Determined Weeks
Daniel 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.
The scriptures teach us that all times are appointed by God! They are predestinated according to God’s purpose. Ephesians 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Ecclesiastes 3:1 To every thing there is an appointed time, even a time to every purpose under the heaven. This chapter instructs us that, not only are the “great things,’ like birth and death appointed, but so are even the ‘smaller things,’ like picking up rocks and casting them away (vs. 2,5). Of course, we generally accept planting and harvest times as established, which are also revealed in verse two. And should it then seem strange to us if The Almighty, Sovereign Lord should have a “determined” time for his Son to make an end of transgression on the cross?
For when do the scriptures teach us that the Eternal Son of God came to die? Was it not in the fulness of time? Gal. 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And can we not read that he accomplished the very thing, at the very time that Gabriel informed Daniel that he would? For Gabriel said the Messiah would make an end of sins. And can we not read in Hebrews 9:26, … but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself? The very work that Gabriel spoke of is here stated as that which Messiah accomplished! So he did that which was foretold, at the time that it was stated!
And why is it important that we see God’s absolute control of all things? Let’s let Him tell us. Isaiah 46:9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
God, having revealed the end from the beginning, reveals that he alone, is very God! There is no other God! This prophesy brings one to the character of God! To deny his revelation is to deny the character of his person! The scriptures instruct us that the Word was in the beginning, and the Word was God! To believe in the Person of God, one must believe His word!
Our Lord settled this matter in John 5:39, which states, Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. The Holy Scriptures are but a testimony of his Person!
The Lord Jesus Knew This!
Our Lord would do nothing out of it’s rightful time and order. John the Baptist said, ‘Lord, you’d better baptize me!’ But the answer to him was that John must do the baptizing in order to fulfil all righteous! (Matt. 3:15).
And we also read in John 2:4, Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. And in John 13:1 we read, Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And also in John 17:1 as he prayed to his Father, he faces Him with this knowledge, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
Sabbath Rest
2 Chronicles 36:20 And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: 21 To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.
The Babylonian bondage of seventy years was largely for the sin of sabbath breaking. The length of time the bondage was to endure was to allow the land to rest the exact amount of time that it would have rested if Israel had been obedient to God! The Lord kicked his land holders out in order that the earth could recover from their constant cultivation. For the land was to rest, as was the Israelite who worked it, not just every seventh day, but also every seventh year! Then it was to rest the 50th year as well.
Leviticus 25:3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; 4 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.
Lev. 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. 9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile 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. 10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
Just as in the 50th year of Jubilee, the Lord would proclaim liberty for those in Babylonian bondage at the end of this appointed sabbath rest of the land! And then there was to be seventy weeks of years determined until Messiah would come and finish the transgression, so that redemption’s liberty could be proclaimed by the gospel to all those in sin’s bondage! The Lord’s first recorded public reading reveals this! Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
For the Lord Jesus Christ is our Sabbath rest! Hebrews 4:9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Harlot religion sets forth a ‘works’ righteousness which continually plows the soul with the fear of never having ‘done’ enough. This will lead into eternal bondage, from which there shall never be a pardon! But true religion sets forth the only way of soul rest as recorded in the gospel – justification with God by grace through faith!
Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. True salvation is never the result of religious works! But it always, without fail, produces good works that follow the believer as a witness of the inward change by grace! And these are the works by which Christ shall judge the entire human population to separate the sheep from the goats! (Read Matthew 25:31-46).
490 Years Before
According to Leviticus 25:8, listed above, 7 sabbaths of years would be 49 years. Therefore, if God adds a zero to that, making it 70 weeks, we arrive at 490 years. So what happened 490 years earlier that started God keeping a record of missed sabbaths? Approximately 490 years earlier Israel turned from God’s rule over them to a human king! In this God instructed Samuel (1 Sam. 8:7,8) that they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. They then, like Americans today, turned to human effort, and human government to take care of them, abandoning faith in God! They rejected God and rejected his sabbaths, which were to reveal a resting by faith in God for their sustaining.
Matthew also has a very important verse to shed light upon this area. He sets up three segments of fourteen generations from Abraham to Christ. Matt. 1:17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. Therefore from the times of Israel’s first kings there were fourteen generations of trusting in man, until the next note worthy segment – the Babylonian bondage!
Jeremiah 17:5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. 6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. 7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. 8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
The Next 490 Years
And as that first Israelite set his foot outside the city limit sign of Babylon to start back to Israel, God started the clock ticking on the Seventy Weeks Determined (approx. 490 years) to bring in Messiah and the end of sins! Israel would suffer Babylonian bondage for 70 years. But mankind would suffer sin’s bondage for the next 70 weeks of years (Lev. 25:8) until the Lord Jesus Christ should come and, once for all, should put away sins by the sacrifice of himself!
We read in our beginning verse that Daniel was instructed by Gabriel that the Lord Christ would come to finish the transgression! That word, “finish,” is the same word used in Genesis 8:2 concerning Noah’s flood waters. Verse one of this chapter states, God remembered Noah. And in verse two we read, The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; That Hebrew word translated, was restrained is the exact same Hebrew word translated, “finish” in Daniel 9:24! For just as not one more drop of rain fell, but their fall was completely restrained, so the Lord Jesus Christ would completely deal with sin on his cross and cry out, It is finished!
And God’s faucet doesn’t drip! Not another single drop of rain fell in that flood! And not one single sin from those for whom Christ died (of His elect church), is without atonement. Insomuch as God, the Father was completely satisfied for the first time with redeemed sinners! Isaiah 53:11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied:
We also read in out verse that Christ shall make reconciliation for iniquity! How precious! 2 Corinthians 5:18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Redemption completed allows not one sin to be held to the account of true believers! For Christ did such a perfect job that there is no longer any imputing of trespasses to them!
Pastor Gene Breed
