11. Then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will; unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved: it would be hard to believe that this was fulfilled in 70 AD. Way more Jews lost their lives in the Holocaust than in 70 AD, but this even seems to relate to the last 3 1/2 years before 2030, after the Abomination of Desolation. It seems that the Jewish Antichrist, possessed by Satan himself, will bring desolation, even more than when he tramples Jerusalem for the first 3 1/2 years and finally kills Moses and Elijah. It seems that he will then come against God's elect (the perhaps literal 144,000 saved Jewish men with perhaps similar numbers of saved Jewish women and children). Things will finally culminate in the Battle of Armageddon with Jesus Christ Himself, returning with His saints, destroying the Jewish Antichrist and the False Prophet and their armies. I expect that nuclear warfare (the prophesied judgment by fire) will be involved at some point or points in the last 7 years and, more likely in the last 3 1/2 years. Worldwide nuclear war certainly could threaten all lives. Zechariah 14 has this ominous prophecy:

 

Daniel refers to the coming of the Son of Man this way in chapter 7:

 

This coming of the Son of Man likely refers to His ascension to heaven, because "He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him" and "was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom." But remember that it was a visible ascension into "the clouds of heaven" and it will also be a visible descent at the Second Coming of the Son of Man:

 

It was not a visible coming of the Son of Man in 70 AD. Also, there is the reference of east to west and it appears that at the Second Coming of Christ, He may well enter the Temple in Jerusalem by way of the East Gate. See Ezekiel's vision in chapter 43: 1-5.

 

14. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather: I believe that this cryptic sentence fits far better post-70 AD than pre-70 AD. I believe that the metaphorical corpse was in fact the spiritually dead body of Israel after 70 AD. There was a tiny remnant of unregenerate Jews left in the land of Israel after 70 AD, right up until 1910, when God released the unregenerate Jews to begin returning to Palestine in greater waves of emigration (at the same time that He released Satan and the demons from hell). These unregenerate Jews that began to gather in Palestine are the unclean vultures. Anything associated with the heavens (e.g., birds, stars, angels) and earth (e.g., land vegetation, land creatures) are figures for Israel and the Jews. Anything associated with water (e.g., seas, rivers, rain, clouds, fish) are figures for Gentiles. (This flows out of the 7-millennia prophecy of the Genesis prologue. See also Gen. 15: 5 and Rev. 17: 15.)

 

15. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon won't give its light, the stars will fall and the powers of the heavens will be shaken: I believe that this chiefly is figurative and that the events prophesied did not fully happen before or in 70 AD. The greater light, the sun, is a figure for Christ (Mal. 4:2) and also His body, the Church. The lesser light, the moon, which reflects the light of the sun and shines in the night, since Christ departed (John 9:4, 5), is the Holy Spirit and also the Church, which the Holy Spirit fills. So, I believe that this is talking about the Rapture, when afterwards, the Sun and Moon won't shine. The stars are the Jews (as I wrote above), many of whom will fall in the 7 years immediately following the Resurrection and the Rapture. The powers of the heavens which will be shaken may refer to the powers of Israel. Or, it may refer to the powers of God in the first 3 1/2 years, seen through Moses and Elijah, as they are shaken by the powers of the Jewish Antichrist and the False Prophet.

 

16. Then the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all the tribes of the earth will mourn as they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and great glory: as I wrote above, this is Christ's visible Second Coming, not His invisible coming in 70 AD to cast Satan and the unbound demons in hell for 1,840 years. This time He will come visibly to cast them into hell for eternity. Clouds are literal clouds, but they may also be a figure for Christ's chiefly Gentile church, from the first 2,000 years before Abraham and even since. Even saved Jews in their first 2,000 years before Christ did not nearly compare in numbers to saved Gentiles since. The tribes of the earth that mourn may refer to the tribes of Israel. Afterall, Jesus will descend to the Mount of Olives. Or, it may refer to the tribes of the whole earth, who may see the Second Coming via media.

 

17. He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and gather His elect from the 4 winds: it would be hard to believe that this is speaking about anything that happened in 70 AD. When Christ came then (the Angel of the Lord, Rev. 20: 1-3), apparently, there were no other angels, there was no trumpet and there was no gathering of His elect, unless one thinks of that as the gathering of the Church since 70 AD. But it seems to me, that it is the gathering of the elect at the End of the Age. Actually, I just read about the trumpet sound, the ram's horn, on the third day at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, when God came down in cloud, thunder and fire and lightning. The Israelites consecrated themselves for 2 days and then:

 

 

 

I believe that this is prophetic of Israel's third millennial "day," 30 AD to 1030 AD, when in the "morning," in 66 to 70 AD, Christ did bring His saved Jews out of Israel (the mountain) as the Romans (the cloud) burned it with fire. And very likely, they blew their trumpets. But the fullest fulfillment of this will not come until the trumpet sound at the Resurrection and Rapture in 2023. See 1 Thess. 4:16 and 1 Cor. 15:52. Also, I believe that the 4 winds are figurative for the Holy Spirit and the Church at the end of the 4 millennia of Israel (1970 BC-2030 AD), as the 4 (fallen) angels are figurative for Satan and the demons in Rev. 7:1, 2; 9:14, 15.

 

(I'll continue with the Parable of the Fig Tree next time.)