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Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190002B
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00:05 Well we just got through talking about how this 70 weeks
00:07 is really some good math to help assure you that Jesus 00:10 is indeed the Messiah of the world. 00:13 So now the angel gives Daniel, the angel Gabriel, 00:17 gives Daniel a starting point. 00:20 Where does this start? How do we know? 00:23 If you don't know when it starts, the rest of it 00:25 won't make any sense. 00:27 But the angel is very clear. 00:28 In Daniel 9:25 the angels says, "Know therefore and understand 00:34 that from the going forth of the commandment 00:37 to restore and rebuild Jerusalem 00:41 until Messiah the Prince shall be..." 00:45 And then the angel, of course, divides it up 00:47 just like I talked about earlier. 00:49 7 weeks, 62 weeks, and finally 1 week. 00:55 Which added together makes 70 weeks. 00:58 70 weeks, of course, of years. 01:00 Or 490 years. 01:01 But we're talking about the 70 weeks because it's 01:03 so easy to understand it that way. 01:06 So let's go back to this. 01:08 When did that decree happen? 01:10 When was it that this decree was given? 01:14 Well as you know, Babylon passed off the scene. 01:18 And as Babylon passed off the scene 01:20 the Medo-Persia empire came into being. 01:24 And the great first king of the Medo-Persian empire 01:27 was Cyrus the Great. 01:29 The book of Isaiah actually predicted him by name 01:32 that he would let God's people go back to Jerusalem. 01:35 Because they'd been scattered after the Babylonian captivity. 01:39 So Cyrus, believe it or not, actually made a decree 01:44 in 536 BC, Before Christ, to send Israel back 01:51 or to allow them to go back and to rebuild the temple. 01:55 But he died a few years later. 01:58 And after he died, and this is where the story gets 02:01 really interesting, after Cyrus the Great died 02:05 another king, about two kings later, came on the throne 02:11 and he was called the false king or the false Smerdis. 02:14 There he was, and wouldn't you know it, 02:17 the enemies of Israel... 02:19 And oh yes, they had enemies. 02:21 In fact, the prophecy said that it would all be done 02:24 in troublous times, difficult times. 02:28 We live in a troubled world. 02:30 But thank the Lord we have a Messiah. 02:32 That's what we're going to get back to here. 02:34 To show how indeed He is the Messiah of the world. 02:37 So he comes on the scene, and Israel's enemies go to him 02:42 and they groan and moan and complain, and say all kinds of 02:44 things that aren't true to accuse the Jews of these things. 02:49 And he stops the building. 02:52 He stops the building. 02:55 Well, so everything ceased. 02:59 Things were kind of in a difficult time. 03:01 Israel decided to try to get going again. 03:04 And a new king came on and he gave them permission 03:08 to at least rebuild the temple. 03:11 But that wasn't the decree either because they had enemies, 03:14 and these enemies pushed back. 03:16 And another king came on the scene. 03:19 And these enemies went to this king and they said to him, 03:22 "Look, these Jews are very difficult. 03:26 You need to make them stop." 03:29 They did not want Jerusalem rebuilt, 03:31 they did not want the temple rebuilt. 03:33 But this king did something very interesting. 03:35 He said, "Okay, I've heard your complaint. 03:38 But I will search the records." 03:40 And believe it or not, he found in the records 03:44 the first king of Persia, the great Cyrus, Cyrus the Great, 03:49 he had actually made the declaration giving permission 03:51 for the Jews to go back. 03:53 So in contrary to these complaints of their enemies, 03:57 this king issues a decree and says they are to be allowed 04:01 to not only rebuild the temple and the wall, 04:04 but the whole city of Jerusalem. 04:05 He allows them to put their Jewish laws back into place. 04:09 He allows them a certain amount of self-autonomy. 04:12 He basically restores the nation that had not 04:15 been really done before. 04:18 And he even orders the enemies to help them. 04:21 This time that's the decree, 457 BC, that gets the job done. 04:27 And when that first 7 weeks is finished, 04:30 not only do we have the temple rebuilt, 04:32 but the wall has been rebuilt. 04:34 And of course, you know the story of Ezra and Nehemiah. 04:37 And you can find that story, wonderful Nehemiah, 04:41 who the Holy Spirit moved on his heart there with the king. 04:45 He was the king's cup bearer. 04:47 And he went to the king and he pled with the king 04:49 to allow him, after the king opened the door 04:52 and asked him why he looked so sad. 04:54 He asked the king, he said, "I want to go back 04:56 and finish the wall of Jerusalem." 04:58 I'm putting this in my words. 05:00 And the king gave him not only permission, but gave him 05:03 financial resources to get it done. 05:06 So Nehemiah goes back. 05:07 He's one of the great men of the ancient Old Testament. 05:13 He did the almost impossible. 05:15 You can read the story there. 05:17 Completing the wall in just about 50 days. 05:21 It's an amazing story. 05:23 But it was done. 05:24 The temple is rebuilt, the wall is rebuilt, 05:27 and Israel is restored as a nation. 05:29 "Know therefore and understand from the going forth 05:32 of the commandment..." 05:33 So now we have the starting date. 05:35 457 BC. 05:38 So just as the prophecy said, from 457 BC, 05:42 that first 7 weeks, it's finished. 05:44 But now it says something that must really get our attention. 05:48 It says, "...until Messiah the Prince..." 05:50 That means there's 62 more weeks until Messiah shows up. 05:55 Messiah. 05:58 Been the hope and the hearts of Israelites 06:01 all for hundreds and hundreds of years; 06:03 the hope of the world. 06:04 62 more weeks. 06:06 That would bring us to the year AD 27. 06:11 Now that's a very well established date in Scripture. 06:14 AD 27. 06:16 And AD 27 is the time when Jesus was baptized 06:21 by the prophet John the Baptist. 06:24 So He's been kind of in the background 06:27 working as a carpenter for 30 years. 06:29 But now He goes to the preaching of John the Baptist 06:32 who was to prepare the way for Jesus 06:34 to make the ministry of Jesus possible. 06:37 And He goes to John, He says, "I would like to be baptized." 06:39 John is taken back; he says, "I need to be baptized by You." 06:43 He could see that this man was a perfect man, 06:47 a godly man. 06:48 And Jesus says, "No, let Me be baptized." 06:51 So He can fulfill all righteousness. 06:53 When John sees Jesus he calls Him, he says to 06:57 everybody around him, "Look, the Lamb of God 07:01 that takes away the sin of the world." 07:02 In other words, this is indeed the Messiah. 07:05 John had been raised up to prepare the way for the Messiah 07:09 and to tell the startling news. 07:11 And this is startling news. 07:12 And this is why John's preaching was so 07:14 captivating to the nation. 07:16 He says, "The Messiah is already here." 07:20 And He was. 07:22 So AD 27, just as the prophecy said, 07:26 just as the math said, Jesus appeared on the scene 07:30 as the Messiah of the world. 07:32 He started His three and a half years of ministry. 07:37 Now we've got 1 week, 1 week left. 07:40 And AD 27 starts that last week. 07:44 One week, 7 years. 07:47 Jesus' ministry lasted for three and a half years. 07:51 And the prophecy said that in the midst of the week 07:55 the Messiah would be cut off. 07:58 In other words, He would die. 08:00 But not for Himself. 08:03 He died for you. He died for me. 08:05 He died for the whole world. 08:06 He died so that He could get the world 08:08 out of the mess that it's in. 08:10 And He died on time. 08:13 He came on time, AD 27, 08:16 and He died on time, in the midst of the week. 08:19 But there is still another half of that week left. 08:24 This is the week that changed the world. 08:28 This is the week that changed human civilization. 08:31 This is the week that's changed your life and my life. 08:35 I'm telling you, the United States of America 08:38 wouldn't exist without this week. 08:41 Christianity wouldn't exist without this week. 08:43 Without the death and the resurrection of Jesus 08:45 in the midst of this week, all the hopes and dreams 08:48 we have of a future life would have all vanished. 08:52 But it hasn't vanished. 08:54 It's a reality. 08:55 Jesus did die, and He was resurrected. 08:58 We'll talk more about that resurrection next time. 09:01 But I want to come back to the end of that week. 09:05 Because with that 70 weeks Jesus had made a covenant 09:09 with His people. 09:10 And He was keeping that covenant. 09:13 And so at the end of that 70th week, that last week 09:17 that changed the world, something very special happened. 09:23 In AD 34, at the end of that 70th week, 09:29 the Sanhedrin gathered to try a man, 09:32 a man by the name of Stephen. 09:35 One of the greatest apostles, if you please. 09:39 He was actually ordained as a deacon, but I think he 09:41 certainly had the apostolic gift. 09:46 And he was a powerful preacher. 09:47 He converted a lot of people to Christianity. 09:50 And they were very angry about it. 09:53 This is three and a half years after Jesus' 09:55 death and resurrection, in the midst of that 70th last week. 10:01 And so they brought Stephen in for the trial. 10:04 And Stephen did something very fascinating. 10:07 He began to trace the history of Israel 10:12 down from Abraham through Moses, how God has protected them, 10:17 how they had been stubborn. 10:20 You know, it's not a good thing to be stubborn with the truth. 10:24 They had been stubborn. 10:26 And how they had resisted the Holy Spirit. 10:29 And he brought them all the way down to the Messiah, Jesus. 10:34 And as he got to that part, they couldn't stand it any longer. 10:38 They were so angry. 10:39 These were the same people that put Jesus to death 10:44 on Calvary's cross. 10:45 And as Stephen said to them that they had crucified 10:49 or put to death the Son of God, they really became disturbed. 10:54 When he said that God doesn't live in a temple 10:57 made with hands, they became outraged. 11:00 And they rushed on Stephen, took him out, 11:03 and stoned him to death. 11:05 The same Sanhedrin that had put Jesus Himself to death. 11:10 The Jewish nation, as a nation at this point, 11:14 had finished its covenant. 11:16 Jesus had kept His covenant with them, 11:19 but they had not kept their covenant with Him. 11:22 And so now the gospel would go to the world, 11:25 not through the Jewish nation, 11:26 but through the Christian church. 11:29 So there's been a great change here. 11:31 It was a week, it was a week that changed the world. 11:35 It certainly has changed my life, 11:37 and the life of countless millions ever since. 11:41 And just to add to this, the reason I don't need to go back 11:47 and worship on those feast days and go through the old 11:51 tabernacle service is because Jesus fulfilled all of that. 11:55 When He was cut off in the midst of the week, 11:58 the scripture said, prophecy said, he would put an end 12:02 to the tabernacle services. 12:03 And that's what the Jewish leadership was so 12:06 concerned about and so afraid. 12:08 So the 70th week, it's finished. 12:11 Mathematical proof that Jesus is indeed the Messiah of the world. 12:16 The Messiah the world needs. 12:18 The Messiah that should not be made fun of or mocked. 12:21 The Messiah that is changing and has changed the world. 12:26 He injected new life and new power in the world. 12:30 I hate to think what the last 2000 years would have been like 12:33 if we had not had Jesus in that last week, 12:37 the week that changed the world. 12:39 So the question for all of us is, Jesus keeps His covenant. 12:44 He keeps it through thick and thin, 12:46 through difficulty and trial, through hardship to Himself. 12:50 Self-sacrificing Jesus keeps His covenant. 12:55 And He makes a covenant with everyone 12:57 that's willing to make a covenant with Him. 12:59 If you've made a covenant with Jesus to make Him your Savior 13:02 and your Messiah, the question now is, 13:05 are you keeping your covenant? 13:07 By the way, He has power. 13:08 He has power, not only to forgive your sins, 13:11 but He has power to make a new person out of you, 13:13 and to resurrect you from the dead when He comes 13:16 in the clouds of glory. 13:17 This Messiah has the power to deliver on all your hopes 13:24 and all your dreams. 13:25 This Messiah who has been proved from Scripture, 13:29 mathematically, is indeed the Messiah of the world. 13:33 He's your Messiah, 13:35 He's my Messiah, 13:36 if we want Him to be our hope and our dream. |
Revised 2019-06-05