Visions - Daniel 7

[repeat of one from about a year ago titled "The King of Kings"]

Alright, here we go. Today is the last message in our series called Resilient. We have been tracking along with this guy Daniel for the last two months - and I’m not quite sure how to tell you this, but we’re about to get into it this morning. We’re about to go on a crazy journey. I don’t know if we have any sort of type A folks who figured out that we’re pretty much doing this a chapter a week. Last week we were in Daniel chapter 6 - the Lion’s Den, which is one of the most famous and well known stories in the Old Testament. You say “Daniel” and everybody finishes “in the Lion’s Den” - like, even if you haven’t been to church since second grade Sunday School - that’s a super famous story. THIS week we’re going to read the chapter everybody skips. Even if you’ve been to church every Sunday for your whole life maybe you’ve never touched this chapter. And as we get into it, you are going to see why most people skip this chapter. So I just want to warn you as we start. Like, strap in for this one, it’s going to get a little bumpy. But, let me promise you this as we start, there are incredible nuggets of truth in God’s word - and they are worth the weird. Stick with me and we’ll come out on the other side knowing more about God. 

Now the reason this chapter is so weird, is that my man Daniel has some dreams. Have you ever had a dream that was so strange that you sort of wonder what it meant? There’s an old story about this guy Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr who was a Doctor. Wendell Holmes Jr was a famous Supreme court justice and legal thinker, but his dad was a famous 19th century doctor, who was the dean of Harvard Medical School. Now, remember this is the 1800’s, medical science was very different - and at the time they were experimented with the use of ether. It’s the stuff they would use to knock people out for surgeries. And Dr. Holmes wanted to know the effect on his patients, so one time he had a dose administered to himself. And as he was going under, in that sort of dreamy, murky state, a profound thought came to him. He believed that he had suddenly grasped the key to all the mysteries of the universe. He had figured out the solution! BUT, when he regained consciousness, he was unable to remember what the insight was. He remembered that it was brilliant, that it was incredibly important, but he couldn’t remember what the thought was. Now because of the great importance this thought would be to mankind, Holmes arranged to have himself given ether again. But this time he had a stenographer present to take down the great thought. Whatever brilliant thought I come up with, make sure you write it down for me. The ether was administered again, and sure enough, just before passing out the insight reappeared. He mumbled the words, the stenographer took them down, and he went to sleep confident in the knowledge that he had succeeded. Upon awakening, he turned eagerly to the stenographer and asked her to read what he had uttered. She hesitated and then read, “The entire universe is permeated with a strong odor of turpentine.” [laugh]. Sometimes dreams are significant and sometimes dreams are just crazy. You ever have that thing, where you get in trouble with your spouse, not because of something that actually happened, but because you said or did something dumb IN THEIR DREAM? - yeah, me neither.

It’s funny, but that's exactly the way dreams work in the Bible too. Sometimes dreams are really important - they’re seen as visions and messages from God. All throughout the Old Testament - think about Jacob’s dream about angels going up and down the ladder, or Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dream, or even Daniel - Daniel has interpreted dreams for a couple of people already in this book. Those dreams are a big deal. But then you get verses like Zechariah 10 verse 2 or Jeremiah chapter 23 verse 25, let’s put that on the screen [read it]. Not all dreams were created equal - some dreams are vital and important, and some are just a crazy man talking about turpentine.

So if you want to grab your bible, we’re in chapter 7 of the book of Daniel which is in the Old Testament, you can look that up in the table of contents, it’s maybe two thirds of the way through the book. Chapter 7, verse 1 says [read v.1]. So Daniel’s laying in bed, having some visions - but before we get to the vision, we need to zoom out and set the stage a little bit. Now if you’ve been with us in this series you know that there’s a lot of international fighting going on in the background, empires and kingdoms duking it out all over the middle east. The Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire - and the broad strokes look like this -  Israel was a tiny nation, but they were God’s people, King David, King Solomon, you know, the glory days. But then the people of God fell away from God. And so God sent these prophets to warn the king, to warn the people - “Hey, knock it off, if you keep going on this path you’re going to get squished.” And the people ignore God, they ignore the warnings - and so they get squished. The Babylonian Empire comes in, crushes Israel, destroys the temple, deports all the people as servants back to Babylon. That time period is called the exile. But one of the amazing things about Israel’s story is that the destruction of everything they ever loved is not the end of the story. The empire comes in, captures the people, uproots them from their homes, deports them to exile, but there is a promise of return. Eventually they get to come home, but not yet. And so Daniel is this story of living in exile. And the one silver lining to living in exile is that you develop resilience. Daniel knows what it is like to live a life of hardship and to overcome. 

So here we are, we’ve got Daniel, and he’s in exile - and he’s having some weird dreams and we pick it up in verse 2. [read v.2-3]. Kinda sounds like a godzilla movie, that’s pretty cool. [read v.4-8]. I take it back! I take it back - this is not a weird dream - this is an acid trip on steroids. You know what’s a weird dream - Pink Elephants on parade. You remember that? In the 1941 classic Disney children’s movie Dumbo. You remember the scene right? Where the baby elephant has a hard day at work, so he and a buddy go out for drinks and then he dreams about this guy? [put the pink elephant picture up]. Because Disney is a FAMILY company. Any time I hear people complain, “ah, Disney’s starting to make some really weird movies” and I’m like, “starting?” 1941 people. Pink Elephants on parade, THAT’s a weird dream. Daniel - Daniel’s dream is a whole other level. Daniel makes dumbo look downright rational. We’ve got weirdo talking horns and animals with extra body parts glued on like my kid’s Sunday School craft. And we’re not even done! Verse 9 [read v.9-10]. So we’ve got this king with hair like wool, riding a flaming wheelchair throne on a river of lava with millions of angels, Sure - why not. [read v.11-14]. Alright, we settled down a little bit there at the end. I think verse 15 sums it up nicely. [read v.15]. Same, girl, same. I am troubled and your visions terrified me too. 

Now here’s the thing - I want to be very clear. I love the word of God. This book teaches us about the divine that is out there. And in my life, I want to know, deep in my heart of hearts, I want to soak up absolutely everything my tiny little human brain can know about that divine thing that is out there. I poke fun at the word of God and I make these jokes, because it’s weird and I think we need to be honest about that. But I hope that you understand how much I respect this text. In fact, I respect it too much to pretend like that’s normal. Because here’s what happens with so many of us. We want to be good Christians, we want to read and understand the word of God. And so when we come up against a weirdo passage, this is what we do. We read it, we thinking, “huh, that was weird” and then we shrug and move on. Because we don’t want the bible to be weird. Somehow that feels like it’s disrespectful or wrong and so we have this habit of getting distracted by the weirdness and we focus on the wrong thing and we actually miss the point. And this is really common with prophetic literature. Prophetic visions are almost always super weird and full of symbols that are hard to understand and so most of us shrug, move on and then we miss the good news that the text has for us. For example, the book of Revelation, right? It’s the very last book of the Bible, and it’s the only prophetic text in the whole New Testament, and it reads a LOT like Daniel chapter 7. There’s beasts with too many heads and talking horns and all kinds of weirdness. And for two thousand years Christians have gotten so distracted by the weirdness that they have missed the actual message of that book of the bible. Now I don’t have time to get into it all - but actually, it’s not that hard. The book of revelation, and most prophetic visions come down to one word. Hope. The purpose of the vision is to give you hope. We’ll come back to that. 

Now, thankfully, Daniel doesn’t stop there. He describes the bizarro dream, but then he actually explains the dream to us in the second half of the chapter. It’s a lot like when we read the parables of Jesus. Do you remember this? When Jesus shows up, he would share a story with the disciples, and sometimes they would just sort of stare at him with that glazed expression, scratch their heads and go, “What?” And Jesus would have to sit them down and he would explain it to them like they were five, “the Farmer is God, and the seed is the good news of the gospel, the soil is the different settings in life” or whatever. That’s what Daniel does here. This vision - it’s all one big metaphor, and each of the pieces of the dream represent something. Verse 17 says, [read 17-18]. So we’ve got beasts, those are the empires, the kingdoms. The horns are the kings, that’s why they talk. The ancient one on the throne - that’s definitely God and the “son of man” of course is Jesus. When you break it down like that - it’s not that crazy. It’s still weird, but at least it sort of makes sense now. Empires and kings snarling like beasts, battling one another, rising and falling - that makes sense.

But I still have a nagging question- what is the point of this dream? We’ve got the key, we understand all the symbols - but what’s the point. Here verse 9 again, [read 9a]. You’ve got all these kings - but they’re just horns on a beast. You’ve got all these empires - but they’re just animals, put in their place and judged when the ancient one sits on the throne. The whole point of this picture is that even though these beasts SOUND terrifying and bizarre - the ancient one still sits in the place of judgment. Remember these beasts all rose out of a stormy sea - but no matter how crazy the storms of life become - the ancient one still sits on the throne. Think about it this way: the king is the highest level of authority in the world at this point. But even the king was just a part of the higher power - the empire. The empire was bigger than any one man, but this vision is showing us that even the entire EMPIRE is beneath the one who sits on the throne. The bible talks about Jesus as the king OF kings, and that is great news for us when we are scared of regular ol’ normal kings. We got so distracted by the lion with wings or the leopard with too many heads - the part that really freaked me out was the horn with eyes and a mouth, yeeesh - we got so distracted that we missed the point, which is that the ancient one still sits on the throne.

The good news for us this morning is that God is in control. Now you might hear that and think - THAT is the point of this bizarre dream? All these terrifying beasts rising out of the ocean, just to give us a sort of base level reassurance that GOd is still God? Like, did we need all the drama? Did we need all the weirdness? And the answer is YES. Yes we did need all the weirdness, because the message is not just “God is in control’ - it goes further than that. Even when we are exiles in Babylon, even when the sea of life is a storm and there are monsters in the water and it feels like your ship is sinking and it feels like you are surrounded by terrifying and unknown enemies - God is in control. You don’t need to reassure someone when the sky is clear and it’s a beautiful sunny day. On good days, it’s a whole different struggle - where we might take God for granted. But it is in these moments, when you are troubled and terrified - in those moments, when you feel like life is falling apart THAT is when we need to hear this beautiful good news. God is still in control. 

Now I’m going to ask you a super weird question that nobody but you will be able to understand because I just walked you through it. What are the beasts swimming in your stormy seas? What are the monsters you are worried about in your future? Maybe it’s something with your family - you’re worried you might not find love or hang on to the good things you have. Worried your kids or grandkids are going to grow up to be little monsters. Maybe it’s something with your job - you’ve got stability now, but there’s this godzilla sized anxiety monster on the horizon, and you’re worried about whether you will be able to provide in the future. What are your fears of the future made of? Is it a health scare? I’m feeling alright today, but what if something rises up out of the stormy seas tomorrow? Or maybe it’s actual politics. If your team is in power, you’re afraid to lose it. If your team is out of power, you’re afraid they’ll never have it again. It says Daniel was troubled and terrified by this vision of the future. These are the moments when we need to be reminded that God is still in control, like a shaft of light cutting through the storm clouds. God is still in control. 

And I don’t know if I need to connect the dots - maybe it’s obvious, but it’s so beautiful that I at least need to point it out. In Daniel’s dream, the Ancient One sits on the throne and has complete control over the beasts - but there is another character. Verse 13 says, [read v.13-15]. Boy that’s familiar language. God is in control, but there is one who looks like the “son of man” who will be given all authority, honor and sovereignty over all the nations of the world. Now to our ears in the modern world, obviously that’s Jesus. But remember the setting - Daniel is in exile. The kingdom has fallen, the line of David has been broken. They are imagining that someday God is going to set up a physical kingdom, and some descendent of David will wear a crown and rule over an empire. They are looking for a solution that looks like the power that they see in front of them. They want a king. But when Jesus shows up what we get is a king OF Kings. Think back to the stories you heard about Jesus when you were growing up. Do you remember the time when Jesus and the disciples were on the boat, and Jesus is sleeping and there’s a great storm and the disciples were terrified? A regular king would be just as scared as the rest of them - but Jesus slept. He wakes up and calms the storm. Because even the winds and the waves listen to Jesus - because he’s not just a king. He’s the king OF Kings. The only crown he ever needed, well - it wasn’t made of gold. Jesus Christ was not what anybody was expecting, he was more than anybody could ever have dreamed. Not just a leader to guide us through life, but a leader who would conquer sin and death to give us a new life. Whatever the beasts in your storm seas are made of - remember this; Empires and kingdoms will rise and fall, leaders and politicians will come and go - but Jesus, the king of kings, will reign forever.

So now let me bring this into your life today. Daniel’s dream is one of those weirdo bible passages that most people have no idea what to do with. I mean, why do I care about a dream some dude had thousands of years ago in a place that doesn’t even exist anymore? Why would I care about the way Daniel behaved when he was an exile in Babylon? Well the answer is very simple - we are STILL exiles in babylon. The names of the kings and kingdoms change as the years go by, the specific obstacles we deal with are very different than what Daneil and his friends went through - the problems may chance, but the presence of problems never changes. The need for a savior never changes. 

Let me see if I can explain it like this - when we are in pain, our world shrinks. When we are scared or stressed or overwhelmed - we stop thinking about others and focus in on the problem in front of us. If you smack your hand on a wall or stub your toe on a table, you stop paying attention to the people around you. There’s just you and the pain. I think about when my wife was giving birth. There are times during labor, when the pain reaches a height, and the mom closes her eyes - I don’t think she’s aware there are other people on the planet. When we are in pain, our world shrinks. ANd sometimes that can be very paralyzing. If you get bad news at work, and then try to go into a meeting or try to go teach a class or show a house or whatever - it’s almost impossible to focus on anything because your brain wants to zero in on the pain. Whatever the problem is, and it’s different for all of us - but pain shrinks our world down to just a little bubble where there’s nothing but us and the pain. And we get stuck. And in that moment what we need is something else to break into the bubble. In that tiny world created by pain we need something to hold onto. For the pregnant lady it’s usually her husband’s hand. I just need something to squeeze, something strong to hold onto. And that thing that you hold onto in a moment of pain - that is your source of hope. And so it has to be small, it has to be simple. It can’t be some complex theological truth about the sovereignty of God. It has to be something simple that you can grab onto when the world shrinks down to just you and the pain. 

And so today I want to give you that something. I want to give you a simple truth, and I want you to commit it not to your memory, but commit it to your soul. Whether you are struggling today or not, whether you need this right now or not, I promise you will need it someday. I want you to ask yourself a simple question - Who is on the throne? And I want you to repeat it, over and over in moments of struggle, trials and tribulations - Who is on the throne? I’m struggling at work, my marriage is on rocky ground, the politics of our country have me absolutely terrified - who is on the throne? my kid’s medication dosage isn’t quite right and it’s stressing me out, I’m living paycheck to paycheck and I’m not sure I have enough for rent next month. My mental health is crumbling - who is on the throne? It’s not a statement that takes away all our problems. It doesn’t mean our problems are solved, it doesn’t mean our problems are gone. Daniel and his friends were STILL living in exile, conquered and controlled by the Babylonians. But even in our darkest moments, there is still hope. The world does not actually shrink. The world is not just us and our pain - that’s a lie. Sometimes zooming out, putting things in perspective can help us get unstuck. It can remind us that all pain is temporary, even death - ti’s just a horn on a leopard with too many heads. And Jesus has conquered every beast. Who is on the throne? And….we know the answer, right? The answer is the king of kings. Who is on the throne? The KING of kings. 

And so that’s my challenge for you this week. In moments of pain, when you feel your world shrinking - I want you to remind yourself who exactly is on the throne. And one really practical way to do that is an old practice in the Christian tradition called fasting. This week is Gather 25. And I hope you guys all had a chance to sign up - I think it’s going to be an epic event. But we don’t just want to have a nice event this weekend - as a Zero Collective we’ve been talking about how to let Gather 25 be an event that is a kick off for a much larger movement in our church. As Lead Pastors we are entering into a time of prayer and fasting from now until Easter and we’re inviting everyone in our churches to do the same. And so on your seat when you came in there should have been a card describing different types of fasting. Simply put, fasting is when you cut something out of your life for a specific time frame to focus your time and energy back on God. You can see, sometimes you cut out certain foods, or certain meals. Sometimes it’s social media or streaming programs. Now personally I’m going to be fasting by giving up food on certain days in my week, and when I would normally be eating those days, I’ll be praying about the future of Center Church. We pray for God to slay the beasts in our stormy seas. We pray that God will remind us that he is on the throne, ONLY he is on the throne. We pray for guidance, clarity and resources for the future. Show us what to do and how to do it - what is God calling Center Church to do and be in Byron Center? And I hope you’ll pray for Center Church and for the Zero Collective - but you can also pray for guidance in your personal life as well. What is God calling you to do and be in your life? We sacrifice something for a set period of time - from now until Easter, and then we pray and we listen and we pray some more. Let’s pray.