Daniel’s Clock and the Christmas Cross: How an Ancient Prophecy Ends Our Loneliness

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and more.

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Angels from the realms of glory, wing your flight o'er all the earth.

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He who sang creation's story, now proclaim Messiah's birth Come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the name
[00:05:46] Shepherds in the field of piety Watching o'er your flocks by night God with many is now residing Yonder shines the infant night Come and worship, come and worship Worship Christ the newborn King

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Lord God who saves us Worthy of all our praises

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God is with us even now His love is here Come and worship, worship Christ the Lord

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The New World

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Merry Christmas everybody.
[00:09:00] Isn't that a great hymn?
[00:09:03] I love that song written by
[00:09:05] James Montgomery, back in the day.
[00:09:08] James was born in the 1700s, and somewhere around the early 1800s he wrote that hymn.
[00:09:15] And I was sharing with our team this morning, the really beautiful part of that song is, Pastor John, you may like this.
[00:09:24] This is really cool.
[00:09:25] There's a verse that James wrote, but it's intense.
[00:09:30] The last verse, which a lot of church hymnals omit this verse, but it says this, Sinners wrung with true repentance, doomed for guilt, Merry Christmas, doomed for guilt to endless pains.
[00:09:47] Justice, I love this, justice now revokes your sentence.
[00:09:54] Mercy calls you and breaks your chains.
[00:09:58] Isn't that beautiful?
[00:09:59] Emmanuel, God with us.
[00:10:05] The Gospel.
[00:10:07] He came and He died so that we could have that amazing forgiveness, that those chains can be broken.
[00:10:17] And I don't know where He came from today, but if you came bound up by anything, it might be fear or doubt, or Christmas may not be that fun for you.
[00:10:26] Well, He's a chain breaker.
[00:10:28] and He wants to remove those chains today.
[00:10:30] It's going to be an awesome day.
[00:10:32] Welcome to church, everybody.
[00:10:33] I love Christmas music.
[00:10:34] I hope you do too.
[00:10:36] Hey, speaking of the first time, look around and see if there's somebody that may look like they're here for the first time.
[00:10:42] Make them feel welcome.
[00:10:43] We're going to continue on with the worship here in just a moment.
[00:10:46] Merry Christmas, everybody.
[00:10:55] Hey, thanks for joining us online today, if you're streaming with us.
[00:10:58] Merry Christmas, everybody.
[00:11:00] Listen, it's gonna be an awesome morning.
[00:11:01] We've had an amazing rehearsal just preparing for all these Christmas songs.
[00:11:06] The funny thing about Christmas songs
[00:11:09] There's some of the hardest songs musically that we do.
[00:11:12] There's lots of chord changes, lots of weird keys, lots of them are pitched really high.
[00:11:19] But man, nothing better than amazing Christmas music we're going to have here in just a few moments.
[00:11:24] And then Pastor John Aikens is going to be coming up to share a little bit of God's Word.
[00:11:28] But thanks for being here today.
[00:11:29] Hang in there with us.
[00:11:30] We're going to get to the message here in just a few minutes.
[00:11:55] Could have stepped into creation With fire for all to see Brought every tribe and nation to their knees Arriving with the host of heaven In royal robe and crown The rulers of the earth all bowing
[00:12:22] you chose meekness over majesty wrapped your power in humanity i love this

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To you alone King who reigns on a major throne My life, my praise, everything I own To Jesus the King on a major throne You could have marched in all your glory

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To the heart of Rome Showed them splendor like they'd never known But you wrote a better story In humble Bethlehem Creator in the arms of God the Lamb

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Redemption and your eyes are weak and left glory be to you
[00:13:44] From the manger throne All my life, my praise, everything I owe To Jesus, the King on the manger throne From heaven to the great home

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From the cradle to the cross Let heaven and nature sing This is our King But the grave couldn't hold Him Our God has overcome Let heaven and nature sing This is our King From heaven to the grave

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From the cradle to the cross Let heaven and nature see This is our King But the grave couldn't hold Him Our God has overcome Let heaven and nature see This is our King
[00:15:04] Glory be to you, O Lord O King who reigns on a manger's road My life, my praise, everything I owe To Jesus, the King on a manger's road My life, my praise
[00:15:35] To Jesus the King on a manger throne To Jesus the King on a manger throne

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No other king would kneel to wash my face
[00:16:29] Prepare a table for his enemies Lay down his glory for the least of these No other king would touch a man's skin Open his arms to let the outcast in Respond with mercy
[00:17:04] Jesus, no one is like you.
[00:17:13] Jesus, no one beside you.
[00:17:17] Of this I am convinced, no grave in love exists.
[00:17:42] We live to slaughter and be filled

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In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
[00:18:20] Amen.

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Let us go down the gates of hell with just one breath No other king will reign until the end

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In Jesus' name we pray.
[00:19:53] Amen.

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I am an instrument of exultation And I was born to lift the name above all names You hear the melody of all creation
[00:21:24] There's a song of praise that only I can bring Who else is worthy?
[00:21:33] Who else is worthy?
[00:21:37] There is no one
[00:21:40] Only you Jesus Who else is worthy?
[00:21:47] Who else is worthy?
[00:21:51] There is no one Only you Jesus
[00:21:58] You are the infinite God of the ages Yet You chose to make my heart the dwelling place You healed my brokenness, showed me Your glory So I have songs of thanks not easy
[00:22:30] Who else is worthy?
[00:22:34] There is no one, only you Jesus Who else is worthy?
[00:22:44] Who else is worthy?
[00:22:48] There is no one, only you Jesus Who else is worthy?
[00:22:59] Who else is worthy?
[00:23:12] Who else is worthy?
[00:23:33] There is no one, only in Jesus.
[00:23:33] Lamb of God, anointed one, who was and is and is to come, seated on the throne above.
[00:24:13] Jesus Christ we lift it up Holy, Holy Lamb of God anointed one Rise and is and is to come Seated on the throne above Holy, Holy

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Who else is worthy?
[00:25:43] Sing it, Lindsay.
[00:25:44] Who else is worthy?

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There is no one, only you, Jesus.
[00:25:55] Who else is worthy?
[00:25:58] Who else is worthy?
[00:26:02] There is no one,
[00:26:07] Sing that with us.
[00:26:17] Who else is worthy?

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Who else is worthy?

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]:
There is no one, only Jesus.

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Who else is worthy?
[00:26:29] Who else is worthy?

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]:
God bless you

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All right, if you have a Bible, go with me to Daniel chapter 9.
[00:27:19] We'll be in Daniel chapter 9 and verse 20 here in just a second.
[00:27:23] We continue our march through the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 9 and verse 20.
[00:27:29] You know, Christmas can be a very wonderful time of year.
[00:27:33] I love the Christmas time, but for many people it is a time that is also filled with kind of
[00:27:40] Some pain, some sadness, and a lot of loneliness.
[00:27:43] There's a lot of folks who during the Christmas time, either because they have family members that they love or people they love that they've lost, and so maybe they're experiencing the first Christmas without those people they love, or maybe even multiple Christmases, and just Christmas is a time where
[00:28:02] There's joy, but there's also a reminder of the people that you love that you don't get to be around anymore, the people that you love that have passed.
[00:28:10] There's also, for a lot of families, a lot of division or alienation.
[00:28:16] Some of that can be due to politics, some of that can be due to
[00:28:20] of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit of the Holy Spirit.
[00:28:36] The alienation they feel, the separation, the isolation that they feel.
[00:28:40] And so while for many people Christmas is a time that they look forward to, there's a lot of people who do not look forward to Christmas because of the loneliness that they feel, the sadness they feel, and the isolation that they feel.
[00:28:54] And the sad reality is that those feelings, those experiences are part of life in a fallen and broken
[00:29:04] World.
[00:29:05] The Bible teaches us that sin destroys human flourishing, and one of the ways that sin destroys human flourishing is it causes alienation, it causes separation.
[00:29:18] Sin separates us from God first and foremost, but sin also separates us from other people around us and alienates us from them.
[00:29:27] Sin can separate us from, Genesis 3 is explaining to us, the world around us.
[00:29:33] and even sin can cause tension and conflict within yourself and isolation and alienation even within yourself and who God has created you to be.
[00:29:44] What we're going to see here in Daniel chapter 9 is some good news about Christmas is that Christmas is about how confession and the cross ends our separation from God.
[00:29:58] Christmas is about how confession and the cross ends our separation, our isolation, our alienation from God and then can flow down from there to the other relationships that we have.
[00:30:10] Now, that's a very simple message that we're going to hear in Daniel chapter 9, but I want to be upfront with you.
[00:30:15] Daniel chapter 9 is a very, very simple message.
[00:30:19] Complicated and complex passage, okay?
[00:30:23] The message is simple.
[00:30:25] The text is anything but simple.
[00:30:27] In fact, the first time that I ever had to teach or preach on Daniel chapter 9, I was 20 years old, about 19 or 20 years old.
[00:30:35] I was taking preaching classes at a Bible college that I was going to.
[00:30:40] and as a part of that preaching class we had to preach three times okay and of those three occasions of preaching we got to pick two of the passages that we wanted to preach and then the preaching professor assigned us the third text and it was supposed to be a difficult text and so he he picked like 15 of the most difficult passages in the entire bible and he assigned each of those
[00:31:06] passages to the students in the class.
[00:31:08] And so, I was assigned Daniel chapter 9 and was asked to preach on it for 12 minutes, okay?
[00:31:16] Now, some of y'all may think, I hope you can hit that target today.
[00:31:19] We'll see how close we get to that, all right?
[00:31:24] But I was assigned Daniel chapter 9 and was given 12 minutes.
[00:31:28] I went to my dad.
[00:31:28] I was like, hey, dad, do you have anything?
[00:31:30] I've got to preach a 12-minute sermon on Daniel chapter 9.
[00:31:32] He put in my hands like six commentaries and he gave me five sermons from John MacArthur each 45 minutes or longer on this one passage, okay?
[00:31:43] I was like, this is not a lot of help, okay?
[00:31:46] But as difficult as this passage is, I was grateful that I wasn't assigned some of the passages
[00:31:52] of the Holy Spirit.
[00:31:59] And so, it's a very, very complicated passage.
[00:32:14] But what I want us to see this morning is,
[00:32:17] If we don't get caught up in the details or trying to figure out the exact timing of everything, the main point of this passage is very practical, is that Christmas, the incarnation of Jesus, Jesus coming to seek and to save us when we were lost, is God's solution to the sin problem, the separation problem, the alienation problem.
[00:32:38] And Daniel chapter 9 reveals to us that that plan that God has to deal with the sin problem
[00:32:45] is a plan that he maps out in exact detail hundreds of years in advance.
[00:32:52] It's not a plan B, it's plan A, and it's exactly what God has intended to do.
[00:32:57] So, let's look at Daniel chapter 9.
[00:33:00] We'll start in verse 20, we'll read down through verse 27, and we'll come back and get the context.
[00:33:04] Let me just say this, again, as complex as this passage is, next week when we finish the book of Daniel, we will have a time for Q&A.
[00:33:11] And so if you have questions that you want to ask about this passage, make sure you write those down and you text those in next week.
[00:33:17] All right, Daniel chapter 9 and verse 20.
[00:33:20] This is what the Word of God says.
[00:33:23] 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.
[00:33:32] While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice.
[00:33:40] He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding.
[00:33:49] 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.
[00:33:54] Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision.
[00:33:58] Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city.
[00:34:02] Finish the transgression to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity.
[00:34:06] to bring in everlasting righteousness to seal both vision and prophet and to anoint a most holy place.
[00:34:13] 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 seven weeks.
[00:34:22] Then for 62 weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat but in a troubled time and after the 62 weeks an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing.
[00:34:32] The people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
[00:34:36] Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war.
[00:34:39] Desolations are decreed, and he shall make a strong covenant with the many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering.
[00:34:48] And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator."
[00:34:58] May God bless the reading of His Word.
[00:35:00] Two things I want us to see just very quickly in this passage.
[00:35:04] First one is this, we need to confess our sin.
[00:35:07] We need to confess our sin.
[00:35:08] Daniel understands what I've just explained to you about how the storyline of the Bible is showing us that sin destroys human flourishing, that sin separates us from God, it exiles us from God, it exiles us from others and even from ourself.
[00:35:26] And when we find ourselves here in the book of Daniel,
[00:35:29] is that Israel is in exile outside of their homeland.
[00:35:33] They are in Babylon in exile because of their sin.
[00:35:36] God has poured out judgment on their sin by separating them from their homeland and by bringing them into exile.
[00:35:44] So that's the context.
[00:35:45] And Daniel here, in Daniel chapter 9, if you'll go back up to verse 1.
[00:35:50] is in exile there in Babylon.
[00:35:52] He's been there for decades, and he's essentially having his quiet time.
[00:35:56] He's, as we talked about, you know, in the previous weeks, he's somebody who would pray three times a day towards Jerusalem.
[00:36:03] He was somebody who would read the Word of God on a regular basis.
[00:36:06] And so, he's essentially having his quiet time.
[00:36:08] He's reading from the prophet Jeremiah, and something comes to his mind.
[00:36:13] Look what the Bible says there in verse 1.
[00:36:15] It says, in the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus by descent Amid, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.
[00:36:39] All right, so here's what's happening.
[00:36:40] Daniel is reading the Bible, he's reading the prophet Jeremiah, and he's reading specifically in Jeremiah 29 verses 11 and following, actually verse 10 and following.
[00:36:52] And here's what Daniel reads during his quiet time.
[00:36:56] For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
[00:37:07] for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart I will be found by you declares the Lord and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you declares the Lord and I will bring you back to the place
[00:37:34] from which I sent you into exile.
[00:37:37] So Daniel is reading Jeremiah 29, and he says, as I'm reading Jeremiah 29, I'm reading the plans that God has for the future of Israel, and I learn that we're going to be in exile away from our homeland for 70 years, okay?
[00:37:56] Now, first of all, let me just say this.
[00:37:58] Jeremiah 29 is one of the most misunderstood passages or at least misapplied passages in the entire Bible.
[00:38:06] I went to a Christian high school when I was in high school and graduation.
[00:38:11] People, we were asked as seniors in our yearbook to put our favorite Bible verse.
[00:38:15] Half of my senior class favorite Bible verse was Jeremiah 29 11, and they were like, God's got a plan for me.
[00:38:21] God's got a future for me.
[00:38:22] I'm going to be a doctor.
[00:38:23] I'm going to be a lawyer.
[00:38:24] I'm going to be a nurse.
[00:38:25] I'm going to be all these things.
[00:38:27] and that's not what Jeremiah 29 is about.
[00:38:30] Sorry to burst your bubble if that's what you think.
[00:38:33] In fact, Jeremiah 29 verse 11 is way better than you being a doctor because God is revealing here in Jeremiah 29 and Daniel 9 His plan to deal with the sin problem, which is way better than being a doctor.
[00:38:50] But I don't want to get off on a separate sermon, all right?
[00:38:55] Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 29, exile is going to last 70 years.
[00:38:59] Daniel reads that.
[00:39:01] He knows that they're near the end of that time.
[00:39:04] He takes it literally.
[00:39:05] And so he obeys Scripture.
[00:39:07] Jeremiah 29, picking up on 1 Kings 8, says that when you are in exile, and I'm getting ready to bring you back, what you need to do is you need to look toward the temple and you need to pray
[00:39:25] and Confess your sin and repent and turn away from your sin.
[00:39:29] And when you do that, when you seek me, you turn from your sin and you turn towards me, I will restore your fortunes and I will bring you back to the land that I have driven you away from.
[00:39:41] And so Daniel,
[00:39:43] Puts this into practice, okay?
[00:39:44] So he's not only reading the Bible, he is obeying the Bible.
[00:39:47] He's not just a reader, he's not just a hearer of the Word, he is a doer of the Word also.
[00:39:51] And so he begins in verse 3 to pray this magnificent prayer of confession and repentance.
[00:39:59] to try to prepare the way for Israel to go back into the land because he knows that they're near the end of those 70 years.
[00:40:07] And so the first step to the sin problem, the problem of our separation from God, is confession and repentance.
[00:40:13] It leads to restoration.
[00:40:15] And Daniel makes this prayer here, and his prayer of confession and repentance is a model for us in how we should confess our sin, how we should own our sin, and how we should turn away from it.
[00:40:27] Look what the Bible says there in verse 3.
[00:40:29] Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking Him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
[00:40:38] I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from Your commandments and rules.
[00:40:56] We have not listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
[00:41:03] To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as it is this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, and all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you.
[00:41:18] To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers.
[00:41:24] because we have sinned against you.
[00:41:27] We see here in Daniel's prayer of confession and repentance is that he agrees with God.
[00:41:35] That's what confession is.
[00:41:36] Like that's the first step is to say, you are right, I am wrong.
[00:41:42] What I have done is a rebellion against you.
[00:41:44] When I have disobeyed your word, I have rebelled against you.
[00:41:47] I've turned away from you.
[00:41:49] He's not making any excuses here.
[00:41:53] He's not saying, well, you don't understand the circumstances.
[00:41:55] You don't understand what we were going through.
[00:41:57] He makes no excuses like Adam and Eve did in the garden.
[00:42:00] He doesn't try to rationalize his sin away or the sin of Israel away.
[00:42:04] He just says, we've sinned, we've done wickedly, we're in the wrong.
[00:42:09] We live in a culture right now, this is wild.
[00:42:12] This week I saw an announcement came out on Twitter or whatever.
[00:42:17] whatever it's called now Netflix is doing I think like an animated series now that does the Cinderella story from the perspective of the stepsisters and how the stepsisters were misunderstood and you know kind of they we've got the wrong perspective of the stepsisters like this is this has been
[00:42:42] The culture's like go-to thing for all of these different rebooted series, right?
[00:42:48] The Joker, Maleficent, all these different things is to say, hey, listen, the villain really isn't the bad guy.
[00:42:55] You don't understand that the circumstances of their life and their background and their backstory, they were mistreated, they were harmed, they had all this trauma, and so because of that, they acted out.
[00:43:07] But it wasn't really their fault.
[00:43:10] It's the fault of society and what society has done to them.
[00:43:13] That's where we live right now.
[00:43:15] We live in a victim culture where we don't want to take responsibility for our actions.
[00:43:20] We want to blame somebody else for what we do.
[00:43:22] But that's not what confession is.
[00:43:25] Confession is you acknowledge what I have done is wrong and God is right to judge me because of what I have done.
[00:43:35] And then Daniel shifts and he begins to plead with God for mercy.
[00:43:40] And he pleads with God for mercy, not just so that he and the people of Israel can get out of the consequences of their sin, but so that God gets the glory.
[00:43:50] Look what the Bible says there in verse 14.
[00:43:51] This is what he says.
[00:43:53] This is an incredible prayer.
[00:43:55] It says, therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us.
[00:44:00] The Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done.
[00:44:03] We have not obeyed His voice.
[00:44:06] And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for Yourself as it is this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
[00:44:16] O Lord, according to all Your righteous acts, let Your anger and Your wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy hill, because
[00:44:24] For our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us.
[00:44:31] Now therefore, O Lord our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy.
[00:44:38] And for your own sake, O Lord, make your face shine upon your sanctuary which is desolate.
[00:44:45] Oh my God, incline your ear and hear.
[00:44:47] Open your eyes and see our desolations and the city that is called by your name.
[00:44:51] For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.
[00:44:56] Oh Lord, hear.
[00:44:57] Oh Lord, forgive.
[00:44:58] Oh Lord, pay attention and act.
[00:45:00] Delay not for your own sake, oh my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.
[00:45:08] Our only hope
[00:45:10] Our only hope to the sin problem is for God to be merciful, to give to us what we do not deserve and to do so because it glorifies His name.
[00:45:21] We can't follow rules, we can't earn points, we can't have enough right actions.
[00:45:25] What we need is pardon from God.
[00:45:27] The good news is that throughout the Bible we see all who confess
[00:45:34] to God receive pardon.
[00:45:36] All who confess receive mercy.
[00:45:39] All who call on His name for salvation are saved.
[00:45:42] And so the first thing we need to do is we need to confess our sin.
[00:45:45] But that raises a big question.
[00:45:48] Yes, God responds to our confession.
[00:45:51] He responds to our repentance with mercy.
[00:45:55] But how can He turn away from His anger and remain glorious and remain just?
[00:46:02] The answer to that question is the cross.
[00:46:05] So what ends our separation?
[00:46:06] The first thing we need to do is confess our sin.
[00:46:08] The second thing we need to do is we need to trust in the cross.
[00:46:15] Daniel prays this prayer.
[00:46:16] He reads Jeremiah.
[00:46:17] In response, he prays this prayer, and then God dispatches the angel Gabriel to come and give him an answer to his prayer.
[00:46:26] And he says there in verse 24, we just read a few minutes ago,
[00:46:30] Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, put an end to sin, and so on and so forth.
[00:46:39] God sends Gabriel to give Daniel an answer to his prayer and he says,
[00:46:44] Seventy weeks, or literally the word in Hebrew is just the word sevens, like our word dozen.
[00:46:51] It could be, you know, a dozen can mean a dozen of anything.
[00:46:54] It can mean a dozen donuts, which is a good way to use it, or it could mean a dozen, you know, whatever, a dozen eggs.
[00:47:01] This word here in the Hebrew in verse 24 is the word seven.
[00:47:06] So literally the text tells us 70 sevens are decreed for God to restore all the fortune of Israel.
[00:47:16] Now let me just say this and then we'll go back through the details.
[00:47:19] Here's what's happening, essentially what's happening.
[00:47:22] is Daniel reads in Jeremiah 70 years of exile.
[00:47:27] Then you're going to go back to the land.
[00:47:28] God's going to keep all of his good promises to your people.
[00:47:32] And so Daniel sets himself to this prayer of confession and says, Lord, you know, be merciful to us.
[00:47:39] Bring us back to the land.
[00:47:42] And God sends the angel Gabriel to tell Daniel, actually exile is not going to last 70 years.
[00:47:52] Exile is going to last 70 times seven years, and it's not truly going to end until the Messiah is cut off, until Jesus dies on the cross, okay?
[00:48:04] That's basically, again, getting through all the details, what Gabriel tells Daniel here.
[00:48:11] So let me explain kind of the background to it.
[00:48:15] When he says 77s, most people, most scholars agree that he's talking about
[00:48:21] Weeks of years or seven-year time periods.
[00:48:25] So 70 times seven would be 490 years, okay?
[00:48:30] Now, the Jews would have understood it this way because while we are all accustomed to thinking of the Jewish calendar in terms of
[00:48:38] The Sabbath being every seventh day.
[00:48:40] The Jewish calendar didn't just keep Sabbath day.
[00:48:44] The Jewish calendar also kept Sabbath years.
[00:48:47] You can go look in Leviticus 25, for example, where the law is given that every seven years the people of Israel were supposed to do no work.
[00:48:57] The seventh year they were supposed to do no work.
[00:49:00] They were supposed to trust God to provide for them.
[00:49:02] They were to give the land rest from all of the farming and stuff that they did.
[00:49:06] And so they were to do six days and then rest on the seventh.
[00:49:09] They were to do six years and then rest on the seventh.
[00:49:11] And then every seventh
[00:49:13] Part of that, every seven times seven, there was a Jubilee year where there was just a time of festival, you let slaves go free, you forgave debts, every property went back to the people who originally owned it, all these different things.
[00:49:27] So they were used to thinking in these seven-year increments of time.
[00:49:33] In fact, if you read in 2 Chronicles 36, violating the Sabbath year, from the best we understand, the people of Israel never actually observed a Sabbath year.
[00:49:43] And so when they go into exile for 70 years, the prophets tell them in 2 Chronicles 36, the 70 years that you're in Babylon is going to give the land the rest that you didn't give it.
[00:49:53] That's why you're going to be in their 70 years.
[00:49:56] So the sets of seven year backdrop is the backdrop to the storyline here.
[00:50:04] Now again, I don't want us, all of the details we're about to look at, I don't want us to miss the big E on the eye chart.
[00:50:10] And the big E on the eye chart is like,
[00:50:13] The jubilee of this like forgiving debt, slaves going free, all of these different things
[00:50:20] God is telling Daniel through Gabriel here essentially 70 times 7, so 490 or it's like Jubilee to the 10th power.
[00:50:30] He's saying all of the restoration that you're waiting for is going to happen in the future when the Messiah dies on the cross.
[00:50:38] That's when this end-time restoration that you're hoping for is actually going to happen.
[00:50:43] Because here's the reality, all right, and hopefully you'll be able to understand this.
[00:50:50] Yes, the people of Israel go back into the land after 70 years.
[00:50:54] Like they're gonna be released from Babylon.
[00:50:57] They're gonna start going back to their homeland.
[00:51:00] They're gonna start rebuilding the temple.
[00:51:02] They're gonna start rebuilding Jerusalem and the wall.
[00:51:04] You can read about this in Nehemiah and Ezra and those kinds of things.
[00:51:07] And so they're gonna be back there, all right?
[00:51:11] But while they go back to the land after 70 years, nothing is the same.
[00:51:16] It's not near as good as it was before, okay?
[00:51:19] There's all kinds of ways that we can look at this.
[00:51:21] In Haggai, for example, it tells us when they rebuild the temple, the old timers who had seen the first temple, had seen Solomon's temple, now see this temple and they're weeping because they're like, this thing is terrible compared to Solomon's temple.
[00:51:39] It has none of the glory.
[00:51:40] In fact, the Shekinah glory cloud of God that would take up residence in the Holy of Holies, it doesn't come back.
[00:51:47] And so they're like, this has none of the glory of the former temple.
[00:51:51] They're back in the land, but they're still under foreign rule.
[00:51:56] They're still not obeying the law.
[00:51:57] Their hearts haven't been transformed.
[00:51:59] They haven't received the gift of the Spirit.
[00:52:01] They're back in the land, but they haven't received the fullness of the promises that God has made to them.
[00:52:07] The reason why is, God tells Daniel, the fullness of the promises God has given you are not going to happen until the Messiah comes.
[00:52:15] It's not gonna happen until Jesus shows up.
[00:52:16] Imagine this, okay?
[00:52:18] Again, Christmas time is a time to get together with family and all those different, those kind of things.
[00:52:23] Like if I were to go to, I grew up in Dallas, Texas.
[00:52:28] If I were this Christmas to get my family in the car and drive to Dallas, Texas and go to the house that I grew up in, it would be a terrible Christmas.
[00:52:41] You wanna know why?
[00:52:43] My parents aren't there.
[00:52:46] My family's not there.
[00:52:47] There'd be strangers in the house.
[00:52:49] They wouldn't let me in, okay?
[00:52:51] It would be really awkward.
[00:52:52] It would be awful.
[00:52:54] It'd be a terrible experience.
[00:52:55] I'm going back home, but it's not what I'm expecting.
[00:53:01] It's not what I'm hoping for.
[00:53:02] That's essentially what's happening with Israel.
[00:53:05] They go back into the land, but nothing's the same.
[00:53:09] They haven't received the fullness of the promises.
[00:53:11] The fullness of the promises are waiting for the Messiah.
[00:53:14] So he says after these 77, 490 years, there's these six actions that are going to happen.
[00:53:21] All six of these actions happen at the first coming of Jesus, but the fullness of them is waiting for the second coming of Jesus.
[00:53:29] Like the first four deal with the sin problem, right?
[00:53:34] Finish Transgression, Put an End to Sin, Atone for Iniquity, Bring in Everlasting Righteousness.
[00:53:39] When does this happen?
[00:53:40] The death and resurrection of Jesus.
[00:53:43] Talks about sealing up vision and prophet, like fulfilling all of the prophecies.
[00:53:47] When does this happen?
[00:53:49] Jesus, the Bible, 2 Corinthians 1, all the promises of God are yes and amen in Jesus Christ.
[00:53:56] Anoint the most holy place, the new temple.
[00:53:58] What is the new temple according to the New Testament?
[00:54:00] Jesus says, my body is the temple.
[00:54:03] When you tear it down, I'm going to build it back up in three days.
[00:54:05] All of these actions happen at the first coming of Jesus, but the fullness of them, when there's no more sin, when every tear is wiped away, is waiting for the second coming of Jesus.
[00:54:17] And then Gabriel zeroes in on three actions there in verses 25 and following.
[00:54:22] The first is the rebuilding of Jerusalem, which is going to take about 50 years.
[00:54:26] Then the cross, he says there in verse 26, after the seven weeks of rebuilding Jerusalem and the 62 weeks, he says, an anointed one shall be cut off and have nothing.
[00:54:37] He's talking about the death of Jesus.
[00:54:40] And then he goes on there, number three, to talk about Antichrist, his tyranny, the last seven years, the Great Tribulation, all those kinds of things.
[00:54:50] I want to, because of Christmas, I want to focus in on the second action, okay?
[00:54:56] The second action, he says that there's going to be seven sevens, seven weeks, verse 25,
[00:55:06] and then 62 weeks verse 25 and after the 62 weeks an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing all right so let's focus on that just very quickly so so essentially what he's saying here is there's going to be 69 sevens or 483 years okay so if you multiply 69 times 7 it's 483 years
[00:55:31] from the decree to rebuild and restore Jerusalem until the coming of the Anointed One and when He is cut off.
[00:55:38] Okay?
[00:55:38] So 483 years between those two time periods.
[00:55:43] Now, one of the things that you can do is you can go and read historically.
[00:55:48] We know that the Jews took these numbers literally because they would, there were first century Jews who would try to calculate from Daniel chapter 9 when the Messiah would come.
[00:55:58] Okay?
[00:55:59] And so that's why there was a lot of
[00:56:01] Messianic like expectation and fervor when Jesus came on the scene because people were using Daniel 9 and trying to calculate when is this going to happen.
[00:56:11] All right, so let's try to figure it out.
[00:56:12] Let's see what the Bible is teaching us.
[00:56:16] The decree to rebuild Jerusalem, I think we'll have some of this on the screen.
[00:56:19] Okay, so 483 years from the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the coming of the Messiah.
[00:56:26] The decree to rebuild Jerusalem, we're told in Nehemiah chapter 2, is in the month of Nisan, I think the 20th year of King Artaxerxes.
[00:56:35] On our calendars, that's March the 5th, 444 B.C., okay?
[00:56:41] So on our calendar, the decree to rebuild Jerusalem is on March the 5th, 444 B.C.
[00:56:47] The coming of the Anointed One of Messiah the Prince, Palm Sunday, on our calendars is March 30th in the year A.D. 33.
[00:56:58] Okay?
[00:56:59] March the 30th in the year A.D. 33.
[00:57:02] So let's do some math, all right?
[00:57:04] I've already worked out the answers for you, okay?
[00:57:06] So you don't have to get your calculator out.
[00:57:09] You can if you want to check me on this.
[00:57:13] So if you start at March the 5th, 444 BC, and you go 483 years into the future.
[00:57:19] Now, let me just tell you what you have to do when you're calculating these things.
[00:57:23] You take out the year, you subtract a year.
[00:57:26] So why do you subtract a year?
[00:57:27] Because there is no year zero.
[00:57:30] Okay, you didn't have 1 BC and then year zero and then 1 AD, okay?
[00:57:36] From 1 BC to the year of our Lord, right?
[00:57:40] So no AD zero.
[00:57:42] So if you start at March the 5th, 444 BC, you go 483 years in the future, you get to AD 38.
[00:57:47] All right, so five years over.
[00:57:51] That's actually not bad, right?
[00:57:53] If we're gonna do a...
[00:57:55] Prediction hundreds of years in advance and you go five years you're within a five-year time frame that's probably close enough right well gotta do some more math because we have to reconcile the calendars and the reason why I have to reconcile the calendars is Jews used a different calendar than we use okay how many days let's do some crowd participation just make sure you're staying with me how many year how many days do we have in our calendar
[00:58:26] Okay, 365 and some change, right?
[00:58:30] Because every four years we have an extra day, we have leap year, so our calendar is actually 365.242 days, okay, to account for the leap year.
[00:58:40] The Jews had a 360-day lunar calendar.
[00:58:43] If you want to check me on this, go read Genesis 7 through 8 and you'll see the flood is calculating on 30-day months, okay, or a 360-day lunar calendar.
[00:58:53] So if we take the Jewish calendar, we're going to try to reconcile these calendars.
[00:58:59] If you take the Jewish calendar, 483 years times 360 days equals 173,880 days.
[00:59:04] I think we have that up there.
[00:59:08] All right.
[00:59:09] So 483 times 360 is 173,880 days.
[00:59:18] You take our calendar, you go from 444 BC, right, to AD 33, taking out the year zero, that's 476 years.
[00:59:26] 476 years times 365.242 days is 173,855.
[00:59:33] So now we're just 25 days off.
[00:59:45] That's close enough, right?
[00:59:47] Okay, I'm just setting you up.
[00:59:50] All right.
[00:59:51] We calculated from when?
[00:59:54] March the 5th, 444 B.C.
[00:59:57] When does Jesus come into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday?
[00:59:59] He comes in on Palm Sunday on March the 30th, which is 25 days.
[01:00:05] Add the 25 days, you're at 173,880 days.
[01:00:10] So it works out perfectly.
[01:00:12] And the date that he says restore and rebuild Jerusalem is to the day when Jesus comes into Jerusalem to start his Passion Week to be cut off on the cross.
[01:00:26] Now, people will argue about that, and I don't want to be too dogmatic about it.
[01:00:33] What I will say is this, okay?
[01:00:36] However you want to calculate it,
[01:00:38] God knew to the year, the month, the day, the hour, the second that Jesus was going to die on the cross and take care of the sin problem.
[01:00:50] God's solution to our problem wasn't an afterthought.
[01:00:54] It wasn't a plan B.
[01:00:55] It was something that He set in motion before He created the world because He wanted to repair and to reconcile us to Himself.
[01:01:08] And so after this, rest of the text, again, lots of complication.
[01:01:14] But after Jesus' ministry, there's a gap between the 69th seven and the 70th seven, which is really a gap between the first advent of Jesus and the second advent.
[01:01:23] And it deals with all the stuff from the destruction of the temple to the end of the age, Antichrist, all those different things.
[01:01:30] Don't want to get into all that today.
[01:01:31] Main idea here is exile from God, our separation from God ends
[01:01:38] with Jesus coming to planet earth, dying on the cross for our sins in our place so that we can be made right with God.
[01:01:48] And we need to trust in the cross because Christmas is about how confession and the cross ends our separation from God.
[01:01:57] So listen, Christmas can be
[01:01:59] Wonderful for so many reasons, but it can also bring sadness, it can bring loneliness, it can bring isolation because we live in a fallen world where sin separates.
[01:02:11] The good news is God sent His Son to deal with our sin problem.
[01:02:18] As we sang a moment ago,
[01:02:21] The song that we've sung the last couple of weeks of a king on a manger throne, it talks about him not coming to Rome.
[01:02:28] I don't know if you've ever asked yourself this question like, why was Jesus born in Bethlehem?
[01:02:37] Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem?
[01:02:38] If you were God and you were going to send your son to come and to reclaim the world and to rule and reign over it, there's probably
[01:02:50] A dozen other cities that you would choose to send your son to other than Bethlehem.
[01:02:56] Like Jerusalem, for example, is the religious capital of the world.
[01:03:01] Why would you not have your son be born in Jerusalem?
[01:03:03] Or at that time, Rome was the political capital of the world.
[01:03:06] Why would you not have your son born in Rome?
[01:03:08] Or Alexandria was the educational capital of the world.
[01:03:11] Why would you not have the Son of God be born in the educational capital of the world?
[01:03:16] Well, the reason why He didn't do those things is because we didn't need a politician, we didn't need a teacher, and we didn't need a religious guru.
[01:03:23] We needed somebody to save us from our sins.
[01:03:27] You can't legislate your way out of sin.
[01:03:29] You can't teach your way out of sin.
[01:03:31] You can't ritualize your way out of sin.
[01:03:33] We needed the Son of God to come and to get us in our lost condition.
[01:03:41] And so hundreds of years in advance, God said, this is exactly what I'm going to do.
[01:03:45] I'm going to send the Anointed One.
[01:03:48] He is going to be rejected.
[01:03:50] He is going to be cut off.
[01:03:51] He is going to die for your sins.
[01:03:54] But in His death, He is reconciling the world to Himself.
[01:03:59] Let me ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes.
[01:04:02] I'm going to pray and then we're going to stand and sing and have a moment of invitation.
[01:04:06] I just want to challenge you with this.
[01:04:09] If you're here today and you feel distant from God or you feel captive to your sin or feel like you're having to hide from others, feel hopeless, you feel lonely, you feel sad, you feel alienated, I just want to challenge you to own your sin, confess it, and turn to Jesus as your Savior.
[01:04:33] If you've never done that, I'm going to be here at the front.
[01:04:35] I'd love to talk to you about giving your life to Jesus, being made new, being made right with God.
[01:04:44] If you're here and you're a believer, and listen, sin can cause a lack of intimacy with God.
[01:04:51] The Bible tells us, Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God.
[01:05:04] Impurity in your heart can distort your view of God, can keep you from seeing Him.
[01:05:10] That's why the Christian life is a life of continual confession.
[01:05:15] And the good news is if we will confess our sin, He is faithful and He is just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[01:05:25] And so the answer for us today, whether we've done it a hundred times,
[01:05:31] Whether we need to do it for the first time today is we need to confess our sin.
[01:05:34] We need to trust that the cross is enough for us.
[01:05:37] Father, I pray in the name of Jesus, everybody who is here right now or who's listening online, Father, I pray that the Christmas season would be a reminder that our sin was so serious that You sent Jesus, Your Son, from the throne to the world
[01:06:00] to a cross, die in our place so that You could bring us back to You.
[01:06:09] So Father, I pray for anybody who is separated from You that this Christmas season would be a reminder to them they don't have to be separated from You.
[01:06:15] They can fall on Your mercy, they can receive grace, and they can be made brand new.
[01:06:25] So Father, I pray that You would help us to be a people
[01:06:28] who do not hide our sin, who do not rationalize our sin, who do not try to pretend like we have no sin.
[01:06:37] But Father, I pray that you would make us people who live lives of continual confession.
[01:06:48] And Father, we would be people who continually depend upon the cross, that we would not let any self-righteousness, any works righteousness,
[01:06:59] Any hypocrisy creep its way into our hearts and into our lives.
[01:07:06] Lord, help us to be people of the cross.
[01:07:10] We ask all this in Jesus' name.
[01:07:13] Amen.
[01:07:13] Would you stand to your feet?
[01:07:14] We're going to sing.
[01:07:14] If you have a decision to make, you come right now while we sing.

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]:
My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thy name
[01:07:57] All sin I resign My gracious Redeemer
[01:08:20] If ever I love thee, my Jesus, tis now.
[01:08:39] Oh, we love you, Jesus.
[01:08:53] and Reconciliation.
[01:09:09] In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER UNKNOWN]:
Amen.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]:
If ever I love Thee, my Jesus, tis Thine
[01:10:24] Glory and endless delight.
[01:10:35] Hallelujah.

[01:11:56] [SPEAKER UNKNOWN]:
We'll never remember

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]:
Thank you Lindsay and thank you Pastor John.
[01:13:06] You can take a seat just for a moment.
[01:13:11] I'm going to ask the deacons if they would go ahead and come forward and prepare for our offering this afternoon.
[01:13:18] Man, I love that song.
[01:13:20] A couple of great hymns today.
[01:13:24] Karen and I were walking out of Costco last night and just minding our own business.
[01:13:32] I think we went in to buy a ham or something and $300 later, you know how that goes.
[01:13:39] We were walking out to our car and a couple of young people came towards us that worked for Costco and they were grabbing the carts.
[01:13:51] And out of nowhere, the girl, Karen's going to know him right now, she's like, oh my gosh, what's Mark saying?
[01:13:59] The girl said, excuse me, sir, sir, do you hate hymns?
[01:14:08] Oh my goodness, where did that come from?
[01:14:12] And I said, no, I love hymns.
[01:14:16] In fact, one of the very first albums that I did with my own money was hymns.
[01:14:20] I love hymns.
[01:14:21] My senior theology class I did on hymns and hymnology, and I love hymns.
[01:14:28] And I said, in fact, I love hymns because I think they're crunchy.
[01:14:34] Crunchy, right?
[01:14:38] They're like a...
[01:14:40] I compared it this morning when I was talking to the worship team.
[01:14:43] It's like a perfect meal.
[01:14:46] It's like the gospel in a nutshell.
[01:14:48] I compared it to a bowl of cereal.
[01:14:51] It's the perfect meal.
[01:14:53] All the nutrition, everything you could ever need.
[01:14:56] Most hymns have that in the gospel.
[01:14:58] And that's what this hymn we just sang was.
[01:15:01] It's just so full of the gospel.
[01:15:03] Not every hymn is that way.
[01:15:04] In fact, there's some hymns that are not really gospel-centric, just like some worship songs.
[01:15:09] But what a great song.
[01:15:11] I hope you're enjoying that, and Lindsay, thank you for that.
[01:15:15] Thank you for that.
[01:15:17] And by the way, after I told the girl, I said, no, I love hymns, she turned to her friend and she was like, see, he loves hymns too.
[01:15:25] I think we all love hymns.
[01:15:27] Hey, deacons, go ahead and begin collecting the offering if you would right now.
[01:15:32] and just a few things to remind you of before we head out if you if you've forgotten immediately following church in the fellowship hall we have a family meeting today that'll be 10 minutes after we leave here in the fellowship hall we'll have our family meeting December the 21st that's next Sunday we'll have our potluck
[01:15:53] and make sure you bring a side dish that can feed 12 to 15 people and it's our last potluck of the year and y'all seem to love those things I know I do I hope you'll come and join us December the 21st right after church bring a side that can feed 12 to 15 people
[01:16:12] The 24th Christmas Eve at 5 o'clock is going to be such a special day.
[01:16:17] We're going to have an amazing, amazing Christmas Eve service here at the church.
[01:16:21] And I call it Worship, Communion, or the Lord's Supper, and Candlelight.
[01:16:27] And I'm so excited.
[01:16:29] One of my sweet
[01:16:32] Sweet friends, in my opinion, one of the most gifted girls ever.
[01:16:36] Molly Dormany is going to be here with us on Christmas Eve, and she's going to be singing.
[01:16:41] And we've got another little bit of a special treat.
[01:16:44] Right after Molly sings, Molly's dad, Josh, is going to be sharing God's Word on Christmas Eve.
[01:16:50] So that's a reason to come right there, right?
[01:16:52] It's going to be awesome.
[01:16:55] Worship, communion, and candlelight.
[01:16:57] On Christmas Eve at 5 o'clock, and listen, this will be no longer than an hour or less.
[01:17:05] Then the 28th, I wanted to remind you, that is an in-person service only.
[01:17:10] We're trying to give as many of our people, our volunteers as we can, opportunity to Sabbath on that particular day, so it's an in-person service only on the 28th.
[01:17:22] No online that particular day.
[01:17:24] Again, family meeting in the fellowship hall right afterwards.
[01:17:29] And I think that's all we've got.
[01:17:30] Thank you everybody for being here today.
[01:17:32] What a blessing.
[01:17:33] What an amazing service.
[01:17:34] Don't forget Lottie Moon.
[01:17:35] We're still in the middle of that.
[01:17:37] You've got envelopes in your pews.
[01:17:40] And that is a very, very special thing that we do.
[01:17:43] and it is very special to those missionaries that are out on the field that are in need of our help and assistance let's let's join together and give them the most help we can stand with me everybody and god bless you we've already prayed this morning you're dismissed

[01:18:24] [SPEAKER UNKNOWN]:
Let's pray.