This is it! We are nearing the end of this book. What I have gleaned from studying the book of Daniel is even more precious to me than ever. It is amazing to me that God allows us to go deeper and deeper in our understanding of Scripture. This is especially true of the book of Daniel because as time marches on, the pages of this book are being fulfilled. Last week, we learned about the 70 weeks of Daniel and that we are currently in an interval period referred to as The Church Period. Let’s recap what we’ve learned so far in each chapter.

In Daniel 8, Daniel was recording during the 3rd year of Belshazzar. Now in Chapter 9, he has skipped forward in time 15 years to King Darius’ reign . It was the 1st year of Darius’ reign and Daniel was realizing that the 70 years of Jewish captivity in Babylon was coming to an end because of the writings of Jeremiah. Although much older than Daniel, Jeremiah was alive for the first part of Daniel’s life. Jeremiah had been prophesying to the southern kingdom of Judah and telling them not to resist King Nebuchadnezzar because he was the instrument that God was going to use against His people for their sins.

I have come to realize in my study of prophecy that God really wants us to know His prophetic word because the same prophetic scenario is depicted in multiple ways so that we can compare and know that we’ve got it. To anyone who does not have the Holy Spirit, biblical prophecy must seem like an unworkable puzzle. But with the Spirit to guide us, we start to see similarities and what we must remind ourselves of is that NOTHING in Scripture is by coincidence.

We are now over the hump and into the last half of the book of Daniel. The first half was in chronological order and was very narrative in its writing. Chapter 7 is written in Aramaic, the common language of the Babylonian Empire. From Chapter 8 till the end of the book are written in Hebrew. The last half is out of chronological order. The last 6 chapters of this book are very different in nature to the first 6.

Daniel 6 is an important chapter in Scripture. Daniel is an old man in his 80’s by this time. He had so many opportunities to just assimilate into the Babylonian culture. The temptation to compromise was always looming around him as it is us. What if someone told you that you couldn’t worship your God with other people of similar belief, and that you were not allowed to sing hymns of worship to Him or pray out loud to Him? What would you do?!

This week, we’ll study the famous “writing on the wall” and we’ll see the kingdom of Babylon overtaken by the Medes and the Persians. Last week, we learned about King Nebuchadnezzar’s 7-year “come to Jesus” discipline by God. After Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 BC, his sons and son in laws each took a turn on the throne. The Babylonian kingdom was overthrown in 539 BC, during the reign of Nabonidus who was married to Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter.

Last week, we finished up Daniel 3 with our 3 uncompromising guys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walking out of that fiery furnace alive and untouched by the flames licking at their bodies. We again saw King Nebuchadnezzar’s amazement at the God of the Jews. But this week, we’re going to see what a real noggin head King Nebuchadnezzar was. When my boys were small and I had to repeatedly discipline them for the same thing, I’d sometimes call them a noggin head. I’d say, “Don’t keep being a noggin head! Learn your lesson so that you don’t have to keep relearning it!” Yep, King Nebuchadnezzar was a noggin head, but God did not give up on him. This week, we’ll see him really turn to God after a horrible lesson learned. We will get a glimpse into what life without God is really like.

This week, we’re going to be going back to your children’s Sunday School class. For kids who grew up in church, there is no doubt a handful of Bible stories that they remember into adulthood. The story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace is one of those memorable stories.

Last week, we learned a little about the young man named Daniel and where he came from and where he ended up. We learned that because of Daniel’s social status and his physical appearance, he was chosen to serve in the king’s service. We learned in Dan. 1:8 that the king had certain things in mind for these young men and one of those things was to eat a certain diet so that they could be strong. Daniel did not want to defile himself with the diet of the Babylonians and he made this known to the chief of the eunuchs. This is where we begin today’s lesson.

The hardest part of writing any study is where to begin. The book of Daniel can be an overwhelming book to read, just like the book of Revelation. There is so much to unpack and correlate back to other parts of Scripture. Daniel is a prophecy book and an apocalyptic book. There is no other book in Scripture quite like it. It gives an overview of history from the Babylonian era in which Daniel lived until the 2nd coming of Christ and it gives Gentile and Jewish history before it occurred. Daniel is a closed book.

Spring 2023