But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Luke 21:28.

Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:

Jesus had a conversation privately on the Mount of Olives with His disciples that began as they left the temple and He told them that not one stone would be left upon another but it would all be torn down. This shocked them because it was a magnificent building and the place where they came to offer sacrifice and prayer. It was My house where My presence was in their midst. But it got them thinking about passages from Isaiah, Daniel, Joel, and the prophets about the Last Day, judgment, the valley of decision, and the Day of the LORD. So sitting down with Jesus, looking upon the temple mount from a distance that was not far, but easily walkable, and they asked Him, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” As you recall, James and John had already asked to sit one at His right and the other at His left when He took the throne in His Kingdom in glory.

They asked two things: when the temple would be torn down and what would be the sign of His coming and the end of the age. And these two things were going to happen at very different times, but both had been prophesied by Daniel.

The final chapter of the book of Daniel is the forthtelling of the three and a half year period of the great tribulation. I go into much more detail of it from a heavenly perspective in the visions I gave to John on Patmos but the last chapter of Daniel sums it up very well. And the last line of the book of Daniel is to what the disciples were referring, “But as for you, go to the end; then you will enter into rest and rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age.” Daniel 12:13. And do you recall as Jesus was about to ascend into Heaven, He told the disciples present with Him again on Mt. Olivet, “Know that I am with you always until the end of the age.” What did He man by that? That even now, after His ascension of glory, He is with you upon the earth, but at the end of the age, when My heavenly city comes down to join with the earth, you will forever be with Me.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18.

What was in the immediate future for the disciples, however, and for all the people of Israel, was the destruction of Jerusalem in about forty years after the crucifixion of Jesus and the scattering of the Jews among the nations with their homeland gone until the time of the gentiles ruling there was fulfilled, which has come to pass just as I foretold through Isaiah and Jeremiah.

But Jesus told the disciples how to escape being scattered with the destruction by the Romans in 70 AD, the destruction of which Daniel had warned My people many years before.

“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people; and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Luke 21:20-24.

And many of the believers took this advice and were saved from the destruction and deportation. They fled to the mountains.

Various nations occupied Jerusalem during those desolate years, yes, the land became dry and barren without its true inhabitants, it did not respond in fruitfulness as it had under My servant David. But when the time of the Gentiles would be fulfilled the land would respond to the people of the inheritance.

“It will come about in that day that I will respond,” declares the LORD, “I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth, and the earth will respond to the grain, to the new wine and to the oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. I will sow her for Myself in the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, and I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ and they will say, ‘You are my God!’” Hosea 2:21-23.

When was the time of the Gentiles fulfilled? In one day the nation was born again. The unbelievers would  no longer have the land I gave by oath to Abraham and his descendants. That devise has not been amended or restated, it is still a provision of the everlasting Covenant.

Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? Isaiah 66:8.

Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord (Adonai) LORD (Yahavah), “I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries among which you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”’ Ezekiel 11:18.

Why do you think it happened that My people from whom Jesus was born according to the flesh were scattered from Judah and Israel and were turned out of the Land after the death and resurrection of the Messiah? Zechariah 7: 13-14; Ezekiel 36:19; Luke 19:41-44. My Son wept over Jerusalem knowing this would happen because the people rejected to stay under My jurisdiction and protection. Luke 19:41-44. They left Me, but as a wife married in her youth and then cast off, for a brief moment I abandoned them, but with great tenderness I took them back. Isaiah 54:6-9. Yes, one day at the end of World War II, My prophecy made through My prophet Isaiah came to pass and in a single day I made Israel a nation for the descendants of Abraham again, without any of them having to lift a finger to fight for it. Everyone said the prophecy would never come to pass as the Israelites were scattered and oppressed in many nations and had no unity or army, but nothing is too hard for Me. In one day I gave the back their nation and just as Jeremiah had forthtold the first ones to return were directly from the north, from Russia (Siberia).

“Behold, I am bringing them from the north country, and I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth, Among them the blind and the lame, The woman with child and she who is in labor with child, together; A great company, they will return here. Jeremiah 31:8.

I gave the Land back to Abraham’s seed. My gifts are irrevocable. I am faithful.  Be faithful to Me. Just open your eyes and see, the prophecies concerning Israel have proved true. And so will all My Words to every one of you. I have redeemed you. Return to Me for I have returned to you. From the days of Adam you have constantly wandered away after other gods but I am always here waiting for you to return to Me.

And Jeus told His disciples and through them I tell you, that you will, and you know you do every day, hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

And after the death of Stephen for preaching the good news to the Jewish elders, a great persecution of the Church began. But Jesus had warned them ahead of time so it should not have taken them off guard.

“Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Matthew 24:9-11.

Because lawlessness is increasing, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

There is so much more I must tell you to be secure and full of joy in the perilous times ahead, but that is for the next life lesson.

I love you. Lift your head high for the redemption of your bodies is near at hand, even at your door.