How Dreamy

Have you ever had a dream that stuck with you for years? I have. I remember one dream from my childhood, probably because I had it multiple times. I was walking through a cave and my whole family was dead. I was all alone.

Yeah, you can imagine how that dream troubled me and why it has stuck with me. Dreams can be pretty powerful. They can mess with our understanding of reality. They can shake our emotions. They can change our direction.

We have already seen several dreams in Daniel. This second half of the book majors on Daniel’s dreams, specific visions that God gave to show Daniel the future, but in doing that to prove to Daniel, the Babylonians, Persians, and Israelites something about God.

Let’s read the first dream:

Daniel 7:1–14 NIV

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream. Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. “The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it. “And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’ “After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule. “After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns. “While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a human being and a mouth that spoke boastfully. “As I looked, “thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened. “Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. (The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, but were allowed to live for a period of time.) “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Today we are going to see the simple fact that God wins. To do this, we are going to look at Daniel’s dream and then our situation.

Will you pray with me?

1. Daniel’s Dream

Let’s look at Daniel’s dream. We already read it. Before we dive into the interpretation that God gave, let’s remember Daniel’s situation.

A. Daniel’s Situation

This dream occurs 10 years before chapter 5. Daniel is in his mid-70s. He’s been in Babylon for about 60 years. He still remembers the circumstances around Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem. He remembers the pain of seeing friends and family killed, the pain of being forced into the service of the king who ruined his country, being forced to learn the culture and religion of this pagan country.

He has served God faithfully over these years. He saw Nebuchadnezzar’s final repentance and redemption. But, then he saw Nebuchadnezzar’s son be killed, and the quick succession of two different ruling families who did not worship God and who lived like it.

Up until Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar. Both worshipers of false gods. Both having no respect for the Jews and their faith. Both showing no signs of humbling themselves before God.

Nabonidus has been reigning for 7 years. He heads to another town to worship a lesser known god, and appoints Belshazzar as his regent.

And Daniel has this dream.

As he is dreaming, he has an emotional reaction:

Daniel 7:15 NIV

“I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me.

And I don’t blame him. He had already lived through a lot of turmoil, chaos, death. And this dream was filled with more, in addition with a bunch of confusion.

So, Daniel approaches one of the angels in the dream to ask the interpretation. He knew that this dream was from God and that the interpretation would be from God.

Daniel 7:16 NIV

I approached one of those standing there and asked him the meaning of all this. “So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things:

B. Dream’s Interpretation

Let’s see what the angel said:

Daniel 7:15–28 NIV

“I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me. I approached one of those standing there and asked him the meaning of all this. “So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things: ‘The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth. But the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever—yes, for ever and ever.’ “Then I wanted to know the meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most terrifying, with its iron teeth and bronze claws—the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell—the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully. As I watched, this horn was waging war against the holy people and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the holy people of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom. “He gave me this explanation: ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time. “ ‘But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.’ “This is the end of the matter. I, Daniel, was deeply troubled by my thoughts, and my face turned pale, but I kept the matter to myself.”

The interpretation wasn’t that much better for Daniel than the dream was.

I need to say a word about apocalyptic writings. Chapter 17-12 of Daniel are apocalyptic. Most of Revelation are apocalyptic as well. The word literally means: Revelation. English has taken this term to refer to something with

Daniel The Nature of Apocalyptic Literature

an impending sense of doom, a feeling that existence might come to an end at any moment

The Apocalyptic genre “is a metaphor-rich genre. In this regard it is like poetry. Metaphors and similes teach by analogy. They throw light on difficult concepts and things by relating them to something we know from common experience. As such, images speak truly and accurately, but not precisely. We often do not know where the analogy stops. In this way, images preserve mystery about ideas that are ultimately beyond our comprehension. It is a travesty, then, to interpret apocalyptic images too finely, to press them in their details.”

I’m sure that Daniel made some connections with these images as the angel was talking. He had previously, about sixty years before this, interpreted a dream for Nebuchadnezzar about four kingdoms that would come, kingdoms that point to Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.

Here, Daniel has a dream about four kingdoms. Incidentally, we can look at these descriptions and match them up to those four kingdoms.

A king who transitions from beast to human. Nebuchadnezzar. Now, this doesn’t just mean he comes back from being crazy, but he actually goes through a redemption and becomes a follower of God, unlike these other kings.

Beast 2 has three ribs in his mouth, which could align with the three main conquests of the Medio-persian empire: Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt.

Beast 3 is a speedy animal with 4 heads, just like the speed of Greece in its conquest and the four kingdoms it split into after Alexander died.

Beast 4 is different than the others and has iron, just like the last kingdom in Nebuchadnezzar’s vision. It could with Rome, where several different kings will rise. After a time another king that will come and set himself up against God himself. It will get off to a fast start and seem like it is going to last forever, but then is suddenly cut off.

During this time, he will persecute the followers of God for a specified time and then God will destroy him forever.

C. Angel’s Point

Nice dream, right?

We could get caught up in the imagery, and the discussion of what the images mean for the future. But, I don’t want to do that yet. We’ll get more of the prophetic picture as we study more visions.

God sent this vision to Daniel as a specific time for a specific reason.

And we can see it boiled down in the angel’s first explanation of the dream:

Daniel 7:17–18 NIV

‘The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth. But the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever—yes, for ever and ever.’

If I could boil it down a little more: God wins.

Daniel was not content with that statement. He asked for more clarification on that fourth beast and the weird horn that didn’t seem to fit.

So, the angel explained a little more and ended up with:

Daniel 7:26–27 NIV

“ ‘But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.’

God wins. No matter what. No matter what we are nervous about.

The thing with imagery: we can get caught up in the interpretation of the imagery and forget that God used the imagery for a purpose and he didn’t completely define it for a purpose. There is a greater picture image when you combine them all together.

Each of the beasts come out of the sea, which is a picture throughout Hebrew and middle eastern metaphors for evil, pagan, gentile things. Each king is defined as a grotesque mutant beast, until finally the true king comes, the one who will reign on this earth forever, bringing peace and perfection, conquering sin, death, and the devil forever. He is described as the son of man. Instead of being a distortion of God’s creation, he is the image of God himself as things should be.

So, evil kingdoms will come, one after another, until the end of time. And then the end will come. At which time, God wins.

The people of God must recognize that this is God’s plan. They must prepare for the persecution to come, but through it know that beyond a shadow of a doubt: God wins.

1. Our Reality

Let’s stop talking about Daniel for a bit, shall we? Let’s talk about us.

A. Our Preoccupation

We live in a world that is changing. I have had conversations with some people who are talking about revival and that there are more Christians than they ever thought. I have talked with others who are convinced that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and there are less Christians than there ever were.

What we can agree on is that government leaders are bad and that we can’t trust them. That is a theme no matter which side of the aisle you are on.

The problem with all of these perspectives is that we are looking at the wrong thing. We are like Daniel. We are given the big picture and then we say: yeah, yeah, but what about this detail?

And we start taking those details and trying to make them fit within our own framework and our own timelines, forgetting the big picture, the point, as we dive into the details.

We look around ourselves, within the details, and we create this culture where it is us against them. We are the chosen ones. We are the redeemed. We aren’t the stupid ones.

Everyone else is. So, we hunker down, trying to control the narrative. Trying to control our situations. Trying to control as much as we can.

And we forget the simple truth: God wins. No matter our effort. No matter our control. No matter our scheming. God wins.

B. God’s Point

In Daniel 7, we get to have the curtain opened a little bit to the big picture of what is going on around us.

As evil kingdoms replace evil kingdoms. As sinners interact with sinners. As people choose to follow God or choose to run away from him. There is a cosmic battle going on.

We see God’s holy ones in Daniel 7 coming with the Son of Man and demolishing that last ruler and his followers. Here the curtain of the cosmic battle is opened just a little bit. In Revelation, that curtain will be ripped completely away, and we see what is going on.

Revelation 12:7 NIV

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.

The big picture is God wins. And the battle he is fighting is not one of the Republicans vs the Democrats, the capitalists vs the socialists, the whites vs all the other races, men vs women. Anyone who tries to get us to think in those categories are pulling us away from the big picture.

God wins. And the war that is being fought is not against flesh and blood.

Ephesians 6:10–12 NIV

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

And as we live our life in the middle of this war, we know that our God is fighting for us against the evil that oppresses, whether it is external forces or the sin within our hearts. God is fighting and he will win. And no matter what situation we are in, whether we are in Somalia, like Aweis:

"[My father] said, ‘I cannot stop you from reading your Bible, but if you become a Christian, I will be the one to kill you.’"

AWEIS, A CHRISTIAN FROM SOMALIA WHO SERVES THE SOMALI CHURCH ACROSS THE HORN OF AFRICA. AT ONE POINT, "AWEIS" WAS PART OF AN UNDERGROUND CHURCH, BUT ONLY TWO MEMBERS REMAIN. THE REST HAVE BEEN MARTYRED.

Or whether we are here in America feeling the ridicule of a toxic culture. God has won the victory on the cross and we know that in the end, Christ is coming again to rule over this earth. He wins.

So we live, standing in the love and truth of Jesus Christ, reaching across barriers, no matter the reaction, to call people to know Jesus. And we hold fast to hope no matter the situation, because God wins.