While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people, Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord, my God, for the holy hill of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. He made me understand, speaking with me, and saying, oh Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy, a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision.” So for the reading of God’s word, may He indeed add His blessing upon it. As I said last week, the prayer, the first part of Daniel 9, And this section here sets the context for our understanding what is to follow this 70 weeks prophecy. But as I was preparing for this sermon and reading and in prayer, I thought it would be good to ask the question, the orienting question, if you will, how is your hope? I wonder how strong is your hope? Is your hope waning or diminishing or is it strong and growing? Because you know, it’s easy to let our hope sink and shrink when we look at the world around us and we’re observant to what is going on, right? The destruction of all things that we’re familiar with, our government, our culture, the ethos and the grounding for so long of our land. the destruction of economy, the destruction of even our language under assault and attack, the increasing and open worship of death and perversion and deviancy, and also in times past, the worship of stability and the worship of our confidence in the good old days. And the outward perception of decency or morality, for sure those things are outwardly better, but still they’re not the place of our confidence and our hope. Our trust and our hope and our confidence are not in this place or the things that go on in this place. We need to be grounded, scripture tells us, in God’s word. We are people, the author of the Hebrews says, who are seeking a better country. And may we be evermore seeking that better country, not here in this land, but in the best country, heaven itself. And may we cease putting our stability on the stability or lack thereof of this earthly country or any earthly country. Nevertheless, for all of us, our hope is surely assaulted, right? And it has an effect on our faith. Our weak faith and our doubting hearts are impacted by what goes on here in this land, in our city, and on this earth, right? We mentioned a number of weeks ago that in this last century, 45 million professing believers have been slaughtered, right? It’s an incredible number, 45 million. And this, and the attempt to destruction and assault and all that is good and godly and right and on the church, those things can leave us discouraged, right, discouraged, on the big scale, on the small scale of things that go on in our lives, health and relational and otherwise, and they can dent our hope, right, they can leave holes in our hope. Well, Israel, as we see at this moment in redemptive history, is also losing hope. They were in exile, remember, in far-off Babylon, away from their homeland. The Babylonians, of course, defeated the army of Israel in 605 BC. They killed many of the Israelites and carried them away, carried the king and the brightest young men away to Babylon. Daniel was, of course, in this first group of exiles that were taken away. And then later on in 597, the Babylonians had come once again and they had captured Jerusalem and taken more Israelites captive. And then a third time, 10 years later, they returned and destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the temple of God, God’s glorious temple that had stood there. And we read in Daniel 9 what happened when the first captives have been taken in exile almost 70 years prior, right? Daniel 9, that’s what’s going on. And the entire generation, an entire generation had passed away, away from the promised land. And so it’s no wonder that the Israelites felt hopeless and were despairing. And so the Lord graciously gives them reminders and encouragements of who is actually in control of all things, whose timeline is being followed, and it is the Lord’s, of course. And so as we look at this passage, this week and the next, We must remember that this vision is part of God’s word, right? This vision that freaks so many people out and there’s so much controversy over, but these 70 weeks, it’s part still yet of God’s word, right? That word that remember 1 Timothy tells us is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. It was given to Daniel to make something clear, not cloudy, right? It was given to clarify, not confuse. It wasn’t given to confuse things, right? And we know in verse 22 of Daniel 9, right, says the angel what? It says, he made me understand, speaking to me, saying, oh, Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding, right? Not to confuse you and make you perplexed and terrified. and we understand that this vision. what it is, right, for us to understand it, and we need to focus on what is clear in the vision, right, and the point of that vision. We won’t untie every knot that we find, but we can get to the heart of what’s going on in this vision and what this vision is intended to do, right? So let’s look first at the setting of this prayer, the setting, a reminder of where we are, or the arena, the context of Daniel’s prayer. The first half of Daniel chapter 9 is his prayer, and it’s in the context of this vision that we’ll follow. And we can’t overlook it, as I said, it’s key for us understanding what is to follow. And remember what we saw, Daniel had been reading the scrolls of Jeremiah the prophet. In this prophet Jeremiah, Daniel’s reading this prophecy of the 70-year period of exile and subjugation to the Babylonians. And at the end of that time, Jeremiah says, God will judge them and return the people to the land and rebuild the temple. The people will do so. And the passage that he’s thinking about that speak of these things are Jeremiah 25 and Jeremiah 29. And listen to this two-fold prophecy that Daniel’s reading here that we have in our scripture in Jeremiah, first from Jeremiah 25, that say this. The whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for 70 years. But when the 70 years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation and the land of the Babylonians for their guilt, declares the Lord, and I will make them desolate forever, it says, Jeremiah 25. And then Jeremiah 29, he goes on and he says, this is what the Lord says, when the 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and I will fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. Daniel’s prayer was what, recall, it was during the first year of King Darius, right after the Babylonian Empire had been, had fallen, right, to who? To the Medes and the Persians. And Daniel sees this and he makes this connection, right, in his life to what he’s reading in Jeremiah. And he sees that the Babylonians and their king had been judged by God. This fulfills the first part of Jeremiah’s prophecy. And so Daniel is praying and pleading with the Lord for him to fulfill that second part too, restoring the people of God to their land in his grace and in his mercy, and showing favor to them in the restoral, the rebuilding of the temple. Daniel acknowledged God’s just judgment on the people for their sins, right, in his prayer. He acknowledged that God was faithful to the terms of that covenant that the people swore at Mount Sinai and renewed again and again throughout redemptive history. That agreement, you’ll recall, demanded precisely that punishment for breaking that covenant. But remember in that arrangement, that covenant, which in a narrow sense, right, the Mosaic Covenant, was a legal law covenant, a law principle. It was in a broad sense still an administration of God’s covenant of grace that runs throughout history. And so under that strict merits, that covenant of works, there still remained this gracious promise underlying that. It was given to Abraham in the covenant of grace. And notice the hope of a new beginning after the failure and curse and punishment of exile. The promise where the Lord God himself would circumcise the hearts of his people and give them hearts that long to obey him. And I would encourage you to meditate on these verses later on this Lord’s Day to reflect upon. Our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy 30, I’m gonna read again for you. And listen to these things that are going on here. the curses of the covenant. Verse one of Deuteronomy 30, and when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey the voice, his voice, in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord God will restore your fortunes and have mercy upon you. And he will gather you again from all the peoples where your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there, the Lord will gather you again. And from there, he will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your father’s possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts in the heart of your offspring that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, that you may live. Right, and so notice here what’s being held out to them. What’s being held out here is the promise of a new covenant. the fulfillment of the covenant of grace, right, given in Jeremiah three in seed form, and then, I’m sorry, Genesis three, and then Genesis 12, and 15, and 17 to Abraham. And we can see here how this makes sense, that when Israel calls out to God for mercy and deliverance, they always appeal to grace and not to law. Example of this is found also in Deuteronomy 4, where God tells Israel that they will indeed break the covenant that they’re swore to, and he will send them into exile. But in exile, he says, God will redeem them for the sake of the oath given to Abraham. Listen to Deuteronomy 4, starting at verse 25. When you father children and children’s children, and you have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you’re going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but you will be utterly destroyed. 20 verse 27, and the Lord will scatter you among the peoples. And you’ll be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you, right? This is completely contrary to the Abrahamic promise, right, of a multitude and an uncalculable seed, right? There’s a reference to this. Right here, the opposite of this, in the curse and undoing, so to speak, of the Abrahamic covenant. And he goes on in verse 28, and there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands that neither see nor hear, nor eat nor smell. Verse 29, but from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. and you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice for the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget, listen, the covenant with your forefathers that he swore to them. What covenant is that? Who are these forefathers? It’s the covenant made with Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob. It’s that underlying covenant of grace. This is what they’re appealing to here. And in fact, this appeal to grace, not to law, for mercy, is what we see throughout the rest of the Old Testament. And we see this in Daniel as well. As he read the words of the prophet Jeremiah, He also read about that promised new beginning in Jeremiah 31, right? Jeremiah declares what? That where God would make a new covenant with his people that would be different from the covenant that they broke through their sins, right? The law covenant. It would be a covenant that would finally fulfill the promise of hearts that obey the desire and long to obey the Lord, right? It’s a fulfillment of that Abrahamic covenant promised long ago. And the mercy and the circumcised hearts promised in Deuteronomy are not a part of the Mosaic economy because that was a law covenant, right? Strict law. Hear what Jeremiah 31 says, and we can see this quite clearly. He says, the time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. New meaning what? New in distinction from the old, the Mosaic covenant. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers. when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.” Right, this here’s a reference to the Mosaic Covenant, right? That led them out of Egypt, and God covenanted with the people on Mount Sinai, and they commit adultery on their wedding night, right? They broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them. And he goes on, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. In that last line there, he’s quoting Genesis 17, eight. And Genesis 17 is the establishment of that covenant of grace, right? Made with Abraham. Jeremiah is saying here, The covenant promised is not, right, the new covenant’s promise is not like the law covenant given through Moses on Sinai, but it describes the grace covenant given to Abraham. Indeed, it’s the unfolding of that promise that was given in the garden after the fall in Genesis 3. And Daniel prays for this promise transformation of the people of God to be fulfilled. And that’s a thread that we can pull throughout scripture. From beginning to end, this promise, the great blessing and promise that God would be our God and we would be his people. And so this is significant because how does that happen? Does it happen through law or through grace? We must get this right. Daniel longed to see God’s rebellious people changed from sinners to a holy people with God dwelling in their midst as their God and to see Jerusalem restored through the coming messianic kingdom. And so Daniel’s hope and prayer was that Jeremiah’s 70 years that he speaks of, 70 years of judgment coming to an end, this would bring this glorious restoration of the people to God and back to the land. According to Jeremiah, this will all be marked by the arrival, Jeremiah says, of this messianic branch of righteousness, right, the messianic king. To come, this one whose reign would bring in a state of, he says, justice and righteousness and peace for Judah and for Jerusalem, in Jeremiah 33. And this hope, right, is driving Daniel. And it’s the background for Daniel’s vision that he is given here in this chapter. It’s a context we see here where the parts of this vision that Gabriel brought Daniel make sense. Daniel 9 verse 20. While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sins and the sins of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God from the holy hill of my God, right, the plea there is pleas of mercy, presenting my pleas of mercy before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice, and he made me understand, speaking with me and saying, O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy, a word went out, a command, a decree went out. And I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.” Right? You are greatly loved. Therefore, consider the word, the decree, the command, and understand the vision. And we see Gabriel’s coming and appearing in swift flight, it says. This is the description of an immediate and explicit answer to Daniel’s petitions. Daniel cries out, here, in the presence of the Lord, of the presence of the angel, is clear proof that his prayer had indeed been heard. In verse 17, Daniel sought God’s favor. Gabriel addresses him as what? Highly esteemed in verse 23, or precious, or treasured, or loved is what it means. An assurance that he was indeed favored by God. Daniel begged the Lord not to delay in verse 19, and he received a response notice before he had even finished praying. In fact, Gabriel told him what? He says that a decree went out, it was issued, a word went forth. from the throne as soon as Daniel began to pray, verse 23. Incredible indeed, good news indeed, the answer to Daniel’s prayer that he has given. Good news, Gabriel and his announcement is that Daniel’s vision, Daniel’s pleas for transformation of the people and the city would all be answered in the affirmative, verse 24. Here’s the answer, 70 weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and profit and anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be 70 weeks. Then for 62 weeks, it shall be built again with squares and moat, the ESV says. It means streets and a trench. And then he says, it’ll be built again, but in a troubled time, in a troubled time. And after the 62 weeks, verse 26, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed.” Verse 27, he shall confirm a strong covenant with many for one week. and for half of the week he shall put an end to the sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abomination shall come one who makes desolate until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator. Right, and so see what he’s saying here. Transgression, sin, wickedness on the part of God’s people. It had led to their abandonment by God, right, in keeping with the terms of the covenant. But the day would come, it says, when those things would be gone, transgression, sin, iniquity, wickedness, gone, they would be no more, their power broken and their punishment atoned for. One day, he’s saying, God’s sinful people would be justified before God. And in the place of wickedness and rebellion, what? It says God would bring everlasting righteousness, righteousness, sanctifying his people to make them what? A holy nation. as was intended from the beginning. Instead of the people ignoring and disdaining the words of the prophets again and again and again. It says in verse 24, the Lord would seal up their words. Seal up their words, what does that mean? Here it doesn’t mean so much closing them or hiding their words, but rather vindicating them, stamping them with God’s seal of ownership through their fulfillment. And in the context of Daniel’s reading of Jeremiah, This is nothing less than a commitment of the Lord to bring the promised new covenants. God hears and he answers the prayers of his repentant people. He hears and he answers the people’s prayers who are repentant. And there is no conflict we see, right, that we learn between God’s sovereignty and his foreknowledge, and the truth that the prayers of God’s people have real impact in the world. Right, what does James say? Right, we just finished James a number of months ago. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Powerful and effective. Daniel prayed and his prayers provoked a response from the Lord before he’d even finished speaking. And so we must remember that these verses, this truth, isn’t only about upper level, super holy people’s prayers, right? There are no upper tiers among believers. There are no second level believers. There are no lower class believers. We’re on parity, right? Everyone who names the name of Christ can call out and be heard by the Lord. Again, Psalm 3, I prayed, I called out to the Lord, and he heard me from his holy hill. everyone who names the name of Christ. Christ is the key, right? And everyone of us has the privilege and responsibility of coming before the Lord with our petitions and our requests. May we indeed be aware of such a great blessing that we have as his children, and be aware of the darkness as well, the darkness and influence on us of a decaying world that would tell us otherwise. Many times, as one of our Hebrew professors would say, our reaction to the blackness around us is either this world activism that places our hopes on our own efforts or a passive hopelessness that thinks we’re helpless to the onslaught of that wickedness. But brothers and sisters, we are not hopeless or helpless in this world. We are not. No matter how ugly it is or no matter how wonderful it appears, we are not left to the dictates of evil. What did the psalmist say, you remember? This is Psalm 12. The wicked strut about on every side when vileness is exalted amongst the sons of man. The wicked strut about on every side when vileness is exalted amongst the sons of man. Oh, how that describes our situation today, does it not? right, the celebration, the strutting about of death and ungodliness and perversion in this world. Daniel Mine challenges us, not to hopelessness, not to despair, not to think that we can change everything on our own, but to get on our knees before the Lord and beg Him to bring in fully that promise, that promised new world where sin and violence are no more. and eternal righteousness comes, it is here. And so we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, come Lord Jesus. I have trouble in this world, I do, and you do too. but we praise and thank our great God and Savior that the vileness and the celebration of evil that we see in the world has been overcome, has been overcome. What did Jesus say from his own mouth, John 14? Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. And then later on in verse 16, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble, but take heart, Jesus says, I have overcome the world. We’ll get into these 70 weeks more and the timeline of these things in some detail next week. But for today, brothers and sisters, we must remember that this truth is greater than all the lies of our enemies, right? The world, the devil, and even our own hearts are lying, limping, so often lukewarm hearts. God is greater than our hearts. We must remember this. And he tells us something different, right? He tells us something different, and that is that he has conquered our hearts in Christ, and that they are now his, and he is ours. And remember that God is faithful, must always remember He is faithful and He is just. He is faithful and just. His promises stand firm. He has begun that glorious promise, the age to come, even now, at the coming of Christ, His first coming, it has been inaugurated, begun, even now. And so let us rejoice, dear Christian, that better country, that home and glory is ours, right? It is ours, for real. That is our true homeland. Let us rejoice in the good news of the gospel always, that Jesus has secured that home for all who believe by his perfect life, his suffering death, and his glorious resurrection. Let us live in submission. to this mighty and tender Savior, as well to the timeline of our Heavenly Father. Let us go in hope and encourage in the strength of His might, living boldly for Jesus in this exile land as we are pilgrims, taking with us His love and message of life and rescue and hope. Brothers and sisters, go back into that world and give them Christ, right? Give them Christ and bring them to Christ, here for worship, to be confronted by the gospel and loved by his people. Go and live for the King, dear Christian, this week and always. Amen, let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you. for your might and your mercy in redemptive history. Lord, we thank you and praise you that you have given us life in Christ. Lord, help us to believe these things. Increase our faith, Lord. Help our unbelief, we pray. Help us to know and remember and believe what you say about us, that we are truly dead to sin and have been raised to walk in newness of life. Father, we want to walk in newness of life. for another. Lord, help us remember we are not our own. We’ve been bought with a price. Father, we pray that you would give us the strength and the boldness to live in this world, proclaiming the gospel, Lord, to all around us, Lord, and to bring people to come and hear of the glorious news of rescue and hope and forgiveness and life. Lord, we’ve asked all these things now in Christ’s name. Amen.