A Stonebriar Fellowship
Four visions or revelations are in this section: Two in the first and third year of Belshazzar (chapters. 7, 9) and two to Medo-Persian monarchs (unless Darius and Cyrus are the same person, chapter 8 and 10-12).
Four visions or revelations are in this section: Two in the first and third year of Belshazzar (chapters. 7, 9) and two to Medo-Persian monarchs (unless Darius and Cyrus are the same person, chapter 8 and 10-12).
The take-away for me in this chapter is that failure will describe man’s efforts to bring about a time of universal peace using force and conquest. The reason is an invisible war in the spiritual realm between the angels of God to protect the people of God in the nations and the forces of Satan who are constantly seeking to destroy God’s intervention. In the end of times (the Great Tribulation) it will appear that Satan has won the battle for supremacy through the anti-Christ and the false prophet. On the brink of his total victory, God will come, destroy all evil, and bring His people from all ages and nations into a kingdom without end.
God is sovereign over near and distant events. Just as He has set the limit of the seas, He has set limits upon what nations, even mankind, can do. In the subtle twists and turns of our lives, we can be assured that the One does as He pleases. God finds pleasure in His covenantal relationship with each one of us and we will be gathered into His kingdom when time shall be no more.
The vision of chapter 2 spanned the entire period from the gathering of God’s people to the regathering into God’s eternal kingdom. The vision of chapter 7 focused up the fourth beast or empire, its divisions, weakness, and crushing. Chapter 8 narrows the focus to two beasts, the second and third.
Chapters 1-6 were preparatory for what is found in 7-12. The previous chapters established the integrity of the exile, Daniel, in his walk with God and his elevation to political prestige personally in the Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires. Most importantly, it established his authority to speak to issues of the future for the Jewish people, his people. If God revealed the secret dream of Nebuchadnezzar (chap. 2), the meaning of handwriting on a wall in Belshazzar’s place (chap. 4) and delivered him from a den of lions (all through the power of Daniel’s God), he possessed the ability to know future events if revealed by his God for His people.
That if God is pleased to do so, the people of God will be delivered from the caprices of predators and dreadful circumstances, of those who prioritize obedience to the rules of God more than the rules of men when they conflict. When coupled with the story of the three Hebrews consigned to a fiery death (chapter 3), all who live in “exile,” in an unfriendly and aversive culture, should be encouraged that we are secure from the jealousy and evil plotting of those who would prevent us from the worship of the true God.
This chapter, and the previous, at an applicational level deals with the terrible devastation that pride and arrogance brings though with contrastive outcomes. Chapter 4 tells us that a repentant heart brings with it restoration while in this chapter an unrepentant heart brings death and destruction. From the perspective of suffering exiles, the chapters comfort them with the knowledge that the fortunes of powerful monarch are in the hands of the God of Israel. To one monarch He extended grace through physical disablement to allow him to see the evil of arrogance and the wonder of forgiveness. To the other, he crushed without granting the grace of repentance. God controls the hearts of mankind and does as He please.
Pride and arrogance are destructive for all of us from the teacher to a king. We must remind ourselves of the lyrics of an of hymn: “Naught have begotten but what I received grace has bestowed it since I have believed. Boasting excluded, pride I abase; I’m only a sinner saved by grace.” Position is a privilege; it is not evidence of superiority or worth.
Arrogance coupled with delusions of grandeur and hunger for power should not paralyze God’s children who fear God more than temporal authorities because God will protect them regardless of the immediate consequence of their devotion and loyalty. Jesus told us, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt.10:28).”
