(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Now in Daniel chapter 9 we have a new prophecy. Of course in chapters 7 and 8 we had two totally separate prophecies at the beginning of Daniel chapter 7. It was stated that the prophecy was given to Daniel in the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon. In chapter 8 we were in the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar. Well now we're beyond that. Belshazzar is gone. He's off the scene. If you remember he was the one who saw the fingers of a man's hand writing on the wall. And when he saw the hand writing on the wall it was basically prophesying his doom and that night he was killed. And Darius the mead took the kingdom being three score years old, sixty years old. Well now here we are in chapter 9 verse 1. In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus of the seed of the meads which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. Now do you remember Ahasuerus from the Bible? He was the king that you'll read about in the book of Esther. And so if you put that together in your mind. But this is his son Darius the mead. He's the same guy who threw Daniel into the lion's den. And then eventually Daniel of course was delivered from the lion's den. Verse 2 says this, in the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. So basically in the first year of Darius' reign Daniel finally after all these years. And at that time he'd already been in captivity for pretty close to seventy years. He was getting toward the end of that seventy years. And at that time just through studying the Bible and also I think that when he says I understand by books the number of the years maybe he might have been looking at some kind of a book of the chronicles that was showing him ok you know it was this year when you were taken captive and so forth. And he had the books of the Bible in front of him. He had a copy of you know the book of Jeremiah and he basically studied these books and figured out ok the seventy years is going to end at this point. He figured out when it was going to end because he figured ok I was taken captive here. And reading the book of Jeremiah it says that we're going to be kept in captivity for seventy years. Now why were the children of Israel in captivity for seventy years? Well it's explained in the book of Jeremiah because of the fact that God had commanded them in the Old Testament to do the Sabbath day. You remember? Now every week the seventh day they were not supposed to do any work. Ok and this was something that was instituted with the law of Moses ok. And they basically were not supposed to do any work on the seventh day. He said six days shalt thou labor but on the seventh day you're to rest ok. Well there was another thing that God instituted in the same Mosaic law. Not just the Sabbath of the week but a Sabbath of years. Basically he said that you're supposed to plow your land for six years. And the seventh year you're supposed to let the land rest and you're not supposed to plant any crops. Just let it go wild, just let it grow, let it do whatever. And you know there's probably a lot of wisdom there. I think in modern times we realize that it's good to give land a rest and you know we know about crop rotation. And you can't just keep planting the same crop over and over again. It drains the land. So God gave them this command. And when he gave that command he said well you might think to yourself well what are we going to live off of in that seventh year? He said if you'll keep my commandments here, if you'll trust me on this and just sow the land for six years. He said I'll give you three times the harvest in the sixth year. You know I'll make sure that in the six years that you work you'll have so much of a harvest that you'll have extra to where you can get through that seventh year no problem. And of course in the seventh year obviously things grew wild so they could still go out and pick what's there and glean what's there. But they weren't supposed to plant the crops. Well of course just greed. They don't trust God. They don't think he knows what he's talking about. So what they did is they neglected to do that. And in fact they neglected to do that for 490 years. And so God said okay since you have disregarded and disrespected my laws. And of course they've broken a bunch of his other laws. Manasseh shed all kinds of innocent blood. They had worshipped other gods. And he said you know what since you didn't like to let the land rest for those Sabbath years. He said basically what I'm going to do is I'm going to cause the land to rest because I'm going to make you take a captive into Babylon then the land will rest. Nobody's going to be there to till the crops because he says I'm pretty much taking you captive. One year for every Sabbath that you disobeyed me you're going to spend it over there in Babylon. And that's why it was 70 years. And there's other symbolic meanings of why it was 70 years. But he told them that's why it's 70 years. One year for every year that you disobeyed me and did not keep the Sabbath of the years. Of course that has been changed. We don't do that anymore. We're not under that Mosaic law at this time. And in regard to those things and that's all spelled out in the book of Hebrews. That's for another sermon on another night. But isn't that an interesting concept? They would not give God what was properly his and it seems like God just took it from them anyway. And it seems like sometimes we might want to say you know what I need to take things into my own hands here. I need to do what's best for me financially. But you know what sometimes it might not end up working out best for you financially when you don't seek first the kingdom of God. Look at Matthew chapter 6 quickly and I'll show you what I mean. Look at Matthew chapter 6 verse 33. Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 is a famous verse. While you're turning there I'll read the preceding verses. He said in verse 31, therefore take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. So he says here that if we'll put him first and serve him first he'll take care of us. He knows that we need food and drink and clothing. He knows our needs but if we'll go out and work hard six days a week. And again we don't believe in keeping the Sabbath. That was the Mosaic law. That was nailed to the cross. That's been changed. There's plenty of scripture on that. I preached the whole sermon on that. But the point is that if we don't give God what is rightfully his and if we don't put him first in our life, you know, God's not going to bless us and we're going to be worse off. For example, a lot of people will say, you know, I just can't go to church because right now I just need to make some money. You know, I'm behind financially. I just need to make some money and so I'm going to have to take a break from church and just really catch up on work and so forth. But you know what? If you think about that though, couldn't God bless you and allow you to make the money that you need without having to skip church, without having to move somewhere where there's no good church? You know what I mean? Like a lot of people will be offered like a job transfer and they'll take it without even like seeing if there's a good church. Now if the church is an upgrade, go for it. But if it's a downgrade or if there's no good church, you know, you've got to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And so what I'm saying is that God can give you three times as much in the sixth year, like he told them, if they would obey him for that seventh year. Or he can just take them away and make them lose everything because they disobeyed. You know, there's so many areas we can apply this, but you know, I'm not going to put my job above the things of God. Now my job comes real high because I mean, hey, and if you're a man here tonight, you know, your job should be real high on your priority list. You know, providing for your family, paying the bills, working hard, that should be real high. But you know what? I'm not going to just put all the things of God on the back burner of my job. I should be able to do both. You know, there's, I mean, God's telling, look, you got six days to labor. You got 12 hours in the day. You got 72 hours to do what you need to do. You know, and then you got to have a place for the things of God. Now I've been at points in my life where I was working an insane amount of hours. I mean, I was just backed up in labor and just we eat, breathe, sleep, work. I mean, just no break, no leisure. I've had a month like that earlier this year in the month of March, and it was crazy. But you know what I did? Even though things are spinning out of control and I had job upon job and things were going well. I was making a lot of money, but you know what I did? Every Sunday, I just dropped everything, you know, and I would go out and put in three hours of soul winning. You know what I mean? Just drop everything, go out, put in three hours of knocking doors, drop everything, preach on Sunday morning, drop everything, preach on Sunday night, and just forget about it. You know what I mean? And then, hey, even if someone's after church on Sunday night, I'd have to jump right back into it. Maybe even, you know, in the morning on Sunday morning while I'm eating breakfast, I was doing something because we just got so swamped with work and so forth. There are times when you get busy in life, but don't let go of your service for God because that is where the blessing from God comes from. If you are serving God first, this promise kicks in. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. You know, also in the matter of tithing, you know, I can sit there and say, well, I can't afford to tithe. You know, and then it's like, OK, God might just take out your tithe in the form of an auto repair that you didn't expect. You know what I mean? Or a trip to the hospital that you didn't expect. I mean, one trip to the hospital is 14 years. He might say, OK, let's see, you know, you've been stingy and greedy for the last so many years and you didn't pay your tithe for three years and that adds up to this amount of money. OK, you know, take it out of your car, take it out of your. I mean, how many who has had just you just got hit with an unexpected expense, like in the last six months at some point, like something just out of nowhere. It was either a car repair, everybody. I mean, that's life, right? Who doesn't? I mean, I get hit with unexpected expenses all the time. Everything's going along and all of a sudden it's like a cavity in your kid's teeth or the car breaks down or, you know, just some you told some bill shows up in the mail. And you're like, oh, man, what? Or you get pulled over. You know what I mean? You get a ticket, you know. Now, I got pulled over last night, but I wasn't doing anything wrong and so I didn't get a ticket. So, but anyway, what I'm trying to say is that, you know, you got to put God first and trust him and not sit there and say, well, I know, but I know, you know, I got to just do this myself. No, we got to rely on God. And that's why they were where they were. Let's go back to Daniel 7. That's what Daniel's talking about when he said, hey, I went to the Book of Jeremiah. I studied the books. I counted up the 70 years. That's what he's referring to is that promise that God made that they would be captive for 70 years because they skipped 70 Sabbaths of the and we're not talking about the Sabbath day. We're talking about the Sabbath year, which was every seven years. And then on the 50th year, they'd have seven sevens. And then the 50th year was called the year of Jubilee. You know, there's a lot of teaching on that in the Book of Leviticus and so forth. So let's keep reading, though. And the next verse is three through 19. Basically, Daniel is confessing the sins of him and his nation unto God. And what blows me away about this is just how many times he just says over and over, we've sinned. You know, he said, you are righteous, God. It's not your fault. It's not anybody else. We've done wickedly. Now, this is the kind of prayers that should be coming up from God's people today about America. Because we've done wickedly as a nation. We've sinned. I mean, just as much as they had. Look at verse three. Let's get into this a little bit. It says, I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer. Prayer is when you're asking for something like you ever heard the term? I pray thee just means like I ask the I'm asking you for something. Prayer is asking for something. He said supplications. Who's ever heard the word supple? Right. Supplication, supple is like, basically, what it's talking about is like a bending, a conforming. It's basically saying when we supplicate unto God, we're trying to get him to come our way on something. We're trying to get him to have mercy on us or bless us. We're trying to get him to change something. When we pray, we're trying to ask him to give us something that we need. That's prayer. That's supplication. Fasting, what's fasting? Going without food. Basically, he's skipping meals here and maybe even for days on end. Other places it talks about him being just on bread and water for 21 days and just not eating any pleasant food. Just really trying to get a hold of God here. And it says, and sackcloth and ashes. This is where you read about in the Bible. They would basically put off their nice clothing and wear sackcloth. Now, you think of a burlap bag because it's a sackcloth. Basically, the cloth that they would make sacks out of, like you would have a sack of potatoes. So it's a very strong, coarse, rough material. And they would basically wear sackcloth and basically they would put ashes on their head just as a symbol of total humiliation, humility, and just crying out to God. It's like when we pray, we get on our knees oftentimes or get on our face before God. This is just taking it to an even more extreme, basically. Just sackcloth, ashes, mourning. It's like a mourning garb. It's what they would put on when they're mourning, when they're upset, when they're sad. And so he's really serious here about this prayer that he's making. And it says in verse 4, And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said, O Lord, and notice the next words, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant of mercy to them that love Him and to them that keep His commandments. Now, is that the God that most people believe in today in the United States of America? I mean, if you ask people, give me two, what if we just took a poll in the United States? Give me two adjectives to describe God, what He is to you. And let's say we say, give me 20 adjectives. Do you think dreadful would be anywhere on the list? Do you think terrible? Okay, but those are words used to describe God. Now, terrible, words change in meaning. We were talking about this last night. Words change in meaning over time sometimes. To us, terrible just means something bad. Like, hey, the food was terrible. But the real meaning of the word terrible comes from the word terror, right? Now, do you know what dread means? Dread is very similar to terror. You probably said before, hey, I'm really dreading, you know, phasing my parents after, you know, this report came on the web. Or, hey, I really dread showing up to work because I wrecked the company vehicle, right? Dread is something that you fear. You look at it with fear and it's like an extreme fear of something negative. Something bad that's going to happen, you know? You're dreading something. Terror is another word for fear. And the Bible says over and over, what? Fear God and keep his commandments. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding. And people will so many times say, well, fear doesn't really mean fear there. Okay, well, what about dread? You know, what about terror? I mean, come on. You can maybe try to twist the word fear, but he uses all these synonyms. Hey, God is the God that is the great and dreadful God. He's a powerful God. He's a God of justice and judgment. And he is a God that you don't want to cloud up and rain on you. You want God to bless you. You don't want God to be cursing you. You don't want God to be, as it says in Hebrews chapter number 10, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. I mean, God's wrath and God's judgment, when it's kindled just a little, you know, will consume you. Now, those of us who are saved, hey, thank God. The wrath of God is not a bite on us. We're not going to hell. We're going to heaven. We've been saved. We've been passed from death unto life. We shall not come into condemnation. We're eternally saved. Nothing can ever change that. But you know what? God, be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. And that's spoken to Christians in Galatians chapter 6. And let me tell you something. If you go out and live a life of sin, God will chastise you. Let me give you an example. I have five children. Let's say that my children did something very bad that was totally against the rules of my house. And what if my wife said, well, you know, Dad's going to be home in a couple hours, and when Dad gets home, you know, you're going to be spanked. Now, isn't that a dread there? I mean, they're going to dread Dad getting home and getting that spanking because they've done wrong. Now, I love them. They're my children. Nothing could ever change that love or the fact that they're my children. But guess what? It's the same thing we've gotten. We're God's children. But if we are going to just go against God's laws and just commit awful sins, you know what? God is going to cloud up and rain on us. God will discipline us. He'll chasten and chastise us. And we ought to have the fear and dread of that to where we'll say, hey, I better do what's right if I want to have God smiling on me and blessing me and not cursing me. He said here, oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God, not the Santa Claus God, you know, not the God of Joel Osteen, you know, not the God of the prosperity TV preachers, the positive only message, no, the great and dreadful God. That's who he's praying to. And by the way, there is only one God, and that's who he is. You say, well, I don't like that. I don't like a great and dreadful God. You know what? There's only one to choose from. You know what I mean? You're just going to have to go with it. Well, I don't like that. I don't think that's fair. So what? Who are you? This is the God of the universe. He created the whole world. I mean, you don't have a choice here. I mean, you can choose some other false made-up God, but this is the real thing right here. So it says, oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant of mercy to them that love Him and to them that keep His commandments. So look, you can be on God's good side, right, loving Him, keeping His commandments, being blessed, or you can be on God's bad side, and then it's the terrible, dreadful God that's going to pour out His chastisement and punishment upon the disobedient children. Okay, look at verse number 5. He said, we have sinned. And that's something that he says over and over in this passage, those three words. We've sinned and have committed iniquity and have done wickedly. He's not trying to sugarcoat it. He's not trying to give it a milder name. He's saying, no, it's wicked. I mean, it's iniquity. It's sin. I mean, whatever you want to call it. You know, if everybody today wants to give a milder term to their sin, instead of drunkenness, it's alcoholism, like it's some kind of a disease or something. You know, if it's a disease, it's the only disease that's bottled and sold. If it's a disease, it's the only disease that's advertised on television. You know, if it's a disease, it's the only disease that you buy and pay for in order to be infected with it. Instead of disease, it's sin. You know, and we give everything in a benign. Instead of adultery or whoredom, as the Bible calls it, what do they call it? An affair. You know, an affair is if you have a tea party at your house. You know, that's, you know, oh, we're having a little affair, you know. But, you know, when you're basically being with someone physically that's not your wife, that's adultery. That's whoredom. I mean, that's, you know, we try to talk, you know, they're gay. No, they're not gay. You know, gay means happy. No, they're perverts. You know, they're sodomites. They're an abomination, okay. You know, but we want to tone everything down. And, you know, it's important the words that we use. The words that we use are important. Bible words like hell, you know, not Hades, Sheol, heck. You know, I mean, the unsaved aren't going to heck. They're going to hell. You know, but we want to tone everything down. And that's one of the things that's wrong with these modern Bible versions is that they pretty much water and tone everything down. And, you know, fornication becomes, you know, immorality. You know, and they have everything toned down and watered down. Nope, it's damnation, drunkenness, fornication, whoredom, wickedness, sin. Joel Osteen was asked on a TV interview with, I think it was the Larry King Live one, you know, that's all over the internet where he denied Jesus Christ on television. In that interview, he's asked, you know, do you call people sinners or do you use the word sin? And Joel Osteen said, that's not a word I use. Well, you know, it's a word that's used in the Bible hundreds and hundreds of times. And in this passage alone, he uses it in every synonym he can think of. Sin, iniquity, wickedness, we were wrong. He says, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments. Verse 6, neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. Well, wouldn't it God, we'd have some prophets today that would speak unto the kings and princes and fathers of the land. It seems like today the preachers are afraid to confront our leaders. You know, if they confront them, it's in a presidential prayer breath. Where they sit around with, you know, the anti-Christ Jewish rabbi on this side, you know, and the Islamic imam on this side, and the Hindu guy wearing the orange toga on this side, and it's like, oh, we're having a non-denominational ecumenical prayer breakfast. Whereas in the Bible, the only prayer breakfast that you'll find is when John the Baptist's head was brought on the platter. It was the meal. I mean, not that it was eaten, but you know what I mean. His head was brought on a silver platter. That was the prophets of the Bible. They didn't come, he wasn't sitting there hand in hand with Herod and Pilate. They weren't buddy-buddy with them. They preached to him. Herod was thrown in jail, I'm sorry, John the Baptist was thrown in jail by Herod for one reason, because he preached against Herod committing adultery with his brother's wife, and Herod preached that message. I'm sorry, Herod was not preaching that message. John the Baptist preached that message. He said, it's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. You're committing adultery. And because of that, he was thrown in jail. And while he was in jail, Herod didn't really know what to do with them, because he knew if he killed them, he would incur the wrath of a lot of the people that loved John the Baptist. So what happened was, he just kind of let them sit in jail. Well then, Herod's wife, or his concubine, the one that he's sleeping with that was actually his brother's wife, she didn't like the fact that she was the subject of his sermon. She didn't like being called a whore by John the Baptist. So basically, she devised a scheme and a plan whereby John the Baptist was beheaded, and his head was brought on a silver platter to dinner. And his disciples came and buried John the Baptist's body. And his head was given unto the wicked queen and her daughter. And so, we need to get back to some prophets that have the guts to not be a respecter of persons and pretty much just call out whoever needs to be called out and pretty much just preach it from the housetops. Jesus said, what I tell you in the ear, he said, that preach ye upon the housetops. He said, what I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light. And what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. But instead of preaching upon the housetops, today it's tiptoed through the tulips. We've got Pastor Tiny Tim all over America afraid to get up and rail on sin and even point out Obama, or point out the other wicked leader, or point out Bush. I was preaching against Bush. Point out the wickedness of our leaders today because everything rises and falls on leadership and part of the reason our country is wicked is because our leadership is wicked. And the reason our leadership is wicked is because we're wicked. And so, that's where we're at in this country. Some prophet needs to stand up and breathe fire about these things. Well, there were prophets that were preaching it back then. They preached it to the kings. They preached it to the princes and the fathers and to all the people of the land. But the people harken not. But at least the prophets preach what needed to be preached. He says in verse 7, O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion effaces as at this day. He brings up confusion again in verse 8. He said, O Lord, to us belongeth confusion efface to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers because we've sinned against thee. And today, because of sin, we're living in a day of confusion. Now let me tell you this. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14, God is not the author of confusion. So confusion doesn't come from God. But yet, the farther that we go as a nation into sin, the more confusion is bred. Let me give you some examples. Confusion amongst Christians. I mean, confusion like 412 different versions of the Bible. That's confusing. Can you imagine if our government was operating 412 different copies of the United States Constitution? 412 versions that were all at least 4% different from one another? They already argue about the one that they've got. I mean, they sit there and interpret it and fight over it and argue it and this and that. What if there was the new international version and it left out whole sentences? You know what I mean? What if there was the new American standard, the living Constitution? You know? Good Constitution for modern man. You know what I mean? And there's all these different versions. The Revised Standard Constitution. The New World Constitution. You know, if you had that, you know what you'd have? Total confusion. I've been to these Bible studies in these in these neo-evangelical churches, these charismatic churches. I've sat down in a men's Bible study or a teen Bible study and we'd sit down and everybody had a different version. And somebody, you know, somebody would read in their version and you'd say, well, no, wait a minute. Mine says something totally different. Oh, well, what's yours say? Oh, well, what's yours? You know, it's like, well, mine doesn't even have that verse. You know, it's like, honestly, I have sat at these I have sat at these Bibles. Who's ever been to a Bible study where there were like 4 or 5 different versions? You don't get anywhere because you'll start talking Bible and then somebody will bring up something that's in their version somebody will bring up something in their version and you walk away confused. Or it's confusing when the preachers preach in one version you've got a totally different Bible you're trying to keep up, you're trying to follow along. That's why modern churches today put the words on the screen. You know, the reason they put the verses on the screen you know, the big telescreens is because of the fact that they can't just say turn in your Bible because everybody's got a different Bible and it would be confusion. And that's why they put the songs up on the screen too because nobody knows the songs and they're not in the hymnal you know, it's a new song every week and so they have these screens on you know, are you against the screens? Yes. We don't need a screen. You know, it's like, how about just a Bible and a song book? You know, carry your Bible with you to church. I mean, how do you know what's going on on that screen? Is even really what the Bible says. You know, I'd rather just bring my Bible and know what I got in my hand and look at it than if somebody mistyped it or whatever on that screen. I mean, the bottom line is that these churches are breeding confusion when they have all these hundreds of different versions. I called an independent fundamental Baptist church and said what version of the Bible you use? They said, we promote three versions. The New American Standard, the King James Version, and the New King James. Those are the three that we promote. That's confusion. Three very different books. And so we ought to just come to church with our Bible in hand and know what we've got. In our hand is the truth. It's the word of God and it matches what's being preached and we can all agree. I mean, we can agree. Like, you know, nobody agrees on every little thing, right? Everybody's a little different. You have different things. But I'll bet you, if I sat down with the men of our church who've been here for a long time, let's say we agreed on something doctrinally, I'll bet you we could sit down in about five minutes and probably have it ironed out to where we both agree. You know, because we both believe the Bible and on most issues we probably opened the Bible and one of us might have just not quite, you know, had thought of something and we could agree on it because we have the same... and if we both see it, we'll both agree with it, you know, if it's in God's Word. So that's unity right there. But confusion is caused when you have all these... You know, and our world is filled with confusion to where people don't even know if they're male or female. You know, the bathroom has to be this California transgender bathroom in many cases because, you know, you can't just have a man's room and a lady's room because, you know, that's old-fashioned. That was back when there were just men and women. But now we have all these little things, these little transgender perverts, and they don't know whether they're a man or a woman. Confusion. And God isn't the author of confusion. People say, why are all these denominations? Because the devil loves confusion. So he wants to just hit you with all this confusion and you're a Catholic, Mormon, Baptist, Methodist, I don't know what's going on. Well, he's succeeded then. He's trying to cloud everything when it's just right here, so cut and dry, so simple and black and white. He wants to cloud it up. Instead of just the clarity of just thus saith the Lord, God's word in this book, he wants you to have all these commentaries and encyclopedias and dictionaries and lexicons and the Greek and the Hebrew in order to confuse you. See, I was trying to talk to a pastor last night. Victor was with me. Scott was with me. We were trying to talk to a pastor last night, but you know why we couldn't agree? Because I opened the Bible and showed him a verse from the Bible. And he said, whosoever is born of God does not commit sin, for a seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he's born of God. And we were talking about the doctrines of the new creature and the new man and the spiritual man and the inward man. And he said, oh, but if you look up the word commit, though, you've got to study that word commit. You know, it means manufacture. What? It means produce. Huh? And you see, we can't have it. You know, when you start bringing stuff like that in, that's just confusion. He took a really simple verse that's just really straightforward and simple and clear and easy to understand and just brings in confusion by saying, well, no, it actually doesn't commit doesn't really mean commit. It actually means manufacture or produce. No, it doesn't. What does it mean to commit sin? You said you sinned. Isn't that your Buddhist King James stuff, isn't it? What does it mean to commit sin? It means you sinned. No, it means that you lived a continuous lifestyle, isn't it? No. Commit sin? What does it mean to commit adultery? It means that you did it. What does it mean to commit robbery? What does it mean to commit murder? To manufacture murder. To produce murder. You see, what I'm saying tonight is that if this book is our authority, then we can have unity, but if this book is not the authority, we have all kinds of lexicons and encyclopedias and dictionaries that are written by man on the wall, that's going to be confusing. Let's just stick with our one book and the only thing... You say, don't you need any tools to understand it? There's one tool that I need to understand the Bible. The Holy Spirit of God. My personal Bible teacher that I received the moment I got saved. And that's all I need. Me and this book and the Holy Spirit. That's all I need. I don't need any other tools. We need to put away all the tools, my friend, and get back in the Bible. Get rid of all these tools. And you say, oh, but they're helpful and blah blah blah. No, they're confusing. Because you know what? We've got too many people who know the tools, but they don't know this book. Read this book a hundred times and then we'll get out your tools. But by the time you've read it a hundred times, you'll say the tools are stupid. But you haven't read it a hundred times. That's why you think that those tools are so great. Just read it. You say, but sometimes I get something I don't understand. Join the club. The Bible's written by God. You think you're going to understand everything in the Bible? That would make you God. Join the club. You say, well, what do you do if you don't understand a verse? I just move on to the next verse. Because if there's 31,303 verses in the Bible or 301 verses in the Bible, you know what? I'm sure I'll find something that I understand. And I keep understanding more and more every day. And that's the learning process. And so we need to get away from the confusion, but sinfulness in a nation brings confusion to where we're confused about our Constitution, we're confused about our form of government, we're confused about our gender in many cases, we're confused about religion, we're confused about the Bible. Why? Because we're getting away from God's Word. You get confused. The more you read the Bible, everything just starts to come clear in life. You just see things clear, like, OK, wow. It just makes sense. But you live in a fog when you're tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine and the sleight of men, cunning, clapping as whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But let's hurry up here. I'm going to skip some of this just because he's a little redundant here. He's just going on and on, just saying over and over, we've sinned, it's our fault, we're wicked. You know, it's good. He's confessing his sins unto God here. He's saying all the great evil. And let's just jump down to a few highlights here. It says in verse number 13, As it is written, in the law of Moses, all this evil has come upon us, yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth. Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil and brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth, for we obeyed not his voice. And now, O Lord our God, that has brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and has gotten thee renowned, as at this day we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city, Jerusalem, thy holy mountain, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our Father, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. Now he's asking for mercy upon Jerusalem, right? Because they have done wickedly. Now here's what I find interesting today. Isn't it funny how all throughout the Bible, starting with when the children of Israel left Egypt and headed toward the Promised Land, when they did not believe on God, and you don't have to turn there, if you like you can turn there, but at the beginning of Hebrews 4, the last verse of Hebrews 3, and at the beginning of Hebrews 4, God makes it clear that the children of Israel were not allowed to enter into the Promised Land because of their unbelief. He says in the last verse in Hebrews 3, therefore they could not enter in because of unbelief. Because they did not have the faith, God said no, you cannot enter in. And what did they have to do? Wander in the wilderness for 40 years, you remember? And after 40 years, they had the faith. The next generation had the faith. After they all died off, the next generation had the faith. They believed in the Lord. They said we're going to do this and boy, Joshua led them to great victory and they were right with God. They were righteous. They were worshiping the Lord alone. They were right on target and they entered that Promised Land. But then did you notice that later on when they were wicked and worshiped other gods, what did God do? He took them out of that land, didn't He? First they couldn't go in because of their unbelief. Then finally when they had the faith, He let them possess the Promised Land. Then when they did wickedly, they were taken out of the Promised Land. Then when they got right with God, they were brought back to the Promised Land. Okay? And then when they rejected Jesus Christ and when they did wickedly, guess what happened? They were kicked out of the Promised Land again. They were dispersed throughout all countries. And then in 1947, 1948, they all got right with God. They finally confessed that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. They said, we killed Jesus. Because look, Daniel is confessing his sins right here. And he's even confessing the sins of his fathers from like even before he was born. So, I mean, this is what they did back in the 40s. Right after World War II, the Israelites, they said, we have sinned. We killed Jesus. We crucified the Son of God. I mean, we killed the Messiah. We are the murderers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then God brought them back to their land. Now is that what happened? No. That's not even close to what happened. Is it? No. No. But people will say, God gave them that land and that land belongs to them. God took them out of that land. Period. Period. And I can't for the life of me understand why we as Christians think, we got to get the Jews back to their land. No, we got to get the Jews saved. Amen. Forget getting them in that land. That land does not belong to them. You know, and you say, well, who does it belong? I don't care who it belongs to. It's on the other side of the world. Who cares? The only land that I care about is the land that I own. You know, and you know what? What people are doing in the Middle East, let them fight. Let the Muslims and the Catholics and the Jews fight it out and they'll all go to the same hell because they don't believe on Jesus Christ. None of the three. The Pope and the Jews and the Muslims can all fight over that land and kill each other and they'll all go to hell. You know what I mean? We did not worry about stuff like that. We need to get the soul saved of Jew and Gentile. That's what we ought to be worried about. Instead of some phony thing like, God brought them back into their land. Really? Cause he never did that before when they were still continuing in their sin and worshiping other gods. Are you sure it wasn't the United Nations that put them there? Cause that's the way I read it but I wasn't even alive so what do I know? But I read that the United Nations put them there. And last I checked, the United Nations is not God. And the United Nations is not the Lord Jesus Christ. And last I checked, 99% of Israel is unbelieving and does not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Can somebody correct me on that? I mean are they Christians over there? There's a Baptist church on every corner, is that what you said? No, there's not. So anyway, and you know you might be upset that I said that but I mean that is what the Bible teaches. I mean you read the Bible, that's what it teaches. Anyway I gotta hurry. Let's get off of Daniel's prayer and confession. Verse 21, Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, Verse 21, Even the man Gabriel, Now you remember Gabriel from the New Testament? He was the one that announced in the book of Luke, where he's announcing unto Mary and so forth and about Jesus Christ being born and so forth. But it basically says here, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. That's talking about the evening sacrifice. We talked at length last week about the morning and evening sacrifice. And he informed me and talked with me and said, O Daniel, I have now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I have come to show thee, for thou art greatly beloved. He's saying, look, God really loves you. I mean you are a great guy. And he says, I came here to give you skill and understanding. I'm going to cause you to understand the vision here. I'm going to cause you to understand the Bible. But notice how much Bible study he did on his own. Then that's when God opened it up to him. And God helped him and answered his prayer. By the way, if you don't understand something in the Bible, instead of all the tools, the commentaries, the lexicons, you ought to pray for the answer. There have been many scriptures in the Bible that I didn't understand that I prayed for weeks, every day for weeks, and then I understood it. You know, God will answer you. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. They give it to all men liberally, and it braideth not, and it shall be given him. And so we should ask God to open up the Bible to us. And you know, I notice in the Bible where Daniel is sometimes weeping and going without food, and he's upset because he didn't understand the Bible. And he's praying and upset, and it really bothered him. And then God gave him the answer. I can relate to that, because there were times when I read stuff in the Bible, I was just like, God, I can't, I don't understand this. Open this up. And you know, a few weeks into it, he'll give you the answer, or you can just Google it and just read what some weirdo is saying about it. You know? You've got to go to God in prayer to guide you. The Holy Spirit will teach you the Bible. And don't think that you're going to understand everything anyway, because no one does. But he says here, 70 weeks, verse 24, determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression and to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity. That's talking about Jesus Christ's redemptive work on the cross. And to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up the vision and prophecy. Now, those last two things are talking about basically the fulfillment of all things when Jesus Christ comes in his kingdom and so forth. The second coming of Christ. And to anoint the most holy. Now, to anoint the most holy, he's talking about anointing Jesus Christ. The word Messiah in the Old Testament is the New Testament word Christ. You say, how do you know? Because in John, chapter 1, it says we have found the Messiah which being interpreted is the Christ. So Messiah, Old Testament word. Christ, New Testament. Guess what else is identical to those two words? Anointed. Against the Lord and against his Christ, it says in Acts, chapter 4. Against the Lord and against his Anointed, it says in Psalm 2. In Acts, chapter 4, right? So we can tell Anointed, Christ, Messiah without the aid of a dictionary that all three are synonymous. Just from comparing Scripture with Scripture. He says, know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem that's when Cyrus the Great made the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore in two weeks the street shall be built again and the wall even in troubleless times and after threescore in two weeks shall Messiah be cut off but not for himself and the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary and the end thereof shall be with the flood and under the end of the war desolations are determined. And then in verse number 27, we already read this verse last week. About in the midst of the week that talks about the Antichrist and there's going to be the abomination of disease and there's going to be the abomination of desolation We already went into great detail about that last week. So what I want to touch on tonight is just this whole idea of 70 weeks. Okay? That's brought up here. He says here that there are 70 weeks. Look at verse 24. 70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgression and he lists these different things. Now, there's a period of seven weeks and then there's a period of 62 weeks. Right? And then there's one week all by itself. Right? And so who's ever heard this term? The 70th week of Daniel. Put up your hands if you've heard that term. That's that last week that's all by itself. Okay? And basically what's going on here is he's basically predicting how long it's going to be from the time that the commandment to build Jerusalem is given until the coming of the Messiah. But these are weeks of years. Like seven year periods, you know. And so we're not going to sit here and go through all the numbers and calculate how many years it was and so forth. But basically, you know, 70 weeks do the math, 490 years but it's 62 weeks times seven. You know, you can figure all that out. The point is he's telling them that the Messiah is going to come. And it says that after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off? So after the 69 weeks and is there a gap between the seven weeks and the 62 weeks? You know, why are they separate? You know, on and on. Okay. We're not going to get into that tonight for the sake of time. That's another discussion, another sermon I've preached about that when I was going through the book of Revelation. But it says after the three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off but not for himself? Okay, so this is basically talking about Jesus Christ death on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the whole world. You know, he was cut off but not for himself. Okay, now many people will try to take and basically the 70th week here of Daniel where in the midst of the week the abomination of desolation takes place has not yet taken place. Basically the 70th week is going to be you know, basically the tribulation and then God's wrath. Now people will try to say the whole week is tribulation the whole seven years. Well, no. It's not. The tribulation does not last seven years because Jesus Christ said immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun and moon will be darkened and should not give their light. Jesus will come in the cloud. Well, that happens at the opening of the sixth seal. Okay, so everything after the sixth seal is not the tribulation because he said after the tribulation the sun and moon are darkened that takes place at the sixth seal. Jesus Christ comes in the clouds and then God pours out his wrath. So God pouring out his wrath is never called one time in the Bible the tribulation. Never. Just look up every time if you'll be honest with yourself just look up every time the word tribulation occurs you'll notice it's God's people being persecuted. It's not God pouring out his wrath turning water into blood and all those type of things. Now, that 70th week of Daniel people will try to say it's all about the Jews. You know, it's all about the Jews. The church has nothing to do with it. First of all, I don't believe in the church I believe in churches as enumerated in the Bible. Somebody, some Catholic told me there's only one church and I'm like why does the Bible say in the New Testament 80 sometimes, I think it's 82 times churches. What does that mean if there's only one? You know what I mean? Wouldn't there be a church at Ephesus and the church of Pergamon? You know, people have this idea of a universal church. It's not true. And so basically, they'll say well, this has nothing to do with Christians it's all about the Jews and then there's like a pause there's a pause between the 69 weeks where God's stopped dealing with Israel and he's dealing with the church and he's going back to dealing with Israel. Well, here's the problem with that. First of all, he says here in verse 24 the Greeks are determined upon thy people now, people will just automatically interpret the thy people as the Jews. Well, guess what? The Jews are not God's people unless they're saved. Only the Jews who are saved are God's people and the ones who are not saved are not his people. And again, I could preach a whole sermon on that and give you 40 scriptures, I've already done tons of scriptures where he said you're not the children of Abraham you're your father of the devil, you don't believe on me you're not my people you cannot be your God over and over again and again, read it on your own. That's where they lose it here. But they'll say this well, you know, the church had nothing no part in the 69 weeks, so why would it have no part in the 70 weeks? You know, this is man's logic to just negate what's clearly stated in Matthew 24 and Luke 17 right, about the timing of the rapture. Well, wait a minute though Did the church have nothing to do with these weeks? Because when was the Messiah cut off? At what point in these weeks? Look down at verse 26 At what point is Messiah cut off? After three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off. So hold on a second, was there no church before Jesus Christ died on the cross? Was there no church before Jesus, was the church started after Jesus died on the cross? Well, let's look at Matthew 16 and let's find out. Let's look at Matthew 16 and let's see if there was no church before Jesus. Now what's the church, the congregation? The congregation of the born again and everybody will be able to do this, any Baptist could just spout off this definition. The church is a called out assembly of born again baptized believers, right? That sounds kind of like John the Baptist's church. That sounds kind of like the people that were baptized by John the Baptist and then he pointed them to the Lamb of God and said behold the Lamb of God and they stopped following John the Baptist and started following Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ had the first church. Jesus Christ was the pastor of the first New Testament church when he sat assembled together with his disciples and broke the bread and drank the cup which every Baptist would agree that's a church ordinance. It was for that church and they break that bread and drank that cup and he said this due in remembrance of me this cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you. Okay, so that was the church with Jesus and his disciples. He was the first pastor. He built the church upon the rock of himself. But look at Matthew chapter 16 It says in verse 18 And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Okay, so he said I'll build my church. He said well he's talking about the future way out there. Okay, well let's go to chapter 18 then. It says in verse 15 of Matthew 18 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee thou must fall between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee thou has gained thy brother but if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established and if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the church that doesn't exist. No, he said tell it to the church. But if he neglects to hear the church let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican that's why in Acts chapter 2 at the day of Pentecost it says that they added to the church that day three thousand souls because the church already existed. So the church did not start on the day of Pentecost as is commonly taught. No the church already existed they just added to the church. Jesus was the first pastor of the first church. Jesus pastored that church. It was it was I mean you say where did the church as an institution begin? It began when John the Baptist baptized people and those people were then assembled following Christ. That's when the church began. Right there. Because it was an assembly of born-again baptized believers and because they took the communion and broke bread and drank the cup and they were assembled together and he's talking about the church in Matthew 18. And that's why he's very careful to say at the day of Pentecost that they were added unto the church. So it sounds like the church was involved in that you know as an institution. And so don't the moral of the story is this you know there's two kinds of people in this world there's those who let man teach them and they have all their books and their commentaries and their tools. And then there's those who just go to the Bible read it study it and that's how Daniel was. You know Daniel just dug into the Bible learned Jeremiah and you know what he wasn't taught by man it was Gabriel who came unto him and gave him understanding right? Now you say well wait a minute Pentecost if I say the Bible really hard and pray and fast is Gabriel going to appear to me? We don't need Gabriel because we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which Daniel did not have. John 7 said that the Holy Ghost was not yet given. You know Daniel had the Holy Spirit upon him in many cases but he was not indwelled by the Holy Spirit like us where the disciples when they were dwelled by the Holy Spirit it's like their eyes were open you know he opened their understanding they understood the scripture the Holy Spirit he said when the Spirit of truth has come he said it's expedient for you that I should go away he said when I go away the Comforter will come even the Spirit of truth and he said he'll guide you into all truth Daniel did not have the Holy Spirit living inside of him guiding him into all truth in the Old Testament Gabriel was sent unto him to guide him into all truth as he read God's word in the book of Jeremiah we as New Testament believers we have better than Gabriel we don't have to pray and eat bread and water for 21 days until Gabriel shows up we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us thank God and so we can understand the Bible don't get caught up in all this don't get all these prophecy books written by man don't get into all these TV shows and lexicon just read Daniel and Revelation and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John over and over again and then come and tell me what you believe about Bible prophecy cause the answers are in the Bible it's simple it's clear and Jesus Christ I think the clearest teaching in the Bible on the second coming came out of the mouth of the man himself as he walked on this earth and taught on his own second coming you know what I mean Jesus Christ and the first time he brought it up was Luke 17 chronologically and the first time you read it in the Bible as the Bible flows is Matthew 24 and it's real clear as far as I have a word of prayer Father thank you so much for your word dear God and help us to confess our sins and to confess the sins of our nation dear God as Daniel did help us to not sugar coat and white wash our sin dear God but help us to confess it to you to try to do the best that we can in life dear God and also Father give us understanding and learning and knowledge in some of these difficult subjects to some who are confused dear God help us not to be confused help us to just open our Bibles and clearly read what you've written about your second coming about these things in Jesus name we pray Amen