Sermons - Cornerstone Christian Fellowship

From Time To Time - Part Four

Sep 10, 2023 by: John Herbert | Series: From Time to Time

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Da 9:24 “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.

We will continue to look at the set times in which God brings to pass His pre-determined purpose.

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Sunday September 10th 2023
From Time to Time – Part 4

1). Da 9:20 Now while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God, 21 yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering. 22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, “O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand. 23 At the beginning of your supplications the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved; therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision: 24 “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy. 25 “Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times. 26 “And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.

We had seen in our study last time that God had given a specific timeframe for the duration of the Babylonian captivity, seventy years. And this precise time God had given through Jeremiah, whose writings Daniel had been reading. And God had promised that at the end of the seventy years He would do two things. He would punish the king of Babylon and his nation, ‘I will curse him who curses you’, and He would ‘visit’ His people to make it possible for them to return to the land covenanted to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God’s promise to do these two things was not conditional. What the Jewish people did or didn’t do as the seventy years ended was really of no consequence. God’s purpose in this was to demonstrate His faithfulness once again to that which He has spoken, and through the fulfillment of His promise for the seventy years, He had foreshadowed that which would be fulfilled at the conclusion of another specific period of time in a day yet future, when He would again punish the king of Babylon and visit His chosen people to return them to the land.
	a). We had also seen last time that only a remnant of the whole house of Israel taken into captivity, first by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonians, chose to return to the land at the end of the seventy years. And even though God had visited His people, and some had returned to the land, and Daniel had originally hoped for the return of the Theocracy, the Times of the Gentiles continued. There was no return to the Theocracy, the glory remained absent, and most Jews chose to stay within the confines of the Babylonian kingdom, that had then become the empire of the Medes and Persians, and then the Greeks etc. An extremely large geographical area. And so, at the time of the Lord’s first Advent the majority of Jews had remained living for generations, outside of the land of Israel, with only a remnant in the land itself, under Roman occupation.
	b). And understanding this geographical distribution of the Jews over a long period of time will easily help us correctly identify the wise men from the gospel accounts – Mt 2:1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”

It will enable us to understand the scene recorded in Acts Chapter 2 – 
Acts 2:5 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”

And it will enable us to correctly identify the Ethiopian eunuch from – 
Acts 8:26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.

All of these we can identify as Jews, the descendants of those Jews who did not return at the end of the Babylonian captivity, but remained scattered among the Gentile nations, where they had multiplied and thrived. And such a situation has remained even down to today, with the majority of Jews, worldwide, still being found out among the nations and not in the land of Israel. And knowing that the purpose for the Jews being scattered among the nations is to bring them to repentance, will explain every antisemitic act, persecution, and pogrom, including the holocaust, that has befallen them ever since. God remains true to His Word.
	c). And so, since the time when the glory of God left the temple in Jerusalem during the Babylonian captivity, Israel has remained separated from the Theocracy and the presence of God, continuing to be scattered among the Gentile nations as the Times of the Gentiles continues.
	d). And this of course was the situation that existed at the time of the Lord’s first Advent. Although there was a Jewish nation in the land covenanted to Abraham, Isaac and, Jacob at the time of the Lord’s Advent, the nation was in subjection to the Roman Empire, being governed by a pagan emperor. A direct consequence of their past actions. And Israel’s condition with respect to being God’s adopted firstborn son but separated by sin from a Theocracy would be attested to in the manner of Christ’s appearance to the nation – Ro 8:3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin…..

And the way we should understand what is meant by the phrase ‘sinful flesh’, is simply the physical body apart from the glory. Christ was born King of the Jews and came with the offer of the Kingdom of the heavens, but the Christ had no covering of glory, witnessed through His physical appearance during His ministry, and graphically portrayed by His naked body on the cross at His crucifixion. In Moses’ day, the glory had filled the tabernacle in the wilderness denoting the presence of God with His people. But the glory did not fill the temple in Jerusalem, even though God in the person of Son was present. And as the veil of the temple was torn in two, so the absence of the glory in the temple was obvious for all to see – Mt 27:51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom……..

God had made His ‘tabernacle’ with the Jews as the glory filled the tabernacle in the wilderness. God was present in the midst of His chosen people, and remained so until the glory and therefore God’s presence left the temple and the earth during the Babylonian captivity because of Israel’s continual rejection of God and His purpose for them.
	f). At the Lord’s first Advent God again ‘tabernacled’ with His people in the person of Son, but apart from a Theocracy and therefore apart from the glory. However, both, the Theocracy and the glory, were at hand while Christ the King remained in their midst and the opportunity for repentance continued - Mt 3:1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the LORD; Make His paths straight.’ ”

Mt 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

But, with a somewhat disappointing inevitability, the Jews true to their past actions, once again rejected God and His purpose for them. A climactic rejection resulting in the crucifixion of their King and the wholehearted embrace of the Gentile world over which they were supposed to rule –
 Jn 19:14 Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” 15 But they cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!”

Mt 27:25 And all the people answered and said, “His blood be on us and on our children.”

And the enormity of what national Israel had rejected was uncompromisingly revealed through the naked Christ nailed to a tree and an empty void in the temple behind the torn veil. Perhaps a final comment on the spiritual bankruptcy of the nation, and their ‘house’ left desolate. God in the person of Son left the earth again and returned to the farthest recesses of the North, where the Son would sit at the right hand of the Father, until…..24 “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.

Until the seventy weeks, a time seven times greater than the Babylonian captivity is completed. Sixty-nine of those weeks were completed with the Lord’s crucifixion, just as Gabriel had told Daniel, 26 “And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; [here in time is where we find the dispensation of the church] And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.

God’s prophetic clock stopped at this point, with Messiah being cut off, leaving the final seven years of the full four hundred and ninety years still to come. And it is these final seven years that are spoken of in the second half of Daniel 9:26. A time when another captivity within the final form of the Babylonian kingdom, which had begun with Nebuchadnezzar, is brought to its earth-shattering conclusion in the days of the prince who is to come, the Antichrist. As God remains true to His Word.
g). God has spoken with respect to this and as such there is nothing more to be said – Le 26:23 “And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me, 24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins. 25 And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. 27 “And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, 28 then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. 29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.

Nu 23:19 “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

2). And with that last verse in mind, let’s now continue with – 
Mt 12:38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” 39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

Mt 16:1 Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed.

It was following the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, having rejected a sign relating to the Sabbath, recorded in Matthew Chapter 12, the terminal point in the offer of the Kingdom of the heavens to the Jews, that the Lord drew the attention of the scribes and Pharisees to the only sign that would then remain to them, the sign of the prophet Jonah. And this sign, with Jonah as a type of Christ, pointed to the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection, with the resurrection validating the Lord’s identity and Deity, and therefore the veracity of the signs He had previously shown the Jewish people that they had rejected.
	a). And then in Matthew Chapter 16, the Lord referenced the sign of the prophet Jonah again, in relation to the Pharisees and Sadducees not being able to discern the signs of the times.
	b). And by combining these two references to Jonah we will realize that what is pictured through the prophet’s experience clearly points to what could only be the inevitable outcome of national Israel’s total rejection of God and His purpose for them, shockingly demonstrated in the killing of His Son, the heir to the vineyard. As God remained true to His word.
	c). Because of Israel’s rejection of the message and the Messenger, the cross became inevitable, there was no other direction that Israel’s rejection of the Christ could take them. But through the prophetic record of Jonah being three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish and then being raised from the dead, the resurrection of Christ on the third day following His crucifixion was also an inevitable certainty. An irrefutable proof of His identity and purpose – Acts 17:30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

And for national Israel, that pictured through Jonah, now as a type of Israel, going down into the ship, the mighty tempest and Jonah being cast into the sea, revealed the inevitable consequence for the killing of their King. This was the sign they were to see through Jonah. The only sign, a dual sign, that remained for them. 
	d). In fact, the inevitability of the Lord’s crucifixion and what must then subsequently follow for the Jewish people, witnessed in Jonah, had already been set in the foundation – Ge 4:3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. 4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 6 So the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” 8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?” 10 And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground. 11 So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.” 13 And Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.” 15 And the LORD said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.

As we know, Cain having killed, Abel provides the foundational type for national Israel’s killing of the Christ. What we will notice from the emboldened section of our verses is that Cain’s initial offering was rejected but God offered him another opportunity to put matters right, ‘if you do well, will you not be accepted?’ Let’s now compare Scripture with Scripture as we keep this in mind and return to the parable of the vinedressers – Mt 21:34 Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. 35 And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. 37 Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.

The actions of the vinedressers towards the owner’s servants who were sent, ‘that they might receive its fruit’, would equate with Cain’s offering being rejected. Throughout their history Israel had refused to bring the correct offering to the Lord, despite every prophet giving them the opportunity to do well and be accepted – 1 Sa 15:22 So Samuel said: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.

Mal 1:6 “A son honors his father, And a servant his master. If then I am the Father, Where is My honor? And if I am a Master, Where is My reverence?
Says the LORD of hosts To you priests who despise My name. Yet you say, ‘In what way have we despised Your name?’ 7 “You offer defiled food on My altar, But say, ‘In what way have we defiled You?’ By saying, ‘The table of the LORD is contemptible.’ 8 And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice,
Is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, Is it not evil?

Now, according to the parable of the vinedressers, ‘last of all he sent his son to them’. And the son of the owner of the vineyard who was sent can only be in the antitype, the Lord Jesus Christ at His first Advent. And the Son came to a rebellious people with the simple offer, ‘if you do well, will you not be accepted?’ - Mt 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

However, rather than do well, the religious leaders’ countenance fell, they looked down and burned with anger, just as Cain had done – 
Mk 11:17 Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’  18 And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching.

And just as surely as Cain killed his brother Abel in his anger, so national Israel, under the direction of their religious leaders, the vinedressers from the parable, killed their Brother, the Christ, in their anger – Jn 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

1 Jn 3:11 For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, 12 not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous.

And then to view this same matter from a slightly different perspective, we can continue by reading some verses in Mark Chapter 11, that were recorded just prior to the ones we have looked at – Mk 11:12 Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. 13 And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again. [for the age]” And His disciples heard it.

The fig tree is used as a metaphor for the nation of Israel, and as we see the fig tree has no fruit, only leaves. And this we can relate back to the parable of the vinedressers. The owner of the vineyard’s servants, the prophets, had been sent looking for fruit, and found none. And then the owner’s son was sent, and no fruit was found then either, just leaves. The leaves, without fruit, parallels the rejected offering given by Cain. This is what we are to see through the Lord’s encounter with the fig tree.
	e). And not only this, but we can also go back further still into the foundation once again – Ge 2:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

It is no coincidence that fig leaves were used in the Garden by Adam and the Woman to try to provide a covering for the lost glory. This is set in the foundation this way to enable us to understand the picture of the fig tree with leaves and no fruit that we have looked at from Mark Chapter 11. Since the end of the Theocracy and the departure of the glory, Israel had sought to cover themselves with ‘fig leaves’, rather than confess their guilt and allow the Lord to deal with their sin. They had sought self-righteousness rather than the righteousness that comes by faith to the saving of the soul – Mt 15:8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. 9 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

The opportunity to ‘do well’ by bringing to the Lord the correct offering, fruit born of repentance, as with Cain, was rejected. The death of one Brother at the hands of His brother, was inevitable, and so would be the consequences for this death - Ge 4:11 So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.” 13 And Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.”

Cain was driven ‘from the face of the ground’ to become a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and in AD70 the remnant of Israel was driven from the land covenanted to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to remain a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, with a seemingly endless historical record of the deaths of millions of Jews who have been found there. A foreshadowing of what still awaits the Jewish people during the last half of the tribulation. As God remains true to His Word.
	f). To conclude our study today on an encouraging note though, let’s remember what God had said to Cain - 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you shall rule over it.

Not doing well, not repenting, would follow Cain throughout the rest of his life, and sin, like a predatory animal would lie in wait for him, but the opportunity to do well was not rescinded and in the end Cain would ‘rule over’ his sin. He would repent and bring the correct offering. Cain’s repentance is not recorded in the Scriptures, but is guaranteed to have happened, as the antitype demands it – Mt 23:38 See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ ”

The day will come when national Israel says, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’, and that will only happen following repentance. And repentance and deliverance must come, because in the Garden, having rejected the fig leaves, God then provided His own covering for His fallen creation, based on death, and shed blood, that would ensure the return of the lost glory and the fulfillment of God’s purpose for the creation of Man within the perfectly ordered ages that are framed by the Word of God. A purpose for Man that cannot be separated from God’s purpose for His Son, the earth, angels, and the universe at large as well. As God remains true to His Word.

We will continue with this next time if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.

From Time To Time - Part Four

Refresh A Recap from the Sermon

From Time To Time - Part Four

Sep 10, 2023

Speaker: John Herbert

Series: From Time to Time

Category: Sunday Morning

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A Recap from the Sermon