Q: How did the wise men from the East know the star of our Redeemer and that

the time
was at hand?

A: By reading the Scriptures. Matthew 2:1,2 “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea
in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying,
Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to
worship him.”

God gave in the OT the key to unlock when the Messiah would be born, so that the Jewish people
would be ready for Him at His first coming, to accept Him as their King and Saviour. But they were
not ready. For example Numbers 24:17, “There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre
shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth
[Seth].” But there were many more passages the wise men could have used. These are in
booklets 8 & 9 on the Messianic Prophecies, which discuss Dr. Stoner’s evidence that the
chances of Jesus fulfilling just 16 of these many OT prophecies is beyond the realm of possibility.
And Jesus did not fulfil only 16, he fulfilled them all!

Q. If God foretold the Messiah’s birthplace, would He not foretell the timing of His first
coming?
A: His birthplace was given in Micah 5:2, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little
among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in
Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

First of all, we need to be careful not to mix up the first and second comings mentioned in the OT,
as the Jews did. That is why they rejected the Messiah. They looked at the Scriptures that
described His glorious second coming, but did not investigate the suffering scriptures mentioned
for His first coming. They could have known. The timing of the Messiah’s arrival was given in the
book of Daniel!

Q: When did the Jews finally reject the Messiah?

A: When they crucified Him on the cross.

Q: What do we call the time after the cross?

A: The Time of the Gentiles commenced shortly after the cross (see below).

Q: Why do we call it this?

A: The Jews had rejected their Kinsman-Redeemer, their Messiah, and as such were passed by.
The Lord gave the message to the Gentiles to proclaim.

Q: Were the Jews told this would happen?

A: Yes

Q: Where were they told?

A: In Daniel 9:24, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish
the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring
in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most
Holy.”

Q: Is Daniel 9 prophetic?
A: Yes

Q: How then do we interpret the time mentioned in Daniel?

A: We find the key in the Bible. We interpret what the meaning of various words in the prophecies
mean by finding the interpretation in other Bible verses. Remember, the Bible holds the key for its
prophecies, we can rely on the Scriptures as a “Thus saith the Lord.”

The answer to the 70 prophetic weeks is found in two places in the OT. The first one is found in
Numbers 14:34, “After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days,
each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of
promise.” The second one, as a second witness to make sure we have the right interpretation, is
found in Ezekiel 4:6, “Thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have
appointed thee each day for a year.” Here is the prophetic key of interpretation: God has
appointed each prophetic day for an actual year!

Q: Are you sure about this?

A: We can prove it.

Q: How?
A: Look at Daniel 9:25, “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the
commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven
weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in
troublous times.” The command to restore Jerusalem was given in 457BC by the Persian King
Artaxerxes. A score is 20, so 3-score is 60, hence the period here mentioned is 7+60+2=69
prophetic weeks. The reason why it is mentioned as 7+3-score+2 and not as 3-score+9 is that it
took them 7 prophetic weeks (or 7x7=49 prophetic days = 49 actual years) to rebuild Jerusalem.
Because of the opposition of their enemies, the restoration project was delayed many years from
when the command was given to them.

Q: Could Daniel 9 be a literal prophecy? Meaning a literal 70-week period?

A: No, they did NOT restore Jerusalem in a literal 7 weeks! That would also mean that the Messiah
would come in the period of 458-9 BC, after 69 literal weeks - which is only 483 days, a period of
just over 16 months! This did not happen. Jesus appeared on the scene many centuries after the
restoration of Jerusalem.

Q: How then do you explain this prophecy?

A: Archeological evidence tells us that the command to restore Jerusalem was given in 457BC.

Daniel 9:24. The period allotted to the Jews was:

70 prophetic weeks, or 70x7 = 490 prophetic days = 490 actual years.

Daniel 9:25. The period until the Messiah was:

7+60+2=69 prophetic weeks, or 69x7 = 483 prophetic days = 483 actual years.

Counting 483 years from 457BC (remembering there is no year 0), we end up at……AD27!

Q:What is so significant about AD27?

A: The Messiah was revealed! Jesus was baptised in AD27. He is the Messiah, no other has been
able to fulfil this prophecy so accurately. Jesus was baptised in the year God said he would be
revealed. We serve an amazing God who declares “the end from the beginning, and from
ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my
pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10). If God could foretell the Messiah’s birthplace, would He not tell us the
timing of it also? God’s prophetic eye knows everything, He knows what is going to happen and
tells us so. He has clearly told us in Daniel 2, 7 and 8 what nations would arise and what they
would be like before it happened.

Q: But this is only 69 prophetic weeks of the 70-week period. What about the last week?
A: The answer is in Daniel 9:27, “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and
in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the
overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that
determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”

Q: How was this fulfilled in the Messiah?

A: One prophetic week = 7 prophetic days = 7 actual years, and the

middle of the week = 3.5 prophetic days = 3.5 actual years.

We know that Jesus’ ministry lasted for 3.5 years from His baptism. Counting 3.5 years from
AD27 we arrive in AD31. Jesus was crucified in AD31, right on time, when God foretold it would
happen in Daniel 9! Jesus, the Passover Lamb, fulfilled every prediction of Daniel 9:27. He
confirmed the covenant with His disciples for 7 years. They worked for the Jews for another 3.5
years, but the stoning of Stephen, in AD 34, which was the end of the prophetic week, marks the
point of the start of the Time of the Gentiles. Now we find the Apostle Paul taking the gospel to
the Gentiles.

Q: That is amazingly accurate. Did Jesus warn the Jews of this again?
A: Yes, in Matthew 23:38 “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”

Warning:

Don’t believe in the deceptive counter-Reformation Futurism authored by the Roman Catholic
Jesuits. When the early Protestant reformers started to accurately point out that the papacy was
the anti-christ, the Roman Catholic Church tried to deflect the Scriptures pointing to her as the
anti-christ. She came up with two theories (Futurism and Preterism), which have since invaded
Protestant thought, and have made earnest believing Protestants believe in a lie. Instead of taking
the historical approach to interpreting Scriptures, they have allowed “fanciful ideas” to infiltrate
their Bible interpretations, thereby believing that, what has been shown accurately to have been
fulfilled in the Messiah in the past are things yet to be fulfilled in the future. “Beware of false
prophets” (Matthew 7:15) and study for yourself.

This prophecy is part of a longer prophecy extending to our time, Jesus’ imminent return and the
end of the world, but not to the far distant future.