Full Cup Principle /
Jubilee Language
page l 1 l 2 l
-1-
The final step in
connecting the Jubilee Calendar with
Revelation 8:2 concerns the operation
of the full cup principle as it
pertains to timing. Notice how this
works. God’s patience with the
nation of Israel ended when Israel
violated seventy Sabbath
years. When this limit was reached,
God swiftly raised up King
Nebuchadnezzar to take His people
into Babylonian exile before another
Sabbath year could be violated!
(Jeremiah 25:7-11) The Bible says
Israel was exiled to Babylon for seventy
years because Israel violated seventy
Sabbath years. (Leviticus
26:31-36; 2 Chronicles 36:21,22)
After the Babylonian exile was over,
God granted Israel a second chance
with respect to time. God granted the
Great Day of Tuesday to Israel using
Jubilee language. He used Jubilee
language so that His people (who
should have understood the Jubilee
Calendar) could easily determine
which decree would start the
countdown to Messiah’s
appearing. The timing of the first
advent of Jesus was not
supposed to be a surprise.
“Know and
understand this: From the issuing of
the decree to restore and rebuild
Jerusalem until the Anointed One, [Messiah]
the ruler, comes, there will be seven
‘sevens,’ and sixty-two
‘sevens’…”
(Daniel 9:25, insertion mine)
Have you ever wondered
why God stated the sixty-nine weeks
in two parts? Why does He say,
“seven weeks” and sixty-two
weeks” when He could have easily
said, “sixty-nine weeks?”
Note: The
Hebrew word shabuwa’ translated
as “weeks” or
“sevens” means “the
cycle of the seven” or commonly
“the week.” Compare Daniel
9:24 with Daniel 10:3. Millions of
people have read the words in Daniel
9:25 without realizing what they
actually say. Perhaps the easiest way
to explain this text is to use
interlaced commentary:
“[Israel] Know
and understand this: [there will
be a total of four decrees to restore
and rebuild Jerusalem, however,] From
the issuing of the decree to restore
and rebuild Jerusalem [that will
occur during the Jubilee year, 457
B.C.] until the Anointed One [Jesus,
Messiah], the ruler, comes [in
A.D. 27], there will be [one
cycle of] seven
‘sevens,’ [a Jubilee
cycle of forty-nine years. In other
words, Israel, watch for the one and
only decree that will be granted
during a Jubilee year] and [after
that Jubilee cycle of forty-nine
years end, count off] sixty-two
‘sevens.’ [That is,
count off sixty-two more weeks of
years – 434 years. Then watch
for Messiah’s appearing. You
will be Messiah baptized by John the
Baptist in the Sunday year of A.D.
27, the first year of His ministry
and the first year of the seventieth
week.]” (Daniel 9:25,
insertions mine)
Think about this. God
could have granted any number of
probationary weeks to Israel. Why did
He deliberately choose seventy weeks?
God could have established any time
frame for the appearing of Messiah.
Why did He select “seven weeks
and sixty-two weeks”? Even more,
God could have used the words
“490” instead of saying
“seventy weeks.” Why did He
choose to say seventy weeks? God
could have started the counting down
the years to the appearing of Messiah
from something highly contemporary
such as the victory of the Romans
over the Grecians in 168 B.C. or He
could have dated the appearing of
Messiah from the destruction of the
temple by Antiochus Epiphanes IV on
Kislev 15, 167 B.C. So, why did God
deliberately describe the countdown
to Messiah with the words “seven
‘seven’ and sixty-two
‘sevens’”?
I keep making this
statement, “With God, timing
is everything,” because the
more you understand about His timing,
the more profound the topic becomes.
I conclude that God set the time and
He chose the descriptive words
“seventy weeks” for two
reasons. First, a week of years
begins with a Sunday year. Second,
seventy weeks makes up one day
in His Grand Week. In other words,
God graciously granted Israel one
more “day” to accomplish
His objectives. (Hebrews 4:8) If God
had said “490 years”
instead of “seventy weeks,”
the Jews would not been able to
figure out which decree to restore
Jerusalem that God used to start His
count. (There were four decrees.) The
language “seventy weeks”
should have been a huge clue because
the first day of the week always
begins on Sunday in God’s
calendar. It is as though God was
shouting to Israel’s
generations, “Watch for the
decree that will be issued to restore
and rebuild Jerusalem in a Sunday
year!” This is precisely
what happened in the Sunday year, 457
B.C. (Ezra 7)
Note: Of the
four decrees issued to rebuild and
restore Jerusalem, only one occurred
in a Sunday year and interestingly,
it was also a Jubilee year. Since
this alignment only occurs every
forty-nine years, Israel had no
excuse for missing the appearing and
the ministry of Jesus. One of the
most remarkable features of the
Jubilee Calendar is that during the
year of Jubilee, the land returned to
its original owners free of charge.
God did no less! He moved upon the
heart of King Artaxerxes and the king
returned the land of Judah to the
Jews free of charge! He even gave
them much wealth to help rebuild.
To be more precise,
God divided the sixty-nine weeks into
two parts of the seven weeks and the
sixty-two weeks because He wanted His
people to know and understand that
the decree to restore and rebuild
Jerusalem would not only occur in a
Sunday year, but it would also occur
in a Jubilee year! Since each Jubilee
cycle is forty-nine years in length,
God used the first seven weeks
(the first forty-nine years) of the
sixty-nine weeks to help Israel
determine which decree was important
to the appearing of Messiah. Every
Jew knew that King Artaxerxes issued
the all-important decree on or about
Nisan 1, 457 B.C., and as you might
expect, 457 B.C., just happens to be
a Jubilee year. Remember, 457 B.C.,
is a Jubilee year because 702 B.C. is
a proven Jubilee year. It is though
God gave Israel every hint possible
about the timing of Messiah’s
appearance and yet; Israel’s
learned scholars – pompous
Pharisees and pious scribes –
did not have a clue when the actual
time arrived.
The arrogance and
ignorance in Israel at the time of
Christ’s birth is no different
than the attitude of Christians
today. This darkness cannot be
measured. There is no darkness
like stubborn religious darkness.
Jewish authorities were speechless
when the wise men showed up in
Jerusalem to worship the newborn
King. The second appearing of Jesus
is imminent. Bible prophecy has never
been clearer and more understandable,
yet many Christians treat the books
of Daniel and Revelation as though
they are full of darkness, gloom, and
doom. But, open your eyes, and you
will see that the darkness is gone!!!
The book of Daniel has been unsealed.
The rules that lead us into
understanding the ways, plans,
character, and love of God are
shining brightly! “But when the
time had fully come, God
sent his Son, born of a woman, born
under the law, to redeem those under
the law, that we might receive the
full rights of sons.”
(Galatians 4:4,5,
italics mine)
Seventy: A Random
or Deliberate Number?
Is the number seventy
important to God or is it just a
random number? I am generally opposed
to numerology because numerology is
based on the notion that numbers have
hidden or obscure meaning. Since
there are no defined rules regarding
numerology, it is a nose of wax as
far as I am concerned. It has taken
some time for me to come to terms
with the fact that certain numbers
might have special meaning to God,
but I have concluded that from
God’s perspective, the number
seven represents completion. There
are seven colors in the rainbow.
There are seven continents and seven
oceans. There are seven days in the
week. Jesus spoke seven times on the
cross. In the book of Revelation,
there are seven angels, seven lamps,
seven churches, seven seals, seven
thunders, seven trumpets, seven
heads, seven hills, seven thousand
people, and seven bowls. Furthermore,
we know that God’s Jubilee
Calendar is based on recurring and
expanding units of seven. If after
reading this paragraph you still
don’t see any significance to
God’s use of seven, you
may want to skip down to the next
section. (I’m smiling as I write
this.)
Unlike God, man uses
many numbering systems. For example,
computers use a binary system of
zeros and ones, but in order to
program them, programmers use
compliers that translate ordinary
words into binary numbers for them.
Perhaps the most common numbering
system that man uses is the one based
on units of ten. (Maybe ten fingers
and ten toes got human beings going
in this direction.) The nice thing
about base ten is that each time a
count is completed, the count
continues expanding or shrinking by
simply moving the decimal point one
place to the left or to the right. It
is interesting to me that God’s
numbering system and man’s
numbering systems have one thing in
common. They express completion at
intervals and in order to continue
counting, expansion becomes
necessary. In God’s case He translates
a day as a year whereas man moves
the position of the decimal.
When God multiplies
His “seven” with man’s
“ten,” we find the limits
of divine forbearance and human
completion. In other words, seventy
indicates that God has gone as far as
He will go and man has gone as far as
God will let him go! Multiplying
seven and ten to determine completion
helps us understand, in part, why God
was moved to action when Israel
violated seventy Sabbath
years. This seems to be the reason
why God put Israel in Babylon for seventy
years. (2 Chronicles 36:21,22)
Again, the idea of completion helps
us understand why God granted seventy
weeks to Israel. I think it is
beyond reasonable argument to say
that God’s use of seven and ten
is random and meaningless. God is
just too deliberate and purposeful.
There are two other
ways that God has used seven and ten.
First, the annual Day of Atonement
fell on the tenth day of the seventh
month. The Day of Atonement was
the most important day in
Israel’s religious year because
God required Israel to stand before
His judgment bar on that day. It was
a somber day and a day of fasting. It
was the annual day of reckoning, and
everyone in Israel was concerned
whether God had accepted their
individual efforts to make atonement.
Remember, the seventh month
indicates that God’s justice has
gone as far as He will go and the
tenth day indicates that man’s
behavior has gone as far as God will
let him go! So, the tenth day of
the seventh month is judgment day!
Second, the great red
dragon in Revelation 12, the
leopard-like beast in Revelation 13,
and the scarlet beast on which the
whore rides in Revelation 17 have seven
heads and ten horns. The
seven heads on the beast represent
the same thing, namely the seven
religious systems of the world. The
ten horns represent ten kings
(political pawns) that the devil
himself will appoint during the sixth
trumpet. When the time comes, the
seven heads and ten horns indicate completion
a world whose leadership is full of
theological and political evil.
You may think this
discussion on the number seventy
amounts to conjecture. If so, they
why does the “Great Week”
and the “Grand Week” each
consist of seventy cycles! The
Great Week consists of seven Great
Days and each Great Day consists of
ten Jubilee cycles (seventy weeks).
Likewise, the Grand Week consists of
seven Great Days and each Grand Day
consists of ten centuries (1,000
years). When we place the seventeen
prophetic time periods found in
Daniel and Revelation in their proper
places according to Rule Four, the
dates and numbers will perfectly
align so that everything neatly folds
into a Grand Week of 7,000 years!
The Bottom Line
I believe there is a
definite connection between the
number “seventy” and 1994,
and there is also a definite
connection between the number
“seventy” and the duration
of sin. We can see from Creation, God
allotted a total of 7,000 years of
sin. I call this time period, the
Grand Week (each day of the week
translates as 1,000 years –
Psalm 90:4, 2 Peter 3:8). This
evidence aligns backward and forward.
From the beginning, God foreknew the
limits of His patience with sin and
He deliberately set the duration of
sin to be seventy (7 x 10) centuries
or 7,000 years! When God’s use
of seventy is further synthesized, I
find that God’s patience with
Jews and Christians ended in 1994. In
other words, for purposes of
proclaiming the gospel, God abandoned
human organizations in 1994. The
144,000 will not be an organized body
of people. Rather, they will be a
group of diverse individuals upon
whom the Holy Spirit rests. Seventy
Jubilee cycles ended in 1994 and
there is no further need to translate
apocalyptic time as a day for a year.
In 1994, God gave the seven angels
the seven trumpets and they are armed
and ready, waiting for the divine
command to harm Earth.
Because the second and
third trumpets involve asteroid
impacts, I do not think it is
coincidental that God gave the whole
world a “prophetic sample”
of the coming events in 1994. You may
recall the implosion of Comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter during
July 1994. That marvelous event was
televised and published worldwide.
Those impact craters on Jupiter for
the past fifteen years have been a
harbinger of coming asteroid impacts
on Earth. The comet, Shoemaker-Levy
9, broke up into a string of
twenty-one chunks as it approached
Jupiter and as these chucks
accelerated into Jupiter’s
gravity, they created the most
powerful explosions ever witnessed by
mankind. In fact, one impact crater
is so large that three planets the
size of Earth can fit in it!
page l 1 l 2 l
-1-
