Series: Daniel: The Future Is in God's Hands
Dr. Woodrow Kroll
May 14, 2008

Woodrow Kroll: Rams, goats and angels, what do they all have in common? Well, we're going to hear about them today on our study of Daniel right here on Back to the Bible. Hi, I'm Woodrow Kroll.

Tami Weissert: And I'm Tami Weissert. Thanks for joining us and for joining the people here in our study group today.

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah and you're going to hear some of them asking questions today as we discuss Daniel chapter 8 and invite you to join along.

Tami Weissert: OK, now I'm going to ask the first question. Now we've been in Daniel week and a couple of days and we learned early on that Daniel was really, really steady in his relationship with the Lord and so my question is, is there a relationship between that closeness and how God then uses Daniel all through this book?

Woodrow Kroll: There may well be. Remember, right at chapter 1, the very beginning of the book, God was with Daniel when he was still a teenager back in Jerusalem. God was with Daniel when he was carried into captivity into Babylon. God was with Daniel all these years, 66 years now he's been in captivity. And here we get to chapter 8 and we still find God with Daniel and Daniel relying very heavily on the presence of God.

One of the things I've discovered in my own reading of the Bible is how frequently God repeats the fact that He will be with us. He will be with us. God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ to dwell with us and Daniel surely is feeling the presence of God now.

Well, we said that Daniel has had some dreams and he's getting some help in interpreting these dreams. He's also taking action on these dreams. Now, yesterday in our study, we were in chapter 7. And in chapter 7 in Daniel the very first verse says, "In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed."

Now let me read chapter 8, verse1: "In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me--to me, Daniel--after the one that appeared to me the first time."

All right, simple math; how long a period of time has transpired between the two dreams? Two years! First year, third year, two years between the two.

This is now the third year of the reign of Belshazzar so we have here some indication of how time is flowing on in the life of Daniel. But look at the dreams he has, third year of the reign of Belshazzar these dreams come to him, verse 2 of chapter 8: "I saw in the vision, and it so happened while I was looking, that I was in Shushan." Shushan is one of the capital cities of the empire, one of the capital cities of the Persian Empire. It's about 200 miles east of the city of Babylon where the capital of the Babylonian empire was. Later on King Xerxes would build a palace here. Remember, the story of Esther takes place in this particular location.

Daniel says, "I was in Shushan, the citadel which is in the province of Elam and I saw in the vision that I was by the River Ulai." Ulai is more of a canal that moves water from place to place in this great city.

Verse 3 "Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and there, standing beside the river was a ram which had two horns and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, northward, southward so that no animal could withstand him; nor was there any that could deliver from his hand, but he did according to his will and became great."

All right, let's remember these are dreams. Daniel doesn't understand why he's having these dreams; he doesn't fully understand what the dreams mean except that the Lord gives him insight in the dream as to what the dreams mean. And you and I wouldn't understand what these dreams mean except that we read the Word of God and get that same insight.

You look here, here's a ram first of all that comes up in verse 3. He has two long horns; one of them is longer than the other. Remember back in chapter 7 verse 5 when it was talking about the beast and this particular beast was rising out of the sea, it's a bear and one side was lifted up over the other, don't miss those little indicators along the way. Because now we have a ram that has two horns but one horn is more dominate that the other horn. That's going to help us understand a little bit about how we interpret who the ram relates to.

OK, he goes north, he goes west, he goes every direction he wants to go and nobody stands in his way until the rest of the vision; here we are at verse 5: "And as I was considering suddenly a male goat came from the west, across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground; and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. Then he came to the ram that had two horns which I had seen standing beside the river and ran at him with furious power."

The symbolism of his dreams can be placed on historical kingdoms, historical events in Scripture. So the first several verses talk about this ram, two long horns one longer than the other. Suddenly here comes this male goat and this goat comes so rapidly from the west that it appears his feet aren't even touching the ground. Now we don't know if they are touching the ground or not, that's not important, this is a vision and what is important is what does it mean that he comes so rapidly from the west?

Well, notice also that he has this prominent horn between his eyes. This is a goat with one huge horn between his eyes; the rest of the world, including the ram doesn't stand a chance. Verse 6: "Then he came to the ram that had two horns, which I'd seen standing beside the river and ran at him with furious power and I saw him confronting the ram; he   was moved with rage against him, he attacked the ram, broke his two horns. There was no power in the ram to withstand him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled him; and then there was no one who could deliver the ram from his hand."

Now without an understanding of who the goat represents and who the ram represents what we do know though is there was an existing kingdom, two horns, another kingdom comes from the west, more powerful, attacks the existing kingdom breaks off the two horns, pushes him down to the ground and tramples him on the ground. That's a pretty strong picture of warfare and the victor of one nation over another nation.

But the deeper you get into this whole dream of his, the more intricate it gets. For example, look down at verse 8: "Therefore the male goat grew very great; but when he became strong, the large horn was broken, and in place of it four notable horns came up toward the four winds of heaven. Out of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, toward the Glorious Land."

Now you don't have to be a great scholar to understand what Daniel would think the Glorious Land would be. He's not talking about Alabama here or Alaska, he's talking about his glorious land. Verse 10 "And it grew up to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground, and trampled them. He even exalted himself as high as the Prince of the host; and by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of the sanctuary was cast down." All of these physical descriptions of what he does; there is a historical parallel to all of them.

Now what I want us to do here though is notice that this beast comes from the west, he is victorious over the ram and then he sets himself up as kind of the head honcho of the earth essentially; he's even bringing down the stars from heaven and he says "look, I can be like the prince of heaven, I can rule just the way he can." This is a kingdom that is excessively powerful and probably would have won except for one thing: God knows prophecy even better than Daniel does and certainly better than this goat does or the male ram does.

So let me read just a couple of verses then I want to make a comment about it. Look at verse 15: "Then it happened, when I, Daniel, had seen the vision and was seeking the meaning, that suddenly there stood before me one having the appearance of a man." Now Daniel was doing in this verse is exactly what we are doing today, we want to know what does all this mean? He's seeking an answer to this vision.

(Continuing, vs. 16-19,) "I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Ulai, who called, and said, 'Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.' So he came near where I stood, and when he came I was afraid and fell on my face; but he said to me, 'Understand, son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end.' Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in deep sleep with my face to the ground; but he touched me, and stood me upright. And he said, 'Look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation; for at the appointed time the end shall be.'"

OK, let's suck from all of that as much understanding as we can. Daniel has these visions. There's this ram who's got two horns and goat comes from the west with one horn and overruns the ram and sets himself up as the high, high king of everything. And suddenly God intervenes and He says "Gabriel, help this poor Daniel understand this vision." We need that same help today.

Boy, I'm so glad I have a Bible because I would be at loose ends to understand any of this without a Bible; and it's not all that easy even with a Bible. This is prophecy and prophecy is open to a variety of interpretations. I'm going to do my very best to help you understand what I think I understand about this passage.

Gabriel comes and Daniel is--you ready for this--touched by an angel. Says so right there, I just read it right out of Scripture. He's touched by, he's in deep sleep with his face to the ground. Gabriel touches him on the shoulder. Now, if an angel had touched me on the shoulder I think I'd have died right there.

What we're going to see though is that God often uses angels as His messengers to help us in our lives; sometimes even to help us understand His Word better.

I'll be back in just a minute. We want to find out what this angel has to do with Daniel, what he says to him, most especially how he helps him understand his dream. We'll be back in just a second.

 (Music interlude)

Tami Weissert: Have you ever discovered that somebody out there was praying for you? I mean just knowing that the Holy Spirit placed you and your needs on someone's heart can really energize and sustain you. Now that's why we want to encourage you to let others know that you're praying for them. To help you we have a wonderful new set of prayer note cards here at Back to the Bible. There are 12 cards with three simple artistic designs each with an inspiring Bible verse. Now we left the inside blank for you to personalize a message to fit the situation.

All right, let's go past just telling people that we're praying for them. Let's actually do it and then let them know. These prayer cards are a great way to do that. To see them and then order a set go to backtothebible.org or you can order them by phone by calling us at 800-759-2425.

(Music interlude)

Woodrow Kroll: Well so far in our study today we've got a ram, we have a goat and we have an angel. Not exactly the three amigos here so let's find out how three entities fit together. The great thing would be is if there was an interpretation of Daniel's vision right here in chapter 8 and the good news is, there is! Look at verse 19: "And he said, 'Look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation; for at the appointed time the end shall be.'"

For Daniel all of this is yet future. But here's what it means, verse 20: "'The ram which you saw, having the two horns they are the kings of Media and Persia.'" Does that make sense? Oh sure, two horns, two kings, two kingdoms put together. Remember one horn a little longer and stronger than the other, Persia was stronger than Media.

Verse 21: "And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece." To which Daniel says "Greece? What is Greece?"

Now the Greeks were a budding nation at this point, but it's not until Alexander comes along, 100 years or so after this, that any of this is going to really make sense. So God is giving him an interpretation and Daniel still isn't even in the position historically to understand what the interpretation is. But he says, "'And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes is the first king.'"

Now remember, if you're at all familiar with your Greek history (you were just reading it last night I'm sure most of you, if you're at all familiar with Greek history), Phillip II of Macedon was the king who combined all the city states of Greece and got them into a nation. His son, however, became the first real ruler of that nation and his name was Alexander the Good (well, from his perspective Alexander the Great).

So now we have the first king. So he identifies the countries, even identifies who the king is. The king isn't even born yet. This is all prophecy and interpretation of future events. Let me read on, verse 22: "As for the broken horn and the four that stood up are in its place, four kingdoms shall arise out of that nation, but not with its power."

Now if you and I were totally devoid of the history textbooks, we could know then that there will be a country named Greece, it will have a king who will be extremely powerful and from that king there will be four kings who follow him, together not as powerful as that one king. The great news for us is we do have history books and we can say that is exactly what happened in history. Let me read on before I talk about those kings.

Verse 23(-24): "'And in the latter time of their kingdom [these four kings], when the transgressors have reached their fullness, a king shall arise, having fierce features [doesn't mean he's ugly, it simply means he's ugly in his personality and what he does, not in his facial features, his fierce features], who understands sinister schemes. His power shall be mighty, but not by his own power; he shall destroy fearfully, and shall prosper and thrive; he shall destroy the mighty, and also the holy people.'"

Who do you suppose the holy people are? Well, from the Jewish perspective, the Jewish people, of course. Verses 25-26, "'Through his cunning he shall cause deceit to prosper under his hand; he shall exalt himself in his heart. He shall destroy many in their prosperity. He shall even rise against the Prince of princes; he shall be broken without human means."

Now, look at this, we've got verse 21 describing for us that the male goat is the nation of Greece. We have verse 22 telling us that the broken horn becomes four horns and those four horns divide the Greek empire in such a way that none of them is equally strong to the other and all four of them together not as strong as the Greek empire.

Now if you remember history at all those four horns, the four nations that rose out of the break up of the Greek empire were, first of all in Egypt, Ptolemy became the emperor of Egypt.

And then there was Macedonia and Greece and a fellow by the name of Cassander  was the general who followed Alexander the Great in Macedonia and Greece.

Lysimachus was the man who took charge of Thrace and parts of Asia Minor (that would be northern Greece and all of Turkey today).

And the final one was Seleucus. Seleucus was the man who was given Syria and Israel and Mesopotamia.

So four kings divide up the whole kingdom of the Greeks and each of them has their own little area of specialty, their own little area of expertise, their own area to rule. And none of them is equal in power to the great Greek emperor Alexander the Great.

However, this stern-faced guy who comes, in verse 23 through 26, there is even a historical person who could fit very nicely all the descriptions here. Again, this may be a name that you're somewhat familiar with although you don't know a great deal about him. His name, historically, is Antiochus Epiphanies.

Now, Antiochus Epiphanies was a man who grabbed power during this period of time. Follow along in verse 24 as I give you kind of a description of this man, Antiochus Epiphanies. It says he's going to achieve great power by subduing these other kingdoms, these other four; he did that.

Verse 25 says he's going to rise to power by promising false security throughout the nations, he did that. Remember it's false security.

Back in verse 23 it talks about him being intelligent and understanding, "sinister schemes," being very persuasive. That would fit Antiochus Epiphanies.

But in verse 24 here's the key, "His power shall be mighty but not his own power." See, he's being controlled by another.

Now Antiochus Epiphanies was controlled by the lust for power that he had, but he had a satanic scheme. He had clearly the influence of Satan behind him. And whether we talk about the Antichrist, who is a future person or Antiochus Epiphanies, who is an historical person, the descriptions are the same.

So while Antiochus Epiphanies fits all these descriptions so does a future character who will be controlled by Satan.

So the dream that Daniel has fit perfectly with the dream he had in the preceding chapter, chapter 7. Notice a couple of other things about this person in verse 25 it says, "He will rise opposing the Prince of princes" (Daniel 7:25, paraphrase) the Lord of lords, the King of kings. Now wait a minute, that can't describe Antiochus Epiphanies can it? Because Antiochus Epiphanies lived a long time before Jesus did. So there is kind of a dual understanding here that we're talking about a historical character and a prophetic character at the same time. Then we get to this last part, verse 25 says that his rule will be terminated by divine judgment (Daniel 7:25 paraphrase).

Well, I'll let you go back and read what happened to Antiochus Epiphanies but if you read the book of Revelation you know what's going to happen to the Antichrist. Everything that Daniel sees in this dream, this vision and that God interprets for him in this vision is going to come true one day in the person of the Antichrist. That's how accurate God's Word is.

And while we may differ on interpretations and that's alright, when God says "this is what I mean by this dream" we have to go exactly with what God says in His Word. Well, I'll be back in just a minute to wrap up our study for today to see how this impacts us right now. Stick with us, I'll be right back.

Tami Weissert: Many of us take for granted that there's a church just down the street. But for many Christians around the world that's just not the case. Take Brazil for instance, some of the people there live in very remote, agricultural areas miles from any church and literally the only Bible teaching they hear comes through the radio.

That's why Back to the Bible's Verdade Biblica is so important. It's a broadcast in Portuguese by our Brazilian director, Leandro Tarrataca. Listen to this letter from Jenny. It explains it very clearly. "I am a listener of Verdade Biblica for many years. I like the preaching very much. I live 56 miles from the nearest city. I can't go to church. My church is the radio."

And here's a similar letter, this one comes to us from Janadas who writes, "I listened to Verdade Biblica every day in our ranch. I have an old short wave radio in which I listen to your program. I want to congratulate you for the program that has edified our faith in a distant place, fourteen miles from the nearest church."

Listen, as believers we know that God's Word is our lifeblood. That's why we need to keep Verdade Biblica on the air and in the hearts of the people of Brazil. But we can't do it alone; we need you to partner with Back to the Bible to help reach the people of Brazil. So would you consider helping us financially? You can give multiple ways. You can write to Back to the Bible, Box 82808, Lincoln, NE 68501 or you can call us at 800-759-2425.

Well, Dr. Kroll we didn't get to the very last verse but I'm going to read Daniel 8:27, and it says "Then I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days. Then I rose and went about the kings business but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it." As I read that, terrible, confusing dreams, yet he goes about his business, you see a consistency in Daniel that he's trusting in the Lord so I'm thinking that should be an example for us. How did he do it and how do we do the same thing?

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, I am in the same position Daniel's in only I'm worse. Daniel had a vision from God and God said let me describe for you what this vision means; and he talked about these kingdoms but these kingdoms but these kingdoms haven't even become kingdoms yet. So poor Daniel is scratching his head and he's sick, I mean he's actually dreadfully sick but the verse just before that God tells him "I want you to seal up this vision because the day will come when someone will understand the vision."

(Daniel 8:27 paraphrase). And you and I are in that position today.

Now, there are still lots of things in the Bible I don't understand and you're the same way. Our job is not to get sick and go to bed and say "I can't understand the Bible therefore I will not read it." Our job is to go about our business reading and the more we read the more we understand. The more we understand the more God reveals to us through His Word and the better off we are. So we should not say "My, this Bible is just too hard, I mean I can't, look it's, look how thick it is, there is no way I could ever understand it." The fact of the matter is the reason we don't understand God's Word is because we don't read it. When we read it, when we go about our business doing what God asks us to do and spend time in God's Word, He'll reveal these thing to us.

Tami Weissert: Well we see that God, He's the one that reveals prophecy; He knows the future but He doesn't always choose to share it with us.

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, that's true. Daniel doesn't understand what God has told him and God says "Look, let Me interpret for you" and Daniel still doesn't understand. But what he can do is he can pray, he can ask God for insight and tomorrow on our study we're going to see the prayer of Daniel. This is a prayer that covers almost the entire chapter. It's a prayer for God to tell Daniel what the future holds and what it means. And one of the things about this prayer is that it's so personal and so up to date. I think your going to enjoy understanding the prayer of Daniel on our study tomorrow, so plan to be with us won't you.

Thanks for being here today, thanks to you guys for participating in our study today as well. God bless you, I'm Woodrow Kroll, see you again tomorrow. Have a good and godly day.