Speaker 1: Most of us eat every day, some of us too much,
because yesterday's food is not enough to supply energy for
today's needs. Why then, do some of us expect yesterday's
portion of heavenly manna, the word of God to keep
us through today's challenges. On this program, we are going
to change all of that. Let's experience God's words today
and receive the power we need to live healthy, vibrant lives.
Welcome to Your Daily Portion with your host, author speaker,
Elle David Harris.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Good morning. It is Tuesday, September three,
twenty twenty four. Hello, my name is El David Harris.
I am your host, and this is your Daily Portion
where we give you God's word every single day, and
today is no exception. We are continuing in our Lesson
study series through the Book of Mark, and our caption
for today is the Abomination of Desolation. The Abomination of Desolation.
We'll get into that in just a moment, but first
I'd like to say welcome to you and ask you
to please go over to your Daily Portion dot com.
Please join our online community, pick up the Your Daily
Portion book, and let us know where you are in
the world. At your Daily Portion dot com. This is
one of the ways that we continue to build faith
and fellowship. Let's go ahead and pray and then we
will get underway. Father and Heaven, thank you for giving
us this new morning and for the privilege that you
have given us to live and breathe again today. Please
help us to listen for your voice and live according
to your principles. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen and
Amen again. Okay, So this is one of the days
that the group or the community that I keep referencing
becomes invaluable. So again at your Daily portion dot com,
I want you to join the online community. And if
I don't already post it, like if I don't post
it because it just hit me while I'm here, I
want you to ask me to post a study that
Pastor Damien Chambers did and I did some years ago
that will help with this subject. Pastor Damien Chambers is
an associate professor if I'm correct, for theology at the
Northern Caribbean University School of Religion and Theology. And so yeah,
we did a good study some time ago. I think
we were covering Daniel chapter eleven, and so I need
to post that and when I say study, we did
a video together, so please request that if I forget
to put it in. And yeah, so we can get
more understanding there. Today we are going to learn a
few lessons. I will read what the lesson writer said,
but we're going to learn some lessons about God from
the text in Mark chapter thirteen. Okay, and so the
lesson writer says, Jesus comes to the central point about
the fall of Jerusalem in Mark chapter thirteen, he refers
to the abomination of desolation. The Lord says that the
reader should understand with these words Jesus is pointing to
the disciples. Is point of the disciples to the book
of Daniel. And of course this terminology appears a few
times in the book of Daniel. And so the anointed
one in Daniel chapter nine and verse twenty six is
the Hebrew word Messiah in English Messiah. I know you
wanted me to pronounce it another way. In a careful
study of Daniel chapter nine, verses twenty four to twenty seven,
it is clear that this anointed one refers to the
coming of Jesus Christ. But who is the prince who
is to come, who brings the desolation of the city
of Jerusalem. The city is destroyed by the Roman general Titus. Thus,
it seems logical that the Prince who is to come
referred to in Daniel chapter nine, that's the one two
individuals are linked, because the way that the Messiah is
treated spelled the doom of the city. What though, is
the abomination of desolation that Jesus is referring to in Daniel. Unfortunately,
many scholars believe that this abomination refers to Antiochus epiphanes
desecration of the temple in the second century BC, But
that doesn't work. Jesus describes the abomination of desolation as
something that occurs after his own time here, so it
hardly could refer to something that appeared or happened two
centuries before Jesus's earthly ministry. Instead, the abomination likely refers
to the planting of the Roman pagan standards in Israel
during the Siege of Jerusalem in the late AD sixties.
This was the sign for the Christian to flee, which
they did, And so we know that there was a
destruction that happened in seventy a d. But the people
of God, if they were paying keen attention, would have
seen where the armies. The Roman armies started to plant
their standards. They started to plant their standards around the
city a few years prior, and so that was a
signal to the people of God to flee, to flee
and be safe from what was about to take place. Okay.
And I know that some people are like, oh my goodness,
this is too much. It's too much. This is why
I'm saying that I want you to request the study
that we did Pastor Damien Chambers and I did, and
you'll get more understanding there. But let's go ahead now
and read the passage. Let's read the passage and then
see if we can learn some other things, some other
key truths here. Okay. So we begin at verse fourteen
of Mark chapter thirteen, and it reads, but when ye
shall see the abomination spoken of by Daniel the prophets
standing where it are not, let him that readeth understand.
Then let him or them that be in Judea flee
to the mountains. And let him that is on the
housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein
to take anything out of his house. And let him
that is in the field not turned back again, for
to take up his garment. But woe unto them that
are with child and to them that give suck in
those days. And pray ye that your flight be not
in winter. Okay. And so now we need to answer
just really quickly and see and see if there are
any practical life applications that we can we can derive
from this. And really I want to focus on how
God is like who God is or how God is
in this case. Okay. Number one, God is omniscient, that
means he knows everything. And attached to this reality is
that he when he knows everything, then there are times
that he shares like he is with his complete fore knowledge, willing,
ready and available to share with us the things that
we need. You know, sometimes crises happen on planet Earth
and people are like I wish I had known, and
it's like, well, depending on the crisis, maybe God did reveal,
and in this case that was a major crisis in Jerusalem,
and he had revealed as we see in verse fourteen.
And so trust in God's complete fore knowledge and wisdom
when facing uncertainties in life, and to rely on his
guidance and remain confident that he knows exactly what's going
to happen. He knows exactly where we fit into the
equation and how to get us through. We should not
be fearful for the future. I know that there's really, really,
really difficult things happening. We see it recorded in the
news media. There are some things that are just throwing
some of our minds off. But we have to know
that God knows everything. And let me just tie it
to our second point. And he's also protective. He's protective.
If we will just listen, if we will yield our
lives to God and listen to what He is teaching us,
how he is preparing us through these last and terrible days,
then we will be fine. We'll be safe. He gave
the people of God a clear guideline. Let him that
is on the housetop, don't go down into the house,
and so forth. And so the way we can apply
this is that we need to recognize and trust in
God's protection. Not just recognize it, but do we trust
that God is protecting us follow his directions for safety. Yeah.
He gives us directives and safety guidelines related to our health,
how we should live and where we should live, what
our marriage life should look like, how we should treat
money right, how we should behave and live and prepare
during the last days of Earth's history, how holiness looks
from his perspective. And then, of course God is sovereign.
He's sovereign, he knows everything, He's protective, and he's sovereign.
There is nothing that is outside of his purview. His
authority is still intact even when you think or God forbid,
I think that things are out of control. When I
have questions, it's okay.
Speaker 1: But God is.
Speaker 2: Sovereigns he knows everything, but he also has ultimate authority
in these last days. Make it a great day, peace.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us listening. Friends. Always remember we cannot
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God. This has been your daily
portion with El David Harris. Make it a great day, Yeah,