THE COMING PRINCE

THE COMING PRINCE

                “And after sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself.” Daniel 9:26a

                We have discussed the 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 before, but I want to visit it again and to be as accurate as possible I am quoting directly from the Hebrew Interlinear translation. And the reason that I want to re-visit this text is that we may very well be witnessing the actual covenant with the many in this auspicious and prophetic year of 2019.

                It is being called by the Trump administration something like the deal of all deals and yet I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that this “deal” will divide the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. We must pray that this is not true, but if it does turn out to be true, we may be looking at Daniel 11:39 where we are told that the antichrist (system) will divide the land for gain and what we see right after that in Daniel 11:40 is what looks like the Magog invasion where the kings of the north and south come against the antichrist.

                Now according to Daniel 9:27 the Hebrew interlinear says: “And he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week.”

                Notice if you will that the antichrist does not make the covenant, but rather he confirms a covenant already made. (So, neither Trump nor Kushner need be thought of as the antichrist.) So the question is: Are we that close to the end that the “deal” they are about to make with many may actually be confirmed by the antichrist?

                We have been told that this “deal” that is being made is not with Israel alone, but with all of the surrounding nations. (The many)

                These verses in Daniel have been interpreted in so many ways that it leaves one’s head spinning, but Daniel 9:26 does positively identify the origins of the antichrist if we read it carefully. The Hebrew interlinear says in the latter part of Daniel 9:26:

                “And the people of a coming prince shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” What this text tells us is”

1.       The coming prince is not Jesus.

2.       He is of the people who destroyed the city and the sanctuary

3.       We know that it was Titus of the Roman armies that destroyed the city and the sanctuary. So the antichrist will arise from the old Roman Empire. (Whether the eastern leg or the western leg we do not yet know.) But I believe it will come from the Western leg of Rome.

4.       So the prince will be from the people that destroyed the city and the sanctuary.

5.       He will confirm a covenant with many for one week. (I believe this to be the missing week from the 70 week prophecy because 7 weeks and 62 weeks add up to 69 weeks. So even though the Messiah is cut off after the 62 weeks, no mention is made of the 70^th week until this covenant with the many is confirmed by the antichrist and when He does that, the 70^th week will begin. This seven year period  is known as the time of Jacob’s Trouble or the Tribulation and it will last for 7 years, but it will be divided into two periods of 3 ½ years.

6.       This is what we see next, because the antichrist breaks this covenant in the middle of the week.

                Daniel 9:27 in the Hebrew interlinear says this:

                                “And he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week. And in the middle of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease; and on the corner of the altar, desolating abominations, even until the end. And that which was decreed shall pour out on the desolator.”            

                So for the sake of clarity we would say: The antichrist will confirm a covenant with many for one week, or 7 years. But in the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifices and offerings upon the altar to cease.

                I don’t know how many of you watched the ceremony that took place in Israel within the last two months, but they blessed the altar of sacrifice by offering a sacrifice on it as done by the newly trained Levitical priests. This was done in the faith that the temple will soon be built and in accordance with Daniel 9:27, Israel invited 70 nations (The many?) to join with them in this celebration.  

                Well, Nikki Haley has been made an envoy or some such for the 70 nations as determined by the United Nations and we had better watch closely because much is happening in the Holy Land and a whole lot of it has to do with the antichrist and not the true Messiah Yeshua who will come later and destroy this “desolator” just as Daniel 9:27 says.

                This act of causing the sacrifice and offering to cease is what Jesus referred to as the Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet in Mt. 24:15 and Jesus makes it an end time event prior to His second coming. It happens during or in the middle of the coming 7 year tribulation.

                But why does the antichrist want to break this covenant? After all, His New World Order is coming into global unity and he is in charge. So what does he want? Well, we have to go to Revelation 13 for an answer to that question. Rev. 13:3, 4 says:

                “And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole world wondered after the beast’ and they worshipped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast saying “Who is like the beast and who is able to wage war with him?

                Here is the problem: The Jews, will, at least in their own minds, be worshipping Yahweh and sacrificing to Yahweh and this will not do. Revelation 13 tells us that the Beast (The antichrist) receives his power and authority from the dragon. (Satan)  But Satan has always craved the worship that is reserved for God alone. Did not Satan say: “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God and I WILL SIT ON THE MOUNT OF THE ASSEMBLY in the recesses of the north? I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High? “Isa. 14:13, 14

                Satan’s big goal is to sit on the mount of assembly and to be worshipped as God. In fact the entire reason for the Tribulation is that Satan wants to rule mankind in the place of God. He wants to usurp the throne of David… to become the god of this world. (This is why the Pope has, over the past few years made two trips to Israel.. one time to crown himself with a triple crown in the tomb of David and once to perform the Eucharist there. He wants to be Israel’s (And the world’s) spiritual and civil leader.) And by the way, these are the two keys that Rome claims to hold…both religious and secular power. Likewise in Revelation 13:11- so we see this other beast rising in addition to the antichrist. He has two horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. He looks like a Christian, but he speaks like the devil. (Kind of sounds like Pope Francis doesn’t it?) And he holds two keys; one of ecclesiastical power and one of civil power and this is why we see all the kings and presidents beating a pathway to his door as well as the religious leaders of the world. As he announced in 2015, Pope Francis is forming the global religion of the beast and that makes him the false prophet who will cause all men to wonder after the Beast.

                Behind the scenes there is a giant battle going on for the souls and the kingdoms of men. We have been created in God’s image and Lucifer has not. He is supremely jealous of our royal destiny and if he can’t have it, he will try, at the very least, to erase the image of God from us.

                And this is why, as Romans 1 says, he is driving us into degrading passions and perversions and hatred and war and strife. He is attempting to destroy God’s image in the human race. Why do we see this massive homosexual agenda being pushed? Why do you think there is this massive campaign to slaughter millions of babies by abortion? Is this any different than the slaughter of babies as Satan tried to prevent the Messiah from coming the first time? Is it any different than the mass slaughter of Jewish babies by Pharaoh? Is it any different than the holocaust where Satan tried to destroy God’s chosen people? Is it any different than offering our children on the arms of Moloch?

                Is it any different than the increase in anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity that is growing in power as we approach the end time harvest? Satan wants to rule the world with impunity and God’s people and his Word and His Holy Spirit are standing in the way.

                Satan wants to rule this planet as its god and he wants to annihilate anyone who would oppose him. He hates God’s chosen people, whether Christians or Jews. We see that he has infiltrated the church and is drawing it into global unity under the Pope. We see that he has infiltrated the Jews in Israel and he will either have their worship, or he will destroy them.

`               In the 70 week prophecy, God gave 6 mandates to Daniel and his people. These mandates are listed in Dan. 9:24. But Israel could not fulfill this mandates without their Messiah. So this is why, after the 62 weeks, we are told that the Messiah was cut off, but not for Himself, or as some translation say; “He was cut off having nothing.” The mandates were left unfulfilled.  Israel cut off their Messiah and so they have spent the last 2000 years wandering and homeless and without a Tabernacle.

                But now, in these last days the antichrist is going to confirm a covenant with them that will most certainly include the unhindered building of their temple. It will be a covenant that will seem like nothing less than divine providence. After all, God has brought them back into their own land as promised. Would it not make sense that He will also restore their Sanctuary?

                Yes, it would make perfect sense except for one little thing: the temple is to be built by the Messiah and inhabited by the Messiah… and yet, someone is going to sneak in there and rule in the place of Christ and that one is none other than the antichrist. It is he who will commit the abomination of desolation in the sanctuary. He, (the antichrist) will have gained their trust by offering them what they have been praying for and they won’t understand what is going on until he commits the abominations of desolation by entering the temple and claiming to be God. When he does that, all true God fearing Jews will flee to the mountains.

                This is exactly what Jesus tells us in Mt. 24 beginning in verse 15. Jesus warned them saying:

                “Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION WHICH WAS SPOKEN OF BY Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand) then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains… and it goes on through verse22 describing their plight and their flight telling them to pray that their flight not be in the winter time or on the Sabbath: for either of those things would cause greater problems for them.

                Jesus instructions saved many Jewish believers in A.D. 70, but Jesus again places these events in the end of time and in reality the prophecies fit better in our day than they did in A.D. 70, for this is the final showdown between Christ and Satan.

                The good news is that according to the last sentence in Daniel 9: 27, the “desolator” will be destroyed. And as Isaiah tells us, of the antichrist and of Satan:

                “Those who see you will gaze at you. They will ponder over you saying, “Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook the nations, who made the world like a wilderness…?”  Isa 14:16 and on.

                Friends, we need to restudy these prophecies and to watch and pray, for indeed we may well be witnessing the unfolding of these events in our day.

                Like Paul Begley said in a very recent program: “We used to say that we didn’t need to worry about any of this stuff because we would have already been taken up in the rapture, but now we are having to adjust our thinking a bit, because these events are happening but we are still here.”

                This is not a denial of the rapture on his part, but only a new understanding of the timing of it and only God knows how many of the end time events we will witness first hand before the Lord takes us home. The only thing we know for sure is that we will not be here when God pours out His wrath on the Beast and his kingdom. There are many promises concerning this, for we are not destined for wrath and we are told by Jesus Himself: “But keep on the alert at all times praying in order that you may have strength, or may be accounted worthy to escape all these things…”

                Or as the Greek Interlinear puts it; 

                “Then be watchful at every time, begging that you be counted worthy to escape all these things which are about to happen and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:36

                I believe that the 70^th week of Daniel 9:24-27 is none other than the final week of earth’s history, as recorded in the book of Revelation. Perhaps the first 3 ½ years will be filled with hope and promises of peace, but the last 3 ½ years will be the “Great Tribulation or Time of Jacob’s Trouble.

                During the past 2000 years of history, we have been experiencing the times of the Gentiles. So when Israel came back into their own land, this was a signal that the times of the gentiles are coming to an end. Now God is again signaling us with blood moons and eclipses on Jewish feast days and by the tumult in the nations and the increasing catastrophes of nature …that the times of the Gentiles is coming to a close. Let’s read about it.

                “For I do not want you  brethren to be uninformed of this mystery lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel UNTIL THE FULLNESS OF THE GENTILES HAS COME IN,  and thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “THE DELIVER WILL COME FROM ZION. HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB AND THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.” And contrary to what many teach today, it says: “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; FOR THE GIFTS AND THE CALLING OF GOD ARE IRREVOCABLE.” Romans 11:25-29

                AS for this cabal that is seeking to build the global antichrist kingdom in Israel even as we speak Revelation 3:9 says: Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie--- behold I will make them to come and bow down at your feed and to now that I have loved you.” So there are a faithful Jewish Remnant people in Israel who will eventually look upon Him whom they have pierced and they will be reconciled to Him, even as Joseph and his brothers were reconciled and Yeshua, the true Messiah, will yet reign on the throne of David for 1000 years.

                Whatever understanding we have lost because of the false papal doctrine of replacement theology, we must now restudy. The “Times of the Gentiles” is coming to a close and the 70^th week of Daniel’s prophecy will soon be fulfilled and this holds many implications that are important for us to understand.