October 23: THE 1290 DAYS
And from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days. Daniel 12:11
This period of time is mentioned, not as an afterthought, but for clarity that affirms the unfolding of historical events. The Bible emphasizes that the unhindered reign of the persecuting papal power was one thousand two hundred and sixty days (Revelation 11:3; 12:6). But the abomination of desolation began to be set up thirty years earlier. A little history lesson is necessary here…
The period given in today’s verse goes back to the time that the papacy first began to take away the daily (the word sacrifice is added by translators). Jesus and the New Testament writers emphasized our essential need for the daily infilling of the Holy Spirit.* There were three nations of the divided Roman Empire who did not support the rising papal power. The last of the three was destroyed in 538 A.D. This was the year that papal rule launched its unopposed rampage. But the first of the three went down in 508.
Twelve years prior, on Christmas day in 496, Clovis, king of the Franks, was baptized into the Catholic Church. This marked the beginning of a long alliance between France and Rome. Clovis was the first king to ever embrace the Catholic religion. The Franks were among the roughest and most uncivilized of the western barbarian tribes – and Clovis was enthusiastically welcomed into the “true fold” by the most eminent ecclesiastic of the Burgundian kingdom, Avitus, and was subsequently named “the eldest son of the Church.”
Clovis and his troops launched an aggressive campaign against the Visigoths of Gaul in 507. His pretext for starting this war was: “champion and protector of Catholic Christianity”. Aggressions such as this came on the heels of the slow-motion implosion of the western Roman Imperial phase of Rome, providing the way for the rise of the popes. Clovis killed Alaric II, king of the Visigoths, with his own hand. This was proclaimed “the work of God” by the Roman Church. In the aftermath of the death of Alaric II, the rest of the Visigoths were totally crushed by the Frankish military. By 508 it was widely known that Clovis was a baptized defender of the Catholic Church. He received the honorific title “Most Christian” from the leaders in Rome, along with the insignia of the eastern emperor of the Roman Empire, Anastasius. This intimate alliance between the church and a powerful military became the model for the union of church and state throughout the medieval period.
Thus, the abomination of desolation began to be set up in 508. It substituted confession to a Catholic priest for a personal relationship with Jesus. The third of the three opposing nations was finally plucked out by the roots (Daniel 7:8) in 538. The prophesied 1260 and 1290 years both culminate in 1798, when the deadly wound was inflicted – by none other than France.
One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. Revelation 3:3 (ESV)
*Luke 11:13; John 16:13; Acts 1:8; 5:32; Romans 8:14; 15:13; Galatians 5:16, 22-23; Ephesians 5:18-21, 1 Thessalonians 5:19