Daniel 8:9-14
Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land. It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them. It set itself up to be as great as the commander of the army of the Lord; it took away the daily sacrifice from the Lord, and his sanctuary was thrown down. Because of rebellion, the Lord's people and the daily sacrifice were given over to it. It prospered in everything it did, and truth was thrown to the ground.
Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to him, "How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled - the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, the surrender of the sanctuary and the trampling underfoot of the Lord's people?"
He said to me, "It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated."
Daniel 8:14 is the text that brought about the birth of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. As you are aware, we have come under fire concerning this text, concerning the 2,300 days, 1844, and the cleansing of the sanctuary. The fire came first from non-Adventist scholars of which we have mentioned a few - Walter Martin, and Harold Linso. Then our own scholars question our own interpretation. We covered all this in the last study.
It isn't only that we have come under fire, but, in the last 10 years, we have lost - between North America and Australia - at least 120 ministers who have either lost their credentials or they have left the church because they can no longer hold to the teaching of the church on this issue.
The question I raised in the last study was, "Have we been following cunningly devised fables?" Can we defend our teachings from the Bible and the Bible alone? If we cannot defend it, as Harold Linso said, "We have no right to exist as a denomination." He has a point there, because our mission as a church is based on this text. If we can't defend it, then we do have no right to exist as a denomination. God is not interested in adding another denomination to His list. Denominationalism is not Biblical. As far as God is concerned, He has only one church and that church is the body of Christ. He has a mission for us and, if we destroy that mission, we are wasting our time here.
I would like to defend this doctrine because I wrestled with this. I asked the question, "Have we been honest with our interpretation?" I am frank and say that we have problems. We dealt with several in the last study. So again, we need to look at this passage honestly and see if we can defend our position and our mission.
We covered two things. We looked at the four schools of interpretation. There is a liberal school which approaches the book of Daniel through the school of Idealism or spiritualizing the text. Liberal theologians say that Daniel did not prophesy events that would take place in the future. These were simply symbolic languages for spiritual truth.
The reformers - Martin Luther and his fellow reformers - took the historicist view. This is that prophecy is the continuity of historical events of periods until the consummation. In other words, God gave a sequence of events of history to Daniel from his day until the end of time. According to this school, the little horn was interpreted as refering to the papacy.
Now we know the papacy would not take that sitting down. So they raised up two scholars, both Jesuits; one is Luis D. Alcazar, who got up the idea of the preterist view. This means that all the prophecies of Daniel were fulfilled within either the life span or the immediate period of Daniel. He taught that by the second century B.C. everything had been fulfilled. If that is true, the little horn cannot refer to the papacy because the papacy came after that period.
The other Jesuit, Francisco Ribera, also from Spain, came up with the futurist idea. Part of the prophecies of Daniel were fulfilled during his life span and the last day events will be fulfilled at the end of time and, in between, we have a gap. That is the period of the papacy. So the papacy is exempted from the Little Horn by both the views - preterist and futurist. You can't blame them for trying to defend their position. I have no problem there. What I do have a problem with is the fact that today almost all Protestant churches have rejected the historicist view and have gone to the Roman Catholic position of either preterist or futurist position. The Seventh-day Adventist Church is still clinging to the historicist approach.
The historicist approach, I believe, is the true approach. When you look at the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation, it seems very clear that they are giving you a continual history of events that would take place, in general broad lines, until the second coming of Christ and beyond.
We must recognize that we have problems and we need to look at this whole issue Biblically and defend it from the Bible. I exposed to you the statement that was made by the man who wrote our Daniel Commentary, Raymond Cottrell, where he stated:
"The 70 weeks and the 2,300 years and the cleansing of the sanctuary are pivotal [doctrines] of the SDA faith. There are no definite statements in the Bible which support the view of Adventists on this point."
Our own scholar. He is retired now, so he hasn't been touched. The thing is this: if we can't defend it from scripture, we have problems.
It is my purpose now to continue my study on how I stand behind this passage. Here is a very important hermeneutic rule. By that I mean one of the rules of interpretation when you are dealing with the books of Daniel and Revelation. The second thing I wish to do is to look at Daniel 8 as a whole because one of the things of which we have been accused - and, I'm afraid, rightly so - is that we have taken verse 14 out of context. We must be honest, we have done that.
The issue in Daniel 8:9-14 is the little horn. He casts the truth of the Sanctuary to the ground and he prospers.
Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land. It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them. It set itself up to be as great as the commander of the army of the Lord; it took away the daily sacrifice from the Lord, and his sanctuary was thrown down. Because of rebellion, the Lord's people and the daily sacrifice were given over to it. It prospered in everything it did, and truth was thrown to the ground.
Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to him, "How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled - the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, the surrender of the sanctuary and the trampling underfoot of the Lord's people?"
He said to me, "It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated."
Verse 13 is asking a question: "How long, God, until you allow this to happen?" How long with you allow the little horn to trample underfoot the truth of the sanctuary? And the answer is, "It will take 2,300 days and the sanctuary will be cleansed." It has nothing to do with investigative judgment. That is a different matter. It is dealt with in chapter 7 of Daniel. So why are we pushing chapter seven into chapter 8 verse 14? That's why we need to be honest with this passage.
There is a principal of interpretation known as "parallelism" or "recapitulation." Those are big words so let me explain. This is not something that was invented by the Adventist Church. In fact, this principle of hermeneutics was accepted and taught by the Christian church as early as the third century A.D, long before our church ever existed. What is this rule?
The hermeneutic principle teaches that both Daniel and Revelation recapitulate or repeat historical events or periods, each ending with a last day event. Therefore, Daniel chapters 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12 are all parallel passages, each ending with an eschatological event. In chapter 2, the stone without hands represents the consummation. In chapter 7, the judgment will sit and the kingdom will be given to the saints. Chapters 8 and 9 deal with the end of the 2,300 days when the sanctuary will be cleansed and the little horn will be cut off. Chapters 11 and 12 deal with the time of trouble when God's people will be tried and will be delivered.
A chart is provided dealing with the great controversy between Christ and Satan in Daniel's prophetic history of the world. I have taken three of the main chapters so that you can clearly see that this is not something that has been cleverly devised. It is a clear teaching of Daniel. All of these three chapters are prophetic chapters - chapters 2, 7, 8. You will notice that they are all parallel. They are dealing with the same period of time and the same kingdom.
Look at chapter two; you will find that the head of gold represents Babylon, which existed from 605 B.C. to 538 B.C. In chapter seven, the lion deals with the same kingdom and, therefore, the same period. Now chapter 8 does not deal with Babylon simply because the vision of this chapter was given just as Babylon was coming to an end.
Now go to number two, Medo-Persia. In chapter 2, it is represented by the torso of silver, in chapter seven by the bear, and in chapter 8 by the ram. All these three symbols in these chapters are dealing with the same kingdom and the same period of time, 538 B.C. to 331 B.C. This is known as the principle of parallelism. You will find the same idea in the book of Revelation: seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets. They are dealing in the same approach.
Number three, Greece, 331 B.C. to 168 B.C., is represented in Daniel two by the belly and thighs of bronze, in chapter seven by the leopard, and chapter 8 by the he-goat. Whichever symbol we use in these three chapters, they are all dealing with the same issue - Greece and its period of time 331 B.C. to 168 B.C.
Number four, Rome; that is, Rome as a pagan empire 168 B.C. to 538 A.D. Legs of iron in chapter two, in chapter seven the terrible beast, and in chapter 8 the little horn refers to Rome as a pagan empire.
Then, in number five, we come to the divided kingdoms, 538 A.D. to the end of their period. They are represented in chapter two by the feet of iron and clay, in chapter seven as the little horn which was broken up into ten parts, and in chapter 8 as the little horn which was the papacy.
Each chapter is looking at the same kingdoms and the same period of time but maybe from different angles. Chapter two is dealing with the secular powers, chapter seven is dealing with these powers as political entities. You will notice that all the animals are unclean. In chapter 8, all the animals are clean and dealing with these kingdoms as spiritual powers. Remember that, in those days, the political powers and their religion resided together. There was no such thing as a separation of state and religion. That is a new American concept. Don't project our concept here onto the old world.
Look now at the last kingdom - the kingdom of God. In chapter two of Daniel, the kingdom of God is represented by the great stone cut out without hands. In chapter seven, the kingdom of God is represented by the judgment - what we call "the investigative judgment" - so please remember Daniel seven is talking about the investigative judgment. We will deal with that later. In Daniel 8, the kingdom of God is represented by the cleansing of the sanctuary. What I'm trying to get at is that by using this rule of parallelism we discover that the great stone, the investigative judgment, and the cleansing of the sanctuary all refer to the same period. Daniel 8:14 may give us the date that the period begins but it does not discuss the investigative judgment. We can get the date from Daniel 8:14, but we have to go to Daniel seven for the investigative judgment.
Let's pause a few moments here on this last section. I would like to inform you that, when Adam sinned, he handed this world over to Satan. This world is under Satan. When Christ came to this world 2,000 years ago, He came to introduce or to inaugurate His kingdom - the kingdom of God. Here is a text for that. If you read your New Testament, you will find many statements made both by John the Baptist and by Christ Himself. Here is one clear statement from Jesus Christ in Matthew 12:28:
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
A very common statement that Jesus used when He was preaching during those last three years of His ministry was, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." In other words, it has begun by His coming - the first advent. In this text He says: "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come upon you."
For 4,000 years, man was held in captivity and now Christ came to set the captives free. That is the clear teaching of the New Testament. The first coming of Christ was to liberate this world from the hands of Satan. On the cross, Satan was cast out. He was not destroyed. So, since the cross, we have two kingdoms living simultaneously; the kingdom of this world under Satan is still existing. It has not been done away with. It will be done away with in the consummation. There is also the kingdom of God; two kingdoms belonging to opposite camps living in one world. See 1 John 5 and you will notice that the apostle John mentions the two kingdoms and you will find this all through the New Testament, especially in the gospels and also in the writings of Paul. Here is a very clear statement in 1 John 5:18-19. Verse 18:
We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.
Now some us are confused with verse 18, "anyone born of God does not continue to sin." Look at those words, "does not continue to sin," in its context. The New Testament defines sin in two ways. One is the typical Adventist approach, which is correct: "Sin is the transgression of the law." Please notice that, in this context, it is in the other meaning which is "unbelief." The believer does not commit unbelief. Otherwise he doesn't belong to the kingdom of God. Now look at verse 19. Remember, the wicked one cannot touch the believer. Yes, he can tempt him. He can even kill him physically, but he cannot touch him or deprive him of his eternal security as long as he is in Christ by faith. Now look at 1 John 5:19:
We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
We belong to His kingdom but the rest of the world, the whole world, is under the dominion of Satan. So when you meet the man on the street and he says, "I'm free, I'm living in America." He doesn't know the truth. There is nobody that is free. You are either under God or under Satan. You belong to one of these two kingdoms. The kingdom of Satan is on the downward slide. If you look at the kingdoms of Daniel, you will notice the descent. Daniel was the head of gold - number one. The next kingdom was inferior, and the next kingdom was inferior, and the next kingdom was inferior, until you have the dividing of the kingdom and ultimately the consummation - the take over when God will step in and take over.
The issue going from Daniel's day to our day is, "To which camp do you want to belong?" If you belong to the world, it will be destroyed. That's why we must remember that the kingdom of God was introduced, inaugurated at the first coming of Christ. It will be established and consummated in the last days. That is what Daniel 8:14 is all about and that is what the Daniel 7 judgment is all about.
Daniel two, the great stone, represents the consummation in a nutshell. Daniel 7 represents the investigative judgment when God will legally defend His saints against the accusations of Satan. Daniel 7 is good news to the believer. The accuser of the brethren will be shut up forever. God will vindicate the saints. We will cover that later. Daniel 8 has to do with the cleansing of the sanctuary or the restoration of the sanctuary or the vindication. Whatever word you want to use but remember the septuagint used the word "katharizo," which means cleansing.
We will read Daniel chapter 8. We are going to go step by step, looking at the whole chapter in a nutshell, and then, later, we will zero into Daniel 8:14 and look at it contextually and scripturally. When you look at Daniel 8, you will notice that Daniel is doing the same thing as he did in chapters 2 and 7. First, he gives you the vision. In Daniel 8, there are four items in that vision. Then he goes to the interpretation of the vision. The format is first the vision in verses three through 17 and the interpretation begins with verse 20 and goes to verse 26. Looking at the vision, we see that verses one and two gives us the time and the place where Daniel was given this vision. Daniel 8:1-2:
In the third year of King Belshazzar's reign, I, Daniel, had a vision, after the one that had already appeared to me. In my vision I saw myself in the citadel of Susa in the province of Elam; in the vision I was beside the Ulai Canal.
Now we don't know the exact year that this vision was given. We know from the scholarly world that this took place approximately 553 B.C. Remember that this was just over 50 years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the earthly temple. The Jews are still in captivity. Fifty years have almost gone by when Daniel gets this vision. He sees four things in the vision.
In verses three and four, he sees a ram with two horns. In verses five to eight, he sees a goat with one horn which is broken and then four horns come out of it. In verses nine to 13, he sees a little horn coming out of one of the four horns. This little horn seems to wax great. It seems to be an ecclesiastical power. It seems to have to do with some religious things. He takes away the daily, he casts the truth to the ground. He tramples over the saints and he prospers. Then verse 14 deals with the 2,300 evenings and mornings or 2,300 days.
Now that's the vision. There are four things: a ram, a goat, a little horn, and 2,300 days. These are the four things he sees. After the vision is seen, look at what happens in verses 15-16:
While I, Daniel, was watching the vision and trying to understand it [Please notice, he had not understood the meaning. He had only seen the vision.], there before me stood one who looked like a man. And I heard a man's voice from the Ulai calling, "Gabriel, tell this man the meaning of the vision."
First Daniel sees the vision and then God says to Gabriel, "Gabriel, please explain the vision to this man Daniel." Then in verse 17, notice the last part of the verse:
As he came near the place where I was standing, I was terrified and fell prostrate. [I don't blame him; so would I, if I saw an angel and so would Sandora if he saw those angels standing around his camp.] "Son of man," he said to me, "understand that the vision concerns the time of the end."
In other words, this vision is taking you up to the time of the end. What did he mean by "the time of the end"? There are only two interpretations to the last part of this verse. He could either mean the time of the end of the Jewish dispensation, which we know was 70 A.D., or it could mean the time of the end of the world. Which one did he mean? As far as Daniel was concerned, he was thinking about his people, because chapter 9 brings this out. But, as we look at the passage carefully, we believe that he was talking also about the end of the world. Verse 18:
While he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep, with my face to the ground. Then he touched me and raised me to my feet.
No time to sleep, Daniel; you need to understand the meaning of this vision. Here it is. Verse 19:
He said: "I am going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath..."
I'm going to let you know what will happen to that little horn that has done all these terrible things. What is the end result of this vision?
"...because the vision concerns the appointed time of the end."
Verse 20 explains the first item. What does it say?
"The two-horned ram that you saw represents the kings of Media and Persia."
So the first of the four items is explained. No problem there. He has already had this in chapters two and seven. Now verse 21:
"The shaggy goat is the king of Greece [which we know is Alexander the Great], and the large horn between its eyes is the first king."
Then he goes on to tell of what happens to the horn and, after Alexander the Great dies, that four kingdoms will stand up out of the nation but not of his own power. Verse 22:
"The four horns that replaced the one that was broken off represent four kingdoms that will emerge from his nation but will not have the same power."
Then verse 23:
"In the latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a fierce-looking king, a master of intrigue, will arise."
Now what does he mean when he says "rebels have become completely wicked"? We need to be clear on this. I can explain only briefly. If you go to chapter four of Daniel, you will get an idea of the meaning of that phrase. You remember Belshazzar desecrated the sanctuary. In chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar was given a vision and God said to Nebuchadnezzar through Daniel, "You are becoming too proud. You are exalting yourself above the God of heaven. You need to humble yourself."
Unfortunately, King Nebuchadnezzar listened only for a year and, at the end of the year, he became proud again. He was walking on his balcony and he said, "Is not this great Babylon which I have built?" Who built it? For whose power? For whose glory? That is found in Daniel 4:29-30:
Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, "Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?"
What happened? In verse 31, a voice came from heaven:
Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven, "This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you."
Not "Babylon is fallen," but "the kingdom is taken from you."
Now go to chapter five and Belshazzar. He takes the golden vessels of God's temple and what does he do? He has a feast and he uses the temple vessels to drink wine. What is he doing? He is defying the God of heaven. You remember that a finger came and wrote on the wall those famous words. You need to read what Daniel says to Belshazzar. He gives him a synopsis of the history of his father. Well, he was not his father but likely his great grandfather. In the eastern culture, every man from whom you have descended is your father. So Daniel tells Belshazzar this and this and this happened to your father and finally sense came into his head and he recognized the God of heaven. And then Daniel says to Belshazzar, "You knew all this. You were not ignorant of it but you deliberately, willfully defied the God of heaven. Therefore, Babylon is fallen."
You see the word "transgression" in the Hebrew means willful, deliberate violation of a rule. We sin in missing the mark. Everybody sins but transgression is willful. What Daniel is told here is that every nation is given a time. So is America given a time. If our rebellion is willful and deliberate, after a certain period of time God will say, "Ichabod" just like He did to Israel. What Daniel is saying here is that when the time of Greece's probation has come to an end - when they deliberately, willfully reject the God of heaven - a little horn will rise up. So the fullness of the transgression is the deliberate rejection of the God of heaven, just like Belshazzar.
In other words, every nation has collapsed because they turned their backs to God. We dare not as a nation turn our backs to God. Here is history and, unfortunately, it is history repeating itself. We need to learn the lesson of Babylon. We need to learn the lesson of Greece. We need to learn the lesson of Rome. Now comes a religious power that seems to be on the side of God. And what does he do? Read Daniel 8:23-25:
"In the latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a fierce-looking king, a master of intrigue, will arise. He will become very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation and will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy those who are mighty, the holy people. He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power."
What was one of the big problems of the little horn? It was trying to worship God by the power of politics. There is a new teaching that has crept into this country. I don't know how many of you have heard about it. It is still on the level of the theologians. It has not yet reached the lay people. It's called "reconstruction theology." The idea is that America is going down the drain morally and in all kinds of respects, it is going down the drain. The only way to restore it is to bring back the Old Testament concept of "You better do this, otherwise you will be punished." Religion by force, and that is reconstruction theology. Most of the theologians are members of this country, Americans. They want America to force religious rules. Religion by force. It's coming and you need to be aware of it. It is being absorbed by the moral majority, for example. This is what the little horn was doing. He was forcing people to believe as he taught them. "What I tell you is the truth. If I say the world is flat, you believe it."
What happened to the fathers of the scientific method like Francis Bacon or René Descartes? What happened to these people who said the world is round? The first man who said so was dubbed a heretic. The church became an authority. Please notice the church has only delegated authority - never absolute authority. So that which happened was that the little horn began to usurp power. Let us keep on reading Daniel 8:24:
He will become very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation and will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy those who are mighty, the holy people.
Verse 25:
He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior [just like Belshazzar]. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.
In other words, "If you want to be saved, you have to come through me. Salvation is not through Christ any more. Salvation is through the church." I know it because I belonged to it. When I was becoming an Adventist, my dear priest said to me, "You give up the Roman Catholic Church and you are giving up salvation." I said, "Why? I'm not giving up Christ." He said, "If you give up the church, you will have no sacrament. No sacrament means no grace, and no grace means damnation."
And I said to him, "You keep your sacraments, Christ will give them to me directly, through the Holy Spirit." He thought it was blasphemy that I was teaching. The question, therefore, arises in verse 13, "How long, God, will you allow the little horn to dominate your church, your kingdom? How long?" Verse 14 gives the answer. But look at the interpretation of the answer in verse 26:
"The vision of the evenings and mornings..."
Remember, Daniel does not use the word "days" in the original. That's the King James version. Daniel 8:14 in the Hebrew reads:
He said to me, "It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated."
Daniel 8:26:
"The vision of the evenings and mornings that has been given you is true, but seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future."
"Verse 14 has nothing to do with your time, Daniel. It has to do with the distant future. I will explain it to those people then; please shut up the vision." Well, that was easy for the angel Gabriel to say but it was hard for Daniel to take. What do we read further in verse 27?
I, Daniel, was worn out. I lay exhausted for several days. Then I got up and went about the king's business. I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding.
Remember there were four items in the vision: the ram, the he-goat, the little horn, and the 2,300 evening mornings. The first three were explained. There was no problem now to Daniel, but the fourth was not explained. Therefore, the part of the vision that Daniel was astonished at and did not understand was verse 14. No explanation. He fainted. Well, neither am I going to give you any explanation here. I hope you don't faint. You will have to read the next study.
Do you know how long Daniel had to wait? It was approximately 14 years! Not 14 days, but 14 years. Daniel chapter 9 is where God gives Daniel the explanation. Read Daniel 9 carefully. Even Desmond Ford admits that the explanation of Daniel 8 is found in Daniel 9. Notice something as you read his prayer. Daniel 9 is a long prayer. I want you to note:
1. What is Daniel's concern?
His concern is not the heavenly sanctuary. His concern is the earthly sanctuary, which lies in ruins. As long as it is lying in ruins, God's name is being disgraced, so his concern is the earthly sanctuary.
2. I want you to notice his prayer.
I want you to notice that when he is praying he does not say, "Oh God, I have been loyal to you, but your people Israel have failed." He does not do that. He identifies himself with the mistakes of his church. That is a concept of corporate oneness. When you see mistakes in your church, don't point your finger at the church without pointing your finger at yourself, because you are a part of that body. In Africa, when you stole with your hands, you were given 40 strokes. The 40 strokes were never given on your hands but on your sitting department. Why should the sitting department suffer because of the mistake of your hands? Because it is one body. Even though Daniel was loyal to God - he was a prophet and a servant to God and was faithful to God - he identified himself with the failures and mistakes of his church. We have sinned; not they. To us belongs confusion; not to them.
Remember this because one of the greatest objections I have with off-shoot movements is that they always condemn the church but they have a self-righteous attitude about themselves. That is a contradiction of the gospel. It is true that we have made mistakes. It is true that we have problems - theologically, administratively, you name it. We need to go on our knees like Daniel and pray like he did. We will not solve the problem by condemning the president, that's not where the problem is. The church is one body.
So I would like you to look at that prayer and then I would like you to look at the answer that God gave him, through the angel. It is from verse 21 onwards. Study Daniel 9 carefully. Read it carefully in more than one translation. In the next study, we will look at Daniel 9, which is God's explanation of Daniel 8. We will look at the mission of the Adventist Church. We will look at what God meant by the statement, "the cleansing of the sanctuary." What did He mean by that? Keep on studying. This church has been given a mission. If we destroy that mission, then there is no need for us to remain in this church. We may join the other churches. May God help us to understand that mission. When we have understood that mission, we do not just sit in the pews. We go out and fulfil that mission. That is my prayer in Jesus' name.