I'm doing another
private Bible study at this time and something in that study seemed to jump out
at me concerning this study.
When we try to use
our own intellect to comprehend God's word we truly are in danger of being
deceived. Our own ideas are often influenced by things other than the Spirit.
We desperately need the Holy Spirit enlightening us because if we try to
enlighten ourselves we are like that old cliché - the blind leading the blind.
Only the Holy Spirit can give us spiritual insight, spiritual truth. By faith
we have to believe the our Savior will lead us to only His truth as He has led
others before us, His truth being passed down throughout the ages as it has
unfolded.
Why would God give
us a 2300 year prophecy if we were never to comprehend such a prophecy?
The comprehension
comes from inspired sources.
Can we be led astray
if we are fully and wholly dedicated to knowing the Truth, the Way, the Life?
The only way we can
be led astray is if we place our trust in ourselves and not the Holy Spirit.
The knowledge we
must seek is only the knowledge that our Savior wills to reveal and no more.
Will we have all the knowledge there is? No.
Deu_29:29 The secret
things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong
unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Faith is a very real
and necessary force, believing sight unseen, believing without logic and
worldly wisdom, believing in LOVE, and the truest and only source of love comes
from our God the Father, from our God the Son and from our God the Holy Spirit.
May we be blessed as
we continue this very in-depth prophecy study! All through the LOVE of our
Savior Jesus Christ, our Lord now and forever!
******* Continuing
our prophecy study-- Please GO back
several days and read the study from the beginning to gain full understanding
of where we are if you haven't been following this study daily. Thank you :)
God bless you! *******
Sanctuary being
cleansed.
The 2300 day (year)
prophecy of Daniel said this--
Dan 8:9 And out of one of them came forth a little
horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and
toward the pleasant land.
Dan 8:10 And it waxed great, even to the host of
heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and
stamped upon them.
Dan 8:11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince
of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of
his sanctuary was cast down.
Dan 8:12 And an host was given him against the daily
sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground;
and it practised, and prospered.
Dan 8:13 Then I heard one saint speaking, and another
saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision
concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give
both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?
Remember studying
this before? The historic knowledge of
Medes Persia, Greece, Roman, and out of the Roman Empire the Roman Papal power
that was so strange and diverse, so different than the other powers.
Remember discussing
the host of heaven being cast down under the Roman rule when the Savior was
born. Jesus was born, lived, and was crucified all under
the Roman rule. We know for a fact that
Papal Rome was formed as the counterfeit church deceiving many and that Satan
behind the scenes ruled this little horn power.
The truth was definitely cast to the ground. Transgression lived in the
heart of the deceptive powers that morphed from pagan Rome into papal Rome.
How long… how long would this vision which included the
daily sacrifice being taken away, which included the desolation of all that God
had set up upon earth as His ways. How long would the sanctuary and those of God
be debased, demeaned, abused?
We have to consider
what the sanctuary meant to God's people. The sanctuary and all its services
came into being out of a covenant God made with His people. God would be their
God and they would be His people and they would obey His commands and He would
be with them. Even as soon as that
covenant was made, or rather not much longer after it was newly enacted and
accepted by God's people, then God's people broke that covenant. Rather than destroy the people Moses stepped
in and pleaded for their lives. God knew
that a system would have to be set up that would symbolize a mediation between
Him and His people. Back when Abraham was alive God called for Abraham to offer
up His only son Isaac. A symbolic event
forever afterwards. When man sinned- animals were first sacrificed to make them
coats of the animal skins. Abel the second born son of our first parents
offered up an animal sacrifice to God.
The idea of there needing to be a mediator between man and God was not a
new one, it was ancient, it existed from the moment sin entered the world. A
way had to be made for man to be reunited with God again.
Under Moses'
leadership the wilderness sanctuary was set up. David, beloved of God, wanted
to erect a permanent sanctuary so that God could dwell with them in the land
God had given to them to be theirs forever. Solomon, David's son was allowed to
build the sanctuary and they called it Solomon's Temple. All the rituals
involved with the sanctuary were kept there in that temple for many, many
years.
Built in 957 BC and totally destroyed in 586 BC - For
371 years that sanctuary was used for the ritual sacrificial services that God
required of His people.
457 BC saw the final
call to finish rebuilding the sanctuary and the call for the Jewish people to
return there and begin their services once more.
(((Interjection a
bit of IMPORTANT historical fact for the date 457 BC as the final call to
finish and rebuild the sanctuary- the call for the Jewish people to return
there and begin their services- Please read.
Establishing the
date 457 B.C
L.P. Tolhurst
Seventh-day
Adventists believe that "the commandment to re store and to build
Jerusalem" (Dan. 9:25) marks not only the beginning of the 70- weeks
prophecy of that passage, but also the beginning of the 2300 days mentioned
in Daniel 8:14- We believe that this latter prophecy reaches down to 1844,
and thus points us out as the people God raised up on time to proclaim the last
message of warning to the world. If we are correct, we ought to be able to
justify our claim by producing evidence that will support it.
Three Persian
decrees played roles in the restoration of God's people from the captivity the
Babylonians had instituted.1 Confirming our interpretation of these
important prophecies of Daniel depends on identifying and dating the decree
with which God intended the time calculations to begin.
Cyrus issued the
first decree in the first year of his Babylonian reign, which was 538/537 B.C.
(see Ezra 1:1; 6:1; and 2 Chron. 36:22, 23). The Bible does
not indicate when in the first year of his reign this decree was given, so we do
not know whether the year involved was 538 or 53 7 B.C. Nor does the Bible tell
us when Zerubbabel's party left Babylon and when they arrived in Jerusalem, so
we do not know when this decree became effective. The Bible's vagueness about
these details argues against this being the all important decree. Furthermore,
Cyrus's decree says nothing about the restoration of the city. It speaks only
of the rebuilding of the Temple.
Another evidence
that this is the wrong decree is that it simply doesn't work with the Daniel 9
prophecy of the time of the arrival of the Messiah, the anointed one. With the
date of this decree as a starting point, the 483 years Daniel spoke of do not reach
anywhere near Jesus' time, never mind identifying the year of His baptism--His
anointing--which took place in A.D. 27.
Scripture gives no
date at all for the second decree, that of Darius the Great. All we know is
that it was given in the early years of his reign, because, as a result of it,
the Temple was completed and dedicated.2 And, like Cyrus's, Darius's
decree was concerned with the restoration of the Temple, not of the city.
Obviously, for establishing a starting point for the prophecy this decree is
not of much use either.
If God intended
either of these decrees to mark the beginning of a time prophecy as important
as that of the 2300 days, then certainly He would have seen that the details
needed were recorded in the Bible.
Artaxerxes' decree
It is in connection
with the third decree--that of the seventh year of Artaxerxes, recorded
in Ezra 7:8, 9--that we have the information necessary to locating in
time this important prophecy. Regarding this decree we are told that Ezra left
Babylon on the first day of month 1 of the seventh year of the reign of
Artaxerxes, and that he and his group arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of
month 5 of the same year. For no other decree is such detail given. This itself
should alert us. Surely God is saying something to us when His Word is so
explicit regarding this decree and so vague regarding the other two.
Furthermore, this
decree provided for the restoration of local government on a scale not
mentioned in the other decrees (note Ezra 7:21-28). It empowered the
judiciary to punish wrongdoers, even granting the authority to impose the death
sentence. And as a result of this decree Ezra began to build the city--see the
letter to Artaxerxes in Ezra 4.
However, perhaps the
strongest argument of all is that when we calculate the Daniel 9 prophecy using
the date of this decree, 457 B.C., as marking its beginning, the prophecy
reaches exactly to the baptism of Jesus. In fact, Daniel 9:24 suggests
that the events that take place within the 70 weeks set God's seal of approval
on the whole of the prophecy. They show that the prophecy was divinely given,
and thus absolutely dependable. And no other date even begins to satisfy the
demands of this prophecy.
Obviously, then, the
decree God in tends us to use is that of Ezra 7 the one issued in the seventh
year of Artaxerxes. God has given us details about when it was issued and when
it went into effect. And the precision with which it relates to Jesus' baptism
marks it as authentic. It is just too accurate to be wrong!
Having determined
that it is Artaxerxes' decree that marks the beginning of these prophetic
periods, we must now establish that the year in which he issued his decree
actually was 457 B.C.
Babylonian and
Persian dating methods
In the time of the
Persians, all events and documents were dated in terms of the day number, month
name or number, and year number of the current king's reign. For example, as we
have already noted, Ezra says that he left for Jerusalem on the first day of
month 1 of Artaxerxes' seventh year, arriving there on the first day of month 5
of the same year.
When a king died and
a new one took the throne, the remaining portion of that year was considered
the accession year of the new king and was not counted as or called the first
year of the new king's reign. Only the first full calendar year of a king's reign
was called his first year (see Figure 1). As can readily be seen, the accession
year could be long or short, depending on when the new king came to the throne.
To establish the
date of an event in terms of our calendar, scholars first had to determine the
succession of the kings and the length of their reigns. The lists of kings that
ancient writers provided are one source of such information. Another is the method
that Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein developed as they gathered the
information published in their useful book Babylonian Chronology: 626
B.C.-AD. 75. Parker and Dubberstein's method grew out of the fact that
thousands of tablets dated by their authors to the reigns of ancient Near
Eastern kings have been found. These two men suggested that by finding the
three or four tablets bearing the latest dates from each king's reign and the
three or four tablets bearing the earliest dates of each successor's, the
transition points between each reign might be pretty well established. Using
this method, scholars can calculate the month and sometimes almost the day of
the month that a king died and his successor took his place. In this way they
have been able to compile a list of the Babylonian and Persian kings together
with precise details as to when each came to the throne and how long each
ruled.
To assign B.C. dates
to the reigns of these kings, scholars had to take one more step; they had to
find a way to link the reigns of the kings to our B.C. scale. They established
this link by means of the tablets that record and date the eclipses that occurred
in the days of those kings. Most of these tablets describe in detail eclipses
that had already occurred, but at least one predicts an eclipse at that time
yet future; it was to occur in the seventh year of Cambyses. That they were
able even to predict eclipses reveals the high standard of astronomical science
these ancient people practiced.
As archeologists
have found and translated tablets describing eclipses, astronomers have been
able to calculate when in terms of our calendar those eclipses took place. Thus
guesswork has been eliminated and precise dates given to the reigns of these
ancient kings. In terms of chronology, the Babylonian and Persian periods are
among the very best documented periods of history. (The table below lists some
of the eclipses the tablets describe.)
The date for the
seventh year of Artaxerxes
With such a wealth
of information regarding the chronology of this period, we can with confidence
ascertain the B.C. date of the seventh year of Artaxerxes' reign.
Xerxes, the
predecessor of Artaxerxes, was murdered sometime between December 17, 465 B.C.,
and January 3, 464 B.C. The tablet bearing the latest known date from his reign
is dated to month 9 (which corresponds to December) of his twenty-first year of
reign. And the Elephantine papyri from Egypt contain the first known date
identified with Artaxerxes' reign the equivalent of our January 3, 464 B.C.
Since this date comes from records originating in Egypt, most scholars agree
that Xerxes died before the end of December, as it is hardly likely that news
of his death and Artaxerxes' succession would travel from Persia to Egypt in
three days. Thus it appears certain that Xerxes' death must be dated in late
December, 465 B.C.
While the Jews
followed a spring-to-spring calendar for their religious year, in time they
came to use a second calendar as well--much as many nations today have a fiscal
year as well as a calendar year. Just as the beginnings and endings of our
fiscal years differ by six months from those of our calendar years, the Jewish
fall-to-fall calendar differed by six months from the spring-to-spring
calendar. And much as the months of our fiscal and calendar years retain the
same names, the months of the spring-to-spring and fall-to-fall calendars
retained the same numbers. So while the spring-to-spring calendar began
with month 1 and ended with month 12, the fall-to-fall calendar began with
month 7 and ended with month 6 (see Figure 2).
With this
information we can construct a time line for the early years of Artaxerxes and
thus arrive at the all-important seventh year of his reign. We calculate that
year according to the Jewish fall-to-fall calendar the calendar Ezra was using
when he referred to Artaxerxes' decree (see the box on the opposite page).
Figure 3 shows that
Artaxerxes' seventh year began in 458 B.C. and ex tended into 457 B.C., and
that the dates Scripture records in connection with this decree--those for
Ezra's departure for Jerusalem and for his arrival there--fall well within 457
B.C.
It is interesting to
note that William Miller and his associates used a different method for
calculating which of our years corresponded to Artaxerxes' seventh year. Basing
their work on Ptolemy's Canon, they came up with the same date we have arrived
at above. This certainly is a gratifying reassurance as to the trust worthiness
of our position and should help to fortify our faith in the message we bear to
the world. As the apostle Peter declared: "We have not followed cunningly
devised fables" (2 Peter 1:16).
Then in 70 AD, 527
years later it (the sanctuary) was completely destroyed once again and has
never been rebuilt since then.
The sanctuary and
it's services were all precursors pointing to the realized sacrificial act
found in God's Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, the Messiah. So of course, after our Savior died the
temple veil was torn in two, and the need for the earthly sanctuary was no
longer.
But tell me
something-- this sacrificial system which in all reality had its start the
moment sin entered the world, was it over? Was sin gone? The only way for the
entire sacrificial system- the only way for the
need of sacrifice to be removed would be if sin was no more.
God has taken
mankind step by step through a process that points solely to the Savior and us
finding forgiveness in Him and Him alone without any other person involved. The
Way was pointed to, the Way was realized.
Read this-- talking about the New Jerusalem that will
exist after our Savior comes again and then ultimately brings His people back
to earth and makes it new--
Rev 21:22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God
Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
The Way realized,
then and only then when no temple would be needed any longer. Until that day
there would be a temple, there would be a sanctuary. But if that sanctuary
which was such a huge part of the life of God's people was no longer of
significance upon earth when our Savior died, where was the sanctuary that
would be trodden underfoot 2300 years?
Where was the
sanctuary at before it was erected upon earth under Moses' guidance?
Exo 25:40 And look that thou make them after their
pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.
Exo 26:30 And thou shalt rear up the tabernacle
according to the fashion thereof which was shewed thee in the mount.
Heb 8:2 A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true
tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man
Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of
heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the
tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the
pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
If our Savior did
away with the need for an earthly sanctuary it was because HE became the only
sacrifice needed from then on. Our Savior - all of the sacrificial offerings
ever made pointed to His great sacrifice- HIMSELF. No earthly sacrifice, no
symbolic sacrifice was ever needed again because our Savior died for us
becoming that Sacrifice. From then on
faith alone in that Sacrifice of Christ's would be needed. And our Savior left
earth after His resurrection and went to the HEAVENLY SANCTUARY!
Something was to
begin to happen in the HEAVENLY sanctuary after the 2300 year prophecy was up,
but what? How is it significant to us
here on earth? To understand this we HAVE to understand what was meant by the
cleansing of the sanctuary.
The cleansing of the
sanctuary-
Dan 8:14 And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and
three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.
More study on this
tomorrow by the grace of God our Lord and Savior!
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment