The Apocalyptic Literature Series

INTRODUCTION

·     SLIDE #1

·     Today is the last message in our Binge Reading the Bible series.

·     I hope that the series has touched your heart and motivated you to spend more time in the Word.

·     Today, we will conclude a look at the Apocalyptic Literature.

·     Apocalyptic Literature refers to those books concerning God’s revelation of the ending of this current age and the final advent of his kingdom.

·     This revelation is mostly described through visions and prophecies. Apocalyptic Literature in the bible can be found in both the Old Testament and the New, in the books of Daniel, Zechariah, Joel, Amos, 1 Thessalonians, and Revelation.

·     We can best understand God’s revelation through these books by knowing that their main concern is to unveil something previously unknown or to release information concerning future things.

·     Whether this involves Old Testament prophecies concerning the plight of Israel or the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ given to John, both instances call for much study due to heavy symbolism, metaphors, and historical context.

·     “The word ‘apocalyptic,’ derived from the Greek Word apokalypsis in Revelation 1:1, means ‘revelation’ or ‘unveiling,’ and is applied to these writings because they contain revelations of the secret purposes of God, the end of the world, and the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth.

·     After the days of the post-exilic prophets, God no longer spoke to Israel through the living voice of inspired prophecy. … Instead of God’s kingdom, evil kingdoms ruled over Israel: Medo-Persia, Greece, and finally Rome” (Merrill C. Tenney, “Apocalyptic Literature,” Zondervan’s Pictorial Bible Dictionary [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan], 49).

·     Today we need to understand that God reveals himself to humanity through his sovereign control, infinite wisdom, and ability to reveal secrets.

·     Here is why this message applies to us yet today.

·     We all run into situations that are beyond our control. Situations that scare us that cause us to worry and can cause us to make poor decisions if we are not careful.

·     We can learn to trust God through Apocalyptic Literature, by understanding that the future is in his hands.

·     We can see that the obstacle that is before us is something that God knew about, and therefore, we can turn to Him knowing He can handle the issue!

·     Trust is the key to a relationship; it is the key to possessing a deep relationship with God.

·     Now for some background that will help us with the message this morning.

·     The setting for the book of Daniel begins with King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon laying siege to the Judah (The Southern Kingdom) in 605 BC.

·     That is when Daniel, his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) were taken into captivity.

·     The Babylonians would defeat a kingdom and then take the best and brightest young people and train them in the Babylonian ways.

·     Nebuchadnezzar came back in 597 BC and took 10,000 more captives, and he also returned in 587 B.C. and destroyed Jerusalem.

·     Babylon fell to the Persian empire in 539 B.C.

·     Now back to Daniel and his three friends. These kids were most likely teenagers at this time. When they were taken into Babylon, they would undergo a three-year training program (Daniel 1:5) and then they would be some of King Nebuchadnezzar’s advisors.

·     Think about these teenage boys. They had been taken away from their families, their homeland.

·     Yet amid all this chaos, a chaos where they most likely would never see their families, or their homeland ever again, these young boys who were led by Daniel were going to have to make some tough choices.

·     Now that they are out from under the care of their parents, would the remain faithful to a God who appeared to abandon them and their country, or would they go with the flow of living in Babylon?

·     For these young men, they chose faithfulness. Little did they know some of the harrowing experiences they would face, but even as teenage boys, they knew they could trust God.

·     I think when we think of the stories of Daniel, we have to understand the context so that we can better appreciate his story.

·     Now we are in 603 to 602 BC. We are in the 2nd year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign when he has a dream that is troubling him.

·     Nebuchadnezzar calls on the magicians, mediums, sorcerers, and Chaldeans to tell the King about his dream and to interpret the dream.

·     These men asked the King to tell them the dream, and they would interpret the dream.

·     The King would have none of that because he smelled something fishy.

·     From the King, this was an unreasonable and unprecedented (cf. v. 10b) demand, given that dream interpretation was based on historical precedent.

·     Whenever a king would share the content of his dream with his experts, they, in turn, would consult their dream manuals.