Posted on 11/27/2001 5:15:03 PM PST by crystalk
St Paul, after his conversion in Damascus, spent a period in exile in Arabia. This is usually given as five years; surely it was between 3 and 7 years. The reason given for this period of study, meditation, and contemplation is usually that he had a price on his head set by the religious authorities in Jerusalem on account of his conversion to Christianity in AD 37. Conventionally, he is said to have re-emerged from Arabia to live in Antioch (present Antakya in Turkey at NE corner of the Med) for the next period of his life, using it as a base for his famous missionary journeys and then (in 59-60) saying farewell to it forever when he was sent to Rome as a prisoner.
It is because of Paul's experience in Arabia that he is able to tell us that Sinai, the Mount of God, is located there, not in the so-called Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. He also visited Mecca, which even then was the shining star of the entire Arab people and peninsula, home of the shrines and mystery cults to the goddesses of the Moon and Venus; even then centered at the Black Stone of the Ka'aba, the Stone that Fell Down From Venus.
We know that this cult is very ancient, and from the point of view of the Jews, very Satanic. Some 4000 years ago, Abraham's first-born son, Ishmael, had become a priest of that cult, and he lived out his days as such there in Mecca. This despite Abraham's visiting him there to try to talk him into returning to worship of YHWH. The prophet Daniel, writing in the sixth century BC (yes, yes, I know the rabbinic committees kept redacting him, deleting material, revising...until BC 162, but that is a purely literary process. The prophet died in 529 or 519 BC, according to two differing traditions.)...Daniel called this cult the Abomination of Desolation, or the Abomination that will Make (the Land) Desolate...for by its murder and lawlessness it will cause the depopulation of the Land...
Jesus tells his incredulous listeners on the Mt of Olives that this desert abomination of the Arabs would be set up right there, right before their eyes as it were, on the Temple Mount! This happened after the Islamic conquest of 638, the Dome of the Rock's dedication in 691, and el-Aqsa's dedication in 707. As Jesus said, Christians were to flee for their lives from the land when they saw this. In 638, 4 million persons lived in Israel. In 1798, when Napoleon visited he found just 45,000 persons living in the entire country, two-thirds of those in the city of Jerusalem, and all desperately poor. The Abomination had caused the Desolation.
Even now, that Abomination still stands in the Holy Place in the person of the Dome, showing Christians that (A) they are not to seek to domicile themselves in that Land, in fact they are to flee it for their lives!...and (B) that the Times of the Gentiles, also known as the Indignation or Wrath of God, against Israel in this world for its sins, is not yet over. Yet that wrath is someday to end, someday soon. The prophetic numbers are given, but that is another subject.
In 2 Thess 2, Paul having returned from Mecca tells us that (a) the Mecca cult, also known as the Mystery of Iniquity, was already in operation, up and running. No one restrained it from taking over the World, except the Roman (European) power, and no one but that power ever would restrain it. When that power (of Rome) was taken out of the way, then the Man of Sin (Mohammed) would be revealed, the son of perdition, whose cult would set itself up in the place of God, and show itself off to the entire world as if it WERE God. Never would we be entirely free of the Mecca cult, Paul warns, until the Second Coming of Jesus, at which time the brightness of Jesus' coming would destroy it. We can know that Jesus has not returned, the eschaton has not happened, because Mecca still flaunts its demonic self in God's place.
Paul thus warns us explicitly against preterism, for he says that fraudulent letters in his name and those of the other apostles, were already circulating in his own day, to the effect that the Second Coming would occur in that time (1st Cent) or even already Had Occurred! (!)
But Paul will have none of it. No, no, he says, the End will not come until there is a falling away (from truth and religious observance, on the part of Christians and Jews) and that Man of Sin (Mohammed) been revealed, the final display of whose cult we may not yet have seen, for some teach that the Black Stone will actually be brought from Mecca and placed there on God's mountain, along with His White Stone.
May that not occur, may the Mecca Cult speedily be brought down in our days, May the Temple speedily be rebuilt in our days, and May the Prophecies speedily all be fulfilled in our days, is my prayer.
PS. In Rev. 3, Jesus tells us (but specifically the Eastern (orthodox) churches, who dwell there facing the Mecca cult, where Satan's seat is...that if they can overcome it, Jesus will give them a share in His Own White Stone, the eben shetiya atop the Temple Mount-- a dramatic contrast with Satan's Black Stone in Mecca.
But there is One Great Antichrist, One Mystery of Iniquity, one Mecca cult killing millions of Christians for their faith this very year, 2001.
Just imagine all those British and Italian women wearing a burqa. They will, though, or die!
Where have YOU been? Millions in Sudan alone, millions in Indonesia alone, and what of Pakistan, India, and every Muslim country on the planet? What about the WTC and Sept 11, for that matter?
Moluccas, Timor, Sudan, Khartoum, Karachi, Bihar.
Nearly every person martyred for his or her faith this year will have been a Christian. I pray for them all in the name of St Irene, a teenage Serbian Christian who refused to give up Jesus and convert to Islam even though she was boiled to death in a vat of olive oil by the Turks.
AND THE USA. Muslims kill Christians wherever they can find them.
The Japanese considered their Emperor to be God.
So did the Romans. Well, some of the Roman leaders "proclaimed themselves" gods, but you get the picture.
The Christians and the lions?
I am no apologist for Islam, but I see the rise of anti-Christ identified with a revived Roman empire of some sort. Likewise, I believe the abomination of desolation (Mat. 24:15) is still future. But both of our scenarios are attempts to interpret the biblical prophecy ahead of time. I view such conclusions as hypothesis -- certainly not a "thus sayeth the Lord" level conviction.
The word 'abomination' is translated from the Hebrew 'shiqquwts' [Strong's 8251]. It is a masculine noun that means "a disgusting thing, a filthy thing; an abomination, an idol, a detestable thing. The word is used to refer to idols themselves or anything associated with idolatrous practices. Because idol worshippers are wholly identified with idols, they, too, are detestable."
In the N.T., the word 'abomination' is translated from the Greek 'bdelugma' [Strong's 946]. "By a comparison of Mat 24:15f; Mk 13:14 with Luke 21:20f, it is plain that the expression 'the abomination of desolation' or that which makes desolate, refers to the Roman ensigns, and especially the eagle which was carried at the head of every Roman legion. Desecrating the Jewish places of worship, they themselves later became objects of worship; therefore, they are called an abomination. An abomination is anything that loosens the connection of man with God referring to sinful actions and sinful men."
Source #2: Believer's Study Bible
In the O.T., 'abomination' referred to idolatry or detestable practices (Deut. 29:16, 17; 1 Kin. 11:6, 7; 2 Kin. 16:3; 23:13; Ezek. 8:9-18).
'Of desolation' refers to the effect produced by the abomination (something that is deserted or left desolate).
C. The Interpretation
Source #1: Believer's Study Bible
"The terminology 'abomination of desolation' is found in Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11. This text is one of the clearest examples in Scripture of a prophecy with multiple fulfillment.
(1) The first reference is to Antiochus (IV) Epiphanes, who reigned in Syria from 175 to 164 B.C. Antiochus halted the sacrifices in the temple and defiled the temple by raising up an idol, a pagan altar to Zeus.
(2) Jesus seems to have in view, at least typically, the near destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70 by the Roman general Titus. That Christians of that time so understood this prediction is evidenced by the fact that many followed the command of vv. 16-18 [Matt 24] and fled to the mountains during the Roman invasion and siege.
(3) Daniel and Jesus, and even Paul (cf. 2 Thess. 2:2-4) and John (cf. Rev. 13:14, 15), see a future eschatological and ultimate fulfillment in the actions of the Antichrist during the Tribulation (Rev. 6-19), also identified as Daniel's Seventieth Week (Dan. 9:24-27).'"
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