Pastor Ted Whitaker, PhD, CLP
Sunday March 1, 2009
Sermon Delivered to Annapolis and Hopedale Presbyterian Churches
Bible quotes: NIV (New International Version) NASB (New American Standard Bible)
Today is the first Sunday in the season of lent which means we will have six Sundays where we remember what Christ has done for us on the cross at Calvary nearly 2000 years ago.
Did you ever think about the difference in importance between the season of advent and the season of lent.
We tend to love the season of the nativity of Christ more than the season of the resurrection of Christ because of something very serious.
Jesus must die a very cruel death before the joy of Easter morning.
But as I have preached before God does not leave us in the dark about this.
As I preached last week if something supernatural is going to happen in the New Testament, God usually tells us first in the Old Testament.
Therefore we should not be surprised that God foretells the death of his son in the Old Testament scriptures....
So here today at the beginning of lent we have a communion service. And as we take the bread and the wine today let us do what Jesus tells us to do when we take them.
Do this in remembrance of Jesus. But more importantly do this in remembrance of what he did on the cross.
So where in God’s Word does he tell us where and when Jesus would die? We heard of two places this morning in the readings of scripture this morning.
The first reading form the Old Testament tells is when Jesus the Messiah (the anointed one) would die but veiled.
It is not clear and straight forward so without some one to guide us we would miss it on the first reading.
In fact it takes a very careful comparing of dates to find out that the prophesy of in the Book of Daniel is telling us exactly when the Messiah would be killed and that date is exactly the date that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Roman guards.
It does not tell us in the year AD 33 but it does give us a starting date.
The words are from the prophet Daniel in city of Babylon. So out of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon did God tell us that the Messiah would die and when it would happen.
Daniel was taken to Babylon after king Nebuchadnezzar had attached the kingdom of Judah in the year 586 BC and burned the temple of King Solomon to the ground and carried all the inhabitance to his city of Jerusalem off to captivity in Babylon.
Daniel was a young man when this happened (in his twenties and Daniel lived all his adult life in Babylon and died there as an old man of ninety). Daniel was special man of God and was able to interpret dreams and visions like no other in the bible.
The miracles that God performed in Daniels life gave credence or believability to his prophesies as coming from God.
Let us remember us of just some of these miracles that identified Daniel as a great man of God.
There was the miracle of the fiery furnace with Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the furnace because they would not worship king Nebuchadnezzar.
When Daniel and friends were not killed even when Nebuchadnezzar heated the furnace 7 times hotter and walked out of that furnace without being burned, Daniel had a new status even with mighty King Nebuchadnezzar.
Daniel had interpreted Nebuchadnezzar dreams and those interpretation came true.
And when Nebuchadnezzar was gone and his son was king Daniel predicted the fall of Babylon to the king of Persia by reading an inscription on the wall made by a human hand.
King Belshazzar (Nebuchadnezzar’s son) was so frighten by this inscription that suddenly appeared on his wall that he summoned every wise man in his kingdom but they could not tell him what it meant.
So King Belshazzar called for Daniel and Daniel was brought before the king.
The king told Daniel, “I have heard that you give interpretations and to solve difficult problems.
If you can read this writing (on the wall) and tell me what it means, I will give you a purple robe and have a gold chain place around your neck and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.
The Daniel answered, “You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your reward to someone else.
“Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and tell what it means.
“O king, the Most High God gave your father King Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and splendor.
Because of the high position that God gave him, all the people and nations dreaded and feared him.
But God humbled him by giving him the mind of an animal and made him eat grass like an animal and stripped him of his glory and Nebuchadnezzar acknowledge that the most high God was sovereign over the kingdoms of men.
But as for you his son, O Belshazzar, you have not humbled yourself. Instead you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven.
Therefore God has sent this hand that wrote this inscription on you wall.
And this is what the inscription MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN. And this is what these words means.
MENE means God has number you days of you reign and brought to an end. TEKEL means you have been weighed upon the scales and found wanting.
PERES means your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.
That very night King Belshazzar was slain and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom and the city of Babylon.
And so Daniel and the children of Israel remained in captivity under a new king in Babylon and there would be others like King Cyrus of Persia. For Babylon mighty Babylon was defeated without a fight in one night.
And Daniel predicted this the very day before by reading the writing on the wall. So now Daniel had another king to impress with his interpreting of dreams and prophesies of the future.
And when Daniel would not worship the king of Persia the new king of Babylon, Daniel would be thrown into the lions den but would be untouched by these wild animals. And so the king of Persia would see for himself that Daniel was a great man of God.
So after all this, God gives Daniel the prophesy of the Messiah’s death.
And then we come to the Old Testament reading for today.
Now Daniel is praying and making petitions to God:
Give ear, O God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city which bears your Name.
While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the LORD my God for his holy hill while I was still there, Gabriel, the man I had seen in an earlier vision came to me swiftly about the time of the evening sacrifice.
He instructed me as said, “Daniel, I have come to give you insight and understanding.
As soon as you began to pray, and answer was given which I have come to tell you for you are highly esteemed.
The angel Gabriel came to tell of the Messiah death long before he comes to tell of Jesus birth to his mother Mary (in the New Testament).
Gabriel tells Daniel consider this message and understand this vision: “Seventy sevens are decreed for your people and you holy city to finish transgression, to put and end to sin to atone of wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophesy and to anoint the most holy.
Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and build Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes there will be seven sevens and sixty two sevens. It will be rebuilt with streets and trench but in time of trouble.
And after the sixty two sevens, the “Anointed One” will be cut off and will have nothing.
And so Gabriel have given Daniel a veiled message when the Messiah (The Anointed One will die) but it is in code.
There is a mathematical equation given as to how to calculate the date of Christ (the Messiah) death.
And we a given a starting point but not an exact date but when something happens.
And just to make sure that we don’t miss the starting point;
God makes it a very significant event.
And that will be the decree of the king of Persia to end the captivity of the Jews in the city of Babylon and allow them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.
And this comes to pass exactly on time. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple of Solomon in 586 BC and the temple was rebuilt and dedicated exactly 70 years later in 516 BC fulfilling the prophesy of Jeremiah.
And I quote, Jeremiah 25:11, “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt," declares the LORD, "and will make it desolate forever.
I will bring upon that land all the things I have spoken against it, all that are written in this book and prophesied by Jeremiah against all the nations.
Daniel also quotes this passage from Jeremiah to the king of Persia.
God word is as accurate as any modern scientist would want to be. All the prophesies come true, and exactly on time.
That is why the John 17:17 says, ”Thy Word is Truth”.
(GOD’S Word is true and accurate and the fulfillment of prophecy proves it time and time again throughout the bible from beginning to end).
So how does the seventy sevens and the sixty two seven translate to the death of the Messiah and correspond to the death of Jesus on the cross of Calvary so that only Jesus of Nazareth could fulfill this prophesy of the angel Gabriel?
Did you notice, I did not say Daniel because this prophesy was given by the angel Gabriel to Daniel!
After the temple had been rebuilt, King Artaxerxes of Persia writes a letter to Ezra the priest (recorded in the book of Ezra chapter 7 verse 11).
The year was 457 BC and in that decree of Artaxerxes to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the city we have a starting point of the 69 weeks of the prophet Daniel.
These weeks in the book of Daniel equal to years of time in the History of Israel.
So 69 weeks of time multiplied 7 gives us 487 years from the decree to Ezra the priest to go to Jerusalem until the Messiah would be cut off (meaning that the Messiah would be killed.
In other words, the Messiah would die 483 years after Ezra the priest returned to Jerusalem from Babylon.
The date that Ezra goes to Jerusalem is 457 BC so if we add 483 years to 457 BC we have the year 26 AD which is the year that Jesus of Nazareth was baptized and started his ministry.
If we add to this 3 and ½ years (which is half of the seven given in Daniels prophesy) this is the time Jesus was with his disciples in his ministry in Galilee in 29 AD and the half a year brings us into the spring of 30 AD the exact time that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.
Since Daniel died in 536 BC and he foretold of the exact time of Jesus death on the cross in 30 AD that is enough evidence for anyone to believe.
Amen
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