I've seen a pastor commit adultery with a woman in his congregation and never miss his Bible study, which he taught and everyone still showed up. I've heard religious leaders defend their greed, their lavish lifestyles as something they believe they deserved from God.
This is Jerusalem, surrounded by a corrupt, immoral culture without, led by greedy, immoral religious leaders from within. Every year, false prophets are exposed for attempting to predict the future and failing. That's why it's so vital for you to depend on the Bible to understand not just truths for your life right now, but truths for the future as well. As Jesus continues his Olivet Discourse, he delivers some warnings to the people of Israel in the form of prophecies. Then, 40 years later, all of his prophecies came true. That gives us all the more reason to trust his prophecies that haven't happened yet.
Stephen Davey explains more. There's an interesting prediction from a man named Alex Lutey, the president of a vacuum cleaner company. He said this in 1955, quoted in the New York Times, predicting, and I quote, nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will be a reality in 10 years.
Aren't they loud enough already, I wondered. I thought this was humorous. An American journalist by the name of Henry Brown said in 1893, in 100 years, the law will be so simplified that lawyers and their fees will be greatly diminished. Well, with this recent solar eclipse, I read all sorts of end time predictions and prophecies from so many so-called prophets who unfortunately said they were representing God. They sort of flooded the internet, podcasting, preaching, all kinds of predictions. What we ought to do is stop speculating and stick with scripture and prophecy that has come true. And we ought to be very careful to interpret prophecy that is yet to come to pass. The Bible has several hundred prophecies of the Lord's future return, a volume of predictions regarding his first coming, his birth, his life, his ministry on earth, his death and resurrection from Micah 5, 2, that said he'd be born in Bethlehem all the way to Zachariah 11, which predicted he'd be sold for 30 pieces of silver.
The money would be thrown back into the temple and they'd buy a field because of it, exactly what Judas did and the religious leaders. Prophecies of scripture predicted some of the specific details of the Lord's death from Isaiah chapter 50 verse 6 that he'd have his beard plucked out and his back severely beaten, his accusers spitting on him, all the way to Psalm 22 where the prophecy takes you to Mount Calvary where David's speaking for his descendant, the son of David, the Lord said they pierced my hands and feet. Add to these precise prophecies the predictions made by Jesus himself. In fact, he's about to make a prediction that will come true 40 years later in his mercy. He's going to effectively give this generation time to repent for having defied him and denied him and put to death God the Son.
Let me show you his prediction. Let's go back to Luke chapter 21. We're continuing through the Lord's Mount Olivet discourse, the greatest sermon on prophecy ever delivered and by the way, it all came true or it all will. Jesus is forecasting the future. Here in Luke 21, the Lord is predicting the fall of Jerusalem and the judgment of God upon this generation.
Now before we dive in here, what Luke records is unique to him. In Matthew's account of the Mount Olivet discourse and Mark's, they refer to what will take place in the coming tribulation, the tribulation period when the temple is desecrated. Luke is not referring to that distant event that occurs in the tribulation. He's going to refer and take this to relate to and apply to the near term partial fulfillment when the Roman army arrives and Jerusalem is destroyed. Matthew and Luke give us a number of different descriptions of this destruction which lets us know they're talking about two different events. Now here's the prediction of Jesus according to Luke 21 and verse 20, but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Don't let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains and let those who are inside the city depart and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance to fulfill all that is written. What Jesus is predicting here in Luke 21 will come to pass in AD 70, about 40 years after he delivers this. Now let me set the stage as I take you through history and show you scripture that fits the historical events.
Let me set the stage for you. The Jews had revolted in AD 66. General Vespasian arrives to put down the revolt, which he does. He brings much of the land back under Roman control. But then Nero is condemned by the Senate to crucifixion and instead he kills himself. And with that the Roman Empire just sort of stops its military conquest for about a year trying to figure out what to do next.
And what they do next is crown General Vespasian as the new emperor. He soon promotes his son Titus to the leading general position and he sends him to Jerusalem to finish the job. It will take about five months and when Titus arrives, instead of surrendering, Jerusalem decides to defy Rome and lock her gates. So the Roman army builds this low stone wall that literally encircles the city with Roman guards stationed all around that circle.
This way no one can escape and no food can come in. This is what Jesus meant here in verse 20 when he said that Jerusalem would be surrounded. Jesus clearly warns them here in verse 21 to run, effectively run for the hills. If you're out in the country and war is coming, you run into the city for protection.
He says not this time, you need to head for the hills. Run as far from Jerusalem as you can. Jerusalem no longer would have some kind of protection. It was actually facing the judgment of God and Rome was the sword of judgment in the hand of God. Jesus says clearly here in verse 22 that these are the days of vengeance. This is when God judges the nation for their defiance. J.C. Ryle writes here that because of the nation, Israel's unbelief and unrepentance, a thunderstorm which has been gradually gathering is about to burst. The sword which had been long hanging over Israel's head was about to fall. Let me tell you, this is a warning to every nation to this day.
Don't miss this. Our own nation is not somehow immune to God's judgment. Our country has no special covenant with God. Even though Israel is God's covenant people, they're not given a free pass as he brings vengeance upon their sin and he judges them.
If Jerusalem at some point in time can be judged for rejecting God, there is no other nation on the planet who should think that they have freedom to defy God, to mock his word, to deny that he is the creator of the universe, that even our bodies are accountable to him and not to ourselves. We're not a city shining on a hill as some would like to believe. We are a nation officially and judicially and even religiously now endorsing the darkness. I cringe, beloved, when I hear our national leaders saying with such pride and bravado that abortion is a healthcare issue. I personally shudder for our nation when it takes one day out of its national calendar to celebrate family day, but one entire month to celebrate homosexuality. I was stunned to listen in to the oral arguments before the Supreme Court who would go on then to redefine marriage in defiance of God's created order. Our highest court in defiance of God. I'm grieved over the loss of moral sensibility that allows men dressed up like women to read books to little children in school. Let me tell you, everything I just mentioned was going on in first century Rome to the same effect. What grieves me more is that immorality and abortion and greed and drunkenness and promiscuity is as much a part of the so-called evangelical church today as it is in the world.
There is no distinction. I've seen a pastor leave his wife and never miss a Sunday in his pulpit. I have read of a pastor assaulting a woman in public in a road rage event and then claiming stress in ministry.
I've seen a pastor commit adultery with a woman in his congregation and never miss his Bible study which he taught and everyone still showed up. I've heard religious leaders defend their greed, their lavish lifestyles as something they believe they deserved from God. This is Jerusalem surrounded by a corrupt immoral culture without led by greedy, hypocritical, immoral religious leaders from within believing that they had a free pass, that God would never judge them and they could get away with it. The destruction of Jerusalem has been long coming. It's a foreshadowing by the way in AD 70 of that future greater destruction that will occur during the tribulation period when all the nations and all of unbelieving humanity will be unable to escape their appointment with God. Revelation chapter 20. There is coming a day when God will hold every pastor and priest and religious leader accountable for having misled their generation by either denying or distorting the clear record of scripture. James chapter 3. God will hold one day every national and civil leader holding them accountable for failing to defend righteousness and protect the innocent and stand for justice which they were appointed by God to do. Romans chapter 13. That's in the distant future when all the world will be judged but I want you to get this. This prediction from Jesus here in Luke 21 is also a warning for us today that any nation including ours can experience the judgment of God for its sin and defiance long before that final judgment at the end of the tribulation period.
I echo the words of one early American president who said, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever. And for the Jewish people here in the first century, you have to understand this prediction is beyond shocking. It meant that everything they knew was going to collapse.
Everything about their world was going to change. Even their understanding of scripture was errant and they would be held accountable. So Jesus is telling them that Jerusalem effectively holds no place of special protection for them. They can't hide in the temple. They can't continue their ceremony and their rituals and their prayers and somehow believe that God will look over them.
This is the significance of His prediction here. To tell them to leave the city, that meant to leave the temple. That meant Jerusalem would be destroyed, set aside for season. That God evidently wasn't on their side after all. Now in the providence of God, we know from church history that this event will lead to a greater expansion of Christianity as people believe Jesus' prediction.
In fact, Eusebius of Caesarea wrote in the early third century that the church in Jerusalem believed Jesus. When they heard the rumbling of the Roman army, they scattered and with them scattered the gospel. But for everyone who ignored the warning, we can't imagine what it would have been like to hear the war drums of the approaching Roman army to see rank after rank marching toward them as one author rode with their baggage trains and their catapults and their siege engines and their standards and flags waving. Once the army built that small stone wall encircling the city, everything in it was marked for destruction.
Escape would then be impossible. And we know from history that Rome showed no mercy. Josephus writes that a million Jewish people died. Anyone trying to escape was caught and then crucified in plain sight of the city. Historians tell us that the Roman army stopped crucifying Jews only because they ran out of wood.
Inside the city, the population began to starve. Everything Jesus predicted up to that point would be fulfilled. It's interesting that Jesus doesn't express remorse for the destruction of Jerusalem or the destruction of the temple, but he does express grief. Here in verse 23 when he says, alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days. For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people.
Now again, none of them needed to experience this horror. Had they believed Jesus, had they taken his word, had they believed in the prediction of coming judgment, they would have left with the Jerusalem church and found safety. Just as the world today denies the coming judgment of God, Peter writes, they mocked the promise of his coming and instead of joining the church and finding safety, they will face the wrath of God. The city of Jerusalem, by the way, finally surrendered and the Romans killed nearly a million of them, the Jewish people.
They then deported the healthier 97,000, the younger, shipping them off to various places where they would be used in the gladiatorial games or sold into slavery. Jesus' prediction came true in verse 24. They will fall by the edge of the sword and or be led captive among all nations and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles. A glorious, magnificent, golden-plated temple which they believed was their rabbit's foot would be burned.
Anything flammable burned to the ground. The soldiers then would literally dismantle every stone above ground searching for the gold that had melted into every crevice of every stone. Again, this was predicted by the Lord back in verse 6.
The days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Now keep in mind the Jewish people could not conceive of this. They felt that God was on their side no matter what they did. There was some kind of force field surrounding them.
This was shocking. I think of a more recent example of what must have been something akin to this shock, national devastation over everything a nation believed had been taught. My mind went back to World War II in the nation of Japan. They entered World War II completely confident that they would be uniquely divinely unconquerable. That was because they believed their emperor was divine. They believed that he was the embodiment of the gods primarily the goddess, the sun goddess. According to their national Shinto religion he, the emperor, was the living descendant from a long line of emperors who had supposedly descended from the goddess.
He had a claim of divine protection. They believed it was not only for himself and he did as well, but for the nation. When Japan lost the war, it was more than losing a war. It was the loss of their national religion, everything they'd known, everything they'd been taught. It was the loss of the emperor's status, the loss of their gods. It was the demoralization of a nation to discover the stunning reality that their emperor was but a man. In fact, in 1946, the emperor, with great humility, publicly declared to his nation that he was not divine. General Douglas MacArthur recognized the unique devastation and he also recognized the solution. He actually called on America to send 1,000 missionaries to that island to bring the gospel of the truly divine Son of God.
I preached in a church many years ago in Japan that had been planted by missionaries who had answered that invitation. Now here in Luke 21, Jesus gives us an important time stamp. Don't miss this in his prediction. He now tells this nation that the judgment of God isn't going to last forever. He records this signature time stamp here in verse 24. He says, they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled or completed.
Now with this, Luke looks further off into the distance well beyond AD 70. This phrase, the times of the Gentiles means, and you might write it in the margin of your Bibles, until the times of Gentile rule is over. Gentile domination is over. In other words, the domination of Gentile world empires will come to an end. Now the times of the Gentiles, as we track it through scripture, began during the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the first Gentile to dominate, as it were, the known world. According to Daniel chapter 2, it's going to end when Jesus returns at the end of the tribulation and destroys all the defiant Gentile nations, the last one being the nation led by the inner Christ. At that time, the nation Israel will be restored, reconstituted. They will have repented and they will be awaiting the Messiah as he returns with us, by the way, to set up his earthly kingdom. That's another series of prophecies, another sermon or two or ten or twelve.
Not sure. Well, let me wrap up this study today with some timeless truths from this event that took place in time. If Jesus can forecast the future, if the Bible can predict with precision what will happen to kingdoms and nations and rulers and citizens, if Jesus can successfully predict the future, then three timeless truths, at least, are worthy of observation.
First, it's almost too obvious to miss, but here it is. Jesus knows what's going to happen next. He doesn't just know it in general.
He knows it in particular. He actually designed it to fulfill his purposes for human history as he ushers every nation into the harbor of his sovereign plan. Secondly, evil never goes unnoticed by God. J.C. Ryle went on to warn 150 years ago in his book I'm reading.
He wrote, We must never allow ourselves to suppose that the conduct of wicked men or wicked nations is not observed by God. All is seen and all is known and a reckoning day will come at last. Third, God is holding the hourglass of time and is running out. The sands of time are running out. There's an end date to the times of the Gentiles ruling.
He has not given us the date. The nations that parade across the stage of human history will not last, no matter how proud, no matter how confident, no matter how strong. God alone knows how much time in that hourglass is left. In the mercy of Jesus, by the way, now repeat this again, he gave Jerusalem and her people 40 more years to respond to his warning.
Yet when the Roman army arrived, a million people had refused to listen. They kept sacrificing in that beautiful golden temple. Jesus gave them 40 years.
How much time has he given you? You better choose the right king. Because one day there's another prediction from scripture and this will take place. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and he will reign forever and ever. That was Stephen Davey, the president of Wisdom International, and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Let's embrace the assurance that regardless of current events, our king reigns and his kingdom is coming. For more insights and resources to help you follow Jesus faithfully, visit wisdomonline.org. That site is filled with free resources from Stephen's four decades of Bible teaching. Take advantage of the resources available to you at wisdomonline.org. Until next time, stay grounded in his promises and look forward to his return. you
