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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty

The Prophetic Timeline of Daniel 11

Well, good morning everyone and happy Sabbath.

I trust that your hearts have been drawn closer to God through the music this morning.

Let's bow our heads for 1 more prayer and we'll get started.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this Sabbath morning that we can come together and to open up your word.

And I pray in a special way that you would be in our presence, speak through me, and may your name be glorified.

As you've noticed from the bulletin, the title of the sermon for today is the prophetic timeline of Daniel 11.

Daniel 11 is in my estimation 1 of the most fascinating chapters in the entire Bible.

And if I had 1 chapter in the Bible to prove the veracity of God's Word and the truth and the faithfulness of the sure word of prophecy, I would pick Daniel 11.

And obviously we're not gonna go through every detail in the next few minutes, but the detail in Daniel 11 proves the truth and the faithfulness of the sure word of prophecy.

And I want to read a quote to you from Letter 103, 1904, also found in Volume 13 of the manuscript releases, page 394.

Ellen White tells us, we have no time to lose.

The world is stirred with the spirit of war.

Soon the scenes of trouble spoken of in the prophecies will take place.

The prophecy in the 11th of Daniel has nearly reached its complete fulfillment.

And what we're going to look at today is what is the prophetic timeline of Daniel 11?

And what does that mean for us as God's people today?

In order to understand the significance of Daniel 11, we go to Daniel chapter 10.

Daniel chapter 10, 11, and 12 are tied together as 1 vision, 1 thought.

And in Daniel chapter 10 verse 1 we see that Daniel has a vision given to him in the third year of Cyrus king of Persia which is somewhere between 536 and 535 BC and it says that this is what Daniel says he says the thing was true but the time appointed was long and he he understood the thing and had understanding of the vision.

What's important to realize is that Daniel 10 comes immediately after chapter 9 and in Daniel chapter 9 it is revealed to Daniel the timing of the restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem and the coming of the Messiah with respect to the 2300 day prophecy in Daniel 8.

And in Daniel 8, Daniel says, I did not understand the vision and he fainted.

And in chapter 9, the thing that he understood was the first part of the 2300 days, or the 70 weeks, the beginning through the first 490 years and when Christ would come.

But there was something that Gabriel didn't reveal to Daniel in chapter 9 and that was what was going to happen at the end of the vision of the 2300 days.

And so then in Daniel chapter 10 we see that Daniel is fasting, mourning, and praying.

This is taking place in the third year of Cyrus, between 536 and 535 BC.

What's interesting is that in 537, Cyrus had given the initial decree to start the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

And Daniel knew from the vision that he had that that was key to the beginning of the 2300 day prophecy, to the 70 week prophecy, and to the coming of the Messiah.

And right about this time the Samaritans send a false report saying that the Jews are causing all sorts of trouble and that they want to turn against the kingdom of Cyrus.

And so now Cyrus is considering whether or not to backtrack on the decree to rebuild Jerusalem and Daniel knows that if that happens it's going to mess up God's plan to restore and build Jerusalem for the Messiah to come and ultimately for the sanctuary to be cleansed.

So Daniel, notice what he does in verses 2 and 3, he's in mourning for 3 full weeks, he eats no pleasant bread and so on and so forth.

What's interesting is in Daniel chapter 9, Daniel begins to pray to understand, Lord I thought it was only going to be 70 years in Babylon, what's this 2300 years that you're talking about?

And within 2 minutes if you record the length of the prayer in Daniel 9, Gabriel shows up and gives him the answer.

But in Daniel chapter 10, it doesn't happen quite so quickly.

Daniel realizes that there's trouble and he prays for 3 full weeks And then you see in verses 4 through 7 at the end of this time that a heavenly being appears.

And I'm going to go fast through this, this is just an introduction.

And You see the description of this heavenly being in verse 6, eyes like lamps of fire, feet like polished brass.

This is the same description of Jesus in the book of Revelation.

So in Daniel chapter 9, Gabriel shows up to help Daniel understand what's going to happen at the beginning of the 2300 day prophecy.

But in Daniel chapter 10, as Daniel receives a vision, it's Jesus Christ who shows up.

So if Jesus is the 1 who shows up, how important do you think this prophecy is?

And then as you go on down, then we see that an angel shows up after Daniel has the vision, or to help Daniel understand the vision that he's seen.

And what's interesting is in verses 12 and 13, Daniel is told that this angel contended with the prince of the king of Persia which we believe to be Cyrus, this was the king.

So for 21 days unbeknownst to Daniel this angel, this heavenly being after Christ appears tells Daniel I've been contending with the prince of the king of Persia for 21 days.

Because it was in the hands of Cyrus to get the 2300 day prophecy going.

And yet Cyrus is under the influence of a false report and the work of the devil to keep this from happening.

And unbeknownst to Daniel, Daniel's praying for 3 full weeks.

And during that entire time, the angel contends with Cyrus.

And at the end of that 3 weeks, guess who showed up to take care of business?

And we're not going to do a Bible study, but Michael is Jesus Christ.

Finally, after 3 weeks, Christ says, I'm gonna answer that prayer.

He's been so persistent, so steadfast, I'm going to come and answer his prayer.

And then in verse 14, the angel tells Daniel, now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days for yet the vision is for many days." Which reminds us of the many days of the 2300 days.

And in verse 1 of Daniel chapter 10, Daniel understands that the time appointed for this vision was long.

Daniel chapter 9, beginning of the 2300 days, Gabriel comes immediately when Daniel prays.

And Daniel was basing his prayer on the study of prophecy from Jeremiah that it would be 70 years of captivity.

He starts praying, Gabriel comes right away and answers his prayer.

Daniel chapter 10, when there's more trouble and there's risk of the decree being taken back, Daniel prays for 3 full weeks and it takes 3 weeks of persistence for Michael to come, and with his strength and power, he turns the heart of the King of Cyrus so that that prophecy can continue unabated.

As we go down to the end of Daniel 11 and we see certain things that need to take place to get to the final events, do you think that two-minute prayers are going to get the job done at the end of time.

Look how long it took Daniel to get his answer to understand what the vision was for the end of time.

Two-minute prayer gave him an understanding for the beginning of the vision, but not for the end.

So a practical point for us, we need to be steadfast and fervent in prayer to understand what is coming upon us.

And so what we see then is after Daniel is steadfast and persistent for 3 weeks, Michael, who is Jesus Christ, turns the heart of the King of Persia and then from there the angel can tell Daniel the prophetic timeline that will take place from that time down to the end of the world.

So what I'm going to do and we're just going to run through this briefly, we're going to look at Daniel 11 and see the sequence of events.

Now Daniel 11 follows the same sequence of Daniel 2, 7, and 8.

Daniel 8 starts with the kingdom of Medo-Persia, so does Daniel 11.

And then we have the kingdom of Greece from 331 to 168.

And in Daniel 11 you can see the division of the 4 kingdoms.

Pagan Rome then reigns from 168 AD to about 476, and that's where I'll leave things off for now.

But in essence, without going into really any of the detail, verses 1 through 30 of Daniel chapter 11 take you from 539 BC to 476 AD with the fall of pagan Rome.

That's Daniel chapter 11 verses 1 through 30.

And there's some familiar concepts that come out here.

1 of the other things that's key is from the division of the 4 kingdoms in Greece come the king of the north and the king of the south.

And that was the Assyrian empire to the north, the Seleucid empire, and the southern empire was Ptolemy in Egypt.

That was the king of the north and the king of the south.

And then as you continue on, pagan Rome, as it replaces Greece, becomes the king of the north.

And in the beginning part of Daniel 11, in the first few verses, we also see the concept of the glorious land.

The glorious land in verse 16 is Palestine, and what's interesting is that the king of the north and the king of the south fought many of their battles in that region of the glorious land where God's people resided Which gives us the idea that the battles or the conflicts between the king of the north and the king of the south through time involved God's people.

Now what I'm going to do now is focus in on the part of this prophecy that more directly involves us.

In verse 31 we have a transition point in this prophecy and this is very similar to Daniel chapter 8 verse 11.

So we see these concepts being repeated in the book, but in Daniel chapter 11 verse 31, this is speaking of the king of the north, And in verse 30 we see that pagan Roman 476 was destroyed.

Verse 31 says, "...arms shall stand on his part, they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate." So here we see God's sanctuary being polluted, the daily being taken away, and the abomination of desolation being set up.

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The Prophetic Timeline of Daniel 11

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