Before we study the opening of the remaining three seals, it's important that we pause here to study some of the prophecies from the book of Daniel regarding the end times. We are going to need to know these prophecies in order to fully understand a number of the remaining prophecies contained in Revelation. Daniel was given information about what would happen with the Jewish people during the end times, for it is during the end times that the Lord is going to complete His plans and His promises for the nation of Israel. We are going to take a look today at some of the things Daniel was told regarding the future of Israel, and we are going to see which of these things have already been fulfilled and which of these things remain to be fulfilled during the Great Tribulation.
Daniel was one of the many citizens of Jerusalem who were taken captive to Babylon when King Nebuchadnezzar defeated the southern kingdom of Judah. While in exile, Daniel was given prophecies of the Great Tribulation. He was also given a timetable, and that's what we're going to look at today. This subject is going to be somewhat deep and complicated and it's going to require doing some math, but bear with me because the information Daniel gives us is going to be very valuable to us as we continue on in the book of Revelation.
The Great Tribulation corresponds with what is called the "seventieth seven" or the "seventieth week" of the book of Daniel. This means that sixty-nine "sevens" or "weeks" must be completed before the Great Tribulation. In Chapter 9 of Daniel, the angel Gabriel is speaking with him regarding things to come. The specific prophecy we are about to study is about the nation of Israel in the end times. It is not about the church. For one thing, the church (all the Christians from every nation and background, both living and dead--for the dead in Christ also rose to be with Him in the rapture of the church) is in heaven with Christ by that time. For another thing, Gabriel makes it clear that he's talking about the Jewish people, speaking of them to Daniel as "your people". And he makes it clear that he's talking about the city of Jerusalem by calling it "your holy city". The angel says to Daniel, "Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place." (Daniel 9:24)
In the original text there is some doubt about whether Daniel has written "the Most Holy Place" or whether he's saying "the Most Holy One". The Most Holy Place would reference the inner sanctum of the temple, so in that sense it could be speaking of the need for the Jewish people to purify the temple after the Antichrist has been defeated, for during his reign the temple will be rebuilt and then he will defile it himself. If Daniel meant to say the Most Holy One, then this is a reference to Christ, and in that sense he is referring to the day when the nation of Israel will anoint Christ as her Messiah and King.
We are going to need to do a bit of math while we look at this next section. The prophet Daniel knows it was foretold by the prophet Jeremiah that the nation of Judah would be in captivity for seventy years, but that the people would be allowed to return to their land and rebuild. Now Gabriel gives him additional information about the return to the land and about the years between the return to the land and the death of Christ. "Know and understand this: from the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens' and sixty-two 'sevens'. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble." (Daniel 9:25)
Cyrus the Great of Persia defeated Babylon at the end of the seventy years of captivity. He allowed the Jewish people to go home and rebuild, although the rebuilding process was fraught with danger because their enemies kept trying to prevent them from rebuilding. In the book of Nehemiah we learn that the men building the wall had to work with a tool in one hand and a weapon in the other. (Nehemiah 4:17) This is why Gabriel says the city will be rebuilt "in times of trouble". He assures Daniel that his people are going home and that they will rebuild, but the process won't be easy. But if the people had not returned and rebuilt, then none of the prophecies regarding the Messiah could have come true, for His tribe of Judah had to be back in the land and the city of Jerusalem and the temple had to be rebuilt before His advent.
Here is where the math comes in. Seven sevens are 49 and sixty-two sevens are 434, and added together this equals a total of 483 years. But in Daniel's day both the Jewish calendar and the Babylonian calendar considered a year to be only 360 days, not the 365 days we use now. Going by those ancient calendars, the years Gabriel speaks of actually add up to 476 years plus 25 days. This means he's saying that from the time the Jews arrive back in Jerusalem to rebuild until the time the Messiah is killed, there will be a period of 476 years plus 25 days (a total of 173,880 days). It is believed that the Jewish people returned to Jerusalem to begin work on the temple in the month of Nisan in 445 BC. Nisan corresponds to a portion of March and April on our current calendar. If we add 173,800 days to that date, we end up in the first week of April in 30 AD, the year and month in which the majority of historians and scholars think the Lord was most likely crucified. There is a three-year error in the Gregorian calendar that we currently use, so this means that the Lord was probably born in 3 BC, not in 1 AD. Since it is generally accepted that the Lord Jesus was crucified at the age of thirty-three, we can see that if He were born in 3 BC then He would have been thirty-three when crucified in 30 AD. Gabriel said there would be seven 'sevens' and then sixty-two 'sevens' (173,800 days), and at the end of these 173,800 days "the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing". (Daniel 9:26a)
So where is the final 'seven'? It has not begun yet. The death and resurrection of the Messiah ushered in the church age, and we are in the church age now, and we will be in the church age until the Lord calls the church out of the world. When He does that, the final 'seven' will begin. This is because these 'sevens' have to do with Israel and not with the church, and the prophetic clock stopped for Israel during the church age. But when the church is removed from the earth, the prophetic clock starts again for Israel, and during the seven years of the Great Tribulation the Lord will complete His plans and will fulfill His promises to that nation.
Gabriel tells Daniel about the wicked world ruler of the end times and about the covenant (probably a peace treaty in the Middle East) that he will orchestrate. "He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven'". (Daniel 27a) But the Antichrist will violate this covenant himself. "In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him." (Daniel 27b) One of the terms of the covenant is that Israel must be allowed to rebuild the temple. But three and a half years into the covenant, the Antichrist will desecrate the temple, making it unfit for use by the Jewish people. He will desecrate it by setting up an "abomination" in it which will probably be his own image, for the Apostle Paul says that he will proclaim himself to be God and will "set himself up" in God's temple. (2 Thessalonians 2:4)
During our study of Revelation, we will discuss the possibility that the Antichrist stages what will appear to be his own death and resurrection. (He will not actually die or rise from the dead, but people will think he did. Remember, Satan loves to imitate Christ and to draw worship away from Him.) This portion of Revelation may be purely symbolic, or it may be literal, or most likely it's a combination of both, which we will see when we reach Chapter 13. But in that chapter we find an image being set up of the one who received a fatal head wound and yet was alive, leading many scholars to believe that the Antichrist will orchestrate a fake assassination of himself. The world will believe he has been killed, perhaps by a bullet to the head. But he will present himself to the world afterward, alive and well, causing many to believe he is the Messiah. After this an image of him will be set up in the temple, and the image will be able to breathe and to speak (either through technology or through the powers of Satan), and the people of the world will be commanded to bow before the image and worship the one it represents. The penalty for not worshiping the image and the one it represents is death, which is why we needed to look at this portion of Scripture today, for when the fifth seal is opened we will see that a number of people of the earth have been martyred for coming to faith in Christ during the end times and for refusing to bow to the image of the Antichrist.
The Lord is not going to allow the nation of Israel to be destroyed during the Great Tribulation, even though the Antichrist will want to destroy Israel. Jesus gave a warning to the people of Israel about the end times and about the need to flee the country when they see the signs of the times. "So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation', spoken of through the prophet Daniel---let the reader understand---then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." (Matthew 24:14-16, Mark 12:14) When the people of Israel see the image set up in the temple, they are to remember what the Lord Jesus said and what the prophet Daniel said. They are to flee for their lives. Many of them will flee, as we'll learn in Chapter 12, and they will be protected by the Lord in a place in the wilderness for the final three and a half years of the Great Tribulation.
When the Anointed One was "cut off", as Gabriel told Daniel He would be, the stopwatch for the nation of Israel was paused. But as soon as Christ calls all who believe in Him out of this world, the stopwatch starts again and the "seventieth week" of Daniel begins. During this seventieth week, God will complete His plans for Israel, for the nation with whom He made an unbreakable, everlasting covenant. All the prophecies regarding Israel which are still unfulfilled in our time will be fulfilled in those days. And at the end of the Great Tribulation, when Christ comes to reign over the earth, He will be anointed as King of kings and Lord of lords forever, by all who have believed on Him in every era of time---both Jew and Gentile.
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