Gooding, David: 11 - Power versus Truth: What is Truth?

We come now to chapter nine of our book of Daniel the Prophet. And as you will know, chapter nine of this prophecy is an exceedingly famous and very well-known chapter, because this is the chapter that contains the prophecy of the seventy weeks, or rather the seventy sevens. A prophecy that, among uh many other things, prophesies the date of the birth of Christ, prophesies also the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the Romans, and then looks on towards the final desolations of Jerusalem, and more happily to her restoration at the second coming of Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, unfortunately, though this chapter is very well known and this prophecy of the seventy sevens has been much discussed, it contains a number of uncertainties. First of all, there is the uncertainty about the date at which the prophecy is meant to start. Know therefore and discern that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, says verse twenty five, That is the starting point, but the question is, at what date did that commandment go forth? And some scholars will tell you that the date was five hundred and thirty BC. Others will tell you, no, it was rather four hundred and fifty seven. And still others will tell you neither of the first two, the real date was four hundred and forty five. And then another uncertainty is the actual date of Christ's birth, if we are looking at it in terms of the secular calendar. Very few people believe that he was born in what we call AD one. But here again, on the actual date of his birth, scholars, and I may add, scholars who were, who approach God's word reverently and believe in its inspiration, scholars disagree as to at what exact date our Lord was born. Now, as I told you in previous lectures, I am the world's worst when it comes to remembering dates and adding up figures. I can manage most things up to ten, but anything beyond is difficult. And even when I have tried my best to study and understand and remember all these dates and the intricate arguments that go to the establishing of which dates were the correct ones, when I have done my very best, come the next Tuesday and I have forgotten it all. So doubtless many of you sitting here before me, uh, this afternoon will be far more au fait with all the necessary facts than I am. Allow me, if you will, to issue a brotherly caution. We must be careful, must we not, in dealing with these much debated topics. We must be careful not to treat those who disagree with us as though they were, by definition, enemies of the faith. That said, I will give you my view on the brief, more mo- more prominent points of this prophecy as I understand them. I will give them to you for what they are worth. When it says in verse twenty five that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed one, the prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks. I take that to be a prophecy referring to the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The seven sevens and the sixty two sevens add up to sixty nine sevens, add up to four hundred and eighty three years, and I understand it to be saying, therefore, that from the time of the going forth of this commandment, whenever it was, to the birth of Christ would be four hundred and eighty three years. And then it says that after the sixty two sevens, that is the sixty two that followed the first set of seven sevens, after the sixty two sevens, Messiah shall be cut off. That, as I understand, refers to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. How long after the sixty nine sevens Christ was cut off? We are not told, but we do notice it says after the sixty nine sevens. And then it indicates that not only shall the Messiah be cut off and have nothing, but the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and his end shall be with a flood, and even unto the end shall be war, desolations are determined. And here I find help in my understanding from the words of our Lord himself, as reported, for instance, in the Gospel of Luke in chapter twenty one. He indicated that after the nation had rejected him, then eventually there would be a period of respite until the enemies of Jerusalem came and laid siege against it and destroyed it and the inhabitants within it. And that Jerusalem would then be downtrodden by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. And I presume our Lord has in mind such prophecies as we are here given in Daniel chapter nine and verse twenty six. The Messiah cut off, and then sometime after that, the prin- the s- the people of the prince that shall come, that is the Romans, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. And then there would follow desolations upon Jerusalem until the times of the Gentile be fulfilled. And then in verse twenty seven of chapter nine we read, and he, I take to be the prince, shall make a firm covenant with many for one seven, that is, for the final seventieth seven. And with all due deference to those who disagree, I take it that that final seven weeks, seven years, that final seven, the seventieth seven, lies still in the future. I do so on the basis of passages like Matthew chapter twenty four verses fifteen to thirty where our Lord gives indication of those things and events that shall immediately precede his coming in power and great glory. There shall come a time of great distress called the Great Tribulation. And says our Lord, that tribulation will come immediately after the abomination of desolation is set up in the holy place, and with that he refers to Daniel the prophet. So, according to our Lord, the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet is a thing that will occur in the remote future, just before the great tribulation, which in turn precedes the coming of our Lord in power and great glory. And so I take it that this final, uh, 7, this seventieth seven, this week of years, is in the future, and that that final period will be divided in half. And for the half of the week, or in the middle of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and upon the wing of abomination shall come one that makes desolate even unto the consummation, and that determined shall wrath be poured out upon the desolator. In the middle of that final period, then, the great dictator of the end of the age shall do what Antiochus Epiphanes in his days did, only he shall do it on a far greater scale. He shall seek to put down the worship of the true God of heaven, and in its place he shall set himself and mankind, and the whole world will be asked to worship deified man. One final little piece of confirmation of that understanding of this prophecy, I take to be this, that if the final period is seven years, one whole seven, then half of that week gives you a period of three and a half, which fits in with what we have seen from other prophecies of that special short time preceding the end, sometimes referred to as a time, times, and half a time. That then, briefly put, and as clearly as I can manage, is my understanding of the famous prophecy of the 77. On that I do not propose now to spend any more time, for I want to come to what I judge is the most important part of this prophecy. We shall notice that the prophecy of the seventy weeks simply occupies verses twenty four to twenty seven. The major part of chapter nine is taken up, first of all, with Daniel's prayer to God, and then with God's answer to Daniel. And there is no doubting what the central theme of this chapter nine is. It is mentioned right at the beginning in verse two: In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet for the accomplish of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years. The theme of this chapter is going to be the city of Jerusalem. Therefore, you now, if you care to watch it, is a film giving you a reconstruction of what that city would have looked like in the days of Jesus Christ, our Lord. And so that we can confirm ourselves in the idea that this is to be the central theme of the chapter, the city of Jerusalem and God's discipline of that city, would you look at your general sheet, your, uh, summary sheet that you were handed at the beginning of the lectures? And there you will see that Ja- Daniel chapter nine stands over against Daniel chapter four. And both these chapters have something in common. In chapter four, you may remember we read of God's discipline of the Gentile king Nebuchadnezzar. How God in his mercy disciplined that man when he grew proud and rebellious against God. And God in his mercy not only disciplined him, but set the time for his discipline. His chastisement was to last for seven times. What is even more kind and merciful of God, when God pronounced his discipline and then carried it out, God announced that he was doing it so that in the end, profiting from that discipline, Nebuchadnezzar would be restored. And we saw at the time what a remarkable thing this was for Daniel to include in his book, for Nebuchadnezzar was the very king that had shattered Jerusalem city. And even while Daniel lived in beautiful, beautiful Babylon, under service of Nebuchadnezzar, the beautifier of the city of Babylon, his own city Jerusalem lay in ruins, and Nebuchadnezzar was the man who had done the ruining. And yet Daniel was large enough in his heart to accept the message of God that God cared for Nebuchadnezzar. And though Nebuchadnezzar deserved chastisement, and Daniel surely agreed with that, yet Daniel was big enough to see that God loved even a Nebuchadnezzar, and God was prepared to discipline him, not to destroy him, but so that Nebuchadnezzar might eventually be restored. And now when we come to chapter nine that stands over against chapter four, we notice that once more it is a question of a city, not this time Babylon, but Jerusalem. And now once more it is a question of the disciplines of God. And now we notice that God not only disciplines and chastises Gentile cities and kings. God here is shown us as one that disciplined Jerusalem city, the very city where his temple was. God allowed the enemy to destroy it, to destroy both the city and the sanctuary. And if Nebuchadnezzar's discipline lasted for seven times, now we notice the seriousness of Jerusalem's discipline. It lasted in the first instance for seventy years. It must have been a terrible shock then, when the desolations first took place. For centuries, Israel had believed that their city of Jerusalem was the city not only of the great king, the Lord's anointed, the kings of the house of David. Jerusalem city was a unique city on the whole of the face of the earth because there was God's sanctuary, and God himself, the almighty God, lived in that temple. Therefore, when prophets came along, like Jeremiah, and warned the people that their sin was becoming so terrible that in the end God would allow their enemies to come and destroy the city and destroy the sanctuary. There were many Israelites who couldn't possibly believe it. And there were false prophets who said, but no, Lord, we have the very temple of God. I know we're not all what we ought to be, but God will never allow the city of Jerusalem to be taken because his own temple is in Jerusalem. What would become of the name of God if God allowed the city of Jerusalem to be destroyed? But their arguments were false. And in the end, God, because of the sin of his people, did allow the city of Jerusalem to be utterly destroyed. But not only other prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel full of warnings that God one day would allow the city to be destroyed, but in the very moment that they announced these things, God gave them also to announce that one day the city would be restored. For instance, in Ezekiel chapter thirty six and verse 32, God tells Israel, now look here, Israel, I'm going to save you, and I'm going to restore your land and restore your city and des- restore you as a nation. Let me tell you, says God, why I am going to do it. Not for your sake do I do this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. I'm going to dest- to restore the city, but not for your sake, for my sake. And again in chapter thirty nine from verse twenty five onward. Says the Lord, now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name, and they shall bear their shame and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they shall dwell securely in their land, and none shall make them afraid. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, in that I caused them to go into captivity among the nations, and have gathered them unto their own land, and I will leave none of them anymore there. And I shall be sanctified in them, in the sight of many nations. That is to say, God is making the point that not only would he chastise Jerusalem city and allow it to be destroyed, but that God himself would be obliged one of these days to restore the city. The reason he gives is very important and interesting. I'm not doing it for the sake of Israel, he says. Let them be confounded for their evil. I'm doing it for my own name's sake, and I am obliged to do it so that my name shall be sanctified among the nations. You see, the situation was this, that when Jerusalem City was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the nations that knew of Israel and knew of the special claims that Israel made shouted hurrah and not exactly hallelujah, but we told you so. You see, they said, there you are, that proves it. All these special claims that the Jews made, that their God was special, their God was unique, there was no other God like Jehovah, and that Jehovah, the Almighty Creator, dwelled in that temple, and that Israel were his special people. All that was nonsense, you see. Now Nebuchadnezzar has proved it's nonsense. He has proved that the ultimate power in this world is the power of the great armies and the tanks and the horses and the chariots and the mighty men of war. There's nothing in Israel's claim whatsoever. And if you were to go and have a word with Gorbachev at this present moment, and you said to Gorbachev, what do you think of the claim that you find in the Old Testament that Israel were God's special people, and that once upon a time God Almighty dwelt in Jerusalem, you'll see? We know quite well what Gorbachev would say, be say, don't be so silly, man. There was nothing ever in that claim. There is no God. He never dwelled in the temple. It was all superstition, and the armies of Nebuchadnezzar proved it was so, and if he hadn't done it, we would do it one of these days as well. Now, we know the actual fact was that the reason God allowed Israel to be scattered and the temple to be destroyed and the city of Jerusalem shattered, the reason was that Israel had sinned and God had to discipline them. But you try telling that to Gorbachev, that that was the reason why Jerusalem was overcome, and he would simply smile at you and say, don't be silly. So now, says God, I shall be obliged to restore Israel, and I shall do it not for Israel's sake, I shall do it for my sake. And in restoring Jerusalem city, and in restoring to to the Israel to their land, I shall demonstrate to the nations that it was true after all. Israel were God's chosen people. Jerusalem was the city where God Almighty dwelled. It was because of Israel's sin that God himself allowed the city to be destroyed. And now, because it was all true, now God has, uh, restored them again, and all the nations will be obliged to see this thing was true after all, and God will be sanctified in his people. That being so, it was given to Jeremiah to tell Israel that the desolation of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar was to last for seventy years. And then God would restore the nation. And doubtless, as, uh, Daniel read those lovely chapters of restoration in Jeremiah, in Ezekiel, in Isaiah. He had in his mind, of course, that God would dis- restore Israel, perhaps in the full sense that those prophets speak of. And now at length he tells us the time was coming near. He was becoming a very elderly man. He had been searching the books of the Old Testament. He had discovered these prophecies of God through Jeremiah, that the desolations were to last seventy years, and then the city would be dis- restored, and Daniel set himself to pray. And it's a very interesting thing. He didn't say, ah, you see, there's a prophecy. God has said it, so God will do it, and I needn't do anything. I can now go off and have a game of polo with His Majesty, and God will dis- restore the city because he has said so. No, facing the prophecy in God's word, not doubting it would come true, Daniel nevertheless thought it was necessary to pray to God and inquire of God when God was now about to fulfill this, uh, prophecy, and plead with God to do so. And as he prayed, he had a very good reason. Jerusalem had been destroyed because of Israel's sin. God had promised to restore it, but alas, as Daniel could see, Israel hadn't repented. The majority of them were still as sinful as ever they were. In the early days when Jerusalem had been destroyed, it had been a terrible shock to Israel and brought many of them doubtless to their senses. But that generation had almost passed away. Daniel was a late survivor of that generation, and the new generation were growing up, and many of them no better than their fathers were. What was then going to happen? If God had destroyed Jerusalem because of the people's sins and promised he would restore it, and now the people were just as sinful as they were before. What would God do? Would he restore it in spite of the fact that Israel were sinful? Realizing then Israel's sinfulness, Daniel set himself to prayer, and at great length he prayed with God, O God, have mercy on us. We don't deserve your mercy. We are sinful as ever we were sinful. But God, you are merciful. O Lord, according to your faithfulness, hear my prayer and restore your people. And he got his answer from God, says chapter nine. And the answer was, yes, I certainly will restore the city Jerusalem, Daniel. I shall restore it. I said I would restore it, and I keep my word, Daniel, in spite of the fact that your people are sinful. Yes, I will restore Jerusalem city. Then, having said that, God had immediately to say something else. In effect, it was this, but Daniel, it will not prove to be the final restoration. Yes, Jerusalem shall be restored, but it shall be in troublous time. It will not be the final and full restoration, because it cannot possibly be the final and full restoration. And so, while on the one hand, I will keep my promise through Jeremiah that the desolations last seventy years, and then Jerusalem will be restored. While I shall do that, Daniel, I shall have to have regard to the covenant I made with Moses. And the covenant I made with Moses said like this, that if Israel obeyed my voice, I would bless them. But if they broke my covenant and sinned against me, I would have no option but to discipline them. I will be faithful to my promise through Jeremiah. I shall restore Jerusalem city after the seventy years, but it won't be the final restoration yet because I must be faithful to my covenant that I made with Moses. That if my people would disobey and break my covenant, then I would have to discipline them yet further until my disciplines were sufficient and brought them to see the folly of their sin, brought them to repentance, and brought the nation to that state when at last I should be able to fulfill all my promises and restore them completely. Lesson number one is very clear. City restored, not the final restoration, because of Israel's persistence in sin. How serious is it when people, in spite of warning and discipline, persist in sin? How serious? Now let's notice another thing. Daniel is told in the course of this prophecy, it is as serious as this, that a nation that once had rejoiced in the promise that God would restore them, see them now after the course of the centuries, and their own Messiah is coming. The very Messiah promised by Zechariah, riding into Jerusalem city on the royal mount, the foal of an ass. And some of his faithful followers cry, blessed is the king that cometh in the name of the Lord. Rejoice, Zion, your king comes. Rejoice, Jerusalem city. He comes riding into the city. But unrepented sin has so blinded their minds, they don't recognize the Savior when he comes. Whole Old Testament in their hand. All the prophecies in their hand. Now see what unrepented sin does. And they can't see. It is their own Messiah. And Messiah is cut off and has nothing. What will God do? You say he's got to be faithful to his promise of restoration and the seventy weeks. He has that. I'll tell you something else. He's got to be faithful to Moses and the covenant of Moses and to the curse that's written in the covenant of Moses. Therefore, desolations are determined. Let's enforce the point in our imaginations. The kind of Jerusalem city that our Lord Jesus rode into. Not the funny little pokey Arab bazaars that you now find in the old city of Jerusalem, but a delightful city with beautiful classical type buildings. This is Herod's palace. Here's the great Roman fortress. Around here's the temple. A magnificent city. You picture our Lord riding into it. For any Jew, joy of the whole earth. Let's have a few more views of it. There are some of the towers. Here's the temple. That is one of the courts. This is the corner of the temple building. O Jerusalem. When he came to the Mount of Olives and he beheld the city, then he wept over it, saying, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets and killest those that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her breast, and you would not. Not. Days are coming when your enemies shall cast up a mount against you, and they shall destroy you and your children within you. And he entered into the temple. There it is. Here are the courts. Here is the temple building itself. He cast out those that sold and said, you've turned my father's house into a den of robbers, all Jerusalem city. The time shall come when there shall be not one stone left standing upon another. And as he went out of the temple, some of them showed him, they said, Master, look at those marvelous stones. Yes, look at. Here's a sketch of part of the temple courts as it was in the days of our Lord. And now... This is a photograph of one side of the temple where the archaeologists have come down to the damage that the Romans did. Here are the steps up which our Lord himself may have walked into the temple. Ruined. All Jerusalem. As we think of these things, we shall surely not be concerned merely with dates, whether of the past or the future, but with the great moral and spiritual principles, and Jerusalem stands as a beacon light all down the ages to the people of God. For we in our day and generation are part of the people of God, and one Corinthians eleven talks to us about the way the Lord will discipline us, as he disciplined Jerusalem. Jerusalem was linked to God with a covenant, the old covenant. When they broke it, promises of restoration have to be balanced by considerations of that covenant. How can you have restoration without repentance? How will you have repentance until the nation have been brought to acknowledge their sin? So with us, we are linked, says one Corinthians eleven, to the Lord by the new covenant. That new covenant promises that Christ, that God will write his laws on our heart, and on our mind will he inscribe them. Says Paul, then, my brethren, you would be wise to judge yourselves, constantly to keep a check upon yourself, whether in fact you are obeying the laws of our Lord's kingdom that the Holy Spirit is writing on your hearts. And should you find discrepancy and disobedience, he- haste and repent about it and judge yourselves. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But suppose we grow careless like Israel grew careless, like Jerusalem grew careless, and we don't judge our sins. What will the Lord do? Why, my brother, he's linked to us with a covenant. By that covenant, he has sworn that he is determined to make us holy. If he cannot make us holy with our cooperation as believers and do it the easy way, but then he'll do it. When we are judged, we're chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. For this cause, says Paul, some among you are weak and sickly, and some have prematurely died. Why? Because being believers, they grew careless about God's word and about obedience, and wouldn't judge themselves, and therefore judged. That's solemn, isn't it? Look at those ruins, my brothers. And think what our blessed Lord meant when he wept and said, oh, how often would I have gathered you, and you wouldn't. Your house left to you desolate. Has God given them up? Indeed not, says Paul, indeed not. God has not forsaken his people that he foreknew. Don't you get proud, you Gentiles. Hardness has happened to them in part until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, and God will restore them. Oh, however many oceans of trouble he has to take them through, he will restore them. He will bring them to repentance if he can. He'll use the very salvation of the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousy, and so shut up all in unbelief until the Jew comes on his bended knee, having lost his pride under the discipline of God, and bows as a bankrupt sinner before the only Savior, and accepts Jesus as his Messiah and his Lord. Israel has been through seas of discipline. Gentiles have gone farther than God himself would have gone. Let us notice one final thing, however. They were attached to God by the old covenant. As Daniel chapter nine, in spite of God's discipline in the exile in Babylon, when God brought them back, they went on sinning, and they broke that covenant. Then the blessed Lord came. He offered them the new covenant, prophesied of in Jeremiah. They wouldn't have that either. What can God do? How will he bring them to repentance? Ah. If we cannot be taught the easy way, we'll have to learn the hard way. They broke Moses' covenant. They rejected the new covenant. And the final verse in Daniel says, yes, and in that last great period, the great man of sin, he'll make a covenant with them. When it is too late, they shall find out his horrid deception, then shall be unparalleled persecution of Jerusalem city. You say that's hard and tough. It is hard and tough, isn't it? Measure it in the tears of Christ, ladies and gentlemen, and see it as God's determined effort. He foreknew that people. He will yet restore them. He doesn't know any way of restoring them unless he can bring them to repentance. He'll not stop at anything to bring them to repentance, so at last he can bless and restore them, as he always said he would. Let's leave it there and go to our confession times.