"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) (16) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: (17) Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: (18) Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. (19) And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! (20) But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: (21) For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (22) And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."
I cannot think with some, that the Prophet Daniel referred to some image set up in the temple, by way of profaning it. For we read in the history of those awful times, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, that on the soldiers entering the temple and finding no image there, as they had been accustomed to in their idolatrous services, they ridiculed the Jewish religion, saying, that, they worshipped the clouds. I rather am inclined to interpret the passage in Daniel, which is called, the overspreading of abominations, he shall make it desolate, Daniel 9:27; as having respect to the Roman armies. But be this as it may, the Lord Jesus pointed to this as the immediate forerunner of the impending ruin. The verses which follow, are descriptive of great misery. But in the midst of this awful view, I beg the Reader not to overlook that sweet verse of mercy to the elect. Except those days, said Jesus, be shortened; (that is, the sweeping destruction going forth at that visitation) there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake, said the Redeemer, those days shall be shortened. Reader! do not overlook the mercy; and much less overlook the Lord of the mercy. If the days had been lengthened out, as the savage Romans wished, until the whole seed of Israel had been cut off: from whence could there have been a race preserved for the propagating the seed of Christ, out of which the elect after the flesh were to come? Here as in that beautiful similitude of the cluster in looking on, which the new wine is found Isaiah 65:8. Was one which said: destroy it not; for a blessing is in it. So, saith the Lord, will, I do for my servant's sake, that I may not destroy them all. Reader! who shall say, from that hour to the present, and so on to the end of time, how frequent and how numerous, the instances, where mercy is shewn to the graceless, for the elect's sake, which in the Adam race of nature, are to come forth from their loins. How many among the unregenerate live on, and are preserved; because Christ's seed after the flesh are appointed in their day and generation? Did the world but know this; or could the world but be made sensible of the blessings they derive from Christ's seed; would they persecute them as they now do, and like Pharaoh to Israel, often make their lives grievous by reason of their bondage. Exodus 2:23. Oh! ye ungodly, ye careless, and christless people of this land! What would ye do were the Lord to call home his own, and house them all at once, from your persecutions? Surely you may truly say with the Prophet: Except the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah! Isaiah 1:9.