Daniel 08: Visions of Victory

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today, daniel,
chapter 8, and today's title isVisions of Victory Visions of
Victory.
We're going to continue thisjourney through the second half
of the book of Daniel, where heis having this wonderful
opportunity to see the future,in a way, of things that hadn't

(00:22):
happened yet in his timeline buthave now, but then all the way
into things that haven't evenhappened yet, and this was over
2,500 years ago when God gavehim this vision.
So we're going to get all thatin just a moment.
But if you want to go and getyour Bibles out Daniel, chapter
8, get your coffee ready,whatever it is you're doing
right now.
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(00:43):
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(01:05):
just adding these devotions justto enrich our life and our
pursuit of God together.
And, as always, the more we dig, the more we find.
Well, once again, if you'vebeen joining us for the past
little while, you know this.
But if not, the overall focus ofthe book of Daniel is God is in
control and, if you remember,the nation of Israel has been

(01:26):
destroyed as far as in theirhomeland we had.
The Babylonians came in,destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed
the temple, and the people havebeen just exiled all over the
known world.
And Daniel was a few of thepeople who had been exiled to
the capital of Babylon and hewas put through kind of the
Harvard of Babylon at the timeand he is now in leadership.

(01:48):
But he is writing this book,this letter, to the different
people all over the Jewishpeople all over the known world,
to remind them that God is incontrol.
And so for the first sixchapters, he is sharing the
stories of his life and how Godwas in control, no matter what,
if you remember the three Hebrewteenagers that went through the

(02:08):
fire and God was with them.
And then you look at the dreamthat God gave Nebuchadnezzar and
was sharing with him that God'sin control.
And then you had Daniel in thelion's den.
Just all these differentreminders.
God is in control.
Well, now he is going to pivot,as he did starting in the last
chapter yesterday, and that is,he is now saying that God isn't

(02:29):
just in control of right now,but he is in control of always.
And so he is getting theseseries of visions and then God
is giving him theinterpretations as well.
And it's amazing, because that'swhy we call this the Revelation
, the book of Revelation for theOld Testament so much of the
book of Revelation in the NewTestament is taken from books

(02:51):
like Daniel, ezekiel, isaiah,stuff like that, and so, as we
are reading through this,remember these are things that
haven't happened yet, and thenarrative type of literature,
rather literature genre, haschanged.
Narrative type of literature,rather literature genre, has
changed.
The first seven chapters wouldhave been or, excuse me, first
six chapters would have beenhistorical narrative, so there's
telling what happened.

(03:11):
This last section, the secondsection, is apocalyptic
literature, so along the linesof Isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel,
all of those where many symbolswould be used to describe future
events, and I love that becauseyou think of the wisdom
attached to it that there'sprobably things where many
symbols would be used todescribe future events.
And I love that, because youthink of the wisdom attached to
it that there's probably thingsthat Daniel saw that he would

(03:32):
have no idea how to describebecause it hadn't been invented
yet, and so God would show it tohim in symbols and things that
he could get his head around sothat he could describe them.
And so it's amazing to see howGod has this wonderful way of
describing things that'suniversal, that can be
understood to a point throughouttime.

(03:52):
And so let's read this togetherDaniel, chapter 8, and just see
how God does this as we look atvisions of future victory, you
ready.
Daniel 8, verse 1, says this orvictory, you ready.
Daniel 8, verse 1, says thisand during the third year of
King Belshazzar's reign, I,daniel, saw another vision,

(04:14):
which, by the way, pause realquick.
Remember, belshazzar was theguy who was alive when, you know
, the freaky hand you knowshowed up and mine, mine, tekel,
farsen.
So some of these visionshappened throughout the life of
Daniel, and so he's writing downwhat he saw, so we're going to
make sure we understand thesedidn't all happen like over the
course of a weekend.
This was a process of visionsthat Daniel had, so let's try it
again.
Verse eight or, excuse me, verseone of chapter eight, says

(04:35):
during the third year of KingBelshazzar's reign, I, daniel,
saw another vision, followingthe one that had already
appeared to me.
In the vision, I saw thefortress of Susa, that's, the
capital of Babylon, in theprovince of Elam, standing
beside the Uliah River.
As I looked up, I saw a ramwith two long horns standing

(04:56):
beside the river.
One of the horns was longerthan the other, even though it
had grown later than the otherone.
The ram butted everything outof his way to the west, to the
north, to the south, and no onecould stand against him or help
his victims.
He did as he pleased and becamevery great.
While I was watching, suddenlya male goat appeared from the

(05:20):
west, crossing the land soswiftly that he didn't even
touch the ground.
This goat, which had one verylarge horn between its eyes,
headed toward the two-horned ramthat I had seen standing beside
the river, rushing at him inrage, the goat charged furiously
at the ram and struck him,breaking off both his horns.

(05:41):
Now the ram was helpless, andthe goat knocked.
He said.

(06:05):
Then, from one of the prominenthorns came a small horn whose
power grew very great.
It extended toward the southand the east, toward the
glorious land of Israel.
Its power reached to theheavens, where it attacked the
heavenly army, throwing some ofthe heavenly beings and some of
the stars to the ground andtrampling them.
It even challenged thecommander of heaven's armies by

(06:29):
canceling the daily sacrificesoffered to him and by destroying
his temple.
The army of heaven wasrestrained from responding to
this rebellion, so the dailysacrifice was halted and truth
was overthrown.
The horn succeeded ineverything it did.

(06:50):
I heard two holy ones talking toeach other.
One of them asked how long willthe events of this vision last?
How long would the rebellionthat causes desecration stop the
daily sacrifices?
How long will the temple ofheaven's army be trampled on?
The other replied it will take2,300 evenings and mornings.

(07:10):
Then the temple will be maderight again.
As I, daniel, was standingtrying to understand the meaning
of this vision, someone wholooked like a man stood in front
of me and I heard the humanvoice calling out from the Ula
River Gabriel tell this man themeaning of this vision.
As Gabriel which, by the way,is an angel approached the place

(07:33):
where I was standing.
I became so terrified that Ifell with my face to the ground.
Son of man, he said you mustunderstand the events you have
seen in your vision that relateto the end of time.
While he was speaking, Ifainted and lay there with my
face to the ground, but Gabrielrose, aroused me and touched me

(07:57):
and helped me to my feet.
And then he said I am here totell you what will happen later
in the time of wrath.
What you have seen pertains tothe very end of time.
The two horned rams representthe kings of Media and Persia by
the way, those were the twokingdoms that were about to take
over.
The shaggy male goat representsthe king of Greece and the

(08:19):
large horn between his eyesrepresents the first king of the
Greek empire.
The four prominent horns thatreplace the one large horn show
that the Greek empire will breakinto four kingdoms, but none as
great as the first.
At the end of their rule, whentheir sin is at its height, a
fierce king, master of intrigue,will rise to power.

(08:40):
He will become very strong, butnot by his own power.
He will cause a shocking amountof destruction and succeed in
everything he does, he willdestroy powerful leaders and
devastate the holy people.
He will be a master ofdeception and will become
arrogant, and he will destroymany without warning.
He will even take on the princeof princes in battle, but he

(09:02):
will be broken, though not byhuman power.
This vision about the 2,300evenings and mornings is true,
but none of these things willhappen for a long time.
So keep the vision secret.
Then I, daniel, was overcomeand lay sick for several days.
Afterward I got up andperformed my duties to the king,

(09:24):
but I was greatly troubled bythe vision and could not
understand it, to which some ofus are going.
Yeah, me too.
What in the world does thishave to do with anything?
Well, once again, remember,that's the overall idea of
apocalyptic literature.
It is veiled with various layersof meaning.

(09:44):
So, as people have studied thisover the years, one of the
primary meanings here is, if younotice, it mentions the Medes
and Persians.
It mentions the Greek kind ofcity-states, the different
kingdoms, and then it mentionedthat there would be one king who
would try to take over but thenfail, and so there are some
scholars who believe that, eventhough there's no way, daniel,

(10:05):
of course, would have known this.
It was given to him by theSpirit of God.
It shared what was in theimmediate future, which is the
Medes and Persians were going totake over.
Then the Greek city-stateswould start to happen, but then
they would all come togetherunder Alexander the Great, who
would try to take over the worldand come pretty close to doing
it, but then be devastated, thenbe defeated.

(10:28):
Now the second layer is thatsome think that this comes
around to the end of time andthat this great leader
represents the Antichrist, andso there's a lot of different
layers to this.
But what I want to do is I wantto kind of lean back on this a
little bit and get back to thetitle of our chapter today, and
that is Visions of Victory, andthat is to understand that all

(10:52):
the things that happen inhistory are not a surprise to
God, that God knows what's goingto happen in history, and the
thing is is it said that at onepoint, these different people
were going to try to take on theLord, but the Lord was going to
be victorious, and that shouldbe a great comfort to all of us,
because when we see thingshappening in our world, if we're

(11:16):
honest, there's parts of usthat go I don't know how we're
going to get through this.
I don't know what's going tohappen.
I didn't expect this to go thisway.
How are we going to survivethis?
All these different things?
You know, as one famous scholaronce said, I'll never
financially recover from this.
If you know the reference,there you go.

(11:38):
But the reality is is that noneof the things that happen in
history are a surprise to God.
God knows, god sees, and God isalready victorious.
And so, whereas Daniel saysthat when he got up from this,
he lay sick for several daysbecause he did not understand
what it meant, the one thingthat he does understand that it
means and we're going to seethis in the coming chapters is

(11:59):
that there is a war that wedon't see.
There is a war in the spiritualrealm that our eyes are not
attuned to see, but it'shappening all around us, and
it's happening now.
It happened then and it willhappen into the future, but the
great thing is that we don'treally have a word for what it
is, because war is not the rightword, because war seems to

(12:20):
indicate that there's a battleand we don't know who's going to
win.
The reality is that God hasalready been victorious.
He is just laying out forDaniel what it's going to look
like and how he is going toultimately win.
So can I tell you how thatbrings all the way back down to
our life, that in our life we'regoing to have battles, in our

(12:40):
life there's going to bedifficulties.
And can I go ahead and justmake you a guarantee, there are
going to be moments when you'renot going to understand what's
going on.
I am positive.
There's going to be momentswhen you're just not going to
have a clue.
Well, pastor, I wish you'd bemore positive.
Okay, I am positive that'sgoing to happen, but the reality
is, none of that shakes God.

(13:02):
He already knows, he's alreadygot a plan and he's already
victorious in your life.
And so can I even say right nowmaybe right now you're going
through a season that you justdon't understand God.
I have no idea why you're doingit this way, and if you were
very honest, you would say God,it looks like you're not winning
.
But can I tell you, justbecause it doesn't look that way

(13:23):
doesn't mean it's true, god'swinning, he's already won.
And what we see in this chapteris, no matter how big the enemy
looks, he cannot overcome theLord, and the same is true in
your life.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much fortoday.
Thank you, god, that you arewith us and you are for us, and
thank you, God, that you alreadysee the end from the beginning

(13:44):
and you've already declaredvictory.
God, there's times in our liveswhen it doesn't seem that way,
if we're honest.
There's times when we have noidea what you're doing.
But, god, we're thankful thatknowing what you're doing and
trusting you don't have tocoexist.
We can trust you and not know.
Because we trust that you doand you always lead us in the

(14:05):
right direction.
I pray you will help us to seeour lives and to see our future
as assured victory.
You already have won andbecause of that we can face
every tomorrow.
We're thankful for that.
Today, in Jesus name, we prayAmen, amen.
Well, god's word says youremember?
Three Hebrew teenagers saidthis to the most powerful person
in the world at the time.

(14:25):
They said in Daniel three Godis able to save us, but even if
he doesn't, we will never serveyour gods.
My prayer is that you will havethat kind of courage to look in
the face of every enemy and sayGod is in control, I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow.
For Daniel, chapter 9.