Seventy "Sevens"

Brethren, the book of Daniel contains a significant number of prophecies that are relating to impending events in the times immediately following the fall of Jerusalem, obviously the subsequent diaspora of the Jewish people to the land of Babylon, as well as the coming of Messiah, the prophetic events of the time of the end, and it is, as you well know reading through Daniel, it is a very full book. There is a lot there. And it can be a challenge sometimes to go through because you're wanting to stop and you're wanting to like chase the threads, you know? You read through it, you're like, oh, that sounds so interesting! What was it? Suddenly you're off in this little rabbit hole and you haven't, you know, gotten past the first chapter. So, you know, you see just these incredible things that take place in this particular book, and what we see in Daniel is we see a number of fulfilled prophecies, we see partially fulfilled prophecies, we see prophecies that are still yet to take place. And one of the prophecies that's in this particular book is fascinating because it fits all three of those categories. It is prophecy that has been fulfilled, it's prophecy that's been partially fulfilled, and it's prophecy that is still yet to be fulfilled as the word I'm trying to look at and try to say prophecy and fulfilled at the same time.

It's in Daniel 9. Let's go ahead and we'll turn over there. Daniel 9. And we're going to look at verses 20 to 27 today. Daniel 9 verses 20 to 27 as we examine and we take a look at the 70 weeks prophecy. Daniel 9, and we'll pick it up in 20 through 27. You know, as we take a look at this split sermon today and as we dig into this particular topic, we're going to put a bookmark here in Daniel 9. We're going to stay here for most of it, but we are going to bounce a little bit to and from various places to be able to kind of fill in some of those threads and chase some of those threads. But the goal here when we're finished today is that we all have a much better understanding of the 70 weeks prophecy, primarily because it is through this type of fulfilled prophecy that we can look at what God has provided us and conclude that the promises that God has given us are faithful and they are true. That they absolutely will be fulfilled because we have record and we have example of it. Time and time again in Scripture, we have example of it. Daniel 9 and verse 20, we'll go ahead and start today. Daniel 9 and verse 20 will begin again here with this 70 weeks prophecy, and we kind of jump into the midst of the context of Daniel 9. Daniel 9, you know, Daniel has... this is the first year of Darius, the son of Ahusurus, as you see in Daniel 9 verse 1 of the lineage of the Medes, who was just recently appointed as king over the Chaldeans after the Persians conquered Babylon. And in the first year of his reign, Daniel is beginning to go through this process and understand that there has been 70 years that have been appointed to his people and the desolation of his people as a result of their sins.

And that was through the books of Jeremiah, through the writings of Jeremiah, that Daniel understood these things. And so he's praying, he's providing supplication to God. Picking it up in verse 20, he says, now while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people, Israel, presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God. Speaking of Jerusalem, he's providing supplication and prayer on behalf of his people and on behalf of his home, his homeland, his city. He says, yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, in this case the archangel Gabriel, whom I'd seen in the vision at the beginning being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering. And he informed me and talked with me and he said, oh Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand. At the beginning of your supplications, the command went out, and I've come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved. Therefore, consider the matter and understand the vision. Can you imagine that?

You're told by Gabriel that, you know, you're so beloved that as soon as you began your prayer, God was like, Gabriel, go! Get in there, give him what he needs, help him understand this, because this is important. This prophecy is important. Now, obviously, we look at it with the blessing of hindsight, but at the time Daniel didn't have that blessing of hindsight. He had what Gabriel provided to him. He had what God provided to him. And one of the things you'll see is this particular prophecy actually helped to set the timing to the coming of Jesus Christ. Why did Herod know that a baby was going to be born around a certain specific time? It's right here. It's because of the timing of this prophecy that said, Messiah is coming, and he's going to be coming around this time. That's what the beauty of these prophecies are able to do. So Daniel, what do we know about Daniel? Daniel was a young man in Babylon at the time when Jerusalem fell. In fact, Daniel was from a noble family. Some have actually theorized that he was part of the lineage of David. We can't prove it, but there is a Daniel that's mentioned in David's lineage. It may be around the right time frame.

Can't prove it 100%, but some have theorized that he is from the line of David. Daniel was taken captive. We do know during the first wave of captivity that was taken during the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah. So the young men that were chosen at this time, King Jehoiakim, continued to be on the throne for a time before eventually he was seceded by his son, Jekoniah. But the men that were chosen for this, the young men that were chosen for this to go to Babylon, were young men that had no blemishes. They were good-looking. They were gifted in wisdom. Individuals who would have the ability to learn and serve in the palace of the king. So it gives us a little bit of who Daniel is. Right? Fair-looking guy, you know? Decent-looking guy. Capable, smart, wise, able to apply knowledge, all these things. And what the Babylonians often did, this was actually not uncommon for the Babylonians. They would frequently take the young men of the people that they conquered and inculcate them in the ways of Babylon. Essentially taking them and making them Babylonian, teaching them languages, culture, laws. And then often they would have those individuals that showed significant aptitude for it rule over certain areas in that kind of general space so that there wasn't an immediate rebellion because, oh hey, this is one of us. You know, yeah, he speaks like a Babylonian and he looks like a Babylonian, but he's one of us! Right? That was their way of trying to at least mitigate some of those things as they moved people around in the Diaspora. What we do know is that David, his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were all taken during this first wave of captivity.

And all three of Daniel's friends, as well as Daniel, when they got to Babylon, they were blessed by God with favor. They were blessed by God with goodwill. Ultimately, they were provided positions of authority in Babylon. They rose to as high as satraps, essentially, which are like regional governors. In fact, Daniel, it seems to imply, was actually kind of a regional governor of regional governors just below the king. And so Daniel rose quite high, actually, in the Babylonian government.

We see that as his story develops, that he's upright, he's just, he's capable. We see that he stood up to the culture, he stood up to those things, he refused to yield to the idolatry of the people of Babylon. But by this point in Daniel's story, there were a couple of other things that had taken place.

There are two more waves of captivity by the time we get to this point. And his land of Jerusalem, his homeland, and his temple, the precious city of Jerusalem, had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's forces in 586 BC. Daniel was in Babylon when this happened. He was not home when this took place.

By the time we get to Daniel 9, we're actually several decades into his captivity. In fact, you know, you can see some of the timing, and there's little hints and clues provided in the book of Daniel to help give us some ideas. He was taken captive in the third year of King Jehoiakim's reign.

That was around 605 BC. 604-605 BC. And so by the time we get to now King Darius or Darius as the ruler of Babylon who'd been appointed by King Cyrus, thankfully the Babylonians and the Persians kept pretty good records of when these things happened. So we know that that conquest took place around 538 BC. So that conquest in the first year of Darius's reign took place around 538 BC.

I'll save you the calculator. That's roughly 70 years that Daniel has been in Babylon. 66-67 years right in there. And it had been at that point, by the time we get to Daniel 9, it had been 50 years since the temple had been destroyed. Okay, so this is where we are in Daniel's journey. This is where we are in Daniel's life and where he is with things. As we mentioned before, he knew from Jeremiah's writings. In fact, if you'd like to jot this down, you can. Jeremiah 25 verse 12 and Jeremiah 29 verse 10. Both of those passages indicate that God had ordained 70 years for the desolation of Jerusalem. That there would be desolations of Jerusalem for a 70-year period.

And so Daniel knew that. Now Daniel is getting to about 67 years now, and maybe he's beginning to wonder if it's getting close to the time. Like where the start of that happened, whether it was the first captivity? Is it the destruction of Jerusalem? Is it the waves of those that are being taken captive? Daniel might be wondering if we're getting close, perhaps, to the fulfillment of these 70 years as he's making supplication for Jerusalem, and we get this message from Gabriel that came. We'll pick it up in verse 24 of Daniel 9. Daniel 9 verse 24, Gabriel tells Daniel, 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. So Daniel 9 verse 24 says 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city. Gabriel tells Daniel, consider the matter, understand the vision that Gabriel was about to fully reveal, that there would be 70 weeks, or as the official Hebrew word for it is, is 77. 77 day periods, aka a week, right? 77s.

That's the title of the message today, is 77s. For his people and for the city of Jerusalem, there would be 77 day periods. Not 77, but 70 comma seven day periods. And when we think about this in the terms of prophecy, when we think about this in the terms in the way that God operates, one of the things to consider is that God utilizes and has utilized frequently a concept in prophecy known as a day for a year. That a day for a year as a principle in prophetic interpretation. And God uses this fairly regularly. Numbers 14, for example, you can jot it down, but Numbers 14, the Israelites spent one year in the wilderness for every day that the spies spied out the land.

They went and they spied out the land for 40 days. They came back, they chickened out, and God said, you know what? You're going to spend one year for every day you spent spying out the land in the wilderness as a result of your inability to trust me as your God. Ezekiel 4 verse 6, we see Ezekiel was instructed to lay on his right side for 40 days, one day for every year of Israel's iniquity.

And so God uses this frequently. It's in the only places, but this is a couple of locations where this is used. So 77s, once again, Sperry the Math, comes out to 490 years. If we use the day for a year principle in the 77, you know, seven period. One of the other things that we can see, too, from Scripture is that a prophetic year, quote-unquote, is commonly understood to be 360 days.

We get this out of Revelation, and Revelation at 12...1260 days is considered to be time, times, and half a time. Time being one year, times being two years, three years, half a time being six months, half of a year. And so when we think about prophetic years, and we talk about the way that this is set up, and we have 490 prophetic years, what we're saying is we're talking about years in a sense of 360 days in a year. Okay? So during this time period, as we look at this 490 years that is in place for this 70 weeks, we see there's six specific things that have to be completed in this time frame. That there are six specific things that God lays out here that will be completed in this time. And we'll just address the first three first, and then we'll address the second three quickly after that. The first thing that must be addressed in that 490 years, the first thing, is to finish the transgression. Secondly, to make an end of sins, and thirdly, to make reconciliation for iniquity. You know, these first three things, all of them deal with sin and the consequences of sin. Why do we need reconciliation? Because we've sinned, and it puts us apart from God. We require reconciliation to be able to come near to Him in that process. Transgression, in verse 24, the word that's there is the word Pesha, and it's translated as rebellion or revolt. It's translated as rebellion or revolt. So the events of this time period, at least the things that would come by the time of the end of this time period, would ultimately end the rebellion and the revolt of man against God. That the rebellion and revolt against God would stop during the process of this 490 year period. It would also, as it talks about, bring an end to sin, an end to the lack of morality that takes place in the world. That reconciliation would be made available as a result of the events that take place during this period of time. Now we recognize, you know, reconciliation for those that God has called at this time is available. You know, we have the ability to be reconciled to God now through the blood of Jesus Christ. But on the whole, mankind, as mankind on the whole, much of that will largely take place after the return of Jesus Christ.

Even though the groundwork for that process took place now. Christ's sacrifice, his blood being poured out on our behalf, those things have enabled God to be able to reconcile us to him today.

But one of the things that we'll see as we move through these next three things, I want you to keep this in mind, all of these things, all six, have Jesus Christ at their core. All six of these things cannot, cannot be made possible through any other being. They cannot be made possible.

There's no other being capable. Satan is not capable of doing these things. Man is not capable of doing these things. It is only through God. It is only through Christ as his Lamb that these things can be done. Through the life and death of Jesus Christ, these six things can take place.

The fourth thing that it mentions is that it is to bring in everlasting righteousness.

To bring in everlasting righteousness. To seal up vision and prophecy. And to anoint the most holy.

Depending on your translation, you might notice that in that final one, some translations include the word place. So depending on which, where your text is being pulled from in your translation, it may say to anoint the most holy place. That's actually not in the original Hebrew. It just says to anoint the most holy. And there's debate. People argue over what this actually means, whether it's referring to the millennial temple that's described in Ezekiel or some have argued that it pertains to Christ himself. Regardless, all six of these events, all of these things are messianic in their origins.

They come through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. They come through what Jesus Christ did on our behalf, and ultimately the coming kingdom of God that will enable these things to take place.

One of the things with vision and prophecy being sealed up, once Christ is on the throne, vision and prophecy is no longer needed. Many of those things were intended to point people to Jesus Christ. That was the purpose of prophecy in many ways, to prove God's existence and to point people to Jesus Christ. When Christ is on the throne, those things aren't necessary. They can be sealed up. They can be completed, as well as anointing the Most Holy Place. Let's go ahead and put a bookmark here in Daniel 9 and turn over to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53, a few books back here, just before Jeremiah. Isaiah 53, and we'll see another of these passages, another of these prophecies that is messianic in its scope. You know, another of these prophecies that is specifically focused on Jesus Christ, just as really Daniel 9 is overall. Isaiah 53 verses 4 through 6, again looking at how it is Jesus Christ that enables these things to take place. Isaiah 53 and verse 4 says, surely He has borne our griefs. He has carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken.

He was smitten by God and afflicted. Verse 5, but He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him. By His stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to His own way.

In the end of verse 6, the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

You know, we talk about bringing an end to sin. When we talk about reconciliation for iniquity, when we talk about bringing about everlasting righteousness, these things are only possible through Jesus Christ. They are only possible through Him as our sacrificial Lamb, as our Passover. So when we consider Daniel 9 and when we look at this and as we go through this, let's view it and make sure we view it with that lens. That we are looking at it as to how does this describe Christ? How does this help us to understand Christ in this process? And I'll get to why that's important in a moment. Let's go ahead. We'll dig into the next passage here.

Daniel 9 verse 25. You want to turn back? Hopefully you kept a bookmark there. Daniel 9 verse 25.

So as we start to now dig into the specifics of this individual prophecy, remember there's 490 years total, but what we're going to see is that these 490 years are broken down into some periods of time. Okay? Verse 25. Know therefore and understand, Gabriel tells Daniel, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem. So someone at some point in time in history said, go and rebuild Jerusalem. Go rebuild the temple. Go rebuild the wall. Go rebuild the city. Go and encourage the wall, as Mr. Miller brought out in his sermonette with that little sledgehammer. Give it a little encouragement. But go and rebuild the city. From the time when that decree went forth, or that command went forth, until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks, or seven sevens. Quick math people. How many years is that? Math tables. 49, right? 49. 7 and 7. 49.

And then the next one is, and 62 weeks, it says. Seven weeks, and then 62 weeks, which is 434, right?

The street will be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. Even in troublesome times.

And we know those times were troublesome. When we go through and we look at Ezra and Nehemiah, you know, Mr. Miller brought it out in his sermonette today. They worked on that wall with a sword strapped to their waist, and there was a reason why, because they were under attack as they were trying to build that wall, and as they were trying to protect that wall.

So there were numerous commands, actually, that went out. So the hard part now is we got a pinpoint which one of these decrees we base this off of, because the beauty, guys, of this prophecy is that God gives us a starting point. He gives us a starting point. We just have to find it.

Okay? There were four decrees, total decrees that went out that dealt with the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the temple, etc., etc. I'm going to give them to you real quick. Jot them down if you'd like. We're not going to spend a ton of time on this. The first one was done by Cyrus, the king of Persia, in 538 BC, which was the year immediately following the conquest of Babylon, in which he basically said, you know what? You guys could go home and build your temple if you want. That's probably not exactly how he said it, but essentially that was the moral of the story.

They were much more obliging to the Jewish people than the Babylonians were. Okay? So the Medo-Persians come in. Cyrus says, you know what? You can go rebuild the temple in 538 BC. There's two scriptures for this. 2 Chronicles 36, 22 and 23, as well as Ezra 1, 1 through 4. And you can see that decree that is given. This is in 538 BC, when Cyrus does this. Darius, who is the king over Babylon at that time under the Persians. So Cyrus is the big king. Darius is the guy who's appointed to be the king over the region of Babylon. Darius issues a decree in 520 BC that basically says, hey, the king said go rebuild this and you haven't done it. Why haven't you done it? 520 BC, go do it. And so there was a governor at that time. This is in Ezra 6. Again, if you'd like to jot it down, you can. We won't turn there. Ezra 6, verse 1 and 6 through 12, talk about this decree.

This is in 520 BC. Now what's amazing is we have a little bit of a record here. There was a governor in that area known as Tatani who said, yes sir! And he went and put a bunch of people together and followed that decree and four years later that temple was rebuilt. It was done. They'd done some work on it, so it's not like he started from the ground up, but he went in and really organized things and got it rebuilt. And in 516 to 515 BC, the temple was finished. Okay, now why is that important? Because it was destroyed in 586 and it was rebuilt in 516. How many years is that?

It's 70. It's 70 years. The 70 years of desolation that Jeremiah recorded for the people of Israel was obliged from 586 to 516 BC. So that's the 70 year period that God dictated to them would be the case. Artaxerxes, third one, decreed to rebuild the city of Jerusalem in 457 BC. This is in Ezra 7. So Ezra 7, if you want to jot it down, you can. 457 BC Artaxerxes said, you know what? Now that they've got a temple, how about you finish the city? Let's get the walls built. Let's get the city built. Let's do all those things. That didn't take place, at least not right away.

And so we get to Nehemiah 2 verses 1 through 8, which is when Nehemiah goes before the king, and he is sad in his presence. He'd never been sad in his presence before. Why are you sad, Nehemiah?

Because my city is in ruins and the people do not do what they're supposed to do. And he said, why don't you do it? And so Nehemiah did. That took place, that decree, in 444 BC. Okay, 444 BC.

So four different decrees. The question is, which one is it? Which one starts the timing? Which one gives us the necessary timing that we need? Well, the beauty of it is there's only one of these decrees that actually ends on any bit of a remote timing with regards to Messiah. Only one. In fact, if you take a look at the first two, the first two options, by the time you add the 490 years, you know, into those, or the 483 years, sorry, into those dates, plus the year that you account for the loss of the transition from BC to AD, the first two options, they only give you dates that end 30 years before Christ was born. So both of the first two, nope, they don't get us to Messiah.

Not even close. The fourth one, the decree of Artaxerxes in 444 BC, if you add the time in, it gives you 10 years after Christ has died. Also not helpful. But the third decree, the one from Artaxerxes in 457 BC, when you run the numbers, ends in a date of 27 AD. What's the significance of 27 AD? That is the year that Jesus Christ was baptized and his public ministry began.

That 483 years led to Messiah. Just to Messiah the Prince, just as it says right here in Daniel 9, verse 25. Not only that, verse 25 says it would be a period of seven sevens, or roughly 49 years, from the issuing of the decree to the completion of the streets, or open squares, and the wall, or moat. I don't honestly know if Jerusalem had a moat in the traditional sense, but the ramparts, the protections, whatever you might say. What we do know about Nehemiah is he went in there within 52 days of that decree, and they had walls up. He took care of the walls right away. Reason being, because they were under attack. They needed to be protected. You can't build the rest of the city if you're constantly repelling enemies. So the walls were up, they were protected, and then the real work could begin. Getting the houses back, getting the streets built, getting everything in place, building the open squares. From what we see in verse 25, that took 49 years, bringing us to 408 BC.

So 408 BC, Jerusalem was complete in the sense of complete, as the decree said. We go 62 sevens, or 434 years past that. In addition to the year for the transition from BC to AD, that gives us 27 AD. 27 AD being, again, the year that Christ was baptized and his public ministry began.

Verse 26, after the 62 weeks, Messiah shall be cut off. I should probably, before I go further, we have seven weeks and 62 weeks. That doesn't add up to 70. There's a week in here that hasn't been accounted for yet. We're going to get now to what that week is going on with. Verse 26, after the 62 weeks, so we're at 69 weeks at this point, after the 62 weeks, Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with the flood until the end of the war desolations are determined. So Gabriel reveals to Daniel that the Messiah would be cut off. And what's interesting about that is, when you get to the New Testament, everybody and their dog thought that the Messiah was going to be the one to beat the Romans, and this was going to be it, and this was this. They looked at this and realized that he was going to be cut off midweek, and really understood what that meant. They would have known that was not the case. But, you know, sometimes it's hard to see these things when they're off in the distance. It's easier with the benefit of hindsight.

So after the 62 sevens, after 483 years from the decree, it says Messiah would be cut off, but he would not be cut off for himself. He would instead, as we saw earlier in Isaiah 53, he would be cut off for us. He would be cut off to free us from our sins and to forgive us from our iniquity. Not for himself, but for us. He would be cut off, as we see in Isaiah 53, as that, you know, passage continues. Then it says the people of the prince, and it says, lowercase here, it's not, you know, you refer to their actions here, and look, the people of the prince who is to come, they shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it will be with the flood, and until the end of the war, desolations are determined. That's not the followers of Christ.

You know, that is not God's people destroying the city and ruining and destroying the sanctuary.

So this is referencing something else. We'll look at that here in just a second.

These who would come at this time would destroy the city, says the end of it would be with the flood, and until the end of that war, desolations and ruins, things that would make it uninhabitable, were determined. Now we get to verse 27, and I'm going to tell you right up front, verse 27 is where the controversy and the differing of opinions enter into this particular prophecy.

You know, one of the incredible things about prophecy is we can look at it in hindsight, and we can, you know, like for example, the the image in Daniel 2, right? We can go head of gold, chest of silver, legs of bronze, you know, or a torso of bronze, legs of iron, but then we get to the clay, the toes of clay and iron, and we have to go, well, we think it's this, because we haven't had a chance with the benefit of hindsight to say it's definitely that, right? That's kind of where we are in this. By verse 27, we're reaching a point where some of it has been fulfilled, but the rest of it is not yet, and so we have some differing of opinions and different of interpretations that kind of enter the prophecy. So we do the best we can with what we have. We hopefully are willing to acknowledge we're not 100% certain on exactly what will take place, but we try to make the best decision that we can, based on a preponderance of evidence, for one interpretation over another.

Verse 27 reads, he shall affirm, or confirm, sorry, a covenant with many for one week.

So one period of seven, seven years, right? He will confirm a covenant with many for one week, seven years, but in the middle of the week, three and a half years into the middle of that week, that's middle of seven, he shall bring an end of sacrifice or end to sacrifice and offering, and on the wing of abomination shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate. So we see that this particular scenario, we see that there is a covenant that is going to be confirmed. The word confirmed in Hebrew is ikbir, which means to make superior, to increase, to prevail, or to make strong. So the covenant is being confirmed as a covenant that is being strengthened and prevailed, made superior, we might say, and the word here for covenant in Hebrew is ikbirith. There's five times that Daniel uses this word in the book of Daniel, and in every circumstance he is always describing something that God initiated with man. Not once does Daniel describe a covenant being between man and man, using this word. Now, we don't have him describe that, so we don't know if he would have used that necessarily, but it's I think it's foretelling that this is something that Daniel references as a covenantal agreement between what appears to be God and many. Now, the question we have to ask ourselves is, did Jesus Christ come to strengthen, to prevail, or to make superior the old covenant?

Let's put a bookmark here. We'll go to Hebrews 8. Turn over to Hebrews 8.

What is it that Jesus Christ came to this earth to do? What would he do, and what did he do, in his ministry, while he was here? Hebrews talks a bit about that, speaking specifically to a Jewish audience, helping them to understand how these things that were done for so many years pointed forward to Christ. Hebrews 8, and we'll pick it up in verse 1. Sorry, I think I said 11.

My apologies. Hebrews 8 verse 1 says, now this is the main point of the things we're saying. He says, we have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary of the true tabernacle, which the Lord erected, and not man, for every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore, it is necessary that this one also have something to offer. For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve the copy and the shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For he said, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain. But now, verse 6, he has obtained a more excellent ministry. In fact, the word excellent there actually can be translated superior in the Greek. A more excellent ministry, in as much as he is also mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. Jesus Christ, when he came to this earth as part of his public ministry, was designed to reconcile man to God, to teach them about God, to teach them who he was, to teach him the mind behind the law that they'd been keeping for their lifetimes. Understand why they were doing these things. And we talked about that last week, how when Christ came, he expanded the spirit of the law from the letter to the spirit of the law, so they would understand why the law was in place, what it was in the mind behind it.

Jesus Christ made a strong covenant, a confirmed covenant, a new covenant by the means of his spirit dwelling in man at the point of baptism. This passage also tells us that he confirmed that covenant with many for one week. One week. One seven. One seven year period. So this is where the varying interpretations begin to creep in. I want to be totally transparent with you guys.

I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers here. I'm going to tell you what the different options are, and I'm going to tell you what the evidence seems to show. One camp holds that the he that is referred that is being referred to here, because you notice in verse 27, if you go back to to Daniel 9, Daniel 9 verse 27, you'll notice that it just says he. There's no reference to exactly who that he is. It's referencing back to a fancy grammatical term in verse 26 known as an antecedent.

So the idea being that it's referencing back to one of four possibilities in verse 26. Either Messiah, the people of the prince, the desolator, the one who desolates, ultimately, or... who's the other one? I just missed it. My apologies. Ah! Where are you? Oh, or the prince itself. There's the people, the prince, the Messiah, or the other. And so when we take a look at what that antecedent could possibly be, or the pronoun could be referring to, we have to ask ourselves a couple of things. One camp holds that the he that is in this passage in verse 27 is referring to the prince lowercase. Okay, referring to this individual with the people that destroyed the city. And the interpretation then is that this prince will make an agreement with many. He'll make an agreement with many at this time, with those in the world. And that maybe that agreement looks like seven years of peace is what I've seen some suggest. Seven years of peace, and ultimately maybe will allow you to start making sacrifices on the Temple Mount again during that time of peace. But then the camp that believes this holds, halfway through that, that's cut off. There's a desolation that takes place, and the three and a half years of the tribulation then begins. Okay, so that is one camp, that is one thought on that particular thing. There are some problems with that viewpoint.

The challenges to that is the word covenant in Daniel, as has been used again, refers to agreement between God and man primarily. So we talk about he will make a covenant. It's talking about an agreement between God and man, not an agreement between man and man per se. But not only that, and this is where it gets really ugly, and I'm sorry because grammar's the worst. I'm going to just tell you right now, says the guy who loves grammar, BJ's cackling over there, grammar is the worst. Okay, can we just all agree on that? But here's the thing. The pronoun he in verse 27 is singular. It is referring to something that is singular. The issue with that is that if it were referring to quote-unquote the prince, so to speak, that is referenced in verse 26, notice how that's written in verse 26. It actually says, and the people of the prince who is to come. That's plural.

That's people. So the proper pronoun there would be they, right? Instead of he, because it's plural.

So the he has to be referring to a singular antecedent somewhere in verse 26. Okay, and so we look at the possibilities there at what may be the setup. Otherwise, the only way that it would work is if it were written in verse 26 as the prince of the people, not the people of the prince.

People of the prince is referring to the subject of the people. Prince of the people is referring to the prince. Like I said, grammar's the worst. But moral of the story, singular pronoun refers to a singular individual or antecedent in verse 26. The he that is singular in Hebrew is referencing the one singular person that is referenced in there, which is Messiah. Again, remember Daniel 9 is about Messiah. It's about all the things that Messiah will do. It's about all the things that Jesus Christ would do when he came to this earth. All the things that he would achieve over this 490 year period. So once again, the he here refers to Messiah. Now, the other camp, which is the other side of that, which this is United's, you know, teaching that that refers to Messiah, and that it references Jesus Christ. What we know about Christ is that he spoke to Jews, he spoke to Gentiles, he spoke to fishermen, he spoke to regular people, you know, he spoke to the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes. He talked to members of the Sanhedrin, and he taught all of these things about the coming kingdom of God, and the opportunity, and the calling of God, and how God was working with them, and all they had to do was be baptized, and you know, repent and be baptized and believe.

Okay, all of these aspects here help us understand how he made covenant with many for a week's time.

For seven years, right? One week, seven years. But it also says that he was cut off in the middle of the week, or that he would be cut off in the middle of the week, and in that process he would bring an end to sacrifice and offering. Jesus Christ was killed on the literal middle of a week.

If you look at 31 AD and you look at the timing of when he was crucified, he was crucified on a Wednesday, his body was taken down before sundown that night. That is a literal middle of the week.

A literal middle of a seven-day week. But not only that, with his ministry beginning in 27 AD, with him being baptized in his public ministry, that public ministry, by the time we get to the spring of 31 AD, has taken place for three and a half years. He was cut off in the middle of a seven-year period, smack dab in the middle of it, and killed. And his death brought an end to the need for offering and for sacrifice. It was no longer necessary. People did it, and the Jews continued to sacrifice for a number of years, and you know, will continue to do so at some point in time. But it was no longer necessary, in the sense that Christ... in fact, you turn over there. Hebrews 9. Let's go to Hebrews 9. Leave a bookmark here. We'll come back. Hebrews 9...

There it is. So we think about, again, 27 AD while you're turning. We got 27 to 28 AD, one year. 28 to 29 AD, two years. 29 to 30 AD, three years. And then six months to get to the spring of 31 AD when he was killed. So three and a half years, right? Half of that seven, that that one-year period for the confirmation of that covenant. Again, cutting off... being cut off in the middle of that week gives us and brings an end to the need for animal sacrifice and what was necessary to cover sin. Hebrews 9 verse 11 through 12 talks about this. Hebrews 9 verse 11 says, Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. One might say that he anointed the holy place. Now that could be done again, you know, that could be something that takes place after it's been defiled as well, but ultimately what we see is that half of that last week has been covered. But what that means is there's three and a half years that are not currently accounted for. That there are three and a half years remaining in this prophecy that are yet to come. And so we need to consider that as we think about things. Now this is where the benefit of hindsight goes away because we're looking forward in time. We don't have hindsight. Now we're looking through, as Paul puts it, a glass darkly. You know, we do the best we can with what we have. We look forward to three and a half years here of confirming that covenant that is yet to be fulfilled. That's 1260 days. 1260 days. Which means, again, you've got three and a half years of Christ confirming this covenant with many. Some have theorized that this time frame in this three and a half years might take place during the first three and a half years of his reign in the millennium. That once he's returned, once that millennium is established, once you know that that temple is in place, then we have the three and a half years that he continues to bring that covenant to many. Others have theorized that the second three and a half years corresponds to the times, times, and a half a time of the great tribulation, including that time of the year of the Lord, that is triggered and brought about by the abomination of desolation being placed in some way, shape, or form upon some form of an altar or a temple or some holy place in the Holy Land.

We have to understand that a little bit. The first abomination of desolation was done by Antiochus Epiphanes, and that was in 168 BC. Antiochus Epiphanes was a Greek. He was one of the the Diodorus, how's that work? One of the four generals. We'll just leave it at that. One of Alexander's four generals, and the word's escaping me at the moment. But in 168 BC, he went into the holy place and he set up a statue of Jupiter, and then as the story goes, he sacrificed a pig on the altar. Well, that would definitely desecrate the holy place, for sure. But you know, we look at the reference here, and we see kind of Christ as he references back to this abomination of desolation from Matthew 24. Christ didn't return in 165 or 164 BC. Three and a half years later, we don't see the fulfillment of this. In fact, verse 27 actually seems to indicate, verse 27 of Daniel 9, seems to indicate that, you know, between the cutting off of Messiah in the midst of the week and then the coming of Messiah, that there would be abominations, plural, that would ultimately make desolate. Abominations that would make uninhabitable are desolate. In part, we know this was fulfilled in 70 AD. 70 AD, we had the sacking of Jerusalem and ultimately the burning of the temple in the city. The people of the prince who is to come, which interestingly, some of the early church actually theorized that this anti-Christ type character was actually Nero. You know, and some of the things that Nero had done. In fact, his name is almost synonymous with it as you go back into the histories. But the Roman forces, which were not under Nero by this point, because Nero was dead by 70 AD. In fact, there were four other emperors that died the year right before 70 AD, trying to take control. But he had a response to the Jewish rebellion in the mid-60s, which is what kind of set the tone for how they would respond to these things in the future. And the way that it was responded to and the things that happened, the Roman forces rolled over Jerusalem like a flood.

They rolled over Jerusalem like a flood. They burned the city. They burned the temple. They massacred the people. There's art that people have done of this, as based on the descriptions.

And it's just insane. I mean, the sheer volume of people into Jerusalem is incredible. But we know, too, that Christ didn't return in 73 AD or 74 AD either. So this was not the desolation that's being referred to in Matthew 24. What we do know is there is a coming desolation that will take place.

Exactly how it will take place is uncertain. We can speculate, but Matthew 24 tells us that specific event is the sign that we should watch for and that we should pay attention to. I mean, we should pay attention to many things, but that's definitely the one that says, hey, it's on. This is the beginning of the timeline. Whatever that is, it will take the form of a desecration of a holy place of God, either by idol, by violence, by destruction, but that takes the place of the signal of beginning that three and a half years of the great tribulation and ultimately the day of the Lord. The tail end of verse 27, if you go back to Daniel 9 here, as we start to kind of come to a conclusion here, Daniel 9 verse 27 seems to indicate that until the consummation of this, until the completion of these things, until the completion of this destruction has been poured out on the ruins or the uninhabited places, that there would be desolations. There would be continuing things that would take place, abominations that would take place. But there's one other piece of additional evidence towards this being a possibility of an interpretation as this being that three and a half year period. Go over to Revelation 11.

Revelation 11. Sorry, I told you to go back to Daniel 9 and then I decided to take a different direction here. Revelation 11. And we'll pick it up in verse 1.

Revelation 11, we have the two witnesses that come on the scene. We have the two witnesses of God that are now in and around the Holy Land. Whether they're further beyond that or not is hard to know for certain. What we do know is that they're in place for exactly 42 months and ultimately prophesied during that time. Revelation 11 in verse 1 says, Then I was given a read like a measuring rod, and the angel stood, saying, Rise and measure the temple of God the altar, and those who worship there. Leave out the court, which is outside the temple, do not measure it. For it's been given to the Gentiles. And the Gentiles, it says, will tread the holy city underfoot for 42 months. So for three and a half years the Gentiles will tread Jerusalem underfoot. Now picture in your moment, think you're, you know, John being provided these visions. Would that look a little like a flood? I think it probably would. A flood of people that are, you know, have the city underfoot in that sense. It says, I will give power to my two witnesses.

They will prophesy 1,260 days, three and a half prophetic years, clothed in sackcloth. It goes on and talks about how they're the two olive trees, the two lampstands that stand before the god of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies.

If anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed, it says, in this manner. You can imagine this is going to be something that gets the world's attention. You know, the first few times the people that come after them get burnt alive. It's going to be all over CNN. There is no way there is not a camera crew with a mic in somebody's face. Did you see how this person was burnt alive?

What did you see? There's no way that doesn't happen, unless of course the networks and stuff are all destroyed by that point in time. You know, we don't know for sure, I guess, on that. But what we see in this section is we see that there is this three and a half year period that is described in which there is a prophetic work being done. There are individuals preaching the gospel.

There are individuals going out and teaching about God. There are individuals in the power of Moses and Elijah out there doing these things. In fact, Scripture actually seems to indicate that there would be individuals that would come to God through the work that these guys are doing.

Let's go to Revelation 7. Revelation 7, just a couple passages over here, it talks of those who are sealed, it talks of those who, you know, the 12,000 from each tribe, and then John kind of proceeds talking about that vision and kind of mentions something else that he kind of noticed. Revelation 7 verse 9, John says, after seeing all these 144,000, he says, after these things I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number of all nations tribes peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed with white robes with palm branches in their hand crying out with a loud voice saying salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb all the angels verse 11 stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures who fell in their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying amen blessing and glory and wisdom thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever amen okay and then an elder one of the elders here talks to John and he says who are these arrayed in white robes and where did they come from John kind of goes oh you know no that's maybe not how he says it but he says you tell me kind of says sir you know the answer to this so he said to me these are the ones who come out of the great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple he who sits on the throne will dwell among them we take a look at these individuals these are folks that came to God through the great tribulation that could well be individuals who were called prior who were not a part of the place of safety and continued through but this is also individuals from every tribe every nation every tongue every land that through the work that is being done hopefully by the church at that point in time in addition to the two witnesses hopefully we're all working hard during this period they are coming to God they are understanding God they are committing themselves to God in that new covenant these are individuals that came out of the great tribulation washed their robes made them white in the blood of the lamb they have come into the new covenant of God these individuals have come to that covenant and they are an innumerable multitude it says this isn't like five people john's like i can't count them there's so many i can't count them from all nations all tribes all peoples all tongues so when we take a look at this prophecy when we kind of look back over the the 490 year period that takes place there are a lot of interpretations there's several things that we can speculate on you know however we consider that they're fulfilled what we know for certain is that there are three and a half years to go still in this prophecy that there are three and a half years that will go we see the vast majority of it has been fulfilled and not only has it been fulfilled has been fulfilled exactly as god said it would be exactly to the timelines that he said it would be we see 77s 70 weeks were determined 490 prophetic years from the decree of arteserxes in 7 or 457 bc seven weeks 49 years later jerusalem was finished 62 weeks from that 434 years after that period we come to messiah the prince christ we see was baptized and he began his ministry in 27 ad we see that jesus christ was cut off in the middle of the final week literally in the middle of the week but also three and a half years into his ministry in the spring of 31 ad which leaves us three and a half additional years to confirm the covenant with many to come and to be honest brethren whether that takes place in the middle of the final week or in the three and a half years of the great tribulation or whether it takes place at the first three and a half years after the millennial reign begins honestly that's to some degree kind of inconsequential what we know for a fact is it's going to happen the timing of it is not as important we know it's going to happen we know that he will confirm that covenant with many and that that work and that aspect of things that he's doing will continue you know one of the beautiful aspects of prophecy one of the things that is so incredible about prophecy is that it proves to us that god is real it proves to us that god is working behind the scenes that he is declaring these things from the beginning you know he declared that jesus christ would come on the scene in 27 ad back in 450 or 438 bc 538 bc sorry back in 538 bc several hundred years before the act took place it was declared and it came true in the way that it did so one of the things we can take from prophecy is a knowledge that when god says something is going to happen it's going to happen and it's going to happen in his timing and how he says it's going to take place what we see is this prophecy when the 490 years of this are finished six things will be completed the transgression will be finished there will be an end of sins reconciliation will be made for the iniquity everlasting righteousness will be brought in vision and prophecy will be sealed up and the most holy will be anointed possibly the most holy place we're not 100 sure from the language the book of daniel is full of a number of prophecies which have been completed others which are in the process of completion and some that have not yet been completed but what we can know is certainty based on god's track record from all the prior times is that those things will be fulfilled the who the how the when that may be up for debate and discussion but the certainty of their fulfillment is most certainly not god will fulfill the prophecies that is provided just as he is done with the 70 weeks prophecy