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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty

An Overview of Daniel

I got asked last night to fill in and I'm happy to do so because today is actually my very last Sabbath here.

I hope it's okay with you if I don't teach from the quarterly.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to do an overview of the Book of Daniel.

We're going to do an overview of the book of Daniel.

If you wanted to participate in the lesson study about patience, there's 3 other classes that you can do that in, just so you know.

So why don't we bow our heads for a word of prayer and we will get started with our study here.

Father in heaven we thank you for this day this Sabbath day to study your word.

We thank you that we can study from the book of Daniel this morning and I pray that you would give us guidance and wisdom as we do so in Jesus name Amen.

Okay, so I'm kind of happy that I get to teach from the book of Daniel this morning.

So I've been studying Daniel again over the last couple of months and going through some things.

And we're going to look at some of the big picture ideas.

We're not going to necessarily spend time on 1 particular detail, although there's plenty of things in the book of Daniel that you could do that with.

What we're going to do though is we're going to probably spend a good amount of time in the first 6 chapters looking at the lives of Daniel and his 3 friends and how that applies to the prophecies in the last 6 chapters into God's last day people.

So we know some of the basic stories, so I'm just going to look at some of the basic things but then hopefully shed a bigger application as we go through here.

So, in Daniel chapter 1, as we look at this overview of the book of Daniel, actually before we even get into chapter 1, looking at the big picture of Daniel, if there was 1 word that you would use to describe the book of Daniel, what is the word that you would use to describe it?

To describe the book of Daniel, what's 1 word that you would think of?

Right, so the name Daniel itself means God is my judge.

You know, Hebrew names were chosen very carefully.

And Daniel's identity, his name, was shaped around the idea that God is my judge.

And so whenever Daniel heard his name, he was always reminded, God is my judge.

And so that's the first thing that we see.

So when you look at the book of Daniel, you're going to see the idea of judgment come out very strongly in this book.

And we're going to see a number of things.

So the idea of the book of Daniel is judgment.

And what we're going to see in the first 6 chapters is how to live in preparation for the judgment.

The last 6 chapters, as well as chapter 2, give us an understanding of what precipitates the judgment and what brings the judgment to a close and who the key players will be with respect to the judgment.

So then when you get to Daniel chapter 1, the beginning of the book, you see that Daniel and many others, including his 3 friends, are carried into captivity to Babylon.

Now, this would have had to have been very hard to take if you were living in Jerusalem and you have a self-understanding that you are God's chosen people And God has delivered his chosen people time and again, although by this point, God's chosen people are living in utter apostasy, worshipping idols, things of that nature.

And so, all of a sudden, here you go, knowing that you're God's chosen people, to being carried away in captivity.

And that had to have been, for some people, a very hard thing to understand.

So here you see these young men and the Hebrew people taken into captivity.

And now you see that they are living in the kingdom of Babylon.

And Here in the kingdom of Babylon, these young men are brought to a test right up front in their experience.

And the very first thing we see is they are tested about the food that they would drink and whether or not they would partake of the wine of the king's table.

The bottom line is, verse 8 we see, Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's meat or the wine which he drank.

Therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself." And without spending too much time on this, you see that Daniel had purposed in his heart.

That means he had decided ahead of time that he was going to be faithful.

So when the crisis came, they had been taken away into captivity into Babylon, the crisis comes and Daniel and his 3 friends stay faithful.

So the first thing that we see in the book of Daniel with this understanding of judgment with the understanding the concept that God is judge is that Daniel and his 3 friends had purpose to stay faithful ahead of time And if we wonder what's going to happen in the crisis that lies ahead, if we don't know what we're going to do, if we haven't thought ahead of like, what would I do if I was faced with a situation?

More likely than not, you'll just kind of go with the flow.

And you had Daniel and his 3 friends who stayed faithful.

Now they were not the only Hebrew captives in Babylon, and yet the great majority of the Hebrew captives compromised, and so therefore God was not able to use them.

It's interesting, you get to the end of Daniel chapter 1, in verse 17 it says, As for these 4 children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.

And then you see that they were 10 times wiser in verse 20.

Now it's interesting, because these young men were faithful, God gave them an extra blessing.

First of all, they had extra knowledge, extra wisdom.

But in verse 17, we see that Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.

So what kind of a gift did Daniel receive?

So not only did they have extra understanding and wisdom, Daniel was given the gift of prophecy.

So here's an interesting application for living in the time of judgment.

Daniel and his friends were faithful to the health message, the health message that helped to distinguish them as a peculiar people.

They stayed faithful to the health message, and God therefore gave them the prophetic gift.

And specifically Daniel received the prophetic gift.

Now if you look at God's last day people living in the judgment hour, God has also given us a health message.

If we heed the health message that God has given us.

We may not have visions and dreams like Daniel did, but God has given his last day prophetic people the gift of prophecy through the writings of Ellen G.

And in order to understand the health message you read her writings.

And with that, then not only comes an understanding of the health message and the understanding of the writings of Ellen White, but I believe that God has given His last day judgment to our people, an understanding of the prophetic messages in Daniel and Revelation.

So if we choose, like Daniel and his friends, to be faithful to our health message, to the identifying characteristics that help us to have clearer minds, then God will bless us with an understanding of the truth of His Word.

Now it's interesting as you continue on in Daniel 2, and we're not going to go through the details of the image, I mean we know head of gold is Babylon, chest is silver of Formida Persia, the thighs of bronze are our Greece, the legs of iron are Rome, the feet of iron and clay represent a divided Rome including Europe but also the the mixture the attempted union of church and state that did not come together, tried to.

It's interesting that this prophetic vision that first really identifies what would happen at the end of the world is first given to a pagan king named Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

And it just so happens that Babylon is the same name of the power that will be the major force at the end of time.

And God chose to reveal to the king of Babylon what would happen from his kingdom down to the end of the world and how in essence Babylon would still be present at the time of the coming of Christ.

So it's sort of like God is saying, okay, Babylon is the beginning of the prophetic kingdoms.

I'm going to reveal my will to Babylon so that those who are in Babylon will have an opportunity to come out of it.

And that shows the love of God that He reveals His will first to the people that are identified as being on the wrong side of the issue all the way down to the end of time.

And He's like, no, that's not where you want to be and I love you so much, come out of that.

And He uses a Hebrew captive, Daniel, to explain this message and this understanding to the king Nebuchadnezzar.

And it's interesting if you look at the image you have Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, pagan Rome and then papal Rome with the iron and clay.

Then you get to the book of Revelation and you have in Revelation 13 and 17 the description of Babylon.

And you have this composite beast in Revelation 13 which is the composite of the beast of Daniel 7 and What you end up seeing is is that each kingdom in the image or each kingdom in Daniel 7 or Daniel 8 contributes to the Babylon of end of end time So you have elements of ancient Babylon, Medo-Persian, Greece, and Rome within Babylon.

And you ask, well, what are those elements?

Well, Babylon obviously was the head of gold and the Bible says as a man thinks in his heart so is he.

So the way Babylon thought when Nebuchadnezzar was king is the way Babylon will think at the end of time and of course Nebuchadnezzar was like is not this great Babylon that I have built.

So pride is a huge element of Babylonian thinking.

Then with Medo-Persia, you have to remember their laws were unchanging, which are characteristics of infallibility.

They say whenever we make a law, it doesn't change because it's a good law.

And the papacy today says whenever the Pope speaks ex cathedra, he never errs.

So the Medo-Persian idea of infallibility or unchangeability comes down through time.

And then in the kingdom of Greece you have Greek philosophy, human reason.

This is where higher criticism and all this intellectualism has come in that tries to take down the Bible.

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An Overview of Daniel

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