The Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ Part 2
This 490-year period of Daniel 9:24 will yield six results: it will (1) “finish the transgression,” (2) “put an end to sin,” (3) “atone for iniquity,” (4) “bring in everlasting righteousness,” (5) “seal both vision and prophecy,” and (6) “anoint the most holy place”
The first three effects focus on defeating sin in Israel. The final three focus on positive developments regarding the kingdom—the bringing in of righteousness with Messiah’s kingdom, fulfillment of all prophecies in Scripture, and anointing the temple in Jerusalem.
Here is Daniel saying 69 weeks will pass and after that, Messiah will be executed as a criminal. That’s what he says. There’s no other way to interpret it. How could anybody miss the fact that 69 weeks to the very day, Jesus rode into Jerusalemas the Messiah the Prince and after that, He was executed as a common criminal? Just exactly what Daniel said would happen.
So after the threescore and two weeks and seven, or 69, 483 years, Messiah will be cut off, that is executed like a common criminal, and then, watch this, the people of the prince that shall come. Now listen to this. When the final Antichrist comes, with what people will he be identified? Now I’ll show you, listen. How many world empires are there that Daniel points out?
In other words, it will be a flood, it will be just a devastation and until it’s finally over, there will be a constant desolation, clear until the end of the war, it says desolations are determined. In other words, it will be a holocaust beyond any holocaust.
There were among the Jewish people those who protested the Roman presence. They hated and despised the Romans. In fact, you know they wanted Jesus to overthrow the Romans, right? And He didn’t do it and that was part of the reason they. hated Him.
And the protests grew louder and louder and louder against the hated Romans. And fanatics and rebels and particularly the Zealots began to carry daggers and they would find Romans and they would slay them in the night, slaughter the soldiers. There were marauders, there was violence everywhere. And more and more people began to side with the fanatics. And finally in A.D. 66, there was a wholesale open revolt that broke out in the month of May. And the Jewish Zealots and rebels overran the Roman garrison and for a while Jerusalemfell into the control of these rebels. They literally took back their city.
Well, Emperor Nero knew he had to deal with this upstart little country and so he gave command of his troops to a man named General Titus Flavius Vespasian. This man had distinguished himself as a brilliant soldier in the conquest of Britainand now he was sent to do something about the uprising in Israel. He had three of the best legions and numerous auxiliaries and he attacked Galilee, first of all, from the north and by October of 67 he had subdued all of Galilee. By the way, one of his prisoners was Josephus, the historian.
By the following spring, rebels all around the city of Jerusalemin Judeawere subdue?? In the middle of all of that, Nero lost his mind and committed suicide which from a human viewpoint wasn’t a big loss to the world, frankly. And when he did, of course, in Rome, immediately civil war broke out because everybody wanted to be the next emperor. And you had three insignificant emperors in a row.
Finally, this man Vespasian who had been this great soldier, Titus Flavius Vespasian, was given the mastery of all of Rome. And so he embarked to Rome, but he left Israelin the hands of his son, Titus.
And shortly before the full moon in the spring of 70, Titus appeared with his troops outside the city of Jerusalemready to take on the rebels. And he had 100 thousand plus soldiers.
The population of Jerusalemwas probably about 200 thousand. That would have been enough to do it. But the city was bulging much of the time from those who had come for the feasts. Titus attacked with Roman artillery, they called it “scorpions” which were sort of quick-firing machines that threw up rocks and things like that. They smashed the walls. They swarmed around the city. They did everything they could. Finally, they built a huge mound around the city so no one could get out. And when anybody tried to get out or any mercenaries came out and tried to infiltrate their troops, they captured them. And Josephus says they nailed 500 mercenaries to crosses every single day. In fact, there was a forest around Is … around Jerusalemthat they literally destroyed in making crosses and battering rams and war machines.
Historians tell us there was an unbearable stench because of all the dead bodies that they couldn’t bury. Then they surrounded the city and the people began to die of starvation.
The terrible famine that increased in frightfulness daily annihilated whole families of the people. The terraces were full of women and children who had collapsed from hunger. The allies were piled high with the bodies of the aged. Children and Young people swollen with lack of food wandered around like ghosts until they fell. They were so far spent that they could no longer bury anyone and if they did, they fell dead upon the very corpses they were burying. The misery was unspeakable, for as soon as even the shadow of anything eatable appeared anywhere, a fight began over it and the best of friends fought each other and tore from each other the most miserable trifles.
In one night, 2,000 died. The city was torched. By August of 70, Roman soldiers erected their banners in the sacred places and began to sacrifice to idols. Murder and plunder followed.
It was total devastation. Daniel said it will come and it will be a flood and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
When the first crusade was launched in A.D. 1096, the people wanted to go on the crusades and go back and capture the Holy Land. And they had one great fear, they wanted the resources of the Holy Land. They figured if they took the Holy Land back, the European Jews would lay claim to it because it was their original homeland and so on the way across Europe, the Crusaders thought it desirable to massacre all the communities of Jews that the met, That’s why the Crusades arc so distasteful to Jews. And by the way, they did that in the name of Christ, supposedly as Christians.
In the second crusade, in 1146, the slaughter threatened to exceed that of the first. In 1290, Edward I ordered the Jews to leave England.
In 1348 and 49, during the time of the Black Death, the terrible scourge, the Jews were accused of poisoning the wells that led to that scourge. And then the Jews, in order to save their lives, fled to two countries: Polandand Russia. And that’s why they were there even until modern times.
In 1894, the Jews were still abused in the terrible Dreyfus affair in France. And I don’t need to tell you that in the 1940’s, six million of them were slaughtered by Hitler.
But it didn’t end there. Because in 1914, in the middle of all of this, 90 thousand Jews had come back to their land. And by 1948, it had a charter as a nation again.
Now listen to me. Before a sacrifice and an oblation can cease, what do you have to have? A sacrifice and an oblation. Now before you have a sacrifice and an oblation, what do they have to have? A temple. I believe that one of the things the Antichrist is going to do is assist them in the restoration of the temple. I don’t know how it’s going to come to pass, but that’s one of the things he’s going to do. That may be the thing that makes them sign the treaty with him. I mean, that may be it. They may be so overawed at his ability to pull off that.
And by the way, when he is mentioned in the sixth chapter of Revelation, it says he comes conquering and to conquer with a bow.
And I’ve always thought it was interesting that he has a bow but no arrows. And it seems as though he conquers by peace. He is a statesman unequalled. His mouth speaks great things. But he has forces behind him that intimidate. But he seems to be able to negotiate the right things for Israel, security. in the land, a temple in the land, and he lets them have their worship But in the middle of that period of seven years which is known as the Great Tribulation, he stops the whole thing and in its place he brings an overspreading of abominations and he turns the temple into desolation. And it remains desolate till the consummation and that which is determined is poured out upon it. He just stops the whole thing in the middle.
The first three effects focus on defeating sin in Israel. The final three focus on positive developments regarding the kingdom—the bringing in of righteousness with Messiah’s kingdom, fulfillment of all prophecies in Scripture, and anointing the temple in Jerusalem.