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Welcome to the widest-touching chapter in God’s Word. Daniel 9 shows us how God wants us to pray (something we are to do frequently); and how we are to study prophecy (something God recommends); and how God plans to show us the end is near (something very important and fascinating); and why we should believe the Bible is true (critical among the doctrines to be assured of). All that plus the clearest explanation of the timing of the Tribulation, God’s view of world history, and so much more you should just watch the video rather than me trying to explain it all!

Transcript

John Barnett here and welcome to Daniel chapter 9. You can be turning in your Bibles to Daniel 9 I’ve got mine open we’re in the 52 Greatest Chapters of the Bible. I, by the way, do read the notes that you all send. One of you just sent me a note this morning and they said, you need to not just put number 23, you need to put your old abbreviation you used to use. F T G C 52 Greatest Chapters. Now there is a serious student. Thank you for being a part of our small group. We’re in a year long journey looking at the Bible from cover to cover. Looking at all the big doctrines. The theological truths the attributes of God. The, what I call, the mega themes. Today among the greatest chapters of the Bible is a chapter for many believers that is obscure. I hope that after we get through today it becomes what I call it, one of the most important chapters in the framework in the scripture and the doctrine of all the Bible. Daniel 9 has so many of the vital doctrines.

Let me show you what I mean. Daniel chapter 9, and here’s the title. The title of the lesson is always after my whole week of studying and journaling everything together with you in this study. I write my last title and it’s on the slide. Here’s my title, Jesus said a temple for Israel will be operating, by that… offering sacrifices, animal sacrifices in Jerusalem… Jewish people operating a temple in Jerusalem at the start of the tribulation. If you sit back and think what that means, what I’m saying right there is huge for your understanding of the Bible. Here’s where it said, Jesus said. “When you see the ‘abomination of desolation’ […] standing,” where he should not stand, which is the holy place. “Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains.” Jesus, in Matthew 24, affirms that in the city of Jerusalem, in the future, at the end of the world, Jewish people were going to be living in the city of Jerusalem with their own temple. It’s going to have a Holy of Holies and it’s going to have sacrifices, just like Daniel said.

Look at those other pictures, here’s what the temple looked like in the Jewish times. That’s actually Solomon’s temple. Then it was recreated by Zerubbabel. Then it was enlarged and beautified by Herod. Look what’s right there, right now. Al-Aqsa and the dome of the rock. Jesus said, this is going to be here, somehow. Wow. That’s all I can say.

Jesus is giving us a simple map. That’s why we want to look at Daniel 9. Jesus offers us a map of the future. I have Google maps and I use them all the time. You use them all the time. The Bible is a flawlessly accurate guide for us to understand history. Past history. How to fit together all that’s gone on in the past. What’s going on in the present. Every day, a little discipline I have is, I scan the headlines of the major news outlets of the world. The English speaking world, the Asian world, the whole Russian world, Africa, South America, and of course our area. Looking at all those, I am always finding articles that explain the present goings on and how they fit with the scriptures. That’s the framework all of us need to have. That’s the framework I hope that you’re gaining from this Bible study. We’re always looking toward the future.

God almighty who rules from Heaven over all the affairs of mankind gave to Daniel the snapshot of all the ages. All the time, from when Daniel lived right at the beginning of the Medo-Persian Empire, all the way to the end of the history of the world. God says, this is all there will be, from Daniel’s time to the end. That’s very comforting because a lot of people think we’re going to colonize Mars. I’m going to go with SpaceX and the moon. We’re going to someday live there and all this. You know what God says? He says, no, actually the real end of the world is not like Star Trek or Star Wars or Avengers. The real end of the world is that all the problems we have right now in this world are going to become like birth pangs.

The weather problems. We have the climate change problems. We have the food shortage problems. We have the water shortage problems. We have the pollution problems. We have the ethnic strife going on and increasing more than I ever remember in my lifetime. It just seems to be constant rioting and all the civil unrest. Not just in America, it’s going on all over. There are riots in Rome. There are riots in Paris. There are riots in Berlin. There are riots in London. They’re rounding up people in Russia and putting them in jail. China is at the forefront of all this. There are all kinds of civil and ethnic strife, and you know what the Bible says, all those are just going to get worse and worse and worse until the end. Like birth pangs.

Next slide, Daniel’s prophecy is an end of days roadmap, especially when we focus on verses 24 to 27. Let’s start going through the details. There’s a future Jewish temple during the tribulation in Jerusalem. How do I know that? Jesus saw it, Matthew 24. Paul saw it in 2 Thessalonians 2. Daniel sees it in the passage we’re studying today. John sees it and describes it in Revelation chapter 11.

Jesus says, Jerusalem for all of us. Every time you see the news, hear the news, watch the news, read anything, Jerusalem is God’s clock counting down the end of the world. I have a clock right over there that tells me we’re in the eighth minute of this Bible study. Often, when I used to speak, there would be a countdown clock in different places because they were timed, and classes, and 50 minute segments. Do you know what God’s count down to the launching of the tribulation is? Jerusalem. The close of world history is tied to that little city called Jerusalem. All of the world will focus on Jerusalem.

In fact, next week Lord willing, I’ve had such a blessing studying Daniel this week, but I can’t wait to introduce to you Zechariah. Do you know what Zechariah says? It says that Jerusalem is going to become a burden stone around the neck of the whole world. It’s like everybody is going to be weighed down by what’s going on in Jerusalem. It’s going to become a burden globally. I actually have a little file in Evernote where I put all of the global burdens that the world has about Jerusalem, little notes. There have been more United Nations resolutions against Israel than any other country since they’ve been keeping records. Did you know that there are more weapons being purchased that are surrounding the nation of Israel than any other part of the world? All of the Arab nations are arming themselves. Did you see what the United Arab Emirates just bought? I think it was 60 billion, maybe a hundred billion, billions of dollars’ worth of F 35 stealth bombers. What do they need that much armament for? Iran just inked a multi, multibillion dollar deal with China. They already have a mega billion dollar deal with Russia. Saudi Arabia, a hundred billion dollars of arms. Israel just constantly is on the forefront. That’s going to cause the world to focus. Israel and Jerusalem are going to be the tinder box that’s going to start a nuclear conflagration. Everyone always says, Russia and America, China in America. No, no. The one you need to worry about is when an atomic warfare begins around the Middle East.

The wrath of God will be poured out in a tribulation falling human history will culminate with Jesus’ descent to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. You see this, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, as Earth’s creator returns to Jerusalem. That is the center of the world to God.

Jesus said, and that’s the lesson as we jump into Daniel 9, that a temple for Israel will be operating in Jerusalem when the tribulation starts.

It’s not going to be as glorious as Solomon’s top temple. It’s not going to be 40 acres, probably like Herod’s temple was.

It’s going to be the third temple, Revelation 11, during the tribulation. There’s another one coming. This one is really going to be big. This one is going to be about 50 square miles. That’s going to be huge. It’s going to be God’s visitor center and we cover that in the Isaiah course, so I won’t go over that now.

Let me get into my journal. This is a little different. I thought, instead of showing you the typed up version first, I’m going to show you the rough copy first. Here is Daniel 9, the most amazing passage in the Bible. Just now I went like this, I took my phone, and I took a picture of my Bible that I have worked on all week long, scratching notes. You can see, I even use all different colored pens. First I did this, this is Daniel’s prayer for the people of Israel. That’s what the ninth chapter starts with. Then, I noted the ACTS model. Have you ever heard of the adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, prayer model? Have you ever gone to Wednesday nights, to prayer meetings, to some college prayer meeting, or some concert of prayer of believers? They say, let’s do the ACTS prayer model.

We start out adoring the Lord before we get into all of our prayer request. Then, we’re going to make sure that He hears us by going through a time of confession and repentance. Then, we’ll offer Thanksgiving to Him for all of His blessings. Then, we get to supplication. Where did that wonderful idea for prayer come from? The original one is right here. I did write this, because look, “in the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes.” By the way, who are the Medes? They’re the Kurds. Whenever you’re looking at the news, Kurdistan is actually Media, the Medo-Persian Empire. That’s why the Kurds and the Iranians are always having trouble. The Iraqis and the Kurds. The Turks and the Kurds. Why? The Medo-Persian Empire, notice what’s first, Medo-Persian Empire. They were the strong half of the Medo-Persian Empire. The Kurds are very militant and war-like. Turkey’s always fighting them. Iran is fighting them; Iraq is fighting them.

Right there, Darius was a Mede, and he took over the realm of the Chaldeans, that’s the Babylonians. Look it up in Wikipedia, that’s exactly the dates. I wrote that in my Bible because that is a historic marker. We know exactly when verse 1 took place, it’s somewhere between 530 and 539 BC. There’s a hyphen in it usually, in Wikipedia.

“In the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet.” Whoa, did you catch that? He is studying prophecy. Daniel is reading the Bible. He’s a prophet of God and yet part of his personal life was like Paul’s, and Jesus’s, and everybody else’s; they studied the Bible. Jesus studied the Bible. Jesus memorized the Bible, the Old Testament, as He was growing up and quoted it. Do you see how important the word of God has always been? Even more today as we live in, what Jesus calls, the last days. Jesus said we’re living in the last days; you and I are. Paul said that we’re in the last days. If Paul is in the last days, we’re really in the last days. Look at this, Daniel “understood by the books the number of years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem.”

That intrigued me. Remember we used the MacArthur Study Bible? I looked down at the MacArthur Study Bible and I read the footnote. What did the footnotes say? It says, go to Jeremiah 25:11 and 12. Do you know what Jeremiah said? He said that there’s going to be 70 years of desolation. I wonder what 70 years of desolation means. Does it mean a long time? Does it mean a hard time? Does it mean seven ages or seven eons? That way of studying the Bible saying, I wonder what 70 means is called allegorizing. It means saying that the words represent something else, other than what they say.

How did Daniel understand Jeremiah? I wrote it over here. He said it was literal. Think about that. “Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make requests by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.” He starts a prayer time after he understood the prophecy that 70 years were determined for his people. He started thinking about… wow, I remember Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 and look, that time period is going by. I want to start praying for the Lord to fulfill His promise. He does fulfill His promise within a few years. The return of Zerubbabel takes place and the rebuilding of the temple. That’s what Daniel’s praying for.

Here comes the ACTS model right here. Adoration starts. “I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said…” What does his prayer start with? “O Lord, great and awesome God.” What do you call it? That’s adoration of God. You are the covenant keeper. You are merciful to us who love you, and with those who keep your commandments. He’s adoring the Lord. Immediately it goes from adoration to what? Confession. “We have sinned and have committed inequity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.” Do you remember Psalm 119? The precepts, the judgments, the law. It’s the divine law giver telling us what He wants.

This one is really good, “Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land.” That’s the way that the scriptures speak to all of us, that is the voice of God. He continued, “O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day – to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they committed against You.” All sin is against God. We always look at people that we harm, and we always think about that dimension, but did you know that there are people in life that our sin affects. Only a few of them does our sin affect, but all our sin affects God. You see how he’s confessing. He is identifying and he said, “O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You.”

Adoration, the confession is continuing. “We have rebelled,” verse 9. I like this, he says, “We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets.” Right there is why I say, you’ve probably heard me if you’ve been in this course very long, I say that I hear the voice of God when I read the Bible. Why do I say that? I always have people that go, whoa… and in the comments they go, what are you saying? You actually hear audible voices? I said, no. “We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God,” just like Daniel said. When you read the Bible, like I’m reading it out loud to you right now, when I read the scriptures, you’re hearing God speaking. He’s using my voice, but you don’t need my voice. All you need to do is read the scriptures.

One of the habits I have in the car, when I drive, on my iPhone I’ve downloaded the Hosanna Audio Bible by Faith Comes By Hearing. It’s an outfit that has the Bible in every language of the world and they supply it for missionaries. They have a dramatized New International Version, Audio Bible, free for download. I’ve downloaded all of it. I used to, when I was speaking up in one place way in upstate New York, I used to have to drive between meetings 30 minutes each way. I could drive and cover a whole book of the Bible, one of the Old Testament books, many of the New Testament books in an hour of audio Bible reading with drama. Listen to the voice of God. Boy, that’s an important verse right there.

“Yes, all Israel has transgressed.” We have sinned. Look at all this confession. We’ve transgressed, we’ve sinned. Then look, “He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster.” That’s the Babylonians and Assyrians capturing Jerusalem and the north. “Under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.” You see where God’s focal point and Daniels is, Jerusalem. “As it is written in the law of Moses.” Do you remember it says in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 26, all of those curses and doom upon the disobedience of Israel. “Yet we have not made our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.” What a great example of how God wants us to pray.

“Therefore the LORD has kept the disaster in mind, […] we have not obeyed His voice.”

Look how he changes in verse 15 to thanksgiving. Adoration started, lots of confession, now thanksgiving. “And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day.” He’s saying thank you for the Exodus. Thank you for the deliverance, the Passover. Thank you for bringing us into the land. Thank you for all you did in providing us the promised land. “We’ve sinned and done wickedly!”

That’s so interesting. In American Christianity, we have very little confession and lots of supplication, asking for things. Some adoration. Daniel greatly beloved to the Lord had real pointed adoration, but an awful lot of confession. He looked into the mirror of the word of God and saw much that needed to be changed.

Then, he starts into the prayer request. “O Lord, according to all your righteousness, I pray.” Here are his requests, “Let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city of Jerusalem.” That’s interesting. “Your holy mountain; because of our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem, and Your people are a reproach to all those around us.” He’s concerned about God’s city, where God has put His name, and God has said, this is where I will dwell forever. “Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city, which is called by Your name.” Your holy mountain, Jerusalem, Your sanctuary, Your city. “For we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.” I don’t pray expecting You to respond because of my righteousness, but because of Your character, Your attributes. He’s saying, “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.” It’s all about the Lord.

“Now while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God.” He’s really laying it on how God looks at Jerusalem. “Yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel…” He gets the Archangel visit. Remember there are two archangels, archō are the high or exalted, kind of preeminent ones among the angelos, the billions of angels. Probably there are seven of them because they’re called seven angels of the face that always surround the throne of God. We see them in Revelation twice. Here’s two of them. They have names, Michael and Gabriel. This is Gabriel, “Whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering.” By the way, the evening offering was at 3:00 PM. That’s when Christ said it is finished, they didn’t mean evening dark. They meant at the beginning of the preparation for sunset. They had an offering at 3:00 PM. “And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, ‘O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand.” Wow. There’s a little insight, angels can give skill to understand. They do that to the scripture writers. This is just an example of it. Look how God looks at Daniel. “You are greatly beloved.” Wow.

Now we’re entering into something, and I want to show it to you. I’m typing this out, just so you have time to see it and can screenshot it, if you want to. We’re entering into what makes this not only an incredible model of what a godly person’s prayer life looks like, how they study prophecy, and all the other elements, how they hear the voice of God when they read the Bible. There’s something else. This is probably the greatest single prophetic passage in the whole Bible. I will show you why.

First, we get a scope of what God is doing. Then, he talks about a time period called 69 weeks that culminates with Messiah being cut off. It’s actually a prophecy of the cross of Christ. Right there, to have a countdown that exactly was fulfilled, I’m going to show you, right to the day when Jesus offered Himself on Palm Sunday, Jesus was exactly in step with Daniel’s prophecy. Wow. Then, there’s an interval. There’s a time period that nothing is happening. Then Daniel says, 69 of these weeks are used up, one week is left, and he describes that in verse 27.

Have you ever wondered where we get the seven year tribulation from, does it say that anywhere? You can’t find seven year tribulation anywhere except in prophecy books, theology books, study Bibles. It’s not in the Bible. It’s like the word rapture. That’s not in the Bible either. Rapture is a Latin word, rapturo, which comes from a Greek word harpazo, which means to snatch out, which is what we mean by rapture. We have to be precise because people can accuse us and say, millennium isn’t in the Bible. You’re right. That word isn’t in the Bible, but mille ennium is, that’s the Latin translation of a thousand years. What people accuse is usually partially true. When Christians haven’t studied the Bible, they get nervous and they go, oh maybe I don’t understand. You do understand. There is a seven year tribulation. Let’s see that in the scriptures.

“70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.”

Now he starts explaining. Remember, first we have the scope, that’s what I just read. 70 weeks. Then, he starts explaining the components. Then, he talks about a gap. Then, he talks about that climactic week. Right here, “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince,” that’s Jesus coming into Jerusalem and what we just celebrated a month back or so, Palm Sunday. His triumphal entry as the King of the Jews. Remember Hosanna, save us? They were asking for Him to be their Messiah. “Shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks.” 62+7=69. It says in this time, “The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times.”

He says from the command to restore Jerusalem, until Messiah comes as King in the triumphal entry, would be 69 weeks. 69 weeks of 360 day years. What we’re talking about is weeks of years. This is what a week is, it’s actually not the Hebrew word for a week, it’s the word for heptad. If you’ve ever heard of heptad, it means a group of seven. I’ll show you that in just a minute.

Basically, there’s this verse 25, 69 weeks, that’s 7+62. Then verse 26, we’re going to see, talks about this interval where Messiah is cut off and these people come and destroy the temple. Then he says, after all that interval will be this final week. This is what we call the tribulation, the 70th week. The heptad is seven years. This is where the seven years come from. I’ll show you that.

The 70th week. This is the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. This is Jesus being crucified on the cross. This is the rapture of the church right there. This is the seven year tribulation. It’s two halves, three and a half years, three and a half years, 42 months and 1,260 days. The tribulation has two parts. It has a certain center and that’s what Jesus talked about in Matthew 24:15. He said, when you see the abomination that causes desolation, “standing in the holy place,” “let those in Judea flee to the mountains.” This is the tribulation. It’s the 70th week. That’s what makes this such an important passage.

Here it is. “After the 62 weeks Messiah shall be cut off.” That’s the crucifixion I wrote in my Bible. “But not for Himself.” That’s the core of salvation, the substitutionary atonement. “And the people of the prince who is to come,” that’s the Anti-Christ, “shall destroy the city,” that’s Jerusalem, “and the sanctuary,” that’s the temple. When did that happen? AD 70. Who destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70? The Romans. “The people of the prince who is to come” are the Romans. That’s going to be interesting for you to think about when we talk about prophecy. “The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined. Then he,” who is the he? He is the prince who is to come right here. What is he? He is the leader of the revived Roman Empire or the Anti-Christ. “He shall confirm a covenant with many for one week.” That one week is the seven year tribulation. What happens is everything gets worse and worse and all these troubles happening, ethnic strife and everything. All of a sudden, this global leader rises, and he is so brilliant and such an effective communicator. Just like the whole world stopped for this pandemic. Have you ever seen anything like what just happened in the last year? Have you ever seen the whole world stop? Global travel stops? Everybody stays home? The whole world came to a standstill. You can see from satellites the world changed. Satellites determined that there were so many changes on the Earth. Animals started multiplying, things started growing back, harbors started changing. All of the earthquake detection systems found so much less noise. They said that the Earth went silent because the humans basically paused for a year most of our activity. If you think the pandemic was hard, can you imagine when one person rises up that starts controlling the whole world? You can’t buy or sell unless he allows you to. If you don’t agree with him, he beheads you. Wow. That’s who we’re talking about right there.

He confirms the covenant. The way he rises to power is, he settles the Arab Israeli conflict, the Islamic Judaism conflict. He stops all the terror, all the warfare, all the nuclear proliferation, all of the WMDs (weapons of mass destruction), and the whole climate problem, and the whole food problem. He just steps in. The Bible says that he comes on a white horse, Revelation 6, and is a peacemaker. He causes everybody to settle down and all the ethnic strife to stop. We don’t have any more riots, and burning, and pillaging. None of that stuff. There’s this false peace and he let Israel worship in Jerusalem like they’ve always wanted to.

” In the middle of the week,” that’s the middle of the tribulation, “he brings an end…” look at this, “to sacrifice an offering.” There’s going to be a temple in Jerusalem offering animal sacrifice. That’s what Daniel saw. That’s what Jesus saw in Matthew 24. That’s what Paul saw in 2 Thessalonians 2. That’s what John sees in Revelation 11. Then, it’s all going to come down hard. The second half of the tribulation is horrible.

You say where do you get all this weak stuff and seven years means something else. I thought we weren’t supposed to be allegorical. We’re not, I’m being literal 70 weeks. If you look at that little mark, there’s a little footnote right there, go down to the bottom. This is what it says, the word translated weeks in English is the Hebrew word for heptad or a group of seven. Not to be confused with over here, look at this in chapter 10, the occurrences of the word weeks is not the same. These are not the same. This word is not weeks, it’s heptad. This word [ in chapter 10] is weeks like we know it, seven days. Two completely different Hebrew words. God says, I’ve determined 70 groups of seven for my people and those are in two parts. 483 years from that command to the crucifixion. Then, the last seven that we just saw.

This is all my notes typed, just to show you I did my homework. We are in week 23, I titled this: The Greatest Prophetic Passage in the Bible. I titled it: Jesus, Daniel, Paul, and John all saw an end of days temple. I already talked to you about how this literal studying by Daniel is how he started his prayer.

Daniel, I showed you that, in 539 to 538 was doing prophetic Bible study. He responded with his prayer and supplication. He starts the ACTS model. He gives adoration to the Lord. He starts the confession time. Then, as he read God’s word, he says he heard God’s voice. Do you see everything? Basically, on one of my read-throughs I don’t write anything in my journal, I just note everything in the text, so I never forget what I found. Daniel’s 70 weeks are heptads, not to be confused with the word weeks. Cutoff is a substitutionary atonement. The revived Roman Empire, prince of the people to come, or the Roman Empire. Daniel saw a temple and so did Jesus, so did Paul, so did John.

How do you apply one of the greatest chapters in the Bible? Let me just give one example. This is my last prayer; this is this morning’s prayer. This is what I prayed as I in the dark this morning was drinking my first cup of coffee, reading the Bible, and meditating on how God’s word can transform my heart. I wrote this, Lord, I adore you as my God and King. You are great and worthy of all my adoration and worship. I too have often not heeded Your voice and Your word. So, please forgive and cleanse me. You are awesome. You keep Your word. I want to hear Your voice. I want to obey Your word. I want to trust Your plan. Guide me to do Your will and accomplish Your purpose in my life. Thank you for literally explaining the future in such simple terms, I can understand and trust that You’re in control. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

Isn’t it wonderful to know that the Lord is in control. Remember, this is where we are in sacred history. I always want you to realize that we’re talking about real people, in real places, with real problems that lived historically. Everything happens sometime. When is this book? From the 70 years of captivity? It’s right in this time from when Babylon conquered Jerusalem and onward, it is this 70 year period.

As I told you last time, Nebuchadnezzar started his first siege. The Babylonians came in 605 BC and hauled off Daniel. The Babylonians came back to Israel. They left a contingent and it was occupied. In 597 they besieged Jerusalem a second time and hauled off Ezekiel. That’s who we saw last week. Daniel gets to Babylon first. Ezekiel gets there second. Then, in the third siege, which is in 586, the city was leveled, the people were massacred, and all these theological designation events take place. There’s the servitude of the nation. The 70 years that Israel had to suffer. There’s the desolation of Jerusalem, which is the time period that there had to be no sacrifice and no offering of offerings. One ended with Cyrus, the head of the Persian Empire. The other ended with Artaxerxes, but that’s what triggers the 70 week countdown. In the middle of this, next time Lord willing, after you study Daniel 9 all this week, next week when we come back, Lord willing, we’re going to look at Zechariah 12 to 14, which is the ultimate description with details. Nowhere else in the Bible of the second coming of Jesus Christ. After Zechariah, is the time of Esther. Esther is right here during the time of Nehemiah. Ezra came back, Nehemiah, remember we studied Ezra when we were looking at Psalm 119. Ezra, Psalm 119, and copying the scriptures, Nehemiah building the wall, Esther is over in Persia. Then of course the concluding of the Old Testament and the book of Malachi.

You see that historically the kings of Persia, they’re all in there. Different ones in history mentioned. Ezra 1 talks about Cyrus the Great, so does Isaiah 45, that 200 year before prophecy. Ahasuerus as before, Artaxerxes as before, this Darius the 1st or Hystaspis is in Ezra 5 and 6. Here’s queen Esther’s husband, Xerxes the 1st. Artaxerxes, Longimanus, is in Nehemiah 2. Nehemiah 12 has this Darius the 2nd. Darius the 3rd is in Nehemiah 12 also.

Just to show you, when you go to a museum, which is something Bonnie and I love to do. I love to go to museums and find the artifacts that tie in with the scriptures. Real quickly, what I’ve just shared is amazing. If you have time to study the rest of Daniel, if you study chapter 2, chapter 7, chapter 9, chapter 11, Daniel is the most attacked book of the Bible, as far as the authenticity of it. Why? Let’s look at what Jesus said.

Matthew 24:15, Jesus authenticates Daniel. He gave Daniel a strong endorsement. Daniel is the only Old Testament prophet that Jesus calls by name when he talks about the future in his longest sermon, the Olivet discourse, which is in Matthew 24 & 25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. Jesus was a fan of Daniel.

What he said is, Daniel was a Jew, he was alive in the 6th century BC empire of Babylon, he served at the highest levels in the closing days of Babylon and was there at the opening days of the Medo-Persian Empire. In other words, Jesus said that what Daniel says about who he is, when he lived, and what he saw is true. There is the bottom line.

When people ask me how I know the Bible is true, do you want I tell them? The number one biggest reasons why I believe, I have seven reasons why I believe the Bible is true. The first and most important, and the only one I need is Jesus believed it was true. Jesus affirms Daniel and Daniel says that the world is going to be ruled by four great empires. It’s going to culminate with the rise of the Anti-Christ, and it’s going to end with the return of the real Christ. That’s a summary of Daniel 2 and 9.

Let me just go over this with you. God sees only four world empires. Were there other empires? You bet there were, they are in the Bible. There’s the Assyrian Empire. There’s the Egyptian Empire. There’s the Aramaeans. There are all these different people that are all over the place. The Hittites. The whole Hittite Empire, by the way, wasn’t even really believed to be true, even though it’s in the Bible, until the 20th century. Did you know archeologists didn’t really believe there were Hittites. If you look at old encyclopedias before about 1910, they said the Hittites, in fact Wikipedia says it. Wikipedia says until about 1910, the Hittites were only in the Bible. A German industrialist in World War I was building a factory in Turkey. He went to the bar to have a beer and he heard the Turks talking, at the bar, about these gigantic stone figures they found out in the desert. He hired them to take him out in the desert. There they were. Huge, larger than life animals with human faces. He hired 200 of them, he was a rich German industrialist, to start digging. They uncovered the first of the Hittite Empire’s gigantic cities that had been buried for thousands of years.

The Bible says there are lots of empires, but in Daniel 2, God gives an overview of human history from His perspective, so we as humans can understand the human perspective of what God sees.

With all their outward beauty and accomplishments look what He says. He says, from God’s perspective, the first real big glitzy empire was Babylon. The second empire, inferior in glitziness, just like gold is more valuable than silver is the second empire, the Medo-Persian. Look at this, inferior… gold, silver, brass. We make our plumbing out of brass, now it’s plastic, but it used to be out of brass, that is Greece. Then iron, see it’s declining value but increasing stress? The Roman Empire is the final empire. There are only four from God’s perspective. All of human history is encompassed by Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. Look at what the ending is going to be, Rome number two, the revived Roman Empire.

What’s interesting is, this is from human perspective, gold and silver. From divine or God’s perspective, Daniel 7 is the same vision only in a different form. A winged lion, a bear, a leopard, and a terrible beast. God sees human history as rapacious, and horribly murderous, and violent, and monster like. Humans just think of glory and splendor. They look at the architecture and all the gold vessels, and God looks at the heart.

God sees four empires. The gold, the silver, the bronze, iron, and clay. The iron and clay are the end times. What God says is, just like the Roman Empire had two legs… You know what that is? The Roman Empire was divided between the north shore of the Mediterranean and the south shore of the Mediterranean. Basically, the rule of thumb is, if you look at the ancient Roman Empire, two thirds of the Roman Empire of the Bible times today is Islamic Northern Africa, Turkey, and the Middle East. So, it could be that the revived Roman Empire is going to be in the geographic area of the original Roman Empire, but it’s going to be predominantly Islamic. That could explain the beheading of all the tribulation saints. We cover that in Revelation by the way.

The leader of that final revived Roman Empire, see what it says in chapter 9 of Daniel, “the people of the prince,” verse 26, that destroyed the city of Jerusalem in AD 70, that’s the Roman empire. The revived Roman Empire says he, that’s this prince that will come from verse 26, will make the covenant. Who is he? The Anti-Christ. Who is he? The worst human that ever lives. He’s called in different books of the Bible, the man of sin, the son of perdition, and the false Christ.

Daniel talks about a 69 week time that culminates with Christ’s crucifixion. Then, the people, the Roman Empire destroyed the sanctuary. There’s this time period that goes by. Jesus ascends to Heaven here. Jesus takes His church out here. The Anti-Christ starts ruling here. He is an abomination that causes desolation. He allows the Jews to start their temple. They get to keep the temple till the middle, then all Hell breaks loose when he breaks the covenant. All the great tribulation takes place. This rebuilt temple that He allows them to start doing sacrifices here. The temple is rebuilt somewhere at the very beginning of the tribulation, desecrated in the middle, and then the battle of Armageddon. Remember we talked last week about the Magog invasion? Jesus comes in the second coming to rescue His chosen people of promise and to launch His kingdom. Jesus said, there’ll be a temple operating in Jerusalem at the start of the tribulation. Wow.

Bonnie and I thank you for joining us on this yearlong study through the scriptures. I was talking to her today, our daytime job is what it says right here, doing classes. We alternate between real classes. Pre-COVID, B.C., Before COVID, we traveled 11 months a year to five continents, going from training center to training center and teaching. Then, A.C., After COVID we immediately, in March of 2020 when we got back from our last trip, started in our virtual studio teaching the same classes. All of those, by the way, are now online as I said to you a couple of weeks ago, on YouTube. You can find each of the books of the Bible that we teach through as formal courses, with all the quizzes and assignments, and everything for you to actually take a full course. We’re now starting back and we’re on the road now as we’re teaching, still doing virtual classes, but soon to be going overseas and going to teaching centers. We are, after work at night, once a week recording for you our small group, this Bible study. I told Bonnie today, I said, did you know for five years, I always wanted to capture what I talked about at Starbucks, and Panera, and Chipotle with all those groups, showing them, and explaining the Bible, and showing them how to journal, and do the devotional method, and their application prayer. I want to capture that. Do you know what the Lord did? He sent COVID. A by-product of this shutdown is us getting the time to do this study with you and to actually have you as our partners praying for us. I actually talked to you, on a regular basis, more than anybody else because we’re traveling all the time. I would encourage you to pray for us.

This is our prayer card. These pictures show where we alternate between teaching. We would like you to know that we feel your prayers. In fact, thank you, one of you in the Netherlands last night sent me a note and said, turn down your microphone there’s too much noise, something interfering, and it makes this loud sound. You know what? I called my son and I said, what is he talking about? He says, dad, you have to go into your computer, and you have it set at 12 decibels. It really should only be at six, on the actual microphone coming in through all this sound studio. I said, wow. I’m so thankful for you in the Netherlands, part of our small group, helping us to communicate more clearly.

Have a great week in Daniel chapter 7. Take your notes, write your prayer, ask God to change you, and Lord willing when we come back next week, we’re going to look at the coming of Jesus Christ in the clouds. Zechariah 12 to 14. Until then, God bless you. Have a great time in His word.