Father, we thank you for your revelation in your Word, your prophecies and promises of your redemption and your kingdom and its glory. We pray, Father, that you would bless this time of study, that we would understand your Word better, that we might heed your Word and act upon it. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So today we come to the book of Daniel. To begin I want to read Daniel chapter 2 verse 19 through 23 to set the tone for the book of Daniel. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. he reveals deep and hidden things, he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to me the king's matter. This passage I select as it contains several of the themes of the book. Daniel is one who has been given wisdom and understanding. God has revealed his will to him, making known things that were hidden. And he also shows his sovereignty, God shows his sovereignty over the nations. We'll find a lot in Daniel of how he changes the times and seasons, how he removes kings and sets up kings. And to him belong wisdom and might. Now the book of Daniel, I would summarize the theme in that way or more precisely that God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and that he will deliver and exalt his people and humble proud rulers. He will establish his anointed one and his kingdom which will fill the earth. Now this message comes at a very particular time where that message was especially necessary, though of course it's a very helpful and useful and important theme for all time. But it came to Daniel while he was in Babylon. While he was far away from Jerusalem, from where the temple had been, where it was perhaps still standing when he left, but it would soon be destroyed, Babylon seemed to be triumphant over the world that they knew. And it's in that context that this message of God's sovereignty over the kingdoms of men and his deliverance and establishment of his people is delivered. Daniel and his three friends that the book opens with were some of the youths who were taken from Jerusalem to Babylon in 605 BC. They were known as youths of the royal family and of the nobility. So this was not one of the larger exiles, but it was the first one when Babylon first achieved dominance over Jerusalem. And they took some of the royalty, some of the nobility, some of the youths of those families to train them, to educate them in the way of the Babylonians to serve the king of Babylon. This was actually in accord with prophecy. Isaiah had told Hezekiah that some of your own sons or your own descendants will serve the king of Babylon as eunuchs, as his servants. We don't know if Daniel was of the royal line or if he was of the nobility, but in either case, that was the group he was part of. In Babylon, though, Daniel would rise to prominence as a ruler and as a counselor in the courts of Babylon, as well as Persia, when Persia conquers Babylon. And the career that's recounted in the book of Daniel doesn't seem apparent right away as you read it, but it actually spans 69 years. It's a long period of time that Daniel is in Babylon. We see events closer to the beginning or early middle part of his career as well as the end of his career. We have a timeline there laid out, both the events of Daniel's life as well as some of the events of the events he prophesized that I've included there as well. But Daniel's taken, he was probably about 14 years old when he was taken from Babylon. a probable age based on how old he was 69 years later, or the fact that he was still living 69 years later, and the fact he's described as a youth. He might have even been a little younger, but about 14 years old. And then for the next 43 years, Nebuchadnezzar is king in Babylon. That year he was, Daniel was taken to exile was the same as the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. He had already been a general before that, but that's when he became king. So for 43 years Nebuchadnezzar is reigning, and during that time Daniel rises from a youth to one who is entrusted with great responsibilities in Babylon. Well then, a little bit later, Senebuchadnezzar dies in 562. In 553, there's been a couple short reigns, but then Belshazzar reigns as king. Technically, he was a regent under his father Nabonidus, but he was called a king. He functioned as a king in Babylon. And so the Bible describes him as that king of Babylon when it finally fell to the Persians. And we know Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and all these figures from history, from historical records from the time. In fact, when the Persians took over Babylon, Herodias, the Greek historian, describes it very much like the account that we have in Daniel, one of those external verifications for its historical accuracy. And the one figure that we don't know as much about is Darius. When the Persians come in, Darius becomes king, but there's debate whether Darius was this character or that character that we know from history. There's a couple different candidates. One possibility that Darius is just another name for Cyrus. Cyrus is part Persian, part Mede, and perhaps he had two different names. That's one possibility that some have recorded, but it still could be that Darius is simply one who was put in charge of Babylon as part of the Persian Empire, and we just haven't found records of him yet. But we do know that when Persia conquered Babylon, that Cyrus was overall the king, and that was the beginning of his reign over Babylon, though he had already been king of Persia for some time. But when that happens, Daniel is about 80 years old, if he was 14 when he was taken into captivity. The last vision that he receives is in the third year of Cyrus' reign in Babylon, so he would have been about 83 years old. That would be in 536. The Daniel in the Lion's Den story, where he is thrown to the lion's den because he continues to pray to his god, that happens when Persia has taken over. So that's when he is, probably in his early 80s, perhaps 80 years old, having lived a long and impeccable life of service in the Babylonian Empire before that. You notice in the timeline some events that are useful to know about when we look at his prophecies. Later in the 300s, there is the reign and conquests of Alexander the Great, who even though he's Macedonian, is generally known as a Greek, spreading Hellenistic culture throughout the world. And then in the 100s, 175 to 164, there's the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. When Alexander the Great ruled, after he died, his empire divided into four kingdoms. One of those kingdoms was ruled by the Seleucids. They were headquartered in Syria. And one of the Seleucids was Antiochus Epiphanes, or Antiochus IV. And he's prominent in Jewish history for oppressing the Jews, trying to Hellenize them, that is, make them Greek, to make them pagan. and to eventually desecrate the temple. And that provokes the Maccabean Revolt, which is alluded to in the Book of Daniel, takes place during that time. Finally, though, in 64 to 63 BC, Rome conquers Jerusalem and finishes the conquest of the Seleucid Empire. So Rome replaces it. And then the rise of the Roman Empire that is under emperors, not the Republic, comes about 20 years after that. So keeping all of those events in mind, let's look at the Book of Daniel. It's actually really interesting to outline. It's very unified as a book. The first chapter serves as an introduction, gets Daniel to Babylon, sets the fact that there is temptations to conform in Babylon, but he draws a line in the sand and very respectfully, but principally maintains his standards there in Babylon. But then the next chapters 2 through 7 are written in a different language. So just literarily, you realize that they stand out from the rest of the book. They stand out as a unit. Chapters 2 through 7 are in Aramaic, which was similar to Hebrew, but a more international language, which fits the subject matter. And it begins with a vision and it ends with a vision. The first vision in chapter two is that of the image representing the kingdoms of man of the different metals and then the rock comes and smashes it and it becomes a mountain, fills the earth, representing the kingdom of God. The last vision in chapter seven, well the last vision in this unit, is of the four beasts also representing the kingdoms of man and the son of man receiving a kingdom so that all peoples would serve him, becoming victorious over the beasts. Well, so that's, if you will, the beginning and end of this section. If you move in a little bit further to chapter 3 and chapter 6, you also have a parallel. In chapter 3, God saves Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they do not bow down to the image and they are thrown into the fiery furnace. but God redeems them and there's a fourth man in the fire and they are brought out unharmed and the king praises God. Well, likewise in chapter 6, much later on, God saves Daniel who, instead of refusing to commit a sin of commission, it's refusing to commit a sin of omission. He will not omit praying to God, to the true God, and so he is therefore cast into the lion's den, but God again saves him, sends an angel to be with him, and he is brought out unharmed. Well, if you go move in a little further into the section, we have another parallel, chapter 4 and chapter 5. In chapter 4, God humbles King Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar's proud. He's been given great authority. It gets to his head. And Daniel interprets a dream where he warns Nebuchadnezzar, but Nebuchadnezzar does not heed the dream. He's proud, and so God humbles him so that he becomes almost like a beast, fitting with the theme here of Daniel. And he eats grass. And then after some time, He is given back his rationality, he becomes a man and he praises God. He is humbled. Well, in chapter five, we come to King Belshazzar, who's described as a son, or at least a descendant, an heir of King Nebuchadnezzar. And he also is starting to get the power to his head. He brings out the holy vessels and uses them in idolatry. And God sends him a vision too, but he doesn't give him much of a second chance, because he held him account to what he should have learned from Nebuchadnezzar. And so Belshazzar doesn't get a second chance. He is cast off and he dies that night because he should have remembered what had happened to Nebuchadnezzar. And Daniel points that out to him. That's the handwriting on the wall with the hand writing his doom before him. And that's when the Persians take over. So we have here in this first section the big vision, the kingdom of man and the kingdom of God. You have in chapter 3 through 6, God saves and exalts his people as they hold fast to him. And in the middle, God humbles proud rulers. and keeps them in control. Well, and then the later part of the Book of Daniel, chapters 8 through 11, is written in Hebrew. So it returns back to the more familiar language written in Hebrew. One might say it perhaps focuses a little bit more on the Jewish people in particular compared to the international scene. That's one way to look at it, although it still involves the people of God in the midst of the nations. Chapter 8 focuses in on two of these empires in particular. One represented by the ram, another by a goat, and then that goat has a little horn that becomes great and persecutes the saints. And we'll get to what those mean here in a minute. In chapter 9, there's Daniel's reading Jeremiah's prophecy. He realizes, hey, it's about time for this exile to be up. He prays to God, repents of their sins, and lays it before him, pleads for mercy. And that's where the vision of the 70 weeks is given, which explains the return and the restoration. That in one sense, there will be a restoration after seven sevens, as Nehemiah and Ezra and others build the temple and restore things to begin with. There is an initial fulfillment, but there's going to be a greater fulfillment of the 70 weeks, 10 cycles of sevens. Is it ten cycles of seven? I have to redo my math. But basically, seven sevens is one jubilee period, 49 years. But if you have ten of those, then you get the full amount, the full fulfillment. And that is when the Anointed One, the Prince, comes and fulfills all of the promises of God, and that would refer to Jesus Christ and His first coming. And then chapters 10 through 12, we have another vision. And this one is not so figurative. They're just called the Kings of Persia, the Kings of Greece, the Kings of the North, which would be the Seleucids, the Kings of the South, which would be the Egyptians, and lays it out in very particular detail, and in fact so detailed that it has led some people to think, well, this has to be history written as prophecy. They must have already seen this to be so detailed, and so as early as 3rd century AD, some person who was writing against Christians said, oh, this must have been written during the time of the Maccabees. This couldn't have been the real Daniel. And that's a debate you could look into more. E.J. Young has written good things on that debate. There's a lot of good reasons to believe that this was written by Daniel, someone in his time that would have known all the historical details of his day accurately. And of course, the idea that he didn't write it rests on the premise that predictive prophecy is impossible, but that's kind of an important part of biblical teaching to begin with. Furthermore, Jesus says that it was written by the prophet Daniel, as the prophet Daniel said and refers to the abomination of desolation. All right, so what are these beasts and what are these, what do they refer to? I have here on the chart the four kingdoms, or you might call them empires, because they're not an ordinary kingdom like a nation. These were international kingdoms, or what we might usually call empires, that would rule the world as they knew it. Well, first one is Babylon. This one's explicitly identified in Chapter 2. He is the golden head in Chapter 2. He would also be the lion with wings, who's given the mind of a man, perhaps a reference back to Nebuchadnezzar's experience in Chapter 7. The next kingdom or empire is that of the Medes and Persians. Though they were two people groups, they formed one kingdom, one empire. They would be the silver chest and arms in the statue. They would be, in chapter 7, the lopsided bear with three ribs in its mouth. It's lopsided because the Persians were greater than the Medes, but they were joined together in one empire. And it has three ribs in its mouth. It had three main conquests, that of Lydia and Babylon and Egypt. And then it fits very well with chapter 8, where it pictures a lopsided ram, where one horn is bigger than the other, again representing Persia and the Medes, which is conquered then by the next empire. We'll get to that. And then chapter 11 just explicitly identified the kings of Persia. Greece then would be the next empire, thinking of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great. which is, of course, the ones that defeated the Persians. He would be the bronze middle and thighs of the statue. Greece would be the leopard with four wings and four heads in chapter 7, communicating its swift conquest of the world and the fact that it would divide in four afterwards. Likewise, it's the goat with one horn, one great horn, which would be Alexander, and that horn then becomes four, which would be the four kingdoms it divides into. And then chapter 11 explicitly said, Greece is mighty king whose kingdom will be divided into four, which is what happens. And then finally, the last empire would be Rome. Rome would be the legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. Now, explaining it that way might make you think, oh, this must be two kingdoms. But then it's referred to later on in that vision as that kingdom, the fourth kingdom, being the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay. And in chapter 7 would be the fourth beast with 10 horns. So Babylon, Medes and Persians, Greece, and Rome. each of which conquers the one before it. But then, oh, and within that, there's also a theme of little horns that become great. So in chapters 8 and 11 through 12, When Greece, the fourth kingdom, divides into four, from one of those comes a little horn that becomes great. One of them comes from a ruler. So this would be Antiochus Epiphanes, who came from one of those four kingdoms, the Seleucids, who, like I said, persecuted the Jews, tried to make them pagan and Greek, and profaned the temple. And that's exactly what it says he would do in chapter 8 and chapter 11 through 12. The fourth kingdom also has a similar little horn. In chapter 7, it describes how there would be a little horn that rises to prominence, begins to take out some of the ten horns, and also persecutes the saints. And the way Calvin explained this, and I think it's probably pretty accurate, would be that this represents the rise of the Roman emperor over the Roman republic. That's the line of Roman emperors. Nero, perhaps in particular, would persecute the saints. The Roman imperial power would be, of course, the one to execute Christ as well. Rome is also, in chapter 9, used to destroy Jerusalem and the temple. Then, finally, there is the fifth kingdom, the fifth empire, although it's never called the fifth one because in one sense it stands above and beyond all of them, and that is the kingdom of God, the dominion of heaven, and it's represented several ways. In chapter 2, the kingdom of God is like a rock. Now, what does the rock become? A mountain. It begins small, but it grows and it fills the earth. Likewise, it's compared to or it is embodied in the son of man who comes to the ancient of days, receives the kingdom so that all nations would serve him. And then later in that chapter, it's referred to as the saints of the most high who would receive that kingdom. In chapter nine, it's personified in the anointed one, a prince, a prince there referring to a ruler, not like a second in command, the son of a king, like we think of prince, but prince as a leader, as a ruler. And in chapter two, it's explicitly said that the kingdom of God arises in the days of the rulers of the fourth empire, the fourth kingdom, which would be Rome. So that in the days of Rome, this kingdom would be established, would begin small, and would grow so that it would fill the earth. A prophecy, of course, that would be picked up in Jesus' parables, where he talks about it being leaven that leavens the whole lump, or a seed that becomes a tree that all the birds of the forest dwell in, which is, in fact, imagery used to describe Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4. He was a tree that all the birds of heaven had come to because he had all the peoples of the earth under his kingdom. And so there is a prophecy of not only God's general providential reign over the earth, but the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ in particular that would be greater than any of these earthly kingdoms that would rise and fall under God's sovereignty. So any questions about the book of Daniel? Questions or thoughts? Particular parts of Daniel? There's a lot in Daniel, and it is worth the study. There's still some parts that are less clear. You know, for example, who was that fourth man in the fire? It seems like today most people think it's Jesus, and it could have been one like a son of God, but that could have also described an angel, and an angel comes to be as Daniel in the lion's den. Or perhaps is that figure Jesus as well? And who is the figures in chapter 10? Is it Gabriel? Is it Gabriel and Jesus? Is it Gabriel and Michael? There's still some areas that could provoke some discussion that are maybe not as essential to the theme of the book, because even if it's an angel, it's still representing God's presence with his people, a task and function that would be, of course, fulfilled in Jesus as he is with us to the end of the age as we hold fast to him. Alright, well let's go ahead and close with prayer. Dear Father, we thank you and praise you for the revelation of your word, which has reminded us that you reign. You reign despite the raging of the nations, the plots of men to gain power, the might which can disrupt the church. And we thank you, though, for reminding us that you are powerful overall. and that you are working your will out so that you would indeed reign over the whole earth. We pray that you would fulfill these prophecies, that you would fulfill your promise, that you would extend the reign of your son, that he would indeed grow like that mountain, his kingdom would grow to fill the earth, that it would be a blessing to all. and yet that those who resist it would indeed meet the fate of Nebuchadnezzar or Belshazzar, being humbled one way or another. But we pray, Father, that you would bring in all peoples to willingly serve the Son of Man, that they might serve Him with joy. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.