http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/may2014/garryb54.htm

Dear Garry, John and Doves -

It hasn't been until recently that I started seeing all these end-times scenarios that are based on the idea that Daniel's final week is already half completed.  A simple reading of the text should dispel this false (and unnecessary) notion.

Daniel is clearly chronological.  Daniel breaks the 70 weeks into three pieces, 7 weeks, sixty-two weeks, and one week.  It is not seven weeks, sixty-two 1/2 weeks and then a half-week.  Messiah was cut off after the sixty-two week piece was completed.  In verse 27 Daniel has no trouble identifying the time sacrifice ends as being "in the middle of the week" and had he intended to communicate that Jesus was cut off in the middle of the week, he would have said so.  However, we read "after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off."  It does NOT say "after sixty-two and a half weeks".

Further, we read in Daniel that after the Messiah is cut off, the city and sanctuary are destroyed.  After the city and sanctuary are destroyed, the covenant is confirmed and the final week begins.  There is no way around it.  Messiah was cut off in about 32 AD and Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD.  The confirmation of the covenant has to take place after 70 AD and there is no reason, nor scriptural evidence, that there is a time delay or gap within the final week.

This is not to say that if the covenant is confirmed on this coming Pentecost that Jesus won't return until 2021 because there is nothing in the prophecy that says Jesus won't return until the final seven years are completed.  Rather, there are solid Scriptural reasons for believing Jesus will return in 2017 and will be here on the planet supervising the restoration of all things.  In other words, the period of strife, testing and judgment we anticipate will not last seven years.  It will most probably last only about half of that.  Review the "agenda items" in Daniel 9:24 and you will see what needs to be completed in the final seven years.  Obviously, these things have not been accomplished, and I think it's equally obvious that if the final week is simply one of disasters, judgment and wrath, by the time the dust settled on the final day of the 7th year those things would still be unfinished.

For us, it's academic.  As I've said, "we've got dinner plans."