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Episodes
Weekly sermons and Bible studies led by a retired pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Episodes
Monday Dec 21, 2020
Monday Dec 21, 2020
Last week we heard God’s primary message to His people through Malachi: “I have loved you,” says the Lord (Malachi 1:2). God hates sin, but he still loves sinners. God uses the example of His own people of Israel, the line of Jacob, through whom He has been working out His plan for salvation, for them and for the whole world. This was happening in spite of their sin and rebellion against Him. Read Malachi 3:6-7. The Lord does not change, and He will not “consume” His people completely. The Jewish nation would continue, so that the plan of salvation could be completed for all nations. The Savior will come from the Jews, but He will be the Savior of all peoples. Note the strong emphasis on this in Malachi 1:5,11,14. God’s Name will be great among the nations, reaching everywhere, from the rising of the sun to its setting.
That is also the message of the Messiah, Jesus, for us in the New Testament. God hates sin, but He still loves sinful people. Our situation would be hopeless without Him and His saving work for us, while we were still sinners. Read Romans 5:6-11. Note how we are called “still weak," “ungodly," “still sinners," “enemies” who needed to be “reconciled” to God, and Jesus still dies for us in that condition, so that we might be saved through Him.
God loves sinners. Yet He also knows that He needs to keep calling His people to repentance, even 400 years before Jesus came. Recognize your own sins, and “Return to Me,” says the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of all, including all the many angels and the stars of the heavens and all things (Malachi 3:7). God speaks in Old Testament terms, with Old Testament standards. This is hard for us to understand, since we are not as familiar with the Old Testament and are actually free from some of these standards because of Jesus and the New Covenant. Still, as we listen we need to think of parallels - ways we are also called to repentance for our sins. A call to repentance is a key part of the New Testament, too.
For the Jews, the sacrificial system given to them by God was important for keeping them in relationship with God and His forgiveness, and prepared the way for Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice for sins on the cross. People were to offer “firstfruits” in response to God - the first and the best, for the Lord - not the last, the leftovers, and the worst. See the story in Exodus 12: 5,7,8,13-15 of a lamb “without blemish” to be sacrificed by the Jewish families. The blood of the lamb marked them to be rescued from the death that came to Egyptian families, so that they would be released by the Egyptians from slavery. They were to eat some of the lamb themselves, and repeat this sacrifice every year, as a memorial to God’s great rescue event for them.
This became a pattern for a whole system of Old Testament sacrifices. Notice how the animals sacrificed were to be without blemish, as described in Leviticus 22:19-23 and Deuteronomy 15:21, for example. This was in preparation for the perfect sacrifice of the perfect Jesus, who was the perfect Lamb of God, “without blemish or spot,” though He carried our sins to pay for them as He died for us on the cross. See 1 Peter 1:18-19.
The Old Testament sacrificial system also provided support for the Jewish tribe of Levi. those who would be priests and other workers carrying out these sacrifices and other work and rituals on behalf of God’s people. They could eat some of what was donated and sacrificed, as God directed. Read Exodus 23:16,19, where giving the first and the best of one’s crops and other bounty was emphasized. This food, etc., was stored at the temple in Jerusalem for the use of the Levites.
This system had broken down in the days of Malachi. Read Malachi 1:6-14. People were blamed for bringing to the Lord unworthy animals and produce as sacrifices, and the priests were especially blamed for allowing and accepting and sacrificing what was unacceptable. They set bad examples and taught and permitted the opposite of what God had told His people in Old Testament Scriptures. They made all sorts of excuses and did not even give the common respect to God which should have been given by a son to a father, or a servant to a master, or honor to a governor. By such unworthy gifts, they were despising the Lord’s Name and the Lord Himself. They were desecrating the Lord’s table, the altar of God’s presence. There was general lack of respect and care for the worship of God - weariness and snorting at the things of God. See an earlier example of this with the sons of Eli in 1 Samuel 2:12-17 and 27-29,34, and what happened to them.
As we hear all this, can we think of ways the same sorts of things, in New Testament terms, might be happening among us today? Do people turn up their nose at God and worship of Him? They say that they can worship God out hiking on a beautiful day or on the golf course or exercising or all the other things that become a substitute for worship time; but do they ever really think much about God’s Word and Sacraments, this way?
How often do we offer God and others less than our best or not much of anything at all? Do we become weary of our Christian life and practice? Do we just go through the motions? Do we get upset at the tight policy we have about who can receive Communion at the Lord’s table, though we are simply trying to follow Scripture? Think of your own examples, and you will realize that we, too, are all sinners who need repentance and God’s forgiveness. How good it is that God still loves sinners, including us, even in our struggles and the pull to do just as so many others do - what we want and not always what God wants. We need to keep hearing what God says, through Malachi, for our own spiritual good.
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
We began with prayer and then looked at the first of a series of statements, questions, and answers that the prophet Malachi used in presenting God’s Word to the people of Jerusalem, as inspired by the Lord. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”(Malachi 1:2). God often speaks of His love for His people; but the skeptical, maybe even sarcastic question of many of the Israelites may seem surprising to us. (Or maybe not. Remember that we are called to think about what our own response might be today to God. Do we also sometimes wonder if He really cares about us and loves us, especially if we have been going through rough times, as many of the Jews had been, after their return from captivity in Babylon?)
Remember also that what is said is in Old Testament terms. The Savior, Jesus, had not yet come. We might have expected something like the words of Hosea 11:1-5,8-9. Read how God pictures Himself as a loving parent, caring for His child, rescuing him from Egypt and helping him, though that child was often rebellious.
That, in fact, is the story of God’s people of Israel in the Old Testament. An old poem says, “How odd of God to choose the Jews.” Read Deuteronomy 7:6-8 and 9:4-7 and 10:14-22 to see that God did not choose the Jews because they were more numerous and powerful than others, or because they were better or more righteous than others and deserved to be this special people, but simply because of His mercy and love for them.
This choice was also not just for their benefit, but that through their nation would come the Savior for the whole world - an Offspring through Whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. See the promise to Abraham, when he was called to be the father of the Jewish nation in Genesis 12:1-3. The promise is repeated in Genesis 22:17-18, with the prediction that the Lord will provide His own Offspring, His only Son, as a sacrifice for the benefit of all nations. The promise is repeated again to Jacob in Genesis 28:14 and other places. God’s plan of salvation would be through a Jewish Savior for all people, and God therefore, in love for the Jews and for the world, would keep that nation going, so that the Savior could come.
In Malachi 1:2-5, God then focuses upon just one part of that salvation history, the story of Jacob and Esau, but does so in a surprising and almost disturbing way. “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert” never to be fully restored. We think of God as a God of love, as he is. What does God mean, then, when He says that He hated Esau? Scholars call this a Hebrew way of talking, with no gray areas, only contrasting black and white, to make a point.
When you read through the story of Jacob and Esau, you find that this simply means, to begin with, that God in His wisdom did not choose to bring the line of the promised Savior through the oldest son, Esau, as might be expected, but through the younger son, Jacob. This was predicted while the two boys, twins, were still in the womb. Read Genesis 25:21-26. Neither boy was perfect. Esau despised and was willing to sell his birthright privilege as the oldest son to his brother, just for some food (Genesis 25:29-34). Jacob was willing to trick his father and get the primary blessing from him by deception, pretending to be Esau (Genesis 27). Neither son “deserved” the primary blessing, but it was given, by undeserved love and favor, to Jacob. Esau was not really “hated” but Jacob, not Esau, and his descendants received the special privilege and blessing of being the chosen people from whom the Savior would come.
This does not mean that Esau was cut off from God’s help and blessing. Esau hated Jacob for a while, but they were later reconciled, and Esau offered to help Jacob. Later on, God told the Jews to give special privileges and respect to Esau’s descendants, the Edomites, in Deuteronomy 2:1-6. Sadly, the Edomites rejected the true God and became very wicked and extreme enemies of God’s people, and later on warnings were given by a number of Old Testament prophets that the Edomites faced destruction if they kept on resisting God without repentance. See Psalm 137:7, Amos 1:11-12, and Jeremiah 49:6-11, as examples.
Judgment finally did fall on the Edomites. Other history tells us that between 550 and 400 BC, Arab peoples forced the Edomites from their lands, never to return again as a nation. This is probably what is described in Malachi 1:3-5. It happened, though, not because God literally hated Esau and his descendants, but because of their continual sin and rejection of God and his mercy.
There are other examples of this love/hate language in the Scriptures, as a sharp contrast. In Genesis 29, Jacob is deceived into marrying the wrong woman. He chooses to marry a second wife, too. (The Bible describes this, but does not show approval, and there is always trouble when we see examples of polygamy and other immorality.) Jacob loves his second wife, Rachel, more than his first wife (Genesis 29:30). In the very next verse, we hear that “the Lord saw that Leah was hated.” We don’t know if Leah was really “hated” in our sense of the word. All we know is that Rachel was loved more. This passage goes on to tell us that Jacob had several more children through Leah, including Judah. It was through this son of Jacob that the line of the promise of the Savior ran. In spite of messy, sinful human beings, God continued His loving plan of salvation, with His people and sometimes in spite of them.
Here is one more example of this unusual use of the word “hate”, from Jesus Himself. Read Luke 14:25-26. Read this in light of Matthew 10:34-37. Does Jesus really want us to hate our family members and even our own lives? Clearly not, based upon many other Scriptures that teach us to love one another, including and especially our family. See Ephesians 5:25,28,33; 6:1-2; 1 John 3:1-2; and on and on, including Jesus’ example with His mother in John 19:25-27. What Jesus means is that we are to love Him more than we love family (Matthew 10:37). If it is a question of doing what our family wants or what God wants, “We ought to obey God, rather than man” (Acts 5:27-29 and Acts 4:17-20).
(I dwell on this because in my ministry I have seen some extreme cultic groups that have tried to control people, by cutting them off from their family and allowing them only to listen to fellow members of their cult. They quote Luke 14:26, distorting the context of the whole of the Scriptures, in trying to isolate people and make people hate their families and stick with false, cultic ideas. Rather, we should let Scripture help us interpret Scripture.)
Finally, Paul quotes Malachi 1:2,3 in Romans 9:13, in the New Testament. This passage could use lots of study. You will see, though, that Paul uses this and the story of Jacob and Esau to show that people are not saved by their race or bloodline, but by being “children of the promise” through faith in Jesus by the mercy and love of God. “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,” Paul says (Romans 9:6-13).
He agonizes, as a Jew, over the fact that many of his fellow Jews are part of God’s Old Testament chosen people and yet are rejecting the Savior, Jesus, Who came to save them and the whole world (Romans 9:1-5, 31-10:4). Paul emphasizes that people will be saved not by their race, even as Jews, or by their own efforts, but by being brought to faith by the grace of God and to see and know the love of God through God’s plan and will, ultimately carried out through Jesus (9:30-10:4). It is “not because of works, but because of Him who calls... So then, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, Who has mercy” (9:11,16).
We still may have questions about all this. Paul raises several and responds to them all. Has the Word of God failed? (9:6) No, it still saves, though people can resist its clear message. “Is there injustice on God’s part? Why does He find fault?” (9:14,19) Ultimately, Paul says, Who are we to challenge the Almighty God and His plan for mercy and love, centered in Jesus? Can the clay challenge the Potter or the molded its Molder? (9:20-21)
We are grateful to live in New Testament times, where we can look to Jesus our Savior and the certainty we have in Him and what He has done for us. We listen to Gospel promises like John 3:16, Romans 5:6-8, Romans 8:32-35, 1 John 4:11,16, and so many more. We simply trust God and His life-giving Word in the whole Bible, but especially in Jesus.
Martin Franzmann has written, in his commentary on Romans 9, page 172: “The Word of God, then, creates the people of God and defines the people of God. The Lord spoke, and His will was done... What Paul is saying is this: If you would know where Israel is, look where the promise is, not at Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael, (and all the) tawdry stories of the flesh of man at work. The will of God in sovereign freedom overrules the fleshly will of man; God creates His Israel as He wills.”
Monday Dec 07, 2020
Monday Dec 07, 2020
We began this study with prayer, as always, and with a short history of the period of time in which Malachi was a prophet and other Scriptures you can read to get more background. If you were with us in the Daniel study, you know that the leaders of the Medo-Persian Empire took over Babylon and the Babylonian Empire in 539 BC. These new, largely Persian leaders quickly decided to do the opposite of the Babylonian approach to conquered peoples. The Persians allowed people, including Jews who had been carried away into captivity for 70 years, to begin to return home to their own countries and rebuild and even worship their own gods.
Some Jews started to return in 537 or 536 BC and were able to get resettled in Israel and soon built an altar and began again some of the Old Testament animal sacrifices and festivals. Opposition came, though, from the people of Samaria and other ethnic groups, who were not happy with these returning Jews and put many barriers in their way. Most rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple there, very important for Jewish worship, stopped until 520 BC. The Lord then raised up the prophet Haggai to call the Jews to get busy with rebuilding the temple, and raised up the prophet Zechariah to encourage the people to keep rebuilding and get the temple rededicated to the one true God. He also spoke of many warnings and promises for the future. (Haggai and Zechariah are the books of Scripture just before Malachi.)
The temple was finally finished in 515 BC, with a building similar to but much simpler than the great temple of Solomon. Temple rituals began again and Passover was celebrated again, remembering God’s rescue of His people from slavery in Egypt, long before.
We know little more about what happened in Israel until around 464 BC. We have one Biblical book, the story of Esther, a Jewish woman who becomes the wife of a Persian king and helped protect Jewish people in Persia from their enemies. This story happened some time in the 480’s-460’s BC, and is very unusual, in that God is never directly mentioned in the book. It is clear, though, that God continued to care about and protect the Jews and kept them going as a people. You can find the book of Esther earlier in the Old Testament.
Around 466-464 BC, Ezra, a Jewish scribe and expert in the Law of God, was allowed to go to Israel, with the support of Persians, along with some other leaders and religious teachers. He found things to be a mess, with the people far from God’s will and in need of much spiritual help and teaching from God’s Word. Ezra worked especially on spiritual reform, but it was not until 444 BC that Nehemiah, a Jewish man who served the Persian king, was allowed to go to Israel, as governor of that Persian province.
Nehemiah was an aggressive leader in civic and political affairs. Jews had been back in Israel for nearly 100 years, and still the walls of Jerusalem had not been rebuilt, and the people were “in great trouble and shame” (Nehemiah 1:3). Nehemiah pulled the people together, and in 52 days, in spite of opposition from neighboring peoples, the walls were rebuilt and the gates of the city repaired. Clearly this work “had been accomplished with the help of our God,” Nehemiah said (Nehemiah 6:15-16).
Nehemiah remained in Jerusalem as an effective leader until 432 BC, when he returned to Persia. He did return later, but things had gone downhill again for the Jewish people, and they had fallen back into bad religious and moral practices. (You can read more about all this in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, just before the book of Esther, and located a few books before the Psalms, in the Old Testament.)
It was around this time, 430 BC or a little before or after, that the prophet Malachi did his work, as directed by God, and preached and wrote to his people. His writing raises many of the same concerns that Ezra and especially Nehemiah had. It has very strong Law, but also hope in God’s love for His people and for the future.
We know nothing about Malachi, other than what is in this short book. The name “Malachi” means “my messenger." Malachi is clearly a messenger from God, and most think that Malachi was his name, reflecting his calling from God. Malachi is an important book, as it is the last book of prophecy in the Old Testament. There had been a prophecy in Amos 8:11-12 that said, “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land - not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the Word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.” The people still had what was revealed in the Old Testament, but nothing new; and they often forgot or neglected what God had already given them.
400 years passed, then, without another true prophet of God, from the time of Malachi until the time of Christ and those preparing His way. Malachi is therefore an important link between the Old and New Testaments. There were other writings in this in-between time, including some known as the Apocryphal Books, which some listened to and read; but the Jews knew that these were not truly God’s Word, and they were not ever included in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Turn to Malachi 1:1, which begins, “The oracle of the Word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.” The word “oracle” can mean a message, but it literally means “a burden." Malachi has the heavy burden, the heavy responsibility, of proclaiming the Law of God - to call people to see their sins and wrongdoing against God and the great need for repentance; but he also had the great burden of clearly proclaiming the Good News of God’s love to this troubled and weary people, not eager to listen.
Malachi is only 4 chapters, with 55 total verses, but in it are a series of statements and 22 questions, which often show the skeptical and even sarcastic attitudes of many of God’s people. You can see how this works by just looking at the first part of Malachi 1:2: “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” It is a skeptical, challenging question from the people. Another example is in verses 6-7, when God tells the priests, “You despise My Name.” They respond, “How have we despised your name? How have we polluted you?”
As we go through Malachi, we will hear things that are hard to understand. We will also hear things that seem irrelevant to us, since they talk about Old Testament Law, some of which is no longer binding upon us as we live under then new covenant, the New Testament. But as we hear the statements and questions, we need to think about whether we too respond to God as the these Old Testament people did and need repentance and a new focus on God’s real love for us, as well.
I will quote again from Walter R. Roehrs, who wrote an earlier Concordia Old Testament commentary: “A church in which people’s worship, their marriages, and their morals are all in perfect order, a church which can boast of a live sense of the presence of God in all aspects of human life, a church which feels no need of a returning Elijah to lead its members to repentance and reconciliation - such a church may dispense with Malachi. The rest of us will find his oracle with its strong Gospel and its unsparing exposure of our sins, a disquieting and a salutary word, a gift from Him to Whom all the prophets testify.”
Monday Nov 30, 2020
Monday Nov 30, 2020
I recently read Acts Chapter 9, including verse 31, “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord” (NIV). Shouldn’t the church always be a place of peace? What is this about the church enjoying only “a time of peace”?
It is true that in Christ our Savior we enjoy “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding” and which “guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). We also have “peace with God” through the forgiveness of our sins and all that Jesus did for us; and we have confidence about our future (Romans 5:1-2). That never changes, as we remain in faith in Christ. God is faithful, and He keeps His promises to us. He will be with us to help us (2 Timothy 2:11-13).
At the same time, we live in a world that is often hostile to Christian ideas and principles and therefore to Christians, too. Acts 9 begins with a man, Saul, who was very anti-Christian and wanted to capture Christians and throw them in prison. It was not a peaceful time for the church (Acts 9:1-2). Jesus solved that problem by appearing to Saul and bringing him to faith in Him (Acts 9:3-19). Saul, whom we later know as the apostle Paul, soon became a positive witness for Jesus and was in trouble himself for teaching that Jesus was “the Son of God” and the “Christ,” the promised Savior (Acts 9:20-28). Some now wanted to kill Saul for being a Christian, and he had to be helped to escape and go for a while to his hometown of Tarsus (Acts 9:24-25, 29-30). It was certainly not a peaceful time for Saul, but once he was gone it was quieter for the church for a while. The devil is always at work to disturb the church and Christian people, though.
We also participate in churches that are made up of imperfect people, declared “saints” by faith in Jesus, yet still sinners, forgiven by Him. There will be times of conflict and misunderstanding among people, even in the church. Note that just before Paul’s words of peace for the church at Philippi, Paul has to encourage two women in the church to work on their dispute and “agree in the Lord” - and he asks that others in the church “help these women” (Philippians 4:2-3).
See also in 1 Corinthians 1:10-11 that Paul has to appeal to some of the “brothers” in the church at Corinth to “agree” with one another and stop their “quarrels” and “divisions." If you read on in Acts 9:32-43, you will find that the church, continuing in peace, still had sick and bedridden people, widows who needed help and support, and people dying. The Lord was there, and helped with these people according to His will; but the church finally lived by peace and hope in the perfect peace which will fully come only in heaven (Romans 5:1-5). (This still true to this day. As I was typing this study I received an email, asking prayer for someone’s friend who is in the hospital.)
We need the church, where we can hear the Word of God and receive His gifts of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and be strengthened and encouraged and pray for and be prayed for by our fellow believers, as imperfect as we all are. Ultimately, though, our hope is not in the people of the church, but in Christ and what He has done for us and what He promises us. Read 1 Corinthians 1:2-9 and note the emphasis on what God does for and what He gives to us in Christ. Paul does not thank the church; he thanks God for what He has been doing in the church and that He will sustain us to the end, in Christ. Read also Ephesians 2:13-22, where Paul makes it clear that “Christ is our peace” and where we have divisions and troubles, He seeks to forgive us and bring us together and build us up together as His people.
When we enjoy outward “times of peace” in our lives and in our churches, let us thank God. These are privileged times, in which we can be strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, through God’s Word and one another (Acts 9:31). Then we are ready and can cope with the more difficult situations we all face at times - at work, among friends and family, with Covid and other ills, and sometimes even in the church itself.
The writer to the Hebrews puts it simply, “May the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good, that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21).
Monday Nov 30, 2020
Monday Nov 30, 2020
Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent, based on:
Isaiah 64:1-9
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37
Sermon originally delivered November 27, 2011
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
We finished Lesson Five with Daniel’s prayer to God for help for him and for the people in Israel, in captivity in Babylon because of their sins. Daniel knew from his study of God’s Word, prophecies from Jeremiah, that the captivity would last for 70 years. But he did not know the timing. Daniel prays, “We do not present our pleas before You because of our righteousness, but because of Your great mercy.” He and his fellow Jews can only say, “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive... Delay not, for Your own sake” (Daniel 9:18-19). Rescue and forgiveness would come only by the grace of God.
While Daniel is still praying, God hears and responds to this prayer. He knows what we wish and what we really need. He quickly sends the angel Gabriel, who had appeared already to Daniel in Chapter 8:16ff. Gabriel has more to reveal, that would give hope not only for the end of the captivity, but for much more (Daniel 9:20-23).
In fact, God was already moving a pagan leader of the new Medo-Persian empire, Cyrus, to let God’s people begin to return to Israel and even to provide help for them in rebuilding their temple. You can read about his decree to give them freedom, issued in 539 or 538 BC, in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23 and in the very next Old Testament book, Ezra 1:1-4. (Cyrus was much more open to giving people some religious freedom. Daniel was one of the advisors for the new empire, and maybe he had some influence upon Cyrus in making this decree, too. Daniel was elderly by this time, and God had other things for him to do, so he does not go back to Israel.)
In Daniel 9:24 the angel Gabriel tells Daniel, in effect, to forget about the 70 years of captivity and to focus on “seventy sevens” to come. The ESV translates this as “seventy weeks,” and others like the RSV translation say “seventy weeks of years”; but it seems best to leave it as it literally reads, “seventy sevens” - indefinite periods of time, according to God’s own perfect and complete planning and timing. No historical events seem to fit in neatly with “weeks” or “years” in what is described.
In verse 24, God’s whole saving plan in Jesus is described, with the coming of the “anointed,” “most holy” One, and His “atoning” sacrifice “for sin” and His “putting an end to sin” and “bringing in everlasting righteousness” for us. Key to this is the last phrase, which literally says “to anoint the holy of holies” which was the place where God showed His presence and forgave His people, in the “holy of holies” in the temple, when the high priest entered there, only once a year. The most important thing was not the place but the presence of God in this place to do this forgiving work for His people. The New Testament then clearly says that Jesus is that Person, God’s Son, the Son of Man, as we have heard; and His names, “Messiah” and “Christ” literally mean “the Anointed One” Who will complete all this saving work for us. When He has completed all His work of salvation, that will be the end, the “sealing of vision and prophecy” as all believers will be with Him in heaven. (See Hebrews 1:1-3 and 1 John 3:1-3, for example. As we will hear later, the temple in Jerusalem will no longer be needed, but the Most Holy One, Jesus, will be our hope and salvation.)
Daniel 9:25-25 is even more difficult, as we do not know why the “seventy sevens” of time to come are divided as they are. But here is what seems to be said. From the decree of Cyrus that Jews could return to Israel and rebuild the temple to the time of the coming of “an anointed one, a prince,” (Jesus, the Anointed One, the Prince of Peace - Isaiah 9:9 and 61:1) shall be seven sevens.(v.25) In human time, that would be about 538 years. Then, there is a troubled time of 62 sevens, of building, from the birth of Christ to His death, about 33 human years (v.25.) This is the very important time of Christ’s birth, life, ministry, teaching and proclaiming the Kingdom of God.
Then, after this 62 sevens, in God’s timetable, the “Anointed One” “shall be cut off and shall have nothing” (v.26). That refers to the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross. The prophecy in Isaiah 53:8 says of Him, “By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. And they made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man in His death.” The New Testament Letter to the Philippians, 2:5ff, tells us that “though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing... He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” On the cross, Jesus had nothing, and even His Heavenly Father left Him forsaken for a time, as he suffered the punishment of hell for us and the whole world. When Jesus died, we hear that, “Behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Matthew 27:51).
No longer would the temple and the temple sacrifices be needed because, as Hebrews 9:26-28 tells us, Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself... So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sin of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him.” We are now, then, in the age of “a strong covenant,” a new covenant, centered in Christ our Savior. See 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 and Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Hebrews 8:6-13, for example. This is good news for “many” and that word often really means for “all” people. We seek to share it with all, because Jesus died for all, though not all will believe it (1 Timothy 2:3-6). This last period of time is called “one seven.” It covers all the time from Christ’s death and resurrection and ascension until the return of Christ on the last day. It includes more events mentioned in Daniel 9:26-27, also, which we will hear about in Chapters 10 and 11 of Daniel.
This “one seven” has now been almost 2000 human years, but we are really only waiting for one more great event - the return of Jesus on the last day - which could be at any time. In the meantime, we share the Good News of Jesus with as many as we can, so that more will be prepared for that day by faith in Him, brought by the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God and Baptism. See some of the final words of Jesus, at His ascension into heaven, in Acts 1:6-11. The disciples want to know more details and times about the future, Jesus says, “It is not for you to know times and seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.” He then ascended into heaven, as “a cloud took Him out of their sight.” Angels then appeared to announce that He would return in the same way, “with the clouds of heaven,” as Daniel 7:13 says of the Son of Man.
God also gave Daniel a glimpse of what will happen on that last day, the day of Christ’s return, in Daniel 12:1-3. There will be the resurrection of the dead, with eternal life for those “whose names are written in the book,” who have faith in the Lord. (See Isaiah 25:8 and 26:19, as similar Old Testament promises of the resurrection. See New Testament Scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 15:51-58 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 for similar promises for us who live and die in faith in Christ.) This gives great joy and hope for believers, even though Daniel 12:1 also says that there will be great times of trouble coming, also, before Christ returns. Sadly, there is also the warning of a resurrection “to shame and everlasting contempt” for those apart from the Lord - the sorrows of hell.
In Chapters 10 and 11 of Daniel, then, we hear more about the troubles coming, first for God’s Old Testament people of Israel. These then become a symbol for trouble for New Testament Christians, throughout the history of the Christian Church, and difficult trials near the end just before Jesus returns. Chapter 10 is a prelude to the very long vision in Chapter 11. Daniel is mourning and fasting, maybe because it is now 536 BC, and things are not going so well and not many Jews are yet returning to Israel (10:2-3). Daniel sees a vision of a radiant man clothed in linen with lightning and fire about him, like the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7:9-10 and the resurrected Jesus in heaven in Revelation 1:12-18. Some think it may have been God the Son before He became man; or it may just have been an angel, since the angels Gabriel and Michael are also mentioned in this vision (10:3-6).
Clearly, God is communicating with Daniel. Some people are with Daniel. They cannot see the vision, but they can tell something frightening is happening, and they run and hide (Daniel 10:7). (See also Acts 9:7, where Saul sees a vision of Jesus, but others cannot see it all.) Daniel himself loses his strength and falls on his face and trembles in fear. It is what so often happens when sinful humans realize they are in the presence of the Lord or even of His angels. It is a vision for the distant future (10:14) but still Daniel is struggling with it all. Daniel has to be helped to his feet, trembling, and still cannot talk (Daniel 10:8-17).
Finally, very comforting words are spoken to Daniel, and he is strengthened. See Daniel 10:19. The really good news is that words like these are often spoken to other weak, sinful people in the Bible too, and they are true also for us, in Christ. Here are the phrases and related Scripture passages:
“O man, greatly loved” - John 3:16-17, 1 John 4:9-10, Colossians 3:12
“Fear not” - Luke 1:12,30; Mark 6:49-50, Isaiah 43:1, Luke 12:32
“Peace be with you” - John 20:19,21,26, John14:27, Philippians 4:7, and in our liturgy
“Be strong and of good courage” - Joshua 1:5-6, Psalm 31:24
Notice also in this chapter that there is a strong emphasis on angels helping and strengthening and even fighting for God’s people against Satan and evil, as they strengthened Daniel. In Daniel 10:13,20 and 21, we hear of angels battling princes of Persia and of Greece and contending against them. The enemies might have been evil leaders or evil angels or both. Remember how angels also earlier protected the three men in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3) and Daniel, in the lion’s den (Daniel 6). There are plenty of other examples in the Old and New Testaments, too. Read of the battle of good and evil angels, long ago, in Revelation 12:7ff. See how angels helped Joshua at Jericho when the walls came tumbling down and throughout his time leading the Israelites in Joshua 5:13-14 and 23:9-10. See Psalm 91:11-12, Jesus in Matthew 4:1-11, and the promise of guardian angels for little ones in Matthew 18:10-13.
We still need the armor of God and the help of angels, along with our Lord today. See Ephesians 2:1-4 and 6:10-18. Did you ever wonder how often you have been helped and protected by “angels unaware” (Hebrews 13:1)? The Lord is our greatest strength, but angels are a great blessing, too, as we hear from Daniel.
The message, as Chapters 10 and 11 go on, is that there will be difficult, chaotic times for God’s people, even when they are able to return to Israel. They will be mostly under the control of the Medo-Persian and then the Greek and then the Roman Empires and more to come. There will be one especially bad time under a Greek leader to come.
There are 30 prophetic verses leading up to this bad time. One Lutheran commentator, Walter Roehrs, writes: “No other prophecy deals at such length and in such detail with events that were to take place between two Gentile nations (Daniel 11:5-36). Thirty verses are devoted to describe the sordid drama of battles, intrigues, assassinations, cruelty and duplicity which was to begin some 200 years after Daniel’s time and to last about a century and a half.” (We are not going over these verses in this study, but you could read them on your own, with a good Bible commentary, for history of the Greek empire especially.) Why would God choose to include these verses in His Word? Probably because this is the reality of our sinful world, ever since the fall into sin, a very unpleasant reality of sin and evil that is still around today. Compare Roehrs’ description with what still goes on today in the world.
Daniel 11:31-35 speaks of how God’s people of Israel would be affected terribly, too. We know from this passage and from literature from that time, including parts of the Apocrypha, that a Greek leader, Antiochus Epiphanes, rose to power and was very cruel. He controlled Israel and tried to force the Jews to follow Greek ways and gods. He massacred many Jews. He stopped the practice of circumcision, which was an important Old Testament ritual for all baby boys. He let garrisons of Greek soldiers stay in the temple in Jerusalem. He stopped all true temple worship and all Jewish animal sacrifices. Worst of all, “the abomination that makes desolate” (11:31), he set up in the temple an altar for the Greek god Zeus Olympus in 168 BC. He sacrificed pigs and other animals unclean to the Jews there. It was a terrible time for God’s people.
Finally, Jews rebelled and fought against Antiochus and in December of 165 BC, they were able to overthrow him and rededicate the altar and temple to the one true God. The Festival of Hanukkah came from these events and is still celebrated today by Jews. It is called the Feast of Dedication in John 10:22, when Jesus was in the temple in Jerusalem.
All this shows that God continued to help His chosen people of Israel and protected them, even through terrible times, so that the Messiah, Jesus, could come from the line of the Jews and do all that was prophesied about Him earlier in the Scriptures, including the Book of Daniel. Sadly, we read that when Jesus came, and Jews asked Him at the Feast of Dedication, “’How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered them, ‘I told you, and you do not believe... You do not believe because you are not part of My flock. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, I give them eternal life... I and the Father are One.’ The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him” (John 10:24-31).
That rejection of Jesus eventually led to His crucifixion and death. Jesus also had predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in Matthew 24:1-2. He used the same term that Daniel used for the time of Antiochus Epiphanes to describe the coming destruction of the temple. He said in Matthew 24:15-16, “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel (let the reader understand) then let those that are in Judea flee to the mountains.” All this was fulfilled, just as Jesus said.
There was a Jewish revolt against the Roman empire later, and in 70 AD the Roman general Titus conquered Jerusalem and totally destroyed the temple, never to be rebuilt, to our present day. Many Jews died, but almost all Christians escaped the trouble because of the warning of Jesus quoted above.
The troubles continued, with another Jewish revolt against the Roman empire in the 130s AD, the Bar Kochba revolt. Emperor Hadrian sent troops who decimated what was still left of Jerusalem. An estimated 580,000 Jews died and others were carried away as slaves. Jews were banned from Jerusalem for 100 years, and few ever came back, until the restoration of Israel after WW II. The name of the land was changed to Palestine. Hadrian built a new Roman city on the ruins of part of Jerusalem, with temples for the gods, Venus and Aphrodite. The troubles continue, with the tensions we still see in that part of the world, between Jews, Palestinians, Christian and Muslims, to this day.
Jesus had also predicted troubles for the New Israel, the Christian church, living in an evil, often hostile world. He said in John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” In Daniel’s prophecy, the troubles of the Jews with Antiochus Epiphanes become a symbol also for the troubles Christian will have, and especially for troubles in the end times, as we have already seen in Daniel 12:1.
In Daniel 11:36-37, we have a description of a leader who goes beyond even the terrible things that Antiochus Epiphanes did to the Jews, in 11:31-35. This one will exalt himself as a god above all gods, including the one true God. He will speak astonishing things against the true God. He will pay no attention “to the one beloved by women,” which may mean that he rejects all true sense of love of others, and may, some think, refer to his having unnatural love, like homosexuality. (Emperor Hadrian, for example, practiced and promoted homosexuality.) This one will gain much power and influence (11:38-43) and bring much destruction... “yet he shall come to his end, with none to help him” (11:44-45).
Many think that this description fits best with the New Testament idea of antichrists and antichrist. See the warnings of Jesus in Matthew 24:21-27 and Scriptures such as 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8. John speaks of “antichrists” around already in his own day, as he says that Christians are in “the last hour” (1 John 2:18) and warns of “the spirit of the antichrist,” already around (1 John 4:1-6). (Remember that in Daniel 9:27, the Age of the Christian Church and the New Covenant is the one last “seven” of the “seventy sevens.” We are in the last times and will be until Jesus returns. For the purposes of this study, we do not have time to go into all this in detail. That is a subject for another Bible study. But go back and note, above all, that in each of the New Testament passages in this paragraph, there is the certainty of Christ’s return and ultimate victory for believers in Him. I’ll give just one example. Jesus describes much trouble, but concludes in Matthew 24:27, using the “Son of Man” image of Daniel, “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far is the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”)
The same comfort and hope is given to Daniel and to us in Daniel 12:1-3. Even in great trouble, Michael, the great prince, the angel of God will be with us, and God’s people will be delivered, as we have heard, with the resurrection of the dead and everlasting life, when the Son of Man, Jesus, returns.
In the final verses of Daniel 12, it is as if Daniel and others want to keep asking more questions and get more detail, (as we might want, too, even after this long study). “How long will it be till the end of these wonders” (Daniel 12:6)? “What shall be the outcome of these things” (12:8)? There are no specific answers, except that “the wicked shall act wickedly” and yet God’s people can be strengthened and “purified” and “refined” through trouble, as God watches over them (12:10). Daniel also used such terms in Daniel 11:35. See also such Scriptures as James 1:2-4 and 1 Peter 1:3-7.
The angels also give some more numbers, which again seem to be symbolic: “a time, times, and half a time” (12:7) and “1290 days” and “1335 days” (12:12). All these numbers fall short of seven, the perfect number for God. He will end troubles as He knows best, for the Jews of the Old Testament, in our own lives and at the end.
In the meantime, Daniel is told to shut up the prophecy until the end (12:4,12:9) and “go his own way” (12:9, 12:13) with his daily life and work. “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (12:4). Daniel is not told to get all wrapped up in end time speculation and ideas, as many churches do. Daniel simply is told, “Blessed is he who waits” on the Lord and just trusts His promises (12:12). Daniel is also told, “You shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days”(12:13). Death would come to him, but his eternal future is secure in the Lord, just as Job also says in Job 19:25-27.
As this study closes, this is a great message from the Lord for all of us, too. Go your way. Carry on with your life, wherever the Lord has placed you. Wait upon Him and trust in Him, and He will see you through good and difficult days; and eternal life is waiting, through Christ. (As you have time, see also these great Words of God for you: Psalm 130:5-7, Psalm 31:14-16, 2 Corinthians 12:9-12, Colossians 1:11-14, etc.)
I have done the best I can in a challenging portion of Scripture, in a short time. Again, my apologies for the length and yet issues I could still not cover. Questions are always welcome. If you want to read more about the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Jews, you could look at the Apocryphal book of 1 Maccabees. It is not Scripture and is not entirely reliable, but gives the history, as Jewish people know it. If you have the latest Lutheran Study Bible, you could read more about this period between the end of the Old Testament and the New Testament on p. 1551-1558. You could also read an interesting summary of people and groups that were sure that they had the end times all figured out and made many false predictions. This is on page 307 of the Lutheran Study Bible.
Monday Nov 16, 2020
Monday Nov 16, 2020
Chapter 7 of Daniel ends with Daniel being alarmed and troubled at the vision he has seen. He does not understand it all. This is not a surprise, since the New Testament tells us that this is the reaction of many Old Testament prophets. See the words of 1 Peter 1:10-12. Daniel does the right thing, though. He keeps the vision in his heart and seeks to understand more. It is the way faithful people reacted to the birth of John the Baptist in Luke 1:65-66, and how Mary reacted to all she saw and heard at the birth of Jesus and later in Luke 2:19 and 2:51. This is a good reminder for us all — to keep God’s Word in our hearts and to let Scripture interpret Scripture over time, when we don’t understand some things. See Psalm 119 and especially verses like 119:9-16 and 119:97-105.
In Daniel 7, we heard Daniel’s vision of the four beasts, representing four kingdoms that will come and go, as all earthly kingdoms do – the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Greek, and the Roman. It parallels the vision of Chapter 2, talking about the same kingdoms and their rise and fall, but the eternal kingdom of “The Stone,” our Lord Jesus, Who would and did come. The parallel to “The Stone” is “one like a Son of Man” in 7:13-14, Who appears before “the Ancient of Days” (God the Father) in a courtroom scene, (7:9-10). The “Son of Man” is declared to have glory and dominion and an everlasting kingdom (7:14) in which His believers, His saints, will also be blessed (7:27). This chapter is actually giving a glimpse of God’s whole plan of salvation coming through His “Son of Man,” Jesus.
The term “son of man” occurs in other places in the Old Testament, with regard to people like Daniel (Daniel 8:17) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 2:1 and 92 other times), who were God’s prophets and pointed forward to the true “Son of Man” to come, Jesus. The term is also used in Psalm 8:3-4 about God’s care for all human beings; but the “Son of Man” referred to in this psalm is much more than an ordinary human being or even a prophet, as verses 5-6 clearly indicate. All things will be put under His feet. See how this passage is quoted and used in Hebrews 2:5-9 with reference to Jesus. No other “son of man,” no other ordinary human being, could be and do what Jesus would do. See also Psalm 146:3-4 and Psalm 60:11-12, for example. Only One from heaven, coming “with the clouds of heaven like a Son of Man” (Daniel 7:13) could do the saving work of God, in contrast with those of the beasts, those of purely earthly origin (Daniel 7:3, 7:17).
This One is already in the presence of God the Father, the “Ancient of Days,” in the vision that Daniel sees, too. Only the Holy God Himself and His angels could be in this heavenly assembly. This means that the “One like a Son of Man” that Daniel sees is also holy and already has the authority and dominion spoken of. Note also the similarity of how the Ancient of Days looks in Daniel 7:9-10 and what John saw of the risen and ascended Lord Jesus in heaven, Who is called “one like a Son of Man” in Revelation 1:13-18.
We have the great privilege of living in a time where we have the whole New Testament that makes all this clearer, especially as Jesus often used the term “Son of Man” about Himself. He uses this term to refer to Himself as the very Son of God, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, as the One True Triune God, but also as a true human being, who did not always use His Godly power but went humbly to the cross to die for us. John 1:1-5,14-15,18 clearly tells us that Jesus is God the Son, Who was and “is at the Father’s side,” and “became flesh and dwelt among us.”
Very early in His ministry, Jesus forgave the sins of a paralyzed man and said, “That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” He healed the man. In Luke 6:1-5, Jesus allowed His disciples to do what some thought was unlawful on the Sabbath and says of Himself, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” He is Lord! In John 5:20-27, Jesus calls Himself both the Son of God and the Son of Man, and says that He has the power to judge and to give life – the power pictured in the “court” that “sat in judgment” in Daniel 7:10.
Here is a list of more of these New Testament passages where Jesus calls Himself “the Son of Man” in what the catechism calls His “State of Humiliation” as he humbly went to the cross to earn salvation for us.:
Matthew 8:19-20
“The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Matthew 12:40
Like Jonah in the belly of the great fish, “so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Mark 8:31
“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.”
Mark 10:45
“The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
Luke 19:10
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
John 12:23,31-34.
“And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.... Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself. ‘ He said this to show by what kind of death He was going to die.” (Note in verse 34 that the people knew some of these terms, but did not really understand that Jesus was the “Christ” and “the Son of Man,” Who would soon die for them.)
Jesus uses this “Son of Man” term also for what the catechism calls His coming “State of Exultation” with His resurrection and ascension and return to His Father in heaven and on the last day His return to this earth.
John 6:62
“Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?”
Mark 14:61-62
“Again the High Priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
Luke 12:40
“You must also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
In summary, how rich the New Testament is in talking about Jesus, the “Son of Man,” and His saving work for us. One more example: in the Hebrew language, “Adam” is simply the word that means “man.” Romans 5:12-21 reminds us that through the first man, Adam, and his rebellion against God and fall into sin, “death spread to all men because all men sinned.” Through the second Adam, though, the One Man, Jesus Christ, came the free gift of justification and life and righteousness through what He did for us, as the Son of Man.
As we go into Daniel Chapter 8, we see another vision, given earlier to Daniel by God, while Belshazzar is still the leader of Babylon. Daniel sees himself being in the Medo-Persian capital of Susa, where he sees a vision of a powerful ram with two horns, one higher than the other, that moves in many directions and conquers many (Daniel 8:1-4). Then Daniel sees a vision of a male goat flying across the earth with a great horn that destroys the ram and becomes very great. But then that horn is broken and replaced by four other horns (Daniel 8:5-8).
The angel Gabriel is then sent by a man, likely the Son of Man, who tells Daniel that the Ram refers to the Medo-Persian empire to come, with the Persian part the stronger “horn” (Daniel 8:15-20). The goat is then identified as the great King of Greece to come, who would defeat the Medo-Persian Empire. (History tells us that this person was Alexander the Great, who created a great empire, but was in power only from 331-323 BC and then died suddenly. His kingdom was divided into 4 area with 4 leaders (Hebrews 8:21-23).)
Later, out of one of the four horns comes “a little horn“ that creates much trouble for “the glorious land” (Israel) and “the host of heaven” (the people of Israel and their way of life and worship). This troubled time for God’s people will be limited by God and His timing (Hebrews 8:9-14). The ram and the goat parallel part of the image in Chapter 2, and the bear and the leopard in Chapter 7, picturing the rise and fall of empires. We will hear more about this next week along with what is said in Daniel 8:23-26.
Once again, Daniel was appalled by what he saw and it made him sick for some days. But then he “rose and went about the king’s business” (Daniel 8:27). Whatever was coming, Daniel still trusted God and knew he should keep doing what God had placed him in the Babylonian empire to do – to serve the leaders there and be a witness for the one true God.
As Chapter 9 of Daniel begins, the Medo-Persian empire has come into power over the Babylonians. Daniel has been studying Scripture, portions of the prophecy of Jeremiah about the Babylonian captivity and why it had happened – because of the terrible sinfulness of God’s people, in spite of what Jeremiah and other prophets had preached and warned about (Daniel 9:1-2). Jeremiah realized that the captivity would last for 70 years. You can read Jeremiah 29:10-14, as an example of what Jeremiah had said. In that passage, God says, “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you” (v.12).
Daniel did not know just when those 70 years began and when they would end, but he knew that he needed to stop and take time to pray for himself and his people of Israel, in repentance for their many, many sins and asking for God’s mercy and forgiveness. We offer a general prayer of confession every week in worship, repenting of our sins. Daniel’s prayer, in Daniel 9:3-19, is a great example of a prayer of repentance from which we could learn in our own prayers, as we are “poor, miserable sinners” ourselves.
Read through the prayer and consider what Daniel says. Note that Daniel admits that God had warned very clearly of the consequences of forsaking Him, including in the Law of Moses. See Leviticus 26:14-39 and Deuteronomy 28:15-68, as long example of these warnings. Deuteronomy 28, verses 15 and 20 might be a summary of the warnings. Note finally that Daniel asks that God give forgiveness “for His own sake” and because of His own righteousness. Daniel has nothing he can offer to God to earn His forgiveness. Daniel simply says, “We do not present our pleas before you because of our own righteousness, but because of Your great mercy. O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive” ( Daniel 9:18-19). It is the teaching of forgiveness and salvation purely by God’s mercy and grace without any merit on our part; and as we heard today, it comes through what Jesus, the Son of Man, did for us as our Savior. We say, with the publican, the tax collector, in Jesus’ parable in Luke 18:9-14: “God be merciful to me, a sinner” (v.13).
We will talk a little more about this next week and see God’s answer to Daniel’s prayer and then move on to a hard passage, Daniel 9:24-27, and what follows.
Monday Nov 16, 2020
Monday Nov 16, 2020
Sermon for the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, based on:
Zephaniah 1:7-16
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
Sermon originally delivered November 20, 2011
Sunday Nov 08, 2020
Sunday Nov 08, 2020
Last week, we heard in Chapter 4 of King Nebuchadnezzar being humbled by God and losing his mind and suffering a very unusual emotional illness, before being restored to leadership. Then we heard in Chapter 5 of Belshazzar losing his kingdom and his life because of his own pride and worship of false gods, instead of the true God. God cares for Daniel in these chaotic days, as the Babylonian empire falls and the Medo-Persian empire rises.
As Chapter 6 begins, Daniel is appointed as a trusted leader in the Medo-Persian Empire. (History of those times tells us that the Babylonian people were unhappy with their own leaders and put up very little opposition to this change of government.) Others are unhappy that Daniel has such power, though, and decide to attack him on the basis of his religious views, as a Jew. They convince Darius to make a new law that for 30 days people could pray only to Darius himself and to no one else. This was not unusual in a polytheistic world. Kings were often honored as if they were gods. This law was also made “a law of the Medes and Persians,” which meant it could not be revoked. (You can read of the “Law of the Medes and Persians” also in the Book of Esther 1:17-19 and how God worked to bring Esther to become queen and help protect her Jewish people.) The penalty for breaking this law of Darius was to be thrown into a den of lions - certain death (Daniel 6:1-9).
Daniel knows that he must be faithful to the one true God and keep praying to Him only. He does what he has been doing even since he came to Babylon as a young slave. He prays regularly toward Jerusalem and prays humbly, on his knees. (He did not have to do his praying just this way, but was following the example of others in the Old Testament. See 1 Kings 8:27-30, Psalm 55:17, and Psalm 95:6, as examples.) Most of all, Daniel keeps praying and prays only to the one True God, no matter what the law says (Daniel 6:10). His enemies know what he is doing and report him to Darius and demand his death in the lions’ den (Daniel 6:11-15). Daniel, though, is doing only what the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament teach. See Mark 12:13-17. Daniel respects government and its proper authority and serves his government faithfully, even as it changes. At the same time, he has to give God what is God’s - his worship, and his obedience, even if he contradicts governmental law. (See Acts 4:1-12 and 5:27-32.)
Darius likes Daniel and wants to protect him, but he can find no way to do so. He must put him in the den of lions, but hopes that Daniel’s god will help him. The den is sealed. (Notice the similarity to how Jesus’ tomb was sealed, too. Yet, both came out alive, by God’s grace.) Darius fasts and cannot sleep and at daybreak hastened to the den and cried out in anguish for Daniel. Daniel answers that he is safe, for he had trusted God, and an angel has shut the mouths of the lions. Daniel is pulled out of the lions’ den, perfectly safe, and his enemies are thrown into the den, where they are immediately killed (Daniel 6:14-24). (There are other examples of God helping people in danger from lions. See Sampson in Judges 14:6 and David in 1 Samuel 17:34-37, and even Paul in the New Testament, in 2 Timothy 4:16-17.)
Darius makes a new decree that people of his kingdom are to respect the God of the Jews, for he rescues and delivers and does signs and wonders and is “the living God” who endures forever. In this way the Jews are protected even in captivity, and God cares for them, too, even though they had been so unfaithful to Him too often. Daniel himself also prospers under the Medo-Persian leaders (Daniel 6:25-28).
With Darius/Cyrus in power, the Babylonian Empire has ended. In the New Testament, though, Babylon becomes a symbol for all evil and all the enemies of God and His will. See how Rome is called Babylon, with its wickedness and opposition to Christianity (1 Peter 5:13). The Book of Revelation also predicts the eventual destruction of Babylon and all evil, too. See Revelation 14:16, 16:19, 18:2-4, 21-23.
Jesus does not promise that we will escape all trouble, though. He predicts trouble because we are followers of Christ. See Matthew 10:24-25 and 1 Peter 3:13-18, for example. We even face our own “lion,” the devil and his temptations. See 1 Peter 5:6-12. Jesus will help us through, and He is our own good “lion,” protecting us. See Genesis 49:9, Revelation 4:7, and 5:5.
Darius promised some earthly peace to people in Daniel 6:25. The New Testament uses the same phrase, but promises that “grace and peace will be multiplied” for us, in Christ - “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, and will guard our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus.” There is our confidence, in Jesus, in life and in death (1 Peter 1:2, Philippians 4:7).
Chapter 7 of Daniel brings some changes. Daniel speaks in “the third person” in Chapters 1-6. He and others did this and that, and God gave visions to others that Daniel interpreted, by the gift of God . In Chapter 7 and following, Daniel speaks in “the first person” - “I saw in my vision”, etc. (7:2). Daniel also tells of some of his dreams that happened in earlier days - as in the days of Belshazzar (7:1).
In Daniel 7:2-8,17, Daniel sees a vision of four great beasts, coming out of the turbulent sea, coming from an earthly place and origin. They are a lion with wings, whose wings are plucked; a bear, leaning to one side, with three ribs in its mouth; a leopard with four wings and four heads; and a terrifying beast with iron teeth and 10+ horns. This all might seem very strange to us, but kings and nations and empires were often pictured in this way in the ancient world. As Daniel would walk through Babylon, he would see many images of lions, representing the Babylonian empire, and sometimes with wings. (Archaeologists have found such lion images in the ruins of Babylon.) If you think about it, we still use such images today in sports and in other ways, to depict power and strength. In the National Football League, we have the Detroit Lions, the Chicago Bears, the Philadelphia Eagles, and on and on.
The beasts in Daniel represent four great kings and their empires (7:15-17), which will come and go, over time. Different picture images are used, but it is the same message as in Chapter 2, with the great statue, with four parts, like the four beasts, which represent the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman empires. Each empire will follow and conquer the previous empire, but none will last. These empires also are pictures of many more nations and empires that will rise and fall, through the centuries.
During the time of the 4th beast, the Roman Empire, a Stone will come in Chapter 2 to break down the rest and bring in an everlasting kingdom. That one is Jesus, as we have heard. In Chapter 7, “one like a son of man” comes, of heavenly origin, just as the Stone of Chapter 2 is not made by human hands. Again, it is Jesus, who often used the description of Himself as “the Son of Man.” He brings in an everlasting kingdom, too, unlike the earthly kingdoms. See the vision of Daniel in Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14,18, and 26-27, which is so different from the beasts, the earthly kingdoms. Next week, we will see how the New Testament reveals Jesus as “the Son of Man” and what that means for us. There is something sure and certain and eternal in this changing and decaying world; and that something is Jesus and the eternal Kingdom He brings us.
As we close, note in Daniel 7:28 that Daniel is greatly alarmed and probably turned pale, with all he sees and hears. He does not get it all, “but I kept the matter in my heart,” he says. How comforting for us, too, as we do not always grasp everything our Lord is trying to tell us in Scripture. We are called to keep listening and meditating and asking the Lord’s guidance, as we keep His Word in our hearts. He will bless us and give us more understanding, over time.
Sunday Nov 08, 2020
Sunday Nov 08, 2020
Sermon for the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, based on:
Sermon originally delivered November 13, 2011