1608-07P XXX
FAITHFULNESS TO GOD
(Daniel 7:15-28)
SUBJECT:
F.C.F:
PROPOSITION:
INTRODUCTION:
A. In 2002 psychologist and author Richard Carlson wrote a book with the catchy title: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and It’s All Small Stuff. I haven’t read it, but the title sounds like it is encouraging people to neutralize worry and anxiety by minimizing the consequences of the decisions and choices that we face: it’s all small stuff. But is that really true? Are the events of our lives simply “small stuff,” that is not worth concern? Contrast this with R.C. Sproul’s regular column in Tabletalk magazine, titled “Right Now Counts Forever.” When we live before the face of almighty God who Jesus said will require from us an account of every idle word we have spoken, I think Sproul is closer to the truth. There is no small stuff. Life is an eternally serious business.
B. Daniel’s vision in chapter seven is a call to living faithfully before God. In this revelation God soberly warns us of what we can expect if we set our hand to the plough to follow Christ. It is a vision of terrible beasts which arise to fill the earth with death and destruction, but also the hopeful scene of God’s ultimate triumph over evil. In all candor, there is no small stuff in Daniel 7, no small stuff in the whole book of Daniel, indeed, I would argue that there is no small stuff in the Bible. Every moment of our lives, every second of time that passes, loaned to us by God, under his vigilant care and overseeing control, all things matter. Right now, this second, as the moments pass in this church sanctuary during this Bible Hour which closes our Lord’s Day, right now counts forever.
C. And God calls us to faithfulness. He would that we were wise regarding what exactly we are to expect of the future, not the various details of who will rise to what position or the number of our days on earth, but certainly the broad strokes of what is continually taking place, what we can likely anticipate and expect of life before the face of God, and what faithfulness looks like in every age. And much of this will be surprising, sobering, and hopefully inspiring. What really can we expect life to be like as the people of God living in a fallen, spiritually hostile world?
I. FAITHFULNESS TO GOD INCLUDES TURMOIL.
A. Verse fifteen is likely to be a bit of a surprise to many professing Christians. That’s because many of us were assured that following Jesus was about finding peace of mind, calm tranquility, a placid stroll through flowery meadows and shady, cool walks beside the babbling brook. The world, we were told, would have all kinds of psychological stress and anxiety, fretful worry and trouble, but Christians would be free from all of that and simply float through life without care on the “peace that passes understanding.”
So verse fifteen jolts us with a rude awakening. “As for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me.” Wait a minute, Daniel was anxious and alarmed? How is that possible? We cannot explain this away by accusing Daniel of a lack of faith. Daniel has already endured trials we will never face, over and over again. We could only hope to aspire to a fraction of Daniel’s faithfulness. Nor can we explain this away by suggesting that Daniel was “Old Testament,” but we are “New Testament,” and so we have the upper hand.
B. I think we have been deceived or are fooling ourselves if we believe that faithfulness to God frees us from trouble, from turmoil, from facing difficult decisions and grappling with vexing problems, and such a naïve outlook will leave us completely unprepared for living faithfully to the Lord. Daniel was God’s man. He had proved his obedience time and again. And when God showed his prophet the vision of what was to come, Daniel did not shy away, did not dismiss it as “small stuff,” but took it to heart. And he was terrified. He was “anxious” and “alarmed.” This leads me to believe that following Christ and faithfulness to God in a hostile, fallen world is not really about seeking personal peace of mind.
Even more, sometimes when people speak about trying to discover God’s will (which I would argue is really not a biblical concept or practice, but more of a pagan practice called “divination”) they will say that they have found what God wants them to do and they know it to be so because they have “peace” about it. By this they mean that they have a feeling of emotional equilibrium. They may equate this with the “peace of God,” and conclude that this emotional settledness accompanies God’s direction. Much more likely is the case that they feel emotionally calm and relieved because they have actually made a decision. In some of the study I have done on the subject of suicide, we were warned that if a distraught and distressed individual suddenly seems calm and relieved, it may well be a warning sign that they have made a decision…to end their life! And their sudden lightness and good humor is simply the result of the relief of having made the decision to do so. Several years back an older relative who had come to a family gathering seemed unusually chipper and good-spirited. He had been depressed about an early retirement and purposelessness in his life, but at this family reunion he was happy and jovial. The next day, while his wife was away at work, he went into the garage, started his car, rolled down the windows and sat back in the seat until he breathed his last.
The point is that emotional calm is neither the goal nor the sure sign that we are doing God’s will. Rather, as a follower of a crucified Savior living in the same world that nailed him to the cross, we can expect great distress and turmoil. Faithfulness includes the experience of Daniel: “anxious” and “alarmed.”
C. I would suggest that frequently in God’s Word, when God visited his people or directed his people or called them to some task, most often they felt anything but settled. They felt like Daniel. Even our Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane was in such emotional anguish that he sweated drops of blood. And this was also the experience of the Apostle Paul who was frequently in distress and felt the weight and the burden for all the churches. Those who are fully engaged in following Christ, those who would be faithful to God in a fallen world, like Daniel should prepare for a bumpy ride. We should get ready to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” Are you prepared to feel deeply, to be anxious and alarmed and terrified? That’s going to be the experience of the faithful, and God signals it to us in this vision that alarmed Daniel.
D. I fear that the demand for personal peace, for smooth sailing as a Christian is really sinful and idolatrous. This expectation, this mandate often keeps us from our Christian duties. Why don’t most professing Christians ever attempt to share their faith in Christ with a non-Christian? The reason is that they would likely find it too upsetting, that they might be uncomfortable with a tricky question or upset by a negative response. Why don’t most Christians ever speak up regarding the great issues of our day? Oh, they might find it stressful. It might be disturbing to their personal peace. How many soldiers in the heat of the battle feel great personal peace? How many even think about it? Not many, I suggest. They’re kind of wrapped up in something greater than how they feel—like winning the battle!
So faithfulness to God includes turmoil, and
II. FAITHFULNESS TO GOD INCLUDES SUFFERING.
A. And here we get into the nitty gritty of the details of Daniel’s vision. The point of this revelation from God is certainly not to satisfy our curiosity or to give specific instructions about how to respond to the coming apocalypse. Rather, it is to remind us of the power and rule of God over all things. Nothing surprises our God. He has not only foreseen all things, he has foreordained them.
It would be perfectly consistent to compare these four beasts with the four-storied image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in Daniel 2 made of gold, silver, bronze and iron mixed with clay. Since there only was one future, God would not have revealed two different futures to Nebuchadnezzar and to Daniel.
It’s pretty clear that the first beast-king is that of Babylon itself, especially with the reference to the lion with its wings plucked off, which later was made to stand and the mind of man was given to it. This clearly seems to be a reference to Nebuchadnezzar himself, of his humiliation from his pride, his madness and subsequent restoration. The second beast-king, like that of a devouring bear, if this vision is roughly chronological, would refer to Medo-Persia which would very soon topple and replace the Babylonian empire. The third beast, the four-headed leopard with wings, most likely refers to the Greek empire of Alexander the Great which very swiftly overran the known world. At Alexander’s death, the world was divided between his four generals, the four heads.
The fourth beast is different than all the rest. And this prevents me from fully identifying this beast with the Roman Empire. Certainly Rome was an expression of it. But this beast is more. This beast is the perpetual spirit of the age. It is a beast of war, especially war against the saints, God’s people. It has ten horns, not simply ten identifiable kings or rulers (or the ten nations of the European Union). The point is that if an ordinary beast has two horns, which were signs of its strength, this thing has ten horns and is five times more powerful and more dangerous.
What we must see is that this beast is alive today, actively working against Christ and his kingdom. And sometimes, perhaps frequently, this beast will prevail over God’s people.
The strategy of the beast is fourfold: “25 He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.” So this beast will take aim at the one true God speaking blasphemies “against the Most High.” He will also instigate a long, drawn-out persecution against God’s people seeking to “wear out the saints of the Most High. He will attempt to “change the times,” instituting a new schedule of religious festivals (replacing true religion with its own). And it will seek to change the law, enforcing a new set of rules, a new morality.
Again, this was not simply a reference to Rome, which certainly tried all of this, but the perpetual spirit of the age, worldliness, the spirit of antichrist which is at work in our land, our communities, our families, and our churches if we are not vigilant. Someone has pointed out recently that the church in the west, and especially America has for a long time largely escaped the hostility of this spirit of age largely because our forefathers were greatly blessed and achieved Christendom in many of our lands. Whenever professing Christians reach a majority, they are then able to put an end to official persecution and even to tame the culture at large. This is called Christendom. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the culture or nation officially becomes a Christian nation, but it does mean that its majority status is able to affect the customs and practices, the norms and expectations and community standards.
But that has now changed. With only 17% attending church regularly, the tide has turned and we are moving back into a time of increased hostility toward the Christian faith. This perpetual spirit of the age has gained ascendancy and is now seeking to institute its godless program of blasphemy against the Most High, persecution against the people of the Most High, and seeking to change the times, the outwardly religious nature of the society, and the laws, replacing biblical morality with the new morality which can be summarized in one word: “tolerance.”
The thing we should notice is that Christendom over the history of the church, has been somewhat rare, and that God’s people have tended to advance and prosper in the Lord more in times of hardship and opposition than in times of ease and popular approval. And so we must roll up our sleeves and prepare for some diligent effort as we pass into the minority and the worldly, godless, spirit of the age revels and flaunts its new-found power, prestige, and popularity and races toward the darkness.
But we should be sure that
III. FAITHFULNESS TO GOD INCLUDES DOMINION.
A. The main point of this text is that even though we will certainly face times of troubling turmoil and sobering suffering, we can also be confident in the Lord’s final victory. This fourth beast-king is certainly terrifying, but his authority is only temporary and will be cut short. “25 He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. 26 But the court shall sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and destroyed to the end. 27 And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them.’”
B. Is that helpful to you? I hope it is. God intends that it would be so. Our part in this great drama of the ages is incredibly small and amazingly brief. Every second matters, there is no small stuff, and right now does count forever. But our moments, our days, our years fly by, a blinking of the eye and our part is played. So play it well, every second, in the sure hope that Almighty God, the Maker of all things, the Most High, will give over the true and everlasting kingdom and dominion to the people of the saints of the Most High.