We too can approach God’s throne with confidence because we know it is a throne of grace. Whatever chastisement and discipline he brings, mercy reigns in the heart of God. He will by no means clear the guilty, but he loves to forgive those who turn to him in humble faith.
Tucked away in the book of Daniel, sandwiched between stories about fiery furnaces and lions on the one hand, and visions of statues, beasts, and rising kings on the other, is an extended prayer with a shockingly immediate answer.
Daniel 9 contains an extended, earnest, and heartfelt prayer by the prophet. And before he even says “Amen,” the angel Gabriel is standing before him, ready to give insight and understanding to the broken-hearted prophet. What did Daniel pray that caused God to immediately dispatch an angel with an answer? And can Daniel’s prayer instruct us today in how to pray?
Plot Against Prayer
Daniel’s prayer is a dated prayer. “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus” (Daniel 9:1). And the particular timing mentioned draws attention to one of the most famous stories in the Bible. At the end of Daniel 5, Darius the Mede conquers the Chaldeans and dethrones Belshazzar. In chapter 6, he appoints 120 local rulers as governors over his kingdom, with high officials overseeing them. Daniel is one of these high officials. Indeed, he is distinguished above all of the high officials because of the excellent spirit (or is it Spirit?) residing in him (Daniel 6:1–3).
Darius plans to elevate Daniel over all the other officials, provoking them to jealousy. They then plot to find fault with Daniel in hopes of bringing him down. After examining his life, they conclude, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God” (Daniel 6:5).
Soon enough, they do find a ground for complaint against Daniel — his habits of prayer. Daniel’s custom is to pray three times per day with an open window facing Jerusalem. The jealous officials manipulate Darius into passing an irrevocable decree against praying to anyone except the king (Daniel 6:6–9). And Daniel’s defiance of this decree famously lands him in the lions’ den (Daniel 6:10–16).
What is the relevance for the prayer of Daniel 9? It’s likely that Daniel 9 is the sort of prayer that Daniel was praying with that famous window open. What’s more, if we’re attentive to the whole Scriptures, we can better understand why Daniel was praying with a window open facing Jerusalem.
Solomon, Jeremiah, and Daniel
In 1 Kings 8, Solomon is dedicating the temple of the Lord. As he nears the end of his prayer, he contemplates the possibility (and even likelihood) that the people of Israel will sin grievously against God. When they do, God will, in fulfillment of the warnings of Deuteronomy, give them over to their enemies so that Israel will be carried captive into a foreign land.
Nevertheless, God will remain faithful to his promises and his people, even as he sends them into exile. In Solomon’s request, notice the specific direction his exiled people ought to pray:
Yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, “We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,” if they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name, then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace). (1 Kings 8:47–51)
Solomon specifically mentions repenting and praying from exile toward Israel, toward Jerusalem. Thus, Daniel’s actions make perfect sense. He is following Solomon’s instructions in hope that God will have compassion and restore his people.
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There is much to learn from families who made the switch, and perhaps the biggest lesson for everyone is how critically important charter schools are to public education. In response to the coronavirus pandemic last year, public schools across the country halted in-person classes, switching to virtual learning at all levels to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Approximately 1.4 million students were taken out of public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and transferred to alternative educational systems such as charter and private schools, according to a recent report.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released a report Wednesday analyzing student enrollment trends in 41 states and the District of Columbia during the 2020-2021 school year.
The report noted that approximately 240,000 students were newly enrolled in public charter schools, representing a 7% increase, while 1.4 million students were taken out of traditional public schools.
Regarding charter schools, the report found that 39 of the 41 states plus Washington, D.C., saw increases in charter school enrollment. Only Illinois, Iowa and Wyoming saw declines in charter enrollment.
For their data, the National Alliance report used state educational agency websites to accrue enrollment statistics for the states analyzed, as well as interviews with parents, students and school staff.

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My only hope is that you see the time frame references the New Testament is speaking about, and realize that much of what we consider “end of history events” are actually “end-time events” that have already occured in the past. I also hope that when you see a phrase like “last days” in Hebrews, that you will understand where we are in redemptive history. We are not waiting on the last days, we are living in them.

Gordian Knot Eschatology
As we begin this study on the end times, I would like to address you from the junkyard of eschatological insanity that we find ourselves in today. To my left lies a cardboard cutout of the late Harold Camping, a stack of books titled “88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Occur In 1988”, and a few posters of various blood moons, pale horses, and tracks about being left behind. To my right, an ever-growing pile of Antichrist candidates and mark of the beast hopefuls heaped on top of one another and most are now well rusted.
All around us is the odious stench of eschatological failure. From end times views assuming future failure, to failed past and present predictions, to wild speculations about Gog, Magog, and Vladamir Putin. Is it any wonder that the church is confused, frustrated, and lacking the joy and hope that a Biblical view will bring?
In this series on the end times, my hope is to bring the joy, clarity, and hope back into eschatology. And to do that, we need to flush everything we have heard about the end times, clean down the eschatological toilet, and wave goodbye as it goes back to where it belongs. I say this so strongly because the Bible was never meant to be a Gordian knot to confuse, frustrate, and paralyze you. It was always meant to be a clear revelation to encourage, strengthen you, and give you a living hope as you face the days ahead. When we return to what the Bible says and examine it in Biblical ways, I believe eschatology can be one of the most encouraging topics you will ever study.
So, in the weeks ahead, I want us to look at what the Bible says about the end times, and today I want to focus on the consideration of time. When do the end times begin? Are they getting ready to happen in the 21st century? Are they still long into the future? Or did they begin sometime in the past? Let us look at a few passages in Scripture to gain a Biblical perspective.
End Time Incarnation
By far, one of the clearest passages in all of Scripture, that teaches us when the end times will begin, is Hebrews 1:1-2, which says:

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.- Hebrews 1:1-2

The author of Hebrews is appealing to two very different sets of times in the history of redemption. There is the old covenant era of temples, feasts, priests, and sacrifices, where God once spoke to His people through the fathers and the prophets. This era is known as the Old Testament. But, now we are told a new era of human history has dawned (in fact it is the final era of human history), that began when Christ came as the incarnate Son of God.
What Hebrews is saying, is that when Jesus came He not only secured salvation for His people, but He also fulfilled all of the Old Covenant expectations, types, shadows, and norms, in Himself. For instance, He is our true King (Hebrews 1:8), that serves as true priest (Hebrews 2:17), making Himself to be our true and perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 7:27), offering Himself in God’s true heavenly temple (Hebrews 9:11), to secure a perfect unvarnished redemption. The point this book is making is that when Jesus uttered “It is finished”, He perfectly drew all of the Old Covenant types and shadows to a glorious end, fulfilling every jot and tittle of the Law, leaving no temple stone unturned, so that He could become the cornerstone of a new end time era. In Him, the old has been finished, and the new has come.
The importance of this cannot be understated. Jesus Christ put an end to the old era of redemption and began a new redemptive era called “these last days” at His coming nearly 2000 years ago. That is why the author of Hebrews says that God has spoken to us during the ends of time because he assumes we would understand that these end times began in Jesus’ first glorious coming! And since that much is true, it is clear to say that you and I have been living in the end times our entire lives. It is also clear to say that the Church has existed entirely during the period called the “last days”. That fact has been true for two successive millennia and will continue until the Royal Son returns a final time!
Unlike what many have wrongly said, the Church is not an asterisk period, the Gentile Church was not plan B, and we are sandwiched awkwardly between the Old Testament and a future millennial kingdom. The Church was, is, and will continue to be God’s plan A, for these last days. We are His end-time bride on His end-time mission until the final sands in God’s end-time glass have fallen.
Whatever thoughts we may have about this topic, at a minimum needed to be ground by the firm exegetical understanding that the “last days” have already come and that we are currently living in them. To that end we continue we a few more proofs.
End Time Dissolution
As mentioned above, one of the reasons we can be so confident that the end times have already begun is that Jesus so carefully and methodically brought an end to all the old-timey stuff. He brought a new priesthood, new temple, new mountain, new sacrifice, a new bride, and is bringing about a new covenant city. In the weeks ahead we will examine some of these things in greater detail, but for now, how about a summary? And how about we begin with the old and new bride?
In the Old Testament, there is very specific wedding language that must be understood before we will have any hope of understanding the eschataological bride that is given to Christ in the New Testament. Take for example, Israel. In the Old Testament, Israel was called to be God’s faithful and covenantal bride (Ezekiel 16:8-18). She is the one He lovingly drew out of the land of Egypt, clothed in His love, and brought to a mountain marriage ceremony at Sinai (Jeremiah 31:32; Ezekiel 16:59-60).
If this were not clear enough, God explicitly calls Himself the husband of Israel in Isaiah 54:5 and identifies their relationship as a marriage betrothal in Jeremiah 2:2. It was these people that God set His affections upon (Deuteronomy 7:6-9) and it was this nation who provoked His holy husbanding jealousy (Exodus 20:5; Ezekiel 16:38). It is to this matrimonial status that God appeals to Israel to repent (Jeremiah 3:14), when she burned in belligerent and raunchy affections, playing the whore with the other pagan nations and pagan gods (Ezekial 16:27-48).
Instead of purity and fidelity to her covenant Husband Lord, she acted shamefully in debauched spiritual adulteries (Hosea 2:3-7) until she provoked the righteous fury of her God. For a time, God graciously pursued His faithless bride, beckoning her to leave her lurid pleasures behind and to be reconciled to Him (Hosea 2:7; Joel 1:8). But, alas, it was to no avail and they exhausted His mercy.
In the end, God’s first bride became so polluted in her perversions, that God, Himself, issued those ten faithless tribes a formal certificate of divorce (Hosea 2:2; Isaiah 50:1) and wrote them out of the annals of history through a devastating Assyrian invasion. Along with that, God also warned the southern nation of Judah, that if she continued to play the harlot, like Israel, her fate would be the same as her twin harlot sister (Jeremiah 3:6-10). That imagery is the operative backdrop that is in play, as soon as we turn the page over and into the New Testament.
When we arrive in Matthew we must remember two important truths. 1) God is still married to Judah (although barely). And 2) God is not a polygamist.
That second point is especially poignant because when we see God taking for Himself a new bride (The Church), we ought to remember that the only way this could be possible, is if Judah is also issued a formal divorce from God. And while we will explore this topic more fully in the weeks ahead, that is one of the major themes of the book of Revelation, how the whore of Babylon, who I take to be the unrepentant, paganized, and Rome-loving Judah, will be put away (Revelation 17:1-18) so that God can claim for Himself a new and spotless, blood-bought, bride (Revelation 21:2).
Without getting into the weeds, we can rightly assume that if God marries the Church, then He must put away the harlot Judah. We know that this divorce from God must be executed in lawful ways because He is righteous and is never the unfaithful party in His marriage. Knowing that the New Testament records how the Jews piled their adulteries up to the heavens, even making Israel blush in shame. It was Judah who got in bed with Rome and turned their back on God. It was Judah who became so blinded in her defilements that she killed God’s one and only Son. And it was feckless Judah, that God brought down the full fury of His righteous, just, and divorcing wrath.
We can know that we are living in the end times, not just because the author of Hebrews has said so, but also because God has put away His old unfaithful brides (both Israel and Judah) and has taken for His Son, a new end time wife (The Church). A bride that was blood-bought on a better mountain called Calvary, married to Him in His resurrection from the dead and is waiting for the final consummation when He returns and calls her into His arms forever. That is the mystery of the Gospel (Ephesians 5:32) and a sure clue that we, the church, His bride, is already living in the end times.
Again, we will revisit this theme when we get to the book of Revelation, but for now, let us proceed along.
End Time Demolition
Along with putting away His old wives, part of Jesus’ work to usher in the new end time Kingdom was to put away the old faithless city of Jerusalem. As you are aware, Jerusalem was the old covenant city of God where He would meet with His people. It was in that city He promised to dwell within the temple, live within their midst, to be their God, and for them to be His unique chosen people. It was in this city that the epicenter of Old Covenant religion and eschatological hope collided, with every song, every feast, and every sacrifice. Yet, in the end, this city was put away just as decisively as the faithless prostitute of old.
In some of the final moments of Jesus’ life, the city of Jerusalem collectively turned against the Son of God, and sided with Caesar as their one and only king (John 19:15). Since God alone was supposed to be King of Israel, the irony, idolatry, and infidelity were palpable. Is it any wonder that Jesus pronounced covenantal curses on this city, for all of her longstanding rebellion against God, in Matthew 23:34-36? The text says:

34 “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, 35 so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous bloodshed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. – Matthew 23:34-36

Jesus is making a straightforward claim here. Jerusalem was entirely at fault as the covenant breaker! She had systematically cut down God’s prophets of old, killing them every time God sent them. It was this Babylonesque, city of sin, that would also slaughter the disciples of Christ in cold-blooded murder, after turning on God’s beloved Son, like a rabid dog, slaying Him and crucifying Him.
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