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Let's pray, Lord Jesus.
Again, as we open up your word, we ask through your Holy Spirit to help us to rightly understand what you have revealed there.
We recognize that some of what we're reading is very mysterious and difficult to interpret.
We pray that you would help us to rightly understand these texts so that we would not despair, but continue to have faith
and confidence even in the face of persecution.
We ask in Jesus name.
Amen.
OK, let me do this real quick.
I'm going to run through my pre -flight checklist of things to do here.
There we go.
OK, we are in Daniel, chapter eight, and
you'll note this is, like I said last week, this is an apocalyptic text and apocalyptic
is all about revealing.
There's mysteries.
There are word pictures in here that are just not the easiest things to understand.
But hopefully with a little bit of help by slowing down, I'll show you how you can get at what these things mean and
hopefully you'll find it to be edifying.
All right, let's see here.
Daniel, chapter eight.
In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me,
Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first.
I saw in the vision and when I saw I was in Susa, the citadel,
which is in the province of Elam, and I saw in the vision and I was at the Ulai Canal.
I raised my eyes and I saw and behold a ram standing on the bank of the canal.
It had two horns.
Both horns were high, but one was higher than the other.
And the higher one came up last.
I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward.
No beast could stand before him and there was no one who could rescue from his power.
He did as he pleased and became great.
As I was considering, behold, a male goat from the west across the face of the whole
earth came from the west without touching the ground and the goat had a conspicuous horn
between his eyes.
And he came to the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he
ran at him in his powerful wrath.
I saw him come close to the ram and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke his
two horns.
And the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and
trampled on him.
And there was no one who can rescue the ram from his power.
Then the goat became exceedingly great, but when he was strong, the great horn was broken
and instead of it, there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.
Out of one of them came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the
east and toward the glorious land.
It grew great even to the host of heaven and some of the host and some of the stars it
threw down to the ground and trampled on them.
It became great, even as great as the prince of the host.
And the regular burnt offering was taken away from him and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown
and a host will be given over to it together with a regular burnt offering because of the transgression.
And it will throw truth to the ground and it will act and it will prosper.
Then I heard a holy one speaking and another holy one said to one who spoke for how long is
the vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate the giving over
of the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot.
And he said to me, for 2300 evenings and mornings,
then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.
All right, clear as mud, right?
I would note there is another reference to Alexander the Great in there for sure.
That series of fours is a big deal, but you're going to note we're still kind of in the
training wheel phase of learning how to read apocalyptic literature.
And God is going to be merciful and allow an interpretation, but then we're going to have to figure out what everything
connects to.
Does that make sense?
So like Jesus, when he taught his disciples how to understand parables, he explained a few of them so that when
they went, ah, we now get it, right?
Same thing happening here.
So when I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it.
And behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man.
And I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Ulai, and it called, Gabriel,
make this man understand the vision.
OK, if you insist.
No, sorry, that's Vincent.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong being.
OK, so he came near where I stood, and when he came, I was frightened and I fell on my face,
which is standard procedure when you're in the presence of a holy angel.
Just saying, OK?
So note here, this one, the one who had the appearance of a man, how much you want to bet
that might, we can kind of put this in the potential understanding here.
We might be dealing with an appearance of the pre -incarnate Christ, right?
There's a good chance that that's what we're dealing with here.
All right.
So let's see.
He said to me, all right.
So he came near where I stood.
I was frightened, fell on my face.
That's normal procedure.
But he said to me, understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of
what?
The end.
Now note, there's some stuff that's in the immediate foreground that will be fulfilled.
And then there's something about the end here.
So and when he had spoken to me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground.
He touched me and made me stand up.
He said, behold, I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end
of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end.
Now, here's an interesting fact.
So have you ever stopped to think?
From heaven's perspective, from the perspective of God and the
angels, how do they refer to the state of the
earth and humanity and everything that's going on right now?
OK, so you would think back, go back in human history, that time from the time the Nazis
invaded Poland until until the end of the war, that was referred to as
World War Two.
Right.
So we that's a fixed period of history.
Well, you'll note in the history of heaven, there was a before and after.
Well, there isn't an after yet.
There was a before and now we're currently in the middle of what could arguably be the longest running
war in history.
The war of Satan against God, which we are participants in belligerence because
we disobeyed God and were put under the dominion of darkness.
But note here, Gabriel refers to the current state of affairs as
the indignation.
That's a good name, by the way, the indignation.
So in the in the world to come, OK, in the world to come, your great, great, great
grandchildren might ask, what did you do during the indignation?
Think about it, OK, because right now we're currently in the middle of it.
OK, hopefully near the end.
I hope, you know, Thursday is a good day for if you ask me.
But all that being said, you'll note that we have we have kind of an internal messaging here that we don't
normally we don't normally normally have information on.
And so the current state of affairs is known as the indignation.
And then he'll note at this point, then what the vision he saw deals with the appointed time of the end.
As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and
Persia.
And the goat is the king of what?
Greece, Alexander the Great.
And the great horn between his eyes is the first king, Alexander the Great.
As for the horn that was broken in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms
shall arise from his nation, but not with his power.
And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king
of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall arise.
Now you're going to know this is a there's a huge leap here.
So from the end of the four kingdoms that were set up after the death of Alexander the Great,
one of them, one of the four kingdoms typifies the reign of the Antichrist.
And so you've got you and this is where we kind of have to pay attention here that when we talk
about Western civilization, Western Civ, I go back
to sixth grade.
I still remember that old, dusty, crusty Western civilization textbook
that I had to work through.
And this is in the days when we had, you know, you guys remember overhead projectors?
OK, we had overhead projectors.
We had we didn't have video that we had.
We had real to real movies stuff.
OK, and you guys remember when your teacher happened to like spool the film through the
like this and it comes out the other and they have to do the whole thing.
And when they were done, they could rewind it.
You remember those days?
OK, but all that being said, I remember the cradle of civilization was
Mesopotamia.
The cradle of civilization was the land between the rivers.
And then things kind of got really going with the with the rise of what
democracy in Greece.
But then that gave way to a representative republic in Rome and their Senate system.
But here's the thing have have have the have democracy and representative republics and the
Greco Roman worldview.
Have they left planet Earth?
No.
And I would note the United States of America is intentionally a
rehashing, a retreading, if you would, of Greek and Roman
jurisprudence and governmental ideas.
And so you'll note then that these things will continue on until the end.
And so from heaven's view, what was started with those four kings who rose up
after the death of Alexander the Great, that still continues to this day.
And it's not tied specifically to a region per se, but you're going to know that one of these four kings is
going to be then the tip of the prototype, the archetype of the
Antichrist and what will come at the end.
OK, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king of boldface, one who understands riddles,
shall arise.
Well, good news is it's not me because I stink at riddles.
OK, yeah, it really does.
It sounds like the esoteric Gnostic kind of stuff.
OK, his power shall be great, but not by his own
power.
He shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does and
destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints.
Remember last week I said, what's our job at the end?
Our job's to die.
OK, that's our job.
Let's go out and let's lose here, folks, because God has ordained for this to happen.
When this fellow arises, the best way I can describe him is that he's going to
exemplify kind of Satan incarnate.
And he's going to basically take the whole
satanic ideas that have their origin in the devil, which we've bought into, and bring them to their
logical conclusion in human history.
So we can never say, well, God, you kind of intervened too quick and it could have worked out if you'd just given
it a little bit more time.
OK, it's just not going to work out this way.
By his cunning, he shall make deceit prosper under his hand
and in his own mind he shall become great.
So no, truth is thrown to the ground.
Deceit prospers.
We're already starting to get, in our day and age, have you noticed, we're starting to
get the first waves of this stuff crashing in on society globally now.
Deceit indeed is prospering, right?
His own mind will become great.
Without warning, he shall destroy many, and he shall even rise
up against the Prince of Princes, and he shall be broken, but by no
human hand.
OK, so think of it this way.
Is there any point in trying to assassinate this fellow?
You just take that right off the table.
Anybody who tries will fail.
OK, and the vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal the vision for it
refers to many days from now.
Now, let me point this out.
So here we got the first real rumblings, the real rattlings, the beginning of the revelation as it relates to the
man of lawlessness, right?
And I always say again, you've got to get a good cross -reference in here.
So 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, OK, section titled The Man
of Lawlessness, this is who we're talking about.
Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together
to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or
alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
Let no one deceive you in any way.
That day will not come unless the rebellion, the apostasia, comes first
and the man of lawlessness is revealed.
Now, by the way, as we're reading through Daniel here, does it sound like this man of lawlessness is a legitimate human being?
Yes.
OK, I do not understand what there's this weird ping pong match that happens within Lutheran theology.
And it's an interesting ping pong match to watch that you get one generation of Lutheran theologians who say
this guy is a legitimate person, he's coming.
And then you get the next generation says, no, this is archetypal.
This doesn't have anything to do with a real human being.
It's just talking about the reign of Satan in general.
OK.
And I, you know, I've read through this ping pong match and I sit there and go, how can you say that
this is just archetypal?
Daniel doesn't make it sound like this guy is an archetype at all.
And you'll know it doesn't make any sense in what we just read, because as we were reading Daniel,
you'll note that the king of Greece, that's Alexander the Great, the kings of
Mediapersia.
Those are actual human history people.
Why then would we say that this guy, this king of bold face who has great power and
understand riddles and will cause deceit to prosper under his reign
and he will wage war with the saints and have victory over them.
Why would we say that this is some kind of an archetype, some kind of a symbolic thing?
Because the understanding, the interpretation of this vision is it
demands that you interpret it based upon actual human history.
So you got real kings, real Alexander the Great, and then you have to have a real human being coming.
That's at least that's how I read it.
And so I just don't understand how you end up saying that this is some kind of an archetype.
So the end will not come.
Unless the rebellion comes first, the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.
And listen to this, who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called God and
object of worship.
As we continue to work our way through Daniel, especially as we get into chapter nine, it's going to become very evident that
who Paul is writing about here in 2 Thessalonians 2 is exactly
the same fellow as we just read about in 8.
And who we will read about in 9.
So that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things and you know what's
restraining him so that he may be revealed in his time.
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.
Kind of an easy way of understanding this is that Satan is restrained.
He doesn't have a free reign like he had in the past.
And as we get closer to the end, those restraints will be loosed.
Then the lawless one will be revealed.
And remember what Daniel said, this person will not be destroyed by a human being,
by no human hands.
The lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and
bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
So we're talking about the ultimate, crazy, out of control, narcissistic,
murderous dictator who thinks he's a God.
Will take over the entire earth and it will result in mass murders like you
wouldn't believe.
The Holocaust will seem like a walk in the park compared to what this fellow is
going to do.
Mighty ones and saints are going to be his target.
He's going to go for it.
And who's going to bring him to an end?
Christ.
And Jesus is going to kill him with the breath of his mouth.
I've said it before.
I'll keep saying it.
This sounds like a wonderful bookend to human history.
If you remember Adam, when God formed him, there was his lifeless body and
God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being, right?
Well, that means the very, very, very, very first thing that Adam saw was the face
of God, because there's God breathing the breath of life into his nostrils and he
takes his first breath and his eyes open.
And there's his God right there, right?
Well, fast forward now to the end of human history.
I think this kind of hints at this idea that the man of lawlessness, since nobody can kill
him, no single human being will be able to bring this guy to an end.
He will be the last guy standing.
So on the day that Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, on that day,
Jesus is going to deal with this fellow directly.
And he's going to bring him to an end and he's going to kill him in the exact same way he brought Adam to life.
Seems like a good bookend to me, right?
Let's see.
By his cunning, he shall make deceit prosper, under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great,
that warning he will destroy many, and he shall even rise up against the prince of princes, that
would be Jesus, and he shall be broken, but by no human hand.
Cool.
So when this guy shows up, best thing you could do if you want to be around for when Jesus returns is disappear and do not leave a
trace.
Keep all your cell phones and electronic devices behind.
You don't want to be tracked.
And make sure that you figure out how to avoid being detected by infrared by drones.
That's all I got to say.
Good luck.
Okay.
That's pretty much it.
And if not, if you're too old and too tired, just sit still.
They'll come and kill you.
It'll be quick, right?
But you get the idea.
This guy's going to wage war against the saints and he's going to win.
So after this, Daniel says, I, Daniel, was overcome and I lay sick for some days.
You'll note that seeing this vision really took a toll on Daniel.
This really, really churned in his spirit.
So then I rose and went about the king's business, but I was appalled by the vision.
I did not understand it.
So far, so good, right?
Oh man, I think I have some of Edie's cupcake in my beard here.
Thank you, Edie, for being three.
I still can't believe she's three.
That's wrong.
Anyway.
Daniel chapter nine.
In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, by descent, a Mede who was
made king over the realm of the Chaldeans.
In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that
according to the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah, the prophet, must pass before the
end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.
Now, here is an important concept because here we have a word,
chorba in Hebrew, which is a super important word.
Have you heard of the abomination that causes desolation, right?
We have a little bit of an interpretive key here.
When the scriptures talk about an abomination that causes desolation, what
came to an end in Jerusalem as a result of Nebuchadnezzar's
campaign against Jerusalem and Judah, the sacrifices, the worship of God
came to a halt publicly.
And as a result of Nebuchadnezzar's, you know, his campaign,
Jerusalem was left desolate, but it was a desolation that ended the daily
sacrifices.
And this stands as a type and shadow of what's coming with the man
of lawlessness in his murderous campaign against Christians.
He's going to bring an end to all public Christian worship.
He is the abomination that causes desolation.
And so let's just put it this way.
When that guy shows up, the desolation will be so extreme and global.
We're not going to be able to meet here at Kongsvinger.
I doubt we'd be able to meet on Zoom either.
That ain't going to happen.
Right?
You kind of, you see how this is coming down, right?
So we're told about these desolations so we can expect them and act accordingly.
So if you want to publicly worship, you keep your groups tight, small and
secret.
That's what you got to do.
So note, he was reading the prophet Jeremiah, which by the way, at the time that Daniel wrote,
Jeremiah was at this time, the newest of the books of the Bible.
It's weird to think of the Bible as a, as a, as a project that had new books coming to it, right?
But Jeremiah was the latest as well as lamentation.
Jeremiah and lamentations were the two fresh new books of the Bible.
And you'll note Daniel's reading it and he recognizes that Jeremiah is a true prophet
and having read all of Jeremiah and worked through it, that's a big deal.
So I turn my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer
and please for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
Now, let me see if I can find this cross reference here.
Jeremiah 25, 12.
We're going to look and see if that's it.
Hold on a second here.
I need a Hebrew text.
Here we go.
Jeremiah 25.
Let's take a look at what he was reading and we'll put it in context.
So here's what Daniel's reading.
Yep.
I still have some of Edie's cupcake in my beard.
I'm going to have to have this thing fumigated.
You know, my wife requires me to fumigate my beard once a year, whether I
needed it to or not, but that's, that's a different story altogether.
So here's what it says.
The word that came to Jeremiah concerning the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of
Josiah, king of Judah.
That was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, which Jeremiah, the prophet spoke to all the people
of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
For 23 years, from the 13th year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, the
king of Judah, to this day, the word of Yahweh has come to me and I have spoken persistently
to you, but you have not listened.
You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although Yahweh persistently sent to
you all his servants, the prophets saying, turn now every one of you from his evil,
his evil way and evil deeds and dwell upon the land that Yahweh has given to you and your fathers
from of old forever.
Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them or provoke me to anger with the work
of your hands.
Then I will do you no harm.
Yet you have not listened to me, declares Yahweh, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands
to your own harm.
Therefore, thus says Yahweh of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words,
behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares Yahweh, for Nebuchadnezzar, the king
of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land, its inhabitants,
and against all these surrounding nations.
I will devote them to destruction and make them a horror, a hissing and everlasting desolation.
Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth, the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, the
voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstone and the light of.
The lamp.
This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon.
Here it is.
Seventy years.
What did the false prophets of Jeremiah's time say?
Oh, they're coming back soon.
They'll be back next year.
You know, that didn't work out.
And after 70 years are completed, then I will punish the king of Babylon and the nation that the
land of the Chaldeans and for their iniquity declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste.
I will bring upon that land all the words that I've uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah
prophesied against all the nations.
For many nations and great kings shall make slaves, even of them, and I will recompense them according to their
deeds and the work of their hands.
Who?
OK, now let's come back here.
So that's what he's reading, and then he does this, I turned my face to the Lord
God, seeking him by prayer and please for mercy
with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
I prayed to Yahweh, my God, and made confession saying, Oh,
Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him
and keep his commandments.
We have sinned, we've done wrong and acted wickedly and
rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and your rules.
We have not listened to your servants, the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes
and our fathers and to all the people of the land.
To you, oh Lord, belong righteousness.
But to us, open shame, as at this day to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem
and to all of Israel, those who are near and those who are far away in all the lands to
which you have driven them because of the treachery that they have committed against you.
To us, oh Yahweh, belongs open shame to our kings, to our
princes and to our fathers because we have sinned against you.
To the Lord, our God, belong mercy and forgiveness for we have rebelled against him and have
not obeyed the voice of Yahweh, our God, by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants, the
prophets.
All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing, excuse me, refusing to
obey your voice and the curse and the oath that are written in the law of Moses, the
servant of God, have been poured out upon us because we have sinned against him.
He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us
by bringing upon us a great calamity.
For under the whole of heaven, there has not been done anything like what has been done against
Jerusalem.
As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of Yahweh,
our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth.
Therefore, Yahweh has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us.
For Yahweh, our God, is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed
his voice.
And now, O Lord, our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and
have made a name for yourself as it is this day, we have sinned.
We have done wickedly.
What a great prayer.
We're not even done with this thing.
This is a great prayer.
Notice his humility.
Notice he's speaking the truth about himself, he's speaking the truth about the
wickedness of Judah, and he's entreating God to be merciful.
All of this because he read in the Bible that they were going to be there
for 70 years.
O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn
away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy hill, because of our sins and for
the iniquities of our fathers.
Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us.
Now, therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant
and to his pleas for mercy and for your own sake.
O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate.
O my God, incline your ear and hear.
Open your eyes and see our desolations and the city that is called by your name.
For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.
O Lord, hear.
O Lord, forgive.
O Lord, pay attention and act.
Delay not for your own sake.
O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.
You want a good model prayer of what it looks like to pray, to ask God for forgiveness and mercy, to humble
yourself?
Not a whiff of decreeing or declaring here, right?
Today's wingnut wackerdoodles, had they been the ones in captivity, they would have read and Jeremiah and said, well, I decree and
declare those 70 years to come swiftly, to close.
Weird stuff like this.
Yeah, they probably wouldn't have.
So God hears this prayer and sends Gabriel
again.
And you're going to note, Gabriel makes a couple of appearances here in the book of Daniel, and then we don't hear from
him again until Luke chapter one.
The angel Gabriel from heaven came, right?
And that and so he's the one who spoke to the Virgin Mary, he's the one who spoke to Zechariah.
So while I was speaking and I was praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people, Israel,
and presenting my plea before Yahweh, my God, for the holy hill of my God, while I was
speaking in prayer, the man, so you know Gabriel appears in the form of a man
whom I had seen in the vision at first came to me in swift flight at the time of
the evening sacrifice.
That's three in the afternoon.
That's the same time that Christ died for our sins.
He made me understand speaking with me and saying, oh, Daniel, I have now come out
to give you insight and understanding at the beginning of your pleas for mercy.
A word went out and I have come to tell it to you for you are greatly loved.
Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision.
Now stop for a second.
Here's where we got to note the commonality that we have with Daniel.
We hear a response like this and we sit there and we go, well, God's never sent an angel.
To talk to me after I asked him for forgiveness.
Okay, you're wrong.
You're wrong.
And I'll explain why in a minute.
But you'll note that we read something like this and we go, well, yippee for Daniel, hurray for him.
Okay, we don't, we don't get that same treatment.
That's not true.
It's not true at all.
And it's important to note here that we see here that, you know, the
inner workings of heaven when we ourselves ask God for forgiveness.
And you'll note that we, because of Christ, we are forgiven and it is true
of us.
And if you do, if you need me to walk through the epistle text that say this over and over and over again
about all who are in Christ Jesus, you and I are also greatly loved.
And I would note that it is absolutely true that God has sent a messenger.
Now, let me explain.
If you were attending a different congregation, it would be a different pastor.
But since you're attending here, you're stuck with me.
Okay, which I understand is more like a consolation prize than the first prize.
But that being said, God has sent me as
the angel, the messenger of Kongsvinger, so that when you confess your sins,
you hear that your sins are forgiven and you are assured that you are greatly loved for the sake
of Christ.
Okay, now granted, I am not even remotely as impressive as Gabriel.
I mean, there's Gabriel and then there's the booby prize, Roseboro, but it still counts.
Okay, because in the book of Revelation, when John is given letters to
dictate to the different churches, those letters are addressed to different angels.
We're not talking about angelic beings.
We're talking about the messengers sent by God who are the pastors there.
To the angel of the church at Philadelphia, right.
To the angel of the church of Ephesus, right.
To the angel of the church of, you get the idea, right?
That being the case, it is important to note that pastors are indeed messengers sent by God.
We have been sent with words to preach.
Now, granted, you get to follow along with those words because you can read your Bible.
But all that being said, that when you pray for mercy, you get an answer from heaven and the answer from heaven
is that you are forgiven and that you are loved, that you are redeemed and that, you know, and all of these things.
So we get those same comforts and assurances that Daniel does, but just not as
impressively.
Don't get hung up on the fact that, you know, it's Roseboro instead of Gabriel.
That doesn't matter.
We're both sent by God because pastors are indeed called by God and placed into the pastoral
office.
OK, so here's he goes on.
And here's where it's going to get really, really complicated.
OK, this is one of the tougher visions to crack.
Seventy weeks, seventy weeks are decreed about your people
and your holy city.
Now, pay attention to the details.
To finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for
iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness.
Now, I'm going to stop right here.
Atone for iniquity and bring in everlasting righteousness.
Sometime in the future from Daniel, when in human history
was iniquity atoned for and everlasting righteousness brought into humanity.
Christ's death on the cross.
Christ's death on the cross, his resurrection from the grave, his ascension into heaven.
So you're going to note that these 70 weeks are pointing to a time frame
that when they are completed will also include the death, burial and
resurrection of Christ.
Watch the details to seal both vision and profit over and again.
I get told that I am an evil, false teacher because I am a cessationist.
OK, Daniel was told that in the 70 weeks
prophecy would be sealed.
And I'm going to say this right now and you'll see it when we when we work it out.
The 70 weeks are completed.
There are no prophets on planet Earth today.
Everyone claiming to be a prophet today is a false prophet because prophecy is
sealed.
I know it's a big statement.
You'll see it.
To anoint a most holy place.
Know, therefore, and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the
coming of an anointed one.
Let me help you with the word there.
From the coming of Hamashiach, OK, an anointed
one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks.
Now, this this anointed one is probably referring to somebody like Nehemiah, OK,
because you'll note kings are also anointed.
A prince, there shall be seven weeks.
Then for 62 weeks, it shall be built again with squares and a moat, but in a troubled time.
And after 62 weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing.
And here we go again.
Hamashiach shall be cut off and have nothing.
I know a Hamashiach who was cut off and had nothing.
Yeshua, right.
OK, and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
Its end shall come with a flood and to the end there shall be war.
Desolations are decreed and he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week and for half
and for for half of the week, he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering.
And then on the wing of abomination shall come one who makes desolate until the decreed end is poured out on the
desolator.
Now, that last part's a little hard, so we're going to invoke help.
Help.
And here's where we're going to go for some help.
So let me do this.
I'm going to, first of all, open up the book of Daniel chapter nine in
my ESV in Lagos.
And let me get to the 70 weeks.
And you're going to note this chart that I'm going to show you is also available in the Lutheran
study Bible.
OK, so we're going to look at a good commentary, the Concordia commentary on Daniel.
And let's get past the Hebrew textual notes.
And let me see if I can scroll down and find how do we understand the 70 weeks.
OK, and there is a wonderful chart that's going to help us out here.
OK, and we're going to look here, the traditional messianic interpretation.
And this interpretation is the one that goes all the way back.
You can find this in the writings of the church fathers going all the way back.
So we're not talking about a literal 70 weeks.
In apocalyptic literature, time frames are not keyed
to earthly time frames.
Weeks are not literal weeks.
Weeks are periods of time.
You have to kind of get that.
So numbers and times are basically symbolic.
So from Cyrus's decree in 358 BC until
Nehemiah, the first of the anointed, the first anointed one, because he's going to be your governor then
of Judah.
OK, from that in the first seven weeks, Jerusalem is rebuilt
and everything is reestablished, but in troubled times.
OK, then you have during the 62 weeks a guy by the name of
Antiochus Epiphanes.
And if you want a little bit more information on the history of this, read the book of Maccabees.
OK, read the Maccabees in the Apocrypha.
It'll help you at least get your head around this and also read Josephus' Jewish
history.
It'll help you out a little bit.
Antiochus Epiphanes is the guy who you'll see later in Daniel is
the type and shadow of the Antichrist himself.
He will be the one who really, really typifies the Antichrist.
So keep in mind, Antiochus is a guy who desecrated the temple of God in Jerusalem,
sacrificed a pig on the altar.
I mean, we're talking gross stuff here.
So during that 62 weeks, you have Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 desecrating the temple.
But then at the end of the 62 weeks, you have one week left.
And that's going to be that week is going to begin with the birth of Christ in roughly 2 B .C.
OK, then you have Jesus's life, his crucifixion, his his
resurrection and ascension.
And then you have a little bit of time left, a little bit of that one week left.
You have Titus destroying the temple in A .D. 70.
But if you know your Roman history, you're going to note that even with the destruction of the
temple, the Jews were still allowed to stay in Judea and they continued to be a
problem to the Roman Empire.
So finally, in 135 A .D., Hadrian, he
he comes in, wages a full out war against the Jews in Judea.
Those who survived, he literally forbade them to ever come
back.
He changed the name of Judea to Syria, Palestinia.
And they were kicked out of there forever until they returned in 1948.
But all that being said, the 70 weeks.
They're here, they're done, there is no remainder on the 70 weeks.
In fact, one of the one of the apologetic works I read maybe
about 15, 20 years ago, one of Lee
Strobel's book, The Case for Faith, I think it might have been one of the major
Christian apologists that he interviewed was discussing the 70 weeks.
And here's the implication is that the prophecy of the 70 weeks is a really important one as it
relates to who the Messiah is.
Because everything has already been fulfilled in the 70 weeks.
If Jesus isn't the Messiah, ain't nobody the Messiah.
I mean, kind of let that sit in.
The true Messiah has to appear in this time frame.
The one promised throughout all of the Old Testament has to appear during the
70 weeks, because if he doesn't appear during that time, there is no Messiah.
And that, I think, is a very, very compelling argument.
But coming back then for the implication, then, as it relates to us and some of the other things.
So let me come back here and listen again to the details of the 70 weeks.
70 weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to finish transgression, put an end
to sin and atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness.
That's talking about Christ.
At the end of the 70 weeks, prophecy and vision are
Now, let me point to something kind of like objective that we can all point to.
Since the book of Revelation has been written, how many new books of the Bible
have been added?
Zero.
And for the past 1 ,800 years, how many
prophets have we had in the church?
None.
It might be depending on who you ask, but at the end of the day, I want you to consider this, OK?
If I were to write a book, The Great Apostles and Prophets of the 7th Century,
which names come to mind?
Eighth, ninth, tenth, all right?
Now, come to the present day that we live in.
My wife and I were in the latter reign of movement when prophets were
said to have been restored to the church.
And it was in the late 80s and there was nothing glorious about it.
And the prophetess that we were under was a complete wackerdoodle and cult leader and control freak.
OK?
And she doesn't stand as one who is like a true prophet.
Any of the prophets I cover on Prophecy Bingo or any episode of Fighting for the Faith, do they strike you as people who are sound in mind,
solid in theology and clearly sound, lucid voices for God?
No, not at all.
So we're going to note that in the prophecy of the 70 weeks, we have the clearest statement
that you can go to that says that prophecy is ceased.
And this bears out in the history of the church.
There have been no prophets until recently.
And the current crop of them, that's a bad crop, man.
That's a bad crop.
It's like trying to make bread from weeds.
Doesn't make any sense.
So when you consider then how this all plays out, this 70 weeks prophecy
is, I think, one of the clearest texts that cessationists can go to.
And what's interesting here is that concurrent with the time frame, the
conquering of Jerusalem in 135 A .D., that's also concurrent with really
where we see in the writings of the church fathers, prophecy falling off.
Now, a little bit of a note here.
So from the time of Christ, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and Pentecost.
So we'll say roughly 33 -ish A .D., right?
From 33 A .D. until the death of the final apostle, John.
John probably dies in the 90s or in the early 100s.
It's a little unclear as to when he dies.
But one of the things we do see very clearly in the New Testament, in the book of Acts, is that there were people
whom God gave the gift of prophecy to, but they only received that gift by the laying on of hands by
an apostle.
And there was a fellow who was a Christian martyr by the name of Polycarp.
Familiar with this fellow?
He's a martyr.
He was martyred as an octogenarian in his 80s.
And he, if you read, there's one way to interpret what he writes,
is that he was actually legitimately baptized as an infant by the apostle John.
He was discipled in the Christian faith in Ephesus by the apostle John, and he
received the gift of prophecy by the laying of hands by the apostle John.
And when you read the writings of the early church fathers, he's like one of the last guys who you can
point to who can legitimately operate in the gift of prophecy.
In fact, but right before he was martyred, he had a prophetic vision that he
interpreted that he was going to be burned at the stake, that he was going to be burned to death.
And it went down exactly the way he said it was going to go down.
And you can see this.
But here's the thing from Polycarp afterwards.
True prophets?
Now, that doesn't and here's where we're going to make a big distinction, OK, is that when we talk about
certain gifts of the spirit ceasing, we have to be clear what we
mean by this.
So, for instance, I do not believe that miracles have
ceased.
But I do not believe that there's a single miracle worker on planet Earth.
OK, so, you know, I think of Julie, you know, how many years ago was it that she went into the hospital with
sepsis?
I mean, she was this close to dying.
She was in a really bad space, went and prayed for her.
And I offered up a super simple, humble prayer for her.
God, have mercy on her.
Please heal her.
Don't let this be her demise.
And she had a really bad case of sepsis.
I mean, she was in a bad spot and she cleared up.
I mean, she got better like in like two or three days.
And I can only describe her healing as miraculous because the doctors were not giving her a good
prognosis at that point.
I do believe that God still answers prayer and miraculously so.
But just because I prayed humbly for somebody who was miraculously healed,
does that make me a miracle worker?
No, not even close.
Believe me, if I was a miracle worker, my wife would be having me do a lot more house chores and stuff like this to get things
tidier around the house a lot easier, right?
But I'm not.
I'm not a miracle worker.
So the idea then is, is that there are no prophets on the earth today, but we still hold out this idea
that if God wants to speak something, he can.
But legitimately finding where God has spoken since the close of the New Testament, since the close,
since the finishing of the 70 weeks, it's hard to find any legitimate place that you can say was certainly
God has spoken since then.
And that's to be expected.
So the traditional messianic interpretation, I think, is the correct one.
And then we know then within the time frame of the 70 weeks, vision and profit
are.
Sealed.
There are no prophets today, none.
And anyone who comes to us claiming to be one, you can just write them off as false.
Anyone comes to you and says, the Lord told me to tell you, you can just say, no, he.
Didn't.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
Now, let me check questions here.
Let's see here.
Karen asked a great question.
So Karen Goodwin asks, is it not wrong?
Is it to be looking forward to watching the Lord kick that guy's butt?
It's the opposite of praying for your enemy.
So in this particular case, you're going to note something here.
Whoever this fellow is going to be, his demise has been chosen for him and no prayers
are going to result in his repentance.
And with his death, then you can legitimately say from the moment of his
death, Christ reigns uncontested on planet earth for eternity.
He's the last of the evil politicians of this earth.
And so there's no prayer that's going to save him.
His demise has been chosen for him.
So I do get the feeling that when this occurs, whether you be dead or
alive, we're going to be going, woohoo, huzzah, Hosanna to the King.
We're praising and glorifying God and the great multitude of heaven will be rejoicing exceedingly.
So Karen, I suspect that you're going to have an opportunity to look forward to and rejoice at
his butt being kicked.
So in the name of Jesus.
Is that God's way of showing mercy by destroying him completely instead of him burning for all of eternity?
Jeff.
So the Jennings family.
Keep this in mind.
After that, he does burn eternally.
Christ will bring his life to an end, but he will also spend eternity in the lake of fire.
And the smoke of his torment will go up forever and ever.
So he's not going to cease to exist.
He will just cease to be alive at that moment and then face the judgment like all the rest.
Of the dead.
We're very grateful to the Lord for you, Pastor.
I'm honored to be able to serve you all.
Ask the Catholics.
They have 73 books of the Bible.
Or ask the Mormons.
Yeah.
I would note that I do not put any stock in a single, single
scripture from the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, or the Pearl of Great Price.
They're all from a wingnut, wackerdoodle false prophet who is just a mess.
So I get the idea.
This is where we're going to end today.
We'll talk more about the 70 weeks and finish out chapters probably nine and ten next week.
So all right.
Peace to brothers and sisters.
Lord bless you.
If you're willing, we will see you next time.