Gabriel and the Seventy Weeks

Well, I invite you to turn to Daniel chapter 9. If you were present this morning, we made a fairly hasty dash through the first nineteen verses, and we pick it up this evening at verse 20. And I’m going to read from 20 to the end of the chapter.

Daniel 9:20:

“While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, ‘O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.

“‘Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. … After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.’”

Amen.

Well, we pray together:

Father, thank you that your Word is absolutely unerring. Thank you that everything that we need for life and for godliness is conveyed to us in it. And we pray now that you will make the Book live to us. Show us ourselves. Show us our Savior.[1] Grant to us clarity, we pray. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Well, as we said this morning—and we’re back in Daniel chapter 9—the prayer of Daniel, which is an extensive prayer, probably one of the great prayers of the Old Testament, was actually stirred as a result of him turning to the book of the words. And we noted that he was reading from the prophecy of Jeremiah. And as a result of that, he recognized not only the majesty of God but also the need for the people of God to confess their sins.

And largely, this morning, we were recognizing that fact, I think. To a man and a woman, we were struck by it, I think, not simply on a personal level but also on a corporate level as a church. I believe that God’s Word to us was very, very clear, and necessarily so, because so much contemporary life challenges even the very notion. And that’s why most of us are helped by reading old books—not solely old books, but certainly reading the Reformers and reading the Puritans. They help us with this kind of thing. The Reformers spoke of the importance of daily repentance, and the Puritans actually spoke of Christian maturity being expressed in a perpetual brokenheartedness—which, of course, just doesn’t seem right in our day-to-day.

But again, I encourage you, as you go into the bookstore, to look not only for the new stuff but for some of the old stuff. And if you happen to fasten on Calvin, you will find that he’s saying similar things. For example, when he comments on the Lord’s Prayer and the phrase “Forgive us our debts,” he writes as follows: “For whom did Christ wish to use this petition? Surely all his disciples. If any one thinks that he has no need of this form of prayer, and … confession of sin, let him depart from the school of Christ, and enter into a herd of swine.”[2] Well, thank you for being so clear, John. I think we got that perfectly well.

Daniel has confessed, as we’ve seen, the sins that had given rise to the desolation of the city and the temple. He recognizes that he is one, but he is part of a larger—and in the same way that we are, too, at this point in history. We are part of the larger representation of the church in our world and certainly in our culture. And I think it’s worth pondering which of us is prepared to confess the sins of our contemporary church and our own areas of neglect.

You think about America tonight, or North America tonight. We have Canadians with us as well; I beg your pardon. As we think of North America tonight, and think of it as we have read history or experienced history, is it not true that we ought to bemoan the fact that many of the buildings that bear the name of Christ are in this moment dark, if not entirely empty? That the professions of repentance towards God and confession of sin is increasingly swallowed up in a man-centeredness, both in preaching and in praying and in singing? And if Daniel had occasion to stop in the midst of his day and confess the circumstances of the people of God 600 BC, it behooves us, surely, to take on that responsibility—not in a morbid way but in a realistic way—so that we might pray that God will intervene as he did at that time.

Now, the urgency of Daniel’s appeal—and it was an urgent appeal—is more than matched, as we’ve seen, by the immediacy of the answer of God. Verse 20: “While I was speaking and praying…” Again in verse 21: “While I was speaking in prayer…” Now, this is an interesting point, and we’re not going to belabor it, but it’s almost as though he never managed to get his prayer out of his lips or off his heart before the answer was dispatched to him. It’s a reminder that God hears prayer immediately. He answers in his time and in his own way, but there is no sense in which we can then say, “Well, Daniel caused this by his prayer,” but nor is there any way that we can say, “The events unfolded absent Daniel’s prayer.” “While I was still speaking…” He realized, recognized what the prophet says: “Before they call I will answer; [and] while they are yet speaking I will hear.”[3] He was aware of Psalm 139: “You know the words of my mouth before I speak them altogether.”[4]

And it’s in light of that that God then dispatches his messenger, Gabriel, whom we’ve met before—certainly back in chapter 8: “And I heard a man’s voice … and it called, ‘[And] Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.’”[5] So here he is again. He is one of God’s mighty ones, dispatched to do his bidding. On another occasion, we’ll give thought to the nature of angelic activity, not only as it is recorded in the Bible but as it is experienced in our world. And Gabriel is sent on a flying visit. In fact, verse 21 says, “[He] came to me in swift flight”—“in swift flight”—to inform Daniel that at the beginning of his plea, his word was heard, to tell him that he has “come out to give” him “insight and understanding.”

Now, that in itself is quite remarkable, because you will remember that when we began our studies in Daniel, one of the things that marks Daniel as a man is that he has a peculiar measure of understanding—that God has given him understanding beyond his peers and the ability to see and interpret visions and dreams. But I guess you can never have enough understanding, and so Gabriel says, “I’ve come, and God says you’re going to have a little bit more.”

Now, you will notice, too, if the text is open in front of you, that the gift of understanding does not negate the necessity of Daniel’s engagement and consideration. That’s the final phrase of verse 23: “Therefore,” says Gabriel, “consider the word and understand the vision.” Daniel’s effort and God’s enabling work in tandem. Now, that’s not unique, again, to this book. Remember, when we studied 2 Timothy, Paul says to Timothy, “Timothy, consider these things, and the Lord will give you insight.”[6] It is the Lord who gives the insight; it is Timothy who does the considering. It is God who dispatches the understanding and the wisdom; it is the responsibility of Daniel to pay attention to it.

Daniel’s effort and God’s enabling work in tandem.

And so, to summarize that little section: the visit of Gabriel conveys at least these three things. Number one, he comes to tell Daniel, “God hears you.” “God hears you.” Secondly, “God has sent me.” That’s the significance of him saying, “I have now come out to give you insight and understanding.” Come out from where? Come out from God’s presence. Come out from God’s dispatch box, if you like. Come out from the company of the mighty ones who do the bidding of God. “I have come out to you.” And thirdly, “I’m here to tell you that you are greatly loved.” “You are greatly loved.”

If you think about it in the panorama of this whole context, that is quite remarkable, isn’t it? “Daniel, I know you’ve had quite a go of it with the lions’ den and everything else that you’ve been through, but I’m here to tell you that God really, really loves you. He loves the whole world, but he loves you.”

You know, that’s true of every child of God. You are really loved. Now, you may not feel loved by the people around you. You may feel that you’re despised by people around you, whether at work or in your home. But the word of God is that he loves you: “The Son of God loved me. God loved me. He gave himself for me.”

Now, the wonderful thing about it is—in just this little note there at the end of verse 21—is you realize how much Daniel is the embodiment of the one to whom God looks. Remember Isaiah 66: “This is the one to whom I will look,” says the Lord, “he who is humble and contrite in spirit,” the one who “trembles at my word.”[7] And Daniel embodies that. And so, if you like, the blessing of heaven is tied in some measure to the life of Daniel lived here in this context.

And the very fact that Daniel records that the flying visit of Gabriel came “at the time of the evening sacrifice” tells us something about Daniel. When had he last been at the evening sacrifice? He hadn’t been at the evening sacrifice since he had been snatched up from his home in Jerusalem. There had been no evening sacrifice. There was no place to go. They lived entirely separated from all of that. And yet Daniel says, “When the angel came, he came about three o’clock in the afternoon.” What does that tell you about Daniel? It tells me this: that you can take Daniel out of Jerusalem, but you can’t take Jerusalem out of Daniel—that his life lived as an alien was calibrated by the reality of all that was his, in God and with God, in the celebration of the people of God. And it is in that context that Daniel then is called to consideration and to understanding.

I’m sure Daniel would not have said this, but if I had been Daniel, I would have said to the angel Gabriel, after he gave me this, “Could you hang on just a minute? Because I’m not sure I got it the first time.” Or when he said, “Therefore, I’m here to give you insight and understanding, and you should just consider these things,” I might have said, “Well, that’s easy enough for you to say!” Because what he then says and gives to Daniel is a remarkable little piece, isn’t it? I mean, some of you have read it again this afternoon in the hope of discovering what it means.

And so it’s time for us to descend into the abyss. Here we are. One commentator says that “the history of the exegesis of the 70 Weeks is the Dismal Swamp” of Old Testament study.[8] In fact, having spent a long time now in this little section, I have begun to think very differently about the seventies when people mention them. It’s taken on a whole new thought for me. These seventies have been chasing me down for some days now.

These verses, 24–27, as I said this morning, are the most difficult in the entire text. Commentators agree that they are the most difficult in the entire text. That is the only thing that commentators agree on. They agree that these verses are really difficult. At the same time, they certainly do not agree on the right way to understand them. And I, having dealt with this for some considerable time now, have found, to my great surprise and at times discouragement, that I am disagreeing with the interpretation of these verses—interpretations done by my closest friends, whom I admire greatly. And then I’m encouraged by the fact that my closest friends disagree with each other. And then I realized that I actually disagree with myself. Now, I don’t say that for fun. I say that to be very, very honest with you.

Let me remind you again of the Westminster Confession. Not all parts of the Bible are equally understandable, says the Confession, but all that is necessary for an understanding of salvation is made perfectly plain in the Scriptures.[9] And so, when we come to a passage like this, it would be relatively easy for me but laborious for you, tedious for you, and really a miserable exercise for me to start now and rehearse for you the plethora of ways in which this section of the Old Testament is understood and explained. Many commentaries, to their shame, spend far more on these four verses than they do on the first twenty-three verses. And many people view these verses with such emphasis that as soon as you say what you believe about them, you will either be included in their will or removed from it immediately.

Now, if you think about it, that’s a very strange way to operate. “But,” you’re saying to me, “well, I’m not so sure that it would be so tedious.” Well, let me give you just a little flavor of some of the material that I was reading this week, where one of the questions that is obviously raised is: What are these sevens? Are the sevens weeks? Or are the sevens weeks of years? And are these sevens and this seventy to be understood in symbolic terms, or are they to be understood in literal terms? It’s a very important question. And in fact, if you want to continue, you can ask a number of other questions: Is the “anointed one” referenced in verse 25 the same as the “anointed one” referenced in verse 26? And so we can go on through the whole thing.

But certain people, in order to help, get into it in great detail. This is the kind of place where I finally said, “Oh no, I don’t want to do this anymore.” Here is somebody, in a section in his commentary entitled “Do the Math.” Now, this person obviously believes that you can understand this in a very, very literalistic way. And so, I’ll stop off in a moment, but let me give you a flavor of it. So, I’m trying hard to understand this:

From the first of Nisan in 444 BC to the first of Nice in AD 33, there are apparently 476 years of 365 days, or 173,740 days. From the fourth of March to the twenty-ninth of March, there are 24 more days. If you add to this 116 days for leap years and the total number of actual days between the decree to rebuild Jerusalem and Christ’s death is 173,880 days.

Who cares right now, right? Okay? But hang on: “After this comes an undefined gap of time, a break in the prophecy”—who says? —“until the final last week, which is described in more detail in the book of Revelation. Gabriel spoke of sixty-nine-year weeks or 483 years.” Get this: “Using a stylized, prophetic 360-day year, this multiplies out to 483 times 360, which is 173,880.” And guess what? That’s the number we’re looking for!

Now, do you really think that this passage of Scripture, that it would have occurred for a moment to Daniel to sit down and try and do this kind of algorithmic mechanism? And how good do you think he would have been at it? Because this was given to Daniel. This was given to Daniel by the visit of a flying angel so that he would understand—so that he would understand, and so that we, when we read it, would understand as well.

Ralph Davis, who’s a good friend of ours, makes this humorous but helpful observation. He says when you take this kind of thing and you ask yourself, “What does this all mean?” he says it means this: “that if you[’re] driving home late at night and tune in to the ‘Prophecy Hour’ on your radio and hear the preacher refer to ‘what is perfectly clear in Daniel seventy-weeks prophecy,’ you [may] know [with a certainty that] he hasn’t read the text carefully.”[10] Because the longer you go at it, the more daunting it becomes.

This is a brief passage, and this is an obscure passage. And therefore, when we come to something like this, it is imperative that we don’t disengage from our normal principle of interpretation. A fundamental principle is as follows: that we should understand and interpret what is unclear in light of what is clear and not the other way around. So you don’t start with an obscure, tiny passage of the Bible or of a book and then try and understand the book in light of that little passage. You take that within the overarching framework of the book, within the framework of apocalyptic literature, within the context of God’s revelation, and within the awareness of the fact that God is not playing hide-and-seek with himself or with his wisdom when he gives to us his Word. For if the main things are the plain things, then clearly, in these verses, we’re not dealing with foundational blocks of biblical theology.

Sadly, our time is up. So…

In what follows, I reserve the right to change my mind later this evening and as often as necessary for the rest of my life until I finally settle the matter. What I’m about to now unfold for you will annoy some, disappoint others, confuse many, and perhaps encourage a few. Remember, it is the Word of God which is absolutely true and absolutely sufficient and absolutely right, and not the preacher’s interpretation of it. It is the Word of God which is authoritative. And parts of the Word of God leave us with our hands over our mouths. And our unwillingness to end up in that position perhaps says more about our pride then it does about our desire to fully comprehend its truth.

It is the Word of God which is absolutely true and absolutely sufficient and absolutely right, and not the preacher’s interpretation of it.

Daniel, then, is informed that the period that is in view—“Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your [body]”—that the period that is in view, it’s seventy weeks, or literally seventy sevens. If you want to go to the background of that, go to Leviticus chapter 25, and you can follow up on that. Even though the seventy years of the exile, as we saw this morning, are coming to an end, there is, he discovers, a period of seventy sevens before the end of the end. And within this time frame that we’re being told about here, the final triumph of God’s kingdom will eventually emerge.

Now, if you look at verse 24, which is obviously key to this, it sets up everything that follows, not only chronologically, in terms of the verse format, but also in terms of an understanding. “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city,” and then we’re told six things. All right? Number one, transgression will be finished; sins will be brought to an end; reconciliation will be made for iniquity, or atonement will be made for iniquity (it’s all in the text; just let your eye look on it); vision and prophecy will be sealed; and the most holy will be anointed. There’s some question whether that is a holy place or a holy person, but nevertheless, it is as it is.

Now, anybody reading that verse with even a modicum of understanding of the New Testament is going to say what? Even your ten-year-old son or daughter, if they know anything about the Bible and you read that twenty-fourth verse to them, they’re going to say to you, “That must be about what Jesus does.” “That must be about what Jesus does.” Well, and of course, it is about what Jesus does. The question that it begs is: When has he done it, and what of it still has to be done, if any? But nevertheless, we can be absolutely certain that it is pointing forward to the person and to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, when it comes to this matter of the fulfillment of all of this, one of my good friends sees all of this—verse 24—completed in the coming of Christ, in his death and in his resurrection and in his ascension, and then subsequently in the events of AD 70, with the destruction of the temple. All right? So it is all wrapped up there.

Another—and I’m saying “my friends” because they are my friends, and I pay attention to them—another of them suggests that what we have here is not then exhausted by those historical events, although it refers to them, but it is actually descriptive of the final crushing of the Antichrist. All right? So, when you go all the way down to the end of it: “And this one will come; and on the wing of abomination shall come one who makes desolate; and then he, in the end, will be desolated himself.”

Yet another friend views all of 24, verse 24, not as a summary of what has already transpired but as a prophecy directly related to what is going to transpire—which, if you still have patience and time, we may come back to in the end—which is directly related in the mind of that friend to the place of Israel as a nation, to the reconstruction of the temple, and to all that goes along with that. So that friend says, “No, your first friend is wrong. It can’t possibly have all been dealt with by AD 70. Your other friend is a little better in that he sees a lot of it there, but there is still more to come. But if he was a really good friend, he would agree with me,” says this third friend, “and he would recognize that verse 24 and following is not a summary, but it is a prophecy. And it is yet to be unfolded.”

“Well,” you say, “well, we don’t care about your friends. You’re here; never mind your friends. You should have brought your friends and let them speak.” Well, let me give you my best shot.

I take it that what we have here is actually a summary of what Christ accomplished in his coming. And yet, because of the way you look at this description and all that follows—as we’ll see in just a moment—it’s hard for me to say that that is all that it is. And therefore, I personally think that it still foreshadows events yet to unfold—that there are elements that are still represented in this accomplishment here in verse 24 that are related, then, in 25, 26, and 27.

Because, you know, while I recognize and we recognize together the triumph of all that Christ has accomplished, I still read, for example, you know, Ephesians 1:10: that God’s will has been set forth in Christ “as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

“Well,” you say, “but he has done that, hasn’t he?” Well, he has, yes—but not quite. And you have that sense—at least I have that sense—that we recognize in looking back that it forces us, then, to look forward. And as we saw in our studies in Mark chapter 13, this telescoping effect that exists in prophetic passages we’re not surprised to discover here.

Well, if you’re still with me, I will continue.

Therefore, I go on to assume that the opening part of verse 25—and I think this is pretty straightforward—that the opening part of 25 and following, which is the understanding “that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem…” You remember when Cyrus allows the people to be repatriated. They’ve been held in exile. Jeremiah says, “The time will come to an end.” It comes to an end, and I believe that’s what’s represented here. I don’t think anybody disagrees with that, actually—that there is going to come a time, for Daniel and for his encouragement, when this person will make it possible to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem. I take it that this “anointed one,” this “prince,” is, of course, Cyrus himself. He’s referred to as the “anointed” one[11] in the prophetic writings.

Now, that in itself would be an encouragement to Daniel. But you then have to say that we go on to the sixty-two weeks: “[And] then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and a moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off.”

So, the second period takes us from the time of Nehemiah all the way to the coming of Jesus. All the way to the coming of Jesus. And the people who do all the mathematical formulations on it are at pains to make sure that the math actually works out—hence the preoccupation with AD 33 and everything else. They’re saying, “Look, it’s…” And some of them manage to get it down to the exact day of the crucifixion of Jesus or of the incarnation itself. That seems to me to be a lot of special pleading. But nevertheless, they’re making the point that whether you regard it in these very literal terms or whether you regard this as a period of time, as a symbolic reference of time, at the end of it, what we have is the appearing of Christ himself, so that it takes us to he who is the “anointed one.” And when we look at this, we realize just how challenging it is: “[And this] anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing.”

Now, here’s where a King James Version Bible helped me out. Because I always like to look at different translations, and the translation in the King James Version says the “Messiah” shall “be cut off,” and “not for himself.”[12] Here the ESV: “And this anointed one shall be cut off.” Well, it’s very helpful that the King James boys said, “This is the Messiah.” And, of course, we understand that it is the Messiah. You remember Isaiah 53: in prophesying the death of the Lord Jesus, it says of him that he would be “cut off” from “the land of the living.”[13] And so, Daniel is being told that somehow or another, in a way that would be inevitably cloudy for him but in a way that is clear in the light of the New Testament, there is going to come this one who will be the Messiah himself, and he will be “cut off and shall have nothing.”

Well, what are we to do, then, with “the people of the prince who is to come” and “shall destroy the city and the sanctuary”? Who is this? Well, it depends on your view. Here’s where Titus comes in and AD 70 comes in. Because when you read the history, you realize that that is exactly what happened in AD 70, when Titus, the leader of the Roman authorities, ransacked, destroyed, Jerusalem and its inhabitants and the temple itself. “And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. [And] its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war.”

You see, that little phrase there is why I can’t go with it all finishing up in AD 70. Because it doesn’t sound like it finishes in AD 70 to me. And it’s interesting I’m prepared to say this, ʼcause if I told you who my friends are… You know, I love them very much, and they’re far brighter than me. But I don’t know whether they want it to end in AD 70 or whatever else it is. But the idea of it coming with a flood and the great destruction… But it then says, “And to the end there shall be war”—the ongoing notion. And “desolations are decreed.” Well, what are these?

Well, the way people deal with this is they say that 27 and 26, the two verses, should be read parallel to one another—parallel to one another—so that 27 should not actually be explaining what is coming after, but it is a recapitulation of what is said in verse 26. And this is where it gets really, really difficult. You say, “Well, it’s been difficult for a while.” But no. The reference to the Lord Jesus in verse 26, when you go to verse 27—is, then, it Jesus in verse 27 who is making “a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he [will] put an end to sacrifice and offering”? Is this the same person?

Now, my one good friend says, “Yes, of course it is. Because Jesus, by his death, put an end to sacrifice.” “I need no other [sacrifice], I need no other plea.”[14] It’s the whole emphasis of the book of Hebrews. So, verse 27: “He [will] make a strong covenant with many for one week, and … [will] put an end to sacrifice and to offering.” So, from that perspective, the stopping of the sacrifices is viewed as a plus. But what if verse 27a does not refer to Jesus but actually refers to the enemy of God’s people? Then it changes everything! Because then what you have is someone putting an end to the sacrifices not in a way that confirms their validity but opposes them entirely. So then verse 27a becomes the stopping of the sacrifice not as a positive act but as a hostile act: “[And] he shall put an end to sacrifice and [to] offering[s].”

So, the tidier view, which contains it in AD 70, somehow has to reckon with the way in which successive desolations point forward and foreshadow the end of the end. And this “wing of abominations,” as a phrase: “And on [this] wing … shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.” I mean, we’ve got to do something with “the man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians.[15] We have to do something with the antichrist. We have to do something with the fact that this whole deal is not finished yet. And we have to recognize… And that’s why I said to you before that when you deal with biblical prophecy, it’s a bit like hill climbing. When you climb in the hills of Scotland, if you look up, you say, “If we get there, we’ll be on the top,” until you get there, and you realize, “We’re not on the top.” And it may happen to you three or four more times. But from where you stand, you think you see the end, until you move up, and you see there is an end that is yet to be. And I think that in this passage, there is more of that than perhaps some are prepared to recognize.

Well, the challenge in this, the ultimate challenge in this—and I speak as someone who’s just come back from “the Holy Land”—the challenge in this is that your view of these verses impact a whole lot of stuff, not least of all your view of Jerusalem, the temple, and ethnic Israel.

From a certain perspective, those who see most of this yet to be, they view 1948 as absolutely key and represented in this passage: the return of the Jewish people to their own land, and therefore, this means that we’re now in part one of the week and so on. I respect that. I understand that. That is their view, and it is held very firmly. In that view, they anticipate the rebuilding of the temple, the restoration of Jewish worship for a significant period of time, and so on.

The challenge for that, as I read my Bible, is this: that Jesus actually viewed himself as the replacement for the temple—that the ultimate anointing of the holy place is an anointing which rested on the holy one himself. And the real temple is where Jesus is. The real temple is in the place of reconciliation. The real temple is the place of his kingly rule. But where is Jesus? Jesus has gone to heaven. Jesus is then himself present by the Holy Spirit. That’s what we say, isn’t it? That we gather in the presence of Jesus. That Jesus is present in Korea tonight. He’s present in the northern parts of Africa. He’s present in sub-Saharan Africa. He is present. How is he present? He’s present by the Holy Spirit.

“It’s better for you that I go away.”[16]

“[Are] you at this time [going to] restore the kingdom to Israel?”[17]

“No, fellows, that’s not what I’m going to do. I’m going to go away. It’s better. You must preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. Tell the people. Tell the people this amazing good news.”

And the Spirit of God is not confined, then, to one physical and one geographical location. That is why, you see, the idea of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is actually a misnomer. There is no “holy land.” Now, that’s not to say that it isn’t good for us to go out there and see the actual historical sites where the events of the Bible unfolded. But do you really believe that that is the real holy place?

Well, you see, this passage of the Bible actually impacts. The only truly biblical pilgrimage to the “holy land” is to go to Jesus. To go to Jesus. The nations are coming to the temple when they come to Jesus, when the gospel is preached, and when it is applied by the Holy Spirit to people’s hearts. And when, remember, you read in the book of Revelation, at the end of it all, there was no temple.[18]

The only truly biblical pilgrimage to the ‘holy land’ is to go to Jesus.

So you see, these things unsettle us if we have come from a background that believes very firmly about this. And I’m not here to oppose the view. I’m here simply to observe. But I firmly concur with my good friend Alec Motyer when he writes as follows: “Old Testament national and territorial pictures prepare us for a kingdom that is not of this world.”[19] That’s what Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world. Otherwise, my followers would fight.”[20] “It prepares us a redeemed and believing people who already live in the heavenly realms”—Ephesians 4—“and who, here and now, have come to the heavenly Zion.”[21]

Daniel and his friends were asking, “How long is this going to go on?” We ask the same question. Tonight, we are closer to these things than we were last Sunday night. Tonight, we’re traveling along the edge of human history. So the pessimist can look down, and the fearful can look around, but the believer ought to lift his or her eyes and look up, “for [our] redemption draw[s] nigh.”[22]

And the hymn writer captures it wonderfully: “ʼMid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war, she”—that is, the church—

  waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest![23]

I don’t know what Daniel made of all of this. I’m not sure what you make of all of this. I think I could study this for another three weeks and not be any better than I am right now. But I’m confident of two things: one, that God’s Word does not err—that ultimately, that which he has purposed he will accomplish—and that you are sensible people and that you can go and figure this out for yourselves.

Father, thank you. I think, Lord, the big lesson tonight is this—well, two. One would be: we look to the Holy Spirit to be the unfolder of Scripture for us—that our best attempts reveal the fact that “we see through a glass, darkly”;[24] that when we come across four hundred different interpretations of something from good men that we respect, we are justified in concluding that this just can’t be as clear as some people suggest it is. So we pray for humility of heart and mind. We pray that we won’t become unbelieving. We don’t want to be like the scoffers in 2 Peter, who said, “Where is the promise of his coming? … All things continue as they [once did].”[25] We don’t even want to go anywhere close to that. We affirm the fact, Lord Jesus Christ, that you are an ascended King, that you’re a reigning Lord, that you will come in power and great glory, and we await that day. In the meantime, Lord, help us, through all our part in these sevens, to have this hope within us which creates zeal for evangelism and purity of life. And we thank you that we can look all the way back down through these 2,600 years and recognize that you have been faithful to your people, even as you’re faithful to us tonight. And we look away from ourselves to you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] R. Hudson Pope, “Make the Book Live to Me.”

[2] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel, trans. Thomas Myers (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1853), 2:190.

[3] Isaiah 65:24 (ESV).

[4] Psalm 139:4 (paraphrased).

[5] Daniel 8:16 (ESV).

[6] 2 Timothy 2:7 (paraphrased).

[7] Isaiah 66:2 (ESV).

[8] James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, The International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1972), 400.

[9] The Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7.

[10] Dale Ralph Davis, The Message of Daniel: His Kingdom Cannot Fail, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013), 129.

[11] Isaiah 45:1 (NIV 1984).

[12] Daniel 9:26 (KJV).

[13] Isaiah 53:8 (ESV).

[14] Eliza E. Hewitt, “My Faith Has Found a Resting Place” (1890).

[15] 2 Thessalonians 2:3 (ESV).

[16] John 16:7 (paraphrased).

[17] Acts 1:6 (ESV).

[18] See Revelation 21:22.

[19] Alec Motyer, Look to the Rock: An Old Testament Background to Our Understanding of Christ (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004), 37. Paraphrased.

[20] John 18:36 (paraphrased).

[21] Motyer, Look to the Rock, 37. Paraphrased.

[22] Luke 21:28 (KJV).

[23] Samuel J. Stone, “The Church’s One Foundation” (1866).

[24] 1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV).

[25] 2 Peter 3:4 (KJV).