What a wonderful prayer to pray
before we worship. Open my eyes, my ears, my heart,
illumine me. I pray that's the case. Turn
with me to Matthew 24. We just had an overview of Matthew
24. For our Bible study, we looked
at every verse, and we saw that the disciples asked our Lord
two questions, and the Lord answered those two separate questions.
The first question was, when will the destruction of Jerusalem,
and namely the temple, that our Lord had been preaching in. When
will that be? When will that be destroyed?
And the second question was, what will be the sign of your
second coming and the end of this world? And we already read the Lord's
answers to those questions. So we're not going to focus on
that again. For this message, I want us to focus on some of
the things that he said. And one thing in particular,
while the Lord was giving his answer to those questions, a
lot was said in his answer. I don't know if you noticed as
we read down through that, how many amazing statements he made. He spoke words and lines that
are worthy to be pondered, and I don't know if we'll be in this
chapter for today or for the next month. I won't leave Daniel,
but our Lord said a lot. He said a lot in this. And as I read down through these
verses, I made a little note of subject matters to look at. Things just caught my attention
and caught my eye and I started writing them all down. Like today's
subject matter, the end of verse four, he said, take heed that
no man deceive you. Now my goal and desire come the
end of this message is that every person here understands that
word and warning from the Lord. Take heed that no man deceives
you. Take heed. That's a word. That's a word from God. That's
a message. That is today's message. There are subjects like that
in verse after verse after verse, and we'll see what the Lord leads
us to look at. But for this message, I want
us to see what our Lord had to say about this great warning
and issue and condemnation of being deceived, being deceived. I want us to look at the issue
of salvation in this. I want us to see this in light
of spiritual matters, eternal matters. We're going to put our
spiritual glasses on as we read this and to do that, to see the
spiritual application of this. I want us to understand a physical
event that took place to get into the spiritual issue. I want us to understand a physical
event that took place. Now the disciples asked our Lord
two questions and he gave them two answers. One has already
come true, as he said it would. The destruction of Jerusalem
and the temple in 70 AD. That is the proof that the other
one will come true, as he said it will. He told them, you are
going to see, he said, this generation at that time is going to see
the abomination of desolation that Daniel spoke of, that was
prophesied to Daniel. Daniel wrote about it. Look at
verse 15, Matthew 24, verse 15. He said, when you therefore shall
see the abomination of desolation, Spoken of by Daniel the prophet,
stand in the holy place. Whoso readeth, let him understand. Whoso readeth, let him understand.
May God give us an understanding of this today that we might not
be deceived. A true understanding. Verse 15,
when you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation
spoken up by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place. Who
so readeth, let him understand. Then let them which be in Judea
flee into the mountains. Now let's look at that in the
book of Daniel and see if the Lord will reveal something to
us today. Turn with me to Daniel chapter
9. Daniel 9. It's going to be on
page 1120 in the Old Testament in my Bible. Here in the book of Daniel, he
along with Israel, they are in captivity to Babylon and the
Spirit of the Lord starts revealing some things through the word
to Daniel. And not only is the physical
deliverance of Israel from Babylon revealed to him, the Lord revealed
to him that I'm going to deliver you from this captivity and you're
going to go back to Jerusalem and start rebuilding what was
destroyed back then. But not only is the physical
deliverance of Israel revealed to him, but the spiritual deliverance. of God's people from the captivity
of their own sin and their own condemnation. That was revealed
to Daniel too. That is the spiritual application
that I'm talking about. This deliverance from sin. The
Lord sent an angel and an angel means messenger. That's what
an angel is, a messenger. So the Lord sent a messenger
to Daniel who said, this is a word, this is a revelation directly
from God to you. And here it is. Look at verse
24, Daniel nine, verse 24. He said, 70 weeks are determined
upon thy people. And I'm not going to take the
time to go into that. We'll look at it when we get here in Daniel.
But here's the point. Each one of those days was one
year. One week was seven years. 70 weeks was 490 years. The only reason we know that
is because looking back on it, that's how long it was. You say,
that's how long what was? Look at verse 24. 70 weeks are determined upon
thy people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgression. and to make an end of sins, and
to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness,
and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most
holy. He said in 490 years, Christ
will come into this world and will give his life a ransom for
his people to deliver them from their sins. He is going to put
an end to the sin of his people. Daniel had the gospel preached
to him. He is going to put an end to the sin of His people.
He is going to make reconciliation for all of their iniquity. And
that's what we need. I'm telling you, that's what
we need. We need reconciliation for all of our iniquity. You
are sinners against God. And so am I. And people don't know
that. And the most critical thing in
life that we could ever learn is not what we learned in kindergarten. It's this, I'm a sinner against
God and God is holy. I'm a sinner against God and
God is holy. And the gospel says Jesus Christ came into this world
to do something for a bunch of sinners and he did it. He made reconciliation to God
for all of their iniquity. The angel told Daniel he is going
to bring in everlasting righteousness for them. Righteousness is the
exact opposite of sin. Whatever sin is, righteousness
is the exact opposite. He's going to put away all of
their sin. And he is going to establish
perfect, everlasting, non-ending righteousness for all of his
people. And he said he is going to bring
glory to God. He's going to bring glory to
himself in the process. Look at verse 24. Seventy weeks
are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish
the transgression and to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation
for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness and
to seal up, to finish the vision and prophecy and to anoint the
most holy. Know therefore and understand
that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and
to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince, shall be seven weeks
and three score and two weeks, 69 weeks, 483 years. The street shall be built again,
and the wall, and it was, even in troubleless times, and it
was troubleless times. And after threescore and two
weeks shall Messiah be cut off. Isaiah 53 says he was cut off
from the land of the living. For my people was he stricken,
smitten of God, afflicted, After three score and two weeks shall
Messiah be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the prince
that shall come, listen to this, shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary. That's what our Lord is telling
them about in Matthew 24. And the end thereof shall be
with a flood. This war, this battle is going to come in like
a flood. And unto the end of the war, desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant
with many for one week. And in the midst of the week,
he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. And for the overspreading of
abominations, he shall make it desolate, even unto the consummation,
till he consumes it all. It's going to be an abomination
that's desolate until the consummation. And that determined shall be
poured upon the desolate. Look at Daniel 11 verse 30. Daniel
11 verse 30. For the ships of Chittim, That's a general term for the
Romans, the Greeks, the Romans. The ships of the Romans shall
come against him, Israel. Therefore, he shall be grieved
and return and have indignation against the holy covenant. So
shall he do. He shall even return and have
Intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant and arms armies
shall stand on his part and they shall pollute the sanctuary of
strength and shall take away the daily sacrifice and they
shall place the abomination that maketh desolate. They're going
to take away the daily sacrifices of God's people and they're going
to put in place the abomination that maketh desolate. Look at
Daniel 12 verse 11. And from the time that the daily
sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh
desolate set up, there shall be 1,290 days, lest as he that
waiteth and cometh to the 1,305 and 30 days, but go thou thy
way till the end be, for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot
at the end of the days. Now, our Lord marked this event
of Rome besieging Jerusalem in the year 70, 70 AD, and destroying
the temple and eliminating all of, you know, the Jews sacrificed. They always sacrificed. And that's
the moment when all those sacrifices that God commanded the Jews to
carry out since the days of Moses, they were eliminated. In that moment that that took
place, a people who were not God's people, who were worshiping
a God that was not God, God allowed them, and that's the one thing
that I really want us to take note of, our sovereign God. Our sovereign, almighty, all
powerful God allowed them and their lies and their abominable
desolations to stand in the place where only his truth is worthy
to stand. But God allowed them, he allowed
strong delusions and that's what you read in our scripture reading.
Because they received not a love of the truth, God allowed strong
delusions to come in. And he allowed the false witness
of false religion to stand in the place where men and women
of this world would believe it to be the truth of God, even
though it's not. People believe that the lie of
man, the lie of false religion is the truth of God, but it's
not. And from the time that that happened
till now, nothing has changed. Still to this very day, the abomination
of desolation stands in the place where it ought not stand. Now
I'm about to make sense of this, okay? Turn over to Mark 13. Mark
13. Verse 14, Mark 13, verse 14,
it says, but when you shall see the abomination of desolation
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not,
let him that readeth understand, then you flee to Christ. Let them that be in Judea flee
to the mountains. Flee to Jesus Christ the rock. The word abomination means something
worthy of being hated. If something is abominable, it
is worthy of being hated. It means something to be despised,
something despicable. It's something despicable. And
the word desolation means emptiness, dissolving, something dissolved. That's what desolation is, something
dissolved. He said, you will see despicable
emptiness. Stand in the place where the
name of God only is worthy to stand. And that is the very thing
that we still see to this day. Nothing has changed. Nothing
has changed. There were times in this world
when God allowed men like Moses and Samuel and David and Solomon
to rule his people, to lead his people to the true
and living God, whole nations of people. That time is over. That time is over. All that stands
in mainstream religion right now is despicable emptiness. And we'll say that 12 more times.
All that stands in mainstream religion right now is despicable
emptiness. All that stands in open leadership
religion, famous popular leadership religion, All that stands there
now is despicable emptiness. That's all that's there. Despicable
emptiness. And the warning of our Lord is,
don't fall for it. Don't be deceived by it. You
be in that small remnant that flees to the mountain. In the midst of all this damnable
heresy, flee to Christ. Flee to Christ. Flee to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he said, don't let anything
hinder you from that. Don't turn around to go back
and get anything. You run to Christ. Don't let anything cause
you to think, well, maybe I shouldn't go. You run to Christ. Run to
Jesus Christ. You get to Jesus Christ. I'm
telling you, it is critical that we get on Christ and stay on
Christ. Whatever we're talking about,
whatever we're explaining that our Lord has given us to preach,
it needs to get to Christ and we better stay on Christ. And
we need to talk about Christ. It needs to be Christ. Anything other than Christ is
despicable emptiness. Anything other than Christ is
despicable emptiness. Go with me back to Matthew 24.
Verse 11, it says, And many false prophets shall
rise and shall deceive many. When our Lord says many, He means
many. I mean He means many. Many false
prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. This whole world
of religion is so full of deceivers. It's so full of deceivers. It is so completely taken by
Despicable emptiness. Man's lies on God, this world
is so overtaken by it, it's so overtaken by it, it's almost
impossible to find the truth. It is almost impossible to find
the truth. It is almost impossible to find
the honorable fullness of God's truth. What makes the difference? How can we know which one we
have? How do we know whether we're being deceived or not?
Here's how we can know. Here's the difference. It all
comes down to this, God or man. God or man. I want to say to
every person here, if there ever comes a time that you're not,
well, let's start with this. Anytime you're sitting in this
pew, whether it's me or anybody in
this pulpit, you assess in your mind and heart, is he talking
about God or man? Is the subject matter God or
man? If we will be aware of this, we'll start to realize how much
man is out there. You go sit in any other pew in
any other building and listen to anybody else. You assess,
is the guy talking about God or man? Is it Christ or man? that will determine grace or
works. God is truth, man is lie. Well Gabe, you're a man. Amen. It all comes down to God or man,
grace or works, what man must do or what Christ has done. You're
going to sit in pews and you're going to listen to people talk
about men and women and what they ought to be doing and need
to be doing and had better start doing. You know what that's called? Despicable emptiness. That's
an abomination of desolation. This flesh is despicable emptiness. That's what it is. And it's not about what man must
do or has done, it's all about Christ. It's all about Jesus
Christ, who he is, what he did, who he did it for, why he did
it. The message to Daniel, that prophecy
that the angel brought to Daniel, do you notice it was all about
Jesus Christ? This is who he is, he's coming,
this is what he's gonna do. The abomination of desolation,
the despicable emptiness that stands right now in the name
of religion, in the name of God. It's standing in the name of
God. If you hear a message about man and what man needs to be
doing, it's despicable emptiness. That's what we're listening to.
It's despicable emptiness. Our Lord said, don't be deceived
by it. Don't be deceived by it. The
message of man is a damnable message, but the message of God, the message of the grace and
the glory of God. If God gets all the glory, if
come the end God has all the glory, if you hear a message
that gives all the glory to Jesus Christ and Him crucified, If He gets all the glory, not
only for His finished work in redeeming His people from their
sin by His own blood, not only in that work, but also in His
finished work of righteousness for His people. He accomplished
righteousness for His people. Perfection for His people. He
did a finished work for them, making them to be everything
they need to be to stand before God. If Christ gets all the glory,
If it's Christ start to finish, then you're listening to honorable fullness, not despicable
emptiness, but honorable fullness, the truth of God. Believe it. Cling to it. Cling to Him. Flee to Christ. Flee to Jesus
Christ. 1 Peter 2 calls God's people
lively stones, living stones, and it says they are built up
into a spiritual house set on Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone. Now, outside of Christ, spiritually
speaking, in the deception of this desolate abomination, our
Lord said, and we didn't read it, but our Lord said in this
chapter, there's not going to be one stone left standing on another.
Spiritually speaking, talking about men and women outside of
Christ, There's not going to be one stone left standing on
another. In Christ, all of God's lively stones are standing on
the rock, the solid rock. Once we veer from Christ, there's
no hope. I don't care how good a man is.
I don't care how good a man becomes. Salvation is in Jesus Christ
alone. True worship is in Jesus Christ
alone. Honorable fullness with God is
only found in Jesus Christ alone. If we're going to worship Jesus
Christ, then we're going to declare Him. We're going to declare His
work start to finish. If we're going to preach and
believe the saving truth of Christ, then it's going to be Christ
who starts it all, performs it all, finishes it all. Once we insert man into any of
it, we have a desolate abomination on our hands. Once we insert man into any component
of it, we're no longer worshiping Christ. Once a little flesh,
a little sin ruins a whole thing. That's a desolate abomination
to God and it's certain condemnation for man and this world is full
of it. Don't be deceived. Now, I wish
I had 30 more minutes for this message. So I'm going to take
it. I'm kidding. Um, I do wish I
had 30 more minutes because my intention was to go to another
verse and I knew studying that I wouldn't have time to do it.
But, um, I just want to clearly set forth
the truth of Christ, the importance of the truth of Christ and how
detrimental it is to not believe the truth of Jesus Christ alone. The only thing that we can say
about man is he is completely, totally ruined in sin. That's
it. Everything that man does brings
condemnation to him. If man tries to do good, it brings
condemnation to him. The scripture says the Lord even
hates the plowing of the wicked. A man out in his field just plowing
dirt. There's no hope. All of our righteousnesses
are filthy rags. Now listen, I want everybody
to abide by the law. I want to live in a law-abiding
town. And I like it when people are
kind to their neighbors and all of those things. But there is
no salvation. I don't care how good we believe
ourselves to be. Man at his best state is altogether
vanity. That means emptiness, abominable
desolation. But Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,
the Word of Christ, the Work of Christ, the Glory of Christ,
He is completely, totally, glorified in holiness. Man is ruined in
sin. He is glorified in holiness.
Everything he has done has brought salvation to his people. Everything
man has done has brought utter destruction and ruin to himself.
Everything Christ has done has brought salvation and redemption
to his people. We were chosen in Him, redeemed
by Him, called to Him. He's our life, our hope, our
rock, our all. He's everything. He's everything. Don't be deceived by looking
to or listening to a man who's gonna turn your eyes to man.
If the message causes us to look to man, It is despicable emptiness. It's an abomination of desolation.
Look, to Jesus Christ alone, and I'm gonna, let me leave you
with this. I'll stop with this, because
it's just so critical. I may not ever be able to preach
to you again. This may be it. This may be the
last time on my account or your account. So just listen to this. Many years ago, someone attended here for a short
while. And this person struggled with
the truth of God's word, what it had to say about God and what
it had to say about man and what it had to say about salvation. All the glory going to Christ
for everything. And this person really struggled
with it because this person had been told despicable emptiness
all of this person's life. And this person came into my
office to say, I'm leaving. Just want to let you know, I'm
leaving here over this particular issue. And I took about 10 minutes
and showed this person probably 30 verses of scripture that declared
and declared and declared the truth of God alone, Christ alone,
and this particular issue that this person was struggling with.
And it was just, here it is, here it is, here it is, here
it is. And then I handed my Bible like this and I said, here you
go. Can you show me one verse that supports what you've been
told all your life? And this person said, no, no, I can't. But this person said, I have
been told that all my life and I can't help it. I just believe
it. That is a willingness to be deceived. That is a willingness to be deceived. For some, it's easier to accept
lies than to renounce a lifetime of false religion. For some people,
it's easier to just keep going with it than to realize, I've
been lied to all my life and I'm lost because I don't know
what this is saying. For some people, the Lord said, don't do it. Don't
do it. Don't let any man deceive you,
starting with this man. Don't let this man deceive you.
It's not worth it. Your soul is on the line. Don't
let this man or any other man deceive you. And this is what
I told this person. I said, here's your problem.
You're listening to man and you're throwing out what God says. And
you need to stop listening to me. I told this person, you need
to stop listening to me. And you need to stop listening
to that other man. And you need to start listening
to God. Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. Listen to God alone. The word
of Christ alone. The work of Christ alone. Believe
on Christ alone. Let it be Christ alone. Salvation
is in no other. Flee to Christ. Flee to Christ. May the Lord cause us to flee
to Christ. Amen.