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SEGMENT
7 DANIEL 10
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Daniel 10:1 11:35
Israels Prophetic Destiny
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So when you see
standing in the holy place the abomination
that causes desolation, spoken of through
the prophet Daniel let the [Gentile]
reader [also] understand then let those
who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no
one on the roof of his house go down to take
anything out of the house. Let no one in the
field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it
will be in those days for pregnant women and
nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not
take place in the winter or on the Sabbath.
-
Matthew 24:15-20, insertions mine
Introduction
About 534 B.C., God gave
Daniel a compelling vision that came in two
installments. The first installment contained
scenes from a protracted series of wars and the
second consisted of another visit with the angel,
Gabriel. Gabriel was sent to Daniel, who was
nearing eighty years of age, to explain certain
things about the wars that he saw in the first
installment. Daniel received these installments
about three weeks apart. When Daniel put the
vision in written form, he, like all other Bible
writers, did not divide his report into chapters
and verses that are found in our Bibles today.
This point is made because Daniel 10 through 12
should be understood as one vision, even though
it covers three chapters. A similar situation
occurred in Daniel 8 and 9. Daniel 8 contains a
ram, goat and horn power. Later, Gabriel was sent
to Daniel with more information about Daniel 8.
(Daniel 9:21)
Today, few religious
leaders speak about the last chapters of Daniel.
This is unfortunate because this particular
vision contains valuable information for the
final generation. God does not give visions to
His prophets without revealing important
information. As we examine this vision, keep four
issues in mind:
1. Two Groups of
Beneficiaries
God gave this vision to
Daniel to benefit two groups of people who would
live in the future. The first group lived about
600 years after this vision was given. This group
consisted of Christians who lived in Jerusalem at
the time of its destruction in A.D. 70. The
second group of people for which this vision was
given is those Christians who love on Earth
during the Great Tribulation. This vision
benefits both groups because they will share a
common experience. Early Christians experienced
the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Great
Tribulation Christians will experience the
destruction of Earth. Because there are distinct
parallels in these two events, God gave one
vision for the benefit of two groups of people.
This is not unusual, because Jesus, in Matthew 24
and elsewhere in the Bible, compared the
destruction of Jerusalem with the end of the
world. For example, Jesus told His disciples,
Then you will be handed over to be
persecuted and put to death, and you will be
hated by all nations because of me. At that time
many will turn away from the faith and will
betray and hate each other, and many false
prophets will appear and deceive many
people
.
They will put you out of
the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when
anyone who kills you will think he is offering a
service to God. They will do such things because
they have not known the Father or me. (Matthew
24:9-11, John 16:2,3) History reveals that many
of the early Christians, like Stephen, were
martyrs for their faith. (Acts 6 and 7) The Jews,
including Saul of Tarsus, thought they were doing
God a service by killing Christians! (See
Deuteronomy 13 and 1 Timothy 1:13.) People living
during the Great tribulation will see similar
parallels. Soon, Gods people will be
persecuted, even martyred for their faith, and
amazingly, people who persecute and martyr
Gods people will think they are doing God a
service! (Revelation 6:9-11; 13:1-10; 14:12.13;
16:4-7)
Other parallels in
Matthew 24 merit our attention. For example,
Jesus said, As it was in the days of Noah,
so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
For in the days before the flood, people were
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and
they knew nothing about what would happen until
the flood came and took them all away. That is
how it will be at the coming of the Son of
Man. (Matthew 24:37-39) Jesus compared the
disbelief and ignorance of the people who lived
before the flood with the people who will be
living at the end of time. Of course, ignorance
is not limited to people living in Noahs
day nor at the end of the world. This is why
Jesus warned His listeners to anticipate
Jerusalems destruction. Do you
see all these things [the temple complex]?
he asked. I tell you the truth, not one
stone here will be left on another; every one
will be thrown down
So when you see
standing in the holy place the abomination
that causes desolation, spoken of through
the prophet Daniel let the [Gentile]
reader [also] understand then let those
who are in Judea flee to the
mountains. (Matthew 24:2,15,16; Luke
21:22, insertions mine.) Jesus quoted Daniel
11:31, because the vision in Daniel 10-12 lays
out a historical sequence of events that includes
the destruction of Jerusalem! Not only did early
Christians benefit from Jesus remarks, but
the final generation will also benefit from this
amazing vision. Remember, God gave this vision to
Daniel about 540 B.C., and it was meant to
benefit two groups of people who would be
separated by almost 2,000 years!
2. Gods
Foreknowledge
The vision of Daniel
10-12, like that of Daniel 8-9, predicted
Israels failure long before the
seventy weeks began. One of Gods most
amazing qualities is His ability to treat His
children according to the principles of love,
even though He knows our choices before we make
them. Think this through. If you knew your child
would flunk out of college, would you spend
$50,000 on his or her college education anyway?
If you knew your upcoming marriage was going to
end in bitter divorce, would you still get
married? God is all knowing (omniscient). He
knows everything in the past, present and future.
Even more, He is omnipotent, which means He has
power to manipulate everyone and everything in
the universe to His satisfaction. However, God
does not use His foreknowledge or His omnipotence
to manipulate His creatures for His benefit. If
He manipulated us according to His desires, He
would not be a God of love; instead, He would be
a self-serving God. The only way Gods
creatures can live at peace with God is through
trust. We have to believe that He will not
violate the principle of love even though we
cannot understand His ways at times. God does not
ask us to trust Him with these incredible powers
without giving us good reason to trust Him.
Calvary proves the Father and the Son are worthy
of complete trust.
Here is a profound point.
God uses His mighty powers (omnipotence,
omniscience and omnipresence) to insure the
principle of love will be exalted throughout the
universe. God does not use His incredible
powers to keep Himself on the throne! The
principle of love is essential for eternal
happiness (there is no alternative). The
humiliation and death of Jesus assures every
created being that the principle of love will
forever be the basis of Gods government. In
other words, if God could have resolved the sin
problem without Jesus death, He would have
done so. But, God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son
. This
is why John wrote, God is love. (1
John 4:8) What a marvelous God!
God deals with us
according to His great love, even though He knows
our choices may not be good. In other words, God
is not like us. A selfish heart will use
manipulation, deceit and any other means at its
disposal to satisfy its selfish desires! God does
not work this way. He is motivated by pure love.
God is selfless. The vision recorded in Daniel 11
reveals Israels failure long before the
seventy weeks began. If God foreknew their
failure, why did God give Israel 490 years of
probationary time? (For that matter, God foreknew
the failure of Lucifer and Adam and Eve, yet He
gave them life and probationary time.) These
examples highlight what is so amazing about God.
Even though He foreknew Israels failure,
God granted seventy weeks of grace because He
wanted Israel to have the opportunity to
succeed or fail. The potential was awesome.
If Israel chose a life of faith and submission to
God, God was ready and willing to establish His
kingdom on Earth at the end of the 490 years
decreed in Daniel 9. If Jesus had been able to
establish His kingdom on Earth, Israel would have
become a kingdom of priests who served the Lord
on behalf of all the nations of Earth. (Exodus
19:5,6) However, we now know that Israel chose
the way of rebellion, and God abandoned the
nation of Israel and destroyed Jerusalem. If the
Jews had experienced Gods love and properly
understood Daniel 10-12 before Jesus came to
Earth, world history would have been so
different.
3. Caught in the
Middle
The Daniel 10-12 vision
tells the story of a series of protracted wars
fought over several centuries. In a geographical,
religious and political sense, Israel was trapped
in the middle of endless wars between nations
from the north and south. Israels unique
position mirrors the general experience of
Gods people in a fallen world. Many times
Gods people are caught in the
middle between opposing forces. Moreover,
God forbade Israel from taking sides or making
alliances for protection (Isaiah 30), because He
wanted Israel to understand that they were only
safe if they remained allied with Him.
Keep three entities in
mind as you study this vision: the kingdom of the
north, the kingdom of the south and the kingdom
of God. God placed the ancient nation of Israel
geographically in the middle of the
nations. (Ezekiel 5:5) He deliberately
placed Israel in this strategic location to be
representatives of His love and truth. God wanted
the nations of the world to become acquainted
with a special group of people. However, a
prominent position can have adverse consequences,
too. When Israel failed to honor God, He
humiliated them by making them a reproach to all
of the surrounding nations. (Ezekiel 5:14) God
displayed His wrath against Jerusalem two times;
first in 605 B.C., and again in A.D. 70.
Israels
prominent location was to be an asset or a
liability, depending on their relationship with
God. The vision given in Daniel 10-12 proves that
God deliberately restored tiny Israel to their
homeland at the end of seventy years in Babylon,
but their return tome put them between two
huge warring forces. If Israel had cooperated
with God, they would have had a powerful impact
on the nations to the north and to the south.
Israel could have used this prophecy to
demonstrate the superiority of their God above
the gods of the pagans, because this vision
discloses the outcome of numerous wars before
they happened! God wanted His people to be
informed about His larger plans, and He wanted
Israel to tell the nations that other than
Jehovah, there are no other gods. (Isaiah 44) God
did not want Israel to be afraid of the larger
nations, but Gods plans were not realized
because of Israels rebellion. As a result,
the only group that has benefited from the vision
thus far was early Christians.
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