Watch, Pray and Learn!

All who have tried to create lasting peace between Israel and her neighbors have failed; yet, the Word of God says that one man will appear to succeed. This man's peace plan will begin the final countdown to the return Jesus the Messiah). In light of the recent urgency to make peace in the Middle East, it is vital to understand what the Prophet Daniel and Jesus) told us about this peace plan and the last days, so we can recognize the times and warn others also. In the ninth chapter of the Book of Daniel, we read that Daniel, who was in exile in Babylon with the Jewish People, was studying the Book of Jeremiah looking for answers. As he read, he understood that Jeremiah foretold a 70-year period of Babylonian captivity before the restoration of Israel would come to pass (Jeremiah 29:10). Daniel’s heartfelt, moving response was to pray, confessing his sin and the sin of the entire nation of Israel. As he prayed, the angel Gabriel came to him, telling him of an additional time period, this time of shevuim shevim (seventy sevens) or 490 years. This was the time that would elapse before sin would end and everlasting righteousness would be established: “Seventy [shevim] ‘sevens’ [shevuim] are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.” (Daniel 9:24) Daniel 9:22–24 What Are the “Seventy Sevens”? Shevuim (sevens) is similar to the concept of a decade (10 years), but refers to a seven-year period. Seventy sevens (70 X 7), therefore, represents a period of 490 years before the prophecy would be fulfilled. Of these 490 years, 483 have been fulfilled with remarkable precision; they represent the time between the decree by the Persian king Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem(Nehemiah 2:1–8) and the cutting off of Jesus