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Good morning to you all, and it's a very great pleasure to see you here. Thank you very much for coming, for coming along to encourage us, one another, in the serious study of the Word of God. It is, of course, a good thing to study scripture privately and by oneself. I find it is always an encouragement when others are prepared to join me and to think together, each contributing what each has to contribute. So thank you very much for coming, and let me personally say, in addition to what Mr. Dorman has said, let me personally thank those that have volunteered, if that's the right word, to, uh, conduct the discussion groups.
The success and profit of these sessions are very much dependent upon the profitable and efficient running of the study groups and the question times, and I am very grateful to you for being prepared to come along and to work in this fashion. As in previous years, and as you have heard Mr. Dornan say just now, this, the question session is designed, first of all, simply to make sure that people have understood what I have been saying in the preceding talk. Not to make sure that they have agreed with what I have been saying in the preceding talk, but merely that they should, um, have understood.
For if they're going to disagree with what I've said, it's a wise thing, first of all, to have understood what I've said, and then you can disagree all the more effectively. But when that has been covered, there is, of course, uh, freedom, uh, to, uh, go on to consider other things, and this year particularly, leaders of groups may well feel, uh, that they need to supplement what I have said in the talks by other information that they can give. You will find that in the talks that my approach to Daniel may be some of you leaders who will come to the conclusion that what I have said in the talks has left very much to be desired, and therefore do feel free to add, uh, the important things as you see them.
What I shall be attempt- what I shall be attempting to do in these talks is to study with you the book of Daniel. Of course, we shall be considering parts of the New Testament so that we shall get our guidelines right for the studying of this ancient book. But I shall not be attempting to integrate Daniel in some detailed fashion with, say, the book of the Revelation. Now, if in the study groups you feel that you would like to do that, please feel free to do that. I shall be myself concentrating on the book of Daniel, and I shall be concentrating on trying to look at Daniel as a whole.
Therefore, I may not be spending so much time on the strictly prophetic verses as you may think I ought to. And again, I say, if you feel I have been remiss here or inadequate, please, um, uh, supplement what I say in the discussions. This year, our choice of book i- is, uh, particularly useful from a practical point of view. For the study of the prophecy of Daniel will give us all a tremendous opportunity to exercise our Christian grace and love and tolerance one of another.
The study of prophecy, of course, is an exceedingly important thing. Because it is so important, however, sometimes, eh, believers have gone so far as to fall out about the sundry different interpretations of this book. As you will know, true Christian people who love the Lord in all sincerity and truth have come to widely different, uh, uh, conclusions as to the interpretation of some details of prophecy. And it is to be expected that in the course of these weeks, you will find that your neighbor or your leader or your friend will hold different views on different details of prophetic matters.
And that was, is going to give us surely an opportunity to show our Christian grace and our love and respect and tolerance one of another. Let us be frank in the things where we disagree. Let us be determined that that shall not spoil our Christian fellowship, but give us rather the occasion of patient loving one of another. On another occasion, maybe I shall say a word or two about books that could be helpful in our study of this prophet. If you have any books that you have felt are particularly helpful, I should be grateful if you would mention them to me.
Now let us begin our study by reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews and chapter eleven. Hebrews eleven verse thirty two reads as follows: And what shall I say more, for the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises. And now come two phrases that interest us in particular, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the power of fire.
And in those two phrases, you will see how our early Christian brothers and sisters encouraged themselves in the path of faith by the examples of the holy men of a past dispensation. The phrase stop the mouth of lions presumably refers to Daniel's experience when the Persians cast him in the lion's den. And the phrase quenched the power of the fire refers to the experience of the three Hebrew young men who were thrown by Nebuchadnezzar into the furnace of fire. And here is the writer to the Hebrews calling attention to these great spiritual exploits, that he might encourage his contemporaries and us as well to walk the pathway of faith in God as these early men walked.
Herein then is an indication that we too should regard the book of Daniel as a source of practical encouragement in the Christian pathway. But as we know, the book of Daniel has been one of those books most fiercely assailed by liberal criticism. And there are many today who would tell us that the prophecies of Daniel are not real prophecies, that the book itself was not written in the sixth century BC, it was written in the second century BC.
Its prophecies are not genuine prophecies at all. They were written after the events which they were pretending to predict. And the one little bit of prophecy that the book does attempt at the end of chapter eleven, say the liberal critics, alas, the author of the book got that bit completely wrong anyway, which is what is happens when people genuinely try to predict the future. Somehow or other, they manage, some of them, to believe that the book should still be in Holy Scripture. But their criticisms, though they will not occupy us much on these occasions, turn us to look again, do they not, to our authority for thinking that the book of Daniel is indeed the inspired word of God, and profitable and important for us as Christians and believers in Christ.
And our authority comes, of course, in the first place from our Lord himself and from the attitude which he showed us himself in his lifetime here on earth to this particular prophet. And I cite here now for you some of the, uh, references that our Lord Jesus made to the prophecy of Daniel. And shall we notice Matthew chapter twenty four first of all, where our Lord Jesus says in verse fifteen, Matthew twenty four fifteen, or rather, shall we begin to read in verse forty?
This gospel of the kingdom, said he, shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto the nations, and then shall the end come. When therefore you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, let him that readeth understand. Then let them that are in Judea flee unto the mountains. Verse twenty: and pray you that your flight shall not be in the winter, neither on a Sabbath, for then shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be.
And except those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened. Verse twenty seven: um for as the lightning cometh forth from the west, from the east, and is seen even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. I do not propose to stay long over these references, but shall we notice, first of all, the solemnity of the context in which our Lord quotes Daniel here? He is talking about the signs of the end of the age, a topic that is exceedingly solemn.
And in so doing, he refers to Daniel and refers to him, we notice, as Daniel the prophet. That is, we have it on our Lord's own authority that Daniel was a genuine prophet, not writing after the events and pretending to predict them, but genuinely prophesying. Secondly, we notice that our Lord indicates that Daniel's prophecy relates, in this particular, to a period of time that is still in the future. It is the liberal viewpoint that Daniel's prophecy really concerns the period one hundred and sixty seven to one hundred and sixty four BC.
Here is our Lord showing us quite clearly that, in his opinion, the prophecy of Daniel is not referring solely to that period, but is referring to a period that was yet future to our Lord when he was on earth, referring, in fact, to the end time, a period that is still future for us. We notice, thirdly, that our Lord indicates how careful we must be in the reading of Daniel the prophet. Let him that readeth understand, says he, a warning that we shall not necessarily find his prophecy too simple in places.
Well, then finally, let us notice from this passage how exceedingly practical the prophecy of Daniel will prove to be for people that shall be living in that end time. It is written for that practical end. It's not simply, therefore, a matter of building theories and systems of theology. Our Lord indicates that Daniel is of practical importance. Then let us turn over to the Gospel of Mark and chapter fourteen and verse sixty two.
Mark fourteen verse sixty two is the particular verse. Let's begin to read in verse sixty one. One. In the middle of the verse, Mark fourteen sixty one, again the high priest asked him and saith unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am. And you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. If our last passage was exceedingly solemn, this passage is infinitely more solemn.
For here, our blessed Lord Jesus stands before his judges on trial for his life. And as is understandable, his judges have come to what is the central issue that men and women have to face about Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And that is not merely, were his moral teachings correct? Was his ethical theory good? The central question that our blessed Lord raises as he confronts humanity is this: exactly who is Jesus Christ?
Is he a mere man? Is he merely an ingenious and shrewd prophet, or is he more? Is he a visitor from another world? Is he God incarnate? Here then, at this crucial point in the trial and in the history of the world, Israel's official leader puts the question straight to him, are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And in absolutely unambiguous terms, our Lord replies and identifies himself.
I am, says he. Then further to identify himself and his role in history, now he cites, will you notice, the prophecy of Daniel and chapter seven. In that prophecy, Daniel had seen in his vision the Gentile governments compared to a pack of wild beasts. And Daniel had seen how the Almighty has set up his throne, and the judgment proceeded from the books and the things written in the books. Then said Daniel, I saw how the beasts were taken and destroyed.
I saw further, I saw in the night visions, and there came one like unto a son of man, and he came in the clouds of heaven, and he came to the ancient of days, and the kingdom was given to him and to the saints. Notice our Lord, in replying to the high priest, says, you shall see the Son of Man. That is the well-known Son of Man, the Son of Man, of whom Daniel the prophet prophesied. Here then is our Lord's estimate of the prophecy of Daniel, and the prophecy of Daniel becomes for us, therefore, exceedingly important.
It is one of those ancient scriptures that helps us, by the Lord's guidance, to identify who Jesus Christ is. And we notice once more that our Lord not only identifies himself through this prophecy, but indicates that it refers to his second coming. You shall see the Son of Man not merely seated, but you shall see him coming with the clouds of heaven. For coming with the clouds of heaven is an indication in itself of deity. It points to that awesome day when the Lord Jesus shall come again, and every eye shall see him.
There is another, uh, symbol that is used by our Lord Jesus in the New Testament to identify himself, and we may look at that briefly by turning to the Gospel of Luke and chapter twenty. Luke twenty verses seventeen and eighteen. But he, that is the Lord Jesus, looked on them and said, What then is this that is written? The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner. Everyone that falleth on that stone shall be broken to pieces, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust.
Here then our Lord identifies himself with several Old Testament passages that speak of the stone. They are quoted in several parts of the New Testament. I merely wish to point out the various Old Testament scriptures to which he is referring on this occasion. He talks of himself as the stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner. He is referring to a prophecy taken from Psalm one hundred and eighteen and verse twenty two. This was a scripture that came to be much loved by the early apostles.
It was quoted, you remember, by the Apostle Peter and his colleague John as they stood before the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter four. When the Sanhedrin inquired by what power they had just achieved the miracle of healing the lame man. Peter replied, we did it in the name of Jesus, whom you crucified. And gentlemen, you are to know and to perceive that this Jesus, this is the stone which you, the temple builders, rejected. And God's reaction and reply to your rejection has been to take the stone which the builders rejected and make him the head of the corner.
Peter stood there rejoicing in the glorious fact of the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus Christ, our Lord. God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. But then our Lord says in verse eighteen that everyone that falleth on this stone shall be broken to pieces. Here he is quoting the prophet Isaiah chapter eight verses fourteen to fifteen. that indicated that when Messiah came, the nation would find him a scandal.
They would stumble over him. And in stumbling, many of them would perish. It is this fact that Peter refers to in one Peter chapter two, where God sets in Zion a chief cornerstone, but a stone also, says Peter, of offense, of stumbling. People trip over it. And therefore some of them come to petition. Now that is a solemn fact, but in one way it was comforting to the early Christians. For when the early Christians found that the majority of their Jewish fellow nationals did not accept the Lord Jesus, the thought might very well, uh, creep into their minds, well then, is Jesus after all the Messiah?
If the nation as a whole, its leading priests and officers reject Jesus and dispute his claim to be the Messiah, well, have we made a mistake? How can you believe in a Messiah that appears to be a failure, that is rejected by the nation and cast out? And then they found comfort in the prophecies of ancient scripture, and in Isaiah in particular, to which our Lord had called their attention, the prophets had said that the nation would stumble over the Messiah and in stumbling be broken. It is, of course, a practical reminder to us all.
Jesus Christ is very different from what people imagine him to be. When people discover what he's really like, it is not unusual that people find him offensive and stumble over him. But then thirdly, our Lord, uh, observed, verse eighteen, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust. Here our Lord is referring surely to Daniel chapter two verses thirty four and thirty five. Daniel is there explaining to Nebuchadnezzar the vision that God gave him of the kingdoms of this world in their sequence, and how at last there came a stone cut out without hands and fell upon the feet of the image and smashed it to powder, and the wind blew away the bits and the pieces.
It is surely a reference to our Lord's second coming. It is evident, I don't need to try and prove it, do I? It is evident that our Lord has not yet destroyed the Gentile governments of this world. One day, he will. He will take up his office that God has given him. He shall rule the nations with a rod of iron, and as the potter's vessels are broken to smithereen, so he will execute the judgments of God on the evil systems of this world.
So here then is our Lord's authority for us to take Daniel's prophecy exceedingly serious. It is not dealing with some remote matters that lie upon the remotest fringes of the Christian faith. It is dealing with things that are absolutely central to our faith and central to our preaching of the gospel. Who is Jesus Christ? Why has he been rejected? Is he indeed coming again? And what will he do? I should like, therefore, to say now a few brief words about the fact that this matter of our Lord's identity and his second coming lie at the heart of the Christian gospel, as we find the apostles expounding it in the New Testament.
Paul says in one Thessalonians chapter one and verse ten that the Thessalonians who had become Christians had had this experience. They had turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God and to wait for his son from heaven. I presume, therefore, that Paul, in the preaching of the gospel, had not only preached upon the person of the Lord Jesus, that he is indeed the Son of God, but among other things, Paul had preached to them the fact that Jesus Christ is coming again.
In those early days, the preaching of the second coming was an integral part of the preaching of the gospel. And not only the sheer fact of the second coming by itself, but look at what Paul says here in two Corinthians chapter two. He says, don't you remember when I was with you, says he writing to the Thessalonians, that I told you all about these things. And then Paul proceeds to describe that sinister figure, the man of sin, that shall arise at the end time preceding the coming of our Lord Jesus in power and great glory.
And all I want you to notice here is that in describing this sinister figure, Paul, uh, uses terms that are obviously similar to, if not based on, the prophecy of Daniel chapter eleven verses thirty six and thirty seven. So that both Daniel and Paul tell us that in the end time, the civilized world shall experience a vast outcrop of the deification of man.
For whatever reasons and for whatever motives we may consider on another occasion. But scripture is united in its testimony that you may expect civilized humanity to proceed in the direction of the deification of man. Here is Paul then, and I'm calling your attention to how similar his remarks are to what the prophecy of Daniel said long before him. Paul tells us, uh, that Paul says in writing these things to the Thessalonians, do you not realize that, do you not remember that when I was with you, I told you these things?
And perhaps your comment is, goodness me, I don't tell my converts such things like that. Wow, I leave that for the elders. I, when I get my converts, I teach them the important things of the gospel, John three sixteen, you'll see, and how Jesus Christ can satisfy. Well, that's very good. But you will perceive that Paul, when he was with his converts, and he was scarcely there more than a month, he told them not only about the need of conversion and faith in Christ, he told them all about the second coming of Christ. And if you please, just fancy that, the man of sin. When did you last talk to your converts about the man of sin, I wonder?
If you haven't done it recently, perhaps our study of Daniel will help us to keep a balance in our preaching of the gospel. We rightly stress the subjective side of the gospel, that Christ can satisfy your aches and your pains and your longings and your dissatisfactions. And therefore we rightly come along to our friends and we say, hello, my dear friend, you do look down in the mouth. Are you in the blues or something about the blues? And my friend says, oh yes, I have an aching void in my heart and nothing satisfies me. And we say, but the Lord Jesus can satisfy you, you are my friend, and make you feel real good.
And so he can, and what a message that is to preach. But suppose I come to my friend and I say, hello friend, and are you down in the dumps and you've got a big aching longing in your heart? Oh, get off too. Of course not. Oh, but Christ could satisfy you. I don't want satisfying. I'm satisfied already. Then what do you say? Well, you preach him a little Daniel, a little Acts of the Apostles, if you'd like, a little Thessalonians. You say, hello, old chap. You may not feel dissatisfied in your heart, but I tell you, you're living in somebody else's flat, you know. For you didn't make this world.
This world belongs to somebody else, and you're living as a squatter in somebody else's flat, and one day the owner is coming again. The Lord Jesus is coming to take over possession of this earth. It will be a happy day for you, if when he comes you are ready to receive him. If when he comes you are found to be his enemy and against him. Whether you're feeling happy or unhappy, if when he comes you are unprepared, it will be unqualified disaster.
And your friend is likely to say, but how do you know he's coming? How do you know it's not a lot of old fairy tales, Red Riding Hood stuff and the old wolf? How do you know it's real? And that gives us a chance, doesn't it, to preach the objective side of the Christian gospel. Mount Daniel has been regarded by many people, I say, as an unfortunate book, in that they say, uh, too much study of Daniel produces a lot of cranks. Ha. Too much concentration on the second Coming leads people to abandon life and go and sit on a hill somewhere and prophesy that the Second Coming is about to happen next Tuesday, or if not Tuesday, on Wednesday afternoon at four o'clock.
And they down tools and go and sit on a mountain somewhere and leave off their university studies because they think it's more important to get ready for the Lord's coming. It's un- been undeniably so, hasn't it? There have been cranks like that. Yes, and it's led to other kinds of unfortunate things where people have made all sorts of unwarrantable predictions. I remember in my youth how the study of prophecy came into great disrepute because certain leading Bible teachers in England and elsewhere taught that there never would be a second World War. Why not? Because prophecy indicated there wouldn't be one, and there was one.
And then a lot of people packed up reading prophecy altogether, understandably. I have in my case there a book written by a dear American lady. She tells us that she's come to the conclusion she's a prophet. She was writing somewhere about nineteen eighty one. She predicted that Anwar Sadat of Egypt, president of Egypt, would most likely be the man of sin. But then he died. Let us be warned not to start setting dates for the Lord's coming. Falling into the trap of assuring people that he'll be here next Thursday, next week, within so many years, and so forth.
But other people have said that Daniel's prophecy is, um, uh, unfortunate in another respect. It is what we call technically, so at least they said it is, apocalyptic. Let me just put on the term for your consideration. Oh, wrong way round. Don't you read upside down? No, backwards? No, you're all Europeans. Not voting for Sikorsky? We'll have it the right way round then. In the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, there is a delightful passage that describes the great age of peace and plenty for which all sane people long.
How can we be content with a world that teeters on the edge of atomic destruction? How can we be content with systems of politics that have for centuries filled the world with armies and with bloodshed? Every sensible person longs for the coming of an age of peace, if somehow it can be brought about. But there are people who say, but Daniel is a very disappointing book because of the way that it says that age shall be brought about. It says it shall be brought about by the, first of all, by the destruction of present world systems.
Daniel says that the present world systems are so evil that they cannot be improved and improved and improved until gradually they merge into the coming great age of peace. They are so evil that they will have to be destroyed at the second apocalyptic coming of Christ, and in their place, the Messianic kingdom, uh, set up. And so these critics say, but that is a very gloomy and pessimistic view. If that is so, does it not suggest that all human effort is finally in vain?
What is the use of trying to improve society, to improve our economic systems, to improve our political systems, and so forth? If in the end the whole thing is incorrigibly bad and will have to be destroyed, say they, if that is so, we might as well pack up business and economics and teaching and everything else and go and sit on the old mountain and wait for the second coming. And so they fall to disliking the, uh, prophecy of Daniel. Well, of course, it is perfectly true to say that in one sense Daniel is apocalyptic.
That is the view he holds. That the coming great age of peace will be introduced when the Lord Jesus comes, and first of all, he destroys the present political system, and then in their place he sets up the Messianic Kingdom. Now that is perfectly true. What I now want to stress is that the deductions our critical friends make from that is quite false. They say that if you hold that view, then that means that you would withdraw from life. You wouldn't be interested in trying to improve affairs for your fellow men and women.
You would withdraw from life, go and sit on your mountain and wait for the second coming. And that is horribly untrue. And obviously untrue to the facts as we see them in the book of Daniel. Daniel says his book served as a high-ranking civil servant in the civil service, first of all, of imperial Babylon, and then in the civil service of imperial Persia. Far from running away from life.
He lived an exceedingly full life and played his part in the running of the countries in which God had placed him. And that is very interesting because when Jerusalem was destroyed, Jeremiah tells us in chapters twenty eight and twenty nine, there were some false prophets in Jerusalem, and they s- told the Jews as follows. They said to you, don't worry, you're going into exile.
It'll all be over in two years, and they fixed the date, la la. Uh, it'll all be over in two years, so you'll soon be back again. Jeremiah had to stand up in the name of the Lord and said, it's not so, gentlemen. That's not true. It won't be over in two years. There will be a long period of exile. And you are to settle down in Babylon, and you are to build houses and to conduct business and educate your children and take part in the life of that country. That is God's will for you. Oh yes, Messiah will come one day. One day Israel will be restored.
But for the time being, while you wait for the coming of Messiah and the restoration of Israel, you must settle down and live a normal life in the country to which God is sending you. That is precisely what Daniel did, and was a very responsible civil servant in his day. Look, if you will, then, how that reflects itself in the very contents of his book. You will notice that there are ten major parts to the prophecy.
Ten because chapters ten, eleven, and twelve form one vision. Would you just notice for the moment how many of those chapters deal primarily with future things, and how many of them deal primarily with present things? Chapter one deals with the present, with Daniel and his friends in their Babylonian university prosecuting their studies. Chapter two, in its end part, deals with the prophecy of the future, but half of chapter two is dealing with a problem in the present.
Is there such a thing as revelation? Daniel chapter three is dealing with the present, the experience of the three young men when they got thrown into the furnace. And Daniel chapter four is dealing with the present, with Nebuchadnezzar's experience of illness and madness under the discipline of God. And Daniel chapter five is dealing with the present. It is the overthrow of Babylon and the end of Belshazzar. Daniel chapter six is dealing with the present, when Daniel got thrown into the den of lions. Do you see? So that half at least of the book of Daniel is concerned with the present.
Now, why is that? Why? Because of what the message of Daniel the prophet is. It is that one day the Lord is coming. Messiah shall come. But it is that if you take that second coming of Christ seriously, you will give exceeding careful attention to life in the here and now, so that you are ready for that coming. You see, it is in the here and now that we get our values right. Daniel is concerned to tell us, as he told the Gentiles of a past day, that Gentiles have a habit of getting their values all upside down.
Gentiles will take things of absolute value, like the golden vessels in the house of the Lord, and they will treat them as if they were ordinary common things and drink out of them themselves, like Belshazzar. They will treat absolute values as though they were only of relative significance, and then they'll do the opposite. They'll take something of only relative and comparative importance, like the political state, and they will deify the state and attach to it absolute value. Not only offend the very God of heaven, but introduce a terrible slavery among their fellow men.
Daniel is telling us, I repeat, that if we're going to be ready for the coming of Christ, then it is in the here and now that we get ready, and that we are to give great patience to getting our values right. In the here and now. Now, I trust you will not be too violently disappointed if I follow Daniel's proportions in these studies. And in the course of these three Saturdays, I put most of my emphasis on the here and now and getting our values right in the here and now. If you think I have interpret that the emphasis wrongly, well, as I say in the discussion groups, it's open to you to, uh, uh, redress that balance.
I was making the point that many people classify the prophecy of Daniel as apocalyptic. That is to say, it does believe that there is coming a great age of peace and plenty. But the apocalyptic view holds that that will not come by the gradual improvement of present society, the gradual improvement of its institutions, government, and its education. The apocalyptic view holds that the present world system is so evil that in the end God would be obliged to destroy it completely and put something else in its place.
That something else will be none other than the messianic kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, which will be set up by direct divine intervention. So if you will allow the term for the moment, and we call that the apocalyptic view, then I remind you that some people don't like it because they say it is a very per- pessimistic view. They don't mind prophets like Amos, for instance, who says, look here, pull up your socks, or rather give them away to the poor and help the needy and see after the widow and call upon people to repent and reform. That is their idea of how the kingdom of God shall come.
So that moral effort is worthwhile, moral progress is possible, society can be improved. While they admire, therefore, prophets like Amos, who call upon people to repent and reform morally and spiritually and every other way, they're not so keen on Daniel, because he seems to say that in spite of any progress that may be made, in the end, society will prove incorrigible and will have to be destroyed. And therefore they say that such a view, if you were to hold it, would lead you to run away from life and go and sit on a mountain somewhere and give up serious endeavor to make something of this life.
You just go and sit on a mountain and eat a few packets of crisps and wait for the Lord to come. I was making the point, therefore, that that is not true. It is true that if that's what you mean by apocalyptic, Daniel did hold it, that says that, uh, the present systems of the world are so evil that they will one day have to be destroyed, and that the age of peace will come only through the second coming, what we call the second coming of Christ. On the other hand, it lies on the very surface of his book that Daniel, though he held that view, did not run away from life, but served long years in the high ranks of the Babylonian imperial f- uh, civil service, and subsequently in the Persian civil service as well.
A more responsible citizen you could not hope to find anywhere, carrying the burden of working for his fellow men and doing all in his power to make the organization and the running of life for the best. And therefore, I asked you to look at the table of contents, which has as one of its purposes just to make that point, that while his book is concerned with things in the future and prophesying the coming of the Messianic Kingdom, half of it, and perhaps more than half of it, is concerned with stories that relate to life in the here and now. That is not just to give a little light relief to the more important matters of timetable of prophecy.
That is because it is an integral part of his message. Yes, the Messiah is coming. We need to get ready for that coming. We may not be here at, uh, in fact, some of us, when he comes. But we, in the here and now, have to do already with the eternal. And it is in the here and now that we make our relationship with God. In the here and now that we must endeavor to get our values right and to be right with God. And therefore, as I say, Daniel's book is more than half of it taken up with his witness to the Gentiles, good Jew that he was, witnessing against the folly of Gentiles, who are so liable to take things of absolute value and treat them as though they were only relative, and conversely, to take things of only relative importance and exalt them and make them into something absolute.
Now, because Daniel held that view, we shall find two things as we read his, uh, prophecy. He does believe in the coming kingdom of the Messiah, for which he patiently waits. Though you will find, as you go further in his prophecy, that, uh, he is given to understand that as far as he personally would c- was concerned, the coming of the Messiah lay in the distant future. But he really believed in it, the coming kingdom, the messianic kingdom of Christ. On the other hand, he also believed in the kingdom of God in its present sense.
And I want us just to take a moment or two to look at that usage in the prophet now, because if we can get the distinction into our minds, it will help us in our subsequent studies. So let us look at the distinction that is to be found in the use of the terms kingdom and rule and dominion and such like, as Daniel uses them in his prophecy. Look, for instance, in chapter four and verse thirty three. Uh, sorry, verse thirty yes, ver- verse 32.
Where the voice announcing Nebuchadnezzar's discipline tells him, Daniel four thirty two, and thou shalt be driven from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. Thou shalt be made to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will. And that is repeated, for instance, in chapter five verse twenty one. Nebuchadnezzar was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until he knew that the Most High God ruleth in the kingdom of men, and that he setteth up over it whomsoever he will.
Now, you'll notice that in so talking, Daniel is speaking not of the coming kingdom of God in the sense of the Messianic kingdom to be brought in at the coming of Messiah. He's talking of something that's already here and always going on, and that is the kingdom of God in the sense of his present providential rule among men. For the Most High God has not abdicated his throne. Maybe he rules from behind the scenes, but rule he does, and he rules already in the kingdoms of men, and at the highest level.
He raises up such and such to be king here or president there. He puts another down. The Most High ruleth already in the kingdom of men. And it was part of Daniel's testimony to the Gentiles among whom he lived, a very important part of his testimony, to get them to recognize the reality of the present rule of God in their midst. Need be Nebuchadnezzar had to be disciplined and disciplined sorely in order to bring him to see that already, not in some distant future, already the Most High God ruleth in some sense in the kingdoms of men.
I call that, therefore, God's present providential kingdom. We will notice, however, the distinction between that and the kind of thing we read in Daniel chapter two. Daniel chapter two verse twenty four finds Daniel giving his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream image, and he's now commenting on what happens at length when the stone cut out without hands falls upon the image and destroys it from top to toe, and itself becomes a large mountain and fills the earth.
So two twenty four is Daniel's interpretation of this thing. And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. So now another sense in which the term kingdom is used, now of the future coming messianic kingdom. Why is it important that we see the distinction? Why this way round, as Daniel beavered away in the high levels of the civil service of Babylon, he believed that God was already ruling.
Therefore, he, as well as others, was part of that present government of God, being governed by God, seeking to do the will of God and live according to the laws of God. He had to witness sternly to men and women who had forgotten God and gone off in their idolatrous ways and were living contrary to the principles of the kingdom of God. Now, while Daniel believed in that very fully and sincerely, notice how he makes a distinction between that present providential government of God and the coming messianic reign of Christ, the coming kingdom in that sense.
Daniel certainly believed in that as well, but notice what he didn't believe. He did not believe that by pushing his pen in the civil service of Babylon, he was somehow bringing in the kingdom of Christ. He wasn't doing anything of the sort. What an alarming thing it would have been if Daniel had advised Nebuchadnezzar to get the armies out and go and smite the Ethiopians because they were a lot of idolatrous savages, and that by getting his armies out and smiting the Ethiopians, he was serving the kingdom of Christ. That would have been a sorry mistake, wouldn't it?
And therefore, it seems to me a matter of very practical importance, even for us in our day, that we keep these two ideas separate in our thinking, believing with all our hearts in the present providential kingdom of God amongst men. But also, as a separate thing, the coming of our Lord Jesus, the setting up of his messianic kingdom, which will be set up not by our improvement of society, but by the direct intervention of the supernatural power of Almighty God. A balanced view, therefore. More of that now I do not intend to say.
I had originally planned at this juncture to say something about another matter, that is to say, the modern evidence for the genuineness of the prophecy of Daniel. Upside down again? Ooh, you Europeans and... uh, um. I merely put up the slide there and, uh, dismiss it with just a few comments. Some of us here will know at least that the Book of Daniel, uh, is the subject of much attack in academic circles. The book itself claims to be the product of the sixth century BC, and therefore is claiming that its prophecies are genuine prophecies.
We have already seen how our Lord Jesus affirmed that view and that claim. But now, for some long while, liberal scholarship maintains that the book was written, and they can almost tell you when, after the twenty fifth of December, one hundred and sixty BC, and uh, before hundred and sixty BC. The reason why they say that is because the book of Daniel chapter eleven prophesies that Antiochus Epiphanes would set up the abomination of desolation in the temple at Jerusalem. Now, say the liberals, that can't be a real prophecy.
It must be that the writer of the book, having seen the thing happened, has made up the thing to look as if it were a prophecy, when it wasn't a real prophecy, it was merely writing history. And if that is true, it must have been written after that date in one hundred and sixty BC. Then at the end of, uh, chapter eleven, say the liberal critics, you wouldn't, I hope, say the liberal critics, Daniel is still prophesying about the aforesaid Antiochus Epiphanes. That's quite a mistake to believe it, but that's what they say. And they say that Daniel prophesied how he would come to his end. Uh, but in actual fact, he didn't come to his end in any, any way like that at all.
And so they say, well, this was the point at which the book was written. And the writer, having recorded history as though it were prophecy so far, then had a shot at doing some real prophecy. And as happens to people when they do that, he got it wrong, poor man. He must have been written before the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, which happened quite differently from what he prophesied. That's what liberal scholarship says, and I say it seriously, you'll see how at odds it is with the verdict of our Lord. That's no small matter to disagree with our Lord and his apostles. How can you be Christian and disagree with Christ?
Now, of course, the view has been much written against, and there are, there is a whole army of arguments against that liberal view. I do not wish to, uh, discuss it at this moment. If you are interested in reading books on this topic, well, come and see me personally, and I will be happy to, uh, uh, uh, uh, point you to some. Uh, all I point to now is that there is, uh, some modern evidence available nowadays that didn't used to be available, and scholars are beginning, uh, to point out the impossibility that the book should have been written at that period after, uh, one hundred and sixty BC.
Some of it has to do with the witness from Qumran and the Jewish sect of the Essenes that lived there. And in this massive volume, the Old Testament canon of the New Testament church, Roger Beckwith calls attention to a lot of the evidence that comes from the writings of the monks in Qumran, the Jewish monks in Qumran, that points to the fact that the book of Daniel must have been already part of canonical scripture when that, uh, community came into being, and they came into being in somewhere between the years one hundred and one hundred and sixty BC.
Then there is the evidence of the actual copies of the Book of Daniel that have been found at Qumran. Some of the fragments are dated hundred and twenty BC, and since they are only copies, they were copies of originals, and the originals must have been much earlier. But with that I leave it, and if you're interested in that kind of thing, come and see me, uh, uh, uh, l- uh, privately.
