Getting the Picture (Part 1 of 2)

Bob Lepine: Welcome to Truth For Life where today we begin a study of the apocalyptic visions found in the Old Testament book of Daniel. Since biblical prophecy can be confusing and difficult to understand, Alistair Begg prepares us for our study by first taking a broad view of Daniel’s dream and pointing out what God makes absolutely clear.
Guest (Male): Daniel chapter seven. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter. Daniel declared, "I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles' wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth, and it was told, 'Arise, devour much flesh.' After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. As for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me."
Alistair Begg: I received a telephone call from a fledgling pastor, a young man this week, and he asked me, "How do you decide what to preach about on any given Sunday?" It's not an unusual question; it's asked quite often. I remember asking it myself. And so in response, I answered by extolling the virtues of the SCiORTS. It stands for the Systematic Consecutive Exposition of the Scriptures by setting forward the text of Scripture, saying to one another, "Now you are sensible people; you must examine the Scriptures to see if these things are so." In other words, that is the starting point. Rather than the starting point being the preacher's idea or notion or preferred subject which then becomes the occasion of looking for a passage of Scripture that will enable the individual to set forward the idea. There's nothing essentially wrong in that; it's just the pattern that we have chosen not to employ. Now there are distinct benefits in this. And I thought this morning is as good a morning just to remind us of them. Three immediate and obvious benefits of systematically consecutively expounding the Scriptures are as follows: Number one, to do so demands that the preacher himself becomes a student of the Word of God. He can't just keep going over the same old stuff. He can’t be like a bad lecturer in the university where he has one book of notes that he put together in 1957 and he hasn't deviated from them for the last hundred years. He's just been going at them again and again. You can't do that if you're working your way systematically through the Bible. Secondly, it enables the congregation to learn the Bible in the most obvious and natural way. I think you would find that important: that the way we learn the Bible is the way the Bible is provided for us. It has sentences, it has verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and so on, prepositions. And so we read the Bible as it has been given to us. And thirdly, not only because it demands that the preacher is a student, that the congregation is enabled to understand the Bible in its obvious and natural sense, but thirdly, it prevents the preacher from avoiding difficult passages. And here we are at Daniel chapter seven. In other words, to your own self be true. I suppose I could have just stopped at the end of six, but somehow or another I decided that showed no courage whatsoever. And so here we are. It's not easy, is it? I only read half the chapter. If you’ve read ahead, it doesn't really get much easier. We have weird creatures, mysterious symbols, perplexing images, enigmatic numbers and phrases. It’s really quite daunting. As a result of that, you will find if you do even the little research that it is the occasion of great debate among scholars. Theological scholars debate just about everything in the second half of Daniel. As a result of that, many have decided to vacate the notion of studying Daniel at all and have headed for the hills. And those who regard themselves as what we might refer to as "theological sleuths" have found in chapters seven to twelve a very happy hunting ground. And some of you fit that category. Just be honest about it, and that will be fine. You fancy yourself as a kind of Sherlock Holmes of the Bible, always managing to unearth secret and hidden mysteries which you use as intriguing fodder for talking to all of your friends. They look at you in a way with a glazed eye, wondering where in the world did you get this from. "Ah," you said, "I am a theological sleuth, and this is how you come to this." Well, let me suggest to you that if ever there was a place, if ever there is a place for applying the maxim "the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things," then it is when you come to the apocalyptic passages in Daniel and also in the book of Revelation. In the Westminster Confession of Faith, in its opening section on Scripture, it makes very clearly the point that not all things in Scripture are equally plain in themselves or equally clear to all. Chad Van Dixhoorn, in the wonderful book that he's done recently on the Confession of Faith, picks up on that and he makes these statements: "We cannot fail to notice that we all read the Bible at different levels. And so, as the Confession puts it, the Scripture is not alike clear unto all. Some Christians understand the Bible better than other Christians. We are not all teachers, and we are not all seasoned saints. In fact, some people have just entered the Bible for the first time. Some things they have seen but do not yet understand. There are many doors which they have not yet entered and many corners they have yet to explore." That may describe you this morning. You've recently professed faith in Jesus Christ; the Bible is an unfamiliar book to you, and you are just beginning the adventure. "Given," he goes on, "that certain portions of the Bible are demanding, especially for some people, it is important to be humble as we approach the Bible and listen to those who teach it. We mustn't reject an interpretation of the Bible because it is challenging to understand, either for us or for everyone. On the contrary, we should remember that this is God's revelation of himself, and we should not expect that everything revealed about the triune God will be easy for humans to grasp." And then he concludes with this wonderful sentence: "Mapping the high points of the Bible is tiring work. Mapping the high points of the Bible is tiring work." So, I hope that I won't tire you now, but I do want you to know that I have been engaged in tiring work, because it is tiring. Now with that said, you're saying to yourself, "Well, you're obviously stalling for time. You haven't really done as much tiring work as you're suggesting to us, and so you're hoping that the clock will run out before you even begin." Well, no. No. The reason, when you play golf, it is possible every so often someone will say to you, "Do you want to hit balls before you begin?" and the person says, "No, no, I don't need to hit balls. I just step up; I just get out of the car, walk up to the first tee and hit it." Yes, and then you spend a long time in the woods looking for it. It would have been a good idea if you had actually prepared for it. So this is preparation. That’s why I’m explaining about exposition; that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because if we start from the wrong place in this apocalyptic section, within a hundred yards, we will all be completely lost in the trees. In fact, this is one of the areas of the Bible in which it is possible to be unable to see the wood for the tree. And therefore, we have to be very, very careful. I think the heading for our study should simply be "Getting the Picture." Getting the picture. And if we're going to do so, it's important that we realize that there is a distinction between the first six chapters and the last six chapters. There's a distinction in the literature that is actually used, the form of writing, the genre. Those of you who are into art know that often the word "genre" is used in relationship to art: the genre of modern art or post-impressionist art. It's the form of it; it's the style of it. And the style changes here between six and seven, and it is apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature. And the first six chapters are written in the form of stories in each of the chapters as we've seen them. That's why it has been relatively easy to move swiftly through them and get the big picture, get the story as it is conveyed. Also, most of the first six chapters are recorded in the third person; they are reported as having taken place. Now you will notice as we go into the second half of the book, after the first verse, it immediately goes into the first person: "Daniel declared, I saw in my vision by night." So it moves from the third person into the first person. And it is no longer a story form, but it is the reportage of dreams and of visions and of that which captured his mind in his bed, on his bed in the darkness of the night. Now apocalyptic literature is, if you like, kind of literary shock treatment. It is a genre that is to be used in emergency. It is employed in the Bible when the drama of the thing is so perplexing and so overwhelming that it cannot be encapsulated by the normal mechanisms of addressing the difficulties of life. So, for example, how do you describe the indescribable of all that is going to happen when the end of the ages is brought to consummation? Well, how could you use language? If the language that was employed for the initial readers, if it was written in exactly their way, it would not make any sense to us two centuries later on. Or if we were to write about these things from the perspective of the twenty-first century, then those who were in the first century would not have the mechanisms or the language to be able to understand it. God knows that. And so he employs apocalyptic language in order to express, if you like, that which falls before the normal boundaries of our use of language. Now for many people, their view of apocalyptic material in the Bible, here in the balance of Daniel and in Revelation, is almost they press a button in their heads which immediately says to them, "What we're supposed to find here is God charting out his plan for the future in a really hard way to understand so that future generations can draw up calendars and understand." But if you think about that for a minute, it doesn't make sense. If God wanted Daniel to know what was going to happen in the future, why make it so jolly complicated? Why not just say what you mean and mean what you say? Well, because he was not simply seeking to provide material to chart the future for subsequent generations to say, "Aha," but he was actually making clear that, contrary to appearances, in the midst of these indescribable realities, God is on the throne, God is sovereign, and the future is securely in his hands. You say, "Well, that's what the first six chapters were about." Exactly. And the second six are about the same thing. It is the perspective that changes. They are no longer being told in terms of the historical unfolding drama of the subsequent kingdoms that were represented for the exiles who'd been taken away—Daniel and his friends and all their colleagues—but now it is being provided in this amazing dimension so that as a result of that, Bible scholars will differ in their interpretation, Christians may deviate from course in relation to their understanding of it, and so on. And most of us, I think, will be helped by reading it to our children and our grandchildren and allowing them to tell us what it means. You say, "You've now officially lost your mind." No, I haven't. I haven't. Our children and our grandchildren live in a visual world. They live in the world of video games. They process information; they see it visually, and they're making deductions all the time. "What is that big monster doing? Why did that big monster go away and another big monster came? Where did that big horn come from? Did you see what the little horn did? The little horn ate three horns. The little horn was smaller than all the other horns. It popped out, apparently this. The little horn talks. Have you ever seen a talking horn?" And before you know where they are, they're actually beginning to piece it together. And they’ve gone through the whole chapter and they’ve begun to say, "I think I get this." And you said, "You do? Tell our pastor because he doesn't get it!" Actually, Chesterton in one of his children's books actually says essentially the same thing. He says, "Apply your minds as adults, but do not lose your sense of childish apprehension because in the drama and in the pictures, in fact, I think it is he goes on to say, don't trust anything that can't be conveyed in pictures." In other words, if you can't draw it out and it makes sense, you might be careful as to the language. Now Daniel doesn't find this intriguing; he finds it terrifying. We should learn from that. He doesn't experience this and describe all of the intrigue attached to it. No, he tells us that this experience was a terrifying experience. He mentions it in the middle of the chapter around verse 15. He comes back to it at the end of the chapter: "This is the sum of the matter. This is the end of the matter. My thoughts greatly alarmed me; my color changed, but I kept the matter in my heart." Just as I read that, it makes me think of Mary, doesn't it? In the drama: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and overshadow you and the child that will be born of you will be called the Son of God, and he will have a throne that is greater than any throne and his kingdom will be to the ends of the earth." And Mary was greatly troubled, and she pondered all these things in her heart. Lesson: What we receive here in these beasts and in the insight into the throne room of heaven is an indication of the awful conflict which exists in the world beneath and behind the unfolding drama of history. The conflict that is at the heart of the human condition. That’s why we often say that it is impossible to truly understand history without biblical history, without reading your Bible. Because the Bible says what you're seeing here on the face level of the news right now is to be understood in light of that which lies at the very heart of humanity in the ferocious anti-God movement and in the ultimate triumph of God who is sovereignly ruling over these events. If you read later on in the chapter—and I stopped halfway through, and it just occurred to me this morning—that one of the indications of this great anti-God move is that the individual, this fourth beast who speaks against God, he actually shall think to change the times and change the law. He thinks he's going to change the times and change the law. That when man opposes God, he opposes him on every front. "I'll decide what time it is. I'll decide this. I'll decide that." It's at the very heart here of Daniel chapter seven. Now the distinction between them and the connection between them. The connection between six and seven should be very obvious to us because you will notice that it begins in the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon. In other words, chapter seven, the events of chapter seven took place during the reign of Belshazzar. Therefore, what Daniel experienced in his bed on the night happened before the events recorded in chapter five. There is another connection which will not be immediately obvious to us, which is by way of the writing itself. Daniel starts in Hebrew, moves immediately into Aramaic. The Aramaic section does not end at chapter six; it ends at the end of chapter seven. And then it reverts to Hebrew again for the balance of the book. And the indication would seem to be that the cohesive element of what is taking place is such that chapter seven stands like Mount Everest rising as a peak over all of the affairs that are described in the book. In other words, it is a summit. And it is tiring work climbing the summits of the biblical record.
Bob Lepine: You’re listening to Bible teacher Alistair Begg on Truth For Life. We’ll hear more about Daniel’s vision tomorrow. As Alistair mentioned, we don’t skip over the difficult parts of the Bible on Truth For Life. We teach from the whole Bible so that unbelievers might see their need for salvation and become committed followers of Jesus Christ. And to better understand the one we follow as Christians, we are recommending a couple of helpful books today written by Puritan author John Flavel. Both of these books focus on the glory of Christ and his incredible gift of salvation. The first book is titled *Christ and His Threefold Office*. This is a book that’ll help you understand why Jesus became a man and how by becoming a man he was uniquely qualified and prepared to be every believer’s prophet, priest, and king. The second book is titled *Christ Humbled, Yet Exalted*. It examines Christ’s incarnation and resurrection and explains how by these means he secured our salvation and established himself as the fountain of true joy. You can ask for the two-book bundle when you make a donation today to Truth For Life. Your financial support helps distribute solid Bible teaching throughout the world through radio and various online, satellite, and streaming channels. You can give a one-time gift at truthforlife.org/donate, or you can arrange to set up an automatic monthly donation when you visit truthforlife.org/truthpartner. I’m Bob Lepine. Thanks for studying God’s Word with us. Tomorrow we’ll hear warnings and encouragement as we consider the interpretation of Daniel’s prophetic dream. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.