Do you know how precise God is? Well, Daniel prophesied exactly when Israel would see its Messiah—to the day. And that date can be calculated. But don't worry; I won't ask you to do any math.

Fortunately, it was done for us in The Coming Prince, which was published in 1881. The author, Sir Robert Anderson, was the head of criminal investigation at Scotland Yard, and a Christian. He was so amazed by the prophecy in Daniel 9 that he found the historical records and did the mathematical computation.

"From the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks" (Daniel 9:25). Scholars agree that a better translation is "seven sevens and sixty-two sevens," and that it refers to years. That comes to 483 years.

The date of that command is known to history: March 14, 445 BC. I won't go into all the details, but Sir Robert Anderson's complicated calculations led from March 14, 445 BC to April 6, AD 32. That day was the tenth of Nisan in the Jewish calendar, a very special day in Judaism. That's the day the people would select the Passover lamb to be killed a few days later.

On that day, Jesus was on the Mount of Olives and told His disciples to bring Him a donkey. It was the day He allowed Himself to be received by the nation as their King, for the first and only time. And they greeted Him with shouts of "Hosanna!"

Yes, God is precise.

With that, hopefully a passage in Luke 19 will make a little more sense to you. "Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation'" (vv. 41-44).

This predicts the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and it sounds like Jesus held them accountable: "You should have known this." Because God tells time with a calendar that centers around the coming and the death of His Son.

Daniel knew from Scripture that the Babylonian captivity was almost over (see Daniel 9:2). The people of Jesus' time could know from the book of Daniel that the coming of the Messiah was near. A few of them did, like Simeon and Anna (see Luke 2:25-38), as well as some of John the Baptist's disciples who later followed Jesus.

Daniel did not have the benefit of the historical fulfillment of prophecy like you and I have. How much more should we understand and anticipate that Jesus Christ is coming to take us away? As He said, "Look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near" (Luke 21:28).

These prophecies are remarkable in their scope and in their precision. But we are dealing with a God who doesn't use hard-to-understand language. He just tells us straight up and in great detail.

History is marching to a destination that He has already determined, and we can rest in His sovereignty. Our lives are safest in the hands of an all-knowing, all-powerful, precise God.