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Thanks to the prophecy in Daniel Chapter Nine, we know how long Jesus' ministry to Israel was ordained to last in order to fulfill the Covenant of Promise to Israel. From the same prophecy, we also know that His crucifixion occurred in the midst of this covenant.
See the Prophetic Time Chart to gain a familiarity with metaphorical prophetic time. The 7 day week specified in Daniel is metaphorical. That is, the week that Daniel mentions actually refers to 7 prophetic years. Since Jesus was crucified in the midst of the 7 years, that would mean that prophetically His confirmation of the covenant with the Jews lasted 3 1/2 years, or 1,260 days.
Reading the book of Acts with Jesus' teachings fresh in our mind tells us that the event that set up the Abomination of Desolation was the decision of some disciples to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles before receiving permission to do so. Jesus' command to the Twelve Apostles again: "These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matthew 10:5-6 KJV) It is common wisdom to assign the "opening of the Gospel to the Gentiles" to the violent death by stoning of the martyr Stephen, delivered by the mob attending the council of the Sanhedrin where Stephen was being questioned. This act, it is said, indicated that the Jews, nearly always implying the entire race of Jews, had rejected Jesus Christ by this action. Because of the stoning of Stephen, which I believe took place 1,290 days after Jesus' crucifixion, and also because of the zealous efforts of an official persecutor named Saul (later Paul), the disciples at that time made a fateful decision: "Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. And there was great joy in that city." (Acts 8:4-8 KJV) Following Philip after his successes, Peter and John also went to the Samaritans: "Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost." (Acts 8:14-17 KJV) By ministering the Gospel to the Samaritans and Gentiles before God gave permission to do so, the disciples broke the Covenant between the Promised Messiah and the Children of Israel. The first permission to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles came from Jesus later in the form of a vision received by Peter. Peter's vision took place just before the visit of three men from the Centurion Cornelius, who had also received a vision from God: "And [Peter] saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." (Acts 10:11-15 KJV) Peter went to Cornelius, and upon hearing of Cornelius' vision from God said: "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." (Acts 10:34-35 KJV) Peter's vision of the unclean beasts, that "God hath cleansed", was the official notification of the fulfillment of the covenant of the Messiah with the Jews. The disciples went to the Gentiles 1,290 days after the crucifixion when Stephen was stoned, breaking the covenant of God with the Jews. This vision giving permission to go to the Jews came 1,335 days after Jesus' crucifixion on the cross.
So began the backsliding of Christianity from the teachings of Jesus Christ. Though really, with the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, and the appointing of deacons in violation of Jesus' teachings on brotherhood, our abominations had already begun. The terrible thing about the breaking of the covenant with the Jews was that this was God's covenant. Not to mention the hatred and bigotry that this event has contributed to down through the centuries. Would anti-semitism have been so pervasive throughout Christian history if the transition of offering the Gospel to the Gentiles had been a smooth transition as God had planned? For example, read Paul's opinion of the Jews taken from a letter that became "Gospel" to Christian religions, yet Paul's opinion was not the way of Jesus: "For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 KJV) Thus the opinion of one tired and persecuted Apostle was turned into hell on earth for the Jewish people for nearly 2000 years. It is common for even Christian theologians to use the phrase: "The Gospel went to the Gentiles when the Jews rejected it". But the Jews did not reject the Gospel, Christians rejected the Jews. If the Apostles had stayed with Jesus' commands, they would have continued preaching His own version of the sacrifice He was about to make: "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." (John 10:17-18 KJV) This is the way the Apostles should have preached Jesus' crucifixion. Not just the Jews, but any nation on earth at the time, faced with the mutinous way of life that Jesus taught, would have persecuted Him also. No man or nation killed Jesus, He laid down His life for us voluntarily. We know that God anticipates us through His great love for us as our Creator. The Abomination of Desolation was inevitable, because men sin, because we act impulsively, because we eventually forget God - As the disciples forgot that they were to limit the preaching of the Gospel to the Jews. From that seed, however, the Abomination of Desolation has grown through the centuries, existing in the form of religions that reject the teachings of Jesus in favor of doctrines divined from the writings of the Apostles and other men. They have become religions that enforce fixed doctrines and refuse new truths revealed from the Bible by God, then who persecute those whom they find unworthy to be baptized into their membership. The good news is that we have reached that wonderful point predicted by Paul in Thessalonians: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." (2 Thessalonians 2:3-10 KJV) And by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: "And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house." (Mark 3:25-27 KJV) |
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Thus has the Plan of Salvation worked since the setting up of the Abomination of Desolation, as described in Daniel also: "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 until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." (Daniel 9:27 KJV) Today the Abomination of Desolation is better known as: "...BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." (Revelation 17:5 KJV) The Harlot of Babylon today is modern organized Christian religion, cold-blooded corporations whom today are tolerating many evils in their hypocrisy. However, they have already been ensnared by God: "But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken." (Isaiah 28:13 KJV) There is no one to blame, we simply must now accept that man will destroy himself if left to his own devices. We need eye-salve to see it soon. Jesus said: "...Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." (Luke 16:13-15 KJV)
"For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." (Matthew 23:39 KJV) "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!"
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Abomination of Desolation is not explicitly identified in the Bible,
so we need to identify it on our own through prayerful investigation
and study: