Well, we are in Hour 9 of Learn the Bible
in 24 Hours. And every time I use that title, I'm almost
embarrassed. That's an audacious title. You can't learn the whole Bible in 24 hours, in one sense. And yet, in one sense, you can. Because our goal, of course, is to a get a
grasp of the whole. And once you have a perspective, you always
know what questions to ask, and you can dig into the specifics, but this will give you
an overview. But this particular hour, we've actually budgeted
the entire hour for a single book. It's understandable we use several sections
for Genesis and several for Revelation because they're sort of the book ends that tie it all together. But in general, we go through and take groups
of books, but there's on a couple of occasions in our study, we're gonna single out a book
to go in a little bit deeper, ... because it's so pivotal. And the Book of Daniel is one of those books. Very popular book. I would say after Genesis and Revelation,
it's probably the most popular book to study. Especially for Gentiles, because it's one of
the books of the Old Testament that really includes some very special treasures for everyone,
of course, but also specifically, for the Gentiles. So, we're getting into the book of Daniel -
very colorful book. And, I have to say candidly one of my
favorite books, because there is a verse in this book that caused me even as a teenager
to be blown away and really, discover the reality of who Jesus is. And it was that
verse that ... I was a Christian. I had accepted Christ, but the discovery
of the implications of the last four ver- four verses of Daniel 9 is it really galvanized
me to, understand the reality that the Bible is true and Jesus Christ really
is who He said He is. But we'll get there. So, the Book of Daniel is 12 chapters in two
halves. The first six are historical. That's why we're using it right here in the
historical sequence that we're doing. The first six chapters are really
history. Very colorful history, very interesting anecdotes that take place. The last six chapters are like appendices
at the end of the book of the visions that he saw. Summaries of a number of very,
very important visions. And it will be important to understand
that it's not in chronological order. The first six chapters are chronological,
but, Chapters 7, 8 and 9 occur within the other chapters, if you follow me. So, we'll make that clear as
we go. But anyway, the Book of Daniel, First six, historical. The second six are really treasures of prophecies. So, the historical narratives. The first chapter is the deportation. Daniel is a teenager, and he's deported as
a slave when Babylon conquers Israel. And the second chapter will be a
dream that the king of Babylon has that Daniel interprets and that leads him to a key position. His rivals contrive against his three friends
and himself. In Chapter 3, the famous fiery furnace thing. And Chapter 4 will surprise you. It's a chapter written by a Gentile king. Nebuchadnezzar himself writes Chapter 4 personally. Chapter 5 is the fall of the world capital,
Babylon. Very colorful chapter, and very significant
for us today because this future of Babylon is very, very critical for any Biblically-oriented person. And then Chapter 6 is the lion's den, which
strangely enough I will call "the revolt of the magi." Most people have no idea who the magi are.
At Christmas ... but we'll get into that a little bit. As we look the panorama of history that we've
been exploring, we're after the monarchy. We've just been through the monarchy, when-
and the monarchy ended with Babylon conquering, Jerusalem. So we're now approaching that period that's
called The Exile. Where they are captives for 70 years. And so, the fact that Babylon conquers. Nebuchadnezzar is the bright young
general of the king, Nabopolassar, and he- he's a very successful general. And he sets
siege to Jerusalem. And that starts a period of time called the captivity, the
Babylonian Captivity. And, he takes captives, sets up a vassal
king to be subservient to him. Takes hostages, Daniel and three friends are among
those hostages. And Jerusalem then goes and rebels after some years. And Nebuchadnezzar has to set up a second
siege and he replaces that king. It was his nephew, Zephaniah, and
again, they are still captives to Babylon. During this period of time, Jeremiah from
Jerusalem and Ezekiel from Babylon are saying "don't rebel because if you rebel again, God
will destroy Jerusalem." And they don't ... Their false prophets convinced
the king on ... get him on an ego trip and, and he goes ahead and rebels against Nebuchadnezzar. And by now, Nebuchadnezzar has had a bellyful
of this whole situation. He lays a third siege and takes them all captive
and destroys the city. So, there are two periods of time in the Bible
that were predicted to be 70 years. One is called the Servitude of the Nation,
and it starts, of course, with the first siege when they were made vassals of Babylon, and
it goes for exactly 70 years. And, finally, when the Persians conquer
Babylon under Cyrus the Persian, that ends the Babylonian Captivity, That ends the
Servitude of the Nation, because as you'll see, we'll get into it, Cyrus frees them to
go home. There's also a period of time called the Desolations
of Jerusalem and it's also predicted to be 70 years. And many scholars assume they're
both synonymous. The Servitude of the Nation, the Desolations of Jerusalem, they're
both 70 years. But the Desolations of Jerusalem start from
the third siege. Second Chronicles takes us up to the end of
the Servitude - when they finally get to go back home. The Book of Ezra that will come into in the
next session will deal with this what's called the post-exile. After they get back from the
exile, back from the captivity. And then, now, this Desolations of Jerusalem
which starts with the third siege, ends when they're able to finally rebuild the city.
And they do that under Nehemiah. And, Nehemiah by then is the cup-bearer
to the king that's in charge of the area, Persian king, and he gets permission
to rebuild the city. The temple will ... is the problem, they've
gone ahead and worked on that during the days of Ezra. Nehemiah comes along, and gets the
authority to rebuild the city. The decree of Artaxerxes will turn out to
be very important to us as we get into this. And that starts ... that triggers a very,
very provocative prophecy in the Book of Daniel that we'll be looking at. But it's important to understand that the
Servitude of the Nation starts from the first siege, the 70 years to the day, to the day, until Cyrus releases them. The Desolations of Jerusalem, the destruction
of Jerusalem was from the third siege. So they're both 70 years to the day, but they're not
coterminous. The Desolation starts with the third siege
and they end with a very particular decree by a Persian king that we'll get into. The Book of Esther, which actually in your
Bible comes after the Book of Nehemiah. We'll take ... in the next. In the next hour,
we'll take Ezra, Nehemiah and the Book of Esther and try to put that in perspective. During the ... this whole period of Babylon,
we have Daniel as a prophet. Ezekiel is also a prophet. Daniel gets deported in the first siege. Ezekiel gets deported in the second siege. Also, after the Babylon captivity is over during the days of Ezra, we have the prophet
Haggai. Also preaching ... in parallel to the issues that emerge in
Ezra. In Nehemiah, we have Zechariah and Malachi. Malachi closing, of course, the period
that we know as the Old Testament. So that's a broad view. Little background to understand what's going
on. Nineveh ruled the world in the Assyrian Empire
until 612 BC when it finally falls to an alliance of both the Babylonians and the Medes. It's only a few years later that Pharaoh
Necho of Egypt is now emerging as the dominant player, because he leads an army against
the remnants of the Assyrian empire. During that time, by the way, is when Josiah
fights Pharoah Necho to try to get the Ark of the Covenant back and gets killed. Pharaoh Necho, most people don't realize, is
Ethiopian not Egyptian. And that leads to a whole 'nother study
I encourage you to look at in terms of the possibility that the Ark of the Covenant is
still being protected by the Ethiopians to present to the Messiah when He rules in Zion. But anyway, three years later, there is a
famous battle, the Battle of Carchemesh because by then Nebuchadnezzar the general of ...
under Nabopolassar the king of Babylon, his son, is a sharp guy. And he ends
up defeating Pharaoh Necho at the Battle of Carchemesh which makes Babylon the dominant
power in the region. This is the typical date used to mark
the beginning of the Babylonian Empire. And, so that's the background. Now, on his way home, Nebuchadnezzar, lays
siege to Jerusalem for an additional trophy. During that siege, he discovers that his father
has died. He's now the king of Babylon. He succeeds at the, at the siege. Takes ... Sets up a vassal king, takes Daniel
and his three friends among others, as hostages to be educated teenagers, to be educated
at court at Babylon to serve at the ... in the court of the king of Babylon. And, so ... Daniel, by the way, is the most authenticated
book in the Bible. Many people have problems with Daniel. It's ... There's more archaeological and documentary evidence of Daniel than any other book in the Bible. It has been authenticated by none other
than Jesus Christ Himself. And we'll look at that before the studies
are over. So if you believe in Jesus Christ, you
have no problem about the authenticity or the reliability of the Book of Daniel. If you don't believe in Jesus Christ, you've
got bigger problems than the authenticity of Daniel. His three friends are deported as
teenagers in the first of the three sieges by Nebuchadnezzar. And they com- In Chapter
1, they commit themselves to refrain from the diets and practices of the Babylonians.
And they want to stay faithful to the way they've been taught despite the fact that
they are in an enforced pagan environment. It's a very interesting thing to study because
our children are in an enforced pagan environment. And it's interesting to see the contrast
and the faithfulness of these young men. One is named Hananiah. That's his Jewish name. But he's given ... All three are given Babylonian
names. And due to the popular song about this, everybody
knows the Babylonian names, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Well, Shadrach's name was Hananiah which means
"illumined by the sun god" is what it means. But they're given Babylonian names in
the Babylonians' attempt to get him, get them assimilated into their culture. And Mishael is called Meshach. "Who is like
the moon god" is what it roughly means in Aramaic. Azariah - his name was Abednego. So, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are the
Babylonians names. Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah are their Hebrew
names. It's interesting that there's been discovered
a clay prism in Babylon. It's now ... It's presently in the Istanbul
museum which mentions these three guys: Hanunu the chief of the royal merchants, a
variation of Hananiah, and Mishael and Marduk. Marduk was one of the gods they worship, and Ardi-Nabu. These are ... many people believe that these
are ... the pronunciations are very corrupted because of our attem- ... our clumsy attempts
to transliterate from one language to another. Transliterate is different than translation. Transliterate means to ... You try to render
it roughly the way it's pronounced. And you'll see some strange ones. But anyway, this is regarded as
authenticating the three. But anyway, so here we have this young king
who's just taken over from his father. His father passed away. This young general is now the king. And he inherits the staff advisors. These
cronies that advised his father. And he can't tell whether they're really any
good or not. So, he's defeated the Pharaoh Necho so he's
taken over the throne on his father's death. But these staff advisers, he doesn't know whether
they're any good or not. One night, Nebuchadnezzar has a very troubling
dream and he uses the dream as an opportunity. On one hand, he's troubled. He wants to know what it means. But he also uses it as an opportunity to see
if these guys really have any unique skills. So, he insists that they interpret it, but
he won't tell them what the dream is. And they're upset about that 'cause if he'll
tell him what the dream is, they'll contrive some kind of ex- ... you know, explanation. But he won't do that. In fact, he believes they're stalling for
time and not giving the answer he wants. So, off with their heads. In other words, he's ... he knew how to reduce
head count when it wasn't being productive. So, he's really using this as a test. And of
course, he puts out the word. Now, what obviously happens, if ... when you
read Chapter 2, Daniel is in the job category that's been wiped out. Everybody in that job description was ...
was to be killed. And when Daniel gets the word, when the word
comes down that's what's gonna happen, he goes to his supervisor Arioch. He says, "Give us a chance at it." And, "We, we have a God that will help
us" and so forth. And so, Arioch, ... What Daniel does, he goes to his three buddies and says, "Boy, we have a prayer meeting
tonight guys," you know, 'cause tomorrow off with their heads otherwise. And so, anyway, they go Arioch. Arioch arranges for them to present to the
king the results. And Chapter 2 is one of the most dramatic
chapters in the Bible, because you've got these skeptics whose lives are at risk in
the back row, watching all this. And here's these three or four young
guys. Daniel comes up, and he explains to the king what his dream was, and he also interprets
what it means. So this is not subject to conjecture. Daniel interprets the dream for you. But obviously, Nebuchadnezzar is profoundly
impressed and he elevates Daniel to high office. And so. Now the dream that Nebuchadnezzar
had ... in his dream, Daniel explains, that he saw a metal image. A very tall metal image. The head was of gold, the arms and chest
was of silver, the belly and thighs were of bronze, and the legs were iron.
And the feet were also iron, but iron mixed with clay. And, as you will discover, there are four
different metals here. The fourth one has a second phase where it
has something added to it. We'll get to that when the time comes. And then what happens is a rock, a stone cut
without hands, hits it at the base and that stone grows into a mountain that doesn't only
just fill that region, but it fills the entire world. Pretty strange dream. If you had that kind of a dream, you're probably
would be pretty troubled, too. Well, Daniel goes ahead and explains it. He says, "You, king, are this head of gold. And, but you're gonna be succeeded
by someone else." And, what he lays out, what the metal
image turns out to be is a timeline of the great empires. Babylon first, Persia next, then Greece and
then Rome but Rome apparently is in two phases. 'Cause it's gonna break into pieces and then
those pieces are gonna re-coalesce into a second phase of that first empire. So, we'll call it for our purposes as Rome
Phase 1 and Rome Phase 2. And most scholars recognize that Rome in those
two phases are represented by the iron and the iron mixed with clay. We're going to discover in a subsequent vision
the same information that in effect supports this same view. We'll get to that when we get to Chapter 7. But, what's interesting here, is Babylon, of
course, rose in 606 BC as I mentioned. In 539, the Persians conquer Babylon. And the
Persians endured till a young guy by the name of Alexander the Great conquers the Persians
in 332 BC. And Greece continues til about 68 BC when
this upstart on the Tiber called Rome by then has ... conquers the Greeks. And the question is: Who conquered the Romans? No one did. Right on. Exactly. Rome broke into pieces and each one
of those pieces has had their day in the sun. And, the Dutch did. The Germans twice, French did, Spain
did with the Armada, England with Mistress- as Mistress of the Seas and so forth. But none of them quite equally ... And what
the profiles presented is that these elements are gonna recoalesce again into a
final version of the original empire. And that will be the last empire of the planet
earth because ... I should say next to the last, because that's the one God intervenes
with and sets up His own Kingdom. And that's what the mountain, the stone cut
without hands is mes- it turns out to be the Messiah, and the mountain that fills the whole
earth is God's kingdom that's gonna take over. And so, we have the whole profile. As most people know, the cradle of
civilization is what we call the Fertile Crescent. It was Egypt, Assyria and Babylon preceding
the time we're talking about here with Daniel. But in Babylon, there was a city called Babylon
that, you know, then conquered the area and this is- brings us contemporaneous with Daniel. But after Babylon, of course, will come the
Persians. And the Persians not only conquered but expanded their holding substantially. And then this young guy, in a matter of just
a few years conquers the Persians. And, Alexander the Great, a very incredible, incredible
career. And, when he dies, the empire gets divided. Four of his generals divide it up. Cassander takes the far west. Lysimachus takes that part that we think of as
Anatolia or Turkey. And, Seleucus takes the east and Ptolemy,
the south. The two strongest of the four are Ptolemy
and Seleucus. They're the primary players and they, the
dynasties, the half a dozen of their dynasties on both sides, fight with each other. And what's
caught right in the middle is ... Guess who? Israel. Now, many people talk about the period between
the Old Testament and the New Testament as the silent years. And that's true in a sense,
and yet it betrays a lack of understanding of the Book of Daniel, because in Daniel Chapter
11, the history from the Old Testament through the New Testament is written down in advance
in Chapter 11. And we'll discover the so-called silent years
are detailed in advance in Daniel 11. Interesting book. Now, of course, the Roman empire succeeds
all of this. And, grows to be you know, well-known period of our history. What most people don't realize ... Many of us
that study the Bible or study these things, when we think of the Roman Empire, we think
of Western Europe. What we fail to keep aware of, is that
that empire broke into two legs. 'Cause it got too big to administer. So Diocletian divided it into two legs. And the western leg, the Western Europe
breaks apart, falls apart in 476 AD and following. The eastern leg outlasted the western leg by
a thousand years. So much so that we give it a different label
we called it the Byzantine Empire. But it's really just the eastern leg of the
old Roman Empire. Anyway, so we have a period of the Times
of the Gentiles. This is a phrase we find in the Book of Luke
because what Nebuchadnezzar begins, and it will continue until the Antichrist, is the
dominion of the planet earth under Gentile leadership. The Antichrist, this coming world leader I'll
tend to call him, ends this peculiar period of time that are known in the scriptures as
the Times of the Gentiles. Now, it's interesting that from Daniel Chapter
2 through Daniel Chapter 7, the focus of the book is on the Gentile world. And the language
of the text changes. The Book of Daniel is in Hebrew up to Chapter-
beginning of Chapter 2 and after Chapter 7, it's in Hebrew like most of the Bible. But
from 2 to 7, it's in Aramaic which was the gentile language of the period. And, because that's
the focus of it. And Daniel's prophecies are a very rare glimpse
of the Gentile world. In general, the Bible always talks about his-
both past history and future history or prophecy through the lens of Israel. But we have a gift here, a very unusual gift,
because Daniel's prophecies are gonna focus on the Gentile world. It's an exception in the Bible 'cause as I say,
most of it is different, but in ... from Daniel 2 to Daniel 7, the focus, the
center of interest is the Gentile dominion. And he writes all this down in advance. And, now the Times of the Gentiles. Don't
be confused by that phrase 'cause there's some other similar phrases that are not quite
the same thing. The Times of the Gentiles began with Nebuchadnezzar
and they'll end with this coming world leader, who will be displaced, of
course, by the Lord Jesus Christ setting up His kingdom. The Lion of the Tribe Judah, the Root of David. Now, it's frustrating that I have to
go through Daniel so quickly, 'cause Daniel 2 itself is so dramatic, but we'll keep
moving here. As you can imagine, these guys that got upstaged
by Daniel and his three friends are looking for an opportunity for revenge. And, we get to Daniel Chapter 3. And these
guys apparently, have fanned Nebuchadnezzar's ego. So he issues a very unusual order. He's on an ego trip. So, first of all, as part of his ego trip,
he builds an image. I assume the image is probably very similar to the one he saw in
his dream except in this case, it's all gold. There's no silver, bronze ... It's all gold. In other words, this is sort of his bid for
immortality I suspect. And he orders when certain music is played
that everyone is to bow down and worship his image. And anyone that doesn't is gonna get
killed. Now, I suspect he was prompted to do this
by Daniel's rivals 'cause these rivals knew that these faithful Hebrew young men would
refuse to do that. And that was their way of getting them executed,
and so that's exactly what happens. Nebuchadnezzar puts out the word, and
these three friends of Daniel's failed to bow down, so he orders them into the fiery
furnace. In fact, he's so infuriated. Oh, he gives them a second chance. "If you bow down, everything'll be fine." And the three young men tell him, "Our God
is able to save us." And if He isn't, "up yours, O king"
is really their attitude. (Laughing) So he's so teed off, he orders
the furnace turned up seven times its usual heat. In fact, so much so the guards involved get
consumed doing it. But in any case, they throw these three
young men in there. But then they ... Then Nebuchadnezzar goes
to look and he's shocked because he discovers they're not ... He says, "Didn't we throw
three guys in there?" There's four in there. And it's one of those strange appearances
of the Old Testament of apparently the Son of God being with them, with the other three. So, He's there with them. So, he orders them brought out. And the only
thing that's been burned on them are the are the bindings. They're unharmed. And, so now this is a very, very famous
event of course. The fiery furnace event. But many scholars noticed something else. So often in the Bible, you'll find a narrative,
an actual event that happened detailed, but it also tends to model or foreshadow something
larger in the future. We call that a foreshadowing. It's called a type. There's a typological conjecture here. And the typological conjecture would suggest that this image ... We know from the Book of Revelation
there's gonna be a final world leader and he's gonna have an image that he's gonna force
people to worship. Those that don't worship will be put to death. So, we think, "Gee, there's a foreshadowing here." The fact that its 6 cubits wide and 60 cubits
high is suggested. 666 is even hinted at here. Well, and that may have some ... And fire is often used in the scripture as an idiom of judgment. But if that's the case, the question that
get surfaced here is: Where was Daniel? Where was Daniel? Because he's missing. But many people don't notice in Chapter 3,
this is a very familiar story but Daniel is not among them. And, so there's three possibilities. One possibility is Daniel must have yielded
to the king's challenge. He must have bowed to this image. How many think so? Absolutely not. Absolutely. You're right. Another thing is maybe somehow Daniel was
exempted from the accusation by his enemies. Somehow I don't think that's true either. The third possibility is the reasonable conjecture
and that's that Daniel was removed from the situation somehow. I suspect that he was ... Since he was so
senior for the king, he's like virtually prime minister that he was sent on some errand for
the king, some foreign assignment to go do ... He's on some kind of a trip. And that's what his enemies took advantage
of to try get to his three buddies executed. The point is that Daniel doesn't explain why
but Daniel is not in that situation. And so many people that make a point
of that ... It's kind of interesting that there's apparently a privileged believer removed before
the judgment. And so, I wouldn't make doctrine from that,
but I think it's interesting to observe. Well, Chapter 4 is a surprising chapter, because
Nebuchadnezzar writes the Chapter himself. He writes it and has it posted throughout
the entire world that he controls. He ends up having a second dream in which
there was a great tree that was hewn down ... I'll give you the brief version of it. It was cut down after seven years. And Daniel interprets the dream to him. That
the dream ... He's the dream ... He's the ... He's the guy. And, Nebuchadnezzar is on the
ramparts of Babylon and taking pride. "Look what I have done." He's on a big ego trip. And that's exactly what the dream is anticipating.
Because of pride, he would have a seven-year, ... seven years in the penalty box so to speak. And, and a year later, he's again on this
parapet bragging about how- what a great king he thinks he is. And, he's stricken with a mental derangement, a form of lycanthropy where he is literally
eating grass and he's ... According to the Hebrew records ... Talmud,
I think it is, ... Daniel was his nurse during those seven years. At the end of the seven years, he's cured
of that, but he also recognized and acknowledges that it was the fulfillment of the dream that
he had himself a year earlier. And so he writes the chapter. He recovers and he publishes his personal
testimony throughout the entire world. And I personally from reading Chapter 4 will
not be surprised when in heaven If I run into Nebuchadnezzar. I think he's a saved person, interestingly enough. He had a very intimate relationship with his friend, Daniel. They're very close apparently. But anyway, the reason he's so prideful, you
need to have a little perspective of Babylon. The city of Babylon, of course, was fed by the
Euphrates. It straddled the Euphrates virtually. And the ... and it had a double wall system. If you look at just Babylon proper, it has
not only ... It has a double wall and a moat and, they had 250 watchtowers, 100 feet
higher that the wall itself. And, ... the banquet - There's a banquet hall involved. And I'll show you where some of this stuff is. That's the town itself. There's a processional way up at the top and
there's the Tower of Babel that's featured in Genesis 11, the Temple of Marduk and
so forth. The king's palace is gonna be the scene of
our - the events in Chapter 5. And that building has been rebuilt. Saddam Hussein has even used it for affairs of state. But notice how the ... The River Euphrates goes
through the city to provide it water in case of a siege, but it also ... that water feeds that moat that protects the city. And, the wall was no trivial wall. They had chariot races four to six abreast
on top of the wall, so it's a ... This is a ... You're talking about, you know, 15 mile,
... 15 miles on a side. So this is a sizeable ... place and
it was considered impregnable. And therein lies their vulnerability, that belief. Now, the kings of the Babylon empire after
Nabu- ... Nabopolassar, of course, had Nebuchadnezzar as his son that established the kingdom.
And he has ... two sons and two daughters. And his first son takes over for a bit, but
he's a bad apple. His other daughter married, but ... Neriglissar
has a ... He takes over. His son I think lasts two months, and then, finally, Nabonidus
takes over. And he has son, Belshazzar as a co-regent. We'll discover that Nabonidus was just ... He
had married one of Nebuchadnezzar's daughters. He is just not interested in Babylon. His off in foreign intrigues, down in
Arabia doing other things. In fact, he had not been in town for 14 years
when it finally falls. Now, that's worth understanding, because there's
a huge discrepancy. The secular world had all kinds of evidence
that Nabonidus was really the king of Babylon when it fell. And that's why the
Bible couldn't be correct. Well, they discovered more recently things
that pointed out that Belshazzar, his son was reigning at that time exactly the way
Daniel says. So, not only do we know that Daniel wrote
... that was ... that Chapter 5 was correct. It had to be by an eyewitness. We know now. But Daniel 5 is the fall of Babylon. Very, very colorful per- ... account of history
here. Instead of ... The Persian army is on
the horizon. Instead of defending the city, he throws a
party for a thousand of his nobles. A big mistake. The Persian army is formidable and have
been on the uprise here. But having this big party, and Belshazzar does a dumb thing. He sends across the street to the museum to
bring out the implements that his grandfather had taken from the temple 70 years earlier.
And gonna use them as party implements. Well, that's just guaranteed to anger God
even further. So what ... the party is doing great until they see the fingers of a man's
hand writing on the wall. And, of course, it's, you know, it's astonishing
to realize how many expressions in our common day language come from Daniel. He saw the handwriting on the wall. You've all used that expression. His number's up. You're weighed and found wanting. Right? The idol has clay feet. You see, all these expressions are from
... the Book of Daniel, interestingly enough. The experts there can't understand what's
being written. They can't decipher it. Which is a surprise.
But the queen mother, Nebuchadnezzar's widow, is still alive and she says to her grandson,
"There was a guy around in your grandfather's day ..." Now, understand they don't have any
word for grandfather in Aramaic or Hebrew so when they say father, that could ... That
just means a forbearer so ... But anyway, she says there was a guy around in your grandfather's
day that had this- had the gift to do that. So, they bring Daniel out of retirement and
he comes in. They offer him all kinds of rewards, and he says, "You keep your rewards." Before he gives him the answer he wants, he
gives a eulogy for Nebuchadnezzar. He says, "There, your grandfather, there was
a king, who would set- who, who ... whom he would set up, he set up and who he'd bring down,
he'd bring down. Not like you squirt." That's virtually his ... the phrase of his,
his discussion. But then, after all that, he goes ahead and
interprets the famous event, and, what he didn't ... What no one knew in the banquet
hall. While this was all going on, the Persian army had arranged to divert the Euphrates
upriver, so the water level went down and they slipped in under the gates. They took over Babylon without a battle. And that's gonna be important later, but that's
just going on while the party is going on here. Now, one of the questions that people ask,
"Are there really hidden codes in the Bible?" I get that question a lot because of our doctoral work and some other materials we have. And it's in the Bible, Proverbs 25:2
says, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing and the honor or duty of kings to search
out a matter." So, definitely the Bible is full of surprises
tucked away underneath the text. There's a form of Hebrew encryption that's
well-known to anybody that's been a student of cryptography. If we take the Hebrew alphabet of the 11 ... the
22 letters. Take the first 11 and put the second 11 underneath
it, so to speak, and then transpose. If you want an Aleph, you use a Lamed and so forth,
and that's a simple form of transposition. And it's named after the first the letters. Instead of Aleph, you have Lamed. Instead of a Bet, you have a Mem. So, it's equivalent to ALBM. Albam is the ... is the label given to this
form of encryption. If you take the second half of the alphabet
and put it in backwards. Now, we take the letters and put the others in there backwards,
that's- you get a different set of transpositions. And again, you have Aleph and a Tav and
the Beth and the Shin and so it's, it's At- it's called Atbash. According to the Talmud, the belief among
the Hebrew scholars is that the encryption that was used in the handwriting on the wall
was a form of Atbash. Which means the handwriting on the wall, assuming
it was Atbash, would have said something like this, except it would be Aramaic letters rather
than these letters that they use today. And, using the Atbash encryption, and transposing,
you get what Daniel ended up reading to them. Remember that all languages go towards Jerusalem. In other words all, ... everybody east of Jerusalem
goes from right to left, Hebrew, Aramaic, Sanskrit, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All nations west of Jerusalem go from left
to right. English, Latin, Russian, Greek, you name
it. So, anyway, so remember Hebrew goes backwards
from our point of view. Anyway, so Daniel says, "mene, mene." That means ... The word means ... By the way,
the, the Hebrew only uses consonants. The vowels are only inferred. That's a way of bandwidth reduction and so
forth, but I won't get into all that here. "mene, mene" means ... It means numbered or reckoned. And he interprets it. He says, "God has numbered your kingdom and
finished it." The way we would abbreviate that is "your number's up." Okay? Next word was Tekel which is ... means
weighed. "Thou art weighed in the balances and art
found wanting." Daniel explains. And, the third word is Peres which
means broken or divided. So thy kingdom is divided and given to
the Medes and the Persians. And by the way, in your King James, it says
upharsin. The U is simply a conjunction and the pharsin
is the plural of Peres, but don't worry about that, in transliteration. If you infer a different a vowel than the
E, say an A, Aparas is the word for Persians. So, there's a pun hidden in here also
that's not brought up in your normal translations. But in any case, this of course, is what Daniel
announces. And that night, of course, Belshazzar is slain and the Persians take over the city. We're gonna talk a little bit more about
that in the next session, because we'll get to Ezra and I'll use that occasion to explain
what Cyrus did when Cyrus makes his grand entrance. And that's a great scene,
but we'll hold that for the next session. In Daniel 6, by now Daniel is about 83
years old, and one of the interesting things about Daniel's career is that he rises to power
in the second empire. In other words, he's the number two man, so
to speak, or high- it was high up under Nebuchadnezzar. He rose because he interpret in Daniel 2. He was given great privileges and responsibilities
under Nebuchadnezzar. When the Persians take over the Babylonians,
he again rises to power. So, he's the number three ruler in the kingdom, and very prominent even though he's 83. And in fact, he is appointed a Rab-Mag, the
chief of the magi. You need to understand the magi for lots of
reasons. The magi were a hereditary priesthood that
had the power to appoint the king. In other words, they were a priestly sect,
it was religious and yet it was also administrative. That's where we get the word magistrate. From that word magi. And, ... But they were hereditary. They were Medes. In the combined empire of Medes and the Persians,
the Medes had that particular role. Daniel is appointed the Rab-Mag, the head
of that priesthood. Now, how do you think it went over for these
Medes to be now reporting to a Jew? They were not excited about the prospect apparently. Because they're the ones, I believe, that engineered
this ... attempted execution of Daniel. And, so the jealous rivals entrapped him
into the lion's den. The king of the Persians ... they had a strange
law among them in Persia that the king could write a law, but he could not change
it once it's written. We find that operative here in Daniel 6. It also is essential to understand for the
Book of Esther that we'll come to later in the next session. But, in any case, the king is tricked
into signing this document, and then if anyone is found praying to the wrong God, he gets
to the lion's den. Of course, Daniel is very faithful and he
is praying, and so he gets into this lion's den. You know all know the story. It's interesting that the king himself was
upset, but he couldn't change it. And that next morning, he rushes there to
see if Daniel's okay. He cares about Daniel. You see it all through this. And Daniel, of course, is miraculously spared. But something that is implied by this in some
other writings is that Daniel apparently was entrusted some prophecies that he ... received some prophecies that he entrusted to a kabal, a secret subgroup
of the magi, that passed it on for five- for 500 years. And these guys are the guys that follow the
star to Bethlehem. And the circumstances around that you need
to understand. The Parthian Empire was the rival to Rome. And you need to understand that and who they
were to really understand why Herod was so nervous when they arrived. And why he's so
deferent to them. There's a whole background there, but ultimately
these magi followed the prophecy that would lead them to a manger in Bethlehem. And we'll deal with that, of course, when
we get to Matthew Chapter 2. Well, let's get ... We've gone through half
the Book of Daniel. The last half are prophecies. The four beasts of Daniel 7. Ram and he-goat in Daniel 8. The 70 weeks in Daniel 9 and the dark
side of the spiritual warfare thing, in Daniel 10, and the climax of the book in Daniel
11 and 12. The final consummation of all things. Times of the Gentiles. We went through ... Bear in mind, we're
looking at history through the lens of Israel. But here in this particular segment of
the Bible, it's sort of an exception. We're gonna see all of Gentile history in
overview. And it's interesting there's only four empires
involved. Not seven or three or whatever, four: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. Those four. The fifth one will be God actually setting
up His Own Kingdom on the planet earth. And, so and the fourth empire will be
in two phases. And we'll get into that. We went through Daniel Chapter 2, the gold,
silver, the brass, the iron and so forth, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. In Daniel Chapter 7, Daniel himself is treated
to a series of visions. Daniel 2 was given to a man. And we see these
empires as man would see them. Bright, shiny metals. Daniel is given a vision of how they look
to God and the subject is the same but the view is quite different. God sees them as a series of voracious beasts. The first is likened to a winged lion, and
he's followed by a bear that rises up on one side. And, there's another one that's sort of
like a winged leopard. It moves so fast it doesn't even touch the
ground. And then there's a last one. Daniel can't find a animal to even liken it
to. He calls it the great and terrible beast. And
it goes into a phase with 10 heads and so on. And we'll recognize the 10 toes on the one
hand, the 10 heads on the other. We begin to realize these things do fit together like
a jigsaw puzzle. And of course, the winged lion was a symbol
of Babylon. The bear on one side is the ... rises
up in one side. The, the Persians and the Medes. There's a coalition in which the Persians will
end up being dominant. And, of course, the Greek Empire was characterized by its rapidity. Alexander in 12 years conquers the world.
Just a few years. At the age of 29, he falls in his bed crying "There's
no other worlds left to conquer." And so ... But Rome, of course, emerges in
roughly 68 BC and at the Battle of Actium is when Octavius defeats
Mark Antony and becomes Caesar Augustus. If you will. And you finally get down about 284 AD when
Diocletian divides the empire. Then it's grown so big he divides it into two
legs. In 312 AD, Constantine takes over. He's so fed up with the politics in Rome. He moves the capital of the world to Byzantium.
Calls it Constantinople, the new Rome. And, it endures till the end
of the 15th century when the Isla- ... the Muslims finally run it over. In 476, the Western empire, of course, breaks
into pieces and every element had it’s, had its day in the sun. But let's go to Daniel 8, the ram and the
he-goat. Oh, and by the way, Daniel 7 describes the
final empire as when God ... when Christ takes over the world and it goes into
all that. Daniel 8 is a detail now on the Persians and the Greeks. This is about two years after the vision of
Daniel Chapter 7. It's about 12 years before Daniel Chapter
5 when Babylon falls. Just to give you a rough feeling where this fits in chronologically. And, the ram is defeated by the goat. It's a rapid goat coming from the west. Clearly, it's very vivid description
of Alexander's conquest of the Persians. And, there's a notable horn namely Alexander himself, is killed and, four generals divided up the empire. And there's a little horn that has a key role
at the end. That's gonna be important later. And Daniel interprets this for us. A leader from the west obviously, Alexander
the Great, will subdue the medo-Persian Empire. Alexander the Great crosses the Hellespont
with 35,000 troops and he's fighting a powerful army in the hundreds of thousands. And he,
in a series of three battles, takes, wins. Takes them on. Here was a genius, an incredible general, and
he would be out there leading his troops, and he turned several of those battles from
defeat to victory by his personal involvement. Absolutely legendary series of events. That are well-documented, and there's obviously
a lot of popular movies coming out about it and so forth. And so, the one horned goat was the symbol
of the ancient Macedonians, and Aries the Ram is the symbol of Persia. Capricorn is the symbol of Greece. And in May 334, he crossed the Hellespont
with 35,000 troops and, of course, defeated the Persians at the Granicus River. And then a year later, he finds himself
at the Battle of Issus and wins that one. And, the final big one was Gaugamela
in October 331 BC which establishes the Greek Empire as the dominant guys of the block here. When Alexander dies shortly thereafter, he
makes Babylon his capital before he dies. He goes all ... By the way, he conquers all
the way to India. And Cassander takes the western part. The four generals divide it up. Lysimachus takes Thrace, Bythinia, and
most of Asia Minor. Asia Minor being what we think of as Turkey. Ptolemy takes the south. Egypt to Cyrenia, part of Arabia. And Seleucus takes the east. Syria, lands to the east all the way to India.
But much of that is hard to hang on to. And in this era ... there is going
to be a guy who rises who we're gonna talk more in the next session, Antiochus Epiphanes. He's a particular leader. He's not very important from a secular point
of view. He's extremely important from a Biblical point
of view and we'll get into that. But I want to focus very specifically on what's
the most astonishing passage in the entire Bible. It's the one that impacted my life as a teenager.
And it's never ceased to. In those days the materials that I was treated
to by some friends were very rare and it was unusual situation. Today, the materials we're dealing with are readily available in any competent bookstore. So you can check this all out. It's absolutely astonishing. Daniel Chapter 9. Little bit of background you want to ... As
you go into this, you want to understand the history of the English Bible a little bit. The original
Hebrew is sometimes called by scholars the Vorlage. But in 285 BC, before Christ, it was translated
into Greek. In those days, Greek was being enforced as
a language worldwide because of the influence of Alexander and his successors. If you were Jewish, you probably didn't
know Hebrew except for ceremonial purposes. Much as a Catholic knows Latin. It wasn't a common language to you. If you are Greek ... If you're a
Jew that was living in that world, you spoke Greek, you had a desire to have your scriptures
in your natural language, Greek. Well, under Ptolemy Philadelphus, in
Alexandria, the primary literary capital of the world in that time. He funded the
translation of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Tanach what we call the Old Testament, into Greek. It took 15 years. And we call the result of that work the Septuagint. It involves 70 scholars, some say 72 scholars.
The best they could find to do the translation, and so they called that translation the Septuagint,
fancy word for 70. It's usually abbreviated in Roman numeral
70, LXX. But the point is we have that work product. The Old Testament as it existed three centuries
before the ministry period of the New Testament, it's in our hands. It was in ... Daniel was in black and
white. I want to emphasize that, because you can set
aside who wrote what book, when. It doesn't matter. It was in black and white three centuries
before the gospel period. In fact, it's the Septuagint that becomes
the Christian's Bible. Most of the quotes in the New Testament that
are taken from the Old Testament are from the Greek Old Testament not the Hebrew. So, it's the Septuagint they're quoting from
interestingly enough. And so, I want you to under- be conscious
of the fact that we got 300-year anticipation of the New Testament here. Now, when four disciples come to Jesus for
confidential briefing on His second coming, he gives them a two chapter answer in Matthew. It's also recounted in Mark 13 and Luke 21. And in that, Jesus identifies the key event
of end-time prophecy. He points them to the passage we're going to
look at. He says to the disciples, "When you therefore
shall see ..." He first of all lists a bunch of things that are not signs. This, that, and the other thing will happen
but the end is not yet. But then he gets to verse 15 of Matthew 24. "When you therefore shall see the abomination
of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth,
let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee unto the mountains;" and you
split, you split now. He goes on for several verses to explain it. We're going ... We'll look at that later. But how many of you read that on the screen? Have you seen that passage? I did a dirty trick on you. 'Cause if you read that, you know, there's
a, there's a part of this is written to you. It says, "whoso readeth, let him understand." You know, we're gonna discover this gets a
little technical, but it's clearly the intent of Jesus Christ that His reader understand
what He's pointing to here. Are you with me? And we'll talk about the abomination
of desolation later but I want you to notice "this is spoken of by Daniel the prophet." Jesus Christ authenticates Daniel that he
was a prophet and He specifically points to the verses we're going to be looking at as the
key to the end times. And so let's just take a look at this. Daniel 9 is the chapter with the interrupted
prayer. The first 19 verses. He's reading from the Book of Jeremiah, and
he's reading where Jeremiah predicts that the captivity would be for 70 years. And he knows that the 70 years are almost
over. So, what does Daniel do about it? He goes to prayer. See, we're supposed to do the same thing. Most of us, when we get excited about the end time,
about Jesus coming soon, what do we do about it? What we're supposed to do is pray for it. That's what's in the Lord's Prayer. Thy kingdom come. That's a prayer. Prayer is God's way of enlisting you in what
He's doing. Well, that's exactly ... Daniel sets that example. And he goes in his prayer ... and when he ... It's
frustrating we can't take the time to get into the prayer. But even in the English translation, as you
read it, by the time you get to verse 18 and 19, you can feel Daniel tremble. As you read it, you'll see the frequency of
the verb start picking up ,because he's fee- he's getting into a frenzy. And his prayer
is interrupted by the arrival of a most unusual visitor. Gabriel comes to see him. We have two archangels that are super angels
that have names, and we know their job descriptions. Michael and Gabriel. Michael is always a military commander on
behalf of Israel. Gabriel is always an annunciator, always announcing
something having to do with the Messiah whether it's to Daniel here or to Mary in Luke, whichever. So, Gabriel visits in verse 20 to 23, and
he gives Daniel four verses that turn out to be the most astonishing verses in the Bible. They're known as the 70 weeks of Daniel from
verse 24 to the end of the chapter, verse 27, four verses. Seventy weeks of Daniel. Now, there's 70 shabu'im. I'll come back to that in a minute. The first of the four verses is the scope. The second of the four verses is 69 weeks
... 69 weeks. Then we encounter an interval and then the
70th week. Now, this sounds pretty simple, but it's very
important to understand that verse 25 encompasses 69 of the total weeks. Verse 27 encompasses the last final missing
week. Verse 26 talks about things after verse 25
but before verse 27 thus we infer the weeks are not contiguous. There's a gap. There's an interval. So, once you understand that, it all flows
and makes sense. The first of the four is verse 24, the scope. "Seventy sevens are determined upon my people,
upon my holy city." Seventy sevens, 70 shabu'ims but seventy sevens
is what it's really saying. If I told you I've got to leave, I'll be back
in a decade, when would you expect me? Ten years exactly. See, I didn't say years. I just said a decade. In Hebrew, they have week of days. We're obviously familiar with that. There's a week of weeks. That's what Shavuot is all about. There's a week of months. That's the ... from Nisan to Tishrei or Tishrei
Nisan either way is seven, seven months. And they all have a sabbatical year, seven
years. Six years you can plough the land. The seventh year you're supposed to leave
it at rest. There's a rest for the land also. So, in the Jewish mind there's seven ... There's all kinds of sevens. But a week of years is a very common unit
of measure. When Jacob labored for his wives,
he labored for seven years for one and seven years, the next one. He had to fulfill her week is the expression
in Genesis. And so, on it goes. Well, anyway, so these are obviously, weeks
of years. Seventy sevens, 70 weeks of years are determined
upon whom? Get this. It's very important to know this right away. "Upon thy people and the holy city." This has nothing to do with the church. It has to do with ... It's Jewish. Daniel was Jewish. "Upon thy people and upon thy holy city." So, it's the Jews in Jerusalem. It says seventy sevens are determined or reckoned
upon thy people upon thy holy city to do six things. To finish the transgression, to make
an end of sins, to make reconciliation for inequity, to bring in everlasting righteousness,
to seal up vision and the prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. Now, we could spend some time going through
each of these but it's pretty obvious that at least as a group, they are
not complete yet. Have we made an end of sins? Not so you'd notice. Have we finished transgressing? Pick up the daily paper any time. Have we brought in everlasting righteousness? And so on. So the point is this ... When this happens,
when this is finally ... when the seventy sevens are completed, that's all she wrote. There's a real sense of completion here. Are you with me? So, it isn't complete yet. So, the next verse, verse 25 deals with 69
of those weeks. And this is the one I want to focus on. Know therefore ... Gabriel says to Daniel,
"Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore
and to build Jerusalem ... " Daniel is in, in Babylon, Jerusalem is in rubble a couple of hundred miles to the west. But he knows that Jerusalem is ... they're gonna
re- ... The captivity is about over. It has the destiny to be rebuilt. Gabriel drops in and says, by the way, "Know
therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to
build Jerusalem unto the Mashiach Nagid, the Messiah the king, shall be seven weeks and
threescore and two weeks and the streets shall be built again and the wall even in troubled
times." Now, I want you notice "from" "unto". There are milestones. It's a ... The trigger, the beginning is a
commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem. Don't confuse that with the temple. The city is in view here and I'll explain
that to you in a minute. Unto the Mashiach Nagid. The word "nagid" is first used of Saul. It's Messiah the King. Shall be seven plus 62. Threescore and two. And notice the Holy Spirit adds something
here. The street shall be built again and the wall
even in troubled times. Why did the Holy Spirit put that in there? So you wouldn't get confused because it will
be preceded by some decrees to rebuild the temple. The issue here is not the temple, it's the
city of Jerusalem. Seventy sevens are determined upon by people
and the holy city, right? Okay. Now, so we have a mathematical prophecy. From the commandment to restore and build
Jerusalem unto the Messiah the King shall be 69 weeks. And it turns out we're indebted to Sir Robert
Anderson, the head of Scotland Yard. His landmark study of 1894 where he recognized
that in the Bible, for God's own reasons, He deals in 360-day years. He does that in Genesis. He does that in Revelation. And there's a whole thing behind that we could
get into and we do it when you study Joshua and the, the orbits of Mars and all that business,
but I won't get into that here. We know that the Biblical usage is 360-day
years and we're indebted to Sir Robert Anderson for unraveling this whole thing by recognizing
that particular thing. So, 69 times 7 times 360 turns out to be 173,880
days. And you don't have to remember that number. We'll get to that in a minute but,
they say there's ... Some of the Bible studies say there are four decrees to rebuild Jerusalem. Cyrus in 537, Darius, Artaxerxes 458. Another one by Artaxerxes in 445, and these
are all referred to in your Bible by the way, but in this, in verse 25, it spoke of
Rechob, the street and the wall or the moat. And those are Hebrew words. They have nothing to do with the temple. They have to do with the city. It turns out, that it's the city not the temple
that's in view in Daniel's prophecy. So this first three are having to do with
the temple not with the city. We're interested in the one by
Artaxerxes Longimanus in 445 BC. We know what that decree is. We know that from records that that was Mar-
on our calendar, it would be March 14th of 445 BC. The problem is, okay, great, when did Jesus
allow himself to be presented as a king? Several times in the gospel period. They tried to take him as a king and he says,
"Mine hour is not yet come." He slips away in John 6 and some other places. Then one day, Jesus did something very bizarre. He not only permits it, He arranges it. To deliberately fulfill Zechariah 9:9. In Zechariah the prophet said, "Rejoice greatly,
O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: Behold thy
King cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation. Lowly riding on an ass." In fact, I quote, the foal of an ass. "They King cometh unto thee." How He'll be recognized? Riding this donkey. And of course, we recognize that right way
as we look at Luke 19, when He's riding the donkey from Bethany up over
the Mount of Olives, down through the Kidron Valley to Jerusalem. And as they ... As He does so, they lay down
their palm branches and their coats and they sing Psalm 118. In Luke 19 verse 38 says, they're singing,
"Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven, glory in the highest." Have many of you heard the thing "this is
the day the lord hath made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it?" Sure. We've all heard that. We apply it to any day and that's okay but
that's not what it's about. That's Psalm 118 verse 26. It's talking about the day the Messiah presents
Himself. They're singing the song under these conditions. Now, any time, you and I as Gentiles, not
having a good Jewish background run the danger of missing something, the Pharisees come to
our rescue. Any time they get unglued ... Pay attention,
the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us something. 'Cause in the next verse, it says, "Some of the
Pharisees were among the multitude said unto Him, that is the Messiah, said, 'Master, rebuke
Thy disciples.'" What are they upset about? Because they recognized that by singing this
Psalm under these conditions they're declaring Him the Mashiach Nagid, and they assume
He certainly doesn't want them to blaspheme. You get the picture? You see why they're upset? He's ... He... They're declaring this guy the Messiah. The next verse, Jesus responds to them very
tactfully. He said ... He answered and said to them,
"I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." And I'm one of these cynics. I wish they would have shut up for a bit and
see if that is just a figure of speech. (Laughing) And I always tell my people when we're on
a tour, we go ... Almost every year, we go to Israel. Like most tour groups, we
will be up in the Mount of Olives 'cause it's a great picture outlook over Jerusalem,
over the Kidron Valley. And the next stop is usually Gethsemane which
is at the base of the Mount of Olives. The buses will drop you up there for your
pictures then let you walk down that road to Gethsemane which is usually your next stop
for devotional before going on wherever. Well, I always tell the group before they get
off the bus, "Take your pictures but then you have opportunity to get the best bargain
of Israel. As you walk down that road to Gethsemane,
pick up a couple of stones, put it in your pocket. And when you get home, mount them on a piece
of wood for your den or your desk at the office or wherever and, as a little ... as
a trophy. And when somebody is visiting and says, "What's
that?" You can say, "That's one of the stones that
didn't cry out." (Laughing) And you've got to- You got to explain Daniel 9. You get to Luke 19, and they brought it up,
you know. (Laughing) The chronology of Christ's ministry,
you should understand the ministry began in the fall of 28 AD. How do we know that? Tiberius was appointed in 14 AD. That means that ... See, Augustus died in
19 ... August 19th of 14 AD. And we know from Luke 3 verse 1 that
it was within the 15th year of the Tiberius. To be in the 15th year, there's 14 behind
them. So that's Year 28, under my reckoning. Do you follow me? And, we know that the crucifixion occurred
incident to the fourth Passover which would have been April 6th of the 32 AD. And
Sir Robert Anderson obviously nails all this down. There are other chronologies held by good
scholars, but most of them are contrived in order to support a Friday crucifixion. And there's a lot of reasons, about at least
three reasons from the scripture, he could not have been crucified on Friday. I won't get into all that here. We'll get into that later. But, so the point is, we know the trigger,
the terminus ad quo as they call it, the decree or Artaxerxes Longimanus March 14th of 445 BC. And we know the Triumphal Entry was on April 6th of 32 AD. What's interesting about this is the Septuagint
translation of the Old Testament occurs roughly a third of the way there - from between the two. And, in other words, 300 years earlier
is the translation that's in black and white. So this is not contrived by some rabbis. This was in black and white before it happened. Well, from 445 BC to 32 AD is 173,740 days
if you go through your arithmetic. From March 14 to April 6 is another 24 days. If you go through the leap year calculation,
there's another 116 days to deal with and in turns out that adds up to, guess what? 173,880. What was Gabriel's margin of error? Five centuries in advance, he predicts the
exact day that Jesus Christ presents himself as the Mashiach Nagid to Jerusalem. When you think that through, that is staggering
proof of just who Jesus Christ is. He is the Messiah of Israel. If you want a Messiah of Israel, it has to
be somebody that was killed before this date and conforms to all the other specifications. Crucifixion of Christ was not a tragedy. It was an achievement, fulfilling specifications
that were laid down as early as Eden and following. But we're not through. In Luke 19, Jesus, as He's coming up
over the hill on the donkey, when He's coming near it says, "He beheld the city," and what
did He do? He wept over it. And notice what He says carefully. "Wept over it saying, If thou hadst known,
even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are
hidden from thine eyes." He expected them to know this day and because
they didn't know it, they're now blinded. Forever? No. Paul will tell us they're blinded only tell
Romans 11:25 "till the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." "This thy day but now they're hidden from
thine eyes." Then He goes on, He says, "For the days shall
come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round,
and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children
within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another." And indeed the Roman legions, the 5th, 10th,
12th, and 15th Roman legions 38 years later. It's very interesting that when Israel failed
to take charge of the land at Kadesh Barnea, they were destined to wander in the land for 38 years. We say 40 in round figures, but it was 38 years. It's interesting that because they didn't
recognize their Messiah 38 years later, the Roman legions lay siege, slaughter over a
million inhabitants, men, women and children. Another half million died due to pestilence that followed. Why was Jerusalem destroyed in 70 AD? One of the biggest milestones in the Jewish calendar? Why was Jerusalem destroyed in 70 AD? There are a lot of good answers to that. Let's look at Jesus's answer. The rest of that verse. "Because thou knewest not the time of thy
visitation." You know that's chilling. Jesus held them accountable. I personally believe He'll hold us accountable,
too. We've had a lot more light than they did and
I think He holds us accountable, too. They knewest not the time of visitation. The next verse talks about the interval, "After
threescore and two weeks, shall the Mashiach be cut off, karat, but not for Himself, and
the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; the end
thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined." Karat, to be executed for capital crime. The Messiah is gonna be killed. Yes, it says so in the Old Testament. Daniel said so in several places. Daniel 9:26, Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, et cetera. It also introduces another character, "the
prince that shall come." We know who the people were that destroyed
the city and sanctuary, but here it describes the people of the prince that shall come. The prince that shall come is one of 33 titles
in the Old Testament of a coming world leader. We tend to call him the Antichrist. Who are the people of the prince that shall
come? The Romans. That's why we think the prince is a Roman. That doesn't he's from Western Europe. We have other evidence that indicates that
he is an Assyrian, from the Roman Empire as it's extended in the old days. So, we have this interval during which the
crucifixion takes place. It takes about four days after the event of
the donkey. Temple is destroyed. More than 38 years, we've got 2000 that we've
experienced before the seven, the last final week. So the interval ... This interval by the way
is implied in 24 different verses throughout the Bible. The 24 is a very interesting number 'cause
it's also a symbol of the church from Revelation. The interval is defined as I mentioned from
Luke 19:42 to Romans 11:25. And, it's the period of the church. That's an era that's kept secret in the Old
Testament pretty much. And Paul explains it in Ephesians 3, the church
is born at Pentecost and, there are prerequisites for the church, the atonement,
the resurrection and the ascension all had to precede it. Spiritual gifts are only given after the ascension. So, there's a whole ecclesiological ... study
of ecclesiology necessary here, but let's move on. The last verse of Daniel 9, and he that is
the prince that shall come, if it's a pronoun, it always refers to the last mentioned antecedent.
Which is, of course, the prince that shall come, "shall enforce the covenant with the many,"
it's idiom for Israel, for one week, the final week, "and in the midst of the week he will
cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease ..." That causes us to infer that somehow the
covenant that he's enforcing allowed them to indulge in the sacrifice and oblations. So we know the temple is standing by the time
you get to the middle of the week. We don't know when the temple is built. It could be built during the first half of
that week or years or even earlier. Who knows? But he desecrates it here. He causes sacrifice and oblations to cease. Paul details this for you in 2nd Thessalonians 2, and elsewhere. "And for the overspreading of abominations
he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be
poured upon the desolate." And so ends Daniel 9. In this verse, we find time, times, half a time. We find that in Daniel 7:25, in Daniel 12:7,
Revelation 12:14. So half, the half weeks are called three and
a half years in some places, 42 months other places, 1260 days. The Holy Spirit's done everything ... It's
the most documented period of time in the Old Testament and the most documented period
of time in the New Testament. The strange two half ... half weeks of years. And, so. In fact, every detail in the
scriptures is by design. When we get to John 10, right in the middle of John 10, the Hol-
the, ... Jesus giving us the good shepherd discourse, but right in the middle, it says
it was Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication, and it was winter. And if you're a normal, you know, a normal
human being, you go on and read on, but if you've been to one of my Bible studies, you're
no longer a normal well-adjusted human being. You know that everything that's there is there
deliberately. Why did the Holy Spirit want you to know that
it was Jerusalem, the Feast of Dedication, and it was winter? Well, what ... what Dedication could that
be? Solomon's temple was dedicated in the fall
according to First Kings 8. The Second Temple, Zerubbabel's
temple was dedicated in the spring according to Ezra 6. What temple occurred in the winter? The rededication of the temple on the 25th
of Kislev when anti- ... celebrating the rededication subsequent to Antiochus Epiphanes desecrating
it, that happened two centuries before Jesus made the remark and we're going to talk about that. There's a very peculiar event called the Abomination
of Desolation that we'll talk more about in the next session. It ushers in a period of time, a time of trouble
as the world has never seen that time or ever would see again. And Jesus himself labels it the Great Tribulation
by quoting from Daniel 12. And the two halves of that week, as I say,
are documented many, many times over. And, Jesus says that further in His
discussion with His disciples. "There should be great tribulation such as
was not since the beginning of the world to this time nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened,
there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened." He's quoting from Daniel 12. We haven't gotten there yet but it says, "And
at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of
thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never since there was a nation even
to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be
found written in the book." And Jesus says in another place, in Hosea,
He says, "I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offense, and seek
my face: in their affliction they will seek me earnestly." In order for Him to return, He must have left
His place, right? So even though that's in Hosea last verse
of Chapter 5, it's obviously is referring to the return of Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of the week, of course,
we have the second coming, and, we have the gathering of the church and there's three
... a number of different views, some feel the gathering of the church is at the end
of the seven years. Some feel it's the middle, some a little later
than the middle. We hold the view ourselves, that it's before the 70th week even starts. In fact, by a short distance ahead, probably. There are good scholars supporting each one
of these and we will discuss the pros and cons of each of one of these later in the
study. What we do know is that 69 weeks are behind us. The 70th week we believe, for lots of indicators, are not far away. So, it's an exciting time. You might be interested to know that the 490
years that are represented by 70 weeks is the fourth such period in Israel's history.
Because if you take the period from Abraham to the Exodus and subtract out the years that
they were in disfavor, it was 505 years on the one hand and by just taking out the
15 years, it was ... Ishmael was the usurper in effect, you have 490 years. If you go from Exodus to the temple, it's
601 years, but if you subtract out the servitudes of the judges which are 111 years, you again
get this interesting number of 490 years. If you go from the temple to the edict of
Artaxerxes, you again have 560 years, but you subtract the 70 years of the Babylonian
captivity, you have again 490 years. And, of course, from Artaxerxes to the first
half of the 69 weeks plus the 70th week, we don't know the interval. The interval of Israel is set aside for the
moment. So, this is, I think, first ... was first
noticed by Clarence Larkin back in 1919, but it's an interesting possibility I share before you. Daniel 10 will give us a glimpse of the dark
side, a very brief episode here. It's a prelude to the final two chapters of
the book. Daniel fasts for 21 days. An angel is sent. When he gets there, he points out he was withstood
for 21 days by a creature called the prince of the kingdom of Persia, one of Satan's hosts. And he can't get through until Michael comes
and helps him. When assisted by Michael the chief prince. And he's explained to Daniel he's gonna give
him a subsequent vision. That will be Daniel ... The last two verses
... last two chapters of Daniel, Daniel 11 and 12. And he'll have ... Then he'll have to go back
and deal with that, the prince of Persia and then he also have to deal with the prince
of the power of Greece. This is just a glimpse, but we get the impression
here that there are demonic hosts behind each of the major world empires. After all, it is Satan's world, isn't it? But you can't help ... It doesn't say this,
but you can't help but wonder, is there a linkage between Daniel's fast and his ability to get through? Daniel fasts for 21 days. He was sent when Daniel started and he gets
through after the 21 days to give him these visions that are coming. You sort of wonder, what would have happened
if Daniel stopped his fast after 19 days? Does it ... Is there anything ... Is there
a link between them? We don't know. It's suggested, isn't it? And, of course, anyway, the empire gets divided
in Chapter 11, and we have the detail as I mentioned to you before of the period between
the testaments. And I won't take you through these, but there's
half dozen Ptolemaic dynasties that fight with half a dozen Antiochus
dynasties and they're so de- ... the first verses 5 to 35 are so detailed, that the experts have
had to try to say that Daniel must have been late dated. And, it was in Ptolemy Philadelphus,
by the way, that the Septuagint was translated and so on. But, so the detailed profile is there,
and it also includes the last few verses, give us a detailed background on this coming
world leader which we'll be taking up in the subsequent session. But the Bible has over 8,000 predictive verses
on almost 2,000 predictions on over 700 different matters according to one categorization by
J. Barton Payne in Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy. In other words, the Bible is largely prophetic. And as we look around the world today, we see major
themes in Israel, Jerusalem, The Temple, Babylon, Russia, the rise of China, Europ- ... the emergence of a European super state. While all this is going on, a tide towards ecumenical religion. Let's all get together. A global government tide on the rising, and,
of course, the rise of the occult. Each one of these is predicted in the scripture. Each one of these is measurably emerging on
our horizon. Not one of them. It's not some one little thing. It's all of them. The tide of each one of them is clearly setting
the stage for the big climax coming. Check it out. And the more you know about your Bible and
the more you know about what's going on in the world, the more you'll begin to see that
we are converging to the big climax. And the ultimate issue, of course, is that you
and I are in the possession of a extraterrestrial message. And it portrays us as both the pawns
and the prize of an unseen warfare. And our eternal destiny depends upon a relationship
with the ultimate victor in this cosmic conflict. Where do you stand with respect to Him? Now, in the next session we'll talk about
the decree of Cyrus. That's a very colorful thing. It will blow you away. We'll talk about Ezra, the rebuilding of the
temple and the Book of Nehemiah which focuses on rebuilding of Jerusalem. And we'll talk
about one of the most colorful dramas in the Bible, the Book of Esther. It will ha- ... It will have some ... It's, it's
quite a drama, very colorful. It also hidden underneath the text are some
surprises that we'll share with you and then we’ll talk a little bit about the inter-testament
period in the next session. Stay with us.
