The Abomination of Desolation (Mark Sermon 72)

God abandoned the Jewish people because of their sins, resulting in their desolation. He does this to show that He is holy and dwells in a high and holy place.

- SERMON TRANSCRIPT -

This morning as I was thinking about preaching this text, I decided to write a quick two-page startup guide to today's sermon. Have you ever had a complex piece of equipment and you get a sheet of paper that gives you that quick startup guide? I thought it might be helpful for today's sermon. This is my version of the quick startup guide. I hope it's helpful.

One of the things that I marvel at of the Word of God is the division of the Word of God into two categories, milk and meat. I marvel at the simplicity of the Word of God, and I marvel at the complexity of the Word of God. The essential doctrines of the Bible are so simple, a child can understand them and receive forgiveness of sins in a right relationship with God by understanding the milk, but there's more in the Bible than just milk. There is also meat or complexity.

My approach to pulpit ministry is to sequentially go through books of the Bible and take whatever's there. As we come this morning to Mark 13:14 and the phrase, “abomination of desolation," we come to what I consider to be a very deep and complex topic. I love preaching to you. I love preaching in this church because you love the Word of God and are willing to follow where it leads. I don't ever get any pushback on asking much of my hearers. This morning I'm going to ask much of you, so I am leading you into a quick startup guide.

The first thing I want to say to you is, as we resume our study in the Gospel of Mark, I'd like to ask you to turn to the Gospel of Matthew. I know what I'm doing, I understand that we're in Mark. The problem is a lot of the details that I want to get, as I explain the abomination of desolation, come from Matthew. Instead of having you flip back and forth, the passages are essentially the same, but there's some phrases and there's some lead-up that is only found in Matthew. So I'm going to ask you, as you return to the Gospel of Mark, to turn to the Gospel of Matthew. 

Our focus this morning is on one phrase, “the abomination of desolation.” The context of this complex phrase, “abomination of desolation,” is Jesus' prediction of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. He said, "Not one stone will be left on another," and what followed, the private inquiry on the part of Jesus' disciples to ask Him about that and then Jesus' complex answer recorded for us in Matthew 24 and 25 and in Mark 13 on the Mount of Olives, sometimes called the Olivet Discourse because it was on the Mount of Olives.

It falls into the theological category of eschatology or the study of end-time things. I believe that Jesus traces out the events between his First and Second Coming in some very helpful detail, and it's good for us to walk through that. It's a prophetic roadmap of what was still to come when Jesus was alive, and I believe very important for me to say to you now, what is still to come for us as well. Not everyone believes that, but I do.

In Mark 13:5-13 and in Matthew 24:4-14, we have some general description of the two millennia between the First and Second Coming, and the centerpiece is the spread of the gospel to all nations. The gospel will be preached in the whole world as a testimony of all nations and then the end will come, so — the work of the gospel between the First and Second Coming of Christ, attended by great suffering on the part of the messengers, persecution, difficulty, being arrested and brought before tribunals, et cetera. That is something that we've already seen.

We get specifically then in Matthew 24:15, Mark 13:14, the focus on the destruction of the Temple and then signs that are unique to just that generation. Whereas, the overview that He gives in Mark 13:4-13 and also Matthew 24:4-14 is true of every generation there have been since Jesus ascended to heaven until now. As we venture now into the “abomination of desolation," we're speaking about events that are particular to a specific group of people who are going to experience some things that not everybody experiences.

That's what we're trying to understand, the destruction of the temple and the phrase, “abomination of desolation”. That phrase comes from the prophet, Daniel, as Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, though He doesn't say it in Mark. Simply put, if you are living in Judea and Jerusalem at that point when the “abomination of desolation” is established, set up, et cetera, if we could put it simply— run for your lives.  That's where we're going next week, God willing. I'm not going to get into “run for your lives.” Today, I'm effectively preaching on a phrase and a half sentence. "When you see the “abomination of desolation” spoken of by the prophet, Daniel, “let the reader understand” ... What?  The answer is: run for your lives.

The topic is essentially a sober one and a sad one. It's very, very difficult. As I give you this quick startup guide, we have to look at the phrase itself, “abomination of desolation.” I want you to understand that the essence of the desolation is a broken relationship with almighty God, an emptiness that comes from not having a right relationship with God and God's decision to withdraw Himself from His people, from Israel because of their sins. That's the essence of the desolation, but it's more complex than that.

"The essence of the desolation is a broken relationship with almighty God, an emptiness that comes from not having a right relationship with God and God's decision to withdraw Himself from His people, from Israel because of their sins."

It has earthly ramifications in the destruction of the Temple, the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by invading Gentile armies as a direct act of judgment from almighty God for their sins. It's a very sobering topic. The point of connection to us, though we are not Jews, though we don't live in Judea, in Jerusalem, the “abomination of desolation” is not on Earth right now. The point of connection to us is twofold.

First of all, we need to understand, big picture, what God is doing in the universe, what God is doing with you. What is His whole purpose for creating everything? His whole purpose is a love relationship with you, with us, with His people. He wants an intimate love relationship with us. When we instead turn to idolatry, when we turn to wickedness, He withdraws. There's a desolation that comes from that, and you can be experiencing that desolation right now, that emptiness right now, though it doesn't specifically relate to the historical events of the “abomination of desolation.”

It is something we experience whenever we sin, and God withdraws. It is also the terror of hell. The worst part of hell is that God is not there in any way to bless the people that are there. It's a place of utter darkness. It's a tragedy that we're talking about here, a desolation of the Jews and of Jerusalem. It's also part of that long and complex story of God's relationship with the Jewish people, the physical descendants of Abraham, a very complex story and heartbreaking for God.  This is why Jesus wept over Jerusalem, because of these things that were going to happen. Though for us, we're somewhat removed from it. We should care about it because we should care about all people. We should care about the Jews. We should care about the story of God and the Jews, and we should realize, I believe, there's still more to come. That's vital, the phrase, “abomination of desolation.”

I've talked briefly about desolation. I'm going to do the intro of the sermon on the topic of desolation in a moment. Abomination has to do fundamentally with idolatry and desecration. It has to do with wickedness in the place where there should be holiness. It's talking about a literal place of worship, a temple, a tabernacle and then a temple, a literal place that is then desecrated or defiled through idolatry and blasphemy and wickedness. That's what the phrase means, “abomination of desolation.”  It comes from Daniel. So if we're going to do Daniel, I have to go over to Daniel and walk through it. Daniel is a very complex book. It's one of the most complex books in the Bible, and we have to roll up our sleeves to do that. Jesus urges us to work hard at this. He urges us right in the text when He says, "Let the reader understand." It's an odd aside. Jesus doesn't usually say that kind of thing. "When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet, Daniel, let the reader understand."

What He's saying is this isn't going to be easy. This isn't low-hanging fruit. You have to work at this to understand it. You have to work at Daniel. You have to work at the words to understand what this is about, but you need to know. What I'm going to argue is the “abomination of desolation” is not a one-off. I believe it's a regular pattern in God's relationship with the Jewish people. Again and again and again and again this has happened.

I will argue in this sermon that it happens in five phases. This is where I risk many of you glazing over as we walk through those five phases. I'm asking you not to do that. But there are five different phases of the “abomination of desolation,” the dynamic of God withdrawing His active presence from a holy place, the Gentiles pouring in like a flood to destroy it. All of that is a judgment by God, so I believe that we need to pay attention.  I also believe because I think the fifth and final phase hasn't happened yet, it's yet to come. Therefore, it will be relevant, if not for you, it'll be relevant for your kids and, if not for them, for your grandkids and, if not for them, for your great-grandkids, so you should care about this. We need to understand it. There's the startup guide.

On July 21, 1969, Buzz Aldrin became the second human being to walk on the moon just moments after Neil Armstrong became the first. Aldrin stepped off the ladder of the lunar module and began walking around on that lunar landscape, feeling the somewhat weightlessness of the one-sixth gravitational pull and looking out at that eerie, strange lunar landscape. As he did, he uttered a famous phrase. He called it “magnificent desolation,” magnificent desolation.

From a biblical point of view, those two are essentially a contradiction. There's an essential contradiction or irony to them. To God, there is nothing magnificent about emptiness. There's nothing magnificent about desolation. God created the universe, and it's amazing that the most common attribute of the physical universe that God made is its apparent emptiness.  The lunar landscape was indeed desolate. It was desolate of life, of trees, of water, animals, birds, other human beings. It was crater-marked with centuries of asteroid assaults. It was empty, empty, empty. But still, it was there. You could walk on it, reach down and scoop up the lunar dust. The real desolation was outer space itself.

C.S. Lewis talked about this in his classic, The Problem of Pain. This is what he wrote, "Not many years ago when I was an atheist, if anyone had asked me, 'Why do you not believe in God?' my reply would have run something like this. Look at the universe we live in. By far, the greatest part of it consists of empty space, completely dark and unimaginably cold. The bodies which move in this space are so few and so small in comparison with the space itself that even if every one of them were known to be crowded as full as it could hold with perfectly happy creatures, it would still be difficult to believe that life and happiness were more than a byproduct to the power that made the universe.  Why  would I be an atheist, I look at outer space and it's mostly empty, cold and empty.” Truly, the desolation of the universe is absolutely terrifying. The nearest star is 4.3 light years away from us. Between the solar system and that star is literally nothing." So for CS Lewis, the desolation of the universe made it difficult to believe in a God of love and light.

I believe the irony of that phrase, “magnificent desolation,” biblically would be similar to a phrase like this, “beautiful darkness." Beautiful darkness. Biblically, there's nothing beautiful about darkness. God created the light and reveals Himself in light as it says in 1 John 1:5, "God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all." I would say, in a similar sense, God is fullness and in Him there's no emptiness or desolation at all.  God did not create the universe to be empty or desolate. In Isaiah 45:18, it says, "For this is what the Lord says, He who created the heavens, He is God, He who fashioned and made the Earth. He founded it. He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited. He says, 'I am the Lord, and there is no other.'" The Bible reveals the omnipresence and immensity of God, the omnipresence, the immensity of God.  In Jeremiah 23, He says, "'Am I only a God nearby?' declares the Lord, 'and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so I cannot see Him?' declares the Lord. 'Do I not fill heaven and Earth?' declares the Lord.”

God, therefore, is a full being who overflows His fullness to us as creatures so that we would drink of His fullness in a love relationship.  He wants to fill every portion of the universe with His glory. He wants to fill every portion of your life with His glory. Most especially, God created sentient beings, angels and humans, to have an intimate love relationship with Him that we would know Him as He really is and see His glory and love Him with all of our hearts. But tragically, humanity has sinned and God is relationally distant from us. As the Bible says, "The wicked He knows from afar.” Yet, God has worked in redemptive history to draw near to us. The history of redemption is God coming back in to be close to sinners. He chose out a nation, the Jewish people, Abraham's descendants, to reveal that desire that God has to draw near and to have an intimate love relationship with sinful people to display this closeness.

Central to that relationship with Israel was His establishment of a holy place, holy ground, so to speak.  That idea began in Exodus 3 where Moses saw the burning bush and God said to him, "Take off your sandals for the place where you're standing is holy ground." Friends, what does that mean, “holy ground"? Especially when we consider what I've already said, the omnipresence of God, God fills heaven and Earth, what then is holy ground? I believe it is a location, a place where God chooses especially to reveal Himself relationally in His glory for the purpose of our relationship with Him.  It's a place chosen, like the burning bush, where God shines in some unique way and attracts us into a relationship with Him. Jonathan Edwards put it this way, "God, considered with respect to His essence, is everywhere. He fills both heaven and Earth. But yet, He is said, in some respects, to be more especially in some places than in others. He was said of old to dwell in the land of Israel above all other lands and in Jerusalem above all other cities of that land and in the temple above all other buildings in that city and in the Holy of Holies above all other apartments in the temple and on the mercy seat over the Ark of the Covenant, above all other places in the Holy of Holies.”  

God specifically chose to reveal His unique presence with His people by a glory cloud that descended into the tabernacle where the Ark of the Covenant was to be housed. The glory cloud showed that that place had become holy ground, a sacred space, and that glory cloud revealed it. Later, the same thing happened when Solomon built his temple, and he said, "Even the highest heavens can't contain you. How much less this temple I've built?”  Yet, despite all of that, God chose in His kindness and His goodness to appear in a cloud of glory and fill the Temple, as though God was there in some special way. But sadly, tragically, because of the sinfulness of the Jewish people, God withdrew His presence from them as was seen by Ezekiel the prophet when the glory cloud left or departed from the Temple. When God moved out, He left those places desolate. He left those places relationally empty. That's the nature of the desolation.

That desolation symbolizes God's departing from His people, leaving us desolate, leaving us empty, apart from God. This sermon seeks to understand that desolation and how it relates to the destruction of Jerusalem and, indeed, to our salvation. The passage looks back at the prediction of Christ concerning the destruction of the temple, "Not one stone will be left on another." Why it happened, it wasn't an accident.  It's something that God actually did in space and time. But also, I believe it looks ahead to a reenactment of it right before the Second Coming of Christ in this passage most clearly taught in 2 Thessalonians 2. That's why I believe there's not four phases of the abomination of desolation, but one yet to come. It hasn't happened yet.

Look at the text again from Matthew 24. I could do it from Mark. They're almost identical except for some phrases. Matthew 24:15-22, "So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation spoken of through the prophet, Daniel, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one in the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it would be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. Pray that your flight will not take place in the winter on the Sabbath for then there will be great distress unequal from the beginning of the world until now and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened.”

I. Key Eschatological Principle: “As it was …so it will be.”

We're going to zero in and try to understand from the Book of Daniel the phrase, “abomination of desolation.” A key eschatological principle I'm giving, I'm going to give you two principles. Principle number one in Matthew 24:37, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." To keep it simple, “as it was, so it will be.” That's recurring themes, things that happen and then happen again and happen again to teach some prophetic truth. “As it was, so it will be.”

The second is Jesus' statement in Matthew 24:25, "Behold I have told you ahead of time.” God wants His people who read the Bible to know ahead of time what's going to happen. That's why I consider 2 Thessalonians 2 and also these passages to be important reading for Christians because I believe many of the terrifying events haven't happened yet. The protection that we're going to have, that we'll not be deceived by the Antichrist and his miracles and all of that drawn in, Jesus says very plainly is because He's told us ahead of time. We know what's coming. Forewarned is forearmed.

Those are the basic eschatological principles. These things happen again and again. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will been the coming of the Son of Man. The things that happen right before the flood will be pictures of what will happen right before the Second Coming. We get these acted out— “types.” They're called “types”, prophetic actions in history.  Things are acted out, like Abraham's near sacrifice of his son, Isaac, is a picture of the giving of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins. So also the blood of the Passover lamb painted on the houses of the Jewish people, a picture of Christ's sacrifice for us. So also the Exodus itself, a rescue of the people from slavery and bondage, a picture of our deliverance from slavery to sin. These are the kinds of things that are acted out.  God acts out history. He acts out prophecies in history. So also it is with the Temple and its desolation. As it was, so it will be. 

In Jesus' time, Daniel's prophecy had already, to some degree, come true in the Greek era between the time of Daniel and the time of Jesus. It had already come true. But Jesus said, "Yeah, but there's one more to come and then another beyond that." So there is the one with the Romans, and yet beyond it.  He's already operating from that same principle— As it was, so it will be. The words of Daniel have yet more fulfillment yet to come, Jesus is saying, in His time. I'm saying that it's still to come, yet still.

II. What is the “Abomination of Desolation”?

Let's zero in on this phrase, “abomination of desolation.” If you're in Matthew, look back at Matthew 23 and you look at 37-39 after Jesus has given His sevenfold woe against the scribes and Pharisees who represent the Jewish nation, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites," because of their rejection of Him and their hatred of Him and their plotting to kill Him and they will kill Him. Because of all that, He has turned away from the Jewish nation. Because they have rejected Him, He is rejecting them. He says very tragically in verses 37-39, Matthew 23, "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Behold, your house is left to you desolate." That's an important word, isn't it? Look, “behold,” your house is desolate now. What do you mean? “The reason I say that is you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’ Then Jesus left the temple.”

The essence of the desolation is Jesus leaving physically, walking out of the Temple. Why is that significant? Remember in Ezekiel, the glory cloud, which symbolized the presence of God, left from the Temple. Jesus is the radiance of God's glory in the exact representation of His being. Jesus is a greater display of the glory of God than any cloud ever was. Because they have rejected Him, He is walking out, and He's not coming back. That means that that space is not sacred space anymore, it’s just a pile of stones.  At that moment, the disciples came up and said, "Look, Teacher, what massive stones. What magnificent buildings." Right at that moment, Jesus said, "Do you see all these things? I tell you the truth. Not one stone here will be left on another. Every one will be thrown down." Not an accident. It's a judgment of God on the Jewish nation for their rebellion against Him, their hatred of His messengers, the prophets, and especially their hatred of the Son who was sent to them. The judgment is coming.

As He's privately on the Mount of Olives, the disciples come to Him, Peter, John, James, and Andrew in particular come and ask Him, "When will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" The threefold question is in Matthew, not in Mark. Those three questions woven together in Matthew 24 and 25, also Mark 13, constitute His answer.  Three topics, when will these things happen, the destruction of the temple, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? In their mind, they conflated all of them as though they're all at the same time, but we know now that they're not. The destruction of the Temple happened at least roughly two millennia before the Second Coming, which hasn't happened yet. The signs of the Coming which we're going to cover, God willing, in the next number of sermons in Mark 13, we'll talk about in detail. Those are yet to come in His discourse.

We're zeroing in now in this phrase, “abomination of desolation.” A parallel in Luke helps us to understand. This is in Luke 21. Listen to these words very carefully. "When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near." Do you see the link in Jesus' mind between Gentile armies invading and the desolation? That's how He thinks, Gentile armies invading and desolation. When you see, you know that Jerusalem's desolation is near.  "Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those in the city get out. Let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment and fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people that will fall by the sword and be taken as prisoners to all nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles," listen, "until the times of the Gentiles has been fulfilled."

That is essential reading for us to understand the “abomination of desolation.” Jerusalem is going to be destroyed by surrounding Gentile armies. He's talking about the circumstances of the destruction of the Temple and, indeed, of the city of Jerusalem in the year AD 70, about a generation after Jesus. He calls it the “times of the Gentiles." The physical desolation of Jerusalem comes after Christ has left it spiritually desolate.  It involves military conquest by the Gentiles, specifically by the Roman legions, the most powerful military nation in history. The “abomination of desolation”, Mark 13:14 and Matthew 24:15, is at least about the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the Romans. But I also believe that it will be an issue right before His coming at the end of the world. Then He said, "Let the reader understand." By that, He means the reader of Daniel.

So now we have to roll up our sleeves and go back to Daniel and try to understand it. "Let the reader of Daniel understand." Let me just tell you something about the Book of Daniel. Daniel himself didn't understand it, not fully. Daniel himself didn't understand it. You say, "Well, what hope do we have?" Here's what I believe about the mysteries of Daniel. It's on a need-to-know basis, the more you need to know, the more you'll understand Daniel.  If we are alive when the final “abomination of desolation” comes, you're going to understand aspects of Daniel that this congregation right now will not understand no matter how well I preach today. It's on a need-to-know basis. But there are levels of complexity and timing that Daniel wanted to know, but he couldn't understand because it wasn't for him. So it's complex.  Daniel would often ask for insight, and sometime it would be given him, but other times he was told to seal up the vision for a future generation. Daniel 12:4, "But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end." Close it up and seal it. In other words, Daniel, it's not for you. It's for the time of the end, for people who will live at the time of the end. There are portions of Daniel's prophecy that will only be fully intelligible to the generation that actually goes through it.

Let's talk about where this phrase, “abomination of desolation," comes from. It actually is a repeated phrase in Daniel, it’s not just one time. The desolation comes again and again, this use of the word, “desolation.” Who is Daniel? Daniel was a Jewish prophet who lived in exile in Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had destroyed the city of Jerusalem, and had taken the Temple artifacts out and eventually destroyed the Temple. Daniel lived at that time, the time of Nebuchadnezzar and on down until the Medo-Persian empire, so roughly around the year 620 to 538 BC, somewhere in there. Anyway, that's what Wikipedia told me about when Daniel lived,  I don't know. That’s about right, 600 to 500 BC. 

In Daniel chapter 8, it's the first time we have the phrase, “desolation.” In Daniel 8, Daniel sees a vision of Alexander the Great, a great king coming from the west from Greece, who will destroy the Persian empire, including the promised land.  One of Alexander's successors will viciously persecute the Jewish nation, becoming extremely arrogant, making claims that reach up to heaven. Daniel is told that a huge number of his own people would be given over to this man because of their transgressions. This individual who makes arrogant boasts that reach up to heaven is a “type” or a picture of the Antichrist. He is not the Antichrist, but he's a type or picture of the mentality of Antichrist, an arrogant Gentile leader that blasphemes and makes claims that go beyond all proportion. This is predicted in Daniel 8.

At one point in Daniel 8:13, he's asking for information. By the way, Alexander the Great's conquest happened about 200 years after Daniel died. So it was future for Daniel, but it's past for Jesus and for us. He's looking ahead to Alexander the Great about 200 years after Daniel would die. In Daniel 8:13, this is the first time that the word is used. "For how long is the vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate and the giving over to the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot." That's the first time we have that desolation.  There's the sanctuary, the animal sacrifices, and desolation connected with that. That's Daniel 8:13.

In Daniel 9, he rolls up his sleeves and really talks about the desolation. He talks about it a lot. Daniel 9 is the first saturated chapter on the concept of desolation. What happens is the prophet, Daniel, reads from the scroll of Jeremiah that the judgment on Jerusalem will last 70 years. The clock was ticking, and the time was drawing near.  Daniel figures out, he's an old man by this point, hey, the time is coming near for God to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, so he prays toward Jerusalem three times a day for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and specifically rebuilding of the Temple. Why? Because the Temple is where animal sacrifice happened. That was the center of their religion, and they couldn't do it while there was no temple. He's praying and confessing the sins of his people, and he uses this phrase, “desolate.”  He talks about the desolation of Jerusalem in verse 2. He talks about it again in Daniel 9:17-18, "For your own sake, Lord, make your face shine upon your sanctuary," that's the temple, "which is desolate. Oh, my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see the desolation and the city that is called by your name." He’s praying about a desolate sanctuary and a desolate city.

The Lord dispatches an angel to tell Daniel with amazing clarity about the 70 weeks of Daniel. That's a timetable about the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One, about His death and the desolation that would follow His death. He says that after the 69th week, Daniel 9:26, "An Anointed One," that's Christ, "shall be cut off and have nothing [killed] "and the people of the prince who is to come," so that the Gentile ruler, "the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.”  There it is again. This Gentile ruler comes in to destroy the city and the sanctuary after the death of the Messiah. "Its end shall come with a flood and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed." Friends, this is exactly the prediction Jesus made. After the Messiah's cut off, the Temple is going to be destroyed by the ruler who is to come. That's the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 predicted in Daniel 9:26.  But there's more to come, 9:27. It speaks of the final week, a seven-year period. The last stretch is seven years. The weeks are seven-year stretches that many believe refer to the final seven years of human history. Again, the concept of desolation figures prominently. Listen to Daniel 9:27, "And he" [the prince of the people that'll come, the wicked ruler] "shall make a strong covenant with many for one week. And for half of the week, he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering.”  Sacrifice and offering's animal sacrifice. "And on a wing of abomination shall come one who makes desolate" [a person who makes desolate] "until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator." 

I told you this was meat and not milk. You're reading this and like, "What in the world is this even talking about?  Daniel 9:26 talks about a Messiah who's cut off, killed, but then chapter 27 talks about animal sacrifice and desecrations. The concept is that a powerful and evil ruler will make a seven-year covenant concerning the sacrifices of the Temple and that in the middle of that period of seven years, he shall put an end to sacrifice offering in the Temple, and he shall, in some striking way, abominate or desecrate the Temple. But the end decreed by God shall be poured out on this evil person.

Then in Daniel 11, the Lord reveals to Daniel the specific history of Israel under the dominion of Greek rulers that followed Alexander the Great. One of those Greek rulers who lived about a couple of centuries after Alexander, about the year 175 or so BC, was a man named Antiochus IV. He called himself Epiphanies, “the manifest one.” He thought he was a god. The Greeks were like this. Alexander thought he was a god. They had this kind of mentality. He thought of himself as a god, and he's there in Jerusalem. Daniel 11:31 predicts him. Again, this is centuries before it even happened. This is the amazing aspect of predictive prophecy. Daniel 11:31, "His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation." There's the phrase exactly in Daniel 11:31.

Finally, in Daniel chapter 12, the concept is mentioned once again, but this time it seems to be in connection with the end of the world and the eternal state of glory that the saints will enjoy. In Daniel 12:1, it mentions a great tribulation greater than any that Israel had ever endured. It also predicts the rising up of Michael, the great prince, the archangel who protects Israel. The chapter goes on to unfold the deliverance of Israel, the resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked, some to everlasting glory and others to everlasting shame.

At the end of the chapter, the angel asks about the timetable for all of this. Daniel 12:8-12, "I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, 'Oh my Lord, what will the outcome of these things be?' He said, 'Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.'" There it is again. "Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand. But those who are wise shall understand. From the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days. Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days."

There's not a person on Earth who can tell us with absolute certainty what those days mean. 1,290 days, what is that? 1,335 days, what is that? I already told you, it’s on a need-to-know basis, and you don't need to know or you would know. Daniel didn't need to know and didn't know. But they're odd. The numbers are odd ... More later in Mark 13.

The most heretical thing your pastor believes is that I think actually the people who are alive at the time of the Second Coming will be counting down days until He comes. So though we do not know the day or hour, they will. That's my own thought. If you disagree, that's fine. Then you tell me what the 1,290 days and the 1,335 days signify. It's in there for a reason, friends. Nothing's in there for nothing, and no one has ever been able to understand because, I told you, it's on a need-to-know basis.  If you need to know, woe to you, it’s going to be a hard time. Jesus said, "If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive." That's how bad that time is going to be. It's a terrifying thing that He's talking about. That's Daniel, summarizing, the abomination is some kind of idolatrous desecration by a Gentile ruler connected with Gentile military power.  What is the abomination? It is an idol or an idolatry. What is the desolation? It is, first and foremost, spiritual emptiness that comes from God and then the physical destruction of the temple. That's what I believe Daniel teaches us. 

III. Dress Rehearsals: The Abomination of Desolation: Across History

Let’s go through the dress rehearsals, and then we'll be done. This is something God has done again and again. Let me just bring you through them quickly.  The first phase was in Shiloh. Do you remember in the days of the judges? In the days of the judges, God judged Israel for their wickedness and sin again and again. Because of their sins, He brought Gentile invaders. In 1 Samuel, the Gentile invaders are the Philistines, He brings the Philistines. Do you remember what happened? The Philistines won the first day's battle, so the Jews decided to bring the Ark of the Covenant from the tabernacle.  They bring the Ark of the Covenant, and they say, "The Ark will deliver us." It was like it was a good luck charm. The Philistines were terrified. "Oh, no, those gods that destroyed the Egyptians are here. Well, what can we do? The best thing we can do is try. So be like men, Philistines, and let's find out if we can win." They did win and what did they do? The Philistines captured the Ark.  Do you remember what Eli the priest did when he found out about it? He died. He fell over backward and died, broke his neck because he was terrified about this very thing. The Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. In his family, a pregnant woman gave birth and died in the birth, and they named the baby, Ichabod, “the glory has departed from Israel” because the Gentiles had captured the Ark of the Covenant.  Remember what happened? They couldn't do much with the Ark. The Ark did a lot with them and gave them tumors and all kinds of things until they finally sent it back. It was like the Ark can take care of itself. But that was that. It was phase one. 

Phase two happened in the days of Jeremiah right before the Babylonian exile. In Jeremiah 7, the prophet was dispatched by God to go deal with, disabuse the Jews, of a basic concept and a theory.  The concept was, because of Solomon's beautiful temple, there is no way that God would ever let this city be captured or destroyed. God will defend this temple. He will protect it. “We have the Temple of the Lord. We're never going to lose.” Jeremiah had the hardest ministry in the Old Testament. He had to go and say, "That whole thing is false. Do not say the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord. Go to Shiloh and see what God did to the Ark. You think He's not going to let the Ark get captured? You think He's not going to let the Temple get destroyed?"

Needless to say, Jeremiah was not a very popular man, but he spoke the truth. God did, in fact, let the Babylonians swarm in and, as the psalmist said, "Cut it apart with hatchets and burn it and destroy it." There in Jeremiah 7, God said, "I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will be desolate.” As a matter of fact, the very beginning of the Book of Lamentations, which Jeremiah wrote after all of it was done, he looked down in Lamentations 1:1 and said, "How desolate lies the city once so full of people." The emptiness was because of their wicked and their sins. That's second phase. 

Phase three is the Greeks in Jerusalem under the time of Antiochus IV, Epiphanies, the very thing predicted in Daniel 8, also Daniel 11.  The Greek king came, Antiochus IV called Epiphanies, and he reigned from the year 175 to 164. The prediction we've already seen in Daniel 11:31, "His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation." The apocryphal book 1 Maccabees tells us what happened. Antiochus IV set up an altar to Zeus in the Holy of Holies and sacrificed a pig to Zeus there, open blasphemy and defilement of the Holy of Holies directly in God's face.  He did it specifically to enrage the Jews and the God of the Jews. This is what I believe is the spirit of the Antichrist. Antiochus IV believed he was a god, and he wanted to take on the Jewish god ,and he did so with blasphemy and with an ending of the animal sacrifice. 

Phase four was the Romans under Titus and the days of Jerusalem, the very thing we're talking about.  The Jewish zealots and revolutionaries had pushed the Roman occupiers so far. Titus said, "Enough is enough," and comes in with the legions. They defeat the zealots militarily. Though he didn't want the Temple destroyed, it was destroyed and not one stone was left on another. It was completely desecrated. When these pagans came in, they brought the effigies, the images of Caesar, and set them up in the Temple. So this is that desecration, that idolatry and the fulfillment of the abomination of desolation.

IV. Final phase:  The “Abomination of Desolation” and the AntiChrist

Those are the four phases that are passed. Is there yet one more to come? I believe there is. Here I would urge you to look at 2 Thessalonians 2, and we'll finish with that. First of all, you need to understand the significance of Jesus' death on the cross. The moment that Jesus died, the curtain in the Temple is torn in two from top to bottom. Jesus said, "It is finished." What is finished? The old covenant is finished. Animal sacrifice is finished.  A new and living way has been opened for us into the presence of God. What was restricted in the old covenant is now open to us by the blood of Jesus. The author of the Book of Hebrews makes it very plain that the old covenant is obsolete, and animal sacrifice as pleasing to the God is done forever. God will never again be pleased with the blood of bulls and goats, ever. It would be a direct affront to the blood of His Son, which was offered.

"The moment that Jesus died, the curtain in the Temple is torn in two from top to bottom. Jesus said, "It is finished." What is finished? The old covenant is finished. Animal sacrifice is finished.  A new and living way has been opened for us into the presence of God."

The author of Hebrews tells us again and again, “once for all,” never to be offered again. It says in Hebrews 8:13, "By calling this covenant new, He's made the first one obsolete.” What is obsolete will  soon disappear. When not one stone is left on another, the Temple itself destroyed. The problem is that when the curtain in theTemple was torn into from top to bottom, the priests that were there watching it, most of them didn't believe in Jesus. Certainly, they must have reported it back to the high priest, Caiaphas. He didn't believe in Jesus either. He had no explanation for the miraculous tearing of the curtain from top to bottom. But what do you think they did? They repaired it. They replaced it. So animal sacrifice went on for another generation after Jesus. What do you think God thought about that? That's an affront to His Son, and it's an affront to the new covenant. It's affront to everything He stood for. Yet, the Jews did it because they didn't believe that Jesus was the consummation of the animal sacrificial system.  They didn't believe that His blood ended for all time animal sacrifice. So in come the Romans, and they destroy the Temple, putting a physical end to animal sacrifice. It can't be done. It hasn't been done for almost 2,000 years since then. Yet, from all over the world, Jews go to Jerusalem. They go to the Wailing Wall, and many of them pray for ... What do they pray for? A rebuilding of the Temple.

For most of my Christian life, I had heard that the Temple was going to be rebuilt. Then when I read the Book of Hebrews and studied it, it's like, "That's awful." God doesn't want animal sacrifice ever again. When Jesus said, "It is finished," He meant it. When the curtain in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom, that was it. When the author says, "A new and living way has been open for us into the presence of God through the body and blood of Jesus," that's it. It's finished. Yet, we've got this tragic unbelief and blindness on the part of the Jewish nation and a desire to re-establish animal sacrifice. I came to realize just because it's an affront to God and an affront to the finished work of Christ, doesn't mean it won't happen. Didn't the curtain itself get repaired or replaced? Why not the whole Temple?

Then you study 2 Thessalonians 2, and this kind of, in my opinion, cinches it. I don't really have a good interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 2 apart from one final act of the “abomination of desolation.” There's one left to come. Look what Paul says. By the way, the Thessalonians had some false teachers there that told them, unfortunately, they had missed the day of the Lord. How depressing is that? They missed the end of all things.  I don't even know how you make that teaching, but I would find that depressing. Imagine if I got up next week, "By the way, we missed it. We missed it all, not just the rapture now. We missed the whole thing." This was strange false teaching and Paul came in to refute it. He writes very clearly in 1 Thessalonians 4 about the Rapture, and he writes very clearly in 2 Thessalonians 2, I would say, pumping the brakes on a sense of immediacy about the Second Coming.  He said, "Don't let anyone deceive you." Look what he says in 2 Thessalonians 2, 3, and 4. "Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction." 2 Thessalonians 2:4 sounds exactly like Daniel 11:36 to me. Listen to what Paul writes about the man of sin, "He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or His worship so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”  The end can't come until that happens, and it hasn't happened yet. 

I'm saying it still hasn't happened yet. How do I know? Look at verse 8, 2 Thessalonians 2:8, "This man of lawlessness who opposes and exalts himself over everything that is called God and sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God, Jesus is going to destroy with the breath of his mouth and the splendor of His coming.” I know that some reform scholars or others spiritualized this. They saw the Pope as Antichrist. They saw the spread of the true gospel as a fulfillment, it isn't. The Second Coming is something in physical space and time that we'll be able to see with our own eyes, and part of His agenda will be to destroy the beast from the sea, the Antichrist who, 1 John 2 tells us is coming, who sets himself up in God's temple. He's going to destroy Him with the breath of His mouth and the splendor of His coming. That hasn't happened yet.

I don't think it's helpful to spiritualize it. I'm all in favor of sound doctrine. I'm all in favor of that doctrine spreading around the world. I believe that sound doctrine pushes back the spirit of Antichrist. I believe in all of that. I believe many antichrists have come, and we need to fight them in every generation by sound doctrine. But there is an Antichrist coming. John tells us that. “You have heard that Antichrist is coming. Even now, many antichrists have come. There is one that is yet to come,” and 2 Thessalonians 2-4 describes him and Daniel 11:36 describes him. "The king will do as he pleases." This is Daniel 11:36. "He will exalt and magnify himself above every God and will say unheard of things against the God of Gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined must take place."

One of the things he will do, according to verse 31 of Daniel 11, is to abolish daily sacrifice. The way I put all that together is the Jews will get what they wanted throughout every century, a reestablishment of the animal sacrificial system. We know from the Book of Hebrews what God thinks about that, but it doesn't mean it won't happen and that it will be enacted, it seems, by the prince of the people who will come. That is the Antichrist who will make a covenant with them.  Halfway through that time, he will put an end to it and he will take its place and he'll set himself, and I think of it as air quotes. He'll set himself up in so-called God's temple declaring himself to be so-called God and that will be considered blasphemy. I think it is also essential to the Jews turning genuinely to Christ as they will do right before the Second Coming. But that's another story for another time.

V. Application

“Let the reader understand.” That's what all of that meant. “Let the reader understand.” What are we supposed to do with it? Jesus says, "Behold, I have told you ahead of time." What are we supposed to do with that information? First, let me go back to the point I started with. Understand the desolation that comes from not living in a right relationship with God. That's the real problem here, the emptiness.

God is a full being, and He wants to fill you with Himself. He wants to fill you with the Spirit of Christ. He wants to fill you with the Holy Spirit. The clearest teaching on this is Ephesians 3:17-19. Paul prays for the Ephesian Christians, "I pray that you may be rooted and established in love and may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and that you may know that love that surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

That's what salvation is, friends, filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. God is a full being, and He wants to fill you. It is idolatry, the abomination that makes desolate. So what idolatry is in your life driving out the fullness that you could experience with Christ? That's the question you have to ask. Now, I believe in a geopolitical actual military aspect of this. I believe in physical history, but I also think it's spiritual as well.

I urge you, come to Christ and trust in Him while there's time. Believe that His death on the cross ended forever the need for blood sacrifice. Jesus' blood is the blood of the new covenant. By faith in that blood, you can be washed and cleansed of all your sins and know the fullness of God. Finally, marvel at the intricacies of redemptive history. 

I've been looking forward to and dreading this sermon for weeks now. I decided it was not best to preach it in December. I think you all agree now. It probably was best to preach a couple of good Christmas sermons in December. But now we've gone through the intricacies here. It's a marvel, isn't it? Don't you share with me a marveling at the simplicity and the complexity of the Bible? Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for this deep dive that we've had through the Book of Daniel, redemptive history, the things that Jesus wanted us to know. The fact of the desecration of the holy space by the Gentiles again and again and again has been a display of your holiness, a display of the fact that you don't dwell in temples built by human hands, but you want to dwell in our hearts by the Spirit. So I pray that you would help us, oh Lord, help us to walk with you, help us to put to death all the idols and the sins in our lives, and help us to be faithful to share the message of the simple gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world that needs it so desperately. In Jesus' name, amen.