The sermon is a detailed exposition of Mark 13, focusing on the 'abomination of desolation' and its implications. The speaker suggests that the passage refers not to the second coming of Christ, but to a coming of judgment specifically upon Jerusalem, which historically aligns with the Roman siege of 70 AD. The sermon explains that the events described in Mark 13, including false prophets, wars, and the destruction of the temple, were prophesied in the book of Daniel and were fulfilled as Jesus predicted. The speaker emphasizes that these events serve as a testament to God's faithfulness in keeping promises and urges believers to find comfort and assurance in God's word. The sermon also draws parallels between the historical context and the present, encouraging listeners to trust in Jesus Christ for salvation and heed His warnings about future judgments.

But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be, that the reader understand, then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. The one who is on the housetop must not go down or go in to get anything out of his house. And the one who is in the field must not turn back to get his coat. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days. But pray that it may not happen in the winter.

For those days will be a time of tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now and never will. Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect whom he chose, he shortened the days. May God bless the reading of his word. Amen.

Amen. You may be seated. I want to make sure I'm in the middle. Well, for two weeks now, the last two weeks I've been telling you that I would preach through Mark 13 in three sermons and my aim was to finish this chapter this Lord's Day but by Wednesday of this week, this past week, I came to realize that such a feat was, as my favorite Sicilian likes to say, inconceivable. And so this morning is the third sermon of a four-part sermon series on Mark's account of Jesus's Olivet Discourse.

And the question before us has been and still is, what is Jesus referring to in Mark chapter 13? Is it the second coming of Christ or is it a different kind of Christ's coming? Namely, a coming of judgment upon Jerusalem. Clearly these verses are describing a coming of Christ, but that's not the question. The question is not Is it a coming of Christ?

The question is, which coming is it? Is it the second coming when Jesus comes as 1 Corinthians 15 describes when Jesus returns and the dead are raised imperishable? That's going to happen, make no mistake about that. But is that the coming of Jesus Christ that Jesus is referring to here in our passage this morning? Is it that or something else?

And what we've seen, based on the setting, is that clearly the chapters prior to chapter 13 were not about the second coming, but about the coming judgment upon the temple. And the questions from the disciples that frame chapter 13 are about the promised judgment upon Jerusalem, the temple. And verse 30 in Mark 13 makes it plain that this generation listening to Jesus in that day, the Jewish generation of 40 years would not pass away until these things have taken place. And so the setting seems to make it plain that the coming that Jesus is referring to in Mark 13 is the coming of judgment. Chapter 11 and 12, the questions of the disciples, this generation a span of 40 years.

What happens? What happens within the span of 40 years? What happens within this generation? AD 70 happens. The Roman army besieges Jerusalem and quite literally crushes Jerusalem.

We're going to get to that this morning. And the Romans tear down the temple so that not one stone is left upon another. The promised judgment that Jesus foretold, that promised judgment happened in 8070. The fig tree of a temple, You remember that? The fig tree of a temple, which was cursed by Jesus?

Well, as promised, it withered and it was destroyed. And so last Lord's Day, we examined the signs that were to come beforehand, the signs that would precede the promised judgment in the first century. And these are the ones that we looked at. We found these signs, false Christs, false prophets, wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, persecution and apostasy, the gospel being preached to all the nations, these signs were all to precede the sign that judgment was upon them. And that sign that these signs were leading up to was what?

The abomination of desolation. What we found was that each of these preceding signs did in fact happen historically and biblically. We saw together last Lord's Day that the Book of Acts is a commentary on the Olivet Discourse. That the Book of Acts really should be understood as a book of great encouragement to believers. You should be reading the book of Acts and say, this is so encouraging.

Why? Because in all of the book of Acts, we see that all of Christ's promises are coming to pass. So what a joy it would have been for believers living in that generation, the generation where the Scriptures were written, living during the time of the book of Acts. What a joy it would have been to see sign after sign after sign that Jesus foretold occurring just like Jesus said it would. To the point that even the gospel is proclaimed to the whole known world, the Roman Empire, so that they could say together with one another when they're discouraged, when they're imprisoned together, when they're in a really difficult situation, brother, cheer up.

All the promises of God are yes and amen in Jesus Christ. So that they can say with their hearts, truly, truly God keeps His promises. Truly God keeps every single promise. And beloved, that same comfort and assurance should be held by you. Because of passages like this, God keeps His promises.

In Christ, you belong to a Savior who is batting one thousand. You must trust him. He has proved himself as the hymn says, or and or. And so in light of this passage you should be praying, oh, for grace to trust him more. Church, this passage is meant to be a blessed comfort and assurance to you who are in Christ Jesus.

That's what this passage is meant to do. What a blessed comfort and assurance it is to know that all that Christ has promised has come to pass for did He not promise salvation for you, Christian? Did not Jesus also promise to never leave you and to never forsake you, Christian? Has not Jesus Christ also promised to hold you fast all the days of your life? Has He not promised that His goodness and His mercy will in fact follow you all the days of your life?

Has He promised those things? Yes, He has. He has promised those things. He keeps His promises. He has promised, and He does, and He will, because Jesus keeps His promises.

He kept his promises to that generation. Oh He keeps his promises to this generation to you And these Disciples they would have known by the end of their lives the comfort of the Olivet Discourse, the assurance that the Olivet Discourse brings to those in Christ Jesus. And so, these disciples were told, trust my words, don't listen to false prophets, don't listen to false Christs, Trust my words. And that's what these disciples in this generation did. They were not to embrace the lies of the false prophets.

They were to stop up their ears against all lies. Those prophets that were offering peace, peace when there was no peace. Rather, they were to be on the alert. We see in Mark 13, to be on the alert. To notice the signs and to see when it was that they must flee the coming wrath of God.

Waiting for the final sign before they fled. The final sign being the abomination of desolation. So I just want to remind you in verses 5 through 13 of our passage, those are the birth pains of judgment. Remember Mark 13 verses 5-13 are the birth pains of the coming judgment. Verse 14, the judgment was upon them.

And at that moment you see the abomination of desolation flee. Get out of Judea. And so that's where we will resume our study this morning, the sign that judgment was imminent upon Israel. The sign of the abomination of desolation. Look again in verse 14.

Here's what Jesus says, but when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be, let the reader understand, then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains." Now if you're reading this in the New American Standard, what do you see in verse 14 that catches your eye? Well, you see all caps. The abomination of desolation is in all caps, which tells you something, doesn't it? What does it tell you? This is a reference to the Old Testament.

So Jesus is referring to something in verse 14 that the original audience, that the reader would very much understand. So what must you and I do each time we find out that a New Testament passage is quoting from the Old Testament? What is imperative that you do in your own Bible study and this morning? You should go back to your Old Testaments and read that passage. So let's do that together, shall we?

Let's turn to the place that Jesus is referencing here in Mark 13. Turn with me to the book of Daniel. Daniel chapter 9. Daniel chapter 9. Daniel chapter 9.

If you are unfamiliar with the Old Testament, if you get to Ezekiel, you're almost there. So Ezekiel, then Daniel. Daniel chapter 9. If you have a Q Bible, you can find that on page 894. Daniel chapter 9 beginning in verse 24.

What's in verse 24? Daniel chapter 9 beginning in verse 24, Daniel receives a vision from God, and this is what he records starting in verse 24. Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince There will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.

Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary, and its end will come with a flood. Even to the end there will be war. Desolations are determined. He will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, But in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering, and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, poured out on the one who makes desolate.

What did you see there in verse 27? The abomination who makes desolate. Jesus clearly has this prophecy in mind when he's talking to his disciples in Mark 13. Daniel chapter 9, what do you see there? What do you see?

Now I don't want you to get bogged down. A lot of us might approach Daniel and be like, man, there's too many details. Okay, pull out the clear things. Just pull out the clear things. Look at the text.

In fact, look at the text with me. I want us to pull out the foundations, fundamentals. What's verse 24 say? This prophecy is about the holy city, Jerusalem, and the holy place, the temple. You see that right there in verse 24.

This prophecy is about the holy city, Jerusalem, and the holy place, the temple. This prophecy is about making an end of sin atoning for iniquity that's verse 24 verse 25 There will come a time to restore and rebuild Jerusalem the temple and the Messiah will come and yet What will happen to the Messiah? Verse 26 The Messiah will be cut off and then what will happen look at the text there verse 26 the Messiah will be cut off and then a prince will come. A ruler will come with his people And he will come with his people to destroy the city and the sanctuary. And there will be wars and desolations.

That's verse 26. Verse 27, that prince, look there in the text please, That prince will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offerings and on the wing of abominations the desolation will come. A complete destruction will come. That's the abomination of desolation. Now those are the clear highlights in the prophecy.

Don't get bogged down. I just showed you. Those are the clear highlights of this prophecy. Does any of that sound familiar at all to you? Holy City, Holy Place, Sanctuary, Sacrifices, Offerings.

The Holy Place rebuilt. The Messiah coming. The Messiah being killed. A ruler rising up and bringing with him destruction of that same holy place and holy sanctuary and sacrifices ceasing. Please don't make it harder than it needs to be.

It's clearly talking about who and what. The temple was in fact rebuilt by Herod. You see that in the beginning of the New Testament. It's clearly talking about the temple. The temple was rebuilt by Herod, just like Daniel said it would be.

The Messiah in Daniel chapter 9 is Jesus Christ who came and he lived a perfect life. The Messiah was Jesus who came to fulfill all the types and shadows found in the temple and the sacrifices there so that in Christ the temple sacrifices would be no more. Jesus was the Messiah who was cut off and crucified in the place of sinners as the final sacrifice for sins just like Daniel prophesied in verses 24-26. And Jesus, when he uttered that cry, it is finished. What happened inside the temple?

The veil was what? Torn in two. What does that tell you? Gone was the old system with its shadows. The shadows don't need to be there anymore when the substance is there.

So gone was the old system, gone was the old system with its shadows for those who believe, and even for those who didn't believe, those non-believing Jews, for those unbelieving Jews, Jesus caused the sacrifices and the offerings of the temple to cease with the curtain being torn for those who believed. But even for those who didn't believe the unbelieving Jew, he caused the sacrifices and the offerings of the temple to cease by the destruction of that temple and its city and by the dispersion of the Jews. That's exactly what Daniel said would happen. I want you to look there in verse 27. Look there in verse 27.

Right in the middle, right in the middle of verse 27, He will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offerings. Jesus did all of it. Jesus fulfilled each of these prophecies in Daniel 9, 24 through 27, in his life and in his death, and in his sending the prince and his people, the emperor Titus and his Roman army, to Jerusalem. An army to Jerusalem. They came marching in AD 70 and desolated Jerusalem and destroyed its temple.

And in desolating the temple, do you know what Titus did? Titus put an end to the sacrifices there. Number one, Herod rebuilt the temple. Number two, Christ the Messiah is the true temple. He came and was sacrificed to make an end of sin for all who believe.

That was in Daniel 9. An atonement for sin. Put an end of sin. That was the Messiah. Number three, the temple and its hypocrisy destroyed by the prince, the emperor Titus in 70 AD.

Number four, sacrifices and offerings were therefore made to cease Daniel 9 mark 13 fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in the temple but I haven't even answered the question that you all have still. We all have the question, I think, okay, but what's the abomination of desolation? What is it? What is the abomination that Daniel's referring to and Jesus is referring to? Now I will also tell you Daniel makes mention of that same abomination of desolation in chapter 11 and chapter 12 and they're the same references.

This is the most lengthy section of that prophecy, and that's where we went to chapter 9. But what is the abomination of desolation? Well, what does Mark say? Mark says in verse 14 of Mark 13, Mark 13 verse 14, he says, let the reader what? Understand, let the reader understand.

The reader will understand. Whatever it is, whatever the abomination of desolation is, this abomination won't be confusing to the reader. It will be clear to the Jews when they see it. Oh my. That is bad.

That's bad. That is Daniel chapter 9 kind of bad. We've got to get out of here. And so there are a few possibilities of what the abomination of desolation might exactly be. But I think Luke's account of the Olivet discourse answers our question better than any other commentator.

Better than any other commentator. Wouldn't you like it if, you know, Luke, an author of the book of the Bible, could be your commentator about, hey, what's the abomination of desolation? Well, he is. He is. And so I want you to see this.

Let's go quickly to Luke 21 verse 20. Luke 21 verse 20. We're answering the question, what is the abomination of desolation? Luke 21, verse 20. What is the abomination of desolation?

Well, here's Luke's account of the Olivet Discourse. In verse 20, Luke writes this. But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, what desolation is near?" I think that's pretty clear.

You might disagree. That's okay. Luke says that the abomination of desolation, as best I can tell Luke's saying, the abomination of desolation is the Roman army surrounding Jerusalem in AD 70. And that's exactly what happened when Rome sieged Jerusalem. They surrounded Jerusalem.

But the question still remains, what was abominable about that? I mean, why call it an abomination? Why call a Roman siege an abomination of desolation? Well, I think it's pretty easy to understand. Josephus, a...

Do you know who Josephus is? He was a Jewish soldier. He was a Jew. He was captured by the Romans and made to serve Rome. And they actually liked him so much they didn't put him to death.

In fact, he was very much a historian. He was used as a liaison between Jerusalem and the Roman armies while they were sieging Jerusalem. Well, Josephus wrote a whole bunch of histories and he writes that the Jews hated the Roman flags. Hated the Roman flags. The Romans would carry these ensigns, these standards, these flags into battle.

And on the flags were wings of an eagle and images of Caesar. Wings of an eagle and images of Caesar. And there is one story of how Pilate, you know that character, Pilate, how Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, there's a story of how Pilate, years before AD 70, he put Roman standards, he put Roman flags in Jerusalem one day. Under the cover of darkness, he installed these Roman flags. Sun comes up, and it was so abominable to the Jews in Jerusalem in that day to have images of Caesar, graven images surrounding their holy city that they said, We will resist you until you put these things away." And Pilate says, you can resist all you want.

I'm just going to kill you. Pilate said, I'm going to kill you. He told his soldiers, slit every throat that resists. And in droves, one after another after another, entire families, entire groups of Jews, just one after another, hung their necks out and said, kill us. And Pilate was so moved at their disgust of the flatles that they were willing to lay down their lives because of graven images in Jerusalem that he actually removed the flatles.

It was so abominable to the Jews that they'd rather die than have Roman flags in Jerusalem. That's a true story. Josephus writes about it clearly. That story really happened. These flags with their graven images were abominable to the Jews.

And so these Jews living in Jerusalem, they're listening to Jesus' words in Mark 13. They're reading Jesus' words in Mark 13. They would very much understand the abomination of having the Roman flags in Jerusalem. And so I want you to picture it. This is just a possibility.

There are more than one possibility about what this abomination might be. But Luke tells us the army surrounding Jerusalem, and we know about the abomination that the Jews have towards the Flags, so I want you to picture it. Rome marching on Jerusalem. Massive, massive army, legion after legion. And surrounding Jerusalem and the people of Jerusalem, perhaps they're out in the field, perhaps they're on the rooftop.

They look up And what do they see? The Roman army with banner after banner after banner after banner. Flags with graven images all over them and wings of eagles. Remember, by the way, remember Daniel chapter 9 verse 27. I don't know if you caught it.

The end of verse 27, Daniel 9.27 says, the desolation would come on the wing of abominations. That's not a mistake. Write that down, you can look later. Daniel 9.27, the desolation on the wing of abominations will come the one who makes desolation. On the wing of abominations will come the one who makes desolate.

On the wing. Well, that's what was on the Roman standard, graven images and wings. It's not a mistake. And so here comes the Romans with armies and flags, and the reader would understand. And in that moment, there were two options.

You see this massive army coming toward you with these standards, there's two options. You can either flee to Jerusalem, you can go to the walls of Jerusalem, you can go into the city like everybody else, Or you can flee to the mountains And it is as it's as if Jesus is saying here It will look really foolish To those who will perish if you run to the mountain But if you listen to me and you run to the mountains you will you'll live And that's exactly what the Christians did in that day. Those who followed Jesus, they fled. They fled because they heeded the warnings of Jesus Christ. Jesus had told them to be on the alert.

And so when they saw that Roman army approach with those abominable standards, they knew the abomination had come and they knew exactly what to do. Beloved, I want you to hear this. Please, no matter your understanding of Mark 13, come away with this. You must listen to the words of Christ. You need to heed his warnings.

Here in Mark 13, Jesus is dealing a local judgment, a judgment where people could escape if they went to a mountain. But Jesus elsewhere also says that there is a coming judgment that no mountain and no valley will be able to hide you from his wrath. There will be no mountain for you to flee to on the day of judgment. The only hope that you have is trusting in Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. The only hope that you have is trusting in Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.

The only hope that you have is trusting Him who went to a cross as a ransom for sinners, that He would save you, sinner, and transfer you from the kingdom of darkness into his kingdom the kingdom of the beloved son and though this world will call you silly and will call you foolish as they no doubt did to those Christians who fled to the mountains. Though the world will call you silly as they did to those Christians, it will be they who end up the silly ones in the end, as they perish eternally under the wrath of the Lamb Jesus Christ. While that same Lamb was your sacrifice that bore that same wrath for you in your place. The cross, Paul says, is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved, it is the very power of God. Friend, You need to be like these Christians in AD 70.

You need to heed the warnings. You must fly to the mountain named Jesus Christ and you will live. Kiss the sun or you will perish in eternal hellfire. Best I can tell, what we just talked about, that's the abomination of desolation, a fulfillment of chapters 9 through 12 of Daniel, Rome surrounding Jerusalem, get out, flee. You see those abominable standards standing where they should not.

And for us today, the same application, flee to Christ. But Jesus goes on, Jesus goes on in verse 17, He pronounces woe upon those who are pregnant and nursing babies in those days, he promises a time of great tribulation. Look at verse 17. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days. Again, I'm in Mark 13, now in verse 18.

But pray that it may not happen in the winter, for those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now and never will. Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect whom He chose, He shortened the days. The Great Tribulation. Jesus here in verses 17 through 20 describes what would happen to those who did not flee.

To those who did not heed the words of Christ, to those who did not go to the mountains, a great tribulation would ensue. I want you to notice that Jesus mentions those who were pregnant and nursing. For they would be so starved inside Jerusalem, they would be in such a horrid state that they would even consume their own children. Josephus gives several examples of this in his writings. He gives accounts of women taking their own children and murdering them and roasting them over a pit and then consuming them.

Such was the horror of the siege in Jerusalem for those within that city. Jews eating their own children. You had Jews destroying one another's food. There was food aplenty, Josephus wrote in his histories at the beginning of the siege. They could have outlasted the Romans for a long time, But such was the tribulation within those walls that the Jews, overcome with madness, burned one another's stores of food and what was left to eat their own children.

Winter would only make things worse. Food was scarce, but death was not. Death abound. Great was that tribulation upon this people, the Jews. In his histories, Josephus wrote of how there were three factions within Jerusalem in that time.

Again, he lived in Jerusalem, was captured by the Romans, he knew what was going on. And Josephus writes that there were three factions within Jerusalem as it was under siege, and each faction tortured the others who were not a part of their own faction. He writes that they were intensely barbarian-like toward members of other factions. They robbed, they tortured each other, and they even crucified each other, Jew against Jew. This is just inside the city.

The Romans weren't doing anything but being outside. This is Jew on Jew inside Jerusalem. Josephus literally writes that the treatment of between Jew to Jew inside Jerusalem during the Roman siege, he writes, it was so horrid that I quote, dare not even write about the worst of it. He wouldn't write about it. So great was the death toll that the temple itself, the temple itself, the holy place was filled with the blood of Jews slaughtering other Jews.

Josephus again a Jew himself and not a Christian. Josephus even Josephus seeing what happened inside Jerusalem. As a Jew, he wrote, O Jerusalem, these are his words, a O most wretched city. He's a Jew. Thou could be no longer a place fit for God, For you have become a tomb for the bodies of your own people, and you have made the Holy House a burying place.

Even Josephus, a Jew who was not a Christian, who believed that the temple was it, agreed with the words of Jesus Christ that Jerusalem was a place of death, a tomb, a place of horrendous hypocrisy where Jews slaughtered other Jews inside the holy place, a place worthy of destruction. Even Josephus agreed. The death toll, before the Romans even entered in, was so great that the Jews were throwing bodies over the wall and filling the trenches that surrounded Jerusalem, its moat. They were filling the trenches with their dead. And so great was the mountain of corpses that began to pile up.

This is crazy that even the Roman Emperor Titus, a pagan, a pagan, seeing the mountain of corpses surrounding the walls of Jerusalem as he walked the walls. Titus himself called God to witness that this evil was not his own doing, but the doing of the city itself, of the Jews themselves. I just want you to think about that. How horrid a tribulation that even the emperor, who is going to enact great destruction upon the city, a pagan who does not fear the one true living God. What a horrid tribulation it would be that that pagan emperor would cry out to the god of the Jews in alarm and say, even I have not committed such an evil.

Even I haven't committed such an abomination." And that was before the Romans even entered the city. Josephus writes, as the Roman legions charged in, neither persuasion nor threat could check their fury. Ape, passion, passion alone was in command. Crowded together around the entrances, Many were trampled by their friends. Many fell among the still hot and smoking ruins and died as miserably as the defeated.

And as they neared the sanctuary they pretended not even to hear Caesar's commands and they urged the men in front to throw in more firebrands. Everywhere was slaughter and flight. Most of the victims were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, butchered wherever they were caught. And round the altar the heaps of corpses grew higher and higher, while down the sanctuary steps poured a river of blood, and the bodies of those killed at the top fell to the bottom." Josephus would go on to write, now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple, and they plowed up the ground upon which the city stood. Josephus would later point out that what happened to Jerusalem was exactly what Jesus had foretold would happen.

This man Josephus, not even a Christian, truly believed that what Jesus had foretold in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 had been accomplished in this great tribulation of AD 70. He says it. There was not left one stone upon another of the temple. But what of verse 20? Look at verse 20 briefly here.

Jesus tells us that the Lord God shortened the days in verse 20. The days of what? Well the days of the tribulation. The days of the siege. The Romans broke through.

If God, Jesus says, if God hadn't have cut those days short, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect, He shortened the days. How so? What does that mean? Well, I can't do better than the wonderful theologian, and I really do commend him to you, J.

Marcellus Kitt. He helps us see why God shortened the days, and I quote from him. It was out of mercy that God decreed a limit to the terrible siege. If the siege had continued for long, the war would have spread throughout Palestine, and even the Christians who fled to the mountains would have suffered immensely. But for the elect's sake, the days were shortened.

Even the Roman Emperor Titus acknowledged this shortening of the days as an act of God. For Emperor Titus, a pagan, would write after Jerusalem's destruction that, and I quote from Emperor Titus, we have certainly had God for our assistant in this war. And it was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications. For what could the hands of men or any machine do towards overthrowing these towers?" Brothers and sisters, I want you to consider the prophecies of Christ. Consider the prophecies of Daniel.

Consider how each of them, they've all rang true. They've all been fulfilled. Even Titus, the pagan emperor, believed that God had brought these judgments upon Jerusalem himself. Beloved, there is no promise that God has made and has not kept. Adam plunged the world into death and corruption and God immediately promised a second Adam to come who would save it, who would purchase it with his blood, who would die in the place of sinners so that sinners would be made saints.

And for those who are made saints to be raised up one day, incorruptible. That's what God promised. God sought out Abraham, and he made this one man into a great nation, the nation of Israel. He tabernacled among His people. He gave them signs and shadows of the sacrifices and the offerings.

Eventually, even giving them the temple. And God promised to them, one day these sacrifices will cease. One day He was going to send the one that fulfilled all of the shadows and all of the types. He was going to send the one that fulfilled all of the shadows and all of the types. He was going to send the fulfiller of prophecy, Jesus the Christ, who was to be the final lamb offered for the remission of sins.

The final lamb that would come and take away the sins of the whole world. The lamb promised in Genesis three. He promised that he would take away the sins of the world. A temple, a tabernacle for his people forever. God promised that he would dwell among his people forever, multiple times.

That's a lot of promises I just went through and I barely even got to the tip of the iceberg. I mean, it's just a lot underneath the water I didn't get to. And a lot of promises. Those are precious promises. And those promises, if they are true, if those promises I just rattle off are true, they change everything about the way you wake up in the morning.

They change everything about the way you wake up in the morning. They change everything about the way you get out of bed and the way you live and move and have your being. It changes everything about the way you change the diapers, and you hang onto a baby that's vomiting, and you go to work, and you eat, and you sleep, it changes everything about all of those things. If those promises are true, it changes everything. Did God keep those promises?

There is no promise that God has not kept. God has kept all of His promises, even the one made to the very first man and the very first woman, in that generation. Generation after generation after generation to your generation. All of the promises of God are yes and amen because Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, He came. He came to take away the sins of the world.

John the Baptist testified, the prophets testified, God from heaven testified, this is the Christ, the son of God. You think about all the promises, I don't know how much you get into. Even the promise of tabernacling among his temple. I was reading in my Bible reading plan just this past week how God had made a promise to the nation of Israel, I will, my name will always be in the temple. I will, you will always have a temple and I'm thinking man, we got, we got destroyed.

But then what do you think as a Christian? Oh, oh yeah. Jesus is the new and true temple. Jesus came and tabernacled among His people, and He's never going to leave them, He's never going to forsake them. He's given them the helper, His Spirit, forever.

I mean, every promise, yes and amen in Jesus Christ, God keeps His promises. And so beloved, God has made promises to you. God has made promises to you. He promises judgment, friends. If you will not bend the knee of your heart in obedience to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you are in fact an abomination to Him.

If you remain in your sin, an abomination, let the hearer understand. You. I want you so badly for those in this room who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to understand that you are under the just wrath of God, that His white-hot hatred towards you and your sins is righteous and true. But then I also need you to understand that this same God who made the promise that He will condemn the wicked, He also made the promise that He will not cast out any who come to Him by faith. He has promised that those who renounce their allegiance to the abominations of sin will not be made desolate.

No, they will be like a tree planted by streams of living water and far from desolate, abounding, full of life forever. For Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin for you, standing where he did not deserve to be standing in the place of judgment on the cross so that you who deserve to be standing in that accursed place would instead be forgiven and made righteous and holy in God's sight. That's an amazing exchange. That though your sins be as scarlet, Christ came to make you white as snow. He was made to be as if an abomination for you, so that you would not be desolate, but you would be made right with Him forever.

And the promise of salvation is for those who repent and believe in that Savior's finished work on Calvary. Will you this day repent and believe on Jesus Christ? Oh, that you would. Oh, that you would understand. And if this day you are believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, will you not this day go out of here with wonderful thoughts not about your own righteousness, you have none apart from Christ, but the work of Jesus, and how He stood in your place, and every single bit and ounce of the wrath that you deserve has been drunk to the dregs by your Savior.

There is no condemnation for you who believe. This is a good word. Let's pray. Oh God, let the reader, let the hearer of this sermon, I pray, understand for their eternal understand for their eternal rightness with you and your great glory for Jesus' sake. Amen.