No other book in the Bible has been attacked like the Book of Daniel. Since Porphyry, a Syrian, some 1700 years ago, the book has been in the Critic’s Den. Porphyry claimed that instead of being written by Daniel about 533 B.C., it was a forgery written in the time of the Maccabees about 168 B.C., after Antiochus Epiphanes (whose appearance is so clearly foretold in the book), in order to comfort the Jews in their trying times. Ironically, the Septuagint (the Greek rendering of the Old Testament) of 285 B.C. included the Book of Daniel, over one hundred years before the critics declared its writing. Josephus, who wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, speaks of the incidents of Antiochus Epiphanes; he says it came to pass “according to the prophecy of Daniel which was given 408 years ago.” We also have a specific incident that Josephus describes. When Alexander the Great, who is foretold in Daniel’s prophecies (chapter 8), came in the course of his conquests to Jerusalem in 322 B.C., Jaddua, the high priest, showed him the reference to himself in the Book of Daniel. This so pleased Alexander that he spared the city (which means it was written prior to 322 B.C.). Again, Ezekiel was a contemporary of Daniel and mentions him in Ezekiel 14 twice and in Ezekiel 28.
A Book of Prophecy & History
The Bible is unlike all other religious books in that it bases its authenticity, authority, and inspiration on prophecy. All other religious books contain no predictions as to the future. If they did so, and the prophecies were not fulfilled, the books would be discredited. Prophecy is history written in advance proving the foreknowledge of God. Thus we read in Daniel 2:45, “The great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.” Prophecy is twofold: it is descriptive and predictive. Prophets were both forth-tellers and foretellers. The Holy Spirit gave both insight and foresight to them. The apostle Peter declared in II Peter 1:21, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” It has been estimated that 8,145 prophecies are in the Scriptures. Prophecy in Scripture seems to have at least five requirements: (1) It must have been made known prior to its fulfillment; (2) It must be beyond all human foresight; (3) It must give details; (4) A sufficient time must elapse between its publication and fulfillment to exclude the prophet, or any interested party, from fulfilling it; and, (5) There must be a clear and detailed fulfillment of the prophecy in every particular.
When men are in captivity there is the need of prophecy, for it becomes an anchor of hope for their souls for the future. Daniel was a crucial man for his time and his geography. He was a prophet to the nations. This is why his book is written in two languages, the Hebrew and the Aramaic, the languages of Chaldea. The first chapter of Daniel is written in Hebrew, in style closely allied to the Hebrew used in the Book of Ezekiel. Chapters 8–12 are likewise written in Hebrew. But 2:4 through 7:28 are written in the Aramaic language. The Aramaic was the language most familiar to Babylonia and Medo-Persia. Daniel was appointed by God to be a eunuch servant to the leaders of two empires in history. His prophecy to them was from two perspectives, their perspective and God’s perspective. We see this truth in the trilogy of prophets at that time: Ezekiel was taken in the captivity to the north part of the Babylonian Empire among the slaves at the River Chebar; Daniel was in Babylon; and Jeremiah was in Jerusalem.
Daniel’s Prophecy
In the beginning of his prophecy, Daniel was a teenager. We are told that Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and when Daniel was summoned before the king, we read his response in 2:27–30:
Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these; As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.
God granted this king an insight to the coming days beginning with himself: thoughts that had come into his mind about his empire and what should come to pass hereafter. Daniel gave him the prophecy of God according to Nebuchadnezzar. We read in 2:1 that his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. For God took him all the way through the history of the Gentile powers to the end—the end of Man. But at the end of man’s kingdom, the God of heaven would destroy the kingdom of Man and set up His own kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar needed to know this: it is not man’s kingdom that will triumph, but God’s! The dream the king saw was an image and that image was appropriately a man. Twenty years later Nebuchadnezzar set up an image of gold to himself; the final part of man in the feet of the image of Daniel 2 will be resolved in Revelation 13, when Antichrist and his image will be worshipped.
The later view of the kingdoms of man in Daniel 7 and 8 is presented from the perspective of heaven and God and not from Nebuchadnezzar’s. The prophet’s dream is that of beasts, not man. Lion, eagle, bear, leopard, and a dreadful and terrible beast are what Daniel saw from heaven. He also saw horns coming out of the final beast that become powerful influences until the End. In times of apostasy God’s men see beasts when the world leaders view themselves as golden heads. In chapter 7 these are wild beasts; in chapter 8 they are domesticated beasts. The two domesticated beasts, the ram and the goat, which are the Medes-Persians and the Greeks, were of a better attitude toward Israel than Babylon or Rome. However, Daniel’s prophecies were not only to the Gentiles but also to the Jews, and thus the chapters and prophecies that marked his beloved people (chapters 9–12). He was a prophet for his times; he was a prophet for the world and for God’s people.
Although the prophets were mortals, men of like passion of the very men to whom they were sent, yet they were crucial men with a crucial message in crucial times. They were a unique breed of men, saved men, redeemed men, who had a holy heart that was sovereignly picked up by God to become His representative to the people. They came in times when God’s people were in a season of drifting, neutrality, compromise, and apostasy. They became the screaming conscience of a people whose personal conscience was in apathy and insensitivity to the delicate things of God. They were men with prophecy. Although prophecy in certain biblical contexts is a forth-telling and foretelling, in passages such as II Peter 1:20, 21, prophecy is presented as the entirety of the Scriptures. In I Corinthians 14, the gift of prophecy is the immediate anointing of the Holy Spirit upon the preaching of the Word of God to a people. This is the greatest need at this hour in the Body of Christ: men with prophecy, men with the anointed Word of God. We need to pray that God will raise up men who know the Word, who are consumed by it in a time when there is no open vision of that prophecy. When such men are absent, or few in number, it becomes a judgment upon a generation.
We are in a time when “prophecy” of the times is very popular both in books and on television. But the popular prophecies tend to promote a greater view of the nations than we have of God’s people, their plight, and the captivity they are in. Even the more conservative men whose ministries are the promotion of prophecy (such as John Ankerberg and Jack Van Impe) are focused on Israel, the land of Israel, rather than to seeing the equal prophecies concerning the driftings, neutrality, powers of compromise, and encroachment of apostasy among God’s professing people. It is true; we need pastors, under-shepherds of the Chief Shepherd, and evangelists and teachers. But the greatest need in days of apostasy is the voice of biblical prophets heralding the needed message and burden of God’s Word to the people—God’s people. We need men who will stand before the face of God in deep communion as Daniel did. We need men who will tell us what God wants us to hear rather than what we fancy in our carnal hearts. We need men who will give us God’s Word strong enough to convict us, to name our sins, and to never leave us alone without telling us how we should live. We need men who have sight to see the end of decisions made and the outcome of subtle choices and changes. We need men who will warn about the power of cares and money, and how such things will rise up as thorns to choke the Word of God in our lives. We need men who will not wither under the intimidating pressures of backslidden church members and ecclesiastical leaders. We need men who will refuse to be silent when they see sin taking over a nation, a community, a movement, a Christian school, a church, a family, or an individual.
The world and the institutional church will condemn such men of God; they will be called by names that would grieve the average person. Such men will be voted out of the conventions, starved out, intimidated, and even gossiped about behind their backs in order to destroy their reputations. They will be hated for their spirituality, their standards, and their separatist life as Daniel was. Carnality, worldliness, and apostasy hate such men in their churches and movements. They are viewed as the “thorn in the side” that prevents progress and growth. We should thank God for every pastor, parent, grandparent, or teacher who becomes a voice of a prophet to our mortal lives.
As we near the secret coming of Christ for His true saints, as we witness the apostasy fast laying hold of the global, institutional church, we must pray that God will awaken young men who will be consumed with the Bible, God’s prophecy! We must pray that God will grant them discernment concerning the enemies of God and the spiritual needs of the people of God.
Conclusion
When God begins taking away such voices from a people, a church, a school, a movement, it is the sign of God’s leaving the people. Note Ezekiel 3:26, 27:
And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD GOD; He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forebeareth, let him forebear: for they are a rebellious house.
We are witnessing in the seminaries and colleges of Fundamentalism today a destruction of the hope for prophets. Note God’s thoughts spoken through the prophet Amos:
And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD. But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not (2:11, 12).
More and more conscientious preachers are being told by religious leaders not to deal with certain issues in the pulpit; they are not to deal with the music; they are not to deal with the multi-version issue of the English Bible; and, they are not to deal with sanctification, consecration, and having a deep love for God. These schools are now forcing such young men, by threatening isolation from churches and opportunities to preach, to give in and drink the wine of compromise and conformity.
Some may say that the office of the prophet is an office of the past. Yet if the Bible states that in the last days that there shall arise many false prophets (Matthew 24; I John 4), are there not to be any true prophets to rise to warn the righteous? There may not be foretelling, but there is the forth-telling of God’s Word to the people. The prophet of our time must see not only the global perspective but also the calamity within the camp of God in the falling away within. We need men with a spiritual heart for God, a prayer life, and a vision life with a Daniel heart. We need men to tell us as Isaiah, “Set thine house in order,” to warn the righteous of their unrighteousness, and to give the burden of the Word of the Lord when God’s people and leaders remain neutral and succumb to compromise.
May the Lord raise up prime-vision preachers! For “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). Where there is no prophesying of God’s Word (the Hebrew rendering), the people will become ungovernable (lawless).
(In the next Straightway we will be giving three final articles concerning the man Daniel and his importance for the End Time of the Last Days.)