Godmindbody Part 3, Chapter 8: The Olivet Discourse

The Resurrection

Godmindbody: The Bible, Prophecy, Miracles and TMS Healing Explained

By Robert Ensor

Copyright © 2025 Robert Ensor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.The author’s moral rights have been asserted. First Published September 2025.

All Bible quotations, unless otherwise stated or referenced, are taken from the online World English Bible, which is in the public domain. It is available at the following link: https://ebible.org/eng-web/index.htm. English language Bibles are translated from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. I am no linguist, and I don’t know any linguists, so I have had to rely on others’ translations and romanizations of the Hebrew and Greek texts. Occasionally, I have examined the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek of the Bible, zeroing in on key words where the received English translation is debatable or misses the full meaning of the original.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or a therapist – merely a concerned layperson (!) – and nothing in this book should be considered medical advice. Nor should it be considered a substitute for diagnoses, prescriptions and treatments from qualified doctors. If you have symptoms, I recommend that you see a doctor to rule out anything serious and get proper care.

The full title is available free from this website. Or you can buy it from amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQ6MNZ2N. For part 1, see the link: https://www.robertensor.com/post/godmindbody-a-book-about-tms-and-christianity-part-1

For the entire book see the pdf below:

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Chapter 8: The Olivet Discourse

The Olivet Discourse is Jesus’ prophecy made on the Mount of Olives. Slightly different but substantially similar versions are recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Matthew’s account is the most detailed, though reference will also be made to Luke’s and Mark’s. The background to the Olivet Discourse came following Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey to fulfil the prophecy of Zechariah (9:9), when he was being challenged by the Pharisees and scribes, who tried to get him to incriminate himself. Needless to say, it didn’t work; you cannot outwit God. Jesus accused the Pharisees of being hypocrites, who say one thing and do another (Matthew 23:9). Jesus foretold that Jerusalem would kill and persecute prophets, wise men and scribes (Matthew 23:34).

‘“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together even as a hen gathers chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate.’ (Matthew 23:37–38). This prophecy of Jerusalem’s desolation came to pass with the Roman Sack of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the increased dispersion of the Jewish people after that date. ‘For I tell you, you will not see me from now until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”’ (Matthew 23:39). Jesus meant that he won’t return to Jerusalem until the Jerusalemites have recognised him as the Messiah, which goes some way toward explaining why Jerusalem features so prominently in End Times prophecy.

The prelude to the Olivet Discourse came when Jesus and his disciples were looking at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus said, ‘most certainly I tell you there will not be left one stone on another, that will not be thrown down’ (Matthew 24:2), clearly foretelling the destruction of the temple by the Romans 40 or so years later. Then Christ proceeded to the top of the Mount of Olives, where the disciples said, ‘Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?’ (Matthew 24:3). The question suggests that the disciples associated the aforementioned destruction of the temple with the End Times, doubtless because of Daniel’s prophecies.

The first thing Jesus said by way of reply to the disciples’ questions was, ‘“be careful that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying, ‘I am the Christ’ and will lead many astray.’ (Matthew 24:4). This danger of going astray may be taken to imply that the next, Roman destruction of the temple Jesus had just spoken of, would not signal the end. And it didn’t, because 1955 years later, Jesus has not yet returned. Christ’s answer to the disciples’ questions follows a dual track, one outlining events around the end of the Second Temple, and the other speaking of the end of the age, because unbeknownst to the disciples, two separate questions were asked about two separate eras. Those two narratives have common features, as the events of the Roman-Jewish War were typological of the tribulation. The Lord went on to prophesy ‘wars and rumours of wars…and there will be famines, plagues and earthquakes in various places.’ (Matthew 24:6) ‘But all these things are the beginnings of birth pains.’ (Matthew 24:8). In other words, the wars, earthquakes, plagues and famines are not the end. In a broad sense, they have occurred throughout the past circa 2,000 years of the church age, since there are almost always wars, famines and disasters going on somewhere in the world. More specifically, these catastrophes signal the beginning of the end, with the wars corresponding to the little horn of Daniel who conquers three other horns (Daniel 7:8) and John’s preliminary tribulations; the seal judgements include war, famine and earthquakes (Revelation 6).

‘Then they will deliver you up to oppression and kill you.’ (Matthew 24:9). The version in Luke has it: ‘You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death.’ (Luke 21:16). This verse is striking, not only as a prophesy of the martyrdom of most of the apostles around the time of the end of the Second Temple, but because it is also spoken in the context of the End Times, implying that at least some of the disciples would be there for the actual end of days, since the apostles were the ones being directly addressed (although Jesus always had a broader, later readership in mind).

In the next verses of his discourse, Jesus told how many will hate one another and inform on one another (Matthew 24:9–10). Clearly, then, Christ was talking about the persecution of the saints mentioned by Daniel (7:25), since he was speaking to the original saints. ‘Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.’ (Matthew 24:12). Indeed, this moral rot is already highly evident in today’s society, but will worsen under conditions of emergency and oppression. If people persecute each other in the green tree, imagine what they will do in the dry (Luke 23:31) …

‘Many false prophets will lead many astray’ (Matthew 24:11). Again, Christ kept reiterating that the tribulation will be a period in which deception is rife, suggesting that the False Prophet of Revelation is merely the most prominent in a slew of false spiritual teachers. Paul echoed this sentiment, warning that unbelievers will be given a very strong delusion (2 Thessalonians 2:11). This verse about false prophets is also somewhat applicable to the end of the Second Temple era; during the Roman Siege of Jerusalem, there were false prophets, including one individual who encouraged people to gather on the Temple Mount to await help from God, that was not forthcoming.[i]

‘But he who endures to the end will be saved.’ (Matthew 24:13). This verse is another crucial piece of evidence against the pre-tribulation rapture, because Jesus stated that it is those who endure suffering, who endure the tribulation, including the aforementioned persecutions and false prophets, who will be saved. If the pre-tribulation rapture were to occur, then there would be no need for Jesus’ followers to endure to the very end, since they would be taken out of the world before anything really bad happened that would require endurance to see out.

Next came one of Jesus’ already proven prophecies, namely, that the gospel would be preached to all the nations. This has only been fulfilled relatively recently. After that, he said, ‘the end will come’ (Matthew 24:14). The interval between advents is for the purpose of giving time for the spread of the gospel and for people to be saved.

The most direct reference to the Roman siege and Sack of Jerusalem in all three gospel versions of the Olivet Discourse is to be found in Luke 21:20: ‘But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand. Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains.’ Flavius Josephus, who was at the siege, wrote that those who tried to bring their wealth with them were killed (Roman soldiers gutted the Jerusalemites to find coins in their entrails), and that the Christian community of Jerusalem fled the city early enough to escape the sack,[ii] doubtless because of Jesus’ words. This historical fact undermines the popular scholarly notion that since they describe it, the gospels must have been written after the burning of the temple in AD 70, because the Christians in Jerusalem acted on advice contained in the Olivet Discourse before the sack, specifically the version in Luke. However, that does not mean that only Luke was writing about the Roman-Jewish siege, and the other synoptic gospel authors weren’t. All three synoptic versions of the Olivet Discourse are primarily about eschatological events, and secondarily about the Roman-Jewish war, which provides a model for later occurrences. Elsewhere in Scripture, Jerusalem is prophesied or implied to be surrounded by armies again in the End Times: by the Antichrist’s army (Joel 3:9–12; Zechariah 14); and then by Jesus’ army when he comes to relieve the Holy City (Zechariah 14). Proof that Luke had End Times Jerusalem (and not merely AD 70 Jerusalem) in view can be found in the verse ‘Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.’ (Luke 21:24). The times of the Gentiles, when Gentile countries are great powers in the world, are not yet fulfilled, nor were they fulfilled by AD 70, as the Gentile-dominated Roman empire alone had centuries left to run at that date.

Jesus warned, ‘when therefore you see the abomination of desolation spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those in Judea flee to the mountains.’ (Matthew 24:15). Firstly, this establishes that the abomination, unlike the disasters that come earlier, is the true signal that the end really is nigh. Note that Jesus said, ‘standing’, implying that it is a blasphemous man (the Antichrist) masquerading as God and possibly a statue. The former interpretation is corroborated by Paul, who wrote that the ‘son of perdition’ will sit in the temple of God pretending to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). In favour of also recognising the statue interpretation, John wrote about people worshipping the ‘image of the beast’ (Revelation 13:15). The original Greek word eikon, used in Revelation 13:15, can mean a ‘material image’, a statue.[iii] The temple was historically desolated in the Roman-Jewish war, being burned down during the Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, and the emperor’s son Titus entered the Holy of Holies while the structure was on fire. Ergo, he was standing in the holy place, where he ‘ought not’ (Mark 13:14) to stand,[iv] and this is another dual prophecy of type and antitype. When God speaks, he likes to achieve more than one objective with each phrase; it’s more efficient that way, and it’s a code only those he has given understanding can crack. The first fulfilment establishes that the prophecy is true and increases confidence amongst believers and waverers that the primary End Times component will also come to pass.

Pretribulation rapturists believe that Jesus was warning the Jewish people about the abomination, because Christians will have already been raptured by then. But the apostles Jesus spoke to were the original Christians, in addition to being Jewish, and the fact is, he said the abomination is the signal to watch out for, implying that his audience, most of whom turned out to be New-Testament reading Christians (a fact he was aware of in advance), would still be on earth at that time.

Jesus advised ‘those who are in Judea’ to ‘flee to the mountains’ (Matthew 24:16), when they see that abomination, for ‘there will be great suffering, such as has not been seen from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.’ (Matthew 24:21). Again, the Sack of Jerusalem in AD 70 was absolutely horrific. The Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, who was present during the sack, wrote of the event: ‘Neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world.’[v] The Roman-Jewish war then, was arguably unprecedented for its time. That being said, in subsequent centuries the world has seen suffering on a larger scale, including the Holocaust and the Second World War. Jesus here, as he did through John in the Revelation, was talking about destruction of a breadth and intensity we have not yet seen, another indicator that the End Times prophecies foreshadowed by the Roman-Jewish War remain as yet unfulfilled, and that the Holy Land, as per usual, is at the centre of prophecy. The part about fleeing to the mountains is a prophecy of the Jewish remnant who will flee to a place of refuge in the Mount Seir region of Jordan after witnessing the abomination, written of in numerous Old Testament prophecies (Micah 2:12; Isaiah 63:1–2).

The remnant in Petra, Jordan, will have a copy of this very book, along with the Bible. Those of you who are reading this book in Petra, let the fulfilment of this prediction assure you that the words of this book are true and inspired by God.

Jesus proceeded: ‘“Then if any man tells you, ‘behold, here is the Christ!’, or, ‘There!’ don’t believe it.’ (Matthew 24:23). These false Christs and false prophets will perform ‘great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, the chosen ones.’ (Matthew 24:24). The most prominent false Christ (or False Messiah) and False Prophet will be the beast from the sea and the beast from the earth (Revelation 13). “If therefore they tell you, ‘Behold, he is in the wilderness,’ don’t go out’ (Matthew 24:26). It is implied that these false Christs will be a snare before the actual return of Jesus and that there will be false reports of Jesus’ coming, intended to lure people outside prematurely, at a time of continued danger from the Antichrist and/or the bowl judgements. ‘For as the lightning flashes from the east, and is seen even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. For wherever the carcass is, that is where the vultures gather together.’ (Matthew 24:26).

Jesus suggested by his lightning metaphor that his return will be visible in the sky from anywhere on the earth or in the region because it is associated with the great event in the heavens.

In some Bibles, the Greek word ‘aetoi’ is translated as ‘vultures’. In others, the word chosen is ‘eagles’, which may be more accurate.[vi] In alchemy, the eagle is a symbol of enlightenment. It is also a symbol of John the Apostle, who wrote the Revelation. Carcass is a translation of a Greek word ptôma meaning a corpse or a fallen body, which fits the contextual birds of prey that are drawn to it.[vii] By speaking of eagles or vultures, Jesus was referencing Isaiah 34:16, in the context of the eschatological desolation of Edom by divine judgement: ‘Yes, the kites will be gathered there, every one with her mate.’

An extract from the Olivet Discourse in the Gospel of Luke 17:30–37 sheds further light on the meaning of this vulture/kite/eagle imagery: ‘It will be the same in the day that the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, he who will be on the housetop and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away. Let him who is in the field likewise not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever seeks to save his life, loses it, and whoever loses his life preserves it. I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. One will be taken and the other will be left.” They answered, asking him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the body is, there the vultures will be gathered together.”’

Let’s do some unpacking. First of all, the day the Son of Man is revealed means the day Jesus actually reappears and is therefore revealed to the world, which constitutes further evidence that ‘in that day’ and the related construction ‘the day of the Lord’ can mean the actual 24-hour period in which Jesus visibly arrives. The implication of the imperative to not hesitate and to ‘remember Lot’s wife’ (who turned back to watch as Sodom was destroyed, and was transformed into a pillar of salt) is that at the moment Jesus appears, those who shrink from him in fear, unwilling to leave behind their worldly possessions, will miss their chance at immortality and possibly be at risk of getting caught in his wrath – here meaning the destruction wrought as part of his devastating attacks on the Antichrist’s forces – whereas those who are saved and ready to be taken, or at least want to be raptured, will be transformed and ascend to meet the Lord in the air. The latter will thereby lose their old ‘lives’ in mortal bodies, exchanging them for new lives in eternal bodies, whereas the former will seek to save their flesh, and thereby miss an opportunity for being given an immortal body. If the man on the roof is not to go down, and Jesus made it plain that he ought not to at that hour, where else should he go – but up? (It is not necessary, safe or recommended to go off the edge of the roof). The rapture is the final test of the elect. This is one reason why Jesus said of the man unwilling to leave it all behind then and there to follow him, ‘“No one, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for God’s kingdom.”’ (Luke 9:62). So if you are saved and belong to the ranks of the elect, when you hear the trumpet, and see the Lord coming with the clouds, do not look back, do not resist, do not hesitate, for ‘It is I. Don’t be afraid.’ (Matthew 14:27).

The disciples’ subsequent question (Luke 17:37) means, ‘where exactly will these people who are taken be taken?’ Jesus’ answer, ‘where the body is, there the vultures will be gathered together’ has two meanings. The vultures, which can also be translated ‘eagles’, and the ‘kites’ of Isaiah, are all different words for the saved Christians who will be gathered together in the air, flying like birds ‘from the four winds of heaven’ (Matthew 24:31) to be with Jesus who will be ‘the fallen body’ or ‘body’ they will rally around, in that he will manifest and descend in his glorified body at Bozrah. He must have descended to or near ground level in Isaiah 63, in order to be covered in others’ blood. The battlefield imagery of these Olivet passages, the general desolation of Edom in Isaiah 34, and the mentions of vultures and other birds of prey, implies that ‘the body’ is in another sense a corpse or carcass, as it is sometimes translated. This corpse represents the corpses, plural, of the enemies of God that Jesus will have slain on that day, with the implication that they will already be dead by the time the elect have flown there. Again, the Messiah is described as being covered in blood, having ‘trodden’ his enemies single-handed in Edom (Isaiah 63:3), for he says: ‘no one was with me’.

‘But immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken; then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. 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. He will send out his angels with a sound of the trumpet, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.’ (Matthew 24:29–31). We must be careful here. This verse is one of the primary textual evidences of the rapture. Indeed, that is literally what Jesus said would happen; the chosen ones will be gathered together from one end of the sky to the other. This gathering in the sky is the same event as the eagles/kites/vultures gathering around the body mentioned earlier in the discourse.

Post-tribulation dispensationalism is a good fit for the above verses, because Jesus prefaced his discussion of the Son of Man’s appearance by saying it will come ‘immediately after the suffering of those days’; that is, after the time of earthquakes, wars, famines, plagues, the abomination of desolation and false prophets mentioned earlier in the discourse, which together constitute the bulk of the tribulation period. The phrase ‘four winds’ is used in Zechariah in the context of the diasporic spreading of God’s people abroad, and their return to Jerusalem after the arrival of the Messiah (Zechariah 2:6). The rapture is a worldwide regathering in the air, because the elect who participate in it are drawn from the 12 tribes of Israel (Revelation 7), and the tribes have been spread across the world for centuries. There is a possible secondary meaning of ‘four winds’ for non-elect survivors, who must travel to meet the Lord in Jerusalem by more conventional means. These are the ones who receive Gentile assistance in Isaiah 49:22. The Day of the Lord is also described as a day of ‘clouds and thick darkness’ in Zephaniah 1:15–16, and as a unique day, with no distinction between day and night, until the evening, when there will be light. The simplest way to darken the sun, moon and stars is by covering them with thick cloud, which will part come the evening. The fact the tribes of the earth will mourn when they see Jesus coming is a reference to the tribes of Israel mourning the death of the Messiah on the cross, when they realise that Jesus was the Messiah, as detailed in Zechariah 12:10. Moreover, the fact Jesus has not yet come with the clouds proves that the Preterists are wrong about the Olivet Discourse solely pertaining to the Roman-Jewish war.

The part of the Olivet Discourse about the sounding of the trumpet being associated with Jesus’ appearance with the clouds is corroborated by Paul’s rapture verses in 1 Corinthians 15:51–52: ‘we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.’ In 1 Thessalonians 4:16–18, Paul wrote: ‘For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with God’s trumpet.’ In Revelation chapters 8 through 11, there are trumpet judgements, various calamities on earth during the tribulation era signalled and precipitated by angelic trumpets sounding in heaven. Isaiah (27:13) wrote in the context of the Messiah’s threshing and the gathering of the children of Israel: ‘it will happen in that day that a great trumpet will be blown; and those who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt, shall come; and they will worship Yahweh in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.’ Clearly, therefore, the sounding of the trumpet is associated with the rapture and the return of Jesus, occurring on the same 24-hour day as the Second Coming, just as the trumpet was heard at the moment Yahweh manifested on Sinai. The coming of the Son of Man with the clouds in Matthew 24 is exactly what it sounds like: the actual coming of Christ, not a seven-year period, as pre-tribulation rapturists would have you believe. The trumpet signals the beginning of that process and the rapture.

The parable of the fig tree follows, the gist of which was summarised by Christ: ‘when you see all these things, know that he is near, even at the doors.’ (Matthew 24:33). Here Jesus disclosed the purpose of End Times prophecy, including the countdowns in Daniel: to let us know whether or not the end is indeed nigh, approximately where we are in the timeline, and how much longer we have to wait until the tribulations are over. Marathon runners wear watches to give them a sense of progress that motivates them to keep going until the end.

‘This generation shall not pass until all these things are accomplished.’ (Matthew 24:34). This verse means that the generation of Jerusalemites who were there at the time of the speech would not pass until the Holy City was sacked by Rome in 70 AD. It also means that the generation that sees the abomination will be the same generation that is there for the Second Coming, since the two events are only separated by about 3.5 years (Daniel 9:27). In another sense, indeed the primary sense, ‘generation’ means the current human race in our present age, that has existed since the fall, that existed in the 1^st century AD and still exists today. The passing of the current type of human, is the rapture of the elect, who become glorified like Christ, the first and foremost of the new breed of divine humans. Although even mortals will live much longer, happier lives in the millennium, and thus may be said to constitute a new generation of humanity, mortality will not completely pass away until after the Last Judgement (Revelation 21:4).

‘But no one knows of that day or hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my father only.’ (Matthew 24:36). This means we won’t know the exact time of Christ’s reappearance, down to the literal 24-hour day or the hour, but we can form a rough estimate after the covenant with many and the abomination of desolation, based on the prophecies of Daniel, Jesus and John. Of course, people who do not know or believe in End Times prophecy will be more surprised than those who do.

Jesus went on to compare the time before the Second Coming to the days before the flood, when people were eating and getting married, until they were caught unawares by a sudden catastrophe (Matthew 24:38–39). ‘Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Watch therefore, for you don’t know in what hour your Lord comes.’ (Matthew 24:41). Many being ‘taken’ could be read as implying that many will perish in the tribulations or as a hint that some will be raptured by the Lord and some will be left. Pretribulation rapturists adopt the latter interpretation, pointing to the apparent peace and security in Jesus’ description of conditions prior to the rapture. People generally don’t get married and eat complacently in a time of emergency, after all. This is by far the most persuasive part of their argument. In light of the subsequent parable about waiting to be admitted to the marriage feast, with some being left outside (Matthew 25:1–13), the foregoing verse about gathering together the chosen in the sky when the Son of Man comes, and the equivalent passage in Luke’s Olivet Discourse quoted above (Luke 17:37), I too am left to conclude that Jesus was talking about the rapture on the day of his coming when he spoke of some being taken and some left. But these verses (Matthew 24:40–41) contrast starkly with the earlier description of the darkness of the Day of the Lord, and the desperate state of the world at that juncture. Again, pre-tribulation dispensationalists explain the apparent peacefulness and prosperity of the people who are snatched up or left by stating that Jesus was talking about the period before the tribulation begins, not the exact ‘day and hour’. But this interpretation requires a non-literal, nonlinear reading.

There are alternatives to the pre-tribulation explanation. In Revelation, there’s a pretty large gap of several years between the trumpet judgements and the bowl judgements, during which saints are persecuted by the Antichrist. Those who take the mark of the beast (Revelation 13:6) and worship the Antichrist (Revelation 13:8) may well have a relatively easy time, marrying and feasting in that ‘lull’ between divine punishments. A few years would be enough time for the world to be at least beginning to recover from earthquakes, famines, wars and other disasters. While the rapture will be a global event involving all the 144,000 elect, and the natural disasters are bound to have a global impact, even if they are worse in some places than others, the persecution of saints and the Antichrist’s empire will probably not be strictly worldwide. They will likely be focused on the Middle East; therefore, the one taken and the one left could both have rejected the Antichrist, which would explain why they are working together or (in Luke 17:34) sleeping together, but only one of the two will be chosen to participate in the rapture, because only one of the two will be eklektoi. This is my favoured explanation.

‘But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief is coming, he would have watched, and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, also be ready, for in an hour you don’t expect, the Son of Man is coming.’ (Matthew 24:43). Since his Second Coming is often likened to ‘a thief in the night’, the master of the house (earth) at that time, the one who is robbed by the thief, is the Antichrist. The thief is snatching his chosen ones away from the Antichrist. This is reinforced by the Parable of the Strong Man in Matthew 12:29 and another message from Christ that he will come like a thief, towards the end of Revelation’s (16:15) narrative. The exact time of the Second Coming cannot be disclosed for the same reason the Allies didn’t let the Germans know the exact date and locations of the D-day landings; to catch them by surprise.

‘“Who then is that faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them food in their due season? Blessed is that servant whom his lord finds doing so when he comes. Most certainly I tell you that he will set that servant over all he has. But if that evil servant should say in his heart, ‘My lord is delaying his coming’, and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with the drunkards, the lord of that servant will come in a day he doesn’t expect and in an hour when he doesn’t know it, and will cut him in pieces and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.’ (Matthew 24:45–51). This means that those saved Christians who keep serving the Lord until his return shall be rewarded with power and authority when he appears on earth again, but those evil servants who do not persevere and turn to sin amidst the iniquity of the end days will be surprised by his coming and will not pass judgement. The idea of the rule of the saints was also found in Daniel (7:27) and is elaborated upon by John in the Revelation (20). The evil servants in this sense are nominal Christians, not sinners or unbelievers in general, because they are servants of God, albeit bad ones, and they must have pretended to holiness in order to be given a place among the hypocrites, since hypocrites by definition act better than they are. In this reading, the household is the Church, the collective body of Christians; in another sense, it is the entire earth.

But how are the good Christians going to rule, when they’ve been caught up in the sky with Christ? Well, just as Christ ascended and will descend to reign, so the elect in Christ will follow suit. The rapture, involving an ascent to the sky, is a mechanism for gathering the elect to participate in the Campaign of Armageddon and help Christ establish his kingdom in the Middle East. On an esoteric level, the house of the master is the body of the faithful, and the servant is the soul, that must do good works and welcome Christ (the master) in to be saved.

Then there is the parable of the ten virgins, five of them wise, five ‘foolish’, all of whom were waiting for the bridegroom (Matthew 25:1–13). The wise virgins had brought oil to keep their lamps burning, but the foolish virgins did not bring any oil, and went to buy some. While the foolish virgins were absent, the bridegroom appeared and let the wise virgins into the wedding feast, while the foolish ones missed their opportunity and were excluded. The bridegroom is obviously Jesus (John 3:29), specifically in the context of his Second Coming. The key to this parable is that the ‘oil’ in the lamp is the Spirit of God with which the Messiah and all saved Christians are anointed, that enables the lamp (the soul or mind) to shine, and illuminate the darkness, so that they can clearly perceive the truth. This also explains the symbolic significance of the oil-burning lamp in the tabernacle, and the importance of keeping it burning continually (Exodus 27:20). The fact the parable of the virgins takes place at night, indicates that Jesus will return during a time of darkness, which is to say, a period of suffering, strife and ignorance, as well as a literally dark, cloudy day. All ten virgins had oil in their lamps, or they would never have burned brightly, and desired to greet the bridegroom, meaning that they were all saved Christians with the Spirit of God in them at the beginning of the parable. But the wise virgins kept their lamps burning with oil (spirit) until the bridegroom arrived, whereas the foolish ran out of oil; they lost the Spirit of God before Christ came, because they were unprepared for the time preceding his coming: the Great Tribulation. All who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture risk being unprepared in this way. The above interpretation is reinforced by the aforementioned parable, about the man who went to a far country and entrusted his servants with talents, as the master is Christ, his servants are Christians, and the talents he gave them are in one sense the spirit – in another, wisdom – which will be taken away from the one who does not use it profitably.

The modern equivalent of the Matthew 25 parables would be something like, ‘don’t be caught goofing off on your phone when the boss comes back to the office.’ For this reason, it is better to start badly and end well than to start well and end poorly, an idea that goes back to Ezekiel 18:21–24 and was further illustrated by the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15).

More light is shed on the symbolism of the wedding feast in Matthew 22:1­–14. In this parable, the Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a king, who threw a wedding feast for his son, and sent out invitations via his servants. Those who were invited did not come: some were too preoccupied with worldly cares; others took the servants and murdered them. ‘When the king heard that, he was angry, and sent his armies, destroyed those murderers and burned their city.’ (Matthew 22:7). Then the king sent his servants to the highways to invite others to the wedding feast, and the feast was full of guests. But when the king came into the feast and saw that a guest did not have wedding clothes on, this man was thrown into outer darkness. The parable ends with, ‘for many are called, but few are chosen.”’ (Matthew 22:14).

The king is the Father, the king’s son is Jesus and his bride is Israel/the Church, who is not described as a distinct figure because they are also his guests. The servants are apostles and Christian evangelists in general. But the salient point here is that the man without wedding clothes was one who was not clothed in the Spirit of God, so did not ‘put on’ the immortal body (1 Corinthians 15:33) and was barred from the Kingdom of God for that reason. ‘For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.’ (1 Corinthians 5:4). The tent of burdensome groaning is the mortal body, the state of nakedness is the condition of being in such a body, and the clothes are the glorified bodies of the rapture and the resurrection, because at the time of writing, the Spirit of God was in Paul but he awaited the rapture, and he wrote that he was in the tent.

Next, Jesus foretold that when he comes in his glory he will judge ‘all the nations’ on the throne of glory and separate the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31). There are two groups included under the heading, ‘my sheep’. The Jewish people are frequently called Yahweh’s sheep in Scripture (e.g. Micah 2:12; Psalm 23:1). But Jesus also said that sheep from another fold (John 10:16) would follow him as the good shepherd. These are saved Gentile Christians. In the context of this judgement, the sheep are those who served Jesus, by helping his ‘brothers’ (Matthew 25:40). Jesus is the Son of God, and, in a sense, all saved Christians are also ‘children of God’ (1 John 3:2) with some of his blood, and thereby his younger brothers and sisters. They will be admitted to the kingdom. The goats, who did not help his brothers/sheep, will be condemned to ‘eternal fire’ (Matthew 25:41), because whatever they did to ‘the least of one of these my brothers, you did it to me.’’ (Matthew 25:40). This is usually read as those who were good and helped others will be saved, and those who did not help will be punished, but may be more accurately interpreted as those who helped or denied Christ’s people, whom he was living within (whether they be Jewish or Gentile), during their hour of need, will be saved or condemned accordingly. The reason why the eschatological Jews and Christians would be in such dire need that they would be naked, in prison, and/or hungry (Matthew 25:35–36), can be explained by the Antichrist’s reign of terror against all who refuse to worship him and because of the global catastrophes of the tribulation. Indeed, there will be many Jewish refugees when the Antichrist takes Jerusalem in order to commit the abomination, and it seems from Joel chapter 3 that the surrounding nations in particular will be judged by how they treated these refugees and the captives taken by the Antichrist. Indeed, the Valley of Jehoshaphat judgement in Joel is the same as the sheep and goats judgement of Matthew 25, which will occur shortly after the Second Coming, to determine who is to enter the millennial kingdom.

Upon returning to earth, the Messiah is described as judging and destroying the little horn and the Antichrist along with his prominent minions in Daniel 1 and Revelation 19, so the sheep and the goats is in one sense a description of that first ‘throne(s)’ judgement. But in Revelation 20 there is a thousand-year reign of Christ and the saints on earth before another battle at Armageddon and a Last Judgement. Indeed, the title The Last judgement distinguishes that event from an earlier judgement or judgements. The sheep and the goats may also be a description of the Last Judgement, since the goats are committed to ‘eternal fire’ (Matthew 25:41) and ‘eternal punishment’ (Matthew 25:46); only the Antichrist and False Prophet are described as being cast into the lake of fire (an eternal punishment insofar as they are thereafter destroyed without any prospect of return) in the first throne judgement of Revelation 19:20, while ‘the rest were killed’ and the unsaved in Hades are committed to the lake of fire in the second resurrection, after the thousand years (Revelation 20:12–13). Indeed, the sheep and goats judgement may be our most detailed description of the Last Judgement (which will undoubtedly share some features with the previous throne judgement); through the power of dual prophecy, Jesus could have been skipping ahead a thousand years from the first throne judgement to foretell multiple events in a single story, as he had been doing throughout the discourse.

 Read the next chapter: https://www.robertensor.com/post/godmindbody-part-3-chapter-9-1-and-2-thessalonians

[i] Montefiore, Simon Sebag. 2012. Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East. Wiedenfeld & Nicolson.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/eikon#:~:text=and%20by%20the%20signs%20he,the%20beast%20to%20be%20killed.

[iv] Only the high priest was permitted entry to the Holy of Holies once a year (Leviticus 16:2;Hebrews 9:7).

[v] Josephus Flavius. Wars of the Jews.

[vi] Broussard, Carlo. 2022. You Want To Be Left Behind. Catholic.com. Link: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/you-want-to-be-left-behind

[vii] https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/ptoma