The following may not at first seem like a discussion on WWIII. I beg the reader’s patience.
Monarchy is the only form of government. All others are various forms of thievery.
James W. Stivers, The Institutes of Biblical Terranomics , unpublished manuscript
The Abomination of Desolation
In the Christian and Jewish religions, there is a doctrinal belief in what is called an “abomination of desolation.” It refers to some kind of public event of such wickedness that it moves the hand of the Almighty in judgment. It is usually a deed committed by the ruling authorities, some outlandish abuse of power.
There are a few examples in the Bible. The downfall of King Ahab and his Queen Jezebel – in spite of their successful careers as advocates of Baalism – swiftly occurred after the judicial murder of Naboth to steal his vineyard. Land law was sacrosanct in ancient Israel, even during the years of apostasy. This abuse of process was a sacrilege equivalent to the violation of the Temple. Men were kings and priests on their own land and possessed a true sovereignty over the land. Israel was a decentralized monarchy. There was no “public sector” with tyrants called “public servants.”
For another example, scholars ascribe the fall of Jerusalem and Judea to the wickedness of King Manasseh, who had a long reign (over 50 years) of wickedness in which the Temple was overrun with sorcerers and sodomites where orgies of disgusting sacrilege occurred routinely. It is said that the Prophet Isaiah suffered a tortuous death during this period. In spite of King Josiah’s zealous reign afterwards to restore the Law, God said it was too late. He would not forgive the nation.
During the Intertestamental Period, this “abomination of desolation” is believed to have occurred again in the new Temple built by Ezra and Nehemiah when a Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes, is said to have conquered the city and offered a pig on the altar for sacrifice. It set-off the Maccabean revolt.
The phraseology actually originates in the Book of Daniel multiple times:
And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolation.
– 11:31, et al
Jesus referred to this “abomination of desolation” as something that would be repeated in the lives of his disciples after he was gone (Matthew 24:15). We believe this happened in 70 AD at the destruction of the city in which a million Jews were slaughtered by the Romans (an almost unbelievable statistic) and the Temple was burned and literally dismantled, exactly as Jesus said would happen, “with no stone left upon another.”
Sir Isaac Newton spends some time in his Observations discussing what this expression means. In general, he felt that the “abomination” was a biblical term referring to the invasion of pagan armies, because armies are typically very worried and very superstitious. For them, physical combat is a direct confrontation with death and they are careful to observe rituals and sacrifices which guarantee the aid of their deities.
Armies will bring symbols of their religion, and in the case of the Romans, they worshipped their own ensigns to curry the favor of the gods. This view is certainly supported in Luke’s Gospel, in which this expression refers to an invading army, which becomes this “abomination which causes desolation” (Luke 21:20).
If the polemics of St. Stephen’s trial is factored into this discussion, the Temple itself had become the abomination because of the persistent and defiant continuation of animal sacrifices disregarding the atonement of Christ. Most commentators overlook this fact: it was not a question of whether the Temple was defiled, but rather that the Temple was the source of defilement.
In either case, scholars usually will ascribe this “abomination” to something which results in the withdrawal of God’s providential care. The Almighty becomes offended by some sacrilege committed by His people that He withdraws His protection and leaves His people to the mercies of their enemies.
In my writings in past years, I spent some time trying to figure out what might be America’s “abomination” which causes desolation. It is important to remember that many years will separate the point of apostasy from the actual time of judgment. The life of nations spans centuries, unlike that of a particular person. The civil and religious rulers who executed Jesus in about 30-33 AD were likely dead some 40 years later when Jerusalem and the Temple economy came to a violent end.
Consequently, evasive action is necessary, but “when” is not always easy to tell. Jesus told his disciples to “flee to the mountains.” Jerusalem is already in the mountains. What “mountains” was he talking about? Certainly, not Masada.
As it happened according to Josephus, James the brother of Jesus was martyred when he was giving a speech on the steps of the Temple, circa 63 AD. In that speech, called by scholars The Ascents of James, he was explaining why the sacrificial system was no longer needed and why the Temple should be used instead as a place of prayer. Jewish radicals would have none of that.
Immediately after his death, there began a mass migration of perhaps millions of Christian Jews out of Palestine into the high country of the Asia Minor interior – what is now modern Turkey. Even though at the time Asia Minor was heavily populated along the coastal regions, the interior plateau was not, and there was actually wilderness areas where migrating refugee camps could be set up (Cappadocia, Galatia, etc.). These people became the Diaspora to which various Epistles of the New Testament were addressed (e.g. 1 Peter 1:1,2).
R. J. Rushdoony, as well as other biblical commentators, have noted that the militant Edomite Jews (20,000 strong) which had overrun the city, committed a massacre within the Temple precincts just before a sudden downturn in the military situation. Some, including Josephus, felt this was the “abomination”: a sacrilege committed out of expediency by religious zealots in violation of their own rules.
If you look at my past writings from long ago which can be found here, I felt that the teaching of secular humanism in the nation’s public schools might be America’s “abomination of desolation.” The public schools were originally created by New England Puritans to promote biblical literacy and to equip the electorate with the tools to sort truth from error. They believed that ignorance, as well as idleness, was the devil’s “workshop.” Idle time spent studying the Bible would be well spent.
Also, up to that time, rulers in both church and state had prevented the translation and distribution of the Bible to the general population for fear of an objective standard by which they could be judged. They feared public criticism and rebellion based upon “God’s Word.” The Protestant Reformation insisted upon a wide distribution of the Holy Scriptures in the language of the people.
Regrettably, the institution that was designed to promote biblical literacy in America, instead, during the latter half of the 20th Century, was secularized in the name of the separation of church and state. The Bible is not allowed to be taught in the nation’s classrooms, now for over 50 years. A school teacher will be fired for speaking the name of “Jesus Christ” or for quoting a verse from the Bible.
But this process has taken decades to produce its fruit. Since the time I wrote those studies, now 40 years later, we have reached a new level of decadence with Wokeism and other profane ideologies. We might yet have to wait for another atrocity to be committed, one which becomes an obvious sacrilege. If we do, I think we are getting close.
To retain power, the American Left is trampling upon the nation’s Constitution in its persecution of its opponents.
There are many American “patriots” who are trying remove this institutional corruption.
Enlightened by another biblical analogy, I do not think they will succeed. They will become a King Jehu to replace a King Ahab. Like ancient Israel which successfully turned away from Baal worship, only to return to its original apostasy of “the Golden Calf,” America will abandon secular humanism, but it will return to its secular pluralism: the sovereignty of the respective state legislatures. It will only slow the decline, not reverse it.
The United States will break up as its unifying principles weaken.
Governed by incompetence to the level of a species of madness, America’s leaders will alienate its allies and embark upon useless crusades prosecuted with breathtaking stupidity. It will prosecute ground wars without first establishing air superiority (Ukraine); it will abandon allies to merciless enemies (Afghanistan), and dictate policy with no regard of its consequences (the Middle East). The State of Israel – faced with its own “abomination of desolation” (the political ridiculing and neutering of American Evangelicals, its staunchest allies) – will provoke its more powerful adversaries to the point of nuclear self-immolation.
To the rest of the world, the United States will become increasingly irrelevant. America’s mythical image of justice and bounty will fade away as the rest of the world reaps, and then irreplaceably consumes, the benefits of two centuries of capitalism. In the wake of the American dismemberment, the standard of living will decline worldwide and barbarism will prevail. Invasions will occur by foreign nations on American soil to carve out “spheres of influence” to protect their economic interests and then abandon them when they are used up. Like the vultures of Revelation 19 – who shall feast on the carcass that was once “Babylon the Great” – the American nation will be plundered, and then, the various nations of the world which were once a part of this Anglo-American Empire, will be plundered as well.
Then, 2046AD.
– JWS, October 8th, 2023
