How to Identify the Abomination of Desolation

April 3, 2026·25 min·2 clips

Gary DeMar argues that Jesus' prophecy about the abomination of desolation was fulfilled in the first century, not a future event.

Gary DeMar starts with preterism and keeps the definition simple: some biblical prophecies have already been fulfilled. Every Christian already does this, he says, with Old Testament prophecies about Jesus. Fulfilled does not mean used up. The birth and crucifixion of Jesus still matter, even though they happened in the past. From there he takes up Joel Richardson’s objection. The dispute is whether the abomination of desolation points to a future event or to the destruction of the temple in AD 70. DeMar keeps coming back to audience. Jesus says "you" again and again in chapters 21, 22, 23, and 24. DeMar’s point is blunt: that audience does not magically change when verse 15 shows up. Context carries the argument. He reads Jesus as speaking to people who would live through the events being described, not to a far-off audience waiting for another rebuilt temple. The end, in this reading, is not a vague end of everything. When Jesus says the one who endures to the end will be saved, DeMar takes that as survival through the collapse of the old covenant age. Saved here means kept alive. That also fits the later warning to flee, where the danger is immediate and physical. Verse 14 gets its own pass. DeMar says "whole world" means the oikumene, the inhabited or known world, the same word used for Caesar Augustus’s taxation decree in Luke. He leans on that term hard and says he covers every New Testament use in one of his books. Richardson’s method gets a dry jab. DeMar says the future reading has to hop through unrelated passages instead of staying with Jesus’ argument. His conclusion is plain: scripture should interpret scripture, the context points to that generation, and the New Testament does not supply the rebuilt temple the future reading needs.

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A text first defense of Matthew 24 that keeps the audience, the timeline, and the temple in view.

Gary DeMar makes a text first case for reading Matthew 24 against the people Jesus was speaking to, not as a detached end times script. He keeps returning to the chapter's repeated "you," the destruction of the temple in AD 70, and the Greek word oikumene, using each point to…

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You want a blunt, verse-by-verse defense of Matthew 24's first-century audience.

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