Anybody want to flee now?

[Shiwiii]

23 minutes ago, paulus said:

See you in Gehenna 👹

So you're going to be there too I see. 

 

 

[paulus]

4 minutes ago, Shiwiii said:

So you're going to be there too I see. 

 

 

Looks Very likely at the moment. Who knows?

[Kosonen]

28 minutes ago, paulus said:

But the last thing I would ever do is betray my creator Jehovah and his chosen organisation.

What could you learn about all what happened Joseph? That he was sold by his brothers to Egypt and that he later became second after the King of Egypt. Or what could you learn about how Saul treated David and how all that ended for Saul?

[paulus]

Traitor. Keep digging, another 5 feet and you'll have yourself a grave. Well done.

[Shiwiii]

1 minute ago, paulus said:

Traitor.

how? 

[Arauna]

1 hour ago, Kosonen said:

But who understands Ezekiel 38? As we know that chapter speaks about a safe and quiet place where believers in

“This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says: ‘In that day thoughts will come into your heart, and you will devise an evil plan.  11 You will say: “I will invade the land of unprotected settlements. I will come against those living in security, without disturbance, all of them living in settlements unprotected by walls, bars, or gates.”

 

It is not called a 'quiet' place but a 'secure' place.  Look at the scripture again...It speaks of a land.... . Remember, JWs are a nation who live all over the earth. (The chapter indicates this nation has been restored from all the nations of the earth).  A nation has a country or a.... 'land'.  But we are spread over the earth? 

Just like the "Israel of God" in Galations 6: 15 & 16  is a spiritual Jew (which is not 'circumcised or uncircumcised' ) this refers to a spiritual land where all Jehovahs people are already dwelling in a secure place - with Him and have His protection..  But to a fleshly king, the king of the north and the coalition of the kings of the earth, we look like easy prey. WHY ? 

We are like unprotected lambs for the slaughter to him because our land has no visible protection.   We are his  Big mistake!   He, under direction of Satan, has already started to attack us, confiscating property etc. As the scripture indicates, his allies, a coalition of kings will bring a full out attck in the final days..... but when their attack is to totally destroy Jehovahs people, jehovah will act on "Israel's" (the spiritual Jew's)  behalf.

"In the final part of the days I will bring you against my land so that the nations may know me when I sanctify myself through you before their eyes, O Gog.”

 

[JW Insider]

On 4/5/2020 at 1:12 PM, Kosonen said:

And are we not thrilled by the story, how the Christians left Jerusalem year 66CE after the Roman army unexplicably halted their attack on Jerusalem and left?

We know about Rome's first attempt to take the city in 66, only because of Josephus. No other account tells us details about it. So it's also from Josephus that we know the Roman army did not inexplicably halt their attack and leave. In fact, Josephus tells us exactly why. The Roman attempts in 66 were not well planned, or well manned, and they tried to take many areas from all over the country first before Jerusalem. And they LOST many of these battles.  In fact, the Roman attack on Jerusalem was pushed back by Jewish fighters. Roman armies were driven back and went home, after suffering several losses all over Judea.

This is ultimately from Josephus, but also clearly spelled out in a book you can find here: http://www.imperium-romana.org/uploads/5/9/3/3/5933147/osprey_-_campaign_-_252_-_the_jewish_revolt_ad_66-74.pdf

Notice that number 13 through 19 show the following:

• 13. Gallus is badly handled by a Jewish ambush north of Jerusalem and retires to Gabao.
• 14. Simon b. Gioras hits the rearguard of the Roman column as it traverses the Beth Horon pass and plunders the baggage train.
• 15. After regrouping for three days at Gabao, Gallus advances to Jerusalem.
• 16. Unable to take Jerusalem, Gallus orders the retreat to Gabao. He is harassed en route by Jewish fighters.
• 17. After two days under siege in Gabao, Gallus orders a breakout. His force is ambushed in the Beth Horon pass.
• 18. Gallus slips away at night. The garrison left behind at Beth Horon Katotera is massacred at dawn.
• 19. Gallus abandons what remains of his baggage train. The Jews finally call of their pursuit only when Gallus reaches Antipatris.

It's pretty obvious why this would be a good time to flee Jerusalem. Jewish leaders and highly stationed Romans fled just immediately prior to this attack, and the fact that Gallus was temporarily defeated, and made to run, made it a perfect opportunity for Christians to flee, too. Note the timeline we can get from Josephus, as found on page 18 of the same linked book:

AD 66

• Mid–May: Anti-semitic riots in Caesarea. Florus enters Jerusalem in force; demands arrest of anti-Roman militants; defeat of Roman troops in street-fighting; Florus abandons Jerusalem to the rebels. Eleazar b. Ananias leads first aristocratic government.
• Early August to early September: Factional conflict in Jerusalem; conservatives defeated; Ananias executed.
• September–October: Sicarii driven out of Jerusalem; wave of communal violence and pogroms throughout Judea.
• Mid–late October: Cestius Gallus advances into Judea; battle of Gabao; Roman attack on Jerusalem repulsed.
• Early November: Battle of Beth Horon.
• Mid–November: Ananus b. Ananus leads second aristocratic government; radicals and militias marginalized; Eleazar and Zealots confined to Temple Mount; Simon b. Gioras driven out; Josephus appointed military governor of Galilee.

From 66 until 70 there is infighting among Jewish groups, Roman suppression and finally the devastating attack in 70 C.E.

[JW Insider]

I've noticed something about the timeline that surely wouldn't have escaped the notice of the escaped Christians. Notice that the above dates show that it was very late October to early November of 66 CE when the opportunity for escape would have been ideal. That's because Cestius Gallus fled Jerusalem close to November 1, 66 and finally fled the country around November 15, 66 when factional civil wars began in Jerusalem.

And if the purpose of the escape for the Christians was to continue to be fed for 1,260 days, or 42 months, or three and one-half years, then where would that time period end up after, for example, November 10,  66 CE?

If you put dates in Excel or Google [Spread]Sheets you can subtract one date from another and it will give you the number of days apart. Do that for November 10 of 66 CE and April 23 of 70 CE and the difference is exactly 1,260 days. The month Chislev often starts in November, so I pray that this is not in wintertime.

Nov 10 66

Apr 23 70

1,260.00

 

Below, I'm copying some more of the dates from the book quoted above to see if anything significant might have happened around April 23rd 70 CE:

• AD70
• 23 April: Titus commences siege of Jerusalem.
• 7 May: Titus breaches the Third Wall.
• Mid–May: Titus breaches the Second Wall.
• Late May: Roman siege ramps against the Antonia Fortress destroyed by Jewish mines and sallies.
• June: Romans construct wall of circumvallation and new siege ramps against the Antonia Fortress.
• 5 July: Titus takes the Antonia Fortress.
• 17 July: Roman assault on the Temple Mount commences.
• 27 July: Jewish trap immolates the western colonnade of the Temple Mount.
• 10 August: Destruction of the Temple.
• 20 August: Siege of Herod’s Palace commences.
• 7 September: Fall of Herod’s Palace.

AD71: Vespasian and Titus celebrate joint Jewish War triumph; execution of Simon b. Gioras. Roman mopping up operations in Judea; fall of Herodium, Machaerus.

AD73: Flavius Silva commences Siege of Masada.

AD74: Fall of Masada; end of First Jewish War.

My spreadsheet says that:

April 23rd 70 MINUS November 10th 66 EQUALS 1,260 Days.

Of course maybe this is a big coincidence, but I think we can be pretty sure that it crossed the minds of Christians reading Revelation 12 that the recent destruction of Jerusalem, and the escape from Jerusalem for a time period of 1,260 days might have been significant, especially because some of them lived it personally. To them, as they bore witness to Jesus, it had been the great escape of citizens of a new Kingdom of Israel, a heavenly Jerusalem, who followed Jesus command so that they were not otherwise swallowed up in the war that had broken out. It just makes me wonder how first century Christians understood Revelation 12 when they first saw it.

[Srecko Sostar]

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

It just makes me wonder how first century Christians understood Revelation 12 when they first saw it.

What makes me wonder after reading this two posts of yours is this: For all those who want to escape from dangerous places, primarily they need to have many important and detailed information about who is who in this fight, and where they are placed and where they will go.

How they heard and collect such "classified" information? Also they needed political and military understanding of such information. If first Christians (ex-Jews) acted as Christians aka JW's today, who, according to WT publication, are as 1st Christians in 1st Century, that means they are not part of the World, and not interested in political and military things of this world. That would means, both of this Christians (in 1st century and JW's today) are not "able" to have, to get such kind of secular understanding of political movement and plans, because they are occupied exclusively with spiritual things and matters inside congregation.

What WTJWorg and JW members doing is looking at the general "signs", such as wars, earthquakes, pestilence, shortage of food, crimes and similar. Some sort of going into political examinations and understanding and to giving political picture, analyze about who is "King of the North", who is "Gog of Magog" and similar shows lack of real knowledge and understanding, because interpretations was changed through history. In fact what sort of knowledge GB showed? Political? Religious? Or mixed?  

I am not saying how our looking to go deeper in understanding and our tries to get, to see more is not good, as you showed in your posts (that was good to read for me and helped me to wrote this comment), but want to say how (temporary) WTJWorg attitude "to not be part of the world" also it can mean: We are not voting and not take sides, but we are interested to understand political moves of "our enemies" to be able to escape bad things.

Obviously, GB understanding of political moves in Russia didn't be of much use and "they didn't escape on time" from Russia territory to save life (from suffer and prison) and basic material things. 1st Christians done exactly this. Didn't want to be martyrs, or to suffer for religious rights and similar reasons. 

[JW Insider]

5 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

How they heard and collect such "classified" information?

These are good points. Inside the walls of Jerusalem, they would have heard of the wars around the country, rumors of wars, and would have known to prepare for the Romans coming on their way. For some reason (per Luke) Jesus had not told them to flee at the rumors, but from the actual time when they actually saw encamped armies surrounding the city. As far as we can tell, this full siege didn't actually happen until 70, but there must have been some kind of "surrounding" by Gallus' armies before they tried to breach the city in 66. This would have been quite visible, and Jewish guerrilla forces were reported to be quite active drumming up support within the nation and the city to prepare. They would have spread the news of the most recent successes and defeats and therefore would have known what Gallus was up to when they saw his armies approaching Jerusalem in late October of 66. I think a lot of their "news" was direct word of mouth from eyewitnesses and their own ability to look out their windows (actually, from the top of the walls) and see for themselves.

5 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

That would means, both of this Christians (in 1st century and JW's today) are not "able" to have, to get such kind of secular understanding of political movement and plans, because they are occupied exclusively with spiritual things and matters inside congregation.

Except when these movements are obvious in front our eyes, from our own windows.

5 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Some sort of going into political examinations and understanding and to giving political picture, analyze about who is "King of the North", who is "Gog of Magog" and similar shows lack of real knowledge and understanding, because interpretations was changed through history.

This is very true. In fact, I found it odd that there had been a shift in the doctrine such that all these former misinterpretations were turned into "correct" former understandings of who held the position of these Kings at previous times, even though it would change through time.

Of course, some of these interpretations were clearly influenced by prior Adventist teachings, et al, about the Anglo-American world power, and totalitarian world powers. This, I think, has skewed the evidence away from realizing that the Anglo-American world power and various allies have usually been far more totalitarian than most of the others powers accused.

5 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Obviously, GB understanding of political moves in Russia didn't be of much use and "they didn't escape on time" from Russia territory to save life (from suffer and prison) and basic material things.

Russia, right after their unfounded crackdown on JWs, was "low-hanging fruit" at the time it was identified as the "King of the North." It seemed obvious in light of the fact that it had previously been the USSR but was going unidentified for a while just in case Islam could qualify. (This idea was presented in some talks by senior members of the Writing Department after September 2001.)

Of course, in the original context, Jehovah's people sometimes found protection with the King of the South (Egypt) and sometimes they were to find protection with the King of the North (Babylon). Jeremiah begged his countrymen to go into exile in Babylon for protection because fleeing to Egypt would not be safe at that time. These were symbols of the nations that appeared to be stronger than Jehovah's people, and therefore become the symbols of "temptation" for protection and flight, when God's people forget about His protection. Therefore, if these "kings of the earth" are revisited in Revelation, then the symbol is no longer necessary to identify with a particular nation. It doesn't matter who they are, they are part of a world (Satan's world) that Christians have conquered through the blood of the Lamb.

[Kosonen]

10 hours ago, JW Insider said:

April 23rd 70 MINUS November 10th 66 EQUALS 1,260 Days

The prophecies about 1260 days and what should happen during that time did not fit that period from November 66 to April 70.

But it is interesting that we can find a couple of 3 and half year periods in the Bible. For example Jesus' ministry was 3 and half years also. 

[Kosonen]

11 hours ago, JW Insider said:

AD 66

• Mid–May: Anti-semitic riots in Caesarea. Florus enters Jerusalem in force; demands arrest of anti-Roman militants;

 

11 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Mid–late October: Cestius Gallus advances into Judea; battle of Gabao; Roman attack on Jerusalem repulsed.

Interesting that from the first signs that the Romans were comming until the Christians fled, it took about 5 months. Maybe it was difficult to flee Jerusalem during those 5 months. 

Our situation is now similar, we can not flee now because there are travel restrictions between countries. But those must be lifted so that we will be able to flee to the wilderness that Revelation 12 speaks about.

So I expect there will be a short window for flight when the Corona virus levels finaly drop in this first wave. 

But specialists are speaking about a second wave later. Could be that then it will be too late to flee to the wilderness spoken about in Revelation 12. One thing more, that will make the flight very difficult is that "they" are talking about introducing a digital certificate for travel. This could in fact become the mark of the beast. Then really it would be too late to flee.

All these restrictions in many countries affecting the activity of Jehovah's witnesses could be a prophetic paralell to the period mid May 66 to November 66 when the Romans were disturbing Jerusalem.