90 Day Bible Reading Plan Devotional Day 10

Matthew 24

24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax

cold.

13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

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.

15 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:)

16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing

out of his house:

18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in

those days!

20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the

sabbath day:

This brief passage begins to weed out the tares of Bible commentators from

the wheat. There are so many elements in it misapplied, misinterpreted, and

misunderstood that it would be a hopeless task to go into a long explanation. The

comments, therefore, should be limited to an exposition of what the verses say.

“But he that shall endure unto the end.” This verse (dissected and lifted

piecemeal from its context, like an appendectomy) has been used from the first

Catholic heretic in the second century to the last Methodist in the twentieth

century to prove that a born-again, blood-bought, New Testament Christian will

die and go to hell if he does not hold out faithful to Christ till the end of his life.

This moral absurdity could only have come from one place. It would have to

come from some group who rejected the future application of Matthew 24 for a

period of time called “The Great Tribulation,” preceding the Second Coming.

That is, it would have to come from an amillennial or postmillennial group who

believed in apprehending the promises to Israel for the church. Here,

unfortunately, they apprehend a CURSE instead of a promise. Notice, please:

1. No one’s life is being discussed (24:14).

2. It is the end of a period of time, not an individual’s life (24:14).

3. There are no Christians present (24:3).

4. The land being discussed is Palestine (24:16).

5. The audience addressed are Jews (24:1–3).

6. They are then observing Old Testament Law (24:15–20).

7. They are worshipping in a temple in Jerusalem (24:15, 2 Thess. 2).

8. They are not spiritual Jews, and no one but a Bible pervert would distort

the context to get the meaning (Rom. 2:29).

9. The Christian already has a promise that he will endure to the end if that

is what is under discussion (1 Cor. 1:7–8).

10. The Second Coming follows the “end” in this passage, and not the

DEATH of the believer (Matt. 24:14, 21, 29).

It is therefore apparent that Matthew 24:13 has nothing to do, directly or

indirectly, with the salvation of anyone in the age of grace, and it was never

intended to be used by anyone, under any condition, for any purpose, in that

manner. Like Hebrews 3:6, 14, a period of time is being discussed, and this

period of time is defined in the immediate context so that there can be no

possible latitude in applying the verse.

Matthew 24:13 is one of the finest places in the Scripture to see the

Catholic, Liberal, and Arminian go to pieces like an hysterical woman. The very

next verse (14) defines “the end,” and yet every Church of God, Assembly of

God, Nazarene, Methodist, Church of Christ, Seventh-day Adventist, Jehovah’s

Witness, Mormon, Catholic, Liberal, Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Pentecostal

preacher in the country absolutely refuses to read it. Reading verse 14 involves

so many anti-Catholic traditions that it is just much easier to say, “Thy will be

done,” and step on the inspired writing and walk on with theological legs so

awkward that they would dump you on a golf green. Verse 14 locates the “end”

as the end of that period of time, wherein the “gospel of the kingdom” is

preached. Since this gospel is not the gospel of “the grace of God” (1 Cor. 15:1–

6) given to the Christian (Gal. 1:11–12) by the apostle to the Gentiles (Rom.

2:16), it most certainly would have no bearing on the life of any Christian who

lived in Europe, America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Siberia, or the Indies, from

Pentecost to the Rapture.

“He that shall endure unto the end,” is plainly a reference to a lawabiding

Jew in Palestine immediately preceding the Advent of the Lord Jesus,

and no amount of distortion could ever make it apply to anything else, unless the

distorter had a motive in perverting the word of God.

“And this gospel of the kingdom.” As Scofield has so ably put it, “There

are four forms of the Gospel—the gospel of the kingdom (2 Sam. 7:16; Dan. 2),

the gospel of the grace of God (1 Cor. 15:2–5), the everlasting gospel (Rev.

14:6), and what Paul calls “MY gospel” (Rom. 2:16; Eph. 3:1–7).” This

Scriptural division is not arrived at by any system of interpretation. It is arrived

at by believing what is read, as it is found, where it is found. People who try to

equate the “gospel of the kingdom” with the “kingdom of God” (Rom. 14:17)

only reveal again (as they have thousands of times before) their insincerity and

disrespect for the authority of the Scripture. Two things that are different are not

equal.

“This gospel of the kingdom.” Matthew defines it in a score of passages—

Matthew 3:2, 4:17, 4:23, 8:12, 9:35, 10:7, etc. In every case, it is the literal,

physical, visible, Messianic, Davidic, Palestinian kingdom promised to the Son

of David, who will reign on David’s throne at Jerusalem. No Jehovah’s Witness

is involved. No Christian is involved. No salvation is involved in this age, and

no church is connected with it. These facts are evident to the most uninformed

who will take time out to compare the passages.

“For a witness unto all nations.” Notice that the word “nations,” as in

Matthew 28:18–19, is set over against the word “kingdom.” The Kingdom is the

Lord’s and it is Jewish (Acts 3:19–26) and this message is to be preached to the

Gentiles in the Tribulation as a witness. There is nothing in the passage remotely

connected with missionaries spreading the gospel to all nations in this age. If a

missionary in this age did obey the verse and preach that gospel, God would

curse him according to Galatians 1:7–10.

Matthew 24:13–14, then, turns out to be the “parting of the ways” in Bible

interpretation. Here the Catholic and Methodist grab onto the possibility of

“losing it” and keep the Christian under Judaistic bondage all his life (Gal. 3–5).

The Jehovah’s Witness grabs it and is conceited enough to think that it is he, and

he tries to “endure” an age that hasn’t even begun. The amillennialist grabs it

and pretends that the Jewish gospel of the Kingdom is the plan of salvation in

this age (Presbyterians and Reformed), and the missionaries grab it and break

their necks trying to get to every nation so the Lord can come back! Matthew

24:13–14 is Waterloo for churches and denominations who try to eliminate the

book of the Revelation as the proper key for rightly dividing the word.

Preachers, teachers, students, believers, and followers of these groups do not

know what the “end” is, what the “kingdom” is, what the “gospel of the

kingdom” is, who the “nations” are, or to whom the message is addressed.

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!” (Dante).

“The abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet.” Just

for a respite, let us imagine that we are in the shoes of some deluded scholar like

Alford, A. T. Robertson, Trench, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, or Dummelow.

How shall we properly exposit verse 15?

1. We don’t know what it is talking about.

2. We don’t know what the “end” is or what the “kingdom” is.

3. We don’t know to whom the message is addressed or when.

4. We resent any premillennialist telling us any of the above information

because “we are scholarly”!

So what shall we do with it?

We shall go to Roman Catholic tradition (found in the fourteen books

rejected by the Lord Jesus), and from the book of Maccabees we shall give a

private interpretation, which all Catholics hold to be infallible doctrine. The

“abomination of desolation,” by such an investigation, would be the pig

offered on the altar at Jerusalem on the fifteenth of Chislev of the year 145

(Dec., 168 B.C.), by Antiochus Epiphanes. This sound Roman Catholic doctrine

is found outside the Bible, as usual, in 2 Maccabees 4:11; 1 Maccabees 2:42,

7:13, and 1 Maccabees 1:54, 59. Having thus safely made a liar out of Christ by

relegating the event to the past instead of the future, we may proceed and say

that “Christ applies the phrase of what was to take place at the advance of the

Romans against Jerusalem...when they brought their pagan image of their gods

carried on their battle standards.” Thus the Holy Spirit is sufficiently quenched,

and there is no fear that any of the rest of the chapter can be future (Rev. 17:1–

6).

Once this course is taken, then the second coming of Christ, found in verses

29–30, has to be spiritualized to apply either to the descent of the Holy Spirit at

Pentecost (!) or the the destruction of Jerusalem (!), neither of which are

connected with the Second Coming of Christ. (If the illustration seems farfetched,

let the reader take note that the position above is quoted from the

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. I, p. 17, which is considered to

be a monument of orthodoxy. In reality, it is nothing but a stuffed Roman

hassock.)

“The abomination of desolation” even tripped up the great Plymouth

Brethren expositor, Dr. Scofield. When he approaches Daniel 8:9, the famous

premillennialist feels suddenly oppressed by Rome to fulfill his obligations as a

true “catholic” and “son of the church,” so Scofield writes (footnote, p. 912,

Scofield Reference Bible), “The little horn here is a prophecy of Antiochus

Epiphanes. He is not to be confounded with the little horn of Daniel 7, who is yet

to come!” Really? Then why is it that the little horn of Daniel 8:9 goes right into

the Antichrist in verse 10? Scofield has to write lamely, “This passage is

confessedly the most difficult in prophecy.” But the good doctor has only made

it difficult by making the error on verse 9. If verse 9 is the Antichrist of

Revelation 12:1–4, then verse 10 offers no difficulty whatsoever. The

“difficulty” was introduced when Scofield and his board bowed to Roman

tradition, as found in the Maccabees (not in the Bible) and tried to parade a little

“scholarship” that was not worth the ink it took to write it down.

“The abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet” is

found in Daniel 11:31 and 8:13, and neither passage has any reference to some

secular “villain” of Roman-additions to the Bible. Notice that in Daniel 8:13–14,

the time is given for the desolation, and it is not a time any scholar has ever

found connected with Antiochus Epiphanes. Furthermore, the sanctuary was not

cleansed (Dan. 8:14) when Antiochus was through. Again, orthodox scholarship

beat its brains out trying to exposit a passage intelligently after insulting the

Lord by appealing to Catholicism for help. Here too, the Seventh-day Adventist

enters (Dan. 8:14), and taking advantage of the confusion, constructs the

monstrous hypothesis that the 2,330 is a “year-day” job like Daniel 9:25 and

Numbers 14:34. On this theory, we find a whole new “religion” erected with

invisible judgments taking place in heaven over people here that no one knows

about—French Revolutions dating riders in Revelation 6, Tartar and Mongol

massacres dating vials in Revelation 16, and God knows what. (If you would

like to waste several hours to become acquainted with the whole fouled-up mess,

Drama of the Ages is highly recommended, and other popular fiction from the

Review and Herald Publishing Company, Washington, D.C.)

“The abomination that maketh desolate.” Daniel 11:31 clearly marks the

taking away of a LITERAL sacrifice, which is being made in a LITERAL temple

(Rev. 11:1–4) in the real future (2 Thess. 2:1–6). It is NOT Antiochus and it is

not Titus. All passages point to a literal fulfillment in the middle of Daniel’s

Seventieth Week (the end-time), to take place after the rapture of the church. You

will arrive at this interpretation if you read “desolate” where it says “desolate,”

“abomination” where it says “abomination,” and “temple” where it says

“temple.” [Difficult, of course, for beginners, but you’ll get used to it if you

don’t lose your temper! ]

“The abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand

in the holy place.” The Holy Place, of course, refers to that part of the temple at

Jerusalem where the shew bread, candlestick, and altar of burnt incense were

kept (Heb. 9:1–5). It says plainly that there is a literal temple standing at the time

these events take place. Revelation 11:1–4, in the Tribulation, confirms this, and

2 Thessalonians 2:1–6 states just as plainly that when the Man of Sin comes that

he will sit down in the “temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (cf.

Dan 11). There would not be time in several volumes to analyze all that these

passages bring to mind in relation to other Scriptures, but briefly let it be noted

that:

1. The Antichrist will profess to be God in the flesh (2 Thess. 2).

2. As such, he will install himself as the object of worship (Rev. 13).

3. As an object of worship, he will demand sacrifice to replace the

authorized sacrifices of the Jews (Dan. 8, 11; Lev. 1-7).

4. These sacrifices will be human beings who are decapitated at the altar on

the court of the temple, and the flesh and blood eaten by the black-robed priests

of the “mass” (Massacre)—(John 6:40–71; Rev. 20:4; Lev. 1; Rev. 6:9–11; Isa.

6:13; Psa. 16:4, 14:4).

(We are back to the “belly-worshippers,” commented on under Matt. 23:16,

18.)

Since this Man of Sin is the fifth cherub (now vacant from the third heaven,

Rev. 4:7, Ezek. 1, 10, 28), and since the cherubim have the privilege of

surrounding the throne, this Cherub will resume his place in the temple as the

anointed (christos!) cherub that covereth the throne (Ezek. 28:14) and will seat

himself on the mercy “seat” to dictate “ex-cathedra” to the entire world!

But I hear griping in the barracks.

The troops have been reading Kenneth Wuest instead of their Bibles.

“Whoso readeth, let him understand” (Matt. 24:15)!

“Then let them which be in Judaea.” Notice, how the Holy Spirit keeps

driving home the fact that the setting is Jewish, not Gentile; it is under the Law,

not under Grace; it is a period of time in the future, not the past; and this period

is terminated by the Advent (Matt. 24:29). How silly it would be to think that

Matthew 24 was A.D. 70 when you are told that the Lord Jesus returned at the

end of that period of time! He could not have returned, for John writes of His

coming as FUTURE, in the gospel, and John’s gospel is written twenty years

after the destruction of Jerusalem.

“Flee into the mountains.” The details of this are found in Revelation

12:1–17; Micah 7:14–16; Jeremiah 50:19–20; Hosea 2; and many other places. It

has been pointed out by advocates of the A.D. 70 theory that Cestius Gallus

withdrew from Jerusalem in A.D. 70, after beginning the siege, thus giving all

the Christians time to escape to the mountains. This overlooks three important

facts: 1. Christians do not observe the sabbath (Fri.–Sat.); (Matt. 24:20).

2. Nowhere did Jesus warn Christians not to have children (24:19).

3. Nowhere are any Christians addressed in the passage. The word

“Christian” does not appear in the Bible in usage till nearly ten years after the

Lord has returned to Glory (Acts 11.)

This does not mean that certain events which took place in A.D. 70 cannot

foreshadow what is to take place later, for Jeremiah 52 foreshadows A.D. 70 and

the future destruction under the Antichrist. But it does mean that we do not have

the liberty to relegate future passages to the past simply because we are too

stupid to adopt the premillennial position. Writers say that in A.D. 70 “the sun

was as dim as the moon on cloudless days for a year, during the reign of

Justinian, and that a new star appeared and disappeared the night Charles IX

died,” and so forth and so on. Our job, however, is to compare Scripture with

Scripture till we know what we are talking about, instead of comparing the

secular events of A.D. 70 with a fairy story in Maccabees and then trying to jam

Matthew 24 into it.

“Woe unto them that are with child...in those days!” Again the “days”

are exactly located, for we find the same expression in Luke 23:28–31. Here

also, it is addressed to Jews only, and the quotation is from the Tribulation. It

thus appears that the gospels are “shot through” with references which can only

be interpreted by the book of Revelation. Revelation opens the Old Testament,

and the Old Testament opens the New Testament. The amillennial and

postmillennial bunglers of Catholicism tried to conquer the shores of prophecy

without any understanding of the book of Revelation before they landed. They

are like the paratroopers on D-day in Normandy, drowning in three feet of water

because of excessive gear and equipment.

Only one man in the Bible was forbidden to marry or have children. It was

not a priest. It was JEREMIAH (Jer. 16:2). Jeremiah was living at the time that

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (Rev. 17!), destroyed Jerusalem. [When this is

done again, it will be by a man who is typified by Nebuchadnezzar (and

seventeen other Old Testament characters), and who is connected (as

Nebuchadnezzar) with “Babylon” (see Rev. 17:1–9).] Jeremiah, therefore,

would perfectly typify the Jewish remnant in the Tribulation at the time the

Antichrist takes over. This remnant is called “the virgin of Israel,” and “the

virgin the daughter of Zion,” and is addressed by Jesus in Luke, “Daughters

of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your

children” (Luke 23:28). Notice that this expression, as it occurs also in Matthew

2:17–18, is connected with Jeremiah and speaks of a nation in mourning at a

time when men are calling, “Mountains, fall on us,” “Rocks, cover us!” (Rev.

6:16). The “green tree” of Luke 23:31 is Israel in her own land in peace with

the Messiah present. The “dry tree” is Israel in bondage under religious Rome,

with the false Messiah in “the driver’s seat” (see Ezek. 17:22–24).

Again, the Revelation of Jesus Christ (Rev. 1:1) reveals its ability to unsnarl

a passage that remains a snarl until the premillennial system unsnarls it. The

natural antipathy to the book of Revelation comes, of course, from that religious

system which the book attacks; that system is so clearly given in Revelation

17:2–6, 9, 18, that exposition would be embarrassing. (See The Mark of the

Beast, 1994, Bible Baptist Bookstore.)

“But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the

sabbath day.” The route of this flight will be found in the Old Testament

prophets, and it is clear that it is to southern Palestine (Petra), by crossing the

Jordan and fleeing down the “king’s highway” through Moab and Ammon.

Winter time is the start of the Jordan River’s flood-time and peaks with the

melting snows in March and April (see Josh. 3:15). Another danger is that there

will be no time to get adequate clothing for the trip (Matt. 24:18). (A woman was

found buried in the ruins of Pompey in the act of snatching some jewels out of a

hidden compartment in the wall of her home. There wasn’t time to get them, and

the precious seconds she wasted fooling with the lock and moving the picture

might have been used in running pell-mell out of the town.)

“The sabbath day” offers a problem that no expositor has handled

properly, if he subscribed to the old A. D. 70-Titus-chimera.

It is argued that if it was the Sabbath they would violate it by going more

than a “Sabbath’s day journey,” which would get them no further than the

mount of Olives (Acts 1:12). But this interpretation is strained to say the least. If

the sabbath is “made for man” (Mark 2:27) and the “Son of man is Lord also

of the sabbath” (Mark 2:28), why would it be “breaking the sabbath” to run

from the Antichrist till you were out of breath?

No satisfactory explanation has ever been given, unless it is the shocking

thought provoked by the CBS broadcast over station WNVY, Pensacola, Florida,

August 10, 1962 (to the common knowledge) that all airlines in Israel are

grounded on Saturday. Readers of Revelation 12 have not failed to notice that

Israel not only “flees to the wilderness,” she FLIES!!

Dr. Peter S. Ruckman, Matthew Commentary