So far, every article in this series has covered events that are already happening with clearly cited evidence. These articles function as proof that an ancient satanic/antichrist agenda is advancing. While I believe that the procession of the final end-time events is near, I don’t necessarily believe they are imminent. Here are some of the events to look for in order for the final eschatological clock to start ticking.
What clock do I speak of? The 70 weeks of years from Daniel chapter 9, one of the most significant and detailed Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. In this chapter, Daniel is addressing God in prayer knowing of an ancient prophecy by the prophet Jeremiah in which a prophetic clock has been set:
Jeremiah 25:11 This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
Jeremiah 29:10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.
In chapter 9 of Daniel, he knows the predicted 70 years of Babylonian captivity for the Jewish people are up, and Daniel is fasting and praying that God would restore the people to their own land. Very importantly for our understanding of interpreting end time events, Daniel prays firstly and specifically for the desolate sanctuary (v. 17) which was destroyed in the Babylonian invasion of 586 BC. That is a crucial bit of information when attempting to calculate when a new prophetic clock might start ticking later in this article.
He prays secondly for the capital city, Jerusalem. You have to occupy the capital city before you can rebuild the temple. The two go hand in hand, but make no mistake about it, the focal point of everything for the Jewish people was worship, and for that they required a rebuilt temple on a very specific piece of land. Mount Moriah, where the proposed sacrifice of Abraham’s son Isaac was held, foreshadowing the sacrifice of God’s only son Jesus Christ. This is the site of Solomons original temple:
2 Chronicles 3:1 Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David.
It is important to look at the prophecy given to Daniel directly by the angel Gabriel in its fullness. The prophecy begins in v. 20:
Daniel 9:20 - “While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill 21 while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. 22 He instructed me and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. 23 As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision:
24 “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city (1) to finish transgression, (2) to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, (3) to bring in everlasting righteousness, (4) to seal up vision and prophecy and (5) to anoint the Most Holy Place.
25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.”
Before we begin unpacking this passage, notice how Daniel interpreted Jeremiah’s prophecy. He took it literally, to refer to future events, that Daniel fully expected to happen in his own lifetime, which is exactly what happened. I am assuming the events that are prophesied in Daniel here concerning the end of this current phase of history ought to be interpreted in the same manner.
I will be using the New American Commentary, by Stephen R. Miller, to guide us through our interpretation of the angel Gabriel’s message. We will be assuming that the seventy sevens are literal weeks of years ending with Christ’s second coming. Our starting point will be based on the understanding that it is widely agreed that weeks of years refers to seventy 7 year periods totaling 490 years.
In verse 25, the first 7 sevens begin with the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, found in Ezra 7:1-28 having an estimated date of 458 BC, and terminates with the completion of the project by Ezra/Nehemiah. That period occurred in a 49 year time frame, which is 7 sevens putting us at 409 BC.
The next 62 sevens, which equal 434 years, comprise the time from the completion of Ezra/Nehemiah’s project in 409 BC to Christ’s first coming. 434 years from 409 puts us at 26 AD. That is the time frame many scholars would place Jesus baptism, where God himself pronounced him Messiah, and marked the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Take a moment to realize how utterly astonishing the accuracy of those predictions are.
Those events account for 69 of the 70 weeks prophesied by the angel Gabriel, but we have one week of years left to account for. Before we do, lets look at what has already been fulfilled:
v. 25 - “It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.” - Speaking of Jerusalem and the Temple during the times of Ezra/Nehemiah, and they were extremely troubled times indeed.
v. 26a - “After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.” - After Jesus crucifixion he was abandoned by his disciples and his ministry seemed a failure.
v. 26a - “The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.” This is a very intriguing verse with two possible interpretations:
The Roman army invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. Most see “the ruler who will come” to refer to the antichrist. That is why so many throughout the ages have postulated the final iteration of evil global human governance to be a revived Roman empire. That would include the idea by the Reformers, including John Wesley, that the Roman Catholic church headquartered at the Vatican in Rome is to be identified with the spirit of antichrist.
But others have made the case that while the particular army that invaded Jerusalem in 70 AD was operating on the orders of Rome, it was actually comprised of foreign mercenaries, people who would eventually become Muslim nations. The invading armies were comprised of nations in the Middle East long identified in the Old Testament as the ancient enemies of the descendants of Abraham through Issaac. They would have been mercenaries more than happy to do the Roman Emperor’s bidding in destroying their long hated enemies, the Jewish people. They see “the ruler” in this verse coming from Middle Eastern Arab people and the revived empire being a revived Islamic Ottoman Turkish empire. Mount Moriah has been occupied by Muslims since the 600’s AD, and is currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock, Islam’s third most holy shrine.
v. 26b “The end will come like a flood (for Jerusalem in 70AD): War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.” - After the destruction of Jerusalem, wars and natural disasters will continue until the end of this age. This has obviously been true.
And lastly in v. 27 - “He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ (the final week of seventy sevens) In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. (marking the beginning of the 3.5 year great tribulation) And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation (specifically cited by Jesus as marking time of his return in Matthew 24:15 and the beginning of the great tribulation), until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” (the bowls of wrath from Revelation 16)
What requires some interpretive work is the part about all of the time that elapses between the fulfillment of the first 69 weeks and the last week. The first batch of sevens was fulfilled consecutively, why isn’t the last week of years? Why the long gap?
The answer is relatively simple. For the first 7 sevens, and for the 62 sevens, Israel was in control of Jerusalem with a functioning temple, specifically what Daniel was praying for in the prayer. At the completion of the first two consecutive timeframes neither of those things were true. Just as was predicted in v. 26a, both were destroyed. With the city and the sanctuary out of operation, the prophetic time clock for the Jewish people was on pause, waiting for the final week of years from Gabriel’s original 70 weeks of years to begin ticking again . . . . WHEN BOTH OF THOSE THINGS ARE TRUE AGAIN.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Daniel’s prayer and vision was specifically for his own people, the nation of Israel. It had nothing to do with the New Testament church.
We ought to stand up and take notice here. It is a miraculous act of God that after 1900 some odd years, a unique race of people and a religion have continued to exist as a distinct group without their own homeland. It must be because of supernatural hostilities that this scattered group has come under such constant persecution and been such a subject of controversy over the ages. It also has to be attributed to an act of God that these people were restored to their own homeland as an outcome of the World Wars in 1948.
But even after they were returned to their ancient homeland, they still weren’t in control of Jerusalem. That didn’t happen until the six-day war in 1967, when Israel gained control of the city Jerusalem after defeating their Arab enemies, thanks mostly to assistance in weaponry from the United States. The Arabs, interestingly enough were supported by the Soviets. There may be some foreshadowing there. But to this day, the temple mount remains under the control of the Arab nations, and a Muslim temple occupies the most holy place, Mount Moriah.
My speculation is that when that situation changes and the Jewish people somehow regain control of that ground to resume their worship, the prophetic clock to that final week of years, or seven years, will once again begin ticking.
And that may be precisely what that final prediction is about: “He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’” A covenant, or a deal, or a peace treaty, brokered by the antichrist, that allows the Jewish people to regain control of that ground in order to rebuild their long-lost temple and resume their ancient worship. But it will be a covenant that the prophet Isaiah describes as a “covenant with death”. God will allow it to happen in order to deal with their continued rebellion against his plan for the nations, his anointed king Jesus Christ. It will be a deal that ushers in the greatest time of trouble their people have ever seen, and Jesus himself prophesied the outcome of the intense pressure to the stubborn Jewish leaders of his day in Matthew 23:39:
“For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Paul alluded to God’s purpose as well in his letters:
Romans 11: 25 I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
27 “and this will be my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”
Israel is going to come under such unprecedented pressure that they will have no choice but to accept Jesus as their king, which they have for ages stubbornly refused. And Jesus, with his bride, will be sent to their rescue. God himself is behind the scenes of it all in masterful command of the chess board, orchestrating the finishing touches on his ancient divine plan disclosed from the beginning:
Genesis 3:14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this . . . .
15 I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head