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Living Hope SDA Church

Chris Holland

Signed, Sealed, and Delivered: Hope Filled Living in the End Times

What does it mean that Jesus died for our sins?

What does it mean that Jesus is the Messiah?

And does it even really make a difference?

Heavenly Father, You knew that this time would come before it arrived.

You knew that each of us would be in this room, each would be watching online before we began our travels, or before we began typing the web address.

And now, Lord, I pray that You would come and teach us today.

Help us in our desperation that we might know You, the 1 true God.

If you have your Bibles, I would invite you to open your Bibles to Daniel 9.

There in Daniel 9, we actually have lived out the reality of the song that was just sung.

You'll remember, of course, in Daniel 9, you'll remember that Daniel the character, Daniel the individual, had been taken captive and he had been taken captive to Babylon and there he had been in Babylon for, at this point, about 70 years of his life.

Daniel 9, verse 1, in the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes." You know, of course, because you've studied Bible prophecy, that the Medo-Persian empire had taken over for Babylon.

Now, today in history books, when you read about Medo-Persia, you often simply read of the Persian Empire.

And that is because initially when the Medes and the Persians joined forces to conquer the great nation of Babylon.

The Medes were the stronger of the 2 nations.

However, over the course of time, the Persians became so much stronger that Now in today's history books, there is barely even a mention of the Medes.

But I want you now to put yourself in the place of the prophet Daniel, who had been taken captive probably when he was somewhere around 16 or 17 years old, and taken off to Babylon.

There in Babylon, they attempted to remove his identity and give him a new 1.

And then they made him a eunuch, taking away from him the ability to pass on his genetics to a new generation.

And so Daniel seemingly had no identity and captive in this foreign nation.

But as we have well read the book of Daniel, Daniel did not give way to the attempts of the kingdom of Babylon to remove his identity because Daniel had a secure identity and that secure identity was found in Jesus Christ, which no king nor any empire could take away.

And here in Daniel chapter 9, what do we find?

Daniel, being a student of the Bible, knew and understood 1 of his contemporary prophets, the prophet Jeremiah, had written in Jeremiah 25, 12, and Jeremiah 29, 11-12, that 70 years Babylon would keep Israel captive, but at the end of that 70 years, Babylon would be punished, and God's people would seemingly be freed.

1-23 how Daniel is confessing the sins of his people, thanking God for his sovereignty, and asking God to remember His promise that Babylon would be punished and God's people would be released.

20-21, the angel Gabriel comes to visit Daniel, and in fulfillment of the words that were just sang, ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find.

Gabriel says these words in Daniel chapter 9 in verse 20.

It says this, at the beginning of your supplication, the command went out and I have come to you, excuse me, that's verse 20, excuse me, that is verse 23.

At the beginning of your supplication, the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved.

Therefore, consider the matter." You see, the angel Gabriel was fulfilling the promise of Isaiah 65, 24.

It shall come to pass that before ye call, I will answer, and while they were still speaking, I shall hear." God hears us when we cry out to Him.

And this sermon, while not primarily about prayer, is coming in the context of the reality that prayer works.

See, we may not always feel like our prayers are answered, but this is the reality.

God is always listening, and He always hears.

We may not feel like our prayers are answered, because sometimes we don't like how He answers.

Especially in those moments where He says, no, or is asking us to wait, we may feel like He does not hear us.

But let us be clear, even when God answers no, or He answers Wait, it does not constitute him not listening, but rather constitutes the reality that God desires what is best for each of us in our own lives and in His timing.

And we will see in just a moment that Daniel waited long for this prayer.

You see, while Daniel was praying for the temporal release of his people, God had something much grander in mind, and God answered.

He answered in a way that was abundantly above all that He had even asked or thought.

And I want to take a pause here because many of us have studied the prophecy of Daniel 9, 24-27 several times in our life.

And there may be an implicit reaction to say I've heard this all before.

But I want to encourage you to listen because as I was preparing for this sermon, the Lord was speaking to me in ways and giving me insights that I have not shared before as I've studied this passage.

So I want us to listen and study intently.

As we come to verse 23, and the end of that 23, Gabriel says to Daniel, therefore consider the matter and understand the vision.

Let us be clear, actually in the original Hebrew, it's the identical word.

The angel Gabriel wants Daniel to sit up now and pay attention.

In fact, literally that word is translated to pay attention, to examine, to discern, to gain insight.

When the Hebrew writers would use this word, it was more than just simply the gathering of data that they were describing, but rather it was a deeper knowledge.

And it gives us the clear understanding that this insight is not something based on our IQ, but rather on the understanding that comes as a gift from God.

But Gabriel comes in answer to this prayer about the temporal release of Daniel's people and says, I want you to listen Daniel and consider this matter, understand this matter, gain insight into this matter, and I want you to understand the vision.

No vision had been given yet in Daniel chapter 9.

Now from a purely logical standpoint in the English language you would take that word vision and find where the word vision appeared just prior to and of course that comes in Daniel 8 27 and I Daniel fainted and was sick for days afterwards And I arose and I went about the king's business.

I was astonished by the vision, but no 1 understood it." What vision was Daniel talking about in Daniel 8.27?

You'll remember from your study of the book of Daniel and Daniel 8 in particular, Daniel had a vision.

And in that vision, he saw a ram and he saw a goat.

Representations of Medo-Persia and the Greek Empire.

And in that vision, he is given understanding in that insight, but then there is an additional insight that discusses 2, 300 days in Daniel chapter 8 and verse 14, but Daniel does not understand it, and his lack of understanding is so deep that it actually makes him physically ill.

In addition though to the logic of this reference being to Daniel chapter 8 and verse 27, and I want you to stick with me here For a moment, if grammar is not your thing, just hang on for a minute.

In Daniel chapter 8 and verses 26 and 27, it uses the Hebrew word, I'm gonna teach you a little Hebrew today, it uses the Hebrew word, mahre.

That is the identical word used by Gabriel when he says, I've come to give you understanding of the vision in Daniel 9, verse 23.

What part of the vision did Daniel not understand?

The vision of the 2300 days, which is identical to Daniel chapter 8 and verse 14.

That word there, vision, is the word mare.

However, in Daniel chapter 8 and verse 1, it says in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me.

You got to be a little deeper than that it's not natural to our English language.

Yeah you see that's wonderful you're a bunch of Hebrew speakers now.

See grammatically Gabriel came and he explained to Daniel I've come to give you understanding to the 2, 300 day vision.

Because for each of us to go from Daniel 8 to Daniel 9, it takes that long.

Daniel 8 ends with Daniel fainting and being sick for days because he does not understand.

And it simply takes us this long to go to Daniel 9 where we get understanding of the portion of Daniel 8 that Daniel did not understand.

But the time frame between Daniel 8 and Daniel 9 in Daniel's life was not simply the turn of a page.

The time frame between Daniel 8 and Daniel 9 was 13 years.

Daniel did not have understanding of this dream for 13 years.

And I can imagine that Daniel prayed often for the understanding of that vision, but he did not receive it.

It did not mean that God did not love him.

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Signed, Sealed, and Delivered: Hope Filled Living in the End Times

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