Discussing the prophetic significance of Daniel (Part 2)

Giving us what Ezekiel gave us and Isaiah masterpieces that apply in every age and under every circumstance. And that's what we're seeing here. And so Whether it's chapter seven now or chapter 11 in a moment, this second half of Daniel that is so apocalyptic, last days, end of the world, so symbolic, so difficult to. To pin down or to nail down with absolute clarity. Many scholars try to do that again with this intertestamental period, assuming that Daniel couldn't possibly have prophesied a thing. And so it's all kind of just backdated and they'll tag a name for practically every detail. And that's actually really interesting because it does describe some incredible history, which actually, since I do believe in the gift of prophecy, makes Daniel even more incredibly prophetic than we often give him credit for. I mean, down to the details of things that we'll see in chapter 11, for example. But what I'm trying to say here as we kind of begin this apocalyptic section is are there literal fulfillments in the intertestamental period with the Seleucid kings that are wreaking havoc? I mean, is that a manifestation of a bunch of horns that are coming out of the beast? Yes, but as we already saw with Isaiah, they're all previews of final destructions. And the destruction of Assyria was meant to point us to the destruction of the wicked world of the last day. The destruction of Babylon is meant to point us to the destruction of the wicked of the last days. It's all previews of Armageddon, Gog and Magog, as Ezekiel taught us last week. And so if we're seeing the reign of Antiochus IV during the Seleucid reign over Palestine in the second century bc, all this history that we don't get in the Bible because it happened between the Old and New Testaments. For that, there's all kinds of other material you'll have to read and history you'll have to internalize. But if you don't want to spend your time studying the history of the intertestamental period, just trust that you're living through an echo of it. We talked about Isaiah's layer cake. Well, Daniel's a pretty good baker too, and things that apply to his day as. As kingdoms and superpowers.