Daniel 9:26 And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
The Book of Daniel prophesied in this passage, that the Messiah will come and be cut off, and then the city of Jerusalem and the sanctuary (the temple) will be destroyed. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army led by Titus in 70 AD. Consequently the Messiah of Israel, whoever he is, had to have come before the year 70 AD. There is only one person whose identity and life perfectly fits the description and timing contained in this prophecy; no one else even comes close. This same Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), ride a donkey into Jerusalem (Zechariah 9:9) and die for the sins of the world (Isaiah 53). He fulfilled at least 100 other prophecies at His first coming. He is Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth.
But for nearly 2,000 years most of Yeshua's own Jewish people have been searching and waiting in vain for their Messiah, blind to His true identity and first appearing.
Now we who do know Him might look with condescension on our Jewish neighbors, but we ought to be careful that we're not making the same mistake in a way; waiting for a fulfillment or a promise that has already come, and missing it because of blindness, jealousy, worldliness or pride. Yeshua is our fulfillment in life; having received Him and known Him, have we still missed that reality?
Don't forget to center your life and your hope on Him. He is the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE! With so much work to be done, let's make sure our lives are centered!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Here in Israel we have an interesting geographical phenomenon – there are two landlocked seas. One is alive and one is dead. The sea full of life is the Kinneret, better known as the Sea of Galilee. The dead sea is…….you guessed it, the Dead Sea. Now the Kinneret is constantly emptying as it flows through the Jordan River valley…. into the Dead Sea. But the Dead Sea does not empty its water at all. Instead, the Dead Sea is continually shrinking, because the intense heat at this lowest place on Earth actually evaporates more water than is flowing in. Do you see a parable here?
One of my passions is studying history, especially the American Civil War. Here is an amusing story about General Stonewall Jackson’s famous Valley Campaign. During the war, Jackson’s army found itself on one side of a river when it needed to be on the other.
We tend to focus on the part of that scripture where God does the blessing — but why did He bless Him? The answer lies in the passage! The Lord told Abraham: “I will bless you — and you shall be a blessing.” Abraham was blessed so that he could be a blessing!
In the Olivet discourse recorded in Matthew 24, Yeshua prophesied that “… nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” The word “nation” in Greek is the word “ethnos”, from which we get the English word “ethnic”. All of this polarization and ethnic warfare which the media feed upon and incite is the work of the enemy as he stirs up the sinful nature of men.
Several hundred years before Jesus was born, a plague broke out in Athens, Greece. In an effort to stop the plague and appease the ‘gods’, the Athenians sought counsel from a wise man named Epimenides from the island of Crete.
A new driver for an interstate trucking company was having a difficult time. He found the long cross-country trips extremely tiring. The older driver who traveled with him, however, seemed to thrive on those long trips. He always seemed to look as fresh at the end of the ride as he did at the beginning.
There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s love, however if we want to experience His blessings we need to observe the qualifications that He’s given us in His Word. Psalm 112 details a whole list of blessings, but the key to receiving them is verse 1.