There's far, far, far too much scripture that you guys have to ignore make these events something of the past...
Zec 14:1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
Didn't happen...
Zec 14:2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
Didn't happen...
Zec 14:3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
Didn't happen...
Zec 14:4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
Didn't happen...
Zec 14:5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
Definately did not happen...
Zec 14:6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
Zec 14:7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
Zec 14:8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
Did not happen...
Zec 14:9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
Didn't happen...
Zec 14:10 All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin's gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king's winepresses. Zec 14:11 And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.
Definately did no happen, yet...
Zec 14:12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
Nope...Not yet...
Zec 14:13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.
Didn't happen...
Zec 14:14 And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in great abundance.
Never happened...
Zec 14:15 And so shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in these tents, as this plague.
Nope...
Zec 14:16 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
Definitely has not happened...But it will...
This is just a few verses...There are hundreds if not thousands of them that show Jesus did not come back the 2nd time...
"The Bridegroom didn't show up in 70 A.D...."
How do you know this? Uninformed Speculation?
Nope...Reading and believing the scriptures...
The tradition understanding of these passages has always been that the LORD would come in power to do away with the physical Temple, judge the Jews who rejected the Messiah and crucified Him, and empower the spread of the Gospel to the entire world. The "gathering of the elect" has clearly been happening "from one end of heaven to the other" now for thousands of years.
Spreading the Gospel to the entire world is not heaven...Gathering the elect from the four corners of heaven is not turning people to Jesus on the earth...
Like I said, you guys are forced to run various scriptures all together that makes a complete mess out of the scriptures...
We spread the Gospel on the earth...The elect in heaven are not people on the earth...Things that are different are not the same...
The gathering of the elect from heaven will happen in one day...NOT thousands of years...
Interpreting these passages as a singular future event completely ignores the language steeped in Old Testament history.
Naw, you're making stuff up...
The "coming on the clouds" doesn't mean literal clouds because it says that "all of the tribes of the earth... will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory". Clearly that can't mean the secret Rapture,
Of course it's not the Rapture...
for it is impossible for all people to physically see anyone coming on the clouds, for one because the earth is round, its dark on half the planet, the clouds themselves would obscure seeing someone, the distance above would make the person too small to see, and for the next ten days Jerusalem's WX forecast is expected to be clear with no clouds.
Ever hear of a TV???
But actually in Revelation we have a passage that tells us that the generation of people He was talking to would indeed see Him in His glory ushering in the Kingdom and ending the Temple system. For some strange reason you posted it, but didn't even bother to read it. For if you did, you couldn't possibly come to the conclusion you did.
Well of course I could...I was showing you that had Jesus shown up in 70 A.D., it wouldn't have been a secret...The Disciples would have written about it...Josephus would have written about it...
And shortly thereafter, ALL people of the nations of the earth are required to travel to Jerusalem to worship the King, on his throne, in Jerusalem...
Rev 1:7 "Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him.
The same language as our LORD used on the mount of Olives, that He would come in the clouds of power, that "every eye would see Him", and most important, it would come while those who shouted "CRUCIFY HIM" were still alive.
Nope...Jesus wasn't talking about that generation...And like you said, every eye could not see him if he had come because no one had a TV...
Unless you are willfully ignorant, blind to the Scriptures, or just flat out lying, how can you say, without substantiation that this wasn't 70AD
The substantiation is in the scriptures...
There's far, far, far too much scripture that you guys have to ignore make these events something of the past...
In other words, you are just going by the authority of your own opinion. When shown Scripture that plainly contradicts your view - you ignore it and move on.
So you list a bunch of passages from Scripture that you truly don't understand and then announce that all of these events "didn't happen". I don't want to sound disrespectful, but it is embarassingly obvious that you have never even tried to see what true Christians have to say on that matter. I have several feet of bookshelf space containing thousands of pages of commentary on these passages. Have you ever in your life looked at a Commentary on the OT from theologians of the past two thousand years other than products of the Dispensational camp?
The point being, is that, like evolutionists, you appear to approach these passages with a terribly flawed template. The evolutionist looks at everything through Uniformitarian eyeglasses - and so they look at the Grand Canyon and think "millions of years". People who love God and trust the Scriptures say "Flood". We can believe the Bible and we place ourselves under its Authority. Furthermore, we also know that water doesn't run uphill, which it would have to do in order to wear down a canyon through erosion. So we can be confident because of faith and reason.
In your template, everything is physical and earthly despite our LORD and the apostles constantly reminding us that the Kingdom is not physical and earthly. The Jews reject the Messiah and the New Testament and thus they don't understand the mystery revealed. Unfortunately, the American Religion has also rejected the Messiah and is looking for an temporal reign in an earthly city by a physical king that can be touched. So naturally, when you allow rabbis to tell you how to read the OT, you will also accept their Christ-hating teachings.
Most of the prophecies of the OT prophets were for the people of their day. Isaac Newton, and many other historians and commentators have given us names, dates and locations of the fulfillment.
This category of prophecies hold at least two practical applications: build the faith of the Jewish people in times of distress by reminding them of God's Sovereignty, and to be the "near" predictions fulfilled to establish their authority to speak for God.
Sadly, you make these prophets "untested" by converting everything to events still yet to come. By asserting that this is all future, you are really saying that God didn't care to assure His People in times of distress, but really all of this is for your own personal mental masturbation - having absolutely no practical value for you since your tribe has made thousands of false and failed predictions based on Nostradamus-like interpretations of the passages. If even these things were to be fulfilled, your eschatology states that you won't be here to even certify it, leaving that to the reprobates Left Behind. IOW, no one will ever know that the prophets spoke for God because there will never be confirmation of their prophecies by the People of God.
Have you ever wondered where the slanderous "replacementarian" label came from? It comes from thousands of years of Christian teaching that the "Israel" that God fights for in these "future" passages is the the children of like faith as Abraham. This is not just Jews who share Abraham's DNA. Unlike the false charges of the John Hagee crowd its not "just Gentiles". Rather, the Israel spoken of by the Prophets is the Church composed of people of all tribes and nations. When you read of the LORD coming to avenge Israel, you might as well read it as the LORD coming to avenge the Church - or the "children of like faith of Abraham".
These aren't necessarily just Future events, the LORD has fought the battles through all ages. Just as the prophets of old spoke to reassure the people that God would smite the oppressive Assyrians, Egyptians and Chaldeans, the prophets through the type of "Israel" as the Church reassure believers of all ages that God hasn't gone away and left them to fend for themselves until some specified date in the distant future.
As a thought experiment, interpret the "armies of this world" with Ephesians 6:12. Interpret "Israel" and "Jerusalem" from Revelation 21:2 as "the bride of Christ" or the Church from Abel to the last person redeemed. Read the "Temple" in light of 1 Peter 2:5 and Ephesians 2:19-21. When viewed in that language, there is encouragement and hope in that the LORD fights our battles today, that the Church will grow and all that our LORD's Purpose will be fulfilled at His return.
When you continue to let blaspheming rabbis tell you that the temple is a physical structure standing in a ancient war-torn city defiled by millions of idolators and haters of God and that somehow God is going to bless those who reject His Son by initiating sword and chariot battles sometime tomorrow, you will never understand God's Plan and likely will never understand the Gospel.