Let's take our Bibles and turn
to Matthew chapter 24. And we'll read together verses 14
through 22 in Matthew 24. Verse 14, And this gospel of
the kingdom shall be preached in all the
world for a witness unto all nations. And then shall the end
come, when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation
spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place. Whoso
readeth, let him understand. Then let them which be in Judea
flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop
not come down to take anything out of his house, neither let
him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And
woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in
those days. But pray ye that your flight
be not in winter, neither on the Sabbath day. For then shall be great tribulation,
such as was not seen since the beginning of the world to this
time. No, nor ever shall be. And except those days should
be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. But for the elect's
sake, these days shall be shortened. As I told you last week, this
chapter deals with three things that caused his disciples anxious
thought and worry. First of all, he talks to them
about the utter destruction of Jerusalem. This was their holy
city, the place where God's temple was built, the very center of
all Jewish worship, Jerusalem. Why would God, who had preserved
this city and this people and blessed them so, destroy, utterly
destroy this people and this city and even his temple? And then he talks to them about
the second coming of Christ. This ought to cause everybody
in this place this morning just the mention of it, just the mention
of it. The coming of the King of Glory.
The coming of Him who divided time. The King of Glory. He's coming back. Those disciples
stood out there and watched Him step up onto the cloud with those
angels, and the angels said, why stand ye gazing? This same
Jesus taken up from you is coming back. He's coming back. cause everyone in this place
to just think at least a little bit about this monumental event
and my relationship to it. What does this mean to me? You know, He brought these things
out to these disciples and it caused them to think about it,
to think about it. And then He talks to them about
the end of the world. That sounds so surreal, don't
it? The end of the world. The end of the world. That sounds
so far-fetched, so nearly impossible. When will it be? How will it
come? How will it affect me? The end
of the world. It just seems like after all
these, who knows how many years, it just seems like things ought
to go on, don't they? Seems like they just ought to
go on, just like they always have. My friend, unless you utterly
reprobate these things off to stir your being and make you
interested to know what God has to say about these things, denial
is no escape. Because we don't like a subject
and we just push it out of our mind, that's no escape from it.
You can't escape the truth by doing that. You can't escape
the truth simply because you don't want to hear it. Nobody
wants to hear about judgment. Nobody wants to think about hell,
eternal hell, the judgment of God. But it's no way to escape
it. And refusing to think about these
things is not going to make them go away. Actually, that's exactly
how Peter, by divine inspiration, described those who would precede
this great event, the end of the world. He says, there shall
come in the last days scoffers. walking after their own lust
and saying, where is the promise of His coming? For since the
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of creation. And Peter said they're ignorant
of this. I should say the Holy Ghost, He's the one who inspired
Peter to write these words. And He said they're ignorant
of some things. First of all, they're ignorant
of that flood of Noah. That land standing out of the
water and in the water, the water's here and had boundaries and broke
not forth. No, here's the land and people
lived on it. And God said, I'm going to cause
a flood to cover the earth. And everybody's not in this ark,
going to die. And people, they looked at that
the same way they look at it now. Same way they look at it
now. They could go back generations
and generations and generations and all things just continue.
They just laughed at him. Same as these scalpers did. Ignorant
of the impending doom of this planet and all its inhabitants. And he said, the heavens and
the earth which are now, by the same word, are kept in store,
reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition
of ungodly men." Now, let's take these verses concerning these
things and see if the Lord will teach us a few things about these
great and dreadful events. And I was talking to Don last
night, and I mentioned to him what my subject was going to
be this morning. He said, good luck. He says here in verse 14, this
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for
a witness unto all nations. And then shall the end come. The primary reason for the preservation
of this planet, the preservation of this world, of this universe
as we know it, is the presence of God's church in it to call
out his elect and to warn men of the impending doom of this
world. God is gracious. God is merciful. And he sent servants into this
world, even to those who had no interest in him, even to those
nations and people who scoff and mock at his gospel. And he
warns them, warns them about their impending doom. and tells
them to flee. As this world was warned by the
testimony of Noah of its impending doom, so we are to warn all who
will give us a hearing that this world's headed for disaster and
doom. Preacher, I may die before all
this even comes about. I might die before all this comes
to pass, but that's not going to exempt you from it. That's
not going to exempt you from it. He said, it's appointed unto
men once to die, and after this, the judgment. You're not going
to escape judgment because you die. But your judgment will be
fixed. It's not a death. It's not a
release. I've heard it preached so often
in funeral homes. It's not a release to those who
are not chosen of God, who are not called to the faith of God's
elect. It's no release. It's not an
escape. It's not a way out. John said
under divine inspiration, he said, I saw the dead, small and
great, stand before God. All of them. He said he saw the
sea give up the dead. And all the dead that was buried
and burned and all the dead, small and great, stood before
God. All of them. And they were judged
out of those things written in the books according to their
works. And he said, death and hell were
cast into the lake of fire. That's the second death. And
then Peter said, seeing then that these things shall be dissolved,
what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation
and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the
day of God? There's not a one of us in here
this morning that lives like we believe this world coming
to an end. That this world is under the
judgment and wrath of God, and He's going to burn it up. Burn
it up. What manner, he said, of lives
ought we to live knowing that? Knowing that. And listen to this
word, he said, looking for and hasting. Hasting. It's coming
quickly. Quickly. unto the day of God. Now, he says here in Matthew
24, 15, 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. Now, here's the second thing
he teaches us here in this. This abomination of desolation
is the beginning of the end. It's the beginning of the end. The abomination of desolation
is a Hebrew expression and it means hateful destroyer. That's
what it means. God is going to send his hateful
destroyer. Now turn with me to Luke chapter
21 and I'll give you a little bit of light on this thing. The
abomination of desolation is not some future prophecy that
is going to take place in what men call the great tribulation. Luke 21, verse 20. Our Lord is talking here about
the destruction of Jerusalem. And when you see Jerusalem, compassed
with armies, Then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea
flee into the mountains, and let them which are in the midst
of it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries
enter thereunto." Daniel the prophet foretold the great armies
of Rome coming into the holy city of Jerusalem under Titus
in 70 AD. And he brought such trouble and
terror as was not seen from the beginning of the world unto that
day, nor shall be seen to the end of it. That's how our Lord
described it. Over a million Jews were slaughtered,
and that's not counting the ones in the holy city of Jerusalem. He compassed that land about,
and when he came in, he destroyed everything in his path. Over
a million Jews before he ever got to Jerusalem were slaughtered,
and over 100,000 Jews were taken into slavery. Why would God permit such a thing? Why would he, after preserving
these people in this city for all these thousands of years,
suddenly bring about its end and do so in such an unmerciful
way? What caused God to send his hateful
destroyer into that city? I'll give you several reasons.
First of all, because they rejected, despised, and were about to kill
the King of Glory. That's why. That's why. That's what that city was built
for. That's what it was given to them for. That's what that
temple that was erected there stood for. All of these things
that God gave them under those old types and pictures, they
were pictures foretelling the coming of the Son of God. And
now He's come and He stood before them. And they rejected Him. They despised Him. Despised Him. And were about to kill Him. And these men were the cleanest,
most religious, most pious and moral men who ever lived. I mean,
they were examples of morality. They kept the Sabbath day. They
kept the feast days. They kept the holy days. They
kept all the holy weeks and years. They paid tithes of all they
possessed. They sent out missionaries. They
built schools. They trained preachers and teachers.
They built synagogues. And they maintained the temple. They were the cleanest, most
religious, moral people. But they hated and despised the
Son of God. The Son of God. They wouldn't
bow to Him. They wouldn't receive Him as
God set Him forth. They had a Christ that they looked
for, but He didn't fit the bill. They had a Messiah that they
hoped in, but He didn't fit the picture. What they despised is
how God set Him forth. That's what they despised. They
despised the Christ of God. They wouldn't receive Him as
God set Him forth. They wouldn't promote Him. follow
Him, they wouldn't submit to His baptism. They hated and despised
the Christ of God. And God is going to destroy them
for it. He is going to destroy them for it. And then secondly,
according to Acts chapter 7 verse 51, they bowed up and resisted
the Holy Ghost. They resisted the Holy Ghost. They laughed at His ordinances
and mocked His means and explained away His miracles and rejected
the whole of the Old Testament prophecy concerning the coming
Redeemer. You remember when Stephen the
first martyr preached that message to them, he said, you stiff-necked
and uncircumcised of heart and ears, you do always resist what? The Holy Ghost. How did they
do that? by resisting all those Old Testament
prophecies concerning His coming. They rejected it. They rejected
the teaching of the Holy Ghost. And the third reason He brought
such a destruction upon them is because they had turned those
beautiful pictures and patterns of Christ into a system of legalism. Deadly legalism. They turned Jerusalem into a
viper pit. That's what he called them, a
generation of vikers. In 1 Timothy 1, verse 7, Paul
said they were desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding
neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. They teach it with
a stern hand, strict, stern hand, stand in a pulpit and cry out
against this and cry out against that and cry out against something
else. But they never see what that law was all about. They
never see those beautiful types and pictures. They never see
those things. They never see the mercy of God. They never see the righteousness
of Christ who came and honored that law and exalted that law. They took the Word of God and
they rested the Scriptures to their own destruction. And then,
fourthly, Christ would utterly destroy this city, this nation,
and this temple because Christ had fulfilled all these things
in His coming in his life, in his death, in his resurrection.
And he would not tolerate these things to continue. Even his
disciples were just awed by the temple. And he said, you see
this temple? Not one stone is going to rest
on top of the other one. I'm going to destroy it. I'm
going to destroy it. The abomination of desolation
is the setting up of a hateful destroyer because they rejected
the Son of God, preferring their own works over the free and sovereign
grace of God. They exalted man and belittled
God. And now they brought about their
own destruction. And as I said, this is the beginning
of the end. This gospel is to be preached
to all nations. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned. And then
here's another lesson. There's a time to flee. There's
a time to flee. There's a time to pack up and
get out. Pack up and get out. If we'd
be challenged, if we stand and preach the gospel, we're to stand,
no matter what the consequence. We're to stand. You can read
about those who did stand over there in Hebrews 11. It cost
them their lives. Some of them were sawn asunder
with wooden saws and fed to beasts. You can go on and on and on.
But there is a time also to flee. There is a time to flee. There
are churches in this country where evil men, according to
the book of Jude, have crept in unawares, turning the grace
of our God into lasciviousness. and denying the only Lord God
and the Lord Jesus Christ. They've turned the gospel of
the free grace of God into a system of free will works religion.
They've turned the gospel of His free grace into a system
of legalism and self-righteousness. And they've turned the worship
of God, of the only one and true God, into a system of ceremonialism. And these places are under the
judgment of God. Well, you say, where is the judgment
of God on these places? Well, let me tell you something. Jerusalem, after our Lord condemned
it here to His disciples, told them what was going to take place. It was another 70 years before
it actually happened. Another 70 years. Nothing happened
immediately. And you look today, and religion
thrives today, but I'm telling you this, that God's judgment
and wrath is upon them and they that participate in it and support
it or defend it. They're as dead spiritually as
those who stand in the pulpits of those places. Flee it. That's our Lord's instruction.
But they just couldn't leave Jerusalem. They couldn't do it. couldn't just leave Jerusalem
because of its history. It had a history. It went back
in time. It was connected to them. It
had to do with their fathers and their grandfathers and their
great-grandfathers. There were generations of Jews
in Jerusalem. They couldn't just leave it because
of its tradition. All the traditions of the elders
were taught and took place there in Jerusalem and because of their
friends and relatives. And so they died in Jerusalem. They died in Jerusalem. And so
will you if you stay in a place where God's Spirit and God's
Son is despised. I am telling you the truth. Men
and women, they go into these places I've visited with men
on occasion before who've dabbled around in religion, who've heard
something of the gospel of God's grace, but they got to stay there
because that's where their sisters go. That's where my mother goes.
That's where my son goes. That's where my brother goes.
That's where my friends go. That's where I went when I was
a child. Paul said in Galatians 1, verse
8, that we are an angel from heaven. Preach any other gospel
unto you than that which we have preached unto you. Let him be
accursed. That does not mean to let him
be accursed someday. That means to count him accursed
of God. That is what that means. You
count him accursed of God. The curse of God is upon him. God sends His hateful destroyer
into a place, it's a sure sign to flee. I want you to think about something
for just a minute. I'm going to give you an Old
Testament application here. A lot down in Sodom. God was
about to turn His hateful destroyer loose upon Sodom. He was about to turn that place
into ashes. He was about to cause its smoke
to raise up He was about to give them the
just vindication of His holy justice. And He sent down some
angels to deliver Lot. And Lot wasn't in a hurry to
leave. He wasn't in a hurry to leave. His wife didn't want to
leave at all. She didn't see no reason to leave.
And you all know the events that took place that evening. They
literally had to take him by the arm and walk him out of Sodom. And even then, his wife's heart
was still there and turned to look back. And God turned her
into a pillar of salt. Those angels came down and they
said, Get your sons-in-law and your sons and daughters and whatsoever
thou hast in this city and bring them out of this place. For the
Lord has sent us to destroy it. Just write Ichabod on the door,
for the glory has departed. Now that's the time to get out.
Get out. I know you had things. I had
things. I had roots there. But I saw the judgment of God
on that outfit, and I got out. Got out. And I've got no desire
to go back. And my friend Jerusalem was but
a wake-up call for what lay ahead. Men say today, where's the judgment? Where's the wrath? Where's the
severity of God that you're talking about in our generation? It's
in the spiritual death and apostasy of ungodly men who yet play religion. They're still living in Sodom
because they love it. They love it. That's where it's
at. They would not receive the love
of the truth that they might be saved, and for this cause,
He said, God sent them strong delusion that they should believe
a lie and that they all might be damned who believe not the
truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. And if you'll read verses 16
through 22 here in Matthew 24, you cannot help but see the urgency
involved in leaving these things you once loved when you find
out God's wrath is on that place. Listen to what he says. He said,
if you're on the rooftop, don't come down. Don't come down. Just
get out. Don't go back in the house and
start packing. If you're out in the field, don't
even come back and get your clothes. Just get out. That sounds urgent
to me, doesn't it, kid? And he said, when you see the
abomination of desolation, oh, my soul. There's an urgency involved. And I know how hard it is to
do. But his word, my friend, to us
is to get out. Please, get out, he said. Don't
even try to pack up your belongings. Just get out. And except those
days, he said, should be shortened, there'd no flesh to be saved.
God had not intervened, there wouldn't have been a man taking
slavery. He'd have killed every one of them. God shortened those
days. And He's talking about not only
those days, but the end of the days, the end of all time. The abomination of desolation
standing in the holy place. And He said, whoso readeth, let
him understand. Let him understand what this
is talking about. Let him understand the spiritual
ramifications of this. Let him enter into it. Let him
understand who and why that hateful destroyer has come and what is
the end of that judgment. What is the end of it?