The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, in I Timothy 3:15, about how he should behave or act in the house of God, which he said was the church of God, which is “the pillar and ground of the truth,” or the pillar and the foundation of the truth. 

Previously, we began to talk about the foundation, the central pillar and the foundation of the Adventist faith, and I quoted this statement which Ellen White wrote: “The scripture which above all others had been both the foundation and the central pillar of the advent faith was the declaration: ‘Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.’  Daniel 8:14.”  The Great Controversy, 409.  That Scripture has been both the foundation and the central pillar of the Adventist faith, and the devil has used every means available to try to knock out the foundation of your faith.  He knows that if he can knock out the foundation of your faith, the whole thing’s going to come down.  You’re going to lose your faith, if that happens.  You’re not going to have it anymore, because the foundation has been knocked out.

This is a very involved subject.  As I explained before—and you can check it out in your Bible in Daniel 8—all of the vision in Daniel 8 was interpreted by the angel, except Daniel 8:14.  The angel did not explain the vision of the 2300 days.  All of the rest of the vision was explained. 

Let’s take just a few moments now to try to explain what was going on in Daniel’s mind, because sometimes it’s helpful if we think through the situation that a Bible writer was in.  Daniel at this time was a captive in a heathen land.  The nation of Judah had been taken captive, and Jerusalem, including the sanctuary, had been destroyed, burned with fire.  God’s sanctuary didn’t exist anymore.  Then he has this vision about how the sanctuary is going to be destroyed.  He knew the sanctuary already was destroyed, but he was being told that the sanctuary was going to be destroyed and that the hosts of God would be trampled under feet by two rebellions.  How long is this going to go on?  It says 2300 days.  But then the angel tells him, in verse 19, that this vision about the 2300 days goes until the end of time.

It is easy to understand why this brought terrible consternation to Daniel’s mind.  He’s thinking, “You mean God’s sanctuary is going to be desolate until the end of time?” 

In the first part of Daniel 9, it says that he was studying his Bible.  It’s always a good thing to study your Bible when you’re in trouble.  He was studying his Bible and he found a prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah that Jerusalem would be desolated for 70 years.  Now he really has a conflict in his mind.  Jeremiah said it would be for 70 years, but he’s just had a vision of 2300 days, and it’s going to go until the time of the end—when the sanctuary’s going to be restored, cleansed, made right.

He has this conflict. Is it going to be 70 years?  Or is it going to be until the time of the end?  So he starts to pray about this—one of the most wonderful, most instructive, and most beautiful prayers in all the Bible—as recorded in the first 20 verses of Daniel 9. 

While Daniel is praying, the angel Gabriel comes to speak to him.  What the angel tells him is found in verses 20 to 27.  The angel tells him that he is to understand the matter, and he is to consider the vision.  (Verses 22, 23.)  This is a key point.  It is an absolutely vital key point to understand that there is a connection between Daniel 8:14 and Daniel 9.  Our theological opponents have tried to sever the connection, but there is a connection, and God put it there.  The angel Gabriel tells Daniel to “consider the vision.”  The question is, What vision?

The vision he’s to consider is the vision of the 2300 days, because that’s what he’s praying about.  That’s what he wants to understand.  Is the sanctuary going to be desolate to the end of time?  Or is it not going to be ‘til the end of time?  Is it just going to be 70 years?  That’s what he’s praying about, and that’s the only part of the vision that wasn’t explained.  Daniel 2 was all explained.  Daniel 7 was all explained, right in that chapter.  Daniel 8 was all explained, right in that chapter, except for verse 14.  So now the angel tells him, “consider the vision,”—the vision he’s been praying about that he didn’t understand.  “No one understood it.”  Daniel 8:27.

Now the angel says, “Consider it and understand this vision.”  And then he says that 70 weeks are cut off from that vision.  That would be 490 days cut off, upon Daniel’s people. 

I’m sure many of you here have given Bible studies to different individuals about the 70 weeks, but if you don’t understand the 70 weeks prophecy, contact us for information to study on the 70 weeks. 

All I’m going to mention here is the actual dates; I’m not going to compute anything.  The 70 weeks were cut off from the longer period of 2300 days.  The 70 weeks of course would be 490 days.  That was cut off from the longer vision.  Incidentally, for those that think there’s not a connection between the 2300 days and the 70 weeks, consider that if there is no connection, then you have absolutely no Biblical way to even compute the 2300 days.  Then you have to believe that God gave us a message that He never intended for us to understand, and that doesn’t make very much sense, does it? 

The 70 weeks were cut off from the 2300 days, and the 70 weeks—one of the most wonderful prophecies in all of the Bible—tells us exactly, to the very year, when the Messiah would appear. 

The Hebrew word for Messiah, mashiyach, means “the anointed one.”  The Greek word that means the anointed one is Christos from which we get the English word, Christ.  So Messiah and Christ are actually the same thing in different languages. 

Daniel 9:24–27 tells exactly when the Messiah would appear, right to the very year.  I’ve been intrigued for many years that you can study the New Testament from Matthew all the way to Revelation and only one date is mentioned, and that is in Luke 3.  It’s the date when the Messiah is to appear.  It’s called the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar.  And it’s right at the end of the sixty-ninth week which would be 27 A.D.

Not only this, but the 70 week prophecy tells us exactly when Christ was to be crucified.  Exactly!  It’s more precise than just a year; it tells you the part of the year, the season of the year.  In fact, it makes me tremble when my mother reminds me of this once in a while.  She says, “You know, the Spirit of Prophecy says that God, in prophecy, has told us just as clearly about coming events as He told the Jews in the time of Christ about coming events.  And they didn’t understand it.”  Sometimes I pray, “Lord, is there something in prophecy that you want me to understand, so I understand what’s going on, and I’m just not paying attention?” 

Do you realize, friends, that if the Jews had been very careful Bible students, they could have determined from Bible prophecy the exact year when the Messiah would be crucified?  They could determine from Bible prophecy the exact month of the year when Christ would be crucified.  They could determine the exact day of the month of the year when Christ would be crucified.  And they could have determined the exact hour of the exact day of the exact month of the exact year when the Messiah would die on the cross!  They could have determined all of that, if they’d been careful students of prophecy.  Are you a student of prophecy?  If you aren’t, I hope you’ll decide right now that you’re going to become a student of prophecy.

By the way, in symbolic Bible time prophecy, a day equals a year.  (See Numbers 14:34.)  We won’t go into the proof for that.  If you don’t believe that a prophetic day in prophecy equals a year of literal time, then you need to find a Messiah, a Christ to believe in, that came about 455 B.C.  If you believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, then you have to believe that a prophetic day, in a time prophecy, equals a year of literal time.  Otherwise Jesus wouldn’t be the Messiah, according to Daniel 9.

The 70 weeks, which were cut off from the 2300 days, ended in 34 A.D.  If we cut off the 490 years from the 2300 years, and the 490 ended at 34 A.D., that would leave 1810 years.  If you add 1810 to 34 A.D., you are brought to 1844.  I want to tell you, friends, I am not ashamed to be a believer in the validity of the 1844 date. 

When this doctrine came under full-blown attack, in 1979, I was a teacher at Southwestern Adventist College.  I heard all these people saying all these different things, and I said, “Well, I’m going to go right to the original sources, and I’m going to check it out myself,” which I did for about a two-year period.  Obviously, the research you can do in a couple of years you can’t present in one morning, so we’re not going to go very much into research.  But don’t think friends, that if we have the time and opportunity, we can’t go deep into Daniel 8:14 and come up with 1844.  There’s no question about it.  You can look at it several different directions and still come up with the same result.

But I’m not here mainly to talk about dates.  That’s not the main thing I’m interested in.  What I want to understand is this: I just read to you the Scripture which, above all others, had been the foundation and the central pillar of the Advent faith—the declaration “unto two thousand three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”  What I want to know, when I study this, is what does that Scripture mean?  What does that mean?  “Unto two thousand three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”  Then shall the sanctuary be restored.  Then shall the sanctuary be made right.  I want to understand that.  If that is the foundation and the central pillar of the Adventist faith and I’m an Adventist, I want to understand that. 

An Adventist is someone that believes that Jesus Christ is going to return soon.  That’s going to be, by the way, the Second Coming.  The Bible does not teach two comings, just a second.  The first is already in the past; the next time is the second.

An Adventist is someone that believes that the Second Coming is going to be soon.  And if the foundation and central pillar of the Adventist faith is Daniel 8:14, then I want to understand what that means, what it’s talking about, and what it means to me as a person.  We have a lot of information to cover to answer that question, so we are going to need to go just as fast as we can.  Obviously there’s not enough time to prove everything, but don’t think, if you’re not satisfied, that we don’t have more material that you can study; we do.

We need to ask several questions.  The first question is: “If the sanctuary is going to be cleansed, or restored, or made right, after 2300 days (after 1844), what is this sanctuary that is to be cleansed, or restored, or made right?”  That is the first point of contention.  What is this sanctuary?

As always, we go to the Bible to find the answer, and we will go directly to the Book of Hebrews.  There we are going to find out what the new covenant sanctuary is.  Now the Book of Hebrews is one of the most wonderful books in the New Testament.  It was written by the apostle Paul to help Jewish Christians.  It was written just a very short time—a few years—before the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem.  People that were Christians in those days, even though they were Christians, still used to go and visit the temple in Jerusalem.  They still had a lot of emotional ties to that place.  Paul, in this book, is trying to get them ready for the time when the temple would not exist anymore.   

The apostle Paul is trying to prepare the Jewish Christians for this event, for the destruction of Jerusalem, so he talks to them at length about the fact that in the new covenant we have a better sacrifice.  “The blood of bulls and goats can’t take away sin.  But we have a better sacrifice.  The sacrifice of the Son of God, and through that sacrifice, your sins can be taken away.”  Hebrews 9:13, 14.

One sacrifice forever—Paul discusses that at length.  (See Hebrews 9 and 10.)  He talks about the fact that we have a better priest.  We don’t have the Levitical priesthood anymore; we have the Melchisedec priesthood.  We have now a better priest than they had in the old covenant.  In the new covenant, we have a better covenant than the old covenant.  Here it goes into that in detail, and he tells them, in Hebrews 8:6, that the new covenant is based on better promises.  Paul goes into this in Hebrews 11. 

In the new covenant we have a better inheritance.  In the old covenant the inheritance was the earthly land of Canaan, which, if they had been obedient, would have eventually covered the whole world.  But in the new covenant, our inheritance is the heavenly Canaan.

And, in Hebrews 13:10, he says that in the new covenant we have a better altar—that is, a better, religious service.  And in Hebrews 13 and also in Hebrews 12 he says that, in the new covenant, we have a better city—not the earthly Jerusalem; he says we don’t have any continuing city here, but we have a heavenly Jerusalem where we’re going. 

Paul talks about a better sacrifice, a better priest, a better covenant, better promises, a better inheritance, a better city, but he also talks about the fact that, in the new covenant, we have a better sanctuary.  Let’s look at that in Hebrews 8:1–5: “Now the things we’ve been talking about, this is the sum: We have a High Priest who has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord raised up, and not man.  For every high priest is appointed for the offering of both gifts and sacrifices, wherefore this One has a necessity also to have something to offer.  If He were upon earth, He wouldn’t even be a priest.  There be those that are offering gifts according to the law, which serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, just as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle.  For see, He said, that you make all things according to the pattern shown to you in the mountain.”

Notice, he talks about the true tabernacle that the Lord raised up, not man.  And then in Hebrews 9:8, 9, he says, “The Holy Spirit making it clear [or making it evident], that the way into the holy places was not made manifest while the first tabernacle had standing, which served unto an example [or a type], for the time then present, in which both gifts and sacrifices were offered, which are never able to perfect the conscience of the worshipper.”

But then, notice what he says in verse 11: “But Christ, having appeared as a High Priest of good things about to be, through a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands.” 

He’s talking about a better sanctuary, about a better tabernacle that God raised up that wasn’t made with human hands.  It is the tabernacle in heaven.  He goes on to make it clear that this earthly tabernacle, this earthly priesthood, this earthly service, is almost ready to be destroyed.  It’s going to be destroyed.  (See Hebrews 8:13.)

Paul tells us in the most plain, straightforward language that there is a better sanctuary; there is a better temple.  (By the way, tabernacle, sanctuary, and temple are all words that are translated from the same Greek and Hebrew word, so those things are interchangeable.)  It’s not made with human hands.  This is the temple that the Lord raised up; God made this one.  If these were the only passages in the whole Bible that you had about God’s temple—His sanctuary—in heaven, that would be enough.  But in addition to what Paul says, the apostle John, in the Book of Revelation, says, “I saw it!”  “On account of this, they are before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night, in His temple.”  Revelation 7:15.  God has a temple up there, and there are people that serve Him day and night in His Temple.  The One sitting upon the throne shall dwell with them.  Isn’t that beautiful?

Look at Revelation 15:5.  Notice, John is looking, and he sees this temple, this sanctuary of God in heaven; he sees it!  “After these things I saw the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven opened.”  He uses a triple description, so you can’t miss it.  He says, “It’s the temple of the testimony of God in heaven, and it was opened.”  He says, “I saw it.”

Now that word testimony is a very key word.  It is an absolutely pivotal, key, important word, which you need to understand, because when you look back in the Old Testament, it talks over and over again about the tabernacle of the testimony.  Do you know what the testimony was?  The testimony that was in the tabernacle was the Ten Commandments that was written in stone and was in the heart of the ark.  You can study it out.

So when it says, “the temple of the testimony,” what does that tell you?  That’s very significant.  Let’s read one more text on that in Revelation 11:19: “And the temple of God in heaven was opened and it was seen, the ark of the testimony [or the ark of the covenant, or the ark of the testament].”  That could translate all three of those ways.  They’re all referring to the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are referred to over and over again, in the Old Testament.  Read Deuteronomy 4:13: “He gave unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even the Ten Commandments.”  The Ten Commandments are called the testament, the covenant, the testimony.  What does Revelation 11:19 reveal to us?  It reveals that God has a tabernacle.  Not only does He have a temple, a sanctuary in heaven, but in this sanctuary, just like in the earthly sanctuary—remember Paul said in Hebrews 8 that everything down here was according to the example, the pattern of what’s up there—there’s an ark.  And in that ark, there’s a covenant, a testimony, a testament—the Ten Commandments.  It’s the original, of which the one on earth was a copy. 

Now, let’s just think that through for a moment.  If God, in heaven, has in His temple, in His sanctuary, an ark, and in that ark He has the testament, the testimony, the Ten Commandments, what does that mean in regard to me getting ready to go to be where God is?  Think about this.  You know the Ten Commandments.  The Ten Commandments is not advice.  Have you ever thought about that?  It’s not advice; it’s a law.  It’s a commandment.  It’s not advice; it’s not a suggestion.  Could anyone go to heaven and be with God and live with and follow Him if they were in violation of the foundation of His government?  No, they couldn’t.

So, the next question we need to ask has to do with the Judgment.  We believe, as Adventists have believed this since the 1840s, that Daniel 8:14 is talking about the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, and we believe that the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary will involve a Judgment.  The cleansing of the sanctuary has always involved a Judgment.  The Bible is very clear about the Judgment and getting ready for the Judgment.  It’s interesting that when the Bible talks about getting ready for the Judgment, very often the Judgment and the Ten Commandments are linked together.

Turn in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes 12:13 and 14.  These are the words of the wise man, as he’s getting ready to finish his book, and he says: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.”  Now here’s the conclusion of everything: “Fear God and keep His commandments.”  Why?  “Because God is going to bring every work into Judgment.”  Notice the Ten Commandments are linked with Judgment.  Notice the Ten Commandments are linked with the cleansing of the sanctuary, because in the sanctuary is where they are.

God’s going to bring every work into Judgment.  Since He’s going to bring every work into Judgment with every secret thing, whether it’s good or evil, He says, “You need to fear God and keep His commandments.”  Notice, fearing God, keeping His commandments, is linked with the Judgment in this text.  Jesus said, too, that, “every idle word that men shall speak they will give account thereof in the day of judgment.”  Matthew 12:36, 37.  And the Judgment begins, Peter says, in I Peter 4:17, at the house of God—that’s the church.  The Judgment begins with the church, with the people that claim to be Christians.  And when does the Judgment begin?

Revelation 14:6, 7 says, “And I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto those that dwell in the earth—and to every nation, and tribe, and language, and people—saying with a great voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, because the hour of His judgment has come; and worship the One who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the fountains of water.” 

Incidentally, the last part of the first angel’s message has a direct quotation from the Law of God.  Do you think that it’s significant when a Bible writer or when an angel is speaking and they quote something from Scripture?  Do you know where the angel is quoting from here in Revelation 14:7?   Go back to Exodus 20, and you’ll find that this angel is quoting right from the fourth commandment!  Do you think that’s significant?  I think it’s significant.  Now this is many decades after the cross, when John received this message.  And many decades after the cross, an angel from heaven, talking about the end of time, when the Judgment comes, is quoting the fourth commandment!  I think that that’s very significant. 

Notice something else here about the Judgment when it begins.  Many people think—many Protestants and Evangelicals believe—that the Judgment is something at the last day of earth’s history, when Jesus comes. Now, that will be Judgment, all right, but I want you to see from this passage that the Judgment begins sometime before that.  Notice, in Revelation 14:6, it’s talking about this angel having the everlasting gospel to preach unto those that dwell on the earth.  Does this first angel’s message take place after probation closes or before probation closes?  It has to take place when the gospel is still being preached; otherwise it would be nonsense.  The first angel’s message has to take effect when the gospel is still being preached, and that tells us that the hour of God’s Judgment begins when the gospel is still being preached.  Do you see that in Revelation 14:6, 7? 

Now, let me ask you a question.  If a message is going to all the world—and it says it’s going to go to all the world—that the hour of God’s Judgment is come, and this message goes out while the gospel is still being preached, how could you preach that message if you didn’t know when it began?  You couldn’t, unless you knew when it began!  You couldn’t say it’s begun unless you knew when it began.  And that’s where Daniel 8:14 comes in, because Daniel 8:14 reveals to us the beginning of the hour of God’s Judgment.

In the Old Testament, the hour of God’s Judgment was typified.  They had types and ceremonies of everything in the new covenant.  They had types and ceremonies in the old covenant.  We could give many examples, but we’ll just go straight to the point.  In the old covenant, there was a ceremony that was a type of the Day of Judgment.  That ceremony was referred to as a time when the sanctuary, the earthly sanctuary, was cleansed.  It was also referred to as the Day of Atonement.  You can read about this ceremony in Leviticus 16 and in Leviticus 23. 

Open your Bible to Leviticus 23 and notice that there’s something said about the Day of Atonement that is not said about any other feast day.  In verses 29 and 30, it says,  “Because every soul that does not humble himself,”—some translations translate “that afflict themselves.”  That means to humble yourself.  “Every soul that does not humble himself in that same day shall be cut off from his people.”  Now that is a stronger statement than is made about any other of the feast days.  But what’s coming up in the next verse is even stronger yet.  It says, “And every soul which does any work in that self-same day,”—that’s the Day of Atonement—“I will destroy that soul from the midst of his people.”  Now that’s strong language, isn’t it!

That’s what the Day of Judgment does.  The Judgment divides the people and puts individuals either with the righteous or the wicked.  And the Day of Atonement was that Day of Judgment.  The Lord said, “If you don’t keep this day, you’re going to be on the other side; you’re going to be cut off from God’s people.  I’m going to destroy you, if you don’t keep this day.” Statements in that strong of language are not made about any of the other feast days.  The Day of Judgment, of course, determines who is saved and who is lost.  The Judgment begins with the righteous—all those that claim to be Christians.  Revelation 22:11, 12 show us that the Day of Judgment is over for the righteous before Jesus comes again, because He says that when He comes “My reward is with Me to give every man according to his work.” 

This Judgment is graphically described in the Book of Daniel, chapter 7, verses 9, 10, and 13.  In fact, if you just study Daniel 7 alone very carefully, you could tell that the Judgment is going to begin some little time after 1798, but it doesn’t give you the exact date.  But in Daniel 8, God zeros in on the exact time when the Judgment’s going to begin.  It’s going to begin in 1844.

If I had time, I would answer some other objections that our opponents have raised about the little horn power.  They said that that’s just about the little horn power; it’s not about everybody.  They’re completely befuddled and mixed up.  I can explain that, but we don’t have time to explain that right now.  I want to ask you a question. 

This Judgment that’s been under way for over 150 years is going to be over one of these days.  When this Judgment is over, Where are you going to be? 

Did you know that Jesus told a story once about this very fact?  Jesus told a story about this Judgment that was going to take place in our time.  You might like to look at it in your Bible, in Matthew 22.  It’s the story of the marriage supper in Matthew 22:1–14.  In verses 11–14, it says, “And the King, coming in to behold those, saw there a man which was clothed without a wedding garment.  And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here not having a wedding garment?’  And he was speechless.  Then the King said to the servants: ‘Bind him foot and hand and cast him out into outer darkness.  There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are called, but few are chosen.’ ”

This man was not an atheist.  He was not an infidel.  He was a Christian.  He was a man that had faith in Jesus and had come to go to the wedding feast, but he wasn’t allowed in because he didn’t have on the wedding garment.  Are you praying about this?  Are you praying and asking the Lord to help you to put on the wedding garment and to have it on, so when it’s time to go into the wedding feast you’ll be ready? 

Let’s look at just two more passages about the wedding garment.  We need to understand what it is, and we need to pray that the Lord will help us to put it on.  “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself on her behalf, in order that He might sanctify her, purify her, with the washing of water with the word, in order that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and without blemish.”  Ephesians 5:25–27.

To have on the wedding garment, you will be without blemish.  That’s what the Bible says.  Oh, friend, are you praying about this?  Are you asking the Lord for the righteousness of Christ to be imputed and imparted to you?

“Let us rejoice and have extreme exaltation, and let us give glory to Him, because the marriage of the Lamb has come and His wife has prepared herself.  And it was given to her that she should be clothed in linen, bright and clean.  For the fine linen is the righteousness [or the righteous acts] of the saints.”  Revelation 19:7, 8.  Oh, friend, are you going to have that fine linen on?  Are you going to have the wedding garment on when Jesus comes?

It says that the bride has prepared herself.  You do not get ready to go to a wedding in five minutes.  Have you ever seen a bride that got ready to go to her wedding in five minutes?  Notice, this bride has prepared herself.  She has on a garment of character.  Right now, in my personal devotions, I’m reading through the book called The Song of Songs, or in some Bibles its called Canticles; in some Bibles, it’s called The Song of Solomon.  It is written in symbolic language, describing the relationship between Christ and His church.  It’s written in physical terms, but it’s describing a spiritual relationship, and it’s interesting.  The bridegroom says to his bride, “There is no blemish in you.”  Now, there are people that will tell you that that can’t be, but friends, that’s what the Bible teaches, and you’re going to have decide if you believe what the Bible says or not. 

I’ve decided, as wretched as I am in my sinful nature, to believe what God says, and I’m pleading with God that He will give me this experience that’s described.  Are you going to do it, too?  Do you want to have on the wedding garment—a garment of character that is without spot; that is without wrinkle; that is without blemish?  Are you going to have this experience?