INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF DANIEL
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF DANIEL
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
: September 4, 2011
The Book of Daniel has been and continues to be one of the two most controversial books of the Bible. If I say something to offend your theology, perhaps I have not grown to where you are, so I hope we can disagree in love.
I thank God for all of the wonderful commentaries that have been written on the bible and for the hours of labor and research these great men have done. However, the Bible is it’s own best commentary.
For years I did not own a commentary. I would sit down before the Lord many times weeping asking the Holy Spirit to teach what the scriptures meant. Now, I use commentaries, not for doctrine, but for confirmation. Also, there is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from those “Desert Fathers”.
There is controversy among some as to whether Daniel was a prophet because his prophetic gift was in the exclusive use of dreams and visions. There are no, ‘thus says the Lord’ direct oracles in the Book of Daniel. Young claimed Daniel held the gift, but not the Office of Prophet.
Jesus called Daniel a prophet in Matthew 24:15. “When you shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place, (whoever reads, let him understand.)” I believe Daniel was a prophet. I will teach the Book from the perspective the stood in the Office of the Prophet.
If Jesus said, it, then it is settled. Daniel was a prophet.
The Greek New Testaments lists 133 quotations from Daniel.
Daniel was a man uprooted from his home, educated in an alien society, who kept an unswerving loyalty to the God of his people. His ability and the integrity inspired by his faith took him to high offices of state. He was called to do the impossible, tell the king his dream, not the interpretation, but the actual dream. His faith and courage was rewarded with divine revelation, saving him and others from death.
He would not compromise under persecution even for a month, and his enemies knew he would not. His faith was neither ostentatious nor secret, but steadfast, ready to give account when asked, even to rebuke a king for heedless sacrilege.
Whom God sends, He equips. Daniel was equipped for responsibilities of state for receiving from the Ancient of Days revelation about his nation in international affairs in his time and for centuries ahead even to the latter days.
Daniel’s faith is the meat of the book. His prayer in chapter 9 continues the attitude of Deuteronomy, God’s chosen people could enjoy their promised land so long as they were obedient; For Christians our promised land is the rest of God. The only way in is through obedience made possible by our great high priest and king, Jesus, by grace and mercy through the blood.
Continuous, willful, disobedience will send God’s people into exile or “sin separates us from God.”
God’s agents of punishment depicted by the Assyrians, Babylonians, etc. would all one day crash and all who tried to pass the Lord’s limit.
Thank you Jesus that your limit is not the same as our limit of patience and mercy. When my patience wears out, the Lord continues to extend mercy and patience to rebellious and self-willed people.
Daniel saw that the Kingdom of God would be established, but not in Daniel’s day. Human empires had a further lease on the rule of Israel from the kingdom of gold through the silver and the bronze to the iron and clay;
A definite end there would be; then human pride would be abolished at a blow. In this lay Israel’s hope.
Ezekiel envisioned a Heavenly Jerusalem as a city of greater glory. The prophecies of Daniel 2 and 7 embrace a spiritual Kingdom. The national names of Jerusalem and Israel are notably absent.
God’s eternal purpose for man reaching its goal using the perpetual remnant of the faithful.
As the Ancient of Days, God is awesome in Daniel. He is displayed as the world ruler, majestic dealing with morals through His agents, the angels. At the same time, He is concerned for every detail of the welfare of His worshippers, the uncompromising. Those who know Him by His covenant name. for the uncompromising, He meets faith with faith by revelation of the future.
The Lord has been faithful to His servant, Daniel, and stood by His Word fulfilling it stage by stage.
Daniel’s prophecies reveal the Lord’s constancy. No world empire will continue indefinitely. No human state could ever reach complete control for man could not control himself. In the end---the Lord is triumphant!!!
Man then is God’s creature; a created being by an awesome creator.
Daniel and friends are presented as models of the faithful to whom are God’s promises of eventual victory.
The fact that many of the prophecies are ‘apocalyptic’; (an unveiling of spiritual things) heightens the disputes over the Book of Daniel.
Isaiah and Jeremiah had visions concerning Israel’s future distress and restoration. Daniel belongs to a time when no national Israeli state existed; and no Davidic ruler had to be recalled to covenant duties. Daniel is the first prophet to reveal a Kingdom of God transcending physical boundaries and limitations.
Thus, my conviction that the promises of God transcends the nation Israel to a spiritual Israel, the Church of God, the manifestation of the New Jerusalem, the glorified community of God made up of The Elect, the servants of God, the Bride of Christ. These are those who are the called, chosen and faithful followers.
We must keep a perspective that a dual and sometimes triple interpretation of scripture is usually valid; as to what it meant then; what the Rhema for today is and what it will mean as predictive. Three teachers can teach the same scripture from different revelations and all are correct.
The N. T. makes very clear how far the fulfillment of O.T. prophecies differed from the expectations of even the most Godly, like John the Baptist. Lk. 7:19: “He sent his disciples to the Lord to ask, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’
Jesus replied, “The bind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”
The time of the book was probably around 605 B.C. The chronology of the last 20 years of Judean history is very vague.
At the time I was studying this, Jennifer Robin gave me a copy of a letter from Jack Van Impe. In it, he states that the Lord woke him in the middle of the night saying to him, “Everything Jews, Gentiles and Christians need to know about their future is predicted in the Book of Daniel.”
He then began a quest which cost him 300 hours of research. One of the books he quotes is Reckonings of Redemption by Rabbi Shvili. He said, “Everything we Jews need to know about our future is predicted in the Book of Daniel.”
I never studied Bro. Van Impe’s teachings or video series. I was on quest to discover what it was the Lord wanted to reveal to me through the Book of Daniel. I just received a prophecy that I was called to teach the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelations to the nations.
I decided I had better go to work studying and find out what I was supposed to be teaching.
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from K.J.V.Text: Teaching by: Pastor Carolyn Sissom, September 8, 1993