Deuteronomy Part 22

DANIEL'S 70 WEEKS

Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore

June 17, 2018

Scripture Reading:  Deuteronomy 12:17-18:

17) “Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil, or the firstlings of thy herds or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which thou vowest, nor thy freewill offerings. Or heave offering of thine hand:

18) But thou must eat them before the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose, then, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates: and thou shall rejoice before the LORD thy God in all that thou puttest thine hands unto.”

These regulations and ordinances are now over. There is no Temple in existence, so we couldn’t keep these ordinances if we wanted to. Jesus the Christ is our sacrifice. It was God, Himself, who paid the sin debt for His peculiar people. That put away all the animal sacrifices forever.

Was this time prophesied? Was there a remnant of God’s people who knew what was the correct time that the true Passover Lamb would be offered? And if they did, then how did they know?

Daniel 9:24-27:

24) “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, 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.”

In last week’s sermon, I mentioned the article on the front page of Sunday’s Cincinnati Enquirer. I gave my rebuttal on the three choices of scripture that Adam Clark, an associate professor at a Jesuit university, indicated where the Bible addresses racism and diversity:

• In Genesis,
• In 1 Corinthians, and
• In Revelation.

I gave my views which were just the opposite of what Clark was trying to promote.

Do you know that on Tuesday, while at work, I found the USA Today newspaper (June 12, 2018) and found the same story on its front page! The USA Today gave credit to the Cincinnati Enquirer for the story and copied a lot of it word for word. They also added additional material. For example, they had a picture of Chuck Mingo of the Procter & Gamble-led megachurch, Crossroads Church, on the front page. Chuck is a black preacher at Crossroads and is given the task of preaching on racial reconciliation. The article said that he wants a conversation about race in his church, and he has established a group called Undivided.

They also had a picture of Paul Mullet from Bainbridge, Ohio which they got from the “Southern Poverty Law Center.” They described Paul as preaching that “whites are God’s chosen.” That is true, but they then added that Mullet’s views are hateful, with a neo-Nazi position with no proof at all. They described Crossroads Church as being the way to go in race relations. In other words, they were implying that they were not hateful and on the right path in race relations.

In this article of the USA Today they quoted Rev. K. Z. Smith, who for 30 years has been a black preacher at a predominantly black Baptist church in Ohio. Here is the quote:  “In Chronicles 7:14, God is telling us that if we seek his face, he will heal the land, but it has to begin with his people.”

Wait a minute! Who is this verse addressing? Who is Mr. Smith saying the pronouns “us” and “we” and “his” are referring to? Are we supposed to substitute the words “black people” in place of those pronouns and that will give us the correct meaning?

In Chronicles 7:14, God is telling “black people” that if “black people” seek his face, he will heal the land, but it has to begin with “black people.”

So, what does this verse have to do with black people at all, let alone a black church wanting white members? And is it 1st or 2nd Chronicles?

It is 2nd Chronicles 7:14 and it refers to a message that the LORD gave to King Solomon at night, answering the king’s prayer. The LORD told Solomon that if He sends a drought, or sends locusts to devour the land, or if He sends pestilence among His people,

14) “If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

The LORD God was not speaking to the main inhabitants of central and south Africa, He was speaking to the king of Israel about what His covenant people are to do if there is difficulty because they broke His laws. It gives the solution for them to get out of the punishment that God is sending upon them for their sins. It says nothing, nothing, about allowing blacks in white churches and whites in black churches.

The article also quotes Rev. Wilton Blake, retired Presiding Elder of the Cincinnati district of the black African Methodist Episcopal Church:

“It’s sinful that the white American Christian church has perpetuated a climate of white supremacy instead of repenting for the sins of the founding of America. It’s humbling and scary to face our own sin, but without truth, there is no repentance.”

This black preacher accused the white American Christian church of doing what? Is he right or wrong in his accusation?

And then the article quoted Adam Clark, who is an Associate Professor of Theology, Africana Studies, and is in the university’s Institute for Spirituality and Social Justice of Jesuit [Francis] Xavier University, who said:

“…justice remains the issue for churches coming to terms with racism. The American Christian church has shown favoritism of whites and presented a narrative that Christianity moved from Israel to Europe, then to the Americas.”

Associate Professor Clark added, “It kind of erases:

• The history of the Ethiopian church,
• The Coptic Church in Egypt,
• How Exodus is an African story,
• How Jesus is obviously a Palestinian, and
• Blacks are marginalized Christians.”
• The Ethiopian church was one of the largest first century settlements of Israelite Christians in the world at that time. It was not black. It later became black after they entered Ethiopia several centuries later.
• I don’t know anything about the Coptic Church in Egypt except it is basically a part of the Roman Catholic Church.
• The Exodus is not an African story. It happened on the continent of Africa, but both participants, the Hebrews and Egyptians, were not blacks.
• And Jesus the Christ was not a Palestinian. He wasn’t a Jew or a black, either. He was a white Israelite.
• Name a black man who had believed the Christian faith while he was hunting in the jungles of Africa for thousands of years?

And this man is an associate professor of Theology? But that isn’t all. Xavier University, as mentioned in past sermons, is a Jesuit University. Cincinnati Moeller High School is a Jesuit High School. Do you remember who the Jesuits are? But first:

This insignia was hanging from one of the two pulpits in the Community Baptist Church that I grew up in. I asked several people, both ministers and my parents, what it meant? What did the “I”, the “H” and the “S” stand for? My parents didn’t have any idea. The ministers told me that it stood for “In His Service.” They didn’t mention anything about the “Society of Jesus”. They probably didn’t even know that it meant, Isis, Horus, and Seth which was code for Semiramis, Nimrod and Tammuz.

After all these years, I found out that it was the insignia of the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits. Who are they? And what was their insignia doing hanging predominately in our church? Was the Baptist church that I was reared in a Jesuit church?

The Jesuits or the Society of Jesus is a monastic order of the Roman Catholic Church, found in 1536 in Paris, France by Ignatius of Loyola. He has several Universities in America named after him, i.e. Loyola of Chicago and Loyola of New Orleans are two of the largest. Originally the special function of the order was to care for the sick and to fortify the position of the Pope within the Roman Catholic Church. The latter function soon became the principal one of the order and thus it is not surprising that the order was approved by Pope Paul III as early as 1540.

Throughout Christendom, Protestantism was menaced by formidable foes. The first triumphs of the reformation past, Rome summoned new forces, hoping to accomplish its destruction at this time, and the order of the Jesuits was created. The Jesuits were created to counter the Protestant Reformation, and they took an oath to defend the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and to destroy Protestantism. The Jesuits recognized only the superiority of the Jesuit Superior General, called the black Pope. This gave them great worldly power. The present pope is also the black pope. Why did the previous pope break catholic tradition and resign so the black pope could reign?

In 1545, the Catholic Church convened one of its most famous councils in history. It took place north of Rome in a city called Trent. The Council of Trent continued 18 years ending in 1563. One of its main purposes was to plan a counterattack against Martin Luther and the Protestants.

The Council was the longest council in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Only by overturning the hermeneutical method of historicism could the Papacy deflect the accusing finger! And the Papacy laid out a carefully devised plan to do just that.

By 1710, the Order had more than 19,000 members and more than 22,000 by 1749. Increasingly feared and suspected by many European rulers, they were first driven out of Portugal (1759), and other countries followed suit. In France they were expelled in 1764. Three years later Spain revoked its approval of the Order.

This society of Jewish/Catholics, after exerting their tyranny for upwards of two hundred years, at length became so frightening to the world, threatening the entire subversion of all social order, that even the pope, whose devoted subjects they are, and must be, by the vow of their society, was compelled to dissolve them. They, like the Jews before them, had experienced expulsion from many of the Christian nations of Europe. Pope Clement suppressed the Jesuit Order in 1773.

But the Order was soon brought back into existence: Jesuit Pope

“During the Order’s suppression from 1773 to 1814 by Pope Clement XIV, General Ricci created the Order of the Illuminati with his soldier, Adam Weishaupt, uniting the House of Rothschild with the Society of Jesus. Weishaupt, the Father of modern Communism, used his bloody Jacobins to conduct the French Revolution incited by his Masonic Encyclopaedists, Voltaire and Diderot. The Illuminati was created on May 1, 1776” History of the Jesuits, Their Origins, Progress, Doctrines and Designs; G. B. Nicolini, pp. 356-357.

Let’s review what happened. The Catholic Church was defeated by Napoleon. Part of their plan was to dethrone all the kings in Europe. Napoleon also attacked the Vatican and kidnapped the pope. The pope was held in France where he died in exile. At the time, there were two more popes who were elected at the same time for a total of three. The Catholic Church was basically dead. But Napoleon emancipated the Jews in Europe when the Protestants were at their most power.

The united states of America was a Protestant nation. They did not want Roman Catholics and Jews to be immigrants. And there were very few of them coming into this new nation. There were religious tests that you had to pass in order to be on the jury and/or hold political office. No Roman Catholic or Jew could pass the test. Let alone atheists, Buddhists, humanists, and a host of other sects of non-Christians, etc.

But then something very significant happened. The devil was let out of the pit after 1000 years. The year was around 1800 AD. The Illuminati was already in place, uniting the Jews with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. And after Satan was let out of the pit the world began to resemble more of the ideas of hell than the laws of God. It started off by softening the Protestant’s accusations of the papacy as being the Anti-Christ:

• The three unclean spirits like frogs began their duty to bring countries to war against the saints of God.
• The Illuminati [Jesuits] began its influence in the world. It began to destroy the Protestant church at its pillars of truth.
• The Jesuits had their two prophetic views—futurism and preterist views—which did away with the papacy as being the Antichrist and eroded Protestantism.
• Protestant clergy rejected their notion on these two prophetic views for over 200 years. Then Darby, Irving, and MacDonald, through evil spirit visions, began to preach and teach the Jesuits’ teaching on these prophecies.

The Jesuits by their very calling, by the very essence of their institution, are bound to seek, by every means, right or wrong, the destruction of Protestantism. This is the condition of their existence, the duty they must fulfill, or cease to be Jesuits.

Accordingly, we find them in this evil dilemma. Either the Jesuits fulfill the duties of their calling, or not. In the first instance, they must be considered as the biggest enemy of the Protestant faith; in the second, as bad and unworthy priests; and in both cases, therefore, to be equally regarded with aversion and distrust.

Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, (1542-1621), was an Italian JESUIT and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation. He was canonized in 1930 and was named a Doctor of the Church. There is a JESUIT university five miles from downtown Louisville, Kentucky that is name after him—Bellarmine University.

Cardinal Robert Bellarmine was one of the ablest Jesuit defenders. He was a powerful speaker and lectured to large audiences. Bellarmine picked up where Jeusit Ribera, the founder of futurism, left off. In fact, Bellarmine made it his life mission to spread the explanation of futurism with its rapture and revelation with passion. Bellarmine wrote the following about punishment due to those he considered heretics of the Roman Catholic Church:

“The only effective means against heretics is to convey them to that place provided for them as quickly as possible. In this way one is only doing them a favor, as the longer they are allowed to live, the more hereises they will devise, and thus the more believers they will seduce, aggravating their own damnation” Symposium on Revelation, volume 2, p. 345.

The Bible is the history of the Israelite people. How is Daniel giving the future (in his time) events of all the people of the world? He isn’t. Nowhere in the Bible will a person find any history of any other race other than when they were chosen by God to chastise His people.

Daniel 9:24-27:

24) “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, 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.”

There are several clues given in these four verses that identify who it is written to:

1. “thy [Daniel’s] people”,
2. “thy holy city”,
3. “Jerusalem”;
4. “the Messiah the Prince”,
5. “confirm the covenant with many”,
6. etc.

Daniel was living in Babylon, followed by Media-Persia in his elderly years, after they defeated Babylon. Daniel wasn’t an Oriental, or a Pacific Islander, or any other race, but Daniel was an Israelite, a member of the southern kingdom—the Judahites--which had been taken captive by the Babylonians.

Daniel’s 70 weeks is the history of the people of Israel who were members of the southern tribes of the kingdom who were living in Palestine. It is not about the dispersed house of Israel or other Judahites living in regions far from the Promised Land. It is the history of the final days of Judah when the kingdom was taken from them and given to the House of Israel.

Are you aware that in the book of Daniel there are three great proclamations recorded in this book issued by non-Israelite kings to all the world, calling attention to the mighty power and glory of the God of Israel. Who says that there is no God? The decrees were given:

1. When Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego were delivered from the fiery furnace,
2. When Nebuchadnezzar recovered his sanity,
3. When Daniel was delivered from the lion’s den.

1. Daniel 3:29:

29) “Therefore I [Nebuchadnezzar] make a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego [the Israelites], shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort.”

2. Daniel 4:34, 35:

34) “And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured Him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation:

35) And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?”

3. Daniel 6:26, 27:

26) “I [Darius] make a Decree. That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for He is the living God, and steadfast for ever and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall be even unto the end.

37) He delievereth and rescueth, and He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.”

Much of the books of the Bible tell of the all the different wars, both offensive and defensive and civil, the times of idolatry, the period of miscegenation, the periods of peace, etc. of Israel. These previous four verses in Daniel, Chapter 9, give the history of the southern kingdom for 490 years, or is it more?

Most Bible commentaries are in complete agreement with the first 49 years followed by the next 434 years; or for the first 483 years. In other words, they agree that the 69 weeks of years of Daniel equals 483 years, but there are major disagreements over when it started, when it ended, and, in some cases, even how many years it was.

The period starts with the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, and is made up of 3 parts:

1. Seven “sevens”; i.e. 49 years,

2. Sixty-two “sevens”; i.e. 434 years,

3. One “seven”; i.e. 7 years.

4. Total: 70 “sevens”; i.e. 490 years.

Futurism separates the last seven years, i.e. Daniel’s 70th week and puts it after a parenthesis, which it calls the church age or dispensation. It then has the future rapture of the church at the beginning of the 70th week, in which the church is taken out of the world.

Then begins the last seven years of the history of this age. There is the abomination of desolation in the middle of the seventh week, the superman Anti-Christ, who breaks his covenant with the Jews, the revival of 144,000 missionary Jews, and the final destruction of mystery Babylon. From Revelation chapter four to the end of the book is all in the future in the minds of Jesuit Ribera and Jesuit Bellarmine.

But let’s pin down the starting date first. When is the decree to rebuild Jerusalem?

There are four possible choices to determine which decree was meant in Daniel. All four are given in Ezra and Nehemiah. Which one is meant in Daniel 9:25?

1. Ezra 1:1-4: [539 BC]

1) “In the first year of Cyrus King of Persia [539 BC], in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: 2) This is what Cyrus King of Persia says: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3) Anyone of his people among you–may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the LORD, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem. 4) And the people of any place where survivors may now be living are to provide him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.”

2. Ezra 6:1, 7, 8: [512 BC]

1) “King Darius then issued an order [512 BC], and they searched in the archives stored in the treasury at Babylon.

7) Do not interfere with the work on this temple of God. Let the governor of the Jews and the Jewish elders rebuild this house of God on its site. 8 Moreover, I hereby decree what you are to do for these elders of the Jews in the construction of this house of God: The expenses of these men are to be fully paid out of the royal treasury, from the revenues of Trans-Euphrates, so that the work will not stop.”

3. Ezra 7:20, 21, 23: [457 BC]

20) “And anything else needed for the temple of your God that you may have occasion to supply, you may provide from the royal treasury. 21) Now I, King Artaxerxes, order [457 BC] all the treasurers of Trans-Euphrates to provide with diligence whatever Ezra the priest, a teacher of the Law of the God of heaven, may ask of you–

23) Whatever the God of heaven has prescribed, let it be done with diligence for the temple of the God of heaven. Why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and of his sons?”

4. Nehemiah 2:5, 8: [444 BC]

5) “And I answered the king, If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it. 8) And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy? And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests [444 BC].”

I have included a chart, one of thousands, that you can find if you google, Daniel’s 70th week. They chose as the starting point 444 BC or 445 BC. Notice, they also use 360 days a year or they would never arrive at 32 AD.

Which of these is the decree referred to in Daniel 9:25?

1. 539 BC;
2. 512 BC;
3. 457 BC; or
4. 444 BC.

The first two are not picked by very many reputable Bible scholars, as the 483 or 490 years do not come to any significant dates. That leaves 457 BC or 444 BC. Most preterists pick 457 BC and most futurists pick 444 BC or 445 BC.

CONCLUSION

Does this statue in the Vatican depict the truth of is it in error? If you are a Protestant or you being trampled unto Loyola feet? Are you one of the many Protestants who believe in Larkin’s charts (show below)? If you do, you are being trampled under his foot!

This is one of the many charts drawn by futurists, the late Clarence Larkin. He was an architect by trade, and he made all these fabulous drawings. He has a book available with all his charts in it. I saw the book about 50 years ago and soon after bought one. I took one of his charts, put it on a board, lacquered it and then sanded it down. I put a chain on it and hung it in my room. I now know it was a teaching of Jesuit Ribera and Bellarmine, not God’s Word.

Let’s examine some of its flaws:

• Larkins starting point is 445 BC. If you add the 483 years of Daniel’s 69 weeks, it comes to a figure that is almost 40 AD. He comes to 30 AD. Why? He uses 360 days for a year, instead of 365¼.
• He then puts a gap of what is now almost 2000 years from the 69th to the 70th week of Daniel. He calls this period the “Dispensation of the Church”; the time not revealed to Daniel.
• Sometime in the unknown future, Daniel’s 70th week will begin. The church is raptured up and taken away from the earth and its tribulations.
• God then turns back to his covenant people—the Jews. 144,000 of them become the missionaries in this last week.
• In the middle of the week, the Anti-Christ breaks his covenant with the Jews. The Temple has been rebuilt and the Anti-Christ makes the abomination of desolation in it by offering an unclean pig.
• This unclean sacrifice made by the Anti-Christ is a substitute for the death of Jesus the Christ in Daniel’s 70th week. Jesus’ death is omitted by the futurists in their interpretation of this prophecy.
• There is a big problem. The Jews are not God’s chosen people. The Ashkenazi’s are descendants of Japheth, not Shem. The Sephardic are descendants of Esau, not Jacob. The Hassidic aren’t either.

Here is a representation of the Protestant Historicism. Daniel’s 70 weeks, or 490 years runs consecutively, with no gaps or parentheses. The 483 years takes one up to the baptism of Jesus the Christ when He was anointed. In the middle of the last week, Jesus the Christ was murdered, when He was offered as the Savior of His people. When did the week end?

It was not the murder of Stephen, as shown in this chart. Daniel’s 490 years is the history of the nation of Judah, the smaller of the two nations that made up the kingdom of God on the earth. What did the end of the 490 years have to do with the history of Judah? Next week you will discover the answer!

To be continued.

Blessed be the LORD God of Israel.