[SPEAKER_00]: We are in week 7 of our Daniel series and we're up to Daniel 7.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a journey we have been on through this book so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you found this encouraging, challenging, inspiring anybody?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's been a fantastic series.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've now reached the halfway point of the book, Daniel 7, and we've come to a significant transition moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because from here on Daniel Schiffspom being primarily a narrative a series of stories of the challenges of life in Babylon for the exiles, to a series of wild dreams and visions and angelic visitations that are often quite weird and frightening and difficult to interpret will do our best.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bible scholars call this second half of Daniel, apocalyptic literature, like revelation, like parts of Ezekiel and Jude.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, Daniel 7 is really the central moment of the whole book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact more than that, it's also one of the most important chapters in the Old Testament to help us understand what it means for Jesus to be our Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't we pray?
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, thank you that we can be here together this morning in your presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thank you that your word is living inactive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I pray that this morning, as we open your word, your spirit will be speaking to us, bringing comfort or challenge or conviction or encouragement, what we need.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever we might need this morning to hear from you, I pray, a Lord that you would speak that to each of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we open your word and meditate on the things that are written in this chapter in Jesus' name, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the background to the book, if you are just tuning in for the first time, is that the Babylonian Empire led by a king named Nebuchadnezzar has besieged Jerusalem in around the seventh century BC, and had taken it captive and then destroyed the city, destroyed the temple, and carried off its inhabitants, thousands of people into exile in Babylon, including Daniel and his three friends, named Hananiah, Michelle and Azariah.
[SPEAKER_00]: who were really just teenagers at the time that all of this is happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are now living as aliens and strangers in a foreign land, in a foreign city, and a foreign culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first half of the book is really about their struggle to remain faithful to God by living as a minority in a culture that is hostile to them, often hostile to them and to their faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's an issue that is as relevant to life in Melbourne in 2026 as it was to age in Babylon because what does it mean for us to follow Jesus faithfully here in this city?
[SPEAKER_00]: A city that is in so many ways beautiful and creative but is also as we know ruled and shaped by corrupt powers that do not acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most of you experience that every day that you live and work among your colleagues, your workplaces, in your schools, in your friendships, in your families.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the question is, do we believe often despite appearances that Jesus is in fact the King of Melbourne?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this is the challenge we face.
[SPEAKER_00]: At all disciples face, actually, video was incredible for the 24-7 week of prayer, just thinking about the global church.
[SPEAKER_00]: All disciples face this regardless of where they live.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we live in a world, that is still so scarred by suffering and violence and idolatry and decadence and death,
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we keep believing that Christ is Lord when the evidence seems to keep on pointing us in the opposite direction?
[SPEAKER_00]: Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we remain faithful without becoming fearful?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we remain hopeful when the signs of hope are so often hard to find?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, welcome to Daniel 7.
[SPEAKER_00]: John Linux says, and we've been using his commentary against the flow through this series, the preaching team, really incredible commentary, I encourage you to get a hold of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also a study guide you can use as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But John Linux says that Daniel is the book of Daniel is a clarion call to our generation, to live by courageous faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is exactly what the vision
[SPEAKER_00]: in this chapter is designed to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It pulls back the curtain, that's what Apocalypse means.
[SPEAKER_00]: It pulls back the curtain reveals what's going on behind the events of human history on the true nature of fallen human and demonic power and shows us what God sees and reminds us of who really rules over human history.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's jump in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you ready?
[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel 7, verse 1, in the first year, our belches are King of Babylon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel had a dream and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote down the substance of his dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my vision at night, I looked.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there before me, were the four winds of heaven, kind of four points of the compass, churning up the great sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: we are taken back to the creation story sort of, but something is wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unlike Genesis 1 where it's the breath of God, the spirit of God hovering over the waters and bringing order and peace and life to the darkness and the chaos, this is to be understood as the opposite of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here, the churning seas of chaos, which are often symbols throughout Scripture of the powers, the demonic powers that are at war with God, are being stirred up by great winds.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the breath of God this time, but something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's telling us that something anti-God, something anti-creation, something destructive, and deadly is being unleashed into the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because out of this churning grinding sea of death
[SPEAKER_00]: The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then as I watched, its wings were plucked off and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a human being.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a human mind was given to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another beast appeared, a second one that looked like a bear.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of raised up on one side, had three ribs and its mouth among its teeth, and it was told a rise to vow many bodies.
[SPEAKER_00]: After this I watched another appeared like a leopard,
[SPEAKER_00]: the beast had four wings of a bird on its back and four heads and dominion was given to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then comes the fourth beast.
[SPEAKER_00]: After this, I saw in the visions by night a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly powerful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had great iron teeth and was devouring, breaking in pieces and stamping on what was left with its feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was different from all the beasts that proceeded it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it had ten horns.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, as I was considering the horns, when another horn appeared, a little one that came up from among them, three of the original horns were plucked up from before it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were eyes like human eyes in this horn and a mouth speaking arrogantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone just take a deep breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the fourth beast,
[SPEAKER_00]: cannot be compared to anything Daniel has seen before.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can't even really describe what he's seeing, except that it's terrifying with its great iron teeth and horns, like some kind of metal dragon and it's crushing, devouring, trampling everything in its path.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where I think we get the idea of Godzilla from.
[SPEAKER_00]: The question is, what do these beasts represent?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do these beasts represent?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thankfully, an angel whose present, later in the dream, tells Daniel what these things mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: The four great beasts are four kings or empires that will arise from the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: in Daniel 717.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these beasts represent empires, nations, kingdoms, and that imagery or this imagery might seem strange to us, but would have been pretty familiar to Jewish readers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Israel's prophets often described violent and oppressive kingdoms that were opposed to God as wild animals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fact Isaiah, who was prophesying just before the Babylonian army invaded Jerusalem, described Babylon's armies like roaring lions, jumping out of hedges, out of bushes and seizing their prey.
[SPEAKER_00]: And horns are also a frequent symbol in the Bible that depict strength and authority and power, both sometimes for good and sometimes for evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that these beasts have some human characteristics, like eyes and mouths that speak, is telling us that human intelligence in this picture, human intelligence, human ingenuity, human creativity, is being mixed with a kind of wild beastly bloodlust.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, John Lennox writes in against the flow that the perspective is clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Empire's resemble wild animals, but unlike humans, animals are not inhibited by moral considerations, since animals are not moral beings, but Empire's tend to behave like that, as a moral powerblocks.
[SPEAKER_00]: The overall impression of the vision is of the dark underbelly of politics, the jockying for power with less and less moral qualms, until all sense of human humanity and compassion disappears under the ruthless lust for domination.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, nearly all commentators agree that the first three beasts in the vision historically speaking represent the three kingdoms that will arise at the time or shortly after the time of Daniel.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we go back to their descriptions, the first beast represents Babylon.
[SPEAKER_00]: And interestingly here, actually, in a positive sense, it tells us a little bit about Nebuchadnezzar's transformation from being a beast to becoming human again, something we've explored in previous weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're by the grace of God, by God's gracious intervention, he actually shifts from being a human be an animalistic beast to be coming human again, as he gives honor and glory to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second beast represents the meat and Persian empire that takes over Babylon.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason it's kind of raised up on one side and has these ribs in its mouth is because eventually what happens is the Persian Empire will devour eat up the meat empire and along with many other nations and empires as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: The third beast refers to the Greek Empire that eventually defeats the Persians and sweeps across much of the ancient world as fast as a leopard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Concord country after country with legendary speed under Alexander the Great, like no one had ever seen anything like this before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet after his early death, Alexander's empires, you may know, was then divided between his four generals.
[SPEAKER_00]: foreheads.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then there is a pause, and Daniel's attention is captured by the fourth more terrifying beast.
[SPEAKER_00]: But unlike the others, it's not like into any kind of animal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something else entirely.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it appears to be made of metal, of iron, and of bronze, and it has these horns that symbolise the immense city of its overwhelming power.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is this beast?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it represent?
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where there is almost no a very little agreement between commentators.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some believe it's about kind of the late stage of the Greek Empire under Antioch as Epiphany's.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some believe it's about the Roman Empire that follows on from Greece.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that may be so, but others see this beast as something else entirely, something much worse, something much more terrifying, which is literally global in its power.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a clue later in the vision that tells us that this beast,
[SPEAKER_00]: Does in fact mean something beyond Rome when the angel tells Daniel in verse 23 that asks for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, that shall be different from all the other kingdoms, it shall devour the whole earth and trample it down and break it to pieces.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now as great as Rome was, it never reached that level of power.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, we encounter this same beast for those of you who know your Scriptures, we encounter this same beast later on in Revelation 13, but this time it's clear that the beast refers to a final kind of global superpower a last beastly world encompassing government energized by satanic power that will arise and dominate the earth just before Christ returns.
[SPEAKER_00]: Revelation 137.
[SPEAKER_00]: The beast kind of repeats the description in Daniel 7.
[SPEAKER_00]: The beast was allowed to wage war on the saints and to conquer them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the inhabitants of the earth will worship it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone whose name has not except for those whose name has been written from the foundations of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb that was slaughtered.
[SPEAKER_00]: The good news is, there is some good news here, but it's rain is short.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only allowed to do this to dominate the world globally as Daniel has told for a time, two times, and half a time, or 42 months as Revelation 13 will go on to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, three and a half years, it is a terrifying picture, but we must remember friends how the story ends.
[SPEAKER_00]: so that we don't give into fear and lose heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it ends in Revelation 19 with the coming of Christ described as the writer on the white horse whose name is called Faithful and True and in righteousness he judges and wages war.
[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadoms and he has a name in scribe that no one knows but himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and his name is called The Word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the armies of heaven wearing fine linen white and pure, were following him on white horses.
[SPEAKER_00]: From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the beastly empires and he will rule them with a scepter of iron.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God, the Almighty.
[SPEAKER_00]: On his robe, and on his thigh, he has a name inscribed, king of kings and lord of lords.
[SPEAKER_00]: We must remember, friends,
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever these beasts mean,
[SPEAKER_00]: And whatever the future holds, we can take heart because we know how the story ends, we know who has the victory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ will return, he will destroy the beast, he will restore all things, he will put all of creation back together and we can have hope that even now, as we live among the beastly empires, that this is the confession of our faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ has died, Christ is risen and Christ will come again.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the angel tells Daniel chapter 7 verse 25, he shall speak words against the most high, talking about the beast.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'll wear out the holy ones of the most high, and they shall be given into his power for a time, two times, half a time, but then the court will sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away to be consumed and totally destroyed,
[SPEAKER_00]: the kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the most high.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom and all dominions shall serve and obey them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, this is the hope of our salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the thing about biblical prophecy and about images like this fourth beast
[SPEAKER_00]: So the fourth beast can mean the Roman Empire in part, and in another sense it can kind of represent all the ungodly beastly empires of the world fueled by demonic hatred from that time till now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, also representing Revelation 13, the kind of final beastly empire that will arise at the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: So too often we get caught up in the details of the vision of things that we don't understand, the things that aren't clear, and we get lowered into kind of wild speculation.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we can just step back from the details for a minute and try to hear the overall message of Daniel 7,
[SPEAKER_00]: which I think is so well described by John Lennox here over the centuries, this chapter has been a source of immense hope to millions of people who have experienced persecution and suffering for their faith in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: However powerful the beasts may be.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they have done their worst, they can only kill the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: They cannot destroy the person who is you, who is held by Christ power forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not too sparrows, soul for a penny, yet not one of them will fall to the ground, outside your father's care.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even the very hairs of your head are numbered.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't be afraid.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are worth more than sparrows.
[SPEAKER_00]: So whoever acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before my father in heaven, but whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my father in heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: So John Lennox goes on to say that Daniel tells us that there is a heaven from which the Son of Man will one day come as a perfect human.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will take the reigns of government from the beasts of the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: There will be a final judgment when justice will be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: The final ferocious expression of hostility toward God and His people will be destroyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the saints
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who have clung on to God in spite of overwhelming odds, even murder them will receive the kingdom forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah, amen to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, of course, Daniel is not telling us that all governments are evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that many forms of government are capable of doing great good of leading their nations in righteousness, restraining evil, upholding justice, creating peace and prosperity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel himself served in a government at the highest level that had started out as a beast and ended up being transformed into a nation, or at least the king of that nation, was in fact giving glory to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Daniel served in that way and God did great things through him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're not being told here in the light of these visions, to kind of separate ourselves off from the world and gather into our own private little religious ghettos or that the only safe thing to do is join a monastery and keep ourselves untainted by the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we are being told friends to keep our eyes open and our wits about us that when human power refuses to acknowledge any authority above itself when it makes its own survival and glory the ultimate end and when the end justifies the means it becomes beastly like a wild animal that devours people rather than serves them and it will trample on anything or anyone who stands in its way and it is in those times.
[SPEAKER_00]: in those times, and that's why Daniel 7 has been given to us because it's in those times that we need to remember who we are and to whom we belong.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we only need to think about the horrors of the last century, the state war machines, the terrorist bombs, the totalitarian regimes, the gas chambers, the death camps, the killing fields, countless other instruments of death that we humans have devised.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this continues on in so many places around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've seen much of it with our own eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Daniel had seen much of this with his own eyes as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jerusalem was in ruins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Temple was destroyed, families had been torn apart, thousands had been killed or enslaved and carried across the world to serve the empire that had conquered them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel must have wondered, surely as many of us do, considering the fourth beast, how long will this continue?
[SPEAKER_00]: If God is king, why does Babylon seem to rule over everything?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does this evil still prevail?
[SPEAKER_00]: When will justice come?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's in the midst of those questions that the vision suddenly changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Daniel writes this.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I looked, Throne's was set in place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the ancient of days took his seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: His clothing was as white as snow.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hair of his head was white like wool.
[SPEAKER_00]: His throne was flaming with fire,
[SPEAKER_00]: A river of fire, purifying, holy fire was flowing, coming out from before Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thousands upon thousands attended Him, 10,000 times 10,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you do the math, 100 million, stood before Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The court was seated and the books were opened.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ancient of days, one of the most magnificent titles for God that we have in all of Scripture, because he is the eternal one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the king of all time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the sovereign Lord over human history.
[SPEAKER_00]: The beasts look invincible from the ground, from our perspective, but not from the perspective of heaven, and that is surely above all else what these visions are intending to show us.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is not panicking, he's not pacing around his throne room, figuring out what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the time for judgment comes, the court sits,
[SPEAKER_00]: The books are opened, the beast is judged and it is stripped of its authority and destroyed forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched then because of the arrogant words that the horn was speaking, but as I watched the beast was put to death and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now many people think that the idea of God's judgment is something negative and medieval.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, or I'm loving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm here to tell you the sporting friends that they could not be more wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: The judgment of God is one of the most hopeful and joyful ideas that we have in all of Scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do I say that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when you are suffering persecution or injustice or tragedy at the hand of these ungodly powers, the main thought in your mind is how long is this going to go on and will anything be done about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: When will something be done about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, sorry, I've coined John Lennox a lot this morning, but he's just so good on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Human beings, long for justice, yet many of them never experienced it in this life.
[SPEAKER_00]: What Daniel tells us is that this is not the end of the matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one day, ultimate justice will be meaded out records have been kept.
[SPEAKER_00]: of all the horrors and evil to which human beings have been subjected by the beasts that have stalked the jungles of power, but when the awesome heavenly court sits and God, the ancient of days presides, the books will be opened and rational, measured and righteous, justice will be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, there's got to be a hell of a lure to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because God is a God of judgment, that means he is a God of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: who longs to put the world right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if he didn't care,
[SPEAKER_00]: If he didn't care about what has been done to us, what has been done to this world, what the beasts have done to this world, and to human beings who have been made in his image, if he didn't care, if he just wanted to sweep it under the carpet and forget about it, then he is no God of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he's a monster worse than all these beasts put together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our suffering will be meaningless, but he is not, he is a God of love, and therefore he is a God of justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where things get really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: They aren't interesting enough already.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turn to the person next to you and say, I'm looking forward to this getting interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the vision isn't over, and Daniel sees one more figure.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've read Daniel 7, you'll know what's coming next.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my vision at night I looked and there before me was one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: He approached the ancient of days and was led into his presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power, all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's Dominion, is an everlasting Dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: You notice what's going on here, all of this is now coalescing into this one figure, this one person, the aromatic phrase translated in Son of Man simply means the human one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the contrast that it's at the heart of the vision.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the one side of the beasts, violent, arrogant, destructive, corrupt, unjust, predatory powers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on the other side is the truly human one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one who represents what humanity was always supposed to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: The beasts rise up from the chaotic sea, but the human one comes on the clouds of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: The beast sees power by violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: The human one receives his authority from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is this human one?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yes, I know who you know who this is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the Sunday school answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just before we get there, we know that while Jesus was called Christ, or Messiah, or Lord, by many people, the title that He preferred to use for Himself was what?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Son of Man.
[SPEAKER_00]: The son of man, where did he get it from?
[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel 7, this is where it comes from.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at his trial, before he was crucified, when Jesus was brought before Caiaphas, the chief priest, and all the elders and priests of Israel's religious court, the Sanhedrin were there, every level of Israel's leadership is represented, and they're searching for false evidence to put him to death, but they can't find anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: This court is a mockery of justice,
[SPEAKER_00]: The opposite of Daniel 7, but in frustration, then the high priest finally demands of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: I charge you under the oath by the living God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God, and what was Jesus' response?
[SPEAKER_00]: He quotes, Daniel 7, you have said so, Jesus replied, but I say to all of you, from now on, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Jesus walks into a room full of Bible scholars, Bible experts, they are experts in the scriptures and they know exactly what Daniel 7 says and Jesus puts on Daniel 7 like a costume as one person said it would be like arriving at a Star Wars convention dressed in black wearing a shiny helmet carrying a red light saber.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would not need to explain anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone knows the cost you, everyone knows what it means, because everyone knows the script.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've seen the movie a thousand times.
[SPEAKER_00]: They know it by heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus quotes Daniel 7, and everyone in the room knows exactly what he is saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the human one that Daniel saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the true faithful representative of God's people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the Messiah who has come to claim a kingdom that will never end.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is the response of the high priest?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he knows exactly what Jesus is saying here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The high priest tore his clothes, and he said, he has blasphemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do we still need witnesses?
[SPEAKER_00]: You've heard the blasphemy.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they answered, he deserves death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then they spat in his face, and they struck him, and they slapped him, and they said prophesy to us, you Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is it that struck you?
[SPEAKER_00]: What has happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: Immediately the court turns to violence, and Jesus is whipped and tortured and pinned to a cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has trampled and devoured, yet God will vindicate him because three days later, he will rise from death, and he will be exalted to the throne of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if Jesus following Daniel 7 is the Son of Man in this scene, then who is the beast?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is Jesus calling the beast?
[SPEAKER_00]: In this moment, it's the religious and political powers of Israel who have conspired to kill him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Israel's leaders, and that means the whole political
[SPEAKER_00]: Religious hierarchy of Israel has become the beast in this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has become Babylon, it has become Rome.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has become as God warned his people not to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: All throughout the Old Testament, it has become just like all the other nations.
[SPEAKER_00]: The leaders of God's people have now become the very thing that they were supposed to resist.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the high priest knows what Jesus means.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why he's so offended.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why he tears his clothes in rage.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus is saying to them, you think that you're putting me on trial, but I tell you, I am putting you on trial.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's you who are being judged.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we know that ultimately through the cross, by laying down his life,
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus truly becomes our Messiah, our Savior, our Redeemer, and the truly human one after whose image we are being recreated in the power of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Paul says in Philippians 2, surely with Daniel 7 on his mind, though Christ Jesus was in very nature God, he made himself nothing being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death,
[SPEAKER_00]: even death on a cross, therefore God exalted him to the highest place, gave him the name that's above every other name, that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: is also deeply confronting because although as we've seen, there will be a final empire of final boss, if you will, that will arise before Christ returns.
[SPEAKER_00]: The meaning of the beast in Daniel 7 is also telling us that this is a recurring pattern through human history, and it forces all of us to look at ourselves in the mirror.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any corporation movement, party, media platform, product, religious institution can become a power that co-ops humans to serve its own ungodly anti-Christ ends even the people of God can become the beast and we have seen that too many times through history when the church has acted more like the anti-Christ than like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing is, before this happens,
[SPEAKER_00]: to political systems before it manifests.
[SPEAKER_00]: In governments and nations and empires, it always first takes root in the human heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes hold of our hearts and our minds and our desires before they manifest outwardly in systems of oppression and injustice.
[SPEAKER_00]: The beasts that appear on the outside are always just the outward manifestation of the beast that has first taken hold within.
[SPEAKER_00]: including me and including you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the final week of this series we're going to dig more into what all of this means, the principalities and powers.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the whole book of Daniel, especially Daniel 7, is calling us to live aware and awake of what is going on around us in the powers of the world, but especially friends to what is going on in your own heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: But our task as followers of Jesus, living in Babylon, is to ensure that Babylon doesn't come to live in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can do this because we know that in Christ, as Daniel 7 tells us, the enemy is a defeated foe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ has the victory, and he has the victory,
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the beasts, not by becoming a bigger beast, not by using the beast's weapons and crushing his enemies with superior force.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, Jesus stands before the beast and by quoting Daniel 7 at his trial, he is saying, in effect, the moment you condemn me is the moment that God will vindicate me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment you lift me to a cross is the moment that I'll be lifted to the throne of the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus conquered the beast as this image so powerfully shows us
[SPEAKER_00]: by allowing first the beast to conquer him on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even there, he did not allow the beast to twist him and remake him in its own image.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, even on the cross, if you remember, Jesus was crying out, Father forgive them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have become like animals.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I love how Tim Mackey, when I finish with this, the bank can come on up here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel's beast reveal a biblical vision of the human condition.
[SPEAKER_00]: When human beings reject God's authority and his definition of good, good, and evil, when we give divine significance to our own desires and impulses and appetites, something terrible happens, we become like beasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: But friends, the task of a followers of Jesus to remember day by day,
[SPEAKER_00]: that we do not belong to the beasts any longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We belong to Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we belong to Christ, then we have crucified the flesh with its desires.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have given ourselves entirely over to the true human one, in the hope that, in the knowledge that, in the truth that, he will remake us, is remaking us, has remade us and will ultimately give us resurrection life in the new creation, shaped and
[SPEAKER_00]: Greenborn and remade in his image.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Paul says in Galatians 220, as we prepare to come to the communion table, I invite you to stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's stand together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ and so of you and so and why.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live.
[SPEAKER_00]: but Christ lives in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the life that I now live in the body, you all know it, don't you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now as we prepare to come to communion, we're gonna seeing one of my favorite songs, which I think captures so many of these threads.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I pray that it will encourage you and strengthen you and remember why it is when we gather and when we receive the bread and wine, the cup.
[SPEAKER_00]: the bread and the cup, the body and blood of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: What it is reminding us of, which I'll prepare us for just before we come to the table, but let's lift our voices and give the Jew honor and glory and worship that is owed to Christ Jesus our Lord, the only king of kings and Lord of Lords forever and ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.