SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/23/2023 8:25 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “PT-5 “The Abomination of Desolation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 24:15
Message of the verse: “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), (24:15)”
I continue quoting from John MacArthur’s commentary
written in 1989, and it looks like I will be able to finish this quotation in
the next SD.
“Daniel had predicted:
Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to
finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for
iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and
prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place” (9:24). In other words, 490 years would transpire
before the Messiah would return to establish His eternal kingdom of
righteousness. As Daniel explained in
the following verse, that measurement would begin at ‘the issuing of a decree
to restore and rebuild Jerusalem,’ the decree issued by King Artaxerxes in 445
B. C. (see Neh. 2:5-6). The prophet also
explained that ‘seven weeks and sixty-two weeks’ (69 weeks, or 483 years) would
pass ‘until Messiah the Prince’ (Dan. 9:25).
It has been calculated that exactly 483 elapsed from that decree of
Artaxerxes until Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when He was acclaimed
Messiah and King by the multitude (for detailed explanation of those dates, see
Harold Hoehner’s Chorological Aspects of
the Life of Christ [Grand Rapids: Zondervan 1971]).
“After that time and before the seventieth and final week
of years, ‘the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the
prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary’ (Dan. 9:26). That is a picture of Jesus’ crucifixion and
of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A. D. 70.
“Then the deceitful prince ‘will make a firm covenant
with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to
sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who
makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is
poured out on the one who makes desolate’ (v. 27). The last week, or seven-year period, of the
seventy weeks will begin when Israel makes a covenant with the Antichrist,
thinking he will be her great deliverer.”
Now as I quote this next paragraph remember that this was
written in 1989, and there are a lot of things going on now that were not going
on then.
“In modern Israel, fear
of the Arabs and the Russians runs very deep.
Not only do those combined enemies outnumber Israel in manpower and
weaponry by several hundred times but their hatred for Jews is intense. Ezekiel prophesied that Magog (identified by
Josephus as the land of what is now Russia), Meshech and Tubal (Asia Minor, or
modern Turkey), Persia (modern Iran and Afghanistan), Ethiopia (including
modern Sudan), Put (Libya), and other nations will unite against Israel (Ezek.
38:2-6).”
A couple of things I want to mention, and that is on
Christmas day I will post a SD that I posted in 2017 about Christmas, and I
believe that this is a good reminder of where Christ was born in the town of
Bethlehem. The other thing is that with
the war that has been going on in Israel for the last 76 days it shows me that
things are beginning to really form in the way that the last days before the
rapture of the church will happen. I
have stated that I have learned that it is not believed that the United States
will be a major player in the Tribulation period, so that means that we will
have to fall from the world’s stage of being so powerful. My hope is that if the rapture would happen
soon then that would be the reason that the United States would fall from being
a powerful nation. The war in Israel is
a war of good against evil as many people around Israel would desire to have
Israel destroyed and all of its people.
Hamas has in its doctrinal statement, according to Joel Rosenberg that
they will be rewarded if they kill Jewish people, and that is Satanic and
evil. Bottom line is to be in prayer for
the people of Israel, especially the soldiers and those in charge of their
government. Pray for the peace of
Jerusalem.
12/23/2023 8:59 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment