Another Fascinating Passage from Prophet Daniel

There is another prophecy of Daniel that, for me, is amazing because it also tells when Messiah will come. Daniel has been praying his heart out and asking God when all the sinning of his people will come to and end. And God sends the Archangel Gabriel to reveal it to him. Gabriel fist explains that by “weeks” he means weeks of years. A week is seven years instead of seven days. Then he says:

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.
26 "And after the sixty-two weeks
Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
And the people of the prince who is to come
Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
Daniel 9: 25-26

Now I don’t know what the flood means; if you do, please let us know! I’m not aware there was any flood when Titian sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple – unless it were the river of blood. (But I am not going to fall back into that Lib Prot trap of assuming Daniel or Gabriel must have made a mistake. Somewhere, there is a holy father or mother who can tell us about this; I’m dead certain of that, from experience with such questions.)

So, from Daniel’s time there would be seven weeks, 49 years, until the command went forth to restore and build Jerusalem. Then, sixty-two weeks to bring us to the time of Messiah. That makes 69 weeks of years in all. Then comes Messiah.

Then Messiah will be cut off. WHAT? Messiah cut off? He who was to reign forever and ever, whose kingdom was to be everlasting, cut off?

“But not for himself,” !!!

And then the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed. This is only relevant date I know, because I’m ignorant. The Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 AD. A week of years after the coming of Christ. The 70th week, as foretold (in a part of the Daniel passage I didn’t quote). But although I don’t know the other dates, I’m told they work out.

I really, really, really begin to see that, just as the Scriptures say, there is something quite perverse about rejecting Christ, after all these prophecies – and of course, many more. I used to make up all sorts of excuses for people, but I can’t much do that anymore. I mean, what’s to reject? The love? The forgiveness? The kindness and compassion? The beautiful God He reveals and is?

“There’s the ascetical aspect,” says Demetrios.

Oh. Yes of course. Love does require letting go of self. We do need to be weaned from our addiction to our own comforts and pleasures and our own ways. And forgiveness is no good without repentance. And we can’t be His followers without struggling to overcome things like anger and jealousy and pride.

And so forth.

“He who seeks to save his life will lose it; but he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”

“If anyone wants to be My disciple, let him take up his cross and deny himself, and follow Me.”

“And condemnation is this: that Light has come into the world, and men preferred darkness, because their deeds were evil.”