Note: this was a talk I gave to a small afternoon congregation. I wouldn’t give it in our main morning service.
INTRODUCTION
We’re presently following the theme of discipleship, picking up some of the big things that are part of being a follower of Jesus. But it’s good to have some variety so from time to time we’ll have Something Completely Different! Today we’re going to look at a moment in Christian history. It’s the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It’s a very gory story but it has some valuable lessons to teach us. We’re going to look first at what happened and then pick out some lessons we can learn.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Thirty years after Jesus’ death, tension between the Roman rulers and the Jews was high. Trouble had been brewing for many years. In 66 A.D., a Roman prefect attempted to seize money from the temple and the Jews revolted. They overcame the Roman garrison and took control of Jerusalem. The Romans acted to suppress the revolt but the Jews ambushed and defeated a Roman expeditionary force, killing 6,000 Roman soldiers.
The Roman general Vespasian was given the task of crushing the rebellion. Later he handed the task on to his son Titus. Titus brought 60,000 soldiers to Jerusalem and laid siege to it. As the siege was starting the majority of the Christians in Jerusalem fled. Titus cunningly put pressure on the food and water supply by allowing pilgrims to enter the city in order to celebrate Passover but not letting them out.
The Romans made several unsuccessful attacks and then decided to starve the Jews into surrender. They cut down all the trees in the area and built a five-mile-long barricade around Jerusalem. Many Jews fled to escape the city but the Romans crucified them to intimidate the population. According to one account they crucified up to 500 people a day. As the siege continued those inside the city carried the dead outside. The Romans appointed someone to count the number: it was 115,880.
A Jewish historian called Josephus had joined the Romans and was present during the siege. His description of the siege is full of horrors. Josephus reports that in total more than a million people died during the siege. Some historians doubt this number but Josephus says it is consistent with Nero’s population estimate and the fact that many Jews had come to Jerusalem for the Passover.
Eventually the Romans built an earth ramp up to the top of the walls and used battering rams to break down the walls, and took the city. They brought nearly 100,000 prisoners back to Rome and paraded them through the streets in a procession. They put some of the leaders to death but used most as slaves. In AD 82 they built a massive arch to honour Titus for his conquests. It still exists and is the inspiration for the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It has a nice carving on it of the Romans carrying the lampstand out of the temple.
LESSONS WE CAN LEARN
This isn’t a nice story. But it has lessons for us.
LESSON 1: GOD JUDGES IN THE PRESENT
As Christians we accept – I hope! – that one day there will be a Day of Judgment. That is some time in the future. But does God also judge in the present day?
According to a Greek writer, Titus refused to accept a wreath of victory, saying that the victory did not come through his own efforts BUT THAT HE HAD MERELY SERVED AS AN INSTRUMENT OF GOD'S WRATH. In other words, he felt that what happened to Jerusalem was God’s judgment.
Was Titus right? At one level, of course, the Romans had captured Jerusalem. But at a deeper level, could it have been God’s doing? Could this have been God’s judgment? Can we know…?
We CAN know because Jesus prophetically spoke about this event. Let’s look at what he said in two passages. The first is Luke 19:41-44:
‘And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will SET UP A BARRICADE round you and surround you and hem you in on every side and TEAR YOU DOWN TO THE GROUND, YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN WITHIN YOU. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”’
Jesus prophesied WHAT would happen correctly. We know that the Romans built a barricade around the city, killed men, women and children, and tore down the city’s walls. If you’re wondering how it is that there are city walls now, it is because they were partially rebuilt by the Ottomans.
But Jesus also gives the answer to ‘WHY?’ His comment at the end is chilling. He says that this would happen, ‘because you did not know the time of your visitation’. Christ had come to Jerusalem. The Jews had rejected him, and this was the consequence. So it WAS God’s doing, God’s judgment.
A second passage which relates to this event is Matthew 21:33-41. Jesus is in the temple in Jerusalem, teaching. He tells this parable:
‘Listen to another parable: there was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall round it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
‘The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them in the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. “They will respect my son,” he said.
‘But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, “This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.” So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
‘Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’
‘He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,’ they replied, ‘and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.’
Who is the son in this parable, whom the tenants kill? [Jesus!] Who is the son’s father? [God the Father.] In this parable, Jesus asked the people what the father would do to the tenants if they kill his son. The people of Jerusalem answered, ‘He will put those wretches to a wretched end...’ Jesus didn’t disagree. The owner of the vineyard would act in judgment.
Jesus predicted that Jerusalem would be torn down to the ground ‘because you did not know the time of your visitation.’ The people who killed the vineyard owner’s son would incur the owner’s wrath. So the siege of Jerusalem WAS God’s judgment.
So, the first lesson we get from this story is a challenging one. We may imagine that God’s love and mercy are limitless and that God could never be the cause of such an event as the siege of Jerusalem. But if we think that God never gets angry then we’re wrong. If we think that God never judges in the present then we’re wrong. This story shows that God does get angry, and he does judge in the present. All judgment does not wait for the Day of Judgment.
LESSON 2: GOD SAVES IN THE PRESENT
You may be thinking that this is a rather depressing message. Can’t we have some good news? Well, there is some. We find that just as God judges in the present as well as in the future, so he also saves in the present as well as in the future. Let’s look at Luke 21:20-22. Jesus is speaking:
‘But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then 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 fulfil all that is written.’
What is Jesus telling his followers to do? In brief, if you’re in Jerusalem, get out! If you’re not in Jerusalem, don’t go in! Flee! It could seem like the wrong instruction. Wouldn’t well-fortified Jerusalem be the place of safety? But Jesus’ instructions are clear, aren’t they? At the time the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, Christians followed them. I don’t know if those in Judea fled to the mountains, but we do know that those in Jerusalem left. An early Christian scholar called Eusebius wrote:
‘The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella.’
This is supported by other writers in following centuries. So we see that Jesus wants to keep us safe from calamity in this life. That isn’t to say that persecution and martyrdom don’t happen. They do. But we can see that God cares for us and takes steps to protect us, not just for the life to come but in this life too.
LESSON 3: A LESSON FOR NOW
Many of the prophecies concerning Jerusalem are closely linked with prophecies about Jesus’ second coming. I don’t think this is accidental. I believe that these two events will have strong similarities and just as the prophecies concerning Jerusalem have been fulfilled, the prophecies concerning Christ’s second coming will also be fulfilled. Look at Luke 21:23-24:
‘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. 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.’
Jesus says that ‘Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.’
Jerusalem was captured by the Romans and razed to the ground. After that, it was rebuilt but it was occupied by lots of people other than Jews: Romans, Persians, Arabs, Ottomans and others. Jerusalem has been trampled underfoot by the Gentiles for a very long time.
But not very long ago, that changed. Israel was established as a state in 1948. Jerusalem wasn’t part of the agreement but Israel took Jerusalem later that year. It captured the Temple Mount in 1967. So we can see fulfilment of prophecy in our own day. It’s exciting! And it’s a reason to be awake. Daniel prophesied that ‘the end will come like a flood’ [Daniel 9:26] and Jesus said that his coming would be like the days of Noah.
What’s the significance? Jesus placed his teaching about the fall of Jerusalem and his teaching about End Times together. That strongly suggests that End Times will be sudden, unexpected and unpleasant. Jesus and Daniel both compare End Times to a flood. That also strongly suggests that End Times will be sudden, unexpected and unpleasant.
The story of the Siege of Jerusalem tells us that God judges. God will one day judge the world. I don’t know when End Times will come. The change in Jerusalem’s situation suggests that they may not be far away and, in my view, a number of other things point to that too .
As and when we enter such a time, we should remember the story of the Siege of Jerusalem and remember that God wants to save his people from threats in the present as well as from the ultimate consequence of sin. But, like those early Christians who followed Jesus’ instructions and fled, we need to keep our spiritual ears and eyes open to Jesus’ instruction.
CONCLUSION
I’ll conclude by repeating some of the basic lessons we’ve looked at.
First, we learn that God does not tolerate sin. There will be a Day of Judgment. But God also acts in the present. If we think of God only in terms of ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, we have only a part of the picture. Jesus is the lamb AND the lion.
Second, the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy about Jerusalem gives us confidence that his prophecies concerning ‘End Time’ will also be fulfilled. We don’t know when ‘End Time’ will happen but we do know it will come unexpectedly. Jesus said, ‘be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect’.
Third, we learn that God wants to save us, his people, from present, physical threats – as well as bring about our eternal salvation. That doesn’t mean we can never suffer persecution or even die. Think of Abel, who Cain killed, or John the Baptist, or Steven. But the story of the siege of Jerusalem tells us that God wishes to protect his people. Of course we should be ready. And we should be listening carefully to hear God’s guidance on how to respond when persecution comes. But we shouldn’t be fearful. God will never leave us, and he will strengthen those who wait on him.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 30th January 2022
