<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

HopeLives365

Mark Finley

Unsealing the Symbols of Daniel 7

In Daniel chapter 7, the truth of God that has been echoing down through the centuries is challenged.

In Daniel chapter 8, the truth of God is preserved.

1 cannot fully comprehend the last 6 chapters of the book of Daniel and the prophecies unless you first understand something about the sanctuary of the Old Testament.

So let's spend a little time reviewing for some, and maybe for some this is new, the sanctuary that Moses built, because we're gonna be talking in Daniel chapter 789, 10, 11, 12, about the heavenly sanctuary.

Once you understand the earthly sanctuary, you then will better be able to understand the heavenly sanctuary.

You remember in Exodus 25 verse 8 And if you have your Bible, let's go back, keep your marker in Daniel 7, we're going to go over it verse by verse, but this is to position us so that we'll more clearly understand.

Exodus 25, and you're looking there at Exodus 25 and verse 8.

And you remember Moses was wandering in the wilderness with the Israelites and God said to them, if you don't have a Bible you can look at it in the screen and if you have your scripture let's look at it here in the text.

And here in Exodus 25 and let's read it together either from the Bible or from the screen.

God says to Moses, let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

According to all that I show you, that is the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings just so you make it.

So God said to Moses, make me a sanctuary according to the pattern.

Exodus 25 verse 40, see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.

So the earthly sanctuary is a pattern, it's a scale model of something that was up in heaven.

Now of course the dimensions of the heavenly sanctuary are far far different.

So what do we learn about that earthly sanctuary and then how does that apply to the heavenly sanctuary and what we will be studying tonight in the book of Daniel and next week.

The earthly sanctuary illustrates the plan of salvation.

There are those who have the mistaken idea that the Old Testament believers were saved by law and the New Testament believers are saved by grace.

Nobody will ever get into heaven by being saved by law.

Every human being who's ever comes into heaven is always saved by grace.

The Old Testament believers were saved through faith, they were saved as they expressed faith in the Christ that was to come.

So salvation is always and only by grace.

They looked forward and their faith grasped the Christ that was to come.

We look backward and our faith grasps the Christ that has come.

So the sanctuary was all about the plan of salvation.

The Israelites were not saved because they offered a lamb.

The lamb pointed forward to Jesus, the lamb of God.

So if they knew what they were doing, you remember John says in John 1 verse 29, behold the lamb of God that takes away or bears away what?

So when an Israelite sinned, according to the book of Leviticus, they needed to bring a lamb or an animal sacrifice.

Incidentally, if you were too poor to bring an animal, you could actually bring a grain offering or a flower offering and the perpetual sacrifice that was offered by the priest in the morning would cover you.

But they came with that lamb and let's suppose I'd gotten angry And let's suppose that I was at a store and somebody cut me off in line, I was so angry I yelled at them.

And let's suppose I felt really badly about it.

And I would come to the sanctuary, kneel there at the sanctuary, put the full weight on that animal.

The Bible says in Leviticus 5 that I would have to confess that specific sin over the head of the animal.

So I would say, Dear Lord, I got angry today and I know the wages of sin is death.

And Lord, I am so sorry that I did that, that I confess my sin.

The priest doesn't slay the lamb, I have to slay the lamb.

And the blood runs maybe on my leg or it spurts on my hands, and the priest catches some of that blood in the basin.

Why did God give them that sanctuary system?

Because it's terrible for a lamb to die, but it's much more terrible for Jesus to hang on the cross and bear the sins of the entire human race.

The 1 who never sinned, the pure righteous divine Son of God, hangs upon the cross bearing the condemnation and guilt of the world and the depths of love require the depths of suffering.

And so Jesus dies there, so every lamb was to point forward to Christ.

The priest would take the blood and bring it in and sprinkle it before the veil.

Behind the veil was the most holy place in the sanctuary where the law of God was enshrined within the Ark.

All of this represented, of course, Jesus dying on the cross as our Lamb, being resurrected and ascending to heaven as our great High Priest, applying the benefits of his death to us.

So when we come today, we in our imagination see our Lamb dying for us.

We imagine the guilt of our sin being taken off of our shoulder and being placed upon our lamb.

We imagine the guilt of our sin being placed upon Jesus on the cross.

We think of the fact that Jesus died and is resurrected and before the universe lifts his wounded hands and the scars and says that man, that woman is 1 of mine, they died for me.

And so I remember on 1 occasion I was lecturing on the fact that we can come, Jesus says come unto me all you that are burdened and heavy laden, come with your burden of guilt, come with your shame, come with your sinfulness and confess it to me.

And I was lecturing on that 1 night and a lady came to me right after the meeting and I have told some of you this story and she said to me, and this was in a European country, she said, Pastor I have a question for you.

She said, I have always wanted to ask a pastor this question.

And I said to her, tell me, why do you ask me that question?

Do you ask me because you're pregnant and thinking about an abortion?

Do you ask me because you are pregnant and thinking about an abortion?

Do you ask me because you have a friend that had an abortion and you want to give her some counsel?

Do you ask me that question because you had an abortion and it really troubles you.

She looked at me and said, and she told me the sad story of her life and I won't go into all the details here, but she told me about an abortion she had 17 years before and how guilty she felt and how condemned she felt and how she could not sleep at night.

And I said to her, the reason you are having difficulty sleeping is because you are carrying a burden that is too heavy for you that is going to crush out your life.

You see this woman did not need me to sit there and read all the texts or tell her that an abortion was evil.

What she needed was to have that burden lifted off her shoulders.

And we talked about the Old Testament, we talked about the Lamb, we talked about confessing our sin and letting go.

When you confess your sin you let go and let Jesus bear your burden and you sense that Jesus stands before that broken law in heaven's sanctuary.

And after the priest took the blood he would bring it into the holy place.

There was the court where the lamb was slain.

Then there was the tent-like structure called the tabernacle.

The tabernacle had 2 parts, the holy place, the first apartment, and the most holy place, the second.

In that first apartment, there was on the right the table of showbread, which represents Jesus the bread of life, the 1 that supplies every physical need we have.

On the left was the candlestick representing Jesus, the light of our life through his word.

Psalm 119 verse 105 says, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

And so you have the light, Jesus is the bread of life, Jesus is the light of life.

Then you have the altar of incense, which is representing of Christ's merits that mingle with our prayers and ascend to heaven.

Back to Menu

Unsealing the Symbols of Daniel 7

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Daniel the Prophet: The Rise of the Beast

28m

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2025: Allusions, Images, Symbols: How to Study Bible Prophecy?

10 Upon Whom the Ends Have Come

23m

Plenary

Three Secrets of Lasting Peace

1h

Three Cosmic Messages: Earth's Final Conflict

04 Will You Pass God’s Judgment?

56m

GYC 2011 Seminar: Revival & Reformation

Revival & Reformation: End-Time Prophecies, Part 1

57m

ECYC 2012: Bible Boot Camp

Characteristics of a Healthy Church, Part 2

1h 17m

Unlocking Prophecy

12- The Certain, Unavoidable Identity of the Antichrist

1h 8m

God’s Prophetic Timeline

52m

Good News About Judgment

41m

Keys of Revelation

9. The Prophecy No One Understood

1h

He Shall Lift You Up

From Danger to Safety

51m

Integrity in Finances in the Time of the End

26m

Sound Doctrine