Revelation Last Days Living

Transcription

1 Revelation Last Days Living Jacob s Trouble! Daniel 9:1-27 Message #12 of 26 S741 Sermon given on May 28, 2017 Sunday Morning Service Pastor Rick Lancaster

2 Jacob s Trouble! Daniel 9:1-27 Opening Comments Turn to Daniel 9 We continue our series: Last Days Living Living in the light of Christ s soon coming! But before we do, wanted to look at something in the Old Testament that helps us to understand the book of Revelation better Starting in Chapter 4, Revelation describes events that will take place in the future And starting in chapters 6 to 18 John describes events that pertain to a period of seven years that we call the Tribulation It is a time of God s wrath and judgment being poured out on the world for rebelling against Him and for rejecting His Son Jesus Christ Why is God going to do that? Let s pray and get into our text for today Pray Teaching Jacob s Trouble! God created everything that is for His purposes and for His glory God always keeps His word if he says it He does it every time Obey God and live or disobey God and die For millennia people have been disobeying God storing up the wrath of God God has been patiently tolerating mankind s sin Some ignorantly or arrogantly view God s patience as His not caring about sin He cares, and He will deal with sin, all of it 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. One of the two purposes of the Tribulation are to judge wicked mankind for its sin 1

3 The second purpose of the Tribulation has to do with another promise Genesis 13:14-17 And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you. God entered into an eternal covenant with Abraham and his descendants a people who would come to be known as the Jews Elsewhere God said that as long as the sun, moon, and stars are in the sky, His covenant with the Jews will continue And much like He offered Adam and Eve a choice, God offered the Jewish people a choice Worship and obey God, and Him alone, and live in the land in safety and prosperity Then God gave them the Law so that they would know how to worship and obey Him One of the consequences God told them to expect if they rebelled against Him and chose not to worship and obey Him was to be kicked out of the land that He promised them And that is exactly what God did about 70 years prior to the text we are looking at today At the time Daniel wrote chapter 9, he was in Babylon In 605BC Daniel was living in Jerusalem was a young man, maybe 15 or 16 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon captured Jerusalem He brought some of the best-looking and smartest of the Jewish boys back to Babylon to serve him Daniel 9:1-2 Daniel is studying the books of the Old Testament Turn to Jeremiah 25 While reading the scroll containing the prophecies of Jeremiah He comes across a prophecy that is of particular interest to himself and to the Jews that are in exile in Babylon Jeremiah 25:

4 This prophecy was made almost 20 years before the Babylonian captivity began Turn back to Daniel 9 Daniel was a man of faith, a man of prayer, and here we see he was a man of the Word He read the Jeremiah prophecy and believed it He counted off the years and realized that the time was coming for the end of their captivity But instead of grabbing his luggage and beginning to pack He prays the longest recorded prayer in the Old Testament Daniel 9:13-19 God answers Daniel in a spectacular way Daniel 9:20-21 While he is still praying and fasting he gets a visit from Gabriel Gabriel is one of three angels named in the Bible, Michael and Lucifer are the other two Each time we see Gabriel, he is delivering a message He shows up in the New Testament to deliver messages in Luke s gospel to Zacharias and then later to the young maiden Mary And here he has a special message for Daniel Daniel 9:22-24a Gabriel tells that seventy weeks are determined seventy weeks = literally seventy sevens Not literal weeks context determines meaning Daniel thinking about seventy years of exile weeks = 7-year periods 70 7-year periods = 490 years Based on Babylonian calendar of 360 days One of the keys to understanding Daniel s prophecy and Revelation found in verse 24 The 490 years are determined for your people and your holy city The 490 years have to do with the Jews and the city of Jerusalem Daniel 9:24b None of these things are possible until Christ comes back again Daniel 9:25 3

5 This is where this gets truly fascinating for me Daniel is given a very specific starting point for the first 69 weeks As Gabriel speaks, about 536BC, Jerusalem lies in ruins Then God puts a burden on the heart of a Jew named Nehemiah He is the cupbearer to Artaxerxes, the Persian king He has received a report back about the state of things in Jerusalem and it breaks his heart Gets permission to go back and rebuild the wall of Jerusalem The date is March 5, 444BC beginning of the 69 weeks Using the Babylonian reckoning this would be 173,880 days Gabriel says at the end of that period something was going to happen The Messiah would arrive The prophet Zechariah predicted what that would look like Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. That should sound familiar to you Bible students A few days before Jesus was betrayed and crucified He rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey to the praises of the people We refer to this as the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem The date is March 30, 33AD Exactly 173,880 days from the date the command was given to rebuild Jerusalem Gabriel continues because there is still one week left to explain Daniel 9:26a Messiah shall be cut off He will die Speaks of Jesus death just a few days after the Triumphal Entry but not for Himself speaks of His atoning death Jesus didn t die for Himself Romans 5:8 God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And then after that another event would take place Daniel 9:26b Prediction that the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed again after it was rebuilt 4

6 This prophecy was fulfilled in 70AD when the Romans came in and demolished the city and killed thousands of Jews prince to come is not the Messiah Referring to a great human leader out of a revived Roman Empire This person will be referred to as the Anti-Christ He will come onto the scene of human history when things are desperate And when he does he will be viewed by many as a savior One of the things he will do to influence people is in the next verse Daniel 9:27a In this covenant, the Anti-Christ will be instrumental bringing about a treaty between Israel and all her enemies Part of that treaty will include allowing the Jews to rebuild their temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem The Jews will return to their ancient worship of God including the sacrificial system There will be something that resembles peace for a period of time Daniel 9:27b In the middle of the 70 th week, the Anti-Christ will enter the temple and demand that the world worship him as God Jesus told the Jews that when they saw that, run Daniel even tells us how long after this that it will be before Christ returns Daniel 12:11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days. That s 3 ½ years Chapters 6 through 19 are a detailed description of the 70 th week of Daniel It is a period that we refer to as the Tribulation Period Jeremiah called it the time of Jacob s trouble It is the time that God will bring all six results of Daniel s 70 th week Including the redemption of His chosen people the Jews The Jews rejected Jesus, their long-awaited Messiah Because of their rejection, they will have to endure a time of severe testing 5

7 But, even though they rejected their Messiah, God will never reject them as a people group After the 70 th week, the time of Jacob s trouble, Jesus will present Himself to His people the Jews Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. The second purpose of the Tribulation is to bring the Jews to a point where they will acknowledge Jesus, whom they pierced as their Messiah, as Savior, as the Son of God The 69 th week ended in April of 33AD It has been almost 2,000 years The time between the 69 th and 70 th week is what we call the church age the time between the first and second comings of Christ We are living in the age of grace This age will end when Jesus comes and takes His church out of this world Then will begin the Tribulation, the time of Jacob s Trouble A time that Jesus says is so terrible that if God didn t limit it to seven years that all life on this planet would end God s patience over man s rebellion will not last forever If you have repented of your sins and received Christ, rejoice that you will not experience the terrible wrath of God over the rebellious sins of mankind If you are saved, let this knowledge stir your passion to reach the lost for Jesus Christ before it is too late And if you aren t saved, repent of your sins right now God is patient, but there is a day coming, maybe very soon when He will keep His promise to judge this world for its rebellion No one can tell when that day will come Waiting to come to Christ could be the worst decision that you have ever made if He comes back before you do 2 Corinthians 6:2 Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. Don t wait Come to Christ right now! Let s pray! 6