Daniel's 70 Sevens

First question, then I answer them one at a time. What was the first question? The first question was the seven, the sevens.

Like, is that years? Are they years? OK. My perspective is they're not strict chronology of seven years.

I think I said that right at the beginning. I know we started this chapter nine, six weeks ago, or whatever it was.

And as I opened it up, I said, I don't hold the position that these are strict chronology of seven years.

I don't even hold the position that they're years, OK? I hold the position that they are heptads, which are groups of seven that are representative of the year of Jubilee.

So one question you gave me afterwards was the punctuation in some of it does make it different.

Remember, our Bible's punctuation was not in the original. So the punctuation can be misleading.

I think the New American Standard did a bad job. They put a semicolon there, and it makes it look like the seven and the 62 sevens were the same.

And they're not, because it actually makes a distinction in the next part of that verse where it says after the 62.

So you know that the seven were the first,

OK? This will be the first Jubilee. Let's just look at it that way.

And maybe this will help. After this here, you have the first Jubilee.

You remember what we said this was? It was the time of Zerubbabel, remember?

Time of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel.

Then you had after the 62 weeks, it was

Nehemiah. Uh -oh. This would be eight

Jubilees, right? What does that bring us a total to?

Nine Jubilees, leaving the last one would be a total.

This would be the next Jubilee, which would be a total of 10 Jubilees. What did 10

Jubilees total up to? Go ahead. 490.

So that is what's in view, is 490 total,

OK? Now, if you want to say it's weeks of years or years, that's fine.

That's not how the Bible actually states it. It's 77. And you say, well, that's a dead ringer.

It's weeks. I'm going to say, well, no, it's not. Because if you turn your Bible over to chapter 10, when we get there, which probably won't be today, when you get over there, in verse 2, he says, in those days,

I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks. OK? That's what he says.

Well, the actual expression is, I was mourning for seven entire sevens of days.

That's actually how it says it in the Hebrew. So if he wanted to say that the 77s was of weeks, then why didn't

Daniel just say, hey, this is going to be 77s of weeks? He could have said it that way.

He said it right here, didn't he? About weeks of days, he could have said that. But that's not what he said.

77s. I would imagine that maybe a couple of your translations actually has weeks, probably, in italics.

Because it's - It just says for three weeks. Three weeks. Well, I'm talking about back in chapter 9.

Oh, OK. Yeah, it might be in italics. Because the words that are used there is not weeks.

It's Shabu Shabayim, 77. So I see this as figurative, so that when you get to the 490, that is the 10th

Jubilee. That is the final Jubilee. That is God being done with his people, being set free.

What did the year of Jubilee do? Set people free. It set people free.

They got their inheritance back. All debts were released. And since Jesus is the fulfillment of all the

Jubilees, when Jesus's death, burial, resurrection, exaltation, enthronement, he is the final

Jubilee. He's it. Now, historically, that happened when?

The destruction of Jerusalem. Theologically, it happened. His death, burial, resurrection, exaltation.

I think we said this last week. Then historically, it happened when God destroyed Jerusalem, showing that he had done away with the old, and the new was now inaugurated.

That happened with the 10th Jubilee. But you still have.

And I'll answer somebody asked a question about the last three and a half of the last seven.

And I'm going to address that today at some point. So back to your question.

Say it again. Is it weeks? I was saying, yeah, what were the 77?

I don't see them as weeks. Because that's not what the word that you used. I know that's what your Bible said.

And I know that. I looked at a number of, and I'm not a fan.

OK, so I say this, even when I throw your study Bibles at me, that's fine. I'm not a fan of study Bibles. OK, just not.

Because what you wind up doing is you have this much text, and then you have this much of somebody's interpretation of it, which is connected to a system.

So I was like, well, I'm going to go and look at a few and see. I kid you not, this is no joke. I had this much of Daniel's chapter 9, verses 24 through 27.

And then you had the rest of the Bible from here down, the interpretation of it.

But you know what that interpretation did? It talked about a rebuilt temple. It talked about the Antichrist.

And that is nowhere in this text. That comes from a system dictating how that works.

The seven weeks, OK, the whole seven weeks of years and all that, and Burt will attest to this, that is where the dispensational view of the seven years of tribulation come from.

Is any of that in this text? I'm just telling you. Dude, I'm being dead serious.

I know your question was, hey. Mine was a misinterpretation. I just misunderstood what you were saying.

Yeah. But that is chapter 9, verses 26, 27, actually.

And you can even look at John MacArthur's Bible. He says that has to do with the Antichrist. Can you show me anywhere in this text where the

Antichrist is even mentioned? I'll even go so far as to even say Antichrist ain't even mentioned in the book of Daniel.

It's only mentioned three times in the Bible. And it ain't in the Old Testament. It's in the New. Next question.

Do you think the Jews, the people who are reading this, they would have understood that in context?

Great question, because you're exact. I do. You can go home and look these up.

Me and Andy talked about this a number of weeks ago. Jubilees.

This is an intertestamental book.

Enoch. Oh, first Enoch. And then, I think it's

Q11, Melchizedek. These are intertestamental books.

They're probably, if you have a Catholic edition of the Bible, this is in the Apocrypha. These are not authoritative.

So when I say this, listen to what I'm saying. These are not authoritative. Anybody know what a midrash is?

I'm not talking about being itchy in the middle of your body. A midrash. A midrash is a

Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. You have two types. You have a Mishnah, and you have a midrash.

These fall into what's called a midrash area. Not a midrash area, but OK. Into an understanding of how did the

Jews understand it. Hey, this guy that wrote this, everything from the beginning of creation is in Jubilee 7 to 49 years.

And it all goes to final salvation.

Interesting. I'm not saying the guy's right. I'm not saying he's authoritative.

I'm not saying it's inspired. Certainly, it's not inspired. But if we want to go, OK, Mike, if you just pulled this out of your hat, which

I did not, and if my understanding is this is connected to the year of Jubilee, which

I don't think the dispensational perspective is connected to the year of Jubilee, is that correct? Andy, is the year of Jubilee connected?

Because you were brought up in that as well. It's not connected to the year of Jubilee. It has to be, because Jesus himself said,

I am the anointed one to set the captives free and the time of vengeance. So this here, you can go and read.

It's only 1 ,308 verses. And it'll give you an understanding of how that person broke everything down from the time of creation to,

I don't agree with this, but Adam and Eve were on the earth seven years before they sinned. This is his understanding of Genesis and everything.

Then you have the book of Enoch, which I think these two is the same author.

I could be wrong, but I think. Then you have the book of Enoch.

And he actually has, he actually has that.

You know what he's dealing with? He's dealing with Daniel. So this man, whoever he is, if he is the same author, his understanding of Daniel seven was in this

Jubilee pattern. So then Q was

Qumran, 11 was the cave in which they found it in.

Dead Sea Scrolls, we all aware of that? Melchizedek, his understanding was it was seven, 62 sevens, a final seven, and then in final salvation, which would come in the anointed one of Melchizedek.

Now, where did he get Melchizedek from? Because if you go to Psalm, who was supposed to come from the order of Melchizedek?

Who would be the one? Jesus would, yeah, Jesus would. Even Hebrews talks about that.

You know, he was a type of priest that would come. So look, I said, I want you to understand,

I'm not saying these are authoritative. I want you to understand that these are extra biblical writings.

They were written, it's intertestamental, and they're not authoritative.

But it does give you an understanding of these, this is how the Jewish people understood it, okay?

I even have, I've got this on my phone. I could read you the whole thing if you wanted.

It's not long, but it talks about the first seven would be the first Jubilee. The next eight would bring in the time before the

Messiah would come. Then when the Messiah would come, he would sacrifice himself for the sins of his people, and then he would set in the final

Jubilee, which would bring in final salvation with the destruction of the old. So, to me, that makes more sense of the book of Daniel than all the other systematic ways.

Look, if you want to take a system and you want to interpret your Bible by a system, the system dictates the meaning.

You understand that? If you're gonna use exegesis, you're not gonna come up with what

John MacArthur and some of those study Bibles come up to. And I say that with no hesitation and with no apology.

I'm not saying that those men are, don't love the Lord and all that, but they're bound to a system. Andy said it at the end of last week,

C .I. Schofield would probably crack me over the head if he was up, because he had made hundreds of thousands of dollars with a swooping brush mark of a dispensational

Bible that then people read those notes and that became dogma, correct? Wouldn't you agree?

So, just to place what you said, could you imagine that the

Jews at that point would have understood an Antichrist? I mean, just think about it.

They had to have understood it in their context. And certainly they couldn't look at that and say, this was

Antichrist in seven years or 2000 years and all that else. They would have never been able to put that together.

So we gotta be careful that we don't take New Testament teaching, shove it back into the

Old Testament. Correct, and when we get to, that's a good point, because what happens is we're taking that New Testament system that you're talking about and then we go, okay, well this fits here, here, here, and here.

That's not how we do that. What happens is, and I know some of you may have heard this, so, and I like A .J.

McClain, okay? He's an old president from Grace Theological Seminary.

Think he's a great, wonderful man, but he made this statement. He said, Daniel's 70 weeks is the exhaustive chronological interpretation key to everything in the

New Testament prophecy. That's what he said. I want you to think about that for just a second. An Old Testament passage is the interpretive grid by which we understand

New Testament prophecy. If that's your position, then that means the apostles don't get to interpret what the

Old Testament said, and neither does Jesus, and I think I'm gonna stand on what

Jesus said, and I'm gonna stand on what the apostles said. So I go now, based on what we know in Daniel, I go, okay, what did

Jesus say about the destruction of Jerusalem? Well, we can go to Matthew 24,

Mark 13, Luke 19. We can look at that and go, okay, he was pointing to something back in the

Old Testament, and then we know exactly where he's pointing it when we get to passages like Matthew 24,

I think it's 14 or 15, where he says, when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. Yes, sir.

You reference and talk about a lot of church history and religion outside of the inspired words, but you talk about that a lot.

Historical context. How do we, I'm asking this because I don't know. Okay.

How do we know that that is correct? How do we know it's right? What do you mean, that it's, how do we know that it's accurate?

Yes. Well, here's what I do. I take these guys here, and I say, okay, when I'm doing my exegesis and I see the pattern that started, if we, let's just back up for a second.

When we started Daniel 9, I said, it was in a 70 years captivity context.

And if you remember, I says, why was it 70 years? Went all the way back to why was it 70 years?

Because they had violated sabbatical years. Correct? Everybody remember that? Because they have violated sabbatical years, therefore, violating those sabbatical years, they failed to keep what?

The Jubilee. For how long? Me and Andy agree that it was probably longer than 490, but for whatever reason,

I think it's connected to this, God chose to punish them for 490 years, which was 70 years in captivity for every sabbatical that they missed.

So when I'm doing this, okay, this has got to be, this is connected to the sabbatical years because Chronicles and Jeremiah both say, you're gonna be in captivity till when?

Till the land gets its Sabbath. What does that tell you it's about? It's about the

Sabbath and its violation of those sabbatical years. So then I start, okay, if this is the sabbatical years, they missed this, this, and this,

I make my number to say, okay, this is actually 490 years. Then he's pointing to something greater, says, hey, 77s, then this will be the still, the model's still 490.

So I go to these guys and say, did they have an understanding of the final destruction coming and final salvation in anywhere?

And they did. I'm not saying that everything that these guys said was right. You're gonna see some kooky stuff up here.

Okay? Yeah. You're gonna see some stuff about the

Nephilim and all kinds of stuff here too, okay? In Enoch. And you ain't gonna see much here because this is just a larger fragment of this.

But it's interesting that the fragment that we do have from Q11, 13 is the fragment of Melchizedek deals with this very thing.

I mean, I could send it to you if you wanna read it. It's not that long, it's about this big. I mean, and me and Andy, we're also talking too,

I have to understand too, that going back from captivity, the land was so important to them.

Say what you, do you remember what you said to me? Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, if that's, if you think about it, it's two things. One, they disregarded what

God considered absolutely part of their history, which was the land.

And they desecrated the land and God punished them for that. That's why you never see, unless I'm wrong, you never see the

Gentiles judged for treating either the Sabbath or their land in a wrong way.

There's no judgment on the Gentiles for violating the Sabbath. Yeah, hey, and actually, if you read this, if y 'all read this, you're gonna get in Jubilees, and he actually makes that statement that the

Sabbath had nothing to do with the Gentile. He, I mean, he verbatim says that in Jubilees. The Sabbath was not given to the

Gentiles. It was not even for the Gentiles. He quotes back to, I think, Deuteronomy or Exodus, when he says, the sign of the

Sabbath is given to my people so that they'll know that you are mine. Because, you know, that's what the sign of the Mosaic covenant is.

It's not circumcision. That was the Abrahamic covenant. The sign of the Mosaic legislation was the

Sabbath. That was the sign. And he even says it wasn't for the Gentile. Gentiles are not held to a

Sabbath keeping. And I was like, hmm, that's interesting. Our Presbyterian and Reform Baptist Sabbatarians would probably not like that because they think we're still bound to that sabbatical standard.

And yeah, so God punished them for their failure to manage his land.

He had given them properly. Next question. Did that answer?

Yeah, that answered mine. Okay, anyone else? And Mike also, his story. They're recording a current time and they may exaggerate that sometimes to make, say,

Julius Caesar look better than he was in this situation. Sure. Yeah, the writers of the history are the winners.

Some of it, they may, you know, just, you know, make it look a little bit different. So it's, but I look at it and that's pretty well all historians do is just relate their times.

Yeah. You had a question on, go ahead. Yeah, when we look at it, because they first go in captivity, what was it you said, like 603?

605, 603. 603, somewhere in there. And then we know that the final destruction was around, what, 70

AD? And what, the destruction of the temple under Nebuchadnezzar was 586.

No, no, no. The final, yeah, 70 AD, destruction of Jerusalem. Which is a lot more than, basically, 70

AD, correct? Yeah, yeah, pretty close. I wouldn't say it, I would even say, and this is gonna answer another question,

I think it even goes just a little bit further, but because the destruction of Jerusalem certainly happened in 70

AD. But remember, that war carried on, I don't know if any of y 'all know this, but that war carried on till about 73.

Anybody heard of the Fortress Masada? Okay, that's where the Zealots peeled off to.

I've been there, absolutely crazy place, man. It's built up on this mountain, carved out of these red rocks, it's beautiful, crazy.

They ran the Fortress Masada, that's where they were gonna hold up the Zealots. It took

Titus a while before he could build up some siege ramps, interesting, those that he enslaved from the fall of Judea and Jerusalem, he used

Jews to make up the siege ramp that would eventually go in, go up that mountain to kill the

Jews. By the time they get there, they had all killed themselves, that was a way of doing it honorably, instead of going and being enslaved, they killed themselves, but they found a woman and a child that escaped being the sword of their own people, that's how they saw a good way of doing it.

Matter of fact, Josephus, that's how he was called as well, not in there, but in Yotapeta in 67, they were drawing lots to see who was gonna kill who so that they wouldn't be enslaved, and he decided when it got down to him, hey, we should probably just turn ourselves in.

So yeah, 70 AD, destruction of Jerusalem, knocked it flat. Now one is called,

I think they call it razed, R -A -Z -E -D, blam, flat, not one stone left on another, the only thing that was left was the

Western Wall to build up another fortress at some time. It went to Masada, they killed

Masada, they killed all the slave laborer at Masada. But then it was under the time of Hadrian, this would have been

Hadrian, Emperor Hadrian came in, I think around 127, he gave the

Jews an opportunity to go back. All right, look here, I'm gonna give you a chance to go back, settle your land, and they did, they went back.

And I think it was in 132 or 133, the Bar Kokhaba, Bar Kokhaba, a revolt happened.

They started, they were gonna throw off Rome again. Hadrian said, I ain't gonna have it. He killed every one of them.

He then burned it, and then salted Jerusalem and Israel so it would not be inhabited for hundreds of years.

And just another historical thing, how do you think the name Palestine came into Jerusalem?

It's because Hadrian said, you know what, this place is such a scourge, and I hate this place so much,

I'm gonna name this place after their sworn enemies of old, Palestine, Philistines.

That's where the name Palestine comes from. So, all the nonsense about this was our land before it was that we were the

Palestinian, pfft, the Romans did it, okay? So, back to your question of the strict, the 490 years.

There is no, there's no numbering that you're gonna come to 490 years, strict.

You're not gonna do it. You then have to move either Jesus's death at 36 or 30, 33, and then you have to move, was it the decree of, and I mentioned this last week, was it the decree of Artaxerxes, or was it the decree of Cyrus?

And then everybody just starts moving with those numbers, and then when those didn't work, they start fooling with solar years.

Well, under their time, they had a solar year and a leap year, and they weren't under a 365 day, they were under a 360 day, which is all,

I mean, some of those things are true, but you understand what they're trying to do is get it to that strict 490 years, and you're never going to get that.

I'll even throw another wrench into it. If you wanna look to see if the captivity was actually 70 years to the day, ain't none of them gonna work out, none of them, none of them.

If you wanna say it was 70 years to the day, you would have to take, 609 is when the deportation happened, because Cyrus comes in 539 and lets everybody go.

Problem with that is Josiah was killed in 609.

You understand? So when you're trying to make those numbers work, you have to do all this hopscotch with all this other stuff and just say, let the text speak for itself.

The text speaks for itself. That says, first seven, gonna go back and rebuild

Jerusalem. After the 62 sevens, it's gonna have to be rebuilt, plaza, moat, and it's gonna be under very difficult times.

And I laid out that very difficult time, and it was probably roughly around 435 years or so.

Then after that, it says, after these two, which is the 69 sevens, after it was done, who was gonna enter the scene?

The anointed one. And who was that? That was Jesus. And he did come on the scene, and he came on the scene, and he made a covenant, was anointed, and in the middle of that seven, what happened to Jesus?

He was crucified. Now, and I think I may have enough time to say, okay, what about that last seven?

About last three and a half of that seven? And I'll get more, when we get into Revelation chapters 10, 11, and 12, because that'll be an exposition,

I will make probably a longer argument for that.

If you turn over to chapter seven of Daniel, the four beasts, and I know some of y 'all weren't in here when we were in that, but in Daniel chapter seven, it was dealing with the four major empires, okay?

You get to the major empire of Rome, which was the fourth beast. It had exceedingly dreadful, this is in verse 19, iron, its claws were like bronze.

It devoured, it crushed, it trampled down the remainder with its feet, meaning it came over, and it just destroyed everything in its path.

And it goes on to say that it had 10 horns, its head, one horn came up, but you keep going on down, and it talks, and somebody says, well,

Mike, you said the thing about a time, time, and half a times. That's how long the people of God are going to be, you can keep reading, a time, times meaning two, and a half a time.

If you add that together, what does that come to? Three and a half. Three and a half.

You go to Revelation chapter 10. He says, I'm gonna give you another small book of prophecy at the end of chapter 10.

So then, in Revelation chapters 11 through 13 are a smaller prophecy within the larger prophecy.

He actually, specifically, at my understanding, he shifts from primarily the destruction of Jerusalem, because he says here, he doesn't use tribes.

He uses, this will deal with many nations, tongues, and people.

So now, we're primarily, the book of Revelation is dealing with the destruction of Jerusalem. He now expands this to something bigger.

He uses 42 months, 1260 days.

What is this? What's 42 months? Three and a half. What's 1260 days?

Three and a half. And if you read, y 'all can go home today and read it. If you read

Revelation 11 through 13, that is the recollection of redemptive history backing all the way up to Jesus being born, the dragon waiting for him to be born so that he can kill him.

Okay, who was the dragon? It was Satan. Who was he gonna use to kill Jesus when he was born? Herod, okay?

So then, it talks about that. Then, it says, then that woman, meaning, it's speaking of the church.

Y 'all read this and just, don't take my word for it. Go home and read it. It is, he is then taken up, and then the woman is then provided for a time of persecution.

42 months, 1260 days. Daniel says that time of persecution's three and a half, is a time, time, and a half of times.

That's how I'll come to the conclusion. So, what is the last three and a half of Daniel's 70 weeks?

I say it is the inner Advent time. That's how

I'll come to my conclusion between Jesus' first Advent and his second. Because if you look at the 42 months and 1260 days that he is mentioning in the book of Revelation, it goes from the time of Jesus' ascension to the time that he returns.

Read it. What? Anybody? Is that pretty clear?

Okay, okay. Now, you can say, hey, I disagree with your interpretation, because the study Bible don't say that, or whatever.

That's fine. But that's how I'll come to my conclusion. We know how you feel about the study Bible. I just, yeah. Because it, well, it shapes your mind.

It shapes the way you, hey, look. Exegesis is hard, is it not,

Andy? Is it not? Is it not? Exegesis is hard. Look, if you just want to look at your study

Bible, look at a commentary, and say, hey, man, I like that guy, I'm going to adopt that, well, then that's fine. It's funny you mention that, because we heard a comment.

Historically, hang on just a second. I want to say this. They do have some good historical things, but they've got a bent.

They have a bent to their system, or their agenda. Okay. We were just talking last week about the study

Bible. He just got a new study Bible. Bless his heart. It's a little rough, yeah, but that's all right.

It's a precious roll, though. I have one, too. But we were talking, I would, you know, sometimes I just want to read the

Bible without all this, because when I read this. Well, buy one that ain't got it. My eyes and my mind automatically come down here.

I know that, I know that. Look, and some of this is probably my own sinful inclination, okay?

So this is a confession. Sybil remembers this. We were going to a church, and every time this guy, boy, he had these flowing words to speak, and he said something, and I was like, man, where are you getting all this?

And he said he had a John McArthur study Bible. And I was like, dude,

I don't care what he says. But, so I don't care what that man says. He said, you don't know who that guy is?

I'm like, no, I wanted to say maybe a year, year and a half. I was like, no, I don't know who he is, and I really don't care.

I said, I feel like I need to touch the hem of this man's garment. And they looked at me like I was crazy.

And I probably was. But then that began to go, man, are these men, look, you want to sit into a class, and you want to have somebody read somebody else's notes, or do you want to have somebody stand up, here, here, whoever, and teach you the word of God, and show you how

I come to my conclusion? Hey, even, look, I am fine with people disagreeing with me. But at least when you leave,

I want you to know how I got to my conclusion. I'm fine with that. I can't tell you how many times we would sit into a class and go, man,

I don't know how that guy got from point A to point B. And then when I would ask questions, it would be like, well, that's just what we believe.

Dude, that don't work for me. That doesn't work for me. I want to know how you got there.

And if you disagree with me, that's fine. But at least know how I got there. And if you disagree with my position, was it clear?

That's what I care about. We can disagree about this, just to let you know. What we believe about Daniel 77 is not nearly as important as what we believe about justification by faith along the path of many works.

Just want you to know that, okay? We can disagree. We can disagree on the millennium. We can disagree on how we understand the rapture taking place, as long as we understand that there will be a rapture that does happen.

We can disagree on those things, okay? And still love one another and get along and show

Christian charity and all of that. I think those are the things that we should do. But one thing we can't do is we cannot take a passage, okay, like this, and make it about an antichrist passage when it's clearly taught in its context about a messiah.

Okay? That's where I have allergic reactions. That had me going last week. That's where I have an allergic reaction.

When I misinterpreted what you said? Yeah. Yeah. That's where I have allergic reaction, is where you take a passage that is filled in one of the, to me, in my opinion, one of the most messianic passages, prophetic passages of the person and work of Christ, parallel to Isaiah 53, and then to have a system say, this is about an antichrist that's gonna come and make a pact with the

Jewish people for seven years, and then he's gonna do away with their temple and sacrifice by coming in and setting up the abomination of desolation and have them come down and bow and worship him.

I mean, it's nowhere in the text. It's nowhere in the text. But it'll be in your notes. Yes, sir?

So with all this, what they're being punished for, was there any time in the Old Testament you had a jubilee?

Nope. And there's no recollection or any records of them after they come back into the land during the time of Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, and all that, where they did a year of jubilee.

Andy talked through Nehemiah on men's Bible study. There is one section that,

I can't remember, maybe it's Nehemiah chapter, interesting, chapter seven, I think where he mentions, no, chapter eight.

He mentions them, the gates were opened, they were selling grain and everything on the

Sabbath, and he says, because of what the people, our predecessors had done,

God destroyed this city, and now you're doing the very same thing that God destroyed it before.

You need to stop. And he then goes, he shuts the gates, and they begin to observe the Sabbath. Now, I think it says

Sabbaths. I'd have to go back and look. So if it says that they begin to observe the Sabbaths, well, then that means maybe they begin to observe the

Sabbath year, maybe. No indication of that. Or was it the Sabbath, meaning the seventh day?

Andy might remember when he talked through that. But so, regardless, there is no indication from history that the year of Jubilee was ever observed.

Check every Midrash, Mishnah, historical rabbis, zero, none, none.

Now, there was, I can't remember his name, but some weird Jewish name. When looking to see why it was not observed, one of them said that because once the kingdom was divided,

Jeroboam and Rehoboam after Solomon, that they could not do it corporately. And that's why it was never observed.

No excuse. It still wasn't observed. I've also thought of this, too, after you said that.

It could have been the Jewish people, like a lot of us today, had a real problem with lack of faith. And you watch how they did that in the desert with the manna.

It was get extra on the sixth day because they're not gonna be able to set it. Well, they would go and they went to go pick up manna.

So it was kind of that same idea of like your whole let your man lay fallow. It could have been. We don't have the faith enough to stop.

What's interesting, though, is God told them, and I read that in the Mosaic, that's in,

I think, Leviticus 27. It says, hey, on those years before the sabbatical year,

I'm going to give you enough food on that sixth year. It will carry you through that seventh so that that eighth year, you can then start seeding and plowing so that you will have food into the ninth year before your harvest comes.

So God told them, look, if you just do what I tell you to do, basically, I'm gonna provide you three years worth of food.

Just like he did in the wilderness. Yes, he did. He had enough on the sixth day to be more than satisfied on the seventh day. And they failed to do that.

And God finally said, I had enough of it, yeah. All right, anything else? Any more confusion

I can try to confuse you about? I just think, just by observation, so much of what we think is based on a presupposition or a system, and you can think about it, even when people who wanna cross new covenant believers back under the law, that they'll set it up as the law brings you to Christ and the

Christ brings you back to the law. And it's all built on a system. So when you read the Bible, if you read it based on a system, you're gonna come out with those kinds of thoughts.

Yeah, and every, every group of people has a system, okay, to a certain degree.

Because you build your systematic theology by collecting the biblical data and you synthesize it together to make your system.

I mean, that's what systematic theology is. It's basically a group of topical things and you take the data and you bring it together, say what it say about this.

But with dispensational eschatology, which is what this is, that is the system was built first.

The system was built first. Once that system was built, then you begin to plug in all the appendages.

Because even if you look at Schofield's 1919 Bible, me and Keith are talking about this,

I don't know, it's been a few months ago. You look at his Bible and his notes for this area here, and then you look at Ryrie, or one of those other guys that came along after the nation of Israel became a state again in 1948.

Vastly different. So do you understand what dictated how they understood that? They, remember, in 1919, was

Israel a state? No. So that was unheard of. Matter of fact, it was Gerhardus Voss, and I think it was

Gerhardus Voss, says there is a group of whack -offs,

I think's what he called them, a group of whack -offs that are running around saying one day that the Jewish people will be back in the land.

And then when it happened, they began to plug those appendages into that system that had been developed in the 1830s, 1840s.

And because it was picked up here in the states, it was just, it was escapism.

It just took off like wildfire here. And it was a system that the church never recognized for 2 ,000 years.

Correct. And if you challenged it, you were considered a liberal.

I mean, I'm not gonna say his name, but if I was to say his name, many people in this room, I was told I was a theological liberal because I didn't believe that.

But then when I asked him to, I want you to tell me how you got from there to there, he didn't wanna do it.

I says, because your system dictated, put your system away, and let's walk through the text and tell me what the text says.

And he couldn't. He teaches eschatology, by the way. Sir? No, no, they follow those.

We might leave them off the cliff too. But if you want, if we're going to be biblical students, the

Bible has to interpret the Bible, not a system, not a system. And I'll shut up.

I was asked at one time to be the point man for a major men's thing here in Jacksonville, in North Florida.

And we were teaching through these books. And after the books were done, it was like, why not be in two books, 16 weeks at a time after that?

I was like, what happens after 32 weeks? Well, then they're on their own. I was like, 16 weeks, and you've not taught this man how to study his

Bible. You've not taught this man how to read his Bible. You've not taught him how to disciple his children or his wife.

I said, so why would I want to do that? And he said, you think that everybody should be a seminary student.

I said, yes, I do. I do. I think everybody should be a seminary student.

Me and Andy and Keith have y 'all two times a week sometimes.

In five years, if you absorb what we teach, you'll be a seminary student. Seminaries take about five years to get a bachelor.

And we teach y 'all in that manner. Now, whether y 'all absorb it, that's up to y 'all.

But we teach it in that way, so that when you leave here, you can go out and you can defend your faith, defend what we believe about the

Bible, proclaim the truth of the Gospel in such a way that you can do it unapologetically.

No apology, not meaning no defense. I'm saying do it with no apology. That's our goal. Keith, you'll pray for us?

Sure. Father, have mercy to be a teaching institution.

I've been teaching and seek to model that.

The Lord also said that we would live it out and change us intellectually, but change us, dedicate time to teaching, give me the strength to preach over us as we worship you.

And if you'd be to us that wonderful pearl of great price that we seek out and accept no substitute.