Daniel 8 - The Appearance of Vision

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Welcome to the light of the word. The Wednesday in the Word podcast, equipping our leaders of this great weekly Bible study held at Dario, our wonderful, gracious host. all across North Carolina. This is to equip, encourage, and guide you as you prepare to teach the word and guide the discussion.

at each location each week. And we continue our journey now through the book of Daniel. Here we are with today's special guest. Dr. Sam Warren.

Daniel Chapter 8 We are Knee deep. and even going waist deep and all the way to our neck in. prophetic Scripture. what is going to be happening in the end times and what was going to be happening Just In the case of Daniel, Maybe within a century or sooner, As God poured out some powerful visions and dreams in him and some revelations. We have that, and we have all kinds of beasts, we have all kinds of figures, and we have this.

Absolutely sinister. prefiguring of the Antichrist. And you can't have horns and little horns. Without The legend himself, Dr. Sam Horn, who at this, we searched far and wide, Dr.

Horn. For a Bible scholar teacher, a gifted man who has your name, who can speak to all these horns. In the book of Daniel.

So thank you. I didn't even know how to go with this, dude. I don't even know what to say. Oh my goodness. I don't think I've ever been introduced quite that way.

You say. You say, here am I, Lord, send me. I will be your faithful horn to try to describe all these other horns. There you go. There you go.

So, so anyway, Dr. Horn, I want to get into this this week. This has been really interesting. I almost wanted to skip. Chapter eight.

And you and I had a very difficult conversation. after our last podcast. And then I picked up a commentary. And the first thing the commentator said about this chapter It was one of the commentaries you recommended. It was Davis's commentary, The Message of Daniel.

He says, Why the spilled ink on this chapter? But the more you read, the more you study, you realize that just like Proverbs says, every word of God is pure. Just like d uh Paul says all scripture. Is God breathed. And so there's a whole lot in here.

So give us a quick preview. You know, Dr. Jeremiah says in his commentary, the handwriting on the wall. He says something to the effect, I'll loosely paraphrase him. He says, One of America's favorite spectator sports is trying to figure out who the Antichrist is.

And so we see his characteristics, and we're going to get into that. But By no means are we going to announce a name or a candidate at the end of this podcast, but we definitely see those traits and those marks. And so we're going to, but tell us, what are we looking forward to as you look at chapter eight and in the context of chapter? The whole book of Daniel. We're going into a new language and all that.

So give us a quick little review, Dr. Horn, and set this chapter up. Yeah, so from uh perspective, maybe the best way I could say it Is just to comment on what you already said that. beginning in chapter eight and going all the way almost to the end of the book in chapter 12. we're starting into a body of material that Number one is unfamiliar to us.

Number two is in apocalyptic language, which we really don't know what to do with. And number three, it's just...

Okay, so even if we can figure out what all these ancient names are and what these symbols mean.

So what? And so as I kind of had to work my way through What you said, you know, all scripture is inspired and is profitable. I had to ask myself when I come to this part of Daniel. What is God trying to do? And I was reminded of what Jesus told his disciples.

I think God is. telling Daniel. Who in the book is the representative of the nation of Israel? This is God's representative, and He stands in for the nation. And so just like Jesus had some things to say to us.

God centuries earlier had some things to say to his people. And he said them to Daniel.

So here's what Jesus. said to us Uh when he talked about Our future, you know, now Messiah has come. And we know the truth. We've turned away from idols. We've repented, we put our faith in Jesus, and everything's gonna be awesome.

Our marriages are gonna be better, our kids are gonna turn to God, our job is gonna just thrive, our income is gonna grow, our bodies are gonna be healed, none of these diseases will touch us. And so we have this expectation. that when you sprinkle Jesus in our life, it makes everything better. And Jesus says very lovingly and very directly, I need to correct that thinking. And he says right at the beginning, I'm going to tell you some things.

In order to keep you from falling away, here's some things. Then I'm going to be straight up with you about And the reason I'm telling you these things up front.

Now that you're my disciple, is I don't want you to fall away. And here's what I'm going to tell you. Here's what's going to happen to you. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming.

when whoever kills you so What?

Some of you are going to be killed. The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father. Nor me. But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you.

So here is Jesus looking at the very first converts, the very first disciples. who have These expectations, we found the Messiah. We know who he is. The kingdom is coming. We are the first ones to enter into that kingdom.

It is going to be awesome. And Jesus says, I've got to adjust your expectation. by telling you about the future. And that's exactly what God is doing with Daniel, and that's exactly what he's doing with us. He is about to give Daniel four visions.

And by the time he gets done with these visions. Daniel is going to be confused. And we're going to see that. There are times where, in these four chapters, he's actually so overwhelmed that he faints. I mean, he is confused.

Secondly, he is confident.

However, it ends and however confusing it is, Daniel never loses his confidence because in chapter 9, he is supernaturally strengthened. And then number three, he's comforted. And the comfort is, God is giving to him assurances. Right at the end of chapter nine, we're going to see this when we get there. God sends an angel to Daniel, and he says, Daniel.

In the midst of all of this confusion, in the midst of all of this persecution, in the midst of all of these kingdoms and these rulers and these horns that show up. I want you to know that God is going to accomplish an amazing mission through his Messiah. And there are six. astonishing things. that Messiah is going to accomplish.

And all of this history. And all of this persecution, and all of this trouble that's gonna come on Israel over the next. Hundreds of years is part of how God is going to bring that about. And so Daniel is confused. Daniel is confident.

And Daniel is comforted. And that's exactly what God does for us. That's the reason we need Daniel. We don't need Daniel so we can try to figure out whether the United States is in prophecy or not. We don't need Daniel.

to figure out who the Antichrist is. We don't need Daniel to try to figure out our future history and who's doing what, and who's the Antichrist, what's the secret number. We need the book of Daniel so that when we're confused, we don't lose our competence and we run to God for comfort. And that's what these. four chapters are doing.

So that's very helpful. Dr. Horne, and by that's that's a great review. You know, we've gone from we've transitioned. We talked a lot about this last time.

I hope everyone will listen and go to subscribe to this channel and listen to the previous podcast we talk about. last week especially The transition from The prophecy The History and a Prophecy transition from A narrative that talks a lot about the characters and the figures and the prayer, the lion's den. And so forth. Into these actual visions, Daniel has. We have visions Daniel's interpreting.

Earlier in this book from Nebuchadnezzar on two occasions, Now we have Daniel receiving these visions and dreams. And unpacking those. And so, by the way, Dr. Horn, as we get into seven through twelve. It shifts from the Aramaic into the Hebrew language, which is an important point in chapter 2.

In this chapter, and then speak to that briefly, but then let's go ahead and jump into our preview of these 27 verses. And I see a similar structure that I know you'll speak to. You know, chapter seven, we have this dream that you know befuddles and upsets Daniel, you know, and it kind of shakes him up a little bit. He has this vision. And then, so the first half of chapter seven is that vision.

The second half is this interpretation that God sends his messenger to interpret. We have a very similar structure. I see here in chapter eight.

Well, you break that down for us. It's in a different place. It's in a, you know, he's transported in a vision, just like you might have a dream and you are somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, you know, and, you know, or something.

So he's transported to a different place, which has some. Very important historical and biblical Import that's coming. Uh you know, like with Esther and others, and then In addition to that, you have this um this language shift and then you have the vision coming on him and then the Explanation of it, but take us into the structure if you would. Yeah, yeah, okay.

So, trying to keep it really super simple so we don't get lost in the weeds, and it's super easy to get lost in the weeds here.

So we need to get in our helicopter kind of. Pull up a little bit and hover so that we can look down on the terrain.

So that's a helpful sort of metaphor for me as I'm kind of thinking through how to teach this to people.

So, the first thing is to notice the shift in language, like you did. And so, remember, we said that. God put the first half of the book in the language, in the common language of the day, which was Aramaic. And the reason he did that. Is the first seven chapters of Daniel are wisdom from heaven that he wants to give to the nations?

And that wisdom is there is a God in heaven and he rules the kingdoms of men. And we've seen that really clearly. We see what happens to kings who embrace that. And submit to that like Nebuchadnezzar. And we see what happens to kings who resist that, like his grandson Belshazzar.

So By the time we get to the end of this section of Daniel. We're going to find out in Daniel 9, Daniel has been reading. The book of Jeremiah. It's Jeremiah was a contemporary. But he had been sending letters and And Daniel.

got hold of the writings of Jeremiah. And he realized that they were at the end of a 70-year. Period of discipline that God. God brought about. And Daniel's mind went to, hey, the time of discipline is over.

If I'm reading my Bible correctly, Messiah is going to come, he's going to reverse. All of the bad things that have happened to us, he's going to establish a kingdom, just like Isaiah 9 said. And when this happens, Israel is going to be the most powerful, the most blessed nation on the earth. and then he gets a vision and in the first two verses He goes to the new kingdom and he finds out it's not Israel. Which was a shock.

He is actually in Persia. And we're told he is in Susa. This is verse 2, which is in the province of Elam by the Ulai Canal. And so we know exactly where these geographic locations are, and it's not Israel. And so all of a sudden, Daniel's like, did I miss something?

What's going on here? How can the next kingdom be here? It's supposed to be back in Jerusalem. And then he gets this vision. All right.

And so the way I've divided it up, now that Daniel's. Attention has been grabbed. By the vision that he gets, hey, I'm thinking the next big kingdom after Babylon is going to be Israel. It's actually going to be Persia. And so now his attention is up, right?

And so he gets a vision, and you get the vision in verses 3 through 14. You get the explanation of that vision in verses 15. And then you get the application of that vision in 26 and 27. All right, so that's what I want to do. Let me just kind of walk you through really quickly.

The vision. All right, so the vision in 3 through 14, and let me encourage you to read that. uh carefully but what you have Is you have Four. four things described for you. You have a magnificent ram.

Um And then you have A male goat. That begins in verse five. And then you have four mighty horns. that come out of that goat. And then you have one of those horns.

That becomes extremely powerful, extremely arrogant, extremely blasphemous, extremely wicked, and extremely hostile to the people of God. All right, so without jumping into the weeds. Here's what we know looking back on history.

Now remember. Daniel doesn't know this yet because all of this is future.

So he's getting these symbols. And he doesn't quite know what to do with them, but he knows it's not Israel.

So there's this magnificent ram. And we know from the interpretation later that the ram. is actually Persia. And there are two horns. One's higher than the other.

There were Medio-Persia, where the two parts to the Persian kingdom. There is this unstoppable might expanding all over. No kingdom can stand before it. And nobody can rescue the world from the power of this ram. And that's precisely what we see in the history of the Persian Empire.

It had global expanse. It was larger than the kingdom before it. And for 200 years, it dominated. All right. Nobody was able to stop this ram.

And then. In verse five, all of a sudden, as we're looking at this ram. There is a male goat. a billy goat that comes from the West. And it flies across the earth.

It is speedy. It has got a huge horn on its head, and he comes against this ram that we know is Persia, and he annihilates it. And nobody can stop this male goat, right?

So. Um historically, we know that this was The Grecian kingdom, the kingdom of Greece. that came right after the king in Persia and the very first king Was the most powerful, famous king in the Greek empire that ever lived. And all the world knows him as Alexander the Great.

Now At the height of his power. When he's sort of a a young King. Uh the great horn is broken. And we know that at 33 years of age, Alexander dies. after conquering the world.

And there are four successors. that inherit that kingdom. And that's why When Alexander, when you're looking at this, Go. and the great horn breaks. There are four horns that come out of his head.

Well, Alexander had four generals. that divided up his kingdom. And all four of them were contentious. And two of them are going to disappear. They don't really matter.

the history of God's people. But there are two of them that really do matter. because one of them has a kingdom that is to the north. Of the land of Israel, and the other one has a kingdom that is to the south. Of Israel, and when these two people fight, when these two kingdoms fight, they have to bring their armies through Israel.

And so these two. are the kingdom of Egypt. and the rulers of that kingdom After the Greek. After Alexander, we're called the Ptolemies. P-T-O-L-E-M-Y, the Ptolemies.

And there were many of of that family who ruled Egypt.

So they were called the Ptolemaic kings. And then in the north, uh the kingdom of asia minor And Syria Uh they were called the Seleucids. and these kingdoms are constantly at war With each other. All right, so So we've got these three kingdoms. We've got the goat.

I'm sorry, the RAM. Followed by the goat. Followed by these four horns. Two of the horns go off and do their thing. But the two big, two, the two important horns go to war, Egypt and the north, and Israel's in the middle.

The land of Israel is the middle. And attention gets focused on one horn that gets mighty and that's the king of the north, one of the Seleucid kings. Uh and he he actually becomes the focus of the vision. All right, this this little horn that we start reading about in chapter nine. takes up almost the rest of the chapter.

So In the Old Testament, you didn't have a highlighter. You didn't have highlighters. You didn't have bold print or italics.

So the way you emphasize something was the amount of space you gave it.

So we know this history, all right? There's a ram, there's a goat, there's these four horns, and then the two horns that kind of show up, and then this one horn from that, you know, from one of those generals, he gets all of the attention. And so it's like Daniel, I want you to think. about the fact that down the road out of a kingdom you know nothing about. There's going to be a ruler who's going to be so arrogant, so violent.

And he's going to be so blasphemous. He is going to defy men. He's going to defy God. And he is going to bring fearsome persecution. on your people.

And so this is Stunning. But Daniel, I want you to know something. This king. What he's doing on earth is known in heaven. Because you can see in verse 13.

Daniel saw a holy one. Speaking to another holy one. asking about how long God is going to let this arrogant horn Act this way. because he's destroying the temple he's destroying the evening sacrifice He is persecuting and killing God's people. How long is God going to let this arrogant little horn?

Just do this wickedness, and the answer is. 2,300 evenings and mornings. And so there's a time stamp here.

Okay. And so that's the vision. That's kind of what we see. Does that make sense, Stu? It Makes a lot of sense.

And people can dig deeper, like on Alexander the Great, just a fascinating life. You know, he conquered so much at such a young age and died. Basically, he drank himself to death. A lot of historians record that he. Turned to alcohol and other things because he just was miserable.

He had no more lands to conquer. And so. But it's a great contrast with the ancient Adais who we Who we meet in the last chapter, whom we'll see this everlasting kingdom constantly. enunciated by Daniel. But yes, sir, keep on going because that's the That is a very you've you've given us a you've set the table in a very understandable way.

And then of course the interpretation is right coming right up on the whole dream as well. Yeah, so the interpretation starts in 15 and it goes to 25. And you know as you as you look at this interpretation The first thing we need to do is we got to figure out what that 2300 days is.

So it's interesting how it's described in the text. Um These angels are talking and Daniel's overhearing. And uh and they say, uh well The sanctuary is going to be destroyed, and God's people-that's a word for host-the army of God, God's people-are gonna be trampled underfoot. for 23 evenings and mornings.

So that's either 23 I'm sorry, 2,300. evenings and mornings. It's either going to be 2300 days which would be six years and four months. Or In the scripture, it could be Uh A morning and evening. hundred mornings and Uh, and evening, so so you take that by half, that's 1150 days, that's three years and two months.

So, it's one of those two numbers. We don't know. Uh however Uh It's interesting that Antiochus Epiphanes Who Is that little horn in chapter 8? He ruled For six years and four months. He ruled from 170 to 170.

To 164 BC.

So uh You know, there's a stunning thing happening there. If you say, well, I think it's... Yeah, I think it's talking about morning and evening, so it's 1,150 days, 300, three years, and two months. That's the exact time. That he defiled the temple from 167 to 164 BC and dedicated it.

To Jupiter.

Now, obviously, Daniel has no idea who this king is. He has no idea what's going on. He's got this number: 2,300 evenings and mornings. What in the world? We're looking back at the life of Antiochus Epiphanes, and we're going, oh my word.

This dude ruled for six years and four months. Oh my stars, this guy defiled the temple. And he went at Israel For three years and two months. And so all of a sudden, this number makes sense. But it makes sense because we can look back.

Daniel doesn't have that.

So he falls down. And he is frightened. And God says to him in verse 15, here's the interpretation now. Um There's someone who stands before him. Having the appearance of a man.

Now, this is either. an angel or it's christ so one of those two And this person starts talking to him. And we know. It's not Gabriel. Because whoever this person is is going to tell Gabriel to do something.

So that would lead me to think that this is Christ.

So Jesus is going to tell Daniel. about the vision and explained it to him. And he says, Gabriel, make this man understand the vision. And so Gabriel comes where Daniel is collapsed and he says Understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end. In other words, Daniel?

This vision isn't going to happen tomorrow. This vision is going to happen at the end of that third kingdom. at the time of the indignation. at the appointed time. And so This is, you know, that's why the front part of the vision where you had the ram and the goat.

and the bighorn man that took like half not even not even 15 verses of the chapter And we get to the end of the chapter, the whole rest of the chapter is on one of those horns, this arrogant horn. And that's who we discover in verse 23 through 25. And historically, we know this guy's name, he is Antiochus. the fourth. He comes at the end of the third kingdom.

And he comes when the transgression. has been fulfilled. Look at verse 23. At the latter end of their of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit. A king of boldface shall arise.

His power will be great, but not by his own. He will cause fearful destruction and will succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men. And the people who are the saints. And so Bottom line, this guy's going to show up. And he's going to wreak havoc.

But in verse 25, without warning. He will destroy many, and he will rise up even against the prince of princes. and he will be broken, but by no human hand. And so One of the things that's going on here is Daniel is beginning to realize. that God's people are going to keep sinning.

And God is going to continue to use these pagan nations. to judge them. And all you have to do is read the story. of God's people after they return to Israel in the time of Ezra. And it isn't very long before God has to send Haggai to them to rebuke them for using the temple materials for their own houses.

And it isn't very long before Malachi has to really go at them because of their ongoing sinfulness toward God by robbing God. And so. Basically, what's happening here is there's more transgression. coming And God is going to bring more judgment. Until we get to this.

Third kingdom and this violent man. And so when this man comes, this. This ruler comes. um this antioches epiphany the fourth He will be great, but not by his own power. He will be cunning and wildly successful.

And Daniel, what you need to know. Is and we're going to find out more about this in chapter 10, but what you need to know, Daniel, is that. This man is going to persecute God's people. He's going to defile God's temple. He's going to try to eradicate God's faith.

and worship and distinct identity. And he is going to do this. By claiming divine status. Verse 25. And he is going to claim do this by opposing the prince of princes.

He is going to oppose God, he's going to deceive the saints. He's going to defile the sanctuary. He's going to despise truth. He's going to enact an abomination so vile, it will make the temple desolate. for 2300 evenings and mornings.

And we know that Antiochus Epiphanies in a rage, shows up to Jerusalem. Demands to go into the holy place. slaughters the priests Brings a pig. offers it in the temple. and dedicates the temple to the false god Zeus.

And God responds. He destroys this man. completely he is broken but not by human hand. Just like there was nobody who could deliver Babylon from the ram. And just like there was no human hand.

that could deliver Persia. from the billy goat grease There is no human hand that is going to be able to deliver This arrogant ruler. And so that's sort of the vision. Daniel gets sort of the cliff notes. on what's going to happen.

In 27 verses. Wow. And then we'll come to the application in a minute. Yeah, absolutely. You know, there's a lot.

There's no shortage of information on Antiochus Epiphany, even in his name. You know, Epiphany has implicit in that name is, you know, worship me, you know, venerate me. He had his own coins. Uh printed He wanted to to be like, he's referred to as like a little prince. He wanted to be.

the the one that they worshipped and In w in just on and on and on. In the Maccabean Letters. In the Apocrypha, which are not We don't accept as scripture, but they've got some good history. You learn all about Judas the Hammer and the many that rose up against this man, but you also learn. All about the evil things he did.

The people, the Israelites, he had slaughtered. And how he desecrated and enslaved and brutally killed all kinds of people. Oh, yeah. And so, Doctor Horn, here you have Daniel in exile. Serving God.

Getting a vision, hoping this vision will be of The the great kingdom. You know, the where Messiah will reign. And where God's rule. Will be supreme, and yet it's a vision of this dastardly, evil, demonic ruler. Who is a, he's not the Antichrist, but he's a type of Antichrist.

And I guess a question, important question, would be. What do we see in the In this man, and we'll learn more later as we get to chapter 10 and 11. About the Antichrist himself, and we'll learn more in Revelation 13. The Antichrist is referred to as the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. But we see characteristics of this awful future person, the Antichrist, in The past, and this guy's already dead, but the havoc that he wrought upon God's people effectively to eliminate, and this is very important for folks who live in this day and age, thinking, well, that's way back then.

What about today?

Well, His thought, does this sound familiar? He was trying to eliminate. Every vestige of worship. to the true God. Every festival, every rite, every ritual, you're like, well, the sacrifice is temple, well, that's what God set up.

So his people would come to him, would enter his courts with thanksgiving. enter his gates with praise and offer up the sacrifice to the Lord. And this man came in, and said I am the Supreme Lord You will bow to me only, and I will destroy and bloody anyone that gets in the way of that to the point of this awful sacrifice, which really marked the beginning of the end for him. But speak to that, and you can make some. Go ahead with the application.

What I think, Stu, you're exactly right. There is coming. And we'll see it in the final section of of chapter 11 and the first part of chapter 12. There is a final Antichrist. that is going to come.

He is going to be bigger, stronger, more vile, more successful than any of the other sort of. type anti-types, antichrist types that come before him. Um But prior to that. There are going to be satanically energized leaders Who are in every kingdom in the kingdom of Babylon, it was Belshazzar, right? In the kingdom of Persia, we're going to read about a man named Haman who's going to do his best to destroy all of Israel.

So there are going to be antichrists. that come up. That aren't a big Antichrist, but they sure do the same kinds of things. And typically, they're people who are. There's great political charisma.

There is great outward success. Whether it's in the ancient world was military success, but but they have great power. They accrued themselves great power. They are very convincing. They are very deceptive.

They are very cunning. They create fearful destruction. They bring fear and terror around them. and they bring destabilization. And they hate God.

They hate. Jesus, they hate the Bible and God's truth, and they hate God's people. and they will do everything possible to diminish, to displace. and ultimately to destroy all of those things, right? And that's what you read here.

This guy in Tychus Epiphanes persecutes God's people. He defiles God's temple. He eradicates or attempts to Israel's faith and worship. And there's distinct identity. And for a time, He's allowed to do that for 23.

Yeah. Evenings and mornings, God lets this guy look like he's winning. And then Cut off. And it's stunning, right?

So here's the application. Uh in in verse 26. Daniel is told, now look, the vision of the evenings and the mornings. What's going to happen to the temple? What's going to happen to the altar?

What's going to happen? Uh is true. You need to know this is true. Which is stunning because you remember When Daniel gets the vision, he's still in the kingdom of Babylon. Belshazzar's on the throne.

There is no Jerusalem, there is no temple.

So he's looking forward. And he sees a temple. And he sees an altar and he's in Jerusalem. And he realizes, oh, Jerusalem is going to be rebuilt. The temple is gonna be rebuilt, and then it's stunning to him that it's gonna be defiled like this.

How could Messiah let this happen? And so, Daniel, you need to know, as confusing as this is, that it's true. And then the second thing you need to know is that it's not for right now. You need to seal up this vision because it's for the future. You're not going to understand all of the vision, Daniel, because it's not intended for this time.

It's intended for the future. You brought up the Maccabees. When the Maccabees were experiencing what Daniel saw prophetically. Guess what writing they turn to to take courage and strength? They turned to Daniel.

If you go to the Maccabean writings, if you go to 2 Maccabees, for example, they consistently quote Daniel. They remind the people that Antiochus was persecuting. Hey, hundreds of years ago, there was a faithful. Group of people in Babylon who stood and God delivered them and God's going to deliver us.

So, Daniel, you're getting a vision hundreds of years earlier so that by the time. the vision actually happens in history. This material is so well known by God's people. that they go, oh, that's what that's what God was talking about. And they encourage.

And they're strengthened. And so, Daniel, this vision isn't for your time, it's for the future. And so Daniel is obviously confused. Verse 27, he was overcome and he lay sick for some days. And you can tell this is really bothersome.

It's super confusing to Daniel. And so here you and I, you know, if we could sit down with Daniel. We would be saying to Daniel, oh, Daniel, don't worry about that. That That Ram that you're worried about, that's Persia. That's coming.

You're going to actually live in the first part of that kingdom. It's going to be awesome. That goat with the horn, that's Greece.

Now, you don't know about Greece yet. It's a bunch of little city states up there. But trust me, they're going to be a mighty nation, and that's what's going to happen. And then when their first king dies. Uh, these other four kings are going to show up, and we know their names, but the two you need to worry about are the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria, and they're going to be fighting.

And the one horn you really need to worry about is Antiochus Epiphanes IV. And Daniel's like, I don't know any of those names, I don't know any of those countries, I live in Babylon. And so we're looking back. On in history, while Daniel was looking forward in prophecy. You say, why does that matter?

Because when you get to the end of chapter. 11. And the first part of chapter four. or 12 rather That's still future for us. We're going to look at that stuff and go, I don't get it.

This is confusing. We're going to have the same response. that Daniel had about the whole vision. We're going to have the same response about the last part of the vision. Which is the fourth kingdom, Rome, which doesn't even show up in chapter eight.

So we're learning from Daniel what to expect. when we are looking forward to prophecy.

So what does Daniel do? He's he's confused. He's concerned, but notice what he does. This is stunning. Verse 27.

I was overcome. And lay sick. Then I rose. And went about the king's business. In other words, you know what Daniel did?

He got up. And he went about being faithful to the Lord. He went about being faithful to the task the Lord had given him. And even though he continued to be concerned about the vision, he didn't stop being confident in God. He didn't stop serving God.

And he didn't stop being a witness for God. And I think that's really what we need to do as Christians. You know, we are constantly worried about the future. You know, man, the economy is going to collapse. Man, China is coming on strong.

Russia is just rolling over Ukraine, and Ukraine is, and where's America, and all the rest of it. And we can be confused, and we can be so stuck on that. That we actually fail to realize what Daniel did. He got up the next morning and he went back to work. And he was faithful, he was fervent.

And he was committed to the God of heaven who rules the kingdoms of men. And that's really what you and I have to do. When it shows just a deep confidence in God's word. And this is the Wednesday in the Word podcast. Stu Epperson with Pastor Sam Horn.

We're going through getting our leaders ready each week. This week is Daniel chapter 8. It's a great journey. Please go back to the very first one. We started with some.

I bet it Preface and some historical background on Daniel. We jumped right into chapter one there, and then we've gone all the way through. We're at chapter eight, chapter nine next week. Then we'll combine chapter 10 and 11. In one podcast, and then we'll do chapter 12, the final chapter.

We may do a bonus podcast. Podcast to kind of recap the whole book and set the stage, obviously, for. How intricately Daniel is connected to Revelation, which is something you don't want to miss. There's a lot in Revelation on the Antichrist, and I know we'll be touching. On that, as we get closer to chapters nine and ten.

Dr. Horn. You hear God's word. Daniel. Trusted God's word.

You know, forever, your word is settled in heaven. It says, In Psalm 119, Jesus said, Heaven and earth will pass away. My word will not pass away. We have a sure word. You know, Daniel had contemporary prophets like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, others.

Some later, some sooner. That would write, and he would, you know, some of those he would have a hold of, others he wouldn't. But, you know, it's fascinating. that over a century before Alexander the Great was even born. Oh, yeah.

Any of that happened, here God is telling. through a vision, You know, first to Nebuchadnezzar in chapter two, and that has a great parallel with chapter seven and eight. You know, before any of these things happen, God's telling. in a vision, his servant, hey, there's going to be this conqueror. Alexander the Great.

And there's a great story told, I believe, by Josephus, Dr. Horn, you may be familiar with it, where he has a vision on his Alexander the Great on his just conquering spree. Conquering the known world gets to um This goat that literally flies, I don't even touch the ground. He's such a rapid conqueror. He's like also called the leopard.

You know, we saw in chapter, he's the thigh of bronze, I believe, in chapter two. He's the leopard in the last chapter, chapter seven. And he has this vision. of a of a of someone Don and Priestly, holy garb coming out to meet him before he goes to conquer the next city.

Well, he wheels up to Jerusalem, and out come the priest. And according to Josephus, the priest had the book of Daniel. And said, let me tell.

Now, you are you familiar with this story, Doctor Horde? I know we gotta praise Adams. Tell us real quick. This is a fast thing. I think it's true.

Yeah. Well, you know, to your point, I think this is this is the thing I really want to make sure. Uh we we we grab And that as however we teach this, this is really what I want people to understand, all right? You can trust God with your future. You can trust God to always tell you the truth.

God will always tell you the truth. He is always in charge of the future. And he is ultimately gonna win.

So when you stop and think about it, these chapters that we just, like chapter eight that we just did today, and then chapter 10, 11, they are so historically accurate, it's scary. And so what happens is people who don't believe the Bible is inspired. Say there's no possible way Daniel wrote that. hundreds of years before.

So somebody in the second century. You know, after Jesus. wrote this all down and stuck it in the Bible.

Well, actually, the book of Daniel. is well attested in its entirety well before These things happen.

So you have here a wonderful testimony. to the truthfulness of God's word. and to its accuracy. and to its power. All through here, we're seeing these awful things happen and this mighty ruler shaking his fist in God.

And at the end, they're all destroyed. That the God in heaven takes care of all of it, and his people are vindicated. and preserved and protected and honored. Just like Daniel was in Babylon. God's people are going to be protected in every kingdom and they're going to be honored.

And so these are encouraging chapters. Admittedly, these are tough chapters. And I want to challenge every one of our listeners. Uh don't ever be content to be a daily bread Christian. There's nothing wrong with the daily bread.

I love that outfit. They're phenomenal people. But if all you do for your Christian walk every day is read the daily bread, you're going to come to Daniel 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 and go, you know what? That's deep water. My boat can't get there.

And you're just going to swim around in the shallow parts of your Bible, and you are never going to get what God intended. to do with the parts of the Bible that are hard. You know, you have to work to understand. And that's why, Stu, what you're doing is so important to God's people. What you do as you do these Bible studies and what pastors do every week is so important.

And every one of our listeners ought to show up at church on Sunday. with a Bible. And a notebook and a pen, and they ought to sit on the edge of their seat and take as many notes as they can, because this is the word of God that is going to change us. Amen. And that's exactly, by the way, how We grow discernment and grow in wisdom by the word of God, by being Hebrews chapter 5 meat eaters instead of just milk eaters, instead of just a little two-minute devotional.

By the way, if you're doing that, hallelujah, you're doing something with God. We're tickled to death about that. Amen. Please don't read that as a criticism of the bread. Not at all.

But hey, let's go deeper. Let's. Let's not just be high on carbs. Let's get some protein in our system, in our spiritual system. You know, Dr.

Horne, it's interesting. You know, 1 John chapter 2 talks about the spirit of the Antichrist. Anyone that denies that Jesus is the Christ. And there is a. Rampant spirit, even in churches today that don't even teach the Bible, that deny what marriage is, they deny what God teaches about all kinds of things.

And so, this is how you, you, you fortify yourself. You, you, Ground yourself in God's word and in the gospel, and you study, you come to Daniel chapter 8. And you look at it through the lens of, okay, what's going on? And a question, an important question I asked our group. Dr.

Horn, and I want you to pray us out here, but I just want to, I just, just God just dropped this on me to impress me to share this. You know, I asked our guys, is it going to get worse or is it going to get better? You know, and so we thought, We thought just a couple weeks ago. That it can it get any worse than a young man Gunned down in cold blood, a father of two. A young man, a young husband, killed.

murdered on a college campus. Sharing the gospel. asking people tough questions about their faith and whatnot. We thought, can it get any... worse than that.

Horrible. And then fast forward till Just this past uh Lord's Day. Where some estimate More people heard the gospel in Charlie Kirk's four-hour funeral service, and it was maybe longer than that if you count all the music. than had ever heard the gospel in one setting, You know, at one time in history, and you have the widow of this man. With tear-filled eyes, quoting Luke 23: Father, forgive them.

And she said, I forgive the man. Who murdered my husband? And we see the gospel flooding out. Dr. Horne, I've seen video after video.

Of people saying, I saw a video on social media of a guy saying, you know what? It's time. He said, I saw that funeral. God crushed my heart. It's time I forgave the man who murdered my brother.

I know where you live. I know what part of the country you live in. I know everything about that. And I want you to know wherever you are, I forgive you, and I hope you'll find Christ. And I have had friends I have prayed for to come to Christ, Dr.

Horne, who have come out publicly and professed Christ from that funeral. And so you think, well, it can't get any worse.

Well, look at what God does, and God's dropping some special blessings on Daniel. We see the miracle in the lions, we see other things. And his, you know, obviously his race is not yet run, and we'll get into these further visions next time. But I just, I tell you, we just every day. We have an opportunity.

And Paul said it to live as Christ. To die is gained. We have absolutely nothing to lose when we're connected to the winner, to Jesus Christ. Because like the old gospel song, I read the back of the book and we win, right? We win.

Yeah. Well, this is the point. I think you said it, and I'll pray to this end. But God never wastes the life of his saint. and he never wastes the death of his saint.

right he never wastes the life of the death whether you're jeremiah Laboring alone, persecuted in Jerusalem, and nobody seems to be listening to you. God is going to use Jeremiah to encourage Daniel, to encourage all of his people, right?

So he doesn't waste Jeremiah's ministry, and he doesn't waste Daniel, and he's not going to waste. You know, Peter who gets delivered and James who gets executed in Acts, he's not going to waste the death of Stephen. Out of that comes Paul. He's not going to waste the death of Paul. Out of that comes.

our whole New Testament Christianity. And he certainly did not waste the death of his son, right?

So God never wastes our life, and he never wastes our death. He knows exactly how to use it.

So when Satan kills one of God's servants, And make no mistake. I think Satan was behind the brutal murder of of Charlie Kurtz. When Satan kills one of God's Servants, however, this much you might disagree, you know, we're not all going to agree on his policies and his politics. But we all ought to agree on the gospel. And when somebody gets murdered by Satan for the gospel's sake, shouldn't it surprise us that 100 million people?

Are you hearing the gospel? If I were Satan, watching how this unfolded i'd be going i made a huge mistake here I can't believe I, this was awful. I mean I thought I was getting rid of the gospel by killing this dude. And instead, there are hundreds of millions of people that are hearing the gospel, and tons of people are getting saved, and a whole generation is getting stirred up. I blew it.

Of course, Satan's so arrogant, he'll never admit that, but God never wastes the death of his saints, and he never wastes their life. And that's what we see in the book of Daniel.

So let me pray and ask God to encourage us, Lord. What a beautiful chapter. What a beautiful book. What a beautiful life of your servant Daniel. And Lord, we would aspire.

that you would grant us that faithfulness. And Lord, we saw Daniel faithful and bold. uh when he understood everything in chapters one and two and three and four and five and six And then we see him in chapter 8 and 9 and 10 when he doesn't understand what you're doing and he's still faithful. He was faithful when he could see everything and he was faithful when he could see nothing. And Lord, we are so impacted by his life.

not because of what he understood, but because of how he lived. And so we want to live faithful lives and help us to take courage. From the book of Daniel, to do so. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Dr.

Horn, and thank you for joining us for this Wednesday in the Word podcast. Learn more at wedintheword.com. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and all social media, including in Stu Graham. and be encouraged, stay in the word. Read it.

Share it, study it, memorize it. Meditate on God's Word. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him. Proverbs 30 verse 5.