Pastor Greg Laurie opened his recent message with a confession: puzzles just aren’t his thing. “How many of you like puzzles? Raise your hand if you like puzzles. I am not one of you,” he said with a laugh, adding, “Seems like smart people like puzzles.”
But as he taught from Daniel chapter 9, Laurie made it clear that some puzzles—especially biblical ones—are worth solving. “Before us here in Daniel chapter 9 is a prophetic puzzle… and we don’t want to keep walking here. We want to see what this puzzle is all about.”
Laurie called the prophecy found in Daniel 9 “one of the most mind-blowing prophecies in all of the Bible,” because it contains something astonishing: a timeline that predicts the arrival of the Messiah.
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“The Bible actually predicted the very date that Christ would start his public ministry or when he would arrive on the scene,” Laurie said. “And you know when the Lord revealed this to Daniel? When he was praying.”
The prophecy lays out a timeline that begins “from the going forth of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem” and ends with the Messiah’s appearance. This historical decree was given during the time of Nehemiah, who served as cupbearer to the Persian king.
Laurie explained how this timeline plays out in real terms: “Nehemiah 2:1 says, ‘It came to pass in the month of Nisan…’ From the moment that king gave the decree to rebuild the city, 173,880 days later, Jesus of Nazareth rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling Bible prophecy to a T.”
That exact fulfillment, he said, should give believers great confidence in the reliability of biblical prophecy.
But Laurie didn’t stop there. He took listeners through what he believes is the future prophetic timeline, which includes:
- The Rapture of the Church – “The next event I think on the calendar would be the rapture of the church, where all Christians are caught up to meet the Lord in the air.”
- The Rise of the Antichrist – Following the rapture, “the emergence of the Antichrist” begins the seven-year tribulation.
- The Great Tribulation – A period marked by deception and destruction, culminating in:
- The Battle of Armageddon – This is when Christ returns in His second coming.
“The second coming will happen seven years after the rapture,” Laurie said. “But we don’t know when the rapture is.”
In a football analogy, Laurie explained that after Jesus’ crucifixion, “the prophetic clock suddenly stops.” He likened it to a timeout in a tied game with just minutes left—everything pauses until the final play begins. The resumption of that prophetic clock, he said, is tied to the rise of the Antichrist and the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
Laurie described the Antichrist as “a man of peace… charismatic, brilliant—a satanic superman—but in reality, the devil’s son.” According to the prophecy, the Antichrist will help rebuild the temple and be welcomed by some as the Messiah. But halfway through the seven-year tribulation, he will betray that trust in what Daniel calls the “abomination of desolation.”
“The Antichrist will erect an image in the temple and command everyone to worship,” Laurie said. “This will mark the halfway point of the tribulation. And for the remaining three and a half years, Antichrist will make everyone take his mark and no one can buy or sell without it.”
Despite the dark warnings, Laurie offered a word of encouragement: “When you see these things begin to happen, look up, for your redemption is drawing near.”
The prophetic puzzle may not be one you can solve on a coffee table, but Laurie’s message makes it clear that with Scripture in hand, the picture is already coming together.
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James Lasher is staff writer for Charisma Media.
Without trying to disagree with Pastor Laure, my understanding of the Bible is that there will be two battles of Gog and Magog. The first will occur just prior to the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as spoken of in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. The second battle of Gog and Magog will occur at the end of the world and Christ’s 1,000 year reign (the millennium) spoken of by John the Revelator (Rev. 20:7–10). This subject is covered more thoroghly in chapter 18, “The Millennium,” in the book “Jesus The Messiah: His Final Days and Second Coming,” available through Amazon.
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