We worked through chapter ten of Daniel which is really the first part of the section which ends in chapter twelve. In the last chapter we saw an amazing testimony to the reality of spiritual warfare. Daniel had been fasting from meat and wine and other delicacies for three weeks. He describes himself as in mourning. There is an angel which appears to Daniel and the contents of his message tell us Daniel must have been mourning over his fellow Israelites who were in captivity. The angel starts out by describing how he had been delayed by the prince of Persia for twenty-one days. Michael had come to help and this seems to be the reason this angel finally got through. The scene we see play out between this angel and Daniel sounds very much like the scene between Paul and Jesus on the road to Damascus and also has aspects of the meeting between Jesus and John at the beginning of the book of Revelation. Is this just another angel or is this the appearance of a pre-incarnate Jesus. If this is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus it tells us something of the nature of spiritual warfare. There must be great power on display in the heavens. There appears to be a recognition of authority over regions on the earth, because he talks about the prince of the kingdom of Persia and the kings of Persia withstanding him. This doesn’t mean these beings are more powerful than a pre-incarnate Jesus but it would simply mean there is a regional right they were asserting which God Himself recognized, and these beings as angels had to work through. This also tells us God will do whatever it takes to get to his own and to respond to their prayers. This angel’s appearance is majestic and magnificent. Daniel’s response is to be undone and unable to speak or respond. The angel’s touch is enough to strengthen Daniel and remove his guilt before the angel. Again these actions seem to be pointing to this being a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus. The angel tells Daniel he is going to tell him the message he came to deliver and then return to fight the prince of Persia and how when he goes the prince of Greece will come. I personally believe the angel speaking here is a true Christophany.

We worked through the end of chapter 9 which deals with the 70 weeks for which Daniel is prophetically famous. It is an interesting chapter with a lot of mystery surrounding the exact meaning of the text. By the time Jerome was creating commentaries around 400 AD there were already 9 different understandings about what Daniel was pointing to with his 70 weeks. There are however several things in the text which clearly point to the person and work of Jesus. These are the things which we focused on as being really relevant for our study. There are 6 things listed as being fulfilled in the 70 weeks vision.
• To finish the transgression
• To put an end to sin
• To atone for iniquity
• To bring in everlasting righteousness
• To seal both vision and prophet
• To anoint a most holy place
Jesus is the only clear answer to the fulfillment of all these things. He brought an end to transgression and sin for many. He atoned for their iniquity. He brought in the dawn of everlasting righteousness. He is the culmination of the prophets and their visions. Through His death He established a new way to enter into God’s presence through the work He did on the cross. These things clearly find their fulfillment in Jesus. This is also clearly the most important thing about this chapter. If God had wanted us to be unified in our understanding of the 70 weeks He would have given us a clear interpretation like He did in the previous chapter by telling us the ram was the kings of Media and Persia and the goat was the future king of Greece. But God did not do that and because of the various understandings we should be careful about being dogmatic where we don’t have a solid foundation for doing so. Jesus fulfills the 6 items listed and that should be enough for us to be looking at the work Jesus has done and how that changes everything for us.

We will continue to look at some fundamental aspects of God’s nature because as worshippers we must know some of these things in order to be able to worship Him properly. Let’s begin by looking at what David told his son Solomon about God right after telling him God was going to use him to lead the people and build the temple. The reason David says this is important is because the Lord God searches the hearts of men and He understands all their plans and thoughts. What goes on in your mind and heart is known by God. God is with all His people at once and we can worship Him knowing that He is here with us.

We worked through the beginning of chapter 9. Most of it is a prayer recorded by Daniel. The prayer is prompted by the prophecy of Jeremiah. He had declared their exile was going to last 70 years. Daniel knew they were coming up on the time predicted and Daniel also knew the people were still not in a state of repentance. Daniel turns to God and intercedes on his own behalf and on behalf of the people. He makes confession and calls on God for mercy. He is acting as a representative of the people and in this way points forward to how Jesus stands in our place before God and bears His wrath against our sin on our behalf. He is our great High Priest and the best hope we have. Daniel demonstrates this by starting his prayer with a verse focused on adoration of God. Pointing to God’s great promise keeping nature and the way he demonstrates love to those who love Him and are His. He then goes on to ask God for show mercy for His own name sake. The point Daniel is making is how they do not deserve God’s mercy but since God made promises the reason to remain faithful to those promises rest completely in God consistency and faithfulness to His promises for His own names sake. This is something we would do well to remember. God is good to us and merciful because of Jesus not because we have somehow appeared on His radar as an especially good person. Our relationship with God is not a transaction where we do good and God blesses us. Our relationship with God exists because God was merciful to us and because God is a good Father to His children. If we could only view ourselves from the perspective of Isaiah we would declare with him how all our righteousness is as filthy rags in comparison to the righteousness of God. We would see how radically corrupt our sin has made us. How almost everything we do even the good things are tainted by pride and impure motivations. We are an extremely selfish and self centered people. This is why it is so important for us to cultivate a hope in God which rests in the finished work of Jesus alone. Having our hope in Jesus alone is difficult. For instance, when we feel like we are more qualified or equipped to enter into devotions or come to church because we have had a good day or week we are in essence reveling in our self-righteousness. Or if we feel like we cannot enter into our time of devotions or church because we have really struggled all day or week, we are again looking at our lack of self-righteousness. The reason any of us can come before God at any time is only because of the righteousness of Jesus alone. And yet that reliance on self keeps creeping into our thoughts. Our hope is in God and His faithfulness to His promises for Jesus sake and His sake alone. This does not mean we pursue sin or disregard doing good. It simply means our motivation to do good is not to merit favor but because we are coming to love Jesus more and more and because of this we desire to become more like Him. The motivation which drives our action needs to be a love for God.

We worked through the prophecies of chapter 8. It is a remarkable chapter because in it Daniel not only has a vision but an angel tells him what the vision means and gives the names of the countries the animals in the vision represent. The vision also included a specific king who would be serious source of oppression for Israel. There are 10 things prophesied specifically about this king.
• His power will be great
• It will not be his power alone
• He will cause destruction
• He will succeed in what he does
• He will destroy mighty men and God’s saints
• He will make deceit prosper by cunning
• He will be a great in his own eyes (He will be a legend in his own mind.)
• He will destroy many without warning
• He will rise up against the Prince of princes
• He will be broken but not by human hands
Antiochus Epiphanes fits this description exactly. He had great power. He claimed to be the incarnation of Zeus. He set up an idol to Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem. He sacrificed pigs on the altar and forced the Jewish people to eat pork. He killed thousands for no reason. He ended up dying of a bowel disease which drove him mad. The prophecies in this chapter are so specific and so accurate that many have suggested Daniel was written by someone else using Daniel’s name after the events took place. But the point of giving this detailed of a prophecy is to reveal our God is the author of history. He raises up kings and he casts them down. He is the great God who brings justice. Chapters like this should encourage us to trust Him. There is nothing which escapes Him or is beyond His power. He is trust worthy.

We worked our way through the vision of Daniel in chapter 7. This is the last part of the book written in Aramaic. This simply points to how this vision was intended to be widely available to the people of the day, even those they lived among in exile. Daniel has a dream of 4 beasts. This dream seems to have many parallels to Nebuchadnezzar’s first dream of the statue with 4 sections. It starts with the lion that has eagle’s wings. This beast has its wings ripped off and it is given the mind of a man and stands on 2 feet. In a variety of ways this points to Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom. This beast is followed by a bear with ribs in its mouth. It has one side larger than the other. This is a reference to the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. The Persians were stronger than the Medes which explains the different sizes of the bear sides. After this there arose a leopard with 4 heads. The leopard most likely points to Alexander the great who conquered the known world swiftly and died young. His kingdom was divided between four generals of his army which gives a good reason he had 4 heads. The final beast was unlike anything Daniel had ever seen. It had teeth of iron and claws of bronze. It had ten horns and another horn came up and three of the horns fell before it. This new horn had eyes and a mouth which spoke great things. This horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them until the ancient of days came in judgment. This is a vision of devastation as these kingdoms act like beast bringing pain and suffering to many. But this is also a reminder as well of how God will bring justice, which culminates in the establishment of God’s eternal kingdom.

We continued to look at how knowing about God is critical for us to be able to worship God. This has been a critical theme to the topic of worship. What I have discovered in studying this subject has been how clearly the Bible points to what we need to know about God. There are certain aspects to God’s nature which the Bible itself declares as critical to knowing and worshipping God. There are some fundamental things about God we must understand to properly conceive of who we are engaging with. First and foremost the Bible presents us with a God who is a person or probably is better stated as having personhood. This is part of what being created in the image of God is about. We are people and have personhood because God has personhood and we are made in his image. This means simply we can relate to God and engage with God as a person because we understand personhood. Secondly and fundamentally God is a trinity and has eternally existed as a trinity. This means one of the fundamental aspects of God is relationship. He has always existed in relationship and always will exist in relationship. It explains why relationships are fundamentally important to us. It also tells us we can engage with God in relationship. This could cause us to begin to think about God in human terms but the Bible corrects us there calling us to think of God as not only having personhood and loving relationships but to remember He is a Spirit. As a Spirit God is immortal and invisible. Both of those things affect other aspects of who He is and how we think of Him. We cannot make an image of God not only because it breaks one of the ten commandments but because He is invisible. Because He is immortal He cannot die and death is not part of His nature. But even though these things seem to separate us from God He clearly calls on His people throughout the Bible to enter into relationship with Him. He wants us to know and love Him because He loves us and gave Himself up for us to bring us back to Him. The Bible talks about the unchanging nature of God. He never grows old. He never gets tired. His power is never diminished. He is unchangeable. We call this aspect of God His immutability. In addition to this God is also all powerful. There is simply nothing God is not capable of doing. We call this God’s omnipotence. He never gets tired. He simply cannot get tired because He is all powerful. It is important for worshippers of God to understand God never changes and He is all powerful because we can trust the promises He made thousands of years ago are still true because God is still the same. We can also trust God will do what He has promised and said because He is all powerful and He can accomplish whatever He sets out to do.

We worked our way through the last narrative section in the book of Daniel. It is the majestic and familiar story of Daniel and his night spent in the lion’s den. The story is driven by men jealous of the power and favor God had granted Daniel. He has taken on a new role advising Darius, the new ruler of Babylon. Darius was planning to place Daniel over all the wise men and this did not sit well with some of them. Since they couldn’t seem to establish any dirt on Daniel they resorted to lawfare. They knew Daniel prayed to his God three times a day. They suggested to Darius, he should issue a decree for all men to make their prayers and petitions to him alone for the next 30 days. If they petitioned anyone but the king they would be thrown into the lion’s den. Darius was a new king and thought this was a good idea, probably seeing it as a way of establishing his authority over the newly conquered territory. Since this was a law of the Medes and Persians it could not be changed. Upon learning the document had been signed by Darius, Daniel went to his house and prayed to Yahweh. This violation of the new law was reported to Darius who became distressed over this new development and labored to rescue Daniel until the sun went down. He was unable to circumvent the new law and eventually called for Daniel to be cast into the lion’s den. Before he was cast in Darius declared, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” Daniel was cast in, a stone was laid over the opening and Darius sealed it with his ring. Darius did not sleep but spent the night fasting. At daybreak he went to the den and cried out to Daniel asking in anguish if his God was able to deliver him. To Darius surprise and delight Daniel answered, God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths. He commanded Daniel be taken out of the den and the men who had tricked him into signing this new law be brought and cast into the den with their wives and children. He then issued a new decree to all the people to stand in fear and trembling before the God of Daniel because He is the living God. Daniel was faithful and trusted God and God delivered Him.