Using Guidelines for Predictive Prophecy

No one, not even the Son knows the season, day, or time of the second coming:

*There is NO hint of a gap between the 69th and 70th week!

Looks like the Preterists got to you in to the end. Unless you are prepared to connect the dots and understand exactly what that prophecy was all about, you will not see the gap. The Antichrist must come in the future, and the first half of the 70th week is assigned to him: And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. (Rev 13:5)

Forty two months is exactly 3 1/2 years or 1260 days or time, times, and half a time.

While this may have been true prior to the resurrection of Christ, it no longer holds true.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (Mt 28:18)

This power or authority extends to deciding as to when Christ will come again with His saints and angels at the Second Coming.

That may be true, but you'll not find in the epistles that the Lord passed that date along to the Apostles to write down for us.

For years I followed 'end times' teachers such as Jack Van Impe, Hal Lindsey, etc. The 1917 KJV Scofield was my Bible in my early years, until I gradually began to see I had begun unconsciously accepting the footnotes almost like the word of God itself. The notes became 'truisms' to me and that was difficult to break free from. For me, over the years the solution was to assemble the clear and natural, 'literal' if you will, statements of Scripture that can build the basis or framework of any predictive prophecy belief I'd embrace. The following are my guidelines or guardrails.

No one, not even the Son knows the season, day, or time of the second coming:

"But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only." (Matt 24:36, ERV)
"Therefore be ye also ready: for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh." (Matt 24:44, ERV)
"But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that aught be written unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." (1Thess 5:1-2, ERV)

Before the second coming will be a time of great wickedness, but also life going on as usual:

"And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of man." (Matt 24:37-39, ERV)
"And the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Gen 6:5, ERV)

At the second coming, Jesus will descend from heaven just as he had ascended up to heaven:

And when he had said these things, as they were looking, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were looking stedfastly into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? this Jesus, which was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven. (Acts 1:9-11, ERV)
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (1Thess 4:16-17, ERV)

The Second Coming, Resurrection and Judgment happen on "THE LAST DAY", not years:

"For I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the will of him that sent me, that of all that which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:38-40, ERV)
"He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day." (John 12:48, ERV)

The Prophetic Time Frame indications all point to the 1st Century and shortly thereafter:

"Seventy weeks [490 years] are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy." (Dan 9:24, ERV) *There is NO hint of a gap between the 69th and 70th week!
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished." (Matt 24:34, ERV)
*I'll repeat from another translation:
"Mat 24:34, CEV) "I can promise you that some of the people of this generation will still be alive when all this happens."

(Then from the Book of Revelation, pertaining to the prophecy after the letters to the churches and before the resurrection and judgement starting in chapter 20; the timing is given for that period in between.)

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to shew unto his servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass: and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John; who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein: for the time is at hand." (Rev 1:1-3, ERV)
"And he said unto me, These words are faithful and true: and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly come to pass... And he saith unto me, Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book; for the time is at hand." (Rev 22:6, 10, ERV)

We are warned against going further than what is written and 'reading into' the Scriptures what is NOT stated:

"Now these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes; that in us ye might learn not to go beyond the things which are written; that no one of you be puffed up for the one against the other." (1Cor 4:6, ERV)

We are given an example of this eisegesis or reading into when it comes to knowing what is coming in the future:

"Peter therefore seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. This saying therefore went forth among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, that he should not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" (John 21:21-23, ERV)

"To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them." (Isa 8:20, ERV)

For instance, the Baptist John Gill (1697-1771) who by the way was Baptist and premillennial, states on the 70 weeks of Daniel:

"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city,..... Or, "concerning thy people, and concerning thy holy city" s; that is, such a space of time is fixed upon; "cut out" t, as the word signifies; or appointed of God for the accomplishment of certain events, relative to the temporal good of the city and people of the Jews; as the rebuilding of their city and temple;

the continuance of them as a people, and of their city; the coming of the Messiah to them, to obtain spiritual blessings for them, and for all the people of God; who also were Daniel's people and city in a spiritual sense, to which he belonged; and likewise what was relative to the utter ruin and destruction of the Jews as a people, and of their city: and this space of "seventy" weeks is not to be understood of weeks of days; which is too short a time for the fulfilment of so many events as are mentioned;

nor were they fulfilled within such a space of time; but of weeks of years, and make up four hundred and ninety years; within which time, beginning from a date after mentioned, all the things prophesied of were accomplished; and this way of reckoning of years by days is not unusual in the sacred writings; see Genesis 29:27"
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/geb/daniel-9.html

If you find a commentary teaching a gap between the 69th and 70th week of Daniel prior to 1830, please give me the name so I can check it out.

Firstly I am impressed you were able to see this habit and learn to grow from it it shows a true willingness to learn and grow you would be surprised how many are blind to habits like that.

Now I study bible prophecy as it is a fascinating study I call it the meat of meats in scripture the one main thing I know about his second coming according to scripture is to pay attention to the fig tree aka Israel. Bible prophecy has always revolved around Israel the second thing is that like history bible prophecu has a repeating pattern it foreshadows quite a lot another thing is that more often than not bible prophecy points to something more than it does actually fulfills the prophecy just like how we must always point to Christ bible prophecy often points to something

I think personally if we understand the season we are in we know that the end times countdown began when Israel came back to it's land in 1948 if one doesn't understand this they won't understand the rest either. And as for Christs second coming or the rapture as some debate whether his second coming is the rapture or when he sets up the thousand year reign on earth we must first see it in perspective of the things that surround the event.
The harpazo which is the snatching away is an event that is sudden and when this happens if you look at it from a pretrib point of view it will be taking his bride from immense danger and that danger in all likelyhood will be the psalm 83 war. We can see the setting up of this war now with Israel being surrounded by her enemies all out war could happen with a single strike.
personally I think if we are to look for his return we need to look for this war

That may be true, but you'll not find in the epistles that the Lord passed that date along to the Apostles to write down for us.

No, you are the new kid on the block.

And the Master (Lord) answered and said unto me: Understandest thou not that the fig-tree is the house of Israel?"

Does the last section of Gill's Commentary on chpt 9 sound as though perhaps he saw a "gap" between the 69th and the 70th Weeks?

[quoting Gill]

"even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate; that is, either these abominations shall continue in the place where they are set until the utter destruction of the city and temple; or the desolation made there should continue until the consummation of God's wrath and vengeance upon them; until the whole he has determined is poured out on this desolate people; and which continues unto this day, and will till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, Luke 21:24. Some, as Bishop Lloyd, render it, "upon the desolator" (p); meaning the Romans; and the sense they take to be is, that this vengeance shall continue upon the Jews until it is turned upon the head of those who have made them desolate: now this "one week", according to the sense given, must begin in the sixty third year of the vulgar era of Christ, about thirty years after the expiration of the sixty nine weeks; since it ends in the seventieth year of the same era, in which was the destruction of Jerusalem, the grand event assigned to it in this famous prophecy; when it might have been expected it should have begun at the end of the sixty nine weeks, and run on in a direct line from them. The true reason of its being thus separated from them is the longsuffering and forbearance of God to the people of the Jews, who gave them, as to the old world, space to repent; but his grace and goodness being slighted, things began to work at the beginning of this week towards their final ruin, which, in the close of it, was fully accomplished: from the whole of this prophecy it clearly appears that the Messiah must be come many hundred years ago. The Jews are sensible of the force of this reasoning; so that, to terrify persons from considering this prophecy, they denounce the following curse, "let them burst, or their bones rot, that compute the times" (q). R. Nehemiah, who lived about fifty years before the coming of Christ, declared the time of the Messiah, as signified by Daniel, could not be protracted longer than those fifty years (r). The Jews also say the world is divided into six parts, and the last part is from Daniel to the Messiah (s)."

--John Gill - https://biblehub.com/commentaries/gill/daniel/9.htm



[end quoting; bold and underline mine]

Nah... this quote from the Gnostic Society Library can't be right... because Scripture states "the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel" (Isa5:7) ...

...and in Jesus' parable, the "fig tree" is shown as "PLANTED IN his vineyard" (thus, distinct from [tho somewhat related to] "Israel / the vineyard" itself), per Luke 13:6

Gill clearly places this last week at 70AD. Admittedly how to determine the exact details of the 70th week is difficult for sure and not all are in agreement on it, but it is clear John Gill does not think it is 2000 years in the future from the destruction of the temple. If anyone knows anything about this Bishop Lloyd or his writings it may help if a reference can be given for it.

I don't follow that reasoning. In Isaiah the vineyard represents Israel and in Luke the man plants a fig tree in his vineyard, but that does not make the fig tree to represent Israel. Even remembering that this is a parable I can't see it teaching that a fig tree represents Israel.

Yeah, I do think it is Gill himself saying (from what he takes from the other guy):

"now this "one week", according to the sense given, must begin in the sixty third year of the vulgar era of Christ, about thirty years after the expiration of the sixty nine weeks; since it ends in the seventieth year of the same era, in which was the destruction of Jerusalem, the grand event assigned to it in this famous prophecy; when it might have been expected it should have begun at the end of the sixty nine weeks, and run on in a direct line from them. The true reason of its being thus separated from them is the longsuffering and forbearance of God to the people of the Jews, who gave them, as to the old world, space to repent; but his grace and goodness being slighted, things began to work at the beginning of this week towards their final ruin, which, in the close of it, was fully accomplished:" (Gill)


So it does seem to me, here, that Gill is also saying there was a "gap" of sorts...

I'm not sure what his viewpoint was on the earlier part, though, where he appeals to Luke 21:24's "until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled," which he acknowledges is still ongoing even when he wrote his commentary.

I'm not sure how he's connecting or not connecting these issues.



I myself am always pointing out how Lk21:32's "...This generation shall not pass away TILL ALL be fulfilled [/TILL ALL shall have taken place]" must necessarily INCLUDE the two "OF LENGTHY DURATION" items just having been spoken of in v.24: "[1] and they shall be led away captive into all the nations, [2] and Jerusalem shall be TRODDEN DOWN OF the Gentiles UNTIL the TIMES of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (where the phrase "the TIMES of the Gentiles" refers to "Gentile domination over Israel," and which started in 606/605bc with Neb as "head of gold" [his "dream / statue/ image"], and which will run clear till the END of the (future) Trib years concluding at Christ's Second Coming to the earth[/U], like both Dan2:35 and Dan7:[25]27 also show... Comp. Rev11:2 with Lk21:24)