After 70 years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word toward you causing you to return to this place. Jeremiah 29:10
Therefore it came to pass………..
2 Chronicles 36:20-23
“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: The Lord, the GOD of heaven, who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has appointed me to build a house for HIM at Jerusalem in Judah. Whoever of you belongs to HIS people may the Lord his GOD be with him and he may go up.”
Jeremiah said that Judah and Jerusalem would be taken to Babylon for 70 years.
Jeremiah 25:12 “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the LORD, “and will make it desolate forever.
Daniel also wrote about the 70 years.
Daniel 9:2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.
Daniel is informing us here that he understood the meaning of Jeremiah’s prophecy.
Then Zechariah 1:12 Then the Angel of the LORD answered and said, “O LORD of hosts, how long
will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah,
against which You were angry these seventy years ?”
Ezra 1:1-4 Ezra tells us that after Babylon was conquered by Persia the time came to FULFILL Jeremiah’s 70 year prophecy.
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to send a proclamation throughout his kingdom and to put it in writing as follows:
“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
‘The LORD, the God of heaven, who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has appointed me to build a house for Him at Jerusalem in Judah.
Whoever among you belongs to His people, may his God be with him, and may he go to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem. And let every survivor, wherever he lives, be assisted by the men of that region with silver, gold, goods, and livestock, along with a freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem.’”
Now Jeremiah 25:8-14 describes the Babylonian captivity that Jeremiah wrote about and Judah and Jerusalem did indeed spend 70 years in Babylon but after the 70 years were completed the Babylonian empire was conquered by Darius king of Persia and in this day Babylon is in ruins.
Now verse 15 of Jeremiah 25 begins another yet future event of GODS judgement on all the nations of the earth starting with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The previously mentioned 70 years of captivity in Babylon happened long before this future time and only involved Judah so the 70 years cannot be connected to this future prophecy.
The end of the 70 years has GOD allowing the Jews to return under Cyrus king of Persia and Babylon was conquered but from verse 15 and onward is another punishment of all the nations of the earth, not just Judah.
The reason for the Jews returning to Jerusalem is because Jesus was prophesied to be born in Bethlehem. Micah’s prophecy foretold of Jesus being born in Bethlehem over 700 years before Jesus was born and over 200 years before Babylon took Judah into captivity.
Micah 5:2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to ME the one to be ruler in Israel , whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting”
This return of the Jews was not because the Jews deserved it but for GOD to vindicate HIS holy name.
Ezekiel 36:22 “Therefore say to the Israelites, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone.
Jeremiah records the same things Jesus said about this future prophecy.
Jeremiah 25:32 Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Behold, disaster shall go forth From nation to nation, And a great whirlwind shall be raised up From the farthest parts of the earth.
What Jesus said in Matthew 24:7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
and Luke 21:25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations
will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.
So then, we can’t use the 70 years as we have been because they are not a part of the end time but were fulfilled in the days of the prophet Daniel. While Daniel lived in Babylon he came to understand Jeremiah’s prophecy (Daniel 9:2) and later was witness to Darius (Cyrus) king of Persia conquering Babylon recorded in;
Daniel chapter 5:30
Now this is the inscription that was written:
And this is the interpretation of the message:
MENE means that God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
TEKEL means that you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.
PERES means that your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”
Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a gold chain around his neck, and proclaimed him the third highest ruler in the kingdom.
That very night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.
What this means is that we can no longer use the 70 years to say that from 1948 to the passing of 70 years culminates in the tribulation or return of Christ. The “sign” we need to see is the false tribulation and rise of the man of sin and the covenant made with ten nations.
The elimination of the 70 years increases the possibility of our small group of GODS elect being a part of those who are alive and remain. Whereas with the 70 years we were running out of time expiring in 2028. With less than 2 years to have a false tribulation and false millennium the 70 year idea was not plausible. Eliminating the 70 years ends this time restriction.
This information should open up the possibility of Christ returning in our lifetimes. As far as the time line we have all the days of Daniel still correct. We did have one clarification in the 1290 days being the setting up of the abomination of desolation rather than the 1260.
Daniel 12:11 “From the time the daily sacrifice is taken away (1260 days) and the abomination of desolation is set up there shall be 1290 days.”
Now, with the current events in the Middle East, exists the possibility of this man of sin and his 10 nations becoming reality. What will bring these events to fruition is not yet clear but we have thought it may be a nuclear attack on Iran by Israel and it will be the event we have called the false tribulation. Never before in all of history has there been world conditions and scientific advancements that would make this event possible. If we were still thinking along the lines of the 70 years there just wouldn’t be enough time for these events to happen and we might think that they would be further into the future, but now that the 70 years is correctly understood these events could happen at any time. This increases the possibility that we may be among those who are alive and remain for the second advent.
After the false tribulation is the false millennium that ends at the 1260 days when sacrifices end and antichrist declares himself GOD, then the 1290 days is when the abomination of desolation is set up. At 1335 days the elect are sealed and at 2300 days Christ returns.
This is currently how we understand things now but as we have seen we may not have enough information now and there may be more information later that changes things. What we are doing is watching world events and comparing them to prophecy and then speculating about what might happen and in doing so we should be aware that we will make mistakes along the way that will require us to rethink things. This process is what we have been experiencing for many years already.
I know that all the elect alive today have a great desire to be among that group of saints who are alive and remain when Christ returns but this is not a guarantee for us, salvation is a guarantee, so whether or not we are in that small group we will be in that larger group of 144,000. We all need to constantly pray for the kingdom to come and that GOD would work HIS spirit in us more powerfully to help us do HIS will.
Philippians 2:13 “For it is GOD who works in you both to will and to do HIS good pleasure.”
While yet in this flesh we will still sin and always need grace for forgiveness as it is like Jesus said, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” The spirit in us was sown in weakness but will be raised in power, that seed which fell upon the good earth is tended to, watered by, the message of the gospel that saves us and GOD gives the increase.
We have learned that in the first century the Apostles thought Jesus would return soon in their lifetime and apparently GOD allowed them to believe this. If we compare their time to ours we can see that events described in the book of Revelation (that they did not have yet) could not possibly have happened in their day. There is no way that humanity had the ability to destroy all life on earth as they do today. Perhaps the reason for GOD allowing the Apostles to think this was to weed out those people who were not truly converted.
Afterwards the book of Revelation was revealed in about 95 AD that explains how the future unfolds and that there were 6 more eras of the church to come after them. 1948 we know was not GODS doing, it was Satans doing, because it was not the fulfillment of GODS promise to Abraham; it was another copying of GODS plan used by Satan to deceive. In order for the Antichrist to deceive the Jews and rule from Jerusalem with his 10 nations there must be a counterfeit Israel.
We know the law will be restored along with the animal sacrifices because Revelation records this. There will be a false Jesus in the antichrist, a false GOD in the beast and a false Elijah in the false prophet. Under the direction of the beast , antichrist will at the 1260 days end all the sacrifices and declare himself GOD then at 1290 set up the abomination of desolation, then 45 days later the elect are sealed, then for 965 days is the great tribulation until the 2300 days when Jesus returns early to stop humanity from destroying itself. This is the what we have so far and we know it is subject to change as more things are revealed.
What we watch for now is not the 70 years but the false tribulation and what we are seeing now in the Middle East has the potential to bring it about.
Remember the people who fell away in the first century when the temple was destroyed but Jesus did not return. We do not want to be like them, so if we are 100% wrong and the return of Jesus is far off, we do not repeat their error. We must cling to faith even if we do not understand what is going on. Faith is believing in things that have not yet happened in spite of what we see around us. We walk by faith not by sight. Personally I believe we are near to the time of this false tribulation.
1 Timothy 4:1-3 2 Timothy 3:1-5 Romans 1:24-32
As we continue to watch we need to surrender ourselves to GOD desiring HIS spirit to work in us to guide us in all righteousness, love and truth. GOD knows the thoughts and intents of our human spirit and sees this desire in us and in spite of our weaknesses, our sins, has provided us with grace and faith by which we are saved. So then whether we live or whether we die we belong to GOD.