The Trouble with Goats and Rams

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Daniel chapter 8 tonight. Daniel chapter 8. And as we’ve been going through this series on the book of Daniel, it’s been a few weeks, excuse me, since we looked at it.

And it was about a month ago, really, the last time we had regular Sunday night services, and we talked about Daniel’s vision of the four beasts in chapter 7. and those correspond to the parts of the statue that we had studied in an earlier chapter. God spent a lot of time revealing things to Daniel that were going to happen to the Jews in the coming years, and I think it was because he knew that they were about to walk through some very dark times in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, and it was God’s way of letting them know ahead of time, hey, I know you’re going to walk through these dark times, but don’t assume from that that I’ve forgotten you.

It was sort of a reminder message ahead of time. Hey, I’m still here. I’m still involved.

And it doesn’t matter how many of these wicked kings come and take you over or harass you. I’m still here and I’m still involved. And none of this has taken me by surprise.

And along the same line, we’re going to look in chapter 8 tonight at another vision that he had. Again, this is in the third year of King Belshazzar, who was one of the guys in charge of the Babylonian Empire at the very end of it. He’s the one who was having the blasphemous feast and using the vessels from the temple of God to praise the gods of gold and silver at his feast when God showed up with the handwriting on the wall and Daniel had to come and interpret it.

the night that Belshazzar died. So we’ve kind of gone back in time after chapter 6, and we’re looking now at several years before chapter 6. Chapter 7 was in the first year of Belshazzar’s reign.

Chapter 8 takes place in the third that Daniel sees this vision. A lot of the end of the book of Daniel is prophecy. And so it says in verse 1, in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared unto me, even unto Daniel, which appeared unto me at first. And I saw in the vision, I saw in a vision, and it came to pass when I saw that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam, and I saw in a vision, and was by the river of Uli, and some translations say the canals at Uli.

In this vision that we’re going to look at tonight, we’re going to move through it pretty quickly or try to. He basically has a vision of farm animals. He sees a ram and a goat, and the ram and the goat get into a fight.

We’re going to see that here in just a moment. He says in verse 3, then I lifted up mine eyes and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns. So in his vision, he’s in a real place.

He’s there near the palace. He’s there on the banks of a real river. This is not, you know, one of our dreams where, where the rivers are made out of lemonade and the skies, cotton candy, and we can walk upside down.

You know weird things happen in dreams. I can’t think of any dream where the sky’s been made out of cotton candy, but you get the idea. He’s having a vision of real places, but as he’s looking out over these real places, he sees this ram, which had two horns, and the two horns, that’s not unusual, but he said the ram, the two horns were high, had long horns, but one was higher than the other. I’m sure that happens.

I’m sure that’s not that unusual, but most of the rams I’ve ever seen have had horns the same length. One was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. So apparently he’s watching this ram as it’s growing the horns, because he says there are the two horns that grew out of the head, and one came up, and then a longer one grew second. He says in verse 4, I saw the ram pushing westward and northward and southward so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand, but he did according to his will and became great.

He said this, I saw this ram and he was pushing toward the west and he was pushing toward the north and he was pushing toward the south and nobody could stop him. Basically, he could do whatever he wanted. And as I was considering, behold, a he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth and touched not the ground, and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.

So he said there’s this, all of a sudden, nobody could stop this ram, and then all of a sudden there’s this male goat that comes charging out of the west, and he just sort of takes over the whole face of the earth, the whole known world. It doesn’t seem to touch the ground. I think that’s a reference to his speed.

He seems to be flying. He’s moving so fast. And he had a notable horn between his eyes. I’m picturing a unicorn type thing only on a goat.

And he came to the ram that had the two horns. When this goat and the ram in Daniel’s vision, when they come together, he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran into him in the fury of his power. So there’s this massive ram that nobody could stop, the goat with the one horn comes charging up to the ram, charging into the ram with the fury of his power.

He knocks into him. You ever seen two little children running down the hall, maybe mine, that run into each other with such force you hear it? The goat hits the ram with this intense force.

And verse 7 says, and I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with color or anger against him and smote the ram and break his two horns and there was no power in the ram to stand before him but he cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. So we’ve gone from nobody being able to deliver anybody from the ram to now the ram there’s nobody who can deliver the ram from the goat. The goat has come and shattered the ram’s horns and knocked him to the ground beating all the strength out of him and just trampling him all over the place.

Therefore, verse 8, the he-goat waxed very great. He grew very great. That word waxed means to grow.

That’s why astronomers will talk about the moon being a waxing crescent. That means it’s growing. It’s when the moon looks like a thumbnail and it’s getting bigger, it’s a waxing crescent.

It’s growing. So when he says he waxed very great, his strength is growing stronger. and stronger, continually growing.

The great horn was broken, though. After all of this, the one great horn that was between the eyes of the goat, the horn broke, and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. So when this horn broke off of the goat’s head and fell off, instead, four horns grew out of the goat’s head.

I’ve never seen this. You know, it starts out pretty normal. Just a normal day. Here I’m having a vision of a river that I see every day and a place that I see every day.

Oh, look, there’s a ram. Now there’s a unicorn goat, and his horns fell off, and now he’s got four growing out of his head. It gets more and more unusual as it goes on.

And the horns grew in four different directions. And out of one of them came forth a little horn. Now, if you remember back all those weeks to me talking about the beasts that had the little horn and the mouthy little horn, this is not the same one.

Different horn. Out of one of them came forth a little horn which waxed exceeding great toward the south and toward the east. So there’s one horn that started out little and grew stronger and grew longer and grew toward the south and toward the east and toward the pleasant land. And it’s talking about the nation of Israel, the promised land there, when it says the pleasant land.

And it waxed great even to the host of heaven. So not only is it growing toward the south and toward the east, but it’s growing higher and it’s growing taller. And it waxed great.

I personally wonder how this goat manages to hold his head up with the weight of the uneven horns. You’d think he’d fall over. That’s a joke.

You know it’s a goat in a vision, right? He might be. And it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground and stamped upon them.

So it gets even stranger. The goat with the big horn is knocking stars out of the sky and trampling on them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host. And by him the daily sacrifice was taken away and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

So as he comes charging toward the promised land, and he’s doing battle against the hosts there, the armies there, he even challenges the prince of the host, meaning the leader of the army, the most powerful one, when it says he magnified himself even to the prince of the host. So he’s challenged all the forces that stand in his way, and he has ended, he has defiled the sacrifices and defiled the sanctuary of God that’s there. The place of the sanctuary was cast down. And a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practiced and prospered.

Verse 13 says, Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spoke, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden underfoot? So God’s people in this vision are looking and seeing the absolute havoc that the goat is wreaking on their area and saying, How long will this continue to be allowed? How long is God going to let him get by with this?

He tramples the sacrifices underfoot. He defiles the sanctuary. How long is this goat going to be allowed to continue this?

And he said unto me, verse 14, Unto 2,300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. 2,300 days is over six years. However, if you look at the original Hebrew, And somebody asked Brother Greg in the 5 o’clock class, you speak Greek?

Because he mentioned looking at the Greek. No, but there are tools on the internet, tools and books, that will help you look at the Greek and Hebrew words and tell you what they mean. I don’t speak Hebrew.

But as I look at the explanation of these Hebrew words and say, what do these mean? Look them up in dictionaries and concordances and things. It sounds like 2300 mornings and evenings, which is the way some versions translate it, which would take it then 2,300 mornings and evenings as 1,150 days, which is a little over three years.

So there’s some debate over which does this actually mean. Are we talking three years roughly? Are we talking six years roughly?

Not entirely sure, but either way, it seems to fit with things that happened in history. Daniel’s bothered by this vision, as I think we all would be. If you’re like me, you’ve had a really weird dream and woken up and thought, what did that mean?

I think Daniel was troubled by this well the Bible says he was troubled by this and it came to pass verse 15 when I even I Daniel had seen the vision and sought for the meaning then behold there stood before me as the appearance of the man first of all we look at Daniel and think okay he had the ability to interpret dreams we look at people like this Daniel Joseph in the Old Testament think well they had this power to interpret dreams they really didn’t have any power to interpret dreams in and of themselves. It’s something that God gave them. Because otherwise Daniel would have woke up and gone, aha, I know what that means.

But instead it says here he’s searching for the meaning. I think he’s probably searching the scriptures. He’s probably in prayer asking God for understanding.

And God eventually does give him the answer as he always did in every other story we read. But it’s important to realize that even these people that we think of as being super spiritual in the Bible, you know, they were not, They did not have superhuman abilities themselves. God gifted them and equipped them to do what he called them to do in his time.

So he said, I sought for a meaning. Then behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. One having the appearance of a man.

So he said, somebody stood before me ready to give me the interpretation. It looked like a man. In verse 16, I heard a man’s voice between the banks of Uli, which is out where he’s standing by these rivers or canals.

which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. So we see Daniel about to interact with the archangel Gabriel so that he would send him, that God would send him with the interpretation of what the vision was about. So he came near, verse 17, so he came near where I stood and when he came I was afraid and fell upon my face.

I don’t care how spiritual you are when somebody from heaven comes to visit you you’re going to be afraid. We always see this. They fall down before the angel of the Lord.

I was afraid and fell upon my face, but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man. This is not the same way of using it where it’s used in the Old Testament where son of man is another name for the Messiah. He’s just calling Daniel a human being.

Understand, O son of man, for at the same time of the end shall be the vision. Now he’s talking about this being a vision of the end, and some people have taken this to mean it’s a vision of the end times. It sounds more like it’s, from context, it doesn’t actually sound like that’s what it’s talking about.

I’ve heard some people say it’s talking about the time of the Gentiles coming to an end. I’m not entirely sure what they mean by that. Could be the end of their oppression under the Greeks, which is more likely what he’s saying here.

That it doesn’t mean it’s the end times, but it means here’s how all of this, when you walk through this, what they now call the abomination of desolation, When you walk through this extremely difficult time, here’s how it’s all going to come to an end. Now he was speaking with me, as he was speaking with me, verse 18, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground, but he touched me and set me upright. And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation.

Again, talking about the end of this really troublesome time with the Greeks, and this is before the Romans even show up to cause trouble for them. I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation, for at the time appointed the end shall be. So even at this, when they’re about to deal with this goat with the four horns, starts out with the one big horn, and they’re about to go through some serious persecution, we’re talking yet another Gentile world ruler who has bent on destroying the Jews.

One of the people that’s talked about in this passage as we get to the explanation of it is somebody who kind of like Hitler set out to say, you know what, the Jews have got to be destroyed. Now he had a little bit different reason for wanting to do it, but still the end result was the same. We’re going to try to wipe out the Jews.

As they’re dealing with somebody like this, I don’t want you to think, oh, they’re just being taken over. It’s a sad time. Now, it’s a really horrific and terrifying time for the Jewish people.

Even at that, God says, the time that that will end is the time that I’ve appointed. He’s reminding them, even before it happens, that he’s in charge, that he is still in control. That it doesn’t mean that God wants the Greeks to come in and try to annihilate the Jews, but it means that he’s not surprised by it, and he’s got a plan, and he’s going to put it to an end at just the right time.

He says in verse 20, the ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And we’ve talked about this some in the book of Daniel. They’re the second beast. They’re the second part of the statue, the Medo-Persian empire.

When they came and killed Belshazzar and overthrew him, it was the Medes and Persians who did it. When Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den, it was the Medes and Persians who made that happen. It was King Darius who had to carry that out because his Mede and Persian advisors had convinced him to make this stupid law.

So this ram that seems to conquer everything is the Medo-Persian Empire. And it has two horns that are the kings of Media and Persia. There were two nations within this empire that were closely interconnected.

And it started out with the Medes, but then the Persians eventually came up second and became the dominant country. in the empire. That’s why we have the two horns and it says the second one grew taller and stronger.

And he says in verse 21, and the rough goat is the king of Grisha or Greece, and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, and I’ll go back and explain this in more detail in just a moment, four that stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance and understanding, dark sentences shall stand up.

And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power, and he shall destroy wonderfully and shall prosper, and practice and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also, he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand, meaning deceit. There would be deceit and corruption under his rule.

and he shall magnify himself in his heart and by peace shall destroy many. He shall also stand up against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without hand. And the vision of the evening and the morning, which is told is true.

Wherefore, shut thou up the vision for it shall be for many days. So he says, this is something that’s going to happen far, far in the future. He says, so don’t necessarily, like you have to run with this right now.

He said, seal it up in your writings, seal up the vision, for it’s something that’s going to come to pass later on. And I, Daniel, fainted, verse 27, and was sick certain days. Afterward, I rose up and did the king’s business, and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.

So what he’s telling Daniel, he’s laying the foundation for them to understand what was going to happen later. And Daniel’s writing somewhere in the 500s BC, somewhere in that range. These things are not going to happen for about 300 years or more.

But what he’s saying is that you’ve got the Medo-Persian Empire right here, and the Persians have become the strong ones in it, and they’ve conquered in all these directions. They’ve come out of the east and they’ve conquered toward the west. They’ve gone all the way to the Mediterranean. They’re shooting north.

They’re going south. They’re going every which way. They’re coming toward basically Africa and Europe, and they’re conquering everything in their path.

Nothing seems to be able to stand up to the Medes and Persians until this goat comes along, which is Greece. And that one horn seems to be Alexander the Great. Y’all know who he is.

He’s the man who by the time he was 32, had conquered so much of the world that the story goes that he finished his last battle and wept for there were no worlds left to conquer. He had conquered so much of the known world that he thought there’s nothing worth conquering left. I’ve done it all.

By 32 he had done that. Greece led by him. He was the king of Macedon, which was part of part of Greece, now known as Macedonia.

He had succeeded his father and decided, we’re going to go expand. Macedonia is little. We need a greater kingdom.

He went out and conquered the world. He defeated the Ram. He defeated the Persians.

Excuse me. His empire stretched out back toward the east. As the Medes and Persians had gone west, he went east. And they ran up against each other. And in an epic defeat, he defeated the Persians.

after that the large horn was shattered Alexander was on the verge of what we now know as India he was in that area and was evidently we’re not entirely certain of this but historians think he died of some mosquito-borne illness somewhere in the Indus River Valley so this man who had conquered the known world, it’s ironic he had conquered every country around and yet it was a mosquito that finally killed him He died at the age of 32. That horn was shattered, and four other horns rose up in its place. And I’ve told you before about the four kings that would follow Alexander.

He was so young, didn’t really have a viable heir to go ahead and step in and take his place. So his empire, his massive empire, they realized nobody other than Alexander could handle all of this. And they were fighting amongst themselves anyway.

They just decided they’re going to take this whole huge Greek empire, and they’re going to split it in pieces. and you had four kings that rose up. Ptolemy I, Soter in Egypt.

I don’t expect you to remember all these names. I just want you to know that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to this. Seleucus I in Syria.

And those two really fought for a long time and their descendants fought for a long time over the land that we now know as Israel. And then there was Lysimachus in Asia Minor and what’s now Turkey and Cassander in Europe. So these four generals took it upon themselves to divide the empire into four parts and to make themselves kings.

That’s where the four horns came from. Eventually, even though the Ptolemaic Greeks in Egypt initially took over Israel, eventually one of the horns grew stronger than the others, and it grew down toward the south, and it took the land of Israel. The Seleucid Greeks from Syria, in about the year 200 BC, came in and they knocked the Egyptian Greeks out and they took over Israel.

And things went on more or less unchanged in Israel for a while, except there was pressure from the government to accept a Greek way of life. And with that, you’re no longer worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the chief God, but you’re worshiping Zeus as the chief God. And there was some pressure on them to accept that.

Some of the Jews, what they called the Hellenistic Jews, went along with that. And the traditional Jews said, no, we’re going to worship the one true God. And so there was some pressure on them.

There was a king who came along by the name of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. I don’t know why they had such long names in that day, but they did. Antiochus was still fighting the Ptolemaic Greeks down in the area of Egypt.

These Greeks that came out of Syria had gotten so strong that they had pushed past Israel, and they’re now fighting in the area of Egypt. they’re taking it to the Ptolemy’s home territory. They’re fighting on their turf.

And while he’s gone, there was a rumor that broke out in Jerusalem that he had been killed and the people thought now is our chance. They got rid of this puppet high priest that Antiochus had put there who was trying to encourage people to be more Greek and worship in a more Greek fashion. They ran him out of town and they tried to restore the traditional Jewish way of life.

Well, Antiochus found out about this, and he flew into a rage. And it wasn’t just enough. He was such a wicked man, it wasn’t enough to just go in and reassert control.

He was going to make the Jews pay for daring to oppose him. And so he takes his troops after he’s defeated the Egyptian Greeks, and he goes back into Jerusalem, and he begins slaughtering anybody who stands in his way. And he goes in, and he desecrates the temple.

He puts an end to the traditional sacrifices. If my memory is correct, I believe I’ve read he even slaughtered a pig on the altar of the temple there in Jerusalem. And this persecution, this persecution seems to have lasted around six years.

Some of it before his coming back from Egypt and got really worse after. So whether we’re talking, whether that 2300 days means actual days or mornings and evenings where it’s half that, either one seems to fit. I don’t know which one it is.

I’ll be honest with you about that. Go study it for yourself and see what you think. But whether we’re talking three years or six years, there’s a time of persecution here that either one, depending on how you define it, seems to fit.

And it was years. It was years that they continued to be beaten down and persecuted and slaughtered under the hand of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. You may be familiar with the ending of this story, which is where Hanukkah comes from, that eventually a group of Jews led by the Maccabees ran the Greeks out of their country for a little while.

And when they went back to repair the temple and set it back up and clean it up and rededicate it, there wasn’t enough of the holy oil there to light the lamps. So they just used what they had, and miraculously, the story goes that it lasted for eight days and nights there in the temple until they could make more. That’s where all of this ties in together.

Now, eventually, the Greeks would come back and reassert their dominance, but it wasn’t nearly as bad and nearly as bloody as it was under the reign of Antiochus IV. But they went through this extremely dark time. Some people have even said that he was the prototype or sort of the inspiration for the character of the Antichrist. Now, I could see where the Bible would draw parallels.

There are plenty of people that Christians in the early days looked at and said, yep, he’s the Antichrist. I still believe there’s the big one coming later on, that the Bible talks about. But we see types of the Antichrist, just like we saw types of Christ throughout the Old Testament. Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, was this horrible man who tried to place himself in God’s place and make the people stop worshiping God, defiled the temple, slaughtered God’s people, and God warned them ahead of time.

Now, I find this fascinating from this whole story fascinating from a historical standpoint because I enjoy history, but I know everybody, not everybody does. And so I don’t want this just to be a historical lesson for you. And as I was studying this this week, excuse me, finally figured out how to cough without deafening everybody.

As I was studying this this week, I thought, what is the point? What is the point of telling everybody this? I mean, I’m going through it because we’re doing a series on the book of Daniel, and it was the next chapter, but really, what is the point?

What about this can I tell you that changes the way you look at life tomorrow and changes the way you serve God tomorrow? Because you’re going to walk outside these doors in a little bit, and you’re going to go back into the real world, and tomorrow you’re going to wake up and you’re going to go to a job or you’re going to go about doing the things that you normally do through the week, and life is going to be there, what does this matter? Antiochus IV Epiphanes is going to be totally irrelevant to your life, just as he is to most Americans’ lives.

And I prayed about that all week, and I studied, and I struggled, trying to figure out, okay, what is the point of telling them this story? I know it’s important because it’s in God’s Word, but what difference does it make to people in Oklahoma in 2017? And finally, what I came to is, this story is another reminder to us, just like many of the things in the book of Daniel, that God’s people are not immune to trials in our lives.

The people of Israel had a special covenant relationship with God. I mean, they were his chosen people. So if anybody should expect to have a smooth sailing life, it should be them.

That wasn’t always the case. So many times that wasn’t the case, and often it was because they disobeyed and God used other countries to discipline them. But folks, if the nation of Israel during their time as God’s chosen people did not, if they were not immune from trials and troubles, we should not assume that we’re going to be either.

But what we have is a reminder to God’s people ahead of time. That he said, hey, I know about this. By the way, 300 years ahead of time.

And it’s not that God just figured it out. God knew about this from before time began. But 300 years beforehand, God is saying, I know this is coming.

I see the trial you’re about to go through. And it’s a reminder to us that our trials don’t catch God by surprise. Whatever trial that’s coming your way this week, whether it’s a big one, or whether it’s just one of the tiny little ones that we think, oh, woe is me, and really forget that it could be much worse.

Whatever trial is coming your way this week, when you’re in the middle of it, it looks like the biggest thing ever, and how could this possibly have happened? And God, why did you let this happen to me? We need to remind ourselves that God didn’t look at, God didn’t wake up the morning that trial happened and go, whoops, didn’t see that coming.

I mean, here was an evil tyrant who was trying to wipe out the Jewish people, and God’s telling them ahead of time, I see this. I know it’s coming. It’s not a surprise to me, and I will put an end to it.

Folks, God sees your trials. God sees your suffering. And one way or another, at the point and time of his choosing, he’ll put an end to it.

I don’t know how, but one way or another, he’ll put an end to the suffering for his people. It may be when we step over into his presence, but one way or another, he’ll put an end to the suffering. None of our trials, folks, negate God’s plans for our redemption.

For years, I mistaught that passage in Romans that said, all things work together for the good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. I mistaught that and said, you know, God is working everything for our ultimate good. It may not look exactly like what we would think is good for us, but God is working things out in our favor.

That’s not exactly right. When you look at it in context, what it’s talking about is God is working things out according to his purpose for what’s ultimately good for us, which is to make us more like Jesus. See, God has a redemptive plan for each of us, and God has a redemptive plan for mankind.

God had a redemptive plan for the nation of Israel. That redemptive plan started in the Garden of Eden when he said the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. It continued on when he promised someone who would sit on the throne of David for eternity.

All through the promises and prophecies and pictures of the Old Testament, God was preparing them, showing them through the blood sacrifices that Jesus Christ was to come. All the rules that he gave them that said, hey, by the way, you’re supposed to 

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