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KINGDOM
BIBLE STUDIES
"Teaching the
things concerning the kingdom of God..."
THE SEVENTY
WEEKS OF DANIEL
Part 6
UNTO
THE END OF THE DESOLATIONS…
As we conclude our thoughts on the
subject of the seventy weeks of Daniel we come to words that in their
simplicity and power carry us beyond
the seventieth week to the final result of all that transcendent week
accomplished. To Daniel, Gabriel addressed the end of the matter, saying, “And
after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off (killed), but not for
Himself: and the people of the prince that shall
come shall destroy the city (of
Jerusalem) and sanctuary (temple);
and the end thereof shall be with a flood (of armies), and unto the end of the
war desolations are determined… and
for the overspreading of abominations he
shall make it desolate, even unto the consummation, and that determined
shall be poured upon the desolate”
(Dan. 9:26-27). Although the glory departed from Jerusalem and Judah at the end
of the seventieth week, leaving the Jewish nation spiritually bankrupt and desolate, it took a period of time beyond
that departure to result in the full physical
destruction of the abandoned city, temple, and priesthood.
The Lord Jesus Himself, standing and
teaching in the midst of the seventieth week, proclaimed, “Woe unto you,
scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites! Upon you shall come all the righteous blood
shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of
Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
Verily I say unto you, ALL THESE THINGS SHALL COME UPON THIS GENERATION” (Mat.
23:29, 35, 36). And again, “and when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with
armies, then know that the desolation
thereof is nigh… for these be the days of vengeance, that all things which
are written may be fulfilled. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, TILL ALL BE FULFILLED” (Lk.
21:20, 22, 32). These verses clearly show that the destruction of Jerusalem and
the Jewish nation, temple, and priesthood, was not to come immediately at the end of Daniel’s seventieth week, but would come
to pass at a later time WITHIN THE GENERATION THAT WAS THEN ALIVE. The words of
Gabriel to Daniel also reveal clearly and decisively the progressive order of
events which brought the final collapse: “… and unto the end of the war desolations are determined (decreed)… and for
the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate even until the consummation, and that
determined shall be poured upon the
desolate.” As we progress in this message keep the words “abominations,”
“desolations,” and “desolate” firmly in mind.
The all-wise God, the author of
times and seasons, has from the beginning of human history inaugurated a
program by which He would teach mankind the righteousness of His ways. Like the
classes of a school, stage by stage His progressive dealings have brought His
mercies and His judgments wisely designed to cause the inhabitants of the world
to eventually “learn righteousness.” In that long ago beginning God allowed the
crowning masterpiece of His creation to fall, allowed him to lose a human
perfection, rooted in innocence, over the beasts and creeping things, and then
brought into operation the provision for raising to the heavenly realm such of
these fallen creatures as should be chosen to that estate through grace.
Through grace they became actual sons of the God of heaven, and as such were
given the privilege of reigning, throughout the fleeting years of their natural
lives, over all the earth. These were the great ones of old, men of renown.
This dominion and privilege, however, like that of man’s first dominion in the
garden, depended on their obedience to the will of their sovereign Lord. And
here, as in the garden, they also failed miserably. So God destroyed the whole
faithless mass, beginning anew with Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and his
seed. Then when this purging failed to bring about the ordained obedience, He
instituted a new provision whereby those who were called by God should be
segregated from the rest of the world and its defiling influences. In this new
role, as God’s chosen earthly nation and people, they were promised, that upon
their obedience God would exalt them over all the nations of the earth and they
would be the head and not the tail. These wonderful promises are recorded in
the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 28. On the other hand, Israel was also
promised that upon continued disobedience, they would be scattered again over
the face of the earth, not as masters of earth, but in judgment and as slaves:
as the offscouring of the earth among their enemies.
Of all the physical proofs of the
inspiration and infallible accuracy of the prophecies of the Bible there is
positively no proof that can compare to that great sign of signs which is the
NATION OF ISRAEL, and especially that segment of Israel universally known as
THE JEW, consisting primarily of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi. It is
not my purpose to try and identify the other ten tribes which mistakenly for
centuries have been called the lost
tribes, but that part of Israel, the Jew, has never been lost but scattered among the nations of the
earth. Clearly identified and definitely separated, despised and hated he has
been a proverb and a byword among the nations of earth exactly as Jehovah God
declared, “And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do
you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy
you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land
whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all
people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other… and among these
nations shalt thou find no ease,
neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee
there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life
shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt
have none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it
were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear
of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which
thou shalt see” (Deut. 28:63-67). How terribly has all this come to pass! In
all the history of mankind, there is no nation which has been the object of
such unremitting, general and relentless persecutions as the Jews. Surely there
is not a man in all the world who would be so foolhardy that he would deny that
all the things written above and far more have come to pass upon the Jews. Yet for
all that the Jew has been preserved by God unto this day and is, indeed, the eighth wonder of the world!
Continued disobedience brought the
promised judgment, which became a stern reality in 586 B.C., when the Jewish
nation was carried captive to Babylon. From this time forward, until their
final dispersion in A.D. 70, they were almost continually under servitude,
first to one kingdom, then another. The time we are now considering is this
final dispersion among the nations, which was foretold by our Lord in the
closing days of His earthly ministry. This prophecy is one of the most unusual
forecast of events to be found anywhere in the Word. It is unusual in its
simplicity and in its exactness of detail, and also because of the fact that it
was given only a few years before the events came to a climax, given during the
life spans of many who lived to witness the events. And for this reason, it is apparent
that it was one of the great factors in breaking down the obstinate unbelief of
both Jews and Gentiles, and thus furnishing the early church with a powerful
weapon against the power of darkness. It was a prophecy which the masses could
understand, and was followed by a literal fulfillment which the whole world
discerned and marveled at. Now let us turn to the prophecy itself.
“And Jesus went out and departed
from the temple: and His desciples came to Him for to show Him the buildings of
the temple. And Jesus said unto them, Disregard all these: Verily I say unto
you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be
thrown down” (Mat. 24:1-2). The King had come to His own: to His nation chosen
of God. They received Him not. He has now closed His last public discourse
(Mat. 23), and has left the temple for the last time. “Jesus went out, and
departed from the temple,” never again to re-enter or open His mouth in public
teaching. With this act ended His public ministry. The last supper and Calvary
were to follow. But the disciples, still concerned with the natural, had other
thoughts. The Master had just made the statement, “Behold, your house is left
unto you desolate” (Mat. 23:38). These men, in their then unspiritual state,
could not be expected to understand that declaration fully. Probably they
thought it had reference to merely the natural house, to the most marvelous
edifice on earth. At any rate, they were more concerned about the passing than
the permanent. But the Master had finished with this. The time had come for the
greatest event of the ages to be enacted. So He had little interest now in that
which represented a fallen order, devoid of God’s presence and power and
majesty. And while our Authorized version reads, “See ye not all these things?”
yet it is apparent that this is a mistranslation. The Greek really says, “And
the Jesus said to them; Not you regard (or look to, or take heed to) all
these.” Most certainly He was saying in essence, “Now we are through with all
that is natural. We have matters of much greater import to attend to. So, get
your eyes off this which is passing, for, Verily I say unto you, There shall
not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” The
account in Luke 21:6 reads, “as for these things which ye behold.” “Behold”
here carries the meaning of earnest and continued inspection: that is, they
were prone to continue looking in fondness on the natural magnificence. “As for
these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not
be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
This was a new revelation, a
shocking blow to the inborn hope which still held a prominent place in the
hearts of these men. They had been brought up to believe that their Messiah was
to come and restore Israel to her lost heritage of world dominion. But little
by little they had come to know that other events must transpire first: that
the King Whom they had truly found and followed was not to reign immediately,
but must die. Now they learn that the grandeur of the edifice which was the
idol of every Jewish heart is to be destroyed instead of being preserved to
remain the abode of the God of Israel.
Then this little flock follow their
Master out of the city and ascend the mount of Olives. Here they have a
panoramic view of that they have just learned is to be destroyed. “And as he
sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying,
Tell us, when shall these things be?” (Mat. 24:3).
Now, we have purposely quoted only a
part of the question which the disciples put to their Lord, and the purpose in
so doing is to avoid the confusion which is as rampant, or even more so, in the
church today than it was in the Jewish church in which the disciples had been
reared. They are here informed concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the
temple. Then they asked their Informer the time when this should come to pass.
This question He then answered, and gave the signs which would precede this
event. They also asked another question which we will consider in turn. But let
us not get our eyes off this first question, for the church today, as a whole,
has done this very thing, and because of this they are misapplying Scripture
with great abandon, and looking forward to many events which were all perfectly
fulfilled two thousand years ago, never to be repeated.
When our Lord Jesus ministered here
on earth, He addressed a great many of His sayings and sermons and parables to
the Pharisees and scribes and rulers of the Jewish nation. The Pharisees were
by far the most numerous and influential of the religious sects of Jesus’ day. They
were strict legalists. They stood for the rigid observance of the letter, and
forms of the Law, and also for the Traditions. They pledged themselves to obey
all facets of the Traditions to the minutest detail and were sticklers for
ceremonial purity. They would not touch the carcass of a dead animal or those
who had come into contact with such things. They had no association with people
who had been defiled through sickness. In truth, they made life difficult for
themselves and bitter for others. They despised those whom they did not
consider their equals and were haughty and arrogant because they believed they
were the only interpreters of God and His Word. They were devoid of the graces
of forgiveness, mercy, charitableness and love.
When the Pharisee went to meet God
he had his appointment at the corner of the street. Passers-by saw his bold,
erect figure. His attitude betokened pride, self-esteem, a superiority of life
that gave him unbounded satisfaction. He was no suppliant for mercy, nor
recipient of grace returned to give thanks to God, but a self-sufficient soul
airing his merit before angels and men. “God, I thank Thee, that I am not as
other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers; I fast twice in the week, I
give tithes of all that I possess” (Lk. 18:11-12). The Pharisee was
presumptuous enough to assume that his self-satisfied, meritorious life placed
him on good terms with God. His soul was guilty of a most irreverent conceit.
It is only natural that ultimately such a religion became only a matter of
externals and not of the heart, and that God’s grace was thought to come only
from doing the Law. Jesus constantly clashed with them over their
coveteousness, self-righteousness and hypocrisy. He denounced them as
irreligious professional religionists, parading themselves in holy garments,
pompous fellows, self-important, strutting around like lords, preaching
religion, yet having none. How His pure soul loathed their wretched pretense!
The words of Jesus to the Pharisees
constitute the most bitter denunciations that ever fell from His holy lips.
Jesus never talked that way to sinners, publicans or the common people. Mercy
flowed like a river to the poor and needy, but rebuke and scathing condemnation
were heaped upon the haughty and unrepentant. The Pharisees, like their
ancestors, were not merely sinners, but deliberate and persistent rebels
against God. Contemning every word of God sent to them, abusing every privilege
granted to them, and despising every blessing bestowed. From the day of their
beginning as a nation, before they had time to receive, in its written form,
the law which had been orally delivered to them, the children of Israel had
violated the first and fundamental command, “Thou shalt have no other gods
before Me,” and all their subsequent career was in harmony with this beginning.
They sinned, and committed iniquity, they understood not God’s wonders
nor remembered His mercies, they provoked Him and forgot His works, they waited
not for His counsel but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God
in the desert; they envied Moses and Aaron; they changed their glory into the
similitude of an ox that eats grass; they forgot God their Saviour and despised
the pleasant land; they murmured in their tents and hearkened not to the voice
of the Lord; they joined themselves to Baal Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the
dead; they provoked God to anger with their inventions; they did not destroy,
as commanded, the idolatrous nations of Canaan, but were mingled among the
heathen and learned their works; they served their idols and sacrificed their
sons and daughters unto devils; they shed innocent blood, even the blood of
their sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; they were
defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions,
till the wrath of the Lord was kindled against His people, and He abhorred His
inheritance. Many times did He deliver them, but they provoked Him with their
counsel and were brought low for their iniquity. They persecuted every prophet
that was sent to them, and after every deliverance, fell lower than before,
into all manner of sin and evil.
Prophet after prophet had announced to them the advent of Messiah the
Prince. In due time HE came. God was manifest in the flesh. He came unto His
own – to this people who for over two thousand years He had been preparing to
receive Him; but “his own received Him
not.” They despised and rejected Him, they hated Him because He testified
of them that their deeds were evil; they blasphemed the Holy Spirit of God,
accusing the Son of God of deriving His power from the prince of devils; they
took counsel together to slay the Holy and the Just; they bore false witness
against Him to put Him to death; they became His betrayers and murderers; they
cried, “Crucify Him, crucify Him,” and by their wicked hands He was crucified and slain.
There is recorded in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew what is
evidently the last public address given by Jesus to the Jewish nation. Here are
those striking denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy.
At the close of this address, Christ, as He was turning to leave the temple for
the last time, said: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye be
witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the
prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of
your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the
damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men,
and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall
ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: that upon
you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of
righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew
between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall
come upon this generation. O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which
are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even
as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed
is HE that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
Jesus gives a remarkable sign of
the arrival of this judgment in Matthew 24:15. “And when ye therefore shall see
the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the
holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) then let them that be in Judea
flee into the mountains.” These words, as Jesus intimated, can only be
understood when contrasted with Gabriel’s message to Daniel in Daniel 9:27.
“And He (Christ) 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 (by
the sacrifice of Himself), and (then) for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it (the temple and the
priesthood) desolate, even until the
consummation, and that determined shall be poured out upon the desolate.” Well,
precious friend of mine, just WHAT IS THE “ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION”?
There are clues both in the words of Jesus and in the words of Gabriel.
In the words of Jesus the clue is found in His two statements wherein He says,
“When you see…” In Luke 21:20 He
says,
“And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed about with armies,
then know that the DESOLATION thereof is nigh.” And then immediately He adds: “Then let them which are in Judea flee to
the mountains.”
Contrast this urgent warning with what Jesus says in Matthew 24:15.
“And when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation… stand in
the holy place…” Now once again He immediately adds: “Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.”
Do not these passages clearly show that “the armies compassing
Jerusalem” and “the abomination of desolation” are merely two ways of saying
the same thing? And the result is the same for the people living in Judea –
they are warned to FLEE TO THE MOUNTAINS at once upon witnessing this
phenomenon! So what is the “abomination of desolation”? The Roman armies! The heathen, pagan, legions of Rome that came and
surrounded the city of Jerusalem in preparation for their attack upon the city.
I can hear someone say, “But, brother Eby, Jesus said the abomination of
desolation ‘stands in the holy place’ – does that not indicate that it is
something raised up in the temple or in the holy place compartment of the
sanctuary?” Not at all! I would point you again to Gabriel’s message to Daniel
wherein he says, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy
HOLY CITY…” Oh, yes, the city of Jerusalem was in God’s eyes appointed as the
Holy City – truly a holy place! The
fact is that the people of Israel considered not only the temple but the whole
city of Jerusalem (see the book of Macabees) as their “holy place.” And Yahweh
Himself confirmed that this was so.
The Lord Jesus said, “When you see Jerusalem compassed about with
armies, then know that the DESOLATION thereof is nigh.” DESOLATION – what a
word that is! It signifies destruction, ruination, demolition, holocaust. And
this desolation would be brought on the city, the temple, and the people by
heathen, pagan, uncircumcised warriors overrunning the city, swarming into the
temple, tearing it down, smashing everything, and burning it with fire. What an
abomination that was! The abomination was the unholy people ransacking the holy
place of God, truly the abomination bringing desolation. No wonder Jesus warned
His followers: “When you see the armies around Jerusalem – when you see the
abomination of desolation stand in the holy place – get out! Flee to the
mountains!”
Now here is what actually transpired. The Emperor Nero sent a general
leading a vast army against the city of Jerusalem. The general’s name was
Cestius Gallus. He fought a battle and could have won the battle, but Josephus,
the Jewish historian, records that for some unknown reason, after the first
skirmish, he pulled back. The Jews went out then and attacked their army, and
5,000 of the Roman soldiers were killed. Cestius Gallus lost that battle. At
that time the Christians in Jerusalem remembered the warning of Jesus that when
the armies compassed the city they should immediately and with all haste flee
out to the mountains; that lull, that pause in the war gave them the
opportunity to make their departure from the city. Now, it is remarkable that
at the end of that terrible time not one single Christian was found in the city
of Jerusalem. More than one million Jews lost their lives in the war and 97,000
were taken away captive; but not one Christian died and not one Christian could
be found in that city three years later. A truly amazing fulfillment!
Following Cestius Gallus’ defeat Nero dispatched the Roman general Titus
to increase his forces and press the war against the Jews. Then their wrath was
poured out. Jerusalem fell, and great was the fall thereof! Signal, terrible
and unparalleled was the Jewish war, ending with the siege and capture of
Jerusalem by the Roman general, Titus. It needs a pen dipped in fire and in blood
to write the story in its true colors! The sufferings and miseries that overtook
the Jewish nation in that age, are all but indescribable, the very record of
them is appalling. We are indebted to the Jewish historian, Josephus, for many
of the details. One million one hundred thousand Jewish lives were sacrificed
in the siege and capture of Jerusalem alone; streams of human blood
extinguished the blazing fires that destroyed the houses of the city, and heaps
of the unburied corpses of those who died of starvation during the siege, hid
from the Roman soldiers the immense treasures of the temple. From April 14th,
when the siege began, to July 1st, 115,880 bodies were buried at the
public expense, or thrown from the walls, not including those interred by their
friends. Some said the 600,000 of the poorer people had perished of want; women
cooked and ate their own children, the maimed and defenseless people were slain
in thousands; when the temple at last fell, they lay heaped like sacrifices
around the altar, and the steps of the temple ran with streams of blood, which
washed down the bodies that lay about. The slaughter within was even more
dreadful than the spectacle, from without, it was indiscriminate carnage. The
number of the slain exceeded that of the slayers. The treasuries, with their
wealth of money, jewels, and costly robes, were totally destroyed. The value of
the plunder obtained was so great, that gold fell in Syria to half its former
value.
After the fall, the markets of the Roman Empire were glutted with Jewish
slaves; the amphitheaters were crowded with these miserable people, who were
forced to slay each other, not singly but in troops, or else fall in rapid
succession, glad to escape the tyranny of their masters by the expeditious
cruelty of the wild beasts. And in the unwholesome mines hundreds were doomed
to toil for wealth not to be their own. The political existence of the Jewish
nation was annihilated; it was not again for nineteen centuries to be
recognized as one of the States or kingdoms of the world. Judea was sentenced
to be portioned out to strangers, the capital was destroyed, the temple
demolished, the high priesthood buried in its ruins, and the royal tribe almost
extinct.
Thus were precisely completed and fulfilled all the words of the
prophecy in the book of Daniel concerning the “seventy weeks.” “Seventy weeks
are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city… 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 (of
armies), and unto the end of the war desolations are determined… even unto the
consummation, and that determined shall be poured out upon the desolate” (Dan.
9:24, 26, 27).
To be
continued… J.
PRESTON EBY
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