God Among Goats

And if you have a Bible with you, let me invite you to turn to Daniel chapter 8.

Daniel 8 · chapter mention

We'll be reading.

We've been doing a series in Daniel, and we're taking a little time doing it.

And over the next couple of weeks, we'll be uh digging into what are really the apocalyptic passages in the book of Daniel.

So the first part really was dealing with a great deal of history.

There were some visions in it, and it was a record of Daniel interpreting those visions and saying, here's what God is doing.

And somewhat that happens in the apocalyptic section, but part of uh the struggle is figuring out exactly what it means for us in the modern world and how we we talk about it.

I was uh talking to somebody recently who finds Daniel to be super hard to understand because this person is very literal.

So when we talked last week about these uh you know monstrosities, uh he was this person was taking it very literally.

And this week when we we're talking about goats and rams, uh, we tend to take those things literally.

And so uh what I did is I brought in a couple of resources just to let you know these things are out there.

Uh this is a commentary, there are lots of commentaries on the book of Daniel.

I have about five or six, and they're my conversation partners as they go through.

So uh you can find good commentaries on Daniel, and they'll explain some of the things.

This morning we'll explain some of it as we're going through chapter eight.

So there we go, that's one.

Uh you can come look at these later.

And this is the ESV study bible.

Uh I have this one in the box still, not because I haven't used it, but because it's very nice, and I spent money on this.

Um, but we also have one that has a hard cop, hardback copy you can get for it's cheaper, and that one's well worn, and that's the one that Rebecca uses primarily.

So I get the new one, you get the one that's been okay.

So uh, but it's thick, and well, I did a mission trip several years ago to Ethiopia, and we had we did pastor training, we had about 90 people in attendance, and all the people who signed up to come to that particular pastor training session, they all got ESV study Bibles, except it's not in English, it was in their language, Amharic.

And there was this one lady, she was a custodian at the church, and when she got it, she just held it tight because for her it was a treasure, because it's an entire theological library.

There are explanations for questions you didn't know you had as you're reading through the Bible.

And uh this week, as I'm studying and getting ready for Daniel 8, I used ESV, I used commentaries, I listened to a lot of things to try to help us understand the images in this passage.

Now, sometimes we think, you know, we ask the question, why couldn't God have just made this easier?

Why couldn't He've just kind of like said it in easier words and not use these images and these metaphors?

Uh why did he give these visions?

And the reality is God probably could have spent about 752 trillion pages explaining this in minutiae for you, but you would get past the first two paragraphs and say, Okay, God, could I have an image?

And he'd say, Yes, here it is.

This is in Daniel chapter 8.

Daniel 8 · chapter mention

So we're gonna look at Daniel chapter 8, and uh these images are not simply meant to explain the big picture, it's meant to evoke a response as we read through.

Daniel 8 · chapter mention

So as we're going through, let it wash over you.

Uh not just understand it, but think through.

These are these are scary images.

What am I supposed to think about the world and what am I supposed to think about this time period, particularly if I lived back then?

So, if you're able, let me invite you to stand as we read Daniel chapter 8.

Daniel 8 · chapter mention

In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first.

Now he's referring to chapter 7.

And I saw in the vision, and when I saw, I was in Susa the citadel, which is in the province of Elam, and I saw in the vision, and I was at the Uli Canal, I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal.

It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other.

And the higher one came up last.

I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward.

No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power.

He did as he pleased and became great.

As I was considering, behold, a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground, and the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes.

He came to the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath.

I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him, and struck the ram and broke his two horns, and the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him, and there was no one who could rescue the ram from his power.

Then the goat became exceedingly great, but when he was strong the great horn was broken, and instead of it there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.

Out of one of them came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land, which is Palestine.

It grew great even to the host of heaven, and some of the host and some of the stars it threw to the ground and trampled on them.

It became great, even as great as the Prince of the Host, and the regular burnt offering was taken away from him, and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown, and a host will be given over to it together with the regular burnt offering because of transgression, and it will throw truth to the ground, and it will act and prosper.

Then I heard a holy one, an angel speaking, and another holy one said to the one who spoke, For how long is the vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate, and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled under foot?

And he said to me, For two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings, then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.

When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it, and behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man, and I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Uli, and it called, Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.

So he came near where I stood, and when he came I was frightened and fell on my face, but he said to me, Understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end.

And when he had spoken to me I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground, but he touched me and made me stand up.

He said, Behold, I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end.

As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia.

And the goat is the king of Greece, and the great horn between his eyes is the first king.

As for the horn that was broken in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power.

And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall arise.

His power shall be great, but not by his own power, and he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints.

By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great.

Without warning he shall destroy many, and he shall even rise up against the prince of princes, and he shall be broken, but by no human hand.

The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.

And I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days.

Then I rose and went about the king's business.

But I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it.

We probably know that sentiment, don't we?

So let's pray and ask God to bless us as we uh we open this up a little more deeply.

We read things in your word that are crystal clear.

And we uh have no uh no doubts about what it intends to communicate to us.

And it's just hard to accept it because it calls for change.

And then there are passages like this where we don't even know what we're looking at sometimes and we don't know what to do with it.

So we pray that you this morning would give us insight into the passage, that we may worship you, that we may see the world as it is, that we will understand what you're calling us to be and to do as we live our lives in the world.

Would you bless us as we look at your passage, this passage, and Lord, would you bless me for this mighty task you've given to me that is way beyond my ability?

So I pray that you would be pleased to make your word more powerful in the hearing and hearts of all who listen than it is in my tongue.

Bless us and be with us, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please have a seat.

I don't know what you're thinking, but when I read this passage, one of the things I thought was, white goats?

White goats of all things.

Uh especially, you know, if you're wanting to use a sinister image, because the images that come up on my feed on my computer are typically those little miniature goats that go prancing through the kitchen and stop in front of the iPhone and go, it's like, oh, they're so cute.

So why in the world would he use uh goats here?

And then I came across several stories.

One was about a mountain goat that killed a grizzly bear.

It's like, okay, with the sharp horns.

That's that's a pretty tough goat, if you ask me.

Another was a a family, a couple in their 80s that had a hobby farm in New Zealand, and they found them dead in the goat pen one morning.

The goat had killed them both.

Uh and then there's a story by another man.

This man grew up on a farm.

He said, he had we had sheep and goats and so on.

I was bringing their food to them one day, must have been about 10 years old, and one of the rams literally attacked me, tossed me up in the air, and I landed in the grass.

And so he said, Here's the moral of the story: never turn your back on a ram.

Never turn your back on a goat, no matter how friendly they should seem.

So I was thinking about this this week, is why why rams, why goats?

Why do rams butt heads?

Well, the general understanding is goat bucks are highly territorial and aggressive, particularly during the breeding season, and they establish dominance hierarchies through fighting, charging, and headbutting.

So the battle for dominance is being represented by rams and goats.

And if you understand anything about the ancient world, uh then you know there was a battle for dominance.

These goats represent kings and kingdoms, and the angel himself spells this out in Daniel 8, verse 20.

Daniel 8:20

He says, As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia.

So we've been looking at Daniel for maybe two months now, and one of the things we've seen is there are these big uh civilizations, these big empires that are rising up.

There's the Babylonians first, and then there's the Medes and the Persians, and then Greece, and then Rome.

And so the first time it was represented by a statue, and then last week it was represented by these carnivorous, ravenous beasts, uh, these monstrosities.

And now he's looking at the same thing, except this time, taking a different angle, and he's looking at these same countries, empires, uh, in terms of goats.

So in Daniel 820, he tells us it's the kings of Median Persia.

In 821, we're told that the goat with a single horn that speedily devastated that ram and destroyed the ram of Median Persia is Greece, with the single horn being the first king of Greece, which is Alexander the Great.

Uh, he achieved an unprecedented domination from Italy to India.

That's the amount of land that he covered in just a maybe a decade, a little more than a decade, he took over.

And then his kingdom, after he died at age 33, was carved up between his four powerful generals, who are these four horns that sprung up.

And from one of those came a person that you may never have heard of.

But he's big in the Bible.

In fact, there'll be another passage in two weeks where we'll talk about him in a little more detail and just the horrible things that uh Antiochus Epiphanes did.

So in 823, we're told that there's a little horn who would be a hard man, and his identity is kind of universally accepted as Antiochus Epiphanes from one of those empires.

Um, and he was determined, the reason if it was because he was so brutal, is because he was recognizing that the Romans were beginning to come in and sweep into the area, and so he wanted a buffer between him and the Romans, and so that was Palestine.

And so what he did to the Palestinians, to the Jews, is he sought to change them so that they were no longer Jews, but they adopted the Hellenistic, the Greek way of life.

He wanted to remove them and say, You're now Greek, and you're gonna fight my wars for me.

And so uh Antiochus attacked Jerusalem on the Sabbath, knowing that Orthodox Jews would not defend themselves.

They wouldn't fight on the Sabbath.

The women and children were taken as slaves, the city was plundered and burned in Jerusalem, and then shortly afterward, in 167, Antiochus determined to deter uh to exterminate the entire Jewish religion.

He forbade them to observe the Sabbath, their customary festivals that they would keep, their traditional sacrifices, the circumcision of children, and then the Torah he demanded that that be destroyed.

And so there became this kind of program of killing off the Jews and changing them.

He set up idolatrous altars, and then finally in the temple, he set up uh an idolatrous image to Zeus and commanded that Zeus be worshipped in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem.

It's horrible for them.

And anyone who disobeyed any of these orders was sentenced to death.

And uh that's not the end of the sermon.

It's just kind of like starting, like, okay, this is what they're dealing with, this is what he's talking about hundreds of years before it took place.

So, what do you do with something like this?

Well, we can understand why Daniel felt as he did in chapter 8, verse 27, after we read this prophecy.

And I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days.

Then I rose and went about the king's business, but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it.

So Daniel, Daniel, who survived the lion's den, who went and stood bravely before uh the Babylonians and now is stand and is going to stand bravely before the Medes and the Persians, he's completely overwhelmed by this, and he can't even get out of bed.

It's such a devastating uh vision, and he feels completely overcome and overwhelmed.

And I think that's the way we feel.

We live in the headlines sometimes, don't we?

We're living in the headlines right now with what's going on in the Middle East, what's going on in our country, we fear the future.

And like Daniel here, it's it's very easy to just be broken for a time.

And I think there are really three ways that we respond when we hear the bad news.

We break, we bend, and we battle.

Of course, they all start with B because I'm a preacher.

But but we break under things is we become so completely overwhelmed, we become depressed, and it can be hard for us to get out of bed.

And this is not just what's going on in the world.

Sometimes this is just what's going on in our community and our families.

We just can't face the day.

If this is what's going to be there, it just breaks us.

We shut down, we become despondent, we stop caring, we stop trying, we feel depressed.

I felt that way on occasion.

The world felt so heavy, I just didn't want to get out of bed.

I couldn't carry it.

And there's another way that people respond, and it's it's bending.

And that is saying, I am going to change my core beliefs, my core activities, and I'm going to bend to this new power or whatever it happens to be to just meet it and get through unscathed.

And this is what was being asked of the Jews here.

You know, if you can't beat them, join them.

Bend and and give up yourself, give up your identity, and just follow something new.

And then there's a there's another battle.

And uh, I don't know if you were looking at the same internet that I was during COVID, uh, but it felt like the internet started to become much more of a battleground at that point.

All of our anger and and ire about the world, just you know, people blogging, talking about uh everything.

We fight fire with fire, and so, and then it eventually became we couldn't fight our enemies sometimes, and we felt like we needed to fight our allies.

And so we became divided as a country.

But we can we can break and we can bend when things are overwhelming, and we can battle.

There's a fourth option.

And guess what?

It starts with a B2.

It's a belief.

There's the alternative.

We believe in a God who is bigger than these forces, we believe in a God who is in control of these forces.

We believe what God has said.

We look beyond what is uncontrollable for us to Him who is able to control, and we say, I believe you.

I believe you in the story that you tell about the world.

I trust you in the path that you're laying out for me and the people I love, and I hope in the Savior that you've sent.

I believe.

I don't have to bend, I don't have to break, I don't have to battle, because I believe in a God who does these things for me.

So Daniel 8 is telling us that there's a world that is beyond our control, but it's not beyond God's control.

Not at all.

God knows exactly what's going on, what's going to happen, and what he is doing.

So, where do we see this in the passage?

Now, I'll be honest.

Uh, on the first read or three of this passage, I was looking saying, Where's the gospel and this?

Where's the good news in the midst of this?

So does anybody get saved?

Is it well, you know, looking for the familiar keys and clues that we would find in the passage?

And it took me a while to dig through and say, okay, what is this, where does God meet me with hope in the midst of the broken things that I face in life?

And it's in this um is God's sovereignty in restricting the goats.

You've heard of unbridled power.

What he's showing us here is that power is never unbridled.

He's got the bridle on it.

Four things.

Four things.

One, pointing us to God's control of these situations.

One is the location of the vision.

In chapter 8, verse 2, uh, we read that Daniel is in Susa, it's a citadel, it's a fortress, in the province of Elam.

Now, I actually looked on a map.

This is fascinating with these things.

Babylon is in modern day Iraq, and Susa in Elam is in modern day Iran.

So Iran's always in the headlines, apparently.

I don't know.

Um and that was uh, and so Susa was the winter capital of the Persian Empire.

Now, the reason this is significant is because Daniel's not there physically, he's in the in the vision, that's where he is.

And so he's already been told in the previous chapter, in chapter seven that we read, is that there are going to be four civilizations, these empires in succession.

Babylon, Medes and the Persians, Greece, and Rome.

So the fact that he is already in Persia, God's saying, I've ticked off one, that one's down.

Three more to go until the end, whatever that happens to be in the midst of that.

So, uh, and the fact that in this passage he is also mentions Belshazzar, Belshazzar, if you know, is the last king in Babylon that's talked about in Daniel 5.

And we know that he is demised when the Medes and the Persians go in.

So in this vision, which is, you know, kind of like going back in time before that, he's saying, yeah, this is exactly what's going to happen.

We're just not even going to talk about Belshazzar because he's going to be off of the map soon.

That's the first thing, the location of the vision.

The second is the incredible detail in the explanation of what is going on long before it happened, showing God is in control.

Antiochus Epiphany shows up something like 350 years after this preview.

In other words, God tells them 350 years before he comes that he's going to come, and here's what he's going to do, and here's what's going to happen to him.

And so at that point, the Greeks are nothing in the world.

Nobody would have guessed this in Babylon, nobody would have guessed this in Persia.

But God says, I know.

I know what's going to happen.

I know what I'm going to do, and I know what I'm doing in the world.

World.

Trust me.

So that's the second.

The incredible detail.

In fact, this is in such detail, and what we're going to look at in chapter 9 is in such detail that a lot of modern scholars say this couldn't have been written before.

It had to be written afterwards.

But by all accounts, it was written before it ever took place.

Number three, and this one was huge for me as I was reading through.

He limits the evil.

I think one of the most significant things in this passage is a conversation that takes place between the angels.

Because they're bothered by what they're seeing, and there's a question as how long is this going to take place?

And this is what we read in chapter, uh, in verse 13.

Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one speaking, For how long is the vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate, and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled underfoot?

And he said to me, For 2,300 evenings and mornings, then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.

Now we don't know if that's symbolic or that was actually the exact number.

There are different conversations about that.

But these angels give a very specific, though cryptic, number and say it's going to be this long.

In other words, what they're communicating is it's going to be allowed, but only so far.

There won't be a 2400th day.

It's just going to be for this long.

That's all you get, no more.

Evil is bridal.

The Jews couldn't stop him, but apparently, this Antiochus Epiphanes, the Jews couldn't stop him.

But apparently, there's a little uh throwaway line.

It's not really throwaway, but it is hinting at what the future is holding, is chapter 8, verse 25.

And he, Antiochus Epiphanes, shall even rise up against the prince of princes, which commentators think that's him fighting against God and trying to remove all the symbolism from the temple.

And he shall rise even up against the prince of princes, and he shall be broken, speaking of the uh Antiochus Epiphanes, but by no human hand.

What's fascinating as you read through the history of the time period?

After seeking to plunder a temple in Persia to make to fund his war effort, Antiochus Epiphanes acquired some sort of microbe, like amoeba or some sort of disease, and he died of a disease.

He wasn't killed by a human hand, he was killed by something microscopic.

So, evil can't go beyond the scope of what God will allow it to do.

And then the fourth one, and this is one I had to think through for me.

Just reading this chapter, I spent a lot of time in this chapter, read it and reread it, and it's like, this is really dark.

And I forgot, just reading this one chapter, which we do sometimes.

This is one chapter in the midst of 1,189 chapters in the Bible.

Just one.

And the way that we interpret the one chapter, one verse, one word, is in light of the whole message that is being communicated.

These empires get a few pages, but always in this larger context of God's redemptive work, what he's doing.

Four empires mentioned in just a few sentences.

Why?

Because in the great scheme of what God's doing, that's all they deserve.

A few stories, a few sentences in the story of God's love for his people were hurtling towards his redemptive purpose and the conclusion of all things.

So, 1,189 chapters.

There are other chapters than this, other truths, other promises that give us context to this passage.

Kevin Deoung says that when we read this passage, he's a pastor up in Charlotte.

Kevin Deoung says the point of the passage is the God you cannot see is much, much greater than the power you can see around you.

The ESV Study Bible, remember that that we talked about earlier?

This is what the ESV Study Bible says.

The central theme of the book of Daniel is God's sovereignty over history and empires, setting up and removing kings as he pleases.

All of the kingdoms of this world will come to an end and will be replaced by the Lord's kingdom, which will never pass away.

So, there is nothing that you will go into in life that God doesn't know.

He knows.

There is nothing that you will go into in life that God doesn't see.

He sees.

And there's nothing you will go into life that God doesn't limit.

He limits.

There is nothing you will go into in life where God isn't there.

He's there no matter where you go.

And God told us exactly what was going to happen to them.

And if he can tell them exactly what's going to happen to them, and it takes place, as he said, even if a little bit cryptically, and if he can lay out what was going to happen, we can see that it happened.

We can trust that he, what he has promised to us about our future that we cannot yet experience, that we will.

We will get there.

Kingdoms, power centers, we don't have to be frightened or seduced by them.

When you wake up in the morning, and there is the headline about politics or foreign policy or Wall Street or Hollywood or shipping or military or education or whatever it is, you don't have to be afraid.

God is in control.

He said, In this world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, because he has overcome the world.

And what we, anytime we see these things, what we're supposed to think is we need a better king.

We need Jesus.

We need the Son of Man to come.

The Son of Man was already talked about in the previous chapter.

And he said, This Son of Man is going to come and be given authority over all things.

So in apocalyptic literature, we read that God has everything in hand and that he's moving all things towards a redemptive conclusion.

So Rebecca and I do this thing uh pretty much every Friday.

We call it a walkabout.

And it's just a question of where we're going to go, but we often end up at Disney walking about because they're just pleasant places to walk in Disney.

And uh we don't go into the parks, we just kind of like walk in the perimeter where nobody is.

It's really nice.

Um we put in what 20,000 steps, usually, something like that.

So we're walking around on Friday, and there was a man who was coming towards me, and he had he was talking on his phone, and he had on a shirt that said, Jesus is king.

And I couldn't let that by.

So as he's walking, I said it almost like it was a creedle statement.

I said, Jesus is king.

And it took him a moment to register, and I could, I could, I could feel him turn around and look, and this is what he said.

He said, Jesus is king.

Yes, he is.

Have a blessed day.

I didn't even look at him, I just kept going and did my hand up like this.

I was like, I'll see that guy in heaven someday.

It's gonna be awesome.

And this greeting is completely in line with what we just mentioned in Daniel 7.

Because in Daniel 7, when he sees the Son of Man as the king, that's Jesus, it says, I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man.

And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him, and to him, to the Son of Man, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Now, what's fascinating about that is we're in a passage in Daniel that's talking about kingdoms.

Kingdoms.

And the kings of these kingdoms are rams and they're goats, and they're they're battling for dominion.

Our king is a lamb.

He's the lamb of God.

He's come not to just to battle, he's come to rescue and to give himself as a sacrifice for our sins, to bring us to him.

He's not concerned so much with Persia or Babylon.

Yes.

What he's concerned with most is the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light.

And he's come in to rescue his people.

John the Baptist said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is what we read in Colossians chapter 1, verses 13 to 14.

Colossians 1:13–14

Jesus has delivered us from the dominion of darkness.

God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

We're looking to Jesus.

Not the ram, not the goat, but the lamb.

This is what we read in Hebrews 12, 2.

We look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

That's our King.

He's the King who gives Himself.

He doesn't demand we give ourselves for Him, He's given Himself for us.

This is Martin Luther.

What is the gospel?

It is this that God has sent his Son into the world to save sinners and to crush hell, overcome death, take away sin, and satisfy the law.

But what must you do?

Nothing but accept this and look up to your Redeemer and firmly believe that He has done all this for your good and freely gives you all as your own.

So God promised that the Messiah would come, and He did.

God has promised that the Messiah will return and He will.

That will be the end of the story.

We'll enter into the joy and delight.

It enables us to face the darkness.

Now, I uh my wife will tell you, I will ride pretty much any roller coaster, and not because I'm a thrill junkie, I'm simply not.

But I know this about roller coasters.

Number one, I can see where they start and I can see where they end.

I know how that thing ends every time.

And the second is I know that the roller coaster had a designer.

And it was in the designer's interest to make sure I get from point A to point B safely.

Now, when it comes to eternity and time, it has a designer.

Our God and Father, who is Lord over all, Jesus who has been made King over all, the Holy Spirit who's been given to us, we have a designer, and he's getting us through, and it's bringing about our salvation.

And the second is we know how this is going to end.

Yeah.

There are going to be twists, there are going to be turns, there are going to be inversions, there are going to be hills, there are going to be corkscrews.

But God is in control.

And he's going to bring us home to the end.

Paul Tripp said, there's only one God who sits on the throne of the universe.

He alone rules in power and authority.

He alone has the power to assure that what he has planned will be done.

And that's why these prophecy passages are so important.

Is these prophecy passages are not just our, you know, we looked at the ones and say, that's our future.

These that we're looking at right now, they pretty much have all been fulfilled.

This passage that we're looking at right now, this was the future when it was prophesied.

But it's our past now.

And so we can look at that and say, if God followed through with what he said was going to happen, then he's going to follow through now.

We may not understand everything that God is predicting and what he's talking about, but we know that he knows what's going on what's happening on the timeline.

We know that he knows what the future holds.

We know that he knows where he's taking us, and he knows the end from the beginning.

And you know that what he's promised to you is going to take place.

You know that what he has accomplished for you has been done.

And you know who you are to him, and you can trust him.

So Hebrews 12.

We are looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame.

What was the joy that was set before him?

It wasn't simply getting off the cross.

The joy that was set before Jesus when he was on the cross was you.

Being with you forever.

He endured the cross for our sakes, for your sakes.

And that means he has secured our salvation.

How do you know?

How do you know it's going to end well?

Because the price for our sins has already been paid.

And when we step into the presence of God, there will be no debt to pay.

It has all been paid.

And Jesus will say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

Come and share your master's happiness.

That's what we're looking forward to.