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A Prayer about Interpreting Prophecy and Date Setting

     As soon as you [Daniel] began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision: “Seventy ‘sevens’ 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.” Dan. 9:23–24

      And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Luke 24:25–27

     Lord Jesus, every time I read certain prophetic sections of the Old Testament, like this one in Daniel, I get flashbacks of big charts, bombastic preachers, and a bevy of fears. As a young believer in the late 1960s to early 1970s, I was convinced ours was the terminal generation. Surely you were going to come back within a few years. The political climate was perfect for the last of the last antichrists to emerge.

     All things 666 were eschewed—credit cards, phone numbers, driver’s licenses. The sad truth is, we gave the antichrist more credit than Satan himself. The egregious truth is, some of us spent more time fearing the antichrist than really getting to know you, the Christ. We tried to narrow down the date of your second coming with more zeal that we mined the glory and grace of your first coming.

     Lord Jesus, I grieve that I didn’t know how to look for you in all the Scriptures, and therefore in all of history and life. You who’ve given us more than seventy times seven worth of forgiveness (Matt. 18:22) are best qualified to help us understand Daniel’s seventy sevens, and every other prophecy—simple or complex.

     Whatever else is going on in this portion of Daniel, this I know for sure: only you will one day put an end to all sin. Lord Jesus, only in you can perfect and complete atonement for sin be found. Only you could seal up vision and prophecy, because you’re the last Word from God the Father (Heb. 1:1–2) and the “yes and amen” to every promise God has made (2 Cor. 1:20). Only you could fulfill every symbol and stick of furniture in the Holy of Holies and make a way for us to enter there (Heb. 10:19–22), and you have done so. Hallelujah, you have done so once and for all!

     Only you will one day usher in a world of everlasting righteousness—the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:1–5). Only you, Jesus, are worthy of our adoration, affection, attention, and allegiance—only you! In the fullness of time you came the first time, and the date of your second coming will be no less “spot on.” We pray with humility and joy, in your most glorious and gracious name. Amen.

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