Sermon - A Vision of the End Times - Daniel 8:15-27

As we're in the book of Daniel, and we're reading these big sections of text as we finish the second half of this book, and as we've walked through these visions of the beasts and the various sizes and numbers of horns and all these different things, This book, I don't want you to get distracted or lost in the minutia of what you're hearing, what we're reading together, what we're studying.

Because, you know, the central premise of this book, which we will see again today, is that sin, rebellion against God, the breaking of our communion with him, this leads to desolation.

This leads to the word desolation actually in our text last week kind of can refer to like it's transgression, it's numbness, it's brokenness, it's a void where there's meant to be life.

Sin, rebellion against God, the breaking of our relationship with him leads to darkness and to death and to desolation but there is a king coming who's going to restore the sanctuary.

There's a king coming who's going to restore communion.

And like we've seen as we've gone through this book, biblical prophecy and apocalyptic literature in specific is like a mountain range.

You look at it from far away, it looks like one thing.

All those mountains look flat.

And as you get closer to them and start moving into them, you realize there's lots of different mountains here and there's lots of distance between them.

And that's what's unfolding.

So just like we're seeing with the beasts and the horns, These can refer to, in some cases, multiple different things.

But so too with the coming of the king who's going to restore the sanctuary.

Jesus has come.

The king has arrived.

The kingdom has been inaugurated.

But it's going to be consummated.

We're waiting for the king to come again and finally restore the sanctuary.

So the kingdom is now breaking into the world through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God's son, the everlasting king.

But we still wait.

It's the mountain range.

And in ancient Israel, they didn't see that coming.

They thought the Messiah would come and that would be it.

Nobody thought the Messiah would come in stages, even though that's, as you look back on it, clearly prophesied in the Old Testament.

And so we're walking through this, and I just hope you're being given eyes to see and ears to hear.

The reason Renaissance matters, and I hope you're seeing as we're talking about this conference and just inviting you as strongly as we can, encouraging you to make a small investment of time and money, and even if you don't get it, just come to it.