Daniel 7 - Victory at Last

I invite you to turn with me to the book of Daniel, chapter 7.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

Daniel, chapter 7.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

We will be continuing our series in the book of Daniel, and we come to Daniel 7 today.

I will read part of the text in a moment, the full text of the passages in the bulletin, if you'd like to follow along when I do, to situate us in the book of Daniel, and to get us oriented to this passage, I want to tell you about the first and I believe the only time that I ran a 5K.

I had a brief career in the cross country when I was in high school.

I emphasize brief, but nonetheless, I suppose it was a career.

And I ran my first 5K.

And at the beginning of that, it's a three-mile race.

And at the beginning of it, I was doing pretty well.

I was running pretty fast, but uh I probably pushed myself a little bit too hard in the beginning and got puckered out pretty quick.

And, you know, everybody was very fixated on their time, and uh I was just focused on finishing.

That was really my only goal.

And as I was running the race, maybe halfway through, maybe a little under, I saw off to the side there were some people standing uh in a little bit more of a shaded area with some water.

So and I thought this was great.

So I went off to the side and I drank some water and I stood there for a little while and caught my breath and recharged, and then I got back in the race.

Now, some of my fellow racers thought, you know, what were you doing?

You were you were destroying your time.

I said, that's fine.

I knew if I was going to finish this race, I needed to pull over, get refreshed, get hydrated, take a break so that I could keep going.

Sometimes in life we start to get puckered out and we need a little break.

We need to step off to the side, we need to get refreshed.

And the vision that we're gonna see in Daniel chapter 7 is God's way of offering a cold cup of water to the tired and exhausted Israelites who were in exile.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And by extension, it's God's way of offering a cold cup of water and some shade to each one of us who may be exhausted, wearied, and tired from the race that is life.

This section of the book of Daniel shifts a little bit.

We've seen in chapters one through six some stories about what Daniel and his friends went through while they were in exile and captivity in Babylon.

And now, starting in chapter seven, it's no longer just stories about what happened to Daniel and what they did, but it's a series of visions that God gives Daniel about the future.

These things were future from the perspective of Daniel, and I would suggest uh some of the things described here are still future, even from our perspective.

But these visions that God gives Daniel are ways of taking somebody who was tired and exhausted, taking them off to the side, giving him a cup of water, and saying, don't get weary, press on, because the best is yet to come.

And so there's a lot of detail in these visions, and we can get caught up in a lot of particulars about what this or that means.

And we'll talk about some of that, but the overarching vision, the purpose of what God reveals to Daniel is that it be a source of strength, that it be a source of motivation.

And you know, when I put gasoline in my car, as long as it makes the car run well, I don't spend too much time worrying about the exact composition of that gasoline, because it fuels the car.

And some of the details in this passage are easier to understand than others.

Some of them are a little bit more challenging, but at the end of the day, the purpose of this passage is to give us a vision of God and it should fuel us.

Even if we don't understand every little detail, it should fuel us for the journey ahead so that we can be faithful to God, whatever it is that we're going through, and that we can be refreshed and strengthened when we are weary.

Chapter 7 records a dream that Daniel has.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna take a look at the dream that Daniel has.

The dream is in verses 1 through 14, and then we are going to look at how the dream is interpreted to Daniel, verses 15 through 28.

After we do that, we will try to identify some of the characters in this dream and talk about how this vision is fulfilled in history.

And then finally, we want to bring it all around and ask what relevance this has to us today and what difference it makes for our lives as followers of Christ.

So, we'll first look at the dream, the vision that Daniel has, and I'd like to go ahead and read that for us.

It's Daniel chapter 7, verses 1 through 14.

Daniel 7:1–14

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 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 amongst 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 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.

Let's pray.

Lord, this is a mysterious and perhaps strange passage of Scripture, and yet we acknowledge it as your holy word to us.

We ask that you would help us to receive it as you intended it to be heard, and that you would enable us to act on it as you would have us to do.

Guide us and give us wisdom.

We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, we've just read this vision that Daniel had, and what do you think about that?

Imagine waking up after a dream like that.

You'd probably be thrown off a little bit.

But that's the dream that Daniel had.

And so let's note a couple of the details of this dream.

In this dream, Daniel sees four beasts, four wild animals.

The first one was like a lion with eagle's wings, the second one looked like a bear.

The third one was like a leopard with bird wings.

All of these beasts are frightening, they're imposing, they're strange.

But the text doesn't actually give a lot of attention to the first three beasts.

It shifts to the fourth beast, which is the most terrifying, and the fourth beast is the center of attention in this narrative.

In verse 7, we read about a fourth beast.

Daniel says in verse 7, it was terrifying and frightening and very powerful.

It was different from all the other beasts.

It was more domineering, it was more controlling.

And we read that this beast had ten horns.

At the end of verse 7, it had ten horns.

And in addition to the ten horns, another horn then came up off of this animal's head and destroyed three of the other horns.

So there's a civil war going on on this beast's forehead between all the horns.

A horn rose up and destroyed three others, and this horn is characterized as being boastful, it's arrogant, it's proud.

Daniel sees a vision of four beasts or four wild animals.

The fourth one is the most terrifying.

It's got ten horns, and then an eleventh horn arises and destroys three of the other horns.

Well, in verse 9, then the scene shifts, and the vision continues.

The scene shifts in verse 9 to what is known as a heavenly court.

Now, in ancient Near Eastern writing at the time, a heavenly court was a common scene where the gods or the angels were pictured gathering together, kind of like a conference in heaven, the meeting of minds in heaven.

And there's a picture here of a heavenly court, and we see a figure called the Ancient of Days.

Verse 9.

It says, Thrones were set in place, and the ancient of days took his seat.

He has white clothing and white hair, and thousands gather around him.

And as all of this happens in verses nine and ten, as the ancient of days is seated, the horn that we read about earlier, the horn that came off the fourth beast, this horn continues to act arrogantly, but its pride soon comes to an end.

Because as the heavenly court takes its place, as the ancient of days is seated, the fourth beast is killed, and its body is thrown into the blazing fire.

Verse 11.

The other beasts had been stripped of their power and were allowed to live for a little bit longer.

But the fourth beast is destroyed.

And then, concluding the vision, in verses 13 through 15, we see one who is referred to as a son of man in verse 13.

A son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.

And it says that the son of man approached the ancient of days and was led into the presence of the ancient of days.

Now, son of man, this phrase comes up a lot in the Bible.

Here in Daniel chapter 7, we should understand it most simply as one who appears like a human being.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

Okay, in the Bible, a son of something is a something.

A son of man is a man.

A son of a chicken is a chicken.

A son of something is a something.

And so, like a son of man simply means that this was a human-like appearance.

An individual who was a human figure coming with the clouds of heaven and coming before the ancient of days.

Now the picture and the portrayal of this son of man figure gets complicated because it describes him as a son of man, one who appears like a human being, but then the son of man also acts in ways that would seem to be fitting only for God.

It says in verse 14 that he was given authority, glory, and sovereign power.

It says, all nations and people of every language worshiped him.

Worship is something that is due only to God.

The first of the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not worship anyone or anything in place of God.

To worship a human being or any other created thing is idolatry.

And yet, this Son of Man figure, who appears to be a human being, also takes the authority of God and receives worship as God.

Now, starting in verse 15, we're going to read on a little bit more and we're going to get an interpretation of this vision.

But what we want to note is that the beasts have been destroyed.

The Son of Man comes before the ancient of days and takes his throne.

And it concludes in verse 14: His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away.

His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

So it would seem, and note this, that this vision is something that starts in the time of Daniel and takes us right up to eternity.

The passage ends with an eternal kingdom.

Okay, now that's a lot of detail to take in.

You might be feeling a little confused, a little weirded out by the strange detail of this vision.

Like I said, imagine Daniel waking up from this vision and wondering what that was about.

In fact, it says in verse 15 that Daniel was troubled in spirit.

He was really bothered.

He was wondering, what is going on?

Why am I seeing this stuff?

Many years ago, I had to take some prescription medication for something, and one of the things that I did not realize when I started taking it was it gave me some pretty wild dreams.

I woke up after a couple days of taking that medicine and thought, what was I dreaming about?

That was bizarre.

Now we shouldn't make too much, I would say, of dreams.

We have the written word of God, and that is our primary source of direction.

But in Daniel's day, before the completion of the canon, before the written word of God, this was how God chose to reveal himself.

And so the visions that Daniel's seen, okay, this isn't some kind of medication side effect here.

This is actually a vision and a message from God.

And so, starting in verse 16, we have an interpretation of this vision.

Because Daniel approaches in the dream and asks the meaning of this.

What is this about?

Daniel wants to know.

End of verse 16.

Let's read on.

He told me and gave me the interpretation of these things.

The four great beasts are four kings that will arise from the earth, but the holy people of the most high will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever.

Yes, forever 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 most holy people of the most high, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom.

Verse 23, the explanation continues.

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 in the laws.

The holy people will be devoured into 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 the 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.

And so we have an interpretation of the dream.

Let's note the significance of some of the figures in the dream.

It says that the beasts that are pictured in the dream represent four earthly kingdoms.

Verse 17: all four beasts are kings that will arise from the earth.

So each of the beasts represents a king who has control over an earthly empire.

The first three empires are relatively unimportant compared to the fourth.

It's the fourth empire that receives the emphasis here.

Daniel doesn't ask anything in particular about the first three, but he does ask for more detail about the fourth beast.

And so he's told in verse 23 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.

So this kingdom is like the others in that it is powerful, but the extent of its power is different.

It's more all-encompassing, more vicious, more brutal than any of the previous three empires.

And this fourth beast, this fourth empire, still has other components that we heard about.

This beast has ten horns on it.

And in verse 24, it says that the ten horns are ten kings that will come from that kingdom.

So, in other words, this is a large kingdom with a central king ruling over it, and yet there are smaller, lesser kings that rule throughout the kingdom.

And the ten horns on the beast represent those ten kings.

Then there's the little horn that we read about that comes up, shoots up out of the fourth beast, and subdues three others.

It says that little horn is yet another king, an eleventh king, who arises and defeats some of the other kings.

There's a civil war that goes on between the lesser kings in the empire.

And it says that this little horn that arises, the eleventh horn, it says that this king in particular is especially wicked.

He opposes the most high, verse 24.

He will subdue three kings, verse 25.

He will speak against the most high and oppress his holy people, and he will try to change the set times and the laws.

So the vision zeroes in on a king who oppresses the people of God, tries to destroy the church, tries to suppress the preacher.

Of the Word of God and makes it so that people cannot follow God.

He oppresses God's people, he opposes the Most High, he tries to change the set times and laws.

Text doesn't say specifically what that means, but it's probably not a stretch simply to say that it means that this king will attempt to rewrite the world order and way of doing things.

He will want total and complete domination over the earth.

This king arising out of a fourth empire will have some success.

Second part of verse 25, it says that the holy people, that is God's people, those who follow God, will be delivered into his hands for time times and half a time.

This is a phrase that essentially means three and a half years.

So this king that arises out of the fourth kingdom will have three and a half years of success at oppressing God's people, just trying to destroy the church, but then he'll be defeated.

This king will find that his power and his rule was only temporary, his victory fleeting.

Because in verses 26 through 28, the vision concludes, and it says in verses 26 through 28 that power will be taken away from this king.

Power will be taken away from this little horn who arises out of the fourth kingdom.

And here in verses 26 through 28, we return to the vision of the heavenly court that we saw earlier.

You remember earlier we saw the ancient of days, and the ancient of days was seated, and then one like a son of man came.

Here it says that the sovereignty, power, and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High.

Verse 27.

His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.

And so the vision begins with seeing these four beasts, these four animals, and they are described or interpreted as four kingdoms that are going to come up on the earth.

The fourth kingdom is the most powerful and terrifying.

And there's a ruler in this kingdom that really has it out for God and more so has it out for God's people and just hates to see people worship God.

And for three and a half years, he has some success at trying to stamp out the true worship of God and oppresses the church.

But his reign is short-lived.

And the most high will deliver the kingdom over to those who follow the most high, and this will be an everlasting kingdom.

At the end of the day, these four beasts, as terrifying as they might be, are temporary, and the kingdom of the most high is forever.

So we've looked at the dream and looked at some of the symbolism.

Now let's see if we can try to identify some of the players in this story.

Let's try to think about how this is fulfilled in history.

What kingdoms are these four kingdoms, right?

Who's the little horn?

Who are these people in actual history?

Can we identify them?

Well, let's start with the four kingdoms.

A traditional Christian interpretation identifies the four kingdoms or the four beasts as the kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.

Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.

Remember, Daniel was brought into exile by Babylon.

And Babylon was at its height when Daniel received this vision.

Babylon was a superpower, second to none.

But it shows that Babylon will be succeeded by other kingdoms.

Medo-Persia, we read about that in Daniel.

Greece, and then Rome.

The identification of the fourth kingdom as Rome is significant because it leads us right up to the time of Christ.

The Roman Empire was at its height when Christ was born.

And so this vision has to do with events that take place around the birth of Christ.

Many have identified the ten horns on the fourth beast or the fourth kingdom as rulers of the provinces of Rome.

Maybe think a little bit kind of like we have governors, you know, there's a president and then there's governors.

It's not quite the same, but just to give you an image.

You know, the difference, of course, is that all of the little rulers, the little kings, are supposed to answer to the big king up top, right?

There's no democracy in this system.

And so the ten rulers are ten rulers in the kingdom of Rome during the time of Christ.

And the little horn is a particular ruler who oppresses the early church.

There are many nations around the world now where Christianity is very much a part of the culture.

Many countries even have established state churches, but remember that that was not always the case.

The early church was a persecuted and hated minority.

They believed weird things.

They were not socially acceptable.

They were considered freaks and outcasts.

They were considered fools.

There was a lot of oppression and persecution of the early church in the years following the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Right?

The prominence and the place of the church that we might expect in society was not something that was to be taken for granted in the early years of the church.

And so this promises or predicts that the church will, to some extent, at least, be oppressed and face opposition.

Now the the most high, the most high, that's got to be God the Father.

The heavenly court that we see at the end.

We see these four kingdoms, and after the four kingdoms, the most high and the Son of Man.

The Most High, that must be God the Father.

It speaks about his eternality, the ancient of days.

He is very old, he is eternal.

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

Verse 9.

It speaks about his age, that he is never ending.

He is eternal.

And then the Son of Man figure must be Jesus Christ.

The Son of Man who appears before the Most High and receives the kingdom, that must be Jesus Christ.

Now, this is something that would not have been apparent to Daniel when he first received the vision.

All he would have known was that it was a figure who had characteristics of both a human being and God.

A human-like figure who receives worship as God.

It must have been very confusing for Daniel, frankly.

But from the New Testament, we know that Jesus Christ is the God man, fully human and fully God.

At the incarnation of Christ, God, the Son, took on humanity and became the God man.

And so this vision that Daniel sees of a human-like figure who receives worship as God that fits with what we know from the New Testament, but that would not have been apparent to Daniel.

And so this is a vision of the church's ultimate triumph over persecution and defeat.

It's a vision of God the Father through Christ delivering the kingdom into the hands of the saints and overcoming all opposition and persecution.

The vision certainly has fulfillment in the time of Christ, that Jesus was born and people tried to get rid of him, but it didn't work.

They killed him and he rose again.

They tried to destroy the early church, but the gospel continued to spread around the world.

The gospel is not chained.

And this is a prediction that despite the persecution that God's people face, God ultimately wins.

So this certainly has fulfillment during the time of Christ.

But I believe that the little horn figure also fits well with what we know from the New Testament about an end-time antichrist figure still to come.

In other words, the fulfillment is both and.

It was fulfilled certainly at the birth of Christ and the triumph of the gospel over persecution.

But it's also fulfilled in a secondary sense in the future from us, at the return of Christ.

Revelation chapter 13 describes a figure, the beast, who is strikingly similar to the description of the little horn here.

Revelation 13 · chapter mention

And this is a future vision in Revelation 13.

It says that in Revelation chapter 13, verse 5, the beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise authority for 42 months.

Revelation 13:5

Revelation talks about the beast exercising authority for 42 months.

You know how long that is?

That's three and a half years.

That's three and a half years, which is the same amount of time that the little horn in Daniel 7 is described as exercising authority.

And so the book of Revelation picks up on the book of Daniel and uses this to describe a future end-time figure who will oppress and persecute the church.

The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 3, that the return of Christ will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed.

2 Thessalonians 2:3

That's important.

Catch that.

The return of Christ is not going to happen until the man of lawlessness is revealed.

Who's this man of lawlessness?

Listen to how Paul describes him.

He will oppress and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

The Apostle Paul connects the return of Christ with a man of lawlessness who sets himself up against God and oppresses God's people.

That is strikingly similar to the description of the little horn in Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And the Apostle Paul says that this is something that will happen right before the return of Christ.

And so the vision that we see in Daniel chapter 7 is a vision of successive empires in the world: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and then Rome.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And when Christ comes and is born under the Roman Empire, there will be persecution.

Kings will hate him, they will try to kill him, they will try to kill his followers.

And yet the gospel will spread to the ends of the earth as it has done and continues to do so.

What started out as a localized movement in the Middle East has now spread all around the world.

And people of every tongue, tribe, and nation proclaim the name of Jesus.

Rome did not destroy the gospel.

But Rome is no more God destroyed Rome.

And there is a future fulfillment.

Before Christ comes, it will be a figure who oppresses and opposes God's people.

And yet that too will be an utter failure.

Because when Christ comes, when he returns in glory, the saints, those who trust in him, that's you, if you've trusted in Christ, will reign with him and will be victorious.

Now we've covered a lot of ground here.

That's a lot, right?

You can take a breath.

This is a lot of data, a lot of details.

What's the point?

Well, some years ago, I went to the carnival.

I was on a carnival ride.

And it was a little carnival ride.

It was a low to the ground, thankfully.

And uh this carnival ride was kind of bumpy from the beginning.

But let me tell you, as soon as the ride started, it got bumpier and bumpier.

It started shaking and moving and bouncing, and I was getting pretty uncomfortable.

I was starting to think I might end up with whiplash or something from the way it was jerking around.

Not a very comfortable ride at all.

I mean, it felt like the car had come off the tracks and then it was out of control.

Well, suddenly the operator stopped the ride and the whole thing came to a squealing halt.

And the people came up and got us out, and we had to walk off the stairs off the ride.

Turns out that the ride had, in fact, gone off the rails and was out of control.

The carts had become dislodged from the track on the ride, and we were just bouncing around back and forth, and they couldn't control it.

And so the only thing they could do before it went totally off the track was to just pull the power to the machine.

And we came to a screeching halt.

It was totally out of their control, and I was just there, a passenger on this out of control ride.

Now, sometimes it feels like life is a little bit like that, right?

Life is off the rails, life is out of control, we encounter days that seem to test us beyond our limits.

We experience hardship, disappointment, and frustration that we never imagined we'd face.

Maybe we experience opposition from others because of our faith, like the text talks about.

Or maybe it's just the general hardship of life.

The passage speaks about God's meticulous control over everything we face, and it reassures us that no amount of hardship is evidence that God has stepped off the throne.

No amount of opposition, persecution, or difficulty is evidence that God has ceased to exist.

In the passage, we see that God tells Daniel that future kingdoms will arise and oppress God's people.

God's people will go through difficulty.

But the extent of that hardship remains firmly and squarely under the control of God.

The degree of difficulty and the length of hardship that God's people go through are determined not by their enemies, but by God Himself.

God is in control of the amount of hardship we go through, and God is in control of every situation we face.

There has never been a day in your life that caught God by surprise.

There has never been a circumstance you've walked into that caught God off guard.

Now, people are truly responsible for the wrong they do.

In this fallen world, hardship will come at times by people mistreating us or wronging us.

And those people are truly responsible for what they do, and they should be held accountable.

In our text, God gives the little horn, the beast, the Antichrist, three and a half years to commit wrongdoing, but then he's judged and put away forever.

The triune God wins, and God's people are victorious.

The passage pictures God's people reigning with him.

God's ultimate victory is our victory.

God wins.

And if you have trusted in Christ, you are joined to God and you are joined to his coming victory.

You know what the Apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter 2?

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

If we endure with Christ, we will also reign with Christ.

If we endure difficulty and hardship with Christ, we will reign with Christ.

It might strike you as a bit pretentious to say that you're going to be sitting on a throne in the new heavens and the new earth, reigning with Christ.

But the Bible gives you that level of assurance.

But you want to reign with Christ, you got to suffer with Christ.

You want to have a seat reigning in the new heavens, in the new earth, you gotta endure some hardship here in the old earth.

No matter how good things get for you here on earth, if you've trusted in Christ, your best days are yet to come.

So try not to let the highs of life get you too high, and don't let the lows get you too low.

Put your hand to the plow, stay the course, and remember that nothing that lies ahead of you falls outside of the sovereign control of God.

If he's allowed hardship and he's allowed suffering to come into your life, remember that he's also given you a promise, a promise that you will reign with him.

I read this recently and I want to share it with you.

It says that the source is unknown, but it says that in the frigid waters around Greenland, there are many icebergs.

Some large icebergs and some small icebergs.

And if you notice them carefully, you'd see that the small icebergs move about in one direction or another while the massive, large icebergs flow in a different direction.

The small icebergs flow in a different direction than the large ones.

And the reason for that is because the small ones are driven by surface winds on top of the water.

Whichever way the wind blows, the small icebergs blow.

But the large, massive icebergs, those ones are guided by the currents deep underneath the ocean that can't be seen.

The large icebergs are guided by currents powerful, strong, and deep under the ocean that cannot be seen with the human eye.

And when we face trials and tragedies, it's helpful to see our lives as being subject to two forces: the surface winds that we see above, the day-to-day things of life.

But let us also see the deep underwater current that is God's sovereignty guiding us, guarding us, protecting us, and moving us toward his kingdom.

The winds that move the small icebergs represent everything changeable, unpredictable, and distressing.

But even as those surface winds blow, there's another force even more powerful, that deep underwater current.

It's the sure movement of God's purposes in the deep flow of his love.

Our lives aren't driven by aimless surface currents.

They're driven by deep and abiding love that God has for us.

They're guided by the purposes of God.

Whatever it is that you were going through this morning, I invite you to take this passage as a refresher, a cup of cold water on an arduous journey.

Step to the side and sit with this passage.

Let the vision of God described here capture your imagination.

Anchor your soul in the deep current of God's sovereignty.

And let us endure hardship with a sure hope that we will one day reign victoriously with Christ.

Amen.