Living in unprecedented times, as we are, I thought that it would be fun to compare today with the last days of the Jewish system along with the destruction of their capital city, Jerusalem, in 70 CE. The sacking of this city was the culmination of a Roman campaign to quell the Jewish Revolt, which had been causing suffering and misery in the surrounding country for years previous. This is a part of history that has been well documented and so my intention is not to augment but to highlight and apply.
Central to this piece is the admonition of Jesus to his followers 'When you see {...} let those in Judea and in the midst of her (Jerusalem) begin fleeing to the mountains and those who happen to be in the countryside not return, not even for essentials' – a rough paraphrase of the accounts found in Matthew 24 and Luke 21. They were to go!
The signal to depart was, according to Matthew, 'when you see the disgusting thing... standing in a holy place'. Luke says something different – 'when you see Jerusalem surrounded by encamped armies'. Having been reading about this period recently it strikes me that these are two different things. Our brothers fixate on the extraordinary tactics of Cestius Gallus. He was required to sort the Jews out, crush the rebellion. Being more of a civil servant and politician as the Governor of Syria, and less so a military man, he was wildly out of his depth. He got to within a whisker of capturing the city and its temple. He then withdrew for no obvious reason and was ambushed at Beth-horon on his return to Antipatris and Caesarea. His Twelfth Legion was effectively wiped out and the Roman hierarchy would not shrug that off as just one of those things.
Prior to this, and a major reason for his campaign, Governor Florus had sent troops into the temple treasury to remove seventeen talents, putatively for unpaid taxes. Predictably this provoked a furore. These troops came from the Roman garrison of Jerusalem, possibly housed in the Fortress of Antonia. Eusebius records that following this event many Christians fled to the mountains of Perea, along with the departure of Agrippa and Bernice to Galilee. Gallus’s unexpected withdrawal provided a second window of opportunity. Interestingly, Gallus and his men did not actually get to stand in a holy place, and Florus’s troops did not surround Jerusalem in an encampment. Are these two different events that Matthew and Luke are referring to? Possibly, although it matters not. Those Christians who remained on the watch preserved their souls by prompt action. Yet those who waited for this second chance did end up fleeing in wintertime. November is apparently cold and wet.
In w06 12/15, the brothers explicitly mention the worsening conditions in Jerusalem from 67 CE onwards and the inability to escape long before the paling was erected. The warring factions required everyone to participate. Leavers were viewed as deserters and traitors. Generally though the interval between the events of 66 and 70 CE is just referred to as 'four years later' or similar, giving an impression of normality in the city. The Romans never went away from Judea. They regrouped and started again with a man who knew what he was doing. Gallus withdrew in October and Vespasian began his Galilee campaign in the spring of 67. One of his early successes was at the city of Jotapata, where the Zealots were headquartered. Following the siege and capitulation, the survivors fled to Jerusalem causing civil war to flare up. Vespasian just carried on systematically destroying and terrorising the province, leaving Jerusalem's inhabitants to destroy themselves. In 69 CE, the year of the four emperors, he returned to Rome leaving his son Titus in charge and it was he who decided to have a go at the well-fortified capital. The inhabitants were already slaughtering one another and burning their own food supplies, so the end was swift and brutal. It was the greatest tribulation that the Jews ever experienced.
Is there a parallel with today and this extraordinary CoVID-19 pandemic? The problem that the Jews had was their feeling of superiority over everyone else, those unclean Gentiles. They believed that they were still a chosen race, a special possession and that God would preserve them through everything. Gallus’s withdrawal was a miracle. The slaughter at Beth-horon was evidence of God's blessing, just as he had made the sun stand still for Joshua at the same place. This sense of uniqueness was profoundly important. They would do anything to regain their independence from the Roman Empire. The various factions all had different ideas for achieving this and it became utterly internecine.
For the present nations, the overriding priority is money: the economy. Coronavirus is playing havoc with the economy. The immediate priority is to stop the pandemic, not necessarily to save lives, but to get everyone back to work. The nations will do whatever it takes. But once lock-down is past and the shattered economy has to start pulling itself together, what drastic measures will be put in place to facilitate this? In the immediate aftermath there will be a sigh of relief. Will that be the moment that true Christians are awaiting so that they can flee to the mountains, so to speak? Are true Christians already in the mountains and this becomes the moment when those on the periphery of Jehovah's organisation, on the fence, need to act? A brief window in which to be decisive.
Governments will stop at nothing to get their economies up and running again and they won't necessarily be united in how to achieve this. Anyone with spare cash in the banks will have it confiscated to bail-in those that have collapsed. This legislation has already been passed in the UK (2014). How will the wealth of religions be viewed? With envy, and could trigger the events of Rev 17:16. Will our own Kingdom halls, assembly halls and branch facilities all be appropriated? Will our meetings ever be allowed again? What will be required of the populace? I imagine some form of conscription, not necessarily of a military nature, but in a spirit of national unity and patriotism. The Dunkirk spirit! Any who do not wish to be involved in this nationalistic fervour because it offends their conscience – how will they be treated? What vaccines will be produced? If the entire nation is expected to be vaccinated what will be the reaction to those who decline on 'religious' grounds should the vaccines include blood fractions? Or toward those who refuse to go outside and bang their saucepans in support of the NHS?
Even as Jehovah's people, everything has stopped – no physical meetings, field service, assemblies, training etc. in contravention of the divine command to not forsake meeting together. Can you imagine all of this restarting and going back to 'normal'? I'm not sure that Jehovah's vehicle has a reverse gear! At what point to we cease being in subjection to the superior authorities with regard to the constant feature? Is this virus, and the reaction to it, the disgusting thing that causes desolation? Is this the beginning of the great tribulation? Whilst being acutely aware of Jesus's comment that he would come at a hour you do not think to be it, we are nevertheless constantly admonished to be alert, keep on the watch, stay awake. What do you think? How do you see this situation developing? Let me know.
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