Your High School Commencement Speaker Series

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.