If we lose sight of the fact that that this Divine Messenger is speaking into the future … that is prophetically, we might become confused and not try to understand the last two chapters of Daniel properly. The Bible is not always easy to grasp. In actual fact, mostly it is hard work and perhaps one of the main reasons for it being hard work is that God wants us to spend more time in His Word, seeking to get to the true meaning. He wants us to think through it, meditate upon it, dig into it to understand … before we find the gold, we must find what God is saying! Mostly for me, I need to have my Bible Tools around me to get the true meaning because often I don’t understand passages. One needs Interlinear Bibles, Lexicons, history books relating to the periods under examination, commentaries, dictionaries, maps and other helps to dig deeper to interpret texts and understand what God is saying. A few reasons for this is because the Bible was written in languages not used today and cultures significantly different to our cultures today. Often sayings, terms, symbols, parables, etc. were set deeply in ancient times and cultures or early New Testament times. Hard work is required … and as we progress with Dare to be a Daniel, the same applies here.
1) What is Truth? The Divine Messenger says
Da 11:2 “Now then, I tell you the truth.”
Before we answer that question, let’s be reminded of whom this Divine Messenger is. This is God in theophany. This Messenger is the Eternal Son of God. This means God is speaking and when God speaks He speaks Truth … always! There are only two realities. The one is truth and the other is lie. God is Truth. Therefore when God speaks He speaks Truth. This means that what God is, He does! This means there is only one Truth. We don’t have a half truth or an almost truth. It’s either truth or it is not. When it comes to “lie”, we can shade it as much as we like, but it remains “lie”. As damning as it sounds, even our history as a country, past and present is questionable because it all depends on who wrote this history and what the purpose of their writing is for. Yet, as soon as we turn to the Bible, we have true Biblical History because the author of the Bible is God, who is Truth. In the Old Testament, God used prophets to address the people in the form … “This saith the Lord”. This is recorded in the Bible for us. The only real Truth we have is the Bible as and followers of God we cannot but hold onto this Truth because it is all we have. Sadly, most of the rest we have today, irrespective how plausible, reasonable and right is seems, if it is not rooted in the Bible it is not Truth. Many will condemn us for this, saying it is arrogance … yet we who love the Lord Jesus know His Word is the only Truth we have.
2) What is the content of this prophetic Truth? We will spend many days working our way through these last two chapters, but in essence it deals with the future of the known world, world leaders, the people of God and eternal salvation. Always remember that God exists outside of time, space and matter. When He looks He sees all of world history from start to end in one snap shot. Because of this He is able to provide accurate information of the future, even if it is some hundreds or thousands of year into the future.
3) How ought we to respond to such prophetic Truth? Although I am repetitive about this matter it is extremely important. All prophetic material in the Bible are part of the Bible … meaning that it is God’s Word … and what Paul says to his apprentice pastor is so vitally important to you and me today when many discard the Bible, slice passages from the Bible, reject large chunks of the Bible and manipulate the Bible to say what they want it to say.
2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
And as Peter writes:
2 Pet 1:20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is God’s inspired, inerrant and authoritative Word. Never forget that. Each time you hold your Bible in your hand, remember you are holding God’s infallible Word in your hand. Remember those who went before us, especially leading up to and during the Protestant Reformation. To have the Bible in our language (other than Latin which was not the language of the masses), men and women died … many burnt at the stake. Families were broken up and careers lost, all because men and women of God stood for reformation which included having the Bible in their own language as opposed to remaining in the Roman mold of unsaved clergy, Latin masses and Latin Bibles. Why would people give their lives, families and career (plus lots more)? So that they then and today you and I are able to hold God’s Word in our hands and read it anywhere, anytime and anyplace in our own tongue! No longer would man be deceived into doctrines and church practices that were unbiblical … and may I say, satanic! How ought we to respond to God’s prophetic truth?
(1) Love the Word. In Psalm 119, David uses the following words to describe God’s Word … Law, Statutes, Commands and Precepts. On each occasion he says he loves God’s … Law, Statutes, Commands and Precepts. Do you?
(2) Use the Word.
Heb 6:14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Using God’s Word faithfully helps to discern holiness from sin. Are you able to discern like this?
(3) Follow the Word.
2 Jn 1:6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
Loving and using the Word helps you to obey the Word with the fruit being true love. Is this you?
(4) Spread the Word. Once you have been affected by the Word you can’t keep it to yourself. You need to share it. Once you have been transformed by the Word, you walk in love and want others to have what you have.
Grant us Lord Your people the passion to have a high view of Your Word and to use it more profitably for growth in Jesus. Amen.