Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, go therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ teachings through australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Pastor Wayne Humphries.
Heavenly Father, what a wonderful gift that we have in the Sabbath day, that we can come aside from the world, we can come aside from the pandemic crisis and the toils of each day, that we might experience rest, not only a physical rest, but a spiritual rest as well. And I pray that as we spend this time in this place today, Lord, I want to invite you to be numbered here amongst us. I pray that your Holy Spirit will rest on our hearts and on our minds and bring us to a new understanding of your love for us and a new understanding of the wonderful truths that have been revealed in scripture for these very days.
So I pray, Lord, that my words that I speak today will be your words and not my own. It's my prayer. In Jesus name I ask it.
Amen. Those who have been following us in the last couple of weeks will recognise that we have been taking a journey through the three angels messages. And it's been very important for us to do this for one particular reason.
And that is this very church that you're sitting in today exists because of the three angels messages. Now, I know that this is not an indictment on anybody, but I've spoken to people in the past and just casually, offhand, said, what do the three angels messages mean to you? And they can't really give me a definitive answer. So it's important for us to know why we're here and what their job is or what the tasks are that God has given each one of us, that we might be able to take part in the gospel message that he has for the entire world.
That's an amazing responsibility, an amazing privilege, isn't it? That he could take sinful human beings and do that. Last week we spoke about the judgement and you might remember we talked about the book and the books, the book of Life, that God has people's names written in and the books that record our every action, thought, word and deed. And we recognise that we didn't need to be fearful of that judgement.
In fact, the judgement that is given to us, the judgement that God explains to us in the first angel's message, is actually good news. It is good news for those who have a response, who have a relationship with Jesus Christ. But today we're going to be looking at something a little bit different today we're going to be looking at when does that judgement actually start and when does it finish? Everybody would like to know that, wouldn't you? You know, I came across this concept of the judgement a number of years ago.
I think it was about in 2011, 2012, something like that. No, 2011, I think it was. I was attending a church down in New South Wales and there was an older lady in the church who came to me, and I've told some of you this story before, so please excuse me if you've heard this one already.
There was an elderly lady that came to me in the church and she said, Pastor Wayne, there's a young man who has had an accident. Well, it was an accident, but he actually tried to commit suicide by walking in front of a train. And his name was Aaron.
And what had happened to Aaron was he wasn't actually hit by the train, it just glanced past him. But he lost his right arm just below the elbow and he also took a rather serious blow on the head. So he had a lot of difficulty with short term memory.
He couldn't remember anything. And plus his balance was affected. So even though the rest of his body was perfectly okay, he couldn't balance to walk.
So he was in a motorised wheelchair. And at the time they didn't have the idea of group home, so he was staying in a retirement village. So he was a young man of about 35 years old, living in a retirement village in high care with all the elderly folk there.
She said, look, I know that he would love you to go down there on a Friday night and open the Sabbath with him. Could you do that? And I said, I'd be happy to do that. And so I met Aaron, and Aaron has become a lifelong friend.
I still send messages backwards and forwards to Aaron from time to time. But, you know, one of the questions that Aaron asked me was this, when is Jesus going to come again? Now, I tried to give him what the normal adventist response would be. And what is that? We're not date setters.
We don't know. All we know is he's coming again soon, all right? And he would say, oh, okay, all right. But that wasn't good enough for Aaron.
Aaron used to have like a whiteboard sitting on the wall of his unit. And if you wanted him to remember something, you'd have to pick up a pen. You'd have to write it on the whiteboard because he couldn't remember.
Now the next week that I went back there, he asked me the same question again, because obviously this question was playing on his mind. Pastor Wade, when is Jesus coming again? I want to know. Well, the second time I said, well, Aaron, we don't set dates.
The Bible doesn't tell us exactly when Jesus is coming again. So all I can tell you is it's going to be soon. Aaron said, oh, okay.
Thank you. Anyway, the next week I went back again on the Friday night to open Sabbath. And what do you think? He asked me? Passed away.
And when is Jesus coming again? This was playing on his mind. And after the fifth, 6th and 7th time, he kept asking me these questions. Over the weeks that I was going to visit him, I found he began to challenge me.
When is Jesus coming again? That's a really good question. And I was forced to come to a situation where I had to give Aaron a date. And I did give him a date.
I'm not telling you what it is because I'm not a date setter. But Aaron was not going to be happy unless I gave him a date. So I did give him a date.
I'll tell you this much. We haven't reached it yet, and I'm expecting the day that we do reach it. I'm going to get a message from Aaron, and I'm dreading that day.
But friends, it made me think, jesus is coming again soon. And when you have to think about when it is actually going to be, it really does make you think. Now, I believe God put that question in Aaron's heart because he wanted me to consider when is it going to happen? Because I went through the whole process.
Is it going to be ten years time? Is it going to be 20 years time? Is it going to be 50 years time? Is it going to be five years time? Is it going to be two years time? And I thank Aaron for constantly asking me that question, because as I see these events happening in the world, as we see them happening today, natural catastrophe, man made catastrophe, unrest and anger amongst the nations, pandemics, pestilences. It all sounds familiar, doesn't it? For anyone who's read Matthew 24, it'll sound very familiar. How close is Jesus coming? You know, it is natural human nature to want to know the timing of things.
It is our natural curiosity, especially for us to know the prophetic events, when they are going to happen. Wouldn't you love to know when is going to be the close of probation? How much time do we have? When is going to be the pouring out of the plagues? We've all heard of these things, but when is it actually going to happen? What about the rise of the ultimate power of the Antichrist? When is that going to happen? What about the preaching of the gospel to the entire world? When is that going to be complete, the outpouring of the latter rain? When is that really going to start? Or is it happening now? What about the enforcement of the counterfeit day of worship? When is that going to happen? And I could go on and on and on and on about all these different things that every Adventist knows about that the Bible tells us about quite clearly. But friends, after a particular point in time, the Bible continues to give us all these prophecies, but doesn't tell us when.
It's a bit frustrating sometimes, isn't it? But friends, there is one event, the timing of an important event, that is related to the first angel's message that the Bible does tell us about. And not only that, those of you who had a look on Facebook last night and saw my advertisement for this service is called the judgement part two. Because last week we talked about what the judgement is, and this week we're going to talk about when it's going to happen.
They're important things to know, don't you think? Because God has put these messages in scripture that we might know not only the timing, but also the events. If we go back through the whole of history and look at the book, particularly the Book of Daniel, where we look at the events that have been foretold and over thousands of years, each one of them has been predicted and fulfilled exactly on time, as Daniel said over 2700 years ago. Is it not reasonable to assume that the things that the Bible tells us that are still to happen in the future, from this point in time, are going to happen exactly as the Bible says.
Every time a prophecy is fulfilled on time to date, as the Bible specifies, we can have more faith to know that God has got the history of this world in his hands and he has told us ahead of time what's gonna happen. I love that verse in the Bible. God does nothing except he tells his secrets to his servants, the prophets.
God does that for a reason, because he doesn't want us to be surprised. He wants to know. He wants us to know what's going to happen.
And so as we have travelled our way through the first angel's message, we have been looking at various aspects of it in close detail. And the next aspect is about the judgement part two. Friends, let us read from our scriptures the verses that describe the reason why we are a church.
And what God tells us is going to happen. Revelation, chapter 14. And I want to read to you the first angel's message found in verses six and seven.
Revelation, chapter 14. Six. Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven.
Having the everlasting gospel to preach to the Jews. Come on, Michael, I expect you to say something here. Thank you, Michael.
Having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue and people. And in the first part of verse seven, it says, saying with a whisper, no, friends, it says, saying with a loud voice. And we looked at this when we preached on this one before, didn't we? If we have the archangel or an angel of God flying in the midst of heaven, speaking with a loud voice, I will put to you that it is shaking the foundations of the earth.
Everyone is to hear saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgement is coming. Has come. Thank you.
Everybody's reading along with me. For the hour of his judgement has come and worship him who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and the springs of water. Found in the detail of this very verse is a startling event.
The gospel still goes forward while his judgement has come. What does that mean? It means the angel is telling us that there is a judgement that has commenced before the second coming of Jesus, before the close of probation, because the gospel is still going to all the world. All right.
When is this judgement going to commence? Friends, I have really good news for you. There are things in scripture that doesn't tell us the timing. But the commencement of this judgement is shared with us.
And that's what we're going to look at today. Fear God and give glory to him. Doesn't mean to be in terror of him.
Doesn't mean to be afraid and be hiding from him. But as we saw, it means to awe, to respect, to reverence him. This is a heart work to give glory to God.
The fruits of the spirit that may be manifest to glorify others. This is the wonderful thing. Do you remember we spoke about the glory of God? And we said, when we see God sitting in his magnificence on the throne of the universe, clothed in light that we cannot approach or look upon, surrounded by millions and millions of angels, in his glory, in his magnificence, in his sovereignty, how do we glorify that? How do we glorify him? By allowing his character to be revealed in us, to other people, we glorify God to one another.
Colossians chapter one and verse 27. The mystery of the gospel. God in us, Christ dwelling in us.
This is how we glorify God. And then we looked at. Because the hour of his judgement has come.
And we looked at the three different phases of judgement, the one before the beginning of the millennium, at the second coming of Christ, the second phase during the millennium, the third phase after the millennium. But this particular judgement, or what has been termed by the Adventist Church, and James White himself gave it this term, the investigative judgement, is before the second coming of Jesus. The Bible gives us the timing of the commencement of this investigative or pre advent judgement.
And this is a message that we have to give to the world. You know what our message is? The time in which we live. You know, I remember a number of years ago, I got a picture of the statue of Daniel that you see in Daniel, too.
You know, the statue, the head of gold, the chest and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay. And I put it up on the wall, and I had an arrow pointing right to the very end of the toenail of that statue, with a little message that said, you are here. That entire prophetic statue has been revealed to us exactly as God had told Daniel.
Kingdoms of the world rise and fall at the will of God. He knew everything that was going to happen. And it is important for us to understand what is going to happen as we continue to move forward.
Now, there's one thing that I want to point out to you about the book of Daniel, which is very important for us to understand before we continue. You know, usually when you pick up a book, it's got an introduction. This is what they used to teach us at college or university.
Now, did you know Avondale College is now Avondale University? Congratulations to them. As of last Thursday, Avondale College. I remember a lecturer there telling me quite clearly, when you write an essay, you have an introduction, a body and a conclusion.
You start with where you're gonna go, you take them there, and then you tell them where you've just been. All right? That's what you used to do with a book, isn't it? You know, you never read the last two pages of a book because it tells you the plot of the whole book, spoils the whole thing. But Daniel's different.
What Daniel does in chapter two is it gives you the entire story of the history of humanity in broad strokes, right from the days of Babylon right down to when the ten kingdoms of Europe are broken up, covers everything. But then when we get to Daniel, chapter seven, it's covering the same ground, only in a lot more detail. It's looking at the four beasts.
So it's the first half, if you want to put it that way, leading up to the development of this little horn. And then when we get to Daniel chapter eight, it's doing the same thing again. It's looking at the same ground, the ram and the he goat.
But this time it's in greater detail. It's just looking at medo, Persia and Greece. And then when we get to Daniel chapter ten and eleven, it is zooming in again closer.
And then Daniel twelve is so close that it's difficult to sort of know where you are because it's very complex and we'll get into that later on. And so what it does is it is covering the same ground as we progress through the chapters over and over again in greater detail. So the chapters, you can actually place them on top of one another and you can gain a 3d picture of what's going on in the book.
A masterpiece of literature, the entirety of human history explained in twelve chapters. Absolutely amazing. But we're going to be looking at two particular chapters today.
Now, this concept of the timing of prophecy and of the Bible telling us about prophecy and when it's going to happen, is that unusual in scripture? It's absolutely not, because we see a number of places in the Bible where this happens at regular intervals. We looked at Daniel chapter two a second ago, but first of all, we'll look in Moses writings and we'll see that the cycle of the hebrew feast related to the sanctuary service revealed the timing of the death of Christ and the beginning of the christian church. Did you know that? Now how you have the sanctuary, and those of us who are interested in the details of the sanctuary might like to join us on Monday night on Zoom, because we're studying the sanctuary in detail and we're taking a walk through the sanctuary.
The sanctuary tells us the events of what is happening in Christ's life, his living in the camp, his sacrifice at the altar of burnt offering, his resurrection at the labour. And then we move into the holy place where you have the candlesticks and the showbread and the altar of incense. Everything means something in the progress of the plan of salvation being unfolded by Christ for the salvation of his people.
But the hebrew feasts that are laid on top of that which follow the jewish agricultural year, they give you the timing of when all these things are going to happen. Did you know that? It's like a clock and we can get. I'm hoping someone comes to me, says, pastor, how can this be? Because we can go through it.
I'd love to be able to go through that with you. So, yes, the timing of the second coming, the first coming of Christ, was clearly revealed in the sanctuary hebrew feasts. And we see it even clearer in Daniel, chapter nine, verses 24 and 27.
The 490 day prophecy of Daniel 29 24 27, which tells us the exact time of the baptism of Christ, his death, his resurrection, and the time that the gospel was to go to the entire world clearly revealed. I wish I had time, friends, to spend more time with you. And look at the 490 year prophecy.
Talk about a masterpiece of prophetic revelation. It could never have come from the mind of a man. It must have come from God.
How is it that God can predict the movements and the works of a mandev, single man, in a single place, with absolute accuracy, 700 years before the event? You know, sometimes we might open up the local newspaper. I used to do this. I don't do it anymore.
And you turn to the page where your stars are. Have you ever done that? And they're right. I'm this star.
And you go and look through and you find out what your star is and you read about it and it tells you what's going to happen tomorrow. Now, sometimes you can kind of say, yeah, because it's so general that something good happened and you want it to fit. So you think, yes, maybe other times you look at it and go, where is this guy coming from? Because it's totally out of whack.
That is, one day in advance. And sometimes they might get it right because they write it so generally that if you take what actually happened on that day and you kind of jam it in there, it'll fit. But God is exact.
He is precise with dates, events, times, peoples names, even 700 years in advance. Friends, one of the attributes of God is that he sees the end from the beginning. And as we read these prophecies, we can be encouraged that God has the flow of human history in his very hands.
In his very hands. So what we're going to do now is we're going to have a look at. Now, we've seen that Daniel rolls over on himself and covers the same ground into greater detail as it goes through.
And revelation, incidentally, does the same sort of thing. We're going to have a look at what parts of the Bible reveal to us the commencement of this investigative judgement. When does it start? You'd like to know, wouldn't you? So I want you to turn with me to the book of Daniel.
And we're going to be looking at the concept, as I said a moment ago, what's called repeat and enlarge. Daniel repeats. It goes over the same ground and it continues to enlarge.
What is going on? Now, there's a lot of ground we need to cover here, so I'm not going to read it all from scripture because we don't have the time to do it. Unfortunately, I'm going to be telling you what the Bible says about these various things. Daniel chapter seven.
Daniel chapter seven. And I want to look at verses one to eight. Now, I've broken Daniel up into three parts.
There's three general parts. The first part, Daniel chapter seven, verses one to eight, is a vision that Daniel has. And we're not going to read the passage, we're not going to read the verses.
I'm just going to explain it to you. I'm sure that it's quite familiar with you. So we're doing almost a survey.
So the first part of Daniel chapter seven says this, and it's talking about four great beasts. In verse four, there's a lion with eagle's wings and receivers that receives a man's heart. The second animal is a bear, and it's raised up on one side and it has three ribs in its mouth.
That's in verse five. In verse six, we see a leopard with four heads and four wings of a bird. And in verse seven, we see a nondescript huge beast with terrifying teeth and ten horns.
And then after verse seven, a little horn comes and plucks out three of the others. And it looked like a man and spoke like a dragon. It spoke pompous words.
Now there's four beasts. What were the four main metals on the first level of the statue? Gold, silver, bronze and iron. So there's four metals on the beast and four beasts.
But these four beasts, which we can show through scripture, are matching on the four first four metals. They're kingdoms. But this chapter is giving us more detail about it.
The lion had wings and received a man's heart. The bear had three ribs in its mouth and was raised up on one side. The leopard with four heads and four wings of a bird.
And this nondescript huge beast, terrifying, with ten horns. Let me just dwell briefly on the bear. The bear was raised up on one side, and we see in verses further down, the angel that is interpreting this bear says, this is the kingdom of Medo and Persia.
Media and Persia. And then we have, well, let's test your history. Which kingdom in the world was a world dominating kingdom that destroyed Medo Persia and took over the entire world for a period of time.
Who was it? It was Greece. Right? And who was the king of that kingdom? Alexander the great. Now, this talks about a leopard with four heads and four wings of a bird.
Is a leopard fast? Does it represent speed? A leopard is the fastest land animal in the world, isn't it? But this leopard's also got wings. Not only two wings, it's got four wings, which means it's super fast. And you know what? When Alexander was sweeping across the plains of Europe, taking everything before him, that the process that he was using was speed, he would fill himself into a country with such speed that sometimes he would take over the whole country.
And those who were running the country, like the king or the caesar, whoever, wouldn't even know they were there until it was all too late. You know, in the second World War, the Germans, when they were working their way through Europe, used a process called blitzkrieg. You heard of blitzkrieg? What does blitzkrieg mean? Fast war.
And so the methodology that they were using is they would sweep themselves into a country with such speed that they would take the country before the country even knew about it. Where do you think Hitler got that idea? Alexander the Great was Hitler's hero, and he was using the same methodology that Alexander used. Anyway, we can see how these descriptions in Daniel chapter seven are very close.
Really, really, really describing the nature of what this kingdom was going to do hundreds of years in advance of when it was actually going to do it. Okay, that's the first part of Daniel chapter seven. Now let's have a look at the second part.
This is part of my favourite verses, so I'm going to read this to you now. The chapter kind of switches gears here. It changes speed, because now we're looking at a judgement scene.
Daniel chapter seven. And I want to read to you verses nine and ten. And I watched until thrones were put in place and the ancient of days was seated.
His garment was white as snow, and the hair on his head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, and his wheels a burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him.
A thousand thousands ministered to him. 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him. This is a picture of the majesty of God on his throne.
And the last two lines of verse ten give us the context of what's going on here. The court was seated and the books were opened. What is this? This is the sort of thing you'd expect if you had to go into court and defend, say, I don't know, a speeding fine.
The judge comes out. Like when you walk into the court, everyone says, all rise. When you rise up, the judge walks in.
He sits, everybody sits. And then the books are open. This is a judgement scene we're seeing here.
And then we go to the third section, which again, Daniel changes gears again, because now an angel comes to Daniel and he begins to interpret the vision that he's had. So we saw these four. He saw these four beasts.
He saw this little horn rise up and then all of a sudden there's this court scene that's happening in heaven still. We've got no timings, have we? There's no timings yet, but we can see the progress of events. So this court scene commences after the rise of this little horn, but before the second coming of Christ.
Can you see how we're narrowing it down? We're starting to narrow it down right now. We go to the third part of Daniel chapter seven, where the vision is continued, verses eleven to twelve. It talks about the little horn and the beast being destroyed with fire.
Verse 13, the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven to the ancient of days. And verse 14, he receives all power, nations and dominion, and a kingdom which is never destroyed. Friends, I'd love to spend more time with you on that passage as well, but we don't have time right now.
So what we're going to do now is we're going to go over to chapter eight and we're going to overlay chapter eight on top of chapter seven. Because remember, as we're going through the chapters, we repeat and enlarge. It's covering the same ground but in greater detail.
Daniel chapter eight, verses one to twelve. The first part of Daniel, chapter eight matches the first part of Daniel chapter seven, which is called, or I have entitled it, the Vision. Now I want to read to you verses one to twelve.
In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, to me, Daniel, after the one that appeared the first time, verse two, chapter eight, I saw in vision, and so happened, while I was looking, that I was in Shushan, the citadel, which is the province of Elam, and I saw the vision as I was beside the river Ulai. That verse two is especially meaningful for Ronin and I because the location of Shushan is in Iran. There is a little town in Iran now called Shush.
They've just taken the a and the end off the end. And Bronman and I were fortunate enough about two years ago, just before, about twelve months before coronavirus arrived, to actually visit Iran and go to this place called Shush. And it talks about a citadel there, the palace of the king of Media and Persia at the time.
And I'm sorry, it was a palace of the king of Media and Persia. And we saw the ruins of that very palace. And there is a river flowing right next to it.
So the description that Daniel is giving us here of the location of where he had this vision, Brahman and I had the fortunate or the blessedness of being able to stand right there and see what Daniel was looking at. Verse three. Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and there standing beside the river was a ram with two horns.
And the two horns were very high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. How many kingdoms were there in Media? Persia? Two. So you can see the connection right there, can't you? Verse four.
And I saw the ram pushing westward, northward, southward, so that no animal could withstand him, nor was there any that could deliver from his hand. But he did according to his will, and he became great. Verse five.
And as I was considering, suddenly a male goat came from the west, across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground. What does that mean? It means he was very fast, doesn't it? Without touching the ground, across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground. And the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.
Who do you think that might have been? Alexander the Great. Incidentally, as Alexander was sweeping into the Middle east, when he was coming close to Jerusalem, the elders of Jerusalem knew he was coming. And so they went out and met him and they pulled Daniel out and they showed him these passages written in Hebrew, of course, where the Bible was telling them they were expecting him to come, because the Bible was talking about him in particular.
And Alexander said to those elders, I'm destroying everything that I'm coming across as I'm making my way towards the west. But if you deliver Jerusalem to me, so it belongs to me, it will be my place, I will control it, but I will not destroy it. And that's exactly what he did.
As he was passing through, just a little aside, alexander was so amazed that his very exploits were described in the hebrew scriptures from 700 years before. Verse seven. And I saw him confronting the ram and he was moved with rage against him, attacked the ram, broke his horns in two.
There is no power in the ram to withstand him. But he cast him to the ground and trampled him. And there was no one that could deliver the ram from his hand.
Therefore the male grape grew. The male grew very great. But when he became strong, his large horn was broken.
And in place of it, four notable ones came up before the four winds of heaven. Do you know the story of Alexander the Great? When he conquered the entire world, he lamented that he had nothing left to conquer and he died in a drunken orgy at the age of 30. He had no sons or daughters.
And so his generals came to him, recognising that he was going to die. And he said, who gets your kingdom? And he said, my kingdom will go to the strongest. So after he died, the four generals divided the kingdom up amongst themselves.
They divided into four regions. That's what it says right here. Four notable horns came up towards the four wings of heaven.
How amazing is scripture verse nine. And out of one of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly great towards the south, towards the east, towards the glorious land. And here we are talking about the little.
Remember in the chapter seven there was a little horn too, wasn't there? And we're getting a lot more detail here. Verse ten. And it grew up to the host of heaven, and it came down to some, and the host of some, the stars of the ground and trampled them.
And he even exalted himself as high as the prince of host. And by him the daily sacrifices were taken away and the place of his sanctuary were cast down. So the task of this little horn is to persecute and destroy God's people.
That's what this verse is talking about. And verse twelve, because of the transgression, an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifice. And he cast truth to the ground.
And he did all this and he prospered. Now let's just make some short observations. Number one, a ram is a sanctuary, sacrificial animal.
A goat is a sanctuary, sacrificial animal. We're talking about the little horn here that was persecuting God's people. Can you see the aspect that this is coming from? And now we go to section two.
Now, do you remember in chapter seven, section two was about what the judgement, wasn't it God sitting in his temple? We come to section two here in Daniel, and we read verses 13 and 14. And here, friends, is the foundation of the remnant church of God. And I heard a holy one speaking and saying to another holy one who said, a certain one who was speaking, how long will the vision concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot.
How long is this going to happen for? Daniel's just had this amazing vision. How long is it going to go on for? And then the angel answered, verse 14, and he said unto me, for 2300 days, and then the sanctuary will be cleansed. Now, let's just consider the concept of the sanctuary, of the sanctuary for a second.
We saw that the idea of the sanctuary was handed down to Moses back in the book of Exodus. Every day the priest was to go into the holy place and to sacrifice a lamb. And the sins of the people were given, put on the head of that lamb, and they were symbolically taken into the holy place and transferred into the sanctuary.
But there was a special service that happened once a year, and it was called the Day of Atonement. The Jews called it Yom Kippur. And what happened on that day? What does Atonement mean? The sins are judged and expunged from the sanctuary.
So can you see that there is a connection between the sanctuary judgement and God opening the books of heaven? It's at the same place, at the same place of time as we work our way through these chapters, very, very important. The only difference is in chapter eight, we've got a time period, 2300 days. Now, Daniel, I'll use young people's terminology here, freaked out when he saw this because he'd been reading Jeremiah.
And Jeremiah was saying, it's only going to be 70 years before Jerusalem is restored. But now he's reading a, he's hearing a vision to say, no, no, it's going to be 2300 days. Daniel knew that a day meant a year.
And he just, he got sick at the end of this chapter and he couldn't continue on. It was too much for him to bear. He didn't want to know that his people were going to be held captive in Jerusalem for 2000 years.
Daniel hadn't had this vision explained to him yet. Unto 2300 days, and then the sanctuary will be cleansed. The angel was telling the other angel and Daniel was overhearing it, unto 2300 days, then the investigative part, or the completion or the expunging of sin is going to commence at the end of that time, symbolically speaking.
Now we standing down here in 2021, look at this passage and we say, okay, there is a time period where the judgment's going to commence, symbolised in the sanctuary for thousands of years before, told as a prophecy to Daniel that it's going to commence sometime when this little horn is in power. So you got media, Persia, you got Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece, Rome. This little horn is going to come into power.
And sometime during the power of that little horn, then this 2300 days is going to expire. And then the sanctuary is going to be cleansed. Then the judgement is going to commence.
It's going to begin. So what's the next question that we need to ask ourselves? When does this 2300 day period start? We know we've got the time period, but we don't know when it begins. And if we don't know when it begins, then we don't know when it ends.
Is that true? Then we come to Daniel chapter nine. Keeping in mind, Gabriel has interpreted part of the vision, but not all of it. Yet Daniel fell sick, and he was sick for many days.
In fact, it says there at the end of the last verse of verse 27 in chapter eight. And I, Daniel fainted and was sick for many days. And afterwards I arose and went about the king's business.
I was astonished by the vision, but no one understood it. Then we come to chapter nine and friends, I'm running out of time, so I have to shorten this. What happens in Daniel chapter nine? We look at the example of the hebrew sanctuary in the Old Testament.
We must conclude that the act of cleansing the sanctuary or the expiation of sin was an act of judgement. If the judgement commences at the conclusion of the 2300 days, because the angel said unto 2300 days, then the sanctuary shall be cleansed. The question is, when did this 2300 days commence? Let's turn with me to Daniel chapter nine, and verses 24 and 25, because the angel tells us when it commences.
Daniel 924. And the angel says to Daniel, 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore, and understand that from thus going forth of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the messiah, the prince, there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks, the streets shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times.
In verse 24, that word determined, it also means to cut off, to separate from something that pre exists. And a further study into that tells us that this angel is giving a prophecy within a prophecy. And this is the genius of the 2300 days, because we must decipher exactly when this first date started.
So we know when the 2300 days finished. And so what God did is he gave a second prophecy, a prophecy of the second of the first coming of Christ, and he made it a part of the 2300 days. And the angel is telling Daniel, this is the day when the 490 year prophecy of Christ begins.
It begins at the going forth of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. So if we can safely decipher the beginning of that 490 year period, we can also safely decipher the beginning of the 2300 year period. Is that not true? What year was it that Christ was anointed as the Messiah? 27 AD.
27 AD. And so that's what it's talking about here. We have two options.
We can take when Christ died and go back, or we can go from the beginning of the prophecy and go forward. The angel tells Daniel from the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Now, do you know what? As we look through scripture, as we always do, we allow the Bible to interpret itself.
That's the first principle of Bible study, isn't it? Otherwise you can come out with any type of interpretation that you want. The Bible must interpret itself and friends, just to cut it short, when we go to the book of Ezra, Ezra has three commands to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. But only one of them is to restore the buildings and the wall and to put back in place their own self determining government system to restore and rebuild.
And that is found in Ezra, chapter seven, verses eleven to 26. Ezra 711 26, for those who want to write it down. And it was issued by King Artaxerxes.
In what year history will tell us. Go to your history books and you can verify this. This command was issued in 457 BC.
So 457 BC is the date that the 490 year prophecy starts. And we know that for a fact because Christ came right on time. Therefore, 457 is correct.
There's no doubt about it. And so if the angel is telling Daniel that this 490 year period is cut off from the longer period of 2300, and if we start at the same date and we work 2300 years forward, where do we come to 1843? Why 1843? Thank you. Calculators will calculate a year zero, but there is no year zero.
It went from bc one to ad one. Therefore we push it out one more year, and it comes to the year 1844. Now, a lot of people will argue with Adventists about that date, but I will put to you that directly from scripture, without even having to use the spirit of prophecy to explain that it is totally solid, rock solid.
Something happened in 1844. You can't get away from it. And the angel tells us what it is.
It was the commencement of the cleansing of the sanctuary, the commencing of the atypical day of atonement. Now, is there a sanctuary on earth at the moment? Now, if there are two angels talking to each other, saying, the cleansing of the sanctuary is going to commence in this year, if there are angels in heaven, we know that there is only one sanctuary where Christ is mediating on our behalf at the moment. And where is that? It is in the heavenly sanctuary.
And, friends, this is where our church comes in. This is where you come in. Because this investigative judgement, the expunging of sin from the heavenly sanctuary, and I don't want to get into that, Christ's making wrongs right, has been happening for 177 years to date, to 2021.
It started in 1844 and it's been going on now for 177 years. Jesus delays for one reason. Christ created the entirety of the earth in six days.
Do you think it takes him 177 years to go through everybody's case in heaven? Friends, he is now conducting the investigative judgement in the heavenly sanctuary to the detail of what I spoke about in our last sermon, the last time I was here, working his way through the books step by step. Does God need to do that? God knows the end from the beginning. He doesn't need to do that.
Why is he doing it? He's doing it for you and me because we don't know everything. He's doing it to show his workings, his judgments, his mercy, his tender longing to the entirety of the universe, the heavenly angels. He is opening up the books to be completely transparent.
Time remains at the moment for each one of us to give our hearts to Jesus, to recognise that the process that he is going through, it's not a vengeful process, it's a consequential process. It is based on the decisions that you and I are making today. And God has been completely transparent and shown us right from the days of Adam and Eve, his plan being put in place to rescue his people from sin and wickedness.
But the only thing God cannot do, there's only one thing he can't. You know, there is something that God cannot do. He cannot save anyone who chooses to be lost.
He cannot go against your freedom of choice. Do you know why? Because it is a violation of the rule of love. You can't love God because he forces you to do it.
We can't love one another because anyone forces us to do it. It's a matter of choice. God calls us.
He wants us. He's calling you. Is he putting a call on your heart right now.
He waits. He waits. He waits.
The delay is because he is waiting for people who are on the edge to make their decision, for him to finally make that decision and surrender all to him that he might write your name in the book of life before probation closes and it is forever too late. Is he speaking to your heart right now? I call on you. I beg you, I plead with you.
Time is short. Make your decision today before it is forever too late. This is my prayer for each one of you in Jesus name.
This message was made available by Pastor Wayne Humphries. For more resources like this visit. hiswordrevealed.life.
This programme has been brought to you by 3ABN Australia radio.
