Thursday, April 28, 2016

What happened in 1844?


******* Continuing our prophecy study--  Please GO back several days and read the study from the beginning to gain full understanding of where we are if you haven't been following this study daily.  Thank you :)  God bless you! *******


Prophecy -

proph·e·cy
–noun, plural -cies.
1.
the foretelling or prediction of what is to come.
2.
something that is declared by a prophet, especially a divinely inspired prediction, instruction, or exhortation.
3.
a divinely inspired utterance or revelation: oracular prophecies.


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Divinely inspired predictions. 

Daniel was given divinely inspired predictions and told to write them down. Jesus referred to Daniel's predictions. We are studying Daniel's predictions in an effort to understand all that our Savior would have us understand.

First we were given an overall picture- the broad picture- the wide view.
Secondly we were given a deeper understanding.
Thirdly we were given an even deeper understanding.
Fourthly … it is safe to say that all through the book of Daniel we are being given more understanding of the future He has planned for us. A future that ultimately ends with us living with Him in a world without any sin, in the purest love ever.

Sin had a beginning, sin will have an end.   We have to believe that. We have to believe that we aren't suffering under the curse of sin without any hope.  If we truly believed that there was no hope of a life without sin then how depressing life would be. How senseless life would be. If there were no hope then when God sent the flood to destroy all of mankind but 8 people, He would have left the 8 to perish as well. But with the creation of the world, with the creation of humanity there was a plan for our salvation. A great plan that would once and for all and undeniably reveal the depths and horrors of sin and the reason for it to be eradicated.  No question would remain anywhere in anyone's mind about God's love and from that love the need for obedience.


Predicting that sin would have an end, that all the earthly kingdoms would be completely destroyed and God's kingdom set up, was a gift to us from God.  Unwrapping this wondrous gift and putting the pieces into place as they've been revealed through history is an amazing thing.


Remember how I mentioned we have been putting together a prophecy timeline? Well I'm going to try and set it up for us now in a picture timeline.

First I want to interject HOW we came to the 457 bc starting date--

(((Interjection a bit of IMPORTANT historical fact for the date 457 BC as the final call to finish and rebuild the sanctuary- the call for the Jewish people to return there and begin their services- Please read. 

Establishing the date 457 B.C
 L.P. Tolhurst

Seventh-day Adventists believe that "the commandment to re store and to build Jerusalem" (Dan. 9:25) marks not only the beginning of the 70- weeks prophecy of that passage, but also the beginning of the 2300 days mentioned in Daniel 8:14- We believe that this latter prophecy reaches down to 1844, and thus points us out as the people God raised up on time to proclaim the last message of warning to the world. If we are correct, we ought to be able to justify our claim by producing evidence that will support it.

Three Persian decrees played roles in the restoration of God's people from the captivity the Babylonians had instituted.1 Confirming our interpretation of these important prophecies of Daniel depends on identifying and dating the decree with which God intended the time calculations to begin.
Cyrus issued the first decree in the first year of his Babylonian reign, which was 538/537 B.C. (see Ezra 1:1; 6:1; and 2 Chron. 36:22, 23). The Bible does not indicate when in the first year of his reign this decree was given, so we do not know whether the year involved was 538 or 53 7 B.C. Nor does the Bible tell us when Zerubbabel's party left Babylon and when they arrived in Jerusalem, so we do not know when this decree became effective. The Bible's vagueness about these details argues against this being the all important decree. Furthermore, Cyrus's decree says nothing about the restoration of the city. It speaks only of the rebuilding of the Temple.

Another evidence that this is the wrong decree is that it simply doesn't work with the Daniel 9 prophecy of the time of the arrival of the Messiah, the anointed one. With the date of this decree as a starting point, the 483 years Daniel spoke of do not reach anywhere near Jesus' time, never mind identifying the year of His baptism--His anointing--which took place in A.D. 27.

Scripture gives no date at all for the second decree, that of Darius the Great. All we know is that it was given in the early years of his reign, because, as a result of it, the Temple was completed and dedicated.2 And, like Cyrus's, Darius's decree was concerned with the restoration of the Temple, not of the city. Obviously, for establishing a starting point for the prophecy this decree is not of much use either.

If God intended either of these decrees to mark the beginning of a time prophecy as important as that of the 2300 days, then certainly He would have seen that the details needed were recorded in the Bible.

Artaxerxes' decree

It is in connection with the third decree--that of the seventh year of Artaxerxes, recorded in Ezra 7:8, 9--that we have the information necessary to locating in time this important prophecy. Regarding this decree we are told that Ezra left Babylon on the first day of month 1 of the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes, and that he and his group arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of month 5 of the same year. For no other decree is such detail given. This itself should alert us. Surely God is saying something to us when His Word is so explicit regarding this decree and so vague regarding the other two.

Furthermore, this decree provided for the restoration of local government on a scale not mentioned in the other decrees (note Ezra 7:21-28). It empowered the judiciary to punish wrongdoers, even granting the authority to impose the death sentence. And as a result of this decree Ezra began to build the city--see the letter to Artaxerxes in Ezra 4.

However, perhaps the strongest argument of all is that when we calculate the Daniel 9 prophecy using the date of this decree, 457 B.C., as marking its beginning, the prophecy reaches exactly to the baptism of Jesus. In fact, Daniel 9:24 suggests that the events that take place within the 70 weeks set God's seal of approval on the whole of the prophecy. They show that the prophecy was divinely given, and thus absolutely dependable. And no other date even begins to satisfy the demands of this prophecy.

Obviously, then, the decree God in tends us to use is that of Ezra 7 the one issued in the seventh year of Artaxerxes. God has given us details about when it was issued and when it went into effect. And the precision with which it relates to Jesus' baptism marks it as authentic. It is just too accurate to be wrong!

Having determined that it is Artaxerxes' decree that marks the beginning of these prophetic periods, we must now establish that the year in which he issued his decree actually was 457 B.C.

Babylonian and Persian dating methods

In the time of the Persians, all events and documents were dated in terms of the day number, month name or number, and year number of the current king's reign. For example, as we have already noted, Ezra says that he left for Jerusalem on the first day of month 1 of Artaxerxes' seventh year, arriving there on the first day of month 5 of the same year.

When a king died and a new one took the throne, the remaining portion of that year was considered the accession year of the new king and was not counted as or called the first year of the new king's reign. Only the first full calendar year of a king's reign was called his first year (see Figure 1). As can readily be seen, the accession year could be long or short, depending on when the new king came to the throne.

To establish the date of an event in terms of our calendar, scholars first had to determine the succession of the kings and the length of their reigns. The lists of kings that ancient writers provided are one source of such information. Another is the method that Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein developed as they gathered the information published in their useful book Babylonian Chronology: 626 B.C.-AD. 75. Parker and Dubberstein's method grew out of the fact that thousands of tablets dated by their authors to the reigns of ancient Near Eastern kings have been found. These two men suggested that by finding the three or four tablets bearing the latest dates from each king's reign and the three or four tablets bearing the earliest dates of each successor's, the transition points between each reign might be pretty well established. Using this method, scholars can calculate the month and sometimes almost the day of the month that a king died and his successor took his place. In this way they have been able to compile a list of the Babylonian and Persian kings together with precise details as to when each came to the throne and how long each ruled.

To assign B.C. dates to the reigns of these kings, scholars had to take one more step; they had to find a way to link the reigns of the kings to our B.C. scale. They established this link by means of the tablets that record and date the eclipses that occurred in the days of those kings. Most of these tablets describe in detail eclipses that had already occurred, but at least one predicts an eclipse at that time yet future; it was to occur in the seventh year of Cambyses. That they were able even to predict eclipses reveals the high standard of astronomical science these ancient people practiced.
As archeologists have found and translated tablets describing eclipses, astronomers have been able to calculate when in terms of our calendar those eclipses took place. Thus guesswork has been eliminated and precise dates given to the reigns of these ancient kings. In terms of chronology, the Babylonian and Persian periods are among the very best documented periods of history. (The table below lists some of the eclipses the tablets describe.)

The date for the seventh year of Artaxerxes

With such a wealth of information regarding the chronology of this period, we can with confidence ascertain the B.C. date of the seventh year of Artaxerxes' reign.

Xerxes, the predecessor of Artaxerxes, was murdered sometime between December 17, 465 B.C., and January 3, 464 B.C. The tablet bearing the latest known date from his reign is dated to month 9 (which corresponds to December) of his twenty-first year of reign. And the Elephantine papyri from Egypt contain the first known date identified with Artaxerxes' reign the equivalent of our January 3, 464 B.C. Since this date comes from records originating in Egypt, most scholars agree that Xerxes died before the end of December, as it is hardly likely that news of his death and Artaxerxes' succession would travel from Persia to Egypt in three days. Thus it appears certain that Xerxes' death must be dated in late December, 465 B.C.

While the Jews followed a spring-to-spring calendar for their religious year, in time they came to use a second calendar as well--much as many nations today have a fiscal year as well as a calendar year. Just as the beginnings and endings of our fiscal years differ by six months from those of our calendar years, the Jewish fall-to-fall calendar differed by six months from the spring-to-spring calendar. And much as the months of our fiscal and calendar years retain the same names, the months of the spring-to-spring and fall-to-fall calendars retained the same numbers. So while the spring-to-spring calendar began with month 1 and ended with month 12, the fall-to-fall calendar began with month 7 and ended with month 6 (see Figure 2).

With this information we can construct a time line for the early years of Artaxerxes and thus arrive at the all-important seventh year of his reign. We calculate that year according to the Jewish fall-to-fall calendar the calendar Ezra was using when he referred to Artaxerxes' decree (see the box on the opposite page).

Figure 3 shows that Artaxerxes' seventh year began in 458 B.C. and ex tended into 457 B.C., and that the dates Scripture records in connection with this decree--those for Ezra's departure for Jerusalem and for his arrival there--fall well within 457 B.C.

It is interesting to note that William Miller and his associates used a different method for calculating which of our years corresponded to Artaxerxes' seventh year. Basing their work on Ptolemy's Canon, they came up with the same date we have arrived at above. This certainly is a gratifying reassurance as to the trust worthiness of our position and should help to fortify our faith in the message we bear to the world. As the apostle Peter declared: "We have not followed cunningly devised fables" (2 Peter 1:16).



Machine generated alternative text:
70 weeks Dan. 9:24 
490 years 
69 weeks 
483 yea 
70th week 
7 ye rs 
Midst f week 
2300 Days (Years) Prophecy of Daniel 
1260 years 
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457 BC 
27AD 31AD 
34AD 
538AD 
1798AD 
1844AD (Dan. 8:14)


This basically shows the things we've studied concerning the prophecies we've found in Daniel.

Yesterday we left off with the realization that our 2300 year prophecy would have it's fulfillment in 1844 AD.

So what happened in 1844? Here's one very remarkable thing--


October 22 – This second date, predicted by the Millerites for the Second Coming of Jesus, leads to the Great Disappointment.



I say it's remarkable because of this--

Rev 10:9  And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
Rev 10:10  And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.


We've looked at this Revelation prophecy before.  That little book we remarked about then and are going to remark about now is the fact the little book of prophecy that goes hand in hand with Revelation IS the book of Daniel.  Now let's read these verses again…


Give me the little book.  Help me understand this little prophecy book finally. It's the time of the end, it's been a couple thousand years since the prophecy was given, it is time for understanding. Let me have this and eat it… understand it.


The angel said- Take it and eat it- it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.


Take it, eat it-  it'll make your belly bitter, after you've eaten it you're going to feel sick, but ohhhhhhhhh while you're eating it you'll taste the sweetness of it just like honey.


The ability to suddenly piece together the prophecy of Daniel has hadn't been so fully done before was amazing leading up to the year 1844. There was a great, great movement as more and more people- learned people too not just silly fanatics, not the lunatic fringe, not the feeble minded, not the sad, ignorant people that everyone wants to imagine people who believe in prophecy movements must be. In fact we just recently had a man and his followers predicting the world would end in May of this year 2011 and that didn't happen. People sat back and laughed, they ridiculed these people, the press really gave it to them making them laughing stocks, and yes- those crazy people.  At this time in 1844 people weren't aroused to that sort of belief there were many, many believing in this prophecy only it ending up that the understanding of the prophecy was wrong.  While William Miller was predicting Christ would come in 1844, and people were believing Him whole-heartedly there was a HUGE disappointment so much so it is known as the Great Disappointment.


'The Great Disappointment was a major event in the history of the Millerite movement, a 19th-century American Christian sect that formed out of the Second Great Awakening. William Miller, a Baptist preacher, proposed based on his interpretations of the prophecies in the book of Daniel (Chapters 8 and 9, especially Dan. 8:14 "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed"), that Jesus Christ would return to the earth during the year 1844. A more specific date, that of October 22, 1844, was preached by Samuel S. Snow. Thousands of followers, some of whom had given away all of their possessions, waited expectantly. When Jesus did not appear, October 22, 1844 became known as the Great Disappointment.'



This describes PERFECTLY the sweet honey taste of the belief that the Savior was going to come soon to the bitterness in the belly after it is realized that no, this isn't what this prophecy was predicting at all.


Sweet to bitter.  A perfect prophetic interpretation of those verses in Revelation.


Rev 10:10  And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.


So this begs the question- what was meant by the 'Sanctuary being cleansed'?  Because this is such an amazing prophecy it needs a study all it's own and we'll start that tomorrow.


By the grace of God we will be able to understand more and more and in understanding more and more we will grow ever closer to our Savior. His love is in all these prophecies for us, His amazing love.


By His grace always!!!!


Amen.

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