Ours was the abomination. He took the desolation.

“A Trouble that Will Be Cut Short”

(Matthew 24:15-22, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 22, 2008)

(John 4:19-26)…

Matthew 24:15-22 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.

Introduction – A complex question (3)

The disciples of Jesus Christ ask Him a very complex question. They were talking about the impressive temple building in Jerusalem, and He predicted its imminent destruction. Their question is this: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” This is more than one question, yet they and even Jesus largely treat the matter somehow as one question of endings and beginnings. These endings and beginnings are best understood through the idea of temple; the destruction of a building temple, the gathering of a body temple, and then the resurrection appearing of Christ and His church. What makes their question complicated is that these events began at the resurrection of Jesus and they are not yet completed. The old temple was destroyed, the new temple is being gathered, and we are still waiting for the final resurrection temple.

In a sense, this is one question. There are specific things that are said here that find a fulfillment in the destruction of the temple building in Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. However, those very same statements have something to tell us about the final events at the coming again of the Lord. The Lord does not tell us to focus on guessing when He will return. He wants us to be spiritually aware of a change from the impressive stones of a building to the priority of gathering living stones into a body through the preaching of the gospel in an age of suffering.

The Abomination of Desolation – Past, present, and future (15)

Like the Old Testament prophets who went before Him, Jesus uses the building temple to talk about the body temple. Given that fact, what exactly is “the abomination of desolation?” It is (1) a disgrace that brings (2) destruction. This expression is from the Old Testament prophet Daniel. Daniel was prophesying during a time when the temple in Jerusalem had already been destroyed by the Babylonians and prior to the rebuilding of the temple by returning exiles. He speaks prophetically about a coming temple that is horribly profaned. The first of three fulfillments of this prophesy had already happened 200 hundred years before the death of Christ. A foreign ruler built a pagan altar in the temple. This was a horrible desecration. The second was the Roman desecration in AD 70, about forty years after Jesus spoke these words. If the first one was the past fulfillment of the abomination of desolation, the Roman desecration was the present. Yet these two things would not have been as important if not for this: that they were like parables of a third and final future fulfillment of this Daniel prophesy at the return of Jesus. In other words, there is a bigger abomination that is still coming, and it will signal the biggest desolation.

Jesus is using the past horror in an earlier temple to talk about a present horror in the temple of his contemporaries and a future horror in a temple at the time of His return. It should not surprise us that He would speak like this. Remember that the Old Testament prophets did this all the time. Remember also that the disciples had asked about both the destruction of the temple and about the sign of His coming again. Given what we have said about “temple” so far, are the wheels spinning in your minds? You know that the temple that the Romans destroyed was a building temple, but the temple that will be on the earth when the Lord returns will be a body temple. (Consider what Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.) In our day, an abomination from a Gentile army entering a Jewish temple; all that is a thing of the past. The temple that will be desecrated so horribly in the future is a body temple, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that we, the church, are the temple of the Holy Spirit. It must be this body temple that he refers to in 2 Thessalonians when he warns about the one “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.” That will happen in the church, not in any building in Jerusalem. The demands for worship of some false Christ who ends up being followed throughout the worldwide church will be the ultimate abomination that brings the ultimate desolation. Any earlier events were signposts pointing toward this larger and final trouble.

What to do when the Romans come (16-18)

Nonetheless, the particular fulfillment of this prophesy that the hearers of Jesus would have been most interested in was the one that he said was coming in their lifetime. Many people would die in the attack of the Romans upon Jerusalem. This would be a very difficult trial, so difficult that it could be spoken of with the kind of apocalyptic language that proves it to be a taste of the final Day of the Lord. What should everyone in Judea do when the Romans came? Run for their lives! They should not die to defend the old building temple. That day was gone. They should get out of the city as fast as they could when they saw the approach of the Roman armies who were bent on destroying the religious site of the Jews.

The trouble of the coming destruction (19-20)

Our Savior speaks with concern for the women and children in Jerusalem in that day. He is thinking of the trouble that will come to people as they try to make their escape. They may find that the weather or the Sabbath customs will create special challenges to the safety of those who are refugees. Jerusalem will not be a good place to be. The old temple will not be a safe haven. Jesus cares about this, and He wanted His disciples to know what to do. AD 70 would certainly not be the only trouble for the early Jewish Christians. The non-Christian Jews wanted to kill the body temple of the New Testament church. This too was a reason for fleeing, and the church was mercifully scattered at the time of the persecution of Stephen as recorded in Acts 7 and 8. Here was an early attack of the Antichrist spirit against the true temple of God. Yet God preserved a remnant as He had during Old Testament days.

Then and those days (21-22)

Of course, we are also interested in the future day of trouble for the body temple. As AD 70 was the worst of all times for the building temple, the brief period of most intense troubles immediately prior to the return of Christ will suddenly be the most horrible time of trial for Christ’s body temple. In verse 21 it is called a great tribulation, in fact the greatest in all history. It is hard to imagine that these words could have been entirely fulfilled in the first century, at least for the body temple. The trouble that the church will face immediately prior to the return of Christ will be extremely intense, but the period of every trial; past, present, or future, is in God’s hands.

This fact is an encouragement to us. If we are alive in that day, or if our children are alive in that day, we will have the wonderful benefit of this fact: The Lord will not keep his people in that greatest trial forever. If He forgot us at that worst hour no human being would be preserved to the end. He is able to cut short the times in those days. He does this for the sake of His beloved elect. That certainly should not surprise us, since it is just like the story of the cross. Christ has more than cut short the pain of His elect by His time on the cross. He has utterly removed the eternal punishment that was rightly against us. He did this for us. He will not leave us here to suffer forever in a time of great tribulation. This is also true of our individual lives. Have no fear. You do not have to live forever in this world of trouble. He will rescue you. He will not be late when He comes to bring you to your heavenly home.

What can we learn from tribulation past, present, and future?

Depending on where you are in your life here on earth, what I have just said may seem like a very distant matter or a very real concern. For many people it is their every thought. “How much longer will I have to bear the suffering that I face now?” I am sure that this becomes a more universal concern during a time of persecution, like the time that will come upon the church when a great adversary of God captures the hearts of so many who once claimed the name of Christian, and when the civil government becomes a weapon of warfare against those who love Christ. It will be an enormous challenge to live in a day where the tribulation will be so bad that it can honestly be said by the most credible judge of human affairs that times have never been so bad. We need to pray for strength now.

We do not all live in such a time as that today, but that’s not to say that our children may not live in that day, or that you will not face that kind of day in your individual life. Of course there are people in every age that face the most intense pain and trouble. For those who are looking for the coming of a resurrection temple, and face cancer or great loneliness, it would not at all be strange for the cry of their hearts to be this: “How long, O Lord?” In such a time, there are insights from this passage that can help a weary soul not only to endure, but to somehow have joy and even to prosper when life is as hard as it gets.

Let me offer you these two thoughts: First, God is in charge. Where is God while you are suffering? He is reigning. He is right where He was when His Son paid the price for your sins on the cross. Of course you and I cannot understand the depths of the challenges that we face by His providence. He does understand, and He is in charge. Take comfort in that fact. Second, and finally, God loves His temple. He always has and He always will. He loves you more than He loves the most beautiful mountain landscape, or the most amazing building anywhere. You are His. He cared about you when His Son died for you, and He knows how to shorten the days of Your troubles. You can trust Him through the worst suffering of body and soul. If necessary, He knows where to take you right now to keep you safe until the new morning comes, and He surely knows when to bring about the safe delivery of His glorious resurrection temple at the coming of His Son.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What is the “reader” supposed to “understand” about the “abomination of desolation?”

2. What is the Lord’s instruction to those who would face the coming attack of the Romans? Why should they flee?

3. What aspects of the passage seem to go beyond AD 70? How does this teaching compare to the prophets?

4. Why would the Lord say what He says in verses 19-22? How do these verses help us today?