Mark 13:14–23

The “abomination that causes desolation” is a phrase taken from three cryptic references in the Old Testament book of Daniel. Matthew’s account of this says so plainly:

So this abomination of desolation is drawing from the book of Daniel. Let’s read the accounts there.

So for one week, maybe seven years, he will have a covenant with people. And for half of those seven years, half of the week, he shall put an end to sacrifices and offerings.

The sacrifices will be removed, and replaced with abominations that will bring their destruction.

Again, whatever this is that gets set up, this abominable thing to God, it will bring desolation. Whatever this abomination is, it was a scandal that would defile and profane the temple in Jerusalem. And so when Jesus speaks about this in Matthew 24, this is why, when it is set up, desolation is coming. So run!

So what would be an abomination that might bring desolation? Well, look backwards. Between the books of Malachi and Matthew are around 400 years. This is called the intertestamental period. During that time there were writings, and one of the writings that the Jewish people generally accepted was the history of the Maccabean revolt.

In 1 Maccabees 1:54 this same wording is used to describe what the Seleucid king Antiochus IV did in 167 BC, when he erected an altar to Zeus in the temple of Jerusalem and offered a sacrifice on it. Here is how 1 Maccabees records it:

When the Jewish people saw this, they were so enraged that it led to the Maccabean Revolt. So when Jesus talks about an abomination of desolation, they, in their own history, had already had an abomination of desolation set up: a prefigurement of the one to come.

Now, I happen to believe there is a final abomination of desolation described in Revelation 13, but there seem to be a few moments in history where it is foreshadowed.

The way Jesus speaks about this abomination is that it will stand where it ought not to be, and then the people should run. The language here of fleeing to the mountains is reminiscent of Lot having to flee Sodom and Gomorrah. As in that account, the cities were to be destroyed imminently, and the faithful, Lot and his family, were not to look back. And those that did, Lot’s wife, were swept up in the destruction. This is the same basic idea here.

Jesus is warning His disciples to watch out for something that will be destructive and sacrilegious. God will see this, and bring desolation. Now, even though I think the fuller fulfillment of this is described in the book of Revelation, we still have to wrestle with the fact that Jesus is talking to the four disciples about something they will see. So what might this first-century abomination be? Something happened in the first century, around the time of the destruction of the temple. Here are four options.

1. Caligula’s statues. In the late 30s, Caligula, Roman emperor from AD 37–41, attempted to erect statues of himself in the temple of Jerusalem. Maybe that was the warning to the church to get out of Jerusalem before the destruction came.
2. The zealots in the temple. Not long before the Romans besieged Jerusalem in 70, Jewish religious zealots took over the temple complex and installed their own fake high priest, and even committed murder within the temple itself. Of course this would be an abomination, an abominable act, that happened where it ought not to be. And this would be a sign to get out of Dodge.
3. The Roman standards. Another possibility: after the temple had been burned in AD 70, the Romans brought their standards up to the temple grounds, offered sacrifices to them, and hailed Titus as imperator. This is one of the reasons the preterist view doesn’t work for me, because preterists like to put this as the abomination of desolation. But when you read the whole purpose of the abomination of desolation as it relates to the church, it is a sign to flee. The standards stood in the place where they ought not to be after the destruction had already come, so I don’t think that could be it. And then sometimes they say the armies surrounding Jerusalem were somehow connected to the abomination, and they try to use Luke, but it just doesn’t hold up to me.
4. The cross (though I don’t think so). In just a few days Jesus is going to be judged and beaten and flogged within the walls of Jerusalem, and then led just outside the city, and Jesus is going to hang on a cross. What greater act of sacrilege, what greater abomination, could there be than the killing of the Son of God just outside the city, in sight of the temple on Mount Moriah? And this abomination brought desolation. It set in motion a chain of events that led to the Jewish revolt, and eventually to their desolation by the Romans in 70.

So those are four options for you to consider. But whatever the abomination of desolation was in the first century, whatever the disciples saw, it seems to be a foreshadow of another abomination of desolation described in the New Testament.

Consider what Paul writes:

So a man of lawlessness will take his seat in the temple, proclaiming himself to be God. Now the big text here is Revelation 13:

This second beast is the false prophet, who leads the people to worship the antichrist. He is going to lead the world into making some sort of image of the antichrist, and then is going to give breath to the image, to make it speak.

There is definitely some mystery here. We do not know exactly what this image is. But the earliest full-length commentary the church has on the book of Revelation, written by Victorinus, likened this image to the statue erected by Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3, and I think this is right: all who do not worship it will be slain.

Here in Revelation 13, this seems to be the final fulfillment of the abomination of desolation. Because once this statue, which seems to be placed in the temple, is given a voice, any believers in the area should flee into the wilderness. Anyone who does not bow down to the beast, who does not receive the mark of the beast, 666, is going to be murdered. So run.

Whenever that abomination is standing, run. If you don’t have your medicine with you, too bad. You do not have time. Run. If you’re in the driveway getting the mail and this happens, you do not have time to go inside and grab a coat. Run. Get away, far away. Similar to Lot’s family, they are to go immediately and not look back. Just run.

Not long after the passage about the desolating sacrilege, 1 Maccabees says this:

And so Jesus is using similar language here. Run.

As this pertains to the first century, one of the reasons the Jewish people needed to flee from the city is that when the Romans laid siege, they built a giant wall that encircled the city. Once that wall was built, nobody could get out. There was no way out, other than death.

And so Jesus is warning the church: at some point in the disciples’ lifetime the temple was going to be destroyed, and the church needed to get away. The very last warning to get out was the abomination of desolation.

And when Jerusalem fell, the church was not there. Eusebius, writing in the early 300s, records that the church in Jerusalem left the city before the war and settled in a town across the Jordan called Pella. Jesus told them to flee, and it seems they did. There is not one account of a Christian left in Jerusalem during the siege.

I gave about 180 teachings through the book of Revelation. I am not a preterist. I am a historic premillennialist; I hold the same eschatology as the earliest church sources. So I believe the book of Revelation is largely future and not past. And I want to be clear here: as much as I think there are future implications to what we just read, AD 70 also seems to be in view.

Now I don’t know about you, but when I read verse 19, in my mind that seems to be describing something greater than just the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. But let’s not be married to our systems. Let’s be biblical. Let me read something to you, about Hezekiah:

Just a few chapters later we read this about Josiah:

The formula of “never before and never again” is used throughout the Old Testament, and it doesn’t necessarily mean unequalled in human history. How it’s used in 2 Kings is unequalled of its kind: a truly unique person or event.

So I believe that when the abomination of desolation is set up in the book of Revelation, there will be a truly horrific slaughter, and God will stop that slaughter for the sake of His elect. And I believe what happened in AD 70 was an unequalled event of its kind. The brutality, the slaughter at the temple complex, the burning of the temple: it was a unique event in human history.

I believe there are multiple things happening here. God talks about shortening the days for the sake of the elect, and yet the elect were not in Jerusalem during its fall. They got out. So maybe the great tribulation being talked about here is the persecution the church was going through in and around Jerusalem, and the days cut short might be God bringing the Romans to bring that persecution to an end. I don’t know.

But as I think about the different timelines here, I can’t help but think about the great tribulation described in the book of Revelation. Because in Revelation 7, that tribulation is the tribulation of the church, and the church wasn’t in Jerusalem during its fall.

So though there would be great tribulation during the fall of Jerusalem, the tribulation spoken of here in verse 19 is shortened for the sake of the elect, and so I don’t believe the emphasis is on the Jewish people who rejected Jesus within the walls of Jerusalem. The tribulation Jesus is speaking about may be the persecution of the church in the years leading up to AD 70, under Nero and the like. But I take it to mean, primarily, the great tribulation described in the book of Revelation. That is the great tribulation that will be utterly unique. The slaughter of the church will be brutal and unrivaled in those days.

We now move from the abomination of desolation to false messiahs. If you remember, a few weeks ago we had a whole teaching dedicated to this: see that no one leads you astray. Now we are warned again that false shepherds are coming. And people will believe it. People will vouch for a false shepherd. People will exclaim that he has come. Don’t believe it.

They will be so convincing that unless the Holy Spirit preserved us, even the elect would fall for it.

Be on guard. This means we need to keep our guard up, as false teachers and false ideologies are always trying to lead people astray, and if possible, even the elect. We must remain ever vigilant.

And understand, loved ones: it’s not just that the end days will be filled with liars. It’s that they will be filled with liars seeking to be shepherds, and that’s a big difference. The Greek wording for leading astray in verse 22 is often a shepherding term. So it is not just that this world will be filled with liars. It’s that it will be filled with liars seeking a following. False shepherds.

The church should not be taken by surprise, because the Lord has told us all these things beforehand. This is one of the running themes through the Olivet Discourse. The disciples ask what the sign will be, and Jesus responds, because Jesus knows. None of these things take Him by surprise. He is God.