The Number of Years Is Up

1608-28P 1 THE NUMBER OF YEARS IS UP Jeremiah’s prophecies? There were many, many (Daniel 9:1-3) prophets in his day. Why not read or study their SUBJECT: F.C.F: words? Why give Jeremiah’s writings the high status PROPOSITION: as “the word of the LORD”? You should say, INTRODUCTION: “Because it was the word of the LORD,” and you A. The stories and prophecies we have would be correct. But why did Daniel assume that it already encountered in Daniel run the gamut from the was the word of the LORD and give it such a place of inspiring to the alarming to the encouraging to the honor in his thinking? sobering. In these chapters we face numerous death B. The reason is simple: the fulfillment of threats from summary execution to incineration in a predictive prophecy. While virtually all of the other fiery furnace to the den of ravenous lions. We are (false) prophets were predicting the survival and even challenged by perplexing dreams, visions, and the triumph of Judah, Jeremiah alone predicted that portentous signs. We see an exceedingly proud man Jerusalem would fall. And he did so not in general humbled by God, and an exceedingly humble man terms as one might guess or play a hunch, but with exalted by God. uncanny and precise specificity. And every word of But perhaps there is no text in the whole book prophecy he had uttered had come to pass. more profound or more confidence-building than our C. Now that tells us several things. text for this evening, the first three verses of Daniel 1. First, it tells us that precise and specific 9. predictive prophecy was convincing evidence to B. At face value, they don’t seem like much. Daniel that God had indeed spoken. And, by the way, Daniel is engaged in a bit of private Bible study, Daniel did not come up with this criterion on his which is common enough. From his study, he is own. He did not simply reason it out, in a logical, moved to pray. Yet Bible study and prayer have been 2+2=4 fashion. No, this test for true prophecy from the staples of the believer’s devotional life from the God had been revealed before through the very beginning. So that seems rather ordinary, not granddaddy of all prophets, through Moses himself in terribly unusual, certainly nothing profound. Deuteronomy 18:18-22. C. And so we must look again. Look at what In the book of Deuteronomy Moses is singing Daniel did. Look also at how he responded. And look his swan song—he is on the way out. But God gives finally at what he risked in doing so, and there, I provision his for continuing to speak to his people. think we shall see the enormity of this text and its Here’s what God promised Moses: “18 I will raise meaning for us today. I my opinion, this also could up for them a prophet like you from among their not be a more timely word. brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” I. WE MUST SEARCH GOD’S COMPLETED Now pay attention, because it gets very REVELATION. serious. “19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require A. Daniel had been reading “the books.” This it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak was another name for the Scriptures. What’s a word in my name that I have not commanded him profound, in part, is which book he had been reading. to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, It was “the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the that same prophet shall die.’” prophet….” Now we must pause here and examine You say, “Okay, great. I must listen to the what Daniel was doing. true prophet as though hearing God’s own voice, or First of all, he clearly considered the writings else. But I must not listen to the false prophet, and the of his senior, fellow prophet Jeremiah as one of “the false prophet is in big trouble, forfeiting his own life. books,” that is, as a portion of sacred Scripture. Their But…HOW CAN I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE?” lives had clearly overlapped, and they had most likely And that’s a very serious question. We are doomed if known each other in the country, before Daniel had we don’t heed the true prophet, but we are also been taken to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar’s first doomed if we do heed the false prophet. So we need invasion. some surefire way to tell the difference. And God Why was Daniel reading and studying includes that as well. Know what it is? Fulfilled ______1608-28P 2 prophecy. “21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How all of this exile stuff is going to be over. I want to may we know the word that the LORD has not know your mysteries about the future, so reveal it to spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of me directly.” Rather, he honored and cherished what the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come God had already revealed through the prophet true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; Jeremiah, whose word had clearly been authenticated the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need as legitimate prophecy by foretelling the future. That not be afraid of him.” And you need not heed him or should tell us something about our pressing need to pay attention to anything he says. In fact, he should read and study and apply God’s Word to our own be afraid, for God has condemned him to death. lives, and not to look for new messages from God. And precise predictive prophecy that is And remember, Daniel had had a gripping vision fulfilled to the letter should convince us of the same over a decade before, and it left him weak and sick, thing. We should have a rock solid confidence in the so he probably was not very interested in repeating Scriptures as the very Word of God because every that experience. predictive prophecy has come to pass just as the 3. It also explains why Daniel did not bother Scriptures foretold. One may chalk that all up to to try to convince his contemporaries of the validity lucky guesses, but the odds would totally be against of his vision as reported in the previous chapter. Why you. not? Because no one of his day could test it to see if Now stay with me here. That’s why we his predictive prophecies came to pass. They were become quite upset when professing Christians start prophecies that dealt with events in the future, in a suggesting that there may be errors in the Bible. God time when Daniel and all of his contemporaries cannot lie, and he does not err. If God speaks, every would be dead. single word must be flawless. And if, as some allege, D. Now I am one who believes that God has the Bible contains factual errors, even deliberate spoken with finality through his Son and through his misrepresentations and deceptions, then that Bible Son’s authorized spokesmen, the Apostles, and we cannot be the Word of God. And if the Bible is not have God’s completed revelation to us in the sixty- the Word of God…then I here and now tender my six books of the canonical Scriptures. God has said resignation. I not only resign as your pastor and quit all he’s going to say to us in the present age since the the ministry, I quit Christianity and denounce it as a last authorized Apostle died long ago, and his fraud and a hoax and a cruel lie and deception. For revelation is all we need for life and godliness. And this Bible, now revealed to be in error and so no so our response is to do precisely what Daniel did in reliable Word from God, commands us to refrain our test: read and study what God has already said from many worldly indulgences and to trust one’s and not to look for new and novel insights apart from present and eternal happiness to a con job and the timeless treasure of the Word of God written. swindle, and I, for one, want no part of it. I’m with the Apostle Paul on this. If Christianity is not true, II. WE MUST TRUST GOD’S SUFFICIENT then I’m going over to the school of the Epicurean REVELATION. philosophers of old, and my new creed will be: “eat, drink, and be merry today…for tomorrow we die.” A. This brings us to another profound point, As we will see in a bit, Daniel clearly and that is that God’s Word is sufficient. Again, understood the gravity of all this and literally staked Daniel did not cast about for some other source of his life on it. information when it came to his questions and 2. It also tells us that Daniel did not seek new concerns about the end of the exile. As we’ve seen, revelation from God. Isn’t that interesting? Here is he did not fall on his knees and ask for some new and one to whom God granted remarkable wisdom and additional revelation. He trusted the sufficiency of insight, the ability to interpret dreams and visions, what God had already said in his Word through the prophetic powers of his own, the one through whom prophet Jeremiah. Nor did Daniel seek out the God even breathed out inspired Scripture, the very customary forms of divination: astrology, reading the book we’ve been studying and prospering in as the entrails of sacrificed animals, watching the Word of God. But Daniel did not just get on his movements of birds, and so forth. Of course, we knees and say, “Okay, Lord, I’m curious about when really would not expect him to. He had already ______1608-28P 3 witnessed firsthand their complete lack of both is a resounding, “no.” effectiveness. Rather, Daniel read his Bible and Yes, the Bible does use a different word for trusted God’s Word to be fully sufficient for all his “spirit” (pneuma) and “soul” (psuke). But we’re not needs. finished yet. Because the Bible also talks about the B. Do you? Do you trust God’s Word to be “mind” (noos) and the “heart” (kardia). That makes at sufficient for all your needs? I would argue that the least four, five including the body. So why stop at vast majority of professing Christians no longer trust only three? Are people actually penta-partite in the sufficiency of God’s Word. For over a creatures? Do we also have mind needs and heart generation now a growing majority of professing needs, and where do we apply for help in meeting our Christians are not turning to God’s Word in their mind or heart needs? When you compare all of these troubles, but turning instead to psychotherapy. It’s in the Scriptures you will find that they are actually based on a simple fallacy that has absolutely no basis different shades of the same entity, that humans are in Scripture. This fallacy assumes that people are tri- really bi-partite not tri-partite creatures. We have a partite creatures. People obviously have bodies. And physical side and a spiritual side, period. the Bible assures us that people are spiritual beings But do we have emotional needs? And the and so we have a spirit. But the argument goes on to answer is, “No, we do not.” If the soul is just another say that people have souls, that is, people have a part word for spirit, then we have spiritual needs, but no of their being that is distinct from the body and the separate and distinct soulish or emotional needs. We spirit. And as the body has needs and the spirit has certainly have many, many emotional desires, many needs, so the soul also has needs. And if you have a of which will never be and should never be fulfilled. bodily need, you go to a medical doctor. If you have Let me give you an example. I may have a deep a spiritual need you go to an elder or pastor. But if emotional desire for everybody to like me. One you have a soulish need you go to a psychotherapist. comedian said, “Do I want people to love me or fear So is the Bible really sufficient for all of our me? I want people to be afraid of how much they needs? “No,” you say, “if you are sick, you should go love me.” Someone might conclude that they have a to a doctor, not to the church.” But…what if the need for everyone to like them. But is that possible, Bible says the same thing?! What if the Bible feasible, reasonable? I would submit to you that it is recognizes that we have physical needs and directs us impossible to keep that desire and to seek to fulfill to apply for the best in medical treatment? It does, of that desire for everyone to like me and at the same course. So, while the Bible was not given to teach us time follow Jesus Christ. How do I know? Well, did how to fix your gall bladder or broken leg (or your everyone like Jesus? No, most in the end actually computer or broken down Chevy), physical needs, it hated him. does give detailed instructions on spiritual health. D. Human beings were created with godly Our ultimate physical or bodily need, though is for affections. We love what God loves, and we hate resurrection unto life immortal and incorruptible into what God hates. We rejoice in that which is truly the age to come, the new heavens and the new earth. good and pleases God, and we are grieved with And, of course, we have very great and anything that displeases God. pressing spiritual needs. Our most fundamental But when our race fell into sin, these godly spiritual need is for regeneration, whereby God affections were mutilated and ruined and degenerated brings us from true, spiritual death unto true spiritual into a pathetic and unholy counterfeit, sinful life. We have the spiritual need for forgiveness, for passions. And these sinful passions demand repentance unto life, for justification, for adoption gratification. And these sinful passions which we into God’s family, for sanctification, growing in the crave and demand to fulfill are universally mistaken grace and knowledge of the Lord, and eventually we for needs. Does anyone have a true emotional need have a need for glorification, the completion of our for everyone to like them? What really is that? Isn’t transformation into the character of Christ. that the sinful self demanding affirmation and even C. But is there a third category? Do we have a worship? soul as distinct from our spirit? And do we have I’ll tell you what kind of need we really do soulish or psychological or emotional needs? Those have. We have the spiritual need to deny these sinful are really two questions, and the Bible’s answer to passions and to practice self control. That’s almost ______1608-28P 4 exactly what the Apostle Paul said in Titus 2:11-14: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self- controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” God’s grace to us in Christ teaches us to deny sinful passions and to live in holiness which includes godly affections like love, joy, peace, mercy, goodwill. Are those emotional or psychological needs? No, no, no. These are spiritual needs. And when it comes to urgent and pressing spiritual needs like these, well the Bible is fully sufficient. That’s why I am so excited about biblical counseling. I’ve been reading much and taking training in biblical counseling, which is quite different from psychological counseling. Biblical counseling aims at the heart, at true sanctification, at exposing sinful attitudes and expectations and replacing them with godly affections and habits. It does not assume that there is some unbiblical soul or psyche that needs fulfillment, but that our true needs are either physical or spiritual. And God’s Word has much to say about that. God’s Word speaks authoritatively and sufficiently about all our spiritual needs.

CONCLUSION

So here I’ve gone off a bit on application and haven’t even gotten to what makes this passage even more profound. And for that, we will have to wait until next time. I’ve given you a lot to prayerfully consider. I wonder if there might be some questions?

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