I'd like to direct your attention to Matthew chapter 23, page 1538. That whole chapter 23 is one long diatribe of the Lord Jesus towards the religious leaders of the Jewish people. And he concludes his statement in verse 35, page 1538, and so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous able to the blood of Zechariah, son of Barakaya, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. These are two martyrdoms. This isn't just simply two deaths. These are two martyrdoms. The one that occurs in the book of Genesis called in the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew Bible, Barakaya's beginning, and the other that occurs in second chronicles, which is the last book of the Hebrew Bible, as I said last Sunday morning, every book that is in our Old Testament is found in the Old Testament of the Jewish people. It's just that they are in a different order. So, for example, you have the last section. There are three sections of the Hebrew Bible, Torah, or the law of the first five books. The neviim are the writings that begin with Joshua. And then you have the last part, the writings, or the Kathavim. So you have the law, the prophets, and the writings, the Torah, the neviim, and the Kathavim. What Jesus is saying to the Jewish people here is he's appealing to the structure of their Bible, the Tanakh, the Torah, the Neviim, the Kathavim. The first religious martyrdom recorded in the Jewish Bible is in Genesis. The last religious martyrdom in the Hebrew Bible is in the last book of the Hebrew Bible, second chronicles. Sandwiched in between these two books, these two books, are all the books of our Old Testament. So Jesus is as if he's saying, look, coming on you is all of the blood of those who stood up for the truth of God and been murdered by those who were called the people of God. All of that blood is going to come on you. It's an important truth. It's almost as if I were to speak and say, you know, all of the martyrs who died from Genesis to Revelation. And so that's really the way Jesus is saying, I want you to see, it's very critical to see in verse 35, upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on the earth. And then he identifies the people that he's talking to, the religious people he's talking to, he in a way is comparing them to cane who killed Abel and to the followers of King Jewish who killed Zachariah. And he's saying, in effect, you are part of those people. And the reason that this blood is going to come down on you is that you had a part in that because generationally you're connected. And so he goes on, he says, he says, and so upon you will come all the righteous blood that's been shed on earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah, son of Baraka, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation. Now the word generation there is capable of meaning race. But the normal meaning of it is a group of people who are contemporaries. And that's the context of this whole thing that Jesus is talking about. Upon you folks who are listening to my voice, Jesus is saying, all the punishment that's been building up down through the generation is going to come crashing down on your head. And he says, I tell you the truth, verse 36, all this will come upon this generation. And then he says again, in verse 37, O Jerusalem Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have long to gather your children together as a hymn gathers or chicks under a wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left, you desolate. And there's probably a double meaning here as there is often in Jesus words. Your house, that whole religious institution of the Old Testament is way of worship. It's a house that's desolate now. And specifically not just that institution, but what is the one thing in the Old Testament that is the summation of that system and it's the temple itself. And so he's speaking here of the temple. He says, look, your house is left, you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And one other thing here, he says, where he says to them fill up the iniquity, that's a striking thing back in chapter 23 and I omitted it. He says, in verse 32, page 1537, fill up them, the measure of the sin of your forefathers, that's very critical verse. Fill up them, the measure of the sin of your forefathers. You're getting into its context, he's speaking to a group of people who were his contemporaries, a generation. And he's saying to them, you fill up the iniquity of your forefathers. What does that mean? Well, there's an analogy drawn to that back in the Old Testament when God speaks to Abraham and promises him the Holy Land. Let's turn back to Genesis for a moment. Genesis chapter 15, and Genesis 15, page 21, he says in verse 12, Genesis 15, 12, as the sun was setting Abraham fell into a deep sleep. And dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, no for certain that your descendants will be strangers in the country, not their own. They will be enslaved and mistreated 400 years, but I will punish the nation they serve as slaves. And afterward they will come out with great possession. You, however, will go to your fathers and peace and be bearing a good ol' age. Verse 16, key verse. In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here. Now notice the next clause there. What does it say? The last clause of verse 16. Okay, the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. In other words, God gave the land of the Amorites to the Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham. But he says, you're not going to get to possess it yet, because the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. And he says, until it reaches its full measure, I'm going to put your descendants in a strange land, and they're going to be there for generations, roughly 400 years. And what's interesting is this. He's saying that as the Amorites continue to live on and they're defiance of the way of God. And we know from archaeology that there, that Tainanite civilization was a particularly decadent civilization. That is, they continue to live in defiance of God. Each generation of the Amorites brought more and more of the judgment of God down on themselves. And if you want to look at God judging nations, kind of like a scale, what you can see is, and God doesn't deal with us as individuals this way, God has judged our sin in the person of Jesus Christ. And by faith in Jesus Christ, we're not under condemnation, but God deals with people groups differently than he deals with us as individuals. And people groups call down the wrath and judgment of God on themselves by how they live and how they deal with others. And so if we want to see divine scales at work in the history of the world, using the picture that God gives to Abraham here in Genesis 15, he's saying that here are the Amorites. And here are the scales of divine judgment. And as the Amorites add to their iniquity day by day, year by year, they're filling that up more and more. It's like grains of sand dropping onto a divine scale. And there's a point where the iniquity of the Amorites is full, where it's filled up, where the scale of divine justice is so full of the iniquity of the Amorites that the scale finally tilts over and comes crashing down in judgment. And that's what happens. That's what God is saying to Abraham here in Genesis 15, he's saying the reason why the Israelites will not be able to possess the land of the Amorites is that the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. The implication is that once the iniquity of the Amorites reached its full measure, at that point the land would vomit the Amorites out. That's the language God uses by the way. The land would vomit the map and it would be open then for the Jewish people to come in in the conquest under Joshua. Now going to Matthew chapter 23, that critical verse, verse 32, is saying then, fill up then the measure of the sin of your forefathers, Matthew 23 and verse 32, page 1537, what he's saying is that just as the divine scales were tilted. Yes ma'am, thank you. We'll use that in a couple of minutes. And just as the divine scales become filled up with the iniquity of the Amorites in the book of Genesis so that they are judged, what Jesus is saying to the Jewish people is this. If you stay in unbelief, if you stay rejecting me as the Messiah, then what's going to happen to you is that the judgment of God that's been building up ever since the Babylonian captivity and even before that is going to come crashing down in a terrible way. And so he's saying go ahead and live in your defiance of God. Go ahead and continue to reject the God of the covenant. Go ahead and continue to reject this appeal to repent and come to me. And as you do it, you are building up for yourself this judgment of God as a divine scale of judgment and it's going to come crashing down. So again reading verse 32 in that light, fill up then the measure of the sin of your forefathers and he goes on. These words of Jesus were singing and biting, they were ascetic in their judgment and very insulting to people. He's speaking to religious leaders. You snakes, verse 33, you brute of vipers. How will you escape being condemned to hell? And then he says therefore I'm sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify others. You will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that's been shed on earth from the blood of righteous able to the blood of Zechariah, son of Barakaya, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation. Now that is the context of Matthew 24. And if we fail to read Matthew 24 in his context, we really are going to miss the heart of the matter. And so you see as he enters his diatribe against the religious leaders there in verse 39 of Matthew 23, page 1538, he then walks away from the temple, verse 1 of chapter 24, crosses the Kidren Valley and proceeds up the Mount of Olives. And as he does so, his disciples come to him and call his attention to its buildings. Do you see all these things he asks? I tell you the truth, not one stone year will be left on another. Everyone will be thrown down. Poignant pressing words. What's the context of that? The context of that is that Jesus said to the Jewish people as a whole in one of his great public discourses, you're going to experience the judgment of God. It's going to come on you, the people that are listening to my voice. This generation is going to experience this. And your house is left you desolate. Now that the disciples immediately get the point of what Jesus is saying. While Matthew 23 is a public message of Jesus, Matthew 24 is a private message. It's only to believers. It's not to the Jewish people as a whole. It's only to believers as disciples. So in Matthew 24, as Jesus is going across the Kidren Valley and heading up the Mount of Olives, as you go up the Mount of Olives, as I've been there in some of you have, you can look back and you can see where the temple was. And you can imagine what the disciples were saying to Jesus is saying, look, Jesus, are you serious? Do you mean it? Do you mean to say that this temple of God, this temple of God that is the rebuilt temple of God, rebuilt over 500 years ago? You mean to tell us it's going to be destroyed and you got to understand something else. The temple had been in a rebuilding project for almost 50 years. At the time when Jesus first began his discourse and his first purging of the temple that's recorded in John chapter 2, the Jewish people say 46 years has this been being built. They're referring to what began in 19 BC, by the way, that's a very key verse to understand when Jesus began his ministry and when he died. That takes this to about 27 AD when Jesus began his ministry, 26, 27 AD, Jesus begins his ministry. And that means that Jesus died right at 30 AD. We know that Herod the Great began a great remodeling program of the temple in 19 BC. And so there's been this massive reconstruction of the temple, the second temple, a massive beautification of it by Herod who was half Jewish and half Edomite. And he wanted to purchase the favor of the Jewish people by lavishing on them this wonderful refurbishment of the ancient temple. So here is this magnificent set of buildings. And as the disciples climb the Mount of Olives with Jesus and look back on it, you can see they get a greater and greater perspective of how beautiful it all is. And so they say, do you really mean it? And Jesus says in effect, yes, I do mean it. He says to them, do you see all these things? Verse 2, I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another. Every one will be thrown down. Now we know some things from history. We know that the words of Jesus became literally actually and absolutely fulfilled in the year 70 AD. We know by historical fact that the temple of God that was destroyed in the year 70 AD, the Romans destroyed it. It was an amazing thing how they did it. These were massive stones. If you go into the tunnels underneath the city of Jerusalem and you can look at some of the foundation stones, they are gigantic. How did the Romans destroy the temple so effectively? What they did was build fires. They superheated the stones and then they released from the irrigation system that was designed to cleanse the temple of all the blood that we shed by the sacrificial animals. There was this massive system of aqueducts. What they did was on these very, very hot stones they released all that water. And it was like dynamite. These stones blew apart. They literally blew the temple up by means of allowing this cold water to come in on these superheated stones. And so the temple of God literally and actually was totally destroyed by the Romans and all that was left of that were the foundation stones. And those foundation stones are still there today. And on top of those foundation stones in the place where the temple of God once stood is the mosque of Omar. And so that temple mound is the third holiest site in all of Islam. Naka is first, Medina is second, and the temple mound of Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam. And the Muslims still control the city in the sense of controlling that temple mound. It was destroyed absolutely as Jesus says. And so when he there, verse 3, Matthew 24-3, as Jesus was sitting on the mound of olives so the disciples came to him privately, tell us they said, when will this happen? What will be the sign of your coming end of the end of the age? Now it's interesting, undoubtedly in the disciples' mind, they're confusing all these things into one. And that's why this message, the Olivet Discourse that's recorded in Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21, that's why it's a little bit of confusion. And we'll see why in a moment there's a theological reason for it to be confusing as well. Because there's no event that so pictures for us the great cataclysmic return of Christ and judgment on the world as the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. And so what I want you to see then is that Jesus proceeds to answer their question. Now certain things in the book in this Olivet Discourse are really, really clear. I believe that it's abundantly clear that starting at verse 15, we are talking about the actual literal destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the literal temple of God that was built back during the time 5-20, back after the return from captivity, that Jesus is talking about that event. However, it's very clear when we get to verse 36, we're talking about something else. In verse 36 he says, no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the sun, but only the Father. And so verse 36 is clearly talking about the second coming of Christ. And from verse 36 on, that's all that we're dealing with. The rest of chapter 24 from verse 36 on, all of chapter 25 is about the second coming of Christ. But what's difficult is in the middle section, somewhere between verse 15 and verse 36, this middle section, it becomes fuzzy for us. It becomes difficult to see whether we're talking about the second coming of Christ or whether we're talking about the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. Why is the destruction of the city of Jerusalem so significant? Notice that we're dealing with that in verse 15. What are we dealing with up to verse 15? Up to verse 15, we're talking about things that have always happened in the history of the world. As we talked last Sunday morning, as we talked this Sunday morning, there have always been wars and rumors of war, earthquake, famines and plagues. Jesus hints that those things intensify just as labor pangs intensify and become quicker and less separated in time as we draw near to the end. But those things are not a clear cut and definite sign. Those things are introduced in verse 4 by Jesus saying, watch out that no one deceives you. Watch out that no one deceives you. The mere presence of the tsunami last week does not tell us that Jesus is about to return. It does tell us that he's going to return and it does tell us that we need to be ready for his return but that tsunami last Sunday on the largest Muslim nation in the world in Indonesia, that tsunami is not a clear cut indication that Jesus is about to return. Just that he is going to return. It's the signpost of his return but so as every earthquake, every tsunami, every war, every plague, every famine is a signpost of his second coming but it doesn't mean that it's about to happen. Notice that no actions are called for. He says there in verse 8 all these things are the beginning of birth pangs. He talks about other things, persecution and so on. He speaks about the worldwide propagation of the gospel in verse 14 but in verse 15 he changes the subject and he talks about an event that people could recognize and when they recognize that they were to act on it. That's very critical. Notice that he says to his disciples when you see standing in the holy place, the abomination that causes desolation spoken off through the prophet Daniel and then he adds those words, let the reader understand. If you look at Mark's account, the exact same phrase theology, the abomination that causes desolation, let the reader understand. In other words, there's something more to this than meets the eye. Stop and think about it, reader. It's what Matthew is saying. Those aren't the words of Jesus. Those are the words that Matthew and Mark put into Jesus' account of the Olivet discourse, let the reader understand. Jesus didn't say to his disciples, let the reader understand. In other words, that's a footnote. That's an annotation that the gospel writers Matthew and Mark add so that you and I who are reading their account of this sermon of Jesus on the Mount of Olives would stop and think and say, wait a minute, there's more to this than meets the eye. Now, if we look at Luke's account, it becomes really, really clear. And in Luke chapter 21, as I pointed out last Sunday morning, notice that he says in verse 20, when you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Notice in Luke 21, page 1636, when you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you notice desolation is near. This is the abomination of desolation prophesied by Daniel. Doesn't mean it exhausts that prophecy, but certainly is part in that prophecy. Notice it's clear and it calls for action, verse 21, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out. And if you go back to Matthew's account or Mark's account, you see that's exactly what's in you, verse 16, Matthew chapter 24, verse 16, Matthew 24, 16, page 15, 39. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let no one on the roof of this house go down to take anything out of the house, let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. Then he talks about how horrible this will be. Now I want you to look now at the handout that Sandy has duplicated for us. And you see something, I think of interest. All right, there this is off of my web page that I've taken some pieces from it. According to the sycophantic propagandist for the Roman Flavians, the defeated Jewish generals of Josephus, who witnessed the city's destruction in 8070, Jerusalem was surrounded by Roman armies in 8066. Four years before the city is destroyed, it's surrounded by Roman armies. Now here, Josephus words, by the way, except for the New Testament, our knowledge of the first century. Realize overwhelmingly and almost exclusively on the writings of Josephus. Josephus captured by the Romans, surrendering his army, the army in the Galilee, he was a general in this revolt against Rome. When he's captured, he voluntarily lays down his arms and seeing the futility of the struggle, he begins to be a kind of emissary for peace on behalf of the Romans to try to get the Jews to surrender. But the Jews in the city of Jerusalem refused to surrender. And so Josephus writes all this down and Josephus writes with a little edge to his history, kind of like an editor in the New York Times. It's not simply straightforward facts. Of course, I hope you all understand that whether it's the town talk or time or national review, it's never just facts. People always run the facts through the filter of their own perspective. And Josephus in writing about history, as all history books, is writing from his own perspective. And what he's trying to do here is to say, look, these wonderful Romans gave my people the Jewish people every opportunity to lay down their arms and not go on with this terrible fight. And so all of this destruction is not the fault of the Flavians. It's the fault of my own people. That's kind of what he's saying in his history. But his history is nevertheless an accurate history of what went on in the first century, for example, Masada. How do we know about Masada in 79 AD? And the suicide pack where roughly 900 Jewish people killed themselves, their wives and children, rather than be captured by the Romans. We know about that for Josephus. So again, Josephus is, frequently, the historian of the first century Judaism. And this is what he writes here. And then happened that Sessius, Sessius Galas, who was the Syrian legate, was not conscious either how the besieged the spirit of success, nor how courageous the people were for him. And so he recalled his soldiers from the place. And by despairing of any expectation of taking it, without having received any disgrace, he retired from the city without any reason in the world. It's an amazing statement. In the providence of God, Jerusalem was surrounded by the Roman armies, under Sessius Galas, the Roman legate over Syria. This massive show of force he could have taken the city. And there were people inside who were ready to surrender. But for some bizarre, some mysterious, some unknown reason, the general commands his troops to withdraw from the city. What happened at that point is striking because we read according to the ancient historian of the historian of the historian of the ancient church, Eusebius, who lived in the 4th century. This is what he wrote. It was then that believers remembered the warning of our Lord and fled the city. Now here Eusebius is words. Moreover, the people of the church of Jerusalem, in accordance with a certain oracle, you and I know what that certain oracle is. That certain oracle is the Olivet Discourse, recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21. In accordance with a certain oracle that was about safe by way of revelation to the approved men there, had been commanded to depart from the city before the war and to inhabit a certain city of Peria, they called it Pelop. When those who believed in Christ had removed from Jerusalem as if holy men had utterly deserted both the royal metropolis of the Jews itself and the whole land of Judea, the justice of God then visited upon them, all their acts of violence to Christ and his apostles by destroying that generation of wicked persons, rude and branched from among men. That's from Eusebius history, volume three, and found in the book that you see there, a new Eusebius doctrine, documents illustrative of the history of the Christian church. So, what I think is important to understand is that the disciples, when they saw the city of Jerusalem, 66 AD, surrounded by this abomination. The Roman army was an abomination. When they saw the city of Jerusalem surrounded by this abomination, they remembered the words of Jesus. Remember, there were people who were alive then. We're talking about 36 years after Christ was crucified. 36 years after Christ was crucified, 66 AD. What happens? They remember the words of Jesus. When the Roman army mysteriously disappears from around the walls of Jerusalem, they leave, they cross the Jordan River and they go over and there they live in the city of Petra and surrounding environments. What happens then? Well, it's figuratively spoken of, more in Matthew, but much more literally in the Gospel of Luke. So, let's look at Luke. Page 1636, Luke chapter 21, verse 21, Luke 21, 21, page 1636. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those in the city get out. Let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful will be for those in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. They'll be great distress in the land, way out against this people. They'll fall by this org. We'll be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. And when you read Luke 21, it becomes very obvious that this portion of what we call the Olivet Discourse is clearly about an historical event that has already occurred. Indeed, that is a description of the history of the Jewish people. Jesus said that that generation was filling up the iniquity from the generations before and it was going to come crashing down on them. That generation would see it. That generation would experience the holy temple of God was going to be destroyed. And when it was destroyed it was going to be in the greatest tribulation the Jewish people had ever known in their entire history and would never know again. That's the amazing thing about it. How severe was it? I talked about it briefly a week ago Sunday morning. We know from reading Josephus the horrible things. I mentioned just one of them that certain Jews would leave the city. This is after Cestius Gallus had left and the Roman army comes back under Vespation. Vespation was the general who succeeds. Cestius Gallus, Vespation right in the middle of the siege in Jerusalem, by the way, gets word that the Roman Emperor, Nero, has been killed and he hastens back to Roman leaves his son named Titus as the general who actually oversees the final destruction of the city and Vespation becomes Roman Emperor.
So what is it? What is it is that people, some of the Jews after the city was surrounded again, try to leave the city. But what they tried to do was to take some of their wealth with them. If that's all you've got, you don't want to start life over again with nothing. And so in some cases they would take their gold, they were searched. And so people realized, hey we're going to be searched. So what did they do? Some people swallowed their gold and jewels. Because they knew that within 24 so hours when they got alone privately, they could go through their excrement and they could find their gold and jewels. Josephus tells us this. But what happened is the soldiers remember that most Roman soldiers were not from Italy. Most Roman soldiers in the empire were from the surrounding area. There were people who had enlisted and become part of the army. And so many of these soldiers were Arabs who hated those Jews anyhow and were Roman soldiers. What do they do? The rumor passes. Those Jews have swallowed their gold and diamonds and other jewels. So what do these soldiers do, these Roman soldiers do? They begin to slip the Jews open. They begin to search in their intestines and then their stomachs to try to find gold and other things of wealth. And when they would find it, of course, the word just spread like lightning. And what happens is, after Jew, after Jew, after Jew is butchered in this way. Terribly. They would get other Jews and they would torture them. Terrible tortures that Josephus describes that I won't even describe for you. Terrible excruciating tortures. And the city is reduced to nothing. By the time in late August when the city finally falls to the Roman army, they are so starving that the curses of Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26 have been literally fulfilled. What happened? Women killed their own children? Eight their own children. Wouldn't share their children with other people. This is one of the Deuteronomy curses. Deuteronomy 28, Leviticus 26, it happened before in Jewish history. It happened in the fall of Samaritan 722 BC. It happened in the fall of Jerusalem in 587, 86 BC. And it happened in 70 AD. People were starving. They killed and ate their own children. This is terrible. There has never been tribulation like this. This was the most intense of all. And it was more intense than the fall of Samaria and the fall of Jerusalem initially. It was the great tribulation and such had never befallen the Jewish people with that ferocity. And after that, they are enslaved. And the Romans cart off all of the wealth of the temple. As I said last Sunday morning, I have in my little coin collection a silver coin minted from the silver of the Jewish temple. And it has embossed on it, Judea weeping, and a woman sitting down before a menorah. It's a striking coin that reminds us of the cruelty of Rome towards those who would raise their hand against the Roman Empire. Thus far, we see the destruction of Jerusalem. Any questions at this point before I press further. Now we come to what is somewhat difficult and somewhat obscure because we are not used to certain terminology. Jesus begins to talk in verse 25 and Josephus does record signs and wonders in the heavens. Those signs and wonders in the heavens mentioning, starting there in verse 25, those signs and wonders in the heavens were interpreted by the zealots who took over the city of Jerusalem. They were interpreted as signs of divine favor that God was going to rescue them. All of those people were under the control of a group of zealots who believed profoundly that God was going to come to their rescue and not allow their temple in their city to be destroyed. And these portents in the heavens only serve to reinforce their belief in this notion that never came true. However, there is more to that. There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars on the earth. Nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the warring and tossing of the sea. Men will think from terror apprehensive of what is coming on the world for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. What's in view here? Turn with me if you will back to Isaiah chapter 13. Jesus is here employing a literary device. A literary device well recognized by his listeners. This is a kind of apocalypticism. And listen to what that is. What do I mean by an apocalypticism or apocalyptic language or an apocalypse? What I mean is this. The Greek word apocalypsis is the title of the last book of the Bible. What does apocalyps mean in Greek? It literally means to unveil. It's like for example there's going to be a statue dedicated in the park and nobody but the builder of the sculptor and those who have erected it know what it looks like because it's been covered over with a big piece of canvas. But all of the leaders are there for the dedication of the statue. And on the moment of dedication suddenly they do what? They pull off the canvas and everybody gets to see the statue for the first time. What is the pulling off of the canvas? It's an apocalypse. It's an unveiling. It's pulling back the curtain and allowing you to see things that you couldn't see with the natural eye. It's giving you a supernatural perspective of what's happening. Now let's look at Isaiah 13 for a moment and listen to what is said here. That's page 1078. We'll pick it up here at verse 6. We'll for the day of the Lord is near. It will come like destruction from the Almighty because of this all hands will go limp. Every man's heart will melt. Terror will cease them. Pain and anguish will grip them. They will rise like a woman in labor. They will look a gas to each other. Their faces aflame. See the day of the Lord is coming. A cruel day with wrath and fierce anger to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. Verse 10, the stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened. The moon will not give its light. I will punish the world for its evil. The wicked for their sins. I'll put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless. I will make man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of offer. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty at the day of his burning anger. Now when we read these words we think of the end of the world don't we? That sounds like the end of the world. I mean the sun failing, the moon failing, the stars falling from the sky. And yet what is this? What is what we just read a description about? Well we read further. Like a hunted gazelle like sheep without shepherd each will return to his own people. Each will flee to his native land. Whoever is captured will be thrust through. All who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be looted and their wives ravaged. Verse 17, see I will stir up against them the meads. Who are the meads? The meads were one part of what we call the Persian Empire. We often call it the Meadow Persian Empire. In other words what is being prophesied here by Isaiah is the destruction of the city of Babylon under the forces of the Meadow Persian Empire. Now what happened in the year 539 BC when the Meadow Persian Empire came and destroyed the city of Babylon? Well a lot of the things that are described here did happen but it didn't happen literally so it happened symbolically so. What's really being talked about here is what? Verse 17, see I will stir up against them who? The Babylonians. That's who? Verse 1 of chapter 13, an oracle concerning Babylon that Isaiah son of Amos saw. Isaiah 13 is an apocalyptic vision of the destruction of the Babylonian Empire. How does he see it? He sees his son in moon failing and stars falling to the earth. It's an eclipse. What's the purpose of the symbolism? It's saying that Babylon was going to fall into darkness, that dark ages were going to come on Babylon. Babylon that place of great enlightenment who rule the world for a season is going to be eclipse in her power and the light of Babylonian civilization, military and economic light is going to be snuffed out just as if the sun itself and moon itself were snuffed out. So he says see verse 17, I will stir against them the meads who do not care for silver and have no delight in gold. Their bows will strike down the young men. They will have no mercy on infants. Nor will they look with compassion on children. Verse 19, the Babylon, the jewel of the nations, the glory of the Babylonians pride will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah. Now what do you make of that? What you make of that is this. This is a style of writing or a style of communicating from God to his people that makes use of the symbolism of the destruction of the creation itself as a means to describe the terrible nature of the collapse of a particular civilization. We refer to a period of time in the early Middle Ages as the what? The dark ages, the early Middle Ages is called the dark ages. Why? Because at least in Europe there had been the light of Roman Christian civilization for a couple of hundred years. But when the city of Rome finally collapses before the barbarian hoards in the year 476 AD, what happens? The light of Roman civilization is eclipsed. The light of learning is eclipsed. People no longer know how to read or write or know what's going on. Things are snuff out. Civilization begins to become dark. It is the dark ages, the early Middle Ages. So what is Isaiah 13 talking about? It's talking about the destruction of the city of Babylon. Did Babylon at that point cease to exist? No. It continued to exist for hundreds of years. Babylon no longer exists, but the initial destruction of the city in 539 BC was by means of a literal army of needs and persons invading the city, taking it and setting up their own government over it. Darius the Mead becomes the governor of Babylon, and he appoints Daniel to be his vice-gerent, assisting him in the administration of Old Babylon. But the fall of Babylon I want you to see is described here, listen to it again, verse 10, verses 9 and 10. How is it described? It's seen as the coming of the day of the Lord. Why is it seen as the coming of the day of the Lord? Because every such rising up of nation and destruction is a signpost of the ultimate destruction of the world. Every war in history is connected somehow another theologically in God's ultimate purpose with the final armageddon. So every war, every rumor of war is part is a signpost of a terrible judgment to come on the world when God withdraws his influence from man and man the beast rises up against man in a terrifying way. See the day of the Lord is coming, a cruel day with wrath and fierce anger to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be dark and the moon will not give its light. I'll punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins and so on. You see how striking that is? So let's turn to Luke 21 and we'll end it for tonight by going back to Luke 21. And maybe you begin to have some questions, which we will try to deal with next week. Listen to how it's described. Verse 24, page 1636, Luke 21, 24, They, the Jewish people, will fall by the sword. We take in his prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem we trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. And I want to have the time of the Gentiles been fulfilled. Well, not in 48 because they didn't have the city. Not in the 67 war that because though they had a measure of the city, they don't have the whole city and they don't have the heart of the city. What's the heart of the city of Jerusalem is the temple mount. And so we might say that we can't say definitively that the times of the Gentiles have come to an end yet. Maybe they have. But the most important piece of real estate in the whole world from the divine perspective is still under the control of the Gentiles, still today. That's why all of the uprising occurred when the Ariel Sharon pulled that political stunt in order to get a hood baroque out of office by going up there and kind of doing a quasi-religious demonstration on the temple mount. He knew what would what would happen with the Muslims. They reacted with ferocious anger at this and they were riots and people were throwing stones because of what Ariel Sharon did. It's kind of triggered all of the unrest that's been going on since 2000 because what the Jews still do not control the poor piece of real estate, the temple mount. So listen to what Jesus said. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. And then he describes it this way, verse 25. There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will think from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, where the heavenly bodies will be shaken. How much of that is literal? Well, we do know that literal things like that occurred in the first century that Josephus records these portents in the heavens. And yet there's also, if we look at it in the light of this style of literature, and you find it not only in Isaiah 13, but you find it in places like Ezekiel as well. What you also see here is an apocalyptic statement. That is that what's going to happen to the Jewish people, Jesus is saying here in Luke's account, is they're going to go into the dark ages. Instead of this being a quick judgment and quick restoration, you know, the Jews had their temple destroyed in 586 BC, and it's completely rebuilt by 516, 70 years later, and the Jews are back in the land. This time it's different, says Jesus. There's going to come on the Jewish people, he says, beginning with the generation hearing my voice, this destruction. Then instead of release, it's going to be a period of darkness, of despair, and if you look at history, and this no way justifies that history, but if you look at history, no people has suffered as the Jewish people have suffered. You know, it's an amazing testimony of the promise of God that the Jewish people still exist. When you look at other people groups, they've all been absorbed and mixed and mingled throughout the world. I mean, who are the Egyptians? Well, there are a lot of different people today. If you go to Egypt, they're Greeks, they're Arabs, they're Africans, they're all of mixed blood, that way you see. If you go to other places, who am I? Well, I'm a little over a third English, a little less than a third Scottish, and a little less than a third French. And a wee dram of Swiss, that's what I am. I'm a mixture. I'm a mongrel, just like you, fellow mongrels, but the Jewish people have remained as a distinct people group for 2,000 years, but as a distinct people group, what? Without a home, restless, always having to be on the lookout for persecution arising here or rising there. You think a particularly of Eastern Europe and the terrible persecutions that occurred to Jews, sensory in and sensory out. You want to know the attitude of the world around them to the Jews, read Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice. And you see this horrible depiction of Shylock. What was his name? Is it Amarite? Amarite? Yeah, okay. And is town to flesh? The Merchant of Venice? I mean, that's the picture the world has of the Jew. And so the Jew is persecuted. The Jew is eclipsed in terms of having rule in its homeland. Even today, as I say, since 48, the most hopeful thing that ever happened to the Jews in the past 2,000 years, they're still living under what? Millions of people who ate their guts. Millions of people who were committed to annihilating them of driving the Jewish state into the sea. That's what they're up against. If it weren't for billions of dollars in foreign military aid from the United States every year, given to Israel, it wouldn't exist. Because they're vastly outnumbered by all the Arab people that buy in large despise them. So Jesus is here saying something. He's saying that in addition to the literal portance that occurred in the 1st century recorded by Josephus, it's a terrible, terrible time that would follow the Jewish people after that until what would happen, verse 27. The end of that period of time, at that time, they will see the son of man coming in cloud, in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up, lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. So as I read this, what I see is this prophecy of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, of terrible eclipsing of the Jewish power and influence and their ability to control their own destiny, and then at some point in history, the termination of the time of the Gentiles and the return of Christ. But perhaps you have questions. Say them if you would write them down because we start next week, if you don't write them down, you'll have forgotten them. But I'm hoping this will generate some discussion. May we pray. Father, we pray that you would bless our study of this prophecy, part of which has already been fulfilled so literally and graphically. And we look to the rest of it to be just as literally and graphically fulfilled when our Lord Jesus returned. And we say in spite of the troubles that surround that return, in spite of that, we pray with John even so come, Lord Jesus. Amen.