We are grateful to honor some twenty-four seniors today in graduating high school. You are graduating from school with a tremendous future ahead of you. Most of you were blessed by God to be born in the United States, where you have so many educational and financial options available to you. Many of your parents would never thought the scholarships you have received were possible just a few years ago. Millions of people around the world are pushing through our borders to have your opportunity. You have dreams of marriage and children. You are looking to spread your wings a little. Your own apartment will probably come soon and maybe your own set of wheels comes shortly after. You may start your own company. Many of you have been told to come to church and now, you’ll make your mind up on religion and church for yourself.
Unlike you, Luke was born in Afghanistan. He was under the communist government of Russia when he started school. He was in the fourth grade when the mujahedeen came to rule his nation. Then when he was in the seventh grade, the Taliban took over. Finally, he was in the tenth grade with the United States installed a democratic government after the dreadful day of 9/11. Luke was told communism meant “justice” under the Soviets but he was told communism meant infidel when the Soviets left. He was a pinball in the world of lies and men grasping for power.
The Old Testament figure Daniel could relate to our friend, Luke. Daniel was a little younger than you graduating seniors when his world fell apart. He was full of dreams and hoped for a great future. He was born into a nation controlled by Israel before his nation was conquered by Babylon and then he found himself in the Medo-Persian empire as they conquered Babylon! Daniel woke up every day wondering what flag to salute! When Daniel was around fifteen years old, he was ripped from around Jerusalem and forced to go to modern-day Iraq. He would sympathize with teenagers from Afghanistan today quickly and easily. The invading army would search for the best looking, the smartest, socially well-to-do, the crème-de-la-crème, the first round draft picks, or the five-star recruits. Daniel went from president of his class to licking the boots of a hated foreign dictator. Babylon was a city bigger, stronger, and shinier than anything the Hebrew boys had ever seen. In all, it was a 680-mile-long journey from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Find Daniel 7 with me if you will.
This time of year, graduations are filled with commencement speakers. Some are boring and some are memorable. What if Daniel of the Bible was chosen to speak at your commencement? Daniel would tell you to navigate your world with care. Take from one whose entire world collapsed on him. Don’t be one to say, “That will never happen to me.” Be sure you don’t have a false sense of confidence because you’re a citizen of the world’s superpower. More than anything, if Daniel were here in front of you today, he would want you to know that God controls the world and your world.
1. Daniel Has a Dream
“In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter.” (Daniel 7:1).
1.1 Dreams
Daniel has these visions, really wild visions. It’s hard to know what to make of our dreams. I discover that I often dream about the items that are stressing me when I’m awake. Our friend Daniel had a dream. Daniel’s dreams were different. Why? Because Daniel’s dream come true. Daniel’s dreams were given to him by God to tell Him what was about to happen. God controlled Daniel’s dreams in order to communicate to Daniel what was about to happen on the world’s stage.
1.2 Prophecy
Studying Daniel is important. If you want to have any real chance of understanding the book of Revelation, you’ll need to study Daniel. John in Revelation picks up where Daniel leaves off. Now, people who are unfamiliar with the Bible often think this part reads like science-fiction ?. Daniel’s visions are a part of Bible prophecy where God predicts the future. The prophet Isaiah says God declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). President James A. Garfield once said that history is “the unrolled scroll of prophecy.” The Bible tells us that God has a perfect “crystal ball.” Only God can write history before it happens.
1.2.1 The NCAA Tourney
My oldest son, Miles, sent out a group text to the family a few weeks ago at the start of the NCAA tournament. He wanted all of us to fill out a bracket. It’s where people guess who will win the tourney games and you tally up the score to see who did the best at the end. Again, Miles texts us all and says, “Let’s all do one and see who wins.” I text back, “Have you met our family?” Miles and I are the only two in the family who will follow basketball. In the end, only three of our family filled out a bracket. Only three of us completed the bracket to predict the future – Miles, his sister, Macaul, and me. My daughter couldn’t tell you if they are still using a peach basket or if Larry Bird is still lacing them up in Boston! So we complete the brackets, and the ESPN website calculates who is ahead. Now, the first couple of days, I was ahead. I was humble about it. Yet, by the end of the second weekend, it was obvious – painfully obvious. My daughter was going to win. In the end, my daughter more than doubled my score and blew her brother away. Now, she doesn’t know the first thing about college basketball. She may have picked the teams based on their mascot or the cheerleaders, for all I know. My point is that it is really, really hard to predict the future.
1.2.2 Good Judgement Project
In an interesting experiment during the 1990s, a University of Pennsylvania professor gathered two distinct groups of people together: hundreds of experts on one hand and “ordinary” people, though extremely well-read people, on the other. He asked them to try to predict global questions of significance: What will happen to the stock market in the next year? What kind of impact of Middle Eastern politics on oil prices are we going to see in the next six months? What will happen in North Korean politics? Known as the “Good Judgment Project,” this experiment showed the predictions of “ordinary” people have often performed better than “the experts.” Sometimes these “ordinary but well-read people” were better than intelligence officers who have access to classified data. It’s really hard to predict the future, isn’t it? Again, God loves to predict the future and the Bible is full of such instances. Now, Daniel is chocked full of predictions. God writes down predictions so you would know that only God is in control of our futures and only God can write history before it happens.
1.3 Daniel 7 Overview
Take note in verse 1 that we have skipped back in time.
Chronology of the Visions in Daniel 7–12
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapters 10–12
1st Vision
2nd Vision
3rd Vision
4th Vision
First Year of Belshazzar
Third Year of Belshazzar
First Year of Darius
Third Year of Cyrus
553 BC
550 BC
539–538 BC
536–535 BC
Like our friend, Luke in Afghanistan, Daniel is a pinball in the world’s arcade as he bounces around as one empire after another takes him captive. Again, we are told “Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed” back in Daniel 5:31 following the famous handwriting on the wall incident, it’s obvious Daniel has skipped back in time for chapter 7. In fact, we know from verse 1 that the year 553 BC.
1.4 Symbols in Daniel’s Dream
His dream is loaded with symbols like your typical family car might be loaded down for a family vacation. Here’s a clue to the whole vision in verse 17: “These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth” (Daniel 7:17). The inexplicable beasts we just read about are really empires. Even today, the eagle and the bear have been used as symbols for the U.S. and Russia. Aren’t you thankful that Founding Fathers rejected Benjamin Franklin’s suggestion that our nation is represented by a turkey? What you see in verses 1-7 is a sweep of successive world empires, starting with Babylon and ending with the Roman Empire. Now, I’d love nothing more than to impress you with my ability to tell you exactly what every piece of symbolism means in these verses. But I’m not here to make you experts on world diplomacy five centuries before Christ. Again, this is a vision given to Daniel from God Himself.
1.5 Prophecy After the Fact
The predictions in the second half of Daniel are so good that some people think that this part of Daniel was written hundreds of years after the first part of Daniel. That is, some people think like this, “There’s no way anyone could predict the future this well. So someone came along centuries after Daniel and then wrote history as if they were predicting it.” Imagine if you sat down this afternoon and wrote a mysterious prophecy about an upstart fledgling nation that struggled to pay its soldiers, beating a world superpower. You’d be writing about the American Revolution and how the American forces defeated the British when few thought they could. Then what if you cast your narrative as if you were made a prediction hundreds of years before the American Revolution took place. This is just the kind of dishonest thing some people accuse Daniel of doing.
1. Daniel Has a Dream
2. The World’s Empires are Dogs on a Leash
“As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time” (Daniel 7:12).
At each step along the way, an Invisible Hand prevented these empires from complete autonomous power. God wants you to know that all the world’s dictators are nothing more than dogs on a leash. None of the world empires are able to run independently: “As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time” (Daniel 7:12).
They are dogs on a leash. He walks them around the block at His whim. All through Daniel’s vision, God Himself lurks in the background granting powers to all these empires and rulers. Not one of them is totally free from His leash. If this is true of the Persians, the Greeks, and the Babylonians, surely it is equally true of the Chinese, the Russians, and, dare I say it, even the Americans. Daniel was written so you would believe in the all-controlling, sovereign hand of God: “He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings;” (Daniel 2:21a). If you are a graduating senior or if you are a senior adult, one of the biggest lessons we can learn is to trust in our Almighty Heavenly Father.
2.2 We Question Why
One part of us wants to know why He allows such despots to exist, much less reign. But the bigger part of us knows to trust His divine mind and find comfort that He guides the political empires of this world. Where we would be if Putin were allowed to run free! I question “why” all the time but the Bible tells us that God has a plan. We must trust Him.
2.3 Beast #4 – Like Nothing Else
Focus your attention for a moment on the most frightening beast: “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns” (Daniel 7:7).
The fourth and final beast comes now into focus. He is terrifying and dreadful. The fourth beast was THE most terrifying of all. It is not even compared to a known animal. Daniel says only that it had large iron teeth and ten horns. It crushed and devoured its victims and trampled everything underfoot. Now, it’s likely this fourth empire is the Roman Empire. From the Battle of Carthage in 241 BC to well past the time of Christ, Rome was a superpower like no other in the ancient world.
2.4 The Antichrist
Daniel says he studied and considered the horns (Daniel 7:8). Another horn emerged right from where the other horns sat and three horns were plucked up roots and all. The last horn had human-like eyes as well as “and a mouth speaking great things” (Daniel 7:8b). This is likely a picture of the antichrist: “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18). The Bible is really clear that men arise who hate Christ. But there is one coming who will be Satan’s Superman. The Bible calls on God’s people to have wisdom and discernment.
2.5 Antichrist Destroyed
Right in the middle of all this vision, Daniel does something remarkable. While the vision is going on, Daniel approaches someone and asks, “What is the meaning of all this” (verse 16)?
Daniel was told that even this fourth deadly empire is judged: “Thus he said: ‘As for the fourth beast,
there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth,
which shall be different from all the kingdoms,
and it shall devour the whole earth,
and trample it down, and break it to pieces.
24 As for the ten horns,
out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise,
and another shall arise after them;
he shall be different from the former ones,
and shall put down three kings.
25 He shall speak words against the Most High,
and shall wear out the saints of the Most High,
and shall think to change the times and the law;
and they shall be given into his hand
for a time, times, and half a time.
26 But the court shall sit in judgment,
and his dominion shall be taken away,
to be consumed and destroyed to the end” (Daniel 7:23-26).
Note that the Antichrist is coming after God’s people: “He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High…” (Daniel 7:25a).
Yet, surely Nero, Domitian, and Caesar of Rome will face certain destruction. Surely the Stalins, the Hitlers, the Putins, and even the evil Presidents of this world will be judged by the Ancient of Days. God will throw the gas chambers of Germany, the killing fields of Cambodia, the swords of ISIS, and the judges’ gavels that protected the killing of children into the river of fire. We should never be cynical, thinking this world is random and it makes no difference what we do, think, or say. There is One over us and above us that will bring all of us to a fitting end one day. Don’t give way to cynicism! Don’t give way to fear!
2.6 Daniel’s Reaction & Our Reaction
It is essential for us to notice that the focus of Daniel 7 is not on the monsters themselves. Even Daniel struggles with this. Daniel doesn’t simply report his dreams as someone delivering the nightly news. When he contemplates this very dream, Daniel says this: “As for me, Daniel, my thoughts greatly alarmed me, and my color changed, but I kept the matter in my heart” (Daniel 7:28b). One another time, Daniel says a dream impacted him so greatly that he was overcome and lay sick for days. He was appalled by the visions and did not always understand the visions (Daniel 8:27). Still another time, the king told Daniel to “Calm down. Don’t be dismayed” (Daniel 4:19). The visions would alarm Daniel and shake him emotionally. In fact, right in the middle of this vision, Daniel says, “my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me” (Daniel 7:15b). The purpose of the vision is not to give us nightmares but to calm our nightmares.
1. Daniel Has a Dream
2. The World’s Empires are Dogs on a Leash
3. The Ancient of Days Reigns Forever
“And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:14).
3.1 Sitting on a Throne
All the confusion and noise are behind us now as we turn to verse 14. Now all is calm and orderly. Thrones (plural) were set up in heaven, and the Ancient of Days took His seat on His throne (singular). The Ancient of Days is God Himself. The Ancient of Days wears a garment that is “white as snow.” Ultimate power is not centered in Washington, D.C., or London or Beijing, or Moscow. Ultimate power lies in the hands of God.
John saw something verse similar while exiled to the isle of Patmos 600 years later: “The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. … 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:14-16, 17-18).
Daniel witnessed One sitting whose hair was white like wool. This One was eternal. This Empire was not a “come and go” but a “here to stay” empire. Daniel says Ten thousand times, ten thousand worshiped him (verse 10). Daniel felt like he was alone in the lion’s den, but now he sees God’s people are never alone. An army of holy angels wait to serve our Lord day and night.
3.2 The Second Coming of Jesus Christ
Daniel is given a remarkable preview beginning in verse 13: 13 “I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
14 And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13-14).
Five hundred years before Jesus shows up the first time, Daniel is given a glimpse of Jesus’ Second Coming. The Bible says Jesus will return to earth personally one day in our future. He will end history. He will raise the dead, reward the faithful, condemn the wicked, and destroy God’s enemies. Don’t give way to cynicism! Don’t give way to fear! This is your future and our future.
3.3 The Books Were Opened
The court convened, the books were opened, and the beasts were judged (verse 10): “A stream of fire issued and came out from before him;
a thousand thousands served him,
and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;
the court sat in judgment,
and the books were opened” (Daniel 7:10).
The Bible says the court was seated and the books were opened (verse 10). The Bible continually talks about God’s books. It’s as if Heaven itself will have a library. Daniel sees the very throne of God in his vision and sees books opened. God is keeping books. God has a record. God has written down every deed, every thought, and every word—every word. There’s a camera right here taking a picture of me. There’s a microphone, and what I am saying is being recorded, and it can be played back and be heard later on. I am telling you, my friend, just as surely, what you are thinking at this very moment is being recorded. Did you know that?
I mean, what you’re thinking this very moment—every thought that you have right now, God is recording—every word that you speak. Every filthy thing you ever said, every lie you ever told, every lustful thought you ever had, every dishonest deed you’ve ever done, every proud act — all of it is recorded with a pen of iron, and rocks of lead, and letters of flame. I want to tell you, my friend, that God is keeping the record. What will eternity say about you when the books are opened?
