Grounded by God
Book of Daniel Series
April 16, 2025
Scripture: Daniel Chapter 9 (Part 1)
Introduction:
It’s nice when the opening introduction to a sermon is something that we call can relate to- the subject of being grounded.
How many parents here have grounded their children?
How many people here have been grounded by their parents?
When my mom grounded me, it wasn’t that bad. She didn’t remove my books or most of my toys, so me playing alone in my room was no big deal to me. Usually, the next day she would relent and release me from my grounding and go back to being an 80’s kid
However, when I lived with my dad and he grounded me to my room, he made me take everything out of my room except my bible and my school work, and that was it. I needed permission to leave my room to use the bathroom, and I was stuck in that room for entire time- not one minute of reprieve was ever given.
We all share a Father in heaven, and that Father falls in the middle of those two extremes. He will relent in his punishment when He sees honest repentance. Jonah and Nineveh is a great example of this.
However, there are other times when HE will really drop the hammer and make you serve out the entire sentence.
This is what Daniel and his fellow Hebrews in Babylon and now Medo-Persia are experiencing. God has in essence grounded them from living in their land for a very specific time, and as we will see in a moment, Daniel, through reading the scriptures, is realizing that this time is almost up, and it drives him to prayer for his people.
That’s where we are going to start out in our study of Daniel Chapter 9-
Daniel 9:1-2
Dan 9:1-3 In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, a Mede by birth, who was made king over the Chaldean kingdom?—? (2) in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the books according to the word of the LORD to the prophet Jeremiah that the number of years for the desolation of Jerusalem would be seventy.
Prayer
This morning we are going to start by looking into how Daniel chapter 9 this fits in the prophetic timeline by looking at the prophesy side of this chapter, and in two weeks when I speak again, look at Daniel’s intercessory prayer.
So we are going to look first at the end of the chapter to see exactly why God chose to keep the Hebrew People out of the Holy Land for 70 years.
We will begin by looking at exactly what Daniel was reading in Jeremiah-
I. The Prophetic Timeline
Daniel was most likely reading from Jeremiah 29 that the Hebrew’s would remain in captivity for 70 years
Why 70 years? What is the significance of 70 years?
Remember that prior to the exile, both the nations of Judah and Israel were in deep, deep sin-almost to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah. This was the time that Jeremiah was speaking to in his prophecies.
This blatant rebellion and refusal to listen to the prophets and turn from their wickedness finally caused God to act by allowing foreign nations to conquer them and take them out of the promised land.
Israel was taken to Assyria, and Judah to Babylon which eventually conquered Assyria also.
The survivors of Babylon’s conquest of the Holy Land were carried off to live in Babylon.
These people that were exiled were a mess
They watched family and friends be killed, many of them lived through the siege of Jerusalem which lasted over 3 years. These survivors of that siege lived through hell on earth because of their refusal to repent and turn from their wickedness.
They were starving to death, scared, and had no hope for their future.
Yet even during this punishment, God is gracious to them and instructs Jeremiah to send them the following message.
Jer 29:4-13 This is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles I deported from Jerusalem to Babylon: (5) “Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. (6) Find wives for yourselves, and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. (7) Pursue the well-being of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the LORD on its behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive.”
Verse 10
(10) For this is what the LORD says: “When seventy years for Babylon are complete, I will attend to you and will confirm my promise concerning you to restore you to this place.
This is echoed also in Jeremiah 25:11 which says this-
Jer 25:(11) This whole land will become a desolate ruin, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.
Now, why 70 years?-
The first thing I see is a spiritual reason, and a biblical example of this comes from the desert wanderings of the former Hebrew slaves of Egypt in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
In Numbers 13, God brings chosen people, recently freed from Egyptian slavery to the border of the Promised Land. Moses sends out 12 spies to check out the land that God had given them.
The problem came when they returned. 10 of the 12 spies have what I call a “slave mentality” meaning that even after witnessing God’s power and all of the miracles HE did in freeing them from Egypt coupled with their entire Sinai Desert experience, they doubted God’s ability to help them take that land.
They had a learned hopelessness through generations of being a slave, and they couldn’t break it.
Even after everything they experienced watching God deliver them from Egypt, they failed to trust and believe that HE would help them conquer the promised land.
God is so angry at their unbelief that God declared that every male over 20 years old would not enter the promised land except for Joshua and Caleb the two spies who trusted God and gave a good report.
That’s a powerful lesson for you and I this morning- never doubt God’s Word especially when it’s been proven by HIS power.
Doubt is the thief of intimacy with God. Nothing will delay or even stop God’s presence and provision like doubt can.
That same principle is being applied here to these exiles. They had the same problem the former slaves had- there was a part of them that was hardwired and so contaminated by their past that they couldn’t comprehend or accept the freedom God was giving them.
However, their children had not been exposed to that past. So God waited until their children were of age to take over.
The second reason for the 70 years is seen at the end of Daniel 9-
Dan 9:24 Seventy weeks (of years) are decreed about your people and your holy city?—
The reason God is in essence grounding this nation for 70 years comes next-
to bring the rebellion to an end,
to put a stop to sin,
to atone for iniquity,
to bring in everlasting righteousness,
to seal up vision and prophecy,
and to anoint the most holy place.
Let me break this down a little.
In the 21st Century, when it comes to numbers and years, people of western ancestry think in divisions of 10.
For example, we refer to individual decades when talking about the past.
The 60’s as the hippie and Vietnam era, 70’s as the disco era, and of course- the epic decade known as the 80’s as having the best music ever on this planet.
Generation X baby! We always look fondly back on our teenage years.
However, Old Testament Hebrews don’t think in groups of ten- they think in blocks of 7’s.
Everything in their religious calendar and beliefs revolve around the number 7, which is considered in the Hebrew belief system and mindset as the number of perfection or completeness.
One of these 7’s revolves around something called the Sabbath year which occurred every 7 years.
This was a command from God to the nation of Israel during the Old Testament concerning this Sabbath Year-
It’s found in Leviticus 25
Lev 25:3-5 You may sow your field for six years, and you may prune your vineyard and gather its produce for six years. (4) But there will be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land in the seventh year, a Sabbath to the LORD: you are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard. (5) You are not to reap what grows by itself from your crop, or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. It is to be a year of complete rest for the land.
This was a command from God that had a sensible reason for existing.
This scripture was giving over 1300 years before Christ, during what historians call the Bronze age. The people who lived during this time had very little knowledge of the effects of long term farming on single pieces of land as prior to being slaves their ancestors lived a largely nomadic existence.
God was leading them to the Promised Land where they would be given very specific blocks of land that their families would live on for generations. God needed to give them guidance on sustainable farming, and this 7-year cycle of allowing the land to rest was key to that.
This regulation would help God’s people keep their land from losing all of it’s nutrients and to keep the soil fertile for the long haul.
We saw the results of bad farming here in America in the 1930’s- it was called the Dust bowl when over farming and drought combined to ruin the topsoil in dozens of states leading the widespread crop failure to the point of the topsoil just blowing away in the wind because it was so depleted.
That’s the reason for the 7 year sabbath rest for the land.
However, in their 490-year history prior to the exile, this was never enforced in Israel.
Therefore, God also declared that if Israel ever got so bad that He would have to evict them from the land for time such as what happened in the exile, this would happen-
Lev 26:34-35 “Then the land will make up for its Sabbath years during the time it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and make up for its Sabbaths. (35) As long as it lies desolate, it will have the rest it did not have during your Sabbaths when you lived there.
So, for 490 years they were in the promised land, they never let the land have a sabbath rest.
What is 490 divided by 7?
70 years. The verse says 70 weeks, but in the prophetic language weeks and years can be a little interchangeable, and it’s mostly a translation issue. I’ll get into that in a little bit.
That’s why the exile to Babylon and then Medo-Persia lasted 70 years.
Mind blown?
See how the God through the scriptures is incredibly consistent in telling the same truth throughout thousands of years with different authors but the same HOLY SPIRIT inspiring all of them.
If this last part didn’t do it, this will blow your mind.
Another prophetic timestamp is seen in the last few verses of Daniel 9.
Look at verses 25-26 referring to the anointed one being cut off.
Dan 9:25-26 Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an Anointed One, the ruler, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with a plaza and a moat, but in difficult times. (26) After those sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the coming ruler will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come with a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations are decreed.
This is a direct prophecy to Jesus being rejected by the Jewish people and being crucified.
What isn’t immediately obvious- It also gives an exact time when this will happen.
How?
In order to interpret this prophecy, we first need a start time to measure this out.
Now, a lot of people point to Isaiah 44:28 when the Persian King Cyrus orders the return of the exiles to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
Which by the way- Isaiah prophesied the name of a person who wouldn’t be born for hundreds of years, that would be the king of an empire that didn’t exist yet.
That’s another Mind melt in this chapter
Continuing-
Ezra and Nehemiah tell us there was a lot of opposition to that rebuilding of the temple and the city by the people living in the Holy Land at that time.
The cause of this resistance came from the people who were already living there.
As was the practice of conquering nations, Babylon, then Persia had moved their own people into that land and those people didn’t want the Hebrews coming back and kicking them out, so they resisted everything they were doing.
The work on the rebuilding of the city walls was stopped for a while.
So you can’t really use Cyrus’ prophecy as the starting point to this prophecy.
You need to use the date of the time when the walls were finished.
That is seen during the reign of Artaxerxes I in 444 BC.
So we have a math problem to figure out, and I’ve printed it out so you can follow as I go through this problem.
So refer to the handout which is pretty much just a printout of this part of the sermon.
Now, remember ancient Hebrews think in blocks of 7 not blocks of 10 like we do. That’s the first clue in figuring this out.
In the Christian Standard Bible, which has become my primary bible, it says 7 weeks, and 62 weeks. With respect to the translators, it would have been better to translate this exactly as written in the Hebrew which says “7 sevens, and 62 sevens.”
This is a word problem that you saw in math class. How do we find the date it’s referring to?
So, what the scripture is telling us-
Multiply the seven 7’s: 7x7= 49.
Then multiply the Sixty Two 7’s 62x7=434
Add them together for 483 years.
That’s step one.
However, there is an additional caveat to this-
Ancient people followed the lunar calendar not the solar or Julian calendar we do today.
So in order to make this conversion, we have to use the days involved and convert them to the modern calendar.
? Use prophetic years (360 lunar calendar days):
o 483 years × 360 days = 173,880 days.
o Convert to modern days: 173,880 ÷ 365.25 ˜ 476 modern years.
? Now use the date of the proclamation from Artaxerxes I-
? From 445 BC: 444 - 476 = -31 (31 AD).
What is the significance of that?
Daniel’s prophecy predicts the year when Jesus was crucified. (the anointed one i.e. the Messiah being cut off)
Mind blown yet?
God is showing off a little by giving us these predictive prophecies to show us that HE is not just the Almighty over the past and present but that HE is also the Almighty over the future.
These predictive prophecies also show us that even when HE has to “ground us” per se, it isn’t just because God gets off on punishing us-
It’s because He sees our future self- the finished product of working out our salvation with fear and trembling until that image of Christ shines brightly.
God will use whatever it takes to get us to that point.
Heb 12:5-6 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him, (6) for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives.
Verse 10-
Heb 12:10-11 For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. (11) No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Our God is a good God, a loving Father, and a Faithful mentor and friend. He has given us predictive prophecy to bolster our faith and trust in HIM, and to show us that no matter how dark it gets in our lives…
In closing, I want to encourage you this morning.
Is there something in your life that is very uncomfortable? Does it feel like God is placing a weight on you that you cannot carry?
If so, it’s a good thing. God is squeezing you so you can see what comes out of you-
Is it anger?
Is it rage?
Is it swearing?
Is it seeking a comfort that is outside of him?
If so, thank God for showing us our shortcomings and sin.
As we close in prayer, repent of that, so that HE can come and take the place of that sin, and you will be made more and more in the image of Jesus.
Prayer
