(This post ties in nicely with my previous post; but since that was a re-blog of someone else’s masterful commentary on the Second Coming and its timing – I chose not to add another thousand words of my own commentary on a related topic.)
Many Christians look at Daniel 9:25 “So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks” – and interpret that to mean that seven weeks of years (49 years) after the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, the Messiah will come.
There is no doubt that the first fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy already occurred; any study of Ezra and Nehemiah and Artaxerxes would conclude (as I described at length in End Times and 2019) that the crucifixion could have been dated(expected) to the spring of 33 A.D. over four hundred years in advance.
Many interpreters assume that Isaac Newton believed the Second Coming would occur 49 years after the Jewish people would (someday in his future) reclaim the entire city of Jerusalem. This occurred on the night on June 6-7, 1967. Therefore some authors are expecting the Second Coming on June 6 or 7, in 2016. (Such as Neill Russel, in “Newton’s Riddle”)
But we know the Second Coming can NOT happen at any moment because there are other events which must happen first; notably the 3.5 year reign of the Antichrist – which Alan Kurschner describes so well in “Antichrist: Before the Day of the Lord.” My research indicates that although many will be misled, it is the Antichrist who will take center stage on June 6, 2016. (See Antichrist 2016-2019)
I would argue that the order to rebuild Jerusalem (to which the 49 years should be added – which in theory tells us when the Second Coming will be) has been given many times AFTER the Israeli victory and expansion into East Jerusalem in June 1967 – perhaps most significantly – in December 1970. Long time Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek formed a plan to deal with Israel’s territorial gains (of 1967) in 1968 which “included massive construction projects in the eastern part of the city, ‘to ensure Jerusalem’s unification, in a manner that would prevent the possibility of its being repartitioned.’”
“In 1969 [Prime Minister] Golda Meir, the Israeli ‘Iron Lady’, succeeded Eshkol and took control of the ‘unified Jerusalem’ project. A new master plan now proposed the development of Shekhunot ha-Taba’at, or ‘Ring Neighbourhoods’, a bizarre new turn in the dialectic of military, political and urban-development considerations. Rather than building outward from the older neighbourhoods at the heart of Jerusalem, this plan advocated the construction of Jewish residential quarters on its remote periphery, strung around the new city limits.” (quotes from http://newleftreview.org/II/81/yonatan-mendel-new-jerusalem)
Distant new suburbs would be built and they would be incorporated as part of a greatly expanded city. The emphasis shifted from plans to reduce the Arab presence and build new Jewish facilities in East Jerusalem for a united Jewish capital city – to enlarging the city by several hundred per cent. Many politicians felt that a distinction would someday be made between Jerusalem and other newly occupied territory. Land outside Jerusalem, either by international pressure, or a willing land-for-peace deal – might someday be given back to Jordan (or a new Arab nation called Palestine) while Jerusalem, as the capital, would be non-negotiable.
As the Israeli government and military interfered with the original plans – in order to enlarge Jerusalem for maximum territory, minimum Arab/Muslim population, and maximum military defendability – public debate and disagreement on the expansion plans grew. Kollek organized an international committee of 70 world renowned architects and city planners, hoping to legitimize and sanction the expansion and Israelification of Greater Jerusalem. The meeting of the Jerusalem Committee was scheduled for December 1970 (49 years before my prophetic timeline ends with Judgment Day, as detailed in End Times and 2019) but there was so much disagreement that a secret session was hastily convened at a slightly earlier date, closed to the public. (p. 165 of Modernism and the Middle East: Architecture and Politics in the Twentieth Century) The international members of the Jerusalem Committee condemned the updated plans (which had less to do with modern architecture or good urban planning and more to do with geopolitical and military defense concerns.)
Professional opinions from the committee were ignored, and “new-built houses, clad in the mandatory white ‘Jerusalem stone’, were positioned like turrets on the mountain ridges overlooking the city and along the arteries leading into it. The first of these [new Jewish neighborhoods] were Neve Ya’akov” which was started by the end of 1970. (http://newleftreview.org/II/81/yonatan-mendel-new-jerusalem)
The Israeli Army did recapture East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount the night of June 6, 2016. And I do believe that someone will claim to be the Savior 49 years later on June 6, 2016. But June 1967 is NOT when the ORDER was given to restore and rebuild the city. Politics delayed that order until late 1970. I expect the Second Coming in 2019.
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