April 25, 2025 • 57 mins
God is a master preservationist! He has preserved His Word for us and done so in many languages, we don't need to learn Greek or Hebrew to know Him. And because of this preservation, we can learn from the saints who have gone before us. In this session, Jeremy looks at Old Testament prophets to see what they have to teach us about prayer.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Here's a hint of what's to come.
But that's the first point.
Prayer should avoid fatalism.
It kills prayer.
We do not have a fatalisticview of the sovereignty of God.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I know this sounds like a hard question and maybe
it's really odd and I shouldn'task it, but are your prayers
selfish?
Are you focused in on yourself,your situation, your
circumstances and your needs, orhave you taken those things and
put them in the context of God,his will, his character, his
(00:37):
purpose?
You see, we have a lot to learnfrom the Old Testament saints
and how they prayed.
King David was a mighty exampleof prayer concerning his son,
the child from Bathsheba, andDaniel, the prophet.
He was not at all selfish.
He was very thoughtful andconsidered the state of man
(01:03):
relative to the state of God,and when he sought out God's
help, when he came to God with aneed, it was in the context of
God.
You are so perfect, righteous,just and gracious, and here's
what we need, here's what we'vedone.
(01:23):
We don't deserve it and here'swhat we need from you.
It's a great example to us andyou can pray the exact same
things you're praying now.
But if you put it back in thecontext of God, his nature, his
character, his purpose, youmight just find that your prayer
(01:43):
life becomes richer, deeper,more meaningful and that the
answers are even better than youcould ever imagine.
Today Jeremy's going to lookback at Daniel so that we can
learn from him and the prayersin the Bible how we should be
coming to our God, our great andglorious King.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
The Old Testament framework 14 events creation,
fall, the flood, noahic covenant, the call of Abraham, the
exodus, the Mount Sinai event,the conquest and settlement
under Joshua, the rise and reignof King David, the golden era
of Solomon, the kingdom, dividedkingdom, decline, exile and
(02:28):
restoration Well, partialrestoration.
Let me introduce this sectionof scripture which is basically
the end of the Old Testament eraof Israel, as Judah, the
southern kingdom, was taken intocaptivity to Judah, I'm sorry,
to Babylon.
There was a young man namedDaniel and some of his friends
(02:49):
who were taken captive duringone of the three deportations,
the first one and while there inBabylon, of course, daniel
received his own revelation thatwe have in the book of Daniel,
revelations like Daniel, chapter2, which we discussed last week
the four-metal statue right,the head of gold, the arms and
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breasts of silver, the waist andthighs of bronze and the lower
legs and feet of iron, and ironmixed with clay, which was a
portrayal of the times of theGentiles right.
I mean a portrayal, excuse me,a portrayal of the times of the
Gentiles right, that politicalsupremacy was being given to
four successive Gentile kingdomsand Israel would be oppressed
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by these four Gentile kingdoms.
Then he would see in the visionNebuchadnezzar would see.
And Daniel saw a great stonewhich would strike the statue,
destroy those four kingdomssimultaneously, and it would
then grow and fill the wholeearth, and it was the kingdom
that is ruled by the Son of man,the Messiah.
And so this was Daniel's visionof what the future held for
(04:00):
Israel and for the nations ofthe world.
Now, at the same time, if you'llturn with me to Daniel, chapter
9, he was also reading aprophet from the same time
period.
He was reading my namesakeprophet, jeremiah.
And what happened as he readJeremiah is he thought he saw
(04:25):
something of a contradiction inthe Word of God.
Yet of course he knows the Wordof God doesn't have any
contradictions, but he stillwants to understand how Jeremiah
and what was written throughhim in harmony with what was
revealed to him about these fourkingdoms.
(04:46):
In daniel, chapter 9, in verse2, he says in the first year of
his reign, I, daniel, observedin the books the number of the
years which was revealed as theword of the lord to jeremiah,
the prophet, for the completionof the desolations of Jerusalem,
(05:07):
namely 70 years.
So Daniel had a scroll ofJeremiah and he read in what we
call Jeremiah 29, that Judahwould be in desolations and
exile and destruction ofJerusalem for a period of 70
years.
Now it was almost through the70 years.
That was almost over.
(05:28):
It had been 68 or so yearsalready.
They were only now justbeginning to come into the
second kingdom that wasprophesied by the statue.
So Daniel says to himself whatwe'd all say to ourselves how
can we get these other kingdomsthat we must live under crammed
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into two years or less?
That's just not possible as faras human ideas can imagine.
So he wanted to know how.
It is just 70 years, but yetthere's still all these other
kingdoms that Israel must liveunder.
How can these work together?
That's why, in verse 3, he gavehis attention to the Lord and
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sought him by prayer andsupplications, with fasting and
sackcloth.
So we're going to read thisprayer and it's the longest
prayer in the Old Testament andthen we're going to draw some of
the doctrine from the partialrestoration, from this event,
one of which is the doctrine ofprayer.
Okay, the doctrine of prayer.
(06:33):
We'll draw some points out ofit.
So let's go through this prayer.
Verse 4, I prayed to the Lord,my God, and I confessed, and I
confessed.
Now, confession.
Daniel knew that the only waythat Israel could be restored to
her kingdom after the times ofthe Gentiles, the four kingdoms
pass, which he supposes fromJeremiah is what is it only 70
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years?
I mean, how does this all fit?
But he knows that this is acondition for national
restoration and the kingdom ofGod to come.
So he confesses and he said andhere's the confession we have
(07:19):
sinned, we have committediniquity, we have acted wickedly
, we have rebelled, we have eventurned aside from your
commandments and ordinances.
Moreover, we have not listenedto your servants, the prophets,
who spoke in your name to ourkings, our princes, our fathers
and all the people of the land,all saying we messed up, it's
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our fault for the situation weare in.
This is a brief aside.
Have you ever heard people saybecause I have many times that
they don't want to believe inGod because of the way their
life is and all the bad thingsthat have happened, and they
basically blame God andtherefore they're not going to
believe in this God?
Daniel came forth veryforthrightly and just said we
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and our situation in life is dueto us and our wickedness and
our sin.
It's not you, it's us, we arethe problem.
And so he is confessing.
And then he says not only am Iconfessing all this, but you
sent your prophets to us.
So this would be people likeElijah, this would be people
like Elisha, who God sent to thenation so that they would
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confess, but they didn't listento the prophets.
He says we didn't listen to him.
You sent him, but we didn'tlisten.
Now, that's all about them.
Now look at the other side ofthe confession, verse 7.
This is all about the lord.
Righteousness belongs to you,oh lord.
In other words, you are thestandard, but to us, open name
as it is this day, to the men ofjudah, the inhabitants of
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jerusalem and all israel, thosewho are nearby and those who are
far away.
So this includes all 12 tribesthose in judah, the southern
kingdom, those in israel, thenorthern kingdom, who are far
away.
So this includes all 12 tribes,those in Judah, the southern
kingdom, those in Israel, thenorthern kingdom, who are now in
exile.
He says and all the countriesto which you have driven them
because of their unfaithfuldeeds.
That's all the exile which theyhave committed against you.
And that's what confession is.
It's admitting that the sin isagainst who?
Against God?
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Who is the standard?
He is righteous Open shame.
Verse 8, belongs to us, o Lord,to our kings, our princes, our
fathers, because we have sinnedagainst you, every single one of
us.
Now he switches back to theLord.
To the Lord, our God, belongcompassion and forgiveness, for
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we have rebelled against him.
Nor have we obeyed the voice ofthe Lord, our God, to walk in
his teachings, which he setbefore us through his servants,
the prophets, which would beMoses and the prophets that
followed.
All Israel has transgressedyour law and all Israel has
turned aside, not obeying yourvoice, and therefore the curse
(10:00):
has been poured out on us, alongwith the oath which is written
in the law of Moses, the servantof God, for we have sinned
against him.
Who do we sin against?
We sin against God.
We don't sin against otherpeople.
Other people aren't.
The standard.
Daniel admits, just like Davidadmitted against you and you
only have I sinned.
(10:20):
When we are confessing in thatway, we are confessing properly.
The sin is against him.
Verse 12,.
Thus he has confirmed his words, which he had spoken against us
and against our rulers whoruled us to bring on us great
calamity.
In other words, god wrote allthis in the Mosaic Law, the five
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degrees of divine discipline.
If you don't listen to my voicebut rebel, then I will send
upon you this curse, and then,if you don't listen again, I
will send it upon you sevenfoldmore, and so forth, all through
the five degrees.
And he's saying it's all ourfault.
You told us you were going todo this to us and yet we have
not listened and we continue torebel.
(11:05):
It's just like a son and afather, and the father says if
you don't do this, this will bethe penalty.
And the son says I don't care,and you give him the penalty.
And then you say a warningagain and the son says it
doesn't matter, I'm still goingto rebel.
And so the father says okay,fine, well, it's greater
penalties and you lose more andmore freedoms until you don't
have a car and you can't get outof your room and you're locked
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away, tied to your bed.
And that's what I would do toyou.
I would confine you.
And this is the definition of agood father Happy fathers.
God does lay out, and he is thefather of Israel.
Israel is his son, right, andthey are now suffering under the
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divine discipline of the father.
Daniel recognizes that In themiddle of verse 12, he says For
under the whole heaven, therehas not been done anything like
what was done to Jerusalem.
It was razed to the ground, itwas destroyed.
It is a day in Jewish historythat is one of the saddest days.
The beautiful Solomonic Temple,all its articles, everything
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destroyed, the articles takenaway, and this was the heart of
their whole life.
And it was all taken.
And they were marched 800 milesaway, many of them naked and in
chains for days on end, intocaptivity.
Terrible thing.
Verse 13, as it is written inthe law of Moses all this
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calamity has come on us, justlike the word of God said.
Yet we've not sought the favoror grace of the Lord, our God,
by turning from our iniquity andgiving attention to your truth.
That's such a great verse thatshould be memorized.
Turn from our iniquity, giveattention to truth, is truth.
Therefore, the lord has keptthe calamity in store and
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brought it on us.
For the lord, our god, isrighteous with respect to all
his deeds, which he has done,but we have not obeyed his voice
.
It's just a great contrastright between who god is, how he
is righteous, how he has doneeverything that he said he would
do, and how israel is liars,sinners who do not respond to
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him and to his truth, whoworship idols who don't obey.
And now, verse 15, oh, lord, ourgod, who have brought your
people out of the land of egyptwith a mighty hand and have made
a name for yourself, as it isthis day, among all the nations,
they knew of this God.
We have sinned and we have beenwicked, o Lord, in accordance
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with all your righteous acts.
Let now your anger and yourwrath turn away from your city,
jerusalem, from your holymountain, for because of our
sins and the iniquities of ourfathers, jerusalem and your
people have become a reproach toall those around us.
So now, our God, listen to theprayer of your servant and to
his supplications.
And for your sake, o Lord, foryour sake, not for our sake, but
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for your sake or for your name,o Lord, let your face shine on
your desolate sanctuary.
O, my God, inc's your name.
That is attached to this city,lord, and it's in desolations.
So restore it for your name,for we are not presenting our
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supplications before you onaccount of any merits of our own
.
Don't answer this prayerbecause of us, because of
something we've done, because ifyou do, there's nothing you
won't answer, he says, but onaccount of your own great
compassion, oh Lord, hear, ohLord forgive, oh Lord, listen
and Lord, take action For yourown sake.
Oh my God, do not delay,because your city, it's your
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city and it's your people arecalled by your name and
therefore your reputation is atstake.
That is the whole basis of hisprayer.
It's all about the Lord and theLord's name.
It's not about Daniel, it's notabout the people of Israel,
it's about the Lord, ultimately,and that has to be a focus in
prayer.
So out of this prayer of 20 orso verses, we have a number of
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principles for praying Now.
Verse 20, while I was speakingand praying and confessing my
sin and the sin of my people,israel, and presenting my
supplication before the Lord, myGod, on behalf of the holy
mountain of my God, while I wasstill speaking in prayer, then
the man Gabriel, whom I had seenin the vision previously, came
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to me in my extreme wearinessabout the time of the evening
offering and he gave meinstruction and he talked with
me and he said O Daniel, I nowhave come forth to give you
insight with understanding, atthe beginning of your
supplications.
That was verse 3, when he gavehis attention to the Lord.
So we're 20 verses later.
Gabriel was dispatched from thehighest heaven, the third
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heaven, and he quickly made itto earth, which shows you that
angels travel faster than thespeed of light.
So, yes, there is somethingfaster than the speed of light.
We just read about an angel whoexceeded it greatly.
At the beginning of yoursupplications, the command was
issued and I've come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed,
(16:14):
so give heed to the message andgain understanding of the vision
.
Now, 70 weeks have been decreedfor your people, that's, israel
and your holy city, jerusalem,to bring an end to six things,
which are described in thefollowing verses.
So not 70 years that's what heread in Jeremiah, right, seventy
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years for the desolations ofJerusalem, but 70, sevens, 70
groups of seven, 70 groups ofseven.
What?
Well, back in verse 3, 70 years.
So the unit is years 70 sevensof years.
How much is 70 sevens of years?
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Oh well, y'all are really goodat math.
I just suppose there was goingto be a dead spot for a moment.
490 years, not 70 years, but 490years, was the basic answer
that the angel Gabriel described.
That's the way that you willget all four successive Gentile
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kingdoms transpiring before thekingdom of God returns.
So what was the 70 yearsprophecy about Jerusalem in
Jeremiah?
All about A partial restorationwould happen, but not the total
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restoration.
The total restoration is 490years, so partial 70 years.
And after Babylon was defeatedby the Medes and the Persians,
darius issues a decree.
They go back eventually to theland and they rebuild the temple
, although the temple they builtunder Zerubbabel and so forth
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was not near as glorious as theone that had been there under
Solomon.
But that's the point of theprophecy in Jeremiah A partial
restoration would happen afterthe 70 years.
But for the total restorationand for all four kingdoms to
have come and gone and thekingdom of God to come, there
must be 77 or 490 years.
This was how the two passageswere to be understood in Daniel
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and Jeremiah.
So that's the first area andwe'll look at the doctrine of
prayer in a moment.
Now, as I mentioned, after thepartial restoration they go back
to the land.
There's a partial return.
Everybody didn't return,because we have books like
Esther that talk about Jews whonever returned and they remained
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outside the land and in thekingdom of Persia and so forth.
But many did return.
So after that they rebuild thetemple right Much less glory.
And the Old Testament graduallycomes to a close, with the
prophet the Italian prophet youknow who he is with the prophet
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the Italian prophet you know whohe is Malachi.
He was known among the Jews asthe seal of the prophets,
meaning in their canon.
The Old Testament canon came toa completion or was sealed with
Malachi.
God was silent then for 400years, right between the
testaments, and this is attestedby the fact that during this
period the Jews did not acceptany of the books that were
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written by them, such historicalbooks like 1 and 2, 3 and 4
Maccabees, ecclesiasticus, belland the Dragon Judith, other
books, apocryphal books, andthey did not accept these as
part of the canon becauseMalachi was considered the seal
of the prophets.
He was the end.
Even 1 Maccabees states itselfthat there was no living
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prophets at that time.
They have a set of stones there.
They don't know what to do withthese stones.
They were part of the altar andso they set them aside.
And it says we will wait for aprophet to come along and tell
us what to do.
So there were no prophets inthat time, so you cannot be
having any scripture beingwritten instead of new scripture
being written.
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What you have during this periodis the scrupulous making of
copies of the testament, as wellas a very famous translation
into the Greek language.
So, by the time of Christ, whenyou come into the New Testament
and we're going to come in nextweek and start with the birth
of the king when you come intothat world, you have various
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manuscript traditions.
You have the Babylonianmanuscript tradition that had
been copied for severalcenturies.
You have the Jerusalemmanuscript tradition.
You have, of course, if you'vebeen around the last hundred
years, you know about the Qumrancommunity and the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
You've heard of those as wellas a translation of the Old
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Testament known as the GreekSeptuagint.
Septuagint is just the Greekfor 70.
, also signified by the Romannumerals LXX, right 70.
So if you've ever seen the LXX,that's talking about this Greek
translation of the OldTestament.
So these manuscripts,interestingly, are being quoted
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from and alluded to in the NewTestament by the authors of the
New Testament, showing that allthese manuscript traditions,
even though there were differentfamilies of manuscripts or even
a different translation, wereaccepted as and referred to as
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the Word of God, even thoughthey may have differences, minor
differences here and there,they are all referred to as the
Word of God and treated withrespect as if they are the Word
of God.
So the great degree ofsimilarity between these
different families ofmanuscripts attests to what we
call preservation.
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This is where we start to talkabout the doctrine of
preservation, in other words thequestion have the Scriptures
been preserved faithfully sothat what we have today are
accurate reflections of whatthey had then, or are they all
messed up?
And so this is where we firstsee the doctrine of preservation
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.
Was it preserved from the timeof Daniel and on down to Malachi
, across the silent years of 400years, to the time of Christ
and the apostles?
Because if they weren't and alot could get messed up in 400
years, right, a whole lot.
We used to do the little test inclass where, you know, one
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student has a phrase and theywhisper it into the ear of the
person next to them, and thenthey whisper it into the
person's ear next to them and bythe time it gets to the end,
the last student says what hethought was the original thing,
and it's not even close.
So that's, you know, 10 minutesof time and we know how much
can get messed up.
So how much do you think couldget messed up in 400 years,
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especially if you don't have andthis is written, of course, but
especially if you don't have,like a printing press, which
they didn't.
So it was all hand copies andthe Jewish scribes were very
meticulous in making sure theywere copying them accurately,
but they're doing so withinfamily traditions, like the
Babylonian text type, theJerusalem text type and so forth
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, and yet at the time of Christ,that's what I'm saying.
What's so interesting is theyquote from all of these,
including the Greek Septuagintversion, and they refer to them
as if they are all the Word ofGod.
Now that will set up our seconddoctrine, which is the doctrine
of preservation.
So let's talk about the firstone, the doctrine of prayer.
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So these are the two doctrinesthat come out of the partial
restoration Prayer, daniel'sprayer, and the preservation
idea down to the time of Christ.
The doctrine of prayer, thefirst Christ.
The doctrine of prayer.
The first point in the doctrineof prayer, which we saw
illustrated in Daniel 9 withDaniel's prayer, was prayer
should avoid fatalism.
What do I mean by that?
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A fatalistic view of thesovereignty of God.
Some Christians have a verystrong view of the sovereignty
of God, in the sense that theywould say that all the details
of life, every detail, isdetermined by God.
So, for example, what colorsocks you put on this morning,
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what tie you bought last week ifyou still buy ties what purse
you wore today, what colorearrings and shape earrings you
bought or put on today weredetermined by God.
That you would buy those andput those on today.
So the very strong view of theevery detail of life determined
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by God.
Sovereignty idea.
In that view of sovereignty,what room is there for prayer?
Let's say you want something tohappen in history.
That's why you're praying.
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Right, we just pray for JaneOrlop.
Why?
Because we want her to get well.
We want her shoulder not to bebroken.
Now, if it's already determinedwhat it is whatever will be will
be then why are you prayingabout it?
Prayer loses its impetus ormotivation when you have a view
of the sovereignty of God thatwhatever will be will be and
that's just the way it is.
Why would you pray forsomeone's salvation if they're
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either going to be saved orthey're not?
And God's already determined it, why waste your time praying?
And of course, you'd have toback off from the whole thing
and say, well, the prayersthemselves would be determined
by God.
It's this interesting way oftrying to think about things,
but fatalistic views of God'ssovereignty crush prayer.
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Prayer is not really valid,because whatever's going to
happen is going to happen anyway, whether you pray or not.
Valid because whatever's goingto happen is going to happen
anyway, whether you pray or not.
Right, so that idea should beavoided.
Now, one way I've viewedsovereignty and tried to convey
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it to people, because God issovereign.
We don't question that.
It's just a matter of what isyour model?
What does it look like If youhave a ship that is setting sail
from one port and it has adestination at another port?
Now the origin and thedestination are set at the
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beginning and the end, and then,as the ship sets sail, it's
going across various waters andyou are on the ship.
You are human.
Now you have freedom.
It's freedom within the form ofthe ship.
You can go down and eat dinner,you can go swim, you can look
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over the bow, you have all sortsof things that you can do on
the ship.
But there are also limitations.
You can't do things that arenot on the bow.
You have all sorts of thingsthat you can do on the ship, but
there are also limitations.
You can't do things that arenot on the ship.
You can't go visit someplaceelse.
You're stuck on the ship andyou are going to a certain
conclusion, but during thatjourney you have some freedom,
right, and this is one model orpossible way of looking at the
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plan of God.
I'm sure it is inept, it is notperfect, but it is a way of at
least conveying how thebeginning and the end are set by
God, as well as the route toget there, but yet within it
humans have freedom.
Within this limited sphere thatopens up the possibility for
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room for prayer and asking Godfor this or for that.
But guess what, if you pray forthe second coming not to happen
, that will not be answered.
Why will that not be answered?
Because that is part of thesovereign plan of God that is
set, and that is what Daniel waslooking at.
Daniel was saying now you'vegot 70 years over here in
Jeremiah, but you told methere's going to be these four
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successive kingdoms.
Now the angel described howboth could work in the plan of
God.
He said well, jeremiah is abouta partial restoration after 70
years, but the total restorationis after the 490 years.
So Daniel wasn't going tochange any of that by praying
right.
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But he also knew, hey, there'shuman responsibility and we need
to, as a nation, confess oursin and what we have done, and
so that is a part of his prayer.
And that illustration of theship hopefully gives a little
bit of help as to a model forGod's sovereignty.
But that's the first point.
Prayer should avoid fatalism.
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It kills prayer.
We do not have a fatalisticview of the sovereignty of God.
The second idea that we see inthe doctrine of prayer is that
prayer should be based on God'simmutable word Again God, like
the second coming illustration.
You could pray against that,but god is not going to answer
prayers that are contrary to hisword.
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So prayers should not becontrary to the plan of god and
purpose of god, but they shouldbe rather filled with his word.
If we pray scripture, we can becertain that God will answer
those prayers in his timing andin his way.
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Okay, we have to amend it withthat.
If we pray scripture, we can besure that God will answer those
prayers, but he will do it inhis time and he will do it in
his way.
Right, but we can be sure if wepray Scripture, those are
prayers that are going to beanswered.
Daniel based his prayer on theWord of God in Jeremiah and the
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Word of God that was given tohim in Daniel 2.
His whole prayer was based onthe books of Jeremiah and what
he had going on relative to hisown books and writing right.
So that's a firm basis.
We study the scriptures and wetry to understand them.
We don't understand, we pray,we ask the Lord.
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Show me how this works, explainthis to me, help me understand,
and the Lord will answer in histime and in his way.
So prayer should be based onGod's immutable word.
His word never changes.
Third, prayer should begrace-oriented.
What do I mean by this?
I mean we shouldn't ever thinkthat God owes us an answer to
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prayer because we did this orthat we did that.
You remember that part where inthe prayer it's in verse 18 of
Daniel's prayer, toward the end.
There he says we are notpresenting our supplications
before you on account of anymerits of our own.
Sometimes we get it in our mindthat we've been a good
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Christian, we've been loyal.
We've been going to church orwhatever.
We've been reading our Bible.
We've been a good Christian.
We've been loyal.
We've been going to church orwhatever.
We've been reading our Bible,we've been teaching this Bible
study.
We've been leading this music.
We've been doing all thisservice.
Therefore, god owes me.
We might not express it likethat, but it's in the back of
our mind.
God owes me and he needs tobless me because of what I've
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done for him.
No, no no, it doesn't work likethat.
That is not grace, that ismerit, that is basing his gifts
on work, and God doesn't givegifts based on work, he gives
gifts based on grace, and gracealone.
So our prayers should veryspecifically and carefully be
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articulated in a way that theyare grace-oriented.
Daniel did this.
He says you don't owe us athing.
And that is so true.
God doesn't owe you anything.
He doesn't owe me anything Foranything I've ever done.
He doesn't owe me anything andI don't deserve to get whatever
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I think I deserve to get.
No, he gives based on His owncharacter.
And Daniel says that.
He says but on account of yourgreat compassion, if you're
going to appeal to God forsomething, that is a great basis
to appeal to God on Just yourcompassion, just your compassion
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, o Lord, your mercy, yourfaithfulness.
And so Daniel teaches us thatthird point that all our prayers
should be grace-oriented.
The fourth point in his prayerthat we saw was that prayer
should have as its ultimateobjective the glory of God.
Whatever we pray for, whateverit is, we want the end of that
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prayer to ultimately be thatGod's name is glorified, not our
name.
It's not about us getting ourthing, it's about him getting
recognized, him being givenglory.
So ultimately, that's where allour prayers should be aimed god
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receiving glory, and being bythat I mean being recognized.
Daniel prayed that god wouldrestore jerusalem and the temple
for his name's sake, becausehis name was attached to
jerusalem and to the temple.
The Lord, jesus Christ,illustrated it this way just
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before the cross, he said not mywill be done, but your will be
done, and that should be ourattitude in prayer Not what I
want to happen, but what youwant to happen, because what you
want to happen will ultimatelyglorify you.
It will give your namerecognition.
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This is the great purpose ofhistory.
God has arranged history in acertain way and we've walked
through the big ideas creation,fall, flood, covenant and so
forth, um to reveal his glory.
It's a weird concept for mostpeople, because all they know
about glory is well, I don'tknow.
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You've got it in sports right.
I mean, he who wins the pennantgets glory.
He who wins the World Cup getsthe glory right.
He who wins the Stanley Cupgets the glory right.
What does that mean?
Recognition Recognition infront of the whole world of your
accomplishments.
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What is God trying to do withhistory?
He is trying to get recognitionfor his accomplishments, what
he has done, what he is doingand what he shall do in the
future.
He has done what he is doingand what he shall do in the
future.
Paul discusses this in Acts 17with the Areopagus right, the 30
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scholars who sat at Athens andoversaw religion, morals and
education, and he explains tothem you know, the God who made
the world and all things in itisn't worshiped with you know,
hands.
He isn't served by us as if heneeded something.
He says but he's the one whogives life and breath to all
things.
See, god wants recognition forthat, that he is the one who's
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upholding us.
He has made us, he has given useverything that we have.
Every talent, every gift isGod-given.
And yet what happens?
People don't want to recognizethat.
They don't want to acknowledgethat.
They want to have themselvesrecognized.
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They want to have themselvesrecognized.
They want credit for all thatthey have done.
In the Bible you'll see thisrepeatedly.
It starts with the Tower ofBabel.
At the Tower of Babel, whenthey build that monstrosity up
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to heaven, they say we will makeour name great.
In other words, we will buildthis massive thing and we will
get recognition for it.
In the next chapter, chapter 11, god says to Abraham I will
make your name great.
See, god, nothing about theTower of Babel and none of those
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people will ever be remembered.
They will all fade away in dustand ashes, never to ever be
remembered.
Their names will never be known.
Do you know that?
But Abraham, his name will beknown forever.
It will stand the test of timeand eternity, and all of us who
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have believed become children ofAbraham, and that means that
our name will never, ever, everbe forgotten.
They'll be remembered.
Why?
Because we made our name great.
No, because God.
Because God is the one whomakes us a name.
He's the one who gives us areputation.
He's the one who brings thatall to consummation, and that is
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one way he is gettingappreciation, when we recognize
it that he's the one who madeour name great.
He is the one who has done allthis.
And so, whenever we pray,what's our ultimate aim?
Is it that we get our littlething that is so important to us
right then, or is it that God'sname be made known and God be
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recognized as the one who'sgiven all things, the giver of
gifts, the author of life.
So that is the aim of Daniel'sprayer, and so keep those four
points in mind.
Prayer should avoid fatalism.
It's a prayer killer.
Prayer should be based on God'simmutable word.
Pray, his word.
Those things will come to passin his timing and his way.
Prayer should be grace-oriented.
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It's not based on what I'vedone and my merits.
It's not based on what I'vedone and my merits.
It's based sheerly on Him andHis compassion and His mercy.
And then prayer should have asits ultimate objective the glory
of God, that God Himself berecognized among men.
The other prayer is the doctrineof preservation, and this is
coming out of the fact that,again, malachi, the Italian
prophet, is the seal of theprophets and you therefore have
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a period of God being silent for400 years.
During that time they'remeticulously, scrupulously
copying texts over in Babylon,jerusalem, qumran, probably
other places.
These become families ofmanuscripts.
You also have a translation inGreek, right About 250 or so
years before Christ, called theSeptuagint.
By the time you get Jesus andthe apostles, obviously they're
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quoting the Old Testament a lot.
I always say how could youpossibly understand the New
Testament if you don't alreadyunderstand the Old Testament?
Because they keep appealing tothe Old Testament, the Old
Testament, the Old Testament.
They just keep going back to it, but they quote from various
manuscripts, differentmanuscripts that sometimes
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differ in small ways with oneanother, and yet they refer to
them all as the Word of God.
Which shows you the doctrine ofpreservation that while there
are these minor differences,they're so minor that there's
nothing of substance there inthe differences, it's just close
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enough.
So two points that we can deriveabout the doctrine of
preservation.
Well, it's several, but firstof all one thing I would say
about it is that in the doctrineof preservation God did not
intend to keep it exact likeperfectly exact.
Let me explain this just from avery easy to see idea.
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If God wanted to keep itperfectly intact, it would have
to be in the original languageright of Hebrew or Aramaic in
the Old Testament, and it couldnot, for example, have vowel
pointings which were added byHebrew scribes for pronunciation
purposes, like those could notbe there, because that would not
(40:58):
be a perfect, exact replica ofthe original right.
So just from that vantage point, in the doctrine of
preservation God was not tryingto keep it exactly, you know,
letter for letter, withoutanything at all added even to
help pronounce it okay.
(41:19):
That was not God's point inpreservation.
If there's not a doctrine ofpreservation that is set up the
way it is, the Word of God couldnever be taken into another
language and still be called theWord of God.
This would not be the Word ofGod.
It would emphatically not bebecause it's in English.
But the doctrine ofpreservation as it's presented
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in Scripture.
Scripture set it up in a waywhere you can have his word in
any language.
Now, how can that be?
I mean, if it originally camein hebrew, aramaic and greek,
how can the word of god be inenglish, russian, moldavian,
(42:06):
chinese dialects?
How Well, first of all, thepresupposition behind it all is
that God is the author of humanlanguage.
There was this article I readyears ago by Dr Arthur Cussons,
called who Taught Adam to Speak.
Arthur Cussons called whoTaught Adam to Speak and it
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works off the premise of if youhave a baby, the baby is born,
the baby doesn't know how tospeak.
The baby knows how to cry, goto the bathroom, okay, and drink
milk.
That's basically all the babyknows how to do.
But in the first two to threeyears of life, the baby learns
to speak and everybody goes wow,this is actually they don't go.
Wow, they go.
Yeah, yeah, he knows how to sayno.
Now he knows how to say mommy,daddy, da, da, da, da, and it's
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almost viewed as something likeeh, who cares?
But as one expert in the Englishlanguage said, by the time a
child is three years old,they've already accomplished the
greatest intellectual feat theywill ever accomplish in their
life, and that's learning alanguage without having known
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one previously.
That is your greatestintellectual achievement.
You'll never go beyond that.
I won't either.
You can't, because every otherlanguage we learn.
After that, we learn havingalready known a previous
language.
But here you're, going from nolanguage to language.
How does that happen?
By listening right.
Take a baby, set it in anyculture.
You can be born in America andsent to China, and if you're sat
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down in a Chinese family, youwill learn to speak Chinese.
So it's an imprinting process.
The question then becomes howdid the first human speak?
How did they learn to speak ifthere's no previous speaker?
Well, the answer to who thentaught Adam to speak was God.
(43:57):
God taught Adam to speak, andfrom there, the peoples that
came from them learned to samespeak, the same language, until
the tower of babel.
So the first presupposition ofhow the bible can come in any
language is that god is theauthor of human language.
He started the naming processin genesis.
(44:18):
He named the sky, he named theearth, he names these things and
and then he says okay, adam,what would you like to call this
animal?
And he gets to give it a name.
But God started the naming game.
The second presupposition forhow the Bible can be God's word
in any language in the world isthe Tower of Babel, because that
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chapter begins by saying atthat time everyone in the earth
spoke the same language.
There was one language, butthen by the end of that, about
nine verses later, you have 70different languages and the
people couldn't communicate withone another.
So they had to stop buildingthis monstrosity of a tower
right.
Who was the author of those 70languages?
(45:04):
God.
And these become the twolanguage presuppositions for
understanding that the Bibleultimately would be translated
into other languages and itwould be still the Word of God.
So first point here, underpreservation, the New Testament
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authors quote variousmanuscripts as if they are the
very Word of God, to the pointthat fine points can be based on
tense, mood or voice.
For example, in the book ofGalatians, chapter 3, paul says
something as he appeals toGenesis 21 or 22.
(45:53):
He says in chapter 3, excuse mefor just a moment, I hadn't
planned to turn to this, but Iremembered it.
I'm in Ephesians, that's why Ican't find it.
Previous book.
Let's go back Galatians,chapter 3.
(46:14):
Yeah, there might be some inEphesians too right, where he
says he does not say unto seedsyep, verse 16.
Now the promises were spoken toabraham.
That's the book of genesis,right, hebrew, written in hebrew
.
The promises were spoken toabraham and to his seed.
He does not say and to seeds asreferring to many, but rather
(46:38):
to one and to your seed, that ischrist.
He builds his whole argument ingalatians 3 around a singular
versus a plural use of seed orintention intended use in the
book of Genesis, what's the onethat Jesus uses in Matthew,
chapter 5?
He says I did not come todestroy the law but to keep it,
(47:03):
and it will be kept down.
Not one iota will be missing,not the smallest letter.
No yod or tittle you know willbe missing.
All will be accomplished.
He said all will beaccomplished.
So this points out how preciseand important every tense mood
(47:29):
voice letter is okay, but at thesame time these can be
translated into other languagesand still be the word of god.
That's why when you read it says, usually on the bible, it'll
say the holy Bible.
Means what Book it's from?
Biblios, scroll, scroll or bookthe Holy Book.
(47:52):
In other words, there's lots ofbooks in the world.
Right, I got math books,science books, philosophy books,
theology books, but there'sonly one Holy Book.
Okay, meaning holy means setapart, so a set apart book, in
other words a book that sitsalone by itself and no other
books can compete with.
It's been called the divinelibrary because it's one book
(48:15):
that's composed of 66 books.
Right, the divine library.
And it can be in English, itcan be in Moldovian again, it
can be in French, it can be inRussian, because God is the
author of language.
So the New Testament authors,when they come along and they
quote various manuscripts as ifthey're the Word of God, they
can do that because it is theWord of God, and they don't
(48:39):
hesitate at all to quote fromvarious manuscripts, including a
translation, a Greektranslation.
The second point is translationsof the Bible do not nullify the
original meaning of the Bible.
Languages have textual andsemantic range, in other words,
that are sufficientapproximations of the original
intended meaning of the Hebrew,aramaic or Greek text.
(49:01):
So that, yeah, I will sometimesappeal to something in the
original language.
Right To try to clarifysomething in the translation
that I think is maybe not asgood as it could be right.
A lot of times I don't becauseit's great.
Why would I want to try toimprove on whatever is already
(49:23):
great?
There's no confusion, so let'sjust move on.
But other places I will pointthat out that's only to try to
enhance understanding, not togive different understanding
than the original intention.
But our languages are stillsufficient in their semantic
ranges to be able tosufficiently translate the
(49:44):
original text.
We can see this, of course,because Jesus and the other
apostles they quote other textsand they say this is the Word of
God.
So the Bible can be translatedinto other languages and it is
the actual Word of God in thoselanguages.
And again, this truth is basedon the two great events that
relate to language, and that is,first of all, creation, where
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God taught Adam to speak, andsecondly, the Tower of Babel,
where God divided that languageinto 70 different languages,
which are now throughout theworld in over 6,000 languages,
but all do fit within variousfamilies that can be traced back
to the time after the flood atthe tower.
So I hope that is somewhat somehelpful in preservation.
(50:33):
Can there be bad translations ofthe Bible?
Yes, yes, but for those thatare trying to be accurate to the
original, those are goodtranslations of the Bible and as
English speakers, we have moretranslations translations than
anybody any other language inthe world.
So we have at our fingertipsmany, many options, uh, of
(50:55):
adequate translations of thebible.
That's why something like aking james version only argument
that really I mean, it's it'sfine, but let's not do that.
Uh, it's, it's fine, but let'snot do that.
It's not helpful to gettingpeople to have confidence that
what they have is the Word ofGod.
(51:16):
It's just not helpful.
All right, let me mention a fewthings.
Just before the time of the NewTestament, you have the
formation of a lot of groupsthat show up in the New
Testament pages.
People like the Zealots.
Remember those guys, maybe,maybe not.
(51:37):
You've got the Pharisees,certainly remember them.
The Sadducees right, you haveEssenes out in the Dead Sea
community around there.
You've got different groups.
Okay, these groups kind of form.
You've got the scribes.
They copied the Scriptures.
They were like lawyers.
So you've got these groups andthey're all going to show up in
(51:57):
the pages of the New Testament.
But the thing that's difficultwith them is they're not in the
Old Testament passages.
That's where the scribes are attimes of Ezra and stuff, but
none of the scribes are thetimes of Ezra and stuff, but
none of the other groups arethere.
So all these groups really kindof formed after the exile and
during the intertestamentaltimes and so they just kind of
like just show up in the NewTestament.
So you have to understand alittle bit about these groups,
(52:19):
right, so you can see wherethey're coming from, because
Jesus is confronting people inthese groups.
So, like a zealot, it's easy.
He was someone who was zealous,right, but zealously opposed to
Rome.
They hated the Romans.
They carried little shortswords, often in their garb, and
(52:41):
they'd go into the marketplaceand they'd take it's a
sickle-type shaped sword andthey'd come up right up under
the ribs and go straight intothe heart of the Roman officials
or Jews that were helping theRomans and just murder them
right in the marketplace.
So there's this whole group ofzealots, okay, that are in the
New Testament, and then there'speople who are tax collectors,
like Matthew, and they want tohelp the Romans.
(53:04):
They're collecting the taxesfrom the Jews for the Romans,
right, and getting rich doing it.
And so you can see that a Jewlike Matthew and a zealot kind
of wouldn't get along.
Except it's so interesting, ofthe 12 that Jesus chose, one was
a zealot and one was a taxcollector, and somehow they
(53:27):
found unity in Christ and wereable to put aside those
differences and put those thingsbehind them and come into union
with one another through histeaching.
So it's remarkable.
Then you've got the Phariseesright.
They believe the whole OldTestament.
Okay, they believe in theresurrection, but really they
don't believe in the OldTestament.
(53:48):
Okay, they believe in theresurrection, but really they
don't believe in the OldTestament.
Mostly they believe in alltheir traditions and writings
that they've written about theOld Testament, and so they're
really not literal interpretersof the Bible.
They're very spiritualinterpreters of the Bible and
they have a great body ofdoctrine that they believe.
(54:09):
But Jesus says in Mark 7, ifyou follow the traditions of
your scribes, you reject Moses.
So they were not on page withthe Bible at all.
Now, the Sadducees, they wereactually more literal.
They're very, very strict intheir interpretation.
But they only believe the firstfive books of the Old Testament
.
They didn't believe inresurrection.
(54:30):
They didn't believe in angelsor things like that.
So how did they get all that?
Well, they were minimalist.
They only took the smallestamount you could get out of the
text.
That's what they believed.
Jesus confronts them.
They said oh, let's say, youhave a woman and she marries
this guy and he dies.
And then she marries again andhe dies.
She marries again and he dies.
(54:50):
She marries again and he dies.
She marries again and he dies.
This was a common tool theyused to show the Pharisees they
were idiots with respect toresurrection.
And they say to Jesus in theresurrection, she's married all
these guys.
Whose wife will she be?
And he says you failed tounderstand the scriptures.
And he quotes from the firstfive books of the Old Testament.
(55:11):
He quotes from what theybelieved was the Bible.
He didn't say okay, I can provethis from Daniel.
He just went to what theyalready believed and he said you
don't understand the scriptures.
It says I am the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob.
He is not the God of the dead,but the God of the living.
Therefore proven from their ownscriptures, that they didn't
(55:34):
take their scriptures for allthey were worth.
They didn't see in thatstatement that God, in fact, if
he's the God of Abraham, willmost certainly raise Abraham,
because how can you be his Godif he's dead?
It's just logic, scripturallogic.
And so you've got all thesegroups and Jesus is able to like
and all these people, and atthe very end they can't say
anything.
Do you remember?
He shut up all three majorgroups on one day the Herodians,
(55:58):
the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
He shut them up on one day.
You can read about it inMatthew 22 and 23.
And they never, ever wanted totalk to him about it again,
because he blew them away withthe scripture.
And that's how good we want tobe with the scripture, so that
we can not trying to be mean,but shut people's mouths,
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because I'm telling you rightnow, there's a lot of people out
there all they want to do ismake fun of Christians and
Christianity.
It is time to shut their mouthas best we can, because if they
don't get them shut now, god isgoing to shut them later.
And it's better to get it shutnow and figure this all out with
the Lord Jesus Christ now thanit is to not get it sorted out
(56:41):
and spend eternity separatedfrom God.
It's way better to figure itout now.
So he's given us this time todo that.
Let's do it right.
Let's go next week right intowho do you say that I am in
Matthew 16 and ask the questionwho is Jesus Christ?
Speaker 1 (56:58):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(57:19):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Here's a hint of what's to come.
But that's the first point.
Prayer should avoid fatalism.
It kills prayer.
We do not have a fatalisticview of the sovereignty of God.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I know this sounds like a hard question and maybe
it's really odd and I shouldn'task it, but are your prayers
selfish?
Are you focused in on yourself,your situation, your
circumstances and your needs, orhave you taken those things and
put them in the context of God,his will, his character, his
(00:37):
purpose?
You see, we have a lot to learnfrom the Old Testament saints
and how they prayed.
King David was a mighty exampleof prayer concerning his son,
the child from Bathsheba, andDaniel, the prophet.
He was not at all selfish.
He was very thoughtful andconsidered the state of man
(01:03):
relative to the state of God,and when he sought out God's
help, when he came to God with aneed, it was in the context of
God.
You are so perfect, righteous,just and gracious, and here's
what we need, here's what we'vedone.
(01:23):
We don't deserve it and here'swhat we need from you.
It's a great example to us andyou can pray the exact same
things you're praying now.
But if you put it back in thecontext of God, his nature, his
character, his purpose, youmight just find that your prayer
(01:43):
life becomes richer, deeper,more meaningful and that the
answers are even better than youcould ever imagine.
Today Jeremy's going to lookback at Daniel so that we can
learn from him and the prayersin the Bible how we should be
coming to our God, our great andglorious King.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
The Old Testament framework 14 events creation,
fall, the flood, noahic covenant, the call of Abraham, the
exodus, the Mount Sinai event,the conquest and settlement
under Joshua, the rise and reignof King David, the golden era
of Solomon, the kingdom, dividedkingdom, decline, exile and
(02:28):
restoration Well, partialrestoration.
Let me introduce this sectionof scripture which is basically
the end of the Old Testament eraof Israel, as Judah, the
southern kingdom, was taken intocaptivity to Judah, I'm sorry,
to Babylon.
There was a young man namedDaniel and some of his friends
(02:49):
who were taken captive duringone of the three deportations,
the first one and while there inBabylon, of course, daniel
received his own revelation thatwe have in the book of Daniel,
revelations like Daniel, chapter2, which we discussed last week
the four-metal statue right,the head of gold, the arms and
(03:11):
breasts of silver, the waist andthighs of bronze and the lower
legs and feet of iron, and ironmixed with clay, which was a
portrayal of the times of theGentiles right.
I mean a portrayal, excuse me,a portrayal of the times of the
Gentiles right, that politicalsupremacy was being given to
four successive Gentile kingdomsand Israel would be oppressed
(03:37):
by these four Gentile kingdoms.
Then he would see in the visionNebuchadnezzar would see.
And Daniel saw a great stonewhich would strike the statue,
destroy those four kingdomssimultaneously, and it would
then grow and fill the wholeearth, and it was the kingdom
that is ruled by the Son of man,the Messiah.
And so this was Daniel's visionof what the future held for
(04:00):
Israel and for the nations ofthe world.
Now, at the same time, if you'llturn with me to Daniel, chapter
9, he was also reading aprophet from the same time
period.
He was reading my namesakeprophet, jeremiah.
And what happened as he readJeremiah is he thought he saw
(04:25):
something of a contradiction inthe Word of God.
Yet of course he knows the Wordof God doesn't have any
contradictions, but he stillwants to understand how Jeremiah
and what was written throughhim in harmony with what was
revealed to him about these fourkingdoms.
(04:46):
In daniel, chapter 9, in verse2, he says in the first year of
his reign, I, daniel, observedin the books the number of the
years which was revealed as theword of the lord to jeremiah,
the prophet, for the completionof the desolations of Jerusalem,
(05:07):
namely 70 years.
So Daniel had a scroll ofJeremiah and he read in what we
call Jeremiah 29, that Judahwould be in desolations and
exile and destruction ofJerusalem for a period of 70
years.
Now it was almost through the70 years.
That was almost over.
(05:28):
It had been 68 or so yearsalready.
They were only now justbeginning to come into the
second kingdom that wasprophesied by the statue.
So Daniel says to himself whatwe'd all say to ourselves how
can we get these other kingdomsthat we must live under crammed
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into two years or less?
That's just not possible as faras human ideas can imagine.
So he wanted to know how.
It is just 70 years, but yetthere's still all these other
kingdoms that Israel must liveunder.
How can these work together?
That's why, in verse 3, he gavehis attention to the Lord and
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sought him by prayer andsupplications, with fasting and
sackcloth.
So we're going to read thisprayer and it's the longest
prayer in the Old Testament andthen we're going to draw some of
the doctrine from the partialrestoration, from this event,
one of which is the doctrine ofprayer.
Okay, the doctrine of prayer.
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We'll draw some points out ofit.
So let's go through this prayer.
Verse 4, I prayed to the Lord,my God, and I confessed, and I
confessed.
Now, confession.
Daniel knew that the only waythat Israel could be restored to
her kingdom after the times ofthe Gentiles, the four kingdoms
pass, which he supposes fromJeremiah is what is it only 70
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years?
I mean, how does this all fit?
But he knows that this is acondition for national
restoration and the kingdom ofGod to come.
So he confesses and he said andhere's the confession we have
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sinned, we have committediniquity, we have acted wickedly
, we have rebelled, we have eventurned aside from your
commandments and ordinances.
Moreover, we have not listenedto your servants, the prophets,
who spoke in your name to ourkings, our princes, our fathers
and all the people of the land,all saying we messed up, it's
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our fault for the situation weare in.
This is a brief aside.
Have you ever heard people saybecause I have many times that
they don't want to believe inGod because of the way their
life is and all the bad thingsthat have happened, and they
basically blame God andtherefore they're not going to
believe in this God?
Daniel came forth veryforthrightly and just said we
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and our situation in life is dueto us and our wickedness and
our sin.
It's not you, it's us, we arethe problem.
And so he is confessing.
And then he says not only am Iconfessing all this, but you
sent your prophets to us.
So this would be people likeElijah, this would be people
like Elisha, who God sent to thenation so that they would
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confess, but they didn't listento the prophets.
He says we didn't listen to him.
You sent him, but we didn'tlisten.
Now, that's all about them.
Now look at the other side ofthe confession, verse 7.
This is all about the lord.
Righteousness belongs to you,oh lord.
In other words, you are thestandard, but to us, open name
as it is this day, to the men ofjudah, the inhabitants of
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jerusalem and all israel, thosewho are nearby and those who are
far away.
So this includes all 12 tribesthose in judah, the southern
kingdom, those in israel, thenorthern kingdom, who are far
away.
So this includes all 12 tribes,those in Judah, the southern
kingdom, those in Israel, thenorthern kingdom, who are now in
exile.
He says and all the countriesto which you have driven them
because of their unfaithfuldeeds.
That's all the exile which theyhave committed against you.
And that's what confession is.
It's admitting that the sin isagainst who?
Against God?
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Who is the standard?
He is righteous Open shame.
Verse 8, belongs to us, o Lord,to our kings, our princes, our
fathers, because we have sinnedagainst you, every single one of
us.
Now he switches back to theLord.
To the Lord, our God, belongcompassion and forgiveness, for
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we have rebelled against him.
Nor have we obeyed the voice ofthe Lord, our God, to walk in
his teachings, which he setbefore us through his servants,
the prophets, which would beMoses and the prophets that
followed.
All Israel has transgressedyour law and all Israel has
turned aside, not obeying yourvoice, and therefore the curse
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has been poured out on us, alongwith the oath which is written
in the law of Moses, the servantof God, for we have sinned
against him.
Who do we sin against?
We sin against God.
We don't sin against otherpeople.
Other people aren't.
The standard.
Daniel admits, just like Davidadmitted against you and you
only have I sinned.
(10:20):
When we are confessing in thatway, we are confessing properly.
The sin is against him.
Verse 12,.
Thus he has confirmed his words, which he had spoken against us
and against our rulers whoruled us to bring on us great
calamity.
In other words, god wrote allthis in the Mosaic Law, the five
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degrees of divine discipline.
If you don't listen to my voicebut rebel, then I will send
upon you this curse, and then,if you don't listen again, I
will send it upon you sevenfoldmore, and so forth, all through
the five degrees.
And he's saying it's all ourfault.
You told us you were going todo this to us and yet we have
not listened and we continue torebel.
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It's just like a son and afather, and the father says if
you don't do this, this will bethe penalty.
And the son says I don't care,and you give him the penalty.
And then you say a warningagain and the son says it
doesn't matter, I'm still goingto rebel.
And so the father says okay,fine, well, it's greater
penalties and you lose more andmore freedoms until you don't
have a car and you can't get outof your room and you're locked
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away, tied to your bed.
And that's what I would do toyou.
I would confine you.
And this is the definition of agood father Happy fathers.
God does lay out, and he is thefather of Israel.
Israel is his son, right, andthey are now suffering under the
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divine discipline of the father.
Daniel recognizes that In themiddle of verse 12, he says For
under the whole heaven, therehas not been done anything like
what was done to Jerusalem.
It was razed to the ground, itwas destroyed.
It is a day in Jewish historythat is one of the saddest days.
The beautiful Solomonic Temple,all its articles, everything
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destroyed, the articles takenaway, and this was the heart of
their whole life.
And it was all taken.
And they were marched 800 milesaway, many of them naked and in
chains for days on end, intocaptivity.
Terrible thing.
Verse 13, as it is written inthe law of Moses all this
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calamity has come on us, justlike the word of God said.
Yet we've not sought the favoror grace of the Lord, our God,
by turning from our iniquity andgiving attention to your truth.
That's such a great verse thatshould be memorized.
Turn from our iniquity, giveattention to truth, is truth.
Therefore, the lord has keptthe calamity in store and
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brought it on us.
For the lord, our god, isrighteous with respect to all
his deeds, which he has done,but we have not obeyed his voice
.
It's just a great contrastright between who god is, how he
is righteous, how he has doneeverything that he said he would
do, and how israel is liars,sinners who do not respond to
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him and to his truth, whoworship idols who don't obey.
And now, verse 15, oh, lord, ourgod, who have brought your
people out of the land of egyptwith a mighty hand and have made
a name for yourself, as it isthis day, among all the nations,
they knew of this God.
We have sinned and we have beenwicked, o Lord, in accordance
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with all your righteous acts.
Let now your anger and yourwrath turn away from your city,
jerusalem, from your holymountain, for because of our
sins and the iniquities of ourfathers, jerusalem and your
people have become a reproach toall those around us.
So now, our God, listen to theprayer of your servant and to
his supplications.
And for your sake, o Lord, foryour sake, not for our sake, but
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for your sake or for your name,o Lord, let your face shine on
your desolate sanctuary.
O, my God, inc's your name.
That is attached to this city,lord, and it's in desolations.
So restore it for your name,for we are not presenting our
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supplications before you onaccount of any merits of our own
.
Don't answer this prayerbecause of us, because of
something we've done, because ifyou do, there's nothing you
won't answer, he says, but onaccount of your own great
compassion, oh Lord, hear, ohLord forgive, oh Lord, listen
and Lord, take action For yourown sake.
Oh my God, do not delay,because your city, it's your
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city and it's your people arecalled by your name and
therefore your reputation is atstake.
That is the whole basis of hisprayer.
It's all about the Lord and theLord's name.
It's not about Daniel, it's notabout the people of Israel,
it's about the Lord, ultimately,and that has to be a focus in
prayer.
So out of this prayer of 20 orso verses, we have a number of
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principles for praying Now.
Verse 20, while I was speakingand praying and confessing my
sin and the sin of my people,israel, and presenting my
supplication before the Lord, myGod, on behalf of the holy
mountain of my God, while I wasstill speaking in prayer, then
the man Gabriel, whom I had seenin the vision previously, came
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to me in my extreme wearinessabout the time of the evening
offering and he gave meinstruction and he talked with
me and he said O Daniel, I nowhave come forth to give you
insight with understanding, atthe beginning of your
supplications.
That was verse 3, when he gavehis attention to the Lord.
So we're 20 verses later.
Gabriel was dispatched from thehighest heaven, the third
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heaven, and he quickly made itto earth, which shows you that
angels travel faster than thespeed of light.
So, yes, there is somethingfaster than the speed of light.
We just read about an angel whoexceeded it greatly.
At the beginning of yoursupplications, the command was
issued and I've come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed,
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so give heed to the message andgain understanding of the vision
.
Now, 70 weeks have been decreedfor your people, that's, israel
and your holy city, jerusalem,to bring an end to six things,
which are described in thefollowing verses.
So not 70 years that's what heread in Jeremiah, right, seventy
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years for the desolations ofJerusalem, but 70, sevens, 70
groups of seven, 70 groups ofseven.
What?
Well, back in verse 3, 70 years.
So the unit is years 70 sevensof years.
How much is 70 sevens of years?
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Oh well, y'all are really goodat math.
I just suppose there was goingto be a dead spot for a moment.
490 years, not 70 years, but 490years, was the basic answer
that the angel Gabriel described.
That's the way that you willget all four successive Gentile
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kingdoms transpiring before thekingdom of God returns.
So what was the 70 yearsprophecy about Jerusalem in
Jeremiah?
All about A partial restorationwould happen, but not the total
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restoration.
The total restoration is 490years, so partial 70 years.
And after Babylon was defeatedby the Medes and the Persians,
darius issues a decree.
They go back eventually to theland and they rebuild the temple
, although the temple they builtunder Zerubbabel and so forth
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was not near as glorious as theone that had been there under
Solomon.
But that's the point of theprophecy in Jeremiah A partial
restoration would happen afterthe 70 years.
But for the total restorationand for all four kingdoms to
have come and gone and thekingdom of God to come, there
must be 77 or 490 years.
This was how the two passageswere to be understood in Daniel
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and Jeremiah.
So that's the first area andwe'll look at the doctrine of
prayer in a moment.
Now, as I mentioned, after thepartial restoration they go back
to the land.
There's a partial return.
Everybody didn't return,because we have books like
Esther that talk about Jews whonever returned and they remained
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outside the land and in thekingdom of Persia and so forth.
But many did return.
So after that they rebuild thetemple right Much less glory.
And the Old Testament graduallycomes to a close, with the
prophet the Italian prophet youknow who he is with the prophet
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the Italian prophet you know whohe is Malachi.
He was known among the Jews asthe seal of the prophets,
meaning in their canon.
The Old Testament canon came toa completion or was sealed with
Malachi.
God was silent then for 400years, right between the
testaments, and this is attestedby the fact that during this
period the Jews did not acceptany of the books that were
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written by them, such historicalbooks like 1 and 2, 3 and 4
Maccabees, ecclesiasticus, belland the Dragon Judith, other
books, apocryphal books, andthey did not accept these as
part of the canon becauseMalachi was considered the seal
of the prophets.
He was the end.
Even 1 Maccabees states itselfthat there was no living
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prophets at that time.
They have a set of stones there.
They don't know what to do withthese stones.
They were part of the altar andso they set them aside.
And it says we will wait for aprophet to come along and tell
us what to do.
So there were no prophets inthat time, so you cannot be
having any scripture beingwritten instead of new scripture
being written.
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What you have during this periodis the scrupulous making of
copies of the testament, as wellas a very famous translation
into the Greek language.
So, by the time of Christ, whenyou come into the New Testament
and we're going to come in nextweek and start with the birth
of the king when you come intothat world, you have various
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manuscript traditions.
You have the Babylonianmanuscript tradition that had
been copied for severalcenturies.
You have the Jerusalemmanuscript tradition.
You have, of course, if you'vebeen around the last hundred
years, you know about the Qumrancommunity and the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
You've heard of those as wellas a translation of the Old
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Testament known as the GreekSeptuagint.
Septuagint is just the Greekfor 70.
, also signified by the Romannumerals LXX, right 70.
So if you've ever seen the LXX,that's talking about this Greek
translation of the OldTestament.
So these manuscripts,interestingly, are being quoted
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from and alluded to in the NewTestament by the authors of the
New Testament, showing that allthese manuscript traditions,
even though there were differentfamilies of manuscripts or even
a different translation, wereaccepted as and referred to as
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the Word of God, even thoughthey may have differences, minor
differences here and there,they are all referred to as the
Word of God and treated withrespect as if they are the Word
of God.
So the great degree ofsimilarity between these
different families ofmanuscripts attests to what we
call preservation.
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This is where we start to talkabout the doctrine of
preservation, in other words thequestion have the Scriptures
been preserved faithfully sothat what we have today are
accurate reflections of whatthey had then, or are they all
messed up?
And so this is where we firstsee the doctrine of preservation
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.
Was it preserved from the timeof Daniel and on down to Malachi
, across the silent years of 400years, to the time of Christ
and the apostles?
Because if they weren't and alot could get messed up in 400
years, right, a whole lot.
We used to do the little test inclass where, you know, one
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student has a phrase and theywhisper it into the ear of the
person next to them, and thenthey whisper it into the
person's ear next to them and bythe time it gets to the end,
the last student says what hethought was the original thing,
and it's not even close.
So that's, you know, 10 minutesof time and we know how much
can get messed up.
So how much do you think couldget messed up in 400 years,
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especially if you don't have andthis is written, of course, but
especially if you don't have,like a printing press, which
they didn't.
So it was all hand copies andthe Jewish scribes were very
meticulous in making sure theywere copying them accurately,
but they're doing so withinfamily traditions, like the
Babylonian text type, theJerusalem text type and so forth
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, and yet at the time of Christ,that's what I'm saying.
What's so interesting is theyquote from all of these,
including the Greek Septuagintversion, and they refer to them
as if they are all the Word ofGod.
Now that will set up our seconddoctrine, which is the doctrine
of preservation.
So let's talk about the firstone, the doctrine of prayer.
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So these are the two doctrinesthat come out of the partial
restoration Prayer, daniel'sprayer, and the preservation
idea down to the time of Christ.
The doctrine of prayer, thefirst Christ.
The doctrine of prayer.
The first point in the doctrineof prayer, which we saw
illustrated in Daniel 9 withDaniel's prayer, was prayer
should avoid fatalism.
What do I mean by that?
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A fatalistic view of thesovereignty of God.
Some Christians have a verystrong view of the sovereignty
of God, in the sense that theywould say that all the details
of life, every detail, isdetermined by God.
So, for example, what colorsocks you put on this morning,
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what tie you bought last week ifyou still buy ties what purse
you wore today, what colorearrings and shape earrings you
bought or put on today weredetermined by God.
That you would buy those andput those on today.
So the very strong view of theevery detail of life determined
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by God.
Sovereignty idea.
In that view of sovereignty,what room is there for prayer?
Let's say you want something tohappen in history.
That's why you're praying.
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Right, we just pray for JaneOrlop.
Why?
Because we want her to get well.
We want her shoulder not to bebroken.
Now, if it's already determinedwhat it is whatever will be will
be then why are you prayingabout it?
Prayer loses its impetus ormotivation when you have a view
of the sovereignty of God thatwhatever will be will be and
that's just the way it is.
Why would you pray forsomeone's salvation if they're
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either going to be saved orthey're not?
And God's already determined it, why waste your time praying?
And of course, you'd have toback off from the whole thing
and say, well, the prayersthemselves would be determined
by God.
It's this interesting way oftrying to think about things,
but fatalistic views of God'ssovereignty crush prayer.
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Prayer is not really valid,because whatever's going to
happen is going to happen anyway, whether you pray or not.
Valid because whatever's goingto happen is going to happen
anyway, whether you pray or not.
Right, so that idea should beavoided.
Now, one way I've viewedsovereignty and tried to convey
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it to people, because God issovereign.
We don't question that.
It's just a matter of what isyour model?
What does it look like If youhave a ship that is setting sail
from one port and it has adestination at another port?
Now the origin and thedestination are set at the
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beginning and the end, and then,as the ship sets sail, it's
going across various waters andyou are on the ship.
You are human.
Now you have freedom.
It's freedom within the form ofthe ship.
You can go down and eat dinner,you can go swim, you can look
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over the bow, you have all sortsof things that you can do on
the ship.
But there are also limitations.
You can't do things that arenot on the bow.
You have all sorts of thingsthat you can do on the ship, but
there are also limitations.
You can't do things that arenot on the ship.
You can't go visit someplaceelse.
You're stuck on the ship andyou are going to a certain
conclusion, but during thatjourney you have some freedom,
right, and this is one model orpossible way of looking at the
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plan of God.
I'm sure it is inept, it is notperfect, but it is a way of at
least conveying how thebeginning and the end are set by
God, as well as the route toget there, but yet within it
humans have freedom.
Within this limited sphere thatopens up the possibility for
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room for prayer and asking Godfor this or for that.
But guess what, if you pray forthe second coming not to happen
, that will not be answered.
Why will that not be answered?
Because that is part of thesovereign plan of God that is
set, and that is what Daniel waslooking at.
Daniel was saying now you'vegot 70 years over here in
Jeremiah, but you told methere's going to be these four
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successive kingdoms.
Now the angel described howboth could work in the plan of
God.
He said well, jeremiah is abouta partial restoration after 70
years, but the total restorationis after the 490 years.
So Daniel wasn't going tochange any of that by praying
right.
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But he also knew, hey, there'shuman responsibility and we need
to, as a nation, confess oursin and what we have done, and
so that is a part of his prayer.
And that illustration of theship hopefully gives a little
bit of help as to a model forGod's sovereignty.
But that's the first point.
Prayer should avoid fatalism.
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It kills prayer.
We do not have a fatalisticview of the sovereignty of God.
The second idea that we see inthe doctrine of prayer is that
prayer should be based on God'simmutable word Again God, like
the second coming illustration.
You could pray against that,but god is not going to answer
prayers that are contrary to hisword.
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So prayers should not becontrary to the plan of god and
purpose of god, but they shouldbe rather filled with his word.
If we pray scripture, we can becertain that God will answer
those prayers in his timing andin his way.
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Okay, we have to amend it withthat.
If we pray scripture, we can besure that God will answer those
prayers, but he will do it inhis time and he will do it in
his way.
Right, but we can be sure if wepray Scripture, those are
prayers that are going to beanswered.
Daniel based his prayer on theWord of God in Jeremiah and the
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Word of God that was given tohim in Daniel 2.
His whole prayer was based onthe books of Jeremiah and what
he had going on relative to hisown books and writing right.
So that's a firm basis.
We study the scriptures and wetry to understand them.
We don't understand, we pray,we ask the Lord.
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Show me how this works, explainthis to me, help me understand,
and the Lord will answer in histime and in his way.
So prayer should be based onGod's immutable word.
His word never changes.
Third, prayer should begrace-oriented.
What do I mean by this?
I mean we shouldn't ever thinkthat God owes us an answer to
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prayer because we did this orthat we did that.
You remember that part where inthe prayer it's in verse 18 of
Daniel's prayer, toward the end.
There he says we are notpresenting our supplications
before you on account of anymerits of our own.
Sometimes we get it in our mindthat we've been a good
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Christian, we've been loyal.
We've been going to church orwhatever.
We've been reading our Bible.
We've been a good Christian.
We've been loyal.
We've been going to church orwhatever.
We've been reading our Bible,we've been teaching this Bible
study.
We've been leading this music.
We've been doing all thisservice.
Therefore, god owes me.
We might not express it likethat, but it's in the back of
our mind.
God owes me and he needs tobless me because of what I've
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done for him.
No, no no, it doesn't work likethat.
That is not grace, that ismerit, that is basing his gifts
on work, and God doesn't givegifts based on work, he gives
gifts based on grace, and gracealone.
So our prayers should veryspecifically and carefully be
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articulated in a way that theyare grace-oriented.
Daniel did this.
He says you don't owe us athing.
And that is so true.
God doesn't owe you anything.
He doesn't owe me anything Foranything I've ever done.
He doesn't owe me anything andI don't deserve to get whatever
(32:33):
I think I deserve to get.
No, he gives based on His owncharacter.
And Daniel says that.
He says but on account of yourgreat compassion, if you're
going to appeal to God forsomething, that is a great basis
to appeal to God on Just yourcompassion, just your compassion
(32:54):
, o Lord, your mercy, yourfaithfulness.
And so Daniel teaches us thatthird point that all our prayers
should be grace-oriented.
The fourth point in his prayerthat we saw was that prayer
should have as its ultimateobjective the glory of God.
Whatever we pray for, whateverit is, we want the end of that
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prayer to ultimately be thatGod's name is glorified, not our
name.
It's not about us getting ourthing, it's about him getting
recognized, him being givenglory.
So ultimately, that's where allour prayers should be aimed god
(33:44):
receiving glory, and being bythat I mean being recognized.
Daniel prayed that god wouldrestore jerusalem and the temple
for his name's sake, becausehis name was attached to
jerusalem and to the temple.
The Lord, jesus Christ,illustrated it this way just
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before the cross, he said not mywill be done, but your will be
done, and that should be ourattitude in prayer Not what I
want to happen, but what youwant to happen, because what you
want to happen will ultimatelyglorify you.
It will give your namerecognition.
(34:27):
This is the great purpose ofhistory.
God has arranged history in acertain way and we've walked
through the big ideas creation,fall, flood, covenant and so
forth, um to reveal his glory.
It's a weird concept for mostpeople, because all they know
about glory is well, I don'tknow.
(34:49):
You've got it in sports right.
I mean, he who wins the pennantgets glory.
He who wins the World Cup getsthe glory right.
He who wins the Stanley Cupgets the glory right.
What does that mean?
Recognition Recognition infront of the whole world of your
accomplishments.
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What is God trying to do withhistory?
He is trying to get recognitionfor his accomplishments, what
he has done, what he is doingand what he shall do in the
future.
He has done what he is doingand what he shall do in the
future.
Paul discusses this in Acts 17with the Areopagus right, the 30
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scholars who sat at Athens andoversaw religion, morals and
education, and he explains tothem you know, the God who made
the world and all things in itisn't worshiped with you know,
hands.
He isn't served by us as if heneeded something.
He says but he's the one whogives life and breath to all
things.
See, god wants recognition forthat, that he is the one who's
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upholding us.
He has made us, he has given useverything that we have.
Every talent, every gift isGod-given.
And yet what happens?
People don't want to recognizethat.
They don't want to acknowledgethat.
They want to have themselvesrecognized.
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They want to have themselvesrecognized.
They want credit for all thatthey have done.
In the Bible you'll see thisrepeatedly.
It starts with the Tower ofBabel.
At the Tower of Babel, whenthey build that monstrosity up
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to heaven, they say we will makeour name great.
In other words, we will buildthis massive thing and we will
get recognition for it.
In the next chapter, chapter 11, god says to Abraham I will
make your name great.
See, god, nothing about theTower of Babel and none of those
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people will ever be remembered.
They will all fade away in dustand ashes, never to ever be
remembered.
Their names will never be known.
Do you know that?
But Abraham, his name will beknown forever.
It will stand the test of timeand eternity, and all of us who
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have believed become children ofAbraham, and that means that
our name will never, ever, everbe forgotten.
They'll be remembered.
Why?
Because we made our name great.
No, because God.
Because God is the one whomakes us a name.
He's the one who gives us areputation.
He's the one who brings thatall to consummation, and that is
(37:57):
one way he is gettingappreciation, when we recognize
it that he's the one who madeour name great.
He is the one who has done allthis.
And so, whenever we pray,what's our ultimate aim?
Is it that we get our littlething that is so important to us
right then, or is it that God'sname be made known and God be
(38:20):
recognized as the one who'sgiven all things, the giver of
gifts, the author of life.
So that is the aim of Daniel'sprayer, and so keep those four
points in mind.
Prayer should avoid fatalism.
It's a prayer killer.
Prayer should be based on God'simmutable word.
Pray, his word.
Those things will come to passin his timing and his way.
Prayer should be grace-oriented.
(38:40):
It's not based on what I'vedone and my merits.
It's not based on what I'vedone and my merits.
It's based sheerly on Him andHis compassion and His mercy.
And then prayer should have asits ultimate objective the glory
of God, that God Himself berecognized among men.
The other prayer is the doctrineof preservation, and this is
coming out of the fact that,again, malachi, the Italian
prophet, is the seal of theprophets and you therefore have
(39:09):
a period of God being silent for400 years.
During that time they'remeticulously, scrupulously
copying texts over in Babylon,jerusalem, qumran, probably
other places.
These become families ofmanuscripts.
You also have a translation inGreek, right About 250 or so
years before Christ, called theSeptuagint.
By the time you get Jesus andthe apostles, obviously they're
(39:31):
quoting the Old Testament a lot.
I always say how could youpossibly understand the New
Testament if you don't alreadyunderstand the Old Testament?
Because they keep appealing tothe Old Testament, the Old
Testament, the Old Testament.
They just keep going back to it, but they quote from various
manuscripts, differentmanuscripts that sometimes
(39:52):
differ in small ways with oneanother, and yet they refer to
them all as the Word of God.
Which shows you the doctrine ofpreservation that while there
are these minor differences,they're so minor that there's
nothing of substance there inthe differences, it's just close
(40:12):
enough.
So two points that we can deriveabout the doctrine of
preservation.
Well, it's several, but firstof all one thing I would say
about it is that in the doctrineof preservation God did not
intend to keep it exact likeperfectly exact.
Let me explain this just from avery easy to see idea.
(40:36):
If God wanted to keep itperfectly intact, it would have
to be in the original languageright of Hebrew or Aramaic in
the Old Testament, and it couldnot, for example, have vowel
pointings which were added byHebrew scribes for pronunciation
purposes, like those could notbe there, because that would not
(40:58):
be a perfect, exact replica ofthe original right.
So just from that vantage point, in the doctrine of
preservation God was not tryingto keep it exactly, you know,
letter for letter, withoutanything at all added even to
help pronounce it okay.
(41:19):
That was not God's point inpreservation.
If there's not a doctrine ofpreservation that is set up the
way it is, the Word of God couldnever be taken into another
language and still be called theWord of God.
This would not be the Word ofGod.
It would emphatically not bebecause it's in English.
But the doctrine ofpreservation as it's presented
(41:44):
in Scripture.
Scripture set it up in a waywhere you can have his word in
any language.
Now, how can that be?
I mean, if it originally camein hebrew, aramaic and greek,
how can the word of god be inenglish, russian, moldavian,
(42:06):
chinese dialects?
How Well, first of all, thepresupposition behind it all is
that God is the author of humanlanguage.
There was this article I readyears ago by Dr Arthur Cussons,
called who Taught Adam to Speak.
Arthur Cussons called whoTaught Adam to Speak and it
(42:30):
works off the premise of if youhave a baby, the baby is born,
the baby doesn't know how tospeak.
The baby knows how to cry, goto the bathroom, okay, and drink
milk.
That's basically all the babyknows how to do.
But in the first two to threeyears of life, the baby learns
to speak and everybody goes wow,this is actually they don't go.
Wow, they go.
Yeah, yeah, he knows how to sayno.
Now he knows how to say mommy,daddy, da, da, da, da, and it's
(42:51):
almost viewed as something likeeh, who cares?
But as one expert in the Englishlanguage said, by the time a
child is three years old,they've already accomplished the
greatest intellectual feat theywill ever accomplish in their
life, and that's learning alanguage without having known
(43:12):
one previously.
That is your greatestintellectual achievement.
You'll never go beyond that.
I won't either.
You can't, because every otherlanguage we learn.
After that, we learn havingalready known a previous
language.
But here you're, going from nolanguage to language.
How does that happen?
By listening right.
Take a baby, set it in anyculture.
You can be born in America andsent to China, and if you're sat
(43:35):
down in a Chinese family, youwill learn to speak Chinese.
So it's an imprinting process.
The question then becomes howdid the first human speak?
How did they learn to speak ifthere's no previous speaker?
Well, the answer to who thentaught Adam to speak was God.
(43:57):
God taught Adam to speak, andfrom there, the peoples that
came from them learned to samespeak, the same language, until
the tower of babel.
So the first presupposition ofhow the bible can come in any
language is that god is theauthor of human language.
He started the naming processin genesis.
(44:18):
He named the sky, he named theearth, he names these things and
and then he says okay, adam,what would you like to call this
animal?
And he gets to give it a name.
But God started the naming game.
The second presupposition forhow the Bible can be God's word
in any language in the world isthe Tower of Babel, because that
(44:41):
chapter begins by saying atthat time everyone in the earth
spoke the same language.
There was one language, butthen by the end of that, about
nine verses later, you have 70different languages and the
people couldn't communicate withone another.
So they had to stop buildingthis monstrosity of a tower
right.
Who was the author of those 70languages?
(45:04):
God.
And these become the twolanguage presuppositions for
understanding that the Bibleultimately would be translated
into other languages and itwould be still the Word of God.
So first point here, underpreservation, the New Testament
(45:28):
authors quote variousmanuscripts as if they are the
very Word of God, to the pointthat fine points can be based on
tense, mood or voice.
For example, in the book ofGalatians, chapter 3, paul says
something as he appeals toGenesis 21 or 22.
(45:53):
He says in chapter 3, excuse mefor just a moment, I hadn't
planned to turn to this, but Iremembered it.
I'm in Ephesians, that's why Ican't find it.
Previous book.
Let's go back Galatians,chapter 3.
(46:14):
Yeah, there might be some inEphesians too right, where he
says he does not say unto seedsyep, verse 16.
Now the promises were spoken toabraham.
That's the book of genesis,right, hebrew, written in hebrew
.
The promises were spoken toabraham and to his seed.
He does not say and to seeds asreferring to many, but rather
(46:38):
to one and to your seed, that ischrist.
He builds his whole argument ingalatians 3 around a singular
versus a plural use of seed orintention intended use in the
book of Genesis, what's the onethat Jesus uses in Matthew,
chapter 5?
He says I did not come todestroy the law but to keep it,
(47:03):
and it will be kept down.
Not one iota will be missing,not the smallest letter.
No yod or tittle you know willbe missing.
All will be accomplished.
He said all will beaccomplished.
So this points out how preciseand important every tense mood
(47:29):
voice letter is okay, but at thesame time these can be
translated into other languagesand still be the word of god.
That's why when you read it says, usually on the bible, it'll
say the holy Bible.
Means what Book it's from?
Biblios, scroll, scroll or bookthe Holy Book.
(47:52):
In other words, there's lots ofbooks in the world.
Right, I got math books,science books, philosophy books,
theology books, but there'sonly one Holy Book.
Okay, meaning holy means setapart, so a set apart book, in
other words a book that sitsalone by itself and no other
books can compete with.
It's been called the divinelibrary because it's one book
(48:15):
that's composed of 66 books.
Right, the divine library.
And it can be in English, itcan be in Moldovian again, it
can be in French, it can be inRussian, because God is the
author of language.
So the New Testament authors,when they come along and they
quote various manuscripts as ifthey're the Word of God, they
can do that because it is theWord of God, and they don't
(48:39):
hesitate at all to quote fromvarious manuscripts, including a
translation, a Greektranslation.
The second point is translationsof the Bible do not nullify the
original meaning of the Bible.
Languages have textual andsemantic range, in other words,
that are sufficientapproximations of the original
intended meaning of the Hebrew,aramaic or Greek text.
(49:01):
So that, yeah, I will sometimesappeal to something in the
original language.
Right To try to clarifysomething in the translation
that I think is maybe not asgood as it could be right.
A lot of times I don't becauseit's great.
Why would I want to try toimprove on whatever is already
(49:23):
great?
There's no confusion, so let'sjust move on.
But other places I will pointthat out that's only to try to
enhance understanding, not togive different understanding
than the original intention.
But our languages are stillsufficient in their semantic
ranges to be able tosufficiently translate the
(49:44):
original text.
We can see this, of course,because Jesus and the other
apostles they quote other textsand they say this is the Word of
God.
So the Bible can be translatedinto other languages and it is
the actual Word of God in thoselanguages.
And again, this truth is basedon the two great events that
relate to language, and that is,first of all, creation, where
(50:09):
God taught Adam to speak, andsecondly, the Tower of Babel,
where God divided that languageinto 70 different languages,
which are now throughout theworld in over 6,000 languages,
but all do fit within variousfamilies that can be traced back
to the time after the flood atthe tower.
So I hope that is somewhat somehelpful in preservation.
(50:33):
Can there be bad translations ofthe Bible?
Yes, yes, but for those thatare trying to be accurate to the
original, those are goodtranslations of the Bible and as
English speakers, we have moretranslations translations than
anybody any other language inthe world.
So we have at our fingertipsmany, many options, uh, of
(50:55):
adequate translations of thebible.
That's why something like aking james version only argument
that really I mean, it's it'sfine, but let's not do that.
Uh, it's, it's fine, but let'snot do that.
It's not helpful to gettingpeople to have confidence that
what they have is the Word ofGod.
(51:16):
It's just not helpful.
All right, let me mention a fewthings.
Just before the time of the NewTestament, you have the
formation of a lot of groupsthat show up in the New
Testament pages.
People like the Zealots.
Remember those guys, maybe,maybe not.
(51:37):
You've got the Pharisees,certainly remember them.
The Sadducees right, you haveEssenes out in the Dead Sea
community around there.
You've got different groups.
Okay, these groups kind of form.
You've got the scribes.
They copied the Scriptures.
They were like lawyers.
So you've got these groups andthey're all going to show up in
(51:57):
the pages of the New Testament.
But the thing that's difficultwith them is they're not in the
Old Testament passages.
That's where the scribes are attimes of Ezra and stuff, but
none of the scribes are thetimes of Ezra and stuff, but
none of the other groups arethere.
So all these groups really kindof formed after the exile and
during the intertestamentaltimes and so they just kind of
like just show up in the NewTestament.
So you have to understand alittle bit about these groups,
(52:19):
right, so you can see wherethey're coming from, because
Jesus is confronting people inthese groups.
So, like a zealot, it's easy.
He was someone who was zealous,right, but zealously opposed to
Rome.
They hated the Romans.
They carried little shortswords, often in their garb, and
(52:41):
they'd go into the marketplaceand they'd take it's a
sickle-type shaped sword andthey'd come up right up under
the ribs and go straight intothe heart of the Roman officials
or Jews that were helping theRomans and just murder them
right in the marketplace.
So there's this whole group ofzealots, okay, that are in the
New Testament, and then there'speople who are tax collectors,
like Matthew, and they want tohelp the Romans.
(53:04):
They're collecting the taxesfrom the Jews for the Romans,
right, and getting rich doing it.
And so you can see that a Jewlike Matthew and a zealot kind
of wouldn't get along.
Except it's so interesting, ofthe 12 that Jesus chose, one was
a zealot and one was a taxcollector, and somehow they
(53:27):
found unity in Christ and wereable to put aside those
differences and put those thingsbehind them and come into union
with one another through histeaching.
So it's remarkable.
Then you've got the Phariseesright.
They believe the whole OldTestament.
Okay, they believe in theresurrection, but really they
don't believe in the OldTestament.
(53:48):
Okay, they believe in theresurrection, but really they
don't believe in the OldTestament.
Mostly they believe in alltheir traditions and writings
that they've written about theOld Testament, and so they're
really not literal interpretersof the Bible.
They're very spiritualinterpreters of the Bible and
they have a great body ofdoctrine that they believe.
(54:09):
But Jesus says in Mark 7, ifyou follow the traditions of
your scribes, you reject Moses.
So they were not on page withthe Bible at all.
Now, the Sadducees, they wereactually more literal.
They're very, very strict intheir interpretation.
But they only believe the firstfive books of the Old Testament
.
They didn't believe inresurrection.
(54:30):
They didn't believe in angelsor things like that.
So how did they get all that?
Well, they were minimalist.
They only took the smallestamount you could get out of the
text.
That's what they believed.
Jesus confronts them.
They said oh, let's say, youhave a woman and she marries
this guy and he dies.
And then she marries again andhe dies.
She marries again and he dies.
(54:50):
She marries again and he dies.
She marries again and he dies.
This was a common tool theyused to show the Pharisees they
were idiots with respect toresurrection.
And they say to Jesus in theresurrection, she's married all
these guys.
Whose wife will she be?
And he says you failed tounderstand the scriptures.
And he quotes from the firstfive books of the Old Testament.
(55:11):
He quotes from what theybelieved was the Bible.
He didn't say okay, I can provethis from Daniel.
He just went to what theyalready believed and he said you
don't understand the scriptures.
It says I am the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob.
He is not the God of the dead,but the God of the living.
Therefore proven from their ownscriptures, that they didn't
(55:34):
take their scriptures for allthey were worth.
They didn't see in thatstatement that God, in fact, if
he's the God of Abraham, willmost certainly raise Abraham,
because how can you be his Godif he's dead?
It's just logic, scripturallogic.
And so you've got all thesegroups and Jesus is able to like
and all these people, and atthe very end they can't say
anything.
Do you remember?
He shut up all three majorgroups on one day the Herodians,
(55:58):
the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
He shut them up on one day.
You can read about it inMatthew 22 and 23.
And they never, ever wanted totalk to him about it again,
because he blew them away withthe scripture.
And that's how good we want tobe with the scripture, so that
we can not trying to be mean,but shut people's mouths,
(56:19):
because I'm telling you rightnow, there's a lot of people out
there all they want to do ismake fun of Christians and
Christianity.
It is time to shut their mouthas best we can, because if they
don't get them shut now, god isgoing to shut them later.
And it's better to get it shutnow and figure this all out with
the Lord Jesus Christ now thanit is to not get it sorted out
(56:41):
and spend eternity separatedfrom God.
It's way better to figure itout now.
So he's given us this time todo that.
Let's do it right.
Let's go next week right intowho do you say that I am in
Matthew 16 and ask the questionwho is Jesus Christ?
Speaker 1 (56:58):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(57:19):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
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