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Oct. 19, 2021
The Time to Favor Zion Has Come (Walk Thru the Bible Week 38)
After seventy years of exile, singing the songs of Zion in a foreign land and wondering if God would ever favor them again, the children of Israel witnessed the end of the Babylonian empire. The new Persian king, Cyrus, allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. It was a moment filled with joy but also sorrow for all they had lost and now must rebuild.
This episode complements the daily readings from our Walk Thru the Bible reading plan for October 18-24, covering Daniel 6-9; Various Psalms.
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Transcript
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Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12-month journey through the most exciting
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book on the planet.
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It will transform your life one page at a time.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible
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to life.
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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.
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Well, hey there, welcome back.
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This is Walk Through the Bible Week 38.
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You're reading this week in the Daily Bible, the dates of September 17 through the 23rd,
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or the pages 1200 and 2 to 1238.
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This week, we get to spend some time back in the Psalms.
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What a relief after all of this judgment and all of this hardship.
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What a blessed relief it will be.
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But first, let me review last week.
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This week, we spent the whole week in the Book of Job.
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And I hope that you read Job 38 through the very end of the book where God speaks and
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shares his greatness.
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And we begin to see the world through God's perspective and what a magnificent God he
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is and how our suffering then comes into perspective once we see the greatness of God.
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So this week, now we're going to move on with our story.
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So the people of Israel are now and still in exile, taken first the kingdom of Israel
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by Assyria, now the kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians.
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And they write some beautiful Psalms during this time where you can really feel their
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heart and their anguish and their longing for Zion.
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So let's take a look at a few of the Psalms this week, Psalm 74, verse 1 through 2.
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Oh God, why have you rejected us forever?
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Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pastor?
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Remember the nation you purchased long ago, the people of your inheritance whom you redeemed.
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Now what is the Psalmist talking about here, but they were redeemed from slavery in Egypt.
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Their bondage was, you could say, paid for, but they were delivered.
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They were redeemed.
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And here it uses the word purchase because often with redemption there is a price.
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And so let's look on then in that same Psalm, a few verses later, verses 4 and actually verse
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7 and 9.
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Your foes roared in the place where you met with us.
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Where is that?
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That's in the temple in Jerusalem.
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It says your enemy roared into the temple.
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Verse 7.
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They burned your sanctuary to the ground.
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They defiled the dwelling place of your name.
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Verse 9.
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We are given no signs from God, no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this
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will be.
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You see they felt all alone without a prophet, without anyone giving them any direction, any
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words from the Lord.
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And they didn't know for how long.
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And of course this isn't 100% accurate because Daniel the prophet is still alive and in Babylon.
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And God did say through Jeremiah that it would last 70 years.
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Nevertheless, when you're in these situations you feel like I'm all alone.
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Where are you God?
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I have no idea what's ahead.
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Coming down to verse 19, it's a beautiful verse, do not hand over the life of your dove
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to wild beast.
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That the people of God are depicted here as this lovely precious dove.
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And the psalmist is saying don't turn us over to the wild beast.
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Now looking at Psalm 79 verse 1.
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Oh God, the nations have invaded your inheritance.
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They have defiled your holy temple.
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They have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.
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They have left the dead bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the sky.
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This is the destruction that they had seen.
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But they're saying here God it's to your inheritance, your land.
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They defiled your temple.
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And they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.
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They have killed your servants.
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So they're letting the Lord know you've been violated here, not just us.
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Now I want to look at Psalm 89 because this Psalm is really packed with some great stuff.
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So I want to read to you in verse 3.
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Now the title that the editors of my Bible put over this Psalm is about remembering the
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covenant with David.
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And this is what the psalmist here is reminding the Lord of his promises to David.
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And so let's read it.
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It's starting in verse 3.
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It says, You said, speaking here to the Lord, I have made a covenant with my chosen one.
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I have sworn to David my servant.
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I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations.
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And then jumping down to verse 19, the writer begins to remember all the things that God
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said to David.
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Once you spoke in a vision to your faithful people and you said, so here he's quoting
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God, I have bestowed strength on a warrior.
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I have raised up a young man from among the people.
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I have found David my servant.
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With my sacred oil I have anointed him.
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My hand will sustain him.
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Surely my arm will strengthen him.
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The enemy will not get the better of him.
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The wicked will not oppress him.
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I will crush his foes before him and strike down his adversaries.
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My faithful love will be with him and through my name his horn will be exalted.
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I will set his hand over the sea, his right hand over the rivers.
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He will call out to me, you are my Father, my God, the Rock, my Savior.
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And I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.
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I will maintain my love to him forever.
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And my covenant with him I will never fail.
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I will establish his line forever.
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His throne as long as the heavens endure.
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So here the psalmist has just repeated the story of how God chose David, how he made
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him a warrior, how he anointed him, how that he made these promises to David, that his
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love would be with him forever and his covenant would never fail with David.
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Then going on he said, this is what the Lord says though about David, if his servants forsake
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my law and do not follow my statutes, if they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands,
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I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging.
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But I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.
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So here he is saying, even if the descendants of David sin, and I punish them for their
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sin, still I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.
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I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered.
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Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness, and I will not lie to David that his line
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will continue forever and his throne endure before me like the sun.
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So the psalmist is saying, God you said, even if we sin and even if you punish us, that
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your promises are still true, that you are faithful to your covenant.
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And then starting here in verse 38 it says, but you have rejected, you have spurned, you
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have been very angry with your anointed one, and it goes on and on about, you have rebuked
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what you have done to us, O God.
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And then in verse 46 that section ends with, how long, Lord, will you hide yourself forever?
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And then verse 49 he finally says, Lord, where is your former great love which in your faithfulness
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you swore to David?
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How many times have you felt like the psalmist here, where you have cried out to the Lord
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and you have reminded him of his promises to you?
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And finally you say, Lord, where is your faithfulness?
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Are you going to fulfill your promises?
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We can so relate with the psalmist here.
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We can relate with the children of Israel during this time of not knowing where are
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you, God?
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They were in the midst of exile.
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And then a very famous portion of scripture we find this week we read in Psalm 137, verses
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1 through 6.
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By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
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There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs.
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Our tormentors demanded songs of joy.
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They said, sing us one of the songs of Zion.
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But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
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If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
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May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth.
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If I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.
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Another famous verse that we read this week comes out of Psalm 102, verses 13 through 18.
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You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show favor to her.
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The appointed time has come, for her stones are dear to your servants, her very dust moves
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them to pity.
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The nations will fear the name of the Lord, all the kings of the earth will revere your
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glory, for the Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in his glory.
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He will respond to the prayer of the destitute, he will not despise their plea.
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Let this be written for a future generation that a people not yet created may praise the
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Lord.
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You know here it seems like the exile was about to come to an end.
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And this Psalm was written saying, it's time now, the time has come, the appointed time
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is here for you to favor Zion, for her stones are dear to your servants.
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Her very dust moves them to pity.
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You know today when you go to Israel and you see the archeology and their dusting, they
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go in, they can't, they don't dig into the stones because they don't want to destroy
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anything.
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Sometimes they have to work with a toothbrush and just dust away, dust away the dust because
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of their love for the very stones of ancient Israel and uncovering God's history with his
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people there.
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You can see it here, you can feel it in this Psalm.
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Now is the time Lord to favor Zion once again.
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And they will end our reading of the Psalms today with Psalm 102 moving down to verses
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21 through 22.
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So shall the name of the Lord be declared in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem when the
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peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the Lord.
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So here in Psalm 102 we read how that the Lord would rebuild Zion and then he would appear
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in his glory and hear the Psalmist proclaiming prophetically that there is a day coming when
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the name of the Lord will be declared again in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem.
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But it's not just for the people of Israel because the peoples and the kingdoms will
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assemble to worship the Lord there in Jerusalem.
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Now just take a minute to think about this.
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Jerusalem is destroyed, it's rubble.
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The temple has been destroyed, there's nothing there.
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And yet here by the rivers of Babylon in exile the people are remembering God's promises,
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they're remembering the prophecies that they had heard of that one day that the kingdoms
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of the earth, the Gentiles, the nations will come up to Jerusalem and so they're saying
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we know it's going to happen.
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Lord we know you're going to take us back, we're going to rebuild Zion, we're going
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to see your glory once again in that city.
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This is the hope of the people of God in exile.
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Now this week we also go back to our remaining prophet in Babylon which is Daniel.
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We had seen the end of the previous prophets of Ezekiel.
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We see here Daniel is still active there in Babylon and we're now under the final king
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of Babylon, his name is Belchazar.
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And Daniel's visions, he has a number of visions and I'm not going to take the time to go into
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the visions and try to interpret that.
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There's so much symbolism.
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I believe a lot of his visions deal with the current events and the immediate events that
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are going to be happening there between Babylon and Persia and Greece.
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But at times in his visions do jump ahead and they obviously are talking about a time at
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the end.
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So as you read through his visions this week, I'm just going to remind you of the story
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here that's at play.
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And so Daniel has had a series of visions and they perplex him, in fact they exhaust
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him and they perplex him.
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He doesn't know what they mean.
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There's full of symbolism.
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And then we have this story where Belchazar has this big drunken banquet and what does
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he do?
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He calls out the holy vessels from the temple in Jerusalem and they're drinking their wine
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out of them.
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And this obviously raises the wrath of God.
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And so a hand comes out and there's this writing on the wall and Belchazar, they call for Daniel
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to interpret this writing on the wall.
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And of course the writing reads that it's like you've been weighed, you've been numbered,
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you know, it's all over.
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And sure enough that very night he dies.
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And Darius the mead takes over Babylon.
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Now Daniel then in his prayer time reads that the prophet Jeremiah had said their exile
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was going to last 70 years.
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And so he figures out there's about seven years more.
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And then the angel Gabriel appears to Daniel, we have another vision and a word from the
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Lord about 77s.
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Once again I'm not going to try to get into the interpretation of it.
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So then I'm going to move ahead to the story of Daniel in the lion's den.
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The Darius the mead is still the head of Babylon and the satraps, the other governors, the
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other leaders, they get jealous of this Daniel.
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And so they come up with a plot against him.
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And they have it decreed that he's not to pray, that they're not to pray to any other
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God and of course Daniel does and so they report him to the king and so the king puts
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him in this den with lions, man eating lions and closes the door and he goes away.
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And of course we know the story.
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The next morning the king goes running down there, Daniel, Daniel and Daniel says it's
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okay I'm fine.
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The Lord closed the mouths of the lions and that's a major miracle and of course Darius
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then decrees this wonderful decree that everyone should give reverence to the God of Daniel
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because he delivers his people.
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The one little thing I want to point out in the story is you know Daniel was probably in
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his 80s by now so if you have this picture in your mind of something with a younger man,
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a young man, forget it.
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He was already in his 80s by now.
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So now Darius the mead is the last leader here and next thing we know Babylon is being
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taken over by the Persian Empire and you know Babylon falls to Persia in 738 BC and Herodotus,
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one of the Greek historians says that Cyrus the way he took the city of Babylon which
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brought the kingdom down was that he diverted the waters of the Euphrates.
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Now one of the tributaries off of the Euphrates ran through Babylon, a similar situation if
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you remember to what we had in Nineveh and in Nineveh the enemy went and built a dam
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and backed up the water into the city of Nineveh and then they were able to take Nineveh but
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here in Babylon they do the opposite.
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They divert the water away from Babylon so that now they have dry riverbeds going into
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the city.
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Well Babylon had huge walls around it and they had these barred gates so bars went down
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into the riverbeds to keep anyone out but the water was able to flow through the bars
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to come into the city.
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So now with dry riverbeds the enemies were able to just come right in underneath those
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barred barricades and took the city and of course Cyrus claims that the city welcomed
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him and that could very well be that the city was politically at such a point that they
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were fed up with their rulers and they did welcome Cyrus in.
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It's interesting Jeremiah 51 verse 58 mentions the walls of Babylon and the very high gates
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being burned.
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Now we do know that Babylon had two walls around it.
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It was a very well fortified city and the outside wall was 12 feet thick and the inner
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wall was 21 feet thick.
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That is such a very thick wall and they do know that on the inner wall that there were
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massive gates I think nine different gates and they were named after different gods.
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And so the prophet Jeremiah is predicting the destruction of this and whereas Cyrus
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tries to make it sound a little more peaceful than maybe it really was.
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We do know that one of the gates has been uncovered by the archaeologist and it's been
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taken to Germany.
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It's in the Berlin Museum and I saw it and maybe we can link to a picture down below
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of it but it's called the Ishtar gate and it's beautiful.
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It shows how that the walls around Babylon were just beautiful.
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They were blue.
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They were ornate with design in it and really it was magnificent and they also in the Berlin
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Museum they have a replica of the Ishtar gate and what it showed is not just the gate and
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the city walls but this huge promenade that led up to the gate and they had these lions
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on pedestals lining this road that went up to the Ishtar gate.
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It was beautiful.
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So we'll try to show you a picture of that and so I just thought I'd mention that.
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So in Jeremiah 50 he predicts the fall of Babylon to an army from the north which did
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happen and said that in those days the children of Israel will ask the way to Zion.
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This is Jeremiah 50 verse 2.
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And sure enough when Babylon fell to Persia the king of Persia Cyrus immediately decreed
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that the peoples of the kingdom that had been taken were allowed to return and to build
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the temples of their gods because he had a respect for the various gods throughout the
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kingdom and so the Jewish people record in the Bible the decree that allowed them to
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go back but it seems very in keeping with history that Cyrus did allow this type of
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return and rebuilding of their temples.
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So what Jeremiah predicted here is that out of the north a nation will come and in those
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days the children of Zion will ask for the way to Zion and they did.
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They said okay we get to go back now.
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How do we go back?
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And this begins the return.
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What a relief.
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We're no longer singing our songs of Zion next to the rivers of Babylon.
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We can go home and once again sing the songs of Zion in Jerusalem.
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I will mention here also that there is an archaeological find that is in the British Museum and it is called the Cyrus Cylinder.
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It is a cylinder and on that cylinder is the decree of Cyrus where he talks about allowing
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some of the temples to be rebuilt.
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Now this cylinder doesn't mention the Jews or Israel or Jerusalem but once again it corroborates
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the earlier story that he did allow the Jews to go back.
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So this begins the return from Babylon and it says that he allowed them to take back
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the vessels that had been carted out of the temple in Jerusalem and at least 5,400 articles
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of gold and silver that were allowed to be taken back to the temple.
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And so they go back in 538 by 536 BC the foundation of the temple has been laid.
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And I'm going to end today with this last verse because I find it to be a comical one.
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As sad as it is, it's comical.
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So in Ezra chapter 3, Ezra begins to tell us the story of the return Ezra 1 through
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4.
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So looking in chapter 3 verses 12 through 13 it tells this very comical account of how
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that once the foundation had been laid in the temple, how that they gave a shout to
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the Lord they were so excited about it.
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And then it says this in verse 12, but many of the older priests and Levites and family
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heads who had seen the former temple wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this
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temple being laid.
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While many others shouted for joy, no one could distinguish the sound of the shouts
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of joy from the sound of weeping because the people made so much noise and the sound was
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heard far away.
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What a perfect picture of this return from exile.
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It is with great joy and excitement they began the rebuilding.
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But all how far they are from the previous glory of the temple, of the previous glory
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of Jerusalem.
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So much so that those that had seen it in its previous glory wept just as loud as others
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were shouting for joy.
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What a perfect picture of the story of the return which we will finish next week.
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But in the meantime, enjoy the reading of these Psalms this week and of the amazing
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story of how God allows the Jewish people to begin to return to their homeland thanks
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to Cyrus the king of Persia.
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And I'll see you back here next week and until then, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube or wherever
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you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12-month journey through the most exciting
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book on the planet.
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It will transform your life one page at a time.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible
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to life.
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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.
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Well, hey there, welcome back.
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This is Walk Through the Bible Week 38.
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You're reading this week in the Daily Bible, the dates of September 17 through the 23rd,
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or the pages 1200 and 2 to 1238.
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This week, we get to spend some time back in the Psalms.
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What a relief after all of this judgment and all of this hardship.
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What a blessed relief it will be.
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But first, let me review last week.
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This week, we spent the whole week in the Book of Job.
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And I hope that you read Job 38 through the very end of the book where God speaks and
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shares his greatness.
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And we begin to see the world through God's perspective and what a magnificent God he
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is and how our suffering then comes into perspective once we see the greatness of God.
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So this week, now we're going to move on with our story.
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So the people of Israel are now and still in exile, taken first the kingdom of Israel
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by Assyria, now the kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians.
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And they write some beautiful Psalms during this time where you can really feel their
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heart and their anguish and their longing for Zion.
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So let's take a look at a few of the Psalms this week, Psalm 74, verse 1 through 2.
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Oh God, why have you rejected us forever?
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Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pastor?
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Remember the nation you purchased long ago, the people of your inheritance whom you redeemed.
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Now what is the Psalmist talking about here, but they were redeemed from slavery in Egypt.
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Their bondage was, you could say, paid for, but they were delivered.
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They were redeemed.
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And here it uses the word purchase because often with redemption there is a price.
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And so let's look on then in that same Psalm, a few verses later, verses 4 and actually verse
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7 and 9.
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Your foes roared in the place where you met with us.
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Where is that?
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That's in the temple in Jerusalem.
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It says your enemy roared into the temple.
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Verse 7.
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They burned your sanctuary to the ground.
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They defiled the dwelling place of your name.
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Verse 9.
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We are given no signs from God, no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this
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will be.
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You see they felt all alone without a prophet, without anyone giving them any direction, any
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words from the Lord.
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And they didn't know for how long.
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And of course this isn't 100% accurate because Daniel the prophet is still alive and in Babylon.
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And God did say through Jeremiah that it would last 70 years.
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Nevertheless, when you're in these situations you feel like I'm all alone.
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Where are you God?
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I have no idea what's ahead.
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Coming down to verse 19, it's a beautiful verse, do not hand over the life of your dove
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to wild beast.
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That the people of God are depicted here as this lovely precious dove.
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And the psalmist is saying don't turn us over to the wild beast.
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Now looking at Psalm 79 verse 1.
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Oh God, the nations have invaded your inheritance.
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They have defiled your holy temple.
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They have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.
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They have left the dead bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the sky.
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This is the destruction that they had seen.
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But they're saying here God it's to your inheritance, your land.
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They defiled your temple.
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And they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.
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They have killed your servants.
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So they're letting the Lord know you've been violated here, not just us.
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Now I want to look at Psalm 89 because this Psalm is really packed with some great stuff.
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So I want to read to you in verse 3.
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Now the title that the editors of my Bible put over this Psalm is about remembering the
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covenant with David.
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And this is what the psalmist here is reminding the Lord of his promises to David.
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And so let's read it.
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It's starting in verse 3.
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It says, You said, speaking here to the Lord, I have made a covenant with my chosen one.
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I have sworn to David my servant.
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I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations.
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And then jumping down to verse 19, the writer begins to remember all the things that God
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said to David.
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Once you spoke in a vision to your faithful people and you said, so here he's quoting
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God, I have bestowed strength on a warrior.
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I have raised up a young man from among the people.
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I have found David my servant.
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With my sacred oil I have anointed him.
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My hand will sustain him.
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Surely my arm will strengthen him.
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The enemy will not get the better of him.
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The wicked will not oppress him.
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I will crush his foes before him and strike down his adversaries.
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My faithful love will be with him and through my name his horn will be exalted.
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I will set his hand over the sea, his right hand over the rivers.
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He will call out to me, you are my Father, my God, the Rock, my Savior.
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And I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.
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I will maintain my love to him forever.
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And my covenant with him I will never fail.
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I will establish his line forever.
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His throne as long as the heavens endure.
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So here the psalmist has just repeated the story of how God chose David, how he made
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him a warrior, how he anointed him, how that he made these promises to David, that his
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love would be with him forever and his covenant would never fail with David.
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Then going on he said, this is what the Lord says though about David, if his servants forsake
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my law and do not follow my statutes, if they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands,
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I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging.
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But I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.
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So here he is saying, even if the descendants of David sin, and I punish them for their
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sin, still I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.
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I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered.
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Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness, and I will not lie to David that his line
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will continue forever and his throne endure before me like the sun.
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So the psalmist is saying, God you said, even if we sin and even if you punish us, that
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your promises are still true, that you are faithful to your covenant.
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And then starting here in verse 38 it says, but you have rejected, you have spurned, you
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have been very angry with your anointed one, and it goes on and on about, you have rebuked
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what you have done to us, O God.
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And then in verse 46 that section ends with, how long, Lord, will you hide yourself forever?
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And then verse 49 he finally says, Lord, where is your former great love which in your faithfulness
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you swore to David?
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How many times have you felt like the psalmist here, where you have cried out to the Lord
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and you have reminded him of his promises to you?
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And finally you say, Lord, where is your faithfulness?
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Are you going to fulfill your promises?
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We can so relate with the psalmist here.
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We can relate with the children of Israel during this time of not knowing where are
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you, God?
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They were in the midst of exile.
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And then a very famous portion of scripture we find this week we read in Psalm 137, verses
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1 through 6.
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By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
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There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs.
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Our tormentors demanded songs of joy.
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They said, sing us one of the songs of Zion.
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But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
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If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
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May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth.
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If I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.
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Another famous verse that we read this week comes out of Psalm 102, verses 13 through 18.
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You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show favor to her.
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The appointed time has come, for her stones are dear to your servants, her very dust moves
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them to pity.
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The nations will fear the name of the Lord, all the kings of the earth will revere your
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glory, for the Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in his glory.
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He will respond to the prayer of the destitute, he will not despise their plea.
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Let this be written for a future generation that a people not yet created may praise the
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Lord.
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You know here it seems like the exile was about to come to an end.
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And this Psalm was written saying, it's time now, the time has come, the appointed time
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is here for you to favor Zion, for her stones are dear to your servants.
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Her very dust moves them to pity.
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You know today when you go to Israel and you see the archeology and their dusting, they
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go in, they can't, they don't dig into the stones because they don't want to destroy
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anything.
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Sometimes they have to work with a toothbrush and just dust away, dust away the dust because
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of their love for the very stones of ancient Israel and uncovering God's history with his
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people there.
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You can see it here, you can feel it in this Psalm.
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Now is the time Lord to favor Zion once again.
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And they will end our reading of the Psalms today with Psalm 102 moving down to verses
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21 through 22.
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So shall the name of the Lord be declared in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem when the
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peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the Lord.
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So here in Psalm 102 we read how that the Lord would rebuild Zion and then he would appear
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in his glory and hear the Psalmist proclaiming prophetically that there is a day coming when
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the name of the Lord will be declared again in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem.
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But it's not just for the people of Israel because the peoples and the kingdoms will
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assemble to worship the Lord there in Jerusalem.
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Now just take a minute to think about this.
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Jerusalem is destroyed, it's rubble.
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The temple has been destroyed, there's nothing there.
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And yet here by the rivers of Babylon in exile the people are remembering God's promises,
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they're remembering the prophecies that they had heard of that one day that the kingdoms
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of the earth, the Gentiles, the nations will come up to Jerusalem and so they're saying
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we know it's going to happen.
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Lord we know you're going to take us back, we're going to rebuild Zion, we're going
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to see your glory once again in that city.
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This is the hope of the people of God in exile.
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Now this week we also go back to our remaining prophet in Babylon which is Daniel.
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We had seen the end of the previous prophets of Ezekiel.
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We see here Daniel is still active there in Babylon and we're now under the final king
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of Babylon, his name is Belchazar.
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And Daniel's visions, he has a number of visions and I'm not going to take the time to go into
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the visions and try to interpret that.
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There's so much symbolism.
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I believe a lot of his visions deal with the current events and the immediate events that
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are going to be happening there between Babylon and Persia and Greece.
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But at times in his visions do jump ahead and they obviously are talking about a time at
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the end.
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So as you read through his visions this week, I'm just going to remind you of the story
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here that's at play.
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And so Daniel has had a series of visions and they perplex him, in fact they exhaust
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him and they perplex him.
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He doesn't know what they mean.
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There's full of symbolism.
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And then we have this story where Belchazar has this big drunken banquet and what does
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he do?
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He calls out the holy vessels from the temple in Jerusalem and they're drinking their wine
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out of them.
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And this obviously raises the wrath of God.
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And so a hand comes out and there's this writing on the wall and Belchazar, they call for Daniel
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to interpret this writing on the wall.
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And of course the writing reads that it's like you've been weighed, you've been numbered,
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you know, it's all over.
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And sure enough that very night he dies.
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And Darius the mead takes over Babylon.
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Now Daniel then in his prayer time reads that the prophet Jeremiah had said their exile
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was going to last 70 years.
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And so he figures out there's about seven years more.
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And then the angel Gabriel appears to Daniel, we have another vision and a word from the
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Lord about 77s.
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Once again I'm not going to try to get into the interpretation of it.
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So then I'm going to move ahead to the story of Daniel in the lion's den.
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The Darius the mead is still the head of Babylon and the satraps, the other governors, the
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other leaders, they get jealous of this Daniel.
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And so they come up with a plot against him.
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And they have it decreed that he's not to pray, that they're not to pray to any other
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God and of course Daniel does and so they report him to the king and so the king puts
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him in this den with lions, man eating lions and closes the door and he goes away.
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And of course we know the story.
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The next morning the king goes running down there, Daniel, Daniel and Daniel says it's
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okay I'm fine.
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The Lord closed the mouths of the lions and that's a major miracle and of course Darius
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then decrees this wonderful decree that everyone should give reverence to the God of Daniel
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because he delivers his people.
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The one little thing I want to point out in the story is you know Daniel was probably in
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his 80s by now so if you have this picture in your mind of something with a younger man,
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a young man, forget it.
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He was already in his 80s by now.
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So now Darius the mead is the last leader here and next thing we know Babylon is being
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taken over by the Persian Empire and you know Babylon falls to Persia in 738 BC and Herodotus,
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one of the Greek historians says that Cyrus the way he took the city of Babylon which
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brought the kingdom down was that he diverted the waters of the Euphrates.
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Now one of the tributaries off of the Euphrates ran through Babylon, a similar situation if
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you remember to what we had in Nineveh and in Nineveh the enemy went and built a dam
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and backed up the water into the city of Nineveh and then they were able to take Nineveh but
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here in Babylon they do the opposite.
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They divert the water away from Babylon so that now they have dry riverbeds going into
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the city.
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Well Babylon had huge walls around it and they had these barred gates so bars went down
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into the riverbeds to keep anyone out but the water was able to flow through the bars
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to come into the city.
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So now with dry riverbeds the enemies were able to just come right in underneath those
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barred barricades and took the city and of course Cyrus claims that the city welcomed
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him and that could very well be that the city was politically at such a point that they
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were fed up with their rulers and they did welcome Cyrus in.
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It's interesting Jeremiah 51 verse 58 mentions the walls of Babylon and the very high gates
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being burned.
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Now we do know that Babylon had two walls around it.
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It was a very well fortified city and the outside wall was 12 feet thick and the inner
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wall was 21 feet thick.
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That is such a very thick wall and they do know that on the inner wall that there were
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massive gates I think nine different gates and they were named after different gods.
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And so the prophet Jeremiah is predicting the destruction of this and whereas Cyrus
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tries to make it sound a little more peaceful than maybe it really was.
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We do know that one of the gates has been uncovered by the archaeologist and it's been
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taken to Germany.
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It's in the Berlin Museum and I saw it and maybe we can link to a picture down below
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of it but it's called the Ishtar gate and it's beautiful.
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It shows how that the walls around Babylon were just beautiful.
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They were blue.
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They were ornate with design in it and really it was magnificent and they also in the Berlin
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Museum they have a replica of the Ishtar gate and what it showed is not just the gate and
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the city walls but this huge promenade that led up to the gate and they had these lions
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on pedestals lining this road that went up to the Ishtar gate.
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It was beautiful.
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So we'll try to show you a picture of that and so I just thought I'd mention that.
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So in Jeremiah 50 he predicts the fall of Babylon to an army from the north which did
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happen and said that in those days the children of Israel will ask the way to Zion.
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This is Jeremiah 50 verse 2.
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And sure enough when Babylon fell to Persia the king of Persia Cyrus immediately decreed
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that the peoples of the kingdom that had been taken were allowed to return and to build
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the temples of their gods because he had a respect for the various gods throughout the
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kingdom and so the Jewish people record in the Bible the decree that allowed them to
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go back but it seems very in keeping with history that Cyrus did allow this type of
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return and rebuilding of their temples.
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So what Jeremiah predicted here is that out of the north a nation will come and in those
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days the children of Zion will ask for the way to Zion and they did.
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They said okay we get to go back now.
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How do we go back?
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And this begins the return.
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What a relief.
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We're no longer singing our songs of Zion next to the rivers of Babylon.
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We can go home and once again sing the songs of Zion in Jerusalem.
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I will mention here also that there is an archaeological find that is in the British Museum and it is called the Cyrus Cylinder.
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It is a cylinder and on that cylinder is the decree of Cyrus where he talks about allowing
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some of the temples to be rebuilt.
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Now this cylinder doesn't mention the Jews or Israel or Jerusalem but once again it corroborates
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the earlier story that he did allow the Jews to go back.
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So this begins the return from Babylon and it says that he allowed them to take back
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the vessels that had been carted out of the temple in Jerusalem and at least 5,400 articles
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of gold and silver that were allowed to be taken back to the temple.
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And so they go back in 538 by 536 BC the foundation of the temple has been laid.
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And I'm going to end today with this last verse because I find it to be a comical one.
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As sad as it is, it's comical.
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So in Ezra chapter 3, Ezra begins to tell us the story of the return Ezra 1 through
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4.
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So looking in chapter 3 verses 12 through 13 it tells this very comical account of how
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that once the foundation had been laid in the temple, how that they gave a shout to
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the Lord they were so excited about it.
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And then it says this in verse 12, but many of the older priests and Levites and family
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heads who had seen the former temple wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this
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temple being laid.
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While many others shouted for joy, no one could distinguish the sound of the shouts
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of joy from the sound of weeping because the people made so much noise and the sound was
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heard far away.
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What a perfect picture of this return from exile.
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It is with great joy and excitement they began the rebuilding.
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But all how far they are from the previous glory of the temple, of the previous glory
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of Jerusalem.
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So much so that those that had seen it in its previous glory wept just as loud as others
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were shouting for joy.
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What a perfect picture of the story of the return which we will finish next week.
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But in the meantime, enjoy the reading of these Psalms this week and of the amazing
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story of how God allows the Jewish people to begin to return to their homeland thanks
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to Cyrus the king of Persia.
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And I'll see you back here next week and until then, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube or wherever
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you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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