You are Cestius Gallus, and have been given the job of stopping the Jewish rebellion. But you don’t have enough soldiers to take the Temple Mount, a crucial part of Jerusalem. Do you…

1.       Send a small group off to get reinforcements. Keep the rest of the army near Jerusalem, defending itself

2.       Just keep fighting and hope for the best

3.       Withdraw completely and take the whole army away until reinforcements arrive

Gallus chose option 3. But his army was followed by a bunch of Jewish rebels who ambushed them and completely wiped Gallus’ army out. This meant that there was a short period where Jerusalem was not under attack. This gave chance for Christians to escape Jerusalem.

Emperor Nero sends Vespasian to crush the Jewish rebellion once and for all. You can pretend to be him now… you take many of the towns and villages easily, but before you get to Jerusalem you hear that Emperor Nero is dead. Do you…

1.       Keep fighting anyway.

2.       Go back to Rome and try to become emperor yourself

3.       Stop bothering to fight now that your boss is dead. Take a holiday.

Vespasian chose to return to Rome (option 2), and he did become emperor. This lead to another break in the fighting, and another chance for Christians in Jerusalem to escape. Vespasian’s son Titus lead the army that eventually took Jerusalem, leading to great suffering for the people before the city finally fell.

Jesus had warned his followers that when they saw armies near Jerusalem, they should flee away to the mountains. God made sure that the Christians had chance to do exactly that.