Introduction to Daniel

The sovereign control of God over the events of this earth is clearly on display in the book of Daniel.  We see God controlling and orchestrating the circumstances of individuals as well as foretelling the rise and fall of nations and their leaders.  This should be a great comfort to all of us when we face trials in our day to day lives; we can rest assured that God is in control.  This should also be a comfort to us when we do not understand what is going on in the political scene of the nations of the world.  When counties go through crisis, when there seem to be no viable options between presidential candidates, when wars and acts of terrorism seem to be all too common; it should be assuring for us to know that God is fully established on the throne of the universe.  He is not only aware of all that is going on but has full control over all of these events.  He has a purpose and a plan that might not be readily visible to us, but He is taking this planet in the exact direction that He has determined is best for His eternal glory and our eternal good.  We may be taken by surprise but God is not.  God does not worry or fret over the circumstances of life or the histories of nations so we shouldn’t either.  He truly is in control and has clearly demonstrated His ability to do the miraculous when it is necessary.  There seems to be two divisions in the structure of the book of Daniel.  In the first half of the book we see the account of God’s miraculous provision and protection of Daniel’s life and that of his faithful friends.  The second half of the book is dedicated to recording various visions that God gives to Daniel in order to reveal His plans for the nations of the world in both the near a far future.  Daniel sees the events of His life, the events that cover the next 500 years immediately following his life as well as the events that will bring a culmination to the world as we know it and usher in a new realm under the reign of Christ.  We may not like or understand all that God is doing or failing to do on the world scene but we must never forget that He is sovereign and He is good.  His ways may be different than we would choose but they are determined by Him and will accomplish His purpose.  Our task is to trust, not necessarily understand.

GOD REWARDS THE FAITHFULNESS OF DANIEL: Daniel is taken captive during the very first deportation of the nobility to Babylon.  Nebuchadnezzar wants the best and the brightest of the Jewish people to be instructed in the culture of Babylon, learn the language and, in short, be brainwashed into following the life and customs of his pagan nation.  Little does he realize that he will be the one to be influenced by Daniel and his friends much more than he will influence them.  Daniel is likely a young teenager when he is taken into captivity.  He is part of a noble family that despite the idolatry surrounding them remained faithful to the Lord and His Law.  Daniel and his three faithful friends are placed into Nebuchadnezzar’s “prep school” and their convictions are put to the test when they are given food and drink that were prohibited by God’s Law for the Jewish people.  It would have been easy for them to rationalize that as captives they had no choice but to compromise their convictions.  Instead they stand firm and appeal to their authority to be able to test God’s diet against the king’s.  At the end of the test, Daniel and his friends are found to be the healthiest, brightest and most promising of the captives.  Personal character is always vital to becoming an instrument in the hands of God.  We see that this instrument remains sharp as Nebuchadnezzar has a troubling dream that he demands to be told both the contents and interpretation.  Since nobody could reveal the dream all of the other wise men of Babylon were about to be killed until Daniel asked for an opportunity.  He goes to God in prayer and faithfully gives God all of the glory when he reveals the dream and the interpretations which foretold the coming stages of world history.  Daniel and his friends were promoted to high places of influence.  However, these high impact jobs did not prevent them from being thrown into a blazing furnace for refusing to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image.  Once again God demonstrates His power by protecting them and once again Nebuchadnezzar has a front row seat for God’s grand demonstration.  God gives the king yet another dream that only Daniel can interpret but this time the dream is a warning from God about the king’s pride and his coming insanity should he refuse to repent.  The king’s heart was filled with pride so God took his sanity away for several years until he finally repented before the Lord.  His prayer gives every indication that he became a believer.  Nebuchadnezzar thought he brought Daniel and his friends to Babylon to indoctrinate them; instead he was the one who ended up being transformed by God’s power.  No matter where we might be in the world this is kind of impact that we must have on those who are around us.  Unfortunately, the next king does not benefit from this lesson and is also filled with pride.  God uses Daniel once again to warn the king of his impending fall when he is able to interpret God’s handwriting on the wall during a drunken party.  That very night Babylon falls to the Medes and the Persians.  Daniel remains in power with this new regime and quickly becomes one of the top leaders in the new kingdom.  This causes jealousy with the other leaders who try to trap him by making a law against prayer.  Daniel once again demonstrates his character and refusal to compromise his conviction even at the expense of a trip to the lion’s den.  God once again demonstrates his power by protecting Daniel all night in the den of the same lions that devoured Daniel’s accusers and their families the next morning when king Darius turned the tables of justice on them.  These are amazing miracles that demonstrate God’s continued blessing on His people that were faithful even while they were in captivity for the sins of the nation.  We can all rest assured of God’s ability to protect and provide for His children no matter how difficult the political scene may become in the world.  God will not always perform these types of miracles in every situation but He is always able if that is His will.  However we should not expect miraculous intervention unless we demonstrate Daniel like convictions.       

GOD REVEALS THE FUTURE TO DANIEL: Daniel did much more than interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, He also was given visions of his own.  God chose Daniel as the instrument through who He would reveal many of His future plans for the nation of Israel and the world.  The first vision of the four beasts corresponds exactly to the vision of Nebuchadnezzar of the metallic man.  They depict the Babylonia, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires.  The Roman Empire in both visions divides into ten members.  This division seems to correspond well with the prophecies in Revelation about the coming Tribulation.  These kingdoms are followed by what appears to be the Kingdom of Christ in what we traditionally call the Millennium.  There is much controversy over this interpretation but it seems to me to be the only logical explanation of these passages apart from abandoning the literal interpretation of Scripture.  When we compare Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation it seems to be the only thing that makes sense.  I will readily admit that this makes for a very complicated eschatology but I would much rather have a complicated eschatology than a complicated hermeneutic or interpretation of Scripture.  The visions of the Persian and Greek empires are repeated in additional detail with the vision of the Ram and the Goat.  This is followed by one of the most important and confusing revelations that are called the Seventy Weeks.  Without going into a ton of detail they keys to interpreting these texts is to understand that every week is 7 years and that there is a gap of at least 2,000 years between the 69^th and 70^th week.  The last week seems to refer to a time yet in our future that are the seven years of Tribulation spoken of at the end of this book as well as in more detail in Revelation.  The gap is the period of time between the crucifixion of Christ and the coming of Anti-Christ.  This “gap” is what Jesus refers to as the “time of the Gentiles” in which we are currently living.  The final chapters are even more difficult to interpret because they seem to be about two very similar people who live in completely different periods of time.  Much of the information in the final chapters of Daniel seems to be referring to Antiochus IV Epiphanes who was one of the four generals of the Greek Empire who took over after the death of Alexander the Great.  He was an evil man who persecuted the Jew greatly and desecrated the reconstructed Temple built in the days of Ezra.  However, there is also a very great similarity between this content and that which we know about the Anti-Christ whose reign is described in Revelation.  This is not an entirely strange thing to happen in prophetic teaching but it does make for interesting challenges.  I think it best to consider Antiochus as a sort of “type” of Anti-Christ.  Many of his attitudes and actions pre-figure what the Anti-Christ will do.  For Daniel they were both in the future and we can tell by the stress surrounding him while receiving these revelations that He was very troubled by the content and also had a difficult time understanding all of the details.  I guess that puts us in good company.  As well look at these revelations, we are once again assured of God’s sovereign control and even though we may not understand everything, we can rest assured that God really does know what He is doing.  His plan will come to pass and he is not surprised by the event of our day or any day.  Our job is to trust Him and obey Him just as Daniel was so faithful to do.