This Isn’t your father’s Apocalypse, It’s My Father’s

Continuing with our discussion of the good news (gospel) of the kingdom of heaven come to earth. As we have seen it is the new heaven and new earth come as the reign and rule of God rises in men receiving the mind of Christ and thereby become sons of God. We’ve seen this mind is conveyed as men are freed from the corrupted establishments, also likened spiritually to Sodom and Egypt, and from the false prophets and self-elevated misleaders in both church and state governments. We understand this freeing is the result of God’s counsel awakening and exercising our cognitive ability that had been laid waist by worldly wizard, self-proclaimed experts, and their intentionally deadening the mind of man into a death like stupor.

Today a look at Matthew 24 and what the LORD tells us there of ending this age of troubled minds and the accompanying sorrows, and of the return of peace by His kingdom come in us as Heavenly Jerusalem.

The first fourteen verse of Matthew 24 are a summary repeated with a different perspective in the verses that follow. The chapter beings with the LORD describing the desolation of the Temple (the body (houses) of the LORD), and then further speaking of it in verses 15 – 22. In these later verses we are told it is the abominations spoken of by Daniel that brings about the total desolation. The desolation is of the house we are also told to flee from. This is a reference to our going outside the camp, outside the gate of the corrupted institutions of church and national government. (See previous post and references to Hebrews 12 & 13.)

The reference to Daniel and the abomination that brings in the desolation is referring specifically to Daniel 9:26 where we are told of the Anointed one (messiah) being cut off and of the city and the sanctuary being destroyed (total desolation caused by the abominations). Verse 27 explains precisely that the overspreading of abominations is what brings in the desolation. The full definition of the abomination is found earlier in the chapter as Daniel tells us specifically in his prayer of repentance on behalf of his people and his nation.

Here again is the prayer:

Daniel 9:4 …O LORD, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;
5 We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and from your judgments:
6 Neither have we hearkened unto your servants the prophets, which spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
7 O LORD, righteousness belongs unto you, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither you have driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against you.
8 O LORD, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.
9 To the LORD our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him;
10 Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
11 Yea, all Israel have transgressed your law, even by departing, that they might not obey your voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him.
12 And he has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven has not been done as has been done upon Jerusalem.
13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand your truth.
14 Therefore has the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he does: for we obeyed not his voice.
15 And now, O LORD our God, that have brought your people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have gotten you renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
16 O LORD, according to all your righteousness, I beseech you, let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people are become a reproach to all that are about us.
17 Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of your servant, and his supplications, and cause your face to shine upon your sanctuary that is desolate, for the LORD’s sake.
18 O my God, incline your ear, and hear; open your eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by your name: for we do not present our supplications before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies.
19 O LORD, hear; O LORD, forgive; O LORD, hearken and do; defer not, for your own sake, O my God: for your city and your people are called by your name.

The word translated “abomination” and “abominations” in Daniel, 9:27, 11:31 & 12:11 is the Hebrew word shiqquwts. Here is the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary definition: Strong’s #8251: shiqquwts (pronounced shik-koots’) or shiqquts {shik-koots’}; from 8262 [shaqats – polluted]; disgusting, i.e. filthy; especially idolatrous or (concretely) an idol:– abominable filth (idol, -ation), detestable (thing).

As we know by what is stated in Daniel these abominations are what the people stray into as the leave God, and are polluted by those they are listening to, instead of listening to the sound advice of God through those He anoints to speak for Him. The cutting off of the one anointed is the finality into total desolation. It is the people rejecting the one God sends to call them away from the ways of destruction they are being misled and advised into.

This first use of the word shiqquwts is found in Deuteronomy 29:17. In the chapter we read of the Covenant being entered into and its being explained to the people. In verse 16 & 17 there is a parenthetical statement inserted defining the “abominations” that have caused the desolation of all other nations and peoples, which God’s people have seen and thereby know of their destructive effects.

Deuteronomy 29
9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.
10 You stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
11 Your little ones, your wives, and your stranger that is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your water:
12 That you should enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you this day:
13 That he may establish you to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto you a God, as he has said unto you, and as he has sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15 But with him that stands here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:
16 (For you know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which you passed by;
17 And you have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)
18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall and wormwood;
19 And it come to pass, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:
22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD has laid upon it;
23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass growstherein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore has the LORD done thus unto this land? what means the heat of this great anger?
25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:
26 For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:
27 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
28 And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.
29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Matthew 24
1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See you not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the world [age]?

Matthew 24
15 When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso reads, 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 you that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day:
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

What follows are the explanations of how these abominations have come into the city and the sanctuary. This begins with Matthew 4 & 5 telling of those who come in the name of the LORD saying , I am anointed (christos), and deceive many. This is telling of all the false prophets, false preachers, and ignorant (dead minded) Christians that infested the institutions of church, and nation, brining in all the foreign ways that have produced our desolation. This is what we are later told of in verse 23 & 24, and why we are told to not go after these misleaders.

Matthew 24
4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ [anointed]; and shall deceive many.

Matthew 24
23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Matthew 24 verse 6 then departs slight as it refers to Isaiah 19:2 and what is said in the chapter about captivity brought about by following these false teachers and their advice that leads, has led, to total desolation. The chapter speaks of Egypt and the Egyptians to tell of our bondage under their yoke, and then tells of it being by the corruption of all the waters. As we know these waters are what carries their teaching and advice to the masses. We know their advice is death in the waters, just as the LORD’s counsel is life, and these waters flow to the masses just as the waters flow into the sea.

Matthew 24
6 And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that you be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and you shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Isaiah 19
1 The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rides upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.
2 And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbor; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.
4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the LORD, the LORD of hosts.
5 And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.
6 And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defense shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.
7 The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.
8 The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.
9 Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.
10 And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.
11 Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counselors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say you unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?
12 Where are they? where are your wise men? and let them tell you now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts has purposed upon Egypt.

Matthew 24 continues with what is also mention as Isaiah 19 begins. There we’re told of the LORD riding upon a swift cloud, and at His presence the idols [that have caused the desolation] are moved, and their heart shall melt in the midst. This is what we read later in Matthew 24:30 as the LORD comes in the clouds of heaven.

When Isaiah speaks of the idols being moved it uses the Hebrew word nuwa’, meaning to shake, as in what we’ve discussed many times is written in Hebrews 12. There we know we are told of the kingdom we receive as the corrupted things are shaken off, and only those that can’t be shaken remain. Isaiah follows this by telling of the heart melting as does 2 Peter 3 when it speaks of the elements melting, Peter using the Greek word stoicheion, meaning foundational principles of reasoning, and the heart being the same foundation of reasoning.

Then we read in Matthew of THIS good news of our arriving at the kingdom and later of all that receives it being gather into it from the four corners of the earth.

Matthew 25
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.

Matthew 24
25 Behold, I have told you before.
26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shines even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
28 For where-so-ever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is nigh:
33 So likewise you, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
34 Truly I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
36 But of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Matthew 24
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42 Watch therefore: for you know not what hour your LORD doth come.
43 But know this, that if the goodman (keeper) of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
44 Therefore be you also ready: for in such an hour as you think not the Son of man cometh.
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his LORD has made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his LORD when he comes shall find so doing.
47 Truly I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My LORD delays his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The LORD of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.