Daniel 9 (Part II)

In this morning's message, we made it through the vision up to the point where it's fulfilled! in the life of Alexander the Great. And as great as that was, we really have the most precise and amazing fulfillment of that prophecy to be seen tonight.

And so what I'd like to do is review, first of all, let's see here, get the right page. Start this message, where am I? Okay, I'm over here, sorry. Should have had this, okay.

Just to review this morning, remember the vision was given in 548 B.C. 548 B.C., Daniel is serving under Belshazzar the king in his third year. Belshazzar is going to last until 539 B.C., so about another nine years. And then Daniel has a vision or comes in and interprets the writing on the wall. Do you remember that chapter? It's an earlier chapter of Daniel.

The chapters in Daniel aren't in chronological order. And so an earlier chapter describes the fall of the Persian Empire. And that's where Belshazzar is taken over by Cyrus the Mede.

And Cyrus the Persian, his kingdom is conquered. Darius the Mede actually comes to rule. We saw in this morning's vision that there was a ram with two horns, or yeah, a ram with two horns, one coming up, the larger one coming up after the first one. That two-horned ram represented.

The angel told Daniel, this is the kingdom of the Persians, the Medes and the Persians. And that was specifically fulfilled in history. Then after the ram is a shaggy goat. Doesn't say how much time separates that, but it is about 200 years. The shaggy goat is a kingdom, a nation that is not even a nation yet at the time of the vision. And so that is the nation of Greece, which comes together from the collection of city-states in the area of Macedon and Athens and all the city-states in there. And that part of the vision is represented by the goat with a single horn between its eyes, which would represent a great first king of the Greek Empire. We saw how that Greek Empire, in a period of about three years, conquered the kingdom of Persia. And then, in a few years later, went all the way to the Indus River in India and then turned back from there.

So we're going to review all that. And I thought what I'd do is just read through those first 21 verses as review. We'll have it on the screen and we'll have some illustrations there so you can kind of remember where we were this morning. If you weren't here this morning, then you get a little bit of review of what we covered this morning.

All right. Daniel chapter 8 verse 1. He says, In the third year, excuse me, I forgot to do something. Our team is just starting their day, right, Tom?

12 hours. They'd be just starting their day in China. Excuse me, Southeast Asia. I wanted to start in prayer for them. So let's, if you would, join me in a word of prayer.

Lord, we do want to lift up to you Don and Sherry, Jonathan and Criselda, and Wes and Betty in their ministry over in Southeast Asia and all the churches they're ministering to.

Thank you that they have the opportunity to visit so many churches in China. Many of these, I'm sure, are house churches, maybe underground churches where the believers experience a certain amount of persecution.

I know that those believers are going to be a ministry to our team and we trust that our team is going to be a ministry to them. And I pray that you would lead them in every possible way in using them to benefit and build up those believers, our brothers and sisters in Christ, who are suffering for your name, Lord Jesus, and living for your name and are victorious in your name.

And so we commit them all to you. Trust that you're going to do mighty things this day as our team meets and ministers together with these believers.

We ask this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Alright, thank you. Alright, Daniel 8, verse 1. In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar, the king of vision appeared to me, Daniel, subsequent to the one which appeared to me previously.

I looked in the vision and while I was looking, I was in the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam, and I looked in the vision and I myself was beside the Uli Canal.

And so you see Susa over here to the east of Babylon, approximately 200 miles, a little over 200 miles. And Daniel says that he was beside the Uli Canal.

It says in the vision, I myself was beside the Uli Canal. So he was either right there at the time or in the vision, he was seeing himself there and was probably familiar with that area.

Then he goes on, Daniel 8, 3 through 4. Then I lifted my eyes and looked and behold, a ram, which had two horns, was standing in front of the canal. Now the two horns were long, but one was longer than the other, with the longer one coming up last.

I saw the ram budding westward, northward, and southward, and no other beast could stand before him, nor was there anyone to rescue from his power. But he did as he pleased and magnified himself.

While I was observing, behold, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes.

He came to the ram that had the two horns, which I had been standing in front, which I had seen standing in front of the canal, and rushed at him in his mighty wrath.

I saw him come beside the ram and was enraged at him. And he struck the ram and shattered his two horns, and the ram had no strength to withstand him.

So he hurled him to the ground and trampled on him, and there was none to rescue the ram from his power. Then the male goat magnified himself exceedingly.

But as soon as he was mighty, the large horn was broken, and in its place there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.

Out of one of them came forth a rather small horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the beautiful land.

We referenced that that was a reference to Jerusalem and Israel in the region of Syria. It grew up to the host of heaven and caused some of the hosts and some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it trampled them down.

And all the time Daniel is wondering, what is this vision all about? He doesn't have the benefit of hindsight and history that happens from his day onward to see how this is fulfilled.

So he's wondering, what is going on? And then in verse 11 to 14, he says, it even magnified itself to be equal with the commander of the host.

That would be God. And it removed the regular sacrifice from him, and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down. We're going to see how that was fulfilled.

And on account of transgression, the host will be given over to the horn along with the regular sacrifice, and it will fling truth to the ground and perform its will and prosper.

Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to that particular one who was speaking, how long will the vision about the regular sacrifice apply?

While the transgression causes horror, that word is literally desolation, while the transgression causes desolation, so as to allow both the holy place and the host to be trampled.

He said to me, for 2300, and we said the Greek was evening, morning, then, not the Greek, the Hebrew, then the holy place will be properly restored.

Then, when I, Daniel, verse 15, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it, and behold, standing before me was one who looked like a man. And I heard the voice of a man between the banks of Uli, and he called out and said, Gabriel, give this man an understanding of the vision.

So apparently the angel Gabriel, who spoke to Mary, the husband of Joseph, the mother of Jesus, way back 2,500 years ago, was speaking to Daniel, and he said, so he came near to where I was standing, and when he came, I was frightened and fell on my face, but he said to me, son of man, understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end.

Which end? Well, he goes on, now, while he was talking with me, I sank into a deep sleep with my face to the ground, but he touched me and made me stand upright.

He said, behold, I am going to let you know what will occur in the final period of the indignation, or it pertains, the indignation pertains to the appointed time of the end.

And if you read the history of those times, whether in Josephus or 1 and 2 Maccabees, you get a real picture that, wow, what we hear about in bits and pieces in the New Testament about this new covenant that replaces the old covenant.

You begin to see, as you see the references also in the prophets, to the indignation of God that's poured out on the people of Israel through the domination of the Gentile nations down through their history, right down to the time when Jesus is born in the fullness of time.

You begin to see, oh, this indignation is occurring at the appointed time of the end of the old covenant. We are coming into a new empire right after this fulfillment of this vision happens.

And you'll see that, I think, this morning, or this evening. Sorry. Okay, now you remember that we noticed that Daniel 11, 36 and other prophets referred to this indignation as the conquest of various Gentile nations starting with Assyria, then Babylon, then the Medes and the Persians, then the Greeks, then Herod the Great, then the Roman Empire, and the Romans completely decimated and removed the scepter, removed the power to rule itself from Israel in the year 70 A.D.

when it completely removed every bit of the temple, every stone upon stone was removed off of that temple mount because the Romans had become so enraged at this nation of Israel that continued to buck them here and there.

So they completely conquered them in 70 A.D. Well, that was after the new covenant had started with the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, and Jesus beginning to work in mighty ways through His disciples out into both the Jewish world and the Gentile world to begin this new kingdom.

Now, Daniel 8.20 says, The ram which you saw, the angel is starting to interpret here the vision, the ram which you saw with the two horns represents the kings of Media and Persia.

And I didn't really point it out this morning, but you can see that kingdom of Media Persia, the media, the kingdom of the Medes was first, and then the Persians conquered the Medes, but they formed a co-regency and it was called the Medes and the Persians, but the Persians were the stronger ones.

And so that kingdom you'll see over here on the right stretches all the way from India all the way almost into Macedonia. It doesn't conquer Macedonia.

Macedonia is the yellow. On the other side is not the Greek city-states. So that's the kingdom of Persia. That's how big it was. That was the ram with the two horns.

Then he says the shaggy goat, Daniel 8, 21a, the shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece. And so under Alexander the Great we have the kingdom of Greece.

Remember it said that the, first of all, the Medes and the Persians, the ram, was budding from the east to the west then to the north, went up in between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and then to the south conquered Egypt.

Well now, Egypt, or Greece, does the very same thing but in the opposite direction. Under Alexander the Great, the Greeks conquered, first of all, they conquered there.

All the city-states came together as one. Then they conquered into the beautiful land. They were going westward. Then they went south into Egypt. They got the Gaza Strip.

Now they come to the beautiful city. We'll see the beautiful land. And then they're going to march all the way to the Indus River in India. And that's going to happen in a period of about three years which is really amazing.

And that's why that vision was of a goat moving so swiftly his feet didn't even touch the ground. So a very specific vision that related to Alexander the Great.

In 821b it says, And the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king of the Greek Empire. And that first king was Alexander the Great.

We mentioned this morning that Philip II of Macedon was his father. Was able to pull those city-states together in a confederation called the League of Corinth.

But the city-states really didn't come together as a nation until they were united under Alexander the Great the first king. Then Daniel 8.22 It says, The broken horn and the four horns that arose in its place represent four kingdoms which will arise from his nation although not with his power.

Now, when Alexander the Great died in 323bc he got one of his generals just before his death and it appears he died of malaria.

So he gets one of his trusted generals and he says, Look, I've had two sons with this princess that he married in Persia and I would like you to bring them up so that one of them will be the king of the empire.

Well, the general says, Sure, Alex. We'll take care of that. And Alexander dies. And what happens is that he along with three other generals get together and they decide, Look, let's just divide up the empire.

Okay, so here's what's going to happen. Seleucus takes the eastern part of the empire all the way into Syria. Ptolemy takes Egypt.

Lysimachus takes what do they call that? Western Asia. It's a Western Asia minor and Thrace. And then Cassander went back to Macedon and those states, those city states there and tried to keep those Greek city states from warring against each other and keep them united.

Well, over time, what happens is that the Seleucids really become, the Seleucids and the Ptolemies really become the most powerful. And if you want to read some really interesting prophecy and fulfillment, read Daniel chapters 10, 11, and 12 along with Josephus and you'll have to read quite a bit of reading in Josephus because he goes into a lot of detail.

But in detail, they describe these succeeding kings from the Seleucids from the time of 323 when Alexander dies all the way down to a new king, the little horn that grows out of the Seleucid empire.

And we're going to see who that little horn is. So let's go on now with Daniel 8, 23 through 26. And it says, in the latter period of their rule, there being these four guys, the four generals, when the transgressors have run their course, in other words, after they've had several generations of the succeeding sons ruling their particular areas, and they begin to fight with each other, especially the Seleucids and the Ptolemies are constantly going back and forth.

The Seleucids want to conquer Egypt. Egypt wants to conquer into Syria. And so they start fighting among themselves. A king will arise insolent and skilled in intrigue.

His power will be mighty, but not by his own power. And I believe that's a reference to the fact that this king is so skilled in intrigue that he's really not all that powerful in and of himself, but what he does is he gets money and soldiers and equipment from each succeeding area that is conquered, and then he pays off the previous people that he conquered, and he's just a master of intrigue, of keeping all of the supporting parts of his empire happy while he goes on and conquers and conquers and conquers and he is really deceitful, and you'll see this in a minute.

And he will destroy to an extraordinary degree and prosper and perform his will. He will destroy mighty men and the holy people, and through his shrewdness he will cause deceit to succeed by his influence, and he will magnify himself in his heart, and he will destroy many while they are at ease.

He will even oppose the prince of princes, but he will be broken without human agency. The vision of the evenings and mornings which has been told is true, but keep the vision secret for it pertains to many days in the future.

I was thinking about this this afternoon is that the first part of the vision concerning the Medes and the Persians and the Greeks, Daniel has the benefit of an angel telling him here's what this piece of the vision represents, here's what this piece of the vision represents, but I was thinking when we get down to this little horn, he doesn't have somebody explaining a whole lot, and I'm sure that this vision, well I know that this vision really hit Daniel hard, we'll see that in the last verse of this passage, because he's like sick to his stomach, because remember Daniel has fasted and prayed, and in Daniel 7, he's been, or Daniel 9, he's been shown the vision of the 70 weeks, and it looks like great restoration is coming, the temple's going to be restored, which it was, but now he's being told that whatever temple is standing is going to be decimated, the people are going to be overrun, and he has this vision, it's unclear what's going on, but it really doesn't look good for the people, for his people, the Israelites, alright, so let's go on, who's this king?

By the description of him, and because of verse 26 here, the vision of the evenings and mornings, and because of recorded history that we have in 1 Maccabees, and Josephus, and others, we know exactly who this king is, and it's Antiochus IV, who also liked to be called Antiochus Epiphanes, exactly as Gabriel describes, this guy Antiochus was insolent and skilled and intrigued like few rulers in history, he was a master at intrigue, he did indeed destroy and prosper to an extraordinary degree, but especially more than any other king, before the coming of Christ, he wreaked destruction among the holy people, the holy people would be the Jewish nation, the Israelites, and opposed the prince of princes, a term probably speaking of God, and you can see that in this coin, I don't know if that's clear enough up there, but the Greek inscription reads,

King Antiochus, the holy epiphanies, Nicanor, Nicanor was another family name, and that means, Antiochus, image of God, bearer of victory, no self-image problem there, Antiochus thought highly of himself, and he dominated people, now, let's go back to look again at Daniel 8, 10-14, the term, let's read that again, it, the little horn, grew up to the host of heaven, the host of heaven is a term referring to the people, host simply means a large body of entities, sometimes it referred to the hosts of heaven, when it says the hosts of heaven, sometimes it referred to angels in heaven way back in the beginning days, here it's probably referring to the people, the Israelites who represent the one true living God of heaven on earth, and so the little horn grew up to the host of heaven and caused some of the host and some of the stars, their leaders, to fall to the earth, and it trampled them down, now what was happening here is that Antiochus and his officials came into the land and they began to pal up with certain ones who had aspirations for the high priesthood, one was named

Onias, and there were some others in there that were trying to solidify the high priesthood under themselves, not because they were very spiritual people, but because it was really the president of the nation, you could say, in that position, and so Antiochus uses his deviousness to make friends with different ones who said, hey, we'll come over to the Hellenistic side, we'll become like you Hellenists, you Greeks, and they did to an extraordinary degree, they built a gymnasium, a gymnasium, where the athletes performed in the nude, and various athletic contests, and in some way made themselves look like Greeks, you men can figure that out, okay, anyway, they have this intrigue going back and forth, and Antiochus is getting his tentacles within the beautiful land, then it says, it even magnified itself, this little horn, to be equal with the commander of the hosts,

Epiphany, and it removed the regular sacrifice from him, from who? From God, the sacrifice that was going up to God from the Israelites, remember that sacrifice, how Alexander was instructed to give the sacrifice to the one true living God in the proper way?

Well, Antiochus is going to do something totally different from that, and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down, that place of his sanctuary was the temple, and on account of transgression, the host will be given over to the horn, along with the regular sacrifice, the regular sacrifice is given over to this little horn, and it will fling truth to the ground and perform its will and prosper, then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the particular one who was speaking, how long will the vision about the regular sacrifice be?

We read this before, 2300 evenings and mornings. Now, we talked about what these different points mean in here, this time though we're going to go to historical accounts of what Antiochus actually did in the land, and you're going to be able to see how his actions as recorded in history match up with this prediction in this vision.

Alright, so we'll go over to 1 Maccabees, a little bit of reading here, as we did Josephus this morning. This is in the first chapter of 1 Maccabees, and he is describing here, there came out of them, and specifically in that chapter, earlier in that chapter, it was talking about the them is these four generals, and these four semi- Greek empires that came out of Alexander the Great, he says, there came out of these guys, as they ran their course through time, a wicked root, Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, son of Antiochus the king, that would be Antiochus the third, this is Antiochus the fourth, and he reigned in the 137th year of the kingdom of the Greeks, remember that 137th year of the kingdom of the Greeks, so we're not talking

BCAD anymore, we're translating into the Greek calendar, and after that Antiochus had smitten Egypt, he, Antiochus the fourth, returned again in the 140 and third year, so about six years later, the 143rd year, and went up against Israel and Jerusalem, so now he's coming into Jerusalem to solidify what he's already started putting his tentacles in, and he's going to put on the high priesthood who he wants in that position who's actually going to be serving him, and he entered proudly into the sanctuary, and then look at this, he took away the golden altar, the candlestick of light, all the vessels thereof, the table of showbread, the pouring vessels, the vials, the censers of gold, and the veil, he even ripped the veil of the temple down, he basically looted that temple of anything and everything of value in it, and the crown, and the golden ornaments, also he took the hidden treasures he found, well this was his standard operating procedure, he would go into these different nations, and he would loot these nations of everything of value, and that's how he built up, built up, his monetary resources in order to pay his soldiers to go and conquer the next nation, so he completely looted the temple, but that was just for starters, look at what first Maccabees says after that, and when he had taken all away, he went into his own land, having made a great sacrifice, and spoken very proudly, therefore there was a great mourning in

Israel in every place where they were, the massacre that is described in first Maccabees is unbelievable, it's just heart wrenching, and the Jews spread out from Jerusalem, they got out of the city, they ran into the deserts, into caves, lived wherever they could, because they were just being decimated, killed, you'll see that more here, you might think that after Antiochus leaves here, it says, Antiochus left the land and went home, where does it say that, he went into his own land, then you might think, well, okay, well, that's good, he's gone, but next, first Maccabees continues, after two years fully expired, the king, Antiochus, sent his chief collector of tribute, not just any tax guy, he sent his chief collector of tribute into, unto the cities of Judah, who came unto

Jerusalem with a great multitude, that's a multitude of soldiers, and spake peaceable words unto them, but all was deceit, for when they had given him credence, he fell suddenly upon the city, and smote it very sore, and destroyed much people of Israel, and when he had taken the spoils of the city, so now they have just completely looted the whole city, not just the temple, but anything they could find of value, then he set the city on fire, he pulled down the houses and walls thereof on every side, the women and children took they captive, and possessed the cattle, they shed innocent blood on every side of the sanctuary, north, east, south, west, they shed blood in every part of Jerusalem around the temple, her sanctuary, that is the sanctuary of the Jews, was laid waste, this was the first desolation of the temple, and it says her sanctuary was laid waste, her feasts were turned into mourning, her sabbaths into reproach, her honor into contempt, now this account goes on to record how the forces of

Antiochus caused the people to follow the custom of the Greeks, stop their burnt offerings, their sacrifices and their drink offerings, profane their sabbaths and festival days, pollute the sanctuary, set up altars and groves and chapels of idols, and quote, sacrifice swine's flesh and unclean beasts, this is the abomination that makes desolate, this is the abomination of desolation, probably a prefiguring of that which will happen in the end times as we see in the book of Revelation, but this is the one that happens with these 2300 evenings and mornings and you'll see that this is the exact period of time that the temple lays desolate, they were also required to leave their children uncircumcised and even some of the women who had caused their children to be circumcised were put to death as well as their infants and the soldiers as well as their infants they were put to death and the soldiers hanged the infants around their mothers necks as they put the mothers on stakes maybe crucified them,

I don't think crucifixion had yet started at that time but they would put up the dead bodies of the mothers with the infants hanging around their necks as a display of terror these guys were the original terrorists I'll tell you and so now in the midst of the account of this complete devastation we're giving we are given a very important historical marker so the next slide here in 1st Maccabees 1st chapter 52nd verse it says now the 15th day of the month Kaslau that is Chislev the Hebrew month Chislev the 9th month of the year in the 145th year so this is 145th year of the kingdom of the Greeks 9th month 15th day they set up the abomination of desolation the abomination that makes desolate upon the altar and builded idols idol altars throughout the cities of

Judah on every side this is the book of 1st Maccabees recording these events not too long after they had happened now that's a very important date and we'll return to it because it's the beginning point of how long that sanctuary is going to lie desolate and so we're going to get back to that sometime you ought to google you can pull up 1st Maccabees in the internet just google it 1st Maccabees and read about the first four or five chapters and you'll be intrigued by all that went on during this time well what happens in the book of 1st Maccabees is recorded in 1st Maccabees are these events first of all Mattathias who is this guy around the age of 80 is kind of the leader of this village called Modine and the officials of

Antiochus are coming into the various cities now after they've decimated Jerusalem they're coming into the various Jewish cities and they're getting the allegiance of the people and so they come into Modine and there's not Modine is not a very big town so there's not that many officials but the officials say we want you to sacrifice to our altars and show that you are giving your allegiance to us now Mattathias he is one of these guys you think of like a Caleb in the Old Testament as you're reading 1st Maccabees you're thinking this is like Caleb this guy trusts the Lord he is not afraid he is willing to do whatever is necessary that God wants him to do and so he's about age 80 and one of the Jewish people in the town decide that they're going to appease these officials of Antiochus and he goes up because

Antiochus I mean because Mattathias will not make the offering to the idol this other Jewish guy runs up to make the sacrifice to the idol well at that point Mattathias has had it and he goes over grabs the guy and kills him and his five sons follow him with swords they chop down the officials and their soldiers and run them out of town and that is the beginning of the Maccabean revolt now the Maccabees are not just brave they're also smart and they realize uh-oh we're going to have visitors again real soon so they decide we're getting out of town they take their families their possessions everything they can and they go out in the desert and they begin to live in caves so Mattathias and his five sons the second point there uh and all their families flee to the desert but they begin fighting the

Seleucids here and there by guerrilla warfare and with a lot of heartfelt prayer to God I mean some of their prayers it's like old testament prayers where they're trusting their God to deliver them like God delivered them from the Assyrians against all odds and uh and so they are willing to fight uh even on their sabbaths if necessary there were a group of Jews that were hiding in caves and they were so religious so spiritual that they said no we're not going to fight on the sabbath we're just going to trust God to deliver us you know what happened they all got wiped out so Mattathias and his sons say okay that settles it um God wants us to fight whether it be on the sabbath they're not on the sabbath we're going to rest in him but we're going to fight if he calls us to fight whenever that is so uh the Jews are inspired by the maccabees other Jews are inspired by the maccabees to fight for their lives even when they had no weapons or armor and so some of the descriptions in there are amazing uh they were so fierce that they procured weapons often by routing the enemy with their bare hands you can just imagine these guys so fierce the enemy is coming at them with swords and somehow they figure out a way with clubs branches whatever they've got to beat those guys back take away their swords and begin arming themselves with swords and armor and shields and whatever they need and so they start building a military enterprise that goes from just a handful the five of them six of them mattathias by the way does die and he turns the general ship over to his son judas maccabees and and so they keep conquering little towns little camps of seleucids keep building their army they get their army up to about ten thousand and that's pretty good only problem is antiochus hears about all this antiochus is back in the middle of persia and and he is getting really ticked off with these jews and so he raises an army of sixty thousand soldiers foot soldiers another couple thousand on horseback and another couple score of elephants war elephants have you ever seen the pictures of war elephants and the commander was up on top of the war elephant because nobody could get up there and in one of the battles they're outnumbered sixty thousand to ten thousand and one of these sons of mattathias decides doesn't care what it's going to cost him he is going to go up under that elephant and pull that elephant down and so he runs he's slashing his way through the battle he gets up under the elephant thrusts his sword into the belly of the elephant and kills the elephant and the elephant falls down on top of him and kills him but the rest of the

Jewish soldiers overwhelm the commander and that elephant and the other soldiers and they actually win that battle and they really know the land the lay of the land so they're able to force them into these narrow areas where they beat him back now here's the amazing fulfillment of this passage go back to 8 13 and 14 and remember it said then I heard a holy one speaking and another holy one said to the particular one who was speaking how long will the vision about the regular sacrifice apply and he says for the 2300 evenings and mornings what happens here is that under Judas Maccabees after many battles the Jews retake Jerusalem and they go in there and the first matter of business is to cleanse the temple it's been dominated by these sacrifices of swine and other unclean animals and so they're going to clean up the temple they completely remove the altar that had been there and they rebuild a new one so that it would be clean according to their laws now in first

Maccabees there's a really great service done for us and that service is to give us the starting point and the ending point of the time when that temple lay desolate the 2300 days actually amount to not 2300 days but 2300 evenings and mornings actually amount to 1150 days why because there was a regular daily sacrifice once in the evening and once in the morning Jews count their day from sunset to sunset so they sacrifice once in the evening once in the morning they did that for 1150 days or doing that for 1150 days would be 2300 sacrifices that were missed while the temple lay desolate and so in first maccabees one verse 54 it says now the 15th day of the month chislev in the 145th year of the greek empire they set up the abomination of desolation that's the beginning point then we go down and says now on the 5th on the 5th and 20th day that is the 25th day of the month of the ninth month which is called the month kazlaw or chislev in the 148th year they that is the

Israelites who had just retaken the city and cleansed the temple rose up betimes and I have no clue what that word really means but they rose up in the morning and offered sacrifice according to the law upon the new altar of burnt offerings which they had made so this is the first offering that's made and it's made in the 25th day of the ninth month of the 148th year so we had year 145 148 that's three years plus 10 days okay so that equals 1105 days not quite 1150 however we're missing a piece of information and that information that we can get comes from Herodotus we're going to go to Herodotus in 445 BC and in a passage discussing a conversation between a guy named

Solon and a king named Krosus the length of a Greek year can be determined to be 360 days the same length of a year in the Hebrew calendar and in the same passage Solon says add a month every other year to make the seasons come round with proper regularity and so this is one of the reference there are other references that show that in the Greek calendar every once in a while they would substitute what they called this account likewise also tells us that the intercalary month is 30 days long and apparently he says here add a month every other year to make the seasons come round with proper regularity so it looks like they added a month of 30 days every two or maybe three years so we go back then remember

Daniel is writing this vision in 548 BC this would be Herodotus is 100 years after that so this Greek form of calendar is similar to the Hebrew calendar which was 360 days also and they also used intercalary months so it's likely that this system was in place under the Maccabees so our calculation then next slide is going to show how we calculate the period of time that the temple was desolate we've got three years of 360 days each which is 1080 days I'm sorry before I said 1005 it was 1105 say 1080 days here two intercalary months of 30 days is 60 days and then from the 15th to the 25th day of Chislev is 10 days add those all up and you get 1150 days it is pretty amazing how exactly this vision is fulfilled under the reign of

Antiochus Epiphanes who actually gets word of the fact that the Jews have retaken the temple and are keeping their armies out he becomes so despondent and so depressed that he goes into what they call a distemper in Josephus and Maccabees and he he's on his deathbed and he's saying I know why I'm dying it's because I came up against the God who's really God and I desecrated his temple and that's why he has caused these people to be successful against our troops and I can't stand it any longer and he dies basically of depression was the end of Antiochus the fourth epiphanies well are you encouraged God gives us at times faith to believe him that he's got something in the works and he gave

Daniel and some prophets like Daniel some visions of the future to let us know this word that he has given to us we can trust it we can trust what God has given us in his word and he wanted us to know that and those skeptics that say oh no this prophecy had to be written in 164 BC or after in order for these guys to be able to put it you know after the fact no way because remember how we said this morning the book of Daniel along with the whole Old Testament had been translated into Greek that's the document called the Septuagint the book called the Septuagint in 285 Philadelphus so all of that to say be encouraged and I want to leave you with three applications let's first of all look at Daniel 827 where it says then I Daniel was exhausted and sick for days here Daniel was expecting okay good times coming for the

Jews the 70 years is coming to an end he saw that in Daniel 9 now he's being told no Daniel it's going to even get worse sorry then I got up again and carried on the king's business but I was astounded at the vision and there was none to explain it he didn't have the clarity with this one that he got with okay the ram is Greece is Persia the goat is Greece blah blah blah this one is just devastation is coming and the temple will lie desolated for 1150 days okay here are three applications I want to make here and the first one is I'm just going to give you three words first one is skeptics second one is SDAs and third one is secret things okay so if you you're writing notes down the skeptics we don't need to bow to the skeptics this is what

I just mentioned we don't have to say oh no I guess yeah I guess yes they wrote it after the fact no God gives visions of what's going to happen we can trust that God is there that he is real and that he has revealed his word to us so for the skeptics just ignore them just just well do battle with them say that's that's that's impossible we already have a translation 120 years before you say the document was written that's impossible secondly I mentioned this this morning SDA stands for Seventh-day Adventist this is the sect started by that young 17 year old girl Ellen G White that said that the 2300 days 2300 mornings and evenings really is 2300 days and the days is years and the starting point is the issuance of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem and the ending point would be October 22nd 1844 and at that time Jesus was supposed to come to earth in his second return he didn't come and this young 17 year old girl said oh no what happened is that Jesus didn't move from the sanctuary in heaven to earth he moved from one compartment one court you're talking about courts this morning in the temple one court of the temple in heaven into the sanctuary he moved from his ministry of ever interceding for the for the for the saints and being our advocate before the father into a ministry of investigative judgment where he is taking and counting all of the sins of

Chris and evaluating whether or not he's going to make it into heaven and actually when it comes down to it and you read all of her writings and find the little places where she goes off on her little doctrines you see that you know none of us are secure we don't know that we're going to be saved we don't know that we have eternal life and and the only way we can know that is if we keep all of his commands explicitly perfectly and so we're all in a heap of trouble because we don't even have Jesus advocating for us anymore and none of us are able to keep his commands holy and so if I want to encourage you if you meet somebody from the seventh day Adventist faith seek to minister to them about the assurance of their salvation because as much as they talk about Jesus they do not have assurance of their salvation if they know the doctrines of the church and that's usually a problem most of the seventh day Adventists don't know the doctrines of the church all right and the point there was we need to keep our finger on the text if the if the text says 2300 evenings and mornings what does that refer to what what is what is the most logical application or interpretation of that text excuse me all right and then finally write down secret things an application to seek secret things in in

Daniel here he says after he was exhausted and sick for days then I got up again and carried on the king's business there are some things Deuteronomy 29 29 29 says the secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever there are a lot of things we're not going to know in this life and we don't need to be ashamed about that if the word doesn't speak about it we don't need to try to put something into the word we just need to say you know what brother I know Jesus my Savior I know he's given me eternal life I know I'm living for him I know I'm walking in the spirit and that's good enough and I'm just going to keep obeying what I know to do and not try to add anything to it that I think needs to be added to it I'm going to go about my regular business I'm going to work my job I'm going to work in ministry I'm going to serve the Lord wherever I can and however I can and

I'm just going to leave it at that and let the Lord do what the Lord is going to do not a great way to live life that's the way Daniel lived his life he was sick for a while a couple of weeks he was he was devastated but then he got up again carried on the king's business well today we have a king Jesus we can carry on his business while we're going about whatever business we're in and so let's give it all to him and trust him you you you you you you