Matthew (Session 14) Chapter 21

okay we're in session 14 of the gospel of matthew and we're going to focus on the triumphal entry the first part of chapter 21 the triumphal entry by way of review we had a uh section one consists of half a dozen of the first chapters of matthew the genealogy of christ the birth of christ the baptism the temptation and then the manifesto of the king what we call the sermon on the mount and then section 2 had a whole series of of healings and and responses but climaxing in chapter 12 with a watershed chapter after which jesus no longer spoke to the public except in parables and so chapter 12 is a watershed chapter it ends the an important section of of the first unit and uh so the third section of unit one had the seven kingdom parables which were a response in effect to chapter 12 seven kingdom parables that lay out strangely uh the church with some surprising implications if you study them carefully often uh mistaught and i'll leave that to you to sort through the feeding of the five thousand four thousand then the declaration of faith in caesarea philippi and climaxy in the transfiguration chapter 17 and then some further instructions we talked about the herod's there's four that you should remember herod the great his son his grandson and his great-grandson were all prominent in the scripture and each with their their well-known events here the great having killed the children of bethlehem the uh heron antipas who killed john the baptist herrera who killed james and imprisoned peter and then heritage grip of the second the grandson great-grandson was the one that paul deals with in acts 25. feeding the multitudes encourage you to study those two for their distinctiveness the 5 000 is very jewish the 4 000 very gentile there's some other subtleties there i'll let you sort through but now we're in unit two the judean ministry and the final week matthew 19 to the end of the book and we're going to focus tonight on the accounts in matthew mark luke and john focusing primarily on matthew 21 first 11 verses but also taking a serious look at luke because luke highlights some things that are essential for us to understand so let's jump in matthew 21 verse 1 and when they drew nigh unto jerusalem and came to bethage unto the mount of olives they sent jesus then sent jesus two disciples bethage is on the east side of mount of runs north and south on the west side is the kidron valley across the valley is the temple mount and all of that on the east side of the mount of olives is bethage and bethany and those small villages and anyways they come there they sent jesus two disciples saying i'm going to the village over against you and straightway ye shall find an ass tied and a cult with her loose them and bring them to me matthew emphasized there wasn't just a cult there was a donkey and a mother and a cult together loose them and bring them to me and if any man say ought to unto you ye shall say the lord hath need of them and straightway he will send them so this is there's a hint here of a pre-arrangement maybe a password or somehow this is wired up exactly when or how we don't know it could have been on a previous visit or whatever but in any case uh this is a setup of some kind all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying tell ye the daughter of zion behold thy king cometh unto thee meek and sinning upon an ass and a cult the full of an ass the prophet zechariah makes that point and matthew also picks up on that point what's he talking about notice the word king that's going to be turn out to be a far more important term in this proceeding than most people realize what matthew is quoting from is from the prophet zechariah of the old testament where in verse 9 of chapter 9 zechariah says rejoice greatly o daughter of zion shout o daughter of jerusalem behold thy king cometh unto thee he is just and having salvation lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a colt the fall of an ass so somehow the holy spirit moved zechariah to record this verse and matthew recognized the events that were transpiring in front of him with jesus getting the donkey and so forth as a fulfillment of that prophecy but again the key word thy king cometh unto thee there's a very strange point to be made here several times in christ's ministry as you read the gospels you'll notice on a couple of occasions the crowd got so enthusiastic they tried to take and make him a king and he slipped away he slipped through happened in nazareth happened in john 6 several places his remark his his response was always mine hour has not yet come he never let himself be presented as a king he'd slip away when that enthusiasm would be bubbling up for whatever reason he would slip away but now he does something very strange he not only permits it he's arranging it he's actually making these arrangements he's deliberately getting a donkey set up and a mother of a donkey to ride them to fulfill he's deliberately filling fulfilling zechariah 9 9 it's not a coincidence this is very deliberate thy king cometh unto thee unto whom under jerusalem jesus is about to present himself as a king to jerusalem it should be one of the most exciting days of their history but they don't recognize it continuing in matthew 21 and the disciples went and did as jesus commanded them they brought the ass and the colt and put on them their clothes and they set him thereon and a very great multitude spread their garments in the way others cut down branches from the trees and strawed them in the way this was on the 10th of nisan this was the day four days before passover that in every jewish household the lamb was being inspected for to be blemish free to observe passover with as the passover lambs are being inspected so is christ presenting himself to jerusalem 10th of nisan there since this was one of the three feasts in the jewish year that compulsory attendance was required the feast of unleavened bread which is the day after passover but they used the term passover connotatively for the whole group of feasts in the spring feast the reason for unleavened bread the feast of shavuot the feast of weeks and the feast of tabernacles three of the seven feasts were compulsory so jerusalem probably had something like two million people show up this is tourist time people that never were down there for any other reason would try to make it on on the passover season so a very great multitude means just what it says now they've heard many of them are from galilee they they they've heard what's been going on they've heard about lazarus raised from the dead there's great enthusiasm among some of them maybe some confusion but a lot of enthusiasm they spread their garments in the way in front of him others cut down branches from the trees and stored them in the way that's they well that's why some people call this the palms they think it was on sunday for some that's a church tradition um that's why they call it palm sunday and the multitudes that went before and that followed cried saying hosanna to the son of david blessed is he that cometh in the name of the lord hosanna in the highest that's the way it's recorded in matthew 21 verse 9. what they are actually singing is the hallel psalms psalm 118 and i won't go through the whole psalm but let's just pick up a few of the verses psalm 118 let's just read it starting about verse 19. open to me the gates of righteousness i will go into them and i will praise the lord this gate of the lord into which the righteous shall enter enter i will praise thee for thou has heard me and art become my salvation the stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner i'll go on here in a minute but by the time you get to verse 42 of matthew 21 jesus is going to quote this of himself so this is not contrived jesus himself will tie himself to this passage a few verses later this is the lord's doing it is marvelous in our eyes this is the day which the lord hath made we shall rejoice and be glad in it save now i beseech thee o lord o lord i beseech thee send now thy prosperity blessed is he that cometh in the name of the lord we have blessed you out of the house of the lord this is the day which the lord hath made we will rejoice and be glad in it how many have heard that before we often will sing that in the psalm or in a song we'll sing that to apply it to any day right and that's fair because this day whichever it is is the day the lord hath made but denotatively this is referring to a specific day what day is it referring to the day we're talking about the day that jesus presents himself as a king to jerusalem this event was foretold by gabriel to daniel some five centuries earlier we'll look at that in a minute save now i beseech thee that's the english translation the the greek transliteration of the hebrew is hosanna the word hosanna is what's in effect implied there containing the psalm 118 god is the lord which hath showed us his light bind the sacrifice with cords wow what's that all about even unto the horns of the altar thou art my god and i will praise thee thou art my god i will exalt thee you'll give thanks to the lord for his good and for his mercy and earth forever bind the sacrifice strange thing in here the word hosanna is the greek transliteration of the hebrew word save we pray it occurs six times in the gospels as the cry of the people when the end of jerusalem is the messiah and as it obviously is taken from psalm 118 as i showed you where they waved the willow and palm branches rejoicing this is usually done on the feast of tabernacles which is in the fall and when they do it in the fall the seventh day of that feast is called the great hosanna and it's especially associated with a consummated salvation continuing in matthew 21 and when he was coming to jerusalem all the city was moved saying who is this and the multitude said this is jesus the prophet of nazareth of galilee i want you to notice that the definite article the prophet it's an allusion to deuteronomy 18. so we're in the final week what matthew records in chapter 21 luke talks about in his chapter 19 we're going to take a look at luke because he highlights some things that's essential for us to have a perspective of matthew 22 and 23 is more teachings that luke has his in luke 20. when you get to matthew 24 there is a major passage there called the olivet discourse many people presume since there's such similarities in luke 21 with matthew 24 that it's the same discourse but there's a discovery to be made that is very subtle but very important and we'll deal with that when we get to matthew 24 and we'll go to luke 21 and show you how they actually are different briefings given on different occasions to different audiences matthew 24 was it was given at night to the insiders peter james and john and andrew only and it was the insight of what happens after the abomination of desolation it becomes a handbook for the jews that will be needful of that at the time luke 21 was not given on the mount of olives at night it was given in the temple during the day and was given to the believers there warning them to get out of town when jerusalem is surrounded by armies and luke 21 will focus on the fall of jerusalem that was going to occur 38 years later and when luke says in luke when jesus says that this generation will not pass away it's talking to that generation and 38 years later of course jerusalem fell no christians were killed according to cbs they had followed his instructions got out of town to a place called a village called pella in perea and that's why eusebius records that no christians fell in that horrible horrible disaster matthew doesn't even talk about that he talks about a whole different thing so we'll talk about the similarities the distinctives of those when we get there we get down to matthew 26 we have luke 22 we have the lord's last supper i'll call it the last sator to give it a a jewish flavor and then of course in matthew 27 we have in luke 23 we have the crucifixion itself filed of course by the resurrection and that will be the climax of our excursion in the gospel of matthew but let's take a look at luke 19. let's see back here i said we want luke 19 is you know parallel to matthew 21 but luke uh addresses some other issues that we need to have in front of us luke 19. we're going to repeat here a little bit starting at verse 28 when he had thus spoken he went before ascending up to jerusalem and it came to pass when he's come nigh to bethphage and bethany at the mount called the mount of olives he sent two of his disciples saying go ye into the village over against you in in the which at your entering you shall find a cult tied whereupon yet never a man set loose him and bring him hither and if any man ask you why do you lose him thus shall ye say unto him because the lord hath needed him there's the password or whatever and they that were sent went their way and found even as he had said unto them and as they were losing the coat the owners thereof centered them why lucy the goal he said the lord have need of him and they brought him to jesus and they cast their garments upon the colt and they set jesus thereon and as he went they spread their clothes in the way so so far their perils are pretty pretty identical and when he was come nigh even now at the descent of the mount of olives understand you go from bethany you're going up over the mount of olives you're at the peak now you're on the descent you're starting to go down through the kidron valley to jerusalem on the on the west side when you come nigh even now at this descent of the mount of olives the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise god with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen when it says disciples here you're not talking about 12 now you're talking those that were his followers in the hundreds probably the whole multitude of disciples began to rejoice and praise god with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen they it wasn't that long ago that lazarus had been raised from the dead and so on many many miracles that uh spread obviously by word of mouth very quickly but here too that also records that they're singing psalm 118 saying blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the lord peace in heaven and glory in the highest and you recognize the king that phrase is out of the halal psalm psalm 118 same passage as we just read in the psalms now whenever you and i as gentiles run the risk of missing something the pharisees come to our rescue whenever the pharisees are upset you want to find out why because behind that lies in insight and they're he's riding the donkey and people are singing this uh psalm 118. but some of the pharisees from among them all said master rebuke your disciples why they're singing a psalm it's a psalm they sing every feast of tabernacles anyway they're singing it here jesus said unto them i tell you that if they should hold their peace the stones would immediately cried out see the reason the pharisees were upset is because they recognize that singing that psalm under these conditions was declaring him the mashiach nageed the messiah the king and they presumed he certainly as their rabbi doesn't want them to be blaspheming because they're declaring him the messiah that's why that's why the pharisees upset they understood what the crowd may not have realized they're just enthusiastic but they don't he certainly doesn't want them to blaspheme so master rebuke your disciples he answered instead of them i tell you that if these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out whenever we go to israel whenever you when when you go to israel what'll happen is your bus will take you to the to the mount of olives there's a hotel they're called the seven arches but it's a great overlook because it overlooks the cuban valley and the old city sits out in front of you probably the number one photo op in the city so you'll get up there and you'll take your pictures and what you typically do because right at the base of that hill is gethsemane so most buses most tours will you'll debark your buses disembark your buses and you'll walk down to gethsemane and have your you know devotional down there and the bus will come down and pick you up down there that's typically the way it's done what i always tell the our tour groups when they're on the bus before they get off the bus up there when you get off the bus there's gonna be a bunch of little kids trying to sell your postcards and stuff do what you're gonna do with those whatever but as you walk take your pictures and as you walk down that road it's paved now it wasn't but a few years ago it wasn't but anyway it's paved now but as you walk down there pick up a rock or two and put in your pocket the best bargain in israel because when you get home what you do with that rock or the stone that you pick up is you get it mounted on a piece of wood a piece of walnut or something for your coffee table or your office at work or wherever and when somebody sees what's that you say that's one of the stones that didn't cry out and they'll obviously ask questions you'd be able to tell them all about luke 19 and daniel 9 and so forth so i share that with you it won't cost you much and it's the best bar you'll find but this to understand what's going on here we have to go back here a little bit and examine the ninth chapter of daniel which is famous it's a prayer that's climaxed by being interrupted by gabriel giving daniel a four verse prophecy that's the most astonishing passage in the entire bible that jesus will point to when we get to matthew 24 jesus is going to point his insiders to this passage as the key to all end time prophecy and we'll be getting into it then but let's take a look at it now for our purposes here as we do this there's only one thing in manuscript stuff that you need to remember we're not going to get into a lot of dry study here but i want you to remember this that the old original hebrew sometimes called the vorlaga that was compiled in the days of ezra nehemiah in the old testament but that old testament was translated into greek from 285 to 270 bc ptolemy in the in one of the major literary capitals of the of that of the region called alexandria commissioned 70 top hebrew scholars to translate the hebrew tanakh the old testament into the common greek of that day that work product took 15 years and it finished in 270 bc and it's a matter of a record in any competent encyclopedia the point i'm going to get to drive home here is that the old testament was in black and white documented three centuries before christ's ministry 270 bc christ was ministering about roughly 30 a.d so you're talking about 300 year difference there the septuagint the greek translation is what is usually quoted in the new testament it was the christian's bible not first century because the average person on the street even the hebrew jewish people had fluency in greek and uh so it was the common uh scriptures of that day and most of the quotes you find in the new testament are drawn from the septuagint about 90 a.d the jews got together and had a council of omnia from which came the beginnings of what later became codified as the masoretic text that's the hebrew your english old testament's translated from masoretic but the septuagint is available and is a very valuable baseline for us 70 weeks of daniel it has four verses that you need to master i want you to resolve to really master these four verses not just from this study but to make it a commitment there are four verses verse 24 25 26 and 27 24 is the scope of the whole thing what's it all about and it's going to deal with 70 weeks of years i'll come to that in a minute 69 of those 70 are dealt with in verse 25. the last of the 70 is dealt in verse 27 but between verse 25 and verse 27 there's a verse that describes things that happen after the 69 but before the 70th so one of the things that makes this confusing until you've studied it carefully is that the 70 weeks are not contiguous they're 69 there's actually 7 and 62 but they're together as 69 then there's an interval an indeterminate interval between the end of 69 the beginning of the 70th and that's express it's not a conjecture it's expressed in the text you want once you understand that it all starts to makes uh get it becomes clear the scope the first verse is verse 24 70 shibuyam 77s are determined upon thy people and upon the holy city notice this is not about the church this is about daniel's people israel and the holy city jerusalem let's not forget that to do six things to finish the transgression to make an end of sins to make reconciliation for iniquity to bring everlasting righteousness to seal up the vision of prophecy and to unite the most holy place six things we could spend in our sermon on each one of these we will not but clear the only point i'm going to make it's clear that not all of these are completed yet have we finished transgression there's still transgressions going on right have we made an end of sins no you could argue reconciliation or iniquity is done at the cross so i'll set that one aside but have we brought in everlasting righteousness on the planet earth i don't think so certainly a seal of vision the prophecy and the holy so what i'm going to point out here is the scope of this includes some things that have yet to happen so this is still incomplete some things are completed some things are not are we together so far let's talk about this term weeks if i told you that i'm going to be gone for a decade and i'll be back to continue these studies when would you expect me 10 years because i didn't say i just said decade you assume i mean that term we use means years in the jewish mind there are weeks of days weeks months and years there are certainly a week of days that's what shabbat is all about saturday is the seventh day we have shabbat on the seventh day established in genesis chapter two and and uh reminded them in exodus 20 the ten commandments so a week of days is no problem there's also a week of weeks they have the festival of weeks the the the uh the feast of chavott occurs seven weeks after the feast of first fruits and uh that's leviticus 23. they also have a week of months from nissan to tishri nissan if uh in exodus 12 god says i want you to make this month the beginning of months and in the in that first month you have three feasts feast of passover a feast of unleavened bread feasted first fruits seven months later at the end of their religious year they have the feast of trumpets uh yom kippur day of atonement and the feast of tabernacles between those two groups three in the first three and the seventh there's one in the middle called the feast of shavuot but that's their that's but the point is they have a feast of months i mean a week of months and they have also a week of years in leviticus 25 they were told to let your cultivate the land for six years but on the seventh year you let it rest it's the sabbath for the land for 490 years they didn't keep it god says you owe me 70. and that's why they went into captivity in babylon was because of the their failure to keep the sabbatical years so to the jewish mind a week as a seven could be days weeks months and years depending on the context and needless to say the context here are weeks of years okay so now let's talk about the core of this whole thing for you and i tonight is verse 25. if you learn nothing else tonight but really understand verse 25 it may turn out to be one of your most precious discoveries in your biblical studies 69 weeks what does it say gabriel tells daniel daniel's been praying for 20 verses he's been praying so much so if you read daniel 9 even in the translation you can feel him tremble the pace of the verbs pick up where he gets interrupted by gabriel and gabriel gives him these four verses gabriel says know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build jerusalem unto the meshiach nagi the messiah the king shall be seven weeks and three score in two weeks the streets shall be built again and the wall even in troubled times now understand the context here daniel is a slave in babylon what what's happened here is he was reading the book of jeremiah where jeremiah predicted that that slavery that he's part of will only last 70 years he knows the 70 years are almost up so that drives them to prayer that itself is interesting but when daniel is when gabriel was talking to daniel at that moment 200 miles to the west jerusalem is in rubble there's no jerusalem there's no temple but he daniel knows that from the prophecies of jeremiah they are going to be freed and head back there in a few years we're not sure exactly we know it's near the end of the seven years we're not sure exactly but it's it's it's it's coming so gabriel is telling daniel know that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build jerusalem which is yet to happen but when that happens unto the messiah the king shall be seven and three score in two weeks three three scores a score is 20 three scores sixty seven plus sixty two seven plus six two is sixty nine the street shall be built again and the wall even in troubled times that phrase turns out to be important in a minute but let's take a look at this notice what gabriel is doing is giving daniel a mathematical prophecy he says no therefore understand that from this event unto that event shall be a specific period of time so let's take a closer look at all of this the term assad quote the trigger to all of this is the commandment restore and build jerusalem the thing is the the the the terminus ad the the the final the target will be the messiah the king the mashiach and what gabriel is telling daniel there are 69 weeks of years 69 times 7 69 weeks of years that's 483 years okay now what decrees when did that decree when was that decree given many of your study bibles will list three decrees there's actually four but uh one is cyrus 537 bc it's an ezra one another one by darius and ezra six another one by artaxerxes in 458 bc quite a bit later ezra 7. and then artixerxes again in 445 bc but if you examine these decrees carefully three out of four deal with the temple under ezra they were cyrus captures babylon he reads the letter that was written to him daniel shows him this letter in isaiah blows him away to see his career and all that and as you mentioned by name written 150 years earlier it's a matter of history in fact i should have brought the cylinder of cyrus i have a replica in my office i should have brought down here um the uh uh where cyrus brags to the world he took babylon without a without a battle and he reads the letter in isaiah and is so impressed with it that he orders the hebrew slaves to that they're free to go back to jerusalem less than 50 000 take advantage of that he gives them financial incentives makes a donation to temple and that's what these first three decrees have to do is they they go back home back to jerusalem to rebuild their temple that's what the book of ezra is all about the troubles in trying to do that and they don't get very far they have hassle after hassle after hassle because they don't have the authority to defend themselves and so they're preyed upon by their enemies and so forth and isn't until a guy by the name of nehemiah becomes the cup bearer to arctic xerxes and a very favored confidant of his and uh as as a gesture of good will to nehemiah nehemiah asked for and gets the authority from arctic xerxes to rebuild the city and that's the one we're interested in because remember in the verse 25 it spoke of the street and the wall remote being rebuilt you're not talking about the temple talk about the city and so it's the city not the temple that's the focus of gabriel's prophecy and these first three decrees have been with the temple not the city it's the arctic xerxes uh uh decree in 445 that's the trigger to this whole thing okay so the tree of our exercise longimanus will you discover is it march 14th to 445 bc it's a matter of history that were indebted to sir robert anderson in his landmark work in 1894 of unraveling this whole thing he was a knighted and he was ahead of scotland yard but this was one of his memorable contributions so okay we have the decree we have the distance now we got the real problem uh we 69 times seven fourteen let's talk about these years so robert anderson recognize that in the bible both in genesis and in revelation god seems to use 360 day years 12 30 day months making up a year in genesis 7 and genesis 8 it's clearly the 360 day years in daniel it is in revelation 11 and 13. we discovered by investigation that all ancient calendars not all at least 14 of them were based on a 360 day years the assyrians chaldeans egyptians the hebrews the persians the greeks the phoenicians the chinese the mayans the hindus the carthaginians the etruscans the tutans and a number of others up until 701 bc and uh there is some evidence that the orbit of the earth was different back before 701 bc and there's a whole study you can get into uh peripheral to this one about the long day of joshua and how these things changed there is a conjecture that's held by some very prominent uh thoughtful people about the earth and the mars being on resonant orbits mars 720 uh days per per revolution in the earth 360 having a near pass by every 104 years after this resident orbit then there in the spring and march 20 21st uh it would move ahead lose energy the the earth would move ahead mars would lose energy and there was a near pass by october 25th they're 104 year separations here but uh in any case they stabilize in 71 bc and at 71 bc they finally stabilize where the earth has lost it has gained five days five or quarter days and uh the 720 days of mars you drop down to 787 this has all been modeled on a computer and tends to explain a whole bunch of other things i'm not here to to sell this just make you aware of the fact there is this view around this view is strangely corroborated by jonathan swift because in his fiction called gulliver's travels which he happens to mention the two moons of mars their orbits their size and the fact that one is counter rotation counter rotating but the problem is that he records that 151 years before that was discovered by the astronomers now he probably jonathan's probably thought he was just embellishing his political paper which is what culver charles really was originally with some colorful legends not realizing those legends he was drawing from were eyewitness accounts and that means that mars had come that close to the earth to be able to see the two moons it's a whole thing you can get into if you interested but getting back to this we know it's 360 days so if you take 69 times 7 times 360 69 weeks six nine times seven and three you're talking about 173 880 days we got to translate that to our calendar the real problem is okay we know when it starts we know the distance when was the only time that jesus presented himself as the mashiach the messiah the king and that's what's happening at the triumphal entry zechariah 9 9 rejoice greatly or die of zion shadow daughter of jerusalem behold thy king cometh unto thee he is just and having salvation lowly riding upon the ass upon the holding last this is the only time that jesus allowed himself to present be presented as a king to jerusalem what we call the triumphal entry okay and uh so that's exactly what luke's saying sing blessed blessed be the king that cometh the name of the lord he luke is putting this together from psalm 119. some of the pharisees multitudes that master rebuke are disciples he said if i answered i tell you if they should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out i really wish they'd shut up for a minute is that a figure of speech or would they really i would love to know but let's talk about chronology a little bit christ ministry began in the fall of 28 a.d how do i know that tiberius was appointed in 14 a.d augustus died on august 19th of 1488 tiberius replaced him and we know from luke 3 that it was the whole thing began within the 15th year of tiberius so it's 14 plus 14 or what we would call 28 a.d the fourth passover was april 6th of 32 a.d according to robert anderson 1894. you'll find other chronologies and some helps but they're generally chronologies that try to defend a friday crucifixion and we can show you from scripture that that's that's uh pretty unlikely so okay we've got the triumphal entry on april 6 of 32 a.d the decree of our exercise along jamal says march 14th to 445 bc right remember now the septuagint was translated this all was translated 300 years earlier so whoever wrote under what conditions set that aside it's in black and white and it pins this down to the day from 445 bc to 32 a.d is 173 740 days remember when you do that arithmetic there is no year zero you go from minus one bc to one a.d so there's no year zero so you an algebraic uh uh simple uh algebraic thing will be awful year for march 14th april six is 24 days and when you correct for leap years that means you have to add one every four years and subtract three for every century the net of it is all you end up with 173 880 days question what is gabriel's margin for error zero gabriel in effect told daniel it'd be 173 880 days from the commandment to restore and bill jerusalem on to the mashiach nagid and we discovered from our calendar that it was 173 880 days to the day to the day i have to tell you this is my first encounter with the precision of god's word and having studied it for literally 60 years i continue to be stunned with the precision that you find in the scripture if you're diligent and this is the cornerstone for me at least to the the demonstration that jesus christ clearly was the messiah that god had promised eve in genesis 3 and started that whole chain all through the old testament there are hundreds of details mel gibson's movie the passion did a marvelous job in many respects however it couldn't get across who he was the crucifixion was not a tragedy it was an achievement and that's what he that's what he had come to achieve well let's continue now with that now we understand that this event with jesus riding the donkey he's up over the hill he's coming down through the valley of the kitchen valley and as he sees jerusalem what does he do when he's come near he beheld the city and he what he wept over it saying if thou hatch known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong to thy peace but now they're hidden from thine eyes verse 42 is a terrifying verse because clearly he is holding them accountable to know this day this is the very day that gabriel told daniel that jesus would be presenting himself as a king this very day was predicted but he also then because they didn't recognize it what does he announce here but now they are hid from thine eyes he announces here that israel as a nation is going to be blinded to this reality they missed it but now they are hid from thine eyes forever no paul is going to tell us that they're only hid until the times of the gentiles be completed the fullness of the fullness of the gentiles be complete but jesus goes on verse 43 says for the day shall come upon thee that thine enemy shall cast a trench about thee encompass thee round and keep thee in on every side and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another 38 years after jesus predicts this the roman legions the fifth 10th 12th and 15th roman legions lay siege to the city of jerusalem and during about a nine month siege over a million men women and children were slaughtered the fall of jerusalem in 70 a.d a major major grim milestone on the jewish calendar question why did jerusalem fall in 70 a.d there are lots of plausible answers to that let's look at the answer jesus gave as he finishes verse 44 they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation boy when i first realized what that said it shook me up because not only is this prophecy by gabriel in daniel's daniel chapter 9 so incredibly precise that's exciting and thrilling what really shocked me was jesus held them accountable to know that they did not know the time of the visitation boy that's a sobering thing to think about we're going to talk more about that because he's going to we're going to as we go forward in this this final week is going to come up again cal news not the time of thy visitation our prayer should be that the lessons not be wasted on us our prayer should be that we won't be guilty of the same uh uh obscurity because god has given us prophecies far more detailed than this one so one of the things i'm going to ask you each to do is to study carefully the interval that's verse 26 we'll touch on it today but we certainly won't exhaust it we talk about the key verse tonight was verse 25 9 25. the next verse i'm going to call the interval that's a group of things that happen after the 69th but before the 70th week we'll look at that briefly here in a minute and then there's one verse at the very end that's the pivotal verse in understanding all prophecy especially the book of revelation what is sometimes called usually should be called the seventh week of daniel people will talk about the seven year tribulation that's an unfortunate term because the tribulation is not seven years is three and a half what they should be saying is the 70th week of daniel and i'll show you why in a minute here it's the key to end time prophecy that's not my label it's jesus's label in matthew 24 three to four disciples come to him for a private briefing and he points them to this is the key to end time prophecy and we'll examine that when we get to matthew 24. but let's talk a little bit about this interval so you have some perspective here verse 26 remember now going back we had 7 plus 62 weeks 7 plus 62. after the 62 after that which is the same thing as saying after the 69 shall the messiah be karat cut off but not for himself and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary and the end thereof shall be with the flood and unto the end of the war desolations are determined the word cut off in the hebrew is karate it means to eliminate to kill to execute do you realize verse 26 predicts that the messiah will be executed the messiah shall be that shouldn't come as a surprise psalm 22 the whole psalm is all about that isaiah 53 the whole psalm is all about that he'll be killed but not for himself who was he killed for you and me got it and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city in the sanctuary the princes shall come as a title of a leader that we'll talk more about later the people of that leader shall destroy the city in the sanctuary and the end thereof shall be with a flood or a diaspora and under the end of the war desolations are determined here's the diagram of the whole thing to put it in perspective we looked at verse 20 verse 24 was the scope of the whole thing verse 25 was though 69 weeks 7 plus 62 right when the messiah presents itself as king the 70th week is the last verse verse 26 is an interval after the 6 9 before the 70th during that interval the messiah will be executed that's the cross the cross isn't the end of the 69 weeks the cross is in the interval between the 69th and 70th and the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed so we have uh at least 38 years between in in this interval because verse 25 ended with jesus presenting himself as king that's on the 10th of nisan of april 6th on our 32 a.d after that is the cross four days later 38 years later is the temple destroyed and the city destroyed we've experienced the reality that verse 26 has gone on for almost 2 000 years there are lots of reasons why we believe that the 70th week is on our horizon not far away because there's a whole bunch we know we know a great deal about what's going to happen in that 70th week it's a major area of study and the more you know about that week and the more you know what's going on in the world you can see it getting set up so we know that this interval is coming to an end when i say coming to an end maybe another decade or two but not probably not much more than that there's rabbinical confirmations of all this by the way that the this is messianic that the messiah would come before the temple's destroyed there are rabbis that were expecting that that the messiah would exit prior to 33 a.d these are all in the mishnah and various uh other uh rabbinical documents but one of the things that i want to alert you to as you make these studies is to recognize that this prophecy the seven week prophecy is aimed at israel one of the reasons it is so misunderstood or ignored by the church is because there's a widespread view within most denominational churches catholic and protestant that ignore the reality of israel in god's program we need to understand the destiny of israel if you're going to understand your bible if you go to any pastor's library in his office or in his home you'll find typically a series of books called systematic theology there's a number of standard references in various denominations and what's interesting about them they obviously have different views on various subjects but they all have the same table of contents pretty much this is the table of contents you'll find in whatever systematic theology set you have to take a look at bibliology the study of the bible theology proper that is the attributes of god christology the st the lord jesus christ himself pneumatology as they call it the study of the holy spirit angiology the study of angels both fallen and unfallen anthropology is their term for the study of man in a theological sense sateriology is the term is the study of salvation ecclesiology is a study of the church in its mystical sense eschatology is the study of the last things or end times these are pretty much the headings that you'll find in every one of these what astonishes you to realize when you do this is there's a heading here that's missing and the heading that's missing here constitutes 5 6 of the bible that is not covered in most systematic theology things as a subject in its own right it's obviously laced through here but it's not focused on and that is israelogy israel as an instrument of god's plan of redemption and uh arnold fruchtenbaum is famous for having had both identified that and his big thick document israeli is a classic and it's a must read for anyone that's serious about his theological uh foundation isrology is is a missing the missing link in systematic theology so the point what i want you to don't accept this because i'm saying so i want you to determine your own views about israel and the church from your own study be sensitive to distinctions i submit to you they have different origins they have different missions similar missions but different missions and different destinies different origins different destinies there is a view widely held among many many many prominent christians of what we call replacement theology that the church has replaced israel because israel rejected her messiah the promises that she was heir to fall upon the church well the problem with that is it does havoc with most of the bible because there are commitments that god made to israel that were unconditional she couldn't blow it if she tried and uh the replacement theology view denies israel's place in god's program and paul in his definitive statement of christian doctrine we call the book of romans hammers away for three chapters chapter 9 chapter 10 chapter 11 that god is not finished with israel yet the church does not replace israel these replacement views would seem to make god a liar because he made all kinds of promises to israel that have that can't possibly be fulfilled by the church he promised mary that jesus would sit on david's throne david's throne did not exist during those days it has yet to be reestablished the other thing about these views is they laid the basis for anti-semitism if you want to blame somebody for the holocaust in nazi germany you have to pay place part of that blame at the feet of the silent pulpits that did not speak out because of their views the anti the early church became very anti-semitic you'll read if you'd bother reading about church history all the debates about how to how to pin down easter their dilemma was they wanted easter to follow passover but not be on passover so the formulas for easter constantly get changed and argued about when it's really simple it's not easter that's a pagan holiday call it by its biblical name it's passover there's never any doubt when passover occurs yes it floats because they're on a lunar solar calendar but that's the jewish calendar that's the one god ordained so when we sell what we celebrate as easter we should be celebrating as passover in fact this past week this past passover was the first time only time in 19 years it all lines up properly because passover was on uh wednesday tuesday night was the last supper wednesday was the was the crucifixion and so on so uh it lines up this year but of course anyway on we go now the 70-week prophecy so pivotal as it is deals specifically with israel not the church let's emphasize that understand that paul's letters divide into three parts jews gentiles of the church the church is neither jew nor gentile it's unique it's distinct first corinthians 10 32 is an example the distinctives of jews and gentiles reappear after revelation chapter 4. revelation chapter 6 to the end is a detailing of this 70th week of daniel and these the the uh the jewishness of the book of revelation is well known by most serious scholars so this is a church interval we're talking about this interval is implied all through the old testament in very subtle ways and actually surprisingly occurs 24 times that's a whole another mystery the interval's defined we saw where where jesus said that now is israel is blinded these things are hid from your eyes how long are they blinded until the fullness of the gentiles become in romans 11 25. this interval is the period of the church it's an era that was kept secret in the old testament that's what jesus was talking about in matthew 13 with the kingdom parables and that's what paul lays bare in ephesians chapter three so you can check that out on your own so the church has some prerequisites the atonement had taken place the resurrection had take place the ascension had to take place before the church could be born these things had preceded he was born at the feast of shavuot the feast of weeks we call the feast of pentecost there's more to it than that but let's go on the mystery character of the church the body of concept paul talks about in ephesians 3 it's treated as the body of christ the fact that the holy spirit indwells every believer paul that blew paul away we don't get it because we don't understand the problem see paul knew how in the old testament the holy spirit would come and go saul had it and then he didn't and the whole idea that we're sealed by the holy spirit blue fall away he tries to get that across to us what that means we're spoken of the bride of christ as distinctive of the church we're going to be subject to the harpazzo it was commonly called the rapture of the church first corinthians 15 and 1 thessalonians 4 and so on it is spoken of as the one new man that's spoken of a single body it's interesting that in revelation 12 where there's a summary of the whole program we have the woman gives forth a man child and the man child was caught up to god and his throne it was j.h pember back in 1814 i think that first recognized that that may refer to the ascension but it may also include in one scoop the rapture of the church because right following that then is the is the tribulation and the rest going on and the mystery church is distinguished from both the jews and the gentiles in first corinthians 10 32. so there's the timeline from the creation down through the exodus to the birth through the mystery of christ the nation israel then is subject to diaspora this is the timeline we use in our in our survey studies the church then is born uh and and continues to the harpazzo israel is restored prior to the church being redeemed jesus said if thou it's known even now at least in this thy day the things just belong to thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes right hid from their own eyes for how long forever know paul tells us in romans 11 25 paul says for i would not brethren that ye should be ignorant of this mystery lest ye should be wise in your own conceits that blindness in part has happened to israel until the fullness of the gentiles come in until the now the fullness of the gentiles is a term for the church once the church is taken up israel's blindness will be lifted that's what the tribulation is all about the fullness of the gentiles become in come in where where do you suppose they're coming into any guesses huh the rapture the harbatso yeah exactly exactly so this period called the fullness of gentiles is an idiom of the church don't confuse it with what's called the time it's followed of course by the tribulation don't confuse that with the times of the gentiles they're defined they began with nebuchadnezzar and they climax they finish with the antichrist the times of gentile dominion on the planet earth don't confuse that with paul's phrase the fullness of the gentiles which is an idiom he's using of the church and then of course after the tribulation that gets interrupted with the lord setting up his kingdom and on we go for a thousand years kind of fun now it's this 70th week that gets split into two parts each half of that week is called three and a half years is called 42 months is called 1260 days you're talking about the most documented period of time in both the old and new testaments and we will be talking about that as we go forward further when jesus gives his disciples an inside briefing on that very issue there's one last week that we won't develop in detail here but just to keep it put put in front of us and he the pronoun he refers to the previously named antecedent which was the prince that shall come he shall enforce the covenant with the many for one week that's the final week the seventh week in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice the oblation to cease and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate even until the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate now the many is an idiom for israel he's going to enforce a covenant for one week but apparently in the middle of that week he violates that covenant he shall cause a sacrifice and oblation to cease which is an indication that the temple will be standing because it will be a service at that time jesus paul and john all make reference to the fact the temple will be standing by the middle of that week because it's that temple that gets desecrated in this event that event is called the abomination of desolation we'll be talking more about that in our subsequent chapters as we go forward but that's the fabled 70-week scenario so for the next session i'd like you to read the remainder of chapter 21 because we just took 12 verses of it and also chapter 23 as your essential preparation i strongly encourage you each week as we continue is to read the chapters of uh of matthew right on there's only a half a dozen of them from here to the end and then read the parallel accounts in both luke and john and mark and let's really take this opportunity to get our arms around the what i call the agony of love this final week of our lord jesus christ and uh so let's stand for a closing word of prayer

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Length: 58min 26sec (3506 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 18 2020