Joel Richardson's Prophetic Glove Doesn't Fit

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Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 90

Gary responds to continued feedback from his recent online debate with prophecy writer Joel Richardson about Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39).

Jesus tells His disciples that when the temple’s approaching desolation became evident, it would be time to head for the hills. Most roofs in Israel were flat with an outside staircase (Mark 2:4) designed for occupancy (Deut. 22:8), storage (Josh. 2:6), and rest in the evening (2 Sam. 11:2). In addition, Jesus referred to the strict Sabbath laws in effect at that time. An acceptable distance for travel on the Sabbath was about three-fifths of a mile as determined by Pharisaical law (Acts 1:12), not enough travel-distance to get out of harm’s way during Jerusalem’s sign-laden destruction.

History shows that Christian Jews did heed Jesus’ warning before the armies of Titus captured the city. Most who remained were slaughtered. Estimates put the number killed at more than one million! Thousands more were taken into captivity and enslaved by the Romans. “The Emperor Vespasian brought 20,000 Jewish slaves to Rome after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. The Arch of Titus depicts a menorah as part of the plunder from Jerusalem. Vespasian and his successor Titus used the slaves to build the Roman Coliseum.”

The prophecy regarding pregnant (Luke 19:44: “your children within you”) and nursing mothers and young children (Matt. 24:19) fits the time parameters of the Olivet Discourse leading to the destruction of the temple in the generation of Jews to whom Jesus was speaking. Josephus, an eyewitness to the events, describes a horrific scene of “the cruel massacre of women and children” and “the painful famine in which the people suffered so terribly while Jerusalem was besieged.”[1]

James Jordan makes an interesting typological connection to Jesus mentioning leaving the cloak behind:

The man working in the field is not to bother going back for anything, not even his cloak. The cloak is the one thing that is so precious and needful that it cannot be taken as a pledge during the nighttime hours, but has to be returned each night to its owner [Ex. 22:26-27]. Leaving the cloak behind, then, means leaving everything behind.

Jesus had already made this point in the Sermon on the Mount, where He told his followers to be ready to give up their cloaks if that was demanded of them (Matthew 5:40).

Did Jesus mean that the believers should literally leave their cloaks behind, even in winter, when they would need them on the road? I don’t think so. Again, I think we have to take Jesus’ command as an epigram. First, it means to be ready to leave everything behind, just as Jesus left his tunic at the foot of the cross and soldiers gambled for it [Ps. 22:18; Matt. 27:35; John 19:23]. But it probably has a deeper meaning also. In Matthew, Jesus has said that no one sews a patch of new cloth on an old cloak, but instead turns the old one into a rag and makes a new cloak of new cloth (Matthew 9:16)…. Leave behind the cloak of the Old Covenant. You won’t need it any longer.[2]

With the destruction of the temple, its sacrifices, and sinful priesthood done away with and a new temple (John 2:19), perfect sacrifice (1:29), and new sinless priest (Heb. 7:26-28), the remnants of the Old Covenant were abolished at the cross and outwardly demonstrated with the destruction of the temple.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

A first-century interpretation of the Olivet Discourse was once common in commentaries and narrative-style books that describe the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. There is also a history of skeptics who turn to Bible prophecy and claim Jesus was wrong about the timing of His coming at “the end of the age” and the signs associated with it. A mountain of scholarship shows that the prophecy given by Jesus was fulfilled in exacting detail when He said it would: before the generation of those to whom He was speaking passed away.

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Gary responds to continued feedback from his recent online debate with prophecy writer Joel Richardson about Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39). Using the famous OJ Simpson trial defense line about gloves not fitting, Gary shows how Richardson’s prophetic interpretive gloves also don’t fit the biblical facts.

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[1] J. G. Matteson, Prophecies of Jesus: The Fulfillment of the Predictions of Our Saviour and His Prophets (Battle Creek: International Tract Society, 1895), 86.

[2] James B. Jordan, Matthew 23-25: A Literary, Historical, and Theological Commentary (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2022), 128-129.

American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources