1Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you 2not to be quickly shaken in your mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come. 3Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction. 4He opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God. 5Don’t you remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? 6Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. 7For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. 8Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the manifestation of his coming; 9even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11Because of this, God sends them a powerful delusion, that they should believe a lie, 12that they all might be judged who didn’t believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
13But we are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth, 14to which he called you through our Good News, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15So then, brothers, stand firm and hold the traditions which you were taught by us, whether by word or by letter.
16Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.
Jesus' reference to "the 'abomination of desolation,'" recorded in Mark 13:14, is part of His response to the disciples' question about the timing of end-time events. It concerned not only the time of the temple's destruction but the sign by which the fulfillment of prophetic events leading up to the return of Christ ("all these things") could be recognized (v. 4). Jesus' teaching, in response, has been called The Olivet Discourse (compare Matt 24-25). In Mark 13:5-8, He describes the mere "beginning of birth pangs" as a time marked by the coming of many false messiahs and global political upheaval. Addressing His disciples as representatives of the nation Israel, Jesus warned of persecution Jews could expect, in verses 9-13. His reference, in verse 14, to the "abomination of desolation" is an allusion to Daniel 11:31 and 12:11, and speaks of a desecration of the Jerusalem temple that causes desolation (Matt 24:15).
This prophecy was fulfilled typically by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the king of Syria, whose coming was predicted in Daniel 8:23-25. He outlawed circumcision, the offering of daily sacrifices, and the observance of Israel's feasts, set up an image of Zeus in the holy place and sacrificed a pig on the sacred altar in 167 B.C. But Jesus spoke of a greater desecration of a future temple by Antichrist, found in Dan 9:24-27, at the mid-point of the seventieth week of Daniel, a period of seven literal years of tribulation that will yet come upon the earth. The Antichrist will set up an image of himself in a rebuilt temple, and demand that he be worshipped (Rev 13:12, 15; 14:9). It is this ultimate abomination of desolation that signals the onset of the "great tribulation" (Matt 24:21; "the time of Jacob's trouble," Jer 30:7) before the glorious return of Christ (Matt 24:29ff). Paul speaks of the Antichrist, calling him the “man of sin” in 2 Thessalonians 2.