Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Daniel 9:24-27

A child of hope. Praise God for this season at which in the midst of no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, joyous or sad, we have the bright hope of the Lord Jesus Christ that we celebrate his coming 2,000 years ago and the growth of his kingdom and the manifestation of his order.

Today, let’s turn to our sermon text, which is Daniel 9:24 to the end of the chapter and we’ll look at what Daniel was waiting for, what the advent was that he was pointed toward in his prayer that we talked about a month or so ago.

Please stand reading God’s word. If you have the handouts, the sermon text is actually on page two. The cover sheet, the first page is the long prayer of Daniel, carefully composed prayer. And what we read in verse 20 and following is the answer to that prayer, the coming of the man Gabriel. Okay. Verse 20 and following.

Now, while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people, Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God, for the holy mountain of my God. Yes. While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering. And he informed me and talked with me and said, “Oh Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand. At the beginning of your supplications, the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved.

Therefore, consider the matter and understand the vision. 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be 7 weeks and 62 weeks.

The street shall be built again in the wall, even in troublesome times. Then after the 62 weeks, Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood until the end of the war. Desolations are determined. Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering and on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate even until the consummation which is determined is poured out on the desolate.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for again for this joyous season. We thank you that we read in this book of Daniel the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ being prophesied that for which Daniel waited not ultimately the short-term deliverance back to Jerusalem but ultimately the deliverance effected by the coming of the anointed one, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We thank you, Lord God, that he has come and that his bright light of hope, love, and life shines in the context of our lives in the world never to be extinguished. Now we pray that the Lord Jesus through his spirit may minister this text to us. Help us to rejoice in this great salvation that we have rejoiced in this season and help us to understand it in more detail today, Lord God, that we may give you worship and praise not just with our mouths but by consecrating our lives to you as well.

In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. Well, what was Daniel waiting for? For you’ll see from the outline December 12th this was originally prepared as an Advent sermon but in the providence of God we had a couple of Sundays in this year to kind of meditate on the Christmas season and so we can look at this as I think a second Christmas sermon is how I want us to look at this text from Daniel what was Daniel waiting for?

Advent is a season of anticipation waiting for the presents under the tree waiting for the joy of Christmas day waiting to celebrate waiting to sing the Christmas songs on Christmas day and to rejoice with God’s people waiting to hear the historical record in read in our homes and in our churches waiting anticipating or prefiguring the waiting of the people of old who waited for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as we look at Daniel’s prayer in chapter nine, we know he was waiting. He had determined and it was not an easy thing to determine by the way, but he had determined that the 70 years were up, that the decree to rebuild Jerusalem should have come forth again from the book of the prophet including primarily Jeremiah. And what we find is that 70 years before the decree of Cyrus that’s referred to here, we had the death of Josiah, the last of the good kings of Judah.

And this apparently is the beginning of the 70 years. And Daniel figured this stuff out and he knew it was time. But the command to go back and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem hadn’t happened yet. The decree had not come. And so he sought God’s face. And in the seeking of God’s face, he acknowledged not just the sins of his people, but his own sin. And we don’t want to talk about the prayer at length this week, but you’ll notice that one of the words that I’ve bolded in the second half is the word yet.

Yet we did not make our prayers to you. All these things that the law of Moses said would come upon us came upon us. And yet we delayed in our prayers. And so Daniel sees the proper way to prepare for the advent of God to bring blessing again to Jerusalem is to pray and to confess sins. And so Daniel was waiting for these things to happen. And in the answer given to him. We are told what specifically it was that ultimately he was waiting for.

And that’s what I want to talk about today. First, by way of introduction, I would I would say that notice on the outline that I’ve misnumbered the points. We want to talk first of all about the historical events that Daniel was going to was waiting to see accomplished. The angel man Gabriel tells Daniel he that certain historical events will occur. And while they’re the subject of the last part of the chapter, the last two verses, I want to deal with those first.

And then there’s a verse that tells us what all of this meant theologically, we could say, or by way of fulfillment of prophecy. So, as we think about this, notice that outline, the points below the timeline should be numbered 2, 3, and 4, not 1, 2, and 3. And so, I’ve made a little mistake there. It’s kind of two halves, but it’s really four points. So, under the graph, those points instead of 1, 2, and 3 should be 2, 3, and 4.

And then children, you’ll notice as if you have one of the children’s handouts to fill in the blanks, a couple of mistakes there is that again, we’ll talk about the first few things in the second half of the sermon. It’s kind of switched around. So, you’ll have to pay even closer attention this week to fill in the blanks on your outline correctly. Also under point 9 it says after this following a book it should have been a block of 62 more weeks.

So other than that we’ll we should get to all of these points in the children’s outline as we think about this wondrous Christmas message found in the context of Daniel.

All right. So what was Daniel waiting for? What did he was he what was he told would happen? As a result of the historical actions. Well, first Daniel was waiting for certain historical events to occur. He’s told at the beginning of the response from the angel that there is 70 weeks that have been determined.

A week is seven. So that’s 490 by way of figures. 490 years. So there are certain historical events that are going to happen. And the first historical event that Daniel has described here is that will occur is the completion of the rebuilding of the temple in the city 49 years, a block of 7 weeks of years after Cyrus’s decree in 537 BC. So Gabriel tells Daniel that 70 weeks are determined and then he breaks this 70 weeks up into a block of 7 weeks, verse 25 and then 62 weeks. There shall be 7 weeks and 62 weeks. And what he’s saying here is at the end of the seven weeks, the city will be basically rebuilt. The seven weeks, the 49 years are measured from the decree of Cyrus to rebuild Jerusalem.

And we talked about this before, but in Ezra chapter 1, we read in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, and he made a decree. a proclamation throughout all of his kingdom and put it in writing saying, “Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem.” And this is referenced in other places in the scriptures. Cyrus is decreeing, prophesied that he will give a decree to rebuild Jerusalem.

And so, the first thing that Daniel’s waiting for is this historical event of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Daniel’s away from home. Daniel wants to be home for the holidays, so to speak. What he wants is to be gathered together or his people gathered together in Jerusalem in the presence of God. And he’s told first of all that historically 49 years after Cyrus issues the decree, the temple will be essentially rebuilt with the city.

And it turns out that the book of Nehemiah, chapter 13, the events of that chapter are concluded 49 years after the date of Cyrus’s decree, which was 537 BC. So there is this historic event that is described here to Daniel of the rebuilding of the city by Nehemiah after the decree. And on the chart provided for you that a portion is that first block of weeks or seven years rather or 49 years seven days a week of seven weeks.

So 49 years that’s that first portion a the B portion the middle of that timeline indicates the coming of Messiah the Prince after another block one of 62 weeks of years and then some. Now we say a block because the way the language is written here it doesn’t mean a series of successive years. It means a block of years. So we have 49 years a block of a week of years and then we have 62 weeks and at the end of that 62 weeks Messiah will come.

This part of the prophecy however is not literally fulfilled. If you measure 62 × 7 which is what 434 plus the 49 of the seven 49 years after Cyrus’s decree you come up with something less than 500 years from the decree of Cyrus to the coming of Jesus. But in point of fact Jesus doesn’t come then in point of fact there’s an extra 80 years or so before Jesus comes. And so apparently the middle there are these three chronological prophecies.

49 years literally fulfilled with Nehemiah’s rebuilding work 62 weeks 434 more years after the decree of Cyrus and then a last week and the last week we’ll see will be literal as well. But this middle section actually the time turns out to be longer than what was prophesied. So, it’s a symbolic section and we may or may not like that, but that’s just the way the Lord God has determined to break this thing out.

Now, this is not an error in Daniel. Many people think that Daniel was written after the events that have come to pass and described in chapters 10 to 12. Daniel is so historically accurate that some people doubt that it was written during the exile prior to the return and all the historical things being worked out. It’s given a very late date because it’s so historically accurate. So God wants us to see in the middle of these two small literal sections of time this overarching section of 62 weeks which stretches out for a while before Jesus comes.

And so now we know that during the time of the writing of the gospels the people were waiting for the coming of Messiah for that historical event that we celebrated yesterday. We know that they’d read the prophecies in Daniel it said 62 more weeks. So a total of 69 weeks after this decree of Cyrus and it’s time they said so Messiah started popping up everywhere and people were looking people were looking for where is Messiah because they knew that Daniel’s 70 weeks was coming to an end and the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father and his providence delayed for a period of time the coming of Jesus.

It’s interesting that when we read in Luke 2, probably many of us read the Christmas account from Luke 2. to keep reading past the birth of Jesus, we read about his presentation in the temple, his circumcision. We read about Simeon there and the language of the Nunc Dimittis, the very old man waiting a long time. And then we read about Anna who was married for a while and then widowed and then for 82 years sat in that temple fasting and praying, didn’t eat much, had the normal feasting sort of food.

For 82 years she waited for the coming of Jesus and his circumcision. So you see this delay is portrayed in this prophecy and then we actually read that indeed the Lord did delay in the sending of the birth of Jesus Christ. It wasn’t after 62 more weeks. There was an extra 80 years thrown in and Anna had been waiting there during that time. Well, the parables tell us this, right? The virgins are waiting and God delays.

The masters of the field are there and the Lord delays. his return. Where is the return of the Lord? The promise of his coming. Things just go on. He didn’t show up when he said he’d show up. God, for his good purposes, delays gifts at certain points of time, and he delayed this historical fulfillment. But still, Daniel is waiting for the rebuilding of the city. Daniel is waiting for this historical reality that we just celebrated, the coming of the Messiah, the prince, nearly 500 years later.

And then third, the third set of historical events that are portrayed here for us in the text is the following week a series of historical things that are going to take place. In the last week, we have the renewal of Israel by Messiah.

So, looking at the text, we read in verse 25, know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the prince, 7 weeks and 62 weeks, the street shall be built again and the wall even in troublesome times. And after the 62 weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood until the end of the war. Desolations are determined. So verse 26, the first half says after the 62 weeks, Messiah is now present, but he’ll be cut off and left alone, and then his people will destroy the city.

In verse 27, is the same structure. Jesus accomplishing things and then the fate of the city. He shall confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering and then on the wing of abomination shall be one who makes desolate even until the consummation which is determined is poured out on the desolate.

So what we have in the concluding two verses are statements about Messiah coming at the end of the 62 weeks, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and several historical events are described in this text. Daniel was waiting ultimately not for the rebuilding of Jerusalem but for the advent of Jesus Christ and he was told ultimately the angel told him that when Jesus comes first of all he would renew Israel. He makes a covenant with them for one week. In other words when Jesus comes he renews covenant with his people Israel and this is the public ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, cleansing the nation, taking it outside and then back into the promised land.

Jesus is renewing the covenant with the people. And Daniel ultimately saw was given vision by the angel Gabriel that this is what would happen when Messiah came. He would renew covenant with his people Israel.

Secondly, however, this Messiah shall be cut off. The text tells us, and that word cut off doesn’t really refer to his being killed yet. It refers to his excommunication. After the 62 weeks, Messiah shall be cut off. And then the last half of that verse, but not for himself. That’s really not a good translation. It means he is left desolate. He is left without anything. The removal of all his possessions was also a historical event that would happen when Messiah came as described by Gabriel here to Daniel.

The fourth historical event he was waiting for was the termination of the Levitical fellowship offerings. So we read that Messiah shall be cut off and not for himself. And then at the first portion of verse 27, he shall confirm a covenant with many. We already mentioned that. But in the middle of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.

Now we can look at that and we know that in the seven years of Jesus’s public ministry that week is cut off right after three and a half years literally now the Lord Jesus Christ is cut off he’s made alone and then he is crucified on the cross and in a general sense we see that in the middle of the week Jesus put an end to sacrifices once for all the great work of the Lord Jesus Christ is accomplished on the cross and so he puts an end but the terminology here is a little more specific than that it’s a little more geared as we’ve seen much of Daniel is to specific priestly language.

The word translated sacrifice here is almost always used in reference to the peace offering. We think of sacrifices as general things of killing animals. But when we read sacrifice in the Old Testament, usually it’s talking about the peace offering. And then when the word offering here, the specific translation would be tribute offering. Some of your scriptures have oblation. Not that’s better because a wine oblation was connected to the tribute offering.

So what it says is that Jesus will comes at the end of the 62 weeks historical event. He restores the nation of Israel, renews the covenant, but they excommunicate him. He is stripped of everything on the cross. And then in the midst then of his of the week, the final week, the Lord Jesus puts an end to the peace offerings and the tribute offerings. And these are the fellowship offerings essentially of Old Testament Israel. And Jesus puts an end to all of that. And that’s the historical event, the coming of Jesus, the putting an end to sacrifice that we celebrate during Christmas time. And these are the historical events that were going to be happening that Daniel was told about by Gabriel.

And finally, he was also waiting ultimately for the final desolation and destruction of Jerusalem and the old creation in place of hypocrisy through the prayers of the saints and the military of Rome.

Okay, let’s just talk about that a little bit. We’ve talked about verses 26 and 27. The first half of each referring to specific events in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, his coming, restoring the nation, excommunicated, stripped of everything and putting an end to the Old Testament tribute and peace offerings.

But the second half of each of those verses talks about the impact upon the people. Remember the context for Daniel’s prayer. God has abandoned his people. That’s why his people are in exile and he’s left. Ezekiel said that the sins of God’s people were so bad that he was going to remove himself from the place of their gatherings because of their hypocrisy. We’ll talk more as we get to chapters 10 to 12 in Daniel of the abomination of desolation.

What does it mean? An abomination is a hypocritical action or actions by God’s priestly people and specifically the priests of the priestly people. The hypocrisy of God’s priests would become so great and so foul that desolation would be the result. Desolation is abandonment. It means God leaves the city. It doesn’t mean the city is destroyed yet. Usually when God leaves the city. He then starts to take it apart as well.

But the real emphasis is the abandonment of Israel by Yahweh God.

Now in the providence of God, we have several families at our church who know in a heightened sense of this period of Christmas time abandonment, desolation to a degree. We’ve had the death of four mothers as I count it in the context of this congregation. Families affected by the death of four mothers over the last few weeks. And death is essentially an abandonment.

What hurts most about death is the complete loss of the person whom we love. No presence, no talking to them. They’re not present on the earth with us anymore. And there’s a sense of isolation and abandonment that is overpowering that takes years to fully work itself through if it can be ever said to work itself through. And we should be with people who are grieving the loss of those.

Well, this is a small picture of the ultimate abandonment. When God says his spirit departs his people, he leads. That’s the context for what Daniel is talking about. God has done it several times in the history of the Old Testament. When Aaron creates this idolatrous calf, God leaves the people. He moves outside of the camp and Moses has to plead with him to come back in. As we said with Ezekiel, but we know the story of Eli and his two sons.

And the priests are so terrible and so hypocritical and so awful that God abandons his people. He lets himself be taken into captivity to the Philistines. He abandons them, leaves them desolate. And in Ezekiel and specifically describing the times of Daniel, their sins were so bad. It wasn’t that Antiochus did some horrible thing that made the temple unclean. God’s people when they act in highly grossly hypocritical ways, God abandons them and leaves them.

And that’s what Daniel more than anything else wants is the presence of God with his people. And we get together at Christmas time and we celebrate with presents, but ultimately what we’re celebrating is the presence of Christ definitively with the world coming 2,000 years ago. The spirit mediating his presence in the midst of us. This is what brings us hope and comfort and consolation in the midst of our dark times.

Well, what we’re told here is that all these hypocrisies, all these sacrilegious acts of God’s priestly people are going to come to a culmination in this historical event of the advent of Jesus Christ. And we know what they’ll do. They’ll say, “We have no king but Caesar.” They reject Yahweh as king. They reject the Lord Jesus Christ. They commit the ultimate hypocritical act, abomination. And it’s described here as producing desolation of the city.

God abandons the city. And then in typical fashion, he destroys that city. And that I think is what these two verses 26b and 27b are talking about. The people of the prince who is to come. The people of Jesus Christ in other words shall destroy the city and the sanctuary temple city of Jerusalem. The end of it shall be with a flood until the end of the war. Desolations are determined. God has desolated it and he will destroy it.

Then he will destroy it. Yes. Through the military might of Rome. But ultimately is the prayers of God’s people recorded for us in the book of Revelation. How long, Lord God, before you pour out judgment upon Jerusalem that kills your people? Ultimately, it is the prayers of the saints that in the providence of God, he answers by sending the Roman army to bring vengeance and destruction to temple and city, the temple and Jerusalem.

And it is the people of the prince, Christians, who bring this to pass through their prayers and the military effect of Rome. And then in the last half of verse 27, on the wing of abomination shall be one who makes desolate even until the consummation which is determined is poured out on the desolate.

God abandons Jerusalem and then the wrath is poured out and it is destroyed and it’s destroyed on the wing of abominations. What’s that mean? The wing of abominations. Well, in Numbers 15, God’s people are supposed to wear a blue ribbon and the Old Testament, the priestly people, right? The Jews weren’t the only ones who were God’s people. The Gentiles who converted were too, but the priestly people on the robe of their garment, on the corner of it, there’s supposed to be a blue ribbon. It’s a mark of priesthood of the nation.

And specifically in Numbers 15, it’s supposed to remind God’s people of his law and of their holiness, their consecration to him. The only thing is it isn’t called a corner or border in Numbers 15. The word literally is on the wing of the hem. This tassel, a reminder of God’s law and of the need for holiness in terms of that law. The wing is a reflection of the holiness of God’s people, priestly people consecrated to him.

And here God’s people, the ultimate abomination, the ultimate hypocrisy, the ultimate sacrilege, the wing not now of holiness, but of abomination and hypocrisy and sin because of that wing. God sees it defiled and dirty and hypocritical and saying we have no king but Caesar and we’ll crucify your son. God sees that desolates the city and then completes the desolation with the consummation the destruction of Jerusalem.

And so all these historical events are given to Daniel by way of prophecy by the angel answering his prayer. These are the historical events that God said are coming. This is what Daniel was waiting for. This is what we just celebrated yesterday, the advent of Christ and the fulfillment of all these things. But there’s a theological side to this. It’s not just a series of historical events. In a very beautiful fashion, we are told essentially what the gospel of the coming of Jesus Christ, what all these historical details actually mean in summary form in verse 24.

And I think I’ve laid it out in your text. and a little structure that helps us to think about it. Verse 24, what’s going to happen at the end of the 70 weeks? What’s going to happen? And what you’re really waiting for, Daniel, the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ comes. What will it mean? It will be, the text tells us, to finish transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring an everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.

This is the great truth. Let’s unpack it just a little bit. First of all, then Daniel was waiting for the definitive end of apostasy and hypocrisy and the anointing of Jesus Christ. The two bookends of this little structure come together to finish the transgression. Well, transgression isn’t quite the right word. It’s that same abomination to finish the hypocritical actions of God’s priestly people that ultimately we can say they predate Ezekiel.

They predate Eli, they predate Aaron. Ultimately, the priest in the garden is Adam. And Cain strikes out against Abel. And God says that all the blood from Abel on is going to be heaped upon Jerusalem in the destruction of it in AD 70. So ultimately, the hypocrisy is of the human race, the priestly race from Adam on for 4,000 years. All of that will be definitively dealt with by the coming of Messiah the Prince.

It will be finished. Once Jesus Christ came for the last 2,000 years, we cannot commit the same kind of apostasy that Israel did, the church will never fail. The church will grow. Local churches will fail. Local churches may prove hypocritical and receive abomination and desolation and destruction. But overall, the church grows to fill all the world. Not like the Old Testament when essentially God and his people were taken into captivity.

No witness. No, God says that Jesus will deal definitively with the hypocrisy of man. And the hypocrisy of man is always aimed against the true prince of princes, the true priest of priests, the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember we told about the history that will happen after Daniel. It’s the priest who Onias III, it was the destruction of the last true priest, high priest in the years coming up to the time of Herod the Great.

It’s a striking out at God’s image by way of the Zedekite priests that the great abomination of desolations. Ultimately, hypocrisy and sin is against the great priest of priests, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the ultimately apostasy is dealt with by the anointing of the most holy, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The great message of what Daniel was waiting for, what we have celebrated is the definitive end of apostasy and hypocrisy through the anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ as priest and king.

Daniel was also waiting for the definitive purification offering and the definitive fulfillment of all prophecy to make an end of sins to seal up vision and prophecy. Well, we say it doesn’t seem like he made an end of sins. Sins still occur. Well, the word to make an end of here is better translated as to seal up. Essentially the same word as vision and prophecies. And in some of your Bibles, you probably have that as an alternate reading.

We are sealing up sins and we’re sealing up prophecies. What does it mean? The word for sin can and in this case does relate to the sin offering, the purification offering. Remember, we’ve talked about that in Daniel’s prayer. What Jesus is going to ultimately do is purify his people. The first offering that people were to perform as they went to the temple was the purification offering. When we come into church, we confess our sins and ask God to purify us.

The Lord Jesus Christ in his advent 2,000 years ago put the seal, the final definitive end to all purification offerings. What they could only do in part day by day and then ultimately the day of atonement every year. They could not purify the world or God’s people. Right? And this is the theme of Hebrews. Year after year, the day of atonement, which was the great purification offering, had to be repeated.

You know, the idea is that the sins of the people in impurities start to build up and then every year on the day of atonement the definitive purification offering was done and God’s people were clean but you know an hour or so later people start sinning and the dirt builds up again because really the blood of bulls and goats could never purify from sin but the Lord Jesus Christ can and did what we celebrate at Christmas is the coming of Christ to once for all purify his people through his offering on the cross and in the heavenly holy of holies.

He has sealed, authenticated, put into effect the purification offerings of the Old Testament through his one purification offering. And he has sealed, put into effect every prophecy going back originally to the great protoevangelium that the offspring of Mary would crush the head of the serpent. All the prophecies of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in his coming. He sealed them.

He puts them into effect. Ultimately, what Daniel was waiting for was the completion of all prophecy through the coming of Jesus Christ who would make purification for sins. The great message of Christmas is Jesus putting an end to hypocrisy. Jesus coming as the anointed high priest and king. Jesus making final purification for all of our sins. And Jesus fulfilling all prophecy. Which brings us to the very center of this verse, the summation of the gospel preached now through Gabriel to Daniel and to us. The very center Daniel is waiting for the definitive covering of liabilities and the ushering in of righteousness. The covering of liabilities and the ushering in of righteousness to make reconciliation. Really the word is covering there. Not atonement. It’s the effective covering but the covering for iniquity for our sins. for our liabilities.

Remember we said these different words for sin that Daniel uses in his prayer. Now we find them here. Iniquity means the liability owed to us because of our sins. We know we sin. We know we incur liability for that sin. We’re supposed to get spanked. But the Lord Jesus Christ has come. And at the center of the great celebration of his advent that Daniel was waiting for that we look back on, at the center is the Lord Jesus.

Jesus Christ paying the price for our sins, covering over the liability due to us. He has purified us, but he has also paid the price for our sins. He has covered over our liabilities. And then the second half of that, he has brought in everlasting righteousness. The great verses from Isaiah spring forth into mind, right? The everlasting righteousness of God has come in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Elder John S. did a good job reviewing the various meanings of righteousness in the Bible. Here the primary meaning since it is bringing in the everlasting eternal righteousness is the imputed judicial righteousness of Jesus Christ to his people. Although the implications of course that we sang in Isaiah that we have a child of hope, righteousness, justice now will mark his throne and at the end of that throne there shall be no end.

Right? So Jesus Christ comes and righteousness, justice for righteousness builds and builds and builds in the context of the created order. At the heart of the gospel message that Daniel was waiting to see accomplished, at the heart of the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ is the simple gospel truth that Jesus has covered over our liabilities and he has ushered in for us everlasting righteousness that no man can take away.

At the heart of this message is that Daniel was being told when Jesus comes, he would produce justification of God’s people. He would remove the liabilities of our sins and he would give us the imputed righteousness or holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And more than that, he would create a people who are no longer marked by hypocrisy, who are no longer, you know, marked by impurities covering them up all the time, but rather through the once-for-all work of the Lord Jesus Christ rest in their consciences knowing that Jesus has purified them from their sins, moved them away from hypocrisy, given them his imputed righteousness, and put a covering or atonement, reconciliation for our impurities and liabilities.

You know, when the high priest went into the holy of holies, he took off his glorious robe and he went in on the linen robe, right? With his linen robe rather, and he would make covering then for the sins of the people. But the covering is really completed when the high priest comes out and he puts on the robes of glory. And there’s a sense in which it is the holiness of Christ, his righteousness that covers the liabilities, covers the purifications having been made once for all through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Daniel was waiting for certain historical events. We have celebrated certain historical events these past few weeks. And at the heart of those certain historical events are the great truths of what those events mean for the world and for us. Daniel was ultimately waiting for the rebuilding of the city, for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and as I said earlier, for the presence of God. And Jesus Christ comes to be present amongst his people.

We celebrate with presents at Christmas time. And presents are ultimately a picture, a reminder of the presence of God with us. We get bright shiny things, things that bring us joy, things that improve our lives, things that take away irritations or anxieties, things that make our life smoother, more joyful, more radiant, more beautiful, filled with not just practical things, but with other things as well. Ultimately, this is the picture of the presence of God with us.

Christmas then is a celebration of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the presents we give each other are a picture of the presence of Jesus, the real focus of Christmas. Now, if you don’t understand that, the presence will never bring fulfillment to you. But if you understand that what these things are small token reminders of the presence of Christ, then you’ve come far in joining the celebration that Daniel knew was coming for the world 500 years after this prophecy has been given.

What were you waiting for yesterday? Presents or presence of God? And notice too that the presence of God is mediated to us through other people. For the last month, people have thought of each other in a heightened way. What will make him happy? What will bring a smile to his face? What will make dad happy this year? What will make the little four-year-old child’s eyes beam with delight? We’ve thought about one another for the last month.

Our presents are a reflection of the thoughts of God’s people. Jesus did away with the Old Testament fellowship, tribute offering and peace offering, but he builds in himself the community of Christ, his presence through the work of other people. From one perspective, ultimately Christmas is about people. People who bring to us the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ through their gifts, but much more through their hearts, their attitudes, their love and concern for one another.

May the Lord God cause us to walk into this new year with the joy of Christmas, with the joy of realizing the historical realities that Daniel had to look down for many centuries to see a brief glimpse of. We look back at them shown up shining now at the light of Jesus taking this text showing its great truths to us. We bask in the presence of Christ that has come 2,000 years ago definitively to this world.

May the Lord God call us to rejoice. And may we remember that we have a wing as well. We are called as God’s people to remember holiness, to remember his law, to remember the purpose for which he has come, to put an end to hypocrisy. May the Lord God grant us as we walk into this year joyfully, a renewed commitment to not do so hypocritically, to not be good Christians at church or maybe in the confines of our home, but to do so with a sense of remembrance of the presence of Christ with us.

His robe of covering every day when we dress. May we remember the tassel of blue, the wing that is not to be abomination, but a wing of holiness, a remembering of the law of God, a remembering of the presence of Christ with us, and a need to mediate that presence one to the other. May the Lord God cause us to rejoice this season then and to move with renewed vigor into this new year. In Jesus name we ask it.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that we can rejoice in what Daniel had to wait and wait and wait for. Father, we pray that you’d correct us this morning. Help us to remember that this is what we are to be waiting for yesterday, a renewed understanding of the work of Jesus Christ, forgiving us of our sins, imputing to us his righteousness and justice, and making us a holy people to him.

Grant, Lord God, that as we come forward with our tithes and offerings to you, to do so with great joy and renewed commitment to root out hypocrisy in our lives. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.