the city, in August of A.D. 70, was in fact three and one-half years.

Mat 24:22 And unless those days should be shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened.
Mat 24:23 Then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ! Or, There! Do not believe it.
Mat 24:24 For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders; so much so that, if it were possible, they would deceive even the elect.

Notice the plural, who are the elect?

Mat 24:25 Behold, I have told you beforehand.
Mat 24:26 Therefore if they shall say to you, Behold, He is in the desert! Do not go out. Behold, He is in the secret rooms! Do not believe it.
Mat 24:27 For as the lightning comes out of the east and shines even to the west, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Mat 24:28 For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered.

Well we know the left behind movies show lightning and the descending in the clouds aka the rapture. Are we taking this literal? What is the coming of the Son of Man?

Returning to Matthew, in verses 26 - 27, we hear Jesus refer for the first time to a “coming” of the Son of Man:

“So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”[NIV]

This passage ties in directly with verse 23 just preceding where Jesus warns the disciples of false Christ’s. The coming of the Son of Man would be a tremendous event that would be clearly identifiable by those who knew that God was behind the events of the war.

In verse 28, Jesus interjects an interesting symbolic description of the upcoming war and destruction:

“For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.”

The Jewish nation is represented here as a carcass, for it is no longer “alive” with the Spirit of God as it once was. It is a spiritually dead nation that has rejected the Christ. Now, the birds of prey are gathering to feast. Here is an obvious reference to the Roman army as the “eagles” – the common image of their armies and nation, emblazoned on every Roman standard.

Mat 24:29 And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from the heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
Mat 24:30 And then the sign of the Son of Man shall appear in the heavens. And then all the tribes of the earth shall mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of the heaven with power and great glory.
Mat 24:31 And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

In verses 29 - 31, we hear Jesus speak of his coming in a familiar passage, often quoted as a reference to a yet future coming of Christ. Many have asserted that there is a break in the continuity of the verses here and that this section does not have anything to do with the previous descriptions of the soon to happen destructions of Judea and Jerusalem. Let us read the passage and see what we can make of it:

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

To a casual reader, it would appear obvious that such cataclysmic events as described here have not yet occurred, or we would not be here to think about it. The sun still shines, and the moon is still up there in the sky. What the serious student of the Bible should realize, however, is that these images have been used before in the scriptures. This is still a prophecy being uttered by Jesus and he is using symbols rather than literal descriptions. It is very easy to forget this concept since it is not something we do in our own culture, but every time a prophecy is pronounced in the Bible, symbolic language is used.

Over and over in the Old Testament, we find these same symbols being used to describe the downfall of political authorities and the spiritual darkness that settled over Israel when they sinned against God. For example, in Ezekiel 32:7-8, God is prophesying through Ezekiel “the downfall of Egypt in 572 B.C. when he says to the Pharaoh:

“When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you; I will bring darkness over your land, declares the Sovereign Lord.”[NIV]

In Isaiah 5:30 and 13:10, he prophecies of the attack of the Assyrians and the destruction of Babylon:

“And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.”
“For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.”

In Joel 2:10, the same symbols are used in looking forward to the events of AD. 70:

“The earth shall quake before them: the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.”

and in Amos 8:9, God tells how he will send Israel into captivity:

“And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.”

So, when we hear Jesus speaking his prophecy in the New Testament, we should not be surprised at the types of imagery he uses in describing the upcoming destruction events concerning the Jews. These were the same peoples under the same type of conditions (disobeying God), and suffering the same kind of fate as before, except that this time their punishment was final.

The sun and moon being darkened and the stars falling in the Prophecy refers to the religious authorities (in this case the Jewish leaders who rebelled against Christ and led the people to persecute Christians) who were being utterly destroyed by God. These people are also the “powers of heaven” who were being shaken. Certainly, God’s Heaven is and never will be subject to shaking of its authority, Power, or substance. This “heaven” was something else. It was a symbol for the religious authorities whose authority had been removed.

Notice now, the timing of all these events and the coming of the Son of Man. The first thing in Matt. 24:29 is:

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days….”

Which days were these? The days Jesus has been warning the disciples about throughout Matthew 24 – the upcoming days of the war. Then, when was this coming to occur? It would be immediately after the terrors and “tribulations” of that war. It was the final act of the Roman army to destroy the Temple, the centerpiece of the Jewish religion and authority. They killed off the line of the High Priests and the caused the Jewish sacrifices to cease. God had promised to come against his people’s enemies. Here, indeed, was the coming of God, just as promised, to remove the Jewish “carcass” off the face of the earth and out of his people’s way. It was not a physical coming of Christ, but a spiritual coming through the physical tool of the pagan, Gentile Roman army. It was God’s vengeance on his and his people’s enemies in a very real and physical way.

Note that even within this prophecy passage, there is a specific reference to whom these prophesied events are going to happen. In verse 30, when God has come and the final vengeance is taken:

“…and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn….”

Who were the tribes of the earth? Since the “sun” and “stars” were representing the Jewish authorities, then the “tribes of the earth” would be those people under their rule – obviously this refers to the 12 tribes of Israel. Why were they mourning? God had destroyed their land, their peoples, and their way of life. They were being truly punished for their sins. Then note that:

“…they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

This coming of Christ had to have occurred during those times, or the tribes of Israel could not have been witness to it as Jesus said they would be. Christ would be coming in the “clouds of heaven,” that is, it would be a spiritual coming, and it would be with power to accomplish the goal of vengeance against the enemies, and with great glory – the glory of victory and of righteousness. The Jewish “tribes” did indeed see this great coming of Christ, for it comprised their destruction.

Let us look for a moment at the phrase “tribulation of those days.” Many people are looking for a yet future time of persecutions and tribulations against Christians, based on a futurist interpretation of these prophecies, but there is no reason to look any further than the events of these times to find the tribulations that were prophesied by Jesus. Certainly, in the 40 some years that transpired between the cross and the final destruction of Judaism, there were in increasing frequency and severity persecutions made against the fledgling Christian community in Palestine and elsewhere. As we have indicated, most of this terrorism and suppression was at the hands of the Jews themselves, who saw in Christianity a sacrilegious and unacceptable offshoot “cult” that was stealing faithful Jews away from the orthodox beliefs.

The tribulations that Jesus was referring to in the Matthew 24 passage, however, were the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem as evidenced by all the other signs and symbols of the chapter. This was something to be avoided by the Christians who were in that place. They were to watch for the signs and get out fast when these terrible tribulations were about to begin. To get a sense of just how fearsome these times were for the Jews and anyone else caught up in Jerusalem at the time, we can turn to Josephus once again.

During the actual siege and battle actions of the years A.D. 67 - 70, the 3 1/2 year period of the Gentiles against the holy city, Josephus reported 1,100,000 people dead. The Roman historian Tacitus reported over 600,000 casualties. The large number of people involved is understandable when we realize that the walled city of Jerusalem was the “fortress” of the land of Judea, where everyone fled as a last resort to escape the advancing Roman armies. Also, very importantly, the initial Roman besiegement of Jerusalem came at the time of Passover. The city was packed with pilgrims for the Holy time. With both of these considerations, we see that essentially the majority of the Jewish nation was crammed into the great city when the Romans came and shut them up inside.

It was quite a terrible trap. The seeming safe refuge of Jerusalem had turned into a nasty snare for all those inside. As we read earlier, the Romans built an earthwork “berm” or mound-like wall completely around the city along with trenches, to make certain that no One could escape their retribution. As people would try to escape, the Romans built hundreds upon hundreds of crucifixes on top of the berms and hung the escapees as object lessons to the people inside.

At first, the city held out fairly well, although warring factions within the Jewish community were causing almost as much trouble to each other as the Romans outside were, especially in setting on fire their own city’s essential grain stores.

Cont.... Who is the Antichrist Part Two