Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Daniel Chapter 8
## Reformation Covenant Church | Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Sermon text today is Daniel chapter 8. Daniel chapter 8. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. If you follow the text from the handout, you’ll see the basic structure of this chapter as we read it.

In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, to me Daniel, after the one that appeared to me the first time. I saw in the vision and it so happened while I was looking that I was in Shushan the citadel, which is in the province of Elam, and I saw in the vision that I was by the river Ulai.

Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and there standing beside the river was a ram which had two horns, and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, northward, and southward, so that no animal could withstand him, nor was there any that could deliver from his hand. But he did according to his will and became great. And as I was considering, suddenly a male goat came from the west across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground.

And the goat had a notable horn between its eyes. Then he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing beside the river, and ran at him with furious power. And I saw him confronting the ram. He was moved with rage against him, attacked the ram, and broke his two horns. There was no power in the ram to withstand him. But he cast him down to the ground and trampled him. And there was no one that could deliver the ram from his hand.

Therefore, the male goat grew very great. But when he became strong, the large horn was broken, and in place of it, four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land. And it grew up to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground, and trampled them.

He even exalted himself as high as the prince of the host. And by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down because of transgression. An army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices and he cast truth down to the ground. He did all this and prospered. Then I heard a holy one speaking and another holy one said to that certain one who was speaking, “How long will the vision be concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot?”

And he said to me, “For 2,300 days, then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.” Then it happened when I, Daniel, had seen the vision and was seeking the meaning that suddenly there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai who called and said, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” So he came near where I stood. And when he came, I was afraid and fell on my face.

But he said to me, “Understand, son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end.” Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground. But he touched me and stood me upright. And he said, “Look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation. For at the appointed time, the end shall be. The ram which you saw having the two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.

And the shaggy or hairy male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes is the first king. As for the broken horn and the four that stood up in its place, four kingdoms shall arise out of that nation, but not with its power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressions have reached their fullness, a king shall arise having fierce features, who understands sinister schemes.

His power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. He shall destroy fearfully and shall prosper and thrive. He shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people through his cunning. He shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule, and he shall exalt himself in his heart. He shall destroy many in their prosperity. He shall even rise against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without human means.

And the vision of the evenings and mornings which was told is true. Therefore, seal up the vision, for it refers to many days in the future. And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick for days. Afterward, I arose and went about the king’s business. I was astonished by the vision, but no one understood it.

Let’s pray. Father, thank you that we can understand this vision because of the continuing revelation that would be recorded for us later in this book of Daniel and for the ability to look back on the coming of Jesus Christ, Prince of Princes and King of Kings, and look at the events leading up to that time. We thank you, Father, for your scriptures. We thank you for this chapter in Daniel. We pray that you would bless it to us, Lord God.

May Jesus reveal it to us so that we can understand what’s happening here in a general sense and that we may be moved by this to a greater sense of our dependence upon him. Transform us by this word of our Savior so that we may indeed be humble and not proud, that we may see that you take us through calamities and difficulties, that we may be raised up in newness of life and strength. We pray, Lord God, that the end result of this is that we would be little Daniels as we leave this place, being raised up and going about doing your business. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Apostasy, pride, deceit. These are the characteristics of the passage that’s before us. The apostasy of God’s people, the pride of the ones who would oppose Jesus Christ and his purposes, those that make themselves great, bluster against their God, and yet are then judged by him and set aside out of human history. Deceitfulness of the prideful ones who use the apostasy of God’s people to cause their will to be done in the context of the world.

And in the midst of this text, the tremendous emphasis on the worship of the church, the prayers of God’s people. We move in this text from Aramaic back to Hebrew. Now we’re back in Hebrew language, which will be for the last chapters of this book. Why? Because we’re moving now from a consideration primarily of the empires—Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome—and the visions thereof. These are still referred to now in the rest of the book, but the emphasis now is from the perspective of God’s people, his priestly people.

Clearly, this is a chapter that has to do with temple worship. It has to do with sacrifices, the morning and evening sacrifices, the cleansing of the temple, the apostasy of God’s people. Apostasy is not something that pagans enter into. It’s what God’s people enter into. And so this becomes a tremendous emphasis. The prayers of God’s people are becoming front and center in this vision of Daniel.

And this will continue as we move into the next few chapters of Daniel’s prophecy. Next week in Daniel 9, what we’ll see is that Daniel knows the 70 years of captivity in Babylon are about at an end. And he’s going to pray. That’s what he does. And most of chapter 9 is the prayer of Daniel. We’ve been set up for this because Daniel prayed in the lion’s den, right? As a picture. And the lion is used as a symbol in the imagery we looked at last week of all of Babylon. And so from the pit of the empire, Daniel prays and things happen.

And then next week, Daniel prays. And then after that, in chapters 10 to 12, we find out that the prayers of Daniel really are effective and are involved in the warfare, the angelic warfare that’s been described for us in chapters 10 and 12. We find out that our prayers are actually doing things in the context of the world. Daniel becomes almost like Frank Peretti with heavenly warfare going on between angels. We’ll see as we move into chapters 10, 11, and 12 the prayers of Daniel affecting that heavenly warfare.

And now we’re moved into this in an increasingly explicit way where the important application they got out of these chapters is the importance of our prayers, our prayer life, and then the corporate prayers of the church. The sacrifices of the Old Testament are the prayers of the saints. Those sacrifices are described as being stopped in this vision before us, and that has an effect upon the world.

So we come into this text with some big themes, some obvious application points to us, and yet set in the context of a vision that can at first sight be very difficult to understand. Daniel says at the end that nobody can understand it. When it was given, they understood parts of it, but parts of it he couldn’t because what’s being described is really not just the coming out of the Babylonian captivity after 70 years and the events that will happen after that in Israel.

Finally, over and over again—three times—we have this terminal statement made of judgment, and three times it’s emphasized with increasing clarity that ultimately this vision is fulfilled with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this text really takes us in a clearer and clearer way into the times of not just the events coming out of Babylon, the establishment of the Persian Empire, the return to the land under Ezra and Nehemiah, but then to as well the Greek Empire and its last great ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, and then even beyond that—another couple hundred years—to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So this big span of history is what Daniel’s visions are about, and this is becoming clearer and clearer. Daniel’s visions build one on the other. We looked at chapter 7, saw it was linked with chapter 2, right? Beginning and end of the Aramaic sections—the vision and the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had of the empires. Now the vision Daniel has—and right in the opening verses of chapter 8 we’re linked back to chapter 7.

He says that it’s the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar. Well, what did chapter 7 say? Chapter 7 said it was the first year of King Belshazzar. We know now that this follows the previous vision, right? But he still tells us then in verse one that this vision was after the one that appeared to me the first time. He doesn’t need to say that. We got a little “how to teach the Bible” seminar here on Saturday.

One of the most important things you can do to understand the Bible and teach it is ask yourself: Why is this said this way? Why is it repeated? And it seems that the purpose here is rather clear—it is to link this prophecy, this vision, back to the vision that Daniel had in chapter 7. This is after, following on the vision he just had. It begins in more detail, in a more focused way, specific aspects of what had happened in chapter 7. And so we’re supposed to bring in what we remembered of chapter 7 as we consider this vision now.

There’s a basic structure to this, and I’ve laid the text out on the handouts pretty easy. You know, there’s kind of a basic thing here: it talks about King Belshazzar at the beginning of the text, and after everything’s said and done, Daniel goes about the king’s business at the end of the text. And I want us to make the application that we’re raised up in newness of life—the way Daniel’s raised up from his death-like experience to go about the king’s business. We leave this place. The word of God cuts us in two, kills us, brings us to repentance, brings us through death to resurrection. And we’re to use that resurrection life that God grants us through uniting us with Christ’s death and resurrection to go about the king’s business. This is who we are, right? But in the immediate context, he means Belshazzar’s business.

Another indication: Daniel in the vision sees that he’s in Elam. I’ve got a little map for you on one of the handout pages, second or third page. And you know, Persia is way to the east, right? Elam is over there in Persia. The Ulai canal is actually further to the east than the Tigris and Euphrates. Even Solomon had said that the kingdom would extend to the Tigris and the Euphrates. This is beyond that. You see, so God has gone in exile with his people here.

And Jesus—the voice that speaks to Gabriel—is represented as above the canal. Says in the river, in the middle of the river. Well, the way that is described, and we’ll see it more explicitly in chapters 10 and 11, is that Jesus is above the water. Again, we bring in new creation models, right? The spirit above the water, Jesus above the Ulai canal. He’s with his people in exile, and they’re going to go back to the land. Stuff is going to happen there that he tells them about.

So Belshazzar is the king, but Daniel has been to Persia. It’s not yet conquered Babylon. It will. And then after that, Persia will stir up the Greeks. Those of you that watched the History Channel show I mentioned last week at an announcement time on Alexander the Great, or if you just know your history well enough, you know the Persians increasing their empire were making a couple of wars against the Greeks—who were a set of city-states—and that stirred up the Greeks to then unite. Philip of Macedon unites them together, and his son Alexander takes over after his death—maybe arranged for his death, we don’t know—but Alexander the Great then unites the Greeks and then conquers the Persians, and eventually kills Darius, his men do.

So this is what’s talked about in this situation, and the map helps give you a sense of some of the directions that are mentioned here. You know, there’s an explicit reference that we have these two sacrificial animals in this vision, and the reference is to Media and Persia and then to Greece. Media and Persia are way over to the east, and Greece is down the other way. So we begin over here, and then the Greeks are going to come from the west, coming really from the place kind of in the direction of the holy land, and the map helps give us a little orientation.

So the beginning and end of this story is references to King Belshazzar, and then moving in, what we have is a common thing: the vision appears to Daniel, and then at the end he’s told to shut up or seal the vision—keep it intact—because, you know, its fulfillment is many days away. So the vision appears, the vision is sealed up, and then we have the specific vision itself given to Daniel, and we have that as the third thing moving in. And then matching that is, like we’ve seen before, the interpretation of the vision—what does it mean? And the angel, the holy ones, tell Daniel what the vision is all about.

And then moving toward the center, this has an impact on Daniel, so the fourth section moving in toward the middle, we then have this impact upon Daniel at kind of the center of the thing. So there’s this beginning of the angel speaking one to the other, and then at the very center there’s a voice of one who tells Gabriel to reveal what’s going on to Daniel. So at the very heart of the text is the voice, and we’ll have to—we’ll see this in more detail in chapters 10 and 11—but the voice of the one speaking here is the voice of the great overseer of all the angels, and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ.

So at the center of this chapter, surrounded by the vision and the interpretation of it, is the voice of Jesus Christ.

Now, what we have in the vision, I’ve got some things underlined on your text. We’ll just look briefly at the text again. So Daniel sees in the vision in verse two, and he’s by this river Ulai, and I’ve already talked about the geography of that. And he sees a ram standing beside the river. And one of the things that happens over and over again in this text is people standing up. And this becomes there more detail given of this as the visions continue in chapters 10 to 12. You know, the very last sermon could maybe be entitled “last man standing.”

Various guys stand up, assume rule and power. But this ram that stands up at some point in time begins to think of itself as great. The ram specifically represents Media and Persia, and the ram stands. And this is a common theme: people standing up. So this ram has two horns interpreted as Media and Persia. And then following the ram, there’s a goat.

“I was considering, suddenly a male goat came from the west.”

Well, it would come from the west. It’s Greece, as the interpretation will tell us, and it’s moving very quickly. And of course, Alexander the Great was known for his very rapid conquering of the Persian Empire and other first uniting the Greeks and keeping their city-states together and then moving and building his empire. The goat has a notable horn between its eyes. This is Alexander the Great. He goes to the ram. This happens at the river, the same place that Jesus’s voice at the center of the text comes from.

And so we can make this geographical association: Jesus—who speaks from the banks of the Ulai or between the banks of this canal, hovering over the water, so to speak, the firmament—who’s bringing everything to pass, this new creation he’s superintending the affairs of history. Because the conflict is described as happening at the Ulai canal, at the water, where Jesus speaks from.

Then the male goat becomes very great in verse 8. And what it means is a more literal translation: he makes himself great. So first, the ram made himself great. Then the goat comes along and makes himself great. And then finally a little horn’s going to grow out of all this, and he’s going to make himself great. So the three major characters that are described here—these kingdoms of Persia, Greece, and then the little horn, which we’ll talk about in a minute—all end up prideful, making themselves great.

And whenever anybody lifts themselves up, puffs up their chest, and thinks they’re something when they’re really nothing except for the grace of God or God’s movements in history moving through them, then comes the judgment. So whenever anybody becomes great, then the judgment comes.

The male goat grew very great, made himself great. But when he becomes strong in verse 8, the large horn was broken, in place of it four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven. And here Daniel’s statement that this is linked back to the vision of chapter 7 helps us. The four notable ones come up toward the four winds of heaven. Well, what are the four winds of heaven? We’ve already been given symbolically what that meant in Daniel chapter 7. These were the saints of God that he had spread into the world as the four winds blow out. He blew his people out to stir up the gentile nations.

You know, it’s interesting that kind of happened this last week or two, didn’t it? Those of you that read papers or listen to the radio or watch TV news, you know that God used the Christians to stir the people this last election cycle. All kinds of debates going on this last week. Well, was it really the Christians and the homosexual marriage issue that decided the election for Bush, or was it not? And there’s good people on either side of the issue. And well, the reason for this is there was this Pew Research poll that showed that to most people the biggest issue that made them vote were moral concerns—in other words, homosexuality and abortion.

On the other hand, the research poll lumped together individual categories or had one lump category of moral issues, but the other concerns—Iraq, terrorism—were separately listed. So you can make the point that if you combine people’s concern about Iraq and those that said the big issue was terrorism, that’s actually a bigger percentage-wise than the moral issues. Or if you combine the domestic issues—health care, jobs, the economy, and taxes—that becomes bigger than moral issues. So people can make a good case one way or the other.

Was it the evangelical Christians that Carl Rove used to secure the victory of the president? Maybe that’s what some people say. Other people say, “Well, evangelicals turned out in about the same percentage they did four years before. That wasn’t the difference.” And nobody really knows what the difference was because they don’t have records of all however many millions of people voted. They have some exit polls that were proven notoriously incorrect the day of the election itself. That’s all they have to go on.

And we don’t care what the answer to the question is. But what we do say is that this should remind us of what Daniel 7 says. When God’s people witness and pray about a particular issue and then take a message to the nations, it stirs them up. And we did that. Evangelicals across the country were a little more verbal this time about specific issues like homosexual marriage. And no matter how you interpret the data, the point is the nations are stirred up now.

And Europe is thinking that America’s a bunch of Christian right-wing terrible people, and you know there’s talk of secession—really seriously, I mean it’s a major news commentator—so you know all the money is being produced in the states that went for Kerry, and all those goofball backward Christians are the ones who voted for Bush, and we ought to just secede, leave them to their own little silly country. You probably seen the map: United States of Canada—all of Kerry’s states were contiguous with each other or Canada, and the rest of the states that voted for Bush on this map that’s going around the internet is called “Jesus land,” I think is what it’s called.

Well, you know what’s going on there is that the Christians are stirring the nations. See, things are happening. So when we read that after Alexander there are these four notable ones pointed toward the four winds of heaven, we shouldn’t read this without understanding that it ties back to seven. And seven said that coming out of the beast that represented Greece in chapter 7, there were four heads. So these four notable ones are linked to the four heads. The four heads are the beginnings or origins of particular periods.

What we think is that Alexander actually is one of these heads, or his son. And after Alexander’s death, the Greek Empire is divided up into six parts. So it isn’t the political divisions of the Greek Empire that are the concern here. What’s going to happen is, in chapters 10 to 12, there are two specific elements of the Greek Empire—the king of the north and the king of the south—that become very important because they’re a north or south of the promised land, and their wars will take them over and over again through Jerusalem.

And then the final notable one would be actually the beginning of the Roman Empire. You know, we read the New Testament and we read about the Roman Empire, but is it written in Latin? No, it’s written in Greek. The Roman Empire took, began by being heavily Hellenistic. Hella was a name given—Hella was the name given to Greece originally. Well, it’s a Greek empire that becomes more imperial Rome. But it’s the context of what happens.

And so while the prophecy says this concerns the terminal time, this concerns the end of everything in the old world—it says that several times—that’s the coming of Jesus that’s being pictured. But it sets it in the context of Greece because ultimately, really, Rome is kind of one of the horns that grows off of Greece and adapts Greek culture and philosophy.

Well, so the vision is given. Now the important thing here is that instead of, you know, a statue or instead of four creatures coming out of the sea, what we have here are two animals. Now, not the kind of animals in chapter 7 like lions and tigers and bears—oh my! No, this is not lions and leopards and bears. This is a ram and a goat. What’s the difference in the context of the Old Testament? What’s the difference between a lion and a leopard and a bear and a ram and a goat?

Well, clearly, if we’re thinking in terms of the Old Testament and as a Jew would read these texts, these are sacrificial animals. These are sacrificial animals. This text describes these empires as sacrificial animals. It talks about the daily, the morning and evening sacrifices. It talks about sacrifices being put to an end. And so the entire thrust of this chapter has to do with the sacrificial system, the temple in Jerusalem that’ll be rebuilt as the Persians send back Ezra and Nehemiah, and the sacrifices that’ll go on in that temple. That’s what the whole focus is.

And the big picture here is that God’s people—you know, when Cyrus comes along, it says explicitly in the scriptures that Cyrus said that he wanted the temple rebuilt as a house of prayer for all the nations. When Jesus says in the gospels that my house is to be a house of prayer for the nations, this is not new material. Cyrus said the same thing. The temple was to be a house of prayer for the nations. The sacrifices that were going on were for these nations.

When those sacrifices stop, then things get bad. And when the sacrifices are going, then there’s this relationship between what the priestly people are doing at the temple and the empires that God raises up to protect his people. Persia and Greece—lamb, goat or ram, the male lamb, male goat, buck. And so the idea is that the prayers of God’s people produce godly nations around them who will help them, in the sense of protecting them. And when those prayers stop, then bad things happen. Then the beast turns ugly. The guard dog now bites the owner.

And that’s what’s going to happen in the events that Daniel is being pictured with here.

So we have sacrificial terminology being used because the focus of chapter 8 is not really the bad guys—the bad Antiochus Epiphanes or the bad Romans in the time of Christ. The focus is the bad Jews, the bad heavenly people who don’t fulfill their ministry of prayer, sacrifice for the nations. So that’s what’s going on. And we can understand that from verse 8.

These four notable ones come up in reference to the saints of God. Out of one of them comes a little horn. We’ll talk about that in a little minute. It grew up to the host of heaven. It passed down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them. So, you know, the ram comes along and tramples nations. Persia conquers people, and then it’s trampled by the goat, and then somebody comes from the goat and tramples these stars. What does it mean? Do these Greek rulers, and those that are associated with them, does it bring angels down to the earth? No. God’s people are a heavenly people.

And this is commonly understood or is very explicitly said in the New Testament. Our citizenship is in heaven. Well, it was true in the Old Testament, too. God’s people are heavenly people. They’re like the stars in the sky. There’s a host of them. And in one sense, all of God’s people are heavenly people, and the stars would represent the rulers over them. Remember, the sun, moon, and stars the day of creation are given as rulers. Another sense, sometimes the Levitical priests themselves are referred to in the book of Numbers as a host, a heavenly host.

And so you could see this as the Levites and the priests as the heavenly people, and then the rulers of the Levites and priests are the stars. And in any event, God’s people are then trampled underfoot by this man who comes forth. So that’s what’s going to happen in history. Daniel is being told this.

But he exalts himself as high as the prince of the host. The prince of the host is the one that’s supposed to become the next high priest. He’s high priest in training. He’s the, you know, the prince, the overruler of the host, is the high priest. But the prince is the guy that’s going to become king, right? He’s the one that’s going to become high priest. And he’s the one normally doing much of the activity to govern the sacrifices of the temple. And now this horn is exalting himself against—as high as—the prince of the host.

By him, the daily sacrifices are taken away. Uh-oh. Because now the prayers of the nation don’t continue to go on, and things are going to get really bad. The place of his sanctuary was cast down because of apostasy. Transgression in verse 12 is apostasy. Because of apostasy, an army is given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices. Why does this ending of the daily sacrifices happen? It’s not the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus IV, who actually does stop the daily sacrifices. It’s not his fault. This verse tells us that this happens because of apostasy on the part of God’s people.

So apostasy is what brings to pass these bad events a couple hundred years later, and then the even worse events when our Savior comes around and there’s this massacre of people, et cetera.

So after the vision is given, then Daniel hears a holy one speaking, and “How long will this will be?” And very importantly, notice verse 13. “How long will the vision be concerning the daily sacrifices?” See, so we have a—what’s the vision about? It’s about sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem. And it’s about the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot. So this is kind of nice because now we’re told that there’s a summary statement about this vision.

The vision is primarily not about empires. The vision is primarily about, and this is why we go back to Hebrew instead of Aramaic, it’s about God’s people, their sacrifices, and then their apostasy that causes desolation. An apostasy will happen, a falling away on the part of some Jews, and the end result will be that the daily sacrifices will stop. The temple will become desolate. God will leave.

We come to church and we bring our prayers. And if we live godless lives and we come here hypocritically, at some point God says, “Repent.” And at some point, he says, “Enough. I’m leaving. I kabod.” The spirit departs.

So there will be a time Daniel’s being told: when your people, you know, Daniel knows the temple’s going to be rebuilt. But now he’s getting really bad news. The ones that are going to run the temple will apostasize, and they’re going to apostasize in such a bad way that God is leaving the temple. And he doesn’t really come back until, you know, when Jesus destroys it and Jesus creates the new temple of the church.

So this vision is about religious realities. It’s about apostasy. It’s about apostasy that causes some horrible things to happen in Israel in Jerusalem. And then he’s told—and I’m not going to get into the 2,300 days. Lots of speculation. I don’t know what it means. It just, you know, it is a long time—and ultimately there’s this cleansing of the temple that happens.

And then at the very center, as I said, Daniel hears a man’s voice, which, you know, I think is Jesus, as we’ll see in chapters 10 and 11, between above the banks of the Ulai. So we have the presence of Christ governing history, judging his people, creating a new world in the process. And he tells Gabriel to make the vision known. And we’ll see this in more detail in chapters 10 and 11.

Daniel’s response to this is: when he comes near, he falls on his face. “Understand, son of man, the vision refers to the time of the end.” You see, now we’re being told that ultimately this is not about the end of the 70 years. Ultimately, this is not about Antiochus Epiphanes. Ultimately, it’s the time of the end, the terminal point of the old world. Jesus comes. You see, ultimately that’s what the vision is referring to.

“Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground.”

Now, see the connection here between Daniel and his people. What happened to the host of heaven and the stars? They were trampled. Where are you? Are you in heaven if you’re going to be trampled? No. You’re trampled under the foot of this Greek ruler, Antiochus, because you’re on the ground. Israel’s going to be brought to the ground. Daniel is brought to the ground. He’s in a deep sleep. He’s in a coma.

That reference throughout the Bible—beginning with Adam and then moving through other different places where it happens—a deep sleep is like death. You will either continue and die or you’ll be raised up as a brand new person. And as you’re raised up, you’ve been brought through a picture, an image, a coma that images death to us. You’ve been brought through death to resurrection. And that’s a huge theme here: God’s people are going to be brought through death to resurrection.

He says, “Look, I’m making known to you the vision at the latter time of the indignation. At the appointed time at the end, again, this shall happen.” And then he explains to him: this is me in Persia. There was this, then the next one is Greece. The first one is the king. That’s Alexander the Great. Four kingdoms shall arise out of him, and the ones we’re concerned about—at the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgression has reached its fullness, a king shall arise having fierce features who understands sinister schemes.

Power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. He shall destroy fearfully and shall prosper and thrive. He shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people through his cunning. He shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule. He shall exalt himself in his heart. Oh, see there again, the ram, the goat, and now this little horn exalts himself in his heart. This is the same little horn that was given in chapter 7. And so we connect these things up. So this is the third ruler now that’s going to exalt himself and be destroyed by God.

He shall destroy many in their prosperity. He shall even rise against the prince of princes. And that ultimately is a reference to Jesus. But he shall be broken without human means. And then Daniel’s told to seal up the vision, and he gets up and then goes about the king’s business.

So that’s an overview of the text. Let’s look now at the notes I’ve given to you on the outline about the text and its interpretation and application to us.

First, chapters 2, 7, and 8 and 10 to 12 are linked and show more and more detail of Daniel’s future. I’ve made this point, but it’s real important. Two and seven were linked, right? They were bookends of the Aramaic text. And eight links itself back to seven by saying at the beginning this happened after the first vision, and it’s the third year of Belshazzar. He says it twice, but he wants us to link this vision back to seven. And what we’ll see is 10 to 12 will give us even more detail. This is kind of like our lives. We sort of see some things in the future. We sort of see them coming, and as we get closer, they get clearer.

Well, here Daniel is being told about the future, and he’s being told in a series of visions that get more and more explicit. And we’ll see that as we move into chapters 10 to 12 that there’s a lot of detail given in those chapters.

Secondly, there are three time markers in the chapters: verses 14, 19, and 26. So we have the vision, and then we’re told that the vision is about apostasy and transgression that produces desolation, and it’s going to come to an end at the terminal point. And then he says, “Well, it’s going to be at the end of these number of times.” Then at the end in the interpretation, he says it again. So three times there’s this movement in the text in cycles telling us that it’s coming to an end ultimately when Jesus comes at the end of the old creation.

Three, there are three successive rulers pictured here: a ram, a goat, and a little horn, representing Persia, Greece, and Antiochus IV, Epiphanes. And what we’ll see in chapter 11 is he’s the king of the north. So after Alexander the Great dies, he says his empire will go to the strongest. And so there’s a series of wars and stuff, and who’s going to rule it? Well, it doesn’t maintain as an empire anymore.

And in the north, the northern area of Syria is controlled by the Seleucids, or sometimes referred to, and their other name that they have for their rulers is Antiochus. And the south is Egypt. And the southern rulers are all called Ptolemies. Those aren’t Egyptians and Syrians. Those are Greek names. Antiochus, Seleucus—these are Greek names. Seleucus probably is a better way to say it. Greek name. These are Greek names. And Ptolemy is a Greek name as well. So Greece will control the north of Israel and the south of Israel.

And in chapters 10 to 12, we’ll see battles going back and forth between these rulers. And very explicitly, the one that actually is ruling at the time when the temple becomes desolated is Antiochus Epiphanes IV, the last ruler really of that region. The little horn also refers to the Herods in the time of the Savior. And now let’s look back up, or look at the bottom of your outline. And I’ve given you a little structure for the description of this little horn.

“Latter time of the kingdom when the transgressions have reached their fullness, a king shall arise having fierce features who understand sinister schemes. His power shall be mighty but not by his own power. He shall destroy fearfully and shall prosper and thrive. He shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people through his cunning. He shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule. He shall exalt himself in his heart.”

So when transgressions reach their fullness, this guy will rise against the prince of princes. This king shall stand up, and he shall exalt himself in his heart. And the way he’ll accomplish rule is by sinister schemes. Antiochus IV was not the next ruler in the succession of these rulers in the north of the northern part of the Greek Empire, the Greek kingdom of Syria. Antiochus gets his rule by sinister means, by deceit, by doing political gamesmanship, and then gets himself to become ruler of the north. And ultimately this is what’s being described.

And here’s what happened in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes IV. Most of us know about Antiochus Epiphanes. He’s the one that, you know, put up a statue of Zeus in the temple. He’s the one that slaughtered a pig on the altar, or at least had his people slaughter pigs on the altar. He’s the one that did actually stop the daily sacrifices at the temple. But why did this happen? Well, before Antiochus does this, the priests are ruling. They’re doing their right thing in the temple. The temple’s been rebuilt by now. This is 150 or so years later, after Cyrus has had the temple rebuilt. And the priest is a guy named Onias III. Onias III is a faithful priest.

Now Ezekiel says that the high priest has to come from the line not just of Aaron but of Zadok. And so the priests have to come physically descending forth. Ezekiel tells them—God through Ezekiel—from Zadok. And so the Zedokite priests were the only ones who could be the high priest. And the high priest was the only one who could remove the sins from the people on the Day of atonement. This is the way the system was set up.

Well, Antiochus III, there’s another guy named Jason. Actually, his name is Jacob, but he’s the brother of one of these high priests, maybe Onias III. But in any event, he is a Zadokite. But he’s also a guy who really likes the Hellenistic Greek culture. He wants God’s people not to be a distinct people. He wants to have Olympic games run. He wants a stadium to be built in Jerusalem. He wants a Greek culture. He’s in love with the Greeks and all things Greek. He’s in love with the rock bands of his time. He’s in love with the neat stories that he sees on the TV as he watches Greek TV. He’s in love with all their culture. He likes their political system. He likes their language. And he likes it so much that he doesn’t want to be a Jew. And he changes his name from Jacob to Jason.

And then what he does is he goes and makes a deal with Antiochus, who’s the king now and in control of Jerusalem. He’s the king of the north by now. And he makes a deal with him to become high priest. And Antiochus says, “Yeah, you give me enough money. You can be high priest if you want.” And that’s what he does. They depose, he kicks out Onias III, forcibly takes the temple, takes some of the gold and silver stuff from the temple, gives it to Antiochus. And Antiochus is okay. You can be high priest.

Well, this is working out pretty good for Jason. And he sends another bribe to Antiochus to keep him happy. And he sends it by the hands of a guy named Menelaus. Menelaus is not a Zedokite priest at all. And Menelaus, learning from Jason, says, “Well, gee, I’d like to be high priest and in charge of all this stuff.” And he bribes Antiochus. Antiochus said, “Sure, go ahead. Kill Jason. You become high priest.” And that’s what happens.

So in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, here’s the important part to remember from this history. God’s people, the priestly people, commit apostasy. They kick out the rightful high priest and actually kill off that line, and they take over the temple for themselves. That’s the apostasy that’s being described in the text before us. That’s the apostasy that God then judges by leaving the temple. And God then, like he always does, he brings in a gentile guy, Antiochus Epiphanes, to judge his people and to actually, you know, he—because of some political events—he gets upset. When he gets defeated by Rome later on, he comes back to Jerusalem. He’s all upset. He kills a bunch of them. He desecrates the temple. All this stuff.

But from the text in Daniel 8 here, the problem is not Antiochus, as bad as he is. He is this little horn that’s become, you know, raises himself against God, and God will crush him. But this is all brought to pass because God’s people no longer faithfully minister temple sacrifices to Yahweh. They commit apostasy. They stop offering sacrifices for the goat. And the goat gets very goat-like. The goat becomes shaggy.

It says long hair in the Bible is a picture of glory. It’s why men are supposed to have short hair. We don’t have glory on our heads. Women are supposed to have long hair. It’s your glory. You see, it’s glory. We’re not supposed to be glorious. The women are supposed to be glorious. Well, the shaggy goat, the long-haired goat, makes himself great, and then he’s broken by God. First Alexander, and now Antiochus.

So the point of the text is that in its first fulfillment, this rebuilt temple—Daniel is being told Daniel knows it’s going to be rebuilt. It will become the source of apostasy for your people. God tells him, “Your people will then be trampled underfoot by a pagan ruler.” And that apostasy is going to happen. And Daniel’s being told this stuff. And actually, he’s being told, and he’ll get this in more detail, that he’s being told, “This is ultimately talking about the coming of Jesus.”

And ultimately, there’s going to be another Jew—an Edomite, but a circumcised Edomite, Herod—and a bunch of Herodites who will take over the temple as well. Herod gets control of who gets to be high priest many years later by the Roman Senate deciding that he’s going to be the king. And so Herod is made the king of Jerusalem or of Israel by the Roman power, and Herod then appoints high priest.

So ultimately what’s being described to Daniel is that the sin of your people, the apostasy of the Jewish people, is what is going to bring the abomination. It is the abomination that desolates. God leaves the temple, and as a result, the future number four is looking grimmer and grimmer for Daniel who is then cast to the ground with the heavenly people. Daniel is cast to the ground, and he is raised back up by God.

Five, the ultimate blame, as I said, for these events does not go to the Greeks or the Romans or Antiochus, but to apostate Jews when they stop paying—or praying rather—and sacrificing for the nation. The nations go to seed. Prayer, worship, and witness go hand in hand. We said that this is the job of God’s people to witness to the nations. That’s what Daniel did. Well, now the great focus of the book of Daniel is prayer for the nations. And I’ve got on your outlines here a CR memorial on worship. Our fifth point on that memorial—we say this. This is what we’ve written in the series in the process of adopting this memorial.

“We believe that worship changes us and the world. We believe it because of Daniel 8. False worship produced the desolation of the temple, the leaving of it by God, and then the Greeks overrunning it and Antiochus setting up a statue of Zeus and killing a pig on the altar. Worship changes us in the world. We are transformed by the grace of God’s presence and we leave with a renewed sense of and commitment to mission, discipleship, and community. This is one of the ways we’re changed. Biblical worship results in changed lives, spirit empowerment, and impacts the world for Jesus Christ. Further, God is pleased to hear and answer our prayers, particularly those that ascend in the Lord’s day worship of the church. He hears our prayers for the nations and makes manifest his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.”

The whole point of Daniel 8 is that the corporate prayers represented by the sacrifices—the daily morning and evening sacrifices in the temple—are what are made on behalf of the nations, and it changes the history of the world.

You know, you hear this debate going on about liturgical renewal. Churches like ours are saying that what happens in worship is really important, and we can make some case for how it changes our lives and how we leave different. But we also want to make the case that God is pleased to hear the prayers of God’s people in corporate, convocative worship and changes the world. And that’s why it’s so important when we come together in the Lord’s day to enter into the pastoral prayer, to think about it, to pray in terms of it, and then to leave this place praying for the nations round about us, praying for our state.

How much time did you spend discerning who you should vote for in the election? How much time did you spend praying for the ones that were elected? You see, we believe that prayer—corporate prayer, which informs our private prayer—is absolutely critical in the life of the world.

Six, the apostate Jews in the time of Antiochus and Jason or Jason and Menelaus who committed the apostasy that caused desolation by kicking out the legitimate Zedokite high priest Onias III. And later, the Maccabees come along. The conservatives come along, clean it all up. They don’t like what Jason and Menelaus have done. The Republicans take control of the Senate. Maccabees have a revolt. They kick Antiochus out. They kick him out of there. They take over. But they don’t bring back Onias IV, the son of Onias III. They make their own guy high priest.

And so, as we understand this history, you see, it’s doing things right in terms of the temple that’s important, not whether we’re conservative or liberal. Two sides of the same coin. The Maccabees refused to bring back his son Onias IV. Instead, they established a Hasmonean kingdom. Later, Pompey and the Roman Senate would make Herod—a circumcised Edomite—the king of the Jews.

And so we have this history that just, you know, reinforces in large language—and we’ll see it more in detail in chapters 10 to 12—that, you know, what God is telling us is that ultimately it’s not conservative political reforms in a country that changes the world. Ultimately, it’s the worship of God’s people, the prayers of God’s people, that then inform our witness, that we would honor God with our politics, whether it tends to be liberal or conservative, somewhat irrelevant.

You see, the Maccabees are like they’re the proto-Pharisees. They’re the beginning of the Pharisees. And the opponents to them, the Menelaus group, they’re the beginnings of the Sadducees. And both groups, Jesus said, were dead wrong. You see, we don’t want to be culturally conservative or culturally liberal. We want to be culturally Christian, and we want to see the importance of our prayers informing our mission to the world for a distinctively Christian perspective on these things.

Like Daniel, we’re to be humble, trusting God for the future, seeking to minister to the world through prayer and service, trusting him to bring us through death to resurrection life in which we go about the king’s business. You see, for Daniel, the message for Daniel, the message for Daniel’s people was not, you know, you’re doing a lot of things wrong, and if you straighten your life up, I won’t kill you. That was not the message. The message was: you’re sinning, and I’m going to kill you. I’m going to throw you to the ground. I’m going to trample you underfoot. But trust me, I love you.

And linked to the work of the one who will ultimately come—the temple of the Lord Jesus Christ—I will raise you up. And when you’re raised up through that death of judgment, you’ll be stronger and better to accomplish my purposes in the world. We’ve got the little horn, boastful, using deceitful things. Herod was the same way. Boasted against God himself, made himself out to be God. We get boastful in our lives. We make ourselves great. We think of ourselves as some big deal. And then the neck is broken. Then God cuts us off.

We use deceitful schemes. We use political intrigue. We use things, you know, coolly said and right time and place to affect power and weightiness to ourselves and accomplish our purposes. And then God breaks our neck. He cuts us off. He wants us to be like Nathaniel, an Israelite in whom there’s no guile, no deceit, no hidden political agendas going on.

God contrasts Daniel with these. He’s innocent. He’s truthful. He’s a mature man of God. And yet, linked to his people, he goes down in deep sleep, linked to them, and is raised back up in newness of life.

We come to the Lord’s Day service to die. We come for the word of God to bring conviction for our sins. We come here to know ultimately that Jesus didn’t die so that we don’t have to die. Jesus died to grant our death blessing, purpose. Our suffering has purpose and blessing to them. Your life is going to have difficulties. We’ve said this for several weeks. It does have problems. And you think, “What am I doing wrong?” Well, maybe you’re not doing anything wrong. Maybe you’re just part of the corporate judgment of the church of Jesus Christ that God is bringing to pass. Maybe it’s just the corporate judgment on old Adam.

Doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong necessarily, but what it means is that God has us go through these pictures of death, not so that we’ll be completely dead and not be raised back up, but for the very purpose of raising us up like Daniel. Daniel goes through death, deep sleep, and then is touched by God, raised back to newness of life. And what does he do then? He does the king’s business. He’s raised back up.

We come together in Lord’s Day service, be united to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ to his death, burial, and resurrection, and then his resurrection. And God raises us back up. I think this helps us. It helps us to think through why we suffer. We suffer because God is using those very pictures—little deaths—to empower us for more ministry. He brings us down and humbles us so that he might raise us up, that we can go about the king’s business in newness of life and strength. And that’s why we can thank him for all these things.

Let’s pray. We thank you, Lord God, for our trials and tribulations. We thank you for this vision of your control of the future. And we thank you, Father, for assuring us that our future is in your hands. And as your church does her job of praying for the nations and then carrying out mission to those nations and advising the rulers of our day and age, indeed, you will bless us with peace and prosperity in the land.

We pray, Lord God, that you would forgive us our sins when we look to political purposes ultimately as a way to save the nation as opposed to the worship that indeed is answered by you and changes the way the world works. Help us, Father. We enter every Lord’s Day into the worship of the church to see the importance of our prayers before you in changing the world in which we live. And then make us faithful witnesses as we go forth from this place raised to newness of life in Christ, that we may do the king’s business. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

—

Great King of nations, hear our prayer.
While at thy feet we fall and humbly with united cry to thee
For mercy call. The guilt is ours, but grace is thine.
Oh, turn us not away. But hear us from thy lofty throne
And help us when we pray.

Our Father, sins were manifold, and ours no less we own.
Yet wondrously from age to age, thy goodness hath been shown.
When dangers like us, stormy sea, beset our country road,
To thee we looked, to thee we cried, and help in thee was found.

With one consent we meekly bow beneath thy chastening hand,
And pouring forth confession meet with our morning land.
With pitting I behold our need as thus we lift our prayer.
Correct us with thy judgments, Lord, then let thy mercy spare.

Having confessed our sins and heard the preaching of the word and brought our offerings before the Lord, let us now come before him in prayer. Our prayer this morning is based on Psalm 119, the Ten Commandments from our responsive reading. Let us pray.

O gracious, gracious heavenly Father, full of love and mercy toward your people, we come humbly before you this day. For you are the living God, not like the false gods of wood and stone and vain imaginations worshiped by others, but the author and creator of life and of all things and the giver of all good gifts—most especially your law.

Teach us, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and we shall keep it to the end. Give us understanding, and we shall keep your law. Indeed, we shall observe it with our whole hearts. The earth and all its inhabitants are yours, O Lord, created to serve you in righteousness.

We pray for Boob and Marik, for Blake Pursell, the Harmons, and Sucrait and Sujo Joy Roy. Cause their ministries to be fruitful for your kingdom, calling many to the service of our King Jesus. For Cassaba Leidenfrost and his family in the Ivory Coast, who ask special protection during this time of civil unrest, grant them safety and the opportunity to return to your work at which they so faithfully have labored.

Thank you for the light that shines on our own nation, for our freedom of worship and our freedom and self-government. Grant President Bush the courage and wisdom to lead our nation in the paths of righteousness. As our many new elected officials begin service here in Oregon, declare to them their duties and obligations to you and cause them to fulfill them in a manner that brings glory and honor to you.

We thank you that even here in Oregon, against the fierce attack of many enemies, our state has soundly upheld your definition of marriage. May our governor, legislators, and courts uphold it as intended by you and the people of this state.

As we set this day aside to worship you, our thoughts and prayers include our sister churches as well. May the Holy Spirit minister in our mission churches this day and every day: at Trinity Reformation Church, Covenant Bible Church, and Church of the King.