Deliverance from the Great Tribulation

Jesus closes His explanation of the “great tribulation” sign with a promise to deliver the elect Jews from that catastrophe: “Unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened” (Matt 24:22). He also tells His disciples what they must do to be saved:

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her. (Luke 21:20–21)

The disciples may have questioned this plan: how would the days be shortened, and how could they escape after armies surrounded the city?¹

Almost forty years after Jesus gave the Olivet Discourse, Roman armies invaded Israel. The Jews had enough supplies inside Jerusalem to withstand the long siege they knew was coming. However, warring factions developed inside the city; their infighting destroyed food and other necessities, reducing the time they could resist their enemies. As Jesus predicted, “those days [were] shortened.”

The elect Jews—the Christians—escaped Jerusalem after the siege began through a fantastic series of events. Josephus says the commanding Roman general, on the brink of Jerusalem’s collapse, “retired from the city, without any reason in the world.”² William Whiston, the editor of Josephus’ works, tells how some in the city took advantage of this retreat: “Jewish Christians fled to the mountains of Perea,³ and escaped this destruction.”⁴ Heeding Jesus’ warning, “the elect” fled the city and escaped death.

Jesus had warned of another danger in Jerusalem:

Then if anyone says to you, “Look, here is the Christ!” or “There!” do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. Therefore if they say to you, “Look, He is in the desert!” do not go out; or “Look, He is in the inner rooms!” do not believe it. (Matt 24:22–26)

Historians show this sign occurred in Jerusalem during the “great tribulation.” Josephus, an eyewitness to many of the tribulation events, describes how false prophets deceived the non-elect Jews:

A false prophet was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get up upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Now, there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose upon the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God: and this was in order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now, a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such deliverance. Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers.⁵

David Brown says, “No one can read Josephus’ account of what took place before the destruction of Jerusalem without seeing how strikingly this [i.e., Jesus’ sign] was fulfilled.”⁶

John Lightfoot provides evidence from the Talmud⁷ that the Jewish rabbis practiced sorcery and magical arts during this period. After giving examples of this rabbinical magic, Lightfoot describes what happened in Jerusalem just before the temple fell:

False Christs broke out, and appeared in public with their witchcrafts, so much the frequenter and more impudent, as the city and people drew nearer to its ruin; because the people believed the Messias should be manifested before the destruction of the city; and each of them pretended to be the Messias by these signs. From the words of Isaiah, “Before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child,” the doctors concluded, “that the Messias should be manifested before the destruction of the city”.… Mark that also; “The Son of David will not come, till the wicked empire [of the Romans] shall have spread itself over all the worlds nine months; as it is said, ‘Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth.’”⁸

Jesus’ sign of false prophets occurred just before the temple’s fall, just as He had predicted. Had the elect Jews—the followers of Christ—not exercised faith in Jesus’ prophetic word, they, too, would have perished. Instead, they obeyed Jesus’ instructions to “flee into the mountains,” escaping destruction during the “great tribulation;” they remained on earth to continue preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

History shows the accuracy of Jesus’ “great tribulation” sign of the temple’s fall; everything happened as He predicted. All the details I have considered fit well in the two-age prophetic model we have discovered. Before concluding this article, I want to notice a few more incidental details that show the “great tribulation” was a first-century event, not something in our future.

The “great tribulation” would come upon people living in an agricultural society where many families lived in towns and villages but farmed land in the countryside. The disciples might learn of the approaching armies while “on the housetop” (Matt 24:17) because “the flat roof of the Palestinian house was a popular place to relax in the evening.”⁹ Or, if they hear of the invasion while tending their crops, Jesus says, “Let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes” (Matt 24:18). This lifestyle is foreign to most modern civilizations, especially in the West.

Jesus envisioned people trying to escape this time of suffering using primitive modes of transportation. He said the flight would prove difficult for expectant mothers: “Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!” (Matt 24:19). He told the disciples to pray that their “flight may not be in winter” (Matt 24:20a). Walking or riding an animal would be difficult for expectant mothers and more difficult for everyone during winter.

Jesus admonished the disciples to pray that their flight from Jerusalem not be “on the Sabbath” (Matt 24:20b). Gary DeMar says,

Jesus refers to the strict Sabbath laws that were operating in first-century Israel (Matt. 12:2, 10; Mark 2:24; 16:1; Luke 23:56; John 5:9, 16, 18; 9:16). Acceptable distances for travel on the Sabbath were measured in terms of a “Sabbath day’s journey,” approximately three-quarters of a mile as determined by Pharisaical law (Acts 1:12). The Christians would have been prohibited from traveling on the Sabbath by the religious leaders due to the distorted travel restrictions imposed upon the populace. During the Jewish and Idumean revolts against Rome (A.D. 66–70), Pella, a rock fortress hidden in the hill country approximately sixty miles northeast of Jerusalem, became a refuge for many fleeing Christians.¹⁰

The “great tribulation” would occur before the temple’s fall ended the Mosaic age. 

Conclusion

Within the lifetime of some disciples who heard the Olivet Discourse, Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem, polluted the holy place, and destroyed the temple. During the siege, the Christians escaped to the mountains; their flight details agreed with those Jesus described in the Olivet Discourse. There is no reason to suppose Jesus was speaking about another event in their distant future.

The prophetic model we have discovered to this point accounts for all elements of the “great tribulation” sign: the abomination of desolation in Daniel, the “days of vengeance” in Moses and Isaiah, the hyperbole in Jesus’ description, and the deliverance in Jesus’ promise. I will update our diagram to show this sign:

In our next post, we will see how Jesus describes the temple’s coming (to Him) destruction, the event to which the signs have been pointing. 

1. This post is part of the series The Great Commission and Biblical Prophecy.
2. Flavius Josephus, The Works of Flavius Josephus, trans. William Whiston, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), 1:204 (B.J. 2.540).
3. The image in this post shows the ruins of the ancient city of Perea, also called Pella.
4. Josephus, The Works of Flavius Josephus, 1:204n (B.J. 2:539n).
5. Josephus, The Works of Flavius Josephus, 1:453 (B.J. 6.285–88).
6. Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental and Practical on the Old and New Testaments, 3 vols. (n.d.; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 3.1:193 (commentary on Mark 13:22).
7. John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament From the Talmud and Hebraica, ed. Robert Gandell, 4 vols. (1859; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997), 2:315–18. “The word Talmud or Thalmud, means to teach. And the Talmud contains the substance of the Jews’ doctrine and traditions in religion and morality.” [Robert Hawker, The Poor Man’s Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures (London: Ebenezer Palmer, 1828), 878.]
8. Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament, 2:318 (emphasis in original).
9. Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14–28, Word Biblical Commentary, ed. Bruce M. Metzger (Dallas: Word, 1998), 701.
10. Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church, 4th ed. (Atlanta: American Vision, 1999), 111.