1730 Great Awakening Evangelistic Movement Led to Major Prophecy Changes
PART 10
February 24, 2012
TWO CONCLUSIONS IN THIS SERIES OF WHICH I AN CERTAIN
This is the final issue of a ten part series and, since I consider this to be an important subject, it is a long one. In the many years I have studied this subject, I have found it to be one of the most difficult prophecies I can be precisely accurate in expositing, and yet it is one of the easiest to interpret within prescribed limits. And so, after considering the many different ways of counting the time from “the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the prince” by many different men, which you have read in the previous nine updates, I freely admit there are only two things of which I am certain. After all the glitter and calculations have been considered, only these two conclusions can I consider to be valid without question, and I will state them later in this final Update of the series.
Daniel 9:24-27 – Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. [25] Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. [26] And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. [27] And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
The reasons one cannot be exactingly precise are numerous. The errors made in calendar adjustments between Oriental and Western calendars based on the movements of different astronomical movements of two different heavenly bodies, the actual birth date of Christ appearing to be 4 BC, assorted other shifts in time keeping by the ancients, and whether the years listed are supposed to be 360 or 365 and ¼ days, have combined to make it impossible to take an oath any one of the many sets of calculations is absolutely accurate. However, it is a situation that can be narrowed down to one of two proclamations issued to rebuild the city of Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity, and a sufficiently accurate outcome by applying 360 day prophetic years to one, while applying 365 and ¼ days to the other proclamation, which have led me to say that one or the other must be correct. Since I have described the calculations by B.H. Carroll and others, as applied to the third proclamation, which were based on 365 and ¼ days, please allow me to quote directly from a book by John Urquhart, who bases his calculations on proclamation number four, and uses 360 day prophetic years. The following quote is taken directly from “The Wonders of Prophecy,” by John Urquhart, Charles C. Cook, Fifth Edition.
BEGIN QUOTE FROM “THE WONDERS OF PROPHECY”
“That third edict has very generally been regarded as the decree ‘to restore and to build Jerusalem’ – a view in which I formerly concurred. But a closer examination of the terms of the edict does not support that conclusion. Those terms are most explicit. Ezra is empowered to convey the treasure contributed by the king and his counselors, from Babylon to Jerusalem, to receive other voluntary offerings, to expend the funds, and to appoint magistrates and judges. But there is no mention whatever of building and restoring Jerusalem; and, if that task had been assigned to Ezra, it would be hard indeed to explain why, in an edict fully transcribed and elaborately minute in regard to everything else, no reference whatever is made to that important undertaking. When we turn to the fourth degree, however, we meet for the first time, language which is in significant accord with the description of “the commandment spoken of by Daniel. Nehemiah tells us that, when Artaxerxes asked ‘For what dost thou make request,’ he replied: ‘If it please the king, and if thy servant hath found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldst send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers’ sepulchers, that I may build it.” He also begged a letter to ‘Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me according to the good hand of my God upon me.’ Here we have in explicit terms an authorization to Ezra to build the city of his fathers’ sepulchers; and the fourth decree is consequently ‘the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.’
To apply these results, we have first of all to inquire what those 483 years are. Are they years in every respect like the years of our own calendar? There are clear indications in Scripture that the Hebrew month, like that of Babylonia and of Egypt, consisted of 30 days. The year consequently contained 360 days; multiplying those 483 years by 360 so as to find the entire number of days, we divide by 365.25 and so change them into calendar years. The result of this rough and ready, but sufficiently accurate, method is that 483 prophetic years are found to be equivalent to 476 years of our ordinary chronology of today.
We have to ask next to what special point in the past we have to stretch it onward into the future. The narrative in Nehemiah furnishes a perfectly clear reply. We are told that the concession was made ‘in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the King.’ He began his reign in the year 465 B.C. He was now in the twentieth year of his reign: in other words 19 years of his reign were completed and the 20th year was in progress. Deducting these 19 years from 465, we are brought to 446 B.C. – the year in which the edict was issued ‘to restore and to build Jerusalem.’
‘A word or two will now complete our demonstration. Applying the 476 years of the prediction to this point (446 years before the birth of our Lord) we find that they bring us down to that event and leave 30 years over. That is the year 30 A.D. is specified as that of the Savior’s cutting off in his crucifixion. While everyone will feel how amazing that the year and the very month – the month Nisan – of our Lord’s death should have been fixed centuries beforehand, some may imagine that there is, nevertheless, a slight inaccuracy. We are told (Luke 3:23) that Jesus entered upon this ministry when he was about 30 years of age. The year 30 A.D. would, therefore be the year when his ministry began, and not the year of his crucifixion. But the Scripture is absolutely accurate. When the division between the time B.C. and the time A.D. was made, the year 1 A.D., was really the year 5 A.D.; and the year 10 the year 14 A.D.; and the year 30 the year 34 A.D. And thus the year 30 A.D. in our chronology was really the year of our Lord’s death. The chronology was in error, but there was no error in the Scripture; and that sacrifice, which will be remembered and celebrated throughout eternity, was offered at the appointed time.”
END OF QUOTE FROM “WONDERS OF PROPHECY”
What follows is my summary of Parts 1 through 8 of the 70 weeks Series in Prophecy Updates 230B, 231, 231A, 231B, 232, 232A,, 232B, and 232C.
In the Agency there were times when reams of information, collected from all over the Soviet Union, would be piled on the desk of an analyst, day after day, week after week, perhaps month after month, and from it all he or she was expected to present conclusions as to how it did, or did not, or might, or could, present a scenario that would of future benefit in confrontations with forces and peoples of other nations. In all analysis work there are times when one feels completely helpless because the evidence usually cannot be molded into a concrete pattern of certainty. I am thankful for my training as an analyst because, at times, there are things you can know FOR SURE, others of which you are reasonably certain, some that are fifty-fifty, a high percentage of those in the “definite maybe” category, and some that leave you setting all alone not having the foggiest idea what it all means, if anything.
Daniel 9:27 – And HE shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week HE shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations HE shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
So let me present to you two things that I know FOR SURE, and these two are quite enough to make my point, because more than 95 percent of the world’s prophetic teachers today are in complete disagreement with them. Ironically, all of the world’s prophetic teachers before 1740 did agree with them, and a majority of them considered then to be true into the beginning of the twentieth century. The beginning of the Great Evangelical Age in 1740, the beginning of the popularization of a pre-tribulation theory in 1827 by John Darby, and the publishing of the Scofield Bible in 1909 pushed the following two teachings into antiquity by the middle of the twentieth century. And the very popular twentieth century book, “The Late Great Planet Earth,” which was followed by the “Left Behind” series of publications during the present century, has almost eliminated the possibility of anyone ever hearing these two conclusions or even knowing they once existed.
But I AM SURE the following TWO conclusions are correct.
(1) The three HE’s in Daniel 9:27 are NOT a future antichrist.
(2) There are NOT 7 years of Daniel’s 70TH week waiting to be fulfilled.
They are quite enough because so many other prophetic teachings are based on them being a lie. I would say that more than 95 percent of the prophetic teachers today are teaching that that Daniel 9:27 represents the antichrist, and that we are waiting for the entire last week of seven years to be fulfilled. In the previous eight updates I have listed a bevy of great Bible preachers who believed the two things listed above. I am acutely aware that what I have presented has, and will continue to cause a wide variety of emotions among those who have taught, and do teach, that these two things are not true. But I ask those who have the most violent reaction – did you know what was taught before the teaching of Daniel 9:27 arose that has dominated the last 100 years of prophetic teaching – Did you know it before you starting teaching what you teach today? I had been exposed to the teaching of it as a youth in the forties by old Missionary Baptist preachers, but I did not know where it came from, or the history of it, until I studied it for myself. Have you ever studied it for yourself? Please don’t attack the personal integrity of all those men of God prior to 1740, as well as the majority who held it into the early twentieth century, to prove your position. I attempt not to attack the personal integrity of any man’s character to prove any case, interpretation, or point I am attempting to draw from the Scriptures, and diligently try to make my case on what I believe the Bible teaches. I spend a great deal more time asking myself why I teach it, what my real motive is in presenting it, and invariably I find myself asking myself – are you presenting it to please men or God, are you teaching what God wants them to hear or what they want to hear? I spend so much time in judging my own motives in teaching something that it does not leave me with much time to think about the motives of others. However, I do not think I am out of line or out of God’s will to ask others to do the same. I concentrate on following Jesus as he leads me along the path he directs me to follow, which doesn’t leave me much time to think about what he has chosen for other men to do in his fields of labor.
John 21:21,22 – Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? [22] Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
One really does not have to go back before 1740 to find the teaching that the HE’s in Daniel 9:27 represent Christ. Here are just a few of many authors published after 1827 who were not swayed by the new teaching of the HE’s representing a future antichrist.
1. The Preacher’s Homiletic Commentary on Daniel by Robinson, Section XXXVI, “The Last Week and It’s Employment.”
2. The Layman’s Commentary on Daniel by Charles John Elliott. D.D.
3. An Interpretation of the English Bible by B.H. Carroll.
4. Halley’s 1927 Bible Commentary by Henry H. Halley
5. The Prophecy of Daniel by Edward J. Young, 1949
6. Commentary on the Whole Bible by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
7. Great Prophecies of the Bible by Ralph Edward Woodrow, 1971
8. The Book of Daniel by Curtis Mitchell, 1968
9. The Wonders of Prophecy by John Urquhart
10. The Seer of Babylon by Clarence H. Hewitt, 1948
11. The Pulpit Commentary, Volume 29, 1896
Have you ever gone back and checked to see what was taught before 1740? Did God choose not to reveal the truth about Daniel 9:27 until after 1740? Did he choose the Great Evangelical Movement as the time to reveal the truth about Daniel 9:27? Did he wait to popularize the truth of the Pre-Trib Rapture by John Darby in 1827? Did he wait to spread the Pre-Trib position across the country and world by Scofield in 1909? Certainly, the answer to all these questions is an individual matter between you and God. I have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ to answer for everything I have taught, so I persuade men of what I believe about the Second Coming of His Son. I would be a spiritual fool to do otherwise.
II Corinthians 5:10,11 – For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. [11] Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.
Colossians 3:23-25 – And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; [24] Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. [25] But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.
I do not question your motives in what you teach or why you teach it, that is a very personal matter between you and God, and something you alone are capable of doing. I only know it is something God wants all of his children to do. I hope my motive for presenting this series is made manifest in your consciences.
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