Segment 7 –
Daniel 10:1 – 11:35
Israel’s 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, God’s people
will be persecuted, even martyred for
their faith, and amazingly, people
who persecute and martyr God’s
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
Noah’s day nor at the end of the
world. This is why Jesus warned His
listeners to anticipate
Jerusalem’s 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. God’s
Foreknowledge
The vision of Daniel
10-12, like that of Daniel 8-9,
predicted Israel’s failure long before
the seventy weeks began. One of
God’s 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
God’s 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 God’s 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
Israel’s 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
Israel’s 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 God’s
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. Israel’s unique
position mirrors the general
experience of God’s people in a
fallen world. Many times God’s
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.
Israel’s
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 God’s plans were
not realized because of Israel’s
rebellion. As a result, the only
group that has benefited from the
vision thus far was early Christians.
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