And again, let's get started. Deanna, you're going to have
to tell Robert. The 23rd of this month, which
I think is maybe three Sundays from now, we'll plan on having
lunch together after the service. So plan on that. Bring lots of
food and we'll enjoy some time together on the 23rd. I don't
have my notes with me, but I will. Oh, if you haven't looked at
our website lately, Lord Grace has completely updated it and
it's really nice. And our broadcast is much better
now. In addition to that, I've come
to realize A lot of you all do your banking electronically,
and so she has worked it out with the bank. It's a secure
website. If you'd like to make an offering
electronically through the website, that's available now. So, all
right. Tom's going to come and lead
us in number 39 in your spiral hymnal. Let's stand together. Wretched, lost, condemned, and
dying, Guilty I deserve God's wrath. Long I fought against
my Master, Hell-bent I was courting death. But the blood of Christ
had bought me He refused to let me die. This poor sinner, loved by Jesus,
must be conquered by and by. At the time which was predestined
in the covenant of God's grace, God in mercy sent His Spirit. Blessed time of love and grace,
to reveal His Son's great merit as the sinner's substitute. I saw Jesus bleeding, dying,
suffering as my substitute. Precious blood for sin's atonement,
justice could not ask for more. I heard Christ cry, it is finished,
and I could resist no more. Thanks to God for intervening. Grace that broke my stubborn
will. Grace that would not let me perish. Grace that rescued me from hell. Sovereign grace, I will proclaim
it Irresistible and free Grace that chose me and redeemed me. God by grace alone saved me. Sinner, now you've heard my story. Now I bid you trust my God. Christ, my all-sufficient Savior,
saves poor sinners by His blood. Please be seated. I'll be in
Genesis chapter 3 this morning, verse 1. Greg mentioned Wednesday night
that the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword. It's
a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and it's
a divider. And the dividing starts right
away when you open the Scriptures. Genesis 2-7, And the Lord God
formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils a breath of life, and man became a living soul. We
either believe God or we call God a liar and believe in evolution. It is a divider. Chapter three
is whenever sin entered into the world. It's probably one
of the worst things that ever happened in the whole of creation.
People say, oh, the death of Christ and the resurrection.
No, no, no, no, no. That was the most wonderful thing
that ever happened. This is bad. God doesn't have
to impute us sin. We inherited it. It's in our
DNA. We're conceived in sin and we're
shapen in iniquity. And this is where it all started
in Genesis chapter three and verse one. Now the serpent was more subtle
than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he
said unto the woman, Hath God said, ye shall not eat of the
trees of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent,
we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden. But the fruit
of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God hath said,
ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in a day
ye eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw
that the tree was good for food, and it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wife, she took of the fruit
thereof, and did eat. and gave unto her husband with
her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were
opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig
leaves together and made aprons for themselves. And they heard
the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves
amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God spoke unto Adam
and said, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice
in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid
myself. And he said, Who told thee that
thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof
I commanded thee thou shouldst not eat? And the man said, The
woman The woman that thou gavest to be with me, she did give me
and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the
woman, what is this that thou hast done? And she said, the
serpent beguiled me and I did eat. And then the Lord moves
on to the serpent and tells him that he'd place enmity between
the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And that
cross Jesus would bruise his head and he would bruise his
heel. Romans chapter 5 and verse 12 says wherefore as by one man
sin entered into the world and death by sin so that death passed
upon all men for that all have sinned. We either believe God
that Adam disobeyed, died spiritually, and we died with him, or we believe
in free will. It is a discerner of the hearts
and the intents and thoughts of the heart. Father, we thank you that Because
of your love for us, father and your grace that you've chosen
us out of a world of unbelief. Father, you showed us the sin
that's in our lives farther every day. You showed us the two natures
that we hear so much about. You've shown us father that you'll
love us in spite of ourselves. That you will cleanse us and
restrain us and bring us home safe to glory for your name sake.
Father, we'd ask that you'd be with Greg as he brings the message.
Give him a voice to speak the gospel and give us ears to hear
it, Father. We ask these things in Jesus'
name, amen. Let's all stand together once
again. We'll sing hymn that's on the back of your bulletin,
the hymn that's on the back of the bulletin. ? Precious is the name of Jesus
? ? Who can half his worth unfold ? ? Far beyond angelic praises
? ? Sweetly sung to harps of gold ? Precious went to Calvary
groaning, He sustained the cursed tree. Precious when His death
atoning made an end of sin for me. Precious when the bloody
scourges cause the scratched drops to roll. Precious when
of wrath assurges, overwhelmed his holy soul. Precious is his death victorious,
he the host of hell o'erthrows. In his resurrection glorious,
Victor crowned o'er all his foes. Precious Lord, beyond expressing
are Thy beauties all divine. Glory, honor, power, and blessing
be henceforth forever Thine. Soon in glory we shall see thee,
clothed in garments spotless white, ever living in thy presence
of the Lamb who is the light. Please be seated. We open your Bibles with me again
to Daniel chapter 9 please, Daniel chapter 9. Daniel is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ
in this chapter as we've seen him in the past. Here he's interceding
for Israel, for Jerusalem He's praying to God on their behalf
and confessing their sins and owning their sins as his own. My little children, I write these
things unto you that you sin not. That's our desire. But if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. We
have one who ever lives to make intercession for us, Peter, Before
the cock crows, thou wilt deny me thrice, but be of good cheer,
I've prayed for you." That's the only thing that made any
difference between Peter and Judas. They did the same thing. The Lord prayed for Peter as
he prays and intercedes for every one of his children. A prayer is a work of grace in
the heart. We often feel ashamed for our
lack of prayer for the shallowness of our prayer. We are convicted
by what James said when he said, you ask amiss that you might
consume it upon your own lust. Often what we pray for is just
comforts in this world. But when God does a work of grace
in the heart and makes us to be a sinner, then not only do
we see our complete total dependence on our Savior doing as Daniel
did and presenting our case before God and getting the forgiveness
of God for our sins, but we find ourselves now beginning to pray
in like fashion, owning responsibility for our sins. not making any
excuses and coming before the throne of grace pleading God's
mercy not based on how sorry we are for our sin or how committed
we are not to do it again but we come before his throne of
grace based on his namesake his covenant promises as did Daniel
he said for the sake of thy covenant for the sake of thy name, for
the sake of thy glory, for thine own sake, Lord, have mercy upon
me." That the Lord would enable us to pray like that. You see,
if we go based on any other grounds, we're only exposing our self-righteousness. We're claiming God's favor based
on something that we've done or something that we felt. or
something that we've experienced or something we've committed
ourselves to. But when we're able by the grace
of God to come before the throne of grace, knowing that we have
an advocate, we have a high priest who is able to sympathize with
our afflictions and who has presented himself before God on our behalf,
then we enter into true prayer. I said in the first hour that
all men at one time or another pray. People get in trouble,
they pray. But I'm interested in praying
in a way that God hears and is pleased with. And so Daniel says in verse 7, O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto
thee." I don't have any righteousness. I don't have any grounds upon
which to claim the promises of God or the blessings of God.
I don't have anything to bring to God to persuade Him to have
mercy upon me. Righteousness, all righteousness,
belongeth unto thee. Man at his very best state is
altogether vanity. The best thing I've ever done,
Lord, is filthy rags in thy sight. I can't produce anything of any
goodness before thee. That's why the Lord said to the
rich young ruler, why callest thou me good? There's none good
but God. There's none good but God. We listen to people talk
about those who have deceased and they talk about how good
they were and how righteous they were and how happy God is to
have them now. And the child of God thinks,
you know, Lord, If you don't save me for your namesake, if
you don't keep your covenant promises, if you don't look to
the Lord Jesus Christ on my behalf, I've got no other claim. No other
claim. Oh, Lord, righteousness belongeth
unto thee, but unto us, confusion of faces. Oh, you can tell when
you look at a person. When you speak to a person, they
don't understand what you're saying. I see a lot when I'm preaching. And
I'm sure it has something to do with the way I preach, but
sometimes it has to do with the ability of some people to hear.
But I see confusion of faces. You talk to somebody and you
say something to them. What is that? What's he talking about? We have confusion of faces when
we look to ourselves, don't we? Or are we just confused? We don't
understand things. as at this day to the men of
Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all 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. Lord, everything that everyone's
ever done is in violation of your law. Every thought they've
ever had, every deed they've ever performed, every work they've
ever done, never been able to do anything but trespass the
law of God. Verse 8, O Lord, to us belongeth
confusion of faces, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers,
because we have sinned against thee. That's what causes confusion,
doesn't it? That's what the confusion was
in the garden. What was Adam doing? Adam was
blaming God. The woman that thou gavest me.
Lord, it's all your fault. And then he was hiding himself
because he was ashamed. Confusion of face. How are you
going to hide yourself from God? How are you going to blame God
for your sin? But that's what sin does. It
causes confusion of face. because we've sinned against
thee. Verse 9, to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness
though we have rebelled against him. Sinner, there's a message of
hope. To the Lord our God belong with mercies? Mercy? Mercy is God withholding from
us what we deserve. Grace is God giving to us what
we don't deserve. Unto God belongeth mercies, and
He delights in showing mercy. He delights in forgiving His
people. But there's no forgiveness without
justice. Justice has to be satisfied. The law has to be kept. Sin has
to be punished. God says, I will in no wise,
Exodus chapter 34, clear the guilty. Every sin has to be punished. How's God? Where does mercy and
truth meet together? How is it that God's able to
be just to his holy law and justify sinners at the same time? We're
going to see the answer to that as we read on in this chapter. Verse 10, neither have we obey
the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws which he
set before us by his servants the prophets. We've not been
able to walk in God's law. We've not been able to keep God's
law. Yea, all Israel has transgressed
thy law. No one can claim to be anything
but a transgressor of God's law. This is a work of grace. The
unbeliever doesn't believe that. What do they say? Well, I've
never murdered anybody. I've been faithful to my wife.
I'm not a thief. What David say in Psalm 36, the
transgression of the wicked is in my heart. God's looking at
the heart, isn't he? Only when God gives you the ability
to see what he sees. And we don't see the fullness
of it, do we? John chapter 1 verse 9 says, if we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us
of all of our unrighteousness. Does that mean that you've got
to become consciously aware of every sin you've ever committed
and make a sin list? No. No. While time doesn't provide, you
wouldn't have enough time the rest of your life to make a list
of all your sins, but neither are you aware. We're not even
aware of our sins, are we? That word confess means to say
the same thing that God says. It means to take sides with God
against yourself. It means to agree with God that
you're a sinner. It means to say, truth, Lord.
When the Lord says that you're a dog, what did that Syrophoenician
woman say? Truth, Lord. Truth, Lord, that's
what I am. She was confessing her sin. When
the Lord said to that woman at the well, when she went back
down into Sychar and said, come meet a man who told me everything
I ever did, What was she saying? The Lord
has revealed to me that everything I've ever done is nothing but
sin. And everything that I've done
in Him is nothing but righteousness. Righteousness belongeth unto
Thee, O Lord. Belongeth unto Thee. I don't
have any. Now that's what Daniel's praying.
He's pleading the Lord's mercy based on the covenant of grace
and confessing, Lord, that we've never been able to keep your
law. Never been able to keep the law. All Israel has transgressed
thy law, verse 11, even by departing. Lord, we've never satisfied the
demands of thy law, not one time. Let the world pride themselves
in thinking that they're law-abiding citizens of the kingdom of God.
The child of God confesses as Daniel did, I'm not a law-abiding
citizen other than having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
my law keeper. He's my law keeper. even by departing that they might
not obey thy voice, therefore the curse is poured upon us,
and the oath that is written in the law of Moses." Now what
is the curse? In the day in which you sin, you shall surely die. That's the curse. It's the death
penalty. Lord, if you give me what I deserve,
I'm going to hell. I'm going to be separated from
you for all eternity. And I've got no claim to make
on your mercy. If you don't keep your mercies
for thy name's sake, if you don't remember the promises of thy
covenant on my behalf, I've got no other grounds on which to
come. I've got nothing to look forward
to but the curses of the law. The servant of God, because we
have sinned against Him. Now that's what the Lord told
Adam in the garden. You eat of the fruit, you're
going to die. And what does Satan say? He's
still saying, you see, Satan's tactics haven't changed. He's
still using the same weapons he used all the way back there
in the garden. You shall not surely die. You're not hell deserving. Look at you. I mean, you're at
least above average. You're a good person. That's
what the world says. That's what they believe. That's
not how a sinner prays. Verse 12, And he hath confirmed
his words which he spake against us, and against our judges that
judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil. For unto the whole
heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. Now that's the conviction of
sin. And the world knows nothing about it. To conclude that you don't believe
God as you ought. To conclude that you don't fear
God as you ought. That's a work of grace in the
heart, isn't it? As it is written in the law of
Moses, all this evil has come upon us, yet made we not our
prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities
and understand thy truth. Therefore, hath the Lord watched
upon the evil and brought it upon us for the Lord our God
is righteous in all his works which he had done for we obeyed
not his voice. Isaiah put it like this, from
the top of the head to the sole of the foot is nothing but sores
and putrefying sores, unmollified. That's what we're, we're leprous
outside of the covenant of grace, outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can all, Lord, that's me.
I'm nothing but a leper. Oh Lord, according to all thy
righteousness, I beseech thee. Lord, I plead with you based
on your righteousness, not based on mine. I'm not coming to you
because I'm committed now. I really mean
it this time. Lord, your righteousness is the
only grounds on which I'm able to come. I beseech thee, let
thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city, Jerusalem,
thy holy mountain, because of our sins and for the iniquity
of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach
to all that are about us. Now, therefore, O our God, hear
the prayer of thy servant and his supplications and cause thy
face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate for the Lord's
sake. Everything the Lord's doing is
for his sake. Lord, if you don't cause your face to shine upon
me, I'll remain in darkness. If you don't have mercy upon
me, and if you don't do it for your righteousness sake, for
your namesake, I've got no other claim. Oh my God, incline thine
ear and hear. Open thine eyes and behold our
desolations and the city which is called by thy name. For we
do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousness,
but for thy great mercies." Oh, how often we're tempted to think
that we could persuade God to have mercy upon us because of
some level of commitment that we've now renewed in our hearts. Lord, I did this. We make deals
with God, don't we? Try to bargain with Him. Here's a sinner's prayer. Lord,
I don't plead for Your mercy based on my righteousness, but
for Thy namesake. For Thy namesake. Lord, maintain
Thy glory by having mercy upon me. Maintain the promises of
thy covenant. You see, the greatest glory that
comes to God is the saving of a sinner. That's his greatest
glory. So his greatest glory is our
greatest good, isn't it? And he hath confirmed his words.
which he spake against us and against our judges that judged
us by bringing upon us a great evil for under the whole heaven
hath not been done. I'm sorry. Verse 19. Oh Lord here. Oh Lord forgive. Forgive me Lord for Christ's
sake. Oh Lord. hearken and do, defer
not for thine own sake. Oh my God, for thy city and thy
people are called by thy name. Lord, put all the guilt and all
the shame and all the penalty of my sin on thy dear son. That's his name. That's his name,
Jesus. For he shall save his people The greatest glory that God gets
is demonstrated in what the Lord Jesus Christ did on Calvary's
cross. And what Daniel's saying is,
look to His justice on the cross. Look to what He's done in putting
away our sin, in forgiving our sin, in separating our sin from
us as far as the East is from the West, in remembering them
no more, He buried them in the depths of the sea, sewed them up in a sack, the
scripture says, and threw them behind his back. They're gone. They're gone. That's what he's
going to say. Look, look, and while I was speaking and praying
and confessing my sin, I remember who Daniel is. Is Daniel above
being a sinner? No. Is Daniel also representing
the Lord Jesus Christ by owning the sins of his people as his
own? Yes. And the sin of my people Israel
and presenting my supplications before the Lord my God for the
holy mountain of my God. What is God's holy mountain?
There's two holy mountains spoken of in scripture, isn't there?
Sinai and Calvary. Sinai is where God gave the law.
And we don't go back to Sinai to find mercy. The mountain of
Sinai quaked. The mountain of Sinai was on
fire. The mountain of Sinai threatened
anyone who touched it with death. And then we have Mount Calvary,
where the Lord Jesus Christ, bearing the sins of his people,
suffered the full wrath of God's justice to put them away. That's the holy mountain. We
realize there's a Sinai we can't have anything to do with. Christ
went on Sinai, took that law. Verse 21, yea, while I was speaking
in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision
at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about
the time of the evening oblation. Now you know what time that is?
That's three o'clock in the afternoon. You know what happened at three
o'clock in the afternoon? The sky was blackened from noon
until three. And at exactly three o'clock
in the afternoon, when the priest was making the evening oblation
in the tabernacle, the Lord Jesus Christ cried out, It is finished. Father into thy hands, I commend
my spirit. And he gave up the ghost and
the son of God died. And the veil was rent. The veil
was rent. And even the Roman soldiers said,
truly, this is the son of God. Gabriel, the angel of the Lord
touched Daniel. at three o'clock in the afternoon.
And he informed me, verse 22, and talked with me and said,
oh Daniel, I've now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.
That's what you and I need. This book will be nothing but
a mystery, or it'll be nothing but a history book, or it'll
be nothing but doctrine, unless the Spirit of God gives us understanding. And at the beginning of thy supplications,
the commandment came forth and I am come to show thee for thou
are greatly beloved, therefore understand the matter and consider
the vision. Daniel, you've been praying many
days, but it's not the fervency or the length of your prayer
that has caused me to come. For at the beginning of your
prayer, the answer had already been given. Your prayers were not to persuade
God. Your prayers were given to you
to prepare you for this vision that I'm about to give you now.
And that's what all prayer is. We don't win God's favor by the
fervency of our prayers. But we do pray. And in so doing,
God prepares our hearts for the understanding of the vision.
And here it is. Seventy weeks are determined
upon thy people and upon thy holy city. Now the prophecy,
this is the prophecy that the wise men understood because the
fulfillment of this prophecy is perfect. The week in this
prophecy, a week is seven days and a week represents seven years.
So 70 weeks is 490 years. And it's broken up into three
segments. There's seven weeks and then
there's 62 weeks and then there's one week. And that makes up the
70 weeks. And so the first seven weeks
is the time between the time that the Jews go back to Jerusalem
and it takes 49 years to rebuild the temple. And the next part
of the prophecy has to do with the 62 weeks, which is 434 years. And that's the time from the
completion of the temple to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the last week talks about the destruction of Jerusalem
by the Romans in 70 AD. So that's the prophecy. But the
details of those, and it happened exactly as the Lord said it would
happen, on the exact time schedule that the Lord said it would happen. But the most important part of
this prophecy, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. That word testimony is the word
marteo. It's the word to be martyred.
It's the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. in the evening oblation
on the third hour. And all the prophecies of scripture
point back to that moment in time when Christ suffered the
full wrath of God's justice for the sins of God's people and
put those sins away. Look what he says. This is what's going to be determined.
This is what's going to be accomplished. Jerusalem's gonna be put to an
end. The temple is going to be built, but then it's going to
be destroyed. And a new kingdom is going to be established. And
the law is going to be completely fulfilled. What's going to happen in these
70 weeks? Transgression is going to be finished. Finished. the transgression now all the
prayer has to do with Lord we've not been able to keep your law
we've transgressed your law the transgression of the wicked is
in my heart David said in Psalm 36 and and none of us have can
make any claims of being able to keep God's law ever and so the Lord says transgression
the violation of my law is going to be finished It's going to
be finished. It's going to be over with. No
more. You say, well, I'm still violating
God's law in my heart. I can't keep God's law. I'm still
transgressing God's holy law. And every one of those transgressions
is finished. You see what the Lord Jesus Christ
did on Calvary's cross was not just finish transgressions of
past, but he finished all the transgressions of all of God's
people of all times. And for the child of God, there's
nothing that makes us not want to sin more than to know that
my future sins are already finished. They're already put away. Now
the unbeliever will hear that and think that that's a license
to sin, but the believer says, that's the thing that that causes
me to hate my sin most of all is that the Lord's already died
for it. He's already put it away. All my transgressions have been
finished. He made an end of sins. An end of it. There's no more sin. None. He made an end of it. That's right, all sin. As he is in this world, so are
we right now. Perfectly righteous, sinless
in the sight of God. And he's going to make reconciliation
for iniquity. Oh, you and I need to be reconciled
to God. And that's what the gospel does.
The message of the gospel brings reconciliation for iniquity.
All the things that we've done that fall short. That's the. All have sinned. I know you've
heard me say this many times, don't say it again. This is,
I don't know of a better definition of all of sin and come short
of the glory of God. Now, what in your life measures
up to the glory of God? If you've ever seen Christ, you
know that nothing does, which you can only conclude that, therefore,
everything about me is sin. It's all iniquitous. It doesn't
measure up. And the Scripture says that what's
going to happen at the end of these 70 weeks is that transgression's
going to be finished, sin's going to be put to an end, and all
your iniquity is going to be reconciled. In other words, God's gonna put
the work of Christ on the scale and balance out. You've been
weighed in the balance and been found wanting, but when the Lord
Jesus Christ gets a hold of the scale, he makes it just right,
doesn't he? Makes it perfect. What else is he going to do in
these 70 weeks? He's going to bring in everlasting
righteousness. Unto thee belongeth righteousness,
O Lord. We don't have any righteousness,
but the Lord Jesus Christ is going to bring in an everlasting
righteousness. It's the only kind of righteousness
that there is. Righteousness in the sight of
God has to be a righteousness that never had a beginning, never
had an end. That's what everlasting means. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ, by bringing Himself, brought in an everlasting righteousness. He made an end of sin. He reconciled
all iniquity and transgression, transgression has been made to
be finished. And verse 24, to seal up the
vision and prophecy. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
sealing up of the vision. You see, the spirit of prophecy
really is the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. God hasn't
given us prophecy in order to give us insight into some future
events. The purpose of prophecy is to
point back to what God has already accomplished in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so he's going to seal up the vision. He's going
to seal up the prophecy. And when God seals it up, it's
sealed up, it's finished. Notice the last phrase in verse
24. He's going to anoint the Most
Holy. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Holy One of Israel. He's the Anointed One. He's the
Christ. He's the One who came in the
full power of the Spirit of God. The Scripture says He was anointed
with the oil of gladness above his fellows. We have a measure
of the Spirit of God. He came in the full power of
the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is upon me,
he said. He has anointed me to preach
good news to the poor. Here's the good news. The good
news is that transgression has been finished. Sin has ended. Iniquity has been put away. The prophecy has been sealed
up. You see, just like these years
come to a perfect fulfillment in the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ on Calvary's cross, these 70 years, The important part is that the
perfect fulfillment was accomplished in what the Lord Jesus Christ
did on Calvary's cross. All the sins of all of God's
people have been brought to an end and everlasting righteousness
has been brought in. We have an everlasting righteousness. This is, you see it doesn't,
when Daniel looked at himself and looked at Israel, what conclusion
did he come to? We've never been able to keep
your law. All we have is confusion of face. All righteousness belongeth
unto thee. Daniel, Gabriel said, here's
your hope. Here's your hope. In 70 weeks,
in 70 weeks, I'm going to finish transgression.
I'm going to make an end to sin. I'm going to make reconciliation
for iniquity. I'm going to seal up the prophecy.
And I'm going to anoint my Holy One. And He's going to keep my
law. And He's going to accomplish
the salvation of my people. There's your hope, Daniel. Your
hope is not in yourself. Your hope is in Him. Cast all
your care upon him, for he careth for you." What did Gabriel say
to Daniel? Daniel, you are greatly beloved, greatly beloved. Scripture says that God has loved
his people with an everlasting love, never been a time he didn't
love them. The scripture says the Lord Jesus Christ loved his
disciples up to the end. And all what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the
sons of God. Hearing his love, not that we
love God, but that he loved us and gave his son as a propitiation
for our sins. There's the definition of love.
Daniel, you're greatly beloved, greatly beloved. And it is the love of Christ
that constraineth us, isn't it? It's the love of Christ that
drives us to look to Christ, to rest in Christ, to put all
our hope in Christ. Verse 25, know therefore and
understand. that from the going forth of
the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah,
the prince shall be seven weeks. That's 49 years, and that's how
long it took Nehemiah to rebuild the wall and the temple. And
three score and two weeks, that's 434 years, which is exactly the
period of time between the completion of the temple and the death of
Christ. And the wall, even in troublous times, Nehemiah had
to build the temple with Samballad and Tobiah and all the resistance
that the unbelieving world gave toward him. And after three score and two
weeks, shall Messiah be cut off. But not for himself. Not for himself. And the people
of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary. And the end therefore thereof
shall be with a flood. And to the end of the war, desolations
are determined." That's the destruction of Jerusalem. In the last prophecy,
the last verse tells about that last week when the Roman governor,
Roman emperor makes a covenant with all the nations against
Israel. And the oblation, the sacrifice is ended. The temple is destroyed. No more
blood sacrifices made. We have a sacrifice. We have
an altar. It's not a physical altar. It's
not a physical sacrifice. It's a spiritual one. It is none
other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Who put an end of sin? Finish transgression. sewed up
the prophecy. The Holy One of Israel. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we have no grounds to come to
you based on our own righteousness. But Lord, we pray that for Thy
namesake, for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy One
of Israel, that You would show us the mystery of the gospel
and cause us to believe that sin has been finished, transgression
is ended, The prophecy is sewed up. Righteousness, everlasting righteousness
has come in. Enable us to rest the hope of
our souls on thy dear son, the holy one of Israel, the anointed
Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Number 17, let's stand together. Just remain seated. See the table spread before you,
see the feast of bread and wine. These are symbols of our Savior,
tokens of His love divine. Bread that's broken is his body,
crushed beneath the wrath of God. Wine poured out is a reminder
of our Savior's precious blood. Children of our God, remember
how he bought your soul and mine. In remembrance of our Savior,
eat the bread and drink the wine. Jesus came, the God incarnate,
to fulfill God's holy law. On the cross he made atonement
and retrieved us from the fall. Let us never forget the promise
Jesus made to come again. Soon he comes, our King, to call
us home to glory. praise his name. With this hope and expectation,
we rejoice to keep this feast, celebrating our redemption till
we lean on Jesus' breast. Here's a summary of this morning. It's found in Isaiah 64 verse
5. For we have sinned, and in those
is continuance. Lord, we're sinners. We can't
do anything but sin. And we shall be saved. Only sinners are going to be
saved. And every single one of them
will be saved. How are they going to be saved?
By the sinless life of the Lord Jesus Christ. That bread that
came down from heaven with no leaven, no sin, sins he bore
were ours, he owned them as his own, but in him was no sin. We do this in remembrance of
him. the precious blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the cup of the new covenant. The blood of bulls and goats
never took away sin. Never. That is why the prophecy was
given to Daniel. This legal means is coming to
an end. Sin is going to be finished.
Transgression is going to be finished. Sin is going to be
brought to an end. Everlasting righteousness is going to be
coming in. and it's gonna come through the blood of my dear
son. And the Lord said, as often as
you do this, do it in remembrance of me. And all God's people said, amen,
amen. Let's stand together. Brother
Burt, would you dismiss us, please? Our gracious Heavenly Father,
we again thank you for the multitude of thy commandments, and thy
grace that commands us here this morning as we gather this morning.