Good morning again. You don't
have to turn in your Bibles, but I'll just read a couple verses
here from Hebrews chapter 4. Seeing then that we have a great
high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of
God, let us hold fast our profession. What is our profession? It is
finished. The one who's passed into heaven
took with him the names of those for whom he lived and died, and
he's seated at the right hand of the majesty on high, ever
living to make intercession for us. He's all my salvation. That's my profession. For we
have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. He understands the feelings of
our infirmities. He understands the temptations
that we face. He bore sin in his body. He suffered
the full shame of sin more than you and I would ever know, but was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come with confidence
boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in our time of need. If you're needy this
morning, you need grace. This is what the Lord's called
us to. This is why we're here. Let's
stand together. Brother Tom's gonna come lead
us in the hymn on the back of your bulletin. ? Sovereign grace or sin abounding
? ? Ransomed souls the tidings swell ? ? Tis a deep that knows
no sounding ? ? Who its breadth or length can tell ? Heirs of
God joined, heirs with Jesus, long ere time its race begun. To His name eternal praises,
O what wonders love hath done! Who from Christ our souls can
sever, Bound by everlasting bands. Once in Him, in Him forever,
None can pluck us from His hands. O such love my soul still ponder,
Love so great, so rich and free! Say, while lost in holy wonder,
Why, O Lord, such love to me! Please be seated. Would you please turn with me
in God's word to John chapter 17. John chapter 17. I confess to all of you as I've
confessed to God. It is a great struggle for me
to pray. I struggle to pray, not the act
of praying, but to pray or write. And the reason I want to read
this is that Many of my prayers either are done against God's
will or to satisfy my fleshly desires because God hasn't granted
them. Which is, thankfully, He restrains
that. But in chapter 17, this is the
prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I can say with absolute certainty,
everything Christ prays and ask God the Father will come to pass,
every bit of it. And as you see this, read this,
when he prays for us, these are truths and it is a great comfort
to my soul to know that these things are going to come. If
you would join me please in chapter 17. And these words spake Jesus
and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has
come glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee. As thou, God the Father, has
given Christ power over all flesh, that Christ should give eternal
life to as many as the Father has given him. I have glorified
thee on the earth, Christ said, I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou
me with Thy own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before
the world was. Lord, bring me back into Your
presence in glory. That's where I want to be. That's
the desire of every believer, isn't it? That's my desire. I can't tell you how many times
we've prayed, Lord Jesus, take me. I'm ready to come. I have manifested Thy name unto
the men which Thou gavest me. gave us Christ out of the world.
God's the father they were and God gave them to Christ and they
have kept God's word. Now they which have known that
all things whatsoever thou has given Christ are of God. You cannot separate them. For
I have given unto them, that's his people, the words which thou
gavest me and his people have received them. received them,
and have known surely that Christ came from God the Father. And
these people have believed that God did send Christ. Verse nine, I pray for, I'm not
reading this out, I pray for them, but I pray for those that
you gave me. That's who I'm praying for. I
pray not for the world. I'm not praying for everybody.
but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine
are mine, and I am glorified in these people. We cannot be
separated from God the Father and Christ the Son. And now I'm
no more in the world, Christ is fixing to leave, but these
are in the world and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through
thy own name whom thou hast given me. He's asking God the Father
to keep these people that he's given them. That they may be
one as we are one. While I was with them in the
world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me I have
kept and none of them is lost but the son of perdition that
the scripture might be fulfilled. And now Christ is saying I came
to come I to thee and these things I speak in the world that they
might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. Christ has prayed
that God would give us the joy of Christ. I have given them
thy word and the world hath hated them because these people are
not of the world even as I am not of the world. We are strangers
and pilgrims. I pray not that thou shouldest
take of them out of the world." Well, that's contrary to my prayer. Often I'll pray, Lord, take me
out of this world. But Christ says, I don't want
you to take them out of the world, but thou shouldest keep them
from the evil. And that evil is speaking to
you. That's me. I'm evil. Keep me
from myself. They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy word,
thy word is truth. As thou has sent me into the
world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for
their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified
through the truth. Christ is sanctified, those who
are in Christ are sanctified. And this is verse 20, and we'll
conclude with this. Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. The reason we exist this morning,
the people of God, is that we are to be a witness for the sheep
that have yet to come into the sheepfold. and not to be taken
out, but we are to be his witness. And that's my prayer that God
would enable us to do that faithfully for him. Let us try to pray. Lord, I pray that you would enable
us, sinners, that you enable us to pray to you in a proper manner and to ask
for that which is your will. We pray, Lord, that you would
be glorified here this very morning and that you would enable your
servant, our brother, to deliver the truth of Christ. And we ask
that wherever your people may gather, that Christ would be
declared and that he alone would be glorified. And I ask for your
people here that you might give us the faith to believe what
is preached and that we might hear your voice. And Lord, we
pray this morning that your words might pierce the hearts, not
only of your people, but those who are yet to come into the
sheepfold and that we would be found faithful. We know that
we are totally dependent on you to keep us. We ask these things
in Christ's holy name, amen. Let's all stand together. Once
again, we'll sing hymn number 158 and then Brie Weishi will
bring special music. Let's stand number 158. Yeah. Come Holy Spirit, heavenly dove,
with all thy quickening powers, kindle a flame of sacred love. ? In these cold parts of ours
? Look how we grovel here below ? Fond of these earthly toys
? Our souls how heavily they go to reach eternal joys. In vain we tune our formal songs. In vain we strive to rise. Hosannas languish on our tongues. and our devotion dies dear lord
and shall At this poor dying rate, Our
love so faint, so cold to thee, And thine to us so great. ? Come Holy Spirit heavenly dove
? With all thy quickening powers ? Come shed abroad the Savior's
love ? And that shall kindle ours Please be seated. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of
my heart. Not be all else to me, save that
Thou art. Thou my best thought, by day
or by night. Waking or sleeping, Thy presence
my light. Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my
true word. I ever lift Thee, and Thou with
me Lord. Thou my great Father, I thy true
son, Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one. Riches are ye not, nor man's
empty place, Thou mine inheritance now and always, Thou and Thou
only, first in my heart. High King of Heaven, my treasure
Thou art, ? My King of Heaven, my victory
won ? ? May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's sun ?
? Heart of my own heart, whatever
befall ? ? Still be my vision Oh, that's our hope, isn't it?
Be thou my vision. Don't you love listening to Brie
sing? you've got the sweetest voice. I'm so thankful for you. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Daniel chapter 8, please? Daniel chapter 8. And I would
need to ask you to bear with me for a few moments because
there's a lot of historical events that need to be understood in
Daniel chapter 8. As there was in some of the previous
chapters, in order for us to understand
the point of the prophecy. When John was having that revelation
given to him, in Revelation chapter 19 verse 10, the angel came to
John and said, The testimony and the word there
is witness. It is the word from which we
get our word martyr. The testimony of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy. One of the first questions I
asked myself in preparing this message is, Lord, what's the
point of all this historical information? I don't want to
teach a history lesson. That's not going to help anybody
and certainly doesn't give me any peace or comfort. And then
I remembered what the Lord said through that angel to John, the
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. So as we read these
prophecies, we read in the previous chapters how the Lord told Daniel
that there were going to be four nations that would rule the world. And he focuses in on another
one of those in this chapter. The point being that all the
history of mankind, all the history of mankind has been purposed
and ordained by God to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything
that happened before the cross points to the cross. Everything
that's happened since the cross points back to the cross. Our
God His purpose is to glorify His Son. And in glorifying His
Son, His purpose is to save His people. And everything in this
world and everything in your life and everything in my life
serves that end. That's its purpose. That's God's
purpose. The world can't see it. The Lord
raised up Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire in order
to take the children of Israel into captivity and to break down
the temple and to bring in the prophets and all those things
now that are happening in Daniel's life while he's in Babylonian
captivity pointing to the coming of the Messiah. The Lord raised
up after the Babylonians the Medes and the Persians, which
we saw in the previous chapter, and they're going to be mentioned
again in this chapter for the purpose of using Darius to bring
the children of Israel back to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple,
all for the purpose of preparing Israel for the coming of Christ.
The Lord raised up the Greek Empire, which is mentioned in
this chapter. Alexander the Great is mentioned
in this chapter. Now I remind you that Daniel is writing in
the 5th century B.C. These things didn't take place
until the second and third century BC. So Daniel is prophesying
of events that are going to take place for the encouragement of
God's people to say, God is ordaining all of these historical events
for the purpose of preparing the world for the coming of His
Son. That's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. The
evidence of that So God raises up the Greek Empire and what
all God's purposes were, I don't pretend to know, but I know one
of them was that the New Testament was written in the Greek language
and there are verb tenses in the Greek language that don't
exist in any other language that express things about the things
of God better than any other language can express it. Alexander
the Great spread the Greek culture and language throughout all the
world and then after they fell what happened the Romans came
in. These are historical events that are mentioned in the book
of Daniel. I'm not trying to teach you a history lesson. I'm
telling you what God's saying about what he's doing in destroying
the Greek Empire and raising up the Romans for the sake of
putting his son to death and creating a network of of transportation
so that when Christ ascended back into glory the church could
go out into all the Roman Empire preaching the gospel. God raises
up kings and puts down kings and raises up nations and puts
down nations all for the purpose of the glory of His Son and the
salvation of His people. And when the last of God's elect
is brought by the Spirit of God to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
everything in this world is coming to an instant end. It's the only
reason this world exists. It's the only reason it exists.
There's going to be a cataclysmic conclusion to this entire world. How God's going to bring that
about? All I know is that those of us which are alive are going
to be caught up together with them that are in the air and
the judgment of God, the fiery wrath of God's judgment is going
to bring this whole world to an end because the only reason
this world exists, here's the message, the only reason this
world exists is for the testimony, the witness the Marteo, that's
the word, and it means martyr. It's all about the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ and what he did in order to accomplish the
salvation of his people. That's what it's all about. Not about Jews, it's about Christ
and his church. If we're part of that church,
then it is about us, isn't it? It is about us. The Lord said in Amos chapter
3 verse 7, Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth
the secrets to His servants, the prophets. So everything that
God's doing in this world, the world's trying to figure out
what's the reason for life? What's my purpose? God has revealed
it all through His servants, the prophets. That's why we go
back to God's word and say, well, what does God say about why is
all this happening? What's the purpose of it? It's
for the testimony, the witness, the martyr of the Lord Jesus
Christ. His death on Calvary's cross,
everything in history, everything points to it. And if we fail to see what God
has accomplished, through the sacrifice of his son on Calvary's
cross. If we fail to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, then we are doomed to a life of vanity. Vanity. There's no purpose. It's empty. It's meaningless. What does it profit a man if
he gained the whole world? Understand science, knowledge,
speak every language, accomplish every purpose in life, and lose
his own soul. What will a man give in exchange
for a soul? That's what the Lord was telling me. First Corinthians
chapter 13, when the Lord talks about love, though I have the
tongues of angels, though I give my body to be burned, though
I possess all knowledge, though I've accomplished everything
this world has to give and I'm without love, I don't know Christ
without the love of Christ. I am nothing. Nothing. It's all about Him,
isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is life. In me is life. And the life was
the light of man. If we're going to have any knowledge,
any understanding, if we're going to know God, if we're going to
know anything about truth, We're going to have to know Christ.
It's all for His glory. Now that kind of, the realization
of that, believing that, kind of, it, well, it causes us to
say, you know, all these things that consume so much of my energy
and so much of my fears and so much of my time, you know, it's
about Him. Lord, enable me. to set my affections
on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God, not on the things of this earth. Lord, enable me. That's a spiritual work of grace
that the natural man cannot come to on his own. God's got to do
it. God's got to do it, doesn't he? All right. Bear with me for a few moments
as we read this chapter. Daniel chapter 8. Verse one,
in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision
appeared unto me, even unto me, Daniel, after that which appeared
unto me at the first. And I saw in a vision, and it
came to pass when I saw, that I was in Shushan in the palace,
which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in a vision, and I
was led by the river of Ula. Then I lifted up my eyes and
saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram, which
had two horns, and the two horns were high, but one was higher
than the other, and the higher came up last. And I saw the ram
pushing westward and northward and southward, so that no beast
could stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver
out of his hand, but he did according to his will and became great. And as I was considering, behold,
and he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth
and touched not the ground and the goat had a notable horn between
his eyes. As I mentioned last Sunday, many
of these prophecies are repeated in the book of Revelation. God
encouraging his people that I have overcome the world. And he came to the ram that had
two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto
him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto
the ram, and he was moved with color." That word just means
fierce anger, power. He was moved. So this ram now,
this he-goat is pushing from the west against the ram. And he smote the ram and broke
his two horns. And there was no power in the
ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground
and stamped upon him. And there was none that could
deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore, the he goat waxed
very great. And when he was strong, the great
horn was broken. So this goat now has got, it's
like a unicorn. It's got one horn. And as soon
as he achieves the destruction of the ram, his horn is broken
off. You remember the horn is a picture
of power. The horn was broken off and for
it came up four notable ones towards the four winds of heaven
and one of them came forth and out of one of them came forth
a little horn which waxed exceedingly great towards the south and towards
the east and towards the pleasant land. Now the south is Egypt,
the east is Babylon, the pleasant land is Israel, so this he goat
which has one horn now broken off and grows four horns is one
of the little horns is going to conquer Egypt, Babylon, and
Israel. And it waxed great even to the
host of heaven. And he cast down some of the
host of the stars to the ground and stamped upon them. It persecuted
the people of God. Yea, he magnified himself even
to the prince of the host. That's the high priest in the
promised land. He presents himself to him and overthrows him. And
by him, the daily sacrifice was taken away and the place of the
sanctuary was cast down. It's called the abomination of
desolation. It's when the temple was turned
into a pagan temple. And a host was given unto him
and the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression and he cast
down the truth to the ground and it practiced and it prospered. So this little horn now, this
little horn which overtakes Egypt, overtakes Babylon, overtakes
the the promised land and Jerusalem and sets up the temple is prospering. How is he prospering? God made him to prosper. Then I heard one saint speaking
and another saint said unto the certain saint which spake, How
long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression
of desolation to give both the sanctuary and the host to be
trodden underfoot? And he said unto me, 2,300 days. And then the sanctuary will be
cleaned. Now that's six years, three months. Six years and three months. And that is exactly how long
this little ram took over the temple. Verse 15, and it came to pass
when I, even I, Daniel, had seen the vision and sought for the
meaning. Then behold, there stood before me as the appearance of
a man, and I heard a man's voice between the banks of Uli, which
called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.
Now, if God doesn't say to me and you, make this man to understand
the vision, we're not going to understand the vision. Some of
you right now are thinking, what in the world is all this about?
And I pray by the end of this time together that the Lord will
make each of us to understand the vision. And so as a, you know, the pastors in the
seven churches of Revelation are referred to as the seven
stars or the angels, the messengers, that's what they are. So just
as God called Gabriel to interpret the vision to Daniel, so the
Lord sends his messengers today to interpret the vision to his
people. Now I want to know what this
vision means. I want to know what the significance
of this vision is to the saving of my soul. Verse 17, so he came near where
I stood and when he came I was afraid and fell upon his face.
But he said unto me, understand, O son of man, for at the time
of the end shall be the vision. The end of what? The end of the
law, the end of the old covenant. This is all preparation for the
coming of the Messiah. This is God's doing for the purpose
of preparing the world to receive Christ. Now, as he was speaking with
me, I was in a deep sleep on my face towards the ground and
he touched me and set me upright. That's what we're going to be
by nature. We're just going to be a slumbering sleep, aren't we? If the Lord doesn't touch us
and raise us on our feet and open our ears and unstop our
ears and give us eyes to see, we'll not understand the truth
of God's word and what he's saying to us. In verse 19, and he said, I will
make thee to know what shall be in the last end of the indignation
for at the time appointed and the end shall be." The end of Old Testament Israel. These prophecies have to do with
that. The beginning of the new covenant, the church, the salvation
of the Gentiles. That's what this is all preparation
for. This is all that God's about. He's about to divorce national
Israel and marry another, and he's not going to go back. He's
not going to go back to his first bride. Those who are true Israel
are circumcised in the heart by the Spirit of God. We're not
waiting for a resurrection of national Israel in order in order
to see the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ just as these prophecies
were fulfilled perfectly. Perfectly. We're going to see
some more before we get through the book of Daniel. I hope you're
reading ahead. Just as these prophecies were fulfilled in
the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, so they will be
fulfilled perfectly in the second coming of the Lord Jesus for
our encouragement to believe it. God has not done anything
without showing the secrets of what He is doing to His servants,
the prophets. God is revealing to His people what He is doing. Verse 20, The ram which thou
sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. That
is pretty clear. That is who was in control now.
And the Persian Empire was greater than the Median Empire, but they
were sort of two empires. You remember the ram had two
horns and the one horn was, the horn that came out later was
bigger than the first horn. That's the Persian empire. That's
the empire that God's gonna use to bring the children of Israel
back to rebuild the temple and cleanse the sacrifice. Prepare
the world for the coming of Christ. The ram which thou sawest having
two horns are the kings of Medea and Persia and the rough goat
The one that came with cholera, the one that could not be restrained,
the one who came from the West and destroyed the Medes and the
Persians, that's the king of Grecia. That's Alexander the Great. No
question about it. This is the fourth of the world
kingdoms or the third of the world kingdoms prior to the Roman
Empire. And the great horn that is between his eyes is the first
king, the first king. He reigned for eight years. He
died at 32 years old, tutored by Aristotle. To this day, if
you go to war college, you're going to study the tactics of
Alexander the Great in war college today. This is the world history as
God has ordained it for the preparation of the coming of Christ and the
salvation of God's people. And the Lord is revealing these
secrets hundreds of years before they take place to his servant,
the prophet. And he's going to reveal other
things about the exact time that Christ is going to come in the
next few chapters. And you remember when the wise
men came from the east? They were coming from Babylon.
How did they know to anticipate the coming of the Messiah? You
say, well, there was a star. How did they know what that star
meant? They believed the prophecies of Daniel. They believed what Daniel had
written down, what God had revealed to his servant the prophet about
the secret, the mystery of the coming of Christ. They knew that
all the world's history was centered around this one event. Faith, my brethren, and faith,
my friend, is believing God. It's believing God. John put it like this in conclusion
to his epistle. He said, many of the things did
Jesus do that are not recorded in this book, but these are recorded
that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the
living God. You see, the spirit of prophecy
is the Lord Jesus Christ. In the volume of the book it
is written of me, it all points to him. and God has given us
the Lord Jesus said if you don't believe my words which I've been
given to my father the only words I speak are the exact words that
the father's given me if you don't believe me for my words
believe me for my works sake surely the fact that I've performed
these miracles ought to capture your attention and cause you
to believe you see man is without excuse for not believing God and then in Deuteronomy when
when the Lord said how do I How do I identify a false prophet? How do I identify a false prophet?
And the Lord makes it clear. If he predicts something, anything,
and it doesn't happen exactly like he predicts that he's a
false prophet, don't be afraid of him. Don't listen to him. You see, everything that God's
prophets predicted came to fruition exactly like he... Why? To say
to you and me, believe me, I'm in control of this. Believe me.
Believe everything I've said. Rest all the hope of your salvation
on me and my word. And believe that everything I'm
doing is for the glory of my son and for the salvation of
his people. God raised up Alexander the Great, gave him great power,
and brought his life to a swift end when he was finished with
him. Alexander's kingdom was divided up against four kingdoms
and one of them was Syria. And it's Syria now that's being
spoken of as this little horn and a man by the name of Antiochus
Epiphanes conquered Egypt, Babylon, and raided Israel and set up
the statue of Zeus in the temple Solomon's temple now has got
a statue of Zeus set up in it and he takes a swine and sacrifices
a pig on the altar of God. As a result of that, the children
of Israel rebelled against him. Well, a faction of the people
of Israel rebelled against him. And if you know anything about
the intertestamental period, you know there's 400 years between
Malachi and Matthew. And during those 400 years, there's
some history books that were written. First and second Maccabees
gives you all the stories of the Maccabean revolt. This is
what's being talked about here and how the children of Israel
revolted against Antiochus Epiphanes and cleansed the temple. And
the six years and three months is exactly the number of years,
the amount of time that the temple was desecrated. The sacrifice
was taken away. And the Maccabean Revolt is the
forerunner of the Pharisees that the Lord Jesus Christ dealt with.
You see, they brought the law back and they became lawmongers. What's the Lord saying? All these
blood sacrifices don't take away sin. The desecration of the temple,
the restoring, the cleansing of the temple, the establishment
of the law, those things are not going to take away sin. You're
in need of a Messiah. You're in need of a sin bearer.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the spirit of prophecy. He's the
one that this is all about. So look what he says. So that
the The rough goat, verse 21, is
the king of Grisha and the great horn that is between his eyes
is the first king. And now that being broken, whereas
four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nations,
but not in his power. Now, none of these four kingdoms
that the Greek empire was broken up into were of the power that
Alexander the Great had. 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. Now, that's Antiochus Epiphanes.
And what's he going to do? His power shall be mighty, but
not by his own power. Now, this is an enemy of God's
people. And God's saying, He's not doing this by His own power.
I gave Him the power. I ordained Him to this end. And
the same thing's true today. Whatever things our government
might do or not do that we don't like, it's the Lord. It's the Lord. God's in control
of this nation just like He was of every nation that's ever preceded
it. and he shall destroy wonderfully
and shall prosper and practice and shall destroy the mighty
and the holy people and through his policy also he shall cause
craft to prosper in his hand and he shall magnify himself
in his heart and by, now that word peace there is the word
prosperity, by his successful reign. He shall destroy many. And he
did. And God's gonna bring us. And
he shall also stand up against the prince of princes. Now, you
know who the prince of princes is? The prince of peace, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the king of kings. And this
Antiochus Epiphanes is gonna do just like Nebuchadnezzar did. He's gonna become proud and stand
up against God Almighty. but he shall be broken without
hand." You can read the historical events, read the Maccabean stories. Antiochus Epiphanes died the
same way Herod died. He set himself upon a throne,
he called himself God, and he was eaten with worms and then
died. I don't know what all that means,
but I don't want to die like that. He didn't die and then was eaten
with worms. The worms were coming out of his body before he died.
He died without hand. Just like God set him up and
used him to accomplish his purpose, God took him down. You see, the Lord is, He's doing
it all. And if this applies to world
events, How much more does it apply to the things of your life
and my life? God stirs up trouble. Has evil
come to the city and the Lord's not caused it? And then God gives
peace. I give light. I give darkness.
I cause evil and I cause good. That's the God that we worship. And this God that we worship
sent his son for a purpose and his purpose was to accomplish
the salvation of his people. He's not the God that you hear
about in religion today, the God who has no control, the God
who wants to save everybody but can't get it accomplished, the
God who's powerless to the free will of man, the God who's somehow
subject to the will of man or to the works of man, the God
The God who can't get his purpose done with his word. What's popular
in religion today? Creeds and confessions, aren't
they? The words of men. Well, the word
of God's not sufficient. We've got to have the word of
man in order to interpret the word of God. And we'll use our
creeds and confessions to interpret God's word. As if God the Holy
Spirit is not able to do that? This is the God we serve. This
is the God who saves his people. He accomplishes his purpose.
He's telling Daniel, this is what I'm going to do. And he
did it exactly like he said he was going to do it. Antiochus Epiphanes, 2,300 days. From the time he came into Israel
to the time they cleansed the temple And the Lord's gonna tell
Daniel exactly how many weeks, how many days, how many years
it's gonna be for the coming of Christ in the next chapter
or two. And the vision of the evening, verse 26, and the vision
of the evening and morning which was told is true. God says, my word's faithful,
it's true. You can hang the hopes of your
immortal soul on my promises. I'm going to keep my word. When
you're not faithful, I'm faithful." Whose words do you want to do
that with? You want to trust your own words?
You want to trust the words of the politicians or the educators
or the philosophers or the religious hucksters? Whose word are you
going to trust? This is God's word. This is why these prophecies
were given to us. In order to show us that God
is faithful to his word, he's going to do it exactly like he
said he was going to do it. Wherefore, shut thou up the vision,
for it shall be for many days. And I, Daniel, fainted and was
sick certain days. Afterwards, I rose up and did
the king's business, and I was astonished at the vision. but
none understood it. Brethren, none understand it. God says I'm going to send a
famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor of thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the Word of God. Now I pray that God's
enabled me to be a A messenger, just a messenger, voice of one
crying in the wilderness, pointing, behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sins of the world. This is the meaning of this passage. The world can't see it. They
don't know what's going on. They don't know they're not in
control. You know, they worry about, I
read stories about, you know, the economy of China is unsustainable
and soon it's going to fall. And the, what do they call it,
the people coming into Europe is going to destroy the whole
world. And the debt of America, it's
unsustainable, you know, and everybody's worried about what's
going to happen, what's going to happen. And they're all trying to figure
out an angle to avoid the catastrophes that may or may not happen. And Daniel says, I'm astonished.
I can rest in knowing that my God is on his throne. I can rest
in knowing that my God has accomplished everything necessary for my salvation. I can rest in not worrying about
the events of this world, for they are all in the hand of my
God, and though nobody else understands it, God's given me some understanding. I will send a famine, not a famine
of bread or of a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the Word
of God. I love what Peter said when he
was talking about that experience that he had on Mount of Transfiguration. And he said, we didn't bring
you cunningly devised fables. We didn't make this up. We handled
the Word of God. We heard Him as the Word of God. We know and are sure that He
is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Who else should we
go? He alone has the words of eternal life. and as glorious as that experience
was that Peter, James, and John had on the Mount of Transfiguration,
Peter goes on to say, but we have a more sure word of prophecy. These prophecies are not given
to us in order to entertain us. They're not given to us in order
to educate us. They're given to us in order
to say to us, it's all about my son. It's all about him. Everything I'm doing, good and
bad, light and darkness, evil kings and good kings, powerful
nations and weak nations, is all for the purpose of glorifying
my son and saving my people. And just as I've been faithful
to keep all the promises of the past, so I will be faithful to
fulfill all the promises of the future. And God saying to me
and you, believe me, believe me. Don't you love that story
of Jairus? And I'll close with this. When
Jairus came to the Lord and his daughter was on her deathbed,
and before the Lord could get to Jairus' house, the servants
of Jairus came and said, bother the master no more. Your daughter's
dead. She's died. There's no more hope.
And the Lord looked with great compassion on Jairus. And he
said, Jairus, don't be afraid. Only believe. When you've got nothing else,
only believe. Believe God. His words are true
and faithful. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
for that faith we are completely dependent upon Thee, and we ask
now that You would give it, for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 18, let's stand together.
Number 18. We'll sing the refrain as if
it was just verse 2, so sing straight through. God gave his holy inspired word
for only one great end, the prophets and apostles to reveal the sinner's
friend. The Bible is a book of Christ. It only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ. It only speaks of Him. The prophecies of old record
God's wondrous mighty deeds Those deeds of power and of grace Set
forth the woman's seed The prophets all reveal our Lord as prophet,
priest, and king. The types the great redemption
show, Christ's blood and grace now bring. Behold the Lamb, the Baptist
said, the sin-atoning One. As it was promised long before,
God's Son as Man has come. Our substitute obeyed the law,
then died and rose again. And in his word our Savior said,
Rejoice, I've come again. Okay.