Weekly Bible Study – April 27, 2015

The astonishing Prophecies of God. Daniel 9.

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Prepare yourself for learning the Word of God!

Before we begin, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ (that is; you have believed [trusted] in Him for His promised gift of eternal life), it is important to prepare yourself to learn God's Word so take a moment to name, cite or acknowledge (confess) your sins privately to God (i.e.; with your thoughts directed only to God the Father).

1 John 1:9 says: "If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (known sins) and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [unknown or forgotten sins]." NKJV (New King James Version) [italics added]

If you have never personally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior (that is, believed in Him for eternal life), the issue for you is not to name your sins; the issue for you is to have faith alone in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life:

John 6:47 says: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me (Jesus Christ) has everlasting life." NKJV [italics added]

Notice again what Jesus said in John 6:47: "…he who believes in Me (Jesus Christ) has everlasting life." It doesn't say, "will have"; it says, "has." Therefore, the very moment you believe in Jesus Christ for His promise of everlasting life, you have it (it's really just that simple; nothing more and nothing less), and it can never be taken away from you (John 10:28-29). Furthermore, the gift (Ephesians 2:8c) of everlasting life (also called eternal life in scripture) is available to every human being; there are absolutely no exceptions.

John 3:14-18 says: "¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. ¹⁷ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. ¹⁸ He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." NKJV

Let us now bow our hearts and take a moment to prepare for worship and learning God's Word. If there is any known sin in your life, this is the time to just cite it privately to God the Father with your thoughts directed towards Him. With your head bowed and your eyes closed, you have total privacy in your mind and soul:

Study to show yourself approved to God!

Grace Bible Church
Robert R. McLaughlin Bible Ministries

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STUDY TITLE:

The astonishing Prophecies of God. Daniel 9.


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Terms & Abbreviations used:

PPOG = Predesigned Plan of God
Human Good = Evil + Good Deeds while not in fellowship with God
OSN = Old Sin Nature
TLJC = The Lord Jesus Christ
SSE = Spiritual Self Esteem
PVTD = Positive Volition Towards Doctrine
+H - The Happiness of God
NVTD = Negative Volition Towards Doctrine
Doctrine = Bible Truth

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BEGIN BIBLE STUDY
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotes and references
are from the NASB – New American Standard Bible

The astonishing Prophecies of God. Daniel 9.

We begin this morning by noting the principle behind the so-called “Three Wise Men,” who many believers did not know were not believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is true that they came to worship Him but that’s because they were what we noted this past week as polytheist who believe in many gods that they should worship. And to them, the lord was just another one for them to worship.

Our Lord taught monotheism, that there is only one God. He taught the disciples in ACT 4:12, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved.”

In REV 15:4, He is called the only one alone who is holy or the true Holy One, “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou alone art holy; For all the nations will come and worship before Thee, For Thy righteous acts have been revealed.” Either our Lord is a liar and a fraud and the Bible is a book filled with lies or he is truly who He says He is and the Bible, in its original language is truly the word of God and from God. You see, we are monotheist which refers to the belief in one God not polytheist, the belief in many gods.

We believe in one God who has three distinct personalities, who we call the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A very simple illustration is found in the simple illustration of an egg. Sometimes the simple illustrations are the easiest to understand. I could be very technical and show you how all of the illustrations have some form of consistency in them, but the preciseness and accuracy of the illustration is not the goal I seek to accomplish.


My goal is simply to illustrate an analogy which will serve to cause you to understand the concept of the Trinity in a simplistic way. There have been many attempts to explain the “Trinity,” the relationship between God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The most advanced illustration is light whereas the most simple illustration that represents the “Trinity” accurately is probably the example of an egg. Therefore, for the sake of simplicity I have chosen the egg illustration.

The yolk represents God’s “Person,” His Being, and His Holiness which no man can see and is called unapproachable light. 1TI 6:16, He alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen or can see. So, the yoke can be used as an illustration of God the Father.

Then we have the egg white which could be used to represents God the Holy Spirit because as God’s Person is unapproachable, the Spirit illustrated by the white of an egg acts as insulation of the shell from the yoke. We know that it is through the Holy Spirit that God can communicate, and speak through and interact with mankind.

Then there is the egg shell, the part of the egg that can be seen that reveals the presence of a yoke or in the analogy the presence of God the Father. We are told throughout the word of God that the Lord jesus Christ is the only member of the trinity that can be seen. For example, since we are in the Gospel of John, look at JOH 1:18.

JOH 1:18, No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

JOH 6:46, Not that any man has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.

JOH 14:8, Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”

JOH 14:9, Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

In other words, using the analogy of the egg, as the shell of an egg reveals the presence of the yoke, to see the Lord Jesus Christ (TLJC) is to see and realize who God the Father is and the fact that He is present. Also, as the white of an egg connects the yoke with the shell, so the ministry of the Holy Spirit unites the visibility of the Lord Jesus Christ with the invisibility of God the father for us to understand. And under the principle of spiritual metabolism, when of the spiritual egg we do so by the ministry of the Holy Spirit united us together with the Father. And we do this every time w eat the word.

JER 15:16 Thy words were found and I ate them, And Thy words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts.

EZE 3:1-3, Then He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. And He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach, and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.

JOH 6:53, Jesus therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.

So there is a connection between the eating of the spiritual egg. Our Lord’s person is identified by the shell which is joined to the Father by means of the Holy Spirit, because God’s Spirit is said to be the Father’s well as the Son’s.

Another analogy we could use to back up the reason why we are monotheist and believe in the Trinity and the fact there is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is found in the principle of the body, soul and spirit, which man possessed in the original creation of mankind. In GEN 1:27, And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Mankind was originally created with a body. soul, and human spirit. This is why we are told in 1TH 5:23, Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because mankind lost his human spirit the day that he sinned, he needed to be born again or needed a new human spirit which he does receive on the day he is born again (JOH 3:3-7). God is made up of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, you and I have a body, soul and human spirit. The analogy to the trinity is obvious. Our body is analogous to our Lord Jesus Christ, the overt manifestation of who we are. Our Human spirit is analogous to God the Holy Spirit, the human spirit acts as that part of us that unites our physical body with our soul, the real you, or in the analogy, the Holy Spirit acts as our human spirit and unites us with the Father and the Son. And that leaves the soul which is analogous to God the Father and the real you who we are made in the image of God.

Therefore, in the analogy, our human spirit (analogous to the Holy Spirit) is designed to operate with the physical body (analogous to the Lord jesus Christ) to unite us with our soul (analogous to God the Father) which is the real person. Our Lord said it would be through the ministry of the Holy Spirit that He and the Father would come to us and make their abode or their home with us.

JOH 14:20-23, “In that day [the beginning of the Church-age and the baptism of the Holy Spirit] you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and WE will come to him, and make OUR abode with him.”

In JOH 14:26, He says “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

It was the Father’s desire to join His Spirit with all of us as well for He has said “They shall be My sons and daughters” (2CO 6:18). In order to accomplish this union with God and man, He allowed His Shell [the Lord Jesus Christ] to be broken with the weight of our sins to cleanse us from our entire sin nature. And the analogy is that through the brokenness of the Shell, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit white pours out into our beings through our faith in what was done and believers are joined with the yolk, for it is by One Spirit we have access to God the Father (EPH 2:18).


So that is why we are monotheist and not polytheist, like the so-called “Three Wise men.” Now, the point is that the interesting thing is that there was a group of men who were watching the prophecy that Daniel spoke of and were waiting for it to be fulfilled. And so they knew about it and they came to worship Him. Who were these men? These men were known as the wise men as history records for us, but even history misses out on the details concerning them, because they were really known as the Magi and were made up of more than just three. Most of us know them as the Three Wise Men because of the fact they brought three distinct categories of gifts to our Lord when He was born. But there were more than the three wise men. There could have been as much as 40 or 50 of them. They are called the “Three Wise Men” because they brought three important gifts which were also related to prophecy because the gifts they brought spoke of the prophetic kingship of our Lord, and also His death and burial. Even the gifts which the Magi brought to Jesus suggests that they were being prompted or motivated by Daniel’s prophecy.

We know that because of MAT 2:211, Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, they said “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east, and have come to worship Him.” And when Herod the king heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born. And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet, (MIC 5:2) ‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, Are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; For out of you shall come forth a Ruler, Who will shepherd My people Israel.’ Then Herod secretly called the magi, and ascertained from them the time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and make careful search for the Child; and when you have found Him, report to me, that I too may come and worship Him.” And having heard the king, they went their way; and lo, the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them, until it came and stood over where the Child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And they came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell down and worshiped Him; and opening their treasures they presented to Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Consider these gifts once again: They presented to Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Gold - Daniel said in 9:25 that the coming Messiah was to be a “prince,” a term that reveals royalty and the perfect gift for a king.

Frankincense - an incense that was used for the “purpose of cleansing and putting perfume upon a corpse.

Myrrh -The Jews used Myrrh for embalming bodies for burial preparation.

It is extremely interesting that two of the three gifts which the Magi presented to baby Jesus related to His death and burial. In other words, the Daniel prophecy contained all the information which the Magi needed to know to bring these gifts. Now, here’s another interesting principle which is the fact that how did the Wise Men know that the star they saw in the Heavens was so special that they were willing to travel hundreds of miles to Jerusalem?

Why did they set out on a very long journey on camels to go and present gifts to the coming King? Who told them about a king being born? Well, they were followers of a Pagan god called Zoroaster who also promoted astrology and the reading of the stars. And even though God’s people were ignorant of the coming prophecy concerning a king, Satan’s students were not. Even though they do not believe in God or Jehovah Elohim in the sense of trusting Him for salvation, they did, however, respect His word, though not concerning their need for salvation.

Like the demons in JAM 2:19, they believed that God existed but they were also polytheist, they believed in the worship of other gods as well.

Just believing in the truth is only the beginning, it’s also knowing and trusting and relying and humbling yourself to the point of applying that which you know that really counts and matters. Furthermore, these men were not even Jews; many believe they were Iranians or Iraqis as followers of King Nebuchadnezzar. Today, in Iran and Iraq, these pagan worshippers of Zoroaster are still around and being followed. How could they have known anything about the impending birth of the Jewish Messiah that had been prophesied for so many years? If we jump 33 years later, we see Jesus weeping over the people of Israel, cursing them because they had not recognized Him as Messiah. Jesus said, “that horrible judgments would come them because they you did not know or recognize the time of your visitation.” (LUK 19:44). The time when God was visiting them.

LUK 19:37-39, And as He was now approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”

Why did the Pharisees want our Lord to rebuke His disciples? Because they were calling Him the king of the Jews and he was receiving their praise.

LUK 19:40-44, And He answered and said, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!” And when He approached, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. “For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Please focus for a moment on our Lord’s Words, “The time of your visitation.” The Lord had every right to expect the people would know precisely when He would appear, because He had revealed the precious secret over 600 years before His birth to the prophet Daniel. Had the Jews of our Lord’s day been aware of this ancient prophecy, they would have recognized instantly that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah - just as the Wise Men knew when they came to see the lord jesus Christ once they had seen the “Star in the East.”

If your spiritual eyes are open and receptive to the Spirit, your faith will be dramatically increased. Now, the fact that Daniel was a high official of the royal government of Babylon is also highly significant in our study, because only high government officials or high religious leaders had access to books. There was no printing press at that time.

The Wise Men were scholars and therefore they had access to the writings of Daniel. Furthermore, the Wise Men were Magi, and at the time were of the order of the Pagan Medo-Persian religious god called Zoroaster. You see, the Magi were ancient interpreters of dreams and were astrologers (monthly prognosticators), enchanters, sorcerers, and magicians. The King called them “Wise Men” because they had convinced him they could give him the best advice and interpret any dream. However, today, we would call them warlocks or witches.

Whenever any pagan king of that day conquered another nation, he would take their best young men and their best “Wise Men” to his court to advise him. We see them in the Bible in the court of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. In fact, the Magi had always held Daniel in very high esteem, because he had saved the lives of the Magi in Daniel’s day. What happened is that King Nebuchadnezzar had a horrifying dream sent to him from God, a dream he could neither recognize the details nor what it meant.

So the King gathered together all his “Wise Men”, including Daniel, and demanded they tell him what the dream was and what it meant. He threatened all the Wise Men with death if they could not tell him what he dreamed and what it meant. As the King’s soldiers were rounding up all the Wise Men to put them to death, Daniel asked for a one-day extension. That night, after much prayer from Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, that God would reveal the dream to Daniel.

DAN 2:1-19, Now in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; and his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. Then the king gave orders to call in the magicians, the conjurers, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans, to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. And the king said to them, “I had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to understand the dream.” Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic: “O king, live forever! Tell the dream to your servants, and we will declare the interpretation.” The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “The command from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb, and your houses will be made a rubbish heap. “But if you declare the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and a reward and great honor; therefore declare to me the dream and its interpretation.” They answered a second time and said, “Let the king tell the dream to his servants, and we will declare the interpretation.” The king answered and said, “I know for certain that you are bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen that the command from me is firm, that if you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one decree for you. For you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the situation is changed; therefore tell me the dream, that I may know that you can declare to me its interpretation.” The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter for the king, inasmuch as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any magician, conjurer or Chaldean. “Moreover, the thing which the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it to the king except gods, whose dwelling place is not with mortal flesh.” Because of this the king became indignant and very furious, and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. So the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they looked for Daniel and his friends to kill them. Then Daniel replied with discretion and discernment to Arioch, the captain of the king’s bodyguard, who had gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon; he answered and said to Arioch, the king’s commander, “For what reason is the decree from the king so urgent?” Then Arioch informed Daniel about the matter. So Daniel went in and requested of the king that he would give him time, in order that he might declare the interpretation to the king. Then Daniel went to his house and informed his friends, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, about the matter, in order that they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his friends might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven;

So God made the dream known and King Nebuchadnezzar spared the lives of Daniel, his three friends, and all the Magi. From that moment on, the Magi revered Daniel and his God-given insights greatly. They did not become believers in God as the only god of the universe; rather, they believed Him to be the most powerful god of that time period, and certainly very powerful during any age. They still remained pagan polytheists which again means a belief in more than one God. In fact, they were worshippers of the legendary Zarathustra, whom many Satanists consider to be the forerunner of the real Antichrist, including a lot of those in Iraq and Iran who follow the Sun god even today.

Now, the Magi knew of all Daniel’s writings, and undoubtedly had copies of the Book of Daniel, and therefore, they knew of the prophecy of DAN 9:24-27.

At the time of the appearance of the Star, they knew they were within a lifetime of this prophecy coming to pass. When they saw the Star, their knowledge of this remarkably precise prophecy, plus the promptings of the Holy Spirit, caused them to embark on the very long journey to Israel to pay their homage to the Jewish Messiah.

Let us now consider this amazing prophecy from the incredible book of Daniel. We are going to study the prophecy concerning the timing of the coming of Jesus Christ, given in unbelievable detail 600 years before Jesus was born. You will see that God foretold to the exact day when the Jews would be officially presented their long-awaited Messiah! Fulfilled to the letter.

MAT 21:1 And when they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them, and bring them to Me. “And if anyone says something to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” Now this took place that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold your King is coming to you, Gentle, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ And the disciples went and did just as Jesus had directed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid on them their garments, on which He sat. And most of the multitude spread their garments in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees, and spreading them in the road. And the multitudes going before Him, and those who followed after were crying out, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” And when He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?” And the multitudes were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.” And Jesus entered the temple and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers den.”

Now, let us read the passage first, verse by verse, with a little commentary to understand it a little better.

DAN 9:24, “Seventy 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.”

DAN 9:24 is literally saying in the first part “Seventy weeks or 490 years have been decreed for your people [Daniel’s people - the Jews] and [Daniel’s] holy city [Jerusalem]. This all means that in the first 69 weeks of prophecy or in 483 years that the Messiah will make an atonement for sin or deal with sin once and for all as our Lord did and completed at the end of the first 483 years of the prophecy. And our Lord did when he came for the first time.

However, there is still more to be accomplished which He will accomplish at the end of the last week or the seventh week of the prophecy when the Tribulation period is fulfilled and then at the Second Advent the Millennial Reign will begin. Once this happens then our Lord will fulfill the four unconditional covenants or promises that He promised the Jews He would fulfill. And what are they? What are the four unconditional covenants our Lord promised Israel?

The Abrahamic Covenant defines the race for client nation Israel. Abraham became a Jew at age 99; circumcision was the sign, GEN 12:1-3, 13:15 16, GEN 15:18. Just to name a few.

The Palestinian Covenant defines the land for client nation Israel, GEN 15:18; NUM 34:1-12; DEU 30:1-9; JOS 1:3-4. This is the real estate of the client nation.

The Davidic Covenant defines the dynasty for client nation Israel, 2SA 7:8-16; PSA 89:20-37.

The New Covenant defines the restoration of the client nation Israel at the Second Advent and its millennial modus operandi, JER 31:31-34. Once the seventy weeks of years or the 490 years are fulfilled by our Lord, then these unconditional covenants become a reality and totally fulfilled in the Millennial reign, the thousand year period for Jewish rule and for God to fulfill His promise, covenants, and His prophecies that he gave the Jews throughout the entire Old Testament. Now, before all of these happen, a prophecy was given to Daniel the prophet concerning the exact day of their fulfillment.

The following link is to a good news message describing how one can receive eternal life:
Ticket to Heaven, it was written for anyone not absolutely certain about their eternal future.