Who Are You | Stand on Truth - Daniel 8 | November 3

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I'm going to be reading Daniel 8 today. In the third year of King Belshazzar's

reign, I, Daniel, had a vision after the one that had already appeared to me.

In my vision, I saw myself in the citadel of Susa, in the province of Olam.

In the vision, I was beside the Ulaa Canal.

I looked up, and there before me was a ram with two horns standing beside the

canal, and the horns were long.

One of the horns was longer than the other, but grew up later.

I watched the ram as he charged towards the west, to the north, and to the south.

No animal could stand against him, and none could rescue from his power.

He did as he pleased, and he became great.

As I was thinking about this, suddenly a goat with a prominent horn between

his eyes came from the west, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground.

He came toward the two-horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal,

and charged at him in great rage. I saw him attack the ram fiercely,

striking the ram and shattering his two horns.

The ram was powerless to stand against him. The goat knocked him to the ground

and trampled on him, and none could rescue the ram from his power.

The goat became very great, but at the height of his power, his large horn was

broken off, and in its place, four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.

Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew great in

power to the south, to the east, and toward the beautiful land.

It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw many of the starry

hosts down to the earth and trampled on them.

It set itself up to be as great as the prince of the host.

It took away the daily sacrifice from him, and the place of his sanctuary was brought low.

Because of rebellion, the host of the saints and the daily sacrifice were given over to it.

It prospered in everything it did, and truth was thrown to the ground.

Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to him,

How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled?

The vision concerning the daily sacrifice, the rebellion, the cause of desolation,

and the surrender of the sanctuary, and the host that will be trampled underfoot.

He said to me, It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings, then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated.

While I, Daniel, was watching the vision and trying to understand it,

there before me stood one who looked like a man, and I heard a man's voice from

the Ullah calling, Gabriel, tell this man the meaning of this vision.

And he came near the place where I was standing. I was terrified and fell prostrate.

Son of man, he said to me, I understand the vision concerning the time of the end.

While he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground.

Then he touched me and raised me to my feet.

He said, I'm going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath,

because the vision concerns the appointed time of the end.

The two-horned ram you saw represents the kings of Media and Persia.

The shaggy goat is the king of Greece, and the large horn between his eyes is the first king.

The four horns that replace the one that was broken off represent the four kingdoms

that will emerge from his nation, but it will not have the same power.

In the latter part of his reign, when rebels have become completely wicked,

a stern-faced king, a master of intrigue, will arise.

He will become very strong, but not by his own power.

He will cause astounding devastation and succeed in whatever he does.

He will destroy the mighty men and the holy people, and he will cause deceit

to prosper, and he will consider himself superior.

When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the prince of princes.

Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.

The vision of the evening and the mornings that has been given to you is true,

but seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future.

I, Daniel, was exhausted and lay ill for several days. Then I got up and went

about the king's business.

I was appalled by the vision. It was beyond understanding.

All right. Thank you, Elliot. As we continue into these last chapters,

as we enter in this kind of weird world of the book of Daniel,

why don't we start with a weird video? What are you saying?

But if you've seen this before and know what's going to happen,

don't ruin it for the person sitting next to you, okay?

So, a little bit of a funny, weird video. How many of you caught the chicken? Did you see the chicken?

How many of y'all knew it was going to be on there though? So, yeah, a couple of you.

Did anyone see the background changing color or the people switching rope? Yeah.

Got some pretty smart and observant kids in this room, apparently.

They seem much less smart and observant when asked to do something.

Not you, Sylvia. You're a perfect child, as we all know.

Yeah, so there's another video, similar video, where there's like a moonwalking

bear in the background. It's pretty crazy.

But what does this have to do with the book of Daniel? What does it have to

do with our discussion of Daniel? What's the connection?

As we get into these last chapters, we're not all going to agree on what these sections are about.

We're going to, in fact, as we

look at these pages, we're going to see different things and that's okay.

The truth or the important part, I suppose, should be don't get distracted.

Don't get distracted by the weird imagery. Don't get distracted by the minutiae of detail.

Don't get so focused on certain aspects that you miss the chicken.

Don't zoom in too far. Also, in some regards, I should say, although this might

apply less to the approach we're going to take is don't go looking for chickens

because there may not be any.

It might just be the steady rhythm of the vision.

So, what we're going to do as we enter into this last half of the book of Daniel

is we're going to take the stance of focusing on the general,

more on what the general principles are.

We're going to tease out those principles that are most relevant to our life and experiences.

We're not going to get too crazy with the theories and weird interpretations

you might come into because if you remember, and I'll remind you if not,

these are prophecies meant for Israel in their time of exile.

And so, while we know that there are certain aspects that are to be fulfilled

in greater fullness, we can believe with fairly good certainty that all of these

prophecies have been fulfilled in some way for Israel.

And yet they may also be fulfilled again. But these are prophecies written by

Daniel to the people of Israel in their exile.

And we heard it in chapter eight, but in chapter 12, it'll repeat it as well.

In the last chapter of Daniel, chapter 12, we'll read, But you,

Daniel 12 · chapter mention

Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret, seal it up, seal up the book until the

time of the end, when many will rush here and there and knowledge will increase.

So there's more to be seen. There's more to be understood.

There's more for us to encounter that will only be clear as the end of all times

approaches or has taken place.

As they say, hindsight's 20-20, right? Until then, it will only be like looking

into a fogged mirror, seeing in a mirror dimly, and only in the end,

and only in the end, will we see face to face, the Bible says, right?

So, all of the details, all this weird imagery will become clear at the end

of all time, but it won't be clear as we're searching for the little ways that

they may be fulfilled in these moments.

Our job is not to go looking for signs and wonders and try and figure out when to expect fulfillment.

In fact, in Matthew chapter 16, if you've got Bibles with you.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

Mostly we'll be in Matthew a little bit.

We'll jump back and forth to Daniel just for a heads up. If you don't have a

physical Bible, we have Bibles at the end of each row. Somebody can pass those to you.

Again, there's just a familiarity that comes with actually flipping through

the pages from one book to the other that we don't get when we pick a book from a menu on a screen.

So, if you got a Bible, We'll go ahead and open it up.

This is what, how Matthew chapter 16 starts out.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

One day, the Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus to test him,

demanding they show him a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority.

He replied, you know the saying, red sky at night means fair weather tomorrow

and red sky in the morning means full weather all day. We had that same saying,

probably came from this.

You know how to interpret the weather, signs in the sky, but you don't know

how to interpret the signs of the times.

Only an evil adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign,

but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Then Jesus left them and went away. So, this is a bit of a strange aside.

It's quite honestly, a bit of a strange thing to encounter or as you're reading

through the book of Matthew,

it kind of comes out of nowhere, but there are some pretty relevant hard-hitting

truths for us as we continue into the book of Daniel and into all the weirdness

as we dive into this apocalyptic literature.

For example, I'm drawn to the fact here that Jesus uses the word adulterous

to talk about the people who would demand a sign from him because that's the

same charge that's ushered against Israel that led them into the exile,

that they were an adulterous people.

And so this, in some coming chapters in Daniel, Daniel himself will also not

lay the blame of the exile and the troubles of Israel on Nebuchadnezzar,

who took them into exile to destroy Jerusalem, who destroyed the temple.

Daniel does not place the blame on Nebuchadnezzar, rather he places it on the

people of Israel who had wandered far from God and his word and fellowship.

And so the same thing is happening here, where Jesus is referring to those who

would demand a sign from him as adulterous and evil.

And now we see that to more fullness, what we talked about with the exile,

those who had wandered from God, his word and fellowship.

We see what the Sadducees and the Pharisees, who their wandering had resulted

in this superficial, self-righteous and legalistic religion that had no trouble

seeing the evidence in the weather.

They had no trouble seeing and interpreting the weather, but they missed the

one they had been waiting for for so long. And they got distracted.

So, we can't get distracted. Jesus tells them that there is sufficient evidence,

that there is sufficient indications for them to be looking in his miracles

and the signs of the times and the circumstances and affairs in Judea,

that all of these are indications by which that they should be able to judge

the truth of who he is and why he's come, but they missed it.

And there's, so there's a little bit more going on than just what we get when we read it.

There's some details that we miss because we're not from this culture,

but a popular Jewish superstition of the time said that demons could perform

earthly miracles, but only God could perform heavenly miracles.

And so, what these Pharisees and Sadducees were doing were demanding a miracle

that they believed, that they thought that was beyond Jesus to prove that his

power and therefore his message were not true.

They were not divine. They were hoping to prove that if he could not provide

a miracle from heaven, then they would prove that he was a demon or from the earth.

So, they were trying to trap them. They were laying a trap to disprove the evidence

that they were so blinded to.

They had missed the point altogether because a sign, a sign is something that

points beyond itself to something greater, right?

That the purpose of a sign is to direct our attention, to direct us to something beyond itself.

And it serves as a guidepost from God that points us to something greater, to someone greater.

So, the value of a sign is not found in the sign in itself.

But it's found as it reveals more about the power and the grace of the one who

created it. So that's what a sign is.

So with Jesus, it's not enough for people just to believe in Jesus' miracles

and what he could do, but they had to believe in him and the one who sent him, God, the father.

And all signs, even the ones we see in Daniel, all signs are designed to point

back to God, to point us back to God.

And the truth is what we're getting with this weird video that we watched at

the beginning, and we'll dive a little bit more into this, is there's just too

information, too much information.

Too much information in the prophecies of Daniel, too much information in the

world at large that our tiny little brains just can't handle it.

We need more knowledge. We need more wisdom if we were to actually stand upon

that as revealed truth from God.

There's a real sense that we lack that wisdom, that we lack that knowledge to

interpret the evidence, even though much of the time, it seems like it should be so obvious to us.

It seems like it's so simple, but we just lack the wisdom of God.

The religious leaders of Jesus' time, we see they were better meteorologists

than they were theologians.

So, they could interpret the weather,

but they missed the spiritual significance of Jesus and his signs.

And the truth is also that we don't see it all. They didn't see it.

And they had been waiting for 400 years or more. And we're not going to see it all.

For every sign that we see, there may be a thousand others that change the meaning

of the one that we happen to catch.

For every three circumstances that we believe line up to point us in a certain

direction, to a certain behavior, to a certain understanding,

to a certain meaning, to a certain outcome for us,

God sees a thousand other signs.

He has sent a thousand others that change the meaning of the three that we happen

to catch. We're too focused.

We don't have enough knowledge and wisdom. And the final thing is that we're too easily misled.

We're too easily convinced of things that distract us and divert attention.

Jesus tells us a few chapters later in chapter 24, he'll tell us,

actually, he refers to the prophecies that we see here in Daniel, as a matter of fact.

He tells us how these signs will lead us up until the end.

They will provide signs that will bring us to the end, but he warns us not to

go looking for the signs and how are they fulfilled. It says in verse 23,

If anyone tells you, look, here is the Messiah, or there he is, don't believe it.

For false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and

wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God's chosen one.

And see how I have warned you about this ahead of time.

So with Daniel.

There's a lot of crazy interpretations, a lot of crazy theories that you can get caught up.

And if you look hard enough, I'm certain that you will find some sort of evidence

that backs it up, no matter what you may be looking at.

There will be some people that tell you that this last kingdom that will unite

the world and usher in the end of time, some people will say it's the United Nations.

And you know what? That's not even that crazy with regard to the theories that

you meet in the book of Daniel.

Jake, I'm pretty sure we could write a book based on yesterday of how this last

kingdom them is microplastics, right?

So see, I can work microplastics into a sermon. There we go.

But there's so many crazy theories and there's evidence to support even the

craziest ones, if you look hard enough.

And that's not the point.

So we have a choice as we read Daniel, as we continue through the last chapters of this book.

And as we just live our lives in general, we have a choice.

We can go looking for God's providence and God's will in all of these everyday

circumstances and signs and wonders, anything that happens to line up,

we can treat it like a hidden message that we have to uncover.

Or we can live by focusing on God's revealed scriptures, his will in the scriptures

and seeking the guidance through prayer, through worship, through teaching together.

So, we can believe that there's some hidden code to decipher,

which if you haven't picked up on is the option I'm not suggesting we do.

Or we can believe that it's as simple as abiding in Christ and abiding in Jesus and his word.

I'm not sure where I read this. It might've been John Piper or somebody like

that, but it says that we can live in the slipstream of God's merciful,

all governing providence by orienting our entire life toward understanding the

revealed will of God and his word,

not a secret hidden will in the coding of clouds and coincidences.

And by veiling ourselves of all the biblically appointed means of grace,

like corporate worship and pastoral teaching,

brotherly correction, and by being transformed in the spirit of our minds,

like Ephesians 4.23 says, so as to discern moment by moment,

the way of truth and love.

We can believe it's as simple as abiding. We don't have to decipher some hidden

secret code. So don't get lost.

Don't get distracted. I know it's going to get weird and it might just continue

to get weirder as we go chapter to chapter.

But remember, no matter how weird it gets, it's not about the sign.

It's not about the sign. It's not about weird imagery.

It's pointing us to something greater. is pointing us to someone greater as

we know. And if you're looking too hard at the details, you'll miss the chicken.

So the Jews, the religious leader, those that Jesus was talking to,

they were so blinded that they refused to believe even when they encountered

the greatest of all signs.

Jesus says that the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah in Matthew 16.

So Jesus would give them a sign. It wasn't a no. he didn't say yes or no.

If you pay attention, you just kind of sidestep the question,

but he would provide a sign and that sign would be his last sign to them.

It would be the greatest sign of all. It would be his resurrection for the dead.

The sign that all of us probably would be like, if I saw Jesus rise from the dead, I would believe.

The Bible tells us otherwise, because all of these people refuse to believe,

even when they saw that last sign, they refuse to believe in the resurrection for the dead.

The sign that we must all believe in to enter into the kingdom And so for Jonah.

The only sign for Nineveh from Jonah was his message of coming judgment and

his invitation and call to repent.

That was the sign of Jonah. In the same way, the only sign for this generation

that Jesus is talking to, for the religious leaders, for us as well,

is the message of the same judgment that's coming and the call in love to turn back to God.

So let's not get distracted by these chapters in Daniel. Let's not get distracted by the weird things.

These chapters in Daniel, like

we have talked about for the previous six chapters are about identity.

Yes, they're still about identity. And even more specifically so with these

visions, they're about three kind of things.

It's about the fact that the times are evil and it will only become increasingly

so. It will only get worse. That's a great positive message on a Sunday morning.

But the good news is that the King will come. Jesus will return.

The son of man comes and the saints inherit the kingdom.

So those are the three things that all of these last six chapters prophecy are

kind of all about. So let's not get distracted.

If we back up, chapter seven, Daniel, Daniel chapter seven, it says in verse

21, as I watched this horn was waging war against God's holy people and was

defeating them until the ancient one, the most high came and judged in favor of his holy people.

Then the time arrived for the holy people to take over the kingdom.

The times are going to get worse. The son of man comes, the saints inherit the kingdom.

That's what these chapters are about. And chapter seven and chapter eight are

kind of, they kind of go together.

Actually, as we get into chapter nine next week, we'll see that even chapter

nine sort of is linked in a similar way. They're communicating a similar message.

And then as we get past that chapters 10, 11, 12, are actually all the same

vision. So, they're connected, of course, and they're all communicating very similar things.

And these chapters that we've just talked about, seven and eight specifically.

Are talking, utilizing the imagery of horns of all things.

These two chapters specifically, there is an interpretation for them.

These interpretations may not satisfy all people.

They'll have to take that up with Gabriel and God ultimately,

but we are provided with interpretation. So, we don't have to go guessing.

We don't have to make assumptions.

And also we could say before we get too much further is that these final chapters

are also linked to the chapters that come before it.

Some people will tell you that you should read chapter seven with chapter one,

and you should read chapter eight with chapter two, and there's some truth to that.

Or they'll say that the first six chapters are then how they go about are then

replicated into the structure of the final six chapters.

And again, there's some truth to that as well. But what all of these last chapters

hold in common, what they're all about, put simply, is hope.

They're about hope, to fill us with hope deep in our spirits so that we find comfort.

That no matter what rages around us, no matter what happens in the world,

that we would be a people full of hope.

And not just that we would have hope, but that we would feel it deeply.

The apocalyptic literature of Daniel, as we talked about when we talked about

apocalyptic literature a while ago, it's not there for us to look for signs.

It's not there to interpret images.

It's not there for us to become private investigators.

It's here to cause us to feel something deeply. That's kind of what separates

apocalyptic literature from just regular prophecy.

Although they both do this. It intensifies the imagery so that we would feel something.

Jesus felt it. In Mark's version of the passage we read in Matthew,

Matthew 16, in Mark's version, just chapter eight.

It says that when Jesus heard this, their question, their accusation,

their invitation to provide a sign, it says that when Jesus heard this,

he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign?

I tell you truth, I will not give this generation any such sign, right?

That he sighed deeply in his spirit, that this is, it speaks of a deep groan

from the bowels of his very spirit, from his very being, from the depths of him.

Jesus felt this deeply.

Daniel feels it deeply.

Listen to these descriptions in these two chapters, chapter seven and chapter

eight, as Daniel encounters these heavenly signs.

In chapter seven, verse 15, it says, I, Daniel, was troubled by all I had seen

and my visions terrified me.

Verse 28, it says that, that that was the end of the vision.

I, Daniel, was terrified by my thoughts and my face was pale with fear,

but I kept these things to myself.

And then we get to chapter eight, verse 18 says, while he was speaking,

that is the angel, I fainted and lay there with my face to the ground,

but Gabriel roused me with a touch and helped me to my feet.

And then verse 27, the last verse, then I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for several days.

Afterward, I got up and performed my duties for the king, but I was greatly

troubled by the vision and could not understand it.

So these are awesome, awful, terrifying visions.

And although we misinterpret what those words mean because we've changed the

meaning of them, which is fine.

I'm okay with words changing meaning now, but these are awesome,

awful, terrifying visions that Daniel was affected deeply. And it says that

he was anxious, he was alarmed, he was greatly alarmed.

It says that the color drained from his face, that the details,

these details, not just of the visions, but of his reactions are not insignificant.

Because how Daniel responds to the visions in some ways is how we are supposed

to, in part, see the vision.

It's recorded for us to feel the depths of what Daniel is feeling.

That these chapters, the whole second half of Daniel, they're all about the end of days, yes.

But they're not necessarily aiming to make some specific detailed prophecy for

us to be able to look for the signs about the future as much as they are to

provoke within us feelings,

powerful feelings within us who read them with care.

That's what they're designed for most. The point is not really to give specific

identities to the goats or the horns, although Gabriel helps us out with that quite a bit.

It's much more for us to feel something that gives God's people hope in chaotic

times, that these prophecies are not meant to turn us into investigators,

but to inspire within us faith and hope and worship.

And they're there to help us live in this present age and to instill within us confidence,

confidence in however the specific form of these visions actually enters into

reality, whatever shape they actually take for the future.

That we would have hope and confidence.

These images are not again there for us to figure out every detail.

They are designed to affect us like they did Daniel.

That Daniel was terrified, he was shaken. And although we misinterpret that word terrified,

it's here for us to be shaken to our core, not to result in fear as we would

ascribe to the word terror, but we would have hope to kindle and inspire within us hope.

Because the Bible, and we'll talk about this next week even more as we get into

chapter nine, but the Bible is written by suffering people in difficult times.

Even the books that come before were collected and categorized by these post-exilic

people, the people who had suffered in Babylon.

The Bible is a book from a minority people group who suffered greatly.

Daniel knew suffering. Daniel was no stranger to difficulty.

God gave him this vision.

When, as we know, Daniel was in exile far away from his hometown,

Jerusalem lay in ruins. The temple was destroyed.

There wasn't a throne, an Israelite king on the throne and God's people were

in Babylon of all places where the tower of Babel existed, right? Where all of these.

Preceding the book of Daniel utilize this imagery of Babylon as one of the worst

places you could possibly be, which is why we hear people talking about today,

I just want to get out of Babylon.

And that's not the point. That's not the point. Talk about that more next week,

but Daniel was no stranger to difficulty.

The situation he was in felt dire and it had felt dire for many years.

And it's into this context, into these desperate times that God gives Daniel

a dream that's designed to shock him. and it's designed to comfort him.

And so Daniel wrote these words down for his people and also for us as well,

that we would be shocked and we would be comforted.

We are to be shaken, but we are also to be comforted in increasing measure.

So however much you are shaken or terrified, that we would find hope and comfort

that abounds and exceeds any of that.

That we are meant to have hope because things will get worse as we talked about.

But don't get distracted by what's happening in the world.

Look for God and build your life on him, on his truth, that this glimpse of

the end that we are given in Daniel is meant to give us great hope in our times of chaos.

Chapter eight is a building. It's an intensifying.

It's although we could join in those who say that it speaks of the abomination

of Antiochus Epiphanes and his desolation of Rome or Jerusalem and the temple.

He's a Roman king, which it more than likely does. It more than likely speaks to that.

Jesus in Matthew also speaks to a future fulfillment yet to take place.

So remember, these are prophecies. These are words for Israel,

but they also have far-reaching implications.

We talked about in our family group last week, we talked about how all of these

apocalyptic literatures,

even the book of Revelation is a cycle of history that builds and intensifies

until it reaches that point where there are those unique events that will finally

come, but it's a building, it's an intensifying.

And these visions in Antiochus, they cast these long shadows into the future.

They cast these long shadows that are fulfilled and are being fulfilled as these

tendencies continue until the end.

So, it's a building, it's an intensifying as this manifestation of this last and final horn appears.

Verse nine starts that from, this is Daniel chapter eight, from one of them,

a little horn emerged and grew extensively toward the south and the east and

toward the beautiful land.

It grew as high as the heavenly army made some of the army and some of the stars

fall to the earth and trampled them.

It acted arrogantly, even against the prince of the heavenly army.

It revoked his regular sacrifice and overthrew the place of a sanctuary.

In the rebellion, the army was given up together with the regular sacrifice

and the horn threw truth to the ground and was successful in what it did.

And then we skip down, Gabriel interprets this for us again,

though maybe too vaguely for some.

Verse 23, near the end of their kingdoms, which the rebels have reached the

full measure of their sin.

A ruthless king, skilled in intrigue, will come to the throne.

His power will be great, but it will not be his own. And he will cause outrageous

destruction and succeed in whatever he does.

He will destroy the powerful along with the holy people.

He will cause deceit to prosper through his own cunning and by his influence

and in his own mind, he will exalt himself.

So things will get worse. We all have this idea of what that might look like.

Again, tailor-made to our own, whatever causes us the most terror,

whatever causes us the sleepless nights.

We can all imagine what this is and maybe our imaginations are right, but maybe they're not.

That doesn't really matter. But one thing is for sure is that truth will be the victim.

That as we continue in this trajectory of history, it will only become more

of the case that truth is the victim until this final horn gets power and it

says that it will throw truth to the ground.

And as we asked the question that followed from our time last week,

and that we asked each other is what area of your lives in our society today,

do you find the most pressure to compromise, right?

Where do we feel the most pressure to compromise?

Jeremiah tells us in chapter 23, that all these false prophets who speak words

of peace and encouragement and will come and, and tell us to continue in the ways of the world.

That they will cast down truth and decide for themselves what is good.

And he says, do not listen to these prophets when they prophesied to you,

filling you with futile hopes.

They are making up everything they say.

They do not speak for the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise my word, don't worry.

The Lord says you'll have peace. And to those who stubbornly follow their own

desires, they say no harm will come your way. He says, don't believe these false

promises that are so prevalent in the world around us. That,

that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

the false promises that cast down that are already casting down truth and blinding

our eyes that our response in the instruction for us today is,

is to cling to truth, cling to truth.

In our culture, you can hardly kind of make that statement without someone asking who's truth.

And of course, I suppose, I hope you understand that the answer is God's truth

because anyone else's truth is arbitrary and inconsistent.

Our truth. If we're using that phrase, just live your own truth.

Our truth is arbitrary and inconsistent.

Anybody else's truth is arbitrary and inconsistent, except for God's truth.

We must have a knowledge of this word.

You must have an understanding of this word because the enemy will cast down truth.

It's the first thing that must go if these spiritual powers that war against

us are to claim any victims from God's holy people. Truth must be dispensed of.

So we must cling to truth all the more. We must have a deep knowledge of that

truth, of this truth, a deep knowledge that leads us in hope.

Because as I said, things are only gonna get worse.

Things are only gonna get worse, but our attention must not be fixated on that

because the truth is that God will win. God has already won.

The son of man is coming and then you will inherit the kingdom with all of its

joys. We must cling to these truths because these visions are about hope.

They're about truth, guard guarding truth in our hearts.

So, so that we don't compromise so that we, that we build our life on it.

If these, if these visions of Daniel, if they don't cause us to.

To stand firm in truth in the way that Daniel did,

If they only cause us to look for some hidden code in them and they don't cause

us to stand firm in truth like Daniel, then we're not reading them correctly

and they're failing at what they were created for.

So we need to be fixated on it. We need to build our life on it.

We can ask this question this week. What are you fixated on?

What are you thinking about?

Is it the tall walls of the valley of the shadow of death or is it on the light

that is shining at the end leading us through?

What are you thinking about? What are you thinking about?

It's kind of interesting, kind of funny. I'm sure you can read too much into it.

So I don't want to build a theology around this by any means.

But in chapter seven, when Daniel was seeing this vision, he becomes transfixed

on this little boastful horn.

He can't, his attention, his focus keeps on this boastful horn.

And so Daniel experiences terror, even as we read that there's this worship

service going on around him, that he is in the presence of the throne room of

heaven, and yet he's distracted by this horn, even though he's surrounded by the majesty of God.

It says, starting in verse eight, as I was looking at the horns,

so this is the first thing, as I was looking at the horns, suddenly another

small horn appeared among them.

Three of the first horns were torn out of the roots to make room for it.

This little horn had eyes like human eyes and a mouth that was boasting arrogantly.

It's this weird sight, this weird image that Daniel is transfixed on.

But then comes God, the ancient of days.

Then I watched as the thrones were put in place and the ancient one sat down to judge.

His clothing was as white as snow, his hair like the purest wool.

He sat on a fiery throne with wheels of blazing fire and a river of fire was

pouring out, flowing from his presence.

Millions of angels ministered to him. Many millions stood to attend him.

Then the court began its session and the books were opened. But Daniel's still looking at the horn.

So all this is happening around him, but it says, I continued to watch because

I could hear the little boastful horn speech.

I kept watching until the fourth beast was killed and its body was destroyed by fire.

The other three beasts had their

authority taken from them, but they were allowed to live a while longer.

So Daniel was distracted, but here's the focus. Here's where we sit transfixed

on God's heavenly throne room, where the Bible says it's better to be one day

than to live a thousand elsewhere, right?

Verse 13, as my vision continued, that night I saw someone like a son of man

coming with the clouds of heaven.

He approached the ancient one and was led into his presence.

He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world

so that the people of every race and nation and language would obey him.

And his rule is eternal. It will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed.

Stare at God. Don't get distracted by the world around you.

Stare at God. No matter how bad things are, they won't last forever.

God has appointed a time where the saints will suffer no more,

but they will step into the inheritance and to his kingdom as his beloved sons

and daughters. God has appointed that time.

So stare at God and fix your eyes on Jesus.

Think about him, build your life on him, build your life on the truth.

And don't get distracted and let it let away by other things or anything else.

Walk straight and listen to his words softly spoken as they lead us on.

Build your life on him. So as we started with Jesus's word in Matthew,

we might as well end our time together with Matthew as well.

Jesus instructs us in chapter seven. This is verse 24 in Matthew seven.

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man

who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the flood came and the

winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like

a foolish man who builds his house on the sand and the rain fell and the floods

came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it.

As we read these verses, I think in kids moments several weeks ago, right?

They have new meaning for us now following Hurricane Helene,

but we don't have, generally speaking, have trouble understanding these words.

We know what they mean and we're right in our.

Understanding of them, that we should build our life on Jesus and his teaching,

and then we'll weather the storms and knowing that in the end,

we will step into and receive the prize.

It's the same message in these chapters of Daniel.

The saints will inherit the kingdom. The son of man will come and the saints

will inherit the kingdom.

But there is a further detail that's pretty interesting because Jesus isn't

just making a general appeal to individual believers to build their life on his teaching,

which even if we just,

if that was it, that's a pretty bold claim.

And it's so necessary for us, right?

That we would build our life on Jesus's teaching, but Jesus isn't just making this general appeal.

He's also speaking to a very, he's also speaking about a very specific house

built on the rock of Zion, the temple in Jerusalem, the house of the Lord.

Jesus is making reference to this specific house as well.

It's the same thing. If you've, if you're familiar with Jesus's words where

he says, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain.

Move from here to there and it will go.

We often imagine that and read our minds that we can move any mountain and perhaps

that's how it's presented to us. but Jesus' words is this mountain that I'm

pointing at the holy mountain, Mount Zion.

So what he's saying is with faith, you can make real, have real effects on the

idolatry that has taken captive the hearts of my people who love evil and despise what is good.

He's pointing out that there is corruption and idolatry in the temple of the

Lord and the house of the Lord. But if you have faith that can change.

It's the house of the Lord that Jesus also has in mind here.

He has the exile in mind as well, as we're in the book of Daniel.

He has these kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon in mind. In the Old Testament,

these kingdoms, these superpowers are often referred to as storms, as a flood.

In Isaiah chapter eight, it says that the Lord spoke to me again and said,

my care for the people of Judah is like the gently flowing waters of Shiloh,

but they have rejected me or they have rejected it. therefore the Lord will

overwhelm them with a mighty flood from the Euphrates river.

He's not talking about a literal flood. He's talking about a kingdom.

Jesus is looking at the past destruction of the temple that we see in Daniel.

And he's looking at the future destruction of the temple that will come under the Roman empire.

And he's looking about, he's saying that there are these nations raging.

He's saying that they are storms. These mighty nations are floods.

They're storms. These are the winds and the rain that come.

It's not just unfortunate and difficult events in our lives, whatever those may be.

It's not just a word for an individual believer, but it's a word for my house,

that they are a flood rising against the house on the rock.

These mighty nations, even our own mighty nation, this is the wind and the waves

that Jesus is talking about and how you have built your house and how you are

building your house will determine how it fares as these floods come.

As we see that Paul says that we are the holy temple set apart for the Lord.

So we must be built on the truth.

As the floods of our own culture, the floods of our own friends and family,

our own people who compromise and cast down truth.

We must build our lives on the rock. We must stand strong on Jesus.

And Isaiah's words of the coming flood that he talks about in chapter eight,

they're also followed by a call to trust, a call to hope.

He says, don't call everything a conspiracy like they do and don't live in dread of what frightens them.

Make the Lord of heaven's armies holy in your life.

He is the one you should fear. He is the one who should make you tremble.

He will keep you safe. Stand firm in the truth.

Build your life, this church, this holy house of the Lord on his sure foundations.

Build your life on Jesus. Cling to the truth because the enemy will come and cast down truth.

So it will only be increasingly important that we understand what truth is. And I just pray that.

As we continue this week, we will continue to ask ourselves that question.

What are we thinking about?

What are we building our lives on? Yes, individually, but also together as this family of God.

Are we building it on truth or are we compromising and throwing down truth?

What are those areas where we feel pressured to do that? How do we live faithfully

in the same way that Daniel does?

Seeking the good peace and prosperity that we'll read in chapter nine of the

people around us, of Babylon.

Daniel was an Israelite living in Babylon and he was instructed to stay and

to seek their peace and prosperity.

What does that look like to be uncompromising as we seek the peace and welfare

and good of the people around us?

Thank you for listening to Mountainside Church's podcast. We hope you found

inspiration and encouragement in today's teaching.

To learn more about our church, stay connected or partner with us, visit mcboon.com.

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