SERMON: “490 Years for Israel, Part 3: The Desolate Prince” (Dan. 9:27)
“490 Years for Israel, Part 3:
The Desolate Prince” (Dan. 9:27)
Series: “Daniel:
God’s Sovereign Plans” #25 Text: Daniel
9:27
By: Shaun
Marksbury Date: April 19, 2026
Venue: Living Water Baptist Church Occasion: PM Service
Introduction
Sometimes, people enjoy skipping ahead a bit in a book to
see where it’s all going. Yet, that’s
not always helpful, as there may be too much detail in closing chapters to fully
grasp what’s happening. To skip ahead in
the Bible and understand the Book of Revelation requires that you know what God
revealed beforehand in several places, such as this one.
Ironically, when studying the seventy week prophecy of
Daniel, most of us want to skip to v. 27, the end and most pertinent part for
understanding Revelation, and see what’s happening there.
However, it’s taken us three Sundays to complete this
important prophecy (four, if we include studying the prayer Daniel prayed for
his people). Through our study, we saw
that these weeks are weeks of years, indicating 490 years of history. In the first part, we saw that this message was
God’s answer to Daniel’s prayer, delivered through Gabriel, and that it was
specifically given for the Jewish people for God’s redemptive purposes. In the second part, we looked at sixty-nine
of the seventy weeks, covering 483 of the 490-history prophesied for Israel. Now, we focus in on those final seven years,
closing out the prophecy.
It’s here that we come to the see the second most impressive
figure of the prophecy. The Messiah came,
but this other figure is the prince who is to come (v. 26), and we’ll see that
he sets himself up in opposition to the Messiah, replacing the Messiah with himself
in Jewish history. In Greek, Messiah is chirstos
or Christ, and that would make this figure the Antichrist.
So, this evening, as we close out this prophecy about Israel,
we consider the activity of the Antichrist in four ways. First, the Antichrist will affirm peace (v.
27a). Second, the Antichrist will attack
the Jewish faith (v. 27b). Third, the Antichrist
will abominate God (v. 27c). Fourth, the
Antichrist will be ashamed (v. 27d). Let’s
consider this prince who makes desolate by first considering his false offer of
peace.
First, the Antichrist Will Affirm Peace (v. 27a)
And he will make a
firm covenant with the many for one week,
Of course, the pronoun here is one of the most debated parts
of the text. Does it refer to the
Messiah in v. 26, and if not, then to whom does it refer? In cases like this, we look for what’s known
as the nearest antecedent, and that would be “the prince who is to come,” not
the Messiah. Even if we ignore the
grammar here, the activity of this verse does not match that of the Messiah.[1]
Who is this prince?
Remember that this prince is the final head of the fourth empire Daniel
has already described in chapters 2 and
7. He’s the “little horn” who rises from
the revived Roman sphere in the last days. This is the movement of the book, and the
greater context of Scripture (paralleling this immediate content) helps us to
identify him as the Antichrist.
The term “antichrist” refers to anything that is in direct
opposition to Christ. For instance, 1
John 2:22 says, “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the
Christ? This is the antichrist, the one
who denies the Father and the Son.” The
spirit of antichrist denies Jesus came from God (4:3) and that Jesus came in
the flesh (2 John 7). The spirit of
antichrist is already present in the world, but there is coming a figure known
as the Antichrist (1 John 2:18). The Antichrist
will be the culmination of the spirit of the age, the will of the fourth
kingdom, and the desire to lead (if possible) even the elect astray (Matt.
24:24).
In seeking to engage in a campaign of deception, he will
begin with propaganda, not violence. He
will want to woo in the nations. He will
be that little horn that grows up to be dominant, but with false promises at
first. He’ll mimic the true Prince of
Peace with his own peace, riding in on a white horse as it were (Rev. 6:2),
taking power on earth through peace first and then force.
Part of this will be striking of the covenant. The verb here for making the covenant is
forceful. It’s a coercive word, imposed
by superior power.[2] It can also mean to make strong.[3] This binding treaty the Antichrist confirms
or causes to prevail with his power will bring about some peace.
The object of this covenant is “the many.” In context, “the many” refers to Daniel’s
people — the nation of Israel.[4] Perhaps Israel has lost “any support she may
have had previously.”[5] Israel
will accept his authority. He will be essentially
be a prince of peace for the people.
This covenant lasts “for one week.” This is the missing seventieth week of the
prophecy, a literal seven-year period. As
one commentator notes, “The events of the last seven will begin with a
covenant.”[6] This tells us that the seven years of the tribulation
doesn’t start with the church, for this is the time of “Jacob’s distress” (Jer.
30:7).
Remember the structure we’ve studied. The sixty-nine weeks (483 years) ended with
the Messiah’s triumphal entry and His subsequent being “cut off” or sacrificed.
Verse 26 says the people of the desolate
prince will destroy the temple after this. Between verses 26 and 27 lies that prophetic
parenthesis, the gap of undetermined length during which Jerusalem and the
temple are destroyed in A.D. 70 and Israel is scattered for nearly two thousand
years. This gap is the present age of
the church, a mystery hidden in the Old Testament but revealed in the New (Eph.
3:1–13).
God’s prophetic clock for Israel paused, but it has not
stopped. Israel’s reestablishment as a
nation in 1948 signals that the seventieth week may soon begin, as does the
rise of antisemitism in the world. If
certain forces in American politics convince US presidents going forward to
withdraw foreign support of Israel, it could leave the nation vulnerable, needing
someone else to step in with a peace treaty.
The Antichrist will pose as the world’s peacemaker. He’ll offer Israel security, and for the
first three-and-a-half years, Israel may even breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps even the rest of the world will see
him as doing something no one else could — imposing peace in the Middle
East. However, this peace is the calm
before the storm, a storm which breaks exactly at the midpoint of the week.
That brings us to the next point:
Second, the Antichrist Will Attack the Jewish Faith
(v. 27b)
but in the middle
of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering;
The Antichrist will not be helping the Jews out of love for
them and their religion! He might get some
kind of economic renumeration from Israel for the peace treaty,[7] but
the appearance of capability will be his true reward for the covenant. Around the midway point of the treaty, though,
the Antichrist will break his word and turn on the Jewish people.
When exactly will this be?
When we factor in other passages, we can see that the term “middle” here
is a very exact term. This will be three-and-a-half
years — that is 1,260 days, forty-two months, or “a time, times, and half a
time” in the language of Daniel 7:25 and Revelation 12:14. This will be the point at which our Lord
predicts there will be “Great Tribulation” (Matt. 24:21) as God’s wrath upon
the earth intensifies.[8] This will start with the Antichrist breaking
his own covenant.
The text here notes he will “put a stop to sacrifice and
grain offering,” a technical expression for the entire Levitical system of
worship.[9] Since we are talking about the future, this
means that it is very likely that the Jewish temple will be reconstructed. Perhaps the peace plan allowed for its
reconstruction, something no one since 1948 has been able to achieve. If so, this will not be the temple of Christ
but of Antichrist, and as such, it appears that he decides to use it for
another reason.
This is something similar to what Antiochus IV did (cf. the
apocryphal 1 Mac. 1:41–50). In this
case, this “man of sin” and “son of perdition” (2 Thes. 2:3) will be
responsible for the very existence of the temple. He will be just as proud and boastful, but he
will have something that the world will see is cause for boasting in Jerusalem.
The moment the “abomination of desolation” Jesus warned
about in Matthew 24:15 becomes reality. Yet,
even this horror is part of God’s sovereign plan, as this prophecy reveals. The same God who decreed the first sixty-nine
weeks has decreed this final week so that sin will be finished, transgression
ended, and everlasting righteousness brought in (v. 24). It’s on that point that we get to the final
point:
Third, the Antichrist Will Abominate God (v. 27c)
and on the wing of
abominations will come one who makes desolate,
The expression “wing of abominations” might picture
something spreading out like a bird of prey ready to swoop upon its victim. This overspreading will overwhelm the land of
Israel with abominations, those idolatrous, filthy, loathsome practices that
God’s people should despise.[10]
The prince who shall come is “one who
makes desolate” with his abominations.
Of course, the central abomination will be in the wing of
the temple, where worship ostensibly for the true God of heaven will occur.[11]
Remember that the Antichrist’s goal was
not to provide a place for Jewish worship but to control all religion and have
it directed at himself. As one commentary
notes, “After three and a half years, the Antichrist will break the covenant,
seize the temple, and put his own image there, and will force the world to
worship him (2 Thes. 2; Rev. 13).”[12] Another commentary explains, “To receive such
worship, he will terminate all organized religions. Posing as the world’s rightful king and god
and as Israel’s prince of peace, he will then turn against Israel and become
her destroyer and defiler.”[13] He does so to bolster his own claims of being
a god.
He demands exclusive worship. As 2 Thessalonians 2:4 declares, he “takes his
seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” He will terminate all organized religion that
does not center on himself and force the world to worship his image (Rev. 13:8,
14–15). What began as a political treaty
becomes a religious tyranny.
This is the abomination of desolation Daniel mentions again
in 11:31 and 12:11. Antiochus IV gave a
preview when he set up an altar to Zeus in the temple, but Jesus pointed to a
still-future fulfillment (Matt. 24:15).[14] The Antichrist will not merely stop
sacrifices; he will defile the holy place, likely by erecting an image of
himself and demanding worship. He will
stand in the temple and proclaim himself God. This is the ultimate blasphemy — the desolator
desolating God Himself through a temple he himself constructed.
Yet even here God remains sovereign. This desolator doesn’t act outside the bounds
of God’s decrees. With that, we come to
the final point:
Fourth, the Antichrist Will Be Ashamed (v. 27d)
even until a
complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes
desolate.
Daniel must have been concerned about this final figure, as will
the Jews living in those final days. The
final clause brings hope, though! The
Antichrist’s reign of terror isn’t endless. It lasts only until the
end that God has decreed.
The prophecy predicts that this judgment will be poured out
like a flood. Satan, the great serpent,
will release a flood in an attempt to take Israel in those days (Rev. 12:15). However, we see that the Lord has a judgment of
desolation poured out upon the Antichrist.
The irony of God will be at work!
This decreed destruction points to the Second Advent. When Jesus returns, He’ll defeat the
Antichrist and the false prophet and cast them alive into the lake of fire
(Rev. 19:20; cf. Dan. 7:11, 26). The
little horn of Daniel 7, the beast of Revelation 13, and the man of sin of 2
Thessalonians 2 all describe the same individual whose career ends at the
glorious appearing of our Lord. The one
who sought to replace the Messiah will be crushed by the Messiah he opposed.
The stone not cut out with hands will grind the kingdom of
man into dust (Dan. 2:34, 45).
Conclusion
Daniel’s seventy weeks remain one of the Bible’s greatest
prophecies. They predict the coming,
cutting off, and return of the Messiah. They
foretell an evil ruler who will persecute God’s people, yet whose doom is
already written. They place the victory
of Christ over all.
We live today in the parenthesis[15] — the church age — when
Israel has been partially blinded (Rom. 9–11). Some of the prophecy has been fulfilled, but
we are still waiting to see when the seventieth week will come.[16] Like
the Apostle Paul, we must have a heart for the Jewish people, pray for them,
and share the gospel with them. Gentile
believers owe Israel a debt (Rom. 15:24–27), for through them we received the
Scriptures and the Savior. And we should
share the gospel message with those who don’t know the Messiah.
[1] “This covenant could not have been made or confirmed
by Christ at His First Advent, as amillenarians teach, because: (a) His
ministry did not last seven years, (b) His death did not stop sacrifices and
offerings, (c) He did not set up ‘the abomination that causes desolation’
(Matt. 24:15). Amillenarians suggest
that Christ confirmed (in the sense of fulfilling) the Abrahamic Covenant but
the Gospels give no indication He did that in His First Advent.” J. Dwight Pentecost, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures,
1985, 1, 1365.
[2] Dale Ralph Davis, The
Message of Daniel: His Kingdom Cannot Fail, eds. Alec Motyer and Derek
Tidball, The Bible Speaks Today, (Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press,
2013), 137.
[3] Stephen R. Miller, Daniel,
The New American Commentary, (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers,
1994), 18:270–271.
[4] Ibid., 18:271.
[5] Pentecost, 1364–1365.
[6] Miller, 18:270.
[7] Miller, 18:271.
[8] John MacArthur Jr., Ed., The MacArthur Study Bible, electronic ed., (Nashville, TN: Word
Pub., 1997), 1244.
[9] Pentecost, 1365.
[10] Miller, 18:272–273.
[11] Ibid., 18:272.
[12] Warren W. Wiersbe, Be
Resolute, “Be” Commentary Series, (Colorado Springs, CO: Victor, 2000),
116–117.
[13] Pentecost.
[14] Earl D. Radmacher, Ronald Barclay Allen, and H. Wayne
House, The Nelson Study Bible: New King
James Version, (Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers, 1997), Da 9:27.
[15] Wiersbe, 117.
[16] Ibid., 117–118.