John Kennedy used to tell a story about a Colonel Davenport who was the speaker of the House of Representatives of the State of Connecticut during the Revolutionary Times. One day in 1789, the sky grew very dark over Hartford, Connecticut, and many of the representatives in the House feared that the end was approaching, and they began to get very panicky. At one point, Carl Davenport stood up, motioned for quiet, and he said this, he said, the day of judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no need for adjournment. And if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty, therefore I wish the candles be brought. We're looking into Daniel chapter 9 this morning. We're going to be reading verses 20 through 27. The Book of Daniel is a manifesto for how God's manner, God's woman, God's young person should live, should conduct Himself for herself in a dark and pagan culture, a culture that is hostile to God and the things of God. Daniel chapter 9, you've heard me this for a number of weeks and even months, the Book of Daniel breaks down to the first six chapters of stories about Daniel and his friends. The last six chapters are visions of Daniel about things to come. Chapter 9 records a prayer of Daniels and then reverts back to a vision again. And this vision, this prophecy of Daniel that we're going to read this morning has caused more controversy than just about any other prophecy in all of the Bible. The year is 539 BC as the Prophet Daniel continues in verse 20. While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin, the sin of my people Israel, and making my request to the Lord, my God, for His holy hill. While I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me and switched to flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. He instructed me and said to me, Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, a word went out which I have come to tell you for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision. Seventy-sevens are to creep your people in your holy city, to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. Know and understand this, from the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the anointed one, the ruler comes. There will be seven, sevens, and sixty-two sevens. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two sevens, the anointed one will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city in the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood. War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for one seven. In the middle of the seven, he will put an end to sacrifice and offering, and at the temple it will set up an abomination that causes desolation until the end is decreed, is poured out on him. Any questions? All right, let's pray and go home. Let's pray together. Father, I do thank You for Your word. There are parts of Your word that are so plain and so obvious that anyone can understand that You have to try not to understand them. There are parts of Your word that are harder to understand, but they yield if You will study and pray and bring them before You in prayer. There are parts of Your word that are so deep and mysterious that we will probably never completely understand them until we stand before You. Now we see as in a mirror dimly, then as if face to face. Now we know in part, then we shall know in full as we ourselves will be fully known, or that You would reveal Yourself to us in a prophecy of Your servant Daniel's, my prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. This is why you preach two books to the Bible, books. This is why you preach through a book from beginning to end. It forces me, it forces us to deal with issues. Otherwise, we wouldn't deal with, at least I would not deal with them this morning. We're looking at one of those. This is known as eschatology, that's a new term to use, the study of the eschaton, that cleared up. Eschatology is a study of last things, or we would say the study of the end of time, the study of the things that are to come, it deals with Bible prophecy. This is a very difficult passage, not only to understand, but even just to translate. This is one of those passages that is just a monster for translated. I am no Hebrew scholar, folks. I have a rudimentary understanding of the Hebrew language. And I'm telling you, this passage is extremely difficult. There are at least five major schools of thought about these verses right here. I'm not going to tell you what they all are this morning, don't worry about it. None of them are airtight, not one. They all have something to commend them. They all have problems. My friend Steve Brown likes to say, I don't care how good your system of theology is, there's always something sticking out of the suitcase, because God's too big. You can't just fit him in your system. They all have something to commend them, some are better than others. I will tell you my view, which is also known as the truth, and you can take that for what it's worth. It's not that I think that talking about the end times is not important. If it's in the Bible, it's important. But I think that there are other issues that are even more important for us to deal with right here and now. I'm actually prefer to focus on those. The other reason I don't often talk about eschatology is I don't know anything in the Bible that has caused more people to make complete jackasses of themselves than talking about the second coming of Christ. Did he just say they made jackasses of this? That's what I said, and that's what we do. Every generation of Christians, you've heard me say this before, but I need to say it because every week there's somebody here who hasn't heard this before, so my mic catches on the internet. You need to hear me say. Every generation of Christians has believed it was the Omega generation, the final generation. Every single one is believed that. Every single one has been wrong. One day one generation will be right, and it could be us, or it could not. So don't put all your chips if you're a gambling person, don't put them all on us being the last. Of course, if you win, there's nothing to pay out, you won't be here anyway. I can't tell you whether or not Jesus will return within our lifetime, but here's what I can tell you based on this passage. If you think God has lost control of this planet, he hasn't. If you think he's lost control of this world, he hasn't. He's tempting to think that, isn't it? That earthquake, tsunami, tsunamis that have hit Japan that won the hit Indonesia five years ago now, four and a half years ago now. Making hay, wars, and rumors of wars, terrorism, sometimes it's tempting to step back and say, Lord, if you are the deists right, if you've really gone on vacation, you're coming back sometime in the meantime, we're on our own. The Omega Cell is a Jewish professor in the humanities at Boston University, is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. He's also a Holocaust survivor. He's a young person, he survived Auschwitz, Buchenwald. He wrote an article some years ago, I happened to read, and it's addressed to the Master of the Universe. I'm going to show you a couple of paragraphs of this man, this Holocaust survivor, lost his parents and one of his sisters in the concentration camps. Master of the Universe, let us make up. It is time. How long can we go on being angry? I have written harsh words, burning words about your role in our tragedy. I would not repeat them today, but I felt them then, I felt them in every cell of my being. Why did you allow, if not enabled, the killer to torment, kill and annihilate tens of thousands of Jewish children? Why were they abandoned by your creation? Where were you, God of kindness in Auschwitz? What was going on in heaven at the Celestial Tribunal, while your children were martyred for humiliation, isolation and death only because they were Jewish? None of us in this room have gone through anything remotely comparable to the Holocaust. None of us have endured anything remotely similar to having been put in one of those Gaza concentration camps, but probably every serious Christian in here, with any years at all, probably every single one of us has gone through a dark night of the soul, where we wondered, where are you, God, do you see what's going on with me? Do you care about me? Are you even there at all, God, as I go through this struggle? If you've not endured a dark night of the soul yet, I dare say you haven't suffered very much, or you haven't been paying enough attention nor you just haven't had this long enough. Well, Daniel had, Daniel had, we would have all understood it, have Daniel had clenched his fists and said, where were you, God, where were you when the Assyrians came and destroyed Samaritan, took the northern tribes off into captivity, never to return, where were you? Where were you when the Babylonians came, burned Jerusalem to the ground, destroyed the temple? Where were you, God, when they took Chadrat, Meshach, myself, and all the best and the brightest of Israel took us off into captivity in Babylon in this pagan culture. Where were you, God, when those things were going on? Psalm 137, as a psalm of a mint, it was written in the time of captivity in Babylon by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down in wept, we remembered Zion upon the willows in the midst of it. We hung our harps for our captors, demanded of us songs and our tormentors, murth, saying, us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land, can you feel that pain and heartbreak, is there being made to perform for the amusement of their pagan captors, and they say, how can we sing your song in a foreign land, Lord? We would have all understood it if Daniel had voiced that kind of similar despair, but he doesn't. Daniel doesn't do that. Do you see what he does here? Back in verse 20, he confesses his own sins and sins of his own people over and over throughout the book of Daniel. Daniel faces up through his own sins. He says, God is still good. God is still sovereign. God is still in control. How can Daniel, who spent most of his life at captivity? How can he make that statement? Because he'd seen bondage and he'd seen captivity. He had seen Jerusalem burning, but he had also seen God deliver Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the fiery furnace. He'd seen the writing on the wall of the bellshasers feast announcing that it was the end of the days for bellshaser. He'd seen God shut the mouths of those lions down there in the lions, then he'd keep him alive through the night. And now he's seeing a vision of his Messiah, the one who is to come. Daniel's testimony is this. If you think God has lost control of his planet, he has not. If you're new to us, if you listen to this later on on the internet, you need to know my great admiration for the great African-American preachers, the great black preachers who do their job as preachers with such artistry and such craft. They don't all. Some of the greatest preachers I have ever heard of any color, men like Yonotoni Evans, maybe Bishop T.D. Jakes. If you've never gotten to hear E.V. Hill, you missed a treat. Your previous generation James Weldon Johnson, these are men that were just masters of their craft. I heard one time on recording a black preacher, and so please forgive the pale imitation here, but the great black preacher talking about the difference we have in a title and having a testimony. You can just feel it coming, can't you? You may have a title, he said, but do you have a testimony? And then he went on this litany, he said, Pharaoh had the title, but Moses had the testimony, and the people are saying, uh-huh, well, that's right. Then he said, Saul had the title, but David had the testimony, by this time he got into a couple of, come on, make it plain, and then you can never have the title, but then you'll have the testimony. Well, you're getting there, you're getting there. Herod had the title, but John the Baptist had the testimony. All right, Pilate had the title, but my Jesus had the testimony.
I need to see some handkerchiefs waving now, okay, and he'd be mopping my forehead. And Daniel's testimony, yeah, sure, Nambi Kinesar had the title, and Bell Shazzar had the title, and Darius, as I said, you all have the title, but Daniel had the testimony, that God was still good, God was still sovereign, God was still in control of its planet, something else I can tell you in these verses. If you think you know the time table leading up to the second coming of Christ, you don't. Let me say that again, if you think you know the time table, maybe the sequence of events, leaving up to the second coming of Christ, you don't. Listen, there's a temptation, when a preacher gets into a passage like this, there's a temptation. Now I mean, I spent more time in the commentaries this week than I usually do because this one was just tougher. I know those five schools of thought, now what they have to bring to the party about this. It's a temptation to talk, but as if I know exactly what's going to happen and win before Jesus, and I mean, people eat this stuff up, man by the name of Hal Lindsey made himself a very wealthy man, but being right about precisely none of this. He sold a lot of books and a lot of tapes back when people listened to tapes, went to a lot of conferences. I'm going to paraphrase something a politician said a couple weeks ago. I'm paraphrasing. He said, there are two professions where you are never rewarded for success and never punished for failure. One is being a meteorologist and the other is being a Bible prophecy teacher. There's a temptation, man. There's a temptation. I promise you, if I put a sign out front here that says, earthquake, tsunamis, wars, and rumors of wars, come in and Dr. Keller is going to explain what's going to happen leading up to the time of Christ. I get some people here who wouldn't come by otherwise and they might bring some money. I'm saying this, I'm trying to figure out what was wrong with that. Why am I saying not to do that? Oh yeah, because none of them know what they're talking about. They think they do, but look back at verse 24 with me. Seventy-seven's are decreed for your people and get used to your own Bible or the Bible in front of your Lord. Just look at the bulletin. Seventy-seven are decreed for your people and your Holy City to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to tone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, to anoint the most holy place. No, and understand this. From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the anointed one of the ruler comes, there will be seven sevens and sixty-two sevens. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble, tell you again, this is a very difficult passage to understand. It's a very difficult passage even to translate and there are five schools of thought. Maybe even more is what this passage means. I've told you before, but I want to demonstrate it. I don't do a lot of this. You all know with visual aids and sermon and preaching, but if you've ever used a camera that has a telephoto lens on it, and it auto-focuses, and you know if you're looking at through for you, let's say I focused in here on Mr. Staples, and then I focused in on Mr. Krepko, then I focused in on Mr. Rosasco. Now see, these guys all three are in a line, but if I point this camera at him, this camera lens is going to start to zoom in and out, not knowing quite which one I'm pointing at because they're pretty much in a line. If I point it all the way back to the guys up there in the tower, the tower dwellers, then if I'm focusing on things that are near to me, not quite as near to me, farther away, and really farther away, this camera lens, because it's just a piece of bunch of microchips, it's going to zoom in and out, not quite sure which one to focus on at a given time. It's a telescopic nature of biblical prophecy. Daniel utters these words, or records these words that are uttered to him by Gabriel, and reminding him of Gabriel, God's servant, God's messenger, God's strong one, Gabriel, Gabriel can mean man of God, it can mean God's strong one, and that's who God uses. Gabriel reveals these words to Daniel, and I'm telling you that Daniel himself probably did not understand completely what the prophecy was about. Daniel himself probably wasn't quite sure as to which event, which person we're talking about, because they were in such a close lineup, he couldn't necessarily see one behind the other. He does no damage to our belief in the inerrency of scripture to say that the ones who utter the prophecy, the ones who wrote those words down, they themselves may not have completely understood it. There's something we talk about in theology, and this is a lot more theology than I normally give you guys in the course of a sermon, so stay with me. There's something we talk about in theology called the progress of Revelation, which is only to say that the later writers of the Bible understood more than the earlier writers of the Bible, which is to say that John wrote the revelation toward the end of the first century. John knew more than say even Matthew, Mark, and Luke do when they wrote their gospels. Paul knew more than they did because he came later on. They knew more than Malachi did. Malachi knew more than Isaiah did. Isaiah knew more than King David. King David knew more than Moses, because they had the writings and the revelations of the earlier ones to stand on. So Daniel himself probably didn't understand completely what he was looking at at which point, which time, which person as he uttered these words of the prophecy. You also need to understand something about the significance of numbers in the scripture. I've told you before that the Bible does not use numbers quite the way we do. So if you want to use it for arithmetic, for Matthew, you're going to be very frustrated. Each of those schools of thought does something different with the numbers. Each of them have certain parts to commend them. Certain parts of it just doesn't work. The Bible has a different way of using numbers, and it uses the number seven in a very significant way. I'm going to put up on the screen a few passages. I want you to listen to them carefully. This is from Leviticus chapter six. This was written down somewhere over 1400 years, BC. So we're 1400 to 1440 BC. Moses caused to be written down the worst from Leviticus chapter 26. Beginning in verse 18, we read several passages. If after all this, you will not listen to me. I will punish you for your sins seven times over. If you remain hostile toward me or refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over as your sins deserve. If in spite of these things, you do not accept my correction, but continue to be hostile toward me, I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. If in spite of this, you still do not listen to me, but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. When Moses wrote these words down or dictated them, had them written down. This was a far off prophecy. It was fulfilled with the prophet Jeremiah who lived some decades and ministered some decades before Daniel. Remember Moses wrote these days down 1400 years BC? Jeremiah wrote these words down somewhere in 600 something BC or 58590 BC? Jeremiah wrote these words decades before Daniel from Jeremiah chapter 25. This whole country, talking about Israel, will become a desolate wasteland and these nations will serve the king of Babylon 70 years. But when the 70 years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians for their guilt, declares the Lord and will make it desolate forever. That occurred in 587 BC where the Babylonians swept in and raised Jerusalem, took the people off into captivity, and near prophecy. And here's the fulfillment of it written down by the chronicler. We don't know who wrote the chronicles. Might have been as we don't really know, but whoever wrote down the chronicles in 2nd Chronicles chapter 36 verses 22 and 23. This is written down sometime after Daniel's prophecy, the fulfillment in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia. In order to fulfill the word of the Lord, spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, King of Persia, to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also put it into writing. This is what Cyrus, King of Persia says. The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build his temple for him at Jerusalem and Judah. Any of his people among you may go up and may the Lord their God be with him. In 539 BC, Cyrus said to all the Jews in Babylon, you may go home. You may go home. That prophecy was fulfilled. The prophecy that Moses had written down 1400 years BC, that Jeremiah had predicted in the near term in 600 or so BC, and now the chronicler writes sometime in the years after Daniel of the fulfillment of this passage. These prophecies. So let me tell you what I will not tell you based on this passage of Daniel. I will not tell you exactly what these numbers mean and that's because I can't. Simple truth is again, nobody knows exactly what they mean. The biblical writers just use them in different ways. All these sevens, they could mean years, they could mean periods of years, they could mean decades, they could mean something longer. The passage doesn't tell us. I will not tell you who the other ruler is beside the anointed one in verse 26. In some ways, it certainly looks like it's Antiochus epiphanies. I told you about before who went into Jerusalem, 168 BC because he'd gotten his posterior kicked by the Egyptians and went home humiliating. He said, I'm going to take it out on somebody who went to Jerusalem and slaughtered on a Sabbath day. Thousands and thousands of Jews took a bunch more into captivity. Descrated the temple in Jerusalem, set up an altar to Zeus where the Holy of Holies had been and slaughtered a pig on it. He certainly looks like the fulfillment of the abomination of desolation but then Jesus says in Matthew 24 and 25 there's still one to come. So it looks like largely fulfilled in 168 BC but we know there's still something more to come. I will not tell you based on this passage exactly when Jesus will return. I do know that. I'm just not allowed to tell you all. Just checking to see if you're still with me. I don't know. Neither does anybody else. If somebody comes up to you for a seminar or a conference or whatever wants you to pay a certain amount of money to buy his book or his CDs or his DVDs or whatever, turn around and run, don't walk the other way and hold on to your wallet while you go. He may be sincere but he's sincerely wrong. He doesn't know. Jesus said that day in that hour, no one knows. Not even the sun but only the Heavenly Father. I wonder sometimes why every generation thinks it's the Omega generation, the last generation. I think I think there's two things going on. One is I think it's just hope. Jesus, would you come back? Get us out of this mess. I think it's our hope to know that he's coming. Well why not now? And I think part of it folks frankly is just ego. I think a lot of us just can't imagine this rule going on without us. We just can't imagine that this rule could actually continue without us and what our generation brings to the party. And one day I'll say again, one generation will be right
but which generation I don't know. I mentioned that a lot of people who made fools out of themselves over this. I don't know if you know this in church history. Man by the name of William Miller predicted that Jesus would return sometime during the Jewish year that ran from March 21, 1843 to March 21, 1844. We're almost on the anniversary of that. When that didn't happen, a slight miscalculation was discovered. And the new day was October 22, 1844. And when that didn't happen, an entire even though it didn't happen, an entire movement was born on his predictions. They are known today as the Adventists. It's where they were born. When I was in high school I heard a man by the name of Chuck Milhoff. I think he's still with us. He set forth a Bible prophecy that was just air tight based on the Jewish holiday, the Jewish festival system and the Jewish sacrifices. And he knew Jesus was coming back on September the 10th, 1975. He did 1988, a man by the name of Egracee Wismann. And he was no dummy. The man was a NASA engineer. Egracee Wismann wrote a book called 88 Reasons Why The Raptor Happened in 88. When that didn't happen, he went back to his calculator or side rule or whatever he was using back then as Advocates and came out with 89 Reasons Why The Raptor Happened in 1989. When that didn't happen, he came out with a reason why it was going to happen in 93 and 94 and 97 and oddly enough people stopped buying his stuff. Mr. Wismann, it's no longer with us. I trust he's with the Lord and now he knows that he made a fool out of himself. You remember why 2K? Now people just knew it was going to be the end of the world. Plains were going to fall out of the sky and respectable Christian leaders made hay out of that and they told Christian what they ought to do and what kind of provisions out of laying stories out of getting ready for the riots and the hordes of hungry people who are going to be at their door. I said then, I'll say it again, if anybody made any money out of that, you know, everybody had great big apology if they made money off of the Y2K hysteria, they should have taken every dime of it and given it to the poor. Folks, we don't know. And I remember thinking, as if God has impressed by our calendar, as if God's looking at our calendar, oh, it's January 1st by their calendar, year 2000, I better bring the thing to an end. By the way, we know our calendars off four, five, or six years and for Julian made a miscalculation. Jesus was not born in the year 0. He was born four, five, or six years before that. And I think God knows it. So I hope I'm making my point that we don't know when Jesus is coming back. One more thing that I can tell you based on this passage. So if you think you have all the time in the world until Jesus returns, you don't. You don't. I've already told you that. I don't know what they'll, all the numbers mean. I can't give you a timetable. But there's one part of this prophecy that seems abundantly clear. It's in verse 24, 77 are to creep your people in your holy city, to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to a tone for righteousness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Think, when did Jerusalem, the holy city see all these things take place? They happened at the cross where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts and his understanding is higher than ours. We can't always understand his mind, but some things are so clear, we cannot miss them. And that is that the old covenant was fulfilled and the new one was inaugurated at Calgatha, at the cross of Christ. Folks, I don't engage in scare tactics, you know that. And I'm not about to go negative on you. I just want to say one more time. If you think you have all the time in the world to get serious with God, you don't. It's not a scare tactic to say that a little over 48 hours ago, the nation of Japan was moving right along as if everything was normal about last Friday. And in one second, their lives were changed radically or ended. You may have decades more to go. You may have many years. You may not have tomorrow. If you think you have all the time in the world to get serious about your relationship with God, what you will do with Jesus. You don't. You don't. Today is the day of salvation. There's no legend that says it's Satan held a contest. He has some apprentice demons getting ready to go to the earth for their final exams. He asked each one of them. He said, and what will you do to bring men to ruin and to hell? And the first one said, I will tell them there's no God. And the devil said, you will not delude many that way. Nature itself tells them that there's a God. And the second apprentice demon came. He said, I will tell them there is no hell. And Satan said, I don't think you'll deceive many that way. They know that they have sins. Even today, they know that they have sins and there must be judgment. There's a hell awaiting for those who do not repent. And the third demon came and said, I will tell them that there is no hurry. Satan said, you will do well. You will do well. And I expect to see many thousands and millions enter into my kingdom because of what you tell them. The day of judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore I wish to be a light and a dark and dying culture. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, I am again grateful for the words that Prophet Daniel, Lord, you chose to give him these words. You chose to make them an enigma. We really have to struggle with them, wrestle with them. You knew that in doing that, you would cause Bible-believing Christians down to the centuries in the millennia to wrestle with what these words have to mean for us. Lord God, I don't begin to believe that I have exhausted or plumbed the depths of this past day. But one thing I hope is that I have caused each and every person in this place, every man, every woman, and every young person to take seriously the fact that one day we run out of time, we come to stand before the one with whom we have to do. My prayer for each and every person that hears my voice is that we will go before you in humility and repentance and do business with you while we have time. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you again for being here with us this morning. Receive the better diction now. Now go in the love of God the Father, the grace and mercy of God the Son, the fellowship and companionship of God the Holy Spirit, and live the life. Amen.