The Abomination of Desolation

Matthew 24:15

Let's open our Bibles together to the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew...Matthew chapter 24. This great chapter is our Lord's own sermon on His Second Coming. It details for us the events surrounding the return of the Lord Jesus Christ from His own mouth. What a tremendous privilege to study this great text.

You know, people in our world are always wishing for a better day, always hoping for a better time, always wanting to see the alleviation of the distresses and the problems that plague human society. But the message of Scripture is that before there is ever a better time, there is going to be an infinitely worse time. In fact, human society has to look forward to a time that is going to be more severe than any time they have ever known. That time is described rather briefly for us in just one verse in this particular chapter, and I want to draw your attention to it, it's verse 21. "For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no nor ever shall be."

In that very brief statement, the Lord says that the world is to look for a time that will be worse than any other time it has ever known. And the Lord even gives it a name, Great Tribulation.

Now this isn't anything new because there have been other prophets than our Lord Jesus Christ who also have spoken of this same time. It is a time of tremendous trouble which encompasses the world but centers on the nation of Israel. To see how the prophets of Israel spoke of it, let's go back to Isaiah chapter 10...Isaiah chapter 10. And as Isaiah looked forward to that day, that day of the Lord, that day of great judgment, that day of establishing the Kingdom of Messiah, that day of salvation for Israel, that great climactive...climactic day when man's work on earth, as it were, done by his own hand and design is done and God takes over, he says this in verse 20, "It shall come to pass in that day, that great day, the end of man's day, the beginning of God's day, that the remnant of Israel and such as have escaped of the house of Jacob shall no more again lean upon him who smote them but shall lean upon the Lord, the holy one of Israel in truth."

Now that tells us that there is coming a time of great stress for Israel, a time when they will be killed. And there will be a remnant who escape and will learn the lesson to never lean again on anyone other than the Lord. The indication is that in that great day, that end day, the people of Israel are going to lean on someone who turns out to be not their friend but their enemy who offers himself for support and then destroys them. And they'll learn in that day to lean only on the Lord. "The remnant shall return--verse 21 says--even the remnant of Jacob unto the mighty God, for though thy people Israel be like the sand of the sea yet a remnant of them shall return, the full end decreed shall overflow with righteousness; for the Lord God of hosts shall make a full end."

In other words, at the time of the full end, at the time of the very end, at that day of judgment, that time of establishing the time of righteousness, the Kingdom of Messiah, Israel is going to go through a massive betrayal by one they trusted who turns out to slaughter them. They're going to go through a time of great trouble from which they will try to escape.

Now let's look at it in the words of Jeremiah the prophet, chapter 30 and see what other dimensions he adds to his insights as he looks at this time...Jeremiah chapter 30 verse 5. "For thus saith the Lord, we have heard a voice of trembling, of fear and not of peace." Jeremiah looks far ahead, doesn't see peace, he sees trembling and fear. "And now...ask now and see whether a man doth travail with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in child pain, birth pain and all faces turned into paleness?" The most excruciating human pain, that of giving birth to a child without any anesthetic, without any care as typically women did in that time sort of symbolizes the pain of society in the future. When Jeremiah looks ahead he sees, as it were, in the imagery of prophetic vision, men with hands down on their knees, as it were, in agonizing pain over what is about to take place. The world in pain, Israel in pain.

"Alas--verse 7 says--for that day is great so that none is like it." Just as it was in Matthew 24:21, this is a day like no other day. "None is like it, it is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it for it will come to pass in that day, says the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck and burst thy bonds and strangers shall no more enslave them but they shall serve the Lord their God, and David, that is a Messiah, their king, whom I will raise up unto them."

So it is going to be a day of great judgment, a day of great distress, the time of Jacob's trouble. And out of it is going to come salvation and out of it is going to come the raising up of Messiah and His Kingdom. So both Isaiah and Jeremiah look forward to a time of severe trouble, a time of severe pain, a time of death, a time from which Israel will run to escape followed by the Messiah's Kingdom.

Now notice the last chapter of the prophecy of Daniel, chapter 12 and verse 1. And Daniel the prophet speaks also of the very same day. And he says in verse 1, "At that time shall Michael stand up--Michael is an angel--the great prince who standeth for the children of thy people." Michael's unique role in God's economy is to protect His special people. And Michael will stand up for their protection. "Because there will be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time. And at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book."

There's going to be a time of Jacob's trouble, says Jeremiah. There's going to be a time of trouble, says Daniel. A time of devastation, a time of purging, a time of judgment out of which God will redeem a remnant and bring the Kingdom of Messiah.

Now notice, please, Zechariah chapter 13 verse 8. "And it shall come to pass in the land," actually, throughout the land, "says the Lord, two parts in it shall be cut off in death and a third shall be left." In other words, there's coming a time in the land of Israel when two out of three will die, "And He will bring the third part through the fire and refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested. They shall call on My name; I will hear them, I will say, He is My people. And they shall say, The Lord is my God." In other words, a time of purging, a time of judgment, a time of death to two out of three. A third are preserved and they are brought to the awareness that the Lord is God. "And this," verse 14 says, "is the day of the Lord, it is the day of the Lord." It is the day, says verse 2, when the nations are gathered against Jerusalem to battle and the city is taken and the houses are rifled and the women are ravished and half of the city goes forth to captivity and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. And you can stop at that point.

Now let me pull that together very simply. Jesus said there is coming in the future a time unlike any other time, a time of incredible, indescribable horror to the world, but particularly focusing on the nation Israel. It is a time of which Isaiah spoke, of which Jeremiah spoke, of which Daniel spoke, and of which Zechariah spoke. So it really isn't anything new that our Lord is saying. He is reiterating what was said of old, a time like no other time. If Israel thinks it has endured unbelievable holocaust in the past, then they need to take stock of what the prophets have said and what the Lord Jesus said that they have not yet endured what they shall in the future. For there is coming a holocaust unlike any other. And it will not only impact Israel, but it will impact the world. And things are not going to get better, they're going to get worse. In fact, they're going to get worse than they've ever been, the worst of all.

Yes, just prior to the worst time of all, there will be a brief time of false peace. So as we look ahead in future, analyzing the events of man's day, we could expect to have a time of false peace followed immediately by a holocaust without description and precedent, followed immediately by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what the prophets have said. That's what Jesus says because in verse 29 of Matthew 24, He says immediately after the tribulation, what happens? The sun is darkened, the moon doesn't give its light, the stars fall, the powers of heaven are shaken. And then appears the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, all the tribes of the earth mourn and they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. So, this is the time right preceding the coming of Christ.

Now it's impossible not to see this prophetic picture, this chronology as simply as it's stated here by our Lord, by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and Zechariah. A time of great distress, great trouble for the world centering in the nation Israel, followed by the purging salvation of Israel, the coming of Messiah to establish His glorious and eternal Kingdom. So Jesus here is preaching a sermon related to His Second Coming. It is a sermon not only about His Second Coming, which appears in verse 29, but also about the time before that which He Himself calls in verse 21 the Great Tribulation.

Now what brought about this sermon? Why is He preaching this sermon and to whom is He preaching it in chapter 24? Let me tell you why. Jesus has entered into the last week of His earthly life. Friday He will die. So He doesn't have much time left. He spent all day in the temple. He cleansed it on Tuesday. Threw out the money changers and the buyers and sellers and purged it outwardly. And once He had cleansed it on Tuesday, then He could go back to it and not be defiled by it. So He did that. He took His disciples and He taught all day.

The teaching was public, to begin with, as He taught the multitude that teemed into the place because of the week of the Passover. But after some of His teaching, the leaders of Israel were upset so they stopped Him in His tracks and they started to ask Him questions. The first of which was: by what authority do You do these things? Who gave You permission to teach the way You're teaching and to do what You're doing? And that engaged Him in a dialogue that went on for the rest of the day with these false Jewish leaders. The result of that dialogue, basically, was an opportunity for Him to articulate the fact that God was now setting Israel aside. For centuries the nation Israel had been the custodian of God's Word, the custodian of God's truth. But all of that was going to change because God was going to take the Kingdom away from them and give it to a people who were more worthy than they. In fact, He said that in chapter 21 verse 43 as explicitly as it could be said. "The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of it, a people bringing forth the fruits of it."

He was saying to the Jewish religious leaders, you are no more to be called God's people in the national sense. You are no more to be custodians of God's truth. Now as we learn in Romans 11, this was only a temporary setting aside, but nonetheless a real setting aside. He says to them, the Kingdom will be given to a people who bring forth the proper fruit.

And then in chapter 22, remember, also on Wednesday in His encounter with the leaders, He gave them a parable about a wedding feast held by a king for his son. And all the invited guests--who symbolize Israel--refuse to come. And verse 7 says, "When the king heard that," chapter 22, "he was angry, sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers and burned up their city." In other words, God is going to move out in judgment against a people who refuse to come to the wedding feast of His Son. And then, verse 9, "He told his servants, Go to the highways and as many as you find, bring them to the marriage." And so a new people is brought in to be the special custodians of God's Word and God's truth. And Ichabod, the glory has departed, is written for a time on the nation Israel.

The sum of it comes at the end of chapter 23 in verse 37, in Jesus last public sermon, His last message to the populace of Israel. His final word to the religious leaders, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them who are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under wings and you would not. Behold your house is left unto you ruined, desolate, empty, waste." That is the final statement of judgment on Israel for the rejection of the Messiah, that is it. He has indicted them, indicted their leaders and by indicting the leaders, indicted all the people who followed the leaders. And now says their house is left desolate...Ichabod, the glory is departing. God is moving away to another people from Israel.

But I'm so glad the sermon didn't end with verse 38. In verse 39 He said, "For I say unto you, you shall not see Me henceforth until you shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." That's a Messianic epithet. When Jesus rode into the city and they cried "Hosanna to the Son of David," they said, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." That is a Messianic affirmation. And He says to them, you'll not see Me again until you recognize Me as your Messiah.

That's very hopeful, isn't it? Because that tells us that even though Israel is laid waste and even though the nation is desolate because of the rejection of Messiah, there will come a day when indeed they will recognize their Messiah and say, "Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord." It's what Zechariah saw when he said, "They will look on Him whom they have pierced and mourn for Him as for an only son." So, yes the house of Israel is desolate, but yes there is a future time when they will recognize their Messiah.

Now you have to imagine the disciples at this point because they're listening to all of this. They hear the sermon which devastates the system of religion in Israel. They see Jesus cleanse the temple and they know He's bringing to an end that evil hypocritical system. They hear Him talking about destruction in chapter 24 verse 2, how that the temple is going to be razed--r-a-z-e-d--to the ground and there won't be one stone left upon another. But the whole thing will be thrown down. That's exactly what happened to the very letter. And so they see Him come sweeping in with all of these statements about devastation and destruction.

Does this bother them? Not really. Because as we pointed out in our previous study, you remember that if any disciple was a student of Scripture, he would know that in the great Kingdom of Messiah there was going to be a new temple, the temple of Ezekiel 40 to 48, that glorious temple. Not this temple built by a non Jew, Idumean king by the name of Herod, but a temple that had the qualities of that glorious temple seen in Ezekiel 40 to 48. They would not have had a problem with Him razing the temple to the ground. They would not have had a problem with Him devastating the hypocritical religion, the prophets said that was going to happen. The prophets said the nation had to be purified. So when they hear Jesus say this temple is coming down, and you're not going to see Me again until you say, Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord, their idea is that He's going to knock that temple down very soon and be back in full Messianic presence to set up His Kingdom because, you see, they see no gap between the first and second coming.

The Old Testament prophets didn't delineate a first coming, a long time and then a second coming, they just bunched it all into one thing. That's why the time in between is known as the "mystery" unrevealed in the Old Testament. They didn't see that there was a first coming, going back to heaven, thousands of years, then a second coming. No, they saw it all at once. Their eschatology said Messiah comes, Messiah judges His enemies and the ungodly, Messiah cleanses Israel, He purges the temple, He gathers the elect, He sets up His Kingdom. And so, they could see all of this happening in days or weeks. And I believe at the end of chapter 23 in the end of this sermon, they have a greater hope of the Kingdom than they've ever had in all their experience with Jesus because they have seen Him riding into the city to the hallelujahs and hosannas and blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lords of the crowd, the kids in the temple had said it to Him the next day and now He has cleansed the temple and now He talks about tearing it down and then He talks about coming in full presence as the Messiah and they believe, I think, more than they've ever believed it that momentarily it's all going to break loose and they don't understand that there will be a long period of time.

So, in excitement and anticipation, verse 3. They have now left the temple ground, only Jesus with the disciples privately, it says. They've gone to the top of the Mount of Olives on their way back to Bethany where they were staying with Lazarus and his family. And He stops at the top of the mount, sits down and they said to Him, "When shall these things be?" And you can just sense the fever pitch, the tremendous anticipation that this has got to blow right soon because of what they've already seen that week. It's all coming together. They saw the forerunner, John the Baptist, then came the Messiah. He did the miracles, He taught, He preached and now He's come into the hallelujahs and hosannas and now He's cleansed the temple, and now He talks about ripping down this Idumean building and it must mean the great exalted building of Ezekiel is going to go up and He's going to establish His Kingdom and the people are going to say, "Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord." And so they say: when? And even later on in Acts 1, they say: is it the time now that You're going to bring the Kingdom? They believed it was momentary.

And now only do they ask when, but in verse 3: "What shall be the sign of Thy coming," the word "coming" parousia means "presence." It isn't to say they thought He was going away and coming back, it is to say that they thought He would come in full presence. Parousia is presence, the full presence of Messianic glory. "What is the sign of Thy presence and the end of man's age?" What do we look for? Is there an angel coming out of heaven with a trumpet? What is it? Is it a cataclysmic reconstruction of the temple supernaturally? Is it the knocking down of the temple? What is it? What is the event that signals Your coming in full presence?

Now with that question, the Lord then preaches the message concerning His coming. And He gives them the things to look for, the signs to look for. And not to them because they're long dead, but to all who will ever read the Scripture. And starting in verse 4, we have signs of the Second Coming, signs of the Second Coming.

Now I want to add as a footnote here so you're not confused, the Rapture of the church is not discussed in any place in Matthew 24 or 25. That is not here. We wait later for a fuller understanding of that. This is a message given to the context of those Jews about the Second Coming of Christ. The Rapture is a subject that comes up in the epistles. And we'll deal with that at a later time. In fact, probably in this study somewhere we'll insert some things about that. But He is giving them a description of the time of the Second Coming and the signs that lead up to it.

Now He starts in verse 4 giving them a series of general signs that the people alive at the future time should look forward to. He doesn't tell them how far future it is. He doesn't tell them because every believer has always lived with a sense of intimacy...a sense of imminency rather that Christ could come at any point. So He doesn't tell them any time. He just says signs.

Notice, please, the first sign is deception. Verse 4, "Many will come and deceive." And verse 5 says the same thing. The second sign is dissension, war, rumors of wars, so forth...verse 7, nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom. Third, devastation...famines, earthquakes. The fourth is desecration. Verse 9, they will deliver up the saints. Fifth, defection...many of them will be offended and betray one another and hate one another and so forth. And the final is declaration, verse 14, the worldwide preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom.

So, He says look for deception, dissension, devastation, desecration, defection and declaration. Those are the signs. And we went through those in detail and I showed you how they parallel Revelation 6 to 19. None of these happen in the church age, none of these happened at the destruction of Jerusalem. From verse 4 on there is no discussion of the destruction of Jerusalem. It is absolutely foreign to this text. And that's amazing because I read about twelve commentaries this week, eleven of them fit the destruction of Jerusalem in here somewhere and the other one isn't sure. There is no reference to the destruction of Jerusalem here in 70 A.D. This is the future, prior to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The destruction of Jerusalem was a judgment for its own time, for its own sake to the people at that age. It is not the end of the age, it is not the sign of the coming of Messiah...that is future.

So, all these six things mark the end time. And I showed you the key to that. Verse 8, would you notice it? All these surrounding verse 8 are the beginning of birth pains. Please, the word "sorrow" doesn't help us to interpret this text if that's what it says in your edition of Scripture. It is birth pains that is the Greek term. And you remember I said to you, when do birth pains come, at the beginning of pregnancy? All during pregnancy? No, they come at the very end of pregnancy. And when the birth pains start coming, you know birth is near. Jesus purposely chooses that as birth pains, just like the prophet of old saw the men, as it were, in travail, going through the agonies that would issue in the birth of the Kingdom. All of these events stack up at the very moment of the coming of the Kingdom and they are parallel to the seals and the trumpets and the bowls of Revelation. And you remember the seals happen sort of elongated. And then the trumpets are faster. And then the bowls are rapid fire as there is an increasing frequency and intensity of those final pains as there is in the birth of a child. So it's a graphic picture.

So, all of these things have nothing to do with the Rapture of the church. They have nothing to do with the destruction of Jerusalem. They have to do with the time of the Tribulation and the speeding up of events, painful events, that bring about the establishing of Messiah's Kingdom. So, He gives them this big picture of general things but He knows that's not really what they're asking because their question was: what is the sign? What's the one event that says we know this is it because we might see wars and we might see deceptions and deceivers and we might see defectors and we would see the gospel being preached, that could...we could see that even now today. There could be a lot of things we see. How do we know that this is really it? So, He says, "All right, I'm going to give you one sign that kicks the whole thing off." And in verse 15, He says, "When you therefore shall see..." Stop there for a moment. When you see this...the end of verse 15...you better understand.

So, He's given them some general signs, the birth pains at the very end of man's day that result in the birth of the Kingdom. But He gives them here the trigger that sets the whole thing off. This is absolutely a fabulous verse. And we're not going to get pass this verse because it's so filled with truth. And we're not even going to exhaust it this morning, but it is a key verse in understanding this transition from what He has said through 14 to what He's going to say from 15 to 31, very, very key.

Now when you who are alive in that day, and He uses the prophetic "you" as we pointed out in our last study, when you who are alive in that day see this, you know you're in the Tribulation. Here is the trigger that sets the birth pains of verses 4 to 14 loose on the earth. This is the key event.

You say, "What is that event?" Look at it. "When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the Holy Place, whosoever reads let him understand." When you see that, you can understand. That is the sign.

Now let's go back to Daniel 11 and maybe I'll get a little further into the insight so that you'll understand where we're going.

Now in Daniel 11 we meet a very important personality. And we call him Antichrist. He is called here the "willful king," the king who does his own will, who does not regard, the desire of women, nor any god. He magnifies himself above all, verse 37. In his estate shall be honor, he honors the god of fortresses, the god of might and so forth. And this is a description of the great Antichrist, the great willful king who does his own will, who flaunts his dislike and hatred toward the true God and His Christ and he sets up his own power and his own strength.

And what happens if you put the biblical picture together is in Daniel 2 we find that there will be in the end time a rising of the old Roman Empire, the final form of the Roman Empire has ten toes. And it is territorially reconstructed Rome. The old Roman Empire occupied western Europe and some of eastern Europe as well, of course, but in the new final form of the Roman Empire which is crushed by the coming of Messiah, it shows this big image, the final form a ten-toed representation of the Roman Empire which is smashed by the Messiah who is called "the stone cut out without hands." So the Messiah comes and crushes a final ten