Lesson 11 Daniel 8

[0:00] Let's pray. Father, thank you for the joy that you give us by looking at your word. And thank you that you've provided for us such a beautiful treasure of your thoughts and your actions and who you are and how we should think and believe and what we should do.

[0:20] And I pray, Lord, that you would just give us clarity as we take a look at chapter 8 this morning. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. You know, you can tell a kid to do something and then watch them just sort of not do the thing you told them.

[0:38] And they suffer consequences, you know, all the way from difficult things to easy things. And you kind of wonder and you look at them and you kind of go like, wait a minute.

[0:48] I just told you not to do that. This is going to happen to you. Right? So sometimes we can have negative consequences. And we don't seem to learn our lesson. But one of the things about negative consequences is that it's supposed to help us learn our lesson.

[1:03] It's supposed to help us get the point. And in the book of Job, Job at the very end of the book says this, What Job is saying is that he repents.

[1:29] And if you'll think about what it is that Job went through, there's a tendency in our minds to think that what Job went through should not have the result of Job needing to repent of sin.

[1:43] Because it was difficult. Because it was difficult. But the truth of the matter is that difficulties and troubles and trials and the things we go through ought to produce in us such a humility that we look at our own hearts and we say, But, you know, yes, that's bad and they did something wrong.

[1:59] But I need to examine my own heart. I need to look at myself and say, what's going on with me? And so part of what I think we are looking at when we come to Daniel chapter 8 is an opportunity for God's people to kind of be confronted with the troubles that are going to come.

[2:16] And just the question of like, are you going to be ready to face that? Are you going to be ready to kind of look at yourself and kind of repent if you need to? And so I want us to look at chapter 8 and I think I've decided instead of reading the whole chapter in one fell swoop and then coming back at it, there is so much here that I want to try to get to that we're just going to jump in.

[2:39] And you'll notice that in verse 1 it says, In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar, the king, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, subsequent to the one which appeared to me previously.

[2:52] I looked in the vision and while I was looking, I was in the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam. So what we have here is, this is the third year of Belshazzar.

[3:03] Let's remember who we're talking about here. Belshazzar is which king? He turned into an ox in a dress. That's Nebuchadnezzar. Oh, that's Nebuchadnezzar. Now Belshazzar is his grandson.

[3:16] And Belshazzar is the one who's having the party with the vessels from the house of the Lord, the hand rights on the wall. And that night he dies and Babylon ceases to exist, right?

[3:26] Medo-Persian comes in, right? So the chapter 7, the image of the four beasts, was a vision that Daniel had in the first year of Belshazzar.

[3:40] Now it's three years later and he has another vision, chapter 8. And Belshazzar is not going to face his end for at least another 10, 12 years.

[3:53] So Daniel's getting this information way before he goes and says, this is what the hand-body on the wall says. Okay? Does that make sense? So once he comes to Belshazzar, this is one of the images that I think I see.

[4:07] You remember how we said Daniel was a little bit cheeky with Belshazzar? And I think in part it's because Daniel knew what all was happening, you know? So that's sort of the time period that we have here.

[4:20] The place, it says the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam. So here's the map for you. This is the Mediterranean.

[4:32] This is the Persian Gulf here. You've got modern-day Iran, Iraq. This is Susa. So up to this point, Babylon has been the kingdom and the capital has been in Babylon.

[4:47] And that's where Daniel has been. One of the things about this is that Susa becomes the capital for Medo-Persia. You can see that in Esther 1, verse 2.

[5:01] Right? Queen Esther, she's in the citadel of Susa. You can see that in Nehemiah. Nehemiah is in the citadel of Susa before he leaves and goes back to Jerusalem. So everybody has moved.

[5:12] I need my map and the text. So everybody has moved from here to here. But I will say there's the possibility that Daniel is not actually in Susa.

[5:22] And the reason I say that is because he says, I looked and I was in Susa. And that word looked means it's something in the vision. So it's almost like in the vision. He sees himself in Susa.

[5:33] Because remember, this is the third year of Belshazzar. So he's probably not necessarily in Susa, but still in Babylon, but sees himself there. In other words, he sees himself in this new kingdom.

[5:44] In this new place where Medo-Persian is going to be ruling and reigning. Okay? So that's sort of the setting of what we're looking at. Let's talk about the symbols. Okay? We're going to talk about the symbols.

[5:55] And we've got, let's see, where are we? The first symbol is that of the ram. So here we go. Verse 3. Then I lifted my eyes and looked. And behold, a ram, which had two horns, was standing in front of the canal.

[6:09] Now the two horns were long, but one was longer than the other. And the longer one coming up last. I saw the ram budding westward, northward, and southward. And no other beast could stand before him, nor was there anyone to rescue from his power.

[6:24] But he did as he pleased and magnified himself. Again, we're just going to try to think about what we see about the ram. We already know who the ram is because he's going to tell us that in a little bit.

[6:37] So we don't have to figure that out. But you just see some of the features there. What are some of the features that we just read that stand out to you about this ram? Two horns, one of them is longer than the other.

[6:48] Right. And that's kind of the biggest feature about this ram, isn't it? There is one more thing about him that's, I think, kind of interesting, you know. But what do you think? Anything else?

[7:02] He murdered everything in his way. Yeah, he's just destroying everything. It is interesting that it talks about westward, northward, southward. Does that seem confusing to you? If you go back and you look at the city of Susa, where it is, if this is the capital and this is from which the ram is acting, then to go eastward is to go into the water.

[7:24] So I think that's why you got westward, northward, southward. Right? Okay. No one could rescue from his hand. Yeah. All right. So then there's the goat.

[7:35] The goat is in verse 5 through 12. It says, while I was observing. By the way, in Daniel chapter 8, this word observing, the word I looked, the word I saw, they're all the same Hebrew word.

[7:50] Because we're in Hebrew now, not Aramaic. And so it's the language of seeing a vision. I looked, I saw, I observed. I looked, I saw, I observed. So anyway. Behold, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth.

[8:05] Okay, let me just go back to the map real quick. So here's Susa, right? So this goat is coming from the west. Yes. And what's in the west? Greece.

[8:17] Greece is in the west. Right? That's sort of where he's coming from. Okay. Let me go back. Sorry about that. Okay. A goat coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground.

[8:28] And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came up to the ram who had the two horns, which I had seen standing in front of the canal, and rushed at him with his mighty wrath.

[8:40] I saw him come beside the ram, and he was enraged at him, and he struck the ram and shattered his two horns, and the ram had no strength to withstand him. So he hurled him to the ground and trampled on him, and there was none to rescue the ram from his power.

[8:55] Then the male goat magnified himself exceedingly, but as soon as he was mighty, the large horn was broken, and in his place there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.

[9:11] Out of one of them came forth a rather small horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the beautiful land. It grew up to the host of heaven, and caused some of the host and some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it trampled them down.

[9:30] It even magnified itself to be equal with the commander of the host, and it removed the regular sacrifice from him, and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down. And on account of transgression, the host will be given over to the horn along with the regular sacrifice, and it will fling truth to the ground and perform its will and prosper.

[9:53] Okay. Wow. That's a whole lot going on there, right? Let's just walk back through it and think about the goat for just a second. Okay? The goat comes from the west, is not touching the ground, is moving quickly.

[10:09] It comes up and destroys the ram. The shattering of the two horns is the destruction of that kingdom. Well, then, once he accomplishes what he seeks to accomplish, the single horn's broken off, four horns come up, and it says to the four winds, that's the idea of the compass, it's the idea of being all over the world in all directions.

[10:35] And we'll look at a map in a second, and you'll kind of see kind of why that sort of is. Okay? Okay? Then, on one of the horns comes out another little horn. Okay?

[10:47] Another little horn. And this little horn, and we're going to look here in a second, the little horn of chapter 7, the little horn of chapter 8, are not the same thing. They're not the same thing, mostly.

[11:02] Don't you like that? Don't you like that? But this little horn does not remove the horn that it grows out of, but it grows out of that horn.

[11:13] In other words, it's not a kingdom replacing a kingdom, but it's a particular ruler coming up out of a kingdom. And that kingdom stays. That's why the other horn is a little different.

[11:25] It is destroying some kingdoms in order to arise. You have a question? No. Okay, great. It says that he grew great towards the southeast and beautiful land. Beautiful land, that's Jerusalem.

[11:37] That's Israel. Okay? That's what that is. He grew up to the host of heaven and caused them to fall and be trampled. I think the host has to do with the people of God.

[11:48] Okay? It says some of the hosts, some of the stars, and, you know, when you get into this and you see that he's dealing with people, you're going to see this in a second when we get to the interpretation.

[12:00] God's people are considered stars, and the reason they're considered stars is because of the promise to Abraham that your descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Okay? I know that seems kind of cheesy, but that's just the way it is.

[12:13] He magnifies himself even to the commander of the host, which I think is going to be God, right? Or the second person of the Trinity. And there's a whole phrase that we use for him in the Old Testament.

[12:28] We'll get to that in a second too, maybe. And it's on account of the transgression of the host that they are given to him and he will prosper. So that's just the image of the goat. Okay? So we have the image of the ram, the image of the goat, and one more image we're going to look at before we get to interpretation is the image of the 2300 evenings and mornings.

[12:50] Let me pause because sometimes I go too fast. So let me ask you, before I get to the 2300 evenings, mornings, the goat.

[13:00] Anything about the goat just in the vision of this that you need me to clarify? You good? The goat kind of took the place of the ram.

[13:14] Yes. And then out of that it became big. But then a looter came out of that. Yep. And whatever that looter rule states, okay, then I'm okay.

[13:27] Okay. Okay. Alright. Alright. So let's talk about 2300 evenings and mornings just briefly. Then I heard a holy one speaking. Another holy one said to that particular one who was speaking, how long would the vision about the regular sacrifice apply while the transgression causes horror so as to allow both the holy place and the host to be trampled?

[13:52] And he said to me, for 2300 evenings and mornings then the holy place will be properly restored. So these holy ones speaking, I don't know who they are.

[14:05] It's possible that they're angels. We're going to have the angel Gabriel coming up here in a second. And so maybe that's one of them who's there talking. But typically holy ones is the idea of angels.

[14:16] But the question is what's important, right? The question helps us understand what the 2300 is. And the question is how long will the vision, this regular sacrifice of this vision, how long would the regular sacrifice be done away with?

[14:35] 6.3 years. Right. So if you do it by years and you say days, right? Because it's 2300 evenings and mornings. Because you can look at this as 2300, there was evening and there was morning the first day.

[14:48] Kind of like Genesis. The only problem is that there's nothing here that says there was evening and there was morning as though it's talking about one 24 hour period. But it could be the 6.3 years, right?

[15:02] Which doesn't match hardly anything in history. So it's like, well, what do we take this as, right? The other way to take it is the idea that this is not about 24 hour period days, but that this is because of the word how long will the regular sacrifice for 2300 evening and morning sacrifices.

[15:21] Like the word sacrifice is left out, but you could possibly read that in here and get kind of a period of time. Here's the big thing. Right now, this number, we don't want to make this too literal.

[15:34] Right? We just need to see, okay, what's going to happen in the interpretation of this here in a second. Okay. Okay. That's the three images, really. It's just those three images.

[15:44] And it's just really strange. We get told what a lot of these things are and we're going to look at them in just a second. But questions about the images. Do you find it strange? Linda, you were saying, yeah, it's just strange.

[15:57] Wild stuff. It is. It's pretty wild stuff. Think about, think about what we've talked about from chapter seven, right? We had these four beasts. We had the lion-like beast.

[16:09] We had the bear-like beast. We had the leopard-like beast. We had the fourth beast that was just monstrosity, right? And each one of them representing a kingdom. Now we have a ram and a goat.

[16:22] Now, why is it moved to something that seems more domestic, right? I don't know. But you see that, right? It's not a lion. It's not a bear. It's not a leopard. But it's a goat. It's a ram.

[16:34] So, it's just a different kind of beast. Something that maybe doesn't have quite the power that the other beasts would give. So, why that? I don't know, but it's just weird. Just kind of putting that out there.

[16:45] And then you've got these horns and the movement of the horns. So, let's just talk about what this means then, okay? Let's look at the ram. In Daniel chapter eight, verse 20, he says, the ram which you saw with the two horns represents the kings of Meda and Persia.

[17:00] So, this is the Medo-Persian empire. It has two horns because it has two nations that make up this kingdom. The longer horn was the stronger of the kingdoms.

[17:10] that's going to be Persia. The shorter horn, that's Meda. It was not as powerful. Remember Darius, Darius in the lion's den, Darius, he's a Medo-Persian king.

[17:24] Darius is his Medo name or Median name and Cyrus is his Persian name. And you'll remember the bear, the bear had two sides to him.

[17:36] One side bigger, one side smaller. Right? So, that's just all this is. That's the Medo-Persian empire. So, what you've got is you've got Daniel seeing himself in Susa under the authority of the Medo-Persian empire represented as this ram with two horns.

[17:56] So, Daniel's seeing himself in that kingdom when the end of that kingdom comes about. He at least is saying, I'm going to make it to that kingdom.

[18:08] Does that make sense? I mean, Daniel, Daniel, you've got to remember, he's kind of an old man, right? When chapter 5 happens, he doesn't last very much longer after that into the reign of Darius and then he's going to pass on.

[18:23] But he at least knows from this vision in the reign of Belshazzar he's going to be in Susa at some point. So, that's why I think that that's there. Okay, let's talk about the goat. Let's see what the, what our, God tells us about the goat.

[18:37] Verse 21 through 25, the shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece. Okay, let's just pause right there. And when the Bible tells you this emblem is this, then that's what it is and nothing else.

[18:59] You think about Greece for just a second. Before we read anything else, just think about Greece, what you know about Greece as a, as a nation. And, then let's think about the image of the horns.

[19:13] Who was the king of Greece? The first king. Naaman? No. He's a pretty famous historical figure.

[19:28] Caesar? Was he the first king? He wasn't the first king. Yes. His father was the king of Macedon. And so, he becomes the first king of Greece as a combined nation.

[19:39] Okay. Alexander the Great. Oh, shoot. Okay. So, no, no, no, no, no, no ten points. That's a, that's a tough one. Okay. So, he's the first king.

[19:51] He takes over the known world. Now, this is history, I'm telling you. He takes over the known world, conquers the known world in twelve years. Very swift, very fast.

[20:03] He wants to Hellenize the world. To Hellenize the world means to make everyone adopt Greek culture. They, everybody needed to speak Greek, everybody needed to worship the Greek gods, and everybody needed to do things the way the Greeks did them.

[20:21] That was his goal and he was seeking to conquer the known world and to Hellenize it. As soon as he reached a certain threshold and conquered the Medo-Persian Empire, he died.

[20:36] And when he died, his kingdom was split into four pieces. It's good to know history. It's good to know history.

[20:48] It is. Now, I'll stop there and let's then go back to Daniel and read what the angel says to him about the shaggy goat.

[21:00] Now, I don't know why he calls him a shaggy goat here. I kept trying to look up shaggy goat and figure out because he wasn't called a shaggy goat before. Now, he's called a shaggy goat. I don't know. I just don't know. Anyway, the shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king.

[21:18] The broken horn and the four horns that arose in its place represent four kingdoms which will arise from his nation although not with his power. In the latter period of their rule, when the transgressors have run their course, a king will arise a king will arise insolent, skilled in intrigue.

[21:39] His power will be mighty but not by his own power and he will destroy to an extraordinary degree and will prosper and perform his will.

[21:50] He will destroy mighty men and the holy people, hosts and stars. And through his shrewdness he will cause deceit to succeed by his influence and he will magnify himself in his heart and he will destroy many while they are at ease and he will even oppose the prince of princes but he will be broken without human agency.

[22:20] Okay. Wow. Okay. But before we talk about who this is look at your little chart that I put on your page. Okay. In chapter 7 the little horn uprooted three horns.

[22:38] It spoke boastfully. It waged war on the saints. It tried to change laws and times. It was given a limited time to work. That's where that three and a half comes from.

[22:49] Right. It was destroyed by the kingdom of God coming. Remember the stone coming as well as the son of man coming. Okay. So the little horn is that one.

[23:02] That's chapter 7. That's the figure that I said was probably a future antichrist at least in type and anti-type. In chapter 8 this little horn starts small and then grows but it doesn't uproot any other horn.

[23:17] It thinks of itself as divine and better than the prince. It throws down stars and tramples them. It took away daily sacrifice desolated the sanctuary and had a limited time to work 2300 evenings and mornings.

[23:33] It was destroyed but no kingdom for the saints was then established. So in other words because this is Greece and this guy comes in Greece this little horn of chapter 8 is chronologically before the little horn that comes in the fourth kingdom.

[23:52] So what we have in chapter 7 takes us all the way to the end right? But this one goes this far and just pulls out a little bit of time for us and not gets it again.

[24:04] Does that make sense? Okay. Because when we talked about chapter 7 we talked about being the evil like evil and we talked about all the antichrists in general.

[24:16] Right. Exactly. In general. Because the way I see it is that there have been figures that can kind of prefigure the antichrist but there's still an antichrist figure yet to come.

[24:28] And here this is a person that has a lot of the same similarities. there's still that sort of evil heart there's still sort of that raising itself up against God that would remind you of antichrist.

[24:42] As a matter of fact I would say this particular horn is of the spirit of antichrist but has a very specific historical figure that fulfills it. And something beyond.

[24:57] So that's where we're going to get into trouble there. Right. So. Alright. Questions? Comments? Okay.

[25:09] So the first horn is Alexander the Great. Right. That's the shaggy goat. The other four horns are the four kingdoms that arise after Alexander and that's going to be these kingdoms here.

[25:24] Ptolemy ruled Egypt. The Celesus I don't know if that's I can never pronounce anything ruled Syria then Lassimachus ruled Thrace and Cassandra ruled Macedonia and Greece.

[25:40] Okay. So their kingdom was divided. So here's here's here's Israel right here. Okay. The this is to the west and you got Greece and you got Thrace and then you got Syria it is going to be a king out of this kingdom that the little horn is going to be.

[26:06] Okay. And he you'll notice that it talks about how he grows strong towards these different directions and one of them is the beautiful land.

[26:17] so he's growing strong towards the beautiful land. He's coming in to take over this and he'll eventually take over all of this as well and fight against the Ptolemies. Okay.

[26:30] Wait so you're just saying that like is that like a teaser like no we'll we'll get into all that we'll get a I think we'll get into all that what I'm what I'm saying is historical fact like he this this particular this particular king this is this is Antiochus the fourth epiphanies he actually comes down takes over this area and and and takes over this area too that's historical fact he just does that and he was from Syria he was from Syria he was from this kingdom here yes okay what nationality was he he was a cellucid he was from yes yes he was yeah yeah we'll probably see his name here in a little bit okay yeah there's a lot here just just hang on the latter period when transgression has finished this is a statement that comes in all of this that is interesting to me when the transgression transgressors have run their course the little horn comes on the scene when in the latter period of their rule when the transgressors have run their course a king will arise now this king is evil but I want you to notice what seems to be going on here is that somewhere in the middle of their rule these four kingdoms transgressors have have done as much as God is going to allow them to do and so this king rises up as punishment that's what's going to be happening in chapter 8 verse 12 in the image on account of transgression the host will be given over to the horn along with the regular sacrifice if I'm right that the host represents the people of God the sin or the transgressors are the

[28:44] Jews and they are sinning and they're transgressing against God during this historical period and so God raises up Antiochus to punish them if you will okay it's their transgression that causes these things but let's talk about who the host is okay in verse 10 the horn grew up to the host of heaven and caused some of the host and some of the stars to fall to the earth and it trampled them down so that's the image is that he tramples the host tramples the stars verse 11 it magnified itself to be equal with the commander of the host okay so there is one who is the ruler of the host now if you go to Joshua Joshua is about to go into Jericho and he meets the commander of the host of the army of the Lord now that figure we say is a pre-incarnate appearance of

[29:49] Jesus right before he is human and that's throughout and so I think that that's sort of what's going on here is this idea that this is God and he's the commander of the host he is their king he's their captain and so the horn tries to magnify himself against God and removes the regular sacrifice and the place of his sanctuary is thrown down that's the other reason I believe this is God what's the sanctuary it's going to be the temple right so Antiochus comes upon the scene and is against God and is being used by God as discipline upon the Jews one more verse 13 then I heard a holy one speaking and another holy one said to that particular holy one how long will the vision about the regular sacrifice apply while the transgression causes horror so as to allow both the holy place and the host to be trampled again we got this idea of the host being trampled if we just say the host are stars right because we saw that that it was host and stars being trampled and we think to ourselves just literally that this is just the cosmos somehow then it doesn't make sense of verse 24 where he says that he this is in the interpretation he will destroy mighty men and holy people so the vision the vision is a goat trampling he grows up and exalts himself to the holy people and to

[31:27] God he throws down the holy people and are the host and tramples on them in vision in the interpretation it's this king who destroys the mighty men and the holy people that's does that make sense it's the holy people it's the people of God he's trampling down upon them so this little horn is a direct result of the transgression of the Jews themselves now how am I going to show this I want to read something to you that does not I'm going to read something to you from a book that is not the Bible so I don't take it as authoritative for all of our things but it's history and it gives us a little bit of a history of what's going on this is from the Maccabeans which is out of the Apocrypha and it tells the story of what happens here so I just want you to hear some of the things that are there from then came forth a sinful root Antiochus

[32:28] Epiphanes son of king Antiochus he had been a hostage in Rome he began to reign in the 137th year of the kingdom of the Greeks in those days certain renegades came out from Israel and misled many saying let's go and make a covenant with the Gentiles around us for since we separated from them many disasters have come upon us this proposal pleased them and some of the people eagerly went to the king who authorized them to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles so they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem now just pause a gymnasium was not a place where you could go play racquetball but it was a decadent defiling kind of worship place for the Gentiles okay according to the Gentile custom and removed the marks of circumcision and abandoned the holy covenant and they joined with the

[33:29] Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil that's Jews who sell themselves to do evil they build this gymnasium right next to the temple okay this is down a little further when the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people and that all should give up their particular customs all the Gentiles accepted the command of the king this is still Antiochus many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion they sacrificed to idols and profaned the Sabbath so that's history right that's stuff that happened that that's the sin of Israel they abandoned God and worshipped the Gentile gods so what our text is telling us is the Jews had been sent back to their home to their homeland during the reign of the Medes and the

[34:33] Persians and if we read Nehemiah Esther Ezra we see that it's Cyrus who starts that process of sending them home and once there as they were supposed to be rebuilding the temple and returning to their homeland and worshipping God when Greece begins to take over the Jews sin leaving their religion joining up with Gentile practices and part of the prophecy that Daniel is seeing is that God's people are going to suffer again because of sin we're in exile because of sin and there's going to be more sin we're going to reject God and he's going to bring evil men to bring about this punishment and here's the punishment verse 23 through 25 in the latter period of their rule when the transgressors have run their course a king will arise insolent skilled and intrigued his power will be mighty but not by his own power and he will destroy to an extraordinary degree and prosper and perform his will some of the things that he does there in

[35:40] Israel as he goes in yeah they agreed to have this thing there for a while but then he begins to do all kinds of things he sacrificed a pig on the altar he set up a statue of Zeus and as all of this is going on in later chapters in Daniel this is going to be called the abomination of desolation okay that term should be familiar to you from the New Testament but eventually what happens is they some of them begin to get upset and they they try to push back and say no we don't want this and they revolt against him as a matter of fact it's called the Maccabean revolt and it is what Hanukkah celebrates because they revolt against him and they end up he ends up dying okay not by human hands huh Antiochus Epiphanes the king he was king he was king of the Selucid kingdom which included

[36:40] Israel but it was no longer considered Israel by him right it's just part of his kingdom so many of the Jews participated with him in the Gentile practices for a period and then some began to revolt and he put the whoop on them yes desolation it's in Matthew chapter 24 when we get to later chapters we'll come back and deal with that so so here's here's some more from the Maccabean revolt I want to read a little bit more to kind of give you the picture historically of what Antiochus did after subduing Egypt Antiochus returned in the 143rd year he went up against Israel and came to Jerusalem with a strong force he arrogantly entered the sanctuary took the golden altar and the lampstand for the light and all its utensils he took also the table for the bread of the presents and the cups for drinking offerings the bowls the golden censers the curtain the crowns the gold decorations on the front of the temple he stripped it all off he took the silver the gold the costly vessels he took all the hidden all he went into his own land he shed much blood and spoke with great arrogance

[38:01] Israel mourned deeply in every community rulers and elders grown young men women became faint and the beauty of the women faded every bridegroom took up the lament and she sat in the bridal chamber was mourning even the land trembled for its inhabitants and all the house of Jacob was clothed with shame two years later the king sent to the cities of Judah a chief collector of tribute and he came to Jerusalem with a large force he deceitfully spoke peaceful words to them and they believed him but he suddenly fell upon the city and dealt it a severe blow and destroyed many people of Israel he plundered the city burned it with fire tore down its houses and its surrounding walls they took captive the women the children and seized the livestock then they fortified the city of David with a great strong wall and strong towers and it became their citadel they stationed there a sinful people men who were renegades these strengthened their position they stored up arms and food and collecting the spoils of Jerusalem they stored them there and became a great mencia for the citadel became an ambush against the sanctuary an evil adversary of

[39:18] Israel at all times on every side of the sanctuary they shed innocent blood they even defiled the sanctuary because of them the residents of Jerusalem fled she became a dwelling of strangers she became a strange to her offering and her children forsook her in other words the enemy Antiochus he's taking over the place and Israel's fleeing her sanctuary became desolate like a desert her feast returned into mourning her sadness into a reproach her honor into contempt her dishonor now grew as great as her glory her exaltation has turned into mourning Daniel is living in Babylon under Belshazzar and God gives him a vision of the near future for Israel and Babylon will end in 539

[40:20] BC and Antiochus Epiphanes begins his rule in 175 BC close to 400 years apart so he's seeing this he knows he's not going to live and he's told write this write this down keep this secret keep it safe it's just a terrible thing when you think when you look at the image of the goat and you begin to see these horns and you begin to connect history with it and see what's happened you know Israel because of their transgressions suffered greatly under Antiochus the I want to talk for a second about the 2300 evenings and mornings that I want to get to some application 2300 evenings and mornings in verse 26 the angel says the vision of the evenings and the mornings which has been told is true but keep the vision secret for it pertains to many days in the future now here's the problem a lot of the passages say things like in the future but those words in the future are not in the original Hebrew my text if you have certain Bibles will have words italicized in the text and mine has that italicized which means that's not in the Hebrew they're putting that in there to make it read more simply and it's also their interpretation of what they think will happen the point is that nobody knows what the 2300 evenings and mornings are we don't know if that's full 24 hours we don't know if that's sacrifices but it is this it's a limited time it's a limited time and

[42:08] Antiochus Epiphanes he's doing what he's doing he's defiling God's temple he's destroying God's people for 2300 evenings and mornings whatever that is it was a limited time and it's over it's no longer there in verse 27 so let me get to Daniel's reaction because this really gets to what I think is the whole point of all this I've told you a lot of stuff here and it's a lot of data but it's like and it's hard to kind of keep your mind around all of it but here's the basics that you just need to see because there's this whole other point that's to this chapter the basics are there was one kingdom it was destroyed by another kingdom and from that kingdom comes a king who punishes God's people that's the basic outline and that's all you need to know you can go research more and see the details of that but that's really just the basic structure of this so in verse 27 the whole thing ends

[43:09] Daniel's reaction is he has fear he's without strength he's exhausted he's sick for days and then he got up and went to work now why why is he exhausted why is he sick why is he without strength and I think it's because Daniel knows three things he knows number one that God's people are in exile and he knows how long it's going to be and he knows why they're there he knows that they have disobeyed God and they got into idolatry and therefore came into exile but he knows it's going to be over in just 70 years and how does he know this because chapter 9 tells us that he was looking he says I Daniel observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem namely 70 years so he knew that they're in exile he knows why they're in exile he knows how long it's going to last in other words he knows they're going to get back to their land they're going to start rebuilding things and then more destruction is headed their way more destruction is headed their way he also knows that God is showing something that's going to happen kind of the end before the beginning if you will he knows that God is in control of the flow of history he knows that God knows the end and God is showing him something and it's not something that's coming in the fourth kingdom where there's going to be destruction like never seen before but it's in the third kingdom he knows that God's people are going to go back to their land and they're going to sin again and it's because of the truth that Jesus spoke that a dog returns to his vomit it's the same thing as what the Puritan

[45:00] Thomas Manton said Thomas Manton said this that a fox scared off of its prey will live to hunt another day what he's saying is that people who do not have a heart change because of Christ they may be scared from sinning they may be scared from violating God's laws but once that fear is over they're going to go right back to it and that's exactly what we're seeing happen unfold in history before us as Israel gets sent back to their homeland and they go right back to sinning they go right back to idolatry and the third thing that Daniel knows is that God's people are they're not through sinning they're going to keep sinning and Daniel is sick and exhausted and troubled by this and chapter nine Daniel will pray a prayer of confession of sin because he longs for his people to not go through this again and so when you when you kind of I mean I've spent a lot of time laying out all this history when the point is actually quite simple right the point is very simple they're going to be sent home and they're going to sin again and they're going to be destroyed again and so for us it really does beg this question do we have tender hearts when we encounter trouble like

[46:25] Job right do we have tender hearts when we are encountering trouble are we tender hearted toward the things that God brings into our lives that are difficult and troubling does it cause us to go to God in prayer and repentance for our own sin does it cause us to despair and blame others does it cause us maybe to get ugly as we deal with others because of the trouble that we're in I mean we have that stereotypical sort of thing that you know when somebody is really troubled or sick or something like that then they act very badly towards the people that try to care for them and we all sort of excuse it as an okay thing and I'm saying no we ought to have a tender heart that when we are under suffering and when we are in difficulty that tender heart like Job says where is my own sin where is my own trouble where is my own heart and this do we have a tender heart that moves towards God in the middle of difficulty or do we stiffen our necks and we pray less we think about

[47:35] God less because of the trouble that he brings into our lives because that's the second thing is that do we believe that whatever God ordains is right do we believe that whatever God brings into our lives whatever God has planned for our lives whatever God has decreed whatever God has ordained for our lives do we believe that whatever he puts forward to us is right including the trouble including the trouble yeah yeah I think this is written to the Jews to give them a warning right he's going to write this he's going to give this to them and it's written as a warning and to all of us that God has set a path out in front of us and we either believe he's good and he's right about that path or he's not or he's not even in control of it it's easy to believe that what

[48:36] God ordains is right when the thing is bad for someone else or good for us if you think about Jesus God ordained that Jesus suffer on the cross I was bad for Jesus I was good for us and it's easy for us to say yes what God ordains is right but do we have a humble enough attitude to say no when I'm going through suffering what God ordains is right why why can't we think why can't we think that what God ordains is right when we get the diagnosis all of a sudden it's not right it's not fair it's not good it's scary it's difficult I mean it wouldn't be trouble and suffering if it wasn't difficult but is God right to do that there's a there's a song

[49:46] I want to play for you and it says what I think we should say in our own minds and hearts and so let me play it for you how can these words be our words how can these things be things that we say and it's because we look for solace not in this life primarily but in the life to come and it's because we know in the life to come all wrongs will be righted all evil will be vanquished even the evil that's within me because when Christ saved us he gave us a new heart a new spirit a heart that runs to him believes him even though everything in the world seems to be falling apart even though it hurts even though it is such a torturous suffering that we endure we run to him because he's given us a heart to do so and these words are ours because we know that one day he's going to put an end to it all and there is bliss there's bliss to be had my prayer my hope my encouragement is that you would find in him that solace in the middle of all the difficulty all the difficulty

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