Matthew Chapter 24

The Trouble in the End of the Gospel Age

 Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts are almost identical. Matthew says:

“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.  Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.” (Matt. 24:15-22; Mark 13:14-20)

Four points in this narrative show that while it may have had a typical application to the trouble in the end of the Jewish age, it’s real or most important application belongs to the trouble with which the Gospel age terminates.

(1) The reference to the “desolating abomination” mentioned in Daniel’s prophecy.

(2) The statement that the trouble will be the most severe the world has ever known or will ever experience.

(3) That unless the carnage was cut short there would be no flesh saved.

(4) The context succeeding unquestionably describes events at the end of the Gospel age— events which could not be applied to the end or harvest of the Jewish age, and were not fulfilled there. Two of these points deserve special examination.

The prophet Daniel (9:27) did record that after Messiah would be “cut off” in the midst of the seventieth week of covenant favor (A.D. 33), he, by establishing the antitypical sacrifices of atonement, would cause the sacrifices and oblations of the Law (the typical sacrifices) to cease: and that then, because abominations would prevail, he would pour destruction upon the desolate (rejected nation), as God had previously decreed.

All this had its fulfillment in the destruction of fleshly Israel’s polity. From the time our Lord said, “Your house is left unto you desolate“–“ye shall see me no more until that day when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of Jehovah,” their religion became an abomination, an empty form, a mark of their repudiation of the one sacrifice for sins which God had provided; and resting under the curse they had invoked upon themselves (blindness—Matt. 27:25), their course toward destruction was rapid, as God had decreed and foretold.

But Daniel’s prophecy has much more to say about an Abomination that makes Desolate in nominal spiritual Israel; which was set up in power representatively in Papacy, and which has exercised a great and baneful influence of spiritual desolation in the spiritual house or temple of God, the Church of Christ. This abominable system of error was to continue until the cleansing of the sanctuary class; and beyond that it was to prosper greatly and lead many in nominal spiritual Israel to repudiate the ransom-sacrifice, given once for all; and the result of its overspreading influence would be the desolation of rejected Christendom.” See Dan 11:31; 12:11

 The great abomination of desolation whose foundation rests in the doctrine of the Mass (which substitutes human performances instead of the great sacrifice of Calvary, for the cleansing away of sin) is now being supplemented by theories of self-atonement, and these overspreading abominations are backed by such influence and sophistry as will deceive many–“if it were possible the very elect,” and be precursors of the destruction of Christendom.

Looking back we see in this another parallelism between the end of the Jewish harvest and the end of the Gospel harvest.

Fleshly Israel’s rejection of the true sacrifice for sins, and their retention of the typical sacrifices which were no longer acceptable to God, but abominations, was an important incident in connection with their national and ecclesiastical fall. So here, the rejection of the doctrine of the ransom and the acceptance of either masses or good works or penances instead, is abomination in God’s sight and is an important incident in connection with the fall of Christendom, civil and ecclesiastical.

As already pointed out THE abomination of desolation which defiled God’s holy place or true temple, the Church, was the papal one, the cornerstone of which is the blasphemous doctrine of the Mass.

The abomination, defilement and desolation are old; but so gross was the darkness of error during centuries past that few, if any, could SEE it. That the Mass was not seen to be the abomination, even by the Reformers, is evident: for although the Church of England in her Articles denies the power of the priests to create Christ out of bread and wine, to sacrifice him afresh, yet we have no intimation that the enormity of this sinful practice was seen, and Luther, while full of denunciation for many of Papacy’s sins and falsities, did not SEE the great abomination of desolation to be the Mass. On the contrary, on his return to his church after his stay at Wartburg castle, finding that the Mass, as well as images and candles, had been discontinued, as being without Scriptural authority, Luther re-established the Mass.

In this view of the matter there is great significance in our Lord’s words–“When therefore ye SEE (are able to rightly discern) the (TRUE) abomination of desolation having (past tense) stood in the holy place, as foretold by Daniel the Prophet (reader consider): “Then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains.”

Here we must remember the parallelism between the two harvests, the two times of trouble and the two flights; and must consider that (in Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts) Judea would represent Christendom of today (nominal spiritual Israel).” D569-573

Having we hope explained the spiritual aspect of Verse 15 We will move on to Verse 16 in our next post.