the hindsight of history in the light of the New Testament revelation, we today read our Old Testament very differently from those to whom it was first given. Accordingly we frequently fail to grasp the strategic character of cryptic prophecies and the importance of deliberate omissions in the prophetic time-frame given to Israel; given to focus their expectation on God’s coming Messiah and His kingdom without end.

Consequently, many such as Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc, etc, have foolishly misled God’s people by using these Old Testament prophecies to estimate the time of the return of Christ and have consistently been shown to be deceivers of God’s holy people. To properly understand Biblical prophecy it is therefore important to grasp the following about God's Hidden Time as laid out below.

Others, knowing the incredible inspiration of the Old Testament prophecies about this coming of the Kingdom, have defined this hidden aspect as being simply because the Old Covenant prophetic perspective saw the coming of Messiah like seeing two mountains in the distance in which an intervening valley between (the Church Age) could not be seen, and so the first and second coming of Israel's messiah were blended and seen as one event in history. In other words, Old Testament prophetic perspective was simply deficient, inadequate. This is not so!

New Testament makes it very clear that this Hidden Time, the time between the coming of Christ and His end-time return in glory (the so-called Church Age), was deliberately hidden from all previous generations, including even all angelic beings and so took Satan completely unawares concerning the Atonement event. For that reason Satan entered into Judas Iscariot to get the Christ crucified, mistakenly thinking this would therefore defeat God's plan (Lk.22:3).

The prophet Daniel had given Israel two navigation reference points to know when God’s kingdom would come to them under His Messiah, but which strategically hid the division between Messiah’s first and second coming.

So firstly, the kingdom of God over Israel was to begin under His Messiah by ending the rule of the Roman Empire.

And secondly, the announcement of 490-years gave Israel a detailed count-down to the coming of this kingdom of God.

The truth of this is attested by Christ's grief-filled words when He specially entered Jerusalem upon the unbroken colt of a donkey at the end of His 3½ year ministry among them (in fulfillment of Zechariah's arrival-sign to Israel of their messianic king, 9:9) –

Now with hind-sight and the New Testament's special perspective, we should know that Christ’s 3½ year ministry to Israel completed the first half of its final seven years (in confirming God's covenant) of the 490, but which then failed to continue on to its full completion because of Israel's official rejection of Christ's gospel demonstrated in His crucifixion in that week.

Only later, after the Spirit was given to the people of Christ on the Day of Pentecost, did it begin to be understood that this final seven years had been split by a time previously hidden – completely hidden, even from God's prophet John the Baptist (Matt.3:11-12; 11:2-3).

The prophecy of Daniel is here beautifully vague to cover its double meaning, for in the previous verse it has mentioned the coming of Messiah and also the coming of a ruler whose people would destroy the sanctuary.

The atonement act of God in Christ ended forever the connection between animal blood and sin atonement ('to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity').

But this act, in the middle of the final seven years of the 490 should also have led directly into the remainder of the seven which begins with sacrilege in this sanctuary, just as Jesus foretold in this week of His death at the end of the first half of this seven. It did not happen then for the Hidden Time began!

This present Hidden Time will come to an end in the future and final 3½ years of this 490-years, when the direct presence of the Christ is fulfilled in His Body – completing His ministry at a global level as the ultimate 'Elijah' of God to precipitate Christ's return (See the clue at the end below). For this reason, when His disciples asked for the sign of His return, He described a sacrilege of the sanctuary which begins the ultimate time of trouble (Matt.24:15).

Associated with the historical preparation for this unique Hidden Time are special prophecies that needed to be hidden until after their fulfillment.

There were several significant prophecies regarding Israel's Messiah which were deliberately hidden within the text of Holy Scripture and were only to be understood after the Spirit had been given. There are a number of these concerning Israel's Messiah, but the following two illustrate this special strategy of God in history.

Hidden in this word 'Branch', otherwise completely ignored in the Old Testament, but referred to in the New Testament in Matthew 2:23 – the city of Netzer, Nazareth, the Messiah would be called a Nazarene. The cryptic nature of this prophecy ensured that, when the Christ-child returned from Egypt and a new Herod even more cruel than his father now ruled, Jesus would have an ordinary human upbringing in this small Galilean village without the danger of another 'Bethlehem massacre'.

Two streams of Old Testament prophecy were kept completely separate. These were Messiah, under the title 'Son of God' (which has nothing to do with the deity of Christ), and the totally different detail about a Suffering Servant of God, never brought together so as to ensure that the substitutionary atonement by Messiah Himself would not be understood until after the event. This is why in ignorance Satan chose to enter into Judas Iscariot in order to get the Messiah crucified (Lk.22:3), being completely unaware of this hidden strategy of God's grace..

The following contrasting quotes may help to understand this carefully maintained total separation of the two distinct prophetic themes.

reinforce this distinction/separation between the two themes, the text of Isaiah 49 also personified the nation Israel as God's servant, so the suffering-prophecy was understandably understood as being either Israel or sometimes Isaiah the prophet, but we know now that its fulfillment was ultimately Christ Jesus, which understanding is declared throughout the whole New Testament.

These two themes were brought together for the very first time in the personal words of God the Father to the Lord Jesus Christ (heard by Him alone) after His water baptism under John's ministry in confirmation to Him of His messianic calling.

The first part of this declaration of God to Christ ('My beloved Son') is drawn from the theme of Israel's Messiah as Son of God in Psalm 2:7.

The second part of God's statement ('with you I am well pleased') is drawn from Isaiah's prophecy of the Servant of the Lord in 42:1, thus bringing these two separate prophetic themes together for the first time in history and even then only to the personal understanding of the man Jesus of Nazareth.

This personal understanding, after the Christ of Israel had received the Holy Spirit, only became a factor in the understanding of Christ's people after they also had received the same Spirit of God through Jesus Christ their Lord.

of the Spirit of God will persist throughout this present Hidden Time with the precious people to whom the Spirit was given at Pentecost – to bring to completion in this world that which God began in Jesus Christ. Praise God! And so the Gospel mission will be fully completed in all the world as it was in Jesus.

This is accomplished by God through the application of the following two principles – so as to bring His Church into its end-time completing maturity, as was anticipated for us in Holy Scripture given for our instruction.

the Bible says –

A Biblical Structure of History	Darby's Division of Christ's Return	The Terminal Sequence
The Antichrist	When Will Christ Return?	The Elijah Sign