Daniel 8
Let’s give our attention to God’s
word, Daniel chapter eight, beginning at verse one. In the third year
of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, Daniel,
after that which appeared to me at the first. And I saw in
the vision, and when I saw, I was in Susa, the capital, which is
in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and
I was at the Ulai Canal. I raised my eyes and saw, and
behold, a ram standing on the banks of the canal. It had two
horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other,
and the higher one came up at last. I saw the ram charging
westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him,
and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased, and he
became great. As I was considering, behold,
a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole
earth without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous
horn between his eyes. He came to the ram with the two
horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal. And
he ran at him in his powerful wrath. I saw him come close to
the ram and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke
his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand
before him. But he cast him down to the ground
and trampled on him. And there was no one who could
rescue the ram from his power. Then the goat became exceedingly
great. But when he was strong, the great
horn was broken. And instead of it, there came
up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven. Out
of one of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly great
toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious
land. It grew great even to the host
of heaven. And some of the host and some
of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled on them. It became great, even as great
as the prince of the host. And the regular burnt offering
was taken away from him. The place of his sanctuary was
overthrown and a host will be given over to it together with
the regular burnt offering because of transgression. And it will
throw truth to the ground and it will act and prosper. Then I heard a holy one speaking. And another one said to the one
who spoke, for how long is the vision concerning the regular
burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate, the giving
over of the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot. And he said to me for 2,300 evenings
and mornings, then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful
state. Then I, Daniel, had seen the
vision, I sought to understand it. And behold, there stood before
me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man’s
voice between the banks of the Uli, and it called, Gabriel,
make this man understand the vision. So he came near where
I stood, and when he came, I was frightened and fell on my face. But he said to me, understand,
O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end. And
when he had spoken to me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face
to the ground. But he touched me and made me
stand up. He said, behold, I will make known to you what shall
be at the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed
time of the end. As for the ram that you saw with
the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. And
the goat is the king of Greece. And the great horn between his
eyes is the first king. As for the horn that was broken,
in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise
from his nation, but not with his power. And at the latter
end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their
limit, a king of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall
arise. His power shall be great, but
not by his own power. And he shall cause fearful destruction
and shall succeed in what he does and destroy mighty men and
the people who are the saints. By his cunning, he shall make
deceit prosper under his hand and in his own mind he shall
become great. Without warning he shall destroy
many, and he shall even rise up against the prince of princes,
and he shall be broken, but by no human hand. The vision of
the evenings and the mornings has been told and is true, but
seal up the vision for it refers to many days from now. and I,
Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days. Then I rose
and went about the king’s business, but I was appalled by the vision
and did not understand it.” Amen, God’s word. Well, these passages
just get easier and easier, don’t they? This is Daniel’s second
vision. And his first one we looked at
last week in chapter eight was a grand vision that looked at
the history that would be over the Israelites until the coming
of Jesus. It was one grand sort of whole
history. Tonight’s vision is a more specific
episode in the life of Israel. This is about a particular king,
a particular person, a real person who wreaked great havoc on the
people of Israel. Daniel has three crises in this
account. One crisis is the vision. He
sees terrible and great and awful things. The second crisis is
he meets Gabriel. Yes, that Gabriel. He meets the
terrifying, awe-inspiring servant of the Lord, the angel of heaven. But the third trauma that he
has, we just read of it at the end, All of this sinks in. All of this, which will take
place, did you catch it? In the glorious land. All of
this will take place in Israel, in Jerusalem, in the beloved
land, in the beloved city, and most of all, or perhaps worst
of all, in the temple of Almighty God. What we are gonna see tonight
is a rising up of power. A rising up of power so great
that it systematically deconstructs the religion of Israel. And it
does in such a way that Daniel is appalled. He falls asleep
with the trauma. And then when he’s awakened and
given the interpretation, he’s sick for many days. This is real physical trauma that comes
to him because of what he sees. Now we live in a time where there’s
relative peace in our land. We’ve celebrated a couple hundred
years of wonderful freedoms in the United States. We have been
able to come here and have a free market. We’ve been able to have
a democratic government. We’ve been able to worship God
freely and to educate and raise our children freely. We’re seeing
much of that slip away, but we are still extraordinarily privileged. But think about Christians in
China, house churches locked. Churches bulldozed or burned. Or think more on the forefront
of our minds now of the folks in Afghanistan under the Taliban
rule. Systematic deconstruction of
religion or normal way of living. What God is doing here through
the vision he’s giving Daniel, I think is on the title of the
message for tonight, being forewarned is being forearmed. How does Daniel chapter eight
help the Israelites, particularly those 200 years after this vision
who will be in Israel when all of this wickedness takes place?
How does it help? Well, you get firmed up. You eat your Wheaties, right? You know the precious promises
of Almighty God. But there’s a truth that walks
through this passage that we need to understand. There will
be wicked kings and there will be wicked nations throughout
human history that rise up. They will rise and they will
be great and they will fall. People will give themselves great
titles, Alexander the Great. There will be turbulent times.
There will be stretches, even long stretches in human history
where it is not human friendly. There will be wicked regimes.
There will be powers. There will be Well, we see this
today, the university, the politically elite, the wealthy, we see the
woke times. There will be times where our
Christian faith is deconstructed and we’re told don’t worship
God. You cannot worship God or else. There will be times in
the lives of Christians where life east of Eden among mighty
men, among the Gentiles, will be very difficult. We may be
pressured to lose our Christian identity just as the Jewish people
in our passage. lost much of their Jewish identity. But thanks be to God for the
gospel and for seasons of refreshment and for stretches of blessing
and stretches of peace and stretches of no calamity. Now, let me wake
us up here for a moment, not because the sermon has already
gotten boring, but let me wake you up as people in 2021 in America. What we have had will probably
not last. We’re seeing harbingers of things
to come. We’re seeing the change of language. We’re seeing the redefinition
of what words mean. We’re seeing the politicization
of gender identity. We’re seeing all sorts of things
coming our way that basically say to you Christians, you can’t
hold your religious faith. You can’t hold your religious
worship and you sure better not pass on your religious faith
to the generations. Let them think for themselves
and choose who they will serve. And so while we have had, well,
a couple centuries of peace and we’ve really not had any calamity
or hardship, just think, 200 years after the life of Daniel
in the second temple, the one had been destroyed by Babylon.
They’ve gone back through Ezra and Nehemiah and Zerubbabel and
others. You read of that in Ezra and
Nehemiah. They’ve gone back and they’ve rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem. They’ve gone back and rebuilt
their houses. They’ve gone back and laid a foundation and raised
up the temple and begun temple sacrifices. It had not taken
place for 70 years. And so they’re bumping along
in their joy. Now stop for just a moment. There’s
a little glimpse of hope in this passage and it’s this, the exile
is going to come to an end. Israel will return to the land
and they’ll see some semblance of a return of temple worship
and all the rest. That’s a little bit of hope,
but it’s going to be with chaos and darkness all around. Doesn’t
that not sound like our current times? We come to church and
when we enter the sanctuary, we’re casting off of our shoulders
a big burden of this world. And while we’re in here in the
Lord’s house on the Lord’s day, worshiping God, the shopping
mall is full and life just goes on for people who suppress the
truth about God and seem to want to worship other things. But
in this setting, while they are back in the promised land, in
this second temple Judaism, wicked people will succeed over the
saints. And that’s where this ram and the goat and all the
horns come into place. So there’s two main animals here.
There’s a ram and there’s a goat. There’s a ram with two horns.
One is high and one is higher. The short one would be the Medes,
the taller one would be the Persians. We know from our historical record
that this is the case. The ram goes west and north and
south, and it charges as it conquests, as it conquers, and it is unconquerable. And so just in a few verses here,
we get a couple hundred years of the history of the rise and
fall and the advance of various empires. This ram is great. He
is powerful. None can stand before him or
hold him back. But then comes the little goat,
which is better, a ram or a goat? Well, you’d think a ram, but
here comes a goat from the West, the great horn. He’s fast. In fact, he’s so fast in his
conquest, he doesn’t touch the ground and he breaks the ram
and he becomes exceedingly great and exceedingly strong. but his
horn eventually is broken and four little kingdoms come up
out of this great goat and his horns. And then out of these
four kingdoms comes a little horn from the South and from
the East. And did you, did you catch the
little dark foreboding phrase? And he moves toward the glorious
land. There’s trouble brewing for the
promised land. And this little horn is great.
In fact, can you believe the language he is? He is so great. Even as the Prince of hosts,
he is God like. In fact, the identity of this
person is Antiochus the fourth and on his coins, he gave himself
a title. Isn’t that the way with all tyrants?
They give themselves title, his title, Antiochus Epiphanes, the
great one, the glorious one. What is an epiphany? Well, it’s
a moment where we realize something great and Antiochus is that epiphany. He’s the king of bold face. He understands riddles. He has
great power. He is fearful in his destruction.
He destroys the mighty and he destroys the saints. That was
a theme from last week’s vision, wasn’t it? God sovereignly allows
people to make war on his saints. This one is full of cunning and
deceit. He opposes God. He halts the
worship in the temple and he crushes the Jews. If you read
the history, of the people of Israel under Antiochus the Great.
This would be about 150 years before the coming of Jesus. Antiochus
the Great or Antiochus Epiphanes. He wants to eradicate Judaism.
They’ve been back in the land a couple hundred years, the temple
built, the city built, the walls built, and they’re bumping along.
And yes, they’re ruled by nations that have invaded and won a dominion
over them, but they still have a little bitty Jerusalem and
they’re having church. if you will. And Antiochus comes
and he’s angry because this great man is beginning to lose battles.
And in particular, he’s losing battles to the Egyptians. And
so likely in his return to his little fiefdom, he is angry and
somebody needs to pay for his losses. And so he takes it out
on God’s people. And that’s what God is telling
Daniel in this vision. And about 200 years from now,
the people of God will be back in the land. Things will be going
along, but under this wicked leader, things will be difficult. Antiochus, you think we’re living
in Orson Welles times these days. Antiochus was just as bad, maybe
without the technology. If you circumcised your son on
the eighth day, And his police found out the entire family would
be put to death. If you were found with a scroll
of the Torah in your household, guess what? Put to death. Sounds a little bit like communist
China today, doesn’t it? And on and on, we could go with
the stories. He sought to eradicate adherence
to the law and the worship of Yahweh. And he succeeded pretty
doggone well because he was a wicked and evil man. Now to make matters
worse, that was just in the home life and in the personal piety
life, he took over the temple. And the temple at this time,
though it was small when it was rebuilt in the 500s and the 400s,
it had been added onto and perfected by various invading leaders because
religion is the way to get the allegiance of the people. And
so if they play to their religion, well, we’ll fix up the temple
for them. It was back to being pretty grand, not Solomon grand,
But it was, it was a pretty nice place. And this would be the
temple that in 150 years, Jesus would enter during his ministry
and his passion week. But Antiochus took over the temple
and he sacrificed, that’s the abomination here that it’s speaking
of, he sacrificed to the, to the Greek God Zeus. He kicked
out all the priests. He made people of his own choosing. Well, really just the highest
bidder. It was the practice of simony. You could buy the office
of high priest from Antiochus the Great. It was a very wicked
time. And you’ve probably heard the
story. You know, pigs and Jews just don’t go together. Well,
he sacrificed a pig on the altar. in the temple of Almighty God,
a great abomination. And he spread the blood. He spread
the juices around the holy vessels of the temple. So you can imagine
what that would be like. A lesser thing, but it would
be appalling to us. What if we walked in here one
Sunday morning and we’ve been vandalized? Our door’s broken,
our window’s busted, Fire extinguishers, you know, sprayed all over the
building. That’s a pretty common practice for vandals and churches.
You know, they, they, they kick our doors. They, they knock over
and dishevel our books. They, they touch our sacred things,
right? We would, we would be upset.
We would have righteous anger. Could you imagine the, the intensity
of this? This is Jerusalem. This is the
temple. This is the only place they could
worship. You know, we could borrow a church
building, couldn’t we? We could go over to the Y or
rent a school cafeteria. We could rent a nice wedding
tent and put it out here. I mean, we can even go back under
the trees. We did that last year just fine.
We’d be okay. But this was their place and
they’d already lost it once. And here it comes upon them.
So what’s all this to mean for those 200 years after Daniel?
What’s this to mean for those of us who live this side of the
cross of Christ that face, well, stretches of history and turbulent
times? Well, being forewarned is forearmed. Right? What did
Jesus tell his disciples? Hey, it’s going to be tough.
The world hates me. Guess what? They’re going to
hate you. The apostle Paul says in the book of Colossians that
he is filling up in what is lacking in Christ’s sufferings. Christ
has ascended to heaven and Paul is his emissary on the face of
the earth. And as he goes forth in the name
of Christ, he is receiving the sufferings intended for Jesus.
And as he ministers, as he proclaims the name of God, he counts it
a great blessing to suffer for the sake of Jesus. And as the
church on earth continues, even to this day, we receive the sufferings
intended for Christ. We live under some hard regimes
and tough rulers. There will be stretches of history
where we need to, while it’s quiet, firm up. The day of battle
will come. It’s why we hide scriptures in
our heart. Read, read biographies, Corey Ten Boom, read biographies,
Richard Wurmbrand, read, read the biographies of those who
suffered under the Nazi regime. Did they ever, any of them say
in their biographies, boy, I sure wish I hadn’t memorized those
Bible verses as a kid. Boy, all those Sunday mornings
in Sunday school and worship, those Sunday evenings in our
studies of the Psalms and Daniel, all those Wednesday nights in
Romans and Genesis, all those Derek Thomas Romans 8 studies
next week in Sunday school, 9.30, hot drinks, 9.45. Begins sharp,
best chapter of the Bible. I hope you’ll be here for that.
Did any of these people ever say, what a waste of time? And so while we watch the news,
while we wring our hands and while we just worry and worry
and worry, what should we be doing? Hiding God’s word in our
heart, committing to memory the hymns and songs of the faith.
Every single person that we read of, the hymns in their heart
carried them through. The scriptures of truth carried
them through. And as the saints of God are
scattered throughout the face of the earth, as evil regimes
rise and fall and seasons of peace and seasons of calamity
come upon us, our mandate is still the same. It’s to live
faithfully, to trust God with all our heart and to proclaim
his name, even when the darkness is pitch black. Let us pray together. Our Lord, we thank you for this
reminder of times past when your people were under such hardship. Lord, we think we’re pretty sure
hardship will come to our nation, maybe even while some of us are
still living. And so we take this word to heart, help us to
firm up our faith, to eat our Wheaties, to memorize our scripture,
to know our hymns of faith, to know our creeds, our confessions,
our catechisms. and to know these things so that
when the going gets tough or when times are dark, we can call
to mind by your spirit’s help, the things that are true and
we can endure even the worst of hardship because you never
leave or forsake your people. We pray your blessings and ask
it in Christ’s name. Amen.