The Daniel 70th week prophecy is arguably the most controversial prophecy in the entire bible. Its controversy is founded on the fact that it is said to be a future event at the time of
the anti-christ. It is controversial because if You read it at face value You would never know that 7 years of it would be split into the far distant future. Actually, for the
majority of history, everyone accepted this prophecy as completed (more of this in a bit).
Outside of the Daniel 70th week prophecy, there is nowhere else in scripture where a prophetic timeline is split.
When Father God, gave a prophecy to His prophets it is always straight foward and to the point. So then Why can't we read
this prophecy in a straighforward way?
In Exodus, when God gave a prophecy to Abraham that his descendants would be in bondage
400 years.
Genesis 15:13-14 - 13 ...“Know certainly †that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and †they will afflict them four hundred years. 14“And also the nation whom they serve †I will judge; afterward †they shall come out with great possessions.
In hindsight the prophecy was fulfilled at 400 Years when the Hebrews were slaves to the Egyptians. It was not 375 contiguous in one era only for the last 25 to be completed 500 years later.
In the New Testament,
Matthew 4:2,
And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.
it is said that Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days and 40 nights. Common sense says this is literally as it reads. 40 days and 40 nights of continous time, without a hint of a piece of the 40 years being separated to be fulfilled at a later date.
Also, consider the 40 years that God appointed the ancient Israelites to
wander the desert
Numbers 32:13 - 13“So the LORD’s anger was aroused against Israel, and He made them †wander in the wilderness forty years, until †all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the LORD was gone.
for their transgressions and un-belief in the wilderness. Again, this was accepted as 40 years continuous and not some
arbitrary split in the timeline of its fulfillment.
In all the above examples of inspired prophecy as well as the rest of the bible, the prophetic time is straightforward and taken at face value.
But how did this all come about? If You research the 70th week delay origin, You will be surprised to find out that up until mid nineteenth century or so, It was generally accepted by All Christians that the 70 Weeks prophecy was completed about two thousand years ago in a continuous timeframe. In and around 1850, John Darby and some of His fellow accomplices, proposed this dispensational theory that "the prophetic timeclock stopped". In their proposition, somehow, around 4 BC to 4 AD, the prophecy of Daniel just stopped. Contradicting the given Word that Daniel 9:24 - Seventy Weeks are determined...to seal up vision and prophecy...and to anoint the Most Holy.
Daniel's future 70th week, has One Gigantic Flaw, in that without the 70th week, Jesus great sacrifice would be null and void because, it is within the 70th week
that Jesus starts and ends his ministry. In other words, if only 69 weeks occured, then Jesus ministry never happened. Look at 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.
So, there You have it 62 + 7 until the Messiah is only 69 weeks!!! and You need that extra week (the 70th week) to fulfill Jesus prophecy. This alone should tell us that the future 70th week theory is bogus.
This deceptive theory (with great money backing and therefore great reach to the Christian pastors), began to take root and became a de-facto teaching in prophetic circles. Now, this
deception is now the norm and still taught to this very day, and common sense thinking is now in the back seat.
Friends, this one theory alone, led me astray for many years as a student of prophecy. Why?... because there are other prophetic theories that branches from this!
Everytime I read Daniel 9:24-27, I struggled for many Years because I would often think things such as... "this sounds like 490 straight years" or "Didn't Jesus put an end to sacrifices?",
Only to short-circuit my thoughts by saying to myself, "this can't be true, John Hagee said it differently, Hal Lindsey said its this way, or David Jeremiah said seven years"...blah, blah, blah...(pick any mainstream institution pastor for that matter).
Its no wonder Jesus said "take heed what You hear (Luke 8:18)"
One wrong doctrine can leave You spinning Your wheels in wrong thinking even until death.
For instance the 70th week prophecy establishes the modern day teaching of a Seven Year Tribulation. The teaching of a Seven Year Tribulation brings about another theory that will lead You astray because, outside of the big mainstream prophecy teachers, You will NOT find a scripture that says the tribulation is Seven Years! Yes, You heard that right.
Try to look for it in the scriptures...and You will come to find out that Jesus never said the tribulation would be for Seven Years. He only leads us do use deductive reasoning by referencing the abomination of desolation (Matthew 24:15) up until his appearing out of the clouds to gather His Elect (Matthew 24:29-31). This time frame that Jesus referred to is Three and half Years by the way, and can be validated by scripture in
Daniel 12.
Daniel 12:7 - Then I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he †held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by Him †who lives forever, †that it shall be for a time, times, and half a time; †and when the power of †the holy people has been completely shattered, all these things shall be finished.
So as far as the tribulation is concerned We only know the "Great Tribulation", (a timeframe within the Tribulation) is 3 and 1/2 Years.
The big problem with the seven year tribulation theory is anyone who subscribes to this viewpoint now expects to be raptured, in you guessed it,
seven years. Well, what happens if
it goes past 7 years, 10 years, 20 years...You can see where I'm going with this. You start getting antsy as You start to feel the pressure of persecution and possibly martyrdom. Next thing You know,
the fear turns into resentment that You are still here suffering. Asking how a loving God can allow His people to suffer. And the downward spiral goes on, and on, until...You no longer believe.
This is just an example of the snowball effect of following a wrong doctrine. It leads to other wrong doctrines and belief systems. In the case of the 70th week deception,
it could be a catalyst leading to the tragedy of
the great falling away,
2nd Thessalonians 2:3 - Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;as spoken of in 2nd Thessalonians, fulfilled.
It all starts with this one Word