Sermon Tone Analysis

The first half of Daniel is a lot of fun—it’s full of stories many of us have heard all our lives: Daniel taken into exile, Daniel interpreting dreams, a few chapters on Nebuchadnezzar; Daniel’s friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (better known to us as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego or for all of you Veggie Tales fans, “Rack, Shack, and Benny”, being thrown into the fiery furnace).

We love the first half of Daniel.

In fact, when it was suggested to me by some church members that I preach through Daniel, my initial thought was excitement; excitement followed by fear and trepidation.

Excitement for Chapters 1-6, fear and trepidation for Chapters 7-12.

You see, most people ignore the second half of Daniel the way they ignore the book of Revelation.

Daniel 7-12 has more in common with the book of Revelation than it does with any other book of the Bible, even more so than it does with the first half of Daniel.

These chapters (Daniel 7-12) describe Daniel’s apocalyptic visions.

‘Apocalyptic’ is one of those words.

Someone mentions ‘apocalyptic’ and somehow you know that you should wrinkle your brow, narrow your eyes, and nod somewhat knowingly as if you have some understanding of what the term means.

“Ah, yes, apocalyptic…of course…”

Biblical apocalyptic literature is a sort of prophecy that seeks to enlighten and encourage a people—a people hated and cast off by the world; a sort of prophecy that gives a people a vision of the God who will come to impose His kingdom on the wreckage and rebellion of human history.

What’s more, apocalyptic literature communicates its message through the use of wild, scary, imaginative, bizarre, and head-scratching imagery.

It’s that wild, scary, bizarre, head-scratching imagery that scares most people off.

We’re scared off or don’t understand Daniel 7-12 or the book of Revelation at first blush, so we move on; we skip over.

We ignore and come just short of tearing those pages out of our Bibles a la Thomas Jefferson.

Here’s the thing, though: if we give ourselves to the study of this Book in its entirety, if we give ourselves to this Book and don’t give up, if we give ourselves to this Book and refuse to skip over parts of it we dislike or have difficulty understanding, we will be blessed.

It was way back in 2012 when our Wednesday evening Bible Study decided that we should study the book of Revelation.

I was nervous, as you can imagine—a pastor in his first couple of years working through the book of Revelation usually leads to termination.

Initially, I hesitated and suggested we should pick an easier, less-debated, less-controversial book.

But many of you persisted.

I agreed that we would study the Apocalypse of John (another name for Revelation) only if we could all promise to behave ourselves, to not get all tied-up in our own opinions, and keep from arguing over various interpretations.

What resulted was the single most encouraging Bible study I’ve ever been apart of.

I’m serious.

There’s far more hope in Revelation (and Daniel) than there is anything else.

That’s the key to apocalyptic literature like Revelation and Daniel 7-12 (and parts of Ezekiel).

It’s meant to encourage us!

Even with all its scary, wild, bizarre, head-scratching, argument-inducing moments, apocalyptic literature is written in order to encourage the people of God.

So it is with Daniel 7-12.

We are going to see some weird stuff, we’re going to be confronted with some odd images, some scary pictures, some confusing verses.

But, I believe, I know that we will be encouraged.

“Apocalyptic literature proclaims a theology of hope to those the world hates and pushes to the side: it reminds us that God is presently on the throne and that He will ultimately triumph.” - Iain Duguid

What Daniel sees in his dream would be of interest to many in our culture who are growing more and more obsessed with the end of the world—there are endless movies and television shows in which the future of life on our planet is threatened by aliens, asteroids, floods, viruses, machines, zombies, etc.

Apocalyptic literature, of which Daniel 7-12 is part, is concerned with the end of the world.

If people want to know how the world will end—whether with a bang or a whimper—what better place to turn than to the Word of the Sovereign God, the One who controls all history?

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Daniel who has been in the habit of interpreting dreams, whose job it was to interpret dreams, now has a dream himself.

We open Daniel 7 and we read:

I’m not sure what these people in Babylon and Persia are eating or watching on TV before they go to bed, but something’s causing them to have some pretty messed-up dreams.

Daniel will tell us his dream caused him to be troubled in spirit and disturbed by what he saw.

You’ll understand this as we read.

[Kids, I’ve made a sheet for you to draw on during the sermon.

I’d be really interested to see what you come up with.

There might even be a prize for the best depiction of the characters in Daniel’s dream.]

This, then, is the substance of Daniel’s dream:

Talk about disturbing.

It’d be one thing to dream of regular predators like a lion or a bear or a leopard, but to dream of the kinds of animals Daniel did—yikes!

These monsters aren’t terrifying because simply because they’re large and dangerous.

They’re terrifying because they are evil, opposed to God; they are the agents of chaos and destruction—they have come up out of the sea, an ancient symbol of chaos and rebellion against God.

These are horrific creatures, four in all, one more frightening than the next.

They are enormous, composite, misshapen animals like nothing you’ve ever seen.

(Verse 4) A lion with eagle’s wings which then has its wings stripped off, it was raised to its feet like a man and it was given a human mind.

(Verse 5) A bear raised on one side—either poised and ready to attack or because it was deformed like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

This lop-sided bear already had a mouth full or the ribs of its previous victim, but it was told: “Get up and eat your fill of flesh!”

(Verse 6) Part leopard, part bird, with four heads.

A lying leopard would combine ferocity and speed, so that no one could run from it.

Four heads would render it capable of seeing in all four directions, so that no no could hide from it.

(Verse 7) The most frightening creature can’t be described in terms of earthly animals.

Daniel has no category for this fourth beast.

It’s frightening and dreadful, incredibly strong, with large iron teeth that devour and crush; it tramples whatever it doesn’t eat.

It has ten horns, and since horns are symbols of strength in the Bible, ten horns symbolize massively multiplied strength.

As if that’s not enough, another horn appears, uprooting three others.

And this horn had eyes and a mouth that spoke arrogantly.

What in the world?!?

By this point, we should certainly be a little scared.

Spending a night in a den of lions sounds pretty nice compared to the thought of confronting any one of these four beasts.

Daniel’s troubled by this.

He’s disturbed, just as we should be—Daniel wants us to see everything he’s seeing.

Do you have a picture in your mind of these beasts?

Do you wonder who these beasts symbolize?

What we know from verse 17 is that each of these beasts represents a worldly king: the authorities in charge of the world in which we live.

The point: our world is being run by a succession of fearsome monsters (one right after the other) that will go from bad to worse, each one more frightening than the one before.

The temptation is to want to identify which four earthly kingdoms match-up with the beasts.

This is a fool’s errand.

The text doesn’t give us nearly enough information.

You might have a study Bible that is more than willing to tell you which beast is which kingdom—Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Russia, etc.—as if they know this for certain.

This is where the study of apocalyptic literature can slip off the tracks and quickly derail any Bible study or sermon.

I’m not about to tell you that this or that beast symbolizes this or that kingdom, mostly because I don’t know (and neither does anyone else).

We don’t know, the text doesn’t tell us, and, in fact, the text addresses our curiosity.

In verse 16, Daniel asks for the meaning of all that he’s seen.

And what he’s told is as non-specific as it gets:

That’s it.

That’s all the more information we have.

And if we’re being good Restoration Movement Independent Christians, we will be content to speak where Scripture speaks and to be silent where Scripture is silent.

We don’t know who or what specifically these beasts represent, we simply know that these beasts are four (a complete number of) earthly kings.

What’s actually important, what’s worthy of our time and contemplation is understanding that there is an end to each of these kingdoms, an end to each of these beasts.

The beast—Beast #4—is slain, killed; its body destroyed and thrown into the fire.

The other beasts—Beasts #1, #2, and #3—are stripped of their authority and are allowed to live for a time, but not forever.

This is our hope, our unshakable hope.

We aren’t to believe that this life will be all fairy tales and rainbows and puppy dog kisses; we know that there will be some truly horrible, truly terrifying moments to face.

The kings and kingdoms of this world are, without exception, beastly; they are scary.

The world seems out of bounds, out of control.

Men and their kingdoms are out of sorts—beastly, wild, savage, scary.

Here’s the hope that Daniel was given, the hope that we have: whatever is fearsome, whatever is scary, whatever is beastly and terrifying in this life will come to an end.

>As Daniel is watching this parade of evil, the progression of beasts, it’s interrupted.

Just as the fourth beast makes its appearance in Daniel’s dream and its eleventh horn pops up, there’s an interruption.

I’m not very good at dealing with interruptions.

I’m getting better, but I still struggle with being interrupted.

When I’m in the middle of a thought and the phone rings, when I’m deep in study and the doorbell rings, when I’m fast asleep and the alarm goes off…if only all interruptions had a snooze button.

I don’t deal with interruptions as well as I’d like, but I’m starting to believe that some interruptions are from the Lord.

So it is here, in Daniel.

If we were to read Daniel chapter 7 and leave out verses 9-14, it would be very bleak; it’d be very depressing.