[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the River Church podcast.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us.
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[00:00:12] Speaker D: good morning, everyone.
If you're able, why don't you take a moment just to stand and just stretch up. If you can stretch all the way over to the side, all the way over to the other side.
Big stretch all the way back.
There we go. And you can sit down now. It's all good. Just wanted you to sort of prepare yourselves.
Right, we're in a series going through the Book of Daniel. We're in Daniel 9. I'm going to be reading through that in a moment. So if you have Bibles, do crack them open, I will be putting it up on the screen as well and helping us go through. But first, let me ask you a question.
What connects the stories of Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story, the Odyssey and the Book of Daniel?
Alice in Wonderland. Maybe I'm a little subplot here, but Alice in Wonderland is a story of Alice down a hole. And all she wants to do is wake up and get back to Kansas. All she wants to do is get back home.
We Woody, the toy that was accidentally taken.
And the story is he just wants to get back home to Andy.
The Odyssey, the story of Odysseus, who is out on war, and he sets sail and he wants to just get back home to Ithaca.
And we have the Book of Daniel.
And Daniel opens. The whole story opens with this young boy, this boy in his late teens, he's been deported to a foreign land.
He's been exiled because the country that was in Judah, which is a southern part of Israel, was finally overrun by the Babylonians. They had crushed them, defeated them, as they had done most of the land around.
And so Daniel, and as a group of students and of the best and brightest, along with leaders across governments and religious leaders, have been gathered up and carted off. They wanted to break the culture, and so they carted them all off and taken them to Babylon.
And so the question we are left with is, will Daniel and the whole people of Judah, of Israel, will. Will they make it back home?
As we go through the whole series and things are going on, there's this whole underlying thread, will Daniel make it home?
And I think that's an interesting question because I think it's also our question.
We want to go home.
Do you know, we feel like this world isn't our home.
It's not a place of safety, of comfort, of human flourishing that we would want it to do. You know, we go out into the world and we experience the dangers, we get harmed, and then we retreat into our own homes and we try and put up the barriers and we try and make the place as comfortable and as nice as possible.
But you know what? We can never do that. It's never quite as fulfilling.
And we still have to go out into the world and be harmed and then come back.
And many people don't actually have a home that is safe in any sense of the word.
And so we all want to go home.
That place in the Bible that you know is called the Promised Land or God's Rest or Eden, that place which should be home.
And the question for us, I think, is a question like for Daniel and the Israelites, will we ever make it home?
And that's the question I'm going to look at today in Daniel 9. That's the question we're going to go through.
And Daniel starts off with praying, and then he receives this prophecy, this vision from God. And I want to help us in this question. Not to reform it, not to say, how does Daniel make his way home?
But actually what does God do to help him get home?
And maybe the question for us is, how is God going to help us get to home?
So let's start with Daniel.
Let's start in Daniel 1.
I'm going to read out the first couple of verses.
It says, in the first year of Darius, son of Xerxes, Omid by descent, who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom in the first year of his reign. I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years.
Now, this was. It states in the first year of Darius. We have much archaeological evidence. If you go to the British Museum, you can see lots of it there where they date this year to 538 B.C.
and Daniel, because we can go back and see when Daniel had come to Babylon. Daniel had been in Babylon for 65 years.
So if he had started out in his late teens, he was now in his early 80s.
And Daniel is still reading the scriptures, which is great. He's still a faithful person pursuing God and wanting to be faithful to God. But it also says in here the word of the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet in the sort of 20, 30 years before Judah got exiled, and then the sort of 10 or so, 15, 20 years afterwards as well. And we read in Jeremiah 29, let me just read it out, that Jeremiah 29 says, this is the text of the letter. So he had a scribe writing down his prophecies. This is a text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent to sent from Jerusalem. So he's still back in Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests and prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. So Jeremiah was still a prophet, he was still active, and he was writing these prophecies and sending them by letter to those in Babylon. And we don't have an exact date for this.
Jeremiah has lots of prophecies over his maybe 40 year of ministry, but we reckon it was sent in maybe the first 10, 20 years of Daniel being in Babylon.
So what does he say in this letter? Well, we can read through and it says things like, settle in Babylon. God says, settle, build houses, build your families, do good jobs, pray for the success of Babylon. But then also he goes and says some hope. He says in verse 10 of 29 of chapter 29 says, this is what the Lord says, When 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.
And Daniel's here. Daniel's got this letter and he's got the scriptures, he's got the Torah, he's got the Old Testament writing some of them. And he's got this word from Jeremiah, and he's going, hold on a minute.
What time is it?
What year is it now?
70 years. When did that start? When is actually now?
I think it's about time.
I think it's about time. Are we going home?
Is God going to bring us back?
Is God going to restore the fortunes of Israel? Am I going back?
And so what did Daniel do?
What do you think he did?
Well, in verse three, we find out.
Oh, I did have it on there in verse three, find out. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, in sackcloth and ashes.
And I'm thinking, hold on a minute.
Like, this is the good news, right? He's going home.
What should he be doing? He's rounding up people. Come on, everyone, let's get prepared. Let's pack our suitcases.
What are we going to. We're going to do a party for it. Come on, everyone, let's get organized. Let's have a meeting, a committee.
Let's organize how everyone's going to go back home. Let's send word back.
But he doesn't says his reaction is, I'm going to get into prayer in fasting, a sackcloth and ashes.
Why is that? Well, let's listen to his prayer.
He says, I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed.
Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments. We have sinned and done wrong.
We have been wicked and have rebelled. We have turned away from your commands and laws.
We have not listened to your servants, the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our ancestors, and to all the people in the land.
Now, the thing that jumped out at me when I read this was, Daniel is confessing.
What? Who?
You know, we know. If you've been with us going through the story of Daniel, Daniel is the faithful one. He's the one that stood up to everyone. He's the one that's faced death on many occasions, being thrown into the lion's den.
He's the faithful one and yet he's confessing.
We have rebuilt, we have rebelled, we have been wicked.
Why is that?
See, Daniel here, he's just expressing so much humility as a person, right?
He's not elevating himself above the other people, the elders, the priests, everyone else in the people of Israel, even his ancestors who have now died.
He's not elevating himself above, but he's connecting himself with them.
He's saying, actually, your sins are my sins.
And I think Daniel's prayer expresses both a sense of, hey, I am not fundamentally better than the people who have gone before me, the people around me. I'm not better.
And neither can I say, hey, given your situation, I would have done something differently.
Do you know if all the things that happen to you, if all your upbringing, if all your family, if everything that happened to you happened to me, I would have done it better.
He's not saying that.
And to read Daniel's prayer as authentic and not just virtue signalling, not just saying, oh, I'm going to say sorry for people. It's not my sorry.
He says, no, it's my sin as well.
And I think when we think about our 21st century culture, do you know we live in such a spirit of judgmentalism?
Do you know we live in such a spirit of we're going to correct and point out the flaws and the mistakes of everyone, no matter how big or how small.
And we tend to elevate those small or unintentional mistakes that other people make. Maybe the clumsy, outdated expression that someone uses, I don't know, in the workplace or on a social media platform and we turn it into that person is hate filled and they're the most evil person ever.
Or someone who gives a poorly worded email, do you know? And hey, we turn around to like that person is arrogant, is hostile and we cast them out. Someone that forgets an appointment or an important date and suddenly they're the most uncaring person in the whole world.
Do you know, that's the spirit of the age, isn't it? Of saying what you've done is just totally unreasonable.
It demonstrates a heart that's totally corrupt, unforgivable, and I would never do that.
As you get older, you realize you do that quite a lot.
And that's the thing with our society. You can see the division that happens.
There's just a general lack of humility, lack of grace and forgiveness for other people when they make mistakes, but also that lack of humility in myself. I would never do that.
But the thing is, a Christian outlook on life is one that is founded on a healthy dose of self reflection, one of self suspicion.
Do you know, one of the writers comments, we should suspect our own motives, anticipate the discovery of hypocrisy, of egoism, of sin, even in our seemingly purest of motives, like Daniel, we need to adopt this humility of ourselves. I am no better than others.
And really importantly, just like Daniel, this opens the door to going home.
This opens the door to going home. Let's see how this pans out for Daniel.
I'm going to read Daniel 9, 2023 says while I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin, my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy heel. While I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice.
He instructed me and said to me, daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed.
Daniel was in prayer. He was in that place of humility.
And God sent Gabriel his angel to come in a vision to give him a message. A word went out. God's word went out and Gabriel was the one entrusted to come and deliver it.
But again, notice Daniel in that place. He's confessing not just Israel's sin, but it's his sin.
It's his sin and God responds to it.
God responds to Daniel's humility.
And so let's get into the vision and the vision, like all the visions in Daniel, are pretty weird.
And so we're going to have to do a little bit of work with it. Okay, but let me read it out and we will work through it a little bit. Okay. It begins.
Seventy sevens are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place.
Know and understand this. From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven sevens and 62 sevens.
It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench. But in times of Trouble, after the 62 Sevens, the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.
The people, the ruler will come.
Who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood. War will continue until the end. And desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for 1 7. In the middle of the seven, he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.
Clear?
Yeah. Okay.
So we've got so many challenges in understanding the vision, this vision and anything that has to do with apolytic. I can't even say the word revelation. Apocalyptic. There we go.
And I'm just going to give a brief overview of what I think that this means and talk about the interpretation that I find most convincing.
And this is how I go about this, how we go about this as elders, is to look at good scholarly work. So that's work that is well researched, that's well reasoned, that's well written, and it's peer reviewed. Other people have commented on it and other people have. Have made good comments about it. Do you know we interpret the Bible in community, and that includes scholarly community, the academy, as well as the church.
And so with a few of these interpretations, really the main difference is in dates, who and when it refers to. But it really doesn't have an effect.
The difference in the interpretation doesn't have an effect on our doctrine as, you know, how we live our faith, the major parts of doctrine. It doesn't really have an effect there. It's really just on sort of dates.
And these interpretations aren't modern.
They actually go back.
Some of them originate back from AD150. That's written down.
So they are historic. They have been talked about by the church for over 2000 words.
But where can we go from it? Right, okay, so the first thing is the sevens in that. And you may have a Bible that says 7, or you may have a Bible translation that says weeks. And the reason for that is sevens is often a metaphor for seven days. Okay, so you might have weeks.
But the problem is if we interpret as literal weeks, and this is a problem with interpreting anything in this kind of thing as literal, then nothing actually seems to make sense. Nothing actually occurred within that time frame.
So the better thing is interpret it as seven years.
And then we can build up a picture.
So we have 77s. We have a whole picture of around 490 years.
And so to give a kind of a sort of timeline, it starts in there from the time that the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. We interpret that when you read through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, that straight at the start of the book of Ezra, it says that Cyrus sends out a decree that they can go back and restore Jerusalem. And then there's another one, an additional one by a king called Artaxerxes, a few chapters later in Ezra 7. So we're interpreting that phrase from either one of those two times.
And then there will be seven sevens, 49 years. And we see that through the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, the times of rebuilding the temple, that's a time of blessing.
That's the time when they are going well.
And then we see 62 sevens until the anointed one is generally interpreted as the coming of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus, around AD 26.
And then there's one last. If you notice, we've got 69 sevens, one last seven.
And some people interpret through up until the stoning of Stephen, which is quite a turning point in the story of Acts. But I think it's probably better to see through the destruction of. Of the Jerusalem Temple by the Roman Empire, by Nero especially, who comes to stop sacrifice in AD 70. It sort of lines up there.
Now, as I said, we can't go too literal on the sevens. It generally lines up. So we started around five, the end of the.
And now I'm working backwards, aren't I? The end of the fourth century B.C. anyway, the five hundreds. And we got 490 years and we're back to when, the time of Jesus. So we can't go exact dates because I don't think anything in actually the Bible tells us that we should interpret things through Exact dates. Jesus often says things like only the exact date, times and dates the Father knows, but a rough kind of timeline of what's going on there.
That's great.
How does it help us?
What are we supposed to do with this?
Well, also, let's look at what would it do for Daniel and the people of Israel, because he's written it down.
There's a phrase sealed up the prophecy, which means to write it down and to pass it around. It's. It's finished and it's to give them something, give them some information.
There's going to be a time of blessing, 49 years, let's celebrate that's coming.
And then there's going to be a time of trouble.
There's going to time of war, of desolation, and in the middle of it there's going to be an end to sin that's going to bring in everlasting righteousness in the middle.
In other words, it's complicated.
It's not all smooth sailing from here.
And Daniel's vision actually isn't the only prophecy that we've got for that time. I'm going to refer Back to Jeremiah 29. I started with that letter. This is Jeremiah 29. He's writing a letter to the people in exile. And let me read on just a little bit more of what he says. Just let me take a sip of water. Second he says, Jeremiah 29:10.
When the 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans to prosper, prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.
Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and will bring you back from captivity.
There may be a couple of verses in there that are very memorable.
Excuse me, but this is a wonderful prophecy to the people of Israel. And we see Daniel exemplifying the man that comes and prays to God, the man that comes and seeks God. And I'm sure he's not alone. He's with many other people that we can read in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra.
But again we see this is a prophecy for a time, 49 years approximately. And then there's going to be a time of trouble.
And I've heard, I'm sure you might have Heard of people quoting some of these things and saying, God's got great plans for you.
God's got a great future for you and he's going to prosper you.
But we need to learn to read this in context.
It was written to a people two and a half thousand years ago, and it was partial and not final.
It was for a time, prosperity was going to be followed with trouble, war, conquests.
And the 62 weeks is far longer than the seven weeks of prosperity.
But where does that leave us?
Because we got to the end of it, the 70 weeks.
And it's really in a bit of a gloomy place, isn't it?
It's a bit of a gloomy place, but the thing is, there was hope in the midst of it.
Daniel's vision gave them hope.
It's hope that they would return home, that they would come and rest as a people, not ultimate rest and not final rest.
And so, like the people of Israel, like us, we are waiting to go home.
But approximately 500 years after this, an anointed one comes, One who fulfills every prophecy and every promise of God.
One who puts an end to sin, who atones for all wickedness and brings in everlasting righteousness.
And this was a promise. This was a call not to just to Israel, but this is a call to everyone to follow this person on a journey.
Because we are a people in exile, just like the Israelites. We are a people in exile.
We have been banished from Eden.
We are not in a place of safety and comfort.
We are not in a place of final and ultimate rest.
We've been banished.
But the thing is, God hasn't left us in exile.
He's not left us to try and work out our own way home. We are not fighting the enemies, to try and battle against people, to try and find the secret way home.
No, God calls us, just as he called Daniel and the Israelites, that if we would humble ourselves, if we would pick up our cross and to go out into the world and to live a life of trouble in a dangerous world, that we could also follow him, that we could follow our guides, our banner, our strength.
And God's promise is if we could only relinquish our rights to be the captain of our soul, to be our own Lord, our Master, to determine our future, then we might follow him and he would lead us home.
So the only question that leaves us with is, do you want to go home?
Do you want to go to that place of comfort, of safety, of flourishing, of a place where there is no tears and pain.
Do you want to go home?
In the words of a song that we used to sing of Psalm 23, it said, I will trust in you alone, for your endless mercy follows me. Your goodness will lead me home.
God's goodness will lead us home.
And I would like to just take a moment now to go into prayer, to pray for one another.
You know, if you'd like to start to sort of get into groups and to pray for one another, there's two things that I'd like us to. I feel God's sort of leading us to pray.
One is to recognize that we need humility, needs humility to turn to him and let him be our guide to lead us home.
And maybe there's something going on in your life that you just want to share or you want to pray about that you want help given up. You want this humility to put aside and to turn to Jesus in that.
And the second thing also is that we struggle on a journey. Do you know, this journey is not a journey of. Of peace and safety. It's a journey of trouble.
And so we need help, don't we?
We need help to keep going on that journey, to persevere through it. And you might be going through a place of doubt. Do you know, we all go through doubts of like, hey, God, have you got the strength for me to continue going, to have the faith, to keep going, to keep my eyes on you? And we need to pray to one another, just as Daniel did pray over one another, that God would empower us, that God would give us hope.
