Gabriel's Interpretation (Daniel 8:15-27) 1/5/20

if you turn in your Bibles tonight to Daniel Chapter II we'll finish chapter 8 and as I shared and the introduction to this book and without the Book of Daniel it would be very hard if not impossible for us to really understand the book of Revelation now understand the timing of these two books they're nearly 600 years apart from the writing of the Book of Daniel to the writing of the book of Revelation so there is no connectivity between the two also remind yourself that during even biblical times in the New Testament books were extremely valuable and if they were not in a rolled form as in a scroll which was still somewhat common you might have had what's called a codex which is an early forerunner of a book and that would be sheets that were written and then stacked together and stitched on the edges and sometimes you know a 2 or 300 page book would end up a foot thick so nobody was lugging around the Book of Daniel nobody was carrying around a scroll of Daniel very few of those Scrolls probably would have even existed in the New Testament times and there were even rarer in the Old Testament times but the Book of Daniel was codified and we have a copy of a nearly complete copy of it that dates to about 200 BC so we know that the Book of Daniel was written well before the book of Revelation by close to 300 years at a minimum highly likely it's very close to the full 560 or so years between the two books and so as we look at this remainder of the chapter here in chapter 8 we are going to get something that happens in no other place in the entirety of the Bible where we are going to get a visit from heaven by the angel Gabriel whose other announcement that Gabriel made was none other than the birth announcement of Jesus so this next section of the Book of Daniel appears to have the same type of importance may not be exactly the same but it is so important that God sends from heaven the same messenger to interpret this dream that is sent to make the birth announcement of both Jesus and John the Baptist so this is heady stuff from heaven this is a big deal and so as we look at this remainder of the passage tonight get ready for a little bit of encouragement because if God knows the future and he has been right thus far we can trust that he is going to be right to the very end and so God has a plan for the very last days of man's time here on earth and if we know that God's heart is it none should perish we know that God's heart is that people would come to repentance and be saved we know God's heart in that issue then as we see things in the world ratchet up in an eschatological sense and by that I simply mean by us getting closer to the end of days that we know that God is also going to ramp up the value of the church the importance of evangelism and the importance of us sharing our faith with others in that sense and so tonight we'll pick up at verse 15 and we'll finish chapter 8 would you join me let's pray and we'll see what the Lord has for us here in Daniel chapter 8 father thank you lord I thank you for this passage as I was reading it and rereading it this afternoon it just encouraged me even though what is contained in it would be frightening to someone who doesn't know you it's exciting for us who do know you and Lord because it's exciting for us we ought to also know that you wrote this for a reason and then told us it would be sealed up until the end of time and so God we pray that we would derive from it all that you want your church to know encourage us unto good works to works of righteousness lord help us to be people who are unashamed of our faith and able to share now the good news with those who inquire for the reason that we have hope and so bless us tonight as we study your word in Jesus name Amen verse 15 here in Daniel chapter 8 and did it happened when I Daniel had seemed the vision and was seeking the meaning suddenly there stood before me one having the appearance of a man and of course throughout scripture we find this basic principle that upon occasion when angels come they take the form of a man and that's fairly consistent and so proper airman unix proper interpretation of Scripture is that when the first meaning of something is made clear that we ought not seek another meaning so we can pretty much be guaranteed that this is an angelic visitation and we're actually going to find out who it is and I heard a man's voice between the banks of the lie who called and said Gabriel make this man understand the vision so we have both a christophany and an actual appearance and/or the voice of the angel Gabriel because we know that the only one who commands the angels in heaven as the Lord Himself a manna and so you have this picture of he hears his voice in his mind and so he came near where I stood and when he came I was afraid and fell on my face but he said to me understand son of man and not the son of man as in the title for Jesus but as in a representation of mankind son of man that the vision refers to the time of the end now I want you to notice this as being excruciatingly ly specific because it is talking about a very defined end of time and we're gonna go on and find out that we know exactly what time is being referred to here as well and now as he was speaking to me I was in a deep with my face to the ground and he touched me and stood me up right and so it appears that Daniel has checked out gone unconscious and the Lord is speaking directly into his subconscious in the deepest form of what we would call REM sleep and this is going to be a dream he's going to remember and now he's speaking speaking with me in a deep sleep with my face at the ground he touched me and stood me up right and he said look I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation and/or wrath you could substitute the word wrath for indignation there this is the time specifically of God's end of his dealing with the sin of man God's indignation God goddess is indignant towards sin in that sense and so as you look at this passage of Scripture and as it now continues goes back to a part that we we have already known it says for at the appointed time the end shall be so he's told us there is a definitive end he's told us it's at the end of the wrath of God and he's told us that that time is fixed and so this is super important for us as the body of Christ because we know this is still future because we know the Anti Christ is not risen we also know that this is ahead for mankind and so this puts us on notice that God is not going to play around forever with the world the way it is he's not gonna continue to allow man to sin with impunity now this does two things it certainly should scare us if we're dabbling in sin and it should also give us great hope if we're part of the body of Christ because one of the things that we worry about is like Lord how long will you continue to allow these things to happen because we believe you're sovereign when are you going to step in and do something about what's going on in our world and the RAM which you saw so now he goes back to the portion we've already interpreted having two horns they are the kings of media and Persia and so whenever the Bible interprets itself that's really helpful amen so this is media and Persia and the male goat is the kingdom of Greece and the large horn is between its eyes is the first king and so we're we're now getting into this area to where so much of this is being defined for us by this angelic interpretation by Gables Gabriel's interpretation of this dream that it is no longer in the category of things that we can't know or understand he's actually telling us directly what's going to happen and as for the broken horn and the four that stood up in its place for Kingdom shall arise out of that nation but not with its power in other words there will be gen this is the generals that we talked about that were the generals that served under Alexander the Great who then divided up what was known as Macedonia and Greece at the time and they ruled over that nation but it didn't have the power of the ruler himself and then it says and in the later time of their Kingdom and that's another way of saying of the world's kingdoms of their kingdom because we're still in the time of humanity amen we still are in that area where we would say we're still with humankind and here's how we know when this is that it was not just simply Greece it was not simply Rome it was not any nation that was previously understood by us when the transgressors have reached their fullness and so again another clue for us because mankind has been transgressing God's law since pretty much day one amen had began in the garden mankind continued to transfer so law so much so that by the time of Noah God says look that's it only eight people are gonna survive of all of humanity God wipes out the rest of the Earth's population after the flood mankind Rhea Gendry establishes himself on the earth by the time you get to Genesis chapter 9 man is already back at it at the Tower of Babel trying to reach up to God and usurped God's authority so this has been a problem for mankind since the beginning transgression simply means to miss the mark of God it's another word for sin and so at the end transgressors will have reached their fullness and when you think on this the reason that people struggled with us so much is they look back at human history and say how much worse could it get than the Caesars or how much worse could it get than the Medes and the Persians how much worse could it get than the cart najin's how much worse could it get than the Phoenicians how much worse than it could get than the Romans how much worse could it get than Hitler how much worse could it get look at our world and ask yourself a simple question is the world any safer any kinder that have we progressed to the point to where there's no evil in the world or have we in fact figured out new and greater ways to obtain evil and to make it our daily living and I would say to you that we are in an unprecedented time where mankind has figured out new ways to do old sins and we are actually getting better at it which means the transgressions themselves are getting worse in fact what did we read that good would be called evil and evil would be called good that's one of the signs you see up until about a hundred years ago there was almost no place on earth where if you murdered somebody anyone would try and defend it there was almost no place on earth where adultery wasn't actually a crime do you understand that and in fact in my own lifetime here in the state of California adultery was a crime when I was still in high school homosexuality was considered a crime as well the the sexual perversions that we have in our day in time there was a reason that pornography was kept in the back of the store with the brown paper wrapping over it because no one was supposed to have it it was illegal now it not only is not illegal it's available on your cell phone 24 hours a day seven days a week live and in color so when we think about the world's transgressions we need to be very careful that we're not talking about things which actually God's not concerned with in the way that we are concerned with them God's concerned about the heart of men and man has in fact figured out new ways to thin and we're doing it with more impunity than ever mankind is turning his nose at God and saying we don't care we're gonna define human sexuality the way we want to we don't care how you define marriage God you may have invented it but we're gonna tell you what it is we've gotten to the place to where civil discourse in the public square is an abnormality it was unheard of that that diplomats would call one another names that was considered to be so gauche so beyond the pale of what civilized human beings would do even 50 years ago no one would have sat on the floor of the Senate of the United States and start calling other senators names and yet we've reached the place where we can't even be simple the reason I'm telling you that is this God said these things will increase towards the last days but he also said that there will come a point in time when he's going to say absolutely enough you've gone too far now we get to the end notice what it says and a king shall arise that would be a second one having fierce features who understand sinister schemes his power shall be mighty but not by his own power he shall destroy fearfully and prosper and thrive and destroy the mighty and also the holy people so every government is going to come under his sway he's gonna be extremely brilliant he is going to persecute the Jewish people specifically Israel and through his cunning he shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule and he shall exalt himself in his heart he shall destroy many in their prosperity notice what it doesn't say poverty it's his prosperity material wealth and he shall even rise against the Prince of princes that would be Jesus but he shall be broken without human means I'll check this out would your Bible says there will come a ruler in the last days towards the very end of time when things have gotten so bad that the transgressions of the people of the world are so in the face of God that we will be open to a ruler ruling over the world first with deceit but with power and ultimately he will be so powerful that the Lord Himself is gonna have to defeat him this is looking forward to a book that you have in the very back of your Bible called the book of Revelation and the vision of the evenings and mornings which I told was true and therefore seal up the vision underline this part seal up the vision for it refers to many days in the future and that word translated days there is not the normal Hebrew word Yom it means a period of time it's not a calendar dates it's a it appears to be like an epoch a period of time and I Daniel fainted and was sick for days and afterwards I arose and went about the King's business I was astonished by the vision but no one understood how would you read this at first glance you're like wow this is just this is crazy heavy and it is but I want you to also notice something at Daniel in in getting this vision himself it was so far in the future that God tells him to seal it up completely don't consider it there's no reason for you to think on it right now and in fact the reason that is is because the age of grace had not even begun yet so to him who knows it send to him it sent and and so people God's not gonna hold people to the standard of His grace and his word without having knowledge of his word and grace and so this is so far in the future to Daniel the Daniel's told this isn't really for you but I want you to write it down because it's gonna be really important someday like right now and really has been for probably the last 70 years or so and that is chiefly because of what's happened to the nation Israel was this all God was trying to communicate just horns and Alexander the Great and four generals and a Seleucid ruler called Antiochus Epiphanes the fourth is that I don't think so I think God had another message for the world and is contained in the stream Gabriel is the Archangel and is he a piercer - Daniel II obviously appeared to Mary as well and giving her the word about her son who is to come so this is a super important announcement this is not one of those things like well you know they could they could have sent the Archangel Bob or something I don't know I'm not sure who the lower guy is on the Archangel totem-pole but he sends none other than Gabriel himself and maybe if you're like me you kind of you kind of look at this and go man I um why would God do this so soon because God has been faithful throughout history to make sure that man knows exactly what he expects and so as we look at what Daniel writes down ultimately we see in this three time periods notice them the end of time the appointed time and the time of indignation and so as you look at these things those three pieces of information point us towards a very specific time in human history because God is going to pour out his wrath we now know notice this vision was sealed up Daniel had no way of knowing the timing of this because the book of Revelation was not written yet the age of grace had not come yet God's plan for salvation was revealed only in part in the Old Testament he certainly could have known by faith that the Messiah was going to come but the Messiah had not yet come and so it will happen in the latter time the end of time the end of what time I believe it points directly to the end of the age of grace in which we currently live when we say end of the age of grace it's also the times of the Gentiles that Jesus referred to and as Jesus refers to this time which he does in Matthew chapter 24 also Luke chapter 21 and for tonight's purposes if you want to turn to Luke 21 it'll be helpful for you the Gentile domination and mistreatment of the Jewish people the things that are going on currently in Israel is it interesting that the United States of America chooses to take out a terrorist and that's what happened but who gets lumped in with the United States of America in the Iranian response Israel I'd encourage you at some point in time during the remainder of the week to read Ezekiel 38 and see if you don't see the nation Persian in there as one of those nations that in the very last days will rise up against the Jewish people aided by guess who Russia they will put together a consortium of Nations that consortium of Nations is currently as you look at the map all of the nations that surround today modern-day Israel and so when it says at the end of time notice how Jesus actually put this verse 20 Luke chapter 21 when you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies you will know that the desolation is near and then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains that those in the city get out but those in the country not entered the city for this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written what all the prophecy of Daniel and the book of Revelation and the book of Zechariah and the Book of Isaiah everything that has been said about God honoring his covenant with Israel the book of Joel that I will gather them together in the valley of jehoshaphat for what they have done to my land my people Israel and to my name how dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers will be great distress in the land and wrath against his feet this people they'll fall by the sword be taken as prisoners into all nations and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled until the age of grace is over until God finally says look this is it here's the line in the sand it's not proverbial it is a literal line you can't go past this line and once that line has been crossed then everything that God has said would come to pass in that day we'll begin to unfold right before our eyes now the good news is if you're here and you're a child of God a vast majority of those things that God is destined as punishment for the way the world is treated Israel for the way the world has thumbed its nose at God and for the way people have acted not in accordance to God's will but against God's will we've been saved from and so God has a plan to rescue us is called the rapture and the church is going to be snatched out but your Bible says there is a definitive time that the end is gonna come and this is that time that people have been debating for a very very very long time now a looking around the room there some of us it has gray hair and or no hair and I'm not talking about you who are prematurely bald but those of us who were actually aged and some of us have been around long enough to remember all of the people who have predicted the end of the world all of the number of times that Harold Camping said you better end up on a mountaintop someplace because Jesus is coming in 1988 and then in 92 and then in 94 and then 2001 and person after person has named times and dates they claim to have some secret code from the Lord and some numeral logic reasoning that they would pull things out of a scripture you know it was Barney the yellow the purple dinosaur if you spelled his name in Latin and took out all the vowels which didn't exist in the first place somehow it ended up telling you exactly when the rapture would happen and the tribulation would begin but the Bible is clear that no one's going to know the day or the hour the only thing we're going to know is the times of the seasons and so as Jesus makes that remark he's reminding us that doesn't mean that there isn't an end that doesn't mean that God's just going to go on indefinitely putting up with mankind's abuse of the nation Israel and us thumbing our nose at God telling him how we should be able to live and doing things our way God's very clear that he will only go so far and I believe Daniel got a view of that moment in time when God is going to say that's it as we saw Antiochus Epiphanes rise and he's a type of the final Antichrist but he cannot be the final Antichrist because Antiochus Epiphanes rose and died he's been gone a long time over two thousand years 2168 to be exact Antiochus was certainly a type of the Antichrist but Revelation chapter 13 paints the picture of a real beast these two little horns the first one I I believe was Antiochus but the second one is so infinitely worse than the first that one cannot attribute the things that in comparison to what Antiochus did to Antiochus because the devastation that comes on the earth that we see in the book of Revelation is global Antioch Systema station is desecration of the temple was quite regional he had no sway over the entire world this ruler is going to have sway over the entire world and God is going to solve this problem with a world solving problem in Revelation chapter 13 verse 2 it says and the dragon gave the Beast his power his throne and his great Authority the dragon is Satan the Beast is the Antichrist and so he's going to be empowered notice what our passage says this world ruler is going to rise up he's gonna understand sinister schemes where do you think those would come from he's going to be mighty but not by his own power where do you think that's gonna come from the book of Revelation tells us so Daniel is told seal this up it isn't for now it's for later a lot later some people have make the case and they've been making the case all along you know Satan in or judas iscariot and undoubtedly he's entered others in history and an example of that certainly would be a Dolf Hitler I have no doubt whatsoever that Adil Hitler was satanically inspired and in fact he practiced to call all kinds of crazy stuff there is ZERO doubt but as evil as a Dolf Hitler was he was still largely confined to Europe as horrible as that was it was still hundreds of thousands of people from the United States that lost their lives about four hundred and eighty five thousand if you include all of the deaths there may have been forty to fifty million people that perished but your Bible is clear if you read the book of Revelation about two-thirds of the entire population of the world is going to be wiped out at some point in time that would be billions more than died in World War two and so there is a time coming the stern-faced king this master of intrigue is gonna rise to power and he's going to be so powerful that he is going to mimic even the Lord Revelation chapter 6 says this about him and notice it almost sounds like this is Jesus verses 1 and 2 revelation 6 and now I saw when the lamb opened one of the seals now notice who opens the seal it's the lamb so it cannot be the lamb that is then the writer so if there's only one lamb and his name is Jesus the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world the lamb has seemed slain before the foundation of the world the lamb opens one of the seals this is a sealed judgments of Revelation six I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder come and see and I looked and behold a white horse and he who sat on it had a bow and a crown was given to him and he went out conquering and to conquer but it goes on to remind us that he has no arrows this is a man of peace he appears to be a ruler he looks like Jesus but he sure doesn't act like Jesus and interestingly enough when Paul writes about this lawless one in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 he says there in verses 9 11 the coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan and then he goes on to say something kind of crazy it sounds almost really displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles signs and wonders and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing in other words he's going to be able to pull off he's gonna look like Messiah he's gonna have a capacity to fool the world that he is actually good and they perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved for this reason God sends him a powerful delusion so that they will believe this lie in other words in the very last days the deception of the false church empowered by Satan himself ultimately through the rule of the Antichrist on this earth even people who believe are going to be deceived that's a powerful delusion now right now I can tell you a pretty vast majority of the church that's solidly grounded in the Word of God doesn't believe those lies but if you remove the true church if the church is raptured who's left every Church that doesn't teach the Bible every church that has a fake gospel every church that speaks that feel-good message God wants you to be healthy wealthy and wise every church that is fleecing the flock every church that has an errant belief system every church that does not follow the true in the Living God every one of those churches is still going to be here so guess what the Antichrist is gonna be able to do he's gonna have ready-made congregations he's just gonna step in and see how awesome it is that all those Christians are gone now I don't know what that's going to look like ultimately cuz I'm not planning on being here when it happens but I do know this the world's got to rejoice that we're gon finally got rid of them they've been against gay marriage finally got rid of them they keep telling people it's not okay to divorce your spouse because it burns your toast you see the world is gonna look for those of us who actually believe that the Bible is true and everyone else is a liar goodbye farewell a wiedersehen good night and that hey we're gonna they're gonna be singing sound of music songs when we're gone matter of fact they may become worship songs in their church I don't know but what is gonna happen is the final stage the second horn is gonna deceive the hearts of men and the final hours of mankind's godless nests are going to ensue again if you're here tonight you know the Lord Jesus you do not need to worry because you are not gonna be here for this part and if you believe you are then if I'm wrong we deserve to go through the tribulation but I'm not planning on being here you see what the Bible says is that last world ruler is gonna first be a person of peace he's gonna start a peace treaty that's gonna look like the answer to the world's problems with Israel and then at the middle of the final week which we'll get to as we study chapter 9 is that final week unfolds it's not going to be Antiochus Epiphanes that raises up it's going to be a ruler that the world will then worship that we call the Antichrist a man so powerful that he brings all of the nations of the world together so powerful that he brings every religion in the world together so powerful that he controls all of the banking in the entire world now I want to ask you a very simple question let's suppose for a moment you don't know the Lord looking around the room I know that a vast majority of you do we've been together for a while and I'm seeing familiar faces so I would believe that most of us here love the Lord Jesus but if you didn't know the Lord Jesus and some ruler came on the scene and could pull off what I just said bringing together every government of every nation bringing together every religion of every flavor and bringing together all of the world's finances so that no one initially does without you think that person to be pretty popular I do the world is right for them right now we are so close to having these systems in place to where all we need is that person to rise up and say yeah I'm here but Daniel is told the timing needs to be looked at a little further down the road it isn't right now but I do believe we can make some educated guesses if you will some informed possibility would be a another way to look at it and so what's gonna happen during these evenings and mornings these 2,300 of them which is significantly longer that's closer to six years than it is to three and a half years what what's gonna happen during that time and so if you look at this in a prophetic sense there's several possibilities but this image of the beast that's going to stand in the wing the temple that we're told about in the book of Revelation it is going to now be in essence everyone's object of worship I think this also could include the time that Ezekiel speaks of in Ezekiel 38 and 39 known as the campaign or the Battle of Magog a long military campaign that encompasses all of the Middle East aden primarily by Russia and so we can see that's already set up but ultimately what's gonna happen is the Jewish people are gonna get to rebuild their temples anybody know if there's a temple on the Temple Mount right now the answer's no there is no Jewish temple on the Temple Mount there are four mosques but there's no temple by the way they opened a new mosque not that long ago they actually excavated the area called Solomon's Temple which under Herod the Great because there was not enough room on the Temple Mount for everything was going on for the building that he was building this magnificent temple he expanded underneath the Temple Mount put in these huge columns gigantic arches to support the temple platform on which the court of the Gentiles and the court of the women stood in Herod's time and that has now been excavated cleaned out in its another mosque so not only do you have the al-aqsa mosque which is a giant mas seats about 5,000 people the Dome of the rock or the how to model Sharif you also have the Dome of the chain so you now have four mosques that sit on top of the Temple Mount but there is no temple and so the Jewish people ultimately because the Antichrist allows it are going to have a temple on the Temple Mount so until there's a temple on the Temple Mount we still know it's future because the last one got knocked off the Temple Mount in AD 70 there has not been one there for nearly two thousand years but the Antichrist is gonna rise up and demand to be worshipped it's going to be his image that's going to be inside that temple of actually so we have a little bit more time could be that as Jesus said in Matthew 24 that those days might be shortened for there will be great distress jesus said unequaled from the beginning of the world until now and never to be equaled again and in fact if those days had not been cut short no one would survive but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened jesus said there in matthew 24 21 and 22 so from jesus's perspective this was still future so it couldn't have been Antiochus Epiphanes jesus said those days later will be shortened here's why we will never know we'll never know when the Son of Man is actually going to come we won't know when the rapture is gonna happen we only know the season Matthew 24 verse 29 says this for immediately after the tribulation of those days referring to the tribulation not just general tribulation the tribulation of those days the last days the Sun will be darkened the moon will not give its light the Stars will fall from heaven the powers of heaven and earth will be shaken and the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven and then all of the tribes of the earth will mourn for they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory now I'm a student of history to some degree and I don't know of any event that's been like that and of course the human history where the entirety of the world looked up and saw anything coming from the heavens because if there was anything it probably would have been a meteor if it was something astronomical and at that point in time we'd all be vaporized but the son of man coming in the clouds with power and great glory and he will send his angels of the sound of a great trumpet and they will gather together his elect from the four winds and from the one end of heaven to the other and he goes on to say now learn this parable from the fig tree nose is interesting because Jesus is talking about this catastrophic event that is visible in the entire world that is astronomical in nature you could look up you could see that somebody's coming back from heaven pretty clear that this is the king of kings the Lord of glory the son of man who gave Jesus that title it was Daniel Daniel's the one that gave Jesus the title of Son of Man and it was that title that got Jesus in trouble with the Pharisees because the Pharisees fully understood that when Jesus said who do you say that I the Son of Man am they knew that he was referring to himself as Messiah that's why they killed him that was the actual reason that the Pharisees decided it's time this got this guy's got to go now learn is parable for a fig tree and so Jesus said look when you when you see these things it's it's not good when a branch has nearly become tender and puts forth its leaves you know that summer is near now anybody here that's ever had a fruit tree actually knows these principles and so you also when you see all these things what things the tribulation of those days the Sun darkened the heavens the Moon the stars all the stuff that Jesus has previously said in Matthew 24 is he's described wars and rumors of wars nations rising against nations you will know this is what you'll know when you see all these things that it is near it's at the doors totus it doesn't say it's there it's near because what do you know the leaves begin to pop up there's still a little bit of time before they bear fruit for assuredly I say to you this generation will button by no means what generation the generation that sees these things that sees the world turned to that place that Noah's world was in when God destroyed the world as it was in the days of the Noah so it shall be when the Son of man comes how is the world the world was so bad off that God said that man's eyes were continually upon wickedness but there wasn't anyone worth saving that there was no one righteous save Noah and seven other members of his family eight people in total in the entire world jesus said when you find a generation that sees the world turn that wicked you better be looking up for when you see the generation that sees these things when they take place heaven and earth will pass away but my words will by no means pass away and then he gives us the clue but of that day and hour no one knows not even the angels of heaven what did Gabriel tell Daniel seal it up it is not for now Gabriel didn't know the day or the hour Gabriel could only describe the times and the seasons Gabriel could give Daniel a little bit of information because the age of grace had not even begun yet verse 37 but as the days of Noah were so will be the coming of the Son of Man for as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking and marrying giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the Ark and did not know until the flood came and took them all away also it shall be at the coming of son of man so this whole passage is still pointing forward it's still pointing us towards a day at a time that is not here yet because man is simply on that path and this is why it's so important for the church to recognize at times in the seasons you know sometimes I get in conversations with people and I honestly wonder if they ever read the news if they ever look at what's going on in the world if they've ever studied history if they recognize any of the things that are going on in our world because they say absurd things like the world is getting better I hear it frequently and often oh yeah the world's getting better you know we've almost cured AIDS can I tell you AIDS is not the world's chief problem it's bad but that pales in comparison to the evil that mankind is perpetrating upon other mankind if you take the number of people that die from AIDS and lay them alongside the number of people that are murdered because they are of a different tribe because they have a different religion because they come from the other side of the valley it's insanely insignificant the problem is the same problem that Adam and Eve had that's man's heart has been heartened and darkened towards sin and we are in the process of calling evil good and good evil you go out right now and you stand on a street corner and you shall shout that bull garetty's until you don't know any more vulgar words chances are you're not going to get arrested but if you go out and have a church service out in a public space without a permit you are going to be told to go home or possibly be arrested so I can go say vulgar vile thing I want and that's gonna be perfectly it's gonna get protected as freedom of speech but if I tell you that someone who's struggling with same-sex attraction can actually be healed of that I could potentially if I were not a pastor protected by my pastoral ordination effectively that thus far the US Supreme Court has never gone after a pastor for teaching what the Word of God says but that day too may well be coming but if you're here and you're a counselor and you tell somebody that they can be healed from same-sex attraction you can lose your license and you could be jailed now tell me if the world's getting better you see the world is in that space in place that we are calling evil good what we're telling children well you figure out what gender you are has nothing to do with biology has nothing to do with Physiology it's how you feel 40 years ago that would have been called child abuse the parents would have been arrested they would have been arrested they would have been thrown in jail for encouraging their children to undergo gender reassignment surgery they would have been thrown in jail and now it's celebrated and you can get your own TV show tell me is the world getting better the reason I'm telling you this is your Bible says when we get to that place where evil is called good and good is called evil we're getting near the end of the journey how close are we I don't know but I know we're way closer than we were when I was in high school back when people used to go to the principal's office for chewing gum now is your gun loaded might get you thrown into the principal's office back when vulgarity was somebody said darn it and I'm not at all exaggerating when I was in grade school that would have been considered cussing you think the world's getting better 1962 I was sitting in my classroom when President John F Kennedy was assassinated over the intercom there was not a call to let's protest there was a call to pray for our president class stopped and the entire school prayed that somehow he would be miraculously healed now if you do that you're probably going to lose your job so from 1968 today tell me if the world's getting better now what's the linchpin in all of this may 14th 1948 Israel goes back into the land the generation that sees these things begin will by no means pass away now I'm not telling you I heard from the Lord that those that were born in that first generation back in Israel that's the key because then we would know exactly when it's going to happen because the last one dies though the rapture is gonna happen but I'm telling you we are so infinitely much closer than Daniels time that we can say the fruit trees budding there's not only leaves this is infinitely worse than Napoleon Bonaparte or Antiochus Epiphanes or a Dolf Hitler or Pol Pot's Chinggis Khaan we've had rulers that you could look at and say yeah that's that's satanic is what that is but we haven't ever had a world where evil has been called good and good has been called evil but we live in that world today you can go to Amsterdam and purchase women like property did you understand what I just said we're going through the me2 movement you want to see what's lying ahead of us here in this country go to Amsterdam they have barges that run through the canals that offer both heroin and needles to users we live in a world that is rapidly calling evil good oh well you know we shouldn't get involved in those things yes we should because they're destroying people's lives when god says it's over that's when it's over that's why Daniel reacted the way he did it was beyond his understanding some of these things not only could he not or say he couldn't understand how there could be anything so heinous has to engulf the whole world he couldn't yet he didn't understand the Babylonians he's understand Cyrus the Meade but God pouring out his wrath on the entire world well what could bring that about the reason the Daniel couldn't understand this with angelic help is because the world had not even remotely reached that place I'm reading through a book on Jerusalem right now a very long history of the city of Jerusalem Jerusalem's history is colorful to say the least it's been the rise and fall of Empire after Empire after Empire and conquest after conquest after conquest but you know the interesting thing is in almost every case two parties kind of came to disagree somewhat agreeably and someone simply left someone moved on but there's gonna come a point in time when your Bible says that they won't move on the nations of the world will be gathered together against Israel and in the general vicinity of Jerusalem and it will be so bad they'll take a heavenly rescue that the Lord Jesus himself will have to come back and deal with it so we look at the world that we're in today as we recognize the place that we sit this little horn that the coming Prince is gonna rise up against the Prince of princes there are exactly two things two things and all of the Bible that remain to happen before the very last days could ensue and they don't have to happen in any particular order one is that Ezekiel 38 and 39 battle because that concludes with the Battle of Armageddon which in your Bibles is Revelation chapter 6 to 19 the Bulls the trumpets is incredible afflictions of God's wrath upon the earth and the other is the church disappearing once the church is gone the world has about seven years give or take I'm not telling god he couldn't do it seven years in one day or six years and you know both go to the Babylonian calendar I don't care don't plan on being here that's it folks that's it because we don't know what extent God's talking about that the world would become so evil that good will be called evil and evil will be called good we only know that that's a triggering device for us knowing that we're near the end I think we're there now that doesn't make me you know overly melancholy to some degree that excites me it doesn't make me happy because I have to deal with the outfall of all that sin almost daily I'm constantly talking to people's lives who have been ruined by sin but what it does do is make me very busy about my father's business because I think time is short I don't know when the Son of Man is gonna come I don't know when the Battle of Gog and Magog is going to happen I only know that the way you escape having to worry about that stuff is by believing in the only begotten Son of God that's what I know hey man that's why Paul would write to the church at Corinth there in first Corinthians chapter 6 I used to be second Corinthians 6 he's at the time of my favor I heard you in the day of salvation I helped you I tell you now is the time of God's favor and now is the day of salvation so there's a sense of urgency if the Apostle Paul could write that to the church at Corinth and the world has progressively figured out new ways to sin new severity stew it then we should be busy about the business of the gospel not politics the gospel now we're gonna get engaged in politics if we have no choice it's part of our society as part of our culture but the business of the church is the good news it's the ABCs it's for encouraging people to admit that they're a sinner and to believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to confess their sins and to be forgiven for those sins because that's the actual real problem that people refuse to a - and because of that that is why people substitute all these other things that's what's going it's just I'll trade the sinful behavior for a right relationship with God I I don't want God in my business I actually had a young man tell me that not long ago he said I just don't want God in my business and I looked at him cotton I'd probably look pretty dumbfounded but it said do you not think that God is already in your business it was well I don't know why he'd care about me I said I do because he loves you and he looked at me dumbfounded it was like God loves me yes God loves you after all I've done yes God loves you after all you've done God loved you before you did it he's gonna love you when you get done doing it now he doesn't like what you're doing you wants you to repent because those things destroy your life there's not a single thing in scripture that's called sin that's good for you not one not one they all either harm your person your mind or your soul and very often all three and so as we approach this new year I want to give you a little challenge today's the day of salvation for a lot of people the gospel is the only thing that can save them from what lies ahead because the good news for the believer is no matter what happens in this world I know in whom I have believed that he is able to keep me to keep that which he's committed to me and he's promised to save me from his wrath and take me home to heaven that friends is what I want for everybody that requires that we be busy with the gospel with telling people the truth NOT capitulating to evil never bowing the knee to Baal not saying well you know you just do your own thing look you know it's not an easy thing to speak into people's lives when they have a habit or a behavior or something going on that clearly is contrary to God's Word but if you love them you will absolutely do that if you love them you don't love them then let them do whatever but if you love them and you know what God's Word says then you have to stand on what God's Word says that's why it's so absolutely important that the church doesn't lose its character by engaging in things that scripture says we shouldn't be doing and it is the same reason on the opposite side of that same coin that we should be busy doing the things that God says we should be doing as children of grace filled with his love we should be the kindest most gentle people but we should be bearers of the truth at the same time we should be loving and yet at the same time be unwavering in our support for the king and for his kingdom and if we will do that then we have the best opportunity for people to not have to go through any of this stuff we share that with them who wants to go through three and a half years of Great Tribulation you know I I don't I know I don't and so as we ponder these things in our hearts this is the Romans Road reminds us there there's none of us righteous not one of us we've all sinned we've all fallen short of the glory of God I have you have we have the church haves the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God has righteousness it comes to us eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord and what we believe is that Jesus was delivered unto over unto death for my sin and raised so that I might have eternal life that's what I asked actually believe when I believe on his name that God demonstrated his love towards this towards me in this that while I was a sinner Christ died for me when I was still actively going the wrong way that's what I believe and when I confess he is faithful and just to forgive my sins and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness family this is the ABCs of the gospel this is not hard these are the things we have to be able to speak into people's lives because the truth is just exactly as Romans 10 says all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved but if we don't tell them about Jesus and we just let them go the way of the world then we're allowing that to believe that they're okay with God and while his grace is great mind boggling it is not tawdry it is not cheap and it is only free in this gift we receive it will cost us our lives to follow him that's why I pray as we embark on this new year will have a new seriousness about ourselves now that does not mean please hear me well in this that does not mean we become stoic and unfriendly and running around like all the end is near like you know we're watching Chicken Little live but it does mean that we understand the world that we live in I know we look at the world and say Lord what can I do for your kingdom right now because I honestly believe that your word says that you're not gonna mess around with the sin stuff forever you're not gonna let us keep going the direction we're going in family if we believe that in people's eternity or in balance people that you know people that you love people you care about are perishing if they do not believe in the name of Lord Jesus Christ now that freaks all of you out praise the Lord praise the Lord if that makes some of you a little bit mad that I said it praise the Lord but I pray what it actually does is cause you to realize exactly how serious it is that we be busy about our father's business in 2020 amen would you stand with me and we'll pray together some of the pastors will be up front and I want to encourage of your year I just spoke the gospel if you're here you don't know Christ you don't know who Jesus is you you've never given your life to him I'm gonna challenge you come down here and pray invite Christ into your life right now don't leave this place without him because we don't know we do not know the day or the hour we just know that the time is close father thank you thank you for your word on Lord this passages is piercing to our souls Lord it reminds us that there's gonna be a day in time when the age of grace will end there'll be no more opportunity save that time when the Anti Christ makes it a life or death situation Lord that to know you would literally cost us our lives and so we pray that while we still live in this age that we call the age of grace well well there still is time for the Gentiles to do their work on this earth would we be busy or telling people about you and your marvelous grace your wonderful plan of salvation the good news of your gospel Lord ignite us as a church lord help us to be unashamed Lord bearers of truth we thank you we praise you we bless you we ask these things in Jesus name Amen you

Channel: Calvary Chapel South Bay

Views: 312

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: ccsb, ccsouthbay, Calvary Chapel South Bay, South Bay, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Lord, God, Bible, Jeff Gill, Pastor Jeff Gill, Scriptures

Id: G6T7OPqqLPY

Length: 69min 20sec (4160 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 05 2020