10/23/2026
A study in Prophecy with Modern Day Application
Matthew 24:15 — The Abomination of Desolation
"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the
prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)" — Matthew
24:15
Jesus Himself points back over the centuries and says, in effect, “Go read Daniel”. He
saw this coming. When the Lord adds that parenthesis — "whoso readeth, let him
understand" — He is putting His finger on the page. This is not a verse to skim. This is a
verse to study.
So let's do what He told us. Let's go to Daniel.
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Where Daniel Speaks of It
Daniel names this thing three times:
1) Daniel 9:27 — "...and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it
desolate, even until the consummation..."
2) Daniel 11:31 — "And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the
sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the
abomination that maketh desolate."
3) Daniel 12:11 — "And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and
the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred
and ninety days."
Three times. The same phrase keeps surfacing: the “daily sacrifice taken away”, and in
its place an “abomination” set up in the holy place.
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What the Words Mean
Break it down from the text:
- Abomination — Hebrew (shiqquts), a detestable thing, specifically an idol or something
unclean before God. Not merely dirty. Defiling. The kind of thing that drives the
presence of God out of a place.
- Desolation — (shamem), to lay waste, to make appalled, to leave empty and horrified.
So the "abomination of desolation" is an idolatrous defilement so severe that it empties
the holy place of God's presence and leaves it ruined. You take the altar where lambs
were offered to the LORD — and you set up filth in its place.
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The Pattern Already Happened Once
Here is where history helps us, because Daniel's words already found a shadow-
fulfillment before Christ ever walked the earth.
In 168 BC, the Greek tyrant “Antiochus IV Epiphanes” did precisely what Daniel 11:31
describes. He marched into Jerusalem, stopped the daily sacrifice, and erected an altar
to Zeus on top of the altar of burnt offering in the Temple. The books of Maccabees
record it — he sacrificed a “swine” on that holy altar, the most unclean beast a Jew
could imagine, and poured its broth over the sacred things. He forbade circumcision,
burned the scrolls, and demanded worship of a pagan god in the house of the living
God.
That was an abomination. That was desolation. The Jews of that day read Daniel and
understood.
But here is the thing, — Antiochus died in 164 BC. He was long in the grave when
Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives in Matthew 24. And yet the Lord speaks of the
abomination of desolation as something (still future): "When ye therefore shall “see”..."
So Antiochus was the rehearsal. Not the final performance.
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What Jesus Was Pointing His Hearers Toward
Read the verses that follow — Matthew 24:16-21. "Then let them which be in Judaea
flee into the mountains... For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the
beginning of the world."
Within that generation, Rome came. In AD 70, under Titus, the Roman legions
surrounded Jerusalem, broke through, and burned the Temple. Josephus, who stood as
a witness to that war, records the slaughter, the starvation inside the walls, the legionary
standards — bearing the image of the emperor, which the Jews counted as idolatry —
carried into the Temple courts. The daily sacrifice ceased. The holy place was defiled
and then leveled, stone from stone, exactly as Jesus said three verses earlier (Matthew
24:2- “ And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There
shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
The Christians who remembered this warning fled — history tells us the believers
escaped to Pella across the Jordan before the siege closed. They read scripture. They
understood. They lived.
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The Shadow Still Stretches Forward
Now, here is where we must handle the text carefully, because faithful men who love the
same King James Bible read the final layer differently.
Daniel 9:27 speaks of "the midst of the week" — the breaking of a covenant and the
setting up of the abomination. Paul picks up the same thread in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4,
describing "that man of sin... who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called
God... so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God."
That is the same shape Daniel saw. The same shape Antiochus cast as a shadow. A
final defiler who seats himself in the holy place and demands the worship due to God
alone.
So the pattern runs in layers:
1. Antiochus — the historical rehearsal, 168 BC
2. Rome — the fulfillment Jesus warned His own generation about, AD 70
3. The man of sin — the ultimate abomination still awaiting its day
One prophecy. One kind of evil. Repeating until the consummation Daniel named.
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What This Costs You to Understand
Jesus did not say "let him understand" so we could win an argument about the end
times. He said it because understanding this prophecy is the difference between fleeing
and perishing. The believers who understood Daniel survived AD 70. The ones who
stayed to defend the city died in it.
The lesson for you and me is not merely about an altar in Jerusalem. It is this: when
God says something defiles the holy place, you do not negotiate with it. YOU FLEE!
Antiochus. Rome. The man of sin. Our chosen churches and in our own hearts –
- Where Is the Holy Place Now?
— This seems like the right question to ask, but the answer changes depending on
“which layer of the prophecy” you are standing in. Let me walk you through it honestly,
because this is one of those places where faithful men who love the same King James
Bible land in different spots.
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First — What "Holy Place" Meant Originally
In Daniel's day and in Jesus' day, the “holy place” was not a figure of speech. It was a
physical room.
The Temple had three zones of holiness:
1. The outer courts — where the people could come
2. The Holy Place (Hebrew-qodesh) — the inner chamber holding the golden
lampstand, the table of shewbread, and the altar of incense
3. The Most Holy Place — the Holy of Holies, behind the veil, where the presence of
God dwelt above the ark
When Jesus said the abomination would "stand in the holy place," His hearers pictured
that inner sanctuary of stone and gold on Mount Moriah. Concrete. Locatable. You could
walk there.
That building was burned to the ground in AD 70. The Most Holy Place has stood empty
of the Temple ever since. So the question becomes real: where does the prophecy point
now?
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The Three Honest Views
Let’s lay them out plainly, so you can weigh them against the text yourself.
1) A Rebuilt Physical Temple in Jerusalem
Many who read Daniel and 2 Thessalonians together expect a literal Temple to be
rebuilt on that same mount before the man of sin appears. Their reasoning:
- "...so that he as God “sitteth in the temple of God”, shewing himself that he is God." —
2 Thessalonians 2:4
Paul uses the Greek word (naos) here — the inner sanctuary, the Holy Place itself, not
the outer courts. If the prophecy demands a man seated “in the naos”, then there must
be a naos for him to sit in. Daniel 9:27 speaks of sacrifice being taken away — you
cannot take away a sacrifice that is not being offered. So this view says: a real Temple,
a real altar, a real defilement, still future, on that same holy ground.
2) The Church as the Temple of God
But here is where you must slow down, because the New Testament moves the holy
place. After the cross, the Spirit of God no longer dwells in a building:
- "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in
you?" — 1 Corinthians 3:16
- "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you..."
— 1 Corinthians 6:19
Paul uses that same word — (naos), the inner sanctuary — to describe the believer and
the gathered church. So some read 2 Thessalonians 2 to mean the man of sin defiles
not a stone building but the professing church itself, seating himself in the place of God
over God's people.
3) The Already-Fulfilled View
Others hold that the "holy place" question was answered in AD 70 and need not be
rebuilt — that the Roman desolation Jesus warned His own generation about (Matthew
24:16-21) was the holy place being defiled and destroyed, finished within that
generation as verse 34 says.
--- Where I Land — and Why
Let me give you what I believe the Word weighs toward, and I will say so plainly.
Paul's words in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 are still future from his own writing — he describes
the man of sin as someone not yet revealed, held back by a restrainer. And he uses
(naos), the inner sanctuary. That pushes me toward expecting a literal defilement of a
literal holy place, because that is the pattern every previous layer followed — Antiochus
defiled a real altar, Rome defiled a real Temple. The final abomination would fit the
pattern: a real seat, a real claim to deity, a real holy place.
But — and hear me on this — the moment we make this only about a building in
Jerusalem, we have let ourselves off the hook. Because Scripture is equally clear that
right now, today, the holy place of God on this earth is in us. The called out. The saved.
The believers.
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- The Holy Place You Actually Live In
Here is the truth that reaches us where we live.
There is no veil of stone in your life. There is a veil of flesh. The Spirit of God does not
live on Mount Moriah today — He lives in the blood-bought believer. Your body is the
temple, and the Holy Spirit resides there.
So when you ask what is the holy place in modern times, "the answer that costs each of
us something is this: “it is the sanctuary God has taken up inside a born-again man.”
And the abomination of desolation has a personal shape too. Anything you seat on the
throne, the space that belongs to God alone — pride, appetite, bitterness, an idol of
money or image or lust — that is an abomination standing where it has no right to stand.
It desolates. It drives out the sense of His presence. It leaves you appalled and empty,
which is exactly what (shamem) means.
" Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come
a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;" — 2
Thessalonians 2:3
Paul's warning about the big desolation (the physical temple) starts with a warning
against being deceived in the small one, (our own mind, bodies and Spirits).
--- So Here Is Thr Charge
Watch Jerusalem if you like — I do, and I think the pattern is not finished there. But do
not stand looking at a hill three thousand miles away while the holy place inside your
own chest gets quietly defiled.
Ask yourself the plain question: If the Holy Place is my body, and the holy ground is my
heart, what have I let sit down in there that Christ never gave permission to?
Go clean house. That is the holy place you can do something about today.
Digging Deeper into the prophecy:
The 1,290 Days of Daniel 12:11
Let's put the verse in front of us, and read it slow — because this is one of the most
debated numbers in all of prophecy, and Jesus Himself sent us back here:
"And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that
maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days." —
Daniel 12:11
Then, right behind it:
"Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and
thirty days." — Daniel 12:12
So Daniel gives us two numbers back to back: “1,290 days” and “1,335 days”. And just
before them, in verse 7, a third measure — "a time, times, and an half." Three figures,
stacked together, and the man who wants to understand this must hold all three in his
hand at once.
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Where the Clock Starts
Notice carefully — Daniel does not start the count at just any point. He gives you a
“starting gun”:
"From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that
maketh desolate set up..."
The clock begins at a specific event. Two things happen together:
1. The daily sacrifice is taken away — the worship of God in His holy place is stopped
2. The abomination is set up — the defiling thing is put in its place
This is the very event we talked about in Matthew 24:15. The moment the holy place is
defiled, the countdown begins. From that moment — 1,290 days.
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Let's Do the Math Plainly
1,290 days. Daniel's people reckoned time in prophetic months of 30 days. So:
- 1,290 ÷ 30 = 43 months, or 3 years and 7 months
Now look at verse 7 — "a time, times, and an half." A time (1 year) + times (2 years) +
half a time (half a year) = **3½ years**. In prophetic days that is:
- 3½ × 360 = **1,260 days**
So watch what happens-- You have three numbers:
| Reference | The Number | In Years |
| Daniel 12:7 | 1,260 days | 3½ years |
| Daniel 12:11 | 1,290 days | 3½ years + 30 days |
| Daniel 12:12 | 1,335 days | 3½ years + 75 days |
The 1,290 runs 30 days longer than the 1,260. And the 1,335 runs 45 days longer than
the 1,290. These are not random numbers thrown down. There is a staircase here —
1,260... then 30 more... then 45 more. Someone is counting carefully on the other side
of that abomination.
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What the Extra Days Mean
Here is where we often wrestle, but let’s discuss the two main readings plainly.
The first reading — the 1,260 days measure the time of tribulation itself, from the setting
up of the abomination to the end of that man's reign. The extra 30 days (bringing it to
1,290) and the further 45 days (bringing it to 1,335) mark a period after the oppression
ends — a season of cleansing, of judgment on the nations, of setting the Kingdom in
order before the full blessing arrives.
That is why verse 12 says, "Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand
three hundred and five and thirty days." The blessing is pronounced on the one who
endures past the end of the trouble — who keeps waiting through the extra days when
the fighting is over but the full glory has not yet broken. The one who holds on to day
1,335 is called “blessed”.
-The second reading sees the full fulfillment still future, tied to the man of sin of 2
Thessalonians 2 — a literal 3½-year defilement of a rebuilt holy place, with these
precise day-counts marking the exact span God has decreed before Christ's return and
the resurrection Daniel just described in verse 2.
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The Antiochus Shadow Again
Remember, — this pattern cast a shadow once already. When Antiochus Epiphanes
stopped the sacrifice and set up his altar to Zeus in 168 BC, the Maccabees recorded
that the Temple was defiled and then, after fighting, cleansed and rededicated —
roughly three years later. The feast of Dedication, Hanukkah, which Jesus Himself
attended in John 10:22, remembers that very cleansing.
So Daniel's number already had a rehearsal: defilement... a measured span... then
cleansing and blessing. The shadow proves the pattern is real. But as we saw,
Antiochus was the rehearsal, not the final performance.
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The Thing We Must Not Miss
Here is what grips me about these verses. Daniel is an old man when the angel tells
him this. And look how the chapter ends:
"But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of
the days." — Daniel 12:13
Daniel asked, "What shall be the end of these things?" (v. 8), and the angel essentially
said, “Daniel, the days are sealed up. You won't live to see them. Go your way. Rest.
And you'll stand up — in the resurrection — in your appointed lot, at the end of the
days.”
The number was not given so Daniel could set a date on his calendar. It was sealed (v.
9). It was given so that the people living through the desolation would know God had
measured it. The abomination gets 1,290 days — not 1,291. The blessing comes at
1,335 — God has counted it to the day.
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Why This Should Settle Your Heart
Listen, hear the scriptural weight of this. When the holy place is defiled — whether in
Jerusalem or in your own life — the enemy wants you to believe the trouble is endless.
That it will never stop. That the abomination will sit on the throne forever.
Daniel 12:11 says NO. The trouble is numbered. The days are counted. There is a
1,290 and then it is done. And on the far side there is a 1,335 with the word “blessed”
written over it.
"Blessed is he that waiteth..."
The man who gets blessed is not the man who panics, and not the man who quits. It is
the man who “waits” — who endures through the measured days until the blessing
breaks.
"Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and
thirty days." — Daniel 12:12
That is the whole heart of it. The blessing in Daniel 12 is not pronounced on the man
who figures out the calendar. It is pronounced on the man who holds on to the end of
the count.
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So — What Is the Applicable Part?
Let me pull this whole study together, because we've covered a lot of ground —
Matthew 24:15, the holy place, the 1,290 days — and you deserve to walk away with
something you can practice, not just something you can know.
Here is the applicable truth in one sentence:
God measures your trouble, He has set a limit on the desolation, and the blessing
belongs to the one who endures to the end of the count.
Now let me break that into three things you can actually do with it.
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1) Your Trouble Has a Number On It
The whole point of 1,290 days is that the desolation is “measured”. Not endless.
Numbered.
"...for yet a little while, and the indignation shall cease..." — Isaiah 10:25
Whatever you are walking through right now — grief, a hard marriage, sickness, a
wayward child, a season where it feels like the enemy has set up his altar right in the
middle of your life — hear this: it has a number on it. God has counted the days. The
abomination gets 1,290, NOT 1,291. Your trouble does not get one day more than the
Father has permitted.
That changes how you wake up tomorrow morning. The trouble is not forever. It is
measured.
2) The Blessing Is On the Far Side of Waiting
Notice when the blessing comes in Daniel 12:12 — not at day one, not even at the end
of the fighting. It comes at “1,335” — past the tribulation, past the extra days, to the man
who was still standing when most had given up.
"But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." — Matthew 24:13
That is the same word Jesus gave in the very chapter we started with. Endure unto the
end. Listen, the enemy does not usually beat a believer in the first week. He beats him
in the waiting — in the long middle, when the trouble has dragged on and the blessing
hasn't shown up yet. The man who gets blessed is the man who outlasts the desolation.
3) Guard the Holy Place That Is Actually Yours
This is where it lands closest to home. We said the holy place in modern times is you —
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"
— 1 Corinthians 3:16
So the application of the abomination of desolation is personal: do not let anything sit
down in the holy place of your heart that drives out the presence of God. Pride,
bitterness, lust, the idol of money or image — whatever defiles that inner sanctuary. The
study of Daniel 12 is not finally about a Temple in Jerusalem. It is about whether the
Spirit of God is honored on the throne of your own life.
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The Charge
Here is our takeaway:
Whatever desolation we find ourselves in — it is numbered. Endure to the count. And
while you wait, keep the holy place clean.
Daniel was told to "go thy way till the end be... and stand in thy lot at the end of the
days" (Daniel 12:13). That was his charge. It is yours too. Go your way. Keep walking.
Keep the temple clean. And you will stand in your lot when the days are fulfilled.
So let me leave you with the question this whole study has been driving at:
What trouble have you been treating as if it were endless — when God has already put
a number on it? And what have you let sit in the holy place while you waited?
