Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. Matthew 24:18

Did you know that some farmers used to hang a coat permanently on a post at the corner of their field? They did this so that, should the Abomination of Desolation suddenly appear, they could easily grab their coat as they fled to the mountains, while still heeding Jesus’ words, “Let no one in the field go back [to their house] to get their cloak.”

Daniel had prophesied about the Abomination of Desolation as the precipitating event for the last days. The prophecy was fulfilled in preview by Antiochus IV Epiphanes when he sacrificed a pig to Zeus on the altar of God’s temple in Jerusalem. But the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy will be when the Antichrist himself is “standing in the holy place” (God’s temple) and demanding that everyone worship him as God.

“When this happens,” says Jesus, “flee to the mountains! Don’t even go back to get your coat! For then there will be a great tribulation such as has never occurred since the beginning of the world, nor ever shall” (Mt 24:15-22).

So these farmers were leaving a coat at the corner of their field because they took Jesus at His word: It could happen at any time! I’d better be on the lookout! I’d better have a coat at the ready since I won’t have time to go back to the house to get it.

In anticipation of the fulfillment of Jesus’ words, are we ready, as it were, with our coat on the fencepost? Are we as mindful of and responsive to Jesus’ warnings as those farmers?