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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return: 29. The Real Beginning of the Olivet Talk
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 29. The Real Beginning of the Olivet Talk
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The Real Beginning of the Olivet Talk
We turn now to the last vision. [Note: Daniel 10-12.] There is a good deal of detail difficult to get a clear grasp of here. These events when they occur will prove the best explanation of many passages. In the midst of the mass of details, an outstanding feature is the broken "covenant" or "league" referred to in chapter nine, and the setting up of "the abomination that maketh desolate." [Note: Dan_11:31.] After this is a period of sore testing, [Note: Dan_11:32-35.] and a "time of trouble" [Note: Dan_12:1.] unprecedented, which would seem to be the same as the tribulation spoken of in the Olivet Talk. [Note: Compare Mat_24:21-22, and parallels.]
At that time the Jewish people are to be delivered, [Note: Dan_12:1.] and there is to be a resurrection of many, that is, a partial, not a full resurrection. [Note: Dan_12:2.]Tregelles, the well-known English scholar, translates chapter twelve, verse two, as follows: "these (that awake at this time) to eternal life, and those (the others) to shame and everlasting contempt." At the close of the vision, [Note: Dan_12:11, Dan_12:12.] Daniel is being instructed about the meaning of what he is being told. From the time that the "abomination that maketh desolate" is set up, twelve hundred and ninety days will run out, with a further period of forty-five days more. That is to say, some event of a sort opposed to the abomination of desolation will occur at the close of twelve hundred and ninety days, and some further event of a happy sort for the believing waiter, forty-five days later.
The vision in chapter eight speaks of the "transgression that maketh desolate," which would seem to be the same thing, as it is connected with the cessation of the continual offering named in each of the other passages. It likewise gives a period of time to run from this point, namely twenty-three hundred "evenings and mornings." The common-sense way of interpreting this would be twenty-three hundred days. The Hebrews reckoned their day from evening to morning, just as we Westerners reckon it from morning to evening. The word "day" is used many times in Scripture for a period of time longer than twenty-four hours. So that the use of the phrase "evenings and mornings" would seem to make it clear that ordinary days are meant. Twenty-three hundred days would be six years and about four months, a little more or less as the lunar year used then, or the modern, commonly used year of three hundred and sixty-five days, is reckoned. At the close of this time "the sanctuary" is to "be cleansed."
Three of the four passages give a portion of time. In all of them the central thing, or starting point for this portion of time named, is the stopping of the daily sacrifice and the setting up of the abomination of desolation. From this starting point they reach out to four separate events; three years and a half will end the time of the broken covenant. [Note: Dan_9:27.] At the end of three years and seven months some glad event would happen, another at the expiration of forty-five days more, and still another, the final one, "the cleansing of the sanctuary," about two years and a half later. [Note: Dan_12:11-12; Dan_8:14.]
Some time in the future the Jewish nation will be re-constituted through a seven-year arrangement with some great world leader, and will rebuild the temple and commence again the daily sacrifices. That leader will treacherously break the covenant, stop the daily sacrifices, and set up some blasphemous, God-defying thing, or person, in the place of worship in the temple. Then will ensue a time of terrible trouble unprecedented, and unparalleled, even for the Jews. This will continue for apparently three years and a half. Then will come a time of judgment, [Note: Dan_9:27, Dan_9:1.] c.] the Jewish people will be delivered, a partial resurrection of the dead will occur, and a cleansing of the polluted temple. Then, recalling the first sentence in Gabriel's answer, [Note: Dan_9:24.] will come the anointing of the most Holy One. Such is a brief summary of Daniel. It will be seen at once how this fits into our Lord's Olivet Talk.
It is of great interest to notice the persons who explain these visions, and the effect upon Daniel of what he saw and heard. In the first, [Note: Dan_7:16.] Daniel asks "one of them that stood near," and he gives the explanation of the vision. And what he has been hearing has the effect of troubling or grieving him, as if the sense of awe over the terrible things coming, cast a spell over his spirit. [Note: Dan_7:28.] In the second and third, the angel Gabriel explains. His presence overawes greatly Daniel, who must be strengthened before he can listen to the explanation.
In the fourth there is a step farther on and up. [Note: Daniel 10.] There is at the beginning a vision of some glorious being whose presence completely overwhelms Daniel. The description of this person tallies so fully and exactly with the description of the glorified Lord Jesus in the opening of Revelation as to make the conclusion irresistible that it is He, who afterwards laid aside His glory and walked among us as a man, who is here talking with Daniel. With greatest tenderness He speaks to Daniel and strengthens him, and then speaks of these things.
This is of intensest interest. It would seem to be the same person talking here as was sitting on Olivet with the little group of four. On Olivet He is referring them back to His own words in Daniel's prophecy. We shall find Him once again talking, yet more fully, of these things before we get through. This is what our Lord wants us to understand. The Olivet Talk is a continuation of the Daniel talk. Both are on the same absorbing theme.