The Old And New Testament Antichrists Series

Donald Campbell, a former president of Dallas Seminary while I was there, once met a retired colonel from the U.S. military who was a dedicated believer. The retired colonel told about he and other members of the military during the Cold War had practiced mock war-games. They had assumed that at some point a war would break out between the Arabs and Israel that would turn into a nuclear conflict. And that very soon the United States and the Soviet Union would be pulled into the conflict. And as the scenario played out in nuclear war some decades ago, the result would have been 55 million Americans killed in the U.S. alone. He was so shaken by his first-hand participation in a not unlikely scenario that he became all the more dedicated to telling everyone he knew about Jesus Christ before this Nuclear Armageddon might possibly occur.

His experience is not unlike that of the prophet Daniel in Daniel 8. As we mentioned last week, we are now in the apocalyptic section of Daniel, which spans Daniel chapters 7-12 and contains a description of four dreams and visions Daniel had about the future of the world. The vision of Daniel chapter 8 was so graphic, so dramatic, and so terrible that Daniel confesses at the end of the chapter that it left him exhausted and sick for many days because he was so astounded at what he had seen.

So what had he seen? Well, in Daniel 7 he had seen a vision of what on Earth is going to happen. In Daniel 8 we could add two words to that—What on Earth is Going to Happen to Israel. The Focus in Daniel 2-7 had been worldwide events that involved the dominant Gentile nations of that time and at the end of time. The focus now turns from the Gentile nations of the world to what happens to Israel during the times of the Gentiles. The Times of the Gentiles is something Christ Himself referred to in Luke 21:24 as a way of describing the time during which Gentile nations, rather than Israel, would be dominant upon the earth and during which Israel would at various times be “trampled underfoot” by the Gentiles. And of course, what he saw regarding his nation Israel’s future during this long period of Gentile dominance was not a pretty picture. And if there’s a lesson that we as mostly Gentile believers can learn from this chapter it’s this. Take sin seriously—unrepentant sin inevitably results in unrelenting judgment. Such has been and will yet be for a time, until the Kingdom comes, the experience of God’s chosen nation, Israel.

The setting in which the vision takes place is Babylon, the third year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Babylon’s final king, about 12 years before Babylon’s defeat by the Medes and the Persians. It’s about 551 B.C. when Daniel has this vision. And in the vision he finds himself in the fortress city of Susa, in the province of Elam, next to a canal. Now you’ve got to wonder why God chooses a different venue for this vision other than Babylon, where Daniel resided. It’s because the center of Gentile power and domination is about to change. It’s no longer going to be in Babylon. Power is now about to be transferred to what will in about 50 years become the fortress city and capital of the Media-Persian Empire, Susa, which was located about 230 miles due east of Babylon. It was located in the province of Elam, an ancient nation, located in the western portion of modern-day Iran, just west of ancient Persia. It was there that the kings of Media-Persia would rebuild Susa, which at the time of this vision was largely in ruins, so that it would become the seat of power in their kingdom, the place from which their kings would rule. We find Susa mentioned in Nehemiah 1, as Nehemiah, the Jew, was the cupbearer to the Media-Persian King Artaxerxes, and it is mentioned numerous times in the Book of Esther, for Esther, as that book tells us, as a Jewess, became the queen of Persian King Ahasuerus. Both Nehemiah and Esther were used greatly to rescue the Jews in times of their distress due to their proximity to the ultimate authority of the Medo-Persian Kings in Susa.

And beginning with this chapter there’s a switch in the original language in which Daniel was written. From chapter 2:4 through chapter 7 Daniel had been written in Aramaic, rather than Hebrew. Aramaic was the standard language of commerce in the Babylonian Empire at this time, and Daniel 2-7 was written as much for the Gentiles, and all men, as it was for the Jews, as the stories and vision focused on bringing Gentiles to fear the God of Daniel, and the visions and dreams accurately foretold Gentile history. Now as the focus of chapters 8-12 becomes Jewish history, the book is written in Hebrew, because its contents would be of primary interest to the Jews.