Victory in Exile (Daniel 8:1-27)

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All right. Well, good morning church. Go ahead, grab your Bibles. You can open up to Daniel chapter eight. Daniel eight, as you’re turning there. I know some of you at least know that my family and I, we road tripped to Colorado this summer. And you know how road trips go when you’ve got lots of children in the back of the car. We got to, you know, wasn’t even the Iowa border, right? We’re like, maybe DeKalb, probably like Sugar Grove area. And we start getting the question, Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And it is an important question, because it’s the question that a lot of us ask as well. When we’re going through tough seasons, we’re asking it of the Lord, are we there yet? Are we almost done? Have we reached our destination? Actually think that’s one of the reasons why, in every age since the apostles, people have thought, surely this is the end time, surely we’re almost done. Because they’re thinking the road trips got to be over soon, right? We must be there because we’re so ready to get there, to reach glory. Daniels second vision is God’s answer to our incessant Are we there? Yet, when kids ask that question, parents have two options. One is to lie through their teeth. Sure. We are so close, you know, it’s just Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, it’s like three states. Boom. We’re, you know, we’re so or at least, you know, distract. Maybe we’re not almost there, but it’s almost lunch time. We’ll stop something like that. Okay, so we can lie or distract, or we can help them face reality. We can say, honestly, no, like we’re not getting there till tomorrow evening. Okay, you might as well, just like, settle in, find something to do, start playing the license plate game. Gonna be a long, long trip. God helps us face reality. Here, in this passage, is the key to perseverance is in facing reality squarely, not in deception or distraction, as we’ll see here. We’re going to look at this. You can tell the passage kind of divides into two halves. We get the vision, and then the meaning of the vision, that’ll be our outline for today as well. And then I’ll try and draw some application for us at the end of all that. But let’s start with the vision itself. Daniel, chapter eight, verses one to 14, the third year of King Belshazzar, reign I Daniel, had a vision after the one that had already appeared to me. In my vision, I saw myself in the citadel of Susa in the province of Elam. In the vision, I was beside the Ulay canal. I looked up, and there before me was a ram with two horns standing beside the canal, and the horns were long. One of the horns was longer than the other, but grew up later. I watched the rams that charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against it, and none could rescue from its power. It did as it pleased, and became great as I was thinking about this. Suddenly, a goat with a prominent horn between its eyes came from the West, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground. It came toward the two horned RAM I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at it in great rage. I saw it attack the RAM, furiously, striking the RAM and shattering its two horns. The Ram was powerless to stand against it. The goat knocked it to the ground and trampled on it, and none could rescue the RAM from its power, the goat became very great, but at the height of its power, the large horn was broken off, and in its place, four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven. Out of one of them came another horn, which started small, but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the beautiful land. It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry hosts down to the earth and trampled on them. Set itself up to be as great as the commander of the army of the Lord. Took away the Daily Sacrifice from the LORD, and his sanctuary was thrown down because of rebellion the Lord’s people and the daily sacrifice were given over to it. It prospered, and everything it did and truth was thrown to the ground. Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to him, how long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled, the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, the surrender of the sanctuary and the trampling under foot of the Lord’s people? He said to me, it will take 2300 evenings and mornings then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated. All right. When we last saw Daniel, he was deeply troubled, and the color was drained from his face because of the vision he got in the last chapter a couple years earlier. Based on that experience, safe to say he did not want another vision. He was not hoping for this, especially if he’s awake this time, because last time it came to him in a dream, well, he gets another one, but very different from the last one. If you remember, from last week chapter seven, Daniel was just standing beside a great sea. Doesn’t tell us where anything like that. And he’s dealing with these beasts that seem like maybe they’ve. Got some history, but they’re almost trans historical. They’re bigger than history. They could stand for a lot of different things. That’s not what we have here. Here Daniel, in his vision, is in Susa, beside the ulai canal, so he’s in a specific place, and as we’ll see, because we’re dealing with a specific history as well. Now, Susa had a long history up to this point. It was an Elamite city, but its glory was still in the future, really, because under Darius the Great, this would become the capital of the Persian Empire. Which certainly makes us think, even though right now we’re in Babylon under the Babylonian Empire, that this vision is going to have something to do with Persia. What do we see then a ram? By the way, in Hebrew, the word for RAM is the same as the word for leader or chief. So that’s, you know what we’re talking about here. We got a ram, two horns charging in every direction. So powerful. Just keeps it taking on challengers. Maybe you watch National Geographic shows, something like that. I know we watched one recently about the animals of Yellowstone. It was dealing with bison, of course. And what happens there’s going to be the alpha male, it’s going to mate with as many of the women as possible, the female bison. And so it’s got to fight off all these challengers. And it kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it, and so secured its, you know, DNA legacy, I suppose. But the battle had been so significant that right afterwards, its heart gave out, it collapsed and died, which is a little bit ominous then, because we got a new challenger arising, this goat from the West, just moving so swiftly that its feet don’t even touch the ground, and it attacks the RAM in a rage. Kind of interesting to contrast verse four with verse seven, because in verse four, talking about the RAM, it said none could rescue from its power. And then in verse seven, none could rescue the RAM from its power, the goat’s power at this point. In other words, it what the what the RAM did to others, the goat does to it. So it kind of gets, it’s just desserts. Like, this is a blood bath. There’s nothing close about this. I was trying to think of how to illustrate this. The best I could come up with is, it’s like, if you’re the Director of Student ministries and you got a fantasy football team going up against the senior pastor, and it’s just, you know, obliterated like demoralizing loss. You quit the sport. I hear an amen over here. It felt like there was an but then, at the height of its power, after this conquest, the great horn breaks off. That’s bad news for the senior pastor. But what happens for new horns come up. They divvy up the conquered land, all this territory that has been taken. And then verse nine, an old enemy appears, actually, this is one that we saw last week in chapter seven, that little, that little horn we met in seven, eight, the boastful beast. It seems like that’s who’s back here, and this, this horn threatens the beautiful land. By the way, the beautiful land is absolutely Israel, like that’s what’s being talked about here. Now, what’s interesting is this new horn that comes up is not an important ruler in terms of world history, not a name that most of us would have gotten in our world history class or anything like that. But it’s significant to God and in Scripture, because this ruler threatens God’s people. And it’s interesting because the the horn doesn’t just grow. The horn grows up specifically to heaven, and he attacks the hosts of heaven, and then also the starry host, knocking some of the stars out. What’s being talked about there? You know, it’s apocalyptic, right? So who has any idea, but most likely, the word host means army. And so when we talk about the host of heaven, we’re talking about Israel’s armies. And then the starry host would be the hosts of the stars. Well, the stars are pagan deities. And so in other words, this little horn is is fighting God’s people and also fighting the surrounding pagan nations as well. But he’s successful. He defeats the commander of the heavenly host, commander of the Lord’s army, based on what’s coming next, probably talking about the high priest, actually. So he defeats the high priest and then takes over the temple, including the temple sacrifices, and eventually even throws truth to the ground and tramples it under foot. This is a dark day. This is what many people fear most. They’re no longer free to worship God in the way that you believe he’s calling you to worship. This
would be a worst case scenario, and of course, it’s the lived experience of many people, Christians, even around the world and has been in different times and places you. It’s in moments like these that we begin to cry out with the psalmist, with the prophets, how long Lord Are we there yet? How long is this going to take? Do you see? Do you care? What’s going on? Interesting, of course, this is not just a question that Christians ask, or even that religious people ask exclusively. This is the complaint of Bette Midler famous song from a distance. And what’s being seen from a distance is the world. And the idea is God is at a distance, and from a distance, it just looks like a pretty blue and green marble that’s spinning around in space. And so God doesn’t notice the wars that are happening, the atrocities that are being committed. It all looks fine from far away, but has he ever come near where are you? God just watching from a distance? And that must be why all this is still happening, why he’s unwilling to intervene in Israel, here in the Sudan, in Ukraine, in a cancer ward. I understand that that’s the complaint, but that’s not the picture we get of God here is it, nor is it the picture we get of God anywhere in Scripture. God is watching up close. That’s the whole point of this prophecy. He’s watching up close. He’s involved in history. He’s reigning he’s bringing history to its purposed conclusion, and that’s even where we go next, right? Because the angel asks, How long there’s the complaint, right? There’s the question, How long, Lord? And another angel gives an immediate answer, and the little horn is term limited, he is not going to be there for ever. The the rebellion, later, has been called the abomination that causes desolation. What does it mean? So this, this great evil that causes desolation. When something is desolate, it means it’s empty, right? There’s nothing happening. That’s the temple, right? Because temple sacrifices have stopped. So the temple is desolate. No more sacrifices are being offered because of this evil that that rebellion that causes desolation, it gets 2300 morning and evening sacrifices. Now is this 2300 mornings and evenings, like days, in which case we get six years? Or is this 2300 mornings plus evenings? Which case 11 150 days more? Like three to years? So somewhere in that range, what we’re talking about here three to six year period. And in the light of eternity, three to six years is a blink of an eye. But we are in the middle of a severe trial. Three to six years is an eternity, at least, that’s how it feels. Still, too long are we there yet? But notice how this section ends, the precious promise, right? The temple will be reconsecrated. There is a good ending to this story. There’s the reminder. It’s like the milk in your fridge. Evil has an expiration date, and it may get worse as we get closer to the expiration date, but evil has an expiration date. God will throw it out in the end. That’s the vision that we see here. But what on earth does it mean? That’s our question. Thankfully, same question Daniel has. He needs some help, and so God sends some help. Let’s keep reading as we look at the meaning of this vision, verses 15 to 27 while I Daniel was watching the vision and trying to understand it, there before me stood one who looked like a man, and I heard a man’s voice from the ULI calling Gabriel tell this man the meaning of the vision. As he came near the place where I was standing, I was terrified and fell prostrate, Son of man, he said to me, understand that the vision concerns the time of the end. While he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground. Then he touched me and raised me to my feet. He said, I’m going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath, because the vision concerns the appointed time of the end. The two horned RAM that you saw represents the kings of Media and Persia. The shaggy goat is the king of Greece, and the large horn between its eyes is the first king. The four horns that replaced the one that was broken off represent four kingdoms that will emerge from his nation, but will not have the same power in the latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a fierce looking king, a master of intrigue, will arise. He will become very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation, and will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy those who are mighty, the holy people. He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior when they feel secure. He will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of Princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power. The vision of the evenings and mornings that has been given you is true, but seal up the vision. And for it concerns the distant future. I Daniel was worn out. I lay exhausted for several days, and I got up and what about the King’s business? I was appalled by the vision. It was beyond understanding. So we get three men in this next little section. We’ve got Daniel, of course, and we got one who looks like a son of man. That’s Gabriel, the angel, the first named Angel in the Bible. And then we have this man’s voice, almost certainly that is God’s voice speaking here. This is the second time that Daniel, who’s interpreted so many dreams in his storied career, second time what he needs interpretive help as Gabriel approaches it’s this glorious spiritual being. He falls on his face as one does. He loses consciousness, which happens to Abraham also in Genesis 15, and then the angel revives him, which happens to John in the apocalypse as well. The Vision concerns the time of the end. We have to be careful with this, because we hear time of the end as the End Times. That’s not what it said. It said the time of the end, it is the end of what of the desolation of the Lord’s temple, not the end time specifically. And even when it says what will happen later. We’re talking about later, as in, after your lifetime, Daniel, after Daniel is dead, it’ll be later in the time of wrath. Now that’s another kind of confusing phrase there. Wrath, of course, falls on all who rebel against God’s good reign and refuse to repent. God’s wrath has fallen on Israel. Daniel knows that he’s living in exile because God has brought punishment on his people who have refused to repent. But it also falls on Israel’s enemies, who are God’s enemies as well. Here it’s falling on the little horn and the desecration of God’s temple that happens under him, the persecution of God’s people, still a little bit confused. But then all of a sudden, in you know, verse 20, we start to get some history attached. And if you know your history, this is all easy enough to understand. It all makes good sense, that the vision is there. The two horned RAM is Medo Persia, the Empires. They’re the Medes and the Persians and, you know, kind of two empires, but brought together under Cyrus, the great and Persia. We call it the Persian Empire, not the median Empire. It gets, you know, a little bit bigger, that kind of thing. So that’s the RAM. The goat is Greece. The horn is the first king, meaning the most prominent, most successful, most powerful, certainly the first king to sack Persia. That would be Alexander, who conquers the known world by his early 30s, including Persia in 331, BC. And yes, he conquers so swiftly, it’s like his feet aren’t even touching the ground. He just marches east until it’s all his. But at the height of his power, when he’s reached India, conquered western India, even he dies quite suddenly, again, in his early 30s, possibly poisoned. Who knows what happened? But he dies young when there’s no one who is ready to take his mantle. At that point, he’s got two sons. You know, what happens to two sons who are young when there’s, you know, dynastic issues, they’re murdered, of course. And so we get these four governors who come up and who rule these four tetrarchies, Macedonia, where Alexander is from, under Cassander, Asia Minor under lisimachus, Egypt under Ptolemy, and Syria under Seleucus, another four kings. Interestingly, we’ve had a number of visions of four kingdoms. Here’s another set of them.
So as I said, this is not necessarily World History stuff, but we’re, all of a sudden, are going to focus on Seleucus, because he’s the one reigning in Syria in the Middle East, you know, kind of right by Israel. And then all of a sudden we skip two centuries. Don’t worry, chapter 11 is coming. We’ll get those two centuries back. Okay? And that one’s a really weird vision. This is still the easy vision skip two centuries. Why? Because God’s view of history is different than our view of history. Things that seem really, really important in terms of world affairs, God goes, and stuff that seems really insignificant, God goes, no, that’s what mattered. Like Caesar, you know, Augustus has got a census going one baby born in Bethlehem, which one’s more important? But God knows, right? And that’s the whole point. What’s more important, and it’s what concerns his people in particular. Now, all of a sudden, this is what happens in the latter days. What latter days? The latter days of this tetrarchy, this slow kid dynasty, it’s the end of their reign, because, well, Rome’s in charge now, okay, so that’s who’s really there. But notice that this doesn’t come until the rebels have become completely wicked. It says something like when sinners have reached their perfection. When sin has been perfected, this is like reverse sanctification, right? So we’re going to reach a point in glory where we finally are made perfect. Well, this is when sin reaches its full measure. That’s what’s being talked about here. One of the reasons we ask, Are we there yet? Is because God is slow to bring judgment, and from our perspective, often too slow to bring judgment. But God is slow to bring judgment because he never brings it early. He will wait until sin has reached its full measure, especially when he’s bringing judgment on a culture. You know, some people may have gotten perfected in sin already, but to wipe out a culture is something else. This is why, you know, when Abraham loses consciousness in front of the angel of the Lord, you know God is saying things to him like, I’m going to give you this promised land you’re going to be slaves in Egypt for 400 years. First. Why? Because the sin of the Canaanites had not reached its full measure yet. So if the Lord is going to bring them into the Promised Land to conquer these nations, they better have reached full sin, so that this is a just judgment, and that’s what we have here as well, because in these latter days, when sin has reached its zenith, a fierce king will arise. He’s gonna be a master of intrigue, which is interesting because that means he’s wise, like Daniel, but his wisdom is applied to evil ends. He’s deviant. We know who this is. This is Theos Antiochus Epiphanes the Fourth. He becomes strong not through his own power, meaning not through military might like Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus, but through cunning, you actually know this, because he was fourth in line to the throne, so you got to bump off a few people in some clever ways if you’re going to somehow ascend the throne. But that’s what he does. He brings down these kings, and then he wages war on God’s people. Also, he does this primarily by trying to hellenize Jerusalem. He’s trying to turn the Jews into good Greeks. That’s what it means to cause deceit to prosper. Don’t worry about this one true god nonsense. There are lots of Gods you can worship him. Just give in to culture, something we’ve probably heard before as well, and he will actually fight against God, even that’s when he wages war on the Prince of Princes that would be God, of course. After Rome kicks him out of Egypt, he tries to take over Egypt, take over the other tetrarchy. And Rome says, and so he gets really angry about this. And so what does he do? He vents his spleen on Jerusalem and slaughters 10s of 1000s of people without warning when they felt secure. It says here, and at that moment too, it all comes to a head. He stops the sacrifices. He effectively abolishes the Jewish religion. He sets up a statue of Zeus and sacrifices a pig, an unclean animal, to it in the temple of God in but it doesn’t work. Evil oversteps itself. He’s gone too far. The people revolt under Judas the hammer. You may know him as Judas Maccabee, and they kick him out. They rededicate the table temple. Antiochus dies outside of Jerusalem in 164 we don’t know how he died exactly. I know we’re thinking, you know, he’s gonna die, not by human power. We’re picturing like Ananias and Sapphira, like he just gets zapped, something like that, maybe. But it’s this is more like the writing on the wall that Belshazzar got. The point is he’s being brought down by God’s decree. God is saying, and you have reached your end, the writing is on his wall at this point. Now, there is no doubt that Antiochus, the fourth, is one of the antichrists that Kyle mentioned last week. Remember, John tells us it’s not one antichrist. There have been many antichrists already. Yep, here’s one of them. I said his whole name earlier. Do you know what that means? This is the name he gave himself, by the way, most illustrious God. That’s what he called himself. So he’s setting himself up against the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the King of kings. He is this type of the final antichrist. Then, like he’s a preview the coming attractions of what Satan will be like, the way David prepares us for Jesus and tych prepares us for the Antichrist still to come. And what does this Antichrist do? He gets to have his fun for a little while. For a little while, the sacrifices are actually stopped for a time, but evil has an expiration date, and it will be brought to its end. The vision is true. We learn from Gabriel, and then it’s sealed up. And that’s a big question, right? This is what drives us nuts about apocalyptic like, why did you seal this? Can you let us know the rest of it is there? More? This vision that was sealed up that we didn’t get to read. Maybe more likely, this is the vision, and it is then sealed until the time when it is to be open, in other words, those latter days when all this will come to pass. So it’s sealed to protect it through those trials. But the vision is over, the interpretation has been given. Daniel is exhausted. He’s lying sick in bed for a few days, in part because his physical life is tied to the kingdom of God, like he is so wrapped up in God’s glory that to see God’s glory threaten affects him physically. It reminds me of what Spurgeon said. He said, Let my name perish, but let the name of Jesus Christ endure. And that’s how Daniel feels here, like I don’t care what happens to me, but God’s glory like that concerns me. And so he’s weak afterwards, even after he recovers physically, he’s appalled spiritually, to see so much evil in the world. But what does he do? It says, he gets up and he goes about the King’s business, still, which is significant, because that’s what God had called him to do, like this was his vocation, this was his job. And so he does his duty when the vision of what’s coming is given to him when he sees the evil that’s about to fall on his people, he doesn’t withdraw, you know, become a desert hermit, something like that. He doesn’t, you know, get really active and, you know, form the, Let’s prevent Antiochus society or something like that. No, he just, he goes about his duty quietly and faithfully. Look at this passage, I think to myself, not much has changed. There is still so much evil in this world. There are still so many antichrists slaughtering innocence, seeking to deceive God’s people and blaspheming the Glorious Name of God. Various earthly powers have waged war and continue to wage war on God and His people. Sometimes it’s through cunning. They’re trying to hellenize us. They’re trying to Americanize us, whatever it may be, trying to squeeze us into the world’s mold. Sometimes, though, it’s just through outright persecution. In those moments, it so often looks like God has been defeated, like it would have looked like here. And this has been the major theme in the book of Daniel. I think I said it every time I’ve preached so far in Daniel, in spite of appearances, God is in control. He is reigning. He is ruling always. And that should do something in us, that knowledge, it’s our big idea for today. Again, it’s kind of the big idea of Daniel, the big idea for today, take heart. God wins in the end. Take heart. Be courageous, even joyful in affliction, because God wins in the end. Evil has an expiration date. The time has been set.
That’s what this prophecy tells us. And again, the prophecy is proof that God is in control. It’s not like any of this is catching him off guard. He just told Daniel what’s gonna happen 450 years later, and then he says it’s 2300 days. That might feel like a long time, but it’s gonna come to an end. In spite of appearances, God is in control. The time has been set. And of course, the clearest proof of that for us, which is better proof than Daniel had, is the cross of Jesus Christ, which looked like defeat, but there was a set time, and Jesus had told his apostles that, in advance, the Son of Man, is gonna be handed over to the leaders. They’re gonna beat him, they’re gonna torture him, they’re gonna crucify him. They’re gonna lay him in a tomb. Three days later, there’s your set time. Evil has an expiration date. Death is dead. Christ is alive. The resurrection is the triumph of God. And look what happens at the cross, because we got another enemy waging war on God, literally on God and His people. And this enemy tramples the truth underfoot, except here, not this, like, you know, esoteric idea of truth, but the embodiment of truth, the one who is called the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE, tramples him underfoot and desecrates the temple, not the building that Herod constructed, but Him who is the temple. Destroy this temple, Jesus says, and after three days, I will raise it again. And just as Antiochus had free reign for a time, so Satan. Does, of course, I wrote that down, and then the more I was thinking about I was like, nobody never did to have free reign, did he? That’s the whole point. God has the rains the whole time, because God is reigning the whole time, but Satan is allowed to have his fun for a little bit, and he murders the Son of God, which looks like defeat. And how bad is it? Is not just that a few stars are thrown down, but the sun itself refused to shine on that day, because evil looked like it was winning. But then Jesus rises in triumph, reconciling sinners to God and Jews and Gentiles to each other, because then we are all being built like living stones into a new, consecrated temple where God dwells by His Spirit. You see, the cross is where God gives His final answer to our rebellion and Satan’s hostility. Because on the cross, Jesus takes the full weight of our sin receives the full fury of God’s righteous wrath at our sin. As Ian Duguid says, if ever there was a time of wrath, it was during those six hours when Jesus hung on the cross bearing the wrath of God against our wickedness and idolatry. And in so doing, God brings his wrath to an end for his people, the cross is the guarantee. It is the proof that God wins in the end, that evil has overstepped itself, because, again, Satan thought he won right there. Nope, he was tripping himself. Fell into the pit that he dug, and God subjugates evil to his good purposes. Take heart. God wins in the end. Okay, great, but how like? What does it look like, practically, to take heart in the face of so much evil? Let me suggest three ways. First, we take heart when we cut our monsters down to size, and we’ve met some monsters in Daniel last chapter in particular, right? Like crazy looking beasts and stuff, like actual monsters. For most of us, when we think of our monsters, we’re not thinking of world powers. And that, by the way, is just tremendous blessing that those of us in the US experience like there are people, there are Christians in North Korea, Iran, places like that, where, yes, that’s what they’re thinking about, worldly powers. For most of us, that’s not who it is. But what keeps you up at night, like, what are the monsters hiding under your bed and in your closet? Is it finances, bills that are coming due that you don’t know how you’re going to pay? Is it health, diagnosis, not what you were hoping for. Maybe it’s not physical health, but mental health, like the monster that keeps you up at night is also the monster that keeps you from getting out of bed in the morning because you are just caught in depression, anxiety, or maybe the monsters are people, just sinners that are around you that are making life really difficult for you. Here’s the good news, right? Evil has an expiration date. Like the monsters are real, but they are really perishing also, and they cannot defeat God. And if you are in Christ, they cannot defeat you, because you are in Christ cut your monsters down to size. Second we take heart when we remember that even the strongest are ultimately weak. Alexander the Great was arguably the greatest military leader of all time, and he was dead long before he reached my age, even Antiochus, subject to Rome, had to do what they told him, also dead, by the way. Like that helps us cut our monsters down to size, for sure, remembering that even the strong are ultimately weak, but it also cuts us down to size because we are never so vulnerable as when we think we are not, because God opposes the proud. He will bring us down if he has to. So, cut yourself down to size. Paul says, Don’t let anyone think more highly of themselves than they ought. Cut yourself down to size so that God doesn’t have to reminded of the time when Uzziah, who was king of Israel, decided he could be in charge of the temple as well, which, of course, was the duty of the priest and not the king. So he waltzed into the temple, offered incense, and promptly got leprosy cut him down to size. He wasn’t able to go to the temple anymore. Wasn’t able to be in polite society anymore, like that’s the vision, right? God opposes the proud, but the good news is that he gives grace to the humble. So Humble yourselves. Therefore, before the Lord, third, we take heart when we live in light of the end, live in light of the end. And by the way, we’re talk a lot more about this next week. Never mind when we get to Revelation in January, when we read apocalyptic, it’s so that we know how to live in light of the end, instead of trying to bring the end to light. You know what I mean by that? A lot of us trying to unseal the prophecies, figure out all the numbers so that we can tell you exactly when it’s coming. Everybody else has been wrong so far. So are you okay? So stop trying to do that. Live in light of the end, instead of trying to bring the end to light. But we do know what we need to know about the end, because we know how the story ends. God wins in the end. We bring that future glory into our present bleakness. By the way, so much of what we proclaim, remember, Peter says we’re living like exiles wherever we are living right then people are going to come up. They’re going to notice something different about us. They’re going to ask us for what the reason for our hope, specifically the future glory in the present, bleak circumstances we live in light of that reality. There’s a stranger who stopped John Wesley once as he was on horseback riding to one of his itinerant preaching engagements, and the stranger asked him, What would you do if Jesus returned tomorrow at noon? Great question, by the way, because Jesus could return tomorrow at noon. He could tarry another 10,000 years. Also, we don’t know, but so he asked Wesley, what would you do if Jesus returned tomorrow at noon? And Wesley pulled out his diary, his, you know, day planner, and he read his appointments for that afternoon and evening and the next morning. So that’s what I would do. You get Wesley’s point? He was saying, I’m already living in light of Jesus’ imminent return. Nothing would need to change for me, because I’m living every day for God’s kingdom and God’s priorities. That’s what it should look like for us as well. In Matthew 24 and 25 Jesus tells three parables. This is right after the Olivet Discourse, which is when he gives his apocalyptic right. So right after that, he tells these three parables. In the first parable, the master returned later than he was expected. The next one, he returns sooner than was was expected. And in the third one, one of the servants never expects the master to return. You get Jesus’s point, right? Just be ready. Just be ready for the Master’s return. He is coming. He is coming back. Okay, be ready for his return. Whenever. What does that look like? Like? Daniel, we get up and we go about our King’s business. That’s what it looks like. Do your duty to what has God called you? What is your vocation? Be salt and light there, whether that’s your career, whether you’re a student right now, a homemaker, whatever it is, do your duty. Do your duty as an ambassador of God, one who’s been given the ministry of reconciliation by proclaiming the good news of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and coming, Return. Make every effort
to grow in grace, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it’s God who’s at work in you. That’s what we do. We do what Caitlin read for us earlier in first Peter five. We’re sober, we’re alert, because we know that we have an enemy who’s prowling around like a lion eager to devour us, but we resist Him so that He flees from us. By the way, we see a bit about how to do that, because that’s another tricky one, right? Tricky one, right? Just resist the devil. Good. Go. How help me out here. We get some help here. Okay, we see a bit about how to do this, even in this chapter, because we have a type of Satan who shows us the types of things Satan does. This is how Satan works. His usual pattern shows us how we must respond as well. Look at verses 11 and 12 again. What does Satan do? Well, here we get the little Satan. He disrupted the daily sacrifices. And you think, Well, who cares? We don’t need sacrifices anymore. Christ sacrificed himself once for all. Yes, but Satan will still try to keep us from that sacrifice. He will keep us from thinking about that, and if we forget that Jesus died in our place, where will that leave us? Will leave us in anguish, guilt and shame because of our sin, paralyzed, or if we’re not paralyzed by guilt and shame, we’re going to respond with frenetic activity. We want to try and earn our salvation and do all the works I can do, because I don’t need a sacrifice. I can do this on my own. How do we respond? We keep the hill of Calvary always in our view, wherever we are, we preach the gospel to ourselves. It is done. You. It is finished. Christ has won. We’re forgiven. Second thing Satan does, you see it in verse 11, the sanctuary was thrown down. Yes, that’s what he always does again. He destroyed the temple, that is the body of Jesus Christ. He is still trying to destroy the temple, the new temple, the people of God. Satan loves to disrupt Christian Fellowship, and he will do that however he can. He might just be stoking grudges between you and your brothers and sisters. In Christ, there might be people in this room who are not talking to each other because they got something against each other, if I understand Matthew five correctly, and I believe I do, you shouldn’t be here right now then, because Jesus says in Matthew five, leave your gift. Go be reconciled, then come back and worship. So if you’re not reconciled to someone in this room that is satanic, that’s what we get here in this passage, go and be reconciled and do it now. Maybe it’s not that, though, sometimes Satan just loves to get us majoring in the minors, like, let’s divide not over Jesus’ deity or the trinity or the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s divide over who you’re voting for in a couple weeks. Well, that’s a stupid thing to divide over, right? And yet, go on Twitter and look at even prominent Christian leaders talking about, if your pastor isn’t telling you this. You need to find another church that’s satanic again, or sometimes it’s something as mundane as you knew I was gonna go here, right? Sports. The bears are playing in London. I can’t make explore hour. Can’t make the service that day. My daughter’s playing in LaGrange. We won’t be here next week. It’s the same thing, right? I got nothing against sports as sports. I got a problem with where sports are prioritized in the lives of many Americans. It’s satanic we’re seeing again, you can’t say you love Jesus and hate his bride. Love one another, whatever that means for you right now, step out and do it. Third way that Satan acts is deceitful, teaching, right? He trampled the truth under foot. This is what Paul and John and others New Testament warn us about. Wolves are going to come. They’re going to teach false things. And Paul’s saying this about places where, like he’s pastor and John is pastor, and Timothy and Apollos, if it could happen there. It could happen anywhere. It could certainly happen here. And so what is our only hope? It’s to get into the Word of God in community, not by yourself, by the way, good to do that also, but much more liable to be deceived. Then we get in community. We have conversation with the church, historically, 2000 years of Christians trying to figure out what this means, but in community, like the Bereans as well, right? They hear a preacher, and they go, hang on. They get their Bible out. They didn’t have cute little leather bound Bibles like we do. They had one copy in their synagogue. So they all got together, opened it up together, and said, Let’s see if this is truth or not. Get in the word in community, things will look bad. Things will go badly in this life. Bad people will rule and reign and wreak havoc in the world. But take heart, because God wins in the end, evil has an expiration date, and after the cross comes resurrection. Let’s pray, Father, we do take heart even now knowing that you are on your throne, and there has never been a moment in all of human history where you have not been reigning wisely, powerfully in goodness and love, compassion and mercy, and that is the truth we need to remember, Lord when we face the darkness in this world, encourage us, even now, especially with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the surest proof that we have that you win. In the end, you have defeated sin and death and Satan, it’s already done. It is already finished. May we rest in that truth today, Lord, even as we sing your praises through Christ, our Lord. Amen.