Matthew 24

¹⁵ “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, ¹⁸ and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. ¹⁹ And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! ²⁰ Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. ²² And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. ²³ Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. ²⁴ For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵ See, I have told you beforehand. ²⁶ So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. ²⁷ For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ²⁸ Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. ²⁹ “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰ Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

It is one of the more famous translation errors to have entered the English vernacular. Smithsonian Magazine explains.

Henry Newman, an Anglo journalist working in Calcutta in the 1920s, first heard reports of a Wild Man on the slopes of the Himalayas from members of a 1921 British expedition to summit Everest led by Lieutenant Colonel C. K. Howard-Bury. Sherpas on the expedition discovered footprints that they believed belonged to the “wild man of the snows,” and word quickly spread through the Tibetans. Newman, hearing these reports, garbled the Tibetan term metoh kangmi (which means “man-like wild creature”), misrecognizing metoh as metch, and mistranslating “wild” as “filthy” or “dirty.” Settling finally on “The Abominable Snowman” for his English-speaking readers, the name stuck. Cryptozoologist Ivan Sanderson would later describe the impact of the name as being “like an explosion of an atom bomb,” capturing the imagination of schoolkids and armchair explorers all over Europe and America.

That is something, is it not? The Abominable Snowman is not, technically speaking, abominable after all…he is just wild! But the word stuck: “abominable.” Smithsonian Magazine continues with a really fascinating explanation of why that word is so jarring:

An abomination does more than evoke metaphysical horror and physical disgust; it is an affront to the ways in which we understand the world. Mary Douglas, in her 1966 anthropological classic, Purity and Danger, argues that one of the fundamental means humans have for understanding the world is to organize it into the “clean” and the “unclean”: religious rituals and prohibitions, taboo and transgression, all work to formalize these categories. But abominations, she writes, “are the obscure unclassifiable elements which do not fit the pattern of the cosmos. They are incompatible with holiness and blessing.” On the border between here and there, an abomination doesn’t just mark the limit of civilization, it troubles the boundaries themselves, it interrupts the categories we make to make sense of the world.[1]

That is so very well said. Abominations—things that are abominable—“are incompatible with holiness and blessing.”

Jesus will use the word in the Olivet Discourse, which we began journeying through with the beginning of Matthew 24. He uses the word but notes that it was used even before He used it, by Daniel.

Jesus says an abomination is coming.

Then He says that deceivers are coming.

But then He says, more significantly, that He is coming again!

In our consideration of these verses, we are not going to try to fit any overly-intricate prophetic scheme or chart or overall system. Rather, we are going to consider three movements that Jesus says will come: the coming of the abominable one, the coming of the deceitful ones, and the coming of the judging/saving One.

The coming of the abominable one.

We begin with the abominable, “the abomination of desolation.” After prophesying the destruction of the temple and the coming of judgment, Jesus gives further details.

¹⁵ “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, ¹⁸ and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. ¹⁹ And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! ²⁰ Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. ²² And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

One is coming, Jesus says, “the abomination of desolation.” He will “stand in the holy place” and his coming and work will mark the beginning of great travail. “Great tribulation” will ensue. People will suffer and it will threaten the world. But this tribulation will be “cut short” “for the sake of the elect.”

Jesus says that the “abomination of desolation” was referenced by the prophet Daniel, and indeed he was. We see, for instance, in Daniel 9, a picture of a powerful figure who will establish a covenant with Israel that will not last.

²⁷ And he 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. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

In Daniel 11, we see this figure profaning and disrupting temple worship. He is also pictured as a deceiver, one who will mislead many with his demonic charm.

³¹ Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate. ³² He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.

Daniel 12 speaks of him again in relation to the end.

¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ And 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.

The abomination of desolation needs to be thought of in terms of an already/not yet fulfillment. There was an earlier, partial fulfillment of this prophecy and there will be a greater and final fulfillment in the events of the coming end. John MacArthur writes:

Virtually every Bible scholar, no matter what his views on eschatology, identifies that abomination as the sacrilege committed by Antiochus IV, the Syrian king who ruled Palestine from 175–165 b.c. as a surrogate of the Greek empire. He took to himself the title Theos Epiphanes, which means “manifest god,” but his enemies nicknamed him Epimanes, which means “madman” or “the insane one.” Ironically, when he died in 163, he was totally insane, outraged to the point of madness because of his military defeats by the Jewish rebel Judas Maccabaeus. The text of Daniel 11:21–35 perfectly describes the rule of Antiochus, who gained his throne “by intrigue” (v. 21), made numerous excursions into Egypt (vv. 24–27), broke his covenant with Israel (v. 28), and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem (v. 31).[2]

Prophecy is not an either/or: either fulfilled now or will be fulfilled in the days to come. It is frequently a both/and: fulfilled partially earlier and will be fulfilled finally in the days to come. This appears to be the case with the abomination of desolation: a dark, powerful, demonic figure that does works of blasphemy and intrigue and desecration. For instance, Paul seems to be speaking of the abomination of desolation in 2 Thessalonians 2, when he writes:

¹ Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, ² not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. ³ Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, ⁴ who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

The abomination of desolation has come…and is coming.

The coming of the deceitful many.

Then we find in Jesus a reference to many. Specifically, we find reference to many false Christs.

²³ Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.

In verses 4 and 5 of this chapter, we already saw such a warning.

⁴ And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. ⁵ For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.

Earlier, I provided a list of false Christs throughout history. Here are a few more:

• Ante Pavlović (1957–2020), a Croatian self-proclaimed chiropractor who claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ who he would soon become president of Croatia.
• David Koresh (Vernon Wayne Howell) (1959–1993), leader of the Branch Davidians, renaming himself in honor of King David and Cyrus the Great. He and his followers were killed after an ATF raid and siege which ended with their compound catching fire.
• Maria Devi Christos (born 1960), leader of the Great White Brotherhood popular in the former Soviet Union.
• Sergey Torop (born 1961), who started to call himself “Vissarion”, founder of the Church of the Last Testament and the spiritual community Ecopolis Tiberkul in Southern Siberia.
• Alan John Miller (born 1962), founder of Divine Truth, a new religious movement based in Australia. Also known as A.J. Miller, he claims to be Jesus of Nazareth through reincarnation. Miller was formerly a Jehovah’s Witness[3]

On and on this list goes: from the truly insane who claim to be Jesus to the truly demonic who believe they truly are, history has produced many would-be Christs.

Jesus warns His followers against this: “Do not believe it!” (v.23).

Jesus does not deny that these false Christs will have power.

²⁴ For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵ See, I have told you beforehand. ²⁶ So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.

Beware of slick, polished, wonder-working, false messiahs! Beware the person who seems a little too good to be true! Before Christ returns, there will be many false christs who show up on the scene.

The coming of the judging/saving one.

But, ultimately, Jesus Himself will appear in glory. And He will appear as judge and as savior.

²⁷ For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

His coming will be like lightning. That is, His coming will be cataclysmic, utterly disruptive, a sudden, jarring appearance, an incursion so shocking that the world will stand in slack-jawed amazement. And He will bring judgment and wrath against the enemies of God.

²⁸ Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. ²⁹ “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰ Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

This is imagery of judgment and of woe. We have seen this before. Consider these examples from the book of Joel.

The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. (Joel 2:10)

The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. (Joel 2:31)

The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. (Joel 3:15)

The coming of the Lord will be a day of mourning for the lost, a day when the Lord returns “with power and great glory.”

But for His people, the coming of Jesus is a day of salvation!

³¹ And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

The elect will be gathered “from one end of heaven to the other.” Meaning, He will not miss any who belong to Him! Jesus will gather His people! What will be woe and lamentation for the rebellious world will be joy and salvation for His people!

Jesus is painting a picture in the Olivet Discourse of the coming of corruption and the coming of deceit but then, overcoming all these things, the coming of the Son of righteousness!

Let us hold firm to this: Jesus will return again. His return will be literal. He is truly coming again. This is the unavoidable teaching of the word of God.

 

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-bigfoot-and-abominable-snowman-loom-large-human-imagination-180975365/#:~:text=The%20name%20“The%20Abominable%20Snowman,Howard%2DBury.

[2] https://www.gty.org/library/bibleqnas-library/QA0093/the-abomination-of-desolation

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants