This is such a controversial subject and we are going to look at some of the leading theories as to when this was as well as some more “off the beaten path” proposals. And just what is it that the reader is directed to understand?
If you can’t see the podcast player, click here.
14 “But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down, nor enter his house, to take anything out, 16 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. 17 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! 18 Pray that it may not happen in winter. 19 For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be. 20 And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days. 21 And then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. 23 But be on guard; I have told you all things beforehand.
Today we are going to have to talk about responsible hermeneutics, proper exegesis and irresponsible eisegesis. Because we need to pay close attention to what the context is and is not here or else we will go the route of so many who blatantly ignore what Yeshua/Jesus has been talking about since verse 2 and to try to fit this into some sort of futuristic occurrence when the topic is still defined by the question asked by Peter, James, John and Andrew in verse 3. This is still the Olivet Discourse. Yeshua has condemned the Temple and the Temple establishment and has declared the verdict of Yahweh’s covenant lawsuit against it. It will fall. The disciples ask when it will happen and what signs they can look for. So far, Yeshua has refused to answer the first question and only gives them a list of things that will look like signs but He warns them, in fact, are not signs but normal events. Instead of what they want—clear indications of the when of His prediction, He sternly warns them to focus on what lies ahead for them personally—namely, persecution, rejection, trials, beatings, betrayal and death. Pretty heavy stuff for a group of mostly teenagers to deal with. Really, pretty heavy stuff for anyone to deal with when what they had hoped for was to be the inner circle of the conquering Davidic Messiah.
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.
All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for Part two of this series at theancientbridge.com.
So, let’s define a few terms here because they are very important when we want to talk about what the Bible does and does not say. The first one is hermeneutics—which is the science of interpreting the Bible. It’s that simple and that complex because we can’t just make Scripture mean whatever we want to mean. We can’t make Abraham into a 21st century metrosexual, carrying a man purse and getting manicures and drinking lattes. We can’t explain him or judge his intentions according to our modernist, western, individualist culture. He’d probably rather die than live the way we do now. And yet I have heard many a sermon where the preacher has done just that—foisting our norms onto him as though he would think of things the same way we do now. I have actually heard Abraham referred to as henpecked when, truly, He was very much a patriarchal figure.
Our second word is exegesis—that’s when you look at a text and figure out what is actually there and what isn’t. For example, if we were to look at Gen 6:9 where it says that Noah was righteous and blameless in his generation. Good exegesis notices the words tzaddik and tammim and finds out what they meant to the original audience by either searching the Scriptures or by looking at other documents written around the same time in the same language (which works for the first century Scriptures but not for the Hebrew). It also recognizes the caveat that Noah was only called these things with reference to his generation and that they are called wicked all the time from cradle to grave, every thought in their minds. Eisegesis, on the other hand, is reading an agenda or an opinion into the text that is not supported. With eisegesis, I can say that Noah was one of the most righteous and blameless men who ever walked the earth and that he was a peach of a guy. But not only doesn’t the text support that, it actually suggests otherwise—that Noah was only a good guy compared to the people around him. And we all start out performing eisegesis on the text—no one knows how to avoid it until they are taught.
(If you would like to take a class in Hermeneutics and all that good stuff without going to Bible college, I would like to recommend a book called Grasping God’s Word by Duvall and Hayes (affiliate link) and I will link it in my transcript. It’s what I used after coming at this hodge-podge for a lot of years and just picking up things as I went along. It’s very easy to follow and easy to use and very practical—but the work itself is very challenging if you aren’t already used to doing it. I totally recommend at least trying it.)
This text, about the Abomination of Desolation, is one of those texts where people just really run it through the shredder in an attempt to rip it out of the context of the original question, “What are the signs that all these things—namely, the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem–are about to happen?” And in it, Yeshua will also answer the question that they did not ask—“How will this happen?” There are reasons why people do this—because from 1951 years in the future, the destruction and devastation they faced doesn’t seem like such a big deal to us. Well, read Josephus’s Wars of the Jews some time and see if you still feel that way afterwards. This was a horrific four years. The Jordan and the Dead Sea were filled with dead bodies and they were piled up all around the Temple, in the city, and outside the walls. If you missed episode 120 about the apocalyptic language here, you will want to go back and review it because I do explain why everything is presented in such a dramatic fashion and how it lines up with the genre of apocalypticism in general—which, no, is not about any sort of Great Tribulation but about times of suffering in general and the words of warning and encouragement that accompany it. Those who have sold the idea that apocalypses are entirely dealing with some short period at the end of time are really misleading people. That is not what they were for and that is not why Jews composed them or read them. That is, sadly, how laymen have been taught to interpret them because it appeals to our modern desire for violent entertainment and our desire to have knowledge of the future beyond, “God wins and you will too if you endure.”
Okay, let’s get started here because this first line is bizarre but you can only tell when you read it in Greek. Oh, and I want you to notice the first word here, which is “But…” which means that everything He has been telling them so far in the Olivet discourse is about to change course. All of the “Don’t get distracted, don’t get worried, focus on your jobs…BUT now…” But what? Let’s look and see, because we have a “but…then” statement which is sort of like an “if…then…” statement and proper hermeneutics, scriptural interpretation, demand that we notice things like that. The “but” is linking this to everything that went before and contrasting it and then giving directions:
14 “But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
First of all, Yeshua is the one talking here, to the four. But He isn’t the speaker for all of this—it isn’t like He would say, “let the reader understand”—the author of Mark likes to do narrative asides and although we haven’t seen one for a long time, this is almost certainly not something Yeshua said. This is instead direction for the reader of this Gospel in the congregation (because all of these documents were meant to be read aloud and not hoarded by the few literate members of the congregation), but we aren’t entirely sure what they were meant to understand. There are a few theories from scholars. The first theory is that the reader was meant to understand that Yeshua was referring back to Daniel 9:27, “And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator,” 11:31 “Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate.” And 12:11 ”And from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days.” Daniel was an apocalypse written during the time of the Maccabean revolt in order to accomplish what apocalypses were written for—to inspire loyalty and endurance by providing hope for an assured victory of God and His people over oppressors. As it describes not only the revolt but the historical situations of the time down to small details, Yeshua might be using this commonly known account to shadow what will happen again and so Mark might be signaling to the reader to expound upon this for the non-Jews in the congregation since He wrote for a Roman audience, as we can see from all the latin loan-words he uses. That’s possible. And yes, you might disagree with me that Daniel was written at such a late date but I promise that disagreeing with me never damned anyone to hellfire. But if you don’t like pineapple on pizza, I actually can’t make any promises.
Second option, and this is the one I think is likely true. I think the note was to keep the reader from correcting the confusing Greek in the text. And by the way, I didn’t come up with these theories or anything—I just read what a lot of scholars write, not being one myself. Although the word abomination is neuter, the Greek word used as a pronoun clearly is masculine. That is not the case in Daniel. It translates, “when you see the abomination (neuter) which causes desolation standing where he ought not to be…” and any Greek speaker would want to instead say “it” because that is proper. We don’t have this in English but I think most other languages have really strict rules about feminine and masculine nouns and pronouns and adjectives and the verb forms that go with them.
But what is this abomination which causes desolation? No one is entirely certain but again, there are a lot of theories gleaned from the actual events that transpired. If the first option is true, then the author is telling the audience that whatever Yeshua has referred to has already happened and is already common knowledge. If Mark was written during the late 60’s, then the Revolt was already underway but Caesar’s armies had not yet arrived in Jerusalem—however, the Zealots and the followers of John of Giscala and Simon bar Giora and the Idumeans/Edomites might already be in the city. If so, then the horrors that they are perpetrating against the citizens of Jerusalem and against the city and the Temple would already be a commonly known scandal. The author of Mark would be saying of the abomination which causes desolation, “Let the reader understand” and there would be nodding over something that is common knowledge. But, like I said before, no one knows which of these things is the case. Let’s go through some of the options for the identity of the abomination which causes the Temple and the city to be desolated. Because, I cannot give you a for sure answer—no one can.
Certainly, the disciples were aware of what almost happened in 40 CE when Caligula declared himself Jupiter incarnate and decided to place an idol of himself in the Holy of Holies. His plans became well known and the Jews departed from their fields during planting season in order to protest to the governor of Syria who thankfully was able to put off the event long enough for Caligula to be assassinated. So, it never ended up happening. As we see in Tacitus, “Under Tiberius all was quiet. But when the Jews were ordered by Caligula to set up his statue in the temple, they preferred the alternative of war. The death of the Emperor put an end to the disturbance.” (Histories V.9)
But there were things that actually happened during the siege—most from the Jews and some from the Romans, that could qualify and were pretty horrific. But before we get to that, I am going to briefly mention the research of one scholar in particular—Peter G Bolt—I read his NSBT volume on The Cross from a Distance and he had an interesting take on this that I haven’t seen from anyone else and although his arguments are compelling, I am not really sold on them but I will share them with you anyway just to be more thorough and so that you can check it out yourself if you want. He believes that the Abomination which causes Desolation was the crucifixion itself, heralding the end to Jerusalem and the Temple. So, in his thinking, verse 14 could be reworded as “So when you see the abomination which causes desolation (the crucifixion of the Son of God) happening in a place where he (the Messiah) ought not to be, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” I think it is a stretch—certainly, at this point, it is not important for everyone to flee Jerusalem and Judea. And, in fact, later Yeshua tells then to remain until the giving of the Spirit—but He doesn’t say it in Mark. In Mark the statement is twice made that Yeshua will go ahead of them into Galilee. (The book was still well worth reading for the unpacking of atonement in Mark’s Gospel, which is what the book was about)
Could it be when Titus stood in the Holy Place or when the Romans planted their standards on the Temple ruins and made sacrifices? No, at that point (fall of 70) it was years too late for the residents to flee the city. What about Zealot and bandit atrocities? To me this seems more likely and you have several waves of them coming in to take over the city years before the Romans. By 68 CE, every original leader of the Revolt was dead at the hands of violent rivals who would all prove to be treacherous, paranoid tyrants out for personal glory at all costs. Some were actually criminals. All of the reasonable voices were slaughtered and those who remained were more concerned with power bases and personal glory and revenge than any sort of liberation. They systematically robbed, imprisoned, betrayed, and slaughtered anyone who opposed them, as well as the wealthy and powerful, often holding mock trials and the zealots executing them on trumped up charges. No one was above betrayal—neither priest nor leader nor common citizen. The revolutionaries hoarded all the food to themselves within their various power bases as the people starved to death slowly. John of Giscala took up residence in the Temple, Simon bar Giora controlled the Upper and some of the Lower City and was headquartered in Herod’s Tower of Phasael. And there was also an Idumean faction which had ended up in the city after they had fled the barbarous pillaging of Simon of their lands earlier. Between the three factions at one another’s throats, all claiming to be there to protect and defend their Temple and City from invaders (remember that the Idumeans had been forcibly converted during the reign of John Hyrcanus a few hundred years previous), the dead were piling up all over the city and with Civil War brewing in Rome during the year of the four emperors, Vespasian and then Titus largely allowed them to destroy one another for a good long stretch before actively engaging. But, by the time Titus’s armies got to Jerusalem, it had been too late to leave for a very long time. In fact, everyone who could leave, should have left when they saw John’s armies on the way. Maybe they looked like saviors at the time but they were villains seeking personal gain and success at any cost. In Luke 21:20, Yeshua only said that Jerusalem would be “surrounded by armies” and He didn’t say they had to be foreign. And there were multiple, non-foreign armies.
They killed the High Priestly family members and set up a High Priest who was described as a clown who didn’t know the first thing about how to perform his duties—a man named Phanni. His appointment was a joke. Was that it? Maybe. They filled the city and the Temple with the blood of their fellow Jews. They robbed the Temple. The factions plotted against one another and committed every sort of treachery in their dealings with one another. According to Josephus, Titus was appalled, and some might mark that up to propaganda, but Titus was a religious man who believed in needing the favor of regional gods. In Roman thinking, they won battles not just because of their military prowess but because the gods of the lands they invaded switched sides from their pathetic followers to Rome. You know, it’s like those people who have a new sports team every year? But that’s how Rome saw themselves, as those to whom even the regional gods would recognize as favored and defect to.
Titus would not destroy what he could conquer and have for his own glory and he didn’t go around destroying Temples. The ancient world wasn’t like that. You respected sacred space—as is proven by the fact that the Jews were allowed to execute, on the spot, any non-Jew who passed beyond the Soreg, Roman citizen or not. The Romans took it that seriously that even Caesar would not pass beyond it. Pompey did, a more than a hundred years before, and then regretted it and left without incident. It wasn’t until Titus felt that the Jews had defiled the Temple too grievously to be salvageable that he called it subject to the rules of war, which meant it could be attacked and even razed—and even then He tried to save it but his troops were out of control with rage on the day that it was gutted with fire. After what they had witnessed for so long, with the crimes against the Jewish citizenry and the offers of parley and surrender only to be met with ambush and treachery and death, the troops were enraged. It was a situation out of control. But it was all done in fulfillment of the Covenant Lawsuit decree against the Temple issued by Yeshua.
But the sense of all this—whatever the identity of the abomination which causes desolation–and all that went before it like the wars and rumors of wars and the earthquakes and famine, regardless of what ended up being the abomination which causes desolation, that they were not to skip town and run at the first sign of trouble because there are always troubles. Yeshua is compelling them to preach and stand their ground for as long as possible. But in the end, they were to only be willing to be killed for the sake of the Gospel and not for the sake of the Temple or the city. If you remember from the last two weeks, there were false prophets who had convinced many Jews to die for the Temple and they gladly did so, but Yeshua says that they need to run at that point instead.
15 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down, nor enter his house, to take anything out,
First century houses were generally one or two story affairs, with a lower level for the family and an upper room for guests, or perhaps just a roof with space for people to congregate and/or sleep and dry flax and fish and such. There would often be a ladder from which one could access this area to the outside—giving a way for men to congregate together without invading the traditional gender space of women—such divisions were the norm within patriarchal cultures. Women did have the expectation of protection and privacy from non-familial males. The idea here is that the situation was so desperate at this point that they are in imminent danger and should leave everything behind and this was correct. Zealots were not allowing any escapees and if they saw you carrying anything, you would be accused of defection to the Romans, robbed, and slaughtered.
16 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak.
Imagine being told not to take your coat in the dead of winter if you lived in Canada, okay? That’s a harsher warning but that’s how these guys would have heard it, not being able to even imagine that sort of climate. But your cloak was your protection—it was the most valuable life possession of a beggar even. Yeshua is telling them that they cannot even take their life-preserver as they jump ship.
17 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days!
And it was a horrifying time. The zealots destroyed the food stores in the Temple in order to encourage the citizens to fight for their lives. A woman who is pregnant or nursing an infant is going to starve much more quickly than a man, obviously. Josephus even tells what is probably just an urban legend about a woman who ate her own infant instead of continuing to nurse him because she saw no future for him and she was starving to death. It was not entirely uncommon to tell such stories in order to highlight the problems of human suffering during a siege situation. Or perhaps it happened. No way to know for sure.
18 Pray that it may not happen in winter.
Cold isn’t the worst part of winter in Judea—the biggest problem is that of the early rains. And, if you have been told that the early rains are the ones in the spring—so was I—but the early rains happen at the beginning of the agricultural/civil year right after Sukkot. That’s barley planting season. The latter rains happen in the spring. The early rains are just crazy and the wadis all over Israel go from dry canyons to raging rivers within seconds and people die if they aren’t careful. The banks of the Jordan overflow and the river becomes so swollen that you cannot cross. The Romans were able to use this to their advantage to kill fleeing rebels in 68 CE as they were fleeing the destruction of Gadara—trying to get to Jericho. Although Titus and his armies arrived in the winter of 69/70 CE, the siege did not begin until spring. Titus and his armies spent a long time preparing and allowing the zealot factions, the Idumeans, and the followers of Simon to keep on starving and slaughtering one another. By this time, the citizens of Jerusalem had been occupied by zealots since the fall of 66 when the Zealots captured the Temple under the auspices of protecting holiness but as I said before, by 68 every reasonable leader within the zealot movement was dead and the whole thing was being run by villains bent on domination of the others.
19 For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be.
This is where people forget the context and decide that this is describing some future tribulation but I challenge those people to read Josephus’s Jewish War and you can start in chapter three if you want to avoid the early years. It was a greater tribulation than people imagine. Not only were there external enemies in Rome, but the enemies scattered throughout the land were so numerous that no one could even begin to hope to chronicle them all. Galilee and Judea and Samaria and Idumea were filled with soldiers and bandits and tyrants who were willing to slaughter and rob whoever it was that was in their path on their way to supremacy. By 68 CE, there were no good guys left in the fight—only those who would slaughter or be slaughtered. The depths of depravity, treachery, power-mongering, defilement was unimaginable. The groups within Jerusalem, even when the siege was ongoing, were barely able to unite even briefly before being at one another’s throats again and it was only staying in separate parts of the city entirely that kept them from being at constant war with one another with the civilian population caught in the crossfire, starving to death and being subject to the paranoid delusions of the rebel factions that saw all attempts to escape as being defection in loyalty to the Romans. No one was permitted to flee in order to save their lives. And after being lied to enough times and ambushed, Titus began ordering his men to slaughter everyone they found escaping the city—and some chose that death over slow starvation and brutalization at the hands of their own people. John of Giscala, in charge of the Zealots, held the high ground of the Temple and the Antonia Fortress that joins on to the NW corner of it by a set of stairs. From that, he could rain down arrows and rocks and other sorts of missiles from above on the followers of Simon, who held most of the upper and lower cities. Simon’s people were attacking John’s from below as best they could while also assaulting the Romans from the walls. Trapped in between were those citizens still alive and unable to escape, subject to frequent robbings and brutality from revolutionaries looking for food and plunder.
Usually, people under siege band together for the sake of survival. This didn’t happen—quite the opposite. It was an unprecedented nightmare. When we look at the language of the Hebrew Scriptures, we often see this idea of universal disaster and judgment applied to local events—this is an example of a semitic idiom applied to oracles of judgment, which this definitely qualifies as. A local event is portrayed as being so devastating that it is as though the entire world is destroyed. When people aren’t aware of this sort of language in prophetic oracles and this very ancient way of expressing such things, they have a tendency to remove the oracle from its immediate context and make it an end of days sort of thing when it is not. You see floods, earthquakes, stars falling and the sun and moon going dark—that’s symbolic language—not literal—of cataclysmic events that would normally kill everyone.
20 And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.
Again, people look at this and say, “Oh, talking about an end of the world sort of scenario” but nope, we are still at the siege of Jerusalem, that’s been the topic of conversation since verse 2 and nothing has changed. Remember the function of hyperbole in Jewish writings—this sounds like the end of the world and in a way, it is. The end of the world as they knew it. According to Josephus, 1.1 Million Jews were killed, almost all by the factions within Jerusalem—this is where people fled to from all sides and it was a terrible mistake to do so because what was going on inside was worse than what was going on outside. Horrifically worse. The walls of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were practically impossible to breach. The siege could have taken much longer. Titus stripped every tree from the earth for over 1.2 miles in every direction for the building of siege works. The revolutionaries were very brave and daring and can be rightly called foolhardy, but they were able to do some terrible damage to Titus and his operations. Titus ended up losing about 10,000 men in all. But, in the end, it was the infighting and foolishness of the revolutionaries that made for the end of the city and Temple. It didn’t have to happen but those who were reasonable were dead at the hands of those who were not and madness reigned. If the siege had continued indefinitely, the death toll would have been complete.
Another problem here is with the “no human being will be saved” and many look at saved in the common Christian jargon of salvation, but in this case the word means “left alive.” Now, for those who take all this to mean that Yahweh has rejected the Jewish people wholesale—we need to look here and say, “Um, even from this hellacious situation, Yahweh is going to preserve a remnant and we also have to remember that most Jews lived outside the Land in the first century—4 million lived throughout the Roman Empire and there were also a great many in the Parthian Empire to the East as the majority never returned from exile and stayed in the east. So, when we look and see how many Jews actually rejected Yeshua in person, we are talking about a fraction of a fraction of 1%. The leadership was fundamentally to blame, as is evident in the Gospels. But still, Yeshua wasn’t the only one prophesying the end of the Temple and Jerusalem, as Josephus recorded. The signs were there for anyone who wanted them. But the problem with signs, as we spoke about when the Pharisees and their scribes requested them, is that they are open to interpretation. Everyone sees in signs exactly what they want to see and interprets them according to their own favor or fears. Just look at what people do with Revelation—look how many books are on the market talking about the one true interpretation of the signs. How many have been right so far? None. Does that humble or stop anyone? Absolutely not because the hunger to know is there and symptomatic of larger problems. Yeshua kept refusing to give signs. We should be content with His refusal and stop seeking them.
21 And then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it.
“And then…”—we can’t miss that. This is referring to the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Their world is now upside down. Jerusalem and the Temple are razed, gutted with fire, left in ruins and defiled. People have been slaughtered and enslaved, save a few Roman citizens who were allowed to leave and resettle elsewhere. Like Germany after WWI and the Treaty of Versailles, they were a ruined people and they were desperate for dignity and saviors. Many would want revenge or relief. All would want restoration of their former lives and especially in an honor/shame culture. They would be ripe for the pickings for wanna be Davidic figures like Simon bar Kochba, promising freedom, glory, self-rule and a rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple. And there would be two more Revolts over the next 70 years before the Jews were finally expelled from the Land entirely and really left as a people without a homeland to rally around and for. And the disciples are being told not to be distracted by this either. They still have a job to do or, more realistically, the next generation because by this point they are all gone. But, they were to teach this because people had to know not to be distracted by the promise of an imminent return.
22 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. 23 But be on guard; I have told you all things beforehand.
The word for false christs is pseudochristos—and it doesn’t mean that necessarily someone is pretending to be Yeshua, that wouldn’t have been a big draw. This would refer to anyone claiming that they were anointed by God to restore Jewish fortunes in the Holy Land and to restore the Kingdom as they were imagining it. That’s too small now, or it would be within very short order. The Kingdom is no longer a place but a world. It will break in violently, through an unjust crucifixion, and lead the world to peace—bit by bit, person by person. And it will be easy to forget that because there would come many people claiming to have been anointed to do just that. All of them led innocent people to their deaths in pursuit of a pipe dream of the Jews being a dominant world power again. That isn’t how the Kingdom of Heaven works, quite the opposite. It works through conquering individuals as far as allegiance goes, so that they will suffer and die for a Kingdom of non-violence and not in the violent pursuit of earthly sorts of dominion and glory.
And there is the warning that these guys will also be performing signs and wonders. Likely some or all of them more legendary than real. Others opportunistic interpretations of normal or abnormal sorts of events, but to people who are desperate and enduring shame and oppression, well as Josephus said, people see what they want to see. People want hope. And they will interpret whatever it is however they want in order to seize on to hope. But our hope is in the Kingdom of Heaven and not in the things that the world looks for hope in. Fortunately, Yeshua warned us—as we saw last week, with that harsh warning blepo (translated “be on guard) not to fall into this sort of trap but to always put our hopes in and only in Him.
