Harrison, Jeffrey: Ministry From Daniel ~ Daniel Chapter 8 & 9

To the eighth chapter of the book of Daniel. Daniel chapter eight and verse seventeen. So he came near, that is Gabriel, so he came near where I stood, and when he came, I was afraid and fell upon my face. But he said unto me, understand, O son of man, for at the time of the end shall be the vision. Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground, but he touched me and set me upright. And he said, behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation, for at the time appointed the end shall be. The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia. And the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up, and his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. He shall destroy wonderfully and shall prosper and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also, he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand. And he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many. He shall also stand up against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without hand. And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true. Wherefore, shut thou up the vision, for it shall be for many days. And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick certain days. Afterward I rose up and did the king's business, and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it. In the first year of Darius, the son of Aesuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes, and I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession. Now verse twenty. And whilst I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God, yea, whilst I was praying in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision of the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. And he informed me and talked with me and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of the supplications, the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee, for thou are greatly beloved. Therefore, understand the matter and consider the vision. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgressions and to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and the prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Now therefore, know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks. The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the prince shall, that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. And the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. 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 God will bless to us his own precious word. Now, just a few moments in the eighth chapter, because, uh, it's in chapter seven that we've dealt with the four of the Gentile kingdoms, and chapter eight is just enlarging upon the center two. If I can say it, it's the torso of the image. It's the Medo-Persian, the breast and the arms of silver, and then it's the Grecian, which is the belly and the thighs of brass. So here, Daniel is given a closer look at the things concerning these two kingdoms. So that this is history. To a great extent, chapter eight is just history. Now we can look back on this, and looking back on this, we can see the truth of that that was revealed to Daniel before it had happened. You notice, for instance, that Daniel is not in Babylon in his vision. He's in Shushan in the province of Elam. Now Shushan is the capital of the Persian Empire in the province of Elam. So that in spirit he's transported from where he lives there in Babylon right over to the capital of Persia now, so that being put in the place, he's going to have a vision that reveals to him the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. So that here we have a wonderful introduction to Daniel's vision. He's not staying where he was in vision. He's being transported to the capital of that kingdom that is going to follow on the Babylonian Empire. Now, we are left in no doubt as to who the ram and the he-goat might be, God tells us. He tells us the ram is the kingdoms of the Medes and the Persians, and he tells us that the he-goat is the kingdom of Grisia, and the first notable horn is their first king. So we're not left in any doubt at all. It's quite clear about that. In fact, when we do come to the kingdoms, and we're going back in history, the beast that the Medo-Persians did adopt was a ram. And instead of the kings wearing a crown, they wore a golden ram with two great horns. They wore that upon their head. And indeed, the coinage of the Medes and the Persians bears the ram upon one side of it. Now, when we turn to the Grecian Empire, we won't be surprised to discover that the goat is the national beast of the old Grecian Empire. And according to tradition, the first king of Greece, he followed a herd of goats to the resting place and believed that it was by the direction of his gods that there he was to build his capital, and there he did build his capital, and it was called the Goat City. And indeed, the waters surrounding his dominions, the Aegean Sea, is nothing but the sea of gods, and their coinage to, to cut the goat upon one side of them. So that apart from the revelation that God gives, history makes it quite clear, uh, that these two beasts are the Medes and the Persians, and then the Grecian Empire. Now, first of all, we have the ram, this notable ram, and it tells us the directions that he goes in, and so it tells us where he starts from. He moves in the direction of the north, the west, and the south, so he must have been in the east, and that's where he was. The Persian Empire was just there. But he's moving in every direction, and there's none able to withstand him in all his weight and his power. Notice his ability and his prowess. It says no beast might stand before him. That's the Medes and the Persians. Notice too that it didn't matter what alliances people made. It says this, none could deliver any out of his hand. Notice too the assertion of his power he did according to his own will. And uh, notice uh that he becomes great. That is his attainment. So that the second empire is greater than the first. You'll notice that in the image it is intended to convey that the second kingdom bears the weight of the first kingdom. It's below it, and there the head of gold rests upon the shoulders and the breasts of silver. So that it's able to take it in. It's able to just wrap it up in its vast empire. It's become great. It's reached this place of attainment. Now, this great king turns his attention to Greece. It lies in the west, and he's going to move westward. And as I pointed out just briefly last evening, he made his incursions into Greece just as raiding parties, and he had no interest, uh, to annex or possess the country at all. He was quite content to stay on that side of the waters. In fact, Greece, Rome, and anything west of Persia, it was barbaric, and it had very little of civilization whatsoever. I'm quite sure you understand that when Rome was just coming up as a youngster, Carthage under Hannibal the Great King, coming up from North Africa, was a greater personality and a mightier power to be reckoned with than Rome was just then. The power hadn't moved westward, it had belonged to the east. And so this great king, he moves in his own power, annexes the Babylonish empire, and he has become great, and he leaves him there. Then he says another king arises, and he's the he goat with two, with one great horn. It's between his eyes. Now this one is moving that quickly that it says his feet don't touch the ground. Well, we even say that today, don't we? He went that quick that his feet didn't even touch the ground. Well, they get it from here. They get quite a lot of statements from the scriptures. Alas, my poor brother. That's where they get it from, uh, when the old prophet went out to, to find the prophet that had prophesied against Jeroboam killed by the, the lion. You remember? There's quite a lot of these, uh, modern statements that come out of the old book. Now, he moves that quick. I won't go into this one, but God says that notable horn is the first king of Greece. We know who he was. He becomes the king at twenty, he dies when he's thirty two, and he's pushed back every power that could be reckoned against him, and he sits down upon the throne of the world. I'm speaking about Alexander the Great. Now, uh twenty years after, this man died childless, he, or should I say, heirless, not hairless, you make the difference. He- his first son died in battle before Alexander, and his younger son actually was murdered. And so the kingdom of, uh, Alexander, it just lay in its unste- settled state for about twenty years. And then you'll notice that four horns come up toward the four winds of heaven. Now here seems to be a pattern, brother and sister. Things don't just happen at random. There's pattern. And here we have the four winds of heaven, as we have in chapter seven, striving upon the great sea, laboring to bring forth, and out of the Gentile hosts there comes the picture of four great empires. And here the four great winds of the heaven are brought to us again, spiritual powers, and they're bringing into being in this great Grecian empire, four great generals that are going to cut up the kingdom for themselves. Do you know, I, uh, going back a while now, I read a book, I think it was called J'accuse, and it was the story of an American journalist that went over to Germany after the fourteen eighteen war, and he interviewed a number, twelve actually, uh, notabilities of Germany that had now been defeated, including Hindenburg. And the one that I want to speak about was a man by the name of Rathenoff, Rathenor, I should say, and he was the Minister of Economics during the fourteen eighteen war, and he was reputed to have extended that war six months by his economic genius and juggling, that by the way. And during the conversation that he had with this Rathenau, uh, he asked him the question, uh, can you forecast any movement or any direction in the future as to what states and powers are going to arise. He said, when it'll be, I don't know. It won't be in my day, it might be in the next generation, but there will arise three great powers in the world. He says the three will be Russia, China, and America. Now, if you're old enough to look back to the First World War, uh, you'll realize that Russia and China were beneath everybody's notice. There was nothing in Russia, and there was nothing in China that anyone should take any note of at all. Uh, the uh, Bolshevik Revolution, it hadn't happened, and uh, China was just a sprawling place that was inhabited by teeming millions. And he said this, it will all depend upon which side China falls. If it falls on the side of Russia, then Russia will be the predominant power. If it falls on the side of America, then America will be the predominant power. It's happened, hasn't it? And a man like that, without any spiritual insight, he could look twenty, forty years ahead, and he could forecast as to the state of things. But this is what I want to bring out, brother and sister. As far as ideologies are concerned, China has fallen on the side of Russia, but Russia hasn't gained by it, because the balance of power does not rest in human hands. It rests in the hands of God, and that's what we've got to consider here. And one man held his kingdom, and in the course of twelve years, he lifted it from a provincial kingdom to a worldwide empire, and then twenty years after, four horns went out to the four winds of heaven, as though spiritual powers are responsible for the things that are being wrought in the political scene. Now, Hebrews two gives an inference, and he says the world to come is not subject to angels, inferring that the world that is now is subject to angels. We can go into that a little later on, maybe tomorrow or Thursday night. And so you can see the inference of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians six: We wrestle not against blood and flesh, but against spiritual wickedness in high places, against the rulers of this world's darkness. And here we have brought before us spiritual powers that are making their weight felt in a world of men. And I believe that is the thought, that out of this Grecian empire there comes the four notable Hobbes, the four generals, and as far as we are concerned, there are only two that we need to bother about. There's the one that we referred to last evening that becomes the king of the north, the line of the Seleucidae, and then the one that goes down to Egypt and becomes known as the king of the south, or as he becomes known as the Ptolemies. Now, this is history. I'm reading one at present and enjoying it, but I'm discovering this, that whether I look at Kelly or whether I look here or whether I look there, I don't know, perhaps they've all got it from the same source. Well, they must have done, and they all tell the same story, everyone. Now, let's look at these, uh, two horns, uh, the one in particular, because he's concentrating on the king of the north. And he says, from these four horns, there springs up a little horn, and the word is a horn of littleness, a horn that no one would have bothered about at all, an insignificant horn that anyone could walk past it and forget that it was there and not even recognize it. A little horn coming up out of the fall. Now let's get this quite clear. In chapter seven, we've had reference to a little horn there, but that little horn comes up out among the ten horns, and the ten horns belongs to the fourth kingdom, which is the Roman Empire. But this little horn comes up out of the four horns, and the four horns belongs to the third empire. So the two little horns are not the same. The little horn out of the ten, that's going to be the beast out of the Roman Empire. But the little horn here out of the four is that notorious, wicked, violent person, uh, that, uh, almost everybody knows as Antiochus Epiphanes. Now, there were a lot of other Antiochuses and, uh, uh, Seleucus, uh, it's a bit awkward, uh, other kings bearing the name of, uh, uh, Seleucus that comes up after this Antiochus Epiphanes. But God stops at this man, Antiochus, and he stops at him for a real purpose, because this man has something to do with the people of God. Now, I don't know whether I mentioned it to you or not last evening, but this Antiochus the Little Horn, his father, Antiochus the Great, had been meddling with somebody else's kingdom. It was Greece, actually, and Greece had a, a covenant or a league with Rome, and so they appealed to Rome to come and help them, and Rome comes over and defeats Antiochus the Great, and he sends him back home again, and he puts him under tribute for fifteen thousand talents. Now that's a lot. fifteen thousand talents. You'll read about him in chapter eleven. Now, to make sure that Antiochus the Great was going to pay his fifteen thousand talents, he took little Antiochus the Great's son to Rome, and he held him as a hostage, and there he'd stay until the fifteen thousand talents was paid. So that's why he got there. From what I can gather, he was there for about fourteen years. Well, he was only the younger son. There was one better than him, older than him, that should have got to the throne. He was murdered, and the usurper takes the throne. Now, Antiochus comes away from Rome. He comes through Greece, and he comes back again into his own land. He doesn't come with the power of an Alexander. He doesn't come with a great host. He doesn't come with swiftness. No, no, no. He comes with subtlety and with guile. And beginning in a small way, he deceives the people until he stands where he wants to be. He's Antiochus. Now, this man that calls himself Theos Epiphanes, God manifested. He had another name, Epimanes, God, uh, the madman. That's what he called him behind his back, Matthew. Now, this man vents his spleen upon the nation of Israel. We can't go into that. We'll deal with that in chapter eleven. You'll find all the intricate workings there. But he vents his spleen upon the nation of Israel, and he goes into the temple, and he offers a sow upon the altar, and then he builds his altar on top of it, and he erects an idol to Zeus Olympus. That's who he believes he is incarnate, the father of the gods incarnate. And he demands that the whole of the nation, they worship the image that he set up, and he's desecrated the whole of the temple, and it was called the abomination that maketh desolate. Now, don't mix that one up with Antiochus Epiphanes and the one that you find in the twelfth chapter of the book of Daniel. Now, this is the reason why God is tracing the history of these two nations, the Medo-Persian and then on to the Grecian, until he comes to Antiochus Epiphanes, because that's the man that is going to be like a man that is going to come, that is going to tread down the people of God in another day, a day that is yet to come. Now, some say that from verse twenty three is prophecy, that in the latter time of the kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences, he'll come. But as far as I'm concerned, all that this is, is the interpretation of the vision that Daniel has had. And this fierce king, with his fierce countenance and understanding dark sayings, is none other person than Antiochus himself. Now, let's go into chapter nine then. In chapter seven, he's given us an overall view. In chapter eight, he's concentrated on two because he wants our attention drawn to that Antiochus Epiphanes, because he's the picture of the man that is yet to be. Now, we come to the first year of Darius the Mede. Now, when we come to Darius the Mede, of course we're coming to the end of the seventy years of captivity, aren't we? Oh yes, when the Babylonish Empire is destroyed, then they're going to be promised liberty. And actually, it's in the first year of Cyrus the Persian, uh, that the commandment goes forward, that any that are so inclined and so minded that wish to return to Jerusalem, then they have the opportunity to do so. But now here is Daniel. When the Babylonish Empire has come and gone, and Daniel has lived through its long years, he turns to the book of, books of prophecies, and he understands in the books of Jeremiah how long and what time. And so he begins to pray. Will you notice that? He begins to pray. He's not just looking at prophecy out of curiosity, brother and sister, and neither should you and I. Our heart should respond to the declo- disclosure of the divine will, and our heart should rejoice as we see it displayed before our heart and know quite well that whatsoever God has said shall surely come to pass. And so, because the seventy years have come to the close, and he's searched the whole matter out in the books of the prophecies of Jeremiah, then he gets down upon his knees and he begins to pray. Will you notice that he fasts? Will you notice that he covers himself with sackcloth and ashes? Will you notice that he makes confessions? This man that has been living for God for seventy years here in Babylon, a pagan empire. This man that has pleased God, that God has kept him there in his high and lofty estate before the kings of that vast kingdom. This man is making confession. Brother and sister, I'm persuaded of this, that the nearer a heart is to God, the more conscience- conscious it is of sin. And when I see God's people just doing what they like and going where they like and behaving how they like, with a very little impression and understanding and estimate of what sin really is. They're shouting it abroad, brother and sister. You can't hide it behind your coat. We're shouting it abroad, how far we're living away from God. You can't do it. You can't. And so it becomes clear to the one that seeks to walk with God, that is beginning to see what sin really means in the presence of God. He can see just where his brethren and sisters are living, according to their estimate of sin in their own lives. So, in another sense, brother and sister, Moses was right. Be sure you are sinned. We'll find you out. Now here's a man that has been living his life of holiness, and he's making confession. Will you notice that's what Nehemiah did? He confessed his sin to God, and he talks about himself not behaving as he ought to do. Now yet his fathers, and he'll take his place with all the people. Doesn't stand aloof and say, I am more holier than thou. He takes his place with them all, with everyone. After all, they were dwelling in sealed houses, were they? A lot of them didn't want to go back again to Babel, uh, to Jerusalem. No. They were living their own lives of ease and comfort and sensuously, and there didn't seem to be anybody rising up with a desire to go back to Jerusalem. And when everything seemed to be hopeless, and the years of the captivity ended didn't seem to matter, here's a man down on his knees before God. This is the man of God. Let's have a look at something about the prophet then. Will you notice this about the prophet? He knows the word of God. You'll notice that. I understood by the books, he says, and the prophet is the one that knows the word of God. He's got to be able to say, thus saith the Lord. And can I say it kindly, brother and sister? If there's one thing basically wrong with Christians today, it's they don't know the word of God. Hm? Oh, I think we're living on a reputation that's about one hundred and fifty years old. We used to be known as men of the book, didn't we? Mm-hmm. Oh, you could almost pick a paper up at random, and uh, and they'd say, well, there's one thing the brethren are known for, noted for, they know the book. Oh yes. But I don't think it is so now. Now, if we're going to be of any service or any value to God at all, we've got to know the book. Daniel knew his book, and so he understood from the scriptures. Will you notice this? He understood the character of God. Will you notice he calls him a righteous God here? He doesn't try to get round things. He doesn't try to make God gloss over the sin of his people. He calls him a righteous God, and we have done wickedly in thy sight. He's ready to expose the whole matter before a righteous God, for God can only deal with the thing righteously. Oh yeah. Do you know, I'm quite sure some of us think that God has come down to our level to save us. He didn't. God has brought us up to his level, and God has saved us on his terms and not on our terms. Why? That God might be just and yet the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus, and that's the ground upon which God saves a sinner, on the ground of righteousness. And that's where God would have us be always. And when God is dealing with his people, he deals with them on a righteous ground. These things I write unto you that ye sin not, but if any man sin, ye have an advocate with the Father. Who? Jesus Christ the righteous. And there righteously in the presence of God, I'm presented before the Father on a righteous ground. He knows the character of God. Oh, it would be well if we knew that a little more. I think we'd walk, we'd tread more softly, don't you think? Notice something else too. He knows the heart of God, and so he speaks of his mercy. It's a God of righteousness that can dispense mercy, isn't it? For God, who is rich in mercy, for the great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, quickened us together with Christ. Notice something else. He knows the people of God too, and he identifies himself with the people, and he says, we have sinned. We have sinned. Now ponder those points of prayer. Now let's come on. Now, out of his consideration of seventy years captivity, there comes this vision of seventy weeks. His heart has been burdened with the thought of seventy years. Now they're ended. Now they ought to be going back into liberty. Now the city ought to be build- building. Now their emancipation. Now they can come on in glory. And now out of the vision, or out of the seventy years, there comes the vision of seventy weeks. For the end of the captivity is not the coming in to blessing. That's what he's saying. Actually, the word is seventy sevens, isn't it? The word years is only just put in, it's seventy sevens. They're days of years. Altogether, they come to four hundred and ninety, don't they? Now, notice the extent of those years, and it says this. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. There are six things that are going to be accomplished when those seventy weeks are fulfilled. Those six things are going to be the consummation of the seventy weeks. Not at the end of the sixty ninth week, not in the middle of the seventieth week, but the seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon Jerusalem, uh, to bring in all these things. Now, brother and sister, these six things are going to happen in the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. It has nothing to do with the day of grace. It doesn't come in. Daniel didn't know a thing about the day of grace. He didn't know a thing about the church, and so there's nothing about the church. It's concerning thy people, which is the Jewish nation. So it's seventy weeks, four hundred and ninety years concerning the children of Israel. Now, can I point out, brother and sister, that God has cast off his people. There's no doubt about it. He's not dealing with the nation of Israel as a nation. Oh, I know they've gone back, brother and sister. I know that. I know they've gone back in unbelief too. And I know that they're going to be scattered again when God takes them up as a nation. But God finished with Israel as a nation, I believe, away there in Matthew twenty three, when the Lord Jesus looks over Jerusalem and he says, your house is left desolate unto you, and ye shall see me henceforth no more until ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. So from the time they rejected the Messiah, Israel were put up on one side. You'll notice in Acts chapter two when the Jews came to Peter and said, the, um, what must we do? It says that, uh, he exhorted them, and he said, save yourselves from this untoward generation. Now, that wasn't the folk that were living at the time. The generation is the race. Save yourselves from this perverse race, so that if they wanted to be saved, they had to come out from that perverse race of the nation of Israel because it had been rejected, it had been put upon one side. They had to change their thought concerning the Messiah that had come. They had to accept him as the Savior and the Messiah if they wanted to be saved. They had to come out from that race that had been rejected. Do you remember what James says in Acts fifteen? After this, as Simeon says, he's visiting the Gentiles to take out the people for his name, that's now. And he says, after this, I will return and build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen in ruins. So that not only the nation was rejected, but the royal saint was there in ruins. And God had put it all up in one side, and he was doing nothing with it. Now, I want to explain that because in between the sixty ninth week and the seventieth week, there comes this present parenthesis of the church's experience from Pentecost to the time that the Lord Jesus is coming to take his people home, the rapture, as we call it. Now, none of that period is here in the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel. That's why it seems to run concurrently, one after the other, without any break. Now, notice the order of things. From the time of the going forth of the commandment to build the city and the walls and the street. Until the time that Messiah is cut off is going to be seven weeks plus sixty two weeks. Now, God has made the division, not me, and the reason for the division is this, that the building of Jerusalem and building its great market street and building its wall, the word could mean a moat, to make it safe from any invasion, it took forty nine years. It was built in troublous times. Now that is the first seven weeks, Forty nine years, seven weeks of seven years each. And then the further sixty two years was from the time that they were established in the city and had all their troubles until the time that the Messiah came and was cut off. And that was another sixty two weeks. So that if you pop the seven together and the sixty two with it, you've got four hundred and eighty three years. You're still seven years short, and that's the seventieth week. Now, I don't know whether any of you have got the book by Sir Robert Anderson at home, The Coming Prince, but have a look at it. And he went to great pains to write to the, um, astronomical expert, uh, I can't be more precise than that, but he's someone airy at the time, and uh, asked for a particular moon phase around such and such a time at such and such a year, and he was given the exact day, and it was the day when Nehemiah, in obedience to the commandment of Artaxerxes the king, in the twentieth year of his reign, went to build the city of Jerusalem again. Now we know that, that's in the second book of the chapter of the book of Nehemiah. And you can work not in years now, not four hundred and eighty three years, but you can work to the day and use lunar months of thirty days each, and you can trace it day by day to the exact number of days in the four hundred and eighty three years that brings you to the Lord Jesus going through Jerusalem, sat upon an ass in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah, where he's presenting himself for the last time as Israel's king. Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, sitting upon an ass and a colt the fall of an ass. And they rejected his claims as king, and shortly afterward they took him out, and he was cut off and had nothing. And so we find the prophecy of the set of the sixty nine weeks has been fulfilled just then. Now, it's interesting to notice that God does not reckon time when he's not dealing with his people. That might be a strange thing to you. Let me give an illustration. I don't know whether you've done it, and I don't know whether it caused you any concern about it, but it did me the first time that I read it. If you turn to First Kings chapter six verse one, we are told quite plainly that it was four hundred and eighty years from the Exodus to Solomon coming to the throne. Four hundred and eighty years. But if you turn to the thirteenth chapter of the book of the Acts, and you try to work it out, because all the ages are given there, if you try to work it out from the Exodus until Solomon did come upon the throne, do you know how far, how long it is? It's five hundred and seventy three years. Now there's a good discrepancy, isn't it now? Let anyone get hold of that, they make a lot out of it. There in First uh, Kings six, it says it's only four hundred and eighty, but when we come to the thirteenth of Acts, it says it's five hundred and seventy three. There's a period of ninety three years that we've got to, uh, find a place for. Now, this is the reason, brother and sister. If you look in the book of Judges, you'll find that there are periods when Israel go into captivity. They're not in possession of their land. Have a look at it. Away there from the time that they, uh, fell under the king of, uh, Mesopotamia, Cushan-Rashafim, right until the end, when they're in bondage to the Philistines. And if you take those number of years that they were in servitude to the kings, do you know how many it comes to? That's right. ninety three years. God is not reckoning the time when they're under his judgment and put up on one side, and God isn't reckoning this time with Israel. They've been put up on one side. He's dealing with the church. But it does say this. After Messiah has been cut off, the people of the prince that shall come, now not the prince, no, he's not come yet, it's the prince that shall come, but the people of the prince that shall come are going to destroy the city and the temple, and then after the wars, there's going to be desolations, uh, until the determined time. Now, the destruction of the city and of the temple, that did happen, and it happened in the seventieth year AD under Titus, as he was then the son of Vespasian, the newly crowned Caesar at Rome, and he destroyed the city. And if you'd like to read some horrible, gory, determined, stubborn reading, then read Josephus on the siege of Jerusalem during those closing months of its siege in AD seventy. Now that was fulfilled. Messiah was cut off and had nothing. Then the city and the temple was going to be destroyed by the people of the prince that was to come. Now we know who the people were that destroyed it. They were the people of the Roman Empire. So here's a prince of that people that is going to come. He hasn't come yet, but a Roman prince is going to come. And this is the little horn that is going to come out of the ten horns of the seventh. And there is Israel in the land. And of course, the king of the north is there again, and the king of the south is there again. We won't enlarge on it now. And of course, as she was before, she could be the nut between the crackers. When the Seleucids and the Ptolemies were there on either side, when they wanted to make war, then they made the little country of Israel the battleground. They were always the nut that was being cracked, and always the little country that was either going to that side or this side. It all depended upon who was the victor. And now the king of the north has come again, and the king of the south has come again, and Israel have got their king in the land. Oh, he's a wicked king. I believe he's the idle shepherd that Ezekiel talks about. He's a wicked king. But they will need some safety and refuge from these two kings, won't they? And they'll make a league with that prince there at Rome, and he'll confirm a league for seven years, and then for reasons of his own, he'll break it. He'll break it, and he'll cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. Will you notice the two of them? The sacrifices have to do with the sin and the trespass. The oblation has to do with the burnt, the meal, and the peace. And so the sacrifices have been reinstituted, and there they are in their newly built temple, and they've come back again with the Aaronic priesthood once more, and then he'll come and break it, and he'll cause it all to cease once more. And this time, he'll set up the abomination that maketh desolate. Upon the wings of abomination it shall be desolate. It's a difficult thing. It could mean that he puts his image upon the wings of the temple. I don't know, it could be that. But he'll set up his image there in the Holy of Holies, and he'll demand under pain of death that it's worshipped. And the worship of Jehovah will be stamped out, and the worship of the beast will be instituted. And so the little remnant will rather die than bend. The Lord Jesus gives some instruction that will be understood in that day. He says, when ye therefore shall see the abomination that maketh desolate, stand in the holy place. Let him that readeth understand, let him fly to the mountains of Judea, and he'll be kept safe and sound. And so that seventieth year is yet to come, when this parenthesis of church experience and work is finished and we're caught up, and the nation of Israel is going to come into God's purposes, and there'll be a false king standing there in Palestine. He'll make a covenant with that beast. He'll become this false prophet, and he'll attract people to the beast himself to worship him, and the little remnant of Israel will find their refuge there in the mountains of Judea. And so it shall be until the time determined. I didn't say it, but the Lord Jesus says, except those days have been shortened, no flesh should be saved. No, not even the elect ones. And so some people say, well, how are they going to be shortened? They have been shortened. Shortened to three and a half years. No more, no more. If that beast and his false prophet were allowed to run their course, then there wouldn't be any of the nation of Israel left. But God has determined a time. It'll be the last half of Daniel's seventieth week, no more. And when that is finished, then the Lord shall come with the glory of his Father and his elect angels with him, and destroy that beast with the brightness of his coming. Brothers and sisters, this isn't a fairy tale. This is truth told beforehand. And if there's one thing that I'm grateful to God about, it's this. I'll only understand it from the book. Maybe I'll see it from the height of heaven, but because of the grace of God, I'll never go through it. And God has preserved his people of this present day and age from the thing that is yet to come upon the earth to try them that dwell upon the earth. There's something that we can give God thanks for. He has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by Jesus Christ. Now may God bless his word. Shall we pray? Our Father, we come to thee in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we ask thy blessing upon these things of which we have been speaking tonight. Again, we pray that thou will give to us a retentive memory. We pray that we shall not just have it in our head, but the appreciation of these things may fill our heart with, uh, thanksgiving and praise to thee, forever dealing with us in the way that thou hast done, that we should not go headlong into such a state of things that are yet to be under thy judgment and the deception of men. So we praise thee for thy mercy. Now, Father, we do ask that the things that we have listened to might do us good, that they might enlighten us as to thy purposes among men, and especially thy people, that we might be able to pray more intelligently for them, that the scales may be removed from their eyes. Now, Father, we commit ourselves to thee. We pray that thou would take us to our home in safety and keep us from every evil and mischief, and to thee we shall give our unfeigned thanks in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.