From the Watchtower https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/pc/r1/lp-e/1200276404/6/3


ESCAPING JERUSALEM’S DESTRUCTION
13 Jehovah knows exactly how events will unfold to fulfill his purpose. The importance of this is highlighted in the third example we will consider: the first-century siege of Jerusalem. By means of his Son, Jehovah provided instructions for survival to Christians who were living in Jerusalem and Judea prior to the city’s destruction in 70 C.E. Jesus said: “When you catch sight of the disgusting thing that causes desolation, as spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in a holy place, . . . then let those in Judea begin fleeing to the mountains.” (Matt. 24:15, 16) But how would Jesus’ followers recognize when this prophecy was being fulfilled?
14 As events unfolded, the meaning of Jesus’ words became clear. In 66 C.E., Roman armies under Cestius Gallus arrived in Jerusalem to quell a Jewish rebellion. When the Jewish rebels, known as the Zealots, sought refuge inside the temple fortress, Roman soldiers began to undermine the temple wall. For alert Christians, the meaning was plain to see: A pagan army with its idolatrous standards (“the disgusting thing”) got as far as the temple wall (“a holy place”). It was time for Jesus’ followers to “begin fleeing to the mountains.” But how would they get out of a city that was under siege? Events were about to take an unexpected turn.
15 For no apparent reason, Cestius Gallus and his troops withdrew from Jerusalem and began retreating. The Zealots gave chase. With the warring parties away, Jesus’ followers suddenly had an opportunity to flee. Jesus had specifically instructed them to leave their material possessions behind and depart without delay. (Read Matthew 24:17, 18.) Was prompt action really necessary? The answer soon became clear. Within days, the Zealots returned and began forcing the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea to join the rebellion. Conditions within the city rapidly deteriorated as rival Jewish factions struggled for control. Flight became increasingly difficult. When the Romans returned in 70 C.E., flight became impossible. (Luke 19:43) Any who had lingered were trapped! For the Christians who had fled to the mountains, heeding Jesus’ instructions meant saving their lives. They saw firsthand that Jehovah knows how to deliver his people. What lesson can we learn from this account?
16 As events unfold during the great tribulation, Christians will need to heed instructions from God’s Word and organization. For example, Jesus' command to "begin fleeing to the mountains" has a modern-day application. Just what form our flight will take remains to be seen. *However, we can be sure that Jehovah will make clear the meaning of those instructions when the time comes for us to follow them. Since our deliverance will depend on obedience, we do well to ask ourselves: ‘How do I respond to instructions that Jehovah provides for his people now? Am I quick to respond, or do I hesitate to obey?’—Jas. 3:17.

 

This event has intrigued me for as long as I remember I first heard about it. That there will come a time when true christians will have to flee to a safe place before Armageddon. Have you been waiting for that event?

 

I felt that this would be an appropriate place to put this information. I have found some history and early philosophy, I’d like to share, concerning the dispensation of the Israelites after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 CE.

The Odyssey of the Jews ( Durant, Will (2014-02-06). The Story of Philosophy. )

The story of the Jews since the Dispersion is one of the epics of European history. Driven from their natural home by the Roman capture of Jerusalem (70 a. d.), and scattered by flight and trade among all the nations and to all the continents; persecuted and decimated by the adherents of the great religions— Christianity and Mohammedanism— which had been born of their scriptures and their memories; barred by the feudal system from owning land, and by the guilds from taking part in industry; shut up within congested ghettoes and narrowing pursuits, mobbed by the people and robbed by the kings; building with their finance and trade the towns and cities indispensable to civilization; outcast and excommunicated, insulted and injured;— yet, without any political structure, without any legal compulsion to social unity, without even a common language, this wonderful people has maintained itself in body and soul, has preserved its racial and cultural integrity, has guarded with jealous love its oldest rituals and traditions, has patiently and resolutely awaited the day of its deliverance, and has emerged greater in number than ever before, renowned in every field for the contributions of its geniuses, and triumphantly restored, after two thousand years of wandering, to its ancient and unforgotten home. What drama could rival the grandeur of these sufferings, the variety of these scenes, and the glory and justice of this fulfillment? What fiction could match the romance of this reality?

The dispersion had begun many centuries before the fall of the Holy City; through Tyre and Sidon and other ports the Jews had spread abroad into every nook of the Mediterranean —to Athens and Antioch, to Alexandria and Carthage, to Rome and Marseilles, and even to distant Spain. After the destruction of the Temple the dispersion became almost a mass migration. Ultimately the movement followed two streams: one along the Danube and the Rhine, and thence later into Poland and Russia; the other into Spain and Portugal with the conquering Moors (711 a. d.). In Central Europe the Jews distinguished themselves as merchants and financiers; in the Peninsula they absorbed gladly the mathematical, medical and philosophical lore of the Arabs, and developed their own culture in the great schools of Cordova, Barcelona and Seville. Here in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Jews played a prominent part in transmitting ancient and Oriental culture to western Europe. It was at Cordova that Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), the greatest physician of his age, wrote his famous Biblical commentary, the Guide to the Perplexed; it was at Barcelona that Hasdai Crescas (1370-1430) propounded heresies that shook all Judaism.

The Jews of Spain prospered and flourished until the conquest of Granada by Ferdinand in 1492 and the final expulsion of the Moors. The Peninsular Jews now lost the liberty which they had enjoyed under the lenient ascendancy of Islam; the Inquisition swept down upon them with the choice of baptism and the practice of Christianity, or exile and the confiscation of their goods. It was not that the Church was violently hostile to the Jews— the popes repeatedly protested against the barbarities of the Inquisition; but the King of Spain thought he might fatten his purse with the patiently-garnered wealth of this alien race. Almost in the year that Columbus discovered America, Ferdinand discovered the Jews.

The great majority of the Jews accepted the harder alternative, and looked about them for a place of refuge. Some took ship and sought entry into Genoa and other Italian ports; they were refused, and sailed on in growing misery and disease till they reached the coast of Africa, where many of them were murdered for the jewels they were believed to have swallowed. A few were received into Venice, which knew how much of its maritime ascendency it owed to its Jews. Others financed the voyage of Columbus, a man perhaps of their own race, hoping that the great navigator would find them a new home. A large number of them embarked in the frail vessels of that day and sailed up the Atlantic, between hostile England and hostile France, to find at last some measure of welcome in little big-souled Holland. Among these was a family of Portuguese Jews named Espinoza.

Thereafter Spain decayed, and Holland prospered. The Jews built their first synagogue in Amsterdam in 1598; and then, seventy-five years later, they built another, the most magnificent in Europe, their Christian neighbors helped them to finance the enterprise. The Jews were happy now, if we may judge from the stout content of the merchants and rabbis to whom Rembrandt has given immortality. But towards the middle of the seventeenth century the even tenor of events was interrupted by a bitter controversy within the synagogue. Uriel a Costa, a passionate youth who had felt, like some other Jews, the skeptical influence of the Renaissance, wrote a treatise vigorously attacking the belief in another life. This negative attitude was not necessarily contrary to older Jewish doctrine; but the Synagogue compelled him to retract publicly, lest it should incur the disfavor of a community that had welcomed them generously, but would be unappeasably hostile to any heresy striking so sharply at what was considered the very essence of Christianity. The formula of retraction and penance required the proud author to lie down athwart the threshold of the synagogue while the members of the congregation walked over his body. Humiliated beyond sufferance, Uriel went home, wrote a fierce denunciation of his persecutors, and shot himself.[ 229] This was in 1647. At that time Baruch Spinoza, “the greatest Jew of modern times,”[ 230] and the greatest of modern philosophers, was a lad of fifteen, the favorite student of the synagogue.

[229] Gutzkow has turned this story into a drama which still finds place in European repertoires.
[230] Renan, Mare Aurele; Paris, Calmann-Levy: p. 65.

 

This intrigues me, too. I'm a little fascinated by the scenes the WT has put out about halls being invaded and home studies broken up, too. Now- will the WT be around when it all happens? Not sure. Thinking maybe no. But either way, I believe that faith in the Bible will be persecuted at some point. So those videos make me anxious anyway.

And for sure some witnesses are experiencing exile right now. And all Christians in China, right? I do wonder what our "safe place" will be, but I also believe Jehovah will make it known to us if we're in prayer with him.

T, that was very interesting info, especially in light of this past weekend where in the US a Jewish synagogue was attacked and 11 killed. Let's hope this is not a vision of things to come.

 

I do know that the Bible is persecuted now, I'm thinking more on a global scale where it may not be tolerated anywhere at all.

 

That seems to be the case. Jesus said: "and you will be hated by all the nations on account of my name." Matthew 24:9

That means that so called Christian nations will also turn against faith in Jesus. A great apostacy will accomplish that. And that will be introduced by the man of sin. I think it is Donald Trump. He will soon turn on Christians and require that a future image of the beast will be worshipped. We have already seem how angry he is when people don't want to worship the flag.

Revelation 12:6 talks about God's woman that will flee to a place that God has prepared for her in a wilderness. And there "she" will be in safety away from Satan for 1260 days. Some time after that the final attack of Gog happens, but God's people there are then miraculously protected and Gog destroyed together with his armies.

Unfortunately not all of God's people will manage to escape with God's woman, God's Christian people, because Revelation 12:17 talks about a 'remaining of woman's seed' that will face persecution.

Ezekiel 38 apparently speaks about the same when it speaks about God's people that will flee from the 'sword'. And then they will enjoy peace on a open rural country.
Ezekiel 38:8
"In the final part of the years you will invade the land whose people have been restored from the ravages of the sword, collected together out of many peoples...."

And the big question is where is that safe place? I earnestly begged Jehovah God to let me understand this, because we are so near to this event. And I really wanted to know and help others to take advantage of this opportunity to flee instead of staying and facing persecution all the way down to the end.

So as soon as I had prayed about it things cleared up for me quickly. Before that I had looked for the answer for almost 10 years.

Jehovah God lead me to look at the geographical signs in Revelation12 and Ezekiel 38 and those point to Far North Queensland in Australia. That is a very sparely populated area. There the land is used for grazing. The ranches are called cattle stations. And they are huge. One such private property can be 100x50 kilometers big. And they have waterpoints installed across the landscape for the cattle.
The WT society would need to buy a such property and then hunderds of thousands of witnesses could stay there.
Because the GB has not picked up the idea, I wrote to all the board members of the Watchtower corporation and told them that this they should do.
So when the persecution begins, then they will have no option than to implement this.

The geographical signs in Ezekiel and Revelation are the following:

Ezekiel38:10 (AKJV)Thus saith the Lord God; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: 11 and thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, 12 to take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that aregathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. 13 Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?

Revelation12:6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God and where they would feed her for 1,260 days.+
14 But the two wings of the great eagle+ were given to the woman, so that she might fly into the wilderness to her place
15 And the serpent spewed out water like a river from its mouth after the woman, to cause her to be drowned by the river.

So the place should be a wilderness,
And it should be accesible mainly by flight in a plane, because the woman is given wings.
It should be a place with much cattle, silver and gold
It should be a place that could be flooded, because Satan will try to drown her with a river of water.
And it should be a place that was inhabited in the past, but had become desolate.

All these characteristics fit Far North Queensland, the area between Croydon and Georgetown.
Today there are these huge cattle stations, and one hundred years ago during the gold rush there lived about 20 000 people. Now in that area there live less than 1000 people. So that place had gold. And in a gold mine you find together with gold silver. There are abandoned gold mines with silver and gold still in them.
And those places are quite flat and could potentialy be flooded.
And the only sensible way to get there is by plan, the woman gets two great eagle wings.

So we can see that the geographical signs in Revelation12 and Ezekiel 38 fit that place. And that part is called Queensland. That also fit the theme, the "woman" of God. She is sort of queen, because Revelation 12 depicts her with a crown of 12 stars.