What I want us to talk about tonight is, as I've titled the message, “The Prophetic Golden Key” from Daniel chapter nine and the reason that I've titled it that way is because these verses that we're going to be looking at in Daniel chapter nine constitute what many have called the golden key that unlocks the mysteries of Bible prophecy, specifically pertaining to the end times, the times just before the return of Christ and after He comes back. Now when we began looking in chapter nine, you remember that Daniel was trying to take in the change in the power between Babylon, under whom he had served, and now the Medo-Persian empire and he had looked into Jeremiah's letter that had been written to the exiles to determine, okay, I see what date it is on the calendar, I see how long we Jews have been exiled in Babylon but what is God's next move prophetically speaking? And the prophet Jeremiah informed Daniel's understanding that it was to be an appointed time of judgment for 70 years that they would be in a foreign land and then he starts crying out to God in brokenness and prayer and humility and confessing the sins of the people of Israel and how God was justified in bringing this judgment upon them and deporting them and then bringing a destruction upon their homeland. And it was in the midst of these cries and these prayers that God responded to Daniel's heart and to Daniel's faith and to Daniel's spiritual hunger and in verse 20, he says while I was praying, while I was speaking. You can look at it there in your Scripture. He says while I was doing all these, presenting my supplication before the Lord, the angel appeared unto me. Verse 21 says while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning was caused to fly swiftly and reach me about the time of the evening offering. So think about this, that God not only began to respond to Daniel's prayer but God sent the angel Gabriel to give Daniel a verbal message from God to Daniel and through Daniel ultimately to the entire nation of Israel, the people of Israel who were now scattered exiles. There's something we need to stop for a moment and look at and that is how God, during Daniel's prayer, sent Gabriel from heaven down to Daniel's location to give this prophetic revelation and what amazes me is how this speaks to the power of prayer. How this speaks to that which moves God to action is when someone like Daniel, and you and I can take upon ourselves that mantle, that mantle of humility and brokenness and spiritual hunger, we can do as Daniel did and we can cry out in desperation to God knowing that the God who answered Daniel will answer us when we pray by faith and with humility before Him and don't you like how it was worded that he was called, verse 21, you can underline it there, he was caused to fly swiftly. We don't know if he had literal wings but the mode of transportation is referred to here as flight and swift flight at that. Verse 22 says Gabriel the angel talked to Daniel and said oh, Daniel, I've come to give you skill to understand. Underline that in your Bible. Skill to understand. And listen, that's what all of us need tonight. That's what all of us need in our daily lives and that's what all of us need as we see things around us unraveling, we need God to give us the skill to understand. And Gabriel said that's what God wants me to give to you, Daniel. And he says at the beginning of your supplication, in other words, when you first started praying, the command went out and I've come to tell you, for you are greatly loved and therefore I want you to consider the matter and understand the vision. Now, the visions and dreams in the book of Daniel up to this point have been about Gentile powers and now God is shifting His focus from successive Gentile powers to exclusively narrowing the focus to Israel and it was about Israel that Daniel was so broken because he was pleading to God in his prayer, what about us, what about your people? We're the laughingstock of all the world, living as captives in a foreign land under Gentile powers. Your land has been stripped. We are not in the land your promised to our forefathers and so how long are you going to keep things like this, oh God? And God sends Gabriel to answer the question and what Gabriel has come to tell Daniel is this is God's plan for God's people, Israel. What I want you to do is to write down this first point. God's purposes for Israel are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. God's purposes for Israel are fulfilled in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So let there be no doubt. We are going to see Jesus in this prophecy that Gabriel conveys to Daniel. I want us to look now at beginning in the 24th verse and I'm gonna put it up on the screen where the angel Gabriel said this. 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city. Who are Daniel's people? The Jewish people. And what is the holy city? Jerusalem. And look at what Gabriel goes on to say. 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 I want us to think about verse 24 because what you have just done along with me, we have now embarked upon the journey to understanding God's plan for His people. The covenant people of Israel. And I cannot impress upon you enough the importance of tonight's message, not because I'm preaching it but because of what we're looking at. This is the golden key. It's going to be important that you bare with me tonight, that you listen attentively, that you are careful to write down some things and that you even make some notes in the margin of your Bible and along that line, I just wanna stop and say I'm all in favor of using technology and people using Bible apps but there is something about having a literal copy of the Bible printed on paper pages so that you can make notes in the margin and you can underline things and there may be some digital apps that afford you that opportunity but I'm telling you, one crash or one hack and everything you've entered or underlined is gone but if you're using a physical Bible, this can become a treasure for your understanding. What Gabriel is revealing to Daniel is God's prophetic plan for Israel but what I want us to do first is I want us to take the statements that are referred to grammatically as infinitives, verbal phrases that start with the word to and I'm going to recast that verse as a list. So you can see it on the screen. The angel Gabriel said 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city and then all I've done, I haven't changed one word in the verse, I've just enumerated each one of those infinitival phrases. And how many of them are there? There are six in totality. You don't even have to make this a separate list in your notes, you can just put little numbers beside each one of those infinitives and there you'll have the six purposes that God will fulfill in and through and for the people of Israel. Now I want you to think with me for a moment about this whole idea that we've talked about before where many prophecies of Scripture have dual fulfillments. They are prophecies which, when revealed, look like a long flat highway but there are often gaps in the road where a bridge is out and it can't be seen from ground level but there are still gaps that not until you approach the bridge out do you see the ravine and then on the other side, where the road resumes. There are interruptions between the fulfillment of a prophecy and many of the prophecies in the Old Testament pertaining to Jesus have that kind of dual fulfillment and if you'll remember when Jesus sent two of His disciples in preparation for His ride into Jerusalem for the triumphal entry, He told them to go and find a donkey that was tied up and He said that they were to go and do that and when Matthew tells us why Jesus had said that to those two disciples, to go get the donkey and bring the donkey back to Him for Him to ride on in chapter 21, verses four and five of Matthew, Matthew tells us all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, I've inserted in there which prophet it is, it's Zechariah, and then Matthew quotes from Zechariah, tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your King is coming to you, lowly and sitting on a donkey. A colt, the foal of a donkey. So there we have Matthew reaching back into Zechariah's prophecy and saying hey, the reason Jesus asked two of His disciples to go get a donkey and bring it to Him is because Zechariah had prophesied that would happen years earlier. But when you go back and you actually turn to Zechariah's prophecy which I want us to do, I'll have it on the screen. It's the ninth chapter, verses nine and 10, he says rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your King is coming to you. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey. These are the words Matthew quoted, by the way, in the passage we looked at in verse 21, a colt, the foal of a donkey. But you don't stop there, you go to verse 10 of Zechariah nine, where it says I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. So when you look at how it actually was prophesied in Zechariah, Jesus tells His disciples go get a donkey so I can ride it into Jerusalem. Matthew says this fulfilled Zechariah nine in verse nine. But when you go back to Zechariah nine and verse nine, you realize the very next verse talks about how His dominion is going to go from sea to sea. Did the dominion of Jesus, did Jesus, when He was here the first time, establish a kingdom that reached out from sea to sea? Did He break the military bow in two? Did He crush militarily or physically kingdoms of the world to set up His kingdom? No, He did not. So what I wanna do is I wanna put those verses back on the screen from Zechariah to kind of illustrate what I'm talking about. In the first advent of Jesus or the first coming of Jesus, which happened 2000 years ago, that's what Matthew said fulfilled verse nine. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your King is coming to you. Just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. But when you go to verse 10, we jump over the gap in the road and it's not until Jesus comes back the second time that verse 10 will be fulfilled. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, the horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow will be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. So if you just read the prophecy of Zechariah nine, there's no gap between nine and 10 as you read them but there is a gap in how those prophecies will be fulfilled. Between when Jesus came the first time, verse nine of Zechariah nine, and when Jesus comes the second time, verse 10 of Zechariah nine, when His dominion will reach from sea to sea. So what does that have to do with Daniel? I'm so glad you asked because remember, we're back in verse 24 and what I wanna do tonight is I want to speculate, if you will, what some Bible scholars have speculated that between those six infinitive phrases that I listed earlier from verse 24, perhaps the first three can be assigned to the first advent of Jesus and the last three of those six will not be fulfilled until the second coming of Christ. Let's look at it through those lenses for a moment. Verse 24. Again, all I'm doing is putting that same verse back with some insertions. Gabriel says to Daniel, 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city. But considering those first three, the first advent of Jesus, that's when Jesus would finish the transgression and make an end of sins and when did He do that? He did that when He lived a life that was sinless. He made an end of sins by completely conquering sin though tempted in all points as we get without sin and then thirdly, He made reconciliation for iniquity. That is possibly a reference to the atonement on Calvary's cross, where His blood is what reconciled us as sinners to a Holy God. So do you not see where those first three of the six were fulfilled in the first coming of Christ? But think about numbers four, five, and six. It's not until Jesus comes again that He will bring in everlasting righteousness once His kingdom is established on the earth, that He will seal up vision and prophecy which means once Christ comes back to the earth, there will be no more need for vision and prophecy because all of prophecy shall have been fulfilled when Christ returns and then, number six, Gabriel said to Daniel, to anoint the Most Holy and this could possibly be a reference, anointing the Most Holy, to Christ anointing a new temple that will be built for use during the reign of Christ on the earth. And in case you'd like to do some supplemental reading, this is talked about in the last eight chapters of Ezekiel's prophecy which leads us to believe there will be a temple during the millennial reign of Christ and who else would be fitting to anoint the Most Holy place as that sixth phrase says, than Jesus Christ the Anointed Himself. So that's just one possible interpretation of how to understand those six purposes that Gabriel says God is going to accomplish for Daniel's people who are really God's people, the Jewish people. Now other scholars believe that those six purposes don't really have a chronological order. So here's what I wanna say, is that however those six purposes outlined by Gabriel which God will accomplish for His people Israel, however they are accomplished and in whatever sequence or order or chronology in which they're accomplished, what matters more than anything else is that we know the One who will accomplish all six of those outlined purposes that Gabriel gives Daniel from God's heart for the people of Israel. So we know that Jesus Christ really is the fulfillment of God's plan for Israel but here's the second thing I want you to write down tonight and that is that God's program for Israel is based upon a timeline. It's not only a plan fulfilled in Jesus Christ through those six purposes but it is a program that is assigned a definite period of time, a timeline, as we're going to call it. When you look back in verse number 24, what did Gabriel say to Daniel? He said 70 weeks are determined for your people. Now think about this. 70 weeks. What in the world does that mean? Well one of the things I'd like for you to consider with me is that you should interpret this 70 weeks, instead of being literal weeks, as 70 units of seven, not 70 literal weeks. So are you ready for an interpretive key to unlock the code of this 70 weeks prophecy as it is referred to? It is this. The Daniel nine interpretive code is to understand week as being seven years. Now if you just get that down right there, all of this is going to make sense. Maybe not tonight if you're hearing this or studying it for the first time but as you go back and look at this and study it again and again, you just have to keep seeing that when Gabriel is referring to week, it means a unit of seven which really means seven years, not seven days. Now how does this make sense in God's prophetic plan for Israel? Well we talked about this back when Daniel looked into the letter from Jeremiah trying to understand this whole 70 year timeline. We even looked back into 2 Chronicles to unlock the understanding of why an exile of 70 years? Do you remember what we found? We found that for 70 Sabbath years over a period of 490 years, the Jews had not allowed the land to rest, that in the same way, God had commanded the Jewish people to rest from their labors every seventh day of every week, so He commanded that they allow the land to rest from the agricultural exploitation every seventh year. So in God's mind, a Sabbath can be a literal week of seven days but according to the reckoning and meting out of the judgment of these 70 years of exile, God understands a week also to be a set of seven years because there's a Sabbath Day on the seventh day, there's a Sabbath Year on the seventh year. So it is perfectly logical to understand this word week as referring to seven years, not seven days. So if God says through Gabriel, hey, Daniel, get this and understand it clearly. God's appointed timeline is 70 weeks for your people. Write this down. I'm gonna paraphrase what Gabriel was saying. God's program for the Jewish people will take place on a timeline of 490 years. 490 years. Because that is the calculation when you take 70 weeks and if weeks means seven years then 70 times seven years is 490 years. Now in verses 25 through 27, what we see is that those 490 years are broken down into three parts and we'll look at those not only tonight but we'll consider this next week as well. Let's look in verse 25. As Gabriel is continuing to pronounce this prophecy for God's program for the people of Israel, Gabriel says know therefore and understand, Daniel, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem, until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks and you can see where I've just inserted 69 because seven plus 62 is 69. The street shall be built again and the wall, even in troublesome times. So you see here that Gabriel breaks up this period of time into a period of 69 and then what we'll see next week is a 70th week to make the full balance 70. It starts with seven weeks and then it moves into 62 weeks as he outlines there in verse 25. So this revelation from Gabriel to Daniel was taking place shortly after, as you remember, the Persians had conquered the Babylonians which happened around 539 BC. So when you're looking at what Gabriel said, that there was going to be a command to restore and build Jerusalem, when did this actually happen? Did this command happen when Cyrus, the new king, under whom Daniel was now serving, when Cyrus decreed that the Jews could return to their homeland? No, we do not believe that that is the decree to which Gabriel is referring. That was indeed a decree that allowed the Jews to begin returning but what I wanna do is to just hit pause for a moment and to think about from the time that Cyrus, the king of Persia, told the Jewish people they could start going back, they did not all go back at the same time. We know from reading in the book of Ezra that they went back in three different waves if you will. So without trying to give you too much information, I think this is very helpful for you to know and I wanna display on the screen, the return of the exiles to Jerusalem happened in three migrations. First, under a leader named Zerubabbel who's mentioned in Ezra, he led a return of the Jews back to Jerusalem immediately after King Cyrus said you all need to go back home and start rebuilding and he actually began restoring the foundation of the temple that Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed some years earlier in the final blow in 586. Okay, so Zerubbabel led the first wave but guess what, after Zerubbabel, another 80 years went by before the second migration of Jews returned to Jerusalem and that was under Ezra, after whom a book of the Bible is named. But then there was a third man who led a group of Jewish migrants back to their homeland named Nehemiah and his return was about 90 years after Cyrus had said the Jews can go back. So what I want you to think about is this is an important part of your Old Testament history to know that it wasn't just a matter of King Cyrus of Persia telling the Jews go on back home and they all got on their wagons and went back home, no. Zerubbabel led the first wave and then another 80 year gap went by before Ezra led a group of Jewish migrants to return and then Nehemiah led the third group about 90 years after Cyrus's decree. Now, I want us to consider Nehemiah for a moment and if you'll remember, Nehemiah was the cupbearer or the chief butler for one of the Persian kings named Artaxerxes and by this time, the history of the Jewish people, 90 years having gone by since Cyrus said they could go back, Nehemiah hears word that in spite of the 90 years of what should've been a massive rebuilding effort, that the Jewish people had become complacent in their homeland and that the walls of the city that were intended to protect cities of that day and time were still in a state of rubble and ruin and disrepair and it grieved Nehemiah's heart that from the comfort of the palace where he was serving in a pagan land, the city of God, the city of his forefathers, the covenant land of God was still in a state of reproach. So what he decides to do is to ask the king that he worked for if he could have permission to go back and in Nehemiah chapter two, beginning in verse one, it says it came to pass in the month of Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes when wine was before him that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me why is your face sad since you're not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. So I became dreadfully afraid and I said to the king, may the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathers' tombs lies waste and its gates are burned with fire? In other words, the walls are down. Why would I not be upset? And the king said to me, what do you want from me? Nehemiah says then I prayed to God and after I prayed, I said to the king, well, if it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may rebuild it. Then the king said to me, queen sitting beside him, how long will your journey be and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me and I set him a time. So if you go on to read it, what happens is the king gave Nehemiah not only the leave of absence from his duties there in the king's court in the great palace, but he also, if we were to continue reading, he gave Nehemiah written decrees and orders that would allow Nehemiah and the Jews returning with him to cross over territorial boundaries knowing that the king's seal was stamped on the documents and not only that, but the king had given written decrees that when Nehemiah would come upon those who could make donations and provide supplies for the rebuilding of the walls and specifically the wood that was needed to reconstruct the gates of the city, that people with the means, including the main forester, would make donations to this cause for the rebuilding of the walls and the reconstruction of the gate so this is when the real decree to rebuild the city took place. What I'm telling you is that back in 539 when Cyrus says the Jews can go back to Jerusalem, he was giving them permission to go start rebuilding the temple but it was not until Nehemiah, 90 years later, makes an appeal to King Artaxerxes that Artaxerxes, the Persian king at that time, issues the decree not to rebuild the temple but to rebuild the city and the walls around the city. Now, we know from history that Artaxerxes began his reign in 465 BC, yet when we were reading from Nehemiah chapter two a moment ago, he says that when he talked to Artaxerxes about giving him permission to go back and rebuild the walls, that was in his 20th year as king which tells us, are you ready for this? That when Artaxerxes gave the decree to Nehemiah which is 90 years after Cyrus's decree that the Persians would let the Jews go home, this was the year 445 BC. Another historical fact that would be helpful for you. So in 445 BC, that was when King Artaxerxes gave the decree to rebuild Jerusalem. So according to Gabriel, if the 70 sevens appointed for the people of Israel which equals 490 years, if we apply that to commencing with the decree to rebuild Jerusalem as Gabriel says then we start the timeline in 445 BC. Everybody got that? 445 BC is when that prophetic timeline for the 70 weeks appointed for Israel began. Thank you Nehemiah for being a crucial part of the fulfillment of Bible history and prophecy. Now, I want us to look back at verse 25. Gabriel said know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem, we just looked at that. That happened in 445 BC as a result of Nehemiah asking the king under whom he worked, King Artaxerxes, if he would authorize Nehemiah and other Jews to go back, from that time until messiah, who is messiah the prince? Messiah the prince is Jesus. There shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks and if we apply our interpretive code, seven weeks and 62 weeks equals 483 years. The street shall be built again, and the wall. Nehemiah would do that. Even in troublesome times, which they were because every step Nehemiah took in the reconstruction effort was met with opposition. Now if you notice in that verse, Gabriel announces to Daniel that from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem until the time of Messiah the Prince, there would be seven weeks and 62 weeks which is 69 weeks and if weeks means a set of seven years, that's 483 years. Why then wouldn't he just say 69 weeks but instead he says seven weeks and 62 weeks? There's some reason for it being divided into seven weeks and 62 weeks. So what I wanna do is to go back and apply the breakdown of that seven and 62 as you'll see on the screen. Gabriel says know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem, 445 when that happened, until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks, which is 49 years, and 62 weeks, which is 434 years. So when you do the math, 49 plus 434, that gives you the total of 483 years. So what I wanna do is I wanna put on the screen this chart of 69 weeks and on this chart of 69 weeks, you'll see 445 BC. We read about that in Nehemiah chapter two when King Artaxerxes said yes, you can go back and rebuild the city. From the time that decree went forth, the angel Gabriel said there will be seven weeks which is 49 years. Now leaving that chart on the screen, let me explain to you what could've happened in those first 49 years. It is possible that this is the timeline for Nehemiah's complete ministry. Not just the rebuilding but his complete ministry to Israel because he went to Israel, oversaw the rebuilding, went back to Persia, then went back to Israel again but this 49 years could also be the time period referring generally to the time when Old Testament prophetic revelation would come to an end with the completing of Malachi's prophecy which closed out the Old Testament. Now these are just a few possible explanations for why that first seven weeks is distinguished and set apart. So if you fast forward another 49 years from the decree, that's 396 BC, it's as though the timeline starts again so of 69 weeks, seven have passed and then 62 remain and then you advance until Messiah which is when that prophecy will be fulfilled. So all I wanted to do was to show you the timeline there. You can remove it now. To elaborate on all of this further, you say well, I'm already lost. You gotta stop right now. It's okay, you're gonna get this if you'll just bear with me. I want us to look in verse 26 where Gabriel says after the, I'm inserting here, after the seven and 62 because remember, in verse 25, Gabriel separated the seven and the 62, so he's saying after 62 but he's really referring to once this resumes and the 69 weeks are fulfilled, 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 and the end of it shall be with a flood and til the end of the war of desolations are determined. So when you read the prophecy of verse number 26, what Gabriel is saying is that after the seven weeks which are the 49 years which could refer possibly to Nehemiah's complete ministry to the period of time in which Old Testament revelation ceased, after those seven weeks, then another timeline of 62. Let's just think about it collectively as 69 weeks. From the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah, 69 weeks, 483 years but in verse 26, underline it in your Scripture, the Messiah shall be cut off. What we believe that's referring to is not just that a Messiah will come but that a Messiah will die. If you wanna write in your copy of the Word of God right beside verse 26, Messiah shall be cut off, put the cross. The cross. So here's another breakdown of that chart and I'm consolidating the two, the seven weeks and 62 weeks to be 69 till Messiah is crucified or cut off. That's what I want you to see. So central to God's plan for Israel is the coming of the Messiah. You can at least agree with that. From Artaxerxes decree until the death of Jesus would be 483 years. But then you can remove the chart now, the Messiah is going to be cut off and I want you to look back there in verse 26 because he says the Messiah's gonna be cut off but not for Himself. So if He's gonna be killed, cut off but not for Himself, then for whom will He be cut off? For whom will He be crucified? The prophet Isaiah answers that question 700 years before Christ. The prophet Isaiah prophesied this even before Gabriel said it to Daniel. In Isaiah 53, verse four. Isaiah said it was for our weaknesses He carried. It was our weaknesses He carried. It was our sorrows that weighed Him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins but He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. So do you see, when you take what Isaiah said years before Gabriel came from heaven to tell Daniel this. It all makes sense that when Gabriel tells Daniel the Messiah who will come through your people, the Messiah who will come to your people to accomplish those six things that Daniel laid out, he will eventually be cut off. It'll happen 483 years from the time that a future king will command that Jerusalem be rebuilt. And yet, when He is cut off, it will not be for Himself. Isaiah tells us it will be for us. Paul would say this. In 2 Corinthians chapter five and verse 21, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. Do you see Jesus not cut off for sins He had committed but cut off or killed for the sins that we had committed? So I want us to look at verse 26 again. After the 62 weeks that we understand, that means after the 483 years, Messiah shall be cut off but not for Himself. Notice the next thing Gabriel says. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary and we'll move on from there. I want us to break this down. Gabriel says the people of the prince who is to come. That's what I had underlined in that verse. The prince who is to come is a reference back to one of the visions that Daniel had in Daniel chapter seven. I want you to also point out here that Messiah is referred to as a Prince in this prophecy but there is another prince who is to come. You've got two princes in this passage. One is the Messiah and the other is a false messiah and anti-messiah or antichrist. Do you remember in Daniel chapter seven when he had the vision of the four beasts? You remember that prophecy revealed to him in dream? And do you remember who the four beasts depicted? They depicted the four gentile kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. But it was on the head of that fourth unidentifiable, horrific beast which depicted Rome, it was on the head of that fourth beast that Daniel saw the terrifying sight of these 10 horns coming out and I thought we'd just look back at Daniel seven, verse seven. He says in my vision that night, I saw a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful, very strong. It devoured and crushed its victims with huge iron teeth, trampled their remains beneath its feet. It was different from any of the other beasts. It had 10 horns and as I was looking at the horns, suddenly another small horn appeared among them. Three of the first horns were torn out by the roots to make room for it. Here's what I want you to focus on though. The little horn had eyes like human eyes and a mouth that was boasting arrogantly. And if you remember studying that, and even if you don't, what you need to know is the little horn that grew on the head of the fourth beast is the antichrist. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. So when we look back into verse 26, he says and the people of the prince who is to come. The prince who is to come is that little horn growing on the head of the fourth beast in Daniel chapter seven. That is the antichrist who is yet to come but the people of that prince, that's what we're looking at, the people of the prince, if Rome was the fourth beast and Rome will give us the antichrist, we understand that it wasn't ancient Rome that'll give us the antichrist, it's a revived Roman empire that'll give us the antichrist but he's referring to Rome as it would exist prior to its end. He's saying the people of the prince who is to come, let's look in verse 26, what are the people? The Roman people. That's who he's referring to. They shall destroy the city. See it underlined? The city and the sanctuary. And we can move from there. So there's a distinction between the prince who is to come, that's the antichrist of the last days who will come from a revived Roman empire but the people from whom he comes are the original Roman empire and the reason that I want you to focus on this is because in the year 70 AD, the Roman general Titus, this is almost 40 years after Jesus was crucified and went back to heaven. The Roman general Titus descended on Jerusalem with his troops and in wrath and fury, he completely destroyed it, including the temple. This wiped out the Jewish people as an entity, removed them from their land, and it caused the temple mount to be cleared of their holy temple and the temple mount remained vacated until 691 AD when the Muslims built the dome of the rock in the place of the temple that had been wiped away in 70 AD and as you know, that dome of the rock stands there to this day serving as the focal point of God's city which is a sign of God's judgment upon the Jewish people. Now, think with me for a moment about the fact that Gabriel pronounced the destruction of Jerusalem by the people of the prince who is to come. By the Romans. And he's pronouncing this in 539 BC, something that would not take place until 70 AD, after Christ had come and gone back. Now remember when Jesus sent the two disciples to get the colt and He rode on the back of the colt. We call it the triumphal entry. As He made His way into Jerusalem for the final week of His life. Luke 19, verse 41 says as He came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, He began to weep. How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. He's talking to Jerusalem. But now, Jerusalem, it's too late and peace is hidden from your eyes. And then Jesus says these words. Before long, your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. They will crush you into the ground and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place because you did not recognize it when God visited you. What am I saying to you tonight? I'm saying that what Jesus prophesied as He rode into Jerusalem on the back of the donkey in the triumphal entry for passion week, the last week that led up to the cross, He was prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem not long from that moment and yet that's the same prophecy that Gabriel made to Daniel in Daniel nine and verse 26. Fascinating to me. So notice this chart of 69 weeks. From the time that Artaxerxes gave the decree to rebuild Jerusalem all the way through to the death of Jesus, 483 years, 32 AD. But for the sake of simplicity, let's look at the next slide. This is really what you need to know is that if week means years, 69 weeks is 483 years. From when Nehemiah in chapter two said will you please give me authorization to go rebuild the city? Until Jesus was crucified, 483 years came to pass just as Gabriel prophesied in this mysterious revelation he gave to Daniel. Now here's the thing and I'll be done. If you do the math on all of this, it does not add up and I'll tell you why. It's because we calculate according to the Gregorian calendar which is built upon a 365 day year. Of course, there are 10 leap years with that included, add a day in a year in the cycle every 39 years. But did you know that the Jewish calendar is a Lunar calendar? One, Gregorian is based on the sun. The Jewish calendar, Lunar, is based on the moon and it is a 360 day year, not 365. That is very important. Now, just to tell you what a nerd I am, I remember two years ago I took some time to go away, stayed in this little tent out on a beach and one of the books I took with me was a book on understanding the Jewish calendar, that's how I spent my vacation that year. One of the books that I was reading. But when you look at this prophecy and you try to figure it out, 483 years on a Gregorian year, it doesn't work out but when you calculate the 483 years and you multiply it based on a year of 360 days, the number comes to, and I wanna show you the calculation, 483 times 360 equals 173,880 days. You say what in the world are you saying all of this for? Well, because. There was a writer and theologian from Great Britain whose name was Sir Robert Anderson. He published a book in the year 1894 called The Coming Prince and it is about the prophecies pertaining to the antichrist in the last days and he devotes considerable time to breaking apart this prophecy of the 70 weeks in Daniel. He concludes in the 10th chapter of his book, The Coming Prince, that based on this calculation, if the decree of Artaxerxes mentioned in Nehemiah two took place on the first day of Nisan which would be March the 14th of 445 BC, if you then add 173,880 days to that, it comes to the date of April 6th, AD 32 and according to Sir Anderson's calculations, that is the exact day of Jesus' triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem which means if he is right, then it is mathematically proven that this prophecy made through Gabriel to Daniel about when the Messiah would be cut off is fulfilled literally to the day from the time it was decreed to rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes in 445 until AD 32 when Jesus mounted the donkey to ride into Jerusalem in a week that would culminate with His death. Those years were fulfilled just as Gabriel prophesied. 483 years. Now as we stop right here in verse 26, we take note that according to Gabriel's introductory remarks in verse number 24, how many weeks were appointed for the people of Israel in God's plan? He said in verse 24, 70 weeks. The death of Jesus, when Messiah would be cut off, marked the completion of 69 of those 70 weeks or 483 years. 70 weeks is 490 years which means we have covered, if you get to the death of Jesus followed by the destruction of Jerusalem, some 40 years, the 69 weeks have been accomplished which leaves a 70th week, our one final period of seven years that has yet to be fulfilled and that's what we're going to talk about next week. Father, thank you for this amazing prophecy and as we start looking more and more into the future of the antichrist, what he will be like and what his intentions will be, how he will bring his agenda to fruition, I'm convinced that we are studying Bible prophecy at the perfect time just as we see the unraveling of law and order and lawlessness abounding as leaders abdicate their responsibility to God and to the people who elected them. We thank You that You have given us this witness through prophecy to understand completely what is going on even in our own lifetime. In Jesus' name, amen.
