Great Tribulation, Part 1
Matthew 24:15-28
In Matthew 24, we are in the middle of Jesus teaching His disciples on the Mount of Olives shortly before He would be betrayed, seized, tried, condemned, and crucified. In this important teaching discourse, Jesus prophesies about the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the events that surround His second coming and the end of the age.
Every time we come to prophecy in scripture, we should be greatly encouraged by it. Think about it. The Almighty sovereign God, who knows all things from the beginning to the end, has revealed by prophecy what will happen in the future. As Peter wrote, “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:21). If this is true of prophets through whom the Holy Spirit inspired the scriptures, how much more sure (2 Peter 1:19) is the prophetic word spoken directly by the Son of God Himself (Hebrews 1:2)! And that is exactly what we have here in Matthew 24 and 25. Jesus gives His sure word about His coming and the end of the age.
A second reason that prophecy should encourage us is that it assures us of God’s sovereign control over the events of history. The reason that God can reveal the future is not only because God knows the future, but because all of history—past, present, and future—is in His hands. Hundreds of prophesies in scripture have been literally fulfilled already. We know this from biblical history. The ones that have yet to be fulfilled will literally come to pass just as God revealed through His prophets because God is in control of time and eternity. “He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings” (Daniel 2:21). “The Most High rules in the kingdom of men,” (Daniel 4:17). Prophecy affirms the sovereignty of God.
And that is what we will see in Matthew 24:15-28. Even though Jesus foretells of terrible things—the abomination of desolation, great tribulation, false christs, and such—the ultimate message is that our gracious, merciful, righteous, almighty God is in control of all of it. None of it is outside His sovereign hand.
Remember that Jesus is answering the questions that the disciples asked after Jesus told them about the future destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. They had asked, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matt. 24:3). And so, as we saw last time, Jesus told them the things that would characterize the times that precede His coming. He warned them not to be deceived by false christs (Matt. 24:4-5). He told them not to be troubled by wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes. He said that those things are not the end but simply the beginning of birth pains (Matt. 24:8). He prepared them for persecution, tribulation, false prophets, and apostasies, promising that “he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matt. 24:13). And He assured them that the gospel of the kingdom would be preached in all the world. As we said last time, all these things have happened to varying degrees throughout the history of the church. And they are still happening today. Jesus said that those things do not necessarily signal the end. Then, in Matthew 24:14, He concluded, “then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). The end of what? Going back to the disciples’ question, it must mean “the end of the age” (Matt. 24:3).
Now, when we get to Matthew 24:15, Jesus seems to turn to a new page in His prophecy. That verse begins with the word, “Therefore”. It refers back to what the Lord has just said when He told what the times would be like that precede the end. The word “Therefore” connects the coming of the end with what Jesus is about to say next. Jesus will answer the disciples’ question about the sign of His coming and the end of the age.
Now, there are many things in this passage that capture our attention. But let’s remember to keep our focus on the Lord who told us these things. He tells us these future events because God knows them and is in control of them. This prophecy magnifies God’s sovereignty. And the first way we see this is that Jesus tells us …
1. The Event That Signals the End (Matt. 24:15)
In Matthew 24:15, our Lord gives a specific visible sign that will mark the coming of the end. He says, “Therefore when you see …” The “when” has the force of “whenever”[1]. Jesus doesn’t tell when it will come, but “whenever” they see it, He wants them to be alert and ready. What sign will they see that will signal the end? The “abomination of desolation”. From the words themselves, we might get a general sense of what it must be. The word, “abomination” carries the idea of something that is very disgusting or detestable. It is used in the Old Testament to expressly describe things that defile God’s perfect holiness, particularly idolatry and its wicked practices. Listen to how Moses uses the term “abomination” in Deuteronomy to describe the idolatry and wicked practices that Israel must avoid:
25 “You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. 26 Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.” (Deut. 7:25-26).
9 “When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. … 12 For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you.” (Deut. 18:9, 12).
18 “lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the LORD your God.” (Deut. 20:18).
15 ‘Cursed is the one who makes a carved or molded image, an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ “And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen!’ (Deut. 27:15).
The word “desolation” signifies the utter horror of destruction. So, the “abomination of desolation” refers to a terribly sinful act that ends in a horrible, appalling destruction.
Jesus is not vague about this “abomination of desolation”. He says it is “spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place”, and He exhorts us saying “(whoever reads, let him understand).” The phrase “ abomination of desolation” (or something close to it) occurs four times in the book of Daniel.” (Dan. 8:13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11). Two of them appear to speak about the desecration of the temple that took place just after the rise of Greece to power, three or four hundred years after Daniel prophesied and a couple hundred years before the coming of Christ (Dan. 8:13; 11:31).
Daniel 11:31 says, “And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress; then they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place there the abomination of desolation.” History records that just as Daniel had prophesied, in 168 B.C. the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes (who deeply despised and resented the Jewish people) marched an army of Greeks and renegade Jews into Jerusalem and polluted the holy altar in the temple by offering up a sow on it, put an end to the daily sacrifices, ordered the Jews to cease the worship of God, and erected an image of Zeus in the temple.[2]
But Jesus is indicating here in Matthew 24 that there will be another fulfillment of the “abomination of desolation” in the future. It will be visible and standing in the holy place, the temple, just as in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. The actions of Antiochus Epiphanes serve as a type, or model, of another act of desecration in relation to the temple which was yet future at the time Jesus spoke this warning to his disciples.
Daniel also prophesies about the “abomination of desolation” in Daniel 9. Daniel had been reading the words of the prophet Jeremiah that the days of exile for Jerusalem were coming to an end (Dan. 9:2). This compelled Daniel to pray a great prayer of repentance for his people, Israel. While he was “speaking, praying, and confessing” his sins and the sins of Israel, Gabriel came to Daniel with a vision which begins in Daniel 9:24,
24 “Seventy weeks are determined
For your people and for your holy city,
To finish the transgression,
To make an end of sins,
To make reconciliation for iniquity,
To bring in everlasting righteousness,
To seal up vision and prophecy,
And to anoint the Most Holy.
25 “Know therefore and understand,
That from the going forth of the command
To restore and build Jerusalem
Until Messiah the Prince,
There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;
The street shall be built again, and the wall,
Even in troublesome times.
26 “And after the sixty-two weeks
Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
And the people of the prince who is to come
Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week;
But in the middle of the week
He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.
And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate,
Even until the consummation, which is determined,
Is poured out on the desolate.” (Dan. 9:24-27).
The word translated “weeks” is literally “sevens.” Daniel is talking about “seventy sevens.” All Bible interpreters that I know of would interpret these “seventy sevens” as “seventy weeks of years.” In other words, when Daniel is speaking about a “week,” he is not referring to 7 days, but to 7 years. And so, “Seventy weeks” represents “seventy [seven-year periods],” which multiplies out 490 years.
Daniel 9:25 tells when these seventy sevens of years begins: “from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem.” This decree took place during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah under the Persian King Artaxerxes I. Daniel says that from that decree until “Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks”, or 483 years. This literally takes us to the time of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.
In Daniel 9:26 he is told about the substitutionary death of Christ, “Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself.” Then Daniel is told about the destruction of Jerusalem, “And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.” We know from history that in 70 A.D. the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the sanctuary just as Daniel and Jesus had both prophesied.
But notice that there is still one “week” or one set of seven years left to come after this. That is what Daniel is told about in Daniel 9:27, and that is where the “abomination of desolation” appears again.
27 Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate.” (Dan. 9:27).
The pronoun “he” refers back to Daniel 9:26, “the prince who is to come.” This prince will “confirm a covenant with many for one week”, that is for seven years. Then “in the middle of the week,” at the three and a half year point, “He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.” Then we see the abomination of desolation again, “And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate.” Similar to the “abomination of desolation” under Antiochus Epiphanes, sacrifice and offering will be brought to an end and the temple made desolate.
Daniel 12 confirms this prophecy. In the context of the resurrection of the dead (Dan. 12:2) and “the time of the end” (Dan. 12:4), Daniel is told, 11 “And from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days.” (Dan. 12:11). The daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination of desolation is set up in the temple. After this takes place, there is a fixed period of time (about three and a half years) during which the godly will wait for the end.
So, we have done what Jesus instructed us to do: read the prophecy of Daniel. And what becomes clear when we do is that the abomination of desolation is closely associated with the temple in Jerusalem and the abolishing of the sacrifices there. It happened in 168 B.C. It happened again in a sense in 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed the city and the temple. But clearly, Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:15 have an application even beyond 70 A.D. because they are intended to describe the sign of His coming and the end of the age (Matt. 24:3). As we will see next time, they will usher in a time of great tribulation to be followed by the glorious visible coming of Christ (Matt. 24:29-31).
I believe that the third and most complete fulfillment of the prophecy about the “abomination of desolation”—for which the first two only served as symbolic pictures—will be the coming of the Antichrist—the future, satanically empowered world ruler described in dreadful detail in Revelation 13 as “the beast” who deludes the whole world into worshiping himself—the “man of sin” that Paul described in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12; whose coming is immediately associated with “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him” (2 Thess. 2:1).
Paul says that the “day of Christ” (2 Thess. 2:2) will not come “unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin (or lawlessness) is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (2 Thess 2:3,4).
This is clearly similar to the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel. He is called the “son of perdition” or “destruction”. He causes destruction and will himself be destroyed by the brightness of Christ’s coming (2 Thess. 2:8). He exalts himself and sits in the temple (the holy place) of God to be worshiped. This certainly qualifies as the abomination of desolation.
In the book of Revelation, John receives a vision of this same man whom he calls the “beast” and in his first epistle he calls “antichrist” (1 John 2:18).
1 Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. 2 Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. 3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast. 4 So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” 5 And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months. 6 Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. 7 It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. 8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Rev. 13:1-8).
Revelation 13 goes on to describe how an image of the beast will be set up and worshiped. Antiochus Epiphanes set up an idol in the temple to be worshiped by the Jews, but the Antichrist will set himself up as God and demand worship of all mankind. He will end the sacrifice in the temple and commit the abomination that leaves the holy place desecrated and desolate.[3]
The sign of the abomination of desolation is so specific that on the basis of it, Christ warned those living in Judea to flee when it occurs. His instructions were dramatic, as recorded in Matthew 24:16-20. They were to flee immediately to the mountains of Judea, not return to take clothes or other provisions, and pray that their flight will not be in the winter, when it would be most uncomfortable, or on the Sabbath, when their flight would be noticeable. Especially difficult would be the lot of those with small children. Christ summarizes these predictions in 24:21, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
I don’t want to stop here, but we must for today. But the thing that I want you to notice the most in all this is that our Lord declares the sign to us that marks the beginning of the end of this age. It is under His control. The dreadful “great tribulation” will not come until He says it will. The antichrist is not all powerful. Satan is not in charge. God is orchestrating all things, good and evil, for His glory and for our salvation.
Therefore, we are to watch, wait, and be alert, but not afraid. We are not to be paralyzed with fear, but rather, as Paul writes in Romans 12, we are to …
10 Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; 11 not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; 13 distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. (Romans 12:10-13).
As we think about the things Jesus is teaching about the end, are you fervent in spirit? Are you serving the Lord? Are you rejoicing in hope? Are you patient in tribulation? Are you continuing steadfastly in prayer? Are you standing fast and holding to the word of God (2 Thess. 2:15)?
16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. (2 Thess. 2:16-17).
Next time we will see …
- The Tribulation Prior to the End (Matt. 24:16-21)
- The Divine Limit of the End (Matt. 24:22)
- The Deceptive Climate of the End (Matt. 24:23-28)
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[1] Leon Morris, Pillar NT Commentary-Matthew, quoted on https://www.preceptaustin.org/matthew_2415_commentary. Accessed 09/28/2025.
[2] These events are described in detail in the Apochrypha; specifically in 1 Maccabees 1:10-62; 6:7; and 2 Maccabees 6:3-6.
[3] John MacArthur, MacArthur New Testament Commentary-Matthew 24-28, Moody Publishers, Chicago, 1989. P. 37.
