The Archives Devotional Magazine August 2015 | Page 5

Listen! I have told you this ahead of time.
“Or, if people should tell you, ‘Look, he is out in the
desert!’—don't go there; or if they say, ‘Look, he is hiding
here!’—don't believe it. For the Son of Man will come like the
lightning which flashes across the whole sky from the east to the
west. Wherever there is a dead body, the vultures will gather.
“Soon after the trouble of those days, the sun will grow dark,
the moon will no longer shine, the stars will fall from heaven, and
the powers in space will be driven from their courses. Then the
sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky; and all the peoples
of earth will weep as they see the Son of Man coming on the
clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The great trumpet
will sound, and he will send out his angels to the four corners of
the earth, and they will gather his chosen people from one end of
the world to the other.

The Awful Horror
In most translations of the Bible, “The Awful Horror” is
translated “the abomination of desolation.” In the Greek,
βδέλυγμα (bdelugma) ἐρημώσεως (erēmōseōs). Bdelugma means
“a detestable thing,” or something loathsome, something hated.
Erēmōseōs denotes destruction, or devastation, ruin. Most
scholars believe that this prophecy in Daniel was fulfilled when
Antiochus IV Epiphanes ordered an attack on Jerusalem in 167
B.C., setting up an altar to Zeus inside the temple and eventually
sacrificing a pig (an unclean animal) on that altar.

Predictions never Prosper
This passage in scripture
reveals something crucial when
considering the end times
prophecies: the ultimate futility
in trying to predict them. Christ
will return in a flash, in the
twinkling of an eye. In fact, not
only is predicting his return
nearly impossible—if anyone
claims to have done so, we are
explicitly warned to not believe
it. So much hysteria has been
generated over the return of
Christ that could have been
avoided had this fairly simple
passage been followed. There
have been literally hundreds of
documented predictions of when
Jesus is coming back, most in the
last century. Perhaps it speaks to
our generation’s want of control
or need for peace. In any event,
we should not worry about when
Christ comes, but being always
prepared for when he comes.