The Rapture part 5
Today we begin part 5 of our series on the Rapture. In our first 4 lessons I established a very strong foundation from scripture showing that the rapture view cannot be found within the Bible. I proved that the kingdom and the church are the same thing and that Jesus did not fail to setup the kingdom as was prophesied by the OT prophets. I showed that Jesus will come again someday but we don’t know what it will be and there are no signs. I showed that on that day the world will end and both righteous and unrighteous will be resurrected and judged.
These first 4 lessons are all a person really needs to show that the premillennialist view is false and is not supported within the Bible. So, no matter how many prophecies they misinterpret or how many times the go to the book of Revelation for proof of their doctrine we can know their interpretation is not correct because it would contradict the very plain passages that have already looked at in previous lessons.
However, to
be fair and to give their view a more through treatment I want to press on and
examine more of their most commonly prophecies that they have misapplied so
that we can have better understanding of how to show these people what the
Bible really says about these prophecies. Last week we took a detailed look at
Matthew 24 and I showed that verse 1 – 34 were talking about the destruction of
Matthew 24:15 "
Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the
prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him
understand), 16 "then
let those who are in
We also observed that Luke’s
account made it very easy for us to see that the abomination of Desolation was
the Roman army that would surround
Let us begin by looking
at,
Daniel 9:1 In the
first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, (ah-has-u-air-us) of the lineage of
the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans -- 2 in the first year of his reign
I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by
the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish
seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
To help us understand
what is going on here lets reflect on the history leading up to this moment.
Earlier in history while the children of
Jeremiah 25:12 ' Then
it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will
punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for
their iniquity,' says the LORD; 'and I will make it a perpetual desolation.
Also see 29:10.
At that moment Daniel was
still in captivity but he knew that the 70 years was almost up so he turns to
God in prayer. To keep things in context I want to read all his prayer and as I
do please not humility and the sincerity of his prayer,
Daniel 9:3 Then I
set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications,
with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. 4
And I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said, "O Lord,
great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love
Him, and with those who keep His commandments,
5 "we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done
wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your
judgments. 6 "Neither
have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings
and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. 7 "O Lord, righteousness belongs
to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day -- to the men of
Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far
off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the
unfaithfulness which they have committed against You. 8 "O Lord, to us belongs shame
of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned
against You. 9 "To the
Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled
against Him. 10 "We have
not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set
before us by His servants the prophets. 11
"Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to
obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses
the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against
Him. 12 "And He has
confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who
judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven
such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem. 13 "As it is written
in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made
our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and
understand Your truth. 14
"Therefore the LORD has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us;
for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though
we have not obeyed His voice. 15
"And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt
with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day -- we
have sinned, we have done wickedly! 16 " O Lord, according to
all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away
from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the
iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to
all those around us. 17
"Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications,
and for the Lord's sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is
desolate. 18 "O my God,
incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city
which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before
You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies. 19 "O Lord, hear! O Lord,
forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for
Your city and Your people are called by Your name."
As we read Daniel was
pouring his heart to the Lord and asking for forgiveness for the Jewish Nation
and that they could once again go back home and be a nation united under God
once again. Daniels received a reply to his prayer from the angle Gabriel.
Daniel 9:20 Now
while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my
people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the
holy mountain of my God, 21
yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in
the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the
time of the evening offering. 22
And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, "O Daniel, I have
now come forth to give you skill to understand.
23 "At the beginning of your supplications the command
went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly
beloved; therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision:
Daniel was a very
righteous man and he took a stand for God’s way even from a very young age and
because his faithfulness the angel says that he greatly beloved and that he is
going to be given the wisdom to understand the vision he is about to be given
in response to his prayer. This vision contains the prophecy of the abomination
of desolation that Jesus spoke of in Mat. 24. First lets read this vision and
then break it down so that we can determine what its talking about.
Daniel 9:24 "
Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish
the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity,
To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to
anoint the Most Holy. 25
"Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the
command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall
be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and
the wall, Even in troublesome times. 26
"And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for
Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and
the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of
the war desolations are determined. 27
Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of
the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of
abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation,
which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate."
This prophecy is many
times called Daniel’s 70 weeks. The first thing I want to point out is that the
70 week period is broken up into 3 segments. 7 weeks period, 62 week period and then a 1
week period. This works out to be 490 days and every scholar I ever looked
including Hal Lindsey and those like him agree that each of these days
represent 1 year so this 70 weeks 490 years. We can also see that at the end of
the 62 week period the Messiah or Jesus would be present and the last week
refers to Jesus ministry on the earth except in the middle of that week he was
cut off or as we know crucified. Now we will are going to look at this in more
detail in just a second but I want point out the premillennialist are with me
on what said so far except for the week. They agree that at the end of the 62
weeks begin Jesus ministry but since the Jews rejected Jesus they would say
that last week had been put on hold and they give this week an entirely
different meaning because they say that this last week has to do with the 7
years of tribulation after the rapture.
At the beginning of this
7 years the Roman anti-Christ is suppose to make a pact to protect the Jews and
during this first 3 and ½ years the Jewish temple is suppose to rebuilt and
animal sacrifices reinstituted. At 3 and ½ years the Roman antichrist is
suppose to break his pact with the Jews at this point Hal Lindsey says this,
“The antichrist enters the newly-rebuilt Jewish
So as we can see the main
difference between their view and what I am teaching you today has to do with
that last week. Now please remember that for their view to have any validity we
should be able to see something within those scriptures that indicate some long
delay between the end of the 62 weeks and the final week. Friends I don’t how
many times you read those verses or what translation you read there is not one
hint of any type of delay between those weeks and so from that alone tells you
that the rapture view simply cannot be true with in these verses no matter how
creative they get. Now before we get to last week lets take a closer look at
this vision. First lets look at,
Daniel 9:24 " Seventy
weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish
the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation
for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up
vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.
These things Daniel are
talking about are to happen by the end this 70 weeks which we have already said
represents 490 years. When we read these things you can easily apply them to
Jesus because this exactly what he came to do for mankind as he died on the
cross for our sins, finishing the transgression by putting an end to the power
of sin and reconciling us to God by means of his death. The NT bears this out
over and over again,
Hebrews 9:26 He then would have had to suffer often since
the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has
appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
Now
this does not mean that sin is gone but what it means is the Jesus has put a
new system into place for the Christian where sin no longer has power over them
because they can be forgiven of it under the new system Jesus established for
us.
2 Corinthians 5:18 Now
all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ,
and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and
has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Jesus
has reconciled us to God through his sacrifice of himself on the cross. It also
worthy to note that Isaiah 53 also prophesied that Jesus would sacrifice
himself for transgression in verses 5, 8, and 12 for sin in verse 10 and 12 and
for iniquity in verses 5, 6 and 11. Please understand that this was to happen
while Jesus came the first time and this is the exact same thing Daniel is
talking about happening at the end of this 70 weeks. That being this case this
cannot be pointing to something happening at Jesus 2nd coming as the
premillennialist teach.
Daniel
also says at that time everlasting righteousness will be brought in. This no
doubt is referring to the proclamation of the good new of Jesus Christ. In
Romans 1:16 For I
am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation
for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness
of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just
shall live by faith."
Next Daniel says visions
and prophecy will be sealed up. Now think about this, one of the major themes
of OT visions and prophecies had to do with Jesus. There are over 300
prophecies about Jesus in the OT and Jesus fulfilled them all. There are many
passages that bare this out. In John 17:4 Jesus said he had finished his work
on the earth and in John 19:28 while Jesus was on the cross it says he knew all
things were accomplished and in Luke 24:44 after Jesus resurrection he reminded
his disciples that all the things written about him had to fulfilled. This is
why Paul says this,
Galatians 3:24
Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be
justified by faith.
So, we can see that
visions and prophecies of Jesus from the OT came to end because he fulfilled
them all. In doing this Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses nailing it to the
cross
Finally Daniel also
states that the most holy would be anointed. What does this term most holy
mean. Well, grammatically it could mean a person or a thing and those who teach
the rapture theory choose to interpret this as a thing specifically they
believe this is pointing to the new temple that will be built during the 7
years of tribulation as per their view.
However, I believe there
is ample evidence to show that this most holy is talking about Jesus and not
building. Specifically I believe its talking about when Jesus was anointed by
the Holy Spirit after John baptized Him. Please note the following reasons of
why I believe that the most holy is referring to Jesus.
1. In context as we have
already seen these things Daniel mention fit perfectly with the work of Jesus
on this earth. Also verse 25 shows that the Messiah is what is under
consideration in these verses because this is what the 69 weeks of the prophecy
leads up to.
2. We can also see that anointing
was practiced in the OT as rite of inauguration for the office of a prophet (1
Kings 19:16) a priest (Exodus 28:41) and a king (2 Samuel 2:4).
. Its very interesting
that Jesus hold all 3 of these offices this can be seen in Acts 3:20-23;
Hebrews 3:1; Matthew 21:5.
3. In Luke 4 Jesus
ascribes Isaiah 61:1 to himself, which states that he was anointed to preach
the gospel to the poor and we all know that when Jesus receive the Holy Spirit
after his baptism in Luke 3:21ff is when began his ministry. We can see that
God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit in,
Acts 10:38 "how God anointed Jesus of
4. In fact the word
Christ means anointed one.
So I have no doubt in my
mind that the most holy that was to be anointed in Daniels prophecy is talking
about Jesus and certainly not some future temple that suppose to be built
during the first half of an invented 7 years of tribulation at the end of time.
Daniel 9:25
"Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the
command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall
be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built
again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.
26 "And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall
be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to
come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with
a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined. 27 Then he shall confirm a
covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He
shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of
abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation,
which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate."
Again I want to point out that this prophecy is
defiantly talking about Jesus and the destruction of
Ezra 9:9 "For
we were slaves. Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage; but He
extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to
repair the house of our God, to rebuild its ruins, and to give us a wall in
Judah and Jerusalem.
Even though they didn’t
finish rebuilding it until Nehemiah came along 13 years later we can still see
that Ezra is the most logical choice for this timeline. The Prophecy also says
that this rebuilding would be done in troublesome times and that exactly what
happened as you read in Ezra 4. For example look at verse,
Ezra 4:4 Then the people of the land tried to
discourage the people of
So now we can see that
the first 7 weeks represent 49 years of rebuilding
1. This prophecy says
that the Messiah will be cut off. This also confirmed Isaiah 53:8. I don’t know
of anyone who denies that this whole chapter is talking about Jesus and so we
can see that Jesus was to be cut off or killed just as Daniel’s prophecy
declares.
2. Verse 27 says this
Messiah will make a covenant with many. This exactly what Jesus came to do as
he nailed the old covenant to the cross at his death according to
3. This Messiah would
bring and end to sacrifice and offerings and this is exactly what Jesus did. I
want you right this down Heb 9:11 – 10:18. I want you to read these verses very
slowly to yourself tonight and you will see very clearly that the describe the
blood of animal sacrifices are not sufficient but the Jesus sacrifice on the
cross was sufficient and it only had to be done one time and so his perfect
sacrifice did away with all other
sacrifices and offerings.
Hebrews 10:16
"This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,
says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will
write them," 17 then
He adds, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no
more." 18 Now where
there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
So without any doubt
whatsoever we can see that Daniel’s prophecy in that last week is talking about
Jesus work upon this earth and has absolutely nothing to do with 7 years of
tribulation some time in the future. Please remember that the premillennialist
says the temple will be rebuilt and animal sacrifices will begin again. Does
that make any sense to you? If Jesus brought an end to animal sacrifices
because they were not sufficient in the first place why in the world would they
be brought back? These are honest questions that needs to be answered and
considered by those who teach the rapture theory.
One more observation I
want to make about this last week is that the focus in on the middle of the
week and as far as I can tell the Bible speaks nothing of those 3 ½ years
remaining. Some have speculated on this remaining 3 ½ years but I see no reason
to because again the focus is on the middle of that week and not the end of it
and since the Bible doesn’t talk about it I see no reason to try and assign
anything to the remainder of that week. Now let turn our attention to the part
of the prophecy that talks about the destruction of
26 "And after the sixty-two weeks
Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince
who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall
be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined. 27 Then he shall confirm a
covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring
an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be
one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is
poured out on the desolate."
Note very carefully that
the prince here is to come after the Messiah is cut off and when he comes he
will destroy the city and the sanctuary and this is referred to as a war. This
abomination of desolation is what Jesus spoke about in Mat. 24 that his
disciples would be able to see coming and know when to escape
Well as we come to
conclusion of our lesson I hope you have been able to learn how Daniels 70 week
prophecy harmonies perfectly with history and with Jesus work upon this earth,
his death and the destruction of