Daniel and the Boys in the Band by Brian E. R. Limmer - HTML preview

Chapter 6: A Time For Gentiles

By now Daniel is devastated. He has been left with a picture of Israel refugees leaving Jerusalem in droves once again.

At the end of the sixty-two weeks, the Chosen Leader will be killed and left with nothing. A foreign ruler and his army will sweep down like a mighty flood, leaving both the city and the temple in ruins, but war and destruction will continue until the end time, just as God has decided¹³⁴.

Daniel is thrown back on a merciful God for his comfort, spending an extended period of prayer and fasting, confessing the sins of his people.

 And I made prayer to the Lord my God, putting our sins before him, and said, O Lord, the great God, greatly to be feared. Keeping your agreement and mercy with those who have love for you and do your orders¹³⁵

Even while I was still in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at first when my weariness was great, put his hand on me about the time of the evening offering.  He said, O Daniel, I have come now to give you wisdom¹³⁶. 

In this conversation, Daniel is told not to worry, God is not going to neglect his people. There will be a pause in time, but during that time Israel will not be neglected. God reminds Daniel that his purpose in choosing Israel was to be the means of blessing the Gentiles. The Messiah being cut off from the land of the living was to enable the Gentiles to be drafted into the kingdom also.

The sixty-ninth week ends with the Messiah’s death and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in seventyAD. The war will continue beyond that time until God decides it should end. At that point, week seventy will begin with a clear sign. The sign will be the signing of a peace contract between Israel and the neighbouring countries, overseen by a powerful leader who will have the power arbitrate:

For one week this foreigner will make a firm agreement between many people, but halfway through this week, he will end all sacrifices and offerings, replacing them with a “Horrible Thing” that causes destruction. And it will stay there until the time God has decided to destroy the one who destroys.¹³⁷

 Jesus, referring to this space between these two events, calls it the time of the Gentiles:

… and Jerusalem will be crushed under the feet of the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles are complete.¹³⁸ 

That statement clearly made its mark on Peter who took up the challenge to go to the gentiles and preach the good news.¹³⁹ Again, before Paul was converted, Jesus told Ananias in a vision, ‘Paul had been chosen as an envoy to the gentiles’.

But the Lord said, Go without fear: for he is a special vessel for me, to give to the gentiles, kings and to the children of Israel the knowledge of my name:¹⁴⁰

Later, Paul talking about gentiles being grafted into the kingdom of God, asks, ‘Why would the Jewish nation need to be grafted into its own tree?'

For I do not wish you to be ignorant, or wise in your own conceit brethren, the blindness of Israel has happened precisely so the fulness of the gentile nations may come in; ¹⁴¹

Daniel, writing before any of this has become clear, was reading what the other guys in the band had prophesied and relying on Gabriel to interpret. What we can check out in history, is what Gabriel had told Daniel beforehand:

From the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem until the time of the prince of peace shall be 490 years (seven-sevens).

From the decree of Artaxerxes March the 14th 445 BC To the entrance into Jerusalem by Jesus as prophesied by ‘the band’, has been historically verified.¹⁴² Further, the cutting off of Messiah from the land of the living and the destruction of the temple in 70AD is also accurately confirmed.

The Gap Year is Necessary for the Jews

The New Testament explains much of what Daniel proclaimed, but could not know. The crossover time at the end of Daniel’s 49th week is the period covered by the gospels and Acts. In these, Jesus himself explains some of the obscure prophecies predicted by the guys in the band. Jesus is not enlightening us as to what will or will not happen but revealing the heart and reasoning of God his father behind those happenings:

Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem when he came near to it for the last time?

 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,  saying, Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.  For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you  and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, ‘if you had known this day the things which belong to you would be like peace but now they will be hid from you’ ¹⁴³

Why must the Temple be destroyed and the city ransacked in seventyAD?

Because you did not recognise the time of your visitation.¹⁴⁴

Paul expands on that:

 They are blind and will indeed be blind until the fullness of the gentiles time comes in.

To the question, ‘Why will Messiah not return as king now?’, he answers:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, [time of gentiles].¹⁴⁵

It was a deliberate teaching tactic of Jesus to stop part way in a sentence. When he announced the beginning of his earthly ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth, he was teaching his disciples, (even down to us in our age), look for pauses! This first pause came between, ‘the day of the anointing’, and the ‘day of vengeance of our God’. The early church did not pick it up, but it is clear enough for Jesus who knew his destiny and the mind of his father! He stopped, sat down, and looked at the people, because the ‘year of the Lords favour’ covers the pause period after the sixty-ninth week until the seventieth week begins.

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”  And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.¹⁴⁶ 

‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’, is a rehearsal of what the prophet Isaiah had already announced to the people. Literally the phrase originates from a fisherman’s term - ‘today the catch in the net is released’. It is His introduction to his sermon from Isaiah:

Amos also uses pauses in his statements. Declaring the sixty-ninth week he says:

Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, the house of Jacob. I will raise it to the ground, but not utterly destroy it,” declares the LORD.   “For behold, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, only dust but no pebble shall fall to the earth.¹⁴⁸ 

But about week seventy he declares:

“In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old,¹⁴⁹ 

Micah employs the same method of a pause:

They will covet fields and seise them, and take the people … How should this be O house of Jacob? Has the LORD grown impatient? Are these his deeds delayed? Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly? ¹⁵⁰ But… It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.¹⁵¹ 

 Explaining the pause between his resurrection and return, Jesus said:

It is too bad that today your people don’t know what will bring them peace! Now it is hidden from them.¹⁵² 

Paul clarifies that statement:

 My friends, I don’t want you Gentiles to be so proud of yourselves. So I will explain the mystery of what has happened to the people of Israel. Some of them have become stubborn, and they will stay like that until the complete number of Gentiles has come in. In this way all of Israel will be saved, as the Scriptures say, "From Zion someone will come to rescue us. Then Jacob’s descendants will stop being evil.¹⁵³ 

Jesus used stories when he spoke to the people, not just to make the contents simple, but because, when he was speaking about the plan of His Father, he needed to explain the emotion and motivation behind his father’s character:  

“I will use stories to speak my message and to explain things that have been hidden since the creation of the world.” ¹⁵⁴

Paul explains:

As you read the letter, you will also find out how well I really do understand the mystery about Christ. No one knew about this mystery until God’s Spirit told it to his holy apostles and prophets.  And the mystery is this: Because of Christ Jesus, the good news, has given the Gentiles a share in the promises that God gave to the Jews. God has also let the Gentiles be part of the same body. God treated me with kindness. His power worked in me, and it became my job to spread the good news.  I am the least important of all God’s people. But God was kind and chose me to tell the Gentiles that because of Christ there are blessings that cannot be measured. God, who created everything, wanted me to help everyone understand the mysterious plan that had always been hidden in his mind.¹⁵⁵ 

The ‘Gap-Year’ is Necessary for the Church.

The seven Churches at the beginning of the book of Revelation are real churches. Just as a real farmer sowing seeds becomes a parable, so the seven real churches become a prophecy to illustrate the seven stages the church will go through in the gap-year. Some modern commentators may go too far by setting historic dates for each period, but history shows us clear parallels with these chapters. The church has gone through its history, and has shown a similar pattern to the predictions in the first three chapters of Revelation. But the prophetic value of these verses is not in looking back to the history of church, but as a spiritual and structural key to the rest of the book.

The time in which the seven-churches exist fits between Daniel’s 69th and 70th weeks. Daniel and the band tell us there will be a gap. Jesus and Paul tell us the reason for that gap. It is a time to bring in the reinforcements God has promised Israel.

Revelation picks up expands and ties them together. Daniel began to show what will happen. Daniel ended with the Messiah being cut off, but Messiah showed the father’s motivation behind happenings. Revelation expands on where those happenings will lead after Messiah was cut off. He is now risen and walks as judge and advisor among churches to keep it on track for His return. Prophetically, Jesus proclaims what will happen to the church through this ‘gap-year’. Tactically, Jesus is working within individual Churches to keep them on track. Judgementally, Jesus is looking to see if each church will respond or not. In that, the purpose of Revelation is incorporated into and compliments the purpose of Daniel. While the comparisons between history and church-age are useful and productive, their real relevance lies as the exposition of Daniel’s ‘gap-year’ between his weeks 69 and 70.

Where the book Revelation Connects

Chapters 1 -3 of Revelation provides a broad picture of the gap-year and how the church will make its way through it. This time period fits within Israel’s prophetic timeline for His people Israel, but expands to the reinforcement troops of the church fighting alongside Israel. It is the call to go to spiritual war.¹⁵⁶ Go in and take the land. In these chapters, Jesus addresses the troops.

Look, here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs. And one answered, ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon! All the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground!

Now reinforcements are on the way evil retreats to Babylon. In Revelation chapter 18, the battle has turned:

The angel shouted, “Fallen! Powerful Babylon has fallen and is now the home of demons. It is the den of every filthy spirit and of all unclean birds, and every dirty and hated animal. Babylon’s evil and immoral wine has made all nations drunk. Every king on earth has slept with her, and every merchant on earth is rich because of her evil desires.” Then I heard another voice from heaven shout, "My people, you must escape from Babylon. Don’t take part in her sins and share her punishment. Her sins are piled as high as heaven. God has remembered the evil she has done¹⁵⁷. 

What many take out of context to be the end of Babylon is not. Evil has retreated to her and is confined in her. Full eradication of evil comes later in Revelation chapter-twenty, when Satan and death are destroyed forever. Until then, while the nation of Israel is also regrouping in her own territory, the time of Gentiles is still here. In short, the angel’s proclamation is both a victory cry and a warning of the advancement of God’s justice and holiness on the one hand, and warning for those still attached to the world’s system of pride, idolatry, and moral compromise on the other. It is a rounding up and confining.

“The mystery was made known to me by revelation… that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body…” ¹⁵⁸

Whereas, John himself states

“The revelation of Jesus Christ… to show to his servants the things that must soon take place.”¹⁵⁹

So while Revelation builds upon Daniel’s prophecy, its central focus is the unveiling of Jesus Christ as the Sovereign Lord who brings Daniel’s vision to its fulfilment.

From Revelation 4 verse 1 on, the writings alternate between events in heaven and on earth, to show that it is events in heaven that control the happenings on earth and not the circumstances mankind will witness on earth. The phrase “after this” signals a shift:

“After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this’.”¹⁶⁰

Table 3: Daniel as seen in Revelation