21 Aug WHERE ARE WE?
Everything shifted sharply in 2020. It was the year of a global crackdown by those who used subterfuge and intimidation to exert control over the world population. Most of us have a sense of the season we are in, as we watch for the last seven years to begin. Those of us familiar with Daniel’s prophecy of the “seventy sevens” (seventy periods of seven years, or 490 years) know that there is a missing “week” of seven years, in which God is going to wrap up our redemption. Daniel’s prophecy is a celestial compass given to us so that once we could plot the reference point of the edict to rebuild Jerusalem, we could gauge how near we were to the coming of Messiah.
A period of seventy sets of seven has been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish their rebellion, to put an end to their sin, to atone for their guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to confirm the prophetic vision, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. Now listen and understand! Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven (49 years + 434 years or 483 years) will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler—the Anointed One—comes. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, despite the perilous times. After this period of sixty-two sets of seven, the Anointed One will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing, and a ruler will arise whose armies will destroy the city and the Temple. (Daniel 9:24-26 NLT)
The fulfillment of this prophecy is so amazing, that unbelievers refuse to believe that it was written by Daniel hundreds of years before Jesus was born. But history has a way of proving what deniers dissent. There were several edicts issued by gentile kings to rebuild Jerusalem. One, the 458 BC edict of Artaxerxes works out to exactly 490 years between the edict and a 33 AD crucifixion of Christ. But this edict has been rejected by scholars, because even though Jesus atoned for our guilt and confirmed prophetic vision, he did not finished rebellion, put an end to sin, bring in everlasting righteousness, and anoint the Most Holy Place. If all of this was supposed to be accomplished in “seventy sets of seven“, theologians reasoned that there must be a missing “seventieth set of seven” yet to come, This is called the gap theory: interposing a mysterious gap between the “sixty ninth set” and the “seventieth.” Many Christians hold the gap theory, believing that after an undetermined gap of time, the “seventieth set of sevens” or “the last week of years” will finally fulfill all of redemption with the return of Jesus.
Daniel 9:26 specifies that after the sixty-two sets of seven, the Anointed One will be killed. . The question that drives into me is why would the death of the Anointed One, the single most important step God would take to rescue us from sin, be taken in a gap, rather than being the crowning achievement of the 70th week? … given that the number “7” is God’s number, representing wholeness and completion?
What if Jesus’ crucifixion did take place in the seventieth seven, in 33 AD, after the sixty-two sets of seven, coming exactly 490 years after Artaxerxes’ edict to rebuild Jerusalem? (You have to subtract one year, because there was no year “zero”)
April 3, 33 AD is widely held to be the most likely date for Jesus’ crucifixion. On that day we know from science that if you were standing on the moon, there was an eclipse of the sun by the earth, in the constellation of Aries (1) pointing to the ram that was provided for Abraham to sacrifice, instead of his son Isaac, a picture of the Messiah who would be sacrificed in our place. . . a picture of the lamb of God slain for us at Passover. This eclipse took place just a little after 3 pm, Jerusalem time, when Jesus died. This precise terrible poetry declared what was taking place from a heavenly point of view. (1) Not only this, but the abrupt shifting of strata around the shore of The Dead Sea proves that there was a massive earthquake in Judea in 33 AD. supporting the description of the earthquake that took place at Jesus’ death.
Did God orchestrate all of this to take place in a gap? Or did it crown the 70th set of sevens?
What if there is a second set of “seventy sevens” to account for the rest of what God promised but has yet to accomplish? What the prophets of the Old Testament saw as one coming of the Messiah has proved to be two. What if Daniel saw one “seventy set of sevens,” but it proves to be two? This is Christian Widener’s hypothesis in his book, Witnessing the End, An engineer from North Dakotah, he has been wrestling with this for years, until he was led to a little known engraving preserved, in of all places, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, This engraving records Sultan Suleiman’s decree to rebuild Jerusalem in 1537. (2)
If this decree to rebuild Jerusalem in 1537 began a second “seventy sets of seven,” the seven sevens and sixty-two sevens, or 483 years, would bring us to the beginning of the seventieth seven in 2020… the year everything shifted sharply.
I am haunted by this possibility. But I look around me, and life still seems so normal. How could we be in the middle of the last seven years bringing Christ’s return? I’ve got grandchildren going to college and falling in love, full of hope and dreams for the future. My children have been given strong beautiful promises yet to be fulfilled. So many bright, faith-filled, young believers are committing themselves to callings that enflame their hearts. But tumbling around in my soul, I hear Jesus warning me that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and that, “as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.” (3)
If I’m interpreting Scripture rightly (and I may not be), the last three and a half years are going to bring chaos like we have never known…. If I am wrong, you can write this off. If I am right, you will at least know where we are.
Daniel’s prophecy is a celestial compass, a gift entrusted to us, so that if we can plot the sure historical event of an edict going forth to rebuild Jerusalem, we would be able to calculate how close we are to eternity’s invasion of earth, matter, time and space. One thing is for sure, it will exceed our ability to imagine and it will blow away our darkened speculation, fulfilling every hope and dream the children of God have ever held in their hearts.
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(1) a two minute video that shows the eclipse that took place at the time of Jesus’ death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_z8thvpa18
(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qI0FAjl2WI
(3) 1 Thessalonianss 5:2; Matthew 24:37,38