20150907 Daniel Part3
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ROUTE 66 Destination: Daniel 7-12 Well, tonight, guys, we’re going to finish our drive through the book of Daniel. And we’re going to pick up in Daniel 7. And our drive through the book of Daniel is taking us a week longer than I had originally thought. So what we’re not going to do is what we do almost every week regularly, and that’s to review last week’s content. I would encourage you to please get and use the resources that are on line metrocalvary.org or from Metro Calvary Church App for your smart phone or your tablet. But I’ll say this - It is necessary for me to preface tonight with this; because it’s particularly important to the remaining content of the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel, as we’ve said each night as we’ve started to walk through it, it has a tremendous insight into the life of Daniel. But it’s not about Daniel. It’s all about God and in particularly – how God is sovereign, how God rules over the kingdoms of this world, how God’s plan and God’s kingdom trumps and triumphs over the plans and the kingdoms of this world that’s organizing itself without God and against God. So let’s bow our heads and our hearts before the Lord in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this amazing book. And, Lord, we don’t, for a moment, regret the tempo, the pace, the speed at which we’ve been having to drive through it, because, Lord, we could spend a year in this book and not exhaust it. Thank you, Lord, for how you have seen fit to have us pull over to the side and look at certain things, certain landmarks in the book to this point. And tonight we would ask that you would in a beautiful, in a personal, in a life-changing way shine into each of our hearts the light of the knowledge of your glory in the face of your Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus. And, Lord, would you do it in such a way that if there are any here who don’t know you, no Page 1 of 31
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matter how many times they’ve come, that tonight they’d meet you. And, Lord, for those who know you, no matter how long they’ve known you, or how little they’ve known you, or how near to you or far from you or anywhere in between they might be, that, Lord, tonight they would find the work of your Holy Spirit drawing them nearer to you. Leave us more in awe of you more than ever before. Let us stand in awe of your Word, its truth. And, Lord, may we be transformed tonight by the renewing of our minds. And, Lord, for all of that, Lord, I’m desperate that you’d overlook my inadequacies as a man and as a teacher. It is truly every desire of every heart tonight that tonight your Word would go forth in the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of power, exalting Jesus in all of hearts, and by way of our lives exalting Jesus in a world that’s so desperate to know Him. And it’s in His wonderful name we pray, amen, amen. Daniel 7- it begins the 2nd division of the book. Chapters 7 through 12 describe four visions that Daniel had, okay? 7 through 12 – four visions He had two of those visions in the period of the Babylonian reign. And he had two of those visions in the period of the Medo-Persian reign. The visions in Daniel 7 and 8 took place somewhere in the timeline of chapters 4 and 5. And here’s a time stamp for the vision of Daniel 7 – it’s in the first verse of chapter 7. It says - “1 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed.” So we understand the timestamp here – Nebuchadnezzar is gone - the guy who had the dream in chapter 2 of that massive image – we’re going to allude to that tonight – Nebuchadnezzar is gone. Belshazzar – he’s the handwriting on the wall guy of chapter 5 - Belshazzar is ruling as co-regent with a guy named Nabonidus. So Babylon now is only a few years from falling to the Medo-Persian Empire, Page 2 of 31
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when Daniel has these first two dreams. As we read through these visions you need to understand it’s hard to be dogmatic about them. Now some of you are here more recently than others. And you’ve heard me use this illustration. As Christians, in the Word of God, concerning our faith – there are closed hand issues; and there are open hand issues, right? The closed handed issues are the non-negotiable(s). They are things that are essential for salvation. They are the truths that we must hold fast concerning God and the way of salvation – absolutely non-negotiable! There are parts of the Bible that they are open handed issues. An illustration would be – Do you believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are in operation today in the church? There are those people who come under the category of Cessasionists. They believe those gifts ceased when the death of the last apostle occurred. And there are other people who would be called Charismatic. And they believe that these ‘charisma’, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, are still active and in operation today. Now are either of those positions essential for salvation? No! As a church, the leadership within this church, we definitely believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are still in operation today. If you’re interested to understand our stance on that, or basis for that, we did a series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, called, ‘Life in the Spirit’. Feel free to reference them. That being said, how you interpret these visions – and there are numerous ways that they’ve been interpreted – in a lot of ways they’re open handed. And we don’t want to say that unless you take this particular view of this particular vision then you really can’t be a Christian. And there are people who can take that position. Guys, generations of
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the church have studied these things and differed on them; and some have even erred concerning them. Now here’s some pretty certain stuff. Without a doubt the vision of Daniel 7 parallels the vision of Daniel 2. Daniel 2 shows the succession of four Gentile powers that will be followed by the establishment of God’s final kingdom. In his book titled, ‘Against the Flow’, John Lennox referenced a guy named David Gooding. He was writing in 1981. He referenced Gooding’s summary of the main similarities and contrasts. And here they are. Daniel 2
Daniel 7
We have the story of the whole course of We have the story of the whole Gentile Imperial Power. course of Gentile Imperial Power. So same themes in both of them We have four empires in the form of a man. We have four empires in the form of Remember that giant image of a man, okay? wild beasts. The Fatal Weakness:
The Hideous Strength:
An incoherent mixture of iron and clay in the A frightening mixture of feet destructiveness with intelligence
animal human
And lastly The whole man, that image, destroyed by a The final beast is destroyed; and the stone not cut by human hands; and the universal eternal dominion given to universal Messianic kingdom is established the Son of Man Now tremendous parallels – a lot of things in common. a mixture of images, both saying the same things. Some say that the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in –
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chapter 2 is man’s perspective of the kingdoms of this world, while chapter 7 is God’s view of the same thing. Both visions concentrate in a very specific way on the fourth empire and its eventual destruction. That’s strongly in common between – the vision of Daniel 2, the vision of Daniel 7. As conservative expositors look at this chapter, the vision of Daniel provides the most comprehensive and detailed prophecy of future events in the whole of the Old Testament. And, again, there are numerous interpretations of Daniel 7. And though they differ on the details, conservative scholars agree that Daniel 7 traces the course of four great world empires – and you want to write these down – 1. Babylon, 2. Medo-Persia, 3. Greece, 4. and Rome. So they agree that Daniel 7 traces the course of these great empires – 1. Babylon, 2. Medo-Persia, 3. Greece, 4. and Rome, 5. concluding with the climax of world history in the second coming of Jesus Christ and the inauguration of His eternal kingdom of God, which is represented in the vision as the fifth and final kingdom that comes from heaven. Now there’s a guy by the name of Carl Friedrich Keil. And maybe you’ve heard of the set of commentaries on the Old Testament by two German guys, Keil and Delitzsch. He’s the Keil of Keil and Delitzsch, very famous scholars in Old Testament language. Page 5 of 31
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And he wrote a commentary on the book of Daniel, this Carl Keil. And he said this – he says“The commonly accepted view in the church (referencing the early church) was that these four kingdoms were Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.” “But,” he says, “when faith in the supernatural origin and character of biblical prophecy was shaken in later centuries the authenticity of the book of Daniel was rejected and the identity of the fourth kingdom as the Roman world-monarchy was denied.” So it’s really important to see that there are certain historical views that the church has had concerning the vision of Daniel 7. And over time, as the church began to turn away from the supernatural character and origin of Biblical prophecy, they began to question the authenticity of Daniel, and especially the prophetic nature of these dreams as being yet future things at the time Daniel was writing. But again, guys, this is really important, the ultimate authority, Jesus, He settles the matter of the predictive nature of Daniel’s prophecies. Jesus settles it. Write this in the margins of your Bible there - Matthew 24:15 - Jesus references the abomination of desolation predicted in Daniel 9:27 and Daniel 12:11 as an event that had not yet happened in his day.
He says, “When you see the abomination of desolation,
spoken of by Daniel the prophet…” – And he’s referencing Daniel 9:27. He’s referencing Daniel 12:1. They hadn’t happened yet in His day. So Jesus embraces the fact that Daniel, writing before Christ, was talking about things yet future in the time of Christ. Daniel 9:26 announces that the Messiah will be cut off and the city of Jerusalem destroyed. We’ll see that in a little bit tonight. These events occurred during the time of the Roman Empire ruling in the world.
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The Jewish historian, Josephus – he believed that Daniel predicted – the rise of Rome, and the Romans destroying Jerusalem. Here’s what Josephus said – he said - “in the same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them.” So here you have a guy who was a contemporary of Jesus, writing, saying Daniel was talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by the Romans. Now by inspiration of the Holy Spirit Daniel makes a point to establish the time of his visions to proactively argue their divine origin and the predictive nature of those visions. For example – The opening verse of Daniel 7 dates the vision, right, approximately 553 B.C. The vision of chapter 8 is dated in Belshazzar’s third year. In the opening verses of chapter 9 Daniel tells us that he discovered the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the seventy years of captivity that were ticking down as Daniel was in captivity in Babylon. He discovered that prophecy in the first year of Darius the Mede. And later in the same chapter he had a third vision. In the opening verse of chapter 10 Daniel tells us that his fourth vision (chapters 10–12) occurred in the third year of King Cyrus. So let’s dive into the prophecies. Daniel 7 In this vision Daniel saw “the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea” (that’s in 7:2) And then he saw four beasts came up out of the sea.
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And in verse 4 he tells us that the first beast was compared to a lion having the wings of an eagle. And the wings were torn off. And the heart of a man was given to this lion. Then Daniel saw a second beast that he described “like a bear”. It looked like a bear It was raised up on one of its sides. It had three ribs in its mouth, between its teeth. And it was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’ (in verse 5). Then he saw a third beast – and that resembled a leopard with four wings, like a bird would have, and four heads. And this beast, we’re told in verse 6, “was given authority to rule”. And then he saw a fourth beast. And as we’re going to see tonight, for Daniel this was – the most important, the most intriguing, and the most frightening, the one that puzzled him the most, the one that he most wanted to understand. And this animal - it had large iron teeth; and it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was around it. And this beast had ten horns. But as Daniel’s looking at this vision of this beast with ten horns, he saw an eleventh horn. Look at verse – “8 a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn (this little horn) were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.” Now as Daniel watched the vision shifted – it shifted away from the character, the behavior, the succession of the kingdoms of man; and he found himself looking into another world; he found himself looking into the throne room of the universe. In Daniel 9 it says that Daniel saw one described as “the Ancient of Days”. And he sees the Ancient of Days taking his place on a throne that looked like a blazing fire. Page 8 of 31
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So by inspiration of the Holy Spirit Daniel describes for us the absolute holiness of God. In the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews we’re told in Hebrews 12: “29 our God is a consuming fire.” And I think this is so important for the church today, guys. I think the book of Daniel is so very important just for what we learn in chapter 7 about the absolute holiness of God, because I think holiness and the holiness of God is, to a great degree, lost in modern church culture. We don’t have this sense of the utter absolute holiness of God. So the Ancient of Days sits on his throne before a crowd that is staggering in number. A thousand thousands served him. You do the multiplication on that one (1 million); ten thousand times ten thousand (100 million) A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court sat in judgment. And the books were opened. It was an overwhelming sight for Daniel - a vision of the supreme court of the universe – God sitting as Judge. Now as the books were opened, the court’s about to be in session, Daniel’s attention was drawn to this fearsome fourth beast by the sounds of the great words of the little horn. And we don’t want to miss this – this is incredible! In the very presence of God, in the very presence of the final Judge, the absolute Judge of the universe, the little horn was insisting on being heard. And here’s what’s awesome - No details of the subsequent trial, the trial that would come, are given. The sentence is carried out. The beast killed. Its body is destroyed by fire. And then there’s a pause, a pause before Daniel resumes the description of his vision. In verse 13 he says – “13 I saw in the night visions.” It’s like – pause… And then what follows is crucial to the whole – let me stress this – It’s crucial to the entirety of Biblical revelation: The climax of the vision is in verses 13 and 14 — “13 behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and Page 9 of 31
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languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” Guys, this is one of the most important passages in the entire Bible. It not only references – the ultimate outcome of our rescue, the trajectory of our rescue; But it’s the very passage that Jesus referred to the night before he would die for our sins when he was at the house of the high priest; and the high priest challenged him and asked him, “Are you the Messiah?” (in Mark 14). And Jesus referenced those very words. And when he did that the high priest rent his clothes. He says, “What else do we need to hear from this guy? He understood what Jesus was saying. He understood that Jesus was equating himself with – that Son of Man, the son of man of Daniel 7. And for that they said, “You have to die for that.” So let’s quickly identify the empires represented by these beasts And then we’re going to zero in on the importance and the relevance of this vision in Daniel 7. The first kingdom with characteristics of a lion and an eagle represented Babylon. There is tremendous archaeological evidence for the lion representing Babylon. The Ishtar Gate is filled with emblems, gold emblems, embossments of a lion. The same imagery is found in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah (in 4:7; 50:17). And he describes Babylon – and Nebuchadnezzar in particular - as an eagle (48:40; 49: 22). Ezekiel does the same – refers to Nebuchadnezzar as an eagle.
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The second beast represents the Medo-Persian Empire. And that’s the empire that conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. We have it given to us in Daniel 5, the very evening they were conquered. And like a bear, the Medo-Persian Empire had great power. But it didn’t have the kingdom characteristics of Babylon. It was – much rougher, much courser, much less civilized, if you would, in many ways The third beast represents Greece and the rapid conquests of Alexander the Great. When Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 B.C., his empire was divided among his four generals. And, of course, that would represented by – the four heads, the four wings. 1. One was Lysimachus – and he ruled in Asia Minor and Thrace – particularly we would refer to that region as the Balkans today. 2. Cassander - ruled Macedonia and Greece. 3. Seleucus - ruled Syria, Babylonia, and land to the east. 4. Ptolemy - ruled Egypt, and what is today know as Palestine as well as Arabia. The fourth kingdom wasn’t described in terms of any particular beast. It’s just described as different from the others - ten horns, the little horn growing up between them, displacing three of the original ten. Daniel looked more closely. This little horn had human eyes, and a mouth speaking great things. Now Daniel admits – and this is so important – sometimes we think that Daniel was given this incredible ability to process dreams, like he had an algorithm; and he could interpret dreams because he had this divinely planted algorithm, and information, and symbolic references that he did - Now Daniel’s confused by the vision, right? And an angelic being comes and interprets it.
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“15 …. and the visions of my head alarmed me. 16 I approached one of those who stood there and asked him the truth concerning all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things. 17 ‘These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. 18 But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever.’” Daniel was particularly concerned about the meaning of the fourth beast. Look at verse – “19 Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying... 20 and about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions. 21 And as I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, 22 until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.” So what we have with this fourth beast moving out is a description of the anti-Christ in the book of Revelation, making war on the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, speaking blasphemous things, making war on the Jews. Daniel was told that the final kingdom (described by the fourth beast) will “devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it” (in verse 23). And that’s what set apart the fourth kingdom from any other. Daniel was told that the ten horns represented ten kings (verse 24). The little horn represented “another king” (we’re told in verse 24), that’s different from the other ten horns. Now – side note – it’s an important one; it’s not a small one Don’t confuse this little horn of chapter 7 with the little horn of chapter 8, okay? There’s a little horn in chapter 7. There’s a little horn in chapter 8. Page 12 of 31
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The little horn of chapter 7 arises from the fourth empire. The little horn of chapter 8 arises out Greece out of the third empire. And that little horn, the little horn in chapter 8, found its fulfillment in the person of guy named Antiochus Epiphanes. And without a doubt that Antiochus - he foreshadows this little horn of chapter 7, which finds its fulfillment in the person of the anti-Christ. So the little horn of Daniel 7 will not only be a world ruler; but he’ll eventually conquer the whole earth (in verse 23). But here’s the deal – He’s going to speak against God. And he’s going to make war on the Jews (verse 25). And he’s going to attempt to change long-accepted laws (verse 25). This last world governing empire, the fourth one, represented by this fourth beast, is going to be crushed, crushed at the 2nd coming of Jesus. And upon the 2nd coming of Jesus the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom. So there’s the interpretation of those beasts, if you would. That’s my take on them, and the take of a whole lot of guys who have a whole lot more Biblical knowledge than myself. They seem to fit most with what we see in the Scriptures, what we see in history from my perspective. And, again, if you don’t agree with them, it’s not like we’re going to say, “Hey, don’t ever come back.” It’s okay. You can differ on them. Just don’t make your difference a matter of division, because then that becomes a problem. When you take something that’s open handed; and you start to divide people over it, and divide people against leadership in the church, and their positions on things, then you’re doing something that we have to take issue with because the Bible says that God really, really, really doesn’t like it when people sow discord among the brethren. So here’s – I’m going to give you a few reasons why the book of Daniel is so important to us. Remember that’s the big purpose for this series, like why are we driving through these books, taking big broad stroke looks at them, kind of driving through them at a pretty good pace. It’s so that we would see at each book – What’s the deal about each book? Page 13 of 31
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What’s the big point of these books? Why are they so important to us that the Holy Spirit would have – inspired them, and preserved them? What is their application to us today? So the book of Daniel is so very important to us because – 1. Daniel 7 tells us that the world is not going to be forever trampled and smashed – by the broken kingdoms of man, and by the broken men who rule in those kingdoms. Daniel 7 tells us that a day will come when God is going to bring to an end wars and terrorism and totalitarian oppressors, and things like death camps, and killing fields, and the countless weapons of mass destruction. There is coming a day when God will bring that to an end. The book of Daniel is so very important to us! In fact, the book of Daniel is important in giving an answer to the world that so desperately wants peace. The world that the world so desperately wants to see is a world that’s going to come when God comes back. And I love that verse in the book of Revelation Revelation 11: “15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.” The book of Daniel is so important to us because – 2. It tells us that there will be a judgment. Now there are a lot of people in modern church culture that are very uncomfortable with the idea of – Page 14 of 31
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absolute judgment, from an absolute judge; that there’s an absolute moral law giver, who is also the absolute moral judge of the universe. They’re uncomfortable with the concept of judgment. And they take the position that talking about judgment – it’s so grim; it’s so archaic; it’s so anachronistic, it’s something that belongs relegated to times past; it belongs in the Dark Ages. And they say, “Look, what we really need to communicate is that God is a God of love.” And, again, I have to disagree with them. And I don’t think that’s an open handed deal. Look at Psalm 96: “11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; 12 let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy 13 before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.” You see, that sets God apart as the ultimate Judge. You see, He judges in righteousness – absolute perfect righteousness! In fact, in the book of Revelation Heaven declares, “Just and true are your ways, Oh Lord. You’re the King of ages. All of your ways are just.” We can’t say that about human justice. So God will come and judge. Page 15 of 31
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And to those who say, “Well, judgment, we just don’t want to be there”, I would have to ask a simple question - What was the cross all about? For a lot of professing Christians the cross is just an emotional thing; it’s this thing like a moving postcard. No, the cross is about God judging sin. The judgment of God is that thing that says, “I’m so just, that I can’t just forgive you. I have to judge what you’ve done wrong. Justice, Divine justice was being orchestrated, was being accomplished and wrought on the cross of Jesus. The cross is where the Judge stood in place of the judged. And He bore the judgment for our sins. And because of that we’re told in 1st John that God now is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness. He’s just to forgive us, because He took care of judgment on the cross of Jesus Christ. The judgment of God is something that we should anticipate. It’s something that we should long for because all of us are longing for justice, right? When you suffer unjustly, if you’re the victim of discrimination, the biggest question in your heart is – How long is this going to last? And will anything ever be done about it? How long will this go on? We long for justice. But it’s so absent in our world. And there are guys, men and women, who will never experience justice in this life. That’s how messed up the world is. Daniel is radically relevant to us. Daniel 7 is the underpinning of our hope! Daniel 7 tells us that the injustice of this world is not the end of the matter. One day ultimate justice is going to be meted out. Records have been kept of every wicked thing human beings have experienced at the hands of broken and corrupt human power. And this awesome court of Heaven will be open for business.
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And the Ancient of Days is going to preside as Judge. And righteous justice will be done. The book of Daniel is so important to us – 3. Because it tells us about the return of Jesus! Daniel 7 tells us that Jesus, the Son of Man, the perfect man, is going to come with all authority to forever remove the rule of fallen men. And He, Jesus, will rule in perfect justice. And that’s the trajectory of our rescue! The Gospel holds out the only real and glorious hope to man. Hope isn’t hope unless it can fix what’s broken. Jesus alone can fix what is broken vertically between God and man. He accomplished that by way of His death on the cross and His resurrection. And He’s going to return to fix what’s broken in the world. Christians - We know who the Son of Man is. He’s none other than the Lord Jesus. Long after the time of Daniel 7, the very Son of Man, this son of man visited the Earth. And He bore the judgment for every act and every motive that drives the broken kingdoms of this broken world. And, again, I tell you, the night before He died on the cross to reconcile sinners, Jesus – used this exact title, “Son of Man”, and referenced that exact portion of Scripture (Daniel 7:13-14) – to identify Himself. And there are a lot of people – in fact, one of the strong arguments of Islam against Christianity is they’ll say, “Well, Jesus never claimed to be God.” Oh yes He did! The night before He died He did! “Oh no, Jesus only claimed to be the son of man. That’s all He ever claimed to be was the son of man.” Well, here was a son of man – Daniel 7. And that son of man appeared before the Ancient of Days, and was given an everlasting kingdom. And Isaiah, in his prophecy concerning Jesus, says, “And the kingdom will be on His shoulders. And His kingdom will last forever and ever.” Jesus is nothing less
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than God. We sing it, “Go tell the masses He is God.” Jesus is God! And He’s coming back. Now we don't have a lot of time - so we’re going to jump to chapter 9, okay? Jump to Daniel 9. And, again, this is not just a systematic expositional study of the book of Daniel. We’re just taking pieces. We’re taking drives through. We’re hitting this off ramp, and this off ramp to give us big reasons why this book is so very important. Daniel 9 - The first part of chapter 9 is a prayer. And because Daniel was a student of prophecy he knew that the time of captivity in Babylon was drawing to a close. He understood – and I referenced this earlier – he understood that Jeremiah had said that they would be in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. And so he’s looking at the calendar. He’s looking at the prophecy of Jeremiah. ‘By my reckoning we’re getting to the end of this time.’ And so he begins to seek God in prayer. This is so very important, guys. There’s another reason why the book of Daniel speaks to us, and it’s so relevant to us. Daniel knew where he stood in God’s prophetic timeline. And what he understood of God’s prophetic revelation moved him to pray.
It is an amazing prayer!
I would
encourage you - read his prayer there in the front half of Daniel 9:3-19. The second part of Daniel 9 is, in my opinion, the most important part of the whole book. And it’s surely one of the key passages in the whole of the Bible. Look at verse “24 Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city,…” This is just so important. What is about to follow from Daniel 9:24 is concerning Daniel’s people. Anybody, who is Daniel’s people? – Israel, the Jews, okay? His holy city – what city would that be? – Jerusalem, okay? So what follow from verse 24 – concerns Israel, Page 18 of 31
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and concerns the city of Jerusalem. That is so clear. You cannot argue it at all. “24 Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.” So the scope of it – we see the focus of it – but then the scope of this prophecy Verse 25 gives us the first portion of the prophecy until the Messiah comes. So you can go to verse 25, and just draw an arrow, put #1 – until Messiah comes. Verse 26 gives us the space between the coming of the Messiah and the anti-Christ. And verse 27 gives us the prophecy of the anti-Christ and the end of the age. Now surely all of those things have not yet happened. They have not yet happened. And what happens is there are people who, they take that portion of Scripture here in Daniel 9; they set it aside; and they say, ‘The church now replaces Israel’. No, no, no, wait a minute! God said to Daniel that there is a certain period of time determined concerning the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. And the specific prophetic things that he lists, they are not all fulfilled, which means that there are still prophecies that speak to specifically Daniel’s people and his holy city. And you cannot confuse the church with that. And once you make that decision to replace Israel with the church all of your understanding of prophetic portions of Scripture get skewed and bent. This is so key to understanding Biblical prophecy. It’s huge! Now notice – “seventy weeks are decreed”. The King James Version reads – “determined”. And the Hebrew word is literally - cut out, or to be cut.
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So God’s telling Daniel that there’s a section of time that has been cut out of the rest of the history of the human race - and within that frame, that part of history that’s been cut out of the whole of human history, things are going to take place that would determine, not just the history of the world, but the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem - and will bring us all the way out to the end of the age. Now as we talk about these “seventy weeks”, I want to encourage you – you can write these names down – Get a hold of Dr. John Walvoord’s, a former president of Dallas Theological Seminary – he’s just one of my favorite authors when it comes to eschatology, the study of end times – he’s got a great little book titled, ‘The Rapture Question’. He gives all of the various views on the rapture of the church. He addresses the subject of the various millennial views - very, very helpful. He has written a book, a commentary on the book of Daniel. And it’s called, ‘Daniel – The Key To Biblical Prophecy’. Daniel unlocks Biblical prophecy for us, the book of Daniel does. So I want to encourage you to get a hold of his commentary on the book of Daniel, as well as John Lennox’s book, ‘Against The Flow’. And it is one of the best reads. It is a great read. I had a great time sitting down with him at CreationFest, and talking to him particularly about this section of his book that had to do with Daniel and his three friends that had been renamed – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – and how he created this little conversation between these four Jewish contemporaries, their pagan contemporaries in Babylon.
guys and their
And he says, “Oh the
publishers loved it. They loved it. They wanted me to write the whole book in that form.” And he says, “It was just too much. I didn’t want to do it. So I just let it go.” But the book is amazing. It’s wonderful. And in it he sites Sir Isaac Newton – okay? - any of you kids that have had to take math you know something about Newton and physics, and such. He sites Sir Isaac Newton concerning the calculations of this prophecy. And then also I want to recommend to you a book titled ‘The Coming Prince’ by Sir Robert Anderson. Okay? That’s the name of the book. It’s a little paperback. It’s hard
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to get a hold of. If you can find one you’ve got something really valuable. It’s entitled ‘The Coming Prince’; and it’s written by a guy named Sir Robert Anderson. He used to be the head of Scotland Yard. He was knighted for his work on Daniel 9. He was so thorough, so brilliant in it that they actually knighted him, and called him Sir Robert Anderson for the service to King and country in England.
So Walvoord, his commentary on Daniel, Lennox, his book, ‘Against The Flow’. Sir Robert Anderson, ‘The Coming Prince’ – concerning these weeks, they’ll be very helpful for you. Seventy weeks – here’s what we’re going to do. They equal a week of years, okay? – a week of years. So seventy times seven – 490, 490 years. Now a lot of people – they don’t like the King James Version. That was the first Bible I grew up on. I loved reading that Bible. I love the way it sounds when you read it, even with all the thithers and hithers and spaketh, and so on and so forth. I used to teach from that. But I was always finding myself trying to transpose it into more modern English so that younger people who had never seen the King James Bible wouldn’t have a hard time with it. And a lot of people set it aside because they think it’s hard to read and it’s clunky. But in this section of Scripture I think the King James Version gives us a not so clunky read at all. I think it helps. It speaks very smoothly for us. So that’s where I’m going to read portions of this from. “25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks:” And hence the title – ‘The Coming Prince’, by Sir Robert Anderson. Okay? So that’s 483 years, okay? – 483 years from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince.
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It was 49 years until Nehemiah was done with the walls, okay? – So 49 years from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince – 49 years from the time the command to restore and rebuild it went forth, until Nehemiah was done, okay? That leaves 434 years from the completion of the walls until the Messiah came – 483 years total there. So let’s back up and look at this together. 70 weeks set aside in human history that have to do with the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Sixty-nine of those seven year periods have to do with the period of time from the time the commandment goes forth to rebuild Jerusalem until the coming of the Messiah. When was that commandment given? Well, we know from secular history that Artaxerxes took the throne in 465 B.C. And we know that he gave the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem on the first of Nisan in the 20th year of his reign – so we’re at 445 B.C., okay?
We know that the month of Nisan in 445 BC would be
equivalent to March 14th on our calendar. So March 14th 445 B.C. Artaxerxes gives the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. That’s our beginning date. The clock starts ticking - that bit of cloth of human history that’s cut out concerning Israel and the city of Jerusalem – that clock starts ticking on March 14th 445 B.C. Now according to that prophecy we have to add to that 483 years, okay? So until 701 B.C. the world ran off a 360-day calendar. So take 360 days in a year; Multiply it by 483 years; We get 173,880 days. So you go to March 14th 445 B.C.; And you add to that 173,880 days; And you come out to April 6, 32 A.D., the tenth of Nisan.
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And we know that that was the Sunday before Passover in 32 A.D. Now in Luke 19 we’re told exactly what happened on the Sunday before Passover. It’s the very day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. We call that day Palm Sunday. And it was on that day that Jesus presented Himself to the nation as the Messiah. Now that’s amazing, because if you look at the Gospels, throughout all of His ministry, He went out of His way to not tell Israel that He was the promised Messiah! And the only time in His public ministry that He willingly presented himself as Messiah was on that particular day when He made His triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem. Look at Luke 19 — Jesus is making his triumphal entry. The crowds, in verse 38 are saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 And He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” One of the things that I love to do when we visit Israel – and the Lord willing we’re going to be there in the Spring of 2016 – is there’s a very natural cut in the Mount of Olives on the west side of the Mount of Olives that was commonly traversed as you came up behind the Mount of Olives on the east. It’s the most natural route down. And as you come down you actually come across bedrock from the day of Jesus. You see stones from the day of Jesus. And it is so amazing to just think, “Was it there, Lord? Was it maybe that stone that you looked at, and you said, “If these people are silent, these very stones will cry out.” In essence Jesus was saying that the prophecies that were being fulfilled at that very moment, on that tiny spec of dirt and rock on planet Earth – and it’s so amazing when you’re there in Israel you go, ‘There’s just a lot of dirt and rock’; ‘And what was this place like in the 1st century A.D. – not the place that any king would choose to be living in today – but there in that little place the prophecies that were being fulfilled at that moment were so radical. Jesus said if these people shut their mouths, these rocks would start crying out the very things they’re crying out. Luke 19: “41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it.” Page 23 of 31
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Literally - He wept; He sobbed convulsively. And then verse 42 in the King James Version - “Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou,” Who’s he speaking to? – Jerusalem. “If you had known, even thou, at least” - and notice this - “in this thy day,…” This was their day. This was Jerusalem’s day. This was this people’s day – the very day that Daniel spoke of – 173,880 days from the time that the commandment went forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. This was their day. “42 … But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you,” And this is what Jesus says — “because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Guys, don’t miss this – Jesus held them accountable to understand what their own prophets had said – concerning them, and concerning the city of Jerusalem. And guys,
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I believe that God holds us accountable to look around the world today. And I believe should be sensitive enough as believers to look at the world we’re living in and realize that these are days that the Bible has clearly spoken of. Now remember - Daniel said that there were 70 weeks of years that were cut out of all of human history dealing with Israel and Jerusalem. And to this point there have only been 69 weeks of years. That means there is one seven year period left remaining. Daniel 9:26 – Again, I’m reading from the King James Version – “26 after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:” Jesus was cut off so we could be brought in – brought into relationship with God! It goes on - “and the people of the prince that shall come…” Notice that – “the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.” Now in 70 A.D. – the Romans destroyed Jerusalem; and there was a great Diaspora / dispersion of the Jews. “27 And he” – This is a reference to this ruler who is somehow related to the people that would come and level the city. The people who came and leveled the city were the Romans. This is a reference to this ruler, who, as best as I can see, is the little horn of Daniel 7. “27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”
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So in this final seven-year period of God’s dealing with Israel – so when Jesus was cut off so that we could be brought in, this time, this period of time, the pause button was hit – a seven year period still remaining. And from the time that pause button was hit God has been dealing, not with the nation of Israel, not with Israel nationally. There are Jews that have come to know Jesus. We think of Saul of Tarsus. The early church was comprised of Jews. And then God let them see. The plan of salvation was not limited just to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but to all the nations, because God had promised Abraham that in him all the nations of the world would be blessed, right? So there’s this promise that’s there. But Jesus was cut off. This time, this clock is put on pause. And God now is dealing with the Gentile nations, though Jews have been saved since then. But He’s not dealing with Israel nationally. But there’s coming a time when the pause button is going to be hit; and the clock’s going to start moving again. And in that final seven-year period of God’s dealing with Israel and Jerusalem the anti-Christ is going to make a covenant with the nation of Israel. Halfway through that covenant he will break that covenant by committing what's called “the abomination of desolation”. Jesus referred to that when He was talking to His disciples about how things were going to roll out at the end of this world in Matthew 24. Matthew 24: “15 So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place…” He’s talking to Jews about – a future concerning Israel, and a future concerning the city of Jerusalem. “When you see that thing that Daniel prophesied of – the abomination of desolation take place – you’ve got to head for the hills.” And the book of Revelation talks about them fleeing into the wilderness, east of Jerusalem. Paul talks about this in 2nd Thessalonians -
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2nd Thessalonians 2:4 – concerning the anti-Christ - “4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” And there are those who say, “Oh, well, that’s talking about Antiochus Epiphanes.” Well, if that was, Jesus would have said, “Hey, that desolation that causes of abomination that Daniel spoke of, that was fulfilled.” No, He says, “When you see it happen” – it had not yet happened.
The last 3 ½ years of Daniel 9 is the most referenced time in all of Scripture. Daniel 9 is key to understanding Biblical prophecy. Chapter 10 – gives us a tremendous insight into prayer; It gives us tremendous insight into the reality of spiritual warfare. Chapter 11 - gives more detail to us about Antiochus Epiphanes, the little horn that was referenced that’s not to be confused with the little horn of chapter 7. Chapter 12 “1 At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. 2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. 4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” What will the time of the end look like? People will run to and fro and knowledge will increase.” So what will the end times look like? Well, God says in His Word – people will run to and fro; and knowledge will increase. Now from the beginning of history, until 200 years ago, people traveled the planet in pretty much the same way – not so much today. In Orlando, the Orlando Airport in the
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summer – this’ll blow your mind - 100,000 people pass through security a day. That's people going to and fro! And how about knowledge increasing! Listen to this – it’s from www.industrytap.com – it says - “Buckminster Fuller created the “Knowledge Doubling Curve”; he noticed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. Today things are not as simple as different types of knowledge have different rates of growth. For example, nanotechnology knowledge is doubling every two years and clinical knowledge every 18 months. But on average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.” How do you know what the end times are going to look like? Well, people are going to be traveling to and fro throughout the whole Earth; and knowledge will increase. Guys, we are living in the most exciting time in all of human history! And the book of Daniel says that to us. Guys, every heartbeat does matter! There isn’t a moment to waste! I was speaking with one brother outside. And he was sharing how God has really put ministry in Sierra Leone in Africa on his heart for him and his wife. He says, “It’s just crazy how God has just given us a burden for that place.” And I said, “Well, here’s what’s amazing. I look around, and the need is so great. There’s so much ministry to be done in so many places. It makes your head spin. And isn’t God so good that He would speak to you as an individual, and say, “You are going there.” Because it kind of keeps our head from spinning. It’s like, “Okay, yes, Lord, there are many needs. But I know where you’ve called me to go. I know that you’ve called me to this.” And I pray that God is going to be showing more and more people. Just like God showed Becky Schriber that this is something that she’s supposed to be doing. This is a place on planet Earth that she’s supposed to be doing something to be an extension of God’s compassion and God’s comfort to individuals who have a tremendous struggle, whose lives are really heavy. And, yes, that doesn’t change how big the needs are every place else. But God has a plan for you. He has a plan for me.
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And that’s why it’s so important to see that God has said this is the way things roll out. He did not have to give us a single prophetic piece of Scripture. But it makes the Bible distinct from any other religious writings in the world, and especially in the detail. And it’s so important that Jesus is essentially weeping over Jerusalem, saying, “You missed it! You missed it! The information was given to Daniel. And you missed it!” Now some people say, “Well, where did you start? And how did you use these things?” And I’m telling you that when you look at Lennox’s book, he goes, “If you use here, and start from there, and you use this calendar, and you go here, you come within one year of each other, and both of them, the week before Passover.” So even if you’re going to say, “Oh I don’t believe that that 173,880 days is that day in the year 32 A.D.”, well, okay. But here’s another guy who says if you take thing, and you go over here. And John Lennox is no idiot. He’s one of the most brilliant mathematicians on planet Earth. He has one of the most inquisitive minds. I asked him, “Do you ever have questions about things in the Bible that you don’t understand?” And he just laughed. He said, “Questions are awesome! I love questions, because then – I have to look up; I have to find answers!” And he says, “Take this way. Take this way.” And here’s a guy who essentially said, “Man, I do kind of sift through a lot of information. And this is the stuff that I want to put before you. Take this one; or take this one, and you’re within a year.” And so Jesus essentially says, “Within a year you missed it. You didn’t even start looking then. And you’re not looking now. And because you missed it; and I made it so clear to you; I gave you a target to shoot for to see me come; and I’m letting you know.” And the most religious guys of that day, they were coming to Jesus and telling guys, “Shut him up! Shut these people up! They’re speaking blasphemous things.” And
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Jesus says to these guys, “If they shut up, these stones are going to say it, because God wants us to know the time we’re living in.” Daniel saw the time that he was living in. And he got on his knees and he began to seek God – “Lord, how do you want to use me? We’re getting ready to return to the land. How do you want to use me?” And we should look at the world we’re living in. And it looks just like the way God says the world would look in those times, that this would be open to them, that the things that Daniel saw, he says, “Seal this up for right now. This isn’t for now. But there’s coming a time when people are going to move to and fro throughout the world at will. It’s not going to look anything like the method of travel happens in this time. And knowledge is going to be increasing. It’s going to double every thirteen months.” And he says, “That’s when that generation is going to see these things like no other generation.” And when we see these things – it should change our economy; it should redefine what’s hard, and what’s not hard; it should redefine – what we can do, and what we should do, as opposed to what we can’t do and shouldn’t. It’s going to redefine for us, like, the cost is a little bit more that I’m used to; But I see the time that we’re living in; And we just don’t have time. We should be able to look at the prophetic content of Scripture. We should be able to look at the book of Daniel, and say God wants us to know the time that we live in, and how we should live accordingly. So I don’t know how that challenges you. It sure challenges me.
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When we were singing that song that references, “Every beat of my heart…”, I sat here over on the side of the stage, and thought, ‘Lord, that is such a wonderful lyric. But, Lord, I really have to tell you there are so many of my heartbeats that don’t count for you. And I really don’t think how they ought to count for you. I’m tired of singing lyrics because it’s a great lyric. I want to live it. I want to live it. So, Lord, show me how I can spend and be spent for you in these last days.’ We’re going to wait on the Lord. We’re going to have communion. And I want to encourage you – press in; press in; press in; press in.
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ROUTE 66 Destination: Daniel 7-12 Well, tonight, guys, we’re going to finish our drive through the book of Daniel. And we’re going to pick up in Daniel 7. And our drive through the book of Daniel is taking us a week longer than I had originally thought. So what we’re not going to do is what we do almost every week regularly, and that’s to review last week’s content. I would encourage you to please get and use the resources that are on line metrocalvary.org or from Metro Calvary Church App for your smart phone or your tablet. But I’ll say this - It is necessary for me to preface tonight with this; because it’s particularly important to the remaining content of the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel, as we’ve said each night as we’ve started to walk through it, it has a tremendous insight into the life of Daniel. But it’s not about Daniel. It’s all about God and in particularly – how God is sovereign, how God rules over the kingdoms of this world, how God’s plan and God’s kingdom trumps and triumphs over the plans and the kingdoms of this world that’s organizing itself without God and against God. So let’s bow our heads and our hearts before the Lord in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this amazing book. And, Lord, we don’t, for a moment, regret the tempo, the pace, the speed at which we’ve been having to drive through it, because, Lord, we could spend a year in this book and not exhaust it. Thank you, Lord, for how you have seen fit to have us pull over to the side and look at certain things, certain landmarks in the book to this point. And tonight we would ask that you would in a beautiful, in a personal, in a life-changing way shine into each of our hearts the light of the knowledge of your glory in the face of your Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus. And, Lord, would you do it in such a way that if there are any here who don’t know you, no Page 1 of 31
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matter how many times they’ve come, that tonight they’d meet you. And, Lord, for those who know you, no matter how long they’ve known you, or how little they’ve known you, or how near to you or far from you or anywhere in between they might be, that, Lord, tonight they would find the work of your Holy Spirit drawing them nearer to you. Leave us more in awe of you more than ever before. Let us stand in awe of your Word, its truth. And, Lord, may we be transformed tonight by the renewing of our minds. And, Lord, for all of that, Lord, I’m desperate that you’d overlook my inadequacies as a man and as a teacher. It is truly every desire of every heart tonight that tonight your Word would go forth in the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of power, exalting Jesus in all of hearts, and by way of our lives exalting Jesus in a world that’s so desperate to know Him. And it’s in His wonderful name we pray, amen, amen. Daniel 7- it begins the 2nd division of the book. Chapters 7 through 12 describe four visions that Daniel had, okay? 7 through 12 – four visions He had two of those visions in the period of the Babylonian reign. And he had two of those visions in the period of the Medo-Persian reign. The visions in Daniel 7 and 8 took place somewhere in the timeline of chapters 4 and 5. And here’s a time stamp for the vision of Daniel 7 – it’s in the first verse of chapter 7. It says - “1 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed.” So we understand the timestamp here – Nebuchadnezzar is gone - the guy who had the dream in chapter 2 of that massive image – we’re going to allude to that tonight – Nebuchadnezzar is gone. Belshazzar – he’s the handwriting on the wall guy of chapter 5 - Belshazzar is ruling as co-regent with a guy named Nabonidus. So Babylon now is only a few years from falling to the Medo-Persian Empire, Page 2 of 31
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when Daniel has these first two dreams. As we read through these visions you need to understand it’s hard to be dogmatic about them. Now some of you are here more recently than others. And you’ve heard me use this illustration. As Christians, in the Word of God, concerning our faith – there are closed hand issues; and there are open hand issues, right? The closed handed issues are the non-negotiable(s). They are things that are essential for salvation. They are the truths that we must hold fast concerning God and the way of salvation – absolutely non-negotiable! There are parts of the Bible that they are open handed issues. An illustration would be – Do you believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are in operation today in the church? There are those people who come under the category of Cessasionists. They believe those gifts ceased when the death of the last apostle occurred. And there are other people who would be called Charismatic. And they believe that these ‘charisma’, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, are still active and in operation today. Now are either of those positions essential for salvation? No! As a church, the leadership within this church, we definitely believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are still in operation today. If you’re interested to understand our stance on that, or basis for that, we did a series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, called, ‘Life in the Spirit’. Feel free to reference them. That being said, how you interpret these visions – and there are numerous ways that they’ve been interpreted – in a lot of ways they’re open handed. And we don’t want to say that unless you take this particular view of this particular vision then you really can’t be a Christian. And there are people who can take that position. Guys, generations of
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the church have studied these things and differed on them; and some have even erred concerning them. Now here’s some pretty certain stuff. Without a doubt the vision of Daniel 7 parallels the vision of Daniel 2. Daniel 2 shows the succession of four Gentile powers that will be followed by the establishment of God’s final kingdom. In his book titled, ‘Against the Flow’, John Lennox referenced a guy named David Gooding. He was writing in 1981. He referenced Gooding’s summary of the main similarities and contrasts. And here they are. Daniel 2
Daniel 7
We have the story of the whole course of We have the story of the whole Gentile Imperial Power. course of Gentile Imperial Power. So same themes in both of them We have four empires in the form of a man. We have four empires in the form of Remember that giant image of a man, okay? wild beasts. The Fatal Weakness:
The Hideous Strength:
An incoherent mixture of iron and clay in the A frightening mixture of feet destructiveness with intelligence
animal human
And lastly The whole man, that image, destroyed by a The final beast is destroyed; and the stone not cut by human hands; and the universal eternal dominion given to universal Messianic kingdom is established the Son of Man Now tremendous parallels – a lot of things in common. a mixture of images, both saying the same things. Some say that the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in –
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chapter 2 is man’s perspective of the kingdoms of this world, while chapter 7 is God’s view of the same thing. Both visions concentrate in a very specific way on the fourth empire and its eventual destruction. That’s strongly in common between – the vision of Daniel 2, the vision of Daniel 7. As conservative expositors look at this chapter, the vision of Daniel provides the most comprehensive and detailed prophecy of future events in the whole of the Old Testament. And, again, there are numerous interpretations of Daniel 7. And though they differ on the details, conservative scholars agree that Daniel 7 traces the course of four great world empires – and you want to write these down – 1. Babylon, 2. Medo-Persia, 3. Greece, 4. and Rome. So they agree that Daniel 7 traces the course of these great empires – 1. Babylon, 2. Medo-Persia, 3. Greece, 4. and Rome, 5. concluding with the climax of world history in the second coming of Jesus Christ and the inauguration of His eternal kingdom of God, which is represented in the vision as the fifth and final kingdom that comes from heaven. Now there’s a guy by the name of Carl Friedrich Keil. And maybe you’ve heard of the set of commentaries on the Old Testament by two German guys, Keil and Delitzsch. He’s the Keil of Keil and Delitzsch, very famous scholars in Old Testament language. Page 5 of 31
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And he wrote a commentary on the book of Daniel, this Carl Keil. And he said this – he says“The commonly accepted view in the church (referencing the early church) was that these four kingdoms were Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.” “But,” he says, “when faith in the supernatural origin and character of biblical prophecy was shaken in later centuries the authenticity of the book of Daniel was rejected and the identity of the fourth kingdom as the Roman world-monarchy was denied.” So it’s really important to see that there are certain historical views that the church has had concerning the vision of Daniel 7. And over time, as the church began to turn away from the supernatural character and origin of Biblical prophecy, they began to question the authenticity of Daniel, and especially the prophetic nature of these dreams as being yet future things at the time Daniel was writing. But again, guys, this is really important, the ultimate authority, Jesus, He settles the matter of the predictive nature of Daniel’s prophecies. Jesus settles it. Write this in the margins of your Bible there - Matthew 24:15 - Jesus references the abomination of desolation predicted in Daniel 9:27 and Daniel 12:11 as an event that had not yet happened in his day.
He says, “When you see the abomination of desolation,
spoken of by Daniel the prophet…” – And he’s referencing Daniel 9:27. He’s referencing Daniel 12:1. They hadn’t happened yet in His day. So Jesus embraces the fact that Daniel, writing before Christ, was talking about things yet future in the time of Christ. Daniel 9:26 announces that the Messiah will be cut off and the city of Jerusalem destroyed. We’ll see that in a little bit tonight. These events occurred during the time of the Roman Empire ruling in the world.
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The Jewish historian, Josephus – he believed that Daniel predicted – the rise of Rome, and the Romans destroying Jerusalem. Here’s what Josephus said – he said - “in the same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them.” So here you have a guy who was a contemporary of Jesus, writing, saying Daniel was talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by the Romans. Now by inspiration of the Holy Spirit Daniel makes a point to establish the time of his visions to proactively argue their divine origin and the predictive nature of those visions. For example – The opening verse of Daniel 7 dates the vision, right, approximately 553 B.C. The vision of chapter 8 is dated in Belshazzar’s third year. In the opening verses of chapter 9 Daniel tells us that he discovered the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the seventy years of captivity that were ticking down as Daniel was in captivity in Babylon. He discovered that prophecy in the first year of Darius the Mede. And later in the same chapter he had a third vision. In the opening verse of chapter 10 Daniel tells us that his fourth vision (chapters 10–12) occurred in the third year of King Cyrus. So let’s dive into the prophecies. Daniel 7 In this vision Daniel saw “the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea” (that’s in 7:2) And then he saw four beasts came up out of the sea.
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And in verse 4 he tells us that the first beast was compared to a lion having the wings of an eagle. And the wings were torn off. And the heart of a man was given to this lion. Then Daniel saw a second beast that he described “like a bear”. It looked like a bear It was raised up on one of its sides. It had three ribs in its mouth, between its teeth. And it was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’ (in verse 5). Then he saw a third beast – and that resembled a leopard with four wings, like a bird would have, and four heads. And this beast, we’re told in verse 6, “was given authority to rule”. And then he saw a fourth beast. And as we’re going to see tonight, for Daniel this was – the most important, the most intriguing, and the most frightening, the one that puzzled him the most, the one that he most wanted to understand. And this animal - it had large iron teeth; and it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was around it. And this beast had ten horns. But as Daniel’s looking at this vision of this beast with ten horns, he saw an eleventh horn. Look at verse – “8 a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn (this little horn) were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.” Now as Daniel watched the vision shifted – it shifted away from the character, the behavior, the succession of the kingdoms of man; and he found himself looking into another world; he found himself looking into the throne room of the universe. In Daniel 9 it says that Daniel saw one described as “the Ancient of Days”. And he sees the Ancient of Days taking his place on a throne that looked like a blazing fire. Page 8 of 31
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So by inspiration of the Holy Spirit Daniel describes for us the absolute holiness of God. In the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews we’re told in Hebrews 12: “29 our God is a consuming fire.” And I think this is so important for the church today, guys. I think the book of Daniel is so very important just for what we learn in chapter 7 about the absolute holiness of God, because I think holiness and the holiness of God is, to a great degree, lost in modern church culture. We don’t have this sense of the utter absolute holiness of God. So the Ancient of Days sits on his throne before a crowd that is staggering in number. A thousand thousands served him. You do the multiplication on that one (1 million); ten thousand times ten thousand (100 million) A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court sat in judgment. And the books were opened. It was an overwhelming sight for Daniel - a vision of the supreme court of the universe – God sitting as Judge. Now as the books were opened, the court’s about to be in session, Daniel’s attention was drawn to this fearsome fourth beast by the sounds of the great words of the little horn. And we don’t want to miss this – this is incredible! In the very presence of God, in the very presence of the final Judge, the absolute Judge of the universe, the little horn was insisting on being heard. And here’s what’s awesome - No details of the subsequent trial, the trial that would come, are given. The sentence is carried out. The beast killed. Its body is destroyed by fire. And then there’s a pause, a pause before Daniel resumes the description of his vision. In verse 13 he says – “13 I saw in the night visions.” It’s like – pause… And then what follows is crucial to the whole – let me stress this – It’s crucial to the entirety of Biblical revelation: The climax of the vision is in verses 13 and 14 — “13 behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and Page 9 of 31
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languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” Guys, this is one of the most important passages in the entire Bible. It not only references – the ultimate outcome of our rescue, the trajectory of our rescue; But it’s the very passage that Jesus referred to the night before he would die for our sins when he was at the house of the high priest; and the high priest challenged him and asked him, “Are you the Messiah?” (in Mark 14). And Jesus referenced those very words. And when he did that the high priest rent his clothes. He says, “What else do we need to hear from this guy? He understood what Jesus was saying. He understood that Jesus was equating himself with – that Son of Man, the son of man of Daniel 7. And for that they said, “You have to die for that.” So let’s quickly identify the empires represented by these beasts And then we’re going to zero in on the importance and the relevance of this vision in Daniel 7. The first kingdom with characteristics of a lion and an eagle represented Babylon. There is tremendous archaeological evidence for the lion representing Babylon. The Ishtar Gate is filled with emblems, gold emblems, embossments of a lion. The same imagery is found in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah (in 4:7; 50:17). And he describes Babylon – and Nebuchadnezzar in particular - as an eagle (48:40; 49: 22). Ezekiel does the same – refers to Nebuchadnezzar as an eagle.
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The second beast represents the Medo-Persian Empire. And that’s the empire that conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. We have it given to us in Daniel 5, the very evening they were conquered. And like a bear, the Medo-Persian Empire had great power. But it didn’t have the kingdom characteristics of Babylon. It was – much rougher, much courser, much less civilized, if you would, in many ways The third beast represents Greece and the rapid conquests of Alexander the Great. When Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 B.C., his empire was divided among his four generals. And, of course, that would represented by – the four heads, the four wings. 1. One was Lysimachus – and he ruled in Asia Minor and Thrace – particularly we would refer to that region as the Balkans today. 2. Cassander - ruled Macedonia and Greece. 3. Seleucus - ruled Syria, Babylonia, and land to the east. 4. Ptolemy - ruled Egypt, and what is today know as Palestine as well as Arabia. The fourth kingdom wasn’t described in terms of any particular beast. It’s just described as different from the others - ten horns, the little horn growing up between them, displacing three of the original ten. Daniel looked more closely. This little horn had human eyes, and a mouth speaking great things. Now Daniel admits – and this is so important – sometimes we think that Daniel was given this incredible ability to process dreams, like he had an algorithm; and he could interpret dreams because he had this divinely planted algorithm, and information, and symbolic references that he did - Now Daniel’s confused by the vision, right? And an angelic being comes and interprets it.
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“15 …. and the visions of my head alarmed me. 16 I approached one of those who stood there and asked him the truth concerning all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things. 17 ‘These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. 18 But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever.’” Daniel was particularly concerned about the meaning of the fourth beast. Look at verse – “19 Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying... 20 and about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions. 21 And as I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, 22 until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.” So what we have with this fourth beast moving out is a description of the anti-Christ in the book of Revelation, making war on the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, speaking blasphemous things, making war on the Jews. Daniel was told that the final kingdom (described by the fourth beast) will “devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it” (in verse 23). And that’s what set apart the fourth kingdom from any other. Daniel was told that the ten horns represented ten kings (verse 24). The little horn represented “another king” (we’re told in verse 24), that’s different from the other ten horns. Now – side note – it’s an important one; it’s not a small one Don’t confuse this little horn of chapter 7 with the little horn of chapter 8, okay? There’s a little horn in chapter 7. There’s a little horn in chapter 8. Page 12 of 31
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The little horn of chapter 7 arises from the fourth empire. The little horn of chapter 8 arises out Greece out of the third empire. And that little horn, the little horn in chapter 8, found its fulfillment in the person of guy named Antiochus Epiphanes. And without a doubt that Antiochus - he foreshadows this little horn of chapter 7, which finds its fulfillment in the person of the anti-Christ. So the little horn of Daniel 7 will not only be a world ruler; but he’ll eventually conquer the whole earth (in verse 23). But here’s the deal – He’s going to speak against God. And he’s going to make war on the Jews (verse 25). And he’s going to attempt to change long-accepted laws (verse 25). This last world governing empire, the fourth one, represented by this fourth beast, is going to be crushed, crushed at the 2nd coming of Jesus. And upon the 2nd coming of Jesus the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom. So there’s the interpretation of those beasts, if you would. That’s my take on them, and the take of a whole lot of guys who have a whole lot more Biblical knowledge than myself. They seem to fit most with what we see in the Scriptures, what we see in history from my perspective. And, again, if you don’t agree with them, it’s not like we’re going to say, “Hey, don’t ever come back.” It’s okay. You can differ on them. Just don’t make your difference a matter of division, because then that becomes a problem. When you take something that’s open handed; and you start to divide people over it, and divide people against leadership in the church, and their positions on things, then you’re doing something that we have to take issue with because the Bible says that God really, really, really doesn’t like it when people sow discord among the brethren. So here’s – I’m going to give you a few reasons why the book of Daniel is so important to us. Remember that’s the big purpose for this series, like why are we driving through these books, taking big broad stroke looks at them, kind of driving through them at a pretty good pace. It’s so that we would see at each book – What’s the deal about each book? Page 13 of 31
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What’s the big point of these books? Why are they so important to us that the Holy Spirit would have – inspired them, and preserved them? What is their application to us today? So the book of Daniel is so very important to us because – 1. Daniel 7 tells us that the world is not going to be forever trampled and smashed – by the broken kingdoms of man, and by the broken men who rule in those kingdoms. Daniel 7 tells us that a day will come when God is going to bring to an end wars and terrorism and totalitarian oppressors, and things like death camps, and killing fields, and the countless weapons of mass destruction. There is coming a day when God will bring that to an end. The book of Daniel is so very important to us! In fact, the book of Daniel is important in giving an answer to the world that so desperately wants peace. The world that the world so desperately wants to see is a world that’s going to come when God comes back. And I love that verse in the book of Revelation Revelation 11: “15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.” The book of Daniel is so important to us because – 2. It tells us that there will be a judgment. Now there are a lot of people in modern church culture that are very uncomfortable with the idea of – Page 14 of 31
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absolute judgment, from an absolute judge; that there’s an absolute moral law giver, who is also the absolute moral judge of the universe. They’re uncomfortable with the concept of judgment. And they take the position that talking about judgment – it’s so grim; it’s so archaic; it’s so anachronistic, it’s something that belongs relegated to times past; it belongs in the Dark Ages. And they say, “Look, what we really need to communicate is that God is a God of love.” And, again, I have to disagree with them. And I don’t think that’s an open handed deal. Look at Psalm 96: “11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; 12 let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy 13 before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.” You see, that sets God apart as the ultimate Judge. You see, He judges in righteousness – absolute perfect righteousness! In fact, in the book of Revelation Heaven declares, “Just and true are your ways, Oh Lord. You’re the King of ages. All of your ways are just.” We can’t say that about human justice. So God will come and judge. Page 15 of 31
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And to those who say, “Well, judgment, we just don’t want to be there”, I would have to ask a simple question - What was the cross all about? For a lot of professing Christians the cross is just an emotional thing; it’s this thing like a moving postcard. No, the cross is about God judging sin. The judgment of God is that thing that says, “I’m so just, that I can’t just forgive you. I have to judge what you’ve done wrong. Justice, Divine justice was being orchestrated, was being accomplished and wrought on the cross of Jesus. The cross is where the Judge stood in place of the judged. And He bore the judgment for our sins. And because of that we’re told in 1st John that God now is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness. He’s just to forgive us, because He took care of judgment on the cross of Jesus Christ. The judgment of God is something that we should anticipate. It’s something that we should long for because all of us are longing for justice, right? When you suffer unjustly, if you’re the victim of discrimination, the biggest question in your heart is – How long is this going to last? And will anything ever be done about it? How long will this go on? We long for justice. But it’s so absent in our world. And there are guys, men and women, who will never experience justice in this life. That’s how messed up the world is. Daniel is radically relevant to us. Daniel 7 is the underpinning of our hope! Daniel 7 tells us that the injustice of this world is not the end of the matter. One day ultimate justice is going to be meted out. Records have been kept of every wicked thing human beings have experienced at the hands of broken and corrupt human power. And this awesome court of Heaven will be open for business.
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And the Ancient of Days is going to preside as Judge. And righteous justice will be done. The book of Daniel is so important to us – 3. Because it tells us about the return of Jesus! Daniel 7 tells us that Jesus, the Son of Man, the perfect man, is going to come with all authority to forever remove the rule of fallen men. And He, Jesus, will rule in perfect justice. And that’s the trajectory of our rescue! The Gospel holds out the only real and glorious hope to man. Hope isn’t hope unless it can fix what’s broken. Jesus alone can fix what is broken vertically between God and man. He accomplished that by way of His death on the cross and His resurrection. And He’s going to return to fix what’s broken in the world. Christians - We know who the Son of Man is. He’s none other than the Lord Jesus. Long after the time of Daniel 7, the very Son of Man, this son of man visited the Earth. And He bore the judgment for every act and every motive that drives the broken kingdoms of this broken world. And, again, I tell you, the night before He died on the cross to reconcile sinners, Jesus – used this exact title, “Son of Man”, and referenced that exact portion of Scripture (Daniel 7:13-14) – to identify Himself. And there are a lot of people – in fact, one of the strong arguments of Islam against Christianity is they’ll say, “Well, Jesus never claimed to be God.” Oh yes He did! The night before He died He did! “Oh no, Jesus only claimed to be the son of man. That’s all He ever claimed to be was the son of man.” Well, here was a son of man – Daniel 7. And that son of man appeared before the Ancient of Days, and was given an everlasting kingdom. And Isaiah, in his prophecy concerning Jesus, says, “And the kingdom will be on His shoulders. And His kingdom will last forever and ever.” Jesus is nothing less
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than God. We sing it, “Go tell the masses He is God.” Jesus is God! And He’s coming back. Now we don't have a lot of time - so we’re going to jump to chapter 9, okay? Jump to Daniel 9. And, again, this is not just a systematic expositional study of the book of Daniel. We’re just taking pieces. We’re taking drives through. We’re hitting this off ramp, and this off ramp to give us big reasons why this book is so very important. Daniel 9 - The first part of chapter 9 is a prayer. And because Daniel was a student of prophecy he knew that the time of captivity in Babylon was drawing to a close. He understood – and I referenced this earlier – he understood that Jeremiah had said that they would be in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. And so he’s looking at the calendar. He’s looking at the prophecy of Jeremiah. ‘By my reckoning we’re getting to the end of this time.’ And so he begins to seek God in prayer. This is so very important, guys. There’s another reason why the book of Daniel speaks to us, and it’s so relevant to us. Daniel knew where he stood in God’s prophetic timeline. And what he understood of God’s prophetic revelation moved him to pray.
It is an amazing prayer!
I would
encourage you - read his prayer there in the front half of Daniel 9:3-19. The second part of Daniel 9 is, in my opinion, the most important part of the whole book. And it’s surely one of the key passages in the whole of the Bible. Look at verse “24 Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city,…” This is just so important. What is about to follow from Daniel 9:24 is concerning Daniel’s people. Anybody, who is Daniel’s people? – Israel, the Jews, okay? His holy city – what city would that be? – Jerusalem, okay? So what follow from verse 24 – concerns Israel, Page 18 of 31
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and concerns the city of Jerusalem. That is so clear. You cannot argue it at all. “24 Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.” So the scope of it – we see the focus of it – but then the scope of this prophecy Verse 25 gives us the first portion of the prophecy until the Messiah comes. So you can go to verse 25, and just draw an arrow, put #1 – until Messiah comes. Verse 26 gives us the space between the coming of the Messiah and the anti-Christ. And verse 27 gives us the prophecy of the anti-Christ and the end of the age. Now surely all of those things have not yet happened. They have not yet happened. And what happens is there are people who, they take that portion of Scripture here in Daniel 9; they set it aside; and they say, ‘The church now replaces Israel’. No, no, no, wait a minute! God said to Daniel that there is a certain period of time determined concerning the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. And the specific prophetic things that he lists, they are not all fulfilled, which means that there are still prophecies that speak to specifically Daniel’s people and his holy city. And you cannot confuse the church with that. And once you make that decision to replace Israel with the church all of your understanding of prophetic portions of Scripture get skewed and bent. This is so key to understanding Biblical prophecy. It’s huge! Now notice – “seventy weeks are decreed”. The King James Version reads – “determined”. And the Hebrew word is literally - cut out, or to be cut.
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So God’s telling Daniel that there’s a section of time that has been cut out of the rest of the history of the human race - and within that frame, that part of history that’s been cut out of the whole of human history, things are going to take place that would determine, not just the history of the world, but the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem - and will bring us all the way out to the end of the age. Now as we talk about these “seventy weeks”, I want to encourage you – you can write these names down – Get a hold of Dr. John Walvoord’s, a former president of Dallas Theological Seminary – he’s just one of my favorite authors when it comes to eschatology, the study of end times – he’s got a great little book titled, ‘The Rapture Question’. He gives all of the various views on the rapture of the church. He addresses the subject of the various millennial views - very, very helpful. He has written a book, a commentary on the book of Daniel. And it’s called, ‘Daniel – The Key To Biblical Prophecy’. Daniel unlocks Biblical prophecy for us, the book of Daniel does. So I want to encourage you to get a hold of his commentary on the book of Daniel, as well as John Lennox’s book, ‘Against The Flow’. And it is one of the best reads. It is a great read. I had a great time sitting down with him at CreationFest, and talking to him particularly about this section of his book that had to do with Daniel and his three friends that had been renamed – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – and how he created this little conversation between these four Jewish contemporaries, their pagan contemporaries in Babylon.
guys and their
And he says, “Oh the
publishers loved it. They loved it. They wanted me to write the whole book in that form.” And he says, “It was just too much. I didn’t want to do it. So I just let it go.” But the book is amazing. It’s wonderful. And in it he sites Sir Isaac Newton – okay? - any of you kids that have had to take math you know something about Newton and physics, and such. He sites Sir Isaac Newton concerning the calculations of this prophecy. And then also I want to recommend to you a book titled ‘The Coming Prince’ by Sir Robert Anderson. Okay? That’s the name of the book. It’s a little paperback. It’s hard
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to get a hold of. If you can find one you’ve got something really valuable. It’s entitled ‘The Coming Prince’; and it’s written by a guy named Sir Robert Anderson. He used to be the head of Scotland Yard. He was knighted for his work on Daniel 9. He was so thorough, so brilliant in it that they actually knighted him, and called him Sir Robert Anderson for the service to King and country in England.
So Walvoord, his commentary on Daniel, Lennox, his book, ‘Against The Flow’. Sir Robert Anderson, ‘The Coming Prince’ – concerning these weeks, they’ll be very helpful for you. Seventy weeks – here’s what we’re going to do. They equal a week of years, okay? – a week of years. So seventy times seven – 490, 490 years. Now a lot of people – they don’t like the King James Version. That was the first Bible I grew up on. I loved reading that Bible. I love the way it sounds when you read it, even with all the thithers and hithers and spaketh, and so on and so forth. I used to teach from that. But I was always finding myself trying to transpose it into more modern English so that younger people who had never seen the King James Bible wouldn’t have a hard time with it. And a lot of people set it aside because they think it’s hard to read and it’s clunky. But in this section of Scripture I think the King James Version gives us a not so clunky read at all. I think it helps. It speaks very smoothly for us. So that’s where I’m going to read portions of this from. “25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks:” And hence the title – ‘The Coming Prince’, by Sir Robert Anderson. Okay? So that’s 483 years, okay? – 483 years from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince.
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It was 49 years until Nehemiah was done with the walls, okay? – So 49 years from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince – 49 years from the time the command to restore and rebuild it went forth, until Nehemiah was done, okay? That leaves 434 years from the completion of the walls until the Messiah came – 483 years total there. So let’s back up and look at this together. 70 weeks set aside in human history that have to do with the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Sixty-nine of those seven year periods have to do with the period of time from the time the commandment goes forth to rebuild Jerusalem until the coming of the Messiah. When was that commandment given? Well, we know from secular history that Artaxerxes took the throne in 465 B.C. And we know that he gave the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem on the first of Nisan in the 20th year of his reign – so we’re at 445 B.C., okay?
We know that the month of Nisan in 445 BC would be
equivalent to March 14th on our calendar. So March 14th 445 B.C. Artaxerxes gives the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. That’s our beginning date. The clock starts ticking - that bit of cloth of human history that’s cut out concerning Israel and the city of Jerusalem – that clock starts ticking on March 14th 445 B.C. Now according to that prophecy we have to add to that 483 years, okay? So until 701 B.C. the world ran off a 360-day calendar. So take 360 days in a year; Multiply it by 483 years; We get 173,880 days. So you go to March 14th 445 B.C.; And you add to that 173,880 days; And you come out to April 6, 32 A.D., the tenth of Nisan.
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And we know that that was the Sunday before Passover in 32 A.D. Now in Luke 19 we’re told exactly what happened on the Sunday before Passover. It’s the very day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. We call that day Palm Sunday. And it was on that day that Jesus presented Himself to the nation as the Messiah. Now that’s amazing, because if you look at the Gospels, throughout all of His ministry, He went out of His way to not tell Israel that He was the promised Messiah! And the only time in His public ministry that He willingly presented himself as Messiah was on that particular day when He made His triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem. Look at Luke 19 — Jesus is making his triumphal entry. The crowds, in verse 38 are saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 And He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” One of the things that I love to do when we visit Israel – and the Lord willing we’re going to be there in the Spring of 2016 – is there’s a very natural cut in the Mount of Olives on the west side of the Mount of Olives that was commonly traversed as you came up behind the Mount of Olives on the east. It’s the most natural route down. And as you come down you actually come across bedrock from the day of Jesus. You see stones from the day of Jesus. And it is so amazing to just think, “Was it there, Lord? Was it maybe that stone that you looked at, and you said, “If these people are silent, these very stones will cry out.” In essence Jesus was saying that the prophecies that were being fulfilled at that very moment, on that tiny spec of dirt and rock on planet Earth – and it’s so amazing when you’re there in Israel you go, ‘There’s just a lot of dirt and rock’; ‘And what was this place like in the 1st century A.D. – not the place that any king would choose to be living in today – but there in that little place the prophecies that were being fulfilled at that moment were so radical. Jesus said if these people shut their mouths, these rocks would start crying out the very things they’re crying out. Luke 19: “41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it.” Page 23 of 31
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Literally - He wept; He sobbed convulsively. And then verse 42 in the King James Version - “Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou,” Who’s he speaking to? – Jerusalem. “If you had known, even thou, at least” - and notice this - “in this thy day,…” This was their day. This was Jerusalem’s day. This was this people’s day – the very day that Daniel spoke of – 173,880 days from the time that the commandment went forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. This was their day. “42 … But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you,” And this is what Jesus says — “because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Guys, don’t miss this – Jesus held them accountable to understand what their own prophets had said – concerning them, and concerning the city of Jerusalem. And guys,
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I believe that God holds us accountable to look around the world today. And I believe should be sensitive enough as believers to look at the world we’re living in and realize that these are days that the Bible has clearly spoken of. Now remember - Daniel said that there were 70 weeks of years that were cut out of all of human history dealing with Israel and Jerusalem. And to this point there have only been 69 weeks of years. That means there is one seven year period left remaining. Daniel 9:26 – Again, I’m reading from the King James Version – “26 after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:” Jesus was cut off so we could be brought in – brought into relationship with God! It goes on - “and the people of the prince that shall come…” Notice that – “the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.” Now in 70 A.D. – the Romans destroyed Jerusalem; and there was a great Diaspora / dispersion of the Jews. “27 And he” – This is a reference to this ruler who is somehow related to the people that would come and level the city. The people who came and leveled the city were the Romans. This is a reference to this ruler, who, as best as I can see, is the little horn of Daniel 7. “27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”
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So in this final seven-year period of God’s dealing with Israel – so when Jesus was cut off so that we could be brought in, this time, this period of time, the pause button was hit – a seven year period still remaining. And from the time that pause button was hit God has been dealing, not with the nation of Israel, not with Israel nationally. There are Jews that have come to know Jesus. We think of Saul of Tarsus. The early church was comprised of Jews. And then God let them see. The plan of salvation was not limited just to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but to all the nations, because God had promised Abraham that in him all the nations of the world would be blessed, right? So there’s this promise that’s there. But Jesus was cut off. This time, this clock is put on pause. And God now is dealing with the Gentile nations, though Jews have been saved since then. But He’s not dealing with Israel nationally. But there’s coming a time when the pause button is going to be hit; and the clock’s going to start moving again. And in that final seven-year period of God’s dealing with Israel and Jerusalem the anti-Christ is going to make a covenant with the nation of Israel. Halfway through that covenant he will break that covenant by committing what's called “the abomination of desolation”. Jesus referred to that when He was talking to His disciples about how things were going to roll out at the end of this world in Matthew 24. Matthew 24: “15 So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place…” He’s talking to Jews about – a future concerning Israel, and a future concerning the city of Jerusalem. “When you see that thing that Daniel prophesied of – the abomination of desolation take place – you’ve got to head for the hills.” And the book of Revelation talks about them fleeing into the wilderness, east of Jerusalem. Paul talks about this in 2nd Thessalonians -
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2nd Thessalonians 2:4 – concerning the anti-Christ - “4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” And there are those who say, “Oh, well, that’s talking about Antiochus Epiphanes.” Well, if that was, Jesus would have said, “Hey, that desolation that causes of abomination that Daniel spoke of, that was fulfilled.” No, He says, “When you see it happen” – it had not yet happened.
The last 3 ½ years of Daniel 9 is the most referenced time in all of Scripture. Daniel 9 is key to understanding Biblical prophecy. Chapter 10 – gives us a tremendous insight into prayer; It gives us tremendous insight into the reality of spiritual warfare. Chapter 11 - gives more detail to us about Antiochus Epiphanes, the little horn that was referenced that’s not to be confused with the little horn of chapter 7. Chapter 12 “1 At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. 2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. 4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” What will the time of the end look like? People will run to and fro and knowledge will increase.” So what will the end times look like? Well, God says in His Word – people will run to and fro; and knowledge will increase. Now from the beginning of history, until 200 years ago, people traveled the planet in pretty much the same way – not so much today. In Orlando, the Orlando Airport in the
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summer – this’ll blow your mind - 100,000 people pass through security a day. That's people going to and fro! And how about knowledge increasing! Listen to this – it’s from www.industrytap.com – it says - “Buckminster Fuller created the “Knowledge Doubling Curve”; he noticed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. Today things are not as simple as different types of knowledge have different rates of growth. For example, nanotechnology knowledge is doubling every two years and clinical knowledge every 18 months. But on average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.” How do you know what the end times are going to look like? Well, people are going to be traveling to and fro throughout the whole Earth; and knowledge will increase. Guys, we are living in the most exciting time in all of human history! And the book of Daniel says that to us. Guys, every heartbeat does matter! There isn’t a moment to waste! I was speaking with one brother outside. And he was sharing how God has really put ministry in Sierra Leone in Africa on his heart for him and his wife. He says, “It’s just crazy how God has just given us a burden for that place.” And I said, “Well, here’s what’s amazing. I look around, and the need is so great. There’s so much ministry to be done in so many places. It makes your head spin. And isn’t God so good that He would speak to you as an individual, and say, “You are going there.” Because it kind of keeps our head from spinning. It’s like, “Okay, yes, Lord, there are many needs. But I know where you’ve called me to go. I know that you’ve called me to this.” And I pray that God is going to be showing more and more people. Just like God showed Becky Schriber that this is something that she’s supposed to be doing. This is a place on planet Earth that she’s supposed to be doing something to be an extension of God’s compassion and God’s comfort to individuals who have a tremendous struggle, whose lives are really heavy. And, yes, that doesn’t change how big the needs are every place else. But God has a plan for you. He has a plan for me.
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And that’s why it’s so important to see that God has said this is the way things roll out. He did not have to give us a single prophetic piece of Scripture. But it makes the Bible distinct from any other religious writings in the world, and especially in the detail. And it’s so important that Jesus is essentially weeping over Jerusalem, saying, “You missed it! You missed it! The information was given to Daniel. And you missed it!” Now some people say, “Well, where did you start? And how did you use these things?” And I’m telling you that when you look at Lennox’s book, he goes, “If you use here, and start from there, and you use this calendar, and you go here, you come within one year of each other, and both of them, the week before Passover.” So even if you’re going to say, “Oh I don’t believe that that 173,880 days is that day in the year 32 A.D.”, well, okay. But here’s another guy who says if you take thing, and you go over here. And John Lennox is no idiot. He’s one of the most brilliant mathematicians on planet Earth. He has one of the most inquisitive minds. I asked him, “Do you ever have questions about things in the Bible that you don’t understand?” And he just laughed. He said, “Questions are awesome! I love questions, because then – I have to look up; I have to find answers!” And he says, “Take this way. Take this way.” And here’s a guy who essentially said, “Man, I do kind of sift through a lot of information. And this is the stuff that I want to put before you. Take this one; or take this one, and you’re within a year.” And so Jesus essentially says, “Within a year you missed it. You didn’t even start looking then. And you’re not looking now. And because you missed it; and I made it so clear to you; I gave you a target to shoot for to see me come; and I’m letting you know.” And the most religious guys of that day, they were coming to Jesus and telling guys, “Shut him up! Shut these people up! They’re speaking blasphemous things.” And
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Jesus says to these guys, “If they shut up, these stones are going to say it, because God wants us to know the time we’re living in.” Daniel saw the time that he was living in. And he got on his knees and he began to seek God – “Lord, how do you want to use me? We’re getting ready to return to the land. How do you want to use me?” And we should look at the world we’re living in. And it looks just like the way God says the world would look in those times, that this would be open to them, that the things that Daniel saw, he says, “Seal this up for right now. This isn’t for now. But there’s coming a time when people are going to move to and fro throughout the world at will. It’s not going to look anything like the method of travel happens in this time. And knowledge is going to be increasing. It’s going to double every thirteen months.” And he says, “That’s when that generation is going to see these things like no other generation.” And when we see these things – it should change our economy; it should redefine what’s hard, and what’s not hard; it should redefine – what we can do, and what we should do, as opposed to what we can’t do and shouldn’t. It’s going to redefine for us, like, the cost is a little bit more that I’m used to; But I see the time that we’re living in; And we just don’t have time. We should be able to look at the prophetic content of Scripture. We should be able to look at the book of Daniel, and say God wants us to know the time that we live in, and how we should live accordingly. So I don’t know how that challenges you. It sure challenges me.
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When we were singing that song that references, “Every beat of my heart…”, I sat here over on the side of the stage, and thought, ‘Lord, that is such a wonderful lyric. But, Lord, I really have to tell you there are so many of my heartbeats that don’t count for you. And I really don’t think how they ought to count for you. I’m tired of singing lyrics because it’s a great lyric. I want to live it. I want to live it. So, Lord, show me how I can spend and be spent for you in these last days.’ We’re going to wait on the Lord. We’re going to have communion. And I want to encourage you – press in; press in; press in; press in.
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