Mark Biltz gave this topic three pages in one of his books....but to me it deserves more....for in my four decades of evangelicalism....I don't think that I ever heard of this possible scenario. The setting is Jerusalem....on Passover. There might be two million people in Jerusalem....as it is one of the three feasts that Jews were required to attend. It was Nisan 14....Passover....and the first day of the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread. Each day....three times a day....at nine and at noon and at three in the afternoon....the people would almost in unison sing from what is known as the....Hallel....Psalms 113 to 118.
Now picture this....as Jesus is being nailed to a cross...with upwards of two million people attending the feast....He may very well have heard these words from inside the walls being sung...."God is the LORD. which hath shewed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar." (Psalm 118:7)
Every movement of the cosmos is according to plan....every crack in the earth's crust....or burst of wind! The same God that had Jesus on the cross as the people in Jerusalem sang the Hillel....is the same God that uses familiar numbers all the time....forty years or forty days so often....or four-hundred years....or seventy years....or seven years....and the same God that has us here at almost exactly six-thousand years of creation....and the same God that told Jeremiah that the captivity in Babylon would last seventy years....and told Daniel that sixty-nine weeks into the seventy week prophecy....from the decree to leave Babylon would lead to Messiah the Prince being...."cut off!"
John MacArthur once said of 1948....and the beginning of the state of Israel....that God had put the world on notice....the last of the last days had begun! How many years exactly we would not know....but we would know that as sure as Jesus came in His first incarnation....right on time....just as His Word had said....that He will in like manner return....right on schedule....as we are right now seeing more clearly all the time!
Note: Title....Hebrews 13:8
