A NATION'S FUTURE

Introduction

-Years ago I read a story about a man named Kevin Baugh who declared that his 3-bed home and his 1.3 acres of land were to be considered its own country. Baugh declared that he was King over the Republic of Molossia, and he even wore a khaki-style uniform to prove it. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, He has a space program (a model rocket), a currency (pegged to the value of chocolate-chip cookie dough), a railroad (model size), a national sport (broomball), and—in his landlocked desert region—he even has a navy (an inflatable boat).

~Yes, Baugh said that the whole thing was a fun joke, but I found it interesting. We all want to be in control, and we want to be able to control the things that go on around us and we all want to control the nation and we definitely would want to control the future. But the problem is, there is only one who truly controls the nations and only one who controls the future, and it ain’t us. God controls time and moves history as He sees fit.

-Most of the time we would like to at least know what’s going to happen in the future so we can plan accordingly, but we don’t even receive that, and most of the time God doesn’t reveal such things. But God did reveal such things to Daniel about his people of Israel. Daniel had been in prayer for his nation knowing that the set amount of time for captivity that God revealed to Jeremiah was about over. Since it was near the end of the 70 year prophecy, Daniel prayed and confessed and called out to God on behalf of his people, desiring to know what would happen next. Not only did God reveal what would happen next, but God revealed what would happen over the next several centuries.

Daniel 9:20–27 ESV

20 While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God, 21 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. 22 He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. 23 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. 24 “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 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, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the 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. 27 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.”

-Knowing Jeremiah’s prophecy was coming to an end, Daniel was anxious about what would happen next. Would the people be restored to the land? Would the people rebuild Jerusalem and the temple? What does the future hold for the nation? These are questions that we have about our own nation and our own existence, but God gave something to Daniel that He probably won’t give to us. God gave Daniel a very direct answer with some very direct descriptions in what has become one of the most debated passages in all the Bible.

-God sent Gabriel to Daniel to announce what God was going to do with Israel into the future. This was a direct answer to the prayer that Daniel lifted up in the first part of the chapter. Gabriel says that the minute the prayer left Daniel’s lips, Gabriel was dispatched by God to give the answer. Because Daniel is so precious to God, God wanted Daniel to know and understand what He would be doing with Israel for the next several hundred years.

-The plan involves what most Bible’s translate as 70 weeks (or, it would more literally be 70 sevens). Almost all conservative scholars agree that it is speaking of 70 sets of 7 years. So, from Daniel’s perspective, there will be in his future 490 years of something special for the nation of Israel. The number 490 would already have some significance for Israel. According to God’s law in Exodus 23:11 and Leviticus 25:20-22, Israel was to give their land a Sabbath year, which means that they were to allow the land to lie fallow every seventh year. They could sow and reap for six years, but the seventh year they were to just let the land be, and then the following year start up again. That was the law, that was directly from God. And God told them the punishment of what would happen if they didn’t do it. According to:

Leviticus 26:34–35 ESV

34 “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it.

-God told them they would be taken into captivity, one year for every year they didn’t allow the land to rest. Well, beginning around the time of Solomon, the nation of Israel did not let the land rest for (you guessed it) 490 years. Therefore, according to Jeremiah 25 and Jeremiah 29, Israel was taken into captivity for 70 years, 1 year for each Sabbath year that was ignored. So now, with the words that Gabriel shared about Israel’s future, you have the 490 years of disobedience, the 70 years of captivity (with probably a few more intervening years), and then another 490 years which Gabriel was going to explain. It all seems kind of symmetrical.

-The 490 years that Gabriel mentions would start when a decree was given for the restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem. A lot of different options are debated. The original decree by Cyrus would not make sense since that would merely take you into the early first century BC but nothing significant happened then. What makes the most sense is either the decree by Artaxerxes in Ezra 7:11-29 which would be about 457 BC or decree by Artaxerxes in Nehemiah 2:1-8 which would be about 445 BC.

-Gabriel splits the 490 years into three sections. There is the first 7 sevens, or 49 years. Most people agree that this is the time for Jerusalem, the temple, the wall, and everything else to be rebuilt. Then the next time period, the 62 sevens, would be a troubled time (according to v. 25) which would be the time that Israel had problems with the Greeks (especially Antiochus Epiphanes) and then the Romans. So 69 weeks/sevens is 483 years. But then there is that last seven/week. That’s the one that gives us all the fits. There is not a general consensus or agreement on what happens and when it happens. Yes, one view has gotten more press, but there are several other views out there. We don’t have time to go through all the different views, so I will just speak on two of the interpretations of that last seven.

Pre-millennial Dispensational View

-This view is probably the one that is the most popular, especially as depicted in the Left Behind book series and with popular preachers such as David Jeremiah and Jack Hagee. It gained a lot of following after Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth and other books in the ‘70s and ‘80s became best sellers. According to this view, the first 69 sevens (or 483 years) would lead to the first advent of Christ. But upon His first coming, the timeline stops and there is a long pause between the 69th seven and the 70th seven. The 70th seven is reserved for the time that would come immediately prior to Christ’s second coming.

-The 70th week is a seven-year period that begins with a covenant/agreement between the people of Israel and the prince who is to come (believed to be the Antichrist) that is supposed to be some sort of peace treaty (that may involve the allowance to rebuild the Jewish temple). According to some, this agreement will come immediately after there was a great disappearance of millions of people which might not be explainable by those who were left behind, but Christians are the ones who disappeared, being caught up in the rapture.

-The prince who is to come (the Antichrist) will be a political, military, and religious leader who will set up some sort of worldwide system of government, commerce, and religion that will quickly become totalitarian. Any who oppose him will be crushed. In the midst of the 70th week (or 3 1/2 years into the seven year covenant) the Antichrist will break the covenant with Israel, take over and desecrate the temple, and usher in a period of great trial and suffering for Jews (and any who had become Christians during this time) in something often referred to as the Great Tribulation.

-The time of Great Tribulation will not only come from the antics of the Antichrist, but will also come from great judgments that God will pour out upon the earth. The last 3 1/2 years will be very difficult, but at the end of the seven year period Christ will return to usher in a 1000 year earthly reign.

-One of the greatest critiques of this view is the concept of a break between the 69th week and the 70th week. There is nothing within the context of Daniel 9 or the book of Daniel as a whole that gives a good reason to separate the two sevens other than trying to fit it into a particular system. There is no break between the first 7 sevens and the following 62 sevens, so why would there be a break between the 62 sevens and the 70th seven? Since there was no break between the layers in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and the rock made without hands in Daniel 2, and there was no break/pause between the beasts in Daniel’s dream and the kingdom of the Son of Man in Daniel 7, why insert a break here?

Partial Preterist (either amillennial or post-millennial view)

-Although there are various versions, one view is that the first 483 years lead to somewhere around AD 26/27 during the first advent of Christ, but it specifically leads to the baptism of Christ which would be the beginning of His ministry, and then all the following verses describe the outcome of His ministry in some way. They believe that it describes what happens in the 70th week in the life and death of Christ and then the consequences that follow. vv. 26 and 27 are usually the focus of the section. Those who hold this view see vv. 26 and 27 as Hebrew parallelisms, where they say the same thing in different ways. According to v. 26 after the 62 weeks, an anointed one (same word as Messiah) would be cut off, referring to the crucifixion of Christ. The second half of v. 26 then tells of a future consequence of this, which would be that Christ will send an army to destroy Jerusalem and the temple, so it is desecrated and destroyed as it was in AD 70 (a consequence of the Jews rejecting Jesus).

-v. 27 then picks up the parallelism. In the beginning it says that there will be a strong covenant. Although most English translations say “for one week” meaning for seven years, that is not what the Hebrew says. It is more literally translated ONE WEEK SHALL ESTABLISH THE COVENANT WITH MANY. Meaning that it is describing the events in that one week. What happens in the one week a covenant will be made which will bring about the end of the need for sacrifice. Then the last part of v. 27 again speaks of abominations and desolations which they believe refer again to the events of AD 70.

-So, to summarize their view, in the midst of the 70th seven the Messiah will be cut off which will set up a covenant of God which would make sacrifices no longer necessary. If the 70th seven begins at the baptism of Jesus, Jesus had a 3 1/2 year ministry which would be the middle of the 70th seven where He was cut off through crucifixion, but it was that crucifixion which would bring about the new covenant that would negate the need for further sacrifices. The consequence of the Jews not believing in their Messiah would be the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70. I might try to do these views more justice next week.

-Whatever view you might hold, we can all be thankful for what Christ death and resurrection accomplished for us according to v. 24. Christ’s death and resurrection finished the transgression and put an end to sin for those who would believe on Him—our sins and transgressions would no longer be held against us. Christ atoned for our iniquity, and through Him we are given an everlasting righteousness. It says that the vision is sealed, meaning like a king seals a document saying that whatever is written in it is secured, our salvation in Christ is secured and nothing can change what God has decreed. While the Jews rejected Christ, you don’t have to. You can believe in Him to atone for your sin. And if you have believed, you can rejoice in all that Christ’s death accomplished. If you know someone who has not believed, you can pray that they will believe so their sins may be forgiven.