Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 79
Gary responds to recent comments by individuals who claim that our modern days are fulfilling Daniel 9.
It’s been said that necessity is the mother of invention. The “gap” that has been placed between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks of Daniel’s prophecy was created because it was needed to make the dispensational hermeneutical model work. Nothing in the text of Daniel 9:24-27 implies a “gap.”
Dispensationalists need to insert a period of time between the feet and the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue (Dan. 2:40-43) and between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week of the prophecy outlined in Daniel 9:24-27 in order to make the dispensational system work. A reading of both passages will show that there are no gaps of time. What we find in dispensational writers is a hermeneutical method whereby the theological system determines what a text should say to support the theological system. Dispensationalists are trapped in an endless loop of circular reasoning.
One dispensational writer, offering no exegetical evidence for the inclusion of a gap between the feet and toes of the colossus of Daniel 2—a gap that indicates a period between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks of Daniel 9:24-27—states, “At some point in this symbolism [of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue] an extended gap in time must be fixed, because by verse 44 the interpretation describes the future day of Christ’s millennial reign, as will be seen.”[1] Again, no such gap is intimated by a reading of the text, or by subsequent New Testament interpretative evidence.
What makes this dispensational writer postpone the kingdom for nearly two thousand years and counting to “the future day of Christ’s millennial kingdom” when the Bible clearly states that it was set up “in the days of those kings” (Dan. 2:44)?[2] There are no exegetical reasons to postpone the kingdom of Daniel 2. No gap is mentioned. The fifth stone-kingdom follows the fourth kingdom of the statue with no interruption in time. The statue comprises four kingdoms, one following another, with God’s kingdom supplanting the kingdoms of men.
Last Days Madness
In this authoritative book, Gary DeMar clears the haze of "end-times" fever, shedding light on the most difficult and studied prophetic passages in the Bible, including Daniel 7:13-14; 9:24-27; Matt. 16:27-28; 24-25; Thess. 2; 2 Peter 3:3-13, and clearly explaining a host of other controversial topics.
Buy NowGary responds to recent comments by individuals who claim that our modern days are fulfilling Daniel 9. Using the Bible (and Daniel 9 itself), Gary shows how this is not possible. So much of what these speculators say is based on assumptions that come from outside the Bible.
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[1] Leon J. Wood, Daniel: A Study Guide Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975), 39-40. Nebuchadnezzar saw one statue depicting four kingdoms.
[2] The dispensationalist wants us to believe that the “kings” of Daniel 2:44 refer to the ten toes, not to the four kings of gold, silver, bronze, and iron. The toes are never referred to as kings or kingdoms.