I’ll be quoting Godawa, and commenting:

Not all is generic, the abomination of desolation is specific to Daniel’s prophecy. In fact it is so specific that even the Preterist have attempted to place it, but their placement is not one specific event, but a choice between two. The first is 167 BC, which cannot be possible, since Jesus is having us look for a future event. So we are left with the understanding that the Roman army’s destruction of the Temple in 70 AD is to be this prophetic event.

We also have end time prophecies in Zachariah 13, concerning this destruction which are not met. We will look at these in a later post.

For right now we will just keep this in mind.

Matthew 23:36 “Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (NASB1995)

So Godawa is attempting to connect the entire message of Matt 24 with the one present generation from Israel, which then existed, because Jesus also uses “this generation” to frame what He is speaking of. But is that being truthful to do, while ignoring what Jesus stated immediately following:

Matthew 23:37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. (NASB1995)

Matthew 23:39 “For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!'” (NASB1995)

Jesus here is speaking to Jerusalem and it’s inhabitants. In the interim or in between these events, Vs 38 takes place, where Israel’s house is left desolate. But what will happen to her when she says: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord?

Paul tells us:

Romans 11:25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery–so that you will not be wise in your own estimation–that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; (NASB1995)

Let me ask: HAS THE FULNESS OF THE GENTILES COME IN BEFORE AD 70? In fact, Paul had told us what we are to be looking for:

Romans 11:15 For if their [Israel’s] rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will [their] acceptance be but life from the dead? (NASB1995)

What is “life from the dead” for you and I and for any believer who has died at this point [before this prophesied fulness of the Gentiles has come in]? Can it be anything other than the resurrection?

NEXT: Godawa will attempt to tell us that these words were penned for the Apostles themselves and therefore they must be the generation to see this end of the O. T. Age and the coming of Jesus.

I need to outline the concern or concerns that I have with Godawa’s understanding. First several of the apostles are known to have died before 70 AD. Only three are thought to have lived to later than 70 AD.

(John 1:47-49). Bartholomew was a nobleman, his name means “son of Ptolemy. He preached the Faith as far away as India. He returned after that to Asia Minor and was martyred later by being skinned alive in Armenia in the year 72.*

Thomas was stabbed to death at Mylapore, India, in the year 74. He was the same age as Our Lord. John lived to much later 100-105 AD, and John wrote the Revelation while in Exile on Patmos. *All of this according to Catholicism.org

What we should think about is: just who was or could Jesus have been talking about when He was advising the escape from Jerusalem when He gave the Matthew 24 prophecy.

Matthew 24:9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. (NASB1995)

It seems quite obvious that none of the apostles to whom Godawa has concluded that Jesus was speaking would have been in Jerusalem for this 70 AD “Great tribulation”. But what Jesus was implying in Vs 9 concerning all nations hating His intended audience must cause us to think that there was another event that Jesus had in mind. Plus there was predicted a future great falling away from the true belief (that would be from Jesus). For that to happen there certainly would have been evidence. But instead the gospel thrived in the midst of persecution in the first century church.

But further we need to consider Godawa’s thoughts concerning the severity of the Great Tribulation that Jesus saw coming.

Godawa is making the same mistake as do other competing end time systems, who also see the Jewish rejection of Jesus as leading to the end of an age, if is it the end of an age, that also must mean the beginning of another age. If Godawa is correct then the present age must be the Church age, but you can look until Jesus returns and you will find no mention of a church in scripture. Dispensationalists make this same mistake as the Preterist’s have, with their claiming this time for Israel and the whole earth, to be an age which is ending. But what is Jesus’ own understanding of the age, which will at some point end: is it’s distinguishing proof the end of Israel, the Jews and the Old Covenant? Or is there something very different that will distinguish the end of the age in which these Jews were living alongside many gentile nations?

The Sadducees were attempting to trick Jesus with a story of one woman who had seven brothers as her consecutive husbands. Jesus answer to these petitioners was revealing concerning His thoughts on the present and future ages:

Luke 20:34 Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36 for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. (NASB1995)

Jesus was speaking to Jews who were “in the age” or a part of the age that Godawa claimed was ending in 70 AD. But Jesus enlarged that age to include all humans who were in the age wherein men would marry and be given in marriage. He further stated that to attain to the age beyond this age, would require the resurrection and with it would come no more giving in marriage, because we and these Jews would then be like sons of God.

Matthew 24:38 “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, (NASB1995)

Isaiah 46:9 “Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; [I am] God, and there is no one like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; (NASB1995)

In the same chapter where Godawa ends the age after the 70 AD distruction, he then graduates to the Lords coming spoken of in Matthew Chapter 24 where he says this:

Today we celebrate Jesus first coming when we meet together:

1 Corinthians 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. (NASB1995)

So, what coming is it that Preterists are speaking about at the end of the Temples destruction?

Matthew 28:20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (NASB1995)

If Jesus now being with us in Spirit, and He is; is the earth also being ruled by Him? Godawa I believe, tries to make this spiritual presence of Jesus in His people to be His own prophesied coming, and He wants to make that coincide with 70 AD.

But Jesus had told us things about the age that He is speaking about that would involve resurrection. Would Godawa also say that Jesus then left us immediately following 70 AD? At any rate that is the age that he says ended to bring about the fulfillment of Matthew 24, and the Revelation. Here is his verse:

Matthew 24:27 “For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. (NASB1995)

Matthew 24:30 “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. (NASB1995)

Are these 2 different events, with one being a future coming represented in these two verses? I’m not sure what coming or comings Godawa is seeing in Matthew 24, but it is not the one Jesus just stated here (not when you look at the context). But think of this Jesus did not promise His own coming following His offered New Covenant, but He told His disciples:

John 14:16 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, so that He may be with you forever; (NASB2020)

Who is this comforter or helper?

John 14:17 [that is] the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, [but] you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. (NASB1995)

God’s eternal kingdom is a Spiritual kingdom purchased for us by Jesus, there is no additional coming necessary for His Spirit to be with us.

But what Jesus states next may cause Godawa’s confusion:

John 14:19 “After a little while, the world no longer [is going to] see Me, but you [are going to] see Me; because I live, you also will live. (NASB2020)

To me this is obviously speaking of the future resurrection. Now what does Paul tell us?

2 Corinthians 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. (KJV)

Hyperbole Introduced:

Beyond all this Godawa proceeds to introduce Jesus’ use of hyperbole, as He speaks about the great Tribulation, allowing it to be much less impactful than we are led to believe by its description. Thus making possible the events of AD 70, as being the Great Tribulations fulfillment. In this way (by hyperbole) he seeks to dismiss the fact that this period was not really worse than other periods of persecution throughout history.

Godawa’s argument would be destroyed if what Jesus stated was literal for the world. He asks what could be worse than the destruction from Noah’s flood. So let’s consider:

We really can’t even make a good estimate as to how many were killed in the flood, but Jesus knew, and He stated that what is coming will be worse, obviously the 70 AD event was not worse.

Godawa uses Ez 5:9, and Daniel 9:12 to attempt to prove his point and then says:

The problem in my opinion is that God was speaking of a localized event specifically for Jerusalem, and it may actually have been worse than the 70 AD event. And it may also have been worse than what will happen in the destruction of Jerusalem which likely will occur just before Jesus returns as outlined by:

Zechariah 13:8 And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. (KJV)

If you read the context of this prophecy you will see that Jesus comes here to do battle and splits the mountain on which Jerusalem sits (Zechariah 14:2-4). This is when His Second coming occurs, not in 70AD.

It is my concern that to accept God’s word as an exaggeration could be dangerous. If Great Tribulation such as the world has never known has no meaning, then we would arrive at Godawa’s conclusion:

He offers no other choice, but his own. Yet there is another choice. Does he really know that “exactly the same thing was done in 70 AD, that was done in Daniel’s day? Would God agree that it was exactly the same? Did Rome cart the Jews off into exile following 70 AD, when, in fact, they were already in Rome’s grasp prior to 70 AD? Israel’s dispersion was not in 70 AD, into the control of “a Nation” but was sent into a dispersion throughout the entire world, with a promise to be regathered in the latter days (Deut. 30:1-8).

Yet I must ask myself, is my purpose for not wanting to hear Godawa’s explanation pure? Is my purpose based on a wanting to know God’s truth? Is Revelation a book about “nations” yielding to evil before Jesus coming in judgment, or is it a book about Rome yielding to evil before Jesus established His Church as part of His rule over the earth — a rule which is somehow already fulfilled without us really seeing it? Somehow I don’t think that that is what victory means to Jesus.

So, again I must ask if this be so, then has the church dispensed with evil on earth, or is evil yet to be dispensed with or eradicated at some still future time?

Is revelation written to the Church, or to the churches (plural), simply because the Church is still being formed and tested upon the earth? Has the bride already made herself ready, or is she still in that process? These are important questions.

Have Godawa and his Preterist counterparts placed God in a box where He God is stuck with a Church which is not United around His truth, and an earth that is not operating according to His will, as it is being done in the heavens. Or instead are we still dependent totally on God and His promises to bring these things about in our future, because we have not been able to do so on our own?

Even so come Lord Jesus. This is still our blessed hope, and Tribulation still is to precede that event.