“Your Will Be Done” (Part 3 of 3)

Guest (Male): The apocalyptic visions Daniel experienced in the Old Testament left him frightened and confused and overwhelmed for several days. Maybe as you've read them, they've had the same effect on you. Today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg takes us to those prophecies to help us see how we can resist evil schemes and rest in God's provision. Let's open our Bibles to the book of Daniel; we are in chapter 8.
Alistair Begg: It is interesting. They are talking to one another and then, in verse 14, it says, "And he said to me..." Of course, it was Daniel that needed the answer to the question. And here we go: "For 2,300 evenings and mornings, and then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state." When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. And behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice calling out, "Gabriel, make this man understand the vision." It is a wonderful thing, is it not? This is God; He speaks to Gabriel, and Gabriel has the responsibility given to him. I take it that this is our friend Gabriel, whom we know from elsewhere. As a result of what he begins to say, even the encounter with him in verse 17, Daniel, when he came, was frightened and he fell on his face. That is not a very good start, is it? You want to know what is going on, and you get the messenger sent to you, and then you just collapse in fearfulness. But he said to me, "Understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end." And again in verse 19, "Behold, I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end." Now, this is no time for falling asleep, and yet in verse 18, he fell into a deep sleep: "I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground." The reason for this is not because of the length of Gabriel's message, but the nature of Gabriel's message, unlike would be true for some of the rest of us. The whole thing really turns on this question of the end. Is this the end to which this passage is referring? "I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation." That indignation is that abomination, that violation, that situation that has now been created within the temple of God. I take it that the angel is informing Daniel that God is going to intervene on behalf of His people and that this horn, which is so vicious and full of animus, is going to be broken, but not by human hand. It is up for you folks to decide. You are sensible people, and you have to read the Bible for yourselves. It is common to read this reference to the end as referring to the end of the age at the return of Jesus Christ. If that is correct, then what this vision actually envisages is the time of the final Antichrist. This points to that time, but I do not believe it refers to that time. The end to which it is referring concerns the destruction of Antiochus, which will be a foretaste of the final destruction of the Antichrist himself. The character sketch that is given of this man in verse 23 and on: "And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit." Here we have this description of this individual. When you read the description, as we will do in a moment, you find that this description could apply to more than one political leader from the history books of the world. These features that we now see are common in the kingdoms that are radically opposed to God's word and to God's people. How then are we to understand what it means for Daniel to understand? What did it mean for Daniel to understand? Clearly, it could not mean that he was able to see the future as though he were reading an advanced copy of a history book. There is no way that he could know about what would happen in 400 years' time in the fulfillment of this prophecy. So the understanding of Daniel surely means that he needs to understand what lies at the heart of all of this: that this actually will take place and that the actions that will be revealed and embodied finally in this character reveal something of the nature of endemic evil. He is understanding that this conflict that is represented in all of these various elements is something that is so immense and so far-reaching that ultimately the triumph over it is going to have to be something that reaches way beyond the proximity of his own time. Let's just notice that at the latter end, in verse 23, there will be a king of bold face who shall arise. Again, we have identified this individual. The word that is used here for a bold face is the same word that is used to describe the brazen hussy in Proverbs chapter 7. That is, I am cleaning it up because she is a prostitute in chapter 7. That is the brazen boldness of animosity that is represented: insolent, arrogant, defiant, and skilled in intrigue. A man who understands riddles, a man who is skillful in double talk, a man who is able to use his God-given intelligence for evil purposes. When you read 24 and 25, "His power shall be great, but not by his own power, and he shall cause fearful destruction. By his cunning, deceit shall prosper." So you have destruction; you have deceit. In his own mind, he shall become great. You have the notion of delusions of grandeur and of self-deification. "He shall even rise up against the Prince of princes. He will stand in defiance of God Himself." All of this will not be by his own power, even for the breath it breathes to sin against God, it is dependent upon the one against whom it sins. Man cannot lift his fist in defiance against Almighty God unless Almighty God gives him the strength to do so. What an amazing mystery. Deceit prospers in verse 25. Deceit will always prosper in a context like this because at the back of it is the great deceiver, namely Satan himself. Deception and delusion and the exchanging of the truth of God for a lie always will lie at the heart of these things. At the very beginning of creation, is it not the lie of the evil one? He says to Adam and Eve in the garden, "You don't need to pay attention to that kind of stuff. You will be like God if you eat this stuff. That is the only reason He doesn't want you to do it. He wants to spoil your life. If He really wanted you to have a nice life, He'd let you do anything you want to do." That is a lie. It is the same lie that is around in young people's lives now. If God was a good God, He would let you do anything you want to do. Like overdose on heroin? Just do whatever you want to do. Would that be a good God? No, God says, "Listen, here is the way. You can have all of this, and I made it for you so that your life will be fantastic. Leave this alone." The evil one comes and says, "You don't have to leave that alone." So the roots of man's rebellion and defiance against God are the same always, everywhere. His arrogance is revealed here, that he is flying in the face of God. By his cunning, he will make deceit prosper. In his own mind, he will become great. Without warning, he will destroy many. He will even rise up against the Prince of princes, and he will be broken, but by no human hand. The vision in verse 26 of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true. So seal it up, for it refers to many days from now. What does that mean? Presumably, roll up the scroll and put a paperclip on it or put a seal on it because this is important information, and it is important information for a time not yet. The idea of sealing it up is not a notion of secrecy; it is the notion of preservation because nearly 400 years were going to elapse before these events that we have just been considering, before Antiochus Epiphanes is doing his thing. In that period of time, the people of God would need this information. So Daniel is told, "Make sure that you seal it up; make sure that you preserve it." And Daniel went on local television and radio to tell about his great experiences, and he sold millions of books and became wonderfully wealthy and famous. No, he went to his bed. He was actually overcome, and he lay sick for some days. I guess seeing into the divine purposes must be quite devastating. To have God Almighty pull back a little curtain and show Daniel what is there surely must bring him into some realm of divine sorrow in the face of man's wickedness. Surely, it brought him into some element of a compassion that is divine for the people who were going to experience this. That is why I have never understood these people who love to talk about how exciting it is that they are all going to be taken away in the rapture and everybody else can basically go fly a kite. "Dear folks, sorry we're gone. Have a good life." Does that sound to you like a divine response? It does not to me. Daniel is given an insight into what will happen, and it puts him in his bed; it puts him on his face; it puts him on his knees. I think that is the right response. After he had sorted himself out, he says, "Then I arose and went about the king's business, but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it." You say, "Wait a minute, I thought you understood it." He did not understand the ultimate aspect of it as it is finally revealed. The prophecy was future to him; it is history for us. But let's finish with this notion of arising and going about the king's business. Monday comes, and we must arise and be about the king's business. Remember that wonderful story of Wesley, who is riding somewhere in England and he meets a stranger. The stranger says to him, "Mr. Wesley, if you knew that Jesus Christ was going to return tomorrow, what would you do tomorrow?" He went into the saddlebag of his horse, and he pulled out his diary or his calendar, and he opened it up. He read for the following day's activities that were planned and into the morning of the next day. He said to the fellow, "That, dear sir, is what I would do." In other words, business as usual. God has set you where you live. God has given to you the privileges of employment. God has appointed your space and your place. It is to that place, to our individual spot, that each of us returns to go back to the king's business, alerted to the reality, to the drama of divine impact, but nevertheless back to the routine. In Daniel's case, back to serve Belshazzar. Not much of a job at that point in his life, hauled out of retirement in order to give the odd interpretation to a prophecy, but beyond that, nothing much happening. As we go back to the king's business, let's do so in the awareness of the fact that the activity of the evil one is predictable. I was going to say as the weather, but that is no good. It is predictable as the Browns losing. Sorry. Did they lose today? I don't even know. Oh, they did? I did not know. I did not know. I knew it was ten-nothing after two quarters, but I did not know anything else. Okay, here it is. This is your takeaway. In verse 11, the regular burnt offering was taken away from him, and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown, and truth was thrown to the ground. These three things are always present. Number one, the daily sacrifices were taken away. You say, "Wait a minute, we don't do daily sacrifices. Daily sacrifices were part of the liturgy of Judaism. That was what they did under the Mosaic covenant. We don't have the Mosaic covenant." No, but the reason for those things was in order that the people of God might understand on a daily basis that sacrifice was necessary for fellowship with God. The evil one says, "I'm going to stamp on that. I'm going to get rid of that notion in their minds." That is exactly what he wants to do to you. He wants to suggest to you that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for your sin is really not that significant a deal, when in actual fact your entire eternal destiny rests on it. The evil one comes in order to challenge us at that place. "You're a fine religious person. You're doing good deeds and everything else." He is happy with a religion that is a crossless religion, that is a Christless religion, that is a religion that knows nothing of penal substitutionary atonement. His attack is always at the cross, always at the cross. Beware of anyone who offers to you a crossless Christianity, an approach to the living of the Christian life that does not take you again and again back to the place that says, "My only hope, my righteousness, my sole defense, my righteousness is in Christ." Today, tomorrow, and every day, it is tied entirely there. The evil one wants to come and say, "No, it is not. You don't have to worry about that." That is the first thing. The second thing is that the place of the sanctuary was cast down. You say, "Well, we don't believe in sanctuary." That is right; we don't, actually. So it was the temple that was destroyed. What does the devil do? Destroy the temple. What is the temple? On an individual level, our individual bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He says, "You don't have to worry about this or that. Do this, do that. It doesn't matter." He would be happy to destroy you. It is true that we are being joined together as living souls built into a spiritual house, to a temple, as Peter says, and the evil one comes and says, "I'll destroy the temple for them by false teaching or by disunity or animosity or lethargic, horrible worship." The people are just dead. He attacks the place of sacrifice. He seeks to destroy the temple. Thirdly and finally, he seeks to cast truth down to the ground. Paul takes his leave of the Ephesian elders, and he says to them, "Listen, guys, when I leave, you need to be alert to the fact that false teachers will arise from among you." Loved ones, if Paul gave that warning to a church that he founded and spent three years grounding in the truth, don't you think that is a good warning for us to listen to? To recognize the real essential danger that is there, because the activity of the evil one is to cast the truth down into the ground. He will do it in every possible way that he can. You say, "But the gates of hell will not prevail." I know that. But they will still push. They will still push. Ultimately, of course, Antiochus Epiphanes is an antitype of the Antichrist. Ultimately, this picture of animosity, embodied evil if you like, will be fulfilled in the man of lawlessness, as we said when we finished last time in 2 Thessalonians 2. The challenge to us is a straightforward one. It is the challenge that was the challenge to the people when they found themselves back in Jerusalem, the challenge that runs the whole way through the Bible. "Choose you this day," Joshua says, "whom you will serve." You can serve the gods on the far side of the river, or you can serve the living God, but you are going to serve somebody. Bob Dylan said that, but so did Joshua, kind of. It is the same today. Who is on the Lord's side? Who will serve the King? Who will be His helper, other lives to bring? Who will leave the world's side, and who will face the foe, and who is on the Lord's side, and who for Him will go? Let's have the Daniels, the Shadrachs, the Meshachs, and the Abednegos stand forward in our generation. Let's have young men and young women laying hold of the precious gift of Jesus in His death on the cross, making their commitment to the people of God, wherever it is and whatever it means, and anchoring themselves to the truth of God's Word as provided for us in the Bible. Next time, we will try chapter 9.
Guest (Male): Choose this day whom you will serve. That is a biblical challenge from Alistair Begg on Truth For Life. Alistair returns in just a minute. Maybe you or someone you know is new to studying the Bible and learning about Jesus. If that is the case, please take advantage of a free ebook we are making available today. It is called Name Above All Names. This is a book that was co-written by Alistair along with long-time pastor, author, and friend Sinclair Ferguson. Together, they take a close look at seven key qualities of Jesus’ identity that provide us with a profound overview of who He is and all that He has accomplished. There is even a companion study guide to help you apply the teaching in your daily life. Download the ebook, Name Above All Names, along with the study guide for free today at truthforlife.org/name. And by the way, this is a great book to go through with a friend or with your Bible study group, so pass the link along to them so you can all get to know Jesus better together. Again, the link is truthforlife.org/name. And if you want to take a deeper dive into who Jesus is and what He has done, check out the books we are currently recommending. They are titled Christ and His Threefold Office and Christ Humbled Yet Exalted. These Puritan classics are yours today when you donate to Truth For Life. You can give online at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Now here is Alistair to close with prayer.
Alistair Begg: Father, thank You that the Bible is not just some trivial little piece of material. Thank You that it is not silly stuff. Thank You that it does not all fit so perfectly with our puny minds that we could just say, "Yeah, we've got it, we've got it, we've got it." But thank You that it reminds us again that You are God and we are mere men and women. Daniel, he desperately needed to understand. He longed to know. He got an insight; he did not get it all. He got the grasp of it, but not all the details. We don't get it all either. Now we see through a glass darkly. One day we will see face to face. Now we know in part, we prophesy in part, we understand. So we pray that You will help us to be good students, but at the same time to be submissive learners. We thank You that the Word of God is fixed in the heavens, that it is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We thank You that it can be trusted. We pray that You will help us to trust it more and more, especially as the prevailing drift runs so counter to the things that Your Word affirms. Help us, Lord, to this end, we pray. Help us to triumph and to live to Your glory and write Your Word on our hearts, we pray. For Christ's sake, amen.
Bob Lepine: I'm Bob Lepine. Does your faith sometimes falter in trying circumstances? Tomorrow, we will learn how Daniel's pattern of life helped him trust God, even on his darkest days. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.