Before Jerusalem Fell

234 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
saved through it all (24:13). He also clearly taught that all of these
things would happen to “this generation” (Matt. 2432). Indeed, this
coming event was to be “the great tribulation” (Matt. 24:21) – the
very tribulation in which John finds himself enmeshed even as he
writes (Rev. 1:9; 2:22; cp. 7:14).
This impending destruction of Jerusalem prophesied by Christ
casts its shadow backward over New Testament history. There are
numerous indications of the portending destruction that was to come,
even as early as in John the Baptist’s ministry. In Matthew 3 :7ff. we
read:
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for
baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warnedyou to jlee
jom the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with your
repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We
have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is able from
these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And the axe is already
laid at the root of the trees. . . . And His winnowing fork is in His
hand, and He will thoroughly clean His threshing floo~ and He will
gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with
unquenchable fire.”
There are a good number of prophetic statements in Christ’s teaching
regarding Jerusalem’s demise (e.g., Matt. 21:33-46; 22:1-14; 23:31-
38; 24: 1-34). Somewhat later in Acts 2: 16ff. the Pentecostal tongues
event in Jerusalem was pointed to as a harbinger of “the day of the
Lord” that was coming. Tongues-speaking was a warning sign to
Peter’s hearers of the necessity of their being “saved from this perverse
generation” (Acts 2:40) before the “great and glorious day of
the Lord” (Acts 2:20).6 In Acts 2:43E. and Acts 4:32ff. a strong case
can be made showing that there was a practical motive to the
Jerusalem church’s selling of their property and sharing of the profits.
7
Such action was not commanded them, nor was it practiced
elsewhere. This selling of property and distributing of the profits
seems to have been related to the impending destruction of the city
6. See O. Palmer Robertson, “Tongues: Sign of Covenantal Curse and Blessing” in
Wahnirsster Thohgtial Journal 38 (1975-76) :43K; Richard Gatlin, Perspectives on Pentecost
(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979), pp. 102K.; Kenneth L. Gentry,
Jr., Cu”al Issues Regarding Xmgsus (Mauldin, SC: GoodBirth, 1982), pp. 14-20.
7. This does not deny, of course, the spiritual, brotherly love also involved in the
situation.