Preached by Gregory W. Lee
20 August 2006
I. Introduction
-- turn in Bibles to Daniel 9
-- said last week, because of the tumultous events in the world today -- the war in Iraq -- the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah -- the siege of Gaza -- and a war on terror with religious connotations -- starting series on end times prophesies
-- presenting them from a literal perspective -- I believe that prophecy should be taken literally where possibly and symbolically only where it is clearly presented as symbolic
-- it is o.k. to believe different on these points -- there are many in the body of Christ who do not believe in interpreting these passages in this way -- it doesn't mean we are not brothers and sisters in Christ -- it just means we have a difference in opinion as to what these prophetic passages mean
-- reminder -- belief in a certain interpretation of these passages is not necessary for your salvation -- the only thing that is necessary is belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus -- belief that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and that through Him, you can receive forgiveness for your sins
-- so, I am presenting this teaching as I understand it and as I interpret these passages -- I would encourage you to read these passages for yourself -- to see what God says to you through them -- to see what other commentators have written about these passages -- and to develop your own understanding and theology of end times prophecy
II. Scripture Lesson -- Daniel 9
-- as we begin, let me give you a little of the context of passage and tell you a little of the background of Daniel -- Daniel was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzer when Babylon conquered Jerusalem in 605 B.C. -- he quickly rose to a position of authority in Babylon when he interpreted the dream of Nebuchadnezzer -- through it all, Daniel maintained his integrity and faith in God despite living in a pagan land
-- as this chapter opens, Nebuchadnezzer and the nation of Babylon had been conquered by the Medo-Persian empire -- and now Daniel finds himself serving under Darius, son of Xerxes -- the new ruler of Babylon
-- Daniel is a very old man at this time -- look at verse 1
1. In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom--
2. in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.
3. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
-- Daniel had been reading the prophecies given by Jeremiah and had discovered that the time of exile of the Jewish people would last 70 years -- the end of the 70 year exile period was now rapidly approaching, and Daniel turns to God in prayer on behalf of the Jewish people, asking Him to release them from their exile and to allow them to return to Jerusalem -- Daniel was worried about what was going to happen to the Israelites in the future, especially since a new world government had come on the scene in the form of the Medo-Persians
-- turn over to verse 20
20. While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the LORD my God for his holy hill--
21. while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice.
22. He instructed me and said to me, "Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding.
23. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the message and understand the vision:
-- Daniel has been praying out loud to God, pouring out his heart and soul -- confessing his sin and sin of nation -- and making his request for God to return the Israelites back to their nation
-- God's holy hill is Mt. Zion -- this is the location of Jerusalem -- where the city is built and where the temple of God had stood -- this passage concerns the people and the nation of Israel
-- as Daniel is praying, God answers him by sending the angel Gabriel directly to him -- there are only two angels named in scripture -- Gabriel and Michael -- Michael is described as the archangel -- the prince of the people of Israel -- he is the angel who looked over and protected the nation of Israel
-- Gabriel is the messenger of God -- in Luke 1:19 he describes himself as the one who stands in the presence of God -- he is the same one who spoke to Zechariah in the temple, announcing the birth of John the Baptist -- he is the same one who brought the news to Mary that she would bear the Messiah -- and he is the same angel who had appeared to Daniel earlier to explain the meaning of the vision of the ram and goat in Chapter 8
-- Gabriel tells Daniel that his prayers were heard and that he had come to answer Daniel's prayer directly and to explain to him what was going to happen to the nation of Israel in the future because Daniel was considered highly esteemed by God
-- the remainder of the chapter, then, outlines what is going to happen to the nation of Israel, which was the main concern of Daniel in his prayer to God in verses 4-19
verse 24
24. "Seventy `sevens' are decreed for your people and 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.
25. "Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree 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.
-- o.k., here's where we get prophetic -- Gabriel tells Daniel that "seventy sevens" are decreed for the people of Israel -- some translations say seventy "weeks" -- the Hebrew term used in this passage is "shavua" meaning "a unit of measure" -- so, the term "seven" is really just a unit of measure -- it doesn't have to mean weeks -- it can stand for seven days -- it can stand for seven months -- it could stand for seven years -- or it could stand for any other unit of measure like this
-- in the context of this chapter, though, Daniel is concerned with the prophecy of Jeremiah that stated the nation of Israel would be in exile for seventy years -- so, it is assumed by a lot of scholars that the word "seven" here refers to a time period of seven years
-- so, when Gabriel says that "seventy sevens" are decreed for the nation of Israel, he is saying there are seventy seven-year periods or 490 years decreed for the nation of Israel
-- now, let's talk for a moment about the use of the word "year" in the Bible -- we all know that a year has 365 days -- actually, it has 365.24 days -- that's why we have an extra day in February added every four years -- however, our year is based on a solar calendar -- in other words, a year for us is defined as how long it takes the planet earth to complete one orbit around the sun
-- however, the Israelites did not use a solar calendar -- instead, they measured time using a lunar calendar -- so, a year for the Israelites was not 365.24 days -- instead, a biblical year is 360 days -- and this is important to keep in mind as we go through trying to understand this time line that Gabriel puts forth
-- Gabriel tells Daniel that there are going to be 490 years -- 490 biblical years -- left for the nation of Israel -- these 490 years are presented in this chapter as existing in three separate time periods -- in verse 25, Gabriel talks about two of these time periods that will be established based on events in the life of Israel -- he says there will be "seven sevens" or 49 years -- and then there will be another time period of "sixty-two sevens" or 434 years -- if you add these figures together, you will come up with 483 years -- that means there will be an additional seven year time period known as the "time of Jacob's trouble" that will come later
-- now I want you to imagine that God has a stopwatch -- and He is going to measure out 490 years for the nation of Israel -- God is going to start the stopwatch at a specific time -- Gabriel tells us that the clock will start when the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem is issued
-- remember, Jerusalem has been destroyed -- the walls had been torn down -- the gates demolished -- and the temple burned during the Babylonian conquest -- the city is in ruins at the time Daniel is given this message from Gabriel
-- the decree to rebuild Jerusalem is going to come in the future -- hold your place here in Daniel and turn back to Nehemiah 2 -- the Medo-Persian kings Cyrus and Darius paved the way for this decree when they said it was o.k. for the Jews to go back to Jerusalem and that they could start rebuilding the temple -- but the decree that gave the Jewish people permission to rebuild the city and the walls surrounding the city came in this book -- look at verses 1-8 in this chapter
1. In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before;
2. so the king asked me, "Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart." I was very much afraid,
3. but I said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?"
4. The king said to me, "What is it you want?" Then I prayed to the God of heaven,
5. and I answered the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it."
6. Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, "How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?" It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.
7. I also said to him, "If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah?
8. And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?" And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.
-- this decree by King Artaxerxes occurred in 444 B.C. and most scholars who believe in a literal interpretation of these passages think that this is the starting point of the 490 years
-- turn back over to Daniel 9 and let's look at verse 25 again
25. "Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree 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.
-- the first time period is "seven sevens" or 49 years -- this is the amount of time it took the Israelites to fully restore the city of Jerusalem -- to rebuild the temple -- to rebuild the houses -- to rebuild the walls and the gates of the city
-- the Book of Malachi -- the last book in the Old Testament -- was written right at the end of this period -- by the time of Malachi, the city of Jerusalem had been fully restored -- this is the end of the first time period
-- the second time period is sixty-two sevens or 434 years and it starts immediately after the restoration of Jerusalem -- Gabriel tells Daniel here that the end of this second time period will be marked by the coming of the Anointed One, meaning the Messiah
-- so, get what Gabriel is saying here -- there will be 483 years from the date when the decree is issued to rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One -- the Messiah comes
-- now, 483 biblical years corresponds to 476 years and 24 days in our Gregorian or solar calendar -- we know that the decree from Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem came around 444 B.C. -- if you were to add 476 years to this date, you will come up with the date that the Anointed One is supposed to come into Jersualem -- 444 BC plus 476 years makes this 32 AD -- the very year when scholars say that Christ rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday accepting the adoration of the crowd as they proclaimed Him as "the One who comes in the name of the Lord"
-- verse 26 seems to verify the fact that Jesus was indeed the Anointed One of God
26. After the sixty-two `sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.
-- after the 49 years of the first time period and the additional 434 years of the second time period -- 483 years in all -- Gabriel tells Daniel that the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing -- this is a reference to the rejection of Jesus by the nation of Israel and His death on the cross
III. Has this been fulfilled?
-- but, that still leaves seven years hanging out there -- Gabriel told Daniel that there would be seventy sevens -- 490 years -- for the nation of Israel -- when Jesus died on the cross, only 483 years had passed since the decree to rebuild Jerusalem -- so, what about the final week?
-- some scholars say that the events of that final week were fulfilled immediately after the death of Jesus -- but others say that there is a break in time -- that when the nation of Israel rejected God's Anointed One after 483 years, God stopped the clock for Israel and turned His attention to the Gentiles for a time and that sometime in the future, the clock will restart for the nation of Israel
-- so, which is right?
-- Gabriel tells Daniel in verse 24 that six things will be fulfilled during in the life of Israel before these 490 years have passed
-- first, he says that trangression will be finished -- this refers to the rejection of God by the people of Israel -- the story of the Old Testament is a story of the people of Israel turning away from God, being punished for their sins, and then coming back to God through confession and repentance -- time and time again, the nation of Israel rejected their God -- that is why Daniel is sitting in Babylon as this chapter opens -- the nation of Israel had rejected God and was being punished with 70 years of exile
-- then, when the Anointed One -- the Messiah -- came -- the nation of Israel rejected Him once again -- their transgression continues to this day -- it has not been finished, although we know that in the future the nation will return to God and to their Messiah with all their heart
-- secondly, Gabriel says there will be an end to sin -- now, all we have to do is watch the news today to know that there is still sin in the world -- sin has not been ended by any stretch of the imagination -- this criteria has not been fulfilled
-- third, Gabriel says that there will be atonement for wickedness -- and this has come to pass -- when Jesus died on the cross in our place, He atoned for our wickedness -- for our sins -- so this criteria has been fulfilled
-- fourth, Gabriel said that everlasting righteousness would occur before the end of the 490 years -- this refers to the establishment of God's kingdom on earth -- the time when Jesus will return to set up His kingdom -- this has not come to pass
-- fifth, Gabriel said that vision and prophecy would be sealed up -- this means that all the visions and all the prophecies in the Bible would have been fulfilled -- this has certainly not come to pass because we have not seen the fulfillment of the promise of the second coming of Christ
-- and last, Gabriel said that the most holy would be anointed -- this refers to the anointing of the Holy of Holies in the millenial temple that Ezekiel spoke about in his prophecy -- this has not come to pass yet, either
-- so, have the 490 years decreed for the nation of Israel been completed? -- according to Gabriel's list of things that will be accomplished during this time period, no, it has not been completed
-- so, it appears that there is a gap in time between the end of the 483 years when the Anointed One was cut off and the last seven year period
-- the rest of this chapter in Daniel and the majority of the Book of Revelation concerns this last seven year period, and we'll talk about it next time we get together
IV. Closing-- so, what is the take home message from what we've covered so far in Daniel Chapter 9? -- this is it -- Daniel prophesied in this book the exact time the Anointed One of God would come -- and we know that this Anointed One -- the Messiah -- was Christ Jesus
-- we know that through Him -- and only through Him -- will the six prophesies in verse 24 be completed -- through Him we will see the transgression of the Israel people finished -- through Him we shall see sin come to an end and will see atonement for our sins -- through Him we will receive everlasting righteousness -- and when He comes again, we will see the fulfillment of all prophecy, including the anointing of the most holy
-- there can be no doubt that Jesus was who He claimed to be -- the Holy One of God -- the Messiah -- the Son of Man and the Son of God -- and there can be no doubt that the only way for you to receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life is through receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior
-- if you have never done that, I would invite you to respond to His invitation this morning
-- let us pray
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