December 3, 2000

Daniel: the Key to Revelation

Dan. 7, 9, & 11

First part of this week, I got to thinking, "Why am I doing this? I'm not talking about "being the pastor," but preaching through Revelation. When I was on vacation this last spring, I came back convinced and ready that God wanted me to get into teaching on personal growth, family relationships, holiness, and I did that all summer. This fall, it was like I was told; "OK, that's enough, now it's time to do Revelation." That was fine with me, I love prophecy, but while I am doing this, I also wanted to make it relevant, make it useful day to day. Not that we need to justify studying prophecy, God promises a special crown to those that love His appearing, so He wants us to know about it. What more justification do we need than that? Nonetheless, I wondered why God wanted us to study Revelation.

Something happened this week that gave me my answer. How many of you have heard of the "Left Behind" series of books about the rapture and the tribulation? How many of you are reading your way through the series? A couple years ago, the people who made up lists of best selling books only included secular books, Christian books were never included, "they didn't count." That's changed, because money talks, best sellers are best sellers. USA Today maintains a list of the top 100 best selling books in the US, and "The Mark," the eighth book in the Left Behind series is in #1 this week. There are five of the books from the series in the top 100. And now there is a Left Behind movie. It is currently on video, Matt loaned me his copy this week, and it's a good movie. It will come out in theaters very soon.

The effect of all this is that a lot of secular people who have never even heard of the Rapture are being exposed to the idea that maybe, just maybe, all the Christians are suddenly going to be gone, and the Bible has the answer about all the strange things that will be coming on the earth. That might get some people to wondering. That might get some people to thinking. Do you suppose that might give us an opportunity to talk to anybody about Jesus? 1 Peter 3:15 tells us "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you." If you are talking to somebody and the topic of the rapture and the tribulation comes up, then God wants us to be able to tell people how and why they need to get ready. The next several months could be a special window of opportunity to witness to people that Jesus is coming back.

People need to know that God is going to hold people accountable for what they do about Jesus Christ, and about their salvation. We need to be equipped and qualified to tell them what they need to know. And if one of the things that gets them thinking is some talk about the rapture, or the tribulation, then we don't want to be drawing a blank if they ask us. First, let's get the big picture, a simple overview, because that's what we would tell somebody that's unsaved and knows nothing about the Bible.

First comes the rapture, the Christians are gone. The world will need to come up with some sort of plausible explanation, and it will: space aliens, a "harmonic convergence," comet Hale-Bopp returns, who knows?

The next thing that happens, the antichrist will make a covenant with Israel, and will bring peace to the Middle East. For the first time in over 50 years, the Israelis will be dwelling peacefully, thinking they have nothing to worry about. Shortly thereafter, Russia and several other nations will attack Israel, but the attacking forces will be supernaturally destroyed.

Three and one half years after the antichrist makes his covenant with Israel, he will break the covenant. He will go onto the temple mount, enter into a rebuilt temple, or else the tabernacle, he will declare himself as God, and defile the holy place. This is a signal for Israel to flee for their lives, because the antichrist then begins a tremendous persecution of them. At this point, the tribulation itself changes from bad to worse. The second half of the tribulation, the last three and one half years are specifically referred to as the Great Tribulation. During the first half of the tribulation, things are bad, but the problems appear to be mostly man made. The second half, things appear to be mostly supernatural, and men recognize that God is allowing Satan and the demons to have their way, that God Himself is judging them for their sins, their rejection of Jesus Christ.

During the tribulation, the majority of the earth's population is destroyed, but a minority of the population, both Jew and Gentile get saved, many of them are martyred, but some endure to the end and survive. After seven years, Jesus returns in power and glory, and what is left of the earth's unsaved armies attempt to destroy Him. Bad plan, it doesn't work.

Christ then restores the throne of David in Jerusalem, and sits in judgement of unsaved gentiles who survived the tribulation. They are judged on the basis of how they treated believers during the tribulation. Once that is over, then begins the millennium, the thousand year reign of Christ on the earth, and the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and David are all fulfilled.

That's the tribulation in a nutshell. If you can remember that, keep that as an outline, you are equipped and qualified to talk to an unsaved person about what happens in the tribulation. Because if and when they start to worry about the details, then you ask them "Why does that matter? Surely you don't plan to be here? Wouldn't you rather receive Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin now, and not be here?" That needs to be our strategy and our game plan, but along with that, we are also responsible to study and show ourselves approved, to rightly divide the Word of Truth, so let's get on with our study of Revelation on more than just a nutshell level.

If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to Daniel 9:24. The book of Daniel is the foundation for understanding prophecy in the Bible. You won't understand Revelation without Daniel. This prophecy in Daniel 9 gives the time frame for when the Messiah Jesus would come, when He would be crucified, and when the antichrist would appear. Follow with me, verse 24: "Seventy weeks." This is a measurement of time, it literally means "seventy sevens", or 490 years. The Jews are prisoners in Babylon, and the seventy weeks starts while they are in captivity.

"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." So what he is saying here, after 490 years, Jerusalem is going to be cleansed, and made Holy, the Messiah will come and reign, and all the prophecies are going to be fulfilled. Just one problem. It has been almost 2600 years since the prophecy, and it hasn't happened. We know that all of God's prophecies are accurate, all of them come true, did we miss something? How does this prediction work out?

Follow with me, verse 25: "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, -49 years- and threescore and two weeks: -434 years- the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times." It was 49 years from the going forth of the command to rebuild Jerusalem until it was accomplished. Then it was another 434 years until Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem and offered himself to Israel as their Messiah.
Verse 26: "And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:" This part is pretty easy, it refers to when Jesus was crucified for the sins of others, and at this point something very important happens to God's calender, His clock: it stops running.

We know that's what happened, because the prophecy was accurate right to the day up to that point, and then it stopped. If it was a football game, we would say they have a time out. And it's still in progress.
Sixty nine out of the seventy weeks had gone by when Jesus was crucified, seven years were left. Nothing remotely resembling a fulfillment of those last seven years has happened since Jesus was crucified. That's why we know God has called time out. What are the last seven years supposed to look like?

Forty years later, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, that is referred to, the verse continues: " 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, -the Romans totally over ran the place- and unto the end of the war desolations are determined." The Temple was defiled as predicted. That happened just like it was predicted to, but not within the seven year time frame. So the time frame has changed. What gets it back on schedule? What's the next item on the agenda?
Verse 27, this is still in the future, this is where the clock starts running again, the time out period is over, and the action that starts the clock running is the antichrist signing a treaty with Israel. Verse 27 says: "And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week." Who shall confirm the covenant? The prince that shall come, the prince whose people and armies overran Jerusalem back in 72 AD: the Romans. What does that tell us? That the antichrist comes out of the old Roman empire, which means he is probably not a Jew, he is probably a Gentile.

So now we can say that the antichrist will sign a seven year or one week covenant with Israel, we know it is Israel because of how the rest of the verse reads: "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." God only uses terms like that when He is talking about Israel. This tells us that after this treaty is signed, the Jews will start offering sacrifices like they did centuries ago, and after three and one half years -the middle of the week- antichrist will break his covenant and defile the sanctuary. We'll talk more about that in a minute.

I don't want to take the time to go into it, but the thirty eighth chapter of Ezekiel details how Russia will attack Israel in the last days. God says the attack comes during a time when Israel is dwelling peacefully and securely in a land of unwalled villages. Israel became a nation in the 1940's, and from that time until now, they have never been peaceful or secure, or unwalled, so the attack would have to occur after the antichrist resolves the Mideast Conflict, signs the covenant, and provides them with his security. So Russia comes to an end as a military power on the mountains of Israel after the antichrist signs a covenant with Israel, after the tribulation begins.

The book of Daniel gives us various other insights into what is going to happen during the tribulation. In chapter 7, God gives Daniel a vision of the different world empires, and what happens when they all come to an end. Turn to chapter 7, verse 2: "I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea." The word sea refers to the great mass of humanity, we will see that again in revelation when we see the antichrist come up out of the sea.

Daniel sees four great beasts come up out of the sea, four great world empires, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and then the Roman empire, a terrible and strong beast with ten horns. A horn in the Bible is a symbol of great power, and here, the antichrist appears as a horn. In verse 8, we see the antichrist come up out of this beast. He says: "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." This is some man with tremendous political power, and also great speaking ability, great persuasive powers, an Adolph Hitler type personality.

In verses 9 through 14, Daniel sees Jesus Christ receive the title deed of the earth, that was what we studied last week, then he sees the antichrist destroyed at the end of the tribulation. It's as if seven years were compressed into just a brief overview of the future, and Daniel doesn't understand what's happening. One of the elders explains it to him, so then Daniel asks about the fourth beast, the kingdom of Rome, and about the rise of the antichrist. In verse 19 through the end of the chapter, Daniel learns what happens as the antichrist comes to power, plan to sit down and read it on your own later, it's not that complicated. Once you know the game plan and the characters, you can pick it out. The point is, this is the Bible's first really detailed picture of the last days, the tribulation, and the antichrist. And God doesn't quit with telling us this, it gets even better.

Go to Daniel 11, verse 31. This is one of those really neat places in the Bible where God is using one thing to draw us a picture of something else bigger in the background. For instance: when God tells us about the fall of Lucifer, He starts out by having Ezekiel write down a rebuke against the king of the city of Tyre, and then right in the middle of it, God expands the vision, and it is not the king of Tyre that is in view, it is Lucifer himself that God is speaking about. Same thing here in Daniel. In verse 31, Daniel is prophesying about how this Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes is going to persecute Israel, go into the Temple and defile the sanctuary, and act just like a little puny antichrist wannabe.

Then in verse 36, the vision jumps into the future, and God shows us a picture of what the real last days antichrist will be like. Verse 36: "And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
:37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
:38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
:39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain." Skip to verse 45:
:45 "And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
12:1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: -referring to Israel- and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." Is there any doubt that Daniel is speaking of the last days, of the tribulation, and the antichrist? I don't think so. We see the end of the tribulation, and then I think the vision skips to the last judgement.

The whole point of us learning these things is just what the Lord is telling and showing Daniel in these visions. Daniel 12: 3 tells us: "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." If we turn many to the righteousness of salvation in Jesus, then God says that we shall shine like stars forever and ever.

That is the whole purpose of this series. I love prophecy, I love learning what God is going to do, I love to know what's going to happen next. And maybe you do too. But it's not just for our pleasure or amusement that we study these things, it's so that we can tell others of the hope that we have within us.
No matter what happens to this world, Jesus is coming soon. Evil men, an evil culture, corruption, disease, it's not good, but it's not really our problem. It's the problem of those that don't know Jesus, because even after we believers are gone, raptured, out of here, it's still going to be their problem.

We need to turn many to righteousness. A few minutes ago, when I gave you an outline of the tribulation in a nutshell, it only took about two and one half minutes. And I bet all of you understood it and can probably remember enough of it to use it if you need it. Telling someone the Gospel takes a lot less time.
All we have to do is tell people that Jesus Christ is God's provision for our sins. He died on a cross to take our sins away. He rose from the dead to prove that God was satisfied. If you repent and receive Him as your Savior from sin, He will give you a new birth, put the Holy Spirit in your heart, and one day come for you just like every other believer that He loves.

That's it. How simple is that? Simple enough that any one of us can tell it to anybody. Tell them. Tell them often, tell them with confidence. God has promised you a wonderful salvation, and He has enough to go around for all your friends too. Make sure they all know about it. Tell them soon. Tell them often.