Without doubt, what seemed so hopelessly remote and improbable only two years ago appears to be moving at an unprecedented pace towards the deceptive Mideast peace that sets the stage for the final sequence of events leading to the Lord’s return. Just what form this will take or how long it will be in its development remains to be seen, but prophecy clearly shows that a disarming illusion of peace is the necessary prelude to the shock that must come to Israel and the world.

The danger that besets these exciting developments is the tendency to make premature announcements that discredit prophecy just when its greatest potential for witness and warning is nearing the appointed time when it will be time to say with assurance and authority, “this is that!” (Acts 2:16). Even now, well meaning prophecy watchers are making premature declarations that the final seven has already started.

Others are more cautious to say only that the conditions necessary for the peace that begins the final seven are falling fast into place. Although a necessary first step, the enforcement of a multi-national peace arrangement is not by itself sufficient to signal the start of the last seven, UNLESS this is accompanied by certain equally foretold conditions and signal events. This is what we want to look at in what follows, as it will be a safeguard against the false alarms and premature announcements that are sure to fill the air.

It might be time well repaid for serious students of the scripture to become at least somewhat familiar and respectful of the kind of difficulties and perplexities that have baffled Daniel scholars of all schools (Prov 18:13<; 2Tim 2:15). It is well to remember that according to Daniel’s prophecy, certain outstanding details will not be unsealed till the end is very near (Dan 12:4, 9). Yet, the scripture is equally clear that these things will be revealed well enough before the end to ‘prepare a people to prepare a people’ (Dan 11:33; 12:3, 10).

So while we can expect the signs that Daniel reveals to come into increasing clarity as the time nears, caution, patience, and humility is appropriate, since no other book has given rise to more diverse and conflicting interpretations.

Not only this, but Daniel has been the most tortured object of critical attack by so-called higher criticism than any book of the canon. This should not surprise us, since Satan knows that the end of his rule has been set according to Daniel’s timeline (Rev 12:12).

The difficulties that have plagued Daniel scholarship is not a call to resigned despair or neglect, but to prayer and patient waiting for the promised unsealing that is divinely set to serve its greatest purpose at “the time of the end” (Dan 8:17; 11:27, 35, 40; 12:4, 9, 13). Part of that purpose will be the compelling witness of fulfilled prophecy and its meaning as a catalyst for what scripture more than hints will be the greatest worldwide harvest of souls in history (compare Dan 11:33; 12:3; Mt 24:14; Rev 7:9, 13-14; 14:6).

Paradoxically the great number that will be saved out of “the tribulation, the great one” (double use of the definite article in the Greek) will take place during the time of the greatest deception and revolt against the truth (Mt 24:4-5, 11, 24; 2Thes 2:11; Rev 13:14).

The difficulties that have baffled and divided Daniel scholarship only further confirms that God has chosen to keep certain mysteries under wraps till the appointed time (Isa 8:14-17; Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9). It is also no surprise that Satan is fully invested to obscure and discredit this most embattled of all biblical books.

The unequaled tribulation of the final half week begins with a war in heaven. Michael “stands” to thrust Satan down to earth. This is the moment Satan fears most, since it means his tenure as “the god of this age” has been reduced to a final 3 ½ years (compare Dan 12:1, 11; Mt 24:15, 21, with Rev 12:7-14).

Because “he sees his time is short” (Rev 12:12), his total focus will be to defeat the promise by wiping out the Jewish race before it reaches the finish line at Jesus’ post-tribulational return to “finish the mystery of God” (Amos 3:7 with Rev 10:7). Hence, it may well be said that the downfall of the devil is in the details of Daniel, since the unsealing of Daniel’s prophecy sets in motion the final unmasking of Satan in the revelation of the ancient mystery of lawlessness in the revelation of the man of lawlessness (2Thes 2:3-4, 7-8).

Until then, there is much that can be known that will be decisive in whether we are prepared to recognize what is most urgent to know in the time most urgent to know it. Until then, we should approach the mysteries of Daniel with humility and patience, in the faith conviction that difficulties that seem to defy easy resolution do not exist by chance but by sovereign design. God intends that His children know they are searching out a divinely ordained mystery that is not intended to yield its full light apart from the mercy and grace of our sovereign teacher, the Holy Spirit.

Those will be most blessed in the time of full disclosure who have “searched and inquired diligently” (1Pet 1:10). Blessed are those who, in trembling dependence on the Holy Spirit, have “set their heart” to understand (Dan 10:12) the divine secrets that it has been God’s pleasure to conceal from the prideful, self-reliant wisdom of this age (Mt 11:25-26; 1Cor 2:7-8).

Not that we will resolve every question, but we want to know what the evidence rules out, rules in, or leaves open to question till the time. We want to identify any safeguards that the scripture provides that will protect us from the peril of presumption, as prophecy has been so marred and discredited by the false alarms of prophetic speculation.

But there is a time to sound the alarm, and it is always time to study and prepare ourselves to recognize the time when it arrives. We want to be neither early nor late when it is time to announce that “the time is fulfilled” (Dan 11:33; 12:3; Hab 2:2-3; Mk 1:15).

From our study, it seems most probable that the scripture intends that we look for the Antichrist to arise from somewhere to the north of Israel. Since the pattern of the past often prefigures the future in Hebrew prophecy, it becomes significant that the final aggressor, whose end coincides with the redemption of the great day, is specifically called “the Assyrian” in the typology of the pre-exilic prophets, Isaiah and Micah (Isa 10:5-6, 24:17; 11:4; 14:25; 19:23; 30:31; 31:8; Mic 5:1-7).

In Isaiah and Jeremiah, the foe from the north (“north country”) is identified with the Chaldeans under the king of Babylon (Isa 14:4, 12-14, 25-26, 31-32; 23:14; 47:1, 6, 9; Jer 6:22; 10:22; 50:9). In Ezekiel, the last aggressor is Gog. Clearly, this is the final aggressor, long foretold, not only by Ezekiel but by the many prophets of Israel (see Eze 38:17).

The nations under his command surround Israel from all sides (Eze 38:5-7, 9), but his descent is always depicted as coming from the “far north” (NKJV; NIV) / “uttermost parts of the north” (ESV; ASV) / “distant north” (NLT) / “remotest parts of the north” (NASB / CSB  (Eze 38:15; 39:2).

Here too, there is cause for caution. Who is Gog? When does he attack and how long does the battle last? How far north is his country or countries of origin?

Since Gog’s multinational invasion begins when Israel is in a state of unsuspecting false security (Isa 28:14-18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 11:23-24; 1Thes 5:3) but ends with Gog’s destruction at the Armageddon “great day of God Almighty” (Eze 39:8 with Rev 16:12-19) and Israel’s everlasting salvation (Eze 39:22, 28-29), the only conclusion that fits all the evidence is that this battle comprehends the entire 42 months of the great tribulation. It starts with the shock of an unexpected invasion that violates the illusory presumption of peace and ends with Israel’s post-tribulational regeneration and everlasting salvation.

This is significant because the full cast of nations that are gathered by the seduction of demon spirits to Armageddon (compare Dan 11:40-45 with Rev 16:12), do not join the fray until very late towards the end of the tribulation (compare Dan 11:40-45 with Rev 16:12-17; Eze 39:8). This means Ezekiel’s comprehensive vision of Eze 38 & 39 may include nations that come in at the end and are not necessarily one of the union of ten that strike Israel at the beginning of the tribulation.

Furthermore, since Gog is called a “chief prince” over many nations (Eze 38:2-3; 39:1), this may imply something more than only a human leader. According to Paul, “his coming is after the working of Satan with ALL power, signs, and deceiving wonders (2Thes 2:9). Never before has the world seen anything like this.

The case is too involved to enter upon here, but we believe the “mystery of lawlessness” (2Thes 2:7) that is revealed in the man of lawlessness is the revelation of Satan in the flesh, the antithesis of the mystery of God manifest in the flesh (1Tim 3:16). I mention this because the scripture calls the archangel, Michael, “one of the chief princes (Dan 10:13).

This suggests that “THE chief prince” over the nations of the gentiles (Gen 10) could be Satan himself, cryptically referred to as Gog. Gog would then double as both Satan and the Antichrist because he fulfills the mystery of Satan in the flesh. This understanding explains why this title is again used to apply to Satan’s post-millennial release for the “little season” of futile threat to the everlasting peace of regathered Israel (Rev 20:3, 7-9).

But beyond this general reference to the southward descent of the northern invader, depending on how certain debated passages in Daniel are interpreted, it is possible that the typology of the scripture points us to a much narrower, more specific territory from which the final Antichrist may be expected to rise. The passages in question are Dan 8:8-9 & Dan 11:3-21. These verses specify the territory ruled by Antiochus Epiphanes IV. He was the Greek tyrant who attacked Jerusalem and famously desecrated the temple by sacrificing a pig on the altar and erecting a statue of Zeus in 167 BCE.

Because Antiochus arose out of one of the four primary divisions of Alexander’s kingdom, scholars usually identify him as the “little horn” of Dan 8:9 who also abolished the daily sacrifice in Dan 8:11. But while Antiochus IV was certainly a type of the “coming prince” (Dan 9:26), we will show in what follows why we cannot accept that he was the complete and ultimate fulfillment.

In notable contrast to Antiochus, the coming “little horn” of Dan 7:8 (the final Antichrist) is one who rises up from among ten nations to lead them in a united invasion Israel. The end of the little horn comes, not three years after the abomination of desolation is placed, as in the case of Antiochus’ desecration (Dec 164 to Dec 167), but 3 1/2 years later with the completion of the predestined half week of Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:7, 11).

Such often neglected distinctions are placed in the text to protect the careful interpreter from a hasty presumption that a near parallel or partial fulfillment in the past has sufficiently satisfied the language of the text. It is certain that Jesus was not satisfied that Antiochus’ desecration sufficiently fulfilled Daniel’s reference to the abomination of desolation. He puts it fully in the future in relation to the unequaled tribulation that ends with nothing short of His return in glory and the resurrection of the righteous (compare Mt 24:15, 21, 29-31 with Dan 12:1-2).

Moreover, so far from being a “little horn” who “becomes strong with a small people” (Dan 11:23), Antiochus rose to power in the largest of the four “notable horns” of Alexander’s divided kingdom (Dan 8:5, 8). The territory of the Seleucid Empire stretched from Antioch (named after his father, Antiochus III) to the Mesopotamian regions of Babylonia and Assyria, all of which had been under Macedonian control after the division of Alexander’s kingdom among his successors (Dan 8:8-9; 11:3-21).

On this basis, it has been long expected that someone would rise up from within that general territory towards the end of Hosea’s 2nd millennial day (Hos 5:15-6:2). For this reason, many were reasonably considering whether Jolani (aka Amed al Sharaa) might be the fulfillment of one who would stand up in the estate of Antiochus IV, the great eschatological prototype of the final AC.

The problem with Jolani’s candidacy for the one who enters into an alliance with Israel (Dan 11:23) is that he did not come into power “peaceably”, nor by deceit and smooth promises, as stated in Dan 11:21, but by force of arms. I’m aware that some translations translate, Dan 11:24 “at a time of peace, or tranquility” but that too fails to fit the conditions by which Assad of Syria was so suddenly replaced.

And yet, never has there been a more credible and promising prospect for the kind of deceptive, false peace that the scripture depicts as necessarily preceding the sudden and unexpected outbreak of the final tribulation as we’re now seeing unfold before our eyes (compare Isa 28:14-18; Jer 30:3-7; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 9:27; 11:24; Mt 24:15-16, 21; 1Thes 5:3; Rev 11:2 with Joel 2:1-3). Ominously, this is all taking place after the greatest upsurge of rabid world antisemitism, not seen since the Hitler time. By any fair reckoning, the stage is being set.

Whether the territory once ruled by Antiochus IV significantly narrows the general area of the AC’s origin will depend on our answer to a very important question debated by scholars. Does the “ vile / despicable person” of Dan 11:21 refer to Antiochus or the future Antichrist, or both? If to Antiochus, this would mean that the willful king who exalts himself over all forms of deity in Dan 11:36-37 is someone else entirely, already nearly 22 centuries removed from Antiochus’ time. You see the puzzle.

The far greater consensus among Daniel scholars is that Dan 11:21 & Dan 11:36 are speaking of two distinct individuals separated by many centuries. This means that both do the same thing, as described in nearly precisely the same words. Both take away the daily sacrifice (regular burn offering) and place the abomination. To reiterate, this would mean that Dan 11:31 (assumed to be past) is a completely different event from Dan 12:11 (assumed to be future).

So, is it only Antiochus, (as a highly descriptive type of the coming Antichrist) who is introduced in Dan 11:21? Or is it the Antichrist himself? All will agree that Antiochus functions as a type, but “if” Dan 11:21 does not introduce the Antichrist, then looking for him to rise somewhere within the estate (general vicinity) of Antiochus IV loses its primary support. It opens the field for him to come from a more expansive area, albeit necessarily to Israel’s north.

Antiochus came into the estate of his deceased brother, Seleucus IV, who succeeded his father, Antiochus III. This becomes significant if Antiochus is a type of the Antichrist, but especially if the person who comes to power in verse 21 is the same person who exalts himself in Dan 11:36-37. I want to show in what follows that there is no exegetical justification to find the break between antiquity and the time of the end between verse Dan 11:35 & Dan 11:36, but much more likely between Dan 11:20 & Dan 11:21.

We begin by pointing out where agreement is almost universal. Due to Paul’s verbatim quotation of Dan 11:36-27 in 2Thes 2:4, few will dispute that Daniel’s willful king is Paul’s man of lawlessness. Nor is there any disagreement that Jesus quotes the language of Dan 11:31 & Dan 12:11 to identify the sign that He expects His disciples to recognize as the event that starts the unequaled tribulation (Dan 11:31; 12:1, 11 with Mt 24:15-16, 21).

But is the abomination of Dan 11:31 the same event as the abomination of Dan 12:11? This is the very question that has divided Daniel scholars. It will decide whether the events spanning from Dan 11:21-35 have relevance for the future.

Though several reputable commentators over the years have offered a compelling defense of the position we take (I have a few in my library), we remain in the comparatively rare minority. This is not the place to recount them all, but there are notable details in Dan 11:21-35 that do not agree with certain aspects of the well documented history of Antiochus Epiphanes IV’s career leading up to his desecration of the temple. We will look at just a couple of examples:

With rare exception, most conservative scholars assume that because Antiochus was such a remarkable type of the coming man of lawlessness that the references to the removal of the sacrifice in Dan 8:11 & Dan 11:31 can only apply to him as the complete and final fulfillment, leaving only Dan 9:27 & Dan 12:11 to have a future fulfillment.

Let us look more closely at what this postulate implies. If Dan 11:31 has in view a different time and event than Dan 12:11, this would mean that mention of the abomination and removal of Tamid (regular burnt offering) of Dan 12:11 is NOT referring back to the familiar event mentioned earlier in Dan 11:31. Instead, it means that Dan 12:11, while a very similar event, is already nearly 22 centuries removed from the abomination of Dan 11:31, despite its being described in so nearly the same words.

These are the very words that Jesus will use to describe the sign that marks the beginning of the final tribulation that will surpass anything in the past or future (Mt 24:15-21). Even His reference to the unequaled time of trouble in Mt 24:21 is a direct quotation of Dan 12:1. Therefore, to NOT expect a future repeat of a very similar act in “Judea”, comparable to Antiochus’ desecration, amounts to a blatant denial of Jesus’ own, manifest understanding.

This is why Jesus sends His disciples to read and understand Daniel’s account of this particular event (Mt 24:15). He knew that by these unmistakable connections the time and nature of this massively transitional event would be recognized by His sheep, visibly, unmistakably, beyond any question (Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4). This will be their strategic advantage for the final thrust of the gospel before the end (Mt 24:14).

Should we then accept the verdict of the far greater number of commentators who believe that Dan 11:21-35 should be interpreted to apply to Antiochus, not as an archetypal foreshadowing of that last aggressor, but as completely fulfilled in 167 BCE by his desecration of the temple? This would also mean that Dan 11:32-35 are applied, not to the tribulation of the end, but to the ensuing persecution of Antiochus that ended in the triumph of the Maccabean warriors and rededication of the temple almost exactly three years later in 164 BCE.

While not all agree that 11:21-35 is past history, there is broad consensus that the abomination and removal of the daily sacrifice of Dan 12:11 is the start of the half week of Dan 7:25; 9:27; 11:12:7; Rev 11:2-3; 12:6, 14; 13:5). On this we agree. We do not agree that Dan 11:21-35 can be consigned to the past. This means Dan 11:31 & Dan 12:11 are both equally future. Dan 11:31 was partially prefigured by Antiochus’ desecration, but both 11:31 & 12:11 have primary and ultimate reference to the same event.

So to summarize: Because Paul is so clear in his duplication of the words of Dan 11:36-37 applied to the man of lawlessness in 2Thes 2:4, most scholars locate the gap of centuries between versus 35 & 36. From this point to the end of the book, there is common agreement that the topic is the future Antichrist and the unparalleled tribulation of the final 3 ½ years.

This is not in dispute. Our difference lies with the view that Dan 11:21-35 has been fulfilled by Antiochus IV in the second century BCE. Antiochus was a type and pattern of the one to come but he did not satisfy some of the necessary details of the prophecy, thus demanding a future and more complete fulfillment, arriving at the end that is “determined” (Dan 9:24, 26; 11:36) / “appointed” (Dan 8:19; 11:27, 35).

In several notable particulars, Antiochus does not well enough match the profile that history provides. His rise to power certainly did not begin in the way described. He was certainly no “little horn”, since he never began with a “small people” but inherited directly and at once his father’s and brother’s rule over the greatest of the four “notable horns” (Dan 8:9; 11:5).

To argue for the break of centuries to be located between verses Dan 11:35 & Dan 11:36 would mean that the “willful king” of vs 36 introduces another individual entirely, but the continuity of the preceding succession of pronouns militates against such a conjecture. In all, the cumulative evidence weighs against the view that Dan 11:31 & 12:11 are completely different events, signifying two different ends of two different times, centuries removed, despite being described in by the words in the the same prophecy. How likely? You decide.

The stakes are high in this decision, because “if” commentators are wrong in their consignment of Dan 11:21-35 to antiquity, a substantial number of revealed details about the first half of Daniel’s 70th week risks being robbed from the knowledge and witness of the church. We can hardly begin to estimate how invaluable this knowledge will prove to be in its appointed time.

So much is at stake whether the godly remnant will be able to recognize and benefit from a knowledge of the events that occupy the first half Daniel’s 70th week that run from Dan 11:23-30.

So, we ask, does the “appointed time of the end” in Dan 11:27, 35 refer to a completely different end than the “time of the end” in Dan 12:4, 9, 13? The far greater number of scholars think so. What do you think? Will it matter then? Doesn’t matter now?

Notice too that the reference in Dan 11:27 to “the appointed time of the end” comes before the first mention of the abomination of desolation in Dan 11:31. How then can we say that the same “appointed end” mentioned in Dan 11:35 refers to a different end than described in Dan 12:4, 9-13? The details of the text must take priority whether history confirms a complete fulfillment or only partial fulfillment, designed to function only as a type and pattern of a more complete and comprehensive fulfillment in the future.

As mentioned, many, actually most commentators make “appointed time of the end” in Dan 11:27 & Dan 11:35 to be speaking about the end of the Maccabean struggle over the Seleucid armies of Antiochus IV. According to this interpretation, this is NOT the same “time of the end” referred to in Dan 11:40, 45; 12:4, 8-13. Instead, most commentators treat this undeniable similarity as two distinct ends of two different (albeit very similar) times of assault on Jerusalem, its temple and sacrifice, nearly 22 centuries apart.

The extreme awkwardness of this view can be illustrated by juxtaposing two parallel passages of undeniable similarity, but are they the same? Do they signify the same time? Most say yes. A few say no. You make the call.

Dan 11:35:

“And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.”

Dan 12:9-10:

“And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.”

This alone is enough to cast doubt on the Antiochus interpretation, not that he did not prefigure and typify the coming Antichrist in his attack on the holy covenant centered in Jerusalem, but he falls significantly short in certain particulars that do not match some of the details of Dan 11:21-35. This argues for a fuller, more exact and complete fulfillment of every yet outstanding detail.

Alls to say, if Dan 11:21-35 is wrongly relegated to the past, then the witnessing, prophetic body of Christ risks being robbed of crucial end time information that is intended for their advantage and the greater glory of an infallible scripture that requires that not a single jot or tittle pass unfulfilled.

On the other hand, if we are correct that the AC is introduced in Dan 11:21, we are justified to be looking for one who has or will come to power in an initially small country of modest beginnings somewhere to the north of Israel. This will not be through natural succession, but apparently, seizing upon a momentary vacancy, he snakes his way to the top by “flattery” (slippery fair promises), as implied in Dan 11:21-23. This description stands in notable contrast to the historical account of how Antiochus came to power by wresting the throne from a usurper accused of assassinating his brother, Seleucus IV. Again, there are points of notable variance between the details of the prophecy and the historical record of Antiochus’ accession to the throne.

So, unless we are overlooking something (always a real and present danger), there may yet be a longer wait between what we’re seeing now and the “alliance” of Dan 11:23 that ‘appears’ (?) to be the same time that “he” (i.e., the coming prince of Dan 9:26) “confirms” (makes firm / strengthens) the covenant with the many to begin the final seven (Dan 9:27).

If Dan 11:21-35 is retrieved as yet future, then from the alliance of Dan 11:23 to the abomination of Dan 11:31, we have been given a clear chronological sequence of events that occupy the first half of the week.

Sometime after the alliance of Dan 11:23, but before the abomination of Dan 11:31, the sacrifice (regular burn offering) will be restored. If not already apparent, this will remove all doubt that we have crossed over into the final seven.

But there is more that will confirm that we are in the final seven. “AFTER the league made with him” (11:23), he attacks and overcomes a king to his south (Dan 11:25-27). This conquest of the southern king does not appear to impinge on the security of Israel. The conquered king is not killed but joins his conqueror in a secret plot to destroy the holy covenant at Jerusalem, but the plan comes to nothing because the time is not right (Dan 11:27).

These are things those living at that time will see. From this, they will be able to anticipate what comes next, play by play.

Manifestly, the alliance of Dan 11:23 is made with Israel in particular, but since Dan 9:27 says he confirms the covenant “with many”, it seems possible, I think probable, that the AC will be only one among many other nations that are united in common consent to recognize (confirm) Israel’s right, not only to a portion of their promised Land, but also their return to the temple service in Jerusalem as commanded in the law.

This is why the covenant that is confirmed by political expedience while fiercely hated by the AC is called “the holy covenant” (Dan 11:28, 30). It is this recognition of the “holy covenant” in particular either by the AC alone, or more likely an international cast of several nations that starts the seven.

So is the league / alliance of Dan 11:23 the same event described in Dan 9:27? It appears likely, but can’t say with final certainty. If the alliance and the confirming of the covenant are part of a single event, then we can see a certain sequence of specific events that will precede the abomination.

After the alliance of Dan 11:23, the Antichrist makes two distinct southward advances before a third whereupon he invades the Land and places the abomination of desolation (Dan 11:31).

The first is the successful conquest of a nation to his south that increases his power base (Dan 11:25-28). The second southward move is intercepted and repulsed by the “ships of Chittim” (Kittim in some translations). This momentary frustration fills him with rage against the holy covenant centered in Jerusalem (Dan 11:30).

It is inviting to speculate that it is just here that he secretly unites the ten nations that have waited for an opportunity to destroy the peace and recapture Jerusalem for the Caliphate. The check and restraint of the guardian naval power stationed in the Mediterranean is short-lived, as the now fully united ten nation confederacy floods the Land with overwhelming force (Isa 28:2, 15; 59:19; Dan 9:26, 11:22; Eze 38:9, 16; Rev 12:15-16), whereupon he captures Jerusalem (Zech 14:2), enters and defiles the “holy place” by taking away the regular burn offering and placing the abomination of desolation, as he exalts himself “above all that is called God or that is worshipped” (Dan 11:31; 36-37; Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4) and begins 3 1/2 years of treading down the holy city (Isa 28:18; 63:18; Mic 5:5; Dan 8:13; ; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2).

Now the question: Why and how would Israel in the modern context ever so completely relax their guard as to be taken as much by surprise as they were on Oct 7? How does Israel come to such a presumption of peace as described in Isa 28:14-18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; 1Thes 5:3?

I would propose that this comes, not only when peace is initially declared and internationally imposed upon dissenters, but it comes with the glaze of false security that will steal over the minds of the population when the ships of Kittim (US? NATO?) turn back the threat of the AC’s second southward advance. This is when the boast of peace and safety will soar (Amos 9:9-10; Isa 28:14-18; 1Thes 5:3).

I’ve always speculated that the ill-fated declaration of 1Thes 5:3 has most particularly to do with what Israel will feel after the ships of Chittim have successfully checked the second southward advance of the northern king. After such a show of seemingly impregnable protection, the peace will ‘seem’ invincible.

Now ask this question: How formidable would the naval power have to be that can halt and turn back the man who in just the next verse (Dan 11:30-31) will rally and return, this time with a confederacy of ten nations united in their commitment to overwhelm and destroy, not only unsuspecting Israel, but the west may very well find itself suddenly incapacitated, unable to mount a successful resistance against the Antichrist’s all prevailing military supremacy? (Dan 11:31with Rev 13:4).

Could this happen in conjunction with an unexpected nuclear strike on the west? That’s where I see the cumulative evidence pointing.

There will be gaps in our knowledge and doubtless surprises, as more becomes un-sealed as the day approaches, but who will not consider that the unprecedented alignment of foretold events happening right before our eyes represent giant steps that perfectly align with what prophecy gives us to expect?

A fragile peace appears to be in the making, potentially unprecedented and against all odds only two years ago. When consolidated and set in place, a growing sense of security will doubtless follow. At length, the growing presumption of lasting security will become the ill-fated boast of Isa 28:15, 18; 1Thes 5:3. That boast is against the warning that prophetic witnesses will be sounding throughout the nations (Ps 19:4).

The warning will be generally dismissed at first, it will continue to speak to Israel during the time of their wilderness flight from the face of the Antichrist (Isa 28:16-19; Dan 11:32-33; 12:3; Rev 12:6, 7-14). The Antichrist’s pursuit of Jewish blood must continue until the light of the gospel breaks through the veil, as the penitent Jewish survivors of the tribulation see the one whom the nation pierced coming in the clouds of divine glory (Zech 12:10; Mt 24:30; 26:64; 1Thes 4:17; Rev 1:7). It is no accident that our president confidently announced, “eternal peace in the Mideast!”.

That declaration, while the equivalent of Jeremiah’s, “Peace, peace!” When there is no peace (Jer 6:14; 8:11), is no less a piece of sovereign divine providence. Such an extravagant expression of optimism reveals the very self-reliant humanism that boasts of accomplishing by natural means what God has reserved to Himself alone, namely, “eternal peace in the Mideast” by the long-awaited advent of the Prince of Peace. “Not by might nor by power but by My Spirit says the Lord!”

So let us guard against the tendency to assume that the long-awaited peace will necessarily include the Antichrist’s confirmation of the covenant that starts the last seven. It may but it may not.

Recognition of the futurity of Dan 11:21-35 leads us to consider that the covenant of Dan 9:27 may be more than a presumed “peace treaty” with the Antichrist. It is more likely his confirmation (strengthening / support / endorsement) of the “holy covenant” of Dan 11:22, 28, 30, 32.

This has implications for the revival of the ancient sacrifice and restoration of the “holy place” in the temple at Jerusalem (Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4). Hence, we must be careful and cautious to distinguish things that are not the same, lest we misidentify and thus mislead.

To be sure, at some point, what could hardly be imagined only two years ago, will exist. There will be a disarming illusion of peace, doubtless protected by one or more of the great world powers.

In its early stages, this remarkable achievement may not immediately include the AC’s “confirmation” (recognition) of the covenant of Dan 9:27, but it will be the framework that makes provision for it.

Why this caution? According to Dan 9:4; 11:22, 28, 30, 32, the covenant is not merely a peace pact, as many have perhaps too hastily assumed. In all other uses of the word throughout the book of Daniel, the covenant is God’s covenant with Israel. So if the covenant of Dan 9:27 signifies nothing more than a peace pact, this one verse would be the only exception. However, if the covenant of Dan 9:27 is the same as THE “holy covenant” of Dan 11:28, 30, a whole new vista comes into consideration.

This would mean that the AC, with “many” others, will be confirming the very covenant that has come down through Abraham’s promise of the Land, through Moses’ institutions of temple service, and through David’s acquisition of the elect city of Jerusalem. If this is the “covenant” that the AC confirms to begin the final 7 [years], then it is more than a peace pact with the AC.

Yes, a preceding peace agreement will certainly need to be in place for the “holy covenant” to be confirmed, whether as part of the initial peace plan or a later event made possible by the peace plan. In other words, it is at least possible that the covenant (assuming it is the same as the “holy covenant” of Dan 9:4; 11:22, 28, 30, 32), may not be confirmed at the same moment the peace is first initiated. It remains to be seen.

In this case, it is NOT the peace agreement that starts the seven years but the confirming of the covenant, even the covenant that Dan 11:28, 30 calls the “holy covenant”. Although inextricably related, the peace plan that may soon be implemented may not immediately include the confirmation of the “holy covenant”.

It is possible the peace plan may come into play and be agreed on by the major parties and exist for some time before the AC confirms the holy covenant. It is also possible that the he is only one of “many” nations that will unite to acknowledge, not only Israel’s right to exist, but their right to temple access to sacrifice again.

As remote as such an eventuality may seem at the moment, it MUST come about, since for the sacrifice to be stopped, it must first be started, and it must conform to the pattern of the past in the passages where Antiochus serves as an importantly instructive type.

So we must guard the delicate balance between watchful vigilance and hasty presumption, but we must also be prepared in the scriptures to “instruct many”, not only in the tribulation but even now. We need to show others how to show others how the signs that confirm certainty can be recognized with certainty.

In short, God doesn’t waste ink! These things were revealed to be unsealed in their appointed time, that the one who reads may run (Dan 12:3 with Hab 2:2-3).

There may be much that remains unclear, but sufficient clarity is given that many of the false alarms of prophetic speculation can be safely ruled out as incongruent with the scripture.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Prov 13:12). Great confusion threatens where these distinctions are not taken into account and carefully considered.

In His precious service, Reggie

The post Discerning the Beginning of Daniel’s Seventieth Seven appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

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https://www.jewishhistory.org/a-mystical-view-of-exile/  (from jewishhistory.org)

Notice these extracts from the above article:

“What sin of the Jewish people was so great that it required such a long, bloody and painful exile – with seemingly no end? The Jews may have sinned, but if we compare the Jews’ behavior to many other nations and religious groups in history, it is difficult to place them at the bottom of the ladder. We are not found to be that wanting morally or spiritually. The punishment seems disproportionate to the sin.”

“What purpose does this exile accomplish?”

“The exile was transformed from being viewed as a punishment for the sins of the Jewish people into a vehicle for redemption”

In this last sentence and what follows, we see the problem of the exile being collapsed into one aspect of a common Jewish answer to the so called, “problem of evil”:

“only through darkness could light shine.”

This softens the blow of the traditional view of exile as punishment for sin. It doesn’t deny sin, but it makes sin, and evil in general, to be the means by which the nobility of innate human goodness can be applied towards some eschatological ’re-assembling’ of the good, ultimately purged and freed of the power of evil through good deeds.

How much more optimistic of a properly “educated” and incentivized human nature could there be than this?!

Kabalistic Judaism is an enormous leap of faith in man as the ultimate cooperator to assist God to put the world right. At best, God can do no more than help us “get ourselves back to the Garden”. The golden age dawns when this elusive mutual endeavor has been achieved.

The Hebrew prophets who continually describe a golden age of peace held no such optimism concerning man’s role in bringing such an age into existence. Only an apocalyptic in-breaking of supernatural divine power would ever be sufficient to break unending cycle of wars and rumors of war.

According to Judaism’s boundless optimism in the potential of human nature, the messianic era waits for man to come around to a sufficient cooperation with God to finally end the exile, but for how long? How long can the messianic era, once it comes, be expected to endure apart from a radical change at the root of human nature?

This is precisely where we must make much of the promise of the Holy Spirit as indispensable to the hope of the nation then, “in that day”, and the individual now, in this day.

We must show in our Jewish evangelism that the hope of the nation is the same as the hope of the individual. That is the indispensable necessity of vital regeneration. “You MUST be born again!”

The prophets recognized that only the outpouring of the Spirit on the “whole” of the surviving nation (ALL Israel) is the indispensable necessity that marks the end of exile (see Isa 32:15; 44:3; 59:21; Eze 39:29; Zech 12:10). It is Zechariah who reveals the ground of this great eschatological event as a transforming revelation that will come to the Jewish survivors of the tribulation, as it came to Isaiah when he saw the Lord (Isa 6:1-8; Jn 12:41 with Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; Ro 11:26 with Joel 3:16 & Rev 1:7).

The NT will make explicit what was implicit in the OT, that the eschatological promise of the Spirit would be given on the basis of faith in “the blood of the everlasting covenant” in Yeshua’s atoning sacrifice. According to Paul, the apostolic proclamation was to be presented as the revelation of a mystery, fully foretold in “the scriptures of the prophets” (Acts 26:22), but kept secret until the appointed time when the Holy Spirit would be “sent down from heaven” (Ro 16:25-26; Eph 6:19; 1Pet 1:11-12).

We might ask how nearly our approach to evangelism conforms to Paul’s?

What follows is an overview of something that began with a text exchange with Adam this morning:

The exile (i.e., the Jews driven from the Land that God gave specifically to them as an everlasting possession) was once looked upon as a shocking and puzzling anomaly:

“Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?” (Deut 29:24 KJV).

For the Hebrew prophets, the healing of the nations would not come until All Israel would be All righteous (Isa 60:21), ALL back in the Land (Eze 39:28), dwelling in everlasting security, “never again” to be menaced by the enemy within or without.

Therefore, an Orthodox Jew who reveres the scriptures and interprets them literally MUST deal with the fact that so long as his people are not ALL back home in that particular Land, ALL preserved in abiding holiness by reason of a new heart and new spirit (Isa 59:21; Jer 31:34; Eze 37:26, etc., etc.), an apocalyptic end of unequaled distress yet awaits his nation. It is crucial that this be stressed in our witness.

This unequaled trouble (“the time of Jacob’s trouble”) will bring about the deepest national humbling and breaking in the nation’s history (Deut 32:36 with Jer 30:6-7; Dan 12:1, 7; Mt 24:21). It will accomplish the permanent end of exile in the spiritual rebirth / resurrection of the nation in “one day” (Ps 102:13; Isa 66:8; Eze 39:8, 22; Zech 3:9).

Only an ultimately climactic, ultimately transformational event could ever hope to reconcile the great tension that exists between the unconditional, unilateral covenants promised to Abraham & David and the many conditions necessary to secure the inheritance that would be subsequently introduced at Sinai. That built in tension pointed to a covenant that could not be defeated by conditions that would invariably be broken through human weakness. Unlike the covenant mediated by Moses, this covenant would be incapable of EVER being broken again (Jer 31:31, 34; 32:40).

This is NOT because the stipulated conditions of obedience would be conveniently removed, but because all conditionality would be provided for, and guaranteed by the atonement of Messiah’s atoning blood and the promised gift of the outpoured Holy Spirit, poured out, not only on the perennial remnant, but on the whole of the newly born (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9), newly raised, holy nation of born-again tribulation survivors.

This covenant that would subsume, supersede, and fulfill all others is what the prophets would call, “the everlasting / new covenant”. It would not be fully enacted with “ALL Israel” until AFTER the unequaled trouble when the Deliverer would come out of Zion “to turn ungodliness away from Jacob” (Isa 27:9; 59:20-21; Joel 3:16; Ro 11:26).

Because the Hebrew prophets entertained no such optimism concerning the intractability of fallen human nature, they cast their focus on a future apocalyptic event of ultimate divine intervention, comparable to the power of the original creation, the supernatural birth of Isaac, or the resurrection of the dead. Nothing less would avail. “Not by might not by power but (ONLY) by My Spirit, says the Lord.”

So the very concept of the Day of the Lord grows out of the logic of what we might call the crisis, or dilemma of the covenants.

To know both the extravagance and the certainty of the unilateral promises to Abraham and David, and to compare this to the hopeless weakness and predictability of the human condition is to raise the searching question: “what’s it going to take?” Surely nothing less than “the God who raises the dead” (2Cor 1:9).

Herein lies the unspeakably glorious resolution that the mystery of the gospel will reveal after Christ’s ascension at Pentecost. The shed blood of the Lamb of God would be the means by which the gift of the Spirit would secure the blessings of the everlasting covenant for “all the seed” (Isa 45:24-25 with Ro 4:16).

So contrary to popular replacement presumptions, the ultimate goal of the everlasting covenant does not reach its climax with the crucified and risen Messiah but with the age ending resurrection of an internationally impaled Jewish nation at His return.

That question: “What’s it going to take?”, must be pressed! It should be a pivotal point to be made in our apologetic to Israel.

This is because, according to any plain reading of plain language, an unparalleled time of devastation looms over the fledgling nation locally, and world Jewry internationally. Nothing could be clearer: Covenant chastisement cannot end until the exile has ended with every Jew filled with the Spirit, safe at home in his own Land (Eze 39:28-29).

With any opportunity, we must be careful to stress that while this time of unequaled trouble will touch everyone everywhere, it will be centered around the age old, “Jewish question”. When its implications are duly unpacked, this question is divinely designed to evoke an even more central question, namely, the Jesus question, and the question of the nature of justifying righteousness (Acts 13:38-39).

Before coming to the question of Jesus, we should point out that the fate of the nations hangs in the balance over an ancient covenant contention, namely Yahweh’s (“quarrel” KJV) controversy with “My people” (Lev 26:25; Mic 6:2; KJV).

Even God’s “controversy with the nations” (Isa 34:8) will be over how they see and interpret His controversy with His people (Joel 3:2; Eze 38:17), since both points of great divine contention revolve around the greatest and most decisive of all questions: “whom do men say that I, the Son of Man am? … what think ye of Christ?” Not only that Jesus is the promised Messiah, but that His is the only acceptable perfection of righteousness imputed to the believer that can stand in the judgment (Isa 45:24; 54:17; Jer 23:6; Dan 9:24; Ro 1:17; 3:21; ;1Cor 1:30; 2Cor 5:21; Phil 3:9)

The question of why a future great tribulation must yet come upon the Jewish nation locally and the Jew internationally, leads to the issue of the Holy Spirit received by faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, as the only resolution to the perennial problem of covenant failure for both Jew and gentile. This is the resolution that the gospel reveals to the praise of the glory of His grace in Christ.

To summarize:
According to the prophets’ manifest interpretation of the divine covenants of Abraham and David, the world can never know abiding, unthreatened peace, until ALL (not some but ALL) the Jews are safe in their own Land, not only home, but “home free”, home to stay in an “everlasting righteousness” that extends to the entirety of an entirely saved Jewish population, unto children’s children (Isa 4:3; 45:17, 25; 44:3; 59:21; 60:21; 65:23; 66:22; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Eze 20:40; 37:25; 39:22, 28-29; Zeph 3:13, etc.).

The question why this should be so leads to the greater “glory of the story”. The end time proclamation that will bring the Jew at last to “consider” what the nation has been so reluctant to consider (Deut 32:29; Isa 1:3; 42:25 with Jer 23:20; 30:24) will be no less effective to reach the gentile, according to the approach of Ro 16:25-26.

These are the divinely ordained questions that an anointed and empowered ‘maskilim’ (those who “understand”) will be prepared to answer at a time when all the great questions of the faith will be pressed upon the nations, as the question of Jesus was pressed on first century Israel (Dan 11:32-33, 35; 12:3, 10; Mt 24:14; Rev 7:9, 13-14; 14:6).

The post Jewish Wrestlings with the Tragedy of Exile appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

It is generally well known that earliest Jewish and Christian eschatology (study of the future) shared in common the view that God’s final defeat of the demonic powers of this age would come only after a brief period of unequaled great tribulation. In Judaism this period is typically called ‘the birth pangs of Messiah’. The tribulation was expected to end with the apocalyptic ‘day of the Lord’, which would realize the end of exile with the deliverance of besieged Israel, and the enthronement of Messiah. The Christian gospel is understood as ‘the revelation of the mystery’ contained in the prophetic writings that Messiah would come twice (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:10-12), a first time to suffer making atonement, and a second to restore all things (Acts 3:18-21). The redemption would be accomplished in two stages rather than one as in Judaism. In both views, the final redemption comes at a time of unparalleled distress and desolation called ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’. The common view was that the events that distinguish and define Jacob’s trouble would culminate in the final deliverance of Israel at the climactic ‘day of the Lord’.

Rightly considered, few themes of scripture are more invested with greater divine significance than the coming time of Jacob’s trouble, also called ‘Zion’s travail’ (Mic 5:3; Isa 13:8; 66:8), also ‘the tribulation, the great one’ (Jer 30:7; cf. Dn 12:1; Mt 24:21; Rev 7:14). Though brief in duration, it holds the key to the final defeat of Satan with the restoration of Israel, and the bringing in of the age of righteousness (Rev 12:6-14). It is therefore of utmost importance that the church as God’s prophetic voice of witness among the nations rightly understands what God has invested in this short time and why. Because to understand Jacob’s trouble, not only in fact but in principle, is also to observe a pattern in all of God’s redemptive ways (Acts 14:22). For this cause, we are interested in more than the mere recognition of a coming time of unprecedented trouble; we want to understand its place and purpose in the larger intention of God, since through it, all the covenant promises of God will be publicly vindicated in the sight of all nations.

Jacob’s trouble is the point where all roads meet. It is the transition between the two ages. It signals the final defeat of the rebellious powers that hold this age in bondage and that resist the final triumph of the kingdom of God. Their ultimate dethronement in history and the principle by which their power is broken in the personal life of the child of God is much better understood in the light of God’s prophetic purpose in history, particularly as it concerns this ultimately transitional period.

In the necessarily brief introduction that follows, we want to simply open for further study and discussion some of the many questions that arise when considering the time, circumstance, and purpose of Jacob’s trouble and its relation to Israel and the church. We also want to draw particular attention to what is at stake in deciding between competing interpretations that have turned the time and nature of the last tribulation into a matter of greatest controversy and heated dispute. All of which is not the least surprising if we take seriously what this particular period of time threatens for the kingdom of darkness. Scripture makes plain that Satan’s final eviction, exposure, and defeat is bound up with the last 3 ½ years, which is the time that the prophets Daniel and John give as the duration of the tribulation’ (compare Dn 7:25; 9:27; 12:7, 11 with Rev 11:2-3; 12:6-14, 13:5).

It is furthermore important for the church to understand how and why Satan’s overthrow is bound up with the fulfillment of a well defined set of events and conditions that though not without parallel, are never realized so particularly and intensely as during the time of Jacob’s trouble. All of which is designed to crowd God’s elect into a transitional crisis that ends in glorious revelation and restoration. The revelation that quickens the dead and brings salvation comes at the point of utter weakness and destitution (Jonah 2:1). Through the final crisis of Jacob’s trouble, the pride of self-sufficiency is fatally shattered, and with the revelation that comes at the end of strength comes also the regeneration (Lev 26:19; Deut 32:36; Ps 102:13-17; Dn 12:7). This is the pattern for all salvation. The way of faith is the way of weakness and broken humble dependency on the Word of God.

Significantly, the same process that ends with the salvation of ‘the preserved of Israel’ accomplishes in the meantime the further refinement of those that are the appointed witnesses of the most prolific and public fulfillment of prophecy that the world has ever known. These are called in Hebrew ‘the Maskilim’. “Those that ‘understand’ among the people shall instruct many … those that are ‘wise’ shall turn many to righteousness” (see Dn 11:32-35; 12:3, 10). The term is in particular reference to those that ‘understand’ Daniel’s sealed vision (12:4, 8-10).

It should not fail our notice that the time that Daniel’s sealed vision is opened to the ‘wise’ is also the time of the greatest harvest of world evangelism. The reference in Revelation to the countless number that comes “out of great tribulation” (Rev 7:14) does not simply refer to the common experience of all saints. The double definite article in Greek suggests not simply tribulation in general, but more specifically, “the tribulation, the great one.”

It is well known that the witness of the apostolic church was carried out with great urgency under the shadow of an imminent destruction of Jerusalem as prophesied by Jesus. Others also expected the great tribulation to begin in connection with the Antichrist invasion of Jerusalem. The desert ascetics of Qumran were among the apocalyptic sects within Judaism that were expecting the tribulation judgments that would drive Israel again into the wilderness. This expectation was based on a number of prophecies, but Daniel’s in particular is the background of Jesus’ warning to flee into the wilderness. Physical survival will depend on speedy escape from Judea from the time that the Antichrist places the desecrating sacrilege in the holy place at Jerusalem (Dn 11:31-36 with Mt 24:15-21; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 11:2).

Prominent throughout the prophecies of exile and return is the theme of a new exodus.¹ In the perspective of the prophets, the day of deliverance comes only after Israel has been brought once more into the wilderness for a final time of testing and divine pleading as at the first (Ezk 20:34-37; Jer 31:2; Hos 2:14-15). This raises the question of the time of fulfillment. The context is decisive; it is the critical point of transition that ends with final salvation and return to the Land. Israel’s flight into the wilderness is made expedient by the violence of Antichrist; the remnant flee from ‘the face of the destroyer’ (Isa 16:1-5; Jer 4:7; Ezk 35:5,12; 36:2-5; 38:17; Obad 10-14; Mic 2:12; Mt 24:16-21; Rev 11:2; 12:6). Some of the prophecies depicting the final return represent the remnant as returning not only from many nations but also from desert locations from neighboring regions outside the Land (Isa 16:4; Isa 26:19; 27:12-13; 42:11; Ezk 20:35; Dn 11:43).²

It is not hard to understand why many in first century Israel would share this perspective, because this is the meaning that one would naturally attach to a literal reading of the prophets. Hence, it was fully expected that the final redemption cannot come until after the nation has passed through its darkest hour of extremity and affliction, and this was expected to entail another return to wilderness conditions, as Jerusalem is ‘trodden down’, albeit briefly, by the Gentiles (Isa 28:18; 63:18; Dn 8:13; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2). The flight is made expedient by the firmly expected multinational assault led by the Antichrist against the ‘holy covenant’ (Dn 9:27; 11:21-31; 12:11; Joel 3:2; Zech 12:2-3).

In this certainty, Paul speaks of his own time as “the present distress” (1Cor 7:26). This sense of urgency has been lost to the church in proportion to its loss of the apocalyptic perspective that characterized the apostolic period. Paul’s expectation would soon be vindicated by history, but the full end of prophetic hope passed unrealized. Jesus did not return in relation to Jerusalem’s destruction as expected. Did prophecy fail? Was the fulfillment deferred to the future? Or, is it a question of spiritual versus literal interpretation?³

Scholars make a case that the unexpected ‘delay of the parousia’ (Greek for coming or presence) created a crisis of faith in the early church. The problem of apparent delay is not unique to the New Testament. The Jews returning from Babylon surely expected the immediate fulfillment of the glorious events depicted in the prophecies of ‘the return’ as apparently accompanying the end of exile.

Taken alone, many of the prophecies of return do indeed give the appearance that the final redemption happens in immediate connection with the return from Babylon. There is no clear distinction; they appear as one event. Thus, it is natural that the Jews returning from Babylon would have expected the millennial splendors typically featured in connection with the prophecies of return to immediately attend their arduous trek back to the Land. Instead, they met with enemy opposition and the disappointment of delay and hope deferred (Ezra 3:12-13). The hard fought gains of those early days were at best a “day of small things” (Zech 4:10).

Daniel’s prophecy would address this crisis of delay by his further revelation that the final redemption would not quickly follow the first return. Rather, an additional seventy sevens are ‘determined’ (9:24). With Jeremiah’s prophecy of the seventy years in mind (Jer 29:10-30:7), Daniel sees ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’ as the last 3 ½ years terminating in Israel’s national deliverance and the resurrection and reward of the righteous. Jacob’s trouble is the last half of the last week of Daniel’s seventy weeks of years (compare 7:25; Dn 9:24-27; 11:31-45; 12:1, 7, 11).⁴

The prophets living after the exile would see the return from Babylon as only a first installment (first-fruits) of a much greater world wide return that waits the still future day of the Lord (Zech 8:8; 10:6-10). Isaiah had said that the exiles would be gathered ‘a second time’ (Isa 11:11). This return must be distinguished from any previous return in that it is both universal and complete. After the final deliverance of the day of the Lord, all return; not one is left behind (Deut 30:4; Isa 11:11-16; 27:12-13; 43:6-7; esp. Ezk 39:28; Amos 9:9; Zech 10:8-9). This means that the present return must be regarded as only a preliminary first stage of a further gathering that is much more comprehensive and complete. Only such a universal and complete return can fulfill all the details of the return that Isaiah calls ‘the second’. The order of the return can be easily confused if we fail to recognize the distinction between the age-long Diaspora (which was unknown), and the very brief exile of the unequaled tribulation of the last 3 ½ years (which was well known).⁵

Although the prophets recognize a final return that comes with the day of the Lord at the end of the tribulation, it is important to note that there was no explicit indication that the tribulation would be postponed beyond the first century. Daniel’s seventy sevens (490 years) would naturally be expected to terminate within the first century. While many looked for a crisis of national devastation that would send Israel again into the wilderness in flight from Antichrist violence, this expectation carried no thought of another age-long dispersion that would require yet another preliminary return in national unbelief in order to prepare the stage again for a still future tribulation.

Although hinted in a few scattered prophecies,⁶ the extent of the Roman exile was unknown. It belongs to a hidden interval that forms part of the mystery of Messiah’s twofold advent. As much as Christ’s return is “immediately AFTER the tribulation” (Mt 24:29), an interval of indefinite duration must be observed to exist between the sixty ninth and the seventieth week of years. This is evident because the sixty ninth seven terminates in the messianic atonement (Dn 9:26), whereas the seventieth week (last seven years) is clearly occupied with the eschatological Antichrist and the final 3 ½ years of unequaled tribulation (8:11; 9:27; 11:31-36; 12:11; Mt 24:15-21; 2Thes 2:4). Therefore, it follows that the seventieth week could NOT have followed the sixty ninth in unbroken succession. This can only mean that a hidden interim exists between the sixty ninth and seventieth seven. All of which belongs to the greater mystery of the two advents of Christ (Rev 10:7).

The Roman destruction failed to bring about the expected end. This and the prolonged absence of a significant Jewish presence in the Land seemed for centuries to lend support to the view that the tribulation is past, or that the fulfillment of prophecy does not require a Jewish national existence. Still, it is well documented that many throughout history have stood, often quite alone, in their insistence that there must be a preliminary return of Jews to the land in unbelief in order for the events of the great tribulation to be fulfilled in a way that is consistent with the language and intention of the prophets. Such an insistence seems now much closer to vindication, as the amazing reappearance of the nation of the Jews and the ripening alignment of the foretold preconditions cannot be too greatly urged on the attention of the church and the world.

So what of the present return? Certainly a preliminary gathering to the Land is requisite towards establishing the conditions necessary to the literal fulfillment of prophecy. This alone is sufficient to invest the modern miracle of Jewish survival and national repatriation with the greatest prophetic significance. However, the end is not yet. ALL of the prophecies describing the events of the last days depict the nation in unbelief, abiding still under the judgment of a yet unfulfilled covenant. One of the primary purposes for the severities of Jacob’s trouble is to bring Israel back under ‘the bond of the covenant’ (Ezk 20:37; see also Deut 32:36 with Dn 12:7).

While many prophecies depict Israel as situated in the Land before the tribulation, still in unbelief and under the abiding threat of continued covenant discipline, there are a few remarkable passages that show that the judgments of the last tribulation break forth on a people that have only recently returned to the Land (Jer 30:3-7; Ezk 22:17-22; 38:8; Zeph 2:1-2; Joel 3:1-2). The language suggests that the holy places have been only lately recovered into Jewish possession when the City is suddenly invaded and ‘trodden down’ by the Gentiles (Isa 63:18; 64:10-11; Dn 8:13; 11:23 with Isa 28:15-18; also Lk 21:24 with Rev 11:2).

Since there are certain close and subtle distinctions that are sometimes difficult to recognize in the order and stages of Jewish return, it is easy to succumb to the error that was embraced by the early defenders of Jerusalem, namely, ‘the inviolability of Zion’. This is the view that the city of Jerusalem will ‘never again’ be successfully taken by an enemy. It is essentially the view that many take today. With the modern miracle of renewed nationhood and the marvelous success of Israel’s early wars, some see the future of the nation as essentially secure. Advocates of this view grant that Israel may indeed by threatened and even buffeted by implacable enemies, but God will be her defense, and so nothing of the scale and magnitude of the unequaled tribulation is to be expected. Recently, the view has been advanced that Jeremiah’s prophecy of Jacob’s trouble has already been fulfilled by the Holocaust of Nazis Europe. This view has met with wide international acceptance and has gained great currency among the messianic believers that live in Israel today. But the tribulation depicted in prophecy begins not in Europe but in Jerusalem (Dn 11:31; Mt 24:15-21). The prospect is almost too painful to consider, but as certainly as the tribulation is future, Jerusalem must again fall under Gentile control (Dn 11:45; Mt 24:15-21; esp. Rev 11:2).⁷

It is beyond the purview of this introduction, but the approach of the great tribulation that begins in Jerusalem is marked by definite signal events (Isa 28:15-18; Dn 11:23-31; 12:11). These will be recognized by those that have understanding (Dn 11:32-35; 12:3, 10). Jesus enjoins the reader of Daniel’s prophecy to ‘understand’ the critical importance of the abomination of desolation as signaling the start of the great tribulation (Mt 24:15-21). Jewish survival depends on this critical ‘understanding’, as this event signals the urgency of flight out of Judea into the neighboring wilderness (Mt 24:16; Rev 12:6, 14).

There must be no mistake; the scripture makes it clear that Israel’s last trouble eclipses any former tribulation in severity, scale, and scope, as it extends even to the devastation of nature (Mt 24:22). It begins in Jerusalem with the abomination of desolation, proceeds for 3 ½ years according to the well defined events outlined in Daniel’s prophecy, and ends with nothing short of Christ’s return and the resurrection and reward of the righteous (compare esp. Dn 12:1-3, 13 with Mt 24:21-29). Therefore, any other tribulation of past history that doesn’t answer to these specific criteria cannot be “Jacob’s trouble”.

Nor can any earlier return guarantee security in the Land apart from the everlasting righteousness of the final redemption. Only a righteousness that is forever can guarantee the everlasting continuance of covenant promise. Any security that is not based on this eternal righteousness is at best temporary and at worst ultimately deceptive (Isa 28:15-18; Ezk 38:8, 11, 14; 1Thes 5:3). Therefore, any earlier return remains precarious, as Jewish residence within the Land grants no immunity from the wrath of the covenant (Lev 26:25; Isa 10:6; Lk 21:23), and it is clear that the discipline of the covenant will include another last, albeit brief, expulsion and flight into a renewed wilderness experience of divine pleading (Ezk 20:35-37; Mt 24:16; Rev 12:14).

The oracle concerning the time of Jacob’s trouble follows Jeremiah’s earlier prophecy that the Jews would return after seventy years in Babylon (Jer 29:10-14).⁸ Many of the prophecies of return that appear in the earlier prophets are often represented in terms of millennial peace and righteousness. However, when Jeremiah looks for the peace that typically appears in connection with earlier prophecies of return, he is astonished to see instead the staggering vision of Israel’s most incomparable national disaster. “For thus says the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask now, and see, whether a man is ever in labor with child? So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces turned pale? Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it” (Jer 30:5-7). The eschatological tribulation is not without precedent or analogy in the earlier prophets. Jeremiah’s prophecy builds on the earlier prophecy of Moses (Deut 4:30; 30:1-10; 31:29) and the theme of Zion’s travail appears also in Isaiah, Micah, and others.

Daniel does not specifically refer to another return or mention the day of the Lord, but his revelation of an additional seventy sevens of years served to explain the ‘already and the not yet’ of much of Old Testament prophecy. Daniel’s apocalyptic form of prophecy is primarily occupied with the mystery of iniquity that must precede the final redemption. The six stated goals of the final redemption are realized according to a predestined chronology of events that accomplishes the final conquest of evil and the bringing in of the ‘everlasting righteousness’ of covenant promise (9:24 with Jer 31:34; 32:40).

According to the logic of the covenant, the prophets understood that there can be no guaranteed continuance in the Land as long as the larger part of the nation is prone to backslide. The presence of a righteous remnant might forestall but never finally prevent the judgment of exile. Thus, the only permanent solution for Israel’s intractable tendency to backslide is the bringing in of an ‘everlasting righteousness’ (Isa 45:17; Jer 32:40; Dn 9:24). This, since only an enduring righteousness, extending not only to a mere remnant, but to ‘all Israel’ without the exception (Isa 4:3; 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34; Ro 11:25-27) can make the promise eternally secure from the threat of further judgment through the jeopardy of covenant failure (Isa 45:17, 25; 54:17; Jer 23:5; 32:40; Dn 9:24).⁹

The collective regeneration of the surviving remnant is represented by the prophet Isaiah as the miraculous birth of a nation, “in one day … at once” (Isa 66:8; Ezk 39:22; Zech 3:9). Deeply sifted by the events of Jacob’s trouble (Deut 32:36; Dn 12:7; Amos 9:9), the ‘escaped of Israel’ are saved suddenly and at once by the transforming revelation of Christ at the day of the Lord in remarkable analogy to Paul’s experience on the Damascus road. The day of revelation and regeneration of ‘all Israel’ is also the day that ends the ‘times of the Gentiles’, as the dominion of the Gentile superpowers that have so long stood astride over the grave of captive Israel is forever broken. Satan is bound and the millennium dawns by the transforming power of the day of the Lord, which Christians know as the revelation of Jesus. For Israel it will be the revelation of Joseph to His brethren (Mic 5:3; Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39).

Therefore, so far from presenting ‘a problem for faith’, the mysterious postponement of certain features of the return prophecies and the delay of the final redemption becomes instead ‘an encouragement to faith’, when seen in the light of the apocalyptic mystery of the gospel. In a planned article, I hope to show that the apparent delay and age-long deferment of certain prophecies actually forms the structure for the apocalyptic mystery of God (Rev 10:7). The so-called ‘gap’, so smugly scorned by some interpreters, actually forms a glorious and supernatural framework for the mystery of Christ’s two advents, and accounts for the mysterious interim that must be seen to exist between many prophecies that depict Israel’s return from Babylon in terms of the final redemption. Failure to recognize the mystery of a divinely intended parenthesis has been the cause of much misinterpretation and unwarranted spiritualization. It is often invoked as evidence of failed prophecy. I call it the ‘glory of the gap’, because this characteristic of prophecy has been divinely employed to hide the glories of God’s hidden counsel from the proud wisdom of this age (Mt 11:25; 1Cor 1:9; 2:7-8), while at the same time demonstrating that all was foretold (Mk 13:23; Acts 26:22), and all provably contained in the prophetic writings, albeit in a mystery (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:10-12).

True to the prophecy that Jesus gave His disciples on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem would indeed be destroyed within the space of a generation. However, the age did not end as expected with the return of Christ to raise the righteous and to restore the surviving remnant of Israel at the end of the great tribulation. Because of this apparent failure, the evidence shows that towards the end of the second century many began to re-interpret prophecy as never intending a literal fulfillment, applying the greater balance of prophecy to the church as the new spiritual Zion. Those objecting to this practice call this approach ‘replacement theology’. They see it not only as a flagrant violation of the language and intent of the prophets, but potentially nurturing of a triumphal attitude of presumption that effectively displaces the covenant promise that Paul argues is not fulfilled apart from the eschatological ‘re-engraftment’ of the ‘the natural branches’.

Many that have adopted the so-called ‘spiritualizing’ approach to prophecy over the centuries have doubtless seen it as the only viable alternative to the apparent non fulfillment of the prophecies that seemed to fail of a literal fulfillment. However, we have come full circle! For the first time in nearly two millennia since the Roman period, the church is once more living under the shadow of an impending world conflict over the so-called “Jewish problem’, as Jerusalem is made once more an international “cup of trembling” (Zech 12:2-3), and all nations are plunged into what the Isaiah calls “the controversy of Zion” (Isa 34:8). Through an amazing providence that includes the Islamic fixation with Jerusalem based on a 7th century myth,¹⁰ modern events continue to move us in the direction of the early church’s fervent expectation of an imminent end that comes by an international controversy that rages over Jerusalem. But unlike the early church, the modern church is largely out of touch with the apocalyptic perspective that animated the first Christians. Moreover, there is the modern problem of competing interpretations that greatly obscure the issues and rob the church of vital certainty.

It is important to consider that the far greater part of world wide Christendom supposes that Jacob’s trouble was fulfilled during the Babylonian captivity, or else it is believed that the time of unequaled tribulation prophesied by Jesus was fulfilled by the events of 70AD when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. That is the consensus report of most of the historic churches. The exception is another sizeable group within evangelicalism that looks for a future tribulation in relation to national Israel, but sees itself as safely removed from the scene by way of a pre-tribulation rapture. These two dominant views, held by the far greater number of Christians throughout the world, have something significantly in common. BOTH effectively remove the tribulation from any vital concern for the church. The reader is urged to seriously contemplate and review the implications if neither of these suspiciously convenient interpretations happens to be true. It will not be the first time that God has hidden His intention so that the wisdom of this age would be made to stumble. So the issue is one of greatest urgency.

The post The Approaching Time of Jacob’s Trouble appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

As never before, the whole flow of history is moving exactly in the direction that the plain person’s plain reading of prophecy would have led them to expect. God Himself has made the issue of Israel and the so-called, “Jewish question” a watershed of international division.

Just imagine trying to explain the irrevocable election of Israel, based on grace alone, to a generation that is being fast pre-conditioned, almost overnight, to despise the very suggestion of such an unthinkable notion. Talk about a calculated offense!

So yes, how we see the times we’re in does indeed come down to a question of one’s hermeneutics, but also to a question of the heart.

The pragmatic pastor will want to ask, how is this relevant to the gospel? If a pure gospel is well established in the heart, isn’t that enough? Shouldn’t such details of prophetic speculation be left to the mystery that God intended, nice to know but not critical, since the sheep will surely make it through, come what may?

Indeed, the gospel and the saving righteousness of Christ is centermost. But this center has a Divinely chosen context that must not be neglected, not only for our benefit, but much more importantly, for the glory that God has invested in His foretold plan, precious to savor at all times, but particularly now, as chaos and deception is about to explode on a scale eclipsing anything ever witnessed before.

We must remember that the NT revelation of the mystery of the gospel is built around Christ’s coming, departure, and return to Israel, specifically the Mount of Olives from whence He ascended. He must return to the place where He was crucified under the placard that said, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

Why end the age just there, in that physical locality? Why has God constructed the end of the age around an ancient land dispute that is divinely calculated to plunge the nations into an insoluble crisis from which none will be able to extricate themselves? (Zech 12:2-3). Why would God bind together the issue of the mystery of the gospel with the mystery of Israel?

I would submit that part of the answer regards His deliberate intention that both comings would be surrounded by an element of mystery, designed to elude the pride of self-reliance (Mt 11:25-26), just as Paul warns in Ro 11:25. Just as the mystery of Christ’s twofold coming so deeply searched and tested Jewish hearts, just so, the mystery of Israel is designed to test and sift the hearts of the nations, even gentile believers.

But there is one important difference: The mystery of Christ’s cross and twofold coming was not only hidden from Peter and the disciples (Mt 16:22; Lk 18:34); it was hidden even from the angelic powers (1Cor 2:7-8). Not so the mystery surrounding the Lord’s return.

Those well marked days will only come “as a thief” upon the unregenerate church and the unbelieving world, but not upon the faithful children of the light (1Thes 5:4). We know this because Daniel’s prophecy is clear that the vision will be unsealed and known to the wise (maskilim) at the time of the end. They will be doing great exploits, instructing many, and turning many to righteousness, even a countless number will be saved out of, “the tribulation, the great one” (Rev 7:14; noting the significant double use of the definite article).

But the larger answer to the question has all to do with the completion of an ancient covenant promise. It is the age-ending climax of the “everlasting covenant” that forms the framework of the future. In the larger context of God’s eternal purpose in Christ, this is what defines how and why the age ends just as the prophecy of both testaments so fully describes.

Towards the goal of seeing the big picture, I believe the Lord Jesus Himself has given us the key to establish what I like to call a “plumbline of simplicity” that will align and pull many of the strands together into a coherent clarity. The object will not only be to know what is most important to know, but how best to show others how to make the case from scripture without getting bogged down in details, in a way that will equip others to equip others.

If observed, I believe God has given us an amazing, and now especially timely, provision to equip the body, not only to escape the manifold forms of end-time deception, but to have the Lord’s own, personally commended key of interpretation that will enable them to “instruct many” and “turn many” to righteousness” (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10).

I would like to expand a little on how Daniel aligns and sets in order, not only the end-time events, but also the whole covenantal framework of the judgments and promises, as traced from Gen 3:15 to the final perfection of the last two chapters of Revelation.

Daniel is the key to organizing the whole of scripture around the main themes of kingdom, covenant, and mystery. But it is Jesus’ Olivet prophecy in particular, and the emphasis He puts on one centermost event, that becomes the key that opens not only Daniel, but also sets all the prophecies spoken concerning the coming day of the Lord in clearest covenant context.

Referencing and building upon Moses and the earlier prophets, Daniel gives us not only the timeline and the order of events related to both comings, but he also reminds us of the covenant curses that must continue until Israel’s everlasting deliverance and final security in the Land, all in glorious analogy to the story of Joseph and his brothers (compare Mic 5:3-4, with Zech 12:10).

Rightly instructed believers will weep with those who weep, not only in their bitter distress, but in the glory that will break upon the beleaguered survivors of Israel when they will look upon Him whom they pierced and say with one voice, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mt 23:39).

In this way, we can begin to see God’s mind and purpose behind the great judgments and the unrestrained evils that would be otherwise inexplicable, and the occasion for the greatest offense to the natural mind.

But back to my point:

In my experience I found that when I chose to take very seriously Jesus’ command to read and understand Daniel’s prophecy concerning the abomination of desolation, I was challenged when I saw that this light did not come to him until he first, “set his heart to understand”. Looking to understand this particular event and its full significance, I would be astonished at just how much more this simple obedience would open to discovery in pulling the great strands of biblical themes together. Jesus well knew what simple compliance to His wise directive to pay attention to Daniel would set in motion.

Not only did I discover the event, and the events that follow throughout the second half of the week, I discovered a number of events that would mark and distinguish the first half. What a priceless advantage this first half of the week will provide the body for their readiness for the second half. We will see it coming!

But more than all of this, Daniel became the key to what I like to call, “the glory of the story”. This is because Daniel, like no other book, reaches all the way back to Israel’s beginnings and outlines the whole sweep of Israel’s history of crisis and covenant discipline, reaching to its glorious resolution in the kingdom that has come on earth as it is in heaven.

It is important to note that the abomination of desolation is the very event that Paul was careful to elaborate during his short, three-week stay with the Thessalonians. This should underscore the importance he attached to Jesus’ Olivet prophecy and His emphasis on Daniel’s order of events.

We know this because when the false alarm arose that Christ’s return was immediately imminent, he corrected the error by appealing to what he had gone over with them on his earlier visit. “Do you not remember that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?” (2Thes 2:5).

Paul speaks of a coming man who is yet to be revealed. He will be possessed of “all power”, capable of signs, wonders, and cunning deception. He will enter the temple of God in Jerusalem (Mt 24:15-16), and there, exalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped (2Thes 2:4). But there are some dots we need to connect.

Jesus doesn’t mention the man, but only this event and its location (“Judea”). But both Paul and Jesus use language that is taken almost verbatim from Daniel chapter 11, where both the man and the event are described within four verses of each other (see Dan 11:31-37). So the scripture itself shows us how the dots should be connected.

Manifestly, Paul did not regard knowledge of the basic order of endtime events as a matter of no serious concern. Notice Paul’s urgent tone when he echoes the Lord’s similar grave warnings concerning the peril of deception on this very matter. “Let no man deceive you by any means!”

You can almost hear the exclamation point.

That sounds like the beginning of Jesus’ opening answer to His disciple’s question, “What shall be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” Significantly, Jesus’ first words were, “take heed that no man deceive you”, again, the exclamation point. No other theme is so repeatedly reinforced throughout His prophetic discourse.

Paul’s response to the error concerning the order of events preceding the Lord’s return implies that something far more serious was being threatened than to merely prompt the slackers and busybodies to return to their ‘day jobs’ and occupy till He comes, as some commentators seem content to assume. Rather, Paul is seeing where this error can lead in light of the confusion that Jesus warned would reign, particularly over thie time and manner of His return (Mt 24:23-31).

The abomination of desolation is THE prophetic key to the believer’s preparation to instruct many of the meaning, not only of the events of those days, but the great issue of the promise of an “everlasting righteousness” that is the Lord’s own righteousness, available to believers now, but promised to come to all the penitent survivors of Israel in that great day (Isa 45:17, 24-25; 54:17, Jer 23:5-6; Dan 9:24). This is the glorious free gift that gives hope and meaning and comfort, even in the face of the staggering evil, deception, and suffering of those days, like the shattering event we so recently witnessed on Oct 7, a tragic foretaste of Zech 14:2.

But clarity concerning this decisive event achieves much more than might first appear. The abomination of desolation cannot happen in a vacuum. It must be preceded by certain definite, traceable events and preconditions.

For one thing, before a sacrifice can be removed it must exist. If it does not now exist, it must start. But before it can start, a long-standing stalemate must yield to a radical change in the current status quo. For these kinds of necessary preliminary conditions to come about, we may expect seismic changes to come to the region, sufficient to move nations from their former intransigence to make unprecedented concessions for peace.

The logic is clear. In order for the Jews to have sufficient access to the forbidden Temple Mount, some kind of political peace arrangement, however presently remote, seems necessarily implied, and indeed foretold in scripture (compare Isa 28:15, 18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 9:27; 11:21, 23-24, 31; Mt 24:15-16; 1Thes 5:3). You see then how those who will have obeyed the Lord’s command to search out and understand this particular event foretold by Daniel, will also be able to recognize at least some of the preceding events that signal its approach.

This is where an understanding of Daniel’s 70th week will prove invaluable for the church’s readiness. For this, we must see God’s investment in the first half of the week as a divine strategy to prepare the church for the second half. But for this, we must see that the 70th week did not follow the 69th week in unbroken succession.

I will give only the briefest possible argument why the 70th week must be seen as future. The basic, highly condensed argument is this:

Dan 12:1-2, 7, 11, particularly vers 11, will show beyond reasonable dispute that the abomination of desolation, with the simultaneous removal of the daily sacrifice, starts the last 3 ½ years (the half week of Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:7; Rev 11:2-3; 12:6, 14; 13:5). It is the ‘time like no other’, also called, “great tribulation” and “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21: Rev 7:14).

Observe that this last and greatest tribulation on earth ends with nothing short of the final deliverance of Daniel’s people and the resurrection of the righteous dead, including Daniel’s personal resurrection (Dan 12:1-2, 13). Thus, it is not far to see that this is the event that divides the final week in two equal halves in Dan 9:27.

So far as it is agreed that the 69th week terminates at the cross of Christ (i.e., Messiah “cut off”; Dan 9:26 with Isa 53:8), nothing within the range of the seven years following the cross arrived at the kind of “end” / “consummation” as described in Daniel, most particularly Dan 12:1-2. Advocates of the unbroken continuity of the 70 sevens are hard pressed to identify what events within that time frame can be said to fulfill the goals reached at the end of final the 3 ½ years, most specifically and undeniably the deliverance of Daniel’s people (Jews / “natural branches”) and the resurrection of the righteous (Dan 12:1-2, 7, 11).

Therefore, to speak of an unbroken continuity between the 69th and 70th weeks is highly anticlimactic, to say the least. Such would be a complete short-fall of the end goals, not only of Dan 9:24, but of Daniel’s apocalyptic visions in general, all of which were aimed at the final and eternal end of exile and the coming in of the post-tribulational kingdom of God on earth at the end of the last persecution.

Time forbids an account of the genius and logic of all six goals of the seventy sevens (Dan 9:24) and the mystery of the interim that divides the 70th seven from the former 69 weeks of years, but for now, our purpose must be limited to underscore how invaluable this knowledge will be in preparing the church, now, but even more especially in the first half of the week for what it must be to Israel and the nations in the second half that ends in Christ’s post-tribulational return at the Day of the Lord.

This strategic advantage threatens to be lost to the church’s benefit unless we are able to identify the distinguishing markers that show we have entered into the first half of the week. I offer this brief quote from G. H. Lang (beloved mentor of F. F. Bruce) from his, “The Histories and Prophecies of Daniel”:

“When this agreement shall have been confirmed, the wise will know that the final seven years has commenced, that the end days are present, that the consummation of the age has arrived. They will expect the violation of the covenant after three years and a half, and will not be overwhelmed with surprise, having been told beforehand by this prophecy. Then will it be seen in fullness that the knowledge of prophetic scripture is simply priceless.”

I conclude with this appeal: Certainly every inch of ground in the confusing smorgasbord of eschatological options is hard fought and hard won, but there are keys of simplicity that make a plain path through the maze. One of those keys I have mentioned, but just how best to use that key to equip the church belongs to another discussion.

But regardless, whether you believe the preterist position that the abomination and the great tribulation is past already, or the classic dispensational view that the Olivet prophecy is to be seen as “Jewish ground”, not directly applicable to the church that is expected to be gone during this time. In any event, I soberly appeal to you to at least treat the grave warnings of deception and the antidote that Jesus prescribes with at least a ‘just in case’ sense of responsibility for the sake of your flocks.

If Jesus put such stress on the relationship of this event to offset some of the prevailing deceptions of “those days”, such as the present massive upsurge of antisemitism, just reflect on how regrettable it would be if you had failed to prepare those under your care with at least the means to recognize these things if you might just happen to be sincerely mistaken.

All’s to say, a careful knowledge of Daniel’s prophecy of the end is a pain well worth taking. It is only as we are instructed that we will be in a position to instruct (Dan 11:33; 12:3).

If Paul can rightly call the living church of the living God “the pillar and ground of truth” (1Tim 3:15), it would seem inconceivable that the last witness of the gospel to Israel and the nations would be made in its absence. If we take the view that to be alive “in Christ”, whether before, during, or after the tribulation, is necessarily to be part of His body, then it follows that “the voice of the bridegroom AND of the bride” (Rev 18:23) will be heard far and wide during a final witness, sealed in the blood of the tribulation martyrs (compare Dan 7:21; 11:35; 12:10; Mt 24:14; Rev 6:10-11; 12:11; 13:7, 15; 14:6; 20:4).

The post The Olivet Key to Daniel’s Prophecy of the End appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

“But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

John 6:39-40

“And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose none, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”

John 6:44-45

“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.”

John 6:64-65

“But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.”

In all of the above texts, the necessity of faith is understood, but the existence of saving faith is credited to the Father’s prior initiative to give only some to the Son. The text would have us to observe that this is a limited number, since none to whom it is given fail to come, but none can come unless enabled by the drawing power of Father.

This raises the question: Does any so drawn by the Father ever fail to come? The procession of the text will not admit of any such failure.

The order of the Lord’s sayings, as the chapter continues, seems to narrow to an unavoidable conclusion: None are enabled to come to Christ unless it has first been given, and no one who comes is ever lost.

We know that this drawing is effectual in obtaining its goal because it ensures that each one who is drawn by the Father is also “taught of God”, and that “everyone” so taught comes to Jesus, never to be cast out or lost (Jn 6:37, 39). What follows will show that this is all by a Divine enablement that is not only the result, but also the effectual cause of faith in those whom the Father has given to the Son from all eternity.

Of that foreordained number, not one is ever lost or cast out (6:37, 39), but is kept by the unfailing power of Jesus to be raised at the “last day” (Lk 14:14; Jn 6:39; 17:12; 1Pet 1:4-5). These chosen ones whom the Father has specifically entrusted to the Son’s secure keeping (compare Jn 6:39; 10:27-29; 13:18; 15:16; 17:9, 12, 20) are also the special object of His unfailing intercession, most especially to the end that their faith “fail not” in the day of testing (Lk 22:32; Jn 17:9, 12, 20; with Heb 7:25).

Next is an observation that carries the most glorious implications for those who “love God and are the called according to His purpose” (Ro 8:28-29). It is Jesus’ citation and application of Isa 54:13 in Jn 6:45.

Here Jesus extends to His sheep from every nation all the glorious eternal security of Yahweh’s long promised, long awaited “covenant of peace” (Isa 54:10 with Eze 37:26), which is elsewhere equated with “the everlasting covenant” (compare Isa 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; Eze 16:60; 37:26).

As you will observe by comparing the following verses, the “everlasting covenant”, as well as “My covenant of peace” are manifestly synonymous with Jeremiah’s “new covenant” (compare Jer 31:31-34 with Jer 32:38-40 & Isa 54:10, 13 with Eze 34:25; 37:26).

This is the covenant that includes all the unilateral (some would say, unconditional) promises made to Abraham and to David concerning their seed. It will stand in its most public and plenary fulfillment with a fully renewed Israel in the future Day of the Lord.

This is when every penitent Jewish survivor of the final great tribulation (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1) will all “know the Lord from that day and forward” (i.e., the Day of the Lord; Eze 39:8. 22), “never again to depart” (Ps 89:28-36; Isa 59:21; 66:22; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Eze 37:25-27; 39:22, 28-29). Since “all Israel” will be a completely regenerate nation “in that day”, they will no longer stand under the continual threat of covenant judgment, subject always to the potential of curse and recurrent eviction from the Land.

In glorious contrast to past generations, post-tribulation Israel will dwell securely in their own Land “from ‘that day’ and forward” (Lev 25:18-19; 2Sam 7:10; Ps 4:8; Jer 23:6; 30:10; 32:37; 33:16; Eze 34:25, 28; 39:26; Hos 2:18; Mic 4:4; Zeph 3:13; Zech 14:11).

This is made possible because, no longer will there be a mere remnant, at best restraining, but never long preventing the largely blind and backsliding nation from falling back under covenant judgment. In radical, unprecedented contrast, post-day of the Lord Israel will all, without a single exception be righteous with the Lord’s own “everlasting righteousness” (Isa 45:17, 24-25; 54:13-14, 17; Jer 23:5-6; Dan 9:24).

This blessed unity in the Holy Spirit is promised to extend throughout all future generations unto “children’s children”, not one ever failing of the “everlasting righteousness” of the “everlasting covenant” (Isa 4:3; 44:3; 45:17, 24-25; 54:10, 13, 17; 59:20-21; 60:21; 65:23; 66:22; Jer 31:34; 32:38-42; Eze 20:40; 37:25; 39:22, 28-29, etc.)

From Jesus’ citation of Isa 54:13 in Jn 6:45, we can see that He is applying the eternal security of this everlasting covenant that will stand with post-tribulational Israel to all whom the Father has given Him now, and in the millennial age to come. To be given by the Father to Jesus is to be secured in the everlasting covenant established with Abraham while he was in a deep sleep, signifying its unconditional surety of certain fulfillment (Ps 89:35-36; Isa 55:3; 66:22).

God’s purpose in putting Abraham into a deep sleep before passing between the pieces was certainly NOT to ignore or circumvent the indispensable conditionality of the inheritance. Rather, it is God’s own pledge of Himself that He would unilaterally engage to meet and fulfill all required conditions, first by means of the atoning sacrifice of the curse-reversing Seed of the woman on behalf of “all the seed” (Ps 18:50; 89:29, 36; Isa 41:8; 45:25; 53:10; 65:23; Jer 33:25-26; Ro 4:16; Heb 2:16). Then by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, a new nature will invariably, necessarily bear fruit “after its own kind” (Mt 13:23).

At the “set time”, “when it pleases God” (Gal 1:15-16; Ps 102:13; 110:3), whether for the Jewish remnant at the end of the tribulation, or the calling of any individual in this age, God will “put” His Spirit into the newly recreated hearts and spirits of the heirs of the everlasting covenant. He retains this free sovereign right to quicken “whom He will” (Mt 11:27, Jn 5:21; Ro 9:18), when, at His own sovereign timing, He has prepared the right conditions for the final and everlasting salvation of His elect nation (Isa 30:18).

By Jesus’ applying the covenant promise of Isa 54:13 to all whom the Father has given Him to save and keep (Jn 6:37, 39-40, 44-45, 65), He is thereby uniting “the called according to His purpose” of every generation to the same secure covenant inheritance that will come to the “natural (Jewish) branches” in the coming day of their great national deliverance when “all Israel shall be saved” (Ro 8:28-29; 11:26-29).

For the elect remnant of Jewish survivors of the final tribulation, covenant failure resulting in more than temporal discipline will be a thing of the past. Scripture is very clear that from this time forward, not one of the heirs of the everlasting covenant will ever again depart (Isa 59:21; Jer 32:40; Eze 39:22, 28-30).

Neither can any of the chosen seed of Israel’s race ever fall fatally or finally away from what they have irrevocably and irreversibly become, namely, an everlasting “new creation … born of the indestructible Word of God that lives and abides forever” (2Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15).

One can see how the NT writers will often describe personal salvation in all the terms and colors that the prophets use to describe the eschatology of post- tribulation Israel. For the apostles, Israel’s eschatology is the model and pattern for the soteriology (doctrine of salvation) of the new / everlasting covenant as applied to the salvation of the individual.

But how might such assurance be mistaken and misused by persons who are yet in the body of this flesh? Wouldn’t this give them a sense of license to misuse their liberty? Well, as believers in the “fight of faith” are reminded to take due diligence to make their calling and election sure (2Pet 2:10), this danger of presumption is certainly warned against in scripture (Gal 5:13; 1Pet 2:16).

But so far as one may have evidence that they are bearing the fruits that witness to the reality of “the righteousness of faith” (Ro 4:13), it is also to be understood that the holy fear of God (“my fear”; contrast Jer 2:19; 32:40) is built right into the everlasting covenant. This is what God has promised to “put” into the heart of every heir of new covenant righteousness (Isa 59:21; Jer 31:33; 32:40; Eze 11:19; 36:26-27; 37:6, 14).

Because of the indwelling Spirit of Christ, the regenerate seed of Abraham will vigilantly guard their own hearts. This is not because they will be in any doubt of the security of their everlasting inheritance, but because the love of God has been shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, and also the sure knowledge that God will faithfully chasten His own, which is the distinguishing badge of true sonship (Ps 89:30-33; Heb 12:7-8).

Not only post-tribulation Israel, but all of God’s elect are contemplated as the “seed of Abraham” and heirs of His everlasting “covenant of peace” (Isa 54:10; Eze 37:26) . And lest it be foolishly objected that the word, “everlasting“ doesn’t always mean “everlasting”, the context makes its meaning here most abundantly clear. It means eternal, “world without end”(Isa 45:17; 66:22).

These things cannot be said of all persons, but only those whom Paul calls, “the election of grace” (Ro 11:5). Indeed, the gift of “everlasting life” (Jn 6:40) is promised to faith, since unbelief forms the contrast between those to whom it has been given and those to whom it has not been given, in verses 36-37 and 64-65.

But faith is NOT the basis for God’s sovereign, pre-temporal initiative to this limited number. Rather, faith is the result of the Father’s eternal choice to Divinely enable all whom He would give to Christ to both come to Him and be kept forever by Him (Jn 6:37, 39, 44, 65)

This enablement is preceded, not at first by faith that we supply, but by the Father’s “good pleasure” to “quicken whom He will” (Jn 5:21; 6:39; Ro 9:18; Eph 1:5; Phil 2:13). This is a Spirit-quickened faith that must invariably and necessarily “overcome the world”, precisely because it is “born of God”, since it is a rule that “whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world” (1Jn 5:4).

While many, such as Judas (Jn 6:64, 70; 13:10-11; 17:12) and the tares sown among the wheat, may move undetected among the sheep for a season (“Lord, who is it?”, Jn 13:22, 25), Jesus said these are “NOT of My sheep” (Jn 10:26; 1Jn 2:19). None of God’s true sheep who are truly “born of God”, and thus in living union with the Divine nature (2Pet 1:4) can ever fatally or finally fall from the Father’s grip (Jn 10:28-29; Ro 8:28-39).

This is just one example of a pervasive biblical doctrine taught in many places throughout both testaments, but it is far more than a doctrine among doctrines. In Ro 9:11, it is called “the purpose of God according to election”.

Paul is clear that in order for that purpose “to stand”, it must not be influenced by any virtue found or foreseen in one more than another (Ro 9:11). The only difference distinguishing the two brothers is a difference that is made by God (1Cor 4:7)

According to Paul, and no less John, any difference that is not perceived as given from above is dangerous ground for the pride of presumption (Jn 3:27; Ro 11:35-36; 1Cor 4:7). In 2Tim 2:19, Paul will call this doctrine the very “foundation of God”. That unshakable foundation has “this seal, the Lord knows them who are His”.

It is the knowledge that Jesus has of His own sheep (Jn 10:14). He warns of those who will count themselves as His sheep whom He “NEVER knew” (Mt 7:22-23). So 2Tim 2:19 is clearly not merely speaking about God’s obvious knowledge of one’s present spiritual condition, but an eternal foreknowledge that reaches back to the covenant that always existed between the persons of the Godhead before creation (Ro 8:28-29; 2Thes 2:13; 1Pet 1:2; Rev 13:8).

Not only is this great truth precious to the believer’s comfort; it is also vital to the upholding of the integrity of the Word and the vindication of the “everlasting covenant” of grace.

John Newton who wrote, “Amazing Grace”, believed this truth, as nothing else so plucks from man any presumption of entitlement, simply because this decision of God, so unbiased by anything in man, cannot be impugned as in any way unjust (Ro 9:14-21). Notably, Paul does not undertake to satisfy all the natural questions that might arise. Rather, he simply answers the anticipated protest with the surprising retort, “who are you, O man, to reply against God?”(See Ro 9:18-23).

Ironically, it is in the place of greatest offense that God has plainly declared the incomprehensible goodness of a grace that was moved by nothing found or foreseen in man, except this unique love for His own that existed before time. Its source, its working, and its goal begins and ends as wholly the work of God alone, for the glory of Christ alone.

He is both author and finisher of a faith that is “given from above” (Jn 3:27; Ro 11:35-36; 1Cor 4:7; Eph 2:8; Phil 1:20) and upheld to the end by the power of God and the indwelling of the indestructible, ever-abiding seed of the Word of God (1Pet 1:23), establishing an eternal, irreversible union between the believer and the Divine nature (1Pet 1:4-5; 2Pet 1:4). This means the truly regenerate believer is not ‘becoming’ a new creation; he or she ‘is’ an eternal new creation (Isa 66:22; 2Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15).

In conclusion, Israel’s eternal covenant is our eternal covenant.
Romans 11:33-36

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
“For who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counselor?”
“Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”
For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

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Luke 21:34-35

And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.

Matthew 24:38-39

For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And KNEW NOT until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Matthew 24:43

But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the THIEF would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

2 Peter 3:10, 12

But the day of the Lord will come as a THIEF in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up … Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God , wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

Revelation 16:12-17

And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.

Ezekiel 39:8

Behold, it is come, and IT IS DONE, saith the Lord GOD; THIS IS THE DAY whereof I have spoken.

Note that the 7th trumpet is immediately followed by the same phenomena that follows the 7h bowl.

Revelation 11:19

And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

Revelation 16:17-1

And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, IT IS DONE. 18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

This is because both the 7th trumpet and the 7th bowl arrive at the same place, namely, the thief-like coming of the “great day of God Almighty.”

Joel 3:1-3, 13-16

For, behold, in those days, and in that time,
when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
2 I will also gather all nations,
and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat,
and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel,
whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land …
13 Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.
14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision:
for the day of the LORD is NEAR in the valley of decision.
15 The sun and the moon shall be darkened,
and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
16 The LORD also shall roar out of Zion,
and utter his voice from Jerusalem;
and the heavens and the earth shall shake:
but the LORD will be the hope of his people,
and the strength of the children of Israel. Joel 3:13-16

Zephaniah 3:8

8 Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD,
until the day that I rise up to the prey:
for my determination is to gather the nations,
that I may assemble the kingdoms,
to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger:
for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.

Joel 1:15

15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand,
and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

Joel 2:1

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain:
let all the inhabitants of the land tremble:
for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is NEAR at hand;

Zephaniah 1:7, 14

7 Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord GOD:
for the day of the LORD is at hand:
for the LORD hath prepared a sacrifice,
he hath bid his guests.
14 The great day of the LORD is NEAR,
it is NEAR, and hasteth greatly,
even the voice of the day of the LORD:

Conclusion: For Peter and John, the thief-like Day of the Lord is synonymous with the DAY OF GOD (2Pet 3:10, 12), also called, “the GREAT DAY OF GOD ALMIGHTY” in Rev 16:12-17). The DOL is NOT immediately imminent until the nations are being gathered together for the post-Armageddon arrival of Jesus (Rev 16:12-17; 19:). Even as late as the sixth bowl, Jesus announces that His THIEF-LIKE coming is yet future (Rev 16:15), clearly showing that His return is synonymous with the “great day of God Almighty”, which “day of God” Peter equates with the thief-like DOL (2Pet 3:10,12; Rev 16:14-17; Eze 38:9).

Note that the gathering of nations here is importantly distinguished from the earlier mid-week storming of the Land by the AC and his ten nation coalition. In contrast, this is the Armageddon gathering of the nations at the very end. A comparison of Dan 11:40-45 with Rev 16:12-17 will show that very late towards the end of the tribulation, the Antichrist, (who is now situated “between the seas and the glorious holy mountain”) is being rushed upon by an omni-directional convergence of world powers.

This gathering does not take place until AFTER the sixth bowl of wrath has been poured out. This brings us to the very end of the tribulation, and still, the DOL is only NEAR. It is not yet HERE. Furthermore, we see that both Jesus and Peter, citing Joel, show that the stellar darkness comes IMMEDIATELY AFTER the tribulation  of those days, but BEFORE the DOL (Joel 2:30-31; 3:14-16; Mt 24:29; Acts 2:20).

Therefore, the thief-like day of the Lord is NOT an imminent, un-signaled event. Paul is very clear that the DOL cannot begin until AFTER the Antichrist has first been revealed, and until AFTER many are saying peace and safety (1Thes 5:5; 2Thes 2:3), just as Peter is very clear that the DOL does not come until AFTER the darkening of the heavenly bodies (Acts 2:20), just as Jesus, also quoting Joel, will put His return “immediately AFTER” the same stellar darkness (Mt 24:29-31), and, as the NT writers will repeatedly identify “that day” as synonymous with the Lord’s return. It should be beyond reasonable dispute that the DOL does not come before but follows the gathering of the multi-national armies of the earth to Armageddon. This is plainly AFTER the darkening of the celestial bodies. Therefore, the DOL is NOT an imminent potential as popularly taught. It is preceded by signs that will be unmistakable to the believer but completely dismissed and ignored by the unsuspecting world until that day comes upon them as a thief.

Conclusion: It is NOT an un-signaled, pretribulation rapture that comes as a thief; it is the POST-tribulational DOL that comes as a THIEF, not on the believing Bride of Christ, but on the unsuspecting world of the ungodly.

In order to protect the doctrine of imminence, (i.e., that Christ can come any moment to rapture the church, without forewarning of any specific sign), it is crucial to the defense of pretribulationism that the DOL be extended to include the whole of Daniel’s 70th week in its entirety. For this reason, later dispensationalists corrected the view of earlier pre-trib scholars who originally placed the start of the DOL after the tribulation.

This correction was seen as necessary because the 70th week is marked by definite, recognizable signs that must happen first (Joel 3:2, 13-15; Zeph 3:8; Mal 4:5; Acts 2:19-20; 1Thes 5:3; 2Thes 2:3; Rev 16:12-17). But Paul had warned the Thessalonians to “watch and be sober”, lest they too should be overtaken by the thief-like arrival of the DOL (1Thes 5:2-4, 6; 2Thes 2:3-4).

The obvious presence of signs marking the onset of the 70th week, together with Paul’s warning to the Thessalonians to watch and be sober against the danger of unpreparedness, moved later pretrib scholars to relocate the DOL from the end of the tribulation to the start of the seven years. From this time forward, the DOL was assumed to start with the rapture.

This was the standard view until the 1973 publication of Robert H. Gundry’s, “The Church and the Tribulation”. To the chagrin of academic dispensational pretribulationism, Gundry pointed out that the DOL could not immediately start with an any moment, un-signaled rapture, because Paul had clearly said the DOL could not begin until AFTER the man of lawlessness had been revealed FIRST (2Thes 2:3). It was a very simple observation, but due to Gundry’s high academic standing, he captured the attention of the scholarly community debating the rapture question in the seminaries. The academic journals were all abuzz with the newly considered difficulty. What to do? How to answer?

An emergency solution was proposed to which most pretribulationsists today agree. The suggested answer to this dilemma was to argue that a clearer distinction should be made between the imminent rapture and the non-imminent, obviously pre-signaled DOL. If the imminent, un-signaled, any moment rapture does not happen at the same time of the DOL, (as in the post-trib view of the rapture), Gundry’s argument that the rapture can no longer be held to start the DOL was now accepted as beyond reasonable dispute.

For those careful to defend the imminence of the rapture, it was clear that the DOL should be moved once more, this time somewhere AFTER the prior revelation of the man of lawlessness. Thus a new gap of some unknown duration was proposed to solve the problem. Nowadays, (at least among academic pre-tribulationists aware of the problem with the earlier view), the official position is that a hitherto unnoticed gap of time must be NECESSARILY inferred to exist between the rapture and the start of the DOL. This is in order to give time for the man of lawlessness to be revealed FIRST, BEFORE the DOL can start.

The DOL would now be seen to start with the signing of the “peace treaty” that begins the final seventieth week of Dan 9:27, but this would be some unknown gap of time AFTER the revelation of the man of lawlessness. So, a new gap between the revelation of the man of sin and the DOL would now be observed in order to protect the pillar doctrine of imminence, essential to the pre-trib system. 

It is a long and laborious discussion, but in order to have the church taken out of the world before the tribulation, dispensationalists must argue for two distinct peoples of God, namely, Israel and the church. This is why the church must be defined in a new way, as a formerly unknown mystery organism, unanticipated and un-foretold in the prophetic writings of the OT, in that sense, an entirely new “mystery program” to fit into the gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel. That is between Pentecost and the presumed pre-trib rapture of the church.

According to this new and novel view of the nature of the church, first introduced by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), blood bought, born again saints in the tribulation are not to be reckoned as part of the body of Christ. Even regenerate Jewish and gentile saints of the tribulation period are to be distinguished from the body and bride of Christ. A consistent distinction between saint and saint, between those living before the rapture and those living after the rapture, is absolutely indispensable to maintaining the church’s absence in the tribulation (as argued in John F. Walvoord’s, “The Rapture Question”).

Contrary to the view of earlier pretribulationists that the OT saints would be raised with the church at the rapture (see Scofield’s reference notes 1917 edition: [The ‘‘first resurrection,” that “unto life,” will occur at the second -coming of Christ (1 Cor. 15.23), the saints of the O.T. and church ages meeting Him in the air (1 Thes. 4.16, 17)”], later dispensational scholars saw the necessity to distinguish between the resurrection of the OT saints and the rapture of the church. But since the advent of Alexander Reese’s, “The Approaching Advent of Christ” (1937), dispensational scholars were moved to make another critical adjustment.

Reese’s argument was beyond easy answer. Clearly, and unequivocally, the resurrection of the OT saints was after the tribulation (Job 19:25-26; Isa 25:7-8; 26:19, 21; Dan 12:1-2, 13), at the “LAST day” (Jn 6:39-40, 44). In other words, the resurrection of the OT saints, as well as the last group of saints yet to be martyred by the beast, are raised at the “FIRST resurrection” AFTER the tribulation (Rev 6:10-11; 20:4).

This unavoidable acknowledgement compelled dispensational scholars to begin to teach that the righteous of the OT are NOT to be resurrected with the church. This means Abraham, Moses, and the prophets all remain “in the dust of the earth” for an additional seven years while the church attends the marriage supper in heaven. Then, with the “second phase” (?) of His return to set up the millennial kingdom, Jesus will then raise the OT saints together with the tribulation martyrs at the “second phase” of the first (?) resurrection.

Whether or not it is recognized by the average believer in a pre-trib rapture, well-read lay students, as well as academic scholars are fully aware that maintaining this distinction is indispensable to the defense of a pre-trib removal of the church.

For pretribulationists the logic is clear:: Because 70th week is marked by definite signs that the saints living during “those days” are expected to “see” (Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:3-4; Rev 11:2; 13:4-7), it is concluded that the church cannot enter upon any part of Daniel’s last week of years if the doctrine of imminence is to be maintained. Moreover, since the entire seven years is held to be synonymous with the day of the Lord, it is argued that all of the events of that period should be contemplated as a continuously sustained “day of wrath” (Zeph 1:15; Ro 2:5).

Since Jeremiah would call this time of unequaled tribulation, “Jacob’s trouble”, it is believed that this period has only to do with the nation of Israel in particular and the nations in general. Except for the unsaved who are “left behind”, Jacob’s trouble becomes only Jacob’s problem, since the “pillar and ground of truth” has been removed by rapture. Seeing the entirety of the last seven years as the DOL and therefore “a / the day of wrath” (Zeph 2:15; Ro 2:5), and recognizing that the church is promised exemption from divine wrath (1Thes 1:10; 5:9), it is reasoned that the church cannot be present during any part of Daniel’s last week.

Neither the OT saints nor the persecuted “saints” depicted of the final tribulation (Dan 7:18, 21-22, 25, 27; 8:10; 11:33-35; 12:10; Rev 11:18; 13:7, 10: 14:12-13; 20:4) are believed to belong to a distinct and “people of God” with a distinct calling that is limited to the present, “church age”, understood as restricted to the period between Pentecost and the pre-trib rapture. So-called, “tribulation saints” are therefore carefully distinguished from the church. It is a distinction never heard of until newly discovered by its first known advocate, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882).

Has the church not welcomed into its ranks a very disarming Trojan Horse?

Next chart proposed:
Connecting the Resurrection, Last Trump, Day of the Lord & Zion’s Travail

The 3 ½ year (half week) unequaled tribulation is everywhere throughout the prophets compared to a woman in travail. We may call this time, “Jacob’s Trouble” or “Zion’s Travail”.

This brief period that comes suddenly and horrifyingly upon the unexpecting nation is not to be confused with the ultimate, post-tribulational, post-darkness DOL that brings us to the “great and notable / terrible day of the Lord” (Joel 2:11; Acts 2:20), the “great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:14). As pointed out, this is a single day, the unique day and hour of Jesus’ return to destroy the AC with the Spirit of His mouth when He brings the final stroke of divine judgment on the world of the ungodly. In some few references, the mid-week Antichrist invasion of Israel is spoken of as beginning with the onset of the DOL (Joel 2:1-3; Jer 30:6-7; 1Thes 5:3). This is because, in contrast with all other invasions across the centuries, it is only the outbreak of the final and unequaled tribulation that leads inexorably to the post-trib, post-darkness DOL. In such contexts, the beginning of the birth pangs is the clear and certain sign that the long-awaited spiritual birth and resurrection of the beleaguered nation has arrived. 

Isaiah 13:6-10

Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand;
it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint,
and every man’s heart shall melt:
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them;
they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth:
they shall be amazed one at another;
their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh,
cruel both with wrath and fierce anger,
to lay the land desolate:
and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light:
the sun shall be darkened in his going forth,
and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

5 For thus saith the LORD;
We have heard a voice of trembling,
of fear, and not of peace.
6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child?
wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail,
and all faces are turned into paleness?
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it:
it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;
but he shall be saved out of it. Jeremiah 30:5-7

We can see the undeniable connection. Jeremiah is obviously building on Isaiah’s earlier prophecy of the DOL. Although his prophecy was uniquely serviceable to his own contemporaries who were facing the impending destruction of Jerusalem, how can it be conceived that Jeremiah is speaking of anything less final than the ultimate DOL? And who better than Daniel to give us the authoritative interpretation and ultimate application of Jeremiah’s prophecy of Jacob’s trouble?

Daniel 12:1-2

And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. 2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake …

We see the climactic end and new beginning in the following passages from Isaiah and his contemporary, Micah. Another contemporary to the north, Hosea will describe the same period as affliction and distress.

Isaiah 26:16-17, 19-21

LORD, in trouble have they visited thee,
they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.
17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery,
is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs;
so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.
19 Thy dead men shall live,
together with my dead body shall they arise.
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust:
for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
and the earth shall cast out the dead.
20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers,
and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment,
until the indignation be overpast.
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity:
the earth also shall disclose her blood,
and shall no more cover her slain.

Here again we see the resurrection of the dead and the Lord’s final judgment of His enemies immediately following the birth pangs of Jacob’s trouble.

Isaiah 66:8-10

Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things?
Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day?
or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD:
shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.
10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her:
rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her:

Here is Israel’s post-travail / post-tribulational new birth as an all holy, all saved Jewish nation in analogy with the several scriptures that speak of their spiritual resurrection at the post-trib DOL.

Finally, we will mention Micah’s prophecy of the ascent to world dominion of the smitten Davidic ruler from Bethlehem. Here, as in Zech 12:10 with Mt 23:39 & Rev 1:7, we see the profoundly intentional analogy to the reunion of Joseph with his estranged brethren, as the Messiah’s brethren return to Him AFTER Zion’s travail, after the long period of divine desertion (the age long hiding of God’s face), as we will also see in Hosea’s prophecy of the three days.

​Micah 5:1-4

Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops:
He (God) hath laid siege against us: they (“His own”) shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.
2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah,
though thou be little among the thousands of Judah,
yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel;
whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
3 Therefore (for this cause) will he give them up,
until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth:
then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.
4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God;
and they shall abide: for now shall He (the smitten ruler from Bethlehem) be great unto the ends of the earth.

Hosea 5:15 – 6:2

I will go and return to My place,
till they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face:
in their affliction they will seek me early.
​1 Come, and let us return unto the LORD:
for he hath torn, and he will heal us;
he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days will he revive us:
in the third day (millennial day) He will raise us up,
and we shall live in His sight.

Note that the post-tribulational acknowledgement of the ancient offense is met with the everlasting deliverance of the great day.

1 Thessalonians 5:2-3

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

Whereas it may not be only Jews in the Land making this presumptuous declaration in the time just before the onset of the DOL, we take it as especially applying to the false sense of security that will prevail as result of the deadly covenant with death and hell (Isa 28:15, 18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; Dan 9:27; 11:23-24).

Now compare the travail passages and unequaled trouble passages with this most interesting passage from Joel’s description of the unequaled DOL. Observe the remarkably close parallel with Isa 13:6-10 and Jer 30:6-7 as shown above. Without question, the same time is in view. Notice how the Land is Edenic for beauty before the locust-like invasion of the “northern army”, but with the ravaging invasion, the Land is suddenly turned into “a desolate wilderness”.

​Joel 2:1-3, 6, 10-11

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain:
let all the inhabitants of the land tremble:
for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;
A day of darkness and of gloominess,
a day of clouds and of thick darkness,
as the morning spread upon the mountains:
a great people and a strong;
there hath not been ever the like,
neither shall be any more after it,
even to the years of many generations.
A fire devoureth before them;
and behind them a flame burneth:
the land is as the garden of Eden before them,
and behind them a desolate wilderness;
yea, and nothing shall escape them …
Before their face the people shall be much pained:
all faces shall gather blackness …
The earth shall quake before them;
the heavens shall tremble:
the sun and the moon shall be dark,
and the stars shall withdraw their shining:
And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army:
for his camp is very great:
for he is strong that executeth his word:
for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible;
and who can abide it?

This doesn’t bode well for the completely irresponsible, entirely unscriptural statement that “the Land of Israel will be the safest place for Jews during the great tribulation”. (see this morning’s email answer to a question on the order of the return).

Lastly, we want to compare parallel verses aligning the resurrection of the righteous with Isaiah’s “great trumpet” (Isa 27:13), Paul’s “last trump” (1Cor 15:52), Jesus’ “great sound of a trumpet” (Mt 24:31), and Revelation’s “seventh trumpet” (Rev 10:7; 11:15). We do this in order to better assess where we want to stand on the question of the time and relationship of these trumpets, and whether there is more than one resurrection in view.

Isaiah 27:12-13

And it shall come to pass in that day,
that the LORD shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt,
and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day,
that the great trumpet shall be blown,
and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria,
and the outcasts in the land of Egypt,
and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

Note that this time and this return of the saved survivors of Israel returning by natural transport over the dried up waterways is recorded in Isa 11:10-12, 15-16 & Zech 10:10-11.

Matthew 24:29-31

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Matthew 24:29-31

Revelation 10:7

But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

Revelation 11:15, 18-19

And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. … And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

It is agreed by all that the above trumpets all have reference to a final trumpet that sounds at the end of the tribulation. All agree that there will be a resurrection at this time. Now we come to Paul’s two references to a trumpet. All agree that Paul’s reference to the “trump of God” in 1Thes 4:16

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

and the “last trump” in 1Cor 15:51-52

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52

both refer to the same trumpet coinciding with the resurrection, but some believe this trumpet sounds seven years earlier than the trumpets of Isaiah, Jesus, and John’s Revelation. Let us now review the larger context of Paul’s reference to the last trump and see if it is possible, or likely that this last trump is different from the trumpets that sound at the resurrection of the saints at the end of the tribulation.

1 Corinthians 15:51-55

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, THEN shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

Here Paul mentions in support two OT references that are clearly and undeniably POST-tribulational in their original context and intention. Is Paul repurposing these references, or is he showing the time that they will be fulfilled for “all who belong to Christ”? (1Cor 15:23, 52). Let’s look at the two passages he cites and see if they are fulfilled at the time of Isaiah’s, Jesus, and Revelation’s trumpets, or at an earlier trumpet that just happens to be called “last”.

Isaiah 25:6-8

And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people
a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees,
of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.
7 And he will destroy in this mountain
the face of the covering cast over all people,
and the vail that is spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death in victory;
and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces;
and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth:
for the LORD hath spoken it.

Hosea 13:13-14

The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him …
I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death:
O death, I will be thy plagues;
O grave, I will be thy destruction:
repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.

In both places the time is clear. Isaiah’s reference in particular is set in a context recognized as a distinct section called, “Isaiah’s little apocalypse”. This includes chapters 24-27, and all are in reference to the Day of the Lord, Israel’s final trouble and resurrection. It is therefore significant that here is where we find Isaiah’s reference to the great deliverance trumpet connected to the post-tribulation salvation and return of Israel (Isa 27:12-13).

As mentioned, Job’s, Isaiah’s, Daniel’s, and the saved remnant of national Israel are all raised at the time of the trumpet that follows the tribulation. How then can we suppose that Paul’s LAST trumpet is NOT the time that this particular saying which is written is brought to pass? (compare also Rev 10:7; 11:15). The last trump is the stated time of the fulfillment of these OT references to Israel’s resurrection “IMMEDIATELY AFTER” the tribulation, and should it not be the time of the church’s resurrection? Or are we more willing to conceive that Job, Isaiah, Daniel, and the elect remnant of righteous Israel are to remain in their graves (“sleep in the dust of the earth”; Dan 12:2) We for an additional seven years after the taking up of the church? Such a view is awkward to say the least. You be the judge.

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What do we do with the fact that Daniel 11 seems to clearly predict a lot of conflict and even war sparked by the AC. And yet we know it is a time of false peace and prosperity. It seems much conflict is going on, so seems a bit out of sync with other passages.

Very good question. Here’s my ‘over answer’. ?

I think a few observations of context will help to reconcile the apparent inconsistency. The simplest answer would be that while Israel is at peace with her neighbors during the first half of the week, they are not all at peace with one another. 

That seems to be exactly the case if we understand that the Antichrist makes three consecutive southward advances “AFTER the league / alliance made with him” (Dan 11:23). This would be during the first 3 1/2 years of false peace that many scriptures show to be an ill-fated presumption on Israel’s part that is doomed to give way to disaster (compare Isa 28:2-18; Dan 8:25; 11:23-24; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; 1Thes 5:3). 

If taken as future (as I know you agree that many of the details of Dan 11:21-35 were not fulfilled in the past but demand a future fulfillment), then it follows that the AC’s war against the king of the south comes some short while “after” Israel has entered into a “league” with the AC (Dan 11:23). 

The question then to be determined is whether this “alliance” is taking place at the same time the AC (the “prince that shall come” of Dan 9:26) “confirms” (to strengthen / cause to prevail) the covenant of Dan 9:27. Is the covenant of Dan 9:27 the “holy covenant” of Dan 11:28, 30? If so, then we have a very explicit series of events that takes us from the beginning of the week in Dan 11:23 to the start of the tribulation in the middle of the week (Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:7, 11).

This would mean that some short while “after the league made with him”(Dan 11:23), the AC attacks a king to his south (not necessarily Egypt). Due to internal treachery and betrayal, the king of the south is conquered but his life spared (Dan 11:25-27).

It is then that the two kings, the conquered and the conqueror, sit together “at one table”, evidently conspiring what appears to be the overthrow of the “holy covenant” that is now again operational in Jerusalem. That is what the language would seem to imply in a modern context. But the plot fails to take place only because the “appointed time of the end” is not yet (Dan 11:27). 

The “end” begins in earnest in Dan 11:31 (compare Dan 9:27; 12:11; Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 11:2) when the AC and his supporting confederation of ten nations sweep down upon the Land to recapture Jerusalem. This begins the final desolation and trampling down the holy city (Rev 11:2).

So after the alliance of verse 23, the AC makes a total of three southward advances. The first is successful against the king of the south (Dan 1:25-28). The second advance is checked and repulsed by the “ships of Kittim” (Dan 11:29-30; Kittim or Chittim is typically identified with the coastlands of the Mediterranean). The third southward advance is his irresistible invasion and capture of Jerusalem, desecration of the temple edifice, and removal of the regular sacrifice (Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4).

Exactly who the nation, or coalition of nations is represented by “the ships of Kittim” becomes an especially fascinating question, for the following reasons:

When we observe that within the brief space of time represented between verses 30 & 31, the AC who was turned back in verse 30 returns with a force of arms that none can successfully resist (see Dan 11:31 with Rev 13:4). This begs the question: What formidable power, or coalition of nations with a naval presence in the Mediterranean, would be strong enough to intercept and turn back the man who in the very next verse (Dan 11:31) cannot be stopped? 

And what immense transition has happened between verses 30 & 31 to make such a radical difference? For one thing, between verses 30 & 31, Satan has been cast down and a mortal wound has been healed that has made all the world to marvel (Rev 11:7; 12:7-14; 13:3-4; 17:8, 10), but that’s another, rather involved discussion, as you know.

So if careful exegesis demands we see Dan 11:29-30 as a future event, what nation or nations is being represented by the “ships of Kittim / Chittim”? My best guess would be that when the AC “confirms” the covenant of Dan 9:27 “with many”, this is not simply a transaction between himself and Israel (many Jews). Rather, he confirms the covenant with many nations as part of an internationally recognized agreement. 

This suggests that other nations, even one or more of the superpowers, have united to pledge their support and defense of the peace that has provided for Jewish return to at least some part of the forbidden Temple Mount to practice again the commanded ordinances of the covenant.

So shortly after the intervention by the ships of Chittim, the AC, filled with furious rage against the “holy covenant” (Dan 11:28-30) returns to his own Land to have what the KJV will translate as “intelligence” with those nations who, like the king of the south with whom he plotted against the covenant, share a mutual intolerance for the holy covenant. These are described as those who “forsake” the covenant and “do wickedly” against it (Dan 11:30, 32). Doubtless it is this Muslim animus towards Israel and now especially towards the covenant ritual that he will greatly exploit to unify these nations against Israel. Apparently, his plan to invade Israel is known only among the ten nations that are mobilizing to invade. We may be sure Israel does not expect this. It is certain that Israel’s religious leadership will be dismissive of the prophetic warnings of imminent invasion (Isa 28:1-19; 1Thes 5:3). The great tribulation (“Jacob’s trouble”) is depicted as coming upon them “suddenly”, like a woman’s labor pains (Jer 30:6-7), like an overwhelming “flood” (Isa 28:2; 59:19; Dan 9:26; 11:22), and “like a cloud to cover the Land” (Eze 38:9, 16). It will come upon them just as they are saying “peace and safety”, just when it will appear that a safe and lasting peace has been secured, apparently by the “alliance” of Dan 11:23.

But, as mentioned, the AC may not be the only participant in this alliance. The language of Dan 9:27 can be understood to suggest that the “many” with whom he confirms the covenant may be other heads of state. In such a case, other nations will participate in the negotiations that secure not only peace, but a required acknowledgement and support for Israel’s right of access to honor the ordinances of the holy covenant. 

Therefore, if the covenant of Dan 9:27 is the same as the “holy covenant” of Dan 11:28, 30 (as we believe on far more evidence than space permits to show here), then, very clearly, this is what is being violated in the middle of the week. It is much more than a mere political peace agreement. It also means that the AC begins the final week by consenting to the Jewish observance of their covenant ritual on the Temple Mount. As his later actions will show, he harbors a studied hatred for the very covenant that confirms, apparently strictly out of political expediency.  

All of this adds up to strongly imply that the peace / “tranquility” (NASB) of Dan 11:24 is the result of the “league made with him” in Dan 11:23. Contrary to perhaps the greater consensus of Daniel scholarship, we believe it is the “holy covenant” of Dan 11:28, 30 that the Antichrist (“coming prince” of Dan 9:26) confirms in Dan 9:27. It is the same covenant. This we conclude because a close comparison will show that the “despicable person” of  Dan 11:21, and the “flood” of Dan 11:22, and the “holy covenant” of Dan 11:28, 30 is very manifestly parallel to the “prince that shall come”, the “flood” and the covenant of Dan 9:26-27. Only the momentum of a strongly held, overriding presupposition could hide from commentators the otherwise obvious fact that chapters 11 & 12 perfectly parallel chapter 9. In both places, the covenant is desecrated, the sanctuary defiled, and the sacrifice removed in the middle of the week, approximately 3 1/2 years before “the end” (compare Dan 7:25; 9:27; 11:31; 12:7, 11). 

Therefore, it is very likely that the “alliance” Dan 11:23 is the occasion for the Antichrist’s recognition and support of Israel’s right to honor their covenant obligations on the Temple Mount. This would appear to be the start of the seven years and the cause of Israel’s ill-fated presumption of security (see Isa 28:2-18; Dan 8:25 (KJV); 11:24 (NASB); Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; 1Thes 5:3). Note also that Jesus‘ warning to flee Judea at the recognizable sign of the abomination (Mt 24:15-16) shows that the Jews are not in immediate peril of destruction until the middle of the week, when the sacrifice is removed and the temple invaded (Dan 9:27; 12:11; Mt 24:15-16, 21). Only then does the final desolation and trampling down of Jerusalem become immediately imminent (Isa 28:3, 18; 63:18; Mic 5:5; Dan 8:13; Mt 24:15-16, 21; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2).

So, the OT background for Paul’s statement, “when they shall say peace and safety” is NOT a general declaration of peace, nor simply a misguided quest for peace on human terms, but a deceptive presumption of peace on the part of pre-tribulation Israel in particular. 

1 Thessalonians 5:3
For when they (the Jews of the Land) shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

Obviously, Paul’s language echoes the recurrent theme of Zion’s final travail that immediately precedes the birth of the kingdom of God on earth (Isa 13:6-7; 26:16-17; 66:8; Mic 4:9-10; 5:3; Jer 30:6-7). Then will the totality of the nation (i.e., so many as survive the tribulation; see Zech 13:8-9) come to faith in “one day” (compare Ps 102:13; Isa 27:12-13; 59:20; 66:8; Eze 39:22, 28-29; Zech 3:9; 12:10 with Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7; 10:7; 11:15).

This is the context of Dan 11:23-30. If the alliance of Dan 11:23 is, as we believe, simultaneous with the AC’s endorsement of the covenant of Dan 9:27, then these verses reveal a detailed chronological sequence of events that take us from the start of the week to its midpoint in verse 31. If this interpretation best fits the evidence, then here we have in detailed order of sequence the conditions and events that lead up to the particular sign that Jesus gives for the start of the “great tribulation”, which we know is the second half of the Daniel’s 70th week (Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:1, 7, 11; Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4). Until the middle of the week, Israel is dwelling securely in the deceived presumption that they will NOT be overwhelmed by the flood of invading armies. So what do we make of the conflict that breaks out between the king of the north and the king of the south in Dan 11:25-30? Does this imperil the peace that has lulled Israel into a state of unsuspecting false security?

Apparently not, since the peace that Israel boasts is not disrupted until the overwhelming invasion of Dan 11:31 in the middle of the week. Israel’s profoundly misplaced trust in a man made peace will seem all the more invincible when the AC’s second southward advance is quickly intercepted and repulsed by a formidable show of force from the ships of Chittim. It will seem as though the peace is impregnable, but in the very next verse, Israel is suddenly overwhelmed (Dan 11:31) now to be inundated by invading troops and holy city to be “trodden down of the gentiles” for a final 42 months (Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2).

So many details, so difficult to sort out, will only become perfectly clear when the actual time of fulfillment arrives (Dan 12:4, 9). Yet some events such as the restoration and cessation of the sacrifice are to manifest and clear to be missed if the scripture be at all believed. Still, we are to be aware of the details and to be on the lookout, not only that we might be prepared to “instruct many” in those final days of ultimate transition, but that the Word of the Lord might be glorified in it’s amazing power to inerrantly fulfill every jot and tittle of what stands written in “the scripture of truth”.  

Reggie 

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Where in Scripture is it revealed that we should expect an indefinite time gap between weeks 69 and 70?
This cannot be obtained from a straightforward reading of the text.

The gap is what can be called a necessary inference. As with many great truths of scripture, it is not based on one single, obvious text but the cumulative evidence of many verses, scattered here and there, forming a mystery that must be searched out.

What is clear and, as you say, “straightforward”, is that scripture puts the last half of Daniel’s 70th week as arriving at “the consummation / the end”. This end of the age, reaching to the end of the final tribulation, the destruction of the “beast” (Dan 7:11) / “little horn” (Dan 7:8: 8:9) / “vile person” (Dan 11:21) / “wilful king” (Dan 11:36), the deliverance of Daniel’s people, and the resurrection of the righteous dead (Dan 12:1-2) is the same “end” so prominently in view throughout the book of Daniel. There is great, I would say decisive evidence that the final 3 ½ years of this age is the last half of Daniel’s 70th week.

This final 3 1/2 years (the half week) of unequaled tribulation clearly begins with the taking away of the daily sacrifice. This removal of the sacrifice is coupled with the placing of the abomination of desolation by the Man of Lawlessness in the temple of God in Judea (This is seen by a careful comparison of Dan 9:27; 11:31, 36-37; 12:11; with Mt 24:15-16, 21; 2Thes 2:3-4).

This question becomes of supreme importance when we see that in Mt 24:15 Jesus instructs His disciples to read about this particular event in Daniel’s prophecy and to be careful to “understand” it. This is important because this is the specific sign that starts the great tribulation that ends in His return.

The decisive question then becomes: which of the two princes distinguished in Dan 9:25-26 stops the sacrifice in the middle of the week in Dan 9:27? If it is said to be Jesus stopping the sacrifice by the shedding of His blood, this argues for a spiritual cessation, since the sacrifice was not literally stopped but continued for some 37 more years until Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus. Also, Jesus did not confirm any covenant for only 7 years. And what kind of “end” was reached 3 1/2 years after the sacrifice was stopped?

Notice that in every other place in Daniel where the sacrifice is mentioned, it is always the wicked, self-exalting “little horn” / “vile person” / wilful king that takes it away (Dan 8:11; 11:31; 12:11). So, if Dan 9:27 is NOT the AC who starts the final 3.5 years of great tribulation (cf., Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21), then Dan 9:27 becomes a curious exception.

This would be to suppose that the sacrifice that is stopped 3.5 years before the end in Dan 9:27 is NOT the same sacrifice that is taken away 3.5 years before an entirely different “end” in Dan 12:1-2, 7, 11-13. In such a case, it becomes an entirely different and separate event in both time and circumstance, accomplished by different persons, and bringing about a different “end” that is not the same as the “end” mentioned in every other reference throughout the book.

If, on the other hand, the last half of the week begins WHEN the self exalting “prince that shall come” of Dan 9:26 stops the sacrifice and places the abomination (the event that brings on the final desolation of Jerusalem), then it follows that just as the 7 weeks, followed by the subsequent 62 weeks bring us to the cross (Messiah “cut off”; Dan 9:26 with Isa 53:8); in the same way, the 70th week is reserved to bring in the final seven years to fulfill the mystery of lawlessness in the revelation of the man of lawlessness, the event that Paul puts as necessarily preceding Christ’s return to gather together His elect (compare Mt 24:31 with 2Thes 2:1-4, 7-8).

So if the one who stops the sacrifice is indeed the prince that shall come of Dan 9:26 (the one who brings on the final desolation of Jerusalem), then this is indeed the second half of the week that ends with the destruction of the “desolator” at Christ’s return (Dan 7:11; 9:27; 2Thes 2:8). And since the one who stops the sacrifice is the same who confirms the covenant, it follows that as surely as the career of the AC does not immediately follow the 69th week, so surely the 70th week must be future.

Lastly, some of the goals that are reached by the 70 weeks concern Jerusalem and Daniel’s people in particular. Some of these were certainly NOT fulfilled seven years after the cross. The full balance of the six goals will, however, be gloriously fulfilled for the languishing Jews (“natural branches”) when the Deliverer comes (roars) out of Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Joel 3:16; Isa 59:20-21; Ro 11:26).

If this all sounds strange on first hearing, be patient, and pray for light and the Spirit to be your teacher, remembering too that the book of Daniel contains mysteries that were intended to remain closed up and “sealed” till the “time of the end”. These sealed mysteries are not automatic to Bible reading. They are precious, divinely guarded secrets designed to be revealed to babes while at the same time eluding human self reliance. They are grace given.

Proverbs 25:2
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing:
but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.

There is so much more connected to this question. I wrote a little piece called, “The Glory of the Gap” where I give many examples throughout scripture where prophecies blend and combine events that prove in hindsight to be fulfilled at great distances apart. You’ll also recall that many messianic prophecies combined events that would be fulfilled at both His first and second comings.

Until the surprise discovery that the Messiah would come twice (Acts 3:18-21; 26:22-23), the gap would remain a mystery, even to the prophets, until the part that was fulfilled at Christ first coming opened to view the part that awaited His return. All would come to full, glorious light when the Spirit “sent down from heaven” would reveal the glory of the “the mystery of the gospel,” as fully foretold in the prophetic writings, but kept till the appointed time of revelation (Ro 16:25-26; 1Cor 2:7-8; Eph 6:19 with 1Pet 1:1-12).

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

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Why are we certain that the beginning of Hosea’s “two days” does not begin with the time that the nation was torn by the Romans (mangled and carried off-5:14 and “torn”-6:1)?

The case is absolutely decisive. You’ll see. In all other interpretations that I’ve seen, the two days is a nebulous metaphor that has little to do with signifying time of any meaningful duration, usually suggested as a metaphor for the brevity of the exile.

So why not start the two days of divine desertion with the destruction of 70? As Travis said, “why not 132 A.D.? It’s just as reasonable. After 70, the Jews recovered, repopulated, and rebounded with yet another, swiftly crushed rebellion against Rome. Then began the age-long exile of “many generations” (compare Isa 61:4 with Eze 38:8).

No, in order to mean anything concrete or significantly limited and definite, the terminus-a-quo must go back to Israel’s fall at the stumbling stone, the national rejection and crucifixion ending the 69th week. That is when He departs to the Father’s right hand, waiting till …

Here is when the “door of faith” was opened to the Gentiles, making Israel jealous with a “no people” UNTIL the fullness of the gentiles has “come in”. Here again, the interim is reckoned from Israel’s fall, the cross, ascension, and the pouring out of the Spirit on “all the families of the earth”.

This is the time He departs to His place UNTIL …, and gives them up until Zion’s travail and the worldwide sway of the smitten ruler from Bethlehem with the return of “His brethren” (Mic 5:4).

To move the starting point further up to 70, or 132-35 is to destroy all symmetry of the otherwise clear signposts by which the interim is marked off and bounded by the mystery of Messiah’s twofold advent.

No other interpretation fits so well, or so well explains the mystery of the long delay. And no other possible interpretation, of which I’m aware, or can conceive, so well commends itself as more glorifying of the miracle of the prophetic scriptures to leave no unforetold gaps. This concept of a gap of great duration is well defended in H. A. Ironsides classic little booklet entitled, “The Great Parenthesis”.

There’s so much more to this. Time does not permit my much fuller account of the evidence. Believe me; I’d like to stretch it out and avoid the scandal that, at least till now, there has been no substantial or obvious movement made towards restoration of sacrifice and sanctuary.

I believe I know my heart well enough to assure that my only single eyed burden, zeal and jealousy for this has only to do with the glorious harmony of the scripture and the vindication of that word in the foretelling of every part of what I’m fond of calling, “the glory of the Story”. The appointed times and seasons of God are always very calendrical and tangible, accessible to the plain person’s knowledge, edification, and practical benefit.

The 490 years of Daniel’s prophecy was quite knowable, at least very approximately. It is why “all men were in expectation” when John broke the 400 years of silence with the announcement that the time was at hand (Lk 3:15). With good reason many believe that the wise men of the East (the Jewish community in Babylon?) was looking for a king to come into the world at about that time.

Of course, we’re always reminded that “no man knows the day and the hour”. But does anyone stop to think how very specific, limited, and precise a day and hour is? That is the one thing He has withheld, and look what men have done with it to the complete neglect of all the certainty the Lord knew His disciples would receive when they would follow His wise directive to “read and understand Daniel’s prophecy of the abomination of desolation (Mt 24:15).

Jesus well knew that this would lead to their discovery of the 3 1/2 years that would follow this event leading to His return (Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:11), as John would later corroborate in his Revelation (Rev 11:2-3; 12:6, 12, 14; 13:5). The Lord’s meaning in adding this gaurd concerning the exact day and hour when we consider that there is a mysterious extension of days in Dan 12:11-12 that exceeds the 1260 days of Rev 11:3; 12:6 by some 75 days into the millennium.

This leaves open considerable latitude for exactly when the Lord will return, though certainly not far beyond the 1260, since the AC’s persecution of the saints lasts only 42 months till cut off by the Lord’s appearing (2Thes 2:8; Rev 11:2; 13:5).

By this simple expression, “day and hour”, meaning no more than exactly and precisely what it says, the whole world of scholarship, both liberal and conservative, presumes to safely dismiss the certain knowledge of the very approximate time that the recognized arrival of the last seven years is sure to bring to the maskilim.

Behold the glorious mystery God hath wrought! It designs to elude all reliance on nature (“wise and prudent”), but sufficient evidence to be discovered by babes, “a hidden wisdom ordained to their glory.” Amazing irony!

I hope we weren’t expecting anything that would not entail a serious test of faith in what He has spoken. As for God’s way of keeping His foretold timetable, we have this word in Paul’s interesting application of Isa 10:23.

Romans 9:28
For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,
Because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.”

This will go down to the wire; I’m sure. There are things we may miss preventing precise reckoning, of course. But that it will be at least very approximate for the greater glory of God and the readiness of His saints, for that, the cumulative evidence compels a measured assurance.

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