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Lesson 9

The “People of the Prince”

Daniel 9:26

Introduction

“and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;” Daniel 9:26b.

Again, who is this prince?

• Previously we saw destructive behaviors from the he-goat (Satan) and the little horn (papacy).

• That was aimed against God’s people. [Cast ram to the ground and stamped on him (8:7)]. Cast down some of the host and stars to the ground and stamped upon them (8:10). By him the daily was taken away and place of His sanctuary was cast down (8:11).

• In Daniel 10:13 Satan is called the prince of Persia.”

• It seems like this prince must be Satan – BUT.

We are here told: the followers of “the prince that shall come.”

• The sequence of this verse comes after the death of the Messiah.

• Who, then, is this prince?

• In verse 25 it addresses “Messiah the Prince.”

• In verse 26a it notes “Messiah.”

• Here in verse 26b it is “prince”

• It should be “Prince” – the Messiah.

• This is simply the breakup of a word pair, “Messiah the Prince” that was just noted.

• But you protest – the destruction is like Daniel 8!

• Yes, and that brings up an important point: Everything God does, Satan tries to copy. God’s judgments are against the wicked and apostates. Satan’s are against the pure and holy people.

The “people” of the Prince shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.

• Nebuchadnezzar had literally done that 70 years before when this prophecy was given, when the city and temple were destroyed. Against God’s apostate people, he (the king of Babylon) worked for the “Prince.”

• But here, sequenced after the Messiah, if this “people” is literal, Jerusalem would have to be rebuilt and then be destroyed again!

• That’s exactly what happened.

• Destruction came in 70 A.D., fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy of Matthew 24:2. Titus’ army destroyed the temple and city – he worked for the “Prince.”

• That 3-1/2-year siege occurred within one generation after the Messiah reiterated it (Matthew 24:34).

As with Nebuchadnezzar and his military forces, so with the Roman armies, they became the “people of the Prince” to destroy an apostate people (the city) and their center of worship (sanctuary).

• God had warned them that the end would be desolation.

• “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” Matthew 23:38.

• “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” Matthew 21:43.

“The Son of God Himself was sent to plead with the impenitent city. It was Christ that had brought Israel as a goodly vine out of Egypt. Psalm 80:8. His own hand had cast out the heathen before it. He had planted it ‘in a very fruitful hill.’ His guardian care had hedged it about. His servants had been sent to nurture it. ‘What could have been done more to My vineyard,’ He exclaims, ‘that I have not done in it?’ Isaiah 5:1-4. Though when He looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes, yet with a still yearning hope of fruitfulness He came in person to His vineyard, if haply it might be saved from destruction. He digged about His vine; He pruned and cherished it. He was unwearied in His efforts to save this vine of His own planting.

“For three years the Lord of light and glory had gone in and out among His people. He ‘went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil,’ binding up the brokenhearted, setting at liberty them that were bound, restoring sight to the blind, causing the lame to walk and the deaf to hear, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel to the poor. Acts 10:38; Luke 4:18; Matthew 11:5. To all classes alike was addressed the gracious call: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’ Matthew 11:28.

“Though rewarded with evil for good, and hatred for His love (Psalm 109:5), He had steadfastly pursued His mission of mercy. Never were those repelled that sought His grace. A homeless wanderer, reproach and penury His daily lot, He lived to minister to the needs and lighten the woes of men, to plead with them to accept the gift of life. The waves of mercy, beaten back by those stubborn hearts, returned in a stronger tide of pitying, inexpressible love. But Israel had turned from her best Friend and only Helper. The pleadings of His love had been despised, His counsels spurned, His warnings ridiculed.

“The hour of hope and pardon was fast passing; the cup of God’s long-deferred wrath was almost full. The cloud that had been gathering through ages of apostasy and rebellion, now black with woe, was about to burst upon a guilty people; and He who alone could save them from their impending fate had been slighted, abused, rejected, and was soon to be crucified. When Christ should hang upon the cross of Calvary, Israel’s day as a nation favored and blessed of God would be ended.” – The Great Controversy, pp. 19-20.

• That did not end the 490 years.

• But their probation had ended.

• What happened to 34 A.D.? Stay tuned.

Spiritual Reapplication

Israel as a nation ceased to be a favored people at Calvary (31 A.D.). Their abominations and transgressions were now unpardonable.

• The “people” of the Prince came from the secular world.

• Will this happen at the end of time?

Warning to Spiritual Israel (Christian Church)

The prophetic fulfillment of the destruction of the Jewish nation and their temple is a metaphor to what will occur to the Christian church at the end of time.

• In Revelation “Jerusalem” (formerly God’s people) is now depicted as Babylon (an apostate people).

• That’s why there is a “New Jerusalem.”

• Babylon is destroyed (Revelation 16:19).

• Why?

• She corrupted (“destroyed”) the earth (Jeremiah 51:25).

• God then destroys her (Isaiah 21:9).

• No church will be exempt. Apostasy will be met as of old. Those without the Law and Testimony will become desolate.

• Remember the great prophetic warnings? – Abomination leads to desolation.

Tarrying Time –– Appointed Time –– Probation Closes –– Destruction

(3½ years)

“The Saviour’s prophecy concerning the visitation of judgments upon Jerusalem is to have another fulfillment, of which that terrible desolation was but a faint shadow. In the fate of the chosen city we may behold the doom of a world that has rejected God’s mercy and trampled upon His law. Dark are the records of human misery that earth has witnessed during its long centuries of crime. The heart sickens, and the mind grows faint in contemplation. Terrible have been the results of rejecting the authority of Heaven. But a scene yet darker is presented in the revelations of the future. The records of the past,–the long procession of tumults, conflicts, and revolutions, the ‘battle of the warrior . . . with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood’ (Isaiah 9:5),–what are these, in contrast with the terrors of that day when the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn from the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst of human passion and satanic wrath! The world will then behold, as never before, the results of Satan’s rule.

“But in that day, as in the time of Jerusalem's destruction, God's people will be delivered, everyone that shall be found written among the living. Isaiah 4:3. Christ has declared that He will come the second time to gather His faithful ones to Himself: ‘Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.’ Matthew 24:30, 31.” – The Great Controversy, pp. 36-37.

How does the last day apostate church end?

• That is the study of our next lesson.

• The “people” of the Prince at that time brings desolation and destruction upon itself.

Only a remnant are preserved and triumph at the end.

Who would be that “other nation” to receive His blessings? (Matthew 21:43)

That other nation wouldn’t be defined until the end of the 2300 evening and morning prophecy (Daniel 8:14).

• Then the process of legally choosing and adjudicating people for that kingdom began.

• The result?

• 144,000 “firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb” (Revelation 14:4).

• They are “without fault before the throne of God” (Revelation 14:4-5).

• They meet the Daniel 9:24 requirements.

• They will be “redeemed from the earth” (Revelation 14:3).