“Last time I looked...
We STILL have seas.
We STILL have the OLD Jerusalem, complete with fighting over the Temple Mount.”
A convincing record of the passing away of heaven and earth is found in the writings of Josephus, a Jewish historian who was actually present during the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and afterward wrote of what had happened. His writing is quite an eye opener on the subject of heaven and earth as viewed by the Jews.
“However, this proportion of the measures of the tabernacle proved to be an imitation of the system of the world: for that third part thereof which was within the four pillars, to which the priests were not admitted, is, as it were, a Heaven peculiar to God...” Josephus, Antiquities, Book 3, Chapter 6, Paragraph 4, Section 123).
“When Moses distinguished the tabernacle into three parts, and allowed two of them to the priests as a place accessible to the common, he denoted the land and the sea, these being of general access to all; but he set apart the third division for God, because heaven is inaccessible to men” Josephus, Antiquities, Book 3, Chapter 7, Paragraph 7, Section 181).
Josephus is portraying the first century Jewish understanding of “heaven and earth” in these writings. He is describing how the Jews looked upon their place of worship in the Mosaic Tabernacle and later in the Temple as “a heaven and earth.” They believed that their Temple was at the very center of the earth, and saw it as the place where heaven and earth came together, and where God met man. In the quotes just made from Josephus, he calls the outer part of the tabernacle “an imitation of the system of the world” and the “sea and land, on which men live.” By contrast, the inner Holy of Holies he terms “heaven peculiar to God.” There was a fabric veil that separated these two compartments in the Tabernacle and the Temple, which he describes as being “very ornamental, and embroidered with all sorts of flowers which the earth produces.” This last quote is found in Antiquities, Book 3, Chapter 6, Paragraph 4, Section 126.
C.H. Spurgeon (1834–1892) in a message he once delivered (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 37, Page 354), made the following statement about “heaven and earth” as used in the Scriptures: “Did you ever regret the absence of the burnt-offering, or the red heifer, of any one of the sacrifices and rites of the Jews? Did you ever pine for the feast of tabernacle, or the dedication? No, because, though these were like the old heavens and earth to the Jewish believers, they have passed away, and now we live under the new heavens and a new earth, so far as the dispensation of divine teaching is concerned. The substance is come, and the shadow has gone: and we do not remember it.”
Jessie E. Mills, Jr., Ph.D., writes in his work entitled, Revelation Survey and Research, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words shall not pass away,” Matt. 24:35. Thus the heaven and earth here represented the fall of Jewish power, so also in Matt. 24:29, where the symbols of the sun, moon, and stars is used to denote the rulers of Israel. Note this fall would occur at the advent of Christ.”
http://www.christeternalchristianchurch.com/learningactivity36.htm
21st century American literalism neither understands nor explains 1st century Jewish symbolism.
American literalism started the 20th century trying to sell the sizzle of dispensationalism and ended the 20th century preaching and teaching the exact opposite of everything it taught at the beginning of the century except for the Best Selling Christ Surrenders to Satan and Evacuates Party People doctrine it had refined dispensationalism into.
Dispensationalism and Evacuation doctrine is part of the strong delusion that's led this country to it's current paganism. It's really funny how folks who side with the queer promoting, infanticide promoting, mega-church crowd like to repeat the lie that the Catholic Church embraced paganism while at the same time sacrificing their own children to Moloch in return for the promise of prosperity exactly like Carthaginians routinely did.
Hyper calvinist cultist.
Well, I guess we know what you use for your beliefs rather than scripture. I’ve got news for you. Josephus was not inspired by the Holy Spirit and his views of the Jews and their beliefs is rather like listening to the MSM about the beliefs of Christians. He was a traitor to the Jews and the only survivor of a pact to commit suicide at Jotapata. To take his word for Jewish belief is risky at best.
Sorry; but my lyin' eyes trump this.