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Daniel-Wayne Barber/Part 21

Written by Dr. Wayne Barber | Sep 11, 2013 4:00:00 AM
By: Dr. Wayne Barber; ©2006
So many people cannot understand that God has not finished with Israel. They think that when Jesus came it was all done away with and now it’s just the wheat and the tares growing side by side. But they forget the everlasting covenant made with Abram that Abram was promised not only a seed who was Jesus Christ, not only a land which was Israel, but also he was promised a nation.

God's Faithfulness to Israel - Part 1 (Daniel 9:20-24)

Turn with me to Daniel 9, and we come to that part that everybody’s been wanting to talk about: the 70 weeks of Daniel. I’d like to entitle this “God’s Faithfulness to Israel, Part 1,” because there will be a part 2. There may be a 3 or a 4, I don’t know. Right now I know there’s a part 1 and a part 2. God’s faithfulness to Israel. So many people cannot understand that God has not finished with Israel. They think that when Jesus came it was all done away with and now it’s just the wheat and the tares growing side by side. But they forget the everlasting covenant made with Abram that Abram was promised not only a seed who was Jesus Christ, not only a land which was Israel, but also he was promised a nation. And this was an everlasting covenant. Now when Jesus came He opened the door, but Israel had still rejected Jesus as being the Messiah. Therefore, during this time Jews, individually, Jews come into the covenant, but Israel as a nation has as a whole still rejected God. God is not through with Israel. And it’s a wonderful testimony to His faithfulness to His covenant people. Now we have seen Daniel in chapter 9 in fervent prayer for his people. Verses 3-19, he had been studying in his quiet time the readings of Jeremiah, his contemporary prophet friend. Jeremiah had said in his writing that the reason they had been put into captivity was their sin and their wickedness and their rejection of God, their transgression, but he also had said that they only would remain there for 70 years. Now those 70 years were about up. They were in the first year of Darius and so therefore about 538 BC, therefore about three more years before they would come back to their homeland. At that time Daniel had been there for 67 years. And when he looked around him at his people, he realized that they had still not yet repented. They had not yet turned back to God, and he realized that they were going back to their land having still not turned back to God. And so he begins to be repentant. And he puts on the sack cloth and the ashes, humbles himself before God and he begins to plead for mercy before God. He confesses his people’s sins 32 times as if it were his own. And it’s in this precious posture of intercessory prayer that we find God interrupting him and the angel Gabriel coming to him and saying, “Hold it Daniel; that’s enough. We’re going to answer you. But we’re not just going to answer you for your people Judah, we’re going to answer you for all of Israel and we’re going to take you right down to the last day on this earth, of this age, and we’re going to show you that God still loves His people. But it’s going to take a while before your prayers can be fully answered.” Look in verse 20, “Now while I was speaking and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God in behalf of the holy mountain of my God, while I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering. And he gave me instruction and talked with me, and said, ‘O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding. At the beginning of your supplications the command was issued, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed; so give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision.’” Now in this vision is a whole picture and notice he was praying not just for Judah but for Israel, a whole picture of what God is going to do with His people. And there are several things we need to see, two of which we’ll look at this morning. First of all, as we get into it we need to proceed with caution and the first thing we want to look at is the focus of Daniel’s prayer and God’s answer to that prayer. There is a focus to that. Now if we’ll proceed with caution, we might understand this before we leave this morning. When I used to trout fish with my Dad, years ago, I caught my first limit when I was eight years old in a trout stream with a fly rod. And my Dad taught me from the very beginning, “Now, son, if you’re going to catch fish, you’re going to have to be careful how you approach the stream and you’re going to have to be very quiet and very careful in doing it.” You fish upstream, you don’t fish downstream. Now we’re going to catch some fish out of this thing, but we’re going to move real slowly. We don’t want to spook ourselves and mess ourselves up as we go through it, alright? So let’s look at the focus. This is what so many people overlook. Look in verse 24, “Seventy weeks have been decreed,” now we’ll get to that in just a minute. Now watch the next phrase: “for your people and your holy city...” Now whether you like it or not, all the answers in prophecy about the church are not going to be answered in the book of Daniel. What God is revealing to Daniel has to do with His people and His holy city. I just wish that everything, the if’s, the and’s, the who’s, the what’s, the when’s would all be answered in this as to when the church fits in and what’s going to happen to us and all these things. Nope, you’re going to have to go to another book to find that. This is about Daniel’s people and Daniel’s holy city. And not just Judah, but you’re going to see that it’s all of Israel before this vision is complete. So the first thing is the focus and notice we hit that and we’re running. Now the second one we’re going to stay on for awhile. The second thing we need to look at very carefully this morning is that there is a specific time period that has been decreed for Israel to be broken of their self-sufficiency and that period is 70 weeks, verse 24. “Seventy weeks have been decreed,” it’s signed and sealed and you can’t change that. “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city.” Now here comes the deep water. What does the 70 weeks refer to? Is it 70 literal weeks, or what is it? And how can we look at it intelligently this morning and understand from God’s Word? Well, there are two things that may help you; it helped me. First of all, notice in verse 24; let the Scripture interpret itself now. There are six things that must happen before the completion or by the completion of these 70 weeks. Now if you’ll keep that in mind, it may keep your doctrine a little more straight as you begin to try to interpret it.

Six things that must be completed before 70 weeks are over

There are six things that must be completed before the 70 weeks are over. First of all he says in verse 24, “to finish the transgression.” The word “finish” means to restrain, to bring to an end. The transgression basically sums up the whole of Israel’s rejection to God. Certainly encompassed in that would be their rejection of the Messiah yet to come and then also of the Spirit interpretation to them later on. So they have rejected God, and so the word “transgression” sums all their sin up with an attitude of the fact that they’ve rebelled against God: they have transgressed God. Now, before those 70 weeks are over or by the end of them, all of that has got to come to an end for Israel. It’s got to be restrained, brought to an end. Alright, that’s the first thing. And anybody who says that’s already happened, you don’t seem to understand. No, it has not. Secondly, it says “to make an end of sin.” Actually the word “sin” is in plural. It should be sins. And so here we see the specifics. The overall sin is the transgression, now you see the individual sins that come out of that. All of that has got to be brought to an end by the end of the 70 week period of time. Thirdly, he says “to make atonement for iniquity.” This is when it starts getting exciting and little chill bumps start running up my back. “To make an atonement for sin.” Not just one time as they would do in the temple in the holy place, oh, no, but brother, for all eternity there as to be an atonement made. The word “atonement” means to cover and in order for Israel to ever be reconciled to God, their sin has got to come to an end and there’s got to be an atonement made for it so that it will cover that and completely rid them of it so they can come on to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we know that Jesus did that by His shed blood on the cross, but that’s not what he’s saying here, we just know that. Alright, to make an atonement for sin. That’s the third thing. You can say, “Well, Brother Wayne, Jesus has already been on the cross, so evidently that’s already completed.” That’s right, but look at the rest of them. The fourth thing he says, “everlasting righteousness must be brought in.” Now here’s the key: everlasting righteousness to Israel. Now you know and I know that Jesus made that potentially possible on the cross, but we also know that Israel has rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. Everlasting righteousness has not yet come to Israel and the key to that is the word “everlasting.” It’s not just a temporary thing: everlasting righteousness must come. Then fifthly he said, “to seal up vision and prophecy.” Now the word “seal” there, seal up, means when you’re finished with something you seal it up and put it on the shelf. You’re through with it; you don’t need it anymore. So in other words, all prophecy has got to be fulfilled; it’s all got to be finished, sealed up, and put on the shelf. It’s not needed anymore. All prophecy sealed up. And then the sixth thing that has got to happen is that it says, “and to anoint the most holy place.” Now some scholars say it’s the “holy one,” and they have a good argument for that. Others say it’s the “holy place.” Well, if it’s the holy place, it would have to be in the temple and we know that there’s no temple at this particular time and so something has got to happen there: that hasn’t taken place, if it’s the holy place. If it’s the holy one as He comes to reign as king on this earth, He has not yet come back to this earth in his physical form to be anointed, to reign as the king over His kingdom on His earth. That hasn’t taken place. So we begin to realize how we can unravel this thing. You see, these six things have got to be kept in mind. Any view that you have over here must somehow go along with these six things that have got to take place within that 70 week period of time. Now we come to the real backlash. Have you ever been fishing and you throw into the wind carelessly, not realizing that when you do that you’re going to get a backlash if you use a man’s reel? Now some of you use those little sissy things that you push little buttons on. I’m talking about a man’s reel. And I don’t mean one of those things that has a little magnetic thing on the side that keeps you from back lashing. I’m talking about if you’re a real fisherman, you know what you’re doing, you’re throwing with the real kind of stuff. And if you throw into the wind carelessly it’s going to backlash on you and make a royal mess. So what you do, you have to be real careful, know what you’re doing when you throw into the wind because now we’re going to have to see the second thing of this.

The 70 weeks

The first thing was the six things that have got to happen. Okay, we can push that aside. Now we’ve got to decide what about these 70 weeks. How much time period is that? How do we view that in terms of latter day prophecy? Now let’s be real careful because we’re throwing in the wind now. Make sure your thumb is down real good because you’re going to get a backlash if you don’t. Obviously, it’s not 70 periods of seven days. Now the literal there is 70 sevens; periods of seven. It’s not really 70 weeks, that’s just a translator’s term. It’s “seventy sevens.” What we’ve got to decide is, are they days or are they years. Now I don’t think it even bears mentioning that it can’t be days. I’m going to push that aside and go right on. I think personally proper study of the Word of God completely blows that out the back door. Four hundred and ninety days after the decree that comes in verse 25, and we’ll look at that in a minute, could not possibly have seen all of these six things fulfilled because we haven’t seen them all fulfilled even today. So it can’t be days, so we have to go the next step and make them years. It’s got to be 490 years. Somehow God is saying, “Daniel, I’m going to answer your prayer, yes sir, I’m going to turn my wrath away from Israel; but it’s going to come at a certain time. I’m going to send them back to their homeland, but that’s not going to do them a bit of good. They’re going to go right on rejecting Me, they’re going to reject My Christ, they as a nation are going to stand against Me.” But 490 years have been decreed so that Israel might be broken of their self-sufficiency. Now, let’s look at this 490 years. If you’ll note very carefully verses 25-27 is divided into three segments. Now you watch, I didn’t write this. Now you watch: three segments. First of all, in verse 25. Now we’ll read part of this and we’ll come back to it. “So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince.” Now let’s just push that aside for a minute and I’ll come right back to it. First period: “there will be seven weeks,” that’s seven sevens. Now if you use that as years, that’s 49 years. That’s the first division. Alright, secondly it says, “sixty-two weeks,” or sixty-two sevens. How long is that? Well, that’s 434 years. Now we’ve got two segments. Now if you add 434 to 49 you come up with 483. The problem is there are seven years left or one period of seven that’s left. Well, now, where does that fit and how does that come in? Look in verse 27, “And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week.” Well, look there, there’s the other one: a period of seven years. So you’ve got 49 years, you’ve got 434 years, draw a line under that, and then you’ve got down here seven years. Now what are we going to do with that? Well, let’s look. It gets real exciting in verse 26. “Then after the sixty-two weeks,” now when he says 62 you know that comes after the seven, so you’ve got actually 69 weeks. Are you with me on that? Let me back up just a second. When he says after 62 weeks, don’t forget that before you have 62 you’ve got 49, or seven times seven. Are you with me on that? Stay with me now, I don’t want to lose you, alright. I don’t want to lose anybody. Like I say many times, I’m here to preach and you’re here to listen; raise your hand if you finish before I do. Let’s just stay together. Alright, so it’s 69, even though it says 62. You’ve got to assume he’s already got the seven in there. He’s already said that. So after 69 weeks, now how long is that? 483 years. Watch this: after 62 weeks, 483 years, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing. Now what do you think that represents in the Lord Jesus’ life on this earth? What would that be? Cut off: that’s the cross, that’s the crucifixion. Do you realize what is being said here? If these guys had paid any attention to what Daniel had happen in his life they could have predicted the very time that the Lord Jesus Christ would be crucified on this earth. Some people have even gone a step further than that and marked it down to His triumphal entry, but you at least have the time span that the Messiah would be coming to this earth. Isn’t it amazing that there are many Jews today who reject the fact that the Messiah has ever come? If they’ll go back and look at the prophecy of Daniel, it told them very clearly that He would be on this earth and would be cut off after a period of 483 years. Clear as a bell. Now we begin to get a little backlash here. There are three decrees we’ve got to look at. It all starts in verse 25. When did this 490 year period start? He tells you. Verse 25, “So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince,” in other words, there’s going to be a span of time there and it starts with the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Now here’s where the complication comes. There are three decrees of the people to go back into their land. One in 538 BC, one in 458 BC, and one in 445 BC. You’ve got to choose now which one you think it is. Let’s look at those. First of all, look at the book of Ezra. Ezra 1:2-4. Now this is the first decree by Cyrus and this was in 538 BC. Could this be the time that he’s talking about? “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem. And every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.’” Now what does that decree for the people to go back and do? To build the house of God, to build the temple. Alright, that’s the first decree. Look at the second one in Ezra 7, by Artaxerxes. This came in 458 BC. Chapter 7 and verse 21, “And I, even I King Artaxerxes, issue a decree to all the treasurers who are in the provinces beyond the River, that whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, may require of you, it shall be done diligently.” And he begins to tell them how much money and all that it would take to restore not only the inside part of the worship of the temple but the order of that worship. And so Artaxerxes said basically, “One decree is to go back and build the temple, the other decree is to go back and restore order in that temple and the worship in that temple.” The third decree however, comes in Nehemiah 2 by the same man, Artaxerxes. Nehemiah 2:5-8, “And I said to the king,” as he came, of course Nehemiah had that burden, “‘If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.’ Then the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, ‘How long will your journey be, and when will you return?’ So it pleased the king to send me, and I gave him a definite time. And I said to the king, ‘If it please the king, let letters be given me for the governors of the provinces beyond the River, that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah….’” And he goes on down, he’s getting a decree from Artaxerxes to go back now and rebuild the walls and rebuild the city. Now which one do we choose? If 483 years from the time of this decree led us to understand the crucifixion of Christ, we have to be very careful in selecting which one. Now some people choose the 458 BC date. Personally, and I’m not going to fight with anybody, I picked the 445 BC time. That’s the last decree. And certainly if I’m wrong and you’re right and we don’t agree, that’s not going to hurt us: we can still go on in fellowship. We’re going to get to Jesus one day and He’s going to say it didn’t really matter anyway. But one of the three: 445 BC. Now why do I do that? Well, they had 360 days in their years. They didn’t have 365 like we have. If you take 483 years, multiply that by 360 days, you come out with 173,880 days, and as far as I can tell, the scholars say you can pinpoint the date of His crucifixion in AD 32. Now there’s some other scholarship that comes up and says no, it was AD 30. I don’t know, but somewhere in that ballpark we have it. The point is that it’s on a time schedule and God told him exactly when He would come and when He would be on this earth and that in a certain period of time He would be cut off. That’s the key. Isn’t it incredible that Israel has ignored the prophecy of Daniel? If they would pay attention to it, the One whom they slew on the cross, they would begin to understand it had to be the Lord Jesus Christ. With all the prophecies that back up before Him in the Old Testament. You know, when I was in college we used to pull some pranks. I’m sure you didn’t do that. But some of you, I can tell which ones of you did. Some of you are real studious. You liked class. I loved college, I just didn’t like class. So we had to come up with something. We had chapel twice a week and chapel is a great time to take a nap to be honest with you. They had some of the most boring speakers I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Maybe part of it was we stayed up all night the night before, but still they were boring. We had this guy coming in and they put out this little newsletter and they said, “Now listen, this guy is coming in and here’s what he’s going to talk on in chapel this week.” Now we’d seen it, and oh no! I’ve forgotten what it was now, but we got with a guy who worked on the stage crew. He had the only key as far as we knew to the little door that was behind the pulpit there. They had a pulpit and they had a little door in the back of it and you open that door and they stored stuff in there and they’d lock it up to keep people from going in there and taking it out. He had the key. We said, “Listen, we need to do something just to make chapel exciting.” We got seven Big Ben alarm clocks. Have you ever heard one of those things? That would suffice for a fire alarm in most places. You could hear it six blocks away and they run forever. You can’t shut them off: they just go forever. That’s the kind you put on the other side of the room if you really want to get up for a class in the morning. So we got seven of those things. We figured that 20 minutes was about all we could take of the boring topic that he was going to be sharing on anyway. All the professors, all the presidential staff was going to be sitting on the stage. We figured this would be a wonderful day. So at 20 minutes after chapel we set the first one: we set the alarm. Five minutes later we set the second later. Five minutes later we set the third one, until we had done seven alarm clocks, and we put them inside that speaker stand, shut the door and locked it and we had the key. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Everybody stayed awake that morning because we just couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen. Watching your watch every second. We were in the balcony. All the athletes seemed like we sat in the balcony. We’d all look around and everybody was going, “It’s going to happen!” And the poor guy standing down front was trying his best to entertain he crowd and here’s the staff trying to look like they really were interested. They’re all faking it, but they’re trying to look like their interested. At 20 minutes after that alarm clock went off! It was so great. I mean, it just wiped the place out because everybody was waiting on it. And the president and all the people running around trying to get that door open. We got the key! Well, after it finally goes off and finishes, the guy says, “You know, I was in college one time and we did funny things like that.” And we were thinking, “Oh, but you don’t know.” It’s going to happen again. And about five minutes later it went off! After about the fourth time, needless to say, chapel was over and we just left. Now you wonder why I told that. Folks, this is the thing I want you to see in Daniel. We can argue from day in and day out: Is it 558 or 458 or whatever? The key is this: God set the time on that clock, shut the door, and locked it and He’s got the key. And buddy, it’s going to go off when He says it’s going to go off. That’s the key. Now I can’t believe these guys getting all bent out of shape with people on this stuff saying, “It ought to be this way,” or “it ought to be that way.” Don’t break fellowship over it. Just understand something: God was in control and God did it and Jesus came and was crucified just exactly the way He said it would happen and it was within a period of time that He said it would be within. That’s the key I want you to grab this morning. I think that’s the most important thing: that God said it, it happened, and there was no question whatsoever about it. But here’s one more problem. I haven’t got time to work it out so we’re going to do it next time. I can’t wait. We’ve got another period of time left, don’t we? There’s another period of time left in this. Seven years. Wait, we just talked about 483 years. Did you not see in your Scriptures that it’s a period of 70 times seven: 490 years? Now where is that last seven years? Now this is the thing I want you to see. Well, there are several things I want you to see about it and I’ll never get it all out like I got it in. First of all is this: could it be sequential with the 483? That’s what a lot of “scholars” say. And they say that the 490 years have already happened. And so you go back to the cross and add seven years and that’s it. That is it! Now personally, that is poor hermeneutic to what we’re looking at in this passage. It told me six things have got to happen before those 70 weeks are over with. My friend, you cannot document to me that those six things have taken place yet. They have not: not in Israel’s life. This whole thing is about Israel. It has not taken place in Israel’s life. They have rejected the Messiah and all these several things have not yet taken place, which means then there must be a gap between the 483 years and the 490 th year. Has to be! There’s no other way to look at it. If it hadn’t happen, and we know six things must happen, you must put a gap in there somehow. And remember now; his whole vision was only about Israel. The church is not yet included. And it’s still not included, but I think we can include it. What do you think happened between the 483 rd and the 490 th year, that gap period? After the 483 years is over, that’s already happened, that’s all history. What do you think happened between then and that 70 th week, that week we saw in verse 27. What do you think happened during that period of time? I don’t think there is any other conclusion and again, I’m studying with you and I’m not the absolute: God’s Word is the absolute. But I believe in my personal, humble belief, and I think I’m right, I believe in my personal belief it’s where the Gentiles are allowed in. Here is your church, right there. What did Daniel know about the church? Zip! What did God say to him about the church? Zip! But what do we know about the church in the New Testament? We know a whole lot. We’re looking back, friend, we’re not looking ahead like Daniel was. We can look back and begin to piece things together and the only thing that makes any sense in my mind whatsoever, and we’ll look at that next time in Romans 11, is the fact that after those 483 years there was a gap, a parenthesis if you please, until the Gentiles, the fulfillment of the Gentiles has been allowed in and then, door closed, and now we’ve got the 70 th week of Daniel. One final week of seven years. This also helps me understand, at least in Daniel, and remember this; this is why I don’t write books, I change my mind a lot of times. I’m not writing a book on this. These people who write a book and say this is my view and I think it’s right, to me, because boy, we’re getting into some deep water here. What I personally believe is why in the world would you force the church into that last week when it has nothing to do with the prophecy in Daniel? Remember that last week only had to do with “your people and your holy city.” Is that not correct? If I’m studying it right. Why would you force the church into any part of that period? One of the things I’m discovering is, and there are a lot of arguments on it and there’s a lot of scholarship that’s come up with some pretty good conclusions, but they still don’t rhyme with Daniel in my mind. They can’t make me understand why God would even assume that the church was a part of that period if the 490 years had been decreed for His people, divided into three time slots and one time slot is yet remaining, why would you put the church in there? You see, I’m going to make this statement next time and I think it’s profound: Persecution is the wrath of the world poured out on Christians; tribulation is the wrath of God poured out on the world. Why can’t we see that? How many people sit around and say, “They suffered around the Iron Curtain. I don’t see why America shouldn’t have to suffer.” Whoever said we weren’t going to suffer, folks? Whoever said we’re not suffering now. “Well, I’m not suffering.” Well, are you living for Jesus? That seems to be the question. If you’re living for Jesus you’re suffering, friend, because you can’t get away from persecution. What makes me think is that people are trying to make themselves God. Therefore if I was God, I’d put America into the tribulation. That’s about the only thing I can come up with. Well, friend, I’m not God and you’re not either and we’re going to have to go with what He says. As far as I’m concerned at this point, and don’t take this to the bank, but with 65 cents and this opinion you can get a cup of coffee at Shoney’s. I think that there is that parenthesis after the 483 years up until the Gentiles are allowed in, then we’ve got seven more years left for Israel and that is when Israel is finally going to repent during that period of time. And that period of time is what we’re going to be looking at next time. I tell you what, I just get thrilled. You say, “Brother Wayne, I’ve studied this with you this morning. I’m so confused and not only that, I don’t feel led to go to the mission field.” Don’t you love a message like this? You just dig and dig and dig, and you think, “That didn’t inspire me much.” Hey, it ought to just grab you. Listen friends, if God can handle Israel, and that’s His covenant people and they’re rejected Him like they have, you think God doesn’t love you and me who are in a part of a better covenant than they ever even thought of, if they understand at this point that we’re a part of that new covenant already? Don’t you think that God can handle your life? What’s going on in your life this morning? If I ask you a question right now would you be honest enough? Are you going through a time of real trial right now and trying to make some decisions and you’re wondering what in the world God is up to? Now can you understand from the Word of God that He already has a solution, and whether you figure it out or don’t figure it out, and whether or not you suffer or don’t suffer, that doesn’t have anything to do with it. God still has a purpose and God still is in control and all we have to learn to do is cooperate with whatever He’s up to. And to me, there’s your application to go home with. Whatever is going on in your life, don’t you back out o
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