DANIEL 7

Daniel’s Dream

Daniel is now an old man, having been in Babylonian captivity with his people for nearly 70 years. He came when he was a very young man, perhaps in his late teens, early twenties. Daniel has been a valued, and trustworthy servant of the Lord all those years, every step of the way. God has used him mightily before the arrogant, self-serving king Nebuchadnezzar, who affected the Babylonian deportation of the Jews, and is poised to do so now in the presence of the king’s co-regent, wicked son Belshazzar (in this, his first year on the job).

The dream that God has given this ancient prophet Daniel, is as troubling to him as it is far reaching. As prophecy, it is chiefly a portrayal of things to come. The scope of the vision stretches from the ‘then’ current kingdom, pass the three which will succeed it…Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome…across and beyond two thousand years, across our day to and through the Apocalypse, the beast, and Armageddon, right into the lap of the second coming of the Messiah, just before the one-thousand-year Rule. It is, one might say, the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ summed up and written in advance (by almost 2500 years), in this one chapter of Daniel. We may also conclude, furthermore, that it is perhaps the second in a series of pieces to the end times puzzle of how God intends to bring history and time as we know them to a close—a much younger contemporary and fellow captive named Ezekiel the priest/prophet providing the first, followed by an even younger Zachariah, who gives a highly charged and explosive view of life’s closing moments.