The Abomination of Desolation. AND YOU!
There is a return to Eden happening in the Church.
God is calling His people out of toil, striving, religious performance and the structures and traditions of men, and back into Sabbath rest, intimacy and mature government with Him. But there is something opposing that return.
This teaching began during a powerful time of corporate intercession on 03.09.26 when my friend Christine was taken into a vision. She found herself standing in a bog. There was clean water in the bog and stones that she knew were ALIVE. She could also see something that appeared initially to be a statue but as she looked at it - she knew it was an entity - an ancient, evil, loathsome entity.
At the same time as Christine had this vision the Lord had shown me people trapped in holes undergound — He took me to Isaiah 42:
“But this is a people robbed and plundered; All of them are snared in holes, And they are hidden in prison houses; They are for prey, and no one delivers…”Isaiah 42:22
Christine and I were seeing the same thing - God’s people mired in bog, trapped in holes and hidden in prison houses.
The bog is significant - bog water is generally clean. It isn't fetid— but it is stagnant. It doesn't flow. Bogs also contain very little oxygen, which means they can preserve dead things for thousands of years. This is a picture of a religious system that appears outwardly clean and orthodox, yet restricts the movement of living water and breath.
As we continued praying, God took us to Isaiah 62:
“You shall no longer be termed Forsaken, nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate…” Isaiah 62:4
As I was reading these verses new connections were forming in my mind - for the first time I knew that there was a spiritual entity behind ‘desolate’ - (this is not merely an adjective!) I also knew that there was a connection between ‘desolate’ and ‘the abomination that causes desolation: a prophecy by the prophet Daniel centuries before its fulfilment, when the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Jewish temple in 168BC by bringing an idol (statue!) of his god Zeus into the Holy place and sacrificing pigs on the altar.
What we had seen was not simply a boggy, bleak place but was a prison-like state driven by a principality that makes desolate!
Hold that thought!
There was another clue to what we were seeing, and this is so important. It is this - that during our prayer time where Christine has been seeing visions and deep in intercession and travail, a strong thought suddenly enters her mind:
“You can't do intercession.”
What!?
That sentence exposed something!! Whatever entity she had seen in the bog was bringing an accusation and it was saying this:
“What is flowing naturally from you isn't enough. What is coming out of rest isn't good enough. Look at everybody else. They're doing it properly. You need to become more like them.
Try harder. Perform. Strive.
Daniel mentions the abomination that causes desolation a number of times, including a reference to ‘the one who makes desolate’ or ‘the desolator’. Jesus, in the Olivet Discourse, hyperlinks back to this prophecy and again there was a literal fulfilment of the abomination that causes desolation when the Roman armies razed Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in 70AD.
But this was not the final fulfilment of the one who makes desolate in the temple. Aside from any future speculated literal fulfilment, this is a word for us today - the church of Jesus Christ. WE, as living stones fitted together are now the temple of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We need to know that the idol Antioches Epiphanes wheeled into the temple of his god Zeus, is a principality that also goes by different name depending on the culture. Zeus was also known as Jupiter to the Romans, Marduk to the Babylonians and Baal Shamim to the Syrians and Phoenicians. This is the exact same principality wearing different cultural clothes.
Zeus (Jupiter, Marduk and Baal Shamim) was worshipped as the supreme king of the gods and ruler of the heavens. Baal Shamim - the Phoenician name literally means lord of the heavens or sky - this god is above other gods. It is a usurper, it inserts itself into existing holy sites, through jealousy it seeks to take the place of Creator Yahweh, it is a sky god, a storm god and a fertility god. Worship of this god was extravagant, institutional, transactional and overwhelmingly hierarchical. It is an anthropology of servitude: human beings exist fundamentally to serve and sustain the gods, who require temples, offerings, sacrifices and priestly service. And human society mirrored the divine hierarchy - gods above - kings and priests below them and the ordinary subjugated masses underneath them.
This is a system that degrades humanity. Humans are fodder, created to the dirty work so that the gods can rest. They are born to be subjugated slaves trapped in endless toil.
It is also important to know that Jupiter was the god who was worshipped in the imperial Roman cult. When Constantine decreed that all of Rome was now to become Christian, rather than adopt the non hierarchical and humble practices of the early Christians - who met in homes, he simply bolted this new faith in Jesus onto existing Jupiter worship with all the pomp, extravagance, servitude and separation between the priestly class and the masses.
This system is still in place today in most of the Western church. You might contest that - but know that every time we ‘worship’ out of performance, ritual, striving, fear and traditions of men that came out of Rome, we are worshipping ‘another Jesus’ and another Father.
And Jesus wants His church back. He wants sons. He died to redeem mankind and the earth we call home so that we could come out of the miry clay and holes underground and bogs and prisons of religion and strife. He is THE Lord of Heaven and Earth who rested on the 7th day and invited man into His rest to function in freedom from that place. Man was created for Sabbath and Sabbath now has a name - it is Jesus! It is not a day off from the washing up and cooking or even a particular day to attend church - it is a person!!! (N.B do take a day off a week - it is good for you!)
And Jesus is calling us out of everything that causes His beloved to function out of ritual and toil and He is calling us back to HIMSELF. HE IS SABBATH REST.
At the end of the prayer time Christine (still in travail) found herself back in exactly the same landscape — but now it had been utterly transformed. The bog was covered in masses of exquisite flowers and extraordinary multicoloured rain was falling over it. She kept saying - it’s so beautiful!
And the Lord gave us this verse:
“The land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden.” Ezekiel 36:35
There is such a profound battle around rest in the Church today.
The enemy does not simply want exhausted Christians. He wants to keep the subjugated masses dependent on religious structures - to prevent the sons of God discovering who they are, where they are seated and their mandate to govern with Him out of rest.
The role and function of the church is not to entertain and tie people to a Sunday system, nor is it simply to get more souls saved and more bums on seats (although do that!) it is to grow the saints to maturity and to equip them for works of service— a people who hear God for themselves, carry His presence and govern in the regions and spheres He has entrusted to them. Because when we come out of religious striving and into REST and the reality of Hebrews 4 — when we understand that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places — counterfeit governments are dismantled and destroyed.
There is a transition happening in the church all across the western world.
For many, what once satisfied no longer satisfies. There is a growing awareness that Jesus is taking His Church somewhere we have not been before. God is restoring something far older than our religious systems. He is restoring Eden. He is bringing us into REST and we can’t come in on the back of performance.
The Holy Spirit is exposing what has robbed and plundered His people, what has held them in holes and prison houses, and what continually drives them back into striving, hierarchy, performance and toil. The abomination that causes desolation seeks to sit in your holy place and if you are anything like me, you are becoming increasingly aware of its presence.
When you that familiar pull towards anxiety, comparison, performance, religious obligation and toil — when the voice tells you that what flows naturally from intimacy with Jesus cannot possibly be enough — recognise it!
And do what Jesus said when speaking about the Abomination of Desolation in Matthew 24 -
So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination of desolation,’ described by the prophet Daniel (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.… Matt 24:15-16
Flee to the mountains!!
Cleanse your hands and purify your heart, ascend the mountain of the Lord to be with Him. Run into His presence. Run back into intimacy. Run back into Sabbath rest - into Jesus Himself.
There is a war over your rest because rest is not passivity, it is the place from which mature sons govern.
The prisoners are coming out of the holes. The bog is becoming a garden - the stagnant water is flowing once again. And the land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden!
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