Many think that this warning will have another fulfillment in the end times. I guess we will have to wait and see, but Jesus’s words were a shock to the listeners. An underlying truth is that following Jesus may involve difficult times, requiring a trust and allegiance that we have not experienced. Throughout the globe in 2025, there are numerous reports of persecution and executions of those who follow Christ. I read that there were 4476 Christians murdered for their faith in Christ in 2024. I’m guilty of minimizing the black and white, no riding the fence commitment we make each day as we follow Him.
“The conflicting missions of the two armies seemed to have no fog, no gray, only black-and-white clarity. I had lived my life in terms of compromise, rule-bending, trade-offs, concessions, bargaining, striking deals, finding middle ground. In these two great armies, there was no such thing. Good was good, and evil was evil, and they shared no common ground.
Randy Alcorn, Edge of Eternity
“The desolating sacrilege” was a historical reference the author expected his readers to recognize. In 167 BCE, the Greek general Antiochus Epiphanes marched against Jerusalem with the intent of forcing the Jews to embrace the Greek culture and language. As a part of his campaign, he set up in the temple an altar dedicated to the Greek god Zeus. He offered a pig as a sacrifice to Zeus on that altar. Naturally, this act was highly offensive to the Jewish people. In their minds, Antiochus desecrated the temple. They viewed his sacrifice as a sacrilege that made the temple ritually unclean. “The desolating sacrilege” referred to this event in their history. Jesus used the reference to speak of a foreign intrusion into the temple that would profane it. When they saw foreigners (Romans) taking over the temple, they were to flee to the mountains for safety.” - Excerpt, Following Jesus: Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark by Steve Langford
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