The Third to Last Sunday of the Church Year – Pr. Anderson sermon
St. Matthew 24:15-28 “The Siege is Broken”
November 8, 2026 | Christ Lutheran Church
In Nomine Iesu
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Lord God, heavenly Father, we most heartily thank You that by Your Word You have brought us out of the darkness of error into the light of Your grace: We beseech You, mercifully help us to walk in that light, guard us from all error and false doctrine, and grant that we may not become ungrateful and despise and persecute Your Word, but receive it with all our heart, govern our lives according to it, and put all our trust in Your grace, through the merit of Your dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, by Veit Dietrich, p. 165)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Rom. 1:7, etc.)
The sermon text for today is taken from the 24th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. We read selected verses in Jesus’ name:
[Jesus said:] “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
These are Your words, heavenly Father. Sanctify us by Your truth, Your Word is truth. Amen. (Joh. 17:17)
In Christ Jesus, who is your castle that guards you against the enemy, crushing the enemies siege under His feet, dear fellow redeemed:
When you are the king and looking to expand your empire, you have to take territory from someone else. Included in that territory is the seat of power, the castle. It has towers, walls, and many defenses. So, are you going to storm the castle? You could, but you could also wind up with huge losses. There is another option, which to form siege lines and wait out the army in the castle. Scripture tells us what a siege looks like. Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver. Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” And he said, “If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?” And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son” (2 Kings 6:24-29). While this is tragic, many are crying out that we are in a siege now. As they point this way and that way to deliver us, we have already been delivered and the siege has already been broken.
As we cling to the hope we have and the knowledge that we have of the siege being broken, there are many who instead cling to the dangers and don’t heed the warnings that are out there. As Jesus speaks about what is to come, He warns the people, “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.” For the people of Jesus’ day, this is a big deal! The Holy Place was where God dwelt. The key word in that sentence being “was.” God was not located there because He was with them now, found in the Son of Man. With rejecting the Son of Man, the people would finally see this moment Jesus predicts of their fleeing because the old sacrifices they had continued to do were useless, having been fulfilled by Christ. The temple curtain was torn in two! With the rejection of Christ and this great threat of siege, the people in the chaos would try to find deliverance and a false christ would try to help in 132 AD.
This will be such a difficult time, yet in this warning, Jesus is not just warning those who have rejected Him, but those who are His. “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” Not only does God lessens the severity of what befalls in 66-70 AD for His elect, but He is with them as most of the Christians left Jerusalem before the war took place and the siege lines were drawn. Jesus’ warning to those who stay is an echo of warnings past. It was prophesied, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children (Hosea 4:6). Even after centuries of warnings, Jesus reveals this will be their thoughts as He says, “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: “‘”You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them’ (Matthew 13:13-15).
Before we say that we understand everything that Jesus has told us, it can be easy to let these end times predictions scare us like the unbelievers. We could first forget when His return is going to happen. He tells us it will be sudden. “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:37-39). While there won’t be this great change that many fear, there is also no hiding here on the grounds of association. The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD'” (Jeremiah 7:1-4). With amendment, there is a hopeful way of escape because, “for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”
And this is true for we are in the end times and like the Christians who did flee the city, there is a place for you to flee. What is hard is that there isn’t going to be time to take anything, and as you flee to safety, there will be forces that will try to intercept you and proclaim to you that they can provide you with safety right now. “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There He is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand.” You know the siege is broken because you are being told of your safety and deliverance right now. As your deliverance is easy to spot in this gathering, the horrors of the siege will try to bog you down with all of the misery you see around you. Being in the midst of the dying smells of life, and false teachers swoop down on the confused and suffering people like vultures. There will be times when things turn desperate, and maybe people are experiencing that now. As they do, people instinctively recognize the need for a spiritual answer. Here is your spiritual answer in the midst of this horrific siege, it is broken.
The One who breaks the siege is the One who is true with His warnings. He is the One who brings deliverance out of it. What took place all those years ago with Christians hearing the
warnings and fleeing the city before its destruction, that truth is found here with your existence. God’s people will not fall. God’s Spirit helps believers remain in the truth. Without this help and the false teachers would have collected all of God’s people for in the hearts of men are hearts that want to seek ways to find immediate deliverance out of all our troubles. But deliverance is found in the promises of Christ, that His people won’t fall, that the Spirit has come and is actively helping believers remain in the truth. There will be other signs and for the people who escaped Jerusalem, it certainly looked like the end was near. By God’s grace their end was not hearts of stone, being forgotten, or rejection. In the great turmoil they would see the bright light of truth casting its light so they could see the Son of Man and be with Him forever.
He has given you this guiding light as well. He could have let you stay in the devouring darkness where only predators roam to eat you of your dying flesh and soul. In the midst of this siege, the abomination would have you think there is no escape. And even in weakness where maybe you hung around to try and gather belongings, getting caught up in the siege with what appears to be no way out, or you tried to find instant relief and deliverance from someone here who promised to provide it, your deliverance is given to you through the true Christ who willingly put on the horror of the world. And as He looked horrific to even look at, He gathered you to His corpse. A corpse hanging on the cross, defeating the spiritual powers that pour on hardship and refuting those who believe there are other Saviors. For only One Savior can bring you salvation and defeat the abomination and desolation. This Savior is Jesus Christ, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is head of all rule and authority (Colossians 2:9-10). With His rule and authority that is filling you, you are filled with certainty in these end times. Certainty, that you can stand tall on this evil day.
Though it will feel like this evil will expand to a time of not letting up what so ever, you see through Christ’s warning, you are already experiencing the end times. You are experiencing them and you see the truth, that this siege around you who dwells in Christ has been broken. There is no way for the enemy to win. May your prayers be for your Savior’s guiding light and truth in these dark days. May you be able to refute errors against this saving message, for there is no other message that saves. This message has revealed to you where the elect has gathered together in Christ and here you are witnessing it. And if someone tries to use the horrors of the siege to say “the Christ is over here,” “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” The time will be as it is now. And for you who are elect and have been told beforehand, your deliverance in His cross is everything you need, gathered together forever. Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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