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Guest (Male): This is Hope Lives 365 with Pastor Mark Finley. Today's message, a series in the book of Daniel, week four, part one. Enjoy and remember you can always catch up with past messages and stay up to date with Hope Lives 365 and Pastor Mark by going to hopelives365.com. And now, Pastor Mark Finley.

Mark Finley: If you have your Bible, please take it and turn to Daniel chapter 8. We’re going to look there at what took place in the life of Daniel at the end of the eighth chapter. The angel Gabriel had come, and Gabriel was explaining Daniel chapter 8 to Daniel. The heavenly messenger had explained the meaning of the ram, Medo-Persia, the meaning of the he-goat, Greece. He came down to a prophecy in Daniel 8:14: “Unto 2,300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”

God had told Daniel something through the angel Gabriel. Look at Daniel chapter 8, verse 16. “And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai, who called and said, ‘Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.’” So Jesus said something to Gabriel. What did he say to Gabriel? Make Daniel understand the vision. Now, when Gabriel has a message that comes from God, do you think Gabriel is going to be very persistent in following through on the instructions of God?

Gabriel begins to explain the vision to Daniel. He explains about the ram. He explains about the he-goat. He comes down to this long-time prophecy, the 2,300 days. As Daniel is listening to the prophecy explained, Daniel 8, verse 27: “And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick afterward. I arose and went about the king’s business. I was astonished by the vision, but no one understood it.” Did Gabriel accomplish his mission by the end of chapter 8? How do you know he didn’t accomplish his vision? Because it says nobody understood it, but in Daniel chapter 8, verse 17, Gabriel was commissioned to make this man understand it.

What portion of the vision did Daniel not understand? The time prophecy. Was the ram explained in Daniel chapter 8? Yes. Was the he-goat explained in chapter 8? Yes. Did he begin to explain the 2,300 years? He began it, but Daniel didn’t understand it and Daniel fainted. Now, what would you expect then in Daniel chapter 9? If Gabriel was told to make this man understand the vision, and if Daniel doesn’t understand it at the end of chapter 8, what would you expect in Daniel chapter 9? You’d expect Gabriel would come back and make Daniel understand the vision.

Here is the interesting thing: how many years took place between Daniel 8 and Daniel 9? Thirteen years. Thirteen years went by. You can imagine that Daniel, for 13 years, is wondering about the vision of Daniel chapter 8. Why did God allow so much time to go by? Have you ever prayed for something for a year, or for five years, or for 10 years, or for 12 years? Have you ever prayed for something and you have not had an immediate answer to your prayers? Does that happen sometimes?

One of the reasons God did not immediately answer Daniel’s prayer is because God wanted to reveal to you and to me persistence, the fact that we would earnestly seek Him when we don’t get immediate answers to our prayers, that we would not give up but we would petition God. Another reason is this: God wanted to allow time to go by so that Daniel would see more eagerly and be more focused on the fulfillment of this prophecy. So time elapses. Daniel is concerned. He has not given up.

We come now to Daniel chapter 9, and we look there in the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel, in verse 1. The Bible does not tell us the day of Christ’s second coming, but it does tell us when the time of the end begins. We are going to see in this prophecy tonight one of the most amazing prophecies in all the Bible because this prophecy actually predicts the exact date that Christ would be baptized. It predicts the exact date that Christ would be crucified. It predicts the exact date that the gospel would go to the Gentiles. Then it takes us down the stream of time and shows us a period of time that would be noted as the time of the end.

This prophecy has led more people to accept the Christian faith than any other in scripture. It’s a prophecy that has silenced many skeptics because it is so mathematically exact and mathematically precise. But we begin with Daniel chapter 9, verse 1. “In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans.” So it’s the first year of Darius. We know then something about the dating of this chapter.

In the first year of his reign, which is approximately 538 AD, “I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet.” What does this text tell us about Daniel? If you just were reading the text, what would you know about Daniel from this text? That he reads the Bible. Daniel was a Bible student. He was studying the prophecies of Jeremiah. Now, he was studying a specific prophecy of Jeremiah, that he would accomplish 70 years in desolations of Jerusalem.

Daniel was concerned. He was studying the prophecies of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah had made a prediction that Israel would go into a 70-year captivity. The Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem and took Daniel and his friends captive in the year 605. If you take 605 and you move 70 years forward, you come to approximately 535 or 536 BC. Darius begins to rule in 538. So what does Daniel know from Jeremiah’s prophecy? He knows that Jeremiah’s prophecy is coming to an end, doesn’t he? Because he knows that the 70-year prophecy is going to run out within the next couple of years.

He knows that Jerusalem would be desolate for that 70 years. Daniel is in captivity in Babylon. He is now an old man. He’s been in captivity for at least 68 years. He went into captivity when he was about 17, so he’s about 85. But he longs for his people to be able to go home. He longs for them to go back to Jerusalem. Have you ever traveled and been out of the country for any extensive period of time, and at times you long to go home? For a number of years, I lived in England. I was responsible for training pastors in about 17 countries and often traveled to the former Soviet Union during the days of Communism.

This was 1985 to 1990. I can remember there would be times I would be alone. I was alone in Yugoslavia. It was the winter. I was away from my family for over a month. I was negotiating and working with Communist governments, trying to get religious freedom. I remember I would walk down the streets of Belgrade, freezing cold, with my coat wrapped around me. I wouldn’t want to speak a word because they would know that I was an American. I didn’t know a word of Yugoslavian at the time. I’d pull my hat down over my head, but I was staying in a church, sleeping on a little bed in this church day after day, week after week.

Oh, I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my wife. I wanted to see my children. I wanted to go home, but I knew that for God I needed to be there to try to open up opportunities for the preaching of the gospel. Once a year, my wife and I were able to come back to the United States. I would love to come back to the states to see my parents; they were getting older. You know, when you are away, there’s nothing you want to do more than go home. Daniel was 85 years old. He knew that it would be too arduous a journey for him to travel those 1,500 miles from Babylon back to Jerusalem.

But he saw young Jews growing up who never knew Jerusalem. He saw Jewish families and he wanted them to be able to go home. So it’s the end of the prophecies, and Daniel begins to pray. He gets on his knees and he begins to seek God. Daniel 9, verse 3: “Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make my request by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.” One of the great dangers when you study the prophecies of Daniel is this: you can get so involved in the numbers in the prophecies that you miss the spiritual lessons.

There are enormous spiritual lessons in Daniel’s prayer. “Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make my request by prayer.” Thirteen years have gone by. He’s longing to know the meaning of these 2,300 years. He’s longing to understand this prophecy, and he gets on his knees and he begins to pray by prayer and supplication. He fasts. He puts on sackcloth, that means mourning, and ashes. “And I prayed to the Lord my God and made my confession and said, ‘Oh great, oh Lord, great and awesome God.’” God is awesome, isn’t he?

Guest (Male): We’ll be right back with Pastor Mark Finley. We thank you for listening and hope you’re enjoying today’s message. Our mission is to attractively present the Christ-centered biblical truths of scripture in a practical, relevant way to people around the world so that they may experience the abundant life that Christ offers and effectively share with confidence His life-changing truths with others. You can support this ministry and help us reach even more by going to hopelives365.com/donate. And now, back to Pastor Mark Finley.

Mark Finley: God is awesome, and this is one of the most awesome prophecies in all the Bible. God is awesome. He knows the beginning from the ending. God is awesome. He knows the future from the past. Oh, great and awesome God. He talks about God, and he says about God, “who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him and with those who keep His commandments.” God is a covenant-keeping God. When we study this prophecy tonight, we see that God is always on time. The purposes of God know no haste or they know no delay.

“It is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us.” Daniel 9, verse 13, you can look at it there in your Bible. I’m summarizing Daniel’s prayer. “As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us. Yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.” Daniel says there is a law of cause and effect. Israel has rebelled against God, and as the result of that rebellion, disaster has come upon us that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.

There are times in life that God allows us to face tragedy, not because He wants to afflict us with adversity, but sometimes God gets our attention in remarkable ways. As many of you know, for 14 years, I was the speaker-director of the *It is Written* television program. *It is Written* is an international television program shown around the world. About one in every 200 Americans watch it each week. During that time, I had the privilege of doing many outstanding interviews.

One of the people that I interviewed was Joni Eareckson Tada. How many of you have ever heard of Joni Eareckson Tada? Joni Eareckson Tada is an amazing person. She has an international radio program that is world-renowned. When she was 17, she had a diving accident and she became paralyzed from her neck down. So she could not feed herself, she could not button her blouse, she could not, of course, walk. She had to be cared for, couldn’t comb her hair.

One day I was interviewing her, I was sitting in her studio, and she had these colored pencils in her mouth and she was drawing. She could draw with these pencils and drew beautiful pictures. I said to her, “Joni, what’s the most difficult thing about painting with those colored pencils in your mouth?” She said, “Take the pencil out of my mouth.” I took it out of her mouth and she said, “The lousy taste of these pencils.” She’s just an amazing, amazing, incredible person, such an inspiration.

Before her diving accident, she had been living a life as a teenager that I think she would say was not the most committed Christian. She was doing things that she knew were not right, not in harmony with God’s will. One day she came home from a date with a young man, 17 years old, and she felt badly about certain things that happened on that date. She said that she got down on her knees and put her head on her bed and just wept and said, “God, whatever it takes, whatever it takes to turn me to You, whatever it takes to bring my life in harmony with Your will, whatever that takes, I want to do it.”

It was just a month or so later that she dove into that shallow water and broke her neck. She said it was that accident that gave her that sweet fellowship with Jesus that she had just longed for all of her life. It was that accident that drew her close to the Savior’s heart. It was that accident that enabled her to listen to the voice of God and dedicate her life to a life of service. God wanted to reach Israel by prospering them. God wants to reach you and me by prospering us.

It’s not God’s intent that we suffer. But there are times in our lives that if God sees us drifting from Him, He will not cause but allow circumstances to come into our lives that draw us closer and closer and closer to Him. I cannot tell you the times that I’ve been lecturing to thousands around the world where I’ve talked to young people whose lives have gone in a direction that was contrary to God’s will, but God has allowed certain circumstances to take place in their lives like He did in Israel so they might turn from their iniquity and understand God’s truth.

I would much rather have God prosper me and learn the lessons by being obedient in those times than having my heart drift from Him and facing the challenges of adversity. There is a law of cause and effect. When anyone knowingly and willingly turns their back on God, they forfeit God’s divine blessing. Now, there are times that we live ignorantly outside of God’s commandments, but there are times that if we turn willingly and knowingly from God, we forfeit His blessings.

Daniel says that we might turn from our iniquities and understand His truth. There is one thing you notice about Daniel’s prayer: Daniel does not point his finger at the Israelites and say, “That’s what those Jews are doing. It serves them right that they’re in captivity to Babylon.” Daniel identified with the sins of Israel. Daniel sensed corporately that their sins were his sins. It’s a wonderful thing to admit that you’ve been wrong. It’s a wonderful thing to unite with other people’s hearts when they are confessing their sins and not stand back arrogantly and proudly as if you had not sinned.

Daniel identified with the sins of Israel. The history of Israel is the history of a nation that God taught in deep sorrow because of their rebellion. God would have wanted to favor Israel and make them the head and not the tail. But as Daniel was praying, Daniel 9, verse 21, you need to see this in the text. Daniel 9, verse 21: “Yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening offering.”

Did we look at Gabriel before in this chapter? Yes. What did God commission Gabriel in Daniel 8, verse 16? “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” But did Daniel understand it? verse 27, he didn’t understand it. Time passes, so Gabriel comes back to explain to Daniel the unexplained portion of the vision. Being caused to fly swiftly, he reached me about the time of the evening offering. So the angel Gabriel is coming back to explain the vision.

“And he informed me and talked with me and said, ‘Oh Daniel,’—read it with me, please, from the screen—‘I have now come forth to give you skill to understand.’” Daniel 8:16, he does not understand. Daniel 8:27, he faints before he understands. Daniel chapter 9, verse 22, Gabriel comes back and Gabriel makes this man understand the vision. Angels always accomplish their purposes. Isn’t that good news? Angels always accomplish their purposes.

The angel Gabriel says in Daniel 8, verse 17: “Understand, oh son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end.” So when does this vision of the 2,300 days apply to? To what time? The time of the end. You know that because I told you, right? You know it because it’s in the Bible, right? Notice, “Understand, oh man,” that’s what the Bible says, for the vision appears to the time of the end. That’s when this vision appears according to Daniel 8.

Now, Gabriel comes back to help Daniel understand the vision. The vision of the 2,300 days applies to what period of time? The time of the end. But wait a minute, 2,300 days doesn’t take you down to the time of the end from Daniel’s time, does it? There are 365 days in a year. It’s a little more than six years. When you have symbols in prophecy, the time periods are symbolic. Now, when you read a day in the Bible, it’s a day. You read and God created the earth in six days, rested the seventh, that’s a literal day.

But when you read a time prophecy, like in Daniel, for example, you read about a lion with eagle’s wings. You ever go to the zoo and see a lion with eagle’s wings? No. You ever see a leopard with four heads on it? No. You ever see this kind of dragon-like? No. So when prophecy is symbolic, like in Daniel and Revelation, the time periods are symbolic. So there is a consistent principle, and we studied that symbolism in the Bible. One prophetic day equals one literal what? Year.

So let’s see what we can learn. The angel Gabriel comes back to explain the meaning of the 2,300 years. But to position us to enable us to understand that, the angel Gabriel goes down the stream of time, explaining certain events that would take place. Daniel did not understand this vision about the time of the end. Daniel 8:27, he fainted, was sick. He was astonished at the vision, we read it, but nobody understood it.

So the angel Gabriel comes back. “At the beginning of your supplication, the command went out and I’ve come to tell you. For you are greatly beloved. Therefore, consider the matter,” Daniel 9:23. “Consider what matter? The 2,300 days and understand the vision.” What vision? The vision of Daniel chapter 8 that you did not understand.

Guest (Male): You’ve been listening to Hope Lives 365 with Pastor Mark Finley. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s message and remind you that you can find more in our many ministry resources at hopelives365.com. And you can support this ministry by going to hopelives365.com/donate. And now, a final thought from Pastor Mark Finley.

Mark Finley: Don’t you like this expression in Daniel chapter 9 when Gabriel speaks to Daniel? In verse 22, he informed me. Notice verse 23: “At the beginning of your supplications, the command went out. I’ve come to tell you, you are greatly beloved.” As you and I are on our knees praying, asking God to solve a perplexing problem that we cannot understand, a mystery that for us has been sealed for years, as we’re on our knees praying, as we’re on our knees crying to God, as our hearts are strangely warmed, God says, “You are greatly beloved. I will not leave you in doubt any longer. You are greatly beloved.”

There as we pray, we feel our hearts warm. There as we pray, we sense the presence of God. We sense God speaking to us, saying to us, “You are greatly beloved.” What a wonderful expression. The God of the universe looks down upon you and upon me and tells us how valuable we are to Him. You’re greatly beloved. “For you’re greatly beloved. Therefore, consider the matter, understand the vision.”