DANIEL OVERVIEW

 

Dr. W. A. Criswell

 

Daniel 1:8

 

09-08-96

 

 

Well, I have been a pastor for 70 years.  And this is the first time in my life that I have ever addressed myself to a Sunday school class.  And the experience is certainly new to me.  I have found that there is nothing comparable in preparing a sermon and in preparing a series of Sunday school lessons.

But, we have a marvelous book, in which we have the Word of God revealed in an amazing and remarkable historical revelation.  You have to remember, now, that this Book of Daniel was written 2,600 years ago—600 years before Christ.  And the things that we see coming to pass, even in our lives today, are, I say, almost remarkably unbelievable.

Now, I am going to take the Book as a whole, to begin with.  It is divided into two equal parts.  Chapters 1 through 6 are based on an historical background.  And chapters 7 through 12 are based on visions of the life and world that is yet to come.

So, we’re going to start off with the first of these historical revelations in the Book of Daniel.  Number 1: There will be no more world empires.  In Daniel 2, we have the presentation of the great image seen by Nebuchadnezzar.  And in that image, there is a head of gold—Daniel 2:37-38.  And we are told that is the Babylonian Empire.

And there is a silver breast, arms and shoulders.  And in Daniel 2:39, we learn that is the Medio-Persian Empire.

Then, in Daniel 2:39, we are introduced to the belly and thighs of brass.  And we are told that is the Greek Empire.

Then, in Daniel 2:40, we are told that the two legs made of iron in that image represent the Roman Empire.  There are no more empires.

The image ends in ten toes, made of iron and clay.  And that represents the separate nations that do not cling together.

That is the world history, according to this prophesy, after the Roman Empire.  And we live in that era today.

Now, in Daniel 7, in the first chapter of the second section of the Book, that same revelation was made.  In Daniel 7, it is described in terms of beasts coming up out of the sea.

The first beast, in 7:4, is a lion.  The second, in 7:5, is a bear.  In 7:6, that is the leopard.  Then, beginning in 7:7, there is a fearful non-descript—It is an iron beast, with terrible iron teeth.  That is the Roman Empire.

Then, it breaks up—in terms of ten toes.  There are to be no more world empires.

Before Daniel’s day, there was the Hamitic—the Egyptian Empire.  Before Daniel’s day, there was the Hittite Empire.  Before Daniel’s day, there was the Assyrian Empire, whose world-famous capital was at Nineveh. 

But, after Daniel’s day, in the prophecy, there will no longer be a world empire.  The 10 toes and the 10 horns represent the break-up of the nations.

All right.  Number 2 of the amazing revelations in the Book of Daniel: when you look at the descriptions of the empires, you have one by a man and one by God.  In the chapter 2 description by a man, they are growing in strength and power: the gold, the silver, the brass and, finally, the iron. 

When you look at these empires in the eyes of God, in chapter 7, they are described as beasts, arising out of the raging sea.  There are raised to power by war, by force, by murder and by arsenals.  They are growing in fierce domination.

You have a picture of that in Ephesians 6:12: “We war against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Now, this is a prophecy of this world’s situation until the end of time.  Those two are remarkable revelations.

Now, in the prophecy of all of those little horns, they represent all of these differing nations.  There is special attention paid to a little horn.  In Daniel 8:15-26, you will find that this is a prophesy of the Antichrist.  And here in the Book of Daniel, in verses 8-14, it refers to Antiochus Epiphanes.  He reigned over Syria 175-163 B.C. and he visited and conquered Israel.  He destroyed the Temple worship and he is presented as a prototype of the Antichrist that will appear at the end of the Revelation—that will appear at the end of the tribulation and at the end of the age.

In Daniel 8:23-25, we have a picture of the Antichrist that is featured in Revelation 13.  He is, according to that passage in Daniel, destroyed by the Prince of Princes—in 8:25.  That refers to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In Daniel 8:26-27 is described the seven years of the great tribulation.  And there, we are told that it is made of three and one-half years and three and one-half years.  The first three and a half years will bring to power a gracious, kindly king.  But, in the middle of that seven years, that king becomes the most voracious king who ever occupied a throne.  And he reigns in terror.  That’s the last half of that seven years.

In 11:36-45, you have the reign, and ultimate destruction, of the Antichrist.

When you come to chapter 11, it is divided into three parts.  The first part is 11:1-4, which presents Xerxes and Alexander the Great—Xerxes of Persia and Alexander the Great of Greece.

Then, that is followed by the verses that describe the wars between the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria, all of that in that area of 250 B.C.

Then, once again, you have presented, in verses 21-35, Antiochus Epiphanes.  And again, he is presented as a type of the Antichrist.

I would suppose that the reason Antiochus Epiphanes, who was absolutely one of the most insignificant rulers of all time—I would think the reason he is used is because he conquered Israel and he brought on the reign of the Maccabees and in honor of the triumph of Judah over Antiochus Epiphanes.  They instituted the Feast of Hanukkah, which they call the Feat of Lights—the Fest of Dedication.  He loomed tremendously large in the history of Judah—actually, an insignificant ruler.  But, Daniel sees in him a prototype of the Antichrist at the end of history.

So, in Daniel 11:36-45, as the prophecy continues, Antiochus gradually fades away and the Antichrist himself comes increasingly into view.  He is Satan’s masterpiece, the last great one of those beasts mentioned in chapter 7.

And his destruction is the end of the age.  There is no doubt that, when you come to the revelation of the Antichrist, you have come to the revelation of the end of the world—the consummation of this earth.

            Now, one of the amazing—and this is the fourth marvelous revelation in the Book of Daniel—as you go through the unbelievable presentations of what is yet to come—and as I said, some of them 2,000 years ahead of him—when you come to these wonderful revelations, you meet again and again the appearances of Christ, the Messiah.

Now, remember: you are talking about a man who is writing so many years before Christ that you can hardly think of it.  But, he describes the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, Messiah, again and again and again.

For example, in Daniel 2:44-45, in the midst of the ten trees and the ten horns, you have a glimpse of Jesus Christ.  And in Daniel 3:25, in the fiery furnace, you have one walking that Daniel describes as like unto the Son of God.  Now, in Daniel 7:8, 21-22 and in Daniel 7:9-10, and in Daniel 7:13-14, you have the Messiah victorious over the great Antichrist, revealed ultimately in the Revelation.

And you have here, again, the “time, times and half a time” that he reigns in terror: a year, two years—that makes three—and half a year—that’s the last half of the reign of the Antichrist.

Then, in Daniel 8:25, you have the Antichrist described again, and the prophesy that he will be destroyed by the Prince of Princes.  That would be our Lord Jesus Christ.

In Daniel 9:25-26, you have the seventy heptads.  That’s one of the most amazing things you could ever think of.  We’re going to spend time looking at that.

And in Daniel 10:5-10, you have the glorious revelation of Christ.  And when you read the actual appearance and description of the glorious Christ in Revelation 1:13-16, you would think that you are reading that revelation given to Daniel 10:5-10.  I just can’t believe such a thing.

And of course, in Daniel 12:5-9, the two angels speak of the triumphant Christ. 

Daniel sees Christ coming in terrestrial supremacy.  Daniel sees Christ coming in celestial supremacy.

And in one of my lectures here, I’m going to speak of the two apocalypses in the Bible, namely, Daniel and the Revelation.  It is unbelievable how John, in the Apocalypse, found so much of what he was going to write on in the Book of Daniel.

The world sees the beast that terrifies.  But, Daniel sees over and beyond and sees the Christ that is coming.  That’s a remarkable thing: when you read the Revelation, so much of it is terrible, horrible, damnable.  But, always, Daniel will see over and beyond them to the glorious Christ—our coming triumph in Him.

I think of a story I, one time, read about Robert Louis Stevenson.  He tells a story of a group on a ship in a terrible storm that is headed for the rocks.  And certain terrible death awaits all of them.

And they are grouped together in the hold of the ship in terror.  Finally, one of the men in the group says, “I’m going up to see the pilot.”

And he makes his way up from the hold to the pilot’s place, where he is guiding the destiny of the ship, and stands in the midst of the storm.  And the pilot looks at him and smiles.

And the man returns down and down and down into the hold of the ship.  And when he arrives, he announces, “Be not afraid.  Everything is well. I have seen the pilot’s face and he is smiling.”

Now, let me to say to you, that story is worth remembering in all the providences of life.  Whatever the tragedy or the storm or the tragedy or the hurt, whatever the terrible situation in which we find ourselves, remember: the pilot is there, guiding our ship and our destiny.  And He smiles.

Now, our next marvelous revelation is like the one before—looking at his presentation of the coming of Christ.  And he presents Him under three categories: judgmental—you will find that in Daniel 7 and 10, repeated in John 5:22: “the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son.”  The great Judge of the earth is our best friend, our Redeemer and our Savior.

Second, after Daniel presents our Savior as judgmental, he also presents Him as premillennial.  Every one of these passages that I’ve mentioned this morning, I intended to read.  Then I looked at it and I thought: “We’ll be here until the evening if I do that.”  So, all I can do is just cite the passage.

In Daniel 7:13, he presents the coming of our Lord as premillennial.  So does Revelation 1:7: “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.”  Now, that is premillennial.

Sweet people, you may think I am doubly or trebly prejudiced.  But, I don’t think there is anything in the Bible that presents the coming of Christ any other way but premillennial.  He is coming before the millennium.

And as you are going to see as we look at these passages, the end time consummates in terror, in tragedy, in war—like the war of Armageddon—in sorrow, in trouble, in persecution, as you have in the life of the Antichrist.  But, that’s the way the Bible presents it.  And it’s in those days of terrible sorrow and tragedy and persecution that Jesus comes and bring with Him us—brings with Him His saints, the church.

We’re going to be raptured.  That’s the way it is with us.  As it is revealed to us in the Book of Daniel, we’re going to be raptured.  And at the end of that terrible tribulation, the Lord brings us here to inherit our eternal rewards in the millennium and the world to come.  Now, I think that there is no exception to that in the entire Word of God.

So, you have it repeated again in Daniel 7:9.  And we could write—we could ask, and it is answered in Daniel 7:18.  How is the rule of the Beast’s nations transferred to the saints of God?  How will that come to pass?  It comes to pass, according to Daniel 7:13-14, through the coming of Lord Jesus Christ.

And then, there is one other: Forever triumphant are the saints of God.  “And we shall reign with him forever and ever.”  That’s Daniel 7:22-27.

Now, I’m going to speak of one of the most unbelievable revelations mind could imagine.  I’m going to speak of the 70 heptads.  A heptad is a week of years.  And in Daniel 9:2 and 24-27—and that passage is, I repeat, the most amazing passage you could ever think for or imagine.

Now, it is divided into three parts: the 70 heptads, the 70 weeks of years.  It is divided into three parts: first of all, seven weeks of years—seven weeks of years.  That would be from 445 B.C. to 396 B.C.—seven weeks of years, 49 years: from the edict of the Persian King, Artaxerxes Longimanus, in his twentieth year, for the rebuilding of the walls and streets of Jerusalem, mentioned in Nehemiah 2:5.  And the following 49 years covers the period from the decree of Artaxerxes to the closing of the Hebrew canon—the closing of the Old Testament canon.

It closes with Malachi.  And those seven weeks of years—those seven heptads—describe the close of the Old Testament canon about 400 B.C.

All right.  The second part of this remarkable prophecy: there are 62 heptads—62 weeks, 434 years.  That would be from 396 B.C. to 30 A.D., the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, and soon thereafter, the destruction of the city and the Temple by the Roman general, Titus.  And that’s the second part of this amazing revelation.

Then, there is left one week—one heptad, one period of seven years.  Now, you look at this.  You think this one week—this last heptad—is set apart.  Up here, you have 69 heptads—69 weeks.  Then, before the end of the age and the end of the world, you have one week left: the seventieth.

That brings us to the great tribulation before the end of the age.  That brings us to the climax of Jewish history.  In Daniel 9:26, and it ends in a “flood”—a disaster.  And you have one week left.

And that means, between the sixty-nine heptads and the last heptad you have a great interlude—a great parenthesis, a great hiatus.  And that is where we live.

Now, I want to show you something that I pray you will always remember when you read the Bible.  World without end do liberals and cynics read the Bible with all kinds of interpretations.  And one disastrous one to me is that they identify the church with Israel: the church is the continuation of Israel.  All of those things about Israel are continued in this age, in this dispensation, in the church.

There could be no thing that could be more antithetical to the revelation in the Bible than that.  For example, the Apostle Paul writes specifically about that: the Old Testament there and the New Testament here—God and the Jew.

And he writes about it in the third chapter of Ephesians.  And I’m going to take time to read that, because it is all-important:

If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward;

—that’s the dispensation in which we live.  Now, you look at this:

How that by revelation he made known unto me the musterion (as I wrote before in a few words)

And in order to save time—verse 9:

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the musterion, which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ;

To the intent that now is revealed—the musterion.

            Now, you look at this, and listen with your heart, as well as your mind.  Musterion is a word that is spelled out in English as “mystery.”  So, you have it translated here in the Bible as a mystery.

That’s not true at all.  A mystery, to us, is something that is enigmatic—something beyond our understanding or purview.  That’s a mystery to us.

A musterion, in the Bible—it’s used here twice as he discusses this—a musterion, in the Bible, is a secret that God kept in His heart until He revealed it to His apostles.  That’s what a musterion is.

Now, the musterion that he’s talking about, and the one here in this heptad—the last week that is separated from all the other history of the world—that musterion is the consummation of the age.  And in between the sixty-nine heptads—the history of Israel—and the last heptad, which is separated from it, is our dispensation in which we live.

Now, one other thing about that: there is no hint—there is no prophecy—there is no sentence or verse in the Old Testament about this dispensation.  It is never referred to.  It is never seen.  It is never discussed.  It is never revealed. 

It is a musterion.  Our entire dispensation is a secret God kept in His heart until He revealed it to the apostles.  They never saw the church—they never saw this age of the preaching of the gospel—they never saw this marvelous invitation to the whole world to accept Jesus as Savior.  It was never revealed.  It was a secret that God kept in His heart.

I have one other comment about those critters who identify the church with Israel.  I won’t take time to turn to it.  But, in 1 Corinthians 10:32, Paul says there are three classes of people in this earth: the Jew, the Gentile and the church.

The Jew: he will be here until Jesus comes.  And the great heptads have to do with him—every one of them.  The Jew will be here, and we’re going to look at that. 

Good night alive!  How do you teach this class, when you just get started and the time is gone?

There is the Jew.  There is the unbelieving Gentile—the Jew; the unbelieving Gentile; and the believing people in the church.

Now, when you identify the Jew with the church, you are doing exactly what God says is not true.  The Jew is one.  An unbelieving Gentile is another.  And this believing Christian in the church is the third one.

Well, dear me, dear me.  One of—this is the sixth of the seven remarkable revelations given to Daniel.  It concerns the tragedies and the troubles of the Jew.

You see that in Daniel 12:1.  It’s referred to in Jeremiah 30:7: “the times of the Gentiles.”  You have it described—and I wanted to read that—in Matthew 24:15.  The Jew will be here until Jesus comes.

In the Bible, you read about the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Girgasites and the Hivites.  Did you ever see anybody who ever heard of anybody who ever knew anybody who saw a Girgasite or a Hivite or an Amorite or any of those other “–ites?”  Did you?

Well, I can show you a Jew in every city in this world.  There are thousands of them here in Dallas.  Last Friday—last Friday, I shared in a memorial service for a rabbi who died.  He is here, and he’s going to be saved.

I have an amazing reading in the Book of Romans, chapter 11, beginning at verse 25:

I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this musterion, lest ye be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part hads happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.

And so all Israel shall be saved… .

            What do you think of that?  I never said that.  It wasn’t anybody except the inspired Apostle Paul.

            So, all Israel shall be saved.  That’s a musterion kept in the heart of God.  As it is said:

… There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob;

For this is my covenant with them, when I shall take away their sins.

As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes; but concerning the election—the musterion—they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes.

For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

            Now, let me tell you people this: when you read the Bible, it’s a different kind of book than those people who just casually read a verse now and then.  There’s not anything that overwhelms me like the revelations of the Word of God.

            Now, I just mention this and I have to close—I just mention the seventh of these unbelievable revelations in the Book of Daniel.  Well, the way it is presented in the Book of Daniel—in just a few words in the twelfth chapter:

And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time Israel shall be delivered, every one that is written in the book.

            Now, the second verse: this is the seventh of these marvelous revelations:

And many of them that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

            Now, this is the seventh of all the marvelous revelations in the Book of Daniel: there is a contrast there between the many who sleep and the comparatively few who will be alive and remain until the coming of the Lord.  Now, we have here a partial resurrection.  And it’s in two parts: many, not all.  There shall certainly be a resurrection.  That is stated in that twelfth chapter and verse two.  There will be a resurrection.

            There will be a divided resurrection: some to a resurrection of life and some to a resurrection of damnation.  Then, there shall be a great separation.

In Matthew 13:24-30, the tares are separated from the wheat.  And in Matthew 25:25-30, the goats are separated from the sheep.  In Revelation 20:4-5, there is a time differential of 1,000 years.  There’s a time differential of 1,000 years between the rapture of the church in Revelation 4 and the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20:11.

Sweet people, at the end of our time, I regret this.  But, I have to go to a prayer meeting.  Always, before our services up there in the church, we have a ministers’ prayer meeting.  And I have to go to that. 

So, when I try to finish here, I’d like to shake hands and hug your neck with all of you.  I was so burdened about this class.  But, your teacher said to me, “Now, listen: those people love you so deeply.  They will listen to you reverently.  You don’t have to be burdened.”

That didn’t help me.  I’m burdened just the same.

How long, O Lord?

God bless you, Amen.

 

 

 

.