Bible Survey - Daniel
Randy Peterman · Jul 13, 2014
Bible Survey, No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926433465773

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

This morning take a look at the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel is one that I grew up hearing very select snippets of so we'll cover some of those stories just because we're going to try to zip through an outline of the book. But there's also some really intense prophecy stuff and I'm going to stipulate before we get started here that when I was in seminary I took the least number of prophecy classes I could because there were guys who would argue about the minutia so much I just couldn't stand it. So I had a bad attitude.

I don't have that attitude now, but I'm going to tell you right now, if we get into a hefty prophetic discussion, I'm going to lean heavily on my dad's knowledge. He's actually incredibly knowledgeable about it, so I'm not that worried about you having questions that he can't answer, but there may be questions that I can't answer. So I'm going to stipulate that. I have been trying to study and read and do those things, but that's not the same as just having the saturation of knowledge. So, you'll forgive my ignorance if there is a spot that we run into, but we'll take a look at this as we go through the outline. The text is structured, interestingly, where a prophecy will be given, and often there's an interpretation right with it, unless God explicitly says, actually this isn't for you to know. So, that's a general pattern in the book, so that's good.

Book of Daniel. The book starts historically about 605 BC. It's narrative, it's prophetic, and the king of Jerusalem was Jehoiakim, but Daniel immediately moves after saying that into talking about being captive under Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar sent a command. He said, hey, if you find extra-wise or extra-smart or extra-athletic and particularly unique specimens of Jews in the kingdom of Judea, bring them back to Babylon.

And so Daniel was one of the hand-selected group. Now, how many of you, when you were in Sunday school, went over any of the Daniel narratives as Sunday school stories? For me, there were two or three that actually were commonly gone over. We got Daniel in the lion's den for sure. We got Daniel being a vegetarian because he was trying to be kosher.

They always talked about him, despite being a vegetarian, in that culture that he was still stronger and wiser and stood out. And then we definitely had Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. If we had somebody who was feeling extra vigorous, they'd go over the statue of Nebuchadnezzar and those sorts of things. So we're going to hit all that, but we should probably start this at least sequentially in the book, and we won't go out of order.

So, Daniel and his three comrades, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. What is the name that you always hear? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, right? But that was their Babylonian names that had been given to them. That wasn't their Hebrew names. So Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were their Hebrew names. I had a boss when I worked at the Christian bookstore. He would get really cranky, and he would always quiz the staff about that. He really wanted us to use the Hebrew names. So there you have it. It was one of his idiosyncrasies, I guess.

So we have Daniel and those three that come in. They do eat a limited diet, and they have to negotiate for that. I think that's kind of interesting that they're like, no, we're going to negotiate. Now, why did they want to eat the limited diet that didn't involve pork and the un-kosher meats? The meat might have been sacrificed to idols, for example.

Just various things that would have gone against their training in the law. But isn't the law for Israel in the land? They weren't in the land. Blessing and curses were definitely associated with the land. Yeah, they were still to follow the law even though they were exiled. That was for them, part of their relationship with the Lord was obedience. So that's part of it.

So then they stand out. Those four stand out. It says they are ten times better than anyone else in the field. That's not a bad ranking. That's like when you take your MCAT scores and you're the top five-tenths percentile. Every school in the country and even schools outside the country would really like for you to come be a medical student at their school. You stand out.

That's definitely a strong point for Daniel and his comrades. so then we get into in chapter two we get I'm sorry I forgot to say an important thing Daniel and and his his three friends are put in positions of authority because they stand out they seem to be worthy responsible stewards so then we hit chapter two and what is what is the king have What does Nebuchadnezzar have happen?

He has a nightmare, right? He has this vision or this dream that is substantially disturbing to him. And he doesn't know what it means. And so he declares, okay, I've been taking care of all you wise guys. I keep you around so that you will be my advisors. Somebody tell me what my dream was and tell me what it means." And the sequence of this to me is kind of interesting because what does Daniel do?

He didn't show up at the beginning part of the story. All the advisors are called in and Daniel doesn't seem to be among them. And so the advisors basically tell the king, you're crazy. This can't be done. And the king says, all right, kill him. So the guard in charge of killing the wise guys who aren't so wise comes to Daniel and Daniel again negotiates. Can you give me some time? I think we can work this out. We're going to take a look at what God or I'm going to go seek God and we'll see what he tells me. And so The guard says, OK. Why does the guard care if he does or doesn't kill Daniel right away? You can still kill Daniel. Oh, if you screw this up, we kill you. If you get it right, we don't kill you. But the guard doesn't care. It's not like, no, I've got orders. He's like, fine. Maybe you can answer one of this. So let's see if you can do it.

So Daniel goes. He seeks the Lord. And then the Lord gives him the dream and the interpretation. And Daniel goes back and tells him about the structure of this tall statue and the different elements that make up the different layers. And Nebuchadnezzar is the lofty head.

And then the kingdoms get worse and worse, and the quality of what's going on, for the most part, changes in negative ways. But then, because he does that, Nebuchadnezzar rewards him again. So Daniel is not doing worse after all of that, but he saves everybody else's posteriors that were not having the dream and not having the revelation of what that meant.

Although it doesn't say, I just wonder, this is just me wondering out loud, I wonder how many people actually didn't try to negotiate with the guard, who did just say, well, here's your punishment, and they were killed. It doesn't say. You know something that's fascinating, is a lot of words and phrases in Ephesians chapter 1, are drawn from the Greek translation of Daniel Chapin. Really? Yeah. That is definitely not something I ran across. That's rather amazing. Interesting. Yeah. A lot of parallel vocabulary in there, huh? Yeah. Okay. Very amazing. Very cool.

So, after this, Daniel was in the king's court at the very end of chapter 2 and chapter 3. Nebuchadnezzar, the king, made an image of gold, the height of which was 60 cubits and its width 6 cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Then he sent word to his satraps and prefects and governors and counselors and said, hey, I've got something for you to worship.

But if you don't worship, I'm going to have to kill you. Now the thing that kind of blows my mind as I go through this, because this is a pagan culture. Daniel is a saint in a pagan culture. He stands out as a Jew there. And he gives glory to God when he brings Nebuchadnezzar the dream and the interpretation of the dream. And Nebuchadnezzar is like, wow, your God's got something going on there.

That's pretty cool. But it's not like, wait, this is really remarkable, maybe you should tell me more about your god. It's more like, that's really cool, I'm glad I've got that one in my pocket. I've got multiple gods in my arsenal so I can make sure I get one of them happy when I need certain things. That's the attitude that they have here. But because they're from a polytheistic sort of a background, there's not really a big deal for them to say, hey, no, you need to worship Nebuchadnezzar's statue.

He is, after all, pretty awesome. He is the king, so that must make him pretty cool. So, I do want to point out that in chapter 5, the bagpipe is mentioned. So we need more bagpipes in church because it's in the Bible, right? But also there's other instruments there. So Nebuchadnezzar has the worship band set up and for the recording I'm making air quotes with my fingers.

They're not worshipping the god of the universe, they're worshipping Nebuchadnezzar. But Daniel doesn't participate in that. and neither do Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And that goes poorly for them. Daniel actually seems to be out of the picture in this case, as this story focuses on his three companions. And Nebuchadnezzar calls, they don't worship, Nebuchadnezzar calls them in and he says, hey, one more chance.

And they say, no. And he says, alright, fire up the furnaces, and it says they were turned up seven times hotter than they had ever been turned up. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego say, verse 317, If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he will deliver us out of your hand. King so not only are we not going to worship you, but we worship this God and he is bigger than you That would be a little inflammatory no pun intended given what they're about to face But in an 18, but even if he does not let it be known to you Oh King that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you've set up This is the hard fast line Nebuchadnezzar gets super cranky, they heat up the furnace seven times in, and the people who tie them up and go to take them in the furnace die on the way it's so hot.

And the three of them go in. And then Nebuchadnezzar looks in and there's a fourth. That's pretty cool. Here's the God of the universe sending a messenger. Hey, we've got you. That would, if you're Nebuchadnezzar, that would have your attention. Obviously they come out and he was astounded in verse 24. He stood up in haste and he said to his high officials, was it not three men we cast in there? And he sees the fourth man. Verse 28, Nebuchadnezzar responded after they've come out, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who put their trust in him, violating the king's command, and yielded up their bodies, so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God.

So he does after this, okay now, now there's a little bit more respect for this Hebrew God. He's still a polytheist though, right? He's got to play all his cards right. It's theological poker, right? You've got to see where you want to cast your bets from their perspective.

But verse 30, then the king calls Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to prosper in the province of Babylon. So they are blessed with material rewards and leadership opportunities. Chapter four Nebuchadnezzar the king to all the people nations and men of every language that live in all the earth may your peace abound and Then Nebuchadnezzar shares This letter, but finally Daniel came in before me whose name is Belteshazzar. Okay, so there's his Babylonian name. Oh boy for that I don't know why Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego always get called that, but Daniel was always called Daniel in popular Christian culture, but here we have Belteshazzar's name there.

So he has this other dream situation here. Nebuchadnezzar has a second dream, and we won't read through all the text of it, but Let's take a look at verse 16, verse 16. Let his mind be changed from that of a man, and let a beast's mind be given to him, and let seven periods of time pass over him. This sentence is by the decree of the angelic watchers, and the decision is a command of the holy ones, in order that the living may know that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom he wishes, and sets over it the lowliest of men. And this is the dream that I had.

And he brings this to Daniel, and Daniel has to tell him what it means. Verse 19, Then Daniel, whose name is Belteshazzar, was appalled for a while as his thoughts alarmed him. The king responded and said, Belteshazzar, do not let the dream or its interpretation alarm you. Belteshazzar replied, My lord, if only the dream applied to those who hate you and its interpretation to your adversaries. What's the typical response when you give somebody bad news? And he's the king. And he already threw people in the furnace and already, you know, basically, hey, I'm going to tell you some news that you are not going to like.

And so Daniel has to tell him, in verse 20, the tree that you saw which became large and grew strong, whose height reached to the sky and was visible to all the earth, and whose foliage was beautiful, and its fruit abundant, and in which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field dwelled, and in whose branches the birds of the sky lodged. It is you, O King, for you have become great and grown strong, and your majesty has become great and reached to the sky, and your domain to the ends of the earth. In that the king saw an angelic watcher, a holy one, descending from heaven and saying, Chop down the tree and destroy it, yet leave the stump with its roots in the ground, but with a band of iron and bronze around it in the new grass of the field, and let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let him share with the beasts of the field, until seven periods of time has passed over him, This is the interpretation, O King, and this is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my Lord and King, that you be driven away from mankind in your dwelling place, be with the beasts of the field, and you be given grass to eat like cattle, and be drenched with the dew of heaven. And seven periods of time will pass over you until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever he wishes.

So this is not the best news that Nebuchadnezzar could have heard, right? Not awesome. You get to go be living like a wild beast and the latter half of the chapter goes over Nebuchadnezzar denying God and going out into the field and being like a wild beast. Eating the grass, living out like a madman.

So the vision is fulfilled. verse 33 immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle and his body was drenched with dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles feathers and his nails like birds claws to go from splendor to the point where you have wealth and influence to where you can make a giant cubits tall statue plated in gold to a madman out in the field is a strong story. But at the end of that period, in verse 34, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever.

In chapter 5 we see his son Belshazzar seems to have picked up the reins during that time. When I was studying this, that seemed to be the consensus on how that was handled. No, and that's going to come back to bite him, too. But we're not to chapter 5 yet.

So Nebuchadnezzar repents, and in verse 37, the last verse about Nebuchadnezzar, actually, in this part here, Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are true, and his ways just, and he is able to humble those who walk in pride. I would say that was a pretty dramatic example of humbling the proud.

So in chapter 5, we're going to see Belshazzar, his son, and this is another story that actually did get taught to me when I was in Sunday school, so maybe it'll be familiar with some of you. Belshazzar, the king, held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand. When Belshazzar tasted the wine, he gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken out of the temple, which was in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines, might drink from them."

So they had the implements for the temple. and they're using them for all intents and purposes of mocking pagan ritual. So God's not super happy about that. He's not going to sit around and just let that happen. So in verse 5, suddenly the fingers of a man's hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. And the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing. as is appropriate. Verse 6, then the king's face grew pale and his thoughts alarmed him and his hip joints went slack and his knees began knocking together. Hey, here's this disconnected hand riding on the wall.

That would freak you out. So hey, that's not too bad. So the king gets freaked out. He calls all of his conjurers and his magicians and his diviners and says, talk to me about this. And they don't have any answer. So now in verse 9 he's even more alarmed and he's in a panic. But in verse 10, the Queen enters the banquet hall because of the words of the King and his nobles. The Queen spoke and said, O King, live forever. Do not let your thoughts alarm you or your face be pale.

There is a man in your kingdom in whom a spirit of the holy gods, again polytheism, And in the days of your father, illumination, insight, and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him. And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, the king, appointed him chief of the magicians, conjurers, Chaldeans, and diviners." Again, really, despite the letter that we have with Nebuchadnezzar basically giving his testimony of the dream, the fulfillment of the dream, and repenting and worshiping God, didn't pass that on in any way to his son. If his son is reigning during this time, that would explain some of that. So Daniel comes before the king, and Daniel explains to him, let's see here, I'm going to skip down just a hair, Daniel looks at verse...we'll move down to 524.

Then the hand was sent from him, and this inscription was written out. Now this is the inscription that was written out. Many, many, tackle you farson. This is the interpretation of the message. Many, God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. Alright, so you're having a party. You've got ten or a thousand of your favorite leeches, I mean subjects, there. Hannah writes on the wall, you freak out, the Queen comes in and says, don't freak out, you got this buddy over here who served your dad, and he'll interpret it for you, and the first thing he says is, your kingdom's days are numbered.

That would be less than remarkable. Again, Daniel gets to be the bearer of bad news. Tekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. And Perez, your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians. In a remarkable response, in my humble opinion, after bad news, Belshazzar gave orders and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a necklace of gold around his neck and issued a proclamation concerning him that he now had authority as the third ruler in the kingdom. But then, verse 30, that same night Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was slain.

Your days are numbered, precisely down to zero. You're done now. And in verse 31, so Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of 62. So, we had a king at the beginning who was immediately exiled. So then we got Nebuchadnezzar, then we got Belshazzar, and now we're on Darius. So we're on king number four that Daniel is under. As an interlude, let's just take a moment to pursue this.

I'm going to ask this question. It's a very divisive question, but it feels like the right question to ask. Are we invincible as believers? No, we're not invincible. I got a head shake. Since it's from the Elder, I hope it's right, right? No. We're not invincible, right?

But, when the Lord has a purpose, and He has a plan, and He has something that's going for us, the things that seem like insurmountable, unsurvivable events are the exact thing He may choose to take us through to the end that He has a purpose for. And we see this over and over in the Old Testament, particularly, and then in the New Testament, repeated with the Apostles, where God sometimes takes people through really hard things because He's got a plan. Daniel's on King number four. He knows he's not invincible, but he knows that God is doing something, even despite the crazy stuff that's going on around him.

Al? I was going through the sermons on Peter's chapter 11. You didn't phrase it the same way, but students with Abraham, one of those was various of the Old Testament. people who endured the hardship because they saw God had a purpose. Yeah. God had a plan. Stan?

Okay, so Babylon is present-day Iraq, basically, right? Approximately, yeah. Okay, Medes and Persians. Now, Persians would be modern-day Iran. I assume the Medes are basically Iraq. I can't actually speak to that off the top of my head. Further to the west, there's a western end of the Persian meets. And they essentially speak of them together every time. The laws of the meets of Persians are the same forever. Interestingly, along that line, students of King's ACC were from Iran. Never said they were from Iran. They always said they were from Iran. Huh. Interesting. Wow. That's interesting. Of course. Wow, that's true. Yeah. Sure.

In chapter 6, continuing on here, it seemed good to Darius to appoint 120 satraps over the kingdom, and they would be in charge of the whole kingdom, and over them three commissioners, of whom Daniel was one, that these satraps might be accountable to them, and that the king might not suffer loss. Then this Daniel began distinguishing himself among the commissioners and satraps, because he possessed an extraordinary spirit, and the king planned to appoint him over the entire kingdom.

And it's at this point in time that it feels a little bit like modern politics. It's at this point in time that we get some politically savvy folks throwing somebody else under the bus on the attempt to gain more power and more influence and more authority. verse 5, then these men said, we will not find any ground of accusation against this Daniel unless we find it against him with regard to the law of his God. We're going to use his devotion to the God of the Bible against him, because that's the only place that we can get any leverage whatsoever, because he's an upright Well, they wouldn't use the term godly, but he's an upright citizen. He's an upright leader and he rules with wisdom. So we get to verse 6.

They say, King Darius lived forever. All the commissioners of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the high officials and the governors have consulted together. Was it really all? It was 99.99, right? They rounded down or up just a hair. Governors have consulted together that the King should establish a statute and enforce an injunction that anyone who makes a petition to any God or man besides you, O King, for thirty days shall be cast into the lion's den. So just a month. We don't want to tick off all the other gods, but let's make an extra special month where everybody has to pray to you. And the humility of kings is known far and wide, right? So they would never fall for anything like that.

But Darius, he's a goober, and so he does fall for it. And he signs this into law in verse 9. Now, when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house and he began praying. In verse 11, these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God. Then they approached and spoke before the king about the king's injunction. Did you not sign this?" Here we found Daniel. In verse 13, they answered and spoke to the king.

Daniel, who is one of your exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king. I mean, these guys are just slimy. This is so slimy, you just hear this and you go, oh my gosh, what scoundrels. Verse 14, then as soon as the king heard this statement, he was deeply distressed and set his mind on delivering Daniel.

And even until sunset, he kept exerting himself to rescue him. So here's the king who, by all intents and purposes, can decree whatever he wants. But in this case, he can't reverse his decree. But he's still looking for a loophole. He still wants to save Daniel because he treasures and trusts Daniel's position inside of his kingdom. If you had somebody who was incredibly amazing working right underneath you, and you could see tremendous growth underneath it, you'd be a little upset if somebody tried to have him killed. And so the king is not cool with that.

We get to verse 16, and the king gave orders and Daniel was brought in and cast into the lion's den. The king spoke and said to Daniel, your God whom you constantly serve will himself deliver you. A stone was brought and laid over the mouth of the den and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signet ring of his nobles so that nothing would be changed in regard to Daniel. And of course we know that the angel shut up the lion's mouth and Daniel was okay. Verse 22, My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth and they have not harmed me inasmuch as I was found innocent before him. And also toward you, O king, I have committed no crime.

Then the king was very pleased and gave orders for Daniel to be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den and no injury whatever was found on him because he had trusted in his God. Then, verse 24, sweet justice, right? The king then gave orders, and they brought those men who had maliciously accused Daniel, and they cast them, their children, and their wives into the lion's den. And they had not reached the bottom of the den before the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.

It's pretty remarkably intense. Al? Does it remind you any of Haman and his plot? It's very much... And what shall we do to the person who is so treacherous that we should hang him on a gallows? Yeah, yeah. The out that you saw ends up being your exit of a different sort. It's interesting, the Babylonians were feared lions but had no regard for fire. Okay. And so they would use fire as a punishment. But the Persians revered fire and cared about the lions. So what you see in Daniel is reflective of their opposite reverence.

In verse 25, then Darius the king wrote to all the people, nations, and men of every language who are living in all the land. May your peace abound. I make a decree that in all the dominion of my kingdom men are to fear and tremble before the God of Daniel. So here's a pagan pagan ruler, sins in multiple languages. He wants everybody who's under his dominion to understand this, that this, he is the living God and enduring forever, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed, and his dominion will be forever.

He delivers and rescues and performs signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, who has also delivered Daniel from the power of the lions. So this Daniel enjoyed success in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. So the Lord has provided again, and has definitely taken care of him.

Now we're going to get into the second half of the book, which contains a lot more of the prophecy material. And I can't read this the same way that I do a narrative, or else we just have to literally read every word for word. So this is different content. And so we're going to take a look at that in a slightly different way. Chapter 7 presents us with a vision of different beasts and different kingdoms entailing the future for Gentile nations. There are brief references to Israel, but the primary focus of Chapter 7 is the Gentiles, except for when we take a look at verse 9, I kept looking until thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took his seat. Who's the Ancient of Days?

That's God. His vesture was like white snow and the hair of his head like pure wool and the throne was ablaze with flames. Its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him and myriads upon myriads were standing before him The court sat and the books were opened.

We have taken a look at some other prophetic visions of heaven in the last month. Last week we looked at one. Why are they different? I actually talked to my dad about this because I want to make sure that I have my head wrapped around this. So why are they different?

Why did Jeremiah see different things? Why did Ezekiel see different things? Why did Isaiah see different things? I'm sorry, not Jeremiah, but anyways. Why did they see different things? Would you say because Jeremiah was speaking in Israel? Well, no, when they talk about seeing heaven, like the heavenly throne scenes, why are they seeing, their descriptions are not entirely different, but they're not also entirely the same.

This is an important question as we ponder this. Stan? I would say that if I was smart enough I could probably see why God is revealing himself in different ways to each of these different prophets. Because there's symbolism and these are revealed in each of the different prophets. I'm not smart enough.

Well, they're writing from different perspectives and there's certain things that are trying to be communicated that are distinct. So here we have Daniel getting visions about specific things but they're not the same things and the topics are not identical necessarily to the other prophets. So God reveals specific things in different ways and that's a fascinating distinction. It's not contradiction in the scripture and that's the thing we want to walk away with is different revelations from God doesn't mean that the scripture has a bunch of contradictions in it. We can't trust it.

Looking at further verse 13, I kept looking in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed." So who's that? It's Jesus.

So Daniel got to see Christ. We can go through major chunks of the rest of the Old Testament and not run into people seeing Christ explicitly, but Daniel explicitly gets to see Christ. Pre-incarnate Christ, but Christ nonetheless. That's just really cool. It's like, okay, in some of the other books when we said, is there Christ in this book? We talked about some parallels. There's somebody who might be representing a doctrine or a principle. But here, when we ask where is Christ in Daniel, the answer is right here in Daniel chapter 7. And it's Christ Christ. It's not figurative or parallel. And as I mentioned earlier, there is an important pattern here that we'll see in chapter 7. Daniel gets the vision in the first half of the chapter, and then the second half of the chapter, starting in verse 15.

As for me, Daniel, my spirit was distressed within me, and the visions in my mind kept alarming me. I have to say, I love the humility that he writes. I was alarmed. I was freaked out by these visions. God didn't just give him a vision and he went, awesome, got a vision from God. He got a vision from God and he went, man, this is really lofty and heavy. He was alarmed.

I approached one of those who were standing by and began asking him the exact meaning of all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things. And so he then goes in and systematically describes the interpretation of the prophecy.

So when we talk about... Let's just take a brief rabbit trail. I don't know how much time I have left here. Not a lot, but it's important to do. When we talk about prophecy, how are we to interpret prophecy? Anybody want to take a stab at that? This is important. It really is. As believers we need... This is one of the few things I actually did learn in seminary when we talked about prophecy that I thought was really important.

How do we interpret prophecy? Stan? Are you saying foretelling of the future? I'm saying when we run into scripture where there's prophetic language like this and we look at it. How should we approach interpreting it? The question is how do we approach the interpretation, whether it's literal or figurative, or how would you approach it so that you know that you get the appropriate meaning? Using hermeneutics, if I were to use that word. Do we look at all prophecy as figurative? Do we look at all prophecy as literal?

How do we know? When it happens. There we go. That's it. What I'm looking for, and I can tell this is a tough question because when I was in my prophecy class, the class did the exact same thing that you guys did, so I don't feel bad now. uniquely slow in that regard, but it's hard to answer that question because prophecy is a tricky subject in most of Christendom. We have a hard time, what do we do with this? But we should look at the way that the language is constructed to be able to start beginning to look at how the interpretation should be taken on. Some things, like when we read about Stepping back and looking at chapter 7, I will look at verse 9. I kept looking until thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took his seat. Did the Ancient of Days literally take his seat using basic interpretive skills? Did Daniel observe the Ancient of Days sitting down on the throne? Can we say yes with relative confidence? Do we feel okay about doing that? I hope you do, because I think that's pretty safe.

But then, look at the next line. His vesture was like white snow. So we have two stanzas right next to one another, and one of them is a very literal description of a literal action that literally took place, and the next piece is something using figurative language to describe something that was seen there. But the language gives you a lot of clues, doesn't it? It doesn't feel really risky saying, okay, Daniel's doing his best to describe this heavenly scene, and the white, the vesture was white like snow, or like white snow. Who knows what elements or non-elements are in this heavenly place that the best description he's got is it's like white snow.

But that's okay. But we can use the language to determine intent and meaning as we as we take a look at the prophecy. So it doesn't require us to get out our decoder rings. It doesn't require us to say it must be all figurative because it's prophecy. The language leads us through so that we can have much more confidence in our interpretation and understanding. Now Daniel still is having a rough go because he's seeing all this and he doesn't fully grasp all of what he's seeing and so he still asks for interpretation. But even we get the benefit of the answer to that. So we don't have to get all mysterious and mythical. We can take a look at what's been revealed. Okay, any questions on that, the interpretation?

I wanted to just rabbit trail on that, because I think it's the one thing that if we look at Daniel as a prophetic book, and we're going to run out of time covering all of it, we need to be able to understand that distinction. Especially when we take a look at 13 and 14, where here's this description of the Son of Man coming, and He came to the Ancient of Days, and He was given dominion. It's very clearly Christ, but you didn't have to get out a secret decoder ring to figure out that it was Christ. You could read it and you could understand, based on the language that was there, what was going on. Okay, we're going to jump all the way up to Daniel chapter 9, because this is possibly one of the most quoted prophetic parts of Daniel. So within modern prophecy discussion.

Daniel 9 24, 70 weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish the transgression to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks, it will be built again with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. then after 62 weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city in the sanctuary and its end will come with a flood even to the end where there will be war desolation desolations are determined and he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering and on the wing abominations will come one who makes desolate even until a complete destruction one that is decreed is poured out on the one who makes desolate now what I want to actually ask you is less about what all of the nuance of that is but the 70 weeks we just said we want to try to take things as literally as it seems reasonable The 70 weeks, as we understand it, because the 70 weeks passed after the time that this was given, in literal 7 day weeks, the weeks are viewed as having a different time stretch than just a week.

And that's where Stan said, when it happens. Sometimes it's the when it happens or sometimes it's the you see something else is laid out where we get a different understanding of a context. But when we have those opportunities where there's different understanding of context, it is something where the Lord makes it clear that that's something that is unique there.

We don't immediately jump to hypothetical translations, or this makes me feel like this sort of a thing. Why do we want to not jump to an allegorical interpretation, a non-literal interpretation? If we go to a non-literal interpretation immediately, how do I know that you're right or you're wrong? If you come to me, you come to me and say, Randy, the seven weeks, I got it figured out, and you've got everything squared away in your hypothetical situation, but it's your interpretation and it's not related at all with anything that has to do with the language. How do I know if you're right or you're wrong?

We don't. I have no way that I can engage you on this and discuss the text and the language and the culture and the history to know if it's true, because you are making something that you brought up, and I can't tell you you're wrong, because allegory is how we interpret prophecy, theoretically, for the sake of argument. So we don't want to jump to that. Stan?

That right there is really a key detail. Now, the second bell rang, and we're going to just keep blazing forward as though I just did a thorough job describing the 70 weeks, because I want to actually look at the last several verses of Daniel. God, in the last several chapters of Daniel, is talking about the end times. He's talking about Israel. So Daniel got Gentile and Jewish prophecies given to him. Daniel wants to understand all of these visions.

12.8 As for me, I heard but could not understand, so I said, My Lord, what will be the outcome of these events? And in verse 9, he said, Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end times. Go your way, Daniel. You don't get to understand these things, you just get to be the messenger.

Just right now, saying that, it's emotionally stirring in this sad, sorrowful way to think that you've been given this vision. God in the universe says, hey, Daniel needs to see this. He needs to write it down. And Daniel says, wow, that's heavy. Can you please explain it to me? And God goes, no. Go your way. That would be a heavy weight in Peter's letter. His first letter he talks about the the prophets wished that they could know and understand certain things that the New Testament Saints understand Last verse Daniel 12 13 but as for you go your way to the end then you will enter into rest and Rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age Hey Daniel, you're gonna be resurrected. I How cool is that? Last thing Daniel writes in his letter is that God says, I'm going to be resurrected.

I don't get it. I don't get it. I wrote it. God told me to write it. I wrote it down. I don't get it. But I do know I'm going to be resurrected. That's the coolest ending that he could have given the fact that he couldn't understand all that was given to him.

Daniel's a fascinating book and I as I was studying this and reading through it. I thought man I have so much more studying to do I barely understand just Just tips of the iceberg and all the structure of prophecy, but definitely a powerful book Okay, let's close in prayer Heavenly Father. We ask that you would just Bring the truth of your provision and your guidance to our minds this week as we read your word and interact with one another and We do lift up all the prayer requests to you again, and we do pray for your provision and safety for all those who are in different situations of need, and we praise you for your provision. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.