365 Reflections

Daniel 12:5–7 (ESV) Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream. 6 And someone said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?” 7 And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream; he raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished. The book of Daniel ends with the climax of history, the second half of the Tribulation. What we call the "Great Tribulation." The persecution of the saints will continue under the beast who breaks his covenant after 3.5 years. The mention of the "holy people" in this text marks out Israel for special assignment as their power comes to an end with the end of...

Daniel 12 moves the reader from the darkest time in history —the Great Tribulation —to the ultimate hope of the Christian: the resurrection. But when does this all happen? Daniel 12:1 (ESV) “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. One more verse in chapter 12 continues the description of what the tribulation will be. It will be an unparalleled time of trouble. Yet amid the trouble, Daniel's people (the Jews) shall be delivered. Yet not all, for Daniel is told that it is those whose names are found in the Book of Life. These are Messianic Jews who come to Christ during the trouble that God allows to come upon the Earth.  Revelation states: Revelation 7:13–14 (ESV) Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in wh...

The 11th chapter of Daniel is fascinating, as it reveals the antichrist in type through the story of Antiochus Epiphanes. If you ask most Christians, they would say they never heard that name, and yet here he is, the original man of lawlessness in the Intertestamental period, giving us a shadow of the world leader to come.  Daniel 11:36 (ESV) “And the king shall do as he wills. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods. He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished; for what is decreed shall be done. Verse 36 is where the facts of Antiochus Epiphanes life and the "king" spoken of for the rest of this chapter separate. Scholars know the history doesn't match this text. Thus, the rest of Daniel 11 is what Jesus told us to look for in the final figure to appear and exalt himself before the return of Christ.  What will the antichrist do? He will exalt himself above every god and speak agains...

Daniel 11 begins talking about Antiochus Epiphanes in verse 20, detailing how one of the most deceptive and cruel rulers over the Jews is a prefigured example of the final anti-Christ to come. When we read scripture here, we learn what to expect when the lawless one is revealed and the last days begin.  Daniel 11:20 (ESV) “Then shall arise in his place one who shall send an exactor of tribute for the glory of the kingdom. But within a few days he shall be broken, neither in anger nor in battle. The ascension to power for Antiochus happened with the unexpected and possibly murderous death of his predecessor, Seleucus Philopator after Seleucus ordered his treasurer to plunder the Jewish Temple.  From verse 21, we have a clear description of Antiochus, which is of utmost importance if we are to be wise at the time of the end and determine the season, staying ready when the world is utterly confused. Daniel 11:21 (ESV) In his place shall arise a contemptible person to whom ...

We come to the passage in Daniel that baffles Biblical critics. To counter the incredible accuracy of these prophecies, naysayers suggest that these pages were written long after the events took place. Since they deny Divine inspiration of the text, they suggest an editor compiled these prophecies after they had come to pass and attributed them to Daniel. In other words, they would like to believe that Daniel is the morning newspaper reporting on the previous day's events, instead of what it actually is—the divinely inspired, prophetic Word of God given to His chosen servant, Daniel.  Daniel 11:2–4 (ESV) “And now I will show you the truth. Behold, three more kings shall arise in Persia, and a fourth shall be far richer than all of them. And when he has become strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece. 3 Then a mighty king shall arise, who shall rule with great dominion and do as he wills. 4 And as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom shall be brok...

Daniel 10:1–2 (ESV) In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar. And the word was true, and it was a great conflict. And he understood the word and had understanding of the vision. 2 In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. After the vision of Daniel 9 in which God's timeline for Jerusalem's troublesome restoration was revealed to Daniel, you can understand how Daniel 10 opens. The prophet is mournful, saddened by the fact that Israel's return would be so rife with problems. The third year of Cyrus would have been Daniel's 85th year of life, and the first waves of exiles would have been returning amidst the brutal uphill battle to restore their ancient city. Ezra 4 tells us that the work faced accusations of sedition, and perhaps Daniel feared what eventually happened - the cessation of all activity relevant to the rebuilding of Jerusalem.  Would God's promises fail? Would the governmental powers ...

When Daniel prays, confesses, repents, and seeks the Lord in Daniel 9, he finds assurance of an answer from Him. The information he receives points to Jesus. This is a crucial point for Jewish people to understand, as the timeline is fixed in history to the exact time of Christ's arrival. Daniel 9:24 (ESV) “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Where the exile lasted 70 years, the time of atonement for sin and everlasting righteousness (God's gift through faith) would come 490 years later (70 - 7 x 7 weeks). But how are we to understand time according to this passage? Well, Daniel is given further detail about those 490 years. The angel breaks it down: Daniel 9:25–26 (ESV) Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to ...

Is it possible that 70 years of exile were decreed for Israel because God knew the nation would take that long to truly repent? If so, it would reveal something incredible about our relationship to God as He promises to discipline those He loves (Hebrews 12). He even plans what that discipline should be and for how long. I get this idea from the intercessory prayer Daniel makes in chapter 9.  Daniel 9:13–14 (ESV) As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the LORD our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. 14 Therefore the LORD has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. Sometimes it takes a while before we learn to return to God. Israel was a prime example. Daniel stipulates that the lack of seeking God's favor had prolonged the exile, yet God had known beforehand and an...

Daniel 9:1–2 (ESV)  In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. In Daniel 9, we find the prophetic backstory of the fall of Babylon and Daniel's insight into the rise and fall of empires, as Israel lay in exile. He, unlike many in Israel, listened to God's true prophet, Jeremiah, who foretold 70 years of exile, rather than the 2 that Hananiah and other false prophets were declaring.  Daniel knows that just because the Babylonian empire had fallen, it did not mean that Israel was now to be sent back prematurely to their land. God would accomplish His purpose through multiple regimes to prove His Word, and not the declarations of emperors or wise men would prove true.  ...

Daniel 8 begins the Hebrew portion of this book. The reason it shifts from Aramaic (the language of chapters 2-7) to Hebrew is that God has a special message for His people, the Jews. They truly should have understood the times to usher in the arrival of our Lord.  Daniel 8:1 (ESV) In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first. Daniel 8 begins with the prophet being transported to Susa, which will become the capital of the kingdom about to conquer Babylon. Daniel 8:3–4 (ESV) I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. 4 I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. After Daniel sees the ram with two horns, he sees a ...

The object of our faith amid global disturbance must be a clear vision of the Father through the Son, who holds all things together through the Word of His power. The troubling imagery of Daniel 7, in which the empires of this world are portrayed as beasts bent on rule, conquest, and bloodshed for the sake of power, surrounds one of the most explicit pictures of God in all of scripture.  Daniel 7:9–10 (ESV) “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. 10 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. Right after the verse detailing a little horn making great boasts as he wipes out competing factions of nations, Daniel sees where true authority lies. It is not found in the boast...

Daniel 7:1 (ESV) 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 summarized the matter. The first verse of the second half of Daniel shows us this book is not chronological from chapter 1 to the end. These visions Daniel receives here are before the events of chapter 5 in the kingdom of Babylon. The vision Daniel receives is a different perspective on the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream from Daniel 2. Where Nebuchadnezzar saw succeeding empires as part of a massive statue, Daniel is given a vision of beasts rising from the sea.  Daniel 7:3–7 (ESV) And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. 4 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. 5 And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear....

Daniel 6:1–3 (ESV)  It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; 2 and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss. 3 Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. Daniel is at the top of his game no matter who is in charge. Here we have a clue as to why. The text repeats a line from Belshazzar's time: "an excellent spirit was in him".  Notice the effect of that excellent spirit: Daniel 6:3 (ESV) this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. It doesn't say "Daniel distinguished himself. It says he became distinguished. We live in a "distinguish yourself" culture. We are inundated with messages suggesting tha...

No empire is too big to fall. The Babylonians found that out harder than most. Daniel 5:1 (ESV) King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Think the setting in this brief description. Wherein Nebuchadnezzar was into self-adulation, his son Belshazzar was more into the creature comforts of world domination. His goal is simple: good times with fine wine. And the tipping point for the empire's collapse was when he decided to desecrate the sacred objects of Israel's temple for the glorification of his empire in front of his special friends.  Daniel 5:2 (ESV)  Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. It wasn't enough to desecrate these sacred objects with the unholy wine of Babylon that Daniel refused, the gave...

Daniel chapter 4 is a salvation testimony from an unlikely vessel.  Daniel 4:1–3 (ESV) King Nebuchadnezzar to all peoples, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you! 2 It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me. 3 How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation. The conversion of Nebuchadnezzar is not something you'd expect to happen at all in scripture. He may top the list of people you'd never expect to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But he does. He's brought low and sent into the wild by the hand of God. In the end, he found out who he wasn't (God) and who he was accountable to (also God).  It started with pride.  Daniel 4:4 (ESV) I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and prospering in my palace. He has a dream again, this time he tells the magicians and enchanters ...

How do you stand for God when everyone else is falling for lies? That is the most important question we can ask of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. The only three people in the world who stood for God at a time of global confusion. The world ebbs and flows into this sort of state, where at times people are utterly fooled into following nonsense. I consider the COVID-19 lockdown period one such time. I'm sorry if that offends, but it's truer now than ever. We were lied to, and few stood up for the truth because the consequences for doing so were somewhat severe.  It doesn't get more severe than burning to death.  Daniel 3:8–12 (ESV) Therefore at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews. 9 They declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! 10 You, O king, have made a decree, that every man who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, shall fall down and worship the golden i...

Resisting pride has to be the most challenging spiritual discipline. I should say humility is the most elusive virtue. On the heels of learning his kingdom would one day end and be surpassed by 3 successive kingdoms after his, Nebuchadnezzar decides to take matters into his own hands. Daniel 3:1–2 (ESV) King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. 2 Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. What do we see here? We see an image made fully of gold, whereas the image of his dream only had a head of gold (representing Babylon). We see his desire for world unity under his reign through a global invitation to the image's dedication.  Daniel 3:3–5 (ESV) ...

The great Bible names are famous for not taking credit. To make that argument, consider first those who sought to make a name for themselves: Samson fought his own battles instead of the Lord's.  Saul won a battle and built himself a monument in his own name.  Simon the magician offered money for the Holy Spirit's power to be important.  The super apostles in Paul's letters used the church for glorification.  And of course, the Babylonian city in Revelation is cast down in her pride.  Daniel is among those men who did great exploits and refused to take credit. When Nebuchadnezzar's dream needed interpreting, Daniel gave all the credit to God.  Daniel 2:26–28 (ESV) The king declared to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?” 27 Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, 28 b...

Mighty kings in the Bible who thought they were God were troubled by one of the most impotent forces on earth - dreams. Consider that Pharaoh's troubling dream spooked him enough to search out and find Joseph, who could interpret them successfully. Now, in Daniel 2, we have a repetition of that theme in scripture.  Daniel 2:1 (ESV) In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him. Not only does the king experience troubling dreams, but he cannot sleep. One could harken back to Esther 6 when Xerxes suffered the same affliction and called for the chronicles of his reign to be read to him. The story turned on that simple moment, and here in Daniel, dreams and insomnia do their work to open doors of opportunity for God's chosen ones living in exile.  Nebuchadnezzar calls for the magicians and enchanters to come and solve the problem, but UNLIKE Pharaoh, there will be no telling of the dream. Nebuchadnezz...

It’s a world clamoring for attention. Everyone wants to be seen, followed, admired, liked, loved, connected, networked and heard. To me, it’s getting exhausting. The quest for attention dilutes our competency around what actually IS worth our attention. Click bait ropes us in with false/misleading headlines. I’ve seen something emerge called engagement bait where a post is obviously misconstrued by the author simply to illicit comments from readers. In other words, the poster is asking for people to correct an obvious mistake they purposefully made simply to get attention from others.  Maybe it’s a lack of cohesion in family and community. Our neighborhoods are now HOA drama-fests. Our families are often fractured by politics and opinions. Our churches have dwindled and social clubs like the American Legion and K of C are a thing of the past.  But there’s a far deeper issue. We seem to be a culture of dead fish all swimming down stream and on our way to the dead end, we’re gra...