Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, with Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:15, words that describe a singularly hair-raising event, the Great Tribulation will begin.
A 3½-year period of unprecedented spiritual defection and oppression, along with its resultant worldwide suffering on a scale never seen before on this planet.
Don’t take my word for that. Take Jesus’ word for that. In Matthew 24:21, “For then there will be great tribulation, greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again.”
The Great Tribulation, that will begin with the singular event to which Jesus alluded in Matthew 24:15, and will end with the climax of human history as we know it — the glorious Second Coming of Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Permit me the briefest of reviews. It is absolutely vital that we keep the end-times timeline straight.
The next event on God’s prophetic timetable is that wondrous event we commonly call The Rapture, where Christ-followers throughout the world will “meet the Lord in the air.”
Nothing needs to happen before the Rapture, that awesome event described so vividly in 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Corinthians 15, and alluded to by Jesus in John 14. The Rapture, or as Paul called it, Our “blessed hope.” Titus 2:13, “While we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Please note that Paul described our “blessed hope” as Jesus’ “appearing,” not His “coming,” a distinction of monumental importance.
Now again, nothing has to happen before the Rapture, where Jesus will appear in the clouds and we meet Him in the air, all of this near the beginning of Tribulation. Yes, you can indeed wake up every morning of every day with the hope-filled words flooding your troubled soul, Perhaps Today! Nothing has to happen before the Rapture.
That said, much, much has to happen before the Second Coming, where Jesus will literally come down to the earth, setting foot on the Mount of Olives, this at the very end of the Tribulation.
Most notably, what has to happen before the Second Coming? The event described by Jesus in Matthew 24:15, and by Daniel in Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11.
Hear it from Jesus’ lips to our ears: “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” (Matthew 24:15).
“Let the reader understand.” Why that particular exhortation? Precisely because there is so much confusion about this prophecy, and so many who therefore do not understand.
Confusion which we will bring to a conclusion in this podcast.
Now, a common interpretation of Daniel 9, 11, and 12 states that “the abomination that causes desolation” refers to an unspeakably horrific event that rocked Jerusalem in the years 169-167 BC. During this period, the ancient Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes declared himself “God Manifest” and took the throne over Syria. During his rule, he almost conquered Egypt and brutally persecuted the Jewish people, which precipitated the Maccabean revolt. He even erected a statue of Zeus inside the Temple’s Holy of Holies and punished any adherence to God’s law with a death sentence. Ultimately, he sacrificed a pig (an unholy animal) in God’s Temple. His bizarre and blasphemous behavior earned him another nickname among the Jews: “Antiochus Epimanes”, which means “mad one”. It’s quite understandable how Old Testament prophesy experts might believe this is the fulfillment of Daniel’s “abomination that causes desolation”.
However, Jesus spoke of Daniel’s prophesy as something that hadn’t yet happened in Jesus’ day.
What I find incredibly frightening is that the actual “abomination that causes desolation” will be even worse than what our Jewish friends endured at the hands of Antiochus “the madman”!
So, in order for Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:15 (as he referred to Daniel’s prophesy), the Temple in Jerusalem will have to be rebuilt. No Temple stands there today. Yet, as we speak, preparations are being made so that given a green light, the people of Jerusalem could have a new Temple up and running within just a few months. But there is one huge problem: the golden Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine built to commemorate Muhammad’s ascension into heaven. It will take someone with as much charisma, leadership and supernatural ability as the man that the Bible describes as the “man of lawlessness” to negotiate the kind of agreement that will convince the Islamic leaders to tear down their shrine and allow a new Holy Temple to be built at that site.
Paul writes about this, and Jesus’ Second Coming (not the Rapture) in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4,
Now, dear brothers and sisters, let us clarify some things about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we will be gathered to meet Him. Don’t be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already begun. Don’t believe them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from us. 3 Don’t be fooled by what they say. For that day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed—the one who brings destruction. 4 He will exalt himself and defy everything that people call god and every object of worship. He will even sit in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God.
Even Antiochus didn’t go this far in his blasphemy. He set up a statue of Zeus and proclaimed Zeus as God, but the anti-christ will go one further and declare himself as God. THAT is the “abomination that causes desolation”.
Also, keep in mind that there will be two “gatherings” of this nature: 1) the Rapture and 2) Christ’s second coming, which will include those fortunate enough to have survived the Tribulation along with those who were raptured before the Tribulation. Here, Paul is talking about the latter.
Jesus adds more detail about His Second Coming in Matthew 24:30-31
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. 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.
That’s all of us who have chosen to follow Jesus!
But, before Jesus comes back, any of those who are living at the time need to follow Jesus’ instructions, NOT the example of the Maccabees and run for the hills… if they try to rebel and fight, they will lose.
“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. (Matthew 24:15-27
Our blessed hope is that we, those who have already chosen Jesus Christ as the Lord of their lives and the Savior of their souls, will be spared all this! And, gloriously, we can, and should, wake up every morning with the thought of… perhaps today! Perhaps the first gathering – the Rapture – might happen even today!