COUNTDOWN TO CHRIST (Daniel 9:20-27)

Gabriel gives Daniel an amazingly accurate prediction of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the coming of Christ, and the events thereafter. All of this helps us understand a bit more about the confusing yet hopeful nature of predictive prophecy.

Transcript

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Well, today we're going to be in Daniel chapter 9, verses 20 to 27. Again, having an open Bible might be important as you're listening to this message. I remember hearing about a preacher who explained why he did not preach much on prophecy. He said, prophecy distracts people from the present. A listener said, Well, there certainly is then a lot of distraction in the Bible. You know, we may not have studied prophecy for a lot of reasons. For one, it's hard. Also, we're threatened by the differences it creates. And still others assume that the Old Testament is totally fulfilled, and we don't have to worry about that part, at least so they think. But yet the Bible is full of prophecy. You see, Judah has been in Babylon in exile in Daniel chapter 9. And Daniel reads in Jeremiah that Judah's exile is to last for 70 years. The time is about up. He recognizes that, and so Daniel prays from his soul on behalf of himself and Judah, a heartfelt confession of their sins, for God to have mercy, to forgive them, and to end their captivity. All of this is stated in Daniel 9, verses 1 through 19, as we looked at in the last segment. As soon as Daniel began praying for Jerusalem's restoration, Gabriel flies to him with an answer. And we hear what happened straight from Daniel himself. In Daniel 9 and verse 20, we read the following words. While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision. Don't you wish God would answer your prayers that quick? God answers Daniel's prayer with a prophecy about the future. Now Daniel thinks the seventy years of exile are about over, but what Gabriel is going to tell him is that God's plan is going to take seven times that. And after sixty-two weeks an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war, desolations are decreed, and he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering, and on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator. Well, there's a lot in that passage, and I want to break it down. I'm going to look first of all at the seventy weeks in verses twenty-four and twenty five. Here again, Gabriel says to Daniel, Seventy weeks, or some translations will say sevens. I'll explain here in a moment. Seventy weeks are decreed about your people, that would be Judah, and your holy city, Jerusalem. Sometimes the answer is more confusing than our questions. We have to ask ourselves, what is he saying? It's helpful to understand the word weeks can mean sevens, or units of seven. When we think of the word week, we think of seven what? Seven days. In actuality, the word weeks can mean seven of almost anything. Just like the word dozen means twelve to us. We speak about a dozen of something, or a half dozen would be six, or a baker's dozen would be thirteen, a dozen donuts, or whatever you might have in mind. The same thing is true with the word weeks. It simply means seven of whatever. And most people think it means here weeks of years rather than days. In other words, a seven year period. After all, nothing here that's described can fit into a literal four hundred and ninety days, and therefore a week must be a seven-year period. The phrase seventy weeks is therefore seventy seven-year periods, or four hundred and ninety years. It will be four hundred and ninety years to what? Gabriel says to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity. Gabriel is not talking about how long Judah would be in Babylon, as Daniel had asked. He's talking about how long before God will put an end to sin for all the people. This 490 years is how long it will take to bring in everlasting righteousness to seal both vision and prophet, or in other words, to fulfill them, and then to anoint a most holy place, in the words of Gabriel. Now, what are these? All of these things are obviously the work of the Messiah. Gabriel then is predicting the Messiah's work, and he's giving to Daniel a prophetic countdown to the time of the coming of Christ. Now, this is extremely rare in Old Testament prophecy. He divides the seventy-sevens, or 490 years, into three parts. If you begin in verse 25, he says, Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the Word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, this will be the Christ, there shall be seven weeks, or seven-year periods, seven seven-year periods, forty-nine then, forty-nine years. And then for sixty-two weeks, or sixty-two seven-year periods, four hundred and eighty-three years, it shall be built again, it being Jerusalem, with squares and moat. Or in other words, with a street, with streets and a trench, but in a troubled time. Now, let's look at these seventy weeks a little bit more carefully. So from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to when the anointed one or Christ comes is seven seven-year periods or forty-nine years, plus sixty-two seven-year periods or four hundred and thirty-four years, in total four hundred and eighty-three years. So you have to ask yourself the question: why didn't he just say sixty-nine seven-year periods? Or 483 years? And he doesn't say that because Gabriel wants to distinguish two crucial events. The first is Jerusalem's rebuilding. Now remember, Jerusalem at the time of Daniel here has been in charred ruins and rubble for 70 years. Daniel receives this vision in the year 538 BC. It's actually going to be another 93 years from his time until a guy named Artaxerxes finally decrees that Nehemiah restore and rebuild Jerusalem and its walls that will take place in 445 BC. Jerusalem is rebuilt, yes, but very gradually and in times of trouble, just like what Gabriel says to Daniel. And by the year 396 BC, Jerusalem is restored in 49 years, and it stays intact for an additional 434 years. Now, secondly, Gabriel's not only speaking about the rebuilding of Jerusalem, he's speaking about the Messiah's coming. After Jerusalem's rebuilding comes a span of 62 seven-year periods, or 434 years till the Messiah comes. After Jerusalem is restored, in other words, there will be another 434 years, not till the Messiah's birth, but till the Messiah presents himself to Israel as their prince. This is what Gabriel says. The total time of 69 seven-year periods, then, is 483 years. So if Jerusalem is rebuilt by 396 BC and we move forward another 434 years, that brings us to 38 AD. Actually, that's a few years beyond Jesus. Now, if we allow for the fact that the ancient Jews went by a 353-day per year calendar rather than a 365-day calendar as we have, and we account for leap years, we arrive at 32 AD. The exact time Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumphal entry and Passover. All of that was April the 6th, 32 AD. The 483 years then began in the year 445 BC with the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem, and it ends with Jesus the Prince entering Jerusalem April 6, 32 AD. Exactly. As Gabriel has said. Now there's one more week though. Let's look at this 70th week. And here's where it kind of gets dicey. After the four hundred and eighty-three years have elapsed, Gabriel explains to Daniel that there will be a seventieth seven year period. It seems that this is going to extend from thirty-two to thirty-nine AD. But the following things are said to happen in this seventieth week. There are four things. First, he says in verse twenty six, after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one, or the anointed one, the Christ, shall be cut off. What does that mean? Put to death and shall have nothing. And in fact, the Messiah is murdered. This obviously fulfilled the prophets. The second thing that will happen in this seven seventieth seven is that after Jesus is rejected, we are told, and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. This prince now, or ruler, and again, this is confusing, but this is apparently not the Messiah. This prince and his people are enemies of the Messiah, and they're going to destroy Jerusalem and the temple. Who is this prince? Well, we're going to find out here in just a moment. The third thing that happens in this 70th seven is that war breaks out. We continue the reading, its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. In other words, it's going to be a bloodbath of death and destruction. But this prince, this particular prince, this enemy prince, is not done. And so the fourth thing is stated in verse 27, this prince will turn on God's people. Verse 27 says, He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. So for the first time, we're now told that we are in the 70th week at this point. And somehow this ruler, this enemy ruler, wins the support of a lot of God's people, but he's going to turn on them. Now, whoever this is, he's going to stop sacrifices in the middle of the week, or that seven-year period. We continue the reading, and it says, And on the wing of abomination shall come one who makes desolate until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator. He will set up, in other words, an abomination. An abomination is something that's detestable to God, that causes desolation, we're told, and that's the translation of the New International Version. This is going to be set up in one of the wings of the temple. The idea again is said that he will defile and bring destruction on God's temple, which may be here the church. And some say that Christ did this when he instituted the new covenant and ended the law and sacrifices, but Christ did not set up anything detestable in the temple causing its ruin. So whoever and whatever this is, Jesus did not see it as being fulfilled in his early earthly lifetime. In fact, Jesus in Matthew chapter 24 cited Daniel 9.27 to warn his disciples of Jerusalem's coming destruction. He says in verse 15 of Matthew 24, 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. Jesus is telling us here that whatever Daniel 9 is predicting has not yet come to pass. And what we know now is that 40 years after Jesus had spoken this, Titus and the Roman army defiled the temple and decimated Jerusalem. The bloodbath of 70 AD is virtually unparalleled in known history. And Jesus then sees the 70th week extending all the way to 70 AD. But not even Titus fulfilled everything that Gabriel said. So an ultimate fulfillment will occur in our future, as we will see in the days to come. The 70th week then is indefinite, and we are still in it. Now these are very difficult verses, and I commend you if you're still listening. I have tried to make this as clear as I can, but you might want to take some time to re-listen to this. These verses leave us humbled by our ignorance. And if you're completely confused, I get it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a paraphrase of Daniel 9, 24 to 27, in hopes of trying to clarify some of this and smooth out some of the rough spots. Here's my paraphrase. God has decreed 490 years to fulfill his purposes for Judah and Jerusalem, to fully remove sin, to fulfill all prophecies, and to bring in lasting righteousness and holiness. But from the time the decree is made to restore and rebuild Jerusalem till the Messiah's coming, there will be forty-nine years, along with an additional four hundred and thirty-four years. By that time, Jerusalem will be totally rebuilt, but not without great difficulties. After the four hundred and thirty-four years, the Messiah will be murdered and will have nothing left. After this, another ruler and his army will come to destroy Jerusalem and the temple. Its end will come like a flood, and result in ongoing war, leaving everything destroyed and empty. This ruler will make a treaty with a lot of God's people for seven years, but in the last three and a half years, he will end all worship of God. And at the temple he will set up something detestable that will leave it destroyed and empty until God's end comes upon him. If we step back away from what we have learned in Daniel chapter 9, I think this says something to us. It gives us several lessons about prophecy that I think I want to close with, hopefully, to bring all of this in somewhat for us. I want to give four lessons about prophecy here that we might need to be reminded of. First of all, prophecy is amazingly accurate. God knows the future. If you got anything from this, I hope you understand that the countdown that Gabriel gives to Daniel was incredibly accurate. God knows the future, and he knows time. He says in Isaiah chapter 48, I foretold foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them, and I made them known. Then suddenly I acted and they came to pass. For I knew how stubborn you were, your neck muscles were iron, your forehead was bronze. Therefore I told you these things long ago. Before they happened, I announced them to you, so that you could not say, My images brought them about. My wooden image and metal God ordained them. Isaiah 48, verses three through five. Daniel lived over five hundred years before the events he was predicting. And by the power of the Spirit, he nailed it. How could anyone possibly explain the miraculous nature of that away? Prophecy is amazingly accurate. Second, prophecy can have multiple fulfillments. Prophecy is often deeper than the simplistic interpretations we've given it. God has likely interwoven in some prophecy, some predictions that already have seen their ultimate fulfillment with others that have not. In other words, most prophecies are too deep and multifaceted to be discarded with one simple explanation and fulfillment. And again, this is what makes prophecy often challenging to us. Third, prophecy unfolds its fulfillments gradually. We want things to be instant now, if not sooner. We think the removal of our sin, our transformation and restoration should occur in the snap of a finger, not over time and stages. But God's plan is often far more gradual. There's healing in the weight, and there's progress in the pain. Prophecy unfolds its fulfillments gradually. And fourth, prophecy is about God being right, not us. Since prophecy often has layered interpretation, don't be so sure of yours. When the Messiah finally came, prophetic hopes and expectations were at a feverish level. But still everyone was wrong about something. We see that in the first coming of Jesus. The same thing is probably going to be true with respect to the second coming of Jesus. We too probably are all wrong about something. You know, doctors used to give handwritten prescriptions. They were notoriously hard to read. The story is told of one patient who went to a doctor and was given a prescription on a slip of paper. He put it in his pocket and forgot to have it filled. Later he found it, and every morning for two years he showed it to the conductor as a railroad pass on the morning train into the city. Twice it got him into Radio City Music Hall. You know, sometimes prophecy seems to us just as illegible. Daniel is giving God's message in God's own handwriting. And folks have done a lot with it that was never intended. It would be arrogant to say I have completely got my mind wrapped around this. I do not. Whether I can read God's handwriting or not does not affect what he's going to do. His purposes will stand. Daniel's prophecy was not written to confuse us, but to allow us to see that God knows the end from the beginning. He has a wonderful plan for his people, and if you can't decipher God's scribbling, know that his scribbling brings good things to you. But all in his time and according to his countdown. The clock is still ticking. Tough things are coming. But rest assured, my friend, the best, the ultimate best, the indescribable best, whatever your circumstances, is yet to be.