PODCAST
Confidence in Exile
October 20, 2024 | Kyle BjergaThe sermon discusses the shift from the narrative stories in the first half of Daniel to the apocalyptic visions in the second half, emphasizing the need to understand the metaphors and imagery. It examines Daniel’s vision of the four beasts representing earthly kingdoms, contrasting them with the eternal kingdom of the divine Son of Man. The sermon highlights the sovereignty of God, the Ancient of Days, and the confidence believers can have in Christ’s everlasting kingdom, despite the presence of evil and suffering in the world. Believers remain confident in God’s ultimate victory and our eternal inheritance with Christ.
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TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
All right, good morning. Go ahead and get your Bibles. Turn to Daniel, chapter seven, it will be page 726, if your using one of the black pew Bibles there in front of you or underneath. So in our culture, we like to customize things. And one of my favorite areas to customize is to make my own music playlists. I don’t like to change stations when I don’t want to hear a song, and so like, just having that playlist, like, why would I change it? These are my favorite songs, and I have playlists for different things, whether it’s working out, whether it’s trying to have some easy listening, something for when you’re driving, and I also have one for when I’m reading or preparing to teach. And so I was listening to that one this week and preparing for the sermon. And so I have all these instrumental songs over the years that I’ve kind of pulled from that I really like. And so I have it on shuffle, and I am listening to a beautiful arrangement of one of my favorite songs, Turn your eyes upon Jesus. And it’s just this beautiful arrangement. And it’s getting towards the end, it’s getting towards silence, and then boom. The next song starts with all percussion. And I looked down, and I had this visceral response where I like, I got taken back because I had earbuds in, and it turned out, Jesus, nice slow. And then this huge boom, and I like, had this jolt back. And I looked down, I look down, I look at my phone, and I see what song it is, this called Walk the plank, and it’s from the soundtrack of Pirates of Caribbean. So makes sense, but a bad idea to have it on shuffle at that time. Turn your eyes upon Jesus to walk the plank in a matter of seconds. And I hear, I’m in a coffee shop, and I’m sure people saw me kind of like jolt back, because this was like that whiplash moment where all of a sudden, without warning, something happens, and I react to it. And we’ve all had those whiplash moments in life where we’re in one place and all of a sudden we’re over here. And today, enter in Daniel chapter seven. This is our whiplash moment in the book of Daniel. We need to buckle up for these next six chapters, because it is very different from the first six chapters of Daniel. If you’ve been with us so far, we’ve been in these first six chapters, this first half, and this is these are the stories that we know, the characters that we know. We have children’s story Bible, children’s Bibles that tell these stories Daniel lions and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The writing on the wall, we have songs. We have Veggietales, movies made out of these. So we’re very familiar with these. And then we get to this second half of the book. And just, you know, a lot of people just stop reading after Daniel six. Some people won’t even teach Daniel chapter seven through 12, because it automatically makes this switch. And there’s no warning of this. It just happens. And it’s that whiplash moment, because now we enter into the apocalyptic literature, more specifically, really apocalyptic prophecy, like Daniel is going to get some visions here in these last six chapters, and we are going to be brought into these visions by what he shares with us. And when you get to these visions and you see these things in the visions, you want somebody you want to just sit down and say, can you explain this to me like I’m five? Because that’s really what we need. How many of you read ahead this week? We don’t often do this, but how many of you have a bookmark and read ahead? Okay, so read ahead, by the way, that’s why we have the bookmarks, because again, I don’t want you to have that kind of whiplash moment. I want us to be able to see exactly what is here in the text and what the Lord has for us this moment. But we have to before we dig in. We have to look at these lacks last six chapters, and we kind of need to have a second introduction into the book of Daniel. Because, like I said, these are very, very different, these narrative, this narrative in these stories, and then the apocalyptic. So how do we move from here? What do we need to be thinking about as we enter in to the second half? So I love how Greg Gilbert says it as we prepare to enter in chapter seven through 12, he says this, the detail in these visions can be bewildering if we spend too much energy attempting to identify every single detail, although this is sometimes possible, possible it is not, finally the main point. We must read these visions with this in mind and not obsess too much, especially on a first or 10th reading about who particularly is represented by each element. And so something important to remember as we come to any sort of apocalyptic literature, as we will be in Revelation at the start of the new year, is this, Jesus is not going to hand out trophies if we figure out every detail, okay, he’s not gonna have trouble. If you’re able to connect everything we read in apocalyptic literature to some person or some event in history, it’s for those who humble themselves and say, I need you, whether or not I know every detail, I know enough I know who Jesus is, and so that’s what we’re after as we head into these last six. Six chapters. And so I don’t want any of us to be intimidated by the apocalyptic literature. So I want to just mention a few things that we need to have in our minds this morning and in the weeks to come. And this is from Trumper Longman in his book, kind of giving us these handles for us as we head into apocalyptic literature. So here’s what he says, when we think about this genre. First, there’s a lot of metaphors. It is metaphor rich like poetry using similes and analogies. He says they throw light on difficult concepts and things by relating them to something we know from common experience. So we read about beasts this morning. We’re not going to literally see a beast. What does the beast represent? What is Daniel seen in this vision? There are lots of images, of course, used, and so the images speak truly and accurately, but not precisely. So what these images represent is something that is true and accurate, but we’re not going to be able to always pinpoint exactly who it is or when it is. And then the thing for us in this day and age is remembering what was common back then may not be common to us now. So we have that added step of saying, okay, maybe this is what they saw. But what does that actually mean here today, in our culture, in our context, and all apocalyptic apocalyptic literature is meant to invoke emotion. It’s meant to invoke some sort of response, some sort of action. So that’s that kind of intro into this second half. And so hopefully we’re a little bit more prepared to wade into the waters of these next six weeks, protect us a little bit from whiplash, and see what the Lord has for us today. So we’re going to take Daniel’s first vision in chapter seven in three scenes. You can see them there in your notes. Scene One is the C and we’re going to read verses seven, chapter seven, one through eight. Let’s read together. In the first year of King Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream. Daniel said, In my vision at night, I looked and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea, four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. The first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it, and there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, get up and eat your fill of flesh. After that, I looked and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard, and on its back, it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule after that, and my vision at night, I looked and there before me was a fourth beast, terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth. It crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had 10 horns. While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them, and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a human being and a mouth that spoke boastfully. Let’s pause there, confused yet.
One more note as we transition here into the second half of the book is really important. What we see there in verse one, all these visions now are given to Daniel. Up until this point, Daniel has been interpreting the dreams, the writing of the wall for other kings, pagan kings, Babylonian kings. And so now we have these words given to Daniel, these visions given to Daniel. And the Israelite people who are in exile, the people of God in exile, need to hear these words. And so it’s coming from a different perspective. The interpretations that Daniel gave to the Babylonian Kings was from a different perspective, for a different purpose. And now God wants His people to hear these words and these visions for a different purpose, ones that should actually bring the people of God much more confidence as they go throughout their Christian life. So chapter seven, we see in verse one actually isn’t chronological after chapter six. And we see that because what we have here is a given, a vision given to Daniel in the first year of King Belshazzar reign. And we met King Belshazzar last week in chapter five, on the last day of his life. Two weeks ago, sorry, two weeks ago. We met him on the last day of his life. And so this happened somewhere after King Nebuchadnezzar, and in that first year reign of Belshazzar is when Daniel actually receives this vision. So that’s where it puts us, about 50 years after Daniel is taken into exile and Daniel is brought to a. Sea. That’s what we have in this vision. And the wind is moving. It’s coming from all corners, all four corners, all four directions, and it’s creating this turbulent scene. The waters churn, and from that, four beasts come up. And the sea was often referred to as chaos or evil or that great unknown. So it makes a lot of sense that these beasts come up from the sea at this point, and we’re going to find out later in chapter seven, in the interpretation and but we need to know this now, that these four beasts represent four kingdoms or kings. Okay, four kingdoms or king. That’s what we have to have in our mind with these beasts, that they represent something. Now, what do these what kingdoms do they represent? And this is where we can really get caught in the weeds. If you want some fun reading, read all about this. We are not going to get into those weeds today. It doesn’t really matter so much for us. Now, in what exactly these different empires, regimes, kingdoms are at the time, there’s good chance to believe that the first Kingdom, this Lion and Eagle, is Babylon, because in chapter two, Nebuchadnezzar also had a dream of a big statue, and his kingdom was actually named as the golden head of that statue. And so we’re to take these four kingdoms in chapter two, the four kingdoms in chapter seven, we can say, okay, Babylon is probably the first one. And then after that, you’re going to get some different views on which kingdoms these actually are. But the main thing is, what is that fourth kingdom? That’s where it really gets interesting, because this is the most terrifying of the beasts, and the scholars will kind of differ on whether it’s Greece or Rome. Of course, Rome is the superpower at the time that Jesus is on the earth. But regardless of that, there’s something that we learn about these kingdoms. Okay, there could be short term fulfillment. There’s definitely long term fulfillment in this. It’s the pattern that we see throughout Daniel and so we see a pattern of four even when we’re reading this, we get the four winds, the four directions. We get four heads on the leopard, meaning that this dominion of his spreads out throughout the earth. And then we get these four kingdoms. And this pattern keeps coming up again and again, showing that this just means there are going to be kingdoms that are going to be coming until the time that God finally brings in and is fully realized in his kingdom. So what true and accurate things do these illustrations? Remember what I said? These illustrations, these images, teach true things that we need to know, even if we can’t precisely name who they are or when they are. So what do we learn about these kingdoms. First, when you look at these four kingdoms, we see that the types of animals mentioned the attributes of each represent a lot of things like power and authority and evil and things that are opposed to God and His people. That is clear in the the naming of these beasts. The second thing is that everything has been given to them, meaning God is sovereign. God knows who is in control. He knows where he will have the next leader, who it will be, and what they will do. They cannot do anything without God knowing about it. And we’ve talked about this throughout the series. We’ll probably talk about it more. Just think who’s in exile God’s own people for their disobedience, and who did God use Nebuchadnezzar to defeat them, to bring them into exile? So God is always in control. Everything these kingdoms have does not happen outside of God’s plan and purpose. Third, these kingdoms get progressively worse. As you start reading through, you start to see some of the words used, they just get scarier, until that fourth one is the most terrifying, the most frightening, and it is different than the rest. Clearly opposed to God and His people. All these kingdoms, kingdoms interested only in building up their own kingdom, no matter the cost. And this fourth kingdom, the words used to describe it very powerful, crushing, devouring and trampling its enemies. And then we get the horns. It’s got 10 horns, with one horn that came up, and three other horns fell before that one. And then it has these mouth and these eyes, and it starts to talk. And these horns represent kings, probably the 10, meaning just the fullness of kings, all the kings that were going to take place before God’s kingdom. And this one comes up, and it’s just different, and it starts to speak against God, and when we think about this, we think about these beasts, and we think about the evil that they represent. And we look around the world today. I mean, I don’t have to go through headlines right to know what type of evil is still in the world today, what kind of horror still take place when we think about what. These beasts represent. We look around and we say, I think that’s still happening. And there’s this growing anxiety in the world and in the church, made worse, definitely by social media and the 24 hour news cycle that evil is winning. That’s what we hear, that evil is winning. And if it’s not your side, it’s the other side that’s evil, but evil is winning, or so it seems to borrow from my story earlier. It almost feels like we’re as Christians walking the plank. Slowly, keep getting pushed more and more and more, and it’s terrifying. What do we do? And we think about it. Everybody in here has some sort of image in their mind, some kind of beast in your life, where you think this is too big. It keeps you up in that you think about it all the time. It consumes you. How would you describe it? What is it like? Is it? Is it cultures influence on your kids? Is that the thing that seems too big and too powerful? What about attacks against religious freedom? What about losing positions of influence in our jobs because of our faith. What about relational conflict with good friends and family who put you down for your beliefs? Like, what is it that is that image that causes you terror that you feel is too big? There’s only one way for us to get ourselves off of those visions of thinking that way to free ourselves from the mental and spiritual anguish that those can cause. Because we’re supposed to be hope filled people. Are we? Are you? Or there’s a growing number of people who are just hand wringing and anxious about everything that’s happening. So how do we release that? How do we see that freedom that God wants for us? Well, we need a bigger vision. We need something greater than what we see before us. We need to turn our gaze somewhere else, something bigger than the beast and what they represent, something that will give us hope for today and tomorrow. So let’s enter into Scene two, the courtroom. We’re going to read verses nine through 14. As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow. The hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing coming out from before him. 1000s upon 1000s attended him, 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him. The court was seated and the books were opened. Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing Fire. The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, but were allowed to live for a period of time. In my vision at night, I looked and there before me was one, like a Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power. All nations and peoples of every language worshiped Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
So we move abruptly from the sea to a courtroom, and we have these thrones in place. And God is referred to here as the Ancient of Days, and he takes his place as judge. And as we read the description of the Ancient of Days, which is a name only Daniel gives to God, we only find this name in the book of Daniel, we start to see why our culture has this picture of God as this old guy with this long white hair and long white beard, right? I mean, this is what we see in all the pictures. And God is Spirit. That’s not what he looks like. Well, what do the beast represent? The beasts represent this evil and this power and authority and this rebellion against God. So what is it? What does Daniel trying to show us in the Ancient of Days? What is this description of God teaching us about who our God is. First, it comes from his name. Ancient of Days. God is not old. He is eternal. He doesn’t have age. He’s always been. He always will be. He’s not old, he’s eternal. Look at Psalm 90, verse two, Before the mountains were born, you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting. You are God. He’s always been. He always will be. He has seen kingdoms come. He’s seen kingdoms go. He’s been there through. It all. He is the one in control. He knows where the leaders are, when they’re going to be serving, when their reign will end, when the next leader will come in. He knows what’s going to happen in November here. He knows it all, because he’s eternal. And this should bring us great comfort, because if you think about somebody who’s going to judge every deed, every person who has ever lived, why would we want somebody who wasn’t there at the beginning, who’s the only one that can judge rightly, the One who created it all, the one who has seen everything, the one who doesn’t have a bias, who’s fair and just in his judgments, only one could do that, somebody who has always been and always will be. What else do we learn about him? His clothing was white as snow, showing that he is pure, perfect, spotless. And then the hair was white as wool. Again, not that he’s old. It’s showing that the Ancient of Days is all wise, which is what you want in a judge on a throne, the flaming throne, the flaming wheels, the Flaming River. All this to display his perfect power and His perfect judgment. And everyone is gathered before the Ancient of Days, before the Eternal One. And the books are open, the books with the deeds of all the people, specifically those, these beasts and what they represent, the kings and their kingdoms, and in the Lord’s books, in the Ancient of Days books, he doesn’t miss a thing. And you would think in this picture of this eternal God with his books open completely just and fair, that you would humble yourself. But what is the little horn do of this fourth beast, the one that’s different from the rest, speaks up boastful words. That’s what it says there, right in verse 11, boastful words that the horn was speaking. He’s directing these at God. He won’t stop talking. He keeps talking at God boastfully, and in a flash, God’s judgment comes upon this little horn, and he is destroyed. And this should, this should hit us, because this is us, the evil that’s in us. Like, have you ever said something to God in your own pride? Like, I know more than you do God in this situation, I know what you should do. I know what’s fair. I think we should follow my will and not yours. I mean, these are the things that we may not say, but we definitely believe. And in a flash of judgment, that’s what should happen. That’s what happens here to the horn, this little horn on this fourth beast. And I’ve had people in my life say to me, well, I’ll just tell God there wasn’t enough for me to believe when I was on the earth, or I just wanted to do things my way. And all I think about is this moment that none of that is going to be good enough. None of it in a flash, his judgment comes. There’s no battle, there’s no difficulty. For the ancient of days, God will not be mocked. He has the books open. He sees it all. He knows what the kingdom is about. He knows what we’re about. There’s no humility in this fourth beast, or any of these kings, no humility. And so he silences him and the authority that he was given. And we get this interesting part there, where these other beasts are stripped of their authority, but they’re allowed to live for a period of time. And yeah, they’re allowed to live for a period of time, but they’re shell of their former selves with little to no influence on anything at this point. And then the vision that Daniel receives is of a final kingdom, just like we saw in chapter two, another kingdom that comes there’s no kingdoms mentioned after it, either it is the final kingdom. And there is a stark contrast between the four kingdoms represented by the four beasts and this fifth and final kingdom. What are some of those contrasts? First, Daniel sees one like a Son of man, not a beast, but a human. That’s the first contrast. Second, this man comes from above with the clouds of heaven, and not from the sea. Where the beast come from, comes from heaven above. The beast come from the sea. Third, the Son of Man is led in the presence of the Ancient of Days, he’s given authority, glory and sovereign power, while the beasts are stripped of their authority, of their power, of their influence. And fourth, all the nations worship the Son of Man while the beast, full of pride, boasted about and worshiped only themselves. You start to see there’s a difference between this last kingdom and the first four one more thing then, the dominion of the Son of Man is everlasting, a kingdom that will never be destroyed, while the beast. Kingdoms were temporary, lasting for a period of time until Judgment. And so we see the Son of Man. Here. It was a common way in the Old Testament referring to humanity, okay, mentioned as the Son of Man, makes sense. But we see there’s something different about this son of man. This is not the ordinary way of describing the human because this son of man comes on the clouds. Who else comes on the clouds? In Scripture, God, God comes on the clouds. Look at Psalm 68 in this verse of praise, says, sing to God. Sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds rejoice before him. His name is the Lord. And in Isaiah, in a prophecy of judgment, read, we read, see the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear. The Son of Man comes on the clouds because the Son of Man is divine. Who is this son of man? Listen to Greg Gilbert again. He says, This is the most exalted vision of the Messiah, the promised King, that God has yet given to His people. Here, not only does the king receive an everlasting dominion from the Most High God, he is himself unmistakably divine. No mere human comes in the clouds of heaven, and no mere human holds an everlasting dominion. Ever more shocking this divine king appears to be to Daniel, to be like a son of man that is not an angel or a spirit, but a human, a human and yet divine king, and we know there’s only one who is human, one who is divine, and that is Jesus, Christ. And Jesus sees this in Daniel, the son of man, and he refers to himself as the Son of Man About 80 times in the gospels. It’s the way he refers to himself the most. So what I want to do is I want to let Jesus speak for himself and tell us who the Son of Man is. So I’m going to we’re not going to see the verses on the screen. We’re going to go through a lot of verses. I’m just going to read them with very little comment. And I just want us to see answer this question, who is the son of man in Mark 10, Jesus says himself for the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many in John three Nicodemus, a religious leader, comes to Jesus and wants to know more about who he is. And Jesus says, no one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him. Jesus explains this to his disciples what it means to be lifted up by stating the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law, they will condemn Him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock Him and spit on him, flog him and kill him, and three days later he will rise. When Jesus was brought before the Sanhedrin, the high priest asked, Are You the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? I am, said Jesus, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven. And it’s that statement that they said blasphemy, and they took him to be killed in Acts one, we read about the ascension of Jesus to heaven, and what comes a cloud. A cloud hides him as he is taken back up to heaven, the angels appear and say the same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.
And Stephen, in Acts seven, right before he is stoned to death, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Look, he said, as you have been open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, Stephen teaches us something in this vision, as his life is about to end seconds from now, to be stoned, that the beasts of evil, suffering, persecution and death do not have a hold on him. His his vision is of Jesus, the Son of Man, standing at the right hand of God. That’s what He’s overtaking with in the moment, not the stones being hurled at him, but the vision of the Son of Man. And so in that moment, all those beasts lose their power, all that evil, all that suffering, loses its power when his eyes are focused on Jesus. So when you think about those beasts in your mind, the things that are overtaking your mind that you’re thinking about constantly that cause you terror and fear. I hope that they’re losing their grip on you because of this vision. I hope they shrink, because this is the vision we need. This is the only vision that will overtake those beasts, that will overtake those evil things that are in our life, that will take away the suffering. It’s only this vision so Daniel, the one who has been interpreting dreams visions and some writing on the walls and. For these kings, has to have someone else interpret this dream for him, interesting, right? So he’s going to go to someone. He’s going to have a conversation. That’s scene three. Let’s look at it together. We’re going to start in verse 15. Read through the end of the chapter I Daniel was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me. I approached one of those standing there and asked him the meaning of all this. So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things. The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth, but the holy people, the Most High, will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever. Yes, forever and ever. Then I wanted to know the meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most terrifying with its iron teeth and bronze claws, the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. I also wanted to know about the 10 horns on its head and about the other horn that came up before which three of them fell, the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully as I watched this horn was waging war against the holy people and defeating them. Until the Ancient of days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the holy people of the Most High and the time came when they possessed the kingdom. He gave me this explanation. The fourth beast is the fourth kingdom that will appear on Earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms, and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. The 10 horns are 10 kings who will come from this kingdom. After them, another king will arise different from the earlier ones. He will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws the holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time, but the court will sit and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms that are heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey Him. This is the end of the matter. I Daniel was deeply troubled by my thoughts, and my face turned pale. But I kept the matter to myself, so this last section is book ended by Daniel’s emotional response to what he is seen and the interpretation that he receives. Verse 15, he is troubled. In spirit. He is disturbed, and by the end in verse 28 he is deeply troubled and his face turned pale. And Daniel knows he hears that there’s good news in this last section. He He hears that, but he also sees that there’s going to be prolonged suffering for the people of God, that what they’re experiencing right now in Babylon is not the end, that there is more coming. And so he turns pale. It disturbs him, because he knows that means the people of God have more evil to deal with, more horrors before the more suffering to come. And we’ve all been there. We we know that that hurts us. We long for the day when that is gone. And so of course, even though there’s good news, he’s still a human. He still deals with emotions. He still loves people. He still loves the people of God, and He knows that they’re going to go through a lot in the coming days, years, and who knows how long, well, we have that Daniel doesn’t at this point. Is a clear picture of how, as we just read, The Son of Man came, what he went through, what he did, what he accomplished, like we see that now we know what Jesus has done, and we are not surprised by the evil and suffering that still exist in this world, especially if it comes because of our faith. Jesus promised that that would come. If they hated him, they will hate us. If we follow Him, we will be persecuted. But we know that the way to heaven is through a bloody, Rugged Cross. We know the empty tomb only means something because there was a dead body put in it at one point, and then it was gone evil and suffering seemed to win the day. They seemed to have the final say, until Jesus rose from the dead, defeating sin and death. We know that evil and suffering that we experience is temporary. We know that we know that we know that we are saved from the judgment of God when the books are open, because when those books are open, if we are in Christ, Jesus, the record God sees is his and not ours, and we will not stand before Him speaking boastfully. We will bow before him and point to Jesus and say, he’s the only reason I’m here. That’s all we can do in that moment before the Ancient of Days. But before all that happens, the people of God will experience the fourth beast, this one that really intrigued Daniel caused Daniel to be troubled in spirit. Sometimes, you know, we ask for things, then we hear what the answer is, and we regret immediately. Asking. That might be what Daniel is experiencing here, but he’s very intrigued. He wants to know, right? And this fourth beast might very well be in that short term fulfillment Rome. But it’s so much more than just that. It represents so much more. Look at Revelation. Chapter 13, we read about another beast. Says the dragon stood on the shore of the sea, and I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had 10 horns, seven heads with 10 crowns on its horn, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. And so we see this mash up of Daniel seven. See John pulling these things together in what he is seeing here the vision that he has. There’s many names and titles given to this ruler throughout Scripture. It’s a pretty good chance this is one of the first times we we see this person who will, in the New Testament, be called the man of lawlessness, the man doomed to destruction, the beast, the Antichrist, all sorts of different names. We know that the Antichrist is known to disobey God, to blaspheme him, to persecute Christians. And so all of this will happen until that time when it seems like he is winning and he’s taking over, and Christians are persecuted for their faith. And we know that there’s more to the story, because the apostle John wrote in Revelation 13, who wrote Revelation 13 also wrote in his letter, First John that there isn’t just an antichrist. What else, dear children, he says in chapter two. This is the last hour. And as you’ve heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now, many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. I think sometimes we get so caught up in who is the antichrist that we forget there’s a lot of them throughout history. There’s a lot of them throughout history, and we need to be aware of that. We can’t be waiting for that one day. We need to say, how are we going to face evil and suffering today? Do you know how many different antichrists, like big a people have thought there have been throughout history? Just read the news in the last 50 years, 100 years, how many people have have felt so confident to name the Antichrist, how about it? Just little a antichrist, people who are opposed to God, who rebel against Him and His laws, and do everything they can to build up their own kingdoms rather than submit to His kingdom. But whatever will happen, there will be judgment for this last kingdom, for this fourth kingdom. And so we think about this. We think about, okay, all this stuff is happening, all this evil and suffering is still happening. The presence of sin is still in the world. We feel the effects of it all the time. So then, why did I title this message, confidence in exile? Look at the top of your notes. Confidence in exile doesn’t seem very confident at this point. But look at three verses in this last section, and I think you’ll see why I said confidence in exile. Look at verse 18, but the holy people, the Most High, will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever. Yes, forever and ever do you see who’s going to receive the kingdom, the people of the Most High.
Look at the next verse, verse 22 until the Ancient of days came and pronounced judgment in favor of who the holy people of the Most High. And the time came when they possessed the kingdom. And then verse 27 then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to who the holy people of the Most High and his kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey Him. Why can we be confident? Because we get to rule with Christ. We possess the kingdom. When things are repeated like this in Scripture, we need to pay attention to it. It’s mentioned three times here to give us great confidence. To give Daniel confidence in the people of God, confidence that we will be with Christ forever in that fifth and final kingdom, never to be destroyed. A perfect place, a perfect king. And so here’s the big idea. The takeaway that I want for us today, it is be confident, because evil will lose and we will re with Christ in His kingdom forever. Scripture is clear, we are co heirs with Christ. We share in his inheritance. You are a son or daughter of the Most High God. When you submit to Him, repent of your sin, believe in this son of man, and we get a perfect kingdom with a perfect king with perfect intentions for us. In our lives, we don’t deserve this of. Course we deserve what came to that last kingdom, that little horn that was raised up, and yet, in God’s grace He calls us, we humble ourselves, and the outcome is reigning with Christ forever. As Christians, the reality is we live in a world where sin and evil and suffering are present. We all feel the effects of it. We all do, and we wait for that second coming of Christ, when judgment will take place, and all things will be made, right? This means there will be different beasts that look different, take different forms in our life. And when that happens, what should we do, when things seem overwhelming, when things seem real bad, when it seems that evil is actually winning the day. How does Daniel seven teach us to remain confident in this world? Well, it’s found in lyrics of that other song I mentioned at the beginning. Through death into life everlasting, he passed, and we follow Him there over us sin no more. Hath dominion for more than conquerors we are, Turn your eyes upon Jesus Look full in his wonderful face and the things Earth, the evil, the suffering, the difficulties, will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. So when we need to be confident, when we need to get rid of these beasts and be overwhelmed by all these different things, all we need to do is turn our eyes and our gaze towards Jesus. We need a bigger vision of who he is and what He has done for us in order to be confident walking out of these doors today, no matter what comes our way, let’s pray you.
Lord, we come before you. Grateful, grateful for your grace through your son. Grateful that all those years ago, in this vision that Daniel saw, he saw that a way was going to be made for us to be saved, for us to come before you humbly, not with our fists raised, not with rage, not with pride, but with open hands and open hearts, being humble to who you are, because we see you for who you truly are, the Eternal One who is perfect in every way, the one who has given us so much, has taught us the best way to live. And when we rebelled, you still came after us. You still loved us. And Lord, now we are confident in Jesus Christ. We are confident what he has done, and we want to be confident walking out of this building today with a bigger vision that will take over all the evil and the suffering and the things we can focus on. Help us to keep our eyes on you this week, Lord, we love you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.