Daniel 8

Good evening, everybody. This is Truth and Love Network. We get truth and love from Ephesians chapter four, verse 15. Paul says, But speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ.

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Jesus said of himself in Revelation chapter three, the amen, the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of creation or the art or source, the origin of creation of God. And so we we serve a mighty God, a loving savior, but someone who cares enough to write warning, cares enough to come down to rescue us and save us.

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I'm with Dan again. I'm so thankful for his commitment to do this with me, to discuss God's word tonight. We are continuing in the book of Daniel. We're in Daniel chapter eight. And just as a reminder, I wanted to say this, that Dan and I are looking at the book of Daniel, the prophecies.

And of course, as we look at other books, when we look at prophecies, we're looking at it from a preterist perspective and preterist means past. And so we believe that as you hear us discuss, as you hear us interpret, as you hear us look at prophecies, for example, in the book of Daniel, we are going to be interpreting them and seeing them as they have been fulfilled in the past.

Now, we believe that there are prophecies in the Bible that have yet to be fulfilled. But many of them have been fulfilled compared to other branches or streams of eschatological theories or interpretations.

So that's how we're going to look at Daniel. And that's how we see Daniel chapter eight as being fulfilled or happening in the past. As an introduction, Daniel is receiving another vision. It's my understanding that it's a waking vision.

And there seems to be more interaction with the angel this time. It's more than just someone talking to him. But you have you have Jesus appearing here in chapter eight. You have an angel, Gabriel, appearing here in chapter eight.

And Gabriel, the angel, actually making physical contact, it seems like in chapter eight, possible. So there's a lot of interaction, a lot of characters in chapter eight. And this is not, as we've looked at in the past, this is not a vision going to the king needing or wanting an interpreter.

This is another vision, just like chapter seven to Daniel. And it happens two years later from the vision that happened in chapter seven. So I'm going to I'm going to stop talking. I'm going to read the first section and I'm going to let Dan do some commentary here.

So I'm thankful for your patience and Dan's patience as I did that little introduction. So Daniel chapter eight, we'll start in verses one through eight. And we'll let Dan give us some commentary. In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar, the king, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, subsequent to the one which appeared to me previously.

And I looked in the vision and it came about while I was looking that I was in the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam. And I looked in the vision and I myself was beside Eula Canal. Then I lifted my gaze and looked and behold a ram, which had two horns, was standing in front of the canal.

Now the two horns were long, but one was longer than the other. With the longer one coming up last, I saw the ram budding westward, northward and southward. And no other beast could stand before him, nor was there anyone to rescue from his power.

But he did as he pleased and magnified himself. While I was observing, behold, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between its eyes.

And he came up to the ram that had the two horns, which I had seen standing in front of the canal and rushed at him in his mighty wrath. And I saw him come beside the ram and he was enraged at him. And he struck the ram and shattered his two horns and the ram had no strength to withstand him.

So he hurled him to the ground and trampled on him. And there was none to rescue the ram from his power. Then the male goat magnified himself exceedingly. But as soon as he was mighty, the large horn was broken.

And in his place, there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.

All right, Dan.

All right. I don't want to say too much because, and here's why. When one of the rules that we have put in place, not just we as in me and Robert, but we as in like Orthodox Christians throughout history and the world, is that you always let scripture interpret scripture.

Now, the reason why I don't want to say too much is because in chapter or verse 15 through verse 19, the scripture actually goes ahead and says, hey, this is what this means. So I don't want to jump the gun and say too much, but I would like to go over some things.

At the first, you see Belshazzar, Belshazzar in the third year of his reign. He's getting ready to drop off. We've already seen his end in a previous chapter. And in fact, this vision has absolutely nothing to do with his kingdom.

It has to do with the two kingdoms that come after him. These two kingdoms are identified by name later on. So if you take the book of Daniel as a whole, what you're seeing is you're seeing the king of Babylon who was that head of gold in the first vision, the Medo-Persian Empire, which is mentioned by name as coming afterwards.

Then you have bronze, which is the Greek Empire, which is also mentioned by name coming afterwards. Then the next large empire that we know of is the Roman Empire, which was at the bottom. So this is right in line with those other prophecies.

It's trying to give us a big picture of the history between Daniel's time and the time when Christ would come. When, you know, it says the little stone would hit the statue, crumble the statue, and the mountain would grow up.

Or the four beasts that would come, and then some would devour other ones, and there would be destruction and mayhem, and then Christ would come. Or here, as we'll see, it actually ends on a sour note.

But the end of even that vision is eventually, you know, because he leaves off kind of like three quarters of the way through the story. There's another quarter of the story, and then Christ comes. All of this is showing the history of what happens between the time of Daniel and when Christ is going to come and actually take away sins, pay for sins, take them upon himself, enter the grave, and then rise again.

So what Daniel is seeing, what he's hearing, is supposed to be a great comfort to a people who think that they have absolutely completely blown it, which they had. They'd blown it so bad, they'd chased after other idols, they'd chased after other gods.

They'd lost their place in the land of Israel, and once they lost their place, they almost thought that they, you know, what hope do we have? Now, you had certain prophets that come to them and say, hey, you need to settle down here, you know, go ahead and build houses and plant vineyards and get settled and, you know, make it go well with the kingdom that you're with because that'll make it go well for you.

But at the same point, they had to be wondering, you know, have we broken covenant with God to such an extent that we're not going to see, that we're going to see all of those curses that were mentioned in Deuteronomy come upon us?

And these are messages of, scary messages of turmoil, but ultimately messages of hope that God was going to be faithful to his people. And so you see him just going over the vision one more time. You see this two-horned ram just kind of hanging out.

And then this one-horned goat comes with, a unicorn goat just comes up and smacks, it says it hits him with all his might. I mean, you've seen goats like going at it. And rams, we've seen those big horned sheep from Colorado just wailing on each other and it's impressive.

You know, I get a headache just thinking about it. I mean, I don't have any padding up here. You know what I'm talking about? I mean, it would just hurt. Hey, come on now, everybody can see.

What?

So come on now, everybody can see.

Are you talking to me?

No padding. For the ram. Anyway, moving on.

I was just going to say, how in the world does this goat get traction? Floating over the surface.

We'll talk about that. Because that actually comes up a little bit later. That's a go to corn. Yeah, it's a, what do they call that? It's a word picture that shows something.

Right.

Something else going on. So they run into each other and the goat defeats the ram. And then the goat, his one horn breaks off, four little horns come up. And as we'll see later in the next little section, one of those little horns that comes up is an interesting character.

We'll leave it at that until we get there.

So as we're watching this unfold, as we're looking at the vision that Daniel's getting, and as we go through it, as we walk through it together, from the predator's perspective, looking at it in the past, we can see history.

Daniel prophesied, Daniel predicted or was given this vision and we see how it fits in history. And we are going to look at that. Yeah, there's so many things that folks are looking forward to, looking to happen in the future.

But we can see that many of these prophecies, if you will just look at a history book, you will see how well it fits with these visions that they had and how they've been interpreted. And, you know, you were talking about how there was the head of gold and it gives, you know, the kingdoms, some of those kingdoms by name.

And of course, some of them he didn't know yet, but, you know, he gives the names of some of these kingdoms that were going to be, that represented these different parts of the statue, that represented the different parts of these visions.

And then somehow, some certain interpretations want to skip and create a gap and say, well, the rest of it will be fulfilled later. Yeah, instead of just following the natural progression of the prophecy and see what comes next.

This little horn that's coming up in the next section, a lot of people will say that they'll even agree with us on our interpretation that we're going to give here in a second, that it was a certain person in the past, but then they'll say that that person was just a type or a foreshadowing of the Antichrist to.

Come.

Yeah, so they'll agree, but then say, but since we have all this other stuff going on because we've turned the, you know, clay and iron toes into a separate revived Roman Empire in the future, for whatever reason, because we've done that, we're also going to, we're going to take something from the Greek Empire.

We're going to throw him into the future too, and I just, hopefully we'll show a consistency in our interpretation that will kind of put that to rest in a lot of people's minds.

That's what I hope that we can do for folks, is give them some confidence in God's word, looking at this consistency. All right, let's look at verses 9 through 12. I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.

His vesture was like, I'm on chapter 7.

Don't say wrong chapter. Good stuff.

Just wrong.

Yeah, that's right. Verses 9 through 14. And out of one of them came forth a rather small horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the beautiful land. And it grew up to the host of heaven, and caused some of the host, and some of the stars, sounds like familiar language here, and some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it trampled them down.

It even magnified itself to be equal with the commander of the host, and it removed the regular sacrifice from him, and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down. And on account of transgression, the host will be given over to the horn, along with the regular sacrifice, and it will fling truth to the ground, and perform its will, and prosper.

Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the particular one who was speaking, how long will the vision about the regular sacrifice apply? While the transgression causes horror, so as to allow both the holy place, and the host to be trampled.

And he said to me, for 2 ,300 evenings and mornings, then the holy place will be properly restored.

Right. Piggybacking off of the last vision, you've got four little horns that grow up on this goat, when the one big horn is broken off. One of these little horns, it says, it's funny, it says, it calls it a rather small horn.

In other words, he's nothing much important, except he tries to make himself important. Actually does a decent job of it in history, makes a name for himself. We're still talking about him today. He's in the Bible, he's in the history books.

But what he does, he goes toward, he goes to, he goes to Jerusalem, he goes to the Holy Land, and he actually desecrates the temple. That's what you're looking for, the normal sacrifices, which is like the lifeblood of Jewish ceremony and ritual.

The thing that shows, you know, God is going to pay for our sins. He's told us to come and bring these sacrifices. He's also told us that he desires repentance more than sacrifice. So they know that there's more to it.

They may not, but they're supposed to know that there's more to it than just these sacrifices. But they point to a reality that their God is the one who takes away their sins. So if they don't have that in front of them, I mean, they're lost.

Imagine if somehow we were to have taken from us the Word of God and preaching and prayer and the Lord's Supper and baptism and all these things were somehow, somehow somebody figured out a way where we were locked down and could no longer observe any of those things.

Like what would, what would the true Christian do? It would be a terrifying thought. So he asked him, you know, how long is this going to take place? And he says 2 ,300 days, you know, 2 ,300 evenings and days.

And actually we have a figure who fits all of this. And since I don't think, yeah, his name's not mentioned. So I'll just go ahead and say his name. This guy's name is Antiochus Epiphanes. Who goes through and he actually sacrifices a pig on the altar, which a pig, swine flesh, the Old Testament, the book of the law says that a pig, a hog is an unclean animal.

To put it on the altar is to desecrate the altar. It's to take what was clean and holy and set apart to God and make it filthy and worthless. Now, how are they ever going to have a clean sacrifice upon a defiled altar?

They are, you know, this is a scary thing to hear. This is what's coming for you. Yeah. I guess we'll kind of fit him in when we.

Okay, if I'm not mistaken, since you brought up the pig and sacrificing the pig, from my notes, he also set up an altar to Jupiter and Olympus in the temple of Jerusalem. I mean, really defiled and desecrated the temple to the uttermost.

Yeah, he treated it like it was just some other place to live whatever kind of life you wanted and take the God of the universe out of the picture and do whatever you wanted to there. He definitely took what was holy set apart and profaned it by making it some commonplace for sin and debauchery.

So ready to go to the 15th or 19th?

Let's do it because this is when we get some interpretation going.

And it came about when I, Daniel, had seen the vision that I saw to understand it and behold, standing before me was one who looked like a man and I heard the voice of a man between the banks of Eli and he called out and said, Gabriel, give this man an understanding of the vision.

So he came near to where I was standing and when he came, I was frightened and fell on my face, but he said to me, son of man, understand the vision pertains to the time of the end. That's interesting that pertains to the time of the end.

Now, while he was talking with me, I sank into a deep sleep with my face to the ground, but he touched me and made me stand upright and he said, behold, I am going to let you know what will occur at the final period of the indignation for pertains to the appointed time of the end.

Now, before you get started, he says it twice, this has to do with the end and somehow the interpretations are aimed toward or the prophecies are aimed toward events that are getting ready to happen. And yet here twice, he says, these visions are pertaining to the end, pertains to the time of the end and you know, if you take a phrase and pull it out of the scripture and take it out of context.

Yeah, someone could point to these two versions as they see it's pointing to the end of time is pointing to the end of time, but we are interpreting scripture with scripture interpreting context and we're trying to figure out what does he mean by the time of the end and and pertains to the appointed time of the end.

So as we go as Daniel gives us or Dan gives us some commentary here and interpretation, maybe we can figure that out. What does he mean by the end?

Right? And I think that's probably the main point of this this section right here because you see what may not be but looks an awful lot like it might be a pre-incarnate Christ. He's saying Gabriel tell this dude right here.

What's about to happen?

Yeah.

He says, hey, give this man an interpretation. He says this is going to be at the time of the end, but then look at what he says and it says it right in the text is real interesting. It says now while he was talking to me, I sank into a deep sleep with my face to the ground and he touched me and told me to stand upright or it made me stand upright.

He said behold, I'm going to let you know what will occur at the final period of the indignation. Now what indignation? That is the my interpretation judging by what nations are being spoken of here. That is the indignation of God towards his covenant people.

He's letting him know what is going to happen at the end of the time where the covenant curses are coming upon the nation of Israel. What is going to happen at the end? Knocked over a whole bunch of stuff.

So this whole section is coming up on the time of the end of the old covenant. A lot of people will say that the Bible speaks of two ages. Why should I speak of more than that, but they'll say that there was the old covenant age or the age of promise the age of the old covenant where things were leading to Christ and then there was a time afterward until Christ's second coming.

It's that first age that was ending in Daniel's time. So when he says the time of the end, he's talking about the time that will end leading up to what's coming next. So what's coming next? It's the end of Israel as a physical national entity in the beginning of that same group of people as a spiritual kingdom that will cross over the earth and be a part of every single country on the planet.

You're going to have true Jews or believers like with like-faith of Abraham everywhere. You're going to have them all over the place and scattered across the globe. And that is what's happening. There's a change in the constitution of the nation from being a purely physical entity purely political thing to a spiritual kingdom where Christ is ruling and reigning over that kingdom.

So for him to say this is at the end of the age, the vision that he has of the ram and the goats and the things that came before it are all what's going to happen in leading up to what's the sign of the end?

And when will these things happen? What's the sign of the end? Jesus' disciples ask in Matthew 24. This is Daniel getting that same message. No, 800 years earlier or 500 and some years earlier. I had to do math real quick.

It's like, Yeah, 500 some years.

So you're making, you're talking about an old covenant age and you're saying that that's that's what the vision here in Daniel was referring to the the end of that old covenant age. And now you're making a connection with Matthew chapter 24 where if folks aren't familiar with that, that is where people will talk about the tribulation.

That's where people talk about the the end times passage. So you're making a connection with the old covenant age ending and Matthew 24 and Jesus speaking of the same thing that Daniel was talking about.

Here.

I just want to people that are watching and they are curious and they're they're learning with us to know or I wanted us to be clear on that so that they can kind of make those connections. I wanted to throw one more thing out at you since you were talking about old covenant age and the new covenant age and the second coming a lot of people are familiar with the language of the church age and you were talking about old you were using that language age old covenant age new new covenant New Testament age and the second coming.

Many are familiar with this term the church age. Would you? Give us some words on that and how that may fit in or doesn't fit in with what you're talking about.

Yeah, the church age is is I would say is synonymous. It's the same thing as the new covenant and here's why I would say that everybody's going to agree with me, especially those of a pre-tribulation premillennial stripe.

I believe that the church age is the same era as the new covenant what that means is what is Israel? What is God's people going to look like? In the new covenant, they're going to look like the church because God's people are the church and in order to wrap your mind around this if you're not familiar with the concept most people are familiar with the cons with with the picture of the olive tree that's found in Romans 11, what you have in Romans 11 is a picture of an olive tree.

It's a it's a natural cultivated like prim proper good-looking olive tree like in a olive orchard. I don't know what you call this but a bunch of olive trees. You got one all grove. There we go. So you've got one that's great, but there was some branches on it that did not produce fruit what what Paul said in Romans under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was that those branches that didn't have fruit were the unbelieving Jews of the nation of Israel says that they were broken off and thrown away and then says that there are wild olive branches that are producing fruit that are then taken and grafted onto that same tree.

And those are the one those are Gentiles that do have faith. So there hasn't been a change in what the tree is and there hasn't been a change in who the people of God are but the way in which the people of God are identified is changed.

It's no longer a national identity. It's the identity of the people of God and where do we find those people today we find them in the church now, obviously not everyone in a church is going to be a believer.

This is why there's there's language also of well, if he broke off the natural branches for unbelief if you're a part of this group and you have not you don't have faith you can be broken off anyway, or as well.

So that's I forgot exactly how to put it before but that's how I would say that it works together with being called the church age now some would say that the church age is kind of like a parenthesis what they mean is that the nation of Israel was supposed to have all these promises and all these things happen to and for them.

But since they rejected Christ offer of a kingdom that God's whole plan all the Old Testament all the Old Covenant promises are like halted no hard stop and now there's gonna be a time where there's a Gentile Church and then that Gentile Church all that where he was just kind of letting Israel do its thing for a while is basically going to yoink it up out of the way.

And and then start again with his promises to Israel, but you don't see that as as happening here in these passages what he says in chapter 2 of Daniel is explicit. It says in the days of these Kings, which would be the four Kings mentioned.

I'm he's saying the time of the end of the indignation. He is there in exile. God is angry with them, but he's also faithful to his covenant. So he's telling them how is this all going to end? How is your being in exile going to end?

What's the end result of it? And here's what it's going to be. Once again, I forgot where I was going with that, but that's all good information.

I appreciate that. I appreciate you making that distinction because that's what many are familiar with is that language of church age and they're associating with that that parentheses that gap which is something that will will get into later and further chapters in Daniel will find out where people put that gap and and that's where they see the church age, but I'm glad you talked about how it that's not how scripture describes, you know, to kind of two different Past Israel and and the church and people will wrongly accuse folks that think like us in believing in replacement theology where the church we think the church replaces Israel, but we don't believe that we don't believe the Bible teaches that we believe that God has always been drawing a people to himself.

There's always been those who are faithful go back go to, you know, Romans and Hebrews Hebrews 11. There's always been a faithful remnant that that God has been saving drawn to himself and he's just continuing that throughout history and we are we are the assembly then and now we are the church then and now no no distinction really from we we believe in the Messiah by grace through faith.

All right, let's let's go into the next section. I guess I'll go ahead and read to the end 20 through 27 the ram which you saw with the two horns represents the kings of media and Persia. And the shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king and the broken horn and the four horns that arose in his place represent the four kingdoms which will arise from its nation.

Although not with its power and in the latter period of their rule when the transgressors have run their course a king will arise insolent and skilled in intrigue and his power will be mighty but not by his own power and he will destroy to an extraordinary degree and prosper perform his will he will destroy mighty men and the holy people and through his shrewdness he will cause deceit to succeed by his influence and he will magnify himself in his heart and he will destroy many while they are at ease.

He will even oppose the prince of princess and he will be broken without human agency. And the vision of the evenings of the mornings which has been told is true, but keep the vision secret where it pertains to many days in the future.

Then I Daniel was exhausted and sick for days. Then I got up again and carried on the king's business, but I was astounded at the vision and there was none to explain it.

So it tells us flat out. It gives us it's like like verses 20 and 21 are like the Rosetta Stone for the whole passage. Yeah, let's figure that out. I mean it just it like and then you open up a history book.

It is absolutely incredible the level of detail that is given for what is about.

To happen.

It is amazing. So the Ram in the vision was the Medo-Persian Empire. I had two horns. It's talking about the Kings, you know, some from media some from Persia, but together two horns.

Right?

This is interesting. He uses horns and the very next animal in sort of a different way. It still means a king but it's not a line of Kings in this instance. It's just one King as Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great took off.

I mean he went like you thought the Germans took over Europe fast. Alexander the Great took over the world with lightning quickness. That's why back here in where is it? Yeah, verse 5. It says the male goat was coming from the West over the surface of the whole Earth without touching the ground.

It looked like he was flying. He was going so fast. You ever seen those cartoons where it's just a little circle for where their legs are and they're just booking it, right? It's like that. They don't even look like they're touching the ground.

They're just moving and he took over. He took over the world in almost no time at all.

Right?

He got to the end. It says it says where we at but as soon as he was mighty the large horn was broken and his place came up for as soon as he was my as soon as he had taken over the whole world. He was out towards India and he was partying it up and he contracted syphilis and went mad and died like real quick.

He had four generals then that took over his kingdom. And if you look in the very next verse, it says and in its place there came up for conspicuous horns toward the four winds of the heavens. There was one who took over Northern Kingdom of Southern Kingdom and Eastern Kingdom and Western Kingdom of the Greek Empire.

It was Seleucus, Ptolemy, Cassander and Mimas pronounces Antigonus. Those were the four generals that took over areas. They became four different kingdoms. So they were all powerful in their own right, but none of them was as strong as Alexander.

And then after a while a one of them from the Seleucid Kingdom. Arose where it says later in the rule a king will arise verse 23 insolent and skilled with intrigue or he had a big mouth and he loved to run it.

Basically, he was ambitious. He was going to talk himself up have a big game. He was basically going to talk himself into power. He liked to think of his name as something great magnificent. He was trying to be his mouth got him in a lot of trouble, but he ended up it was Antiochus Epiphanes.

He came up. He got himself in control of the Seleucid Kingdom. He then took that kingdom went to Jerusalem desecrated the temple set up you said as you said altars and idols of other gods and then he sacrificed on the altar of God pigs.

Completely desecrated the temple. And then the vision ends. It's amazing that every single thing that's in this chapter lines up one for one with a point of history. It's it's it's so detailed and accurate that it's almost a mixture between chapters three and four and five where we saw how God was working his his plan out in the kitchen to see the vision the previous vision.

Actually manifest itself. You got to see how you know, the Lions Den was brought into it. How the fiery furnace was a part of it. How the writing on the wall was a part of God's plan. How Nebuchadnezzar being turned into a werewolf or whatever he was and then brought back how that was a part of the plan.

But in chapter 2 you saw a vision. Chapter 8 is almost like they take like vision and reality and smoosh them together because when we look back at it, it's it's undeniable that all of these things took place exactly as they were it was commanded by Christ himself.

To be told to Daniel and he wrote it down for us and we saw it happen. I'm not entirely sure where I could study this more. But if you read the Apocrypha in the books of Maccabees, it actually details a lot of the things that happen time period.

You can see the the revolt and the different things that happened at that time period not scripture, but interesting to read anyway, right?

It references history and what happens in history. Just like we talked about Josephus and and there's another historian. I heard them reference when I was studying his name starts with a even I can't remember Antiochus or the some of the rulers were named Antiochus and Antiochus and I don't know but that historians name start with a and I can't remember what it was.

But but just like the Maccabees and some of the books in the Apocrypha like you're saying it it gives us some of the history of and and as reference to what's going on in these prophecies. I'm trying to find I can't find it right off the bat.

But anyway, yeah, we were look we see in Daniel chapter 2. We see in Daniel chapter 7. We see in Daniel chapter 8 these visions these dreams these these prophecies to the king and to Daniel and you've got the same characters in chapter 2 chapter 7 chapter 8.

So something God is repeating these visions. Oh, it comes across as being merciful. It comes across as something that's true that we should pay attention to that he would repeat these the same visions in different different ways to reforms but it's the same people.

It's the same Nations is the same characters and to have a consistent interpretation to look at this and understand it consistently is not to take the the parts that are easy to understand the parts that are that are clear and tell us what they're talking about and then, you know, create a gap in history, but the consistent interpretation is to is to take these kingdoms as they describe them.

And then the ones that haven't, you know, come come about yet. But but do come about. You can see them now looking back through these historians that we're talking about the Maccabees and Josephus and the other historians.