Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - A Look Into the Future | The Writings | Daniel 8

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Are you anxious about the future? Do you worry about the election or about where your country is heading? What should you do with your fear? In today's episode, Patrick finds encouragement in Daniel 8 as he shares about God's control over everything that happens. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Daniel 8

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Have you ever said this is the most important election of our lifetime? Or even that this is the most important election of history? Well, if you haven't said it, I promise others have. You hear it during almost every major election cycle. I've heard it so much, I've started to wonder whether people are losing their memories or at least losing their minds.

But of course they aren't. This is just an old political ploy used to ramp up anxiety about the future. Politicians and pundits know that the more anxious they are, the more likely they are to drum up votes and get more views on their cable shows. I'm not at all surprised that these tactics work year after year, election after election, because they prey on our most basic human emotion, fear. We are quite literally designed to be afraid and for good reason. You see, it's good to be afraid of heights. If you aren't, you might fall and die. It's good to be afraid of fire because if you touch it, you might get burned.

It's good to be afraid of things that really are threats to your life or your limbs. But fear is also very easy to hijack. And because we humans have the ability to think about the future and to even plan for the future, it's no surprise that we are also able to fear about the future. Politicians and journalists know it. And they know that the more afraid you are, the better off they are. So the question should be, what about Chris? Christians? Are we afraid about the future? I ask because we claim to worship a king who claims to know

what the future holds. He says that in the present, he reigns in heaven, and one day he will return to reign on heaven and earth. He will resurrect the dead and bring us into eternal bliss. So surely we aren't afraid about the future, right? Surely politicians can't work us up. Surely media pundits don't make our cortisol level spike. Surely journalists can't make us anxious? Well, of course they can. This is why we need Daniel chapter 8. On the surface, it's an easy chapter to ignore, because it's all about Persian and Greek history, and it's all told using apocalyptic imagery, so it's both historical and weird. But here's why we need it, because Daniel received a vision about the future. God showed Daniel what would happen nearly two centuries before

it took place, and what took place was unpredictable and terrified. And so this was God's way of telling Daniel and all of his future readers that he saw the future. He holds the future in his hands. And as bad as things get, they need to know, he saw it coming and he will see them through. So they have nothing to worry about. That's why we need Daniel 8 today. Because when we realize that God has already predicted the future and controlled the future, we can be confident that the same still applies today. No election is the most important because no election is of ultimate importance. No nation is of ultimate importance. You can put anyone in the Oval Office or Buckingham Palace,

and none of it matters because they're all under the throne of King Jesus, who knows the future and commands the future. Just check this out. I'll read through the vision of Daniel 8. This is a vision that Daniel had before 520 BC, and it tells about events that took place between 335 and 335 and 168 BC, so about two to 400 years after his lifetime. Daniel 8.3. I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of a canal.

It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westward, and northward, and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. pause again apocalyptic imagery here the ram is the persian empire and its two horns represent two groups who ruled over it at different times and at some points consecutively the persians and the medes here's the key daniel predicted that they would rise to power before they actually did and like he said their empire turned out to be one of the largest and longest lasting in human history let's continue

to verse five as i was considering behold a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth without touching the ground and the goat had a conspicuous horn between its eyes. He came to the ram with the two horns which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal and he, this is the goat, ran at him the ram in his powerful wrath. I saw him come close to the ram and he was enraged against him and he struck the ram and broke his two horns. and the ram had no power to stand before him, but the goat cast him down to the ground and trampled on him, and there was no one who could rescue the ram from the goat's power. Okay, so this levitating goat is the Greek Empire, and it was led by the Macedonian Alexander the Great.

200 years after Daniel, Alexander did the impossible and defeated the Persian Empire in a period of about 13 years. Alexander was unstoppable, but he died in early death. And this leads to verse 8, where Alexander is represented as one horn and will be replaced by multiples. Let's go. Verse 8. Then the goat became exceedingly great. But when he was strong, the great horn was broken. And instead of it, there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven. Again, Daniel is seeing the future. After Alexander died, the one horn, his kingdom was divided into four different kingdoms led by four different people. And those kingdoms turned out to be weaker kingdoms. Two of those kingdoms fought continually over the land of Israel.

One to the south was called the Talmaic Empire, and the other to the north was called the Salucid Empire. So, he'll talk about that now. Verse 9. Out of one of them grew a little horn. So he's describing one of the four horns, which grew exceedingly great towards the south. This is the Ptollmeic Empire, toward the east, and toward the glorious land. It grew great, even to the host of heaven. And some of the host of heaven of the stars, it threw down to the ground and trampled them. So Daniel is saying that the Ptolemaic Empire would be strong for a time over Israel, and then it would

eventually be defeated by the Salucate Empire. Historically, this is what happened when a ruler named Antiochus Epiphanes IV took charge. You see, he hated Jews, and he attempted to end the worship of Yahweh, and to do this, he slaughtered unclean animals on the altar in Jerusalem. Some of the Jewish people were scared enough of him that they went along with him, but others didn't, Daniel saw all of this four centuries before it happened. So now he's describing these idolatrous salutucids. It became great, even as great as the prince of the host, and the regular burnt offering was taken away from him, and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown. So this is

talking about what happened in the temple, where this Salucid ruler, Antioch's Epiphanes, ended the sacrifices. And a host will be given over to it with the regular burnt offering because of transgression, and it will throw truth to the ground and it will act and prosper. Daniel keeps going, but he wants us to know that there's good news. All of these terrible events that people will one day face, they will come to an end. And so Daniel asks the guy giving him the vision, how long this will last for, and he hears this answer. For 2,300 evenings and mornings, then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state. Now, I understand that you just heard a lot of names and historical information, and I don't expect you to remember it all. Instead, I want to impress upon you the experience, the experience of realizing that

Yahweh saw the future. And not just that, Yahweh controls the future. Yes, it's true. The empires and the powers of this world will run amok. But in the end, they are defeated. In the end, the world is restored. In Daniel 12, we learned that in the end, there is a resurrection. In Daniel 4 and 7, we are reminded that the kingdom of God crushes the kingdoms of this world. And God does that through self-sacrifice, through the self-sacrifice of a son of man who will die and rise and sit on God's throne and rule. That man is Jesus. You are not living through a moment so horrific that these truths become untrue.

I don't say that to minimize the horror of injustice, suffering, or pain, but I do say it to relativize everything. Jesus is on the throne. He controls the future. What do you have to worry about? Nothing, nothing at all.