Today we will look at the powerful reality of fulfilled prophecy from the prophet Daniel who was given a vision of the history of the world over 600 years before Christ. We will study this prophecy in depth this morning.

Today’s text can be deep and complicated. So as to break it down more simply let’s look at the text in an easy to read paraphrase.

The moment you began praying a command was given. I am here to tell you what it was, for God loves you very much. Listen and try to understand the meaning of the vision that you saw!  ” The Lord has commanded 490 years of further punishment upon Jerusalem and your people. Then at last they will learn to stay away from sin, and their guilt will be cleansed; then the kingdom of everlasting righteousness will begin, and the Most Holy Place in the Temple will be rededicated, as the prophets have declared. Now listen! It will be 49 years plus 434 years from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One comes! Jerusalem’s streets and walls will be rebuilt despite the perilous times.  “After this period of 434 years, the Anointed One will be killed, his kingdom still unrealized… and a king will arise whose armies will destroy the city and the Temple. They will be overwhelmed as with a flood, and war and its miseries are decreed from that time to the very end. This king will make a seven- year treaty with the people, but after half that time, he will break his pledge and stop the Jews from all their sacrifices and their offerings; then, as a climax to all his terrible deeds, the Enemy shall utterly defile the sanctuary of God. But in God’s time and plan, his judgment will be poured out upon this Evil One (Daniel 9:23-27 Living Bible_Taylor)

Jesus actually warned the Jews of His day that because they did not recognize the fulfilled prophecy of that first “Palm Sunday” and therefore rejected Him as their Messiah they would be destroyed as a nation.

“For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, “and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Luke 19:43-44, NKJV.

On this Palm Sunday may we recognized Jesus for all He is.

Pastor Mike