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Fresno Asian Church

Nelson Ernst

Beauty and the Beast

I'm giving this Bible study this morning for 2 reasons.

Number 2 is because I've made a friend recently who's a pastor of an evangelical church in Fresno.

And we've discussed things about Bible prophecy.

And he's interested in our take on the abomination of desolation.

And so, the Bible study that we have this morning is gonna be recorded and then I'm going to edit that and give it to this evangelical pastor.

Because what you're listening to is what He's going to hear.

Well, let's go ahead and get started with our Bible study and open up with a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, we come before you this morning thanking you that we can study your word.

Lord, we know that as the Bible says, I believe it's in 1st Corinthians 2.14, that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness unto him, neither can he know them for they're spiritually discerned.

So Father, we pray this morning for your Holy Spirit to guide us into truth, to guide us into your scriptures, and to give us understanding so that we might comprehend this subject.

Thank you Father, we pray for this in your name, Amen.

Well let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 24.

Matthew chapter 24, and we're gonna be looking at verse 15.

This morning, as you can see on the PowerPoint screen, the title for our Bible study is Beauty and the Beast.

It'll become apparent why I entitled our time together this morning, Beauty and the Beast, very soon.

Matthew 24, verse 15 is where we're headed.

And this is a very important text, the key text for our time together.

Matthew chapter 24 verse 15 says the following.

This is Jesus speaking, 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.

Of all the topics in the Bible that Jesus could emphasize, he chose to emphasize this 1.

He said, I want you to understand the abomination of desolation.

I don't know how many of you have taken the time to study this topic, but it's a very, not only interesting topic, but it's highly relevant to each and every 1 of us.

It's a topic which affects us as individuals, And we're also going to find that it's a topic which affects our nation and the world.

In order to understand what the abomination of desolation is about, let's first just break down what the actual words mean.

Many of us in here understand what an abomination is.

An abomination is simply something that you disdain or you hate.

In the book of Proverbs, it says that the righteous man is an abomination to the wicked.

I personally myself have things that I consider to be abominations.

Ever since I was a young child, I've always hated mushrooms.

What does the term desolation or desolate mean?

First off, when something is desolated, it can mean that it's destroyed.

The second meaning is that something is emptied of inhabitants.

For example, we're all sitting in this 1 room in the sanctuary and if all of us were to stand up right now and exit the doors and there was not 1 person in here, this room would be rendered desolate.

OK, now let's put these 2 ideas together.

If there is something that is, let's take for example that I'm in a room, I'm in a kitchen, and the kitchen is full of mushrooms.

And the mushrooms are so repulsive to me that I have to, I'm forced to leave that kitchen and I was the only 1 in there to begin with, those mushrooms would be an abomination that caused the room to become desolate of inhabitants.

So an abomination of desolation is something that is so repugnant that it causes a person to leave, or all the inhabitants to leave.

And then eventually for that very room to be destroyed.

Because desolation, the second term for it, The second meaning for it is to be destroyed.

So turn with me in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 9.

Jesus said that in order to understand the abomination of desolation, we had to go to the book of Daniel.

Daniel chapter 9 is going to be our springboard for understanding the abomination of desolation.

What we're going to do is we're going to look at 2 verses in Daniel chapter 9 and as we look at these 2 verses we're gonna go into what's called granny gear.

Granny gear is a slang term to refer to when big trucks would haul heavy loads, they have a special gear that's very, very low, the low first gear, which would get you started and has a lot of power and torque behind it.

It allows your truck to exert a lot of torque to get things pulled.

So in other words, we're going to go very slowly through these 2 verses.

Daniel chapter 9, verse 26 and 27 is what we're going to hone in on.

Now remember at the beginning of our study time together this morning, I told you that this was not going to be a Bible study that's going to have a lot of illustrations or stories or fancy things.

It's going to be something that we're actually just going to have to think through.

I'm reading out of the King James Version Bible because this version of the Bible expresses it the most clearly for our study this morning.

Verse 26, After 3 score and 2 weeks shall Messiah be cut off, But not for himself.

And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood.

And unto the end of the war, desolations are determined.

Verse 27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for 1 week.

And in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.

And for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate even until the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Can you see why we're going to take these verses slowly?

When Jesus told us to understand the abomination of desolation though, He said it with the understanding that he was going to enable us to do so.

I'm going to suggest unto you, submit unto you, that verse 26 and verse 27 are the same verse repeated twice.

You find it oftentimes in the Psalms where it says 1 thing and then it repeats itself but it says it a different way.

And so by comparing the 2 phrases, you can actually learn new things.

And what we find is that verse 26 and verse 27 are actually saying the same thing.

So even though we just read 2 verses, we're actually looking at just 1, but it's repeated twice in 2 different ways.

Okay, now, to make it even easier for us to understand, what we're going to see is that verse 26 is broken up into 3 parts.

How many parts do you think verse 27 is broken up into then?

Verse 26 has 3 parts, which are parallel with the same 3 parts as verse 27.

With this understanding, we're gonna be able to tear these 2 verses apart and understand what Jesus wants us to know.

For the sake of time, I've put these 2 verses up on our screen here, and I've highlighted verse 26 and verse 27 in how they match.

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Beauty and the Beast

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