Verses 26-28. Many will try to say that Jesus has already come, as they did as early as the first century, in Thessalonica. It was this perversion of the truth, an early attempt at a rapture theory, that occasioned the book of II Thessalonians… and thank God for it! Jesus asserts in Matthew that He is not coming back gradually, slowly, casually, or spookily. When He is here, you will know immediately!

Verse 29, coming here as it does, following a lengthy response to his beloved and very curious disciples, ought to stop forever the thought of a pre-tribulation catching away. Is it conceivable to you that Jesus, having been asked what He was asked by disciples, not Jewish rabble, not enemies, would fail to tell His closest friends and allies about a secret coming seven long years before His arrival again to the planet? When they wanted to know about His coming, would He have deliberately passed over the fact that they would not have to run when the others did, that they should not fear false prophets as the others feared, that they should not be bothered about looking up to the heavens as the others when signs in the heavens occur, because they would already be with Him?

Two key words appear in this verse. “Immediately”. After the trouble caused by the abomination of desolation, the “sign” the disciples asked for, no years, months, weeks or days intervene. When that time period, defined by Daniel and John in their visions, is over, immediately it is the end of the age!

And need I say it, “after”. Jesus comes for His own after the tribulation, the world’s great trouble, Jacob’s trouble. What more can Jesus say to our confused church generation than what He already said? No hint of a previous coming. But a clear statement of this one. All the powers of the heavens shaken. Jesus appears. He sends His angels. They sound the last trumpet. They gather His chosen from the four winds. They are caught up! They are raptured! They are spared the judgment that now falls on the planet. But they are not spared the great tribulation.

So there is Matthew 24. How clear it is. How muddled has been our thinking. Oh how much better to take what Jesus says as He says it.

Here now is the sign He spoke in that chapter, verse 15: Read it carefully:

“Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand),”

One thing Jesus does not do anywhere in this discourse is tell us what the sign means! Instead, he refers us to the Prophet Daniel. And there we must go, if we are to understand. Daniel spoke no less than four times about the “abomination of desolation”. He approaches the subject several ways, and leads us to some clear conclusions. He also points us to a man in history who actually desecrated the temple in an abominable way. Yet evidence within Daniel and the clear sense of what Jesus is saying tell us that that ancient king has not fulfilled the prophecy of Daniel or Jesus. Not yet.

Jesus says that when we see this abomination, this thing God hates, it will be standing in the holy place. Standing because it is placed there? As in the previews we get in history from Antiochus Epiphanes two centuries before Christ? Or General Titus forty years after Christ? Or standing of his own accord, and sitting too, as Paul reveals in his second letter to Thessalonica, chapter two?

Standing in a place that is holy. No need to conjecture as to what was the holy place to the Jews. Daniel speaks of a Temple. Jesus was standing near the Temple when He spoke these words. Paul says this man will actually be in the Temple of God!

Yes, we know that our bodies and the church of Christ are both referred to as temples in the Bible. But there is no need for such an interpretation when the text cries out to be literally understood. We are talking about a man here, in one historical –yet still prophetic - incident, who sits in a physical space, inside the yet to come Temple of the Jewish people.

Many seem not able to believe that God can do the things He seems to be saying. Like, how could there be yet another Temple? Perhaps many asked that when Solomon’s Temple was floored. But a new building came. Actually the plans for such an edifice in our day are already on the table. A quick “Google” search for the “Temple Faithful” will yield more than enough evidence that real live Jewish people are planning a come-back of sacrificial worship just as soon as it is politically possible. Never mind that it will not be “efficacious” or necessary, it is coming.

So the verse says that when we see what Daniel said, it’s time to run. And it closes with an all-important admonition to all Bible-readers. The Spirit of God knew that the words being spoken in that day would be more important to readers than to hearers in the long run, and so made sure that they (readers) got the message: understand! Read it over and over, do your homework, figure out what this means! What is inside will eventually jump out at you. Yes, the Lord knew that the words being spoken that day would be committed to pen, to typewriter, to computer, and that literally billions of people would one day have access to them. It has now reached you. May you have the grace to seek the Lord with all of your strength until you have unlocked fully your future.

Before we follow the Lord’s leading to go back to Daniel, it is necessary that we take a quick visit over to Brother Luke. In his 21st chapter is a parallel passage, presumably spoken at the same time by Jesus. But there is at least one clear difference in the text that might be disturbing to some. Luke heard from the Spirit and/or his Spirit-filled sources some words that Matthew was not led to share with us. Remember, Matthew was there. Luke was not. But we believe both men have given us the Spirit’s message from the lips of Jesus.

In verse 20, having gone through all the same preliminary listings of things that will not be signs that the end is near, Jesus turns to a sign related to the abomination, one that must come before that horrid scene, and one that is similarly mentioned by Daniel. According to Luke, what we will see before fleeing, should we be there on that appointed day, is an army fully surrounding Jerusalem...

What?