My Lord and our God, we thank You for the proof that we have to worship. Fellowship together to give of our ties and our offerings, to have access to the throne of grace and prayer to sing Your praises. Thank You for the good gifts You've given us that we can return back to You. Now we thank You for the Word, the very Word of God. I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am, I did not make it, it is making me, it is the very truth of God, not the invention of any man. Lord make us, remake us, remold us, more and more in the image of Your Son, Jesus, the living Word, His name I pray, Amen. It was the British Catholic writer, GK Chesterton, that said, when men stop believing in God, it is not that they believe in nothing, but that them they'll believe in anything. Stop believing in God, it's not that we then believe in nothing, it is that we will then believe in anything. We're looking at Daniel chapter 8 and this morning we're going to cover verses 17 to 27 and actually going to back up just a little bit. Let me set the context for you again, Daniel, God's prophet, his Hebrew servant in exile in Babylon has had a vision of first of all, a very powerful ram with two horns that was conquering in all directions and then a goat has arisen that has crushed the ram, the goat with the first one horn and then the horn splits into four. The ram represented the kingdom of the Meads and the Persians, the goat with the one horn represents the kingdom of Greece, Alexander the Great, and Daniel is having this vision in about 5, 48, 547 BC, a couple hundred years before it would come true. Then after Alexander's death, four kings rose up and divided his kingdom among them and the one that we will be spending the most time on this morning was a man, a Greek man who became ruler of Jerusalem, his name was Antiochus and he took up for himself the name Antiochus Epiphanes, he was an utterly vile and ruthless man and then dropping back to Daniel chapter 8, you have printed in front of you 17, let me just set the context for you again. While I Daniel was watching the vision and trying to understand it, there before me was one who looked like a man and I heard a man's voice from the ulye calling Gabriel, tell this man the meaning of the vision. Let me stop there and make a couple of comments. The speaker here is the angel Gabriel, the word or the name Gabriel, Gabriel and Hebrew can meet a couple of different things, Hebrew is funny that it's the consonants that set up the framework of the word but when you add in the vowels it can change the meaning of the word. I think it's hard to follow, imagine trying to translate it, Gabriel can mean man of God, it can mean strong one, we have a dog named Gabriel, we picked her name because she we watched her for a couple of days and said this is a strong one, especially if your name is Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel, you're a strong one, it can also mean God's strong one. In this case, Trump or Laman suggest we call Gabriel God's hero as he carries this mess and yes this is the same Gabriel who brings the message to Mary when he reveals her that she will be the mother of the Messiah, the son of God. This is the first time an angel has been named in the Bible, it's the first time and in fact Daniel is the only older testament book that gives names to the angels, pick up the reading with me again from verse 17, as he came near the place where I was standing, I was terrified and fell prostrate. Son or man, he said to me, understand that the vision concerns the time of the end. While he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground, then he touched me and raised me to my feet. He said, I'm going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath because the vision concerns the appointed time of the end, the two horned ram that you saw represents the kings of media and Persia. The shaggy goat is the king of Greece and the large horn between his eyes is the first king. The four horns that replace the one that was broken off represent four kingdoms that will emerge from his nation but will not have the same power. The latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a stern faced king, a master of intrigue will arise. He will become very strong but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation, will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy those who are mighty, the holy people. He will cause deceit to prosper and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many, take his stand against the prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed but not by human power. The vision of the evenings and mornings has been given you is true. To seal up the vision for a concern to the distant future, I, Daniel, was worn out. I lay exhausted for several days. When I got up and went about the king's business, I was appalled by the vision. It was beyond understanding. When men stop believing in God, they don't then believe in nothing. They then will believe in anything. And the one true God is not honored. Many false gods rush in to fill that vacuum, quite a cost, quite a price to those who follow those false gods. So much as sacrificed, we lose our belief in the one true God and those sacrifices, the pains that we pay. They're all self-inflicted. Let me say a plumentary commentary before I get into the meat of the passage. Verse 17, as you came near the place, this is Gabriel where I was standing. I was terrifying, fell prostrate. Son and man, he said, understand that the vision concerns the time of the end. I don't talk a lot about eschatology in here, mainly because it just doesn't come up a lot in the passage on preaching. Here's a place where it does eschatology just means the study of the end times, the end times are the last things. Biblically speaking, when will the end times come? Biblically speaking, we have been in the end times since Bethlehem. Ever since Jesus was born, we have been in the end times. This eschaton, this final age, began with Jesus and when he comes back, when will that be? I have no idea. I have no idea. But unlike a lot of other Bible teachers and preachers, I will tell you that I don't know when it is. We've been in the end time, end times ever since Jesus came the first time. Another reason I don't say a lot about eschatology is, first of all, like I say, I don't really know. I don't have my charts and my timelines like a lot of other pastors and preachers and Bible teachers have and I'm honest about that. But I also feel like there are some real dangers that come with talking a lot of eschatology. I think a lot of people, when they get really consumed with it, I think it really just betrays a desire for control. We want some control over what's going on with this and what's going to happen to us. Newsbolts, and you don't have any control over what's going on and what's going to happen. God is in control, so relax and let God be God. I think there's a real sense in some people's eyes, especially the ones that really get into it and they know when the battle of Armageddon is going to take place and how Russia is going to rise up as the great bear and China is going to be Gog and Megog and then, and they got all these charts, these timelines. They're looking for some inside scoop. They want to be the ones that know what's going to happen and when clearly ignoring the Jesus said of that day and that hour. Only the Father knows, nobody knows. He said the angels don't know and Jesus said, at least for the incarnation, he said, the Son doesn't even know. Oh, but the preachers of eschatology, the ones that say their books and their CDs, they know. No, they don't. No, they don't. I think another danger in really being consumed with eschatology is that it's just really just escapism. God, when are you going to come get me out of this mess? When are you going to get me out of this? I have no enough people who actually, because somebody told them when the date was going to be, it's going to be such and such time with coincides with such and such feast, which also happens to be with Pentecost. They do all these creative things and I've no other people who said, I'm going to go out and charge up all my credit cards to the max. Because I'm not going to be here to pay them off. Which, first of all, is the wrong thing to do anyway. Secondly, how are you responsible? And you know what? Everyone in those predictions has come and gone and we're still here. I remember back in the 80s and yes, I was around back then surprised. That man wrote a book called 88 Reasons, while the rapture will happen in 1988, maybe some of you saw it. Surprised, Jesus didn't come back in 1988, so you know what that man did? He wrote another book called 89 Reasons, while he'll come back in 1989. And I thought, if you bought that book, you are too stupid to have money. You might as well give it to this guy. Folks don't buy their books, don't go their seminars, they don't know. They don't know. Every generation of Christians, I know you could try to hear me say this, there's somebody here who hasn't been here today or hasn't heard me say it. It was a sleep the last time, there's somebody who listens on the internet and you need to hear me say this. Every generation of Christians has thought it was the last one. I saw Jesus was coming back in, it's lifetime. They've all been wrong. One day, one generation will be right, and it could be us. Certainly the ingredients are there for global destruction with nuclear warfare, and the plagues of chemical and biological warfare that could release results that would look like some things out of the revelation. But it may be that 50 years from now, somebody will be sitting here today. We don't know when it's coming, we know he's coming, we know we need to be ready, but hold your eschatological views with some humility, will you? Well, he was speaking to me, verse 18, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground, then he touched me and raised me up to my feet. This is code for, get up Daniel, stand up, face this like a man. This is no time for lying on your face and lying about. God does not call us to be passive, stand up and face this. Once he got a face, the sacrifice, the first thing that would be sacrificed when people no longer respect God and no longer honor the one true God, and the many false gods rushing to fill that vacuum, the first thing that is sacrificed is respect for God's truth. I touched on this last week, and I have to go back and forth a little bit to the first 15, 16 verses because the last 17 to 27 are the interpretation of the verses. But if you remember verse 8, the goat which we decided was Alexander the Great became very great, but the height of his power, we didn't decide the Scripture tells us that. The height of his power, his horns broken off, four horns grow up in his place. Adam one came in another horn, which I told you, refers to Antiochus epiphanies, a vile and ruthless Greek king, and he prospered in what he did, and truth was thrown to the ground. When the one true God is not honor, the first thing that is sacrificed is respect for his truth. It was true in Daniel's time in ancient Near East. It was true in our time in the modern and post-modern West. 1963, a number of Americans that are the percentage of Americans who who said they believe the Bible is literally true, were 63 percent, 65 percent, 1963, 65 percent. Today it's 32 percent. A recent Gallup poll showed that 70 percent of Americans no longer believe there is such a thing as absolute morality, something that is right for all people all the time everywhere, and things that are wrong for all people all the time everywhere. 70 percent of Americans no longer believe that. Shouldn't surprise us as we become an increasingly secular culture, as we move farther and farther away from our Judeo-Christian heritage, and at least a nominal, a nominal Christian faith in this land, willed around the greatest story he wrote, the history of Western civilization. He says there has never been a single society that has successfully maintained morality without religion, not one, and we won't be the first. We have a choice to make which way we want to go. Dineshton Susan's book was so great about Christianity, he says when you're talking to somebody who says he does not believe there are any absolutes, there are no absolutes. Younger people hear that in college all the time. You're going to not see young people encounter people who say there are no absolutes. Dineshton Susan says punch him in the face. You will find out he does have some absolutes. If he still denies a punch him again and keep doing it until he tells you that's wrong. By God he does have some absolutes. The thing of convenience when we went to die, there are absolutes. I can remember clearly the conversation with a young man fresh off to college who was expressing his sexuality in ways he had not done before. And when I was questioning him about it and saying you're sure what you're doing is right and his answer was I believe that as long as you really care about the other person then whatever you want to do is okay. I said well let me just take you at your word and say that's really what you're doing. That you only get sexually active with grows you really care about. Let me just take you at your word and that's your ethic. Now what you say to the guy who comes along and says well I think it's okay to do whatever you can, whatever you can get away with. If you have to hurt the other person, if it has to involve violence, force even rape, well that's okay but that's my ethic. I said to my young friend I'll call Joe I said how will you tell him that what he is doing is wrong you're expressing your ethics and you're your ethics. He's expressing his on what basis will you tell him he's wrong.
Situational ethics means no ethics at all.
John chapter 8 verses 31-32 Jesus says if you abide in my truth you're truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. A lot of people know that latter part they'll say the truth will set you free they don't know the first part. Jesus said you got to abide in my truth my word and it'd be my disciple and the truth will set you free and then he goes on to say in a verse of many of you know John 146 I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father but through me it's a very exclusive statement ladies and gentlemen and if that's true it means all of the claims to truth are false I am in the midst of a very painful falling out with a dear friend who professed to be a Christian but he cannot deal with the exclusivity of the claims of Christ and I'm saying him these are not my words these are the words of Jesus and if you profess to follow him as your Lord and Savior if you take him at his word then you must discount and deny all of the claims to truth and he's having a very hard time coming to grips with that and it may cost us our friendship because I cling to that as true it's the price we pay ladies and gentlemen it's the sacrifice we make verse 24 he will become very strong but not by his own power he will cause astounding devastation succeeding whatever he does he will destroy those who are mighty the holy people when there's no respect for God's truth there's no respect for God's people and God's people suffer and they suffer greatly from ostracism and criticism that we encounter here in our country and our culture college students who are being told increasing they cannot express their Christian faith because that's somehow hate speech it's going on more and more on college campuses God bless a million of them are finding back saying the first amendment covers me in college just as much as anybody else but they're facing a lot of pressure a lot of ostracism and outright persecution on their campuses from those kinds of things that we experience on a low level in our culture to the mind boggling horrific persecution and suffering of our people of our brothers and sisters around the world the arrests the interrogations the beatings the imprisonments that torture the murder outright murder of Christians who have committed no crime other than professing Christ as Lord God's people suffer greatly and why we ask I ask so often when I hear these things having God why would you allow these things and I don't have an answer for you this morning folks I don't have an answer to those satisfy of you let me read you something that Jonathan Edwards the great Jonathan Edwards wrote in his book The Religious Effections if you can get through it it's one of the most influential books I have ever read Jonathan Edwards says if we put true gold into the furnace we shall find its great value and preciousness so the truth and an estimable value of the virtues of a true Christian appear when under these trials 1 Peter 1 7 that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that parishes might be found under praise and honor and glory true and pure gold will come out of the furnace in full weight so true saints when tried come forth as gold Christ distinguishes true grace from counterfeit by this that it is gold tried in the fire when the one true God is not honored the first thing that is sacrificed is respect for his truth the second thing that is sacrifice you look back at verse 25 there's just reverence for God's holiness he this this king who sees his power he will cause the seat to prosper he will consider himself superior when they feel secure he will destroy many and take his stand against the prince of princes yeah he will be destroyed but not by human power I told to his name was Antiochus he ticked for his himself the Greek name epiphanes epiphanes what that means in Greek is God manifested or God revealed God incarnate he even had the coin of the realm read fails epiphanes God manifested God incarnate it's a characteristic of all false gods ladies and gentlemen history reveals many men who would be gods only one God who would be man it's characteristic of all false gods Paul says to us in 2nd Thessalonians 1st chapter 2 verses 1 through 4 concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him we ask you brothers and sisters not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter asserting that the day of the Lord has already come don't let anyone deceive you in any way for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness revealed the man doomed to destruction he will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God or his worshiped so that he sets himself up in God's temple proclaiming himself to be God I told you last week how Antiochus epiphanes because of a humiliation he endured the hands of a Roman counselor came back to Jerusalem in fury released 20,000 of his troops on a Sabbath and murdered 40,000 Jews imprisoned or enslaved 40,000 others went into the very temple and tore down the altar to God Almighty set up in its place an altar to Zeus and sacrificed a pig on that altar he could have committed no more blatant blaspheming he kept the people in Jerusalem under subjugation for a few years after that in that place he burned all the skulls all the copies of the Jews holy scripture and he and truth was thrown to the ground those who tried to follow Jewish laws were condemned to death this is what is known back in chapter 7 is the abomination of desolation and then it says in verse 25 yet he will be destroyed but not by human power different historical accounts recount how he he died suddenly either by a sudden illness or by falling out of a chariot and striking his head although those two things may not be unrelated he had been quite ill with the very loathsome disease it probably was cancer although they didn't know what it was and because of weakened condition apparently it caused him to fall from his chariot striking his head on the ground and he died suddenly he died he will be destroyed but not by human power and let the history hasn't that he died pleading with the God of Israel to spare him I don't know if it's too little too late the grace of God is an incredible thing the grace of God is bigger and stronger than the sins of any man but I don't know if his repentance was genuine or just to cry for mercy from a frightened man again what was true in Daniel's time in the ancient Near East it's true in our time in the modern west our culture is losing any concept of the holiness of God we want to bring God down to our level and pretend he's just a big version of one of us the only time you hear the word holy anymore is this part of an epiphate very often as an insult as an holier than thou haste to write metro quite often unlike many of you I don't mind metro rail I think it's quite easy to get from point A to point B and let me tell you the language I hear on metro rail from our younger people and are not so young people you hear God's name but it's not used in reverence you're Jesus's name but it's used as part of an epiphate as well reverence for God's truth reverence for God's holiness is cast to the ground when the one true God is not honored the next thing that is sacrifice is reverence for his holiness unfortunately we in the church God's people are doing much better than the rest of the world on that recent surveys by George Barnes his group came across a number of moral indicators divorce adultery work ethics abortions and so forth so that we are virtually indistinguishable from the rest of society in terms of how we behave it's hard to make much of a case for the worship of a holy God when we're leading unholy lives in my experience that's probably the number one reason young people and also young people have for not wanting to have anything to do with the church now look folks natural man outside of Christ has his own reasons for avoiding God natural man outside of Christ will run squealing from the presence of a holy God so it's not all that churches fall don't get me wrong but we give them ammunition we lead lives that are virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the culture and I'm telling you folks I'm including preachers in that too I see the surveys about how my brothers in in the clergy I never use that term why did I say that my fellow pastors I see the statistics on how we behave we're no better than anybody else you need to know that we don't behave any better than anybody else that's the bad news the good news is it shows that anybody can be a preacher anybody can be a pastor God doesn't cause because we're better he just calls us because we're God I'm not throwing any stones in anybody a friend of mine said that the main objection to the encounters for people when he shares his faith is that talking about Christians talking about the gospel they'll say it's a through it's a three line a reason they'll say it's not new it's not true it's not you I'm not worried about the news of the gospel it is true where they can see it or not I'm vitally concerned whether or not my life and my conduct bring honor and glory and reverence to the holiness of God Mark Twain used to like say the consummate cynic church is a place where a nice respectable man tells a bunch of nice respectable people to be nice or a more respectable well Twain was wrong on both sides of that equation and that's the bad news and the good news of the gospel the bad news is you're more simple than you've ever dared to imagine the good news is you're more loved you've ever dared to dream when the ones you God is not on the first thing is sacrifice to respect for his truth second thing to sacrifice is reverence for his holiness the third thing to sacrifice is responsiveness to God's grace talking about these surveys survey after survey year after your shows that about 85% consistently 85% of Americans believe that man is inherently good and lately good has a problem with evil what is the biblical doctrine man is inherently and lately sinful with some capacity for good but they were sinners in need of God's grace we believe Americans that we are basically good with some problem with evil and we believe in spite of the non stop diet of crime and depravity and scandal and war from all the various news media I think this is just denial on a national scale but when we tell a modern person about God's grace his unmerited favor extended to sinners who do not deserve it they assume you're talking about somebody else who really needs it even most evangelical Christians we act as though getting we're getting into heaven my own efforts and that grace is just something that's kind of like it's like grace is a dessert but our efforts are the main course we're gonna work really hard we're gonna try really hard to do good and be better every time I said it's my corrects me on my grammar we're gonna try harder do good or be better you know yeah where we fall short God lives grace no no tries hard as you want I won't get you a centimeter off the ground when you stand before God when you stand before him he says why should I let you into my heaven don't tell him how hard you tried or how good you were or what church you remember of he doesn't care all he wants to know is did you receive by my grace did you receive salvation I often view my son Jesus it's about grace folks and not about works I know I've told you before there's I think it's been a while of a conversation that engaged couple they they wanted to be married and the young man had a clear profession of faith when he received received Christ as a teenager the young lady just didn't have a clue stand a clue when I asked her how about a relationship with God she kept talking about church I said well I'm glad for your church involvement but what about you and your relationship with Christ and it's clear she really didn't get what I was saying and finally so look Jesus said you must be born again what do you think he meant when he said that and her answer to me was and it's been a lot of years but this is pretty much verbatim when I said what do you think Jesus meant when he said you must be born again she said I don't know because I don't think I've ever done anything bad enough where I need to be born again and I said well now I have a problem you're telling me you don't need to be born again and Jesus says you do one of you is right one of you is wrong I think I'm going to go with Jesus on this one in all my years of counseling people I don't think I've ever had anybody as angry with me as that young lady was a man the letter I got from her a couple days later but back before their emails the letter I got from her a few days later called me everything but a child of God we don't like hearing that we're sinners and need of God's grace it's the scandal of the gospel that you're a sinner and but for the grace of God you deserve to go to hell so do I the good news is Christ died for sinners he called himself the stumbling stone he came to call sinners to repentance and we want to come to him we got acknowledged we got a membership in that club knows what Daniel says here in this last verse I Daniel was worn out I lay exhausted for several days then I got up and went about the King's business I was appalled by the vision it was beyond understanding folks serving God being faithful what he tells us what he calls us to do it's demanding it's draining it can be outright exhausting and let me just ask you do you ever not all the time do you ever feel as though you are totally drained of yourself because what God has called you to do if you never feel that way I would urge you to ask the Lord if you really listen to his voice because he will take you out way past your resources and your limits good news is he'll meet you there he'll get you through it if you never feel stressed beyond your own means I dare say you're not following with the grace of God is calling you out because he loves to take us out over our heads very briefly then the one true God is not honored first thing is sacrifice to respect for his truth second thing is reverence for his holiness the third thing is responsiveness to his grace and there is a final sacrifice this was not ours see the final sacrifice is sacrifice of God himself we offered himself for our redemption we offered himself as a ransom for us God demonstrates his own love toward us and while we were yet sinners Christ died for us he made him the father made the son who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ he takes my sins I get his righteousness purchased for me at the cross with the wrath of God was poured out on a man and the wrath of men was poured out on God God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son whoever would believe in him would not perish would have everlasting life his final sacrifice it's the sacrifice that God makes for simple men and women and young people one final sacrifice and this one's gods it was strangely dark a thunderstorm was blowing up from the mountains and the clouds hit the sun women took their children by the hand and hurried back to the city people looked at the sky and worried it was darkness you could feel they stood blinking at flashes of lightning that looked like daggers of fire the eyes the faces the fingers the noise everything focused on that center cross from the crowd that circled that tree words dipped in venom were shot at him from snarling lips they said things like well strong Jesus can't you save yourself hey Jesus you said you'd build a temple in three days well you got nails in your hands and plenty of wood at your back go on build us something what's wrong can't you save yourself they could have saved himself then he couldn't have saved anyone else he's a king who failed in the eyes of the world in order to succeed in the eyes of God those were your sins he suffered for in mine and he has with his own blood written across the edges of heaven the one word forgiven forgiven men stop believing in God when the one true God is no longer honored it costs us greatly and our wounds are self-inflicted and they will lead to death it cost him even more and his wounds were freely accepted freely received freely endured and they lead the life for all who will follow he was crushed for our transgressions he was wounded for our iniquities the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed let's pray together our father we look into the very very mystery of the grace of God made manifest in our Lord and Savior Jesus who took upon himself the sins of fallen mankind and who so ever would believe in him and receive that payment that atoning sacrifice he made on the cross once and for all finished and forever who so ever would see that sacrifice sacrificial atonement that he made for us would not perish would have everlasting life father for the man or woman a young person is here listening to these words who has never received Christ of the Lord and Savior I pray today would be the day for the rest of us who made that decision years ago maybe decades ago that you would remind us again good is your grace pray in Jesus name come in amen thank you for being with us this morning now receive the Lord's benediction now go the love of God the Father grace and mercy of God the son the fellowship and companionship for God the Holy Spirit and live the life amen