The title of this article alone is enough to make you want to close your bulletin before proceeding further. The words present the reader with an ominous sound. However, what is the “Abomination of Desolation?”  Jesus used the phrase in Matthew 24:15 when he said, “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place…”  From that verse, we learn that this abomination was first mentioned by Daniel, and that he will one day stand in the “holy place,” which many scholars equate with the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

Daniel wrote about an abomination that causes desolation in Daniel 9:27, 11:31, and 12:11 as referring to a particular individual(s) who causes terrible things to happen to Israel at a specific time(s) in history. Picking up on this idea, Jesus said that when this comes to pass, the people in Judea should flee to the mountains. But from this point forward, we can only speculate as to the identity of this particular abomination.

Though many believe this abomination is a person, others view it as an event(s), such as when Antiochus Epiphanes slaughtered many Jews around 165 B.C. and caused a pig to be slaughtered on the altar; or when Emperor Caligula, who in 40 A.D. demanded that his statue be erected and worshipped inside the Jewish temple, at the threat of slaughtering thousands of Jews. Still others see him as Titus, who in 70 A.D. destroyed the temple and Jerusalem, and finally some see him as the antichrist, or “beast” mentioned in Revelation 13.

Space does not allow going into this further, except to say that before the end of human history on earth is consummated, there will be such an evil visited upon God’s people, primarily the Jews, that it would destroy the planet if God did not intervene. The man responsible for this evil will set himself up as God, and demand many to worship him, but will in the end be destroyed. History suggests this has already happened many times over, yet may have at least one more significant occurrence before the end of the world is completed.

Dana Arledge, Phil Meade, Will Uminn, Kevin Farmer