Ministry on Daniel

… In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hands, with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his God. And he brought the vessels unto the treasure house of his God. In any worthwhile structure, if the building is to last and stand any test that comes along, the foundation must be well and truly laid. Taking the example of natural life, the prophet Isaiah reminds us that the right order of things is to take root downward, bear fruit upward. Another thing that I become aware of increasingly is this. If there was ever a time when it could be accepted that all or most of an audience like this was fully conversant with the text of the scriptures we were going to consider, I judge it's no longer a reasonable assumption. Amongst children, it's no longer realistic to start applying the lesson to be learned until we first of all ensure that the details of the narrative are understood. Another thing that over the years perhaps has made us shy away from merely saying what the story is before we apply it, is that very often, maybe the way we've been trained over the years, that very often we fly to the moral and spiritual application because that's much more obvious to us than the physical material details. I give you two examples and pass on. It's much easier, to me anyway, to see the lesson that God intends us to learn from things like the tabernacle and the temple than to glean from scripture sufficient detail to lay out a working plan, a blueprint from which one could with any confidence make a model. I think in the mercy of God, there's always some detail which is left unstated so that we don't get too engrossed with the actual material detail and we are drawn on to the moral and spiritual lesson. Notwithstanding all that, for myself, I judge that I will be well able or better able to learn the moral and spiritual lessons there are for me in the book of the prophet Daniel if I know something about the background. So, in this introductory session, I would ask for your forbearance and I will assume that like myself, mostly in the past, you've gone into the detail, you've gone to the prophetic interpretation and you've gone to the moral application without worrying too much about how the thing was when it happened. Now, whether that's the case or not, I intend to spend time this evening in ensuring that we know something about the background, something about the situation, and then when it comes to the application later on, we'll be better able to see it. Now, we're going to spend time tonight then on a bit of geography and a bit of history. Don't be put off by that. Don't switch off either because you say, geography, history, I know it all. I'll wait till Tuesday before I switch on. Or on the other hand, saying, history, geography, not for me. The geography concerning the book of the prophet Daniel. Let us remind ourselves of a basic lesson in reading the Bible. In geographical terms, the reference point is the land of Israel. When things are spoken of, and we shall see something of this, as north, south, east or west, it's about north, south, east or west of Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular. Let us always bear that in mind. Now, having said that, I want to take you back to the 8th century BC and I have here some maps as you will observe. Now, if you cannot see them, ideally move forward. If you cannot or will not move to a position where you can see the maps, gain what you can, come forward at the end having listened to what is said and compare the detail with the maps. Better still, go home, get those Bible maps and Bible atlases off the shelf. I believe it was Dr. Oliver of Galashiels who many years ago made a very pertinent remark. He said, we should not shelve the truth. There's much truth on our shelves, even maps. Let us take them off the shelves, dust them off and see what there is to be gained. Now, in the 8th century BC, the Gentile Empire that was in sway was the Assyrian Empire and the capital was at Nineveh. Now, you may not see the writing, you can see the colour. The blue is the Mediterranean Sea, the red sea, the Persian Gulf. I would guess that even up to about 6 months ago we didn't know very much about the geography, I would think most of us are acquainted with maps like that now. Red Sea, Persian Gulf, South Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, Palestine and the Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC was the one that counted. Now, that was very significant for the people of Israel. At that time, Israel as a nation was split into two. There was the northern part of Israel here in yellow and there was the southern part of Israel called Judah. Judah and Benjamin were with their capital city at Jerusalem and there we have the northern part of the kingdom, the ten tribes with the capital at Samaria. Now, I want just to leave the history just a little bit for the moment and just pinpoint this matter of geography. Yes, we'll leave that at that. And looking ahead, the Assyrian Empire covered most of what we would now refer to as Iraq, Syria and Jordan and parts of the Middle East. Of eastern Turkey and bits of what we now call Iran or what used to be Persia. And the two vital spots really are the land of Palestine, God's pleasant land, and the valley of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and the Euphrates, which has always been a point of contention, being so fertile. And at the time was under control of the kingdom of Assyria. Now, the kingdom of Assyria was vanquished by the Babylonian Empire and the capital moved south from Nineveh to the city of Babylon and then in turn was overtaken by the Empire of Persia. Now, that's as far as I want to take the geography lesson tonight, but when scriptures are referred to, just glance up there and we can move on to what is a little more relevant, the history of the significant nations. When Israel as a nation demanded a king, they wanted someone they could look up to and they were given one that they could look up to physically, head and shoulders over all the people. As the scripture says of him, King Saul. And then we had three 40-year reigns, King Saul, King David, and King Solomon, three times 40. Solomon sinned grossly. That's sufficient for our purpose to take account of that. He sinned grossly. Now, when David had wanted to build a temple for God, a temple for a house for the Lord, God said, that's a good idea, but it won't be in your time. You are a man of war and it wouldn't be proper for you to be allowed to build a house unto the Lord. But because you've got the idea, you collect the materials together and then your son Solomon will be allowed to do it. Now, that was blessing that was deferred for a generation. Solomon was allowed to build the temple. Towards the end of his life, he was told by God, because of his sins, judgment would fall upon the nation over which he had been given the stewardship of being king. But as the blessing of building a house for the Lord was deferred a generation in David's time, so the judgment upon the kingdom in Solomon's day was deferred a generation unto Rehoboam's time. Solomon's son, Rehoboam. And Jeroboam and others rebelled against Rehoboam when the kingdom first passed into Rehoboam's hands and it was then that the kingdom became divided into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. Now, because they were in the North, the ten tribes were more vulnerable to attack from further North and from further East. Now, the Assyrian Empire, we see with its capital at Nineveh that it was readily placed to attack the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And the prophets of the Lord in succession, those prophets whose responsibility it was to speak to the Northern Kingdom again and again, they said if you don't mend your ways, you're going to be conquered by a Gentile power. The ultimate insult to God's earthly people. If you want to see which prophets prophesied under which kings, again there is a chart here both for the Northern and the Southern Kingdom and have a look at the end or consult the data at the back of your Bibles and you'll see which prophets ministered and prophesied to the Northern Kingdom of Israel or the Southern Kingdom of Israel. Well, Israel, the Northern Kingdom did not repent and the final message came to them that they would be taken away into a foreign land, they would be replaced by foreigners and that others would be able to enjoy the fruit of the present land. And the Kingdom of Assyria was allowed to attack the Northern Kingdom. Now, if you look here, you'll see that that is the Dead Sea, that is the Sea of Galilee, River Jordan flowing North to South. Now, if you remember, there were two and a half tribes which didn't really enter into the land. Reuben, Gad and a half of the tribe of Manasseh, the brown, yellow and purple, they didn't go over the land, over the Jordan, into the land, they stayed on this side, Jordan. They were, their confidence in God, their faith was incomplete, they didn't go all the way. When they were liberated from Egypt, they went almost into the land but not quite, their faith was incomplete. So, for that reason and because circumstantially they were the nearest to be picked off by the Kingdom of the Empire of the Assyrians, Reuben, Gad and Manasseh in about BC 740 were taken away captive into the land of Assyria. Now, the rest of the Northern Kingdom, having lost such a slice, everything that was East of the River Jordan, they should have realised then that it was time to mend their ways. They went on as before, disobedient to their God and about 18 years later, 722 BC or thereabouts, they were invaded again by the Assyrian Empire and all the remaining Israelites of that Northern Kingdom were taken away. And they were dispersed and they were scattered and they became lost. Often, the lost tribes of Israel are mentioned in conversation or in books. I fear that many believers assume that by the lost tribes being scattered, that what we are intended to understand by that is that there are Jews in every part of the world and so there are, but they are not the lost tribes of Israel. The lost tribes of Israel are the members of the Northern Kingdom of Israel which was taken away in two stages, 740 BC, 722 BC by the Assyrian Empire and we don't know where they are. No point in guessing. When God wants to bring them together again, he will, but if God says they're lost, they're lost and there's no point in my trying to guess where they are. When we speak of Jews as we recognize them, we are speaking about those of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, similar sound, the Jews from Judah, and certainly there are Jews in many nations of the land. Makes it very difficult for man to sort it out with all the intermarriage that goes on. We can have confidence in God that when he so decrees, he will gather together his earthly people and ensure that they are there to have the opportunity given to them of enjoying the good things of God's green and pleasant land. Well, there we have it. The Northern Nation was taken away in two stages and the Southern Kingdom, Judah, had the opportunity of mending their ways. Now, God was gracious. He took away the Northern Kingdom in two stages and he was even more gentle with the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Those who were taken away were taken away not in two stages but in three. Now, again, we shouldn't fault the historians for a word or a year here and there. Very, very difficult to track down exactly what date certain things happened. But again, when we think of what the Bible says about geography, that the reference point is the land of Israel, Bible history has its reference point, the people of God, the people of Israel. And so things that are of deep significance in worldly terms, Gentile terms, are often glossed over and something that's relatively unimportant in the world's eyes is seen to be of great significance to God because it affects his earthly people. Now, what happened was that the Southern Kingdom did not mend their ways, they were not repentant. At the same time, the Assyrian Empire was overtaken by the Babylonian Empire with its capital at the city of Babylon, or Shinar, as it's spoken of in the Bible on five occasions. Now, we come to the point where Nebuchadnezzar was in control. And he took the opportunity of invading the Southern Kingdom Judah and he took away the holy vessels from the house of God and he creamed off, I suppose, what would nowadays be called the yuppies, the up-and-coming bright young things of the day, those with the best upbringing, those with the most cultured background, the privileged class of the day, those who were able to respond to special training, and he took them off. He creamed off the best of the young generation and he took them back to Babylon. Now, what I want to do at this stage is read some scriptures and just to orientate our minds. Unless we relate what's going on to the scriptures, we are wasting our time. Turn back, please, first of all, to 1 Kings, chapter 8, verses 46 to 50. This is part of Solomon's word that he gave when he dedicated the temple that God had allowed him to build. Speaking of the people of God, those who should be using the temple of God in the worship of God, chapter 8, verse 46 says, If the people sin against thee, for there is no man that sinneth not, and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near. Yet, if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely. We have committed wickedness, and so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name. Then hear thou their prayer, and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling place, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee, and give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them. Second Chronicles, the last chapter, 36. Verses 15 to 21. The Lord God of their fathers... Now, bear in mind that what is being recorded here is 400 years, approximately, after Solomon dedicated the temple. By now, what Solomon had indicated had occurred. The people had rebelled, they had been disobedient, and the northern kingdom was away, and the southern kingdom was about to be taken away too. The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes and sending, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age. He gave them all into his hand, and all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. And they burnt the house of God, and break down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths. For as long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. Now move over, please, to Jeremiah 25. Jeremiah 25, and verse 12. Really, we should take note of verses 1 to 14. Let us make a point of reading that before we come together again. But for the moment, I'll only read verse 12. It shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations. Chapter 29, and verse 10. For thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 1. Verse 11. Verse 11. And so, verse 17. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. We've read scriptures before the event, where the Lord's message was, if you continue in sin, you'll be conquered, you'll be taken away in captivity to a Gentile nation. We've read the historical record of what took place when it happened, with the added comment that as God's disciplinary tools, God was going to use Gentile nations, and was using Gentile nations to discipline his earthly people. But that he would hold such Gentile nations responsible to him for what they did to the apple of his eye, in particular when they overstepped the mark. And finally, we have read after the event, from the Gospel by Matthew, looking back, and seeing the Holy Spirit's record, that things that happened in the nation of God's earthly people happened in an orderly way, at orderly intervals. I'll say no more than that, but there are references here to a series of fourteen generations at a time, thrice over. But perhaps the most significant thing that we've read about was that what took place when Nebuchadnezzar took the holy vessels and the cream of the younger generation back to Babylon, the most significant thing that we've read is that this was done because, in a particular way, the southern kingdom of Judah, as well as the northern kingdom of Israel, had defaulted in a very special way. They were in debt to God. They had not given to God seventy Sabbath years. They owed God seventy years. Now, I'm going to read some scriptures now to refresh your memory as to what God had ordained should be the principle on which they worked. That not only should there be one Sabbath day per week, but that there should be one Sabbath year in seven, in order that the land might rest. Now, we are going to look at a few scriptures, the first one in the book of Exodus and chapter 23. We'll only read the odd verse. Exodus 23, verses 10 and 11. Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof. But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest, and lie still, that the poor of thy people may eat. And what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. Leviticus, chapter 25. Verses 1 to 7. The Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof. But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the Lord. Thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap. Neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed, for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the Sabbath of the land shall be meet for you, for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, and for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meet. Chapter 26, verse 14. I also will do this unto you. I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning egg, and that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart. And ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies. They that hate you shall reign over you, and ye shall flee when none pursueeth you. Verses 27 and 28. If ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury. And I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. Verse 32. I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you. And your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate. And ye be in your enemies' land, even then shall the land rest and enjoy her sabbaths. Again, 400 years before the setting up of the kingdom in response to the pleading of the people, there was the message from the Lord to Moses to speak unto the people. That even at that early stage, the warning was given, if ye refuse and rebel, you'll be driven out of the land, and your enemies will possess it for themselves. Now, again, God was gracious. As when he withdrew from the temple and its precincts in the prophet Ezekiel, so we find here that the discipline of God on the southern kingdom took place in easy stages and gave them the opportunity to repent, but they did not. First of all, in about 6 or 6 BC, the holy vessels and the cream of the youngsters, they took no notice of this as a nation, and then, well, again, somewhere between 10, 12, 14, 15 years later, when they rebelled again against the king, the king Nebuchadnezzar said, well, only leave behind the lowest of the peasants to tend the land. Bring everybody out, and bring them all back, and they will all serve me in my land, the land of Babylon. And so they did. And they still were disobedient to their God, and then a few years later on, we find that the few that were left were taken away, and the city itself was destroyed. What a pitiful comment upon the disobedience of the people. Just a reflection there. This happened because the people had been disobedient and had not given to God the Sabbath years of rest. Seventy years they owed to God, and because one year in seven was to be Sabbath, this meant that they had been disobedient for 490 years. Now, put that number in the back of your memory, we'll come back to one or more sets of 490. But think of it that the nation had been disobedient for 490 years. What's even worse, when you work it out, you find that 490 years from the time that Nebuchadnezzar conquered the southern kingdom and took away the holy vessels out of the temple, if you work 490 years back, you come to the year that Saul was made king. In other words, as long as there had been a kingdom, they had never once allowed the land to enjoy its Sabbath rest. You may well conclude that even before that, they hadn't allowed the land to recover in the way that God had decreed. But the responsibility of the kings was for this nation, which was constituted a kingdom, and their responsibility was that for the whole of that historical period of 490 years, they hadn't given to God once the Sabbath of rest for the land. How gracious, how long-suffering God is. And now the time had come where the discipline must be applied. Judgment must be carried out. And we find that from this date, which Matthew 1 we've read, began the carrying away of the southern kingdom of Judah into the land of Babylon, not to be lost without trace like the northern kingdom, but preserved as an entity. And as we've read from the prophet Jeremiah, that after 70 years of discipline, to correspond with the 70 years that they owed God after that commensurate period, that in the ways of God, they would be allowed liberty to come back to their land of promise. Now that's as far as we can take that part tonight. One other little matter that we need to consider for the moment. Not so much the layout of the book, but the language which is used. If you just take your Bible into your hand and look at the book of Daniel, chapter 1, and make a mental note of the fact that from chapter 1, verse 1, through to and including chapter 2, verse 3, the language that Daniel was written in was Hebrew. Then again, from chapter 8, verse 1, to the end of the book, again is written in Hebrew. Hebrew that the southern kingdom of Judah would be able to understand. The intervening bit, and we'll find other reasons for this as we go on, but chapter 2, verse 4, right through to chapter 7, verse 28, is written in a language which is variously Arabic, Chaldean, Syriac, or Aramaic. Now, we aren't surprised that in gospel times that the people were still conversant with Aramaic because, again, the people who were brought from Assyria and Babylon to repopulate the land of Israel had that as their natural dialect. Now, I want to make one fundamental suggestion for tonight and leave it at that. The part written in Hebrew, the first one and a bit chapters, and then the later chapters, are written in Hebrew because they contain God's message to the people of Judah. The intervening chapters, from chapter 2, verse 4, to the end of chapter 7, are written in the Gentile tongue because they contain the message for the Gentile nations. And the message to the Hebrew people was this, what's happening to you now is no misfortune. It's not primarily due to the aggressive nature of Nebuchadnezzar. It's necessary because you owe to God 70 years and you will go into captivity for 70 years to repay that 70 years. But we will bear in mind that that 70 years that they owed God represented 490 years of disobedience and we must come back to that. Judah had robbed Jehovah, they were in debt, they must pay it back. Why write half the book in a Gentile tongue? Or we learn in Romans that the whole world is left without excuse. And in the book of Daniel, particularly in chapters 2 to 7, written in a Gentile language, the Gentile minds can understand God outlines what is going to happen, how the Gentile nations are going to act, how God views them in the way that they act, and the judgment that God would carry out upon them when the time was right. And so that they might be without excuse, the outline of history written in advance, or prophecy as we call it, was making plain both to the Hebrews, the kingdom of Judah, and the Gentiles, the kingdom of Babylon, that their responsibility was directly to God and they were answerable to God for everything that they did. Now, I trust we've laid the basis for further studies, and if the Lord will, on Tuesday night we shall look at the major prophetic statements in chapters 2 and 7 as to the times of the Gentiles. And if the Lord will, we'll do that. But let us project ourselves in our last hymn to beyond that, to the time when God's purpose for Israel has indeed been worked out, when there will be joy on earth, 256. …

… 33 verse 14, God speaketh once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men in slumberings upon the bed, then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. Now in the book of Daniel chapter 3, Daniel 3 verse 1, Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Verse 8, At that time certain Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews. They spake, and said to the king, Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever. Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoso falleth not down and worshipeth, that he shall be cast into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace. There are certain Jews, whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, have not regarded thee. They serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image, which thou hast set up. Verse 19, Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated. And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning, fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosem, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning, fiery furnace. Therefore, because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning, fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar, the king, was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered, and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered, and said, Lo, I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Verse 28, Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and hath changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve, nor worship any God, except their own God. Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill, because there is no other God that can deliver after this thought. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. I suppose most of us are conversant with that oft-quoted statement in Job 33, whether or not we know where it's from. God speaketh once, yea twice, and man perceiveth it not. Now we are here tonight because God has a message for us, you and me, but being what we are, we find it easier, we find it more pleasant, we find it more acceptable to see other people's faults. Makes us uncomfortable, doesn't it, to think about our own. But God is gracious, God is kind, God is merciful, and he has sprinkled freely in the scripture of truth, illustrations of lessons that he wants us to learn, and the book of Daniel is a good example. Of the many things that might be said about Nebuchadnezzar, I want to single out two, two incidents in the life on earth of Nebuchadnezzar. Now at every stage, while it's interesting to speak about Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who lived what 2,700 years ago, 2,600 years ago thereabouts. It's only really worthwhile if we realize that through Nebuchadnezzar, and the lessons that he had to learn, that God is speaking to you and to me. God speaketh once, yea twice, but man perceiveth it not. In case you're under any delusion, let me say also, God speaketh once, yea twice, yet woman perceiveth it not, yet boy perceiveth it not, yet girl perceiveth it not. None of us is excluded from the lesson we need to learn. Nebuchadnezzar is well placed that we might learn from him. Nebuchadnezzar was a king, the son of a king, born in a palace. How favoured he was. Never wanted a mouthful of food. Never short of a refreshing drink. God was good to him. God has caused you and me to be born in a land, in a day, where we have every favour extended to us. Some of you, I can see, move about, not only in this country but throughout the world, and you're aware of how other people are obliged to live, or as we would say, exist. What if you'd been born a Kurd? An Ethiopian? A South African Negro? Or in some of the more poverty stricken back streets of Newcastle even? Some of you have lived through hard times, I know that. Some of you were born in very poor circumstances, but God has been good to all of us and he's been gracious and kind and given us more than we need. We're only promised, aren't we, what we need? But God has provided us with more than we need, with the intention that we should be grateful to him, the good and faithful creator. Sadly, the human heart is such that rather than being grateful to the great providing God, there's a tendency for each of us to think we can paddle our own canoe. We can get on by ourselves, thank you very much. Nebuchadnezzar? Born into very convenient, congenial circumstances. Looked up to as the king, all-powerful. How he must have enjoyed the message of the prophet Daniel. When Daniel said, now look, you're the king like there's never been a king like you. Your power is the kind of power that's never been known. I'm sure Nebuchadnezzar preened himself and said, quite right, I'm just the man to be that kind of king in that kind of kingdom. And his heart was lifted up in pride. Let us just pause there. When we consider the goodness of God towards us, whether old or young, the kind of family that he caused us to be born into, what thanks have we given to God for the way that he's blessed us even in a material way? What thanks is due to God for the many of us who've been born into families where God is honoured, where the word of God is read, where parents and grandparents have prayed for us that the blessing of the Lord which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow with it might be our portion day by day. Nebuchadnezzar, we read about him, heart lifted up in pride. How susceptible we are to it. And his servants, his officials came along and said, now look, if you're the greatest king in the world, this should be publicized. Let's make a great image of the Lord. Let's make a great statue, 90 feet high, 9 feet wide, and everyone will see it, and everyone will have to bow to it, and in bowing to that, they will be worshipping you. Nebuchadnezzar, of course, should have said, now look, be sensible. I'm only in this situation because of the goodness of God. If you want to give thanks, give thanks to the God who gives us all the air that we breathe. We couldn't last without God, could we? In broad terms, I think it's true to say, we can last a few weeks without food. We can last a few days without water. We can last a few minutes without air. We can't last at all without God. In him we live and move and have our being. All things continue to exist in virtue of the being of Christ, the son of God, as the New Testament tells us. Nebuchadnezzar, oh, how sad. You know, we all yield to temptations of different sorts. Some of us fall when we get too much money. Some of us fall when we have too little. Some of us fall when we have too much criticism. And many of us fall if we are given too much praise. Fortunately, most of us are spared from that. Nebuchadnezzar, he says, what a good idea. Let's tell everybody what a wonderful man I am. Everything that happens in the kingdom, they owe it all to me. I'm the big noise. I'm number one. Get on with it. Build this 90 feet statue. I'm doing it. Of course, it was a put-on. The people who suggested it knew for a fact that there were those in the kingdom who knew that worship should only be given to God. Worship God, the scripture says. There were those who would give honour, real honour, the top honour, only to God, to whom they owed their breath. And then when these schemers made the image, built the statue, how ready they were to come to King Nebuchadnezzar and say, you'll never guess what's happened. Tell me, said the king, these Jews, these captives that were brought from southern Palestine, who owe everything to you and you've been good to them, King Nebuchadnezzar, they've had the audacity to refuse to bow to the image. The king was so uplifted in the pride of his heart that he said, well, we said what we would do, we'll have to do it. And ultimately, these three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, were thrown into the seven times heated, fiery furnace. You're sitting there comfortable. You're sitting there handsome, in person, in lifestyle, in clothes. How real is your faith? What answer would you give if someone said, now look, unless you pay due honour to this statue that's in the street there, unless once a week you bow before it, you're going to suffer, you're going into a fiery furnace. I think most of us at the start would have a few palpitations, wouldn't we? Well, would it really matter? The Lord would know our heart isn't really in it. But every now and again, God pushes us into a crisis where we have the opportunity to demonstrate how real our faith is. Let me encourage you. If you are a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ, if you believe that Jesus died for you and rose again, I'm convinced of this. If it was necessary for the glory of God, if it actually happened in your life that your faith was tested in that way, if you really trust in the living God who sent his son Jesus into the world for your salvation, if you really trust in such a saviour, let me encourage you. I'm convinced that God would give those of us who are real the grace for the occasion. Difficult to judge at the moment, many of us may well have gone soft because we've never had to suffer for our faith. Well, it's an opportunity, isn't it, to think about Nebuchadnezzar's treatment of these three godly men and that when he said to them, now what sort of a God are you? Where's your God now? What's he going to be like? How's he going to look after you now? Lovely reply. I didn't read it. It's in the text. They said, don't you worry about us. Our God is able. He's able to deliver and he will. That's our faith in him. No doubt about it at all. But, oh King, they said, in case you're in any doubt, if God, for his own best purposes, if it's his will that we are not delivered, well, so be it. We'll still not bow down to the enemy. Now, a faith that was prepared to suffer. And they did. And they were sustained. And a figure, a fourth, an extra person, having fellowship with them in their sufferings, in the terrible heat of the fiery surface, furnace. One, the scripture says, like unto the Son of God. You Bible students, look that word up, the Son of God. Not here, the meek and lowly Jesus. Not here, in his personal charm. But here, in his official, judicial character, the one who's in charge of the situation and consoles those who trust in him. And he says to them, don't you worry, I'm here. I've got the situation under real, proper control. And he had. Now, apart from being an interesting historical fact, God was speaking once to Nebuchadnezzar through this amazing, miraculous incident. God speaketh once. Now, by what he said afterwards, it would seem as though he'd got the message. Verse 29, there is no other God that can deliver after this sort. Something happened to other people, and he seemed to have learned the lesson. God spoke once to him. I want to read a little bit from chapter 4, where God spoke to Nebuchadnezzar again. Verse 1, Nebuchadnezzar, the king unto all people, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied unto you. Verse 4, I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at rest in mine house, and flourishing in my palace. I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me. Verse 19, then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonished for one hour, and his thoughts troubled him. The king spake and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream or the interpretation thereof trouble thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, my lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies. Nebuchadnezzar has another dream here, given another vision of what's going to happen in the future. How privileged we are when God draws the veil aside and lets us see what's going to happen in the future. God says to us, the dead, small and great, will stand before God, and the books will be opened, and every individual who is at that tribunal will be judged according to the law. According to their works. And there'll be a clear line of demarcation. Those whose names are in the Lamb's book of life, the final court of appeal, will be blessed, but those who aren't. Because all have sinned, those who are not covered by the blood of the Lamb, their portion will be the same as that for the devil and his angels in the lake of fire. The tragedy is not that that is the end. For those who know not God, that's bad enough. The double tragedy is that many who know that, who've been told it from the scriptures, who realise it and agree with it mentally, would have not acted upon it, that they will be in the lake of fire because God has spoken to them once, yea, twice, and they've done nothing about it. There are some here who for 40, 50, 60, 70 years have taught and watched while boys and girls and older people have heard the sinful gospel message of Jesus and his wonderful love. A few have responded, but o'er the many who have gone on heedlessly, carelessly, without an interest in the destiny of their precious soul. Those of you who've witnessed to neighbours, to unconverted relatives, to workmates, to school pals over the years, that will be the end for them. O Nebuchadnezzar, was spoken to not once, but twice. Read the rest of the chapter, wherein we are told that he who'd been so proud of his kingdom, that God who'd made him such an exalted person, officially in his kingdom, that God would bring him low, that such would be his mental and moral condition, that he'd be brought down to the level of the brute beasts, in appearance and in habits. And the scripture says, all this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar, verse 28. Verse 37, 36 says, at the same time my reason returned unto me, verse 37, I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honour the king of heaven, all whose works are truth and his ways judgment, and those that walk in pride he is able to abase. He now takes sides with God against himself. He who'd been so proud is now able to agree with God and align himself with God in true repentance and says, that which God has said about me is absolutely true. As I read the book of Daniel, I'm never quite sure what condition of soul Nebuchadnezzar ended his days in. Maybe you are convinced. Read the book of Daniel again. This seems to be the last we hear of him, and it's on a good note. He's saying, God's right, I've been wrong all along, everything that I have I owe to God, he had to bring me down in order to lift me up. Where are we? I want to say to you two conclusions I've come to over the last few months. When I say it, you may say, well that's obvious, that's what the gospel says. If it's obvious to you, not only do you believe it, but do you act upon it? Let me say two things about the death of Christ at Calvary. Yes, God gives us a true vision of ourselves by giving us a true vision, a true sight of the Lord Jesus on the cross. Judge what I'm going to say against your knowledge of what the Bible says about God, about Christ, about Calvary. What Jesus did at Calvary, in dying, in sacrifice for sin, is of sufficient value to God that it covers every sin that's ever been committed, by everybody that's ever lived. Oh, that's a tremendous value, isn't it? The value to God potentially is sufficient to cover every sin committed by every individual from the beginning of time. That's what scripture says. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from every kind and every individual sin that's ever been committed. We'll leave that for a moment and go to the other end of the scale. Do you believe this? If there'd only been one sinner that ever lived, you. If you'd only committed one sin, do you believe that that one sin committed by you is so obnoxious to God that the death of Christ at Calvary would have been absolutely necessary to deal with the claims of God upon you, one sinner, having committed one sin? Sin is as horrible to God as that. It's not a question of you saying, well, I think it might be nice to be a Christian. I think I will decide to become a Christian. These people I think I could get on with, and yes, I think that's what I'll do with my life. The bad news is, don't think about anybody else. Your sins committed by you made it necessary for Jesus to suffer and bleed and die at Calvary. Oh, but the good news, the glad tidings of the gospel is that when Jesus went to the cross just for you, just for your sins, in personal, individual love for you, that when he did that, the value to God of what he did was sufficient to cover every sin of every sinner. The Bible says, the righteousness of God is unto all, it's available to everybody, and it rests upon all those who believe. There's grace available tonight for any who recognize that your sins made it necessary for the death of Christ at Calvary, for the shedding of his precious blood. But oh, if coming as an individual, just for yourself, you receive a blessing which you find is enjoyed by many other sinners who can sing as we sang, nor have I gotten but what I receive. I am only a sinner saved by grace. Now the assurance comes when God says to you, if you really believe that, that your sins made it necessary for Jesus to die, if you trust him as the only possible way of salvation, God says, look, you can be really sure that your sins are forgiven, because look you, God says, I've raised him from the dead. The work was sufficient, the work was complete, the love of God was so real and full, the love of Christ was sufficient in coming into the world to die in that you and I might live unto God. The assurance that God wants us to enjoy is conveyed, at least in part, by the hymn we are going to sing now, and let us, as we sing it, just think about what we've been taught. 415. Again it's a question, will your anchor hold in the storms of life? You know, there's no apology for being personal in the gospel. I'm saved because somebody said to me one day, are you sure you're saved? Have you confessed the Lord? You believe in your heart, have you confessed with your mouth? The challenge comes to all of us of any age. Do we believe in the heart? Have we confessed with the mouth? If so, we can sing this lovely hymn of assurance. We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure while the billows roll, fastened to the rock which cannot move, grounded firm and deep in the Saviour's love. 415. Will your anchor hold in the storms of life? When the countenance of heaven's host shines, when the sun rises and the devils flee, will your anchor hold in the storms of life? We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure while the billows roll, fastened to the rock which cannot move, grounded firm and deep in the Saviour's love. Will your anchor hold in the strays of day? When the breakers go and break in the air, when the searchers break from the wild winds blow, shall we ever be raised again from our foes? We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure while the billows roll, fastened to the rock which cannot move, grounded firm and deep in the Saviour's love. Will your anchor hold in the storms of death? When the waters grow till the nature's breath, on the rising morn till the meadows bend, will your anchor hold within the bend? We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure while the billows roll, fastened to the rock which cannot move, …

… From the book of Daniel, chapter 5, beginning at verse 1. Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whilst he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem, and the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. And the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing and show me the interpretation thereof shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then came in all the king's wise men, but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof. Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonished. Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another. Yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation. Thou hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven, and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee. And thou and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines have drunk wine in them. And thou hast praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know. And the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified? Then was the part of the hand sent from him, and this writing was written. And this is the writing that was written, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Eupharsin. This is the interpretation of the thing. Mene, God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Tekel, thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Peres, thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. In that night, in that night, was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. I haven't read every book that's ever been written, that's obvious. But one thing I'm sure of, the one book that's been written, and remains undated, unaffected by the changing fashions of this world, a book which is always topical, is the Bible. Belshazzar, the last effective sovereign of the kingdom of Babylon, before it lost its place as the ruler of the nations. Wherever you find Babylon referred to directly by name, or by the other name connected with Babylon, Shinar, wherever the word or the name or the place is mentioned, we read about something where those who are there are set against God. Maybe in word, maybe in declared atheism, I don't believe there is a God at all. Maybe as an agnostic, I'm not very sure. I'm willing to be convinced, but you'll have to give me sufficient proof to satisfy my clever mind. The audacity of sinful men and women that demand proof to their satisfaction. Oh, we shall be required to give satisfaction to God, to give account of ourselves to God. Belshazzar then, repudiating the true God, desecrating those vessels that were dedicated to the service of God, paying homage, as I suppose 90, 95% of the people in our land do now, paying homage to materialism. Paying homage to the gods of gold and silver and wood and food and drink. If there could or were to be a census in Newcastle upon Tyne and every question was answered and there must be, how many would have to say, I, by my lifestyle, I don't say the words, but by the way that I live, I'm just like Belshazzar and his lords, I pay homage to the four Bs. Pierre, Bucky, Bingo and Benidorm. You analyse it. I would say most people in this country are governed by the four Bs. Things that give pleasure to the natural senses. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. I think, well no I'm sure, we are returning to the sort of pagan days where it will take spectacular miracles to shift needy souls out of their indifference. Like the days of Belshazzar and his lords. Busy man, wasn't he? Head of the nation. Probably the prince regent in the absence of his general father who was away doing battles from time to time. Belshazzar, the virtual king, spent his days in feasting with his princes, his wives, his concubines. Busy man. God was crowded out of his life. Whether believer or unbeliever, how easy it is for God to be crowded out of our busy lives. Not openly, not blatantly, but surreptitiously, bit by bit. Oh yes, I get to the meetings, I do my duty and then the rest of the time is my own. Far be the thought. Belshazzar gathers with his lords, repudiates the true gods, sets about enjoying himself and he needs to be brought to an abrupt halt and he was. I remember reading once a comment on this chapter, normally called Belshazzar's feast. But writers like to be alliterative. It's not always peace like we had last night. The comment of one writer was about this feast, fingers that finished a feast. Fingers that finished a feast. There he was, reveling, literally and metaphorically, carousing, having an orgy and then absolutely stricken. He sees the fingers of a man's hand writing on the wall. Oh how significant that is. In the same hour, while God was crowded out of his life, by choice came forth fingers of a man's hand. I wonder how many of you shared an experience that occasionally used to happen to me. My mother used to say to me, don't point, it's rude. Why is it that if someone points at you, you feel uncomfortable? You feel invaded. You feel insulted. The answer to all important questions is found in the Bible. I think we just have time to let our eyes fall upon a few examples where the Bible talks about the finger being raised. And we'll learn something if we haven't noticed it before. Turn back to Exodus chapter 8. Moses and Pharaoh's magicians contesting before Pharaoh. Up to a certain point, the world's magicians can copy the acts and the power of Moses, the man of God. But then Moses does something which is beyond the magicians. Pharaoh, their master, says now come on. You've copied them up to now. Don't let me down. Verse 19. The magicians say this is the finger of God. This is the finger of God. I'll keep them all together, but look at chapter 31. The last verse in the chapter. The Lord gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God. Move over to Leviticus chapter 4. Again, this is the chapter about the sin offering. We'll come back to that. Verse 6. The priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the Lord. Verse 17. The priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood. Verse 25. The priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger. Verse 30. The priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger. Verse 34. The priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger. New Testament. Luke's Gospel. Chapter 11. May God use our eyesight in looking at these verses for our spiritual blessing. Luke 11 20. If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. John chapter 8. Well-known incident. Verse 6. They tempted him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground. The message is consistent. When God wants you to know that all things are naked and open in his sight. That there's no escape. You cannot hide from God and he knows all about you. God raises his finger in accusation. The law, Exodus, accuses. It tells you where you've gone wrong but it cannot put you right. All those instructions about the sin offering in Leviticus 4. How important they are. The only way. The righteous accusation of God against you because of your sins. The only righteous answer to that is the finger of accusation. Being satisfied by the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from all sin. There's no other way. Cleansing, forgiveness, bestowal of righteousness, fitness for heaven. Sins and their penalty have to be met once and for all. And this was signified on behalf of the whole nation. For the ruler that sinned. For the priest that sinned. For one of the common people that sinned. Didn't matter who it was. Noble or of humble birth. Prominent or obscure. Many or a few. The only answer to the sinfulness was that the blood had to be sprinkled before the veil. There was no approach possible to God unless the blood was shed and applied in the sight of God. It's the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. The life of the flesh is in the blood. And it was for that reason that the Lord Jesus Christ had to come into the world and die. And that his blood must needs be shed. There was never ever a life on earth like the life of Jesus my Lord. There was never a death like the death of Jesus my Lord. God took account of it. And as I said last week I would say again tonight. God looking at the death of Jesus. God looking at the blood. He clearly says there's sufficient worth in that blood to cleanse every sin. The potential is there to cleanse every sinner. To remove the stain of every sin. But before it's effective it must needs be applied. There were those in the days when Jesus lived upon earth. We read about it in John 8. Where they thought they were alright. Came into the presence of the Lord accusing a woman who was a sinner. They were accusing her. The Lord said, think about yourselves. And he wrote with his finger on the ground. He says if we are talking about accusations. Consider yourself before God. How tempting it is to think about other people. Who in our eyes are worse sinners than us. More blatant, more flagrant, more regular over a longer period. Oh the God who says there's sufficient worth in the blood of Jesus. To deal with your every sin. The same God says if you've only sinned once. The whole weight of the wrath of God hangs over your head. This was the message. Meanie, meanie, teakle, you farson. Forgive the pronunciation. It's like the tunes we sing. As long as we all sing the same thing and understand it. Whether we are 100% accurate perhaps is secondary. Well give me a better pronunciation. But we don't need worry about the interpretation. God gives it to us. God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. You may get people at your door. And tell you they've got good news for you. And they will encourage you to understand. That if you behave yourself. And read their books. And do what they say. They'll promise you life on earth. I'm not quite sure whether they would still say forever. But they'll promise you an extended life on earth. That's not a blessing that would be a curse. Maybe it's a sign of growing older. But the idea of living forever on earth. Gets increasingly unattractive the longer we live. As the vortex of the whirlpool gets quicker. As the pace of life increases. As the thin veneer of respectability is taken off the cesspool. That's society in 1991. The time must come. When as to Belshazzar. God says to the world at large enough. No more. The reckoning day will have arrived. Now what basis was the reckoning going to be on? Listen to what the message is. Thou art weighed in the balances. And art found wanting. You remember. When Eve transgressed. Being deceived. Took Adam with her. Just like now. Everybody wanted to blame somebody else. Not me Lord somebody else. Adam says not me Lord it was the woman. The woman says it wasn't me it was the serpent. God says to the serpent. Because thou. God said to the woman. Because thou. God said to Adam. Because thou. Individual responsibility. Ezekiel 33 is it. Each will have to bear their own responsibility before God. And because God is entirely consistent. With what he's declared himself to be. As he spoke to Adam. As he spoke to Eve. As he spoke to the serpent. So he spoke to Belshazzar. And says thou. Individual. I've weighed you up. I don't want to open any old wounds. But any of you who've been burgled. Will probably share with many others. A common reflection. It's not so much. The things that were taken. It's not even the terrible mess that was left behind. The best of all is to know. That for a long time. Somebody had been watching you. Taking account of all your movements. And making a note perhaps. When you went out. When you came in. What your habits were. How many people came to visit you. Was there a time. When your house was left unguarded. Without anybody there. I'm told. That that's the common experience. Of those who've been burgled. God. Watches us. All the time. There's not a thing that we do. There's not a word that we utter. There's not a thought that passes through our minds. That he doesn't know all about. At the last assize. We read. That the wicked. The wicked dead small and great. They'll be raised. They will stand before God. And the books will be opened. The books of records. I suppose. For most of us. Certainly for me. There are some things that I've done in my life. Some things I've said perhaps. Many thoughts. That I've allowed to pass through my mind. I wouldn't want my best friend. Never mind my worst enemy. To know anything about them. But God knows them all. And the time will come. When everything will be revealed. And Belshazzar here. Is a picture of that. I've been watching you Belshazzar. I've been taking notes. There's a record of everything. That you've ever done or said or thought. And the result is. You've been found wanting. As we learn in Romans. We've all come short. Of God's standard. The glory of God. I may well. Be ashamed. Of things that are on my record. But thank God. They've all been dealt with. None of them outstanding. The blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. God's son. Has cleansed me. From every sin. God forbid that I should use that as an excuse. For doing as I like. But the Bible says. It doesn't work like that. When your sins are forgiven. You're determined. To live for the one that saved you. Romans 6. God forbid. That we should give the impression. That we would like to abound in sin. That grace might super abound. But there he was. Belshazzar. Doesn't say. How many sins he'd committed. Didn't say where about. On the scale of grossness. Or seriousness. Any of them were. You. Have been weighed up. And found wanting. Any of us. Could put ourselves. On the scale. And the same would be said about us. However old. However experienced. However mature or immature. Put on the scales. God says about you and me. You've been found wanting. Many would like to think. That the scales of justice stand. Adjusted. So that they're perfectly in balance. And the pointer is on mid scale. Zero. And they would like to think. That. The commendable things they've ever done. The good things. The good works. Will be put on one side. And that. The admitted wrongdoing is put on the other side. And then you have to watch the scale. And. If the bad things outweigh the good things. Well. That would be a pity. But if. Your good things outweigh the bad things. Well it'll be all right in the end. It's a lie of the devil. God said to Belshazzar. He says to you and me. He says. You are in the balances. All right. We'll adjust the scales. They are fair. God is righteous. It's on. The point is on zero. God says. I'm putting you on one side. And he says. If there's one sin. That you've ever committed. Can be put on the other sides of the scale. Bump it will go down against you. In the days. When Belshazzar lived. That was the end of it. Tonight. You're finished. No opportunity. For repentance. Yes he may have had opportunities in his life. He'd seen the life of those who were true to God. Daniel and others. He'd ignored that. Lived for himself. And he exits. On his way to judgment. The accusation. Of the finger of God. Meant that he was without excuse. How sad it would be. If regular attenders. At gospel meetings. Who'd had far more opportunity than Belshazzar. To know. Not only the justice of God. But the mercy of God. You see at the present time. It's not like Belshazzar. That you're ushered into eternity. And you're away. And no opportunity. Up till now. The grace of God is available to you and me. And that in the light of the gift of God. His beloved son. Who died at Calvary for our sins. God says oh yes. I must point the finger. You are weighed in the balances. You are found wanting. Oh but the cry of mercy is this. Trust Jesus as your saviour. Forget about yourself. Realize there is a God with whom you have to do. Get the matter settled. While still you can. I feel it right. At the close of this meeting. To draw your attention particularly. To the words that we are going to sing. Think about Belshazzar. Think about yourself. Acknowledge your sins. Confess them before God. And accept what the Bible says. The only way of salvation. Is to put your simple trust. In the Lord Jesus Christ. And accept that he loved you. And gave himself for you. Simply trusting every day. Number 120. Simply trusting every day. Oh far better than the four B's. Trust Christ as your saviour. Confess your sins. Turn your back. On whatever has governed you in the past. And say from now on. Whatever happens. I'm going to put my simple trust. In the Lord Jesus Christ. Trusting through a stormy way. Even when my faith is small. Trusting Jesus. That is all. Trusting as the moments fly. Trusting as the days go by. Trusting him whate'er befall. Trusting Jesus. That is all. 120. …

… Profane, wicked, Prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God, remove the diadem and take off the crown. This shall not be the same. Exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is, and I will give it him. Luke 21. Luke 21, verse 20, And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days. For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Acts 17. Acts 17.31. God hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. On Saturday we looked at scriptures which tell us plainly that the nation of Israel as a whole was in debt to God, and is in debt to God. In particular, and certainly since the inauguration of the kingdom of Israel as such, with the accession of King Saul, from that time God's earthly people had robbed their God, in that they had not carried out the injunction to let the land rest one year in seven. That the land should be allowed to be under the beneficent hand of God who gave it, and that one year in seven should be a Sabbath unto the Lord. And at the time that we pick up the thread in the book of Daniel, 490 years have transpired, which meant that the nation was in debt to God to the tune of 70 years. Man being what he is, after the first 120 years or just a little more, the nation had divided into the northern kingdom, in yellow, which called the kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom, in red, the kingdom of Judah. Now, as we must do this week, in the time available, we were painting with a broad brush, and if you checked your maps in the back of your Bible, in your Bible atlas, or if you came forward and checked the location, the distribution of the tribes of Israel over the land, you would notice that while the southern kingdom substantially was Judah and Benjamin, you would notice that at the very bottom of the map, there was the location of the tribe of Simeon. Very little is said subsequently, but certainly because they were isolated from the nine with whom they were nominally associated, they seem to have got adrift of it and seem to have been absorbed into the southern kingdom. We also know that by the time we get to gospel times, there are individuals like Anna, of whom we read that she was of the tribe of Asa. But generally speaking, there was the northern kingdom of Israel, the southern kingdom of Judah. And we also noticed that because of their rebellion against God and disobedience to him, that the nation, the kingdom of Israel, was first to be taken into captivity by the kingdom or the empire of Assyria with its capital at Nineveh. And then a little later on, and this is where Daniel comes into it, 490 years of the long suffering of God gave way to the 70 years captivity. Not now in Assyria, because that empire had in turn been absorbed by the empire of Babylon with its capital in the city of Babylon. And so in Daniel's times, we come to consider the captivity of the kingdom of Judah in Babylon. And we read on Saturday from Jeremiah 25 and 29 where we learned that in payment or in part payment of this debt to God, that the kingdom of Judah was to be captive in the land of Babylon for 70 years. Now, after that kind of background introduction, we need to move into some of the direct prophetic summaries that we get in the book of Daniel. And again, it isn't the exercise, it wouldn't be the time to dot all the i's and cross the t's, but rather to establish for ourselves a framework for future study. Now, it was for that reason that I read from Ezekiel 21 where, again, the tale is taken up from the standpoint that the nation, because of its rebellion, had to be disciplined by God. And a new thing, as far as the extent was concerned, God had determined that Gentile nations should be used as his disciplinary tools. And we read in Ezekiel 21, particularly in verse, well, verse 25, we'll pick it up there, Thou profane wicked prince of Israel. Now, we have here a reference, the divine comment on things as they were. The kingdom of Judah was in a very sorry state. The last king was on the throne, referred here as the profane, wicked, prince of Israel. He wasn't even a king in his own right. He was a puppet of the Gentile monarch. And he's in such a sorry state, in line with his spiritual and moral condition, that both in himself and as a demonstration of the condition of the people, we find that he ended his days blind. As always, blessing comes to man from the hands of God in all its pristine beauty and glory. And then, in responsibility, man causes it to degenerate. This is why, when we consider the sorry state of things of man and responsibility, we find that the last judge, Samson, finished his days blind. The last formal priest who judged, Eli, finished his days blind. The last king, Zedekiah, finished his days blind. And in case we are inclined to preen ourselves, we must bear in mind that the last state of the church, the Christian church, is declared by the Lord to be blind, pictured in the church at Laodicea. So here we have the last kingdom, and at that, a puppet, and not only evil in himself, but a picture of things at the end, immediately before God, through Christ, takes personal control by personal intervention and setting up the kingdom, which shall never be superseded. We find that Zedekiah is a picture of another last king of the nation, spoken of in scripture as the Antichrist, and we'll come to him again, an apostate Jew, seeking to present himself as the sovereign of the nation, and yet in his heart, against God and his Christ, a first prophetic element of what we have here. Now, it is because of who and what Zedekiah was, that the prophet Ezekiel says, now look, this is the word of the Lord, this cannot continue. God says, because the sovereign of the first Gentile empire, allowed to enslave the kingdom of Judah, has gone beyond the limit, beyond the mark, he will, I will remove him, I will overturn. And he said, the first kingdom, Gentile kingdom, will give way to a second one, and in turn to a third, and in turn to a fourth. So in the days of the first Gentile world empire, there is this prophecy that God would overturn three times more until the second, third, and fourth Gentile world empire were allowed to run their course. And then God says, and then, I will give the kingdom to him whose right it is, until he come whose right it is, and I will give it him. Now, this succession of four world empires is that which the Lord referred to in the verse we read in Luke chapter 21, the times of the Gentiles. The times of Gentile supremacy, when the Jews would be subjugated, when they would be under the sway of one Gentile nation after another. Now, in our survey tonight, we shall find it necessary to read mainly from chapters two and seven of the book of Daniel. Chapter two, Nebuchadnezzar's image. Chapter seven, Daniel's dream. To make things simple, in chapter two, we get man's view of the four Gentile kingdoms in their apparent majesty and apparent majesty and glory and attractiveness. In chapter seven, we get God's view of these same four kingdoms. Now, what we hope to do tonight is look to see what the book of Daniel says about the first three. And then, if the Lord will, we'll see what scripture says about the fourth tomorrow night. But first of all, let's look at chapter two. Overall statements. Again, setting out some benchmarks for our studies. Daniel, chapter two, verse 31. Daniel is privileged to reveal to Nebuchadnezzar the sovereign of the first Gentile world kingdom of Babylon. And this is what Daniel says by way of interpretation. Chapter two, verse 31. Thou, O king, sawest, and behold, a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible. Verse 34. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and of clay, and break them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors. And the wind carried them away that no place was found for them. And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Well, here we have it. Man's view of this succession of empires. Straight away, Nebuchadnezzar had it revealed to him by Daniel that this was a mighty image, that it was there in all its parts, but that this, whatever the image spoke about, would come to a sudden end by miraculous means at a time which up to this point is not specified. And that the power, not personified, not declared at this stage that brought the downfall of this image would emerge as the everlasting kingdom which should never be destroyed and which would be universal. Now move over to chapter seven. Again, an overall statement, not now at the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar's image, but the beginning of Daniel's dream. Chapter seven, verse one. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed. Then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heavens strove upon the great sea, and four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. Now here's a little more detail. As well as this image, which seemed to be a continuous assessment of things, we now have four different entities, four different individuals who are referred to not in their apparent majesty and glory, but in their bestial character, beasts before God. Coming out of the sea, out of a state of unrest, speaking of general conditions in the world, and here we have these four great beasts, diverse from one another. Verse 17. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings which shall arise out of the earth. Now, my main point tonight is to demonstrate from the text of the book of Daniel that what we are led to understand and can understand from the book of Daniel is not a matter of a peculiar interpretation by a small body of Christian believers. It's not a fantasy of one or two clever minds. Everything we are going to look at tonight is verified from the text. As well as being there in detail, it also demonstrates again what we need to do when we study any scriptural subject. We go through and we learn broad lessons. We establish a framework and then once we've got the main gist of the thing, we start again and we comb through with a finer comb, getting more detail. And then when we've swept through a second time, we start again and we go through in finer detail again. There's no substitute really for going through longhand by yourself. Now, what we're going to do now, having established from verse 17 that it's not a minority interpretation, it's a statement of the infallible word of God that this fourfold image in chapter two, these four beasts in chapter seven, are in fact representing four kings that should come out of the world system. And as we've learned from other scriptures, these are the kingdoms in particular which are of interest to God and therefore of interest to us because they were to be used by God to discipline his earthly nation Israel. So, let us go back now to chapter two and comb through in a little finer detail. Chapter two. Again, verse 31. Thou, O King, saw'st, behold, a great image. Verse 32. This image's head was of fine gold. Verse 37. Thou, O King, art a king of kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory, and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the head of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. So, here we have it. Plain statement of scripture. Daniel speaking in the presence of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is able to say plainly, now look, O King, this image that you saw, it begins with a picture of yourself. You are the head of gold. And thou, O King, art a king of kings. Thou art this head of gold. So, here we have it. Direct statement that the first kingdom to vanquish the kingdom of Judah as God's disciplinary measure, because they'd robbed God of 70 Sabbath years, was the kingdom of Babylon. Now, move over, please, to chapter 5 and verse 18. Daniel speaking in the presence of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, O thou King, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honor. And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he slew. And whom he would, he kept alive. And whom he would, he set up. And whom he would, he put down. Daniel speaking now to Belshazzar, the grandson, biologically, but in succession, the one who's now on the throne. Daniel says, Belshazzar, you haven't learned the lesson. What was the lesson? Kings, as the New Testament says, kings are God's ministers for good, and for the punishment of evildoers. Kings hold sway because God chooses that they should be there representatively on his behalf. And if you want to understand God's idea of a kingdom, as to the principle on which it operates, chapter 5, verses 18 and 19 of the book of Daniel, give the kind of king, the kind of kingdom, the positional status, the system of government that is according to God. This is not the same as saying that Nebuchadnezzar was the perfect king, anything but. But as a system of government, you have God in heaven, you have a man on earth chosen by God, enthroned, given absolute, undisputed sway, his word on behalf of God, held absolute sovereignty, as it says graphically, whom he would he slew, whom he would he left alive, whom he would he promoted, whom he would he demoted. His word was law. God says that's the kind of kingdom that will ultimately be extant on the face of the earth, but we must leave that for a moment. But as a system of government, this couldn't be better. This control in the hands of one man. You and I are used to a system of democracy. Our minds are attuned to assume that it's right for everybody to have their say and it's wrong to have control concentrated in the hand of one person, a man. God says it's ideal, it's right, it's perfect for control to be held in the hands of one man, but it has to be the right man. So we have this picture of government as it should be. Chapter 7, verse 4. Verse 3 told us, four great beasts came up from the sea. Do you die, verse 1, from another. The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings. I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked and it was lifted up from the earth and made stand upon the feet as a man and a man's heart was given to it. Now we aren't told which kingdom it is, but we know we've had it explained to Nebuchadnezzar, we've had it explained to Belshazzar, and this now speaking about the first kingdom gives us God's view of that first kingdom and we know because scripture has told us it was the kingdom of Babylon. There is certainly majesty about the lion, the king of beasts. There is certainly majesty about the eagle, the sovereign of the skies, which has its home in the most lofty eminence that a creature can have. That a creature can have. But speaking here of animals or birds of prey who live by devouring others, we have here a statement by God. Yes, the position is an exalted one given by God, but man's heart being what it is, it's lifted up in pride and takes to itself the glory that should be God's. And in homely terms, chapter 7 verse 4 says it was necessary, it will be necessary, it would be necessary, it must be necessary that when the king got too exalted thoughts of himself, it was necessary for God to cut him down to size. That he was a mere man after all. And so we find this described in chapter 7 verse 4. That's about all the book of Daniel says about the first world empire. We get details about how King Nebuchadnezzar got exalted thoughts of himself and had to be disciplined personally by God. We learn how Belshazzar also had these lofty thoughts of self and again had to be brought to a summary end. But really, other than that, we don't get a lot about the kingdom because it was written about something that was existing at the time and was well known. So we move on. God overturned. This shall not continue. This cannot be allowed to proceed, God says, and I will take away the one and bring in another. Now what does scripture say about this second one? Back to chapter 2. Again, verse 31 said, thou, O king, sawest and behold a great image. Verse 32, the middle of the verse says, his breast and his arms of silver. Verse 39, after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee. That's interesting. Look it up in your Septuagint and you will probably expect to find that this is another kingdom of the same sort, that these four kingdoms were going to be the same. In fact, it's not. It's another kingdom of a different sort, a different character. The only one of the four that's said to be God's style and God's system of government is the first one, the head of gold. But in responsibility, man always moves further and further away from God's thoughts. And in these four world empires, each one becomes stronger in material strength but less worthy in value. And that's according to God. Well, let's turn over to chapter 7 and see what chapter 7 says about it. Behold another beast, a second like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it. And they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. Here again, it tells us a kingdom would vanquish the first one and that it would have the character of a bear which tears the flesh of its victim in a very cruel way. But that's about all that we learn except that there are three parts to it somewhere. Three ribs absorbed, taken into the mouth, and there is that connection. We have to move on to chapter 8 in order that we might get an explanation of that. Chapter 8 verse 3, I lifted up mine eyes and saw. And behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns. And the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other. And the higher came up last. Chapter verse 6, the goat came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with collar against him, and smote the ram and break his two horns. And there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, stamped upon him. There was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Now this is explained in chapter 8 verse 20, the ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. Now again you see, this is no interpretation by us. The first gentile kingdom that overpowered the kingdom of Judah was the kingdom of Babylon, ruled by Nebuchadnezzar and then eventually Belshazzar. Overturned overnight, vanquished, history tells us, by the Medes, who were in turn absorbed by the Persians. If we wanted to, perhaps we could see an indication of these three ribs, in that the Babylonian empire, absorbed by the Medes and then by the Persians, there were these three major elements to the kingdom, Babylon, Medes and Persia. There may or may not be a reference to that in the three ribs, but what we do learn in both the bear and the ram is that one side is more prominent than the other. In the bear, the shoulder, one shoulder is higher than the other, more prominent than the other. With the ram, we are told it has two horns and that the second, the later one to grow, becomes more prominent. Certainly, if we read the historical books and if we read the books of Ezra, Esther, Nehemiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, we certainly learn that this joint empire, which became the Medes and the Persians, the earlier, the one more prominent earlier, was the kingdom of the Medes, but as time went on, the Persians became more prominent. Daniel, in his prophetic statements, was so exact under the constraint of the Holy Spirit that cynics ever since have said the prophecy is so accurate, so exact, it must have been written after the event, a tribute by the cynical unbeliever to the prophecy of God. Well, we learn here then that the ram with two horns is the kings of the Medes and the Persians, and that defines it for us. Now, we must move on and we look back at chapter two. I have no apologies for taking you back again and again to the text of Holy Scripture. If we read books of ministry and if they are helpful, they are helpful because others on our behalf have gone through in the fine detail as we are hoping to demonstrate tonight. Chapter two, chapter two, verse 32. Partway through the verse, again, his belly and his thighs of brass. The third part of this image, again, stronger again in mechanical strength, less worth in value. We move on to verse 39. Another third kingdom of brass, consistent with Ezekiel 21, consistent with the overall statement in chapter two, verses 31 and 32. Let's move on to chapter seven again. And verse six, after this, after the second kingdom, I beheld and lo another like a leopard which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl. The beast had also four heads and dominion was given to it. Chapter eight, verse five. As I was considering, behold and he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth and touched not the ground and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And as we read from verses six and seven, he attacked and destroyed the ram, which we know is a picture of the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. Verse eight. Then the he goat waxed very great and when he was strong, the great horn was broken and for it came up four notable ones toward the four kings of heaven. I think we leave that at that for the moment. Except that we read verse 21, the rough goat is the king of Grecia and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. I'd been listening to ministry, good ministry, for many years when it was explained to me that the first three kingdoms were Babylon, the Medes and the Persians, and Greece. And it was a long time before the penny dropped with me that these are the plain statements of scripture. I'm not relying upon the interpretation of others, however spiritual they may be. We are told in the text before the event that first of all, Babylon would enslave the kingdom of Judah. Then the kingdom of the Medes and Persians would take over. And then this king of great tenacity and tremendous rapidity of movement, the things that characterized the first king of Greece, this Grecian empire, Alexander the Great, as history speaks of him, the thing that took people's breath away was the speed with which he operated. This leopard with four wings. But we learn also that there is another inference with the four wings and the four heads. That is, that acting on behalf of Alexander the Great, he had four deputies as we would speak of them, four generals looking after his armed forces. And we've read in the chapters that this notable king, having destroyed the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, having taken over their empire into his, he coming from the West, again remember your geography, relative to the land of Palestine, he came from the West, he absorbed all the Medes and Persian empire, and then we read, when he was at the zenith of his power, he was struck down. Again, he went too far. God says, yes, I'll use you, but go farther than I say, and you yourself will be disciplined. In turn, the kingdom of Babylon, the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, and ultimately the kingdom of Greece. The sad record of history is that at the age of 32, Alexander looked around and he says, he wept, there was nothing left for him to conquer. He got himself into a drunken orgy and he died. What a sorry end to such an amazing start in his to such an amazing start in his adult life. What a commentary upon what man does with power that God puts into his hand. If the Lord will, we'll take this a step further tomorrow night and we'll see what scripture says about the fourth kingdom, but let us absorb for the moment that everything that has happened so far has been stated and interpreted in the scriptures for us. We can see it and accept it as the word of God, and it's plainly stated, and then, if the Lord will, when we extrapolate from this, when we move on from what is interpreted by scripture, having learned the principles, we can use the same lessons and learn what God wants us to learn about the fourth kingdom, but we'll have to leave it there for the moment. …

… Three basic scriptures which I read last night and I wish to read again, partly as a reminder for those who were able to get, partly as a connecting link for those who were unable to be present. And David, have you the sheets there for tonight? Perhaps, without being too much of a distraction and to save time, David will give, I think there's sufficient for each couple anyway, where there are couples, 25 to 27. And thou profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God, remove the diadem and take off the crown. This shall not be the same, exalt him that is low and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is and I will give it him. Luke's Gospel, chapter 20, 21 sorry, Luke 21 verses 20 to 24. When ye shall see Jerusalem come past with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter therein too. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days. For there shall be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Lastly for the moment, Acts chapter 17. Verse 31. God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead. Thank you, David. I think I have it. Thank you. In our introductory studies to the book of Daniel, to establish for all of us a framework for future detailed study, we began last night a look at what the Lord Jesus himself called, in what we have as Luke 21, 24, a phrase, the times of the Gentiles. A period of time at least in part prophetic future when Daniel was speaking and historic to us for the most part. And we use the term freely because they are the words of scripture. And we began last night in comparing Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, because the times of the Gentiles, we learned from the text, cover an extended period of many hundreds of years where because of the disobedience of the nation of Israel, and in particular the disobedience of the southern kingdom of Judah, it was necessary for God to discipline his earthly people. And that to their horror, the people of Judah found that God was using a Gentile power to vanquish them, take them into captivity, which was the supreme insult for the people of God upon earth. And we looked first at that scripture in Ezekiel, written in the days of the first of the four successive Gentile empires, when the kingdom of Babylon held sway and where there was a puppet king, Zedekiah, installed on the throne of the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar. And Zedekiah was acting in such an evil way that God, through the prophet Ezekiel, says, this can continue no longer. It shall be no more. I will deal with this nation of Babylon and bring in further kingdoms who will do what my disciplinary work on my behalf. And we learned from the text that this would eventually include four successive Gentile kingdoms, and we read the words. Now, last night, for revision for those who were here, and for a connecting link for those who couldn't come, if you refer to the diagram, we compared Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. Daniel 2, giving us man's view of these kingdoms in all their apparent significance. The left-hand side of the page, that representation of the image that Nebuchadnezzar was given to see. On the right-hand side, we see a representation of what Daniel chapter 7 describes as these four world empires in their viciousness, in their selfishness, in their cruelty to the people of God. The image then, man's view of these kingdoms, these beasts, beasts of prey. On the right-hand side, God's view of the same kingdom. Now, in the center, we have a heading as to what we would nowadays call Gentile superpowers. And in particular, we've looked at the comparison between Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. As far as the kingdom of Babylon was concerned, we compared, as scripture does, the head of gold in chapter 2 with the lion with eagle's wings in chapter 7. And we saw how well those features represented the kingdom of Babylon, succeeded by the kingdom, the joint kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, seen in the breastplate of silver in Nebuchadnezzar's image in chapter 2, but seen as what we would call simply a hunchback bear in chapter 7. One shoulder, and how strong the shoulders are, one shoulder beginning to grow after the other one, eventually becoming higher and stronger, indicating that the kingdom of the Medes, first of all, was powerful, particularly in the hands of Darius the Mede, and then eventually in that joint kingdom, the amalgamation, Cyrus the Persian becoming supreme. And we looked at that comparison and the features in chapters 2 and 7. We then followed by looking at the loins of brass in chapter 2, and the four-headed, uh, four-winged leopard in chapter 7. And again, not by fancy, not by interpretation, but by plain straightforward statement of the word of God, we were told that this third world empire was the kingdom of Greece. We are not given the name of the first king. History records that as Alexander the Great. And after his sudden demise at the age of 32, the number of generals who then, after a little bit of confusion, settled down in number four to wield the former power of the kingdom of Greece. And that's as far as we got last night, in fairly quick succession. As the kingdoms went on, we noticed that each kingdom was greater in mechanical strength, mostly wider in domain and territory, but of decreasing worth and value as far as the materials of the image were concerned. And tonight, we are going to look at the fourth empire. Now, as before, we cannot do better than trace longhand, through scripture, what we are told. So would you turn back, please, to chapter 2 of Daniel. And we look, first of all, at verse 31, as we did before. Chapter 2, verse 31. Speaking to Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel said, Thou, O king, sawest, and behold, a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible. Impressive, indeed, to the eyes of men. This image's head was of fine gold. We've looked at that, the kingdom of Babylon. His breast and his arms of silver. Scripture has defined for us that as the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. His belly and his thighs of brass, the kingdom of Greece. Those who couldn't come last night, check up in chapter 7 and 8, and the kingdoms are stated as by their name. And so we had these kingdoms. And now, in verse 33, we come to something we have not considered before. His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet, that were of iron and clay, and break them to pieces. Now, putting 33 and 34 together, we have a representation of the fourth kingdom, as yet unnamed, but we are told that there were two major parts to it. A major dual structure signified in the legs, and then at the end. And because we're going in time chronologically from the tip of the head, and we have been going through time, it is reasonable to assume, even before it's defined, that because the kingdom of Babylon was first in time, then the kingdom of Mede and Persia, then the kingdom of Greece, we are now moving on to a fourth kingdom, and that we have a representation of part of the features of the kingdom in the two legs, and then another representation of something connected with the kingdom in the feet, partly of iron and partly of clay. Now, verse 35. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them. And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. Now, before we go any further, we've learned this. We know from history, from the Bible, it was true of the kingdom of Babylon. It didn't last forever. It was ultimately judged by God, and removed from power. It was also true of the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. It did not last forever. It was superseded by the kingdom, the empire of Greece. And we've learned from scripture that the kingdom of Greece did not last forever. And now, as we continue our study, we have a prophetic statement that this fourth kingdom, when it came in, it would not last forever. That it would meet its destruction from this rather mysterious representation, a stone cut out without hands, which would smite the image upon the feet. Now, here we have the first, second, and third kingdoms were superseded by the use of normal national military power by the kingdom that followed. But we have an early indication here that the fourth empire would come to its ultimate end because of supernatural means, supernatural power, this stone cut out without hands. Now, we can only leave that there for the moment, and we can move over to verse 40. We come to the interpretation, the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron. Iron would be prominent in the materials in common use in this kingdom and would be a feature of the kind of strength that this fourth kingdom exerted. For as much as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things, and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of pot as clay, part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided. We are to look for a kingdom which is under one emperor, but where there should be two major divisions. The kingdom shall be divided, and there shall be in it of the strength of the iron for as much as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. So again, without giving a name, we are learning that there will be a material strength about the kingdom, but that the rulers should mingle their executive power with those who came from the lower ranks of the population, and that this would result in an undermining of the executive efficiency. And again, I'm being as general as possible to be fair to what the scripture says. I'm trying not to fly to an interpretation that's not offered by the scriptures that we've read so far. Now that's in chapter two. As before, let us look at the diagram. And yes, we've got a representation of two legs, ten toes, and then if we compare this with the right-hand side, we'll find a description of a monster, an aggressive monster, whose description we are going to look at now in chapter seven. And we look at chapter seven and verse seven. After this, I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth. It devoured and break in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it, and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots, and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man and a mouth speaking great things. So, in the interpretation in scripture of this fourth kingdom, this fourth empire, we are told that the power would become more and more diffused. Two, and here we have ten horns corresponding to the ten toes. No split as to time, nothing said about the point in history when this should occur, and we have to wait till other scriptures to look at that. Now then, let us look at verse 15, chapter 7, verse 15. I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me, and well they might. Just imagine, most of you have been looking on and off at the book of Daniel for many years, and if you're anywhere near like me, every time you look at it, you can remember the general outline, but because our minds are finite, the detail goes, and we have to refresh our memory, and every time we look at it again, we feel like Daniel. We feel that the visions of our head trouble us, and verse 16 goes on to say, I came near unto one of them that stood by and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me and made me know the interpretation of the things. These great beasts, the beasts of prayer, chapter 7, which are four, are four kings which shall arise out of the earth. Yes, we'll leave that for a moment. Four kingdoms, and then verse 19, how persistent Daniel was. Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, his nails of brass, which devoured, break in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet, and of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell, even of that horn that had eyes and a mouth, that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them. Now again, we come to one of the marks of kingdoms that are referred to in scripture. Where they become worthy of God's notice is where their activities affect God's earthly people, and we are told that this fourth world empire would come to a point in its history where they treated God's earthly people in a terrible way, persecuting them in a terrible way, at the time that the power of the kingdom is represented by ten horns. Again, let us reserve our judgment as to which of the kingdoms of the world this is. Now, would you turn over, please, and for the first time we'll have a little excursion into the book of Revelation. Chapter 4, verse 1. Note the order of these scriptures. Revelation, chapter 4, verse 1. After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard was, as it were, of a trumpet talking with me, which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the Spirit. And behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. Chapter 13. Notice the similarity between the verses 1 to 10, which I'm going to read, and the verses we've been looking at in Daniel 2 and 7. Chapter 13, verse 1. I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads, as it were, wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who was like unto the beast? Who was able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. And power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leaveth into captivity shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and faith of the saints. Chapter 17, verse 8. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. Chapter 19, verses 11 to 16. I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written king of kings and lord of lords. It is well said that we cannot understand the book of revelation without first studying the book of Daniel, and you cannot rightly understand the book of Daniel without a knowledge of the framework of Ezekiel. We've looked a little at Ezekiel, we are spending more time in Daniel, but to consider in parallel with what Daniel says about the fourth kingdom, we've read these verses in chapter 17 of Revelation. There will be a time, again to be fair not yet defined, there will be a time when it is right to say that this fourth world empire, characterized by iron teeth and great cruelty and great power, there would be a time when it was right to say it used to be great, it's relatively unimportant at the moment, and the time will come in the future when it will be great again. It was, it is not, and shall be present. Revelation 17 verse 8. But note where that is said. It is said after chapter 4 verse 1 and before chapter 19. When we look at the introduction to the book of Revelation, and John is instructed to record certain things, he is recorded to, he is asked to record the things that thou hast seen. That's his vision in chapter 1. The things which are, the things which are current at the present time when he wrote, and the things which shall be hereafter. Chapter 2 and 3, he gives what is clearly an account of the responsible career and history of the Christian church from Pentecost to the rupture. And then, in this pictorial way, at the beginning of chapter 4, as a symbol of what will happen at the end of the church period on earth, John is invited to come up to heaven. He leaves earth as a scene and he moves up into heaven. A picture of that momentous event which will bring to an end the responsible history of the church on earth. The catching away of those who are Christ's. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. So this period when we are told that this fourth kingdom used to be great and is not now, but it's about to become prominent again, is speaking of a time after the rupture. Chapter 19, the words we read, speak very clearly of the appearing in power and great glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 4 verse 1, the blessed hope, the rupture. Chapter 19, the appearing of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, we are narrowing down the period that this fourth kingdom, which used to be great, relatively insignificant, now going to become prominent again. We've narrowed it down to a period after the rupture has occurred, but before the personal appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he will deal in a public way with his enemies. If you like, we are speaking of a period between the private coming of Jesus for his own and the public appearing of Jesus with his own in bible terms. Now let us go back, that's all we can do for the moment there, but it will be laying a basis for what we shall, if the Lord will, be looking at in the next two evenings in Daniel's 70 weeks prophecy. We look at the small print of that time between the rupture and the appearing as the Lord permits. But let us go back now to Daniel chapter 2, still thinking about the truth of this fourth kingdom. By the way, if you look at the diagram, against Babylon, it says Nebuchadnezzar. We are on good ground there, that's what the bible says. Medo-Persia, Darius the Mede, Cyrus the Persian. We are on good ground there, scripture says so. Greece, the great horn, Alexander the Great, and four generals. There's no reason to dispute that the great leader, the first emperor of Greece, Alexander the Great, is indicated there. Against the representation for Rome, there are four letters, S P Q R. Canst thou speak Greek? Not at all. Canst thou speak Latin? No more. A Latin scholar tells me that there has been a kingdom on earth whose motto has always been, I'm relying on others for the approximate pronunciation, Senatus Populusque Romanus, being interpreted the senate and people of Rome. There's no doubt, when we think of the way history worked out, when we think of the empire which held sway, which vanquished Alexander the Great and his successors, that is, when that four-fold empire, which was split north, east, south, and west, as we shall see tomorrow night, that kingdom eventually gave way to the empire of Rome. And indeed, they did have two major legs, two major portions to that Roman empire, one based on Rome, one based on Constantinople, the two legs. But we shall, if the Lord will, tomorrow night, see that ultimately, that empire of Rome, which was in that balanced, two-legged stance, straddling Europe and part of Asia, which is less than prominent at the present time, that the time will come, because God says so, when it will be revived to prominence, and that ultimately it will be a conglomerate of at least ten units. And if the Lord will, we'll look at that. But we are going to look further ahead again tonight, and we're going to look at chapter 2 and end as scripture ends. Chapter 2, verse 34. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and break them to pieces. Forty-four and forty-five. In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom which shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. For as much as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter, and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure. An indication that after these four world empires, each coming to the end of their allotted span of power, that they would be superseded by a kingdom which would never be superseded. Remember Ezekiel 21? That this overturning, overturning, overturning would go on until he come whose right it is, and I will give the kingdom to him. God speaking. Now we're going to look at chapter 7 where we see the detail of that working out. God in all his glory passing on to the true king the kingdom that shall never be superseded. Chapter 7 verses 9 and 10. I beheld till the thrones were cast down, all these four kingdoms now gone, the ancient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool. His throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him. Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The judgment was set, and the books were opened. Here we have a picture of God in all his glory and honor and majesty. Notice in passing that the same attributes are listed of the Lord Jesus Christ himself in Revelation chapter 1. But here it's God as such. Verse 13 and 14. I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him, and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. Here we have it. That term which speaks of the Lord Jesus in his lowliness, humility, and humiliation taken up here as identifying the one to whom all power shall ultimately accrue, and the one whose kingdom shall never give way to another. I understand that's the literal sense of these terms forever and everlasting in speaking of kingdoms. Again the use of the term everlasting in the book of Hebrews. Again written with a Jewish mind in view. Speaking of things which shall never pass away, which shall never be superseded again, and not necessarily being eternal in duration as we would speak of it, but not excluding it, but the emphasis being primarily that while other kingdoms were superseded when they'd had their day, here is a kingdom to be introduced which would never go away. Here is a king who would never be superseded by another. And lastly, verse 27, the character of the kingdom. The kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the most high, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. This strongest of man's kingdoms, the fourth kingdom, very strong in its early days, iron chariots, iron roads, very strong in everything that they tackled. Some of their roads even here are still visible to be seen, but ultimately diminishing in strength and passing off the scene as a world force, never from the perhaps the fourth century AD up to now to be reckoned as a world superpower. Diminishing, getting less, losing even that which had been its force and its power. Another indication of that which always comes in when man is left to responsibility. How happy we are to be able to end on this high note that the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ will never diminish, will never degenerate, will never deteriorate, will never be superseded by another. And some of his personal activities bringing in that kingdom and inaugurated it in power and great glory, we shall hope to look to see from tomorrow evening, if the Lord will, when we look at the prophecy of the 70 weeks. …

… The ninth year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, 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 supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes, and I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments, we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts, and from thy judgments, neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which speak in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel that are near, and that are far off, to all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belongeth mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him. Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice. Therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judge us, by bringing upon us a great evil. For under the whole heaven hath not been done, as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us. Yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all his works, which he doeth, for we obeyed not his voice. And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at this day we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all thy righteousness I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain. Because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate for the Lord's sake. O my God, incline thine ear, and hear, open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name. For we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, hearken and do. Defer not for thine own sake, O my God, for thy city and thy people are called by thy name. 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 speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at 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 thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee, for thou art 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 transgression, 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 prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. 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 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. Fascinating, isn't it? Over the last two evenings, we've been looking mainly at chapter two and chapter seven of the book of Daniel, giving first of all in chapter two man's view, and then in chapter seven God's view of a period of time entitled by the Lord Jesus in Luke 21 verse 24 as the times of the Gentiles. Israel, Judah, had been exceedingly disobedient to their God. They had to be disciplined, and one, another, another, and another. Four Gentile world empires were defined by Daniel as being allowed to have the ascendancy over the kingdom of Judah, each being used as God's disciplinary tools. The first one who was dominating Judah at the time that we read the book of Daniel was even called by God, Nebuchadnezzar, my servant. What a travesty that though that Judah's enemy for the moment had to be called the servant of God in punishing the nation and kingdom of Judah. Well, we've traced through from scripture, taking account of the words the Holy Ghost uses of that succession of four world empires. Tonight and tomorrow night, if the Lord will, I propose to look at this 70 weeks prophecy. Tonight should be relatively straightforward. Enjoy it, go home, read it through, have a good night's sleep, and then tomorrow night come fit and fresh, because if the Lord spares us, we'll have to work at a quicker pace tomorrow night. But we'll be laying a foundation tonight. But we'll be laying a foundation tonight. Now, notice the split of the chapter in chapter 9. The first two verses, introduction, and we learn there that Daniel was studying the scriptures. And in verse 3, we read that he was praying. And in verse 4, we read, he was confessing his sins. The only right combination for any godly person on earth. In any dispensation. We are very good at telling the children, encouraging them to learn choruses like, read your Bible, pray every day. Are we as good at doing it for ourselves? Daniel did. He read the scriptures, he prayed. We read in the book, we're getting nearly all our information from the text of the book. He read the scriptures, and he prayed at least three times every day. That's the way to blessing. If I say, oh, there's a lot of the Bible I don't understand. It's very hard to me, I haven't the mind to understand that. Maybe that I'm not studying the scriptures. Maybe I'm not spending sufficient time in prayer. Maybe in particular, I'm not confessing sin when it comes into my life. Daniel, he studied the word of God. He prayed and he confessed his sin. Now, it was while those things were true of him, that the prophecy was revealed to him. Now, he was reading evidently, and we are told from Jeremiah the prophet. Now, I think we would do well in this foundation study of this 70-week prophecy to look at the words that, in our language, that Daniel was reading at the time. Let's turn back to Jeremiah chapter 25 and verses 11 and 12. Jeremiah 25, 11 and 12. After saying how disobedient, how willful and sinful the nation was, Jeremiah says to the people, and he was contemporary with Daniel at this time, he said, this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years and it shall come to pass when 70 years are accomplished that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, saith the Lord, for that iniquity and the land of the Chaldeans and will make it perpetual desolations. Daniel was very clever. He was very experienced. He'd done very well. He was virtual prime minister of the land. He'd done very nicely, thank you very much. He didn't need have any cause for concern for himself. He read of this prophecy of Jeremiah, given about 70 years before Daniel was reading it, a year or so before the kingdom was taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, he read the words where Jeremiah was saying, now then, you're going to be vanquished by the kingdom of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar is going to take you all into captivity and it happened about a year after Jeremiah predicted it. About 68 or 69 years after it happened, that is about 70 years after the prediction, Daniel, who had no cause for concern for himself, he'd done very well in life, he was reading Jeremiah 25 and probably 29, another similar verse, and he says, hello, and he says, hello, the 70 years is almost expired. He could have thought, well, that's very interesting. Maybe he did. He could have thought, well, if God says so, it will happen. Doesn't need anything from me. If God says it will happen, it will, and it does. But Daniel was in the will of his Lord and he knew instinctively that if God's purpose, mysterious to men, if God's purpose for the nation was to be carried out, carried out, and if this kingdom of Babylon was to be in turn disciplined on God's behalf by the kingdom of the Medes and ultimately the Persians, the second world empire, Daniel knew because he was close to the Lord that this would be because God would choose to answer the prayers of the godly people of the day. Let me pause there. You believe that Jesus died for you and rose again. You're clear of judgment. You've got nothing to worry about for yourself. Why not sit back and take it easy? God's work will go on and it will. God wants each of us to be involved in his work now. If I don't get involved, the work will still go on, but it means that God will use some of my but it means that God will use somebody else instead of me. Let us take the lesson. We can't rest on our laurels. Knowing that we're saved and ready for heaven, as long as he leaves us here on earth, there's something on earth he wants us to do. Let us enjoy Christian fellowship. Let us undertake Christian service for the Lord as long as he leaves us here. Now Daniel there thought, I must get down on my knees. I must confess the sins of the nation and my own part in it. Daniel could have said, well I do alright. If everybody else in the nation was as good as me, the nation would be favoured by God. He didn't even say, well I'll pray for the others because they need prayer on their behalf. I'm doing alright, but I'd better pray for them. Then he said, no I'm part of the general condition and he prayed to God and confessed his part in the sins of the nation. And notice, and that's why I read it all the way, thank you for your patience, from verse 3 to verse 19, the majority of the chapter is about Daniel in the presence of God, praying, confessing his sin and interceding on behalf of the people. Notice the proportion. Yes, he studied the scripture. He prayed intelligently because he'd read the scriptures. He felt the general sinful condition, didn't sit back. He said, Lord forgive me for my part in it and bring then all of us to a spirit of repentance before God. And his prayer was answered. He had this angelic visitation. That's how God spoke to the nation of Israel in those days, by angelic ministry. And it happened here. And he was given the message. And notice that the prophecy, the actual prophecy, many books have been written on it since the days it was first put onto papyrus parchment or whatever it was in those days. And many volumes have been written upon this prophecy, which is detailed in four verses, 24 to 27. Now we are here tonight to introduce ourselves to the main outline of this 70-week prophecy. But unless we've learned this initial lesson, that revelation comes to those who confess their sin, study the scriptures, and continue in prayer before God. Let us not just say, my sins are forgiven. I'm saved. I know it. Why should I bother anymore? There's much that needs to be done. There's much that we need to grow in. There's much that we need to learn. The work of the Lord has to go on. These are the principles of showing those of the Lord's servants that he will use. And now we come to the prophecy itself, verses 24 to 27. Now, as an introduction, notice, first of all, there's the statements, 70 weeks are determined. That's the period. We'll come to the detail. Now, verse 24 there, and we'll come back to the detail, it gives an overall summary of what will be achieved by the fulfillment of the prophecy. Verse 25 tells us about the first 69 weeks of the 70. Verse 27 tells us about the last week of the prophecy. Notice how much time. There's as much detail given about one week, the last week, as is given about the first 69. Much more detail. God's microscope is put on the detail of one week in a concentrated way more than the first 69. This is why, as well as introducing ourselves to it, we are going to think about the 69 weeks tonight, and then, if the Lord will, we look at the last week, the 70th week tomorrow night. Verse 26 is an interval. It's in brackets. For my help and benefit, I've, in reading, I've put brackets around verse 26 to remind myself that it's parenthetical. It tells us about the condition of things, and things that will happen after the first 69 weeks have finished, and before the 70th week begins. Now, that's straightforward, but forgive the simplicity. Verse 26, we must think about, tells us about what will happen after the end of the first 69 weeks, and before the beginning of week 70. Now, that gives the general scope. Now, would you turn to your diagram, please? Top right-hand corner, you will see it should have sheet one. If it has sheet two, you have the wrong sheet. I'll give you a copy of sheet one. Sheet two is on the 70th week tomorrow night, if the Lord will. So, we are going to work through the sheet. If we do no more tonight than understand the framework of this 70-week prophecy, and take this home, and look up the scriptures that are quoted, we will have done well enough for one session. But, second last line, you'll see the 70-weeks prophecy, Daniel chapter 9, verses 24 to 27. Please take this away with you, and study it as the Lord enables you. Every time you look at it, remember that this prophecy came after the study of the scriptures by Daniel, after the time spent in prayer, after the time spent in confession of sin, and intercession for his own nation. And then, you're ready to think about this. Now, the events are indicated in the dots, the large dots on the horizontal line, just above the phrase, the study of prophecy. All right? The dots. The little wiggles in the line just indicate that the sketch is not to scale. Nothing more dispensational significance with the little squiggles. If you look at the top horizontal line, in between the vertical lines, where there are arrows which show the limits that govern the statements that I make. Again, I will assume we haven't thought about the 70-weeks prophecy before. We are looking at it for the first time, and I will try not to miss anything out as to general scope. Now, on the bottom horizontal line, you will see a dot with a vertical line from it, which says, decree of our taxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem. And I've given two scriptures for that, Nehemiah 2 and Daniel chapter 9, verse 25, which we've read tonight. And from that vertical line to the next vertical line, I've put seven weeks, and I've put the word weeks in brackets. Really, it might take us on the wrong path. Literally, the word is seven sevens. Doesn't say what the sevens are. At this stage, as we've thought with the four world empires, let us just take our teaching from scripture, without interpretation, without borrowing from the world's historians. Let us see what scripture teaches. We always do well to think of the units. I remember when my daughters were at school, and when they were young enough in their school life to do things that weren't too hard for father, the thing I usually used to check was that they'd put their units. And very often, I used to look at their book and say, cabbages, and they knew what I meant. They'd put a number without the units. Now, at this stage, we cannot put the units. It's seven sevens. The actual word is unimportant. It's seven sevens. Let us reserve our judgment for the moment. We are thinking of a period of time which is called, in the text, seven sevens. Now, the second dot with the second vertical line is called Jerusalem rebuilt. Now, I've taken that from the beginning of this prophecy. Pick up your Bible again, please, and look at chapter nine. It says, 70 weeks are determined. That's the whole of the prophecy. Well, let's pause there. Look at the arrows at the top of the page, and look along the top, and you'll see seven weeks, or seven sevens, 62 sevens, and then you'll see a longer line with a question mark, and then the last pair of vertical lines has a note, one week, week 70. Now, the bit with the question mark corresponds with verse 26, which I suggested should be in brackets. Now, if you look back to the chart, and look first of all at the first pair of vertical lines, I've said seven weeks, and if we look in verse 24, it says, well, verse 25, know therefore, and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and three score, and two weeks, and the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. Now, if you check the grammatical construction of that, you'll be able to check that the two periods, seven sevens, and 62 sevens, refer to those two works, or two periods that are detailed. One, the time it would take to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, it says the street and the walls, that that would take a period called here seven sevens. Then it says from the end of that period, the end of the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem, to what is called Messiah the Prince, would be another 62 sevens. If you are patient, if you have stamina, if you make yourself the time available, and you check through the historical books, late second kings, second chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, the major and minor prophets, it would be possible for you from scripture to follow all these events through to see countries quoted, kings quoted, the year in their reign quoted, and events quoted, which would make it possible for you to track down in numbers of years when these events occurred. Now, secular historians differ. One might say something happened in 445 BC, somebody else may say 456 BC, or something else. But with tenacity and spiritual judgment and spiritual interest, you could track it down from the text of scripture. If you did that, you would find that the length of time it took, though that remnant who went back to Jerusalem when Artaxerxes gave the decree and said, yes, if you want to, you can go back and rebuild your city. If you tracked it down, you'll not be surprised, you'd find it was 49 years. Now, this seven sevens, this 49, is the period that corresponds to that historical period of 49 years. Now, this gives us the scale of the prophecy. This seven weeks tells us that the scale is seven years for one week, or one seven. Now, that makes life very much easier. And again, with the same tenacity, you won't be surprised to find that if seven times seven gives you the period from the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem to the completion of the work, you won't be surprised to find at all that the 62 weeks, which we now know as 62 times seven, 434 years, takes you to the time, to the year when the Lord Jesus walked, well, when he rode into Jerusalem and presented himself as Messiah to the nation of Israel. From the decree of Artaxerxes, check the text, Nehemiah 2 gives his name. From the decree of Artaxerxes to say, yes, all right, go back and build the city, right through the completion and right through to what people, I suppose, would call Palm Sunday nowadays, the beginning of the week in which Jesus our Lord was crucified, always sticks in my memory. I remember in boyhood, there were three significant Sundays about Easter time. The older ones might remember, Carlin, Palm, Pesach Day. Now, it's in history, it's recognized, but in the history of the Bible, something of far greater significance than the customs of man. When Messiah, the prince, presented himself for the acclaim and for coronation, he was refused, but he presented himself and he presented himself 483 years after the decree of Artaxerxes. Now, this tells us, this takes us then to Messiah presenting himself at Jerusalem, and please check the text when you get home, Zechariah 9 verse 9, behold thy king cometh. Matthew 21, well, if Zechariah 9 is the prophecy, Matthew 21 is the historical record that that's exactly what happened in fulfillment of the prophecy. Colossians 2 11 tells us the significance of it. It says that those of us who trust Christ as savior, we have been cut off in the cutting off of the Christ. Now, look now, please, at verse 24, and we must have a word about this. We've now got something which pins down seven sevens, 49 years, 62 sevens, 434 years, 69 sevens in total, 483 years. Now, what is the prophecy given to achieve? Verse 24, 70 weeks are determined upon thy people. Well, let's pause there. We know now 70 weeks from scripture, we know 77s, 490 years. Why 490? We learned the other night that the people were taken into captivity into Babylon for 70 years because as a kingdom, when it was first set up with King Saul as its first king, from then on, they'd been disobedient to God. They hadn't kept one Sabbath year. They'd been disobedient for a full cycle of 77s, 490 years. Listen carefully to what I'm going to say. Please don't misquote me. It will take 490 years, 77s of years, to work out God's answer and reply and necessary response to the disobedience of the people. The disobedience was for 490 years. Working out in the ways of God, God's reply will take 490 years. Yes, they had to pay back to God sevenfold. They'd missed out 70 Sabbaths, so they owed God they had to repay 490 years. I'm not saying it will take God 490 years to work it out. What I am saying is that in order that there might be a full demonstration of the folly of the disobedience of God's people, it will be necessary to demonstrate that over something that takes 490 years to unfold. And that's why in verse 24 we read, 70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city. I think John will tell us shortly whose alarm has just gone off. 70 weeks connected with the people and land and city of Judah. Now if we look at these other phrases, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, seal up the vision, they merit your personal study too. Like Daniel, let you and I read the scriptures, compare scripture with scripture, pray over it, confess any outstanding sin, and then God will let us into the secret of what it all means. Certainly, without looking at the detail, we can see that all the sin that had accrued because of the disobedience of the people had to be answered. Every claim of God upon the people because of their sins must be given due answer. Every claim of God must be met. The enemies of God, given their answer, God's Messiah brought in as God's anointed, appointed king, bringing in blessing with him, bringing his sheaves with him. All this is encompassed in verse 24. But now look just for a moment at verse 26. After the three score and two weeks, check up a literal translation, you'll find that there should be a definite article there, after the three score and two weeks, that is at the end of the 69th week. Messiah shall be cut off, and again literally, and shall have nothing. Tells us that after the end of the 69th week, doesn't exactly say precisely on the same day, but after the end of the 69th week, and of course that's what happened, no disservice to scripture, no inaccuracy in the text. Yes, he presented himself at the beginning of the week, and towards the end of the week, he was tried, led away, and ultimately crucified. Or read the epistle to the Galatians, find out what an ugly activity crucifixion is. How horrible in the sight of God. For your sins and mine, it was necessary for Jesus, our Lord, to be cut off, to be crucified with such a cruel death. Well, it's foretold here, that after having been presented as the Messiah of the nation, as Isaiah 53, we have to compare scripture with scripture, because he was rejected by the nation, he was cut off in his prime, in the midst of his days, halfway through approximately the allotted span for man. And at that time, none of the acclaim and the glory and the honour due to him was proffered and given. It will. God has appointed a day in which he will rule the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained, whereof he has given assurance unto all in that he's raised him from the dead. Act 17, 31, strictly speaking, tells us about that occasion and that period when the Lord Jesus will be in universal sway. And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. If we go back to the times of the Gentiles, the four world kingdoms, chapters 7 and 8, and earlier chapters, told us the names of the first three kingdoms. Babylon, Medes and Persians, and the Greeks. No interpretation needed. We had to leave in abeyance the identity of the fourth kingdom. But here in verse 26, we learn that at the end of the 69th week, Messiah would be cut off, his life on earth brought to a precipitate end, and that again, before the beginning of the 70th week, a people called here the people of the prince that shall come, they would destroy the city of Jerusalem. Even for this, we don't need the secular historian. Happily for them, the secular historian agrees with what scripture teaches. Read the gospels, read the acts, read the epistles, it becomes very plain. That the sovereign nation at the time of the gospels and early days of Christianity was the empire of Rome. We can tell that from scripture. And here we learn that the people of the prince that shall come, this notable person, that this people, the Roman people, we know from the gospels and acts, that they would destroy the city of Jerusalem. Now we do know from secular history that this did take place in AD 70. We know that. We know from the epistle to the Hebrews, written about AD 64, that that destruction of Jerusalem was just round the corner. Ye have not yet resisted to blood, but the implication was you're about to, and they did. And these are things which verse 26 says would happen after the end of week 69 and before the beginning of week 70. Now there's much. Now as to the last week, we'll be looking tomorrow night at the last week, and it will be necessary for us to move from thinking about the people of the prince that shall come to the prince of the people of the prince that shall come. In other words, we are going to think about someone who's a descendant of the fourth world empire, someone who comes to prominence in a particular way. Put that at the back of your mind for when we get to the 70th week, but for a moment look back to the chart just before we close. What happens after the end of week 69 before the beginning of week 70? My suggestion to you is that it's valid to say that the church period is the period covered by the brackets that I've suggested putting around verse 26. After Jesus our Lord was crucified, before the prophetic period that we are going to look at tomorrow night, and for reasons which will emerge then, we now live after the end of week 69 before the beginning of week 70, and we live in the period marked by two epochs. The first epoch concerning us was the inauguration of the Christian church on the day of Pentecost. Again, that was after the end of week 69. The time from the crucifixion of the Lord, covering his resurrection, and the period up to the day of Pentecost, even that period is covered by the prophecies concerning the feasts in Leviticus 23. But nothing in the prophetic statements of the old testaments tells us any detail about what happens after the end of week 69, after the inauguration of the Christian church, and the end of the church period. The Christian church is not a matter of prophecy so much. It's a matter of revelation. Now, revelations of prophecies are given to us in the Christian church to learn about and to learn from, particularly about the 70th week. Things that will happen after the church is gone to be with the Lord. I would suggest this indeterminate period with the question mark began on the day of Pentecost when the church was brought into being, and it will come to an end when the church is translated, when the rapture occurs, 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 17. Now, we'll have to leave that there, and we will be looking in particular tomorrow night at that period of seven years which cannot begin until after the rapture and will come to an end when the Lord Jesus Christ appears in power and great glory. Read these scriptures, please. Get them settled in your mind. Let you and I do what Daniel did, study the scriptures, pray, meditate, confess any sin, and seek grace from the Lord to find the time to share with us tomorrow evening. …

… In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, 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 supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes, and I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession. Verse 19. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken, and do! Defer not for thine own sake, O my God, for thy city and thy people are called by thy name. 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 speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at 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 thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee, for thou art 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 transgression, 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 prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore, and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks, the street shall be built again, and the wall even in troublest times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and the people of the Prince 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. In the previous sessions, we looked at the geographical, historical, and ecclesiastical background to the book of Daniel. And then we moved on to consider what is involved in the term used by the Lord, quoted for us in Luke 21, the time of the Gentiles. The times of Gentile overlordship, Gentile supremacy over the people of God. Last night, we began a survey of the 70 weeks prophecy, and we read the text of the whole of chapter 9. It would have been good to read it all tonight, but time is very short. I will merely say again what was said last night, that we do well to mark the balance of the chapter. Time spent in studying the scriptures, much time spent in prayer before God, confession of sin where necessary, and then, and only then, there is a revelation from God about things which must shortly come to pass. If I'm concerned about some spiritual matter, if I want some help in the understanding of scripture, if there is any unresolved, unconfessed matter between me and my Lord, I cannot expect a better understanding of what the Lord wants me to know until the matter is resolved, until my sin is confessed, until my part in the general poor condition is recognized. And then, studying the scriptures, asking the Lord for help, I can then expect to receive it in measure. That's the major lesson of Daniel chapter 9. Last night, we looked at the first 69 weeks of the 70-week prophecy. Those who were here, I hope you brought your sheet one with you. If not, I will, in any case, refresh your memory in just a moment or two. The 70-week prophecy is split into three major periods. The first one, seven sevens, seven weeks, seven sevens, and that period of 49 years, we are told in scripture, lasted from the decree of King Ortaxerxes, Nehemiah chapter 2, that Jerusalem, the city, not the temple, that's a matter for Ezra, in Nehemiah, the rebuilding of the city and the walls of Jerusalem, the decree was given that that could go ahead. And it took years to complete seven sevens. From the completion of the rebuilding of the city, until what is commonly known here as Palm Sunday, when the Lord Jesus presented himself as the Messiah at Jerusalem, an event which the diagram suggested was prophesied in Zechariah 9.9. The historical record given it in Matthew 21, the spiritual significance of it given in Colossians 2 verse 11, that being refused, being rejected, he was cut off. And that which was due to him, the Messiahship, kingship, honor, glory, was not given to him by his people at that time. He was cut off and shall have nothing. When the time comes, when it is bestowed by the Father, the Son will enter into his millennial glory. Now, we did say then that we must leave until tonight, the last week of the 70, the unexpired week. Now, if you have sheet one there, you will notice that after the 69th week and before the 70th week begins, there is an indeterminate period. A period where we haven't got a number of weeks or years against it. Just a question mark. This is the period filled out by the gathering in those who should comprise the church of the living God. The church period gathered in after week 69 ends and before week 70 begins. It used to be a regular question, how long is a piece of string? And the orthodox answer to that always was, it's the distance between its ends. Well, you can't grumble with that. Now, if you say to me, how long is the church period? I cannot give it in years, but I can say it's the distance between its ends. Now, at the beginning of the church period, at that end, chronologically, the beginning of it is marked by the inauguration of the Christian church by the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The 50th day after Jesus our Lord was raised from among the dead. That's the beginning. The end of the period is the catching away of those who are Christ's at his coming. The translation, the rapture, the catching away, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 17. Now, likewise, I can give you a period for the last week and that's what we are going to think about. But I'm not going to be just as precise as that just for the moment, except to say this. The last week cannot begin before the rapture and that it will come to a climax, a climactic end at the appearing in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, we want to think tonight about that period between the rapture and the appearing. Now, at a bigger scale than was possible on Sheet 1, we will now move to Sheet 2 with David's help. Again, I think there should just be sufficient for one per couple and one for each other individual. While they are being distributed, I would only like to make one other general comment. If you look at your Bible again, please. Chapter 7, as we know, gave God's view of the four Gentile world empires or kingdoms. Now, after that and from the beginning of chapter 8, there are several clues, clear evidences, that things are beginning to come to a head. They are coming to a climax in the ways of God. Now, I want to pick out certain phrases. If you'll glance at the text and follow them down, I found at least about 21 of these phrases. Chapter 8, verse 17, towards the end of the verse, at the time of the end. Verse 19, the last end. And again, at the time appointed, the end shall be. Verse 26, towards the end of the verse, shut thou up the vision, for it shall be for many days. Chapter 9, verse 26, towards the end of the verse, unto the end. Chapter 10, verse 1, the middle of the verse, the time appointed was long. Verse 14, I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days, for yet the vision is for many days. Chapter 11, verse 27, the end shall be at the time appointed. Verse 29, at the time appointed. Verse 35, the time of the end, because it is yet for a time appointed. Verse 40, at the time of the end. Verse 4 of chapter 12, the time of the end. Verse 6, how long shall it be to the end? Verse 8, what shall be the end of these things? End of verse 9, the time of the end. Verse 13, go thou thy way till the end be, for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days. We've been looking back. We've been looking into the historical past. About just over two and a half thousand years ago, we've been reading about things that were said then, that were prophesied, that would happen. We've read of things that were happening then. We've read prophecies about things that would happen afterwards. Things that would happen shortly afterwards. Others that would happen after an interval of a few hundred years. But from chapter 8 onwards, Daniel is led to understand that instead of looking through the microscope at events about the time when he was alive and shortly after, that now he had to change the microscope and take the telescope into his hand and he had to look into the distant future. Scriptural illustrations are always better than human ones, aren't they? It's as the servant of the Lord was told, let thine eye look right on, right to the end. And some of the things that we will be thinking about tonight happened in between the time Daniel lived and the time that the Lord Jesus came into the world. One or two of the things happened while the Lord Jesus was on earth and most of the things we are going to think about haven't happened yet. But they are just as sure to occur as the things that have already happened because the same God that said they would happen and did happen in the past, it's the same God that says look forward, I will write history in advance, I will tell you what is going to happen in the future. We can be just as assured about the certainty of things in the future that God tells us about as we can when we read about past history. I hope by now, at least in a little way, you are learning to trust me. So far, Times of the Gentiles, Daniel's 70 weeks, we've tried to demonstrate that the answer to every question posed in Scripture is found in Scripture and it's almost 100% true to say that everything we've looked at so far, we've gained by internal evidence from the Bible. Very rarely have we had to rely perhaps for a name here and there of historical persons that were the answer to things that God said would happen. But we've gone out of our way, perhaps taken too long over certain details, just to emphasise this point that it's Scripture, the Word of God, that gives us the answer to the all-important questions. Now, time does not permit reading all the small print tonight. I hope, having established a measure of goodwill, to build on that foundation knowledge and to quickly trace through things which God says must shortly come to pass and gather them together as Scripture presents them. Now, an aid to that end will be the line diagram, which we look at for just a moment. But as we do, and as we go back home and read the Scriptures, we will find that certain individuals, important individuals, come to light and occupy our attention. There will be an individual called often in Scripture the beast. Now, we have to be careful there because we've been reading about several beasts. But we'll be thinking about the beast, and to distinguish him from other beasts, we'll be talking about him as the Roman beast, a political beast. We'll also be thinking about a religious beast, an ecclesiastical beast, called in Scripture the Antichrist and the false prophet. And if we don't get too confused, we'll be talking about various kings, in particular one called the King of the North and one called the King of the South. And then another leader of a mighty nation called Gog, a leader called Gog. And then the root cause of all that is evil and opposes God, Satan. And most of all, we must go away with right impressions about the most important person of all, Christ himself, the Son of God. Now, first of all, we look at Sheet 2 of the 70 Weeks Prophecy. The left hand, the vertical line at the left-hand end of the page, if you hold the page horizontally so that you can read the reading, the writing the right way up, the first line is marked the rupture, 1 Thessalonians 4, 17. Now, I'm saying to you that Scripture may explain that Daniel's 70th week cannot begin until the rupture has occurred. I put a question mark there for a possible gap between the rupture, the catching away of the church, and the beginning of week 70. Scripture doesn't exactly say that God's prophetic clock, which stopped when Christ presented himself as Messiah to the nation at Jerusalem, Scripture doesn't exactly say that God's prophetic clock will immediately resume ticking, ticking away the minutes of week 70 as soon as the rupture is over. I cannot see any cause or possibility of lengthy delay. Some say a generation may pass. I cannot see that. What I can see from Scripture, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, that coincident with the catching away of the Christian church, a double restraint will be removed upon the activities of men and Satan upon the earth. If you are so inclined, and if you can afford it, you can nowadays buy cars with dual braking systems. Men are amazed by this, something you never been heard of before. Don't you believe it? God has had a double braking system on evil since the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, a restraining power. The church, a restraining influence. Look again at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. When the church is removed and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit in that sense is also removed at the rupture, the double braking system will be off. I can't see it being very long before Satan and his hosts begin that immediate downward spiral of evil. That will only end where God intervenes personally in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he destroys his enemies with the brightness of his coming, and we'll come to that. But just to allow for however small a period for things to start moving once the double restraint is off, I have said that as a distinct matter there is the rapture as the end of the church period and there is the beginning of week 70 which cannot begin before the rapture. Form your own judgment as to whether or not there need be any delay from the one to the other. But certainly when God says start moving, let the clock resume ticking away. From that point, the suggestion is that there is the unexpired 70th week of Daniel which still has to take its course. Now we have to use a little bit of common sense and application of our renewed minds, but it's not difficult at all. First of all, we can say scripture has affirmed that the first seven weeks lasted 7 7's 49 years. The second section, 62 weeks, lasted 62 7's 434 years. And deducting those 483 years from 490 leaves one week of seven years. That is sufficient for the Bible student, the unexpired week. But there's much more internal evidence than that if you look at the chart. If you look at the line marked the beginning of week 70, Daniel 9 verse 27 tells us that the time will come, and we look at the verse again, chapter 9, the time will come when a world leader will enter into a contract with God's earthly people in Palestine. Look at chapter 9 again, verse 26, after the three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off and not for himself. Now this, the people of the prince, that shall come. The Gospels, the book of Acts, tell us that was the empire of Rome. Those who governed the land of Palestine when the Lord Jesus was here in the days of his flesh, they have the political responsibility for the murder of the Lord of Glory. The people of the prince that shall come. But when we get to verse 27, and he, we've now moved from the people of the prince that shall come to the prince that shall come. So there is some leader from the Roman nation who will enter into a covenant with the many, the mass of the nation of Israel in the land at that time. Now move over please to Revelation chapter 17. We've already seen from the times of the Gentiles that the nation, the kingdom, the empire of Rome would pass into relative obscurity, and that's where it remains today. Revelation 17 verse 8, very illuminating verse. The beast, same one, that thou sawest was and is not. Now notice the sequence. It was a power to be reckoned with, is not at the present time, and is about to ascend out of the bottomless pit. The power is going to come again. The Roman Empire will be a superpower again. Taking count of the fact that this is after chapter 4 verse 1 of the book of Revelation, again that illustrative portion speaking about of the carrying away of the responsible church whose history's been outlined in chapters 2 and 3, chapter 4 verse 1, come up here. It's after the rupture that this nation begins to assert itself again. It owes the origin and source of its power to be satanic, out of the abyss, out of the bottomless pit. And its end will be, because God says so, it will go into perdition. Final judgment is its everlasting portion. Now, end of the verse, the beast that was and is not and yet shall be. Now we've looked at this 70-week prophecy and we've seen that the first 69 weeks have run their course. We are now in the interval suggested in verse 26, and we are now moving into verse 27, that he, the prince that shall come, the leader of this nation which is brought back into power, he shall confirm a covenant, he shall make a bargain, enter into a contract with the majority, the godless majority of the people of Israel. Now then, look back to the line diagram, please. There is another vertical line which I call the midst of the week. And between the beginning of week 70 and the midst of the week, there are no notes in the middle. As far as I can see from scripture, the first half of this last 70th week will be relatively uneventful. We don't read much about it. The Roman ruler, the prince of the same nation that crucified the Lord, the prince, the future leader of that nation will enter into a contract and the contract will be for seven years, for one week. But, chapter 9, verse 27, he shall confirm the covenant with the many for one week, for seven years. And in the midst of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. He shall break covenant. We're used to that. Browsing through this afternoon, I noticed a verse which is very, very topical. Turn over to chapter 11 and verse 27. We'll have to come back to this, but I'll say this even now about the Roman beast. Chapter 11, verse 27. These king's hearts shall be to do mischief and they shall speak lies at one table. How topical that is. World rulers having conferences, saying anything but what's in their mind and having no intention of keeping to any bargains that they strike. How topical that is in the ways of men. But pick up the chart again. I will pass over the first week and come to the midst of the week where verse 27 is that having entered into a contract for seven years in the midst of the week, he shall break it. Now, pardon my simple arithmetic. If the week is seven years and it's the middle of the week when he breaks the contract, this means that half the week has still to go. Half of seven, three and a half. Now, so we are now saying that from the time the bargain is broken until the end of the week, which I've suggested so far, is the appearing in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, Christ shall appear. Hebrews 9 28 and many other verses. I'm saying that between the midst of the week and the appearing, this second half of the week will last three and a half years. Now, I'm on good ground in saying that, because if you look at the horizontal lines, this half week is referred to in a variety of ways. One rather graphic description is time, times and half a time. Daniel 7 25, Daniel 12 7, Revelation 12 14. Another way of describing it in Revelation 11 2 and 13 5 is to speak of the period 42 months. And then in Revelation 11 and 12, this half week is referred to as 1260 days. Bearing in mind that the Jewish month is a 30-day duration, the 1260 days again equates to 42 months, three and a half years. The sums add up. The best antidote to any doubt about the inspiration of Scripture is to read it every day. And we find that Scripture substantiates the truth of God and it fits together like a glove. Well, here we have it, these various days. Let me say in passing, it's very significant to see which events are spoken of as being three and a half years, times and half a time, which events are spoken of as lasting 42 months, and which periods are referred to as 1260 days. The same in aggregate, but a different emphasis. Seems to me that when it's speaking about the aggressive supremacy and overlordship of the enemies of God, God dismisses that three and a half years. When he speaks of the persecution that must come upon those who are faithful, he says, oh, you'll feel it. It'll last a long time. In fact, it'll last 42 months. But the visionary is led to consider the constant, daily, momentary care of God for his suffering people. He says, every day of that long period, your God will be with you 1260 years. Scripture is always exact. The emphasis is always appropriate. Now, towards the end, we shall look at these other periods. Daniel 1211, by the way, these others all end at the same time. They begin at the same time, the midst of the week when the Roman beast breaks his contract. They begin at the same time. Since they all last the same time, they must end at the same time. I suppose that's what you mathematicians would call axiomatic. But there are two other periods beginning at the same time. Daniel 1211 talks about a period of 1290 days, an additional 30. Daniel 12 talks about another period called 1335 days. And if the Lord will, we'll come to them. But the main concentration is on what Scripture speaks of, this very, very difficult period for the godly minority of the people of Israel at that time, called in Jeremiah 30 and Daniel 12, the time of Jacob's trouble, Matthew 24, Revelation 7, the great tribulation, Isaiah 17, the day of grief and desperate sorrow. How graphic, how descriptive of the intense suffering, the searing pain to be endured by those who are determined to be true to their God. That last week, it's going to be a busy time. Those phrases we read, the time of the end, the end at the last, at the appointed time, everything is boiling up and will come to a head towards the end of that last week, that last half of the week. Glad I warned you to have a good night's sleep last night, because tonight might be a little longer than usual. Read chapter 11 when you get home. You remember when we were thinking about the third world empire, the empire of Greece. First of all, under that great arch leader, the great horn, Alexander the Great. We read of his early sudden demise at the age of 32, historians tell us, how that vast empire was split into four major regions, north, south, east and west. Another reminder about how God rates the nations, how they interest him. Let us refresh our memory. God's centre on earth is Israel. The proper stance for the people of God is to stand at Jerusalem, facing east, the direction from which the new day comes in, and everything is reckoned from there. Things that are east are in front of him, things that are west are behind him. That's why we learn which sea is which, and so on. But apart from the stance at Jerusalem, other nations are considered to be relevant according to their stance towards Jerusalem. Therefore, we have kings of this Greek nation. Alexander the Great's empire, based on Athens originally, no doubt, was split after his decease into north, south, east and west. Now, the Bible doesn't say much about the king of the east and the king of the west. Maybe they were important in history. They were not of prime importance to God because they had no direct lasting relationship with his earthly people. But the other two, the king of the north and the king of the south, Syria and Egypt at that time, they are spoken about much in scripture because what they did, and in particular to each other, very much affected God's earthly people. So what is counted important to God is their relation to what Daniel calls the glorious land, the pleasant land. And if you look at chapter 11, you'll find that generation after generation, the king of the north and the king of the south were daggers drawn to one another. First reading of Daniel's 11 is very confusing. It says, the king of the north did this, the king of the south did that, the king of the north did that, the king of the south did that. And it's only on the third or fourth reading through that you begin to realize that these are nations characteristically opposed one to the other. All was at war one with the other. Names aren't so vital of which king it was, but at various times in history, the king of the north attacks the king of the south, the king of the south attacks the king of the north. What is important to God and is of interest to us is that when one attacked the other, the battlefield was usually God's pleasant land, the land of Palestine. I suppose it's a bit like Flanders was in World War I. I suppose it's a bit like Kuwait has been in recent history, where one small nation in their land is made the battlefield for two strong powers which have a headlong collision on their territory. And that's why in chapter 11 we learn so much about the king of the north and the king of the south. But there will be a last king of the north and a last king of the south. And dear one of the causes for suffering by the faithful people of God in the land in the second half of Daniel's 70th week is because again the king of the north and the king of the south are at war one with the other. The king of the north gains the ascendancy and pushing through the land of Israel, he pushes the king of the south, the king of Egypt, down through the pleasant land, round the corner into Egypt and into northern Africa, and the king of the north seems to be having things all his own way. Read the chapters and we get the detail. The king of the north, who was a horrible man, prefigured in history by another king of the north that persecuted the people of God in the land and desecrated the temple. History gives us his name. And that was a partial fulfillment of Daniel chapter 9 and 11. But the zoom lens goes right on. And one of the causes of the suffering of the people of God is that the king of the north and the king of the south trample God's pleasant land underfoot and the king of the north pushes the king of the south back into his home territory. And he thinks he's almost there. And then we've read, tidings out of the north and the east trouble him. He hears of something that disturbs him. Or read the detailed scriptures. I won't spoil it for you by referring to too much detail. But look for this. One of the reasons why God allows these Gentile nations, one after another, to have supremacy over the nation of Israel, one of the reasons that he disciplines his people is because even when all the four world empires have almost run their course, that the ungodly mass of the nation of Israel put themselves in the hands of one that chapter 11 calls the king. John's writings speak of him as the Antichrist. John in the Revelation speaks of him as the false prophet. The high priest, the king, what a travesty of the priest king Melchizedek, the figure of our Lord Jesus Christ in his millennial glory. But the people will put their case in the hands of this religious beast, the second beast of Revelation 13. One of their own kind, an apostate Jew. He it is who on behalf of the people enters into this league, this contract, this bargain with the Roman beast. And it certainly seems that after having been overrun by the king of the north, pushing the king of the south into Egypt and into Africa, that the Antichrist, the king, appeals to Rome and said, come over and help us. We are in terrible trouble. And we read that the Roman beast, the political beast, brings with his hosts and comes into Palestine and seems as though he's going to attempt to look after the people of God, the ungodly mass of them. Revelation tells us, Daniel suggests it, that the first judicial stroke of the Lord Jesus Christ when he appears is that he will enter into summary judgment with the Roman beast and the false prophet. Maybe that coincides with the 1260 days, the appearing in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. In any war, we can understand that there's a tremendous amount of debris to be cleared up. Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation tell us that it'll take months to clear up the debris after this war, when the Lord Jesus Christ eventually puts down his enemies. So we can understand this breathing period, this clearing up period after the 1260 days, becoming 1290, then 1335. But I wouldn't complain at the suggestion that if on day 1260, Christ appearing in glory, the appearing as scripture speaks of it, deals summarily with the beast and the false prophet. If it's the hearing of that that disturbs the king of the north, the final king of the north coming in from the north, he's now in Africa. He has tidings out of the north and east that trouble him. He comes back. He may well meet his end, also in judgment on day 1290. Now, the king, the apostate religious ruler of ungodly Israel at the time, has his overlord. He appeals to the Roman beast. The Roman beast has his overlord. We learn his power is derived from the abyss, the bottomless pit. The source of his power is satanic. Scripture also indicates that the final king of the north, ferocious as he is, has another superpower behind him, Gog and the land of Magog. Scripture certainly seems to suggest that the last enemy that will be destroyed before the Lord Jesus sets up his kingdom in righteousness at the beginning of the world to come, of which scripture speaks, that the last enemy, the last army to be destroyed is Gog and Magog, which may take us to the 1335 days. However, we cannot end on such a note as that. Revelation 19, please. If you want to see details how of that very difficult period at the end of week 70, where there's a time when from north, south, east, and west, all the hosts of the devil are against the godly in Judah, read Zechariah 12, 13, and 14. But for the moment, let us read Revelation chapter 19. Let us refresh our hearts as well as our minds that while there are all these opposing forces, all these hosts against God and his people, the climax, the end, will come when the Lord Jesus Christ intervenes personally. And Revelation 19, verses 11 to 16, which I am now going to read, tell us about when and how he will do that. I take this to be the scriptural answer to the day 1260. And with this, I close. I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself and he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword that with it he should smite the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Amen. …

… Chapter 10 In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a thing was revealed unto Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar. And the thing was true. The time appointed was long, and he understood the thing and had understanding of the vision. In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth. Neither did I anoint myself at all, till three full weeks were fulfilled. On the fourth and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hittikel, then I lift up my eyes and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with the fine gold of her fires. His body also was like the bell, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like inculate polished grass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude. And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, for the men that were with me saw not the vision. But a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me, for my countenance was turned in me unto corruption, and I retained no strength. Yet heard I the voice of his words. When I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep and my face, and my face toward the ground, and behold, a hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands, and he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words I speak unto thee, and stand upright, for unto thee am I now sent. When he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling. Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chaste thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days, but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall my people in the latter days, for yet the vision is for many days. And when he had spoken such words unto me, I set my face toward the ground, and I became dumb, and behold, one like the solitude of the sons of men touched my lips. Then I opened my mouth and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength. But how can the servant of this my lord talk with this my lord? As for me, straightway there remained no strength in me, neither is there breath left in me. Then there came again and touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me, and said, O man greatly beloved, fear not, peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong. And when he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my lord speak, for I was strengthened. Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? And now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia, when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come. But I will show thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth, and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael the apprentice. There are at least three very good reasons why I am suggesting that we look at Daniel chapter 10 this afternoon. Firstly, I've often in the past been almost on the point of suggesting it for one of our monthly meeting readings or one of our fellowship meeting readings, because I'm sure the subject matter merits discussion. Secondly, we've been spending this last week looking at the book of Daniel. We've had nine periods allocated for the study, six addresses, two gospel messages, and one bible reading. And I felt that of all the ways of looking at it, it would be best to allocate this afternoon's reading to chapter 10. Thirdly, I'd like to suggest it because I know almost nothing about it, and I would value greatly hearing what the brethren have to offer. I feel I have more questions than answers about Daniel chapter 10. The other contribution that I would make is that Murray has indicated that the local brethren would like to serve tea at quarter to six. My contribution to that end will be to pace the reading, as the Lord helps us all, to aim at finishing our discussion about half five or maybe twenty five to six, to allow time for a hymn in the prayer before quarter to six. If we find we have nothing more to say before then, so be it. If we have more to say, let us demonstrate that by joining in well at the beginning of the reading instead of waiting to the end. As with other things in the book, events are pinpointed by declaring which kingdom is in the ascendancy, which king is on the throne, and which year of his reign it is. The third year of Cyrus, king of Persia. Now, if we turn back, well, if we look at the book of Ezra, is it? We'll see at the beginning of Ezra something that happened in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the imperial decree giving permission for the restoration of the temple was given. In the book of Daniel itself, we learn from chapter one that Daniel continued until the first year of king Cyrus. Now, that does not conflict with what we get at the beginning of chapter ten. He did continue until the reign, the inauguration as king of Cyrus, as king of Persia. In fact, his life continued a few years into the reign of king Cyrus. And here, perhaps after his active, responsible years of service to the king were over, we find that here he is in the condition in which we find the beginning of chapter ten. I think we should do well if we consider who was involved, who are the persons referred to in the chapter, and what are the issues or the principles involved. And perhaps we may be able to discuss in what way this relates to the rest of the book of Daniel. Is there need to consider that the reference to Cyrus, king of Persia, and then later down in verse 13, the kings of Persia, and towards the end of the chapter, the prince of Persia, are all of these different people? I would rather you phrase that differently, David. As I see, I know so little about it. Rather than you ask me if I think it's a good thing to do, I'd like you to suggest that we do it. Would you do it again and give us your suggestions plainly? Well, it must be a question, because I'm not too sure whether they are or not, and I'll throw the question even wider. Maybe that will help. As to whether the references for the king of Persia, Cyrus, king of Persia, the kings of Persia, and the prince of Persia, are these different people? Would you pinpoint the verses? Verse one is Cyrus, king of Persia. Then verse 13, kings of Persia, and then towards the end of the chapter, in verse 20, certainly the prince of Persia. I think that's the verses. Right. Well, that's a good, clear question. What do the brethren think? You did say, Bill, the other night, that this is one of your favourite chapters in the whole of Scripture. So, I'm sure you have thought quite a bit about this. Would you like to make a suggestion in answer to David's proposition? Well, I'll make a reply and say that I don't think they are the same people. I think the princes of Persia are different from the kings of Persia. So, what have you got to say to that, David? Well, I think that all that you're suggesting is as good as any. The first verse, surely, is the king that reigned there at that time. Yes, the king of Persia. In regard to the prince, I think it's true to say that most interpreters think it's probably an angel who visited Daniel. Did we interrupt you, Bill, just as you were about to make a suggestion there? Well, I think the three announcements that David made in verse 1, verse 13, and verse 20 are all connected with the same angel. Yes, thank you. You can't get away from that. Yes, I think we'd go along with that. The king was on the throne. A prince isn't on the throne, but he has influence. Now, would that be acceptable as a generalisation, David, that this person spoken of as a prince of Persia is one whose activities affect what goes on in the kingdom? That's right, and I think it's important to say that in verse 13 there is another prince identified, Michael, one of the chief princes. So, there is a person who is influencing the activity in the kingdom of Persia, and there is also, so it seems, another influential person who is active at the same time. Don't you think the most important thing of this chapter is Daniel, the vision that Daniel was given? And I think it's most important to keep on the line the vision that Daniel received from the Lord himself. Well, let's take it up from there, Bill. We'll follow your suggestion, because the brethren are still a bit slow in coming in with suggestions, so we'll follow yours, which is a definite one. Daniel is found here, and he's mourning. Now, why is he mourning? Now, we know from other chapters, don't we, that he is aware that the nation to which he belongs has been in captivity for 70 years because they are sinners. They have sinned against God. Now, Daniel is set to be true to God. He wants God to be honoured, but he laments, doesn't he, that the nation to which he belongs, instead of ruling over the nations, they're at the bottom of the heap. And because of that, he mourns not only because they are at the tail of the nations instead of the top, instead of being the head of the nations, they're at the tail, and he laments because he knows it's because of their sin. Would you go with that? And that's why he's found here. He's mourning because of the sinful ways and the sinful acts of the nation to which he belongs. Now, we did look last night and the night before at the beginning of chapter 9. He studied the scriptures. He was found in prayer before God. He confessed his part in the general sinful condition, and it was to a man like that, like Daniel, that the revelation is given. Now, we're taking your suggestion that in verse 2, in those days, I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. He didn't even enjoy his food. He didn't dress himself up, and for three whole weeks, he was mourning the sin of the nation, and he was praying to his God. Now, you're suggesting, and I'm following that up, that we look at the chapter in the light of that. Is that all right? There also would be, in his mourning perhaps, a suggestion that he entered into in a feeling way what the nation would pass through. There are several places in the book of Daniel where it makes it apparent that whilst God is moving to an end, where in the light of Deuteronomy 32, Israel would become the head and not the tail. They would pass through distressing times before that end is reached, and when you read about Daniel mourning, you're almost impressed that it's the same kind of spirit that marked his Lord in a later day. I was just looking quickly at Luke 19. This is Luke 19, verse 41. The Lord Jesus, and when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If thou, even thou hadst known at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the day shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench around thee, and encompass thee on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee. I mean, Daniel wasn't an impassive spectator to the things that he heard, was he? He was a man who was affected by the word of God, and I think that's the thing we all ought to take account of, the fact that the scripture has not just given us to inform us, scripture has really given us to affect us. So he studied the scriptures in a prayerful attitude before his God. This led him into an understanding, not only of what was happening to the nation, but why, and what they would have to pass through before eventually they were brought into blessing. And as we read the scriptures that he was reading at the time, Jeremiah and others, we can see why Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet. Weeping because of the condition of the people, and weeping because of the discipline that would be necessary before the nation was brought into blessing. I was thinking about Jeremiah being a weeping prophet, but I was also thinking of Paul. He wept day and night over the church at Coven. He practically moaned over them because of the condition that they were in. And here we have Daniel moaning, as you already said, over Israel, which was so disobedient that it was led away into the son of the edge of captivity. We need to try and bring these things before our minds and our hearts, to get something out of it, to prove in our lives, individually as well as collectively, that we know even in this dispensation where apostasy is creeping in, where the church is not what it used to be. Therefore, Daniel is in the same position as what we are today. The church is in a sad state of affairs. Now, the phrase in verse 1 supports what has been said. The time appointed was long. There was no quick remedy. It would be necessary for a long, painful process to be endured before the nation of Israel was eventually brought into blessing. And one of the reasons he mourns is that this is revealed to him. It won't be done overnight. You quoted last night, I think it was, from Proverbs. Let thine eyes look right up, and thy eyelids before them. And, you know, that statement in verse 1, the time appointed was long, is an important statement, really. We know that there's some of the material that Daniel has yet to be fulfilled, but scripture is intended to govern those who have long sight, long vision, and it may take years for things to work out, but God's word governing parts of life are important, long before the things themselves eventually reach the end of their course. That's a very significant remark about prophecy in general, isn't it? It's prophecy is not usually to tell us what's just around the corner, what's going to happen tomorrow. It's giving us a long-term view of what God has set himself to achieve and the way that he will do it, and with the intention that we act now in the light of what God will eventually bring in. So, it's a general comment about prophetic truth, isn't it? Long-term view, seeing things by God's focus, and then being affected at the present time by it. Now, Daniel lived that out. The result of the revelation to him was that at the present time he mourned. Well, as I said to you last night, Ernest, Daniel's prophecy speaks of past, present, and future. Q. In that connection of this effect that it is having upon Daniel, is it worthwhile then pursuing David's thought again and seeing that these influences which are happening behind the scene, of which Daniel was at the beginning unaware, were put into effect from that very first day, it says in verse 12, doesn't it? From the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand and to chasten thyself, or to humble thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. A. Yes, well, I think perhaps that's the best verse to look at in a preliminary way, to understand the detail. We may get the impression that Daniel had to pray three weeks because his prayer wasn't heard, or if it was heard, it wasn't receiving an answer. But the answer was there, it was on its way, but there were hindrances to it being brought to Daniel's attention. Now, verse 12 tells us that, doesn't it? Now, if we could take along with that an understanding that chapter 10 is not to be considered only on its own, but it's the introduction of the section from 10 to 12. Now, chapter 11 gives us many details about wars that are going to happen in the middle future and in the distant future, to when Daniel was writing. And these were wars on earth between physical men, people who actually lived upon earth, and it's fairly easy to determine who these kings were, kings of the north, kings of the south. And that during all these battles, the battlefield would be God's pleasant land, the land of Palestine, the land of Israel, and during all these periods, the people of God would suffer. Now, that puts chapter 10 into perspective again, that one of the things Daniel is given to understand is that almost in a secondary way, the people of God are going to suffer, and God is going to allow them to suffer because of their condition at the time. Now, if we also look at Revelation chapter 12, as another general comment, we read last night over 20 references to the end time, when God will bring all things to a proper climax, the time of the end, the last time, the latter end, the end, the appointed time, and so on. Now, when we get to Revelation chapter 12, we find that the time will certainly come when there's not only war on earth between the kings of the north and the kings of the south listed in Daniel 11. Revelation 12.7 says there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels. Now, we need be under no delusion about who the dragon is, because now in verse 9, we read, the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan. So here, we have two combating hosts in heaven, Michael and the holy angels, the good angels, who have not lost their first estate, and they are opposed by Satan and his angels, who, when Satan sinned, went along with Satan, and they are linked with Satan in what, and in passing, scripture tells us that hell was prepared originally and initially for the devil and his angels. So, the devil has his hosts, his servants, setting themselves against the accomplishment of the will of God. You've been trying to get here. Oh, that's all right. I think this prince, you know, of Persia, is one of the devil's angels, really, who is preventing the movement that is to come. But is it not the fact that these last three chapters, whilst they were partly fulfilled before now, are looking primarily to the end, to the great tribulation, and to the banishment of that which will keep Israel out of the flesh? So it's really something that hasn't yet been fulfilled. No, we are still in the period where there are hindrances to the nation of Israel being brought into blessing. We want to say more. Yes, you were, in Revelation chapter 12, which we speak about, in verse 7, and there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. That, I take it, is before the great tribulation begins, and is introductory to it. So it's something that lies even beyond the present, altogether. Yes. If there is a suggestion at the beginning of chapter 4 of Revelation of the rapture, the translation of the church, going up to be with the Lord, going from earth to the presence of the Lord, in chapter 12, we read in verse 9 here that he was cast into the earth. Now, it may well be that his being cast out of the heavens, onto the earth, precipitates the terrible time, or certainly coincident with the beginning of the day of Jacob's trouble. That may prompt it. Now, I hope you teach side by side, and we'll not wait till the end of the meeting before you start explaining this chapter to us. Is this vision that Daniel gets, is it present, or is it future? Because the word vision is mentioned four times in this chapter. He received the vision at the time, but it's telling us about how God will wind things up eventually, and these three chapters take us to the very brink of the world to come. I quite agree with that, but it doesn't seem, Paul, that Daniel is passing through, not only in mourning and weeping, but he's passing through a great weakness in himself. Yes. And I think of the words that the angel touched him, and he gave him that strength. We think of the words of Paul, when I am weak, then am I strong. And I think we've got to realize in our own individual selves that there's times when we are weak, and we need to turn to the Lord for strength. Yes. That's what Daniel was waiting on, for the angel that touched him, he'd given this strength that he needed to entomb the vision, whatever it was, the vision. It doesn't say so in this chapter, does it? There's safety in feeling our weakness. There's safety. There's danger in thinking we are strong. If you take the visions of Scripture, and there are quite a few, the effect is always to bring man to his right position before God. The apostle Paul, when he was on the road to Damascus, it brought him down. And when John is in Patmos and gets the vision from the Lord, then he falls down. And here we've got Daniel in the same condition. It's the vision, surely, that makes the difference. Yes. Without actually going into the details, the fact that there was a vision of itself is really quite an encouragement. When you think of the circumstances, God's people in captivity, no continuous voice of a prophet, you wonder how are the godly to be sustained? Well, God sustained a man like Daniel, and later on perhaps we'll think about Daniel's moral and spiritual character in connection with the verse that David has spoken about, verse 12. But there's a lot of encouragement to be drawn from the fact that God never leaves his people without encouragement on thinking of a verse in the Psalms. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show unto them his covenant. We'll never be without direction from God about what we should do, even in the most difficult of circumstances. And even though the impact of what Daniel saw and what he received was very great on him, the way that he entered into the spirit of the thing, the fact that there was a vision from God of itself, is really one to thank Stephen for the encouragement. There was direct help available in that way. There was also indirect help available, as perhaps we'll see as we go down the verses. Now, I don't want to stifle discussion, I'd rather promote it, but in looking down the chapter, there is a suggestion I'd like to make as a basis for discussion, to make a bit of progress. I'm not stating it dogmatically, it's not to stifle other suggestions, but among other things, consider this. From verse 5 to the end of verse 9, it does suggest itself to me as being one person. The wording used suggests to me that 10 to 15 is another person. 16 and 17 may be the first person referred to again, and verses 18 to 21 may be the second person again. Now, as a suggestion for discussion, but I'd very much like to hear other suggestions, go on. I've got to say that before you touch on verse 5, these hypocrites that you've been speaking about when you stood by the river, hinting, Carol, that it does mean a violent opposition against God, and it means rubbish, according to Charlie Courts. Well, Charlie's not here today, you'll have to speak for him. The meaning of the word certainly is swift, it was a freely flowing river. The modern name for it is the Tigris. Yes, well you're taking us into Ezekiel, certainly, and Tigris is referred to there as well. Very good. Yes, I would suggest for discussion that verses 5 to 9, and the language that is used, compared with where other places where the language is used, I would suggest may be one of the Old Testament theophanies. One of the appearances of the Lord in a way that could be recognised having the semblance of a man. That's a suggestion. Now, there are things that are said, and we can look at them, there are things about that presentation of the person which suggests supremacy and glory, and glory. But when we come to verses 10 to 15, this person seems to be a subordinate person whose power is limited. Now this is the one David drew our attention to initially. There is one there who is opposed by the prince of the kingdom of Persia. Verses 16 and 17 may be another brief reference to the one referred to in verses 5 and 9. If that's not acceptable, I'd like to hear why. And then verses 18 to 21, again, is this subordinate person. I'm not pressing that. It's a basis for discussion. But if we look at verses 5 to 9, first of all, certainly the suggestion is feasible that this is one of those very strange Old Testament portions where those who are in need, those who are faithful to God, godly people, before the Lord came into the world in incarnation, there were rare occasions where those who were true to God needed help, needed support, needed encouragement, and God manifested himself to them in a personal way. Now, do you think the language in these verses suggests that this certain man may be a pre-incarnate revelation of the Lord to Daniel to encourage him? There are certainly some similarities, Ernie, with the reference in Revelation chapter 1, the one who appears to John when he was on the Isle of Patmos, the reference to the eyes, and maybe the golden girdle, certainly are similar. What kind of image or vision is it? What kind of person or what kind of office is suggested by this kind of clothing or attitude, David? It is purity. It is God within. Personal purity is involved. This is not the glory of the person that shines here. Yes, I think our brother is drawing us on to that, that these are personal attributes, personal attributes also that make him fit to fill the office of Jesus Christ. Personal attributes also that make him fit to fill the office of judge when the time is necessary, and both those things would be of great consolation to Daniel in his day, feeling his weakness, feeling the shame that was upon the nation, and distraught that it would be a long, long time before things were put right. Well, once you speak of personal characteristics here, Ernie, the whole emphasis is upon that glory of the Lord that he would speak on as being official, an official glory, but there is tremendous comfort in the fact that he is supreme and almighty. I was saying to somebody recently talking about a statement that George Davison used to make, which I thought was a bit inappropriate at the time, but the more I think about it now, I realised how appropriate it was. He used to say he took great comfort from the fact that God will judge every man, and he used to think, well, that's a bit inappropriate, maybe we ought to rejoice in the fact that he's a saviour God, but I can only see exactly what he meant, there's a tremendous amount of comfort in the fact that God himself who was sent to convey the message had all the attributes of power and glory, that in itself was a tremendous comfort, wasn't it? Yes. Wouldn't you say, Ernest, this verse 6 would be future, because as David has already said, you get the same quotation in the first book of Revelation, verse 18, not the same words, but near to the same words, so it would be future as Michael has already said. The judgment is full before Daniel here for the future coming in. The vision was present for Daniel, he was given the vision then, but it was a consolation to him at that time that the time will surely come where the Lord will take up every outstanding matter and settle things righteously. The Lord, the righteous judge, we are very pleased to learn about from John's epistle, aren't we? One of the reasons Joseph was such a full type of the Lord was he was a revealer of secrets. We learn in Thessalonians when things are building up to the climax that the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven, and when he is revealed from heaven, he will put everything in proper perspective. He will show everything in their right colours. There'll be no veils, no clouds, everything will be seen as it really is. The Lord, the righteous judge, will make things plain. Now, that must have been an immense comfort to Daniel at the time. I don't really think it is comfort here, really. The next verse tells you that he's quaking and he's dreaming. That doesn't tie in very well with comfort. It seems to me, Mr Stevenson, that you have to contrast that with what happened to the men who were with him, and it seems they fled away. Whilst it is true that in the presence of the Lord as judge we do quake and so on, there is this, as it were, this consolation that we are seeing things in the right way. I thought it would be a confirmation to Daniel of the glory of the person that is speaking to him. I'm sure that's true. The Lord would bend him low, personally. The people that were with him didn't have anything to do with it. They fled away. When Paul went on his journey to Damascus, he alone got the vision. The people that were with him didn't get it, did they? Yes. Other things happen in the book where Daniel gives the record of himself that he either grieved or he was disturbed, but it doesn't say that about him here, does it? He says, verse 7, I, Daniel, alone saw the vision. He was the only one who had mourned. He was the only one who had confessed his sin. He was the only one who'd been low in the presence of God, and in answer to that kind of condition, he alone saw the vision. The others, not in the same spiritual condition as himself, very much like those who were the companions of Saul of Tarsus, when he alone saw the vision of the Lord. Others about thought that it thundered. But here, he alone is given the discernment, and that again is a challenge to all of us as to whether or not we are in that spiritual and moral condition that means that while others might be quaking, that we understand what the will of the Lord is. But he was troubled, wasn't he? It says in verse 8, I was left alone and saw this great vision. Yes. There remained no strength in me, for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength. It seems to me that he was bound in the presence of this vision, and the mighty glory of it altered his whole outlook. How good a picture that is, that in the presence of the Lord, he was absolutely drained of his own strength, and the only right position was to be prostrate in the presence of the Lord. Now, it's that kind of thing that encourages me to understand that these verses do tell us about a pre-incarnate vision of the Lord. I have said earlier before that in verse 6, it was future, because it speaks there just of a man. Now, in action, the apostle says, God has appointed a day in which he shall use the world in righteousness from that man in whom we have appeared. Yes. The fulfilment of this is future. We begin to understand when we look at verse 6, why it is so rightly said that we need an understanding of the book of Daniel, if we are to understand the book of Revelation. And at the beginning of the book of Revelation, there is that which is recounted of a vision that John the Apostle was given, likewise, including many of the same features, these personal glories of the Lord, which show that he's the only one who's competent to fill the office of judge on behalf of God. And verse 6 lists some of these features. I suppose it's true that Daniel may have had some concern for what is very blessed in the following verse, not the disciple discussion on the earlier verses, but in verse 11, the other person who comes, an angelic being, one would possibly say, he says to Daniel, O man, greatly beloved, and does this not bring an element of comfort and remove any doubts or fear which he may have had, and sets him aright, in a sense, to be ready to listen to what this messenger has to say. If there's any doubt as to his standing, his relationship, he finds he's a man greatly beloved. I think there's a tremendous comfort in that, that others might not take account of the way in which your heart beats or the determining course of your life, but there's very real assurance here that even if nobody down here takes account of it, God takes account of parts that have been true to him. Yes, that's confirmed in verse 12, isn't it? In regard to the prayer, God sees, God knows, God hears, and God answers. So this is the start, really, you know, this condition of soul is the start of movement God-wish, and the possibility of being used by God, even to take in the vision and to give it out. Now, a good reason for understanding that verses 10 to 15 are not the Lord is because in verse 13 there is opposition, and the person who is referred to appeals to Michael, the archangel, for help. Now, we cannot envisage that the Lord himself would need or feel constrained to appeal to Michael, the archangel, for help. As we saw in the vision in verse 6, the Lord is personally supreme. You couldn't think of any contradiction. No. Michael, we know from other scriptures, comes to light very often when Israel, as a nation, is in view, seem to have special responsibility for the nation of Israel, among other things. And the person who's referred to here seems to be subordinate to Michael, and has this interest in the nation of Israel. He's the only angel that's called the prince. Sorry? He's the only angel, Michael, that's called the prince. Verse 13, the prince of the kingdom of Persia. Yes. Do you take that amount, or do you take it as one of Satan's angels? In the light of Revelation 12 verse 7, I understand this to be one of the angels who fell with Satan, and takes a particular interest in attempting to thwart the will of God in relation to Persia, and it's the attitude of the nation of Persia to the nation of Israel. Opposing the will of God, and using the Persian nation as such. Benny, time is moving on, and I think we should spend some time on verses 11 and 12, about the angel's characteristic. Well, would you wind up a general summary on verses 10 to 15, then, and then that will accelerate things. Well, I was really concerned to talk about Daniel and his personal and spiritual characteristics, really, because we've got a key to a life which is useful for God, and a challenge about the way in which we live our lives. Yes, well that's extremely important, provided we do make some time for getting an understanding of the layout of the chapter as a whole. If you'd like to go into 11 and 12. I'd like to just pinpoint a couple of things. Firstly, that it says in verse 12, from the first day that thou didst set thine heart. You know, this matter of purpose of heart, I'm looking at chapter 1 and verse 8, but Daniel purpose in his heart that he would not defile himself with the fortune of the king's name. It's really quite vital what you set your heart on in early life, because that governs the whole course of your life. I've listened to it for quite a long while, and people have been speaking on the verse, where your treasure is there with your heart. They also are emphasising it's the heart that comes first. In fact it isn't. It's what your mind determines is valuable, because it says where your treasure is, and it's your God-given mind that determines what the treasure is. And then it says there will your heart be also. And then Daniel emerges here as a man who was prepared to be governed by what pleased God. And what a lovely assurance, hanging it on to that phrase that David has just referred to in verse 11. A man greatly beloved. What a lovely thing to learn, that from the very first day that he set his heart in that particular way, God took it out of him. Do you not think that this particularly refers to verse 1, Michael? Sorry, I didn't catch the last piece of that. Verse 1. Do you not think that the quotation in verse 12 throws you back to verse 2? The thing that was happening with Daniel at that time as a man. Do you not think that? Yes, I think that's right, yes. You seem to say you're going a bit further back. It's right to go further back, because I think being further back would bring me to the point of verse 2. Would verse 2 and verse 12 in this particular chapter do, I think, tie up together? Yes. He acted in this way, in this particular instance, because it was the way he lived his life. So both are true, aren't they? Yes, they are. And we ought to say that generally speaking, you might find rare exceptions to this, generally speaking, you only are in later life what you've set the course of your life to be. I've come to the conclusion over many years that a lot of us, if we had a second life, would be very good Christians, but we only have one life, and therefore it's absolutely vital how you use your life for the pleasure and glory of God. We have a heart, there's no doubt about Daniel's heart, where it was, because I often think he was a man, if it was man after God's own heart. If your heart's right, then you'll be right with God. Yes. Good, well... Can I just make one other observation? I'm sure you'll leave me something to say tonight. He did it after the scripture, and it was what he set his heart to do. He set his heart to understand and to chasten himself. Yes. I think we're all very good at applying scriptures to other people. Master, speak to my brother. That's right. What other people should do, but Daniel's first concern was to allow God's word to radically affect himself. Yes, indeed. Now, as we know, the declared topic to be considered tonight is the moral lessons to be learned from the book and about Daniel, so I wouldn't want, really, to spend time talking about the angels or these principalities in power, so perhaps for the last 10 minutes or so, we can try to agree on the layout of the chapter so that we can take it away and meditate on it further. Certainly, as far as angels are concerned and their functions, as far as we are concerned, we learn in Ephesians that they are observing us. They are learning lessons from us. The all-variegated wisdom of God is perceived by the angels in the way that Christian believers live. They are observing. We know from Hebrews 1 that they are ministering spirits, and that's important. They are helpers. They are servants. It is given to some, certainly one, Michael, the archangel, we are told that one of his roles is to contend. Jude tells us that Michael contended with the devil over the body of Moses. But here, I'll make the suggestion, or the brethren can comment, verses 10 to 15 tells us that one of the reasons why the answer seemed to take a long time is that while there are those good angels trying to help on the work of God, the devil's angels seek what they can do to oppose it. They all have their sphere of responsibility, and one of the devil's angels is referred to as the prince of the kingdom of Persia. Well, that would be one of the reasons then that we should say the heart is set right. The heart is set right where the affections exist. Yes, indeed. Because in Colossians 3, we get such an affection. It's got affections there. Yes. Now, yes, go on. Verse 13, the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me. Now, this me, the suggestion is, is a holy angel devoted to God whose sphere of influence is assisting Michael, the archangel, in looking after the welfare of the people of Israel. Is that acceptable? Yes. Now, how about verses 16 and 17? The suggestion is, for your judgment, that the me in verse 13, therefore, the person referred to in verse 10 to 15, the me is the holy angel that assists Michael in looking after the welfare of the people of Israel. Do you not think it's the man that touched? Yes, yes. 10 to 15. Yes, in verse 10, you're connected with verse 10. Yes. That's right. Yes, that's right. There's a change of person from verse 9 to verse 10. Is that all right? Yes, yes. Now, I suggest that likewise, there's a change of person or a reversion from verse 15 to verse 16. There's one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips, and then Daniel says to him, O my Lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength. Is that acceptable, or do the brethren think that right through from verse 10, it's the angel serving God in looking after the welfare of Israel? It's a matter of judgment. I think what you say is right. It seems to me that the withstanding continued throughout the whole period that Daniel was praying and fasting. Yes, yes. It says he fasted three weeks, and the opposition was there, it says, for so many days. Yes. That's 13, one in 20 days. Yes, 21 days. Three weeks. So, as long as there was the exercise there, in Daniel's heart, there was the opposition on the other side, but the secret is that at the end of it all, he gets the benefit. It certainly would preserve us from being fatalistic and saying, well, if it's the Lord's will, it'll happen. I can do nothing about it. It pleases God to fulfill his will by giving devoted souls an interest in what is according to God, so that they, having mourned their own part in the general sorrow and sinfulness, can appeal to God, according to his glory and honour, that he will bring his will to pass. To a cynical man, that seems a very convoluted way of doing things, but it's the way it pleases God to achieve things on earth, isn't it? Would you not say that Daniel was a man of faith, a man of obedience, and he was a faithful servant? Yes. And because of those virtues, God used him for the accomplishment of his purpose. Now, if I would desire to be used, there's no easy way to that. I must follow Daniel's path, morally and spiritually. Now, how do we put this into effect in regards to the practical side of it now? Now, I've come for thy words. Is this Jeremiah 15? Tell me what I need to find. Some of us have been looking during the week at the beginning of chapter 9, where blessing and revelation and usefulness in service for Daniel flowed from the study of the Scriptures, much prayer, and the confession of any sin. Now, that's practical. If there's anything outstanding between me and the Lord, and I don't confess it, and I don't repent of it and turn away from it, there's no prospect that I will be useful to the Lord or will receive any fresh vision. Would you say that this greatly beloved is in heaven or upon the earth? Oh man, greatly beloved. Does the love come from heaven? The appreciation from that side, or is it from the other side? Well, doesn't his name mean beloved of God? That's what counts. There were times on earth, according to the book, where he certainly wasn't popular. He may have earned a grudging respect, but there were those who were ready to trip him up whenever they got the opportunity. But being right with God is the all-important thing, isn't it? I was thinking of Caleb. He was a man that always followed the law. Yes. Daniel, a man greatly beloved. Good. Paul, a man in Christ. And Timothy, a man of God. It's a pity it's not an open ministry meeting tonight. You could have developed those for us. We'll have to wait for another occasion. It must be a very lovely thing, though, to move down here, conscious that you're loved in a great way by God himself. I mean, the great love is God loves a man like this. This is the kind of man that God set his heart upon. There wasn't one man around here who was marked by all things perfectly in a practical way. But the believer should go through this world conscious of this resting upon his spirit, that he's very loved by God. What a difference it makes in a hostile world with all the kind of opposition that can arise to know that everything between the soul and the Lord is continuing on in an undisturbed serenity. Undisturbed serenity. There's no outstanding matter. I think he's already got this message to assure himself and to settle his mind in will and free, if you like, free spirit. After all, if we are in any doubt about that, we'll not be able to carry out what we have to do, will we? If we're in a duress or straight, or in any sense. And here the message comes, I take it, from the man who touched it, which was not a man on earth. I think White Angel was greatly beloved. He never put a word wrong, nor a beat wrong, in those. He was in captivity. He was greatly beloved. I think of that word in the song that fell on me. I am my beloved, and my beloved is mine. I'm sure Daniel would own this love to be due to the grace of his God. Yes. But I'm sure God would say that it was every bit deserved. He was morally suited, and he morally deserved to be the recipient and the object of such a wonderful love of God. We've nearly reached your deadline. Yeah. And perhaps you'd like to make a comment on the phrase in the last verse of the chapter, the Scripture of Truth. Yeah. I will show thee that which is noted in the Scripture of Truth. Moral suitability, moral accord with God is essential for communion, and Daniel enjoyed it. But that having been said, faith rests upon the revelation of God in the Word of God. And here, the consolation to him is, and the strengthening is given, in that that which is that which is going to be shown him is the truth, the Scripture of Truth, the holy writing of truth. Now, which aspect of that you'd like to develop? Perhaps you'd better state. Well, as I was concerned to underline was, firstly, there is the abiding Scripture. Yes. It's there. It's not going to be altered at all. It's sure, certain, trustworthy. That's where truth comes from. Yes. It's not just that truth is in the Scripture. Truth is the Scripture. The Scripture is truth. You can rely upon it. It's an eternal validity. And there's revelation in connection with it. I've come to show thee that which is noted in the Scripture. Now, this takes us full circle back to the beginning of chapter 9. This revelation began by his spending time meditating upon what the Scripture of Truth said. His moral condition was suited to the reception of the Word of God. And now, when he's given a vision consequent upon his understanding of the Scripture, this is reinforced that it's not moral condition. It's not the revelation itself given to him in a personal way. Everything has to be judged and understood against the plumb line of the Word of God. Yes, thank you for that. He received the Word, he understood it, and he obeyed it. And it was when he obeyed it that further progress was possible. I was going to say that it's absolute here, isn't it, that what the Scripture says will happen. It's in the context of the opposing influences. And he says, now I'm going forward, and there's only one who's with me in this, and it's Michael. He's strength with me against these others. But in the sheer knowledge, isn't it, that good overcomes evil, and God's Word, the Scripture, cannot be broken? And so, for the last vision, it will go on, and the everlasting kingdom will be settled. The end will be reached. It's a suitable point, isn't it, in this chapter, that everything that God had previously said would happen will come to pass because God has said so. Daniel had the Word of God for it. Now, we'll have to leave for private meditation the New Testament references that confirm that now, in our day, there are spiritual wickednesses in high places seeking to oppose the accomplishment of the Word of God. But there are those that the Lord uses for our spiritual welfare too. Now, if we want to have our welfare not only looked after, but the will of God brought to pass for us, it can only be by responding as Daniel did, meditating on the Scriptures, much prayer before him, and then confessing any unresolved sin. Questioner 2 This is a picture of truth, the book of God, really, all that God is going to effect. It's mentioned in chapter 12, in verse 1, everyone that shall be found written in the book. So, God has a plan, and he will have that plan, there'll be opposition to it, there is no doubt about that. But what he has written in the book will certainly come to pass. Questioner 1 Yes, and for us, there is the additional support of the Lord's Prayer, the Son's Prayer on our behalf. Sanctify them by thy truth, thy Word is truth. I think we'll have to leave it there for today. …

… Chapter 3, the last two verses. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware, lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, both now and forever. Amen. The subject matter, even in these two verses, is such that Peter was constrained to burst out in this happy doxology at the end of his writings. I've read these verses because they testify to a universal principle of Scripture, which, having considered as a principle, we will hope to apply to whatever we know about the book of Daniel. There are, as you know, about five instances in the New Testament where the subject of foreknowledge is gone into. In the other cases, we are instructed, when we examine the text, that God, knowing what he is going to commit himself to doing in the future, because he knows what he will do, that governs the way that he acts at the present time. That's a very truncated version of what the foreknowledge of God is. Have a look at those examples in Scripture and see if you come to that conclusion. In 2nd Peter, it's the reflection of that. It's an amazing statement here. Peter was privileged to record this. Beloved, seeing ye know these things before, we are finite creatures. God is the infinite God. And Peter says here, you don't know what you will do in the future. You cannot. And in any case, whatever the desire you have, you haven't the power to put it into effect. But he says, you've been told now what God is going to do in the future. And Peter says, knowing what God is going to do in the future, you act now in the light of what God is going to do then. Our foreknowledge is not the knowledge of what we will do. It's the knowledge of what God is going to do. And this is a grand universal principle, true of prophetic revelation. If God gives us information about the future, and he does, it's with the intention that we should allow the truth of what God is going to do affect the way we live at the present time. Putting it another way, God instructs us about what he's going to do in the future in order that we might come to the moral judgment now that is in line with God's eventual judgment on all things. Now they are amazing concepts to consider. And in the working out of it in Peter, Peter says it will have two effects. There'll be a negative effect and a positive effect. Knowing what God is going to do in the future will affect you two ways. You at the present time, knowing what God is going to do in the future, there'll be things you don't do now, things you want nothing to do with. And there'll be other things that you want to be identified with in a positive way. I just read them and leave it at that. He says knowing what God is going to do in the future, given this kind of foreknowledge, beware lest you are led away with the error of the wicked and fall from your own steadfastness. Now that's what I mean by negative. He says don't do that. Ah, but he says occupy yourself in that which is positive. Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The potential for the personal knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ causes his spirit to well up within him and he exults in the presence of God to whom to him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Now that's the principle I want to carry back into the book of Daniel. We've had some fairly intense detailed studies during the week. If we are to be brought to an understanding of what God is going to do, it will involve work, hard work. We will need to apply our renewed minds and it's been very difficult to achieve a balance of knowing how much to put in each evening. That's not an apology, it's a statement of fact. How much to put in to be fair to the lesson, how much to leave out because putting more in would cloud the issue or be wearying to our minds. When we come to the moral application tonight, there will be no need to spend a long time. There will be no need to have intense intellectual application. Have you noticed that? When we come to the moral challenge of the word, our response to what God has instructed us in, it's always easy to understand. Simple, direct, no doubts or shadows. The only doubt is to whether I will have the grace and the courage to do what I know is right. So there'll be no need to multiply words, but I want to take from two, maybe three of the chapters, things that highlight the moral challenge for those of us who have had the opportunity to study the book of Daniel. So would you turn please to chapter one. For once, I will assume that we are reasonably conversant with the text and draw attention to the issues that come to light. And in chapter one, I want to consider the possibility that we may or may not yet be established in the truth of God. I will make no assumptions. Maybe it's right to consider that I'm starting tonight for the first time prepared to commit myself in the sense of Romans 12 verses 1 and 2, in the light of all that God in his wonderful compassion has done for me. What must I do in answer to that? If I'm beginning tonight as a relatively naive believer, what sort of start is open to me? And in chapter one, perhaps we consider someone like that. Verse four. Speaking of Daniel and his friends, we read this. Children in whom was no blemish, well-favored, skillful in all wisdom, cunning in knowledge, understanding science, such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. Daniel was one of that young generation, part of that nation, that kingdom of Judah, captured by Nebuchadnezzar, and the best of the nation, the best of the young people, creme de la creme, the young yuppies of the day, segregated from the common herd, and taken away into Babylon. The world was their oyster. Nothing new about management training, maybe the jargon changes from generation to generation, but even in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar said, pick the best ones, groom them for stardom. Oh believer, let's take this position, the younger ones in particular. Satan's after you, the world's after you. We'll groom you for stardom, we'll give you the best training the world, the world can offer you. Rank, position, salary, perks, they're all there. What was Daniel's response? Well, Percy tells us, Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank. Why is it that in our simple English Bible, God has been very gracious, and so often necessary moral lessons that we need to learn are collected together under the letter P. I don't know the answer to that question. It's a fact of our language, that very often God says, now look, I'm going to make it easy for you to understand, and the first requirement is to be right in your heart. Daniel purposed in his heart. It's said in the reading, quite right. Very difficult in Scripture to understand which comes first often, the heart or the mind. We can see the activities of the personal spirit in the thinking of the mind. We can see the sensitive response in matters of the heart concerning the soul, but it gets very difficult when we read such Scriptures as, as a man thinketh in his heart, we would expect that he would think it in his mind, or feel it in his heart, but Scripture says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Oh, the heart and the mind are very much involved in being set here for the glory of God and the blessing of his people. Daniel was a man who was fully committed that at whatever personal cost, that he would devote his life on earth for the blessing of his people. Oh, he made progress. You know, if you are a Christian and living as a Christian, most of the time, you will find that you will make progress in your career, or in the home, or at school, because if you're a committed Christian, you'll be hard working, you'll be honest, you'll do the right thing, and up to a point, that will be recognized and you will make progress. But the time will come where you have to decide for yourself whether or not the commitment to God, or that a commitment to career, firm, or personal interests, is going to have the priority. All these are not difficult to understand, are they? Daniel purposed in his heart, and he got as far in his secular activities as it was possible to get, and as we shall find, he wouldn't compromise in any way at all. Doesn't mean he was difficult with other people, doesn't mean that he was obnoxious, but he was true to God, and then he served men in the light of that. A sequence of phrases that often occur to me, make what you will of them, God usually works this way, the blessed God in his grace, he instructs our minds, that our hearts might be moved, that our consciences might be stirred, that our will might be submitted, that our feet might be turned into right paths, regard that as trite or not, I'm sure it's abidingly true. And the first movement given by Daniel here was that he purposed, he committed himself. I like that phrase in Paul's second letter to Timothy, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, all who commit themselves, all who say at all costs, that's the first priority for me, to live in full personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 12, prove thy servants I beseech thee. He purposed and he was prepared to be proved. We have to be very careful before we commit ourselves before the Lord. The Lord takes us at our word. And if like Daniel, we purpose to be here for God and the Lord Jesus Christ and fully committed to him, if that's our purpose, oh we'll be given the opportunity to prove the purity of our motives. If we commit ourselves fearlessly before God and man, we will be put to the test. How often we hear, how right it is. We always get tested on our own ministry and that's not by any means restricted to platform ministry. If I pray Lord, give me the grace to be here for thee. The Lord will take us at our word and he will give us the kind of experience in life that gives us the opportunity to demonstrate the purity of our motives and the completeness of our commitment. Everyone who purposes finds that we are proved. And here in verse 12, he was proved. Verse 15, the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat. You vegetarians will say, what did I tell you? All this flesh isn't good for you. They refused the flesh. They had this homemade vegetable broth and at the end of the proving period, they were fitter and better-looking than anybody else. Well, their diet certainly didn't do them any harm. But what brought the true prosperity, and that's the P for verse 15, what made them really prosperous was they'd committed themselves before God and they saw it through. They submitted to the test and they came out of the test with flying colors. If I commit myself before the Lord to be true to him and I'm put to the test as I will be, when the practical test comes along, do I take the opportunity and prosper spiritually and morally or do I yield to the temptation to grumble? I've noticed that often if things go wrong in life with an unbeliever, he tends to blame God. If things go wrong in the life of a believer, he or she is tempted to blame the devil. It's one of the paradoxes, isn't it? That a man who says, I don't believe there's a God and backs that up by ignoring God all his life. When something goes wrong in his life, he says, well, if that's what your God's like, I want nothing to do with him. He blames the God that he doesn't even believe exists. Things go wrong for the believer, can't be made it's wrong, can it? It must be the devil at fault. Daniel and the others, they submitted themselves to the test and they prospered. Let me draw your attention to several verses to show that Daniel's prosperity wasn't a fleeting thing. He prospered and he prospered and he prospered. Look, chapter 1, verses 19 to 21. Among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. In all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king inquired of them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and astrologers. Well, he prospered. Chapter 2, verse 48. The king made Daniel a great man, gave him many great gifts, made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon. Chapter 5, chapter 1 and 2. He prospered in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Chapter 5, verse 29. He prospers in the reign of Belshazzar. Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet and put a chain of gold about his neck and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. Chapter 6, verses 1 to 3. He prospered in the reign of Darius. It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom and hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom, over these three presidents of whom Daniel was first. Verse 3. This Daniel was preferred, another P, above the presidents and princes because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Chapter 6, verse 28. Daniel prospered, there's the word, in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus, the Persian. Nothing difficult about this, is there? He committed himself early in life, in his teens, when he was first abstracted from his countrymen and siphoned off to Babylon. He committed himself and he continued to enjoy true prosperity right through to the age of about 90 years of age. I heartily agree with the statement made this afternoon. If we don't commit ourselves when we are young, we'll never be fully committed when we are old. Whether it's commitment to a regular prayer life with the Lord, whether it's a regular commitment to study the Scriptures, whether it's a regular commitment to keep a short account with the Lord and confess sin as it occurs, rather than when somebody else finds out about it. If we don't accept and act upon that kind of commitment early in life, we'll never switch it on later in life. He prospered as an old man because he was true to his commitment when he was a young man, and the same is true of young women. Well, he prospered throughout all those reigns. Let's go back to chapter 1 and verse 19. The king communed with them and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Simple lesson. Commit yourself before the Lord to be fully devoted to him. You'll be tested, you'll be proved, you will prosper. And this little verse tells us times will be hard. Some of your former friends will desert you, even Christian believing friends won't face up to the same measure of commitment. But even though few, there will always be those with whom you can have fellowship in that life of full commitment. Remember Elijah? He said, Lord, there's only me left. Oh, do you ever feel like that? There's only me left. All the burdens are on my shoulders. Nobody else cares. Satan will tempt us. I'm not blaming the devil. Satan will tempt us to think it's no longer worth the bother. Sit in the back row, come occasionally, don't exert yourself, go through the motions. It's as much as can be expected of you at this late stage in the dispensation. Like the man at the end of the shipwreck scene, Acts 27, hang on and wish for the day. Well, maybe you're tempted to think like that. Daniel wasn't like that. Elijah had to be told, now listen Elijah, you think you're on your own, there's another 7,000 equally committed as you. You may well conclude it would be very, very difficult for you now to find 7,000 believers with whom you'd find yourself in full, happy fellowship in every sense of the word. You may be right, but there will be some. I haven't got a fee for this one. I'm open to offers. The best word I've got at the moment, a simple one, he had his parts. It's a solemn thing for me that when I was in my late teens and early 20s, there was a group of about 70 young people on Tyneside who seemed very keen, certainly very active, certainly we all saw each other a lot and we seemed very enthusiastic. It's a solemn thing to me now that out of those 70, of course some have moved away. Good reasons why others aren't involved in the things that I do, nevertheless solemn that out of those 70, there are maybe 12 to 15 that I can identify as seeming to be as committed now as they were then, but there are some. Thank God for those like Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, that Daniel could go along with and say, now look, these are like-minded. I can throw in my lot with them and I can have fellowship on earth with them while I am true to God in heaven. Oh yes, in the primary sense, communion with the Lord, personal devotion to him, but I'm assured that if we are fully committed in that way, the Lord is gracious and he will provide at least some that we can go on with while he leaves us here to live our responsible lives. There were those with whom he could go on. Now verse 21, last thing we want to think about chapter 1, Daniel continued. He persevered. He wasn't put off. I seem to remember about the time I'm speaking of, there was a comic character in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle who rejoiced in the name of persevere. He got all the knocks, everything went wrong, but you couldn't keep him down. He kept living up to his name. He persevered. Well, any knocks that come along give us the opportunity to demonstrate what stuff we are made of. Dare to be a Daniel, or we like to sing to him, dare to be alone, but if we have the courage to be alone and act like Daniel in devotion to the Lord, having proved that we are willing to be alone if the Lord considers it to be necessary, if we have the faith for it, there will always be a handful with whom we can have all things in common and enjoy fellowship together. Fellowship in the remembrance of the Lord, fellowship in prayer, fellowship in the Apostles Doctrine, fellowship in the home and in the assembly. We can be assured of that. The Lord, as long as we persevere, the Lord will make fellowship available to us. Now, just a word or two on chapter 3. Not so much Daniel now, but his three friends. Daniel allows himself to be persuaded to make this image of himself 90 feet high, 9 feet wide. He allows himself to be persuaded that he's an object of worship and everyone must bow to the image in deference to worship of him. Daniel's three friends, they say, oh, we can't do that. We live in a world of compromise, don't we? Where, little by little, there is an encroachment on the things that we used to consider to be vital. We are tempted to think and we act upon it. We are tempted to think it's not really vital. I don't want to be considered to be awkward. Better to resist when it's something really important. I won't go along with it, but I'll just keep quiet and I won't give offense. After that settle down, a bit more encroachment, a bit bigger this time, but a little more compromise. Read 2nd Timothy, chapter 1, 2 and 3, and you see the downward cycle of those who start off by not accepting the truth and then they accept something that is not the truth and they finish up resisting the truth. Little by little the encroachment goes on. Daniel's three friends said, no, we can't do it. We have to give God his portion. And they're told, if not, into the furnace you go. Notice the audacity of Nebuchadnezzar. Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? God accepted the challenge. Notice verses 17 and 18 as the response of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. First of all, where was Daniel in all this? Daniel the leader, Daniel the forceful character, Daniel who would tell them what to do and how to do it and they would follow his lead. It's a worthwhile study in Scripture to see those who made progress when their props were removed. Oh, it's all right, as long as there's a strong leader telling us what to do and encouraging us to go along with him and by his charismatic personality carrying us along in his train. Without this record, we might think that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had no personal exercise of their own. They were carried along in the train of Daniel. It's pure conjecture, we aren't told. But Daniel, as the Prime Minister, may well have been away on official business in another part of the Empire. We aren't told. He wasn't on the spot at the time the test came along. What we are told, and it's wonderful, without the prop that they normally leaned on, these three, and notice it's not the Gentile name that was given to them. When they are standing for God, we read about them, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, that they are not prepared to give way. Verse 17, if Nebuchadnezzar says, who is that God that shall deliver you? Verse 17, they say, our God is able to deliver us. First of all, from the burning fiery service, and secondly, he will deliver us out of thine hand. Nebuchadnezzar had no personal knowledge of their God. He said, who is he anyway? They say, our God. Our God! Paul, what did he say? From his knowledge of God, personally, my God, my God, shall supply all your needs. Paul's knowledge of God was such that he said, I know him well enough to know that he won't let you down. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego said, you don't know our God. We know him. He's our God, and we know that he'll support us. Lovely words. He's able to deliver us. He will deliver us. Perhaps the best bit is, but if not. But if not. This was no escape clause. This was no let up or let out. They said, we know he's able to deliver us. We are assured that he will deliver us. But if it is his will that this is the end of our responsible life on earth, we leave it to him. What a happy situation in which to be. Are we assured that the Lord has left us here for a purpose? That as long as he has something for us to do, he will leave us here. And when our responsible life and service is over, he will take us away. What a difference it makes in bereavement, doesn't it? To know that the one who has gone to be with the Lord, which for them is far, far better, is something which has been determined by the Lord as being for the best. Not easy. Very real sorrow. But, like these three friends, to be able to say, but if not, we are still going to be true to our God. Now, it is to such, and with this, we must come to a close. Verse 25. Verse 24. These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar, the king, was astonished and rose up in haste and spake and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto him, unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the four is like the Son of God. We learn here one vital reason why the people of God are allowed to suffer. In the suffering, and in being determined to be true to the Lord, we get a personal knowledge of the Lord that would come in no other way. Show me a believer that suffered, and you will show me a believer who is mellow and has a personal acquaintance with their Lord and Saviour. It's not automatic. It has to be gained through deep sorrow, suffering, and exercise. Here, in the context of the book of Daniel, it's another picture of God's earthly people in the day of Jacob's trouble, the last half-week, undergoing terrible suffering, being worn out by their enemies, and yet being sustained in it by the personal presence of their Master. There's a knowledge of the Lord gained in enduring sorrow and suffering that is gained in no other way. You Bible students, you get back here to the problem, it's not a problem really, of Ben and Bar. Here, look at the word, it's not only the knowledge of the person, that's vital, but it's the knowledge of his official glory and the officers that he will fill when he comes in power and great glory. All these things that have been allowed to happen will be put into proper perspective when he takes up the reins of government, when he acts as the judge. Daniel, in his way, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, here were given an insight, a preview of the time that will come, like Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration, given a preview of when the Lord says, enough, and he takes over personal control and acts officially on behalf of God because he is God. Many more lessons in the book of Daniel, no time for more. Much said about the future in the book of Daniel. Let us go back, 2nd Peter, chapter 3, last two verses. Knowing these things before, God has privileged us to be born in a day, to hear ministry from the book of Daniel that point us to this again and again, that God tells us about the future, that we might behave properly at the present time. Oh yes, there'll be things people say, you don't do this, you don't do that, you don't go there, you don't go here, but there will be those who see the positive features that arise when we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. With Peter, Daniel in sympathy with it, I'm sure, perhaps we can all come to this and say to him, be glory now and forever. Amen. …