Abomination Part 3

In a minute, we went into Part 2 of Abomination, Desolation. Please turn back there as we start our focus. Matthew 24. Matthew 24 and verse 15, this is Part 3. We'll go back to the verse that brought us to this point, and we'll end our point next week as I will finish the series on the Abomination of Desolation. In Matthew 24 and verse 14, as Christ is telling about the end time, and we will actually be talking about that next week to a greater detail, it 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. So not everybody that looks at that is going to go, Oh, yeah, I know exactly. But whoever reads, let him understand that this is a very important statement. This is a time-sensitive statement, and we will go into that next week because that is one of the only true signs of the exact time before Jesus Christ returns. That's why this is so important. So as we talked about last week, we talked about a timeline. The timeline is still there. Hopefully everybody remembers that as we're looking at the time even before this. But on this one, we looked at around 1000 B.C. Give or take 10-20 years or whatever. We're not trying to get you to know specific dates of when David, because that can be argued forever. But it's around 1000 years before Christ's birth. David was ruling and reigning, and after that his son Solomon. Then we came to an important date of 721 B.C., which was the fall of Israel by the Assyrian nation. You remember that? That's one of the few dates it's important to remember. And also after that is 586 B.C., which is 586 years before Christ was born.

We had the fall and the captivity of Judah. Pretty simple. But the reason we're focusing on another date today, and that will focus here, is 167 B.C. That is when the abomination of desolation talked about by Christ, also talked about and predicted by Daniel. Daniel gave that prophecy at around 535, which was 200 years before Alexander the Great even showed up on the scene.

So it was actually almost 400 years before this abomination of desolation. He predicted that this would happen, and we will look at that today because I think it's very important. And so we are given an exact time of when the abomination of desolation occurred in the past, but we're also, as Matthew 24 said, it will happen in the last days. It will be a sign and one of the key signs to Jesus Christ returning to the Great Tribulation and all those things involved.

And that will occur as we talk about it next week. It gives the exact date of three and a half years from the abomination of desolation that will occur in the future and the time of Jesus Christ's return in setting up His kingdom. So we will go into that next week, and I hope to cover that so everybody can readily understand it and remember it.

And no, not to get lost in Donald Trump being the false prophet or any of these other things that pop up on the Internet. Here's a sign of the end because something showed up on YouTube. But that there are just a few things that we really need to focus on because of what David said. Our priority needs to be making sure that we are where we need to be with our Savior and the Father.

That's the number one priority. But there are some others down the road as we continue this road. Now, I want to talk about, because this takes place, the abomination of desolation. I talked upon it last week. B.C.E. Yes, sir. B.C.E. Before the common era, not before Christ. B.C.E. Thank you, Chris. Antiochus. Antiochus IV is who we're talking about. This was the man of sin in 167 B.C.

It actually took place 168, but the total desolation occurred just after the first of the year in 167. But he was known as Antiochus. He was son of Antiochus the Great. And he took over the throne of the Syrian Empire after the murder of his brother, which was always kind of strange, because here he was set to become the king if something happened to his brother, who was not that much older than he was. And then, one day, his brother ends up dead, and he becomes king.

Antiochus IV, as he is called, was ambitious. And he, like his father before him, he inherited the Seleucid Kingdom, or the dynasty they even call it. As we know, Alexander the Great came onto the scene. He actually died in 323. But then, once he died, his kingdom was split up into four kings, the territory, because they basically ruled the world. And so the territory was split up.

But it ended up, after 120 years or so, there were actually three kingdoms that ruled this whole area there. And if you can think of it as Florida, you're going to see that the Romans, the Rome, took care of the north. So if you want to look at the Panhandle, all the way down to Orlando, that was kind of the Roman Empire. They were strong. They were just now beginning to build such a powerful army. And then, under that, say from Orlando down to West Palm, in the central part of Florida, or in the central part of that land over there, you had the Syrian Empire, Seleucid, Antiochus.

So he had this. Rome had this, and down here was Egypt. You might go from West Palm all the way to the Keys. That was controlled by the Egyptians. Told them he. And so, during these years, they fought. But then they would make peace, and they would try to have a little bit more land.

But finally, when Antiochus got the throne, he decided from his brother. Well, his brother was as ambitious as he was, obviously. So he decided, well, I want to expand my territory. I want to go down and take Miami, or as it was Egypt.

And so, he was mounting an army and came down and was going to take over Egypt. But Rome, as you can imagine, said, now we're working something with the Egyptians ourselves. And you get into the intrigue of Cleopatra and all these various things, and her father and everything that came about as they were working with the Romans and the Egyptians.

So, as Antiochus took his army, as he had become king, and it's interesting, he only ruled from 175 to 164. Well, only about 11 years. But it's interesting, he decided to take and go down. And as he was making his way there, Rome sent a messenger and said, stop it!

You will not invade Egypt! Not going to do it! And don't force our hand. And Antiochus knew he was stuck in the middle. If Rome came down and Egypt went up, he would be destroyed. So he didn't dare do it. But he was totally ticked off. And so he retreated as he was on his way back to the Promised Land. And he decided to stop in, since he was so upset with everything that had turned out, to come to this land and a city known as Jerusalem.

And he decided that, well, if I can't have this, I can't have more territory, I want more money. So he decided to put a greater tax and everything on Jerusalem and in that area. The most interesting part about this was that Alexander the Great actually came to the gates of Jerusalem, a point of history, as he was conquering. And the high priest at that time was not going to let him enter. And so with his army set outside the gates, the high priest went in and prayed that night.

And after he woke up in the morning, God had given him a vision and said, make peace. And so he went outside the gate and Alexander the Great thanked him, took a little bit of tribute, and gave them basically autonomy, because that's the way Alexander the Great did things. He would go in and conquer, but you could have your own civilization, you could have everything that you wanted, that you had before, just pay and be under them. Antiochus was no longer going to be like this. Antiochus IV, or as he's called, Antiochus Epiphanes, he gave himself that title.

Epiphanes actually means manifested or illustrious one. So he wanted the title, and Antiochus Epiphanes are the great one, illustrious one, or even God manifested, as we will see.

That's so interesting because he came in, he was raised, actually held captive at one time, as ransom in Rome. But he was released, and he was trained. But he had a terrible temper, Antiochus did. He also wanted to reign supreme. So Antiochus, when he came to Jerusalem after having to retreat back from taking parts of Egypt, he had to come to Jerusalem, that his brother had actually set up different rulers in Jerusalem, and they allowed the Jews to keep their traditions, keep their laws, just pay tribute. But also, he began to bring these things in slowly, the Hellenizing of the Jewish world.

He brought in different education factors, wanted to let them know and to educate them. As a matter of fact, I'll read here from here, it's the life of Greece. Will Durant, he actually talks about this.

This historian said, bringing the infection of Hellenism devoted to science, philosophy, art and literature, beauty, pleasure, song and dance, drinking and feasting, athletics and various things, how could a Jewish youth resist these invitations to delight, this easy liberation from a thousand irksome restraints, talking about the law.

So they were basically wanting the young people in time to learn that you don't have to keep all these things, but they didn't force it down anyone's throat.

The rich got richer, poor got poorer, but everything was settled until Antiochus took over the fourth, because his brother was like that. Antiochus the fourth said, no, we've got to change this state of mind today.

We're going to get rid of this. As a matter of fact, everyone knows what an icon is, right? Well, you see it on computers, you see it everywhere. Well, there's something called, and he probably was the originator of it, called an iconoclast. Anybody know what an iconoclast is? An iconoclast is someone who tears down religious traditions, beliefs, and structure, and eliminates.

Well, this is what Antiochus came in to do.

So, turn with me, if you will, with that backdrop, to Daniel 8. Daniel 8, in verse 8. As we see this written by Daniel 200 years before Alexander the Great, and 350 years or so before Antiochus Epiphanes.

So, in Daniel 8, verse 8, he said, Therefore the male goat grew very great, talking about Alexander the Great.

But when he became strong, the large horn was broken, and in its place four notable ones came up towards the four winds of heaven. As he's giving this prophecy, as it's also kind of coded, or it's this example that he gives here, that the reason they went up to heaven is basically Alexander the Great looked around and there wasn't anything he hadn't conquered. I couldn't conquer. And so I went up to heaven because it was that great of a kingdom. But then, of course, we know the story, how it was split here. And you can go to any history book. You can go to this history book. You can go on there and that. You can go anywhere.

We didn't come up with it. We didn't say, well, you know, this is the understanding of your United Church of God, and we only have this. And we're going to teach you something you can't get. No. History books will tell you this. History books, it's easy to tell where this comes from. Now, some of them believe that this was actually written in like 164 after everything happened.

But that's pretty easy to disprove that Daniel wrote this before he actually died in 535.

Remember what in chapter 12 actually says at the end, Daniel, shut up the book, close it up.

You're about to go to sleep. You're going to die.

And when you'll be resurrected, you'll understand because he wanted to understand all these things that he had seen, this dramatic visions that he had. And so we're able to look at this now as he probably would have liked to have seen and understood how everything came about.

But it says, out of one of them, one of these four horns, or these four kingdoms, came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great towards the south, just like what I told you history shows.

And towards the east, and towards the, what? Glorious land. Towards the Jerusalem, the holy city.

It's amazing that this didn't, but nothing took place later because various times armies would come in to destroy it, but it never got destroyed before this time.

And verse 10, and it grew up to the host of heaven. What? This kingdom.

It was like you couldn't miss it. You couldn't miss what was being done here.

And it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them.

Oh, wait a minute. Will you mean stars fell from the sky? No. It's a vision.

And he is explaining here that when Antiochus took over the Holy Land, everything changed in the Holy Land. He was trying to change everything.

As a matter of fact, it actually says, of the host and some of the stars to the ground. Well, what are you talking about? Stars.

Do you remember Scripture? Do you remember when, when in Genesis 15 and verse 5, that Abraham was made this promise by God of how great the kingdom would be, how great, though his children would be, when he couldn't even see that he couldn't even have a child, God said, no, your descendants are going to be as what? The stars.

He said, go outside and look, and it will be as the stars in the heaven. Right? He said that. He also said it in Genesis 26. He says again, I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven. They were very important to him. Why? Because they were only people on earth keeping his laws at that time. The only ones.

And he wanted to make sure. So as you can see, when Antiochus came in, he decided he would make his own rules and his own laws.

Because he wanted to Hellenize or civilize the Jews, he forbade under the penalty of death, circumcision, keeping the Sabbath, the Holy Days, are reading or possessing any part of the Torah.

If you had it or said it, he would put you to death. So as you can see, when he came in that day, he changed everything. And he did kill quite a few people.

He killed, as you might say, some of those stars that were promised to Abraham. Killed some of the leaders as he took over. It didn't mean anything to him.

And then he had people executed for not eating swine. Many. There's one story in the Lives of the Saints book that I actually had that actually told the story in the Maccabees one. Maccabees two will actually tell you this too. Of various things where they had a mother that came forward. And because she would not deny the God that she'd worshiped, she had to watch each of her seven sons die in front of her.

And she refused to eat swine's flesh. So they actually then killed all of her seven sons, cut skin off of her son, and then before they killed her made her eat that.

This is Antiochus Epiphanes. As a matter of fact, the Jews have a name for him called Antiochus Epiphmanes, which means madman because he was just that kind of person.

He also killed many who would not bow down to a pagan idol. So everyone was brought forth. You wanted to see who was religious and who was not? Well, it just so happened there were quite a few that decided to, you might say, lose their religion.

And they turned and went right into this because Antiochus' brother had built a gymnasium before where they had games where they could play and everything else. So he was beginning to teach the youth the Epicurean way of life as he viewed that way stoic. Anybody know what Epicurean means?

Though there were stoics and there were Epicureans. Epicureans believed, just enjoy life! Just enjoy every physical thing you can enjoy. Make the most of it. Have fun. Do whatever. Sound familiar today?

But then there was the others who were called stoics. It was just like, you can imagine, a stoic person.

The only thing you do is you're serious about them. No balance in either one. But he thought they were, so they were saying, we need to introduce you people to the Epicurean way of life.

Start having fun. Not be tied to these laws.

Well, it's so interesting here as we go back to verse 11. Daniel 8 and verse 11.

As it says here that Antiochus, he even exalted himself as high as the prince of hosts.

What does that mean? That's God.

That's why he actually made coins. And you can find them today. They exist in some museums. You can also find them on the Internet. You can look at pictures. Because he had coins made.

And on the top of the coin is said Theos Epiphanes.

God manifested with his picture in the center. As he became what he believed was, God manifested before you.

Now, why do I bring this out? Because he had a statue of Zeus Olympus, erected in the very temple of God. And demanded that people worship there.

And the amazing part was that so many of the Jews at that time welcomed him in and said, Yes, what do you want us to do? Oh, yes, we'll worship. We'll do whatever.

And yet you had others that said, No. And they died. They were murdered. They were killed for their belief. They would not do that. They would have to hide some of the things they did. You couldn't circumcise. You couldn't keep the Sabbath. You would have to hide. And he also had an altar built over the top of the altar that was there in the temple to sacrifice swine, which to the Jews, of course, desecrated. It was an abomination as we went through the definition of what abomination is. You can imagine this smell coming up from the temple of God, of swine, and they're worshiping. And so then he decided, Let's bring in the prostitutes. And so they brought in prostitutes from all those because they traveled with many prostitutes, as soldiers did. Bring in the prostitutes and we're going to have orgies all over the temple grounds.

An abomination? Yes. That makes desolate. Anybody who believed God would not have any part of that. And it was also that pagan festivals were to be held in the temple. You know, what's interesting about this is I'll bring this up because I don't want to go much further today because I want to cover some things tomorrow. I mean, next week. I hope you're not going to be here tomorrow. Or Christmas. But it's interesting that when Antiochus came in the city and saw it, the first thing he did was to have the altar erected over the altar. And he said, what is wrong with these people? They're not celebrating Baccanea. Or as Romans would call it, Saturnalia. Because the day he came in and took over the temple, erected an idol, and tore down the altar was December 25, 168 B.C. and demanded that they keep the pagan holidays. Now, isn't that amazing? I mean, it's part of history. You can read it anywhere you want to. Go on, go and read these dates. He came in at that date. Why? Because they were going to keep the pagan festival, worshiping the old sun god that they had been keeping for all these years. And it started when? December 25. Now look, December 25, 168 B.C.E. That's 168 years before Jesus Christ was even conceived. And yet, people will keep Monday thinking they are worshiping and honoring Jesus Christ. So you can imagine what abomination it was to see this on this day, what he did. The people he slaughtered, those who he forced to eat swine's flesh, those who had to give up every... those who lost their children, lost family members that day because they didn't do that. And that's supposed to be a holy night? Ask yourself, is that not an abomination that made it desolate? It wasn't an abomination to God, it was an abomination to the people. An abomination that made desolate. Nothing godly, anywhere, any way took place there. God's house was completely desolate. Spiritually void, empty on 167, by the turn of the year. By the time they finished the celebration of Baccanella, which was just after the first of the year, January 1st, the temple was desolate. It was an abomination. So this, brethren, is very, very important for us to know the history of it, the past, and next week we will look and go into Jesus Christ's prediction at the end time, three and a half years, that a man will take the place, just like what happened here in a temple, and will stop the sacrifices, and we will read it directly from your Bibles, so that you know not only is Monday an abomination to God, it needs to be an abomination to us, because it will be again in the future.