{"id":18413,"date":"2017-10-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-08T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/daniel-038-the-prophetic-jigsaw-puzzle-part-1\/"},"modified":"2017-10-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-08T05:00:00","slug":"daniel-038-the-prophetic-jigsaw-puzzle-part-1","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/daniel-038-the-prophetic-jigsaw-puzzle-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel 038 – The Prophetic Jigsaw Puzzle (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[72],"series_event":[467],"sermon_service_type":[472],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18413","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-daniel","series_event-daniel","sermon_service_type-main-service","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Daniel 038 - The Prophetic Jigsaw Puzzle (Part 1)","sermon_date":"20171008","sermon_month":"10","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":"","sermon_slides":5019,"sermon_mp3":5021,"sermon_id":"10817951410","series_or_event":467,"service_type":[472],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":72,"chapter_and_verse":"9:24-27","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nThe Prophetic Jigsaw Puzzle\n\n10-8-17\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Daniel 9:24-27\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 38\n\nGood morning everybody.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take our Bibles if we could and open them to the Book of Daniel, chapter 9 and verse 27.\u00a0 People are saying not again, well, I am hoping, God willing, we can finish the Seventy Weeks Prophecy today.\u00a0 And if we do that we will have done it in five weeks; it took us five weeks to study seventy weeks; sometimes it\u2019s the opposite, right.\u00a0 But this is such an important prophecy it\u2019s hard to just skate over it so I wanted to give you as comprehensive a picture of it as I knew how to give.\n\nThe title of our message this morning is The Prophetic Jigsaw Puzzle.\u00a0 And I love putting together puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, especially when there\u2019s a box top that tells me what the puzzle is supposed to look like when it\u2019s finished; otherwise it\u2019s very frustrating.\u00a0 And once you get a couple of key pieces to fall into place the rest of the puzzle starts to kind of assemble itself almost naturally.\u00a0 And that\u2019s really what Daniel 9:27 is; it\u2019s a piece of the puzzle that many Christians are missing in their view of the end.\u00a0 But once that puzzle piece comes into focus everything else seems to fit nicely into place.\n\nAnd so we have been studying for the past four weeks the Seventy Weeds Prophecy.\u00a0 To help us understand this we\u2019ve broken it down into ten parts.\u00a0 We said, number 1, the focus of the prophecy is who?\u00a0 The nation of Israel, Daniel 9:24, \u201cSeventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 We said, number 2, the prophecy consists of a time period of how many years?\u00a0 490, seventy sevens.\u00a0 Seventy sevens have been decreed for your people and your city Daniel.\u00a0 It\u2019s equivalent to a watch that has 490 years on it; we have a start button, a pause button and a stop button in this prophecy, just as you would in a typical watch; it\u2019s just this watch is not a 60 minute watch, it\u2019s a 490 year watch.\n\nAnd we\u2019ve talked about how each year of the prophecy consists of 360 days and why that\u2019s significant.\u00a0 And then we\u2019ve also talked about number 4, what\u2019s going to happen when the 490 year clock runs its course.\u00a0 Well, very clearly it will be the establishment of the millennial kingdom upon the earth.\u00a0 That\u2019s an important point that we\u2019ll be returning to shortly.\n\nNumber 5, we talked about when this clock started.\u00a0 It\u2019s my conviction that the watch started, and I\u2019ve given you the reasons for this, on March 5, 444 B.C., about a hundred years or so after Daniel had left the scene there was an event that transpired in Nehemiah 2 where Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah permission to return and rebuild the walls around the city of Jerusalem and it\u2019s at that point that the divine finger pushed the start button and the 490 years begin to run.\u00a0 When you look at Nehemiah 2:1 and the date that\u2019s given you can document this March 5, 444 B.C.\n\nNumber 6, once that point is reached there will tick off exactly 483\u00a0 years between that event and Palm Sunday when Jesus presented His Messianic credentials to the nation of Israel.\u00a0 There would be, according to the prophecy, verse 25, sixty-nine sevens or 483 years; if you want to be real technical about it 173,880 days would elapse between the decree of Artaxerxes and the Messianic presentation of Jesus Christ on Palm Sunday.\u00a0\u00a0 [Daniel 9:25, \u201cSo you are to know and discern that<\/em> from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be<\/em> seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.\u201d]\n\nAnd then the prophecy would run until Palm Sunday and the moment we hit Palm Sunday and it\u2019s very clear that the nation of Israel is going to reject her King is the moment the divine finger moves off of the start button, which it had been on for 483 years and moved to the pause button.\u00a0 And the divine finger has been on that pause button for the last 2,000 years, because there is, as we have tried to explain, a gap of time lasting 2,000 years or more, in between the end of verse 26 and the beginning of verse 27.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve given the reasons for that gap in a sermon that we did a few weeks ago called The God of the Gaps<\/em>.\n\nAnd what is happening in that gap?\u00a0 Well, you\u2019re looking at it right here; you\u2019re looking at it in this church, you\u2019re looking at it in churches all around the country.\u00a0 You\u2019re looking at it in churches all around the world.\u00a0 There\u2019s a body of Christ at work where the Lord today is not fulfilling His promises to Israel but He\u2019s doing a new work through a new man called the church of Jesus Christ or the body of Christ.\n\nAnd yet we know prophetically that the body of Christ, as wonderful as it is, was never intended by God to be a permanent earthly reality.\u00a0 At some point the body of Christ will be made complete; they very last Gentile that\u2019s destined to come into the church will come in through faith alone in Christ alone and it\u2019s at that point the rapture of the church will occur.\u00a0 And then perhaps not too long afterwards the Lord, who has not forgotten this time clock, will put His finger from the pause button back onto the start button and the final seven years of the prophecy will elapse.\u00a0 Because we\u2019ve also studied that there are 7 years left on this prophecy, 490 total, 483 elapsed, 7 future years remaining with a gap in between the end of the 483rd<\/sup> year but before the beginning of the 484th<\/sup> year.\n\nAnd we moved on to fact number 9 which is an explanation of that final seven years which is found there in verse 27.\u00a0 Daniel 9:27, which was read earlier, is an overview of the future.\u00a0 [Daniel 9:27, \u201c\u201cAnd he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come<\/em> one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.\u201d]\u00a0 It\u2019s the future in microcosm form.\n\nIn fact, if you understand Daniel 9:27 you know exactly what this future seven year period is going to be like.\u00a0 The verse says, [\u201cAnd he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come<\/em> one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.\u201d]\u00a0 And we walked through that prophecy last week and we saw four important things.\n\nNumber 1, the tribulation period will be seven years.\u00a0 We would have no awareness of this if it weren\u2019t for that verse, verse 27.\u00a0 We know what starts it.\u00a0 We know exactly what will start it; it will be a peace treaty between the antichrist and unbelieving Israel.\u00a0 In fact, you know exactly what\u2019s going to happen directly in the middle of it; in the middle of the seventy the beast or the antichrist who has guaranteed up to this point Israel\u2019s survival will betray the Jewish people by replicating what one of their villains in history has already done.\u00a0 He will desecrate the temple!\u00a0 He will go into the temple, he will tell the Jews no more Scripture, no more sacrifices, and he will actually set up, as we saw last week, a pagan image in the temple.\u00a0 And yet that will be the seminal event, the strategic event, the key event which shakes the confidence of the nation Israel in the systems of man from the systems of man to God and God alone.\n\nProphetically that is yet future for Israel and yet in a certain sense that\u2019s what God is doing with all of us, isn\u2019t He?\u00a0 You can detect the movement of God and the hand of God in your life because He is always trying to shake us away from this world, having confidence in the wrong thing to confidence in Him and Him alone.\u00a0 And even people that are saved need to learn this lesson because we are to walk by faith; our natural proclivity is to walk by sight and so God begins to shape things underneath our feet that we once trusted in.\u00a0 This is a knocking down that is\u00a0 yet future for the nation of Israel yet it\u2019s consistent with God\u2019s pattern in all of our lives.\n\nAnd then we saw that the event which will conclude the seven year period will be the return of Jesus Christ, not in the rapture which will have preceded these seven years, but in the Second Advent of Christ at the end of the seven years when He returns to this earth, His feet will touch the Mount of Olives; the Mount of Olives will split in two and He will establish His long-awaited earthly kingdom.\u00a0 And frankly I can\u2019t wait for that to happen.\n\nHere is what Daniel 9:27 looks like in graphic form; you see the length, the beginning, the middle and the ending.\u00a0 And one of the things I didn\u2019t have a chance to communicate last week and I\u2019d like to go this direction this morning is the fact that if you understand these events you begin to under\u00adstand what is happening in the current world.\u00a0 You begin to understand why things seem to be moving in the direction that they\u2019re moving.\u00a0 Largely what is happening in our world, and only the Christian who gives attention to Bible prophecy can understand this, is that the Lord is setting the stage for the fulfillment of these events.\n\nThese events are not right now occurring but it\u2019s so obvious that the Creator\u2019s hand is in our world, active in our world, setting the stage for these events much as\u00a0 you would set the proper table or the proper pieces of a chess board for a chess game.\u00a0 You can\u2019t have a chess game unless the table is arranged correctly beforehand.\u00a0 In the same way you can\u2019t have the fulfillment of Daniel 9:27 without God moving His hand in our world to set the stage.\u00a0 Now this is not date setting because I don\u2019t know how much longer the stage setting will continue but I think there are very obvious things happening today that a rational person could look at and say that\u2019s the hand of God.\n\nAnd it\u2019s so important to have this point of view because the person that doesn\u2019t have the Bible in their thoughts or their mind can\u2019t make sense of this world.\u00a0 The only thing they\u2019re left with is tragedies, kind of like the tragedy that we saw recently in Las Vegas, 58 dead, what was it, over 500, something to that extent, injured.\u00a0 Your average person without the Bible just can\u2019t make sense of something like that and where is God in the whole thing?\u00a0 And I don\u2019t know if I have an answer to things like that tragic shooting but what comforts me in the midst of it is knowing that God has not abandoned this world; this world is not careening out of control like we think it is.\u00a0 In fact, God\u2019s hand is moving in the world, and history is moving in a particular direction and God is even taking great evil and atrocities in our world and using them for His glory.\n\nSo how is our world being set up for the fulfillment of Daniel 9:27.\u00a0 I just want to share with you very quickly this morning four things that to me are, as the kids say, the millennials say, Captain Obvious, Obvious with a capital O<\/strong>.\n\nThe first is the rebirth of the nation of Israel in 1948.\u00a0 Now remember last week, what starts this seven year count?\u00a0 He, antichrist, makes a firm covenant with the many, unbelieving Israel, for one week, or for seven years.\u00a0 We defended that last time.\u00a0 Well how can that happen unless you have an unbelieving Israel in existence as a nation to make a treaty with?\u00a0 And one of the tremendous things that\u2019s happened in our general time period, in our general generation which prior generations never saw is the miraculous rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948.\u00a0 What you have to understand is the nation of Israel is dispersed from its homeland just 40 years after the time of Christ, in A.D.\u00a0 70.\u00a0 And they went into worldwide dispersion in what is called the diaspora.\n\nAnd as even as we talked about a little bit in Sunday School this morning it seems so crazy that God would fulfill, literally, His Word concerning Israel during that 2000 year diaspora period.\u00a0 Well, all of a sudden May 14, 1948 in what is called the War of Independence the nation of Israel goes right back, 2,000 years later into the very land that they were evicted from 2,000\u00a0 years earlier.\u00a0 And beloved, that has Never, something like this has NEVER, with a capital N, Never happened before.\u00a0 Never do you see a nation removed from its land only to go back into that same land 2,000 years later.\n\nAs I\u2019ve said many times from this pulpit, the sociologists are very clear that once a nation is removed from its land for a period of time they cease to exist as a culture; they lose their ethnicity, in some cases they lose their language.\u00a0 They lose their religion because once they\u2019re out of their land for a few generations they assimilate into the host\u2019s culture.\u00a0 And the question I like to ask to communicate this point is how many Jebusites do you know?\u00a0 You know the Bible mentions the Jebusites, the Amalekites, the Girgashites, the electric lights\u2026 the out of sights\u2026 the mosquito bites, the termites. [laughter]\u00a0 What happened to all these\u00a0 people; I mean, they\u2019re mentioned in the Bible, aren\u2019t they, right alongside Israel!\n\nWell what happened to them is what happens to any group removed from its land\u2014they assimilate.\u00a0 And yet it is nothing short of a miracle that the Jewish people are outside of their land, not for a generation or two but for two thousand years and they go right back into that same land two thousand years later with their language intact, their religion intact or untouched, their culture intact.\u00a0 And people today are saying I wish God would do some miracles today.\u00a0 Every time you pick up the newspaper and you see a functioning nation of Israel in the Middle East that is an absolute miracle of God.\u00a0 Any time you look at a Jewish person you\u2019re looking at a modern day miracle.\n\nJohn Walvoord, the great prophecy scholar put it this way, \u201cOf the many peculiar phenomena which characterize the present generation, few events can claim equal significance<\/u> as far as Biblical prophecy<\/u> is concerned with that of the return of Israel to their land<\/u>. It constitutes a preparation<\/u> for the end of the age, the setting<\/u> for the coming of the Lord for His church, and the fulfillment of Israel\u2019s prophetic destiny<\/u>.\u201d<\/em> [Israel in Prophecy, <\/em>Page 26]\n\nWilliam Blackstone wrote a book called Jesus is Coming<\/em> in 1908.\u00a0 Now 1908 is an interesting\u00a0 year, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 That\u2019s forty years before Israel became a nation again.\u00a0 And in this particular book he, like many others who were laughed at and ridiculed said you know what, in order for all these prophecies to be true Israel\u2019s got to come back nationally and occupy her land again.\u00a0 And he wrote these words forty years before Israel was restored to their land.\u00a0 He says:\u00a0 \u201cIsrael is God's sun dial. If anyone desires to know our place in God\u2019s chronology, our position in the great march of events, look at Israel.\u201d\u00a0 [Jesus Is Coming: God's Hope for a Restless World<\/em> (New York: F.H. Revell, 1908; reprint, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1989), 238.]\n\nWhat is Israel?\u00a0 Israel is the timepiece of God.\u00a0 I understand the fact that they\u2019re not regenerated at the present time but the hand of God is obviously on this nation so that they can, in unbelief, enter into the peace treaty with the antichrist.\u00a0 You can\u2019t have that peace treaty in existence as Daniel 9:27 specifically says without a functioning nation of Israel.\u00a0\u00a0 [Daniel 9:27 (NASB) \u201cAnd he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week<\/u>, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come<\/em> one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.\u201d]\n\nWhat else do you have to have for this Daniel 9:27 occurrence of events to manifest itself.\u00a0 Well, you have to have Israel\u2019s desire for peace, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 What does Daniel 9:27 again predict.\u00a0 \u201cAnd he\u201d that\u2019s the antichrist, \u201cwill make a firm covenant with the <\/u>many\u201d that\u2019s Israel, \u201cfor one week<\/u>,\u201d well how in the world can you have that unless Israel is in a psychology where she is needing peace.\u00a0 She has to be in a psychological state or an emotional state where she is reaching out to this country over here or that country over there for some sort of promise of peace, perhaps giving up part of her land in exchange for a promise of peace.\u00a0 That mindset has to exist in order for Daniel 9:27 to transpire.\n\nMay I just say to you that almost every time you open up your newspaper you will see this same mindset at work; Israel wants to enter into a peace treaty with Jordan, or Egypt, or the European Union or the United Nations, or anybody that will guarantee our existence nationally.\u00a0 Because what is Israel at the end of the day?\u00a0 She is a tiny nation fighting for her existence amongst a sea of Islamic dictatorships which are threatening to drive her into the Mediterranean Sea.\u00a0 That green area there is Islamic territory; that little tiny dot, you probably can\u2019t even see it, it\u2019s in red, I had to put a little marker there with an arrow just so you can see it, is Israel.\u00a0 Of course a nation like this wants a peace treaty and this is the very thing that Daniel, in the sixth century B.C. said would exist.\n\nHere\u2019s another map showing how tiny Israel is, about the size of Rhode Island, about the size of New Jersey and look at where she is in comparison to the rest of the world.\u00a0 Look at the nations that are aligning themselves to come against Israel in the last days.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t you say a nation like this is hungry for a peace treaty?\u00a0 A nation like this that doesn\u2019t understand that their security is in Jesus Christ, they\u2019ll understand that as the events of the tribulation unfold but at the entry level they don\u2019t even acknowledge Christ as their security so they want somebody, something, to help them.\n\nYou know, a lot of people today are trying to\u2026 and you get this from the news, they don\u2019t give you any sense of geography, they don\u2019t give you any sense of history, they\u2019re trying to what I like to say transform David into Goliath.\u00a0 You listen to the news you would think that Israel is the bad guy, Israel is the aggressor, Israel is the stealer, the usurper and it\u2019s just a matter of looking at a map to see that that can\u2019t be true.\u00a0 Israel\u2019s neighbors and twenty-one; Israel is one nation.\u00a0 Israel\u2019s neighbors are 640 times her size; Israel is about 1\/19th<\/sup> the size of California.\u00a0 Israel\u2019s neighbors consist of 250 million people intimately connected with 1.4 billion Muslims worldwide.\u00a0 Israel is a tiny nation of 6 million, probably 13 million Jews worldwide.\u00a0 Israel, by the way, is the only functioning democracy or republic in that part of the world.\u00a0 Every one of these other nations that I highlighted are a dictatorship theocracy. Israel is the only nation in that whole region that has any resemblance to the type of government that we experience today in the United States, a democratic republic.\n\nIsrael\u2019s neighbors control most of the world\u2019s oil supply. Israel may be potentially, and I use the word \u201cpotential\u201d sitting on top of some oil discoveries.\u00a0 Israel\u2019s neighbors have a very limited desire to live in peace with her; in fact, they say over and over again (when they\u2019re not in America fooling American politicians) what they say in their own language over and over again is this ambition to drive Israel into the sea.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s in many of their charters, the destruction of Israel. Perhaps the exceptions might be Egypt and Jordan but by and large the nations have no desire to live alongside Israel.\u00a0 Their idea of peace is not p-e-a-c-e, it\u2019s p-i-e-c-e, a piece of this and a piece of that until you don\u2019t exist anymore.\u00a0 And yet Israel, unlike all of these neighbors desire to live at peace with her neighbors.\n\nThe nation of Israel is controlled by the Torah which promises a tiny strip of land off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Her neighbors are controlled by the Quran which commands worldwide submission in what they call caliphate.\u00a0 Even here in the United States I hope everybody under\u00adstands this, that the goal of Islam is not to peacefully coexist in the United States; the agenda is to pass Sharia Law and impose that on the population.\u00a0\u00a0 You say well how do you know that?\u00a0 That\u2019s what they do everywhere.\u00a0 I\u2019m not against Muslims, what I\u2019m against is Islam as a\u2026 not just a religion, people look at it as just a religion, it is a geopolitical movement on equal par with Marxism itself in its quest for worldwide dominion.\u00a0 And if\u00a0 you don\u2019t believe what I say about it we\u2019re going to have a guest speaker here in March, Shahram Hadian, who will educate us further on that.\u00a0 But this idea that Israel is somehow the usurper, the aggressor, is silly when we get some facts on the table.\n\nSo there has to be a rebirth of Israel; check, got that one.\u00a0 There has to be a Jewish nation in unbelief desiring for peace; check, got that one.\u00a0 What else does there have to be?\u00a0 There has to be, according to Daniel 9:27, a desire amongst the Jews to rebuild a third Jewish temple.\u00a0 How can I say that with such dogmatism?\u00a0 Because it\u2019s right there in the passage.\u00a0 It says, \u201cAnd he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week\u201d exactly three and a half\u00a0 years into it, \u201che\u201d that\u2019s the antichrist, \u201cwill put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come<\/em> one who makes desolate\u2026.\u201d\n\nWe studied last week how that expression, \u201cabomination of desolation\u201d has a meaning; it refers to a man going into the functioning rebuilt Jewish temple, telling the Jews no more sacrifices in this temple, and setting up a pagan image in the temple itself.\u00a0 Now how can that prophecy happen unless you have a functioning temple?\u00a0 It\u2019s so obvious, isn\u2019t it?\n\nAnd yet what do you see today?\u00a0 You see a growing desire amongst the Jews for the rebuilding of what is called the third temple.\u00a0 There are in Israel four temples total; two historical, two future.\u00a0 The first was the Solomonic temple which was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.\u00a0 The second was the temple that was rebuilt by the exiles and the returnees following the return from captivity following the time period of Daniel. The temple was destroyed, number two, by the Romans in A.D. 70.\u00a0\u00a0 And from A. D. 70 onward for the last 2,000 years the nation of Israel has not had a functioning temple.\u00a0 And yet was does Bible prophecy tell us, Daniel 9:27?\u00a0 That this third temple, probably built, I would think, out of nationalistic pride, built by unbelieving Jews without a knowledge of Jesus, that that temple must be up, it must be functioning, it must be fully in operation in order for Daniel 9:27 to be fulfilled.\n\nBy the way, that third temple is not just predicted in Daniel 9:27, it\u2019s predicted in three New Testament passages: Matthew 24:15, quoting Daniel 9:27; 2 Thessalonians 2:4, Revelation 11:1-2.\u00a0 Not once, not twice, not three times but four times your Bible, inspired by the Spirit of God who is omniscient says there has to be a third temple.\u00a0 And I\u2019m looking here at temple number 3.\n\nHow interesting it is that Daniel had this vision about the temple in 538 B.C.\u00a0 How do you know it\u2019s 538 B.C.?\u00a0 Go back about twenty sermon series to when we were in Daniel 9:1-2, I said the year is 538.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t I say that?\u00a0 [Daniel 9:1-2, \u201cIn the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans\u2014[2] in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as<\/em> the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely,<\/em> seventy years.\u201d]\u00a0 Just dust off the cobwebs and you\u2019ll remember that.\n\nAnd that year, 538 is a big deal because when Daniel had this prophecy of the seventy weeks there was no temple.\u00a0 Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed temple number 1 and\u00a0 yet what is Daniel doing in this prophecy?\u00a0 Daniel is predicting temple number 3, verse27, temple number 2, verse 26, and temple number 4, the millennial temple which we haven\u2019t necessarily got to yet, verse 24.\u00a0 In other words, Daniel, during a time when temple 1 had been destroyed, is, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, predicting a second temple, which the Romans destroyed, verses 26; a third temple that we\u2019re reading about here, verse 27, that the antichrist will desecrate.\u00a0 And temple number 4, verse 24, a millennial temple which the prophet Ezekiel describes in great detail.\u00a0 This is an astounding thing that we\u2019re seeing here.\u00a0 This is why dates and chronology and understanding all of these boring charts that I put up, these actually become a big deal.\u00a0 There\u2019s actually a method to some of my madness.\n\nAnd so we are living after the destruction of temple 2, waiting for temple 3 to be rebuilt.\u00a0 Now when you go to Israel, not \u201cif\u201d, \u201cwhen\u201d I would invite you to take a trip to Israel but even if you don\u2019t you\u2019re going there anyway because you\u2019re going to rule the world from there for a thousand\u00a0 years so one way or another you\u2019re going to get over there.\u00a0 When you go to Israel, when you go to the city of Jerusalem one of the places they take you, I\u2019ve been there twice, is the Temple Institute.\n\nThere\u2019s myself and my wife (beauty and the beast) standing there in front of the Temple Institute.\u00a0 Now they wouldn\u2019t let us take pictures inside so I had to take all my pictures outside.\u00a0 Now Dr. Randall Price, he took pictures anyway so he\u2019s sort of a rebel against authority, I was being submissive to the laws of the land (I just wanted to make note of that).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is from the internet, at least the right hand picture is.\u00a0 They have inside the Temple Mount Institute which I\u2019ve seen with my own eyes, a caricature of what the third temple is going to be like; the measurements, its color, its texture.\u00a0 In fact, if you move over to the left there you see a giant menorah.\u00a0 Now this is big, the picture doesn\u2019t pick this up, we did get a picture of that when we were there; it\u2019s made of pure gold.\u00a0 It\u2019s of a weight of such enormous proportions that it takes several people to move this.\u00a0 That is the menorah that will exist in temple number 3 very near the Temple Mount Institute.\n\nAnd it\u2019s so eerie walking through this building and seeing these plans so carefully laid because you realize that what is happening is the Jewish people are not functioning with the light of the New Testament and without even knowing it they\u2019re building a temple for the antichrist for he will betray them in that temple as we have talked about.\u00a0 Here\u2019s another picture of the pure gold Menorah, to exist in this third temple.\u00a0 Another picture, perhaps a little bit better one of this third temple and what it\u2019s going to look like.\n\nThe priestly garbs are picked out.\u00a0 What the priests are going to carry, what the priests are going to wear is all laid out in the Temple Mount Institute in Jerusalem.\u00a0 There\u2019s just one little problem\u2026 what\u2019s called the Dome of the Rock, some call it the Mosque of Omar, Allah Aqsa Mosque.\u00a0 One of the holy sites in Islam, a place where Mohammed allegedly ascended back to Allah.\u00a0 And you say to these guides, well, what are\u00a0 you going to do about that, because that artifact sits on what is believed is the Temple Mount.\u00a0 And you talk to them and they act like oh, that\u2019s no problem at all, they don\u2019t give you the answer, they\u2019re just not sweating it.\u00a0 I\u2019m sweating it because if you tamper with that you\u2019re probably going cause the next world war.\n\nBut it is interesting that some believe that the Temple Mount is underneath that giant artifact.\u00a0 Others, archeologists like Asher Kaufman who published an article in Biblical Archeological Review, indicated that the Solomonic temple is not exactly underneath that artifact in Islam. I don\u2019t know who\u2019s right; the only thing I know with any degree of precision is that halfway through the tribulation period the Jewish temple will be functioning.\u00a0 Maybe it will be built adjacent to this artifact in Islam.\u00a0 Maybe this artifact will be replaced. Maybe that\u2019s how the antichrist catapults his way to power is he resolves this dispute.\u00a0 I have a sneaking suspicion, I can\u2019t be dogmatic on it, that both artifacts will be functioning within the tribulation period itself.\n\nAnd somehow the antichrist brokers what is called the art of the deal, seals the deal.\u00a0 And this, of course, is every politician\u2019s dream to solve this, to figure this out.\u00a0 Any President that comes on the scene, the current administration, administrations yet past, they all want to go down in history as the person that gets this thing solved.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s solvable from a human point of view. I think someone is going to have to come upon the scene, following the rapture of the church, with a level of charisma that is extraordinary; in fact, it\u2019s satanically induced or caused, and he\u2019ll fix this problem, get this thing to move or get the Jewish temple to function right alongside this artifact in Islam.\n\nNow my wife and I went to the city of Jerusalem in 1998 and this is a time period when we were allowed up onto this area and it was actually our honeymoon and we were holding hands on our honeymoon, which is allowed, amen.\u00a0 And all of a sudden we heard an Islamic voice, one of the guards, don\u2019t touch holy site, and I thought don\u2019t touch what?\u00a0 Don\u2019t touch the walls, don\u2019t touch the paint job?\u00a0 What he was saying was don\u2019t touch each other because in Islam this is holy ground, as misguided as the Islamic belief system is that is their deep seated belief; it\u2019s where Mohammed allegedly ascended back to Allah on a stead.\u00a0 Do you know what the stead\u2019s name was?\u00a0 I can\u2019t make this stuff up folks; the stead\u2019s name was Barack.\u00a0 I can\u2019t make this stuff up!\n\nAnd somehow this has to be adjusted, this has to be moved, or maybe it just stays in place so the Jewish temple can be rebuilt.\u00a0 Somehow, some way this Jewish temple is going to be rebuilt.\u00a0 Will it be rebuilt this side of the rapture?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t have any real proof of that.\u00a0 I just know that at some point some way somehow the Jewish temple must be functioning because the prophecies of Daniel 9 and verse 27 cannot be fulfilled without that Jewish temple in business.\u00a0 [Daniel 9:27, \u201cAnd he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.\u201d]\n\nShould this temple emerge before the rapture I would say this: pack your bags, we\u2019re going home real quick.\u00a0 I have a feeling, I don\u2019t know this for sure, but these things will come into existence once the man of sin comes upon the scene, this satanically empowered antichrist who is able to negotiate the art of the deal.\u00a0 Every politician\u2019s dream!\u00a0 The problem that the State Department worries about constantly is the one I\u2019m talking about here.\u00a0 Peaceful coexistence between these two great religious systems, Judaism on the one end of the stick and Islam on the other.\n\nSo what do we have to have?\u00a0 Rebirth of Israel in 1948\u2014check, got that one.\u00a0 Israel\u2019s desire for peace\u2014check, got that one.\u00a0 There has to be a desire among some Jews to rebuild the third Jewish temple\u2014check, got that one.\u00a0 You understand that God has given this generation more evidence of his return than any other generation that has ever existed?\u00a0 And the most frustrating thing to watch is as the stage is so obviously being set you can\u2019t even get churches today that teach prophecy.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because they\u2019re afraid it\u2019s going to scare people; they\u2019re afraid it\u2019s going to divide people.\u00a0 Well guess what folks: truth divides; that\u2019s what it does.\u00a0 That\u2019s its nature.\u00a0 People that don\u2019t interpret these things literally aren\u2019t going to feel comfortable in this church.\u00a0 But my job is never to make people feel comfortable; it\u2019s to teach the truth!\n\nWe are living on borrowed time.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a date-setter nor the son of a date-setter but you have to understand that every moment you have in your life is there as a grace gift from God.\u00a0 There is no guarantee you\u2019re going to have today or tomorrow.\u00a0 The rapture could occur before this sermon is even over\u2026 some of you may be praying for that to happen.\u00a0 [laughter]\u00a0 Borrowed time, it\u2019s like looking at the hour glass and the sand is running out and you watch that hour glass and the sand at the very end is just ready to elapse and be finally poured out, just a few grains remain.\u00a0 That is the time period that we\u2019re living in.\n\nAnd this is not to get weird and withdraw from life; it\u2019s to get serious about God.\u00a0 That\u2019s what all of these things do, they get you serious about evangelism, they get you serious about holy living because we could hear the trumpet sound and be face to face with our Creator and stand before the Lord at the Bema Seat Judgment of Christ, which is yet coming as well, where we will be either rewarded or not rewarded based on deeds done in the body.\u00a0 Did we allow the Lord to glorify Himself through our lives during our brief sojourn on earth or did we squander it and waste it in fleshly pursuits?\u00a0 What gets you into heaven is faith alone in Christ alone.\u00a0 That\u2019s settled if you are a Bible-believing Christian, if you\u2019ve placed your faith in Christ.\u00a0 The issue of rewards or lack thereof is being determined right now based on the choices you\u2019re making today.\u00a0 It\u2019s that way for your life, it\u2019s that way for my life, and that\u2019s what a knowledge of prophetic events do, the nearness of them.\n\nWell, if all of this is true and the antichrist is going to walk into the rebuilt Jewish temple and put an end to sacrifices taking place in that temple then there must not only be a third Jewish temple on the horizon but that temple itself must be the home of what?\u00a0 Animal sacrifices.\u00a0 How do you put an end to animal sacrifices as Daniel 9:27 says unless the Jews in the temple are offering animal sacrifices?\u00a0 What does Daniel 9:27 again say?\u00a0 \u201cAnd he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to\u201d what? \u201csacrifice and grain offering;\u201d how do you put a stop to something that\u2019s not happening?\u00a0 How do you go into a temple that doesn\u2019t exist?\u00a0 How do you make a peace treaty with a nation that doesn\u2019t want a peace treaty?\u00a0\u00a0 How do you make a peace treaty with a nation that doesn\u2019t exist.\u00a0 You see, this is logical here.\n\nThe Lord Jesus Christ, when He came into this world the first time was not just dropped cavalierly, willy-nilly into the world at just any old time; the stage was set.\u00a0 You can study it very carefully what God did with the Greek language in place, one of the richest dialects known to man, to record the revelation of God\u2019s Son.\u00a0 That stage was set during the time of Alexander the Great, three centuries before Christ showed up.\u00a0 And then the Greek language stayed in place despite the conquest of Rome but the Roman Empire itself, with its Pax Romana, universal peace, it\u2019s universal roads.\u00a0 You\u2019ve heard the expression, all roads lead where?\u00a0 To Rome.\u00a0 That was the hand of God that set that up .\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 So that when Jesus shed His blood and rose from the dead and the church started the whole infrastructure was in place to transport the gospel.\n\nGod set the stage for the first coming of Christ, is it that far afield to assume that he is also setting the stage for the second coming of Christ.\u00a0 How is He doing that?\u00a0 Through what we\u2019re talking about here, there has to be not just a Jewish nation in unbelief wanting peace; there has to not just be a temple in place, but the temple has to be functioning with sacrifices.\u00a0 You\u2019re dealing with people who don\u2019t have the light of the New Testament.\u00a0 They don\u2019t have the Book of Hebrews, they don\u2019t understand that sacrifices are gone in the finished work of Christ.\u00a0 You\u2019re dealing with a mindset that has no concept of those things so they want the animal sacrifices to come back.\n\nNow some of you are saying you don\u2019t really believe that do you?\u00a0 You don\u2019t REALLY believe that they\u2019re going to offer sacrifices again in the nation of Israel do you?\u00a0 Of course that\u2019s what I believe because that\u2019s what the Bible says.\u00a0 Times of Israel<\/em>, April 6, 2017, entitled, \u201cIn first, sheep slaughtered in Jerusalem Old City in reenactment of Passover sacrifice.\u201d\u00a0 Here\u2019s an excerpt from the article.\u00a0 Look at the year, it\u2019s not that dated, just a little earlier this year, with (quote) \u201cwith priests blowing silver trumpets, a group of religious Jews slaughtered a sheep on Thursday in Jerusalem\u2019s old city to demonstrate the traditional pascal sacrifice\u201d watch this, \u201cthe first time such an enactment has been held inside the city walls in 2,000 years.\u201d\n\nI look at something like this, in fact, I was in Australia and I was with a prophecy minded group, I didn\u2019t even know this had happened, they told me about it and I said can you send me the article, which they did, a reputable source, Times of Israel<\/em>.\u00a0 Do you realize that if W. E. Blackstone, the guy I quoted earlier, who predicted the rebirth of the State of Israel forty years before it happened, do you realize that if W. E. Blackstone had read this article he probably would have been so excited he would have dropped dead, the poor guy, of a heart attack.\u00a0 This to me is exciting!\u00a0 And the state of the church is we don\u2019t care. I\u00a0 just hear spiritual snoring, I hear all of these misguided sermons about how people are trying to bring in the kingdom.\u00a0 I hear sermon after sermon from very popular people talking about how to improve your business, how to improve your life, how to make yourself happy, and yet the prophetic Word of God is jumping right off the pages and the church of Jesus Christ, to a large extent, with some few exceptions, could quite frankly really care less.\u00a0 And yet God, through these things, I believe, is screaming to this generation.\n\nMay God help us to understand these things: Rebirth of the State of Israel, 1948.\u00a0 Check!\u00a0 Israel\u2019s desire for peace.\u00a0 Check!\u00a0 The desire amongst some Jews to rebuild the third Jewish temple.\u00a0 Check!\u00a0 Desire among some Jews to restore the sacrificial system.\u00a0 Check!\u00a0 And that today was supposed to be my introduction.\u00a0 I was really going to spend time on number 10 which I won\u2019t do today, and maybe the rapture will occur between now and then and\u00a0 you won\u2019t have to hear it anyway.\u00a0 Amen.\n\nSo the next time we\u2019re together I want to get into number 10 and I want to show you that Daniel 9:27, which is being set up right now as I speak, is in microcosm what the Book of Revelation is about.\u00a0 Daniel 9:27 is the movie in black and white; Revelation 6-19 is the same movie but in color.\u00a0 Daniel 9:27 is the basement; Revelation 6-19 is the ceiling.\u00a0 And see, the problem is people, to understand the end are starting with the Book of Revelation instead of starting where we are starting, with the foundation.\u00a0 Most people don\u2019t have this foundation and so they\u2019re confused about all sorts of things in the Book of Revelation.\u00a0 And yet when you start with the right foundation the Book of Revelation will naturally find its logical normal theological orbit, I\u2019d better stop preaching because I\u2019m stealing from next week\u2019s sermon.\n\nYou know, if you\u2019re here today and you really don\u2019t know if you\u2019re listening and you really don\u2019t know about this Jesus thing, here\u2019s the deal:\u00a0 Jesus is coming back whether you\u2019re ready or not.\u00a0 At any minute the Creator can move into human history and fulfill His word\u2026 ANY moment!\u00a0 And the great question of a person\u2019s life is are you ready for that event or not.\u00a0 How do you get ready?\u00a0 The thing you do is you trust in the gospel that has been given.\u00a0 The gospel means good news, it\u2019s good news because all of the pain, all of the agony, all of the payment for sin has been done.\u00a0 We are not trusting in the works we do to be right with God because Jesus did the work on our behalf. That\u2019s the gospel.\u00a0 The Gospel is you receive what He has done as a free gift.\u00a0 And the Spirit of God has come into the world to convict the world of their need to do this.\n\nAnd people need to do that or they\u2019re going to miss the rapture and they\u2019re going to be plunged into the greatest time of human suffering the world has ever seen, where the wrath of God is going to be poured out on this earth in an unprecedented way with just the same reality that the Noahic flood, after 120 years of Noah\u2019s faithful preaching, finally broke forth.\u00a0 It\u2019s like water\u2026 and we know about this\u00a0 from our recent flood situation, it\u2019s like water building behind the breaker or the damn that\u2019s ready to give way at any minute.\u00a0 That\u2019s the condition of our world!\u00a0 And the only reason it hasn\u2019t broken yet is because of the grace of God.\n\nNow if you miss the rapture because you\u2019re an unbeliever you might be saying to yourself well, I\u2019ll still have a chance in the tribulation, and I\u2019m of the view that you still will but why go that route?\u00a0 I\u2019m a path of least resistance guy; why not take the path of least resistance and just trust in the Lord and be removed from the earth before this whole thing happens. I mean, if that\u2019s not an incentive to get saved today I don\u2019t know what is.\u00a0 As the Spirit places you under conviction trust in what Jesus has done, trust only in that and you are given the protection of being exempted, according to the Scripture, from the wrath of God.\n\nNow those of you that are saved, what kind of secret sins are you committing?\u00a0 What kind of secret sins am I committing. What kinds of things are we doing in a carnal unsanctified way where we just think nobody knows and nobody cares, I\u2019m getting away with it.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Is that how\u00a0 you want to stand before the Bema Seat Judgment of Christ?\u00a0 Or do you want to have victory over that private area of your life, and not, as 1 John says, shrink away at His appearing.\u00a0\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to be like that; we want to, as 1 Peter 1:11 says we want to enter the kingdom abundantly supplied.\u00a0 [1 Peter 1:11, \u201cseeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.\u201d]\n\nI don\u2019t want to be that guy in 1 Corinthians 3:15 who gets in but he smells the smoke on his garments.\u00a0 I want to get in abundantly supplied, having consecrated under God\u2019s power my life to God and hearing the expression \u201cwell done\u201d what? \u201cthy good and faithful servant.\u201d\u00a0 Oh yeah, all Christians are going to be in heaven, that\u2019s guaranteed but whether you hear that expression or not coming from the voice of the One who both created and redeemed you is not a guarantee.\u00a0 It\u2019s based on choices we\u2019re making now under His power.\n\nThe prophetic Word of God alerts us to the need to get saved; those of us that are saved it alerts us to the fact that this is the time in your life where you really need to be living for Jesus Christ.\u00a0 If the Holy Spirit has put on your heart to do a ministry my advice is to do it because you may not have that opportunity tomorrow.\u00a0 If the Holy Spirit has placed on your heart to evangelize such and such a person then you\u2019d better do it because you may not have that opportunity forever.\n\nIf the Holy Spirit has placed you under conviction and says this choice or lifestyle behavior needs to go so I can replace it with something better, then you\u2019d better listen because prophecy tells us we don\u2019t always have the opportunities in the future that we presume are there.\u00a0 Paul, the apostle, in Romans 13, talks about the need to work while it\u2019s still day.\u00a0 And Jesus also, work while it\u2019s still day because the night is coming in which no man can work.\u00a0 That\u2019s what a knowledge of the seventy weeks does; it\u2019s not just to fill out charts and get the chronology down and get all the arguments down.\u00a0 This is here by God, by the design of God to alter the lives of His people and to get the unsaved saved.\u00a0 Shall we pray.\n\nFather, we are grateful for Daniel 9:27 even though we\u2019re still not finished with the verse help us to understand these things, like the men of Issachar who understood the times and knew what to do as a result, I Chronicles 12:32.\u00a0 Make us like those men of Issachar as we here at Sugar Land Bible Church give our minds to prophetic subjects in the Book of Daniel.\u00a0 We will be careful to give You all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen!\n\n[1 Chronicles 12:32, \u201cOf the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command.\u201d]","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t