Dennis Tuuri

# Daniel 7 Sermon Transcript

The rest of this month of November is marked by a major emphasis as we move toward the Advent season of Thanksgiving for Christ the King—the last season of the church year prior to the beginning of the church calendar that celebrates the advent of Jesus and prepares for his coming. So we’ll be singing thanks in November, the month of Thanksgiving, with Psalm 131.

In today’s scripture text, which is Daniel 7, we make a major movement in the book of Daniel to the prophetic section. There will be things here that we don’t understand, and so we’re going to have to apply Psalm 131 in some very direct ways—simply resting in God’s providence and not understanding everything. At the end of this first of these visions that Daniel receives and gives to us in this book, he ponders these things in his heart, much as Mary did as she considered what was happening with the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Daniel himself had to quiet his soul much like we do in Psalm 131, in the face of visions that were somewhat terrifying to him.

So let’s read Daniel chapter 7, which is the sermon text on the handouts today that I prepared. I apologize that there weren’t three holes punched—that’s my fault. I got them done late in the week. I’ve structured this in such a way as to show the text’s flow. Let me just begin by saying that this chapter is nowhere near as easily outlined as the stories in Daniel 1–6 have been. Those stories are pretty easy to remember, to apply, and to think about. The prophecies are more difficult, and their structure can be a little more difficult as well. But there’s a general sense in which there’s a movement toward a middle here—judgment—and then a moving back out of the vision as Daniel gets the explanation and then sums it all up. I’ve laid that out in the way the text flows.

In the first half of the text, the vision itself, I’ve highlighted or bolded words referring to Daniel’s seeing. There are eight lookings, eight seeings that Daniel goes through in his vision, and they form kind of a little unit of their own. Then the second half of the text has somewhat of a little structure to it, and I’ve tried to indicate that. I’ve used bolding and italics for Daniel’s response to the vision.

I’ll talk about this a little bit more when we start the discussion on Daniel chapter 7. But just to explain these formattings if you’re going to be following along in the text using the handout provided:

So today’s sermon text is Daniel chapter 7. Please stand and hear the word of God contained in Daniel chapter 7.

*[Scripture reading: Daniel 7:1–28]*

Let’s pray. Lord God, cause us to ponder these things, to keep them in our heart to comfort us, Father. We thank you for drawing us together today to minister your love to us. And we pray that this prophecy of Daniel might be understood by us, Lord God. And more than that, that you would speak to our hearts your great love for us in the midst of these troubling visions. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, as I said, we’ve begun here the second half of the book. The book of Daniel is complex somewhat. I mean, it’s not that tough. I hope none of you get too worried as we begin this prophetic section. What we’ll see here is that we’ve already been given the interpretation of this earlier in the book.

Remember that part of the book of Daniel beginning a little bit into chapter 2 through the end of chapter 7 are written in Aramaic. The first chapter written in Aramaic is most of chapter 2, and the last chapter is chapter 7. On your outlines, we give you the structure there of the Ten Commandments at the top of the outline for today’s sermon. Also, there’s a structuring device we’ve placed there to show you how this Aramaic section brings itself together. It has matching sections, bookends again, that help us to understand this vision.

I’ve provided again for you the same chart I provided when we were in chapter 2—the vision that Daniel saw in chapter 2, or rather that Nebuchadnezzar saw and Daniel interpreted in chapter 2. We already kind of have a clue, an understanding of what this is. But now we get a little more detail of what the future will bring. That’s what’s going to happen as we move through the book of Daniel. Each successive chapter will provide more detail to build upon this vision that Nebuchadnezzar first has in chapter 2, and now Daniel has a night vision of pretty much the same sort of thing, but with more detail.

Next week, as you read chapter 8, you’ll see that we’re going to talk about two of these four empires in more detail. Specifically, chapter 8 will address these two kingdoms from a sacrificial perspective—not lions and tigers and bears, oh my, but a ram and a goat. These are sacrificial animals. We’ll be stressing prayer of the saints, the religious performance of our obligation and joy before God and worship, and its impact on the nations. That’s kind of a big picture here in the book of Daniel.

Today we’re going to talk again about witness to the world, as we did last week. Winds striving upon the great sea and changing the world. Witness as we go forth. Remember in Zechariah, you have the two big brass mountains, the pillars Jachin and Boaz of the temple, and the four horses go out from there, the chariots, waters go out, winds go out. Whatever description the Bible uses, it’s you folks as we leave the worship of God on the Lord’s day to go blow upon the world and to affect it with our witness in the world.

But next week, we’ll look at this kind of from a priestly perspective. The prayers of the church will take particular focus next week. You know how the book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles are kind of the same way, right? The book of Kings talks about the political affairs of Israel from a political perspective, whereas Chronicles looks at the same events from a priestly perspective. Chapters 7 and 8 kind of match up that way. It’s not that tough really.

In chapter 9, Daniel will get more troubling news about the future and a time sequence. Chapter 9 is primarily a prayer of Daniel. Then in chapters 10 to 12, we’ll get a lot of detail about a particular portion of the empires to come. But it’s really not that difficult to understand as we build up slowly from what God has already given to us. Some of the details we will not come to understand, nor will we have time to talk about. But we can ponder these things in our heart the way that Daniel did, and we can behave ourselves as the psalmist does in 131, resting with the knowledge that God gives us and trusting him with the stuff that he doesn’t give us.

So what we have here is the complement, as I say, to Daniel chapter 2. The chart that we have on the handout for today is a reminder of that vision, that dream that Nebuchadnezzar had. What we said was generally that what we have here is a progression of four empires: the Babylonian Empire first with Nebuchadnezzar, then the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and finally the Roman Empire leading up to the coming of Jesus Christ. This is the way we’ll interpret this vision of Daniel, and it seems to be fairly easy to draw forth.

Let’s talk about this then. Let’s begin by really kind of overviewing the text, going through it a little bit slower, pointing out a few things as we go, and then we’ll make some comments about major lessons from the text that’s before us.

So let’s start by reviewing the outline. The way the text is laid out for you, together, is this: The beginning and end—it kind of is nice—has reference to Daniel’s head and then Daniel’s heart. You know, that’s who we are, kind of the essence, the core of our being, in our head and heart. So head and heart, the completion of the man, and the vision has this effect upon Daniel. Some things we’re going to understand; some we don’t. And we trust God with our heart even as we work with our head to understand certain things. So there’s kind of these bookends of head and heart.

Then moving in from there, we have that he writes the sum of the matter at the end of verse two, and then at the beginning of verse 28, “Hitherto is the end of the matter.” So we have kind of again a nice structure. Daniel’s head and heart—he writes the sum of the matter—and this is the sum of the matter he completes at the end. Then the third section moving inward is Daniel actually describing, and it’s a long section of course, but he describes the vision. “This is what I saw,” he says.

He sees in this vision by night. Remember, we’ve talked about this before, but this is a reference to Passover deliverances. We saw in chapter 6 that Cyrus went through a very troubling night with Daniel in the lion’s den, picturing the Lord Jesus Christ and his being put in the tomb for us. Night is when God comes to restructure and change the world.

There are seven or eight lookings that the text has here. It’s a little tough in the English translation because sometimes the word “behold,” which is different, can get us confused. That’s why I bolded the eight different occurrences of the same Aramaic word for looking. So there’s this completeness of looking. I think the idea of eight is to show us that essentially what we have here is the new creation again, the same way we worship on the eighth day. The eighth day Sabbath was a picture of the newness of creation, a new week started because of the work of Christ. There’s that movement in Daniel’s vision—a new creation, as we’ve seen stressed over and over again in this book so far. When Jesus comes, it’s to affect a new beginning, that is, the scriptures tell us, a new creation. This happens at midnight, at the end of the day, so to speak.

So these are nighttime visions. This is important for us because the application we’re going to take from this is that in the midst of nighttime difficulties, when we don’t see things clearly but we see them clearly enough to be frightened by them, the Lord God comforts us with the knowledge that his hand is going through the nighttime to bring us to sunrise. We don’t walk off into a sunset in victory; we walk into a sunrise. We go through the dark hour of the soul, or the dark hours for a country or culture, knowing that the Lord God is sovereign and he’s moving us through night visions and understandings toward daylight.

Daniel’s vision is a reminder of that. His vision happens in the context of the night.

In this first section we put in the outline, he describes the effect of the winds—four winds of heaven striving upon the great sea. If you were here last week, you know that we’re saying that is the saints of God, the power of God, the spirit of God moving through his people on the gentile nations who are described as the sea. There’s a reform of the gentile world that happens as a result.

The first creature—remember, we said—I should make this as a general comment first. We read this vision and the problem we have is that we read things from the lens of the book of Revelation all too often in the Christian church. What we want to try to do is look at this from a vision of helping us to understand Revelation, not vice versa.

Revelation is the combination of some things. Remember that in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, are there four statues or one? Well, there’s one statue. Now, there are four successive empires described there, but basically, it’s one empire. It’s one statue. So there’s a sense in which as Daniel sees these four creatures or beasts, it’s one beast. It’s one empire, just like there was one statue.

This is what we see in the book of Revelation. It’s one thing. How many heads are in this vision before us? Well, you have a lion with a head, then you have a bear with a head, then you have a leopard. The leopard has four heads. Then you have a creature that’s not described as what sort of animal, but it has teeth. It has one head by implication. So how many heads does the one beast, summing up all of these things, have? Seven.

When we get to Revelation, we see the composite of these visions. There’s one thing that’s being described here to Daniel, just like there was one statue in Daniel chapter 2. The one statue has 10 crowns or 10 horns rather. We see the 10 horns and the seven heads in the book of Revelation. In Revelation, this whole structure is come to judgment, and we see that the way we’ve lined up the text for you here.

It begins now. But the middle of this structure, he sees this vision of the ancient of days and judgments being set, and this thing is going to be judged because it’s gone bad. We read in the book of Revelation about how bad the empire has become. Then we go back to Daniel and we think, “Oh, these are horrible things coming up out of the sea.” But they’re not.

You see, what we said was the same Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic word for the four living creatures in Ezekiel’s vision—which are the cherubim, spirit-empowered angels—is the same word that’s used for these beasts or creatures. We get concerned because we see this giant thing, the last and dreadful thing stomping and devouring. Well, the devouring that’s going on here is that each successive empire takes the previous empire into itself.

The bear is eating, is told to devour flesh. What happens? Persia devours Babylon and incorporates the best of it into itself. The Greeks devour the Persians and bring it into themselves. The Romans devour these empires and bring it into itself. That’s not bad. That’s what God has set up as a dwelling place for his people to keep them safe. Even when we get to the book of Acts, Rome, the fourth beast—it’s not all bad. It’s mostly described as good, right?

In the book of Acts, the Jews trying to kill some person, and the Romans always step in like they did with Paul and protect them. So this empire that’s described is not a bad thing. It’s God-given. It’s that same statue that represents the metals and stuff that go into the temple. This is what it is. This is a dwelling place for God’s people.

That’s easy to see in the first vision of the first empire in Babylon because we see very explicitly not just a reference to Babylon, but we see a reference to the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar, right? He’s made to stand up. He’s not a beast now. He’s going to be brought into salvation. He’s going to come as a man. A man’s heart will be given to him. You see, and we saw that four chapters—God assured us—don’t think of Nebuchadnezzar as a bad guy. In the beginning, he’s a deliverer, and then he himself is delivered. It’s a good thing. Even in chapters 5 and 6, we saw that Cyrus is a good guy. The scriptures describe Cyrus in a positive way.

The second beast that comes along is this bear. This bear is the Persian Empire. We’ve already been told that the main guy at the beginning of it is Cyrus. Listen to what Isaiah 44 says about Cyrus. This is some years prior to the events. But Daniel, if you think about these visions from Daniel’s perspective, he knows that at the end of 70 years, there’s a deliverance coming. He knows it’s going to be Cyrus that brings it to pass.

Listen to what Isaiah 44, last verse of 44 and the first few verses of 45, says. Yahweh is speaking, and Yahweh says of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, ‘Thou shalt be built,’ and to the temple ‘Thy foundation shall be laid.’” That’s what’s going to happen. Cyrus, the head of the Persians who was Darius the Mede—but now the Persians are in control. Cyrus is going to send everybody back, and during the context of the Persian Empire, Nehemiah and Mordecai—or Nehemiah rather—is going to be sent back to build the temple. This is just what’s going to happen. Isaiah already told him Isaiah the name of the guy: Cyrus.

Verse one of Isaiah 45: “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, his Messiah, anointed one, to Cyrus whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him.” You know, in the Babylonian concept, they had this false god, Marduk. Nebuchadnezzar took Marduk’s hand and received rule from Marduk—a picture of a false god. Well, here the Lord God takes Cyrus by the hand and says, “He’s my guy. He’s my Messiah. He’s my deliverer.”

When Daniel in his vision sees deliverance—I won’t read the rest of Isaiah 45, but much of Isaiah 41–45 is about Cyrus and the deliverance God will affect for his people from Babylon through this Cyrus the Mede or Darius the Mede or the Persian Empire. So when Daniel sees these visions, I don’t think it’s the fact that we have this series of empires that troubles Daniel so much. In fact, Daniel may not even be thinking that way yet, right? If this first beast is specifically identified as Nebuchadnezzar, then maybe Daniel actually isn’t thinking about a series.

When does this vision happen to Daniel? Well, verse one says it’s the first year of Belshazzar’s reign. Daniel probably knows about Cyrus already, doesn’t know if he’s the Cyrus, thinking of it maybe, but Daniel may not think that’s what’s going on. Daniel may think in terms of his contemporary time that there’s a series of Babylonian rulers that will end with the guy he’s serving, Belshazzar. At the end, those four rulers in Babylon will go bad, and one will arise that really hates God’s people and despises them, and then the deliverer will come.

Maybe Daniel, when he sees one coming—the ancient of days sitting—maybe he thinks that of Isaiah 45, when the ancient of days, Yahweh, says that the guy that I’m going to send to deliver you is Cyrus. Maybe Daniel thinks that then one comes to receive the kingdom—maybe it’s him. Because in Ezekiel, written 10 years or so before Daniel, he’s referred to as the Son of Man. Ezekiel is, over and over and over.

So Daniel may think that the first actualization of this prophecy are several rulers in Babylon leading to one who’s really bad, and then deliverance from that being affected by the ancient of days, Yahweh, working through Cyrus, and then giving Daniel the throne. That’s kind of what happens, right? Nebuchadnezzar is followed by a couple more godly emperors in Babylon, but then there’s a falling away. The fourth one is Nabonidus, and he doesn’t love God. He worships some new deity, the moon god. Then his son Belshazzar, who’s a little horn, he’s not a ruling power; he’s given rule in the city. Then he persecutes God’s people and makes fun of him. Then the deliverance happens.

So to Daniel, it may look like this. To Daniel, I don’t think the question of this chapter is why Daniel is troubled. And I don’t think Daniel is troubled that there’ll be these four empires. Daniel is the one who told Nebuchadnezzar that these are four good things. God’s going to use the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans to protect his people, to do good for them.

“Bear raised up has ribs in its mouth.” Well, you know, the bear has something in its mouth. If you think of it as devouring people, but he’s incorporating them into himself. But ribs in the Bible speak more to a woman, right? The woman who’s taken out of the helper for Adam is a rib. We could legitimately, and Daniel may well have thought about it this way, that even if he knew the Persians were the ones represented by the bear, that there’s helpers to the Persians. Or maybe if he thought it was Evil-merodach, who was the successor to Nebuchadnezzar and was a Christian or a believer in Yahweh, at least it seemed to be—maybe he was thinking of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the helpers of God. Or maybe Jews in captivity who would help Nebuchadnezzar and his descendants rule.

There’s no reason to think of this as a horrible thing. There’s lots of reasons to think of it as a good thing. Now, if we think of it as Persia, some commentators have said that these three ribs can refer to Daniel, Mordecai, and Nehemiah—because these are the guys that are going to assist the Persian emperor to do what’s right, to establish God’s people in the land again so that they can pray for the nations.

So I don’t think it’s these pictures or visions that Daniel has that make him concerned.

“Half of the bear is raised up.” Well, we’ll see in later prophecies in Daniel that rulers come along in Persia fairly quickly, who will be against God’s people. Persia is more divided internally in terms of God’s people than Babylon was really under Nebuchadnezzar or following. So maybe that’s what’s going on.

But in any event, he sees this bear, and then he sees one like a leopard comes up, has four wings of the fowl, beast has four heads. What we’ll be arguing for in the future is that this is the Greek Empire. Daniel may not have known it, but Daniel may be starting to get a sense that the 70 years of captivity, the Babylonian captivity, now quickly coming to an end, will be followed by a lot more trouble for the Jews in preparation for the coming of Jesus.

This may be what’s troubling Daniel, but maybe not. We’re not sure. But we know that the simple raising up of this leopard is not necessarily a bad thing. He’s part of that same statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw that was supposed to be a dwelling place and power for God’s people.

Then he sees this fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, strong exceedingly. It had iron teeth to devour the great ones and break in pieces and stamp the residue. Well, he’s devouring the emperors that have gone before. He’s consuming the last empire. The Roman Empire consumes the Greek Empire. He’s trampling down. He’s got iron teeth. Well, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. The Lord Jesus Christ is described in Psalm 2 as one who rules with an iron rod and he breaks in pieces those who won’t submit to him, and he devours us, so to speak. He brings us into his body.

So the simple fact that there is this empire that comes along, the Roman Empire, that is powerful is not necessarily bad. In fact, we’ll see in Acts, or we do see in Acts, that it’s actually quite a good thing that the Romans are pretty powerful, ruled by law and might. If you don’t mess with them, they usually don’t mess with you. But if you’re a rebel, they are going to deal sternly with you. The Jews were rebellious as a people, and the Romans dealt sternly with them by protecting Paul and other Christians.

So the fact that the Romans are given by God is not a scary thing in and of itself.

“10 horns” probably refers to the 10 Caesars. We’ll talk about this in more detail another time. But then comes this little horn, and clearly this is a problem. The little horn speaks great things against God and the little horn makes war with the saints, and the little horn wears out the saints in the interpretation.

Now this seems to be the cause of consternation to Daniel. Daniel knows that before the ancient of days comes and the Son of Man is one like the Son of Man receives the kingdom, that difficulty, trials and tribulations are what’s going to happen. This little horn is pictured.

Then we have “Thrones were cast down”—”set” might be a better way to put it in verse 9. Thrones were set. The ancient of days did seat. So what is this? Who is the ancient of days? Who is the one who, at the end of Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, then in the context of that last beast and the Caesars that the ten horns describe, and in the context of somebody opposing the saints, someone is seated and takes power and authority. Who is it? We’re used to thinking of it as God the Father, but it seems like this is a picture of the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He ascends to heaven. He sits down at the right hand of the Father, and there he is seated from everlasting, the Son. “Ancient of days” is like one from everlasting. Well, that’s Jesus. The description given to us here is that his garments are white as snow and the hair of his head like the pure wool. Well, in Revelation 1, building on this imagery from Daniel, we see this picture of the Lord Jesus Christ: hair and head like wool, white as snow. He’s the one who’s seated in heaven.

John’s vision—he, as Jesus ascends—he takes the book of rule and the books are open. So the ascension of Jesus Christ is the coming to rule of the Savior. After 40 days walking after his resurrection on earth, he ascends to the right hand of the Father. Daniel’s being told that these set of visions ultimately culminate in the ancient of days becoming enthroned. Jesus Christ is enthroned, and the judgment then begins to happen.

A fiery stream—I looked for my bright tie with the fiery stream on it this morning. Couldn’t find it. But maybe this is more applicable because the emphasis in this text is that Daniel, he may know a fiery stream of angels ministers before God, and we become that as we go forth in the power of the Spirit. But Daniel is troubled. This is a night vision, and Daniel is mostly troubled by this vision. He sees some bright lights coming out, but this is a vision that brings him trouble and difficulty because of the persecution of the saints pictured to us here.

Well, this ancient of days is seated, and the judgment begins. Then in verse 11, “I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake, I beheld even till the beast was slain.” Because the horn raises itself up—the little horn—then there’s judgment to the entire statue. Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel 2, the entire statue is removed by the stone of Christ that fills the world. So now these empires that are preparatory to the coming of Christ at the end, they become corrupt because of the little horn.

In Revelation, now the beast is not good. The beast becomes a thing of judgment. This judgment is pictured for us here: that Jesus Christ ascends to the right hand of the Father, begins to rule, and in that rule brings judgment onto this entire system.

Then in verse 13, “I saw in the night visions, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven.” Remember, reading it from the Old Testament up through what do we know by now? Ezekiel is the Son of Man. In Ezekiel 1, the cherub, the chariot that Jesus was enthroned on as Yahweh—no man’s seen God the Father at any time. Jesus has revealed him. These appearances of God in the Old Testament—Yahweh is Jesus. Jesus came to Ezekiel in chapter 1. Then Ezekiel is brought into his ministry as a priest in that context. Then in chapter 2, he’s called the Son of Man. So Ezekiel 90 times is referred to as the Son of Man.

Now we have someone like the Son of Man. Daniel is surely going to interpret this not as the second person of the trinity or Yahweh, but this is somebody like Ezekiel receiving power and authority. While ultimately Jesus is the Son of Man, this is one like the Son of Man. When Daniel asks for the interpretation of this, the message is quite clear: that the one like the Son of Man who receives power in a kingdom are the saints of the most high.

Remember that we have a lion, we have a bear, and we have a leopard, but they stand for empires, right? I mean, the lion part of it—we see Nebuchadnezzar—but it’s all of Babylon for 70 years. The bear is all of Persia. The leopard is all of Greece, right? So what we have here is another individual, one like the Son of Man, but he stands for—the interpretation of the vision tells us—the saints who are the exalted ones.

So I think that what we have here is, and this is very important because it helps us to understand the rest of Daniel’s prophecies: God is going to keep his people safe. It’s going to be difficult, but they’ll be kept safe in empire until the coming of Jesus. He’s ascended to the right hand of the Father. But that’s not the end of the visions. Daniel’s prophecies don’t end in AD 30 or 33. They end in AD 70 with the judgment upon the harlot church and Rome gone bad, and the establishment of God’s people receiving a kingdom.

That’s what happens in the book of Revelation. In the beginning of the book, the saints are under the altar: “How long, oh Lord?” Midway through, they’re up on the sea of glass. But it’s not till toward the end of the book of Revelation that they’re enthroned and given crowns. You see? So there’s this movement of the saints in the 40 years that the book of Revelation primarily describes.

One like the Son of Man—the church is receiving dominion and power from Jesus, the ancient of days. Daniel’s visions concern the completion of the new creation, which occurs in its marked sense in AD 70, as the church receives rule and authority.

Now, whether you want to agree with that interpretation of one like the Son of Man, clearly when the prophetic interpretation is given to him in Daniel 7, the completion is the saints of the most high, the exalted ones—actually, is what it may be better translated as—receiving a kingdom and power and dominion that shall never end.

So these four empires culminate in the coming of Jesus Christ. The work of Jesus culminates in the ascension of his bride to be his rulers on earth, receiving authority from him to rule. That’s the way that prophecy says history is going to go. That’s what it is.

So this is described to us. The seven looking—eight lookings of Daniel culminate with the seeing or beholding power given to one like the Son of Man, the church, I believe, of Jesus Christ. We only receive it because we have communion and union with God the Father and Son and Holy Spirit through Christ, who is the Son of Man. Well, we’re all like the Son of Man.

Daniel’s response to this is grief, right? That’s nice, Daniel says, but I’m upset. I’m grieved because of this vision. Verse 15 says, “These visions of my head trouble me. I came near into one of them and said, asked him the truth of all this. What does it mean? What’s going on?”

And so the guy says, “Well, these are beasts which are four kings arise out of the earth. But the armies of the most high, or the saints rather of the most high, the exalted ones, shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.”

There’s the summation. There’s going to be a series of empires. The culmination will be the coming of Christ. But the coming of Christ will find its fulfillment in rule being given to the saints, the exalted ones. They’re going to possess the kingdom forever and ever.

Well, that doesn’t satisfy Daniel’s troubling nature. He says, “I’d know the truth of the matter—the fourth beast, diverse from all the rest.” And specifically, he says, “I want to know about this horn. What is this horn that makes war with the saints and prevailed against them?”

What troubles Daniel is the horn. What we’ll see as we move on into the further visions of this book is the horn. The little horn are the Herods and the Judaizers and the Jews who are going to persecute the church. They’re going to be the ones who make war against the saints. If those times were not cut off—if it wasn’t “a time and times and the dividing of time” at the end of the Herods, the little horn, and the Jews that persecute the church leading up to AD 70—even the elect would have been washed away by them. So they’re cut off by Jesus ultimately in AD 70.

But they’re the ones who have waged war against the saints. Daniel can see that maybe in his life there’s going to be trial and tribulation from this Belshazzar guy before Cyrus delivers him. Then he may actually begin to think a little bit: there’s going to be some problems for my people prior to the coming of Christ. But we, looking back on it, can say that there will be great trouble for the saints of God from the Judaizers, from the Herods who were the authority of the Roman emperor in the promised land, in Israel, amongst his people.

This horn wages war against God’s people. He’s boastful, and he wages war against it.

Now, horns are not in and of themselves bad things. Jesus is a great horn. He’s got great power and authority. A horn in the Old Testament means an emanation, a representation of something. When it talks about Moses’ face shining, there’s a horn on it. That’s what it means to shine forth like a horn. You’ve seen these paintings, maybe some of you—Moses with two little horns, right? We think, “What is that?” Because you know, today, you know, there’s the horns of the devil, right? Horns are bad. But horns aren’t bad. They’re a representation of power, authority, brilliance. Musical instruments shine forth music. A horn is what the Bible says. So a horn means a representation of something.

Actually, remember that this vision compares to Daniel chapter 2, which we know was a representation of the temple, a new temple, dwelling place for God’s people. Well, the temple has four horns on the bronze altar. There are four horns on the golden altar of incense. Then on the Holy of Holies, there are two angels who are the horns over the ark of the covenant. So there’s four plus four plus two—there’s 10.

So the 10 horns again are a reminder, not that this is going to be something that’s really bad, but this is going to be like the new temple that God provides protection for his people. The Romans do it. But this little horn goes bad. The little horn starts speaking great things against the most high and persecutes the church of God. These are the Judaizers and the Herods.

There’s more description given in verse 28. He, the little horn, “shall speak great words against the most high, wear out the saints of the most high, think to change times and laws.” How did Herod try to prevent the time, the appointed time for killing a Messiah? Well, he killed all those children. The massacre of the innocents was an attempt on the part of Herod to change the time of the fulfillment of the prophecy. He didn’t want Messiah to come to take the throne. So he tried to change times. He tries to change laws.

So the Herods and the rulers in Israel represent this problem that gives Daniel great trouble. But the judgment does sit, and their dominion and power is taken away, and the people of the saints of the most high are given kingdom and power. So this is what this first vision is, and it sets us up to understand: if we understand chapter 2, we understand this better. If we understand this, then it won’t be so hard as we move into the rest of the book.

Well, let’s talk about some major lessons from the text.

## One: The Church Witnesses to the World Bringing Forth Good Things

And this is the same message we said last week, right? We have a mission to witness to the world. Daniel and his buddies witnessed by speaking prophetically about the future and how things work to Nebuchadnezzar. They represented the speaking forth, the religious perspective where they correct Babylon, and that’s how they affect it. By the time they get to Persia, that is no longer the case in Daniel chapter 6. In Daniel 6, what’s going on is: who’s going to rule? Daniel’s given rule. We want rule. We just voted last week. We want to make our guy the king, right? Or the head. We want to have civil rule. But you don’t get there if you haven’t spoken prophetically and advised a civil magistrate. You get there through service—again, a service that includes witness of how Christ says the world works.

We serve the magistrate. We don’t speak great things against it. So the church has this obligation to be the winds of reformation, witnesses to the world that bring forth good things, right? The winds don’t bring forth four horrible beasts. They bring forth empires and powers that can be affected and influenced by the message of the church.

We don’t know the state of President Bush’s heart. But we know that he’s a man who is being influenced and worked on by the word, the prophetic witness of the church of Jesus Christ. We know that men like Marvin Olasky have been important to President Bush. Don’t think through public policy. President Bush’s stuff—that’s just horrible, right? The Muslims have a separate way to God or heaven somehow. But you see, think of him as Nebuchadnezzar or as Cyrus being affected and influenced by the church.

We have a prophetic ministry. If Kerry would have won, the same thing would have been true. We have an obligation to serve the civil state, the Kollingsworth’s, the members of the House and Senate, by speaking a prophetic word politically to them. This brings forth good things. This is how it changes—not through ultimately the power of the ballot box or the gun. It’s the power of the word of Christ spoken into the context of our day and age.

The defeat of the magicians in Daniel 1:5—the counselors of the world will not serve the governments any more properly. They’re defeated. Daniel replaces them. We now are the ones who, the only ones who can bring success and victory to whatever President Bush is trying to accomplish in Iraq. You see, the Chaldeans, the astrologers, the wise men of the world—they’re not going to work. But if we speak prophetically into that, then we bring blessing.

For us, as we go into our workplaces and our schools, whatever it is, it’s the same thing. We have an obligation to witness Monday through Saturday the truth of Christ and its application to the world. In Daniel’s time, the good thing was an empire in several forms. I’ve already mentioned this, but it’s a single empire in several forms. That’s the good thing that the people of God bring up as they witness to the truth of Christ. You see, none—a bad thing. Good things happen.

Ultimately, the end of Daniel’s vision refers to the enthronement of Christ and the church subsequently receiving the kingdom in AD 70.

You got Leviticus 16 here—day of atonement. The high priest goes in, provides atonement or covering, at-one-ment with God. How many times does he go into the Holy of Holies in Leviticus 16? Think in your heart. You know the Bible. I would have said one most of my life, but it’s twice. He goes in twice. Once for his own sins, then he comes back out, kills another animal, gets it ready, goes back in for the sins of the people. Two comings before the throne.

You see, first representing the greater Aaron, the greater high priest whose blood would make atonement for everyone—Jesus Christ. Jesus receives as the ancient of days is seated in that throne room. He ascends in the clouds. Aaron would ascend before the ark of the covenant in clouds. He had to bring incense, burning coal from the altar, put it on the incense. He had to go in a heavenly cloud, first representing Jesus ascending and becoming seated on the throne. But then he comes in a second time in another heavenly cloud. This represents the people, the sins of the people. They’re being put to at-one-ness with God and with Yahweh. The people ascend. The people receive the power in the kingdom.

You see, in AD 70, specifically the final judgment of Christ on this beast happens as Daniel saw it happening. In the context of that, the saints, the exalted ones, receive the kingdom that cannot be taken away.

## Four: Like Daniel, Our Understanding Gets Clearer Over Time

We don’t understand the future. Daniel didn’t understand the future. Over the next few chapters, he’s going to understand more, but an awful lot he’s never going to understand until he goes to heaven. Same thing with us. We don’t know what’s going on. We get an illness. We don’t know what the future that illness will bring. I had some rather devastating personal news on Friday. I know a little bit of the future. It troubles me. Some of you have medical conditions. You hear the news, and it troubles you. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.

As you move ahead, that future may get tougher, not easier. As Daniel is going to get progressive revelation here of what’s going to happen, he’s going to find out eventually that armies are going to warp back and forth over Jerusalem in the next 500 years, destroying it, raping, pillaging, and creating all kinds of havoc for his people. He’s going to lose the game big time. A lot of problems coming in the future. The details aren’t known to us. Sometimes as those details play out, they get worse.

You know, we think that our treatments are all done and we get back to normal life as Nancy was hoping. But then you find out you got to go through physical therapy and you keep going back to the doctor. You think, “Well, I’m working on my finances. I’m trying hard to do it.” Boom. Something else comes, and it gets worse. We don’t know the future and the details. They do get clearer over time, and that clearness is not always good.

President Bush doesn’t know what’s going to happen to Iraq. He didn’t know two years ago, and he gets criticized for that. Well, in a way, we should be able to have some kind of cognition of what’s happening, what our events will be, but the future never looks like how we imagined it. We get more details over time.

We’re like Daniel. Like Daniel, we should—we will encounter distressing events in the future. Hard times are coming. That’s what Daniel finds out. I mean, we read it—we think, “What are you talking about? The saints win. They get the kingdom. Jesus comes. He gets raised up.” Well, that’s nice. But in the meantime, Belshazzar is going to make fun of Daniel and mistreat him. In the meantime, the Jews are going to get persecuted horribly—the faithful ones. Jeremiah is going to be thrown in a pit. Eventually, the saints of the most high, the followers of Jesus Christ, will be killed—90%, I don’t know how many, but probably 80–90% of faithful Christians will be killed leading up to AD 70.

Distressing news for Daniel, if you understand it correctly, the future isn’t always good. But we’re like Daniel—that’s the point here. Yeah, it’s dark, but so was Daniel. His vision was dark of the future that went ahead for him and his people.

I was at a marriage conference Friday night and all day Saturday. Unfortunately, it goes on today. Evangelicalism now has not just lost the conception of the whole Lord’s Day that we talked about last week, but now even worship services are, you know, secondary to marriage conferences put on by good, godly people. It’s going on right now, a marriage conference all day. In the afternoon, they’re going to do employment stuff, trying to see if you want to work for this ministry.

Great ministry. I’m not going to put it down. But evangelicalism has lost the sense that the four winds blow out from between the temple. That’s what’s going to change things. But in this marriage conference, it’s very encouraging. I would encourage some of you to go to it. It’s called a Weekend to Remember. One of the most encouraging things is that everybody’s discouraged. Sounds odd, but what you find out is that every marriage is pretty troubled.

One of the men presenting talked about going into the wilderness and taking his family up there, nearly killing them—going backpacking for a week. They end up in a storm in August, and he almost kills them. He leads them into disaster. Well, when you get married, they were saying, you’re going up to the wilderness, and as much as you may try to get prepared, it’s going to be difficult times for lots of reasons. So there’s troubling things that lie ahead of us even in our marriages.

But it’s comforting to know that it is difficult, that it’s never, you know, who told us it was supposed to be great and easy and fun? Oh, there are those elements to marriage, of course, but there’s a lot of work. There’s unexpected things that life brings. Daniel is a reminder that if our lives are dark at points in time, well, that’s okay. The Lord God took Daniel through difficult times.

The future isn’t bright in the sense of always being bright. But like Daniel, we can be comforted in the movement of history. We can see the little lights, right? Daniel knows it’s going to get tough. But he also knows the saints will make it through that time, and they’ll reign with Jesus Christ. Our marriages will be okay. The future is bright. We can take great comfort that the hand of God is moving us through difficulties for his purposes and bringing us to blessing and power.

## And Finally: We Should Be Like Daniel, Then, and Not Like the Little Horn

We’ve talked about this a couple of weeks, but we read the book of Daniel and we know in these first chapters what he’s like. We read in chapter 2 or chapter one that he’s not, you know, a rebel against the authorities of Nebuchadnezzar and his godless crew. We know that the godless crew love Daniel, and they’re actually trying to help Daniel. The man—when Daniel wants to not eat the king’s food, the Nebuchadnezzar’s man that’s in charge of these young men—he loves him already. Daniel is winsome. Daniel is submissive. Daniel is respectful. Not at the cost of truth. He clearly is going to tell the truth to wherever he’s at. But he doesn’t do it in a way that is rebellious.

The little horn is the one who’s rebellious. He speaks great things against the saints. He makes fun of the authorities. He tries to, you know, change what the future will look like. The great horn—or the little horn rather—is the picture of what we’re not supposed to be: arrogant, prideful, unsubmissive to the authorities that God has placed in the world. There were Jews in Jerusalem at the time of Daniel who were the same way. There are Christians today who like think there’s nothing more Christian or more devoted to Christ than to put down the political authorities in our culture, to make fun of the Nebuchadnezzar, the Belshazzars, and the Cyruses of our day, to call them hypocrites, liars, ethical rebels, and we should have nothing to do with them.

That’s the Jews in Jerusalem at the time of Daniel speaking. We have to be very careful with our words and attitudes that we don’t image the little horn. We want to be Daniel’s—clear, truthful, prophetic witness to the world, but in a way that is indeed winsome, powerful, but respectful and submissive, because we really believe that Jesus Christ is ushered in a kingdom that will not fade away and that we are the rulers, and we’re called to witness to the governing authorities. God’s hand oversees history.

You see, yes, Daniel was troubled by the visions. We’ll see more troubling things for Daniel in the chapters to come. But Daniel is comforted ultimately knowing that God will take us through the dark times. The bright light will be there. We see the light at the end of the tunnel. The light is that the sovereign God is moving for his purposes in the context of the world. We then can be like Daniel was.

What did Cyrus do when he came along several years later? This is the first year of Belshazzar. Several years later, Cyrus takes over Belshazzar’s reign. What does he say about Daniel? Daniel serves God continually. Daniel is respectful and already loved by Cyrus. Cyrus is worried about Daniel in the line’s death. Cyrus—maybe not a believer yet—he comes to belief in hearing Daniel’s words, but he already has relationship with them. He cares for him.

You see, Daniel took the vision, and while he was troubled, he recommitted himself to follow the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, to honor the authorities that God had placed in his context, to the political rule that was given to him. Even if that meant saying things that they may not like, but certainly it also meant having a way about him where he would have entree to serve. He serves prophetically, and then because of his great service to the empire in Babylon, now he serves politically as the right-hand guide to Cyrus there. We want that kind of authority and power.

God will place us in positions of authority and power in the workplace, in the families, in our communities, in the political realm. But we get there through being Daniels and not through being little horns.

May the Lord God grant us the grace and strength to hunger and thirst after the righteousness, character, and commitment of the greater Daniel, the Lord Jesus Christ. May he grant us the faith to know that as we come to partake of him today, he gives us this very thing.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you, Lord God, for this vision of Daniel. We thank you for the troubling things that you show us about our future, knowing that it causes us to cast our care upon you, knowing that your thought is toward us, for our benefit, and for our blessing, even if that means dark details, dark nights in front of us. We thank you, Lord God, for assuring us today of your love—that it’s out of your love you bring these things to pass, that your people may indeed be exalted and blessed by you.

Help us, Father, to look at whatever dark things are in our lives today and have the faith and confidence—not Pollyanna, denying that they’re real, and their struggles and they’re going to bring sadness and grief and anxiety—but help us to see through them, Lord God, to your sovereign hand in our history, the way Daniel saw it in his history. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.