Let's pray. Father, I pray that even these things that we've considered this morning, these grave warnings to your covenant people, all the centuries of waiting and longing and desiring that you would return to them and that you would liberate and you would heal, that you would restore, that you would once again take your place in the midst of your people, reigning from Mount Zion, indeed becoming king over all the earth. Father, the sons of Israel longed for that day, and yet you had told them that it would not be what they expected. It would be a day of judgment. It would be a day of darkness and not light. It would be a day in which you would come as a refiner's fire, as the fuller's soap. And even in that judgment, there would not be the end of the matter, for it would be indeed a refining work, and what would come out of it would be all that you had promised, all that you had pledged. And Father, I pray that these things would not be lost upon us. We have the privilege of looking back with the eyes of history, seeing how exactly the marvelous way in which you accomplished all that you had been promising. But Father, how much more than ought we to be those who receive the truth as it is in Jesus our Lord. If the Israelite people miss the day of their visitation, I pray that we are not those who would miss the day of your visitation. that we would know Jesus our Lord in truth, and that we would serve him faithfully as his people. So I pray for each one here. I pray that you will lead us by your spirit, that you will open our hearts and minds. Father, that you will grow us, that you will encourage us, that you will strengthen us in faith. Give us all courage for the day, all courage for the work to which you have called us, each in his own sphere, each in his own responsibilities. May we be faithful stewards of this good news that is in Jesus our Lord. Teach us now. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Well, as I mentioned, we've been spending a lot of time not going through any particular gospel account, but dealing with the life and the ministry of Jesus as the gospel writers present him and present that. At the center of that, as we've seen, is this idea of the Kingdom of God. Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom of God. And we even gave great emphasis to the incarnation as the beginning of that testimony. Incarnation was not simply the occasion for which now the man Jesus can begin to proclaim these things, but in incarnation we see the fundamental embodiment of that kingdom. If the kingdom that God was promising was his return to be one with his people, to restore them, to gather them to himself, to establish this relationship that would ultimately see a restored human race and the whole creation gathered to God in Christ, we see the substance of that in this thing called incarnation. So Jesus himself embodied the truth of the kingdom, even as he proclaimed it. And we've seen that in his proclamation of the kingdom that it had an announcement that that time was at hand. It had involved in it an invitation. If this is the time in which God is doing this work that he said he was going to do, if this is the time for the kingdom to be inaugurated and established, then Israel has a responsibility to enter into that kingdom. So an invitation goes out, a challenge to them Remember we considered Nazareth and the circumstance there where Jesus goes into the synagogue at Nazareth. And also part of the testimony to this kingdom, part of the announcing of it was the conflict that Jesus dealt with. If the kingdom is breaking in, then that means that God is becoming king, which means that God's kingship is threatening the rulers who preside over the world, both the human rulers and the super human rulers behind the human rulers. And so remember, we consider the Caesarea Philippi episode where Jesus takes his disciples there at what represented a kind of focal point of the place of habitation and dominion of the gods, the realm of the dead, that they had authority over. And there he proclaims the fact that when he establishes his kingdom, builds his church, that gate of Hades will not prevail against him. So Jesus then is proclaiming the in-breaking of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is at the center of his message. God is at last fulfilling his promises. And all of that is being laid out by the gospel writers. He is the kingdom bringer. Announcement, invitation, challenge, manifesting God's authority over the ruling powers. And as we saw, he has come to fight this great decisive battle that was at the very heart of God's promise. If his people, if the world, if the creation has been taken captive, then when Yahweh returns, he will have to fight the battle against those subjugating powers. And this is the battle that Jesus came to fight. But as we've seen, and the gospel writers show this, it was not the battle that Israel was expecting him to fight. They were expecting that he was going to rise up against Rome. That was kind of part of the messianic credential is whoever the Messiah is, when he comes, he will raise an army. He will fight like David against these oppressive powers. At that time, it would have been against Rome itself. And we saw how the Zealot movement was a kind of revolutionary movement within Israel that was targeting an inciting of a conflict with Rome that would lead to the emergence of the Messiah and the great Messianic battle, the overthrowing of Rome. So what we saw last time that we considered this two weeks ago, God had made known, Jesus was going to make known more clearly, but Yahweh was going to secure his supreme victory by submitting himself in the person of the incarnate son to all the enemies assembled against him. Remember we saw at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus proclaims there this triumph over these powers. And then immediately the text says he began to make known to his disciples that he was gonna go to Jerusalem and he was going to be put to death and rise again on the third day. So he talks about this triumph that he's going to accomplish over the powers and then he begins to talk about how he's going to be put to death by the powers. And those two things fit very tightly together and that's why I say what they couldn't understand is that in fact this victory, this defeat of the powers would come by submitting himself to the powers. He would overcome death, he would overcome this ultimate enemy of the creation and mankind by letting it do its worst to him. That was not at all what they expected. And we'll see even as we consider the cross, it kind of reaches intense expression in a mangled, emaciated, bloody, beaten man hanging on a Roman cross with a placard over his head that says, this is the king of the Jews. The greatest irony, right? Rome is killing this man and making a mockery of him. They put the placard up there to mock him. This is what happens to anyone who would claim to be king. as opposed to Caesar, and yet it was in that very way that he was winning the battle and becoming king. So that's why I wanted to look at Caesarea Philippi and then the way that transitioned into Jesus beginning to tell his disciples where this is going to lead. He's helping them to begin to understand how this is all gonna play out. So he's going to fulfill his father's will for the world and establish his kingdom, but in a way that they can't imagine, that doesn't make any sense. And so there are going to be many among the Father's covenant children in Israel who would fall short of that kingdom. Even as we read in the prophets, as we read in Malachi, that's what you see there. This is not going to go the way Israel expects. Many in Israel are going to fall short of this. And so the last dimension of Jesus' proclamation or witness to the kingdom that I want to address today is this aspect of warning. along with invitation and challenging the people and even demonstrating the power of God over the powers through this ongoing conflict with rulers, with authorities, with demonic forces, even with natural powers. You now see this last aspect, which is this issue of warning. And to put it simply, what Jesus is trying to express is the very dire consequences that will come from refusing him. If you read the Gospels, you see probably to the majority of people in Israel, Jesus was simply a curiosity. He was a wonder worker, right? People heard of healings, they heard of miracles, they heard of walking on the water, they heard of casting out demons, and they were amazed and astonished. Even when he came into Nazareth, they had heard of all the things he'd been doing in Galilee. And they said, he's here now. We can expect him to do these things here in his hometown. And Jesus knew that. And that's why he said, surely you will say to me, physician, heal yourself. What you have done throughout Galilee, do now in your hometown amongst your own people. They were expecting him to come and work the same wonders among them. So he was a wonder worker. He was a prophet. They recognized him as a prophet. But he had a strange and a baffling message that they didn't really know what to do with. And to others, certainly to the leaders in Israel, he was a false messiah. And that made him very dangerous. Because messiah means king, right? The messiah is the son of David who's coming to establish Yahweh's throne again, take the throne of Israel as king. the one in whom Yahweh would establish his own kingship, first in Israel, but ultimately, as we saw even back in Zechariah, king over all the earth. When Yahweh establishes his kingdom, he will become king over all the earth. So a messiah is a threat to the ruling powers, and a false messiah is even more of a threat because the Jews knew what happened with these messianic figures, these claimants to be the messiah. Just a generation earlier, Judas the Galilean, who many believed was the Messiah, had raised an army, and as I've mentioned, Rome crushed them, and it was a bloody crushing. Rome did not mess around with anybody who claimed to usurp their authority. They would not put up with that. And so there was a great fear that everybody following after Jesus, the popularity of Jesus, after he raises Lazarus, remember, and everyone's rallying to him, and Caiaphas says, we can't let this go on. If we don't do something about this, the Romans are gonna come, and they're gonna destroy the city and the sanctuary, or they're gonna destroy our way of life. It's better that one man dies than that the whole nation perish. So they knew what was gonna happen if word, if this movement kept growing and growing, the Romans were gonna come again. And this time it might be worse. The last time they left the priesthood and the temple and the established authorities in place in Israel, this time they might not be so fortunate. They might obliterate the whole thing. So there was great fear amongst many and they wanted to stamp him out. There were many others, including Jesus' disciples, who followed him as the Messiah, but still not really understanding what that was about. And we've seen that as well as we've gone through the Gospels. They believed he was the Messiah, but they still didn't get it. They were still thinking very much in the way that the most Israelites were. Where is the army? Where is the battle? Even John the Baptist himself became confused because Jesus' ministry wasn't looking the way he expected, right? Are you the one or should we look for another? And so Jesus found himself continually warning his hearers about the danger of missing the day of their visitation. This is a technical idea that refers to the day when Yahweh will return to Zion. We read in Luke, missing the day of your visitation, Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, if you had known even you what makes for peace, now it's hidden from your eyes. you miss the day of your visitation. That failure would bring grave consequences, not just for individual Israelites, but the nation as a whole. Many Israelites feared that Jesus' claims as Messiah and his popularity would draw Rome's ire, threaten their institutions, their well-being. But the irony was that their response to him, their rejection of him, their seeking to eradicate him, to take away that danger, that threat that would come from Rome, actually was going to bring the very thing they feared. Roman legions would march against Judea, Jerusalem, and its temple, not because Israel was promoting Jesus as king, but because they had rejected him. And I give you this John 19 citation, but that's where Pilate is going back and forth with the Jews when he's trying Jesus and presenting him publicly. And he's trying to get his head around this king thing. You're a king? How can you be a king? You don't look like a king. Where's your kingdom? Where are your followers? Where's your army? Where's your power? And Jesus is just, and he said, don't you know I have the authority to crucify you? I have the authority to release you. Well, you would have no authority if it wasn't given to you from above. And he presents him and he says, here's your king to the people of Israel. What do you want me to do with your king? Crucify him. We have no king but Caesar. Their ultimate rejection of Yahweh, the king, the king of heaven, the one king over all the earth. So they themselves do this ultimate rejection of Yahweh as king and that was going to bring this desolation. So all of the gospel writers make these warnings of Jesus a key aspect of their accounts. And what I want to talk about with the rest of our time is how much this is central in the gospel writings and we tend to miss it. And the reason is that many Christians, it's certainly a part of our American evangelical tradition to tend to read these warning passages as dealing with an end-of-the-age piracy, an end-of-the-age second coming and cataclysmic judgment that's going to come on the world. we miss the fact that Jesus is actually talking about what's going to come on the nation because of their rejection of him. So I'll give you a couple of examples here. The parable of the wise and the foolish maidens, you know, the ten virgins or whatever, however we refer to it, waiting, who are supposed to be waiting for the, you know, the bridegroom to come and they miss his coming. the parable of the talents, it has a corollary in the Luke account that we read of the minas, Luke 19, the parable of the fig tree, and even as we've seen in going through the Gospels, the way Jesus answered the question of the man on the road who said, are only a few being saved? And he said, be very, very careful. In that day you will see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob together with all the prophets seated at table in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out, right? Men will come from north, south, east and west and take their place at the table, but you will find the sons of the kingdom cast out. The first will be last and the last will be first. Well, there are lots of reasons why we tend to read these passages as end of days, final, you know, Armageddon kind of judgments, but I wanted to just point out three of them today. The first, as I say, is historical as well as biblical, and this is a very common thing, and I know it's something I harp on all the time, but it's failing to understand this issue of Israel's exile. and the fact that it continued right up to the time of Jesus' birth. Many people believe, many scholars believe, that as soon as Cyrus issued his edict in 537 and Jews began to return back to Judea, that that ended the exile. And in a sense, that did mark out that 70-year period where Jerusalem and the city were to be desolated. That's what Daniel's praying about, right? He's concerned with the city and the temple, the sanctuary. And Cyrus' edict did allow Judeans to return to Judea, to Jerusalem, and the first thing they did was rebuild the temple. It was a fairly extended process, but by 516 BC, the temple was rebuilt, and then later in the next wave, next two waves of Judeans that returned under Ezra and Nehemiah, they rebuilt the city walls and established the solidarity of Jerusalem. That's what you see happening in the book of Nehemiah, the consecrating of the city. And people say, well, there it is, the exile ended. But as I've said so many times, exile is a relational thing, not a geographical thing. If you say what caused the exile in the first place, it was covenant infidelity. That's what Daniel recognizes, right? They are in exile. Daniel's now been, he's about 70 years in Babylon. He was deported in 605. This is somewhere probably around 536, 537. So about 70 years later. And what does he ascribe this to? We have broken the covenant. We've been unfaithful. We haven't listened. We rejected your prophets. We haven't followed you. It was Israel's covenant unfaithfulness that had Yahweh depart from his sanctuary and then he brought the Babylonians against the city and they destroyed the city and the temple. It was all made desolate because of relational infidelity. And so yes, geographically they were back and yes, they had rebuilt the temple and later the city, but the presence of God was conspicuously absent. Yahweh never returned to Jerusalem. He promised he was going to, and that's what we're reading in the prophets, the promise of his return. But it never happened throughout those intervening 500 years. So when Jesus is born, you still have an empty temple. No Shekinah in the Holy of Holies, no presence of God. So it is a relational thing, and the Jews recognized that until Their exile would not end until Yahweh returned and cleansed them and forgave them, liberated them from this captivating power, which was ultimately their enslavement to their unfaithfulness. They were a wayward people in their hearts. He would have to give them a new heart. But when he came and he did that work, then their exile would end. Then he would be in the midst of his people. He would again dwell on Mount Zion. He would be their God, they would be his people. So until the covenant renewal came, until forgiveness of sin came, until the cleansing of all of this desolation and unrighteousness, until that happened, they remained in exile wherever they were geographically. So that becomes a key issue in even how we read the gospel accounts. And because the prophets also indicated that not only was Yahweh going to have to return before the exile would end, but he would accomplish that renewing, restoring, and gathering work in connection with the Messianic servant. Jesus knew he was that one. At least from the time of his baptism, as we saw, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. the descending of the spirit, that's the anointing. I think the version that you read from Daniel referred to the anointed one, right? Well, that's Mashiach, that's the messianic figure. Jesus knew that he was that one, and so he's confronting his Israelite countrymen with the truth that his presence was the indication of Yahweh's return. Think even of John the Baptist. John is the one who heralds Yahweh's return to Zion. If John is the forerunner, then the one that he points to, Jesus of Nazareth, is the Messiah, right? And somehow in that is Yahweh's return to Zion. Yahweh is returning and therefore their obligation to receive him and embrace his restorative work as he is establishing his kingdom now in the son of David. And as I say here, that's what it meant for Israel to repent and believe the good news. It had nothing to do with them going to heaven when they died. It had to do with them turning from their way of thinking and seeing that this is how God was doing this restoring working connection with his messianic servant. That was the good news. Yahweh is returning, his kingdom is at hand, and it was news of that kingdom that they were to embrace. So failing to understand that dynamic causes us to read a lot of these judgment passages as end-of-the-age kinds of things. And it's natural for us to want to do that because when we read these things about coming and judgment and all of that, Well, we're on this side of the Christ event, so we're not thinking about that sort of thing, right? We're thinking in terms of, oh, this is a future coming, this is a second coming. These are future judgments way out there. That leads to this second reason why we tend to do this, and this has to do with this concept of Jesus coming, the coming of the Messiah. As I say, we tend to always view these coming passages as pointing to a future coming because he's already come, right? From our vantage point as we read the scriptures, there is no coming except a second coming. He's already come. But Jesus is speaking to Jewish contemporaries. He's not speaking to us, and he didn't write any of this, but the gospel writers are recording his ministration, his words, his deeds. He's doing all of this and speaking in this way to an Israelite audience. And they had no notion of two comings, a first coming and a second coming. The scriptures talk about Yahweh's return, right? One coming. The coming is going to be Yahweh's return to put all things right. They're not thinking in terms of two comings. So when we put it in the scriptural context, when we look at how Jesus' audience would have understood what he was talking about, there are really two distinct ways in which we understand this notion of his coming. The first is his coming to Israel as the Messianic Servant's son through whom Yahweh is returning to Zion. This again is John the forerunner announcing Yahweh's return. How? In connection with the Messianic Servant. And I've given you a couple of citations here where you see that. The second is the one that a lot of Christians tend to miss, which is coming as Jesus' vindication and exaltation of as king at the right hand of God following his triumph. Let's look at these two passages real quickly. They're short, but the Matthew 26 passage. This is Jesus at his trial before Caiaphas. And Caiaphas has asked him, if you're the Messiah, or are you the Messiah? He says, what's this we hear about you tearing down the temple and rebuilding it in three days? What's that all about? And are you the Messiah? Are you the Messiah? Matthew 26, verse 59. Now the chief priests and the whole council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus in order to put him to death. And they did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on, two came forward and said, this man stated, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. Remember, that's John 2. And the high priest stood up and said, do you make no answer? What is it that these men are testifying against you? But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said, I adjure you by the living God. Tell us whether you are the Messiah. the Son of God. And Jesus said to him, you have said it. Nevertheless, I tell you hereafter, hereafter, you will see the Son of Man, Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power coming on the clouds of heaven. We say, yeah, he's saying at the end of the age, he's going to come from heaven on the clouds of heaven. He's going to come back at the end of the age. Well this is Jesus is citing from Daniel 7 flip over to Daniel 7. This was a very important passage in the first century. This was very much at the center of the Jews thinking as they were contemplating the coming of the Messiah and could this be the time. This was very much understood as a messianic passage. Remember again the context of Daniel. He's been in Babylon for 70 some years. He's wondering when is the kingdom of God. When is Yahweh going to return. When are you going to restore the glory of the kingdom. When are you going to do these things you promised. And what you see at the beginning of Daniel 7 is the unfolding of a vision of four different beasts. There are four great beasts who represent Babylon Medo-Persia Greece and then Rome. four great kingdoms that are to come. And at the end of that time, those beasts will be overcome, and then Yahweh will establish his own kingdom in one who is to come. Their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life is granted to them for an appointed time. But this is how Yahweh's kingdom is going to be established. These beasts will be crushed. But verse 13 of Daniel 7, I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming. Coming to the earth from heaven, no, coming up to the ancient of days. And he was presented before him and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all people's nations Men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away. His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed." And I'll stop with that, but you can read the whole section in the interpretation that comes to Daniel of what this is about. But this is what Jesus is citing. He's being asked, are you the Messiah, the Son of God? Are you this promised one who is to come? you will see, I have told you and henceforth from this time, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power coming on the clouds of heaven. This is being presented to the ancient of days. And that's why I say the second aspect of Jesus coming that he speaks of is his own vindication. What Jesus is saying to Caiaphas is you don't believe, you don't get it, you don't understand, but I will be vindicated. I will be vindicated, and all Israel will know. When God does what he's going to do, I will be vindicated as the one who has spoken the truth, as the one who has accomplished what Yahweh promised he was gonna do. When you see me coming, going, you know, going on the clouds of heaven, being presented to the Ancient of Days, and taking my place on Yahweh's throne, then you will know. And that's why Caiaphas rips his thing and says, blasphemy! Well, let's put him to death. What was the blasphemy? Not claiming to be the Messiah. There were lots of people who claimed to be the Messiah. The blasphemy was that I will sit with Yahweh on his throne. In a sense, making himself one with Yahweh. Well, this was a part of what the rabbis had debated about Daniel. Are there two thrones? How can a man, a son of man be seated on Yahweh's throne? But that's what Jesus is citing from. So these coming passages that we want to read as a second coming, you know, Jesus coming at the end of the age to sit on his throne, you know, and, and, and have the great white throne judgment and go into the tribunal or, you know, come out of the tribulation or whatever. That's not what these are about. coming as the one who is the messianic servant in whom Yahweh comes, Yahweh returns to Zion, and then being presented to Yahweh, coming to Yahweh to receive his enthronement and his vindication at the right hand of God. Now as I say in the notes, and this is important because people might hear this and say, oh, you don't believe in a second coming. No, that's not the case. The scripture clearly teaches what we refer to as a second coming, but it's a parousia. It's not Jesus flying back from heaven at the end of the age. It's an appearing, a being made manifest. The idea of parousia is a presentation, a being alongside in the sense of being manifestly present. Jesus hasn't gone anywhere, we just can't see him with our eyes. He's not gone off to a distant place called heaven to come back from that distant place at the end of his age, at the end of the age. This will just be him being revealed, disclosed, being seen, being made manifest at the end of the age. And as I mentioned, the prophets only speak of one coming, and it's Yahweh who's going to come in connection with the Messianic servant, but it's Yahweh who is coming. That's the lens through which the Israelites heard Jesus' words. They weren't thinking of a second coming. And what they needed to understand was that Yahweh had now indeed returned, not in a Shekinah in the Holy of Holies, and not simply in a symbolic way through the manifesting of powerful works through the power of the Spirit in the prophets, but he had returned in the incarnate Son. And also, secondly, that this kingdom that Yahweh was establishing was going to be established and bear its fruit in an extended process. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, right, which is the smallest of the seeds. But when it's fully grown, the birds can come and make their nest in its branches. This kingdom is not coming all at once. It's going to be inaugurated and established, but it will bear its fruitfulness. It's like leaven that a woman sews in a lump of dough. The leaven goes in, but now it begins to do its leavening work, the chemical action of the leavening of the lump. And Jesus says, that's how the kingdom of God works. So already, but not yet. They needed to understand Yahweh had returned, not in the way they expected. He was establishing his kingdom, not in the way they expected. But the idea of two separate comings of Yahweh were not in the cards, and they were not expecting two comings in that way. And then the last thing I want to consider, and this was the reason for reading the Daniel 9 context, is that some of these parables and teachings of Jesus that we've tended to interpret as second coming passages are closely tied to the Olivet Discourse, which all three of the synoptic writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke record. That's Jesus' Discourse on the Mount of Olives. And the proximity of some of these parables and sayings to that teaching has caused people to view them as second coming passages because we, at least in our culture, tend to naturally view the Olivet Discourse as a second coming passage. If you're familiar with the Matthew 24 and Mark 13, I think it's Luke 21, But as I say here, when we read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three of the synoptics together, read those three accounts of the Olivet Discourse together, it becomes clear that primarily, if not solely, what Jesus is referring to is what's coming in 70 AD, the Roman war, the Jewish wars that are gonna culminate with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. And really, it ought to be evident at the outset when you consider just the way in which Jesus introduces this. They're coming out of the temple and they're marveling. Remember, Herod had spent many decades now aggrandizing the temple. And he did that partly because he was trying to win the Jews' favor. The Herods were not regarded by the Jews as legitimate kings. They were Edomians. They were descendants of Esau. They were Edomites, right? They were not sons of David. The Roman powers had put them on the throne as local authorities, but the Jews didn't regard them that way. Herod had the title King of the Jews, but the Jews hated that. But Herod, part of trying to win their favor was pouring a lot of money and energy into glorifying, aggrandizing the temple. Israel's king was very much associated with the temple and its ministration. So he's trying to win the people over. Well, as they're walking out, the disciples are pointing to all of the glory of this temple and its buildings. And Jesus says, I tell you, not one stone will be left upon another that will not be thrown down. Look at the beginning of Matthew 24. This is what Matthew's version of the Olivet Discourse. Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when his disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to him. And he answered and said to them, do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down. And as he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, they came to him and said, tell us, when will these things be? What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? They're asking three closely related questions, but all grounded in what Jesus has just told them. This temple is going away. Just even the way that Jesus provokes their questions and then the way that he answers their questions show us that primarily, at least, if not entirely, what he has in mind is what's coming at the hand of the Romans. And the reason for Daniel 9 is the allusions in these accounts, Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus talks about when you see the abomination standing where it ought not. Well, this is drawn from Daniel chapter 9. And if you go back to that, Daniel 9 is often in our culture, certainly in dispensational circles, it tends to be read as the end of Daniel 9 that what the angel tells him, this is about tribulation stuff, this is about a rebuilt temple, this is about the Antichrist, this is about a covenant with Israel with the Antichrist that lasts for three and a half years and then Antichrist breaks the treaty, right? And then all hell breaks loose and then we have the Great Tribulation and then everything, you know, is destroyed. This is read as an end of time passage, but that's not the case. What is Daniel doing? He's in Babylon. He sees in Jeremiah's writing, this is in I think chapter 29 of Jeremiah, 70 years have been decreed for Jerusalem's desolation. And Daniel's doing the math and he's saying that period of time has elapsed. Babylon was going to desolate the city and the temple. Jeremiah revealed that, that's happened. Now Babylon has been conquered. The Persians are in control. And Cyrus has issued a decree for the people to return. But where is this? You said 70 years. And the angel says, when you first began to ask the Lord, The issue went out from him for me to come to you. You didn't have to beg him or he sent me to give you discernment to make you understand this. The 70 is actually 77's from the issuing of a decree to rebuild the city that happened under Artaxerxes. But the point is is that that's what's being addressed here is the issue of exile and desolation of Jerusalem and its temple. Read again in chapter nine, and you see that he's burdened for what? The temple and the city. And look, and let's pick this up at verse 15. And now, O Lord, our God, who has brought your people out of the land of Egypt. You brought us out of exile before, and you promised through your prophet Isaiah a second exodus, that you would again arise and end our exile. That's what he's dealing with, is the exile of the covenant house of Israel. You brought us out with a mighty hand and you've made a name for yourself, even as it is to this day. You have been faithful, you have upheld the truth, even though we have been wicked. And now in accordance with all of your faithful acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from Jerusalem, your holy mountain. It's because of us and our iniquities that Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach. Listen to the prayer of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, let your face shine on your desolate sanctuary." That's what he's concerned with. Open your eyes, see our desolations and the city which is called by your name. Do this restorative work that you have promised. So that's what the angel is coming to answer. And the angel is saying this process is going to occur through 77's. There will be 7 7's and 62 7's. 7 7's that will basically amount to the rebuilding of the temple. and then you have the restoring of the city, and then you have that being the city rebuilt, you know, in a time, but in a time of oppression and difficulty. That's the 62 sevens. You are to know and discern from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to Messiah the Prince, This is the leader, the one who will go before. There will be seven weeks and 62 weeks. It will be built again with plaza and moat, but in times of distress. And even after the city was built, it was in times of distress and all the ensuing centuries were times of distress. Because it went from Medo-Persia to Greece and then to the Seleucids and then to the Romans. Yes, it's all rebuilt, but in times of distress. then after the 62 weeks, Messiah will be cut off and have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will come with a flood. See, Daniel is saying, when are you going to do this restoring of the city and the sanctuary? And God says it will be rebuilt in the context of this 69 sevens, but then it's going to be destroyed. Rebuilt to be destroyed. But this issue, the people of the prince who is to come, people say, oh, that's this revived Roman empire, right? The Antichrist is the prince who's to come, and so it's his people who are gonna destroy the city and the sanctuary. Who is the prince in this context? Messiah the prince. After the 62 weeks, Messiah the prince will be cut off, and the people of the prince will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will come with a flood. Even to the end, war, desolations are determined. Who are the people of the prince? The people of Israel. How did they destroy the city and the sanctuary? And he, this prince, In Aeneas' Make Affirm Covenant, the idea is he will strengthen or make fortuitous the covenant. Remember, Israel was waiting for the renewal of the covenant, the renewing of the covenant relationship. This one will fortify or make fortuitous the covenant. with many for one week, but in the middle of that he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering as himself the sacrifice. And on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate." There's the abomination of desolation that Jesus is referring to. That's why it comes back to Daniel 9. That's how his disciples would have heard him when he talks about, when you see the abomination of desolation, then flee Judea, go, you know, don't remain in the city. And how blessed are those who are not nursing or with babies at that time, right? For that time of distress, never before known, never again to be reproduced. Well, how does this work out? The people of the prince destroy the city and the sanctuary. How do they do it? On the wings of their abominations comes one who makes desolate. Their abominations are, they fly in, as it were, on the wings of their abominations. They're defiling their degradation of God's sanctuary and his covenant with them. On the wings of their abomination comes one who will make desolate. The people of Israel don't themselves, by their own hands, destroy the city and the sanctuary, but they do it in that the Romans come and the Romans do it. But why do the Romans do it? If they do this in the green tree, what will they do in the dry? And if you read again, and I won't take the time for the sake of it today, but go back and read these Olivet discourse accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And again, in Luke it says, you will see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, right? That's what's coming. That's what's coming. The abomination of desolation, Jerusalem surrounded by armies. You did not know the day of your visitation. So part of this coming of the son of man, when Jesus says to Caiaphas, Henceforth you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven seated at the right hand of power. When God exalts me to his right hand, when he shows me to be the Messiah, when he shows me to be the one who has accomplished All that he promised, that will be the positive side of my vindication. The negative side is all of the warnings of judgment and destruction that I brought to you will come upon you. And when that happens, then you will know your God has indeed vindicated me. He has proven me to be true. So this is what Jesus is warning them about, and this is what the gospel writers are concerned to show, including even in the Olivet Discourse. This all comes to its head, even in that Luke context, as we saw, Calvary drawing near, Jesus riding into Jerusalem. Remember, that's a symbolic enactment of Zechariah 9, Behold, Zion, your king comes to you, mounted on the foal of a donkey, humble. He comes to establish his kingdom. Jesus is symbolizing that return of Yahweh to Zion as her king, to again, take his place. Remember, the temple was the place of Yahweh's enthronement. He's riding into the city, testifying that this is Yahweh's return, establishing his kingship. And what does he do? He goes into the temple and he pronounces its condemnation. this is all going to go away. So that's the way that we need to understand what came to the people of Israel in terms of the outcome of the 70 AD event. And that doesn't mean that that's the end of history altogether. You know, we're not saying there is nothing beyond 70 AD, but that was the final closing of the book on the Israelite history. After the crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah, the Jews wanted to ignore all of that and continue on with their sacrifices, continue on with the temple ministration. And when God destroyed it all, there was no going forward. And Judaism to this day is not mosaic Judaism. It's a different religion, right? Even the rabbis admit that. So God said, I have fulfilled all that I was going to fulfill. And even if you don't get it, you're not going to be permitted to live in the former order of things because it is passed away. The old is passed away. Behold, new things has come. And we don't put new wine into old wineskins, and we don't sew a new patch onto old garments. So this is a monumental change. The return of the Lord to put all things right doesn't mean just the reviving of the Israelite economy. And when we live in the hope of a day when the temple will be rebuilt and we'll have the sacrificial system again and we'll have Jesus sitting on the throne in Jerusalem, And all of that is to miss the nature of this transformative fulfillment. Christ is already king. All authority in heaven and earth is his. We're not waiting for him to become king. We're waiting for the full unveiling of him and his kingship at the parousia, when every knee will bow and every tongue confess, right? So I wanted to deal with that last aspect of warning because that becomes kind of the pinnacle of Jesus' announcement of the kingdom and what it will mean for those who miss the coming of the kingdom with him at the very center of it. Next time then, Lord willing, we'll move to the Calvary episode, beginning with the upper room and talk about how now all this comes to its climax. Jesus has been manifesting the reality of the kingdom. Now he's going to inaugurate it. Let me close then in prayer. Father, I know probably like most times, there's a lot here to consider. And maybe some of this is stuff that we haven't previously considered, but I pray that it would at least challenge us to recognize how crucially important it is to understand Jesus the Messiah through the lens of the people of Israel, the Israelite history, the salvation history that is given to us in Israel scriptures. For Jesus came to that people defined by that history and those truths and that covenant and those scriptures. And he labored to cause them to see that he was indeed the one that all the scriptures had testified of, all the scriptures had promised. But both in his person and in his instruction and certainly in his kingdom bringing work, it was not at all what the people of Israel expected. They were looking for a different sort of Messiah. Father, I fear far too often we are guilty of the same thing, in that we tend to want to read the Gospels and read the Christ event, even read the cross of Christ through the lens of some perspective that is separate from the Scripture's own perspective. And we end up with a Jesus of the gospel tracts or a Jesus who is very much styled to our personal concerns, the times in which we live, our personal interests. A Jesus whose work is to get us out of heaven or out of hell so that we can go to heaven. A Jesus who perhaps is a social worker. a Jesus who is perhaps a genie, a Jesus who perhaps sits on a throne up in heaven, waving his hand over this earth. I pray, Father, that we would, by the grace and goodness and leading of your spirit, come more thoroughly to know the Jesus of the scriptures, the Messiah who is yes and amen, the Messiah in whom all of the truth of the living God and his purposes are embodied and fully manifest. Father, may we be truly a Christian people, Jesus people, people who are defined by him, who walk in the light of his life, who walk in that truth, and may we be testifiers of him in truth. Father, every generation has faced its challenges of confusion and distortion and deception, and we're no different. But in many ways, we are far more culpable because most of the Christians of church history were not able to read. And even if they could read, they did not have Bibles in their hands. And they were entirely dependent on the scholars and the priests and the leaders who would tell them what the scripture said and what it meant to be a faithful people, what it meant to be Christians who know the God of the Bible. We are not such ones. We have been given great privilege And you have given to us through the scriptures and through all the resources available to us, everything that is needful to know you in truth. And so Father, even as your spirit leads us, we pray that we will continue to seek his leading and we will continue to seek a more dependent and a humble heart before him. Lead us into all truth. As Jesus said, it is the truth that sets us free. Help us to be faithful disciples, faithful witnesses, faithful stewards of this good news of Christ and his kingdom. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.