“Your Kingdom Come” — Part Two

Well, I invite you to turn with me to Daniel chapter 7, beginning to read at Daniel 7:15:

“As for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me. I approached one of those who stood there and asked him the truth concerning all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things. ‘These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever.’

“Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, and which devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet, and about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions. As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.

“Thus he said: ‘As for the fourth beast,

there shall be a fourth kingdom on [the] earth,
 which shall be different from all the kingdoms,
and it shall devour the whole earth,
 and trample it down, and break it to pieces.
As for the ten horns,
out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise,
 and another shall arise after them;
he shall be different from the former ones,
 and shall put down three kings.
He shall speak words against the Most High,
 and shall wear out the saints of the Most High,
 and shall think to change the times and the law;
and they shall be given into his hand
 for a time, times, and half a time.
But the court shall sit in judgment,
 and his dominion shall be taken away,
 to be consumed and destroyed to the end.
And the kingdom and the dominion
 and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
 shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;
his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
 and all dominions shall serve and obey him.’

“Here is the end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts greatly alarmed me, and my color changed, but I kept the matter in my heart.”

Amen.

If you’re visiting tonight, we launched into Daniel 7 last week. We’ve returned to it this morning. We didn’t finish this morning, and so I don’t want it to go into next week. I want to be in chapter 8 next week. It’s fairly obvious that what we’re doing is taking, if not quite a thirty-thousand-foot flyby, it is a flyby, as opposed to a very detailed study. I think there is good reason for us approaching it this way, at least in the first blush. This doesn’t mean that we won’t come back to it in more detail at another time, if both time and energy allows and if Christ does not return. But it’s important for us to make sure that we are constantly reminding one another of what’s going on in the big picture.

Let me give you another quote that we haven’t quoted as yet, but it falls within some that we’ve already used. This is from a commentator, I think, by the name of Block. I didn’t write his name on my note. Anyway, it goes like this: “Apocalyptic literature”—which is what we’re dealing with here in the second half of Daniel—“apocalyptic literature draws back the [curtain] and allows the reader to see the eschatological victory of God, which has already been achieved over whatever forces are, even at the moment, crippling the community of faith.”[1]

So, in this section, Daniel is given the privilege, in much the same way as John is in the book of Revelation, of pulling back, as it were, the curtain and being given an insight into this great prophetic sweep that runs from the time of Daniel all the way through to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. And it is in that context that we said this morning that in the first eight verses, we have, if you like, the garden of beasts, with the description of these four beasts emerging from the sea or emerging from the earth, as it’s later said. That is followed, in verses 9–14, with the vision of God, which we said contained three aspects of one great event that runs in history—namely, the throne room of God, the destruction of the beast, and then the appearing of “one like a son of man.”

And as we came to the end of things this morning, we noted the fact that Daniel is so caught up in this that in verse 16, he is actually describing himself as approaching one of the people who’s standing there. Again, this is a feature of apocalyptic. You see that John does it in the same way, and Daniel does it here. Although he’s caught up in a vision and in a dream, he’s so drawn into it as he actually finds himself, he sees himself, approaching. And the reason for his approach is to ask concerning the truth of all of these things. And in being given an explanation—verse 17 and into 18—we are provided with, if you like, the hermeneutical principle or the principle of interpretation which has guided our study so far. Although the first fourteen verses are all about description and interpretation comes later, in order for us to navigate these first fourteen verses, we’ve had to have some kind of interpretative methodology, and that has been derived from the clear statement in verse 17: “These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. … The saints of the Most High [will] receive the kingdom … possess the kingdom forever, forever and [for]ever.”

And then, of course, we’re told that Daniel decides that he would like to have a little more information than this. His response is that he was quite overwhelmed, anxious, and alarmed. Despite the explanation in verse 17, verse 19 follows: “I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from … the rest.” And he’s asking for a more detailed interpretation, and interestingly, he provides us with a few more details of his vision. For example, we never learned about the “claws of bronze” in the earlier part of the chapter. And Daniel here, as he reiterates this, asks that he might have information concerning this, and also “about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell,” and then “the horn that had eyes and a mouth” and “that spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions.”

Well, ultimate victory is assured. That’s what we’re told here. But that doesn’t mean that the people of God are removed from the realm of opposition. And in actual fact, that is what he is discovering here: that although victory is assured, although triumph is determined, nevertheless, “as I looked, [the] horn,” verse 21, “made war with the saints and prevailed over them.” So, the story is not that this great triumph has taken place, and therefore, for the balance of time, until the consummation when Christ returns, the saints, the people of God, are just going to be able to enjoy themselves and relax and have a nice time. No, the picture is very different from that: “This horn made war and prevailed over them.”

In other words, it is a reminder of the fact that there is a “not yet” dimension: that we are living in the period of time between the triumph of Christ in his death and resurrection and the return of Christ in his power and in his glory. Jesus himself said, “In the world [you will] have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”[2] And it is important for us to understand this. It’s throughout the Bible. You don’t have to look hard for it.

For example, in Hebrews and in chapter 2—you may turn to it if you choose, but I’ll read it quickly for you—in Hebrews chapter 2, quoting from the Psalms, the writer of Hebrews speaks of he who was made “for a little while lower than the angels … crowned … with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.”[3] Then it says this: “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control.” Okay? So, we’re talking total subjection, total triumph. Then he says, “At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.”[4] Why? Because we’re in the midst of what the Westminster Confession refers to as “a continual and irreconcilable war.”[5] “We do not … see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and [with] honor.”[6]

While I was studying and I was looking for a quote from a hymn, I actually inadvertently found a quote from Professor Don Carson, which seems apropos what I’m saying to you just now. This is what it says in the quote: “The gospel is boldly advancing under the contested reign and inevitable victory of King Jesus.”[7] All right? It is a “contested reign,” and it is an “inevitable victory.” This side of Jesus’ death and resurrection, all of God’s sovereignty is mediated exclusively through King Jesus. Christ must reign until he has put all of his enemies under his feet. That presupposes the reign is still contested and the reign still advances.

This side of Jesus’ death and resurrection, all of God’s sovereignty is mediated exclusively through King Jesus.

Now, I find that very helpful in coming back to read verses 23–27, and I hope you do too. “Thus he said, ‘As for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which [will] be different[iated] from … the other kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth.’” Now, I’ve said a couple of times—and I think you’ve picked up on this—that we have said: it seems legitimate, along with other interpreters of the Bible, to see these kingdoms as being identifiable, at least primarily, as, first of all, the Babylonian, when we take chapter 2 into account and the dream of Nebuchadnezzar—the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Greek, and the Roman. That’s what we’ve said. Not all commentators do that. Some commentators say there’s no reason for us to try and tie this to identifiable kingdoms. Therefore, they see even the four here as being symbolic in nature, thus allowing them to make extrapolations from that, which frees them from the notion, for example, here, of seeing this fourth kingdom solely as the Roman kingdom and the Roman Empire. Because when you do that—and that’s what I’m saying I’m doing—you have the challenge of saying, “Well, we don’t really have the Roman Empire right now, do we?” And so you have to say, “Well, we don’t have the Roman Empire per se, but of course, the influence of the Roman Empire remains very strong,” and so on. And some of you need to put your hands over your ears when I tell you this, but many of the Reformers saw the fulfillment of this in the papacy. In the papacy! The great establishment of the power of a Roman Empire. It bears thinking about, doesn’t it, as we get ready for Pope Francis coming and the whole world turning their gaze towards him? What an amazing thing! Calvin had his own view.

“So, what are you saying, Alistair?” I’m saying this: I think when you get to 23–27, we have to resist any temptation to try and identify in these ten horns a one-for-one equivalence. Now, go ahead if you want to. For example, you can go through the Roman Empire, and probably you can find ten or a dozen who came after all of the Caesars—you know, so you’ll be able to get it neat and tidy. You might be wrong, you might be right. I don’t think you need to do that. That’s what I’m saying.

So, for example, those who in an earlier era determined that this was so clearly the European Economic Community, because there were ten members of the community, got a little stymied when it went to twelve, and to fifteen, and to so on. But interesting: one of the commentators I read acknowledged that although there are presently more than ten, “that’s no problem, because by the time the final form comes, there’ll be ten.” Oh, really? See, I don’t know how you do that.

Now, remember, when I referenced ten earlier in the chapter, I said, “You know, most beasts have two horns, and ten would be five times two”—you know, proving how good I am at math, but also explaining that this is a picture; this is probably symbolic. And to take it as an expression of fullness and of that which extends throughout the period of history, at least it helps me. Because the interpretation of the four beasts—which is clearly seen here, right? We already said that these four beasts are the four kingdoms. We don’t have that in relationship to the ten horns, and we certainly don’t have it in relation to the three horns. There’s no one-for-one equivalence. There’s no explanation of it. Therefore, when it is left unstated, it seems to me dangerous territory to be dogmatic about that about which the Scriptures are not themselves dogmatic. You can have a lot of fun with it, but I wouldn’t go to the mat for one’s interpretation.

So in other words, let’s content ourselves by doing what we’ve said we must do, and that is grasping the big picture and leaving the unexplained details alone.

“As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them”—not identified, different from the former ones, and will actually put down the three kings. Who are they? We don’t know. What will he do? What is the feature of this particular phenomenon? What is it about this horn with the “eyes like … a man, and a mouth” that is “speaking great things” that we saw for the first time back in verse 8? Well, look at what we’re told about him. Verse 25: “He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High,” the people of God “and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.”

Now, when you read these characteristics, it’s not difficult, is it, to understand why it is that throughout history and the reading of history, a variety of individuals have been identified as this little horn? I even did it myself last week, didn’t I, when I said, “Isn’t it interesting that Kim Jong-un of North Korea has decided that it is not 2015 in North Korea; it’s 104—and that he has established his own time zone.” Well, what is he doing? There’s a form a self-deification in it: “I can change time. I can change the laws. I can rewrite the things that God, the Creator, has established into the heart of humanity. I can overturn that.” That’s the spirit that is present in this. “I will speak my words against the Most High.” And as a result of that, he will oppress or persecute the saints.

Now, when we read our Bibles in relationship to the unfolding story, which we must, then we realize that when John writes in the first century and he considers these kind of things—1 John 2, he says, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.”[8] Now, when he says “It is the last hour,” if he thought that it was the last hour, he was wrong, wasn’t he? Because that’s two thousand years have elapsed. So what was he saying? He was saying that now that Christ has triumphed, now that he has ascended, now that he has been crowned, now that the gospel goes out to the ends of the earth and the kingdom of God is being established, we live in that final hour—as it were, a metaphor, a symbol, of that singular time period. And he says, “We know that there will be a final effulgence of evil in its opposition, in its full-bore opposition to God and to God’s people.” He said, “But we don’t have to actually wait for that, because there are many antichrists who are present even now.” And the characteristics of Daniel 7:25 fit the bill. These people are blasphemous. They are persecutors. They have notions of self-deification.

Now, the best I can do with this is then to say this little horn ultimately represents the final consummation and embodiment of evil. This little horn finally represents the individual to whom Paul refers when he writes 2 Thessalonians; he refers to the individual as the man of sin or “the man of lawlessness.”[9] In fact, it might be good for you just to turn there, and let’s anchor this in our minds—2 Thessalonians and in chapter 2. And the people in Thessalonica have been asking, given all that they’re going through, “When will Jesus come back? And what is going to happen? And how will the world end? And if Jesus triumphed, why are we in the mess we’re in?” and so on. And so he writes to them. Two Thessalonians 2:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.[10]

Now, keep in mind, Daniel 7 is a great prophetic panorama of time, from Daniel’s time to the final consummation of things in the return of Jesus. He came with the clouds in glory to the Ancient of Days, as we said this morning; he will come from there, in like manner as we’ve seen him go. And so he says,

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.[11]

Now, it’s not possible for us to make sense of Daniel 7 without recognizing what John is saying, as I just quoted for you, and what Paul is saying here. You see what is being conveyed for us: the kingdom of man—the proud, blasphemous assertions of man in his rebellion against God—reaches its apex in the little horn, which we’re told is going to be able to prevail “for a time,” and a “times, and half a time.”

I’m not even going to pause on that, all right? You know yourselves, some of you, this just gets your juices going, remarkably so. For me, it doesn’t, and I’ve never really been particularly intrigued by the explanations that I’ve been given. I say to you again what I said before: that the contrast is between the limited, God-controlled period of time, where there will be this massive onslaught of evil united visibly, physically, observably against the saints of God, and the establishing of the kingdom of God, which is forever and forever and forever—so that the kingdom of man finds its apex in the activity of this little horn, and the kingdom of God actually finds its climax in the destruction of the antichrist and in the putting together of a dominion that will never come to an end.

So, throughout the chapter we see, in the words of Chuck Colson’s book, “kingdoms in conflict.” And it’s not possible for us to reckon with this, to understand this peculiar, immense chapter, apart from the activity of the Evil One and apart from the reality of evil itself. Martyn Lloyd-Jones many years ago now, in being interviewed, said, “I am certain that one of the main causes of the ill state of the Church today [lies] in the fact that the devil is being forgotten.”[12]

Now, if you think about this, the commencement of the ministry of Jesus is a direct confrontation with evil. It is the forceful pushback of Satan against Christ as he comes to inaugurate his kingdom. The saints of God throughout history and in our world tonight are suffering at the hands of evil people. The ultimate evil of Islam, the ultimate problem with ISIS, is not actually what it can do structurally and politically and cataclysmically to our nation or to our superstructures of life. The ultimate disaster of Islam is that it is taking countless of millions of people to a lost eternity. The God who sends them a great delusion is the God who has loved them in his Son and has called out to them and has wooed them. And part of the difficulty that many of us have in dealing with this kind of material is the fact that we really pay scant attention to the devil in every dimension.

The commencement of the ministry of Jesus is a direct confrontation with evil.

I went looking in my files. I thought I had an old poem on the devil. It’s not a very good poem, but the point is well made. It’s called “Who Does the Mischief?” If you’ve been around for a hundred years, you may have heard me read this; I don’t know. It goes like this:

Men don’t believe in [the] devil now, as their fathers used to do;
[They force] the door of the broadest creed to let his majesty through.
There isn’t a print of his cloven [hoof] or a fiery dart from his bow
To be found in [the air] or [the earth] to-day, for the world has voted it so.

But who is mixing the fatal draught that [raises] heart and brain,
And loads the [earth] of each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain?
Who lies behind the horrendous destruction of life in the womb? Where does this come from?
Who blights the bloom of the land to-day with the fiery breath of hell?
If the devil isn’t, and never was, could somebody [a]rise and tell?

Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint and digs the pits for his feet?
Who sows the tares in the field of time, wherever God sows … wheat?
The devil is voted not to be, and of course the thing is true;
But who[’s] doing the kind of work the devil [used to] do?

We[’re] told … he does[n’t] go about as a roaring lion now;
But [who should be held] responsible for the everlasting row
To be heard in home, in church, and state to the earth’s remotest bound,
If the devil, by … unanimous vote, is nowhere to be found?

Won’t somebody step to the front forthwith, and make his bow and show
How the frauds and the crimes of the day spring up? [For surely] we want to know.
The devil was fairly voted out, and of course the [devil is] gone;
But simple people would like to know who carries his business on.[13]

Part of the problem we have in dealing with the eradication of evil is the fact that we don’t really believe in evil at all. We’re just a little misguided; we’re not bad. We’ve just wandered a little bit; we’re not really lost. We’re sort of on heart support, life support; we’re not really dead. No, we’re totally dead, totally corrupt, totally lost. That’s the reason for the appearing of the Son of Man.

And as I said to you this morning, some of our brothers and sisters, known or unknown to us, are living at the epicenter of the opposition of vitriolic evil in their lives. And one doesn’t have to be alarmist to say, I’m not sure that we will get any more free passes in the continental United States.

So, let me wrap it up in this way: this chapter should help us to realize that the path of Christian discipleship is not an easy path—that, as Newton told us in his hymn, it is “through many dangers, toils, and snares”[14] that each of us will come. Romans 8 helps us with that. Also, I think this chapter should help us to realize how futile and silly it is to look to the power structures of our world as a basis of security and confidence, not least of all to our own power structures.

If ever you doubted the inability of man, you just need to watch the debate from Los Angeles during the week. I mean, there’s some very nice people there, I suppose, and very intelligent—a lot brighter than me. But I wouldn’t find it real easy to sleep at night thinking that my destiny somehow or another was wrapped up in the cumulative wisdom of that little group. No, “there is a higher throne than all this world has known.”[15]

The path of Christian discipleship is not an easy path.

You see, it’s all really to give us an entirely different matter of perspective, an entirely different view of the world. Because news about the little horn is actually not the main message of the chapter. The recurring theme of the chapter is that the saints of God will receive the kingdom and possess it forever and ever. That’s verse 18. He comes back to it again in verse 20-something, and again in another 20-something: “And the kingdom and the [domain] and the greatness … under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.”

So in other words, if you’re disheartened, if you’re fearful, if you’re discouraged, the answer to your dilemma does not lie in trying to find a one-to-one equivalence of the ten horns and the three and the so on but lies in the fact that when you stand back and say, “I don’t get this whole picture, but I get this part of the picture: God wins. In fact, God has won—and that the way that I view my world is altered entirely as a result of the unfolding drama that is contained here in chapter 7.”

My older brother tells a wonderful story of a missionary returning to the United States, when overseas travel was only by ship. And the missionary found himself arriving in New York on the same vessel as an acclaimed national figure. And the crowds were waiting on the quay for the arrival of the ship, and particularly large numbers, with banners and signs and many photographers, to welcome this acclaimed figure with great fanfare. The missionary couldn’t help but fear the contrast. He’d been laboring for the treasure that doesn’t perish. He’d been pouring his life into sowing the seed of the gospel. And as he scanned the faces on the quay, he realized that no one had come to welcome him home. And as he began to submerge in waves of self-pity, he realized the truth as clearly as if a voice had spoken to him from heaven: “Do not be discouraged; you have not yet reached home.”[16] This isn’t it. This isn’t it.

Father, thank you. Thank you that although we enjoy the pilgrimage of life,

There is a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we will see it afar;
For you, our Father, wait over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.[17]

And Lord, part of the challenge in dealing with this chapter, at least for me, is that one finds oneself almost totally preoccupied with the now and with one’s own personal well-being. And it’s humbling to realize that Daniel, in his concern expressed here, in the sum of the matter, in the final statement of it all, he’s still anxious, he’s still bemused, in the realization of the fact that what he has seen in large measure he will not experience, but generations yet to come will.

And Lord, we don’t know whether our time is short or long. We know that if things continue as they are, it will be understandable for the children that are in the nursery and in the Mission Kids right now to grow and to have their own children, and time rolls on until that great day. But Lord, we don’t know. And so we pray that you will help us to believe, despite circumstances, despite our fearfulness, that you are the King of Kings, and that you are the Lord of Lords, and that while other proud empires oppose you and seek to dethrone you, that is only temporal, ephemeral, ultimately momentary. We bow before you. We walk out under your banner tonight. You are the everlasting God, and we rest in you. And we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] Thomas G. Long, “Preaching Apocalyptic Literature,” Review and Expositor 90, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 276–77.

[2] John 16:33 (KJV).

[3] Hebrews 2:7–8 (ESV).

[4] Hebrews 2:8 (ESV).

[5] The Westminster Confession of Faith 13.2.

[6] Hebrews 2:8–9 (ESV).

[7] Don Carson, “What Is the Gospel?,” The Gospel Coalition, May 28, 2007, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/conference_media/what-is-the-gospel.

[8] 1 John 2:18 (ESV).

[9] 2 Thessalonians 2:3 (ESV).

[10] 2 Thessalonians 2:1–6 (ESV).

[11] 2 Thessalonians 2:7–12 (ESV).

[12] D. M. Lloyd-Jones, The Christian Warfare: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10 to 13 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 292.

[13] Alfred J. Hough, “Who Carries on the Business?”

[14] John Newton, “Amazing Grace” (1779).

[15] Keith Getty and Kristyn Getty, “There Is a Higher Throne” (2003).

[16] Sinclair B. Ferguson, Daniel, The Preacher’s Commentary 21 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2002), 143–44.

[17] Sanford F. Bennett, “In the Sweet By and By” (1868). Lyrics lightly altered.