Dan 9:25-27                         Victory in the Fullness of Time                           10/23/2005    ßà   

 

  • Seventy Sevens (Dan 9:24-27)

 

 

 

#1.       Thou Shalt Number Seven Sabbaths of Years (Lev 25:1-7, Matt 11:28-30)

 

 

 

  • The Year of Jubilee (Lev 25:8-22)

 

 

 

  • When Was the First Jubilee? (1King 6:1, Dan 9:25)

 

 

 

#2.       Messiah Shall Be Cut Off (Dan 9:26, 2Cor 5:21)

 

 

 

  • He Shall Destroy the City and the Sanctuary (Dan 9:26, 2Cor 11:13-15, Amos 8:12)

 

 

 

#3.       The First Three and One Half: A Covenant With Many (Dan 9:27, Matt 20:28, Isa 55:3)

 

 

 

  • The Last Three and One Half: The Abomination of Desolation (Dan 9:27, Matt 24:15, Prov 28:9)

 

 

 

 

Please open your Bibles to the Prophecy of Daniel, Dan 9:24-27 (2X). We have been here before. But last week we covered only verse 24. Today I plan to finish this very important prophecy. This is a passage concerning the timing of the first coming of Christ. This is the prophecy of the:

  • Seventy Sevens (Dan 9:24-27)

In your KJ Bible you read Seventy Weeks, but the word Week and the word Seven are the same word in the Hebrew text. Let us now read again this prophecy of the Seventy Sevens in Dan 9:24-27,

Da 9:24  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.

Da 9:25  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.

Da 9:26  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.

Da 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.

Last week we saw the meaning of verse 24 and we saw that there were two proclamations to restore and to build Jerusalem. The first one was made by Cyrus in 539 BC and given to the first contingent of Jews under the leadership of Zerubbabel. The second proclamation was made by king Artaxerxes in the year 458 BC and given to a second contingent of Jews under the leadership of Ezra. The first contingent of Jews literally went to work “to restore and to build Jerusalem” according to the command of Cyrus. Jerusalem was built and the temple was completed about 20 years later. Then 60 years after the completion of the temple Ezra came with the second contingent of Jews. Jerusalem and the temple were already built. But the timing of the declaration of Artaxerxes to Ezra fits exactly the prophecy of Dan 9:24. Exactly 490 years after the declaration of Artaxerxes, Christ was crucified in AD 33. This resulted into an important conclusion: The meaning of “the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem”, as stated in verse 25, does not refer to a literal restoring and rebuilding of Jerusalem, but to the restoring and rebuilding of the body of believers, who are citizens of a heavenly Jerusalem. Likewise the temple, which Ezra came to set up, does not refer to the literal temple of bricks and mortar, but to the temple of God in the souls of the body of believers, which we always thought was a NT concept. And thus the spiritual Jerusalem and the spiritual temple were in view in verses 24-25. Of course! In verse 24 Christ was not crucified to purchase real estate there East of the Mediterranean but to purchase the souls of His elect. Now if that is the meaning of verses 24-25, then we should maintain that same meaning throughout this prophecy of the Seventy Sevens. What we then see next in verses 25-27 is that the number 490 years is maintained. But now the 70 X 7 is broken up in three segments: 7X7, and 62 X7, and 1 X 7. Taken together this is again 70 X 7. And thus the same path from Ezra to the cross in verse 24 is now repeated in verses 25-27, but it is broken up in three segments. Why is God giving us this path from the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem to Messiah the Prince? What is so peculiar about 7 X 7 years? And then we realize that it has to do with the words:

#1.       Thou Shalt Number Seven Sabbaths of Years (Lev 25:1-7, Matt 11:28-30)

Please turn in your Bibles to the prophecy of Leviticus, Lev 25:1 (2X). You find Leviticus after Exodus in the first 10% of your Bibles. In Lev 25 there are two commandments given. The first one concerns the Sabbath Year, which occurs every 7 years, and the 2nd one concerns the Jubilee Year, which occurs every 50 years. These are not gentle recommendations. These are commandments that must be obeyed by every OT Israelite. These commandments belong to the Ceremonial Law, which looked forward to Christ and to the Kingdom of Christ. Let us now read about the Sabbath Year,

Le 25:1-4  And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,            Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the LORD.                      Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;                  But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.

Le 25:5  That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.

Le 25:6-7  And the Sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,                  And for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.

These instructions are very plain. They cannot be misunderstood. When they have come into the land of Canaan they must sow the land and reap the harvest for six years. The 7th year they may not sow or reap anything, for in the 6th year God will give them a harvest that will be sufficient to feed them for 2 years. They must trust God that He will do that every 7 years. And thus the Sabbath Year, like the Sabbath Day, was a period of rest that was looking forward to the rest that we have in Christ. Today we do not do that any more, since the Ceremonial Law was done away at the cross. The Lord Jesus described this rest that we have in Him when He said in Matt 11:28-30, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.    Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.      For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”. The rest that we have in Him is the assurance of our salvation. God wants us to have this assurance, this rest, from the faith that He gives us as an evidence of our salvation. Secondly,

  • The Year of Jubilee (Lev 25:8-22)            We read in Lev 25:8,

Le 25:8 ¶  And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.

Le 25:9  Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

Le 25:10  And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

Le 25:11  A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.

Le 25:12  For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.

Le 25:13  In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession.

Le 25:14-15  And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another:     According to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee:

Le 25:16  According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee.

Le 25:17-19  Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God.         Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.            And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.

Le 25:20-22  And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:                   Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.                     And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.

In this passage God instructed the children of Israel to count the number of years beginning from the year they came into the land of Canaan. Every 7th year would be a Sabbath Year. And when seven Sabbath Years had passed the 50th year would be a special year, which would not be counted among the seven. This was called a Jubilee Year. The Jubilee Year was a picture of the ultimate deliverance we will have when Christ returns, and we will enter into the New Creation. The trumpet of the Jubilee was sounded on the 10th day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, the most holy day of the OT Ceremonial Law, and it bears resemblance to the Last Trumpet that will sound when Christ comes. On that day all the Hebrew slaves were set free, all the debts were cancelled, and everyone returned to the parcel of land that originally was the possession of their family. If anyone had sold his land out of necessity, in the Jubilee Year that land was freely returned to its original owner. Both in the 49th year and in the following 50th year the people would not work, nor sow, nor reap, but were commanded to rest, and to enjoy the rest they could look forward to in the days of the 1st coming of Messiah and in the days of the second coming of Messiah. And there will be no hunger or thirst, for in the 48th year, the year preceding the Sabbath Year and the Jubilee Year, God will provide a harvest that will be sufficient to feed them for three years. The Jubilee year would truly be a year of feasting and rejoicing for the coming home of all those who were scattered during the preceding 49 years. But this year of liberty for the slaves counted only for the Hebrew slaves, not for the slaves that were bought from the Gentiles. They remained slaves. Can you see how God gives a picture here of the elect and the non-elect? And can you see that the Jubilee Year was a picture of the ultimate deliverance we have when Christ comes again and takes us home? According to these verses in Lev 25 there was a Jubilee year every 50 years. The question we now have is this:

  • When Was the First Jubilee? (1King 6:1, Dan 9:25)

To answer this question we need two time references. Please turn to the Prophecy of 1King 6:1 (2X). The first time reference is the year that king Solomon died and the kingdom was divided into the Northern kingdom of Israel and the Southern kingdom of Judah. All archeologists agree that this was the year 931 BC. Write this down, 931 BC the kingdom was divided (2X). We know that Solomon reigned for 40 years, and therefore he began to reign in the year 971 BC. Write this down, 971 BC Solomon began to reign (2X). The second time reference is found in 1King 6:1 where we read,

1Ki 6:1  And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.

And thus this building project was started in the 4th year of Solomon’s reign, which was the year 971 – 4 = 967 BC. Write this down, 967 BC marks the beginning of the building of the temple. But this verse also says that 480 year earlier the Exodus out of Egypt took place. Therefore 967 + 480 = 1447 BC. Write this down, 1447 BC was the Exodus out of Egypt (2X). We know that the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before they were allowed to enter the land of Canaan. And thus the year they entered into the land of Canaan was the year 1407 BC. Write this down, 1407 BC they entered into the land of Canaan. Therefore the first year of Jubilee was 1357 BC, and the second year of Jubilee was 1307 BC. Every 50 years was a Jubilee year: 1257 BC and 1207 BC, and so on. In every century the years ending with 57 and 07 were Jubilee years. What can we then say of the year 457 BC? Perhaps you remember, the year 458 BC was the year that Ezra returned to the land of Israel. Therefore the year 457 BC, the year that followed after the return of Ezra, was a Jubilee year. Write this down, 458 BC Ezra returned, 457 BC was a Jubilee year (2X). And thus the year 458 BC was a Sabbath Year, and the year 457 BC was a Jubilee Year. Both these years were years of rest. No labor could be performed in those two years, only feasting and rejoicing in the Lord was permitted. The work that Ezra came to do had to be postponed for two years. And thus the first time segment that we find in Dan 9:25, the 7 X 7 years, is the period of time between two Jubilee years. Subsequently, the year 407 BC was also a Jubilee year. Write this down, 407 BC was a Jubilee year. Again this was a year when no labor could be performed. And then the next time segment of 62 X 7 = 434 years is counted in unbroken fashion beginning with the year 406 BC. This gets us to the year AD 29. Write this down, 406 + 29 – 1 = 434 years. Since there is no year zero we have to subtract one every time we cross over from BC to AD. What happened to the Jubilee years in those 434 years? We do not know. God did not give us this information. Please turn again to the prophecy of Daniel, Dan 9:25 (2X). What was so special about the year AD 29? The Lord Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the year AD 29, because we know that Jesus was crucified at the Passover in the spring of the year AD 33. From the four synoptic Gospels we know that the Lord Jesus preached for 3½ years, ending at the Passover in AD 33. Going back 3½ years takes us to the fall of AD 29. This was the ending of the second time segment of 434 years. And you can see how all of this is beginning to tie together. We read in Dan 9:

Dan 9:25  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.

What is the meaning of the words, “the street shall be built again, and the wall”? It is pointing to a rebuilding of Jerusalem, but not the physical Jerusalem. We have found that verse 24 involves building of the spiritual Jerusalem, the body of believers. That is the city that is in view in this prophecy. This passage revolves around the building of the spiritual temple of God in the souls of His elect. And thus it indicates that the Gospel is again going forth, and saving people left and right. And then we read:

#2.       Messiah Shall Be Cut Off (Dan 9:26, 2Cor 5:21)

Dan 9:26  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.

These are events that take place after the segment of 434 years, in other words “After AD 29”. What happens after AD 29? “Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself”. In the language of the Bible the words “Cut Off” indicate not only that He would bodily die, but that He would be under the wrath of God. And to be under the wrath of God implies that he would have to suffer the equivalent of an eternity in the torments in Hell. Put a sticker here in Dan 9 and please turn to the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 2Cor 5:21 (2X). Beginning at verse 11 in this chapter of the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians God urges us to take a more active role in the furtherance of His Kingdom. He says in V 11, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men”. And in V 20, “Now then we are ambassadors on behalf of Christ”. “For”, and this is the reason why we must be ambassadors for Christ, or on behalf of Christ, God says in 2Co 5:21, “For He (God) hath made Him (Christ) to be sin for us (lit: on behalf of us), Who knew no sin (Christ knew no sin); that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (in Christ)”. This is why we show our gratitude to Christ, for the work He has done to be our substitute. He, Christ, knew no sin. God did not impute our sins on Him, but God imputed the guilt of our sins on Him, in order that He, Christ, could pay on behalf of us for the guilt of all our sins. Here is the principle of substitution in action. Christ took the guilt of our sins. He unburdened our souls from the guilt of our sins. He paid the price to take us out of the Bottomless Pit to ground zero. That is Mercy. That is unmerited pardon for all the sins that we have done and all the sins that we are going to do. Now we have arrived on ground zero. But in order to take us into heaven as His Bride He also gave us His righteousness, which was as perfect as the righteousness of God. That is Grace. That is unmerited favor. And now, clothed with the righteousness of God, we have been made worthy of entering into His presence in the glories of heaven, for without such perfect righteousness no one may enter into the presence of God. Did Christ do this for every single human being in the world? Of course not, because not everyone receives the faith of Abraham to believe all that God has said and written in the Bible. Today we can see that it is only a select few who have received such a faith. Therefore Christ paid only for the sins of all His elect, and not for one more sin, for each additional sin would imply an additional degree of suffering by Christ on behalf of that additional person. We would greatly diminish the wisdom of Christ if we allow Him to suffer for those people of whom He knows that they themselves are going to Hell. This is what Christ has done for us, not because we believed, but because God gave us the faith to believe that Christ has done this on behalf of all His elect. He was cut off, but not for Himself.

  • He Shall Destroy the City and the Sanctuary (Dan 9:26, 2Cor 11:13-15, Amos 8:12)

Please continue to the end of this Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 2Cor 11:13 (2X). We read in Dan 9:26, “And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary”. Some people think that “the prince that shall come” represents Christ. That cannot be true, for God indicated that there are two major persons in this verse. One is Messiah who has come already, and the other is “the prince that shall come”. I agree with the translators of the KJV that they have not capitalized this “prince” in verse 26, whereas they have capitalized “the Prince” in verse 25. You see “the prince that shall come” refers to Antichrist, who is Satan himself. Remember the city is not the city of bricks and mortar, but it is the city of God. This verse is not speaking about the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 by the Romans. This is speaking about the destruction of the church on this earth. As you know, God’s holy city, or God’s temple, consists of two parts: a part that is on earth and a part that has gone on to heaven, where they eagerly await the inauguration of the New Creation, after judgment has been passed to all those that know not God and that do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The part of God’s holy city here on earth does manifest itself in the church, which can be seen, and heard, and experienced. But not everyone in the externally visible church is saved. Not everyone we meet there is an elect of God. We must say, unfortunately, that every church has its messengers of Satan there hidden in the midst of the congregation. Yea, even in the rulership of many churches there are messengers of Satan. The Apostle Paul warned us for these things, for He said in 2Cor 11:13-15,

2Cor 11:13-14  For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.       And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

2Cor 11:15  Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

Watch out for preachers that do not preach the whole Counsel of God, and who take the liberty to pick and choose from the Word of God those things that are pleasing to people. They are “the people of the prince that shall come”. They are the messengers of Satan who will destroy the church from within. And they are the messengers of Satan who will also destroy the Sanctuary. In other words they will destroy the place where Christ can be found. They will preach their own gospel, rather than the Gospel of the Bible, for the sake of drawing more people into the church, but they end up with a church filled with baptized pagans. Like Judas Iscariot, they have sold out Christ for money, with the result that there will be a famine of hearing the Word of God. The people in the churches may have a Bible in their hands, but they do not hear the words of the Lord. They have been taught to pick and choose from the Bible. Even those who want to know more “shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord, and shall not find it”. I did not invent these words. God spoke these words, as written in Amos 8:12, to warn US of the condition during the FTP, near the end of time. That is how “the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary”. Please return now to Dan 9:26 (2X). In verse 26 God tells us what will occur after the segment of time that ended with AD 29. We have already covered three quarters of verse 26, and we have seen the cross and we have seen the FTP near the end of time. But we have not seen anything concerning the time in between. And then we read in Dan 9:26, “and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined”. “The end thereof” refers to the end of the city and the sanctuary, which means when the end of the church has come and when the true Gospel has been completely silenced, it shall be with The Flood. The definite article The is definitely present in the Hebrew text. What in the Bible is referred to as The Flood? It is The Flood of Noah’s days. God promised Noah that He will never flood the earth again with water. This is a sure promise. But what did The Flood represent? It represented the awful wrath of God upon all mankind, except on His elect. And just like God saved His elect in the days of Noah, so shall God also save His elect on the Last Day, just before He will destroy this earth with fire, which represents the wrath of God just like the flood of Noah’s days. “And unto the end of the war desolations are determined”. It means that there will be a war between the many people who are the seed of Satan and the Seed of the Woman, which is Christ. Christ is fighting for us, and He will fight for us until the end of time.  

What we have seen in verse 26 are two Judgment Days. There is Judgment at the cross in the words “Messiah shall be cut off”, and there is judgment at the end of time in the words, “The end thereof shall be with The flood”. This is how God continues to speak in verse 27 about the last seven. 

#3.       The First Three and One Half: A Covenant With Many (Dan 9:27, Matt 20:28, Isa 55:3)

Da 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.

This verse must be divided into two parts, the first part which deals with Christ’s ministry, and the second part which deals with the abominations that make people desolate. This desolation reaches all the way until “the consummation”, which must mean “the end of time”. The Hebrew word translated “the consummation” has been translated most of the time as “The end”. In other words, this verse prophesies all the way to the end of time. Verse 27 begins with, “And He, Christ, shall confirm the covenant with many for one seven”. Who are the many? They are all the elect who come into being during the entire NT period of time, since this last seven covers the entire NT period of time. In their lifetime Christ will confirm His Covenant of Grace with the many who are His elect. The Spirit of Christ shall cause them to hear and believe the true Gospel when they are still alive, and will cause them to read in the Bible a confirmation that they have become saved. And they will believe it because the faith that God gives us is a confirmation of our salvation, and thus it is a confirmation of the Covenant of Grace. They will believe that Christ came “to give His Life a ransom for many”, from Matt 20:28. God says in Isa 55:3, “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David”. And then we read in Dan 9:27, “And in the midst of the seven he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation (= offering) to cease”. The definite article is definitely there two times. What is The Sacrifice, singular, referring to in the Bible? All animal sacrifices of the OT were all pointing to the ultimate sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. All offerings in the OT were all pointing to the ultimate sin offering that the Lord Jesus Christ gave on the cross. And thus, what we read in Dan 9:27 means that all the sacrifices and offerings of the entire OT Ceremonial Law came to an end in the middle of the last seven. It means that at the end of Christ’s ministry, after 3½ years, in AD 33 when Christ hung on the cross, the entire Ceremonial Law came to an end. The Apostle Paul, who knew the OT very well, came to the same conclusion long before the other Apostles knew this truth of salvation. And thus we can see that the first 3½ years of the last seven corresponds with the ministry of Christ and ends with the cross of Christ in AD 33. What about the last 3½? These last 3½ reach all the way to the end of time, to the FTP.

  • The Last Three and One Half: The Abomination of Desolation (Dan 9:27, Matt 24:15, Prov 28:9)

God says in verse 27, “and for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it desolate”. This

“He” refers to Christ, for it is the same “He” as elsewhere in this verse. Because of the proliferation of abominations Christ shall make these 3½ a time of desolation throughout the church. And that has been true for most of the NT period of time. Throughout most of the NT era the church has been in an apostate condition. Just think of the many crusades that have been fought in the name of Christ. And what for? Only to take back a little real estate there East of the Mediterranean. Just think of the many atrocities that have been sanctioned by the Pope. Many thousands of Christians have been burned at the stake, because the Pope did not like that they believed the Bible. But we do not have to look in the far distant future. Just think of the deception of tongues that is presently spreading over the entire world. The church of Rome is at the forefront of this movement. They have always maintained that God is still speaking today and that God has not ceased to bring messages in dreams and visions and in angel visitations and in the glorification of the Virgin Mary. Please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, Mat 24:15 (2X). Every year many thousands of people are flocking to the supposed shrines of saints throughout the world, in the hope of being healed from their infirmities. This is the great Abomination of Desolation, and it is generated from within the church. The Lord Jesus said in Matt 24:15, “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). The abomination that makes the soul desolate is standing in the holy place. What holy place is there that we can see? O Yes, there are holy places in the souls of the true believers here on earth, but we cannot see those holy places. The Lord Jesus specifically indicated that we can see these holy places. What holy place is there that anyone of us can see? It is the church, and especially it is the pulpit in a church, where an unsaved person is standing and delivering a sermon that is laced with lies instigated by Hell. We all know such churches within walking distance from where we live. But let us now look further at Dan 9:27. There we read, “even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate”. This condition of desolation shall continue and intensify even until the end of time. And that which was decreed shall be poured upon the desolate. Who are “the desolate”? Please turn in your Bibles to the Proverbs of Solomon, Prov 28:9 (2X). First of all Satan and all his fallen angels should be counted as desolate. Secondly all people who are unwilling to read and believe the Bible are also standing on the side of Satan. At the end of time there are only two groups of people: Those who are on the side of Christ and those who are on the side of Satan. Here in Prov 28:9 God defines for us who are NOT standing on the side of Christ. God says, “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination”. God says here that those who turn a deaf ear to the words of the Bible are on the side of Satan. And that which was decreed, Hell, shall be poured upon Satan and all those who are his.

Thank God that He has given us faith to believe all that He has said. Thank God that He has initiated this change within us, for we of our own selves would never have come this conclusion. Thank God that He has sent the Lord Jesus Christ to change sinners into saints.                        AMEN.