Daniel: Intro and Overview

Well, first, let me wish all of you a happy new year. Here we are in the year of our Lord, 2023. Where does the time go? Seems like only a short time we were in the Middle Ages. Well, some of us. And now here we are in the 21st century.

Of course, just to say that this is the year of our Lord or 2023 AD is somehow be politically incorrect these days. The humanists object to the term Anno Domini simply because it means in the year of our Lord.

And of course, that might offend somebody, so we have to be careful that we don't say that. So they prefer the religiously neutral terms, and that's in quotations. The common error or before the common error.

I find the matter rather humorous if it wasn't so sad to see the desperation of those who would try to rid the world of any mention of Jesus Christ. You can take AD out of it, but every time you say 2023, you're acknowledging the birth of Christ and his impact in the world.

But this idea of trying to be politically correct, gender neutral, and this whole idea of rewriting history has gone epidemic in our, not only in our country, but around the world. And if dates get in the way, well, let's just change the dates.

Sad thing is theologians and churches are guilty of this as well. And what we find often is that instead of careful systematic interpretation of scripture, we find proof texting. Chronology of texts and time text, and get used to that word time text because you're going to hear it a lot during our study in Daniel.

But these are frequently ignored or manipulated to fit into a particular system of thought. Superficial reading of scripture is extremely dangerous. John Gerstner, R .C. Sproul's mentor, warned, he says, beware of the theology of the first glance.

And nowhere is that more relevant than in our next study in the book of Daniel. Daniel is an extremely unique book of the Bible. In fact, it's not an overstatement to call it fantastic. Now, don't get me wrong.

I'm not calling it a fantasy, meaning a made-up story. It's not that, but it is a fantastic piece of literature. Just think of some of the historical events that we're going to be studying over our course in the book of Daniel.

Daniel's thrown in the lion's den and survives. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego tossed into a furnace heated seven times hotter than the norm. And they come out and they don't even smell like smoke. A king throws a great feast and a hand appears on the wall, writing a message for him.

Fantastic events. But there's more. The king has a dream and wants it interpreted. And all the wise men of the land are called to interpret this dream. But there's a little catch. First, they have to relate what the dream is.

And then they're to interpret it. Of course, no one is able to do that, and they all perish except for one Hebrew slave, Daniel. And even the dreams are fantastic. A huge statue of gold and silver and bronze and iron mixed with clay.

And then there's a stone that is made without hands that crushes the statue and turns into a huge mountain. The events in the book of Daniel are fantastic. But unlike the fantasy of Hollywood, the events are true.

And even the fantastic visions relate truth when interpreted completely inaccurately. The key to interpreting Daniel is in understanding the structure and the different types of literature that are used in the book.

I'm going to give just a brief overview, as we're just really introducing our next study this morning. Daniel is a book in two basic parts. Now, on one level, you could say the chapters one through six are more biographical in nature.

Chapters seven through 12 record the visions of God's purpose in future events. But even that's a little too simplistic, because the book is written in two different languages. It's written in Hebrew and Aramaic.

And the Aramaic section overlaps from Daniel 2 .4 to Daniel 7 .28. So it's not even a clear-cut distinction that the first half and the second half. Another interesting fact, it was written by more than one person.

At least the second half of the book was written by Daniel himself. And the text itself proves that. I mean, you have to really manipulate scripture to say Daniel didn't write this. For in Daniel 8 .1, in the third year of the reign of Belshazzar, the king of vision appeared to me, Daniel.

That's a pretty good clue who wrote the book. And he also, he says the same thing in chapter 9, verse 2. He says, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel. And that's only two. There's numerous other allusions to Daniel being the author.

But in chapters one to three, and chapters five and six, Daniel is referred to not as I or me, but in the third person. So the author, though unknown to us, is one of Daniel's contemporaries, because someone who was alive at the time that Daniel was.

Now some have proposed that it could have been one of his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego. That would fit very nicely, wouldn't it? But that can't be, because they too are referred to in the third person.

So the reality is the author is unknown, but someone moved by the Holy Spirit to pen the words of the narrative. Now that leaves one more chapter, chapter four. And many people find the author of chapter four quite surprising.

Listen to the text and see if you pick up the clues who wrote this. Daniel 4, verse 1, Nebuchadnezzar, the king to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language that live in all the earth, may your peace abound.

It seemed good to me to declare the signs and wonders which the Most High God has done for me. How great are his signs, and how mighty are his wonders. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. His dominion is from generation to generation.

I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and flourishing in my palace. King Nebuchadnezzar wrote a chapter of scripture. Every time you turn around, this book is fascinating. In fact, I'm gonna say this flat out.

I have more excitement and enthusiasm at approaching the book of Daniel, I think, than any other study that I've done. We find the Holy Spirit using one of the greatest kings in the history of mankind, not my words, but the words of Holy Scripture, to give us God's truth.

And the profession of King Nebuchadnezzar is one of the clearest, boldest explanations of the sovereignty of God found anywhere in scripture. We're gonna jump ahead a little bit. Listen, what does Nebuchadnezzar say in chapter four, verses 34 and 35.

Remember, Nebuchadnezzar had been made to eat like the beast in the field. He had gone insane. And in verse 34, but at the end of that period, 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, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done?

Wow, that's some profession.

The way Daniel is constructed lends uniqueness to the book, because Daniel also contains several types of literature. It contains different styles of writing. It contains historical narrative blended with apocalyptic sections.

And Daniel, though a prophet, he doesn't come to Israel as the other prophets do that we read in the Old Testament. In fact, let me read for you the opening words of Sinclair Ferguson, the introduction to his commentary on Daniel, because I think he shed some good light on it.

These are the words of Sinclair Ferguson. To open the book of Daniel is to enter a strange but brave new world. We're in Babylon in the sixth century before Christ. The experience, however, is not seen through the eyes of a recognized prophet and Isaiah with his words of comfort and hope, or Jeremiah with his dark words of judgment, or an Ezekiel with his bright visions of God.

Rather, these eyes are those of an exile in Babylon, a statesman whose personal experiences are breathtaking in their heroism and triumph. Yet we are not in the world of a calculating politician. For while the first half of Daniel chapters one to six describes his political activities as a man of faith and prayer, the second half explains his public energy.

He knew God intimately, and God revealed his secrets to him, compared with Amos 3 .7. Daniel was a visionary, a man who received revelations of the future in a form that is always dramatic and at times almost grotesque in its unveiling of the bestial nature of evil.

What impresses the reader above everything else, however, is how God-centered Daniel is and how God-centered is his view of the political stage on which he plays a part, unquote. It's quite an introduction.

Since the visions in the second half tell of future events, they come under the heading of eschatology, that is the study of last things. Now here's where we run into some problems. The vast majority of the church today has adopted a certain system of eschatology and interprets everything in light of that system.

Let me just say up front, that's a very dangerous practice. I'm going to ask you to put aside any preconceived views that you might have and let the scripture be your guide as we focus on Daniel, which leads to my next point, which is how do we interpret Daniel?

Because we've already said it's different styles of writing, different types. There's some important questions that should always be asked when it comes to interpreting any portion of scripture, but definitely in Daniel.

First, you ask the question, who wrote the book? Well, we've already answered that question, at least in part. Second, who was it written to or for? And clearly from the text, you will see it was written to the captives, from other captives, and even from their main captor.

What is the occasion for the writing of the book? From its context, you can see it's clearly to encourage the captives by putting before them the lives of Daniel and his three friends. Just think of that.

Think of the example of Daniel. In fact, there's an old song that we're gonna relay that at some point. How many people have ever heard the song Dare to be a Daniel? Oh, you're gonna learn it. But it's also not only by looking at the example of Daniel and his friends, but through Daniel, he reveals God's plan for the future of Israel through a series of visions.

And again, we will see that it is exactly what the text of Scripture says, and not suppositions or presuppositions that we are inserting into the text. It's important to interpret any text of Scripture as it was meant to be interpreted.

In other words, various types of literature are meant to be interpreted differently. Historical narratives are different from doctrinal teaching. Narratives are meant to tell events and answer the main question, what happened?

And we'll see that. What happened? Didactic Scripture, those are teaching portions. Poetry is interpreted differently from historical narrative. It's poetic when we find that the trees of the field clap their hands.

Do we really think that they clap their hands, the trees? Only one type of tree can do that, and that's a palm tree.

No.

I had you for a minute.

Oh boy.

Told you this book was fantastic, didn't I? One of the major controversies in eschatology in the church today is the dating of the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Was it written before or after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD?

That's an extremely important question, which has bearing on the fulfillment of those prophecies. So we have to be very careful, because how you interpret, keeping those principles in mind, let's look at interpreting Daniel beginning with its date.

We can say with a great degree of certainty that Daniel lived in the sixth century BC, before Christ. There are many time texts that enable us to date his life with a fair degree of accuracy. Look at just verse one of the book.

In the third year of the reign of the King Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. Here we get, book of Daniel starts third year, the reign of King Jehoiakim.

This event can be dated at about 605 BC, both by the events in scripture and ancient historical texts. We have lists that can help us pinpoint that. The final date mentioned in Daniel is the third year of Cyrus, the king of Persian, which can be dated fairly accurately at 537 BC.

So think about this. That's roughly a 70-year span of time. Reasonable deduction, not speculation, but reasonable deduction then puts Daniel somewhere around 20 years old, could have been as early as 18, maybe 21, 22, when he enters into captivity because he's already considered one of the wise youths of Israel, all right?

And then a span of 70 years, so he's somewhere in his 90s at the end of his life. Now, modern critics of scripture make very unsubstantiated claims that Daniel was written much later than the period that it describes.

There's no basis for that. What is the main reason why some of the liberal critics put it at a late date? And this is the way they think. It's too accurate to have been written before. So because it's so accurate, it's gotta be false.

Hmm.

Makes you wanna think, doesn't it? The critics would love to discredit this book because it is such an important book of scripture. What about the historical setting? What's going on? Which is another important aspect of interpreting the book correctly.

Israel has been besieged by Babylon, and many of the people have been taken captive, brought to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar at this time is the undisputed sovereign over the Middle East, having defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish, and then moving against Israel and Judah.

The Babylonians were ruthless and difficult taskmasters. We'll see that when we get into the study that they had to interpret, not only interpret the dream, but tell him what the dream was. And if they couldn't do it, he had them killed.

The sovereign of the king was absolute. Whatever the king ordered, that was law. And the life and death of his subjects literally hung in the hands of the king. That sovereignty of Nebuchadnezzar and the subsequent kings is evident throughout the book and must be understood to explain some of the events of this book.

It's also extremely important when we come to Nebuchadnezzar's conversion and his profession of faith in chapter four. Yes, you heard me correctly. I will say unabashedly that I believe scripture relates that Nebuchadnezzar was converted to Jesus Christ.

His profession of the sovereignty and of the Lord God of Israel. I think makes it absolutely clear that he was a believer. However, Babylon's rule would be usurped by the Medes and Persians later on in the book.

And Daniel is now under a different sovereign. We also need to understand grammatical interpretation. Words mean things and must be taken into grammatical setting in the text. Soon means soon. Near means near.

I know none of you knew that, but there are interpreters who will tell us that soon doesn't mean soon and near doesn't mean near. I'm here to tell you it does. Former days and latter days mean something in the context of when they were written.

Daniel is a book concerning the beginning of the latter days of Old Covenant Israel. The former days would be the days of Abraham and Moses. Let me explain further with a little example. To me, the 2020s are the latter days.

I have no idea how many more I'm gonna get, but these are my latter days. To my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, these are the former days. It's a matter of perspective. The same phrase may be used in Scripture to describe different events.

For example, let me give you another word. The day of the Lord. There are those who would tell you, well, there's only one day of the Lord. A very even superficial study of Scripture will show you that there are many days of the Lord.

Every time the Lord does something great, it is a day of the Lord. So we need to be careful. We also need to interpret this book contextually. You must interpret Scripture in light of the context of the times.

Perfect example, last week you heard Pastor Anthony talk a little bit about shepherds and who they were and why it was important that the gospel was revealed, the birth of Christ was revealed to them.

Remember what he said, in the ancient world, shepherds are not to be trusted. They weren't to be, they were the outcasts of society. They couldn't even testify in court because it was presumed that they lied.

When somebody mentions a shepherd today, what is the first thing that comes to your thought? Good shepherd. And the shepherd laying down with his nice little lamb, stroking the lamb, what a nice guy. That's not what it meant back in ancient Israel.

Same thing with the word Samaritan. We have talked about a good Samaritan today. What is a good Samaritan? Well, that's somebody who helps, somebody who stops and helps somebody who's in need. What was a Samaritan in ancient Israel?

An outcast. In fact, if a Pharisee walked through the land of Samaria before he got to Israel, he had to shake the dust off because even the dust was polluted in their thinking. So context is absolutely important.

And then we have, and you'll see this extensively in this book, is the use of symbols, metaphors, figures of speech. How should we interpret them? Symbols will usually be explained within the text itself or in another portion of scripture that's related to it.

It's never advisable to ascribe a meaning to a symbol by speculation or without cause. I'm just gonna go to what I think is probably one of the worst examples of this type of abuse. In the book of the Revelation, we have some well-known author who describes the plague of locusts as Apache helicopters.

There is absolutely no biblical reason for assigning locusts to Apache helicopters. Locusts have some specific meanings in scripture and they can be taken figuratively, but I think the Apostle John had no clue what an Apache helicopter was.

So we need to be careful. That's nothing more than wild speculation. And those type of errors always lead to more errors. So as we approach those sections in Daniel, we must use care and use the Bible itself as a guide to interpretation.

Then the last principle I wanna highlight in our introduction to Daniel is the covenant. This principle is almost totally ignored in most commentaries. What I mean is that God deals with mankind in terms of a covenant relationship.

And this is one of, of course, the overriding covenant is the covenant of redemption that was enacted by the Godhead from all eternity. But that covenant is revealed to mankind progressively through various covenants over a period of time, culminating in the new covenant in Jesus Christ's blood.

The history of Israel is the story of the covenant relationship of God with Israel. The terms of the gold covenant were very, very simple. Obey God, be blessed. Disobey God and be cursed. These are the terms that summarize Deuteronomy 28.

That's why we read from Deuteronomy 28 this morning. I wanna read three more verses from Deuteronomy 28 that we didn't read this morning because they shed some light on what are the consequences of disobeying the covenant.

Deuteronomy 28, and we're gonna read from 63 to 65. This is under the portion where if you disobey God, remember, these are the words of Moses to the Israelites before they enter the land of promise. It shall come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you and multiply you, so the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you, and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it.

Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known.

Among those nations, you will find no rest. There will be no resting place for the sole of your foot, and there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. That's what Daniel entered into.

This was the society he was going into. It was a direct, the Israelites had directly violated the covenant, and they were carried away in captivity, exactly as Moses had told them in Deuteronomy 28. Without that overriding context, the lessons in Daniel will be lost, which brings me to the third point of my sermon this morning, why study Daniel?

Let me offer several reasons as to why we're going to study this book. First, and don't laugh, inside joke, I believe it's a perfect follow-up to our study in the book of Hebrews. Now, here's what I mean by that.

Remember what the purpose of the book of Hebrews was? To show the superiority of Christ and the new covenant in his blood over everything else. He is superior to Moses, he's superior to the angels, and to the Aaronic priesthood.

And after Christ offered himself as the once for all sacrifice, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting for his enemies to make a footstool for his feet. That's right from the book of Hebrews. He entered into the holy place, listen carefully, not made with hands.

Have we heard that before? Keep that concept in mind as we see that wording in the book of Daniel. Hebrews shows us the passing away of the old covenant with its inferior sacrifices because of the arrival of the better than Moses, the better than the angels, the better than the old priesthood covenant.

Daniel puts this in the historical context of the violation of the old covenant and the need, the absolute necessity of the new covenant. And through visions interpreted by Daniel, God shows the historical context for the new covenant in Christ's blood.

And he does this in several ways. First, Nebuchadnezzar's visions show the history of the world from Babylon to the Medes and Persians, to Greece and to Rome, culminating in the new covenant superseding all those earthly kingdoms.

God's kingdom will outlast all of them because his kingdom is an eternal kingdom. That is the stone that is cut without hands that becomes the mountain, which leads to the second reason to study this book.

And that is to ground ourselves in eschatology. Daniel contains prophetic and apocalyptic sessions that are important for the church to understand. Your understanding of eschatology will affect not only your attitude, but the way you live your life.

Let me just give you an example. This past week, I was at a meeting of pastors and I met an old friend I hadn't seen in years. Nice, one of the nicest guys I've ever met. We sat down to catch up on old times over a cup of coffee and a little slice of quiche.

And during the conversation, he spoke about the crazy times we live in. Well, who can argue with that? But that conversation led to no surprise. Well, that's why we're in the last days. Christ's gonna return at any moment now.

Why?

Because of what's going on around us. I couldn't help but think back to conversations I had 50 years ago with pastors saying the same thing, only now, and using the newspapers for their part. Part of their apologetic for saying this is the book of Daniel.

The vision of the statue, the 70 weeks, the abomination of desolation, just to name a few. And people get very dogmatic about their interpretations of Daniel and how that fits in with the revelation of Jesus Christ written by John.

So much so that to dispute these main views is to incur wrath. It has even led to the breaking of fellowship. The popular view leads to a pessimistic view of the future of the kingdom of God. And there are a number of hermeneutical errors which need to be addressed as we study the book of Daniel and put it in the proper context.

But keep this one point in mind. Daniel is not addressing the end of the world, but the latter days of the old covenant era and Christ establishing his kingdom here on earth. Third reason to read this book and study it.

It brings us to how does a godly person live in a pagan land? Daniel's a case study on that. And included in that is what are Christian's responsibility to the authorities in a corrupt society? Haven't we all faced this over the last couple years in ways we never thought possible?

How authorities are coming against the church. Daniel, through no fault of his own, is taken captive from his home and transported to Babylon. He's one of the best and brightest of the Israeli youths.

He's inducted into service for the king. What does he do? What should he do? Can he serve God and obey godless leaders at the same time? What are the similarities to our society today? You can see we can learn from the life of Daniel.

And these are just a few of the questions that we'll explore in our studies of this book. Fourth reason we wanna study Daniel is the important theme of death and resurrection. We will see this theme throughout Daniel.

Daniel is described often as a second Joseph. The similarities are striking. Daniel is brought into captivity. Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt. Both gain initial favor with their authorities. Both suffer a death-like experience.

Joseph is forgotten in jail. Daniel is thrown in the lion's den. Both are resurrected and returned to favor. And that's just one example. But as we work our way through the book, we will see this constant theme of death and resurrection.

And this theme is necessary to understand the prophecies in the last half of the book. And then fifth, Daniel is a book about the sovereignty of God. Probably the overriding theme is the sovereignty of God.

Many theologians said if they had to pick one overriding theme, that would be it. From beginning to end, we see the hand of God moving all things according to his will. And it's evident in the opening sentence of the book.

Look at Daniel one and two. In the third year, the king of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, besieged it. Look at verse two. The Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand.

Why are they in captivity? God gave them over. How was Nebuchadnezzar able to defeat him? God gave him over. How were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego delivered from the fire? Daniel 3 .17. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us.

How was Daniel delivered from the lion's den? Daniel 6 .22. My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth. And of course, Nebuchadnezzar's testimony itself. And I never tire of reading this or stating it, so I'm gonna read it again.

For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of heaven.

And among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done? Those are some of the reasons we're gonna study the book. So as we come to a close, let me wish you once again a happy new year.

It's the year of our Lord, 2023. Don't shy back away from saying that. It is my prayer that our study in Daniel will be beneficial and encouraging for all. If you might have a slightly different view of eschatology than I do, don't let that dissuade you.

Just listen. We don't have to agree on everything. These are exciting times to be alive. Maybe not the term you'd use. But these are exciting times. When God brings oppression against his church, it's time for the church to stand like Daniel did, like his three friends did.

As we see the sovereignty of God on the pages of scripture, we should be reminded that God is sovereign over all the events in history, yesterday, today, and forever. And may Daniel be an example for all of us to follow as we live in a society that is becoming more and more godless.

May we pray for guidance as we seek to understand the prophetic visions Daniel was given to interpret. May we handle accurately the word of truth. If you're here today and you've never come to faith in Jesus Christ, I would pray for you this morning.

May you have come to faith in Almighty God and Jesus Christ, his son, even as the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar did. Let's pray. Father, we bow before you and we stand in awe of you. You are the sovereign God of the universe and no one can tell you what to do or question why you did something.

Pray, Father, that you would help us to be like Daniel, be like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and stand for the truth that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save sinners. We thank you, Father, for this book you've given to us.

Help us to understand it as we work our way through it over the next months. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.