Daniel 9

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Well, good morning. If that blows on you too hard, let me know.
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I turned it down. Okay, Andy, you'll open us up with a word of prayer. I'll call to God again and thank you for the time you give us,
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Lord, to open your word. We pray, Lord, that you would come, Holy Spirit, and teach us, and may we grow in the grace and the knowledge of the one who so loved us that he gave himself for us.
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In Jesus' name, amen. All right, Daniel chapter 9.
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Now, we've been cruising right along, so we've had them hauled off into captivity.
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They made a Hebrew Yahweh diet on veggies and were delivered from Ariat by Daniel and interpreting a dream.
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We have seen handwriting on the wall. We have seen
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Daniel in the lion's den. So now we are actually coming to a section to where Daniel's no longer actually going to be conversing with any more kings.
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He's going to be getting direct revelation from God concerning things that are about to take place.
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When I say about to take place, not like tomorrow, his time, but in the near future concerning God and his people.
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We're not going to get far in chapter 9 this morning because there's a lot of background stuff that has to be laid before this can even be made clear understanding of my perspective.
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So let me just read the first verse and we'll start there. It says, in the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the
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Chaldeans. Okay, right there. Does anybody's translation say something other than Ahasuerus?
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Anybody say Xerxes? Nobody says Xerxes? Not even the
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King James? Interesting. What about you, Jack? Did you ever say Xerxes? Xerxes, verse 1 to chapter 9.
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Well, if Darius is the son of Ahasuerus, where do we know the word of Ahasuerus from?
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Esther. Who was Ahasuerus? Xerxes.
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Xerxes. So some translations, and obviously most everybody has a, it was an
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ESV. Anybody got anything other than ESV, King James, and New King James? What do you got?
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An ESV. What does yours say? Oh, yours says Ahasuerus, because that's what I got. That's the right one. So you go, okay, well, wait a minute.
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If this is the son of Ahasuerus, and if Xerxes was in power, or who we know as Xerxes and Ahasuerus, that took place around 480 to 490.
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What time is this taking place? 539 BC. Okay, so we have to know who, where does
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Ahasuerus come in? Ahasuerus is actually a title, as in pharaoh or a distinguishing honorary name.
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It started with the Median descent. It started first and foremost with a guy by the name of Caesarius.
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He was the first Median king, and then his son,
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Astagius, he came along and, let's see, Socrates was in 590, 530, 634.
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594 came Astagius, and if you remember from a few weeks ago, Astagius was
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Cyrus the Great, Darius the Mede's granddad. So his name, that's why it says son of Ahasuerus.
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Ahasuerus was the title given to Astagius. So that's how we know, once again, who this
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Darius is, because it's telling us he's the son of this person, leading us to that Darius the
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Mede and Cyrus the Great, once again, is the same person, okay?
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Now, it says, he was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans.
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In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of years which was revealed as the word of the
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Lord to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.
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Okay, we got to ask the question, why 70 years?
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Why were they hauled off into captivity for this some 70 years?
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Take your Bible, turn to Leviticus, I think it's chapter 25,
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I'll start right at the beginning of the chapter, because this deals with why, this lays the foundation for why they were hauled off into captivity for 70 years.
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This is important, why it was 70 years. And the
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Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai speaking. He said, speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when you go into the land which
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I have given you, then the land shall have a Sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crops, and during the seventh year the land shall have a
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Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyards, your harvest after growth you shall not reap, and your grapes and your untrimmed vines you shall not gather.
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The land shall have a sabbatical year. So, I'll put it right here first. You had one to six days of creation, seventh was the
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Sabbath, correct? We're right? Yeah? All right. In this case, he's saying you're going to now remember, it wasn't just one
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Sabbath according to the Mosaic legislation. There was a number of Sabbaths. The first one being the seventh day, meaning the day of rest, and just to let you know, that's the sign of the
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Mosaic covenant. Yeah, or something might be on that.
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Oh no, that was the sign of the
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Mosaic covenant. Well, now you will, every six years you can sow, but on that seventh year, sabbatical, uh -oh, land.
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It's got to lay dormant. Nothing. Now, how they did that, we believe that they rotated years on that, that the whole, not as if it was a whole year for all over the land that they didn't do anything.
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We believe that they rotated crops. Don't have any, I don't have any evidence to back that up, but we would assume that they did that because that's how they were able to bring in crops the following year, that that one, you rotate your, every field would have to have a
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Sabbath in the whole land of Israel. It says you are, this is now in, still in Leviticus 25 verse, all you shall have, in Sabbath products of the land for food.
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Yourself, your male, your male, your female slaves, your male slaves, your hired man, your foreign residents, and those who live as aliens with you, even your cattle and the animals that are in your land shall have all of its crops to eat.
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You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself.
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Seven times seven years so that you have the time of the seven
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Sabbaths, namely 49 years. So, then you're going to take seven of these, right?
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Everybody following me? Seven of these comes to what by the text? What's that?
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49. 49. This is important too. And it says this, verse nine, you shall then sound a ram's horn abroad on the 10th day of the seventh month.
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So, on this 49th year, the 10th day, seventh month,
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I think it's, anyway, it's the seventh month.
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So, you will sound a horn. On the day of atonement, you shall sound a horn in all of your land and you shall thus consecrate the 50th year to proclaim a release throughout all the land and all of its inhabitants.
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It shall be a jubilee for you. Each of you shall return to his own property.
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Each of you shall return to his family. You shall have the 50th year as a jubilee.
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You will not sow. You will not reap its aftergrowth nor gather anything from its untrimmed vines for it is a jubilee.
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It shall be holy to you and you shall eat of its crops out of the field on this year jubilee.
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Hey, listen to how the Lord provides if they just do what he says do, okay? I'm going to summarize this so I don't have to continue to read through the whole chapter.
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Listen to what he says. On that seventh year that you're going to let this lay dormant, he says on that sixth year,
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I'm going to provide enough food for you if you just do what I tell you to do that you're not going to have to worry about any food or any reaping or sowing for nearly three years, okay?
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He says you only have to worry about it until the ninth year, which means if this lays dormant, you're not even going to be able to sow until when?
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Go ahead. Go ahead. Eighth year, which means when are you going to get the produce? The ninth year.
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So that means from here to the ninth year. You see how God has provided for them if they just do what he tells you to do.
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Just be obedient. Just be obedient. That's what he says. Now, turn over to Jeremiah.
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Oh, actually, before we do that, go to Leviticus 26.
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I'll start in verse 14. But if you do not obey me and you do not carry out all these commandments, if instead you reject my statutes, if you abhor, my soul abhors my ordinance, so as you do not carry out all my commandments and you so that you break my covenant,
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I in return will do this to you. I will appoint over you a sudden terror consumed by that which is a fever.
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It will lay waste to all of the eyes that cause the soul to pine away. Also, you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat you up.
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I will set my face against you so that you will be struck down before your enemies.
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And those who hate you, they will rule over you. You will flee when no one is pursuing you.
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If also after these things you do not obey me, then I will punish you seven more times for your sins.
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You see what he says? Look, I'm going to bring this thing to chastise you. And if you don't listen to me, then I'm going to punish you seven times more.
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He said, I will also break down your pride of power. I will also make the sky like iron, your earth like bronze.
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Your strength will be spent uselessly for the land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield its fruit.
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If then you act with hostility against me and are unwilling to obey me,
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I will increase the plague on you seven times more according to your sins. I will lose among you the beast of the field, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your cattle, reduce your numbers so that the roads lie deserted.
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And you continue to read on. He can tell you you're going to get pestilence, sore, disease, all these things if you don't obey him.
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Then in verse 34, he says this, then the land will enjoy. He gets and let me back up.
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Hold on. Yet if you despise this in verse 27, yet if you despise this, you will and you do not obey me, but you act hostile to me again.
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I will act with wrath and hostility against you. I, even I will punish you seven more times for your sins.
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Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons. You will eat the flesh of your own daughters, and I will destroy your high places.
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I will cut down the incense altars, keep up the remains and the remains of your idols for you, for my soul shall abhor you.
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I will lay waste to all of your cities as well as make your sanctuaries desolate.
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I will not smell the soothing aromas of your sacrifices. I will make the land of desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will appall you.
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You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw you out a sword after you as the land becomes desolate and your cities will allow waste.
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Then the land will enjoy its Sabbath all the days of its desolation. While you are in the land of your enemies, then the land will rest and enjoy its
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Sabbath all the days of its desolation. It will be observed and the land will get its rest, which it did not get when you were told to observe the
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Sabbath. So what is God saying? What is he saying? If you don't obey him, he's not.
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He said, okay, specifically saying you don't obey my sabbatical land
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Sabbath, I'm going to bring all of these things upon you. It's going to be pestilence, disease, sword.
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And he says, and then I'm going to use that to chastise you. And if you don't do it, then finally,
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I'm going to take you out of the land until I get these back.
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Okay. Means he's going to get all of his Sabbaths back.
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Listen to what Jeremiah says about this. Now go to Jeremiah 20, that's 25.
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We'll look at verse eight. Therefore, thus says the
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Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words, because I will now send and take all the families of the
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North declares the Lord, I will send to you Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, who is my servant and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all the nations roundabout.
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And I will utterly destroy them, make them a horror and a hissing and everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will take from them the voice of the joy, the voice of the gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstone.
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And I will take away the light of the lamp. This whole land will be a desolation and a horror to the nations in which they will serve the
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King of Babylon for 70 years. Then it will be that when the 70 years are completed,
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I will punish the King of Babylon and the nations declares the Lord for his iniquity in the land of the
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Chaldeans. And I will make him and its kingdom and everlasting devil desolation.
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So the 70 years of captivity have to do with their inability and lack of wanting to obey
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God for the Sabbath years. One more place and then we'll try to get back into go to 2nd
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Chronicles chapter 36.
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And I'll start in verse 11 and read through the end because that gives you the context of when they were about to be,
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Jerusalem was about to be destroyed. Now Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem.
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He did evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet who spoke for the
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Lord. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who had made him swear allegiance by God.
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But he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord God of Israel.
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Hey, do you remember how many times did Jeremiah tell Zedekiah? Look, dude, if you'll just put your neck under the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar and do what he tells you to do,
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God will be graceful to you. God will be graceful to you. God will take care of you. Just do what God tells you to do.
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Nebuchadnezzar is God's servant at this time. Serve him. Do what he tells you to do. And he did not.
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And what wound up happening to Zedekiah? His sons, when he fleed like a coward and he left the city of Jerusalem, they ran out to the plain to Jericho.
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Him and his sons were caught. They were gathered. They lined up his sons in front of him. They killed all of his sons right before his eyes and then gouged his eyes out.
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So for the last thing he ever saw with his eyes in this life was the slaying of his own sons because he did not obey what
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God told him to do. Furthermore, all the officials and the priests and the people were very unfaithful.
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Following all the abominations of the nations, they defiled the house of the Lord, which he had sanctified in Jerusalem.
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The Lord, their God, their Father, I'm sorry, the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by his messengers because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.
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In verse 15 it says, and the Lord, their God, their Father, sent them time and time again by his messengers.
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Who was that? Who were the messengers? The prophets.
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The prophets. And what were the prophets' job? Call the people to repentance. Call the people to repentance.
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The message of the prophets was repent and come back to fidelity to God. Remember, the prophets were covenant prosecutors.
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They would come along and say, this is how you have violated God's law. This is how you make right with God.
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Repent. Go back to the works in which he required of you, which was covenant fidelity and worshiping him in the way that he required, not in the way that you want to.
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He says, they did it time and time again and they would not listen. And because he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place, but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of God, until I'm sorry, to the wrath of the
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Lord arose against his people until there was no remedy. He's saying,
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I sent prophet after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet. And they warned you and you did not listen.
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Now they are now broken to the point that they're irreparable. God says, then
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I'm going to pour out my wrath on you. Therefore, he brought against them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with the sword, the house of the sanctuary.
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He had no compassion on either young men or virgin, old men or infirm. He gave them all into his hands, all the articles of the house of God, great and small, all the treasures of the house of the
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Lord, all the treasures of the king and his officers. He brought them all to Babylon. Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all of its fortified buildings with fire.
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They destroyed it and all of its articles. Those who had escaped from the sword, he carried away to Babylon and they were his servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia to fulfill the word of the
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Lord come by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah until here it is. The land had enjoyed its
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Sabbaths all the days of its desolations. The land kept its
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Sabbath for 70 years. So, based on this number here, how many years have the prophets come and called them to repentance and they would not listen?
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490 years. Tell me God wasn't patient. Tell me
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God wasn't patient. Seven times 70, 490 years and they would not listen.
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And God finally says, I'm done with it. I've had my fill of it. You have now filled up the measure of my wrath for your disobedience and I'm going to dump it out on your head.
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Now, the crazy part of this is if you go, well, how long? I started thinking, man, if it's been 490 years, okay, that they had not obeyed the
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Sabbaths. This was somewhat surprising to me of how long their disobedience continued.
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If the first deportation was 60, well,
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I'll do this just to appease some because somebody's going to say I'm wrong about this, I'm sure.
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605 to 603 is when we believe the deportation, first deportation happened.
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Somebody got a calculator? I know you do on your phone. Add 490 years to that. Tell me what it is.
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Either one of those, it doesn't matter. What was it?
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Add 490 years. What was it? 1095.
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If you know anything about 1095 BC or anywhere close to that time, this would have been around the time of Samuel.
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You understand that? This is about a time around Samuel coming onto the scene.
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So that means, under King Saul, under King David, who greatest king to ever live, with the exception of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, Solomon, you see how they were unfaithful?
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That is, that should be alarming to you. Because here it is, this
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David being one whom God had chosen to be the king of Israel.
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Remember, this was the one of God's own, the man's choosing, not God's. Remember, God said, I'm going to choose a man after my own choosing, and that was this guy.
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This is the one that the people wanted, and the people got what they wanted. And what did he do?
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He did whatever he wanted. He thought, wait a minute, God, we want just like the nations around us.
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God said, okay, and he's going to do what? He's going to take your vineyards, he's going to take your wives, he's going to take your wheat and your bakers, he's going to do whatever he wants.
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And that's exactly what he did. But even when David comes along, David didn't enforce the
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Sabbath years of the land. That was disturbing to me. That was disturbing.
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So God said, I'm done with it. He sent prophet after prophet after prophet. Now, we can give some, his conquest trying to subdue the land.
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Okay, I try to try to sanitize some of it, trying to do the land. He is without excuse.
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Because he lived in a time of peace. He didn't, he was no conquistador. He was building his palace, building the temple, doing what
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God had prepared for him to do before David. He was not a man of blood nor a man of war.
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His daddy was. Certainly without excuse. Now, we can say, if you remember what happened with him,
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God torn the kingdom from him because of his idolatry. And it went to Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
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That means even when the northern kingdom split off, they didn't obey the
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Sabbath lands either. So even when this kingdom separated to the northern kingdom in Judah, they still did not obey.
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Even when God hauled off after them seeing Jeroboam get hauled off by the
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Assyrians in 722, the northern kingdom. And he, God says, look, I'm making an example out of your sister for their disobedience.
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I'm going to make them nothing. There's not anything going to be left of them. And you did not even see the example that I did to them.
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And they continued in their unbelief. And then in 722, he hauled them off. And God said, you know what?
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It worked so good for them in 722. In 586, I'll do the same thing until my land gets 70 years worth of Sabbaths.
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God says my land will get its rest. God will get his, what he determined.
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Now, let's go back to Daniel. Remember that this whole chapter sits within a covenant context.
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I even say the whole book of Daniel sits in a covenant context because they were hauled off into captivity because they broke the covenant.
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Agreed? Agreed? Specifically, what covenant have they broken? The Sabbaths.
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The Sabbaths. The Sabbaths. The Sabbaths. So now, when we get to Daniel chapter 9, it sits within a context of a covenant context of breaking
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God's Sabbath and how he is now going to restore them now that the fall of Babylon has come.
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He said, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which had been revealed as the word of the
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Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet that the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years. One, it's mind -boggling to me is how did
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Daniel get a scroll of Jeremiah? Anybody think about that? Well, he was connected to, you know, the leadership of the kings.
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They could grant him. Sure, very good possibility. But we can say this, we know this, he was definitely a student of the word.
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He was a student. Remember, he has already, when he is praying, when we go through his prayer here starting next week, we're going to see he prays the exact way that God gave
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Solomon instructions to give to the people when you are hauled off to captivity.
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Man, God's telling this to Solomon. He's saying, look, when your people are hauled off into captivity, this is what they were going to do.
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Me, if I'm Solomon, I'm going, what? Man, this is the golden years.
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This is the great. How are these people going to be hauled off into captivity? It's because they're going to be disobedient.
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And when they did that, what did Daniel do? He remembered what they said, and he prayed the way, because he was a student of Jeremiah, he was a student of Isaiah, and he remembered also the writings of Solomon from kings.
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Understand? He was a student of the word. So he now says, uh -oh, the
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Babylonians are now gone, and he knew from the Colossus that Babylon was the head, right?
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What was the next person coming in? Persians, yeah.
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And who just took over? Yeah, Darius, Cyrus. So he now knows, wow, this means this is over.
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At least that part is over. And if he understood what Jeremiah was saying, Jeremiah also said there was going to be a time of restoration.
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So would not Jeremiah have been, I mean, Daniel have been happy at this point?
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Look, this is over. The desolation's over. The time of God's judgment's over for 70 years.
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We can go back to the land, or somebody can. He said, so I gave attention, verse 3 of chapter 9, so I gave my attention to the
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Lord to seek him by prayer, supplications, and fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
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Was fasting commanded in the Old Testament? Under the
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Mosaic law? I don't recall. One time, and it was for the
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Day of Atonement, and it's actually coined by the statement of humble yourself.
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That was normally how it was. One time a year, they were supposed to fast, and it was the Day of Atonement.
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It was a nationwide fast. That's what they were supposed to do. He says here, he was fasting, and sackcloth and ashes, which means he was doing what?
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What was sackcloth and ashes? Mourning. Even when Andy was teaching in Job, I mean, what did
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Job go sit down in a pile of? Ash. Well, some of that might have been because he was trying to get the boils from not hurting, but yeah.
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But otherwise, he was mourning. He had lost everything he had except for his wife, and his skin was hanging off of him, and he was a mess, but he was mourning.
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And it says that he was making supplication. Well, what is supplication? What's the difference between prayer and supplication?
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Supplication is more intercessory. And appealing. Yeah, yeah. But it can be for yourself, or you can intercede for yourself.
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Lord, help me. I mean, we saw that last week, you know, in Psalm 119, which
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I believe that was Daniel that wrote that, where how many times did we read where he said, just save me. Just help me.
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Just do something for me. You know, I've been faithful to you. Help me. So here it is. He's praying, and his prayer certainly would consist of praise.
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Anytime it says that Daniel would go out last week before he was thrown in the lion's den, he was, it said three times a day, he would go up, he would open up his door chambers, he would pray towards Jerusalem, and he would pray.
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Well, he was raising his hands in praise to the Lord, praising him. So here it is.
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He is praising, and he is interceding, like you said, Stephen, for his people.
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And we're going to see that he is interceding for his people when we get into his prayer. With sackcloth and ashes, meaning probably had ashes on him.
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He said, I prayed to the Lord, my God, and confessed and said, Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome
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God who keeps his covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments.
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What does that say about the character and nature of God? That he's faithful.
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Okay, what else? He is faithful.
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He's very, hey, we saw a long -suffering there. Long -suffering for 490 years.
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Yep. What else? Does great and awesome, what is, does awesome mean like we think of awesome?
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That's, that's it, yeah, that is it. Some, some, some may say terrible.
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Yeah, so when we think of awesome, I mean, we, we see something, we go, oh man, that was awesome. Like, in all of them, sometimes in beauty.
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That's not how the Bible uses the word awesome. Awesome is used fearful, terrible, knee -knocking, trembling, messing your pants like Belshazzar, kind of fearful stuff.
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Okay, yeah, so he is saying, look, you're great. Certainly he's great. He's the creator of all things.
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He called all things into existence by absolutely nothing. And he is fearful. Why should he be fearful?
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Why should they be dreadful and terrible? Because he keeps his covenant.
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And what was his covenant? You break my covenant, I'm gonna smash you.
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I'm gonna smash you. We forget that even when they came, before they crossed the
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Jordan River, and I think it's in Deuteronomy 26, 27, and 28, they get, one gets on the, on Mount Gerizim, Mount Ebal, and you remember what they hollered back and forth to one another?
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It was before they come into the land, Moses told them, look, if you go into the land and you do this, this is what
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God's going to do. You do good, this is the blessing. You do bad, this is the cursing.
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So each one went back and forth as they collared back and forth the blessing and cursing, meaning
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God's going to keep his oath. He's going to keep his word. He's not going to break his covenant.
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And part of that covenant is punishment, is punishment. It says, and his loving kindness.
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Well, his loving kindness is certainly long -suffering, very patient.
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There is tenderness that comes with that. Was this not an act of God's tenderness to let the time of desolation come to an end?
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What's that? Sure. Yeah, I mean, God didn't have to. God didn't,
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God could have said, you know what? I'm not, I'm going to continue on. He reserves the right to do that.
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But he didn't. It says, and his loving kindness for those who keep him and keep his commandments.
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So there it is again. There is blessing and kindness to those who keep his commandments.
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And then it says, we have sinned, committed iniquity, and acted wickedly and rebelled.
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Let me see if we got time to do this real quick. If not, we can pick up right there next week.
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He makes some distinctions here. What's a sin?
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What's a sin? There you go. What's iniquity?
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That's going to be a little tricky. Because we got to get, when you think about it, you go, I know what it is.
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But how do we, how do we explain it? Kind of doing your own thing when God says to do it this way.
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That's the way I've always thought. That is partially, yeah, this is just continual open rebellion.
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Knowingly, okay? Knowingly. Now there's a part of our sin that is, we don't know.
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Okay, well, wait a minute. What do you mean we don't know? How many times do we sin a day and we don't know? What was the day of atonement set up for?
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Does anybody remember right off hand? The day of atonement was for a specific reason and covered only a specific type of sin.
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It was unintentional. Unintentional, unknowing. They didn't know. Ignorant. Sins done in ignorance.
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They had no idea. You can go read the book of Hebrews and it talks just about that very thing. It says, well, they went in one time a year and it was for one group of people.
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It was for the covenant people of Israel. No proselyte, no Canaanite, no
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Girgashite, none of that. They went in one time a year into the Holy of Holies to atone for one group of people for one type of sin.
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It was the sins that were committed in ignorance. So he's saying not only these, the transgressions of the law, this would be the ones that they had done in ignorance and willful.
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But hey, under the willful sins, under the Mosaic legislation, did not
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God put grace inside the Mosaic legislation for them to take care of those willful sins?
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Yeah, the sacrificial system. They could go bring a goat, lamb, bullet, whatever it required, take it to the priest, lay it down on the butcher table.
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Not only did the priest do that, you were as the worshiper there, hey, you were actually there cutting the lamb and doing that there with him.
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It wasn't like me going, hey, you know what? I stand here, buddy. Yeah, it wasn't like that.
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They actually had to take part in the shedding of the blood to see what had taken place.
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But the iniquity now, this deals with more of Israel's problem. They had for 490 years had prophet after prophet after prophet.
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They would not listen. And that would continue on too with Christ. How many would he say, hey man, the prophets and prophets came and came and came and you would not listen.
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And now that I'm here, you ain't going to listen to me and you're going to kill me. And he says now, once again, he says the same thing that Jeremiah told him, your house is going to be left desolate.
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Okay, their continual iniquity of open, blatant rebellion against God.
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Then he says this. He adds, acted wickedly and rebelled.
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How did they act wickedly? Bail. What's that?
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Bail. Worshipping or bailing. Worshipping, yeah, okay. You had, not only did you have idolatry, but you had, they were killing the prophets.
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How many prophets had they killed? Jesus said a bunch.
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Jesus said a bunch. There were so many they had killed that Jesus even said on the last time he was inside the temple, that Wednesday before he was crucified, he said, your fathers had killed the prophets and you even admit that your fathers killed the prophets because what you're doing is you're going out there and you're whitewashing all their tombs saying, hey, if we'd have been like, we'd have been here, we wouldn't have done that.
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Jesus said, no, no, no, no, no. You'd have been just like them because you're fixing to kill me. And now you're going to, now you're going to, you're going to heap up the measure from not only from the time of Abel, but to the son of Berechiah, Zachariah, who you killed between the altar and the temple.
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So look, they were continually killing the prophets. That's how they were acting wickedly, doing whatever they wanted to do.
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They were going off into idolatry, doing with the bails. And even when they would come back into somewhat time of fidelity to God, we'll even take for the, that even the time of Malachi, once they came back to Malachi's time, what did
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Malachi have to, uh, rebuke them for? Was there worship? Were they doing the, the acts of worship the way that God required?
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They were doing their acts correct, but they were bringing wrong sacrifices. So were they doing, were they, quote, go with the second, were they going to church?
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Yes, they were going to church. Were they reading Torah? Yeah. Were they coming and doing their feast days?
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Yes. But what was the problem when they came to their sacrifices and giving what they were supposed to, to the Lord? They were giving him the lame and the one of the, the, the one eyed, no tooth, uh, speckled, whatever, bad toenails, teeth, whatever.
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Remember, they had to be perfect. I mean, they would bring that goat or that lamb.
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That priest would set it on that butcher table. He would then begin to do a fine inspection.
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If he found one freckle on its gum, got to go. No good. No good.
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A blemish on its toenail. Got to go. A chipped tooth. Got to go. It's got to be perfect.
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And they didn't care. They did it their own way. And then it says, um, and even turning aside from your commandments and ordinances.
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So because they continued to sin willfully, that, if you continue to sin willfully, it sears the conscience, which leads to ongoing iniquity, which meaning you continue to do it willfully and you don't care, which leads to, uh, idolatry, more in -depth idolatry.
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I need to look for the progression that would happen from the time they came into the land. It started with little sins.
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Then it came to, uh, continual sin, which led to idolatry. Then to killing the ones that actually warned them of the dangers of not repenting.
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To now, they don't even, you know what, we don't even care about your ordinances or your laws. And that's exactly what happened.
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And he says, look, this is what we have done. This is what we have done. We got two minutes, uh, for questions, comments, disagreements.
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Anyone? Yes, sir. When you look at how
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God tied Israel to the land, the land was such an essential part of the covenant that God made, and they really defiled it with no regard.
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The other point is, you mentioned sin, iniquity, and transgression. If you read Psalm 32, just let me read the first verse.
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Yes, sir. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, and blessed is the man for whom the
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Lord does not impute iniquity. These are the three different things. Sin, transgression, iniquity.
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When you think about the position that we're in with Christ, to be forgiven, not only of specific acts, but even continual acts of sin.
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And it's all washed away in the blood of Christ. Yeah, that we should be thankful for. Yeah, and I see
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Danny was saying how they're so deeply connected to the land. We'll get into this, if not next week, the following week.
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You're going to see that God had fulfilled the land promise already.
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So this utter nonsense, and we'll get into it when we get to Daniel 77, towards the end of that, you know,
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God's got to go back and he's got to work with Israel because they never had their land. They had utter nonsense. Three times in the
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Old Testament did it say the land promise was fulfilled. Once in Ezra, once in Kings, and once in Joshua.
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I mean, how many other times? God said it one time in His Word. That'd be fine for me, but He said it three times. He said in the book of Kings, not one word that He had said to His, that He had promised to Moses concerning all things had landed to the ground.
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Not one. And then it goes on in Ezra, and he says, I think it's in Ezra 9 or 10, and he says, and God had given them everything
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He promised their father Abraham. Well, what was the promise He had promised Abraham? It was land.
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It was land. But you're right. They were so deeply connected to the land that when they got to the land, they disregarded it, and that deals with exile, and we'll get into all that because being exiled from the garden, and it goes on up until 70
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AD. I just want to make mention too, just a small note, how
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Daniel here, you know, uses those collective words of we, and he doesn't.
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You know, here he is. He's been a man who's been faithful, who prayed. Yeah, and we're going to get into that because there's three corporate prayers, and we've got to go.
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We've got three corporate prayers, 999, remember three nines, and I'll talk about this. I did it at a conference two years ago.
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Every one of them is corporately. They take on themselves the sins that their people did. They take on their own, even in the
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Lord's prayer. Go home and read it, the model prayer that the Lord gave us. Look how corporate it is. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Forgive who? Not my sin. Our sin. Forgive us, us, all corporate.
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So pray for us, Stephen. Heavenly Father, Lord, for the blessing that your mother,
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Mike, gives to us and to the people here, all the study he's done, I ask that you would just bless it to our hearing and to our listening.
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Lord, I just ask that you would bless us as we go into worship now. Be with brother Keith as he brings the Lord to bear, for the great