Our internet service is down
out here at the church. And so on my cellular data, I
have the Zoom set up on my iPad. And that's also the iPad that
has all my notes on it. So I got Yvonne's iPad, which
has my e-sword on it, but no notes. So we're just going to
wing it. But I think it'll work out. We're in Daniel 9, and we've
been waiting with eager anticipation to get to this chapter because
we're introduced to Messiah the Prince in Daniel 9. Last week, remember, we've been
going through these visions that Daniel had, and basically they're
visions of the same thing that Nebuchadnezzar had about all
the things that are going to come to pass as far as kingdoms. and how all those are in accordance
with God's purpose in bringing about the redemption of the church.
And that word comes up in this Daniel chapter nine, a very interesting
phrase here that we find in Daniel chapter nine. But last time we
went through each time that we look at these visions, each subsequent
one has its layered like an onion kind of each time we get more
and more detail about a little bit more revelation about what's
going to happen and But it's basically about the same thing
you have the thou art the head of gold the Babylonian Empire
and then the the arms and the chest of silver was the the kingdom
of the Medo-Persians, and the brass was the next kingdom, which
would be the Greeks, Alexander the Great, and then the legs
of iron and clay, the Roman Empire. And so basically, if you keep
that in mind, the rest of it just various levels of detail
about that same thing. So we're gonna read through Daniel
chapter nine real quick here, and since I don't have notes,
we may just comment as we go, as things come to my mind from
my notes. So in the first year of Darius,
the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was
made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. And remember that
Cyrus actually was the king of the Persian Empire. And he was
the uncle of Darius. And Darius was married to one
of Cyrus's daughters. Cyrus said, okay, you take over
the province of Babylon and all those realms and I'll take care
of the rest of them. So in the first year of his reign,
and I Daniel, now Daniel would have been about 80 at this point,
80 years old. He's no spring chicken anymore.
And he's experienced a lot of things, and he's been a trusted
confidant of the king. He's been a trusted advisor,
a trusted one to sit on errands throughout the kingdom, even
from Nebuchadnezzar. And there was a period of Belshazzar,
where he didn't have much to do with Daniel and didn't appreciate
him. But now we're back to where Darius
thinks of Daniel as a wise man and uses him. In the first year
of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the
years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet,
that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolation of Jerusalem."
So Daniel had access to these scriptures, these roles, and
He'd been kind of probably aware of this for a long time. And
he says, you know, I was like 12 when we got captured. Now
I'm 80. So doing the math, he says, I
think it's about time that the captivity is over. So he's going
to pray to God about it. So I understood by the books
the number of years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah
the prophet that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of
Jerusalem. And I set my face unto the Lord
God. to seek by prayer and supplications
with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. He was serious about this. It wasn't just a, well, it's
time for my three prayers a day. And this was something really
concerning to him. And I prayed unto the Lord my
God and made my confession. Now this is a very interesting
part of this book where Daniel, how he views himself and how
he views his situation before the Lord. He didn't go to the
Lord and say, you know what? I don't know why you stuck me
in the middle of all these heathens and among a people that's heathens.
But he says, I'm a sinner, sinner saved by grace. I made my confession
and said, oh Lord, the great and dreadful God. Remember what
that vision that he had of the ancient of days with a fire and
the judgment and all that stuff? Keeping the covenant and mercy
to them that love him. So he had a deep understanding
of this whole the way that God works, the view that God gave
him of how God works things. I'll put my law on their inward
hearts. I'll give them a heart to know me and to love me. And
what John said, we love Him because He first loved us. Daniel was
very aware of that. keeping covenant and mercy to
them that love him and to them that keep his commandments. And
this is very interesting because he's a slave, really. Their kingdom
has been conquered. They've been marched 1,700 miles
around the desert to Babylon and made slaves of the Babylonians
and the Medes. They're basically servants. And he looks at that and says,
no matter what happens, God still keeps His covenant and His mercy
with us. We've sinned. Verse 5, another
very important verse here. Daniel says, we have sinned and
committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled even
by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments. So he
doesn't take himself out of that equation. He says, I was that
same way until grace. I was the same way. And even
though I've been blessed immeasurably, and boy, we all think about since
we've been redeemed, since we've been born again, we all think
what blessings have been bestowed on us in the revelation of His
Word and how great His long-suffering was toward us while we were sinners
and how He loved us and He always viewed us through the lens of
His Son. And He says, We've sinned and
committed iniquity and done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing
from Thy precepts and from Thy judgments. Neither have we hearkened
unto Thy servants the prophets which spake in Thy name to our
kings, and our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people
of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongs
to Thee, but unto us confusion of faces." And that really means
shame. That word confusion, it means
We're just ashamed of how we've acted from the beginning of time,
as it is this day. Confusion of faces, as it is
to this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and to all Israel that are near and that are far off. through
all the countries, whether thou hast driven them because of their
trespass, that they have trespassed against thee. O Lord, to us belongs
confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers,
because we've sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belongs
mercy and forgiveness, though we've rebelled against him. Neither
have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws,
which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Yea, all
Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that
they might not obey thy voice. Therefore is the curse poured
upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses,
the servant of God, because we have sinned against him, You
can go back to Leviticus, Exodus. He said if you don't do this,
if you go after other gods, you can go back to Adam. Cursed
is the ground. Cursed. And He hath confirmed
His words which He spake against us. You know, God is not slack
concerning His promise about His saints, but He's also not
slack concerning His word against sin. And against our judges that judged
us. Norman's been going through the
book of Judges time and time again. The people turned to idol
worship and they turned away from God and they rejected His
Word and His precepts and grace. And time and again, He sent a
judge to them and saved them from various ones that were attacking
them and had mercy on them. And all, you know, not just because
he said, OK, I'll be good again, I'll do it. It was all in accordance
with his purpose that we're coming into this culmination of all
these events of time to Messiah, the prince. He's confirmed his word, which
he spake against us and our judges, that judges bringing upon us
a great evil. For under the whole heaven hath
not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem." Boy, you know,
three times Jerusalem was besieged during this period of Daniel,
and the third time they just kind of burned it to the ground
and wrecked everything and destroyed the temple. And 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." They were just like Adam. First thing Adam did was say,
oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. Nope. That's not what he did. He hid
himself from the face of the Lord, and then he tried to supply
his own righteousness. And nothing has changed in Daniel's
time, and nothing has changed to this very day. And nothing
will change until he comes back. We didn't pray 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," like Jehovah,
L-O-R-D in caps, our God is righteous in all his works, which he doeth.
For we obeyed not his voice. You know, that's one thing that
Norm, I don't know how many times Norm has brought this from the
pulpit here, that the people that are born again, the people
that the Lord has saved, They don't have any problem saying,
man, if you'd have took me out, I would have deserved it. I had
it coming. It's only by His mercy that He
didn't just take me out. The Lord is righteous in all
His works. for we obeyed not his voice. And now, O LORD our
God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt
with a mighty hand, and gotten thee renowned as it is this day,
we have sinned, and we have done wickedly. Again, he emphasizes
that he's just a sinner saved by grace like all. We have sinned. You might recall from Isaiah,
when he had that vision in Isaiah 6, I believe it is, since I don't
have my notes here right handy in front of me. But he had a
vision, and the Lord appeared to him, and he says, uh-oh. I'm
a man of unclean lips in the midst of a people of unclean
lips. And then we find something that we find in Daniel here. He touched my lips with a coal
of fire and said, Thou art clean. Be in peace. Verse 16, "'O Lord,' he's making
knowledge of a certain fact that he was aware of, "'according
to all Thy righteousness, I beseech Thee, let Thine anger and Thy
fury be turned away from Thy city Jerusalem.'" What he's kind
of saying there is, It's not Jerusalem's fault that
we behaved poorly, that we profaned the temple, that we offered sacrifices
that didn't meet the standard, that we worshipped you in name
only and not in word and spirit. And he says, you shouldn't be
mad at Jerusalem and have it be wrecked just because we were
stinkers. Thy holy mountain. the city of
God, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers,
Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that
are about us. You know, people could look at
them and say, well, their God isn't just any different than
any other God. And from all outside appearances,
They would say, well, you know what? God didn't really watch
out for them because them dang old Babylonians came down there
and took them captive. And before that, it was Assyrians. Before that, it was Egyptians.
And on and on it goes. And so their God, I always love
that verse in Song of Solomon. What is your beloved more than
any other beloved? And then they tell him, my beloved,
all the wonderful things of grace. And so here he says, therefore,
God, hear our prayer of thy servant and his supplications and cause
thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate for the Lord's
sake. Look at that. Cause your face
to shine on your sanctuary that's desolate. Oh my God, incline
thine ear, and hear, and open thy eyes, and behold our desolations
in the city which is called by thy name. For we do not present
our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses. What an important phrase that
is. We have nothing to bring to the
table. We have not done anything good
for our righteousness, but we bring our supplication based
but for Thy great mercies, which He promised. O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, hearken and do. Defer
not for Thine own sake, O my God, for Thy city and the people
that are called by Thy name." You know, he came boldly before
the throne of God and made his petition because it was the will
of God. It was in the purpose of God.
It was what God had put in his heart to pray about. And he didn't exclude himself
from it. He just said, he's like that
publican, Lord have mercy on me, a poor sinner. So now we're
going to get to the part where the angel Gabriel in verse 20
comes and brings him and understanding. It's a great help in understanding
this book and in understanding God and all the prophecies and
all this scary stuff that people have made out of all of it. And
I don't know, probably, we've been here like 20 some years,
and I don't know how many times Norman has stood in this pulpit,
our pastor, and said, someone is coming, the Old Testament. Someone is here and someone's
coming back. And that's really all Daniel's
about. He says, we had Moses and we
didn't listen to him. Someone's coming. We had the
prophets. Someone's coming. We didn't listen
to them. And now He's about to tell us,
here's when someone's coming. And while I was yet speaking
there in verse 20, and praying right in the middle of it, He's
in sackcloth and ashes. He has taken off his, you know,
when the king made him the governor, they gave him all the purple
robes and the fine splendor garments and took good care of him. He shed all of that covering
and he's just put on sackcloth. That means that was cloth that
they made sacks out of. That's like burlap. That's a
rough, rough garb. Not comfortable. and ashes. I was confessing my sin, praying,
speaking, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel,
and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the
holy mountain of my God. That was what his heart was about. At the beginning, he was talking
about, well, you know, the 70-year captivity should be over. And now he's talking about something
of a much larger magnitude. And while I was yet speaking
in prayer, even the man Gabriel, the messenger of God who I had
seen in the vision at the beginning, One of the other visions that
we talked about in the previous chapter, being caused to fly
swiftly touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
Well, you know what the evening oblation was? Well, if you go
back to Exodus and Leviticus, the Passover, that even you'll
kill the Passover lamb. It's no coincidence that this
is the time that this angel, this Gabriel shows up. It was
a time when they should have been in the temple offering the
evening sacrifice. And he informed me and he talked
with me. And he said, Oh, Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee
skill and understanding. And then, you know, that's what
God says to all his people. You know, Peter, I don't know
how many times Norman has mentioned, Peter, whom do you say I am? And he says, Christ, the Son
of God. And he says, flesh and blood
did not reveal that to you, but my Father, which is in heaven. and informed me and talked with
me and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill
and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplications,
the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee, for thou
art greatly beloved." Boy, you know, if you're born again, that's
what the Lord says about all of His people. They're greatly
beloved. I've loved you with an everlasting
love. Therefore with lovingkindness
have I drawn thee." Greatly beloved. I don't know if we can just fully
comprehend the magnitude of that concept, that feeling that God
has toward His sheep. You're greatly beloved. No matter
what else happens, no matter what circumstances you're in,
Daniel's a slave and a servant and Jerusalem's been sacked and
burned and tore down and all of their, you know, all the things
that were the basis of his early life were destroyed except one
thing. the everlasting, unchanging God
Almighty. And throughout all that, He held
on to that. I am come to show thee, for thou
art greatly beloved. Therefore understand the matter
and consider the vision." Now remember last week in our lesson
on chapter 8, we said that there was two words that were translated
vision in the scripture, in Daniel 8, 16, and 11, I think. When Daniel was speaking of a
vision, it was defined as like a dream. And when the angel talks
about a vision, it's called the view. And it's the view that
God has. It's the understanding, the divine
understanding. It's the divine perspective on
how things are going. And all these things are that
we're going through today, that Daniel went through, they all
seem kind of like, boy, what next? What next? What next? What
next? First the Babylonians. Then the
Medo-Persians came in. What next? And all these crazy
wars and things going on. And all the time, in the view
of God, it's all to accomplish His purpose. And as that vision
of that statue, well, after the Medo-Persians is going to come
the Greeks. Alexander the Great is going
to come and conquer almost the whole world. And he's going to
spread the Greek culture and language all over the world.
And it just turns out to be one of the most precise languages
on the planet. It's very precise. And it's used
a lot in the gospel to give us an insight that we wouldn't have
if we just used a more ambiguous language like English. So we
find that he's going to cause Daniel to consider the view,
consider the Lord's view. So as we get to verse 24, it's
a strange thing. Daniel initially is praying,
wasn't it about time for that captivity thing to be over? The
70 years that Jeremiah said, Jeremiah 29, 5 I think. The angel says, we're skipping
over that part. That was just a picture of deliverance
from sin. That was just a metaphor. Even
though you lived through it physically. He says, we're cutting to the
chase. Daniel 9, 24, 70 weeks are determined
upon thy people and upon the holy city to finish the transgression,
and to make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for iniquity,
and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and
the prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Boy, what a... This is the whole story. And I was telling Norm, I said,
you know what? All this stuff happened. And God didn't put all this stuff
in here to see if we knew how to do math. We know that all these events
happened, and so we know that God got the math right. Because
he said, this is when it's going to happen. And lo and behold,
it did happen. I was telling him, I don't know
how many commentaries, and I think John Gill was like the worst.
He said, well, this person says that this prophecy starts here
at this age and goes to here, but then that doesn't work out
because the timing's wrong, you know, and then this happened.
He said, so it must be this other guy. And he says, but that doesn't
turn out to be right either, so we go to this one. And then
the Jewish calendar only has 360 days. And on and on and on. And they spend all their time
trying to make the math add up when they're missing the point
that Messiah the Prince, they're missing the point to make an end of sins, to finish
the transgression. There's some interesting words
here. I hope I can remember all the stuff. When it talks about making an
end of sins, that word means they're covered. And they're covered. It's also
a word that means like something's covered up, like hidden from
view. Your sins are covered. They're never seen again because
of the blood of Christ, because of the cross. To make reconciliation. Now, this is a really interesting
word here. In Genesis chapter 6, this word
is translated pitch. Noah, you're going to build an
ark, and thou shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And when you look up the definition
of that, it means atonement. There was not one square inch
of that ark that was a type or metaphor for Christ that wasn't
covered with the atonement, the pitch. And that's the same word here
that we have, to make reconciliation, to make atonement, to cover the
sins, to cover the iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness,
and to seal up the vision and the prophecy, and to anoint the
most holy. Know therefore, because of what
I just said about what's going to happen and what the blood
of Christ accomplishes, know therefore and understand that
from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem,
which We had from Cyrus. Cyrus is going to say, OK, the
Lord spoke to him in Isaiah chapter 43, I think it was, and said,
Cyrus, my servant, is going to accomplish this. Though he's
not here yet, I've named him. From the going forth of the commandment
to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall
be three score and two weeks, and the streets shall be built
again, and the wall even in troubleous time." Now, Norman went through
this step-by-step in the book of Nehemiah. and how they were
sent. The king said, go get what you
need. We're going to supply everything
you need. Go back to Jerusalem and build
your temple, build your wall, build your city. And then those
people that were in the neighborhood said, hey, wait a minute. These
guys are a bunch of scalawags. These guys, when they get in
charge, they're going to rebel against you, the king. And so
they went back, and they looked in all the records, and they
said, no, that's not true. So that was taken care of. But
they had troublous times. They had to have a watch. They
had to fight. Three score and two weeks shall
Messiah be cut off. So we have this prophecy that
says from this point unto Messiah the Prince is going to be seven
weeks, and three score, and two weeks. Well, in the Hebrew, those
weeks are weeks. They're units of seven. And in
this case, it means years, and so it's 480 some years. But we don't need to do that
because we know that Messiah the Prince came. He was born
in Bethlehem. So we don't need to sit here
and say, well, I wonder what this means. Let's figure out
this week's thing. And after this, after three score
and two each shall Messiah be cut off. but not for himself."
What a picture. Messiah, the sent one, the one
who God sent to reconcile his people. Remember when we were
in this previous chapter and Daniel had the vision of the
Ancient of Days? the justice, and the fire, and
all those things, and his hair like wool, and all these pictures
of God the same as Isaiah had, the same as John had in Revelation. And he goes, oh, oh, oh. But
he said, oh, here comes the Son of Man in clouds. The cloud that
pictured, we had a portion of that lesson was devoted to looking
at that cloud as a symbol of the satisfaction of God with
the sacrifice. In Acts, when Norman was in Acts
1, he said, why are you men standing around looking? The same Jesus who you saw disappear
into the clouds, He shall come in like manner." The voice that came out of the
cloud and said, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,
in whom I have satisfaction for His atoning sacrifice. Hear ye
Him. Messiah cut off. He's going to
come. He's going to be killed to satisfy
the justice of God, but not for himself, for his people, for his sheep. And we find that sentiment expressed
clearly in Isaiah 53, all those scriptures. After three score weeks and two
shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and the people
of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and under
the end of the war desolations are determined, and he shall
confirm the covenant with many for a week, and in the midst
of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to
cease. For the overspreading of abominations,
he shall make it desolate, even unto the consummation. And that
determined shall be poured upon the desolate." So that's kind
of a long paragraph there that describes what happens after
Messiah the Prince is cut off, but not for himself. And remember,
we have the someone's coming, someone's here, someone's coming
back. And as we as we look at this,
after he's cut off, The Jewish people, very few of
them recognized Him as the Messiah. We have record of a few. The
woman at the well said, well, we know when Messiah comes, He'll
tell us all things. And He said, I that speak with
thee am He. And in other places where He
declared Himself to be the Messiah, and yet crucify Him, crucify
Him. And the Jews said, we have no
king but Caesar. So a total rejection by the national
Israel of Jesus the Messiah when he was here, and ended up cut
off, but not for himself. It was the Passover lamb came. The ultimate sacrifice was made.
And that was the end of the need for a sacrifice. And the Lord, He gave Israel
another space of about 40 years to contemplate this. which they
did not do. They continued with their conniving,
you offer the halt and the lame and the stuff you couldn't sell
in the marketplace, that's what you're bringing to sacrifice.
And all the time you're not recognizing that the true sacrifice, Jesus,
what does the New Testament say? He is our Passover. He is our
peace. They didn't recognize Him, and
they just kept on doing the same old thing that they'd done time
immemorial. And Jesus said, okay, I told
you this was going to happen. that one is going to come in
70 A.D. Vespasian and Titus, the Romans,
came. And because of the revolt of
the Jews, they tore Jerusalem down. They besieged Jerusalem.
And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that because I've
done it many times in this format here. It was at the time of the
Passover. There was about three million
Jews in Jerusalem, all for this Passover celebration feast. The Romans besieged them, and
it's well recorded what Jesus said in the New Testament. When
you see Jerusalem circled about by armies, then flee. for the
abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet. It's
here. And they surrounded Jerusalem. They wouldn't let anybody in
or wouldn't let anybody out. And you got 3 million people
put into what, an area, I think we said it was like 16 square
miles compared to Babylon that was 150 square miles. A lot of people in a small area.
They ran out of food quickly. People and the filth and things
that they couldn't deal with. There was carnage on a grand
scale. There was probably a million
Jews died during that siege. They were dying after they were
starving. There were gangs going through
the town. breaking into homes, looking
for food and gold, and cutting people open to see what they
had, if they swallowed their jewelry or their food, and seeing
what they had in their mouth, and robbing them, and like to
what end? They couldn't get out. But they
just did as they pleased, and the Scripture here said this.
carnage beyond belief. And the Romans said, I think
Josephus said, the Romans couldn't envision any greater horrible
carnage than what the Jews inflicted on themselves from what they
did. There were so many people dying,
they couldn't even bury them all. They were throwing them
over the wall. And the Vespasian kind of rode his horse and chariot
around the wall, and he looked at seeing him throwing all these
people over the wall, and he just wept. He just said, why
don't they just give up? And they finally broke in. You remember Herod the Great
had really decorated up the temple and gold-plated a lot of stuff
and made it really look... He said, this doesn't befit me
as a king. It should be spiffed up a lot.
So he did a lot of ornamentation in the temple. And when they
set it all on fire, the gold melted and stuff, and it ran
down between the cracks of the stones. And the Roman soldiers
would come in and they pried all the stones apart with their
swords and stuff to try to dig out the gold that had melted
and ran down. There will be not one stone left
upon another. That's what Jesus said. So we've gone past our time without
notes. Someone's coming. Someone's here. Someone's coming back. Next time,
Lord willing, we'll be in Daniel chapter 10, another vision in
Daniel. It's a long time off. I'm going
to tell you about it, but it's just for your information. So
until the next time, my friends, be free. Good morning.