Sermon Notes / Transcript

Mark 13:14-23 — Flee from Wickedness and Run to Christ

Speaker: Daniel Coughlin
Date: October 11, 2026

Scripture Reading

Our scripture reading today is Mark chapter 13. We're picking up at verse 14. And this is God's word, and it is eternally true. 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.

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 might 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.

And then if anyone says to you, Behold, here is the Christ, or behold, he is there, do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But take heed. Behold, I have told you everything in advance.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Understanding a Difficult Passage

So we have some Bible reading plans out on the front desk.

Is anyone keeping up with the Bible reading? This is not like you're not getting graded for this. There's no reward if you do, other than an eternal reward. So, all right. What you'll find as you go through the scriptures is that some scriptures are really easy to digest, right?

Like it's like it's like the kids' menu when you go to a restaurant, right? And they bring out a plate of macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets or you know a a a hamburger covered in ketchup. Right? There are things that are easy to digest. There are some things that are harder though quinoa you know like you Brussels sprouts you know there are there are other things that are are more difficult, and and there's a reason they're not on the kids' menu, right?

Because they're they're a little harder to get through. Peter talks about this, and he talks about it in particular with Paul's writing. He says, the apostle Paul writes some things that are hard to understand. And here we have a little a little hint of that, right, with the parenthetical.

Let the reader understand. So this Jesus didn't say that, right? This was added by Mark when he put these words together. Let the reader understand.

Why do you think he wrote, let the reader understand? I think it's because this is hard, right? The abomination of desolation. That's ah I was not terribly looking forward to this.

You know, when you go through scripture, right, there's there's some things that are easier to explain and things that are harder to explain. This is the one that's a that's harder. It doesn't mean we should ignore it. Doesn't mean we should cut it out of our Bibles, right?

This is still God's word. And so this is here For us for a reason. Okay? But we have to be careful because what we also don't want is to take something hard and then to develop like our whole world view out of the hard thing, out of some speculative interpretation of the hard thing.

The way we read scripture is that we take the hard parts and we understand them through the clearer parts, the more plain parts of scripture. And so that's how we use scripture to interpret scripture, and we come to a fuller understanding. But then, you know, we're two thousand years after after the scripture was read, what we do is we get the context from the history.

So we use scripture to interpret scripture. That's what gives us our clearest God-inspired, this is what the word means. And then we look to history to say, okay, and how has this worked out? How has this been expressed or fulfilled?

Daniel and the Abomination of Desolation

So that's what we're gonna do this morning. And that's why Chris read from the book of Daniel. Did you hear in Daniel? We're gonna flip back and forth a couple times today.

Chris read this in verse 11 from the prophet Daniel. Verse 11, chapter 12, verse 11. From the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1290 days. So it's clear that Jesus is making a reference to something that his listeners, the disciples, would have known about from Daniel.

This thing that's going to happen, this abomination of desolation. Now, how many have used the word abomination or desolation in your normal speech in the last month? Year? Is not is not a is these aren't even words, let alone the phrase, these aren't even words that we use on a regular basis right? So abomination and I don't know but you but like my brain goes to the abominable snowman I that's like the my only abomination is not something, right?

An abomination is something that is is like a desecration, a grossness. if you watched the Olympics back a couple years ago, the one that was set in France. They had they had a scene. It was the Lord's Supper scene, like the painting of the Lord's Supper, if you know that.

But they had it's the people who were in it were all transgender folk. So that was an abomination, right? the the idea of taking something holy and good. Sorry that that that that's more of the desolation the abomination is is clearing out right? So if you were gonna if you were gonna take this church and knock it down it would be it that you know you you would level it clear, there'd be nothing here is lonely, lonesome, isolated, something out of place.

I'm getting my terms all mixed up. I'm sorry. Let me start over with that. Abomination is the desecration. The desolation is the knocking down.

I'm glad I wrote notes sometimes, because I'm getting myself all worked up here. Abomination is something unclean, detestable, a thing to be despised. The detestable thing causes the desolation. The desolation is the obliteration, wiping a place empty of people, no warmth, just a sad loneliness.

Okay, but that's why I wanted to talk about these words, because they're not words that we use very much. And so the abomination of desolation, this thing that Daniel had foretold about, and now Jesus says, you know, when you see this, you guys that I'm talking to you right here, when you see this this is what you should do right it's a real warning about doing what?

The Command to Flee

About running to the mountains? About fleeing, about not going back to your home. Think about if a wildfire was coming through, a tornado probably is more apt here in Kansas, right? We get all of our phones go crazy and it says there's a pop-up tornado headed right from Morrill, Kansas.

Deb, are you gonna walk across the street and go get your purse? No, we're going right to the basement, right? We are we are doing the thing, we are responding to the emergency in the quickest way possible. You're not going back home to get your favorite toy or your favorite book or your favorite you know video game, whatever you got, you just seek safety.

If a flood was coming through, turns out the the Nemaha River is flooding and it's gonna wash away all of this. We would get in our cars and we would drive to the highest spot possible. I don't know where that is around here, but it would be the you know, you you look to find what the danger is and you respond to it in a way that's appropriate.

Here, Jesus says, listen, when this thing happens, when this horrible thing happens, this abomination of desolation, you're going to go up to the hills. You who are in Judea here, you gotta get out. You have to go up to the hills, run away because there's a bad thing that's gonna happen here.

Jerusalem and the Destruction of the Temple

And here's where it gets interesting. I mean the whole thing's interesting, right? Like it's it is it is interesting to kind of speculate on how scripture gets fulfilled, to wonder how these things actually get carried out. But what when you read Daniel and you see how he ties in the end of the sacrifices and and the the nation of Israel it has never been done since the beginning of the nation of Israel.

And then all of a sudden, 40 years after Jesus' death, during the lifetime of the disciples that Jesus is talking to here, you know what happened in Jerusalem? The zealots, this was this was this kind of a political party, but like a political party, part of the church, part of the, you know, they there was some there was some religious, ethno-religious influence, but it was really these rebellious zealots who just wanted to get outside of the Roman rule.

They took over the temple in rebellion to Rome, right? Rome was the big nation-state over all of them. and these these Jewish zealots took over the temple and they weren't holy people. These weren't the Pharisees or the Sadducees, you know, the ones that we're used to talking about, the religious types.

These were the ethnic, nationalistic, zealous Jews, that's hard to say, zealous Jews, who wanted to rebel against Rome and set up their own nation and they started there in the temple. The problem is they were bad dudes. They were murderers, killing people. This wasn't like the Pharisees, right?

They were really strict about the law, God's law, how they were interpreting it, how they were applying it. Their hearts may have been far from from God. but outwardly they were they were holy people. The Zealots were not like that at all. They were neither they neither had heart religion nor did they have outward you know religion.

So they're there and and they opened up the holy of holies so that anybody could go through. Murderers were doing their murdering right there in the temple. It was a bad time. And there's there's a historian right along the same time, Josephus, and he he says, this he says it.

He goes, this is the abomination of desolation. And what's fascinating is this is about 66 A.D. to about 70 A.D. Within three, four years of that happening, Rome conquers the temple, they siege Jerusalem, they surround the temple mound, they starve everyone to death who's inside the temple, all the zealots, and they attack it, and they not only attack it, but they tear down all the walls, they completely destroy the temple.

And that's the end of regular sacrifices, just as Daniel had prophesied. The historic context helps us to understand Jesus' warning. Now, don't hear what I'm not saying, which is, you know, things like this had happened before. You know, 120 years before Jesus, 120 BC, there was There was another time when the temple got sacked and and somebody set up an altar to Zeus right there in the temple and they sacrificed a pig, an unclean pig, right there on the Holy of Holies.

So this desecration of the holiness of the temple had happened before. And the reason I bring that up is to say: don't hear me say that this will never happen again, that there's not some additional abomination of desecration that might be further fulfilled in the future. But we can look back and we can see this was at least partially fulfilled in what happened with the destruction of the temple, and it may be further fulfilled with an even greater judgment and an even greater destruction, even greater tribulation in the future.

But the warnings were real, right? The warnings for the disciples and the people that would read Mark in that time frame were real. It's like, listen, when things go bad in the temple, you should leave because you know what's gonna happen? God's judgment is going to come down on Jerusalem and on the temple, and if you get caught up in that, what's gonna happen to you?

Fleeing the Judgment of God

You're gonna die. Right? Just like you all know the story of Lot and his wife and his daughters in Sodom, right? The angels, the angels came to Sodom. Sodom was a wicked city. they when the angels came to visit visit lot in Sodom, there the men of the town came because they wanted to rape the angels.

Like that's how wicked they're like, oh, new strange flesh, we're gonna attack them. The angels had come to warn Lot and his family to leave Sodom because God was going to destroy it. What would have happened if Lot would have said no? What would have happened if Lot would have stayed where God had deemed there to be destruction coming imminently.

He would have died, right? He would have died with everybody else in the town. God had said, my judgment is coming on this place, get out. And what do faithful people do when God warns you to flee to get out.

You get out. It's not cowardice, it's it's faithfulness. That's what God has warned. Don't be stupid, leave. Don't look back. Right? If you know about Lot's wife.

That's got some serious a serious warning to it as well. But then there's Jonah. You know the story of Jonah? Jonah was was minding his own business more or less in in Israel, and God's word sent him to Nineveh, a very wicked city, to tell Jonah to go into the wicked city and to preach repentance, because God had not fully determined that he was going to destroy that city.

He had sent one more message of warning to get away to flee to repent. Jonah decided he wasn't going to do that though. And he jumped in a boat, right? And he he he sails off.

God sends his his his storm on Jonah and his boat, ends up in the in the in the fish, spit out. Jonah then goes very reluctantly still to Nineveh, preaches repentance, and what does the Nineveh do? They repent. they say, Oh yeah, we do not want to be destroyed.

We don't want to be judged. We are going to turn from our wicked ways and stop that. And so God relented and he did not send his judgment. And then Jonah sat there and pouted next to his plant that God wasn't going to judge the Ninevites.

I say that to say, there's not always one right thing, like it's not always the right thing to do to run away from from a wicked situation, right? Like, you know. And it's also not always good to go and to stay. Sometimes it's good to go and stay there, and sometimes it's good to run away.

We have to watch for how God is instructing, how God is warning.

Things Christians Must Flee

Now that said, that's about cities, right? That's about cities and nations and locations. There are some things that God always says to flee from.

There are some things that God always says Christians should run away from. And if that's the case, we should obey God and we should run away from these things. Right. Psalm one let me read a little bit of it. Psalm one says this How blessed is the man who does not walk in the council of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.

Walk, stand, sit. That's the progression, right?

1. Walk.
2. Stand.
3. Sit. We're not to walk with people who are wicked. We're not to walk and listen to their wickedness. Now, we don't do a lot of walking these days.

So So let's extrapolate that out. when you jump in the bus to go to your away games, are you sitting next to somebody who's wicked and listening to their wicked counsel, their wicked advice, right? If you've got a work trip, do you do you book a seat next to your your your guy who is is always spouting filth and wickedness?

Do you go and talk with your neighbor at the fence who's always spouting filth and wickedness? Women, do you have friends that you talk on the phone with who spout filth and wickedness all the time? don't do it. don't put yourself under that counsel. Those aren't, that gets into your mind.

God says, don't walk with them. And then He says, don't stand in the path of sinners, right? standing is is is a longer term thing. Like walking is kind of transient, right?

You're walking and then you're not walking, you're walking in this direction, that direction. Standing is more permanent, right? You're standing there and and tempted to have these conversations. Don't stand around with wicked people, with wicked sinners.

They will drag you down with them. You should flee from them. You should get away from them. And then especially don't sit in the seat of scoffers.

Now scoffers, that's not a term we use very much either these days. These are these are mockers, cynics, people who make light of everything. People who never take anything seriously. If there's pain and suffering, they make jokes.

There's if there's conflict in your family, in your marriage, they make light of it. They always want, you know, it might be through, you know, chemical means like drinking or or drugs, but it could just be, you know, that they're always making jokes, that they're always making light of of the hardship of life and and of whatever the situation is.

Don't sit with them, right? Sitting is the most long-term thing. You're sitting down intentionally with them. But scripture has more things to say about this.

In particular, it picks up on some of some of our unique weaknesses. For young men, Proverbs 5 and 6 is full of warnings about women, right? The adulteress, the forbidden woman, and what is scripture's warning to young men? What is what is a young man to do when he notices a seductive, adulterous, loose woman?

Is he to go show how manly he is by resisting her temptation? No! Run away. Don't even go by her door. Get away. Here's the problem. We like to think that we're pretty strong. We like to think that we're pretty moral, that we can overcome sin and temptation.

Oh, you know, other people fall to that. Other people are tempted by that, but not me. I'm a good man. I'm a Christian. I am the son of a pastor.

I you know, we have all these excuses for why the warnings the warnings that make us feel weak should be ignored. Because we're strong. We're strong.

Joseph: Righteousness Demonstrated by Running

The story of Joseph proves what a strong man does. This is going back to Genesis. Joseph was was set into slavery and then he he rose up through the ranks until he was he was like right under Potiphar, who was who was a very influential man.

And and so Potiphar is his boss, right? And the boss's wife comes over one day and grabs Joseph by the shirt, the tunic, and she says, You I'm I'm gonna have you. You're mine. We're gonna. My husband doesn't give me enough attention. I need I need a man in my life, and you're the man. and Joseph, in his strength, slips out of his clothing and runs away.

Now it's funny because it doesn't sound strong, right? It doesn't sound strong to run away to drop your tunic and run off. But every man in here will have to confess that there is some strength to that, right? There is some strength to be like, nah- I'm out of here.

I am getting as far away from you as possible. His righteousness was demonstrated by his running. Not his cowardliness, his righteousness. That's where power is.

There is power in obedience. There's power in righteousness. Listen, we could go through.

Scripture has warning after warning. flee, flee. That word if you if you have a if you have an index in the back of your Bible or if you have a Bible program. You know, just search for the word flee. Flee from idolatry and greed and corrupting influences.

Flee from people who love money. Flee from people who are divisive in the church. If you've got somebody who's like, oh yeah, the the elder said this, the pastor said this, but really it's this, and like they don't want to have like an honest open conversation. They're being divisive.

Watch out for those kind of conversations. Watch out. Flee from it. Run away from it. Scripture we read today You know how many of you, if I said, pregnant women are weak, does that make you feel good? It's hard, right? I mean, objectively, we all can recognize that pregnant women are like a special kind of vulnerable.

Right? You not only you know your center of gravity's off, you you're you're caring for another child, you have nutritional demands, you have sleep inconveniences, like there is a special kind of vulnerability that comes with being pregnant, and yet no one likes to hear that you're weak or vulnerable.

Right? Nursing a baby, right? Is that a weakness? I mean, it's beautiful, it's caring, it's nurturing, it's it's how you you know you strengthen your child, you connect with your child, it's it's a special thing that only women can do. I was just talking to somebody about that last night.

The baby is crying in the middle of the night, he's like, well, sorry, wife, I can't do anything about it. It is it is your special ability that that lets you be the one to comfort the child. But it is also a weakness, right? You have to take time out of your day.

You have to devote yourself to the care for your child in a way that's unique to you and your husband cannot do. The child's father cannot do it. And Jesus in his kindness highlights that. Woe to the pregnant.

Woe to the nursing mothers. Hopefully it doesn't happen in winter. He knows how weak we are, even if we don't want to hear it. Young men, I know how weak you are, even if you don't want to hear it.

We Are Weaker Than We Think

We have vulnerabilities. We are weaker than we think we are. First Corinthians ten puts it like this. This is Paul writing to the Corinthian church, a church that was struggling with accepting sin in their church. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands, so this is us when we think we're doing pretty good.

We're pretty strong, right? We can do this. We're gonna overcome sin. We got it. We're strong enough to overcome these temptations.

Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed. Watch out that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, listen to this, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you may be able to endure it.

So that you may be able to endure it. Does enduring it mean you stand right there outside the adulteress's door? Does that mean you stay on the phone with your friend who's spouting wickedness about how marriage is a trap and you shouldn't stay involved in it. No! It means you hang the phone up.

It means you walk away from the computer. It means you walk away from the door of the bar. You flee. You run away. This God uses your escape as a demonstration of faithfulness, to build up your rejection of the wickedness. God provides a way of escape, not so you can stand strong and you can look really good.

Sometimes you just have to get out of there. Sometimes you have to flee.

The Hope of the Elect

So what's our hope? What's the disciples' hope about with this abomination of desolation?

Jesus gives two notes of hope in Mark 13, our passage. First in verse 20. 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.

And then he keeps on going. And then if anyone says to you, Behold, here is the Christ, or behold, here he is here. Do not believe him, for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect.

So we have this hint of God's mercy. God's mercy to shorten the time, to limit the scope, right? You know, if a worldwide flood was sent again, running to the mountains would do you no good. You'd just drown tired.

Right? But the the instruction is to run to the mountains, run away, get away. God will provide a way of escape. This judgment, the judgment on the temple, the judgment on Israel, the judgment on the Jews for rejecting Jesus was going to be isolated. Right? Get away from the temple because the judgment is coming on, and the temple is going to be thrown down, and there will be no more sacrifices.

But just as Daniel had promised, at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book of life, will be rescued. The destruction is coming, but the those who are faithful, those who trust in the Lord, those whose names are written in the book of life, or as Mark says, the elect whom he chose will be saved.

There is a salvation. God is saving his people. God is watching out for those who are his. He's protecting them. But he's bringing judgment.

It's very similar to what we talked about with Lot, right? God knew his man Lot even in this city of wickedness right and if you know the angel was was was talking with I was gonna say negotiating it's not exactly negotiating but almost negotiating with Abram just before the the angels go down into Sodom he goes well what if there's twenty men, would you still destroy the city if there were 20?

Well, no, not if there were twenty. What if there were ten men? Would you still destroy the city if there were ten? Well, no, not if there were ten.

This is the reason that the angels go and get Lot, right? Because it's Lot and his family. That's it. They pull him out. God knows those whose names are written in the book of life.

And he limits his judgment. He limits He limits the destruction that's coming on Israel and coming on the temple. And if you're paying attention, you know that a week or two ago we talked about how the disciples were sitting there looking up at the temple and how beautiful it was.

God Preserves His People Through His Warnings

God also knows our temptation to want to sit back and have a life of ease and comfort. He knows our temptation to want to just hear about his grace and his mercy and never hear about his holiness and his law. And God doesn't let us flee to that.

Like He cuts off our excuses. He cuts off, this is what we were talking about in trying to remember what the what the scripture was in Sunday school this morning. But where God anticipates. Oh when when when the the the Israelites were in their desert wanderings in Exodus and God says when you get into the land, you're gonna think you did this all yourself.

You didn't do this. I gave it to you. You're gonna think you did it all yourself, and aren't we grand? And you're not gonna be grateful or thankful to me.

God warned them. God warns us. He knows how much we just want to sit back and think, oh, we're okay, we're Christians. We went to church on Sunday. I sang the song, I prayed the prayer, I was baptized, I'm good. I don't need, I don't need to be actively involved in my faith.

I don't need to learn to trust God every day. God's promise to preserve his people is not an excuse to ignore his warnings. His warnings are the means by which he preserves his people. Right? That's why when Moses went to the mountain, God was talking to him.

God says, I have saved you out of the land of Egypt. Here are the commandments. The warnings are part of the saving. He doesn't save us so that we would fall back into our sin.

God forbid. He doesn't show us grace so that we could continue to sin. God forbid. He shows us grace so that we might learn to live for him, that we might hate our sins, turn away from the wickedness, flee from the wickedness, and what? Move towards Him. That's what repentance is.

Repentance is directionality. It's away from wickedness and towards holiness. That's what God gives us in our salvation: He opens our eyes, he softens our hearts so that we might hate the wickedness, hate the sin, and learn to turn towards Him in holiness. That's the Christian life. And so we don't back away from the warnings.

And we don't diminish God's grace and his mercy by giving the warnings. God is gracious. He is merciful. He has washed you free of your sins. So turn away from them and turn toward Jesus. And learn to walk in his ways.

Right? Join the community of a church. Be fed. Be nourished. Have you have the scales removed from your eyes when you when when sin starts to cloud them over and you start to think you've got this really figured out and then the next sin happens or the next hard thing happens.

You need brothers and sisters, you need the church, you need the fellowship, you need the communion of the saints. You do not flee because Christ cannot keep you. You flee because this is one of the ways that Christ does keep you. He provides that way of escape through which we can flee from the corruption of sin.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help us today, that you would help us to see the ways in which we fall short, not to our ultimate shame, but so that you would drive us to you, that we would see wickedness and we would love righteousness, that you would open up the way to escape to us and that we would take it.

That we would not think that we're strong and we're able, and that we would watch out for the possibility of falling. Father, we ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen.