We come to another vision of Daniel, two years after the previous vision of the four beasts. These visions, in some ways, build on each other.
·
In Dan. 2 the LORD reveals the four empires
under which Israel would serve and suffer, until the establishment of the
eternal kingdom of Christ.
·
In Dan. 7 Daniel sees the same four empires and
the Kingdom of Christ, with added emphasis on the future version of the Roman
empire, with the ten nations and then one horn that becomes prominent.
·
In this vision (Ch. 8) the LORD reveals to
Daniel details about the Greek empire and a particular king who arises in that
time, and who prefigures the “man of sin” who will be significant in the last
days, in the time of Christ’s return.
·
One more vision, in Ch. 10-12, will give even
greater detail concerning this king, both in the time between Malachi and
Matthew and in the last days.
We encourage you to take the time to read and
study these revelations through Daniel.
Just because they are “eschatology” and considered by some to be too
hard to understand, many people miss the tremendous encouragement to be gained
from realizing that our God truly is in control of where history is
headed. God will exalt His Son to the
throne of David in Zion, and will give Him the nations as an inheritance (Psa.
2:6-9). God graciously gives His people
these revelations so that we can see just how strong He is in keeping His word. We do not believe these are that hard to
understand: in today’s passage, the angel Gabriel (how cool is that; we meet
the angel who spoke with Mary) explains the symbols of Daniel’s vision.
We want to say something about the historical
and geographical items in 8:1-2. Dates
and places are regularly part of Scripture.
They remind us that the story of the Bible, of Christ’s exaltation,
takes place in real times and real places.
The Bible is not a book of myths.
The holy writings of other religions of Daniel’s time were full of
myths, made up stories to describe “gods” that are not real. The myths are required because these beings
cannot do great things; they can’t do anything.
But in the Bible, the stories are real because the God of the Bible is
real. He is the “Creator of heaven and
earth” and the Sovereign God whose plans and purposes cannot be thwarted.
Daniel was in Shushan (or Susa), one of the
capitals of the empire, in the southern area of Elam. Susa was the setting for the story of
Esther. In the vision Daniel sees a ram with
two horns (v3-4) that is successfully attacked by a male goat with one notable
horn (v5-7). The large horn on the goat
then is broken and replaced by four smaller horns (v8). One of the four horns produces a small horn
that makes life difficult in the Glorious Land for a period of time
(v9-14). Daniel seeks for an
explanation, and a “man” instructs the angel Gabriel to do this for Daniel
(v15-16). We will hear this explanation
in our next post.
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