By Pastor Hal Mayer
Dear Friends,
Welcome to Keep the Faith Ministry. Once again, I am thankful that you have joined me for this message. We are living in the last days, and Jesus tells us to watch and pray. Watch the signs of the times and develop a prayer life that will reach deep into your soul and bring out all that is in there and lay it at the feet of Jesus. Today, I am going to present a story that clearly represents the final events on earth just before Jesus comes again. The scenes of chaos and destruction are written plainly in the annals of history so that we can understand the consequences of the way in which we choose to live our lives.
Please bow your heads with me in prayer. Our heavenly Father, in Jesus name we call upon you to give us the Holy Spirit who will sanctify our understanding so that we can see and understand the lessons we need to learn from our study today. As we open scripture and as we study an important era of history, we pray that we may grasp its prophetic implications and apply them to ourselves now in the last fleeting moments of earth’s history. In Jesus’ precious and worthy name, amen.
Turn with me in your Bible to one of the saddest passages of scripture. It is Matthew 23:37. Jesus’ words were said to His church in His day, but they prophetically describe our day too.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”
Christ, the Lord of Glory, clothed in human flesh was weeping as He said these words. He was on His triumphal entry just before He was to be crucified. He stopped on the Mount of Olives and wept. He wept for Jerusalem. He wept for her children. He wept over their apostasy and wickedness. All heaven was filled with wonder and amazement at the scene. Do you think that Christ was weeping over His church today? Jesus was capable of seeing down through all the ages. Listen to this from Great Controversy, pages 21 and 22.
“Looking down the ages, He saw the covenant people scattered in every land, ‘like wrecks on a desert shore.’ In the temporal retribution about to fall upon her children [in the destruction of Jerusalem], He saw but the first draft from that cup of wrath which at the final judgment she must drain to its dregs.”
Did you hear that? In the destruction of Jerusalem we see the first draft, the first swallow, if you will, of the cup that must be drained to the last drop in the final time of trouble that is to come upon this world. Christ was deeply moved with agony when He considered the loss of souls that would reject His mercy and love. What a tragedy! What a calamity! In Jerusalem’s time of trouble such as never was until that day, He saw the even greater time of trouble such as never was at the very end of time when human probation would close and chaos would be unleashed globally. As Christ looked down upon the city from the Mount of Olives, “He beheld the destroying angel with sword uplifted against the city which has so long been Jehovah’s dwelling place.”
His heart was torn by the burden of human woe and guilt, which fell upon Him. Not only had Jerusalem rejected His servants, the prophets whom He Himself had sent to warn them to turn from their wicked ways, but they had also spurned and rejected the Holy One of Israel, the only one who could save them.
“Christ saw in Jerusalem a symbol of the world hardened in unbelief and rebellion, and hastening on to meet the retributive judgments of God.”
So, Jerusalem represents the world. Their choices, their pride, their rebellion had returned evil for good. Christ had done everything possible to win them and draw them to Himself. And they had done everything possible to spurn Him and resist His tender mercies. Now they would be left to the merciless forces of destruction that only Satan, their chosen master, could have concocted to humiliate and overthrow them.
As the people turned their backs on the prophets God had sent to warn and enlighten them, they planted the seeds of their own destruction. The physical destruction of the city was merely the outward manifestation of what had been happening to them spiritually. Their city and temple were gutted with fire; a fitting symbol of the spiritual gutting that had been going on for centuries. As Israel turned from God’s law and laid transgression upon transgression upon transgression, the cumulative weight of sin rested upon the guilty nation. They would have to suffer the long-delayed consequences of accumulated disobedience.
Let me ask you. Do you think that the tide of human woe that we see in our world today is as bad as it was in Jesus’ day? Do you think that there is an accumulation of sin and disobedience due to delayed consequences? Listen to this from Great Controversy, page 22.
“Jesus, looking down to the last generation saw the world involved in a deception similar to that which caused the destruction of Jerusalem. The great sin of the Jews was their rejection of Christ; the great sin of the Christian world would be their rejection of the law of God, the foundation of His government in heaven and earth. The precepts of Jehovah would be despised and set at nought. Millions in bondage to sin, slaves of Satan, doomed to suffer the second death would refuse to listen to the words of truth in their day of visitation. Terrible blindness! Strange infatuation!”
This is also happening in the churches. By persistent rejection of God’s law, the heart is hardened against righteousness. From Steps to Christ, page 42 we read the following.
“Christ is ready to set us free from sin, but He does not force the will; and if by persistent transgression the will itself is wholly bent on evil, and we do not desire to be set free, if we will not accept His grace, what more can He do? We have destroyed ourselves by our determined rejection of His love.”
Do you think our world today is on a course of persistent rejection and transgression of the law of God? Do you think that the immorality is so strong that it has become like the days before the flood where the thoughts and imaginations of the heart of multitudes was only evil continually?
The Jews in the days of Christ were fast approaching the time of their divine retribution. They were deceived into thinking that they were all right and that nothing would happen to them. After all, they were the chosen race. They were the people of God. They had the temple. They felt secure and had no need of repentance. When Christ Himself came to them, they turned on Him and rejected the salvation they were offered. The Christian world today is the same, and so is God’s church. When I think of the tornados that desolate homes, I can’t help but think of these words of Jesus in Matthew 23:38.
“Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”
When a cyclone, earthquake or a tsunami strikes, I can’t help but think that Jesus is saying these words to us now! When the final destruction comes, the words of Jesus in Mark 13:2 will be fulfilled again.
“Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
Do you think that applies to the church today? The churches rush on in blindness. They claim the promises of God, but they don’t want to comply with the conditions. Only a few souls wake up here and there.
Jerusalem, in those days, was a well-fortified city, so well defended that it was considered to be impregnable. Anyone who would have foretold her destruction would be considered an alarmist and a hysterical pessimist. But God’s word cannot fail. Christ had predicted the destruction of the temple and the city, and it would surely come to pass.
We see the same thing today. The world is full of iniquity dressed in pious garb. And it is very deceptive. So deceptive, in fact, that most people cannot imagine that their revered leaders, particularly their spiritual leaders, would be anything but godly men and women.
Because of the rejection of the mercy of Christ, the Jewish nation was left to the control of Satan. What do you think happens when a nation or church is left to the control of Satan? Well, things become pretty evil, chaotic and violent. Evil impulses become dominant and conflict and passion hold sway, and things become dangerous. Listen to Great Controversy, pages 28, 29.
“Satan aroused the fiercest and most debased passions of the soul. Men did not reason; they were beyond reason—controlled by impulse and blind rage. They became satanic in their cruelty. In the family and in the nation, among the highest and the lowest classes alike, there was suspicion, envy, hatred, strife, rebellion, murder. There was no safety anywhere. Friends and kindred betrayed one another. Parents slew their children, and children their parents. The rulers of the people had no power to rule themselves. Uncontrolled passions made them tyrants. The Jews had accepted false testimony to condemn the innocent Son of God. Now false accusations made their own lives uncertain. By their actions they had long been saying: ‘Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.’ Isaiah 30:11. Now their desire was granted. The fear of God no longer disturbed them. Satan was at the head of the nation, and the highest civil and religious authorities were under his sway.”
Satan will control religious and secular authorities at the end of time. We should not be surprised in the least when these very ones who are now highly respected, will oppress and seek to destroy those who are loyal to Christ. We’ve seen examples of this lately, especially in the church.
It was the time of Passover and millions of Jews were crammed into the city. Once the Roman armies locked down the city, all of them were trapped. Warring political factions within the city each had their leaders and like gangs of thieves and robbers violently asserted their power and control over the people. Listen to Josephus, Book V, Chapter one.
“And now there were three treacherous factions in the city, the one parted from the other… [one faction] plundered the populace… and sallied out in great number upon [the other party] … and… set on fire those houses that were full of corn and of all other provisions. Accordingly, it so came to pass, that all the places that were about the temple were burnt down, and were become an intermediate desert space, ready for fighting on both sides of it and that almost all the corn was burnt, which would have been sufficient for a siege of many years.”
Jerusalem was actually overthrown by their own violent hands, which burned the stores of food and made the whole city vulnerable to famine. But that was only the beginning. Everyone lived in fear of his neighbor. Reading on from Josephus.
“And now, as the city was engaged in a war on all sides, from these treacherous crowds of wicked men, the people of the city, between them, were like a great body torn in pieces. The aged men and the women were in such distress by their internal calamities that they wished FOR the Romans, and earnestly hoped for an external war, in order to [be delivered] from their [domestic] miseries. The citizens themselves were under a terrible consternation and fear… nor could such as had a mind flee away; for guards were set at all places, and the heads of the robbers although they were [against one another], yet did they agree in killing those that were for peace with the Romans, or were suspected of an inclination to desert them… (or leave the city).”
Under that kind of pressure, the definition of being worthy of death becomes very shallow and superficial in the chaos. The smallest things or mere suspicion could trigger a summary death sentence. The “rule of the street” during the time of trouble, will overthrow the rule of law. Military forces, designed to prevent civilian unrest and chaos will be brought in to restore law and order, but they will not be able to do much. Even so, the military is already preparing for this.
Fortunately, we are told that all of those who were obedient to Christ were able to escape Jerusalem. Think about this for a minute. Jesus told his followers that when they see the Roman armies around Jerusalem and they pull back; they should flee immediately. They should not wait. This window of escape was the period of time just after Cestius had pulled his armies off from the siege. Cestius became aware that he had pressing problems elsewhere to attend to, so he departed Jerusalem. The Jews sallied forth and inflicted a lot of damage on the Romans. While fighting Cestius, the Jews were preoccupied, so they could not fight among themselves, or block the gates of Jerusalem. So, there was a very short window of time for Christ’s followers to leave the city. They didn’t even have time to get their treasures, their coats and other belongings. They just had to flee and leave everything behind to get as far away from the city as possible so they would not be pursued.
Do you think this is also possible in the last days? You may only have a short window of time to get out of the city, if you live there. If you are paying attention to the Holy Spirit, He will teach you when that time is. If you delay like Lot, or if you wait too long, the window will close, and you will not have a future opportunity. Pray about it earnestly. Ask God to open the way and make you willing to escape. When the Holy Spirit doesn’t restrain them anymore, people will do the most cold-blooded things. I’m sorry to tell you, my friends, but that is what is coming to a big city near you.
When the Jews returned from the fight, they resumed fighting between themselves making the city once more a vast battlefield. They also put the city under lockdown. Anyone who was suspected of planning escape was cut down in cold blood, instilling fear in the rest of the populace. Josephus says that they “omitted no method of torment or barbarity.” Torture was common. This was a prophetic type of cities of today. Modern cities can easily be locked down so that no one can come in and no one can go out. This is one of the reasons why God tells us to live outside the cities. That way you won’t be caught up in the chaos and be trapped. There were so many dead bodies in Jerusalem that they were piled up in the streets and were trampled upon by the warring parties. Great Controversy, page 29 adds some shocking details to the saga.
“Even the sanctity of the temple could not restrain their horrible ferocity. The worshipers were stricken down before the altar, and the sanctuary was polluted with the bodies of the slain. Yet in their blind and blasphemous presumption the instigators of this hellish work publicly declared that they had no fear that Jerusalem would be destroyed, for it was God’s own city. To establish their power more firmly, they bribed false prophets to proclaim, even while Roman legions were besieging the temple, that the people were to wait for deliverance from God. To the last, multitudes held fast to the belief that the Most High would interpose for the defeat of their adversaries. But Israel had spurned the divine protection, and now she had no defense. Unhappy Jerusalem! rent by internal dissensions, the blood of her children slain by one another’s hands crimsoning her streets, while alien armies beat down her fortifications and slew her men of war!”
What happened in Jerusalem gives us a prophetic picture of what will happen in the last days. Can you imagine the chaos and bloodshed when there will be shortages of food, fuel, medicines and other basic necessities? There won’t be any, even in the country. People will panic. Gangs and thieves will plunder those who live among them, and “men’s hearts will fail them for fear.” Luke 21:26. The violence and fear in Jerusalem is a prophetic symbol of the violence and fear that is a sign of the end times. And fear will drive people and governments to extreme and desperate measures. Starvation will plague the cities in countries where there is now plenty of food. Listen to this statement from Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 4, page 446.
“While God’s judgments are visited upon the earth, and the wicked are dying from hunger and thirst, angels provide the righteous with food and water.”
Just like ancient Jerusalem, people living in the cities will be dying from hunger and thirst. They won’t be able to get food anywhere. If transportation is disrupted by fuel shortages or some other cause, people will not be able to just go to the supermarket and buy food. Besides, if they did, it would be stolen from them by thieves and gangs. Gangs are already stealing from the stores. Despite the violence we see today, things are relatively calm compared to what they will be when it all breaks loose. When Titus besieged the city the second time he forced a famine upon them.
Reading from Josephus, “The madness of the [gangs and thieves] did also increase together with their famine, and both those miseries were every day inflamed more and more; for there was no corn which any where appeared publicly, but the robbers came running into, and searched men’s private houses; and then if they found any, they tormented them, because they had denied they had any; and if they found none, they tormented them worse, because they supposed they had more carefully concealed it.”
The Works of Flavius Josephus, Book V, Chapter 10.
The chaos spread and increased as the famine got worse. Torture was one of the key tools to extract hidden food. The only ones left alone by the thieves and gangs were those that were already giving physical evidence that they were near the point of starvation. Anyone who still had flesh on their bones was under suspicion that they had food stored secretly somewhere. They were the ones that suffered the most cruelly. Let’s continue from Josephus.
“Many there were indeed, who sold what they had for one measure; it was of wheat if they were of the richer sort; but of barley if they were poorer. When these had so done, they shut themselves up in the inmost rooms of their houses, and ate the corn they had gotten; some did it without grinding it, by reason of the extremity of the [hunger] they were in, and others baked bread of it, according as necessity and fear dictated to them: a table was no where laid for a distinct meal, but they snatched the bread out of the fire, half-baked, and ate it very hastily.
“It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly bring tears into our eyes, how men stood as to their food, while the more powerful had more than enough, and the weaker were lamenting [for want of it] … Children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths… So did the mothers do… to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve their lives… When [the gangs] saw any house shut up, this was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food; whereupon they broke open the doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating almost up out of their very throats, and this by force: the old men, who held their food fast, were beaten; and if the women hid what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor was their any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants, but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the morsels they had gotten, and shook them down upon the floor. But still they were more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented them coming in, and had actually swallowed down what they were going to seize upon, as if they had been unjustly defrauded of their right… So fierce were the pangs of hunger that men would gnaw the leather of their belts and sandals and the covering of their shields.”
Can you imagine, my friends, the terrible calamity that befell these poor souls? This was primarily due to their disobedience of God and disregard of His law. When the Holy Spirit is withdrawn from man, human life becomes meaningless.
They also invented the most terrible and cruel tortures to discover where any food was… inflicting pain on the most sensitive parts of the body,
“In order to make [a man] confess that he had but one loaf of bread, or that [the thief] might discover a handful of barley-meal that was concealed.”
“These men went also to meet those that had crept out of the city by night, as far as the Roman guards, to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild; and when these people thought they had got clear of the enemy, the [gangs] snatched from them what they had brought [back] with them, even while they had frequently entreated them… to give them back some part of [it]; though these would not give them the least crumb.”
They were to be glad that they were only relieved of their food and not their lives.
From Maranatha, page 181 we read, “The Lord has shown me in vision, repeatedly, that it is contrary to the Bible to make any provision for our temporal wants in the time of trouble. I saw that if the saints have food laid up by them, or in the fields, in the time of trouble when sword, famine, and pestilence are in the land, it will be taken from them by violent hands, and strangers would reap their fields.”
People who cannot get food in the cities will come far out into the suburbs and into the country to steal food from those who might have it in their gardens. So, it will pay to live some distance from the city.
Titus would also arrest those who went out of the city to find food and would crucify them in huge numbers outside the city in sight of the walls. More than 500 Jews per day were arrested and crucified. There were so many crosses that were set up that there wasn’t any room for more, and it was difficult to walk between them. There were so many people to be crucified that there weren’t enough crosses.
Think about this for a minute. Do you remember when Jesus was at Pilate’s palace and the Jews demanded that Pilate crucify him? What did they say to Pilate when he tried to wash his hands of the blood of Christ? They said, “His blood be on us, and on our children.”
Now with terrible force this calamity came upon them as thousands were crucified outside the unholy city. There were millions of distressed people trapped in the city because of Passover, all of them frantic to find food.
Amid skirmishes between the desperate Jews and the Roman armies the famine only got worse. It “devoured the people by whole houses and families; the upper rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children and also the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows, all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever their misery seized them.”
Some were so desperate that they killed their children and ate them. No doubt children did the same to their parents. In this the prophecy of Jeremiah in Lamentations 4:10 was fulfilled to the letter.
“The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
Another fourteen-hundred-year-old prophecy of Moses was fulfilled. Deuteronomy 28:56, 57.
“The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,… and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.”
Some, by strategy, managed to sneak out of the city and flee to the Romans. But their fate was even worse. Word got around that they had swallowed pieces of gold, and that it was in their bellies, for Jerusalem was full of gold and silver. Their intention was to later collect it from their stool and use it to purchase food and survive outside the city. But when they came to the camp of the Romans pleading for protection, the soldiers would cut their bellies open and examine them for gold and then leave them to die. Not only was the gold worthless in the city, but it also became the cause of destruction to those who tried to escape with it.
Does that remind you of what the Bible says will happen to gold and silver? James 5 says it will become worthless to us, and a witness against us. Riches will not save you when chaos breaks out in the last days. When the rule of law is overthrown by massive civil uprisings, and lawless regimes reign supreme, what are houses, lands, possessions and large balances in your bank account going to do for you then? You will just be plundered. When the economy collapses, when strife and commotion and bloodshed are everywhere in the big cities, what are you going to do to protect yourself? Your only hope is in God. It is hopeless to rely on the police, the courts, or the government. You can’t even rely on your own wits, guns or munitions. God alone has to be your protection.
Psalm 91 says that if you are in the secret place of the Most High, which means that you are living by all His commandments and following in all His ways, you will be protected from the great terror, war, famine and some other distresses. Thousands will die around you, but you will be preserved.
Verse 7 says, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
Friends, this sad picture is also what is coming soon to the big cities of our planet. Men and women will be starving to death from famine, and their mouths will be parched with thirst.
The stench from the dead bodies everywhere around Jerusalem was so bad that not even the gangs could stand it. They insisted that the dead be buried from the public treasury, but no one could do it because there were too many bodies. So, eventually, thousands of the bodies were taken to the top of the city wall and dropped into the valleys below.
“Titus, in going on his rounds along those valleys, saw them full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running about them, he gave a groan; and, spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to witness that this was not his doing…”
Titus realized that it was only a matter of time before the Jews would be so weak that they would either come out to him, or they would surrender the city.
Great Controversy, pages 29-30, 33, “All the predictions given by Christ concerning the destruction of Jerusalem were fulfilled to the letter. The Jews experienced the truth of His words of warning: ‘With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’ Matthew 7:2.”
“Signs and wonders appeared, foreboding disaster and doom. In the midst of the night an unnatural light shone over the temple and the altar. Upon the clouds at sunset were pictured chariots and men of war gathering for battle. The priests ministering by night in the sanctuary were terrified by mysterious sounds; the earth trembled, and a multitude of voices were heard crying: ‘Let us depart hence.’ The great eastern gate, which was so heavy that it could hardly be shut by a score of men, and which was secured by immense bars of iron fastened deep in the pavement of solid stone, opened at midnight, without visible agency.”
“For seven years a man continued to go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, declaring the woes that were to come upon the city. By day and by night he chanted the wild dirge: ‘A voice from the east! a voice from the west! a voice from the four winds! a voice against Jerusalem and against the temple! a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides! a voice against the whole people!’ This strange being was imprisoned and scourged, but no complaint escaped his lips. To insult and abuse he answered only: ‘Woe, woe to Jerusalem!’ ‘woe, woe to the inhabitants thereof!’ His warning cry ceased not until he was slain in the siege he had foretold.” That is from The History of the Jews, by Henry Hart Milman, Book 13.
“The blind obstinacy of the Jewish leaders, and the detestable crimes perpetrated within the besieged city, excited the horror and indignation of the Romans, and Titus at last decided to take the temple by storm. He determined, however, that if possible it should be saved from destruction. But his commands were disregarded. After he had retired to his tent at night, the Jews, sallying from the temple, attacked the soldiers without. In the struggle, a firebrand was flung by a soldier through an opening in the porch, and immediately the cedar-lined chambers about the holy house were in a blaze. Titus rushed to the place, followed by his generals and legionaries, and commanded the soldiers to quench the flames. His words were unheeded. In their fury the soldiers hurled blazing brands into the chambers adjoining the temple, and then with their swords they slaughtered in great numbers those who had found shelter there. Blood flowed down the temple steps like water. Thousands upon thousands of Jews perished. Above the sound of battle, voices were heard shouting: “Ichabod!”—the glory is departed.”
Friends, the terrible description of the destruction of the sacred city and temple is a description of what is going to happen to the world after the close of human probation, when the Holy Spirit will no longer restrain the murderous passions of millions.
Great Controversy, pages 34, 35, “It was an appalling spectacle to the Roman—what was it to the Jew? The whole summit of the hill which commanded the city, blazed like a volcano. One after another the buildings fell in, with a tremendous crash, and were swallowed up in the fiery abyss. The roofs of cedar were like sheets of flame; the gilded pinnacles shone like spikes of red light; the gate towers sent up tall columns of flame and smoke. The neighboring hills were lighted up; and dark groups of people were seen watching in horrible anxiety the progress of the destruction: the walls and heights of the upper city were crowded with faces, some pale with the agony of despair, others scowling unavailing vengeance. The shouts of the Roman soldiery as they ran to and fro, and the howlings of the insurgents who were perishing in the flames, mingled with the roaring of the conflagration and the thundering sound of falling timbers. The echoes of the mountains replied or brought back the shrieks of the people on the heights; all along the walls resounded screams and wailings; men who were expiring with famine rallied their remaining strength to utter a cry of anguish and desolation.
“The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests, those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the work of extermination.” The History of the Jews, by Henry Hart Milman, Book 16.
And notice this amazing statement from The Truth About Angels, page 241. “Angels of God were sent to do the work of destruction, so that one stone [of the temple] was not left upon another that was not thrown down.”
Did God actually help Satan do his work? Great Controversy, page 35, “After the destruction of the temple, the whole city soon fell into the hands of the Romans. The leaders of the Jews forsook their impregnable towers, and Titus found them solitary. He gazed upon them with amazement, and declared that God had given them into his hands; for no engines, however powerful, could have prevailed against those stupendous battlements. Both the city and the temple were razed to their foundations, and the ground upon which the holy house had stood was ‘plowed like a field.’ Jeremiah 26:18. In the siege and the slaughter that followed, more than a million of the people perished; the survivors were carried away as captives, sold as slaves, dragged to Rome to grace the conqueror’s triumph, thrown to wild beasts in the amphitheaters, or scattered as homeless wanderers throughout the earth.”
Friends, I cannot help but feel burdened for souls when I read the descriptions of the wasted city. Great and longsuffering is the God of heaven. He delays His judgments in love and mercy so as to give the sinner time to repent and also to give nations and churches time to repent. Friends, there are millions of lost souls to win. We don’t have much time left before a similar tragedy unfolds globally. Listen to Great Controversy, page 39.
“The Saviour’s prophecy concerning the visitation of judgments upon Jerusalem is to have another fulfillment, of which that terrible desolation was but a faint shadow.”
The destruction of Jerusalem, as brutal and ruthless as it was, is but a faint shadow of what is coming at the time when the door of human probation has closed. We desperately need God’s protection. We need His presence in our hearts constantly, otherwise we will fall into sin and turn from His mercy and His loving call to our hearts.
Great Controversy, pages 36, 37, “In the fate of the chosen city we may behold the doom of a world that has rejected God’s mercy and trampled upon His law. Dark are the records of human misery that earth has witnessed during its long centuries of crime. The heart sickens, and the mind grows faint in contemplation. Terrible have been the results of rejecting the authority of Heaven. But a scene yet darker is presented in the revelations of the future. The records of the past, —the long procession of tumults, conflicts, and revolutions, the “battle of the warrior . . . with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood” (Isaiah 9:5), —what are these, in contrast with the terrors of that day when the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn from the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst of human passion and satanic wrath! The world will then behold, as never before, the results of Satan’s rule.”
During the “time of trouble such as never was” (Daniel 12:1) we will see these kinds of scenes again. Blood will flow. The great cities of the plains and of the coastal regions will be destroyed.
Listen to this from Manuscript Releases, Vol. 21, page 66. “Men will continue to erect expensive buildings, costing millions of money; special attention will be called to their architectural beauty, and the firmness and solidity with which they are constructed; but the Lord has instructed me that despite the unusual firmness and expensive display, these buildings will share the fate of the temple in Jerusalem. That magnificent structure fell.”
The coming destruction of the cities is prophetically prefigured by the destruction of the city of Jerusalem for her iniquities and rebellion. But what is the meaning of the destruction of the temple? In Matthew 24 Jesus answered a question of His disciples. Turning His back on the temple had prompted their question.
The first verse says, “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.”
In other words, the disciples sensed that Jesus had finally turned His back on the church of their day. They may have sensed too that it was because of the Jews’ rejection of Christ. But they were very worried. They thought that there could be no church without the temple structure. That was so theologically important to the Jews that they taught that lie as if it were veritable “truth.” Jewish youth had the importance of the temple structure imbedded deep in their psyche from infancy. They even viewed the temple as a symbol of the whole system of organization and structure of the hierarchy. Any suggestion that the temple wasn’t necessary to salvation or God’s church, was considered to be disloyalty and even treason. How could Jesus turn His back on the temple? Wasn’t He, in doing so, turning His back on God’s church? This really bothered them because they thought that in order to be saved, you had to be in communion with the temple and its hierarchy. But Jesus was about to start a new church without the temple. The new church would have a simple organizational structure and would not include the former edifice that would get in the way of the Holy Spirit as the Jewish structure and system had done.
So, the disciples showed him the buildings of the temple structure, the sacred buildings that meant so much to them. But Jesus sorrowfully answered in verse 2, “See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
To the disciples, this was a shocking statement! They knew this could get Jesus in a lot of trouble. He was predicting the desecration of a Jewish idol. Since this was a comment in a public place the disciples asked no more questions lest Jesus would say even worse things. They didn’t want people to hear such derogatory conversations about the church. But they were eager to know more. So, when Jesus was on the Mount of Olives…
“The disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”
Christ did not distinguish these two questions in His response but wrapped them up together. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple give us a rather clear picture of what is going to happen at the close of human probation. Idolized church structures will be destroyed, along with cities.
In the story of the fall of Jerusalem, we have two aspects represented. The destruction of the cities of the world, and the destruction of the church structure. Often in history, under persecution, the faithful followers of Jesus had to go “underground,” and establish secret churches, while the public church was severely compromised and even corrupt. It should be no surprise that in the final moments of earth’s history the same will happen. Remember, Jerusalem is but a faint shadow of the end times. People today have the same fanatical blindness about the church as the Jews did back then. So, they cannot see its pending destruction. Like the Jews of old, they vainly expect the church to save them. But, if you have eyes to see, recent revelations of gross compromise have come to light. It was Jesus Himself who predicted the fall of the Jewish church structure and also applied it to the end of time. God is waking willing people to break their idolatry of the church structure. The church will go through, of course, but not the structure or its hierarchy.
The surrounding of the city of Jerusalem by the Roman armies including their withdrawal and return, prefigures the Sunday law in 1888, and then again at the end of time. We are in the period, as it were, between those two anti-typical “sieges.”
The Sunday law is an assault on God’s people who keep all His commandments, especially the seventh-day Sabbath commandment. The temple was destroyed because of the iniquity, wickedness and stubborn impenitence of God’s church. In the last days, church structures will also be destroyed for the same as well as other reasons relevant to the conflict between Christ and Satan.
Great Controversy, pages 37, 38, “But in that day, as in the time of Jerusalem’s destruction, God’s people will be delivered, everyone that shall be found written among the living. Isaiah 4:3… And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other…’” Matthew 24:30, 31… “The world [and the church] is no more ready to credit the message for this time than were the Jews to receive the Saviour’s warning concerning Jerusalem.”
May God help us get ready for the awful time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation.
Let us pray. Our loving, heavenly Father, we long for the second coming of Jesus. We want our names written in the book of life. We tremble at the lost souls who will perish because of their rejection of the wonderful salvation offered to them. Please sanctify us by Your Holy Spirit so that we may live holy lives. Please lead us in the ways of righteousness for your name’s sake. Please show us how to surrender our lives to Jesus Christ and live for Him fully and completely. We now see that our world is headed for a lot of trouble. Please show us how to turn aside from all earthly priorities and live by heaven’s priorities. We pray that we will be under the Savior’s wing of protection. In Jesus’ name, amen.