SRR # 71 Jeremiah and The Fig Baskets.

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I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone.
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When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the air and combating the air.
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We are unabashedly, unashamedly, Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make,
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I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.
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We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing.
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It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said,
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Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
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It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. Thus says the
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Lord, the God of Israel, Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom
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I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land.
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I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not pluck them up.
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I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people, and I will be their
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That's tractplanet .com, coupon code BTWN. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, my name is
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Tim Shaughnessy, and you are listening to Semper Reformanda Radio. So I hope that some people out there are going to be able to take advantage and go see that movie,
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It comes out today, which is why I'm playing the commercial. I have a couple of friends who are going to go see it.
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I thought it was really, really good. I'll probably be purchasing the video when it comes out.
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But I also got to interview Gary Bates, and he is from Creation Ministries International.
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I interviewed him a couple of episodes back. So check that out if you haven't heard it already.
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And we are going to continue today with our series in Daniel. And today's message is called
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Jeremiah and the Fig Baskets. And of course, this message is going to be brought to you by Timothy Kaufman, who is our expert in Roman Catholicism.
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He's our expert in eschatology. And we are plowing through the book of Daniel and plowing through eschatology because this is something that Tim has been studying for 20 years.
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And a lot of the stuff that he is seeing in the scriptures really is not stuff that you probably would have heard before.
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But he's connecting dots, and he's making sense of things. And we would both hold to a historic pre -mill view.
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I'd like to talk a little bit about this in the future and talk a little bit more about what brought me to this view.
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I went from dispensationalism to all -millennialism, and now
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I'm at a historic pre -mill. But it's probably a little bit different than what people are used to.
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And this series is just going to get better and better and better and better.
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Well, let me just do this. I am just going to hand it over to Tim because he is the expert.
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And I'm learning a lot of this stuff for the first time with you guys.
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So with that, Tim, why don't you just, I'm just going to give you the floor. Why don't you just take it away?
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Thank you, Tim. I appreciate that introduction. I appreciate the emails we've been receiving from some of the listeners.
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I'm glad there are some folks out there listening to it and find it encouraging. Even for those who are listening that don't agree with the eschatology that we are espousing,
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I hope that they're enjoying the study. We're trying to turn people back to a detailed, focused investigation of Daniel's prophecies, what he wrote down and what he described, and helping us to understand what it was that he meant, not only by what he recorded but the questions he asked and the answers he got and the questions that angels asked and the answers that they got when they were inquiring about the contents of Daniel's visions and dreams.
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So when we left off last week, we concluded with the observation that there are two kinds of end times visions in Daniel.
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One kind is about end times that terminate abruptly with the end of the indignation and focused on the sins of God's people.
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And there is the other kind of end times visions that Daniel has that transport him into the distant future and focus largely on the righteousness of God's people and depict the saints ruling together with Christ in an earthly kingdom.
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Being able to distinguish between those two kinds of end times is extremely important because as it turns out,
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Daniel 9 is about the kind of end times that terminate abruptly with the end of the indignation and focus on the sins of God's people.
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Daniel's visions about the end of the indignation all terminate in the period of the Greek Empire under the oppression of Antiochus IV of the
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Seleucid line from one of the four successor kingdoms after Alexander the Great, that is, in the
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Greek period of Daniel's visions. It would be the bronze period of Daniel 2, the he -goat period of Daniel 8, the leopard period of Daniel 7, and the cardinal vision, as I called it last week, of Daniel chapter 11 that depicts the division of Alexander's empire, north, south, east, and west.
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So, as we noted last week, this idea of there being two kinds of end times visions in the book of Daniel is one of the most important points in the whole series on the
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Danielic timeline because when we turn to Daniel 9 and find that the main focus of the entire chapter is the sins of the
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Jews as well as the end of the indignation, we realize that the prophecy of the 70 weeks of Daniel concludes under the reign of Antiochus IV in the same period as depicted in Daniel 8, 23 -25,
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Daniel 11, 21 -39, and Daniel 12, 5 -13, all of which depict the time period in the 2nd century
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BC. As we also noted last week, we gave advance notice that I do not consider
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Daniel 9 to be a messianic prophecy and I will just say up front that this is the extreme minority opinion since the vast majority of Christians in the history of the
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Church have interpreted Daniel 9 as a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah. We understand that we may very well be alone on this, but we will show from the
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Scriptures that the prophecy is not messianic and we're going to stand on the Scriptures, even if we stand alone on this chapter.
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That said, it is hard to overturn 2 ,000 years of tradition and we do not attempt this very lightly.
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Very early in my Christian walk, I read through the volumes 1 and 2 of Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a
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Verdict and the messianic fulfillments factored heavily into his assessment of the prophetic accuracy of the
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Old Testament. It also factored heavily into the eschatological Sunday School lessons of my early days as a
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Christian, so I had some idea of what I was going against when I started researching this myself and finding that it was not a messianic prophecy.
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And again, I respect those who believe it is a messianic prophecy, but I don't believe that it is, so it's going to be a long, hard slog through Daniel, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Isaiah, and the
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Pentateuch, as well as the New Testament, to prove what I'm saying, and that's going to take a while.
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I'll probably spend three or four episodes just on Daniel 9, so for those who are not put off by the proposition that the prophecy is not messianic but is rather mosaic, we can all buckle up.
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It's going to be a lot of information. We hope we can do it justice. So, does that sound like a good plan to you,
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Tim? Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. I'm all buckled up. Let's do it. Okay.
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Well, let's take it away, then. When approaching the prophecy of the 70 weeks in Daniel 9, the ancient and frequent temptation has been immediately to rush forward to the last four verses of the chapter and read about Messiah the
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Prince, who will come, and then shall the Messiah be cut off but not for Himself, and He will confirm the covenant to make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring about everlasting righteousness.
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Those are all quotes from Daniel 9, 24 -27. Once we've concluded from this immediate assessment of the messianic implications, and that the prophecy itself is a messianic one, even the obscure references like, to anoint the
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Most Holy in Daniel 9, 24, become subtle references to Christ. In other words, the temptation is to read the chapter in a messianic context, and the temptation is almost irresistible.
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Once it is assumed that Daniel 9 is a messianic prophecy, all that remains is somehow to make the numbers of the prophecy work out, to be fulfilled in Christ's birth, or His baptism, or His crucifixion.
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This has been the temptation since the earliest days of Christianity. One lamentable example,
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I think, is Origen, and he lived from 185 to 254 AD, and he provided an example of just this approach.
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He identifies the prophecy as messianic, and then tries to figure out how to make it fit
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Jesus. This is from Origen's Stromata, Volume 10, as cited in Jerome's Commentary on Daniel, Chapter 9.
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And this is Origen's assessment. We must quite carefully ascertain the amount of time between the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, and the advent of Christ, and discover how many years were involved, and what events are said to have occurred during them.
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Then we must see whether we can fit these data in with the time of the Lord's coming. While Origen counted the 70 weeks from Darius to Christ, Julius Africanus, who lived from 160 to 240
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AD, was a contemporary of Origen, and he insisted that we must instead start the calculation from Artaxerxes, for it is, quote, evident that the passage speaks then of the advent of Christ, who was to manifest
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Himself after the 70 weeks. If we start at any other point than Artaxerxes, Africanus wrote, the period will not correspond, and very many odd results will meet us.
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That's from Julius Africanus, Fragments, Fragment 16. Other such attempts abound in the early church.
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As for the Reformers, they interpreted the passage as a prophecy of Christ as well. Calvin wrote in his commentary at Daniel 9 .25,
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And yet I confess the impossibility of finding any other exposition of what the angel says, that is, until Christ the leader, unless by referring to the baptism of Christ.
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These two points then, in my judgment, must be held as fixed. First, the 70 weeks begin with the
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Persian monarchy, because a free return was then granted to the people, and secondly, they did not terminate till the baptism of Christ, when
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He openly commenced His work of satisfying the requirements of the office assigned to Him by His Father. So you can see that he read it and said, there's just simply no other interpretation.
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It's got to be Messianic. Luther, for his part, thought that Daniel 9 spoke of the end of Judaism, brought about by the arrival of Christ.
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That's from Martin Luther's sermon for the 25th Sunday after Trinity, on Matthew 24, verses 15 to 28.
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He wrote in his preface to the book of Daniel, that to Daniel is revealed the number of years until Christ should come and begin
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His eternal kingdom. Now this is a remarkable and great revelation of Christ, which sets the time so surely and accurately.
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70 weeks of years, total 490 years. This is how long men were still supposed to wait for Christ, then
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His kingdom was to begin. That's from Martin Luther's works, volume 35,
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Word and Sacrament, the preface to the prophet Daniel. So we can see that both
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Luther and Calvin, and other Reformers, by the way, interpreted Daniel chapter 9 as a Messianic prophecy, and they spent a lot of time trying to figure out the dates between the beginning period of the 70 weeks and the arrival of Christ.
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Now, we acknowledge that when the text of Daniel 9 includes such language as Messiah the
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Prince, reconciliation, confirming the covenant, making an end of sins, and bringing in everlasting righteousness, it is hard not to superimpose a
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Messianic construct upon it. And that is very much what the Church has done from its earliest post -apostolic days.
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And it is what the Reformers believed, and it is what occupies quite nearly all Danielic eschatological literature today.
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The vision is presumed at the outset to be Messianic, and all that remains is to make the date fit the prophecy.
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Now, such an approach is a violation of even the most basic hermeneutical standards. And what is more, not one
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New Testament writer or speaker identified Christ as the fulfillment of the 70 -week prophecy.
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For example, when Jesus was born, there were a lot of Old Testament prophecies about His birth, but not a mention of Daniel chapter 9 and the prophecy of the 70 weeks.
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When Jesus was baptized, there were references in the New Testament to Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled, but nothing about Daniel 9 and the 70 weeks.
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When Jesus was crucified, there was a lot of discussion in the
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New Testament text about the prophecies that were being fulfilled by Christ's death, but not a mention of Daniel chapter 9 and the 70 -week prophecy.
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What is missing in the entire New Testament is any writer or speaker identifying
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Christ as the fulfillment of the 70 -week prophecy of Daniel chapter 9. And for that reason, the temptation to make
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Daniel 9 a messianic prophecy, for all of its attractions, must be resisted.
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We are not to come to the text presuming already to know what it means. Listeners who heard our podcast years ago on Tim Keller and his series on preaching
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Christ from every text will recall that I objected strenuously to the practice of preaching
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Christ from every text for the very simple reason that not every text in Scripture is about Christ.
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It is therefore possible, and I will add dangerous, to preach Christ from every text, and by so doing to miss or ignore what the text is actually saying.
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Consider, for example, Augustine's attempt to expound Psalm 34 .1, trying to make it about Christ.
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Psalm 34 .1 says, A psalm of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.
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The reference in the psalm is to 1 Samuel 21 .13 where it says of David, And he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and drummed on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
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Here is Augustine's interpretation from Augustine's exposition of Psalm 34 .1.
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Because a drum is not made except when skin is extended on wood, and David drummed to signify that Christ should be crucified, but he drummed upon the doors of the city.
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What are the doors of the city but our hearts, which we had closed against Christ, who by the drum of his cross has opened the hearts of mortal men?
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Well, I'm just going to go ahead and say what needs to be said, and that is, it is absolute nonsense.
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And it is an example of why we must be careful not to try to read Christ into every text and every prophecy.
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Some prophecies are about Christ, some are about Alexander the Great, some are about Antichrist, and some are about King Tigranus of Syria, and some are about Isaac the son of Abraham, and some scripture passages are about David drumming on the doors of the gate.
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It is the context and the rest of the scriptures that will help us understand the meaning of Daniel 9. And Daniel has provided us with all the contextual cues we need to understand
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Gabriel's message. But if we start by assuming that the prophecy must be about Christ, we will miss what the message actually is.
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We will miss what Gabriel came to tell Daniel. I should also, for a moment, spend some time addressing
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Revelation 19 .10, which says, For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
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This is part of the answer the angel gives to the apostle John and has been taken to mean that all prophecy must be about Christ.
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I was once told by a critic, a critic of mine, that Daniel 9 must be a prophecy of Christ because the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
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So I asked him about the large horn between the eyes of the he -goat in Daniel 8, which is clearly a prophecy about Alexander the
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Great and not about Christ. He answered, Well, the large horn of the goat reminds me of the oppression of the saints and that God is going to rescue us in Christ.
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Well, I'll just say that the large horn may remind us of Christ's ministry, but nevertheless the prophecy is not a prophecy of the coming of Christ.
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It is a prophecy of Alexander the Great, and it would be just as erroneous to make Daniel 8 .5
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about Christ without considering the context as it would be for us to make Daniel 9 about Christ without considering the context.
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Now, as I mentioned earlier, I know my position on Daniel 9 is a long, arduous upstream swim, especially since the chapter has been interpreted as a messianic prophecy for almost 2 ,000 years.
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The traditional interpretation of Daniel chapter 9 has made it a cherished and even comforting narrative.
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But an inspection of the text will show that neither Daniel nor Gabriel had Jesus in mind in the vision of chapter 9.
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What we shall find this week and in the coming weeks in our examination of the chapter is that the context of Daniel 9 is not messianic but mosaic.
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The chapter is not about Jesus at all. And what we will show in this and the coming episodes is that the popular historical practice of imposing
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Christ upon the text, rather than revealing Christ to us, instead has served only to cloak the identity of antichrist because it makes us look for the antichrist of the preterist school which has the abomination of desolation set up in the first century
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AD or it makes us look for the antichrist of the futurist school which has the abomination of desolation set up in a rebuilt temple in the distant future and prevents us from seeing the antichrist of prophecy that has already come.
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We'll have much more to say on that particular issue going forward. But for now, let us examine the context of Daniel 9 and show how it leads us to a mosaic fulfillment rather than a messianic fulfillment of the prophecy.
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To do that, let us first address Calvin's rejection of the Jewish interpretation of the passage. According to Calvin, the
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Jews incorrectly believed that Gabriel had come to extend the period of the 70 -year exile and missed the fact that God was completely satisfied with the punishment of those 70 years that the
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Jews spent in Babylon. This, again, is Calvin's commentary on Daniel 9 .25.
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The rabbis expounded this prophecy of Daniel's and that of continual punishment which
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God was about to inflict upon his people after their return from captivity. Thus, they entirely exclude the grace of God and blame the prophet as if he had committed an error in thinking that God would be propitious to these miserable exiles by restoring them to their homes and rebuilding their temple.
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They say, as I've already hinted, the continual calamities which oppress the people are hereby predicted.
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The prophet hoped the end of their troubles was fast approaching as God had testified by Jeremiah his perfect satisfaction with the 70 years of captivity.
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That's Calvin contrasting his view of God's gracious words in the prophecy of Daniel 9 with the
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Jews who interpreted Gabriel's words to mean that there were yet more calamities to come. Calvin thought the
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Jews were in error to think that Gabriel had revealed even more punishment upon the Jews because he could only see the prophecy as a promise of the coming
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Christ. So, he assumed the meaning of the text and used that meaning to interpret it.
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That passage could only be about God's grace in Calvin's mind. He believed that Jeremiah had testified of God's perfect satisfaction with the 70 years of captivity when, in fact, the
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Scriptures actually testify that God was not satisfied in the least. Calvin's error was to assume the text was about Jesus and then reject any interpretation that did not start with God's grace and assume
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God's perfect satisfaction. When we examine the actual words of Daniel and great Gabriel, we will find that God had sent
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Gabriel to warn of even greater punishment for the very reason Calvin ruled out. The Jews had not repented of the errors that led to their 70 -year punishment.
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This fact is discovered simply by reading what Daniel and Gabriel had said as well as by a brief visit with Zechariah.
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For example, in the first chapter of Zechariah, there is a conversation that takes place between an angel and the
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Lord. And the angel asks the Lord why he has continued to not have mercy on Jerusalem even after the 70 years were over.
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This is Zechariah 112. Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?
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Now this passage is after the vision of Daniel 9 and after the 70 years had expired.
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And the angel is asking how long the Lord will continue to not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah.
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Now we just ask the listeners to notice that the Lord had had indignation against the Jews all those 70 years.
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We'll come back to that fact and why the indignation had not ended after the 70 years and why the
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Jews would have to wait so long until the end of the indignation that Daniel had prophesied in several of his visions in Daniel.
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As we noted in last week's podcast, Daniel has two kinds of end times visions in the book of Daniel. One kind that has to do with saints ruling with Christ in glory and another kind about the end of the indignation.
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We have noted that Daniel 8, Daniel 12, verses 5 to 13 are about the end of the indignation.
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And we will find that Daniel 9 is also about the end of the indignation. The Lord had indignation against the
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Jews before the 70 years exile. He had indignation against the Jews during the 70 years exile.
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And here we are after the 70 years are over and the Lord's indignation had not ended. We will come back to the
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Lord's answer to the question posed in Zechariah 12 as well as the final end of the indignation.
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But for now it is important to understand that the Lord's indignation was the cause of the 70 year exile and here we are even after the 70 year exile and the
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Lord's indignation was still not satisfied. Let's just keep in mind that the indignation was still not over and would not be over for a long time.
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That's why Daniel was receiving prophecies about a distant future end of the indignation.
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Now let us look at Zechariah 7, verses 4 to 7 in which the
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Lord tells us through Zechariah that he was not pleased with the behavior of the people or the priests throughout those 70 years of captivity.
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Zechariah 7, verses 4 to 7 Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying,
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Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those 70 years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?
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And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did ye not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?
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Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?
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That's Zechariah 7, verses 4 to 7 This, too, is after the 70 -year exile, and throughout those 70 years the people and the priests had not fasted and mourned unto the
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Lord, and, importantly, had not heard the words which the Lord had cried by the former prophets, when
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Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity. Now let's listen to Daniel's assessment of the spiritual condition of the people of Israel, even as the 70 years were about to end.
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This is Daniel 9, verses 5 to 7 and verse 13 We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments.
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Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
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O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, and unto us confusion of faces, as at this day.
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As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come upon us, yet we made not our prayers before the
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Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth. Now keep in mind, this is
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Daniel supplicating before the Lord and confessing that even in the midst of the exile, they still have not repented.
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This is the spiritual condition of Daniel's own people at this day, that is, even after the punishments were almost over.
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Which is to say, even when the 70 years of exile were almost complete, they had not fully repented and they were still not obeying.
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Now the reason we want to dwell on these evidences against the Jews during the 70 years and about God continuing in indignation against them even after the 70 years were over, is to address and counter
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Calvin's claim that Jeremiah testified of God's perfect satisfaction with the 70 years. Remember, Calvin said that God had testified by Jeremiah his perfect satisfaction with the 70 years of captivity.
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Yet we can read the words of Zechariah and Daniel and see plainly that God's indignation was not over.
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And as we will read from Gabriel, his indignation would not be over for a long time, because the Jews would not reach the end of the indignation until the period of the
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Greeks, as we saw in Daniel 8, Daniel 11, and Daniel 12 verses 5 to 13.
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And as we will show in Daniel 9, the chapter is about the end of the indignation too. So we are going to have to spend a lot of time understanding the
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Lord's indignation against the Jews, why they were sent to Babylon for 70 years in the first place, why those 70 years did not satisfy his indignation, and all of this is so that we can understand why his indignation was finally ended when the 70 weeks were over, and that will help us understand what
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Daniel 8 and 11 mean when they speak about the end of the indignation. So let's open up Daniel chapter 9, and we are going to read the first words in the chapter, which say that he was studying the books of Jeremiah about the 70 year captivity.
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This is what Daniel wrote in Daniel 9 verses 1 to 3. Now, because Daniel was studying
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Jeremiah when he sought understanding from the Lord, he was not just studying Jeremiah, but was asking the
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Lord to help him understand what Jeremiah had said. Our inquiry into Daniel 9 will first lead us to Jeremiah, because we will find that Gabriel's answer to Daniel is based on the book that Daniel had been studying.
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What we will find is that both Daniel and Jeremiah together will lead us to Moses, and Moses will lead us to why the 70 year exile was necessary in the first place, why it didn't work, and why
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Gabriel answered with a prophecy about 70 times 7. Daniel only asked about 70, and Gabriel came with an answer, but talked instead about 70 times 7.
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Our point is that we plan to show that the end of the indignation is plainly tied to the 70 years captivity, and we will show from the law of Moses that the law required that the indignation be extended beyond the 70 years, and that the end of the indignation was a
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Mosaic satisfaction, not a Messianic one. We understand that this is hard to swallow, and we don't blame people for their shock at the suggestion.
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We are nearly at 2 ,000 years of patristic, medieval, and reformed interpretations that assume the prophecy of Daniel 9 is
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Messianic. But the interpretation of the 70 weeks has to be based on what Daniel was studying, what he asked about when he was studying, and what
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Gabriel answered about when Daniel was asking. And what we will find is that both of them were referring to the law of Moses as the cause of the indignation, and both recognized that the law of Moses was the final solution for this particular indignation.
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Now, for those who are tempted to raise an initial objection that the blood of goats and bulls and Old Testament sacrifices cannot satisfy
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God's wrath, I agree, that's what Hebrews tells us about Jesus in Hebrews 10 .4,
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for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. That is absolutely true.
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But we are not to read Daniel 9 through the lens of Hebrews, but through the lens of Jeremiah and the law of Moses, because that is the context in which
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Daniel's question is asked, and it is the context in which Gabriel answers it. Recall the story of Phineas in Numbers 25.
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The Lord had brought a plague upon the people because of their fornication. And when Phineas killed one of the offenders and the woman he was with, the
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Lord took his wrath away from the people. This is Numbers 25 .11. Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.
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Again, that's Numbers 25 .11. We cannot look at a situation like this and then bring in Hebrews and say that God's wrath was not really taken away, because only
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Jesus could have done that, all the while ignoring the fact that this all occurred under a Mosaic construct.
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Likewise, if the Lord's indignation to Daniel was also under a Mosaic construct, there's nothing wrong with identifying the
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Mosaic instrument to removing the Lord's wrath, so long as we understand that the people of God were still under the law, their tutor in the time before Christ, as we are instructed in Galatians 3 .24.
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Our point is that if the indignation of the Lord occurred under a Mosaic construct, and the
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Lord prescribes a Mosaic solution, and the Jews attempted that solution under a Mosaic covenant, we simply have to recognize that what happened was under the old covenant.
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There's nothing wrong with that, just as there was nothing wrong with the Lord saying that Phineas' valor had stayed his wrath.
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So again, before we rush forward into a Messianic era and the new covenant, let us first examine the context of the indignation of the
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Lord against the Jews. What we will discover from the Scriptures is, in a word, fascinating. And to get us going in the right direction, we will discover why
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Calvin was so convinced that the Lord's purposes after the exile were only merciful, and why the
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Jews were so convinced that the Lord's purposes after the exile were only punitive. As it turns out, we'll find from the
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Scriptures that they were both right, and we'll discover that from Jeremiah's prelude to the 70 -year exile.
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So let us begin in Jeremiah. Before any mention is made of the 70 -year exile, and let's consider the
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Lord's love and wrath toward His own people in the vision of the figs. This is from chapter 24 of Jeremiah, the chapter immediately preceding
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Jeremiah's prophecy of the 70 -year exile. In that vision of the figs, we will not only see
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God's plan for His people under the exile, but also His plan for His people after the 70 years have expired.
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So let us turn to Jeremiah 24. Jeremiah has been shown two baskets of figs, one full of naughty figs and one full of nice figs.
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Here is the vision and the Lord's interpretation of the vision for Jeremiah. And keep in mind that the
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Lord has two plans for the two kinds of figs, for one basket to build them up and for the other basket to tear them down, and both of these would be accomplished by the exile.
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So here's Jeremiah. It's only ten verses, and so we'll just simply read the entire chapter.
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with the carpenters and smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. One basket had very good figs, even like figs that are first ripe, and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.
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Then the Lord said unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs, the good figs, very good, the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil.
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Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Like these good figs, so will
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I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the
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Chaldeans, for their good. For I will set my eyes upon them, for their good, and I will bring them again to this land, and I will build them, and not pull them down, and I will plant them, and not pluck them up, and I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the
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Lord, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
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And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil, surely thus saith the Lord, so will
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I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem that remains in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt, and I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, for their hurt to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all places, whither
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I shall drive them. And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.
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So that's Jeremiah chapter 24, the entire chapter. Let us observe first that Judah is on trial, and the
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Lord knows very well that some of the figs are good, but some are evil, but as a nation they are all going to be punished.
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That's our first observation. Our second observation is that the good figs will have to endure the pain and suffering of the exile, but it is for their own good.
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They'll be better off for it. That is why the Lord says of the good figs, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the
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Chaldeans for their good. And as part of our second observation, we also note that the evil figs will be scattered, for the
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Lord says of them, I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt.
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So God has good things in store for one basket of figs, and bad things in store for the other basket of figs.
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Our third observation is that even through the exile to the land of the Chaldeans, God's plan for the good figs are to build them up and use the exile for their good, and God's plan for the evil figs is to tear them down and to use the exile for their hurt.
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The reason this matters to us is that we're talking about the indignation, as we saw in Zechariah 1, verse 12.
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And when Daniel spoke to us of the end of the indignation, he spoke about using the punishment to purify the good guys and scatter the bad guys.
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For example, in Daniel 11, discussing the period of the end of the indignation, Daniel is told that it will be a difficult time, but for the most part, the good guys are going to come out better off because of it, because the point of the punishment is for their good.
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This is Daniel 11, verses 33 to 35. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many, yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil many days.
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And when they shall fall, they shall be hopin' with a little help, but many shall cleave to them with flatteries.
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And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end, because it is yet for the time appointed.
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That's Daniel 11, verses 33 to 35. Thus, what we can see is that part of the punishment is for the good of the good guys.
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But of the same period, Daniel says in chapter 8, the purpose of the same oppression is to scatter the transgressors.
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This is Daniel 8, verses 23 to 24. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up, and his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power.
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And he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
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We highlight these two sections of Daniel 8 and Daniel 11 to show that the
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Lord is showing something to Daniel that the Lord showed also to Jeremiah through the vision of the figs.
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The books of Jeremiah is what Daniel had been studying when he asked the question, and the answer he got was actually about the books of Jeremiah.
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And what the Lord showed Jeremiah was that punishments were coming, but even the severity of the punishments was for the good of the good guys, but the purpose was also to scatter the power of the bad guys.
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God was accomplishing two purposes, because he had already separated the good figs from the bad figs while he set them up on the same trajectory.
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But he had different purposes for each basket. We can see this same theme in the passage we just read from Zechariah.
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Even though the Lord still had indignation against the Jews, because the angel was asking how long he was going to continue with his indignation, the
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Lord had nonetheless arranged all of this with the purpose of building them up, and that is why he made sure the carpenters and the smiths had been sent into captivity to preserve them.
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He was going to send them right back to Jerusalem so they could work to rebuild the temple. As the
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Lord had said about the vision of the two baskets of figs, he was sending them to captivity for their good, and his plans were specifically to build up his house again in Jerusalem.
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This is Zechariah 1, verses 14 and 16.
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Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.
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Therefore, thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies. My house shall be built in it, saith the
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Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. We are dwelling on this for two very simple reasons.
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One, because it shows the continuity between what Jeremiah had written before the captivity and what
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Daniel had seen during the captivity, and what Zechariah had seen after the captivity. God would punish the
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Jews, but even in the punishment he had plans to build them up, even though for some of them his plans were to scatter them.
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Now keep that in mind as we turn again to Daniel 9. And what I want to point out first is that in Daniel's prayer, you can see now that he was praying for both baskets of figs.
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This is what Daniel says in Daniel 9, 7. Remember, one basket of figs was going off to captivity for 70 years.
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Another basket was going to suffer, and it was going to be the people that were still in Jerusalem, and those that were in Egypt, and those that had been scattered already.
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And this is Daniel's prayer, he says, O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all
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Israel that are near and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass, that they have trespassed against thee.
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So notice that the Lord had already separated the men of Judah into two baskets of figs, and Daniel is praying for all of them.
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And I want to point that out because Daniel is going to get an answer about both baskets of figs.
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And this is why we need to study what Daniel had been reading in Jeremiah, and the fact that Gabriel came answering the question that Daniel had about Jeremiah.
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Recall, as we said last week, that there are two kinds of end times visions in Daniel. One kind of end times visions is about the end of the indignation, in which the sins of God's people are in the forefront, and the visions end abruptly with the abomination of desolation.
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And the other kind of end times visions is about the end times when the saints will rule with Christ, and the righteousness and the perseverance of the saints are in view.
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The end of the indignation and the sins of the Jews are prominent in Daniel 8, 9, and Daniel 12, verses 5 to 13, while the righteousness and perseverance of the saints to rule with Christ are in view in Daniel 2,
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Daniel 7, and Daniel 10, 1 to 12, 4. As we noted last week, Daniel 9 has all the attributes of the end of the indignation kind of end times, and the sins of the
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Jews are very prominent, and the vision ends abruptly with the abomination of desolation. What we discover when we study
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Daniel 9 is that we also see in Daniel 9 what we saw in Jeremiah's vision of the figs, and also what we saw when we looked at parts of Daniel 11 and Daniel 8, when the
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Lord says that the punishment is for all of Judah, but it is for the good of the good basket of figs, and the punishment is for all of Judah, but it is for the undoing and scattering of the bad basket of figs.
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What we see in Daniel 9, in the vision that Daniel receives from Gabriel, is we see both components.
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There is a promise that God plans to build up his people and his temple, but also a promise to destroy the city and the sanctuary.
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In other words, he still has both baskets of figs in mind, and we need to be able to see both baskets in the prophecy of Daniel 9, so that we don't make the mistakes of the
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Jews and think that it was only for the tearing down and punishment of God's people, and we don't make the mistake of Calvin, who assumed that it was only grace and the messianic arrival as the hope of the
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Jews. Both Calvin and the Jews that he was criticizing were overlooking the fact that the
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Lord had revealed to Jeremiah that there were two baskets of figs. Both baskets were going to be subject to punishment, but the punishment was for the betterment and the building up of one basket, and for the tearing down and scattering of the other basket.
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So, let's turn to Daniel 9, and let's read the last four verses of Daniel 9, in the vision that he got from Gabriel.
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And notice that the first two verses are about building up, and the last two verses are about tearing down.
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This is Daniel 9, 24 -27. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish their transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
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Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build
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Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks, the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
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That, I will say parenthetically, is about the building up. Now we continue with the tearing down.
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This is continuing in Daniel 9, 26. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself.
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And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with the flood.
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And unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week.
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And in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured out upon the desolate.
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So what we've done today, and we're going to go ahead and wrap up our episode here. What we've done today is that we looked at Daniel and read the first couple verses and noticed that he had been reading the books of Jeremiah to understand them.
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And that's exactly what he was trying to figure out. He was reading Jeremiah to figure out the number of years for the exile.
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And Gabriel came and said, I've come to give you understanding. But what we have to do is go and read
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Jeremiah so that we have the same mindset that Daniel had when he was reading it. And we have to read it so that we can understand what
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Gabriel was talking about. And what we noticed in Jeremiah is that before he ever got to the 70 -year exile, the
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Lord said that he was sending the people off to the land of the Chaldeans in captivity, but there were two baskets of figs.
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The punishment would be upon the entire nation, but the good basket would come out for the better, because it was for their good.
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And the bad basket would come out for the worse, because it was for their scattering and their tearing down. And what we find consistently in the end times visions in Daniel that have to do with the end of the indignation, we find consistently that there are references to the good guys, those of understanding, are built up and purified, even through the trial and the persecution.
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But the bad guys are torn down and scattered through the same persecution. There are two baskets in mind, two sets of figs, one naughty and one nice, and the
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Lord is actually using the punishment, the same punishment on both baskets, but it was for the good of the good figs and for the bad of the bad figs.
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Now, that's going to be very important, because we're going to continue with this study on Daniel next week. But what
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I want to point out, I will point out two things here for those who wish to study further. First, Daniel and Gabriel both make mention to the fact that the
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Lord had desolated Jerusalem. Daniel says that God had desolated
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Jerusalem, and then Gabriel concludes his message saying that desolations are determined.
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That's the last words of Daniel 9 26, unto the end of the world desolations are determined.
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Now, I want to point that out, because Daniel said repeatedly in Daniel chapter 9 that all of this had come upon them because of the law of Moses.
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The law of Moses is the first five books of the Bible. It's the Pentateuch, and there is only one chapter in all of the
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Pentateuch that talks about desolations as the punishment of God's people when they sin against God, and that is
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Leviticus chapter 26. And what I want to observe in Leviticus 26 is what
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God says he will do if the Jews walk contrary to him. He will punish them by sending them out to other kings, and the purpose is to bring about reconciliation with his people.
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But there is something important to be read in that chapter, and that's what we're going to start with next week, but those that want to read ahead can study this.
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In Leviticus 26 the Lord says multiple times that if after all of these punishments you continue to walk contrary to me and do not repent,
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I will multiply your punishment sevenfold. That's Leviticus chapter 26, and that's what
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Daniel was talking about when he said that all of this had come upon them according to the law of Moses.
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The Lord said that I will punish you if you disobey me, and even after the punishment if you continue to disobey me,
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I will multiply your punishments by seven. So not only did Daniel confess that during the 70 -year exile the
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Jews had not repented, but Gabriel came to him when Daniel was asking about 70 years, and Gabriel came with an answer about 70 times seven.
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All of this is pointing to the Leviticus 26 protocol, which is what I call it, because the
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Lord established in his law that he would send people off to captivity as punishment, and if they did not repent, he would multiply their punishments.
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But his objective was to be reconciled to his people and to bring an end to their transgressions.
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That is the Mosaic law, and it is the protocol that Gabriel invoked when he came to answer
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Daniel's prayer about what he had read in Jeremiah. So we're going to pick up next week with the
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Leviticus 26 protocol. We're going to talk about the three specific sins that are identified in the
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Leviticus 26 protocol, and the fact that those are the three sins that Jeremiah was confronting the people with in the book of Jeremiah.
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And what we'll find is that the prescription that is given in Daniel chapter 9 to solve the problem is a prescription that comes straight out of Leviticus 26, and it is a
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Mosaic solution. And we are going to stay with Daniel chapter 9 until we get to the period of the
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Greek Empire when the Jews finally repent and return to the
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Lord and confess their iniquity before him and acknowledge their sins, but also when the power of the bad figs has been completely scattered.
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And that's what we'll come back to next week. So, again, I will simply say I understand that we have 2 ,000 years of tradition, that Daniel chapter 9 is a
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Messianic prophecy, but I will also throw out there that neither Luther nor Calvin nor Julius Africanus nor Origen nor any of the
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Reformers nor any of the other patristic writers contemplated Leviticus 26 and Jeremiah 24 in their assessment of the 70 weeks.
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And the reason was they assumed that it was a prophecy of Christ, and upon that assumption they moved out on an interpretation.
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Even if our listeners don't agree that this is a Mosaic prophecy, not a Messianic one, it will be a great blessing to them and great benefit,
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I believe, to study Jeremiah 24, Leviticus 26, Zechariah chapter 1 and 7, and study the fact that even after the 70 weeks,
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God was not satisfied with the Jews, and according to the Leviticus 26 protocol, there was only one thing to be done.
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That was to multiply their punishments. And next week, we're going to study that even further.
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So, come back next week with the Leviticus 26 protocol, and we'll wrap it up for today.
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Thank you very much for listening, and we'll talk next week. Alright, Tim.
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Well, thank you very much for that. Folks, be sure to check out
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Timothy Kaufman's blog as well. It's whitehorseblog .com,
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and he has written a bunch of stuff on eschatology. However, the blog has gone silent for a little while so that he can work on this podcast series.
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So, he's not really writing there. He's putting stuff here. But, you know, he will get back to that eventually.
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But in the meantime, if you haven't checked it out, check it out. There's a lot of good stuff on eschatology there that really ties into Tim's view.
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And with that, we are going to say thank you for checking us out, and we will be here next week,
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God willing. So, we'll check you next time. God bless. Thank you.